Tater Tot Mess

This is not a recipe I'm proud I made. But it happened and it was eaten, so let's do this.

It tasted better than it looks, but it looks like a mess.

The recipe is here from BlogChef.net. I added frozen corn to mine and omitted the onion.

Again, not my proudest moment, but I'm glad it's out here and now, we can move on.

Hangover Smoothie

Let's say you have a situation in which you, the reader, are at a friend's house with your significant other and your dog watching your favorite sports team on TV. And then you start drinking, because, hey, you're hanging out and having fun. And then you keep hanging out and drinking because your team wins after a very exciting very long shoot-out and they never win a shoot-out and hey, look! Holiday Nog!

Not as innocuous as it seems. Beware.

And then, way after the point of no return, your friend asks your significant other "Hey, what time is your flight tomorrow?" and then you remember that he has to be on a plane in fewer than 12 hours. Crap.
Wait, where was I going with this?


Oh, yeah. Hangover Smoothie.


So, I've really been into smoothies for a few weeks now. Like, make one everyday kind of into them. I figured (given that this particular morning the mere thought of any kind of food gave my tummy the heaves) I could slurp down some goodness and it would cure all my ills. So, I blended. 


Now, I'm going to give you my "recipe." But, smoothie making is not an exact science. Be loose and liberal with your measurements. 



For example this is a scoop of OJ concentrate:


See? Be loose and liberal. It's a smoothie. Not actual science.




Hangover Smoothie


1/2 cup Orange Juice 
2 scoops frozen orange juice concentrate (the 100% juice kind)
2 spoonfuls yogurt
2 tablespoons fiber powder (e.g. Benefiber, Brand X dissolvable fiber)
20g protein powder (vanilla or unflavored)
1 scoop greens powder (preferably orange flavored)
ice


Blend until smoothie-like consistency.Drink up, take some vitamins and aspirin, and watch 8+ hours of Biggest Loser on Netflix. 

Action shot.

Ok, so it's not pretty. But it's tasty. Put it in a pretty glass with a straw. That's my prescription anyway. 

Broccoli!!!

Confession:

I 

love

taking

pictures

of 

broccoli.

Double Pie!

Wow, what I could do with this.

Chicago Metallic Non-Stick 9-Inch Split Decision Pie Pan

Breakfast Salad

Yes, it's a breakfast salad. Now stay with me - I didn't say you have to eat it for breakfast. I'm sure a lovely, educated person such as you has heard of brinner? 

This lovely image is Romaine lettuce, grapes, bacon, buttered toast, and 2 panko-crusted fried hard boiled eggs. Now, the recipe, from Circle B Kitchen, is for soft-boiled eggs, but I don't like runny yolks. 

Tip: When you fry the eggs - put them in the oil with a spoon or something to turn them over. Otherwise, they will stick to the bottom. 

Even though these are fried, they aren't greasy, and they do taste amazing. 


Mmmmm.... breakfast salad. 

Time to Clean-ish

Today, fueled by a fairly successful self-made espresso & milk, I decided to organize the food cabinet. We have very little kitchen space and I have a tendency to just shove items in there willy-nilly.

Ta da? So it doesn't look like a lot of stuff, but when it's laid out on the counter...

Aerial shot?

Holy crap, that's a lot of crap. But I need it all. I NEED it.

And I fit it all back in nicely. Kind of. Ok, it doesn't look much better in the picture, but it's LOADS better in real life.

Also, I found that I buy too much salt (3 large containers and 2 small ones) and jello (7 boxes of assorted gelatin and pudding flavors) and we need to start eating more peanut butter (1 extra large unopened, 1 large half-eaten, 1 large mostly eaten, 1 small unopened).

I should clean more often.

Amazingly Healthy Sweet Potato Bake

Man, I'm so freaking buzzed right now. Buzzed with how awesome my dinner was! What?? Betcha didn't see that one coming.

So I've been craving sweet potatoes all day. I spent an hour on Foodgawker searching for ways to make a sweet potato into a whole meal, because that's all I wanted to eat. (I found a few.)

So anyway, I found Mama Grubbs Grub's recipe for Sweet Potato Foil Packet Tacos and it was almost exactly what I wanted. But not quite.

Using that recipe as a jumping-off point, I put in each foil packet:

• 2 cups(ish) sweet potatoes cubed-ish (see photo above) - approx 2 whole potatoes. BTW, there is a lot of ish-ing in my cooking tonight.
• Handful of fresh spinach (torn)
• 3 TBS (ish) of black beans (totaling 1 whole can)
• 1 heaping TBS (ish) of chopped tomatoes (totaling 1/2 can)
• 1/3 of 1/3 of a grilled chicken breast (Feel free to omit this. I had this leftover in the fridge and kind of just threw it in. It would be yummy and perfect for a Meatless Monday dish w/out it. It would be equally yummy with more grilled chicken.)
• 1 pat butter
• dash salt

Look how beautiful it is! All the colors! This dish is like a rainbow of yummy.Fold up the foil like a burrito.Bake for 25 minutes. Enjoy over rice/tostada/soft taco shell. I cooked gummy rice, but a tostada would be superb next time.

I can't stress how yummy and filling this was. I almost couldn't eat all of mine. But I powered through like a champ.

Last 'Nog of the Season French Toast

Eggnog French Toast. Who knew?

It's deliciously subtle and you don't need to worry about adding a lot of spices/seasoning/whatever to make it yummy.

What's that, you say? You don't have half a carton of eggnog in the back of your fridge? Hmm.. weird.

I enjoy mine extra crispy erring on the side of burnt up.

Not Exactly Pizza Inn Chocolate Chip Pizza

Every time I go somewhere I once lived, there are foods I feel I must eat while I can. As much as I love living in SoFla, there are many many foods that I just can’t get down here. I missed one precious opportunity recently - Pizza Inn's Chocolate Chip Pizzert. Sadly, if I want a genuine pizzert I must travel over 575 miles for it. Not likely. Sooooo I’ve tried to replicate it. This is more difficult than it would seem. (Google it. Many people have tried, many have failed.)

My secret ingredients:

The Jiffy mix plus butter poured over the pizza crust. (Side note: this is the first time I’ve used Pillsbury’s thin crust pizza in a tube and I’m a convert. It’s really good and doesn’t taste like it’s pre-made like I thought it would.)

Add chocolate chips. I used mini ones. It was a good call. Although, I’d probably use a few more.

After baking it for 15ish minutes. (Confession - I don’t remember how long I baked it. At all even a little.)

Yum.

Result - not exactly what I wanted. I cooked it too long, I need more of a gooey filling. Also, it was kind of thin. Maybe more mix? But I’m going to try again. Soon.

Orange Meringues

I am not a great cook. I am a good cook and I am creative, so that gets me out of many situations where I imagine others would throw in the towel. I have absolutely no misgivings about where I fall short (see previous entry), especially after a night like tonight.

A few days ago, I made Raspberry Confetti Kisses using Easybaked's recipe. They were really easy and they were pretty cute. I substituted raspberry jell-o for orange (cause that’s what I had) and topped it with decorating sugar instead of confetti sprinkles (mistake, btw - it caused some of them to fall in on themselves). For some reason, I have no pictures of these - I don’t know why. Sorry. Anyway, the taste was… okay. I could really taste the vinegar, which bothered me because I was making them to give away. So I thought I could just make them without the vinegar - they were poofy and meringue-like before I added it into the mix, so there should be no real issues, I thought. Easy, right?

…

So, I did it exactly the same. The instructions read beat mixture until it stands in peaks. So I beat.

And beat.

And beat.

30 minutes of beating with a friggin hand mixer and this is what I got:

Orange and egg white soup.

Now, this is not my first meringue. I make pies. I top said pies with meringue. Meringue this liquidy has only happened to me once (the first time I ever made one - and not since, damnit.) So I don’t know what I did wrong. At this point I’m going a little crazy inside.

Side note - did you know you can do a lot while holding a hand mixer? Like Facebooking, cursing the soupy liquid, checking the weather (it’s getting cold here!!),looking up other meringue recipes since this one is obviously going no where…

Hmm….. cream of tarter. That’s an interesting ingredient that is currently missing from my mixture.

Crap.

25 minutes and approx 3/4 tsp later I have a lovely whipped up meringue:

Look at those beautiful peaks.

Finally.

They turned out great. Not sure they were worth all that effort though…

Airing of (Self) Grievances

I’m late to Festivus myself this year.

Instead of airing the grievances I have with others, I thought I’d air the grievances I have with myself (as a cook) in an effort to better myself.

So 1. I put off EVERYTHING. I have pictures of food on my computer/phone I haven’t posted about from fall late October.

2. I can’t peel a boiled egg. I know, I know. There are a THOUSAND different “tricks” to do it. They. Don’t. Work. For. Me. If I hard boil 8 eggs, I will end up with 3 good looking ones and 5 that look something like this:

I can’t serve that.

3. I almost always take my wedding ring off to cook if I know it’s going to be messy/gross. People are weirdly astounded at this. I don’t know why. When I bake things that have instructions that start with “With buttered hands,” I’m taking off the ring.

Exhibit A: My buttered hand sans ring

And, yes, this leads to me “misplacing” my ring more often than usual. (True story, I “lost” my ring on top of the coffee maker for like 8 hours.)

Which brings me to the next one

4. I lose things. I can NEVER find the can opener, it lives in a state of lost in our kitchen. I recently lost my phone, called it 3 times, and then found it in my back pocket.

5. I’m a messy cook. Really, really messy. This is a picture of one section of the kitchen after I used the mixer. Granted, the bowl was too small for the job, but really, it didn’t matter.

Just today I had flour, sugar, powdered sugar, egg whites, powdered jello, butter, and a combination of all of the above on my shirt, counter, floor, coffee maker, toaster, and jar of nutmeg.

Ok, after re-reading my list of grievances, I realize I’m probably not going to change any of these things. Although, I really wish I could peel boiled eggs.

Happy Festivus, all.