Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: cooking, food, fun Ted, Richard in pink, Spike's hats, Top Chef
here are my notes from the latest episode!
I see Andrew misses Ryan just as much as I do
Jen’s still “doing it for Zoi” – shocker!
oh god I want dessert NOW – oh sweet i have cupcakes in my backpack!
some pastry guy no one’s ever heard of, great…
way to plug the book, Padma, this is so silly
why make them do pastry? I am SO sick of this whole can the chefs do pastry nonsense! who cares if they can make dessert?!
LOVE Dale’s ‘tude about it
oh crazy Spike – making a souffle voluntarily!
OK, Nikki and Stephanie surprised me!
I really like Mark’s little pavlovas with wattle seed – keepin it real Aussie!
I really don’t understand that criticism at all
oh great, Richard wins – now we can all make banana scallops! Woohoo?…
I forget that they don’t do improv everywhere the way we do it here in Chitown
Haha, Mark is randomly catty about Richard wearing pink! (although to be honest it really doesn’t complement his skin tone)
Best Shot of the Ep – when they all immediately realize that when the actors ask for foods that this is going to be their challenge! praise the lord for smart reality TV contestants who catch on quick (not like those beauties on ANTM who can’t ever figure out TyraMail)
Oh-ho-ho they get to pick their own teams, nice
What is it about Mark? He’s such a lost little puppy
I wonder which Whole Foods that is – the one on Ashland & School maybe? I saw a sign in the background for “Free Garage Parking” and they have that there…
haha, love that you can hear someone laughing in the background of the cheffesional when Richard does his Seinfeld impression
Lisa is a stupid SNOB – there are plenty of kinds of sausage from Poland besides the typical ballpark treat… be more CREATIVE!
wow Spike is really growing on me – i kind of LIKE him now?!
Ha, Lisa called Richard “Blaise” – i wonder if he ever tried to make “Blaze” his nickname?
btdubs, we get it Jen – you’re gay and butch, we know, we know
Aww, Spike finally gets to make his soup! yay!
Hmm… is “encapture” really a word Jennifer?
(Bravo’s A-List Awards? LAME – let’s make up our own awards and give them to people only on our own network, genius!)
Jennifer seems different since Zoi left – more attractive almost? Or maybe it’s just because she’s totally getting the loser’s edit
It is weird to have a big block of tofu but Dale and Blaze are SO CUTE together!
“Magenta drunk Polish sausage” – damn, i might have to rename the blog! what a lovely phrase!
“no problem man, I’m not Polish!” – Fun Ted Allen is BACK!
Dale, Richard and Andrew have risen to the top FAST!
Lisa is SO ANGRY!
Bye-bye Jen, tell Zoi we said what’s up?
I wish they told us a little more about how they pick one person from the duo to go home…
Next week: Kid Chefs! YAY!!!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: baking, chocolate chips, cooking from the pantry, cupcakes, donna hay, food, off the shelf
(anyone know the source of that title?)
OK, so maybe I’m the pastry chef in the family…?
Because these cupcakes KICKED ASS!!!
So Bear and I were jonesin’ – for cake or cookies or something
and i realized that we actually do have a bunch of baking supplies/ingredients in our pantry
then i thought – hey, this would be a great opportunity to use that awesome cookbook i got!
Off the Shelf: Cooking from the Pantry by Donna Hay
which i purchased because of great endorsements from Serious Eats, My Husband Cooks, Orangette and more
I haven’t used it as much as i would have liked, probably because most of the savory dishes contain ingredients that i don’t actually keep in the pantry/freezer like cannellini beans
HOWEVER, I should have been perusing the dessert section regularly because there is some GREAT stuff in there!
So I found this basic recipe (abbreviated):
Simple Vanilla Cake
250g (8 oz) butter
1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
2 cups plain (all-purpose) flour, sifted
2.5 teaspoons baking powder
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add the vanilla and eggs and beat well. Sift flour and baking powder together and fold into butter mixture.
Pour batter in 8 in square cake tin and bake for 1 hour or until done. Cool on a wire rack. Serves 8-10.
So, nice recipe right? yeah good stuff just a little boring.
plus we didn’t have an 8-inch square baking pan.
and we definitely don’t have 8-10 people to serve!
So I made a few changes
First I decided to make cupcakes! Partly because I love them and partly because it was that or make an extra-thin cake in a 9×13 pan
Then i figured i’d halve the recipe because we only have 1 cupcake pan that makes 6 cupcakes at a time – and no paper liners – and 6 cupcakes is plenty for us anyway
cool, right? Um yeah…
Did you ever notice how hard it is to use half of 3 eggs? yeah…
So i decided to use 2 eggs and a little extra flour (because i like eggs!)
then i threw in some orange zest and chocolate chips just for fun (inspired by another recipe for lemon cake on the same page and because orange and chocolate go so well together!)
and i did them in the toaster oven because the pan fit and it saves electricity – it seemed silly to heat the whole big oven for 6 little cupcakes, don’t you think?
DELISH!
I ROCK!!!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: commentary, reality television, recapping, Spike Tracy, stupid hats, Top Chef, unemployment
I tried to watch this whole episode but people just kept getting in the way – and i do start to feel a bit lame when i’m placing such a high priority on a television show (i think this is especially acute because i’m unemployed)
Anyway here are my notes on the first part of the Tailgating episode:
Spike in the cheffesional wearing that damn Dick Tracy hat again says he heard thru the grapevine that people don’t like him – must be those detective skills coming through the hat! keepin’ your ear to the streets, eh Spike?
Oh look, Lisa actually showered! (but eschews bra, damn, so close…)
Aw Dale wants to talk it out… but Lisa’s not lovin’ it
If i were here i might feel the same way… except cleaner and with more boob support
pairing beer with food? LAME
oh Spike, another damn hat
hmm, Dale’s pretzels – good instinct, bad result
what’s with all the fish/seafood? does it really pair well with beer?
LOVE Stephanie’s mussels with Hoegarden!
WHOA! Ryan just pulled out some crazy terms! Cripalette? Espalette?
Oh well, he’s got the loser’s edit already anyway
This hat of Spike’s is unbelievably bad – he would definitely win (or lose depending on your definition) in a bad hat contest against Malarkey!
what is this woven monstrosity with a frayed edge?
(to be continued IF i ever manage to see the end of the episode…)
so here’s a nice contrast – when i cook it starts with recipes and ends with confusion
when Bear cooks it starts with an idea and ends with deliciousness
here is Bear’s FIRST LASAGNA – made on impulse with NO RECIPE!
utter deliciousness
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: democrats, Fiji water, food, new york times, politics, republicans
what can you tell from a grocery shopping list?
according to the NY Times, your political leanings, for one thing
“For example, Dr Pepper is a Republican soda. Pepsi-Cola and Sprite are Democratic. So are most clear liquors, like gin and vodka, along with white wine and Evian water. Republicans skew toward brown liquors like bourbon or scotch, red wine and Fiji water.
When it comes to fried chicken, he said, Democrats prefer Popeyes and Republicans Chick-fil-A.”
Hmm… Well i hate Pepsi, never drink Sprite, and occasionally drink Dr. Pepper, but mostly if i drink soda it’s Coke or Diet Coke – so I guess i’m an Independent?
Liquors: in public i usually drink white wine (because my teeth get stained easily), but i really prefer reds.
We drink quite a bit of scotch and whiskey around this apt – but at bars i usually order beer or G&Ts or V&Ts.
Water: i LOVE Fiji water!!! I have been a dedicated fan of it since freshman year of college when i was tripping and saw the beautiful exotic gorgeous bottle at the Quik-E-Mart! (if that makes me a Republican then…)
Oh yeah and I like Popeye’s but I LOVE KFC – Chick-fil-A is totally a southern/out west kind of thing so that explains the supposed Republican connection
I’m not sure i like the idea of trying to discern political leanings from food preferences. i get that there are trends – but how useful is all this information anyway? Are you going to vote for a candidate because they like the same cereal that you munch on in the morning?
“Besides, the lines between who eats what continues to blur. Republicans are not necessarily red-meat-eating bourbon swillers, and not all Democrats are carrying their lattes to the farmers’ market.”
EXACTLY!
so my dad is one of the cheapest men on the planet
the constant refrain during my childhood was “no, we can’t afford it”
what i learned later was that we could have, in fact, afforded it!
we are/were FAR from poor!
He had me fooled that miser!
Anyway around Christmas Papa Owl was not-so-subtley asking me if Bear had/was going to propose during the holiday season.
I said “no” but that it might not hurt to start saving money for the wedding because i thought it would probably happen by 2010.
Papa Owl then suggested that I try to have a wedding for under $2,000!!!
i laughed, i cried, i started sending emails that showed the average cost of a wedding in the Chicagoland area was at least $30,000
he cried, he denied, he started the account
I was surprise that he actually opened a new account to save for my wedding
it’s maybe the most fatherly thing he’s ever done for me
but i figured he was saving a hundred or so a month, no big deal
and THEN
he told me over the phone just now that he’s already got $11,000 in there!
and that’s just since January!!!
you could have knocked me over with a feather!
my cheapass father, the one who complains when you throw out unrecognizable leftovers, the one who saves EVERYTHING, the one who complains about buying $65 tickets to see Jersey Boys – he has saved $11,000 in 4 months just for my wedding?!! a one-day event?!! INCONCEIVABLE!!!!!!
i’m still shaking from the shock of it all
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: plaza bricks, proposal at white sox game, u.s. cellular field
So there we were – Papa Owl, Dweebus Maximus, and myself – for the official unveiling of the new statue and plaza outside U.S. Cellular Field (it kills me to call it that!)
We bought Papa Owl a brick in the plaza over a year ago so after the statue was revealed (completely unimpressive) we all started looking for his brick!
I noticed some yelling and i realized that there was a proposal in progress! isn’t that the cutest thing? He made her look for it and then got down on one knee and offered her the ring! SWOONÂ
Plus they got on the news!!!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Outlaw on the left, Owl on the right
So on Saturday night, after attending the funeral of a 29 yr old family friend (whose death i wrote about previously), I decided to go out and get drunk.
Good call i thought, don’t you?
So i texted my favorite drinkin’ buddy, Outlaw, and plans were made.
Outlaw is a very private person, she’s also a lesbian who i’ve been friends with since freshman year of college, and we always have fun going out together because we both love darts and pool and meeting new people.
So we went to a dive-y country bar with a live band and a pool table – it’s a place we’ve hung out at for a couple years now.
And there’s this artist chillin’ at the bar, drawing.
we started chatting with him and he ended up offering to draw us – but we didn’t think we could sit still and pose for very long, so we asked if he could do superHOT bodies and then just stick our faces on top. He said, how about i make you superheroes? we said HELL YEAH!
and then i said, put us in the woods with some birds around and trees and shit.
and this was the result, which i ended up carrying around in a plastic bag while i made my way home and stopped by to wait in the endless line at the McDonald’s walk-up window (best big mac ever!)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: buffalo chicken, cole slaw, dinner, food, mystery rolls, pioneer woman
Well
I’d give it a B-, but Bear would probably go lower…
I really liked the Buffalo Chicken Tenders – I soaked them for 30 minutes in a mixture of Louisiana hot sauce, Sweet Baby Ray’s Hot n’ Spicy bbq sauce, and some canned cranberry sauce for sweetness. Then i dredged them in flour seasoned with cayenne and garlic salt. Then i pan fried them in 1 tbsp of butter melted into 2 tbsp of canola oil.
I thought they were awesome – but they didn’t get/stay really crispy. Probably because it was an attempt to do a low-cal version. Bear thought they were undercooked but he was inculcated into the school of overcooking chicken at a very early age. He always overcooks it! and then he accuses me of undercooking! But he’s wrong – there was no trace of pink, no hint of raw, just juicy white meat!
(btdubs, i’m trying to start a new trend in food blogging – it’s called Real Food Photography. Sure it’s because i don’t want to take the time to make my food look more appealing with fancy plates and lighting and stuff,but it’s also because when you take the time to do all that then you have to WAIT TO EAT IT! and Bear and i are HUNGRY)
So anyway, the cole slaw turned out great! I made a vinaigrette of chipotle mustard, honey mustard, apple cider vinegar, lime juice, salt and pepper and oil. Then i added 1/2 head of shredded cabbage, some finely chopped onion, chopped celery, and a chopped carrot. It was awesome, definitely an A+
(have i mentioned before that i am MUCH better at making dishes that don’t require cooking? I really make the BEST sandwiches and salads!)
Then the part i was most excited about – the Pioneer Woman’s Mystery Rolls!
I think i baked them too long, and i’m still kicking myself over it!
I did everything else according to the directions, except i only used half a stick of butter and only about 3 oz of blue cheese. Then i rolled all the bits around in the melted gooey goodness. Then I put half of them on another baking tray and left the other half on the tray that still had gooey goodness.
I only baked them for 7 minutes at 350 degrees.
But the bottoms got way too brown – very crunchy, almost burnt. and the tray that still had the gooey goodness was covered in brown crunchies – the butter and cheese burnt!
So I don’t know what to make of that, I’m really not sure what went wrong. any ideas?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: buffalo chicken, caipirinhas, cole slaw, dinner tonight, mystery rolls, pioneer woman
Buffalo Chicken Tenders
(soaked in hot sauce, dredged lightly in flour, then pan-fried – trying to be healthy about it; served with ranch to dip it in)
Simple Cole Slaw
(I’m going to wing it starting from this basic recipe – cabbage, carrot, onion with a dijon vinaigrette)
Mystery Rolls courtesy of the Pioneer Woman
(I think the blue cheese will go with the Buffalo Chicken menu)
and some frozen veggie – probably corn (still working on Operation Make Room In The Freezer)
I’ll let you know how it turns out!
Oh and Bear might make caipirinhas!
