Sweet Plantain

You may have seen this dish called "platanos" or "platanos maduros". Platanos means plantain, but maduros means mature. This is because the plantain are very ripe, maybe even over ripe when you make this dish. Don't be fooled for recipes that call for sugar, yellow plantains, cooked correctly are sweet enough to serve for dessert. 

Ingredients

2 yellow plantain

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp oil

Cut plaintains in half lengthwise.

Cut plantain pieces into smaller pieces.

If I'm cooking other components of the dinner I put the plantains in a bowl and cover with a damp paper towel to keep it from going brown. 

When you're ready to fry heat oil and butter in a frying pan until the butter is bubbling. Add in plantain.

Cook each side for about 4 minutes on medium heat, turning each piece around every so often to make sure it's not burning. The sugar in the plantain can be so sweet, or burn so bad.

When the plantain is browned on both sides remove from pan carefully as they will be so tender and fragile. It's best to use a spatula to remove from oil.

Serve warm. Feeds 4

American Style Bacon

Bacon and eggs are the classic American breakfast. First you make this, then you make our recipe for perfect scrambled eggs. Put those two together and the result is a very satisfied tummy.  That little teaspoon of oil is the difference between uneven amateur bacon, and perfect restaurant style American bacon. While bacon is usually made from side and back cuts of pork, in the United States, it is almost always prepared from the belly of the pig ( and is thus referred to as "streaky", "fatty", or "American style" outside of the US and Canada).

Ingredients

1/4 lb bacon
1 teaspoon oil

Put the teaspoon of oil in a spacious frying pan and set the heat to medium high.

Lay your bacon out flat. Now cut it in half for easier handling in the hot pan.

When oil is HOT add in bacon one piece at a time, be sure to not overcrowd the pan, there should be one layer of bacon in the pan. Overlapping pieces make for chewy uncooked sections of fat in the bacon.

As bacon sizzles, flip over pieces as the underside gets brown and crispy.

When bacon is a lovely brown all over, remove from oil and place on paper towels to drain.

Serve warm, feeds two people but I could easily eat all that bacon myself.

A popular quote on the mania around American bacon follows:

"There is: bacon ice cream; bacon-infused vodka; deep-fried bacon; chocolate-dipped bacon; bacon-wrapped hot dogs filled with cheese; brioche bread pudding smothered in bacon sauce; hard-boiled eggs coated in mayonnaise encased in bacon — called, appropriately, the 'heart attack snack'; bacon salt; bacon doughnuts, cupcakes and cookies; bacon mints; 'baconnaise', which Jon Stewart described as 'for people who want to get heart disease but are too lazy to actually make bacon'; Wendy's 'Baconnator' — six strips of bacon mounded atop a half-pound cheeseburger — which sold 25 million in its first eight weeks; and the outlandish 'bacon explosion' — a barbecued meat brick composed of 2 pounds of bacon wrapped around 2 pounds of sausage."

— Arun Gupta

Perfect Easiest Scrambled Eggs

Everyone likes their scrambled eggs a certain way, this recipe is flexible enough for any way you like your eggs...but will still come out pefectly cooked every single time. Give this a try, they go well with our recipe for American style Bacon

Ingredients
6 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash of black pepper or red (cayenne) pepper
2 tbsp butter (or oil, or bacon fat)

Crack eggs carefully into a bowl. Check for and remove eggshell pieces before breaking egg yolks.

Add in salt and pepper. Grate onion over egg mixture.
Use a whisk or fork to beat eggs until the yolks are broken and mostly combined into one yellow mixture.

Heat butter, oil, or bacon fat in a pan on medium.

Add in eggs, continuously stirring so the bottom of the pan does not cook too fast. This is why I used a deeper saucepan.

At first mixture will look ugly as little pieces of cooked egg are stirred into the raw egg.

Keep stirring. Then= eggs will get thicker, resembling cottage cheese but tasting much better. Now turn your heat to low if you like your eggs drier, and off if you like your eggs more moist.

Continue to stir eggs using the residual heat from the pan until your eggs are at the "dryness" you prefer. They will always be prefectly creamy and delicious using this method.

Serves 3

Deli Bodega Style Bagel

If you want a soft yet crispy toasted bagel like the kind they sell at the expensive New York City delis try this.

Ingredients

2 bagels
Filling of choice, I like cream cheese

Cut good quality bagel in half.

Place on pan or aluminum foil and place in oven.

Set oven to 375, when oven is done preheating, check bagels.
If your bagels are not as toasty as you would like cook for another 3 minutes.
Remove from oven and spread with cream cheese, or whatever you love to eat between two pieces of bread.

Enjoy! Makes 2 bagels

**Alternative Cooking Method**

Place bagels in cold oven. Set oven to broil and check every 2 minutes until bagels are brown and toasty. Continue on as above with spreading the filling

Simple Foods For A Picnic

Beverages

Homemade Lemonade
Ahhhhh.... lemonade in a jar...so thirst quenching...so easy.
Bring a cup of sugar and a cup of water to a boil, take off heat and add a cup of lemon juice. Now just add enough water to dilute to your liking (3 to 4 cups is usually best), or half water half ice into a jar. Stir or shake it up well, and keep very very cold until picnic time.

Entrees

Classic Sandwich
Get a huge baguette or french loaf, cut down the middle horizontally. Now layer the inside with your favorite meats and cheeses, some good examples are ham, pork, turkey, chicken, or even lobster. Add some thinly sliced onion and tomato, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Now close everything up and cut into smaller sandwiches, for ease of eating during picnic time.

Fried Chicken
So delicious hot or cold. If you want to go real old school American then Fried Chicken is the way to go. We have a great recipe for delicious crispy juicy fried chicken here.

Picnic Deviled Eggs

Ingredients

6 eggs
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp sweet pickle relish
salt and pepper to taste
paprika for garnish

1. Boil eggs until hard-boiled. Set aside in ice until cool enough to handle.
2. Peel eggs and slice in half lengthwise, scoop out yellow yolk and add to a bowl.
3. To the bowl with the yolks, add the mayonnaise, mustard, relish, salt, and pepper.
4. Combine until very smooth.
5. Scoop or use a pastry bag to fill the empty "cups" of the egg whites.
6. Dust with paprika and serve!

Serves 6 people.

This dish can easily be complimented with our other Simple Picnic Foods recipes.

Favorite Fried Chicken

I personally prefer the shake method to the egg and flour dredge method when I'm breading chicken. It's easier and the chicken comes out perfectly coated every single time. Try it next time if you usually dip chicken in flour, then egg, then flour again. This is an award winning fried chicken recipe handed down through the generations of an otherwise very private family.

Ingredients

2 lbs chicken pieces

2 cups milk

2 tbsp vinegar

2 1/2 cups of flour

salt and pepper to taste

cayenne (optional) to taste