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HOLY NEW POST I’m not dead! Chipotle Potato Salad

I have no excuses. Here is a potato salad recipe to say I’m sorry. guys, some stuff happened. Maybe I can get back into this. I hope so. Cooking is weird since I had the kid. I have to eat things one handed, corn dogs, popsicles, kebabs...anyway. Because my brother asked for it and I realized I didnt have a written version, its just in my brain box. also I don’t have a picture, so imagine a delicious salad* in some big ass bowl that you are being fed by your tender lover to celebrate America.

*gooey salads aren’t really salads...we all know this charade.

Chipotle Potato Salad

1 cups light miracle whip

1/2 cup sour cream or less depending on how gooey you like them.

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

2 tablespoons chopped chipotle peppers seeded and scraped out and chopped fiiiine.

Enough adobo sauce from the can to your smokiness liking

3 Green onions chopped both green and white parts

3 pounds of redskin potatoes cut up quarter styles, boiled in salty water drained 

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Fresh ground pepper and salt to taste.

maybe some fresh cilantro for crunch if you like that shit. no judgement.

Up that game and add either real bacon if you nasty or Upton’s veggie bacon if you are interested.

Cut up the potatoes all delicate like. Listen don’t be a dick and over cook those potatoes. keep forking them until tender in that salty hot tub. While thats happening, build the dressing in order to toss the potatoes in. Those chipotles will mess your shit up so use a knife and fork to handle them without touching them. scrape the seeds chop up super fine and then for the love of Rupaul wash your hands quickly. 

Drain the potatoes, it may take 10 minutes depending on your potato size, Seriously, overcooking them will make a starchy shitty mess. Don’t do it. dump them into the mix and toss gently and fold in the green onions and salt and pepper to finish. 

Avoid salmonella and put that on ice or a cooler. Happy 4th of July dummies.

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Tofu Pot Pie, AW you fancy now!

This little number is adapted from a recipe from the kitchn blog.

While I appreciate a handmade pie crust on a Sunday afternoon I started fishing through my fridge at around 7pm. Clearly not handmade pie crust time.

preheat your Hotbox to 400 degrees.

Pull a sheet of frozen puff pastry out of the freezer and thaw it on the counter while you assemble your other bits.

(here are the other bits)

1 cup of extra firm tofu cut into tiny cubes

1 carrot/frozen carrots sliced

1 celery rib or broccoli if you wish diced

1 c peas frozen or fresh

2 cloves garlic minced

1 small onion diced

1 potato diced(smaller pieces the better)

1/4 cup flour

2 tsp nutritional yeast

2 Tbs of soy sauce

1 1/4 c veg broth

1 tsp thyme and sage

Salt and pepper

egg wash

puff pastry

Saute the Tofu until golden with a little olive oil until golden, dump into aluminum foil and let it rest for a spell. Saute onion and garlic and then add carrots, broccoli/celery, and potato. maintain medium heat as this veg orgy cooks for a few minutes stirring. sprinkle in flour the Nute yeast and the soy sauce, this makes a brown gooey gravy base. scape any bits off the bottom of the pan and add the broth, turn heat down low. Spice that shit with your thyme and sage, salt and pepp. and simmer for like 5 minutes. Find a dish, either pie plate, pyrex, boot, what have you and slam that hot goodness into it. Your puff pastry should stretch over that like Bruce Jenner's face and tuck the sides around...also like Bruce Jenner's face. Egg wash that biz all over, and throw in your sassy hot oven for 30 minutes.

thx thekitchn !-use this recipe if you want it to be well, vegan and fancier(it has the crust recipe included)

Enjoy while pondering what east Indian village the Kardashians farm their silky, stupid, hair from.

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Bowlritos!

So this meal took about 20 lazy minutes to make. Makes you feel like tortillas and that whole rolling a burrito thing is just SO MUCH WORK. Ugh right?

1 1/2 cups of rice (feeds two gluttonous fools)

3 green onions

can of black beans

can of corn

olives

mexican cheese or vegan cheese shreds

cilantro and lime

Quorn chicken tenders

salsa

Well zip up that Forever Lazy and get some rice in a rice cooker to steam. chop up your choppables and put corn and beans in a microwave container to cook with some water.

Saute the Quorn chicken bits with some taco seasoning and assemble your masterpiece according to how disgustingly full you want to feel afterwards.

In a large soup bowl layer:

Rice

Cheese

Beans/corn

Quorn

Cilantro/onions 

anything else you like

salsa

maybe a dollup of sour creme or greek yogurt on toppers

Now enjoy while zipped into a onesie and playing words with friends on an airplane.

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The Boot

We eat at the Fly Trap fairly regularly. They have a Rumble(which is a scramble egg or tofu scramble dish) that they call "The Boot". It is delicious! When we feel like not putting underwear on and leaving the house, we make it at home.

tofu

grape tomatoes

mini mozzerella balls

Fresh Basil

Garlic

Oregano

Firm Tofu, pressed and cubed into thumbnail sized cubes.

Olive Oil

Start by tossing some oil in a skillet and start some garlic minced in there for flavor.

Then add your Tofu cubes in there to cook for about 7 minutes. Cook until springy but not tough. At almost the end of cooking the Tofu, throw in the grape tomatoes that you have sliced in half. Add the mini mozzerella balls and fresh shredded basil with some salt pepper and a toss of oregano. stir up cheese and let it get a little melty. Serve with some damn pants and watch episodes of parks and rec whilst wrapped in a Non ironic snuggy. Pairs well with black coffee or leftover scotch.

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SHOW ME YOUR TOTS!

So at our house, Chris makes the tater tots. They are a critical element in many of our recipes. He is an excellent fryman. He prefers cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, and says to avoid crowding the pan, using nonstick! and dropping tots into hot oil. Advice: don't disturb them until you absolutely think they will burn. Then rotate them. and when you are satisfied, dump them onto paper towel. They are excellent burrito fillers. They are so amazing. I would send monks to go study how to prepare these properly. 

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Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes

Ok. Here is why the internet is amazing. If you want something to exist, you simply type what you wish to exist into your search bar and then the internet gives it to you. I made these cupcakes for my friend Julie Gold and Jeremy Walthers for their wedding this October. They might be the cupcake that changed my life. I can't be sure.

Here is the recipe. I tweak of course. It makes more than advertised.

Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes 2/3 cup all purpose flour 1/4 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp salt 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice 1 15-oz can pumpkin puree 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup brown sugar 2 large eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 3/4 cup evaporated milk

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Spray liners with Baker's Joy, these buggers want to stick to the paper. (let's be honest, that's never stopped me) In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin puree, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla and Evaporated milk until well combined. Plop in dry ingredients and mix until no streaks of flour remain and batter is smooth. I recommend a stand mixer. Fill each muffin cup with approximately 1/2 cup of batter. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool cupcakes in pan for like 3 minutes. They will sink as they cool Don't panic!! They are wrinkly and deflate-y. This means that custardization is occuring. Refrigerate. Top with my pumpkin pie buttercream and eat a dozen in secret while hiding from your family on Thanksgiving. Pairs well with Wild Turkey in a thermos.

Makes 12..er more like 15ish.

Pumpkin Pie Buttercream Frosting

one stick of earth balance Margarine (or butter) softened

2-3 Tablespoons of Shortening

3 cups of powdered sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 Tablespoon (yes) of pumpkin pie spice

4 Tablespoons (or so) of Soymilk or Milk milk

Ok SUPER EASY CHANGE FLAVORS FOR ANY BUTTERCREAM

Throw the buttery stuff in your stand mixture and whip that like the wicked. Slowly add vanilla, and then with the mixer on start adding powdered sugar in 1 cup at a time until thick and as soon as you are convinced you have screwed up, start drizzling milk into the bowl as your monster whirls around at medium speed. The milk all brings it together, add more milk if it doesn't look frosting-esque enough. Top your cupcakes by dumping it in a freezer bag and cutting the tip off, then squeeze it onto your new favorite dessert, like a sugary 8 ball on top your Friday night! Frosting pairs well with UV cake vodka.

This recipe was discovered on Bakingbites.com 

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Yes we mexi-can! Breakfast Tacos

This qualifies as breakfast for dinner, breakfast for breakfast and maybe one of our favorite meals to make together. Sometimes we do it vegan and sometimes not. Eh, whatever strikes us that day.

Roast quartered potatoes in oven after drizzlin olive oil, salt and peppering, and my favorite herbs du provence..or just rosemary if you don't have HdP. for 20-30 minutes at around 400

Tofu scramble tacos

1 brick of extra firm tofu

black beans

tomatoes

cheese or vegan cheese

sour cream/soy sour cream/greek yogurt

corn if you likes

avocado if you likes

green onions

tortillas

black olives

Turmeric/assrtd spices

Heat a pan up, add a glug* of olive oil and crumble the entire brick of tofu into the pan.

season w salt and pepper, add 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric(makes it golden)

1/2 teaspoon of cumin and a 1/2 tsp of chili or cayanne powder and a little onion powder. (all to taste) Let it cook until springy/bouncy but not tough (about 5-10 minutes)

Slice up the taco goodies and decorate that beautiful white moon of tortilla with enough of the good stuff. Stuff your face and then go ride bikes all day. I also highly recommend shoving some roasted taters in that  bad lad as well.

This was the first thing we did with Tofu that we found tasted really good, until then I kind of hated tofu. This way is good, it feels like scrambled eggs and tastes a little zippy.

Can also be made as breakfast NACHOS! rain that breakfast glory all over a bed of chips and melt in a hot oven for like 5 mins. So freaking good.

**note, a "glug" of olive oil refers to the noise that my oil dispenser makes when pouring into the pan. It's a container that I keep on the counter that has a metal pour spout. It probly measures to around a teaspoon per noise.

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Pizza, the Redux!

So my family started trash talking each other and created this ridiculous food themed contest at our family vacation up north. There was a mexican theme, an Irish theme, lots of alcohol and pinatas etc. I just wanted to make pizza. So we did, here are the kinds of pizza that we made and BBQed on the grill.

Barbecue Chicken pizza-shredded sunday roaster, coated in stubbs bbq sauce

Caesar Salad Pizza-romaine, caesar dressing, croutons, parmesean

Hawaiian Pizza-pineapple, panceatta, ham

Dessert Pizza-fruit and cream cheese and a glaze

Pepperoni Pizza-giant pepps the size of Pam Anderson's nips

Mac and cheese Pizza-see previous post

Greek Pizza-olives, feta, dressing, red onion

Margherita Pizza-basil tomates and baby tiny mozzerrellaaas

Spinach and artichoke Pizza-obvie...

Needless to say throw in some Chuck Berry on an ipod and consider the family jealous because we won that shit! that's right, after serious judging and rubrics and shit we were declared unanimous winners. suck it.

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MAC AND CHEESE PIZZA!

Also known as perhaps the best drunk night food ever!

1.Use awesome pizza crust recipe earlier in the bloggo!

2.Make Kraft Mac and cheese and make it good!

3. Cut up as many hot dogs as you wish/have the energy for.

4. Dump Mac and cheese on crust, scatter hot dogs like rose petals all over

5. Swizzle mustard and Ketchup on top back and forth of the pizza.

6. Enjoy pizza. store extra slices on your chest until you are ready to eat them- this saves valuable trips to the kitchen.

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Sushi at 11pm..

So we like to make sushi, however it is usually at a reasonable hour. We ended up eating our mini feast at about 11pm. We also brought back the fake shrimp for a revisit to test it's ability to blend in with our little goodies like spicy mayo avocados and sesame.

The Verdict: 

The size and spiciness was preferable to the giant rolls sometimes sushi places try to throw me. I did like the "shrimp" it seemed pretty damn shrimpy. I do miss the little tail still. Overall I feel like sushi, at least homemade rolls are pretty locked down. I plan on mastering the tempura next.

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Po Boys! Mo Boys!

This is my new favorite for the summer. What is better than sourdough toast with a not too vinegary chipotle slaw and then a giant surfboard of a pickle topping a delicately battered with a chili lime cornmeal crust, fried lightly until the tofu tastes like fish?..I didn't believe it could taste like that until I had it in my mouth. It was a holy shit moment.

I don't like coleslaw, I avoided pickles on sandwiches and I wasn't too fond of frying tofu. All of it, on paper seemed like it could be a mistake. However, instead it was so lovely, we grabbed dill pickles, garlic cloves and whatever we could and battered and fried that too. I think it works because it's got heat, and texture and the right balance of sweetness and acidity to make all those doubts of mine go away. Shit is so damn good.

Here's the crust recipe, go forth and fry away!

1 Cup of fine cornmeal

2 Tbsp of Chili pow pow

1 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp cayanne

1 1/2 tsp salt

zest of one lime

Dunk your fry-ables in a small bowl of soy milk w/ a touch of cornstarch stirred in, then roll your lovelies around in the crusty crust and, finally without crowding the pan, fry till crispy and drain on a paper towel.

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Bad salad! No Salad No!

Ay yai! I promised to post the messes too and this one inspired that giant food waste guilt. A huge pasta salad, a recipe experimented and many an avocado wasted. It looked pretty but tasted of shit. instead of a mayo based pasta salad dressing the recipe called for avocados instead- I thought healthy fats and nice color, what I forgot was, avocados oxidize and what we had was a tasteless brown mess that I had to over salt so badly that i didn't even use the sprinkle side, but the pour spout! As my dear friend, Rob would say "Buh!" 

Again, this was a disaster and the beans were a let down. I won't blame the beans. I blame myself. Sorry internet.

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Summer means Pies, Pies, Pies!

I tend to talk a LOT of shit-that might be printed on my tombstone someday. All week I have been saying that I would make my friend a pie for his birthday and my other friend a pie to celebrate his visiting. I only got off my ass to do it this last weekend and they turned out great. The unfortunate side effect of  making pies in 99 degree weather is what we like to call the butter sweats.  For pie crust to be awesome the butter has to be really cold and when your hot kitchen and your superwarm hands get in the mix you have to work fast. So I made super quick work of 2 lattice crust pies. By the way, lattice crust pies are supes easy to make. So I came out with a cherry and an apple pie that hopefully they loved!

In other news, I bet my best friend Mike 100$ that I wouldn't drink before October 31st. If we both win, I keep my cash...good thing I'm going on a family vacation in 2 weeks with 20 or so family members.

lastly, we have made peace with cheese and the Troubles are over. I will now occasionally cook with it, which should vastly improve the look of the coming posts. I am sure my family will have much rejoicing because they were greatly against such a folly.

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Faux Slow's...BBQ Sammich and Slaw

We went to Slow's BBQ in Detroit last week and it was life changing. They had these amazing sandwiches called the Genius and it was fake chicken with their own mystery barbeque and hot toast and pickles with coleslaw. It has been in our subconscious all weekend. So tonight after a grueling grocery shopping tour, we made our own version.

Quorn tenders sauteed in a pan and then Trader Joe's BBQ sauce tossed over it.

Sourdough toast

Slaw made with, slaw mix, Miracle whip, vinegar, paprika, salt and pepper, and dijon mustard. (note I don't even like coleslaw, but this was awesome)

and dill pickle slices- Only Dill no bread and butter shit.

the perfect sweet and sour-ness. The warm, gooey, who-cares-if-it's-in-your-hair-by-the-end-of-it attitude it inspires, who cares? You have sandwich to consume. 

Really do make this sometime, it's well worth it and it's the kind of meal that is too filling to even have room for sides, but if I were a competitive eater, I would serve this will grilled corn or potato salad.

As a housekeeping note, I have decided to start using my SLR to photograph, bc really, why the hell not.

bone your appetite!

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Crazy Eyed NACHOS!

Veggie Crumbles AKA "Crum Bums"

Veggie Teese cheese

Toppins-we use salsa, black olives, scallions etc.

Snyder of Hanover Chipins

This might be one of our favorite meals of all time. Cook under the broiler and make crazy faces whilst you wait for your delicious meal. The perfect amount of saltiness and spice, I just can't get enough, as you can see by my face.

A nice pairing would be the new mixed drink I sort of invented. Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper and YES CAKE flavored vodka! It tastes like red velvet cake. 

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FAKE SHRIMP!?!

ok ok I know, I know. It sounds like the worst idea ever to put this in my mouth. I have never ever tried it before, but I know damn well how delicious actual shrimp is, so this was likely to be a losing gamble.

The test:

It was not starting out well due to the weird smell that issued from the bag. I plopped 2 entire tablestpoons of butter in a pan and when it got crispy, I dropped them in with a little garlic salt. I let the little fake shrimp take a bath in the butter for a bit. 

The result:

I tasted a weird slightly off sweetness that I knew was "an additive" but the texture was decidedly shrimpy (HOW DO THEY DO THAT!) it must be witchcraft. Overall response for us was "well I've eaten worse fake meat products."

In short, this shrimp experience was well, I would eat this in something, like fettucini alfredo etc.. but not just thrown on a grill. You also have to suspend your knowledge that you are eating a preformed-processed shrimp flavored white food product. If you can let go of that-then go for it.

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Yesterday I wanted Chris to cook because I was exhausted from playing DefJam's RapStar that he bought for $10!! He made grilled vegan cheese sandwiches with delicious Sourdough bread, optioned with chipotle potato salad, onion dip, chips and pickles! It was so delicious my sandwich was gone before his plate even hit the table. We as a couple believe in the sanctity of making grilled cheese with only sourdough bread. It's just the best. Then we went to dairy queen and I had a Peanut butter bash-then I suffered a chocolate peanut butter black out and don't remember what happened for a bit. When I awoke my wallet was gone.-just kidding.

I remember Chris saying something we say a lot

Chris-"you know what would make this sandwich even better?"

Me-"Cheese.."

Chris-"Yeah"

That's a brief summary of where we are dietarily with what I am callously calling "the cheese troubles".