dogs...piled high...

Someone mentioned hot dogs in the Work Crew chat I keep open on synirc when I'm tethered to my desk during daylight hours, and the wheels started turning until all other previously conceived dinner options seemed downright inadequate. I took the kiddo swimming, then to the store to pick some stuff up for DOGS.

I was discussing my dinner idea with my homie, who insisted I get a foot long from Sonic. I can't in good faith purchase a prepared dog when I can easily make it at home, so I resisted his recommendation and began to notice an idle obsessing over condiments pushing forcefully from the back of my mind toward the front at an alarming rate. 

"IT'S LIKE AN AVALANCHE OF TOPPINGS IN MY MIND GAINING EXPONENTIAL VELOCITY AS IT DESCENDS," I confessed to him, which he then quoted me on. After mulling it over on my evening commute, I found I wanted chili cheese dogs with fritos on one, saeurkraut and horseradish mustard on another. Good to go to the grocery store. 

The bun is a bakery bun, which I toasted but did not eat. They look great in the photos, though. Bunless dogs, while delicious and satisfying, lack the high-impact aesthetic qualities I seek in my visual documentation, so the bun gets to pose and is promptly passed off on the kiddo, who panicked about the sriracha but ate every bite, save for the last one, which the puppy got. There's not even a lot of hot sauce on there! Such a dramatic little miss, it's endearing.

The dogs are Nathan's, because the unit count matched the buns. Hebrew National looks dank, but Nathan's are just as good, and are delicious. "I don't want skinless!" said Fish as she leered suspiciously at the package. 

"You don't know what you want, but I do! You want my dinner! Imma feed it to you and you will LIKE it!" 

"I want fuzzy water, mom. The peach one." 

She points to the top shelf, so I grab it for her, knocking a display down in the process. To be fair, it looked structurally unsound, and we reassembled it before moving along the aisles, but it was still wobbly as hell. 

"Bail, Mom. Bail. BAIL!" Fish screamed, cackling like a wild woman, peach water clutched enthusiastically in her tiny little baby hands. "You drive me to drink, child," I sigh as I pick up the 12-pack of light beer I sat down to help her fix the display.

The chili was the same one I posted a couple months ago, only blended up to make for a badass condiment. Used the same cheese sauce recipe, too. Homie recommended crispy onions for the kraut dog, which I obliged, the textural contrast excited me.

Prep was stupid easy, get the chili going then blend it up once finished. Except oh yeah, I singed the ever loving shit outta my forearm on this old metal pot I picked up from the thrift store last week. Put a bandaid over it today, only to peel it off to show my burn to a coworker (not sure why), ripping bits of my burnt skin off as I did. Stung like a motherfucker! I found some gauze, so it's covered now, still gnarly as hell to look at. Hope it scars...

Made the cheese sauce next, which took two seconds, a real dump it in there dish, limited ingredients and hassle-free. Used a toaster oven to brown the buns, and seared the dogs in my smaller cast iron before steaming them with beer for a bit.

The salad boat is some sort of lettuce, i dunno, the biggest/cheapest one that wasn't iceberg, with feta, black olives, artichoke hearts, and dressing i made last week with oil, beet horseradish, lemon juice, dijon mustard, salt and pepper, onion and garlic powder. Quite tangy, and very horseradishy. Ate that boat in one bite.

The frito pie dog is chili, cheese sauce, corn chips and hot sauce, while the kraut dog is pickled cabbage, bright pink beet horseradish, horseradish mustard, and crispy onions.

I was quite pleased with both of these toppings, and ended up eating the entire goddamn bag of fritos with the chili and cheese sauce. This is why dishes like this are made occasionally in my house, same as desserts. They will get eaten the fuck down, there's no stopping it.

"Mom, you give me some chips? You always say you'll save some for me, but then you DON'T!"
"...i know..."
"YOU EAT THEM ALL AS I SLEEP"
"i do..."
"HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO YOUR LITTLE GIRL MOM??"
"FISH THEY ARE MY CHIPS I BOUGHT THEM THEY ARE MINE ALSO I AM SORRY"
"I WILL GO TO THE STORE AND BUY MY OWN BAG ALSO SOME ICE CREAM"
"no fish, no ice cream!"
"I WILL SNEAK OUT"
"FISH NO!"
"I KNOW WHERE TO GET ICE CREAM ON THE CHEAP"
*gasping for air in between giggles*

meatballs and bolognese

Man, I have been craving meatballs for WEEKS. I get this way more often than not about meals, I have found, just completely fixated on a dish until I'm incapable of considering anything else for dinner. It always starts slight at first, a fleeting idea or recipe photo I glanced at peripherally on a sidebar as I scrolled down a web page, oozing with cheese or sauce or seared meat, some bite overheard in coworker conversation or a lunch hour odor wafting out of who knows what cubicle or industrial restaurant vents sensed from the highway in the evening as I commute homeward.

Meatballs, baby. I gotta have them.

After hitting the gym last night, as we all walk out to the car, sweaty and woozy, Fish and I chat about dinner (a bit breathlessly on my end, I'll admit):

"I'm hungry, Mom. What's for dinner?"
"Meatballs, baby! And zucchini!"
"With pasta?"
"Sure, I'll make you some pasta, it'll go nice with the red meat sauce I froze forever ago."
"I want spinach alfredo."
"We're having meatballs and bolognese tonight, baby. We can have that with chicken tomorrow night."
"We could have both?"
"NO. YOU CAN EAT THE MEATBALLS AND RED SAUCE I AIN'T YO SHORT ORDER CHEF."
*giggling* "um, okay, that sounds good too."

Meatballs, it is!

Meatballs are incredibly easy to make, and take two seconds. Instead of making mine with ground beef, I use a blend of pork and turkey, which works nicely and is half the price per pound. I've been lucky and have routinely found marked down ground pork, which I mix with turkey and freeze for later use.


When it's meatball time, I thaw out the meat and mix it up with some breadcrumbs, egg, salt and pepper, and some sriracha. Sometimes parmesan, it depends on the mood I'm in. I used the rest of my goat cheese in this batch, because why not?

I love squishing the mix with my hands to mix it all up, something about incorporating all the ingredients this way is incredibly satisfying for me. If you're offput by handling raw meat with your fingers (understandable), just use a spoon, it's all good, just mix it all up any way you're comfortable with.

At one point, I would shape my meat into curse words and post photos of it on Facebook, cracking up my friends list. Dirty meat swears! I think I prefer meal prep to flesh fonts, though.

Once the meat mix is fully incorporated, I pull off golf ball-sized wads of meat and roll it into a ball in my palms and set on a tray. Once all the meat is balled up, I have a pyramid of raw meat spheres ready for frying. My poor puppy stares at the meat mound, softly crying for a taste. Nope! I give him cooked bites later on, though.

I fried the meatballs close together in my large cast iron. I used lard for these, it was left over from the latkes the night before, but you can use cooking oil or shortening, whatever you have on hand.

Test your oil temp by tossing in a tiny fleck of flesh into the pan. If it bubbles like crazy, your pan's ready to load full of meat. Pack the meatballs closely and wait a few minutes for the bottoms to brown, then flip and brown the other side before removing from the oil.

I place my crispy meatballs on a cookie sheet, then stick them in the oven to finish, just in case the insides are still a bit raw. I prefer this method, as I tend to overcook my meat to be safe, and the outsides burn and taste unpleasant. Once they firm up a bit more in the oven, I drop them all in a pot of bolognese I had simmering on my stove. Stir enough to cover the balls in the sauce, but not so vigorous that they break apart. Simmer these on low for up to an hour. I left mine in the sauce as I fried up some zucchini fritters, which were tasty, thought I could have squeezed more moisture out of the veg before mixing and frying.

I made the bolognese  forever ago, when I first got back into town from my last Springfield trip. I had meant to make it while I was on vacation, but I got caught up making all the other foods, and time sort of slipped away from me, as it does, you know. Never got my Andy's frozen custard, either, or my Gem of India food. Those spots are at the top of my list, restaurant-wise, when I visit next year, and are in the same relative direction, too!

The sauce is easy enough, but takes forever to simmer on the stove. It freezes beautifully, as you can tell, though I recommend freezing in plastic bags instead of glass, as thawing it out is worlds easier that way, and the bags thin out and are easier to stack in the freezer, freeing up much needed cold space. I need a deep freezer in my garage, it's become clear to me now. My freezer space is so tight, I have considered storing broth and meat in my dad's freezer across the street. I've had to hold off on making broth, too. You know how I love making broth. What a tragedy. Such is life!

Process some onion, celery, garlic and onion until it's paste-like, then stick in a stock pot with some oil and salt and brown for almost a half hour. All the moisture will evaporate and the veg will start to smell incredible. Heat unlocks that hidden fragrance in vegetables, so don't rush this step, let all the smells seep out of the paste and release into the pan. Oh my god, so fragrant and flavorful.

Add three pounds of ground beef (and yes, I did buy ground beef for this! It was the last time I've bought it, actually, specifically for this sauce) and brown another 20m or so. We're talking hella brown, very dark brown. Throw a couple cups of tomato paste in here and cook a few minutes before pouring an entire bottle of red wine in the pot. Oh yes, y'all. Let me tell you how liberating it is to uncork a bottle of red and just pour every drop of it into a pot. It's outright anarchy in this piece!

Add water until the meat is covered, and add some bay leaves and sprigs of thyme. Bring the pot to a boil then simmer for four hours. FOUR, dude. Salt the sauce and add more water a couple cups at a time as the sauce simmers. Over the next few hours, check your sauce for liquid and seasoning as it reduces. It's impossible to add too much liquid, so don't fret if you drown it, it will evaporate out. Omitting this reduce-refill step risks scalding your sauce, which will suck so much for you, as blackened tomato sauce SUCKS and tastes like FAILURE AND IMPATIENCE. Don't make amateurish mistakes, you're better than that. You deserve more, buddy! Reduce and refill and salt!

After a few hours, you will have your final sauce: thick and beefy with a deep flavor reminiscent of a pasta plate at some fancy italian joint (sans fennel, who would ever want their meat sauce to taste like black licorice?). I froze my sauce in glass jars, and still have so much left! I recommend freezing it in smaller plastic bags, then laying these on a baking sheet and freezing flat. Once frozen, you can store them upright to save space. When starving, boil noodles and make meatballs and toss them in the thawed out sauce. Couldn't be easier!

Most of my sauces are admittedly less elaborate than this, but I enjoy effort-requisite recipes lately, and will make this sauce a staple for my freezer. Why pay two or three bucks per jar of mass produced sauce when you can whip up more product with a higher quality for less financial investment? It's a trade-off, for sure, but I have this pseudo-tic lately about corporate food that increased in severity each day.

I'm not an evangelical wad about home cooking, I just very deeply identify with a DIY philosophy, and find it incredibly important to make food myself instead of buying it premade. As a result, my grocery cart is usually full of produce, canned tomatoes and chilies, meat and seasonings (like Worcestershire). Why buy a premade precursor when I can make it at home?

Every "staple" I can make myself feels like an achievement to me. Like an arsenal of edible how-tos that I can write about and share with you. It minimizes the individual items that make up all that I eat and prepare, and builds up my understanding of culinary components to an increasingly encyclopedic level. It's like unlocking the potential of all cuisine via identifying the bare minimum ingredients involved in each step, which are surprisingly conserved across the ethnic board. Reminds me of my genetics class, to be totally honest with you. Pursuing the shared bare minimum of my pantry, and all that.

My fantasy is to have such a firm grip on multicultural cuisine prep, to expose myself to it to such an extent that I can one day look up a recipe, break each component down, go into my kitchen, and have every necessary prep item on hand. That level of casual preparedness excites the shit outta me, I must admit! Can you even imagine?

...yeah, you can, can't you?

jewish feast

I love latkes, so freaking much, dude. I have made them many times, and have yet to be disappointed with this dish. These are a quintessential peasant food: cheap to buy, long to store, straightforward to prepare and quick to cook. Cheap, delicious food is a passion of mine, one that I readily share with you at every opportunity.

Hanukkah started last Tuesday and ends on Christmas Eve on Wednesday, so I pulled out all the stops and spent my Sunday making matzo ball soup, purple potato latkes and applesauce. Every inch of this meal was homemade, with no canned or prepackaged ingredients involved in any step of these dishes. This is an extra step, effort-wise, but I get a lot of value out of making staple ingredients, and feel a strong sense of pride when I can produce more than I consume, from a corporate and financial standpoint.

Why buy Rachel's box broth or Mussleman's applesauce when I can just make it at home? Takes more time, sure, but less toll on me, both ethically and economically. It's a personal preference I feel an increasingly important need to clarify in my food writing the more I cook. Sort of undercuts the "I have no time/talent/know-how/desire to make it myself" excuse I hear from every home cook ever. I have an 8-7 weekday job, a child and a weightlifting schedule to keep, if I can find the time, so can you. You want to make it yourself! It tastes better and costs less! I will sell my readers on this eventually, so help me! DIY FOR LIFE Y'ALL.

I used Serious Eats again for this ethnic dinner, it's my go-to recipe website, as they preface many of their recipes with trial-and-error prose-length reasoning behind each step of culinary execution. I also used Bon Appetit, a site I began using with the Patty Melt post and keep coming back to for the simplicity of the ingredients yet somewhat advanced prep steps. Gives me a bit of a challenge in the kitchen, I love it.

I could not for the life of me find matzo meal. After the fourth store I visited failed to provide me this essential Jewish cooking ingredient, I stood in the breadcrumb/baking goods aisle, scrolling down the CHOW forums for an adequate substitute. For aforementioned reasons, I was a bit iffy on using saltines or water crackers as a matzo substitute, when a user recommended making matzo at home and grinding it up. Oh fuck yes I can. Mama likey.

So I started there, with a mission to make matzo. That's not true, I started my stock first, which involved peeling the skin off a whole chicken and shoving the naked carcass into my new massive  12qt stock pot, purchased for this meal (and also because I am stock-obsessed, and have been using two pots each week until buying this thing). I added carrots and celery and onions with the peel on, a whole head of garlic and some black peppercorns and let it boil until the breasts were done, then pulled those out for serving and simmered the broth for two hours more before straining. The smell was borderline unbearable, but I was good and kept the lid on to avoid slurping it all down before dinner time. It was hard to do, I won't lie to you.

Pulling the breasts out sucked, it was painful to touch the boiling meat, the steam was unmerciful, and I cursed and shrieked my way through it. Next time, I will cut no corners, and take the chicken carcass out to carve the breast meat off, then return to the pot of scalding liquid and vapor. Bastards.

I saved the chicken skin for schmaltz, or chicken fat, which I rendered in my small cast iron with onions, as is the traditional way. I strained the melty fat, tossed Cheebs some crispy skin (which he appreciated) and saved the fat for the matzo balls, which were a cinch, once I ground up the matzo. First, though, make matzo!

Move an oven rack to the topmost position of your oven, set two clean pans in there and set your temp to 500F. You want these pans nice and hot to lay the matzo onto, so be sure your oven preheats at least 20m or so. The dough was stupid easy to make: Mix flour, salt and oil, add water until the dough forms, then divide into a dozen balls and roll each out on a lightly floured surface.

You want to roll each ball of dough crazy thin. The recipe mentioned rolling each dough ball so thin you can see through them. Mine never got transparent, but I was able to roll them so thin they began to rip, so I'm chalking that up as a success. Originally, I rolled out all 12, laid them on top of each other with a light dust of flour in between each overlapping piece, but as they sat there, they tended to stretch out to an unreasonable length as I went to pick them up, and were difficult to place onto the preheated pan without wrinkling or trailing over the edge of the pan.

I resolved this stretchy dough issue by rolling out four dough balls at a time, two for each pan, then quickly transferring each directly to the hot pan and baking for three minutes or so, just long enough to roll out the next four. The result was long, crispy sheets of matzo, lightly browned and a little bubbly. I will edit this post with a photo of them, that's how impressed I was. Know what they taste like? SALTINES! I swear to you! So easy and quick to make! All this, because stores in town can't carry an ingredient integral to my dinner. What an exciting trial-and-error kitchen experience.

I ground up the matzo in my food processor and stuck it in a plastic bag, then hit these crumbs with my coffee grinder for a fine powder consistency. Makes the balls and latkes smoother. For the balls, I mixed the meal, schmaltz, a pinch of salt and a little beer. The recipe called for club soda, but the only carbonated beverage I had on hand was beer and peach fuzzy water, so I used the former here and the latter later on, as you'll see soon enough. Stick this wet dough in a fridge for a couple hours, more or less when the broth finishes up.

When the broth and balls were right around the 2-hour mark, I started my latkes. I picked up some purple potatoes at Global Foods the weekend before last, and was so stoked to find comparable pigment inside upon slicing them open (I was worried the flesh would be white). I don't peel my potatoes for my recipes, unless it's potato soup, and that's because smooth soup is simply the best and worth the nicked knuckles for me.

Instead of hand-grating eight medium-sized spuds (even more knuckle cuts), I used my food processor to make short work of shredding. I need a grating insert, as I have a standard processor, and got fine bits instead of long strips, which worked well, but I prefer the strips, aesthetically. I hit five peeled onions with the same food processor, mixed them with the potatoes, and squeezed handfuls of the stuff through a cheesecloth to drain out most of the moisture. Never eat soggy latkes, folkd. A dry potato is a happy potato, and a happier eater, too. Wet potatoes get gummy and gray and never crisp up, due to the high water content. It's an extra step you cannot skip, I assure you.

Once the potato and onion is as dry as possible, alternate between adding matzo meal and eggs, until squeezing a wad readily retains its shape in your palm. Then salt the absolute shit out of it. I mean it, these things are bland as hell if you don't liberally season. I heated some oil in both cast iron skillets as I prepped my latkes, then tested the temp by flicking a tiny bit of potato into the pan. If the spud bubbles like crazy, your oil is ready to go.

I grabbed a golf ball size of latke mix and flattened it in my palm, but noticed it was difficult to transfer from palm to pan, so in a moment of guerrilla inspiration, I used my metal spatula to scrape the potato patty out of my pan and into the oil. Worked perfectly. You can press these down with a spoon, if you like, I didn't need to. You will see the edges of each latke begin to brown soon enough, flip them over and make sure they're nice and brown, then wait a bit more as the other side finishes and transfer to a pan with a cooling rack on it.

Test your seasoning by frying a single latke at a time until you shake your head yes over and over in savory realization of flavor achievement. If you rush this step, you will end up with sub-par latkes, and with a process as elaborate as this, under-salted potatoes is a real knee to the balls, both painful and preventable. I fit four latkes into my small pan, six into my larger pan. Once a baking pan filled up with fried latkes, I stuck it in my oven at 200F to keep warm as I assembled the matzo soup and made applesauce.

The sauce was easy: core and chop up six apples (I used granny smith and fuji), boil in water (I used peach fuzzy water I had on hand) with a little lemon juice and a pinch of salt, until apples are soft and can be squished with a spoon. I pulled them off the heat and hit them with my handheld blender, which I rarely use but will use much more in the future, as it worked magic on my apples. I didn't peel them, yet they came out smooth. I am kicking myself for using my tiny little two-cup processor for my potato soup instead of this magic blending wand. Will remember this next time I make it.

Set the applesauce aside, strain your broth if you haven't already, and heat to boiling with some chopped carrots. Cook these until tender, 5-10m, then add the chicken breast you pulled off earlier. I hand-shredded each breast before dropping into the pot. Turn off and wait for the matzo balls to finish.

Matzo balls, the final step of this meal, are straightforward to make, but make me anxious, as handling wet batter and pillow-like balls in boiling water seems terrifying at first glance. With wet hands, scoop out some wet matzo ball batter, and transfer from hand to hand until ball-like, then slide it into a pot of boiling salt water. Simmer these in there for 20m, then turn over and remove from the broth once they sink. I put two in each bowl, then added some chicken and carrots before I poured the broth in.

The result was worth the wait. The latkes were crisp and salty and stiff with a perfect brown crisp on each side, with no limpness or sogginess to them. The matzo balls were flavorful and surprisingly dense, and the broth was rich yet satisfying. I love boiled carrots, so much. I mixed my applesauce into some sour cream with horseradish for dipping, a recipe I saw on Rachel Ray some morning at my dad's house earlier this year. Has a nice zippy heat to it, and sour cream is essential for latke dipping in my book.

This meal was exhaustive and elaborate, sure, but I tend to become rather sentimental about meals I pour an insane amount of effort into. Likely why I prize Thanksgiving so highly. I love devoting myself to a dinner, both time and resource-wise. A friend of mine bought me The Bread Bible for Christmas, which I cannot wait to crack the spine on, as bread encompasses this same sentiment of love through labor and long waits. There's a romance to breadmaking and multi-component, stepwise dinners that I am quite partial to. Plus, it makes my Sundays feel like a culinary investment, provided I plan and allocate my time and ingredients accurately, the what going where and in what sequence that is so paramount to meals requiring long-duration meal prep.

At the very least, try the latkes and applesauce with the horseradish sour cream. Though I do recommend trying this soup, as it makes enough to last all week. Be sure to store any unused matzo balls in cold water, or chilled broth you boiled them in (the ideal preserving fluid, to be honest). Happy Hanukkah, everybody! Latkes and applesauce and homemade matzo for everyone!

pineapple upside down cake

I made a pear-corn cake last week in my cast-iron skillet (I should make a post on that, actually...), and received suggestions about making pineapple upside down cake. The recipe I used  for the pear cake mentioned using pineapples, but I'll be honest with you, I was less than impressed with the results the first time around and was hesitant to replicate it with another fruit.

Serious Eats had a pineapple upside down skillet cake  recipe as well, but the cake looked less than appealing, so I looked for an alternate. I stumbled onto this recipe that looked gorgeous, and the ingredients looked reasonable, so I gave it a shot.

I was intrigued by the use of yogurt in the recipe. It reminded me of using sour cream, for some reason, which excites me. Instead of using plain yogurt, I opted for pina colada, it was cheap for a four-pack, even though I am now stuck with three and a half packs of tropical yogurt. I'll make the fella eat it, or make the kid a smoothie or something with it.

(Editor's note: the mere mention of using that yogurt got me thinking of all the applesauce I made last night for my Big Jewish Feast I still need to post, and spent ten minutes or so finding recipes on bread loaves that use my banana and pumpkin and applesauce up. Got a couple great ideas, will post about them when I make them.)

I was a little nervous making substitutions with this recipe -- specifically using fruit in place of butter -- but I've been making cookies all week and it's been nothing but eggs and butter and sugar and flour, and I wanted something a little lighter than that. Besides, I wanted this cake to really smack me in the mouth with pineapple, so using crushed pineapple in place of butter offered me this opportunity. The results were fantastic, too!

I was watching my homies play video games last week, and mentioned my plan to make these cakes the following day. "Oh, I'm gonna make that, too!" says one friend. "See, you say that," says another, "but here's the thing: she will actually make it." And I did. And he has not. Yet insisted I use butter, as the self-appointed authority on Southern cuisine. That's like saying I can't make a decent stir fry because I'm not Asian! Racists. Make the cake, buddy!

I started this by buying myself a jumbo muffin tin. I have wanted one of these for SO LONG, and it's the holidays, and Fish said TREAT YO SELF, so god damn if I didn't do just that. Also got a huge cast iron and 12-qt stock pot (which I made broth in, and was so tickled by it), and a bunch of baking sheets and sauce pans from the thrift store. Get this: the used cookware all matched! Cook's Essentials, or something. I was so happy! My silver saucepans look so good hanging off the same hook over my sink, nested within each other. I love it.

Preheat your oven to 350F. I have an older oven, so I always decrease the temp by 25 degrees. You work so hard to make everything right, burning it is like a kick in the teeth. And you can't fix it! It sucks so much! I start with overgreasing my muffin tin. I will be god damned if these beauties stick to the sides, i'm not having it, not this time!

Once the pan is well lubed up, I move on to the syrupy topping, melted butter mixed with brown sugar until all runny, them poured into each muffin cup. I place a pineapple on this, then make the batter and pour it over and bake for a half hour or so, checking a cake with a knife until it comes out clean.

The batter is a bit dense, more bread pudding than cake, really. Flour, baking powder and soda, a little salt, crushed pineapple instead of a stick of butter, 3:1 brown to white sugar, an egg, a little yogurt and milk and juice reserved from the can of pineapple rings, and a little vanilla. My KitchenAid makes quick work of mixing, but this is a thin batter, and can be easily hand-whisked.

Each cake came out perfectly when I inverted the pan onto a baking sheet, with a little pool of caramel glaze seeping out of each one like a sweet syrup puddle. I may have underbaked, as the edges of some cakes were starting to brown and I had a mild panic attack and couldn't bake them any further in good conscience and experience. My pear skillet cake had burnt caramel topping, it was noticeable and more than offputting. Moreso than the corn, if you can believe it. God, I hate corn. So much, dude. Pineapple and yogurt cake can kick it all day, though.

These are absolutely incredible, definitely a keeper of a recipe. I'll try this same thing in my skillet next time with butter and see if I can detect any difference in prep methods. Something about a skillet cake really excites me! I feel a comparable thrill about my jumbo muffin tin. This leads to using both, which leads to too much cake, which is a phrase that makes little sense in English, right? Definitely try these.

lunch crew

Breakfast is one of those pieces of good advice I struggle to apply to my daily routine. As I get older, setting and maintaining good habits becomes much more important to me, and I figure breakfast is as good a starting point as any to make my good living fantasy an incremental possibility. Tasty self actualization, I suppose.

I could take the easy route, and make yogurt with some fruit, or thaw out a premade smoothie the night before, or make some overnight slowcooker oatmeal, but then i thought, naaah. Let's make some cheddar veg egg cups, baby!

These are impossibly simple to make, though the pan is an absolute bitch to clean. Lube up a muffin tin with oil, spray or pour, it doesn't matter, just get it good and greasy.

Cook up some sausage or bacon, then some onions, and some kale or spinach, whatever veg you're into.

Put these toppings in each muffin cup, then sprinkle some cheese on top (i use shredded sharp cheddar, use what you have) and pour some scrambled eggs over it.

I crack a dozen and whisk them up fluffy with a little water and pepper, but you can use milk or cream or whatever you have on hand. I may add sour cream next time, sounds bomb as hell. Pour the egg over the toppings and shove in the oven at 350F for like 20m, until stabbing one with a knife comes out clean.

Let these cool before removing, which is tricky and a bit infuriating, I'll be totally honest with you. I drag a knife around each egg muffin to loosen, then pry that tasty bitch out with a spoon. Stick them in a tupperware in your fridge, or freeze for later. I have eaten these every morning for the past week or so with hot sauce, and holy hell are they filling.

Regarding hot sauce, and my love for it. I was never a big spicy food fan until after I had my daughter. Suddenly, my tastebuds changed, and I began craving spicy things, in a real and immediate way.

Tabasco is so-so, and Crystal is less-so, much to the chagrin of die-hard cajun chefs reading this. I know it's the hot sauce to use in your freaking food, that's why I keep a bottle of the shit on hand for my andouille red beans, okay? Fuck's sake, man.

Then I discovered sriracha, the ubiquitous big plastic bottle of red rooster sauce. I enjoy the paste-like consistency, and the subtleness of the spicy, the impact of the hotness is not as intense as it is all-over, if that makes sense. Less direct, I suppose. I adore the stuff, and really need to try out a recipe for it. I add it to everything, especially my bechamel sauce and fried chicken wet batter.

Tasty as it is, my work has yet to restock a bottle in the kitchen fridge, substituting it with a couple versions of El Yucateco (red and green). My first experience with this sauce is like a flashbulb memory: I was pregaming at a Mexican restaurant next door to a venue my fella and I were catching a rap show at. The margaritas were ridiculous, and when the food came, I doused my fajita plate with the tableside bottle of hot sauce, not thinking to look at the label.

Upon first bite, I was unable to chew any further. An eight dollar plate of food, ruined by this obscenely intense red shit. I looked at the label, mouth hung open to alleviate the persistent, undulled sensation of my tongue meat being chemically melted off. Habaneros. Fucking habanero sauce.

Good lord, what a fuck up. I can still feel residual pain in my cheeks just thinking about it.

Holy jesus, this is not a mild sauce. This is not that weak ass red vinegar you're used to. This sauce is not fucking about at all, just WHAM, spicy city, all over the mouth. I wasn't even offput initially by the strength of it, either. I was impressed. Serves me right for not respecting such a sassy, potent condiment.

So when I saw a bottle of it in our company fridge earlier, and could not be helped to play with that bargain brand louisiana hot sauce (red vinegar juice), i threw a couple scant dashes of the good stuff on my egg muffins this morning, not much, just enough to soak the egg bright pink in a couple places, and was not disappointed.

Tried a bit more sauce on my tilapia and kale lunch, with a heaping teaspoon of garlic I found hiding behind the ketchups (we have three in the fridge, it doesn't need refrigerating, what the hell?!? who is using all this ketchup??), and was golden.

I started eating fish at lunch once I began logging my intake on My Fitness Pal. Aside from keeping me mindful of my intake in a general way, logging my intake has revealed the macronutrient breakdown of what I shove into my hungry maw. Speaking specifically, carbs and protein, and sugar to a lesser extent.

I've been doing the StrongLifts weight program three times a week, so protein has become much more important to me. That and fiber keep me full and don't result in sharp crashes in mood or energy I tend to experience during midday on a higher carb diet.

I was craving salads, of all things, last week. I forgot my chicken soup I made myself for lunch at home, and didn't want to go the Popeye's route with the spicy chicken fingers and the red beans and mardi gras mustard, so I stopped by the nearest grocery store for some salad fixins. Not the salad bar, but actual produce red lettuce and deli ham and pineapple turkey, green olives, feta, a bottle of local romano dressing, and some artichoke hearts.

The result was delicious, filling and low-calorie, but was lacking a bit in the macro department. $16 for five meals is a win, however you look at it, but it could use some improvement, nutritionally. I figure, if I'm gonna eat, I might as well make every bite count, right?

I looked up some chicken thighs, and a thigh has 6g protein, which is only so-so when I'm trying to eat almost 70g of protein daily. That's a lot of fucking chicken. No hate on chicken, I do love it so, but it's hardly the protein power player I had previously assumed it to be. See what logging your intake and looking up ingredients does to your understanding of personal dietary consumption? How revealing! Total eye-opener for me, for real! Still, I eat chicken damn near every night, and will continue to do so. Mother fucking yard bird, I can't get enough of it.

(EDIT: just looked up chicken thigh again on mfp? 16g of protein. I KNEW 6 looked too low! Always double-check! Trust your skepticism, folks!)

I looked up canned tuna on a whim, because fuck it, might be worth adding to my weekly lunch routine, and holy shit, dude. 20g of protein per tin?? Tilapia fillets, same thing! Which is good for me, as I totally blanked out while I was doing my weekly shopping last week and forgot to pick up tuna, and you got me fucked up if you think i'm gonna go back to the grocery store on a saturday for canned fish when frozen fillets will do just as nicely, no freaking way.

Tilapia is insanely easy to make, and makes for an economically friendly lunch. A bag of eight fillets cost me five bucks, maybe. Parsley was a buck, parmesan was two (grated, not shakey), lemon juice was on-hand, as was the garlic and onion and butter. Kale is a buck or two for a shitload, so we're looking at under ten bucks for five lunches. That's two bucks a meal, you can't beat that.

I lay the fillets on a baking pan and pour melted butter over them, then cover with lemon juice, parsley, chopped garlic and a little bit of parmesan and shove it in the oven until it starts to go brown along the edges and is no longer soft in the center. The center should feel set, and the flesh should flake off with a fork. Such a lovely meat, really.

The kale was a cinch, too. I sautee a big ass onion and some garlic in a little oil until golden and translucent, and pull them out. As this cooks, I cut up the kale, get rid of the stems if you want, and shove in the empty onion pan with some broth. That's it. Salt and pepper it as needed, add some red wine/apple cider vinegar to it to taste and wait for it all to wilt down to a manageable amount. Mix the onions in with the kale and portion out into five containers. Once the fish is finished, spat it off of the pan and into the kaled tupperware and shove it all in the fridge.

The hardest part of home cooking a week's worth of work lunches is remembering to walk out the door with it in the morning. I cannot tell you how many times I have had my breakfast and lunch ready to go, only to realize I had forgotten it as I turn onto the highway heading to work. Embarrassing and frustrating, to be sure. I dunno, little moments of stupidity like that really reinforce the habit somehow, and I haven't forgotten my lunch at all this week.

I could take them all to work with me, but I don't wanna be "that guy" who's taking up all the fridge space with her weird ass tupperware lunches. Keep judging my fish, you fucks. I see you eating out every day, ya rich unhealthy bastards. Mindlessly expensive! I can't wrap my head around it!

recipe web browsing

I do a lot of recipe research in between calls at work. Here's what I have open right now, because if I bookmark it, it'll be lost forever (note to self: make a post with all the food bookmarks).

Some random jalapeno chicken from FB:

http://www.salad-in-a-jar.com/family-recipes/bacon-wrapped-jalapeno-chicken-bites


Bon Appetit's parmesan link slideshow:

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/parmesan-roasted-cauliflower

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/chicken-parmesan-2

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/parmesan-roasted-potatoes

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/parmesan-chicken-cutlets

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/scrambled-eggs-with-spinach-parmesan

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/farro-parmesan-pie


some serious eats links (my go-to recipe site)

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/12/hasselback-potato-gratin-casserole-holiday-food-lab.html

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/12/mexican-wedding-cakes.html

http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/11/the-food-lab-thanksgiving-edition-ultra-crispy-roasted-potatoes.html

pregame chinese takeout

I help host a weekly radio show each Saturday called Ripped Radio at Overtime Studios, a rap production spot in the basement of my buddy's South City home. Rip James, a well-known local rapper, asked me to fill the regular hostess spot after running into me at a rap show last week at The Way Out Club, this great spot I enjoy seeing shows at. I've stopped by the studio before and handled the mic on the air well enough to be welcomed back for a weekly spot, an opportunity I openly embraced, as it's fun to kick it and riff about whatever, very free form and funny and bordering on the risque and absurd. And by border, I mean full-fisted knocking on the line between appropriate and obscene.

My kind of show!

If you've never been to The Way Out Club, I recommend stopping in some evening in the near future. The decor is choice and the vibe is chill, though I will never eat their pizza again. I don't do thin-crust, but after three or four beers I can chew and swallow damn near anything, and accepted a slice when offered. Huge mistake on my end.

The pizza went from oven to bartop to mouth to floor, leaving me there looking stupid and cursing with a burnt tongue as I hastily grabbed some tissue-like napkin squares to wipe the sauce off the cracked linoleum floor. Never again, I said. Then I had another slice an hour later. Decent when cooled, I found, but still, to hell with thin crust, I can't take it seriously, it's like a working man's brushetta or something equally cheapish and offputting to my appetite.

A week later, I was sitting in the studio, sucking down tall cans of Pabst with a dozen other rappers and crew, most whom I recognized from a show here or an event there. Everybody knows me as Mickey in the rap circuit, throwing what's ups and fist bumps and classy handshakes with like four physical steps in em that I try to fake so I don't look foolish.

Calls are answered and questions posed on the live feed before the Cypher spot, a freestyle bout that many struggle to hold their heads up in, but enthusiastically (bravely) participate in. A couple rappers, Rip James being one of them, shine on the mic each time and blow the group away, who pause and whoop as the verse ends and the beat keeps running, ignored for a moment under a wave of off the top accolades.

It gets hot and sweaty at this point, there's no ventilation down there and I start to feel a bit tipsy and uncomfortable, so we bail in search of pre-show munchies. En route to a local hip hop artist showcase at Fubar, my favorite bar, I suggest chinese to avoid the old standard of burgers and fries. I am bored with basic fast food fare, and am in a place in my life now where, believe it or not, I can manage an on-the-go meal with a price pushing past a fiver a person. Big change, big thangs, right? Chinese, it is!

I check Yelp on my phone as we drive to find the closest rice shack, and settled on Fortune Express, a well-reviewed spot on Chippewa. As we approach, I immediately notice the throngs of people crowding in front of a Ted Drewes next door, a local frozen custard shop I haven't yet had the privilege to experience. Andy's is the equivalent to TD's in my hometown of Springfield, MO. I desperately craved some during my last trip down there, but time and circumstance did not allow me the opportunity.

We have an Andy's in STL now, I hear. I may need to check it out, though the two locations in Springfield (Campbell and Glenstone) would really ramp up the nostalgia factor for me to a surreal level, and I must admit, I'm into experiencing that extreme sort of emotional connection to frozen custard. I am patient, and can wait forever for custard. Ted Drewes will come first, I'm thinking. Take the kiddo over there sometime, watch her inevitably (albeit inadvertently) cover her face with frozen cocoa cream. Such a messy girl!

We park a block behind the restaurant and walk instead of scavenging for a parking spot up front. I change out of my glossy black stilettos into a pair of white cloth flats with marker art all over them, to make the journey all the more comfortable. It's a little after 9pm, and the place is abandoned, save for a couple waiting on a takeout order.

I was craving hot and sour soup and an egg roll with hot mustard, but I have a known passion for pork fried rice, and when I saw it mentioned in a Yelp review, I was sold (as was the piggy rice). A large soup and rice with two egg rolls came to around $12 and took two seconds to prepare. We watch a college football game on a corner flatscreen as they prepare our order, which they handed off to us before the couple who had been waiting received theirs. Their order must have been a bit more elaborate than ours, who can say?

I noticed on the menu they carry St Paul sandwiches, a regional dish I was made aware of only recently by a buddy of mine with more culinary culture and exposure than I. The sandwich sounds...gross, it's an egg sandwich with mayo on white, that sounds unappealing as a motherfucker to me, but the kid who recommended it also turned me on to sizzling rice soup, and that shit knocks me out. You can HEAR the rice crackle in it! How ridiculous is that? Added it to my list of must-try-at-home dishes. Recreating a restaurant plate is the sincerest way I can show respect to the dish and the restaurant, outside of, you know, regular patronage.

I grabbed a couple mustard packs for the egg rolls and a couple small styrofoam cups to split the soup and rice into. There weren't any spoons, so I made do with the forks available and headed back to the car, cutting through what appeared to be either a church or elementary school parking lot, I'm not sure, it was dimly lit by this time and I had been drinking a bit so the passing details were difficult to notice.

I did notice a drop of beer from my last swig travel down the length of the tall can at the studio, tinged pink from my lipstick. It's mysterious to me what sticks out as significant, makes me wonder what I'm missing, what the mind decides to absorb into background obscurity.

We park on a side street a block or so down from the club and unpack out order. I sip hot broth from the styrofoam, tangy and spicy and boiling hot (just how I like it, better over than under when it comes to food temperature). There were large, thick strips of vegetable in the soup that still had a bit of firmness to them as I bit down on them. I immediately feel warmer in my own skin and, after swallowing the last of the soup, refill my cup with the rice.

The rice was perfect, still steaming with heat and packed with big chunks of purple pork. Takeout rice is notoriously tepid, so it was a bit of a reassuring shock to have to hold my mouth open as I took each bite, gently exhaling to release some of the heat. Fried rice is one of those foreign dishes I am yet to master, one that no matter how many times I execute it, the rice never tastes like a proper restaurant mock-up. It doesn't taste the same as take out!

Is it the msg, I wonder to myself, shoveling huge bites of rice into me, each grain coated in a savory sheen, the fermented soy and green onion aroma entering my nostrils like an old friend bearing gifts from faraway travels. I must offer a faithful execution to this dish. I'm so taken with it, it's a signature comfort food that takes me to a place of serenity and restful satisfaction.

We polish off the rice and make for the egg rolls. Mine was crispy and full of cabbage and ground meat, seasoned well with onion and garlic and maybe ginger, it's hard to say. I use the egg roll more as an edible vessel for the magical condiment that is hot mustard. You must respect this sauce. Most run of the mill asian restaurants have bland, runny mustard, but not this one.

Immediately upon entry, my eyes water and nose runs, the wasabi-horseradish hot running in a nerve line from tastebud to temple. I love this feeling, it's a slight gastronomical masochism I readily embrace. I enjoy food that fights back, I like the physical reaction of slight pressure treading closely to pain, especially with that strong hot sensation. I use the entire packet for my egg roll, wiping my eyes and nose with napkins as I do. I got a single drop of mustard on the hem of my black cotton dress. I ain't even mad, that mustard was incredible.

The takeout, mixed with the tall cans and the radio show, had me riding a good vibe as I exited the Jeep and made my way to the venue, still rocking my canvas flats in tights and lipstick. Screw the heels, I'm comfier in these, I reassure myself, checking out the varied pumps the ladies outside the club are rocking, shifting their weight from side to side, taking turns leaning on the windows of the club for some much-needed ankle or toe relief.

You look good, ladies, I remember thinking, loving the look but not feeling the feel, not tonight. That rice and soup and mustard-slathered role put me in a good place, smiling softly past the doorman as I wait in the rowdy bar queue for a couple tall cans, same as before, same as always. I was likely the only bitch there rocking busted ass shoes and gave zero fucks. That $12 takeout was everything to me.