Friday, January 26, 2007

Dan Quayle's Cream of Potatoe Soup

by Brian
On a cold day, enjoy this soup, which is straightforward, cheap, tasty, and now comes with outdated political humor absolutely free.

Ingredients:
  • 8 or 9 medium (two-inch diameter) potatoes
  • 2 cups chicken broth
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 1 tablespoon flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried dill
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 cup half and half (you can substitute 1 cup of milk plus a tablespoon of butter)
Implements:
  • Blender or food processor
  • Oven
  • Large sauce pan
  • Spoon
  • Knife
  • Peeler
Start off by preparing your potatoes: clean them, scrubbing with a brush or a sponge, and cut or tear off any eyes or sprouts. Peel them (but don't—and I say this from experience—put the peels in your garbage disposal), and then cut out any bad or discolored spots. Then cut them into quarters (or sixths if any are slightly larger). The goal is to have a bunch of potato pieces that are all the same size. Put these in your sauce pan evenly and pour just enough water into the pan to reach the top of the pile of potatoes. Then set the potatoes to boil for ten minutes. The clock starts when the water starts boiling.

In the meantime, make sure your other ingredients are ready to go. Mix together the flour, dill, salt, and pepper in a small bowl and set it aside. If you don't already have chicken broth, make it by adding two packets or cubes of chicken bouillon to two cups of water, but there is no need to boil it because it will cook in the soup. Measure out your cup of half and half and set it aside.

When the ten minutes are up, drain and rinse the potatoes, returning the sauce pan to the stove. Put the potatoes in a blender or food processor with 1 cup (half) of the chicken broth. Blend it until it is evenly smooth, stopping the blades and rearranging the potatoes with a spoon if you have to.

In the sauce pan, set the heat to medium, then add a little bit of oil and the pat of butter. When the butter has melted, stir in the flour-seasoning mixture and then, all at once, the half and half. Stir it constantly until it gets thick and bubbly, then start the timer for a minute and keep stirring until the timer goes off.

Stir in the blended potatoes and the remaining broth. Keep stirring for another minute or however long it takes to heat the soup through. You may add more half and half to change the consistency or more salt and pepper to taste. That's it—you're done.

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Thursday, January 25, 2007

The Kugel

by Brian
This just in from Los Angeles, California:

One Package Egg Noodles
12 oz cream cheese (light is okay, but not fat free)
3/4 pint to 1 pint sour cream (light but not fat free)
3/4 lb cottage cheese
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp salt
1/8 cup butter
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup sugar

Cook egg noodles according to package directions and set aside.

In the mean time mix together cream cheese, sour cream, cottage cheese, eggs, vanilla, and salt, and blend.

Add butter and sugar to warm noodles and mix up. Then add the cheese mixture to the noodles mixture.

Place in a lightly greased glass pan, usually one of the bigger rectangle ones.

Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes.

Top with corn flakes if you like.

Serve with sour cream and brown sugar.

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Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Mikey's New Crock-Pot

by mike silvers
I love to cook, but I'm not confident enough in the kitchen to make really complicated meals, and I'm getting tired of making the same dishes night after night. (Don't I sound like a voice-over from an infomercial?) So about a week ago, I bought myself a Crock-Pot brand slow cooker.

I don't remember my mom ever cooking with one when I was little, except when she'd make brisket. (Her brisket is to die for, but I can't pass along the recipe.) Anyway, I decided that if I bought one, I could make all sorts of stews and roasts; the hearty kinds of meals that my goyishe friends ate when I was growing up. But where do you find a good recipe for a slow cooker? One of my cookbooks, The New Best Recipe, which I love, features a delicious-looking recipe for French Onion Soup that I plan on making next week, maybe on Sunday. But otherwise, I have to adapt other recipes, or look on the Internet. And my friends, it's slim pickin's on-line.

But this morning, I decided to try out this recipe for Cuban black bean soup from Crockpot.com:

Cuban Black Bean Soup

Ingredients:

3 15-oz. cans black beans, undrained
2 14.5-oz. cans beef broth
1 14.5-oz. can diced tomatoes
1 4-oz. can chopped green chilies
5 oz. extra-lean fully cooked ham, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 tsp dried oregano leaves
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried thyme leaves
1 tsp pepper

Directions:
Combine all ingredients in stoneware stir well. Cover cook on Low 8 to 10 hours or on High for 4 to 5 hours.


With the soup, I'll also make Brazilian rice, which goes perfectly with black beans. I hate cooking white rice, but you really can't go wrong cooking it the Brazilian way, and it's, well, yum tasty. I learned the recipe from my mom, but it's a pretty standard dish.

Brazilian Rice

Screw an ingredients list. I'm doing it narrative style, baby. So you'll need rice, water, salt, an onion, a clove of garlic, and olive oil. Heat the
olive oil (or EVOO, as Rachael Ray would say) in a frying pan. Mince the garlic, chop the onions, and saute them in the pan until they're golden brown. Pour in the rice and fry it with the onions and garlic until the rice starts to brown. Then add water (you know the rule: about twice as much water as rice) and salt. Cover the pan and let it cook for about 20 minutes.

If you serve this all with a slice of orange, some farofa (manioc flower fried in butter with garlic -- you can substitute
cream of wheat for the manioc), and fried kale, it would be sort of a Cuban take on the Brazilian national dish, feijoada.

I'm not really in the mood for making kale or farofa, so we'll just have the soup and the rice. Feel free to contact me if you're curious to know how it tastes.

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Monday, January 22, 2007

Pumpkin Cookies

by Brian
If you made it all the way through the holidays without eating some, there's no time like the first week in January to catch up. Yum. This recipe is adapted from one submitted by Maura from Chicago, Illinois, who writes,
Dear Good Reverend,
Here is the recipe.
Sincerely,
Maura
Chicago, Illinois
Thanks, Maura! Of course, I've simplified it with my meddling ways, but at the end I'll tell you what she did differently so you can decide for yourself.

You'll need:
  • 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp allspice
  • 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 15-oz can pumpkin
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
And you'll also need:
  • Oven
  • Large bowl
  • Medium bowl
  • Spatula
  • Electric mixer
  • Measuring spoons
  • Baking sheets (maybe two large)
  • Something with which to grease baking sheets
  • Wire rack for cooling

Preheat to oven to 375 degress and grease the cookie sheets.

In the medium bowl, combine the flour, the four spices, the baking powder and soda, and the salt. Mix them together briefly.

In the large bowl, beat together the softened butter and the sugar until it forms a creamy mixture. Then add the pumpkin, eggs, and vanilla, and mix the whole thing together with the electric mixer. Add the flour mixture from the medium bowl a half-cup at a time, mixing thoroughly in between.

Ta-da, that is your dough. Now drop rounded teaspoonfuls of the dough onto the cookie sheets about two inches apart. I like to use a teaspoon in each hand to form the balls of dough. Stick the sheets in the oven and bake at 375 for fifteen to twenty minutes (I like them a little softer, so I stay closer to fifteen, but it is up to you).

Cool the cookies on the sheets for a couple minutes, then for another ten minutes on a wire rack. If you don't have a wire rack and want to be ghetto, crinkle up aluminum foil and then unfurl it so it is a wide, textured sheet. Setting your cookies on this will allow air to circulate under them much like a wire rack would.

Those are your straight-up plain pumpkin cookies. But what did Miss Maura do differently? First, she added two cups of chocolate chips to the dough just before forming it into balls. Second, she coated the finished cookies with frosting (1 cup powdered sugar, 1 1/2 tablespoons of milk, and a half tablespoon of vanilla extract). I abandoned both of these steps because I didn't want anything to get in the way of the pumpkin-flavored goodness.

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Turturken

by Brian

It’s a fitting name because it’s similar to turducken but without the duck. And, really, without stuffing whole birds inside other whole birds. There are no whole birds involved. But that’s what makes it easy.

Food you’ll need:
12 ounces chicken- or turkey sausage
1.5 cups pumpkin seeds, shelled (also sold as “pepitas”)
7 tablespoons butter
3 slices turkey bacon
6 ounces ground turkey
1 large onion
1/2 cup grated parmesan or romano cheese
1.5 tablespoons fresh rosemary (or 1/2 tablespoon dried rosemary)
1.5 tablespoons fresh sage (or 1/2 tablespoon dried sage)
3 lightly beaten eggs
1 skinless, boneless turkey breast (sometimes sold as “turkey London broil”)
1.5 cups chicken broth
1.5 cups dry white wine

Tools you’ll need:
Oven
Microwave
Stove
Skillet
Knives
Measuring cups & spoons
Fork
Spatula
Cutting board
Oven mitts and potholders
Casserole dish or roasting pan (about 12” x 9”)
Smaller casserole dish or roasting pan (9” x 9” or 9” x 6”)
Cheese grater (unless your cheese is pre-grated)
Big microwave-safe bowl or dish
Small bowl for beating eggs
Plastic wrap
Meat tenderizer or mallet
Butcher’s twine, skewers, or toothpicks
Meat thermometer
Baster

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In the big microwave-safe bowl, melt one tablespoon of the butter. When it’s melted, arrange the pumpkin seeds (shelled, remember) in the bowl and toss a little to coat them with the butter. Spread them out evenly. Microwave on high for seven minutes, stopping at two-minute intervals to toss them around so they cook evenly.

Lay out your sausages and poke holes in them in a few places with a fork. Then arrange them on your smaller casserole dish and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Take them out, let them cool, and pump the temperature up to 450 degrees.

Chop the onion, bacon, rosemary, and sage finely. Keep the rosemary and sage separate from the onion and bacon. Obviously skip the rosemary and sage part if you are using dried herbs.

In your skillet over medium heat on the stove, melt the remaining six tablespoons of butter. When it’s liquid, add the onion, bacon, pumpkin seeds, and ground turkey. With the spatula, stir it all up so it is mixed together nicely. Break apart the ground turkey. Let this mixture cook for maybe ten minutes. It’s done when the onions are tender and golden.

Meanwhile, slice the cooked, cooled sausage thinly. If you haven’t already, grate the cheese and beat the eggs.

When the onion-seed-meat mixture is done, remove it from the heat, stir it up, and let it cool.

Lay out your turkey breast on a cutting board. The goal is for it to be big and flat, about a half inch thick all over. It is probably thicker in places at the start, so here’s how to deal with that: Take a big, sharp knife and cut sideways into the thickest part of the turkey, making sure not to cut all the way through. Fold this part over and lay the meat out flat. If there are any other big, thick places that look like they could use the old cut-and-fold, give them the same treatment. Then cover the turkey with a piece of plastic wrap. Wielding the meat tenderizer, whack the meat through the plastic wrap repeatedly, hard, all over, until it thins out to a half inch all around. It might help to stop halfway through and flip it. This takes a little while, but is satisfying in a sadistic way.

Mix the sliced sausage, grated cheese, beaten eggs, and chopped rosemary and sage into the onion-seed-meat mixture, tossing it all around until it is evenly mixed.

Spread this stuffing out over the entire surface of the turkey. If you have some left over, that’s okay. Roll up the turkey, with the stuffing, jellyroll style. This means starting at the bottom of the long end and rolling once, then tucking in the sides, rolling up once more, tucking in the sides once more, and so forth until it is all rolled up. It is okay if the stuffing squeezes out a little bit. Secure the roll together with the twine or with skewers or toothpicks. Put this stuffed turkey in the larger casserole dish or roasting pan and spoon whatever leftover stuffing you have around the outside of it.

Now collect your wine and chicken broth. If you need to make chicken broth, just boil 1.5 cups of water and 1.5 or 2 cubes or packets of chicken bouillon. Pour the broth and then the wine evenly over the turkey into the casserole dish.

Put this in the oven and bake it at 450 for 50 minutes, or until your meat thermometer, properly stuck into the bird, tells you that the internal temperature is at least 165 degrees. At ten-minute intervals while it is cooking, open the oven, suck up some of the juices with your baster, and squirt this over the top of the turkey to keep it moist.

When you take the dish out of the oven, remove the turkey from the dish to a cutting board, remove the skewers or twine and let it cool for ten minutes. Then slice it up and have at it. May I recommend the garlic mashers as a side?

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Bananas Foster

by Brian
Today's recipe is fun because it's dangerous, and it's dangerous because it's
ON FIRE,
so get your mother's permission. In fact, you need to be an adult to make it not only because it involves setting things on fire but also because what you set on fire is liquor, which you have to be an adult to obtain and possess.

It's a dessert, and you would traditionally eat it with vanilla ice cream, although you could probably put it on top of all sorts of other desserts.

You'll need food products:
3 ripe bananas (the riper the better)
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons creme de cacao
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup dark rum
Vanilla ice cream, or whatever else you want to eat this with

You'll also need tools:
Knives
Cutting board
Large skillet, ideally not nonstick, with a lid
Measuring cups and spoons
Small, long-handled saucepan, ideally not nonstick
Long match
Spatula

Most importantly, you'll need to do the following:
Don't burn yourself or burn down your house

Get started by peeling the bananas and slicing them into thin little banana slices. Then (or, if you're pressed for time and confident in multitasking, meanwhile) melt the butter and brown sugar over medium heat in the large skillet, periodically mixing them together with the spatula.

When they are melted, toss in the banana slices and mix them all around in the sugar-butter with the spatula. Let this mixture sizzle and simmer for a couple minutes, then mix in the cinnamon and creme de cacao. Shut off the burner.

Pour the rum into your small, long-handled saucepan, and heat it with your burner up high. Meanwhile, get your long match ready. If you have a gas stove, one easy way to light it is to stick it in the burner's flame. In about thirty seconds, the rum will just start to boil. I call this the point of no return. Actually, I've never called it that before, but one might call it that. Anyway, things are about to get potentially dangerous, so pay attention:

Make sure you have the skillet lid ready.
Hold the long handle of the saucepan.
Using the lit long match, light the rum on fire. Whoosh!
Lift the pan and pour the flaming rum over the banana mixture. It will still be on fire when it hits the skillet.
Using your hand-eye coordination, your sense of self-presevation, and your spatula, toss the flaming banana mixture around to spread out the flame without burning yourself.
If the fire gets out of hand, put the lid on the skillet.
Don't let the fire get out of hand.
Eventually, it will burn out. It is important that you let it burn out and don't blow it out or otherwise extinguish it, because the burning gets rid of the alcohol.

Phew, now it is safe again. While it's still hot, serve it on top of the recommended couple scoops of vanilla ice cream or whatever else you want.

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Ratso Risotto

by Brian

I know, I know, it sounds so Italian and restauranty. Except for the Ratso part, which is optional. But the truth is, if you can make pasta, you can make risotto. In fact, apparently in Northern Italy, from whence my college roommate's ancestors hailed, they prefer risotto to the traditional Southern pasta. What is risotto? It's basically a creamy sort of rice. And if you want to make it quick, it's insanely easy.

You'll need:
  • 2/3 cup arborio rice (This is a round, white, Italian rice you can find in any market that has a selection of rices, which is just about any market. You can do risotto with other sorts of rice, but some folks will tell you that's not really risotto. If you want to do it right, get the arborio.)
  • 1/2 tbsp butter
  • 1/2 tbsp olive oil
  • 3 green onions
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 2 cups of water
  • 2 packets of chicken bouillon granules
  • 2 tbsp store-bought grated parmesan or 1/4 cup fresh parmesan that you grated yourself

You'll also need to use:
  • Measuring cups and spoons
  • A large sauce pan with a lid
  • Knives
  • A cutting board
  • A spatula
  • A stove

To get started, clean the onions and garlic. Cut off the white ends of the onions and slice the green stalks as thinly as possible into little rings. Peel off the paper from the garlic, cut the ends off, and dice it into pieces as small as possible. Other fun things to do with garlic: (1) if you've got a garlic press, stick in it and smash it through; (2) lay it flat on the cutting board and mash it to bits by pressing the flat side of the knife down on top of it. Don't hurt yourself.

Heat the butter and oil in the sauce pan over medium-high heat. In a pinch, you could use just butter or just oil, but the butter adds a creamy taste and the oil keeps the butter from burning, so they work best in tandem. When it is melted, add the sliced onion and diced garlic. Fry those, stirring them with your spatula, until they are tender but not brown. If they start to go brown, you're going a little too far.

Add the rice. Stir the rice around with the vegetables, butter, and oil for a couple minutes, but once again, if it starts to go brown, stop.

Add the water and bouillon. If all you've got are the cubes rather than the packets of granules, you should heat the cubes in the water separately until they break down and make broth. Otherwise, you can add them both at the same time. When you add the water, the pan should be hot enough that it sort of flash-sizzles for a couple seconds until the water cools it down. Now turn the heat up to high until the water starts to boil. Then, smack the lid on, turn the heat down to low, and simmer the risotto for twenty minutes. Don't remove the lid during that twenty minutes! If you do, two things could happen: One, seeing the risotto cooking process could put you into shock and you would simply pass out. Or two, it could create a time paradox, the results of which could start a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe!

When the twenty minutes are up, remove the pan from the heat and take off the lid. It should look like creamy rice, which means a little liquidy. If there's a tad too much liquid, you can cook it over low heat for a couple minutes, stirring, with the lid off to evaporate some water. If there's too little liquid, you could just add a little water. Add your parmesan cheese and stir it all up. Voila!

The risotto you just made is basically a plain risotto. Like pasta, risotto can come in all sorts of variations. You can add various vegetables or meats for variety. If you want to add chicken, sausage, or beef, cook it first in small pieces (as in, cut the chicken into the size of pieces you'd like in a salad and then cook it, or just brown ground beef like you would if you were making sloppy joes). If you're going to add vegetables, you can either do it at the start, along with the onion and garlic (which is best for hard vegetables, like celery or carrots), or at the end, either when it is done cooking or a couple minutes before that point (which is best for softer vegetables, like tomatoes).

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Your Basic Marinara Sauce

by Brian

I know how incredibly easy it is to go buy a jar of Prego and serve that with your spaghetti, maybe even throwing it on the stove and adding some spices and various other things, but you still can’t call that sauce your own. You can actually claim this sauce is “from scratch,” and it tastes better than that other stuff to boot.
You’ll need the following potent edibles:

* Four green onions (or half a regular onion)
* Five cloves of garlic
* 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (make sure they put that one extra virgin in there)
* 2 – 28 oz. cans whole, peeled tomatoes (or diced tomatoes)
* 2 tablespoons lemon juice
* 1/2 teaspoon sugar
* Some basil, oregano, and parsley

You’ll also need these apparatuses:

* Cutting board
* Sharp knife
* Garlic press, if you got it
* Can opener
* Kitchen scissors
* Large sauce pan (3 quart)
* Measuring cups and spoons
* Skillet
* Stove

Start, as always, but cutting things with knives:

* Wash the green onions. Cut off the white ends and discard them, and then slice the green stalks into hundreds of little thin rings. If you are using a regular white or yellow or red onion, cut it in half, cut off the nasty knob at the end, and chop it up into bite-size morsels.
* Wash and peel (peel and wash?) the garlic, cutting off the tiny nasty ends. If you have a garlic press, push the cloves through it onto your pile of chopped onion. If you don’t, just dice the garlic with the knife into really tiny pieces.
* Open the two cans of tomatoes. If they are diced in the can, stop there. If they are whole, you have to cut them up into smaller pieces. The easier way to do this is with kitchen scissors. Jab the sharp end of the scissors down into the tomatoes and cut, cut, cut. Try to make sure you get all the big pieces.

To the stove!

* Pour the 1/4 cup olive oil into the large sauce pan, and turn the heat up to medium-high. Let the oil heat for a minute or two before adding the onions and garlic.
* Sautee the onions and garlic in the hot oil for a couple minutes until everything is tender. If things start to turn brown, you’ve gone a little too far.
* Now add the tomatoes and stir everything up. Add the lemon juice and sugar and stir things up some more.
* Now add the herbs. How much to add is really subjective. Everything combined equaling 1/3 of a cup, especially if they are dried and crushed herbs rather than fresh, is probably too much. A teaspoon of each is probably too little. Just add whatever makes you feel comfortable.
* Reduce the heat to medium-low, or low, or whatever temperature, after simmering for a few minutes, is enough to make the sauce bubble a bit but not spray all over the place. Let the sauce simmer like this for about thirty minutes, which should be plenty of time to boil water and cook whatever pasta you are serving it with. Leave the sauce uncovered so some of the liquid boils off and it thickens.

Here’s a trick you can use when the pasta is finally cooked and drained:
Spoon several ladles of the sauce into a large skillet over high heat. Then add the pasta and toss it with the sauce for just a minute or two. This makes the pasta taste seven times better for several reasons:

1. The pasta becomes infused with the flavors of the sauce.
2. It prevents the pasta from sticking together.
3. Various other reasons I haven’t thought of yet.

Voila! Another great thing about this recipe is that you can create lots of different variations on the sauce. Add mushrooms if you like mushrooms or peppers if you like peppers. Brown some ground beef and throw that in for a meat sauce. Grill and cut up some sausage to toss in if you’re into that sort of thing. The possibilities, they tell me, do indeed have an end, but it’s so far down the line you wouldn’t notice.

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The Good Reverend's Crumby Apple Pie?!

by Brian
It's so good it deserves an interrobang to express the sheer shock (?) and awe (!) that are its persistent helpmates.

You'll need the following foodstuffs, most of which you probably already have:

* 3 golden delicious apples (granny Smith will also do nicely)
* 2 cups flour
* 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
* 3/4 cup uncooked regular oats (oatmeal, yo)
* 1/2 tablespoon of salt
* 3/4 cup butter (1.5 sticks)
* Some shortening or cooking oil
* 1/3 cup sugar
* 1.5 teaspoons cornstarch
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 cup water
* 1/2 vanilla extract


You'll also need these kitchen tools:

* Sharp knife
* Cutting board
* 9-inch pie tin
* Small sauce pan
* Measuring cups
* Mixing bowl
* Mixing spoon
* Mixing music
* Other bowl
* Oven
* Oven mitt
* Stove
* Aluminum foil


Start by setting the oven to 350 degrees. Then let's rock:

* Cut the cores out of the apples, then cut the apples into slices as thin as possible. Don't hurt yourself, and ask your mom for help. Put all the slices in a bowl.
* Put your 3/4 cup of butter in a microwave-safe bowl and nuke it on low for a minute, or however long it takes to fully liquefy.
* In your mixing bowl, combine the four ingredients below the apples (flour, brown sugar, oats, and 1/2 tablespoon of salt). Use your spoon to mix it all up.
* Take the melted butter out of the microwave and slowly pour it over this oat-flour mixture. Then mix it all together. You can use the spoon you were just using, or a whisk, or what I used: hands. Hands are good for this sort of thing, so long as you wash them first. Keep mixing until everything is blended.
* Measure out one firmly packed cup of this oat-flour-butter mixture. Set that aside for later. What will we do with it? You'll see.
* Grease your pie tin well, using either shortening or cooking oil. Then dump your oat-flour-butter mixture (minus that one cup you set aside) into it. Press the stuff hard into the bottom and up the sides of the pie tin until it forms one relatively uniform crust.
* Now arrange all the apple slices in this crust. Lay them flat and spread them evenly.
* In your small sauce pan, mix together the sugar, cornstarch, and 1/8 teaspoon of salt. Then stir in the water. Stick this on the stove over medium heat until it starts to boil. Have your pie nearby, and have that 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract ready.
* As soon as this stuff boils, pour the vanilla in the sauce pan, turn off the heat, and drizzle this hot mixture (or is it a solution? Only your high school chemistry teacher knows.) over the apples evenly.
* Remember that cup of oat-flour-butter stuff you set aside? Grab it and throw it into the now-empty mixing bowl. Take a little bit of it at a time in your hands and crumble it over the top of the pie. By the time you've used it all, you shouldn't be able to see apples anymore, just crumbly cover-crust.
* Is your oven at 350 degrees yet? Good. Put the pie in the center of it and set the timer for 27 minutes. In the meantime, cut off a square of aluminum foil that is slightly bigger than the surface of your pie. Out of the center of it, cut a circle that is slightly smaller than the surface of your pie—maybe half an inch smaller all around.
* When the timer goes off, pull out the pie. Being careful not to burn yourself too badly, place this center-less square of aluminum over the top of your pie so that it covers the outer edges but leaves the center of the pie exposed. Fold the corners of it over so it stays attached to the pie tin. Don't burn yourself!
* Put the pie back in the over (still 350 degrees, I hope) for another 15 minutes. When that timer goes off, pull the pie out. It is done, and all you have to do is wait for it to cool, if you want, before you can eat it. Good job.

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Not Your Lunchlady's Sloppy Joes

by Brian
You’ll need the following tools:

* Big skillet
* Toaster (oven)
* Stove
* Spatula
* Sharp, but not too big, knife
* Cutting board
* Can opener

And you’ll need the following food-type items:

* 1 pound lean ground beef
* 1 - 7.5 oz can tomatoes, diced (you can get them bigger then diced, then use kitchen scissors to cut them up in the can if you want)
* 1 medium-sized onion
* 1 green pepper
* Chili power
* Worcestershire sauce
* Quick cooking oatmeal (plain)
* Tabasco sauce
* Hamburger buns

Begin the preparations:

1. Clean the onion and green pepper.
2. Stand the green pepper on end on the cutting board. Insert your knife into the top, pushing all the way through to the bottom. Cut a circle around the stem and push or pull out the core and all its seedy whiteness. Compost that bugger.
3. Slice the remaining hollow cylinder of green pepper in half, then into quarters. Then take one quarter and slice it into strips about 1/4” thick. Pinch all those strips together and slice them cross-ways so they end up little tiny pieces. Do the same with the other three quarters of the pepper.
4. For the onion, slice off each nasty end and peel off all the papery covering. Sometimes it helps if you make a superficial cut in the covering, which gives you an edge to peel. Once you have the naked onion, cut it up into pieces about as small as the green pepper pieces, or as small as you can get without crying.

Now, you have to look in your heart and ask yourself a question: is the ground beef I am going to use frozen?

* If you’re using non-frozen ground beef, throw it in the skillet along with the green pepper and onion pieces. Then brown it over medium heat. What does browning mean? We’ll get there in a second.
* If you’re using frozen ground beef, it’s going to take a little while to brown it, so put it in the skillet but leave the onions and green peppers out until you are about halfway done.
* Browning ground beef basically means breaking it up into tiny pieces with the spatula while you are cooking it. You know you’re done browning when the meat is, oddly enough, brown. At that point, you can say to yourself, Well done, Brownie, you’re doing a great job.
* If the meat is a frozen hunk when you start, you can still brown it, but it takes a little longer. Put it in the skillet until one side starts sizzling. Then flip it over and use the spatula to scrape off the partially cooked meat on that side—basically, scrape off whatever you can. By the time you are done, it should be just about time to flip it back over and do the same to the other side. Keep doing this until there is no frozen meat left and it all just breaks up into tiny pieces for you. But don’t forget to add the onions and peppers halfway through.

Now what?

Once you’ve got the ground beef all browned, and the onions and peppers have been in there a little while and it’s all simmering, you’ll want to ask yourself, how much grease is in that pan? If it looks like a lot, you’ll have to drain it out. This is a complicated maneuver which involves putting a lid on the pan, lifting the pan by the handle, then holding it sideways over a can or bowl or something with one hand on the lid handle, so that grease can run out the bottom into the can, but you don’t let any of the food fall out. If you used lean enough ground beef in the first place, you probably don’t have to drain it at all.


Put it back uncovered on the burner, if you took it off, and then add the following:

* 7.5 ounces of diced canned tomatoes
* 2 tablespoons chili powder
* 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
* 2 tablespoons oatmeal
* Some Tabasco sauce (your call)

Mix it all up with your spatula, and then reduce the heat to low-medium. This is one of those “it’ll be done when it is done” sort of things—you have to just watch it, stirring it up occasionally, and then eventually decide, okay, it’s time to eat this. Maybe it’ll take five minutes, maybe eight, maybe twelve: I don’t know. You can’t really mess it up.

Toast your buns in the toaster oven. No, your hamburger buns. When they are done toasting, and your meat is done roasting, and you are nearly done boasting, stick the buns on a plate, slap some sloppy joe on there, and eat away. Goes great with Jell-O.

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Cookies that, When Successfully Completed, Resemble Doggie Poo

by Brian
Foodstuffs required:
2 Cups of Sugar, minus one tablespoon (super secret trick!)
3 Tablespoons of Powdered Cocoa
1/2 Cup Milk
1/4 Cup Butter
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup Peanut Butter
3 1/2 Cup Quick Oats Oatmeal

Hardware you will need:
Various measuring cups and spoons
Wooden spoon
Medium saucepan
Soup spoon
Stove
Timer
Wax paper

Get started:
Combine the sugar, cocoa, milk, and butter in the saucepan. Cook it, stirring frequently, over medium heat on the stovetop until it gets to a rolling boil. This means the center is boiling and the outsides look foamy. Let it continue to boil for exactly one minute more. Then remove it from the heat.
Next "fold in" the vanilla, peanut butter, and oats, stirring it until the peanut butter is melted in and the oats are all thoroughly spread throughout.

You're practically done already:
Use the soup spoon to scoop out dollops of the weird mix and drop each one onto the wax paper. There should be about two dozen in all. When you're done, let them cool until they are solid enough to maintain their shape.

Tada! Quick and easy dog poo cookies.

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Fruity Freeze

by Brian
The name works on a couple levels. Anyway, this one is really easy, so long as you have a blender.

Food related products you'll need:
1 cup plain yogurt
1.5 cups milk
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 cup of ice

Now, you're going to need some fruit to make up the fruity part of this fruity freeze. At this point you have options, from which you can select according to your taste or means:

Option A
2 medium peaches, pitted
1 large banana, peeled. Maybe even divided into three perfect wedges, for fun.

Option 2
1 small orange, peeled
1/2 grapefruit, peeled
2 tablespoons pineapple juice, peeled (seeing if you are paying attention)
3 tablespoons coconut cream
Dash of lemon juice

Option III (if you make this version, omit the powdered sugar)
1/4 cup cherry jam, jelly, or preserves
1/4 cup boysenberry jam, jelly, or preserves
1/4 cup blueberry jam, jelly, or preserves
1.5 tablespoons pomegranate juice

Hardware you require:
One blender
Measuring cups and spoons

Okay, got your option picked out? Ready for this?
Take all your fruits, the yogurt, the sugar, and the milk, and stick them in a blender.
Blend until smootherific

What's left over? The ice!
Add the ice to the blender one cube at a time, blending until the whole thing is milkshake thick and smooth

Whippo! You are done.

Enjoy.

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Mrs. Good Reverend's Groin-Grabbingly Good Garlic Mashers

by Brian
“They’re groin-grabbingly good!”


Food-style products you will need:

3 pounds of your favorite type of potato (which is usually whichever one happens to be in your fridge)

10 cloves of garlic

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons milk

Plus however much salt and pepper strikes your taste buds’ fancy

Hardware:

Knives

Measuring spoons

Large pot

Cutting board

Stove

Mixing bowl, if you got it.

Electric mixer (or potato masher) (or hipboots and a grape vat a la I Love Lucy)

Time to shape your stuff:

Wash the potatoes. You’ve really got to scrub potatoes, because they are dirty, because they live in the ground. On the other hand, as a wise man once said, “God made dirt; dirt don’t hurt.”

Leave the skins on. This is key. Just trust me.

Cut them into quasicube-shaped objects, roughly 1” x 1” x 1”. Stick them in the large pot.

Peel the 10 cloves of garlic. Lest you get confused, a clove of garlic is the little thumbdigit-sized wedge that breaks off, not the whole fist-sized hunk. Ten is really a guideline. Mrs. Good Reverend, clearly inspired by Nigel Tufnel, recommends going to 11. Throw them all in the pot with the potatoes.

Get your stuff working:

Add to the pot the bay leaf and the teaspoon of salt. Then pour enough water in to just barely cover the potatoes.

Stick it on the stove and cover it. Turn the burner up to high until the water boils, and then back it off to low.

Simmer for 10-15 minutes, or however long it takes to make the potatoes tender. Tender is what potatoes feel like when you poke them with a fork and you think to yourself “yeah, you know, I think I could mash this.”

Are they tender now? Good. Drain the pot, either by dumping it into a strainer (make sure it’s big enough) or by holding the lid while you tip it and let the water pour into the sink.

Rock and roll:

Find the bay leaf and discard it. It’s done its job. Goodbye, little leaf.

Now, if you’ve got a mixing bowl, put everything in that. If not, we can do this in the pot, but it’s not as nice.

Add the butter and the milk to the potatoes and start mashing. If you’re using a hand masher, just keep mashing. If you’re using an electric mixer, make sure it’s on low. Mash everything until it’s nice and mashed—like, whatever consistency you want, that’s all you have to do. If you want to add some more milk, add more milk. If you want to add some salt and pepper, add some salt and pepper. If you want to add some chocolate, go ahead, but I’d advise against it.

There you go, my man. Stick it in a bowl and serve it.

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Thai Lemon Beef

by Brian
You’ll need:

1 boneless top round steak or flank steak

1/3 cup of soy sauce

1/4 cup of lemon juice

1/4 cup of water

3 teaspoons crushed red pepper (like the kind you get at pizza places—a few packets of the free stuff from Pizza Hut would work)

4 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon of vegetable oil

4 green onions

2 carrots

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 cup of rice


Heavy artillery:

Sharp knives

Measuring cups and spoons

Large bowl or Tupperware container

Big skillet or wok (nonstick)

Spatula

Garlic press, if you got it

Whisk (or a fork, the poor man’s whisk)

Medium sauce pan

Cutting board

Refrigerator

Stove

Time to do some pre-cutting:

Peel and mince the garlic (or press it)

Cut the green onions into 2” pieces

Peel the carrots and slice them as thinly as possible

Cut the steak diagonally (that is, at like a 60 degree angle to the floor) across the grain (usually means width-wise) into 1/8 in strips, then place it in your large bowl

Now to make the marinade:

Combine soy sauce, lemon juice, water, crushed red pepper, and garlic. Pour half of it over the steak, and keep the other half. Cover the steak and stick it in the fridge for at least half an hour. My theory is, the longer you marinate, the better, but you probably don’t have time to wait all day.

Rice is a separate issue:

You’re going to cook the rice according to the instructions on the package, which probably means boiling it in a specific amount of water for like half an hour or something. The tricky part is timing. You want to have the rice done at about the same time, or slightly before, the steak, which will take about ten minutes to finish once you are done marinating it. So start the rice an appropriate amount of time before you take the steak out of the fridge.

Ready to take the steak out and get this show on the road?:

Drain the steak and throw that marinade away (remember, you kept the other half of it). Put your big skillet or wok on the stove over medium-high heat, and heat 1/2 tablespoon of oil in it. Put half of the steak in the skillet and stir-fry it a minute or so, until it’s a color darker and browner than pink. Then take that steak out and start the process over again with new oil and the remaining steak, which you will then pull out.

Now put the green onions and carrots in the skillet and stir-fry them for three minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk (or fork) the cornstarch into the marinade that you saved. After the three minutes is up on the veggies, add this cornstarch marinade to the skillet and continue stir-frying until it gets thick.

Your rice should be done or almost done. Just making sure.

Finally, add all the steak to the skillet. Just keep stir-frying until everything is heated.

Great, you’re done. Put some rice on a plate and pour the steak over the top of it. As they say in Thailand, bon appetít!

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Las Quesadillas Locas

by Brian
Sticking with the Mexican theme today. You'll need:
2 flour tortillas (okay, this is going to sound disgusting, but if you can find them, get the kind made with lard rather than shortening--they are soooo much better tasting and authentic)
Some butter
Couple fistfuls (about 1/2 cup, maybe) of shredded mexican cheese (monterey jack works well, or cheddar--they have these bags of shredded mexican blend in the dairy section that will work just fine)
Two tablespoons of salsa (the hotter the better)
Little bit of garlic powder

As far as hardware goes, you'll need:
A griddle or big skillet
A spatula
A butter knife
Maybe a cheese grater, if you don't get the pre-shredded cheese
A spoon

Lay out your two tortillas and butter one side of each. Then flip them over, butter side down.
Spread the shredded cheese over one of the tortillas until it's about a quarter inch thick all around.
Spoon some salsa on the top of the cheese.
Sprinkle with a little garlic powder.
Put tortilla number two on top with the butter side out (so now you've got cheese and salsa sandwiched between two tortillas, with butter on the top and bottom of the sandwich).
Stick the quesadilla on the griddle and turn the burner up to medium. Once it starts cooking, use the spatula to lift up the bottom tortilla so you can check its color. When it's golden brown, flip the quesadilla over. Then cook it until the bottom side is golden brown too. The cheese will melt and mix with the salsa.

And boom, you have yourself a quesadilla.

Variation: Las quesadillas locas con el pollo que es el mas maravilloso del mundo

To mix it up a little, you can add chicken to your quesadillas. Take a skinless boneless breast and stick it on a George Foreman grill for about nine minutes. Then slice it into strips. Put the chicken strips on the quesadilla right after the salsa and then follow the rest of the directions the same way.

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Pollo Relleno

by Brian
(it's Spanish for stuffed chicken)

This tastes really good. It's like a cross between Chicken Kiev and Chicken Parmesan, but Mexican. And it's easier than it sounds. Never stuffed anything before? Well, this is more like rolling. And we know you can do that.

Ingredients:

2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts (they tell me you can skin and bone your own, but why bother?)
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 tablespoon regular, all-purpose flour*
1/2 tablespoon dried minced onion (or mince your own - mincing means chopping as finely as possible)*
1/2 teaspoon beef bouillon granules*
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt*
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin*
1/2 teaspoon paprika*
1/2 teaspoon chili powder*
1/4 teaspoon onion salt*
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper*
[if you're really feeling lazy, you can substitue 1/2 of a 1.25 oz. package of taco seasoning from the store, which you can find with all the Mexican foods, instead of everything marked with an asterisk*]
2 roasted peppers (they come in a jar in juice/water/oil - pick whichever color and level of hotness you want or can find).
1 block of Monterey Jack cheese (cheddar is okay, but monty jack is so much better. If you have some on hand, you just need enough for four 2" x 1/2" x 1/2" boxes with a little left over for shredding)
2 tablespoons cilantro (fresh and chopped is best, but out of a little spice jar will do just fine)
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (or one packet of the red peppers that come with pizza)
1 egg
Some salsa

Other stuff you will need:
A sink
Paper towels
A sharp knife
A cutting board
Some plastic wrap
A meat tenderizer/mallet or rolling pin
Two bowls
Baking pan (13" x 9" x 2" is a good size, but close will work)
Oven
Sense of purpose

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Rinse the chicken under running water, then pat it dry with a paper towel. Put it on the cutting board and slice all the disgusting pieces of fat off it. It's too hard to get all of them, but get what you can. Then open them up so they are sort of splayed apart and slice them in half. They have a sort of natural seam down the middle, but usually there is a big half and a small half on either side of this seam, so you'll probably have to slice a little to the big half side of the seam to make each side roughly equal. Now you have four skinless, boneless, chicken breast halves.

Take out the plastic wrap and cut off two square pieces (as long as the wrap is wide). Place one of your chicken breast halves between them and start smacking it with your mallet or rolling it with your rolling pin. Try to flatten it out to a rectangle or circle about 1/4"-1/8" inch thick. Get it as thin as you can without it being so thin it falls apart. Then set it aside and do the same with the other three breast halves.

Take out the cheese and cut off four boxes that are 2" x 1/2" x 1/2". Also take out your two peppers and scrape out whatever seeds are hanging on. Cut them in half lengthwise.

Place one pepper half on top of each of the flattened breast halves. Then place one cheese block widthwise sort of near the bottom end of each breast half, kind of in the same orientation you would use for the stuff that goes in a burrito. Sprinkle each of the chicken-pepper-cheese stacks with the cilantro and the red peppers. Then roll up each one like you would a burrito - bottom first, over the cheese, then sides in, then roll up to the top. Shred some more of the cheese.

Now crack your egg into one of your bowls and beat it lightly. In the other bowl, mix the corn meal and all the asterisk taco seasoning ingredients. Set up the two bowls and the empty baking pan as an assembly line, in this order: egg bowl, taco seasoning bowl, baking pan. Now take a chicken roll and dip it in the egg, making sure to cover every outer surface. Then dip it in the taco seasoning, again making sure to cover every outer surface. Then place it with the seam down on the baking sheet. Do the same for the other three chicken rolls.

Place the baking sheet in the middle of the 375 degree oven and bake for 25-30 minutes. You'll know when it's done because you'll cut into the thickest part of the chicken a little bit and you won't see any pink--it'll be white as far as the eye can see. As soon as you take them out of the oven, put the shredded cheese on top of them, then a gob of salsa.

Serve with some refried beans (easy to get in a can and then just heat up) and your favorite kind of salad.

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