“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”
Robert A. Heinlein
“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.”
Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
“Secrecy is the keystone to all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy and censorship. When any government or church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man who has been hoodwinked in this fashion; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, whose mind is free. No, not the rack nor the atomic bomb, not anything. You can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”
Robert A. Heinlein
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
Robert A. Heinlein
“You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.”
Robert A. Heinlein
“You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.”
Robert A. Heinlein, The Green Hills of Earth
“Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”
Robert A. Heinlein
“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday
Not been by too much lately, been extremely obsessed with food trying to attain Cook status at the Country Club. My latest project has been trying to perfect baking English Muffins from scratch. I’m getting very close. I talked with an old school buddy who is currently working as a baker for a local grocery store, and I think I have the answers (about proofing) I need to nail it on the next attempt.
Anyhow, today did some charcoal grilling with friends. I took a crack at doing Twice Baked potatoes. They turned out better then the stuff we serve at the Country Club. Just because TBP has a lot of doomer content, doesn’t mean that we can’t eat good stuff while awaiting the next financial crash… Next comment will cover the recipe.
If admin wants to throw it up on the main blog, perhaps I’ll keep reporting back with killer recipes as I find them. Hell if others want to get in on this, the more the merrier.
TBP Food: Twice Baked Potatoes (v1.0)
The weather was perfect the other day. While visiting a friends’ house, we decided to fire up both of our outdoor charcoal grills. He didn’t have his steak yet, but I had 98% of what I needed. I started preheating his oven, got these potatoes prepped and in the oven to do the first baking step; we then ran around to collect the last minute things needed to have a successful grill session. Here’s a shot of the final result:
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Yes a little messy, they decided to ooze all over the place while they were on my cast iron grill (on the charcoal grill). And yes there is a 6th half, not far out of frame to the left on another plate. They all originally fit on this plate before spending time on the grill….
The recipie isn’t quite what I started out with, as I ended up being a little spontaneous while these were being thrown together. But they were the best tasting any of us had ever had.
(click for more here, if posted to main blog.)
To attempt this, you’ll need:
3 Large Baking Potatoes
Olive Oil
1 tbsp Whole Milk
1 tbsp Butter
2 tbsp Half-n-Half
12 oz Top-the-Tater (1 small container–add extra seasoning if you use regular Sour Creme)
8 oz Colby Jack Cheese (shredded, 1 small package)
1/2 tsp Garlic Salt
1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
1/4 tsp ground Black Pepper
4 slices Bacon (cooked & diced)
1/4 cup Green Onion (chopped)
1. Preheat Oven to 400 deg F
2. Wash potatoes and pierce with fork along perimeter where you plan on slicing in half. I did 3 per side along the plane I was going to slice them at, resulting in 6 sets of stabs per potatoe. Splash some olive oil on cookie sheet and on potatoes. Ensure potatoes have a nice coating all around. Bake 45min to 1hr (depending on size). Remove from oven and cut in half lengthwise. Set aside to cool. Reduce oven temp to 350 deg F (if you plan to finish them in the oven).
3. When potatoes are cool enough to handle, scoop out the potato flesh into large electric mixing bowl. Try to leave 1/16-1/8″ with the skin, or you’ll not have enough support to hold what gets loaded back into them.
3b. Add Milk, Butter, Half-n-Half, Top-the-Tater, 3 strips diced bacon, and 5-6oz shredded Cheese. Mix until creamy. Add Garlic Salt, Salt, and ground Black Pepper to taste. I started with 1 tbsp Half-n-Half, and added about 1 tbsp late in the mixing process to get the texture right–a dash of Olive oil would likely achieve the same result.
4. Spoon mixture back into the potato shells (ok if they are heaping, and likely will be some leftover filling). Return the potatoes to the oven for 15min. I did this step on a charcoal grill late in the process of doing burgers dogs and steak. Since the fire was dying down, they spent about 20min on the grill.
5. Garnish with remaining strip of diced Bacon and the diced Green Onion. Top with the remains of the shredded cheese. Allow 1-3min for the cheese on top to at least soften, but not so long that it melts outright. Serve.
Looking the comment over, fairly satisfied. A notation at the end should be added that the recipe was based on:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/trisha-yearwood/twice-baked-potatoes-recipe.html
I’ve learned over the past few months, that when it comes to milk products, the more ‘unhealthy’ stuff you use, the better it tastes. On Easter Sunday, one of the servers came back and specifically asked for skim milk. Chef said it was in the dairy cooler. She came back a few minutes later saying she couldn’t find it. Chef looked at her and said, “It’s in the container marked 2%.” It’s rare there is less then 6-8 gallons of Heavy Creme in that cooler… 4-6 gallons Buttermilk. 10 gallons Half-n-Half. Often scattered other mixes of Milk/Creme. 1-2 gallons 2%.
I’ll invariably end up modifying whatever recipe I end up trying to create, as my goal is to meet or exceed Country Club standards.
Any of these recipes I end up developing, will be purely of my own efforts. The Country Club and their secrecy around ‘club recipes’ is something I cannot violate, but these don’t fall under that umbrella, especially when not prepared on premises.
Oh, and if posted, please don’t credit me. They’d have to do some serious digging to find this even, and there’s no smoke or fire here. But to help cover my ass, give credit to: “TBP House Chef-in-Training”
I will perhaps post all further recipes under that name (or whatever name you credit it to).
Came back to check and see if anyone had noticed this, and when I did, the image that previously worked perfectly, for some reason failed to load, and am presented with only a file name. In case anyone else runs into that, here was the URL on that image: