Big Knife

Yohboh and I got a knife rack with some nice Henkels or Wustofs or some nice knife. But if we need to do some serious cutting, we use this:


This scary bastard was a hand me down knife. Look at the rust? Do you feel the lock jaw tonight baby?

It not only is good for cutting food:

It could be good for moidah!

Old cookbooks

My grandmother in law died a few months ago. She was a sweet old lady and a good Southern cook. This year for Christmas, I asked for all her recipe books and cards. I got them. They mean a lot to me.


A recipe for tomato preserves


An old church cookbook


A recipe for guacamole with no avocado.

Vanilla

Did you know you could buy vanilla beans on Ebay? You can! I did.


Ebay Vanilla Beans.

I got eight ounces of beans for 15 dollars, including shipping. So what do you do with 56 vanilla beans?

I made some vanilla extract.


You take an empty bottle.


Fill it with a fifth of vodka.


Add a few ounces of rum for sweetness.


Drop in a dozen vanilla beans.


Leave it to cure and boom! vanilla extract.

Edamame

Edamame is a big rip off at a sushi joint. For like 15 edamame pods, you pay 3.95. I bought this giant bowl of edamame all shelled for 1.69 from a frozen bag at the grocery store.

Tomato Pie

Yohboh's specialty is tomato pie. When summer comes, he makes a few of them. They are delicious. They are vegetarian, which is really shocking since my husband is such a carnivore. I asked him where he got this recipe. He said it came from a butcher that used to be in his neighborhood.

Yohboh's Tomato Pie

One onion, sliced
One bell pepper, sliced
Olive oil.
One can butter me nots biscuits
One large garden ripe tomato, sliced
Garden fresh herbs (preferably basil)
Mozarella Cheese
Mayonnaise


Saute the onion and pepper in a bit of olive oil until golden brown. Season with salt and pepper

Press the biscuits into a crust on a pie pan.

Add the onions and peppers into the pie pan.
Add the tomato, sliced.
Add the basil
Combine the mayonnaise and cheese and add as a final layer.
You can add chili flakes on top, yohboh does that and it is tasty.
Bake at 350 until golden brown and delicious.

Makes one pie.

More Pizza

We made more pizza. I changed the recipe up a bit. I used half whole wheat flour to the dough and instead of making one doughy pizza I made two pizzas. I was trying to be healthy! :P

One Caprese and one steak and cheese coming right up.

First the Caprese


Here is the dough


Two of the three ingredients


The pesto


Pesto being spread


Sliced tomatoes on top


Isn't that pretty?


Layer the mozzarella


Now for the steak and cheese prep


Rolled out dough in a RECTANGLE!


The peppers and steak


Layer of yellow peppers and gresh ground pepper


With all the goodies on!

Now we bake the pizzas.

450 for twenty minutes.

Behold:

Golden Brown Deliciousness


Beefy Golden Brown Deliciousness

Chili Cheese Fries

Yohboh made these for lunch. He had cut the potatoes before I started snapping photos.


This is the fryer that we got as a wedding gift. I have never used this device.


This is my cute yohboh.


These are the hand cut fries right out of the fryer.


This is yohboh seasoning the fries.


Yohboh grating the cheese.


Yohboh is spooning chili here.


This is the finished product. Halfway eaten. With sour cream and scallions. Because it tastes better that way.

What my child ate for dinner

One half of a meatloaf sandwich, roasted beets and homemade beans.

Asian Slaw

I have a lot of heads of cabbage for reasons well known. I decided to make this quasi Asian Slaw that I eat at book club. It is good and involves ramen noodles. I always imagine some housewife making this up, thinking it is "exotic" and "Chinesey".


Here is the bowl with chopped veggies. There is cabbage, carrots, scallions, sliced snow peas, and canned mandarin orange slices. Cabbage, mandarin oranges and scallions are key, everything else I just added.


This is the vinegar I use.


You mix the juice from the can of mandarin orange slices with the vinegar. It should be one to one ratio. Taste it, it should be tart and sweet.


Next comes the ramen noodles. These are the only ones I eat.


Crumble the ramen noodles on top of the slaw.


Add the soup packet to the vinegar mixture.


Add some slivered toasted almonds.


Add the oil to the dressing. I used a little sesame oil and plain vegetable oil. I like my vinaigrettes in a one to one ratio with oil and vinegar.

Combine dressing and slaw right before serving. Toss and enjoy. Don't make too much! It will not keep.




Also, this is a great way to keep scallions and cilantro.

Homemade Pizza

Yohboh and I are broke so we don't eat out. I like pizza about once every ten days or so so I made a caprese pizza. Yohboh loved it. He was so impatient to eat it he burned the roof of his mouth.

Caprese Pizza

For the dough
* 1 1/2 cups warm water
* 1 teaspoon sugar
* 1 package of active dry yeast
* 3 1/2 cups flour
* 2 Tbsp olive oil
* 1 Tbsp salt

Put the first three ingredients in a bowl and let the yeast get all fluffy. Put the other three in a bigger bowl and add the fluffy liquid. Combine and knead for ten minutes. Put it in an oiled bowl and let rise for an hour.

For the toppings:
Two garden tomatoes (about tennis ball size)thinly sliced
1 8 ounce ball of fresh mozzarella thinly sliced
Homemade pesto
Fresh basil leaves

When the dough is done rising, punch it down. Preheat the oven to 450. Pat the dough out into a pizza pan or baking sheet until it is the size of pizza you want. Add a layer of pesto. Add the tomatoes. Salt and pepper the tomatoes. Add the mozzarella. Bake until it is done (I always do this by smell). Add fresh basil leaves on top while still hot.

Cherries

I read this post a few years ago. And I wanted those cherries. I love cherries. I will eat five pounds of cherries in a week. This year I got them and I hoped to have a cherry epiphany.


They were good, but I had no epiphany. I did not see cherry gods.

So save yourself the trouble, don't spend one hundred dollars on cherries.

Meatloaf and Butter Bells

I made a penis shaped meatloaf. Why? BECAUSE IT WAS THERE! I used this recipe.



I also got one of my birthday presents:

A butter bell. What is it?


It holds butter at room temperature.

Kitchen Gadgets

I have a problem, yohboh knows about it and helps me manage it. I HAVE TOO MANY KITCHEN GADGETS!

So I found this and had to get it. It is really Clotide's fault.

Then I found this blog, which makes it all the worse.

I need a fucking floating grill!

My Birthday Cake

This is the birthday cake I made. I know it is an ugly little cake but it very very tasty.

The recipe for the cake is a chocolate mayonnaise cake. Before you go EWWWW think about what mayonnaise is: Eggs and oil. So it makes a moist cake. Also, it is a quick recipe. The frosting was an experiment. It tasted good but did not have the airy, fluffy quality I wanted.


Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

Ingredients:

* 2 cups flour
* 1/2 cup cocoa
* 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup sugar
* 3/4 cup mayonnaise
* 1/2 cup strong cold coffee
* 1/2 cup milk
* 1 teaspoon vanilla

Preparation:
Sift together the flour, cocoa, soda and salt. Cream together the sugar, mayonnaise, coffee, milk and vanilla. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture; stir until well blended. Pour batter into greased and floured layer cake pans (or a 9- x 13-inch pan). Bake at 350°F. for about 25 minutes.