EVERYTHING BUT THAT!

This is my least favorite episode of the sea­son because at this point the three remain­ing ladies are all giddy and “in love” yet one of them is going to be dev­as­tated and sob­bing before 10pm, so I will focus on how beau­ti­ful the scenes from Switzer­land are.  Unfortunately, they do not put one in the mood for a chilled soup though.  How­ever cool the Swiss Alps may actu­ally be this time of year, Atlanta is warm­ing up more and more.  The for­syth­ias and daf­fodils are bloom­ing.  Spring will slowly con­tinue to unfold over the next few weeks.   Hope you enjoy the next recipe from my long-time friend, Bach­e­lor Chef Jeff.

Jeff’s Pic­nic Gazpacho!

The Span­ish gaz­pa­cho has become one of the most uni­ver­sally pop­u­lar uncooked, cold soups.  Tra­di­tion­ally the soup is a com­bi­na­tion of pureed raw fresh veg­eta­bles, gar­lic, bread crumbs, olive oil, vine­gar, water, and seasonings-served well chilled.

Ingre­di­ents:

• 3 pounds ripe tomatoes
• 3 cucum­bers
• 1/2 cup finely chopped green pep­per & 1/2 cup finely chopped yel­low pepper
• 1/2 cup finely chopped onion (I pre­fer a Geor­gia Vidalia onion)
• 2 gar­lic cloves, very finely chopped
• 1/2 cup finely chopped parsley
• 2 cups chilled tomato juice or V-8 juice (I pre­fer the V-8 juice for flavor) with one ice cube tray of frozen tomato juice of your choice
• 1/3 cup olive oil (I pre­fer the vir­gin olive oil)
• 3 table­spoons wine vine­gar (I pre­fer bal­samic vinegar)
• 1/4 tea­spoon Tabasco sauce (I pre­fer Crys­tal hot sauce or the hot sauce of your choice)
• 1/4 salt, freshly ground black pepper
• A fresh loaf of French or Ital­ian bread

Instruc­tions:

1. Peel and seed the toma­toes and chop fine, (I pre­fer using a food proces­sor “Cuisinart”) saving as much of the juice as pos­si­ble.  Peel cucum­bers, split length­wise, scoop out seeds with a tea­spoon, and chop fine (a secret I learn is to add a lit­tle of the olive oil dur­ing chop­ping of the cucum­bers in the proces­sor that helps in the mix­ing later adds to the favor).  Combine toma­toes and their juice, cucum­bers, green pep­per yel­low pep­per, onion, gar­lic, tomato juice, olive oil, vine­gar, parsley,Tabasco, salt and pep­per to taste in a large mix­ing bowl. Stir well and cover, chill until very cold 3 to 4 hours.
2. (To add more tex­ture to your gaz­pa­cho, take the whites of fresh French or Ital­ian bread, and finely chopped to 1/2 cup to a cup and to the chilled soup add stir well. And then chill.)
3. Taste the gaz­pa­cho for sea­son­ing and add more salt, pep­per, Tabasco and gar­lic, if need.   Serve in chilled bowls with tomato juice cube in each, and add crou­tons if desire.
4. With left over loafs of French or Ital­ian bread,  slice the bread and add your favorite soft spread (but­ter) with some of your favorite chilled white wine with your gaz­pa­cho.  And enjoy your sum­mer day pic­nic under a nice large shade tree!    A great way to stay cool,  dur­ing those hot sum­mer days!

About Bach­e­lor Chef Jeff

I met Jeff in 1997 when I first began work­ing for Delta as a Tick­et­ing agent.  I credit him with my best train­ing.  He grew up in Wis­con­sin and moved to Atlanta for a depart­men­tal trans­fer.  He is a faith­ful Delta employee still.  Cur­rently, he works in the Sky Club.  Delta only lets its best employ­ees work in the Sky Club.  Jeff is a class act, very respect­ful of all peo­ple, a loyal friend, and an unselfish coworker.  He has never been mar­ried, has no kids, lives in Smyrna, and is much more pri­vate than the other bach­e­lor chefs.  I would describe him as sen­si­tive, con­sid­er­ate, and very thoughtful.

Please direct all fan mail to:

5 WIVES
Attn: Bach­e­lor Chef Jeff
P.O. Box 670132
Mari­etta, GA 30066

For more infor­ma­tion on The Bach­e­lor Chef, click here.

I agree with Kacie.  I don’t under­stand it either.  I think her par­ents’ reser­va­tions and pro­tec­tion­ism scared off her suitor which is quite sad.  [Sigh…]

Back to the topic of this blog post…springtime will be here before we know it.  One of my favorite things to do when the flow­ers begin to bloom is go on a picnic…even if only in the back yard.  You just need an old blan­ket to trans­form your yard into an adven­ture.  Here is a per­fect addi­tion to a picnic.

Mac­a­roni & Ham Salad!

• 1 small box (7 oz) Creamette Mac­a­roni Noodles
• 1 cup Duke’s Mayonnaise
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 3 cups shred­ded sharp ched­dar cheese
• 8 oz ham
• 1/2 small onion
• 1/2 green pepper
• 2 stalks celery
• 1 diced tomato

Cook mac­a­roni & drain.
Com­bine mayo, salt, vine­gar in bowl.
Chop and add ham.
Add sharp ched­dar cheese.
Add mac­a­roni.
Chop and add onion, green pep­per, and cel­ery.
Add diced tomato last.

About Bach­e­lor Chef Doug

Bach­e­lor Chef Doug is a south­ern gen­tle­man from a good fam­ily.  He recently moved to Geor­gia from Vir­ginia.  He’s in his late 30s and is sav­ing his first kiss (he would never last on ABC’s The Bach­e­lor) for when the pas­tor says, “You may kiss the bride.”  He is pas­sion­ate about work­ing with data and learn­ing new tech­nolo­gies, and has spent the past two years help­ing one of Atlanta’s hottest high tech star­tups trans­form their data infra­struc­ture from that of a small busi­ness to one that sup­ports a large, inter­na­tional enterprise.  Doug is a Reformed South­ern Bap­tist who puts God first in his life.  He sets aside his Sun­days for time with his church fam­ily and devotes his Sun­day after­noons to dis­cov­er­ing eclec­tic local cof­fee shops where he can study his Bible and read books on the­ol­ogy.  In his free time Bach­e­lor Chef Doug enjoys vol­un­teer­ing at a local clinic and explor­ing Atlanta’s parks, his­tory, and cul­ture.  His ideal date is cre­at­ing a roman­tic din­ner for two.

Please direct all fan mail to:

5 WIVES
Attn: Bach­e­lor Chef Doug
P.O. Box 670132
Mari­etta, GA 30066

For more infor­ma­tion on The Bach­e­lor Chef, click here.

What is the one word I would use to cat­e­go­rize tonight’s episode of The Bachelor?  Pitiful.  The tac­tic of a sweet girl to des­per­ately throw her­self on a man in des­per­a­tion and the heart-broken sob­bing of a beau­ti­ful girl in love with a ex-boyfriend who won’t marry her.  I felt so sorry for both girls.  I didn’t feel sorry for Blakely.

Pretty soon this sea­son of The Bach­e­lor will be over, and I don’t think I will watch it again.  I am tired of watch­ing pain and mis­ery.  On The Bach­e­lor Chef, however, there is no pain and misery…quite the con­trary actually…there is joy, hap­pi­ness, and mac­a­roni and cheese!  Check out Greg’s twist on this clas­sic recipe:

Yummy Mac and Cheese!

Ingre­di­ents:

• 1 lb Large Riga­toni Noodles
• 2 lbs Extra Sharp Ched­dar Cheese
• 2 cans chopped Toma­toes with Onions and Garlic
• 1 cup Cot­tage Cheese
• 1 cup Milk

Instruc­tions:

Pre­heat oven for 400 degrees.

In a large bake pan, add 2 cans(drained) of chopped toma­toes with onions and gar­lic. If you like more toma­toes, add another can. Spread evenly lin­ing the bot­tom of the pan. Set aside. The rea­son for toma­toes on bot­tom is to help it from stick­ing and make it easy to spoon out.

Noo­dles:
Cook 1 lb of large Riga­toni Noo­dles.
About halfway through time of cook­ing start the cheese process(see Cheese below)
Cook noo­dles soft, but with a lit­tle bit chewy tex­ture.
Drain and cover to keep warm wait­ing for cheese.

Cheese:
Chop into pieces 2 lbs of Extra Sharp Ched­dar Cheese and place in a deep sauce pan. Add 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of cot­tage cheese. Melt on medium high heat, con­tin­u­ing to stir so bot­tom doesn’t burn.

Once cheese is melted, pour into pot with noo­dles. Stir until cheese is evenly dis­trib­uted among noo­dles. Pour Cheesy noo­dles on top of bake pan with toma­toes and dis­trib­ute evenly.

Bake for 30 min­utes. You may want to broil the top for a more browned top, but you’ll have to watch it care­fully. Serve.

About Bach­e­lor Chef Greg:

I met Bach­e­lor Chef Greg this past sum­mer.  He’s a super great guy who is respon­si­ble for cre­at­ing and man­ag­ing a won­der­ful orga­ni­za­tion, ECHO, for Chris­t­ian sin­gles in the Atlanta area.  This sum­mer I was amazed dur­ing a hike with his lead­er­ship skills.  He is gifted with the abil­ity to inspire and effort­lessly herd large groups of peo­ple – which is impres­sive.  He once con­vinced about 50 of us to drive up to the top of Brasstown Bald, the high­est point in Geor­gia, and lay on the asphalt park­ing lot all night in freez­ing tem­per­a­tures star­ing up into the sky to wait and watch for a meteor shower.

Chef Greg is a for­mer real estate investor.  He moved from Col­orado to Geor­gia due to hav­ing amaz­ing quiet-time with and prompt­ing by God in the Geor­gia moun­tains. This bach­e­lor chef grew up in Maine and cur­rently lives in Helen.  Greg is of Sicil­ian, Irish, and Chero­kee descent (we could be cousins).

Bach­e­lor Chef Greg is in his for­ties, has never been mar­ried and has no chil­dren.  He loves the great out­doors, is adven­tur­ous, and loves peo­ple (all obvi­ous from the above).  Did I men­tion that in his spare time and when con­di­tions are ideal he likes to chase tor­na­does?  He is one of the man­li­est men I know, yet he adores his three cats (a not-so-obvious trait).

Please direct all fan mail to:

5 WIVES
Attn: Bach­e­lor Chef Greg
P.O. Box 670132
Mari­etta, GA 30066

For more infor­ma­tion on The Bach­e­lor Chef, click here.