What's a caper?

My second favorite thing to do next to art is cooking.  The problem is...I have no one to experiment on.  Sure there's Lou.  But I really don't think he appreciates different foods the way I do.  He'd be happy eating spaghetti with jar sauce and ham & mayo sandwiches for the rest of his life.  He looks at new unidentifiable dishes with fear in his eyes, whereas I look at them with excitement.
Luckily (...I guess?), he's too lazy to make food himself, so whatever food whim I have, he's subject to eat it, or at least poke at it with his fork.

I don't remember how I came across this dish.  I think I was googling dinner ideas, or maybe capers.  Sometimes I can come across something interesting to cook if I just search for an ingredient I'm trying to use up.  Like the capers.  I made chicken piccata the other night with them.  But that's another delicious story.

I used to hate capers.  Or maybe I was just scared of their mystery.  The first time I ever tried them, it was when I was making a dish in college.  I had no idea what they were, but the recipe called for them.  They looked strange.  And they were salty, but with a weird flavor.  At the time, I didn't know if they were a nut, a seed, a sea creature...who knew.  The dish came out crappy and I swore off capers for a while after that.  Only recently, have I grown to like them a lot more.

Enter...Pork Medallions with Mustard-Caper Sauce.  Ooh, we's fancy tonight.

Here's how the picture on the website looked.  Fancy and sophisticated, yes?

Here's how mine looked.  Kind of like slop, yes?

Maybe because I forgot that parsley garnish.  But that's fine, because the flavor was awesome.  And the roasted potatoes I made to go with them soaked up all of that saucy goodness.  I licked my plate.  I'm not gonna lie.  Ok, well I did lick it hiding in the kitchen where Lou couldn't see me.  I'm not a savage.

The recipe was really easy to make and with a small amount of ingredients, which is great. If there's more than 10 ingredients, I'm not making that crap. Get out of here. I don't care how delicious the recipe might be. I have places to be. I have a life to live. I can't be measuring a bajillion separate ingredients. I think that's why I never make anything by Emeril Lagasse. It seems like every recipe I come across by him has 40 different components. Or fancy sounding ingredients that are just going to waste more of my brainpower...like clarified butter. Just get on with it alreadyyyyy. Stop showing off.

I found the recipe here, if you'd like to try it out for yourself.

Baked Crab Rangoon

One of my favorite things to order from the Chinese food place is Crab Rangoon. Little deep-fried pockets of cream cheese-y crabby deliciousness. I usually end up eating most of them and then feeling like a fat cow for the rest of the night.

In my previous post I mentioned we picked up a mountain of blue crabs. I decided to try my hand at making some crab rangoon with some of the crab meat. I stumbled on a few baked recipes, and thought that would be a nice alternative to drenching them in hot oil.

You can find the recipe I followed here. It was a little tedious to fill and seal each pocket, but sooooo worth it. And the butter brushed on top really made them perfect. Nice and golden, crispy, buttery....mmm. I dipped them in a Thai chili sauce that I had in the fridge just waiting for a purpose in life.

I can't wait to make more!

I love food.

For Valentine's weekend, the boy and I cooked each other food. He made breakfast. An egg sunny side up (he gave me the good one), with pork roll and canadian bacon. Waffles on the side!



It was so good. I almost didn't have room for my pulled pork and homemade coleslaw! Unfortunately, I forgot to take a pic, but I drew one up. I think this somewhat accurately portrays the joy that was the pulled pork sandwich.


The best part of the pulled pork, was how EASY it was. I forgot how friggin awesome a slow cooker is. Here's the recipe:

2 lbs. pork, chopped in large chunks (I used a pork roast I found on sale)
1 can rootbeer
a few squirts of worchestershire sauce

Put all of that in the slow cooker on low and cook for 7 hours.
Drain. Shred the pork with a fork. (heh heh...rhyming is fun)
Add an 18 oz. bottle of BBQ sauce (I used Stubb's Spicy BBQ Sauce. LOVE)
Mix it all up and devour!

As for the coleslaw...I mixed together mayo, cider vinegar and sugar until it tasted like coleslaw (very precise, I know), and poured that over shredded cabbage and carrots. Yummm. Oh, and pepper. Gotta have pepper.

Irish Stew

Winter time makes me crave all things stew, soup, and WARM. The other day I made the most amazing (and easy!) stew ever. It's great for not only this super frigid winter weather, but also the up and coming St. Patty's Day holiday.

I don't have a picture of the final product, unfortunately. Day 1, I devoured it. And days 2 and 3, I...ok...I devoured it then too! But just envision the best meaty potatoey goodness in a bowl that you can, and there you have it.

This is the "before" pic. Before the apartment filled with the most delicious aroma...



I can't remember the website I pulled this from, as I scribbled it down on a post-it note a week ago. But here it is...!

1 onion; chopped
2 lbs beef stew meat
2 to 3 carrots; chopped
3 cups Guinness bottled beer (3 cups equals 2 bottles, but I added a little more)
2 tsp worchestershire sauce (I added a lot more...I can't remember how much. I love that stuff)
1 tsp salt
2 tbs olive oil (I actually didn't have it at the time, so I used the bacon grease from breakfast. Is that bad? I don't care...it tasted oh so good)
3 cloves of garlic; minced (I used 4)
4 medium potatoes
1/2 tsp pepper

Cut two of the potatoes into slices, and the other two into quarters. (The sliced potatoes break down and thicken the stew.)

Put a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil (or bacon grease!)
When it's hot, add the onion, carrots, garlic, and salt & pepper.

Cook until soft. Five minutes or so.

Add the Guinness, worchestershire sauce, beef, and potatoes to the pot, and turn the heat to high.

When it begins to boil, turn the heat to low and cover the pot.

Simmer the stew for two hours (I stewed it for 3, taking the lid off a half hour before it was done, to thicken a little), stirring every once in a while.

About ten minutes before it's done, taste it and add more salt and pepper if you like.


By day 3 of this stew, it had really thickened up, so I found an easy way to break it down was to add a little bit more worchestershire sauce before I re-heated it.


Next time I'd like to add some mushrooms and more onions. And parsley! I do love me some parsley.

epic Mac n' Cheese

Lou: So what's for dinner?
Me: Macaroni and cheese
Lou: Uh...umm...is it gonna be good...?
Me: Of course it's gonna be good!
Lou: ...I don't know....
Me: It has bacon in it.
Lou: Oh, ok good. Alright then. I'll have some.

I've been eating salads for lunch and dinner the past month (with a few slip ups...who can say no to pizza?) in an effort to try eating healthier, and kind of to see if I could actually do it.
I've had a big bag of shredded cheese (it was on super sale! I couldn't help it!) just sitting in the fridge begging for me to think of something to do with it. I finally broke down and decided to make some baked macaroni and cheese. I love me some pasta. I'm craving it!

The key to baked mac n' cheese epicness is most definitely insane amounts of cheese, crumbled ritz crackers and BACON.

I cooked a pound of elbow pasta, then mixed that in a casserole dish with two cans of stewed tomatoes (drained and chopped) and a bag of shredded italian mix cheese. Then topped it with 5 slices of crumbled cooked bacon and a sleeve of crushed ritz crackers.
Baked that all in a 350 degree oven for a half hour or so covered with foil, then took the foil off and cooked another 10-15 mins for the crackers to get all golden brown and delicious.

My only regret is not using enough cheese. I know, I know...how can that be?? I used a full bag. No, still not enough for my liking. I think next time I'll actually use TWO bags, if you can believe it. Still, it was delicious.
Possibly I'll add a can of crushed tomatoes and some pats of butter next time too, but that's just nitpicking.

Black Bean Burger Bonanza

I try my hardest to attempt to think about eating healthy....sometimes....on some days. Last time I went food shopping, I picked up a bag of dried black beans. My mom always said that they were good to have. Healthy. Cheap. Easy to cook. Ok cool.
Apparently, black beans (and most other dried beans) require soaking overnight before they can be used. Wonderful. The queen of never-thinking-ahead has to remember to soak a cup of beans the night before if she wants to eat the next day.
I somehow managed it, and came upon the idea to make black bean burgers from the beans. I'd never had [or cooked] a black bean burger before, but it sounded healthy, so hey, why not? I loosely followed a few recipes I found online. Mushing [haha. mushing...so very] them all together into one.

2 c cooked black beans (or a 16 oz can)
1 egg
3 tbs minced garlic (I totally added more. how could you not?)
1 tbs chili powder
1 tbs cumin
1 tsp chili sauce (I used a sauce simliar to Frank's Red Hot)
Half and onion (minced as finely as possible)
1/2-3/4 c bread crumbs (made my own from stale hot dog rolls)

Mash beans w/ a fork in a med. bowl until thick n' pasty. [Side Note: I didn't cook my beans enough apparently, because I spent FOREVER trying to mash my slightly hard beans. I ended up using my hands for half of the work and the little obnoxious beans were slipping out of my fingers like tiny bars of soap. There were bean bits everywhere. Nightmare. So if you're using dried beans you cook yourself, don't be like me, make sure to cook them until they're almost mush, to save yourself the trouble].

Stir the garlic and onion into beans.

Mix egg & seasonings together and add to beans.

Mix in breadcrumbs; add more crumbs as needed until mixture holds together nicely.

Divide into four patties and bake in 375 degree oven on lightly oiled pan 10 mins on each side.

I melted cheese on mine towards the end. Does that cancel out the healthiness?


I also made a quick chipotle mayo to go along with it. Which I really think made the meal. It was super simple too. Mayo, mixed with chipotle pepper seasoning, paprika, some garlic powder, and a teeny weeny splash of lime juice. Add the seasoning to taste. (however spicy you'd like). I let the flavors meld in the fridge while I cooked the burgers.


The sad part is...not only did I forget to take pictures once, but TWICE. I made four burgers. Which made two meals for me and the boy. Yep, forgot both times. Luckily, the bean burgers were not winning any presentation competitions. They looked like tiny circular bean bricks. But they were oh so tasty! I'll definitely be making them again soon.

adventures in cooking and other things

When the fridge is looking barren, I usually end up throwing anything I have left together and melting cheese on top of it, or mixing it with pasta. Instant....something!

This lovely grouping of chopped onion, spinach, jalapeno and pepperoni made what I'd like to call french fry slop. Curly fries with mozzarella cheese. Don't get me wrong. It tasted awesome..especially with marinara sauce on the side, but the presentation left something to be desired.






A couple of weeks ago I finally got around to restocking my shipping supplies. It was like shipping supply Christmas! I ordered from a few different places and everything basically showed up on the same day. The UPS and Fedex men probably high-fived going up and down my stairs. It was cardboard box chaos! Lou was not entertained. There's more that you can't even see in this photo! I need a shipping supply room.



I'm really excited though because I finally found a "gift box" that I'm happy with that fits my little wedding couples perfectly. I like to make sure all of my figurines come in little gift boxes that way they can be easily and safely stored if needed. And now I have ten million of them, since it's a money saver to buy in bulk!

And a handsome kitty picture of Spike enjoying the new table and chairs set I bought from Ikea this past weekend. $80 for a table and four chairs! Score! It's a great size for my teeny apartment, and I'm in love with the glass top. (perfect for clay crafting). The chairs are a little flimsy (no rough-housing boys allowed!), but they look cute and a little retro, so I'll deal. Don't you just love the disgusting beige rug that's always standard in apartment buildings? Who thought that was a good idea? The only upside? It sort of matches my leopard (or is it cheetah?) throw rug.

boo Sunday

There's something about Sundays that will forever make me feel like I have school tomorrow and didn't finish my book report. I guess work has the same effect... Minus the book report.

Good news! I finished two custom orders and am thisclose to finishing another. I love productive weekends! It's so hard to keep myself motivated. Even though it's the best days for me to work, I always find myself wanting to slack off and play video games all day. It's the weekend, gosh darnit! Luckily my "work" is fun, so I think that's what keeps me at it.




I also found time to make some spinach and ricotta stuffed chicken! It came out pretty good. Except...lesson for next time...don't use "maple" bacon. The apartment smells reeks like breakfast, and my dinner kind of tasted like breakfast too. I forgot that "maple" and "hickory" aren't one in the same when it comes to bacon. my bad. I wasn't thinking.



I basically followed this recipe. Next time I'd like to flatten my chicken a little thinner. It wasn't until I wanted to make this, that I realized that I don't own a mallet. So I'm banging on the chicken with a frying pan. (it was the only flat heavy thing I could find!) It's making the loudest sound imaginable. Glasses are jingling. The coffee maker is shimmying down the counter. Upstairs neighbors are banging on the floor. It served it's purpose though!
I have a ton of ricotta left over now though. I'd like to think of something tasty to make with it. All I've ever used ricotta for is lasagna, but I'd like to think of something different. OH..cannolis? Yeah, those won't be exhausing and difficult to make.

Last night I snapped a few pictures of Ein "helping" me edit photos. She's so cute. A total beotch, but she loves to cuddle.




And today Lou and I stopped in the Christmas Tree Shop and oh my gosh I forgot how much cute and cheap dish and glassware they have! I found so many cute things that I thought would look great as displays for my Plinis at craft shows and whatnot. Like this freakin adorable polka dot plate. Two dollars. Are you kidding me?? I also picked up THE most awesome cake stand for four dollars! I've decided that I'm not allowed in there unsupervised because only bad money blowing things can come about when I'm left to roam.

All I ever think about is food and crafting.

It's true. If I'm not thinking about what the next figurine is I'm going to be painting, I'm thinking about when and what my next dish of food will be. I love cooking and baking and I love making tasty meals. Ok yes, and I love eating.
The other day my friend Yesenia picked me up some bulgogi, kimchi and fish cakes from the asian foodstore which I made for dinner last night. Well, not the fish cakes, as those are for tonight! Lou said "I wish I was Neil [Yesenia's husband] so I could eat this everyday". I thought that was funny.



I think the thing I like best about bulgogi is it cooks up really fast. Plus the taste. MMM. Wrap it in a lettuce leaf with some rice and kimchi and it's out of this world.

i like to make lists while i doodle.

It all started with a large bunch of cilantro. I'm addicted! But it was starting to wilt faster than I could consume it, so I looked up a recipe on my favorite cooking website (which can be found here) and whiped up one delicious meal for Lou and I..Tequila Shrimp! I substituated half of the tequila for Corona and added some chopped tomatoes, onion and red pepper. And the juice of one lime at the end. MMM. The lime really gave it a nice punch. Next time instead of putting it over angel hair pasta I think I'll try rolling it up in tortillas. The mixture was good, but not as saucy as I thought it was going to be to cover pasta.


I didn't end up making guacamole like my list might lead you to believe. (hence the question mark..) I forgot to grab some avocados while I was at the store. Ah well..next time.

I'll probably be working on expanding the idea on that sketch I made for the rest of today. And then tomorrow work on some more Plini creations. What's next on the list of series? I'll give you a hint...it starts with a P and rhymes with Guy Mices.

we have a winner!

Lou is so picky when it comes to anything I cook. I call him a ham and cheese/peanut butter and jelly boy. Anything even slightly "exotic" and he doesn't like it. Who doesn't like onions? Or mushrooms?? He doesn't even like homemade pasta sauce...he PREFERS prego. Are you kidding me?
Anyways, I was ready to serve him just a handful of ground beef on a plate, seeing as all he ever wants is meat. But I decided against it and instead added the ground beef to a few other things. Elbow macaroni, chopped onion, 2 cans of diced tomatoes, taco seasoning, garlic, crushed red pepper and a generous pour of jar spaghetti sauce. I eyeballed everything. Pretty simple. But tasty. Oh, and parm cheese and fresh basil on top.

Kielbasa Stew

Oh my god, I just made the most amazing stew EVER. I had a package of kielbasa thawing in the fridge. But I was really craving cabbage (I have no idea why) so I went on Allrecipes.com to search for a good recipe. They have a nifty ingredient search function so I searched for kielbasa and cabbage together and up came Kielbasa Stew.

This is the recipe:

INGREDIENTS
1 pound kielbasa sausage, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 tablespoon butter
1 (14 ounce) can beef broth
1 (10.75 ounce) can tomato soup
1 1/2 cups water
3 cups shredded cabbage
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup diced green bell pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 cup sour cream


DIRECTIONS
In a large saucepan over medium heat, cook sausage in butter until brown. Pour broth, tomato soup and water into pan with sausage. Stir in cabbage, onion and bell pepper and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes, or until flavors are well blended. Stir in sour cream and heat through before serving.


There were a few variations though...I used beef stock instead of broth (because I had it on hand) and tomato sauce instead of soup (same deal). I also added two cans of diced tomatoes and crushed red pepper. Oh and about 1/2 cup of little red potatoes. I added more cabbage also..probably closer to 4 cups. I wanted to stretch it the best I could. I still have more than half a head of cabbage left over. I guess I could make coleslaw...

Oh, and for the sourcream...I made it an individual dollop per bowl of stew instead of mixing it in the whole thing. Gives you the option if you want the extra calories at the time or not. It tasted delicious!

I wish I had a picture to show...but I'm lazy, and my bowl is empty.

Lobsters & Wreaths

Yesterday Lou and I went to something called a Lobster and Wreath Festival. It was really strange. They sold lobster & crab meat and clams & mussels for really cheap, and also wreaths and baked goods. We bought an apple pie, some pepper jelly, clams, mussels and come crab meat. The lady who took the orders for the seafood wasn't very nice though. I made some fra diavolo for dinner with the clams and mussels and let me tell you, it was quite the experience. The clams had these little "necks". I wasn't really ready for a lesson in clam anatomy. I couldn't eat them. Lou ate them though.
But today was a much better experience. I made stuffed mushrooms with the crab meat and they were the best mushrooms I've ever had. For realsies.
Now I'm working on my candy necklace beads. I'm hoping I'll be done with them today.