Sometimes I am amazed at how much of an incredible human being my little sister, Heather, has become. My mom worries about her sometimes, since she’s so much more difficult to read than I am, but I know that she is going to be just fine. When I really needed to talk to someone who wouldn’t judge me, I called her, and I don’t think anyone in this world could have done a better job of making me feel better about a certain situation.
My sister is a clone of my mother, so really I have my mom to thank for all this.
I am so excited to make dinner and dessert tomorrow with Heather for my mom and stepdad! I’m making the chicken stir-fry recipe I posted recently with homemade fried rice (or lo-mein? haven’t quite decided that yet), and then Heather and I are either going to make a fresh strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting or these to-die-for oatmeal butterscotch cookies. (Strawberry desserts and oatmeal cookies are my mom’s favorites.)
I love my mother more than any living person on earth — except for Heather — and I am so excited to spend the afternoon drinking homemade sangria and shooting the shit with my two favorite ladies.
I always want to cook Asian-inspired recipes, but I never have all the necessary ingredients. (Sesame oil and other essential flavor items like fresh ginger are generally not things I end up buying when I’m at the grocery store. Especially since the only things I usually buy when Sean’s not around are yogurt and ramen.)
This recipe has a particularly overwhelming ingredient list. However, Sean’s mom happened to have everything on hand when I was housesitting this weekend, right down to the organic Hoisin sauce we found unopened in the back of the spice cabinet.
OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS. This is probably the most delicious thing I’ve ever made, and I’ve made some ridiculously tasty shit. The recipe only calls for chicken and broccoli, but we ended up throwing in carrots and green bell peppers, then putting it all over a bed of rice noodles. (I replaced the sherry with a little bit of the sauvignon blanc I was drinking, and that turned out excellent. I also had to sub flour for the cornstarch, which changed the consistency slightly for the worse, so that’s probably the only thing I’m gonna do differently when I make this again.)
Because I’m currently eating the leftovers and weeping at how orgasmic this tastes, I’m gonna have to expand my grocery list to include some of these items — particularly that toasted sesame oil, mmmmmm —on a regular basis.
I was craving banana bread something fierce this weekend, so I made some while I visited Sean. This recipe at foodnetwork.com is far and away my favorite base recipe. It’s super easy, and you can modify it really easy to fit your specific tastes.
(For example, I replaced 1/4 of the recipe’s cup of granulated sugar for brown sugar, added a splash of vanilla extract, and threw in about a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Next time, I think I’m gonna add walnuts and cut the salt in the recipe down to a 1/2 tsp., since I wouldn’t need it to balance out the chocolate.)
Um, is some higher power trying to tell me that it’s time to make gnocchi mac n’ cheese? Because earlier today I stumbled upon this recipe and started drooling, and now this picture pops up on my dash.
I don’t believe in coincidences, so I’m going to take it as a sign.
As some people who’ve been following me for a while may probably know, I am a committed whiskey drinker. When I’m at the bar, I stick to Jameson-Ginger Ale’s exclusively. That being said, I love margaritas. Like, love them. I don’t order them everywhere because I hang out in dive bars all the time, and who wants a margarita from a dive bar? Put me in a Tex-Mex restaurant, however, and I’m like a pig in margarita-flavored shit.
Anyway, Foodie Bride recently posted this list of amazing flavored margarita recipes, including the grapefruit margarita pictured above. There are also raspberry, blackberry and classic lime recipes too.
Confession: I hate bananas. Something about their consistency absolutely revolts me.
That being said, I fucking love banana bread. As long as I don’t have to feel banana mush in my mouth, I’m in love with anything that has banana flavor.
And now, in addition to being obsessed with banana bread, I think I’m about to start worshipping this banana bread french toast. Just thinking about it is making my mouth water.
My mom gave these brownies to Britt after she stopped over to give my mom a birthday present and catch up. She saw PW making them on Food Network and decided she had to have them, even though she’s not really into baking. It’s a really unpretentious recipe — you use box cake mix and you don’t have to make the caramel from scratch, which is usually kind of a bitch — but these brownies are ridiculously delicious. Like, crack delicious.
Note: I used super cheap pumpkin puree ‘cause it was on sale and spent a little more on the chocolate chips… good decision. Use the Ghirardelli 60% cacao dark chocolate chips that she mentions in the recipe. They’re worth every penny and they really make the cookies!
This is a really good, concise video about how to clean and debeard mussels. I sometimes hear people talking about how they stay away from cooking shellfish because they’re nervous about proper prep, but I think this shows how completely simple mussels are.
Steam ‘em with a little white wine, butter, garlic and shallots; toss ‘em over linguine with some fresh cracked black pepper and you’re good to go. So easy! Also be sure to grab some really good, crusty bread to dip into the sauce.
I wanted some nice, warm comfort food for my day-after-Christmas celebration with Sean, so I made chicken and dumpling soup. This officially earned my seal of approval. It’s easy and super fucking delicious.
I did, however, change the dumpling recipe — I just mixed 2 cups bisquick and 2/3 cup of milk, then dropped them in the soup by the tablespoon. Let them cook for a good 15-20 minutes and you’re good to go.
Sean surprised me by telling me he’s coming to visit tomorrow. Best Christmas present ever! (Although the gorgeous new dutch oven Santa brought me is pretty sweet, and I’ll be using it to make chicken and dumpling soup, served alongside some cheddar garlic biscuits.)
My mother commented that I have a tendency to make “restaurant dishes,” and I can see where she’s coming from. I definitely do gravitate toward one-pan sauteed pasta meals, probably because those are the kinds of things I always order when I go out to eat. This recipe in particular reminds me of TGIF’s “Cajun Chicken and Shrimp Pasta,” which I always get when I visit Britt, my best friend who serves/manages there.
In any case, the only reason I don’t make this more often is because it requires a lot of ingredients, most of which I normally don’t have on hand. However, since I live with my parents now, they’ve got everything I need to make it. I guess that’s the one (and only?) advantage to living in their basement.
Final note: Ladies, dudes LOVE this meal. I think it’s cause it’s spicy, which somehow roughly translates to “manly” on the palette. I’ve got a ton of chicken-veggie-pasta combinations in my recipe arsenal, but this is the only one Sean actually requests.
I’m not really into baking, but these look out of this world. I haven’t gotten a chance to play with my mom’s Kitchenaid since I moved back home… maybe these will give me some culinary motivation.
OK, so it’s a teensy bit late in the season for peaches, but it was way too fucking hot to use the oven until now. So consider this a nice “late summer” recipe, would you? Anyway, it’s bomb as fuck and retard-proof. All you gotta do is stuff the chops, sear ‘em on one side, and stick those babies in the oven. No one will care what you make as a side dish, because they’ll be busy having a foodgasm over the chops.
I’ve included this picture of Paula Deen’s crazy eyes to convince you to try her recipe. You can also click her insane face to get to the foodnetwork.com website where they’ll walk you through this tasty treat.
