Hit by a Pitch

Hey guys! I made something for dinner and it was good! Don’t let the bad picture scare you! Ben even liked it. He’s the usual cook around here and isn’t always impressed by stuff I make. I guess you could say I’m the baker of the family, but still I soldier on trying to cobble together dinner once a week.

Recipe: Cheesy Spinach and Artichoke Pasta

Yes, it’s toddler friendly and very easy to make!

Ingredients

• 1 1-pound box rigatoni
• 1 11-ounce package frozen creamed spinach, thawed
• 1 14-ounce can artichoke hearts (ideally small size), cut in half lengthwise and then sliced (approximately 4 slices per half) (like tomatoes, I find artichoke hearts easier to cut with a serrated knife)
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese (the good kind, not the kind in the canister)
• 2 1/2 to 3 cups grated mozzarella cheese
• 1/3 cup milk
• salt and black pepper to taste

Directions

Cook the pasta as directed on the package. While the pasta is cooking, preheat the oven to 375 degrees, slice the artichoke hearts, and grate the Parmesan (and the mozzarella if you didn’t buy shredded mozzarella). When the pasta is done, drain and return it to the pot. Add the spinach, artichoke hearts, Parmesan, 2 cups of mozzarella, milk, and salt and pepper, and mix very well, making sure the spinach especially is evenly distributed. Taste and adjust salt and pepper if necessary. Put the mixture in a 9×13 pan and sprinkle 1/2 to 1 cup mozzarella over the top. Bake for 20 minutes, then turn on the broiler and broil for a few minutes until the top is nice and brown.

Adapted from Real Simple, Cheesy Baked Pasta with Spinach and Artichokes.

And yes, the toddler did eat, well, some — he’s not a big dinner eater these days. I say this is toddler friendly because it contains green vegetables (which often aren’t a favorite) in a relatively inoffensive manner and is pretty tidy as far as pasta goes. Enjoy!

This song isn’t exactly groundbreaking but it is kind of awesome:

Ingredients for Super Bowl Sunday:

• the Puppy Bowl, on a tv of adequate size
• the Super Bowl, on a tv of adequate size
• good company
• beer
• nachos

Our usual Super Bowl friends are out of town this weekend and we weren’t ambitious enough to make other plans, so we stayed home for the Super Bowl. It was nice. I took some bad iPhone photos. It’s so hard to get out the “real” camera when the iPhone is so easy.

Nachos are what’s for dinner on Super Bowl Sunday, and I’m going to tell you something about my nachos recipe, which, for the record, is the shit. I’m not all that into black bean nachos any more. I’m more into fake meat nachos. Usually when I make nachos Ben makes tacos; he’s not that into nachos (I know). For his tacos, Ben makes in-freaking-sane fake meat. At some point, I started adding his fake meat concoction to my nachos and that shit is like chocolate and peanut butter, let me tell you. This time, I skipped the beans (I kind of think that with nachos, you need to either go bean or go fake meat but not both) and made “meat” nachos. Holy shit it’s a miracle I’m here writing this post right now because these nachos were so delicious you could die and also I’m really full and it’s only a matter of time until I’m like the fat dog who couldn’t fit through the doggy door in one of the few Super Bowl commercials that actually made me LOL.

Here’s how you do it.

How to Prepare Fake Meat for Nachos or Tacos

Ingredients

• one package Boca or Morningstar Farms fake meat crumbles
• 1/2 one medium-large onion, diced
• 3 tablespoons oil (I know it’s a lot, but yeah it’s good)
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• a dash to a couple pinches cayenne

Directions

Put all ingredients in a large frying pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for approximately 10 minutes (maybe 15 for tacos — make sure it’s all the way hot (for nachos this isn’t as important because you’ll be baking it). I recommend using this in place of black beans in nachos (you can also omit the onions from the nachos recipe if you like because there are onions in the “meat”) (also, this is probably more than you’ll need for a single order of nachos; use the leftovers for tacos or whatever).

Enjoy!

For some mysterious reason, I’m kind of obsessed with red velvet cake. I’ve only had it a few times and was never all that impressed with it because it doesn’t really taste like anything. I decided that making red velvet cupcakes that actually taste like something would be my baking project for January.

I hit up google and found this Smitten Kitchen recipe, which seemed good because she shared my issues with red velvet cake. Then I clicked the “adapted from” link to check out The New York Times red velvet cake recipe, which is exactly the same, word for word. (I noticed the same thing with her pineapple upside-down cake recipe, which, aside from omitting the cardamom, is an exact copy of the Gourmet recipe.) I thought it wasn’t cool to copy a recipe word for word, even if you link the original. What’s up with that?

Anyway, I followed the Times recipe exactly but for switching cake for cupcakes and using cupcake liners instead of butter and made the following high-altitude adjustments: decrease sugar to 1 1/2 cups plus 3 tablespoons and decrease baking soda to 1 1/2 teaspoons. I used this creamy vanilla frosting, which was kind of a lot of work but really good. Don’t cut this recipe in half — it didn’t result in the tragedy some commenters indicated but it wasn’t enough frosting. Also I recommend beating everything for longer than the recipe says — just a minute or two for the butter and butter and sugar and a good 5 minutes more at the end. The sugar granules went away after the 15-minute (exactly!) refrigeration.

So, if you’re in the market for good red velvet cake and coordinating frosting recipes, there you go!

Usually when I want peanut butter cookies, I bust out Ye Olde Mom’s Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe, which as all recipes of the Ye Olde Mom’s Series, was written on an index card in the days when I dotted my is (Okay, that’s just hard. I know it’s not correct to apostrophe i’s, but if you don’t, it looks like I’m saying “is.”) with circles. Also I insisted that “@” meant “about” and didn’t really capitalize. (I think that’s why, to this day, I have no patience for people who don’t capitalize. Come on, man, that’s for high school, early college at the latest if you fancy yourself the second coming of e.e. cummings or some shit.)

This is probably the same peanut butter cookie recipe everybody in the world has had since the dawn of time, except those people who make the peanut butter cookies with Hershey’s kisses on them, which are very good but if you ask me don’t really need the kisses.

This time, I wanted a peanut butter cookie that reflects my new obsession with putting peanut butter in my oatmeal, so I guess that would be peanut butter oatmeal cookies. I turned to Chef Google and found something that sounded awesome: “Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies.” The description did not disappoint: “These cookies contain peanut butter and oatmeal.” My midwestern sensibilities appreciate the adequate summary.

The recipe is here. I followed it but:

• I used 1 cup softened butter and 1/2 cup shortening. (My “I don’t bake with shortening!” stance has been softened by the delicious pie crust shortening makes.)
• I made the following high-altitude alterations: reduced sugar to 1 1/2 cup and reduced baking soda to 1 1/2 teaspoon; this worked well for this recipe.
• I used my cookie scooper, which is larger than a teaspoon.
• I was very half-assed about flattening the dough with a fork.
• I preferred a baking time of 11 minutes instead of 12. Oops, never mind. The next day, the cookies baked for 12 minutes tasted better.
• I put the dough in the refrigerator between batches to firm it up.

These are good! They’re not too sweet and they’re not as heavy as regular peanut butter cookies. The shortening gives them a hint of flakiness, which is kind of awesome. They taste a little healthier than regular peanut butter cookies (not saying they are, but they taste like it, but not in a bad way). I’ll be adding them to my dessert arsenal for sure!

The world probably doesn’t need another seven-layer salad recipe, but some of the ones I’ve seen out there are a little weird. White sugar? Parmesan? What? Here’s my vegetarian twist on my mom’s version, which, obviously, is the proper Midwestern mom version. She used to make this for Christmas Eve every year — it was an interesting accompaniment to an otherwise traditional Lithuanian meal. It’s a good thing to bring to potlucks because it’s huge, relatively easy, people generally eat at least a bit of it, and you can make it the night before. If you do the math, I think this should actually count as a 10-layer salad, but that just doesn’t sound right.

Seven-Layer Salad

Ingredients

• one head iceberg lettuce, shredded
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 2 stalks celery, finely diced (original calls for 1 cup, which I find overwhelming but I’m not a celery fan)
• 1 medium-to-large yellow onion, chopped
• 1 12-ounce package frozen peas (no need to thaw)
• 1 generous cup shredded carrots
• 2 cups mayonnaise (I use Best Foods light mayo, which is Hellmann’s east of the Rockies) not that light helps much in this situation because holy crap mayo)
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 cup (or more — come on man, it’s cheese) shredded cheddar (preferably sharp)
• 4-6 hard-boiled (free range) eggs¹ (I just used 4 but think 6 would’ve been better), chopped
• 8-10 slices Morningstar Farms veggie bacon slices,² microwaved, cooled, and broken into bite-sized (or smaller, if you prefer) pieces (don’t cook this until right before serving the salad)

Directions

Layer all ingredients except veggie bacon into a gigantic (preferably glass or clear plastic) bowl in the order listed above, evenly distributing each item over the lettuce as much as possible. The mayo application is the trickiest part — I use a spoon to blop the mayo around the top of the salad and then a rubber scraper to spread it as if I were frosting a very delicate, weird cake.

Cover and put in the refrigerator. Chill for, ideally, at least 12 but no more than 24 hours. By the time you’re ready to serve, the peas will be thawed and the mayo and brown sugar will have been magically transformed into a delicious dressing with a complexity that belies its humble components (I exaggerate, but it is kind of cool).

At the last possible minute before you’re going to serve the salad, prepare and add the veggie bacon. This will help it stay crispy.

Enjoy your Midwestern mom food!

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Notes
1. To make perfect hard-boiled eggs (not soft!) at Denver altitude (5280 feet), do this: Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil. Add eggs right from the fridge (no need to bring to room temperature but be careful not to break them when you plop them in the water, like some people I know did the other day). Set a timer for 21 minutes. When the timer goes off, pour out the boiling water, put the pan in the sink, and let cold water run over the eggs until they’re cool. Peel. (Duh, but I try to be thorough.)
2. To prepare the veggie bacon, do this: Remove the package from the freezer and let it sit in a warm place for several minutes (this makes it easier to separate the strips, which stick together when they’re totally frozen). Place the desired amount of strips on a microwave-safe plate and microwave on high for 3 minutes. Move the strips on the inside of the plate to the outside and outside to inside and flip the strips over to help ensure even cooking. Microwave for 30-second intervals until the strips are as crispy as you like them (Ben is the veggie-bacon expert and says he does around 5 minutes total for that many strips because he likes them crispy and crispy is good for this salad — this is a longer cooking time than recommended on the package).