Blog Archives
Adventures in Cheese Making: Ricotta and Ricotta Salata
If you’ve visited this blog before, you could probably tell that we enjoy cheese. We specially ordered Limburger from the internet just to try it (and later discovered we could actually buy it locally), we support a local dairy farm by occasionally buying cheese from them, and our first real date night after I finished classes last semester involved us going to a fancy cheese shop. We may be a tiny bit obsessed with cheese. But who isn’t? It’s wonderful. As part of our enjoyment of cheese I bought Erik a cheese making kit for Christmas. A few weeks ago we finally got to try it out.
If Mad Millie wants to send us free cheese stuff for giving her a plug on our blog, I won’t object…
Food 101: How to Make a Burrito
I have a confession to make. I once was a Taco Bell addict. I spent a large bulk of my college years running in and out of the venerable fast food institution dropping down $5 bucks and walking away with enough food to feed a family. I was that guy who not only craved crunchwraps at 2:00am, but also who went out and drove there to get one. Even though I didn’t eat any other fast food, I tried to justify it through some sort of backhanded logic about not having access to Latino cuisine. It was not my proudest status. And even though I kicked the habit a couple years ago when I dropped red meat and processed meats, I still long for delicious burritos and tacos and fajitas and whatever Tex-Mex food portmanteau you can think of. So that’s why I offer this very special Food 101, to all the other poor SOBs out there who struggle with cravings for cheap tacos that are objectively terrible for you.
We’ll work through it together.
Easy Recipe: Homemade Battered French Fries
There’s a lot of reasons to like french fries. They’re cheap, they’re easy to make, they’re simple, and more importantly they’re delicious. A good french fry is a philosophical quandary of the culinary arts in that it can operate as both a side to any meal on the planet, but can also be it’s own meal. Sure, when some people bring up french fries, they think of the inconsistent pieces of yellow cardboard served by the likes of McDonalds and Burger King which can range from limp and greasy to starchy and dried out. Yet there is a whole world of fries out there to be had, and all one must do is dine at a few restaurants to notice. Certain types go for the golden and juicy variety, some are crusty with a bit of a zing, and some are just down-homey and simple. Everyone’s got their own way of making them, and most are delicious. Plain and simple, french fries are bangin’, as they say.
See how bangin’ they are?
Christmas Cookie Roundup: Make Your Own Yoshi’s Cookies!
T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house, we’re all baking cookies, something something mouse. That was ham-fisted, yes, but I’m pressed for time to attend the annual Italian ritual of attempting to cook enough fish on one given night to cause mass extinction of several species. I hate fish, you see, as does Meg. So naturally we’re making a pizza tonight. Now if I may be ham-fistedly make a random segue…
Anyone remember that video game Yoshi’s Cookie? It was a puzzle game for older game consoles like Super Nintendo and the original Game Boy. It featured you playing as the Super Mario character, Yoshi (a green dinosaur that loves to eat), controlling a field of cookies in which you must line up different versions of the cookies in order for them to be cleared away.
Mashed Potatoes Made Simple and Easy. Or Fancy! (But still easy!)
Everyone knows I’m a pretty big opponent of pre-made foods. One of the more common ones is the longtime favorite mashed potatoes. Fluffy, savory delight made of cream and tender potatoes… yet most people make it out of a brownish dust that came out of a box, reassured mostly by the fact it features a picture of the state of Idaho on it. Our better judgment try and tell us no, for mashed potatoes are whipped, creamy goodness, and how could they come from a powder? But our laziness and gullibility force us to buy into the potato dust hype, since as we all know Idaho loves potatoes. They love potatoes.
“It makes greeeat lube.”
Instant mashed potatoes aren’t the worst thing in the world, and I will submit that they get the job done if you’re cooking en masse and don’t have the time to prepare the real deal. But unless you find yourself preparing a potato feast for 50+ people, you really don’t have much of an excuse, since homemade takes about 30 minutes, most of which time is just the potatoes boiling, and you not actually doing anything.
The Poor Couple's Food Guide 
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