Another crispy bacon in the microwave hack

 

 Recently I published a post about cooking crispy bacon in the microwave on paper towels. In my ongoing quest to find the quickest, easiest, least messy way to prepare the food of the gods, I came across this hack.

 You can read the original article on Lifehacker.

Please be cool and share!

French-Toast Rolls with spicy chicken, diced apple, onions and cheese

French-Toast Rolls with spicy chicken, diced apple, onions and cheese

  This is an easy one and insanely delicious. It keeps well and can be brought back to full glory by heating it for 35 seconds in the microwave, making ideal for work lunchboxes or preparing in advance.

 It's also quick to make and the fillings are limited only by your imagination. I used what I had - leftover chicken - but next time, when I'm better prepared, I'll add bacon and avocado.

 If you don't plan on immediately eating the roll, I would suggest NOT including anything with a high moisture-content, such as tomatoes. Dried tomatoes would probably be fine.

 You'll love this. Try it.

Ingredients:

(Makes 6)

6 slices of bread

1/2 of one diced onion. (I chopped it roughly as I wanted texture.)

2 - 3 cooked chicken breasts

1 sweet apple, finely diced

1 and 1/2 teaspoons of mayonnaise

1 cup of grated cheese

1 teaspoon of hot chili sauce (More if you like it hotter.)

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Salt and pepper to season

3 eggs and a splash of milk

Method:

1.   Flatten the slices of bread with a rolling pin. This prevents the bread from breaking when it is later rolled.

2.   Mix all ingredients, except milk and eggs in a bowl.

3.   Spoon a layer onto the top third of a slice of bread. Do not overfill as this will make it difficult to roll.

4.   Carefully roll the bread and filling into a cylinder.

5.   In a separate bowl, large enough to accommodate the roll, beat together the eggs and splash of milk.

6.   Roll the bread cylinder in the egg mixture. Be careful to do so gently, as it can easily unravel. Make sure it is saturated but do not overdo it. If it is too wet it can become fragile and break.

7.   Fry lightly in a pan, gently turning the roll, until it is golden brown on all sides.

Please be cool and share!

How to cook eggs and bacon on a fire, with no metal utensils

 Here's the scenario. The doo-doo has hit the fan. It's TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it) time.

 Zombie hordes abound and you are one of the last okes left alive. The human race is decimated and on the brink of extinction, so you flee to the woods wearing just your camouflage cargo pants and a vest that shows the results of all those gym sessions.

Eggs and bacon

 

 In your backpack you have some eggs and rashers of bacon but there was no time to grab any pots or pans, just your trusty dagger.

 The situation looks bleak. For all you know, you are the last surviving oke in the world. But then, deep in the woods, you come across a beautiful, hot babe. It's obvious she's survived some horrible encounters, as her cargo pants are torn into the tiniest of shorts, revealing long, shapely legs. Her vest is torn so her belly button ring and flat abs are visible.

 Poor thing, you think, but realise there is no time to be wasted on sympathy. Here is your opportunity to save the world. Together you can begin its repopulation. It's a tough job but the future of the world depends upon it.

Headache

 

 You sidle up to her and suggest you get right to it but she pushes you away, bitching she has a headache because she hasn't eaten.

 This could happen and your chance to step up and be a hero would be gone! You have the food but know of no way to cook it.

 But fear not, dear okes, I've found a cool video that will show you how to cook it and make all woodland nymphs swoon. Pull this out of your bag of tricks and she'll soon be swinging on your vine.

 

 

Please be cool and share!

 

How to cook crispy, delicious bacon in a microwave

 There are two things in life, top of mind in the lives of okes and old farts when it comes to cooking:

1.  When in doubt, use bacon (bacon makes everything better) and
2. Sometimes you just want to eat something tasty and delicious without faffing about with pots or pans and having to clean up afterwards.

 We've all been there. The beers are cold and the game is about to start when the urge for a BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato) sandwich strikes. But firing up the stove and the prospect scrubbing a pan afterwards, is about as inviting as plucking your nose hairs with the pliers of your Leatherman.
 But all is not lost. You can cook bacon in a microwave and have it come out, crisp and delicious, with no clean up required afterwards.
 To cook bacon in the microwave you will need a microwave-safe dish and three paper towels.
 This article on Startcooking.com explains exactly how to do it.
 A general rule-of-thumb is, cook it for one minute per piece ie. if you have two strips of bacon, cook them for two minutes, with the microwave setting on high.

Please be cool and share!

8-minute microwave Cheese Cake

Microwaved cheese cake with naartjies and toasted hazelnuts

 It is a standing joke, with my wife, Joy, that, whenever she complains she can't sleep, I suggest she use the time to bake a cheese cake.
 It's an old, tired joke and I know the result. It hasn't happened in around 35 years of marriage and she sees no reason to change that.
 So, I figured the only way I'd get a homemade cheesecake was to make it myself, something seemingly way beyond my limited abilities. But then I came across a recipe in Afrikaans magazine, Sarie for an 8-minute microwaved cheese cake that any oke can make.
 It appeared right up my alley. No oven baking and a crust made of crushed biscuits and butter.
 However, it called for raspberries not something easily found in my little town. I was defeated before I even started. When I told Joy, she sighed, rolled her eyes and sympathetically patted the top of my head.
 "Use strawberry jam instead," she said, as though explaining to a slow child.

Smaller dishes

 The original recipe calls for a 20cm x 14cm (8" x 6") microwave-proof bread pan that I did not have, so I used two smaller dishes and ended up not having enough mixture to fill either dish properly. I guess there is a reason they say baking is science and cooking art!
 And, because the dishes were smaller, I cooked each cake for 4 minutes rather than the 8 minutes listed in the original recipe.
 I am delighted with the result. The final product did not look as good as the photographs in the magazine - canned strawberries are not as beautiful as fresh strawberries -  but the end result was delicious. The filling was tangy and slightly tart, the biscuit-crust, crisp and the crushed nuts, sprinkled on top, provided a wonderful, crunchy texture.

Genius

 It was suggested I garnish the second cheese cake with lightly fried naartjies (tangerines) and that I toast the hazelnuts. That suggestion was a stroke of genius and lifted the cheese cake to restaurant-quality status, in taste, if not presentation. But then we old farts are more interested in taste and efficiency than cullinary artworks.

The 8-minute microwave cheese cake recipe:

Ingedients:

Ingredients

1 x 200g packet of coconut cookies
100g melted butter
500ml thick, strawberry yoghurt
1 x 385ml tin of condensed milk
100g raspberries (I substituted with a tablespoon of strawberry jam)
5ml (1 teaspoon) vanilla essence
Juice and zest of two lemons
100g finely chopped roasted hazelnuts
2 fresh naartjies (tangerines) to garnish. (Substitute with other berries if you prefer.)

Method:

1.  Blitz and crumb the cookies in a food processor. Add the melted butter and work into a crumbly dough.
2.  Line a microwave-proof 20cm x 14cm (8" x 6") bread pan with well-greased baking paper. Make sure the baking paper extends well beyond the edges of the baking pan so it is easy to lift the cake out later.

If you do not line the baking tray with baking paper, it is difficult to cut and remove clean slices

3.  Line the pan with the biscuit crumbs.
4.  Combine and mix well, the yoghurt, condensed milk, vanilla essence, strawberry jam/raspberries, juice and jest and pour the mixture into the biscuit-lined pan.

5.  Cook in the microwave on high for 8 minutes. (Take note of what I said further up in the article regarding cooking times. I think 8 minutes may be too long.) The mixture will boil.
6.  Allow to cool to room temperature, then place in the fridge for a minimum of 6 hours, although overnight is better.
7.  Garnish with nuts and naartjies/strawberries.

Fresh strawberries and more filling would look better

Despite the flaws it tasted stupendous!

Conclusion:

This is a desert any oke can easily make. It got rave reviews from all who tasted it and got me wondering: If I were single, invited a 25 year-old girl around and served her this, would I likely get lucky? The answer is a resounding "Yes" - if I also was 30 years younger and 30 pounds lighter!

How to make the perfect "Prince of Sandwiches" - the grilled cheese

 

 Forty years ago, as a 17 year-old boy I found myself conscripted to the South African Army. It was a rude awakening. Very different from the comfortable, sheltered life I led at home.

 What does this have to do with food?

 It was during this time I first tasted a proper grilled cheese sandwich and it was grilled, in the barracks, on a clothes-iron. Sure I'd eaten toasted cheese sandwiches before but they were always made in a sandwich press and presented as thin, cheese-lined, card-like, structures that mostly tasted the way they looked.

 The grilled cheese sandwiches we prepared in the barrack room, after a day of abuse by instructors trying to whip us into shape, were some of the best-tasting food I ever had. Those sandwiches provided warmth and comfort to a bunch of mostly scared and confused boys.

 And even now, a hot, perfectly-grilled, crispy-on-the-outside, gooey-on-the-inside, grilled, cheese, sarmie instantly makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Army grilled cheese

So how do you make the Prince of Sandwiches? 

Not so simple

 On the face of it, making a grilled cheese sandwich appears simple. Everyone knows how to do it. Hardly worth an entire blog post but it is not so.

 How do you stop it burning on the outside? Butter, margarine or olive oil as a spread? What sort of bread? Oven, sandwich-maker or pan?

 Not as simple as first believed, 'eh?

  

This is how to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich.

Plain, ordinary supermarket bread, works best in my opinion. It's firm and stops the cheese from seeping through. Bread a day or two old is even better. Slices should be between 1 and 1,5 cm (around 1/2 an inch) thick.

Choose a soft, buttery cheese that melts well. I use sweet-milk and/or Gouda, as it is easily available in my neck of the woods.

Smear the bottom slice thinly with mayonnaise. This is the secret. Do not use butter, margarine, olive oil or anything else. Mayonnaise is the secret ingredient.

Cover the bottom bread slice in 5mm-thick cheese. It is good if the cheese extends beyond the bounds of the bread, as these pieces turn into wonderful, crispy bits.

Close the sandwich and smear the outer surfaces with, yep, you guessed it, mayonnaise.

Place the sandwich in a pan (this is not the place for sandwich-makers) on a LOW heat. If the pan is too hot the outsides of the sandwich will char. Lining the pan with baking paper makes the whole process easy to clean.

Cook, turning the sandwich over regularly with an egg-lifter, until the outside is crispy and golden brown and the cheese is melted, gooey and has the consistency of cold syrup.

Sprinkle with some rosemary or mixed herbs, cut and eat with your hands - unless you are posh or British Prime Minister, David Cameron, in that case, use a knife and fork.

Hey, I know this is the only way to make the perfect Prince of Sandwiches, but I'm willing to entertain your methods. :) How do you make a perfect, grilled cheese sarmie?

The manly Humble Pie Sandwich

 Sandwiches are man's food! I'm not speaking of those dainty, namby-pamby, triangles removed crusts served at cocktail functions and consumed in a single bite.

 Nope, I'm talking about a sandwich that is a meal in itself that goes with a beer and a good sports game on television. A sandwich that fills your belly and leaves you satisfied and content.

 The Humble Pie ham, cheese, bacon and corn chips with caramelized onions hot sandwich does all of that - in spades. In fact, I could eat them every day of my life and die happy, even if somewhat sooner than my allotted time.

 I bet you're wondering why such a monument to the art of the manly sandwich has the name, "Humble Pie". The story is funny, at least to me - there are some who don't find it so.

 When I told my wife, I Joy planned to make a sandwich for dinner and kick this blog off with it. It would be a sandwich of such magnificence that it blew her socks off, she rolled her eyes in disbelief. I guess you can figure out the rest of the story and the reason the name was chosen.

 But let me give credit where credit is due. I got the idea for this sandwich from the Pinch of Yum website, although I added a tweak or two of my own and made some adjustments to accommodate the ingredients available to me in my one-horse, meat 'n potatoes town in South Africa.

 A note before we get to the nitty gritty. I made two sandwiches for each of us. I ate both for dinner but Joy and my son, Kevin, took their leftovers to work where they reheated them for 20 seconds in the microwave and pronounced them "delicious".

 I don't know what they'd be like served cold.

Recipe for "Humble Pie" ham, cheese, bacon and corn chips with caramelized onions hot sandwich.

Ingredients:
Makes six

6 soft buns (See notes and conclusion)
250g (9 ounces) sliced ham, 12 slices
6 pieces of streaky bacon
12 bun-sized slices of cheese. Your choice. I used Gouda
5 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons Dijon or German mustard
1 large packet corn chips eg. Doritos
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
3 large onions
Butter to spread on the buns

Method:

1.  Fry the bacon until crispy then remove from pan and set on a paper towel.

2.  Peel onions and slice into rings. Use more onions if you want as they cook down.

3.  Fry the onions in the same pan you cooked the bacon. Add oil if needed. Fry until the onions are brown, limp and fragrant. Some rings will turn black but don't worry as they still taste good. When cooked remove the pan from the heat.

4.  Mix mustard and Worcestershire sauce with a tablespoon of olive oil until it is a goopy mixture.

5.  Slice the buns horizontally in half and butter them.

6.  Layer two slices of ham onto the bottom half of the bun and smear with the mustard/Worcestershire sauce mix.

7.  Then layer on top of that in the following order: corn chips, a slice of cheese, a strip of bacon, onions and another slice of cheese. (The layering order is designed to have the melted cheese hold the other components in place.)

8.  Close the bun and brush the top and bottom with olive oil or melted butter.

9.  Preheat oven to 200C (400F).

10.  Place the buns on a sheet of baking paper on a baking tray and cover the top with a sheet of aluminium foil to prevent burning. If you prefer you can wrap the buns individually in aluminium foil.

Place in oven and back until the cheese has melted and become become wonderfully goopy (15 - 20 minutes)

Serve hot with salad, chips or crisps and a cold beer.

Notes and conclusion

 This is a phenomenally delicious sandwich but the next time I make it, I'll make a few adjustments. I'll use bread rather than the soft buns. The buns are too crumbly for my taste, although Joy and Kevin liked the texture - different tastes I guess.

 When I use bread slices, rather than a bun, I'll use a pan rather than the oven, controlling the final cook by flipping the sandwiches over. I'll also try brushing the exterior with mayonnaise rather than olive oil or butter, as that will provide a wonderful, tangy crust.

Please be cool and share!