Wednesday, March 31, 2010

St. Patty's Day Party Redux

I somehow missed the boat on the Guiness milkshakes on the evening of our St. Patrick's Day bash so I had my brother whip up another batch. It was a bizarre concoction of peanut butter icecream, Guiness, and mint chocolate Bailey's, but somehow it all worked and was a pleasing beverage to go along with Discovery Channel's Life which I am now realizing I missed out on this past Sunday. Dammit!

I also made some more cole slaw and stuck in on top of a crab cake. It was quite a wonderful combination so I wanted to show it off:


Annnnnnnd last, but definitely not least I whipped up another batch of brownie roll out cookies with Bailey's cream frosting. Since time was on my side this night, I had some fun with decorating.

Here they are pre-frosting and sprinkles:



And here are some post frosting and sprinkles:

There's still more from last weekend, come back soon!

Microwaving Dinner with Martha Stewart


I was excited to make this recipe because it is made entirely in the microwave. I was disappointed when I read it took a whole 20 minutes to cook. 20 minutes? who has the time to wait around for that! who can afford to stare longingly into the microwave and risk all that radiation? Apparently I do.

This recipe did not need an entire lemon, and it also did not need the cup of dried parsley I accidently dropped in post-photo. Other than that it was quite tasty, Martha knows what she's doing.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

St. Patrick's Day Party

This weekend my brother and I threw one hell of a St. Patrick's Day party complete with a green themed menu. I apologize, I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked to because I was pressed for time and stressssed.

I made a pesto pasta salad with olives and sun-dried tomatoes.


I also made some slaw that I previously ranted about on this blog.


The dinner menu also consisted of spinach-artichoke dip, corn-beef and cheddar sliders (thanks Aj!) spinach balls (thanks Alyssa!), and chicken soulvaki with tzatiki sauce.
There was also green beer, Guiness milkshakes, and coffee with Bailey's.

For dessert I made brownie roll out cookies with Bailey's cream frosting (it did not need 3-4 cups of sugar, I used 2).

I wish I had a better picture, but at this point I just wanted to go outside in the sunshine and have a beer. These were the clear favorite and I next time I'll double the recipe.

I also made some alcoholic gummies with melon fusion jell-o and vodka.


All in all the party was a success and everyone was well fed.

Quesadilla Night

I got a quesadilla maker for my much belated secret santa gift (thanks jess!) so this weekend I decided to bust it out. I cut up a bunch of fillings and let everyone make their own.

Olives, red pepper, red onion, Mexican cheese mix, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, grilled chicken.

Here is mine, I put some pesto down with sun-dried tomatoes, olives, chicken, and mozzarella cheese.

And here are some quesadillas cooking:

It was a big hit. Next time I want to try some kind of dessert quesadilla to throw in there. Stay tuned for more of this weekend's hard work.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Debatable Failure

Backstory: A few months ago my sister introduced me to the compost cookie at Momufuku Milk Bar this magical cookie includes pretzels, coffee, potato chips, oats, butterscotch, and chocolate chips. Needless to say ever since that wondrous day in September I have been dreaming of these cookies. One of the blogs I subscribe to recently posted a copycat recipe for these cookies, dreams really do come true!

I put chocolate chips, pretzels, and potato chips into my cookie dough:

And here is where things go wrong. The recipe said to let the dough firm up in the refrigerator for at least and hour and up to one week. Now let's be honest here, I was no sitting around for an hour waiting for cookie dough to firm up. I wanted a compost cookie and I wanted it now.

Well, well, surprise! Looks like recipes are written a specific way for a reason because my cookies pretty much turned into a puddle:


I will say they were still delightfully chewy and absolutely delicious. Here is a close up shot:


I will most definitely make these again and may not even bother to chill the dough since they came out incredibly addicting regardless.

I did not make a dinner this Saturday, but check out this awesome stack of waffles we whipped up Sunday morning:
I was glad I inadvertently made these on Pi Day!

Friday, March 12, 2010

Forgotten Foods

Woops totally forgot to mention some other eats I enjoyed last weekend, I imagine you were all pining for more posts from me.

On Sunday I made zucchini bread. We used to make it all the time back when I was younger and the zucchini actually grew in our garden, but we lost the recipe and the zucchini stopped flourishing. Lucky for me there was a hot deal on zucchini at the supermarket last week and I loaded up, checked up on that Paula Deen recipe I had saved in my recipe box for the past year, and got cooking.

Sadly I failed to take any pre-cutting pictures so here are the only shots I have:

I also had some amazing pizza at Grimaldi's. Here is a shot of our artichoke chicken cutlet pizza:


Stay tuned for my Friday night failure!

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Saturday Night Fry Party

As Kurt and Amy Deep Fry Shit has proved, when you have a deep fryer, the possibilities are really endless. Since the recent deep fryer discovery we have been looking for any excuse to clog our arteries and this weekend was no exception.

We whipped up monte cristo's, turkey, ham and swiss sandwiches, and made a batter to drown it in.
Pre Fry:

Post Fry:
Just look at that melty cheese mmmmmm...

And because we felt it was necessary to round out this meal with some veggies, we threw some asparagus in the batter as well and tossed it into the fryer.
Pre Fry:

Post Fry:
Surprise, someone thought it would be a good idea to put some bacon in the left over batter and fry that as well.
Pre Fry:
Post Fry:
This meal was everything we could have dreamed of, with the slight downside of feeling ill for the rest of the evening.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Go to Trader Joe's NOW!

I had my first experience with mochi this weekend and I feel my life will never be the same.

What is mochi, you may be asking see here for details.

I purchased mango and strawberry ice cream mochi at Trader Joe's this weekend.


Here is an inside look of the strawberry:

The soft and doughy outer shell combined with the inner ice cream core is simply magical. We also observed that there is something almost futuristic about it all, did somebody say ice cream of the future? Sadly that billing has already been given out, albeit a bit prematurely in my opinion, to Dippin Dots.

Go get yourself some mochi, you won't be sorry.

And learn a lesson from the Gosselins and don't forget to freeze it! (9:14)