food stuff: boiling egg fun

in honor of easter (yesterday), i thought i would put up some tips on hard boiling eggs, thanks to the kitchn. it was only a few months ago that i even realized there was a difference between hard boiling and soft boiling eggs - i'd never even thought anyone would want a soft-boiled egg. check out this post about hard boiling egg fun and this post about a tip to date hard boiled eggs for maximum freshness. here is another tip for getting the perfect hard boiled egg. and finally, what to do with leftover hard boiled eggs.

so, this raises the question: did you hard boil eggs to decorate this year? and after you decorated them, did you eat them? or what is your favorite way to eat eggs?

food stuff: cooling hot beverages

today is the first day in about a month that i have had to wear a jacket to work here in northern california. it's sad. and to that extent, i was thinking about how i need to drink some more hot beverages this week - i love me some tea. but, whenever i drink tea, i always have to wait a half hour or an hour for it to cool down enough for me to handle it. that is, until i read this article at the kitchen which details the best ways to cool a hot beverage. it's great! how do you prefer to cool your beverages?

food stuff: all about salt and spices

today, we're all about the spices, including salt. i was at trader joe's yesterday and really really wanted to buy some sea salt, but i couldn't justify it (i'm only tempoarily living here and don't want to move a jar of salt for no reason). and i love looking longingly at spices. i have NO IDEA how to use them properly, but i still like to imagine myself someone who just throws in this and that and knows how it's all going to turn out. here are some fabulous links all about salt and spices to help you become that culinary genius:

• All about salt: how to choose, cook with, and store it
• Five more uses for salt
  
• Quick reference guide to herbs and spices
• How to buy and store spices
• Easy flavored salts and amazing spice shelf
  

[h/t: the kitchn]

food stuff: essential vinegars to have on hand

it never occurred to me that there were a ton of different types of made specifically for different things. if someone told me to buy vinegar, i would probably just buy balsamic because thats what i'm most familiar with. but the kitchn has set me straight! check it out here. what is your favorite type of vinegar?

food stuff: eating by candlelight

i'm a little disappointed that i didn't think of this first, but an excellent survey was posted at the kitchn and i thought we could do our own poll here. in honor of valentine's day, how often do you eat dinner by candlelight?

food stuff: cleaning hot pans

the kitchn has a great post answering a reader's excellent question on how does one clean a hot pan? i have DEFINITELY been burned before so this was helpful for me. what are your burn stories?

food stuff: the ultimate shelf life guide

ever wondering how long things last? here is a fabulous guide on how long to keep things. hat tip: re-nest

kit kat: what do I do with real vanilla??

Help!

Greetings fellow mad tastiers… I am in desperate need of some help to create my own mad tasty food. Let me explain…

Ever since I was about 14 years old and I read an article in Cosmo magazine where they said that every woman (even though I was just a girl at the time) should have a “signature scent,” I have been wearing a type of vanilla perfume or body spray. It is, now, my signature scent. I love vanilla everything. Vanilla smells – perfume, candles. Vanilla food – ice cream, the flavored tootsie rolls with the blue wrappers. Everything. Except vanilla vodka, which I USED to love, but thanks to one fateful night on the town the summer between freshman and sophomore years of college, I can no longer drink it.

So vanilla is the thing for me. And as a special treat as part of my Christmas gift, my dear friend, Elaine in London, sent me a vial of real vanilla from Madagascar. And I was overjoyed – I’ve never actually seen REAL vanilla. And it’s awesome. But … I have NO IDEA what to do with it. So I am reaching out to you all, dear friends, to help me come up with a dish or a reason to use it. Any tips on cooking with real vanilla? Dishes that are your favorite? What else should I know? I assume I don’t just rub it on my wrists and wear it…

food stuff: make your dishwasher run better

it seemed appropriate that during these festive weeks with massive amounts of cooking and eating, that one should know how to improve how your dishwasher works. check out the kitchn for 10 tips to make your dishwasher run better.

did you try any? how did it go? what are your tips for dishwasher use?

food stuff: best way to clean knives

and the knife theme lives on here at mad tasty (see sharp knives and storing knives).
check out this post from the kitchn about the best way to clean knives. very interesting. how good are you at keeping your knives clean?

food stuff: how to segment an orange

i literally had NO IDEA this is how to segment an orange, but now i do thanks to the kitchn. is this a trick you use often or are you like me that even now you know, you probably won't ever think to segment an orange??

food stuff: freezing common vegetables

planet green had a nice article on taking advantage of fresh produce and freezing it - there might not be as much fresh produce these days (because its near winter), but i thought i would still link to it so you can read about it and maybe file for later...
this is to add great compliment to JaBootaay's post on healthy eating and frozen veggies.

food stuff: knife storage

last week we posted about what kind of knives you should have and keeping them sharp. the kitchn has a good article to follow up on knife storage.
enjoy that article here.

food stuff: sharp knives

this delightful blog called tea & cookies posted a very interesting, if detailed, post about the importance of sharp knives and how to maintain them.


i know nothing about knives and did, indeed, buy the butcher block full of knives that the author suggests NOT doing. now i know better, and you shall, too, after you read this. (oh and posted now because he talks about doing things before thanksgiving...)

food stuff: bb rice krispie and candy sushi

despite being a horrible chef, i love reading about food and food stuff. so i will start posting about interesting food and food stuff i find online. here is the first from boing boing:

rice krispie and candy sushi


how fun is that?? maybe i can get my brothers to start eating this to trick them into eating sushi again...

kitchen katastrophe: homemade bbq chicken pizza

welcome back my lovelies! kit kat is back! one might think that there have been no kitchen katastrophe posts in a while because there have been no kitchen katastrophes. if only that were the case... alas, i have not improved in the kitchen. this makes me avoid cooking more and more. but i shall prevail! or, more accurately, attempt to prevail and record my misadventures here.

to begin, i thought i would write about a recipe i made that was so perfect until literally the last second.

at the lovely hornbachers grocery store (yes, that's really the name) in fargo, north dakota, where my parents live, i found a fun pre-made pizza crust. it was whole wheat, which makes me feel like i'm eating healthily, so i bought it wondering what i could make with it. and then it hit me: homemade pizza! possibly one of the easiest things ever - how could i screw up? if you are short on time and want to throw something easy together, use this recipe for a delicious barbecue chicken pizza:

"Homemade" Barbecue Chicken Pizza
Ingredients

1. two chicken breasts
   
2. shredded cheese - i prefer colby jack blend
3. pre-made pizza crust (e.g. boboli or whatever hornbacher's sells)
4. barbecue sauce (i recommend hunt's original)
5. jalapenos, onions, or other veggies you like
   

Directions

• Cook the chicken breast in oil with some salt and pepper to taste. Cut into pieces about the size of a quarter
  
• Spread barbecue sauce on the pizza crust - use as little or be as liberal as you like - depends on how much barbecue you like
• Place the chicken on the barbecue sauce, cover with cheese and any veggies you like
• Follow baking instructions on the pizza crust label
• Enjoy!
  

i call this "homemade" in quotations because nothing is really MADE per se - you could make your own crust, but i don't know how to do that.

bbq chicken pizza is quite possibly my favorite food if done correctly. i LOVE it. so on the night that i was making this for my mom and i, i was quite excited. i splurged and bought organic chicken (which is really expensive in remote fargo), all natural cheese and put jalapenos on half of the pizza since my mom doesn't like them. we were so hungry waiting for it to bake. the directions suggested i bake it on a cookie sheet, which i did. i took it out of the oven and let it cool on the counter for a bit. i grabbed the rolling pizza cutter and starting cutting - not realizing the cookie sheet was not fully on the counter. as i drew the cutter towards me, it tried cutting pizza that wasn't balanced on the counter and all of a sudden, before i could blink - the pizza was all over my shoe, the floor, the shelves below the counter... my mom was standing next to me and we stared at each other with mouths agape. after picking it up, here is what it looked like:

of all my kitchen katastrophes, this was the one with which i was the most disappointed. we were shocked and dismayed and hungry. in the end, it was arby's roast beef for us. such a sad compromise.

what is your backup dinner?

kitchen katastrophe: homemade applesauce

when staying with my friend in paris last fall, she had a bowl full of VERY ripe apples. they had been sitting around for at least 2 weeks while i was there - a few being eaten here and there. after she went to southern france for a weekend and came home with more apples from her mother-in-law, we decided we had to use them. and thus is my story of attempting to make homemade apple compote (apple sauce).

our journey begins with the most basic step. peeling and cutting of the apples.
the picture above looks very nice, mostly because we took out the apples that i turned red after bleeding on them. my friend, living in france, does not have an apple peeler, so she peels all of her apples with a little rounded knife. i am not so adept at this method. in any case, for every one quarter of an apple i peeled, she peeled 2 whole apples. we got through the bowl pretty quickly.

next, we put brown sugar, a fresh vanilla pod, cinammon, lemon juice, and a bit of water into a pot placed on low heat. we stirred the mixture until it was kind of carmelized. i would guess less than half a cup of brown sugar, but it's really dependant upon your own tastes - if you like it sweeter, use more. stir over the heat until the sugar is kind of dissolved.
then the fun part - add the apples! at first, it doesn't look like much. just apples in a pot. continue stirring every few minutes and eventually the apples will soak up the sugar.
you may need to add water as you go. you want to make sure there is always enough liquid over the apples. it should take about 1/2 hour on slow heat for the apples to naturally break down into apple sauce. you could eat it when it looks like this, or continue with the heat and use the wooden spoon to mush (mash?) the apples more. it eventually becomes tbe yummiest applesauce ever! my friend made it look really easy to make; i have yet to recreate it, but once i do, i will let you know how it goes.
i asked my friend, what are the best kind of apples to use? apples good for "eating" work best for her. if using granny smith or "cooking" apples, you might need to add sugar at the end before eating to sweeten it a bit. this is served deliciously warm or after putting in the fridge you can eat it cold. it should keep for a few weeks in the fride. mmmmm.... that's mad tasty.

kitchen katastrophe: bran muffins

when i got my new mixer for christmas, i was super excited. i kept dreaming of all these things i could make, but i was slightly afraid and didn't know where to start. then i read an article about how bran muffins are good for you and i was instantly taken back to my childhood when we would make homemade bran muffins. i think only my mom and i would eat them, but they were delicious! sometimes we would add blueberries to make them even better, but i didn't have any blueberries to add (being the dead of winter), so i settled for regular bran muffins. also, this recipe (which is from my mom's recipe box, although i doubt she invented it) is super huge and makes a TON of muffins, so feel free to cut in half like i did for these pictures (although the printed recipe is its original version).

Bran Muffins
Ingredients

• 1 heaping cup of crisco
• 3 cups of sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups boiling water
• 2 cups 100% nabisco bran
• 4 cups kelloggs all bran
• 5 tsp soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 5 cups sifted flour
• 1 quart buttermilk

Directions

1. Pour hot water onto nabisco bran and set aside to cool.
2. Cream crisco and sugar.
3. Add eggs
4. Add buttermilk, cooled nabisco mixture, all bran, soda and salt.
5. Fold in sifted dry ingredients until all is moistened.
6. Pour into 1 gallon ice cream pail and keep refrigerated.
7. Pour into creased muffin tin and bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
8. Makes 1 gallon and can keep in fridge 6-7 weeks.

the mixing went well enough. i couldn't get my mixer to work properly and it smelt like the engine was on fire. i thought maybe i had a crappy mixer (i don't) and it couldnt handle all the ingredients i was putting in. then i realized that the spinny-things (actual mixers?) weren't pushed in all the way. once i figured that out, everything went pretty smoothly. here is the mixig (after the spinny-things were put in properly).
i was trying to figure out how to make the perfect-sized muffin, and i discovered two things. 1) use an ice cream scoop with the metal bar to push the mixture out to dole out the creamy batter into paper cups. 2) these dont rise a ton, so if you want your cupcake overflowing, you should fill it more than 3/4 full.
in the end, here are the fabulous bran muffins in all their fiber glory. note, these muffins will keep you good and regular.

as always, i have learned something from my cooking experience.

1. sifting flour is fun. just make sure you sift over another bowl and not onto the counter. if you prefer to sift over a counter, make sure the counter is clean.
2. make sure that your mixer is set up properly. when you are fixing the spinny-things, make sure that the mixer, along with being turned off, is actually unplugged.
3. keep bandaids nearby in case of violent mixers.
4. probably don't want to eat two dozen of these in one setting. but don't let that prevent you from making them - its fun!
   

kitchen katastrophe: recession-proof salad

my cousin's wife made this recipe for our group christmas a few weeks ago. i instantly fell in love with it and got the recipe from her. it turns out, all the ingredients are really cheap or things you would have around the home. i don't know the name of it, so i have called it the recession-proof salad.

Recession-Proof Salad
Ingredients

1. one bag of coleslaw (not with the mayo, just the coleslaw-cut lettuce)
   
2. almonds
3. ramen noodles (asian style)
4. onions
5. 1/2 c. oil
6. 1 tsp. vinegar
7. 3 tbsp. sugar
8. 1 tsp. soy sauce

Directions

• Mix first four ingredients in bowl.
• Whisk last four ingredients together.
• Pour liquid mixture over salad to coat.
• Mix a few hours before serving.
  

easy! or so i thought...

the first time i made this, it turned out great! and it was delicious. pictured here.it has a sort of asian-flavor to it, but it's really light and refreshing - great to eat. the only catch is... well, since you basically get the ramen noodles 'wet' they don't last more than a few hours. then they get soggy and mushy and you dont want to eat it. BUT it's so cheap to make - you can just make more!

the other thing is that i made this a second time a few days later and the dressing would not mix. i had decided to halve the recipe since it was just my father and i eating it and it doesn't last well in the fridge. but the ingredients would not whisk together to form a glaze/dressing. i thought it was because the sugar was kind of clumpy and hard. so i started over and decided not to halve the dressing (some bizarre rationale thinking that the "science" behind it must be a certain amount has to mix together or something). it still didn't mix very well and my arm was KILLING me from beating it with a fork, but it was better. but then i forgot that i didn't end up halving the recipe, so i forgot to un-halve the salad part. so i had a full dressing on a half salad. it ended up being very very oily. but still good, of course.

the third time i made it, i had the same issue with the dressing, so i put it in my new mixer. it didn't really help getting the dressing together better. i know there is some sort of explanation that alton brown can give to help clarify why it worked once and then never again. was it the type of oil i was using? type of vinegar? how long i should be whisking? what?? in any case, this recipe is cheap and delicious, even when screwed up a bit...

for full-disclosure, i do not have a source or even a proper name for this recipe, so if this is yours or you know where to find it online, please let us know and we would love to give it proper citing.

kitchen katastrophe: easy maple bacon weenies

this recipe has been handed down a long way in my family - my brother's girlfriend to him to me. well, not actually me, i watched my brother make these for our family christmas a few weeks ago. WARNING: not for the faint vegetarian.

these are actually probably the easiest thing to make in the world - the only catch is how long to cook them. my brother calls these OIYM (orgasm in your mouth). for vegetarians or non-pork eating jews, these could be called Easy Maple Bacon Weenies.

Basically just put these three ingredients together:

• sausage weenies
• bacon
• brown sugar

bake in the oven at 350 degrees until done (about 35 minutes).

first, if you buy bacon in long strips, cut them into thirds as below.
oh, be sure your hands are clean. then, wrap the bacon around the weenies and place on a cookie sheet.
this can be a bit time consuming. when finished, dust the tops with brown sugar.
then bake. the final product (again, no camera at the family christmas) is delicious (or so they told me, i dont actually eat red meat) for meat-eaters. they should have a nice honeyed glaze on the top.

enjoy!

i was just thinking, if you are a vegetarian and you have kept reading this, then you just might be thinking these sound good but for some reason dont want to eat them. maybe there is a vegetarian option out there - vegan sausage with fake bacon? anything surrounded in brown sugar is probably good...