Long time no post

Its been quite a long long long long...well you get it...since I last posted. Med School does that to a guy. But after submitting to Blake Makes for some chocolate in his contest, I've decided that I'm going to try and update and revive this blog. Here's to lazardusing my blog!

As Promised

Here I am again. This past long weekend I was really feeling in the spirit to help my mom out with the cooking as well as get her and my dad to try a few new things out.

The first of these dishes came Monday night after we (my mom and I) decided to try a beef and a chicken dish. The beef dish that we tried Monday was the Italian meat pie. Overall a pretty simple recipe and unsurprisingly, the result was the same. The basic concept as you can see is a meat pie "crust" with baked vegetables covered in melted mozzerella as the filling. It's actually from the Taste of Home Cooking School 50th Anniversary Cookbookthat my mom picked up on sale. Here's the recipe.

Italian Meat Pie

shell
2/3 cup quick cooking or old fashioned oats
1/2 cup ketchup
1 egg
3/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp peppergarlic powder
1-1/2 lbs ground beef

filling
2 medium zucchini sliced or 1 package (9 ounces) frozen green beans, cooked, drained
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried basil
2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

In a large bowl, combine oats, ketchup, egg, salt, pepper, and garlic. Crumble beef over mixture and mix well. Press onto bottom and sides of 9 inch pie plate. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes, drain. Combine zucchini, onion, 1/2 cheese, ketchup, and seasonings. Spoon filling into partially baked shell and top w/cheese. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until meat is no longer pink. Cut into wedges to serve (6-8 servings).

Overall, it actually turned out pretty good. I actually left it bake closer to 25-27 minutes the second time. The only problem was that the meat, although cooked well, was too plain and lacked flavor. I think that by adding your own combination of spices into the meat to give it more flavor or maybe changing by adding onions to go more of the meatloaf route for the shell would give it a lot more flavor and blend much better with the rest of the pie. I might also go for a combination of the vegetables in the center of the dish as well to liven it up.

The chicken dish, the Tuesday night meal, turned out even better than the pie. Probably best described as a somewhat of a sweet and tangy dish, the chicken fantastico. The spicing was great and we served it with long grain rice (thank you uncle ben) and green beans. The tangy combination tingled my taste buds and the rice provided a great balance. Not to mention, the recipe for this was quick and simple and extremely easy to put together. We just doubled the recipe in order to serve the three of us and it left us a good helping of leftovers as well. This is one of those recipes that with the right plating and accompanyment makes it look like you spent several times the amount of time in the kitchen than you did. The only complaint I had was that the chicken tended to make my mouth dry afterwards but was solved when eaten in combo with one of the other foods. I would possibly think of adding something along the lines mushrooms or bean sprouts with the chicken into the sauce to give it more texture and taste. Otherwise, a great recipe.

Chicken Fantastico
Originally uploaded by zekks.

Chicken Fantastico Recipe
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 (1 ounce) package onion soup mix
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 cup water
Mix all ingrediants but chicken till well blended.
Mix in cubed chicken and place in a casserole dish. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to 1 hour (till chicken is done. Serve with rice.

Long post I know. Just a quick shout out to the Sante Fe tiliapia that I had at Logan's Roadhouse on Sunday as well. From their website "Slightly spicy and sizzlin' with flavor, our twin Tilapia fillets are seasoned and grilled to perfection. Served with our warm Roasted Corn and Black Bean salsa and a cilantro-chipotle sauce. " An excellent dish with enough spicy zing for me and more than enough food since it comes with two sides to go with actually 4 large pieces of fish.
I'll be continuing with my update later in the week hopefully this time with a picture of the white chocolate cherry bread sitting in my cupboard right now for everyone. Happy day after Single's Awareness Day!

Long Weekend

With the college being oh-so-generous and giving us the past two days off from class, I spent the long weekend home resting, relaxing, and even watching the Olympics. I daresay that I would love to go over to Italy and spend a great deal of time there and the rest of Europe. Being home and not having much to do this weekend, though, did give me an amplitude of time (and more importantly resources) to try a few new recipes as well as try the cuisine from a few restaurants.

The first of these was over at the local Grand Haven Panera Bread. Honestly, I really enjoy their warm yet yuppy atmosphere. The inside almost makes it seem cozy and makes me realize how other restaurant interiors seem much more impersonal. Anyway, the food of choice was their newest sandwich, the chicken olivada. Pulled from their website, it's described as a new Mediterranean flair sandwich with "All-natural pepper-mustard chicken, field greens, tomatoes, red onions, feta cheese, pesto aioli and olive tapenade on our toasted Whole Grain bread." Personally, I chose mine without tomatoes but I don't think that affected the outcome. This sandwich was to simple put it: delicious. I was a little hesistant not being a fan of mustard especially because of its ability to overpower the other ingredients when applied to sandwiches among other things. But the mustard taste wasn't as sharp as I expected and instead complimented the the greens and the pesto and olive tapenade. I took a picture of it to show all of you but unfortunately it didn't turn out and is too blurry to see the scrumptious layers of this sandwich.

I think I'll do the recipes tomorrow so I'll end this post informing you of my infatuation with Great Harvest Bread Company (especially in Grand Haven) and their breads. I can't really speak for all of the other branches of this chain seeing as owners are basically given a somewhat free reign in their breadmaking process and recipes but as far as the one I regular, its bread is far beyond being described simply as wondrous. This weekend they ran a special bread for the Valentine's Day weekend: white chocolate cherry bread. If this doesn't start your mouth watering, then I pity you. I bough a loaf and currently am in the process of starting it here in the apartment. I'll take a picture tomorrow and post it but to give you a preview its basically a white bread loaded with swirls of melted white chocolate with dried cherries throughout the loaf. All their bread is fresh every morning and the piece I sampled before making the decision to buy was A.MAZ.ing. I'm already a big fan of their sweet breads and this was, though not overly sweet, a blended rush of chewy and sugar that delighted my taste buds. I'll show you tomorrow.

I didn't even mention the other favorite reason I love Great Harvest Bread Company: free slices of bread when you visit. I almost even feel guilty sometimes going in their just for the free slice and then leaving but its so good its hard to overcome. Today, I actually did just that and the slice I sampled was a hefty piece of another of my personal favorites, pecan swirl.

For a while even after becoming a regular supporter, I actually avoided this bread due to my slight aversion of nuts and their use as an overpowering theme in breads and other baked goods. But, as I found out, this bread is a great combination of nuts and chunks of sugary cinnamon swirls. Still soft and warm from the oven makes the bread all that much better though even a week later, they're all still exceptional. So across the country, if you're fortunate to have one of these stores in an area nearby, I strongly suggest checking it out if you're a hardcore or even featherweight fan of high quality breads.

I want to let you know about the rest of my recipes but I'm feeling a tad tired and I think I'll update with the rest of the weekend with a massive post tomorrow. This one will actually have more pictures so you'll be able to to judge more of it for yourself.

Ciao.

Worth looking at

A couple things today, the first of which is I think I've found one of the recipes that I'm going to do for the next dessert party. I wish I could choose from a wider selection but unfortunately due to cost and feasibility of number of servings the options definitely get limited but oh well. This is a little close to one of desserts from last time but I think people would forgive me if I chose to make these for them. Cupcakes anyone? It just kinda screams party food to me and that everyone would be able to have there own, though they might not eat the whole thing it might beat waiting in line to scoop your own. We'll see cause I always end up changing my mind of these things like eleventy billion times beforehand anyway. I was thinking before this that I might go more the bar/cookie route and this is almost halfway there.

Two other things I thought were interesting. The first is Moobella which I thought was an amazing concept especially something that would fit perfectly in the college atmosphere. Can you imagine studying late at night and taking a break to go over to the vending machine to grab a freshly scooped cone of ice cream. A. Maz. Zing. I think I'm going to bring it up before Student Congress one of these nights to see what other students think. Goosebumps just thinking about it.

The other sweet food site I found recently is for the other end of the food spectrum....well at least it used to be. I've recently become a huge cereal fan over the past year and I just couldn't pass promoting this site. Cereality. Imagine the possibilities of this. Simply mindblowing.....well...maybe not, but its taking the American FAST food to a whole new level. Both of these sites are definitely worth a click. I'll leave you with the comment from the Cereality website:

"95% of Americans like cereal

57% like sex

We've got cereal"

Apple Crisp

Apple Crisp
Originally uploaded by zekks.

Here's the second of three desserts that I made for the party. This apple crisp was honestly divine. The recipe was originally off of allrecipes.com but modified to suit my tastes and needs. It was a huge hit and got even more compliments than the trifle. I think that both of these desserts were perfect for the college student type party that has a too many people to with regular desserts likes pies and the such. These two spoon-for-yourself centered desserts allowed me to accommadate everythings varying tastes and appetities. The one thing that I was going to do but half forgot half ran out of time for was to drizzle some caramel topping over the crisp after taking it out of the oven. But, even without that, it exceeded my expectations.

Almost full bag of small MacIntosh apples (~9)
1/2 cup water
1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted
Lemon juice

DIRECTIONS:
Peel, core, and slice apples into a mixing bowl. Sprinkle with lemon juice and then shake with ~2 teaspoons of cinnamon until apples are coated
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Arrange apples in an even layer in bottom of baking dish. Pour water over apples.
In a medium bowl mix together cake mix, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Stir in melted butter or margarine until ingredients are thoroughly blended; mixture will be crumbly. Sprinkle mixture over apples.
Bake in preheated oven for around 55 minutes.

Dessert Party

Chocolate Brownie Trifle
Originally uploaded by zekks.

Here lies the remains of what used to be a Caramel Cream Chocolate Brownie Trifle dessert that I made for the dessert party I just hosted last night at our apartment. It's a shame you couldn't see it in more of its glory but the camera was definitely second in line behind the guests. It was a pretty big hit with my peers, college students who love to eat especially things that are sweet. It was really easy to make and looked like I spent a ton more time on it than I had.

Here's the recipe:

1 package (1 pound 3.8 ounces) fudge brownie mix
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 package (4-serving size) chocolate fudge instant pudding and pie filling mix
2 cups milk
1/4 cup caramel topping
1 container (8 ounces) frozen whipped topping, thawed

1. Heat oven to 350ºF. Bake brownie mix as directed on package, using water, oil and eggs, in 13x9-inch pan. Cool completely, about 1 hour.
2. Make pudding mix as directed on package for pudding, using milk; refrigerate. Cut brownies into 1-inch pieces. Thoroughly stir caramel topping into whipped topping.
3. In 3-quart glass bowl, layer half each of the brownies, pudding, and whipped topping mixture; repeat.
4. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving

Personally I like my brownies soft and more fudgy than normal so I cut the baking time that the mix required by about 4 minutes or so. Otherwise than that, its that easy

Try 2

I think that this blog (though I dislike that term and use it only grudgingly) may focus or at least highlight various webcomics and or recipes that I find displayed throughout the vast and sometimes too ginormous internet. So, in case anyone actually finds themselves here, I'm currently in the process of trying to come up with several different categories and scales by which to facilitate this venture. For those of you who don't know much about webcomics, they come in many forms and varieties but most of the ones I'm current focus more on gaming or a random assort of gags. Recipes are also something I'd like to focus on as I want to talk about food and my passion for enjoying it as well.

I think I'd hope to start out with a few maybe mid-size and moderately well known ones and then maybe try to give my biased honest opinion on others ranging in the ultra popular (like PA or Ctrl+Alt+Del) but also geared towards much smaller and lesser known webcomics that I think could use a little publicity or reviewing that people are talking about.

Unrelated, I think you should check out this week's featured link o' the week. I just found Link Hacker the other day by chance but from the looks of it, it contains a nice assortment of tools and tips of use on your computer for the inner (and outer) geeks in all of us. In other news, its official. Our friends from down under better be careful with those new laws cause otherwise a certain former pop superstar might turn up as a police officer there. On that disturbing note, that is all.

This may be the first post but hopefully it'll give me something to build upon as I try to write down thoughts and entertain others through my own misgivings and concoctions of events and things around me. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to dedicate this blog to. Obviously not my personal life but I was thinking maybe doing features on web comics, sports, and/or maybe even a little food and recipes sort of thing. We'll see how motivated I get and how often I start to put the time and effort into making this thing sort of worthwhile.

Ciao