The Missus is working today, so it’s time for a guilty pleasure.
As usual, I made ham hocks and black-eyed peas for New Year’s dinner. I cook the beans and ham hocks in a slow cooker until the meat and fat are falling off of the bones; then remove the ham hocks, remove the bones, skin, and fat from them, shred the meat, and put the meat back into the pot. The bones get tossed in the trash. But look at all that skin and fat!
The skin and fat, seasoned with salt, went into a cast-iron frying pan and into a 360º oven. Soon I’ll have nice, crispy, fat-gooey ‘cracklings’ to snack on. Totally unhealthy, and Mrs. L.A. would be disgusted and appalled. But they’re my guilty pleasure. Besides, the pan could use some more seasoning anyway.
My weakness is for dairy foods. Milk, cheese, heavy cream, ice cream, sour cream, you name it! I know they’re plugging my bowels and hardening my arteries, but I simply can’t resist them!
I used to love eating fatty meat, but can’t handle it the way I could just 20 years ago. Getting old sucks! :mad:
For the most part, you can keep everything but the cheese. (For me, milk is an ingredient.) But I could probably eat a pound of cheeses at a sitting. Well, maybe not a pound; but a goodly amount. I love cheese.
When I was a kid my parents belonged to a card club. When they’d host, my mom would make a chip dip that I really liked. I remember waking up the next morning and watching cartoons and chowing down on leftovers while they slept.
Once a year I whip up a batch around the holidays. Have some in the fridge at the moment. It’s nothing fancy, she probably got the recipe of the side of a Lipton onion soup mix box. Roughly one third sour cream, one third cream cheese and one third cottage cheese seasoned with onion soup mix.
Now I eat it with tortilla chips instead of potato chips.
I occasionally make osso bucco with veal or pork shanks (haven’t tried it with beef or lamb yet). I always dig out the marrow and stir it into the sauce. Yum!
My daughter complained recently (after 20 years) that I don’t cook “healthy” dishes she can eat. Sorry, kid, but I’m not giving up my beef Stroganov and chicken paprikash for anybody!
Hamburger sandwiches. Ground beef, cooked with onions and garlic, salt and pepper. White toast. Mayonnaise. Slice of Kraft “cheeze”. Delicious. Trashy. Yummy.
Is chicken paprikash ‘unhealthy’? I was gifted with a huge container of Hungarian paprika and was sort of looking for a recipe, and the ones I’ve seen don’t look like they’d kill us.
(OMG, I just saw the Velveeta/Rotel hot cheese dip commercial on tv! A relative made this with fried drained breakfast sausage and jalapenos, and THAT seems REALLY unhealthy, but we polished it all off with Tostitos Scoops).
Only in that it contains a considerable amount of sour cream. I suppose you could leave it out, or maybe even substitute yogurt for it, but I wouldn’t want to.
I also saute the onions and paprika in lard, just like my great-grandma Matkevich back in Austria-Hungary did.
Mine isn’t really that decadent but just something I enjoy usually just for myself… and I’ll be looking forward to it in a couple of days.
We will be making steak and baked potatoes for the kids tomorrow before they head back to college. I make a little extra steak and make sure I just eat the middle of my potato. Then the next day I’ll slice the leftover steak and quickly toss it in a pan with some Worcestershire. Pop the potato skin in the microwave for a few seconds. Dump the steak into the potato shell and cover it with a packet of veggie blend in cheese sauce (carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and cheese)… that was also nuked.
Makes a great leftover lunch. Not that horrible but not something I’d normally serve to anyone else and something I really look forward to.
nachos. I use the cup style corn chip with a jalapeno slice and a black olive all covered in cheese. The resulting snack dipped in sour cream and washed down with ginger beer.
