Marrow Bones - How to make a trendy appetizer for a fraction of the cost.

We ate at a great little restaurant last week and had this:

Roasted marrow bones with sweet onion marmalade and garlic crostini. As you can see it was 8 bucks for 3 marrow bones - 4 pieces of toast, four roasted garlic cloves and some onion marmalade. I had a feeling I could beat that price and I was right.

Five Marrow Bones for $2.31

An entire head of garlic: 33 cents.

Pre-sliced baguette for $1.69

Roasted Garlic Onion Jam - 5 bucks, but I'm only using about 1/6 of a jar for this recipe. It's great to use in things that require a bit of oniony - garlic flavor when you're feeling a bit lazy.

A sprig of Thyme - currently free in my garden.

Pre-heat your oven to 450.

Pull the papery skin from your garlic clove

Slice off the top of the garlic and drizzle with a bit of oil

Wrap in foil and pop in the oven. Garlic should roast for at least 30 minutes.  When the garlic has roasted for 10 minutes, it will be time to put the marrow bones in the oven.

Put them in a foil lined pan. Hit with a bit of salt and I tossed in some fresh thyme. Now put it in the oven with the garlic.

You might also want to consider cleaning your oven before you take pictures of it, but that's totally up to you. While the garlic and the bones roast together in happiness. Tackle the bread. If you are more industrious that me, you could buy a baugette and slice it yourself. I likes the pre-sliced stuff. Now toss those pretty little bread slices in some olive oil.

Put your pretty little toasts on a baking sheet lined with foil or parchment paper

Right at the 30 minute mark for the garlic, putt it out and put the toasts in. Now unwrap the garlic from the foil and using a towel to hold it, so you don't get burned, give it a big squeeze into a bowl or onto a plate. It should come out in a paste.

Now mash that paste with a fork

Your marrow bones should be done by now

At the restaurant, they served them on a plate like this along with a whole roasted garlic clove. In the absense of marrow forks, I found this a little difficult to manage. So I'm poking out the marrow myself with a narrow knife and putting it in a bowl. Then I'm adding about half that garlic paste to the bowl. You can use the rest if for all sorts of tasty garlicky applications.

It does not look pretty at all. But it will taste great. Like a beefy butter with garlic. Now fetch your toasts from the oven and make them fancy through the magic of a rectangular plate! Or use any plate you like. After all, this is America.

Now spread just a small dab of the marrow/garlic mixture on each slice of bread

Give it a sprinke of sea salt and freshly ground pepper.

Cleaning up your work area before you take photographs of it is also a good idea that I seem to have ignored. Now put on just a dab of that delicious onion jam.

I think I made roughly 4 times as much with what I used at home than we got at the restaurant. So let's take a base cost of $32.00 for this at a restaurant. What it cost at home:

$2.31 for the marrow bones
     33 cents for the garlic
     85 cents for the toasts. I bought the bag for $1.69, but I onl.y used half
  1.00 for the onion marmalade. The jar was 5 bucks, but I only used about a fifth of it on this dish.

   $4.49 for  the entire dish vs. $32 dollars for the same amount at a restaurant.  Plus you have some garlic paste left over and some bones for your pets to play with. Not bad. it was fairly delicious.

Sangria Blanco - My summer beverage - we all know how important white blood cells are.

This is my favorite summer beverage. I first had a glass at a restaurant and I thought, "I can do that better and for less than eight dollars a glass." So here's my recipe for white peach sangria. Slice an orange and a lime and drop them in a pretty pitcher.

Now time for the booze.  Add two shots each of peach schnapps and two shots of Triple Sec.

Then half a bottle of  sweet white wine.

Then fill the pitcher the rest of the way up with white peach grape juice. I use Kroger brand. But Dole has a version or you could just use plain white grape juice.  Give it a good stir and let it meld in the fridge for awhile.

Instead of ice, I like to use frozen peaches and cherries in the glass. You don't dilute the flavor and you get delicious boozy fruit.

It goes well with Bacon Lollipops, Salsa-Mole & 3-Alarm Baked Beans

Three Alarm Baked Beans - every recipe has a story

These are not three alarm baked beans because they are hot and spicy. The three alarm refers to the actual fire squad that turned up at my house because of these tasty beauties.

The guy next door is a wonderful guy. A firefighter who saves lives and a good neighbor who does things like build wheelchair ramps or paints the house of those in need of a hand. Every once and a while he knocks on our door to tell us that our awning has fallen off or our gutter is clogged and pouring rain into his basement or perhaps our fence is starting to tilt. We fix these things rather quickly, but I imagine that every day he looks longingly out onto our lawn hoping for a "For Sale" sign. This is the story of one of the times he knocked on our door. I was putting togther a batch of these tasty beans and I put them in the oven and went up to take a shower. I came downstairs to firefighters pounding on the door. It was especially wonderful because Tim had moved his entire collection of comic books out of the basement to reprice causing our downstairs to look like an episode of Hoarders. Nothing was on fire. But a dime sized drop of liquid from the beans had spilled out into the oven and began to smoke. It began to pour out the window over the sink directly into our neighbor's house. I didn't hear it because I was in the shower. Our neighbor heard the smoke alarm beeping and being a firefighter immediately sprang into action. He pounded on my door; but of course I didn't hear him. I got out of the shower to the sound of fire trucks and pounding on my door. But in the end, everything was fine and the beans turned out pretty good.  Here's how to make them.

Start with these. A couple cans of your favorite brand of baked beans.

Now dice up some bacon. I like the slab stuff, but sliced works fine. You could leave out the bacon and make this vegetarian. But I weep for you if you do.

Now fry up the bacon and while it's cooking you can add the following to those canned baked beans:

Diced Onions - the ratio is entirely dependent on how much onion you like in things. For these two cans I used a whole shallot.

Garlic Powder- not garlic salt.  A good shake or around a teaspoon.

About a tablespoon of mustard for two cans of beans. I like honey Dijon. But use whatever you like or even a teaspoon of dry mustard instead.

Now put in around half a cup of your favorite BBQ sauce. I'm a huge fan of Bullseye. Or if you prefer, you could even use a dry rub you like.

Also add about a 1/4 cup of brown sugar. I kind of like things sweet.

After you've drained that bacon on a paper towel, stir it in.

Now you can either put it in a slow cooker and leave it to go for a few hours or bake it at 425 in a 9 x 13 pan for about an hour. I actually prefer the baking because it evaporates more of the liquid and the sugar gives it a nice crust. If you do bake it, remember to put a baking sheet under the pan to catch the drips. Otherwise, you might have a problem.  Trust me. Remember, Smoke Detectors Save Lives.

Salsa-mole - my most-requested recipe.

People love it, even though it's not much more than a few avocados with some salsa mixed it. So I'm sharing the recipe. I know Salsa- mole basically translates to sauce/sauce, but it feels wrong to call it guacamole when it really isn't the traditional guac. I plan on calling the batch I mix up for December 21st 2012 - Appocaomole... But I digress.  Get you some ripe avocados and let's hope they aren't bruised.

Scoop them out into a bowl using a spoon. How many depends on how much guac you want.

Now squeeze lime juice on them. I like to use this little citrus squeezer.  The lime juice is very important. Otherwise the avocado will turn brown when it hits the air. Lime or lemon juice also works to stop apples from turning brown.

Now mash it all together. How fine you mash depends on how chunky you want your dip.

Then grab a pack of this

I'm such a gourmet.  Now dump this into the avocado and lime mixture

Then grab yourself a jar of this high-end cheffy ingredient:

That would be Salsa, not Raspberry Jam or Mayo.  Hot, medium or mild. Any brand you prefer. Use about half a jar and drain all the liquid from it using a strainer. Then if you feel a little fancy, you can do what I did this time:

I put the drained salsa on foil on a baking sheet and stuck it under the broiler to get just a little charred. It tasted pretty darn good.

Now mix it all together and if you like, snip in a little of this:

Fresh Cilantro - this is from my garden.  Now give a taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

Now if you are not going to serve immediately, I want to you cover it very tightly with plastic, the plastic pressing right down on the dip. The lime helps prevent some browning from the air, but not all of it.

Now grab some tortilla chips. It's also great on a taco or even on a sandwich.

Ingredient List:

Avocados  4 to 6
Half a jar of the salsa of your choice - drained
1 package of guacamole mix - mild, med or hot depending on your preference
Juice of one lime
Fresh cilantro - if desired
salt and pepper to taste.