Brussel sprouts are yummy, I promise.

I made this all the way back last week. It was "Yummerz!" to quote the roommate, and I agree, it was really good. The brussels were really sweet, and the pork, which had an almost BBQ tang to it, was really tender and a good contrast to my normal sandwich, one-pot-stop, or generally on-the-go meals.

Look, I measured stuff! And I wrote down the recipe! It was a big deal guys, a big deal. This is the marinade for the pork. I only let mine marinade for about half an hour because well, I got hungry. Then I roasted it on 350 for 35 minutes. I used a VERY small pork loin though, and baby-sat it the whole time, because I don't trust my oven. Also, as you can see I totally scorched the overflow sauce, but whatever. It had rendered pork fat in it, so I might have eaten the torched part on toast. Just maybe.

2 tbs apple cider vinegar

1 tbs fish sauce (If you don't own this yet, BUY SOME. Its good on everything)

1 tbs honey

1/2 tbs mustard

1/2 tbs fennel seed

1/2 tbs celery seed

salt and pepper to taste

The brussels were way simpler. I just sauteed them in butter (non-salted) then added a splash of balsamic vinegar towards the end to make them a little sweeter. Then, because I had some and I accurately predicted it would be delicious, I served them with a drizzle of honey on top. I literally ate them like candy straight out of the bowl. For the record, that was about 2 lbs of brussels. This dinner was super cheap, because I only used half of a pork loin that I had a coupon for, so all told, about $7 for the whole thing. $2 in pork, $4 in brussels, and $1 in used costs in spices and stuff.

Chile relleno and chicken casserole

Roommate really likes spicy food, and so I am frequently forced to up the spice content of my recipes right before I serve them, usually through liberal dustings of cayenne pepper. This one, not so much.

The inspiration for this dish came from yet another blog I love, called For the Love of Cooking. I fell in love with this blog when the first thing I looked at was toast/egg cups with bacon. What is not to love about eggs baked in bread with bacon?

She made a Mexican-style chile relleno casserole, which I thought looked ok, but maybe a little saucy for me. So I riffed it. Plus, she made hers because she thought it was HEALTHIER than true chile rellenos. Hah. Like I care about that.

So first, I blistered some Cubanel chiles (I hate my grocery store, Cubanels are all they had, and while good, I don't like them nearly as much as Anaheims or Poblanos.... I hate my grocery store.) Blistering chiles is something I had done before, so it didn't scare me, but in case you never have, word to the wise. When they say charred they mean CHARRED. Every millimeter needs to be totally black. Otherwise, the skin won't blister away from the flesh, and you will waste tons of chile. So burn those suckers. For example, this one here, NOT CHARRED ENOUGH. MORE FIRE NEEDED.

However, my three chiles were insufficient to cover my pan, so I added a layer of spinach on top of them, just to keep the egg-mixture from hitting the pan.

On top of the spinach/chiles came the egg, flour, cream cheese mixture (I had no low-fat sour cream, work with me here). Then the spiced chicken and black bean mixture. Here is where I brought the heat. I did two tbs of chili flakes, plus a cup of hot salsa verde in the chicken while I browned it. It was still dull, so on top of the blackbean/chicken, I added more slasa verde, then sliced pepperjack cheese.

Recipes always seem to call for grated cheese in casseroles. I don't get why. sliced is so much faster, and has the same effect. Plus, my cheese grater terrifies me. I think it wins the "most likely to cause lost fingers" award of anything in my kitchen, and I have a rusty can opener. So you should get how afraid I am of those.

Anywho, then I repeated the whole thing, spinach, egg-y-stuff, meat and beans, cheese, salsa, and cooked it in the oven at 350 till I decided it was done. This is it pre-baking.

May I say, delicious. Vying for favorite thing ever cooked with the turkish-spice chicken patties. I think maybe I just like cooking ground chicken, I dunno. Either way, delicious.

And it made TONS of leftovers, so I will estimate I got 8 meals out of this, for about $9 total? The most expensive part here was the chicken, the rest I got on super sale, like the cheese and beans. Also, full disclosure, all the spices I used here would have been expensive, but I have a killer spice box (in my bedroom, but I already complained about that). So yeah, cheap for me, but even if you have to re-buy chile flakes, paprkia, cayenne pepper and salsa verde, still pretty cheap.

Halloween is for pumpkins!

Happy Halloween internet!

So, after my rousing success with scones a few weeks ago, I decided I wanted to bake something else. Specifically, I wanted to try and bake a pie. And as it was almost Halloween, I wanted to bake a pumpkin pie. Conveniently, I wasn't able to make a pie until tonight, so this is an actual Halloween pie. Hooray being busy but it working out OK.

I used Paula Deen's pumpkin pie recipe, because really, when I am making pie, I want to make it as fattening, butter-y, creamy and Southern as possible, and I figured her recipe would be the best.

The only things I changed up were:

1. I used fat-free half and half, rather than half and half.

2. I used a smidge less butter

3. I used 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin spice and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, because I had them out.

4. I only used half my filling, because all the reviews said it either made too much, or that it took almost 2 hours to set. I froze the rest, and I think it will make a good cookie base later.

Plus, I liked that this recipe called for cream cheese instead of evaporated milk. Evaporated milk REALLY creeps me out. I mean, if its evaporated, why is it.. liquid?? Why evaporate it at all? Why can't I just use milk? And why does it come in a can that makes me think its baby food? I really don't like it.

Anywho, I digress.

Before I even touched the cheese-y filling, I had to deal with the crust, which I figured would be easy, since it literally came in a box, and all I had to do was pre-bake it for ten minutes with some weight in it. However, in the true spirit of Halloween, I first was tricked. As you can see, I cannot pre-bake very well. My first attempt utterly died, cracked in half and wound up in the sink/becoming my dinner. As a side note, cream cheese on pie crust is pretty good.

Also, unlike the kitchen of all the food bloggers I read, my kitchen was horrifying tonight. Food bloggers always manage to measure out their ingredients into little glass ramekins, and never make any messes. This is what My kitchen looked like. No where near as awesome. I would blame it on Halloween, and say I was trying to scare you, but I wasn't. This is the fear level in my kitchen every time I cook anything. I think I have convinced the roommate that she needs to hide in her room/the library every time I cook.

Oh well. At least I got pie!

Sweet potato and kale gratin

Gratins are delicious, they are everything good about cheese and french fries all mixed together. Plus, this one is even better because you get the lie to yourself and pretend that its healthy because it has kale in it. And so yeah, I count this as a vegetable. Didn't I mention my wide definition of vegetables earlier?

The real recipe calls for Swiss Chard (which the world's worst safeway, aka my local grocer, didn't have) and can be found here. When Deb made it, it came out thick, and gooey, and wet, and looking cheesy and delicious. I however, didn't have as much cheese, and my first ever attempt at bechamel sauce, while delish, got a little thick, and didn't pour easily, a major flaw in technique, but not really in flavor I don't think.

As a result of the lack of liquid-y agents (cheese and sauce), mine came out alot more like layered roasted potatoes with a kale-cheese sauce, than a true gratin. Still good though, and the recipe makes enough that we had leftovers for a solid four days. My one comment on the recipe would be that filling the pan up all the way is OK, even though the recipe seemed to indicate that there were moisture worries. Not covering mine let it dry out almost too much, and it shrank up a bit. So, especially if you are going light on sauce or cheese, cover it.

Also, I took half of it to a pot luck. And yeah, I got to be THAT person at a pot luck in school. I was the one who showed up with real fancy food, and got to think judgy thoughts about the other people's food. Most of it was good, but it was a lot of cheese dip, salsa, baked goods (and one round of delicious chocolate toffee crack stuff, SOO GOOD). And then I had hand made gratin. I won, in the ego-off that was happening inside my head.

Cauliflower and chickpea curry

Curry is one of my favorite things to make. For one thing, it can bear unbelievably high spice loads, so I can mess with it till I like it, without worrying about killing the flavor the dish is aiming for. Thanks to a little inspiration from the old roommate, this one is a new go-to, maybe even replacing my potato one with coconut sauce...

Curry is almost inherently vegetarian. My mom has one phenomenal recipe for a chicken curry with delicious breading in a tomato sauce with potatoes. Just thinking about it makes me drool. But other than than, I feel like most good curries use lentils, chickpeas, potatoes and cauliflower to hold the blend of aromatics and spices together. Which means curry=cheap, super easy, and I don't have to worry about raw food contamination. As raw meat to this day terrifies me, this is always a good thing.

The only caveat with this recipe is the cauliflower is essential, I think a substitute like potatoes or lentils would just make it too heavy. So if you don't like cooked cauliflower, back away from this recipe. I love it, but I know a lot of people don't (due to its resemblance of small cooked brains I assume... oh fun memories).

This curry is from Allrecipes.com, which I love in terms of content, even though its not one of my beloved recipe blogs. I love it anyways. Allrecipes is great because it manages to avoid the few things I do hate about recipe blogs, namely food terrorism and pretentiousness. For example, the dear Pioneer Woman has a big thing against pre-shredded cheese, because well, its apparently not the same and we must all put our finger at risk to grate artisanal cheddars. And lots of other food bloggers have nit-picky things about baking your own bread, because its SO MUCH HEALTHIER AND BETTERER AND YOU ARE A HORRIBLE HUMAN BEING IF YOU DONT. (they aren't usually that aggressive, but I tend to project my failings upon them). Allrecipes though, it never judges me. It tells me, you know what is good Em, pesto out of the tub, and curry blends out of the jar that come pre-mixed, and pre-shredded cheese. And I appreciate that Allrecipes doesn't judge me. Plus, I always find their recipes very idiot-proof and cheap. So go them.

I did mix this one up a little bit. Rather than use canned diced tomatoes, which I can't stand, I used my new best friend, tomato sauce. I also only used half a can, because I don't like to push myself too hard to embrace new things. Then, because I had no fresh ginger on hand, I used 1/2 the amount (1 tsp) of the powdered stuff. I also, as you can see, cheated and used the baby carrots out of the bag. I like that I have to chop them less, what can I say.

I still wasn't happy with the flavor though, so I also doubled the amount of curry. I specifically used madras hot curry (thank you mom, for bringing me awesome spices), which I generally find intense as far as spice blends go, but the cauliflower post boil really soaked up the measly 1.5 tsp without taking on any color or heat, so I added more. I also left out the cloves and the peas, 100% because I forgot to put them in. The peas I am sure would have made it even better, as peas make all curries delish. Also, I didn't feel like boiling rice, so I served it on its own. Still good.

Ultimately, I loved this. It was super filling, and helped me soar through my all-veggie weekend when I made it on Saturday and then.. gasp... ate it for breakfast on Sunday. Don't be judgy.

Scones, volume two

Hey internet!

Remember how I titled a post Scones volume one? Wasn't that confusing and intriguing? I know you spent tons of time wondering when I would reveal what I meant by that. Well, this is what I meant.

Once I made the extra squash for the salad, I started debating all sorts of delicious things I could do with it. I quickly determined I did not have enough to make soup, which was sad, nor did I really want to re-make the same salad again. But then the internet showed me butternut squash scones, that looked fairly similar to the scones I made last week with apples and cheddar.

But was I content to just make a NEW scone recipe? NO! I liked the ones with cheese. So I combined the recipes. However, in fear of making a big soupy mess when I literally doubled the amount of chopped apples/squash from what the recipe called for, I reigned in the cheese back to the original 1/2 cup, and added 1/2 cup flour to increase the dry ingredients. See how flakey and delicious they turned out? And sweet! I didn't even HAVE to put jelly on them. (I totally did though, for two of the three I ate).

Also, I ran out of eggs. So I didn't make an egg wash. So... I dusted them with sugar instead. Sugar=good. Not as good as cheese, but still pretty good.

These turned out huge, and I, because I am a GREAT roommate, and LOVE encouraging healthy diet choices, made the roommate help me eat them. They lasted about 2 days, due to lack of boyfriend to help in their destruction. Sads.

Butternut squash salad

This is yet another delicious riff on a SmittenKitchen meal. Its a pretty big riff.

To begin, lets talk about butternut squash. Butternut squash is the anti-obesity food. Not because it is particularly healthy, I actually have no idea how many calories or other nutritional things are in squash. It fights obesity, because it is a workout from hell to skin and chop it. I seriously got in an arm workout, and it took me abouthalf an hour to peel and chop the whole thing. I would have taken photos, but I was too busy screaming and cussing and working blisters onto my right thumb to remember to go take photos.

People, if you ever want to make roast butternut squash, be prepared to work. Or, do what the internet told me to do and half it, roast it for 15 minutes before hand and then go at it with knives. So many knives.

Once I finished roasting, that is when I started mixing it up. As I mourned before, I don't have tahini, so I couldn't make a tahini dressing. Also, I never buy anything other than the chapest onions at the store, so I had white onions, not red. White onions are no where near as good raw, so I soaked them in balsamic vinegar dressing while I roasted, to cut the flavor a little bit. I also pulled two spicy turkey sausages out of their casings, and cooked those up.

Mix in the chickpeas with the turkey sausage, add in some paprika, and then pull the squash out of the oven. I let it cool for a few minutes before mixing it in with the turkey and chickpeas. Final step was mixing some olive oil and water in with the balsamic and onions, and dressing the whole thing. Super good.

This made a solid five servings, and I had at least two servings of un-used squash left over (my squash was three lbs, the recipe called for a 2-pounder).

Scones, volume one

Dear internet,

Remember how I said I fear baking, and was unwilling to try to make my own biscuits? Well, much like with the quinoa, I also inherited a big tub of flour when I moved. It was sitting there, mocking me, laughing at my total inability to use it for anything other than gumbo. (Yeah, I make gumbo, I will try to remember to take pictures next time).

Then Deb at smittenkitchen made THESE. And my old roommate made them back home. And she said they were just as good as the recipe made them sound.

As my old roommate is a phenominal baker, and only lives a few blocks away from boyfriend, I had to make some. I live in constant fear of other people feeding him delicious things and him falling in love with them. Is this a rational fear? No. Clearly not. But I live with it anyway. So, in response to the threat of scones, I made my own scones. And I followed the recipe PERFECTLY. Except I doubled the cheese. Because more cheese=better.

Always.

I also forgot to add salt to the eggwash, and apparently didn't beat it into a thin enough wash, because there was definitely an eggy-baked presence on the top of some of the scones. I thought it was fine though. Baked egg is delicious scraped off of a pan. Kind of like baked cheese is. Really, I don't actually find having stuff leak off and bake onto pans a bad thing, as long as no-one is going to fight me for scrapin' and eatin' rights.

Also, doubling the cheese resulted in a pastry that was deemed by boyfriend's friend to be too wet to be a scone, and more like a sweet biscuit. I disagree, I think they were the perfect fluffyness for a scone. I hate how dry store scones are anyways, I always feel like I am eating a big chunk of biscotti. These are decidedly NOT biscotti like.

I ate them with jelly. Kirkland's organic strawberry spread to be precise. I could drink that stuff. They survived about 24 hours after being baked, and so I deemed a success for my first ever attempt at real baking. Go me!

Chicken meatball and mushroom marsala

So, boyfriend still being in town, I actually *gasp* made separate dinners two nights in a row, and didn't just eat leftovers/morning star patty quesadillas. My original plan here was to make mushroom marsala (well, mushrooms with wine, marsala wine is expensive people). But, boyfriend had over a friend who apparently is having to suffer through vegetarian roommates, and he asked for meat. All I had on hand was ground chicken, so I made meatballs.

To make the meatballs, just mix together 1 lb chicken, 1 cup Italian style breadcrumbs, 1 egg, and 1 tsp minced garlic an 1 tsp salt. That one I have memorized, as I make these ALL the time. You can fudge a little with all the ingredients, and I add other dry spices if I have any lying around, just reduce your breadcrumbs a little so you keep the dry/wet ratio in check.

I browned those off while I cooked down some chopped onion, more minced garlic, and sliced mushrooms. Follow Julia Child's advice here people. Give the mushrooms room to breath if you want any browning, otherwise they boil in each other's liquid. If you are about to coat them in wine, and don't care if they caramelize at all, feel free to ignore this, but if you have time, its worth it to let them brown separately in batches to they get golden.

I then added the meatballs into the mix, along with 1 cup red wine and 1 can beef broth. That was too much liquid, I would cut it in half next time. I let that all simmer, covered (hooray inverted pans) for about 45 minutes. (raw chicken is not your friend people). Then I added some pasta I had been boiling, let the whole shebang mix together, added some heavy cream, and sprinkled cheese on top. It was SOOO GOOD. Although a little liquidy, the flavor was great. Plus, the servings were huge, and we had leftovers. I would say I got a solid 9 servings out of this, and it was maybe 14 dollars all told.

The main thing I would change here, other than the liquid, would be the amount of time I involved the mushrooms. As much as I like fully smoked-out, brothy, integrated mushrooms, I think they would have held up better, being white button mushrooms, if I had tossed them in post-browning with the pasta.

Shakshuka/the best way to eat eggs

Eggs are the best food ever invented. And by invented, I mean, thank you, whatever starving neanderthal decided to crack open something out of a bird's nest and eat it. You can be my first ever hero, even before Deb (chronologically of course, you understand).

I specifically love poached eggs, and these here eggs, they are the best way to poach ever. All you do is pour some olive oil into a pan, and heat up some garlic and chili flakes. And by some chili flakes, I mean, a solid tbs, because your boyfriend is visiting, and he east spicy food like he has no taste buds. That and cheese. He and I share a love of cheese.

So once you have the oil, garlic, and chili flakes all hot and yummy smelling, add a can of tomato sauce. If you are me, use the cheapest kind, the pure sauce, no skin, no semblance of tomato shape, in part because it is the cheapest, and in part because the texture of tomatoes makes me want to vom. Seriously, I wish I didn't hate them, but I hate tomatoes so much. Except in sauces and salsas that no longer resemble tomatoes.

This is one of those ways. Shakshuka is apparently Israeli food, in which you make this delicious sauce, and then you poach eggs in it. All poached eggs are, children, is boiled eggs, but without the shells. In water, this process can be tricky, but in nice, thick sauce, you just dump the eggs in, and they make their own little beds, and you boil them. Yum.

Serve this in a pita pocket, which you have toasted (toasting is not only yummy, it helps it hold up to the sauce). If you have also made white beans and spinach, put some white beans on top, they are good to. The ratio should be 1 egg per pita pocket. That's 2 eggs per person, 4 eggs per boyfriend.

Also, note the hot sauce in the picture. Remember how I said he eats spicy like he has no taste buds? I had to FORCE HIM to take a bite before he doused it in hot sauce. And of course, he still doused. Sheesh, I have a hard life.

Failure in a pot roast

This is the worst thing I have ever made. I really don't even want to talk about it, but I am just convinced that people want to hear what I have to say, even bad, self-pitying stuff.

My second blog hero, behind Deb, is the Pioneer Woman. I question some of her choices food wise, and don't find her life as adorable as Deb, but she is a close second, none the less. She made pot roast. It looked delicious <-- link.

So I tried it. But I had nothing to cover my pot roast with. Dear Parents, I want a dutch oven with a lid. This will solve both the covering problem, and the I need a bigger pan problem.

So rather than buy aluminum foil, which would have involved walking. To the store. Clearly a bad idea. I just doubled the liquid in the roast. Once I seared it off, I just added an extra can of broth and an extra cup of red wine. My thought was the added liquid would keep it moist while it roasted for 3 hours.

I was WRONG. All the added liquid did was turn my carrots into the worst mush possible. They were still salty, beefy, moist mush though, so that was OK. What was not OK, was how dry the roast got. I essentially made a huge chunk of beef jerky. Roommate, who is an angel and eats anything I make, even the bad stuff, claims it was OK, but I hate it a lot. So lame.

Epic failure, in a pot roast.

Tuna steak and more quinoa

If you ever get sick of chicken, get thyself to Costco. Go straight to the frozen food section. Find the frozen seafood. Buy some frozen, un-batter or spice-covered tuna steaks. Praise the American geniuses who invented Costco and individually frozen tuna steaks. You never have to eat chicken again.

This is seared tuna. Yeah, its not a great picture, so you can't really tell, but it is. And it is SO much better than chicken. I covered it in a REALLY THICK coating of paprika and garlic powder. I picked those two because I bought paprika especially for the chili, and it was towards the front of the spice box.

Yeah, I have a spice box. Its in my bedroom. So I don't want to hear about how small your kitchen is until you have been forced to store your curry powder in a box on your bookshelf, behind your bed. Its incentive to keep stuff clean, let me tell you. I don't put away spices with ANYTHING on the lid, or I smell it for DAYS.

So like I was saying.

I rubbed the tuna down with SERIOUS amounts of paprika, garlic powder, salt and black pepper. Then I got a pan going REALLY hot. Poured some olive oil in it, ran and hid behind the table after it almost seared my eyebrows off, then ran back, dropped the tuna into the pan. Ran away again, cussed a bunch, ran back, flipped tuna, ran away, ran back, jerked heat down, pulled tuna off, and wondered how chefs have eyebrows. This whole process took less than 3 minutes. Once you have tuna thawed, it cooks really fast, and the pre-frozen kind tends to over-cook really fast. And rare tuna is yummy. I don't love the raw stuff as much as I should (being a cool hip, 20-something, I feel like I should love shushi.... and yet I don't). But rare it is good.

The salad is a re-dux of the previous quinoa salad. Rather than using peppers, onions, carrots, and spinach with pesto, I used potatoes, carrots, and onions. Because that is what I had. And i made dressing with more paprika and garlic in the mayo, plus more goat cheese.

Believe it or not, I still have some goat cheese. I don't know how I have convinced myself to not go inhale all that stuff right now. It is so good.

Lentil/French onion soup

This is the best cheap thing I have made all year. I am still so proud of this, and I will probably make more this week, because the other half of the bag of lentils is just sitting there, mocking me.

The soup started out as the lentil soup on the back of the GOYA dried lentils bag. Then, when I opened up the beef broth, I saw the recipe for French onion soup on the can. I had time to notice it, because I swear to God, it took me no less than 10 minutes to open up the stupid broth can. I hate cans/jars/my tiny hands. Anywho, I digress. So, I got distracted by the french onion soup, but I have no oven-proof ramekins, and really, if you aren't going to to the whole cheese-bake-bread step, just don't even bother with French Onion. Because you are doin' it WRONG.

So instead, I started French Onion soup, with two huge onions, chopped up, and simmered in 2 tbs olive oil till they were translucent.

Then I added a can of beef broth, maybe two, I don't remember. I brought that to a boil while rinsing my lentils. This step is SO CRUCIAL. If not, I don't even want to think about how many small non-lentil things you will end up eating. Rinse your lentils people. Then add them to the bubbly broth/onions, and if you are me, add lots of salt, pepper, and some red wine. Not a lot of wine, just whatever you haven't finished out of the glass you have in your hand. Because clearly, when cooking alone on a Wednesday, you need to be drinking red wine. How else can you justify taking a 2 hour break from homework?

Let all that cook for about half an hour, covered. If you are ghetto like me, and have no lid that fits your sad little warped pot, you can use an inverted frying pan.

Once it finishes, de-invert your frying pan, make a grilled cheese sandwich, and eat it. Congratulate self for making at least 6 servings of soup for less than 4 dollars. Go you.

Chili and cheater's biscuits

This is delicious, delicious chili. Why is it in two pots you ask? Because I don't know the meaning of failure, that is why. BAM!

Seriously though, its totally not in two pots because I didn't feel like scaling the recipe I used down, and in fact made it bigger by increasing the amount of beans used, because beans=cheap cheap cheap and really really good. Oh wait, yes it is. Dear world/parents. I need a bigger pot.

I got this recipe from the goddess of food blogging, Deb at SmittenKitchen. She doesn't know it, but she is my hero. I changed it a little bit, because at the time I did not have all the same ingredients, namely, no oregano, and no green peppers. So, I skipped the oregano, used red instead of green peppers, and like I said before, 2x the beans. I also ended up doubling the amount of chili pepper spice mix stuff (what is in that stuff, is it just ground up chili peppers, I have no idea), because as I tasted it, it never seemed to get hot. And my friends all agreed it STILL was not very hot when I finished it.

Here is the link to SmittenKitchen's much prettier recipe. Deb, I love you. Please let me come live your adorable life, eat your delicious food, and play with your baby. Gah.

As you can see, the recipe also calls for biscuits. I am not very brave when it comes to baking. I fear it, in fact (you will laugh in a few posts at this statement). So, I didn't make THOSE biscuits. But I did buy some Pilsbury Grands, stuff some cheese in them, and bake them up. I ran into a small problem, as I had purchased jalepenos to go with these biscuits, which clearly never made it there. Why you ask? Because I have tiny carny hands and can't open jars. Seriously. I tried for at least ten minutes, and I no longer live with/across the hall from anyone who I can bribe to do this stuff for me. Oh the difficulties of my life.

Problem: cheese+biscuit+heat=melty cheese oozing out of the biscuit and caking on my pan. Solution=unknown.

Semi-good-benefit=I get to eat melted cheese off a pan. God I love cheese.

Then I tried to be adorable and serve them the way the recipe called. I ended up just eating it out of the tupperware later due to my total lack of self control. Oh well, I tried.

Chicken wings and quinoa salad

This was a dinner made somewhat in response to a request from the roommate. She loves pesto, a lot. And it might not look like it, but there is A TON of pesto going on in this dish. Those are pesto-drenched roast chicken wings, and that quinoa salad is dressed in pesto-mayonnaise.

Now is as good a time as any to get into a BIG theme in my cooking. I mostly cook whatever I want to eat at any given moment. The only real limitation is that I have to eat a vegetable or fruit in said meal (don't worry, I have a VERY wide definition of vegetable or fruit), and it has to be reasonably priced ingredients. I cook a lot of chicken wings, beans, tomato-sauce, pasta, rice, that sort of thing.

If you ever see anything pricey show up, it is because it was bought in bulk at Costco (Dear America, this is why I love you, please never stop inventing fantastic things like Costco.)

Seriously, I love bulk stores, and I cry a lot because the current city does not have as many good ones as the old city. Or if it does, I haven't found them yet.

This is the quinoa salad. Full disclosure. I did not know what I was making when I made this. As in, when I moved, I inherited this tub of some sort of a grain/bean. It was small, and brown, and I didn't know how to cook it. One day, I was hungry, so I decided to boil said tub of stuff. Once I boiled it for 20 minutes, I kept boiling it. Because it seemed fine. Then all of the sudden it separated into two pieces, each grain became one little sproingy thing and one little bean. And I freaked out a little bit. But I ate it anyways, because, well, I have not got enough money to throw away food just because it scares me.

Turns out, quinoa is SUPPOSED to do that. Thanks internet!

I also roasted some peppers, onions, and carrots for 20 minutes, then tossed is all with spinach, above-mentioned mayonnaise-pesto dressing, and some goat cheese. *Swoon*. I love goat cheese. I really love all cheese, but god. Goat cheese.

The chicken was pretty easy. I just thawed some frozen chicken wings, and poured a TON of pesto on them. Put all that in a bag with some salt, pepper, and more dried basil flakes (Basil=yummy). Let that sit for an hour, although more time would be better. Then I baked them at 375 for about 45 minutes (I think). I judged that with a general look/smell test for doneness, because I don't trust our oven very much for heat or time.

Delicious!

Blog!

Dear internet,

I worked all summer to try and develop a hobby. I of course, couldn't find one. However, I did watch a lot of TV, including the movie Julie/Julia. And in said movie, Meryl Streep has a fantastic line in which she proclaims that she is not good at much, or something, but she IS good at eating.

I, am also good at eating.

So good in fact, that I got all carried away with it last year, and spent all summer paying myself back for the privilege of eating like a frat boy, by attending spin classes. Spin classes, unfortunately, are not my hobby. So, in order to avoid the need for twice-a-day spin classes ever again in my life, I decided to learn how to cook, and stop eating onion rings. Or at least, stop eating onion rings so often. (Varsity, Flip burger, I am sorry, and I miss you so....)

But, now that I am in school of a type that shall not be named, I 100% cannot afford to eat out, and in order to indulge in my eating hobby, I am cooking even more. This is a blog of the stuff I make. Or at least the stuff I make that I remember to take pictures of.

I do not promise recipes, and as the roommate can attest, if I do remember recipes, it will be in measurements of "some" or "a bunch of". Maybe I will learn how to use measuring tools, we will see.

This is the first thing I made that was worth anything this year. I made it way back in the beginning of September, and took this one picture. It is delicious, and I copied it 100% from my mom/Emeril. Seriously people, n0 creativity going on with this one. The only moderately

different thing I did here was serve it with hummus instead of tahini.

Wow Em, how creative of you, you might say. Nope. I did it because my very very limited grocery store here HAS no tahihi. The internet has tried to convince me I can make my own.... but I haven't yet. So when I make this, I use hummus as the sauce. Its still delicious, but I do think its better with tahini.

Here's the recipe.