Author Archives: Erik
We Can Do It Better: How To Make A Homemade Gordita
Fans of the blog know that we now have a long-running series of posts that explain how to make different Taco Bell menu items at home, for cheaper, and healthier, all of which taste the same or better. We’ve covered the quesarito, burritos, chicken flatbreads, and even the quesalupa which hasn’t been released outside of Ohio yet! Well, let’s continue that tradition with another favorite, the gordita.
Cheat Codes: Save Your Used Fry Oil
I think I’ve mentioned before on here that fried foods get a bad rep. Sure, if you roll on down to Burger King and wolf down two boxes of fries, then yeah that’s a bad idea. But homemade food that’s fried in healthy oils and served fresh can be pretty innocuous when it comes to their nutritional content. When cooked properly, homemade chicken fingers or french fries can contain very little oil left on them, and the little bit that’s there will mostly contain healthy, unsaturated fats with virtually no cholesterol.
But obviously the downside here is that buying healthy oils like canola can be a bit more on the expensive side. Fortunately, there’s a really easy way to cut down on its costs: saving your used oil after you finish frying.
Pizza Lab #27: Irish Flag Pizza
Let’s talk St. Patrick’s Day. We wanted to do some sort of Irish-themed pizza for Pizza Lab this month. And yes, I guess I have to ask ‘what foods do you think of when it’s St. Patrick’s Day?’ Yeah, yeah, everyone’s gonna say corned beef and cabbage to which I reply, if I can conjure my best 90s teen-girl, a whole-hearted “What-everrrrr.” Aside from not actually being a traditional Irish dish, corned beef just plain sucks. Sure I’m a little biased on account of my not eating red meats, but how good can a meal be if 99% of the people in the country it’s most popular in only eat it for about two weeks out of the year? Yeah, screw that. Not to mention native Ireland essentially makes fun of Americans for their obsessive and erroneous association with it to Irish cuisine.
Instead Meg and I decided to put together something a bit more whimsical, trying our best to create a pizza inspired by the colors of the Irish flag. This presented an interesting concept since generally foods don’t get grouped together by color, as colors don’t generally represent flavor. It also was a unique challenge since it required some careful brainstorming on what foods work well together, while keeping in the color theme.
Spices 101: What is chipotle?
Chipotle peppers have really taken off in the past decade. I never really saw them in many dishes outside of Mexican cuisine when I was younger, but holy crap are they popular now. I’m not sure who was responsible for it but boy are they happy. Perhaps part of it is tributed to the rise of the burrito franchise Chipotle’s, but I dunno… no offense to them, but they kinda suck. Or rather the food is good there, but the prices are unnecessarily high. But forget them, we’re here to talk about real-ass chipotle peppers and what to do with them.
Chipotle pepper
Origin: Mexico
Appearance: Dark-red flakes / wrinkly, dark-red peppers
Scent: Smokey
Taste: Smokey, Spicy
Foods: Mexican and many other Latino cuisines
Rareness: Common
We Can Do It Better: How To Make a Quesalupa
So Taco Bell has a history of cutting and pasting menu items together to make new ones, like the quesarito. We already taught you how to make one, and now we’re all eating burritos and quesadillas and everything at home. Hooray, no need for anyone to go to Taco Bell ever again!
But then, they had to go ahead and invent this:
Damn you, vile temptress!
Naturally, the side of me that still wishes I ate Taco Bell felt a bullet go through its heart. I’ve seen some yummy looking menu items go up there since I stopped eating fast food years ago, but nothing really spectacular. But I didn’t let it get me down. No. Instead I decided we here at PCFG were gonna beat them at their own game. Quesadilla-chalupa hybrid? Alright. I like a challenge. Only available as a test item in Ohio for now? Bam. That was your big mistake, because it gave me the time to experiment, and now we’ve already solved the mystery of how to make one. Checkmate, bitches.
The Poor Couple's Food Guide 
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