Peanut Butter

Ok, you know that I loves me some peanut butter, but I really hate hydrogenated oils (well, hydrogenated anything really), so I have been buying natural peanut butter lately; saltless, sugarless abomination. Its actually pretty unpalatable and makes me want to punch a baby. BUT, if you lay down some honey on your toast, THEN the natural peanut butter, its all good.

The problem with natural peanut butter is that the oil separates and you have to stir it in, no big deal I guess. See, the thing is that by the time I get to the bottom, its all dry, prolly because I failed to properly mix in the oil. :(

Well I found a solution to my peanut butter problem! (thanks Wired How to Wiki) When you get home from the store, put your natural peanut butter in the cupboard upside down, then flip it every day. Well, I am too antsy, so I flip it twice a day, but you get my point. After a couple of days when you open your jar of peanut butter its all mixed up! I still give it a quick mix “just to be sure”, but there is no dry part at the bottom anymore.

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• A Natural Benefit to Peanut Butter (finarelli.com)

Best Sandwich EVER

So, make your basic muffaletta olive salad:

1 1/2 Cups Green Olives, Pitted
1/2 Cup Calamatta Olives (or Black) Pitted
1 Cup Gardiniera (Pickled Cauliflower, carrots, celery, Pepperoncini)
1 Tbsp. Capers
3 each Fresh Garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/8 Cup Celery, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp. Italian Parsley, finely chopped
1 Tbsp. Fresh oregano or 2 tsp. dried
1 tsp. Crushed red pepper flakes
3 Tbsp. Red Wine Vinegar
1/4 Cup Pimientos (Roasted red peppers)
1 Tbsp. Green Onions, thinly sliced
Kosher Salt & Freshly Ground pepper To Taste (salt may not be necessary)
Crush each olive on a cutting board with your hand. Combine all ingredients. Cover with:
Extra Virgin Olive Oil about 1 - 1 1/2 Cups
Put into a bowl or jar, cover and let the flavors marry for about a week.

Then get yourself some good focaccia bread and whip up a nice muffaletta
(Genoa Salami, Hot Capicola, Mortadella, Mozzarella, Provolone)

Put the left over olive salad in a sealed Tupperware container, throw it into the fridge and forget about it for 2-3 weeks. Open up a can of tuna (yes, tuna) throw it in a bowl with about a 1/3 – 1/2 cup of the olive salad and JUST enough mayo to hold it all together. Let that sit for 10-15 minutes, then put that between a couple slices of bread and THAT is the best sandwich ever.

Think about it, I usually chop up a little onion, garlic, capers, and shallots for the tuna, and that's pretty good, but the olive salad? MUCH better.

Seven Grain Bread

Melanie has been asking me for my bread recipe, here it is:

Ingredients
1-1/2 cups water
4-1/4 cups bread flour
2/3 cup 7 grain cereal (Melanie and I use Red Mill, thanks Melanie!)
2/3 cup molasses (or 2 Tbsp sugar)
2 Tbsp dry milk
1-1/2 tsp Butter
2 tsp Active dry yeast OR 3tsp Rapid Rise yeast

Directions
Make the bread with the ingredients. Seriously, just do it. If you have a bread machine, I would suggest that you follow the directions for “Dough” and then do the final knead/rising and baking yourself.

Variations
If you want a more “rustic bread” substitute 1 cup of the bread flour with 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 1 Tbsp wheat gluton.

If you want a great chewy bread, also add 2/3 cup of 7 grain rice pilaf, its great.

If you want a nice heavy bread, after the second rising, firmly press the dough into your dough pan, yes that flattens it. Then bake it. It will still rise quite a bit and it will be a nice heavy bread.

If you want a more “store bought” bread, after the first rise, let the bread rise in the pans, this will yield 2 loaves.

I almost always make it single loaf with the rice pilaf, you end up with a nice chewy, nutty, heavy bread. It makes GREAT toast!

Jalapeno Stuffed Olives

To the person who first said “HEY! Lets stuff jalapenos into pitted olives!” I would like to offer you my first born. He’s a good kid, and I am sure that you will love him as much as I do. Hanson, pack your shit, you have a new daddy.

WHAT
THE
FRACK?

While I really do love jalapeno stuffed olives and assume that they were created in heaven by frolicking, kittens, in truth, I imagine that the story of their creation was probably a bit more mundane. More like: “Hey Jimmy! Lets stuff hot peppers into this pitted olive and make your little brother eat it!” But what (possibly) started out as a kids torture, blossomed into a gastronomic wonder. Of course if you have bad olives and you stuff them with bad or too hot jalapenos and then add hot oil, you get bad stuffed olives. But if you start with a good green olive, and stuff it with a nice hot (but not TOO hot) jalapeno, and then pack it in olive oil with no other additives, you end up with an orally orgasmic wonder.

Seriously, stop saying “I don’t like hot food” and step outside of your little box and try something new. You're going to die someday.

Edible rubiks cube

I can solve that in 1 minute!

While I do loves me a unique sandwich, I also like things like lettuce, tomato, good bread, etc. BUT, the humor value on the rubikswich is pretty high.

via Seriouseats

Some things are worth stopping for...

Haulin' ass home from Malechalooza on 80 trying to avoid downtown chicago I found out that the route 80 bridge over the mississippi is closed. So they routed me to 280 over the river back to 80.

While on 280 I see a sign for Maid-Rite. Hold on sweetheart, we are going in hot.

Of bacon and broken chairs...

So as you know, Melanie and Rick came over for Baconfest '08 and a good time was had by Paul.

BUT, Melanie got a little bit overzealous and broke a chair. :(
It's a stool basically, and Melanie stood on the foot rest for some bjorked up reason.
Doofus.
Anyway, here are the results.

but cows are so TASTY!

From New Scientist we get this little bummer.

I have seen this argument before, and will undoubtedly see it again, and it bums me out. Contrary to popular belief, I eat less beef than your average American, but I do loves me some pork!!! Hmmm, bacon, ribs, ham, bring it on!

So whenever I see the "cows are bad. No, really." discussion I am always happy to see that pork is still safe. YAY!

When I Die A Bacon-Related Death...

I had never heard the words "bacon" and "weave" in the same sentence, until today.

A bacon basket rolled up AND STUFFED WITH CHEESE?! These guys deserve ALL sorts of credit for this great idea, but.... Man that is SO close to perfection, the only thing missing is the scrambled hot Italian sausage, and maybe even some scrambled eggs. Well, we will give this a try at "TeamPaulC's test kitchen" (which is typically Melanie's house) this holiday season and report back with photo's, doctors reports, and EKG scans. :|

If I Die A Bacon-Related Death, I'd Like It To Be Because Of This | www.holytaco.com