Bacon-Grilled Cheese Egg-in-the-Hole

Less may be more, but so is more. I thought it would be a great idea to make a egg-in-the-hole for breakfast awhile ago, but instead of the usual toast with an egg fried into the middle of it, why not use a grilled cheese sammich? With bacon in it? Why the fuck not.

I made a coupla grilled cheese sandwiches (with Provolone and crispy bacon), punched a hole in the center and cracked an egg into it. I nibbled the cookie-cutter mini-sammies while I nervously paced back and forth, worrying that I'd over-toast the sandwich waiting for the egg to cook, then flipped it gingerly. Perfection. Though delicious, next time, I'll add a little something to brighten it up - tomato slices? Slivers of sweet onion?

Serve with The Believer and a fiery Bloody Mary.


(Note: thank you to this sassy bitch who corrected my original title, a misuse of toad-in-the-hole. Toad-in-the-hole is bangers in Yorkshire pudding, not an egg in toast. It was cool of her to call me out - it's how I learn!)

Totchos

Quebec may have poutine, but we in Portland have a wondrous thing called totchos. They are effectively nachos, intelligently substituting the mundane tortilla chip with tater tots, and they are as good as they fucking sound. Suck it, Quebec.

Totchos have many uses: first, doy - they're nutritious and gluten-free; second, they cure PMS and SAD; and third, they're the perfect gift for that special Atkins dieter that you've been dying to piss off.

Mine are the high-falutin'est totchos you'll likely see, but that's okay. They're good old Ore-Ida Tater Tots®* (are there even any other kind?) sprinkled liberally with Lawry's, then topped with a mélange of Mexi-esque goodness: refried beans, pre-grated "Mexi" cheese (a combo of ched and jack), sour cream, chopped cilantro, onion and scallions, sliced black olives and a goodly glug of salsa (we were actually out of salsa, and i had to make some by pulsing some of my canned heirloom toms with a couple serrano chiles, some chopped onion and garlic, some cilantro and S&P. I added a little splash of vinegar for good mezh).

*omfg did you see that there is actually a link there to a recipe called Tater Tots Tuna Pie?!? I'm totally dying over it. The link is broken, but I might hafta reinvent this for the sake of Science. Also, did you know that Tater Tots come in two sizes: 32oz or FIVE POUNDS.

Serve with bong hits, Coke Zero and Super Mario Galaxy.

Curry ramen with mun-cha'i ya

...or, Phoning it In

Yes, that's packaged ramen. For dinner. See? I can totally phone it in sometimes. And since I joined the Foodbuzz Challenge (as I'm calling it), my posts are going to continue to erode into the hastily-scrawled chicken scratch of a mad woman for the next four weeks.

What is the Foodbuzz Challenge, you might ask? Most of you Foodbuzzed probably got the email and ran the other way, like smart people. I have agreed to post five times a week from August 11 to September 10 so those nice folks at Foodbuzz can see if there's a correlation between posting frequency and traffic to Foodbuzz. "Quality of Post" is apparently not one of the variables they are examining at this time.

This, friends, is why Japan rules. First, they took ramen, the perfect food, and gave it curry! Also, everything they make is so cute you want to gouge your eyes out with a grapefruit spoon. Look at that little dude! He's hurrying his little ass off to bring you steaming hot noodles in a glass case. Whilst wearing geta sandals!

Mun-cha'i ya (mock duck) is 100% vegetarian wheat gluten from Taiwan. Don't back away slowly, it actually tastes pretty good. I already liked seitan, and that's all this is, but with hilarious bumpy skin texture on it. And it comes with its own gravy! Mmm...gravy. Next time I'm going to try the mock abalone.


So yeah, I made some packaged curry ramen, boiled some potatoes and carrots, and added some canned gluten to it. I dumped a little extra curry gravy mix and togarashi just for shits and gigs. The curry didn't thicken up like usual until I was almost done eating it, but whatevs.

Ittadakimasu!

Hey, man, don't look at me like that. They're testing frequency, not quality!

Buttermilk spice cake with bourbon-banana compote and toasted marshmallows

...or Having a Laugh (Are You Having a Laugh?)

So, we all know that I love to cook, and have demonstrated a fair amount of competence in doing so. Proficiency, even, modestly put. Baking, however, is not my forte. Sure, my galettes are passable, but this is because galettes are definitively rustic. Cakes are not rustic at all; contrarily, they are to be pretty, delicate things, almost too precious to eat. Slicing into one is to feel like committing a violation.

My cakes are pretty ugly. Remember the chocolate cake with pecan-coconut frosting I baked for my dad's birthday back in May? Sure, everything tasted great - I mean, it's pretty hard to fuck up chocolate cake from a box and a sack of coconut mixed with sweetened, condensed milk and chopped nuts. But you almost ate it because you felt sorry for it, like you were putting it out of its misery.

This cake had a face only a mother could love. But oh god, it tasted like a Moon Pie and a piece of banana bread got shit-faced on fine Kentucky bourbon and cranked out an illegitimate love child (this is a good thing, to those of you with blank looks on your faces).

It started out a harmless buttermilk spice cake, a recipe from Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts (a vestige from my crunchier days). I was baking this cake for dinner guests, to go with crawfish-smoked pork cheek etoufee, collard greens and cornbread, so I wanted to bring it (down)home with buttery bananas sauteed with bourbon and a little crushed hazelnut praline. Kind of like Bananas Foster on cake. Oh, god, was it ever going to blow their minds. Then, though, and maybe it was the Lynchburg lemonades thinking, I said, "Hey, whydunwe put summadem lil' marshmallows on there and TORCH the shit," which was met with emphatic agreement from our dinner guests. This, dolls, is what happened next.

"Noo, it needs some sliced bananas. I'm finnuh brulee them. Watch this!" And I layered on sliced bananas, sprinkled sugar on top, and torched the fuck out of that poor cake.


Obviously, the whipped cream melted all over the damn place, making it an even tragic abomination of dessert. It was like a bad acid trip.

Let's summarize: it tasted like inebriation incarnate (I think that's good?), looked a hot mess (not such a good thing), and it'll be a few more months before I attempt to bake anything other than biscuits or cornbread again. If there are any Daring Bakers out there reading, would you hook a sista up and make this into a pretty cake?

Cazuela de Chorizo y Queso

...or Mexican Lasagna

...or Lowering the Bar

This time of year, I usually have to make a concerted effort to pull shit out of the freezer ahead of time so we have some dinner options. Once in awhile, though, I get too ambitious (really, just once in awhile), and pull 5 meals' worth of meat out of the freezer and then just, oh forget about it for a week. Then it's a harried scramble of profanity to cook it all in time. These are the times when I either have stroke of utter genius, or completely phone it in with this Hamburger Helper-esque abortion. This meal was the latter.

This time we had a venison backstrap, some ground turkey, and about 18 inches of Mexican chorizo in the mix. Whoa, turns out the carnicería near our house has really fucking good chorizo! Unfortunately, this was discovered after I already turned it all into a red-headed stepchild of Bolognese, using some leftover green and yellow bell peppers, some roasted jalapeños (from the freezer) and some onions. Diced it all up, fried it in the delicious orange chorizo grease. Added some Mexican oregano and a bit of cumin. One more run through the fridge - oh, here's a little container of sliced black olives, a half a can of black beans and one more sad kohlrabi (peeled and diced). In they go. I threw in a can of El Pato Mexican tomato sauce, and to cut the heat, I added some regular ol' stewed tomatoes.

I had a package of Trader Joe's no-boil lasagna noodles, a package of shredded cheddar/jack, and a hunk of cotija that had about ten minutes left on it. I had a tub of expired (but not-yet-sour!) cottage cheese, which I blended with some cilantro scavenged from the garden, and it was a reasonable facsimile for ricotta.

Gah, even the photos came out bad!

Oh god, what an embarrassing mess this was. A fucking mess! But oh, hey I almost forgot? Greasy, spicy sausage, sheets of pasta and gooey cheese all fresh from the oven ALWAYS TASTES GOOD. I win. Take that, Creepy Anthropomorphic Talking Glove!

Because we are concerned about your health!

Okay, I totally stole the idea from Voodoo Donuts, but it's so good, how could I not? I was in a stupid shittown grocery store that had maple bars and fried bacon in the deli. Two great tastes that taste great together.

[Insert Homer Simpson gargling noise here.]

But this, THIS, is the funniest fucking thing I've seen in awhile, and warranted breaking out my camera in the middle of a Benton County grocery store:

Yes, this sign is plastered directly above a vat of tater tots covered in sausage and melted cheese. Some kind of "breakfast casserole." God Bless America.

White Trash Delicasies

Work's been kicking my ass the past few days. I worked ~16 hours today, which included a two hour-long (mediated) fight with a senior coworker, and can't fathom cooking. Yet I can fathom blogging?

Okay, I asked the hubz if he'd consider fixing something to eat. He said he had given it some thought, but couldn't come up with anything. That means "I'm not that hungry, so I can't possibly come up with any meal idea, not even for my starving and overworked wife."

So I ask him if he can boil some fucking blue box and heat up a can of chili. He supposes he can. I know it sounds like an abortion, but a bowl of mac n' chee with some Nalley's dumped on top is pretty damn good. And hey, I use the vegetarian Nalley's (yes, they actually make that), so I get some good fiber and protein without the "chili meat" that is, I'm pretty sure, only barely legally fit for human consumption.

Chili-Mac

Box of mac n' chee
Can of chili
Tater tots
Lawry's seasoned salt
Ketchup

Cook the box of mac n' chee according to box directions and/or personal taste. Heat up a can of chili and dump it over the top. Serve with tater tots that have been sprinkled with Lawry's (optional). Pairs well with a Maker's and Diet Coke.


Since I really am completely white trash on my insides, I put ketchup on my mac n' chee. Oh, don't look at me like that.