Look what I made!

Yes! I made ribs! I'm proud of myself.
Furthermore, it only took an hour. The meat was STILL falling off the bone.
As this is NOT my recipe, the real recipe can be found HERE. I think their recipe had a little bit better sauce than mine does because the stupid broiler set off the smoke alarm after three minutes. I wasn't too impressed with that, but really, how often am I going to use the smoke alarm?
Anyway... AMAAAAAZING.

Oven Fries with Herbs and Parmesan

Okay, so I cheated. As usual I did not follow the recipe.
Yes, this recipe is not my invention, as brilliant as it is, and has been modified to my liking. The original recipe can be found at KitchenDaily, here. Sadly (for me), theirs are so much pretty than mine. Though I have no doubt that mine are just as tasty (if less crunchy).
So, I chose to make this out of a wild craving for potatoes (it happens frequently), a fear that no one would come home to make dinner in a timely manner, and a brick of Parmesan that no one was using. Resolving to make JUST these delicious little fries (for JUST me), I journeyed to the kitchen to assault some potatoes. Unfortunately, as I started cutting into a potato, half the family showed up, which meant I had to make DINNER. Like, dinner dinner. Dinner dinner dinner.
So what, that isn't chicken, goes well with fries? Steak. I'd make a joke, but I didn't make steak fries. The steak, by the way, was a tremendous failure. Out of fiscal necessity my family freezes meat. That's not a big issue. The big issue is the big steak that was languishing in the freezer like a grizzly bear on Valium. This was a BIG steak. Not in length. The stupid thing was over an inch deep. So, upstairs to the trusty microwave, where I assume I will ruin what could generally be considered a beautiful steak.
Ten minutes of radiation-based thawing does NOTHING aside from make it slightly moist.
Oh, right, this post isn't about steak. Let's just say the steak took forever too cook and made the fries look like a lovely little blessing from wherever food-based blessings come from. They were so blessedly easy that I plan to make more tomorrow (they've been requested for lunch).
As I assume you've looked at the original recipe by now (if you haven't, please do so, just out of respect to the poster), here's my rendition:

Oven Fries with Herbs and Parmesan
Serves 4 greedy people

3 large red potatoes, cut into slim sticks
~1/3 cup grapeseed oil
3 cloves garlic, mashed and minced
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1/2 cup Parmesan, freshly grated
salt
pepper

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425°F (I made an oopsie and set my oven to 475°F, which seems to have worked out fine). Toss potato sticks in a large bowl with oil until evenly coated. Spread potato sticks on a baking sheet in a single layer (I had overlap. Also, using wax paper may be a good idea, the fries WILL stick). Bake in the upper third of the oven (Again, I didn't listen. One of my racks is too high for my liking, the other is low, but just where I want it, so I used that), turning once or twice with a spatula (a note on technique: when your fries stick [and they will] flip the spatula over and use it like a plow), until they are golden and crispy. Should take about 30 minutes.
2. Sprinkle with minced garlic and herbs (and salt and pepper and cheese, if you're me and attempted to commit this recipe to memory and winged it when you realized you forgot). Roast for about 5 minutes longer (or until the kitchen begins to fill with the smoke of burning herbs and cheese on the bare spots of the pan), until herbs are fragrant and the garlic is lightly browned.
3. Deviate from the recipe complete and realize later that it's completely pointless to continue writing out the proper instructions when you clearly didn't listen. Eat happily and be grumpy and sad that people ate so much and didn't leave a huge pile for you.
4. Smile happily ate "make-again" requests and gloat about the virtues of real cheese.
5. Barter for more cheese that comes in brick form, rather than "pre-shredded." Remember to use the cheese grater as a point in your favor (i.e. "Why do we own it if we don't use it? It's there for a reason!")
6. Promptly be ignored.

Anyway, back to the fries.
I generally don't like Parmesan, but there are certain flavors that I find it works beautifully with. If you give me steamed broccoli and top it with parm, I probably won't eat it. If you give me a pizza with roma tomatoes, basil leaves, and olive oil on a delightfully tender crust, topped with Parmesan and some other cheese that I've forgotten the name of (this is a Margherita pizza at Lui Lui's), I will devour it with great enthusiasm.
Like all cheeses, Parmesan has it's proper applications and some people abuse it while others forget it entirely. Unfortunately, I'm guilty of forgetting it almost entirely until I find it in my mouth. And I'm sorry for that, as I often label parm as a cheese that I hate when really I just under-appreciate it's glory when I have it in a dish that I like.
What really makes this dish work is the combination of the still pungent, half-cooked garlic and the parm. The herbs really are stuck playing second fiddle, but are still noticeable and delicious. While my fries did not come out golden brown, or perfectly crisp, they were wonderfully tender and an absolute tactile joy.
So, while I can't say that I'll use parm a whole lot now, I can say that this particular side dish/snack/binge food holds a special place on my list of amazing potato-based based foods. I will definitely be making this again, and soon.

Something AMAZING

Guess what I'm making?

Okay, so I confess. The egg obsession continues.
I like eggs. I like adding things to eggs. I like all the possible combinations (my computer is insisting that combinations is not a word), and I like eggs every way I've ever had them. Omelets clearly being my favorite.
Doing four miles of biking every day, though, my body craves protein, and drives me towards the nearest protein-y foods (like peanut butter. And eggs.) and demands that I eat. Who am I to say no?
As some of you may have noticed, I bought basil yesterday for that failure of a smoothie. Thankfully, awesomely, I had some leftover for today and didn't really feel like giving the V8 a second chance. It's just a waste of good basil (well, goodish, the Co-op's selection wasn't great) and garlic. So, I decided to spoil myself with another omelet.
What makes this omelet different from the others is that, while the others are entirely edible and delicious, this one takes the cake. In fact, this is possibly the best omelet I've ever had, and easily my FAVORITE omelet now. However, there is one thing that could make it better. See that white square in the upper left hand portion of the photo? Yeah, let's replace that with a pile of mozzarella, please. Preferably fresh.
This omelet was smooth, and bright with little dark notes. It's well suited for anyone who'd happily just sit in front of the TV with a bag of basil leaves, nomming away. Or anyone who's favorite sandwich is just basil pesto smeared on bread. Or anyone who would rather have a bouquet of basil than a bouquet of roses for Valentine's day. Eh, I'm just talking about myself here.


The Princess Omelet
Serves 1 really greedy princess.

1/2 small onion, diced
1/10 red pepper, diced (I wasn't in a peppery mood, but still wanted pepper)
1 handful of basil leaves, fresh and chiffonaded
1 slice American cheese (or a handful of mozzarella)
2 eggs
black pepper
butter for the pan

Directions:
1. Dice all vegetables and basil, set aside while enjoying the delicious fragrance of basil filling the kitchen and even overpowering the onion (is my onion lazy?).
2. Crack eggs into a bowl, whisking with a fork. Add a very generous amount of ground black pepper, and whisk some more.
3. Heat pan, preferably teflon (I'm too scared to use the cast iron pan for eggs, even though I've seen Will and Julia [Ms. Child] do it easily), buttering the bottom. Users of canola spray or Pam, just go away. Don't look at my blog again, you're a disgrace to foodies everywhere.
4. Pour in eggs.
5. Wait thirty seconds after adding the eggs, shaking the pan gently. Add filling. I, refusing to stick to omelet protocol, cover the whole surface of the eggs, rather than just half or one third. I also added my filling in this order (first item at the bottom, last at the top): cheese (in strips), basil, red peppers, onions.
6. Gently poke around the edges of the pan to make sure your eggs are not sticking and to make sure you'll be able to get your spatula under the damn thing. If you make a mess, that's okay, it's still edible. When the bottom has solidified slightly, attempt to flip it in half. I made a mess of this as I always do.
7. After cooking for another minute or so, flip the entire thing over to cook the other side somewhat.
8. When done, flip your omelet out onto a pan and bask in its glory for a moment before diving in with great greediness and vigor.

For those of you getting tired of my egg obsession, don't worry. We only have three eggs left in the carton until Friday. There's a good reason why my mother buys 18 eggs a week. Hopefully soon I'll be able to do something interesting as a main dish. Some things in the garden are ready to be harvested (lettuce mostly, but if it's more than Boston lettuce or iceberg I have an idea, sort of), so maybe there will be a post with some fresh veggies.

Back to the Eggs

Yes, the crazy lady hath finally posted a photo of the eggs.

Okay, so these aren't QUITE the same eggs I posted about a few days ago. The technique is the same, we're just out of onions and I used a different cheese.
That yellow mass coming out of the right side is NOT cheese, that would be yolk. I was rather ungraceful in my flipping. However, delicious nonetheless. And if you say it looks over-cooked, then I will come and stab you. I like my eggs browned like that, especially when they're cooked in a liberal amount of butter.
So. Now you know what a crazy person's eggs look like.
It would go nicely with black tea if I hadn't tripped over the cat.

Deep, Dark Foodie Confessions

I'm afraid of making omelets.
I don't know why, but the very idea scares the crap out of me. I worry that it'll fall apart, that I'll merely have scrambled eggs with veggies and cheese (though I don't see how that's bad), or that I'll burn it horribly, or overfill it. Or, god forbid, undercook it!
Approximately one day after the disappearance of not one, but TWO, coffeecakes, I find myself craving eggs. Protein, protein, protein, fat. Yum.
So, in an act that you will soon realize renders my fear of omelets utterly irrational, I made fried eggs. Okay, no big deal, right?
The irrationality comes from the way I make fried eggs. Particularly the way I chose to make them today. I should have no reason to fear omelets.

A Crazy Person's Fried Eggs
Serves approximately one crazy person

butter
2 eggs
2 tbsp white onion, diced
as much damn cheese as you want
as much damn pepper as you want

Directions:
1. Lose all sense of what a fried egg is supposed to be or look like.
2. Decide that cheese and onion is a good idea for your fried eggs.
3. Lose the ability to flip your eggs (because you're too impatient to just wait for it to cook through) and end up folding the strange little mass of eggs that have puddled together, trapping cheese, black pepper, and onion inside.
4. Proceed to break yolks, cursing vigorously, and finally remember how to flip a damn egg.

Yes. I essentially made an omelet.
It was yummy, it was tasty, it wasn't even messy. And the fact is, it didn't even break. It WAS overstuffed, but I refuse to believe that anything overstuffed can really be a bad thing. Overstuffed turkey? Send that bird my way! I loves me some stuffing.
Anyway, no picture because I was hungry and didn't feel like sharing.

Apple Coffee Cake

My very obviously undercooked, second attempt at coffeecake.

Okay, admittedly this didn't start off as my recipe. It was snagged from Simply Recipes ages ago, but it needed to be fixed as soon as I tried it.
In my kitchen, there are lots of foods that are bought with enthusiasm and then go unloved and bad. Things like celery. Or lettuce. Or, in this case, apples. I do love apples, but there are only so many I can handle in a given time period. I've had my eye on those apples for a while, trying to figure out how to get rid of them. So, I chose to make something I had all the ingredients for (well, duh Caitlin). Apple coffeecake.
For starters, this was dead simple. Ever make pancakes? It's about that hard. Yeah. Simple.
I've technically made this twice, the first time I sort of followed the recipe. Proportions and everything were correct, but I'm terrible at following directions and missed something somewhere. It ended up okay, but it didn't feel like there was enough batter for the bottom and the top. It came out of the oven as this golden brown thing on the sides, but my cinnamon on top had gotten moist and dark brown. Icky looking.
So the peanut gallery (my brother and company) is there talking about how it looks like someone sh*t on it, cutting himself a slice, starting in on how ugly it is. Then he tastes it. He immediately stops and says "Oh my god." Insults ended there. Furthermore, he goes on to inhale at its gloriousness, and inhales some sugar and cinnamon, causing him to choke. Revenge of the coffeecake!
Anyway, the coffeecake very quickly disappeared into the mouths of two teenage boys, so I felt the need to make another one. I decided that this time, I'd double the amount of batter (using the same 9" pan with a carefully placed cookie sheet). The result was a fluffy, moist, slightly-undercooked (but not in an unpleasant way, and mostly in the middle) square of deliciousness.

Apple Coffee Cake
Modified from Simply Recipes by Caitlin
Should serve about 9, but we're all greedy here.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt (I didn't change this from the original recipe, I don't like salted baked goods)
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
11 tbsp. butter, room temperature
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
2-3 medium sized baking apples, peeled, cored, and sliced*

*I cheated and used Macintosh apples. They're so much yummier than the Granny Smiths that were sitting in the pantry and turning yellow.

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a 9" square baking dish or a pie pan of equalish volume.
2. Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. This is where Simply Recipes should've told me to set this aside and where I screwed up, I think.
3. In a separate small bowl (Oh, there it is.), mix 1/2 cup of sugar with cinnamon and set it aside. (No, I guess that wasn't it then...)
4. Beat butter with the remain sugar (Right, that's it). Beat in the eggs until blended. Add flour in THREE additions, alternating with milk, beating after each addition until combined. That's where I messed up, obviously, but it doesn't seem like it mattered a whole lot.
5. Pour half the batter into the bottom of the greased pan. You'll have to spread it out to make it fit, and you'll undoubtedly worry that you'll have too little or too much. Fear not, it's not so important as it seems.
6. Layer apples (coated in two thirds the cinnamony sugar mix) over your batter, fearlessly layering if necessary. We're aiming for one layer, but really, aren't apples delicious?
7. Pour over the remaining batter, which will also need to be spread. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamony sugar and stare in awe for 45 seconds at its beauty before you realize it's not ready to eat.
8. Bake in oven for 25-35 minutes (I recommend about 30-35 minutes, since this is kind of thick), or until golden brown and apples start to bubble at the edges.

In the future, I would not be opposed to having multiple, thicker layers of apple. The apple can easily go unnoticed in this dish (both ways that I made it), and I feel deserves a larger role. Regardless of the apple content, this dish isn't going to last more than a few hours in any house that has more than two people, so don't ask me how long it'll keep.
It's also worth noting that the cake itself is unspiced, which I found to be mildly upsetting. In the future, perhaps I'll see about spicing the cake. Spiced coffeecake sound good to anyone else?

Rainbow Mock-Fajitas

There are few foods that comfort me the way fajitas do. It's a meaty dish full of color and flavor, that keeps your stomach feeling warm for hours (and I promise it's not acid reflux). It's comforting on rainy days and sunny days alike.
Like most people in North America, my primary exposure to "Mexican" food was through Old El Paso salsa and flavor packets. This was such a hit and miss experience for me that I wasn't sure if I loved or hated Mexican food. I still don't know, because my exposure is still severely limited (we still use those stupid flavor packets and salsa, and all I can tell you is that I HATE tacos).
Those flavor packets were, to me, the equivalent of mystery meat. You don't know what's in it, but you're not sure if you even want to know. The fearless masochist that I am, I wanted to know. To be fair, there's nothing really bad in it. They're free of MSG, as far as I can tell, and their worst ingredient is silicon dioxide (sand). However, this doesn't change the fact that I want to control what goes into my mouth and how my food is prepared. I'm a control freak like that.
The two foods I feel the need to control the most are spaghetti and fajitas. Spaghetti will be addressed some other day, as I'm currently basking in the glory of something fajita-esque. There is nothing traditionally Mexican about these fajitas, but they taste to me as I think fajitas should taste. So, probably not like fajitas. In other words, this is my interpretation of fajitas.

Rainbow Mock-Fajitas
Serves 4 or so

2 chicken breasts
1/2 green bell pepper
1/2 yellow bell pepper
1/2 red bell pepper
2 small yellow onions
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp ginger
1 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp Sriracha chili sauce (this is mostly to taste, mine wasn't hot)
grapeseed oil


Directions:
1. Cut chicken breasts into pieces of a desirable size (I like them fairly square and large). Cook in a large, preheated stainless steel pan with grapeseed oil. Be careful not to brown your chicken, you're just looking to cook it all the way through.
2. DICE THE VEGGIES! Or cut them however you want, I'm a dicing freak.
3. Once chicken is cooked all the way through, but still somewhat soft and moist, add all your veggies. Yes, all at once.
4. Add water (so that the Dijon and spices don't stick to the pan), and then go wild adding all spices and condiments. Timing isn't really too important in this recipe. Stir until everything is incorporated.
5. Allow to cook and reduce until you have a light sauce, or do what I do and just wait until the veggies are cooked and coated and then serve.

This recipe is, admittedly, a little heavy on the Dijon and may, in the future, be a little heavy on the ginger side. Anybody who has a homemade fajita recipe of their own, feel free to share! I'm always looking for better fajitas. This is just a little starter.
Enjoy!