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