A Haphazard Eureka!

The genius that thought up this zesty treat should have her own CHAPTER in an All Star Classics cookbook.  These are the recipes that are handed down and never get old, never get boring, never fall out of flavor favor. Like spaghetti.  Unfortunately, it isn't a very thick book but it should exist.

These little sickly sweet squares have been on my favorite list since 1980 when my teenage aunt made them for me as my Dad and I set off to move from Missouri to Florida.  It was winter in MO, the drive was 24 hours long, we were loaded to the gills in a tiny truck, my dad was nervous and I was, well, I guess I was, excited. She carefully wrapped in wax paper a new recipe for us to snack on...it was...gasp!...the Rice Crispie Treat!

Alternative names could be Marshmallow Love Squares, Sickening SSSweetness Bars, Sugar Jitters, or just Hand Me That Damn Pan o' Bars Before I Gnaw Off Your Hand.

Goodness gracious, these are on my list of what I can eat till I throw up and not care. Funny thing is, I don't care for any of the three ingredients on their own but when they are morphed into culinary magic I squeal like a little girl in princess shoes.  3 Ingredients!  That's proof that food doesn't have to be complicated to be a masterpiece.

   

   Wow - I need teeth whitener compared to those nasty, fake white marshmallows.

            

 About the only thing marshmallows are good for are crafts since they have a shelf life comparable to a Twinkie.  Should we be eating something that takes YEARS to degrade? Nope.  See? Even my cat won't eat them and he is my Hoover vacuum cleaner!

I took these to the Super Bowl party and, luckily, got to bring most of them back.  I think I found the answer to my potluck dilemma - always bring a dessert that you LOVE because usually people eat too much to eat dessert anyway and you can take it home and and scarf it down!
Problem Solved!

Next cooking dilemma - creativity.  Heehee, this otta be good.

Don't look at me - just EAT IT!

Bad Cooking for Everyone and Fried Banana Blobs

I've taken a little time off to gather a few good stories.  The holidays were not that hectic and I made them that way by not buying many gifts...or cooking.  Unless I had an event that required my participation, cooking sat second fiddle to family and goofing off.  That doesn't mean it was boring around here or anything.

Our first visitors were my Dad and his wife.  Like I've mentioned before he has a restricted diet due to a heart condition and reflux so they mainly ate in their condo to stick to it. Totally understandable. I didn't have to do much other than take them to The Loveless cafe for their week's stay worth of salt and lard.  I tried for a little antioxidants by getting blueberries on my pancakes - whoopie.

Next was Christmas itself.  The food at these family gatherings is slightly unidentifiable or inedible so I eat before I go.  Here's my hubby G Dub doing dishes, isn't that nice?

After Christmas was the last of our visitors, my mom and her husband.  These are always great visits because she WANTS to cook! I usually can't take time off work when she's here so I come home to a fully cooked dinner - OMG, I'm thinking that this is the closest my 'po ass will ever get to a personal chef.  I just sit and eat....ahhhh, luxury. Except for the one night where she took a muscle relaxer then had a beer.

But the food came out ok.

Then came the weeks after New Year and the dreary days of winter get to me so that I get curious and that’s bad.  Considering my cooking ability I should never boldly go where I have never gone before…. but I get so bored.  And I’ve had pizza for 4 meals in a row.  I never ever thought that I’d get tired of pizza but I’d rather starve tonight than look at another piece.  Really I’ve been eating junk for the past few days and nursing makes me CRAVE sugar

( kinda like Will Ferrell in Elf  ) so I need veggies. Stat.

I ventured out and got a plantain. Why? I don't know. I know it's not a veggie but it is something different.  I just thought it was a big unripe banana - well, of course, that's what it is but the texture is wierd.  It's creamier...or something like that.  So I hit the interwebs to find out what to do with it and whether it was ripe or not.  Hell, I've only purposefully overlooked these in the produce aisle!  I found a woman's blog with some Spanish inspired recipes from her family and she makes Plantain Tostones ( http://karmafreecooking.wordpress.com/2008/07/).  Looks easy enough.  Yeah but this is ME cooking. Not her.

I've heard of fried plantain and again it sounds easy.  For these tostones:

1. Peel and slice the plaintain

2. Fry it slightly

3. Mash it flat

4. Fry it again till crispy

5. Sprinkle with salt and eat

This was an easy recipe.  Not counting the three off to the right that I screwed up by accidently turning off the burner when I was mashing so they soaked up too much oil, they don't have much of a taste.  They're sorta like fried cereal box.  I’m not sure I want to waste the calories.  I could have had a pretty fabulous dessert instead. Oh well.  I'm glad the recipe gal likes them though and judging from the comments she got so does everyone else. Hmmmm :-/

Don't feed it to the dog - EAT IT!

Where's tha Par-tay?

Oh no.  It's the holidays.  These times are a bad cook's nightmare.  Of course, one cannot show up to a party empty handed so here I go again trying for the edible recipe.

Screw the deceptiveness - I'm going all out semi homemade.  I admittedly watch the food network even though I wouldn't eat even a small fraction of what the shows feature.  Prime rib??  Blech.  Scallops? No thanks.  Oh and the occasional foie gras - urrp.  And, too, most of the recipes are two complicated for my lazy tastes so I wouldn't waste my time. Until....

Sandra Lee.

Don't know who Sandra Lee is?  She's not to be confused with Sandra Dee or Sarah Lee.  She's an over stylized cooking cheater.  And far be it from me to judge her for it.  She has a formula for cooking - 3/4 store bought, 1/4 homemade or something like that.  SOLD!  That's right up my lazy ass alley.  AND she makes cocktails!


My ears perked up at two recipes I listened to while folding towels ( I have a habit of listening to wacko religious conspiracy shows on the History channel or Food TV while I fold clothes).  Meatballs and a cheese ball.


Oh lord.  Not another cheese ball.  no no no this one sounds ok.  And I have no idea why I felt compelled to make these.  But anyway here I go.

The meatballs were a piece o' cake!  Get out the trusty crock pot, throw in frozen meatballs, catalina dressing, worschestire sauce, orange marmalade and red pepper flakes, stir, and heat for 3 hours.  Done!
May sound weird but dang that sauce is GOOD!





The cheese ball was another story.  Bad thing is, it sounds as easy as the meatballs but leave it to me to have some kind of problem.  Apparently, I do not know how to soften cheese.  I needed to soften 2 pks of cream cheese so I got it out of the fridge while I made some other stuff.  Got all my other stuff done and went back to see the cheese - ok, felt soft to me so I stuck it in my food processor with the blue cheese to blend.  That cream cheese bogged down my processor so that it made a sickly, whirly whine.  Hmmm :-/

So what else do you do when you see that something isn't going quite right?  You just keep holding down that blend button and see if it'll work itself out!  It didn't and large ball of cream cheese was forming and just rolling around the top edge of the processor.  What if I speed it up?  Nope.  The motor just sounded worse.  The only thing I can think to do at this point is just leave it to soften some more - I'm thinking now that to soften means to WARM cheese.  Oh.....got it now!

I came back in another 15 minutes or so and blend again - oh good, it worked! I do a few more pulses to make sure it all homogenous.  Took the lid off and proceeded to dig out the blades...omg, the cheese glued down my blades! Imagine food processing a few containers of Elmer's glue.  I had to go from the bottom to push them out but not before I left shards of my spatula in the cheese. Oops. ( Nothing like having to dig through cheese).  Ugh!  I finally got it all out, chilled, rolled in dates.  It was pretty awesome.  I don't have a finished product pic - it got devoured.

Now, you better eat it!

Industrial Revolt-alution

Yep, you guessed it.  I'm cooking again because I have to take food to an event.
But it's fall and I love the spices and smells that only this time of year brings. It's the only time I eat sagey dressing, cranberries and gravy all in the same bite. Yum!

I have a baby shower to go to and I'm determined to use this deceptive cookbook.  To really get my moneies worth I should at least try to cook maybe 30% of the recipes in it as opposed to the .5% I normally try.  Sounds to me like I con myself into buying cookbooks since I am admittedly addicted to them and the hope that I, one day, will make culinary delights. It's a delusion of grandeur.

ok ok, I look through and a veggilicious ginger spice cake catches my attention.  I'll make that.  Can you believe I actually follow the recipe....GASP!  I surprised myself. Even made a special trip to the correct store for wheat flour BUT I accidently bought whole Allspice so the cake just doesn't have it. That would have called for the one appliance I don't have - a grinder.  Oh well.  I'll add more clove or something.

I mixed the dry ingredients in a ziplock and shook them to mix.  For the wet ingredients, I thaw broccoli and carrot puree (well, I have to confess that I used baby food....it says it's carrots and water which is what my purees are anyway!) then add the yogurt and molasses.  I have a way of measuring that saves dishes but looks really nasty in most cases.  I have a big measuring cup and if it fits I measure the amounts in the same cup at the same time - just do the math and you only use the one cup.  Yogurt and molasses together was so gross I dumped it in the bowl immediately.  It was a little revolting.
I staged this pic with purees to make it pretty.

At this point I look around my kitchen and realize that I've made a monster sized mess.  Holy crap. Not only are flours, sugar and oil out but mixing bowls and every power tool I own too.  This recipe brought out the blender, processor, an ancient cheapo mixer ....dang, where have all these things been hiding? I had to clean dust off the mixer.  And yes, my kitchen is that small.

Got it all mixed and in loaf pans.  I knew I needed it thinner than she states in the book because I need bite sized pieces so I use 2 pans and cook it a little less time to compensate. I SET A TIMER! OMG.
and do other stuff.  While I'm doing other stuff I can smell broccoli. Uh oh.  I think of the boxed yellow cake mix I have in the pantry and prepare myself to use it for something boring instead.

And I got hazed by G Dub.  What does he know about cooking anyway?  He waltzed in and yelled " Oh look, someone dookied on the stove!"
It does look like dookie but right then I was just hoping it didn't taste like dookie.  What a little sh*t.  Get out - can't you see I'm working in here!

Here's the final product and I can taste the broccoli.  It's got a twang to it but with enough powdered sugar it'll be ok.  Hmmm, remember that allspice I left out?  I don't know how it tastes but maybe it should have been in there.

Just EAT IT already, would ya?

Eww Tofu

I like tofu but only from a restaurant.  I can't make anything worth a damn with it.  I've tried a handful of times and the results were dismal - just like this time.

The cookbook that I am armed with is Deceptively Delicious by Jerry Seinfeld's wife, Jessica.  You hide veggie purees in ordinary dishes thus upping the nutritional value.  When you cook for a hubby, Big Daddy G, that only eats beige food...it's fun to hear him actually like something I know is loaded with vitamin goodness and isn't coated with a funky cheese sauce.  My freezer is packed full of purees and a few recipes have been pretty awesome!

Tonight was just for me though.  I'm normally a pretty strict vegetarian but since I have been nursing my baby I've had to eat a little meat -  I plan to ditch it as soon as this kid is off me though! So, tofu is not a foreign substance to me and I do eat it when prepared by someone that knows what to do with it.  Big Daddy G was out drag racing and I had the time and energy to try something new.

I had the ingredients for these little fried tofu sticks.  How hard could THAT be?  I've coated and fried veggies before so what's the big deal?

First, I had to make bread crumbs.  I hate store bought breadcrumbs because they, like everything else, have high fructose corn syrup in them!!  WHY?? I have to search to find bread without that crap; apparently, Americans can't eat anything with out it.  Food does have taste without much enhancement - try it! It's really good.  Well anyway, I had to take the time to make my own so that started this whole process.

I already had the pea puree in the freezer. Yep, you heard that right.  The concept of this dish is to cut the tofu, roll it in pureed peas with egg added as a binder, roll in bread crumbs and fry them up.  I thaw the peas out and add my egg.

The tofu started out in it's normal gelatinous state.  It makes a cool sucking noise as it oozes out of the box - schlurp! I dry it and cut into sticks.  It's been so long since I have cut tofu that I use too much pressure and squish a bit of it.

I dip the first stick in the pea/egg mix and most of it slips off the tofu. Hmmm. Now what?  I keep rolling it around until I get some to finally stick and slap it in the bread crumbs. Unfortunately, bits of tofu break off in my pea mixture so it's starting to look kinda gross already.  I get a few done and get them ready for the pan.  Neither mixture coated evenly so they are a bit lumpy.

Next is something I don't understand.  Coat the pan with cooking spray, heat it then add olive oil.  Sounds ok until the sticks soak up that oil like a dry dish rag.  I think I even added more oil than the recipe called for - you  know, since I don't measure sometimes. The coating cooked up pretty good even if it really didn't look right.  The peas on the ends where not cooked so there is nice brown coating on the long sides and green peas on the ends!

This was a failure.  They didn't look good and they didn't taste good.  Where did I go wrong?  I salvaged the rest of my tofu by coating with soy sauce and baking it.  I can enjoy that.

When comparing to the picture mine is nothing close to what is shown.  Hers had to be deep fried to get that good of a scald.  Deceptive I'd say!

BTW - feedback from  G Dub was that this blog is good, sounds gross, but it's well written. He thinks the peas were the problem. ( he keeps shuddering at the thought of pea puree).  I think I am now too.

Apple Whatsits

Potlucks are a pain in the arse.  I usually love the company but I can never get a dish to be able to sit 2 hours and still look like you might want to venture a try.  It turns out looking more like something you would dare me to eat.  That's not good at a potluck - you waste a lot doing that.  No wonder why you almost always see the same tried and true vittles; you know, deviled eggs, pasta salad, green beans, pimento cheese sandwiches.  You can't really screw them up but, dang, they can be boring.

I've even tried a big pretty serving platter to hopefully hide my sunken, slightly dried up dish.  Very few fall for it and I wind up bringing back most of what I brought in - waste of money and time!  But I have to consider my audience too. I was once surrounded by the wonder of an avocado I was eating - what is this strange and unusual item you have??  No, really, I had to show and tell and avocado.  :-/

Tonight was potluck experiment #163 but the first ever documented.   I start by trying to use what was already in my pantry ( I've forgotten to mention that I don't like to spend a butt load of cash on something that's going to look like crap and gets snubbed at the table!). Ah, I find a jar of fried apples and crumbly stuff for the top that an aunt got me from the Apple Barn.  Great gesture but I won't ever eat it here at the house so I was just waiting for somewhere to take something made with these items.  Out comes the idea for a turnover type thingy.  I buy frozen pie crust because I'm definitely not making that and I'm on my way.

I just know you thaw the pie crust, put what you want in, fold it over and bake it.  What temperature?  Shoot, I don't know.  What shape?  What ever it turns out to be, I don't know.  I know what it's supposed to look like but I'm not delusional enough to think that I can turn out that product so I just treat it like play doh.

Here's what I made up:
1. Thaw pie crust on wax paper.  Try to fix cracks in pie crust by pushing back together but don't use too much water then it all just sticks together like the glue flour and water are.
2. Cut crust in half towards you and put some apples on it.
3. Fold over using wax paper underneath.  Fix cracks that are now on top of your "pie" - again not too much water!
4. Mash down along the edge to seal.  Try to make a pretty edge then add more crust to repair the jagged edge and even get a seal.  Pie crust is really pliable so just push around in it until it looks like a little turnover.

5. Thank the food gods for crumbly stuff for the top!  It hides all those extra cracks! Apply liberally

6.  Try the oven at 375.  Hopefully, this works. Always use a Silpat mat to avoid burnt bottoms!  Of the turnovers, silly.
7. Do not set a timer but do not start to do anything very far away - I think they were in there 20 minutes.
8. Wah-la!  you have a turnover!  Even if they do look like Horseshoe crabs.

Now EAT IT!

Kitchen Reality

Women have always ruled the kitchen.  Our crown is a shiny mason jar top and we wave our family in to dinner with the slow wave of a Sweet Potato Queen.

But though we may wave with pageantry, the output is sometimes a little less than royal.  That's my kitchen.  I mean well and no one has died yet ( that I know of!) but my dinner presentations have a broad range of goodness.  Very broad.  But that just keeps life interesting, right?  Ask that to the two that are continually subjected to these dishes.  I call it broadening horizons.

Since my son was born I've cooked more than I have in 5 years!  Why? Hormones, I guess.  But no matter what the reason I'm in the kitchen and that's scary.  Even worse, I'm armed with a cookbook. Danger danger!  Let's begin with a little about my kitchen habits:

1. I NEVER follow a recipe to the letter.  Ever.
2. I don't usually set a timer.
3. If a recipe has more than 7 ingredients, I just turn the page.
4. If an ingredient is at a store 1/2 mile away from where I normally shop I'll substitute with something in my narrow range - this is where the real variability comes in.
5.  I can be ADD
6.  If it's squishy or has juice I don't really want to touch it. Especially if it's chicken.
7. I'm cheap.
8. My tastes are expansive even if my cooking ability is not.

 My mom eats what I call prefab food like the already cooked bacon, 100 calories packs of anything - that's kind of my idea of junk. Sorry Mom! :-)  My dad cooks well now, albeit highly restricted, but I live far away and the influence in minimal.  So, I'm challenged.  I've never made a stock, a roux, an infused oil and oh well... so what.

Enjoy the blog as I fumble my way through healthy concoctions that usually tastes great despite their looks.
 Cooking isn't about curb appeal - JUST EAT IT!