Mr. K's Smokey Bull Shot [Mike]

Cold enough for yah? Here's a drink that will warm you right down to your toes. Mike's Smokey Bull Shot is made from the classic Bloody Mary recipe, but instead of tomato juice, you use heated beef broth (Campbell's). The Bloody Mary is a cocktail that’s been around since 1921. Also known as “hair of the dog,” it’s an alcoholic beverage consumed as a hangover cure.

The Bull Shot is more of a comfort drink. After all these years the basic recipe hasn’t changed much. The main ingredients: vodka, beef broth, Worcestershire, a dark mustard, tabasco sauce, salt & pepper. A stalk of celery and a wedge of lemon top it off. I use Smirnoff Vodka, because in New York Times taste tests, it always comes up number one.

There are several ways to make a Bull Shot your own--I discovered that by using a dash of liquid smoke, which makes it extra special. If you love ice fishing, skating on a pond, a football game in Buffalo or you're in the Polar Bear Club going for a swim at Coney Island, the Bull Shot will warm your spirit.

BOTH THE BLOODY MARY AND THE BULL SHOT ARE SEASONED TO TASTE.FORE INSTANCE, TOMATO JUICE IN A BLOODY MARY CAN BE ALSO SUBSITUTED WITH CLAMMATO.

WHAT'S INSIDE A BULL SHOT:

1 oz SMIRNOFF (or whatever vodka you have on hand)

4 oz Beef Broth (Campbells)

.5 oz Worcestershire Sauce

.25 oz Tabasco Sauce

Pinch salt+pepper

Dash of celery seeds

1/4 teaspoon of whole grain mustard

Lemon Slice

Celery Stalk

Dash of Liquid Smoke

Mike's Smokey Bloody Mary [Mike]

MIKE’S SMOKEY BLOODY MARY All good things must come to an end… right? Not for the classic Bloody Mary. It’s a cocktail that’s been around since 1921. Also known as “hair of the dog,” it’s an alcoholic beverage consumed as a hangover cure. After all these years the basic recipe hasn’t changed much. The main ingredients: vodka, tomato juice, Worcestershire and Tabasco sauce, salt & pepper. I use Smirnoff Vodka because in New York Times taste tests, it always comes up number one. There are lots of ways to make a Bloody Mary your own; I just discovered that by using a dash of liquid smoke, it makes it special.

MIKE’S BLOODY MARY RECIPE: • One or two shots of vodka • Tomato juice • Worcestershire • Ground pepper • Celery salt • Dijon mustard • Lemon juice • Dash of Liquid Smoke Garnish with celery stalk and wedge of lemon Doctored Bloody Mary: Clamato juice for tomato juice Add horseradish Celery stalks Sliced jalapenos Lime wedge Fresh lemon or lime juice Crisp Bacon slices

Veal Piard [Mike]

One of the amazing things about living in New York City is that there’s a restaurant on almost every single city block, sometimes as many as five or six. Manhattan is 24 sq. miles, with over 23,499 restaurants in that borough alone. The hottest, trendiest restaurants are always popping up all over town, and quite frankly, just as many go under. However, it’s a foodie’s paradise.

Rhonda and I used to live on 84th Street, on the east side of town. One day, we discovered Trastevere, a tiny hole in the wall Italian restaurant, just a couple of blocks away. The night we went there, we both ordered the house specialty, veal piard. When it came, we were both pleasantly surprised that the bone was still attached and it literally hung over the plate. We've had veal piard… but not like this. Covered with a fresh green salad on top, the mixture of the warm veal with the cold salad was outstanding.

Twenty-five or so years later, I still remember it well.


To prepare this dish you need to get to a butcher who carries this cut of meat. Note: Veal is expensive. Ask the butcher for a 1” thick veal chop and ask him to fillet it like the open page of a book, leaving the bone attached. Usually, a butcher will use the side of a butcher’s knife to pound it flat.

Before cooking, prepare the salad. You want to be able to add it to the top of the cooked piard so that you can get both the hot and cold flavors together. Go to Famous Salad Dressing (Rhonda) posted June 17, and follow the recipe.

For those of you who are more adventurous, you can buy the veal chop and fillet it yourself.



After you fillet it, you have to pound it thin by placing it between two sheets of wax paper and using a heavy can.





I like to sear the veal, so I put a cast iron skillet on the flame for several minutes before placing the veal in the skillet. Cut off some extra fat from the chop and place it in the skillet to lightly grease it, then remove and place the veal piard in the skillet. Warning! Veal is a very tender cut… you don’t want to overcook it. Plate the piard and then add the salad over it. Enjoy!

Fall in Love with Artichokes. [Michael]

When Rhonda and I first started dating, we went to Dorian’s Red Hand,
a restaurant on Second Avenue in New York. On the menu were artichokes served with hollandaise sauce. I told Rhonda that my Mom use to make them all the time for us when they were in season.

Up until then, Rhonda had never had an artichoke. Since I don’t like sharing, we ordered two. As the leaves dwindled down to the core, I took a spoon and scooped out the fibrous hair from the heart and ate my favorite part the artichoke bottom. Rhonda gave me hers as well and that’s when I knew that I was definitely in love.

Nick visited us this past Thanksgiving and I asked him if he wanted to learn his grandmother’s recipe for stuffed artichokes. We had four. Since the artichoke leaves have sharp thorns, trim the thorn off the top of each leaf. Next, cut the stem from the bottom of each one. Mix bread crumbs, salt, pepper, crushed garlic and diced peppered salami together in a mixing bowl. Open the artichoke so that each leaf is exposed. Spoon breadcrumbs into each leaf. Pour just a little olive oil on the top and place the artichokes in a pot. Add enough water to come up to the middle of the four chokes. Cover the pot and steam until tender. Salt can be added to the water. When are they done? When you can pull a leaf from one of the artichokes, and it comes off easily.

How to eat them? There’s no easy way.
Leaves are removed one at a time and the soft breadcrumb is scraped off each leaf using your teeth. Just make sure that there’s an empty dish on the table for everyone to put their discarded leaves. I’ve had artichoke leaves dipped in hollandaise, and in just melted butter. I’ve included a photo of a dipping sauce of oil, vinegar and a chopped boiled egg, served this way at Laurent, a famous restaurant in NYC.


Ingredients:
1 cup of breadcrumbs
6 garlic cloves
6 slices of peppered salami (or, pepperoni, or cooked sausage)
Salt & pepper to taste
3 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese

Greco-Roman Omelette [Mike]

My father was Greek, my mom Italian.

While Mom did most of the cooking, when Dad cooked he taught my mom
several Greek dishes that originated in Cyprus. Avgolemono and macaroni soup, for starters.

He introduced us to Halloumi, a Greek cheese made only in Cyprus. It was shipped to him from his brother, who still lived in Cyprus, in a gallon jug filled with the cheese in water. Dad would take a chunk and slice it up, then pan fry it in a touch of olive oil. Then he poured a couple scrambled eggs over it. When Mom made the omelette for us, she added fried potatoes.

My recipe involves slicing up some Italian sausage and frying it, adding the Halloumi, then small pre-cooked roasted potatoes and adding three scrambled eggs.



Mmmm, not bad.

Saganaki [Mike]

I was on vacation on the Greek island of Mykonos with my two friends, Richie and Sam, the first time I saw it.

Waiters carrying flaming dishes.

As they placed the dishes on the table they would say, “Opa!” A big wedding party reception was being held at the restaurant, which had an incredible view overlooking the Mediterranean. I called the waiter over and asked him what the dish was. “Saganaki, a Greek cheese!” (Crashing noises.) We were distracted by people throwing plates into a fireplace. “What’s with that?” I asked the waiter.
He said it was a Greek wedding tradition. So of course we couldn’t break the tradition… we threw some plates too.

Saganaki flaming cheese:
One pound of Kefalotyri cheese
Couple of tablespoons of olive oil
Lemons
2 ounces of brandy
½ cup of flour




Pre-heat a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat.
Place 1/2 inch sliced cheese under running tap water then dredge through flour.




Add olive oil to skillet, then the sliced cheese and sear on both sides.







Shut off stove and pour the brandy over the cheese.




Light with a match or lighter, as it flames yell “OPA!” Squeeze wedge of lemon on cheese and serve. (If you really want to be all Greek use Metaxas Brandy.)

Homemade Sundried Tomatoes [Mike]

In South Salem, NY, we had gardens all over the place.

We had a formal garden, a cutting garden, raspberries, a pumpkin patch and a vegetable garden. We even had a perennial garden in the side yard next to the garage. Four-and-a-half acres that used to be a horse pasture, so the earth was super rich. You could throw a seed in the ground and have a tree in two weeks. (Just kidding)

One season our vegetable garden exploded. Plum tomatoes everywhere. We gave them to our neighbors, even brought some to church. They kept coming. That’s when we decided we should do a batch of sundried tomatoes. So we took the tomatoes and quartered them, and placed them on several cooking sheets. Instead of drying them in the sun, we set the oven at 200 F and waited 5-6 hours until they shriveled up. Next we put them in jars and poured olive oil into the jar. We also had fresh basil growing in the garden. We took a bunch of basil leaves and placed them in a jar and put them in the refrigerator.

We forgot them for several weeks. The oil congealed. One day I took a jar out of the refrigerator and let it get to room temperature. I took 2 slices of whole grain bread, put several of the dried tomatoes on the bread, then added several slices of Jarlsberg cheese. Took a bite… as our kids would have said, “Awesome!”

In recreating this experience, besides the original recipe I also decided to do some experimental ingredients. In one jar I added olives. In another, chunks of Parmesan cheese. Can’t wait to open them up in a couple of months.

The best grilled cheese sandwich [Mike]

The Grilled Cheese Sandwich… Everyone’s reinventing it… including restaurants. Like Gooeyz, down near campus at Ohio State. Or the new chain of grilled cheese restaurants that add ingredients: veggies, Mediterranean cheddar, pesto, black olives, pastrami, salami, bacon of course…even sauerkraut.

Why can’t they leave a good thing alone!

The best grilled cheese sandwiches ever were made by my mother. Simple… easy… quick… great tasting. Here’s all it took. Two slices of Wonder Bread, couple of slices of Kraft’s single slice American cheese, a tab of butter, and an unusual round toasting utensil she used to toast the sandwiches over a gas stove.

With my 3 brothers … Mom couldn’t make them quick enough!

Family secret / Breast of lamb [Nick & Mike]

Mom and dad never had much money, yet I don’t remember ever wanting for anything. When you have a mom who’s Italian, there’s always pasta with gravy on the table or dishes that tasted great yet were very inexpensive to make. Here’s a great example: breast of lamb. I’ll bet no one has ever seen it on a restaurant menu. That’s because breast of lamb is always layered with tons of fat; you had to really dig deep to find those thin layers of lamb in between. But there was a wow factor… it tasted great. It was a poor man’s version of a well-marbleized rib eye steak.

This past July 4^th weekend, I decided to create Mom’s breast of lamb recipe with Nick. Talk about an impossible task. Every butcher or grocery store I called in Columbus had never heard of breast of lamb, or never carried it. I even called several meat wholesalers, no luck. I finally tried ­­­Blues Creek at the North Market. They said they would get me a batch. I ordered 15 lbs and 2 days later I picked it up. Price? $1.79 a pound. Why so cheap? The high fat content.

Mom never parboiled the lamb when she made it, but it was so fatty my brother Tommy suggested to do it. After an hour or so we removed the ribs and let them cool. Nick took a bunch of lemons and squeezed them, and chopped garlic. We poured the juice and added the chopped garlic into a pot that held the lamb. We added oregano, and put the mixture into the refrigerator for several hours. The grill was fired up. I told Nick we had to be careful because the fat content was still high and would cause flames and burn the lamb. Finally they were done. Nick and I each took a section of the breast of lamb to taste… “Oh my gosh, the best lamb ever.”

Blue Ribbon Lasagna [Mike]

Rhonda and I were one of 12 couples in the South Salem gourmet dinner club. Each month, one couple would host a themed dinner party. The host couple was responsible for the main course. The 11 other couples would bring an appetizer, salad, or dessert. Tex-Mex night, Southern cooking, BBQ, etc. The one I liked best was a lasagna cook-off. Each couple had to bring their own favorite lasagna dish, which would be sampled and voted on. Since Italian food was my thing, I would do our entry. My main competition: Wayne Coluccini. This guy could cook. For several days before the big night, Wayne and I talked garbage. “My lasagna will destroy yours…” Well, I had a plan up my sleeve. I would make my mom’s traditional lasagna recipe, but add a special blended ingredient that would take it over the top.

Ingredients:
• 2 cans of Progresso whole Italian tomatoes
• 1 can of Contadina tomato paste
• 1 lb. of Italian sausage, hot or sweet
• 1 lb. of ground beef
• 2 slices of Italian bread
• 1 egg
• 4 to 6 garlic cloves
• Italian virgin olive oil
• 24 ounces ricotta
• 1 box of Ronzoni lasagna pasta

In a mixing bowl, season the ricotta with salt and fresh ground pepper. Add a fresh egg, and several tablespoons of freshly grated parmesan cheese. Blend together.

Pesto:
• 2 cups fresh basil leaves
• ½ cup each olive oil, Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
• 2 tablespoons each pine nuts, Romano pecorino cheese, freshly grated
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 1-teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons softened butter

Mix basil, oil, pine nuts, garlic and salt in blender at high speed. When evenly blended, pour into bowl and beat in grated cheeses by hand. Then beat in softened butter.

When the lasagna has finished baking, add spoonfuls of pesto on the top layer.

I was voted best in show!

Lasagna Mama Mia [Mike]

Growing up, I remember helping my Mom make gravy almost every single Sunday. Italians call their red sauce gravy. Why? Who knows… all I know is it’s a basic staple in Italy.

The fragrant smell from Mom’s kitchen, meatballs and sausage frying and fresh basil. Mom kept a wooden spoon next to the stove because when she wasn’t looking, we’d all try to grab a frying meatball from the pan.

Ouch! She always got me with the wooden spoon.

Sometimes Mom would substitute beef ribs for the sausage. Gosh they were meat-fall-off-the-bones good.  Or, she would take fried chicken pieces and add them to the gravy.  Best of all was when she took a large handful of chopped meat and a hard-boiled egg. She would roll the seasoned meat around the egg, making a giant meatball. Then she’d pan fry it in olive oil, and add it to her gravy.

Later, after we had our pasta, the meat platter would come out. Along with the sausage and meatballs was the sliced giant meatball with the egg. In our family, four boys, you had to be quick. Everyone wanted one of the slices with the egg yolk.

Cut to:

The Kaiser Lake house.

July 4th weekend.

Tradition. The Koulermos family is there.

Who knows how many people will show up at this wonderful small cottage on the lake this time. Minimum 10, max 30 or more? I decided I would cook dinner for the masses. I’m in the business of creating new product ideas, so I made a couple of designer lasagnas.

I made my Mom’s lasagna. (Follow steps 1 to 9 from “1^st Place Lasagna”) Then I added the meatloaf as a topping, and fresh basil for both flavor and color.

Lasagna Margarita Milano [Mike]

With the second lasagna I created (Follow steps 1 to 9 from “1^st Place Lasagna”), along with the ricotta between the layers of pasta, I added slices of black peppered salami which should be sautéed a bit to give some crispness. After cooking the lasagna for 40 minutes, I took it out of the oven and added a layer of fresh sliced plum tomatoes to the top. I placed it in the oven for another 10 minutes. Coming soon… lasagna with fried prosciutto topping.

Rigatoni Soup from Cyprus [Mike]

My Mom and Dad never had a car. Never occurred to them to get one either, living in New York City. Neither of them knew how to drive. Everywhere we went we traveled by bus or the subway. Our occasional trips to see my dad’s brother, Uncle Charlie,and his family was a long haul to Brooklyn on the transit system… just one stop before Coney Island.

Aunt Nancy would always serve a traditional Cypriot dish, a chicken soup. (Dad and Uncle Charlie are both from Cyprus, the island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Greece.) She would go to the poultry market and get a freshly killed chicken to make the soup. She would then cook rigatoni macaroni in the soup. It was always served with a plate of freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese to sprinkle on top. The Koulermos brothers always waited politely until everyone took their share of cheese, and then went back for a second helping. Sprinkle?

My three brothers and I called it “Rongi Soup” because we couldn’t say macaroni. Mom soon mastered the dish and we had it every couple of weeks.

On Saturdays, Mom would give me $5.00 to go to the chicken market where they had live poultry.  I would walk from 115th Street where we lived to 103rd Street in NYC. I would go inside the market (the smell was awful) and ask one of the sales people if I could have a 6 or 7 pound soup chicken.  He would pick one from the cages and show it to me. Then it was curtains for the chicken.

Years later Rhonda learned how to make Rongi Soup from my mom. All three of our boys love Ron’s chicken soup.

My boys always loaded their Rongi Soup with an enormous amount of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. As the saying goes, “The apples doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Note: I’ve never seen this dish in any restaurant.

Ingredients
1 (3-4 pound) whole chicken
2 carrots, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Put the chicken, chopped carrots, celery and onion in a large soup pot and cover with cold water.  Heat and simmer, uncovered, until the chicken meat is tender (skim off foam every so often).

Take everything out of the pot. Strain the broth. Place the soup back in the pot and bring to a boil.

Add Rigatoni or Penne pasta. Cook until the pasta is al dente. The chicken can be served along side or put into the soup. Season the broth with salt, pepper.

First Place Lasagna [Mike]

Rhonda and I were one of 12 couples in the South Salem dinner club. Each month, one couple would host a themed dinner party. The host couple was responsible for the main course. The 11 other couples would bring an appetizer, salad, or dessert. Tex-Mex night, Southern cooking, BBQ, etc. The one I liked best was a lasagna cook-off. Each couple had to bring their own favorite lasagna dish. Each dish would be sampled and a vote would be taken to determine whose lasagna tasted the best. Since Italian food was my thing, I would do our entry. My main competition: Wayne Coluccini. This guy could cook. For several days before the big night, Wayne and I talked garbage. “My lasagna will destroy yours…” Well, I had a plan up my sleeve. I would make my mom’s traditional lasagna recipe, but add a special blended ingredient that would take it over the top.

Ingredients:

• 2 cans of Progresso whole Italian tomatoes

• 1 can of Contadina tomato paste

• 1 lb of Italian sausage, hot or sweet

• 1 lb of ground beef

• 2 slices of Italian bread

• 1 egg

• Garlic cloves

• Italian virgin olive oil

• 1 box of Ronzoni lasagna pasta

Pesto:

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves

• ½ cup each olive oil, Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

• 2 tablespoons each pine nuts, Romano pecorino cheese, freshly grated

• 2 cloves crushed garlic

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 3 tablespoons softened butter

Mix basil, oil, pine nuts, garlic and salt in blender at high speed. When evenly blended, pour into bowl and beat in grated cheeses by hand. Then beat in softened butter. Freezes well.

When the lasagna has finished baking, add spoonfuls of pesto on the top layer. I was voted best in show. Yay me!

Grandma's la zuppa [Mike]

I remember going on vacations to my grandmother’s farmhouse in Johnstown, Rhode Island, almost every summer growing up. My fondest memory was waking up in the morning to the smell of fresh roasted coffee. I’d rush downstairs and there was my mom and grandmother sitting at the kitchen table chatting and sipping coffee. My grandmother would always ask me if I wanted some. I always said yes. She would make me a cup of what I called “coffee milk.” Half coffee and half milk with a tablespoon of sugar. Every once in awhile she’d take out a box of Ritz crackers and ask if I wanted la zuppa. Grandma knew it was one of my favorite meals growing up. She’d pour into a soup plate a couple dozen Ritz crackers, then pour the coffee milk over them. Next she’d sprinkle some more sugar on top of the Ritz. The salty flavor of the crackers, mixed with the sweet taste of sugar and coffee flavor, with both the soggy and crisp crackers... gotta stop, my mouth is watering.

• 1 stack of Ritz crackers

• 1/2 cup each of coffee and milk

• 1 tablespoon of sugar

Mom's ice box cake [Mike]

Many moons ago… John and Mary Emmerling invited Rhonda and me to a dinner party at their apartment on 57^th St. and Sutton Place. For those of you who’ve never heard of Sutton Place, this is one of New York City’s most exclusive places to live. Mary (editor at House & Garden magazine) said there would be 40 people or so and asked us if we could bring a dessert. John, an ad exec at Y & R, also invited Steve Gordon, a friend of mine who wrote the screenplay for the movie Arthur. Steve (who couldn’t boil water) called and asked if he could chip in for the dessert Rhonda and I were planning to bring. Of course we said yes. This happened before Rhonda turned into an incredible cook, so I was the one who would be responsible for the dessert. I thought about possibilities for the type of dessert we could bring. Let’s see, 40 people, needs to be big. Why not make my mom’s ice box cake? Simple, easy, and won’t cost a fortune to make. What to put it in? Rhonda and I went to a Woolworth’s in our neighborhood and that’s when I spotted a large Rubbermaid tub, big enough to wash a baby in.

• 2 boxes of chocolate pudding

• 2 boxes of butterscotch pudding

• 1 box of honey graham crackers

• 1 quart of whole milk

We arrived at the party… we’d never seen so many elegant people in one place before. Men in suits, double-breasted sport jackets, with button-down shirts and rep ties. (There was even a guy in an ascot). The women, all of them straight out of the pages of Vogue Magazine. Fashion-forward trendsetters. We asked Mary our hostess, where should we put our dessert. She looked at our rather large covered Rubbermaid tub and suggested we put it along side all the other desserts. “Oh my gosh!” Rhonda exclaims… “Look at all those incredible desserts.” Petit fours, mini key lime pies, vanilla mousse, strawberry cheesecake, cannolis, tiramisu. And we have to put our washtub next to them. Man, did I screw up! Our friend Steve arrived and he started with the jokes… “I had nothing to do with this!” he exclaimed. After the dinner buffet, it was time for dessert. Steve was the first person to try our icebox cake. He started raving about how good it was. “This is incredible!” The next thing we knew, everyone was digging in. There wasn’t a drop left. The society crowd loved it!