Get Bent!

Every now and then you run across a blog that makes you giggle.

Click here for Bent Objects! 

Happy Memorial Day!

Here Come Da' Judge......

Ha! Remember Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In?

If you do, well God bless ya-You're approximately my age.

(If you don't, well  look it up, some of the funniest TV ever in the late 60's early 70's.)

Sammy Davis Jr. as the Judge.

As usual, I digress, this post is about being a judge.

I received an e-mail a few days ago from David Tomberlin, founder and President of  Well Dressed Foods.

Well Dressed Foods is having a Recipe Contest..

The winner receives a Kitchen-Aid Artisinal Stand Mixer.

David asked me If I'd like to judge some of the recipes, (nine semi-finalist recipes).

I was happy to oblige. 

There are 9 Finalists.

After some consideration (about 5 seconds) I decided the first recipe I would test would be the

Spicy Chicken Chili.

It's still kind of cool and damp here in the Adirondacks, and yesterday was perfect Chili weather.

Here's the progression.

Mise' en place.

OK- Here's a disclaimer-I couldn't find ground chicken in Tupper yesterday.

So I bought ground turkey. 

I asked the butchers at Shaheen's IGA and they're not allowed to grind chicken.
So.......

They suggested ground turkey, and that's what I went with.

Here we go....

Red pepper, diced tomatoes, spanish onion, green onion, and garlic in the Dutch Oven.

Added the ground turkey.

Simmering, with the garbonzo beans and  sauce!

The Findings!

This is a great chili recipe, but not in the traditional sense.

I've always favored chili with a whole lot more of tomato/tomato sauce than this recipe calls for.

That said, with the garbonzo beans and ground chicken/turkey it almost falls into the category of White Chili.

Breaking it down, you can't go wrong with red bell pepper, chili pepper and garlic as a base on the Evoo.

The ground turkey was very good as a meat .
You could easily add ground beef (but drain it first after browning).
Or make it a vegetarian chili, by adding more beans of a different kind.

The sauce was the hero.

Any time I read spicy anything, I wonder....
Does spicy mean hot, or does it mean you get a hint of different flavors?
This was slightly spicy, in that I received a bit of heat, but the flavors, especially the peanut butter were revealed. It was a bit sweet, thanks to the peanut butter.
It had a pleasant after flavor, kind of a friendly heat.

My tasting panel gave it two thumbs up.

Everybody went back for seconds, and what was left was consumed this morning for brunch by the wife and daughter.

The fact that I never got to the leftovers makes this recipe a keeper!

Eat well my friends!

More Flooding Stuff....

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise had some wicked pics today of the flooding in Tupper.

Click Here for The Link

All the shots were taken from the air.

Pic credit to:

Lutz Goesser and the Saranac Lake VFD.

A lot of water my friends, a lot of water.

An aerial shot of my backyard.  Well sort of, it's down there, but you're not here so I can't show you.

Our Municipal Park and Rt. 3 on the left.

Might be time to start a Water Polo League, I think Softball is off the schedule for the foreseeable future.

This is Rt. 3. just East of Tupper, and just downriver from the Crusher.

(If you're not familiar with the area, no sweat, just realize in a normal year most of the water you see below wouldn't be there).

River Road, off Dugal Road along the Raquette River.

This would be a West to East view.

And then there's Water Street.  

How ironic.  River Road and Water Street are under water.

The thing is, in my 50 years here there's never been anything that approached this.

Water Street is literally about a 1/4 mile from where I'm writing this-the creek that's flooding it is about 100 yds. away.

We're just lucky enough to be about 2 ft. higher.

We're dry, other than the basement, where the sump pump is running 24/7.

As I write this post,the rain is letting up and hopefully the waters will start to recede.

Stay dry, be thankful, and god bless.

Big Water....

flowing into Big Tupper.

Took a ride late yesterday afternoon to survey the high water around Tupper Lake.

As I posted previously, it's unlike anything I or anybody else has ever seen. 

A 100 year event to be certain. 

So Mrs. Tupper and I hopped in the car and took a ride up to Bog River Falls.

The Bog River is an outlet from Low's Lake and flows into Big Tupper Lake at the falls.

Some years it's low, and some years it's high, and once a century it's like this.

(Click on the pic to enlarge)

Right side of the Falls looking upstream.

Same side as above.

Left side of the Falls, upstream from the bridge.

Below the bridge, downstream.

Upstream pic of the water going under the bridge.

Water heading out into Big Tupper.

Upstream, right side, water's either hitting a rock or a log, can't tell, but it's a natural fountain. Pretty cool.

Same spot as above, further back.

Underneath the bridge, heading downstream.

Another pic of the fountain.

That's it. A crapload of water.

Stay dry my friends!

Happy Star Wars Day!

Stuffed Meatballs.....

So yesterday was Monday and we all know Mondays suck, right?

After a decent weekend at camp and some relatively nice weather it was back to work.

So what to make on a Monday night, when you wished it was still the weekend?

I decided on spaghetti and meatballs early on.

But I didn't want just plain old pasta and meatballs, so I went on a surf to find something slightly different.

My search paid dividends, it was a total success.

Here's the recipe I found for Spaghetti with Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs.

Click Here for the Recipe!

It's actually two recipes, one for the meatballs, one for the sauce.

The sauce was similar to my go-to recipe, but I went with it anyway.  

I didn't have San Marzano crushed tomatoes, so I used Red Pack Brand which worked just fine.  Can't find San Marzano up here in God's Country.

For the meatballs, instead of one clove of garlic finely chopped I used about six, hey I like garlic.

Here's the progression.

Meatballs, pre-bake.

Post-bake. A couple popped, which is to be expected.

I sliced one in half-yes it's not cooked all the way through.

So I tossed them all in the sauce and let them finish cooking.  

A win-win, meatballs flavor the sauce and vice-versa.

The Result.

Sauce and meatballs on Barilla pasta with some homemade garlic bread.

The better half said they were the best meatballs I've ever made, and I have to agree.
The sauce was very good, I think I have another go-to.

And what do you do with the leftover sauce and meatballs?
Why, make hot meatball subs of course!

Comfort food all the way.

Eat well my friends!

Top 50 Pizza Blogs......

I love pizza. 

I love eating pizza, therefore, I love reading about pizza, today while reading Peter Reinhart's blog,  "Pizza Quest" , I ran across this list.

Click Here For Link To Top 50 Pizza Blogs! 

According to California Culinary Schools, these are the Top 50 Pizza Blogs out there in the Blogosphere.

Now I'm not sure about the actual rankings, some of the blogs I read daily, like Slice , others I've seen, and many I've never heard of, so it's like hitting the motherlode of pizza info- not sure what I'm going to find, but man am I looking forward to the pizza discoveries that await.

Just the fact that there are hundreds of pizza blogs out there speaks to the popularity of my favorite food.

Quite simply it's amazing.

And to think that 25 years ago this thing we call the internet barely existed.

Pretty cool I say.....

Here's my 50-50 Pie from a while back.

Eat well my friends!