White Fluffy Icing

Musings of a reasonably competent home cook.

Archive for February, 2010

Bon Appétit Challenge: February Cook-Along

Feb 25

Posted by Laura in 2010 Bon Appétit Covers | 8 Comments

My friend Dianne has cooked both BA covers with me, but this time… ah, this time she provided succulent documentation.

Does that look good, or what?  Her version has less bread to get in the way of all the tastiness tucked inside.   Dr. Atkins, eat your heart out.  (Ahem.)

Dianne, I’m hoping that you’ll comment and leave us some notes… you mentioned that you made some substitutions – what were they?  What would you do differently?  Will you make this again?  Did you learn anything fun along the way?

If anyone else out there is cooking the BA covers or any of the other weekly recipes, send me some pics!  We’re kinda evolving into a monthly cyber supper club, and I love it.

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Bon Appétit Challenge: Grilled Cheese and Short Rib Sandwiches

Feb 22

Posted by Laura in 2010 Bon Appétit Covers, Cover Recipe Results | 9 Comments

All I can say is:  have mercy.

I’m typically not a sandwich-as-entrée type of cook, so when I say that these Grilled Cheese and Short Rib Sandwiches are the best sandwiches I’ve ever made, I’m not really saying much. But I can also say that these short ribs are among the best beef I’ve ever cooked, and that my friend, is something. (I was a Texan long before I was a flexitarian.)

As before, I did a little homework on the recipe beforehand. The first question that came to mind after ogling the cover photo was: what exactly is a short rib, anyway? Of course, I immediately reached for my handy copy of Joy of Cooking, which informed me thus:

Beef short ribs are simply the meaty tail ends of the beef ribs from the rib, chuck, and brisket portion.  Short ribs are sold in slabs of varying lengths and widths, depending on the butcher.  Unlike back ribs, which are more bone than meat, short ribs offer a good amount of beefy-tasting meat that is also high in connective tissue.  They also tend to be quite fatty, so besides trimming any external fat before cooking, it is best to brown the ribs before cooking to render excess fat and intensify the meat  flavors.

Well, there you go.  The ribs I procured were about an inch and a half wide, another inch and a half thick, and most were about four inches long.  The five pounds called for in the recipe translated to nine ribs in my case.  When I made my request at the meat counter, the butcher was nodding approvingly as he weighed and wrapped them, as if to say, “Aw, yeah…”

With my refresher on bovine anatomy complete, the only remaining research topic was the cheese.  I know next to nothing about fine cheese, but would love to learn.  All I know is that I love eating it – I’ve only met one cheese I wouldn’t care to have again (it tasted a little too much like the smell of sweaty gym socks).

I’d never heard of Petit Basque.  Again, I turned to JOC.  While I didn’t find anything on Petit Basque specifically, I did find this interesting little nugget:

The French believe, with scientific evidence to back them up, that cheese contains beneficial enzymes and bacteria that aid in digestion – and that even much of its fat content remains unabsorbed by the body, so that it is not as nutritionally daunting as it might look.

Well, how d’ya like that one?  I’m filing that right next to the articles that sing the nutritional praises of dark chocolate, wine, and coffee.  When I’m 50 pounds overweight and diabetic, due to my chocolate/wine/cheese/coffee diet, I’m taking my documentation with me to the doc’s office.  If, however, I somehow magically morph into a fitness queen look-alike by eating cheese, then I’m writing a diet book.  I’ll call it Eat the Stuff They Say Will Kill You.

If I’d had more time, I would have stopped by the bookstore to see if I could find an in-depth reference on cheese, like this one or this one or this one.  But since we live in the age of the Internet, I poked around and stumbled upon iGourmet.com, which looks like a dangerously easy way to blow a lot of cash on high-end food without getting off the couch.  They specialize in cheese and had this information on our ingredient in question:

This semi-soft sheep’s milk cheese is handmade in the French Pyrenees. The Pyrenees Mountain range, a natural border that divides France and Spain, is populated by the Basques, a people who have their own customs and language. Although the Basques live on both sides of the border, they produce this cheese on the French side. Amidst the breathtaking, rolling mountains of the Pyrenees, vast pastures stretch as far as the eye can see, providing fertile grazing for milk-producing sheep. P’tit Basque, made from pure sheep’s milk, has a slightly oily texture and an earthy, nutty flavor. It comes to us in a whole, uncut cylinder, offering a beautiful presentation as well as a lovely taste.

This brought to mind a short jovial little man walking among sheep on a verdant hillside, without a cloud in the sky, speaking half Spanish and half French.  Why is it that I assume they are romantic low-tech Luddites?  In reality, the cheesemaker in my imagination is probably pecking cheese production forecasts into his iPhone and cussing at the sheep in Spanench for moving too slowly.

Okay, time to stop daydreaming about a second career as a cheesemaker and make a sandwich…

At first glance, the recipe looked like it was going to be a daunting, multi-day undertaking.  And while it did take an entire morning to make them for lunch, most of that time consisted of leaving the meat alone to braise.  When the timer went off (and my late morning nap ended), I discovered that the meat had shrunken considerably, exposing the bone, and all the connective tissue that JOC had warned me about had melted into silky loveliness.  The bones pulled out effortlessly, and the meat literally fell apart (like buttah!).

I was pleasantly surprised by the onions – when I saw “caramelized” and “pickled” in the title, I imagined slowly cooking onions for an hour and then soaking them in some sort of brine overnight.  Turns out they were just sautéed onions with a little sugar (“caramelized”) and a shot of vinegar (“pickled”) added at the end.  Okay by me!

So basically, you do a little chopping, you sear the meat, you let it cook for a couple of hours, and you sauté onions for about 15 minutes.  After that, you assemble and grill the sandwiches the same way you would for any ol’ grilled cheese or patty melt.

Well hello, handsome.

Except that this ain’t just any ol’ grilled cheese. This, my friends, is gourmet man-food.  The meat retained its beef flavor, but brought along hints of the wine and sherry in the braising liquid, like a well-executed beef stew.  The richness of the meat was offset by the sweet-and-sourness of the onions and the bite of the arugula.  And the cheese… good Lord, the cheese!  It had a wonderful mellow flavor and melted like a dream.  And all that was book-ended by crunchy golden slabs of tangy sourdough.  Heaven.

I will absolutely make this again.  It would have been perfect cut into quarters, or sixths, and set out on a platter for a casual party.  Why I didn’t make this for the Super Bowl, I’ll never know.  I give this recipe an easy A, and unlike the spaghetti and meatballs last month, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I would love to hear from anyone else who made the recipe.  Did I miss anything?  Speaking of missing something, does anyone else think that the greens on the BA cover photo look more like baby spinach than arugula?

p.s.  I feel compelled to tell you that this is no place for pillowy WonderBread.  You need something dense and chewy to stand up to all that goodness piled between the slices, otherwise you’re going to have a soft gooey short rib casserole on your hands…

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Bon Appétit Challenge: A Tale of Two Covers

Feb 21

Posted by Laura in 2010 Bon Appétit Covers, Cover Announcements | 13 Comments

Barbara, I was just joshin’ about you taking bribes from my husband.  You didn’t have to haul off and put the most anti-Matt dish you could find on the cover.  Really, you didn’t.

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt for choosing this particular dish.  But I gotta tell ya, it’s not the sexiest cover ever.  To the extent that the cover photo is intended to sell magazines, Eggplant Parmesan Rolls with Swiss Chard and Fresh Mint would not catch my eye at the newsstand. 

But I get it: we’re in a recession and times are tough.  People are spending less on food, and they’re cooking more at home instead of going out.  So a low-cost one-dish dinner has a certain timeliness and appeal, not to mention the fact that it’s meatless and therefore Lent-friendly. 

But could it be any more different than last month’s cover?  Those sandwiches stop you dead in your tracks and pick up the issue, and then it takes about five seconds to decide that you really must make it, just to see if it’s half as good as that photo.  It looks like something you’d blow your diet for.  Eggplant Rolls, not so much. 

I sent the recipe link to my good friend (and frequent commenter) Andy, who replied, “seems like it going to require a lot of effort and not really be worth it in the end.”  I hope he’s wrong, but I wouldn’t bet against him.

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Lagniappe: Cupid’s Cookies and Short Rib Sandwiches

Feb 17

Posted by Laura in Lagniappe | No Comments

My friend Joy sent me these pictures of cookies she made over the weekend.  How fun!  How sweet it must have been to receive a batch of those with a Valentine.   

 












I also wanted to tell you that I’ll be hunting down some beef short ribs and dragging them back to the cave soon, along with some Petit Basque.  Which can only mean one thing: Monday’s post will be about the February cover recipe of Bon Appetit… I am drooling already.

Honey, What’s for Dinner? – Part I

Feb 15

Posted by Laura in Food of Love | 4 Comments

Well, it began with Halloween.  Then suddenly, it was Thanksgiving, followed by parties every weekend until Christmas.  A week later, after New Year’s, we all considered scaling back a bit.  But nah, it was football playoff season, and somebody’s gotta do all that tailgating.  The playoffs obviously culminated in the Super Bowl, and the following weekend, just yesterday!, was Valentine’s Day. 

Whew!  We’ve been partying for a looong time.  I didn’t even mention the Chinese New Year or Mardi Gras.  Is everyone bikini-ready for Spring Break, or what?

In other news, humans are required to eat to stay alive.  Since I began this blog, the most frequently requested topic is weeknight dinner ideas.  I’ve just been too distracted with all the special events since Halloween to do anything about it… until now. 

But before we begin, I’d like to clear the air.  Contrary to popular opinion, just because I hammer out a weekly food blog does not mean that I cook a five-course dinner every night.  In fact, I am not above eating cereal for dinner.  There are days when I’d rather stab myself with an ice pick than cook, because a visit to the ER sounds less exhausting. 

And while we’re on the subject: when you invite me over, I’m not criticizing your food, I’m enjoying your company.  So please stop saying things like, “I’m sure this tastes like Alpo compared to the stuff you cook.”  Trust me, my kitchen has produced some truly revolting creations.  I’m talking inedible, straight-to-the-garbage-can type stuff.  Whatever culinary screw-ups you’ve committed, I’ve likely done it before, and with more gusto and fanfare.  I just happen to have a slight obsession with food, and lots of stories to tell on the subject. 

So, are we good now?  Can we proceed?  Great.

If you’re in charge of meals in your household, that means you have to come up with something palatable to all, interesting to some, and most importantly, non-lethal.  After all, regularly feeding your family things that will ultimately result in heart disease, diabetes, or obesity is no way to say “I love you”.

Luckily for me, I stumbled across a cookbook several years ago that became my primary muse for weeknight dinners.  It’s called Fresh & Fast: Inspired Cooking for Every Season and Every Day by Marie Simmons, and in addition to introducing me to a fuss-free way of thinking about and cooking food, it provided a zillion new ideas on things to make when time and energy are limiting factors.  Now, I’m not suggesting that you run out and buy this book.  It speaks to me, but it has a definite slant toward seafood and Mediterranean cuisine that may not interest you in the least.  But if figuring out what to cook week in and week out feels like a chore, I would suggest that you find your own muse.  It might be a magazine subscription (Cooking Light and Everyday Food are good places to start), a cookbook that makes you want to cook, or you could be all techno-savvy and find a website that inspires you.  I’ve heard there are some that will even compile your grocery shopping list, which is pretty dang cool.

So what am I cooking this week?  Well, this week marks the beginning of Lent.  For Catholics like me, that means abstaining from meat this Wednesday (Ash Wednesday) and then every Friday from now until Easter.  Luckily, I’m a flexitarian and going meatless isn’t much of a challenge.  Over the years I’ve also gradually discovered several meatless dishes that my meat-and-potatoes husband enjoys, too.  Toward the top of that list is Black Bean and Vegetable Burritos from Fresh & Fast, which is on our menu for this week. 

In our house, cooking three dishes usually gets us through the week, then we coast on leftovers and backups like sandwiches.  Most of the time, one of the three is either a hearty soup or a dinner salad.  The second is typically a traditional dinner of lean meat plus a veggie.  I intentionally cook enough meat for more than one meal (something my cousin Mary calls “planovers”), and then use the extra in a new way for the third dish.

This week, the lean meat plus veggie will be grilled chicken with fresh green beans.  I’ll chop the extra chicken for use on the dinner salad. (Die-hard meat eaters can also add it to the black bean burritos.  Demi, I’m talkin’ to you!) 

Here’s how it will go down:

Sunday night: Black bean burritos.  While I’m chopping the veggies for the burritos, I also wash and chop veggies for salad later this week and stow them in the fridge.  Prep and marinate the chicken overnight.  (I do most of the work on Sunday, to make it easier during the rest of the week.)

Monday night: Grill the chicken, and boil the green beans until crisp tender in salted water.  Drain and toss with a drizzle of olive oil, or serve with a pat of butter.  Chop the “planover” chicken before storing.  Re-use the pot from the green beans to boil eggs for salad and egg salad sandwiches later in the week.

Tuesday night: Dinner salad with grilled chicken.  I use pre-washed organic greens, and the veggies and chicken are already chopped.  No cooking – just assembly.

Wednesday night : Leftover burritos.  No cooking, no chopping.  Just reheating and serving.

Thursday night:  Because I’ll have more tortillas than I can use for the burritos, I’ll either use the chopped chicken for chicken soft tacos, or I’ll make chicken quesadillas.  Nothing fancy, just tortillas, chicken, and cheese, with salsa and sour cream on the side.  Basically reheating and serving. 

I might serve canned refried beans (I use a vegetarian brand, because I like to save my lard quota for pie crusts) and make Spanish rice with this Mahatma mix.  I do both in the microwave, which means no pots to wash.  (Have I mentioned that I loathe washing dishes?)

Friday night: Freestyle, based on what’s still left.  Perhaps the last smidge of burrito mixture on the last smidge of greens, for a southwest salad.  Anyone with tortilla fatigue can make a turkey or egg salad sandwich. 

And of course, there’s always cereal.

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In addition to being “fresh and fast”, these burritos have a comfort food satisfaction factor, and are also super nutritious.  Remember how your mom told you to “eat your colors“?  Well, they’re all here.


Black Bean and Vegetable Burritos
From Fresh & Fast by Marie Simmons

4 large (10-inch) flour tortillas
½ cup chopped onion
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable or olive oil
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon chili powder
½ cup chopped red bell pepper
½ cup chopped green bell pepper
½ cup fresh, canned, or frozen corn kernels, thawed
1 medium carrot, coarsely shredded
1 ¾ cups rinsed canned or cooked dried black beans
½ cup diced fresh or drained canned tomatoes
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh jalapeno, or more to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
½ cup coarsely shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 cup shredded romaine or iceberg lettuce
½ cup sour cream or plain yogurt
¼ cup fresh cilantro leaves (optional)

Preheat the oven (or toaster oven) to 350°F. Wrap the tortillas in foil and place in the oven until heated, about 10 minutes.  (If you’re a tortilla veteran, you may know how to heat them in the microwave without ruining them… if so, do this just before assembling.)

Meanwhile, combine the onion, garlic, and oil in a large skillet, preferably nonstick. Cook, stirring, over low heat until the vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes. Add the cumin and chili powder; cook for 30 seconds. Add the red and green pepper, corn, and carrot, and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add the beans, tomato, jalapeno, salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, until the flavors are blended, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat. Stir in the cheese.

Line up the tortillas on a flat surface, and assemble the burritos. On the off chance you’ve never made a burrito (horrors!), here’s how I do it: I smear the desired amount of sour cream directly onto the tortilla, making a line from 12 o’clock to 6 o’clock, if you will – this prevents the whole uneven dollops dilemma. Then I add a spoonful of bean mixture on top of the sour cream, then a little lettuce, and a few cilantro leaves. I leave about an inch between the 6 o’clock end of the filling and the edge of the tortilla, then I fold that edge up to make a spill-proof bottom pocket thingy. Then I fold the sides over, forming the burrito, and lay it on the plate with the seam side down.

Pass the cerveza, por favor!

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Valentine’s! Or, How to Impress a Date – Part II

Feb 8

Posted by Laura in Food of Love | 8 Comments

In the interest of full disclosure, you should know how we celebrate Valentine’s Day in our household:  we don’t.

How’s that for a bah humbug? I, personally, am ambivalent about the day. It’s laced with pressure to be romantic, which seems forced at best. That’s precisely why so many people fall prey to all that loathsome cheesy Valentine’s garbage: they aren’t feeling particular amorous, but they’ve gotta do something.   Bad move.  Valentine’s Day is to romance what New Year’s Eve is to partying like a rock star: it usually doesn’t end well.  I mean, is it really romantic if it’s required?

Matt takes it a step further.  A few weeks before every Valentine’s Day, I check in with him to make sure we’re on the same page.  Which, after nine years of marriage and knowing each other all our lives, is completely unnecessary – but it’s fun to gauge his reaction, which grows more irreverent every year.  Here’s how our conversation went this year:

Me: Hey, what do you want to do for Valentine’s Day?

Him: Pretend it doesn’t exist.

Me, laughing: Really? Because I’ll be disappointed if you don’t buy me a teddy bear with “Be” and “Mine” stitched on either paw.

Him: I have no time for crappy made-up holidays.

Ah, true love: it knows no bounds.  If Cupid himself had been standing in the room, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Matt had told him to buzz off.

Alright, so you’re not as disillusioned as we are, and you’ve got a date/significant other/spouse to impress.  The pressure’s on.  You either struck out trying to score reservations, or you’re smart enough to dodge the crowded overpriced restaurant scene (it’s second only to Mother’s Day), and you want to cook for your honey.  Trouble is, you have no idea what to make.  Read on, friend – I’m here to give you my unprofessional, disinterested take on how to impress a date for Valentine’s.  (To do this, I’ll pretend that I’m making dinner for an actual occasion, and not a “crappy made-up holiday”.)

Let’s talk menu.

Lead Role. Give some thought to what your date really enjoys to eat.  What’s their favorite cuisine and/or restaurant?  What’s the one thing they order when they really want to go all out?  This can be an entree, dessert, anything really.  Of all the ideas you’ve come up with, what do you have a shot at doing really really well?

In our house, the lead role would be a high-quality steak: either New York strip, ribeye, or filet.  I’d choose which based on my budget and what looks good at the meat counter, but odds are that the strip would win out.

Supporting Cast. You need a dish or two to complement your Lead Role, but I cannot stress this enough: Keep it simple.  Let your Lead Role be the complete and total star of the evening.  Focus on doing it amazingly well, and fill in the details with dishes that are tasty but also fairly easy and pressure-free.

In our house, this would be asparagus.  Why?  Because I can steam it in the microwave (gasp!) in less than five minutes, dress it very simply (good olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, salt and pepper), and it’s a natural pair with steak.  Plus, it’s a guilt management thing: we’re already going to need to Roto-Rooter our arteries after the steak and dessert.  Speaking of which…

Dessert. This assumes that you didn’t assign dessert to the lead role, which if you’re cooking for me, would be the way to go.  Again: Keep. It. Simple.  Choose something that you can do at least a day ahead (cheesecake, sorbet, etc.).  Or, better yet, pick up your honey’s favorite dessert from their favorite restaurant earlier in the day.  Just keep the fuss factor low, so you can focus on whom?  That’s right: the Lead Role.

If you chose dessert as your Lead Role, then pick some sort of yummy go-to entree that you can do well with your eyes closed.  Quiche, perhaps!  Or, pick up something fabulous from a restaurant that will hold up for a couple of hours, like lasagna, risotto, or even sushi.

Drinks. Champagne is a must, if your honey drinks it.  I don’t care if you hate the stuff, get some flutes and sip it gingerly and pretend you like it.  When your date isn’t looking, dump it down the drain and then feel free to make a cocktail that you actually enjoy.  (If your date knows you hate Champagne and calls you out, tell them: “I know how much you like it, so I wanted to give it another try.  It’s Valentine’s Day, after all….”)  As a Champagne lover, I can tell you two things:  a) it’s a hopelessly romantic drink, and b) nothing ruins my Champagne experience more than being the only one drinking it.  Bubbly loves company.

If your honey doesn’t do champagne, choose their favorite beverage.  I don’t care if it’s root beer, the point is that you pay enough attention to know what they love, and you took the time to make it happen.  Cocktails are an easy way to dial up the wow factor with very little fuss.  In our house, I’m the Champagne lush, but I’d be cooking for Matt, so I’d start with a Crown and water and then find the best cabernet around to serve with the steak, because that’s what teeters his totter.

Starter. This is optional, but highly recommended.  If you get in the weeds with the entree, you’ll be relieved that you had something to munch on while you work it out.  Trust me, here – I’m the queen of great intentions and botched timing.  If I’m cooking for Matt, this is going to be a really nice selection of cheeses, some he knows, some that are new, and all that pair well with his cab.  (Did you notice that all I have to do is set out the cheese?)

Now, strategy.  The basic idea is that you want your date to tell all their friends about the amazing [insert Lead Role here] you made for them.  I want Matt to brag about the steak, period.  Who cares about the asparagus?  The dessert was dessert, but man, that steak.  And the perfect cab to go with it!  It was way better than going out, he’ll say.

This is the goal.  Stay focused on the Lead Role, and do well enough with the other stuff to not detract from it.  Easier for you, and more memorable overall.

You have six days for your mission, should you choose to accept it…  Good luck.

If you’re looking for me, I’ll be celebrating the fact that we’re not celebrating.  Hopefully with a glass of Champagne.

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When it comes to steak, Matt and I are both purists.  We enjoy a thick, high-quality steak, and we don’t want any marinade or rub to get in the way – we want the flavor of the steak to sing from the mountaintops: tra-la-la!

2 steaks (strip steaks and rib-eyes should be about 1 1/2 inches thick, filet mignon should be 2 1/2 inches thick)
2 teaspoons canola oil
Kosher salt, to taste

Remove the steaks from the refrigerator two hours before cooking time. Pat them dry with paper towels (dry steaks get a better sear in the pan).

Preheat the oven to 400°F, with the rack set in the middle.

Heat a the heaviest skillet you have (preferably cast-iron) over medium-high heat, until a few drops of water sprinkled in the pan evaporate within three seconds. Coat the pan with the canola oil.

Liberally salt the steaks with kosher salt, about 3/4 teaspoon for each steak.

Place steaks in the pan and sear for 2 minutes on each side, flipping each only once with tongs.

Transfer the pan with the steaks to the oven and roast for roughly 8 to 9 minutes for 1 1/2-inch steaks to achieve medium-rare.  An instant-read thermometer should register between 125 and 130 degrees. (I actually use a probe thermometer with an alarm that sounds when it reaches the desired temperature. If you roast meats very often, I highly recommend getting one.)

Tent the steaks with aluminum foil and let rest for five to ten minutes before serving.

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Eat Food. Except This Sunday.

Feb 1

Posted by Laura in Food of Love | 18 Comments

By now, many of us have heard the seven-word guideline that sums up Michael Pollan’s influential 2008 book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.

In case you missed it, here it is:  “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Easy enough, right? Not too shocking, right?

I mean, we all know that too much food is a bad thing, even too much of the good-for-you kind. And by now, even die-hard meatatarians recognize that there are major health benefits to be gained from a diet rich in vegetables. That covers the last two phrases, and the first make the whole thing kinda catchy.

Oh, wait. Turns out that “eat food” part is the trickiest of the three.

You see, by “food”, Pollan is referring to the old-school kind of food our grandparents and great-grandparents ate. The real stuff, the way God made it. Not, as he points out, “edible food-like substances”, like processed and refined foods.

As a science dork and a home cook, I find this topic fascinating and instructive. I’ve long been a lover of whole foods – it’s part of why I love cooking – so his seven-word mantra fits right into my food philosophy.

Michael Pollan wrote an essay titled Unhappy Meals for New York Times Magazine about this topic in 2007, and while it’s long, it’s worth the read, especially if you want to gin up on the current debates in the food world without having to read tome after tome on the subject.  He also did this Q&A interview with Tara Parker-Pope (I miss you at the WSJ, Tara!) to discuss his follow up book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.

All that being said, I’m afraid I won’t be signing up as an overly fervent disciple of Pollan’s philosophy.  Oh sure, I already incorporate a lot of his insights, and I’ll continue to strive for improvements… but I’m a baker.  It’s in my blood.  I can’t… not… bake.  And what’s the longest arrow in my baker’s quiver?  All-purpose flour – quite possibly the most refined, most processed, least nutritional substance in our pantries.  And Pollan will only be able to pry my canister of flour from my cold dead hands.  So there.

My guess is that, like me, most Americans have at least one or two edible food-like substances they feel just as strongly about.  And for lots of people I know, the fake food at the top of their list is… wait for it… Velveeta.

We are six days away from a very special holiday in America: Super Bowl Sunday. The uninformed may think that this day is dedicated to football.  Slightly more insightful types may realize that it has just as much to do with catchy advertising.  But there’s a third leg on the stool of this annual fête, and that is football food.

Super Bowl Sunday is the one day a year when even the most sophisticated foodies partake in the major food groups of college-age males:  beer, chips, pizza, and Velveeta.

If you want to throw a lame Super Bowl party, serve only whole foods.  Even better, get all preachy about nutrition and the relative virtues of going organic.  Sure, I love those topics.  Part of the whole “food of love” thing includes serving the people you love food that won’t kill them.  But there’s a time and a place for everything, and in front of a flat-screen on Super Bowl Sunday is neither of those.  So this weekend, give the people what they want.

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My good friend Alyson has THE best way to knock out two of the four Super Bowl food groups: Killer Dip.  If you’re trying to behave, your best bet is to resist this stuff entirely – once you taste it, the old reptilian brain kicks in and you’re in for the long haul. The beauty of it is that it’s so easy to make.  When I asked her for the recipe, she wrote:

Glad for you to post it, everyone I know already has asked for it. The nickname came from Willie saying it was “Killer” stuff  – nobody could eat a little (like the potato chip ad, no on can eat just one).

This is so easy even college kids can make it (and many have). For about 20 years now, it has been what I am asked to bring everywhere from Christmas parties to mountains, lakes and ocean-front places.

I first had Killer Dip fifteen years ago, and I’ve honestly never been to a party with Alyson in attendance where Killer Dip was not on the menu.  You’ve been warned!

Killer Dip

1 medium onion, chopped
1 pound 80% lean ground beef
1 pound hot ground sausage
Garlic powder, to taste
2 pounds Velveeta (regular or low-fat)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can Ro-Tel tomatoes (variety depending on desired degree of heat)
Tabasco, to taste
Chips, preferably scoops

In a skillet, brown the onion, ground beef, and sausage together, sprinkling with garlic powder as it cooks. Once browned, pour off the fat.

Combine the Velveeta, mushroom soup, Ro-Tel, and Tabasco in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave until melted, stirring occasionally.

Combine the meat and cheese mixtures and serve warm with scoops. A crock pot is handy for keeping the reserves warm to refresh the serving bowl.

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