Fungi Are Not Fun Guys

I love chicken spaghetti, but I hate cream of mushroom soup.  I hate those tiny little mushrooms.  They sneak around in your food hiding and then you eat one on accident and you're all WHAT???  GROSS!!! And then you whine about it for a bit and your mom is all "Well then you make the food!" and you're all "Fine! I will."

So, I did.  And it was delicious.  And now I will show you my recipe and some fuzzy iPhone pictures.

Behold! The ingredients:

As you can see, I'm pretty lazy and use a store bought rotisserie chicken.

Looks like we've got 1 rotisserie chicken,  1 can of pimentos, 1 jar of artichoke hearts, 1 green bell pepper, 1 red bell pepper, 2 cans of cream of chicken, 1 can of chicken broth, 1 pound of cheese, and some thin spaghetti noodles.

First, grab a large mixing bowl and start tearing that chicken apart into little chunks.  I'm not gonna lie, fingers will get burnt in this process.  But don't worry, you'll have your revenge when you start slurping it down your gullet.  I only used the white meat.  Because dark meat is for losers.  But you can use the dark meat too, if you want.  Loser.

While you're molesting the chicken, you should have your lovely assistant cut up the bell peppers.  If you have a lovely assistant.  You might not, if you are using the dark meat.  Losers don't get lovely assistants.  It's in the rules or something.

My lovely assistant.  Kinda.  Well, her hands at any rate.

Next, you're going to mix the pulled chicken, the pimentos (drained), the artichoke hearts (drained), half the cheese, both cans of cream of chicken, and about 1/4 of the chicken broth in your bowl.  It is going to look and sound disgusting while you mix it.  Seriously.  Also, if it's hard to mix, add some more broth.  But don't make it too liquidy or it'll be soup when it gets out of the oven.

Glorious.

Now you'll stir in the cooked noodles.  Wait....I didn't tell you to boil the noodles already?  Well common sense should have told you to start them a while ago.  I mean, seriously.  Pull it together!

You want the noodles al dente, because they're going to cook more in the oven.

Pour all that gloopy mess into a casserole dish and cover it with more cheese.  I used ALL THE CHEESE because I am awesome.  You can use SOME of the cheese if you are a ninny.  Ninny.

Put some foil on that bad boy and put it in the oven at about 350F for 30-45 minutes, or until it starts to bubble.  Then pull the foil off and cook it until the cheese gets nice and yummy brown.

NOW EAT THAT SHIZ!  Seriously.  Don't wait for it to cool.  Burnt tongues are for winners!

You know you want this.

There Is No Such Thing As A Quomelet.

Waking up in the middle of the night because your brother is in your room scrounging around with a flashlight is always fun.  He was "looking for his guns".  As if the flashlight and unexpected waking wasn't alarming enough.  Apparently the dog had cornered a possum under the deck and wouldn't come out. 

Please save me. 

I made a quomelet for dinner tonight.  What is a quomelet? you ask.  They don't exist.  I'll explain:

"What are you making?" my dad asked.

"I'm making quiche."

"I thought you were making omelets."

"I changed my mind, now I'm making quiche."

"But your mom said you were making omelets."

"I was, but now I'm making quiche."

"But I thought you were making omelets."

"A quiche is practically an omelet, it just has a crust."

"Yeah, but omelets are good.  Sometimes quiche is bad."

"You've had this quiche, you like it."

"But I thought you were making omelets."

"..."

 "Omelets are good. I've never had a bad omelet.  But I've had bad quiche."

"You're right, dad.  This isn't a quiche, it's a quomelet."  (See what I did there?)

 "Oh, ok.  Well I hope it's good.  Quiche can be bad, but omelets...you can't mess up an omelet."

 

But let's back up to 5 minutes earlier when I realized I had forgotten to get pie crusts at the store when I got the rest of my ingredients.  No problem, we'll make one.  Ashley looked up a handy recipe...and despite forgetting to put in the salt, it turned out well.  We didn't have a pie pan, so I just smooshed it down into a casserole dish. Then I stirred together my quiche ingredients and baked it at 350F until the top was nice and brown.  And guess what, dad liked it.  No kidding.

Quomelet Lorraine 

1 pie crust smooshed into a casserole dish (or two pretty pre-made pie crusts in pie tins.  Whatever, suit yourself)

6 eggs

1/2 c heavy whipping cream

1 pkg (1lb) of bacon (cooked your preferred way.  I like the microwave myself.) and crumbled.  Try not to burn your fingers while doing that.

1/2 large block of swiss cheese, shredded (oh yeah, it's A LOT of cheese.)

Step 1:  Whisk together eggs and whipping cream.  Try not to splash it all over the counter.

Step 2:  Add in bacon and cheese.

Step 3:  Call dog over to clean up dropped bacon and cheese.

Step 4:  Pour yummy mixture into casserole dish (the one with the pie crust, not a different one.  Just FYI)

Step 5:  Admire the delicious looking bacon just floating there.

Step 6:  Bake at 350F until top is nice and golden and starting to brown.

Step 7:  Eat it.  Preferably with a utensil, but I'm not here to judge.

An approximation of what your quomelet will look like.  Btw, omelet has more e's in it than one would expect.  And yes, my casserole pan is actually pink.

This Is For All The Nutella Lovers Out There.

via Reddit

Lazy Lasagna

Like 85% of my fellow recent college grads, I live at home with my parents.  In exchange for free rent/cable/xbox/food/heat/etc, I cook dinner for the fambam every Tuesday.  Except last night.  Yesterday, my mom woke up in a stupor, forgetting it was Tuesday, and put roast on to cook.  I'm not a fan of pork, and my bff Ashley was looking forwards to my lazy lasagna.  So we made it anyway.  We are barely living above the poverty line, and we're not master chefs like my friends over at Bettencourt-Chase, so I do things the easy, cheap, lazy way.  This is my recipe for Lazy Lasagna.  Excuse the poor pictures, I took them with my iphone while eating lunch at work.

Lazy Lasagna

1 16oz tub of cottage cheese

2 eggs

1 handful of parsley

1box lasagna noodles (not the oven ready kind)

1 lb ground beef

2 cups mozzarella

1 1/2 cups parmesan

1 jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce

Step 1:  Put noodles on to boil.  Find a nice tv show to watch on your computer that you have propped up on the counter (c'mon, I know everyone does it)

Step 2:  Cook ground beef thoroughly in a pan.  Drain the meat (or you can be weird like my friend Ashley and sponge off all the grease with a paper towel.  Who does that?).

Step 3:  Pour spaghetti sauce into pan with meat and put on low heat.  Clean up dog puke.

Step 4:  In a medium bowl, mix cottage cheese, all the mozzarella, 1/3 of the parmesan, and the handful of parsley.

Step 5:  Remember you forgot about the noodles.  Crap.

Step 6:  Noodles still aren't done.  Go back to watching tv.

Step 7:  Drain the noodles. 

Step 8:  Grab a pan, accidently put in sauce first, go with it, later claim to have known that would keep the lasagna from sticking in the pan.

Step 9:  Layer some noodles, then some sauce, then some cheese, then some noodles, then some sauce, then some cheese...you get the point.

Step 10:  Put in the oven at 350F until everything starts to bubble up (or until the noodles on the sides start to get crispy.  I like crispy noodles.)

Step 11:  Pour the rest of the parmesan on the lasagna and stick back in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Step 12:  Stuff your face.  Save the left overs for lunch the next day.  Have a food baby.

Nom nom nom

Mmm, tasty off brand cream soda!  (Yes, my desk is a mess.  Oh well.)

Bonus picture of the moppet that threw up while we were trying to cook.