This little experiment will amuse those who know about my appalling diet. Click thru and read the photo notes for more. 🙂
Category Archives: Recipes
Homemade Pizza Sauce
1 large can of tomato sauce (106 oz)
Italian herbs (center pile)
sage (right of Italian herbs)
garlic powder (very yellow in photo)
onion powder (top, white, right of oil pour)
cayenne powder
ground pepper (above sage)
salt
sugar (not shown)
olive oil
Sorry, the ingredients weren’t actually measured.
Stir all ingredients together in large pot. Start on medium-high heat, and when it shows signs of starting to bubble lower heat to simmer. Simmer covered for a couple hours. Check on it and stir at least every 30 minutes. Then simmer with splatter screen and no lid, so it will thicken up, for at least another 90 minutes.
Turn the heat off when you decide it’s done. Let it cool down. Then bag it up in “snack” size zipper bags, and put those into quart sized freezer bags, so it’s easy to pull them out one at a time to use without having to unthaw the whole batch.
Baked Mac & Cheese, Take 2
Ingredients:
1 (16 oz) bag of Fusili (spiral) pasta
4 TBL butter
1/2 cup bread crumbs (very fine)
1.5 TBL all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1/4 tsp cayenne powder
1/4 tsp smoked hungarian paprika
2 cup milk
1.25 lb cheddar cheese, shredded
Directions:
1. preheat oven to 350
2. start cooking pasta (20 mins or so), leave it a bit under done, because it’s going to continue cooking in the oven later.
3. melt 2 TBL (half) butter in small bowl or mug in microwave, add bread crumbs and use fork to mix completely. Set aside.
4. melt 2 TBL (other half) butter in medium sauce pan over medium-high heat, add flour and spices, stir, add milk, stir. Add cheese, and stir constantly until melted. Lower heat, but keep the sauce warm and stir regularly to keep it from forming skin over top, until you’re ready for the next step.
5. In regular (rectangular) baking dish pour in the cooked pasta, over this pour your cheese sauce, stir it up for even distribution/coverage) and then sprinkle the bread crumb mix evenly over the top of this.
6. bake in the lower/center rack at 350 for 25 minutes (rotate pan around half way thru the time), until just getting a little golden on top, and then move to upper rack and switch to broil for about a minute and a half to complete the GBD on top. Be very careful not to let this burn, it darkens suddenly on broil. Don’t take your eyes off of it.
7. Let it cool for at least 5 minutes before trying to eat it.
Cocktail: Hakkespett
I think any drink that involves Chartreuse is odd. I like it, and can’t quite find better words for it. It’s just odd. This drink was found in an iPhone app for drink recipes that I hesitate to recommend because the interface is the worst I’ve ever seen, but, the drink here is:
1 shot of Green Chartreuse (only this in the glass on the left), and 1 shot of Gran Gala (my favorite orange liqour), over ice.
Quite yummy, while still being odd.
Simple Breakfast
Hashbrowns from Trader Joe’s – Baked in the little convection oven for about 20 minutes on 400 or so (YMMV). You wait until these are about 10 minutes in, and then start the…
Morning Star “breakfast strips”, which we like to call facon – we bake these in the regular oven, also on convection, 4 minutes, flip them over, and about 4 more minutes. Every oven is different, so you have to watch them carefully to get it right. They just start to stick to the baking sheet when we pull them out to flip them over, and they are done when the color starts to darken, when it’s not exactly white anymore. These can suddenly turn to burnt if you let it go too far, and then they are not edible and you have to start over. (As soon as these are done the hashbrowns can be turned down to warm, and the facon can go in with them until eggs are done. Start cooking the eggs.)
Not pictured here: Mike’s nearly perfect poached egg – Bring the water to a boil, turn the burner off, and carefully dropped the egg (from a bowl) into the water, and leave it in there for about 3 minutes, and then pull it out with a slotted spoon.
Snow’s Scrambled Egg – In a small bowl combine 1 egg, a tablespoon of squash puree, and a tablespoon of shredded cheddar cheese. Small frying pan on the stove, brown a half tablespoon of butter or on high heat, then turn the burner down to lowest setting and pour in the egg mix. Push it around a little with a spatula, then cover with lid and let it cook for a minute, check that the underside is as done as you like, and then flip it, and it should only take about one more minute to finish.
Serve it all up and enjoy!