Put This In Your Mouth

Dog Food Fit for a College Student!

2010-06-10T15:34:00.001-07:00

June 8, 2010:

A very special day in the lives of two sassy mamas:

Pepper Ann Kullerd,

and Sally Jane Kullerd.

To celebrate these lovely ladies' 8th birthdays, the PTiYM crew and I decided to make some dog-friendly birthday cupcakes. Even though dogs will eat pretty much anything that you put in front of them, we thought we should do something they would probably like.

Like meat.

After some experimentation, we applied a semi-traditional meatloaf approach, combined with a little Shepherd's Pie to create:

BIRTHDAY MEAT CUPCAKES!!!

2-6 strips of bacon (depending on your level of BacoLove)

2 lbs. ground meat (we used lean ground sirloin; any ground meat will work)

1 egg

Breadcrumbs/chips/crackers

2 T ketchup

2 T mustard

1/2 onion, diced

1 stalk celery, diced

3-5 cloves garlic, minced

3-5 mushrooms, diced

2 jalapeños, seeded & diced

Dried Basil

Salt & Pepper

2 large potatoes

Milk

White Cheddar or Mexican melting cheese (e.g., Oaxaca)

Butter

Salt & Pepper

0) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F and get a large pot of water boiling.

1) Cook the bacon until brown and crispy over medium heat. Remove the strips to a plate lined with paper towels, reserving the rendered bacon fat.

2) Heat the fat on medium-high and sauté the diced onions and celery for a few minutes until they begin to soften.

3) Add the mushrooms and jalapeños (optional) and continue cooking for a few more minutes until everything is soft, beginning to brown and reduced in size.

4) Add the garlic and cook for another minute or two. Remove vegetables from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

5) Place the ground beef in a large mixing bowl. Using your hands, create a well in the middle of the meat and crack the egg into the well.

6) Add the ketchup, mustard and seasonings to the well.

7) Once the bacon is cool, crumble it into small pieces (larger pieces will be more noticeable and provide more texture, while smaller pieces will mean more little morsels of bacon through the dish) and drop into the well.

8) Once the sauteed vegetables have cooled, add them to the bowl as well.

9) Add the breadcrumbs, crushed chips or crushed crackers to the bowl and mix to combine. Using your hands works best here, but the more you handle the meat, the tougher and drier your cupcakes will be, so mix just to combine and then STOP!

10) Using nonstick cooking spray, melted butter or olive/vegetable oil, grease a cupcake pan and fill each cupcake well with the meat mixture. Bake for 15-25 minutes until the meat cupcakes brown and begin to shrink, separating from the sides of the pan.

11) Salt the boiling pot of water.

11) Drop the 2 large potatoes (cubed) into the boiling water and cook until done. The best method I know to check boiled potatoes for doneness is to pick a piece out of the water with tongs or a slotted spoon and stab with a sharp knife or fork. If the potato is hard to stab and clings to the utensil without falling off, the potatoes need to cook longer. If the potato crumbles and falls off, they are OVERDONE. If the potato gives easily to the knife or fork and slides off easily back into the water, the potatoes are PERFECT!

12) Once the potatoes are all cooked, strain them into a colander and return the cooked potatoes to the pot.

13) Add a large splash of milk, some butter, salt, pepper and the cheese (optional) to the potatoes and mash with potato masher or hand mixer. Add milk and butter until the potatoes are smooth, light and fluffy. Add salt to taste.

14) Using a pastry bag with a fancy star tip or just a couple of spoons, pipe or scoop the mashed potatoes on top of each meat cupcake, like frosting.

15) Set your oven to Broil at the hottest temperature (usually 500 degrees F or so) and place the "frosted" cupcakes so that the tops are a few inches away from the top heating element. Allow cupcakes to broil for 5 minutes or so to brown the top of the potatoes. You won't regret this step, I promise.

TAH DAH! You have now made Birthday Meat Cupcakes! If you want, write a little message in the potato frosting with some ketchup in a squeezable bottle, or if you want to get really fancy, put the ketchup in a ziploc bag, seal it up and cut off the tiniest bit of plastic from one corner, using the ziploc as a piping bag, which will allow you to write pretty messages on top.

ENJOY!

Texas Flavor in Chicago

2009-08-05T18:12:00.000-07:00

As a recent graduate of the University of Texas at Austin currently residing in Chicago and a former producer for "Put This In Your Mouth" I find myself craving the great Tex-Mex tastes of Austin. Don't get me wrong, the people of Chicago have already perfected several of my favorite dishes (pizza, hot dogs, Italian beef just to name a few). When the local Taco Bell won't get the job done I turn to the great world wide web in search of some Texas flavor. Luckily for me, some of my favorite dishes from down south have lovingly put recipes (or adaptations of recipes) on the internet for my consumption. In particular, one of my favorite restaurants to visit in Austin is Matt's El Rancho on South Lamar. If you are looking for copious amounts of deliciously creamy cheese, some spicy green chilies and rich avocados then this will keep you satisfied for days. It's called Bob Armstrong Dip and it has been a staple of Matt's for years. Enjoy!

Image courtesy of Dishola.

Check out the recipe here!

One More...

2009-04-29T13:20:00.001-07:00

One more, just for fun...

TerraBurger - Put This in Your Mouth from Ben Kullerd on Vimeo.

Some Old Episodes

2009-04-29T12:59:00.001-07:00

I noticed we'd been missing some old episodes from our blog, and I just got a Vimeo account, so I thought I'd post a few and see how they work. Some of them look a little squished...I need to figure out how to get around that.

São Paulo's - Put This in Your Mouth from Ben Kullerd on Vimeo.

Cookie Lounge - Put This in Your Mouth from Ben Kullerd on Vimeo.

El Greco - Put This in Your Mouth from Ben Kullerd on Vimeo.

And, just for the fun of it, our Sounds of the Kitchen video - Jason, Caitlin and I filmed this video for our documentary class. The footage is edited in-camera - all with the record button, no invasive software necessary - and Jason composed music from kitchen sound samples.

Sounds of the Kitchen from Ben Kullerd on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

Guest Recipe: Renée's Now Famous "Some-Kinda-Pasta"

2009-02-12T10:52:00.000-08:00

The following is a guest recipe from PTIYM's foreign corespondent Renée Stairs, an RTF undergrad studying abroad in Paris, France. Check out her blog at http://franglaisparis.blogspot.com/.

So in my attempt to spend less than 60 euro before the end of the month, I made some pasta from pretty much everything I could find in my kitchen. Ommitting the oranges. It goes a little something like this...

Some-Kinda-Pasta

Ingredients

Macaroni pasta
Water
Olive oil
One garlic clove
Dried basil
Crème fraîche
Tomato paste
Water
Salt
Pepper or mystery polish spice from kitchen
A teeny tiny bit of sugar

Directions
Start noodles first and cook for specified amount of time.

Meanwhile, in a separate pan, heat olive oil until crackly. Add roughly chopped garlic and cook until golden brown and tasty. Add some basil flakes and fry them a little bit. Add some crème fraîche, a bit of tomato paste, just so the sauce looks pink. Add a little water to thin the sauce out then season to taste with salt, pepper/mystery polish spice, a tiny pinch of sugar and some more basil flakes. Pour that shit on the drained pasta and enjoy! Serve with off brand cola out of champagne flutes for extra class.

PTIYM's Caitlin Lundin Interviews Morgan Spurlock

2009-02-12T10:19:00.000-08:00

Last semester, PTIYM Staffer Caitlin Lundin interviewed documentarian Morgan Spurlock for Austin Underground's sister show, Sneak Peak. Here's the clip!

A Most Delicious Deli

2009-02-11T12:20:00.000-08:00

Here's another package we did at Fricano's deli. They have really delicious pesto!

You can find out more about Fricano's Deli by visiting its website at www.fricanosdeli.com

South Austin Sno

2009-02-11T12:14:00.000-08:00

Here's an episode we did at South Austin Sno, a wonderful stand off of Heather and Lamar.

Simple Asian Stir Fry

2009-02-11T11:46:00.000-08:00

This past monday, the PTIYM staff filmed it's first cooking segment. I decided to demonstrate the execution of simple chicken stir fry. It turned out (insert adjective here). Here's the segment.

And here's the recipe, if you couldn't follow anything I said (which easily might have happened).

Simple Asian Stir Fry:

What You'll Need:

1 Red Onion

2 Carrots

1 Green Bell Pepper

1 lb Chicken Breast

Vegetable Oil

Red Pepper Flakes

1 tablespoon of Minced Garlic

Salt

Pepper

3/4 Cup Water

1 Cup of Teriyaki Sauce

1 tablespoon Corn Starch

How You're Gonna Do It

Step 1. Prep all of the vegetables. In particular, julienne the onions and bell pepper, while cutting the carrots into quarter size pieces. Set the prepped veggies aside.

Step 2. Slice the chicken breast into thin, 1 inch strips. It may help to butterfly the chicken breast before cutting it into strips (depending on how thick the breast is). Place the cut chicken into a bowl and add some salt, pepper, and and a bit of Teriyaki sauce for a light marinade.

Step 3. While the chicken sits in its delicious juices, turn a stovetop on to medium (or medium-high) heat. Apply oil to a large, non-stick saute pan, and set on the heated stove, adding red pepper flakes as the oil heats. When the pan is sufficiently hot, add the garlic and cook till browned.

Step 4. After the garlic has browned in the oil, dump the cut chicken into the pan, allowing to cook to till done.

Step 5. Add water and bring to a boil. Once the water is to temperature, add the carrots first. After a few minutes, add the onions and bell pepper. This allows the carrots to steam longer, without making the bell pepper and onion overly mushy.

Step 6. While the vegetables steam, combine 1 cup of teriyaki sauce and 1 tablespoon of corn starch in a separate bowl. Once the corn starch is dissolved in the teriyaki, add the sauce to the pan, and bring up to a boil.

Step 7. Allow the sauce to boil until pan liquid is reduced by at least half. And . . . that's a wrap. Serve with rice (frozen steam bags work well and take less than 4 minutes to heat in a microwave). Yielded recipe should feed four to five people.

This recipe was made for under $10 dollars and is bound to stimulate your taste buds and your piggy bank. Go ahead, put some stir fry in your mouth. You're gonna like the way it tastes. I guarantee it.

It's Time to Stimulate Your Mouth

2009-02-11T11:40:00.000-08:00

Greetings!

This is our first entry of a "web log" that will serve as the online supplement to a TV segment known as Put This In Your Mouth. Put This In Your Mouth (PTIYM for short) airs on Wednesdays, during the TSTV produced Austin Underground. PTIYM covers all things food. We will be posting recipes, restaurant reviews, rants, and other things that start with the letter "r", for your enjoyment.

-Jason Wohlfahrt