Tag Archives: Cook wit Da Fat Man

Cooking with Fat Man- Ethnic Style

I’ve been messing around in the kitchen a lot lately, trying to recreate some of the recipes of my youth.

Specifically my grandmothers cooking. Among the many things that she made that I loved:

Cousa Mihishi- Stuffed zucchini. I have fond memories of all of my aunts and grandmother sitting around a table on a Friday afternoon hollowing out squash with a vegetable peeler. Into the squash when a mixture of rice, ground beef, chopped onions and spices. Delish- I’m going to take a shot at this over the weekend, assuming my spice powder makes it in from Amazon.

Kibbeh-Man did I love these tasty stuffed pastries. I would love to make it but I have to find bulgur wheat.  I think the co-op sells it but I’m not quite sure. Basically you soak the wheat, make a paste with it, surround a handful of meat with pine nuts and spices; allspice, cinnamon and cardamom. Then.. fry’m up. lot of work but well worth it, especially when you dip them in baba ganoush and home made hummus.

Which I will also make.

Lebanese rice- which is rice with green lentils added, more like green lentils with rice added actually, served with a yogurt sauce with fresh chopped tomatoes and cucumbers. Add some Za’atar for flavor.

Finally something my Mother perfected..

Green peas with carrots or bazella-

This is an easy one- Frozen bags of peas and carrots. 1lb ground beef seasoned with allspice and cinnamon. Lebanese lovee their cinnamon in the beef. Chopped onion and can of basil tomato sauce.

This weekend I’ll working on most of these. Those that work I’ll pass along the recipe.

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Shamless Plug- Chef Earl’s BBQ

The Fat Man here doesn’t usually plug food from other folks, but in this case I’m going to make an exception.
Thursday’s from May to October Nicollet Mall in MPLS becomes a mile long farmers market. Actually, it’s really grown over the years and now, between the normal farmers market stuff, the several food trucks, crafty stuff, political booths, musicians, performers, and street preachers (My favorite today the guy screaming the gospel wearing a “Cover Your Breasts” hat, I mean come on, who’s offending who here”), not to mention 1000′s of office workers, tourists and Twins fans it’s quite the sensual and tactical affair.
And I usually like to drop a few quid on some veggies while I’m there, especially later in the season when you’re actually buying stuff from Minnesota.

Anyway, I happened to stop while working my way thought the crowd in front of a booth where a certain Chef Earl happened to be selling a line of BBQ Sauces. This weekend at the lake I’m doing up ribs on the BBQ, daughters been asking. Sad thing is no one is going to be there, and I do make some good ribs.

Anyway, BBQ sauce was on my mind when I happened to find myself face to face with Chef Earl, turns out he’s not only a good cook, he’s a good salesman as well. Before I had a chance to say no I was tasting his many sauces:
Sweet Hickory, Golden Honey Hickory, Mesquite D Lite, Somewhat Spicy, Stupid Hot, That’s Hot and Extreme.

Holy cow, they were excellent, way better than store bought and waaaay better than the stuff I’ve been making this summer. Wayy.
Personal favorite- Stupid Hot. Sweet, tangy, not particularly hot to be honest but for Minnesota standards, it had a bit of kick. The balance of flavors was what had me hooked. Awesome.
I bought a bottle of the Sweet Hickory and will be using it on the ribs this weekend EXCEPT.. kids found it and tried on the burgers I made for dinner tonight. Might need to get another bottle, they drained about a 1/3 of it they liked it so much.
I suggested that they just skip the meat and pour it into a glass over ice. Might have done it too had I now intervened.

I don’t know the story behind Chef Earl… need to learn more. I do know that ffor the moment the only place you can get this stuff is directly from him, either contact him or hit one the Farmers Markets.
There is a website and maybe someday soon you’ll be able to order from there.
Remember, Sank only plugs what he himself loves.

Here ya go-

http://www.chefearlsbbq.com/

BTW, looks like they’re just getting started and there is no contact info on the website yet. More to come I’m sure.

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