Doomstead Diner Menu

[RE]

It's Resurrection Week Breakfasts for RE this week! 

Instead of going overboard and trying to fit every favorite breakfast food dish into one meal like last night's Last Supper Dodged meal, I'm going to feature some of my favorite breakfasts from over the years, starting with the classic All-American Breakfast, my version.    On a real piggy 🐷 day, I COULD finish this whole meal in one sitting!

RE

Course 1: Toasted English Muffin Smothered in Butter

Course 2: Cheerios

Course 3: Berries and Sour Cream

Course 4: Eggs, Hash Browns and 3-Meats (Bacon, Sausage, Ham)

Course 5: Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes

• Tweet

[RE]

It's Resurrection Week Lunches for RE this week! 

Like with the Breakfasts for Resurrection Week, I'm not going to try and dump everything in one meal, but rather 5 or 6 prototypical lunches I enjoyed over ther years, one each day.  They will be broken down more or less on an ethnic food type basis, and usually will feature 3 courses, a Soup, Salad and Sandwich, although substitutions will be made since some ethnic varieties don't feature good sandwiches or good soups but have good other stuff to include in a lunch from an eatery of that variety.

We'll start the week with an Amerikan Lunch of favorites from the classic 3 courses.

RE

Course 1: Soup - Clam Chowder

Course 2: Salad - Cobb Salad (smother with Blue Cheese dressing)

Course 3: Rare Roast Beef Hero (add fixins and cheese of your choice or have Just the Meat!)

• Tweet

[RE]

Regular Dinner Specials the rest of this week.  No theme.  I nailed all the Celebratory Courses last night for dodging the bullet on the Last Supper.

Tonight we'll head behind the former Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe to Poland, for a 2 course Polish meal.

RE

Course 1: Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Course 2: Kielbasa Stew

• Tweet

[RE]

It's Resurrection Week Lunches for RE this week! 

I slept through Breakfast this morning, so straight to Lunch!

Today's 3 course Lunch Meal is the Jewish Deli Lunch.

RE

Course 1: Soup - Matzoh Ball

Course 2: Matzoh Meal Latkes

Course 3: Tongue Sandwich on Rye

• Tweet

[RE]

For tonight's Dinner Special, we are having Chicken🐔 Florentine.

Lots of recipes for this dish and lots of methods to prepare it.  You can stuff it, you can bake it, you can sautee it, you can make a soup out of it.  The preparation below is probably my favorite, sauteed thinly pounded chicken breast  in a sauce with mushrooms.  The one thing all Florentine recipes have in common is the Spinach, and it goes exceptionally well with chicken🐔.  This recipe seems to me a little thin on the amount of mushrooms and spinach, but otherwise looks right.  I like to set the chicken🐔 breast on a thick bed of spinach and then put the sauce and mushrooms on top.  There should be plenty of spinach and mushrooms to have some with every bite of chicken🐔.  A pile of Wild Rice on the side to scoop up extra spinach and mushrooms and sauce is a great addition to this dish.

RE

Chicken🐔 Florentine

• Tweet

[RE]

It's Resurrection Week Breakfasts for RE this week! 

Today we are having the The Camper Breakfast, or you could call it The Hiker, The Climber, The Hunter or The Fisher.  You know, all that stuff I used to do before I became a Cripple.

What you can bring along with you for meals while out in the bush varies tremendously depending on just how it is you get out there.  You can do one thing with a 4-wheeler at your Base Camp, but you can fuhgettaboudit if you have decided to climb Denali, particularly past around 15,000 feet.  I never tried that stunt.  I'm an asshole, but I am not an idiot.  However, even staying down at lower levels, if you are going out into the bush for more than a couple of days, you have to pare down the weight and volume of what you carry with you, while at the same time maintaining nutritional value.  What you end up sacrificing of course is Freshness, since you gotta go with the Freeze Dried Foods.  Which actually aren't too bad, much better than the first ones which came out when I was a kid doing my first camping experiences.

Below is my typical bush camping breakfast meal, which sometimes had some Fresh ingredients and other times was all Freeze-Dried or dried foods.  You can bring fresh eggs out with you in a carrier even foot hiking and they last a few days without refrigeration.  Coat the egg with vaseline, that helps keep it fresh.  You can also bring fresh onions, peppers and garlic too, for those chop up before you leave and vacuum seal.  But mostly, just use the freeze dried versions of all of these.  Add water, they reconstitute pretty well.

Then of course there is the REALLY fresh stuff you are out there to GET, the fish & the game.  Get either one, it substantially will improve the quality of your breakfast meal in the bush.

RE

Course 1: Really strong coffee (pre-pare the night before, especially if cold out. Wake up, flip on your burner and brew while you get ready to venture out of your bag.  It will warm up the tent some and make dressing more comfortable.  Drink a cup while you dress, rest goes in a thermos to take with you for morning fishing.  Usual wake-up call on a fishing trip 4AM.  The fish bite well in the morning.  If you get some bites in the first hour, you can stay with it for 2 hours if you like.  No more than that if you are traveling though.  Most I ever got myself in 2 hours was about 6 keepers of good size.  That is a LOT of fish to eat at one time early in the morning.)

Course 2: Instant Quaker Oats Maple-Walnut Oatmeal

Course 3: 1 pan Egg Scramble Freeze-Dried Eggs, Onion Flakes, Pepper Flakes, Bacon Bits.  Substitute the real thing if available.)

The FISH! (Pan fried straight from the lake.  Recipe of your choice.  If they are not biting, you may substitute salmon jerky while you pack up.

Course 5: Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows

Now that you are thoroughly fortified for the day's exertions and all packed up, it is time to get on the trail!  It should be no later than 8AM with a 4AM wake-up call from your smart phone.  Next stop is Lunch around 4-5 hours later.

RE

• Tweet

[RE]

It's Resurrection Week Lunches for RE this week! 

For today's Lunch, we are having "The Italian"

RE

Course 1: Soup - Minestrone

Course 2: Salad - Antipasto

Course 3: Sandwich - Italian Sausage & Pepper Hero

• Tweet

[RE]

For tonight's Dinner Special, we are going Italian again.

We need to fill Surly's Itie Pasta Jones for the week, so tonight it is Ravioi!

As I mentioned when discussing Ravioli in a prior menu item, in my yute there were only two types generally available at the supermarket, beef ravioli or cheese ravioli.  In my early years, I was partial to beef ravioli.  In my later teens, I prefered the cheese ravioli.  I even confess to eating Chef Boyardee canned beef ravioli as a preteen.  Today, I wouldn't touch that stuff with somebody else's tongue.

Somewhere around my mid-20s I think, more "gourmet" raviolis with different stuffings started to show  up in the food superstores with stuffings like spinach or mushrooms in them.  Also you could get them "fresh" as in just refrigerated not frozen from Industrial Food companies like Buitoni.  Once a family company, now owned by our food friend at Nestle.  But the BEST way to make a ravioli dinner is to make YOUR OWN raviolis with your own custom filling of your choice!    This is really not very hard, you don't even need a pasta maker for it, although one of those helps and is nice to have in your preps.  You just need to roll out some pasta dough into sheets, drop little piles of your filling on the dough, cover with another sheet of pasta dough then use a fork to separate each ravioli and seal it, then slice the raviolis up with a knife for boiling.

I have had MANY gourmet raviolis of various types over the years, and it would be hard to pick a real "favorite".  However, Musrooms are a real favorite of mine in many meals of many types, so here is a fine meal of mushroom stuffed raviolis! 

RE

Mushroom stuffed Ravioli

• Tweet

[Surly1]

For tonight's Dinner Special, we are going Italian again.

We need to fill Surly's Itie Pasta Jones for the week, so tonight it is Ravioi!

//
Somewhere around my mid-20s I think, more "gourmet" raviolis with different stuffings started to show  up in the food superstores with stuffings like spinach or mushrooms in them.  Also you could get them "fresh" as in just refrigerated not frozen from Industrial Food companies like Buitoni.  Once a family company, now owned by our food friend at Nestle.  But the BEST way to make a ravioli dinner is to make YOUR OWN raviolis with your own custom filling of your choice!    This is really not very hard, you don't even need a pasta maker for it, although one of those helps and is nice to have in your preps.  You just need to roll out some pasta dough into sheets, drop little piles of your filling on the dough, cover with another sheet of pasta dough then use a fork to separate each ravioli and seal it, then slice the raviolis up with a knife for boiling.

I have had MANY gourmet raviolis of various types over the years, and it would be hard to pick a real "favorite".  However, Musrooms are a real favorite of mine in many meals of many types, so here is a fine meal of mushroom stuffed raviolis! 

Mushroom stuffed Ravioli

Well done. But then I WOULD say that.

My favorite local restaurant, Fellini's, has a portobello mushroom stuffed ravioli on their lunch menu that would make the angels weep.A fave.

There are few things in life better than fresh pasta. The process that you described for making it is straightforward enough, but in practical terms too labor-intensive for most people these days. Including me. There are still "Italian stores" north of the Mason-Dixon line, where you can walk in and amidst the fresh provolones and mortadella find freshly made pasta products to take home and boil up yourself. Every time I go back to to north to visit family, I make it a point to pop in such a store and load up the cooler with some pasta pleasures that simply don't exist in the south..

• Tweet

[RE]

It's Resurrection Week Breakfasts for RE this week! 

Today we are having the The Jewish Breakfast.

This is a breakfast I indulged in on Sunday mornings between my two double shifts as a Clinical Chemist in a New York Shity Hospital for 15 years.  I earned my Union Pension with that job, which helps with giving me extra discretionary income now above my SSI.  After getting off work at 8AM on Sunday, I would wander over to the Bagel Shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan first to buy the fresh bagels, then over to a Jewish Deli a few blocks away to buy the rest of the fixin's.

The breakfast isn't 100% Jewish, since I also would cook up an Omelet along with the Jewish stuff, but it was mostly Jewish otherwise.  Some ingredients would vary, but not the Bagel & Lox.  Those were always included.

The pics here are a pretty accurate rendition of what such a breakfast actually looked like in those days. They will never come again in this iteration of my corporeal existence walking the earth as a Homo Sap Meat Package. 

RE

Course 1: Smoked Chubbs

Course 2: Chicken Liver Pate on Crackers

Course 3: Mushroom & Asparagus Omelet

Course 4: The Bagel & Lox!

• Tweet

[RE]

There are few things in life better than fresh pasta. The process that you described for making it is straightforward enough, but in practical terms too labor-intensive for most people these days. Including me.

I admit that is true, although making the fresh pasta really only tags on an extra 30 min or so to the meal prep time.  I myself only invested this extra time when wooing a female and working on getting her panties off.  Trust me, this works better than being an "understanding listener" to female Womanspeak.    In fact as far as I can remember, it never failed.  I'm a really good cook, despite my (many) other failings as a Homo Sap meat package. 

RE

• Tweet

[Surly1]

There are few things in life better than fresh pasta. The process that you described for making it is straightforward enough, but in practical terms too labor-intensive for most people these days. Including me.

I admit that is true, although making the fresh pasta really only tags on an extra 30 min or so to the meal prep time.  I myself only invested this extra time when wooing a female and working on getting her panties off.  Trust me, this works better than being an "understanding listener" to female Womanspeak.    In fact as far as I can remember, it never failed.  I'm a really good cook, despite my (many) other failings as a Homo Sap meat package. 

RE

Your deep understanding of women has been attested to multiple times in this pissoir. Thanks for the lesson in "what works."

• Tweet

[RE]

There are few things in life better than fresh pasta. The process that you described for making it is straightforward enough, but in practical terms too labor-intensive for most people these days. Including me.

I admit that is true, although making the fresh pasta really only tags on an extra 30 min or so to the meal prep time.  I myself only invested this extra time when wooing a female and working on getting her panties off.  Trust me, this works better than being an "understanding listener" to female Womanspeak.    In fact as far as I can remember, it never failed.  I'm a really good cook, despite my (many) other failings as a Homo Sap meat package. 

RE

Your deep understanding of women has been attested to multiple times in this pissoir. Thanks for the lesson in "what works."

I am big on functionality rather than theory. lol.

RE

• Tweet

[RE]

Unlike yesterday's Asian Food Video featuring two attractive young Chinese-Amerikans who don't speak a word of Chinese in a restaurant in Flushing, Queens in the FSoA, today's vid features a Privileged White Man Foodie who speaks absolutely fluent Chinese hitting the street food market in Szechuan, China.  Reminds me of my Illuminat Spawn polyglot girlfriend from the college years who would always order speaking Chinese when we went down to Chinatown for dinner.  We got much better food and service because of this. 

Great food in this vid!

RE

Szechuan Street Food

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/oakJtRdSRgg" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/oakJtRdSRgg</a>

Spicy Steamed Dumplings

• Tweet

[RE]

For tonight's Dinner Special, we are firing up the BBQ! 

These were my mom's favorite among all my BBQ meats and recipes.  She loved wings and "drumettes" grilled on the BBQ.  This came before "Buffalo Wings" became a staple of Bar Menu Appetizers.  My recipe was very simple in those years, I would marinate the wings overnight in some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with some salt and brown sugar.  While grilling, I would baste with "Saucy Susan", an Apricot Marinade.  This would caremelize and make a nice crispy coating on the skin.  Cook over a medium flame using Charcoal, it should take around 20-30 minutes for your wings to be done correctly.  Drumettes (the top portion of the wing) are great if you want to spend Xtra money, but you get the best value buying the wings in the family pack whole.  The bottom portion is basically worthless for eating, but you can take that part and drop it in a pot of water and make some broth from that if you have enough of them (usually I did because I would usually do up 2 family packs of wings at a time).

A variety of Dipping Sauces is recommended, Blue Cheese, Thai Peanut, Hoisan, Ranch, Honey-Mustard, Wasabi-Soy etc, etc, etc.

Accompany with a Twice Baked Potato of some configuration to fill out the meal.

RE

BBQ Chicken Wings

• Tweet