Slide and Fail

We referred to it as "fast food night", which ended up being a trip to KFC and White Castle. Matt came up with the idea to make "Famous Bowls", everything you would want at KFC piled into a single bowl for convenient consumption. Mashed potatoes, corn, chicken, gravy and cheese coming together to form a whopper of a dish. They turned out awesome of course. Chavis covered the potatoes, corn and cheese while sarah and i took care of the gravy and chicken, which we double breaded and deep fried in her totally kickass fry daddy as well as in her totally kickass pan. MAtt was able to convince the people at KFC to give him 12 empty authentic "famous bowls" as well!


One of our favorite comedians Mr. Patton Oswalt coined the term "Failure Bowl". We came up with "victory Mounds", "Glory Bowls", and a smattering of other ways to refer to these abominable creations. Here is more on that:



Kitty had a hankering for sliders, which she nailed to a tee with authentic prep work and execution. Notice the holes in the patties! It's mad tight!



Matthew decided on fries to be his line of work. They were perfect for snacking before, during and after this insane victory. We decided to take a picture of the Crisco! OMG WHOA!!



And...... Oh snap! It's part 2 of our 62 part series, "Stuff in the Trash Can!" tatoe skins!! Wooohooo!



Buttermilk gravy (a far cry from the industrial goo that drowns the KFC Famous Bowls):

1/4C or thereabouts of leftover grease from frying chicken
1/4C or thereabouts of leftover seasoned flour from breading the chicken
3C chicken broth
3/4C buttermilk

Add flour to the leftover grease and cook for a few minutes. Slowly add the broth, whisking constantly to break up lumps. Simmer for a few minutes. Add more broth if it's too thick or simmer longer if it's too thin. When the consistency is right, add the buttermilk and heat through. Taste and adjust for salt & pepper if necessary. Serve on top of your favorite food pile.

P.S. I also think it would be delicious if you browned some onions in the grease before adding the flour. I meant to do that Wednesday but forgot, as you do.

The Kid's Table

This week we decided to make things that we enjoyed when we were children, oh so long ago, but with an adult twist. One might refer to it as comfort food kicked up a notch.
BAM! It turned out so awesome that i think we all ate ourselves into a stupor! (I know i did.)

what did we make? EVERYTHING!

As an appetizer/general finger food, "ants on a log" was made by myself(edog) and sarah. Of course the "original" ants on a log is celery sticks coated with peanut butter topped with raisins. No doubt we stepped it up by making our own cashew butter and topping them with dried cranberries! Holla!

we'd never done it before so making the cashew butter was crazy.

step 1: get a big ass can of salted cashews and chop them to hell with a food processor. Eventually you end up with a giant ball o' cash butter that bounces around and sounds like the apocalypse.


Then, after smearing it out you must drizzle oil into the hole on the top of the processor while pulsing it to smooth it out. The result is quite inrapturing!


add some sugar and of course you know what to do then:


As for the real meal we dined upon amazing renditions of beanie weenie, macaroni and cheese, chicken and noodles over mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and a lovely "Olive Garden" salad! You can see most of them in the plate shot up top. Jealous much?

INSANE stepped up beanie weenie with crazy andouille sausage and pork rib meat!!!
The chicken n' noodle and greenbeans were awesome and
Matt's amazing mac n' chee ruled MY world for sure!


also don't forget we enjoyed home made oatmeal creme pies courtesy of Sarah F.!




...also i can't help but retell the hilarious tale of matt's blundering of his first batch of mac. he accidentally added the wrong kind of milk at the wrong time and the result was:


keep it real!!!!!

(help me touch up this one yall_)

Chicken and Noodles/Green Bean Casserole
Kitty here!! My absolute favorite food as a child was mashed potatoes. EVERY dinner we had resulted in a Close Encounters of the Third Kind style mound of mashed potatoes covering at LEAST half of my plate. There were several menu items floating around the internet, but I chose chicken and noodles, because I love them, and green bean casserole, because Matt hates creamed corn.

Chicken and noodles are one of the food items I have made most in my life. I do not have a recipe and it probably changes a bit each time. I bought two entire, but cut up chickens and put them in a big ol' pot and added chicken broth until they were just covered. Grandma always used water, and I do that sometimes, but I had the broth around and figured it would insure a rich sauce.

I boiled the chicken (with a little salt and pepper) for quite some time (45 minutes?) making sure that all of the pieces were submerged. When all of the chicken was well cooked and falling off the bone, I strained all of the solids out and put Gavon on chicken separation duty. He tore it up into bite sized pieces which we added back into the pot of stock.

We had decided to make fresh noodles but use the food processor and pasta roller to help the job go a little faster and save our poor little lady arms (yes, Gavon, I just called you a lady). I pulsed 1 1/2 cup of flour, 1 tbs butter, two large eggs, and two large egg yolks, until it just formed a ball. We separated the ball into 4-5 pieces and Gavon ran them through the pasta roller 5 or 6 times on the widest setting. Once that was done, we rolled the sheets into a tube (well floured) and sliced them (sorta' like sushi) into about 1/3 inch wide pieces. Then we unrolled the pieces into noodles (Gavon did this like an autistic child, stacking them so very orderly into neat and uniform piles, then I tossed them into a messy pile with more flour).

We added the noodles to the chicken and chicken stock to cook (boiled them for about 20 minutes then turned the heat off). The sauce was a little runny, so I added some corn starch when we got to Mavis' house, but it could have used a little more. I like my C&N a little on the thick side. Anyway, all of this was served over mashed potatoes. Nothing special, just russets mashed with milk butter salt and pepper.

For the Green Bean Casserole, I used

6 Cups of chopped fresh Green Beans
8 oz of fresh Mushrooms, sliced
16 oz of Whipping Cream
2 tbs of Sour Cream
1 Tablespoon of Oil
1 Tablespoon of Salt
1 teaspoon Thyme
1 teaspoon Oregano
1 teaspoon Basil
1 teaspoon Marjoram
1/2 teaspoon of Pepper
3 Cups of fresh Bread Crumbs (dried a bit in a very low oven)
1/4 Cup of freshly shredded Parmesan Cheese
A whole crap ton of french fried onions

For the onions, I soaked thin-ish sliced onions in milk while I was dealing with the chicken then drained them and patted them dry. I tossed them with some flour and deep fried them then sprinkled on some kosher salt. This may be the best thing I have ever eaten. I fried them until they were a pretty deep brown, but when I put them on the casserole in the oven, they burned. I would recommend either not frying them as dark, or just adding them to the casserole when it comes out of the oven.

For the casserole, I blanched the green beans for about 4 minutes, then shocked them with cold water. I mixed the cream, sour cream, spices, oil, and cheese in a sauce pan and brought it to a simmer. I removed it from the heat and mixed in the bread crumbs, then added it to the mushrooms and then to the green beans. Once all ingredients were mixed, I stuck the sucker in a 400 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes, or until it was warm and bubbly. This was AMAZING and you all have to try it. GO!!

Irish-ish

This week we chose an Irish theme as it was so close to St. Patrick's day. It turned into a delightful, if not particularly authentic, meal.

I (Kitty) wanted to make some sort of Irish Stew/Meat Pie. Caterina does not care for lamb in a stew, however, so I substituted beef. It ended up more of a Irish-ish stew with a puff pastry hat. I started by roasting some carrots (6 medium ?), one turnip, 1 1/2 medium onions and 6 cloves of garlic (all chopped) in a 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes. I tossed them with a little oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper.

While those were roasting, I cut a rump roast (about 3.5 pounds) into 1 1/2 inch cubes and browned them with some salt and pepper in a couple of batches. When the vegetables were done, I combined them with the beef and a bottle of Guinness and just enough chicken stock to cover. I let the stew simmer for about an hour then added some corn starch to thicken it to a gravy-esk consistency.

I dumped the hole pot into a casserole dish and covered it with puff pastry, mixed up an egg wash and coated it then baked it at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. I will have to rely on Eric for photos.

snap a chow!!!


The whole concoction was quite delicious, but there are a few things that I would do differently, had I to do it over again. First, I allowed the pastry to sit inside the dish rather than overlap the edges. The gravy bubbled over the crust and prevented some of it from rising properly. It was still tasty, but a little soggy. Most of the recipes I consulted called for puff pastry, but I would like to try it with a nice pie crust or something a little more dense.

The only other change I would make would be to choose a fattier roast and simmer it a little longer, so that the meat would be more tender.

Also on the menu:
Eric - Brussel's Sprouts ('cause they're green, yo!)
Sarah F. - Awesome soda bread with leftover honey butter (which, given the opportunity, I would put on EVERYTHING)
Chavis - Date cake with whiskey sauce and whipped cream (Oh, what this woman can do with whiskey)
flism-cha!

Matt - Muscles cooked in white wine and Guinness, I think (I'm pretty sure these little shelled vaginas were Caterina's favorite)
Caterina - 3 Potato soup (I have been telling everyone I know about this soup. Oh my god, this soup)

here it is in an early stage, pre-dilled and buttermilked.
wheesh-pow!


I think that's it. Let me know if I'm forgetting anything!

-Kitty

Lambtastic!

I must share with you the amazing culinary feat that transpired over the weekend. Buoyed by watching hours of teamwork on ESPN, Eric and I put our brains together and pulled off maybe the best meal forever ever: lamb burgers!

I failed to take a photo of this masterpiece, but perhaps a lavish description will do the trick: glistening, half-pound lamb patties, cooked medium-rare, sitting on a bed of baby arugula and topped with caramelized onions and blue cheese made from goat's milk. All of this was encased in an onion bun. It's impossible to describe how awesome they tasted, but suffice it to say that it was a perfect balance of salty, sour, sweet and spicy. Food porn at its finest.

The best part is, the ingredients only cost us about $12.

Beggar's Banquet

ha HA! i deleted what matt wrote! my admin privs might have to be revoked! sorry this picture is small, it is too blurry to look decent full size.

so this week's theme, "beggar's banquet", had some severe monetary constraints. we were only allowed to spend five dollars on supplies for our dishes, which had to serve the whole crew. aside from that, pretty much anything goes if we already had it in the kitchen or were able to beg borrow or steal it. i chose to steal giant bags of precooked rotini from a certain establishment in which i work and use it to create pasta salad. (i also stole ham, black olives and pepperoni along with good olive oil from my roommate's side of the cabinet in my kitchen.)

sarah was quite fond of this easy to use precooked pasta.


there was also cole slaw, vegetable korma, lima beans with tomato sauce, cracker style whitebread, green beans and cottage ham with cornbread, broccoli casserole and butterscotch pudding.

i was told the broccoli casserole had funions crumbled on top. it was amazing.



Butterscotch Pudding

I seldom think of puddings when it comes time to make dessert. I blame Jello for putting pudding in the same category as Lunchables (oh how I despize thee!), but that's a tangent for another day. Come to think of it, I guess I should blame Kraft, since they are both Kraft products, and if that's the case maybe I should blame our economic structure which fuels the proliferation of mega-corporations...never mind. I decided to make this for a few reasons: 1. I LOVE pudding; 2. I love David Lebovitz; 3. I had everything I needed at home, thus making it ideal for our beggar's banquet. Since I had to double the recipe I did have to invest in some more milk (half gallon and whole to be precise) and I did buy dark brown sugar instead of settling for the light brown that was already in my cupboard. The total investment, including tax had me well under our $5 limit, and it made a ton of pudding. This dessert was not only cheap but, when presented in individual serving dishes with a dollop of barely sweetened whipped cream, is pretty classy as well. I did not take any pictures this time, but I found the recipe on David Lebovitz's blog, so you check it out there!

Scavenged Pasta Salad (a.k.a. F-You Pizza Hut Pasta Salad)

1 giant bag of stolen pre-cooked rotini
1 C shredded stolen ham
1 C chopped stolen olives
1 C purchased chopped spinach
1/2 C leftover homemade pesto
1/2 C stolen olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 T balsamic vinegar
2 t salt
Leftover pine nuts and parmesan cheese for garnish

Toss the first 4 ingredients in a big, preferably pink bowl. Grind the garlic and salt together with a mortar & pestle until it becomes a paste. Combine the salt/garlic mixture, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and pesto in a small bowl and pour over the pasta. Toss! Sprinkle pine nuts and cheese on top if you so desire. Eat and gloat of your triumph over Yum, Inc.

COLESLAW!!

I don't know much that I can say about the making of the coleslaw. I really never liked it growing up, but have developed a taste for the non-creamy sort in my adulthood. I was worried that there was going to be a lack of fresh and crispy items, so I settled on this. Plus cabbage is tres cheap. I ended up spending $4.70 and had more than we could all eat in a week. I pretty much did this to taste and without a recipe.

1 head of green cabbage (shredded)
1/2 head of red cabbage (shredded)
9 tablespoons of cider vinegar
2 green peppers (diced)
4 medium carrots (shredded)
5 green onions (sliced thin)
4? Tbs sour cream (mayo grosses me out sometimes and I felt like the flavor needed to be bulked up a bit)
1 tsp-ish of celery salt (I thought I had celery seed at the house, but was out)
salt and pepper to taste.

Turned out....like coleslaw and I suppose that was the goal!