Welcome to my food-dedicated blog. Look forward to photos and recipes! If you've got dish suggestions, leave me a comment and I'll get right to it. Here's to new beginnings, folks!
Stay Hungry!
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Carrot Cake
I found this recipe while browsing google for the best carrot cake recipe. Since Thursday is Cake Day, I decided to make one per Gabe's request, as I have always wanted to make one, just never got around to it (which is the source of Cake Day's origin, as there's so many cakes I've wanted to make, and so many mouths willing to receive free baked goods).
My grandmother told me the secret to carrot cake was crushed pineapple, so i was sure to include that in the cake. I also halved the oil and used granny smith applesauce I made on the stove last week, and soaked my raisins in boiling water so they'd soften up.
This cake is super moist, just don't forget to leave your butter and cream cheese on the counter before you begin mixing, or it won't soften up and attempting to make icing with chilled butter will piss you off, I guarantee it. If you want, put it on the preheating stove to soften, just be sure not to melt it.
Be sure to cool the cake before icing it, or the icing will melt. Don't put the icing in the fridge or it will harden. Don't scrape the cake with it, or it won't spread.
An insanely moist cake. Above is a photo I took of it, just now, so it's sat on my stove overnight and is still visibly moist (yet cooked throughout). Delicious flavor, like a fruity pound cake with sweet cream cheesy topping. The icing has a great sweet/cheese balance, not candy-sweet, but no bitter cheese back-bite.
If bread pudding and german chocolate frosting had a cake baby, it would be this cake. It gets me in the mood for fruit cake, actually, which is something I'd be into attempting next month.
CARROT CAKE
350 for 45m
a.m. enthusiasm
Last night, Gabe and I stayed up with a couple of six packs (they were all out of my sunset wheat, said it was SEASONAL, the bastards) (also, I was drunk as hell from four of them. FOUR! I haven't been drinking much at all this week. Actually, not at all. I've felt sort of sicky, plus the self-plan causes my brain to see drinking beer as eating a snack, and I'll never get ANYWHERE with my goals snacking away my nights!).
When I awoke after 9.30 this morning, my only thought (besides putting some clothes on) was breakfast food. When I travel farther out into the foreign world, I anticipate being let down by their morning meals. You just can't top an American breakfast anywhere (looking at you, all other countries). I mean, come on. My best friend tells me to make stir-fry for breakfast, says I gotta get over my meal-specific hangups. Not today, hungry hater! No rice or soy this early in the day!
When I think of a big weekend breakfast, I immediately start with the Potatoes O'Brien, which starts with frying some bacon. Making breakfast is so much more than "I'm starving, this should taste good". It takes a decent chunk of mental planning to pull off a timely morning meal that tastes like something other than sugar or grease (unless you're into that, then my all means, keep not giving a shit and eat it your way, as I always say).
Potatoes O'Brien is quintessential big breakfast fare in my house, as I assume pancakes are in any other American kitchen (not the biggest fan, need to work on that. Maybe do pancakes next week? MAYBE MAKE SATURDAY BREAKFAST BLOG DAY?). I start with this dish due to the long time the potatoes take to cook, and the bacon makes my house smell heavenly:
POTATOES O'BRIEN
·
5 or so potatoes
(depending on how many you're feeding/how hungry you are)
·
water or stock (i had
some vegetable stock in my fridge)
·
an onion
·
garlic clove(s) (three
or four cloves is how I like it, but I'm notably overzealous about garlic)
·
an onion
·
a green pepper
·
a pack of bacon
·
garlic powder
·
pepper
1.
Always start by
preheating your oven, should you be baking (and I am, biscuits!), or you'll
feel like an idiot. Turn your stove fan on; cooking bacon smells amazing but
it's hell on your skin, ladies.
2.
Cut the potatoes into
bite-size chunks, rinse and cover with water or stock. Cover container and nuke
until potatoes are soft. I usually zap it for four minutes, try squishing a
spud with my fork, then zap it again for four more minutes, until the chunks
are tender.
3.
While the potatoes are
softening in the microwave, get a big-ass pan (it needs to fit all the
ingredients) and heat it up. Fit as much bacon in the pan as you can (the three
or so pieces that won't fit can be cut up and set aside, to be added later).
Cook bacon until crispy (I like my almost burnt), pull out finished pieces and
place on paper towel. Turn the range down, but leave the grease in the pan
(that's my secret ingredient! Bacon grease + potatoes = holy fuck, dude)
4.
Cut up the onion,
garlic, pepper and raw bacon, add to the hot grease in the pan. As these brown,
scrape the pan to get all the bacon bits sticking to the bottom (I use a little
of the water/stock from the spuds when i check on them). While the vegetables
were cooking, I opened a can of biscuits and put them in the oven (turn the
light on, if you have one, it makes it easier to remember to check them, and if
you're like me, you hate burnt biscuits. it's like your breakfast calling you a
failure).
5.
Drain and add the
potatoes (I saved my broth in tupperware for another time, I was considering
brewing a vegetable soup later on this week as a break between Dad's birthday
tomorrow (cake and barbecue) and Thanksgiving on Thursday (which I am stoked
about, can't wait to cook my ass off, autumn-style. Screw your nutted squash!
I'm making ham and stuffing, bitches!). Cook until crispy.
You may want to pour out some of the bacon grease before cooking the vegetables; i halved it, saving the unused portion for my scrambled eggs. I got the idea from a Gordon Ramsay video tutorial on creamy egg scramble. The brits are odd, they eat tomatoes and mushrooms with their eggs. Meh. I like to room temp my eggs (I set them on the counter before cutting my potatoes), whip like six of them vigorously in a bowl to lighten them up, then add to a low-temp pan. The trick is to keep stirring, and keep taking it off the flame, on, off, on, off, never letting up on stirring. Add some cheese, if you like. I personally love American cheese, but I only love this high-processed bright orange phenomenon in my eggs. Weird, right? Anyways, add that (like a slice per two eggs, unwrap the bastards before cooking or you'll burn your eggs), stir stir stir until the eggs aren't shiny from yolk, add to a plate et voila! Saturday Brunch :)
Tunnel of Fudge cake
I had
Johna (whose baking prowess is already notorious) make Dad his favorite cake,
the Tunnel of Fudge. The insides stay moist, so you have to check it by
stabbing the side, not the center. Add a little cooled off coffee (like a
quarter cup), and garnish it with icing and powdered sugar. It's a vintage
cake, takes three types of sugar, and has a very complex taste.
Be sure to spoon the flower into the measuring cup for accuracy, and use all of the nuts, or it won't bake right.
It needs to cool in the pan for an hour or so before inverting. As always, grease and flour the pan and PREHEAT THE OVEN before you begin the batter. Set the butter and eggs out on the counter.
Clean as you go, or your filthy ass kitchen will take all of the success you would have felt with your cake, were you not such a lazy slob in the kitchen. You're baking a cake, not vandalizing an entire workspace. Wash, wipe, taste and trash as you go. It's good form. We're adults now. It's time to keep it professional, kids. Nothing impresses like good kitchen habits. Right?
Be sure to spoon the flower into the measuring cup for accuracy, and use all of the nuts, or it won't bake right.
It needs to cool in the pan for an hour or so before inverting. As always, grease and flour the pan and PREHEAT THE OVEN before you begin the batter. Set the butter and eggs out on the counter.
Clean as you go, or your filthy ass kitchen will take all of the success you would have felt with your cake, were you not such a lazy slob in the kitchen. You're baking a cake, not vandalizing an entire workspace. Wash, wipe, taste and trash as you go. It's good form. We're adults now. It's time to keep it professional, kids. Nothing impresses like good kitchen habits. Right?
TUNNEL OF FUDGE
CAKE
·
1-1/2 cups butter,
softened
·
1 cup granulated sugar
·
3/4 cup brown sugar
·
2 (1-ounce) squares
unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
·
6 eggs
·
2 cups sifted powdered
sugar
·
2 cups flour
·
2/3 cup cocoa
·
2 teaspoons vanilla
·
2 cups chopped pecans
or walnuts
·
1/2 cup semisweet
chocolate chips
·
1 teaspoon vegetable
oil
1.
Grease and flour pan,
preheat oven, set out butter and egg
2.
While melting the
chocolate, cream sugars and egg. Use a double boiler or the microwave, just
keep stirring it, or it'll scald and get hard and suck.
3.
Add the eggs, one at a
time, then the cooled melted chocolate and the powdered sugar, then the flour,
vanilla and nuts.
4.
Pour and bake for
40-50 minutes, until the top is dry and shiny, and the sides can be poked
clean.
5.
Let cool for an hour.
After inverting onto a fancy cake plate (or at least a clean one), melt the
rest of the chocolate with some oil and pour on top. Dust with powdered
sugar.
6.
Eat the gooey
awesomeness
Reminds me of molten
lava cakes, which are individual chocolate cakes, ganache centers oozing out
uncontrollably. Will post that recipe next I make it.
the best damn meatloaf in the entire fucking multiverse (it's quite the claim, but i'm quite the culinist"
My mother's husband introduced this recipe to us in the 7th grade, and it's been a favorite of mine ever since. Gone is the red sauce and spongy texture, this recipe is simple and straightforward, using few, familiar ingredients. Last year, my father had the genius notion to make individually-shaped loaves versus a pan-sized one to slice, as this method increased crispy surface area. My jaw dropped at the suggestion, as will yours if you hurry the fuck up and get this paid for, prepped and into a preheated oven.
I usually make a 3 lb beef purchase (those 80/20 tubes) into a dozen or so loaves, and nuke leftovers all week (I just finished the last leftover loaf earlier today, actually, so it's only fitting I include this here). Remember to preheat your oven to around 400 first thing, prep your meat, pop it in a pan with some mushrooms and onions, boil some water for your veg (broccoli for me, but you can whip up some potato mash, if you're so inclined), and BAM -- dinner in around a half an hour.
RECIPE FOR BADASS END ALL BE ALL MEATED LOAVES OF CHEESE OOZING YUMSTUFF
3 lb beef (80/20 is juiciest)
3 eggs (an egg per pound)
a packet lipton onion soup mix powder (my secret ingredient to so much shit. all hail flavor powder!)
a small block pepperjack (don't be a pussy, it's not even spicy)
a small block mozzarella (extra ooze factor)
AND THAT'S IT. mix together the meat, egg and soup mix (just the powder, don't add water), shape into palm-sized loaves (mine look like oval soflballs) and stuff with cheese (press a slice in and mold the beef around it. you wanna seal in the cheese or it'll ooze out into the pan, which is fine, it happens, it's just much more satisfying to fork-cut a meatloaf that oozes with zesty cheese when you do versus stacking pre-oozes semisolid cheese discs on top of it. again, it's all good, it's mad hard to cock up beef and cheese).
TIPS: coat the pan bottom with foil for easy clean-up and DON'T FORGET TO CHILL THE LEFTOVERS. can't confess how many times i've fucked my mouth out of seconds because i was too lazy to stick leftovers in a tupperware, then the ice box. TURN THE FUCKING OVEN OFF. use napkins with this one. reheats in 2-3 m on high.
chicken sucks less with cheese and bacon
My preferred ways to
consume cluck flesh is as follows:
#1: barbecued
#2: rotisserie/oven-roasted
#3: stuffed with/wrapped in something
I make a badass pan fried chicken breast spinach dijon muenster hot pocket-type thing (i'll get to a recipe post of it, it's delicious, there's a picture of it on my pc somewhere, they look like tasty pasties on steroids! sans peach corner, sadly, though it could be deliciously recreated with apple chutney, as peach sounds mushy, and again, chutney is yet another future recipe post. makes the place smell amazing), and a twice-porked chicken i adapted from gordon ramsay's pistashio sausage stuffed chicken (all wrapped in BACON). This one is keto-friendly, and super-easy, even though i hate thawing shit out, and fridge chicken gets forgotten and gets all slimy and inedible, and then i've paid for garbage, haven't i? fucking lazy, i am.
It's delicious, though i need to fix the cheese consistency. it's a bit soft for me. i probably crave mozzarella and pepperjack, they're so stretchy and dense!
CREAM CHEESE CHICKEN
3 chicken breasts ( serves 2 and a 6 year old)
cream cheese
mozzarella
garlic powder and pepper
bacon
1. preheat oven to 350. cover a flat pan with foil.
2. thaw chicken in microwave or with hot water (or in fridge overnight, but i don't recommend this. you'll forget) and butterfly (cut in half long-ways), then smash thinner with something heavy (i used a can, be careful, it splatters if you wail on it). pat dry with paper towel.
3. mix cheeses and season, spoon onto chicken, then sort of roll up the chicken in an awkward attempt to contain the soft cheese blend. you could use a toothpick, but come on. wrap this wad in a piece of bacon, effectively preventing the cheese's escape onto the pan (if some oozes out whilst baking, just spoon it on top at the end, it'll get some of that bacon grease on there and be fucking amazing).
4. put on foiled pan and into preheated oven for like 20-30 minutes, until the chicken is no longer slimy and pink.
on an offhanded note, i got this independent publishing company's bff mailer for xmas last year, where for around a bill, they send you everything they've printed in the past month. i can't say it was worth it, but i enjoyed the attempt. the one i received recently, the last installment, was full of vegan cookbooks, raw, flesh-free, foreign ingredient-infused cocktails with fancy sounding names.
an avid meat muncher (readers know i'm doing keto, if not, i'll make a post on it), i sat here laughing for the third time over the term "cluck flesh" (as i reread it, i giggle still), i had a funny cookbook idea: "tasty meaties", all meat recipes with happy looking animated animals in various stages of culinary preparation (like this french ad, but less nightmare-inducing). the sections could be "swine flesh" "cluck flesh" "moo flesh", etc. Hilarious. Hail meat!
#1: barbecued
#2: rotisserie/oven-roasted
#3: stuffed with/wrapped in something
I make a badass pan fried chicken breast spinach dijon muenster hot pocket-type thing (i'll get to a recipe post of it, it's delicious, there's a picture of it on my pc somewhere, they look like tasty pasties on steroids! sans peach corner, sadly, though it could be deliciously recreated with apple chutney, as peach sounds mushy, and again, chutney is yet another future recipe post. makes the place smell amazing), and a twice-porked chicken i adapted from gordon ramsay's pistashio sausage stuffed chicken (all wrapped in BACON). This one is keto-friendly, and super-easy, even though i hate thawing shit out, and fridge chicken gets forgotten and gets all slimy and inedible, and then i've paid for garbage, haven't i? fucking lazy, i am.
It's delicious, though i need to fix the cheese consistency. it's a bit soft for me. i probably crave mozzarella and pepperjack, they're so stretchy and dense!
CREAM CHEESE CHICKEN
3 chicken breasts ( serves 2 and a 6 year old)
cream cheese
mozzarella
garlic powder and pepper
bacon
1. preheat oven to 350. cover a flat pan with foil.
2. thaw chicken in microwave or with hot water (or in fridge overnight, but i don't recommend this. you'll forget) and butterfly (cut in half long-ways), then smash thinner with something heavy (i used a can, be careful, it splatters if you wail on it). pat dry with paper towel.
3. mix cheeses and season, spoon onto chicken, then sort of roll up the chicken in an awkward attempt to contain the soft cheese blend. you could use a toothpick, but come on. wrap this wad in a piece of bacon, effectively preventing the cheese's escape onto the pan (if some oozes out whilst baking, just spoon it on top at the end, it'll get some of that bacon grease on there and be fucking amazing).
4. put on foiled pan and into preheated oven for like 20-30 minutes, until the chicken is no longer slimy and pink.
on an offhanded note, i got this independent publishing company's bff mailer for xmas last year, where for around a bill, they send you everything they've printed in the past month. i can't say it was worth it, but i enjoyed the attempt. the one i received recently, the last installment, was full of vegan cookbooks, raw, flesh-free, foreign ingredient-infused cocktails with fancy sounding names.
an avid meat muncher (readers know i'm doing keto, if not, i'll make a post on it), i sat here laughing for the third time over the term "cluck flesh" (as i reread it, i giggle still), i had a funny cookbook idea: "tasty meaties", all meat recipes with happy looking animated animals in various stages of culinary preparation (like this french ad, but less nightmare-inducing). the sections could be "swine flesh" "cluck flesh" "moo flesh", etc. Hilarious. Hail meat!
Hot Sauce Cake
At the head of each
week, my daughter and I develop dinner ideas together in the kitchen; me at the
dry erase board hanging on the wall, her at the table, usually writing her own
list (imitation must truly be the primary basis of learning, it
seems), as we shout out options excitedly at one another.
Culinary brainstorming each week takes the hassle out of weekday cooking (experienced usually in the form of fatigue or time constraints), and affirms my need, personal value system-wise, to acquire and prepare my own evening fare in a way that not only honors my primary responsibility as one biological caregiver, but satisfies my sense of integrity in effort, not to mention familiarizing Julia with the basics of kitchen management (no easy feat).
Moreover, there is a creative element to the seemingly practical task of cooking each evening, to the extent that I find myself craving the cooking more than the consuming, and hunger more for the feeling of steel blades slicing into various textures of flesh and foliage, the look of a good pan sear or an amber-translucent root than the inevitable post-prep palate response. Even as I mention it here, my mouth salivates and innards growl for the process. Truly a starving art.
(I can sense the irony in that, but haven't the patience to place it at the moment, so I'll leave it alone for now.)
She's like Matilda, I swear to fuck. Loves being involved and employed in household logistics, makes her feel like she has input, which she does, of course, but kids are simple, and overlook similarly simple concepts easily, yielding discouragement and a bad attitude, low esteem, etc, so it's best as a parent to reinforce said simple concepts regardless, removing all doubt.
They're so damn sensitive, silly, really, but compliments go surprisingly far when it comes to willing participation in seemingly menial yet necessary domestic tasks. She's still young, and doubtfully grasps the concept of "necessity", so it's more effective to cultivate enthusiasm for the task itself than it is to drive home the value of the act itself. it's a child, she'll understand the background lectures her mother utters to her in her youth once she has reflected upon them enough as she ages. It's a lot of power to attribute to such a natural position as "mother" that i try not to dwell on it, lest i give in to the intensity of the concept and senselessly (yet privately) overexcite myself. Introversion: one helluva drug.
Last week, as we collaboratively composed the week's meals, I casually ask julia what she'd like for dinner, to which she loudly replied "(gasp!) HOT SAUCE CAKE!" I have no idea what "hot sauce cake" is, only that she's asked me for it for about a year now, and I continually dismissed it as a joke (do not doubt my open-mindedness, readers! i have entertained and successfully executed bacon cupcakes before, upon her request), until that day, when, mid-mental riff on juicy ground beef oozing with pepperjack, i paused, recalled a keto casserole recipe i had viewed not moments prior to our brain session, and erased thursday's "taco" entry to "hot sauce cake", the wee one reading along aloud, each sequential syllable uttered an octave higher in oral excitement.
It was made, and was delicious. I will be remaking this, as you ought've assumed already*; why would i go to all the trouble elaborating on a dish i wouldn't recommend?
...memoir fodder, maybe? I do this shit, I fight with myself until I am in shreds, and shreds do not form a solid opinion (my gestalt buzzer goes off when i hear the word "pieces" in comparison to an assumed "whole"). also, partially unrelated, i abhor the word "because", using it feel synonymous with "i'm lazy". the * above indicates the removal of a comma and the dreaded "because". damned if you think ME mediocre! you know i'm your favorite fucking writer, admit it. Or don't. It is all the same. I have perceived the truth of the matter, from miles away, arrogantly as ever!
More on arrogance in the essay intended for later on. t and d have an ongoing rivalry, and they vie, however nonsensically, for a spot in each sentence chancing to feature either or, like single point mutations, or a very specific literary sloppiness. These habitual quirks excite me; eventual awareness of them indicates these revelations stem naturally out of exposure to writing. Vonnegut says semicolons let 'em know you attended university. I've always (almost physically) felt the difference in circumstances that warrant either one or the other, it takes no advanced knowledge of the subject, not putting on academic airs, like the berkeley beats, rattling off obscure pronouns in vain, speed-addled attempts to appear exposed and cultured. Exposure is the only route! I experience the need for a semicolon, bollocks to your rigid usage parameters, take that shit to e e cummings, you chatty corpse, you.
all of my favorite words, uttered by dead men, my bookshelf elaborated upon, until i have not a shelf, but a crypt, a great tomb with the skeletons of said men, mandibles chattering away with a anatomical click click click. perhaps the reader has control, and, like a medium, willfully seeks out possession, embodying their views for a while before releasing them back into the void of covers closed. their must be some residual protoplasmic material lingering in the reader's body, post-possession. you can't exorcise them, as there is no way to wipe the memory, so parts of the dead linger, like the ring of starch left in the pot after the boiling macaroni water has been evacuated. their words, i suppose, get trapped in there, and influence us, whether we invoke them or not. perhaps this can be said of all environmental interactions. but such communion with the dead feels not solemn, but familiar, as if you are kin to the dead, as if they depict a common element in all the living , and in that realization cease to abide by our understanding of death. They never cease to inhabit the living, we won't allow it, we need what they know, a pervasive need spanning even death, it seems.
they haunt.
HOT SAUCE CAKE
6 tortillias
a lb of ground beef (80/20)
an onion
a can of green chiles
a can of tomato paste
garlic powder, cumin, red pepper
1/2 c mayo
1/2 c salsa
a packet of ranch powder
a big bag of cheese (i used cheddar)
1. preheat the oven to like 350-400, around there somewhere
2. cook the beef on the stove, add the onions when there's enough grease in there
3. when no pink remains, drain the grease and add the chiles and tomato paste. season it
4. once mixed and the smells are married (you can tell when all the flavors incorporate, it takes on a "mexican food" smell because of the cumin), take off the stove and add the mayo and salsa.
5. Build the casserole! Lay down 3 tortillias, cover with half the meatiness, cover that with half the cheese, and repeat.
6. bake until the cheese on top is nice and crispy brown. serve with sour cream.
KETO FRIENDLY. ALSO AMAZING.
Culinary brainstorming each week takes the hassle out of weekday cooking (experienced usually in the form of fatigue or time constraints), and affirms my need, personal value system-wise, to acquire and prepare my own evening fare in a way that not only honors my primary responsibility as one biological caregiver, but satisfies my sense of integrity in effort, not to mention familiarizing Julia with the basics of kitchen management (no easy feat).
Moreover, there is a creative element to the seemingly practical task of cooking each evening, to the extent that I find myself craving the cooking more than the consuming, and hunger more for the feeling of steel blades slicing into various textures of flesh and foliage, the look of a good pan sear or an amber-translucent root than the inevitable post-prep palate response. Even as I mention it here, my mouth salivates and innards growl for the process. Truly a starving art.
(I can sense the irony in that, but haven't the patience to place it at the moment, so I'll leave it alone for now.)
She's like Matilda, I swear to fuck. Loves being involved and employed in household logistics, makes her feel like she has input, which she does, of course, but kids are simple, and overlook similarly simple concepts easily, yielding discouragement and a bad attitude, low esteem, etc, so it's best as a parent to reinforce said simple concepts regardless, removing all doubt.
They're so damn sensitive, silly, really, but compliments go surprisingly far when it comes to willing participation in seemingly menial yet necessary domestic tasks. She's still young, and doubtfully grasps the concept of "necessity", so it's more effective to cultivate enthusiasm for the task itself than it is to drive home the value of the act itself. it's a child, she'll understand the background lectures her mother utters to her in her youth once she has reflected upon them enough as she ages. It's a lot of power to attribute to such a natural position as "mother" that i try not to dwell on it, lest i give in to the intensity of the concept and senselessly (yet privately) overexcite myself. Introversion: one helluva drug.
Last week, as we collaboratively composed the week's meals, I casually ask julia what she'd like for dinner, to which she loudly replied "(gasp!) HOT SAUCE CAKE!" I have no idea what "hot sauce cake" is, only that she's asked me for it for about a year now, and I continually dismissed it as a joke (do not doubt my open-mindedness, readers! i have entertained and successfully executed bacon cupcakes before, upon her request), until that day, when, mid-mental riff on juicy ground beef oozing with pepperjack, i paused, recalled a keto casserole recipe i had viewed not moments prior to our brain session, and erased thursday's "taco" entry to "hot sauce cake", the wee one reading along aloud, each sequential syllable uttered an octave higher in oral excitement.
It was made, and was delicious. I will be remaking this, as you ought've assumed already*; why would i go to all the trouble elaborating on a dish i wouldn't recommend?
...memoir fodder, maybe? I do this shit, I fight with myself until I am in shreds, and shreds do not form a solid opinion (my gestalt buzzer goes off when i hear the word "pieces" in comparison to an assumed "whole"). also, partially unrelated, i abhor the word "because", using it feel synonymous with "i'm lazy". the * above indicates the removal of a comma and the dreaded "because". damned if you think ME mediocre! you know i'm your favorite fucking writer, admit it. Or don't. It is all the same. I have perceived the truth of the matter, from miles away, arrogantly as ever!
More on arrogance in the essay intended for later on. t and d have an ongoing rivalry, and they vie, however nonsensically, for a spot in each sentence chancing to feature either or, like single point mutations, or a very specific literary sloppiness. These habitual quirks excite me; eventual awareness of them indicates these revelations stem naturally out of exposure to writing. Vonnegut says semicolons let 'em know you attended university. I've always (almost physically) felt the difference in circumstances that warrant either one or the other, it takes no advanced knowledge of the subject, not putting on academic airs, like the berkeley beats, rattling off obscure pronouns in vain, speed-addled attempts to appear exposed and cultured. Exposure is the only route! I experience the need for a semicolon, bollocks to your rigid usage parameters, take that shit to e e cummings, you chatty corpse, you.
all of my favorite words, uttered by dead men, my bookshelf elaborated upon, until i have not a shelf, but a crypt, a great tomb with the skeletons of said men, mandibles chattering away with a anatomical click click click. perhaps the reader has control, and, like a medium, willfully seeks out possession, embodying their views for a while before releasing them back into the void of covers closed. their must be some residual protoplasmic material lingering in the reader's body, post-possession. you can't exorcise them, as there is no way to wipe the memory, so parts of the dead linger, like the ring of starch left in the pot after the boiling macaroni water has been evacuated. their words, i suppose, get trapped in there, and influence us, whether we invoke them or not. perhaps this can be said of all environmental interactions. but such communion with the dead feels not solemn, but familiar, as if you are kin to the dead, as if they depict a common element in all the living , and in that realization cease to abide by our understanding of death. They never cease to inhabit the living, we won't allow it, we need what they know, a pervasive need spanning even death, it seems.
they haunt.
HOT SAUCE CAKE
6 tortillias
a lb of ground beef (80/20)
an onion
a can of green chiles
a can of tomato paste
garlic powder, cumin, red pepper
1/2 c mayo
1/2 c salsa
a packet of ranch powder
a big bag of cheese (i used cheddar)
1. preheat the oven to like 350-400, around there somewhere
2. cook the beef on the stove, add the onions when there's enough grease in there
3. when no pink remains, drain the grease and add the chiles and tomato paste. season it
4. once mixed and the smells are married (you can tell when all the flavors incorporate, it takes on a "mexican food" smell because of the cumin), take off the stove and add the mayo and salsa.
5. Build the casserole! Lay down 3 tortillias, cover with half the meatiness, cover that with half the cheese, and repeat.
6. bake until the cheese on top is nice and crispy brown. serve with sour cream.
KETO FRIENDLY. ALSO AMAZING.
Grilled Turkey Meatballs and Cabbage
We're in the middle of a late August heat wave where I live. This
past week has gone from humid and sticky with a little rain to hair
dryer-esque, where the heat just blast you in the face relentlessly at all
hours. High temperatures really throw a kink in my Sundays, as I rely fairly
heavily on my oven for premaking a week of meals and can't in good conscience
turn the damn thing on when it's over a hundred degrees out. I do, however,
have a big ol' gas grill at my dad's place across the street, and a grill's
sort of like an oven, right? Like a hot box with a thermometer on the front?
Tomatoes and potatoes, I guess.
Grilling is a perfect way to keep my house
cool while getting in some low-effort cooking. I don't like fussy foods when
I'm making large quantities, so I stick to dishes I know are set and forget,
ones that can handle a few minutes of overcooking, if necessary. It's Sunday,
I've had a few beers, time tends to wiggle a little as it passes on days like
this, so it's easy to get distracted.
This afternoon I grilled up a week's worth
of lunches for eating at the office. Eating out everyday is unhealthy and expensive,
plus there's always been a slight allure to the idea of making your own food,
packing your own lunch. It's silly, but it's mildly exciting for me. This week,
I made cheesy turkey meatballs and cabbage. I'm tightening up on my low-carb
eating, so I'll be making a lot of wads of cheesy meat. They're versatile
enough to allow for experimentation with flavor combinations, and are always
simple, savory and satisfying.
This meal, like all of my meals, started
as an idle thought, as I am ever thinking of cooking. Thought gives way to
desire, to plan and finally purchase on Saturday, my day for meal planning and
grocery shopping. Sundays I cook it all, Saturdays I just plan out my meals and
grocery list, get it from the store to my fridge and leave it at that. I'll get
this urge to cook a bunch, but curb it, as it's real easy to get overwhelmed
all of a sudden if you do too much in a single afternoon. Shop on Saturday,
cook on Sunday. It's a method that really works for me.
I used a pack of ground turkey and mashed
it up with an egg, some panko, and some leftover herb goat cheese and cream
cheese vegetable spread that was laying around in my fridge, and a bunch of
shredded Parmesan. Not the shakey kind, but that'll do, as will cream cheese or
any cheese you've got on hand. Like I said, meat wads are extremely versatile!
I seasoned them with a bunch of stuff, salt and pepper, rosemary, majoram,
thyme, basil, parsley, minced onion, garlic, red pepper flakes, sage, and
oregano.
I foiled and oiled a long baking pan and
put wads of the meaty mix on it, five to a row. I got like 30 on this long pan
I have. Then stick the pan in your grill at 400ish for 20m and you're good to
go. Cabbage was insanely easy (as cabbage is known to be): chop the cabbage,
separate the leaves, put in a bowl with chopped garlic and onion and shake with
oil, salt, pepper, paprika and minced onion. Pour into baking pans (I used
round cake pans and a lidded casserole dish) and foil/lid and bake until limp,
30m or so.
I also cut up some bacon and stuck it in
the grill for an easy protein breakfast. I fork whisk two eggs in a big ceramic
ramekin I have, add a bit of salt and a bunch of pepper and nuke it for a
minute or so, until it's not runny anymore, then toss in some cooked bacon and
cheddar. Easy as eggs.
So for a little prep work and some idle
patience, I have five lunches and enough bacon for breakfast all week. Cheap,
tasty, and healthy. Subway and sushi can suck it!
(But not sushi, I'm gonna go there every
time I get paid, because $13 for all you can eat is a freaking deal and eel
sushi with wasabi and ginger and a couple bowls of miso and a sneaky sapporo
makes me very happy.)
