And then he stood in the check-out line/Approximately 3 hours/"This is cold w ar!" shouted a clerk/"This is Russian hell!" shouted a jerk - Bacon and egg cupcakes

"Cupcakes" is a bit of a misnomer in this recipe as there is no batter and nothing remotely sweet. They aren't even made in cupcake papers, though they are supposed to be baked in a jumbo muffin tin. So, Bacon and Egg Muffins would be a better name, I think, though that is still not quite hitting it.

A friend posted these on Facebook the other day and they were irresistible as I love all the components (only three of them, actually) and I will take any excuse to eat eggs at any time of the day. The Boy isn't big on breakfasts that deviate from his decades long juice-cereal-banana-whilst-reading-the-paper routine so these beauties had to be for dinner.

Unfortunately, in the thrill of buying bacon and biscuits I totally forgot that I don't own a jumbo muffin pan to bake these in so I had to improvise with rings of heavy duty foil on a cookie sheet. There was a teeny bit of egg leakage, but otherwise it worked fine.

Make these; they are delicious.

Dunk my heart in a vat of lard/it's getting all crispy and it's gettin' all hard/Deep fried love, come on give me the grease -

There are things I have purposefully not learned to make, mostly because I don't want it to be [relatively] easy to produce things I probably shouldn't eat very often anyway. Another barrier down today as I took the leap and made chicken fried steak. It's not a difficult dish; more just a pain in the ass to get things timed correctly.

I took round steak out of the freezer with no clear plan, so I did an ingredients search on Allrecipes.com and all I could see were various recipes for chicken fried steak. And so it was written. And so it was. (This was the basic recipe I used, for Steak Fingers.) Of course, there had to be mashed potatoes (and I will cop to making the instant variety because the Boy prefers them), and milk gravy. For good measure, I threw in a salad made from arugula, Boston lettuce, tomato and fried onions.

White chalk, written on red brick/Our love, told in a heart/It's there, drawn in the playground/Love, kiss, hate or adore - Smoked sausage and lentils

I had to get dinner together in a hurry today as the Boy was planning on heading out early to see Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt at the Fox. First I got a little steak out of the freezer, but soon enough that didn't seem like a good idea and I thought of the beef smoked sausage still in the freezer and of the lentils in the pantry. I love lentils. When I was vegetarian I ate what seemed like a ton of lentils; they are delicious and filling and super easy and quick to cook. Today's had dried minced onions (to lazy to slice up a fresh onion), sliced carrots, garlic, beef bullion, salt and pepper and some time to cook. Oh, and sliced beef smoked sausage as well.

And a salad, as usual.

Always, no sometimes, think it's me, but you know I know when it's a dream/I think I know I mean a 'Yes' but it's all wrong, that is I think I disagree - Deconstructed hummus, strawberry salad and strawberry pie

I went to the grocery store today with no clear idea of dinner for a meatless Monday. I saw some great looking strawberries, though, and was put in mind of a big green salad juicy with strawberries and nuts and cheese. But what else? I bought a poblano pepper with thoughts of roasting it over the gas flame, and some Vidalia onions for caramelizing. Beyond that, I didn't have a clue.

I ended up making a salad of lettuce from my friend Allison's garden, arugula and a red frisee, along with lots of strawberries, walnuts, french fried onions and gorgonzola cheese. As I'm currently obsessed with honey mustard dressing, that's what I used. It all worked together quite well.

I started caramelizing onions early in the afternoon (and unfortunately got a little more brown on them than I would have liked), roasted the pepper and got it all peeled and seeded. I thought I would add garbanzo beans and make a sort of deconstructed hummus. I splashed in a bit more olive oil, some garlic, the juice from a lemon and a spoonful of tahini. It turned out surprisingly good. The beans themselves got rather creamy inside and the onions were pleasantly sweet with a bit of crunch.

Since I had those strawberries, I needed to make a dessert, even though I had told myself that desserts should be verboten for a while. I told myself, but apparently I wasn't listening as I found myself preparing pie. I didn't want to cook anything so I bought a graham cracker crust, instant pudding and whipped topping. I made the pudding as directed for pie (which only means less milk than usual) and put 2/3 of it in the bottom of the pie crust. Then I diced up about 2/3 of a pound of strawberries, dashed in a couple packets of sweetener (I know it was a little late to cut sugar, but it's something) and then mixed with about 3/4 of the whipped topping. After spreading that evenly on top of the pudding, I used the rest of the plain whipped topping to cover the pie. It came out of the pan a little messy, but the flavor combinations were good.

Dancing screaming itching squealing fevered/Feeling hot hot hot - G&W jalapeno bratwurst

Sometimes simple is all right and last night I certainly didn't feel like any complicated cooking maneuvers. I've been thinking about the jalapeno brats I bought at G&W Sausage and it seemed like a good idea to thaw them out. I waited too long to start cooking so I was pressed to think of a quick side dish and pasta salad seemed a good idea. Keeping it as simple as possible, I prepared about 8 oz. of large shells in my beloved Pasta Boat, adding a handful each of frozen snap peas and sliced bell pepper in the last 3 minutes of cooking. After draining and rinsing the pasta in cold water (and doing it a second time to cool it all down) I simply splashed in some honey mustard dressing and a bit of grated cheddar. It was serviceable, if a bit boring.

I grilled the bratwurst and they looked absolutely lovely after browning. Sadly, the hotness of these brats was just too much for me. All I could taste was hot and very little brat flavor. I think, in general, I do not like hot sausages; I am not a fan of andouille either. The Boy thought they were tops though and he usually turns nose up a bit at the mention of jalapenos. But, I will be sticking with the garlicky, paprika-y Hungarian brats as far as G&W is concerned.

Friday I Have Thrifting on My Mind

I was home early from work, the Boy was off work, the rain had stopped. We had a couple of errands to take care of and then it seemed natural to run to St. Vincent de Paul for a bit of rummaging through the thrift.

They have this fabulous bin at the front of the store full of purses for 25 cents each. I'm crazy for thrift store purses, particularly at a price which barely computes as costing anything at all. I'm even more crazy lately for '70s/'80s clutches.

All of the wall art is currently 50% off, which made this photograph of Union Station marked at $3 a serious bargain.

How about a Lefton crazy eyed cat planter?

If you doubt the crazy eyes...

Once I knew the origins/make of this planter. Now I cannot recall. Can anyone help me?

I recently coveted the wooden vessel collection of some anonymous online entity. I am on my way to acquiring my own. I love this rustic bowl (and the MCM spreader in it).

Boomer likes the bowl too. Fits her perfectly.

Foxy Brown thought Boomer might be a tasty meal.

 

 

Take a chance with me/Poured out in wine/Chance to run away/Take a breath - Greek chicken and tabouli

I've had a gorgeous bouquet of mint decorating the kitchen table all week (thanks, Rene!) just waiting for me to make some tabouli. Today was the day, finally. It's a pretty simple recipe: cracked wheat soaked in hot water; chopped cucumber, tomato, green onion, parsley and mint; and a dressing made of fresh lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper. It's a fresh, light salad perfect for summer.

To go with the tabouli I thought grilled chicken would be good. I marinated a couple of bone-in breasts (I do not particularly like boneless chicken breasts - too tasteless) in more fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, oregano, garlic and salt and pepper. Even only marinating for a couple of hours put a lot of flavor into the finished chicken; it was charmingly lemon and herb infused.

And because I had to inject some trash into the meal, there were tater tots. So sue me.

Pad Thai!

I'm not sure what put it into my mind to make pad thai, but I had leftover pork, some deep fried tofu chunks, and some frozen shrimp. Plus I had purchased some rice noodles at Jay's the day before so I was in pretty good shape, ingredient wise.

I did an internet search for recipes and perused a few, thus learning the basic ingredients and cooking techniques for the dish (which, frankly, I should intimately know judging from the stack of takeout containers from King and I, each having held pad thai). First and foremost, most recipes gave instruction on getting the sauce made and waiting standby for use. While I should have had tamarind paste, I substituted white wine vinegar (I will definitely get some tamarind paste for the future), added an equal amount of fish sauce (pppppeeeeee U!), a hunk of palm sugar, some rooster sauce and lime juice. One recipe (at least) suggested heating the suace on the stove, and boy did that help the fish sauce to disperse its delightfully fetid odor throughout the house. In the meantime I cooked my noodles (I hadn't bought exactly the right noodles for pad thai, but the rice vermicelli worked fine) and rinsed and drained them.

All the recipes declared a smoking hot wok necessary and the strips of tofu I tossed in the pan (with some oil) sizzled accordingly. Then, slices of leftover pork and a few shrimp were added along with a bit of the fish sauce mixture and a handful of snow peas. Once that liquid was almost absorbed I added two beaten eggs to the wok, after moving the meat aside. I let the eggs scramble thoroughly before stirring them in and adding the noodles and the rest of the sauce. I incorporated the meat and sauce throughout the noodles and kept the heat high. At nearly the end of cooking I added a big handful of bean sprouts and chopped garlic chives. After dishing the pad thai out, I garnished each of our servings with a generous sprinkle of crushed peanuts.

It wasn't King and I, but it was a reasonable facsimile and the Boy was very pleased.