Never go against a Sicilian, and don't try this at home

Yesterday was not a good day in the kitchen.

It started off well. I made this ginormous sourdough bread, which some of you may have seen, and took pictures and bragged on facebook. Then the cat licked it. Then I spritzed it with water and put it back in the oven (to burn off the cat-lick) and then I burned it.

This is the 'before' picture.

Then I put a last piece of challah in the oven to make toast before it went stale, and I burned that, too.

Then, finally, I made one of the classic blunders. I decided to trust some random British blogger.

No offense to my British friends and readers, but that was a bad idea.

Have you guys seen this meme going around? The one where celebrities list all the things they eat in a day, and that is why they are super-thin, or super-rich, or just have super-powers? (I should really do that meme, it sounds like fun.) So, I saw this random blog linked somewhere, and she or he started off their post about how stupid and time-consuming and ridiculous all those super-foods that celebrities eat are (like such as the quails eggs that have been harvested under a full moon by a virgin), and how unattainable they are by normal people. I thought, great! This blogger is my peeps!

Then they went on to list all the super-foods *they* eat every day...just no virgins had been harmed.

Yay. Not. 

But one recipe caught my eye - a beetroot-(aka beet)-chickpea dip. In other words, hummus. And that's how they got me. In my mind - beets - yum! Chickpea dip - yum! A little bit of cumin - yum! Three seconds to put it together - sounds great! Let's try it.

No fingers were harmed in the making of this recipe.

The recipe basically read: "take a tin of chickpeas and a tin of beetroot and blend with a bit of cumin. Done."

And here, dear readers, is where I should have chashadti.

I disregarded the fact that beets and chickpeas don't come in tins in my home, for pete's sake, and that it's the easiest and cheapest thing in the world to put beets and chickpeas in a pot and boil them.

I forgot that boiling things to death is the classic British way.

And, most damningly, I forgot that I live in the Mediterranean, where beet salad is gorgeously flavored with vinegar or, in my home, in classic Russian manner - fried and refried into patties with sour cream. I forgot that hummus is made with fresh garlic and fresh lemon juice and oodles of herbs and spices, and that we are on the spice route, after all.

And I forgot that Brits AIN'T GOT NOTHING ON THE MEDITERRANEAN, FOOD-WISE (which is probably why they colonized it), and I shouldn't trust this recipe with a ten-food pole.

Hey look it's red hummus.

My bad.

I boiled, and blended, and wouldn't you know it, it tasted bland and kinda blech. It had that initial sweetness of the beets...followed by a dryness of chickpeas. Not good.

So I applied the Mediterranean way to it, and added more cumin. And more salt. Some chili. Some vinegar. Some sumac. Finally some coriander seeds, roasted in olive oil and a kinda failed attempt to blend them in a spice blender.

They were still bleh.

Now I have them in the oven. I have added matza meal, and am pretending they are felafel balls - just a little more red than usual. We shall see.

Never go up against a Sicilian if death is on the line, and don't trust random British bloggers unless they are Jamie Oliver. Or putting clotted cream in something.

Hmm, I wonder if I should add clotted cream...

It's a Cake in a Jar....Well, Sort of

This post is brought to you by a reader request. Yes, that's right. I don't know how many of you have been following since day one, but I initially declared that this blog would be calling out the Liars of the Internet and Pinterest. (Let's face it, since the internet has become a space for bragging to try to make yourself feel good about yourself, there have been many lies posted on the Internet, haven't there been? Since actually most of us feel like shit about ourselves and need external consumerism and instant gratification to make us pretend to be happy or at least drug ourselves enough to forget we're actually deeply unhappy, right?)

Whoa. That got way deep way fast. Back to food blogging. 

Those of you who do recall that (or if not I'm telling you) part of the mission statement of this blog is to call out the internet liars, and in the process of that I invite people to send me things to test.. 

I'll bet you didn't know I did that, right? Maybe because this is the first time. I know a few of you have actually sent me things to test and I haven't gotten around to it yet because I was busy bragging about how awesome I am being a stereotypical foodie DIY blog. Sorry about that. As an apology, have this video that a friend and reader sent me about another guy out there discovering one of the more prevalent lies of Pinterest, supposedly about how to make drinking glasses out of wine or beer bottles (spoiler alert: it doesn't work.)

 

So getting back to that mission statement, today's blogpost is brought to you by the letters A and B (thanks, AB!) and the attempt to bake a dessert in a jar. Without further ado, I bring you:

GRRRR clickbaiting title!

I haven't even tried this yet, and already I'm pissed off about the title. There are TWO LIES in the title, and that pisses me off and does not give me high hopes for the recipe. 

Lie 1: "She Fills Old Jars With Fruit And Oil."

The actual instructions of the recipe read as follows: "Whisk it together with a fork and pour it on the fruit, and then top with butter." BUTTER, dumb clickbaiter, BUTTER. Not oil. I really can't trust you, can I?

Lie 2: "I’m Never Baking Again!"

Instructions: "Bake it at 350 for one hour." ZOMG. I swear to god the next clickbaiter to use the 'I'm never baking again' line and then proceed to BAKE SOMETHING is gonna get hurt reeeeeeal bad.

And now to actually try this recipe.

I can already 100% guarantee, that I'll be baking again. 

(Oh, and lie 3: "minutes later." By minutes they mean over an hour later. LIARS!!!!)

During the course of testing this clickbait, my ever tolerant spouse walked into the kitchen and saw me putting jars in the oven.

"What's that?" he asked.

"This recipe says to bake in jars," I answered.

"Uh-oh," said he. "That sounds dangerous."

He's right and it does, but I believe the logic to be sound. This part of the recipe seems to get it right. I'm no expert on canning, but I'm pretty sure she's right when she says that canned glass jars are subject to high temperatures, so it stands to reason that they could be used to bake in. I don't know *how* much heat, and throughout the course of this recipe I handled the whole thing as if I was French kissing a vampire - very carefully.

I am pleased to report that the jars did not explode. Tfu tfu tfu, this method seems to work nicely.  (You may want to carefully remove all stickers from the glass. I make no claims whether burning stickers works or not. I didn't test it.)

Veracity of technique: 10/10

As far as the recipe goes, it could stand to be tweaked, both in outcome and in instructions. The actual recipe is as follows: 

Ingredients:

- fruit

-1/2 cup flour

-1/2 cup sugar

-1/2 tsp salt

-butter

1. Put fruit in four jars.

2. Mix flour, sugar, and salt together, top fruit with mixture.

3. Top with butter. 

4. Bake at 350 for one hour. 

If I were to give this recipe to aforementioned patient hubby, he would probably implode. "How much fruit?" I don't know. "How much butter?" Some. "What size jars?" Medium? Who the hell knows. Plus, there is no mention of preheating the oven. Now, I'm no professional chef or nothing, but not a single solitary recipe I've ever heard of tells you to go ahead and bake without preheating the oven for a loooooong time. This does not. So I'm unimpressed.

Reliable instructions: 2/10
 

Finally, taste. Yes, this holds up. It's not an original recipe, but it tastes very good (If you want more exact amounts and instructions, the BBC looks like it has this precise recipe, with actual amounts.) I was a little concerned about not mixing the flour with the butter, and the fact that the flour sunk to the bottom of the jar, but it turns out that worked out just fine. 

So, basically, this is a crumble recipe...baked in a jar. A little (a lot) too sweet for my tastes, but probably fine for your typical American dessert.

Taste: 7/10

Bottom line: If you want to bake in a cute gimmicky way, yes, this works. Take to a picnic, watch people oooh and ahhh. They probably will. People are easily impressed. 

The only thing I haven't tested is how difficult it is to wash those jars afterward.

...I think I'll let the hubby test that.

Ceci N'est Pas Une Click-Bait

We interrupt our regularly scheduled recipes to bring you a pinterest-omg-are-you-f***ing-kidding- me liar. (Really, I should say fb liar, as I saw this link on Facebook.) Either way. Liar. J'accuse!

My point is, if you came to this blog article looking for a recipe, you might want to look away, because this post is going to be ripping apart this horrid thing:

http://buzz.hotmomsclub.com/she-pours-egg-into-the-waffle-iron-seconds-later-im-never-cooking-again/

(um, "hot moms?" really? Are you a click-baiting site or a porn site?)

First of all, let's deal with the click-baiting title, shall we?

"She Pours Egg Into The Waffle Iron. Seconds Later?* I’m Never Cooking Again"

(*seconds later she had uncooked egg...)

YOU'RE NEVER COOKING AGAIN, ARE YOU??? Well, I hate to break this to you, click-baiting liar, but COOKING IN A WAFFLE IRON IS STILL ^%&(* COOKING. 

[pant pant pant]

Ok. Let's get to the content.

There are seven "recipes" here, if you can call them that. No, actually, I can't. Because they AREN'T RECIPES. They are INSTRUCTIONS on how to put things into the waffle rather than the oven. And I'm a-ok with putting things into the waffle iron rather than the oven, actually. It might use less electricity, it makes a cute shape, fine.

I'm also semi-ok with brownies being put into the waffle iron, because that might actually taste good, if we accept the premise that these brownies are going to be crunchy rather than gooey, which is what proper brownies should be.)

Now, let's tear apart a few of these other "recipes," shall we? Grrr.

Cinnamon buns
 

Ok. Cinnamon buns. I like cinnamon buns. But. This. Is. Not. A. Recipe. Cinnamon buns DO NOT GROW IN A CAN. I have a recipe for cinnamon buns. It's a great recipe. It comes from Allrecipes. You make the buns from scratch.  It's a yeast dough. THAT'S a recipe. A really wonderful recipe. If you want to make that, then stick it in the waffle iron, go right ahead.

This? NOT a recipe.


Hash Browns
OH. MY GOD. Did she HONESTLY just say that you could just "pick up a bag of tater tots and throw them on your waffle iron?

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

I'm going to say this once, and no more:

If it looks like it originated in a plastic bag, it is not food.

If it could survive a nuclear holocaust, it is not food. (Unless it's canned, but we can talk about that later.)

If it would survive longer on a shelf than you would, it is not food.

and finally,

IF THERE ARE INGREDIENTS IN IT THAT YOU CANNOT PRONOUNCE AND DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE, IT IS NOT FOOD.

AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH.

Omelette
"Haven't mastered the art of the omelette?" questions the nice hot mom in the video.

Seriously?

Seriously?

First of all, this does not look like a mastered omelette. It looks dried out and disgusting.

Ceci n'est pas une omelet!!!

Secondly, if you want to master the omelette, don't ask a hot mom. Ask Julia Child (neither a mom nor hot). She'll steer you right.

Now THAT'S how you make an omelette. 

That's all the rant I have energy for today, kids. If you don't know how to make an omelette, please, I beg you, do not put it in the waffle maker. (Though, come to think of it, if you haven't mastered the art of the omelette, you probably do not own such ridiculous uni-taskers as a waffle iron.)

If you do have a waffle iron, go ahead and make...waffles. Or grilled cheese sandwiches. Or cornbread. Or banana-nut bread. Or anything else that you want flat with little square shapes.

Just, please. Don't call it a recipe.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Food Photography (in which I use the word 'damn' a lot)

I've been giving a lot of thought recently to photography and food photography. Specifically, how it plays into our whole 'lies damned lies and Pinterest' theme.

Consider, for example, yesterday's dinner.

Yesterday's dinner was millet patties. Or, if you wanna get all fancy and pinteresty about it, "Savory Millet Cakes."Oooo lala. Doesn't that sound waaaaaay better than patties?

So back to photography. I took a couple of pictures of said cakes (because now I'm a food blogger and am virtually incapable of simply cooking and enjoying my food without taking a goddam picture of it). Consider, if you will, this:

It's got a certain 1970s quality, don't you think?

vs this:

I call this 'patties, deconstructed'

Here's the thing. IT'S THE SAME DAMN DISH. Exactly the same. Same taste. Same recipe. It's even the same view from the top of the plate (which I've recently learned is the thing to do in food pinteresty photos.

The difference? One got stylized, one did not. One got instagramed, one did not. One is square, the other is a rectangle. Same same.

And I'm fooled as much as the next guy. I think the first picture looks way more appealing than the second. If it were a cookbook, I would make the first dish over the second, anytime.

Dear readers, I'm torn. On the one hand, I want to EXPOSE ALL THE LIES on the pinterest, and show you that it's the FOOD and the TASTE that matters, and you should ignore the fancy photography and see it for the lies it really is!

On the other, I am tempted to go out right now and buy a fancy shmancy camera so my blog can get big and famous and I will write a book and then sell the movie rights and I will be played by Meryl Streep because I'll be old by then and I sure hope that she'll still be alive.

It's a quandary.One that might end up costing me a good thousand sheckels, at least. But the true cost is my SOUL. (Unless anyone wants to donate a fancy camera that they're not using?)

For now, I give you

Savory Millet Patties Stuff

(loosely based off of Eatingwell's Savory Millet cakes)

I like making millet sometimes so that I can get away from the trifecta of wheat, rice, and potato. That being said, it *is* hard to find millet outside of health food stores. So don't say I lied to you and claimed this was easy to find. Rice or potato would probably be an ok substitute.)

• a few lugs of oil, maybe butter too
• about 1/2 an onion
• 1 cup millet
• 2 cups water
• 1 egg (optional)
• some flour, wheat semolina, matza meal, or bread crumbs (optional, but good if you've added the egg)
• green things
• a bunch of cheese
• 1 grated zucchini
• about a tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• salt

1. Boil the millet like you would rice - put some oil in a pot, heat, and fry the millet a tiny bit. In the meanwhile put the kettle up to boil. Stir the millet around in the oil for a minute or two, making sure not to burn. Then add 1 tsp salt and the boiling water - CAREFULLY. (Last night it splashed and got a bit of boiling water-millet all over the store that I have yet to clean up.) Turn to low, and cook until the water has completely evaporated but the millet is still mushy. Set aside.
2. While the millet is cooling enough to handle, take a look at what you have in your fridge and/or freezer. (I like to keep cheese in my freezer, because it keeps forever and is just fine for cooking with.) Got some kind of cheese? Great, use it. Got some parsley that's almost dead? Great, use that too. Got some strange kind of chives that you're not sure what they're good for? Yogurt that's about to go bad but isn't yet? They can go in. Etc. This is a 'finish all the leftovers' kind of dish - it's (almost) all good. (Significant Other would accuse me here of lying, because he would try doing things like putting strawberry yogurt in, and then being very confused when I gag in disgust, and protest that I said it's all good. Hence 'almost.' If you're not sure, ask your local cooking expert.)
3. Mix all the things except the oil/butter into a bowl and mash it together. I added an egg, but it really wasn't necessary, and then once I added the egg I needed to add some flour so it would stick together. If I did it again I'd skip the egg. 
4. Fry, 3-4 minutes on each side. The trick to frying, I've learned, is a) NON-STICK PAN, because if you have a sticky pan, it almost always sticks. No way around it that I've found. I'd be happy to hear otherwise if you have; and b) Don't move the patties until they're nice and browned on each side. 
5. Serve on bed of spinach to look fancy. Or with salad on side. Or with a fried egg on top. (But NOT with soy-milk fruit juice on the side. Turns out that's disgusting.)
6. Eat. But not before you've made it look fancy and taken pictures of it.

Chia I hardly Know'a - Part II

Cherry killer. Qu'est-ce que c'est

I had to wait a couple of days to actually try this, because I was too lazy busy to get to the store to buy cherries. Which, being one of five ingredients, I think was pretty essential for this dessert.

And the results:

Meh. (Originally this post read 'bleeeeeecccch', but then I decided to be more generous...) The cherries tasted good. But then, it's hard to ruin cherries.

As far as the rest of it goes - it was just barely edible. AND IT WAS CHOCOLATE! (Can you sense my rage and disbelief through my use of caps?)

Also, it separated. Excuse me, Miss Pinterest Liar, did you instruct me to mix it? No? I didn't think so. Well, it completely separated, and it tasted like crunchy tapioca soy milk soup. And NOT in a good way.

J'accuse, Pureela, j'accuse.

Furthermore, myyyyyyyyy husband, Pureela, who is not difficult and not allergic to green and quite likes health food said, and I quote, "it would probably be fine if you added a bunch of sugar to it." (To which I responded, "well, anything would be fine if you add a bunch of sugar to it.")

Still, if you were a vegan, gluten-free, pure foods, paleo-eating person, I suppose this would be considered edible. But then again, if you are a vegan gluten free paleo person, you are almost certainly not my acquaintance, and there is no way you would be reading this. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Sure it LOOKS pretty...

However, because yours truly HATES throwing out food, even this must be made edible. Somehow.  So I'm going to try adding sugar to it, maybe some yogurt, throwing it in the blender, molding it into popsicles, and calling it a day. Surely that'll make it edible, right?

Right??

It looks like this post is going to need to become a three-parter. Next up, I'm going to fix this. I still have lots of chia seeds to use. I also happen to have some real milk and sugar. Trying this again, but with real food.

In the meanwhile, dear readers, anybody got some dirt and socks?

TO BE CONTINUED MORE.
 

Chocolate Cherry Chia Pudding

Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT, try this at home. Unless you want to be disappointed. Or unless you suspect me of being a liar. Which is fine, but I'm not.

Of course, if you are a gluten-free, paleo person who sadly does not believe in sugar, then you've got nothing else to eat, so go for it.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup non-dairy milk
1/4 cup chia seeds (look for powdered chia seeds if you want a smooth texture)
3 tablespoons raw cacao powder
2-3 tablespoons organic agave nectar or other natural liquid sweetener
1/2 cup cherries, pitted and sliced + extra for plating

additional toppings : extra cherries, raw cacao nibs, dark chocolate shavings (use 70% dark chocolate or higher)

Directions :

1. In a bowl or large mug, stir together the first 4 ingredients: milk, chia seeds, raw cacao and agave and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.
2. Just before serving, separate into 4 serving dishes, top with sliced cherries and garnish with raw cacao chips, dark chocolate shavings and extra whole cherries and enjoy! (Liar! Argh. I hate lies.)

If this post didn't make you gag a bit, I'm doing it wrong

So, I was over at Pinterest perusing Pinterest so that I could find things to poke fun of at Pinterest while using Pinterest to circulate this blog more.

Circular logic? Perhaps.

But seriously, I don't want this to be a 'let's all make fun of all the things' blog. For one, it's too easy, and for another, it's mean. I don't want to be mean, I want to be honest. I want the Internet to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and if it doesn't, well, I'm going to call it on that.

But in any case, I was over on Pinterest, and what did I find but this:

L-3VE on Pinterest

Yes, that's right, you read that correctly. L33333VE. (I think it's pronounced lurrrrrve.)

At first I thought it was cute. Aww, 79 date ideas! 47 at-home date ideas!! 132 cheap date ideas to do with your husband! So cute!

But...um, Praying God's word for your Husband  for when he feels inadequate or overcome with worry? Asking me if I am a wife that's easy to love?  7 ways to turn my husband's bad day into a good one? (Please don't click on these links, it will only encourage them.)

You sure you just don't want me to go put on a sexy negligee and warm his slippers by the fire and prepare his martini for him?

...in BED

The 1950s called, Pinterest, and they want their sexism back. 

Blech. I should probably go back to recipes now.

Coming up are a few reader requests, including potato tricks (may or may not be as good as french fries), rennet (hopefully), and...CHIA....the food, not the pet.

Stay tuned.