Meal #3 – Samuel L Jackson’s Spinach Linguini and Ground Turkey Sauce

Samuel L Jackson.  You know him.  You love him.  You thank him every day for inventing the word ‘Mother-Fucker’

“Eat My Turkey Pasta Mother Fucker”

As you would expect from Sam Jack, this recipe comes from the manliest cookbook you have ever laid eyes upon:

In the Kitchen with Miss Piggy!  This thing just smells like pure testosterone, and we’ll be revisiting it many times, I’m sure.  But let’s start with Sam’s recipe:
We start with some veggies:

Peppers and Onions and Mushrooms, also note the Trader Joe Spinach pasta.  If you are to follow in my footsteps and make this dish, I would reccomend you track this specific brand down because it’s darn tasty.

Make everything small by way of knife cuts, and get a nice big pot hot and add some olive oil to it.  The recipe calls for butter but in the early 90’s no one knew what Cholesterol was, but they would have assumed it was a hip new street drug and had the ninja turtles star in a 90 minute PSA against it.  Maybe have the Chipmunks do a cameo.  Don’t do drugs.

Look at those veggies in that pot.  Now one can assume what happens next, but apply medium heat and stir until things are soft and delicious, around 10 minutes.

Once everything is soft and tasty, take all this stuff and put it in a bowl.  Put the pan back on the heat, add a little more oil, and throw in a pound of ground turkey.  Get it browned for around 5-7 minutes or until it looks almost entirely cooked, and then pour in a jar of sketty sauce and add the veggies back in.

Now keep that on a nice little half simmer and stir it now and again as we move our focus to the Pasta.
I hope you know pasta, or at least can read the directions on the package, but basically you get water SUPER HOT OK?  Add salt to that water, then put the pasta in the water and watch as magic happens.

This particular pasta needs 6-8 minutes to cook, but you should know when its done by taste, when its nice and al-dente drain it and put it in with the turkey sauce.

Now I hope you all realize that the only reason this recipe calls for spinach linguini is because it is green and so is Kermit the Frog.  This recipe is based on the idea of Miss Piggy slurping green noodles.

Stir it all together and look at that!  Now dish some into bowls, and add a bit of garlic powder and mozzerella cheese and what you get is this tasty dish of food

Now, I should mention that while the spinach pasta is there for the green-noodle-slurp I mentioned, it is really sincerely delicious, at least with the spinach and chive pasta from Trader Joe.  I would reccomend you try this recipe, because it’s awesome.  Do it and email me, and if it isn’t awesome I will blame you for getting some part of the recipe wrong.  In closing look at this old picture of Sam Jack, and the creepy note from Miss Piggy.

Meal #2 – Cat Stevens’ Scrambled Eggs

We all know Cat Stevens, right?

The 1970’s Singer/Songwriter responsible for tunes like ‘Peace Train’ and ‘Wild World’ (Which went on to become a pretty good Amusement Park!). He lulled America to sleep with some overly catchy tunes.

Of course now, he goes by the name of Yusef Islam and looks like this —->

But that’s neither here nor there, because this post has nothing to do with his music or his religion, and everything to do with his recipe for SCRAMBLED EGGS!

This recipe is taken from a wonderful little community style cookbook called ‘Scouts And Celebrity Stew’ which really only works if you say it out loud.

It was released by some dopey Boy Scout troop in 1981, and while Stevens had already changed his name by then, I doubt anyone wants to eat eggs made by a guy named Yusef Islam and his beard probably sheds like a St Bernard, so they went with Cat Stevens. Now, we all know how to make Scrambie Eggs, so I had originally passed this recipe by, but I came back to it recently and read it again, and noticed some very interesting differences from how I make it. You start with three eggs (chicken eggs if you want to be like that), but you seperate one egg and keep the yolk to the side.

This yolk comes back later, like a shady but helpful character in a bad novel. Our next instruction gets a bit BRITISH, but throw a KNOB of butter into a pan. Well, ok not THAT british, but a Knob is about a tablespoon.

Now, once that is melted and delicious, throw in your 2 eggs and the white of the third and mix it up all sexy like

Keep stirring it, and when it starts to set, add some salt, and a tablespoon of CREAM OF MILK. Oh those silly british ha ha ha, it’s not cream of MILK its just cream. Ok I used Half and Half but you can use Heavy Cream if you don’t have that in your fridge. Stir it all up nice.

Now the recipe only called for salt and cream, but I added pepper because I wanted to. Cat Stevens may declare a Jihad on me for breaking his recipe but I am just that kind of fearless chef. Now, cook those eggs scrambled style until they are done. They will still seem a little ‘wet’ because of the butter and milk, but you should know when to stop. Here’s the Cat Stevens twist though, when the eggs are done, remove them from the heat and add that third yolk!

WHAT??? Yes, stir that yolk into the eggs, and you’re done! This makes the eggs just super awesome, rich and creamy as all get out.

And that’s it! These eggs are easy and delicious. Between the butter, cream and yolk they taste like they have cheese in them, they’re rich and creamy and very tasty. You may not want to eat the eggs of someone being followed by a Moon Shadow, but ignore that part of your brain because it is stupid, these eggs are fantastic!

Meal #1 – President Reagan’s Corned Beef Hash in Bell Peppers

Ahh Ronald Reagan.  The Gipper!  President, American, Wall-Tearer-Downer, Pepper stuffer!

“Stuff Those Peppers, American!” He would often say, before riding away on a horse.

I got this recipe out of my copy of ‘Celebrity Recipes’, and it’s not exactly what I’d call challenging.  Really the main hurdle for my was figuring out the oven in my new apartment.

The recipe is pretty WYSIWYG to use a series of letters I havent even thought of since the mid 90’s.  It’s corned beef hash stuffed into Bell Peppers.  I considered spicing this recipe up by stuffing Poblanos instead, that might be tasty.  However I voted to keep the Gipper’s vision as he meant it.  Until about 5 minutes later.  SO, this recipe needs 3 things.  Number one, Bell Peppers.  I cooked 3, since I was testing Reagan’s peppers on myself, my Fiancee and my friend Erin.

Chop off the tops, pull out the seeds and ribs. 

Ingredient number two in Reagan’s Reacipe: Corned Beef Hash!

Again, this is a simple recipe.  There IS a quick hash recipe in the book, but I’m not made out of time.  In hindsight I should have made it myself, it would be a little less greasy and I could have added a crunch of some sort.  SO, I threw the Peppers into boiling water for a few minutes to get tender, but not limp, and decided to un-can the Hash.

Mmmm Dog food!  My Fiancee (and photographer), heretofore known as Lissa, decided that since the peppers still had to boil and the beef was looking sad, we should spice things up!

These are Hot Peppers from Potbelly Sandwich Emporium.  They cost FIVE DOLLARS AMERICAN.  They are entirely magnificent and we put them on everything.  It is sinful how many things taste better with some of these bad boys ensconced within.  Seriously, buy a jar.  (also the picture was taken before I de-canned the corned beef, I know it, I have eyes, but I’m riding a narrative here so shush it.)  So I chopped up a slew of those tasty little heat-bringers and mixed them into the hash.

By the time I had done my mix-about the Peppers were out of the boiling water

Reagan was a very straight shooter, and his recipe is no different.  Take Stuff A, stuff it into holes B, C, and D.

If you’re making this at home, be sure to leave some room on the top, which I did not do here, but wish I had.  Now pop the peppers into a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.  After that, pull them out, and crack an Egg into each one.  (this is a metaphor for Reaganomics, and Trickle-down whatnots)  Sprinkle each egg with Salt, Pepper and Paprika!

Yum!  Throw them back into the oven for 5 more minutes, or until the egg is as cooked as you like it.  I wanted my yolks to be a little runny, and also my oven randomly decided to change temperatures as it cooked.  But that’s it!  That’s all it takes to eat like Ronald Reagan!

And they came out pretty tasty too!  Here’s a shot of mine, all cut open with the yolk and grease spilling out like some kind of Reagan Metaphor.  Exxon Valdez?

Again, this came out better than I thought it would.  All it really needs is Texture.  If I made them again I would find a way to get something in there that’s not just mushy.  As Lissa said, if you make the hash yourself it will have more bite to it than canned, so that’s one good option.

Let’s all take a moment and thank the Gipper, without whom I would have eaten something else for dinner last night.  Thank you President Reagan, for inventing stuffed peppers.

(Note: President Reagan did not invent Stuffed Peppers, but someone did.)

Famous People Eat Food Too!

Imagine living the high life, rich and famous and not a care in the world.  But look at that, it’s dinner time!  Surely these well-to-do types have private chefs and catered affairs to handle their hunger pangs, but sometimes you just have to cook for yourself.  And sometimes the egos on these famous people cause them to think we want to eat what they cooked too, so they submit a recipe to a cookbook collection of some sort.  That or the recipes are a total lie, but I’m sure they’re very real.

I have a small yet growing collection of cookbooks claiming to hold a cornucopia of celebrity-penned recipes, and what I will do is cook them!  Once a week I will bring you a new delicious Celebrity Recipe so that you, too can dine on Famous People Food!