Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Mushy On Yo Hammie


It's mini sandwich time! To celebrate the occasion, sandwiches shall forever be renamed sammies. Of course it only makes sense to then call ham sammies, hammies. And if I'm adding mushrooms to my hammies, which I've also taking the liberty of renaming mushies, then we would have on our messy hands, a mushie hammie.

Why with an "ie?" Because I'm french and you're going to put up with my late night spelling idiosyncrasies and watch me add ie to whichever word I fancie. At least I didn't spell it "nite".

Now here's the tale of my little mushie hammie.

Once upon a time..

..a little sliced mini wheat roll was missing his friend jambon. Ham found bun and jumped on the love train to make a quick counter hammie. Hammie was feeling all green thumbs about the near expiring brown paper bag mushies, so I pan fried and steak spiced and topped it all off. The assembled mushie hammie rolled and rolled on the counter, basking in it's own tastiness and colliding with Mr. Onyon who volunteered his deliciousness as a caramelized peace officer. Hammie was all too amused to be eaten, but ordered a Ms Lite Cream Cheezette to tame the appealing ways of the steamy Onyon. Cooled and composed, the little bundle of happy time friends kept rolling and rolling, rolling straight into my wide open mouth. The end.

..

I made these for an older pot-luck among many other overly complicated mini sammies, individually wrapped and all. I expected the office to not finish every one and hand them outside to folks who would really appreciate any kind of food. The office liked them, but sadly rain scared the usual outside the office outsiders back indoors, thus making me eat all the mini sammies myself.

This was enlightening. I learned that I can eat the same thing five days in a row and if it's good enough my tastes buds will still be fist pumping eachother, and that food stories almost always inevitably sound dirtier than they are meant to be.

The double end.

Cookies?


Today feels like an oatmeal cookie day but I have no proper ingredients and I don't have my dad's ever-changing oatmeal cookie recipe. They always taste the same regardless of how he meddles with the recipe, unless when he adds Carob chips (worst possible substitution) or mint-chocolate chips (the best).

I'm a little home sick for my parents food, so I'm posting oatmeal cookie photos and leaving you drooling and hunting for your own parents recipes.


Mmmm.... as lumpy as five month old milk, but much much more delectably so.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Veggie Bars


My best friend's mom is my expert in comfort food. Her home was the place to be for turkey, lasagna, cookies, breakfast, the day after Christmas, Christmas in July, and I'm stopping myself short here.

I wanted a crowd pleaser for a lunchtime potluck last week and I started craving her veggie bars. That there recipe is a pot luck worthy one. I couldn't find the copy of the recipe she gave me, so I searched by ingredient for an online version which yielded tons of similar tried and tested recipes.

2 packages of lesser fat Pillsbury crescent rolls
1 package of 44% less fat Philly cream cheese (yes, it is 44%)
1 package of dry Ranch salad dressing mix

a bunch of coarsely grated cheddar cheese, the really normal kind
a half cup of finely diced red onions
a half cup of finely diced green peppers
some chopped chives
about a cup mixture of finely chopped broccoli and cauliflower
one grated carrot
pepper and cayenne to taste

Mix creamed cheese with Ranch mix, and refrigerate an hour.
Prepare the chopped things.


Roll out the Pillsbury dough on a cookie sheet and bake according to instructions. Spread the cheese onto the dough after it's cooked and cooled.

Sprinkle with pepper and cayenne, then veggies and cheddar.

Cut into bars.
Cool it or eat right away.

Great recipe to make the night before if you have Cling Wrap that actually clings, not like my silly non-cling brand-named wrap.

I baked the dough as two separate entities, brought the lot to lunch and returned home with a full pizza. My Jack Skeleton mug makes the food looks evil, but it's pure goodness. Next morning I popped a couple lactose enzyme pills and overdosed on the cheesy for breakfast.