Guacamole by Mortar & Pestle

Last weekend Dennis and I met my parents for dinner at this Mexican restaurant called El Dorado. My dad ordered some guacamole and the waitress actually wheeled out a cart and made it for us at the table. It was pretty awesome, and Dennis was very taken with it. I deduced it after he asked me to get us a mortar & pestle while I was at Marshalls this week. I have mad deduction skills!

I got us some stuff to make guacamole and so tonight we made it. I learned from the recipe that guacamole comes from two Aztec Nahuatl words - ahuacatl & molli, or "avocado sauce." Interesting stuff!

Ingredients
2 avocados
1/3 red onion
1-2 hot peppers (I used 1 jalapeno and 1 purple coffee pepper)
2 tbsp cilantro leaves, finely chopped
1 tbsp lime juice
1/2 tsp salt
Dash of pepper
1/2 tomato (about 1/4 cup)

This is pretty basic. Just put all of the ingredients in the bowl and mash them up! If you don't have a mortar & pestle then you can use a fork to smash up the avocado. My dad told me to watch the waitress cut up the avocado, which was great because she did it way more quickly and efficiently than I used to. Well, never again!

She sliced it in half, longways around the seed. Then to remove the seed, she just whacked it with the knife so it got stuck, then pulled it out with the knife.

Neato!

Once the seed was out, Dennis just scooped the avocado out with a spoon and dumped it into the mortar. Then he started pestling.

Action shot!

Close up

 Then we added all the other ingredients and pestled some more. Annnnd scene!

This guacamole was pretty awesome and very easy to make. One quick tip - the recipe said don't add the tomatoes until right before they are being served. I'm guessing the tomatoes go bad more quickly than the rest of the ingredients. We put half of the recipe in a tupperware in the fridge, then added the tomato to the rest and pestled that as well.

Here is the link to the original recipe.

Sweet Potato Fries

Today I went to Whole Foods, or as my dad calls it - Whole Paychecks. HA! I have a $100 gift card there which is the only reason I went... otherwise I dunno if I could afford it. Actually it is not that bad because I try to only buy produce. If I bought half of the crap they sell there I would have burned through that $100 by now, but shockingly I have gone twice and STILL have money left over. Boo ya!

While I was shopping I realized I was getting a little hungry and I was in the mood for some sweet potato chips. I grabbed the least expensive bag and held off til I got back to my car to chow down. Mmm they were yummy. Then I thought, why don't I just make my own fries at home? I have a sweet potato at home leftover from another recipe so I thought it would be a piece of cake. So I read a bunch of recipes to make chips that all said the chips had to be cut super-thin. Then I decided since I suck at cutting things that I should try to make fries instead.

The commenters on the recipes for fries all bemoaned the fact that the fries never quite got crispy enough, even after various creative changes to the recipes. I had wanted to bake the fries, but everyone said they just turn out mushy so I decided I'd have to give in and use the deep fryer. Someone suggested that you soak the fries in ice water before you put them in the fryer because it removes some of the starch, which I guess means that starch = no crispy. However, if you do this MAKE SURE you dry the fries off before you put them in the fryer. Water + hot oil = big mess.

Chillin... heh heh.

I remembered that my uncle Blake gave me a tip recently that I had totally forgotten about. He said the trick is to fry the sweet potato fries once at 350 for a few minutes, remove them, then fry them again for a few minutes at 375. I couldn't remember what times he said so I kind of just played it by ear. My fries turned out browner than I would've liked, but they were crispy. I think next time I will have to cut them a little bigger and adjust my fry time.

I ate them with some salt, ketchup, and malt vinegar. They were pretty tasty. I'll try this again and update with the results if they turn out any better.

Pineapple Salsa, with 1/3 ingredients homegrown!

Ok so it only has 6 ingredients, but whatever, just let me have this.

I already posted this recipe here but I just wanted to add a new post bragging about being able to add ingredients from my garden. The old recipe calls for serrano pepper, but I just used cayenne and purple Trinidad peppers because, does it really matter? I don't think so.

I went out to my garden and clipped 2 purple peppers and a ton of cilantro. I knew I was going to have to pick through it because some of the leaves looked a little... meh.

This is what I had to work with.

It wasn't that difficult to find some good usable leaves, but I saw some creepy crawlies in there so I had to wash them thoroughly.

This detailed process consisted of me stirring the leaves around in some water with my finger. Then I strained them and did it again several times. I'm sure I got them nice and clean...and if not, this salsa has more protein in it than I bargained for.

I washed and pitted the cayenne and purple peppers, but I only ended up using 2 cayenne and half of one purple pepper because it was soooo hot. I thought if I used more it might be unbearably hot, and if not, I can always add more later.

Here's my finished product.

I'll be eating it on top of some salmon tomorrow. Nomnomnom!

Zucchini Bread - made with zucchini from MY GARDEN OMG

First of all, I picked a big banana pepper today and chopped it up for Dennis to put on his sandwich for lunch tomorrow. Go me.

Before that though, I grabbed that purple pepper and sliced it in half. I wasn't sure when it would be ready so I just picked one to test it out. I stuck my tongue out and barely touched the pepper and YOWZA it was hot. I have heard that the smaller peppers are hotter, but it must've slipped my mind momentarily. I'm not sure what to do with it!! I guess I can make salsa but it would be like... one of those things where people would have to sign a waiver before they eat it.

Anyways, I decided on a whim that I was going to make zucchini bread. Dennis' mom gave us some last year and I had never tried it before. I was apprehensive, but it turned out to be delicious. I found a recipe and whipped up a batch. It is in the oven right now.

Pictured: zucchini & the dissected purple pepper

The recipe I found called for 2 cups of grated zucchini but I didn't think I had enough. Mine was 7.5 inches but it only made 1 cup grated, so I halved the entire recipe.

Then I mixed all the other shiz up.

Ingredients

1 3/4 c all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

1 c white sugar
1/2 c vegetable oil

1 c grated zucchini 

So whisk together the first 5 ingredients - all the dry ingredients but the sugar. Preheat the oven to 350.

In a separate large bowl, beat the eggs, then slowly add in the sugar, then the oil. Slowly add the flour and zucchini, alternating between them. PS. This tastes INCREDIBLE. The original recipe calls for walnuts and raisins, but I am allergic to walnuts and I don't like adding raisins to my bakery items, except for oatmeal cookies and that's only for my dad!!

Grease a 4x8 pan and pour the mixture in. Bake for 65 minutes.

Batter at 0 minutes in the oven...

Batter at 65 minutes in the oven!

I just realized that I was supposed to add vanilla extract, but I missed that part of the directions because it was combined with the walnuts & raisins. The batter was so delicious and the amount of vanilla extract was so small (1/4 tsp) that I don't think it is going to matter. If you want to add the vanilla extract, just add it to the batter last, right before you put it in the oven.

Update: I wanted the recipe to look greener this time, so I used a lot more zucchini, probably 1 and 3/4 cups, while leaving the rest of the recipe the same... except the mixture looked a little too runny when it was ready to go in so I added some extra flour and sugar. I probably added about a cup of flour and 1/2 cup of sugar. Next time I make it, which should be soon (my garden is blowin up, I tell you!), I'll try to get some more exact measurements. Also, I baked it for 80 minutes at 350.

Here's the recipe I used from Allrecipes.com.

Grilled Portobello Sandwich

Aight. This one is a little tricky. I have made it twice so far, and of course no pictures - but I do have one portobello mushroom left so maybe I will remember to take pictures on the 3rd try. *Update - I finally took pictures on the 4th mushroom. Go me!* This tastes awesome and it is really filling. It is a great dinner idea for someone who is trying to go temporarily vegetarian (me). Dennis even ate one. Amazing.

Ingredients

1 red bell pepper

salt and black pepper to taste

1/2 cup olive oil

2 portobello mushroom caps, cleaned

2 slices onion

2 Kaiser rolls, split

4 tsp mayonnaise

1 tsp roasted garlic

2 ounces mozzarella, thinly sliced

2 slices tomato

First step - roast the red pepper. Put it on the grill and turn it until the whole thing is blackened. Should be around 15 minutes.

While your red pepper is roasting, mix the olive oil with the salt & pepper. Brush the mixture on top of the mushroom and then on the underside, including the...gills. *shudder* Man those creep me out.

 Gills are less freaky when you have a super helper dog in the kitchen.

The first time we made these sandwiches, we used the grill but it was kind of difficult and annoying, so the 2nd time I used the broiler. I put the portobello and onion on my pizza stone in the oven and put the broiler on low and let them sit for a few minutes. I flipped the portobello, left the onion alone, and let them sit for another few minutes on low. Then I flipped the mushroom again and placed a piece of mozzarella cheese on top, then put the broiler on HIGH. YEAAA!!

Onion and mushroom chillin on the pizza stone.

Ok so at this point, your mushroom and onions should be doing well. Also at this point, your red pepper should be blackened. Put it in a bowl and cover it with a lid, then leave it be for a few minutes. Now go put your kaiser rolls (open-faced) in the oven under the broiler so they can get nice and toasty. One more thing - real quick like, go mix up that mayo and garlic to make a sort of, what do you call it... oh right, garlic mayonnaise.

 My garlic mayo. Mmm.

Do you see how tough it is to juggle all of these ingredients!? Yikes. Check on the roll and the mozzarella. Don't let the roll get burnt, but wait until the mozzarella is melty or else it will be cold and taste weird. Once you have found that happy medium, take everything out. Spread the garlic mayo on the roll, then pile the rest of your ingredients on. Don't forget the tomato! Nomnomnom.

Here is the original link from Allrecipes.com.

Leftover tip: I roasted a whole red pepper and put the leftovers in the fridge, so the 2nd time I made this sandwich I tossed the red pepper on the pizza stone at the same time as the mushroom and onion to heat it up. Works like a charm!

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.

Holiday Sugar Cookies!! with Icing!!

YAY! I love sugar cookies. I mean really good sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles and nonpareils! Some sprinkles are called nonpareils, btw. So I love sugar cookies, and it's the holiday season and the Christmas season, so naturally I thought I needed to make some. Also, my mom gave me some cute cookie cutters last year so I just had to use them!

Seriously, how precious are these?

Ok back to what's really important... the cookies. I found a recipe for soft sugar cookies because I just hate hard crunchy cookies. Sugar cookies are usually pretty thin so it can be easy for them to be crunchy. This recipe is right on the money. 24 hours later, the cookies are still soft and chewy.

Ingredients

3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

+1 cup all-purpose flour for rolling the dough

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups white sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine the flour, baking powder, & salt in a bowl. Easy. In a separate large bowl, combine the butter and sugar with a mixer until it is all creamy or something. The recipe said light and fluffy... sorry but my understanding of butter and sugar does not lend itself to being light and fluffy. So make it creamy! Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla extract, and then add the flour mixture slowly. Mix well. Or else.

Oh and preheat the oven to 400. Unless you want to go by the recipe, in which case you will need to chill the dough for 2 hours. What these lame-os don't realize is that there is this great invention, the freezer, which did the job for me in about 15 minutes. Haha, suckers.

This next part requires some finesse. I hope you have a rolling pin. You'll need a clean flat surface to roll the dough out. Sprinkle a handful of flour on the surface and drop 1/4 of your dough on it. Knead the dough and sprinkle some more flour over your dough until it's no longer sticky. Roll out the dough until it is only 1/4 inch thick. If the dough sticks to your rolling pin, sprinkle some flour on and rub it in like you are waxing a car.

Once you have rolled out your dough, start cookie cutting! Try to utilize as much of your dough as you can by putting the shapes close together. Make sure you press down with your whole palm so they cut all the way through.

My workstation

Ok! So now you need to grease up some cookie sheets. I put a dab of butter in the pan and then rub it around with a paper towel. There should be a thin layer of butter coating the pan. To get the cookies up, I find it is best to get a spatula under each cookie and lift it without disturbing the other cookies. Pull away any dough that sticks to the cookie, then grab the cookie and put it on the cookie sheet. I tried to arrange them extremely closely together to get as many as possible on a single sheet.

Put the cookie sheet into the oven for 6 minutes. It's so fast! Use this time to whip up some icing.

 
Ingredients

1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

3 tablespoons butter, softened

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon milk

food color (optional)
sprinkles (optional)

Mix the first 4 ingredients together. I'm sure it can be done by hand, but why would you? Psh. Once you have a big bowl of white icing, you can separate it into smaller bowls and make different colors.

The first batch of icing I made was a little funky looking. It looked like it was trying to separate on me, so my instinct was to throw some more powdered sugar in there. It worked.

The rest is all up to you. Some people have nifty little guns and whatnot to apply the icing, but poor little old me just used the bottom of a spoon. I find it easiest to hold the cookie in one hand and apply with the other, rather than trying to ice the cookie while it is laying on a flat surface. Also, make sure you put any sprinkles on before the icing has time to dry. If you are lucky, your cookies will look like mine because my cookies are da bomb.

This is the spot where the photo of my cookies should appear. This photo is supposed to make you froth at the mouth because it looks so delectable. Well my macbook decided to suck and deny me my pictures. I will figure out this error and put up a picture of the finished product.

Happy baking!

Cookie recipe & icing recipe - both from AllRecipes.com.

Pumpkin Crème Brûlée

Ugh, so many accents and whatnot. That's the last time you'll be seeing the correct spelling with all of the bells and whistles cause I simply don't have the energy for all of that copy and paste action.

I'm not sure whether I should be telling this story, but ahh here goes.

A few weekends ago, Dennis & I went to the Waterfowl Festival in Easton with my mom. We walked around and looked at stuff and it was a grand ole time. It was a lovely day outside, so we stopped to eat lunch at General Tanukis, one of my favorite restaurants.

At this point I should also mention that we had Dexter in tow. So the four of us are sitting at this table with plenty of people passing by. Some people are scared of Dexter and take a wide berth, but others are friendly and want to pet and play with him. Dexter spent his time either drinking water from a bowl on the ground or sitting under the table waiting for scraps. For a few brief moments, he was sitting in a chair but he got a little too feisty so he had to dismount.

Near the end of our meal, Dennis decided to let Dexter sit in his lap. At this point, some kindly old folks stopped to chat and pet Dexter. Oh boy, was Dexter excited!! So excited that he just couldn't help himself and he managed to pee all over Dennis' lap. Dennis yelled some expletives, scaring the old people and my mom... and probably Dexter too. So there Dennis is, covered in pee. It was sad.

The worst part (and the point of this story) is that Dennis really wanted to get some pumpkin creme brulee. We had met up with my dad at General Tanukis the year before and happened upon this delectable dessert during the holiday season. Dennis had spoken of it several times throughout the year, and the second that we got our menus that very day, he checked for and located the very same pumpkin creme brulee. However, once the urincident occurred (see what I did, I combined urine & incident!! he he!!), Dennis said the day was ruined and since we couldn't get the dessert to go, Dennis had no pumpkin creme brulee. :(

He was really bummed out and I was bummed out for him, so I took it upon myself to recreate this dessert at home. He had a terrible day today so I picked a good day to surprise him. He said it was "good." So get ready for some "good" pumpkin creme brulee!!

Ingredients

3 cups heavy cream

1 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1/2 teaspoons salt

3/4 cups granulated sugar

1/4 cups granulated sugar, additional

8 large egg yolks

1 15 oz. can pumpkin puree

The original recipe actually calls for dark Jamaican rum as well, but I just don't have those kinds of resources, people. Anyway, combine the first 4 ingredients in a saucepan. The recipe says use a 4 quart sauce pan but how big is that? I just used my biggest pan that wasn't a pot, if that makes any sense. So whisk those ingredients together and then put the pan over medium heat until bubbles form around the edge of the mixture. I didn't really know how to interpret that, especially since the bubbles formed in the middle, so I just removed it from the heat when I saw bubbles. Done deal. This would also be a good time to preheat your oven to 325.

While your mixture is heating, you should crack 8 eggs and save those yolks, yall! I saved the whites too, just because I hate waste. I save the smallest amount of leftovers and Dennis makes fun of me, but last time I saved egg whites I ate them for breakfast the next morning so, suck it Dennis. Anyway, mix the egg yolks with the pumpkin puree using a whisk. Once your first mixture is bubbly, slowly mix it into the pumpkin/egg yolk mixture. I didn't do it slowly, I just poured it all in and they still came out fine so take that as you will.

Once your mixture is well blended, you should pour it equally into 12 little ramekins. I should be so lucky. I don't own ramekins so I had to improvise. I bought 2 aluminum cupcake tins, each holding 6 cupcakes. Of course that wasn't even enough... why would Good Housekeeping lie to me? I think I could make about 6 more, so unless you have larger than average ramekins, I would guess that this recipe actually makes 18.

Now here is the tricky part - these ramekins need to be in a water bath. Have you ever heard of that? I haven't but I'm sure there's some amazing scientific reason behind it. You have to place them into a cake pan and then fill the pan with boiling water until the ramekins are about halfway submerged. This presented a problem for me because I decided to use a 9x13 cake pan (ok) and a 9x9 cake pan (not ok). Luckily, aluminum is very bendy and I was able to fit 8 into the big pan and 4 into the small one. Here's a terrible picture:

See how it's all bendy on top? Also you can't really see the water on top, but on the bottom one you can see the reflection of the oven rack above.

The recipe says cook at 325 for 30-40 minutes, but I cooked the smaller one for 40 and the bigger one for 35. It wasn't strategic or anything, it just took me 5 whole minutes to situate my "ramekins" in their water bath in the larger one. Sheesh.

The recipe says to remove the ramekins from the water and let them cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for at least 3 hours. I, of course, cut corners and put them straight into the fridge. After approximately 3 hours (probably less) I took 2 out and sprinkled "1.5 teaspoons" of sugar on top. I have no idea how much it actually was. I put the broiler on high and moved a rack up to the top space in the oven, then put the ramekins in for 2 minutes. They were pretty awesome.

Here's my finished product with a few bites taken out of it. Oops. Didn't grab my camera fast enough. The muffin pan thing worked out pretty well. I'd do it again. I'm going to take the leftover batter to my mom's house this weekend and pray that she owns real ramekins. She is like, Martha Stewart incarnate, so she will definitely own ramekins. She called Martha Stewart a prostitute a few weekends ago, but that is a story for another time.

The original recipe is from the Good Housekeeping site. Ciao!

Meghan's World Famous Chicken Noodle Soup That I Made For the First Time

Holy crap, I have not written anything in awhile. But I haven't really made anything worth writing about in awhile, so what are you gonna do. Dennis was feeling sick last week so I made it my business to make him some chicken noodle soup.

Of course I forgot to take pictures even though I had plenty of opportunities. I made a huge batch of soup and ate the leftovers for days, and still I didn't think to pick up a camera. Well lucky for you, I made so much that I had to freeze some of the broth and therefore another opportunity will present itself soon. Byah!

I perused a couple different recipes to help me with this soup but it was mostly to gauge the timing so I'm not even going to dignify them with a link. That's right - I'm taking sole credit!!

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
15ish chicken bouillon cubes
1 bag of baby carrots
1 white/yellow onion
1 bunch of celery
1 bag of egg noodles
salt & pepper to taste

Fun fact: Did you know that celery, carrots, & onions are considered the "holy trinity" of French cuisine? The French term is a "mirepoix," or a mixture of chopped vegetables usually used as a base for soups, stews, and sauces. Fun stuff!

I headed into this endeavor with an open mind for experimentation, so my directions are going to be approximate. I think it is really hard to screw up this soup but maybe you all can prove me wrong. :) First things first... get a big ole pot. I have no idea how big mine was.. it was a large pot about 1 foot tall. I filled it up 3/4 of the way to the top, keeping in mind that I was going to have to leave room for the ingredients.

I brought the water to a boil and put a good amount of salt in it. Well that doesn't really help you at all, does it? A good amount could mean anything. Ever seen one of these doohickeys?

These contraptions dispense my salt and pepper because I am high society. So when I say I put a good amount of salt in the water, I mean I cracked the salt grinder about ten times. You could say I put 10 pinches of salt in there. Where was I? Oh yes, the water.

So when the water is boiling, I dropped 2 chicken breasts in there along with 15 bouillon cubes. I say 15, but that is really just a guess. I had no idea how many to use so I just kept adding them until I felt at peace with my chicken broth. I also didn't cut the fat away from the chicken because well, I'm just that lazy. But don't worry I did it later. I let the chicken boil for 10 minutes, then I took it out and checked it with the thermometer every ten minutes until it read the USDA approved temperature of 165 degrees. Then I removed it from the water and cubed it. THEN I cut the fat away. Twist ending.

At this point, you should bring the water down to a simmer, and there should be some fat or oil floating on the top of your water. Use a spoon or a mesh strainer thingy (like I did) to skim the fat from the water. Then you can put the now-cubed chicken back into the water and add your veggies!

I got a bag of baby carrots because I don't know why. Usually when you see carrots in soup they are cut up in little circles, right? Well, I just now came up with a reason. Dennis doesn't like carrots and I thought it would be easier for me to fish them out if they were in baby carrot form so that is why I deviated from the norm. I chopped up the celery and onions like normal though because I guess in some ways, I am still a conformist.

So I let all of that mess simmer on low heat for about 45 minutes. I kept setting the timer for 10 minutes and then checking the carrots. Once the carrots were soft I felt like my work was done. Oh, this is kind of weird but one website said to put SIX whole peppercorns in there and for some reason I did. I do not recommend this. If you have never cracked open a peppercorn in your mouth, you will have lived a full life. Don't do it, and don't chance doing it by putting whole peppercorns in your soup. Yech! Just crack some pepper in it like a normal person.

Now at this point, you should add the noodles. CAUTION! If you are planning on freezing your leftover soup, do not add the noodles to the broth that you will be freezing! I put half of my broth into a separate bowl and let it cool off. Then I added half of the bag of egg noodles to the big ole pot and turned the heat back to high. Using my same trusty method of checking every ten minutes, I tried the noodles until they seemed to be cooked all the way through. One ten minute interval is probably all the time it took.

Once the noodles were done, the soup was complete! I like my soup spicy so I added some tabasco. Dennis buttered some bread and we ate soup and bread. It was delish. I was really proud of myself.

Once the broth that I wanted to freeze had cooled off, I poured it into 2 ziploc bags and put them in the freezer. The reason you should freeze the broth without the noodles is that sometimes this process can make the noodles soggy or give them a weird consistency. You could thaw your soup and throw the noodles in the same way you did with the other noodles, or you could boil the noodles separately and combine them with the heated soup - your choice! Bon appetit!

Scrambled Eggs with Sausage Biscuits & Gravy

An easy one, and a two-parter. What did you do to deserve this? You can thank Mere. Normally I probably wouldn't have put this recipe online, but one of her friends demanded that I put the breakfast up and that Mere's picture appear on the blog. So, feast your eyes on Mere.

Anywho, scrambled eggs. Not hard to make, but I do have my own way of doing it. It might be the same as everyone else's way but who knows.

Ingredients

2 eggs

1/4 cup milk

shredded/sliced cheddar

salt & pepper to taste

5-6 drops of Tabasco (optional)

This is all guesswork (for 1 serving) except for the eggs, because I usually just eyeball the amounts. If you have the patience to shred your cheddar cheese, good for you. If you are like me, I cut a few slices and break them into small pieces then toss them in. I mix up the eggs with a fork, using it like a whisk. Toss a pad or 2 of butter into a pan, use the fork to coat the pan with the butter, then pour the mixture into the pan.

Try to resist the urge to mess with the eggs too much. Just let them be for a few minutes, then try to flip the entire mixture over if you can. The key is minimal contact! If you make these eggs well, you won't need any condiments. I love em.

Now for the Sausage Biscuits & Gravy, a favorite for Dennis. He introduced me to them and they are so simple yet utterly delicious. All you really need is a pound of breakfast sausage, some flour & milk, and a package of biscuits (unless of course you want to make your own from scratch).

First, put the biscuits in the oven and while you're waiting for them to bake, you can prepare the sausage & gravy. Just cook the sausage however you normally would - break it up in the pan and stir it occasionally. Once the sausage is done and you have a decent amount of grease in the pan, add 2-3 tbsp of flour and pour milk in until it covers the bottom of the pan (try 1 cup and work your way up from there if you are uncertain). Stir the mixture around until a gravy starts to form.. it shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

And that's it! Dennis likes to spread his biscuits around the plate and smother them with the sausage gravy, whereas I like separating my food into quadrants (as evidenced from the picture above). Happy breakfasting!

Pineapple Salsa

Another fruity summer salsa - supposed to be a bit spicier due to the serrano pepper. 

Ingredients

2 cups diced fresh pineapple

1/2 cup chopped cilantro

1/4 cup finely chopped red onion

1 serrano pepper, stemmed, seeded and finely chopped

juice and zest of 1 lime

1/8 teaspoon sea salt

Now I love me some spicy peppers. If you do too, you might be interested in this website featuring a pepper scale. It tells you how hot different types of peppers are on a scale of 0-550,000. Jalapenos are at about 4,000 while the serrano peppers can be anywhere from 7,000 to 25,000. I wasn't sure how to pick a pepper (haha!) because some were orange and some were green, so I just got one of each and put them both in the salsa. I hoped it wouldn't be unbearably hot and I was right. It was just fine.

I didn't put any lime zest in because I don't have a zester and I really didn't feel like it would add anything more than the lime juice would. Also, I happen to have sea salt on my spice rack, but I wouldn't stress about not having any. Plain old salt would do just fine.

I altered the pineapple & onion amounts slightly because the package of pineapple I bought had more than 2 cups. It said 25 oz. I didn't feel like doing the math so I just used all of it and doubled the onion. It tasted great. I feel it is easy to manipulate the ingredients in salsa without ruining the end product. I'm sure you could add some mango or peach in there and it would still taste great.

Here's the recipe from WholeFoodsMarket.com.

Quick and Yummy Hummus

I stole that name from the actual page where I got the recipe, but it is a really good title because well... it is quick and it is yummy!

Ingredients

1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained

1/2 cup plain yogurt

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 tablespoon water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

First of all, I felt really dumb when I read this recipe because I was like, "What the hell are garbanzo beans? Where's the recipe with chickpeas??" So for those of you who are challenged like I am, garbanzo beans = chickpeas. Oops.

So anywho, drain and rinse the garbanzo beans. I found a couple little stray pieces that didn't belong in there so it's worth sorting through the beans before you go to the next step.

Now, the next step! The recipe basically says to dump all of the ingredients into a food processor or a blender and mix them up. My food processor is a little small for my recipes lately, especially when it tells me to blend all the ingredients together (rather than just one ingredient at a time). Also, it doesn't really break them down as much as I'd like, so after my first attempt with the food processor, I poured the somewhat chunky chickpea paste into the blender and used that for the rest of the recipe.

So next I add the yogurt to the mixture. I got a single serving (6 oz) container of Dannon plain yogurt and it yielded just over 1/2 cup so go me! (I was eyeballing the amount and wasn't positive it was going to be enough).

Lemon juice, oh lemon juice. I love it but I never know how much one lemon will give me. I'll say have 1 lemon handy to get the 2 tbsp. The rest of the ingredients are easy enough & self explanatory. Just put them all in the blender and well... blend.

It should be smooth, creamy, and kind of beige colored when it's ready. Then just grab some carrot sticks, pita bread, or whatever else you want to dip and go nuts!!