Farmer's Market Adventure

Let's start out with what I did last Saturday. I woke up at 6:00am to stand in line at Topper's Pizza on Washington Ave. No big surprise, you can see what they are at www.toppers.com. Being 45th in line for the grand opening I was gifted a year's worth of free pizza coupons.

OMFG

So now I can use one pizza coupon a week for the rest of forever. Their pizza is pretty nice, actually, and doesn't make me cry on the toilet. I've so far had their Tuscan Chicken pizza, their Buffalo Chicken one topping, and the Buffalo Chicken Grinder sandwich. Other than an annoyingly frequent use of the word "spank" ("This'll spank your tastebuds!" "Spank your mouth!" "SPANK IT!") their food is pretty high quality delivery-level pizza. I'd order them over Dominos if there were more than two locations in the cities.

MILL CITY FARMER'S MARKET
I hit up the Mill City Market with my buddies, Norah and Riley this last week. I wasn't feeling the Chef Shack this time around and since the two of them were running a bit late I was at the market for awhile by myself. Now, I've just discovered that I am completely terrified of doing things alone. I considered sitting in my car and waiting for them to show up but that seemed really Socially Awkward Penguin to me so I took that leap out of my car and set off into the world by myself.

I had a fresh squeeze raspberry limeade at Mudduscker's and sat on some steps and read one of my favorite new dumpster books, Middlesex. I can't even begin to describe how amazing a value this book is. Now only is it a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by the writer of the Virgin Suicides that deals with an intersex man in his 40's and his family's history but I found it in a dumpster for free.

I also noticed that when I go places in a group, everyone is smoking. I light up and do not even give a shit. But I was the only smoker at the market that day and lighting up felt like a horrible intrusion on everyone else's life. I huddled in the corner with my book and blew smoke in thin, pathetic streams off into the wind as inconspicuously as possible. No one even glanced at me but the crowd of my mind was coughing, waving their hands exaggeratedly, and developing stage four tumors. I ended up retreating to the Gutherie's entryway and then felt even worse when an elderly gentleman in period garb tipped his hat to me. I kept thinking, "I AM A MONSTER".

So I went and got myself a tart.

This tart was motherfucking excellent. From Queen of Tarts, it was $5 for a warm wild mushroom tart. Very rarely do mushrooms get to speak for themselves in dishes. They're usually limp and just add volume rather than taste. But these mushrooms were fucking singing. They were earthy and umami as fuck. Excellent purchase, would eat again.


My lunch was at The Bad Watiress on Eat Street which is just one of those places you end up all the time. I went with their Mac and Cheese, however, and added grilled onions for a carby-delicious treat. It was some good mac and cheese. I think I sensed....Gouda? Gruyere? I don't even care, it was good. The bread was dry and I gave up on it but the noodles were filling enough. Next time I will request a kingdom's worth of grilled onions.

Now, what's this thing pictured below? What could that giant, fucking sandwich thing be? Why, it's my meal from the brand new Green Spoon on University Ave!

For a place to delivery that isn't Jimmy John's, pizza, or Chinese is a miracle. This is the Korean Philly, a sandwich of bulgogi beef, perfectly sauteed peppers and onions, chipotle aioli,, and pepper jack cheese on a fresh baguette. For EIGHT FUCKING DOLLARS.

They were a little heavy on the aioli and it was a hard sandwich to lift (I ended up tearing off pieces and eating it with a fork) but my god, it was a deal. I'd probably request less sauce next time since the sauce was a little filling and too much got to be a little gross but the fries that came with it were crispy, golden, and amazing. I was really impressed with the amount of food, the quality, and the price. They also delivery breakfast, salads, wraps, paninis, pot pies, and flatbreads. I think I'm going to be doing a lot of business with them.

I'll play you off with a picture of Norah (rarely seen in the wild, skittish, hard to get a photo of) on top of the parking garage we spent the afternoon on.

Breakfast Fried Rice

Oh man, after I made this one I started jumping up and down and screaming, "I AM A FUCKING GENIUS". Science and love came together to create this dish. This is not Sparta. This is:

BREAKFAST FRIED RICE

Cooked white rice
Butter
Two strips of bacon
An egg
Red pepper
Onion
Garlic
Brown Sugar
Soy Sauce

Optional Additives for Maximum Win:
Teriyaki
ROOSTER SAUCE
Green onions

Now, cut your bacon up into fourths. I like to throw it into a bowel with a little teriyaki marinade but you don't need to. Then I chop up the onion, red pepper, and garlic and throw everything you've done so far into a pan with the butter. When this all starts to brown shove it over a bit in the pan and crack in the egg. It's good to let the egg cook thoroughly before mixing it in or it can make everything soggy.

Once everything looks delicious and cooked I'll put it on some paper towels to drain a bit. Then, back in to the pan with about half a cup of cooked rice, some chopped green onion, and some soy sauce for color.

At this point I'll also drizzle a shit ton of rooster sauce over the top and add about a tablespoon of brown sugar. Make sure it's warm throughout and mixed well and serve!

Sour Cream and Chive Chicken with Herby Potatoes

Last night I ran out of most of the magical things I use to make food and I am on a pretty for reals diet right now. No more snacking, walking everywhere, and no excess butter. This is the toughest one. So I decided to try something new. I didn't do so well on the butter but I sure did walk my fucking ass off yesterday so I suppose it evens out.

SOUR CREAM AND CHIVE CHICKEN with HERBY POTATOES


Stuff You Need to Serve 2:
2 Potatoes (peeled)
2 Boneless Chicken Cutlets
Sour cream
Chives
Garlic (fuckin' minced)
Pam (for sprayin')
Any herb blend (I used Herbal Pizza Magic)
Parmesan and Roasted Garlic dressing

I chopped the potatoes into itty bits and tossed them around in a pan with healthy sprays of Pam and the herbs. You can throw salt/pepper/oregano/basil in there or cheese or whatever, it'll probably all taste good. I used this Pizza Magic junk one of the roommates keeps in the cupboard.


It looks ... like this.
It's a saltless blend of herbs and cheese so it tastes pretty fine on everything. You really can't fuck up herbs and cheese. I baked the now herbed-up potatoes at 475 degrees for 15 minutes. While those were in the oven I cut open the chicken breasts in the center and threw them in a pan with a little oil. I know I didn't tell you to have oil in the ingredient list but since you're fucking cooking I will assume you have oil. Any oil.

Let those get cooked around the outside and then throw some chopped chives and minced garlic in alongside them in the pan and cook those to a nice, soft texture. At this point I also poured a little Parmesan Garlic dressing into the cuts I made in the chicken to give them a little extra flavor. This is optional.

Keep everything steady at a medium heat or your chicken will burn outside and not cook inside. I stuffed the chives and garlic into the chicken slits (that sounds fucking horrible) and closed it off with a dollop of sour cream. Then, I covered the pan and let it chill for about ten minutes.

I also made garlic croissants from a Pillsbury tube. You can do that, too.

The last step is putting everything onto a plate and eating it.

Chef Shack - Minneapolis Food Truck

I'm currently reporting from the Minneapolis U2 Concert and I am terrified to go outside. I've never seen so many suburban moms in one place and I grew up in Eagan. It took me fifteen minutes to walk two blocks. There is a $25 million stage about one city block from me. I can see the huge, green top of "The Claw" look at me like Cthulu from the depths.


This. This is what's happening. And that is one parking lot.

But, Bono aside, I wanted to report on my first Minneapolis food truck experience. Minneapolis has a burgeoning food truck culture and I could never be bothered to find a moving restaurant until today. Something in me craved a challenge.

So I headed to the Mill City Farmer's Market to meet up with The Chef Shack.



There wasn't much of a wait and outside of the shack there was a table set up with about six tubs of different pickled veggies. I also grabbed the ominous bottle of XXX sauce.



They were also, unfortunately, out of the beef tongue taco when we got there around 1pm.


An excellent specimen of nacho for only SIX DOLLARS.

I got the Shack Nachos, tortilla chips (with a perfect hint of chew) topped with pulled porn, queso, garden salsa, and guacamole. You may think this is craziness but this was the first time I have ever had guacamole in my entire life. My boss laughed at me when he saw this picture and said that the nachos didn't look anything like food but they were amazing. The salsa was incredibly fresh and had a pickled flavor to it and the guacamole had a hint of sweetness that I don't think is natural in the avocado. There were also some very succulent roasted black beans in there.



Gwyneth and Anneliese, my farmer's market friends, had the sweet potato tacos. Without the sprinkling of queso I believe they're vegan. They were made with roasted black beans, mashed sweet potato, the garden salsa, and queso.

The farmer's market was, all in all, amazing. They had a fresh squeezed juice stand that looked great but I already had a tea with me so I didn't get to try it. The entire market shut down around 2pm so I'll have to remember to get there much earlier next time. They had a pesto making demonstration at 10am that day.

After the Chef Shack we were fortunate enough to grab the last of the Sonny's Ice cream. I mixed the frozen hot chocolate with toasted coconut and it was probably an 8 on my ice cream scale.

Rainbow Dash Pony Mod

RAINBOW DASH PONY MOD:
MAKING RAINBOW DASH 20% COOLER
So I was sitting up with Boyfriend, watching some horror movie where someone cuts the power to the house and dresses up like a terrifying clown to murder a bunch of people. Then the power went out. With only a lighter and a phone I suddenly felt weirdly, terrifyingly weak. So this is what happened:

Me: "HELP ME DRESS I WILL NOT DIE NAKED THIS NIGHT"

Boyfriend: "YOUR CLOTHES ARE INSIDE OUT OH GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING."

I started wildly grabbing for my phone but knocked it to the ground. I know that we keep both loaded guns and sharpened swords in the immediate vicinity but, with absolutely zero light, I wasn't too sure of my ability to operate them. If this were a zombie apocalypse my best bet would be to lie down in the bed and die.

The lights came back on within a minute but, shaken, I knew what I had to do to restore equilibrium to my world.

Look at happy, wonderful ponies!

RAINBOW DASH PONY TIME
I was pretty excited to find a Rainbow Dash waiting for me at Target when I went last week. Usually it's just a wall of Rarity and Applejacks so finding a Rainbow Dash AND a Twilight Sparkle was an unusually treat.

Unfortunately, this is the abomination that greeted me from inside that colorful Hasbro plastic box:


Each moment this unnatural beast lives is like a thousand years of misery.
So I got my tools out and went to work.


I didn't use all of these tools but I gathered them all for good measure. Most necessary were the scissors, thread, and brush on super glue. The needles are nice to manipulate the thread when it's tied and mixed up in pony hair.


The first thing I did was separate the colored chunks of hair. Her bangs were orange and red where they should have had some yellow mixed in. Her tail was solely blue and green and there was no purple anywhere. So I rearranged her bangs and mane by forcing sections around and tying them in place with thread.

I trimmed some yellow and orange from her mane since her hair is much, much shorter than what comes in the box. I set this aside to add some variety to her tail later.


Once all the hair was where I wanted it I super glued it down. You can see here that I precariously glued a swatch of yellow, orange, and red onto her tail.


I tied a little bow on her butt to cover where the extra hair was connected and there she is! At least 20% cooler than before. Her bangs aren't quite as raggedy/awesome as I wanted and her mane isn't super full but I feel like she's a much better facsimile than the Hasbro ponies that are pumped out from the same mold. The only thing missing now is an angry little line above her eye to make her look extreeeeeme.


Chilling with Twilight and my pony coloring/activity book!

Tune in next week when I tell all of my friends I can't go out because I'm washing my hair but I'll actually be modding my Applejack pony!

Five Minute Nachos

I got a little too wrapped up in My Little Pony this afternoon and forgot to make dinner for myself. Lunch had already been a trying affair as I had a coupon for a free bagel/cream cheese at Breugger's but they wouldn't take an e-coupon. So I ended up driving to two different libraries trying to print the coupon and once I had the tasty toasted bagel in my hands I was so hungry that it just didn't cut it.

So I knew I had to have dinner. I took 5 minutes (if that) and created...

FIVE MINUTE NACHOS
You will need
Thawed chicken cutlet
onion
oil
seasoning
chips
cheese
salsa

I chopped up some onion and the chicken and threw them in a pan with a little cooking oil and fajita seasoning I had on hand. While those cooked I cracked some chips down into travel size in a bowl and covered them in cheese. Once the chicken looked done I poured the grilled bits on top and doused with salsa and Tabasco sauce.

Make sure the chicken is completely cooked or you will bite in and cry. Finding raw chicken in your mouth by accident is not fun.
The cheese wasn't melted since I wanted to reheat it fresh at work. Garnished with optional green onion.


NACHOS IN SECONDS. Taking the chip and cheese combo to the next level.

Poor Man's Lo Mein

So, the unthinkable happened today. We ran out of rice. No Asian person's kitchen should ever be rice-less but today it happened. So I improvised.

Poor Man's Lo Mein


Spaghetti noodles
Chicken
Cooking oil
Soy sauce
Brown sugar
onion
green onion
baby corn
garlic
ginger
ROOSTER SAUCE

Note: The baby corn and ginger are optional but they add a good flavor. Baby corn is around $1 for a can and you can throw some tin foil over the top of the can and keep it in the fridge. It'll last you a few good meals. It can typically be found in the section of your grocery store marked ETHNIC.

Side Note: I always feel awkward shopping in the Asian Ethnic section of the grocery store. I'm not sure why this is. I feel like everyone is expecting me to only buy fish heads and weird cabbage-y shit and when I check out I will pronounce my 'l's as 'r's.

Boil the noodles in some water. If you don't know how to do this you should stop. Put down the noodles. And go away from the kitchen. You do not belong there.

Get all of your mix-ins ready. Chop the onion, green onion, baby corn, and garlic and throw it in a pan with a little oil. Once the onions start to get translucent (translation: smells delicious and looks clear) you are ready for the chicken step.


You will find yourself with an incomplete rainbow. Many of the most delicious foods, you will find, are brown. Or white. Or colorless. Most green things are bad for you and taste like ass.
Start cooking up the chicken bits with the veggies and, once the noodles are done throw them right into the pan (sans water). Liberally douse with soy sauce and cook with about a tablespoon of brown sugar. I sprinkled in a little ginger but that's not necessary. Almost no one keeps that shit around the house. If you do use ginger remember that a little bit goes a long way. Use more than a sprinkle and your whole dish will taste like ginger which is gross.


FINAL STEP: POUR SOME ROOSTER SAUCE ON THE BITCH.

SOMETIMES BEING POOR CAN BE AWESOME.

My Little Pony: Modifying Twilight Sparkle

...or how I made Twilight Sparkle look like Twilight Sparkle. This is not so much a How-To guide (I didn't record my plight very well) as it is a little photo journal into the heart of what the fuck I did last night instead of working on my resume.

I decided, after staring at my lovely pony toy, that it bothered me that she looked nothing like the character. Hasbro has us by the balls, shoving sweet, sugary ponies down our throats but their toys are pretty lacking in quality. We've got ponies that are the wrong color, with the wrong hair, with the wrong faces and, honestly, we're all old enough to know that they look weird. If I were 5 I would just say, "pony!", put that shit in my mouth and call it a day.

So I got my shit together and started hacking.
MY LITTLE FIRST PONY MOD



Above you'll find Twilight Sparkle. $5.99 at any given supermart with a toy section. She's slightly darker purple than the show but I didn't have paint on me and I wasn't about to go buy some. This was a practice mod, I didn't want to throw down much money in case things went awry.

You'll see I have:
Scissors
Pack of sewing needles
Tweezers
Crafting knife

Everyone I live with plays Warhammer so I just had to run up to the crafting table and yoink a few things. If you do any sorts of crafts you'll be able to locate these items or pick them up cheap.


Pictured: MY HERO
Above is Citadel super glue. This was the most important thing: it allowed me to restyle the pony's hair right at the base without any visible residue. The top is actually a little brush which was aweeeesome.


The horror...the horror....
The first thing I did was use all my might to rip the pony's head off. This was fucking hard as balls. Mine still had a little bit of the peg melted to the body so I ended up pulling and cutting and ripping it's head off. My boyfriend walked in on me with a pony's head in my mouth while I pulled violently on the other end. Don't let people see you doing this. It will make them assume horrible things.

But once the head was off I used the crafting knife to cut the base of the peg out of the body. So you've got the above three parts.


With the tweezers I grabbed the tail through the inside of the body and pulled it towards the head. The tail was too long and I didn't want to start cutting unless it was completely necessary. I then used super glue to shape it but got a little too crazy and the glue ended up sticking everywhere and making the whole tail crunchy. I fixed this later.


I didn't take many pictures of it but the pony's bangs were in two straight lines, one pink and then one purple. The pony in the show has blunt purple bangs with a pink and different purple streak in the middle. So I tied some purple thread around the pink hair to pull it towards the middle, threaded it on a needle and pulled it through the inside of the head where I tied it. This kept the pink in one streak like you see here.

I then pushed the hair down into bangs and painted super glue over the roots to hold it in that position. The glue dries super fast. If you do this make sure everything is exactly where you want it before you throw glue down.


I glued her head back on (I had destroyed the peg a little with all my pulling and ripping) and then started working on her mane. The mane of the Hasbro toy is fucking huge and unnecessary. I clipped it down and glued it in place at the roots again so it went over the shoulder.

Now, to fix my original tail fuck up I took the extra mane-hair and super glued it over where the tail was mangled and crunchy. This made it look a little fuller and covered most of my mistake.



And there you have it, everypony. How I made my Twilight Sparkle toy a little more show-accurate. I can bear to look at her now! I learned a lot from just grabbing the tools and hacking in: you can see her tail is a little off so I tied a bitty bow on the end. I think that turned out very cute.

Her bangs were hard to style. The fact that her horn peaks through the bangs was tough since it tends to look a little tard-tastic when there's a big part in the middle.

Don't settle for less, get those knives out, Bronies, and make your toy the pony of your dreams. If you fuck it up you can always get another for $5.

Non-Food Related Intermission

I found this today. I wanted to consolidate my blogs so I present you with my first non-food related post.
FROM: 12/11/2010

Time:7:07pm
Did I Get Out of Bed?: I did. I am actually at work.
Did I Eat Microwave Food?: Kraft Mac and Cheese. Ah, that blue box. Soothes my soul.

I had yesterday off. Fridays are great days, especially if you don't have to work at all. Therefore, it becomes more of a Saturday. But better, since you still have Saturday to come. It's like your birthday on the day before Christmas but you still get all the presents without people buying you one to trick you.

What did I do with my time? I didn't sleep in. No, for the first time in a long time I woke up at the crack of 10 in the morning and loaded up my laptop (the magical bed computer) to play Cracktown (Cityville).

Cracktown is the newest offering from the gaming company/drug giant Zynga. They are the masterminds behind such home wreckers as Farmville, Frontierville, Cafe' World, and a bevvy of other random nouns with -ville tacked on the back.

 Pictured at left: These horses wait quietly in their rows, waiting for the swift kiss of glue factory death that will never come. I will just harvest their hair, season after season, and leave them there for the harsh elements to take care of. My nursery barn will provide me with strong, young stock when the old ones can no longer stand. I have countless Farmville 'friends' who will gift the young to me in exchange for magical boxes and drugs.

Farmville lets you sit around and click things for as long as you want. There is no "energy bar", an evil that was provided in later games, so you can basically just move shit around and buy pixellated items for real money. Then, as the season changes, your pixel shit will go out of fashion and you will be forced to toil over the crop once again to buy the newest "Birthday Thanksgiving Themed Cowpie".


 Here, you can see the fruits of the past 24 hours. I have been building and supplying and merchandising my little 10x10 square. I have a small subruban area where all of the houses and identical and provide me with parcels of rent. I have a Headquarters for my Bakery empire (soon I will be adding my video game tower) and I have a small square where the people of my city can enjoy themselves and buy more things.

How did I build my shit so fast? Easy. Tawiwanese girls.

I went to the Cityville fan page where everyone was shouting 'pleez add me! neighbor neighbor!', hoping that we could perhaps be Cityville friends and I will send tour buses to their floundering cities and provide them with much needed commerce. I shuffled through them until I saw one person with a small ASCII banner that said 'Please Add Me!' It was simple. It was effective. I friended them and they immediately sent me rich, pure energy. But that wasn't all.

Her friends added me. One by one, I was friended by small Taiwanese girls who play Zynga games like it's their goddamn job. They set up businesses in my town and they sent me higher level items. They harvested my crops and gifted me with wonderful key items. My city grew and grew until it could no longer be contained by the city's limits. I needed to expand.


 Pictured at left: sweet sweet commerce.


I'm babysitting my city in the other window right now. I'm actually only making this blog post while I wait for my crops to grow. I sometimes log in just to gaze upon my shining city on a hill. This is what Lex Luthor must feel like every goddamn day


Here are a list of things I put on the back burner to play Cityville:
Eat
Sleep
Poop
Grocery shopping
Christmas present shopping
Play the real games I purchased
Drink water
Go out
Hang out with friends
Gas up my car
Work

The message in all this? Don't play Facebook games. They destroy lives. And that, boys and girls, is today's 'How Not to Be a Fuck Up'.

KFC Famous Bowl

Today was a stressful day. I was turned down by my credit union, informed that I was in collections for a cable bill that flew under the radar from two years ago, drove around on errands for almost four hours, spent almost my whole paycheck on student loans, and my car is acting up. I had to do something for myself. So first, I bought a pony.


HER NAME IS TWILIGHT SPARKLE. FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC, GUYS.
And then I made this chicken bowl.

KFC Famous bowl
3 potatoes
a handful of shredded cheese
canned mini corn
1/2 onion or shallot
chicken
flour
garlic
butter
cooking oil

Microwave the potatoes. Make sure to cut slits in them or they will explode and you'll be too angry to make the rest of your famous bowl.

In a pan fry up the onion and mini corn. Chop them up as small as you like but they mix in with the potatoes best as tiny chunks. Set those aside.

Now, fill the pan around halfway full with with cooking oil. Put that on high heat and, while you're waiting, chop the chicken up into bite sized pieces. Throw those in a bag and toss with a big handful of flour and some garlic (dry works well for this). THROW THEM IN THE OIL.

Fry them up until they turn goldeny-brown. Then put lay them out on some paper towels to drain off the extra oil. Don't pour that oil down your sink. You think you can when no one is looking but plumbing problems actually come back to haunt you. Just last week I wiped my butt with paper towel and the toilet stayed clogged for two weeks until the repair man came. It was awful. Don't do things your mother says not to, even if you are alone. You will cry and be sorry.

Once the taters have been microwaved and left to cool you can either mash them with the skins on or peel it off. I think the skin is gross and weird so my taters are typically naked. Mash those with a fork and butter. If you begin to get uncomfortable with the level of butter and oil used in this recipe spray them with Pam.

Throw the onions/corn on top of the potatoes, then the chicken and top with the cheese blend. I used a shredded four cheese blend but you can use anything you want. No need to whip out the Gruyere or bleu cheese. This is chunks of fried chicken, guys.


It will look something like this. I need to get a better camera. My cell phone is not cutting it.
Now, enjoy this in front of people so you can tell them you made a famous bowl yourself. They will think you crazy.

TIPZ:
-Make sure the chicken is cooked in the middle. Smaller chunks cut the cooking time down and you can be more comfortable eating it without finding chewy pink parts.
-Mash the potatoes in the bowl you're going to eat it from.
-You can try tossing the chicken with other spices but a couple shakes of the dried minced garlic were great for me. One teaspoon of dried garlic is equal to the taste of biting into an entire bulb.

Hawaiian Chicken and Coconut Rice

This recipe was originally 'Hawaiian Grilled Chicken' but then it rained.

Haiwaiian Made-In-a-Pan Chicken and Coconut Rice
2 cans coconut milk
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup water
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon garlic
1/4 cup chopped white onion
1 handful green onion
1/4 tsp cooking oil
3 large chicken breasts
motherfucking rice

The first thing you're going to want to do is un-can the coconut milk. For some reason it did not smell like sweet and fragrant coconuts. It smelled sort of like cat-butt. The solids and the coconut water will doubtlessly be separated so scoop that shit out into a bowl and whisk it around until it's like a runny paste.

Combine everything into a big mixing bowl except you'll only want to use half a can of coconut milk and the rice is for the side so don't throw that in there. Mix it, as per bowl instructions.

At this point I halved the chicken breasts for faster cooking and marinating. I threw them in the mixing bowl with the marinade, covered, and left it in the fridge while I went and picked up The Goonies 25th Anniversary Box at Best Buy with my boyfriend. It came with a board game. It was cool.

Now, once a few hours have passed you'll want to heat up a frying pan with a little butter and throw the marinated chicken on there. Here you will cook them on medium heat for forever.

In a saucepan bring 2 cups white rice to a boil in a mixture of 2 cups water and 2 cups coconut milk. Cover and reduce heat. Keep opening it and mixing it around or the coconut may burn to the bottom and then you might as well throw the pan away because no one wants to clean that.

Every now and then between chapters in your book turn the chicken over. After about ten minutes I covered them and let them simmer for a few minutes on each side. You'll know when they're getting done because the marinade sticking to the chicken will have reduced and the sticky, delicious brown sugar will be searing to the sides of the chicken.

Pull the chicken out, put it on a plate, and throw in the rice. Garnish if you'd like. This is what I did:


I am awesome and so can you.
I put the still warm rice into a small drinking glass. It formed to it immediately and then slid out of the glass in that shape. I topped it with a few fried onions and some fresh green onion. I then drizzled soy sauce onto the rice and circled the plate with drips of Rooster Sauce.

TIPZ:
-make a lot of rice since you can refrigerate it and make COCONUT FRIED RICE.

Indian Spiced Chickpeas and Light Butter Chicken

My cooking and baking has become kind of sporadic. Emiry, The Baron, and I decided to make ourselves an Indian feast; Emiry had a bag full of rhubarb so I decided to work outside of the "pie" box and make some Indian food out of it. Here is what happened.

I apologize but this recipe requires you to go shopping. For spices and shit. I know, I know, I said I wouldn't pull this shit but I did and it was delicious.

Indian Spiced Chickpeas
Olive oil
A handful of whole mustard seeds
A thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 cup canned chickpeas
3 1/2 cups vegetable broth
2 heaping handfuls of chopped rhubarb (...as scientific as I got)
6 cups spinach leaves

I omitted both cilantro and raisins from this recipe since those are disgusting. I'm not even going to tell you how to add them.

Put about a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan and throw in the mustard seeds. Cover that shit because they're going to start popping like popcorn. Wait a few minutes and once the popping slows down take it off heat and throw in the minced garlic (you minced that shit, right?) and the ginger which is easiest to just shave in with a potato peeler. It has the weird, gross little body that you can mostly shave right off. Put all the spices aside in a bowl to cool off.

Now, start browning the onion in some more oil. Wait until they smell amazing. We are very scientific here at Kitchen Haeyoon. Now, throw in 3 cups broth and the cup of chickpeas. Leave it for about ten minutes, go play some Spider Solitaire or something. Don't be all up in its grill, stirring and fucking with it.

Once the chickpeas have had time to get a little softer throw in another 1/2 cup broth and then rhubarb and spinach. Let it simmer on low heat. Mix in the spices from before and you're done.


Light Butter Chicken
I like to take recipes and make them retarded and easy. I made a double batch of this and added two potatoes instead of more chicken. It was pretty alright. They weren't super fresh so they tasted sort of dehydrated but such is life.

Make sure the yoghurt you buy is the runny, plain kind. Like Greek yoghurt. We bought one that came in a milk-like bottle. You will want this because you are using it instead of a thousand leagues of butter.

2 chicken breasts
1 thumb-size piece of fresh ginger
2 red onions
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp chili pepper flakes
1 tbsp garam masala
1/2 cup yoghurt
1 cup water
1 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
Oil

This shit is so easy. Mince up and saute' the onion. Throw the spices down on top of that (brown sugar, turmeric, chili pepper, pepper, salt, and garam masala.) Mix it all up until it looks delicious. Throw the chicken in and cook it until it's white on all sides. Add the yoghurt and stir. Add the water and let it simmer, covered, until it looks delicious. At least 10 minutes.

Make some rice while you're at it.


Ding, motherfucker!

Fuck Cake

I have a new food partner. My buddy, Gwyneth, is getting married in the fall and she wanted a custom cake. All the places she shopped ideas around to were very, very expensive so we thought we'd experiment with making fondant sculptures on our own.

It was a horrible failure. The FailBoat came in to the station and capsized, killing thousands of men. Here is the tragic story.

Fondant
2 lbs (or one bag) powdered sugar
1/4 cup cold water
1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 tsp. almond extract
GEL food coloring
1 can CRISCO

Take that cold water and mix in the gelatin. Cub Foods was sold out and Gwyneth and I were starting to get desperate. We almost bought Jello. Don't do this. Keep searching for fucking god's-honest gelatin or you will be ever so sorry. Pop the water/gelatin in the microwave for ten seconds. Pull it out and mix it up good.

Add the almond extract and the light corn syrup. Sift out the sugar into a bowl (or, if you are me, dump it into a dirty cake pan). Pour the wibbly-wobbly stuff into the center of the sugar and then coat your hands in Crisco. Mix it together like you would bread dough until you have...


A terrifying ball
This is right. This is good. You now have the beginnings of fondant. Now you're going to want to separate it all out into however many colors you'd like. Use the GEL colors as the drippy ones will make your fondant loose and water it down. Now, this is the part where Gwyneth and I failed.

While we were mixing the gel colors into the fondant we kept putting Crisco on our hands. This was our biggest mistake. The Crisco mixed in and made the fondant incredibly squishy and shiny. We were technically massaging fat into the ball of frosting for over an hour. This made it impossible to work with and everything we made was deformed and fell over.

We very careful about how much you work the fondant. Gwyneth and I, trying to save the project, ended up making tiny and retarded things and then rolling the rest of the colored fondant out and laying it over our Funfetti cake. This is what happened.


Do you see? Look with your eyes and gaze upon the horror
Because we overworked the fondant with Crisco everything became impossible. It was pretty tasty but nothing you would want on your wedding day unless you are John Waters or criminally insane. The fondant recipe was great, before we worked in color it came out beautiful and perfect, so we'll keep you updated on what things come to pass as the wedding inches closer.

Fried Rice!

Hey guys. I know it's been a long time. But I'm coming back and I've got a recipe for you. I know fried rice isn't actually very Asian but I am an Asian person and I love this shit. It's one of those recipes that you can intuitively make from what you think is usually in fried rice. Or maybe that's just the yellow in me talking.

Now, I hate to do this to you but this recipe is going to take about a day's worth of forethought. I hate it when recipes make me wait. I want to make fried rice right the fuck now. And you can. But it's way more delicious if you cook the white rice a day beforehand. If it's been sitting in the fridge and it's cold it'll fry up really nicely. Otherwise it's mush-city for your food.

Haeyoon's Totally Asian Fried Rice
I originally made a fuck ton of this stuff and you can, too! Feel free to double the rice amount. I'd suggest cooking it in smaller batches for when you actually want to eat it. The rice will keep as long as it's covered and you can throw it in a pan and fry it up fresh and it'll be tastier that way.

1 cup cold white rice
Cooking oil
1 large yellow onion
2 cloves garlic
1 green onion
2 eggs
1 boneless chicken cutlet
soy sauce
1 Tbsp. butter
Rooster sauce if you're AWESOME

Cut the onion up in to small bits and mince the garlic. Start cooking these up in a little cooking oil on high heat. Cut the chicken into fucking small pieces. If you make cubes it'll be lame fried rice with random chunks of chicken in it. You want that shit to taste like one homogenous dish. Cut them very tiny indeed.

Mince up the green onion and throw that and the chicken into the frying pan. Cook it until the chicken looks white on all sides. Then, throw in the eggs and cook them until they are nice, solid, scrambled eggs.

Throw the butter in and let it melt. I like to throw a dash of turmeric in to make my rice all pretty and yellow but, again, that might be the slanty-eye in me. Now, throw your rice in and drizzle a really generous amount of soy sauce over the top.

Mix it up and just sort of move all the ingredients around for about ten minutes. I also throw in rooster sauce...


YES YES YES YES YES
Once it looks good and brown (or yellow if you got your turmeric on) take it off heat and let it cool a bit. This is the sort of thing where cooking it longer can only make it more delicious. If you get it crispy on the bottom then you're amazing.


Fuck yes delicious rice. Like this but without the carrots. You can add carrots but that makes you suck.
Like I said, it's a good idea to make a big batch of rice (2 cups of dry rice will make about 4 cups of cooked rice). Throw it in the fridge and cover it. You can take chunks out at a time and cook up fresh fried rice whenever you feel like it.

Delicious add ins to this recipe are:

-Peas. Not the frozen kind, homeboy. The fresh or the canned will do.
-Mushrooms. I think Chinese mushrooms are fucking weird so I always roll with button.
-Carrots. These are for losers.
-Ginger. Shave a little fresh ginger on and you're a baller. I didn't include it in the above recipe because WHO JUST HAS FRESH GINGER FLOATING AROUND.
-Pork or shrimp.
-Broccoli florets. I like to trim them down and steam them first since crunchy and healthy things are bad for you.

NOTE: Make sure you fry everything up separately. This is easy with a large pan. Keep the egg separate from the veggies until it's cooked and, once all the veggies look good, throw the rice in. If you throw everything together uncooked it will be a blobbery mess.

ALSO NOTE: Experiment with different kinds of soy sauce. Kikkoman's was good but I actually prefer La Choy which is the cheapest brand around. It's got more salt in it but it gives the rice that proper brown coloring fried rice should be. Also, it tastes like me childhood down by the hobo camps.

This was so easy I almost cried. If you fuck this up then you can probably stop cooking forever.

Pizza Toast

Photos are pending on this one since I was too hungry to get the camera out. I will be making this one again.

I was presented with a dilemma this Valentine's Day. Boyfriend and I wanted to stay in and cook food at home. We had some fresh ingredients (mostly because I threw them unapologetically in to the cart) but our tastes are very different. He likes his pizza with red sauce and pepperoni. I like mine with garlic sauce, spinach, tons of veggies, and whatever weird shit you can put on there like apples and brie. Here is what I made

Oh My Goodness It's Pizza Toast
Bread
Pasta sauce
Cheese (any kind)
Anything you want on a pizza

Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Toast your bread lightly in either a toaster or a toaster oven.
Spread a thin layer of sauce on the bread. Not too much or it will get soggy.
Top your toast with cheese and toppings.
Bake on a cookie sheet for 12-15 minutes, or until cheese looks melted.

I made two different kinds for Boyfriend and I to share. I went with a red sauce one, topped with Havarti, salami, banana, and jalapeno peppers. Then I made a white sauce one topped with Pamesan, spinach, diced ham, musrhooms, and garlic. I couldn't decide which one was better since they were both delicious and completely different. I think the pepper one had a more memorable flavor, though.

Now, go make pizza toast. You have no excuse. There's no clean up if you put down aluminum foil before baking so hop to it.

Metro Magazine's Favorite Italian Ingredients

Dear Dutcher,
I'm going away this weekend for a stay in Duluth where I will eat many things and sit in a hot tub all day. I'll be reporting on the never-changing ridiculous Chicken Tetrazzini of Grandma's that I have once a year (not much to say other than 'why does this never get old? Over 10 years and counting'). But I promised you a write up on Metro's Italian ingredients and here it is, rewritten in Haeyoon Language.

Metro Magazine's Favorite Italian Ingredients to Drive You Meal

Porcini Finishing Salt
"Porcini salt imparts a deep, earthy, umami-like flavor, especially on grilled meats. While the tongue registers salt first, a pleasant undercurrent of mushroom eventually shows up. As a bonus, the seasoning smells ultra-heady, like the earth meeting the sea.

Now, I'm a 'know-it'all' in the way that I like to pretend I know what words mean all the time. But let's stand back and raise our hands if we immediately know what fucking umami means. Are you sure? Put your fucking hand down because it is a technical term for savoriness. It's a Japanese word that people who jerk off to the Cooking Channel use to describe a "fifth" taste. Here is a diagram that some people interpret as fact.


Pictured Above: General gibberish arranged in a visually pleasing manner
Backing it up a step or two, for those of you wondering or just curious, Porcini is a wild, edible mushroom that has been described as, "the wild mushroom par excellence". Decribed as nutty and meaty, with a creamy texture, younger varieties are preferred as the older ones harbor maggots. And now, my Maggoty Mushroom Horror Story.

My buddy, Emily, once wandered in and handed me a very large mushroom she had found outside. We giggled about it, maybe we were drinking at some point, but it was hilariously huge so we brought it in the kitchen and I decided to cut it in half. Why? I don't know. Like, I said, maybe we were drinking. So, I slice open the mushroom and out spill tons of tiny specks on to the counter. I look a little closer and discover that, inside that mushroom, there were fucking thousands of tiny maggots. I remember screaming and screaming and running in to the bathroom and throwing myself under a hot stream of water. Maybe I had been drinking, but I was so horrified that I only buy pre-sliced mushrooms to this day.

Porcini finishing salt, for those of you in the cities, is available at Coastal Seafoods locations. I know that I am definitely going to rub down some meat with this one of these days. Any porcini used in finishing salt is probably maggot-free.

Sottocenere al Tartufo
"A creamy, raw cow's-milk cheese from Veneto region blended with black truffles and dry spices, then aged in an ash rind, which preserves the cheese and its amazing flavor."

If that doesn't sound fucking awesome, then you are stupid.



Pictured above: I looked for some pictures but fancy cheese is fancy cheese. You know what it looks like. Instead, here is an adorable pillow.
Molino e Pastifico Pasta
"...a pasta maker based in Palmero. [This pasta] is oversized (16 inches) and delicious, flecked with a hard durum wheat, which aids in holding sauce and preserving al dente texture after cooking. Assertive and nutty, it's best tossed with brown butter, fresh herbs, salt, pepper, a splash of white wine and lemon juice."

Now, there's a recipe if I ever heard one. Quality pasta is great but it's hard to spring for the fancy shit in the bag with the rustic looking old man on it when there's a Roundy's box next to it for $4 less. So I'm going to make this easy on you. You're going to make your own pasta. Right now. With no fancy tools.

You need:
3 1/2 cups of flour
4 eggs
salt

Make a mound of flour and then make a well in the middle. Crack the eggs in and throw a pinch of salt. Admire your egg volcano and start kneading. Turn on the television or something. Do what I do and imagine that you're a paranormal hunter like Dean Winchester or something and zone out while you're secretly, in your mind, stabbing a Wendigo to death. And everyone is like, "shit man, that dude is so awesome" and you put on your sunglasses and climb in to your classic Impala and drive away while pumping some Styx. By the time you've slayed your 5th demon or so (15 to 20 minutes) you should have an evenly mixed ball of dough. Add a drop (one fucking drop, don't you dare add more) of water and knead it evenly.

Next, flour a surface and flour your Dough Ball. Roll it out gently. Keep flipping and turning it and rolling very gently. Think of a tiny kitten with Cat AIDS. You want to be gentle with that shit. Roll it out until it's so thin you're afraid it will tear. And it will if you're not gentle so be careful with that shit.

Now you can either make ravioli or you can cut pasta strands. If your sheet of dough is very well floured, roll it up in to a tube and cut it with a sharp knife. You can then roll the tiny tube out and you'll have your pasta strand.

Cook for 3-5 minutes in salted water and you have pasta.

Calabrian Hot Peppers
"These salty, just-hot-enough round red peppers are just the thing for chopping and adding to pastas, pan sauces, and braises. Containing all that acid, salt and heat you could possibly image, these are a chef's secret weapon. Poke a wedge of Gorgonzola inside one of these bad boys, and you have an addictive antipasti..."

Boyfriend has one food-related trick up his sleeve besides preheating the oven before I get home. He likes to take hot peppers, sliced thin, and layer them on Ritz crackers with a hard, nutty cheese. It's delicious. Deceptively delicious. These are the kind of peppers I would keep a bottle and just throw in to anything. I like to simmer fresh, minced peppers and garlic in with the jarred tomato sauce from the store to make it taste like effort was involved.

Ubriaco alla Birra Rossa
"This cow's-milk cheese is brined in red ale, lending it a malty, assertive tang that reveals itself slowly."

This is one of those "port" tasting cheeses that goes well with wine. I'm not really fond of them but it has pretty burgundy streaks running through it. Serve it on a plate with some Townhouse crackers and a fancy little silver cutter at your next shindig and even your most coked out guest will comment on your classy cheese choice.

Parmigiano-Reggiano
If you talk about food/eat food with me on a regular basis you know that I throw this in everything. Metro goes on about how Parmesan has been relegated to "garnish" and I feel that way about a lot of great ingredients. Like pepper. I had a cracked pepper seasoned popcorn the other day and it tasted creamy, with hints of smoke, like a Gouda. I couldn't believe it was just pepper. Pepper, salt, Parmesan, garlic, these need to be given the same "center stage" treatment we give shit like chicken, broccoli, and potatoes sometimes. They're staples for a reason. Versatile and unique.

Balsa Mela
A more affordable balsamic vinegar twin that "uses apples instead of grapes, but is made like traditional balsamic - by reducing the juice of the fruit, then fermenting it. It has a burnt-caramel apple flavor, with none of the acidity of vinegar...good over ice cream."

This is something I'll report more on when I get a bottle. I looked for a good image but, again, oil in a bottle looks like fucking oil in a bottle. Also, the first page will yield pictures of a teddy bear, a Welsh Corgi, a man with incredibly long dreadlocks, and a city made of cheese or something. That indicates to me that balsa mela is probably on the newer side of things.

Mieli Thun
A fancy, Northern Italian honey. I fucking love honey. Honey goes on everything. Toast, waffles, bread, ice cream, sandwiches, cookies, pizza rolls when you're high, everything. Mieli Thun has several varieties; Metro mentions an acacia variety that is almost white and has subtle vanilla hints. Melata d'abete, from fir honeydew, is darker and has a smokier, more typically honey flavor. There's a heather flavor that is very dark with "marked crystallization". Now, that doesn't tell me anything about the taste but hey, when you're working with four sentences you can only say so much. Me, I am working with unlimited space to say whatever I want so I could go ahead and tell you it tasted like sunshine dust. I plan on ordering a jar or two of the stuff so reports will be coming on that later.

And that, Dutcher, is your Italian Ingrediant Update. You're closer to Italy than I am so keep an eye out for some imported shit at your local Aldi or whatever. Hope you enjoyed.

The Rainbow Cake

It was my friend, Miss Emily's, birthday the other month so we made some special cupcakes. They are so easy you will shit.

Cupcakes of the Rainbow

Ingredients
-2 Boxes White Cake Mix
-2 cans Ginger Ale

Supplies
-Traditional 4-color or 6-color set of food coloring
-5 medium sized mixing bowls
-1 large mixing bowl
-cupcake trays and papers

Step 1: Preheat the oven according to the box's directions. If you don't do this right the fuck now you will forget and you will need to wait to bake your cupcakes or, worse yet, you'll throw the cupcakes in the oven while it's still heating up. This spells disaster. Just preheat it now and forget about it. You'll thank me later.

Empty out the contents of the dry cake mixture in to your large bowl. Mix it up with 2 cans of ginger ale. The ginger ale will work as the binding agent, meaning you don't have to scour your sad college student cupboards for oil and eggs. It will also make the cake low-fat, fluffy, and slightly ginger ale-y tasting. It tastes like a solid soda, a little, so you can decide whether or not that sounds good to you.

Once it's all mixed up and has no chunks in it (we didn't use an electric blender. Fuck that! We blended it WITH THE HANDS GOD GAVE US) we portioned it out in to the other bowls. We now had 6 bowls with an equal amount of cake batter in them. Now comes the colorful part.

Some math might be involved in this. The back of the box will give you heinously large proportions from which to figure out how many drops to use for colors. I just dropped 10 drops of color in for the solid colors, then 5 and 3 for the mixed ones. If you took art in elementary school you have a basic understanding of the color wheel and can figure out that 5 drops of blue and 3 drops of red is going to give you a violet shade. Just keep experimenting, a few drops at a time, until it looks like the shade you want.

Then, start layering! I suggest you layer red, orange, yellow, green, violet, blue as that's the way the rainbow fucking works. Just add a spoon dollop to your cupcake paper and gently spoon the next color over the top. Nothing fancy about it.

BAKE. Just slide the cupcakes in the oven that you remembered to preheat at the beginning of your cupcake journey. You did, right? Good.


Oh fuck yes
Now, pull them out of the oven. At this point, everyone in the living room you promised rainbow cupcakes to is freaking out. Don't let them touch your fucking cupcakes. They need to cool. Put them in the fridge for 10 minutes if you need to (don't melt shit) but make sure that they are sturdy and cool before frosting. If not, you will have a horrible time and they will rip and look stupid.

I frosted with a white frosting because then when you bite in you really get the full effect of "shit man, there's colorz here". Frost 'em, stack 'em and serve 'em. If you want, you can hire a wood worker to make a giant display for you and pretend that you're on Cupcake Wars. You're not. Don't even pretend you are. You just made cupcakes with a box of mix and a can of soda. They would be ashamed of you.


Enjoy!

Potatoes a la Boulangère

Location:: That Tattoo Shop I Work At

Last night I had this screaming urge to cook something other than chicken nuggets. I had some potatoes, an onion, and some assorted cheese in the fridge. This is what happened.



Potatoes a la Boulangère
A fancy way of saying 'Potato and Onion Bake'
3 potatoes, peeled
1 yellow onion
1/3 cup vegetable or chicken broth
1/3 cup milk
seasonings

I sliced the potatoes and onions really thin and layered them in a baking dish: potato, onion, potato, onion, potato, onion. I then heated the broth in a saucepan and whisked in milk. I say "milk" very loosely since the recipe called for it but the only milk-like product in my fridge that didn't have chunks floating in it was alfredo sauce. I whisked that in instead and it turned out perfectly fine.

Pour the hot milk/broth mixture over the potato/onion one. I took this opportunity to sprinkle some fresh oregano over the top. The original recipe said to salt and pepper liberally between layers but I found this made it way too salty and almost ruined it for me. Let the salt in the broth do the work.

Cover and bake at 350 F for 40 minutes. Bake uncovered for another 15 minutes and then uncovered with a sprinkle of cheese over the top for another 15 minutes.

Hooray, you now have something fancy and French when before you thought you only had potatoes and fail.

Vegan alternative: Use an organic vegetable broth, those things never go bad. Like, ever. Just keep refrigerated. Instead of milk you just use a water and vegan butter spread alternative. You just want the potatoes to get a little creamy and you don't want them watery so mix up something with soy milk, butter alternatives, or cream alternatives that have a little more thickness than water.

Onion Dip and Gorgonzola Pasta Bake

So, I made the most delicious thing I have ever made in the history of life yesterday. Get ready for the dual combination of:

PAN FRIED SWEET ONION DIP WITH CROSTINI
and
BAKED GORGONZOLA AND SPINACH CREAM SHELLS

The shells were a lot of work; you had to be on top of the sauce, multi-tasking with the spinach, and timing everything right. But it was so worth it. I am currently depressed because I am staring at the very last shell in my bowl wishing that it would never end.

But first,

Pan Fried Sweet Onion Dip with Crostini
You will need:
2 large yellow onions
2 Tbsp butter
1/8 C vegetable oil
4 oz cream cheese (1/2 block)
1 C sour cream

This one is super easy. I french cut the onions and pan fried them on medium with the butter and oil. I also sprinkled a little sugar on them while they were cooking for funsies but it's not necessary.

While those are on the stove mash the sour cream and the cream cheese together in a bowl. Set it aside.

Once the onions are getting that wonderful smelling brown caramelized thing going (soft and buttery looking) dump them in with the cream mixture. Stir it all up and then set it covered in the fridge for an hour. You definitely want to let it sit for awhile or the sour cream will be all you taste. Let the onions do their magic.
Serve with toasted french bread! (also fucking awesome with Ritz)

The great thing about this dip is how portable it is. It's very stiff and not sticky so I just spread a glob of it on tinfoil, folded it up and carried it to work in my purse with some crackers. Hooray for work food! I added a little red pepper and salt to mine while mixing.


AND NOW

BAKED GORGONZOLA AND SPINACH CREAM SHELLS
The groceries for this recipe cost around $20 but with the amount this bitch is going to yield, you'll be eating for a week. This recipe makes roughly 8 servings worth.
You will need:
1 package large shell pasta
3 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp flour
4 C milk
10 oz Gorgonzola (get a block)
1 pkg frozen spinach
3 cloves garlic
3/4 C ricotta cheese
1 C grated parmesan cheese

Alright. So you want to have everything ready and lined up on your counter in roughly that order with a colander waiting in the sink since the sauce making portion of this is going to be fast and furious. Start out by preheating the oven to 375 F.

Have two saucepans on the stove. In the first pour the 4 cups of milk in one and bring it to a simmer. You don't want your milk to boil or get all funky, just let it get warm. In the second saucepan melt the 3Tbsp butter and then mix it the 3 Tbsp flour. Once that's all good and thick (DO NOT BROWN TEH BUTTER, let it simmer and stay happy and yellow) pour the milk in slowly. I poured it in a bit and at a time and mixed with a wooden spoon the whole time. Congratulations. You've made a béchamel.

Once you have everything mixed to a good consistency (it will look like a little looser than a heavy cream) start crumbling the Gorgonzola in. Crumble in a little at a time and keep stirring constantly. This will yield you a very even, loose cheese sauce. Once it's all melted together take it off the stove and let it sit to cool.

Boil water and cook the pasta. If you're doing the large shells (which you should because all that goodness gets inside of the shells and EXPLODES) lay them out on a paper towel to dry so they don't overcook and get soggy.

Now, you want to toss the pasta with the cooled cheese sauce, 3 cloves minced garlic, 3/4 C ricotta, and the spinach. I microwaved the spinach and wrung it out with my hands. You can also use 2 bunches fresh spinach but then you need to blanch it beforehand which is crazy. I want to eat now.

Mix that shit up good and spread it evenly in to a baking pan. Top with the 1 cup Parmesan cheese and baked for 20 minutes or until the cheese on top is a beautiful bubbly brown.

Let it sit for 10 minutes (I KNOW YOU WANT IT NOW) and eat that shit. When you first crack the top layer and behold the cheese inside you will be shocked. I know I was. It is the most beautiful, delicious thing you will ever see.


Nomnomnomnomnom