Nummy Mozzarella Sticks

This recipe is actually kind of hard. It is easy to get the ingredients set up, but then it all goes straight to hell from there. Seriously though, you should still try it.

Ingredients

12 sticks of string cheese or 12 pieces of mozzarella cut into 4 x 1/2 inch sticks

1 1/2 cups breadcrumbs
4 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
4 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour

The first time I tried this recipe, I used fresh mozzarella. Mmm. Have you ever tried it? It is so effin good. Those Italians really know what they're doing. I ate a decent amount of it while I was making the cheese sticks. I couldn't help it!

Usually fresh mozzarella comes in sealed plastic packaging and it is about the size of a baseball. I was going to grab one of those, but then I saw one that looked elongated so that it looked great for my cheese sticks!!

 

Like this.

So I got it. It actually turned out to be really annoying to cut up cause it had some pre-made cuts that made it fall apart really easily. It wasn't too TOO difficult, but I just made a second batch and I used individually packaged cheese sticks. The first step is to "dredge" the mozzarella sticks aka. drag them through all of the ingredients, beginning with the flour. I thought that the flour wouldn't stick as well to the cheese sticks, but I was wrong. I couldn't really tell a difference.

Ok so for this first part, the dredging, I used pie plates and cake pans. I set up my little workstation like an assembly line and it worked pretty well. The first pan is just straight flour. The 2nd is the eggs, slightly beaten. The third pan is the breadcrumbs, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper mixed together. So do all of that.

 Voila.

Remember at the beginning when I said this recipe was hard and it went straight to hell? It was somewhere around this eggy portion.

 

Right about....meow.

See how there are little random bits of flour throughout the plate? I'd think the pieces were entirely coated in the egg and then I'd turn it once and the egg would just like.... evaporate! Yea that sounds right. Eggs are known to evaporate at will. So yea, I had to keep turning and turning the pieces in the egg and then there were still bare spots. So I had to rub some egg on there with my fingers. It got messy.

After the egg, dredge the cheese in the breadcrumb mixture. Easy. Then once you have done this with all of your pieces, repeat the whole process. UGH!!! This measure is to make sure that the cheese is entirely coated, because otherwise the cheese could seep out while you are frying them and you end up with an empty shell and some cheese floating around in the fryer. And that would be a waste of all of your hard work!!

My near-finished product. Prettay prettay prettay good.

Now sadly, you must put your cheese sticks in the freezer for at least 2 hours. I know. It'll be ok.

After 2+ hours, you may cook your cheese sticks. We have a deep fryer, so we used that on 350. If you don't have one, you can cook them in a large pot with Canola oil. The instructions for that are on the original website here. They also have a buttermilk dip that goes with the cheese sticks, but I made it and it didn't taste that great. Then again I substituted about half of the fresh ingredients with crappy seasoning so that might have... everything to do with it.

Sorry there are no post-fryer pics. They just didn't last long enough. We dipped them in marinara and it was heavenly. Bellissimo!

Also, in case I haven't sold you yet, maybe a review from Senior Food Critic Meredith "BigJugs" DeViney will do it - "Delicous [sic] yes melty." Well you heard it straight from the Hawk's mouth! Now go out and get you some!!

Update: I was able to take a picture with Dennis' phone of my awesome 2nd batch. I cut the mozzarella sticks in half before I dredged them. Here they are on a plate with some marinara sauce. Mmm...

High Class Mac & Cheese

Or as Dennis calls it, "Mac & Chee." Saves so much time.

I got this recipe from a website called FoodGawker. I don't know anything about it, except that judging from the name and the part of the site I was at, that it has a lot to do with looking at pictures of food. Or judging food by how good it looks in those pictures. Either way, I saw this page that was the "Most Favorited All-Time" of FoodGawker's picture/recipes. The pictures are fantastic! They make mine look like dog food. Delicious dog food!

I call this high class mac & cheese because it uses cheese other than Velveeta. Not that there's anything wrong with Velveeta, but I am a cheese connoisseur (I wish) so I love getting "nice" cheeses when I can afford it. This recipe calls for some specific cheese that I don't even know how to get, so I made some substitutions. It's cheese, for cryin out loud! It all tastes great and gets melty when you heat it up so I say if it tastes good, I can substitute it.

Ingredients
8 oz penne pasta (half a box)
2 cups of cheese sauce (see recipe below)
1 oz cheddar, grated
1 oz Havarti, grated
1/2 tsp chili powder

The way this recipe is set up was kind of confusing to me. I had to scroll back and forth which I despise (!) but never fear, I am going to try to fix this issue. Maybe. I'm just going to try to write it the way I wish it was written. Don't get your hopes up too high though.

First, cook your pasta. Get a pot of water boiling and pour half of the box into the pot. Stir it a little, set the timer for 9 minutes, then start your cheese sauce. Here is where I interject that now would be a fine time to preheat your oven to 350!

Ingredients for Cheese Sauce
1/4 c butter
1/3 c flour
3 c milk
14 oz cheddar, grated
1 oz gorgonzola, grated
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp chili powder

Melt the butter on medium heat in a large saucepan. And I do mean large - you will be adding all of your ingredients to this pan. In hindsight, a pot might be better. Once the butter is melted, slowly add the flour and stir for 2 minutes. This mixture is called a roux aka a thickener for sauces.

Add the milk one cup at a time, stirring constantly until it is thick, about 10 minutes. The mixture is now called a béchamel sauce, which is a white sauce used in many Italian dishes. You didn't know you would be learning today, did you!?

 

Béchamel!

Remove from heat and stir in the cheeses, salt, garlic powder, and chili powder until it is all nice and melted together. Set aside.

 

Cheese sauce. Nomnomnom.

Now hopefully this process did not take longer than 9 minutes. Otherwise, your pasta will have overcooked! This is why you set the timer. Well, I dunno about you but this is why I set the timer, anyway. So you should drain your pasta and rinse it with cold water. Then mix 2 cups of the cheese sauce in a medium bowl with the pasta.

 

You wish you could multitask this well.

BEWARE! I say 2 cups! The whole mixture is 4 cups. Why the recipe says to make 2x the amount needed, I don't know. But I made the mistake of pouring it all into the bowl. This is what I was talking about with the recipe being confusing. I didn't want anyone else to make that mistake and have to fish 2 cups of cheese sauce out without getting any penne. It was really hard, man!

Ok so now you butter your 8x8 Pyrex pan and pour your mixture into it. Sprinkle the rest of the shredded cheese and chili sauce on top and pop it in the oven for 20-30 minutes. I picked 30 and it was awesome.

Pre-oven.

 

Post-oven. What a difference 30 minutes makes! (at 350)

Thanks to Joe at My Cooking Quest for the recipe. Here is the original link. Don't forget to lift your pinky when you eat it.

My Very First Banana Bread

So I went grocery shopping this past week and bananas were on my list. I should have seen a red flag when there were hardly any bananas left, but I picked some that looked pretty good to me and moved on. When I got home and tried to put them up on the banana hook, one just fell right off. Oops. Then another one had already broken open. Then Dennis just said to hell with them and that he doesn't want to eat them, so I decided to make banana bread.

I have never made banana bread before, but I have made pumpkin bread a lot so I thought I could handle it. The ingredients were quite simple, as was the recipe.

Ingredients
3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

The recipe says that you don't even need a mixer for this & that you can just use a spoon, but that sounds like more work. So I used my hand mixer.

First preheat the oven to 350. Then mix the bananas and butter together, then add the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Once they are all mixed together well, add the baking soda and salt, and lastly the flour. OMG wasn't that easy?

Pour the mixture into a buttered 4x8 loaf pan and put it in the oven for 70 minutes. I just tried a little piece and it tastes great. The recipe is hard to screw up though, so that is not saying a lot about my cooking. Seriously though, I am a great cook and this bread is going to feed Dennis for a week. Also, I can't find my camera right now you'll have to settle for this terrible picture I took with my computer:

And yes there is a piece missing. So what?! Leave me alone!!

The original recipe from SimplyRecipes.com.