Food Friday Meets Meatless Mondays

In an attempt to be a little more healthy and help out the environment in a small way, I implemented a "Meatless Mondays" and, believe it or not, Breaky has agreed to go along with it!

Breaky and I have always been big carnivores. It wasn't a meal, especially to Breaky, if it didn't have some kind of meat or meaty-protein. Thanks to the wonder of Pinterest, I found a multitude of vegetarian dinner ideas that aren't your typical "vegetarian dinner ideas" and aren't just pasta and sauce.

I have found, through numerous diets and doctor's restrictions on what I can and cannot eat, that the Fall season is legitimately the best season to be creative with healthier foods. Sweet potatoes, acorn squash, spaghetti squash,  etc...

Thus far we have used a lot of cauliflower, sweet potatoes, bell peppers and zucchini.

DISCLAIMER! None of these are my recipes. They came from Pinterest, and let's be honest, I, as always, modified them in some way or another.




This recipe is Korean BBQ Style Cauliflower Lettuce Wraps.
I modified it a little bit and used a dash of regular bbq sauce and halfed the amount of soy sauce (mostly because we ran out and it was like, 5:30 at night.

We threw in some vegetable spring rolls we had left over from game night, and BOOM. Success.














This next recipe was additionally a success, once I roasted the peppers long enough. I tried this a month ago, and Breaky was "meh" about it, as the peppers were still too crunchy.


I didn't really follow a recipe with this one. Honestly kind of made it up myself.

Basically, roasted the bell peppers for like, 30-45 minutes. Chopped up a head of cauliflower, cut up a bunch of mushrooms, added a dash of breadcrumbs and topped with different kinds of cheeses for each pepper.

I didn't take a picture of this recipe, so here's the source's picture. It was a moderate success. Once you added the hot sauce/chili flakes. Since we have a 1.5 year old at home, we don't add the kick to recipes until after we serve ourselves.

We also used a lower-carb pasta from Explore Cuisine. Which was decent. For this recipe, we used the Black Bean Spaghetti , which gave it a black and orange look. Very Halloweeny-festive

For more pinned ideas for Meatless Mondays and for other crafty ideas, take a look at my Pinterest Boards. Feel free to send me ideas! 

Food Friday: Rice Pudding

Welcome back to Food Friday with the Good Geek Wife. 

Rice pudding is something I used to only make around Christmas time. In fact, it is a part of our Christmas family tradition two days before Christmas when Breaky, and now BabyCPK celebrate Christmas as a small little family before heading to celebrate with more family. 

Well, come to find out, it is a hit any time during the year. Including a big hit for the BabyCPK, who, let's be honest is more of a ToddlerCPK at this point.

So here is my recipe that I use for my rice pudding. 

• 2 cup cooked white rice (or however much rice is left after making WAAYY too much for dinner)
• 2 cups milk (or 1 cup half and half or 1 cup milk and 1/2 cup creamer)
• 1/2 cup sugar or stevia
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• as many raisins as best suits your fancy

In a saucepan, combine rice, vanilla and sugar. Cook uncovered over mediumish heat until thickened, stirring often. We usually serve cold, but some serve it warm. If it's during the winter, we will actually just stick the whole pot in the snow to cool it down. Because=Michigan.

Then you add raisins when you are ready to serve. If you are feeling super fancy or if it's Christmas time, adding a little cinnamon could be fun too. 

Food Friday: Game of Thrones

Winter is Here!

No, legit, winter is still here. It was friggin snowing on like, Sunday and Monday. I had to let DogCPK out when we were watching Game of Thrones on Sunday and opened the door to Winterfell instead of Kalamazoo. IN APRIL.

This is a picture of Winterfell. Not my backyard. 

Ok, mini-rant over.

Breaky and I hosted family from out of town, so we didn't have or go to a big geeky-fied party to watch the season 8 premier of Game of Thrones. But we did kinda celebrate.

I made us drinks and dessert! Then, of course, we watched the episode.

WHITE WALKER

Enjoyed a "White Walker" courtesy of Pinterest browsing. If you haven't hit up my Pinterest boards yet, take a look! 

 LEMON  (CUP)CAKE(S)

I was going to make Sansa's lemon cakes, but I suck at baking, and we ran out of time. So I made cupcakes. With lemon. They were good, and sometimes that is all you can ask of me. :) 

The lemon cupcakes were also a simplified recipe. I used white cake mix, a can of lemon/lime pop (soda for non-mid-westerners) and juice from one lemon. Stir everything together, put in my cupcake tins, follow the directions for cooking on the back of the cake box, and BLAMMO, really fluffy lemony cupcakes. 

Better written down recipe for my Sansa's Lemon Cupcakes

Ingredients

- one box of white cake mix

- one can of lemon/lime pop 

- juice from one lemon

Supplies

- cupcake tin

- mixing bowl

Mix the ingredients together in the mixing bowl. Pour in to the cupcake tin. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.








Quick Game of Thrones Episode 1 Review with No Spoilers-Ish

Basically, read at your own risk. 

I know a lot of fans were bemoaning the lack-of-action and speed of the episode. Honestly, though, it had  many of the reunions I personally have been waiting for for YEARS. And honestly, I was ok with the pace. It is a lot of set up for future big events, and honestly, a lot happened! Just because it wasn't a ton of fighting and dying, didn't mean it wasn't a big important episode! TO be completely honest, the prospect of what could come next and at the end has me super stressed out.

But I will watch until the end! Because in the end: "Valar Morghulis", all men must die.

Food Friday: LFG Bar Kalamazoo

Every once in a while, Breaky and I get a date night or two. We are getting to a point where we are more comfortable leaving BabyCPK with others, AND Breaky has been home for longer than a few weeks.

Food Friday: Norwegian Almond Cookies

So, my family, as many of you may recall, is Norwegian. My Dad's Mother's side.

We have incorporated a lot of Norwegian traditions, especially around Christmas time. Jule Kakke, which I mentioned in a blog post two years ago, Ghejost, which is a carmalized goat cheese and spelled 8 different ways depending on where you look and who you ask, the Dala horses we have up and about everywhere in our house, and many other little Norwegian things we've kept up from generation to generation.

One thing that I kind of picked up and kind of remember someone doing at some point in my childhood was the almond cookie with the maraschino cherry in the middle. It wasn't kept up year after year, however, which makes me think that maybe my grandmother was the one that made them once or twice, and then she passed away when I was pretty young.

Regardless, I kind of put together my own cookie recipe. YES you read that right, I can bake something.

So, Norwegian Almond Cookies:

Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 cups flour
- almond extract *
- vanilla extract *
- maraschino cherries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Step 1:
Mix together butter and sugar until creamy.
Step 2:
Add egg and beat
Step 3:
Add flour and extracts. I use 1/2 teaspoon of each extract, as Breaky finds the almond overpowering if I do a whole teaspoon, which many of these recipes call for. Up to you though.
Step 4:
Chill dough for 1-2 hours (which I hardly ever have time to do, let's be honest, not the most important step)
Step 5:
Make  balls from the dough the size of a walnut and flatten on a cookie sheet
Step 6:
Press a cherry (or a half a cherry if you prefer) in to the middle of the cookie ball
Step 7:
Bake at 350 degrees F for 12-15 minutes until edges are light brown


Enjoy!

Food Friday for Fall: Apple Picking and Apple Everything

This past weekend we went apple picking. There are many farms in the area, but the one we went to was Gull Meadow Farms, as we have for the past few years. Ironically, both Breaky and I had been, but just never together. Each year, one of us had something else going on when the picking party commenced.

I consider it the start of fall. Whether this was actually planned or not, we actually DID go the first day of fall. The weather cooperated like it was planned: sunny, but in the mid to low 60s (Fahrenheit). It was also BabyCPK's first time at a farm and apple picking. So many firsts in these past few months, it's really hard to keep track.

We got Honey Crisp, Fuji, Gala, and a few other kinds of apples before calling it good. Breaky and I combined got just about a half a bushel.


Tangent Alert:
I don't know about anyone else, but whenever I hear the words "bushel" and "peck" I immediately think of the song "Bushel and a Peck"







With that many apples, you can imagine I'm scrambling to find and/or create recipes with apples in them. That, and my mid-day snack has been an apple. * Insert joke about an apple a day *

A few nights ago I made a pretty decent bacon-wrapped pork chops with apples with a poor man's risotto.

Last night, I made an apple pie. My recipe for that can be found here. That, however, was for dessert.

For dinner,  I made a Chicken Apple Stir Fry.

I have to admit, I made this recipe from many different recipes on Pinterest, as is my way. Heck, that's how I created my ever-famous Jambalaya recipe.

Here's the "recipe"
(I use "Recipe" loosly, as I kind of guestimate amounts and change things halfway through making it. Aka I wing it)


- 3 carrots
- 2 small zuchinni
- 4 Snack Peppers
- 1/2 packet of mushroom
- Chicken-Cubed-1 cup
- 2 apples-chopped up
- Apple Cider or Apple juice 1/2 cup
- 1/2 cup Soy Sauce
- (just a sprinkling) Red Pepper flakes
- Garlic powder to taste
- Minced onion- I dunno, like, 1 tablespoon?
- Cinnamon-Very very light sprinkling.

Drizzle olive oil on skillet or wok. Cook chicken. Remove chicken. Cook carrots, peppers, zuchinni, minced onion and mushrooms until carrots are soft-ish.


In separate bowl, add apple cider/juice, soy sauce, red pepper flakes, garlic powder and cinnamon and mix.

Add chicken and apples to skillet/wok. Stir together. Add liquid mixture.

Serve over rice. You can use white rice, brown rice, cauliflower rice, I'm not going to discriminate. All would be really good. You do you.

Turned out pretty good, if I may say so myself. Apple pie for dessert was of course pretty good. Enough about me. Happy Friday everyone! Enjoy your weekend.

Hendy's Pancakes-Guest Blog

What the Hendy’s?

Hello Bloggers! I have the privilege to be the Good Geek Wife’s younger yet taller sister. She has asked me to be a guest recipe blogger for your enjoyment.

This recipe has now reached a new generation. Every Sunday growing up, my mom and her family (her Mom, Dad, and brothers Jim and Rick) would have a big Sunday breakfast. This breakfast would put many breakfasts to shame. It consisted of eggs, toast, fruit, bacon, hash-browns, sausage, and the Hendy’s. Now Hendy’s is a name of which my family does not know the origin. Those who would know it, are sadly no longer with us. Glad to get that question out of the way. Now the moment you all are waiting for…what are Hendy’s?

Hendy’s are defined (Family dictionary) as silver dollar pancakes. So these pancakes are supposed to be small and bite sized. That small quirk is not the only quirk about these amazing treats. The Hendy’s mix has to be mixed and made the night before your breakfast.

My family is known for these pancakes. There is no judgement on how many you can eat, because they are so small, having 25 to 30 pancakes isn’t much at all! (Although I would not suggest it.)

My Uncle Jim is the Maestro of Hendy’s and has taught me well. So I hope you enjoy using the recipe for your next breakfast.

To prevent the use of many dishes, I suggest mixing the Hendy’s mix in the container you use to pour them on the skillet in the morning. We often use an old juice container. This offers a more precise way of pouring since your pancakes have to be so small.

Here are the ingredients you will need to make Hendy’s: (4 servings)

1 cup of sour cream

1 cup of half and half

3 eggs

1 small teaspoon of salt

1 cup of baking mix (Bisquick/Jiffy mix)

1 teaspoon of baking soda

The night before:

Mix the baking mix, salt, and baking soda. Stir in eggs and add sour cream and half and half. Mix all ingredients with a whisk. Make sure that you get the baking mix that inevitably is sitting at the bottom of the container. Make sure there are no “clumps” of baking mix at the bottom or floating around in the container. Place the container in the refrigerator overnight.

The morning of:

Warm up a griddle. I would suggest the griddle to be on medium heat. Remember that these pancakes should be small, so if medium heat is not hot enough and your pancakes begin to look like Pangea, please adjust accordingly. My Grandmother suggests the griddle to be at 380 degrees if yours has a temperature gauge. Take the container out of the refrigerator and grab something with which to stir. You will realize that the batter is much thinner than your normal pancake batter, and that is very normal.

Pour the batter on the griddle into circles only about 2 inches in diameter. I gauge when to flip them based on the bubbles that are created when poured. I would suggest you not flip them too early, because, well…they won’t flip especially due to the very thin texture of the batter. If you flip them too late, meaning all the bubbles have popped, then they are silver dollar hockey pucks and serve no use for your tummy. Since these take a longer time to make and flip, my family often has the oven on the keep warm setting, and I put the pancakes on an oven safe plate in there. So while I make 12 to 15 on the griddle at a time, I will put those 12-15 right onto the plate in the oven. If they are left out, they will stick together and won’t be as tasty!

It is suggested from the recipe to serve these with melted butter and warm maple syrup.

Every person has their own way of eating these. I am a melted butter and syrup girl, but many of my family members mix them with their eggs or cover them in peanut butter. Don’t even get me started on those in my family who turn the Hendy’s into tacos with the sausage or bacon in between the Hendy’s.

I hope that these little pancakes will be a staple at your next breakfast!

Thanks for having me on your blog sis! Hope you all enjoyed!

The photo below is the recipe we use. This recipe is on the last page of the Gourmet Gab: Presented by the Junior League of Saginaw.

Mrs. Richard Wendland is my Gaga…my Grandma who without her this blog post wouldn’t be possible. For You Gugs!

Food Friday Sausage Dip Livestreamed

Last week, Breaky made my oh-so-famous sausage dip, on his stream: twitch.tv/breakycpk

Normally, I do most of the cooking. Not necessarily out of necessity, but because I genuinely enjoy doing it. Always have. Sometimes I'll ask Breaky for some help, like taking things out of the freezer the night before, or preheating the oven if we are making something like lamb that's going to take a while.

Now, he does cook. He can make his Dad's mashed potatoes (leave a comment if you think that recipe should be the next one he lives streams!) and he can follow a recipe, so my faith in him to honestly make a home-cooked meal is there. He is just not practiced at it. Partially my fault, as I don't really give him a chance to have a lot of practice. In my defense though, especially with all the casting he's been doing, I am usually the one in a position to actually make something by 6:30-7:00 pm.

Breaky was doing some IRL streaming one day. If you are not familiar with Twitch.tv's IRL, basically people stream the every-day things they do. Twitch primarily revolves around gaming, but you can stream walking your dog, or reading, or painting your nails... (honestly, I don't really know, I'm guessing here). So Breaky was doing some IRL streaming of him walking our dog and then doing a bunch of chores. He ended up making himself a chicken taco. Very simple, he put chicken and cheese in a tortilla, wrapped it up and nuked it for, I dunno, 30 seconds. He had quite a few viewers and it was well received. We joked around that he could start his own cooking live-stream segment, and I mentioned how we needed to make the dip for a BBQ we were going to at a friend's house.

Thus, he live-streamed making "my" dip on his channel.

Here is the masterpiece:

Pi Day

Yes, I am posting a food-related post not on a Friday. Still a Food Friday though. Because I said so. Kind of. Also, I wish it was Friday.

Happy 3.14159265359... day. Or also known as Pi Day. Because it is 3/14. Ha ha. Very cute. Math.

Now, as many of you may know, if you know me at all, that I do not make a habit of baking. While sometimes my cooking disasters turn out salvageable, my baking has had an atrocious legacy. Mostly cakes. They just do not turn out, or I am too impatient.

Exhibit A. Happy Birthday Breaky

BUT, one thing I do bake is apple pie. My Dad makes the best apple pies, and it has kind of become a tradition. My Dad is similar in kitchen styles to me, in that he kind of makes things up as he goes, and rarely uses a recipe. If he does, it is a complicated old family recipe, like the Julekakke at Christmas, or it is a recipe he created and wrote down to remember. I once asked him if he has his apple pie recipe so I can include it in our family recipe book. He said that he just uses the recipe from the box of Kraft Minute Tapioca. I look over at him, knowing full well he had modified it in some way. "What about the apple juice?" I ask. "Well, yeah, I guess I add that" he said. "And the extra crust?" "Well, that's just for fun." 

Two peas in a pod. 

So, I present the modified Kraft Minute Tapioca Apple Pie. (Original Recipe here)

Ingredients:

• 6 cups of thinly sliced peeled apples
• 3/4 cup sugar (my Dad substitutes the appropriate amount of Splenda/Stevia to make it sugar-free-ish)
• 2 Tbsp Minute Tapioca
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (or as much as you think is right)
• 1/4 ground nutmeg (I used just a little less)
• 1 package ready-to-use refrigerated pie crust
• Apple juice (just a few sprinkles)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Peel and slice up your apples if you have not already

As you are tossing the apples in to a large mixing bowl, sprinkle a little apple juice into the mixture. This will prevent the apples from going brown super fast. Toss in the sugar, tapioca and spices as you go along. Mix together. 

Line the pie plate of your choice with one of the crusts (the package will have two). Read the directions on what ever pre-made crusts you have. Some will instruct you to poke holes with a fork along the bottom to prevent bubbling. 

Put the mixture in and cover with the remaining crust. Some crust may be left over over the sides. Cut that stuff off, toss it in sugar and cinnamon, put on a separate baking sheet. Cut slices/slits on the top of the pie crust to allow steam to escape. You may want to put a little melted butter or spray butter on the top, especially near the crusts to make a nice golden brown. I always add a little cinnamon to the top too. 

Put the pie and the baking sheet in. Take the extra pieces that are on the baking sheet out after about 10-15 minutes, and you have a fun little snack while you wait. 

The pie should bake for just about 40-50 minutes until the top is golden-ish brown or some of the juice is bubbling through. 

*Disclaimer, this recipe only makes one pie. I made two for today. So I doubled the recipe

HAPPY PI DAY FOLKS!

Jambalaya Recipe

Normally, my recipes get posted on Fridays (Food Friday and all...), but this Friday we will be busy with Halloween-related things, so... Happy Food Friday on a Tuesday. Tasty Tuesday? Sure.

Years and years (and years) ago, I found a recipe for jambalaya. With a few exceptions, I realized I liked everything in the recipe and thought I should give it a try. I found about 3-4 more recipes on jambalaya, took those, tore them apart, and put them back together in what is now my own unique recipe that I am actually not 100% sure could actually be considered jambalaya, but you know what, people like it, and I enjoy making it, so.... there. If it is not actually jambalaya, someone come up with a name for it. I'm flexible.

The recipe, like many others of mine, has seen so many changes it could make your head spin, but every time I make a change, it seems to get better, so obviously I am doing something right. With the exception of writing it down for a friend of mine (to the best of my memory), I have never actually recorded or written down my recipe for this. Normally, I wing it and try to remember as I go.

BreakyCPK turned 30 this past weekend!! What better to way to celebrate than to make him my jambalaya and actually write it down so people can also make and enjoy it!






















Ingredients:
Shrimp-24 count
1 package of ground hot sausage
Hot sauce- to taste
2 teaspoons "Wing" sauce- a few tablespoons
3 Bell peppers
- Red
- Yellow
- Green
2-3 cloves of garlic-minced
hot pepper (2-3of your choosing based on how hot you like it ;)
Pinch of Brown sugar
2 cups of Chicken Stock
1 table spoon- olive oil
2-3 Cups of V8 juice
1 can of tomato paste
Rice (depending on how many people)

Tools:
Big pot
Big pan
Spatula
Strainer (I have something like this, and let me tell you, worth every penny)


*Disclaimer: as with all my recipes. the amount and directions are estimations, and can and should be changed depending on who you are making this for and how many people. I encourage everyone to play and change this recipe to make it truly your own..

Directions:

• Dice up bell peppers and hot peppers
• Add a little olive oil in the pan
• Add minced garlic to olive oil and cook for just about a minute
• Add the bell peppers and hot peppers to the garlic and olive oil and cook until peppers are soft-ish
• Once peppers are cooked, add ground sausage

• Add hot sauce
• Once ground sausage is cooked and mixed with the bell peppers, drain the grease and set mixture aside
• Add water in a big-ish pot and bring to a boil
• At the same time, take the pan the pepper and sausage mixture was cooked in and coat the pan with butter
• Cook the shrimp until pink
• Add tomato paste
• Cook tomato paste, continuously stirring, until the paste is more brown than red
• Add about a pinch or less of brown sugar to the paste
• Once the mixture is more brown then red, add the sausage/pepper mixture to and stir in the wing sauce and cook until all is warm. Then turn off the heat
• Once the water is boiling, add the appropriate amount of rice for the number of people you are having
• After about 5 minutes, add chicken broth/stock and v8 juice
• Remember, the rice will soak up both the water and the chicken stock
• Add the complete mixture in to the big pot
• Stir occasionally, as the bigger the pot you have, the more likely the rice will fall to the bottom and burn (NOTE: THIS IS FROM EXPERIENCE!) 

• Add more hot or wing sauce if necessary
• You are going to be cooking/stirring this for quite a while. You will know it is done when there is very little liquid left and the dish is pretty thick (thick enough to use a chip to eat it)
• Turn off heat, but keep stirring (you do not want this dish to burn!)
• Serve in a bowl, add a little more hot sauce if you are adventurous

Food Friday: THE Sausage Dip

Credit to my mother, who's recipe this is and whose permission I have to use publish it and whom I love very much and whom I should call more. (LOVE YOU MOM)

Anywho.

Every time I either host a party or get invited to one, the expectation, and sometimes demand, is that I make or bring my sausage dip. Usually, during or after said party, I get bombarded with requests for the recipe. I am always very open to sharing, even jotting it down for people. So I figured it would be easiest to just put it up here, and direct people to my blog.

Although, there is a small chance that now that people can make it themselves that they will not invite me to parties. You guys will still invite me.... right....... guys? .....Bueller?   * crickets  *

Well, I'm going to risk a life of loneliness and share the ever popular, in high demand, amazing SAUSAGE DIP.


Ingredients/Supplies List

- 1 slow cooker
- Frying pan
- Spatula
- 4 bricks of cream cheese
- 2 cans of Rotel tomatos
- One container/roll of Bob Evan's spicy sausage
- One container/roll of Bob Evan's regular sausage

I have visuals to help with the ingredients list:

First, spray your slow cooker with non-stick spray, or use a slow-cooker liner, then throw all 4 bricks of cream cheese in to the slow cooker and turn it to high. This will allow the cream cheese to soften and make it easier to stir everything together when you get to that point.

Next, combine and fry up the sausage. When that is done, be sure to drain the grease.

Throw the sausage in the slow cooker and turn the slow cooker down to low. Open and drain the Rotel tomatoes and add those to the slow cooker too.

Stir together until completely blended. then I usually turn the slow cooker down to "keep warm" after about an hour on low, as everything is already cooked and should be warm/hot by that point.

Serve right out of the slow cooker. Serve with sturdy chips (Tostitos Scoops are my preference). 





Oh, and DogCPK, of course, is always on hand when I am making anything in the kitchen.

Food Friday: a F^c$ Up and a Fabulous Fix

So this is more of a story than it is a recipe. Because, honestly, I had no intention of making "scrambled eggs" a "Food Friday" blog feature because, you know, it's scrambled eggs. I'm not saying everyone knows how to make scrambled eggs, but honestly, I simply follow Gordon Ramsay's YouTube Video as to how to make good scrambled eggs, so the blog post would have been simply a link to his video (I suppose I should probably link the video anyway)

Anyway. As a part of a new "budget" and money-saving initiative, Breaky and I decided it would be advantageous to make breakfast one day during the weekend. We used to just go to this small little country breakfast place down the street both Saturday and Sunday, but decided because we have been spending too much money at restaurants that I could, instead, make breakfast one of those mornings.

I will be the first to admit, breakfast-making is not my strongest skill. My Mother made the best over-easy eggs when we were growing up, and still does when we come to visit, and my Dad and my sister make great pancakes. Me? I make my breakfast for myself, which is usually yogurt and granola or toast and peanut butter or just fruit. I have made several breakfast casseroles for company brunches which have turned out o.k., but were pretty much just scrambled eggs and hash browns. Pancakes? Last time I tried it was a complete disaster. Burned on the outside, uncooked on the inside, in shapes that screamed "please kill me." Hey, I said I was the Good Geek Wife, not the Great Geek Wife. The Great Geek Wife would be able to make pancakes I'm sure. My "good" status comes from me at least trying! To Breaky's credit, he doesn't complain when food I prepare is.....meh....or burned. He usually will just sneak cereal as a "snack" later. True love right here.

But this blog post is not about my pancake debacle. This blog post is about my scrambled eggs. Both Breaky and I are fans of Mexican food, and had salsa, cheese and tortillas in stock in the kitchen thanks to a recent Costco run. So, why not breakfast burritos! As I'm seasoning the eggs, in goes the onion powder, garlic powder, sea salt, cumin....... wait...... why do I smell cinnamon? *looks at what I thought was the cumin* oh sh*t.

If you have ever used cinnamon in cooking, you have used just a little shake of it. It is pungent and sometimes overpowering. I, of course, put A LOT of what I thought was cumin in these eggs. So, as a result, I had put a lot of cinnamon in our scrambled eggs. Our breakfast burrito scrambled eggs.

In my defense, I had not had my coffee yet.

Luckily, Nick wasn't up yet and I did some investigating in our fridge. Mango salsa. Hhmmmm..... maybe like a sweet, spicy and savory breakfast burrito with cinnamon eggs and mango salsa.  So I finished up with the scrambled eggs by adding some sausage I had cooked up and added some hot sauce and a little bit of sour cream to soften up the eggs. Served it with the mango salsa and cheese in a tortilla. Held my breath.

Breaky had no idea. Still doesn't (well, until he reads this I suppose) He thought they were fantastic. Honestly, so did I. The cinnamon added a level of spicy that was unique and tasty.

Not a pancake-level disaster that it could have been. Yay! So I suppose if you wanted to try my "accidental" recipe of sweet and savory breakfast burritos, you could follow along with the story. Maybe one day I'll try it again on purpose and post it. It could use a better title though.

Food Friday: Fruit Salsa

So close to alliteration with the title. Oh well.....

Last week for Memorial Day I made my summer favorite: Fruit Salsa. Super easy, but very, very good. One of those that is a huge hit at BBQs and family get-togethers that happen oh-so often during the summer. So when you take a break from all that Overwatch to go to that cookout hosted by IRL friends, you can pretend you spent a lot of time concocting a masterpiece, when in reality you just cut up fruit and threw it together ;)

On to instructions.

Note: This is how I made it for this get-together, but you are more than welcome to mix it up depending on what fruit is available. I would NOT recommend making it with bananas however. Will not keep and the consistency would be a little off.

- 2 Apples
- 1 container of blueberries
- 1 container of raspberries
- 2 Mangoes

- 1 container of strawberries
- 1 container of blueberry jam (I have diabetics in my family so I use sugar free)
- Cinnamon tortilla chips (I use Stacy's, but I have also made homemade tortilla chips in the past)

Cut up fruit. Mix together. Add jam. Mix together. Serve in pretty colorful bowl. Serve with Cinnamon Chips.

Bask in awesome complements. Seriously though, it is a very simple, but very effective recipe to impress real-life people at outside events.

Hamburglar Spaghetti

So, I decided that "Food Friday" will be the second Friday of the month, instead of every Friday. You know why? Because life happens. And I am still learning how to be an adult with responsibilities and a job.

But you still love me :) Right?

So, to give a little background that probably 85% of people will probably skip because let's be honest, you are here to read the recipe, the husband and I have a Costco membership, which means we buy a lot of things in bulk. Mostly paper items that won't go bad. Or alcohol. Or both. But sometimes we buy things like meat. Which brings us to this recipe. We had a bunch of hamburgers for this weekend. We had a huge garage sale for which my family came down to visit. We decided to grill for one of the nights. Because I panicked, I bought a crap-ton more hamburgers and brats than we needed. So much so, not only did we have to grill two nights in a row (no one was complaining though) but we had leftover hamburgers.

My dad suggested that my husband grills the remaining hamburgers. He said we could use it for things like chili or spaghetti. Plus, it would keep a little better than raw hamburger, which is our problem, we buy stuff in bulk from Costco and it ends up going bad. What a great suggestion to cook the meat and then use it in something else. One of my many talents is making a meal out of random stuff we have in our cupboards. That comes from being a poor and cheap college student turned debt-ridden single female working for a call center.

So, as a result, I decided to make spaghetti using leftover hamburgers from this weekend.





DISCLAIMER: This is how *I* made our spaghetti last night. I encourage you to change the proportions and/or ingredients to fit your tastes and amount of people you are feeding. Don't be afraid to play. That's how I am able to make such interesting and tasty treats. Also, the listing of ingredients are estimations. So I apologize if you end up with more spaghetti noodles than you wanted.

What you will need:
- 3 cooked hamburgers
- One jar of super cheap, normal spaghetti sauce
- Spaghetti noodles for how many people you want to serve. Use something like this to determine
- Basil
- Garlic (powdered  or minced, up to you)
- Oregano
- Minced Onion (or onion powder)
- Worcestershire sauce
- Salt (to taste)
- Parmesan Cheese
- Cheap white wine
- Greek Yogurt or Sour Cream
- Beef broth
- Spatz's Bread (or regular bread if you are not from Michigan)
- Butter


Start by boiling the water to cook the spaghetti.

While that's going on, cut up the hamburgers.

After that is done, add together the spaghetti sauce, Worcestershire sauce (just about a table spoon), basil, garlic, onion, a splash of the cheap white wine, and just about a half a cup of beef broth together in a bowl and mix. Then transfer to a sauce pot on medium heat. While heating up, add slowly a little Greek yogurt or sour cream to thicken. Also add a little Parmesan cheese. Like, two shakes.

When the water is done boiling, add the spaghetti noodles. I like to break them in half to make it more manageable, but to each their own.






















Break up and start to "cook" the hamburger in a frying pan. Since it is mostly cooked anyway, this will be pretty easy to do. You can season the meat a little bit with some more Worcestershire sauce and garlic. When completely cooked and warmed up, add to the sauce.



Watch out for Nessies in your sauce though....

While things are cooking together, put butter on the bread and sprinkle with garlic powder. Then put in a toaster oven or oven.



Now let's check on the spaghetti noodles

rawr























Once the spaghetti noodles are cooked, drain the water.

The sauce and the garlic bread should be all set to go.

Sprinkle some Parmesan on top.



Serve and enjoy!

Food Friday-An Introduction

Hello all!

A part of what I want to incorporate in to this blog is a few recipes from me and my family and friends. I cannot guarantee you they will all be "geeky" related, but I will try my best to make it such by injecting some humor and some huge "fail" moments I have.

I have a pretty decent system that allows me to create a meal quickly, so I can enjoy gaming with Breaky, and also my meals are able to be enjoyed while at a computer or around a table with a board game or two. .

Fair warning, fails will more likely happen if I try to bake anything. I can cook! But I don't bake. I am not a scientist, I don't like "measuring" or "following directions" or "not substituting" things because I am a cheapskate.

By the way, unrelated to Foodie Friday, the word "cheapskate" looks funny to me. I had to even google it to make sure I spelled it right. This may be one of those words that is easier to use in speech than in writing. Or maybe it is one of those instances where if you look at any word long enough it looks funny. Cheapskate.... cheapskate.....

But I digress (I do that a lot...)















I did not have time this week to formulate which recipe I should actually write down the specific ingredients for, so this is going to be an introduction of sorts, so you can figure out what to expect every(ish) Friday.


As an introduction, I will briefly go over what our kitchen always has on hand.


1. Rice. It is cheap, easy to make and can be bought in bulk. It helped me survive in Norway when I was studying abroad and no businesses over there took Visa. What I'm trying to say, it is a great poor college student staple.

2. Chicken or beef stock. This is a must! Can be used in so many different recipes.

3. Olive oil. I sent a question out to my Facebook friends about what olive oils are the best. Got a ton of answers that I still need to go through. Will follow-up with a blog post on Food Friday I'm sure.

4. A good pot and a good pan. Kind of seems like a no-brainer, right? Well, from someone who had some pretty cheap pots and pans in the past, this is a bigger deal than you think.

5. Pre-cooked frozen chicken. Cooking with raw chicken makes me nervous. And thawing frozen chicken is a hassle. They make pre-cooked frozen chicken that is available in any grocery store in the frozen section.

6. A cheese grater. Breaky has taken to only buying block cheese, which means we have to grate it. Which means Breaky grates it because I once took a good chunk of my knuckle off with a cheese grater. No thank you.


Not a "necessity" but I really like having Alexa in the kitchen. I bought the Amazon Echo for Breaky at Christmas, and I absolutely love it. From playing music while I cook, to asking her how many oz are in a cup, to having her turn on the living room lights on, she is an absolute help in my kitchen.

So what should you expect from Food Fridays?

How about my recipe for Jambalaya? Or my sausage dip that gets requested every time I make it for a party? How about helping me name something I threw together with crap that is in my kitchen because I didn't want to go out and buy things? Or seeing what failures I produce when I attempt to bake?

Sounds like a party to me.