My general plan of attack is this:

I made the cupcakes from an Epicurious recipe that I adapted as follows:

• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup hot strong coffee
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 whole large egg
• 1 large egg yolk

Fail, fail, fail.

Lesson:  Fresh mushrooms are the way to go.

Also, if something smells bad, do NOT put it into a perfectly good risotto.  Also, keep on hand some delicious morningstar farms chicken nuggets for emergencies.

For lunch I had red beans and rice (to stand in for black eyed peas).  From a Zataran’s box because I can’t do it better than they can.  However, because I’m a little bit of a hag and I can’t let anything be, instead of doing it the way that the box said, I sautéed a little bit of onion and 1/4 of a package of hot sausage in my pan and THEN followed the directions.  It was delicious.  And lucky.

For dinner I had a bit more of a task.  I warmed some sauerkraut, some collard greens and leftover wild rice.  I browned some mushrooms (don’t crowd the mushrooms people).  About a month ago I bought and brined (brown sugar, salt, sage, cloves, allspice) a bunch of pork chops and froze them in batches of two.  I defrosted them, stuffed them with cheddar and green onion and fried them.  Then I made a sauce from sautéed onions, cranberry sauce, white wine and sage.

And then I ate it all.  And I didn’t take pictures because!!! I was SO HUNGRY.

And now I cannot move because:  A.) there is an eighty pound dog on my legs, B.) I am stuffed to the gills.

Delicious.

Lucky.

The End.

I ate clementines all day long and suddenly I looked up and it was seven o’clock and I was starving.  I bought some chicken thighs at the grocery store today and wanted to use one of those for my dinner.  I thought braise, and then I thought olives.  I’d read a couple of different braised chicken thigh with olive recently and this sounded delicious.  I will be eating it with roasted beets in vinaigrette, and wild rice.  This is how I did it:

I minced 4 cloves of garlic and sautéed them in butter with 5 tablespoons (ish… you should know I never measure anything and these are rough approximates) of bread crumbs and 3 teaspoons of parsley.  It made a something that resembled a toasted paste.  In another pan I sautéed 1/4 sliced red onion, and then set them in a piece of crockery, because I don’t have a dutch oven yet.  I browned 1/3 package of button mushrooms in batches and put them with the onion.  I then seasoned my chicken thigh with salt, pepper, and flour and then browned it and set it on top of the mushrooms and onions.  I reduced 1 cup of chicken stock with 1 cup of white wine (cheap cheap cheap chardonnay) and poured that into my little crockery pot and put it in the oven on 320 for 40 minutes, stirred in 1/3 cup of green olives and put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes.

The beets had been in the oven since I started thinking about dinner.  I removed them with the chicken.

I made rice-a-roni “natural” (ha!) long grain wild rice.  Instead of water, I used 1 cup of water and 1 cup of chicken stock.  I didn’t use the seasoning package, I used a couple of tablespoons of parsley, a few shakes of garlic powder and a little bit of parmesan cheese.  It was delicious.  It covered all of the food groups, ( I think, they keep changing them, so what do I know) and did I mention delicious?

Some days, health isn’t a part of the equation.  Especially when your dog’s new food gives him diarrhea and he has to go out every ten minutes.  You need treats for that kind of sleep deprivation.

Today, for lunch/breakfast I had four freaking thousand cups of coffee and a tuna melt from Otherlands coffee shop which made me realize that dill isn’t the foulest weed to grow on this planet… I think?  (whole wheat bread, and a tomato included)

For dinner, I went to Cafe 1912 on Cooper in Memphis which is supposedly a French restaurant…  It is definitely not a French restaurant.  Maybe continental…ish.  However, the food was incredible and the service was perfection, even if the crowd was a little late middle age to early retirement for our taste.  I split some DIVINE corn chowder, pommes frites with parmesan and white truffle oil as well as papparedelle with wild mushrooms, spinach and garlicy alfredo with my companion.  It was divine.  We have leftovers.  I dig.  I don’t know that we’ll go back for dinner, but I would consider take out.  For sure.

How’s about that interwebs?

First, today, with a very rare piece of steak and some steamed asparagus I ate an amazing pseudo potato gratin that I made.

I preheated my oven to 450 (my standard) and then diced a small potato and half an onion.  I made a little boat for them out of aluminum foil (you can do this for more than one in a bigger [9"] pan, but for one, a little aluminum boat is perfect.  I then diced the potato and onion into tiny pieces, tossed them with some dried parsley, garlic powder, salt and pepper and put them in the boat.  I filled the boat with half chicken stock, half cream, until the potato mix was half-covered and baked for about half an hour.  It was divine.

(Addendum:  I buy most of my meat in bulk, and when I bought this piece of skirt steak it was like six dollars.  I cut it up into 3 pieces and froze them separately so that they could be three different meals.  I also buy things like potatoes in bulk because they don’t really go bad and a ten pound bag of potatoes is something like four dollars.)

Second, I had a boy type person over for dinner and made my go-to easy dinner:  tomato cream sauce with pasta.  Normally I would add a bag of frozen mixed seafood (scallops, shrimp, and calamari) to the mix, but I didn’t have any (luckily, because the boy doesn’t like seafood [heathen]).  To make the sauce, dice a small onion, a head of garlic and sautee in butter until clearish.  Then add a glug or two of red wine and wait until it boils off or evaporates.  Add two cans of pureed tomatoes.  Cook until boy arrives (or one hour).  Add a tablespoon or two of salt, a dash each of oregano, basil and parsley, and a couple of dashes of fennel seeds.  Cook your pasta.  As the pasta is ALMOST done add a little cream to the sauce.  Stir.  Drain pasta and combine.  Delicious.

(Addendum:  Yes.  I do mean a whole head of garlic.  It was a small head?  I like garlic and it’s good for the immune system.  A little cream means maybe 1/4 cup?  A little less?

Also, all of this is stuff that I had in my house.  Every time I go to the grocery store I stock up on canned tomatoes, and I keep cream for my coffee.  The rest is pretty standard.  This meal maybe cost three dollars all told and I have a TON of leftovers.  Additionally, while the overall cooking time was probably an hour and a half, I was hands on for maybe MAYBE twenty minutes.  SO easy.  I just needed to think ahead about when I’d be hungry and when said gentleman caller would be showing up.  Easy peasy.)

Happy cooking.

I love naked juice.  Especially the green superfood kind.  It’s the perfect breakfast substitute in that it is full of vitamins and minerals and is around 200 calories, which is just the right number for my breakfast.  Also, it’s green, and that grosses people out.  In fact, it tastes like apples and kiwis.

Once Jonathan and I got back from our campus traipsing and tour I settled into the faculty lounge to get some work done, which I did until about 2:30 when I realized I was starving.  THE JUICE WAS NOT ENOUGH.

I decided that because I had to be back in class in 3 hours, was lazy, and had nothing other than re-hydrated celery and cereal in my house I would stop and pick up wings on my way home.  I pass Central BBQ every day going home from school and I’m not going to lie, it tests me.  They have the BEST wings I have every had in my whole life.  They’re smoked, rather than fried and the sauce is just hot enough.  Not eye-wateringly hot, but makes your lips burn hot.  Delicious.

I ended up eating about 1/3 of these, and a little celery.  The whole order is just too much, and they’re good leftover.

Last night I went to a reading at school and ended up going out to dinner with the author and some other students.  We went to Do, in Cooper Young.  I got a softshell crab roll, and a crunchy spicy crawfish roll.  Both were good, not great.  I think that Nama really spoiled me, which is fine… but still.  Next time I’m going to try the soups which are supposed to be out of this world.

Xoxxoxo.

Yesterday was kind of a lazy day for me, cooking-wise and otherwise.  I spent most of the day reading.  I had some leftover corn and black bean salsa that I’d made for my potluck on Friday (I’m also having it tonight for dinner with some grilled chicken…. leftover party!!!!) with corn chips.  Because I’m lazy.  Again.  Black bean salsa includes:  1 drained and rinsed can of black beans, 1 drained and rinsed can of corn, 1/2 large yellow onion chopped, 2 tomatoes chopped, 1 red pepper chopped, 1 bunch of cilantro chopped, a head of garlic minced, and as much minced jalapeno as you can handle.  (I left it pretty mild for the party, and amped up the leftovers for myself)

For dinner I had an acorn squash that I hollowed out like a pumpkin and filled with layers of wild rice, bite sized chunks of chicken, shredded Edam cheese, and then poured 1/2 heavy cream 1/2 chicken stock to fill it.  I then baked it for around 2 hours, at 400 degrees, or until the squash is cooked and the chicken is also cooked.

I also threw some hefty brussels sprouts into the pan with olive oil and salt and pepper.

Look:

Ignore my hand please.  Pre-baking.

Finished brussels sprouts.

Yum.  I spooned about 1/2 of the squash and filling into a bowl and mashed it up.

I ate the other half for lunch today.