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All My Junk — In One Place

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Ingredients

• 4 cups water, divided
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
• 1/2 teaspoon whole cloves 6 bone-in, skinless chicken breasts
• 3 ancho chiles (dried poblano peppers)
• 2 large jalapenos, halved
• 1 large onion, quartered
• 2 Roma tomatoes, halved and seeded
• 2 whole garlic cloves
• 1/1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
• 1/4 cup olive oil, divided
• 1 large bunch cilantro leaves, plus more for garnish
• corn tortillas, kept warm
• 1 limes, cut into wedges
• 1 avocados, halved,  and sliced
• 1 red onion, thinly sliced

Directions

In a medium saucepan, combine 3 cups of water, salt, sugar, bay leaf, peppercorns, and cloves.  Bring to a boil on medium heat, stirring gently.  Once the sugar and salt have dissolved, remove from heat and let it cool.  Transfer to a bowl and add the chicken and leave it covered in the fridge for 2 hours or more.

Bring the remaining cups of water to a boil.  Put the anchos into a bowl and add the boiling water.  Make sure the peppers stay fully submerged for around 20 minutes.  Once they’re soft, remove the stems.

Preheat oven to 400F and on a pan, combine the jalepenos, onion, tomatoes, garlic and cumin with 2tbsp olive oil.  Throw some salt and pepper on there and then roast them in the oven till caramelized for about 20 minutes.  Transfer the roasted vegis and the softened chilis and another 2tbsp of olive oil into some sort of food processor…we used our kitchen aid.  Add cilantro and another 2tbsp olive oil once it starts getting smooth.

Remove the chicken from the fridge and dry it off with paper towels.  Put the chicken into a pyrex baking dish and cover it with the mole sauce and bake covered for about 55 minutes.  Remove from oven and take the chicken out of the dish.  When it has cooled enough to touch it, shred it up and add it back to the sauce.  Mix.  Put on a tortilla.  Garnish.  Enjoy.

Mmmmmm mole chicken… btw, I’m pretty sure it’s pronounced Mole-ee not Mole-a.  Feel free to disprove me in the comments.

This is, without a doubt, one of our first homemade recipes. We knew we wanted to make a lasagna, mostly because Holly got a new lasagna pan for Christmas. The reason this came about is that she really REALLY wanted to make sushi tonight and I wanted pasta…so….. seafood lasagna.

Here’s how it works:

1lb shredded mozzarella cheese
1lb assorted seafood stuff. Our came with shrimp, crab, calamari, and other fun stuff….
1 jar alfredo sauce
lasagna noodles. We used wheat noodles.

First off, boil the noodles down 3 by 3 at a time til they’re sticky and soft, but not totally cooked…There was a heated debate on how cooked they should be…so heated in fact, Holly’s mom was called…she said al dente…blah blah blah

Mix the seafood mix in with the sauce and chop up it up a bit. Lay down a layer of seafood/alfredo mix, then cheese, then soft noodle, then mix, then cheese, then noodle. We also topped it off with more cheese after the last set of noodles, but that’s because we like cheese…?

Once the noodles are done, and mind you we made this with a Chicago Lasagna Trio Pan, set the oven to 350F and put it in for 35 minutes.

Came out much better than the ones we made back in January.  Used hard tacos this time which made a huge difference.  Also yellow rice with vegis.

1lb ground 93/7 turkey

1 big ass tomato

shredded lettuce

your choice of cheese

half an onion

taco season to taste

Brown that turkey meat til there’s not pink…grey…left.  Drain when done and then add the taco mix and half a cup of water.  Let that mix around for a bit then add the diced onion.  Right about now is a good time to put those taco shells in the oven at 350F for about 5 minutes.

Make ‘em how ya like ‘em. I like meat, then cheese (so it melts), then lettuce and tomato…oh and Cholula…best hot sauce in the world.

Eat ‘em up, om nom nom.

~Ben

So like I said back in June, I wanted to send a bottle of my homemade strawberry hooch to the fellers at Diggnation.  So I did.  And here’s the label I made for it.  Hope they like it. Or not. Hope they at least have fun with the miles of bubble wrap I wrapped it in!

Cheers!

Hoping Hollys Eagles win tonight so my Saints can stomp them next week. The pizza is the best we’ve made so far. Mostly organic. White sauce, white onions, mushrooms, flank steak, and thin wheat crust. Yum.

6 months later…here we are. This has been the toughest batch yet.  To start, strawberry seeds aren’t exactly easy to filter out of mash.  And second, sometime last week, my carboy decided to crack and leak about 1/2 a gallon of wine.  Lucky for me, I keep my carboy in the the primary barrel.

So here’s what I’ve learned this time around.

• Clarifying agents are awesome.
• Adding an extra tsp of wine tannin to this batch really brought out it’s color.
• I’m using white wine bottles to bottle this batch.  I recycle used wine bottles, and it seems that for some reason unknown to me, it’s much easier to peel wine labels from white wine bottles than red wine bottles.
• BUY AN AUTO-SYPHONER.
• While the auto-syphoner works well when racking, I still have to manually syphon to bottle.  This means contamination from the mouth.  I’ve found the best way to battle bacteria and such is to drink and gargle vodka before you make the syphon.
• Putting corks in hot water makes it easier to cork the bottles.
• Grow your thumbnails long. This helps to scrape labels off of recycled bottles.  Also, buy lots of steel wool.
• Did I mention drink vodka?  Wait, what was I talking about?

So here it is in all it’s glory.  Count them. 29. 29 BOTTLES OF WINE MWA HA HA HA!   Did I mention vodka? Oh wait…I mean wine.  Strawberry at that.

The only thing I’ve been slacking on is a label.  I’m up for suggestions.  Submit them if you want.  I’ll give you credit.  My photoshop Paintbrush skills are lacking.  If you send me the winning label, I’ll credit you on it and send you a bottle, if the ATTB don’t catch me.

To submit your label ideas, send them to benwoody@gmail.com

Also, I think i’m going to be a big shot and submit this to Diggnation and Wine Library TV….just ’cause I can.

Here’s to you.

Cheers….

~Ben