For better or bratwurst.

Banana pudding, better known as The Great Banana Feast of 2012

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 23:18:00 -0400

So I have an unnatural love for bananas. I’m not really quite sure where this came from. It’s possibly a combination of my father’s love of banana pudding, or my mother’s uncanny ability to make incredible banana bread. Either way, I eat bananas in everything, banana protein smoothies, bananas and peanut butter, bananas frozen as popsicles, and banana flavored laffy taffies.

I also love pudding. Be it’s gelatinous form or its smooth transition from my mouth to my stomach (chewing is just hard work at the end of a long day), it makes my day go from a 6 to a 10 in less than 5 seconds.

This is also *attention gluten free cousins and friends* GLUTEN FREE! I just replaced the regular grahams that the recipe calls for with gluten free sandwich cookies, which turned out to be a great call. Vanilla oreo-like cookies go great with pudding.

Ingredients

1 cup 2 percent milk
1 cup plain unsweetened almond milk
3 tablespoons cornstarch
Pinch of kosher salt
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large bananas
Gluten free vanilla sandwich cookies, or regular grahams if you roll like us normals most of the time.
1 tablespoon cocoa powder (sweetened or unsweetened)
1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted

Heat the regular milk and almond milk in a saucepan over medium heat until almost simmering. At this point little bubbles will begin to come up to the surface. If you know anything about chemistry, the tiny little molecules are heating up, exciting the electrons, which are trying to escape to the next energy level (a gaseous state), thus the bubbles. At least I think that’s what I remember. I apologize to my high school chemistry teacher if that’s wrong. Anyway, at this point, remove the pan from the heat source.

Meanwhile, whisk the cornstarch, salt, sugar and egg in a medium heatproof bowl. This bowl wasn’t exactly heatproof seeing as it was metallic in nature, but I just dealt with the pain. It’s something you have to be willing to do when making pudding.

Pour half of your delightfully bubbling saucepan mixture into the dry ingredients. Then, pour it all back into the saucepan and stir like an evil spirit was chasing your whisk. Do this until it starts bubbling again, which takes about a minute or two. Your fast moving whisk will get tired pretty quickly.

At this point, add the teaspoon of vanilla.

Pour your goodies into a bowl all together with the other half of the dry ingredients.

Now comes the fun part, the exterior design. Just go totally insane. I sliced up by bananas and layered cookies and toasted almonds like there was no tomorrow. If this pudding were my house, it would’ve been compared to the Taj Mahal.

I also made another batch right after we finished this one. Mainly because we ate it all in about 5 minutes (it wasn’t JUST me and the beast ok, I did share this magic with others. I mean, I eat a lot, but I’m not a complete glutton).

And therein lies the beauty of the banana pudding. Simple, exquisite; a true all American treat. Proceed with caution and delight.

Little Posey's Walnut Chicken

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:29:54 -0500

Is cooking a learned talent, or is it bred, born within the soul at birth? Is the raw, impressive, beautiful, expressive projection of the soul onto a plate nature, or nurture?

That answer can’t be found today because while the Posey girls may be naturally amazing, we also came from the same mother, and with the exception of the fact that little Posey was allowed to go to the mall with boys WAY before I was, and allowed to move to Colorado before she could vote, and allowed to stay out past 11 when she was 16 while I had to come home by 10 until I was 18….so I think this sentence is officially a run-on, I’ll start over. Basically, we were raised the same way and have the same genetics so nature vs. nurture can’t be solved with our examples. But little Posey makes that chicken squawk until it’s delicious.

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs of chicken breast
8 Tbsp of soy sauce
5 tsp of cornstarch
5 Tbsp of dry sherry
2.5 tsp of ginger root
2.5 tsp of sugar
1.25 tsp of salt
1.2 tsp of crushed red pepper
2 Tbsp of cooking oil
2 medium green peppers, cut into slices
7 green onions, cut into wheels
1 cup of walnuts

Here’s dear little Posey cutting up the green onions. Isn’t she beautiful in her Christmas pajamas?

And here she is again, delicately cutting up raw chicken breasts into cute cubes. Cute cubes without cuticles or carotids, because they’ve been slaughtered and cleaned. I’m glad we don’t have a farm, I could never behead a chicken.

Gather your cup of walnuts on the side, measuring them ahead of time is really crucial. What if you forget to do it, and then your hands are so covered in raw chicken that you can’t touch anything? One word people: Salmonella.

Here lies your dry ingredients in one bowl, pre-mixed like any good culinary student would do. The soy sauce and sherry lies in the other measuring cup.

This is rice. I know I didn’t discuss this earlier, but the chicken really is best served with rice. Don’t fret, you can always skip it if you’re caught off guard here, pour the chicken over some cereal and call it done.
We used brown rice. Brown rice is better for your spirit.

Stir fry your peppers and green onions first, using a Tbsp of olive oil in a hot pan. Make sure your pan and olive oil are hot before you add the veggies. I just read an article about how sad vegetables get when they’re dumped into a cold pan. Do this for about 3 or 4 minutes, until they soften, and then add the walnuts for about 2 minutes. Remove them from the wok to make room for the chicken.
Put your walnuts, green onions, and green peppers in a bowl.

Add another Tbsp or so of olive oil if necessary, and get it warm for the chicken. It’s like when someone warms up a seat for you, it’s so nice to sit in a chair right after someone has gotten up, like a warm gift of butt comfort.

Once the oil is warm, add the chicken. Ahh, the protein denaturing!

Stir it around, don’t let it get stuck to the pan. This requires attentive cooking, don’t get lazy. Laziness with chicken = gross walnut chicken, and the good walnut chicken is good enough to work for.

Mix your dry ingredients and soy sauce/sherry combo. This, my friends, is your sauce.

Add it to your chicken once the chicken is fully cooked. Don’t cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and other uncomfortable side effects from salmonella poisoning. If it’s pink, you better think.
Stir until it’s thickened a little.

Add your veggies back in, and cook for another minute or so to warm it all back up and to marinate it all delicately.

She look so happy in her little apron. And look how clean her clothes are! Aprons have made quite the come back, and I have to say it was a trend I missed.

Here, lies the result of the labor. Serve it with rice, or over captain crunch, whatever you have in your pantry. Peanut butter flavored cereal would go well with spicy chicken….

Our Christmas pajamas, that we were still wearing the day after Christmas. Laziness at it’s finest.

Thing 1, Thing 2, and…Horton? Whichever Seuss character has antlers.

This chicken was so worth making. We ate heartily, we ate well, we ate happily.

Christmas Brie en Croute

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:35:48 -0500

I’m a serious advocate of cheese. If cheese were running for President, I would vote for it, not only because I love it dearly and dream cheese platters, but because I partially believe it could run our country better than the current government. But that’s neither here nor there, we’re here to talk about cheese, not American inadequacy and greed. Cheese is simpler and brings much more joy.

It’s also almost Christmas! I’m so glad that I’ve had Christmas parties to bake for, but I’ll take any excuse to buy some raw ingredients and hide in the kitchen for hours like a mad scientist.

I made this for my girl’s Bible study Christmas party, and it took approximately 10 minutes to do, which is fast even for us lazy bakers

Ingredients:

One tube of Crescent rolls, this is one thing I wish I could eat every day, a warm crescent roll with butter, and honey, and maybe some apple butter.
An 8oz round of Brie. Don’t take the wax off.
3 Tbsp of raspberry jam
1 Tbsp of apricot jam

Cut the brie in half horizontally, and separate it wax sides down. These are like two cute little wheels that you really want to eat, but just wait, because the end result is way better than the raw ingredients, which is something I rarely say. Who wants cookies when you can eat cookie dough?

Spread your jam and mix it up well, then stack the cheese wheels together and make a cheese and jam sandwich.

Unroll the crescent dough and divide it in half along the dotted line. Using a small section, cut out some pieces that look like small leaves, and roll some dough balls to be berries. This is just seasonal presentation really, it’s all about being jazzy.
Bake it for 8-11 minutes at 350

Then your crescent flower is lovely.

Wrap your brie in the rest of the crescent dough, and make sure it’s sealed, otherwise you’ll end up with a bubbly jammy mess all over your pan, the oven, and the world. It might get that out of control.
Bake for 25-30 minutes at 350

Bring it out when it’s nice and brown, and carefully transfer it onto a plate, then bedazzle it with your little pastry flower, you’ll feel like a pastry artist.

And it was delicious, and easy, and very holiday oriented. I think we should have a holiday called “easy appetizer day,” and everyone has to bring something that took about 10 minutes to make. This could really go somewhere.

Merry Christmas week!

This was my first attempt at gingerbread house building this year, it’s a prototype and very rough, and possibly a little structurally unsound. Note the glass acting as a buttress.

Scrumptious Cranberry Bars a la Mama Posey

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 23:13:54 -0500

Oh, the smell of sweet, plump, ripe-for-the-picking cranberries. Their bright, red color invites you to sneak individual berries as you prepare the dessert. Their tart, tangy allure is best matched by the tiny, chopped, oh-so-sweet dates. Every molecule of the two seemed to be calling for me to eat them. And so I did. I gladly accepted every invitation from every bright and happy cranberry, and ever sweetened, shriveled date.

And so, I ran out of dates. I was missing about 3 of the 8oz of dates that I needed for the recipe, so I had to substitute. Therefore, this recipe is not exactly like the one my beautiful mother brews up at the beginning of every holiday season, but I liked it just the same.

Ingredient list:

1 bag (12oz) of fresh cranberries. The ‘fresh’ part is imperative. Somehow, between several phone conversations with my mother, I missed the words ‘fresh, not dried.’ Because of this ‘selective listening’ as my mother calls it, I had to take several trips to the grocery store to replace my giant bag of dried cranberries with fresh ones. So get fresh ones the first time. I promise to listen better next time Becks.
8oz of chopped dates
2 Tbsp of water
1 tsp of vanilla
2 cups flour
2 cups of old fashioned oatmeal
1 1/2 cups of packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp of baking soda
1/2 tsp of salt
2 sticks of melted butter

And, for the orange glaze (hello delicious)

2 cups of powdered sugar
2/3 Tbsp of orange juice (I just used OJ concentrate and guessed)
1/2 tsp of vanilla

These, dear friends, are the pitted plums. You might say “but it didn’t say pitted plums in the directions, it said dates.” You would be right dear friend. Because I ate a lot of the dates, I had to come up with some sort of substitute, and these were in my pantry! They filled in quite nicely. Great supporting actors. So I used about 3oz of chopped plums.

Place your dried fruit, your fresh cranberries, and 2 Tbsp of water into a sauce pan. Simmer over low-medium heat until the cranberries pop (about 15 min) and smash them into little tiny pieces.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, combine your dry ingredients. When your bowl is shiny the reflection looks a little psychedelic.

Add your two sticks of melted butter.

Stir, like all the great chefs do.
Eat, like all the great chefs do. But seriously, just eat a spoonful of the mix like this. I ate approximately….17 spoonfuls. It sort of made up for the missing dates though.

Pack half of the mixture into the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Pack it down like a woman going on a 4 week vacation to Aruba packs her overstuffed suitcase.
Bake THIS half of the crust for 8 minutes at 350 degrees

On the other side of the countertop, go back to your now cooling berries. Don’t they look beautiful? Tell them yes, they’re very sensitive.

Add 1 tsp of vanilla to the berries and stir.

Once your first crust is out of the 8 minute cooking cycle, gently (very very gently) spread the mixture over the packed crust.

This was about as good as it got without breaking the bars to smithereens.

Pack the second half of your granola looking mixture on top of the berries.
Pat gently. Lovingly really.
Pop it into the oven again for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

And now, we must prepare the glaze. Add the OJ concentrate (or Orange juice if you have it), the vanilla, and the powdered sugar and mix it. Rocket science.

Throw it carelessly over the bars when they come out of the oven, the more haphazard the better, and let them cool completely.

Slice them into rectangles, triangles, squares, circles, octagons, or little baby dinosaurs. Whatever tickles your fancy.

TADA! That’s it, and they’re incredible. My mom really does make them yearly for her coworkers, for us, and for friends and extended family. I gave them away as a present this time too! I also gifted some to myself.

Oh, and these are the flowers that my sweet beat brought home for me last Sunday. I think he likes me ;-)

And I am.

The Great Harvest Bread (not unlike the Great Pumpkin)

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:15:35 -0500

It all started with the Pumpkin Spice Latte. My love of pumpkin is no secret to those close to me. My beautiful mother in law began to call me P.G. (pumpkin girl) after the 3rd or 4th time I brought baked pumpkin goods to their house. So the day the Pumpkin Spice Latte came out at Starbucks, I went completely mental. I drank it all the time, I made pumpkin cookies, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin muffins. So naturally anytime any PF’s (pumpkin fanatics) like myself came to Starbucks with loaded enthusiasm, I shared a moment with them. I could see the desire in their eyes and the undying devotion in their hearts. We bonded.

One day, as I was expressing my love of all things pumpkin to Kathi, a fellow lover of baked fall goods, she told me she had something for me: a recipe (my favorite kind of gift). The result was a delicious baked good called Harvest Bread. Now, harvest bread has no pumpkin in it, but the spices and texture resemble that of pumpkin bread, and the taste is exquisite.

So, Kathi, this is dedicated to you.

Ingredients:

3 cups sugar
¾ cups oil
4 eggs
2 cups mashed yams
1 6-oz can frozen orange juice
3 ½ cups self-rising flour
1 ½ tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp all spice
1 cup chopped nuts

Mix your sugar and oil in a mixer and blend it up good. I mean really good. We’re talking homogenous mixture here.

Add your little egglets one at a time. These guys deserved family photo before they were split apart, taken from their home one by one, and broken while their guts spilled out. They never had a chance.

Add yer yams and orange juice concentrate. The orange adds such a nice touch.

Mix your dry ingredients in a bowl. The good part about the dry ingredient bowl is that it’s so easy to wash. Simple cleanliness. Such joy.
Mix the wet and dry ingredients, and pour them into small loaf pans, muffin tins, or large loaf pans. I did some small and large loaves just to be versatile.
Bake at 350 for 45 minutes for the larger loaves (sometimes longer depending on how large), and about 35-40 minutes for the smaller guys.

Just a note. These Tbsp/tsp measurements are one of the best things in my kitchen (besides the owls), one of my best friends Emily gave them to me as a wedding gift. Shell done emily, shell done.

Voila!

The Great Pumpkin Party that soon followed the Great Harvest Bread. We carved pumpkins, watched The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and ate said bread.

Phil, carefully and quietly working on his pumpkin. Since he had never done one before, he dedicated himself like a master sculptor would have.

Taylor, and her stick figure pumpkin man.

Notice the heater beside Daisy. We do it big on the Works porch.

We made a small mess on our front porch. It may or may not be permanently stained.

My robot with his heart. The tin man would’ve been proud.

Tay’s Pearl Jam album cover.

Josh’s cross pumpkin.

Daisy’s mushroom. 1up

Phil’s masterpiece. Mr. ‘I’ve never carved a pumpkin before.’

The beast’s pumpkin. He knows I love owls.

Daisy ‘owl’ing. I greatly prefer this to planking.

Skillet eggs with zucchini.

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:33:16 -0500

If your kids hate vegetables, they will eat this. If your husbands hate vegetables, they’ll probably pretend not to like it just to keep with tradition, but they’ll secretly like it too. I theorize that even those with ovaphobia (yes, a fear of eggs exists) would like them because when it’s all mixed together it doesn’t look or act like an egg dish. It just basically tastes like spicy, flavorful zucchini covered in a creamy cheese like mixture.

All this to say that this is one of my new favorite side dishes.

Ingredients:

6 eggs
5-6 zucchinis
1 bunch of green onions
1 jalapeno
2 Tbsp of olive oil
1 Tbsp of butter or yogurt butter (Yogurt butter is so good I eat it plain. It’s like tub butter but more flavorful, and I don’t feel so bad eating random spoonfuls. Don’t tell my husband…)
1/4 tsp of Nutmeg
Fresh ground pepper
Salt
3 Tbsp of Parsley
1/4 cup of cheddar cheese or pepper jack cheese

Grate the zucchini! This was the first time my poor cheese grater had seen something besides cheese and carrots, and the little guy got confused.
Add about 1 tbsp of salt to the mix while it drains
Squeeze the water out of the zucchini and leave it in the strainer for 45 minutes or so. If you don’t have the time just make sure you squeeze it out really well and pat it dry with a paper towel.

Simmer your green onions and jalapenos in olive oil for about 5.433 minutes. The timing is very (un)important. Just get them soft and a little toasted.

Then, add your grated zucchini to the lot and to the pot. Cook for about 7.824 minutes.

Add the parsley, nutmeg, and ground pepper. If you want a little more, add a little more. Taste and see that it can be whatever you want it to be. I added more pepper I believe.
Cook the mixture until it dries out a little bit. Not so mushy.

Turn down the heat, and hollow out 6 little indentations for your eggs to live in. This is their new home so take your time.
Put a small dollop of margarine/yogurt butter/regular butter into each new home.

Crack your 6 eggs into each home, and top with a little cheese, salt, and more black pepper if you like pepper. If you don’t then never use any.
Put it into the oven in the same skillet (assuming an oven safe skillet) at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Once your whites have turned opaque (don’t you love that word?) and your yolks are at the desired consistency (I like mine a little runny still, they taste more like cheese that way, and oh how I love cheese), take them out and top them with a few more green onions!
One thing I have to mention while on the subject of scallions, i.e. green onions. I hate, and I mean hate, that green onions are also called 1. scallions, 2. green scallions, 3. spring onions, 4. onion sticks, and in some random places, 5. syboes. This is why English is such a confusing language for foreigners. I’m always going to call them green onions, and I will use permanent marker to cross out ‘scallion’ anywhere I see it and rewrite it properly. Whoever had the idea to name them 5 different things was a nut. And there are lots of different kinds of nuts.

The moral of the story is….the skillet eggs with zucchini were DELICIOUS. I’m going to make them as a regular side dish now because I loved them so much. I ate the leftovers for breakfast too, that’s the beauty of the egg. It’s a breakfast that you have to work for, and a dinner that’s easy. Funny how preparation for dinner seems normal but for breakfast we’re too lazy to pan fry an egg. ”I’ll just have something I can eat in the car.” Lazy America, lazy. Warm breakfasts are your friends.

On another note, this was my halloween costume! I tried to get Beast to be a Jellyfisher, but he refused, so I was just a lone jellyfish in a big ocean. But I loved it.

Birthday Buttermilk Pie

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:22:55 -0400

The day Steve Jobs died, something else horrific happened. My computer decided to die in solidarity. Sympathy runs deep in apple products. Ergo, I’m sitting outside with an extension cord running from inside to our porch so I can sit outside and enjoy the beautiful Halloween weather.

I love Halloween for many reasons, most of them revolving around the insane amount of candied treats that are so ample all of a sudden. The receptionists at every office seem to be under obligation to go out and buy massive amounts of candy to feed their “clientele,” and you won’t be hearing a single protest from me. The Bit-O-Honey candy has really stolen my heart this year.

On top of that though, I just happened to marry a man whose birthday is so close to Halloween, that his birthday parties are usually inevitably Halloween themed (poor guy). So I decided to be anti-Halloween beast birthday this year, so I made buttermilk pies (one of his favorite desserts) rather than a giant cake in the shape of a candy corn, and I surprised him with a dinner at Casa Rodriguez (home of the ultimate green sauce) instead of a giant costumed halloween shindig.

However, I had never made buttermilk pies before and the task seemed quite daunting. It’s probably just the idea of a pie that gets me, it seems like there are too many parts for it to be easy. I mean, I have to make crust AND an inside? This usually seems like too much work to me, but I persevered and did it anyway.

And by persevering, I mean I roped my culinary-savvy little sister Cara into making the crust for me. If you’d like a recipe for a couple of delicious, flaky, buttery pie crusts, see this website: <http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/butter-flaky-pie-crust/detail.aspx>

Ingredients:

1 and 1/2 cups of sugar
1 cup of buttermilk
1/2 cup of bisquick! Yay this stuff is so good. And you’ll have plenty leftover for pancakes the next morning
1/3 cup of butter
1 tsp of vanilla
3 eggs

This is the amazingly, happily easy part. I think I giggled with glee when I wasn’t told to seaparate my dry and wet ingredients into separate bowls. I hate doing extra dishes, I’ll even eat our of containers with spoons to avoid washing a dish.
Put ALL your ingredients into a bowl, and beat with an electric mixer for 1 minute. Just mix it with a spatula a little bit first, otherwise it literally spills everywhere with all that liquid and such. I had to clean up quite a bit of counter space.

Prepare your pie dough! My recipe had me chill it, and then roll it out onto a floured surface. I won’t tell anyone if you use frozen pie crust.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes, until your toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean!

And here they are! Due to the bubbly appearance at the top, I deduced that I probably over-aerated it in the mixer. Maybe less than a minute will do for yours, just make sure it’s nice and mixed up. It tasted SO good though! The beast approved.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch….

And, since I had a little pie dough leftover, I made an apple tart! It’s 3 ingredients included: Remaining dough, 1 apple, cinnamon sugar.

I flattened the dough with my hand, cut the apple into thin slices, and sprinkled on some cinnamon sugar!

Then I rolled up the edges of the dough around the apples to create the ‘tart’ look. So edgy, so unique.

And here’s our little guy after about 25 minutes in the oven! I just went by how soft the apples were. And this was our after dinner treat that night.

I had to hide the pies from the beast because they were for his birthday the next day, so I covered them up with foil, and wrapped them in a towel, and then I put them in our spare bathroom corner cabinet. The smell was the only thing that was giving me away, so I cooked something with a lot of garlic in it that night to mask the smell. So sneaky I am.

Needless to say, my beast turned 27, and hopefully has at least another good year or two in that body ;-)

Slow Roasted Pork n' Peaches

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 23:12:59 -0400

Oooooo doggie there ain’t nothin more Texas than pork n’ peaches! We got some of them big, juicy, Texas peaches, and killed us some wild hog and went to town on his hide. He ain’t never had no chance with us, that hog, cause my man can chase down any deer, duck, antelope, hog, or water buffalo this side of the Mississip.

And by that I meant we got the pork and the peaches at our friendly neighborhood grocery store. ON SALE might I add. I can hunt for those sale prices.

This is going on my top 5 list of things I’ve cooked because it was as easy as killing deer after you feed them all year, then hide and shoot them from a deer stand when they come to eat to the only place they’ve been eating from all year. Cheaters. And it was delicious.

Ingredients:

The pork. I used round about 3 pounds, because I have to feed someone huge.
2 chopped onions
2 whole peaches
3 Tbsp of dark brown sugar. Dark brown. None of that light brown junk.
3 tsp of black pepper
3 tsp of salt
3 cups of pecans (optional)
6 Tbsp of olive oil
1/4 to 1/2 cup of red wine vinegar
A dash of cinnamon
Thyme
Rosemary
3 Tbsp of honey
A cup or two of water, depending on how soupy you like your dinner

Trim your pork of all the fat. Unless you’re into that kind of thing.

Chop up your plump, persnickety peaches.

Chop your onions and press your garlic

Throw them in the pot with your honey, dark brown sugar, salt, pepper, cup of water (or more), olive oil, red wine vinegar, a dash of thyme and rosemary, and cinnamon.
Let it cook on high for 4-5 hours, or on low for 6-8 hours. I was in a hurry to finish before dinner and mine cooked in about 5 on high.

This is about how it looked after we demolished most of it. We had Taylor and Brittany over to join our pork and peach festivities. Food is always better with friends, especially when they bring dessert!

God has blessed the beast and I so much in College Station. We’ve been surrounded by gospel driven community, and He is showing Himself to us in ways we’ve never experienced. I’m so grateful for my handsome husband, and he shows me the love of Christ daily with his patience, his gentle, loving nature, and in his ability to lead us both in a more genuine walk with our Savior. God is just rocking our socks off. If you don’t know him, you should get to.

And they enjoyed it just as much as they look like they were enjoying it. They’re doing my next commercial.

In other news, I’ve been fall crafting lately! This was inspired by my friend Jamie, who also wanted to spend an afternoon sewing and glueing stuff to other stuff, so we happily glued, pinned, wrapped, and stuck all the live long day.

Burlap is my new buddy. It does, however, smell a little like a barn. Happy new week everyone!

Avocado Chicken Salad and Fall Things!

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:23:27 -0400

Now that you can go outside without bringing a gallon of water, gatorade, a change of clothes, a portable fan, and a sweat towel, I’ve decided to start having meals alfresco. Dining alfresco sounds like you’re eating dinner with an mustached Italian man. Alfresco was also one of my vocabulary words in 9th grade and I liked it so much I’ve used it in sentences whenever possible since.

In Spanish, ‘outside’ is translated to ‘a fuera’ which is nearly as much fun to say.

So we ate a fuera, in honor of Mother Nature losing her hot flashes.

I also got a ton of avocados for 2$ at the Farm Patch, my favorite little fruit stand in College Station. They sell a ton of locally grown goodies, and they always have fresh canned fruits, jellies, and my favorite, fig preserves. I also bought pumpkins from them.

They also have pretty baskets and signs everywhere. I’m not at all embarrassed to admit that I go there for fun.

But let’s get to the good stuff. Here’s the Avocado Chicken Salad Recipe, it was easy and such a great dish. I ate it for dinner, the beast, however, needing more protein, was given pesto chicken to meet his protein needs. Oh the needs.

Ingredients:

1 cup of cooked, shredded chicken. If you’re feeling lazy, rotisserie chicken would be delish, if you’re not, or if you’re poor, you can make your own.
1/4 cup of frozen corn
1/4 cup of black beans, drained
1/4 cup of green onions
1/4 cup of diced baby tomatoes
1/4 cup of cilantro (are you sensing a pattern?)
2 Tbsp of white vinegar
4 Tbsp of fat free mayonnaise
Salt
2-4 avocados! Yay for beta-sistoserol, mono-unsaturated fats and vitamin E!

I just cooked some chicken in Italian spices.

Then I shredded it and cooled it in the fridge.

Add your thawed frozen corn, drained beans, cilantro, green onions, and tomatoes. Mix it up baby.

Mix in your avocados right before you’re ready to serve, otherwise they’ll brown. They still taste good but other, less knowledgable people, might have an unprecedented aversion to it. The fools.
Then add the mayo, the salt, and your vinegar.
Also, when you slice your avocados, keep the halves in tact so you can serve the salad IN them. It’s like a bowl with no clean up. It’s eco-friendly disposable dinnerware. Don’t waste. Be green. Be an avocado. That may have gone too far.

Now stiiiiirrrr it all together. If you’d like to do this with your hands, be free. I encourage freedom of expression, but it will turn your nail beds green, and it takes a long time to get it all out. The moral of the story is, making guacamole with your hands is not like molding burger patties with your hands.

Spoon your mixed chicken avocado salad into the empty avocado shells (shells? skin? overcoat?), and put a pretty little cherub tomato on top for presentation sake. Just don’t put two of them too close together, it could look awkward. You could also slice the tomatoes up to avoid looking awkward.

Here they are. So pretty. I served them with other pretty things, like wine, cheese, and crackers. I also got funky with the outside decor.

The beautiful day warranted some decoration. And the meal was way better out in the midst of it.

Happy October everyone!

Turkey Chili - It's soup season!

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:07:10 -0400

Welcome to AUTUMN SOUPS! Football started, so I thought it was high time chili should too.

One thing I’ve learned about being married to a football man thus far, is that the more food present during a football game, the less disheartening it is if they lose (or when they lose if you support the Cowboys), and the better it is when they win. It’s an exponential multiplier of all happy emotions, and it satiates all sadness. It’s like God designed us for the two to be combined.

Honestly, I’d watch the cowboys if it still looked like this when they played

But it doesn’t, and they’re not that good. I guess there’s always next year.

But until then, there’s this!

Food and football. The ever classic, and healthy combination. Gall bladders all over the world, unite.

It’s time for Turkey chili!

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp of olive oil.
1 yellow onion
1 green bell pepper, essentially because the color is pretty. You can leave it out if you like.
2 whole roma tomatoes
5 cloves of garlic (I used more, we like to keep away the vampires and smell like fat Italians for 2 weeks)
1 small can of diced green chiles
1 Tbsp of kosher salt
2 tsp of chili powder
1 tsp of oregano
1 lb of ground turkey
12oz of beer
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
Serve with avocado, sour cream, cheese, corn chips, or french macaroons if you’re feeling unique.

And if you haven’t already, get in the fall mood. Light some pumpkin candles, drink some apple cider, eat a caramel covered apple, or go roll in the leaves. It makes the whole process of cooking this exponentially more entertaining.

Now it’s time to make the house smell good!
Put your olive oil, onions, and peppers in a stew pot until the onions and bell pepper are tender.

After the onions are über tender, use your garlic press to add the garlic. I believe this is the best way to get the full effects of the flavor.
Then, add the chili powder, oregano, and salt.

Then add your roma tomatoes into the pot. Stir the pot for about 3 minutes and get everything nice and soupy like. No one wants weird crunchy things in their soup unless it’s a corn chip.

And now, add some green chiles. I’m not endorsing Kroger, but they are going out of business here so we stocked up on pantry usuals. You may see ‘mild’ on the can and be slightly disheartened. Don’t worry, what I lacked in green chili spice, I made up for in chili powder.

It’s time. This is where all the men will drool while simultaneously yelling at the television for some an obvious face mask or pass interference that wasn’t noted by any of the vision impaired referees.
Add the meat.

Stir the pot until the meat is brown. You can use this time to interject certain football-related comments. May I suggest the following:
“That freaking Tony Romo….”
“He should’ve lost 5 yards for that sack dance”
“Run the blitz!”
“Bring in the secondary, maybe they’ll at least try.”
Feel free to be creative, always compare the other team to women, little children, or old men, and attacking their hometown is a little sad, but can be effective in certain scenarios.

Now add your beer. If you happen to accidentally buy a can that’s larger than 12oz, then you can drink the rest. I hate when I make mistakes.
Simmer until the volume is reduced by half (about 10 min)

Add your kidney beans

Add your black beans

Simmer this mixture until it’s all homogenous in it’s heterogenous-ness. Stir it until it’s thick and soup-like. I suppose now would also be a good time to dictate your own personal desires to the soup. If you like it think, add stock or more beer. If you like it thick and hearty, cook it a little longer.

Make sure and serve this after half time. It’s better that way. Build some anticipation.

And this is my new fall decoration, quentin. He’s the guardian of the canned pumpkin.

Drunken Pot Roast

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:57:00 -0400

This was *hiccup* the easiest *hiccup* pot roast *hiccup* ever.

If you didn’t know this tidbit of information, the acidity of wine helps tenderize meat, which is why it’s so often used in marinades. Chemistry can be useful. It also helps tenderize humans, at least temporarily.

Ingredients:

1 lean chuck roast (3-4lbs) Of course we used the 4 pounder.
Salt and Pepper
3 Tbsp of flour
2 Tbsp of olive oil
1 medium sweet onion, coarsely chopped
1 can of diced tomatoes
1/2 cup of red, red wine
2 Tbsp of red wine vinegar
3 cloves of garlic, CRUSHED by the press. It’s the only way.

This, is where the flavor is at. This is the big show. har har.

Rub the roast in flour, salt, and pepper.
Brown on all sides in a frying pan.

The pan will be messy. See above figure for reference.

Transfer your small chuck round baby to the crockpot. He may take a few minutes to adjust to his new home, but make him understand, he has to go new places to grow.

Leave all that browned gristle in the pan, and throw in your roughly chopped onions. By roughly chopped I don’t mean hurt yourself.

On a tangent, this was the biggest clove of garlic I’ve ever, ever seen. I haven’t even heard tales of pieces of garlic this large. It would’ve won first prize at the county fair for sure.

After the onions have browned a bit, add the garlic, canned, diced tomatoes, red wine, and red wine vinegar. In this step I was tempted to keep adding things as per usual, but I relinquished the desire. I decided to stick to the recipe this time.

Stir the mixture of medium high heat until it’s simmering and bubbling like a cheerful witch’s brew.

Throw it all into the pot, and let the simmering sauce bond with the browned meat. Don’t be afraid to introduce them, their love is powerful, and combined, they will make beautiful music.
Put the crockpot on High for 1 hour. Then complete one of the two following options.
Reduce heat to Low, and let it cook for 8 to 10 hours
Or, leave it on High, and cook it for 4 to 5 hours.
If at any point, it’s looking dry and crusty, slowly add some water, or more wine. I added a cup of water in the cooking process, and about half a cup more of wine.

Here’s the beautiful result. It was fragrant, it was rich, it was filling, and it satisfied my inner desire for red meat.

Discovering the crockpot has proved very beneficial to my life. I’m relatively certain that the use of it will revolutionize our dinner life. I could compare it to the American Revolution, and the crockpot is liberating me from hours in the kitchen like the war liberated the Americans from Britain. But I won’t go that far.

In other news, how awesome are these pig snout mugs? We didn’t realize what they were until we were halfway done drinking the coffee, and then we enjoyed the heck out of them. I halfway wonder if the good people at Hullabaloo’s designed these to insinuate something about their customers.

Racy Mexican Meatballs

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 15:15:58 -0400

This was a Mexican-Italian fusion of a meal. I like to think of a large man that looks like Mario from super nintendo, wearing a sombrero and singing That’s Amore simultaneously.

I have dubbed them racy because I added a lot of spicy things to these meatballs. I do this, not because I can’t think of better flavors, but because I like my meal to end in tears and clear sinuses. The beast likes it even more than I do.

One time, we went to a restaurant in Hot Springs, Arkansas called La Hacienda. This little family owned Mexican restaurant basically ruins all other Mexican food for me. There refried beans were homemade and fresh, their fajitas were a delicacy, and their green salsa was so spicy I tasted it for 3 days. As I, completely unaware of the level of spiciness in this green concoction, loaded my tortilla chip full of the salsa, I was watched with several pairs of eager eyes, waiting to watch me scream and run to the bathroom.

It was only funny if you weren’t the one whose taste buds were completely obliterated.

But these weren’t that spicy. They were in the happy land between “zippy” and “painful.”

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of oatmeal
2 lbs of ground sirloin
1 onion
1 small can of green chiles
pickled jalapenos (as many as your precious heart wants)
1 tsp of salt
1 egg
pepper
olive oil
chili powder
The optional addition of marinara sauce, or canned, crushed tomatoes

Simmer your onions with olive oil until they’re soft and a little brown.

Meanwhile, put your meat, eggs, oatmeal, green chilies, chili powder, jalapenos, salt, and pepper into a bowl.

Then, add your pretty caramelized onions.
Mold them into beautiful meatballs, using your hands of course. If society won’t let me play in the mud as an adult, then I’m going to do it with raw meat.

Put them in a roasting pan lined with foil, unless you like scraping meat fall off the bottom of your pans.
Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes. Check them often, because depending on the size of your meatball it may not take that long.

If you want a topping, put some marinara sauce or crushed tomatoes on top of the meatballs, and stick them back in the oven for 5 minutes or so to get it all warm and bubbly.
Repeat the word Bubbly ten times. That’ll make you happy if you aren’t already.

And here they are! This recipe took me a grand total of 5 minutes not counting cook time. I read some statistic that on average, people in the U.S. only cook for 30 minutes a day on average while in other countries, they cook somewhere between 70 and 90 minutes a day. Either we’re lazy or we have cooler kitchen tools.

I served mine with brussell sprouts instead of pasta, mainly because I’ve been cooking a lot of bad things recently, purely on accident, and I’m trying to turn that around. Fatty McLovehandles here I come.

And if you haven’t already seen one of the 80 pictures I’ve posted of my new nephew, here he is. Gabriel Kai Works, born innocent, voted most likely to be spoiled rotten.

Fish n' Chips eh?

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:35:49 -0400

Ah, the old maritime favorite. The English pub staple. The outback’s choice for take-away. And my choice for a Monday night right before playing soccer (that might not have been my grandest idea).

In the late 1800’s, fish and chips became popular for the working class in Britain due to a recent increase in Trawl fishing in the North Sea. In Ireland, a popular way to ask for fish n’ chips is “one and one,” a phrase made popular by a street vendor who sold the goods named Giuseppi Cervi, an Italian immigrant who would ask “Uno di questa, uno di quella?” (one of this, one of that?)

You learn something everyday. The only problem with fish and chips is that you’re basically eating a dead sea creature covered in lard and salt, and fried potatoes covered in salt and ketchup, vinegar, tartar sauce, or whatever those Brits do. Apparently a popular accompaniment to the dish is something called “mushy peas.” Doesn’t that sound delightful.

So, we did it the healthy way, as healthy as breaded anything can get I suppose, and it was delicious anyway. It made me feel like I was on the coast of Ireland, having a beer with a red-headed woman named Catherine.

Ingredients:

Olive oil or canola oil
1 and 1/2 pounds of sweet potatoes
Cajun seasoning (Tony’s is a classic choice here, but we’ve just discovered a lesser known cajun seasoning that rocks our socks off, courtesy of Brittany, our live-in guest for the past two weeks)
2 cups of corn flakes
1/4 cup of wheat flour
1/4 tsp of salt
4 egg whites (you may need more, I think we ended up increasing the dosage)
1 pound of fish. Traditional choices are cod and haddock if you want to go all British on the family, but we had Tilapia in our freezer so that’s what we used. We’re all about convenience.

And here’s my dear Brittany, or as I call her, the cornflake crusher. We tried doing it in the magic bullet but that ground them too fine, so we ended up just smashing them in a plastic bag which yielded beautiful results. The magic bullet was a little too magical.

Separate your ingredients into three bowls as follows:
Put your crushed cornflakes into one bowl
Put your egg whites into another bowl
Put your flour, cajun seasoning, and salt in another shallow bowl. Feel free to improvise with the spices, it makes it taste so much better.

If you have a pretty assistant, now is the time to use her.
Brittany took each fish filet and put it in the flour mixture first, then in the egg wash, then coated each with the crushed corn flakes. She also has beautifully painted red fingernails.

And here is the fish being coated in corn flakes. It’s kind of ironic because it looks like scales. What you once lose may soon return to you….

Place the fish in a baking pan covered in foil, and bake at 425 for about 20 minutes, until your flakes are crispy.

And here they are! Ta da! But something is missing. Where is fish’s best friend?

Oh HERE they are! The chips!

These are easy. I cut sweet potatoes into a fry-like shape, you can do yours in the shape of dinosaurs if you feel so inclined.
Coat with cooking spray
Cover with cajun seasonings
Bake with the fish, but these take about 35 to 40 minutes, so put them in first!

These are really delicious all the time. They basically taste bad for you, but they’re NOT. A sweet potato is one of the best complex carbohydrates you can get. So thank you to the yam family!

Nutrition data for these goodies:

Per serving: 325 calories; 5 g fat ( 0 g sat , 3 g mono ); 43 mg cholesterol; 45 g carbohydrates; 0 g added sugars; 24 g protein; 3 g fiber; 331 mg sodium; 955 mg potassium

The lesson to be learned: Don’t batter your fish. It’ll hurt their feelings. BAKE!

Happy beautiful fall day everyone. I’m sitting on our porch in this weather, probably the first day below 100 degrees in ages.

Pumpkin Protein Bars

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:25:18 -0400

Pumpkin has again reared it’s beautiful, powerful, spiced head in our home.

I’m contemplating buying pumpkin T-shirts instead of just wearing an orange blanket with a stem hat all the time, and if you’d like to see similar T-shirts for your own wearing pleasure, go here: http://www.zazzle.com/pumpkin+lover+gifts

That was a nice plug for zazzle.com.

I made this delicious recipe for my delicious beast, at his request. I think he’s in on my pumpkin obsession, because I got an email containing this recipe while he was at work a few weeks ago.

Ingredients:

•½ C Xylitol Brown Sugar Blend (Splenda makes this!)
•4 oz of unsweetened applesauce
•2 tsp. ground cinnamon
•1 ½ tsp. ground ginger
•½ tsp. ground clove
•1 tsp. baking powder
•1 tsp. baking soda
•½ tsp. salt
•2 tsp. vanilla extract
•4 large egg whites
•1 - 15 oz. can of raw pumpkin
•2 C whole wheat flour
•2 scoops vanilla whey protein
•½ cup almond milk
•½ C chopped walnuts (optional)

The brown sugar blend is actually delicious.

I may have eaten it plain. But I would never admit that.

Now mix together all but the last 4 ingredients in a large bowl. Add the last 4 ingredients one at a time and stir until incorporated.

Now put your pretty orange-paste mixture in a 9x13 baking dish.
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes

Now that it’s brown and your house smells like Charlie Brown’s after his mother cooked the Great Pumpkin, you should cut it into 24 squares.

Now the second best part besides eating it: Each square only has 63 calories, 8g of carbs, and 4g of protein. The problem with that is, I felt it perfectly acceptable to eat 4 of them. It’s kind of like eating half the box of low fat wheat thins.

All 24 of these were gone in approximately 2.4 days.

Fall is coming!

It's Pumpkin Muffin time!

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 16:53:32 -0400

The most pleasant smell and taste of life. Many a dessert has been named for it, many a child has decorated one in the throws of excitement round the holidays, and many a candle has been blessed to be infused with the essence of it’s spiced felicity. The pumpkin shows it’s beautiful face my friends.

This is inspired by the up and coming appearance of the return of the Pumpkin Spice Latte. I decided to make Pumpkin ( I capitalize to show respect ) muffins, and to do it as healthfully as possible. They were thoroughly enjoyed by the beast, the beast’s family, and myself. Just in case my love of pumpkin hasn’t made itself perfectly clear, my mother in law has nicknamed me P.G. ( Pumpkin Girl ).

Ingredients:

1 cup of canned pumpkin
2 large eggs, beaten (don’t be getting those SMALL eggs)
1/2 cup of buttermilk
1/2 cup of canola oil
3/4 cup of whole wheat flour
3/4 cup of all bran cereal (keep yourself regular!)
3/4 cup of sugar
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of baking soda
1 and 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp of salt
1 cup of raisins or dried cranberries

Mix all your dry ingredients together. The bran looks a little gross…let’s just be honest.
Mix your wet ingredients (pumpkin, eggs, buttermilk, and oil)
Now, mix them TOGETHER. Then add the raisins/craisins. I know craisins stands for cranberry-raisin, but I can’t help but think of it like a crazy raisin, which I like better honestly.
When these two things collide, it’s like the meeting of two soul mates. The batter was delicious.

My mom gave me these cute little guys. I think they were the proper adornments for this special guest, and this special occasion. The Pumpkin muffin deserves a king’s garment. Consider this cupcake sleeve the purple, velvet robe of the muffin.
Put your batter in a greased muffin tin, that is, if you don’t have an adorable cupcake sleeve.
Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes.

When they look like this, they’re done, and ready to be honored like they deserve to be honored.

Pumpkin lovers unite. Any time people who love pumpkin like I do come into the same room, there is an instant, undeniable chemistry. If you love pumpkin, please feel free to share your favorite recipe. I think the more pumpkin goodies we make, the faster fall will come. Mother nature may feel pressured to perform if we start baking holiday scrumptious scrumpties.

Speaking of fall, here are some inspiring photos to remind you of cooler days, and yummier food.

Pizza on the barbie

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:47:09 -0400

BBQ CHICKEN AND BLUE CHEESE PIZZA!

If you’re like my mother, and I’m approximating that about 43% of you are, you think pizza is meant to be covered in tomato sauce and cheese, and only things that compliment that flavor. Well, like I told my dear, beautiful, and funny mother, you’re wrong and close-minded. Open your mind and your taste buds to the possibilities!

We ate at this place called the Mellow Mushroom while we were in Destin, Florida this week at my aunt’s condo. The place changed my perspective on the possibilities of pizza: pleasantly. Alliteration never tasted quite so good.

This pizza took me about 7 minutes to make, as long as it takes to cut up the veggies and throw it all on the pizza. I did the math, and 7 minutes of work = 9 minutes of delectable taste bud joy, and 3 hours and 47 minutes of a belly that’s satisfied with what it ate. I’m no mathematician, but the final sum seems quite to your advantage. Plus, we had leftovers and got to do it all again the next day.

Ingredients:

BBQ sauce, any kind will do. I got the “thick and spicy” Kroger brand. We do it big and expensive in the Works house.
1.5 lbs of cooked chicken. I just put my thawed chicken in the oven with some BBQ sauce, salt, pepper, and garlic in the oven for about 20 minutes. After it’s cooked, shred it into smaller pieces so it can go on top of the pizza.
A ready-made pizza crust. I like think crust because it’s crispier, and I really wanted to do whole wheat crust, but I did a homemade one once and Beast got sick that night and threw it up. I don’t think it has anything to do with my crust (he was sick for a couple days, then I got sick, so I attribute it to the swine flu, the bird flu, or some horrible, undiscovered bacteria), but it didn’t seem prudent to make something he had previously barfed up.
A yellow bell pepper. These little guys got expensive. What the heck. I almost didn’t buy him because he cost as much as a block of cheese, but the color quality of the pizza had to be honored.
Some cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1/2 a red onion
Blue cheese crumbles!
A scosche of mozzarella cheese for extra cheesiness. Dangerously cheesy.

Spread your BBQ sauce of choice over the pizza. It looks nice.

Add your pulled chicken to the duo. The beast requires more protein, so I put lots of chicken on ours.

Now, add the vege. Tomatoes, all cute and cut into little bits, the expensive yellow bell pepper, and the red onion.

Add the blue cheese crumblies and mozzarella cheese. Add as much as you desire, I added about 1/2 a cup of blue cheese. Chester the Cheetah would argue, the more, the better.

Bake at 500 degrees for about 10 minutes, until it looks all bubbly, delicious, and the crust is golden. If the crust is black, you’ve gone too far.

We ate this with relish. Now the food relish, but we relished this pizza. It was so different from what we normally eat that it made me want to cry with delight. I think I may have shed one tear. But I love blue cheese. If you don’t love it, try Feta, or just mozzarella if you want to please your boring taste buds. But make some form of this, because it was a delight.

Beast and I just got back from a family trip to Destin, Florida! He and I have been before with friends, but this was his first time to stay at the family condo (not my family per se, but my Aunt and Uncle). He got to experience all the joys of how we vacation in the Posey family, with lots of food, lots of naps, reading, and inventing sports (most recently, Quivel). Here are my favorite beach pictures!

Granola funcakes

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:59:35 -0400

These were inspired by a recent visit to Cracker Barrel. Before you write Cracker Barrel off as a place for old people’s book club meetings or a hot date for a couple that’s been married for 50 years, hear me out. Cracker Barrel is darn-tootin delicious. The rocking chairs are delightful. The old fashioned sweet shoppe makes me feel like I’m a child in the 30’s buying a moon pie or some rock candy. And, to top it all off, they have these new granola pancakes that will rock your early morning socks off.

So, being the inquisitive mind that I am, I decided one morning to decipher the secret formula of the most delicious granola pancakes I had ever eaten. They tasted wholesome, wheaty, and hearty. And I hardly felt bad eating them because they were whole wheat. Carbs aren’t really carbs unless it’s a hostess cake or animal parade cookie, then it’s bad.

3/4 cup of whole wheat flour
3/4 cup of all purpose flour
1 Tbsp of brown shug (sugar)
1 Tbsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of baking soda
1/4 tsp of salt
2 eggs ( I never understand when they differentiate between large and medium eggs, they all look about the same size to me. But if it makes a difference, they say to use large eggs )
1 and 1/2 cups of buttermilk
3 Tbsp of melted margarine, yogurt butter, or regular butter
1 cup of granola. The good stuff, Cascadian Farms is a good choice, but so is the Posey’s famous homemade granola. If you don’t have a mom that loves to cook fabulous granola, then maybe the store brand is the way to go haha.

Combine your dry ingredients in a shiny, metal bowl. The shinier the better, in my opinion.

I always use this guy instead of buying real buttermilk, and I have two reasons for this. This makes much more buttermilk than a small quart you buy at a grocery store, and reason number two, nobody really likes buttermilk, so if you have leftovers they just go to waste. Unless you’re a pig like Wilbur, he got buttermilk baths before his big show at the fair.
Whisk the buttermilk, eggs, and butter (or butter substitute) in another bowl.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. But don’t overmix, because that just ruins things for everyone.

Gently fold in your delicious granola. If you have some leftover from your recent wedding this is a good time to use it. If you’re not recently married, nor do you have homemade granola, use some store bought kind.

This is the fun part! Cook it like you would a regular pancake, unless you’re advanced, then toss it up in the air like a pizza chef. I’m not quite there yet. Just sizzle it until the bubbles form then flip it. This is not rocket science people. It’s pancake science, which I hear is much easier.

I’m all about toppings, so I had options for the beast and myself. Choices included peanut butter, butter spray, more granola, yogurt, biscoff (tastes like cinnamon toast crunch) jam, and honey (not pictured for the sake of wanting to remain anonymous).
The peanut butter and honey was a fan favorite I must say.

Here is beast’s plate. Like I said, peanut butter and honey in the wishing well, his personal way of eating pancakes. Pictured next to it is his giant omelette. If you think he’d be satisfied eating only bread for breakfast, why you’d be very wrong.

I took a more humble approach, and did pancakes with fruit. I can’t compete with the monster omelette.

On another, totally unrelated note, I bought sidewalk chalk! Since we don’t have a driveway I resorted to decorating the stairs leading up to the apartment. Whether or not the neighbors were annoyed by this I’ll never know, but they pretended to enjoy it.

Notice the mushroom, he’s a fungi.

And the chalk turned into a reason to have a scavenger hunt inside. haha. He never knew he had married a 3 year old.

La la lu lu la la luuuu Lasagna Burgers!

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:19:39 -0400

The epic fusion of two worlds. Italy meets America, dripping cheesiness meets hearty meatiness, delicious meets more delicious. Lasagna burgers have three layers of magic.

1. The low-fat ricotta and parmesan cheese sauce

2. The lasagna sauce with tomatoes, onions, and garlic

3. The herb-infused burger.

The bread doesn’t count, it’s just responsible for holding all this delicious business together.

2 lbs of ground beef (or pork, or chicken, you can make whatever burgers your gastric juices desire)
Salt and pepper
Basil, Oregano, or other Italian spice mix
2 Tbsp of olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic
1 14.5oz can of Italian crushed tomatoes
2 Tbsp of margarine (or butter, I used yogurt spread)
2 Tbsp of flour
1 cup of milk (I used powdered milk because that’s what I had)
Nutmeg
1/2 cup of low fat ricotta cheese
1/4 cup of parmesan cheese
1/4 cup of grated mozzarella cheese
Ciabatta rolls, English Muffins, or other small slices of bread
1 egg

Finely chop you onions. I wore goggles once to chop onions and it was super effective in preventing tears. Try it at home.

Melt your butter/margarine/yogurt spread into a pan. Watch it melt with glee

Put your little onions in a pan and carmelize them, it’ll take a little bit. They taste better this way always.
At one point you’ll have three pans going at once, it’ll be like you have your own cooking show.

When your butter is melted in the other pan, add the flour and whisk for 1 minute. Don’t let it burn like a white girl during a Texas summer.

After the flour, add the cup of milk, salt, pepper, and nutmeg to the pan. Just throw a few shakes of nutmeg into the pan. Stir this often while it thickens.
After it thickens ( about 5 minutes ), stir in the ricotta, parmesan, and mozzarella cheese. Keep it warm on the stove and stir it often while you’re preparing the rest.

After the onions have cooked down, add your 3 cloves of garlic, using my second favorite kitchen tool, the GARLIC PRESS!
Simmer this for about 2 minutes
Then, add your can of tomato sauce with all the juices, let it simmer and then just keep it on warm while everything else is finishing

While the garlic and onions are cooking, get your friendly neighborhood beast to make your patties!
The patties are pretty easy: Just mix the thawed ground beef, italian spices, salt and pepper. Get crazy with the spices if you want. I did Oregano, Basil, and Thyme if my memory serves me correctly.

Drizzle some olive oil in the pan, and put your small patties in it over medium-high heat. It smells so delish.

See them turning brown? That means the meat is cooking.

Here are the basic components of your lasagna burgers! Now it’s time to assemble!

Here they are! So Italian, so American, so other-worldly. They really were good. Whether or not that low-fat cheese mix was healthy enough or not I don’t know, but it was so good I didn’t care. We served it with healthy salad to make up for the cheese.

Mama Mia! Bon Appetit.

Ricotta and Sun Dried Tomato Chicken Roll Ups

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:10:12 -0400

I like feeling like a gourmet chef. I have a secret dream to battle Bobby Flay on Iron Chef, and pretty little dishes like this make me feel like I have a chance. I think if the secret ingredient was chicken, I’d win hands down, I feel like that’s all I cook for the beast (at his request of course).

On another note, I feel like nobody ever chooses Cat Cora to battle against, and I don’t know if that’s because she’s the only woman or because she looks so scary. Most people pick Bobbly Flay because he’s the most famous, but I want to battle him because I think he has kind eyes and is a compassionate, kindhearted opponent. He wouldn’t laugh if I lost.

So these were pretty delicious, pretty nice to look at, and really easy.

Ingredients:

2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup of bread crumbs
1 and 1/2 cups of ricotta cheese
1 cup of sun dried tomatoes
8 chicken breasts ( about 1.5 lbs)
1/4 cup of EVOO. Thanks Rach.
Italian Seasoning
Salt
Pepper

In 3 separate bowls, put your eggs with salt and pepper (whisked), bread crumbs, and ricotta cheese mixed with sun dried tomatoes
Dip the chicken into the egg mixture, then cover them with bread crumbs

Now put your Italian seasoning all over the chicken cutlets

Put your ricotta cheese/sun-dried tomato business in the middle of the chicken and fold it over kind of like a burrito.

Once you have assembled your chicken ricotta burrito, drizzle with olive oil. Drizzle is a funny word in all contexts. ”It’s drizzling outside,” makes me think of a giant chef in the sky with a big bottle of olive oil, gently flicking his wrist and covering the world in a little shower of moisture.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, until the chicken is golden and the cheese is dancing with little bubbles.

This reminds me of a quote from A Bug’s Life. Mosquito #1: Don’t look at it! (talking about the bug zapper, but here I’m referring to chicken) Mosquito #2: I can’t help it, it’s so beautiful!

Serve it with something green, it brings out the colors and looks like Christmas.

4th of July Apple Pie!

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:55:23 -0400

I almost wish that didn’t rhyme so well. It’s a little cutesy.

We made YUMMY homemade apple pie. It’s always worth it to use fresh apples and butter. This recipe is via my best friend, Kim Seliga, and the decoration with the star in the middle was a Rachel Posey addition, the pie couldn’t have been the same without it. Without the star, the pie would’ve been an apple mushpot.

Ingredients:

2 crusts for a 9-inch pie. You can make these yourself with this recipe: <http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/pastry-for-pies-and-tarts/e74dfc22-dd54-4564-b653-0f142faf91a2>, or you can do frozen pie crusts. We used frozen because we made this at a boy’s house. Do you really think they had flour and shortening? We might as well have asked them for Perfume and nail polish remover
2 Tbsp of flour
3 tart apples ( like Granny Smith )
3 sweet apples ( like Golden Delicious )
3/4 cup of sugar
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 Tbsp of lemon juice

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees, and mix up your dry ingredients.

Peel your apples. Here’s the beautiful Kim Seliga and her capable hands.

Slice your apples very thinly. We have this cafe in Bryan that slices apples so thinly it’s incredible. It seems like a feat that’s beyond human ability, and they’re so good.

Isn’t she LOVELLLLYYY! Here she is, still slaving away and peeling apples. I’m telling you, this girl and I have jumped off cliffs together, jumped out of planes, been in cars with strangers, and defended each other from countless attacks from hungry men. I trust her to peel the apples.

Tossed your thinly sliced apples with your dry ingredients. Then, add your lemon juice. Mix it well, and only eat a couple of apples coated with sugar and cinnamon. We need the rest for the pie.

Put your pie crust in a pie pan, unless it comes in one, then just dump the apples mixture into the pan.
With the other pie crust, cut long strips and layer them across the pie in a grid pattern to create the crusty top.

Like this! If you’ll notice, there’s also a star design on top of our pie. That star, created with love by Rachel, was the only reason the pie tasted good at all. Without her expertise and pastry experience, this pie never would’ve been created. So I guess this post is really just a big ‘thank you’ to my sister for taking the time out of her round-the-world baking tour to teach us a thing or two about making pie crust.
Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the apples are tender and the crust is golden brown. I love that term, it sounds so warm and delicious when you say it aloud: GOLDEN BROWN. Try it yourself at home.

Thank you Rachel. The pie was worth that plane ticket I bought you that brought you home from the baking institute in Berlin.
Please serve this with ice cream, it’s better that way.

The rest of our weekend was awesome. Here’s a little taste of what else we ate and did.

These were our sexy $3 cut off tees from Wal Mart. We also wore visors that were essentially the result of a tennis-mom’s affair with a hillbilly.

Oreo Cake balls! These were so delicious, I ate like 7 in one sitting at 1am on Saturday.

Kim’s fourth of July cupcakes!