Caramelized Onions of Awesomeness

This is the summer of the onion in the Blocko house. We can't seem to get enough of them. Every time we grill I've been slicing up a few to eat on the side. Even Blockette likes them. When we grill them they get all nice and charred. Mrblocko and I fight over the blackest ones.

Naturally, when I came across this recipe I couldn't pass it up. Sweetened caramelized onions? Oh yes Please! I made a half batch, and this was enough for 4 burgers. You might get more servings if you aren't onion freaks like we are! Below is a full recipe.

Caramelized onions from Cherry on a Cake
6 large yellow/brown onions, sliced finely
4-5 T oil
4 T balsamic vinegar
2-3 T brown sugar
2 knobs of butter
salt to taste

Heat up the oil in a large skillet. Add onions and toss to cover with oil. Reduce heat to low and let onions cook slowly. Stir occasionally to prevent burning. This will take around an hour. When the onions are pale gold add the balsamic vinegar, butter,sugar and a good pinch of salt. Mix well and let the onions brown further. The sugar, butter and vinegar will help darken and caramelize the onions. As it begins to get darker make sure you stir more often to prevent burning and even browning. The onions are done when they are a dark golden brown color.

Pop Can Chicken

I am so out of the loop. (Wait, can you be out of the loop if you were never in the loop?) Apparently there was a huge culinary movement in the '90's called the Beer Can Chicken. Ever heard of it? I didn't until recently. Where have I been?

The blog world is teaming with recipes for this strange concoction. (see here, here, here, here, here and here for starters.)

The basic gist of the recipe is:
1. Find a spice rub blend that you like.
2. Take a 5 pound-ish roaster chicken. Take out all the junk they pack inside. Toss it or keep it for whatever you normally do with those icky guts.
3. Give your chicken a nice rinse in the sink. (Don't forget to clean your sink after you do this. Salmonella is not your friend.)
4. Pat the chicken dry as best as you can inside and out. It's the least awkward to do this with two people. One can hold the bird and the other can pat it dry.
5. Sprinkle and rub in your spices.
6. Take a beverage can (beer, pop, tomato juice, water, etc) and pour half of it into a glass so you can drink it later.
7. Carefully pour in 2 Tablespoons of your spice rub into the can. It will fizz up and make a mess if you don't do this slowly. (This is best to do over the sink or you will make a huge mess over your counter and floor. Trust me.)
8. Poke a hole or two in the top of the can with a church key type can opener.
9. Stick the can up the chicken's wazoo. The legs and can will work as a tripod to keep the whole thing balanced.
10. preheat your grill to medium high.
11. Once your grill is sufficiently heated stick the bird in there and close the lid.
12. Don't peek. This is the hard part. The more you open the grill lid, the longer it will take for the meat to fully cook. Estimate lengthening your cooking time around 15 min per each time you open the lid. It's helpful to have an instant read thermometer that you can leave in while you cook.
13. Once the internal temp of the meat is 180F (This will take around 45-90 min depending on your grill, weather, peeking, etc.) carefully remove the bird from the grill.
14. Let the chicken rest around 10-15 minutes before attempting to remove the can.
15. Carefully poke a few holes in the sides of the can with a church key can opener to drain off the remaining liquid inside. The liquid will still be VERY hot.
16. Now it's time to remove the can. It will be stubborn. It's easiest if you can do this with two people. One to man the bird and the other to remove the can from the chicken's can.
17. Now you're ready to carve and eat.


For some reason the chicken looks like it's dancing in this picture. This begs to ask the question, if a grilled chicken could dance, would it do the funky chicken?

A Year Ago Today

This was Blockette exactly one year ago. Look how cute she is dancing and goofing off in the flowers.

Apparently, now, at four and three quarters, she is too cool to be photographed in front of the flowers. This is as close as she would get. "Ew Mom, there are bugs over there."
"It's icky."
"Do I have to?"
"I don't wanna stand in the sun."
"Can I be done now?"
"Hurry up and take the picture."
"Can I go now?"

I guess I was fooling myself. I thought I had at least 5 more years before the "tude" set in. I mean look at her, she's even got that teen angst filled I'm-standing-but-slouching thing down already. Ugh. I'm really in for it. Do you think they accept reservations seven years in advance at the loony bin? I'd like to beat the rush.

Thankful Thursday 16

1. Convincing Blockette to walk with us in the Parade instead of sitting in the back of a truck with her friends.
2. Blockette admitting after the parade that it was more fun to walk in the parade than sit on the truck.
3. Surprise visit with our niece.
4. Checking out a chick flick from the Library and catching Mrblocko watching and laughing along with it while he was suposedly playing a computer game.
5. Blockette's excitement when she found out she was going to her first movie in the theater.
6. The power only went out for a few seconds durring the huge storm.
7. Free ice cream.
8. Blockette doesn't get spooked by storms the way I did as a kid.
9. Less earwigs.
10. Blockette being able to bike around the block without having her wheels spin because they finally fixed all the potholes on our street and the street behind us.

Ras El Hanout-Moroccan Spice Mix

After making my own chili powder I was curious what other directions for spice blends were out there in the recipe world. After a brief search I came across something called Ras El Hanout on Recipezaar. Ras el Hanout, meaning "top of the shop", is a spice mixture from Morocco that can contain anywhere from 10-100 different spices. This particular blend contains 14.I chose to test this spice blend out as a rub for grilled pork. Yes. Pork. I do know that there is something inherently wrong about using an Arabic spice blend on pork. I like to think of it as super special fusion cuisine.

So how did it taste? Pretty good. It was an interesting combination of savory and sweet spices unlike anything I've ever had before. The pork chops were very thin and so they got cooked quicker than expected. Subsequently, the meat was on the dry side. Mrblocko suggested they would be perfect with a piece or two of grilled apple slices. What goes better with pork chops than apples! We'll be giving that a try next time.

Ras El Hanout from Food.com
2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons turmeric
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon cardamom powder
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Mix all the spices together. Store in an airtight container.

Project #9: Blackwork Bookmark

Many moons ago I cross stitched a beautiful Celtic knotwork bookmark for Mrblocko. It had hand dyed variegated silk and metallic threads and everything. Then, sometime this winter the big lug went and lost it. I told him that he was fired and that I was never ever EVER going to make him a new one.

Well I'm just a sucker cause clearly I've gone and made him another bookmark. He's been moaning and lamenting about not having a bookmark. He's even gone so far as to not use any bookmark to make his point about wanting another bookmark. He promised to try to try not to lose it if I was so kind enough to make him another one. Then he said he was going to keep asking for a new bookmark at every gift giving occasion until I made him one. So yeah, I guess you could say I made him this bookmark just to get him to shut up about it.This bookmark isn't nearly as fancy or labor intensive as the one Mrblocko lost. I figure he has to prove he's not going to lose this one before I spend weeks stitching something fancy. This bookmark is done in a stitch that is called blackwork. It's basically a straight stitch outline sort of embroidery. Blackwork is a lot quicker to sew per inch than cross stitch. At least it is for me.

I stitched this up mostly at my best friend, MrsThunder's house, in attempts to be sneaky and surprise Mrblocko for Father's Day. MrsThunder gasped when she saw that I was using 14 count Aida fabric to stitch on. (The count means how many stitches there are per inch. So 14 count means 14 stitches in an inch.) I believe her actual words were, "You can actually see the holes in the fabric!!"

Normally I use a much finer fabric like linen in 28 or 32 count. Linen in a fine count is much more expensive than aida. I didn't want to waste good fabric if it was going wind up mysteriously misplaced. Blackwork looks decent on a lower count fabric compared to cross stitch. If you sew cross stitch on the lower count fabrics the designs start to look more and more pixelated. I am not a fan of the pixelated look.

I used two different shades of green DMC thread. The design would have looked cool in an ombre or variegated thread of some sort but those threads are $$. I might have used them if I already had a color I liked left over from another project. Going to buy fancy thread involves going to a specialty store, and the closest one of those is over an hour away. It's also not the type of place I'd bring Blockette too. Too easy for her to get into too many different kinds of mischief. Yeah, I could have bought some on line, but I hate doing that for thread. You never know if the color on your computer is calibrated correctly. So plain Jane thread it was.

I found this design online as a freebie from a company called Stitchin'spiration. The pattern is called "Pocket garden of 4 leaf clover." You can click here for the chart if you like the design.

So Mrblocko, now you know the horrible truth about your Father's Day Bookmark. You'd still better not loose it!!! (Plbbbt.)

Salt Free Chili powder

When I ran out of chili powder the other day, it got me to wondering if I could make up my own with the spices I had on hand. I did a search for chili powder recipes and found that most of them contained a lot of salt. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't need extra salt in my diet.

I've encountered a similar problem at the grocery store. Most of the chili powder in the spice aisle contains salt as well. I did find one brand at Meijer called Simply Organic that didn't contain salt. Their chili powder tasted every bit as tasty as the saltier versions. The price was comparable per oz to a brand name like McCormick. That was a shock to me as organic usually equals less money left in your wallet. Now, the salt free version was twice as expensive as the store brand generic chili powder. The generic store brand's second ingredient was salt. When it comes to spices I guess you get what you pay for. Salt is a cheap filler ingredient.

In my scouring the interweb I found this recipe on Budget101.com. Blockette loved helping me combine all the spices together. She wanted to smell every jar before I added it to the mix. Blockette would tell you I was a mean mom because I wouldn't let her stir our chili powder concoction. She gets a bit overly enthusiastic when she helps out in the kitchen. Silly me, I wanted to make sure the spice went into the jar and not on the counter, the floor, on the cats and in my hair.

So how does the new chili powder taste? I haven't had the chance to cook with it yet, but it smells delicious. I don't make a lot of chili in the summer as it seems to heat up the whole house. Since I just made the chili burgers I won't be making those for a while either. I'll be sure to post when I do use the new spice blend and let you know how it turned out.

Chili Powder from Budget 101
3 tablespoons paprika
2 teaspoons ground oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Combine dry spices and seal in ziploc or vacuum seal bag (or jar). Measure all into a ziploc bag, seal & shake to combine.