Leaderboard

Over on the guru there is a copycat challenge in which you are supposed to pick a cook and copy it. There were a few things I have been wanting to try, but DerHusker's paella has been something I have wanted to try for a while. My mom wanted to make paella last Christmas- but she isn't quite as into cooking as I am so she wanted to take lots of shortcuts- which made me so interested in what I could do taking DerHusker's recipe and only slightly altering it. I did have to make a few changes due to ingredient limitations. So I gathered my veggies and most other non protein ingredients. the rice is calsparra rice, by the way. Which is considered authentic in addition to Bomba rice. Then I began chopping i didn't dice my tomatoes and I used plum tomatoes because I remembered a technique from a Catalonian stew. You take the plum tomatoes, and use a box grater to remove the pulp from the skins, then that is cooked down with the onions for a while and thought that would apply nicely here. Then I got to working on my saffron broth. This was taken word for word from DerHusker. Crushed up saffron in a glass measuring cup then boiled with some white wine then I got to working on the proteins. First, some shrimp including some insanely HUGE shrimp. I couldn't get any prawns, so I thought these would sub nicely. I included a picture with my finger in for scale because they were definitely the largest shrimp I have ever seen i pulled off the shells, threw in a hunk of butter, seasoned and let them cook a bitadded water to cover and now let it cook for a while to make a shrimp stock after a while, I strained out the shellsThen I started prepping some of the other ingredients and started heating the paella pan I did the rest of the cooking from here on on my KK. I seasoned some bone in chicken thighs with smoked paprika, garlic powder, and salt and pepper and then put some color on them with some EVOO after they had cooked a while, I added in some of the linguisa to cook as well then I removed the chicken and linguist and Began to cook the onions and red peppers. then after a few minutes I added the tomato pulpafter that cooked down I added the rice in the shape of a cross then added my shrimp and saffron broths and stirred together then I added the linguisa and submerged the thighs shut the lid for about 15 minutes and got the shellfish ready. Pulled out the clams and mussles. Went back out to my KK and this is now what it looked like- most of all that flavorful liquid was absorbed then I added some peas and the clams. on go the mussels I closed the dome for a few minutes before adding some more ingredients the monster shrimp, regular shrimp and calamari after that cooked a while I added the lemons the clams and mussels were taking forever to cook so I ended up putting them directly on the grate and they opened within a minute so it kinda ruined the picture but by this time my mouth was watering uncontrollably but did I get the socarrat? YES!!! And it was delicious too my great surprise, even with all the expensive ingredients the most amazing part was the rice. This was an absolutely fabulous meal. So glad I tried it!

Thank you! I really don't think I will win. I've never won any of them, but now it's more about trying things I'm curious about. Lol. I'll have to check out your cook later on today!! I'm sure it is great. And I've never stuffed shrimp so I never even thought of that. However I liked eating these giant ones. They were almost like lobsters!

For my copycat challenge entry on the Guru I decided to do an Italian Surf and Turf cook. For the surf I copied John's wok shrimp scampi. I did add some tomatoes to the cook. For the Turf and basic theme behind this cook I copied Smoke and Awe's Braciole cook. I started with a nice refreshing summer drink - Peach Bellini. Of course if you went into Walmart you wouldn't know it was still summer as they are already putting out the fake Christmas trees - arggghh I made up some homemade sauce. A couple of needed extras to complete the meal. Here is the wok shrimp scampi. This is my first and will be my last time doing a wok cook using a kamado for a heat source. Just because something works (and it did) doesn't mean you should do it. Kamados work good for a lot of different cooking configurations just not ideal for wok cooking and I own an outdoor propane wok burner. The Braciole part of the meal. I really like the Grape Nuts substitution for bread crumbs. I will definitely do that substitution again. How else am I going to get rid of the box of Grape Nuts? LOL Served as a family plate. What a great meal. A big thank you to John and Smoke and Awe for the inspiration.

ROFL, ck. [emoji41]

No need for a sad face. Turn that frown upside down I could eat fried green tomatoes every day of my life. P.S. I saw another fish cook. I swear someone named @MacKenzie posted it - LOL

Nice looking tomato, MacKenzie. We're in the middle of a late heat wave here - it's been in the low 90s for almost a week. It's confusing my tomato plants; they're starting to bloom again. Fingers crossed that this second, late batch of tomatoes ripens before we get our first frost.

erik, those sure are 2 very delicious looking cooks, tasty tasty tasty.

Fri. I went on a day trip to get some special meat and beer. Came back with both and a combination of the two. The meat market had beer bacon, the beer was an IPA made by my brew-master friend so I just had to try that.:) This was tasty breakfast, ck peach jam, purple crack and beer bacon.