Slow Cooker BBQ Chicken with Cheesy Grits

     Cheesy grits seem to be all the rage lately. You can't open a cooking magazine and not find something served over grits. For me, grits were always something you'd order at Huddle House- a bowl of mush swimming in melted butter. This time, it's swimming in cheese. Cheese makes everything better. At the very least, cheese makes The Wife happy, which makes my life very easy. Though the recipe isn't made entirely in the slow-cooker, it is about the lamest, laziest recipe I've ever devised, which is hilarious because it's really damned good. Give it a try and tell me I'm wrong. You'd be lying, because I'm not wrong. It's really damned good. As always, notes are in blue.

Slow-cooker BBQ Chicken
and Cheesy Grits

Ingredients
BBQ Chicken

• 1 pound chicken, skin removed (we used drumsticks. There's nothing stopping you from using boneless, skinless chicken. In the long run, that would probably save you a little time and work)
• 1 bottle of BBQ sauce of your choice. 

Cheesy Grits

• 1 cup grits
• 3 cups water
• 1 teaspoon adobo seasoning
• 1 cup shredded cheese of your choice (we used a bagged mix of cheddar, American and Swiss)

Directions

Chicken

1. Pour BBQ sauce into a slow cooker. 
2. Fill BBQ sauce bottle half-way and shake. Pour into slow-cooker.
3. Add chicken and cook on LOW 6-7 hours or until chicken is done.
4. Remove the meat from the bone and discard the bones. Return the meat to the sauce. If using boneless, shred the meat and return to the sauce.

Cheesy Grits (Done on the stove)

1. In a saucepan, bring 3 cups of water to a rolling boil. Add the adobo seasoning.
2. Stir in grits and cheese. Lower heat to medium-low. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. About halfway through the cooking, stir to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan (you may find this step is easier if you remove the lid first. Put the lid back on when you're done stirring)
3. After 5 minutes, take off lid and remove from heat. Grits should be creamy.

Assembly

1. Take a big scoop of grits and put them on a plate.
2. Take a big scoop of chicken and sauce and place it on the grits.
3. Unceremoniously shovel the concoction in your face and enjoy. Maybe have a beer or two with this. I'd recommend a nice wheat beer. Or Guinness. You can never go wrong with Guinness. 
4. Damn it, now I want a Guinness and I don't have any in the house.
5. I'll be damned if I'm making a special trip to the store to buy Guinness.
6. It's better on draft anyway.
7. Ah screw it, I'll just have a bourbon and cola.

Good times!

Slow Cooker Apples in Bourbon Custard

    Holy Shit. I'm not one to normally go nuts about something that came out of a slow cooker, but I can say without fear of contradiction that this is the best thing outside of my chili to ever come out of a slow cooker. I just threw this together completely on a goof and magic happened. Seriously, once you have this, you'll forsake all other slow cooker desserts. We're talking eyes in the back of the head, open mouth groaning kind of good. Unless you don't like apples. Then you're shit out of luck. As always, notes are in blue.

Slow Cooker Apples in Bourbon Custard

Ingredients

• 6 small-medium apples, spiral cut and cored (you'll need one of those apple corer/peeler/slicer things or you're in for more work than you want)

  

  This thing. You can find them on Amazon for under $20, or at Pampered Chef for $1,200.

• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (we used pecans, but I imagine walnuts or cashews would be delightful)
• 1/2 cup sultanas (that's fancy-talk for gold raisins)
• 1 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
• 1/4 cup Benchmark Brown Sugar Liquor (if you don't want the booze, just use an equal amount of brown sugar. If you can't find Benchmark, you can mix about 2 tablespoons brown sugar with 1/4 cup bourbon for roughly the same effect)
• 1/8 cup honey
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions

1. If you haven't already done so, run your apples through that apple corer/peeler/slicer thing. Do your best to get the apple off the spindle whole. You will be scored on artistic merit.
2. Spray a slow cooker with non-stick cooking spray. Place the apples in a single layer on the bottom (we were able to barely fit 6 apples in a 2.5 quart cooker)
3. Mix the chopped nuts and raisins. Fill the middle of each apple where you removed the core. 
4. In a medium bowl (you can use a large bowl if you'd like. I wouldn't recommend using a small bowl unless you like making a mess), mix sweetened condensed milk, honey, bourbon and cinnamon. Pour mixture evenly over the apples. 
5. Cook on LOW for 3 hours or until apples start to get tender and liquid takes on a custard-like consistency. 

Good times!

Peach Bourbon Applesauce

     There's really not a whole lot to making applesauce. It's pretty much just apples and sugar. It's not really missing anything. Except booze. Everything is better with booze. I took a basic recipe from The Better Homes and Gardens Home Canning Cook Book and added a fantastic peach liquor. The booze cooks out but leaves behind a subtle peach flavor in the applesauce that is just wonderful. If you want the original recipe, just leave out the booze. Canned, this will hold for around a year on the shelf. We like to make a gallon at a time and just put it aside in quart jars. It's nice to get a taste of summer in the middle of winter. As always, notes are in blue.

Peach Bourbon Applesauce
adapted from Better Homes and Gardens Home Canning Cook Book 

Ingredients

• 6-7 pounds apples (use whatever type you like. We just stole ours from our neighbor's apple trees)
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1/2 cup Benchmark Peach Whiskey

Directions

1. Wash, quarter and core apples. Combine apples, 4 cups of water and color keeper. Bring to a boil; reduce to simmer for about 15 minutes or until apples are tender.
2. Press apples through food mill (if you have a KitchenAid with a food mill attachment, this part is wonderfully easy. If you're using a manual food mill, this recipe qualifies as a Pain In The Ass)
3. Put milled apples in a large pot with the sugar and booze. Cook over low heat until sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil, stirring to prevent scorching or sticking. Taste and add sugar or more booze as needed. 
4. If you plan on eating a gallon of applesauce on the spot, you can skip this and the next step. Pack into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. 
5. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath (as always, defer to the National Center for Home Food Preservation to make sure you are canning correctly)

Good times!

Bourbon Fruit Cake

     Can any holiday dessert be more recognizable than the ubiquitous fruitcake? No, of course not. That was a rhetorical question. Ubiquitous means you'll find it everywhere. That was a quiz. Did you pass? I hope so, because this is going to be on the final exam. This particular recipe was adapted from a recipe for Kentucky Bourbon Cake I found on About.com's Southern Food section around five years ago. In all fairness, this is not a true fruitcake as we know it. It is not the consistency of blacktop. It is not cloyingly sweet with terrifying unidentifiable bits of detritus suspended within. The original recipe did call for candied cherries and nuts, but I quickly put an end to that nonsense. I want cake. I don't want to be losing fillings and digging things out of my molars all night. This recipe does have a lot going for it. This cake is actually fluffy. It cooks well in any number of different shapes. It's good with icing. It will, however, make your Kitchenaid howl like a damned soul while mixing it. This recipe will fill a 5 quart mixing bowl frighteningly close to the top. It's worth it. When I tell somebody I'm serving fruitcake, they flinch. Then they eat it. Complaints cease. As always, any notes and changes are in blue.

Bourbon Fruit Cake
via About.com 

Ingredients

• 8 ounces red candied cherries, halved (I omitted all the candied cherries and used a jar of drained maraschino cherries)
• 8 ounces green candied cherries, halved (omitted)
• 8 ounces seedless raisins or chopped dates (I'm married so I shouldn't have dates. I used golden raisins)
• 2 cups bourbon (I went with Jim Beam)
• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, room temperature
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 6 large eggs, separated
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups chopped pecans (omitted)
• 2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, combine the cherries, raisins, and bourbon; cover and let soak overnight. 
2. Preheat the oven to 275°F.
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars with an electric mixer until light and fluffy; add the egg yolks and beat well. Stir in the soaked fruit with bourbon. In a small bowl, combine 1/2 cup of the flour with the pecans; set aside. Add the remaining flour, nutmeg, and baking powder to the creamed mixture and blend well. In a bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form; gently fold into the cake batter. Sprinkle the floured pecans over batter and fold in gently.
4. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan and line the bottom with greased waxed paper. (I have made this recipe several times and have never used a tube pan or waxed paper. I've used loaf pans, cake pans, bundt pans). Pour the batter into the pan; bake at 275° for 3 to 3 1/2 hours, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean (this does, in fact, take every bit of 3-1/2 hours if you're using a large pan). 
5. Cool the cake. Turn cake out of the pan, peel off waxed paper (which I did not use), and store in a tightly covered container for several days (this recipe makes me think that you're not supposed to eat the cake. Just store it for several days and then shitcan it. Look, if this lasts more than seven days in your house, you must have cooked it wrong. It's awesome).

Good times!

Too Damned Easy Bourbon Apple Butter

     My in-laws both have access to a fairly large collection of apple trees. This means that each fall we find ourselves in the possession of 40-60 pounds of apples. One of our go-to methods of working those apples is to render them into apple butter. Years ago I found a recipe online for how to do it and have tweaked it out for my own use. For the life of me I can't recall where I got this. If anybody knows, let me know and I'll give credit for the inspiration where credit is due. This variation uses brown sugar and bourbon and gives a sweet and mellow taste. About 35 medium apples will yield a little over 4 pints of apple butter. These can be processed in a boiling water bath for long term storage. If you are doing pint jars, give them 15 minutes in the bath. (Once again, please defer to the National Center for Home Food Preservation for clear instructions) As always, any notes are in blue.

Too Damned Easy
Bourbon Apple Butter

 Ingredients
per 10 apples

• 10 medium apples peeled, cored and thickly sliced*
• 5 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup water 
• 1/4 cup bourbon 

Directions

1. Load the apples in a large pot over medium heat. Add cinnamon, water, bourbon, and sugar. Cook until the apples get soft.
2. Use an immersion blender to blitz the apples until they are the desired consistency (if you don't have a hand blender, you're going to have to mash the apples up by hand. Good luck)
3. Load the sauce into a large slow-cooker (if you're like me and used 30+ apples, you're going to need at least a 5 quart slow-cooker). Prop the lid slightly off the cooker to allow steam to escape.  Cook on low overnight. 

   

   In the morning, you'll wake up to something like this.
   The same thing applies if you ate Taco Bell.

*NOTE: If you have a food mill, you can do this a lot quicker. When I used a mill I simply quartered the apples and boiled them for about 10 minutes. I then loaded them in the mill and basically made applesauce. If you do it this way the directions will change. Just load the milled apples into the slow cooker and mix in the remaining ingredients. You will need to cut the amount of water you use by half if you do it this way. Don't cut the bourbon. NEVER CUT THE BOURBON.

If there is an easier way to do something, I will certainly use that method.
Good times!

Too Damned Easy Chocolate Pudding Macaroon Pie

     Now that the school year is in full swing, time is of the essence during the week. When I get home, I need dinner to come together in less than an hour if at all possible. I need all the time I can get to focus on unwinding, smoking cigars and drinking bourbon in preparation for the next day. It is this time-consciousness that has caused me to start writing these "Too Damned Easy" recipes. Some of these recipes may seem ridiculous in their simplicity, but you'll thank me when you are able to put together a decent meal after work that doesn't take much time or effort. These are recipes that you should have all the ingredients for at any given time. Okay, maybe you won't have macaroons on hand. Get creative. Bust up whatever cookies are laying around. Throw some Cap'n Crunch in there. Get crazy. As always, any notes are in blue.

Too Damned Easy
Chocolate Pudding Macaroon Pie

Ingredients

• 9" graham cracker pie crust (store bought. If you're making it from scratch here, you're missing the point of this recipe)
• 10-12 macaroons of your favorite flavor, broken up into small bits (for whatever reason, I had a can of cappuccino macaroons, so that's what I used)
•  1 box instant chocolate pudding
• Milk for instant pudding
• Whipped topping, optional (I had better not find out you made it from scratch. You'd better be busting out a container of Cool Whip. I would have used it, but I didn't have any in the house and I sure as hell wasn't making a special trip to the store for a throw-together dessert)

Directions

1. Take broken-up macaroons and lay them in an even layer in the pie crust. 

   

   Like so.
   I assure you, no matter how much that looks like ground beef, it is actually cappuccino macaroons in there.

2. Make the chocolate pudding according to the instructions on the box (this is where you double check that you're using INSTANT pudding or you're going to be sorely disappointed later when you have a bowl of chocolate macaroon soup)
3. Pour the pudding into the pie crust, making sure to completely cover the macaroons.
4. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Top with whipped topping when serving.

Good times!

Middle Class Bartending: The Cowboy Cocktail

     Cocktails are an integral part of the dining experience. Aperitif, digestif, middle-of-the-meal-if, whatever. The bottom line is that my MCK incorporates a fairly well-stocked liquor cabinet. As I enjoy entertaining, I like to make sure there's a little something for everyone.

Even this guy.

     One of my favorite cocktails is the Cowboy Cocktail. There are several cocktails that bear this moniker, but I'm going to share my favorite iteration. Ready? It's simple as can be.

The MCK Cowboy Cocktail

• 1 part bourbon
• 1/2 part cream
• Pour over ice in rocks glass
• Stir to mix

     That's it. Want a bigger drink? Multiply the recipe and switch to a highball glass. Which bourbon? Doesn't matter. Light or heavy cream? Don't care. I've put flavored coffee creamer in before, which is actually quite good. The last one I made was Jim Beam and French Vanilla creamer. Mix and match. Have fun. As much as it seems like it would be a totally vile drink, it's quite tasty and makes an excellent after dinner drink. It pairs well with cigars, too. Give it a try this weekend and let me know what you think.

Good times!