Customer Reviews

Just Tomatoes Just Crunchy Onion, 1-Pound Bags (Pack of 2)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love these. I have used them for everything from a salad or potatoe topper, to an ingredient in chili. Just Tomatoes products beat the competition hands down. The flavor is still there.

I really did not think I would use this much but thought it was a great idea. Well, now I would not be without - I throw these in almost everything I cook. No more cutting up onions - and I LOVE them on top of hamburgers, cooked in.

I mean, it is just dried onions in little bitty pieces. What's not to love? The title says Just Tomatoes Just Crunchy Onion. I think it should just say Just Crunchy Onion because there ain't no tomatoes in there. Just onions, right?

Cubed steaks. Ugh.

How could I give an Emeril "bam!" to their natural, limited economy; how could I "bam" them beyond their tough and blah beginnings...

Need some type of coating or breading to brown onto the meat.

Don't have flour. Don't want to use bread crumbs, crushed crackers, corn muffin mix (WAY too sweet) or Quinoa. I tried Quinoa as breading without cooking it first. It was too tough and crunchy. Think chewing crushed agates. You should have seen our faces, heard the cracks, as we "chewed the fat" at the table that night. Quinoa might work, if it were used from a pre-cooked state.

Bob's Red Mill Organic Whole Grain Quinoa, 26-Ounce Packages (Pack of 4)

What's in the cupboard...

My focus was somehow placed onto a quarter-inch of dried onion rings at the bottom of one of those plastic lidded cans...

*** For future use, I found a culinary treasure on Amazon which I've added to my Shopping List; it's the Just Tomatoes brand of dried products, with 23 items, including tomatoes, roasted garlic, soynuts, bell peppers, and a huge selection of dried fruits, including cranberries and some of the exotic tropical's***:

Just Tomatoes Just Crunchy Onion, 1-Pound Bags (Pack of 2)

The almost empty can of dried onion rings sounded interesting, but not enough. Volume could be expanded by adding flour, which I don't have; or pure, unsweetened cornmeal, which I don't have.

Aw, nuts! Nothing. I have nothing ...

Nuts! I have a snack can of mixed nuts!

Planters Deluxe Mixed Nuts, 10-Ounce Canisters (Pack of 3)

Okay. Good. I'll repeatedly pass the rolling pin over nuts combined with the dried onion rings placed into a Baggie (could have added potato chips but didn't want to push it). A wide-shallow bowl with some cream and an egg, beat together with a fork, will serve to coat the meat patties prior to patting them into the nut `n onion coating.

What spices might I add to the crushed mixture? (Actually, adding the spices before crushing with the rolling pin would be the best timing.)

Add chopped garlic cloves, ground ginger, sweet basil, fresh ground sea salt, and cracked pepper, to give the salty tang of meaty, heated savory to balance the already present sweetness in the nuts and dried onion rings.

After the meat and coating are browned and nearly finished, what sauce would work out of the drippings in the pan?

I have fresh whipping cream. Yes! That makes a great sauce from its thick, solitary glory, without flour or corn starch required. Goo and drippings on the bottom of the pan, from the meat caramelizing and breading concoctions will incorporate almost enough flavor to finish a cream sauce. I could zap it up with a refreshment of some of the base spices in the coating, sprinkles of dried sweet basil, ground sea salt, and a ton of cracked, fresh pepper corns.

Got it!

What to add to the sauce at the end, for that final pop of seasonal luxury which I'm usually too harried to ponder?

Contemplate each flavor already incorporated ...

What would be simple, quick, and easy, like the Sloppy Joe recipe which evolved by name and design from The Malt Shop in Florence, Colorado in the 50's? Coal & Coca-Cola).

"Cubed-steaks a la Nut'n Onion, Honey?"
"Really?" My Left Brain is querying the Right. "Honey?"
"What's for supper, Hon"
"Nut'n'onion, Honey!"

**Honeyed Nut'n'Onion Steaks!**

For browning and cooking the coated meat, I just happen to have bottles of:

Macadamia Nut Oil 16 fl.oz
Sweet Almond Oil 16 fl.oz
Virgin Coconut Oil (Certified Organic) 12 fl.oz

(I haven't tried my recipe in my Coconut Oil review yet, either, so you'll be on your own, again, as far as testing it, but it'll make you drool reading it.)...

Macadamia!

It's the least sweet, with its unique extra kick of after-taste pizzazz, which will blend with heady rapture into the essence of honey.

It's a wrap!
It's an antidote!
It's superman!

It'll fix the flat sighs emanating from cooks and their victims all over the world, those sighing groans which usually accompany the preparation and presentation of cubed steak economics, and the flatulence which usually accompanies exits from the table.

Oh. To avoid that, sprinkle into the nut and onion mixture a tidbit of baking soda and a few anise seeds. They taste sort of like liquorice and will blend into the other ingredients nicely (if you don't overdo it), as well as being a fantastic anti-flatulent. This step would be set into the above described sequence, as appropriate. I'm just giving you the brain spark process as it unfolds.

What more could you ask?

For a normal recipe go watch Emeril. I don't have a ready hyperlink to his show, or I'd provide it... Or,... maybe Amazon has a DVD of Emeril's cooking show series?

Biography - Emeril Lagasse: Bam!

I haven't tried my nuts 'n onion steak "recipe" yet. It's what's for supper tonight at the Shelnutt cabin on Redlands Mesa. I have no idea if it'll flop or pop.

Poor Tom. He's asleep now; works nights at a coal mine. Sometimes, in that venue, flatulence can be used as a weapon for entertainment. So, Tom will be good to go either way!

Living well, on the edge of culinary wonders and methane catastrophe,

Linda

A bonus Emeril book:
Emeril's Delmonico: A Restaurant with a Past