ODG Eats

I was voluntold to make breakfast for my dad, stepmom, and grandmother on Christmas morning. I didn't complain too much because I do enjoy cooking, but it's so much nicer to have someone ask you to do something than to tell you that you're going to do something. It is what it is. I was feeling the Christmas spirit or something, I don't fucking know. I decided to only use ingredients that were at Memaw's house, which was a great way to constrain what I could do. I started off by medium boiling four eggs, then dicing and frying some bacon while I scrambled up several more eggs. Once the bacon got crispy, I scooped it all out onto a plate lined with paper towels to try to get some of that rendered fat off of it, then I turned down the burner the frying pan was on. I poured the scrambled eggs into the hot bacon fat and, while they fried, I whipped up some biscuit dough by mixing all purpose flour with 2% milk, plus a little table salt and sugar. By the way: from now on,...

I still relish the memory of the first time I ate an authentic curry while summering in the north of Connecticut as a precocious child. Wait, never mind. That's bullshit. Sorry, I read a couple other food blogs this week and forgot that this is supposed to be about food, not being a pretentious dipshit who tries to assert my own superiority over everyone else due to my family's wealth. We did okay, but we weren't any of those rich assholes who thinks that authentic anything comes from northern Connecticut. Fuck that shit. This is a place for real food. Well, the pasta-making bug has bitten my ass in spades. After my pre-seasoned spaghetti and meatballs  experiment, I started thinking about what other weird shit I could do. The first idea I had, for better or worse, was making my own curry powder and mixing it into some noodle dough. I also wanted to make some vegan noodles for my vegan friends, so I mixed water with flour and extra virgin olive oil to make the dough. I just...

You ever just been lazing around on a Sunday thinking, "Man, I have no chores, no responsibilities, all the time in the world, and plenty of energy to spend on cooking!" while surveying your property? Me neither, but I chose to ignore my responsibilities to spend a few hours making spaghetti and meatballs from as close to scratch as I could.  I actually read a recipe for making pasta. It said to make a "nest" out of two cups of flour, then crack three eggs into the middle with a little olive oil and salt. I decided I wanted to be fancy, so I added in some basil, oregano, and parsley. I like my noodles to be interesting. I would like to quickly note: I am not Jacques Pépin, Martha Stewart, or Garden Contessa, so I don't have fancy little herbs growing just outside my door. I like using fresh ingredients as much as possible, but it's not always possible. I couldn't find oregano or basil at Kroger, so I grabbed one of these little bastards. They're drie...

Ever had Shit on a Shingle (aka SOS fyi)? That's the colloquial Army name for chipped beef on toast, a dish that looks like someone took a shit on a shingle, hence the name. Those Army guys are pretty creative, right? Granted, my unspecified brother has called it Shit on Bed Sheets before due to the stomach issues he suffered after eating it for dinner one night back in 2003. ODG does not have shit for memory.  I did not set out to make SOS for dinner. I was trying out an idea I'd had for sweet potato. It was purely innocent. I skinned and trimmed the potato, then ran it through my mandolin slicer to get long thing sheets. A bit of cornstarch with salt and pepper, and those bad boys were ready for the butter and olive oil. I lightly fried the potato slices until the cornstarch that didn't get washed off was browning a bit and the exposed flesh of the potato started to brown on the corners and slightly bubble on the faces. This is sounding a bit gruesome. I don't know wh...

I picked up a pack of pork chops at Kroger the other day because it was grocery shopping time and I love pork chops. Seemed like some damned sound reasoning to me. Anyway, after I got home from the store, I had to make myself some lunch because it was lunchtime and I was hungry. I was on a fucking roll with my logic. Since I had pork chops, bread, and a few other ingredients, pork chop sandwiches seemed like the logical conclusion. I might be a logician. First off, I cooked my pork chops. They were seasoned with some salt and pepper, then pan fried in butter and olive oil. I'm not breaking any new ground here. This is a pork chop sandwich. They're simple. They're lovely. They're what's for dinner. When the chops were cooked, I pulled them out and let them rest, then dumped some thinly sliced red onion into the same pan and let those start browning. I love me some red onion. Of course, I couldn't just let that lie. I added some thinly sliced mushroom to the pan o...