ChrizzyCooks

Grillin & chillin in Kensington & other places

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Sunday Night Dinner - The Buck Starts Here

Hey what’s up Chrizzy Nation™?!  I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday (or just a great sequence of regular days if you weren’t celebrating.. I know this web is worldwide).  I had a really nice 4-day weekend myself... made the long drive to Erie along with my wife & my dog to spend time with some of her family out there.  We’ve taken this trip the last 3 years, so I’m pretty used to the routine by now: up at 6:00am on Thanksgiving day, out the door before 7:00, hopefully in Erie by about 1:00 or 2:00pm, dinner around 3:00 (where I try not to space out too hard, thanks to the mushy quality my brain assumes after a 7 hour drive), asleep in Erie before 8:00.

Thanksgiving dinner itself was great (big shouts to Aunt Lisa... those sweet potatoes rule) and part of me feels glad to be off-the-hook for bringing food, but another part is a little bummed that I’m not rocking my own Chrizzed-up version of a turkey day dinner (Thankschrizzing?) to share with friends & family.  I’ll have to make that a post for next year.

Anyhow... whatever food gloom I was feeling about not contributing to Thursday’s feast disappeared by the time we got to Aunt Laura & Uncle Andy’s house to stay for a few days.  They’re the best.  And their freezer was overflowing with venison. 

Not long before we showed up, they collabed on a deer hunt that ended with Andy getting a 200+ lb buck with a crossbow.  We ate really good there (Andy made venison steak & eggs for breakfast, among other things), and we headed back to Philly with a cooler full of meat that I’m sure you all will be seeing plenty of over the next few weeks.  Last night was my first shot at cooking venison (ever), and I think it went pretty well.

I decided to go with a burger, since most of the meat that I took home was already ground. I knew I wanted to add some fat to it, since people always talk about how lean deer meat is.  The final mix was one pound of venison, 2-3 oz of chopped pancetta, 2 eggs, a handful of bread crumbs, salt, sage, and a couple splashes of soy sauce & balsamic vinegar.  I made 6 patties from the mix & seasoned the outside of each with salt, pepper, and ReAnimator coffee (support your local bizzys) before throwing them on the grill & topping them with Swiss cheese.  Each burger got a sesame seed bun with some arugula, whole-grain mustard, and homemade pickled veggies from last week’s insta-taco post (that’s right, Chrizzy’s on the gram now! come gimme some follows).

Side dishes were mostly handled by the one-and-only Uncle Shane: Potato wedges fried/baked in canola oil with salt, pepper, and sage.. and onion rings made with red onions battered in a mix of flour, water, beer, salt & paprika and deep-fried in canola oil.  It was all super tasty, from the main course to the condiments to the stuff on the side.  Here’s some pics to check out!

this is how the ground meat came... I have 9 more of these one-pound packs, plus a roast and a whole backstrap.  so holler at me if you’re trying to eat some deer

nothing but the beast

all of the other stuff

patty cakes

rings, burgers, wedges

whole plate, all garnished & sided up

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Wednesday Night Dinner - Purple Reign

Alright... so if there’s one trend I’m noticing in the Lancaster county produce boxes from F2F/NKCDC so far this fall, it’s purple.  I’ve gotten purple carrots, purple potatoes, purple sweet potatoes, and red beets (which are actually purple)-- and they’ve all been as delicious as they are color-coordinated.  Even today the F2F facebook page posted this interesting tidbit about purple vegetables (idk how legit RandomInterestingFacts.com is, but we’ll go with it).  All of this got me thinking: why so much purple?  

Could they be pumping this stuff with a blend of red & blue food coloring just to make it look cute?  Not from this organic farm co-op...

Could these particular veggies just be high in anthocyanins, the naturally-occurring pigment in certain plants that causes a purple hue? (Check me out, @scienceandfood) I doubt it...

Could these farmers from Lancaster be as into Prince as I am, lovingly nurturing their crops by playing #1 hits like “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and “Do Me Baby” for them from the time they’re seeds?  This... this seems much more likely.

So as I looked at all of my purple produce last night, I thought of the Purple One himself.... the man who spent the last 30+ years writing anthems that inspire the world to dance and/or make love; the man who has consistently blurred lines across music, culture and sexuality; the man who (whether he knows it or not) has been turning all of my food purple through song & sound-tracking my kitchen adventures since childhood.  I put on the “Dirty Mind” album (fully aware that re-acquainting my lovely Lancaster vegetables with their childhood lullabies could only enhance their flavor) and got to work.

First, I preheated the oven to 425°F & chopped my veggies into 1-inch-ish pieces: purple potatoes, purple sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, and garlic (I left the garlic cloves whole.... just peeled them).  I moved all of that into a glass baking dish and added salt & pepper, sage from my garden, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and red wine.  I threw the whole thing in the oven while I prepped some organic bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs by patting them dry & seasoning generously with salt, pepper, and dried oregano.  When they were ready to go, I nestled the thighs right on top of the already-roasting veggies & let the whole thing bake for about 45 minutes (the veggies were in for an hour altogether).

When all was said & done, this dinner turned out pretty much perfectly.  The skin on the thighs was extra crispy & delicious, the vegetables picked up some of the flavor from the chicken (along with the vinegar & wine), and it all combined to make a really colorful & balanced plate.  And it was all because Prince, my guardian angel, was there with me.... in spirit, in my speakers, in my food, and (as always) stuck in my head.  Before we do pictures, I’ll leave you with his words of wisdom & generally sound life advice: “Act your age, not your shoe size.”  I love you, Prince.

onions, carrots, purple potatoes & sweet potatoes, garlic, and sage

all chopped up

before the oven

after the oven

on a plate

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Weekend Dinner Flashback™ In a Flash!™ - Seoul Food

Well here’s something special.... the first-ever ChrizzyCooks double-feature combo!!  I’m putting together two of my most popular (i.e. only) ™’d segments: the Weekend Dinner Flashback™ (because I’ve been too lazy to post until now) and Chrizzy in a Flash!™ (because I’m still kinda too lazy to post as I post).  Anywayz, saddle up & strap in for this once-in-a-probably-every-now-and-then event!

My old friend Uncle Shane (not my uncle, but still an uncle nonetheless) hit me up on Sunday morning with plans for a Korean feast later in the day.  So I got myself together & we tag-teamed it over to H-Mart (an awesome supermarket with everything you could need for authentic Asian ingredients & cooking supplies... also a [mildly confusing] food court of unparalleled deliciousness-- srsly worth checking out).  From there, I basically let Shane take the driver’s seat.  He had the menu & shopping list all planned out, so I got to wander around and watch Dungeness crabs plot their eventual escape & marvel in the strangeness of geoduck clams (this kid knows what I’m talkin bout).

When we got home, I was basically prep cook for Shane’s creative vision.  Together we made Bulgogi on the grill with carrots, peppers, and onions, Korean pancakes with scallions, squid salad, and all kinds of veggies, and Ramen straight out of the box (with a sunnyside-up egg & scallions to help make it fancy).  In the end, everyone ate like crazy & there was plenty left over.  It was so0o0 good... can’t wait for next time.  Check out a quick pic!

pancake in the middle, ramens on the sides, bulgogi in the back... with a little extra dipping sauce for the pancake (also a pretty sick old weather radio from the 70s next to the salt & pep... not edible)

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Weekend Dinner Flashback™ - Takin’ It Deep

Hey everybody.... I’m a few days late on this one, but there’s no way I could pass on sharing such a great meal cooked at one of my favorite places in the world.  Last Friday night I packed my car up with tents & sleeping bags and set out for an all-bro work weekend in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania.  My good friend Uncle Shane owns a few acres of land out that way, where we cleared a little campsite and built a fire pit years ago.  It’s great... After 3 hours of highway driving from Philly, you’re on a little country road in the middle of nowhere.  Then you turn into a small clearing next to a 40-mile speed limit sign and off-road it til you find our spot.  Long story short: it’s way out (t)here.

Our 3-man crew of Uncle Shane, Jimmy Jam, and myself decided to get up there one last time and gather wood for the Spring before it gets too cold.  With plans for a big work day on Saturday, we knew that a long-cooked, super hearty meal was the only way to go.  So on Friday night we gathered supplies...  besides lots of beer & snacks, we grabbed a whole pork shoulder, potatoes, carrots, kale, onions, garlic, rosemary, lemon, and chicken stock-- all the fixins for a seriously satisfying stew-type-thing.

Early on Saturday morning I prepped the pork by drying it off & trimming any excess fat.  Then I seasoned it heavily with salt, pepper, paprika, and cumin.  I got my 16″ cast-iron pan super hot on the charcoal grill and added some vegetable oil before throwing in the whole shoulder & searing it.  While I took care of that, Jimmy Jam flexed his culinary muscles & prepped a beautiful cast-iron dutch oven filled with all of the non-pork stuff we had bought.  He & Uncle Shane also worked on getting a nice fire started inside the enormous pig-roasting grill that stays on the property (we cooked a whole pig on this thing for my bachelor party a few months ago, which is a flashback post for another time... it’ll be a good one).

Jimmy put a thin layer of veggies & herbs on the bottom of another cast-iron dutch oven (thin only because the pork wouldn’t fit otherwise), and I squeezed the seared shoulder in there with some pushing & shoving.  We added chicken stock & some water to both pots and nestled them into the pig-roaster right next to the fire.  Then, we chainsawed down trees & carried wheel barrows full of logs up to the campsite all day.  Ok, maybe not ALL day... there was a good bit of beer drinking & joking & hanging like bros do in the woods, but we put in some serious work.  We’d check the fire & add wood every now & then, and by the time we were done working & ready to eat, it was dark.  We all got giddy when Jimmy tried to give the pork a stir and it just fell apart-- this food cooked for close to 10 hours, and it wouldn’t have been nearly as good if we half-assed it.  From Central PA straight into your computer screen, check out some pics of a meal prepared & enjoyed outdoors, at a place very close to my heart:

pork in the mornin’

getting that sear

god damn, Jim Jam.  Hey Food & Wine, need a new cover photo?

hot fire

probably after about 5 hours... focus could have been better on this photo, but it’s the only shot of the pork in the pot (at least I got a shot of the pork in the pot... amirite or am i not?)

not the prettiest shot of the final product... but we were roughing it, right?  finally ate around 10:00pm, and my only light source was a head lamp.  tasted 10000000x better than this pic looks

BONUS - leftovers transformation!  we stopped at Uncle Shane’s uncle’s house on the way out & made some pulled pork sandwiches with yellow rice on the side.  think pulled pork minus all the sweet barbeque b.s., plus all the tasty flavors of a fall stew.  holy crap.

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Thursday Night Dinner - No Trouble in Lil China

Heyyyyyy ppl... Chrizzy here, pumped to share a srsly fresh & delicious meal I made last night with a major assist from NKCDC & Farm to Families.  As some of you might know by now, the F2F produce box pickup is on Thursdays... so Thursday nights in the Chrizzy household always have potential for a heck of a dinner, and last night was no exception.

As I looked through all of the glorious produce in my Lancaster Farm Fresh Co-op box, an obvious theme for dinner jumped out at me.  I saw bok choy.  I saw broccoli. I saw bell peppers.  I saw Kurt Russel, fearlessly tearing down the mean streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown in a big rig, doing battle with ancient sorcerers and kicking every ass in sight.  OK, so maybe I’ve been watching too many 80s movies...  What I’m trying to say is, my box ingredients inspired me to do something Chinese for dinner.

I started by chopping a bunch of vegetables: bok choy & broccoli from this week’s box, bell peppers & green beans from prior weeks’ boxes, and some onion, carrots, and garlic that were hanging out in the fridge.  I put all of that aside and prepped 4 chicken thighs by cutting them into 1-inch pieces & hitting them with salt, pepper, and flour.  Then I got some toasted sesame oil hot in my HUGE (16″) cast iron skillet and browned the chicken for about 5 minutes.

After that I added all of my veggies (except the tops of the bok choy) and covered & cooked for 5-10 minutes, until stuff started to soften.  I took the lid off and added soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, sriracha, and a little juice from a mandarin orange.  I threw in the bok choy tops, gave everything a stir, and covered it again while I made white rice on the side.  Once everything was done, I threw it all together in a bowl and garnished with sesame seeds before serving.  It tasted so0o0o good.  Check out some pics!

farm fresh yall

this is cool... I cut off the bottom of the bok coy and the cross-section looks like a white rose or something.  <3 nature

veggies chopped (notice I kept the bok choy tops separate... they cook a lot more quickly than the rest)

chicken getting browned

n 2 gether now (what’s that? I didn’t hear you)

plated up, all pretty

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Monday Night Dinner - Gettin Chili

Hey yall.... if you’re more of a T-Boz or Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopez fan, this recipe might not be your thing.  But if you always kinda had a crush on that girl in the middle, the one with the silky-smooth soprano who dated Usher for a little bit in the 90s.... this is the recipe for you!  So don’t go chasin’ waterfalls, cuz I’ve got the perfect recipe for you to stuff your face with on a cold day (especially if you’re feeling unpretty & need a lil pick-me-up).  It’s chili!

So I had the day off from work yesterday, and the first thing I realized when I woke up was how cold it was.  The second thing I realized was that my house looked like a bomb hit it, and the fridge was pretty much empty.  So, I left the dog swaddled up in blankets on the couch and set off to Trader Joe’s for ingredients to make a low maintenance cold-weather meal.  I figured I’d take my new crock-pot for a spin and get 2 birds stoned at once... start the chili in the slow cooker early and get to work on cleaning up the hell hole that my home had become.

I started by chopping up 4 slices of bacon & frying them in my cast iron skillet.  I moved the bacon into the crock-pot with a slotted spoon, and then browned the beef in bacon fat.  Once the beef was browned, I also moved it over and sauteed some garlic and Lancaster county bell peppers & onions (thanks F2F!) in the beef/bacon fat.  When the onions started to brown around the edges, I added tomato paste & some spices to the pan and let everything get a deep rusty color.  I deglazed with a little bit of red wine and water, and added the whole mixture to the crock-pot.

Then came the motherload:  I added about a million different ingredients to what was already in there (a can of diced tomatoes, some fire-roasted salsa, white beans, kidney beans, more wine, water, salt, pepper, oregano, chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, berbere).  I set it on high for a few hours, then bumped it down to low until I couldn’t clean my house anymore.  I made white rice and cornbread on the side... nothing fancy-- just the Trader Joe’s cornbread mix in a box-- but I baked it in the same cast iron I used to sautee the bacon, beef, and veggies earlier. Mmmmmmm.  In the end, I served it up with a handful of tasty toppings and reaped the benefits of a slow-cooked meal after a long, chilly day.  Check out some pix!

ingredients

pretty produce

beef browning

veggies w/ tomato paste & spices

cornbread

chili w/ all the fixins... chopped fresh sage, plain yogurt from Seven Stars Farm in Phoenixville (thanks again, F2F!), 1000-day gouda cheese from Trader Joe’s (highly recommended), and tortilla chips for crushing on top

the whole shebang!

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Chrizzy in a Flash! - Cauliflower a la the Franks

Hey team..... it’s been a while!  Sorry I fell off for a bit there, but I’m back again to share some funky recipes & ideas featuring local & delicious food.

Let me take a second to talk about the Franks.  Frank Falcinelli and Frank Castronovo are the chef/owners of Frankies Spuntino in New York.  They’re also the coolest guys around (not that I actually know them or anything... I’ve just been obsessing over them for a while now).  They’re 40-something-year-old Dead heads who travel the world in search of the best ingredients (like olives from 600-year-old olive trees in Sicily for their own brand of olive oil).  They make new friends everywhere and cook for people along the way, and it’s all documented in their cool lil youtube series, Being Frank.  Man, I want to be these guys when I grow up....

So I got the Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion and Cooking Manual recently, and figured I’d put it to work for a Chrizzy post.  A lot of the recipes in it are super simple, and this one is a great example of that.  I got a really nice head of cauliflower from Lancaster county in my F2F box last week, so I roasted it up just like the Franks say: with lots of salt & pepper and olive oil, in a 350 degree oven for 50 minutes.  That’s it.  And it was great.... check it:

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Saturday Night Dinner - Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Hey!  So I’ve been thinking about getting into character for my Halloween costume this year, and I figured ChrizzyCooks is the perfect place to practice.  Here it goes...

“Hey there food nation!  We’re ROLLIN OUT to ChrizzyCooks here in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, where local legend Chrizzy is crankin’ out no-nonsense meals that pack a home-cooked punch.  Whether it’s slamma-jamma fresh produce or KILLER meats from area farmers, this guy is sending everybody in sight on a one way trip to Flavor-town!!” (Can you guess who I’m gonna be? It’s gonna be outta bounds.)

OK, now that that’s out of the way let’s talk about the tasty meal that I whipped up on Saturday night:

I kinda lounged around most of the day Saturday-- wondering where to go, what to do, etc. when I decided to walk the dog down to Greensgrow Farms for some wholesome family fun.  If you’re not up on Greensgrow, check them out... they’re the urban farm right in Fishtown that has all kinds of stuff-- their own CSA, a community kitchen, a nursery for all your houseplant needs, and a few little freezer cases with meats, cheeses, and various spreads & condiments from local producers.  From one of these cases I grabbed myself a 3-4 pound young chicken from a local farm in Princeton, NJ, and set out to try something I’ve never done before.... a beer can chicken.

Now.. what kind of beer was I going to use?  It had to be something in a can, preferably something crafty & local.  So I went to the distributor and the new Victory Headwaters cans caught my eye.  I’ve always liked this beer but didn’t know they made it in a can, and the new design (a drawing of a nature scene in the shape of a hop) was super cute.  I grabbed a case and proceeded to read about Victory’s Headwaters Grant, which takes a percentage of the money made from selling their beer and gives it to local advocacy groups working to protect clean water sources in PA.  Local beer supporting local groups supporting the cleanest possible local water?  Oh this beer is SO going in this chicken’s butt....

I got home & prepped a mostly F2F salad with red leaf lettuce, carrots, green beans, and golden radishes (I added some beautiful cherry tomatoes later, straight out of the garden of my main man, Jimmy Jam).  My dressing started with a little leftover bacon fat from the fridge, which was mixed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, minced garlic, salt, pepper, and sage.  All of that stuff got put aside while I worked on the rest of the meal: some roasted “all red” potatoes (again compliments of F2F) with onions & garlic, and of course my chicken.  I made a dry rub with salt, pepper, adobo, onion powder, smoked paprika, and a little bit of berbere, and covered the whole chicken with it (inside & out).  I added some fresh thyme & sage from my garden, and slipped a whole lemon’s worth of slices underneath the skin.  I drank about half a can of Headwaters and propped the chicken up on it.  It cooked for about an hour on my grill, getting the old honey-and-whole-grain-mustard brush in the last 5-10 mins of cooking.

Everything turned out great, and the Headwaters flowed abundantly, which only slightly affected my ability to document this meal.  I got a handful of good pics, but forgot to get the final ‘everything together on a plate’ shot.  Oh well, I hope you enjoy this post as much as I enjoyed eating it!

salad in the making

salad made

prettiest lil potatoes i ever did see

new headwaters logo

chicken before (notice the headwaters peeking out)

chicken after (notice the headwaters still peeking out)

roasted potatoes with garlic & onion (and TONS of olive oil, salt & pepper, and fresh herbs)

chicken all broken down... the end!

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Thursday Night Dinner - Chrizzy goes Chinese

A wise man once said, “Chickadee China, the Chinese chicken.  You have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin’....” 

I deeply pondered this age-old adage as I peered into the contents of this week’s F2F box of Lancaster fresh produce.  Red bell peppers and broccoli were staring me in the face, and I still had bok choy, carrots, and golden radishes from last week’s pickup.  I thought to myself, “I can definitely make a Chinese-food-type-dish here... but if a drumstick from Chinese chicken causes your brain to STOP ticking, I better go with pork instead.”  My dinner inspiration had fully materialized, and I set out to make it happen.

First I stopped to see my buds at Garrison’s grocery store, who are always good for fresh quality meats.  I grabbed myself a very reasonably priced pack of center-cut pork chops and quickly GTFO’d.  Then, I headed home & proceeded to prep my veggies.  I diced the carrots, radishes, and bottom parts of the bok choy into about 1/2-inch pieces, but I kept the broccoli and bell peppers a bit larger and chopped the tops of the bok choy just a few times.  I never really worked with bok choy before-- I was surprised by the mustardy flavor (especially in the tops), but it ended up working really nicely with everything else.

After getting all of my veggies chopped & ready to go, I cut my pork chops into cubes and seasoned them with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and sesame seeds.  I got a little sesame oil raging hot in my wok and threw the pork in first, constantly stirring to cook the pink out of each little piece.  After a couple minutes I threw all of my veggies in except the tops of the bok choy and stir-fried some more.  I added soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, and sriracha, along with the tops of the bok choy eventually, and let everything cook together for another couple minutes.  I made some white rice on the side, and garnished the whole dish with some more sesame seeds and a little bit of the carrot tops.  (I probably wouldn’t use the carrot tops again with this recipe.... not because I don’t like them, or have anything against the pop-culture icon, but because they just didn’t really fit in this dish, although they helped make it look pretty.)

Without further ado, here’s last night’s dinner:

F2F does it again... prettiest veggies around

chop chop chop

pork chops cubed & seasoned

wok n roll

l%kin g%d

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Tuesday Night Dinner - Paleo Round 2

Yo dawgs... Chrizzy’s back on the grind, making weekday meals for everyone to read about & enjoy.  I was heading to a show on Tuesday night at Jeremy Brendan’s, so I threw together a pretty quick meal on the grill.  I went with organic boneless/skinless chicken thighs (they cook more quickly with no bone) and a couple of veggies.  No rice, no pasta, etc.... not because I’m starting to do crossfit competitions, brah..... but just because I didn’t feel like dealing with boiling water and extra pots & pans in a time-crunchy situation.  A man’s got social obligations....

I used a red bell pepper and some Lancaster county delicata squash from 2-weeks-ago’s F2F box (fall is just around the corner, I’m prepping to get srsly squashed).  I’ve never worked with this squash before, but I learned a few things: It has a thick skin and is pretty hardy, so it kept really well in my fridge until I finally got around to cooking it.  When I first cut them open, I expected something more like the summer squashes I’ve been getting... but I realized pretty quickly that it’s formatted more like a winter squash.  I thought about scooping out the seeds, but I just rolled with it & cut them into 1 inch-ish rounds.  They actually turned out really nice on the grill with a little char on the outside, soft & slightly sweet flesh on the inside, and toasted seeds (kinda like pumpkin seeds) in the middle.  Near the end of cooking, I brushed them with a mixture of honey & whole-grain mustard and hit them with salt, pepper, and fresh sage.

The chicken was seasoned with Goya Adobo, onion powder, salt, pepper, and some more sage from my lil garden.  When the thighs were almost done on the grill, I added a bit of lemon juice to my honey/mustard mixture and brushed it onto the chicken to brighten up the flavor.  Here’s how it all looked:

bell pepper sandwich w/ delicata squash bread (not actually a sandwich, just veggies)

you’ve officially been chopped ‘n’ screwed 

charred hard

almost there...

all plated up

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Friday Night Dinner - I’ll Tumblr For Ya

Hey sup Chrizzy Nation???? I hope you guys kept it real all weekend (and thru this week so far).  I was running around a little bit, and mostly ate food prepared by other people (looking at you, Loco Pez and Zaccone’s)... but I made sure to cook at least one real deal meal to get my weekend started.  I had all the fixins for a taco/burrito-type-thang that I meant to cook during the week, but didn’t get around to until Friday night.  Here’s how it went down:

I got my chimney starter going with some charcoal.  Let me take a second to get charcoaly here.... I’ve been using Trader Joe’s all natural hardwood briquettes, which are prettyyyyy prettttyy prettttty pretty good, if you ask me.   I’m all about hardwood charcoal, but the smaller pieces always fall through my bottom grates and I end up losing a lot of heat. The cool thing about TJ’s hardwood briquettes is that they combine the flavor/long-burning goodness of hardwood lump charcoal with the convenient & more regular shape of a briquette.  It burns forever, doesn’t fall through the bottom of my grill, and is cheaper than the normal stuff (no, they don’t pay me for this... sup TJ’s?).

Anyway, once my grill was hot I threw some lemon, tomato, onion, and bell pepper on there to get a good char on everything.  Then, I threw my cast iron skillet directly on the grill with olive oil and browned some ground turkey (I tried to take pictures of this but it was getting dark & they’re weird looking).  I added some soy chorizo, kidney beans, rosemary, black pepper, and Goya Adobo (if you don’t have some, get some) to the skillet and let simmer for a while, covered in the grill.  I chopped up the charred peppers & onions and added them right into the skillet mixture, and saved the grilled lemon & tomatoes as toppings.  A little white rice on the side, tortillas underneath, some Stevie B blasting from my neighbor’s house, and a lovely Friday night dinner was underway....

burn  baby burn, chrizzy inferno

delicious & nutritious

red kidney beans, soyrizo, rosemary, and adobo w/ black pepper

taco toppers

plated up (sorry for the not-so-fancy plate)

BONUS next day breakfast - a riff on huevos rancheros, with two toasted tortillas underneath, my burrito/taco mixture, rice, and 2 fried eggs, topped with some shredded cheese & sriracha

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Chrizzy in a Flash! - My Web Browser Crashed

Hey yall.... I had a super hilarious & witty & detailed entry ready to go just a minute ago, but my stupid Firefox crashed (why am I using Firefox, you ask?  I don’t fucking know).  So now, instead of all that, you get the 2nd ever Chrizzy in a Flash!™ post!

Basically, I made a pizza 2 nights ago.  It featured some great local stuff from Farm to Families and some not-so-local stuff from my recent Trader Joe’s binge (documented in the 1st CIAF!™ post).  It was cooked on the grill and topped with red kale, red onion, chicken sausage, balsamic vinegar, tomato sauce, shredded mozzarella, and Roquefort blue cheese.  More detailed entries coming again soon, I promise!  In the meantime, check it:

red kale from F2F

pizza

close-up

bonus sky pic cuz it looked pretty

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Chrizzy in a Flash! - Breezy & Cheezy

Hey every1.... Here’s a new little feature called “Chrizzy in a Flash!”, where I make a super brief entry about something I either didn’t do much actual prep/cooking for, or just didn’t take the time to document well enough for a big-boi post.

My sister asked me to bring pepperoni & cheese to her Labor Day weekend BBQ, so I went H.A.M. at Trader Joe’s & prepared a funky lil charcuterie & cheese board instead.  Everything is from TJ’s, except the 2 small jars of jam in the back (from the Kitchen Kettle Village in Intercourse, PA) and the blueberry agrodolce right next to the jams (lovingly prepared by my good friend & culinary powerhouse, Jimmy Jam).

Enjoy!

if you’re wondering about my meat/cheese/cracker/condiment choices, holler at ur boi

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Thursday Night Dinner - Back to Normal

Heyyyy here I am again, getting back into the swing of this thing.  I stopped to see my F2F homies on the way home from work yesterday (long time/no see)  & picked up a large box filled with some great Lancaster fresh produce.  As I gazed into the lil soul of each delicious-looking fruit & veggie, I got my dinner inspiration.

So, I made a run to Garrison’s Market in Fishtown to grab a couple chicken breasts.  (If you don’t already know, Garrison’s is an awesome place to buy fresh & inexpensive meats in the neighborhood.  There’s also Garrison’s Garage across the street if your car needs some lovin’.  Big shouts to the Garrisons-- very good dudes!  Also shouts to the older lady who’s always hanging around the store & is probably the mayor of Gordon Street-- srsly love her.)

Once I got back home, I seasoned my chicken breasts and threw them on the grill along with red tomatoes, red onion, red bell pepper, and white peaches (seriously peaches? thanks for being “different” I guess).  Everything that wasn’t a piece of chicken got good & charred before being blended into a sauce with fresh garlic, thyme, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and salt & pepper.  I made a little rice on the side & the rest is history.  Check it:

so pretty

sliced & diced

getting that char

voila!

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Weekend Dinner Flashback - Chrizzy Got Married OMG

Chrizzy here!  Sorry I haven’t been around for a while. (I bet you assumed this blog was just some kind of weird 2-week-long-young/middle-life-crisis thing that I would quickly get over and soon forget..... BUT GUESS AGAIN)

What happened is... I got married!  That’s right ladies, watch yourselves when you’re using my new Ask Chrizzy Anything feature cuz Mrs. Chrizzy can not only render you hypnotized with her good looks & charming personality, but she’ll also kick your ass if you step to her man. (love u boo <3)

We had the best wedding day/weekend anyone could ask for, with tons of friends & family out in the woods of Central PA near the Appalachian Trail.  I meant to take some pics of the food, which I didn’t cook (shouts to my man Fabio who did cook), but I was kinda busy, you know?  (If you didn’t click on that first Fabio link, you should.  But also click on this one, which is the actual Fabio who catered my wedding & is a great guy.)

Once we got through the craziness of the wedding, it was back to regular life and a weird week of no grocery shopping & eating various forms of shitty takeout.  Then last weekend we set out for Tunkhannock, in the Endless Mountains of northeastern PA, for a mini-honeymoon thang.  For anyone wondering how to pronounce Tunkhannock, here’s a helpful video:

OK so maybe that wasn’t very helpful, but at least it’s kind of entertaining.  Even more entertaining is the fact that this person’s youtube channel has uploaded over 7000 “How to Say or Pronounce USA Cities” videos, in which the city’s name may or may not be pronounced correctly.  Each video sports the same robot voice singing a song with lyrics that always follow this format: “name of City & State (x2)... ‘A great place to visit’... name of City & State”.

Despite youtube user Jesse Smith’s very low standards for “great places to visit” (that guy thinks everywhere is a great place to visit), Tunkhannock really was great.  It was quiet.  We were on a lake.  There were some cute shops & restaurants & wineries & breweries to check out.  But maybe most importantly (at least for the purposes of this blog), there was a Saturday morning farmer’s market and a grill on the deck of our cottage.  Here’s what I made for me & my lovely wife:

fresh corn, red bell peppers, and yellow peaches (all from the Tunkhannock Farmer’s Market)

chicken on the grill from Quails-R-Us-Plus, who had a stand at the farmer’s market (seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, fresh rosemary & thyme)

peaches & peppers on the grill

honey (from the beekeeper’s daughter) & lemon (from the really nice woman working the lemonade stand at the market) were whisked together & brushed on the chicken a few mins before taking off the grill

view from the deck

final product

BONUS-- next day leftovers/breakfast hash.  Grilled chicken cut off the bone & cubed with fresh potatoes, bell peppers, onion, garlic, corn, thyme, and rosemary, topped with 2 farm-fresh eggs, ketchup & and english muffin.  Whenever I decide to start selling my dishes to people, this one will be called “The Chicken or The Egg...... or the Hash?!!?”

Stay chill yall... I’ll be back soon & more regularly with more posts.  First F2F pickup in 2 weeks is today... can’t wait to get back on my grind 4real.

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Thursday Night Dinner - Chrizzy Goes Vegan

Heyoooo I’m a day late on this one, but here it is!

My boo & I invited some friends over for dinner on Thursday.  One of those friends is vegan, so it was a good excuse to make a rock n roll meal highlighting all of the great veggies we’ve been getting.  I knew I was gonna do black bean & soyrizo tacos, but I left the veggies a surprise until the last minute... Thursday is Farm to Families box pickup, and they srsly hooked it up this week.  

Is anyone else swimming in tomatoes right now? My neighbor gave me a bunch (shouts to Roberto), my coworker gave me a bunch (shouts to Pam), and Lancaster county is pumpin em out like crazy (shouts to F2F).  I counted before I started cooking and I had 13 tomatoes in my house. (should have taken a pic of that... that woulda been cute... I’m still new at this......)

Whatevs... Let’s get herbivorous (and a little fake meaty) yall:

most of this became salsa... cubanelle pepper, red bell pepper, red onions, heirloom tomato, and corn (all from Lancaster via F2F)

salsa (I think a couple of Pam’s tomatoes made it in there too... and a trader joe’s avocado)

mirepoix for the taco filling

taco stuff... red onion, cubanelle & red bell peppers, soyrizo, and black beans. sauteed in olive oil & moistened with whatever beer I was drinking

grillin’s thrillin

final spread

[chrizzycooks-blog]

Tuesday Night Dinner - Dinner Goin’ Up on a Tuesday

Hey yall..... Chrizzy’s back with another food attack!  Last night’s dinner felt more like Sunday than Tuesday, featuring not only a real meat-and-potatoes main course, but also a super fresh & delicious salad compliments of my weekly produce box from Farm to Families.

The pork tenderloin wasn’t organic or anything special-- just a parting gift from my dad when I visited my parents last Friday.  Here’s the continuing cycle that happens at Chrizzy’s parents’ house: 1. Dad buys an egregious amount of food “because it’s on sale” and freezes it for later consumption.  2. The food stays in the freezer for a while & Mom starts to ask, “Why do we have all of this food in the freezer? ”  3. Chrizzy shows up and Dad says “Hey son, your mom’s starting to get on me about all that food in the freezer, how about you take some.”  4.  I oblige, helping Dad to get back into Mom’s good graces.

So, with the help of my parents and my neighborhood budz at NKCDC & Farm to Families here is the delicious feast that I put together last night:

yukon gold potatoes from lancaster county via F2F

cubanelle peppers from the same place

pork (seasoned with salt, pepper, onion powder, and fresh sage from the garden). I mixed together balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and grainy mustard (top right) to spread over the pork before putting it on the grill

meat & potatoes

mmmmmmmmm

F2F exclusive salad with red leaf lettuce, cubanelle peppers, and red tomatoes from last week’s box (I made simple a mustard, balsamic, and olive oil vinaigrette to vibe with the pork)

all together now