Friday, March 30, 2012

Kaleicious


More often than not, I find myself going through my fridge, frantically trying to figure out recipes for food that is about to go bad.  This happens way too often in my house because I never have a plan of attack at the grocery store.  I shop with my heart and not my head...or rather, my stomach.  And then my refrigerator and my trash can get to eat all my food because of my poor planning.

I bought a lovely bunch of kale (you know how much I love kale) and let it sit in my fridge for 2 days before I noticed it had that not-so-fresh feeling.  I had been hearing a lot of things about kale chips, and so I decided that this was my kale's purpose in life.  To become a kale chip, so delicately crisp and vegetably tasting.

Here's What You Need:
1 bunch of kale
Olive Oil
Kosher Salt

Here's What You Do:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Coat your kale with olive oil, just enough so that all the leaves are glistening.  Don't overdue it.  Salt your kale and toss so that all the leaves are coated with oil and salt.  Bake for about 10 minutes, turning half way through.  They are finished when the leaves JUST start to brown and your kale is crisp.

These taste good and give you that same crunch you're looking for in a potato chip.  Try it.  Especially if you're trying to get a bikini body, which I am.  Wish me luck.    

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Olive, Olives...

Sometimes I find myself in a store and I see something I HAVE TO HAVE.  This was one of those times.  I was walking down the condiment aisle and I spotted these neon green olives.  They were like my guiding light.  They pulled me towards their shelf, whispered in my ear and the next thing I knew I was putting them in my basket, checking them out the door, opening them in the car and eating their wonderful little bodies.  They were delicious.  Very unlike their salty, pungent buddies with the red rocket pimento in the middle. 


Look at that color!!  And they actually taste like olive oil.  You have to try them.  I got this jar at Kroger in East Memphis, because apparently the Kroger in Midtown Memphis doesn't like to carry ANYTHING good at all.  But that is a whole new blog that I'm not ready for...but I'm comin' for ya Kroger...get ready.

Anyways, I was starving one night....had only a few odd things in my fridge and so I decided to make these little neon ovals my main event in a pasta dish.  And here's how:

Here's What You Need: (note...this is for 1 HEARTY plate of pasta...so adjust accordingly)
6 or 7 Castelvetrano olives - pitted and chopped
1 handful of pine nuts, toasted
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 good shake of crushed red pepper flakes
A handful of pasta (I always make WAY too much when I just cook for myself...so if you have this measurement mastered, please let a bitch know).
salt & pepper
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Parmesan cheese, grated...enough to sprinkle the top.

Here's What You Do:
Boil your pasta in very salty water according to how much you have until it is al dente and drain it.  If you don't know how to make pasta I assume you aren't really into food, so you probably aren't reading this so I'm not going to teach you how to make pasta. 

In a large skillet add olive oil, garlic and crushed red pepper.  Cook for just about 2 minutes, paying attention to not burn the garlic.  You just want to slightly cook everything and blend the flavors.  Add in olives just to warm them.  Add pasta to this mix until all the noodles are well-coated. 

Add in your toasted pine nuts (easy to do...just put pine nuts in a dry skillet on medium high heat and watch them like a hawk, flipping them over and over until they are just brown...they burn easy so don't leave them alone...takes about 3 minutes). 
Place your pasta in a bowl and top with shredded Parmesan cheese and salt and pepper. 

Congratulations...You just made dinner in 20 minutes and your entire family thinks you are a God/Goddess because it tasted like heaven.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Mac n' Quinoa


Who'da thunk after my first quinoa blog, I'd turn into such a quinoa freak?  Well I have officially hopped on the quinoa train.  And I am officially addicted to Pinterest, where I found this delicious idea to make quinoa mac n' cheese from a blog called Iowa Girl Eats.  I didn't exactly follow her instructions.  Actually, I rarely follow instructions, but here is how you make this delicious dish, Bitch in the Kitch style.  And I am aware that this dish should be called Quinoa and Cheese, seeing as how there's no mac...but don't be so critical...Jeez.

Here's What You Need:
1 cup of cooked quinoa (which actually yields a ton of quinoa) - cooked according to the package directions.
6 pieces of cooked bacon
2-3 cups of cheese - your favorite kind.  I used a combination of Hoop Cheese and Sharp Cheddar from my Amish friends at Troyer Farms...you really just have to taste it to make sure it's cheesy enough for you...if there even is such a thing as Cheesy Enough.
1 small onion - diced
2 cloves of garlic - minced (I truly don't know the difference between minced and diced...I just like to dice my onion and mince my garlic - if this offends you, I apologize)
1 cup of milk
1 egg
breadcrumbs (or anything bready, I used saltines because I was out of bread crumbs)
Olive oil to cook onion/garlic and for drizzling on the top before baking.

Here's What You Do:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cook the bacon, and chop into small pieces, set aside.  Cook the quinoa.  Cook the garlic and onion in a little olive oil.  Add garlic, onion, cheese, bacon, milk and egg to the quinoa.  Stir and add in salt and pepper.

Taste it...be careful...there's raw egg...so only taste if you aren't preggers or don't have a disease that compromises your immune system (such as Lupus...if you don't know what lupus is, learn up...my best friend has it...it's a mother fucker.  We need to find a cure.  She shouldn't be 33 years old and having her hips replaced....F-U Lupus.) 

Place quinoa mixture in a square baking dish that has been sprayed generously with Pam.  Top with breadcrumbs.  Drizzle the top with olive oil.  Bake for 25 minutes or until breadcrumbs are browned.

Eat as a main course.  Top with short ribs (as I did).  Add herbs (I wish I had). Whatever you want.  Quinoa is so damn versatile, you can practically do anything in the world with it.  But make it.  Because it's a superfood.  And who doesn't like super food??

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Burn Baby Burn


Ahhhh....yet another scar to add to my millions of kitchen injuries.  Some chefs are proud of their scars.  I am not one of them.  A chef....nor a proud scar bearer.  In fact, I hate getting burns.  Not because they hurt like a bitch, but because then you have to try to hide it.  Because it's ugly.  Because it looks like you made a mistake in the meth lab.  Because it looks like you're an abused person.  Because it looks like you are one of those crazy people that holds cigarettes to their arm to see how much heat they can bear.  Because you don't want to be the girl who gets all dressed up to look pretty, yet has some hideous mark on her arm that resembles herpes.

It's wedding season my friends.  I have many weddings to attend in the next few weeks.  I will be the girl wearing the long sleeved dress in 85 degree weather because I don't want to be known as diseased girl.  Guests will think to themselves, "Oh please, oh please, let me get my plate at the buffet before herpe girl goes and infects the food." 

Kitchen injuries suck. 

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

For the love of Quinoa


There's a restaurant in Memphis, a newer restaurant, called Rizzo's Diner, that has the most delicious quinoa salad served over avocado with chow-chow.

So with a little bit of thought and effort, this delicious bit of tasty goodness was re-created.  Not exactly Rizzo's, so for the real thing go there, but in case you are a little low on cash and you crave this salad on a daily basis, like I do, try this.

Here's What You Need:
1 avocado
Cooked quinoa (I cooked 1 cup of quinoa, which makes about 4 servings worth...so you can refrigerate your leftovers)
Juice of 1 lemon
good drizzle of olive oil
1 jar of chow-chow (found this one at Whole Foods)
2 tablespoons of blood orange vinaigrette
salt & pepper

Here's What You Do:
Cook your quinoa according to the directions on the package.  When quinoa is cooked, add lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper, until it has some flavor.  Cut your avocado in half and remove the pit.  Take a spoon and scoop out the flesh of the avocado until you have a lovely little half scooped out for your plate.  Top your avocado with the quinoa mixture, top that with some of the blood orange vinaigrette, then top that with the chow-chow.  Add a bit more salt and pepper.

Call me and thank me after your first bite.  Or if you don't have my number, you can leave me a comment on my page telling me how much you love me.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Edible Candles


You know when you buy a car and it has that new car smell, that smells kinda like paint, but in a good way?  It's a good smell.  A proud smell.  You have just bought your first car and it's awesome.  Well unless you buy a brand new home, the "new" home smell just isn't the same.  It's musty, it's stale, it's not a proud smell, but a smell that you want nothing more than to get rid of.  But it's not easy to do.  I moved into my place March 1st.  I lit candles (the expensive kind), sprayed Febreze, misted everything with Victoria's Secret body spray, used serious cleaning supplies, everything to get MY scent into the new place. 

And you know what worked?  What got the musty old man smell out of my house?  COOKING.  I decided to cook some seriously smelly things to make my house smell like my home.  First course....BACON!  Nothing makes an entire house fill up with delicious porky goodness like bacon.  Next up, granola.  Cinnamon, nuts, honey, brown sugar...It's like lighting a candle that you can eventually eat later.  Works like a charm.  And lastly, and amazingly the thing that has actually lingered the longest...stuffed peppers.  Now when I walk into my house I smell garlic.  And there's nothing I love more than walking into a house that smells like garlic.  It reminds me of my dad's house.  It smells like cooking.  It smells like people take time each day to prepare themselves meals.  Delicious meals.  It smells like home.

Here's What You Need:
4 peppers (any color you like, tops cut off and core with seeds removed)  ** If you have trouble with your pepper standing up on its own, slice the bottom off so that it stands up by itself.
1 pound of ground beef
2 servings of white rice (I use minute rice and make enough for two servings...which is 1 cup of rice/1 cup of water - read the package)
3 cloves of garlic
1 large can of Hunt's tomato sauce (It's my favorite...you can use your favorite) leave a few tablespoons to top peppers off before baking.
1 tablespoon of onion powder
1 tablespoon of Sriracha
1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper
1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese + extra for topping peppers.
Salt and Pepper

Here's What You Do:
Preheat oven to 350.  Boil a large pot of water and add in peppers.  Cook for about 3 minutes, just to slightly soften the skin.  If you don't do this step, your peppers will be very, very crunchy, and as much as I like crunchy, it just doesn't work with peppers in this dish.

Cook rice according to package, set aside.  Brown beef and strain, set aside.  Brown onion and garlic and crushed red pepper.  Add beef back into the pot.  Add in rice, tomato sauce, onion powder, Sriracha,  and salt and pepper to taste.  Add in cheese and mix together. 

In a baking dish, arrange peppers standing upright.  Stuff each pepper with the beef and rice mixture.  Top each pepper with a spoonful of tomato sauce and a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese.  Bake for 30 minutes until cheese browns and beef/rice filling is hot.

Cheers to stuffed peppers and that YOU home smell.   

The Bitch's New Kitchen


I sit here on my lovely front porch of my new duplex in Midtown Memphis.  It's a balmy 74 degrees and the neighborhood is full of skateboarders, runners, dog walkers, and people outside planting flowers.

I discovered this place on a whim.  For some reason I decided to head down a few streets I never really drove down before when I found a little duplex with a For Rent sign in the yard.  I called the number asked the man how much and was happy to discover it was in my price range.  My search for a new place began frustrating the hell out of me when I realized I was going to either have to settle for a high rise apartment building or a place in an unsafe area.  High rises scare me. Visions of fires on lower floors, trapping residents at the top flooded my brain.  Not to mention sharing a washer and dryer with hundreds of people.  Have you ever seen a bed bug infestation?  It's not pretty and it's not cheap and it's something I never want to have to deal with.  So the high rise thing freaked me the hell out.  Living in an unsafe area didn't bother me as much, seeing as how I've been there, done that.  Though, never on my own.  And being scared and alone was not something I was looking forward to.  So when I stumbled upon this little duplex and asked to take a look, I was extremely excited to discover that I had my VERY OWN washer and dryer, I wasn't in a high rise and the neighborhood is in a pretty safe place.

The only downfall, you ask??  My kitchen.  I mean look at it, with sunglasses on, so as to not burn your eyes.  It might be the brightest thing I've ever stepped foot in.  Not to mention it has the least amount of counter space I've ever dealt with.  But I'm trying to be positive here.  I got mostly everything else a girl could ask for.  A gas stove being the most important.  No dishwasher, but I actually don't mind doing dishes (ask me again about not minding doing my own dishes after a dinner party...and I'm sure I will tell you to shove dirty dishes up your ass).  I don't have a garbage disposal...something I realize that I need even more than a dishwasher.  Throwing large amounts of food down a hole, flipping a switch and viola...food be gone, is like a kitchen miracle that I haven't lived without in a long time, but, I can deal with almost anything for a year.

But you know what?  It's MY kitchen.  I can put things wherever I want them, however I want them to be.  I can make my entire kitchen smell like a fart casserole by cooking a head of cabbage in it whenever the hell I want to.  I can store my cups facing up or down.  I can drink out of my milk carton.  I don't have to fill the ice trays if I don't want to.  And that's all I care about.

So get ready for some more food to be cooked, because this bitch has a kitchen again and it's all mine!  Muahahahahahahah!

Monday, March 12, 2012

Popped my Blood Orange Cherry


I love exploring new things, trying new foods, marking things off my "list" that I've never done before, etc.  So I will hopefully be writing my "Popped my [insert new food here] Cherry" segment often.  Because I hope to be discovering and trying lots of new foods this year.  Some I've never heard of.  Some I've heard of, but have never cooked.

I'm not going to explain the term "Cherry Poppin'" to you, but I will say, that I mean it to refer to the first time I have tried something.  For example, up until last month I had never experienced Mardi Gras in New Orleans.  So, last month, I popped my mardi gras cherry.  Got it?  Good.  I know, I know...it's not very "lady-like" to use terms like "I popped my cherry".  But let's get something straight.  I'm not very lady-like.  When I was three years old, my sister and I were greeted at our new house by a slew of boys screaming curse words at us...all of which I interpreted as friendly greetings.  I was three...cut me some slack.  Needless to say, no one was too surprised when they found me later by the side of the road, greeting passerby's as, "Hey Cocksucker" & "Hi Dickhead".  I was welcoming them as I had been welcomed.  I am the girl at the table who uses the incorrect fork, plate, cup, etc.  Has anyone ever been shot for such an offense...not that I know of, although it's quite possible.  People are crazy.  Will my life be less meaningful for not being prim and proper?  I don't think so.  Will the Queen of England ever invite me to have dinner at her palace?  I highly doubt it.

Back to Blood Oranges.  They are the most beautiful orange I've ever seen.  They are the most delicious orange I've ever tasted.  I can't believe it's been this long before I've had the luxury of eating one.  So I made Blood Orange Vinaigrette with it.  And here's how.

 Look how gorgeous that is??

Here's What You Need:
The juice of 2 blood oranges (no worries about seeds...all three blood oranges I bought were seed free)
2 tablespoons of diced shallot
2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup of canola oil
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste.

Here's What You Do: 
Combine all the ingredients listed above into a jar.  Shake it up...hoo hoo, shake it up...(name that song), top mixed greens with it, marinate fish with it, marinate chicken with it, I'm pretty sure you can put this on anything and not be disappointed.  But I personally just simply put it on some salad greens so that I could get the full flavor of the vinaigrette.

 If that's not the prettiest vinaigrette you've ever seen, you are insane.

I must say, I'd pop my blood orange cherry over and over again if I could, but now I can't.  But I CAN and WILL enjoy the blood orange and all its loveliness for as long as I live.         

Followers