Quick and Easy... Just the Way I like It.

Life is full of ironies.  Although, I'm not sure if this example is actual irony or what I think is irony, thanks to Alanis Morissette.  However, this was the easiest recipe from the book I've made.  Seriously, it took 5 minutes to preparing and I think three of those minutes were spent gathering the ingredients. This is a recipe that you could use on a daily basis.  And it tasted great too.  The irony, is that it was so simple and easy, but I'm so late on posting this.  I made this on the 12th.  I'm posting on the 27th.

Side note, that is not ironic, it's laziness.  But feel free to debate in the comments below.

So on the menu today is Crispy Grilled Chicken Thighs and a special treat Nordy Bars.

That's right, 5 ingredients.

So you first step is to make the seasoning base.  Mix the Mayo, salt, chili powder and cayenne pepper together and coat on chicken thighs (skin on, bone in).  Then cover with plastic and refrigerate for two hours.    

So easy.  Seriously.  So easy.

Although, mixing the chicken in the goop was kind of disgusting.  In case you don't know, I hate Mayo.  With a passion.  It looks gross.  It has a gross texture.  And it doesn't really add anything to a sandwich, other than grossness.  Now mustard... that's a condiment.  But I digress.  Fortunately, this is the kind of recipe I'll use Mayo in;  the kind that completely covers the taste of mayo up and only lightly coats it on, and then covers it up.

While waiting for the chicken to refrigerate, I made the Nordy Bars.  I would like to thank Shaylee Droubay, the only follower of this blog (other than me), for this recipe (Seriously, why is no one else following this blog.  I can't even get courtesy family follows).  They're amazing.  Too bad I don't think I did a very good job making them.  They ended up too gooey.  They're supposed to be more brownie like, but we had to eat them with a fork.

First you melt the butter, then add the butterscotch chips and brown sugar.  I was fine up until then.  After that It just went downhill.  You then add two eggs, but while I was trying to get a picture taken of the eggs (since I didn't have a cameraman), the eggs started to cook slightly while I was stirring.  So I ended up with little chucks of egg whites.  In the end, not a huge deal.  You wouldn't be able to tell in the finished product.  But still...

After that, you add the flour, baking powder, salt and vanilla.  I rocked that step.

This is where I think I really messed up, though.  You wait until the mixture is cool and then add the marshmallows, chocolate chips and then nuts.  I think I got impatient and didn't let the mixture cool enough.  And then, I don't think I let it cook long enough.  So all in all, it tasted great, but didn't really turn out that good.  It looked awesome, though.

So now to the moment I'm sure you're all waiting for... Can you really make fried chicken (more or less) on a grill.  And the answer is, yes.  Yes, you can.  But I didn't.  So, living without a grill is hard.  I have to rely on Liberty Park for my free grills.  Turns out, they were all in use.  I was hungry, so I did what Veronica calls, reverse grilling.  Covering the chicken in bread crumbs, I broiled the chicken.  It turned out fine.  I but the broil on low and then put it on the middle rack.  Top one browned the chicken too much.  It was tender and moist and delicious.  It had a little kick to it, but not too much.  So I get a win for the day (with an asterisk, of course). 

The tomatoes were good too.  Veronica was skeptical about cooking a tomato, but it turned out fine.  But there was almost no point in doing this though.  It only made the tomato warm, the flavor was literally exactly the same.

Well that's it.  Expect another post soon.  I just made a most awesome dinner for Veronica and my 1st anniversary (grammar people help me out, everything sounds wrong there. Veronica and mine?  Veronica and I's?).

Until then, don't just sit there, go make something delicious to eat.

Crispy Grilled Chicken Thighs

Mission Accomplished!

Hey everyone,

This entry was weird.  The Lemon Raspberry Sorbet cake was possibly the easiest recipe in the book.  Yet it took much longer to make than I care to admit.

Shopping was the first issue.  I have never bought sorbet before, so locating it was difficult.  I know where to find it now and they stick out like sore thumbs.  At the time, however, they were hiding like I was going to partially melt them and make them into a cake.  I can't tell you how many times I walked up and down the freezer isle with a stupid expression on my face.  Finally I found some.  Mission Accomplished!  Too bad I left the aircraft carrier at home.

After running around two stores like a chicken with my head cut off, I was ready to make this cake.  So I started with prepping the spring-form pan.  Easy enough.  Just butter it.

I had nobody to take action shots for this part, so I was trying to work and take a picture at the same time.

Next came the tricky part,  putting parchment paper around the edges or the spring-form pan.  You do this for two reasons.  One, to keep it from sticking to the pan.  And two, because the cake ends up taller than the pan.  I attempted this way too many times.  What ended up happening is that as I would close the clasp on the pan, the paper would go skiwampus.  Finally, It worked.  Hard part over, right.

Then to make the Oreo cookie crust.  I've made these tons of times.  Easy as pie, right.  Noooope!  Faster than Ygritte could say, "You know nothing, Jon Snow," I forgot sugar.  I was completely out of sugar.  Oh well, quick trip to a convenience store later and I was set.

Now, I followed the recipe, but it wasn't enough crust.  It just wasn't.  I would recommend doubling the crust.  Now after freezing the crust for a several minutes, it was super easy.  The lemon layer was up first.  By now, the sorbet was soft and easy to form into the pan.  Then I froze that layer.  The recipe tells you to freeze for 45 minutes, but I was getting tired and only froze it for about 25 minutes.  It turned out fine.  Then I added the raspberry layer.  By that time I had someone to take action shots with my camera.

Then I let it freeze overnight.  The rest was even easier.  I made the chocolate topping.  Let that freeze for a little while and cut some holes so I could put candles in the cake.

 Voila!  Birthday cake!  The recipe is super easy and anyone can do it.  If anyone has good tips for the parchment paper/spring-form pan trick, let me know.

Until next time, go make something and eat it.

Lemon-Raspberry Sorbet Cake

Grilling Corn? Part II - Subtitle To Be Determined

Hey Everyone,

Well I can say that last night's grilling expedition turned out most excellently.  I was a little worried about grilling the corn, but it turned out just fine.

With most of the actual preparation done during my lunch, I picked up Kay and Veronica and did the last little bit of prep-work at their apartment.  For the side dish/dessert, we made strawberries and dip.

There was no real recipe per se for this.  But I did substitute one dip that they suggested, sour cream.  No offense to any out there who like that, but that just sounds awful.  So Veronica suggested we make whip cream and get some Greek yogurt for dip.  Now, that really was Veronica's idea, but I'm going to attribute every idea to her from now on so she doesn't get mad at me when I don't properly cite her work. :-)

 And here's the proof Veronica made the Whipped Cream

 While we made the strawberries and dip Kay husked the corn.  She missed something.  I'll show you later.

We then went to Liberty Park and started grilling.  The grilling took a little bit longer than we would have liked, so we started eating the strawberries and dip. As we started to get low on our dessert we switched to dipping our potato rolls.  Which sounds totes gross, but it really wasn't.

Our "poor man's" cooler

My Rankings for Dips w/Strawberries:

1.  Turbinado Sugar

2.  Whipped Cream

3.  Chocolate Souce

4.  Greek Yogurt 

My Rankings for Dips w/Potato Rolls:

1.  Whipped Cream

2.  Turbinado Sugar

3.  Chocolate Suace

4.  Greek Yogurt

...poor Greek Yogurt... it tried so hard.

Back to the grilling.  I would rotate the tenderloins every now and again and brush on a new coat of sauce.  The sauce was good, but I felt it might have been a little runny.  Oh well.

Side note:  I asked Veronica to get rid of as many corn "hairs" as possible before we grilled them.  I hates them so much.  While she was doing that, she found a worm in one of the cobs of corn.  Yep it was disgusting.

So we threw that corn away.  Thanks for catching that when you were husking the corn, Kay.

So after what seemed forever and a day, the corn and pork tenderloins were finished.  And it was excellent.  This is a good recipe to have around.  The pork had a good kick to it, but wasn't to spicy.  And the corn was great.  They had me use olive oil instead of butter.  If you want to try it, there is a link down below, and also on the recipe page located over on the right side.

So all in all, very successful.  I only had two complaints.  One, I didn't get the grill marks on the corn like the picture had.  Two, I arrived at the park with a flat stomach.  I left with a very large food baby. 

So until next time, go eat something!

Grilled Pork Tenderloin and Corn on the Cob

Grilling Corn? Part I - So Far So Good

Hey everyone,

So it's been a little bit since my first and only post.  I have not given up already on my blog.  Although I completely understand why you might think so.  I've actually been in Mexico for a little while... smuggling drugs or something...

I'm very excited about this meal.  I get to grill, which is the reason we bought this magazine in the first place.  Also the thought of grilling corn makes me chuckle.  I mean, come on!  Who does that? 

Pork and Corn Ingredients

So in preparation for making this meal, I realized two things.  One, the pork needs to be refrigerated 3-6 hours for the recipe.  Two, one of my roommates moved last weekend, and apparently, he owned everything in the kitchen.  So on my lunch break today, I went to the local grocer and spent my hard earned money on lots of spices.  Anyone who has built a kitchen up from nothing knows what that's like.

The rub was way fun to make.  I mixed paprika, brown sugar, onion powder, mustard powder, garlic powder, cumin, and salt and pepper.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera-girl... sorry... camera-person this time to take pictures.  So there aren't any action shots of me, which is a shame if you were looking for a picture of me rubbing spices on slabs of cold meat.

 After making the rub, I brushed olive oil on the tenderloins and the applied the rub.

Then wrapping it in plastic wrap, I placed the pork in the refrigerator to sit until a later time.  Then I made the sauce to brush on the pork while grilling.  The main ingredient was apple cider vinegar.  If anyone could tell me what type of soap to use to get vinegar smell off my hands, I'd really appreciate it.  Leave comments below.

So that's it for Grilling Corn? Part I - So Far So Good.  I'll be grilling tonight an eating.  Tomorrow, you will be able to see how it all turned out in Grilling Corn? Part 2 - Subtitle To Be Determined.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Corn on the Cob