Hey Butterballs!
This entry really has nothing to do with physical food, but rather my inherent need to be on Food Network. My morning starts with false advertising. Take a look at this website:
http://www.u1045.com/be_the_next_food_network_star/blog/43
Clearly once you read, this is not about Next Food Network Star. This raises two questions, 1. Is this for real? and 2. Where can I get $100,000 to open a fledgling business for Bobby Flay to endorse? So Food Network is coming to Missoula, but not for Next Food Network Star. This 'new show' is not advertised on the Food Network Website. Nor does the radio station know anything else about it. You can imagine my disappointment. So if anyone knows of an investor who loves plucky young women and their GINORMOUS cats, send them my way, we'll get this party going.
Sorry for the lack of food or attention you've all been receiving lately, I've been drowning in finals and orchestration homework. I can promise you a new and exciting recipe tonight! And again, Butters is going to be starting a vlog, so you can enjoy Butters and his Spokes-mom through the magic of cinema! We'll be starting with a Christmas video of all your favorite holiday music hits! Dust off your Gold, Frankincense and Purr, it should be a fan-freaking-tastic time!
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Chicken Mew-dle Soup
As those of you on Facebook know, Mr. Butters is home sick with a kitty cold. This, of course, is opposed to what he would normally be doing (i.e. trading stocks online, writing poetry, and visiting his poo igloo, which Matt and I have fondly named First National Feline. Butters goes here to make deposits and get change for a clump).I became aware that Butters was under the weather when he woke me up with one million tiny kitty sneezes this morning at 4 a.m. This passed without incident, and I really wasn't alarmed until I woke up at nine o'clock and Butters had not woken me up recently to tell me that it was kitty kibble time. Which happens like clockwork every day at 7:30 a.m. So Butters has passed the rest of the day snuggled under our covers, which is not a luxury he would typically enjoy, as he tends to make me itch like a fiberglass bathrobe. So, this is love.
First, he aked me to make him a hot toddy. I refused. Not just because whiskey is not exactly what you would call healthy for cats to imbibe, but also because it is hard to seperate me from my Fireball. Not to mention that if Butters drank too much whiskey, we all know who would be scrubbing the walls of First National Feline. This kid. That's who.
I believe I'll compromise by making Butters my potent cold-remedy soup that I recently discovered when Matt was feeling similarly...
(Note: I obviously will not be feeding Butters Chicken and Sausage soup... so cool your PETA engines, he's going to eat science diet and chicken Temptations cat treats like all other sick kitties.)
What you'll need:
2 large chicken breasts
3 hot and spicy sausage links, skins removed prior to cooking
2 stalks of celery, chopped
3 large carrots, cut on the bias
1 head of broccoli, cut into inch chunks
1 large onion, roughly chopped
enough water and boullion or stock to cover all your ingredients and fill a big stock pot about 3/4 full
Noodles of choice, preboiled and set to the side
olive oil
Spices of choice (I chose mustard seeds, garlic, black pepper, a little salt, onion powder, and basil, but when you're feeling poorly some things just don't taste right, so I like these because they are spicy)
Start by browning your sausage in the bottom of your pan, once finished, remove from pan and set to the side. Add a little olive oil, and cook chicken breasts (I like to cut them into 2 inch chunks first so they cook evenly and all the way through, but you can cook them whole and cut them up late if you like...), remove and put to the side with sausage. Put ALL your vegetable into your pot, allow them to wilt and become translucent, adding more oil if necessary. Now, dump everything back into the pot, and add stock/water and boullion mixture. Add chosen spices, and let come to a simmer. Pour over (warm) noodles, and let the healing begin! This is particularly good served with garlic toast. Which I make like this:
You'll need:
A crusty loaf of something, like sourdough
Olive oil
garlic cloves
Kosher Salt
Turn on your broiler. Baste slices of bread on both sides with olive oil. Place under broiler, allow it to become evenly brown. Remove from oven, let cool slightly. Take cloves of garlic and rub them all over both sides of bread, sprinkle with salt. Try and be sick NOW! You're gonna smell so garlic-y you also will lower your chances of spreading your disease! No one will want to come ANYWHERE near you! YOU'RE WELCOME!
Friday, November 18, 2011
HEY, CHICKEN, CHICK-EN ITALIANO! OH HO HO, PASS-A DA MOZARELLA!
I greet you today with some fantastic news: THOSE SNEAKY BITCHES AT THE UNIVERSITY OVERTURNED MY WPA GRADE! Yes! With an apology letter and everything! So what we've known for a long time must, in fact, be true. I am surprisingly non-illiterate. In the meantime, I've been getting ready for my senior saxophone recital, playing all the time and developing tasty lip blisters, and trying to catch up in my REdiculous lit strat class (i.e., in between lip blisters I've been typing up roughly 97 pages of homework in order to get ahead in there...).
Also, we went home to Dillon, MT last weekend, and in between in-law weddings, I managed to make a tasty romoulade sauce for some crab cakes my mom made, which is what you call teamwork. In the meantime, Butters has been enjoying the fact that he has discovered where every heat vent in the house is, and eating piles and piles of cat treats. He also has discovered he really doesn't care for snow, so right now the sleepy little poop is still in bed.
Also, some good news! I have it on authority that there could be a new computer in store for Christmas! Do you know what this means?! That's right! More efficient stock trading! No, that's a lie. It means, COOKING WITH BUTTERS IS COMING TO A THEATER NEAR YOU! i.e. We are going to start making hilarious videos, and I am going to have to learn to use technology. Which also means, I am probably going to be swearing a whole lot more in the coming months. So there's something to look forward to.
What all of these things have in common is absolutely freakin' nothing. But now I'm going to tell you how to make chicken parmigiana, which is also completely unrelated.
I've been making chicken parmigiana since I was super little. As you read, this will raise the question, "Who lets a ten year old deep fry chicken?", but once you're done, you'll ask, "Why am I not making my ten year old fry me some chicken?"
You'll need:
A large can of Hunts or similar tomato sauce
2-3 tablespoons each basil, oregano, and garlic POWDER
4 large chicken breasts, pounded thin-ish
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
enough sliced mozarella to cover four chicken breasts
olive oil
Italian bread crumbs
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
Start by combining the sauce and the garlic, oregano and basil in a sauce pan, whisk together completely, and let simmer on medium. You could technically use less of all of those spices, but it is much more awesome this way, and would I steer you wrong? No. Also, put about 1/4 inch olive or other oil in the bottom of a frying pan. Turn the heat onto medium/medium high, DO NOT PUT ANYTHING IN THAT OIL UNTIL IT IS HOT. You will have chicken mush.
Next, on a clean surface (though it will be much less clean shortly...), take something heavy, and beat the crap out of those chicken breasts. They should be about 3/4 inch thick by the time you are done. Now please wash your beating implement. Next, whisk together egg and milk. Dip chicken into egg mixture, then cover completely in bread crumbs. Place in HOT oil. Flip once when each side is brown.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place freshly fried chicken into a greased baking dish. Cover in a layer of the sauce, and sprinkle with parmesan. Cover with foil, bake for 30 minutes. This makes sure the chicken is cooked without turning it into sawdust.
When that's done, remove foil, cover each breast in mozarella. Broil on high until they bubble golden brown. This is best served with angel hair pasta and caesar salad.
Now go forth, children! Sweet cooking, and Butters bless :)
Friday, November 4, 2011
TAKE BACK THE FENCE SPAGHETTI!!!
Okay, so I realize there has been a total lack of cooking in my life lately, which is why there has been a total lack of cooking on this blog. I can definitely explain why that is, and it's called, I have been fighting the man ALL FREAKING WEEK, and while I've been doing this, I have had no time, whatsoever, to cook.
It started on Halloween, when some D-bag stole half our fence and tipped over our arbor. I woke up on November 1st to find this giant freaking mess in our yard. I am 99.99999% sure it is our crazy, anti-arbor neighbor, because he is a nosy ass, and did not come out ONCE to ask what happened while I was re-setting a freaking arbor in my pajamas. In addition, if you were a hooligan (yes, HOOLIGAN!), would you choose to tip over the arbor that is STAKED TO THE GROUND, which will take ALOT of time and effort, or would you smash every freakin pumpkin in the neighborhood and pop the giant inflatable Snoopy down the street? You are going to smash pumpkins, is what you are going to do. And Snoopy is one dead dog. None of this happened, which leads me to the omewhat paranoid conclusion that this was TOTALLY personal. Also, my dear sweet hard working husband was up until like, 3 in the morning making posters, and heard and saw NOTHING. That, my dear friends, means that whoever did that crap waited until he knew we went to sleep, and carefully unclipped the fence and arbor from its supports, and gingerly pushed it to the ground without hurting it. YOU CANNOT TELL ME THIS IS THE WORK OF HOOLIGANS, and damnit, I want my freaking fence back! So the natural thing to do is to make a giant sign that says, "IT BETTER BE BACK IN OUR YARD BY MORNING!" and put it in the yard in front of my neighbor's front window. And then guess what? I GOT MY FREAKING FENCE BACK! So there.
Shortly after this, the most hilarious part of my week occurred. I found out I failed the University of Montana Writing Proficiency Assessment (or WPA). Now, essentially, the U of M uses this test to determine if you are illiterate, and then, if you are, you have to take the test over and over again or they will withold your diploma because clearly, you are not the kind of filth they like to unleash upon the world. Now, obviously, I did not answer my prompt on the test like I write this blog. I write this blog to you in a very personal and loving style, because you are all my dear, sweet friends. But even in this informal format, I am fairly certain that none of you are reading this and wondering, "I wonder what language this is..." Unless you are the sole reader I have in Russia, who I discovered existed the other day, and all I can say is: good for you Buddy, make those shrimp! When you fail the test, they ask that you go to the Writing Center and be tutored for your horrible mental abnormality. Well, I WENT to the Writing Center, and all that guy could tell me was that they might not have liked my placement of my main thesis. So I thought, well, I'll just retake it and it'll be fine, blah blah blah, submission, blah. THEN I thought, "Nah, I'm going to be a HUGE asshole." So I demanded an appeal form, and went home and wrote a letter to some faceless woman in the testing department, who is sadly experiencing the full brunt of my terrible November 1st. I will keep you posted about the eventual outcome of my unfortunate literacy problem.
So you can see, that this week would more make you want to drink copiously (which I did, in fact, do...) more so than eat. As a result, my dear friend Pecker and I made late night spaghetti last night, and it tasted kind of like guido heaven, seeing as it was the first food that didn't come wrapped in paper that I'd eaten all week.
FIGHTING THE MAN SPAGHETTI:
2 large tomatoes
2 large carrots
1 large onion
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 can or jar of pre-made spaghetti sauce (just wait, we're gonna make this good!)
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tablespoon basil
1 tablespoon rosemary
1 teaspoon celery salt
1 pound hamburger or spicy sausage
1 teaspoon chili flakes
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup red wine
As much spaghetti as you think the people you're cooking for will eat.
Start by grating the carrots into teeny tiny pieces and chopping the onion roughly. Saute those with the garlic in olive oil til they start to brown, remove from the pan and reserve. Brown beef in same pan, once brown, add onions, garlic and carrots back in. Cube tomatoes, add to pan, saute until semi-mushy (the tomatoes should still roughly have their shape). Add in sauce, wine, and spices. Let simmer while pasta boils. Eat that up and plot your next move! Sock it to 'em rockstar!
It started on Halloween, when some D-bag stole half our fence and tipped over our arbor. I woke up on November 1st to find this giant freaking mess in our yard. I am 99.99999% sure it is our crazy, anti-arbor neighbor, because he is a nosy ass, and did not come out ONCE to ask what happened while I was re-setting a freaking arbor in my pajamas. In addition, if you were a hooligan (yes, HOOLIGAN!), would you choose to tip over the arbor that is STAKED TO THE GROUND, which will take ALOT of time and effort, or would you smash every freakin pumpkin in the neighborhood and pop the giant inflatable Snoopy down the street? You are going to smash pumpkins, is what you are going to do. And Snoopy is one dead dog. None of this happened, which leads me to the omewhat paranoid conclusion that this was TOTALLY personal. Also, my dear sweet hard working husband was up until like, 3 in the morning making posters, and heard and saw NOTHING. That, my dear friends, means that whoever did that crap waited until he knew we went to sleep, and carefully unclipped the fence and arbor from its supports, and gingerly pushed it to the ground without hurting it. YOU CANNOT TELL ME THIS IS THE WORK OF HOOLIGANS, and damnit, I want my freaking fence back! So the natural thing to do is to make a giant sign that says, "IT BETTER BE BACK IN OUR YARD BY MORNING!" and put it in the yard in front of my neighbor's front window. And then guess what? I GOT MY FREAKING FENCE BACK! So there.
Shortly after this, the most hilarious part of my week occurred. I found out I failed the University of Montana Writing Proficiency Assessment (or WPA). Now, essentially, the U of M uses this test to determine if you are illiterate, and then, if you are, you have to take the test over and over again or they will withold your diploma because clearly, you are not the kind of filth they like to unleash upon the world. Now, obviously, I did not answer my prompt on the test like I write this blog. I write this blog to you in a very personal and loving style, because you are all my dear, sweet friends. But even in this informal format, I am fairly certain that none of you are reading this and wondering, "I wonder what language this is..." Unless you are the sole reader I have in Russia, who I discovered existed the other day, and all I can say is: good for you Buddy, make those shrimp! When you fail the test, they ask that you go to the Writing Center and be tutored for your horrible mental abnormality. Well, I WENT to the Writing Center, and all that guy could tell me was that they might not have liked my placement of my main thesis. So I thought, well, I'll just retake it and it'll be fine, blah blah blah, submission, blah. THEN I thought, "Nah, I'm going to be a HUGE asshole." So I demanded an appeal form, and went home and wrote a letter to some faceless woman in the testing department, who is sadly experiencing the full brunt of my terrible November 1st. I will keep you posted about the eventual outcome of my unfortunate literacy problem.
So you can see, that this week would more make you want to drink copiously (which I did, in fact, do...) more so than eat. As a result, my dear friend Pecker and I made late night spaghetti last night, and it tasted kind of like guido heaven, seeing as it was the first food that didn't come wrapped in paper that I'd eaten all week.
FIGHTING THE MAN SPAGHETTI:
2 large tomatoes
2 large carrots
1 large onion
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 can or jar of pre-made spaghetti sauce (just wait, we're gonna make this good!)
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tablespoon basil
1 tablespoon rosemary
1 teaspoon celery salt
1 pound hamburger or spicy sausage
1 teaspoon chili flakes
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup red wine
As much spaghetti as you think the people you're cooking for will eat.
Start by grating the carrots into teeny tiny pieces and chopping the onion roughly. Saute those with the garlic in olive oil til they start to brown, remove from the pan and reserve. Brown beef in same pan, once brown, add onions, garlic and carrots back in. Cube tomatoes, add to pan, saute until semi-mushy (the tomatoes should still roughly have their shape). Add in sauce, wine, and spices. Let simmer while pasta boils. Eat that up and plot your next move! Sock it to 'em rockstar!
Monday, October 24, 2011
Mo Pizza Mo Problems!
Welcome, welcome all! Welcome to the most dramatic pizza story I am certain you've ever heard. Yesterday, I was on an emotional rollercoaster of sauce, cheese, crust, sausage, and eventually, frustrated beer drinking.
So awhile back, I had a pizza somewhere with a delicious garlic sauce instead of traditional red gravy. It was chewy, cheesy, garlic-y, rich and delightful, and for the life of me, I CANNOT REMEMBER WHERE I HAD IT! So, if you were with me when I had this pizza, please comment and remind me of where that was, because as good as it tasted, I have deleted it from my memory completely.
In order to jog my memory, I set out on a quest to duplicate this pizza. Now, really, the only unusual aspect of this dish is the sauce, which is good, because it was the only part of this friggin pizza that turned out like I planned!
To make this delicious garlic sauce that spawned my afternoon/evening of pizza misfortune, chop five large, peeled garlic cloves into quarters. Chop in a small food processor until very finely chopped. Next, add 1/3 cup olive oil. Process until the oil and garlic have combined to be almost the color of vanilla pudding. Add 2 tablespoons of OLIVE OIL MAYONAISE. Any other kind of mayonaise will be way too mayonaisy, so it really needs to be olive oil based. Honestly I probably bleed olive oil, which probably doesn't surprise you if you've read much of this blog. Season with a teaspoon each basil, oregano, black pepper and rosemary. Add about a teaspoon and a half of kosher salt. Process until it looks like and is the consistency of salad dressing. You can taste it but at this point it is so garlicy it will probably blow the top of your head off. Mission accomplished.
Now here's the part that still makes me want to drink. I had foolishly purchased one of those pre-made pizza crusts in a can (*cough* PILLSBURY!), because this dinner was supposed to be quick and easy. I opened the can to find that somehow in the packing process, some canning moron had broken the pie crust, which is apparently a way bigger problem than I realized at the time. See, with most doughs, you just kind of mush it back together and maybe add some oil or flour... NOT SO. Once I began to mush, I realized that this "dough" was mostly air, and so doing, had decreased the size of my "dough" wad to the size of a tennis ball. Nice. It had also become the consistency of a large booger. When I attempted to roll it out, it just ripped and tore like a giant booger, and made a mess of my pizza pan, so I threw that shit out. Because who wants to eat a booger/latex balloon hybrid that is pumped full of air? Probably not even a goat.
So I realized that I in no way could half-ass this quite like I wanted to, so I did the natural thing for an angry hungry woman to do. I rummaged angrily through the cabinets looking for a hot roll mix or yeast until I knocked a bottle of Worchestshire sauce off the shelf and broke it open all over my way-overpriced Toms. Obviously this is all my fault, but this is when I start hating the world. So far I'm into this about an hour an a half and all I have is some sauce and a booger wad in the trash. So I hose my feet off and get into the car to go to the store, and buy a hot roll mix and kitty litter. Once I get the 20 pounds of kitty litter and the mix, I get in the express line at Safeway. I'm behind a semi-elderly couple who is purchasing a bag of fried chicken, and a Woman's Day magazine. Normally, adorable elderly couples warm the cockles of my heart. Not today. I went to rest my ginormous load of litter on the conveyor belt (BECAUSE IT IS HEAVY), and apparently it was WAY too close to this lady's magazine because she looks at me, gives me this nasty ass look, and scoots her magazine as far away from my kitty litter as she can get it (when it was a cavernous two feet away to begin with). So to emphasize how I WAS NOT TRYING TO DAMAGE HER MAGAZINE WITH MY POOP SAND, I slammed the plastic divider down on the conveyor belt and looked at her right back. And she decided that maybe this was not a fight she could win. Finally I made it out of that place and got home to my sauce.
Now, after you've read all that crap, I'm going to tell you about this pizza. You can really use any crust, but I do not recommend that Pillsbury crap in a can. If it is raw, prebake it for 15 minutes at the temperature designated in the recipe.
To assemble, spread garlic sauce liberally all over the crust. Layer with whatever you like, but I used hot Italian sauage, rings of onion, cherry bomb peppers (sliced and minus the seeds...), mozarella and sliced tomatos. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes, more if the cheese isn't starting to bubble up brown. Eat that tricky bastard! Before it can get away or deflate into a booger.
So awhile back, I had a pizza somewhere with a delicious garlic sauce instead of traditional red gravy. It was chewy, cheesy, garlic-y, rich and delightful, and for the life of me, I CANNOT REMEMBER WHERE I HAD IT! So, if you were with me when I had this pizza, please comment and remind me of where that was, because as good as it tasted, I have deleted it from my memory completely.
In order to jog my memory, I set out on a quest to duplicate this pizza. Now, really, the only unusual aspect of this dish is the sauce, which is good, because it was the only part of this friggin pizza that turned out like I planned!
To make this delicious garlic sauce that spawned my afternoon/evening of pizza misfortune, chop five large, peeled garlic cloves into quarters. Chop in a small food processor until very finely chopped. Next, add 1/3 cup olive oil. Process until the oil and garlic have combined to be almost the color of vanilla pudding. Add 2 tablespoons of OLIVE OIL MAYONAISE. Any other kind of mayonaise will be way too mayonaisy, so it really needs to be olive oil based. Honestly I probably bleed olive oil, which probably doesn't surprise you if you've read much of this blog. Season with a teaspoon each basil, oregano, black pepper and rosemary. Add about a teaspoon and a half of kosher salt. Process until it looks like and is the consistency of salad dressing. You can taste it but at this point it is so garlicy it will probably blow the top of your head off. Mission accomplished.
Now here's the part that still makes me want to drink. I had foolishly purchased one of those pre-made pizza crusts in a can (*cough* PILLSBURY!), because this dinner was supposed to be quick and easy. I opened the can to find that somehow in the packing process, some canning moron had broken the pie crust, which is apparently a way bigger problem than I realized at the time. See, with most doughs, you just kind of mush it back together and maybe add some oil or flour... NOT SO. Once I began to mush, I realized that this "dough" was mostly air, and so doing, had decreased the size of my "dough" wad to the size of a tennis ball. Nice. It had also become the consistency of a large booger. When I attempted to roll it out, it just ripped and tore like a giant booger, and made a mess of my pizza pan, so I threw that shit out. Because who wants to eat a booger/latex balloon hybrid that is pumped full of air? Probably not even a goat.
So I realized that I in no way could half-ass this quite like I wanted to, so I did the natural thing for an angry hungry woman to do. I rummaged angrily through the cabinets looking for a hot roll mix or yeast until I knocked a bottle of Worchestshire sauce off the shelf and broke it open all over my way-overpriced Toms. Obviously this is all my fault, but this is when I start hating the world. So far I'm into this about an hour an a half and all I have is some sauce and a booger wad in the trash. So I hose my feet off and get into the car to go to the store, and buy a hot roll mix and kitty litter. Once I get the 20 pounds of kitty litter and the mix, I get in the express line at Safeway. I'm behind a semi-elderly couple who is purchasing a bag of fried chicken, and a Woman's Day magazine. Normally, adorable elderly couples warm the cockles of my heart. Not today. I went to rest my ginormous load of litter on the conveyor belt (BECAUSE IT IS HEAVY), and apparently it was WAY too close to this lady's magazine because she looks at me, gives me this nasty ass look, and scoots her magazine as far away from my kitty litter as she can get it (when it was a cavernous two feet away to begin with). So to emphasize how I WAS NOT TRYING TO DAMAGE HER MAGAZINE WITH MY POOP SAND, I slammed the plastic divider down on the conveyor belt and looked at her right back. And she decided that maybe this was not a fight she could win. Finally I made it out of that place and got home to my sauce.
Now, after you've read all that crap, I'm going to tell you about this pizza. You can really use any crust, but I do not recommend that Pillsbury crap in a can. If it is raw, prebake it for 15 minutes at the temperature designated in the recipe.
To assemble, spread garlic sauce liberally all over the crust. Layer with whatever you like, but I used hot Italian sauage, rings of onion, cherry bomb peppers (sliced and minus the seeds...), mozarella and sliced tomatos. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes, more if the cheese isn't starting to bubble up brown. Eat that tricky bastard! Before it can get away or deflate into a booger.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Hooray for Fiber!
Howdy y'all!!!
Sorry I haven't been around much lately, I just got back from my music educator's conference, and had been decidedly deprived of time to cook you anything delicious to read.
The problem/great thing about conference is that it's full of junk food. So all week I ate alot of delicious cheeseburgers, curly fries, and chicken nuggets (one of my guiltiest guilty pleasures). I also consumed some pizza and roughly 60 ounces of coffee, which sadly is no exaggeration.
As a result, the only thing I've wanted to eat the last 24 hours is vegetables. Do you know what makes me eat alot of vegetables? Make your own taco night, that's what. Several years ago my Hunnies started the tradition of essentially eating alot of tacos and making up silly margaritas. What comes along with tacos is my homemade guacamole, which can either be eaten on tacos, or out of the bowl with a spoon like pudding.
Start with three avacodos that are just ripe enough to be almost rotten, but not. Don't worry, you'll eat it all so this won't be a problem. To core them, CAREFULLY, slice them in half, using the pit as a guide. Pull apart the two halves. CAREFULLY hold one half in your hand with your fingers OUT OF THE WAY, hit the pit with the sharp edge of the knife, pull it out. Roll the pit on the counter top to safely release the knife. Spoon out the green fruit. Mush it up violently, and squirt with about two tablespoons of lemon or lime juice, this will keep the avocado from becoming roughly the same shade and consistency as baby feces. Which is not something that you should ever eat on tacos. Dice a quarter of a red onion and 1 tomato finely, and fold in. Season with a teaspoon cracked black pepper, a teaspoon of celery salt, garlic salt to taste, one tablespoon chopped cilantro, and a half teaspoon each chili powder, and CINNAMON. I did this accidentally once, and will never do without it again. It brings out the sweetness in the avocado and the red onion, and helps to balance the saltiness of the rest of the tacos. Sprinkle with red chili flakes, gorge.
Sorry I haven't been around much lately, I just got back from my music educator's conference, and had been decidedly deprived of time to cook you anything delicious to read.
The problem/great thing about conference is that it's full of junk food. So all week I ate alot of delicious cheeseburgers, curly fries, and chicken nuggets (one of my guiltiest guilty pleasures). I also consumed some pizza and roughly 60 ounces of coffee, which sadly is no exaggeration.
As a result, the only thing I've wanted to eat the last 24 hours is vegetables. Do you know what makes me eat alot of vegetables? Make your own taco night, that's what. Several years ago my Hunnies started the tradition of essentially eating alot of tacos and making up silly margaritas. What comes along with tacos is my homemade guacamole, which can either be eaten on tacos, or out of the bowl with a spoon like pudding.
Start with three avacodos that are just ripe enough to be almost rotten, but not. Don't worry, you'll eat it all so this won't be a problem. To core them, CAREFULLY, slice them in half, using the pit as a guide. Pull apart the two halves. CAREFULLY hold one half in your hand with your fingers OUT OF THE WAY, hit the pit with the sharp edge of the knife, pull it out. Roll the pit on the counter top to safely release the knife. Spoon out the green fruit. Mush it up violently, and squirt with about two tablespoons of lemon or lime juice, this will keep the avocado from becoming roughly the same shade and consistency as baby feces. Which is not something that you should ever eat on tacos. Dice a quarter of a red onion and 1 tomato finely, and fold in. Season with a teaspoon cracked black pepper, a teaspoon of celery salt, garlic salt to taste, one tablespoon chopped cilantro, and a half teaspoon each chili powder, and CINNAMON. I did this accidentally once, and will never do without it again. It brings out the sweetness in the avocado and the red onion, and helps to balance the saltiness of the rest of the tacos. Sprinkle with red chili flakes, gorge.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Butters Knows Where the Good Stuff Is...
Butters can't resist one of his Daddy's chocolate chip cookies! He got caught on camera eyeballing their chocolatey goodness. There are cravings Science Diet can't satisfy...
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Pork and Pesto for your Momma!
Wow! I'm really amazed by how many of you are reading this! Thanks so much for your time, I'll do my best to keep y'all updated as regularly as possible!
Keeping up with our theme of things that make us very happy and chubby, today we're talking about meals that impress your parents. Everyone wants to prove to their parents that they're not total schlubs. Especially when your parents have fed you as well as mine have over the years. My Mom is a kitchen Goddess and I can only hope to possess half of the ability she does, so no pressure or anything.
So my Mom came to visit a couple of weeks ago, and what with our fancy new kitchen and all, Matt, Butters and I really wanted to cook something with a little extra oomph. Well, Matt wanted to make a big pie and ice cream that tastes like whiskey, which had alot of extra oomph.
On our menu (which I thought about all week...), was Balsamic Galzed Pork Tenderloin, Baked Brie with Roasted Garlic, Pan Roasted Carrots, and Homemade Pesto over Farfalle. Matt will coorespond later with his whiskey ice cream recipe.
For the pork, start with about a 3 lb tenderloin. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Mix together 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar, 3 tablespoons whole seedy dijon mustard, 1/4 cup olive oil, 3 tablespoons orange marmalade, a tsp of basil, and 2 tsp each salt and cracked black pepper. Turn a pan on medium high heat to sear off the pork on all sides in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. DRY YOUR MEAT OFF FIRST! Remember? I thought so. Once your meat is brown on all sides, use tongs to place it in an adequately sized baking dish. Pour glaze over meat, and throw it into the oven. It should be 150 degrees of awesome in about a half an hour. What you DON'T do, is think you have awesome Michael Symon endorsed AllClad cookware (which I do, coincidentally...), and throw the whole pan in the oven like the commercial says on television. If you DO do this, don't forget about the metal handle, which will be freaking HOT, and will blister your hand if you try to take it out of the oven without a mit after 2 glasses of wine. Not that I did that exact thing, just I can imagine that it would be painful, and could potentially make you look like a schlub.
For the pesto, combine 3 cups basil leaves (which seems like alot, but they'll all pulvarize themselves into a little pile soon enough), a handful of your choice of nut (traditionally it would be pine nuts, but if you haven't been to the store lately you'll have to trade your left nostril to buy them, so I like cashews), a tablespoon of lemon juice, 5 anchovie fillets, 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese, a tablespoon of black pepper, and about 1/2 cup olive oil in a food processor. Blend until smooth, and pour over 1 lb farfalle pasta.
For the carrots, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil on medium high in a frying pan. Cut 3 large carrots on the bias into 1/4 inch slices. Sautee the carrots with salt and pepper to taste until slightly carmelized by their own sugars. The littlest slices should be pretty brown, but that's what makes them taste like something.
I made the baked brie for an appetizer with crostini. Just blast the crap out of the brie on 400 in the oven with some cloves of garlic and olive oil drizzled on top in a covered baking dish. Spread it on any crusty bread or your favorite cracker.
And that my friends is how you make an anti-schlub, Mom impressing meal! Now bandage up your burny hands and get out there into the real world and fire up your ovens! You're a big kid now!
Keeping up with our theme of things that make us very happy and chubby, today we're talking about meals that impress your parents. Everyone wants to prove to their parents that they're not total schlubs. Especially when your parents have fed you as well as mine have over the years. My Mom is a kitchen Goddess and I can only hope to possess half of the ability she does, so no pressure or anything.
So my Mom came to visit a couple of weeks ago, and what with our fancy new kitchen and all, Matt, Butters and I really wanted to cook something with a little extra oomph. Well, Matt wanted to make a big pie and ice cream that tastes like whiskey, which had alot of extra oomph.
On our menu (which I thought about all week...), was Balsamic Galzed Pork Tenderloin, Baked Brie with Roasted Garlic, Pan Roasted Carrots, and Homemade Pesto over Farfalle. Matt will coorespond later with his whiskey ice cream recipe.
For the pork, start with about a 3 lb tenderloin. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Mix together 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar, 3 tablespoons whole seedy dijon mustard, 1/4 cup olive oil, 3 tablespoons orange marmalade, a tsp of basil, and 2 tsp each salt and cracked black pepper. Turn a pan on medium high heat to sear off the pork on all sides in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. DRY YOUR MEAT OFF FIRST! Remember? I thought so. Once your meat is brown on all sides, use tongs to place it in an adequately sized baking dish. Pour glaze over meat, and throw it into the oven. It should be 150 degrees of awesome in about a half an hour. What you DON'T do, is think you have awesome Michael Symon endorsed AllClad cookware (which I do, coincidentally...), and throw the whole pan in the oven like the commercial says on television. If you DO do this, don't forget about the metal handle, which will be freaking HOT, and will blister your hand if you try to take it out of the oven without a mit after 2 glasses of wine. Not that I did that exact thing, just I can imagine that it would be painful, and could potentially make you look like a schlub.
For the pesto, combine 3 cups basil leaves (which seems like alot, but they'll all pulvarize themselves into a little pile soon enough), a handful of your choice of nut (traditionally it would be pine nuts, but if you haven't been to the store lately you'll have to trade your left nostril to buy them, so I like cashews), a tablespoon of lemon juice, 5 anchovie fillets, 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese, a tablespoon of black pepper, and about 1/2 cup olive oil in a food processor. Blend until smooth, and pour over 1 lb farfalle pasta.
For the carrots, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil on medium high in a frying pan. Cut 3 large carrots on the bias into 1/4 inch slices. Sautee the carrots with salt and pepper to taste until slightly carmelized by their own sugars. The littlest slices should be pretty brown, but that's what makes them taste like something.
I made the baked brie for an appetizer with crostini. Just blast the crap out of the brie on 400 in the oven with some cloves of garlic and olive oil drizzled on top in a covered baking dish. Spread it on any crusty bread or your favorite cracker.
And that my friends is how you make an anti-schlub, Mom impressing meal! Now bandage up your burny hands and get out there into the real world and fire up your ovens! You're a big kid now!
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Shrimpios Italianos!
This whole writing down recipes thing is really kind of foreign to me, on account of I hate recipe shopping... You know, where you go to the store with like, a list and crap like a responsible adult, and you just buy what you need to make the recipe you're planning on, and maybe a SlimJim at the front counter because you just can't take it anymore? I hate that. I like to go to the store for toothpaste and end up with all sorts of amazing things. Like, discount brie, and salami logs, and crusty baguettes, and 2 for 1 cans of anchovie fillets, and maybe a german chocolate cake. This is also known as impulse buying. Impulse buying happens way more when you're hungry and don't bring a list to the store. This leads me into my next point about about going to the grocery store while so hungry you could knaw off your own elbow.
So I started off today really hungry, and then I ate some whole grains. I don't care who you are or who you think you're kidding, that really doesn't do crap for much longer than an hour. So then I had a wrap thing from the coffee place in the education building, and that was okay, but then I went to the gym, and then I just got hungry again. By the time I got done with class at like, midnight (or 7, but hungry hours are like dog years), I was way too hungry to think about eating. So I went to the store and bought some shrimp because it was a protein under $5. Then I bought a crusty baguette and a very festive candle shaped like a pumpkin.
The following is probably the best pasta dish I've come up with while semi-comatose from hunger. It would be good even if I was at my average daily level of incoherency.
Put a half a box of penne on to boil. Sautee one large onion, roughly chopped and a heaping tablespoon of chopped garlic in olive oil on medium high heat. Stir in 2 large tomatoes, diced. Pour in 2 cups of dry white wine, and one cup of chicken stock. Add a tablespoon of basil and a teaspoon of black pepper. Let reduce about one third, add 3 tablespoons of butter and let melt. Stir in raw shrimp. Let stock boil shrimp and continue to reduce. Once shrimp are cooked, stir in a tablespoon of flour for thickening. Strain pasta, and toss in shrimp and sauce.
Things that make Butters fat in the Wintertime.
I had to share this because it is my most favorite hot beverage of all time. Not only does it taste like candy marinated in liquor, but it can cure the common cold (or at least make you forget you have a cold...), it is also a suitable replacement for coffee on those days where you just need a little kick in the panties to get moving in the morning (but NOT driving, as it contains a considerable amount of whiskey and Butters would never want any of his dear amigos to meet with any misfortune at the hands of his favorite beverage... we just simply don't condone that kind of behavior).
Set water on to boil. In a mug, mix a healthy (as in large) teaspoon of sugar, a tablespoon of lemon juice (or orange juice for a festive remix), and 1 or 2 shots of Fireball cinnamon whiskey (depending on the day you're having). Put a black tea bag in on top of your sugar-lemon-hooch mixture. Fill rest of cup with boiling water. Thank me later.
Set water on to boil. In a mug, mix a healthy (as in large) teaspoon of sugar, a tablespoon of lemon juice (or orange juice for a festive remix), and 1 or 2 shots of Fireball cinnamon whiskey (depending on the day you're having). Put a black tea bag in on top of your sugar-lemon-hooch mixture. Fill rest of cup with boiling water. Thank me later.
Pot Faux-st (Get it? Har har har)
So I've been really excited lately, because if you haven't noticed, it's finally Fall. I love everything about this seaon. The colors, the smells, the cool weather, the sweaters, but most of all the food :) When I was little, my mom would make this incredible pot roast, it took hours. The whole house would smell like carrots, potatoes, fresh herbs, and sweet, sweet delicious beef.
Now, I am about as impatient as I love all these things, which is alot. A WHOLE lot of impatient. So last night (which was a Monday, this is important because Monday's are awful, which contributes largely to my consistent impatience...), I came up with this abreviated version of Italian pot roast. The great thing about this is you can switch out any of the ingredients for virtually any other version of itself and still have a pretty cohesive pot of comfort food.
First, you start off with about three pounds of any big old cut of beef. I used a chuck roast cut into two slabs. Now listen up because this next part is super important. TOWEL OFF YOUR MEAT. Don't be sassy, of course I'm talking about the roast. My mother told me this, and Julia Child told me this, and I never actually believed it until I tried it, but your meat WILL NOT BE BROWN if you don't dry it off a little. Next, season your meat with salt and pepper and whatever else you want, but it'll all just wash off in the stock anyway. Is it dry? If it isn't, DRY IT OFF! This is your last chance! WHEN YOUR MEAT IS DRY, put it in a deep walled , oiled, pan on medium high heat. Flip it over until all sides are brown, which will happen much more efficiently if you have dried off your meat. Am I getting through? Good. Once it's brown on all sides, remove from the pan and place it in some sort of roasting vessel. I chose a casserole. Now, cut up three HUGE carrots, two onions, and three to fourish large tomatoes. Re-oil your pan (as this is Italian pot roast, olive oil would be best, but grease her up however you like), and place the chopped carrots and onions in to brown. Add three to four cloves chopped garlic (I like to leave them whole as a little surprise later on but some are not as fond of that as me...). Once brown, add in your tomatoes. Sautee until semi mushy. Add a tablespoon each rosemary and basil, and salt and pepper to taste. Now for the fun part. Add about 1 cup of white wine and 1 cup of your choice of stock. I personally was only in position of chicken at the time so that's what I used. Let it reduce slightly. Pour over your browned meat, put a lid on it, and throw it in the oven at 400 degrees for about and hour. This is best served with mashed potatoes or egg noodles, your choice. Matt and I went with potatoes.
Pot roast is Butters very favorite dinner. He gets little tiny bites of it whenever we make it. Sometimes we leave it in different places on the floor so he can hunt it and feel like a real cat.
Now, I am about as impatient as I love all these things, which is alot. A WHOLE lot of impatient. So last night (which was a Monday, this is important because Monday's are awful, which contributes largely to my consistent impatience...), I came up with this abreviated version of Italian pot roast. The great thing about this is you can switch out any of the ingredients for virtually any other version of itself and still have a pretty cohesive pot of comfort food.
First, you start off with about three pounds of any big old cut of beef. I used a chuck roast cut into two slabs. Now listen up because this next part is super important. TOWEL OFF YOUR MEAT. Don't be sassy, of course I'm talking about the roast. My mother told me this, and Julia Child told me this, and I never actually believed it until I tried it, but your meat WILL NOT BE BROWN if you don't dry it off a little. Next, season your meat with salt and pepper and whatever else you want, but it'll all just wash off in the stock anyway. Is it dry? If it isn't, DRY IT OFF! This is your last chance! WHEN YOUR MEAT IS DRY, put it in a deep walled , oiled, pan on medium high heat. Flip it over until all sides are brown, which will happen much more efficiently if you have dried off your meat. Am I getting through? Good. Once it's brown on all sides, remove from the pan and place it in some sort of roasting vessel. I chose a casserole. Now, cut up three HUGE carrots, two onions, and three to fourish large tomatoes. Re-oil your pan (as this is Italian pot roast, olive oil would be best, but grease her up however you like), and place the chopped carrots and onions in to brown. Add three to four cloves chopped garlic (I like to leave them whole as a little surprise later on but some are not as fond of that as me...). Once brown, add in your tomatoes. Sautee until semi mushy. Add a tablespoon each rosemary and basil, and salt and pepper to taste. Now for the fun part. Add about 1 cup of white wine and 1 cup of your choice of stock. I personally was only in position of chicken at the time so that's what I used. Let it reduce slightly. Pour over your browned meat, put a lid on it, and throw it in the oven at 400 degrees for about and hour. This is best served with mashed potatoes or egg noodles, your choice. Matt and I went with potatoes.
Pot roast is Butters very favorite dinner. He gets little tiny bites of it whenever we make it. Sometimes we leave it in different places on the floor so he can hunt it and feel like a real cat.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Pear Tarts and Food Network Star
Since before I could hold a saxophone, I was standing in front of my mom's gigantic video camera pretending to make chocolate chip cookies on TV. Thus, it was only natural I force my husband to stand in the kitchen with me for several hours while I wore a sundress and pretended to make Pear and Brie tarts for an audition video for Next Food Network Star, Season 8.
This all started because I've been talking about auditioning for the show for the last 3 years. Finally, I went online to look up audition requirements for the show at the prodding of my dear New Jersey friend Guido, also know as Danielle but she's a guido through and through. I discovered that in all actuality, auditions were going to be held in a conference room behind a hotel in Las Vegas that we were going to be staying at the very next week, on the very same day we were going to be there for my Grandma Dee's 80th birthday. Obviously I love my grandmother more than Food Network so I couldn't miss her party for the auditions, but how weird is that? The odds are like, 1 in 10 billion. Things like that don't just happen, so even though I couldn't audition that day, quite clearly Baby Jesus, or Buddha, or Joe Dimaggio or whoever delivers prophecies from the grand beyond was telling me that I had to audition for the show in some way, shape or form. So I did. I made a three minute movie about pear tarts, and why food is the end all and be all of all good things in this world. Butters made an appearance halfway through because he knows good things are coming when the oven is on. I had to tell them my "POV" or point of view, about food, and why I should have my own show. My POV is mainly that the world would be alot better place if the people who watched Food Network all the time actually cooked like they did, and that a good, healthy meal is only as hard as you make it. Clearly I should have my own show on Food Network because I make great pear tarts.
Crust:
Really you can use any simple pie crust recipe for this tart, or, you can roll out a store bought pie crust super thin.
Filling:
2 tbsp of butter, cut into cubes
1/8 cup of brown sugar
3 oz. of brie, rhind removed
1 slightly under-ripe pear
Glaze:
1 tbsp orange marmalade
1 egg
Roll out pie crust to about 1/8 of an inch, it can be any shape you desire, but if you give it corners, it will probably be crusty (not that there's anything wrong with crusty, just the best part of this tart is how gooey it is). Leaving two inches of crust around the edges, layer filling ingredients in this order: Butter, half the brown sugar, brie, pears, rest of the brown sugar. Fold the remaining crust over the edges of the filling, leaving the center exposed. Whisk together the egg and orange marmalade, brush liberally over the crust. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes, or until crust is golden brown. Let cool slightly, as it gives the butter, cheese, brown sugar and pears time to combine into a delightful goo. Cut into wedges, die of deliciousness. Repeat.
This all started because I've been talking about auditioning for the show for the last 3 years. Finally, I went online to look up audition requirements for the show at the prodding of my dear New Jersey friend Guido, also know as Danielle but she's a guido through and through. I discovered that in all actuality, auditions were going to be held in a conference room behind a hotel in Las Vegas that we were going to be staying at the very next week, on the very same day we were going to be there for my Grandma Dee's 80th birthday. Obviously I love my grandmother more than Food Network so I couldn't miss her party for the auditions, but how weird is that? The odds are like, 1 in 10 billion. Things like that don't just happen, so even though I couldn't audition that day, quite clearly Baby Jesus, or Buddha, or Joe Dimaggio or whoever delivers prophecies from the grand beyond was telling me that I had to audition for the show in some way, shape or form. So I did. I made a three minute movie about pear tarts, and why food is the end all and be all of all good things in this world. Butters made an appearance halfway through because he knows good things are coming when the oven is on. I had to tell them my "POV" or point of view, about food, and why I should have my own show. My POV is mainly that the world would be alot better place if the people who watched Food Network all the time actually cooked like they did, and that a good, healthy meal is only as hard as you make it. Clearly I should have my own show on Food Network because I make great pear tarts.
Crust:
Really you can use any simple pie crust recipe for this tart, or, you can roll out a store bought pie crust super thin.
Filling:
2 tbsp of butter, cut into cubes
1/8 cup of brown sugar
3 oz. of brie, rhind removed
1 slightly under-ripe pear
Glaze:
1 tbsp orange marmalade
1 egg
Roll out pie crust to about 1/8 of an inch, it can be any shape you desire, but if you give it corners, it will probably be crusty (not that there's anything wrong with crusty, just the best part of this tart is how gooey it is). Leaving two inches of crust around the edges, layer filling ingredients in this order: Butter, half the brown sugar, brie, pears, rest of the brown sugar. Fold the remaining crust over the edges of the filling, leaving the center exposed. Whisk together the egg and orange marmalade, brush liberally over the crust. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes, or until crust is golden brown. Let cool slightly, as it gives the butter, cheese, brown sugar and pears time to combine into a delightful goo. Cut into wedges, die of deliciousness. Repeat.
Butter be Getting Ready for Halloween!
Butters is getting very excited for his first Halloween party. He'll be accentuating his natural pumpkin-ness with his brand-spanking new, jackolantern costume from Walmart, and serving delicious treats!
Love on the internet, Kitchenaid Mixers and Other Things that Make Lives Complete.
Howdy Y'all!!!
For those of you who don't know me (if anyone reads this who DOESN'T know me...), my name's Katie Raffety, and I am almost dangerously enamored with food. I recently married my high school sweetheart, Matt, and moved into a small yellow house in the middle of Missoula, Montana. We spend most of our time experimenting in the kitchen and finishing up degrees, mine in music education and his masters in media arts.
As newlywed gourmets with a knack for wedding registries and wonderful family and friends, we've been blessed with a delightfully well-equipped kitchen. Our favorites include a Kitchenaid Mixer in pear green, a healthy collection of oven-safe All-Clad pans, and a Le Creuset roaster that is roughly the same size, color and shape as a 10 pound pumpkin.
This blog is firstly and foremostly about food, but it is also about many other things. I'll talk about alot of very poignant subjects, the first of these being love on the internet. This blog would not exist without finding love on the internet.
I'd been bugging Matt forever about getting a pet. He wasn't a hard sell, so I moved on to convincing our landlord we should get a pet. After a slight hike in rent and some additional deposit, I began trolling the internet for our perfect match. Five minutes into my grueling search, there he was. 23 pounds, orange, and fluffy, Butters the cat filled my laptop screen and my heart with furry, lardy love. Three days later he filled our house with furry, lardy love. It became apparent very quickly that the only person in our house who loved food more than Matt and I was Butters, and thusly, he became the namesake of this blog. Though he is on a kitty-cat diet, and losing quickly, his favorites include chicken liver flavored Temptations cat treats, and salami (in miniscule doses, but I'm a soft touch...).
Now we are all settling in nicely, and our kitchen is the center of our home. It is daily filled with our Hunnie Pie ladies, a ginormous orange cat, delicious smells, and of course, a healthy dose of Butterly Love.
For those of you who don't know me (if anyone reads this who DOESN'T know me...), my name's Katie Raffety, and I am almost dangerously enamored with food. I recently married my high school sweetheart, Matt, and moved into a small yellow house in the middle of Missoula, Montana. We spend most of our time experimenting in the kitchen and finishing up degrees, mine in music education and his masters in media arts.
As newlywed gourmets with a knack for wedding registries and wonderful family and friends, we've been blessed with a delightfully well-equipped kitchen. Our favorites include a Kitchenaid Mixer in pear green, a healthy collection of oven-safe All-Clad pans, and a Le Creuset roaster that is roughly the same size, color and shape as a 10 pound pumpkin.
This blog is firstly and foremostly about food, but it is also about many other things. I'll talk about alot of very poignant subjects, the first of these being love on the internet. This blog would not exist without finding love on the internet.
I'd been bugging Matt forever about getting a pet. He wasn't a hard sell, so I moved on to convincing our landlord we should get a pet. After a slight hike in rent and some additional deposit, I began trolling the internet for our perfect match. Five minutes into my grueling search, there he was. 23 pounds, orange, and fluffy, Butters the cat filled my laptop screen and my heart with furry, lardy love. Three days later he filled our house with furry, lardy love. It became apparent very quickly that the only person in our house who loved food more than Matt and I was Butters, and thusly, he became the namesake of this blog. Though he is on a kitty-cat diet, and losing quickly, his favorites include chicken liver flavored Temptations cat treats, and salami (in miniscule doses, but I'm a soft touch...).
Now we are all settling in nicely, and our kitchen is the center of our home. It is daily filled with our Hunnie Pie ladies, a ginormous orange cat, delicious smells, and of course, a healthy dose of Butterly Love.
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