Friendsgiving and the Deviled Egg Fart Bomb

A few years ago friends of ours invited a crew over for a pot luck Thanksgiving at their house.  It keeps growing every year, by faces and waistbands, and this year was no different.  Last year the party moved to the couple's neighborhood clubhouse to fit the growing crew, and it is the perfect venue.  They do a great job decorating and everyone signs up for a different dish.  You know the drill.

This year was all about redemption for me.  

Last year I had the bright idea to try my hand at deviled eggs.  I remember not even knowing how to hard boil an egg, which is ironic because my brother and I used to fight over who got to bring the hard boiled egg slicer with them in their lunchbox.  We also used to fight for the title of biggest asshole in the cafeteria, one would assume.  

Wtf were you doing giving us a hard boiled egg slicer, Mom?  

Ensuring our lifelong virginity, that's what.

I digress.

For this little foray 2 years ago I made some perfectly fantastic little buggers, popped em on my cute little party platter all wrapped up in holiday saran wrap for the win.  I'm guessing we had had a rough night the night before because that is the only sane explanation for what happens next.  We took my car instead of Patrick's.  My car is a 2 seater, with a little faux back seat which fits approximately 1 bottle of wine and 1 purse.  I know, because those are usually my only companions.  We got into said mini mobile knowing we were picking up a 6'3" dude on the way to the party.  Our friend can barely fit into the passenger seat, much less this mini jump seat in the back, so I crawl in the back and he wedges (wedgesss) himself into the passenger seat, with my party platter at his feet.  

The view from my back seat.  My feet are in the other seat.

Here's where things get ugly.

It took about 10 minutes before P took the first hard turn and disaster struck.  In the form of a loose egg.  Some adventurous morsel of perfection escaped from the pack, snuck out under the saran and SLAP.  Into the side of the footwell.  Usually this wouldn't be a big deal, except said friend is so wedged in there he can barely reach his own feet.  By the time we realized what was going on another few little dudes followed their friend to freedom and were sliding around and spreading their eggy goodness all over my floorboard.  

And by eggy goodness, I mean serious fart attack smell.

Nostril napalm.

If Humpty Dumpty had a baby, and that baby had a butt bomb, 

my car now resembled the inside of his diaper.  

We were laughing and gagging so hard at this point that the only reasonable thing to do was to get the eggs far, far away from us and the vehicle as quickly as possible.  Down went the windows and out went the eggs.  Not all at once mind you because P is still driving down the interstate and Colin is trying to dig around for slippery Humpty dumps.  So, one at a time, foul little messy bombs of Paula Deen love go flying out of my car.  One can only hope the people behind us were as highly entertained as us as they dodged the airborne attack of messy egg missiles.  Can you imagine driving down the highway, minding your own business, picking your nose, sexting away and whack!  Egg to the face.  An anonymous Sunday egging on the highway.  SMH.

P's grandmother is a highly put together little old Southern lady and was so horrified at this story that she actually went to Tupperware and bought me my very own deviled egg travel carrier.  Because having an egg slicer wasn't ridiculous enough, I now can carry my eggs with me wherever I go, free from shame and eau de fart.  

Paula Deen's Traditional Southern Deviled Eggs

7 large eggs, hard boiled and peeled

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1 1/2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish

1 teaspoon prepared mustard

Salt and pepper, for taste

Paprika, for garnishing (smoked paprika adds an extra touch of yum)

Sweet gherkin pickles sliced, for garnishing

Pimentos, for garnishing

Halve 7 eggs lengthwise. Remove yolks and place in a small bowl.

Mash yolks with a fork and stir in mayonnaise, pickle relish, and mustard. Add salt and pepper, to taste.

Fill egg whites evenly with yolk mixture (I used a little dessert spoon).  Garnish with paprika, pickles and pimentos. Store covered in refrigerator.

Adding vinegar helps the whites pull away from the shell for an easier peel.

After boiling, pop em in an ice bath if you have to peel soon.  Can't peel a warm egg!

Palm crushing brute strength.
I creepily love the way it feels when you first get the shell to crumble a bit and then roll it around.

Casualty!

Totallyyyyy redeemed myself!

Magic carrier.

Monday Link Up!

Half-Ass Pantry Recipe: Beef Daube Provencal (Beef Stew)

The hubs and I have very, very different likes and dislikes when it comes to food.  Neither of us is particularly picky, but our preferences are basically polar opposite.  I want nothing more than to snack on a meat and cheese plate or other mini finger food ("squirrel food" according to Patrick) and he loves a good hearty soup, or a casserole or other sloppy single-pot fiasco.  Chili is a favorite of his.  

Our last meal pre-marriage I got all cutesy and made meatloaf.  Writing the word meatloaf makes me want to gag.  So I squirrel food-ed it up and made miniature meaties in a muffin tin pan - so much cuter and we popped the left overs in the freezer individually for him for some weekday meals.  I have no photos of that, so instead here is a recipe of one of his other favorites, which actually turned out to be quite spectacular:

Cooking Light's Beef Daube Provencal

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 12 garlic cloves, crushed (you'll be removing these from the pan, so don't chop em up too fine)
• 1 (2-pound) boneless chuck roast, trimmed and cut into 2-inch cubes
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
• 1 cup red wine
• 2 cups chopped carrot
• 1 1/2 cups chopped onion
• 1/2 cup lower-sodium beef broth
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
• Dash of ground cloves
• 1 (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 cups cooked medium egg noodles (about 4 cups uncooked noodles)

First, a lesson in no-tears onion cutting, thanks to my mom.  This was my very first, and still one of my only "tricks" in the kitchen, ha!

Chop off one end, leaving the other intact and remove outer layer of onion.
Cut a small sliver off one side, perpendicular to the end, so it lays flat and you don't add finger bits to your food.

Slice sideways in parallel to the board.  This one gets tricky when you get close to your hand.
Just stick your palm on top and close your eyes.

Chop vertically down towards the board, creating a cross-hatch effect.
Then, and I forgot the pic, cut the other way in vertical, so you're parallel to the intact end.
Tah-dah!  Diced onion!

My prep.  You always need wine in your prep.

1. STEPS TO YUM HEAVEN AND MANLY TUMMY PRIDE
2. 1. Preheat oven to 300°.
3. 2. Heat a small Dutch oven over low heat.  (Nobody has an actual dutch oven, except Patrick when he's feeling extra hilarious on the weekends.  You can use a normal stock pot.
4. 3. Add oil to pan; swirl to coat. 
5. 4. Add garlic; cook 5 minutes or until garlic is fragrant, stirring occasionally. Remove garlic with a slotted spoon; set aside. Increase heat to medium-high. 
6. 5. Add beef to pan; sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cook 5 minutes, browning on all sides. Remove beef from pan. 
7. 6. Add wine to pan; bring to a boil, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. 
8. 7.  Add reserved garlic, beef, remaining 3/4 teaspoon salt, remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper, carrot, and everything you haven't used yet, minus the noodles bc you're not dumb.  See how helpful I am?
9. 8. Cover and bake at 300° for 2 1/2 hours or until beef is tender. Discard bay leaf. Serve over noodles.  I used some crusty bread for dipping instead of the noodles.
10. Note: To make in a slow cooker, prepare through Step 2. Place beef mixture in an electric slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for 5 hours or until beef is tender.
11. 
    

After digging on some other blogs, I have come to the conclusion that it's really annoying trying to find the recipe steps hidden amongst the photos.  So looky there.  Consolidation my friends.

Heating up a solid 12 monster hunks of garlic.
Mmmm.  No such thing as too much garlic.  Ever.

Unless you're a vampy.  I'd give it up for some of those True Blood dudes.
I meant the garlic, but who's counting?

I keep shitty, almost undrinkable red wine on hand for moments like this.
Such a waste of a fine thing.

My goodies.

1. 
   

Mmmm stewy stewy stewwwww
Has anyone else seen that horrible Will Ferrell move, Semi-Pro?  Where the bear gets loose in the stadium?
Stewyyyyyy.... STEWWWYYYYYYYYYYY!

This also freezes really well!

A Half-Ass Pantry Recipe: Hasselback Garlic Cheese Bread

I have active yeast!  Put that on a short list of things I never thought I'd be exclaiming over the internet...  But I do!  And a ridiculously delicious looking recipe to test out on my super fantastic and yet-untouched Cuisinart Mixer.

My baking prowess dates way back to 2011 when my friends and I discovered a life changing app, Bakery Story.  In this year-long obsession, we each ran our own little digital bakery - creating confections and serving the masses round the clock.  Think tamagotchi, but your very own cupcakery!  (Side note: my iPhone T9'd how to spell tamagotchi for me... glad you can get that but you switch all my angry cuss words to cute quacking animals)  Eventually the tireless hours of choosing recipes and delivering baked goods to my fans got to me and I shuttered the doors of my first entrepreneurial adventure, Yeast Confection.  Still proud of that name... I should really copyright that...

Back to real life baking.  I found this recipe: Hasselback Garlic Cheese Bread

Hasselhoff you say?  Win.

How it's supposed to look...

Ingredients:

1 cup Warm Water

1 Tablespoon Honey

1 envelope Active Dry Yeast (2 1/4 Teaspoons)

1 teaspoon Salt

3 cups Bread Flour

Olive Oil, For Greasing Surfaces

⅓ pounds Sharp White Cheddar, Or Any Other Cheese You Prefer

½ cups Garlic Butter

Directions:

1.  In a large bowl, stir water, honey and yeast together. Let yeast proof 5 minutes. Once you know yeast is active, stir in salt and the flour in 1/4 cup increments. If you are using a stand mixer, be sure to not increase your speed higher than a 2 or ‘stir’. Once dough starts pulling away from the sides and the bowl seems to be pretty clean, set a timer for 5 minutes and walk away. Let the machine knead the dough. After 5 minutes, dough should be smooth and tacky but when touched shouldn’t leave any dough on your fingers.

 

 Before yeast eats the honey...

 

 

After yeast eats the honey:

 

I ran out of flour, so now my 3 cups recipe is more like 2 and a bit and I had to pour out some yeasty goods. Off to a great start considering all anyone tells you is that baking is a science. After my 10 minutes of watching the hook-go-round it still looked pretty wet, so I got crafty and started add instant quick-mix flour a bit at a time.

... 2 hours later.... just measure the first time people!

It was now past 10pm with no bread, a hot mess in the kitchen and a lot of wine down the hatch. Still waiting for the dough to get nice and gummy and pull cleanly off the mixing bowl...

2. Grease the bowl and the dough. Cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let rise 1 hour or until doubled in size. (Greasing to me meant pouring in a bit of olive oil and swirling it around)
 

Good and doughy and greased:

 

After being covered and rising for an hour:

 

 

3.  Punch down dough and cut into two equal portions. Form into two long baguettes the length of the cookie sheet. I like to twist mine because it looks cool, but it also keeps its length and doesn’t shrink.

4. Cover with plastic wrap and rise 30 minutes. Start to preheat oven to 400 degrees F and place dough close to the oven where it’s nice and warm. Once oven is preheated, remove plastic wrap, from the dough reduce oven to 350F, put the bread into the oven and bake 20 minutes.

 

5.  In the meantime, slice the cheese into thin slices and melt the butter.

I melted down 2 tablespoons of butter, added about a tablespoon of creepy premade garlic (including the juice) and a whole bunch of prefab Italian spices. Desperate times call for cheap measures.
 

6.  Pull loaves of bread out of the oven after 20 minutes and brush with the melted garlic butter. Bake another 5-7 minutes or until bread begins to turn a golden brown. Remove from oven and cool 15 minutes.

 

7.  Cut 1-inch slices 3/4′s of the the way through the loaves. Brush garlic butter in between each slice and fill with a slice of cheese. Bake another 3-5 minutes or until cheese is completely melted.

 

See that cheesee? That's generosity. This adventure had become a commitment and I wasn't going to be stingy at the final hour. Also, that's still raw garlic on top there. Yum.

8.  Serve immediately. 

 

End result: Hubs thought it looked like an iced dessert!  Who cares.  Get in my belly you garlicky cheesy monster, you.  It was fantastic.  And basically late night munchie food at this point.

A Half-Ass Pantry Recipe: Chipotle Chicken Soup

It has come to my attention, in the form of cracking myself up, that I am tremendously more entertaining in type than in person and furthermore, that that humor is amplified with the help of some big kid grape juice.

So I've started blogging while cooking.  And cooking always comes with grape juice.  As I mentioned, I've stopped freaking out and moving on to the next recipe just because I'm missing an ingredient.  It definitely goes against my OCD rules-were-made-for-a-reason typical mentality, and I'm kind of starting to dig it.  Have the hubs to thank for this as he has certainly taught me that things don't always go according to plan.  ;)

First up: 

 Chipotle Chicken Soup

Hubster approval rating: 9/10
Servings - 8-10
Freezeable - Yes

Original recipe discovered on Pinterest, stolen from here: http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2013/01/16/chipotle-chicken-and-corn-chowder/

Original Ingredients:

1 can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 poblano pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon dried thyme
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 cups whole milk
2 cups chicken stock
6 small red potatoes, peeled and diced small
4 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (about 1 cup)
4 ounces Cheddar cheese, shredded (about 1 cup)
2 cups diced, cooked chicken
1 (30-ounce) can sweet corn, drained
1 (15-ounce) can cream-style corn
1 cup crushed tortilla chips
Juice from 1 lime (about 2 tablespoons)
Chopped cilantro, to garnish (optional)

My Subs:

• Yellow bell pepper instead of red - I think they're sweeter and that's that.  Nobody likes green though, don't go there.
• Cheap dried italian herbs - nobody has dried oregano and dried thyme separately - what a ridiculous waste of space that would be.
• 15-oz can of sweet corn instead of 30-oz, because I can't read
• Heavy cream and more chicken stock for whole milk - we'll get there in a minute

Directions:

1. Remove one chile from the can of chiles and mince it. Remove 1 teaspoon of the adobo sauce and set it aside to be used later. You can save the remaining chiles and sauce for another use (or you can just chuck them because it's $1.29 and freezer space is worth more than a creepy baggy of chiles.)

2. Melt the butter in a stock pot over medium heat.  Add all the fun peppers, cumin, dried herbs, and sauté for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the peppers become soft. Add the garlic, stir and cook for an additional 30 seconds, or until fragrant. 

You know the kitchen sink, cheap-o Italian herbs?  I added bunches.  Hubster doesn't like herbs.  But guess what, Hubster refuses to read my blog... in go big bunches. 

3. Stir in the flour with a wooden spoon and cook for 1 minute, or until there is no longer any visible raw flour. Slowly stir in the milk and chicken broth, scraping up any bits from the bottom of the pan as you stir.

I'm ready to prep the milk and chicken stock by combining...

What the?  Grocery store shopping fail.  Although the 1% was clearly my attempt at being healthier than the whole milk, this cannot be delicious.  It called for 3 cups whole milk and 2 cups chicken stock. Substitution: 1/2 cupish chunkier milk (heavy cream) and 4 cups chicken stock.  Done.

4. Add the potatoes, bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender and can be easily pierced with a knife.

 

5. Add the shredded cheeses a handful at a time, stirring after each addition until the cheese is completely melted.

6. Finally, stir in the chicken, both cans of corn, lime juice and the reserved 1 teaspoon of adobo sauce.  Cover and cook for an additional 10 minutes, or until the soup is completely heated through.  Serve immediately.

Somebody forgot that the chicken probably needed to be cooked first...  If this unfortunate timing debacle happens to you, just lower the heat on the soup and stall 15 min while you panic chop and saute chicken breasts in a little EVOO (that's right, I get rights to stupid sayings like that by nature of my name...)

7.  Doctor it up with hot sauce, extra lime juice, tortilla chips (or Fritos... teehee), cilantro - whatever your inner Mexican heart desires.

 

Delicious.  It was actually awesome with the thinner broth due to excess chicken stock, I think.  And it kept well in the fridge for the next day.  I froze a bunch too, because this recipe makes about 8-10 servings.  I realize that picture looks like porridge, but I swear it was great.