Caribbean Shrimp with Broiled Asparagus

Peach and Avocado Mache Salad with Fresh Sweet Onion dressing

Skrimpy Peektures

The Cuz, luvin up on some skrimps

Pre-oven glory

Super Helper Syd

Seasoning in slow-mo

Raw skrimps n garleek

BBQ Shrimps - nola says mmmm...

Long time no see!!!!! Where have yall been?? Can I use anymore punctuation??!!!

So, BBQ Shrimp, NOLA style, no skewers needed, no grill needed, in fact there is no bbq-ing involved whatsoever. Mmmmmm.... BBQ Shrimp...

This may be the simplest recipe I ever post, so go make it right now.

Go to your nearest seafood market. Just do it, don't go to the grocery store. This whole meal is so easy that you can at least go get good shrimp. Get the biggest ones possible. When I did this I got 5 lbs of U-12. They were HUGE and there was way too much food for 4 of us. But who cares, it was delicious.

Heat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Take all your scrumptious skrimps and put them into a very large baking dish, you can split it into multiple dishes if necessary. Heads on, tails on, shells on, poop vein in tact. Anyone who is freaked out by shrimp heads and poop lines will get over it the second they taste these. And if they don't you will be excited because that means more for you.

Drizzle a good amount of olive oil over the shrimp. Then top with the following:

Pickapeppa Sauce, bout 3 shot glasses worth (you can get this at your regular grocery in the steak sauce section) - you can sub worcestershire sauce if you need to

Cajun Seasoning, lots and lots and lots

Dried Parsley, a ton, more than you think necessary, and then a little more, trust me, you cannot overdo the parsley, but if you under do it there is no fixing your dish.

Hot Sauce - i use crystal, you use whatever you like, use a lot

Cracked black pepper - again, lots

Handful of whole peppercorns if you got em layin around

Soy sauce, maybe 3-4 spoonfuls (this is your salt, so don't skimp and don't overdo it, good luck)

Ginger paste, make what looks like 2 big slugs of paste on top

4 cloves chopped garlic

2 big diced shallots (they look like brown garlic on the outside, but are like mild purple onion on the inside)

More olive oil

Now take your hands or some tongs if you are timid and toss this all together.

Top with more parsley, cajun seasoning, about a half stick of butter cut into pats, a couple more dashes of pickapeppa and a little drizzle more olive oil.

I know this dish is heavy on the oil and seasoning, but keep in mind all your skrimps still got their skins on so you need a lot to really impart all the flavors. Cover this in foil and put in the oven.

If the fact that this dish is cooked in the oven, but called BBQ Shrimp offends you in anyway, here is a solution... Light up the grill around the same time that you turned on the oven. Slice some zucchinis, yellow squash and red bell peppers into thick quarters, lengthwise. Toss in olive oil, salt and cracked black pepper. When you put the shrimp in the oven toss these onto the hot grill.

After about 15 minutes check your shrimp. Remove foil top and discard. Use your tongs to toss around the interior ones so that they all get some face time with the scorching hot oven. Depending on the size of your shrimp and the size of your baking dish, they may be done, or they may need 10-15 more minutes. After the first 15 minutes I check them every 5. Your oven is so hot that it really doesn't matter that you keep opening it, shrimp cook quickly. Once they are all pink and white they are done. Don't freak out about them not being "fully done," they will keep cooking in the hot liquid once they come out. If you leave them in the oven for too long out of some crazy fear that they aren't done "enough" you will end up with way overcooked shrimp. Be ballsy and take them out of the freakin' oven already.

Now you should have turned your veggies at some point and kept an eye on them. If you didn't do this simply because it wasn't written into the blog post than seriously, what the hell are you doing? Toss some scrumptious french bread onto the grill in large pieces. Don't cut the bread down the middle, we aren't making sandwiches. Once the bread is warm, typically 1-2 minutes. Plate it up.

The table should look like this...

Big hot liquidy dish of shrimp straight out of the oven in the center.

Plate of grilled veggies off to the side somewhere.

Everyone has a plate with a big, huge hunk of warm french bread on it.

Though it is perfectly acceptable for everyone to take some shrimp onto their own plate, please be aware that everyone should be dipping, double dipping and triple dipping their bread into the baking dish. If you aren't all friends, then why the hell did you just make them all dinner?

P.S. In the interest of safety... If you have small children or someone requiring assistance in the seats adjacent to you please be sure to properly peal your own shrimp before assisting those around you. Let them eat dippy bread while they wait. :-)

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Chicken tortilla soup... as promised by the scrumptious picture.

Ok so this is gonna be quick because it is delicious and I should share the recipe with everyone. But I warn you now, once you eat this you will never want to eat any other chicken tortilla soup ever again.

This recipe is for one big pot, but I have not made just one pot of this in ages. So go buy an extra soup pot and make two.

Cut three big fat bright red tomatoes in half an put the in a baking pan. Drizzle them with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put this in a 400 - 450 degree oven. Yes, you are roasting you own tomatoes. No you are not allowed to use canned tomatoes in this soup. If you use canned tomatoes just go ahead and stop following my blog right now. I think I have already done this rant so I will spare you. Just roast your own tomatoes, it's really easy, really healthy and really cheap. Go to the canned tomato section of your grocer and throw all the cans on the floor, take a picture of yourself doing this and send it to me. That would make me smile.

Here is your prep to make putting it all together easy. Chop up 2-3 yellow squash, 2 zucchinis, 1 big onion, one stalk of celery and the green parts of a few green onion. Check you tomatoes, if they are wrinkly and cooked pull em out and let them sit out to cool so that you can handle them. Put a chopped onion into the bottom of your soup pot with some olive oil and heat until the onions brown a bit. Add two boxes of vegetable or chicken broth to the pot. Take 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce out of the can and slice em up. If you have never used chipotle peppers in adobo sauce you can find it in a little can in the "International" section of your grocery. Cut the kernels off one ear of corn and set aside.

Once your tomatoes are cooled enough to handle the skins should slide ride off. You can discard these, but I throw them into a blender with a little water and then just liquify it and add it to the soup. Waste not, want not. Use your hands to mash up the tomatoes into the pot. Do this slowly and well. Take your time. Squeezing cooked tomatoes between your fingers might be one of the most fun things to do ever.

Put the sliced chipotle peppers into the pot and if it is boiling throw in your chicken. I use two boneless, skinless breasts and 4 boneless, skinless thighs. Do not cut them up, just toss them in whole. While you let this boil for a while take your corn and put it in a little pan with a little oil and start to cook it. You are kind of pan roasting the corn kernels to get tossed on top of the soup when you serve it.

Take a break, drink some wine, let the chicken burl.

Now take your drunk butt back and add the squash and zucchini. Pull out the chicken with tongs and rough chop. It should kind of fall apart a bit as you're cutting it up. Bite size pieces ppl, bite size. Return chicken to the soup. Add celery to the soup.

If you can find Menudo seasoning in the spice section at your grocery, stock up on it. If you can't get a bag of taco seasoning. At this point you will either be adding the taco seasoning, about 2/3 of the bag, or menudo seasoning, about two heaping spoonfuls. Also add a good heaping spoonful of cumin and two spoons of the adobo sauce from the can the peppers came out of.

Slice up an avocado and break out some sour cream. Slice two limes and juice them into the soup. Your soup should have been simmering to low boiling the whole time. Taste the broth, please blow on it first, I don't need a lawsuit from some crazy person who drank boiling soup. You may need to add salt at this point. Really the only way you wouldn't need to add salt is if you used the saltiest broth EVER and a bag of taco seasoning that used MSG. Yup, that's right. MSG is still in nearly everything. Read your labels. Add sea salt and cracked black pepper until the soup is uber delicious. Turn the heat off.

Take some corn tortillas and slice them into 1 inch slices. Toss these in a little oil and lots of salt and pepper. Put them on a cookie sheet or foil and bake them in a 375 degree oven for just a few minutes until they get crispy. Keep a close eye on them because it is way easier to burn these than to get them right.

Presentation...

Big bowl of soup

Top with big dollup of sour cream. Do a dollup, do do a dollup.

Sprinkle with the roasted corn

Top with sliced avocado

Sprinkle sliced green onion around the edge

Top with tortilla strips

This soup is my crowning jewel. I love it and so does everyone who tries it. Just try it, you will never look back.

Again, pardon the typos. I promise to come back and edit them out later. Much love and check out the delicious pics.

Chicken tortilla soup

Family approved. Pork Tenderloin and this recipe will be up tomorrow :-)

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let's see if my new Blogger app works

hey!

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Monkeys like pork, at least the monkeys that live in my house do...

Hey Hey Hey! Do you have monkeys to feed? No? Well, you should. Because there are starving monkeys out there and you should be doing your part to help. Here is how you can.

Fuji Apple Jalapeño Marinated Pork Tenderloin with Caramelized Spanish Onion, Caprese Orzo and Soy Brussels Sprouts. Monkeys loooooove brussels sprouts.

See!

Well, here is the how to help. Chop up a big ole spanish onion, I used a red one, you can use an neon orange one for all I care, just pick the coolest looking onion in the grocery. And if you have never examined all the onions to find which one is coolest than grocery shopping with you is no fun. If you ever see anything in the produce aisle that just looks cool, buy it. You buy your clothes because they look cool, why are you so dull when it comes to food? Take your super cool onion and slice it up. Toss it into a pan on medium heat with a decent amount of olive oil, add salt and pepper. This pan will sit on medium heat for the entire time, onions take a long time to caramelize properly. You are not trying to burn them or make them crispy, you are trying to slow cook them and make them mushy and yummy. You will be periodically adding liquid to this pan to keep them soft. I go between water and apple juice, but you can use whatever liquid you like. Just don't let the pan get dry. You add enough liquid to just cover the bottom of the pan and let it boil off slowly. Be patient this does not happen quickly. As you get used to doing this you may become more like me, I am constantly adding different amounts of liquids, adjusting the heat so that the liquids concentrate faster or slower. I will get impatient, add a little too much liquid, turn the heat up high to boil it off, then turn it down super low and let the pan dry out to get more caramelization and repeat. There is not much method to the madness.

In the Apple Juice post I talk about the marinade for the pork tenderloin, now that the pork has sat overnight you can dump the entire pork tenderloin and the marinade into a small baking dish. Small is better because it keeps the moisture level high on the tenderloin. Everyone (and by everyone I most certainly mean you) has eaten dry, over cooked pork. It is impossible to over cook the pork in this recipe, IMPOSSIBLE. Put this tenderloin bathing in marinade into a 350 degree oven.

Put a pot of water to boil for your orzo, or whatever kind of rice shaped pasta you got. Salt this water heavily. While this water is coming to a boil slice up some cherry tomatoes and pull out some shredded Asiago cheese. You can use whatever cheese you like. You can shred your own or buy it shredded. But I don't recommend parm for this one, it is too salty and strong. Something milder. Manchego would be good as well. Once your water boils, cook your orzo, drain it and toss it with the tomatoes and cheese. There are not even rough amounts in this part of the recipe because you should just use whatever you like. If you are a tomato fiend do a ton of tomato. If you are on a diet use less cheese. It's whatever you like. Once you toss this just leave it out in the bowl and let it get to room temperature.

Once you have set aside your orzo you can start the brussels sprouts. Don't try to overlap this task because you needed that 20 minutes to go by so that the tenderloin can cook. Take your brussels sprouts and slice them in half. Toss them into a big pan, not pot, and put about a centimeter of water in there. Turn the heat up to high and wait for this baby to boil. If you have a lid big enough cover this bad boy and it takes half the time. These brussels sprouts are steaming in the water, so after a couple minutes once they start boiling take a spoon and toss them around to make sure the steam evenly on all sides. As the water starts to boil out and the pan dries up check one of the sprouts and see if it is close to done. If they are almost the way you like them then good for you, if they are still hard add more water and let them keep steaming until they are almost perfect. Add water a little at a time because for the last step you want the pan to be almost dry. Once you think they are done and the pan is dry toss in a couple spoonfulls or big splashes of soy sauce. Toss all the sprouts around and the soy sauce will sponge up into all the little interior layers and then start to caramelize as it cooks. YUM! These are so good I usually make way way way too many in hopes of saving them and then they all get eaten.

So, turn your sprout heat off and lid the pan so that they stay warm. Hopefully you have been attentive to your onions this whole time even though I haven't reminded you. I mean come on! You're a bid kid now, do I really have to remind you to do everything?? Oh yeah, don't forget about your tenderloin. Your onions should be cooked down by now and you can scoot them over to one side of the pan.

All eyes turn to the tenderloin. Pull it out of the oven and set it down. If you got a tiny tenderloin then it is done now, if you got a beefed up hormone injected tenderloin than there is an extra step. Let the meat sit for 5-10 minutes, and pour the liquid into the pan with the onions, kick the heat up a notch. Either way, after the meat sits for 5-10 minutes you can now slice your tenderloin into medallions. If the meat is slightly pinkish in the center of your slices it is cooked perfectly... this will be the smaller tenderloins. If it is very pink and raw looking throughout the center you got a big momma and you will need to toss your slices into the pan with the cooking liquid and onions for a hot second. This is really easy, all you do is through the slices in and cook them for 1 minute on each side. Either method leads to perfectly cooked, juicy pork.

To plate the pork lay it on the plate drizzle some of the reduced marinade over it with a spoon and top that with caramelized onion. Plate up your sprouts and your orzo and tah dah! Dinner for all your monkeys.

Please excuse all typos, it has been so long since i posted that i just want to through this up there.

Fuji Apple Jalapeño Pork Tenderloin with Caramelized Spanish Onion, Caprese Orzo and Soy Brussel Sprouts... recipe/shananigans to follow

Homemade Apple Juice & Pork Tenderloin

I accidentally made homemade apple juice yesterday and it was the most genius thing I have ever done. I had bought a bunch of fruit to blend up and put in Syd's new super fantastic rocket-pop molds. The bag of organic Fuji apples was a steal at $5 so I went for it. Now, as you may or may not know, you really don't need much liquid to make a popsicle. So, after I had made 3 different fruit concoctions I was left with about 5 apples. I was also left with raspberries and pineapple, but I will eat those. Oddly, the idea of just eating an apple is not one that I am too fond of. I love the flavor of apple, but I never just eat them whole. Realistically, these 5 apples were going to sit in my fridge until they became brown, mushy and altogether vile.

I threw caution to the wind and chopped them up, threw them in the blender with some water and voila... apple juice. I left the blender on for a good while to liquefy it and added even more water during the process. When I poured it into a glass it tasted like watery apple juice. But i thought to myself great! less sugar and more water for Syd. But then something magical happened, this fabulous juice sat in my fridge for an hour or so. Amazingly it oxidized into that fabulous dark brown color of real apple juice and got significantly sweeter. It is SOOOOOO freakin' yummy, it should be illegal for me to post this.

Even Mr. Chris said it was good, and he likes to mock my organic eating, home made fruit juice making butt, but even he was convinced on this one. I will tell yall one thing, for me to convince him that organic or homemade is better, I usually also have to make it cheaper too. So if you are reading this thinking that I'm some crunchy momma who has money to burn on fancy ingredients and overpriced organic non-sense you are way past wrong. The trick to it all is less ingredients and less steps. The closer it is to its original state the better and the more affordable. Also, knowing when organic makes a difference and when it doesn't. My one biggest thing is dairy. Please, all 13 people who read this, switch to organic dairy. All that means is milk, cheese and butter. You won't break the bank, but you will benefit greatly. All toxins and medications (the hormones & antibiotics that they give cows) are stored in the fat cells. The same fat cells they make your butter, milk and cheese from. You can get organic butter, milk and cheese in nearly every grocery store these days. It's one tiny change, don't fight it.

Ok, and for all those people that I totally freaked out by my orange cheese rant, I have good news. If you look on the back of your cheese packaging and the coloring ingredient is annatto, then you are safe. Annatto is an all natural coloring made from the pulp around the seed of the achiote plant. If you do not see annatto it is artificially colored, period. Sorry for not including this is the original post, wink wink.

Any who, so what did I do with all this fantastic apple juice you ask. I let little Miss Sydney drink it and I marinate my pork tenderloin in it. Pork tenderloin marinade goes a little like this. Pork tenderloin goes into zip lock bag, then pour enough apple juice in to cover it. Grate 3 garlic cloves into the bag and one half a jalapeño, or a whole jalapeño if you are feeling saucy! Ole! Cracked black pepper, a splash of olive oil and a splash of vinegar go in that baby as well. Get all the air out and then zip it up and fridge it. Put it in a bowl in case later that night you are sleep walking with a toothpick and you accidentally poke a hole in the bag. Now you feel like a genius because all that raw pork marinade is in the bowl and not all over your fridge. You genius sleepwalker you. Yes I marinated mine over night, but if you only have 30 minutes that is ok too.

Now if you want the rest of the pork tenderloin recipe you gotta read the next post, because I still have to go home and make that bad boy. I just marinated him last night. Twenty bucks says my apple juice will be even better today than it was yesterday. Sweeeeet!

My personal favorite - My own "Tuna Noodle Casserole" - Herein lies the Orange Cheese Rant

I could honestly eat this every single day, but I just don't eat that much tuna.

Bow-tie pasta. If you are one of those unfortunate souls that chooses to continue to read my crazy blog you will eventually find out that I am a stickler for many things, random things, not things that make any kind of sense to anyone else. I do not follow recipes, I do not care if you put 8 or 10 eggs in your dish, I do not believe the hype about measuring everything to a T just because you are baking it. I do not own measuring spoons, that's right no measuring spoons for me. I had a set of porcelain ones that were given to me as a gift, broke 'em (I mean come on, porcelain?) and never replaced them. If you use milk instead of heavy cream so be it. Salted butter instead of sweet butter, whatever! So if there is something that I do become crazy about, you gotta cut me a little slack.

Bow-tie pasta. This dish actually tastes better with bow-tie pasta than with any other pasta. Just trust me. Or don't trust me, make it seven times, feed it to your friends in a blind taste test and then come back and tell me which one won. Or don't tell me, I already know. Bow-tie pasta.

Boil your bow-tie pasta in salty water. How salty you ask? Add what amount of salt you feel is appropriate and then double it, that is how salty. While your water is coming to a boil/pasta is cooking here is the list of what you need to prepare.

Shred a bunch of cheddar cheese. Here is my pontification on cheddar cheese. Do you know that America is one of the few places with orange cheddar cheese? It is not because our fancy American cows have orange milk though. It is because we dye our cheese. Yup, that's right, we dye it. Why? No good reason. In fact the dye is bad for you, it causes inflammation in the connective tissues in your body. Kraft uses Yellow #5, as do many other companies. Oh wait, let me correct myself, they took out yellow #5 in all products shipping to Europe or Australia because their governments/markets demanded it. Can I put this into perspective for a moment? BP, the now infamous oil company, did not employ safety measures that it uses offshore all over Europe in the Gulf. Were these measures mandatory offshore in Europe? Nope, they just did it out of the kindness of their hearts. But here in the good ole US of A, no extra safety measures, just catastrophic oil spills. Would those safety measures have stopped this spill? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. Still kind of a stab in the back a little though. So does yellow #5 give your kid autism, ADHD, arthritis? Who knows? But at least it's not giving it to kids in Europe and Australia, thank god!

Kay, I'm done.

So shred up some cheddar cheese. If you use orange at least use organic so that natural dyes are being used.

Here is the hilarious part. Open up a can of tuna. Why on earth would a girl that goes psycho about orange cheese and yellow #5 tell you to open up a mercury ridden can of tuna? I pick and choose my battles. I eat cheese WAY more than I eat tuna, so it matters more. Drain your tuna and set aside.

Pull out some milk and butter. Ummm... maybe two big hunks of butter. I was gonna say pats of butter, but go big. As for the milk, somewhere between a short glass and a tall glass. Pull out some frozen peas. You can also use frozen edamame, yum.

Once your noodles have been cooking for a bit but are still kinda tough throw in the peas. Cook your noodles to al dente aka you still have to use your teeth to chew them. Drain you pasta pea mixture. Best way to do this: Suit up with oven mits, put the lid on the pot and hold it in place while you tilt the pot over in the sink. You may lose a noodle, but you won't have to wash a colander. Return pot to stove, put on low heat, add butter and milk. Stir until melted. Add tons of cheese and tuna. Stir it up till everything is melty and sticky. Add a ton of cracked black pepper, a tiny bit of salt to taste and whatever else you can come up with.

Some additions that I use if I have them:

Parm cheese - careful of the saltiness when you do this.

Sour cream

Yogurt

Different veggies - just make sure you time it right so they can cook all the way in the water

Shredded chicken instead of tuna

Other types of cheese

halved cherry tomatoes

Serve it up! This seriously should not take you more than 15 minutes. If it does, let me know and I will come over and fix you.

Kisses!

Just sharing some old food pics

Here are some food pics of things I have done in the past. It is not food from this blog, because I honestly don't have my kick ass friend Paula stalking me with a camera. All of these dishes were self-invented by yours truly, no recipes involved. It would be a major work of mental strength to try and remember how I did some of these recipes, but maybe if I get some free time one day (ha!) I will be able to recreate them on this blog.

I promise to try to remember to take photos of what I cook. I will put my camera in the kitchen. Just got to save up some money for ingredients these days. :-) Seriously, if anyone wants me to cook for them you can pay me in extra ingredients that I can take home with me!

Fruit tart as served, whole tart is pictured below.

Spiraled zucchini about to get sauced, ow ow!

Plum and Heirloom tomato salad, so simple and so amazingly perfect.

Homemade pumpkin ravioli with crispy shallots and brown butter sage sauce. Side salad with roasted beats and fresh goat cheese. Kind of looks like a hot mess, but tastes sooo yummy.

Chocolate soufflé with raspberry and fresh whipped cream

Homemade lobster ravioli with shallot and leak over asparagus puree with shaved white cheddar (the only cheddar worth eating).

Fresh fruit tart, mmmm... this is so good and so simple

Baked halibut, over thai-peanut zucchini "noodles" and coconut forbidden rice. :-)

Fresh calamari, battered in almond flour and pan seared with asian dipping sauce. Gluten free baby!

Tuna noodle casserole

Everyone hates tuna noodle casserole. I have a stovetop version that is delicious. I'm not even lying, delicious. Takes like 15 minutes to make, mmmmm....

You will just have to wait.

Green Eggs and Ham

This is one is awesome!!! I discovered this on accident.

Hard boil some eggs. If you don't know how to hard boil an egg, don't worry, you are not alone. Here it is... put enough water in a pot to cover the eggs, put in the eggs, put on the stove, turn on heat. Simple right? Wait, you aren't done yet. Once the water comes to a rolling boil, continue cooking for 10 minutes. To be completely honest I have never in my life timed the eggs, I wing it every time. I never even test my eggs, I just guess the time and hope for the best. Hasn't failed me yet. Thus, you will be fine, I swear. When you pull them off the stove put the pot in the sink and run cold water over it for a good minute or so to stop the cooking. Just let this sit in the sink in cold water while you do the rest.

Put some frozen peas into a microwave safe dish, add a little water and microwave for 1 minute. Drain the peas and put onto a cutting board. Get a sharp knife, preferably a wide one and chop up the peas as finely as you can. Don't get all stressed out about this, just take your aggression out on the peas. Then chop up some thinly sliced deli ham, I like honey baked, but use whatever you got.

Now the eggs should have cooled. Peel and rough chop em. Toss eggs, peas and ham into a bowl, add a pinch of salt (not much, the ham is already salty) and a big pinch of fresh cracked black pepper. If you like add a tiny squeeze of mayo and mustard, I do this on a case by case basis. If my egg yolks are on the softer side they do the trick for moisture, however if they come out on the dryer side I add mayo and mustard.

Stir all this together and feed to your kids, yourself, your dogs. It is super cool looking and super yummy. This version of green eggs and ham was discovered as an accident of poverty, but I love it to death.

Sorry this one took so long - Ice Cream Ice Cream Ice Cream

Homemade ice cream, there is nothing like it. Go buy an ice cream machine. You don't have to get a fancy one, the cheap ones from Walmart work fine. I don't have the kind where you freeze the bowl, with mine you use ice and rock salt and it works like a charm. Stop reading right now, go buy one and then come back. Go now!

All you have to do to make ice cream is make a custard, a thin custard. You put whatever you want in it. It is so much fun. So I decided that since I have yellow cake and strawberries that the missing flavor is chocolate. This is my first time making chocolate ice cream, but really, how hard can it be?

Two parts to this recipe. Melt the cocoa powder into half n half on the stove. I would say about 1 cup of cocoa powder and 1 cup of half n half. Stir it over medium heat until it melts together. You don't have to cook it, just get it to combine. Soon as it does add 3 more cups of half n half. You can also add some heavy cream if you want it to be richer. Go big or go home. Full-fat is good. And anyway all that low-fat and skim milk people drink is higher in sugar, which clearly goes against everyone's strict aversion to carbs these days. I'll tell you what, I'm going to invent the new diet. Eat whatever you want, whenever you want, but only eat what you can fit in the palm of your hands. Consider your hands to be your god given measuring cups. I'm calling it the Hand Diet. You heard it here first, anyone who copies me is clearly stealing. I'm gonna be a millionaire.

Ok, back to my ice cream. Once you add the rest of the cream cook it over medium heat until little bubbles form around the edge of the pot. Stir frequently so you don't get a burnt layer of chocolate on the bottom of your pot. Once you have bubbles turn off the heat and let the mixture rest. Dance across your kitchen until you locate your eggs. I usually keep mine in the fridge, but if store yours in your laundry basket far be it for me to tell you otherwise. Get 8 - 9 egg yolks separated out. Add a cup of sugar and whisk vigorously until they are pale yellow and all the sugar is blended in. Now pour in a little splash of your chocolate cream mixture in while whisking. Keep doing this in little bits until you get all the chocolate mixed into the eggs. Go slowly! If you dump all that hot liquid straight into your eggs you will scramble them and have chocolate breakfast instead of ice cream. Once it is all stirred up pour it all back into the pot and heat over medium heat while stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. A wooden spoon, a spoon a made of wood, a piece of wood carved into a spoon like shape. If you stir with anything else the custard gods will rain down sorrow upon you, or maybe that is just a rumor. Heat over medium heat constantly stirring until it thickens a bit and coats the back of your spoon. Take is off the heat and set aside to cool for a bit.

Once you have let this cool the real magic begins. Add a dash of vanilla extract, a bigger dash of lemon extract and a slightly bigger dash of almond extract. All extracts should be alcohol free. Stir this up with your handy-dandy wooden spoon. Following the instructions on your swanky new ice cream machine pour your scrumptious chocolate mixture in and run until it is the consistency of soft gelato aka slightly melted ice cream. Then you put this in the freezer to let it harden a bit, but not too much. Maybe 30 minutes to an hour.

Yummmmmmm...

Now eat it all at once, ALL OF IT!! :-)

Let em eat cake!

Why hello there. So I see that you are stalking me. That is always nice. Well, since you have come here I will at least give you something to read. The last big cooking event in my life was Syd's birthday last Sunday. We have been fabulously broke since then so no groceries = no real cooking this week. Except my tuna noodle dish, which may sound gross, but i'm telling you you will never look at tuna and noodles and cringe ever again once you try it. Anyway, back to da burfday. I wanted to do a lot of food, fresh food because it is swarthy hot down here in nola. Mmmmm... nuttin like some swarthy heat to make you not want hot food at all. Here is La Menu De Syd:

Fresh cut fruit - pineapple, cantaloupe, strawberry, watermelon.
Tomato, basil, buffalo mozzarella skewers
Feta, Basil and Tomato salad over baby spinach with fresh lemon dressing
Strawberry orange layered butter cake with whipped citrus zest topping
Homemade Italian Chocolate Ice Cream
Lemon Iced Tea

Sydney was so excited to eat all this food that she slept through most of her party. Sweet!

The fresh cut fruit is relatively self-explanatory. The watermelon we left the rind on, which was the hubs suggestion because he wanted it to be easy for the kids at the partay to hold. This was a fabulous point but I would have left it on anyway. Watermelon is one of the most visually appealing fruits out there. It is constantly copied on toys, clothing, designs. There is something about the vibrant pink, the white and green border and the speckling of black seeds that is really just amazing. I don't buy seedless watermelon and I won't cut off the rind. Nature made it perfect the way it is.

All the other fruit was simply chopped up and served. Mmmmmm...

The tomato basil skewers are a sinch as well. I took a tooth pick, popped on a grape tomato (cherry tomatoes are too big for bite size), added a folded leaf of fresh basil and then popped on a bite size ball of fresh mozzarella. I will tell you a secret that I have discovered. I know everyone thinks Whole Foods is ridiculously expensive, well you're wrong. Your local grocery store orders many "gourmet foods" in small quantities which means they do not receive the discounts that Whole Foods receives and they only carry one brand. Fresh Mozzarella is the perfect example of this. A tub of bite size mozzarella balls at my local grocer is between 5 and 7 bucks. Whole Food has their own house brand, is always fully in stock, has bigger tubs and they are only $2.99 a piece. I also found this to be true for baby food. Nature's Best Organic baby food was $1.43 per jar at Rouses an $0.89 at Whole Food. AND at whole food if you buy 12 or more jars of any combination it is considered a case and you get another 10% off. Two cartons of free-range eggs, 18 eggs each are $4. That's right $4 for 36 eggs. So there you go. Pay attention to the price of things. Don't just assume that since you are at Whole Foods you are getting ripped off or since you are at cheapo grocery that you are actually paying less.

Moooooo-ving on. Now you have skewers. If you couldn't find bite size balls, you can always just get a big one and cut it into cubes. But please, WHATEVER you do, do not buy "fresh mozzarella" that is not sitting in water. If the cheese is not actually sitting in water it is not fresh and it is not the same cheese. I made these skewers the night before, laid them out on a tray and covered them with a wet cloth so that they wouldn't dry out in the fridge. Right before you serve them sprinkle with fresh cracked pepper and sea salt, liberally. Oh, and please don't forget to take off the cloth before you do this.

What I haven't mentioned is that I did these skewers at 3:30am while I was baking the cake's layers and macerating the fruit. Here is how this went. Buy a box of cake mix, I like yellow butter cake. If you want to get creative with homemade cake mixes go right ahead, I would call you crazy. Unless you have formal baking training you have no idea what you are doing. So why are you wasting your time? Buy the mix in the box and get creative with layers, toppings, add-ons, icings, etc. WAY more manageable for the average creative person. However, if you want to sit at home and try to figure out if your cake would be better if your ratio of baking soda to buttermilk to egg yolk to water were slightly different, be my guest. I will be over here eating my delicious cake and laughing at you. So I bake 3 round layers for the cake by following the directions on the box. I buy two boxes, make all the mix and then ration it out. I have some batter left over, don't overfill your cake pans or it won't cook evenly. Throwing away of cup of cake batter is not the worst thing you have done in your, you will be fine. I bake my layers one at a time. Yes this is time consuming, but I am not rich yet and I do not have a super awesome convection oven. I rent my home and although my oven is new it is cheap and heats unevenly like most ovens. If you shove 3 cake pans into the oven in all sorts of different locations your cooking time will be off and your cakes will cook unevenly. Be patient and cook each cake in the same position at the center of the oven, one at a time. You bought the mix in a box, the least you could do is take the time to make it good. Unless of course you have a fabulous new convection oven. If this is the case, can I come bake at your house?? Please?

While I'm baking all these delicious cakes I also chop up 2 containers of strawberries and 2 oranges. My dogs love this because Iverson's favorite snack is strawberry tops. I cut the skin and the pith off the orange, then go in and slice each section out so that all you have is the meat of the orange, no white stuff, non membrane. These slices go in a big bowl with the strawberries and then squeeze the left over floppy orange to get the juice. the orange juice begins to break down the strawberries and they taste scrumptious together. Now you make a simple syrup. One cup water and one cup sugar into a pot and onto the stove. Warm it up until is melts and combines completely. As soon as it is one homogenous liquid, cut the heat and let it sit to cool.

Run around baking and pouring and checking with toothpicks. OH! Here is my most fun piece of advice. Undercook everything you bake. People always bake until something 'looks' done. If you are baking cookies, cakes, brownies, etc. and they look done that means you just burnt them. All of these things will continue to cook once you pull them out of the oven and form a more solid texture once they cool. When they say that a tooth pick should "come out clean" they do not mean completely clean. It means clean of anything WET. If there are crumbs on it that is fine, even moist crumbs. You just don't want wet batter. Seriously, every single time I make brownies I undercook them even more than my other baking items. Whenever I make them everyone insists that I make the best brownies and they hoard them. I absolutely do not make the best brownies. I make Betty Crocker brownies, I add a bit of lemon extract, a pinch of sea salt and splash of cold coffee to the batter and I always under cook them. I put them in the fridge which causes the undercooked batter to take on a fudge-like texture. Try it one day. People will worship you.

Now that your simple syrup has cooled, pour it over the fruit. Zest two lemons into this as well. Take a hand held potato masher and go at it. Mush up the fruit so that it is broken down, but still a bit chunky. Put this aside and let it sit. This ia actually the point where you would make your skewers. As your cakes come out of the oven and cool it is time to cut the tops off. Take a big bread knife (if you don't have one of these you shouldn't be baking anyway) and slice off the top of the cake, the whole top. You cake will come out of the oven with a bit of a dome shape and you want it to be flat. AND you want to expose the inner spongy part so that it absorbs the fruit syrup. Don't freak out if it is not perfectly straight and even, it will work itself out. Place your first layer on the plate/platter that you will serve the cake on. Drizzle the mashed up fruit over the top, all the way to edges. Use half the fruit, but only as mush syrup as needed to coat the whole surface, but not over soak the cake, you will turn it to mush. Top with another layer and repeat. Use all the fruit in these two layers, because you will put syrup on the top but not more fruit. I usually end up with left over syrup, so don't worry if it's not exact, it really shouldn't be. What I end up doing is putting all the left over cake tops into tupperware and then drizzling any leftover syrup/fruit over this. Then if someone needs to leave before tasting the cake, they can steal a bite out of the tupperware. Or, you can just sit on your butt and eat it the next day. Once you have assembled the cake cover it. I use a big upside down mixing bowl. Put it in the fridge for at least a few hours, preferably over night.

The icing for this cake is whipped cream and you don't make it until right before you serve it. I use an old skool electric mixer. Whipping cream with a whisk by hand is mind numbing. Add orange and lemon zest. You don't even need to sweeten the cream. The cake is so sweet that no one will even be able to tell. I would say whip up two pints of cream to be safe. Add a couple big pinches of Cream of Tartar to the whipped cream. All this does is help the whipped cream maintain it's texture. Take a spatula or a butter knife and slather this stuff on your cake like it is going out of style. Start on the top and then move down the sides until you have covered every inch of the cake with a thick layer of whipped cream. This is not the time to be shy, if you do a thin layer it will get all mixed up with crumbs and not look nearly as cool. Be generous. Tah Dah! Now you have a super delicious gourmet birthday cake.

Alright, again I am sleepy. The ice cream and other recipes will have to wait until tomorrow. I apologize for all typos, i'm not even gonna spell check this bad boy.

Syd's Birthday

I swear I will write again soon. I have to pontificate on Syd's birthday cake fiesta. So tired... must procrastinate....

Belated Bolognese

This will be a short one, since I also have to do one for the cooking hurricane that was Sydney Bear's first birthday. This bolognese was made in roughly 15 - 20 minutes one morning as lunch for me and Chris.

I'm up in the AM with Sydneister and completely motivated to cook something that I consider acceptable after eating frozen pizza for dinner the night before. But Carly, you say, how can you make pasta bolognese BEFORE work? Magic. One BIG pan, with high sides ( I have an awesome one and it is worth the investment, trust me) and one medium pot. I am not one of those people that will tell you that you need a huge pasta pot, or even just a big pot where all the pasta can move around. Typically if I am cooking pasta I am also cooking something else on the stove and I don't have room for all these huge pots. So I cook my pasta in a tiny pot with oil and salt water and just stir it frequently to make sure it doesn't stick. Easier to clean a little pot as well. (Side note added later - Rachel Ray, if you come up with one more pot specifically for 1 type of food I will kick you butt in 30 minutes or less).

In my big pan I put a pound of ground turkey. I use dark meet because the light meat is so lean that it seizes up into little pieces of card board when you cook it. Add a good amount of salt and pepper to the meat and let it brown up. Now I fill my little pot with water, a big splash of olive oil and a big big big pinch of salt, or maybe I would be better to describe it as a small dump of salt. Bring this to a boil.

Now back to my happy little ground up turkey. Once this bad boy is brown I dump in a jar of Vodka Sauce. Yup, a pre-made jar of sauce and it kind of breaks my heart, but here is why. I used to religiously make my own pasta sauce. And I mean religiously in the fanatical sense. It was so simple and I never even looked at the pre-made stuff. And then, on a very sad day, I was educated to the fact the canned tomatoes that I was using for this sauce contained artificial estrogen. The stuff they line the cans with to keep the metal from reacting with the acid in the tomatoes has BPA in it. Funny though, they are lining something toxic with something even more toxic? Thank god tomato acids don't react with BPA. Oh wait, they do! Super!! That little tidbit just really made my sauce making day. So I started a mission to come up with the perfect tomato sauce made from fresh tomatoes. I have done good ones, but not one that replaces the traditional sauce. Until I perfect it, tomato sauce in glass jars only for me. And just in case you think I am crazy, this is from the BPA Material Safety Data Sheet...

S46 If swallowed, seek medical advice immediately and show this container or label.

Toxicology
Causes severe eye irritation. Possible risk that this material may impair fertility.

Just sayin...

Anywho! So I dump vodka sauce onto my cooked up turkey, but now I am in a dilemma!! How do I make it taste like homemade sauce? Here is my trick. I get about 5-6 garlic cloves, peeled but whole and throw them in the sauce right away. They boil down and become delicious in and of themselves. It's fine it you smash em with something to get the skins off. They don't NEED to be whole, just don't waste your time chopping anything, Garlic in, next balsamic vinegar. I am really horrible with measurements and temperatures and blah blah blah. Splash the vinegar into the sauce in one spot until you have what you would assume to be a puddle of vinegar about the size of a golf ball sliced in half. Make sense? I also tossed in a pinch of red pepper flakes and a mound, yes a mound, of parmesan cheese. Oh, and a splash of olive oil for good measure. This is an italian dish and there is no such thing as not adding olive oil every step of the way. But don't tell the italians, I use spanish olive oil. Oh snap!

I proceed to take myself and Syderoo out to the planters to pick basil, bout a handful. Smells delish and I am always tempted to just throw it in right then and there, but don't. Check your water, should have begun boiling by now. Throw in your pasta. Anything but spaghetti. Get a fun shape. The best ones taste wise are the ones that are tubular or curly. They hold sauce really well. The ones I get look like big macaronis with mohawks. As your pasta cooks let your sauce simmer so that the vinegar and cheese and garlic all permeate into the meat. The sauce thickens up a bit so add some of the pasta water to keep it loose. That's right keep your sauce loose. But don't keep it loose from the beginning. If you let it simmer down then all the flavors concentrate and then you add water to thin it back out, but now the sauce has a whole new flavor. I told you this was magic.

Pasta is done boiling and it is al dente. I don't care who you are or how you like your pasta, it is done when it is al dente. If you or anyone you know every tries to give me a plate of mushy pasta a part of me dies inside. And so does a puppy, you really want that on your conscience? I'm kidding! No puppies were harmed in the making of this dish. Take a slotted spoon or a spider in my case and scoop your pasta out of the water and straight into the sauce pan. Now is the perfect time to add the basil. Grab it in your palm and squeeze it, then tear it up with your fingers straight into the pot. The heat and oils in your hands begin a chemical reaction in the basil that brings out the flavor. Whenever you can, use your hands as tools over a utensil. Toss you lettuce with your hands instead of salad tongs, break things apart with your hands instead of your knife, eat with your hands. I don't care if you aren't sentimental about cooking with your hands, it's chemistry. Your body temperature and body chemistry actually enhance the flavor of your food. Hence, everything made by hand in a small mill/farm/kitchen tastes better than its mass produced counter part. What, you thought it was the 'love' it was made with?? Nope, straight up body chemistry. And maybe a little love. :-)

Stir up your pasta and sauce for a minute or so over medium-low heat to get the sauce to absorb into the pasta. Turn off the heat and serve, or put into tupperware for later. Now if you went back and deleted all of my rants and nonsense, this would have been a 10 sentence post. This recipe is easier than boiling an egg.

Thursday and Friday Have Now Become Oneday

Hello again internet universe. Tonight we will have an interesting combination, but one with a good message. Yes, you can turn frozen pizza into a gourmet meal AND you can make lunch in the morning that is a real meal and not a sandwich.

So, Thursday night in the Hammond Brown household was a late one. Upon arriving back home at 8pm the idea of cooking dinner was a rough one, especially since I also wanted to spend time with the Sydmeister before she crashed out a 9pm. Thus, when the hubs suggested I "just cook the pizza in the freezer," I was tempted. At first I refused, but then I thought to myself, if I pair it with a gourmet salad than maybe it is not so horrific of a family meal. Out comes Mr. Pizza and into the oven he goes. So my only real recipe was my salad and it was AWESOME. Baby arugula, check. Vine ripened tomato, check. I like my tomatoes in big square chunks, there is something about a big chunky bite of tomato that is delicious. No wimpy diced tomatoes in my salads. I also decide that hard boiled egg would be delicioso, so on goes a pot of water and in go 4 eggs and the burner goes to 'high.' Once this boils, I give it maybe 8-10 minutes and then they're done. Just enough time to finish everything else. By the way, 2 of these eggs are for the salad and 2 are for lunch tomorrow. Little things like this are good to make extra of. I am not a big fan of eating left overs from the night before for lunch. It is boring. But if I can do little things along the way for the next day I will.

And now for the piece de resistance, the dressing. I am kind of craving caesar dressing, homemade, but of course I don't have any anchovies. I will just see what I come up with. In the freezer I find pine nuts and pistachios. Yes, I keep my nuts in the freezer (hehe). Bust out the blender or food processor, I personally like my blender bc I keep losing the blades to any food processor that comes into my house. WHY couldn't cuisinart make a food processor with a fixed blade. I don't need to do 6,000 different things with it, I just need to not have 17 tiny parts to keep track of.

My apologies, back to business. In we go with the pine nuts, bout a palm full, then just enough olive oil to cover them. What else, what else? Oh I remember, big ole pinch of sea salt and lots of fresh ground pepper. Parmesan cheese... mmm... my favorite. And this time the good old grated kind in the green canister. Classy Classy! One egg. Raw and delicious. If you fear this part of the recipe than I would like to bring to your attention that every time you have ever ordered a caesar salad in your life you have been eating raw eggs. Same goes if you eat sorbet. Suck it up and drop the raw egg in. I promise that as soon as you blend it and it looks all nice and pretty you won't even remember about the egg. Add a decent sized splash of vinegar. I used balsamic, but sherry would work too. Whatever vinegar you have will work, but the darker the better. Now flip the switch. Please don't forget the lid. Sydney liked watching the blender. She would stare at it like it was magical.

Upon liquification of this loverly concoction, I opened the lid back up, added some pistachios and here is where you would add more olive oil if it was a bit dry. But go easy, this is supposed to resemble caesar dressing not vinaigrette, so it should be thicker. The reason you add the pistachios last is because you don't want them to fully blend and if your concoction is thick enough then some of the pistachios won't sink and hit the blender blades so you will still have chunky pistachios to add crunch to your salad. OR if you are using a food processor you can just hit it once really quick and then you still have chucks of pistachio. Yum!

Check the eggs. Well, honestly you should have checked the eggs already to see if the water was boiling, pulled the lid off the pot and let them boil until now-ish. Pull the eggs off and run cold water into the pot, for a while, to cool the water down. Throw a bunch of ice into the water to cool down the eggs quickly.

Pour the dressing over the arugula and tommy-toes and toss. Dice up a small shallot or a bit of red onion and throw that in as well. Take a breather, sip on some wine or do a shot of tequila or whatever floats your boat. Oh crap! The pizza! Miraculously I check the pizza and it is perfect. Pull it out, slice it up.

Now your eggs should be cool. Peel em and rough chop them into the salad. Toss again. Plate it up. LOTS of salad to make up for the fact that you are eating frozen pizza. Put some slices of pizza next it. Doesn't pizza look healthier and better next to this fabulous salad?! I almost feel as though I actually cooked something... almost.

For lunch the next day I make ground turkey bolognese. I make it in the morning before work. Yeah that' right!! It takes me 15-20 minutes and I do the whole thing with a baby in my arms. If I can do that, anyone can. I will save that story for tomorrow. Just so that I can keep my imaginary readers on the edge of their imaginary seats.

Wednesday! Wednesday! Wednesday!

When I think Wednesday, I think... fish tacos? Ok, so tonight was a grand experiment. My first time making fish tacos and I made the whole thing up as I went. I will admit from the get go that I learned two things tonight. 1 - once you get a good fish fry mix down, never stray from it. NEVER! 2 - salad in a bag may be a good idea, but shredded cabbage in a bag has a FUNKAY flavor. Never again will I buy bagged cabbage, had to toss out a whole thing of spicy cole slaw. Boo.

So the evening began with Syd and I making cole slaw together. I will say that over all the years that I have been cooking and the MANY times that I have made coleslaw, I have yet to find a coleslaw recipe that I truly love. I mean, my homemade fish fry, can't beat it. My chocolate mousse, took years to perfect. My souffles, unexplainably perfect every time. And the one thing that I can't get my own signature recipe down for is coleslaw? Really? Coleslaw. And every time I try it I convince myself that THIS will be the one that will be delicious. And so far... fail. The one good thing that came out of this coleslaw dish was that Syd and I had fun making it. She likes throwing cabbage on the floor and watching Iverson dive for it, which Iverson loves as well. It was a win win situation for everyone.

I am sparing everyone the coleslaw recipe, instead I recommend just doing more of the other accompaniments. More corn, more chopped lettuce, etc.

So fish tacos... E-A-S-Y. Love it. First thing down, make your sour cream. I juiced two tiny little limes into a bowl, added sour cream, salt, cayenne, paprika and dried cilantro to taste. Stir it and voila! Fancy sour cream. I pop this in the fridge so that it is nice and cool when dinner is ready. On to my corn. I got a fresh ear of sweet corn and cut the kernels off. This is something I love doing because it reminds me of being a kid in a way that nothing else can. I can even remember the first time I was allowed to cut the kernels off by myself. A very proud moment. So I cut the kernels off and toss them into a pan with a pat of butter and a drop of oil. I grate one clove of garlic and toss it in as well because I am feeling sassy tonight. As that warmed up I chopped up a tomato, finely sliced a big handful of romaine and sliced my fish into small strips. I do my fish pieces pretty small. I like the flavor of the batter and since I batter them extremely lightly you can barely taste it unless the piece are small. They also cook super fast which is nice. As you are slicing up your fish toss the corn around and turn off the heat if it is done.

Get a big pan and pour a bunch of oil in it. Enough to thickly coat the bottom. Medium/High heat.

Now I make a little bowl of milk and a little bowl of fish fry. My fish fry goes like this... millet flour, rice flour, pinch of cayenne, cajun seasoning, fresh black pepper (lots), sea salt, garlic powder, paprika. I will not even sit here and pretend to tell you how much i put in of each of these things, I have no clue. But I will tell you this, after you make it once you will taste any mistakes that you made and you can fix them the next time. That is the best part. It is dumb luck to get something perfect the first time, and nobody likes people who skate by on dumb luck. ;-) I mean.. When you hit the nail on the head with a dish the first time you make it you feel like you have done something great, but there is this great sense of knowing that you feel only when you have also learned how you can mess it up.

So after I make my fish fry bowl and my milk bowl, I organize my lettuce, tomato and corn onto a happy little condiment plate. You can also do diced red onion here, but I aint got none. Ya heard. Time to check dat oil. Now instead of a thermometer for oil I use this high tech device that you may or may not have heard of. I think the common term is "wooden spoon," but I am not really sure. And yes, I use this device whether I am cooking in just a little oil or a ton of oil. You stick your wooden spoon into the oil, if little bubbles start to appear around it slowly your oil is hot but not crazy hot, if lots of bubble form pretty quickly than you oil is crazy good hot. If you can actually hear a sizzle and there are bubbles that are causing oil to spurt up, turn the heat down, what you tryin' to do burn down the house?? And yes, this is a scientifically proven method, FDA, EPA, CIA and DEA approved.

Fish goes in milk, shake it off. Fish goes in fry mix, spin it round, shake it off. Toss it in the pan with the oil that bubbled around your wooden spoon. Milk, Fry, Toss, Repeat, Milk, Fry, Toss, Repeat. Load it up. Then flip it. Try to go in a clockwise pattern so that when you flip you can follow the order that you tossed in. My little fish pieces take only a couple minutes on each side, so once I am done flipping I can pretty much just start removing them in the same order that I flipped. I put my fish onto a plate with a dish cloth on it, not paper towels. I like how the cloth absorbs way more oil than the paper towel and I didn't have to kill any trees in the frying of my fish.

With the fish done I turn on a rogue burner and toss a tortilla straight onto the fire. Forget the pan, just slap that baby on there. After a few seconds flip it with tongs, and repeat this a few times until the tortilla is warm, not burnt.

All tortillas get a slather of spicy sour cream out of the fridge, a bunch of fishies, lettuce, corn and tomato. Sadly I would have loved to have coleslaw on this dish as well, but it was not meant to be.

These fish tacos rocked. Next time though, I want a different fish. Tilapia has great texture, but that's about it. To bad BP took away all my fish.

Until next time...

Shrimp & Sweet Potato Rigatoni

Ok,so for my first night I took a recipe and ran with it. A sweet potato pasta sauce over rigatoni topped with sautéed shrimp. The recipe came from Giada De Laurentiis, but of course I followed it "loosely."
Here goes...

Peeled and chopped one medium sweet potato, chopped it up into small cubes and threw it in a big ole pan with some hot oil and salt and pepper. Let that sit on medium high and caramelize while I diced up a shallot, peeled 12 shrimp, threw some baby spinach into a bowl and chopped up one tomato (which ended up in the same bowl as the spinach).

Alright so now, if you've taken your sweet time and remembered to stir the sweet potatoes a couple times, you can throw in the diced shallot and a pinch of crushed red pepper with the potatoes. Stir it up and leave it. Add a splash of oil if the pan is getting dry. Spin yourself around and take 2 big garlic cloves and grate them, yes grate them. Super easy way to get a super fine dice on garlic. Just grate that bad boy. I have a micro-plane which is perfect, but the small side of a good old fashioned grater works perfectly. Now for my favorite part... homemade salad dressing. Warning, tangent ahead.

Store bought salad dressing is one of the saddest things that has happened to our society. Dressing is one of the simplest things to make, it lasts forever in your refrigerator once you make it and you can make it with things that you have in your house anyway! I am not making this up AT ALL. Do you have some type of oil? Some type of vinegar or a lemon? Perhaps a little salt and pepper? Mustard? Honey? Every bachelor with an empty fridge has mustard, but even if you don't have those last two, you can make salad dressing. Well, you can't make ranch dressing, but that is not a dressing, it is a dip. Yeah, I said it. Ranch is a dip, not a dressing. Get over it. Anyway, back to my rant. So you have all allowed the Krafts and Paul Newmans of the world to continuously sell you something you don't even need. Something that tastes like salty plastic. Gross, vomit. Store bought salad dressings are for the weak, the very weak. You take 2 parts oil to one part vinegar or lemon juice. If that is too complicated... put in some oil and then put in some vinegar, but less vinegar than oil. Add salt and pepper, add a squirt or spoonful of mustard, a big squirt of honey and shake/stir it up. Voila! Real, tasty salad dressing. Even if you left out mustard and honey, you are still good. And to close... if you hate raw vegetables so much that you have to slather them in things labeled "Thousand Island," "Chunky Blue Cheese," and "Catalina" then just get over it and stop eating salads. It's like watching someone swallow a raw oyster whole in .5 seconds and then swear that they love oysters. You eat salad because it is what the cool kids do, the "in" crowd. Just man up and say you hate raw veggies. It's lame to say, but not as lame as turning your delicious baby romaine organic salad mix pink with neon orange French "dressing."

Are we back? Ok, so if you read the rant then you know how I made the salad dressing. Put some water on to boil for the pasta, add oil and salt to this water. In a smaller pan, I got all whimsical tossed in a splash of oil, a pat of butter and a third of my grated garlic. I also threw in about a cup of chicken broth to my potatoes and stirred them around. Just as the butter in the little pan started to melt i threw in a few slices of yummy french bread and browned each side. Pulled them out of the pan and let them sit out on the counter until I was ready to plate. They became this indulgent cross between buttery garlic bread and a crunchy crouton. Yummmm.

Hopefully by now your potatoes are starting to get smushy. Just kind of squish them with your stirring utensil to see. If they aren't mushy enough keep cooking and adding a little bit of broth if the pan dries up. Hopefully your pasta water is starting to boil. Once your potatoes are smushy you want to scoop them into your blender or food processor and add about a half cup to a cup of milk. If you are using a blender, put a rag over the lid please. Or you could just be like the hubs and turn is on sans lid, but be prepared to burn your face off. Blend this up until smooth, maybe adding a little extra milk if you need to. You want it to be saucy. Ow Ow! Add salt and pepper to taste. Once you got it right, toss it back in the big pan and leave it there on super low heat.

Put yo rigatoni in da burlin' wata. Do it!

Drizzle that homemade dressing over your spinach and tomato salad. Use HALF of what you think you need. HALF!!!!!!!!! Then sprinkle a big pinch of parmesan cheese over it and toss. Resist the urge to pour dressing on your salad like it is A1. Plate up your salad, it's done. Plate up those yummy garlic toasts as well.

Now back to my small pan. Add some more oil and a pat of butter and the rest of the garlic. Once you can no longer see the "pat" of butter add in the shrimp. I only cook my shrimp a couple minute on both sides, but some people are weird about skrimps. So cook them however you like and then turn the heat off. Now, if you turn the heat off when they are almost done, they will continue to cook and be done when you need them. However, if you cook the crap out of them then at least move them to a plate so they don't turn into shrimp jerky. Personally if you can figure out how to get your shrimp a few minutes away from being done and then cut off the heat that is perfect. Then they will still be warm when you plate them.

Take the al dente pasta and strain and then dump into the big pan with the sweet potato sauce. Stir around and add parm cheese. I personally add tons of it, you add what you want, makes no difference to me.

I plated my noodles right up next to my salad and sprinkled them with more parm (if you know me this makes perfect sense) and a pinch of crushed red pepper. Topped it off with 6 shrimp each and voila! Dinner by Carly Brown.

Oh, and by the way I had tossed 4 chicken breasts into a baking pan before I started all of this, drizzled them with olive oil and red wine vinegar. I covered them in salt (lots), black pepper and dried parsley flakes and left them unattended the whole time at 375 degrees. I turned the oven off when I was done making dinner and there, right before my eyes, was lunch for the next couple of days. Some things in life are just easy. Cooking is one of them.