The Devil and the Luther Burger

I like ice cream, with cashews...lots of cashews. I can eat ice cream and pizza, ice cream and hot dogs, Ice cream and any type of sandwich. And don't forget ice cream and lasagna. I guess you get the point.

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My other love is cheeseburgers... with ice cream. And this is off the subject, but patty melts are a thing of beauty. Anyway, what I wanted to post about and which you might have read about is the mutated doughnut burger known by various names as the Luther burger and The Big Kahuna Doughnut Burger and Krispy Kreme Delux among other names. This travesty of meat contains, at a minimum 1500 calories! Something a true burgerologist would not even consider in his daily quaffing of burgers.

Now the hamburger may not be perfect, but with the proper accoutrements, it does come close to being the perfect combination of meat, vegetables and dairy served up in a most satisfying manner that pleases the palet and makes the taste buds sing.

The KKD (krispy Kreme Delux), however is something else entirely. It is evil. It's a cheeseburger possessed by demons. It's a cheeseburger in need of an exorcism, who's main objective in it's existence is to control your humanity. The people who created this monstrosity have only one goal in mind. To make you fat. To make you lethargic. To make you want more Luther burgers and before you know it, there'll be fast food chains of these abominations across the country, populated with obese people who can't think for themselves, whose only desire will be to work and make more money to buy more Luther burgers.

Stick with the original cheeseburger. Don't go over to the darkside. If you don't want to do this for your country, then do it for yourselves. All the wars, all the trade imbalances, all the jobs being shipped over seas would end in a matter of months if we exported only Luther burgers. This insideous blend of doughnut and meat would totally make our competitors on the world stage lackluster, fat, and impotent. In other words, a non threat. Something to think about.

Bitochki

We all know about meatballs, right? We're all familiar with the Italian meatball and the American take on the meatball. But have you ever thought about a Russian meatball?

Usually when we think of meatballs, we associate them with spaghetti, accompanied by our version of a red sauce, some garlic bread (in my case grilled cheese) and a salad.
Add some fried fish and your go to go. Now I'm getting hungry.

So I'm thinking I can shake things up a bit and add a different flavor to an old favorite. For some reason, I don't know why, I chose Russian, well.... because, maybe Russian is one our least talked about forms of cooking. So I'll get out of the way and let you check out the recipe for Bitochki, a Russian meatball.

Ingredients:
1 lb Ground round
8 tb Butter
1/8 ts Nutmeg
Salt- to taste
Pepper-to taste
1 c Bread crumbs
1/4 c Fine chop onion
1/2 tb lour
1/8 c Dry white wine
1/2 c Sour cream
1/4 c Heavy cream

Method:
Add nutmeg, salt, pepper and 6T butter to meat. Roll into 8 balls. Coat with breadcrumbs. Flatten into hamburger shape. Score tops of patties in a crisscross. Brown patties in remaining 2T butter. Transfer to warm platter. Wilt onion in skillet. Sprinkle with flour. Add wine. When it boils, stir in sour cream. Add salt, pepper. Stir off heat one minute. Add heavy cream. Return to heat and bring just to a boil. Spoon over patties.

As you may have noticed, there's nothing about a red sauce or noodles for that matter, but I think that these baked with some noodles in cheese sauce with some garlic bread and a light salad would be great. Of, course this is just my opinion. You can add your own twist to this Russian dish.

Crazy Cantina Chili

Yield: Makes 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients
1 can (16 ounces) kidney beans
1 can (16 ounces) black beans
1 can (16 ounces) garbanzo beans
1 onion
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons chili powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes with juice
1 cup tomato juice
salt and pepper to taste
shredded cheddar cheese
sour cream or plain yogurt

Preparation
Open the cans of beans. Drain off the liquid from the cans into the sink. Set the beans aside.

Put the onion on a cutting board. Carefully slice off the root end and the stem end. Use your fingers to strip off the dry skin. Then cut the onion in half from the top to the bottom. Hold an onion half cut side down and thinly slice it crosswise. Now hold the slices together and cut across them in the opposite direction. Be sure to keep your fingers clear of the knife blade. Set aside.

Put the oil in a large saucepan. Set the pan on the stove and switch on the heat to medium-high. When the oil is hot, add the chopped onion and stir with the wooden spoon until tender, about 5 minutes.

Add the chili powder and cayenne pepper and stir for 30 seconds.

Add the beans, the crushed tomatoes, and the tomato juice. Stir well. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve the chili with the cheese and sour cream on the side.

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Crazy-Cantina-Chili-101652#ixzz1dcckvGfi

Peanut Butter and Jelly and Bacon and Cheese and Sauce and.......

Let me start off by saying that I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Lately though people have been taking them to a new level. I thought I was ahead of the pack when I added bacon. How little I knew. People are now putting everything from pastrami to bananas on their PB&J and to top it off, their throwing them on the grill, for christsakes!

OK. That's fine. I did a stretch and used cheese, but I will never go so far as to grill my PB&J. That's just a grilled sandwich. PB&J uses white bread. Plain old white bread. Not wheat or rye. White. with a glass of milk. Cold milk.

Other than that, I guess you can put whatever you want on your sandwich. But be careful, it might turn into a Monte Cristo.