July is National Hot Dog Month, & Recipes From Koegel’s
Posted on 1 July 2008 under Holidays, Michigan Cuisine, Recipes | 1 Comment
The following press release and recipes are from my buddy Aswathy Mathew. A Senior Account Executive at Hermanoff Public Relations, one of Ash’s accounts is that of Koegel Meats in Flint, Michigan. Long-time readers know I grew up eating Koegel’s products and that I’m a bit proud to be serving them at the city’s beachhouse this summer here in Luna Pier. I seriously appreciate the connection I now have with the company, and Ash is the one who made that happen. You’ll now be seeing press releases from her from time-to-time within this blog. Thanks, Ash!
July is National Hot Dog Month and July 19 is National Hot Dog Day. In recognition of these two celebrations, Koegel Meats, a leading manufacturer and wholesaler of first-class, quality meats is inviting the entire family to celebrate with fun recipes.
“Summer is a fun time for cooking, especially when families are cooking America’s favorite food, hot dogs,” said John Koegel, president of Koegel Meats. “As a family company, we enjoy celebrating National Hot Dog Month with our customers and sharing recipes.”
Following are spectacular summer recipes from Koegel Meats, sure to make a splash at your family gathering:
Koegel’s Smoked Sausage and Pineapple Kebabs
Ingredients:
1 pkg. Koegel’s 6 inch Smoked or Italian Sausage, thickly sliced
1 Pineapple, cut into chunks
1 Red Pepper, cut into chunks
1 Onion, quartered and separated into slices
8 oz. Mushrooms
Your favorite Italian dressing, for marinade
Instructions:
Alternate threading Koegel’s Smoked or Italian Sausage with pineapple, onions, red peppers and mushrooms on kebab skewers. If using wooden skewers, presoak for 30 minutes to keep them from burning on the grill.
Place kebabs in a 9” X 13” non-reactive pan, pour Italian dressing over. Cover and refrigerate. Marinate 2-6 hours, turning occasionally.
Preheat gas grill to medium, or make a medium-hot fire on a charcoal grill.
Grill kebabs until vegetables begin to soften and brown, basing occasionally. All Koegel products are fully cooked. Just heat for full flavor.
Smoked Sausage Fajitas
Ingredients:
1 pkg. of Koegel’s Smoked Sausage
1 pkg. of flour tortillas
½ cup of chopped green peppers
Shredded lettuce
Shredded taco cheese
Salsa
Instructions:
Grill Smoked Sausage until heated, and heat the flour tortillas until softened. Place Smoked Sausage on the tortilla and add toppings of green peppers, lettuce, cheese and salsa.
Italian Sausage Pizza
Ingredients:
1 pkg. of Koegel Smoked Sausage
1 pkg. of English muffins
1 can of pizza sauce
1 fresh tomato
Shredded Parmesan cheese
Instructions:
Toast English muffin until crunchy. Top with pizza sauce, then top with Smoked Sausage slices. Add fresh tomato slices and cheese.
These tasty recipes can also be prepared with Koegel’s Skinless Footlongs, Bratwurst, Skinless Frankfurters or Smoked Sausage. Koegel Meat products are available at selected stores in Michigan and northern Ohio. More recipes are available at www.koegelmeats.com.
I’ve found “selected stores” around here to mean Kroger locations in Monroe County and north Toledo, GFS Marketplace stores in both areas, and a few Koegel items being available at the Sam’s Club on Airport Highway and I-475 west of Toledo.
Math is Hard: See, I Revised the Revision …
Posted on 26 June 2008 under Michigan Cuisine, Recipes | No Comments
Man, I really screwed up the math in there …
For anyone who’s downloaded the coney sauce recipe from yesterday, do that again … and pitch that other thing. It no workee.
Click here to download a CORRECTED copy of the Flint coney sauce recipe we’re using at the Luna Pier Dog House. (You may need to download and install the freeware Adobe Reader to view the recipe.) The recipe is laid out as a “trifold”, meaning you print the two pages on two sides of one piece of paper, then fold it in thirds and stash it somewhere till you’re ready to use it, yada yada yada, et al, etc., ad nauseum.
Anyone have a spare brain they’re not using? I’d like to borrow such a thing if I may.
Thank you for your time.
Recipe (revised): Flint Coney Sauce
Posted on 24 June 2008 under Michigan Cuisine, Recipes | 5 Comments
Yup, that’s the thing right there. The current version of the Flint coney, as we’re serving it at the beachhouse concession on the Lake Erie beach here in Luna Pier, Michigan. That’s a Koegel skinless frankfurter in the bun, with the sauce being made of 80/20 ground chuck, ground up Koegel Viennas, and other good things. I recently posted a pic here of the same coney sauce being served on nacho chips with cheese and jalapeño slices. You could probably just eat the sauce off your car’s bumper and it’d still be excellent.
I’ve posted the recipe for the Flint coney sauce in more than one location. However, I’ve found the version of the recipe doesn’t exactly scale well. So, I’ve updated the recipe so both versions are included.
For those who are interested, you can click here to download a copy of the recipe we’re using. (You may need to download and install the freeware Adobe Reader to view the recipe.) The recipe is laid out as a “trifold”, meaning you print the two pages on two sides of one piece of paper, then fold it in thirds and stash it somewhere till you’re ready to use it.
Please let me know if you find any errors in this thing. If so, I’ll fix them ASAP.
If you do make the sauce, I hope you and yours enjoy it as much as our customers and we do.
Arancini a la Zack
Posted on 29 May 2008 under Eat This Blog, Recipes | No Comments
Click on the image for a larger version.
A couple days ago 13abc’s Zack Ottenstein headed from a live shot at the 6 o’clock news, to his house, grabbed these two uncooked Arancini out of his fridge, and headed to our house for dinner. He’d gotten the recipe for these Arancini off Food Network’s web site after seeing Chef Emeril Lagasse make them. Zack then made them up for himself and saved these two for us. Last night I browned them up in a little canola oil, and I gotta tell ya’, Zack knows how to cook! These were beautifully done, light and fluffy with a bit of prosciutto and cheese inside, and crispy on the outside. We didn’t know about saucing them at all and had them plain … and they were still great!
Hey Zack! When you make these again … Mary and I could each easily eat three … I’ll swap ya’ some tater salad …
Walking Tacos, Ludington-Style
Posted on 13 May 2008 under Food Destinations, Michigan Cuisine, Picnics, Recipes | 13 Comments
Click on this image for a larger version.
Back a couple months ago, Dawn Shock retired as librarian at the Rasey Memorial Library here in Luna Pier. She’d been here for quite some time, and was an incredibly hard worker. She set up the hours at the Rasey Library in such a way that it mirrored the hours at the library over in Erie. That way, she could operate both libraries at separate times! She was also Luna Pier’s official historian, and had things stashed and catalogued all the way back to the Prohibition era and before. Her retirement has left a huge space in how things work in those areas.
So it was a pleasant surprise last week to run into her again! Of course she and I talk food on occasion, and she had a good one this time.
It seems up in Ludington, Michigan, and places near there, they offer a thing called a “Walking Taco“. (In looking into this thing, I even found it on the lunch menu for the Catholic school in Ludington.) The way she described it, Fritos are crushed into a lunch sack, taco meat is dumped on top, then lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheese … you then just grab a fork and eat it out of the bag. Dawn said she’s had others and there’s nothing as good as the ones in Ludington.
I looked into this thing, and it’s real easy. I did find a few variations on the theme depending on the target eaters, but really, there’s nothing to it.
Basically, you make a Walking Taco it the way Dawn described. That’s all, plain and simple.
Another method is to crush the Fritos withing their own individual serving bag, leave ‘m in there, and pile everything on top.
Just use a commercial taco seasoning such as Old El Paso or whatever. I make it a bit drier, only adding 1/4 cup water vs. the 1 cup of water the package calls for. But for this batch I used the bulk mild taco seasoning from GFS Marketplace, mixing 1/3 cup water and 1/3 cup taco seasoning for each pound of browned ground beef. I also added mild banana pepper rings and sliced black olives to mine, along with a bit of chopped onion.
This is a good mix-and-match meal that would make a great little taco bar for a picnic buffet, particularly for kids. And one of these days, we’ll get up to Ludington for what retired librarian Dawn Shock calls “the good stuff”.
Recipe: Kentucky Corn Pudding
Posted on 19 April 2008 under Recipes | 2 Comments
One of my favorite recipes of all time comes from Mary Jewett Pochodzay. Mary Jewett and her family have lived east of the Kentucky Derby since before I met them over 20 years ago. She and her husband worked in the same school system for many years. Mary Jewett was head of the cafeteria system there, and was so well-respected within Kentucky’s cafeteria community she ended up elected President of the statewide Kentucky School Food Service Association.
One day in 1996 I ate lunch in the school cafeteria that was under Mary Jewett’s supervision. There were big, thick slices of baked ham with pineapple, a pile of black beans, warm and tender apple crisp … Real food prepared well. I’d never had a school lunch like that one the whole time I was in school.
Mary Jewett learned early-on how much I liked her version of Kentucky Corn Pudding, and had finally given me the recipe. I made it quite a few times over the passing years … until I lost track of it. After Googling for it since 2002 and not finding the particular recipe, I finally called my ex this afternoon … who knew right where it was!
So here it is, one of my long-time faves. I hope you like it as much as I have over many servings.
Click on the above image for a larger version.
Kentucky Corn Pudding
Mary Jewett Pochodzay
Serves 6 - 8
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
Dash salt
1 14-3/4 oz can whole kernel corn, drained
1 14-3/4 oz can creamed corn
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Preheat an oven to 400 degrees F. In a medium mixing bowl beat the eggs, then add the flour, sugar and salt, mixing well. Fold in the corn and melted butter. Pour the mixture into an 8″ x 8 glass” casserole dish or tall 8″ ramekin. Without stirring further, bake at 400 degrees F for 30 - 40 minutes until the top is browned. Remove the finished pudding from the oven and allow it to set for a few minutes before serving.
Note: Add a few small (1/4″ square) blocks of butter to the top of the pudding before baking to improve browning if desired.
Eat This Blog & Recipe: Grilled Cedar Plank Salmon
Posted on 15 April 2008 under Eat This Blog, Fish, Grilling, Michigan Cuisine, Recipes | 11 Comments
Salmon grilled on a cedar plank. I’ve never done this before, but man is it good!
(Click on any of these three images for a larger version.)
I’ve been meaning to try this for almost a year now. Mary had bought me these cedar planks for grilling fish and such, but as she doesn’t really like fish I’ve held off using them.
Until this evening.
I happened to have this two-pound slab of salmon and decided it was time to go ahead and do this. I’ll tell you what, this is about the easiest grilled fish there is. The fish ends up tender, flaky, moist and flavorful … just right to make for someone like Mary who’s never really liked fish even though she’s grown up right here in a fishing community.
The planks come with instructions, which I promptly read through. There are basic concepts about the plank that are simple. I only modified the seasoning for the fish but it seems the rest is rather straightforward …
Soak the plank in cold water for about 90 minutes. Preheat the closed grill to a temp of 350 degrees F. On my gas grill this was rather close to the lowest-possible setting on all four burners. Don’t go hot just to get it done! You want it to cook slow. Place the oiled-and-seasoned fish skin-side down on the wet plank, put it on the grill and close the lid.
Get some water and place it on standby. If that plank dries out and catches fire, you’ll be ready.
Let the fish cook. Really, don’t open the lid for at least 15 minutes. Start checking the flakiness of the fish at that point. You’ll get a feel for how much longer it will take after a while, so keep an eye on both the fish and the temperature of the closed grill.
Once the fish is able to flake apart easily across the entire filet, use a couple metal spatulas to remove the board and the fish together from the grill. Don’t you dare remove it with your hands … you’ll burn off your fingerprints! Metal … spatulas … get some …
This fish was brushed with olive oil (another part of the basic concepts), then seasoned with Kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, granulated garlic, fresh chopped parsley and dill weed. That’s all … nothing else. Use your imagination and you’ll come up with your own combination.
I served this salmon with a pile of cooked brown and wild rices. I’m sure some grilled asparagus with some salt and pepper would have gone well with it as well. Too bad I didn’t have any asparagus or I’d have done just that.
Recipe: Golden Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Posted on 9 April 2008 under Baking, Recipes | 6 Comments
(Click on the photo for a larger version.)
For the past couple days Mary’s had quite a hankering for some Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. Yesterday evening she took a basic recipe for these cookies and kicked it up just a bit while she made them. She used dark brown sugar to give the cookies and added richness and a beautiful color. She also decided to use golden raisins for additional color and a bit more sweetness. The cookies turned out wonderfully, soft and delicious, with the golden raisins giving some bites a great texture.
Golden Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Makes 36 cookies
Ingredients
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1-1/2 cups oats
1 egg
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup 2% milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup golden raisins
Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F. Using a fairly fine mesh, sift the flour, soda, salt, and ground cinnamon together into a large mixing bowl, then stir in the oats. In another mixing bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients. Add them to the dry mix and stir until well-blended.
Using a tablespoon, gently drop the dough onto ungreased cookie sheet about 2″ apart. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 18 minutes until the cookies are golden-brown and slightly firm. Remove them to cool on a wire rack.
Note: Feel free to add more raisins if you’d like. You could also use 50/50 dark and golden raisins, or even replace some of the raisins with small chunks of banana.
Recipe: Rabbit Chili
Posted on 5 April 2008 under Game Cooking, Recipes | No Comments
Yesterday was one of those times. One of those times when you start looking through the pantry, the fridge, both freezers and find nothing but … fish. Lots of fish. There was a pound of ground chuck back there but I was feeling a little more creative than that. But there’s way too much fish.
Mary doesn’t like fish.
Ok, so that’s somewhat of a misnomer. She’s getting used to liking some seafood. Chilled steamed shrimp with horseradish dipping sauce is good and so is some salmon. I did a Lake Superior whitefish the other day that she enjoyed. So she’s getting there with the right cooking.
There’s lots of fish because I like fish. A whole Hell of a lot. So we buy fish.
Oooo … check that out. There’s a rabbit in there, too. Not just any rabbit either. This is domestic rabbit from Lee Williams House of Meats in Point Place, Ohio. Hmmm …
Mary’s liked rabbit ever since I made Rabbit Gumbo courtesy the fine folks at Pel-Freez. So, something with rabbit …
There’s no fresh vegetables in the house (shopping is today). I’m thinking some kind of, maybe, like a rabbit noodle soup? That’d be kinda cool. The problem is, when you boil rabbit the “broth” is really kind of a funky thing that you don’t want to eat. I’d have to have, say, a gallon of chicken broth. Ain’t got it. But I have these three cans of veggies. I have a couple 28 oz cans of tomatoes (one tomato sauce and one seasoned diced tomatoes), and a 14-1/2 ounce can of tomatoes with some chili seasoning in it. Maybe some kind of tomatoey rabbit stew? Black beans and corn … that works with a sorta chili thing. I could add some wine to kick it up, maybe some onion, a red onion. Oh, and there’s a little bit of good beef stock in the pantry. That’d kick up the richness of the flavor just a little bit too.
So, that’s what I did. I boiled the rabbit to get the whole thing started, then just dumped that nasty rabbit water. Really, don’t use that stuff. But make sure the rabbit is fork-tender without going into water overbloat. It should come off the bone in decent, tender chunks.
I washed the pot then dumped all three cans of tomatoes into it so they’d heat up. Deboning rabbit takes a little time because it’s a touch stringy but there’s lots of good stuff in there. I just deboned it right over the pot of tomatoes, the meat going right in. The canned veggies got drained, and the black beans rinsed under cold water, and they all went right into the pot. After adding about a cup of red wine and the beef broth I still had to add some salt and pepper to kick up the flavors to where I like them. The red onion got chopped, and the whole thing left to simmer.
Yeah, real easy. The hardest part was deboning the rabbit.
Good? Well, seeing as Mary had two bowls and Aaron had three, I’ll say it kinda works. Telling Chef Tad about it later he’s like, “Alright, alright, I’m getting hungry now …”
Rabbit Chili
Serves 6 - 8
Ingredients
1 whole rabbit, cut up
1 28 oz can tomato sauce
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
1 14-1/2 ounce can diced tomatoes with chili seasoning
1 15 oz can sweet peas
1 15 oz can black beans
1 15-1/2 ounce can whole kernel yellow and white corn
1 cup dry red wine
8 ounces beef stock
1 medium red onion
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper
Place the rabbit pieces in a large pot. Add enough water to cover the rabbit plus about another inch. Add a couple tablespoons salt. Boil the rabbit until it’s fork-tender, adding more water if necessary. When the rabbit is done, remove it from the pot to cool.
While the rabbit is cooling, dump the rabbit water and wash the pot. Place the pot back on the stove, add all three cans of tomatoes, the red wine and beef stock, and set the burner for medium heat. When the rabbit is cool enough to touch, debone it, adding the meat to the tomatoes.
Drain all three cans of vegetables, rinsing the black beans under cold water, and stir the veggies into the tomato-rabbit mixture. Chop the onion and add it as well. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and allow to simmer for 30 minutes.
Re-season with salt and pepper before serving with a side of buttermilk biscuits.
Greek Diner Food & A Diner Recipe for Tricolor Cole Slaw
Posted on 3 April 2008 under Recipes, Restaurant Chit-Chat | No Comments
A serving of Cod with Hashbrowns from Gander’s Restaurant here in
Luna Pier, Michigan. While the restaurant’s owners aren’t Greek (they
hail from Albania) the food is quite reminiscent of that from some of the
better Greek diners I’ve visited over the years.
The New York Times recently published an article on the demise of Greek-owned diners within the city. From the article:
(T)he immigration pipeline from Greece that peaked between the 1950s and 1970 has dried up as Greece has prospered … All that is not to mention what Peter Makrias, publisher-editor of a magazine for the Greek-American food industry, says are the two most insidious forces wiping such diners off the map — the banks and chain drugstores that are buying up those enviable roadside locations and the competition from franchise restaurants.
My family first took notice of the Greek-owned restaurants in Michigan in the late 1970s. It became a kind of game, searching out these wonderful family diners with their massive portions of good honest food, the kind of food truckers would also seek out on a regular basis. We became friends with many of these owners in the Flint area and frequented their establishments on our normal Friday evening shopping trips.
I remember a Greek-owned restaurant on the King’s Highway just west of Toronto. We were staying at the Candy Haven Tourist Home in 1982 and ate at that restaurant across the street each morning. And each morning, the owner & cook would come out himself to take our order. There were six of us traveling that trip, but the man never wrote our orders down. He cooked them up, along with anything anyone else had ordered, remembered everything perfectly, and knew afterward which plate went to which customer.
I have my own story about working working with an excellent Greek cook. I didn’t enter a restaurant kitchen until April of 1983. Frisch’s Big Boy on the western edge of Columbus just outside the freeway somehow decided I was the right person to open their first breakfast bar and operate it five days each week. We tested everything for longevity in a steam table on wheels. Grits didn’t hold out too well, nor did pancakes, or the fruit pie filling we set out as toppings. Of course, scrambled eggs, sausages, freshly-grilled shredded potatoes, and other decent things survived the hours on that table under the warming lights.
Gus Pappas was the first cook I knew who taught me real skills. A tall, skinny Greek at least 50 years old, he taught me to steam whole eggs instead of hard-boiling them to make them easy to peel. He was the first to show me halfway-decent knifing skills, how to prep a whole pineapple to make it a snackable food, and how to really taste a dish, and then make adjustments to it. When Gus was eased out of the management of that Big Boy in 1984 in favor of young MBA types, the real skills in that kitchen also went away.
Again, the New York Times article:
(P)essimists feel that the flavor Greeks have brought to diners will one day pass into memory. [Aristides Garganourakis, 57, owner of the Dobbs Diner in Dobbs Ferry] puts it bluntly: “When Greeks get out of diners, there will no more be diners.”
I hope this doesn’t happen. Diners have been around longer than the Greeks have been here. Those diners might just need to be re-invented.
Diner Tricolor Cole Slaw
Serves 6 - 8
Dressing Ingredients
3 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups Hellman’s mayonaise
1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
3 tablespoons finely-chopped fresh parsley
Salad Ingredients
3 cups shredded red cabbage
5 cups shredded green cabbage
1 cup peeled & shredded carrots
In a large mixing bowl, mix together all the dressing ingredients. Use tongs to mix in the shredded vegetables. Cover with plastic wrap and chill at least two hours before serving.
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