Buffalo Chicken Dip

This was an attempt to make chicken wings healthier.  I'm guessing that it is healthier because: 1. I used white meat chicken instead of dark meat, 2. nothing is fried, 3. cream cheese was fat free, 4. it tastes great with celery!

Here's the ingredient list:

two cooked chicken breasts, shredded
1 package fat free cream cheese
1/2 cup of reduced fat ranch dressing
1/2 cup of Frank's Red Hot or similar hot sauce
dollop of mayonnaise
a couple sprinkles of low-fat mozzerella

 Step by step photos:

Two shredded chicken breasts

Liquid ingredients

Combine chicken with liquid ingredients until it looks like vomit.

Cook at 350 for about 20-30 minutes or until nice and bubbly.

Serve with celery and crackers.

YUM!

PS: Tastes really good as a cold chicken salad if you add chopped celery!

Zucchini Casserole

Zucchini Casserole

Ingredients: zucchini, onion, garlic, can diced tomatoes, shredded mozzarella.

Got a little too brown on the top for my liking.  I think our oven runs too hot.

Didn't even get to take other pics because it was gobbled up pretty quick!

Here's how to make it:

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees and spray a pretty dish with oil.

2. Slice up two medium/large zucchini (about 1 to 1 1/2 pounds), put aside for later.

3. Saute about a half a cup of chopped onion and 1 clove garlic in olive oil.

4. Add a can diced tomatoes, drained very well.  I used the kind with Italian seasonings in it.  Cook for about 5 minutes.

5. Create a layer of zucchini coins on the bottom of pan.

6. Add layer of tomato mixture.

7. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.

8. Repeat until all ingredients are gone.  Don't put cheese on top yet- it will burn.

9.  Bake for 20 minutes.

10.  Reduce heat to 350 and add top layer of cheese.  Bake for 10 minutes.

DONE!

OKRA, part one

Okra. Not orca (as in whale) or oprah (as in tv host). The weird green sorta-looks-like-a-pepper vegetable that for some reason people adore in this state I am living in. Every barbecue joint around here serves fried okra.

The farmer's market bounty.  Looks like I need to buy a cornucopia.

I've eaten okra before, usually fried, but never actually touched a fresh one until today.  Royall got close to two pounds of it at the farmer's market this morning.  It has a fuzzy layer on the outside like a peach and a mysterious goo with a texture that is not un-like spit on the inside.  I tried it raw and it was nothing spectacular- kind of sweet, pretty bland.

Oooey-gooey.  This is why people use it to thicken soups.

Ooey-gooey, take two.

So, what is the first thing you do with a vegetable that you don't know how to properly cook?  If you live in the south, the answer is: fry it.

I googled how to fry okra and came up with this conglomerate of a recipe:

1. Cut okra.

2.  Place in ice water in the fridge for an hour.

Add salt to ice water.

3.  Drain and dredge in cornmeal, salt and pepper.

I double dredged: coated once, let it sit for a few minutes and coated again.  EXTRA CRISPY!

4.  Fry for 4-5 minutes at 375 or so.  

Our fryer is banished to the storage closet.  New house, new rules.  No frying inside, it makes everything smell!

Don't they look like tater-tots?

Don't worry, OKRA, part two is healthier.  Much healthier.

Mikey's Beans

DISCLAIMER: Before you attempt to make this, please realize that no matter what you do or how hard you try, it will never taste as good as G-Mom's.

Mikey's beans has been a favorite of mine for a loooooong time. It makes me remember family BBQ's in the "summer house" at G-Mom and G-Pop's house. I liked to help set up for the 4th of July's or Memorial Day's we spent out there and have very good memories... putting out the plastic table cloths, pulling out mismatched silverware in the wicker picnic caddy and hoping that I wouldn't get a splinter from the wooden picnic benches out there. G-Mom would be getting the food ready, G-Pop would be fooling around (this usually involved fireworks, remote control cars or practical jokes) and my sisters and I would probably be terrorizing each other or practicing our dance recital moves in the driveway. This is how good memories and good recipes are made.

I had my Mom read off the Mikey's beans recipe from the OLMA cookbook. It was pretty vague, so I called G-Mom for the specifics.

Now, I've asked G-Mom for this recipe before and have gotten a response something like "you just put all the beans in with the liquid and cook it". This time I really tried to get the specifics of the secret recipe.

ME: "How long do you cook it?"
G-MOM: "Until it's done."

ME: "How do you know it's done?"
G-MOM: "It thickens."

ME: What kind of beans?
G-MOM: "Doesn't really matter. Use the butter beans, kidney beans and the regular beans."

No where in the grocery store will you find anything labeled "regular beans". Trust me, I looked.

Here is what I bought and had a fun time stacking:

DON'T buy Ranch Beans. Well, you can buy them, but they don't go in this recipe. I thought they would, but as soon as I opened the can I realized it wasn't the right flavor of baked beans and I couldn't go back and get a picture re-do. It doesn't help that there is no description on the can as to what is inside. BUT from experience I've now learned: they are savory pinto beans with a strong cumin flavor.

Ingredients:

pound of ground beef (could substitute veggie crumbles or ground turkey)
small onion, chopped
ketchup, mustard, brown sugar
can of butter beans
can of kidney beans
can of baked beans
can of BBQ baked beans

Now, nothing at the store is labeled as simply "BBQ beans" or "baked beans". I got Bush's Original Baked Beans and Bush's Maple Bacon Beans and it worked well.

Step one: Brown the ground beef. G-Mom makes this whole recipe in an electric skillet/fry pan thingy. I just did it on the stove top.


Step two: Cook onion. In order to do this, I set aside the browned beef and used the same pan.


Step three: Put the beef back in the skillet and pour in all those beans (including liquid). Check out the diagram I made.


Step five: Season. No finer seasonings than ketchup, mustard and brown sugar! G-Mom couldn't give me measurements for this part, so I just eye-balled it.


Step six: Stir and cook on low until sauce thickens.


Here's what it looks like when it's done:



My review: I absolutely love this recipe! It's my definition of comfort food. Mine came out pretty good, but it didn't taste like G-mom's of course. I like how it is sweet and tangy. My favorite are the butter beans! Mmmmmm!

PS: I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THIS IS CALLED MIKEY'S BEANS!

Swedish Hasselback Potatoes

Using Stumble Upon, I found this beauty: the hasselback potato, or as I like to call it ...

The Hasselhoff Potato

I bet David Hasselhoff would enjoy these! I don't know who wouldn't love these potatoes! Those puppies would do tricks for these carby wonders.

Crunchy on top, yummy breadcrumbs and fluffy potato goodness on the inside.

You will only need a few ingredients (potatoes, oil, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper) and about 40 minutes or so. I know that right now you are thinking, "Hey, I've got those things! I want to eat something that sounds like Hasselhoff!". That's a sign that YOU SHOULD MAKE THESE!

1. Preheat oven to 425. If you have a big one, toaster ovens can be good for making these.

2. Prep potatoes. Thinly slice the potatoes leaving only a few centimeters at the bottom. DON'T CUT ALL THE WAY THROUGH! Be careful, because it's hard to get close to the bottom without cutting all the way. Use something to block your knife from going through. Some people use chopsticks positioned on either end of the potato. The closest thing I had to the right thickness were Nutrisystem chocolate bars (which I am obviously not using).


3. Add oil. I used canola spray oil (kinda like Pam). You could also use olive oil. Try to get it down inside the slits without breaking any off.

4. Add breadcrumbs. The technique I use is to pour the breadcrumbs on top and them massage them down inside the potato. Now they are ready for the oven!


*unless you want to add other ingredients. Some people add thin slices of garlic wedged in between (I am not one of those people). You could also add Parmesan cheese or seasoned salt.

5. Bake for 40 minutes.

YUM!

Since I am low-class, I like to eat these by pulling off pieces with my hand. What are those glowing eyes near my plate?! I think it may be a puppy willing to do tricks for my Hasselhoff potato.

The Vegan WASP delight: HUMMUS

First of all, I think hummus needs to be renamed so it doesn't sound like it tastes gross. It's too close to "haggis" for my liking. Not sure what you could call it though. Wasps say "chickpeas", everyone else says "garbanzo beans". Maybe we could rename it creamy chickpea dip. Although that's terribly boring. Leave some new name ideas in the comments if you think of any good ones.

Total time to make this recipe is about a day, if you count soaking the dried beans overnight. Besides the soaking, it takes about an hour and a half.

You'll need:

1 cup dried chick peas, which grows to about 2 cups after soaking

1 cup of tahini (ground sesame seeds, you should be able to find this at most grocery stores near olives, etc.)

5 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons lemon juice

some water that is left over from boiled chickpeas (about 3-4 tablespoons)

2 cloves garlic (I used 1/2 clove because I'm wimpy when it comes to garlic)

1/2 teaspoon cumin

dash of paprika

salt & pepper

parsley for garnish if you wanna get all fancy pants

ak-mak crackers for dipping, any carb should work though


FYI: This recipe is adapted from a Jewish heritage website.


DIRECTIONS:

1. Soak beans overnight in water. I dumped out the old water and put in fresh water a few times.

2. Simmer for an hour or until they are tender. Add water as needed. Drain, but save some liquid in case you need to thin the hummus. Note: my stove top isn't dirty. That's where the melted tea kettle metal leaked and ruined the enamel... long story.


3. Put all the goods into a food processor for a couple minutes. You may find that it's too thick and needs more lemon juice or liquid added. Play around with it until you get the consistency you want.


4. Drizzle with olive oil if you want. I also sprinkled paprika and sesame seeds on top. I like to eat my hummus with ak maks, they are really good crackers!


Voila! That wasn't too hard! I think this is the best hummus recipe I've ever made. Maybe it's because I used the dried and cooked beans instead of using canned beans. Maybe it's the amount of tahini, most recipes don't call for that much. OR maybe it's because I'm awesome.

Purple Pickled Eggs

I don't know if pickled eggs count as WASP-y food, but I just had to blog about these bad boys:

I don't know what on earth possessed me to make pickled eggs, but I got to thinking about them a few days ago and figured I'd give it a whirl. My reasoning being: I like pickles, I like hard boiled eggs, maybe I'd like pickled hard boiled eggs. Also, I wanted to make my own so I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.

To make purple pickled eggs you'll need a couple days and:

4-6 hard boiled eggs

1/2 cup vinegar

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon pickling spice

1 cup water

a few beet slices

1. Hard boil eggs and cool them in the fridge. Peel.

2. In a saucepan, bring water, vinegar, sugar, pickling spice, and beets to a boil. Check out the taste. I added a little extra sugar to mine. Cool in the fridge.

3. Important: Don't place eggs in pickling solution until both the eggs and the pickling solution have been chilled. Otherwise, the eggs may get a rubbery texture.

4. Let eggs sit in picking solution for 2 days.

5. Be brave and try one! Aren't they strangely pretty?

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with how these came out! It tasted like a hard boiled egg married a pickled beet and had a beet-egg baby. However, I could see how these might be a hard-to-acquire taste for the less adventurous.

Lazy Sunday Braided Rosemary Bread

Nothing makes me feel accomplished quite like making a loaf of bread... or two! For me, it is a great distraction from doing other work that really needs to be done on the weekend.

Plus, I wanted to use the rosemary I recently bought before my un-green thumb and the Arizona "valley-of-the-sun-with-no-rain-and triple-digit-temps" kills it.

The recipe, Braided Herb Bread, comes from my favorite cookbook, The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook from 1989.

Time: be prepared to spend pretty much the bulk of your Sunday (at least 4 hours)

Ingredients: salt, rosemary leaves, yeast, flour, water, butter, egg

1. Put salt (1 tbsp), rosemary (1 tbsp), yeast (2 packets), and flour (2 1/2 cups) into a kitchenaid bowl.

2. Place water (2 1/2 cups) and butter (1 tbsp) in a saucepan and heat until it reaches around 120 degrees.

3. Mix water and butter into the bowl containing salt, rosemary, yeast and flour at medium speed for a couple minutes.

4. Continue mixing and slowly add 4 1/2 cups of flour. Dough should form into a ball.

5. Place into a greased bowl, cover and let rise for an hour. During this hour, you should probably accomplish something else with your day. Maybe put the laundry away before the cat gets fuzz all over it.


6. After the dough rises, knead it for 10 minutes. Add "workout" to your list of accomplishments for the day.

7. Cut the dough into 6 pieces. You will need three for each loaf of bread.


8. Roll out into ropes and braid together, place on cookie sheet.


9. Cover and let rise for another 30 minutes. Watch the Olympics.

10. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and brush loaves with egg.

11. Bake for 30 minutes.

12. Take pride!