So this here is yet another beloved product I acquired at Red Apple, located in pleasant Mountain View, Anchorage. These chilies caught my attention because I was in need of some typical "chili pepper" shake-on topping, like what one might typically use on a slice of pizza from Costco.

Well, I got 'em of course and let me tell you what, they are fantastic. Thai chilies, ground into a form factor which makes them "shakeable". I discovered something important, though. You know the ususal "chili pepper" bottle you'd see in a pizzaria? Well, I suppose the manufacturers remove the dust and super-fine particles from those chili pepper "dots" that would otherwise perk up a boring pepperoni slice.

The folks at Dragonfly, the makers of these Thai chilies? They ain't removing nothing. If you look at the photo, you might be able to discern the bottle is full of what looks like red sawdust between the flakes. That ain't sawdust. It is debilitating. Eye-watering. Blinding. Painful. And persistent. Merely opening the bottle releases a bit of invisible particulate matter in the air. This is... the Devil's inhaler. If you breathe in near the bottle during use, you will not forget it. And don't even dream of rubbing your face or eyes. Oh no you don't.

Danger aside, these are great chilies. I've found them extremely handy for cranking up the heat in a stir fry, as it's just a case of shaking on the fire. Oh yes. And for pizza? Absolutely! Wow. Those ordinary "chili pepper" dots? Forgotten. I gotta go with the Thai version, even if it comes with consequences. Well worth it.

	Sambal Olelek. This is where the fire comes from. Plop a big ol' glob of this into a small dish. Maybe a couple of tablespoons worth.
	Rice vinegar. Add in an equal amount of this stuff to the bowl with the Sambal Olelek.
	Splenda. The kind in packets. You'll need a pretty good amount of this, too, like maybe five packets. And why yes, that is a pretty good amount of the stuff.

So what you're concocting here is a three-way battle between fire, tang, and sweet. The recipe is simple, the results profound. Tweak the proportions to suit your tastes. This sauce produces a sneaky hot which will enable you to consume far more Sambal Olelek than you probably ever could otherwise. Prepare to be lit up.

So right now I am on fire. A half-hour ago I devoured a bunch of baked tofu that was doused in Sambal Olelek, a fiery mix of chili, garlic, and I guess even more chili. So good, but not for beginners. This is not introductory-level hot at all.

So I will provide to you a recipe that will just plain send you into a profuse sweat. Here you go:

Ingredients

• 1 package firm tofu
• 1/4 bottle (2 oz.) Sambal Olelek
• 4 packets Splenda
• 3 tablespoons rice vinegar

Directions

• Cube tofu into bite-sized pieces
• Bake in convection oven at 350°f. for 20 minutes
• While the tofu is baking, mix up the remaining ingredients in a bowl.
• Once the tofu is done baking, you can either dip the tofu pieces into the bowl, or just add the pieces into the bowl

So this will result in what amounts to fire soup. But the thing is, the sweetness and vinegar masks much of the heat, so you end up consuming far more chili than would normally be possible. I'm still sweating a bit. But it is so good. So good. Worth the burn.

So from my mom I did receive a recipe for Pistou Soup, a hearty Olde World soup hearkening to days gone by. What follows is a quick knock-off of that same soup, which also liberated an old vacuum-sealed corned beef leftover I had in the freezer. This recipe here is really a recollection of what I tossed in the pot more than something I'd expect somebody else to follow

Ingredients

• 6 cups water
• 1 bag 15-bean soup mix
• 1 big ol' slab of leftover corned beef, along with potatoes, onion, and whaterver; sealed in a Foodsaver vacuum sealed bag. Diced. That is, cut up the corned beef into nice bite-sized chunks.
• 1 cube Knorr beef bullion
• 1 cube Maggi chicken/tomato bullion
• 1 onion, diced
• 8 baby carrots, diced
• 3 celery stalks, complete with tops, diced
• Big mess of basil, previously dried and broken up into pieces
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• Salt to taste
• Serious squirt of tomato paste (from tube) or maybe a couple of tablespoons out of a can

Directions

• Get out your big Fagor pressure cooker (what, you don't have a pressure cooker?)
• Add in the water, 15-bean soup mix, and maybe a clove of minced garlic
• Bring to boil, the seal up the pressure cooker and let run under pressure for 25 minutes
• Release pressure using the cold water release method, and return pot to stove, to a not-in-use burner
• With the pressure released, open the pot and add in all the ingredients
• Bring to boil, the seal up the pressure cooker and let run under pressure for 25 minutes
• Release pressure using the cold water release method
• Give it a taste. I found it needed a bit of salt.
• Get a long wooden spoon or something stiff, and carefully dislodge any beans which may have settled to the bottom of the pot and cooked to the pot floor. Carefully. After all, it is a pot full of hot soup, right?

When I cooked this, the entire bottom of the pot had the beans stuck to it, and they burnt slightly. Okay, well, more than slightly. But, they really took on an okay flavor of their own. I used a long spoon to knock the burnt beans loose and stir them into the soup. The soup was really great stuff, the corned beef is something I'd never have thought to add to it.

So, this version of Pistou Soup is missing probably half the ingredients, so that's why I call it Faux Pistou Soup. But, it's easy enough to slap together, especially if you just so happen to have an old hunk of corned beef available, as I did. The soup was too good, and I ate two big bowls of it. As I type this, while sitting on the couch with laptop in lap, my pants are partially unzipped and the belt buckle is undone. Too much Faux Pistou Soup!

Rhubarb berry cobbler. Is this low-carb? No! Low-calorie? Hahah, not even close. Is this really great stuff for when it has been below zero in Anchorage for all week? Oh yes it is.

This is a hybrid of two recipes, one for a no-roll pie crust, the other for rhubarb cobbler. In this case, I cut the rhubarb down to half, and substituted an equal amount of frozen mixed berries from Costco.

Now the no-roll pie crust is so well explained over at food.com that there isn't any point on my posting it here. You go over there and print out the recipe. I'll give you the recipe for the cobbler because it comes out of an old printed University of Fairbanks Cooperative Extension book, publication 300B-00064.

Directions - Getting Started

Start by getting you a 9" square dish. You don't need to grease it up or anything. Go through the no-roll pie crust recipe, and make that crust inside the dish. I found it best to wear disposable gloves so as to make it easier to press out the crust within the dish. Press out a nice crust within the dish. It only needs to go about an inch up the edges of the dish; it doesn't have to go to the top.

Ingredients - No-Roll Pie Crust

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 cup oil
• 2 tablespoons milk

Directions - Crust

• Read more at: http://www.food.com/recipe/my-no-roll-pie-crust-51537?oc=linkback

So you now have a 9" dish with a pie crust pressed out within it. Excellent! Pre-heat your oven to 350°f. and start on the next part, getting the cobbler top created.

Ingredients - Cobbler Top

• 1 cup sifted flour
• 1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 stick melted butter (1/2 cup)
• 3/4 cup uncooked oatmeal
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions - Cobbler Top

• Mix ingredients until crumbly. Do not overmix. You want a crumbly cobbler topping, not cookie batter.

Okay, so now you got a 9" dish with a crust in it. You got an oven that is probably ready to go at 350°f. And now for the cobbler filling.

Ingredients - Cobbler Filling

• 2 cups diced rhubarb
• 2 cups frozen mixed berries, slightly defrosted (microwave it a bit if they are too cold)
• 1 cup sugar (or sugar substitute)
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions - Cobbler Filling

• Combine the rhubarb and mixed berries. Mix them thouroughly, and pour into the 9" dish.
• In a saucepan, combine the sugar, cornstarch, water, and vanilla.
• Cook over medium heat until thick and clear. Note, you will have to stir this constantly to get the cornstarch to blend in. If it gets lumpy on you, get out a stick blender and do what you must.
• Pour the mixture evenly over the rhubarb and berries in the 9" pan.
• Sprinkle the cobbler topping evenly over the top of the cobbler, without pressing it down. You don't want to compact it.
• Bake for 50 minutes in the now nicely preheated at 350°f. oven.
• When the 50 minutes are up, carefully remove the cobbler from the oven and let it cool for at least 15 minutes before you dig in. You really don't want to ruin the moment with a hot lava burn.

So after you have waited patiently for the cobbler to reach a safe temperature, this is the part where you get a can of whipped cream and get your eat on. Oh yesssss.

Ain't got a photo cuz, well, we ate it all! So anyhow, it goes like this: We had maybe a half-pound of some fine meatloaf left over, and I came home, decided to make chili from scratch, and slapped the following together:

Directions

• 1 can black beans
• 1 can Ro-Tel
• 1 can El Pato
• 1/2 lb diced old meatloaf, or well, whatever you got
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 onion, diced
• 3/4 tsp ground cumin
• 3/4 tsp chili powder
• cayenne powder to your level of heat
• splash of white vinegar

Instructions

• Toss this stuff into a pot and cook it up for maybe a half-hour. I suggest a lid on the pot. Don't try to boil it out, but rather, simmer it for yeah, about a half-hour will do it.
• Oh yeah, make a pot of rice, too.
• So I dish up some rice in a bowl, put the chili on top, and top that with some shredded cheese. Oh, and eat it up.

Yeah, that's the Good Easy Chili recipe. This isn't necessarily low-carb, low-cal, low-anything. It is, however, a fine way to use up some leftover meatloaf.

So, last week I was in Minneapolis for training, and found my way to Mall of America, as would any red-blooded American. I got this thing for Lindt Lindor Truffles, particularly the ones that have some form of white chocolate or vanilla in them. It just so happens that there is a Lindt store in the mall, where they sell every possible variety of those little marbles of guilty pleasure. They had some new flavors, including a new all-vanilla flavor in an bright purple wrapper. I promise you, my intent was to get just a few of those babies, leave some for the hotel maid, and a wee few for the trip home.

They lasted one night, I think.

So, back to the mall a couple days later. Since I was going to be flying home the next day, I bought a whole bunch of those truffles, over $20 worth. I put a few of them into a nice brown plastic carry-on baggie which seemed to be purpose-built for taking on the airplane. The balance of my treasure I packed away into the suitcase

Fast forward to Friday evening, May 18th 2012. I board my Delta flight home to Anchorage, and after a few minutes I decide it was time to dip into my treat baggie. I lean the bag forward a bit to roll out a treat, and instead, out pours a bit of white goo. Ugh. Okay, did I mention the local temp in Minneapolis had been in the mid-to-high 80's that week? Uhm, yeah. Ooh, and did I forget to mention that I had to load all my stuff into the rental car that morning after checking out of the hotel? You know, living up in Anchorage, I forgot cars get hot in the inside! So I surrendered that ruined bag of glop to the trash can in the back of the plane, and pondered the fate of the bag of treats I had packed away in the suitcase. Only time would tell.

I got home, and I guess I should have taken a picture, because my description will not do it justice. I'll try, though. You ever went into the fridge and took out a forgotten bag of lettuce and a big part of it had decomposed to brown glop which smeared around in the bag? Yeah, that's what I had. At least two of the truffles had completely failed into syrup, and the remainder of them were now battered with the blood of their brethren.

Not one of the remaining truffles were anywhere near spherical, most of them ended up resembling chewed gum. Undaunted, I stuck the whole messy bag into the refrigerator and let them chill down. That did help quite a bit, as after that, the truffles were salvageable, although the outer wrappers were all rendered hopelessly sticky.

I will say, the new vanilla truffle in the purple wrapper are really good, but I think my favorites are still the white chocolate in the gold wraper, and the Stracciatella in the light blue wrapper. Word to the wise, though, if you come across a Lindt store in the mall, bring a bag of ice along.

This is a hybrid of ingredients from http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=13064 and directions from http://www.food.com/recipe/pressure-cooker-carnitas-108939. The result is a nice batch of carnitas that is ready to eat, as I did, or for additional use within burritos, fried up, whatever. Note, the red-pink color is me dumping Trappey's Louisiana Hot Sauce all over the carnitas. This time, I decided to hold off on the Sriracha sauce so the carnitas could stand out on their own. I'll be using this recipe again, as it came out great.

If you eat this plain, you're talking a seriously low-carb meal. Well, toss in a few carbs for a dousing with hot sauce, or maybe spring for a low-carb tortilla to roll it up in. But yeah, this is a total low-carb feast. And if carbs don't concern you, then bang up a load of spanish rice and refried beans and get it on! Whatever floats your boat, or expands your waistline.

Ingredients

• 4 lbs pork butt, cut into 2-inch cubes
• 1 tablespoon Mexican oregano
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 1 tablespoon rock salt (I used Hawaiian salt)
• 1 tablespoon pepper
• 4 bay leaves
• 4 tablespoons lime juice
• 1 orange, washed, cut in half
• 4 cups chicken broth

Directions

• Get a big mixing bowl.
• Get a pork butt, a pork roast, or some big ol' piece of pork. Cut it into 2-inch cubes. Toss the pieces into the bowl.
• Cut up an onion into coarse pieces. Maybe just a couple of cuts and break it up. Toss the onion into the bowl.
• Get your 6-quart pressure cooker out, and put in 4 cups of chicken broth.
• Add in the oregano, cumin, salt, pepper, bay leaves, and lime juice.
• Get a juicer out (I'm thinking a hand-held, but if you got an electric one, fine.) and juice that orange into the presure cooker.
• Toss in the orange halves into the mixing bowl.
• Add the cubed pork, onion, and orange halves to the pressure cooker.
• Fire up the pressure cooker, and bring up to a boil.
• Cook under pressure for 45 minutes.
• Cool down using the cold-water release method.
• Clean out that big ol' bowl you used earlier.
• Use a slotted spoon, mesh strainer (think wok accessory), or whatever you got to transfer the carnitas from the pressure cooker to the bowl.
• Fish out the big pieces of orange peel. If there are any small pieces, they'll add a nice orangey flavor to the carnitas.
• The pork should shred nicely. Use tongs to shred the pork up into whatever consistency you like. If you want wetter carnitas, use the remaining broth in the pressure cooker to flavor things up.