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kitchengeeking's Profile

Website: http://redneckmuppet.blogspot.com

Location: Charleston, WV

About: I read cookbooks like other people read novels. I also firmly believe that swine is fine, and that "geeking" is a verb with positive connotations.

Favorite foods:

Last bite on earth:

The Ten Most Recent Posts By kitchengeeking

From Talk

Anaheim, Calif., Restaurants Needed (non-Disney)

WV to Anaheim, CA and back in three days. Disney restaurants aside, where can I eat good restaurant meals in and around Anaheim, CA? Is there a little Diner tucked between a couple Interstates somewhere? Where's the best seafood shack with fried goodness?

I know there will be Disney-related restaurants I can find, but I'm looking for other spots.

The Ten Most Recent Comments By kitchengeeking

From Recipes

Essentials: Collard Greens

I have to say this is one of the few times I would recommend against bacon...I can't believe I just typed that.

Here's what I mean though. Go buy a smoked ham hock or two. Keep them in your freezer. When you get the hankerin' for this recipe, sub ham hocks for the bacon.

Used the bacon to wrap whatever you're serving the greens with.

I also go with broth over water always, and use thyme as a spice, no pepper flakes or chipotle (ugh, really, first time I've looked at a Serious Eats recipe and thought "what are they doing to this food.")

From A Hamburger Today

Lack of In-N-Out in NYC Almost Scuttled Met's Signing

My adventure was 3,000 miles. And it was definitely worth it!

From Eating Out

I Drove 40 Miles for a Taco

I flew close to 3,000 miles for my tacqueria adventures. And was it ever worth it. Until my trip to SoCal, I had never eaten a 'real' taco in my life.

But when you see two Mexicans sitting on folding chairs holding cardboard signs that read "$1 Tacos" at the entrance to a strip mall with a tacqueria that has a party tent set up in front...you pull in to the lot and eat there.

And when cabeza and tongue are choices, you simply say, "I'd like one of each with everything." That means one asada, one chorizo, one al pastor (spit roast pork), one tongue, and one cabeza (mmmmm, say it with me now...beef head taco). A little onion, a little cilantro, and a couple teaspoons of sauce. Heaven

From Eating Out

Brooklyn's Red Hook Soccer Taco Vendors Get Six-Year Permit

I must go here. I must compare to the tacquerias of Anaheim. Mmmmm, goat burritos and cabeza tacos. Mmmmm, beef's tongue tacos for a buck. Damn that trip to Disney really was the magical kingdon...of food.

From Required Eating

What's the Best Mac and Cheese Cheese?

and eventually i'll add spell-checker as well

From Required Eating

What's the Best Mac and Cheese Cheese?

Cheddar, Gruyere (or Fontina), and Paremesean (usually around 40/40/20) for the roux/sauce, then a mix of 50/50 cheddar/parmesean for the topping. Why use bread crumbs when you can use more cheese.

As for bacon, why not. Bacon makes everything better. If you have moral opposition to swine and are coming to my house...well, 1) You're coming to the wrong house, but 2) My solution would probably be to make two 9x13 trays, one with and one without.

From Required Eating

For an Edible Container, Try Bacon Bowls

oh, chez. you know what the next lazy man's supper will be? macaroni and cheese in bacon cups!

From Required Eating

Cook the Book: Win a Copy of 'Cook with Jamie'

My mother let me mix 'potions' when I was little. The wet or dry ingredients that needed mixing and stirring or sifting. Then I graduated to sous chef veggie chopper.

After that, it was self-taught by watching, and reading, and trying everything new that I could.

From Required Eating

Des Moines' Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival

I can't be there, and it REALLY hurts!!!!

From Required Eating

Cook the Book: 'The Tex-Mex Cookbook'

we always have the redneck (i live there, i am one sometimes, it's okay) queso with breakfast sausage and ground beef in velveeta. scoff at your own peril.

Responses to Comments by kitchengeeking

From Recipes

Essentials: Collard Greens

Definitely need to add lots of vinegar and smoked neckbones to that recipe.

From Recipes

Essentials: Collard Greens

My earliest food memory is sitting in the kitchen while my grandmother made her collards greens...with salt pork, onion, vinegar and chile peppers. As a professional chef, I have made them using smoked ham hocks, a prosciutto bone, smoked turkey wings and even smoked tofu....

From Recipes

Essentials: Collard Greens

I try to find a smoked ham shank rather than a hock or two. However, I fry a little bacon first and cook some onions and garlic in the bacon grease. I agree with blueskyman re the pre-cooking of the hocks and/or the shanks. Collards, by the way, are what fed the Confederate troops during the civil war.

From Recipes

Essentials: Collard Greens

Bacon would be okay, ham hocks better, but I have to say that smoked turkey legs are the best. Just last week I used them in collards for the first time. Same great smokiness, but much more delicious meat to pick off the bone and return to the pot of cooked greens.

I feel the 20-30 minutes cooking time in this recipe is misleading. Collards are the toughest green out there. I like them to be as tender as lightly sauteed spinach, and in my experience that always takes simmering the collards for 60 minutes or more. Cook them to your taste, of course, but certainly don't give up at 30 minutes.

If you like them, I highly recommend growing collard greens yourself. The plants are vigorous, productive, frost-resistant, and attractive. I live in upstate New York. I planted eight plants and I can't eat 'em fast enough.

From Recipes

Essentials: Collard Greens

@ Pammeh: Collards are a specific plant in the cabbage family. I've never seen them in any of the Asian or Indian markets I go to, even though I bet they'd make a great kimchee and my favorite way of preparing collards is haak, a Kashmiri dish.

From Recipes

Essentials: Collard Greens

Sorry if this is a stupid question but...are collards always a specific type of vegetable? Is it the "collard" plant? I ask because I'm used to eating a bazillion leafy, steamy green plants that I don't know the name of that we get from the Asian supermarket, and I just wanted to know whether collards are a category or a species. :)

From Recipes

Essentials: Collard Greens

@blueskyman--Yeah, no bacon here, either, it's ham hocks, baby. We simmer the ham hock way before adding the greens, too. And we add a sploosh of apple cider vinegar. Other wise, basically the same as Robin's.

From Recipes

Essentials: Collard Greens

I like to get the ham hock in the simmering water at least 30 or 40 minutes before the greens to make a kind of ham broth to cook them in. Don't forget the splash of hot pepper vinegar on the cooked greens for a little zip.

From Recipes

Essentials: Collard Greens

I adore slow-cooked collards. Another sub for bacon is a smoked turkey wing--throw it in with the water you've simmered it in and then shred the meat. I also always pitch in a spoonful of sugar and a hit of balsamic vinegar. Sounds weird, but it works (lord, the pot liquor...).

From Recipes

Essentials: Collard Greens

Blackeyed peas, hamhock and collard soup.......make myself sick eating until I bust....