I know, I know

Okay, so I'm going to have to end up changing the name of this blog. I am neither new at this, nor am I much of a cook lately. I'm in grad school, okay? Sue me.

Actually, I did sort of cook last night in honor of the big Lost premiere (dude, that island is screwed and awesome!). In truth, the only thing I cooked was the vermicelli, then I cut up some chicken tenders I bought at Target and poured on a vodka sauce, purchased at same, and had me some Fried Vodka Vermicelli! It is the ultimate College Cheat Meal. I've still got some leftovers, but I didn't eat them tonight.

Because I had Oreos for dinner. College rocks.

Don't Act Surprised, Y'all

I'd just like you all to know that I broke my microwave cooking a Lean Cuisine panini.

That is all.

Um...I have to eat

Finals Week

Here are my recipes for this week:

Breakfast: Pour a bowl full of cereal, add milk, eat it with a spoon

Lunch: Take two pieces of bread, add peanut butter, bite

Dinner: Unwrap a Red Barron french bread pizza, microwave it, shove into mouth

Of course, every once in a while I eat gummy snacks, crackers, and ice cream. Sorry, my babies, that's all you're getting from me.

Huevos Rancheros

Huevos Rancheros

Still on the camera phone. Sorry. I'm going to find my camera soon, I swear. Although, even if I do, the pictures still don't look like pictures in the other food blogs. What kind of cameras are they using?

Anyway, I took a second shot at my huevos rancheros this morning, and they were even better! I actually fried the eggs this time instead of scrambling them. Well, I say "I," but I mean my mom. She asked if I needed her "help," and she just took over. I did make the salsa all on my own, though, and if I do say so myself, it kicked ass. Mama fried the eggs, and I plated. It's a pretty little breakfast. I ate mine without the beans and the sour cream, though. I'm a picky eater.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• Two cans of peeled fire roasted tomatoes. (You can use diced, but the sauce will be a little runny.)
• Half of a yellow onion.
• One clove of garlic
• One jalapeno pepper
• One six-inch flour tortilla per person
• Two eggs per person
• Black beans
• Sour cream
• Green onions
• Shredded Colby Jack cheese
• salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, chives, red pepper flakes*
• Extra virgin olive oil

Put the tomatoes, onion, garlic and pepper into a blender, and puree. Put the salsa in a skillet with a tablespoon of oil, add the spices, and thicken over low heat. Thinly coat the bottom of another skillet with olive oil and fry the tortillas for one minute on each side. The air pockets should puff up. Fry the eggs in the same skillet, adding more oil as necessary, to the desired runniness. If using the beans, heat them in a skillet with one tablespoon of olive oil. Plating order: tortilla, egg, salsa, beans, cheese, green onions, sour cream. Serve while hot and deeeeeelicious!

*I play pretty fast and loose with spices, so you can put in whatever you want and as much of them that you want.

I tend to play pretty fast and loose with

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day

Hey, y'all! It's been a while, but I've been busy with school, plus I still cannot find my digital camera. I took today's pictures with my mother's Blackberry, so they're not very good quality. You get the idea, though. I'm still very much a beginner in the kitchen, so I wasn't allowed to cook anything on my own. I was merely a humble assistant to my mother, SUPER COOK! She not only makes delicious food, but she also makes it beautiful. You'd think I would have inherited it.

We started off the day with Mama's breakfast quiche. It's basically eggs, ham, milk, cheese, and green onions in a pre-made pie crust. It kicks ass. She used some sort of packaged four-cheese in it this time, and it was extra good. I was going to make my huevos rancheros this morning, but I didn't wake up until nine, so I guess I'll have to do it tomorrow after the early bird (bleeding) shopping.

My cousin Nicole, who is staying with us, made these little appetizers for us. I don't usually like cucumber, but with the sun-dried tomato paste, feta cheese, and parsley on top, they were a wonderful, light starter to our huge meal. Sort of like the leg stretches you do before a marathon. She didn't have a name for them, so Mama and I decided to call them Italian flags because they were red, green and white, plus all the ingredients are Italian (I'm not sure that cucumbers and parsley are particularly Italian, but I guess they have them there, soooooo shut it.)


As this is a holiday full of cooking and family and reminiscing, THERE WILL BE BOOZE! I stuck to mimosas, but Mama asked for a cranberry mimosa, or a Poinsettia. I mixed it up for her, and it's just cranberry juice and champagne. It's pretty good for a little holiday cocktail.


Here's Daddy, proud as a new parent over his spanking new electric fryer. Before this he's always done the turkeys in this gigantic pot full of peanut oil, and the whole thing was time-consuming and potentially disastrous. With this thing, we just put it in and let it roll.


Next up is MAMA'S EPIC DRESSING! I swear, y'all, everyone who has ever been to our house has agreed that this is the best dressing they've ever eaten. It's chicken, cornbread, cream of celery, green onions, and some other stuff I'm not sure about, but I wait all year for this stuff! If everything else burned, this dressing would still make a perfect holiday.



Here is the first finished bird. The night before, Daddy always injects the turkeys with a sun-dried tomato dressing. Mama loves it, especially since it means she doesn't have to go through the rigmarole of roasting a turkey, or, rather, two since we have so many people over. I can't imagine having Thanksgiving any other way.



The pies! The one up front is Mama's chocolate chess pie, and the only pie that come close is the chess pie at Ajax in Oxford, Mississippi (Dear Ajax Chefs, Please send me the recipe to your chess pie. Also, your macaroni and cheese because I no longer live in Oxford, and no matter how hard I try to replicate yours, it turns out gross. Your Servant (possibly literally), Lauren.). The second cake is Grandpa Richard's Pecan Pie. We've had all our relatives reporting that they're making this for the holidays, too. We'll still be passing this one along for many years to come.

And back by popular demand, the 63 Egg Cake. Mama and I made it a lot faster this time, mostly because we weren't wasting our time looking at the recipe going "Seriously? Seriously?!" Yes, it's still perfect. Mama added a little sprig of fake flowers on top. It could almost be a wedding cake.

Of course, there were tons of other things. We had Paula Deen's corn casserole, a sweet potato casserole, corn dip, shrimp dip, deviled eggs, etc. All delish. Once it got dark we even roasted marshmallows in the outdoor fireplace and made s'mores. It's been a good Thanksgiving. I'm really full, kinda tired, and just a little bit drunk.

Lasagna

I was waiting to post this until I could the picture loaded onto my computer, but that may never happen. I can't find my digital camera, so I had to use my camera phone for the lasagna, but I can't e-mail on my phone, so I sent it to my mom's Crackberry, but her phone isn't working, so y'all are just going to have to use your imaginations.

I got the recipe out of Food Network Magazine, and I'm sure it would have been great if I hadn't totally screwed it up. First of all, I didn't buy enough cans of tomatoes. Second, I was in the middle of cooking when I read that I needed a food processor. So, I ended up with too little of a sauce that wouldn't spread properly. I tried to add some milk and flour to it to thicken the liquid a little, and it worked okay, but it ended up really bland.

Things I learned:
1) Read the whole recipe before you even do your shopping.
2) You should cook the lasagna sheets before you bake the whole thing.

I bought a Paula Deen cookbook (she's my patron saint of the kitchen), and a lot of her recipes call for food processors, too. I called Mama and asked her what I could use instead (because food processors are expensive), and she said to just get a blender. I went down to Super Target (It's so awesome!), and found a little red Oster blender that has twelve speeds, including puree, and I think I'll make some huevos rancheros for my company next weekend.

Today I'm going to make cashew chicken, but I don't like cashews, so I'm making ... chicken.

Cinnamon Rolls Without the Pillsbury Doughboy

I made cinnamon rolls! I saw a recipe in Food Network magazine and thought, "Hey, how hard can that be?" Very. That is the answer. I had to use yeast to make it, so it was more like baking bread than I thought it would be. The recipe had these weirdly specific instructions that I wasn't used to, like "Heat the milk to 100 degrees. Pour the yeast and sugar into the milk, don't stir. Let it sit until foamy." Did it get foamy? No, it did not. I don't see why it would. Does yeast make milk foamy? Whatever, I used it anyway.

Working with the dough was different. The texture was sticky, which I guess is what bread dough is like. When I flattened it out, the edges were rounded, so when it was time to roll it up, the ends didn't have the right layers. I decided to just use the middle of it since there was no way I was going to eat it all anyway. I couldn't seem to roll them very tightly, so I knew they were going to look weird. I hoped for the best though. When I got them out, they were all wonky in the pan, but they smelled great. I threw the glaze together (just powdered sugar, butter, and whipping cream), slapped it over a couple of them, and they tasted awesome! I might put a little less butter in the filling next time, but other than that I was very happy with them. To ward off the structure problems, I might flatten the dough a little more and cut an even rectangle out. And I'll definitely make sure that there are more people to eat them.

Next time: Lasagna! I've already got the ingredients. On a related note, groceries are really expensive.