Food I Want

More from the mind of Dave to your plates and pots. Dave Scott from Davecancook.com is one our exclusive contributors and again hits a home run with how he, and now you, can make great Lasagna.

Dave went overtime on this recipe and it has come out as a two part’er’.

This first viedo keys on making the sauce which is “the most important part” to making your lasagna a hit.

We have fallin a bit behind and Dave never stops cooking so stay tuned as we catch up with more great ideas for men in the kitchen looking for something beyond pot pies.

When you get done learning how to whip up lasagna here see more of Dave and his creations in the kitchen at Dave’s Youtube.com page and be sure to leave a comment and tell him where you saw him, on Charlottecritic.com.

Just double click any video to pop in on his homepage.

Dave does requests so feel free to drop him a line as a Youtube comment or right here on our site and let hiom know what you want to challenge the “world’s greatest chef” to make next week in his ongoing series.

Here in the second video Dave takes the great sauce you just learned how to make and tells you where to stick it! I mean stick to the ribs of course!

Found this sweet little insight into the needs and important points in finding a true southern BBQ place to eat at.
We added the 15 points from hillfamily.net and our gereral aggrement or comments to accompany eachimportant line if this culinary bible passage.

1. Pork. ‘Nuff said. (best meat, cooks the softest, tastes the best easy to agree)

2.Cheap. Who can really enjoy a good meal if you know you’ll be working overtime to pay it off? A good pork plate, including slaw, fries, and a pickle, should run about $5-$6. Ribs — baby-back, of course — might be closer to $10 with all the fixins’. (sorry that not too many have a full rack fries and salw for under 10, but I agree this should price out like home cooking and taste like it too.)

3. Ma-Pa owned. Sure, there are good barbecue chain restaurants, a few of which we rated. But the appeal of barbecue is tasting a person’s homemade sauce, which usually tastes so good that friends and neighbors ask for the recipe. Then the person has a good start at establishing his or her own restaurant. (good is good, I love Fred Flemming’s Chain in Florida, great pulled pork and sauces, but ma and pa atmosphere is best.)

4. A place where everyone knows everyone else — except for us, usually. When Jim the Sheriff and Bob the barber come in for lunch, Louise hollers at them, “Hey boys. C’mon in — your table is open. I’ll bring y’all your usual.” (this is nice in all restaurants, only m,ore important in a BBQ etting)

5. Most of the staff should be plump–a sure sign that the product is worth tastin’.
(fat and happy, and Fat guys rule are two of our facts of this website.)

6. No coupons. Any barbecue restaurant that has to lure you in with a coupon isn’t worth tastin’. It should be all word-of-mouth marketing.
( I would never say no to a coupon, so I can live with paying less if they want me too, though it isnt needed for the right BBQ)

7. The aroma of roasting pork should permeate your senses as soon as you pull in the parking lot–even before you open your car door.
(Wood, pork and fries in the air.)

8. It’s got to be casual enough for entire families–great uncle Norm, Great Grandma Ruth, and little toddler Nick, who can’t sit still or keep his voice down low, no many how many reminders from his step-daddy.

9. Southern accents. Southern town. Southern folks. Southern Southern Southern.
(Now this makes total sense since I have moved to Charlotte, no other will do to me)

10. Vinegar based barbecue is our favorite, but tomato-based, which is sweeter, is a close second, followed by mustard-based. True Southerners would quickly step-up to define which geographical region caters to which type of barbecue–vinegar, sweet, or mustard-based. However, each restaurant caters to what they like best, so we’ve concluded it’s a Southern myth. Each restaurant serves pork just how they like it.
(pulled pork just needs to be soft and flavorful with the right sauces in bottles.)

11. Tributes to the pig in all forms around the restaurant: Pig pictures on the outside signs and menu, pig statues in the waiting area, and bathrooms, pig toothpick holder at the cashier’s station . . . you get the picture. You just gotta be reminded of what animal you’re eating.

12. Greasy fries. You know the kind — fried in the left-over dirty greasy from yesterday.

13.Tart, crisp coleslaw.

14. Free refills on soda, and keep ‘em comin’. If you have to ask your waitress for a refill, she isn’t quick enough. We need something to wash down the grease.

15. If it’s a chain restaurant, it has to specialize in barbecue and preferably mention that in the name. Regular all-American grills with a wide range of food choices don’t produce good barbecue.

Dave is recovering from the flu, and the first thing he did on his comeback tour in the kitchen is bring out the big guns with a recipe from his Grandma’s archive.

Nothing brings the strength back to a cook in the kitchen like Beef Stew Hash.

Not only has the beef stew revived our contributor Dave Scott, but this also means Dave Junior is tossed back behind the camera after bringing us Southern Style Breakfast.

Dave writes us the following insight on this kithen creation:

“Grandma’s Stew Beef Hash!! Oh man, this is good. Stew Beef, Potatoes and Onions. Grandma taguht me how to cook this and it is good. Grandma’s secret is in the onions. Two whole chopped onions stewed slow with beef and potatoes. You put the Hash on some grits and let the taste buds fly.”

This post is a contribution of cooking and great food ideas from the World’s Greatest Chef David Scott of Charleston, South Carolina. Dave shows us how to cook up dishes that men love to eat in a way that is so easy no man can mess it up. Stop back often to get the latest recipes every week.
You can view all Dave’s recipe contributions here.

Unfortunately Dave is down with the flu or perhaps Dave Jr. has him tied up in the basement so he can take over the kitchen and eat both plates of food. Dave’s son steps up to the plate and gives us what we have all been requesting which is how to cook traditional southern style breakfast.

Dave Jr. Produces 3 plates of greasy mixed and meat loaded breakfast. First he puts together a traditional grit breakfast on an omelete with sausage, bacon and plenty of grease, he matches that with a non-grit potato breakfast and lastly he shows you how to make french toast.

If you are incompetent in the kitchen and realize that nothing is as good as greasy Southern American-style breakfast, this is the lesson to show you how to make it right.

Now thats an interesting name? and since its a headline of sorts, anyone still reading at this point is apparently a victim of its hook and edge.

White trash Chowder is yet another mutant stew recipe we made while daydreaming at the supermarket. Our goal here was a “white colored” hearty stew, based on the main ingredients of “pork & beans”.

The fact is Pork and beans are both easy to work with ingredients so this name leaves us with alot of room to wiggle and get it right.
Ingredients for this great stew are

Pork Chops (4-5) trimmed into stew sized pieces
8oz white mushrooms (you pick the type)
1 can White kernal corn
1 White onion
1 can pinto beans.
1 cup white rice.
Pinch of White pepper (any pepper is fine, this is for effect)
3-4 slices of bacon cut into small pieces
Salt
Adobo
Garlic Salt
Flour or bisquick
Olive Oil

We start out by prepping it all as usual and get a few money shots with the camera for this site. Chop the pork chops into small cubes or chunks for stew, quarter the mushrooms, and chunk the onion. Chop the onion into good size chunks as well, these should be bigger than diced. The size should be to your preference.

Grab a can or bag (we used a coffee can) throw in this 1 cup of bisquick or flour, a tablespoon of salt, Adobo, Garlic Powder and a few pinches of curry powder. Also add the white pepper (or black) to your taste preference. Remember that in stew a little pepper goes a long way, so just a 4-5 shakes should do it right unless you like it spicy. If you like it spicy use red pepper here for a nice kick.

Into this can throw the 4-5 chunked pork chops.

These stew chunks end up being about to large handfuls. Add this to the can and add the entire small to medium onion cut into chunks as well. Shake the can up and coat it all. Now pour the mixture into the strainer and get all the loose powder off it. If this feels like panning for gold, keep in mind that it kinda is once your hungry.

In a skillet heat up olive oil (enough to cover the bottom of the pan). Put the small handful of fine chopped bacon into this pan and let it crackle for 3-5 minutes. Now throw in the pork and onion with the flur and spice coating. Cook this for 5-10 minutes moving it around and browing and crisping the outside of the pork. Drain off any extra oil, though there shouldnt really be much if any with the flour soaking it up.

Pour this into your stewpot, turn it up to medium. When the pan starts sizzling pour in enough water to cover the meat completely, likely 3 cups or so. At this time add any more salt or red pepper to suit your tastes and let this cook covered on med heat for 45 minutes, and let some of the water cook off.

The meat should still be under water at this point. Pour in the cup of rice and the can of white kernel corn. Let this cook for 10-15 more minutes till the rice look ready. Remember we are making soup so it shoul all be floating and underwater, add a cup or two more if needed since the rice absorbs some. You can see the image of this stage here to see the consistency we were going for.

If you want to taste the progress it should be slightly salty and you should taste the curry just a bit too, though you dont reeally taste the pepper much. Adjust it to be right.

Pour in the mushroom and the canned pinto beans. These ingredients get soft fast so we are close to done. After about 10 minutes you should be hot and thick stew as shown in the pics here. Serve it up with a shake or garlic powder and white pepper if you like flavor, though this was one of the better stews we have made.

This is a great next day stew, you will find out since this make about 4-6 big bowls.
See all the pics of this nice man meal recipe here.

This post is a contribution of cooking and great food ideas from the World’s Greatest Chef David Scott of Charleston, South Carolina. Dave shows us how to cook up dishes that men love to eat in a way that is so easy no man can mess it up. Stop back often to get the latest recipes every week.
You can view all Dave’s recipe contributions here.

So Dave has outdone himself this time, he refused to make an eggroll and instead made the modern man-version of this classic with the meatroll.

Take your traditional eggroll spice it with strong garlic, onion and italian seasoning add a pound of beef and sausage and your getting close to what Davecreates with his spin on the classic eggroll, the Southern meatroll.

This latest installation in the Carolina Cooking with Dave series on Charlottecritic.com features some semi-sweet singing int he kitchen and a celebrity guest appearence by Dave Jr.

If you have read this far and appreciate the time that goes into Dave’s excellent cooking and contributions to our site, please stop in at Dave’s personal YouTube page and leave his some kind words or requests for dishes.

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=jaybobed

This post is a contribution of cooking and great food ideas from the World’s Greatest Chef David Scott of Charleston, South Carolina. Dave shows us how to cook up dishes that men love to eat in a way that is so easy no man can mess it up. Stop back often to get the latest recipes every week.
You can view all Dave’s recipe contributions here.

I hit Dave up for a request on the coming March madness NCAA tourney. I had hopes for “finger foods with flair” unique and heavy enough to fill up a room full of semi-cultured men. Dipping is compulsive behavior around the tourney time of year and seems this year will be an epidemic.

Teriyaki hot wings are a sure fire way to impress your fanciest Duke-fan friend, while filling up the 340lb guy for UNC, see the recipe then go eat this recipe.

Good morning on this monday!

Here’s another episode of Carolina Cooking With Dave. He’s done it again with a crazy array of four flavors for spicing up our chicken. He even stirs up some dippin’ sauce tasty enough to make your mouth water and eyes tear. This takes an innocent snack and makes it decadent. A great way to kick off March Madness!!

Dave says “We aren’t dipping chips. We are dipping Meat!”

This post is a contribution of cooking and great food ideas from the “World’s Greatest Chef” David Scott of Charleston, South Carolina. Dave shows us how to cook up dishes that men love to eat in a way that is so easy no man can mess it up. Stop back often to get the latest recipes every week.
You can view all Dave’s recipe contributions here.

We are slowly catching up on the posts by Dave. We are using his archived recipes. In the future we wont be posting “by Dave” recipes daily like we are now.

Dave has promised us one per week every Monday. With this promise every Tuesday night you can have a new meal from the Southern kitchen master and our very appreciated contributor from this day forward.

Here is Dave making up Spaghetti Carbonara.

How can you possible not like eating pasta with cheese and bacon?

Just the ingredients of this dish served on side dish plates would be great, so when its cooked to perfection this is a great dish that will please.

Picture yourself stirring this cheese and bacon packed bowl of pasta before you hit it with salt and red pepper and serve it up to company, or perhaps you have visons of the great leftover this would make at midnight when you are craving a snack.

Enjoy this sweet “man favorite” dish!

This post is a contribution of cooking and great food ideas from the World’s Greatest Chef David Scott of Charleston, South Carolina. Dave shows us how to cook up dishes that men love to eat in a way that is so easy no man can mess it up. Stop back often to get the latest recipes every week.
You can view all Dave’s recipe contributions here.

It has officially come to be and the world’s greatest chef from Davecancook.com has decided to bring the best of South Carolina to us in Charlotte.

Dave puts out a video series and is a youtube contributor with his cooking for men. Dave cooks southern style meals and dishes, with southern accent for southern tables to share and pass.

You can visit and subscribe to Dave online at Youtube on his page here, or just stop back and see his regular contribution to his neighbors in North Carolina and more specifically the readers at Charlottecritic.com in Charlotte, NC.

In the latest adddition to the series added special for the readers here is a Charlotte favorite “southern style ribs”. Dave serves it up in a mustard base BBQ sauce produced and bottled from our neighbors in South Carolina.

We welcome Dave’s contributions from this day forth as he is in tune with our cooking food that men like to eat and cooking it with finger sticking local style and ingredients.

Southern Style Ribs By Dave.

So man was it hard to read through and watch the sizzling of the pork steaks, BBQ and “southern fried everything’s” that Dave was making in our last post about the Chef Dave series from South Carolina. The photos from this little (big) meal are here in the gallery as well. Next time you see a caterer cutting little radishes in to the shapes of flowers I want you to take a huge pot of this pork hash and brain him with it.

Cooking With Dave post

I have since contacted Chef Dave directly and he sounded pretty excited about showing more people what he loves to do. Dave promises us some special and new recipe videos in the coming weeks to give everyone some march madness cooking ideas.

In hopes that Dave reads this I am asking him to give me something for my grill for the upcoming NCAA tournament. I need a juicy southern style chicken or pork meal that I can grill and lather up with sauce while I watch the basketball games this march. I am sure Chef Dave will hit us with some simple to make tasty dipping meals from the south.

After watching through this video from dave where he makes Pork Butt Roast into the tastiest BBQ hash you ever seen with garlic and onions I was inspired to learn from him and contribute a bit myself.

I didnt have Boston Butt Roast to work with but I did have Butt roast that had been cut to ribs or steak size slabs and that would work just as well. I had a few more bones to contend with but they all fall right out anyhow.

I started last night by dropping my Boston Butt slices into the pot I would use the next day.

The pot had water, black pepper, salt, garlic powder and fresh onion and minced garlic in it. I also added about 1/2 a cup of this great spicy hot terriyaki sauce to the water to add a hot spicy and salty taste to the meat.

Now when the next day rolls around I will pour this water out and start with this presoaked and spiced up pork. Not much of a change from Dave yet, maybe a bit spicier for my tastes.

NEXT DAY:
Next day rolls around and I now pick up with Dave’s tutorial and filled my pan with onions, minced garlic, italian seasoning, pepper and salt. I also added to mine some of my Montreal steakseasoning which is basically a salt and cracked black pepper taste and makes the meal a bit hotter for my personal tastes.

Into this pot I seared the pork like Dave suggests and get it that grilled look all around the outside before lowering the heat for about 2 hours. I chopped and added some hickory smoked bacon (Carolina Pride!) to the pork before this 2 hour simmer stretch. This always adds such a nice hickory smell and flavor to my kitchen.

After the 2 hours, drained it all, got the nasty grease out of the meat.

At this stage where the BBQ sauce goes in I used a bottle of the best sauce I have discovered thus far in my sauce search.

This sauce is Grill mates Hickory BBQ. This is one we raved about in the ultimate sauce post.

This Hickory BBQ goes great with the bacon in the pork and is by far the best BBQ sauce I have used to date. If you go through the time of following Dave’s Lesson on pork, then do yourself a favor and use this sauce.

Dump the whole bottle into your pork as Dave shows and mix it so it breaks into hash. Cook on low to medium heat for about 30-40 minutes more and you get a nice thick BBQ hash with the tangiest swetest sauce you ever had on your plate.

This is where we gave a it a twist and I challenge my new associate Dave to try this one for himself. We dont have enough Carolina experience in my kitchen to make the lima beans and greens like Dave to go with our pork hash, so we gave it our family twist. We ate our Pork hash with Bollitos AKA Bollitos de harina (boiled flour balls).

You can see the recipe for the dominican style ones here:
* 2 cups of medium grain corn meal
* 1 teaspoon of sugar
* 2 tablespoons of butter.
* 2 tablespoons of oil
* Salt

1. Mix corn meal, 3/4 cup of boiling water, sugar, 2 teaspoons of salt and butter. Put 1 1/2 tablespoon of the mixture in the palm of your hand. Mix well with a spatula until you obtain a somewhat-sticky dough. Make into cigar-shaped rolls.
2. Boil in abundant water to which you will add the oil and 2 tablespoons of salt for approximately 35 minutes or until well cooked inside. If you are going to use them for sancocho, skip this step and just add them to boil in the preparation at the point indicated by the sancocho recipe.

You can see from the photos that we serve the Venezuelan style ones in my house which are soft and basically I call them Latino baked potatos because in the end they look and eat like one.

When slapped with butter or guacamole and some pepper these really soak up the flavor of whatever BBQ sauce and meat you mix wth them on your plate.

Thanks to Dave for his inspiration and the meal that is waiting for my downstairs as I type this.