I made the full recipe shown below and between the two of us, Mr. Smarmy ate all of it in one day. That’s how awesome it is.

Making the wontons is a little time consuming, but it isn’t difficult. Plus, you’re making a TON.

Mmmm... soup!

I used an Emeril recipe as a guide, but put my own spin on it.

Makes 6-8 servings

Ingredients!

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons minced ginger
• 9 scallions, chopped
• 10 cups chicken broth (homemade is always better, trust me)
• 1/2 pound ground chicken
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 1 1/2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1/4 teaspoon sambal oelek (or crushed red pepper)
• about 30-40 wonton wrappers
• 1 1/2 cups baby spinach
• 4 oz sliced shiitake mushrooms
• 1 small can or package sliced bamboo shoots
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. In a large saucepan or soup pot heat the oil over medium high heat until hot. Add garlic and ginger and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove half of the garlic/ginger mixture and set aside. Add 3 of the sliced scallions and the chicken broth and bring to a boil. Remove the woody stems of the shiitake mushrooms and add them to the stock. Reduce heat to medium low so that the broth just simmers. Allow broth to simmer for at least 20 to 30 minutes while the wontons are being assembled.
2. In a mixing bowl combine the sauteed garlic and ginger that was set aside from the pot, 3 of the scallions finely chopped, 3 shiitake mushrooms finely chopped, the chicken, egg yolk, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil and sambal. Salt and pepper to taste. Mix until thoroughly combined.
3. Working on a flat work surface, lay out a few of the wontons. (Keep remaining wonton wrappers covered with plastic wrap.) Fill a small bowl partially with cool water and set aside. Using a teaspoon measure, place a heaping teaspoonful of the meat filling in the center of each wonton. Using your fingers, lightly wet the edges of the wonton. Bring 2 opposite corners of the wonton together to form a triangle and enclose the filling, pressing edges firmly around the mound of filling to eliminate any air pockets and seal. Moisten opposite corners of the long side. Curl moistened corners toward each other, overlapping one on top of the other, and press the edges together to seal. You should now have a rounded stuffed wonton with a triangle poking up at the top. Assemble the remaining wontons in the same manner. When the wontons are all assembled, set aside.
4. Bring a pot of salted water to boil for the wontons. When boiling, add the wontons and cook for 2-3 minutes. The wontons will float when the chicken is cooked through. I prefer to only cook as many as I will eating right then. Remove from heat.
5. Remove the shiitake stems from the broth with a slotted spoon. Add the last 3 scallions, remaining sliced mushrooms, and bamboo shoots to the broth and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Add salt to taste.
6. Put a handful of the uncooked baby spinach in the bowls and then fill with broth. Use a slotted spoon to remove the wontons from the water and add directly to the soup bowls.

cute little wonton!

Notes

Cooking the wontons separately from the broth does two things. First, it keeps the broth from getting thickened and cloudy from all the cornstarch on the wonton wrappers. Second, it keeps the wontons from getting soggy and waterlogged. I love wonton soup from Chinese restaurants, but they’re always completely sogged through. When you’ve had them fresh cooked and homemade, you’ll see the difference it makes.

Freeze any wontons that you won’t eat within 24 hours. They take only a little bit longer to cook compared to unfrozen. I tried leaving some in the fridge longer than a day, but the wonton skins started getting a little tough.So stick them in a ziplock bag in the freezer and then add directly to boiling water the next time you want some wonton soup!

This recipe can be easily converted to vegetarian by replacing the chicken stock with veg stock and using faux meat or just veggies for the wonton stuffing. What would make really tasty stuffing is sauteed shiitake mushrooms. Mmmm.

The ginger is fairly strong in this recipe. If you’re not a huge ginger fan, only mince 1 tablespoon for the stuffing. Slice the remaining ginger into large pieces and add them to the stock, removing them when you remove the shiitake stems.

Ginger can also be difficult to mince finely. I like to use a grater to grate instead of mince.

To test the seasoning of the wonton stuffing, place a teaspoonful on a plate and microwave for about 30 seconds. Give it a taste and determine whether it needs more salt, pepper, ginger, garlic, or hot pepper!

You can really use any veggies that you’d like. I made it a second time with portabellas and carrots and it was just as tasty as the original. Try baby corn, snow peas, sweet pepper, etc.

If you boil too many wontons, they make awesome potstickers/gyoza. Just heat a pan with a little oil and brown on both sides!

These are not your traditional slathered-in-red-sauce enchiladas. They’re better.

When I first found this recipe and decided to try it, I thought the sauce sounded too simple. Milk, chicken broth, peppers, and spinach? Isn’t that going to be bland? Do I even like corn tortillas? As it turns out, this is one of my all time favorite recipes. I have been known to make it twice a month because it’s so damn good.

I’ve tweaked the original recipe a little. If you want to see the untweaked version by Rick Bayless, it’s here: http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/view?recipeID=167

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Last night I was watching an episode of Cold Case Files about a serial arsonist that was setting fires in various fabric and craft stores. It was like my own personal nightmare come to life.

Seriously though… the arsonist was a 50 year old man. I’d be very curious to know what a craft store ever did to him. He denies it, of course, so we will never know.

Also last night… I got the bizarre notion of making homemade Oreos in my head. I don’t usually buy stuff like that because I figure if I’m going to eat something wildly unhealthy, I might as well eat the most quality version I can find. And that usually means fresh/homemade.

So I googled and found a recipe.

I did the less sweet version of the cookie, and I halved the recipe.

I also used coconut oil instead of shortening because I realized half way through making them that I didn’t have any shortening… the coconut oil worked perfectly.

nom nom

My cookies turned out moist and not at all crunchy like the real ones. I like the crunch, but the moist is still damned tasty.  And I think they even have a squishy version now, don’t they?

I don’t know if I should have baked them longer, or if it’s just so freaking humid right now that I have no hope for anything crunchy.

However, the moistness was a blessing in disguise, because Mr. Smarmy said they reminded him of Oatmeal Creme Pies. A light bulb went off simultaneously in each of our heads, so today we got supplies to make homemade Oatmeal Creme Pies.  Just so you don’t think we’re total baked good fatties, we’re planning on taking some to his family this weekend since they’re camping nearby.

More in food news: for lunch today, I made these homemade renditions of Taco Bell’s mexican pizza from On Cupcake Moon. Genius! I can’t believe I’ve never considered trying to copy this at home, because the mexican pizza (minus the beef – makes me burp) and 7-layer burrito (minus the guac – TB’s guac tastes like vomit) are my go-to TB items.

I used enchilada sauce on top instead of salsa and served it with a blob of sour cream and a few slices of avocado.  Oh yeah, my other secret is Chihuahua cheese.  It is tasty tasty stuff.

I think next time I might try using shredded chicken or omitting the meat completely because I’m just not into taco meat, burp inducing or not.

A while back I was pondering one of nature’s biggest mysteries… the doughnut. I thought to myself that there must be a way to recreate the donut at home, in a somewhat healthier manner. I.E. Not fried.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a classic fried doughnut, but they’re really only worth all that evil fattiness if they’re fresh. And I’m not in the habit of getting up at the crack of dawn, which makes getting fresh ‘nuts from the local donut shop hit or miss. Usually miss.

It didn’t take long to find a recipe for a donut-muffin hybrid. A doffin, a duffin, a monut, a muffnut. Call it what you will, I was intrigued.

Last night, having a hankering for something sweet, I decided to test drive the muffnut, and I can tell you, it passed with flying colors.

Behold... the MUFFNUT!

Here’s the recipe, originally from Baking Bites.

(I love the explanations in the recipe. I’m a habitual fiddler when it comes to recipes, so I appreciate someone telling me why I should not fiddle with certain aspects beforehand.)

NOTE: After a lot of comments from other muffnut testers, I thought I should point out that these muffnuts are most similar to cake donuts. If you’re expecting a Krispy Kreme style yeast donut, you’ll probably be disappointed.

Cinnamon Sugar Muffnuts

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used 1 cup white and 1/2 cup white whole wheat with excellent results)
• 2 tsp baking power
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (fresh! oh yeah!)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

(for rolling)

• 1 TB butter, melted
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional… you can mix it up and try different spice combos, too!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease a muffin tin with cooking spray or vegetable oil.
2. In a large bowl, beat together sugar and egg until light in color, about 1 minute.
3. Mix in the oil, milk, and vanilla.
4. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Pour into egg mixture and stir to combine. A few lumps are okay.
5. Divide batter evenly into 12 muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full.
6. Bake for 14-18 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
7. While muffins are baking, melt butter and pour remaining 1/2 cup of sugar into a small bowl. Mix in the cinnamon.
8. When muffins are done, lightly brush the top of each with some melted butter, remove from the pan and roll in sugar.
9. Cool on a sheet of parchment paper. (I cooled mine on a wire rack like the original recipe stated, and they kind of stuck. Boo.)

Fresh out of the oven, they are nice and crispy on the outside, very much like a donut.

The next day, they’re softer… and somehow they taste even more like a donut, to me.

I can’t wait until fall, because I’ll be experimenting with apple and pumpkin muffnuts, and replacing the coffee with my favorite donut companion, apple cider.

Today I decided to start a sourdough starter. Or should I say start ANOTHER sourdough starter. I tried a few summers ago and eventually lost interest. In high school I made a lot of that Amish friendship/chain letter bread. Which is delicious, but you get sick of it when you have to make it and eat it every week.

I have in my arsenal, a quickie pseudo-sourdough recipe that I like to call Cheater McPeter bread. But you could also call it Super Easy Crusty Bread or 24 Hour bread. It goes like this:

Ingredients:

• 3 cups bread flour (you can use All Purpose,  if you want, or mix in 1 cup of whole wheat for fun)
• 1/2 tsp yeast
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 12-13 oz room temp. water (about 1.5 cups)

• Dutch oven or casserole dish with a cover

1. Mix the flour, yeast, sugar, and salt. Add the water and stir until incorporated. It will be a wet dough.
2. Grease a large bowl (you can use the same one you mixed in, but make sure the dough mixture has room to double or triple.
3. Cover with plastic wrap and a towel and let it rise for 18 hours.
4. After the 18 hours have passed, dust your hands with flour and punch down the dough.
5. Cover again and let rise for 2 more hours.
6. After 1.5 hours have passed, preheat the oven and a dutch oven for 30 minutes at 450 degrees. I have successfully used a pyrex casserole dish with this recipe, but a metal Dutch oven (stainless steel or cast iron) gives a better bottom crust.
7. Grease the dish/dutch oven with butter or olive oil – remember it will be extremely hot! Flip the dough into the hot dish/pan and cover.
8. Bake for 30 minutes covered.
9. Remove lid and bake for another 15-30 minutes.
10. Let the bread cool for about 20 minutes before cutting into it.

Allowing the dough mixture to ferment overnight gives it awesome, almost sourdough flavor. Baking it in a covered pan allows it to steam itself, which results in the awesome crunchy crust.

I love this recipe in a pinch, but I decided today that I want real sourdough. My dad’s been making bread almost daily with his sourdough starter for over a year, and he also uses it to make the best homemade pizza crust I’ve ever eaten. I’m hoping I can come close to replicating it once I get my starter going.

So by now, you wanna start one, too, right?  It’s super easy.

Get yourself a plastic or glass jar. An old pickle jar or pint size mason jar is perfect.

Mix 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of warm water in the jar. Set it on the counter uncovered somewhere warm. That’s it! Natural yeast will find it’s way into this mixture, ferment,  and start to form our starter!

Everyday, we’ll “feed” the starter, which means we pour out half of it and replace it with 1/2 flour and 1/2 water. (Once it’s ready to use, instead of just pouring it off and throwing it away, we’ll be using that in our bread recipe.)

After a few days, it’ll start getting foamy, puffy and smell kind of like beer. That’s good! It means the starter is ready. Now we’ll loosely cover it and put it in the fridge.  Punch a hole in the lid, or you might hear a loud explosion come from your fridge one night.

Once refrigerated, it will only need feeding about once a week.  If you notice some liquid forming on top, just mix it back in.

I think I’ll stop there. Once my starter is ready to go, I’ll test and post some recipes!

I don’t remember eating oatmeal much when I was a kid. Maybe that’s a good thing, since I think a lot of people think of it as the equivalent to gruel.

On a whim, I made a batch a month or two ago, and both Tim and I declared it Awesome. The secret? An egg. It makes it creamy and custard-like instead of watery and chunky, which is how I remembered it as a kid.

We like it so much, I’ve made it at least 20 times since the initial batch. It makes a super quick lunch or dinner when it’s chilly out, and it’s really filling for such a cheap meal.

You’ll need:

• 1 apple (I prefer Honeycrisp), peeled and minced or grated
• 1 TB butter
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (or to taste)
• 1/4 cup apple cider
• 1 egg
• 1 3/4 cup milk
• 1 cup Quick Cook oats
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• cinnamon sugar

On to the cooking!

1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat and add the apple, salt, and brown sugar. Saute for about 2 minutes before adding the apple cider.
2. While the pan mixture simmers, beat the egg lightly in a bowl and add the milk.
3. Pour the milk and egg mixture in the pan and stir to combine.
4. Add the oats to the pan and stir continuously until thickened, about 2 minutes.
5. Before serving, stir in the vanilla extract.
6. Sprinkle the tops of the bowls with a little cinnamon sugar.

Last night I had one of my school anxiety dreams. It’s the last day of school, I’m supposed to be graduating, and my bitch of a math teacher from 6th grade is handing out the final exam… and I realize, Fuck! I’ve never made it to this class all semester, and I haven’t even looked at my book!

I’ve been out of school for almost 4 years now, and yet I still have these dreams… if the actual experience hadn’t already made me want to avoid further formal education for the rest of my life, the dreams would.

I pity my brother, who started his second year of grad school this week. SUCKER!

That's my brother with the hunk of cornbread in his mouth, hogging my effing spotlight!

Speaking of the demon spawn, he’s been hosting a chili cook-off every summer for 5 or 6 years. I’ve only actually competed twice, but this past summer, I took home the gold!

Since it’s FINALLY fall, and today I turned the furnace on for the first time this season, hereforthwith is my Award winning chili recipe:

Ingredients!
And first, some notes…

I specify Dei Fratelli tomatoes because I’ve made chili and pasta sauce and all sorts of other tomato based stuff 1000 times, and this stuff is far superior to any other brand I’ve tried. I’m not usually a brand whore… I’ll try whatever’s cheapest if I know there’s not a difference, but this stuff really is better. If you’ve got a favorite brand, that’s cool, but if not, go for the Dei Fratelli!

I think I’ve mentioned before that I use ground turkey pretty much exclusively instead of ground beef. I’m just not a fan of ground beef, but if that’s your meat of choice, knock yourself out. If you’re a vegina, you can omit the meat stuff or use a substitute… my brother’s cookoff is actually a vegetarian affair, so I just left the meat out completely.

The dried guajillo chile pepper is the not-so-secret ingredient. My dad describes it as the mysterious flavor in authentic Mexican food that doesn’t necessarily stand out on it’s own, but you know when it’s missing (I always wondered why my burritos at home were never quite as good). Our local grocery store actually carries these- or they did… last time I couldn’t find them and had to substitute dried California chiles (and the chili wasn’t quite as good). But you can also order them online- try Penzeys.com.  Don’t be afraid about spiciness, either, they’re very mild.

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Hello dear readers!

It’s been 60 degrees the past few days, and it’s starting to feel like fall here in the Kalamazizzle. My favorite season! Halloween, crunchy leaves, fire place a-roarin’, and perfect weather for soup!  Not that I need such an excuse for soup. I’ve never understood the concept of seasonal dishes- to me, ice cream is just as appropriate in winter, and soup is just as delicious in the suffocating heat of summer.

I’m a raging soup fiend, you see. I could live on a good chicken noodle. In fact I once tried to order seconds of the chicken noodle soup for dessert (instead of the chocolate brownie bomb melty things everyone else was getting) in this really kickass restaurant in Pennsylvania, only to be thwarted by the fact that they were OUT! I still look back on that day in sadness.

I am aware that other people don’t quite share my love for soup, so I take every chance to sneak it in whenever the opportunity presents itself. “Hey look! It’s cold!  Let’s have soup!”

The soup du jour for this entry?  Roasted Butternut Squash, a house favorite.

Creamy Butternut Squash Soup!

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Every since I was a kid. In fact, I used to request my dad’s meatloaf as my special birthday dinner when I was a kid. Maybe because it was stuffed with cheese and was always accompanied with mashed potatoes…

My recipe is based on my dad’s, the key ingredients being ground turkey and cheese. I have made a few tweaks here and there.

(You can, of course, make this with ground beef. We ate almost no red meat when I was growing up, and I’ve never developed a taste for ground beef, so I use ground turkey almost exclusively when a recipe calls for beef.)

One of my new secrets is adding minced vegetables to the meat mixture. They add flavor, texture, moisture, and nutrition. And kids won’t even know they’re there.

Today I decided to do something a little different and cook the meatloaf in some muffin pans. Mini meatloaves!  There are a few reasons I like this method:

• It cooks faster. Meatloaf in one big loaf takes about an hour to cook.  The muffin pans take more like 30-40 minutes.
• More surface area = more browning = more flavor.
• I usually flatten out the meat mixture, sprinkle on the cheese, and roll it up jelly roll style for the filling. It’s not easy and it’s messy. With the individual loafs, it’s so much easier.
• I was out of chicken stock, which I usually pour into the pan after I have the meatloaf almost ready to go in the oven to keep it moist.  I thought the minis would stay moister.

how cute!

The other thing I did differently today was adding quinoa. If you’ve not yet discovered this awesome little food-friend, let me introduce you. It’s actually a seed but looks like a grain.  It’s high in protein and has a balanced set of essential amino acids, which is why it’s called a “complete protein”. It’s gluten free, high in fiber, and has a lower glycemic load than brown rice.

It tastes a bit like brown rice, maybe a little grainier-tasting by itself. It works steamed like rice as a side and as a lower-carb high-protein substitute for rice or noodles in chicken soup. I had some steamed quinoa leftover from dinner a few nights ago, and thought it’d be perfect as an extra binder/proteinator in the meatloaf.

Ingredients:

Meatloaf

• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1/3 cup crumbs*
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup grated cheese (I like a mix of extra sharp cheddar and mozerella)
• 1 carrot*
• 2 stalks celery*
• 1 medium onion*
• 4 cloves garlic*
• 2 eggs
• 1 TB Frank’s Red Hot
• 1 TB Worcestershire sauce
• 1 TB tomato ketchup
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• chopped fresh parsley, to taste
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup cooked quinoa (optional)

Filling:

• 4-8 oz.  cheese(again, I like mozarella and extra sharp cheddar) sliced

Topping:

• More ketchup

1. Preheat oven to 350°F degrees and grease a 12 cup muffin pan. (Adding the quinoa and more veggies might result in the need for another muffin pan.)
2. If you are making your own crumbs, put the crumby stuff in the food processor and grind until you have a coarse meal.
3. Put the 2 eggs in a large mixing bowl and beat lightly.
4. Add the ground turkey and crumbs to the bowl.
5. Put the onion, celery, garlic, carrot, and parsley into the food processor and grind until finely minced.
6. Add the minced vegetables, parmesan, grated cheese, Worcestershire, Red Hot, ketchup, quinoa, and seasonings to the meat mixture and combine.
7. Stir until well mixed.
8. Spoon 2/3 of the mixture into the muffin cups. Press 1/2 a slice of each kind of cheese into each meat cup. Top with the remaining 1/3 of the meat and smush around the cheese slices to seal it in.

   

9. Top with a swirl of ketchup.
10. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes. Edges should be golden brown and a meat thermometer inserted into the middle of a loaf should read 165°F.
11. Remove from oven and scarf.

*Notes:

For the crumbs, you can use whatever you’ve got on hand, really. I’ve used bread, crackers, matzo meal, pita chips… the crumb of the day today was nacho cheese Doritos. I always save stale stuff or the crumb-filled bottom of the bag to use for this purpose.

For the minced vegetables, feel free to add in whatever other veggies you like. Mushrooms, bell peppers, etc.  Part of the fun of cooking is experimentation.

Butt freckles!

Yesterday was Mr. Smarmy’s 28th birthday. We totally fail at surprising each other with gifts. He can’t keep a secret and insists on telling me what he’s getting me. And no matter how clever I think I am, he always guesses what I’m getting him. So usually we just pick out our own gifts. Not very fun for a champion gift-giver such as myself.

About a month ago, I was in an Etsy chat room and was introduced to buttfreckle and her adorable butt freckles. (Each butt freckle has it’s *own* butt freckle!!!) Her shop had some cute ideas for what to do with your butt freckles:

What to do with your freckle?
- hide it in the medicine closet
- stash it in your child’s lunch
- make it pee on your son (thanks MaMeex5)
- throw it at the cat
- set it on your desk
- tag the back of your bro’s head
The possibilities are endless!

That got me thinking….
I adopted some butt freckles and took great care to hide them from the unerring eyes of Sir Smarmy. The night before Tim’s birthday, I snuck into our bedroom and placed a butt freckle on his pillow.

Trixie and the butt freckles (my new favorite band name!) get along famously

He was all sneaky and tried to butt freckle me back by putting it on my pillow. What he didn’t realize is that I bought a whole barbershop quartet of butt freckles… he’d find another, and another, and just when he thought it was all over, ANOTHER! HA! He actually wound up walking around with one in his pocket for over an hour before he realized it.

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