BRING IT BACK!!!

I'm not what one might consider "much into" activism... perhaps I've had too easy, too comfortable a life... whatever, I apologize for nothing. Anyway, back on point (wow, I managed to derail myself in the very first sentence)... I am seriously considering stirring up some manner of grass-roots campaign (or perhaps something more "persuasive") to petition Kraft Foods to bring back the very best product they've ever produced, a product they inexplicably ceased manufacturing back in 2008... the garlic cheese roll...

I want my garlic cheese-stuffed dill pickles, damn it, and I'm not above using violent means to get them!

Southern Yummies!

Garlic cheese grits, topped with a soft-boiled egg! :-)

Ted's Soft Taco Bar

This is actually from a couple of weeks back... been meaning to post it, but (obviously) just getting around to it. Took some lovely home grown peppers from the garden... red and green serranos (seeded and chopped), a big, green bell pepper (ditto)... gave 'em a sweat in a skillet with some chopped sweet yellow onion... after they cooked down a bit, threw in some Morningstar Farms Meal Starter Crumbles (beef substitute) and seasoning... got my flour tortillas, lettuce, chopped tomato, sour cream and some lovely, crumbly La Vaquita queso fresco Mexicano... voila... soft taco bar!!!

Shit was good!

Enjoying a Bountiful Harvest!

So, a couple of my serrano peppers had taken on a nice blush... they were picked and given another day, getting nice and red over that duration. I seeded them and chopped them up, along with some sweet yellow onion, and gave the peppers and onions a nice sweat in a pan. While cooking those down, I beat three eggs with some shredded cheese, half-and-half, minced garlic, chopped tomato, S&P and some freshly picked Italian parsley... got the egg mixture in the pan and scrambled them up with the peppers and onions. Served them with a toasted bagel and cream cheese.


Nothing particularly impressive, I know... it's just cool making a meal from food you've grown yourself... and it was quite good!

Were I forced to choose between the two...

I would, after much agonizing, have to go with Pucky the Whale...

over Fudgy the Whale...

FEAR THE PHALANX OF GUMMI!!!

I love me some cultures!

I enjoy yogurt... I enjoy it a great deal. That being established, I've noticed that ALL yogurt advertising is geared towards women. The more I think about it, I can't recall ever even seeing a male in any capacity in yogurt-related promotions. Come on... it's yogurt, not douche, for God's sake.

Oh, well... guess this is yet another matter over which I will develop some sort of unhealthy complex.

Veggie Sliders!

Portobello mushrooms, sweet yellow onion, red, green and yellow bell peppers and poblano peppers hickory grilled and served on grill-toasted rolls with provolone and spicy mayo...

Turned out pretty well... nice smoky / sweet combo!

They say,

"You can't have your cake and eat it too." If "have your cake" implies that one would make love to their cake before eating it, this is probably a good thing.

How does my garden grow?

Here's the rollcall for my new herb garden...

German Thyme
Basil
Cilantro
Rosemary
Pineapple Sage
Garlic Chives
Oregano
Curry
Italian Parsley
Dill
Tarragon
Mint
Chamomile
Pennyroyal (to keep the bugs away!)

Looking forward to cooking my fat ass off when these puppies get big!

That Old Black Magic (has me in its spell)

It may sound like a strange combination, maybe it is, but I've grown very fond of this assembly when looking for a nosh... toasted bagel halves with a light spread of cream cheese and dill pickle planks. Perhaps it is odd, but I find it to be the nicest marriage of tangy and creamy since Louis Prima and Keely Smith.

And it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I'm a vegetarian...

The Hillshire Farm spots for their line of meat products constitute the very worst advertising I've ever seen for deli-related items...







Awful... just awful.

DAMN YOU, GIRL SCOUTS!

I received my eight (yes, eight) boxes of Girl Scout cookies at work this afternoon around 2:45 or so. With considerable help from my office mates, we had managed to consume two entire boxes of thin mints and all but a couple of one box of the peanut butter sandwiches by early this evening.

Moderation? FEH!

"If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" -Will Rogers

So...

I'm at my folks' place, making myself something to eat (I am a growing boy, after all)... I have a lovely 12" cheese pizza in the oven, placed on only a couple of sheets of aluminum foil (I like a nice, crispy crust)... timer goes off... check the oven, pizza looks perfect... I unfold a dish towel and place it on the countertop so I have a surface upon which to put my pie... take it out of the oven, go to place it on the towel but, somehow, I manage to slip into a state of lapsed equilibrium... the pizza begins to slide off the foil, and is heading over the edge of the counter and straight for the floor... with cat-like quickness, I pounce... flailing for the pizza, I make the save... and plunge my left hand straight into a mound of molten-hot cheese.

Believe it or not, the pizza was not as badly mauled as you might think... it certainly fared better than my hand did. Hey... no pain, no gain.

Not so rough for a "first draft"!

I've not made much pasta from scratch, and, until this week, I'd never made gnocchi... well, I whipped myself up a batch of ricotta parmesan gnocchi, then pan-toasted it with some garlic and green onion and threw together an alfredo sauce...

I gotta say... it wasn't bad at all (though, as you can see from the picture, I went a little too heavy with the sauce). I'd even go so far to say it was rather tasty. I already know a number of things I'll do differently, but, all-in-all, a pretty good first effort.

And so it goes...

• I'm 35 years old with 20/10 vision... and I've decided I'd like to start wearing glasses with rose-tinted lenses... or yellow, perhaps.
• The Keynesian nightmare continues as the call for economic interventionism grows ever louder. Communism, here we come! And yet, until the next administration takes power, it appears, at least based on today's hearing before the House Financial Services Committee (chaired by everyone's favorite mischievous little imp, Barney Frank), Congress is prepared to punt Detroit's Big 3... instead of agreeing to drop $25B worth of change in the GM / Ford / Chrysler cup, today saw a chamber full of representatives ready to give the auto-execs the bums rush. And when our elected officials learned that each of the CEOs had travelled to the hearings in their corporate jets, the bipartisan grandstanding was delicious! The antics of wacky Dems Gary Ackerman and Brad Sherman were laugh out loud funny. The smarmy, yet stern, reproach of Texas' own Jeb Hensarling was a squirm-in-your-seat delight of a diatribe... "At what point," the congressman queried, "does Starbucks get in line? Who doesn't get in line for the 700 billion dollars?" OY GEVALT!!! God help us... the end is nigh!
• I was recently watching some ABC Family Channel (oddly enough, with my family) and saw a promo for the upcoming airing of some piece of celluloid-based tripe entitled A Carol Christmas, starring (get this!): Tori Spelling, Gary Coleman... and William Shatner! How in the hell does this shit get made?!?!? Now that steaming turd of a film.... THAT makes the baby Jesus cry!
• I'm already on the season's second tin of three-flavor stale popcorn... and I must admit, it's the cute little Santa kittens / puppies and ice skating cartoon penguins that hook me, not the crappy popcorn. DON'T JUDGE... YOU'RE NO BETTER THAN ME!!!

McRib is back... and all is right with the world...

Even before having spent just short of the last two years as a vegetarian, I had always been repulsed by the flagship of McDonald's "only here for a limited time" offerings... without ever having sampled it. The McRib, this consummate abomination against all God's creation, is a heinous concept, obviously born of a sick mind and soul... and quite possibly brought to be in the forge of Lucifer himself. 280 calories (surprisingly few, actually) worth of pork (mostly tails and snouts, if I had to guess), water, salt, dextrose, BHA, BHT, propyl gallate and citric acid, compressed into the form of a small slab of baby back ribs, dressed with pickles, onions and sauce, served up a a McBun. Don't get me wrong... back in my carnivorous days, I was quite the fan of the swine (it was a good thing my Jewish ancestors were assimilated, I suppose)... ham, bacon, sausage... yum! That being said, even from it's initial offering, I found there to be something very unholy about the McRib... I couldn't tell you exactly why I found it to be such an abhorrent entity, but I'm pretty certain it began with the process of taking grade F pig bits and pressing them into a simulated rib rack (I've always taken issue with those that masquerade as something they are not... I find such utter disingenuousness to be the very heights of perniciousness). Well, call me a hypocrite...

I just finished enjoying a product from the fine folks at Gardenburger... a vegan-friendly dish called "BBQ Riblets". It is, as you may have guessed by now, a soy and wheat protein-based substance, formed to resemble miniature slabs of baby back ribs, packaged in sauce. Here is a prepared portion, served with sides of potato salad and black olives...



I gotta tell ya, it was damn tasty, and not just in a "good for a vegetarian fake food product" kind of way... it was just out-and-out yummy!

And just think of all those years I refused to even sample the McRib... oh well, I guess I should learn to be more open minded about things.

Yu-uh-ummy... yummy-yum-yum!

Spice muffins with chopped walnuts and shredded baby carrots (some dusted with confectioners sugar, some topped with cream cheese icing and freshly ground nutmeg)!!!

There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.

Apparently, sweet potatoes really like the cool darkness of the pantry at my folks' place...

It's Alive... IT'S ALIVE!!! (maniacal laughter, lightning and thunder, Marty Feldman, etc., etc.)

Here it is, gang... the first edition of FRIED GUACAMOLE!!!


And believe me... a little goes a looooooong way. I'm still stuffed several hours later.