Outback Style Parmesan Cream Sauce Pasta With Chicken Breast

     This Parmesan Cream Sauce Pasta dish was a favorite at Outback Steakhouse.  My  preparation has some variations, but is a lot like The OB style.  I used angel hair spaghetti because its what I had.  It worked fine, but at OB Steakhouse a thin fettucine was used.  
     The biggest difference with my dish is the lack of special Outback spices which are used on all the OB Steakhouse food.  Those spice recipes are carefully guarded bits of information, and are made outside of the restaurant, delivered with the other specialty Outback Steakhouse food products.  
     All in all this recipe tastes a lot like the pasta I used to prepare at OB Steakhouse, though at Outback the 1/2 chicken breast was placed whole on the bed of fettucine.  Shrimp on the Barbie (5 skewered Jumbo Shrimp spiced and buttered) could be subbed for the chicken breast.
     This dish really is quite simple. I pre-cook the pasta and the chicken breast.  If the breast is not sliced hot it can be heated slightly before placing on the pasta.  
     Next I use a steel wok over mesquite coals to sautee about 2 tablespoons of finely chopped onion, 2 tablespoons finely chopped jalapeno pepper, 1 small clove of finely chopped garlic, and a large sliced mushroom in butter.  I use 2 tablespoons or so of butter, and care must be taken to keep from scorching it.  Toss often through the cooking process.
     When the sauteed veggies are browned I add about 2 cups of heavy whipping cream, and 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, tossing well in the wok.  I let this mix cook until it bubbles nicely throughout.  
     I then put the sliced chicken breast on the bed of pasta and pour the sauce over the whole thing, spicing with salt and black pepper if desired.
     When done right the parmesan melts into the cream and bonds together with it, forming a thick and exceptionally tasty parmesan sauce base, flavored by the browned sauteed vegetables and the butter.  
     Serve with Italian rolls or garlic bread, and a chopped beet leaf salad with tomato and italian dressing.

 

 

MJ Banana Nut Bread

     This is the first Marijuana Banana Nut Bread in the outdoor oven.  It has a real kik2it, which is nice.  Love you long time baby.

     When I trim the flowers from my plants I dry the trimmings well, then soak them in distilled water for 24 hours.  The resin is not water soluble and this treatment takes out the chlorophyll and about half the mass once the wet weed is dried again and powdered with fine screens.  It is a concentrating action, really.  Cooking is a great use for this type of plant product.

     I came across my medical marijuana seeds in a random way, the seeds are from the first flowers off commercial seeds who did the hermaphrodite thing and pollinated themselves 10 years or so ago.  There was some freezer time.  My stuff flowers mostly female but is prone to popping male flowers.

    The strains I have include Diesel, White Widow, Blueberry, and their  crosses which some people call Puck Yeah.  There are some low odor varieties too, and at first I was alarmed by those, but they do the euphoria trick just fine.  Some have quite a high THC content in fact, they just don't smell or taste strongly.  Later I found out these are favored for edibles.  

     I was kind of proud of tmy  MJBN loaf because I deviated somewhat on the batter construction method the book recommended, plus I use dried eggs and dried milk.  I have found that except for some rare instances a good stirring with my bamboo stick, I mean a GOOD stirring, is what most batters and breads benefit from most.  Billy Hobart.  Most breads get kneaded well after the good stirring/mixing too.

    This was the first time the new brick beehive oven was fired up to cook with.  I also did three pizzas.  I took it easy with the 2 banana breads I did, including the one with MJ in it, and they both came out very edible.  The nuts were walnut crushed up by hand.  I am needing to work on the browning of the tops, and I am working on it.  I baked until I could poke a straw in with no clinging batter, about 20 minutes.  

     I started with a small mesquite twig fire in the oven and maintained a flame as I went.  I wanted to really monitor the progress of everything I was doing, and I learned a lot.  Of primary importance I learned that monitoring is necessary.

    This Marijuana Banana Nut Loaf was done in a round, greased, iron frying pan.  The pan was a little too big for the batch of batter, but was still ok, and maybe worked best, seeing as it was my first time and all.  I will look for regular sized loaf pans in the future.  

     I also used a steel oven screen under my iron cookware, which was not as important as it will be when the oven is at top temperature, but it still kept bottoms from burning.  My cookware is either iron or steel, no aluminum because it wears easily into powder in any abrasive situation and can create toxicity which is never really addressed or even realized.

     Once the brick oven gets heated it stays heated for a while and it can get real hot too, 800 degrees or more.  It is best to get an early start on a clear day and make the oven hot with a larger fire, using it for different things as it cools.  The last two hours or so can be used to slow cook covered dish meals.  

     I have a door, and/or clay brick barriers for the opening of this oven, and I am still playing with all that.  A lot of heat is trapped in the upper area of the oven, so brick platforms inside will be used soon to see what  wondrous changes will be wrought.  Or not.  I will report progress as it happens.

 

 

 

Fire Pizza

      I use my round cast iron flat griddle a lot.  When I make pizza on the grill I use it to make a flat bread, pushing the yeast dough out after the first rising/knockdown, then cooking both sides well on the flat griddle before adding sauce and cheese.   Make sure both sides of the flatbread are browned well and then put the side down you want to brown into a good crust, and quickly add tomato sauce and cheese to the top.  You are using the flat griddle to make a flat bread which is then turned into a pizza with the addition of the other ingredients.

      I try to mae do with basic ingredients when I can, and the cans they pile up, so instead of using canned ingredients for a sauce I just quick fry some thin tomato slices with thin onion and pepper slices in olive oil, adding any seasonings at that time like oregano.  I put this homemade pizza "sauce" on the flatbread pizza crust, then I sprinkle on parmesan cheese.

Campfire Bread And Yeast Bread Base Video On Youtube

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghbjW1DW-d4

 

 

Southwest Tuna Melt Video On Youtube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ktOVZ-UsYc

 

 

Thorn Fire Bakery Grill Youtube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-vYE-UhJjm9hanM2DTSaCA 

 

 

 

 

 

How To Make Easy Bamboo Cooking Tongs

 

These were made from some bamboo I salvaged from a curtain bought at a craft store.  I never used the curtain because all the string holding the pieces together was bad.  I felt fortunate I did not spend a lot of time on a project using the bamboo as a curtain, and THEN find out the string was bad.

I put two flats together, and wired the top tightly, so it looked kind of like a whole branch of bamboo.  Then I pushed a rock into the V formed by opening the two pieces, making sure it went as far toward the wired end as possible.  Then I used heat shrink tubing to hold it altogether.  These are some of my handiest tools at the grill.