Kicked Up Rustic Mashed Potatoes

I recently read about mashed potatoes made with garlic and chipotle adobo sauce. It occurred to me it might be fun to use my Phantom Chipotle Salt to really kick the potato experience over the top. Wow, what a tasty treat for a side dish! This salt blend adds a subtle smokey background heat that is most enjoyable.

Ingredients:

• 6 medium/large potatoes, cleaned and cut into large chunks with the skins on.
• 2 tablespoons oil
• ½ cup of milk or cream
• ¼ cup (½ stick) of butter
• 2 large cloves of garlic, either finely minced or pressed through a garlic press
• 1½ teaspoons of Phantom Chipotle Salt (If you can't make this salt blend, finely mince ¼ of a dried Chipotle pepper without the seeds and mix it with enough plain table salt to reach your desired level of heat.)
• ¼ teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper.

Directions:

• Place the potatoes in a large pot, cover with water. Then add the oil to prevent the water from boiling over the top of the pot.
• Cover the pot and bring the potatoes to a rapid boil over medium-high heat. Lower the heat to medium-low and let the potatoes cook for about 15 minutes, until fork-tender.
• Heat the milk and butter in the microwave until the butter is melted.
• Mash the potatoes with the milk, butter, garlic, Phantom Chipotle Salt, and pepper.
• Serve hot.

ET (everything but the) Bagel Seasoning

This is my blend for the Everything Bagel Seasoning

Ingredients
1 tablespoons poppy seeds
1 tablespoon white sesame seeds
1 tablespoon black sesame seeds
1½ tablespoon dried minced garlic
1½ tablespoon dried minced onion
1½ teaspoons coarse or flaked salt

If you want to change it up and get creative, consider adding a teaspoon of caraway seed, a teaspoon of celery seed and/or a teaspoon of cumin seed.

Directions
Mix it all of the ingredients together, pour it in a jar with a shaker top, and store it in the freezer.

Uses
Topping for buttered toast, blended with butter toasted Cheerios snacks, on bagels, etc. If adding as a topping to bake bread, only add it during the last 10 minutes of the bake, or the garlic and onion will burn. It can also be folded into the bread dough before the final shaping.

Barbeque Spice Rub

Excellent rub for grilled steaks, chops, ribs, brisket, wings, etc.

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons ground cumin
3 tablespoons smoked Spanish paprika
3 tablespoons granulated garlic
4 tablespoons granulated onion
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon ground Chinese 5-spice
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon black pepper

Directions:
Mix all of the ingredients and store in the freezer, in an airtight jar/container

Yield: 2 cups of spice rub

Phantom Chipotle Salt / Sal de Chipotle Fantasma

A good friend sent me a simple recipe for Jalapeño Salt and it started me thinking about the batch of Smoked Chipotle Peppers I made a couple of weeks ago. (I left half of the batch as dried peppers, and put the rest in an adobo sauce.) Then I remembered we already have Smoked Ghost Pepper powder in the freezer from last year's pepper harvest. So I ground some of the Chipotle Peppers into a coarse powder, and put everything together to come up with my version of Phantom Chipotle Salt. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 cup of salt
1½ teaspoons of Smoked Chipotle Pepper powder (my chipotle powder is made with smoked & dried Jalapeños, seeds and all.)
¼ teaspoon of Smoked Ghost Pepper powder (or more if you can take the "heat")

Directions:
Add all ingredients to a jar and shake well to blend. Done!

Suggestions:
This salt can enhance the flavor of just about anything. There is just enough back heat with a pleasant overall smoky flavor. This would be good on steaks, popcorn, eggs, grilled corn on the cob, potato salads,  etc. Use on just about any meat, vegetable, or soup, guacamole, salads, even on the rim of a Bloody Mary or Margarita glass.

Vegetable Bouillon Paste

I found this idea on the internet, and I think it will quickly become a staple in my kitchen. This can be made with any of your favorite vegetables and is only limited by your imagination. The first time I made this, I only made a half batch and gave too much of it away to friends. Next time I will make the full 2 kilos so I don't run out of this so fast. So far, I have used it to make Chicken & Pasta Soup, Baked Potato Soup, and Spaghetti Sauce. I'm sure I'm going to find many more uses.

Ingredients:

• 250 grams leeks
• 125 grams broccoli
• 250 grams carrots
• 125 grams sweet peppers
• 125 grams onion
• 4 to 6 garlic cloves
• 125 grams parsley
• 125 grams cilantro
• 1 cup fine salt (I like to use our swimming pool salt because it is very fine and absolutely pure, no iodine, no fluoride, and no anti-caking ingredient)

Directions:

• Thoroughly wash all the vegetables and air dry as much as much as possible.
• Coarse chop all the vegetables.
• Smash and peel the garlic.
• Rough chop the herbs.
• Process all ingredients in a food processor until paste-like.

• Weight the processed ingredients and add the appropriate amount of salt.
• 2 kilos of ingredients (or 4.4 pounds) to 1 cup of salt
• 1 kilo of ingredients (or 2.2 pounds) to ½ cup of salt
• ½ kilo of ingredients (or 1.1 pounds) to ¼ cup of salt

The basic recipe makes three to four ½ pint jars (but it halves well)
Freeze in small jars, but keep one in the fridge for quick meals

Use 1 teaspoon per cup of water in your recipes.

I know it sounds like too much salt, but you'll have to trust me on this. The salt is a natural preservative and you have to use a sufficient quantity to prevent the growth of bacteria. The great thing about using this vegetable bouillon in a recipe is that you will not need any additional salt.

Think about adding basil, rosemary, oregano, spinach, kale, cauliflower, cabbage, sun-dried tomatoes, or anything else you like for some variation in the recipe. I'm sure you will come up with your favorite combination.

Credit to www.food52.com for this idea.

Chili Powder de la Casa

This is my chili powder recipe that we used in the 2015 Atenas Chili Cook-Off. Out of 22 teams, we won the Peoples Choice Award!


Ingredients:

• 2 Whole Chipotle Chili Peppers with stems removed, minced, and ground to a powder (Chipotle Chili is a smoked Jalapeño Chili Pepper used primarily in Mexican and TexMex cooking.)
• 1 tablespoon crushed Red Pepper Flakes
• 3 tablespoons fresh finely minced oregano
• 1 tablespoon fresh ground coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon whole allspice 
• 4 tablespoon ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons ground cayenne pepper
• 2 tablespoons smoked Spanish paprika powder
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground clove
• ¼ teaspoon of smoked Carolina Reaper powder, or 1 tablespoon Chili de Árbol powder (Tree chili is a small Mexican Chili with a woody stem that is sometimes called Bird’s Beak chili.)

Directions:

1. Use a spice grinder to grind the chipotle, red pepper flakes, oregano, coriander seeds, and allspice into a fine powder
2. Mix the freshly ground spices with the remaining ingredients until well blended. 
3. Store in an airtight jar for up to 6 months, or in the freezer for up to a year.

Yield ~ 1¼ - 1½ cups

Wegner's Seasoned Salt (a Lawry’s Seasoned Salt knock off, but better)

This is a blend of spices I put together as a substitute for Lawry's Seasoned Salt. We think this one is actually better. It is the base for our Spicy House Blend*

Mix all the ingredients together. I find a food processor with the chopper blade, or a blender, works best to make sure the marjoram and parsley are finely ground.

2 tablespoons ground pepper
1 tablespoon chicken bouillon powder
2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon onion salt
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon dry marjoram leaves
1 tablespoon minced parsley
1 teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon curry powder
1 tablespoon chili powder
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ cup salt

Store in an airtight shaker to retain freshness.

* See recipe

Originally posted 7/26/09

Wegner's Spicy House Seasoning Blend

This is a blend of spices I put together one day to have on hand for seasoning meats and vegetables. It worked so well, I now keep a jar for adding spice to all sorts of foods. It's especially good on pork chops, steaks, avocados, guacamole, corn on the cob, tomatoes, salads, etc.

Mix together

3 Tablespoons of Wegner’s Seasoned Salt* (or Lawry's Seasoned Salt if you must)
1 Tablespoon of ground Cayenne pepper
1 Teaspoon ground Cumin (Comino)
1 Tablespoon Garlic powder
1 Teaspoon Onion powder
1 Teaspoon ground Nutmeg
1 Teaspoon Celery salt
1 Teaspoon Spanish Paprika (hot paprika)

Store in an airtight shaker to retain freshness.

* See recipe

Originally posted 1/12/08