#cravings 2

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Cheesy Polenta (er...grits) with Mushrooms

Publix does NOT sell polenta in anything other than a heat and eat log and I was not in the mood to go on an ingredient goose chase to other grocery stores, so I used grits instead. The recipe said you could. Or cornmeal. I honestly don’t know the difference. Nor do I care. But! Ingredients!

So there’s two main components to this: the polenta and the shrooms. Also an egg goes on top but that’s just an egg.

So for the polenta, you cook it for twenty minutes in boiling water, it sucks up the juice and gets all thick and creamy. When it’s fully cooked you add the heavy cream, parm, grated mozzarella, butter, salt, and pepper. And it gets better extra creamy and gooey. You can actually see the stretchy cheese tendrils when you pull out the spoon like it’s cartoon pizza.

Still looks like a pile of white mush tho.

In the meantime, you cook the shrooms. Start by cooking the garlic (sliced) in olive oil heated in a large skillet. Add the shrooms and cook. Add a little bit of chicken broth, cook some more. Then add a little cream, butter, thyme, salt and pepper and cook a little bit more rill you’ve got soft brown shroomies in a sauce that’s thickening up.

For me, every step of this took a little bit longer to cook than the recipe called for. But the shrooms still got done before the polenta.

Then you serve the shrooms on top of the polenta in a wide bowl and top with a fried egg (not pictured because I fucked mine up—tasty but not photogenic).

And...there’s something wrong with these grits. I’m not sure if it’s too much cheese, or too strong cheese or what, but they mostly tasted vaguely sour.

Nothing should have been wrong. All the ingredients were brand new.

The grits were definitely better combined with the mushrooms (when did you ever think you’d hear me say that?), but still just off enough to make the whole thing rather unappealing.

Giving this one a miss in the future. Very glad I didn’t promise anyone grits and then show up with this mess.

Oh well.

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Lazy Shrimp & Pork “Wonton” Soup

Strap in, y’all, for the most disgusting thing I’ve ever made.

The shrimp and pork together concept had me dubious from the get-go but, you never know, maybe I was missing something. (I wasn’t.)

So, ingredients!

First things first, let’s start the broth.

Chicken broth, ginger (cut into matchsticks), and sliced garlic go into the pot to simmer.

Already looking and smelling like the sad watery soup you get as an appetizer at Asian restaurants.

But next we get into the real good gross part of this recipe: the meatballs!

Lightly combine ground pork, chopped up shrimpies, bread crumbs, minced garlic, minced ginger, scallions, cilantro, jalapeño, salt, oyster sauce, and egg into an unholy concoction.

Then portion out into 4 big monster boys.

Next the meatballs and the mushroom go into the simmering broth to cook.

Still looking like sad restaurant soup.

In the last three minutes of cooking, add wonton wrappers that have been cut into strips to act as de facto noodles. And serve.

This. Is. Gross.

Somehow the shrimp is perfectly cooked at the expense of the pork turning into horrifying grey mystery meat, the sad garlic and ginger broth is both overwhelming and fails to compensate for the bizarre flavors and textures going on in the meatball, and the “noodles” just turned into gluey wet globs.

Big fail. Big, big fail.

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Salted Maple Granola

I’ve never understood granola. Granola bars? Sure. But just plain granola? What even is that?

But here we are, at the last breakfast recipe from Cravings 2!

So, of course, making granola starts with mixing a bunch of things. First, the dry ingredients: oats, coconut, chopped pecans, sliced almonds, and sunflower seeds.

Then the wet ingredients: vegetable oil, maple syrup, brown sugar (wettish), vanilla extract, and salt (not wet, but sure me).

Then you combine it all, spread it in a baking pan, and bake until golden and crispidy and almost burnt on the edges.

Let cool, pour back into a bowl, mix in the sour dried cherries, and you’ve got granola!

And it’s damn good. Salty and sweet and crispy and breakfasts.

I still don’t know how to eat it. In milk like cereal? The cherries make that kind of weird. In a bowl like a snack mix? The pieces are so small! How am I supposed to jam them into my mouth by the handful?

But it’s tasty enough. And easy enough, that I’m damn sure going to try to figure it out.

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Cheesy Spicy Breakfast Hash

Is anyone still reading this? Probably not, since I’m barely doing it. But I actually cooked one thing during this goddamn pandemic, so let’s celebrate!

Forever and always leaving something out of the onvredients photo. In this case, salt AND pepper.

So, it’s hash. So you know we’re going to chopping up a bunch of shit and sautéing the hell out of it in a big-ass cast iron pan.

Starting with the onion, garlic, bell pepper, and jalapeños—all thrown in together with the shimmering hot vegetable oil.

When those are on their way, add the potatoes (which have already been partially cooked in the microwave—which is the actual first unsexy step), salt, pepper, paprika, and chicken broth.

Cook, stirring as little as possible so that the potatoes have a chance to get some little crispy edges.

Then comes the exciting part. ADD CHEESE.

Cover and cook just long enough for the cheese to get all melty and serve with a fried egg and hot sauce.

Far from the most beautiful plate. But it’s HASH. It’s homey and comforting and warm and savory and all the things it’s supposed to be. Plus CHEESE.

Not actually too spicy if you deseed the jalapeños. It requires a lot of chopping, and mine came out a little on the oily, less on the crispy side. But I’m not mad at it.

And if now isn’t the time to eat breakfast for every meal, when will it be?

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Fluffy Popovers with Melted Brie & Blackberry Jam

Time to find out how that jam is!

But first! Popovers!

This recipe involves doing a lot of things quickly, so from here on out my pictures aren’t so great.

First you combine warmed milk with melted butter, eggs, salt, and flour to make the popover batter. Your supposed to whisk until smooth, which mine was while in the process of whisking, but once the batter settled down it would get lumpy again. It was also quite a liquid batter.

Then you grease a muffin tin with butter and heat for a couple minutes in the oven before scooping in the batter a quarter cupful at a time.

I think my butter got a little too brown. But oh well.

Bake all that for 20-25 minutes and in the meantime melt the brie so that as soon as the popover come out of the oven you can poke a hole in them and fill them with hot cheese.

(I was wholly unprepared the separate the brie from its time, btw. Warmth is not your friend there.)

The popovers came out pretty much puffy and weird like they’re supposed to. So that’s a good sign.

Stuffed with brie and topped with jam they look a treat.

The popovers themselves were pretty tasteless. Other than the undersides where the burnt butter was which almost tasted like eggs. And the brie didn’t come through especially heavily. But the jam was pretty dang good! I’m shocked! Lemonier than I expected, but I think that really helped to brighten up the blackberries—which aren’t my favorite.

I doubt I’ll ever make this composed dish again, but the jam might be something worth subjecting my friends and acquaintances to. Who knows.

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Croissant Bread Pudding Ham Cups

I’m on a roll, y’all! And making more weird food.

First, you make the cups out of ham. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I still don’t understand this part.

Then you make your bread pudding goo: eggs, half & half, vanilla, sugar, salt. Soak three cups worth of torn up croissants in the goo for 15 minutes. (While you wait, eat any leftover croissant.)

Your goo is now bready!

Put that bready goo in the ham cups and sprinkle with Demerara sugar.

AND BAKE

Finally, deglove and serve with berries.

Remember when I said I didn’t understand the whole ham cup thing? I still don’t. The bread pudding came out gooey and custardy with a crispy top (a.k.a. perfect) but I don’t understand why it’s encased in ham. I can see putting ham IN the bread pudding for that savory-sweet thing. But I don’t like tearing through a tough ham shell to get to my good sweet goo. It is incredibly unappealing to me.

I think this execution is more successful than the mozz/pesto one. It just makes more sense with the ham. Although it is VERY sweet. I can’t imagine eating it without the berries for dimension. (And these berries were ripe and perfect.) This one might be worth playing around with a bit.

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Egg-Mozzarella Ham Cups

I am dubious about this whole concept, but here we go.

First, to make your own pesto:

Basil, pine nuts, parm and garlic go in food processor. Pulse to mix, then turn on and slowly drizzle in the oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Green goo!

Then, on the ham cups.

First, make cups out of pieces of ham in a muffin tin.

Unfilled, they look unfortunately vaginal.

Then you mix chunks of mozzarella with halved grape tomatoes, pesto, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper. And divide amongst the cups. Top wach cup with an egg.

Then, bake until the eggs are set and serve with a salad of mixed greens, oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

I remain dubious.

I suppose the purpose of the ham cup is convenience? But the whole thing just feels rather awkward to me. It doesn’t feel like the best delivery method for these flavors.

I’d rather just have it as an omlet or a scramble. Though, I guess those aren’t as portable or (theoretically reheatable). I’m just not in love with the concept.

Pinterest can have these.

[allyouhavetodo]

Cooking Adventures: Everything Bagel Cream Cheese Breakfast Bake

This is exhausting.

So. Many. Ingredients! (And they all made it in the picture. #accomplishments)

So, first you cook the sausages. Then you dump them out and in the same pan you melt some butter and cook the sliced onion. Then you dump those out into the same bowl as the sausages (which you have cut into 1-inch pieces—I used scissors!). In that bowl also goes, chunked-up day-old everything bagels, chunks of tomato, chopped basil, thawed spinach from which all excess moisture has been squozen, grated cheddar, grated swiss, grated parmesan, salt, and pepper. And toss it all together.

In a separate bowl, combine eggs, milk, half-and-half, cayenne, mustard, salt and pepper. Whisk.

Into a greased baking pan, dump the dry(ish) ingredients. Top with the wet. Press on any of the bread chunks that are sticking out to make sure that they will absorb the goo.

Then! Carefully nestle cold chunks of cream cheese in amongst everything else.

(Here’s what it looks like all put together.)

Refrigerate for 1 1/2 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 400, put more grated swiss and cheddar on top. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 and bake for an hour or so more.

And finally! Finally! Eat!

It’s so fucking much. And I’m not sure the everything-bagel-ness of it all comes through in the end. Like, the sausage is good and the cream cheese is good and the spinach is good. The onions are okay. The tomatoes are present. The bread and cheese are just sort of gooey filler.

Also, I cooked it on the low end of the recommended time and it still came out sort of burny on the edges.

It’s not bad. But nowhere near worth the investment in time and ingredients.