Charlie Sheen's Cooking Show is Made of Even More Winning Than He Is

I guess Charlie Sheen is even more awesome at life than he purports to be. I mean, he has a cauldron of awesomeness, so there's that.

Charlie Sheen's Winning Recipes from Charlie Sheen

Soup To Satisfy A Pho-natic!

So the BF got me a Flip video camera for Christmas and I've been experimenting with it [Read: Figuring out how it works]. Thus far I haven't made a video that could be posted without editing (shockingly, not many meals can be cooked and filmed in under 5 minutes to fit the YouTube standard) and my poor little laptop doesn't have the memory to edit video. But soon there will be Bacon & Other Bad Habits videos! I'll let you just take a moment to imagine all the potential kitchen catastrophe and debauchery...Yes, there will be wine involved, that much is certain. Yes, potentially even before noon.

One of our favorite meals is the Vietnamese beef and broth soup known as Phò and it is our go-to "I don't want to cook, let's go eat out somewhere" meal. While the Asian markets do carry the spice mixture that purports to make this delicious broth I'm nervous to try to make it at home. (This is truly a case of why mess up a good thing?). However, that doesn't mean I can't take my inspiration from phò and the Vietnamese and make a rice noodle brothy soup with beef. Not in the least!

Since I haven't yet got that whole editing/posting thing together, here's a recipe that I filmed and then pulled the stills out. The images are a little blurrier than the usual, but you still get the idea. Plus, maybe later on you'll get a bonus video prize when I hire a middle school-er to figure out newfangled technology. Kids these days. Your bonus prize for now is that this sucker is really really cheap to make, super filling, and notta lotta calories. For the win! All ingredients can be found at an Asian market or specialty grocer (Whole Foods carries all this stuff, even the lemongrass, if your local grocer doesn't have it).

Vietnamese-style Beef Noodle Soup
--TBSP sesame oil
--cooking spray
--small onion, diced
--garlic, minced
--TBSP chile-garlic sauce
--TBSP fish sauce
--TBSP lime juice
--TBSP soy sauce
--jalapeno, stem and seeds removed, diced fine
--red bell pepper, stem and seeds removed, diced
--1 lemongrass stalk, ends discarded (slice this if you will plan to eat it in the soup, otherwise leave whole so you can discard it after cooking)
--4 thin steaks (I used top round), sliced crosswise into long, thin pieces
--TBSP sesame seeds
--black pepper
--cilantro, dried or fresh chopped
--2 cups beef broth
--1 cup chicken broth

--8 oz. medium (marked Pad Thai or Banh Pho) rice noodles (about 1/2 of a typical 16 oz. package)
--green onion, chopped into 1/4" rings
--Thai basil leaves (optional)

Heat a large pot over medium heat. After a few minutes spray with cooking spray and add the sesame oil to allow the oil to coat the pan. Sauté onion and garlic under fragrant and onion begins to get translucent. Add the chile-garlic sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, and lime juice and stir to combine. Add the jalapeno and red bell pepper and saute for a few minutes before adding the lemongrass.

Lemongrass is a spiky little critter that will add tons of flavor to and is a staple of Asian dishes. If you want to try to eat the lemongrass I recommend soaking it in warm water for 30 minutes before cooking it. Otherwise it is a non-soluble fiber that stabs at the gums when one attempts to chew it...so like a bay leaf feel free to put in a whole stalk or one that has been chopped in half and then remove it after the cooking process is complete.

Season the steak pieces with sesame seeds and fresh cracked black pepper. If using dried cilantro, season the steaks with this now. If using fresh cilantro, add it at the end. Add the meat to the pot and stir to combine the mixture

Add the broths and water and bring the soup to a boil. Once boiling, add the rice noodles and cover the pot. Simmer for 20 minutes, covered, stirring occasionally.

Remove lid. If using large lemongrass stalks, fish out and discard. Add the chopped green onion and Thai basil (I chopped mine up). If using fresh cilantro, add it now as well. Stir to combine. Serve! To add more spice, add more chile garlic sauce or use what I call "Rooster" (but is really known as Sriracha).

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 60 minutes
Serves: 6
Calories: 272 per serving

Are You Spicy?

I don't own a grill. I know that seems somehow blasphemous to both the gods of summer and the gods of food, but it's true.  Not even a George Foreman.  To clarify, I know how to grill and grew up in a household where the grill was gassed up all 12 months of the year.  But since I don't have any space at my house for one of my own, I make do indoors with a grill pan and a flat cast-iron skillet.

Since I have to substitute for the rich dynamic flavor of grilled meats, I'm fond of using dry rubs to give my indoor meats some extra oomph.  Today's recipe is for spicy steak, as the full flavors of the following spices lend themselves well to a rich piece of red meat.  Dry rubs also do wonders to breathe new life into cheaper or tougher pieces of meat.

And if you're not a sad grill-less person like me, feel free to slap this bad boy on the outdoor fire...

Spicy Steak
--dry rub
--1lb. piece of flat steak like flank, flat iron, hanger, skirt, or a chunk of top round (pictured here)
--cooking spray (if cooking indoors)

Let the steak come to room temperature before cooking.

Spicy Dry Rub:
*I rarely measure my spices so I recommend starting off small as you can always add more later to make it fit your taste to become more or less spicy, garlicky, peppery, etc.
--1 tsp. garlic powder
--1/4 tsp. onion powder
--2 tsp. brown sugar
--1 tsp. paprika
--1 tsp. ancho chili powder
--1/4 tsp. salt
--1/2 tsp. black pepper
--1 tsp. red pepper (ground or flakes)

In a smaller bowl, mix all the spices together with a spoon until evenly combined.

Using your fingers, grab large pinches of the dry rub mixture and rub it into the steak. When the first side is evenly coated with rub, flip it over and evenly cover the other side of the meat. Use all of the dry rub.

Grill steak!

Or heat a large cooking-spray coated skillet or cast iron skillet over medium to medium-high heat and cook until desired doneness (ours are cooked to medium), scraping away any fat that cooks off.

Remove from heat and let rest a few minutes before slicing. Cut against the grain before serving. This is AWESOME in salad!

Dammit Jim, I'm a cook, not a doctor...
Time: 15 - 20 minutes
Serves: 4
Calories: 302

Everything Tastes Better In A Pie Crust

I had a pie crust left over from Thanksgiving living in my freezer. I used to make my own crusts from scratch, until I discovered that the ones I bought from the store tasted exactly the same. (What? Sometimes you have to cut corners).

I also had steak and chicken thawed in the refrigerator. And buttermilk left over from mashed potatoes and pancake making. I also had a very pregnant, very hungry, sister and her very tall, always hungry, husband to feed.


I decided to make some sort of version of Shepherd's Pie based on the ingredients we had handy. I'd never made one before and just sort of, well, was winging it based on what I remembered from dining at many a fine Irish establishment.

Upside Down Shephard's Pie:

--chicken, sliced into bite-sized chunks
--steak, sliced into bite-sized chunks
--olive oil
--1 onion, diced to your size preference
--garlic
--sliced mushrooms
--beef bouillon
--Worcestershire sauce
--1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
--tarragon
--parsley
--flour
--3 potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks for mashing
--buttermilk
--1 stick butter
--1 pie crust

The Meat & Gravy:
Cook chicken in olive oil over medium to medium high heat until free of salmonella. Remove to plate. In same pan cook steak in olive oil over medium to medium high heat until outside is brown but inside is still mostly rare. Put with chicken.


In same pan, melt 1/3 of stick of butter. Add garlic and onion. Cook 2 minutes until fragrant and onion begins to get translucent. Add mushrooms and cook down. Add 2 spoonfuls of bouillon paste (or 1 bouillion cube). You do NOT need to melt the bouillon first. We are making gravy with it! Splash in some Worcestershire sauce and shake in parsley and tarragon.

(I'm terrible at measuring, so here's my tip: don't over do it! I just shake it a little at a time until it tastes like delicious).

Add the can of diced tomatoes and scrape all the bits together. Add the cooked chicken and cooked steak back into the mix. If mix seems too liquid, add a tsp of flour and stir it all up. The flour will thicken the gravy.


The Mashed Potatoes:
Cover the chopped potatoes in large pot with cold water. Heat on high heat until water is boiling. (I'm at altitude so I don't know how long it takes potatoes to cook at lower elevations). Let potatoes/water boil for a few minutes. Potatoes are ready to be mashed when you can easily stick a fork into them.

I used a hand held potato masher to smash up the potatoes. Then I added the other 2/3 stick of butter and a few splashes of buttermilk. Pregnant sister mashed her little heart out and added buttermilk as needed to make the potatoes fluffy but not too creamy.

Then I added it one TBSP of flour to make them thicker and sticky for the pie.

We put the potatoes in the bottom of the pie crust (or Shepherd's Pie was upside down, remember?!) and smoothed them around to make a nice potato bed for all the meat mix to live inside of. The meat/gravy mix went on top of the potato bed.


Bake in the oven at 350 until the pie crust is golden on the edges.