Cheater Chef

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Mon, 09 Mar 2009 02:00:13 -0700

Pimped Up Poverty

I figured it was time to loosen things up a bit so here's a really cool rice bowl I whipped up from stuff in the fridge. Boiled chicken, turnip greens, green onions, some stock. How foodie cool am I.

Min makes us piles of perfect brown rice in 22 minute blasts in an electric pressur...

Cheater Chef | Home

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:34:59 -0800

Eat Irish Soup. Not Much Corned Beef. Mostly Roots.

Pimped-Up Poverty on a Plate is our latest jag thanks to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of Omnivore�s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. His plea to �Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants� is especially timely.

Recessions are great for snapping us out of our collective cons...

Cheater Chef | Home

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:45:51 -0800

Hard Wood

Fire is about the best thing ever. Here�s Red Snapper and some lemon and onion slices over Tennessee hickory.

...

Cheater Chef Stories

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:24:10 -0800

Salumi Crash Course

Time for a crash course in the latest old world/cool new food trend just off the boat and available pretty much everywhere you shop or eat. The word is salumi. It�s Italian for cured meats and a simple answer to several dining dilemmas like:

What to serve before the lasagna?
...

Cheater Chef Stories

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:25:08 -0800

Let the Braising Begin

Chef Dean Robb of Watermark and The Miro District in Nashville knows how to cheat at home. He has to. He�s still the cook when friends and family come over to hang out. �I love braising because it lets me enjoy my own party and that�s the way I like it.� Nice cheating, Chef!

Br...

Cheater Chef Stories

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:17:01 -0800

Pudding Out for Valentine�s

We love the last minute, clich�d Valentine gift as much as anyone. But, that�s not gonna cut it this year. For �09, it might be time to actually put out. It might be the Year of the Little Things.

Pot de cr�me. That is a cool little thing. �Chocolate pudding� in French serv...

Cheater Chef Stories

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:24:46 -0800

Crock Stock

I have a love-hate relationship with canned broth. I want to like it and the convenience. I tried the canned stock vs. broth. Why does it all taste like salty water? So why don't we all make stock at home? I'll tell you why--because it seems like such a messy big deal. It's so much easier to ju...

Cheater Chef Stories

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:42:39 -0800

Cold Water Oysters in Fresh Snow

Rhode Island in December. Cold water, cold oysters, cold lobsters, cold Prosecco. More than just a break from the warm water gulf shellfish available in Nashville, we got a break from the $25/dozen that restaurant oysters are bringing. At a buck a Narragansett Bay oyster from Champlin's Sea...

Cheater Chef Stories

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:20:38 -0800

Take Our Liquid Smoke Survey

You probably know that the recipes in our new cookbook Cheater BBQ often use quite a bit of liquid smoke. And we suppose it�s no secret that we like the stuff. While writing and promoting the book, we�ve been astonished by the wide range of opinions about this common seasoning.<...

Cheater Chef Stories

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:54:20 -0800

Gel Out for Thanksgiving

I�m big on cranberries. Isn�t it just too good to be true to have a vivid red fruit in season just when we need it most? Whether chopped up raw in a relish or simmered in sugar water (I like both methods equally well) my sweet-tart cranberries usually find themselves in a big, colorful fru...

Cheater Chef Stories

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:21:49 -0800

Critics Keep Us Going

Well, it�s finally happened. We�ve earned our first one star review on the Cheater BBQ Amazon page. Our reviewer �Julia Child �Chef Extraordinaire�� was disappointed that our methods were too simple.

Bingo! She got it! We�ve always said that anyone looking for something more complic...

Cheater Chef Stories

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 12:47:40 -0700

Slow Cooker Savvy

People ask us all the time about our slow cookers, what we like, what they should buy. In the old days about the only choice you had was how big do you want it�most were round and held about 4 quarts. R.B. even has a vintage avocado green model where the crock insert doesn�t even slide out...

Cheater Chef Stories

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:09:51 -0700

Cornbread and Cast Iron Star at the Chili Cook-Off

Since cornbread is such a touchstone in southern cooking, I�ve become wary of all the smug foodie chit chat about the perfect historic recipe and debates over where to find such a specimen in an area restaurant. Boring.

Instead, I�m elated to find people actually enjoying good corn...

Cheater Chef Stories

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 09:53:55 -0700

Stock is the New Broth

Something is going on in the supermarket soup aisle; it�s been cheffed.

Take chicken broth for example, remember when Swanson and a regional brand or two (always called broth) were all we could get? Chefs made stock, we home cooks used canned broth for everything�soups, rice, g...

Cheater Chef Stories

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 19:36:56 -0700

Fordhooked

As a test kitchen home eccie, I get a big kick out of back of the box recipes. Some are just so weird; it�s hard to imagine the thought behind them. For example, here�s the first serving suggestion on the back of a bag of Publix frozen Fordhook lima beans:

�Cook with pork chops, ketchu...