Skyline Chili Oyster Crackers?

My brother lives in Skyline Chile country and got me hooked on the stuff.  Thankfully he keeps me well supplied with regular deliveries.

Okay.  Skyline Chili Oyster Crackers are not your regular saltines.  I tell you there is something about them!   So I’m having some homemade beef and barley soup tonight and I open up my latest shipment of Skyline Chili Crackers and somethings not right…

I think I am paranoid!

I think these crackers are crisper and browner and just not the same!

I google it and my paranoia is confirmed!

Skyline Chili has a new oyster cracker baker.  (Say that three times as fast as you can!)

Read about it here.

I google more and find this!

Yikes, is nothing sacred?

 

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Skyline Chili Contest Missed!

In September last year there was a contest for free Skyline Chile for one year.  Was I told about this? No!  Here is the proof of the contest: Link to contest !

I confess I have an addiction for Skyline Chili, thanks to my brother who lives right in the neighborhood and can eat the stuff whenever he wants!  Here is the three way, to die for, but my brother eats salads!

Granted my brother keeps me stocked up with regular  shipments of Skyline Chili, and he is a healthy eater and Skyline Chili may not be on his diet and oh my gosh I making excuses for my brother!

Anyway I missed out on my chance to win a free year’s supply of Skyline Chili (never mind that I never win anyway when I enter these contests).

Double granted my brother would’ve had to eat a lot of Skyline Chili to win me a years free supply.   Family sacrifice right?

What! Don’t know what Skyline Chili is?  A truly regional delicacy.

2-way – layer of spaghetti noodles topped with Skyline Chili.

3-way – layer of spaghetti noodles, Skyline Chili topped with cheddar cheese.

4-way – layer of noodles, Skyline Chili, cheese and chopped raw onions.

5-way – layer of noodles, Skyline Chili, cheese, red beans and onions.

The Colorado girl’s version of a yummy Skyline Chili experience?

Skyline Chili Frito pie. See you later off to the store for Fritos!

( I also can’t resist a smothered Skyline Chili hot dog with random toppings.)

 

My Daughter’s Secret Sample Stash

Alex has a “Sample Stash”.  She has been saving all her samples from her yarn adventures since she started crocheting, so at least for the last 15 years.  She even saves the instructions and ties them on to the samples.

After hearing about our knitting and crocheting for charity group and the quilting ladies that also have been doing fidget quilts for the memory impaired she realized that her “Sample Stash” was the perfect donation of dangly things to attach to the fidget quilts and the twiddlemuffs for memory impaired.

For some reason she made these tiny hats and scarves for the wee folk, the elves, leprechauns and faeries.  She is part Irish and part Gypsy so I think it is some kind of warding off the evil thing.

Thank you for donating your memories Alex, it will be a meaningful addition to the fidget quilts and twiddlemuffs and make them very special.

Love You!

Skyline Chili

 

I confess I have an addiction for Skyline Chili (along with White Castle Hamburgers but that is a whole nother post).  ((Is “nother” a real word?))

This addiction is totally my brother’s fault.  (When you have a little brother you can blame a lot of stuff on him.).  ((Even after you grow up and are adults.)) (((Is it appropriate to use like triple parenthesis?)))

I digress back to Skyline Chili.  A truly regional delicacy.

2-way – layer of spaghetti noodles topped with Skyline Chili.

3-way – layer of spaghetti noodles, Skyline Chili topped with cheddar cheese.

4-way – layer of noodles, Skyline Chili, cheese and chopped raw onions.

5-way – layer of noodles, Skyline Chili, cheese, red beans and onions.

I apologize if I’ve got some of this wrong but I’m from Colorado and just trying to deal with an addiction.

Anyway I’m having Skyline Chili tonight with whole wheat noodles and chicken and Italian sausage.

Note no shredded cheddar cheese I was too lazy and hungry so I just sliced some up in laid it on top hope the Skyline Chili police don’t find me!

Skyline Chili police:  Can we call this the Colorado Way?

The secret ingredient is unknown as it is listed as “spices”.  I believe it is cinnamon but it is still a regional mystery.

This post on my blog is totally only a hint to my baby brother that I am almost out of my Skyline Chili stash and need him to replenish and send me more (because Christmas is upon us) ((Big sister to little bro guilt trip))  (((I really like triple parens!))) and I will also find out if he’s really reading my blog!

A gift box from the Skyline Chili Police would also be appreciated.

Updated Grace Motoyoshi’s easy fried rice

Updated below in italics….

Grace Motoyoshi’s is my brother-in-law’s mom.

When my sister Kris started dating Den I was a teenager. Kris was nine years older than me and everything about her was fascinating.  I was intrigued. I wanted to know everything about Den.  I would ride my bike to visit Den’s parents to find out more about him and his family.  I just recently found out that Den never knew about these visits.

I think Den’s parents found these visits somewhat alarming at first but then they became amused and resigned and just dealt with me – that teenage sister of their son’s latest girlfriend.

We didn’t have much in common me being at that  annoying age, a teenager who knew it all, I was probably not a lot of fun for them.  I bless them that they tolerated me and didn’t complain to Kris and Den about my visits.

They were thoughtful and knew a teenager would be hungry.  Grace would make me something real quick to eat.  Fried rice not like anything I had ever tasted because Grace had a secret ingredient she used.  Dashi dried soup stock!

Here is her recipe with a very few additions I have made along the years.

You will need cold day old rice (cold rice isn’t  so sticky).

Heat some oil in a pan.  Here you can add some butter and/or some toasted sesame seed oil for extra umami (savory taste).  You can also and some onion or some minced or crushed garlic here and if you do cook for a bit. Then add your cold rice.  Stir occasionally until heated.  Sprinkle with dashi powder to taste.  Here you can also add soy sauce but be careful as dashi powder will also be salty and you will want to taste frequently.  Last add one egg per portion, this is quick fried rice so just crack the egg(s) over the pan in stir in.

The update which my brother-in-law Den reminded me about is fresh grated ginger.  As a teenager this was a step I was too lazy to undertake.  Ha!  This is the secret ingredient and explains why Grace’s fried rice always tasted better than mine!  Thank you Den!

Here is Grace Moyoyoshi’s quick fried rice with ebi (shrimp) tempura fishcake and kasuzuke cucumbers.

Itadakimasu!

Grace Motoyoshi’s easy fried rice

Grace Motoyoshi’s is my brother-in-law’s mom.

When my sister Kris started dating Den I was a teenager. Kris was nine years older than me and everything about her was fascinating.  I was intrigued. I wanted to know everything about Den.  I would ride my bike to visit Den’s parents to find out more about him and his family.  I just recently found out that Den never knew about these visits.

I think Den’s parents found these visits somewhat alarming at first but then they became amused and resigned and just dealt with me – that teenage sister of their son’s latest girlfriend.

We didn’t have much in common me being at that  annoying age, a teenager who knew it all, I was probably not a lot of fun for them.  I bless them that they tolerated me and didn’t complain to Kris and Den about my visits.

They were thoughtful and knew a teenager would be hungry.  Grace would make me something real quick to eat.  Fried rice not like anything I had ever tasted because Grace had a secret ingredient she used.  Dashi dried soup stock!

Here is her recipe with a very few additions I have made along the years.

You will need cold day old rice (cold rice isn’t  so sticky).

Heat some oil in a pan.  Here you can add some butter and/or some toasted sesame seed oil for extra umami (savory taste).  You can also and some onion or some minced or crushed garlic here and if you do cook for a bit. Then add your cold rice.  Stir occasionally until heated.  Sprinkle with dashi powder to taste.  Here you can also add soy sauce but be careful as dashi powder will also be salty and you will want to taste frequently.  Last add one egg per portion, this is quick fried rice so just crack the egg(s) over the pan in stir in.

Here is Grace Moyoyoshi’s quick fried rice with ebi (shrimp) tempura fishcake and kasuzuke cucumbers.

Itadakimasu!

The results of pickling with Sam’s gift…

The results of the first pickling adventure with my brothers pickling gift.  I rushed the pickling and the pickles were bland they had a good texture and a good flavor but we’re on the bland side

The secret ingredient is raisins!

I remember my dad using raisins in his pickles all the time.  I think it was for flavor and to feed the good bacteria

I’m working on the supplies for a new pickling adventure. This one takes weeks to prepare the pickle bed.  I’ll let you know the results in a few weeks

I’m also going to try the quicker pickles again and let them Ferment a little longer

How do sansei eat pickles?  As a snack with hot rice!

Surprise gift!

I received a surprise gift from my brother Sam to help me with my pickling adventures!

 

Unfortunately the instructions are in Japanese, I am Sansei I don’t read Nihongo!

But I don’t want to let my brother down so I tried to make pickles without direction from memory of watching my dad and from my discussions with my brother.

These are couple of cucumbers from a friends garden with some salt a little miso and the secret ingredient.  She and her husband are not Japanese but love Japanese food and are my guinea pigs this go around  This is after about one hour.  The pickles need a slight pressure so you turn the handle and the little platform comes down and applies pressure. The way my dad used to do this is he get a plate, a clean rock, put the plate on top of the vegetables the rock on top of the plate and voila there was the necessary pressure.

Here are the pickles after about three hours!

They turned out a little too salty I had to rinse them off thoroughly add a little mirin (a Japanese sweet wine) and some more of the secret ingredient and let them press for about 12 hours.  I thought this was a pretty good result slightly sweet slightly salty slightly a little of the secret ingredient slightly crunchy.   Perfect for eating with hot rice!  I’ll let you know what the secret ingredient is when I have the results of the tasting from my friend.

 

Hawaiian Macaroni Salad results!

The results are in!

By crashing another family get together I was able to test three versions of Hawaiian macaroni salad on Ruby Hada’s family. Ham, chicken and seafood.

The favorite was ham followed closely by chicken and believe it or not seafood came in last.

To the basic recipe and information below I added as follows:

HAM: about 1 cup Chopped ham and the secret ingredient.

CHICKEN: one large can of chicken and the juice it came in and the secret ingredient.

SEAFOOD: about 1 cup imitation crab and the secret ingredient.

What is the secret ingredient? Hondashi! A powdered soup stock much like chicken or beef bouillon. It sometimes is known as bonito flavored soup stock. Make sure you get one without MSG. Use sparingly for this huge recipe 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of this soup stock. I did leave out the salt as people are trying to avoid salt and I forgot to put the pepper, sigh. A little salt and pepper would’ve been nice, don’t skip. I did use the milk to keep it more moist and I used sweet pickle relish instead of the vinegar and sugar. Oh yeah really cook the macaroni till they’re fat and soft.  This is very important to make your traditional Hawaiian macaroni salad.

Ruby’s family was getting together for a visit with her daughter and grandchildren, Visiting from San Francisco.  This family was warm and friendly even though I was crashing yet another one of their get-togethers. A special treat was Ruby’s niece, the pastry chef, made a wonderful cheesecake with homemade chocolate and caramel sauce! Yum!

I have another recipe using hondashi from my brother-in-law’s mother Grace Motoyoshi.  I’ll be sharing that recipe and the story of how I got it with you soon!

******** from the previous post:

Macaroni salad is a staple of the Hawaii-style meal.  Typically served in a mound with a mound of white rice and with barbecue chicken or meat. The macaroni salad is savory and mayonnaise rich.  The basic salad is easy and the recipe can be varied to individual taste.

Basic Macaroni Salad
Cook 1 pound elbow macaroni until soft and fat.

Stir in ¼ cup very finely grated onion.  It should be liquidy.

Approximately 2½ cups of mayo (not salad dressing) more or less.

The add-ins:  whatever suits you, grated carrots are common, milk to keep moist can be added too, celery diced,

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar added to hot pasta and other ingredients plus 1 Tbsp brown sugar added after cooled.

Salt and pepper, to taste. Stir well; refrigerate.