Ironically, Stuffed Daffy Balls In Vodka Sauce

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hours,

Ingredients:

• Vodka Sauce:
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 cup minced sweet onion
• 4 cloves garlic, pressed
• 2 (14.5-ounce) cans petite-cut tomatoes
• 1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste
• 1 large carrot, finely grated
• 2 Tablespoons finely chopped fresh oregano or 2 teaspoons dried
• 2 cups water
• 1/4 cup vodka
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• Meatballs:
• 1-1/2 pounds ground Daffy (preferably 80/20 ground chuck)
• 1/2 pound Italian-style pork sausage
• 2 extra-large eggs, slightly beaten
• 1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
• 3 cloves garlic, pressed
• 1/2 cup minced sweet onion
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried
• 1-1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 24 (about) small balls fresh mozzarella cheese (about 1-inch in diameter each - see Note)
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh oregano
• Hot cooked pasta such as penne, rigatoni, ziti, or linguine
• Fresh oregano sprigs for garnish (optional)

Preparation:

Prepare Vodka sauce:heat Olive Oil in a large pot. Add minced sweet onion and gently sweat onions until soft. Add pressed garlic and saute for 1 minute. Add chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, grated carrot, oregano, water, and Vodka, stirring to combine. Gently simmer until thickened and vegetables begin to disintegrate. Add additional water if tomato sauce becomes too thick. Season with Kosher Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. While sauce is cooking, prepare meatballs.

Preheat oven to 400 F. Line a jelly roll pan with non-stick foil.

To make meatballs, lightly mix ground Daffy, sausage, eggs, bread crumbs, garlic, sweet onion, oregano,salt, and pepper until combined. Do not over mix.

Place about 2 tablespoons of Daffy ball mix in your hand. Press a small mozzarella cheese ball into the center of the meat. Form the meat around the cheese until it is completely enclosed and round into a ball. Repeat until all meat is used.

Bake about 25 minutes or until Daffy ball juices show no pink color. Transfer cooked meatballs to the Vodka sauce. Serve over hot cooked pasta and garnish with fresh oregano sprig, if desired.

Note: The small fresh mozzarella cheese balls are carried in the deli section of most large markets and warehouse grocery stores. They come in a tub submerged in water. If you cannot find the small balls, use the larger mozzarella rounds cut into 1-inch squares.

Yield: 8 to 12 servings, depending on portion size

Dafferky An Ironic Chef Request

2 lbs. of Daffy's flank steak
1/2 cup of soy sauce
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 teaspoons of seasoning salt (recommend Lawry's)
A couple drops of Tabasco Sauce

Slice Daffy's flank steaks diagonally with the grain of the meat into very thin slices (If slightly frozen it slices more easily).  Combine ingredients and marinate meat overnight or 12 hours.  Be sure all pieces are covered (coated) with marinade.  Drain excess marinade.  Place meat on paper towels to soak up marinade. Meat should be squeezed as dry as possible in paper towels.  Place individual pieces of meat on rack in oven at 140 to 160 degrees for seven to 12 hours, or until meat is dry throughout.  Leave oven door ajar (slightly open) during the drying process.  Meat can also be hung in the oven by placing a wooden toothpick in each piece and strung from the rack.  Store finished jerky in an airtight containers.

Place in box and UPS to Zee over night delivery.

Ironic Chef "Home Made Daffyroni"

It Has been awhile since the Ironic Chef has posted a recipe but special times call for special recipes and seeings as how certain beast leave Holy messes all over the place I figured a special tribute to thy special beast daisy is in order.
Okay, for this first part everyone had better stand back just a bit cause this could get sorta messy. On second thought, I'll just close the door for a few and if any bellowing in several different languages are heard, please just ignore them. I will try to get this over with as quickly as possible. BRB.


"Zee, get up from behind that table. Let people know who is turning the crank on that grinder."  I actually stole this fine candid shot from Zee.

B. Now then, I had better wash up and get some of this spatter cleaned up and disinfect the work area.

Through the years I have made a point of letting everyone know of my fondness for pepperoni. So for todays tribute to beef I will do the honors of sharing a recipe for home made Pepperoni, ahem, Daffyroni.

Description:

This Daffyroni is a flavorful homemade cured Daffy meat, on the dry side, formed into rolls, baked, and sliced

Yield: 5 lbs (or 5 rolls)

Ingredients:

5 pounds lean ground Daffy meat ( There is a whole lot more Daffy but I wanted to keep this recipe to a smaller portion)
5 heaping teaspoons of Morton's "Tender Quick" curing salt
2 1/2 heaping teaspoons of mustard seed
1 teaspoon ground pepper
2 1/2 teaspoons garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Instructions:

Day 1: Mix all the ingredients and knead well. Refrigerate in sealed container (or air-tight with plastic wrap).

Day 2: Knead again; cover and continue refrigerating.

Day 3: Form Daffy meat into four rolls. Place rolls on an oven grill pan or wire rack; place the grill/rack on/inside a cookie sheet, so excess fat can drip. Bake 7 hours at 150 degrees. Turn rolls 45 degrees every 2 hours.

Store in the fridge or freezer.

Daffyroni is excellent served in a pasta sauce, on pizza or even sliced on crackers with a slice of cheese.

If anyone else has a few recipes using Daffyroni as a themed ingredient feel free to share. I'll be looking forwards to seeing your recipes.

Settling In

I have been moving in gradually and have been trying to get use to the new house. The biggest problem is the noise level. Seems we have a nice bump in the road and the street is rather busy 24/7.

I am trying to get use to the stove here. It's one of those glass topped suckers. No burners. The oven is controlled digitally and to bake anything you have to set the temperature then a timer for everything or the oven doesn't come on. When I first started using it the oven would shut off or wouldn't pre heat or a burner would come on on the top of the dang thing. I would think I was shutting everything off but that dang burner would keep going on and off as if it had a mind of it's own. I was thinking how could a stove like this be safe? Lol, I think I have got the hang of it now though. Whenever I use the oven I just set the timer for 3 or more hours and do my thing and shut it off the old fashion way.

I did a kitchen job not to long ago and was able to get myself one of those over the stove microwaves that has an exhaust fan on it. It was one of the first things I installed here. I have always wanted one and have always been highly jealous never to be able to afford a new one. I am very happy to have one now. A hand me down or not.

I started to move my shop yesterday. Seeings as how my son is away in seminary school I can't lift my equipment for the move myself so I have to take all of my saws and such and break them down. I was able to get the table saw, wood clamps (I can't believe how many clamps I have accumulated through the years) Ban saw and drill press all loaded and to here yesterday. I also through some hand tools on the load. I must have about 15 framing squares and at least as many different levels. My redneck moving truck couldn't handle anymore. The rear end of the sucker was practically rubbing the asphalt on the trip here.

I have been getting back into the kitchen. I made a batch of home made pasta last night and made a lasagna for myself and oldest daughter and spaghetti and meatballs for my wife and youngest daughter. I didn't burn anything up so cudos to myself and mastering the new stove. I won't mention the charred mess I had in the bottom of the pot when I attempted to make potato soup the other night. I made bread bowls to go with the soup and after removing them from the oven I shut it off. Turned the burner with the soup on it down to low and went to take a short nap. Working nights has worn me out. The burner decided to do what ever it wanted and I woke up to the smell of charred soup. I carefully tried to get whatever was salvageable from the pot but of course, like burnt pop corn the charred flavor made it taste like a smoke sale potato soup. The bread bowls were a nice touch though.

Today I will be re assembling my equipment and for dinner tonight I am going to roast a turkey breast. I bought some Ocean Spray raspberry cranberry sauce, something I have never seen before but am interested in trying. The roast turkey breast is one of those pressed into roast shape with no bones in it. We like them but the gravy packet that comes with it needs some work. Good thing for chicken stock. Lol. We use the better than bullion kind that is like a paste in a jar. I would recommend it to everyone. We usually get both the beef and chicken flavors.They have a few fish types too but we have no need for a fish stock here. Some times when we are making something that requires a good beef flavor for a gravy like for the cubed steaks I made on Friday night with mashed potatoes which need the gravy, lol. I use the lipton beefy onion soup mix to make the gravy.

Sorry Zee. The turkey roast doesn't have a turkey butt or I would package it up for you. Geeesh, first I volunteer to herd your cows and now I sucker myself into collecting turkey butts for you. I'm headed over to Vero's family reunion now. I'm going to put on some overalls and a straw hat and rent a mule and sneak in. I'll have to locate a place to get some chaw tobacco so no one gets suspicious. If Vero catches me she's going to mail my butt to you.. I'm going to scope it out and see if she has a turkey on the menu and if she does I'll cut off her turkeys butt and cyber space it to you right away. We may have something new here for a fine Indian cuisine. (Turkey Butt, not Mac's butt).

A Beautiful Tribute

Bud made this commercial and it was only aired one time because Bud didn't want to make money off it. It's a tear jerker for sure and they did an incredible job putting it together. I am glad I came across it to share it with everyone.

The Graveyard Shift

The company I work for started a new job in a mall. We are putting a new restaurant over an existing restaurant  on a newly constructed 2nd floor. The floor in the new place is concrete and to get the new plumbing in place we have to go through the ceilings of the existing restaurant.

So we have to wait until the mall closes and can't start working until 11pm. I pulled up on the job last night and we went into the kitchen of the existing restaurant. I just felt sick seeing this kitchen. The restaurant is a very popular national chain seafood place. They average over 120 some odd thousand a week in what they take in. This kitchen was so disgusting. Bins of food from the days cooking were left out all over the place and on the floors. The floors were full of slop and puddles of water. None of the individuals in the kitchen could even speak English. Plumbing contractors were already up in the ceilings remove old plumbing. They had nothing to do with us. They were chopping out old sewage lines and removing them. The stench was terrible. I watched as they would cut through a pipe and removed it and the black sludge would drip out of the pipe all over the suspended ceiling below. The kitchen was directly below. My crew just could not believe what was taking place. I swear that if a health inspector ever walked into this kitchen it would have been shut down right then and there and the reason for it even to be able to operate in this day and age is beyond me. And I am not just talking in regards to the work being done over the kitchen.

When the plumbers finally got out of the way I was able to get up over the ceiling to see and do what I needed to have done. Again I was to be shocked with more disgust. This kitchen had close to 6 giant hoods over the stoves. Up in the ceiling I had a good view of the tops of those hoods. The grease just covered everything. There was such a stench I couldn't refrain from gagging. I am sure that when our plumbing contractor comes in tonight he is going to have a real challenge doing what he needs to do.

Eventually I found the time to actually see the dining area. It was beautiful and also had a nice bar. Everything was really elaborate with plenty of detailed wood work. If only the customers knew what was going on in that kitchen. I can't even recall at the moment the name of the restaurant but I will post it tomorrow and would advise anyone from ever eating at this place.

I am really surprised that I did not see any rodent infestation. I would think that with all the food waste and open bins of food on the floor an open invitation would be there. I guess the real shocker of it all was that the kitchen employees just left the mess. When I use to cook in a restaurant many years ago a mess was never allowed in the kitchen. When the day was done everything was left spic and span clean.

Well, anyway, I worked the graveyard shift last night, something I haven't done in almost 20 years. I guess the behind the scenes view of things has changed through the years. I am going to try to do the daytime sleep thing now and am not sure how that is going to work out.

Where God Wants Me

A beautiful Power Point Presentation

Attachment: WhereGodWantsMe.pps

Want To Eat Here?

Modern Toilet is a Taipei restaurant.  It accommodates 100 seats with each made from toilet bowls. The specialties at the restaurant accompany sink faucets and gender-coded 'WC' signs that appear on the three-story structure. The food is served in mini plastic toilet bowls. The toilet rolls that serve for wiping hand and mouth are hung above the tables, which may resemble glass-topped jumbo bathtub.

  

Misty's Car Thing

I'm a Ford Mustang!

You're an American classic -- fast, strong, and bold.  You're not snobby or pretentious, but you have what it takes to give anyone a run for their money.

"Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

Moving

I'm sorry I haven't  been around much this past week but I have been in the process of  moving. What a job....

I was debating on renting a moving truck from U haul or Ryder but opted instead to throw sides on the bed of my little Ford Ranger. Lol. Man, we have big stuff but the little truck is doing a fine job. I hauled over most of the big stuff and I am thinking of leaving the little stuff for my wife and her minnie van.

The home we are moving into was my in laws. I loaded their truck for them on Labor day and then started moving our stuff in 2  days later and have been making trip after trip since. I have everything so far except for the big stuff for the master  bedroom. I will get that today. I did not bring it yet because I had to finish work on the master bedroom.

At one time my father in law decided to remove the front closet and put a door way through to the master bedroom from the living room. Why? I have no idea. The entrance he made wasa walk through through the closet. . For some strange reason he had lowered the header hieghts down to close to 6'. I had to re frame the closet from the living room and then reframe the master bedroom closet, re drywall, tape and spackle and install new doors.   I took the time yesterday to repaint the master bedroom. We picked a wall color of a sky blue and my wife and I love it. From past painting there were some real butcher jobs with a paint brush. Almost like someone had cut in with a rake. All around the cove moulding at the ceiling there were severe drips. I had painted the walls and all the old drips stood out like a sore thumb so I had to scrape and sand and spackle to get things looking decent. I finished last night at almost 11pm but will say it looks great and my wife loves it. The existing walls were a light brown color.( So Ugly,lol) The closets, I installed 16"wire shelving and rods. I think the wider shelves will work out  better for stoage and I put them in because I like the fact that I don't have to paint them.

Well,,Back to work.