BACON WRAPPED CHICKEN LOLLIPOPS

The Bay Area is alive with 'Worlds Series' fever. The Giants have won the first two games and everybody is excited. This is a great reason to makes some bacon wrapped chicken lollipops. It just so happens we have some home cured, applewood smoked bacon for this endeavor. Chicken drummetes will be 'frenched' to form a sort of lollipop. Sliced bacon will be wrapped around this drummete and all will be smoked with a combination of apple and hickory wood.

A sharp knife is crucial to form these lollipops. Slice all around the wing joint. Pull and scrape the meat down the bone and pull over tip. After the first one is completed it gets a lot easier. Use your favorite rub to season the meat. Wrap the drummette with a thin slice of bacon and secure with a toothpick. The 'Chile Grill' was the perfect vehicle to hold these adult lollipops.

The smoker was set to 230 -250 degrees and wood was added to the fire. Our appetizers were smoked for an hour and one half. Oh man, did these baby's smell good. A little drizzle of our favorite barbeque sauce of the moment was the finishing touch. We will be sitting on the edge of the couch rooting for the Giants. Bacon wrapped chicken lollipops will be the perfect rally snack. Go Giants!

GIANTS

Oh man, can you feel the frenzy? It is Giant's baseball! We have won the first two games. Go Giants!

FAVA BEAN SEEDS

Fava bean seeds are a magical thing. These little orbs of life, with a little coaxing, will reward you with a pot of gold. Broad beans, horse beans, pigeon beans, and windsor beans are some of the aliases of this fava bean. I call them spring. This plant will start to produce a bounty of beautiful flowers and then fruit, the beginning of spring. The recipe to grow fava plants is so simple. This weekend I amended and turned the soil. The seeds were planted. Rain will sprout and nourish these legume babies. Fava plants are basically care free. An occasional weeding may be necessary. Fava plants are great in so many ways. The flowers are beautiful. Growing these plants will add nitrogen to your soil. The harvested beans are loaded with protein, fiber, B vitamins, potassium and they just taste darn good. Happy Planting!

Beans, beans, the musical fruit.
The more you eat,
the more you toot !

-by Bart Simpson

CHIPOTLE PASTA

Chipotle pasta caught our eye at the ‘Kansas City River District’ farmers market. This noodle booth sold all different flavors of pasta; from chocolate to garlic the selection was huge. The name of this pasta company is Papparadelles’s. Now Pappardelles’s is not based in Missouri but Colorado. We did not let that sway our decision to try some Chipotle pasta. Remarkably this pasta survived a journey in our suitcases on the flight home. This pasta sounded like a good accompaniment to some pulled pork and Cole slaw. Let’s put a pot of water on the stove and get it boiling.
  There are no secrets to cooking pasta. Salt some boiling water and cook the noodles until a little shy of done. The pasta will have a minute or so of carry over cooking when added to the sauce. A cream sauce will cover these spicy noodles. Small cubed bacon was simmered in some olive oil for several minutes. A tablespoon of flour was added and simmered for a minute more. Heavy cream was added and cooked until thick and bubbly. The sauce was seasoned with a tablespoon of pureed ‘chipotle en adobo’ and salt & pepper. The cooked pasta was added with a ½ cup of parmesan cheese. Stir and serve this rich and creamy delight.

The chipotle noodles had a smoky jalapeno pepper flavor. The noodles were not hot enough to make one cringe but the flavor grabbed your attention. The cream sauce with the adobo and bacon made these noodles rich and decadent. What a great side dish for our pulled pork.

STOKER NIGHT

It is a dark and stormy night. The rain is falling and we are all tucked in. The only thing awake is our Stoker which is controlling our barbeque pit. Ms. Goofy wanted pulled pork today. She is overjoyed about the Stoker. No longer does she have to get up in the middle of the night to tend the pit. We plug the unit in and program the temperature settings and we are set. This is what our roast looks like this morning. A couple more hours and we will be enjoying some pulled pork sandwiches.

JACCARD MANDOLIN

Another fancy schmancy tool for the kitchen of the Mad Meat Genius was needed. A ‘Jaccard “Safehands” Mandolin Slicer’ is what was missing on the shelves of our arsenal of cooking tools. This is so much more than a sharp knife. This slicing tool has many different cutting blades for multiple purposes. It has three sizes of Julianne blades, grating tool, tomato slicer, straight slicing and most important a ‘Waffle/Crinkle’ blade. I have always wanted to make waffle/crinkle French fry’s. This mandolin has a patented ‘Safehands’ food holder. It is practically impossible to slice finger tips off if you use this guard. This new appliance should expand our cooking repertoire of fancy sliced food dishes. We will start off with slicing a potato and making some pizza.

A Yukon Gold potato was our first victim in this slicing device. We chose the straight slicing blade to start off. It took a couple of passes of the spud over the blade to determine the right blade height. Once everything was set the potato was sliced with the greatest of ease. It was kind of fun. The ‘Safehands’ food holder gave us a sense of safety guarding us against a super sharp blade. This tool has lots of potential and should be a lot of fun.

We placed our perfectly cut slices of Yukon Gold potato on some home made pizza dough that was covered with cheese and sauce. It was baked in our wood fired oven for several minutes. The pizza tasted yummy. This was a great first run for our new Mandolin slicer. Waffle/crinkle fry’s here we come.

RODEO CHILI

What a beautiful day! The weather cooperated to create a wonderful setting to host the 'Rodeo Car Show and Chili Cook-off. The cars were polished and shining. The Chili was hot and spicy. The whole town of Rodeo was out to witness a battle of Chili Titans. Greg and his wife from 'Life is a Picnic stopped by to say hello. He was there to taste some chili and take some awesome pictures  The cook-off was scheduled to start at 1:00pm. The crowd lined up to sample "Mad Meat Genius Tri-Tip Chili". You would not believe how big my head swelled to see this line of people that wanted to try our chili.

Lets meet the cast of our team. James Campers is my partner in crime. He is the master of grilling tri-tip.John is our prep cook 'Extraordinair. He has knife skills that impresses. We had a crew of lovely servers. From left to right is Laura, Ms. Goofy's sister Paula and the infamous Ms. Goofy. Last on our team was Peppaheads wonderful Chile powder blend. Together this team produced and served some of the best chili in Rodeo.

Now for the results. The chili was judged by three amateur judges. They remained anonymous because of their embarrassing chili judging skills. We have learned by experience that local chili cook-offs sometimes are not judged by the merit of flavor. Sometime politics shamefully raises its ugly head in the judging process. So with that said, We WON the crowds heart and stomachs. This first place title was handed to St. Patricks church. We do not even know what place we came in because they only announced First & Second Place.

What a fun day. So many friends stopped by to celebrate and eat some chili. Thanks to my team and thanks to all the people that participated. We did not walk away with any trophies today. We did create and serve chili to be proud of . Oscar wears his badge of participation with pride.