Mission: Feed the Step-Dad

So my mom and grandma had plans to meet up with my aunt here in Albuquerque yesterday, and days before my cell phone is blown up with text message after text message from my step-dad, who couldn't come up. "Need cookies. Need cookies. Need cookies." It was determined that he wanted oatmeal raisin cookies, and nothing else would do. So I went to the store, bought the raisins, and promptly set to.....forgetting to actually make them until last night. After I left the lovely ladies at the hotel, I got to baking. Now, I'm not a fan of the ole' raisin, but I figured I'd just treat them as I would walnuts or pecans and just add them in with no alterations.

I took a recipe for peanut butter oatmeal cookies and took out the PB, upped the brown sugar and the oats and called it good. Sticking the dough (for any cookie, really) in the freezer while you wait for the oven to preheat helps the cookies to keep their shape and not get all thin and wussy. The poor Ecstatic got flat ass cookies from me a few weeks ago cause I just went straight into the oven (also, I blame the food coloring because I can).

Anyhoo, I tend to barely undercook my cookies, as the residual heat will cook them the rest of the way after they're out o' the oven. They passed the M test (it's kinda a default title for him, professional cookie tester), so into the bag they went. I got a call from the step-dad earlier this evening, Cookie Monster voice for approval. So here's the recipe I used, the house smells DELICIOUS while they're bakin'.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies - makes 3 dozen small cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour (I'm in high altitude, so if you're not just use a little less)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground clove
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

2/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups oats
1 cup raisins

Mix butter, egg, vanilla, and brown sugar together. In another bowl, mix the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves. Add the dry mixture to the wet in small batches (makes it easier to stir everything together). Then in go the oats and raisins, mix well and stick in freezer. Preheat oven to 350, then make ping-pong sized cookies on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, depending on your oven (mine go in for 11 mins) and shablammo. 

Cooking, Ecstatic Style

So tonight is mah very first FEATURE NIGHT!!!! (and there was much rejoicing.) We had some peoples over for food and gaming, and The Ecstatic proposed pizza night. (For those White Wolf players reading, you'll get the reference.) This was met with hearty approval. He said he'd make the sauce, Boris brought a multitude of toppings, and I was provided with a recipe for the dough, courtesy of The Ecstatic's mama. Now an hour before they were to arrive, I decided it was naptime. Thank goodness I did. Had I tried to make the dough myself, we would have had a delicious impromptu pasta dinner and lumps of goobread.

Not even 5 minutes into his sauce making (complete with red chile WIN), the house smelled amazing. The best chefs and cooks always say "Taste, taste, taste," so we did just that.

That shit was MONEY. Like, I'd like to buy this Maserati straight up cash. I went to work on the dough, when a friend I hadn't seen in about 3 or 4 years called. I, of course, abandoned my post as she and her GORGEOUS little girl and her totally awesome, chill friend were in town and came to drop in. I put on another pot of coffee (they had to book ass back to LA tonight, super sad panda) and got to visiting. Not long after, the distress call came from the kitchen...."Do you have a rolling pin?" After a short but mad scramble, we came up with this:

That, my friends, is a Kahlua bottle. Undaunted, The Ecstatic began working his magic in the tiny ass space he had available. After the pizza assembly and ovening, we all got to visiting and watching the darling little one paint two tiny pumpkins I had out from Halloween. I sent her home with one, and she let me keep one with green drawings on it. It was the most precious thing. By the time I had gone outside and exchanged hugs and  "see you laters", there was no intact pizza to snap a pic of. There were, however, two delicious slices of OMIGOD on my plate.

I took a moment to consider this delicious creation, and realized all I had done to help was slice the peppers and mixed the initial dough ingredients. Well, I didn't really even finish mixing. So, hats off to The Ecstatic for making seriously one of the best damn pizzas I've ever had. He even gave permission to list the dough recipe he got from his mom. It was crispy where it needed to be and thick and chewy and held that fully loaded sauce like a man's man.  Aaaand what. So, here it is.

Pizza & Sopapilla Dough  
1/2 Cup milk
3 Cups Flour
1 1/2 Tsp baking Powder
1 Tblsp Sugar
1 Tblsp Shortening
1 Package Yeast
1/2 Cup warm water 

Scald milk and cool to room temp
grease pizza pan thoroughly
combine dry ingredients and cut in shortening
Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water and add to cooled milk
Mix all ingredients well
Knead dough 15 to 20 times
Let dough rise for 10-15 minutes
shape into pizza pan. 
Preheat oven 425 deg
bake at 420 deg 

S.H.I.T.

S.H.I.T. is for the times when you just can't wait for Friday. So Happy It's Thursday! I brazenly stole this from my friend The Ecstatic, so there. Credit where credit is due. Speaking of Thursdays, today was a dark grey day that was heavy enough to make you think it would rain, but this is desert country. So I got home from work all "buh" and took til 7:30 to decide what to make. Pasta salad! It's easy, "good for you", and quick.  We already had zucchini, olives, and cheese, so I just needed a few more things: fusilli pasta, a red pepper, some broccoli, and some pepperoni. Cook the pasta, saute the veggies (M doesn't like crispy veggies LOL), steam the broccoli, cube the cheese. Toss it all in together with a drained can of olives and pepperoni slices, BLAMMO.

Now for the dressing. I've had pasta salad with just regular Italian mostly, but meh. That's not experimenting! I hate mayonnaise, so I grabbed a thing of plain yogurt and mixed it with some Grey Poupon (damn, that stuff is TASTY), minced garlic, EVOO, and italian seasoning. Once that was all mixified, I added bit by small bit of sugar until it was not too tangy but not sweet.

OK, so I was a little unsure of the dressing. I added the dressing to my bowl first (as M had already gone to bed and I don't want him gagging on his lunch while I'm at work) and HOT DAMN, I think it's a winner.

So, F you, mayonnaise. 

College, cats, and chicken

Welcome to my blog about delicious awesomeness. I know there's a million other ones out there, but I wanted to create my own blogumentary, charting the roller coaster ride that is tasty, healthy(ish), and bitchin' cooking on a college-student budget and a less-than-million-dollar-home kitchen.

I guess I'm not technically a college student anymore, having burned out of grad school early in. Wrong field. Listen up, kiddies, you better know exactly what you want to do before starting grad school, cause it'll cost you (hello student loan repayment plans!). So I'm taking a bit to decide before starting the mental-mindmelt process again, and in the meantime, learning and having fun trying new things in the kitchen. My skills are rudimentary at best, but sometimes they work out. I have a brave and daring boyfriend who receives each plate with a smile, even though sometimes he should just bolt and run.

Well, I guess this wouldn't be a food blog without talking about food, now would it? I must apologize in advance, I am digital camera-less so I'll try to get decent shots from my Blackberry.

Last night I decided to grab that box of panko (pretty damn cheap, got mine at Smith's) and make some chicken. I'm super-paranoid about undercooking chicken, so i cut them up into smaller nugget pieces so they'd be less likely to be undercooked. Eggs beaten in a bowl, panko/parsley/parmesan in another. Taking a cue from The Yummy Mummy, I put the chicken pieces in the panko first, then into the egg, then back into the panko. This worked really well, I've done the egg first before and it was a crapshoot if the breadcrumbs would actually stay stuck or not. So after heating up the skillet with some EVOO (veg oil would work fine too, and it's cheaper), I put about five pieces in and let it go. Now, you would think I could just walk away for a few minutes......but there's something living in our house that consistently steals chicken.

Little Bitty Chicken Thief. (Her brother is the bacon-taker.) So here I am, walking around the house with a cutting board full of pankoed raw chicken, lest her little nose take her to the prize.

I let my first batch cook for about 7-8 minutes on each side. Bad idea. I ended up eating five burned-ass nuggets. The successive batches were watched until they were medium brown, then turned. So I'd love to give a definitive time for these, but my learning experience was just check them until you pin down the time that works for your stove and temperature. I'm using a gas stove and put the flames med/med-high, and it came out to about 5 mins per side. Anyway, the successful nuggets came out delicious, and we dunked them in spaghetti sauce and Grey Poupon.

This was one of my less adventurous attempts, but we had our anniversary the night before at he took me to the Melting Pot, a fabulous expensive fondue restaurant and we ate ourselves disgusting (not to mention the wine had us loopy after the first course). Anyhoo, these things are GREAT to make a whole bunch and keep around for snacking. (and yes, i snipped off 2 pieces of unadulterated chicken for the kittymeows.)