Burn This.: From the Kitchen(S) of Kit & Amy.

By Kit Helton

Ever wondered what Tahini is made of? How to deep-fry a turkey three different ways? How to properly purge crawfish before a boil, what music is best to listen to while baking, how to make dandelion wine, or pondered the magical properties of Chicken Stew? Then this is the cookbook your mother warned you about.

Originally meant as a small Christmas gift for friends and family in 2002, Burn This blazed out of control into a one-stop cooking guide with something for everyone. Burn This is full of recipes from easy-to-make staples from mom's kitchen, to one-of-a-kind dishes that will be referred to in story form for years to come.

Each recipe is complete with a (tried to be) witty reference that includes Prep Time, Cooking Time, who you should Serve To, a Taste Factor, and the Kit Factor (the equivalent to a Lazy Factor) that explains how much effort each dish really takes.

Whether you're a gourmet chef or a utensil-challenged bachelor, this book has everything you need for the penthouse cocktail party, the barbeque behind Earl's trailer, and even the occasional practical joke.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 10, 2003
• ISBN: 9781462088881

Kit Helton

A self-proclaimed expert in experimental cooking, Kit Helton has been serving adventurous eaters for the last fifteen years. He lives in Chicago with his girlfriend, Amy Wilson. Kit invites reader e-mail at [e-mail].

Book preview

Contents

Introduction

Burn This.

Burn These

Burn These

DRINKS & LIBATIONS

Burn These

DIPS, APPITIZERS & SNACKS

MAIN DISHES

FOR THE GRILL & BARBECUE

SOUPS, SIDES & VEGGIES

Burn These

BREADS & ROLLS

Burn These

DESSERTS & SNACKS

SAUCES, RUBS & CONDIMENTS

INTERNET RESOURCES

GLOSSARY

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Created and published in the United States, on Fremont Street, as a matter of fact. Generally while sitting in front of the television, and next to Amy Wilson. Maybe one day this will be published by the real Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. God knows I had little to no luck with Pittman Publishing. Random house on the other hand is owned in toto by an absolutely huge German company called Bertelsmann A.G., which owns too many things to count or track. That said, no matter how big such companies are, and how many things they own, or how much money they have or make or control, their influence over the daily lives and hearts of individuals, and thus, like 99 percent of what is done by official people in cities like Washington, or Moscow, or Sao Paulo or London, their effect on the short fraught lives of human beings who limp around and sleep and dream of flying through bloodstreams, who love the smell of rubber cement and think of space travel while having intercourse, is very small, and so hardly worth worrying about, and in no way influenced this book.

This book in its entirety can be found online at www.kithelton.com/cookbook, and is yours to share with friends and family.

Originally I set out to publish a completely different book, but then decided to plagiarize a bunch of other books in order to make this book, which is ultimately a gift destined for you, January, 2003.

Vintage Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc., who have nothing to do with this effort. If this were an actual book it would have the following information:

Height: 5’9"; Weight: 175; Eyes: blue; Hair: brown; Hands: chubbier than one would expect; Allergies: only to the dander of some cats; Girlfriend: Amy; Place on a scale of how much she means to me with 1 being cosmic and everlasting, and 10 being not at all:

Image271.JPG

NOTE: This book is almost completely plagiarized, however that is not to say that I don’t use many of these recipes and resources personally and whole-heartedly. Other than the obvious meals that I’ve cooked, which you will notice have better notes and descriptions than the remainder, I wanted to create a cookbook of my own, but didn’t have enough personal recipes to encompass an entire high school spiral-bound notebook. I know you’re not supposed to plagiarize, or steal, just as much as I know you are not supposed to play with matches, but I learned in theatre that great artists steal, and figured as long as I was providing a gift that is stolen, but also allows you to play with matches (see: For The Grill chapter), I figured that two negatives made a positive, and after all, it’s a gift, and it’s the thought that counts. Even this clever page was stolen from Dave Eggers, and part of the introduction from my hero, P.J. O’Rourke. On top of that, I have also taken liberties with people’s names—the names of friends and loved ones, and attached many of those names to the borrowed recipes in an effort to not only give them a permanent place in this book, but also in an effort to make them accomplices. Lastly, I have taken several liberties, very small in some cases, with the recipes and ingredients to a) make them better and b) so that they technically could be considered as my own, because that

For Gert:

who taught me to always live life, with plenty spice and flavor.

This is late.

It’s after Christmas, 2002. We know.

Keep saying to yourself,

This was worth the wait.

Not only with this book, but also with any of the recipes you use from it.

Don’t believe that last page.

It was meant as a joke.

You may not like any of this.

We’d like to take the comments on

the previous page back.

It’d be ridiculous to think you

couldn’t find a recipe in here that you wouldn’t like…if anything, at

least just a little bit.

Regardless of that last page, which

referred to the fact that you’d find

something in here that you’d like,

this is still your gift.

It’s the thought that counts…

unless of course, that thought gives

you food poisoning.

Then it’s the poisoning that really

matters.

From Kit & Amy;

with love and a little risk,

(almost) Christmas, 2002.

Although there have been many contributors and even more important people in our lives, we wanted to thank the individuals that were in our lives at the time that this was compiled. Therefore, Kit and Amy wish to thank Blaine Vedros, David & Nicole Sellers, Dana Dr. Hole Wall, Mark & Michelle Petrie, Britt Miller, Frank Fredrick Ricky Faulstich IV, Geoff Duck Adams, Harrington J. Murphy, Marlene Bennett, Tony Chacherie, Jack Daniel’s, P.J. O’Rourke, Lucy McGillacutty, Fat Ethel, Even Fatter Lacy, (the remaining animals—including our future monkey) and of course our loving families, who without their support and willingness to occasionally be culinary victims, none of this would be possible.

Introduction  

Why a cookbook? Why not a gift certificate? The answer’s quite simple: there’s nothing in it for Amy & I if we give you a gift certificate. This way, we still feel good about ourselves because we thought enough of you to give you a gift, and we now don’t have to rifle through sixty-four cookbooks to make one meal; all our favorite recipes are now in one place. Genius.

Seriously, this was a labor of love…that took longer to create than most labours born out of love. This year, Amy & I decided that we’d make everyone’s gifts, rather than give them something for them to shelve or hide away in the back of the closet. Then the idea of making gifts evolved into making gifts that they could actually use. Ideas of grandeur ranged from homemade potpourri, homemade soap, and hat racks made from old doorknobs, all the way to hand-made gift baskets, and painted ornaments. (This is all true. Amy and I still have the dried flowers & herbs, old rusty doorknobs, ornaments, etc. for material. Chances are, you already know what you’re getting next year if you’ve read this far.) Then it hit us, a cookbook—A grand cookbook, with recipes from our friends, and pictures on each page of Amy and Kit and our families and our friends. It would be magnificent!! Unfortunately, by the time we got around to deciding everything we wanted to include in our masterpiece, there just wasn’t enough time for all those bells and whistles. So what you’re holding is what you got. There it is.

The second edition will be magnificent. We promise.

So Amy and I went to work and found all the recipes we wanted to share (some we didn’t) and included about 60% of those here. In all honesty, this book could have been War and Peace-sized if Amy hadn’t forced me to stop looking and get to typing.

The second edition will be bigger. We promise.

The question was what type of cookbook to make? It’s no secret that I love to cook. I really love to experiment with cooking, although I generally don’t eat the fancy stuff that I make, people usually love it (and they don’t get sick, which is a good sign). Amy on the other hand, loves to bake, so where I cook year-round, Amy’s cooking is generally confined to endof-year holiday baking. It is also important to point out that I love southern cooking; Cajun, barbecues, crawfish boils, and everything fried. And Amy’s an old-fashioned Midwestern girl; casseroles, salads, and pies. Having first-hand knowledge of the fact that you can’t please everyone, we didn’t even try.

The second edition will please everyone. We promise.

Some notes on, well, the notes in this book: When I was less experienced, I used to like to be able to see a picture of the end product, or at least what my end product should have looked like. Nowadays, I like the details: how long will it take, is it good, what can you do to the cat with it, what can it be served with, etc. So in an effort to capture some of the importants, Amy and I added a guide, or a key, if anything, for curiosity’s sake. On most recipes, it looks like this:

KIT FACOR: TASTE FACTOR: SERVE WITH: SERVE TO:

PREP TIME: COOKING TIME:

Simple direct, to the point (but not always accurate or complete). Here’s the part where I explain each item in case that wasn’t clear enough for the lather, rinse, repeat crowd:

KIT FACTOR: I’m a pretty lazy guy. Ask anyone. I prefer to call it efficient, but call it what you will. That’s this factor; the KIT FACTOR is the same as having a LAZY FACTOR, and lets you know just what you’re getting yourself into. Think of it as a Magic 8-Ball that tells you whether you should go ahead and attempt this recipe, or if you should order a pizza instead. When hungry meets lazy, always order the pizza.

TASTE FACTOR: Most of this is pure guess, some speculation, and the rest out-right lies. Yes, I have cooked a good portion of what’s included in this book, but that doesn’t mean I’ve tasted it all (or even my cooking). Where we had no idea, we left this line—for you to fill in the blank.

SERVE WITH: One of the most frustrating cooking problems is what to serve with what you’ve cooked. Generally you can just say salad, but that’s a coward’s way out, and in truth, you really don’t want a salad, you’re just uncreative. The salad rule does not apply to dessert, then you yell out ice cream, which is, in fact, perfectly acceptable. Find me a decent side to asparagus cassarolle, and I’ll find you a different flavour ice cream for every dessert.

SERVE TO: This line was unnecessary, but gave ample opportunity for me to mock my friends. Feel free to serve any of these dishes to whomever you like, and in some cases, your enemies.

PREP TIME: I’m a guy who likes to chop and start with everything fresh, and I know Amy’s a start from scratch type of baker; therefore there’s always a prep time. Obviously the prep time depends largely on your Kit Factor (read: laziness), because the difference between chopped frozen onions, and chopped fresh onions is about the same as the difference between the French Quarter and the Vieux Carre’. Since you may not be like Amy & I, we went ahead and averaged the time it would take us to do the preparation : (think Jimmy Stewart reciting the Koran while riding the back of an arthritic tortoise who’s munching a Quaalude while lying in a hammock that’s strung between two trees on a Sunday afternoon in the intensified gravity of the planet Jupiter), and the opposite: (think David Duke performing at A Night at the Apollo).

COOKING TIME: This is the amount of time it takes to make a small bird embryo to turn into an omelette. Cooking time needs no explanation, but just remember, if your meal is cooked too little, it can destroy your stomach, if your meal is cooked too long, it can destroy your house.

Some recipes also have tips, ideas, and lessons to assist your culinary gland to prepare the perfect meal. Burn This is meant not only to read, but enjoyed and shared. The cd that accompanies the book has all the recipes to make them easier to share, but also some music to accompany you while you cook. Of course most of these recipes are not mine, nor Amy’s, rather they are some of our favourites that we wanted to share with you, the loved ones in both our lives.

Burn This.  

KIT’S HISTORY LESSON:

Okay, the story. Not of the book, but of Kit & Amy. If you’re not interested, feel free to turn the page—you should have begun cooking by now anyway. However, for the interested, here goes.

The credit for the entire relationship belongs to Amy. I’ll take of course, some of the credit (like she’ll no doubt take some of the credit for this book), but she did take the first step, and without that, you’d have gotten socks again this year for Christmas.

Ours is a relationship born of technology…and good ol’ fashion laziness. Both of us had some pretty rotten luck with relationships in the past few years (this is being written in 2002 in case you just found it in some time capsule, you robe wearing freak). Both of us were dating, and were looking for…well, looking for someone a little more like us. I can’t speak as to why Amy tried an online matchmaking service, but she did, (I guess her clock was ticking, and let’s face it folks, she’s not getting any younger). I on the other hand was just lazy. To be factual, a co-worker of mine tried it, and met the man of her life so I figured, what the hell? Far be it from me to tell someone it was silly getting to know someone, and later schedule an audition for a first date, all from the comfort of their chair.

Here’s a stat: by the time I first met Amy, my online profile had roughly 400 people look at it (I say 400 people, because I’m not sure, but hoping it was all women). Amy’s profile had over 12,000—talk about dating odds and gender.

I saw Amy’s profile, or ad, and was immediately drawn to her smile. To be fair, she took the real leap of faith, because my profile didn’t even have a picture included. The girl’s a real risk-taker, what can I say.

So we started e-mailing each other and getting to know each other, and come to find out, the girl next door, really was the girl next door, two blocks down the street anyway.

At this point, let’s pause and back the story up a little. Prior to e-mailing Amy for the first time, I had gone on two internet dates in the span of about five months. Girl #1 asked me if I cared that she had three children, not that I did, but I was looking for a nice girl, in the singular—not a nice family. Girl #2 showed up at my apartment uninvited for days afterward wanting to see me again—and since I’m not overly-handsome, rich, or in a boy-band, that meant she was just plain old crazy.

So I’d have to be forgiven if I was a little suspicious of girl #3, Amy. Coupled with the fact that she lived in such proximity, if she wanted to stalk me, check my mail, or just bother me a little mentally with her freakish telepathic powers (what can I say, I have a vivid imagination and we hadn’t met yet), it’d be pretty damn easy. Plus, there are a lot of freaky people roving the highway of information these days—what kind of girl wants to meet one of the e-freaks, and to be honest what are the chances they wouldn’t? It should be mentioned that I knew I was not a member of the e-freak club, but all the same, I get pretty suspicious of terrific when it happens.

Anyway, we kept sending messages to each other, asking the other to e-mail or call when they got home, but unfortunately kept missing each other. This could be considered hi-tech-adult version of playing hard to get, but