crazyfurries: (plush bug)
I should always remember to forage in my own yard for some things for salads. It's so easy to forget how delicious some plants can be in a salad, and cost so little for me to get aside from a little work picking them!




Case in point, the wild wood violet, which grows like gangbusters in the grass of the lawn, between the dandelions, creeping blistered charlie, clover, pokkelidjer weed (crownvetch) and tiny fernlike plants I can't freaking identify.




Four cups of violet blossoms and I haven't even gotten through 1/4 of the yard. What I don't eat, I'll press or dry on a rack for dried flower jars.

mhmm.

Apr. 24th, 2011 10:33 pm
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (^_^)
brown nishiki rice with miso.

perfect for killing that late-night salty-fatty craving.
crazyfurries: (omgyay)
Art Vs. Craft! The awesome fun awaits.

Hedgeriders do the whitetext!

lunch: needs packing, the cuucuu did not set. I suspect the cauliflower, onions and potatoes were too moist. Menu: curry crustless caulflower cuucuu with chopped turkey mixed in, miso'd purple riceballs, carrot sticks, and a pomegranate.

trading loot: complete, lots of patches, some little dolls.

spending/gas cash obtained!

Mapquest directions obtained and written down!

Punk/indie outfit set out to be pulled on quickly tomorrow morning!

Green tights, darker green knee-high socks, my tentacle capris, greenshirt, reclaimed denim waist cincher, black urban track shoes, and a green bandanna. Swear, I gotta find a green sweatshirt I can cannibalize to make some green armwarmers.

Pagan Shop takes used books as store credit! Collection thinned! Not by much, but thinned all the same! Hopefully the books will bring good cash.

Really looking forward to this, also packing my cellphone into my coatpocket before I shower and get to bed. Taking early morning loader volunteer shift, then going out to wait in line for free awesome item totebag before opening. EEE.
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (experimental cooking)
The other 3 elemental shortbread cookies!


Earth! Flavored with vanilla and sprinkled with fresh chopped rosemary prior to baking, hand-brushed alchemical symbol for earth done in black food coloring!



Fire! Flavored with orange essential oil, topped with dry sweet basil prior to baking, alchemical symbol hand-brushed on with food coloring.



And finally my personal favorite and personal element..WATER! Flavored with lime essential oil and fresh chopped thyme leaves sprinkled on prior to baking, alchemical symbol hand-brushed on with green food coloring!

And the recipe is here )

OH! And whoever wants cookies for christmas? NOTE ME, OR EMAIL OR IM ME YOUR MAILING ADDRESS PLZKTHNX??!!??

You'll get 4-5 coins of each element! Or just specify.
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (experimental cooking)
Here's the results of today's cookie baking...




They're each about the size of a silver dollar, lemon-lavender shortbreads and the purple food coloring painted on top of them is the alchemical symbol for air~

EDIT: For reference, there will be 3 more elemental shortbreads coming.
crazyfurries: (bento)
Today and tomorrow's bento box menus

Today!

Protein: Chicken breast tenderloins sauteed with a little olive oil and herbs de provence

Carb: Purple potato fingerlings cut into tidbits and sauteed in the same mix with a pinch of salt

Veggie/vitamin booster: Steamed romanocoli, heirloom purple, orange and green carrots.

Fruit/sweet finisher: Kasugai Fruit Juice orange gummies

Tomorrow! 2 Meals go!

Lunch!

Protein: Basil-wrapped turkey meatball, egg salad sammies

Carb: Bread for sammies

Veggie/vitamins: Carrots sticks

Fruit/sweetfinisher:kiwi kebabs!

Dinner!

Protein: Yakitori Chicken skewers

Carb: Pasta salad cup, with a triple size carb replacement of organic mixed greens salad

Veggie/vitamins: Purple cauliflower, heirloom carrots

Fruit/sweet finisher: tiny cup of rose/orange juice jelly
crazyfurries: (bento)
...yeh it's probably one of my more disgusting sounding recipes but I like it.

What you need:

4 kosher hotdogs chopped into small pieces
5 green onions chopped fine
3/4 of a cup mixed frozen carrots and peas (optional)
2 cups cooked rice
2 tbsp ketchup
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp hot sauce
Salt+Pepper to taste

Fry the hotdogs first until they release fat and start turning a light brown, then add in your green onions. After the onions have become soft add in your soy sauce always stirring so that everything gets a good coating.

Now add in your rice and stir it around carefully, so as not to pack it together, but to also coat it in the soy/juices from the food you've just fried. Add in your ketchup and hot sauce, stirring those in to coat everything. It should look like a very light reddish brown. Mix in your veggies here as well if you're using them.

Add salt and pepper to the mix untily ou get a taste you like.

I usually also wrap the rice balls I make from this recipe in an egg sheet or ommelette. It's a way of adding extra protein to this, which if you added the mixed veggies makes for a pretty cheap complete meal.
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (experimental cooking)
A sign that I have been rolling out way too many ravioli for work every week when my waking thought is that 'oh that was a nice dream about a new filling for the ravioli'.

For those who don't know, I roll out an average of about 60 orders a week.
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (cussing)
...the Laughing Cow light Blue cheese single serv wedges taste like some horrible person mixed rotten dill into what at one point might've been a decent cheese. *ptuiptui*
crazyfurries: (bento)
In an attempt to lose some weight, I picked up doing daily bentos as a way of eating healthier.

It's not quite cutting it because I cheat sometimes. So just now I was trying to find an online food calorie calculator so I can better plan my meals.

However, none of them have a listing for Frittata.

It's one of my leftover remakes that is cheap, nutritious and fairly low-cal (I think) if I omit cheese. But actually no online calculator actually HAS frittata in the system.

Pbbht.

Still have to watch myself at work and not eat any friggin scraps.

Vote for a tag to use for dieting: Dark Matter, killing the freshman 30, youtube and die (a reference to a threat made while trying Wii Fit. NO ONE will youtube me exercising on that if they value anything).

Suggestions welcome. Packing lunch anyways and heading to bed now.

Menu for lunch: 1.5 cups of marinara pasta frittata with spinach, 1/2 cup raspberries, 1 cup steamed asparagus, 1 cup apple slices in a bed of green lettuce. Also little bottle of balsamic dressing for veg and frittata.

Breakfast: 1 lite yogurt and a handful of almonds.
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (experimental cooking)
...should I do a food blog?

Main reasons I haven't started one, outside of posting a few recipes here, are these.

1) (biggest issue) ...I don't measure during my cooking experiments. Not accurately anyway. sure I'll base most of the experiments off of a recipe I might find online or specifically look up. Like Tempura. or Risotto. From there I just start messing around and it doesn't SEEM that origional or creative to me.

2) Other Foodie Blogs. They do food blogging a HELL of a lot better, with lovely photos and strange fruits. I wanna try a kiwano melon damnit. I see them so often in the foodie blogs from the west coast. I know wisconsin has some artisian cheeses and heritage fruits growing here, but usually they're way out of my price bracket.

3) I go squueeeeeeeeeeOMNOMNOM on my experiments and forget more often that I actually write about them in here. I haven't kept track of how many bentos I've done, but it's probably up in the hundreds by now. At least 200.

So. Thoughts?

If there are at least 5 comments by 8pm central time, I'll post the fried spinach chicken rolls recipe.
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (experimental cooking)
Well, I stopped in today on the way back from the Sheboygan (awesome animal book filled) library. It was a whim to check in on everyone here, including many of my favorite people EVER. (Stephanie and Zeke, both of whom could be said outrank me, but are both awesomesauce people who I admire, and do not read this blog!)

Anyhow, I came in, for a quick nibble and think, and to my surprise, Zeke comes out of the kitchen and asks if I want to take up doing all the baking instead of running the line. I said yes, but wasn't that Steph's job? (last 8 summers running) He said this was a paln between him and Steph. I plan to check facts before hanging around Steph for training.

What it'll mean is that I cannot be a late night girl anymore. I'd have to be in by 6 am (or earlier). The nicer news is that I'd be out by 4 pm most days except for banquets. Mild pay raise possible. We're cutting down on staff this summer, which is no surprise at all. I didn't see Mike at all here in a few weeks, and when he was here he was mostly ah... ...appliance-like.

And not in the toaster sense.

This should be interesting!

Also, I swear to god I wanna eat the chef's special to heck tonight. Everything in here smells delicious, except for the humans.
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (experimental cooking)
Or, by another name, me and the banquet leftovers.

I gotta say this for weddings, as exhausting as they are to prepare, I always find myself with plenty in the fridge afterwards. Take this past weekend, 225 people (give or take a few who didn't make it or arrived without invite*) came to celebrate two joyous people bein' wed. 144 of these people ordered chicken, 65 ordered pork, and 16 were vegetarian.

Dear chicken folk, yeah you didn't leave us any leftover almond crusted chicken, but thanks to a lil quick thinking for myself, I got several pounds of scrapmeat from when we trimmed all those breasts down into fat-free-ish portions. A lil more trimming on my part and I had several pounds left of fairly useable meat, two thirds of which have been cooked up in various ways. ('plain'** and 'marinated in cherry wine') The last third of which is properly marinating in some tasty miso paste.

Dear pork folken, several of you were not interested in your pork tenderloins (likely you switched for chicken or the vegetarian option), you fed many a waitstaff, dishwasher and line cook. I scored some masted potatoes from you.

Vegetarian people, more of you showed up than written down, but it was alright since we made too much of the autumn veggie risotto anyways. Your leftovers fed ME and also got placed into the sides station to be reused in a special this week. You guys had GOOD taste.

All in all a good haul, I am a little sad that this upcoming Saturday will be the last banquet for several months, but I think I can live with it.

*I'm looking at you Bachelor Duo who were at the Bar and decided it was bright to lean against the service door. I know both of your faces now. Do NOT honk with the service staff.

** Not quite what it sounds like, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper and saved to be mixed in with any sort of sauce and carb.
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (experimental cooking)
Today's been pretty good overall, granted I used most of it to either clean, complete old sewing projects, weed or cook food for the rest of the week.

Not that any of these are bad! ...Pretty good behavior on my part.

But in the middle of cooking I realized I should probably share the recipe for my Bacon Cheeseburger Shepard Pie.

Whatcha need

1/2-3/4 of a pound bacon really thinly sliced (julienne-ish strips)
1 large yellow onion chopped
4 cooked hamburger patties (I made this recipe up from banquet leftovers...if nothing else substitute the meat with 3/4-1pound of lean ground beef browned)
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 1/2 cups shredded cheddar.
mashed potatoes (instant or otherwise. no major difference aside from texture)
Fry the bacon to your desired crispness (I prefer just lightly chewy. nom) and move onto paper towel. Drain off all but 2 tablespoons of bacon grease. With the pan still hot caramelize the onions in the bacon fat, then scrape this mixture aside with the browned beef. Pour your milk into the pan and heat up, slowly sprinkle in the cheese mixing well until it forms a thick gooey sauce. Mix together bacon, onion and beef, pour cheese in and mix thoroughly.

Spoon cheese-meat-bacon mixture into ceramic ramekins, foil cups, or sturdy single mini loaf pans. Spread potatoes on top, bake in 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes or however long it takes until your taters get a nice golden crust.

Serve hot or chill and eat as a packed lunch.

One recipe reasonably feeds 5-6 people.
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (experimental cooking)
Bleu Cheese filled meatballs: 2 parts. This recipe was inspired by the 'snack' I'd have at the bistro of cooked bison meat trimmings and bleu cheese butter and [livejournal.com profile] pikkopots Cordon Bleu Bites.

Bleu Cheese 'butter' filling. An adjusted recipe to make the filling a little more gooey and less greasy.

1/4 pound of blue cheese, I used gorgonzola, but whichever variety you prefer, go for it.
1 tbsp Worchestershire Sauce
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
3 tbsp soft warmed cream cheese
1 tbsp softened butter

Cream together the butter and cream cheese until slightly fluffy, then add sauce, pepper and crumble up bleu cheese into mixture. Cream once again, and don't mind too much if there are big chunks of bleu cheese. Spoon this into a ziplock bag, removing all the air from inside the bag and roll flat before sticking this into the freezer to solidify it. This'll be handy later.

Meatball mixture!

1 lb ground bison meat (you can use ground chicken, or ground beef too, I just like bison)
2 cups bread crumbs
1 tsp garlic powder or 2 minced cloves of fresh garlic
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chili powder 9optional, I like my meat spicy sometimes and it compliments the gorgonzola)
1 tsp ground ginger
1 egg.

Mix everything in a medium bowl, you can use your hands to mix if you're not too squicky about touching raw meat, I'm not, and I find it a good way to make sure everything gets to a nice even consistency. Let it chill in the fridge for an hour before taking it out.

When it's ready also take out the bleu cheese 'butter' that was frozen earlier and break it into marble-sized chunks. Start heating a medium skillet on medium heat.

Take a lump of mixture about the size of a gumball machine capsule or rubber ball and flatten it out in your palm to about 1/4 inch thickness. Place the chunk of bleu butter in the middle and wrap the meatball mix around it, so that there are no gaps. Fry in the pan with no oil until all the sides are nicely carmelized. You can fry about 10 meatballs at a time in a good-sized skillet. They got quickly if they're still warm, but you can also freeze them before cooking and fry them when you want them in your lunchbox.

Mojito Chicken Sushi

1 chicken breast
1 lime
Mint leaves
Avocado slices
Soy Sushi wrappers
1 cup hot cooked untreated sushi rice.
1tbsp sugar
1 tbsp water
pinch of salt
1 cutting board
1 plastic wrapped sushi maki mat

Zest lime and split zest into two equal portions. Rub one portion of fresh zest onto chicken breast and allow it to sit. Juice lime and combine it with the other zest, sugar, water and salt, muddle 2 mint leaves inside of this mixture, then removed the leaves and use the mix to treat your rice as you would with a regular rice vinegar mixture. Mix thoroughly and find a place to keep it warm. Start cooking chicken breast in a pan with no oil, until fully cooked, then allow it to cool. Peel and slice avocado and mint leaves, set aside. On your flat, stiff cutting board, lay a sheet of soy wrapper down, and lay your limed rice lightly before spreading it across the sheet, pressing it in to a thin layer of rice. Press your sushi mat on top of the rice and wrapper, with the slats parallel to the length of the wrapper. Holding the sheet and the cutting board carefully, flip the board and mat so that the board is on top, leaving you a neatly laid wrapper-up sushi strip ready for an inside-out roll. By now your chicken has cooled off enough to cut it into 1/2 inch (squared) thick strips. Lay down the chicken strips, the mint and the avocado at the end of the wrapper and roll like any regular skinny inside-out roll. You'll be able to make about 3 rolls, with eight pieces per roll with this, and still have some rice leftover. You can decorate the pieces with whatever mint bits are leftover or little peels of granny apples.
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (musecackle)
A long long photo post of fancy arty lunches!


First! Yesterday's spur-of-the-moment bento (I didn't plan to make one, but the weather was super-nice and the idea just struck me)



Lil sidecar filled with bluebird onigiri, carrot coins and a hardboiled egg! Wishin' I had gotten some edamame to use as lil bird eggs, but you work with what you got.

And further back along the calender... )
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (experimental cooking)
Today, I have literally nothing to do but cook. Venison stew, chicken breasts to freeze, and a host of other nibblets. It cold as suck out and slaving over a hot stove or oven sounds like a fabulous way to play. So, aside from the usual cooking chores I'm using today to do my croquette experiments.


Sometime ago I remember Shojo Beat having the recipe in their books. Google..hasn't been my friend in this. Fickleficklething. Lunch-in-a-box had some nifty help on this plan. So. I've been experimenting.

I plan to do 3 experiments, rice crispies as crumbs, eggless wet crumbing method, and eggless wet crumbing with crispies.

Experiment one: Eggless Wet roll with crispies: Results... Burnt on bottom soggy on top.

Fail. Just so much fail for that.

Experiment two: eggless wet roll regular crumbs: Oddly tasty, none of the crisp crunchy shell that you get with an egg-washed croquette, but tasty none the less. I'm doing the eggless breading method since mom has a friend who is allergic to avian eggs* and wanted to try my cooking. Hence, eggless experiment.

Experiment three: Regular eggwash with crispies: results pending: to be done when I have some damn veggie oil** to lube the pan with. filling has been put on freeze.


* She is not allergic to fish egg or reptile eggs. Seeing as my access to either is limited...

** All the damn veggie and Canola oil in the house had gone bad. Like "dude don't sniff this" bad. You don't cook with oil that stanks.
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (experimental cooking)
Lime n Dill Chickenbits

1 lb boneless skinless chicken. Can be Thighmeat or Breastmeat
3 tbsp lime juice
1 1/2 tsp dried dill
1/2 tsp sea salt (can use plain salt)
1/2 tsp parsley flakes

Trim fat off of chicken and slice it into strips. In a bowl mix lime juice, herbs and salt for marinade. Put chicken into plastic bag, pour marinade in with chicken and mooosh stuff inside around to coat evenly. Let marinade for at LEAST one hour.

Heat skillet with a little olive oil and cook strips until you get a light brown around each strip fo chicken.
crazyfurries: a cranky abbysinnian kitten (Default)
Spinach + Cauliflower bentobox kookoo.

2 large eggs
3/4 cupcooked cauliflower, liquid drained away
3/4 cup frozen (thawed) and squeezed out spinach
3 tablespoons sour cream
1 tablespoon curry mix
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Mix together eggs, sour cream, curry, and baking powder until it forms a thick, smooth liquid. Heat skillet with a little bit of butter/oil, and make sure to coat the sides of the pan (alternatively, you can use greased silicon cups) fill with your veggies, cover with your egg mixture and cook throughly until it forms a stiff shape. If a crisp bowned top is desired, sprinky top with parm chez, and flip formed kookoo over and continue on low heat to get a nice crunchy chez on top.

Fuzzy's Not-Quite Squash risotto: Feeds 1 ratio: made from leftovers

What you need

3/4 cup cooked rice
1/4 cup squash, cooked until soft
1 tbsp sour cream
salt to taste

Mix rice and squash in bowl, zap in microwave, mix in sourcream until everything is coated, zap again. Can be formed into onigiri or solid packed.

Omnom French Toast

2 large eggs
6 slices of bread
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 tbsp white sugar
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Beat eggs, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar together. Dip in and throughly coat bread in this mixture before frying each slice in a hot oiled pan. Sprinkle with your favored toppings, tastes GREAT for tiny creamcheese and bacon sammiches

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