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Pistachio Cake – Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Posted on March 10, 2014 by admin

Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Pistachio Cake. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. The original recipe was provided by reader Alison G.

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe was submitted by reader Alison, who said:

This is a recipe I got from my friend’s mother over 10 years ago. I am pretty sure it is one of those recipes that is as old as the dawn of time and can easily be found if you do a search on the internet. I don’t believe it was her mom’s original creation, maybe something she found out of a magazine. It has become a family favorite and a cake that must be made every year on St. Patrick’s Day (I guess because it is green?). Anyone who has tried it loves it and asks me for the recipe and it is really so stupid simple to make (Amanda might not even call it a recipe!).

With St. Patrick’s Day coming up next week, we figured now was the perfect time to give this cake a try – Alison actually submitted this recipe LAST JULY. Who says we’re quick and organized?!

(The Amanda-baiting part of the recipe is just a bonus.)

Your ingredients for the cake part:

White cake mix, pistachio pudding mix, eggs (5 of them!), water (not pictured), vegetable oil, and milk.

Throw all your ingredients into a bowl and mix it with a hand mixer or a stand mixer ’til well combined. I mixed mine for about three minutes, scraped down the side of the bowl, and mixed for another minute.

Then dump your batter into a greased Bundt pan. (You could also use two 8-inch cake pans, or cupcakes, according to Alison.)

I was kind of taken by surprise that the pistachio pudding actually had little bits of pistachio in it. Did not expect that AT ALL, for some reason.

While your cake is baking, go off and hang out with some kittens. I did my level best to get the current litter of kittens to pose whilst wearing the tiny chef hat, but they weren’t having it. So enjoy this picture of me making a kitten with bunny ears.

“Eff you, lady.”

When the cake is done baking (mine took 40 minutes), let it cool in the pan for a few minutes, then turn out onto a rack and let it cool completely.

I have no pictures of this particular part of the recipe, because I am a flake and didn’t even think about it. Imagine a Bundt cake. On a rack. I know you can do it!

When the cake is cool, make your frosting.

Cool Whip, Pistachio pudding mix, milk. Throw it all in a big bowl, and mix with a spoon or fork or whisk or your hands or whatever floats your boat.

Could it be simpler? I think not!

Frost your cake. Try not to be jealous of my brilliant cake-frosting skills. I am a professional. Obviously, yours won’t look this good.

If you’re serving the cake right away, you won’t need to refrigerate it. If, on the other hand, you’re in a household of two, store in the fridge or you’re going to end up with melted frosting.

The verdict? I really liked it. I mean, REALLY liked it. Fred, on the other hand, said that it was okay and he’d eat it if I made it, but he’d never request it. I am a huge fan of pistachios and pistachio-flavored things, and I think he’s less so.

I think part of the issue for Fred is that he’s not that much of a Cool Whip fan, whereas I kinda am. DON’T JUDGE ME.

This is a great idea for St. Patrick’s Day. I think that next time I make it (and I WILL be making it!), I’ll sprinkle the top with roasted pistachios. You can never have too many pistachios.

Thanks for the submission, Alison!

Nance’s Take:

A little over a week ago my uncle and aunt (husband and wife) ended up in the hospital at the same time. We cooked up some food (haluski, pierogies and this bundt cake) to take over for my cousins since they were obviously going to be busy. A few days later my mother and other members of the clan were going over to visit so I thought I would make this cake to send along.

Instead of making another bundt cake I decided to use my new cake pan.

I was a little concerned about the five eggs and using my different cake pan, but the dumbass part of my head said to shut the fuck up and I listened.

It wasn’t hard to mix up because it was only a damn cake mix, Amanda.

I used Baker’s Joy for the pan, threw it all in the oven and walked the hell away.

I had set the timer for 23 minutes and it wasn’t quite done when I checked it. Rather than just stand in the kitchen and wait I decided to guesstimate it. Those edges are HARD.

I whipped up the frosting and since the recipe mentioned refrigerating overnight I walked away from the entire mess.

The next morning I had the brilliant idea to trim off all the hard edges and put the cake in one of those plastic containers you get when you buy things at the grocery store (my mother saves everything).

It was just a little too big for the container that I had. This would be when the heavy cussing started.

So then I decided to make it a square-ish layer cake. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but hindsight tells me that this is where the shit-storm really took off.

Of course The Beagle was all up in it because…food.

I didn’t even have frosting on it and it was already taller than the lid. GODDAMMIT.

OHHELLNO. There was no saving this catastrophe so I didn’t send it out with Shirley. I do have some pride. The cake itself was very good. I’m keeping the recipe with a note to only use a bundt pan. Lesson learned.

Pistachio Cake - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

45 mins

: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: IRISH. Yes it is. It's green!

Serves: 12

Ingredients

Cake:
1 box white cake mix
1 3.4 oz box pistachio instant pudding mix
5 eggs
½ c. water
½ c. vegetable oil
½ c. milk
-----------------------
Icing:
8 oz. container of Cool Whip
3.4 oz box of pistachio instant pudding mix
½ c. milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease a Bundt cake pan with baking spray.
In a mixing bowl, put cake mix, 1 box of pistachio pudding mix, eggs, water, milk and vegetable oil. Mix on medium-high for 3 minutes; scrape down the bowl and mix an additional 1 minute.
Pour batter into the pregreased Bundt pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30 - 40 minutes (my cake took 40 minutes.)
Let cake cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Turn out onto wire rack and let cool completely.
In a large bowl, mix together the container of Cool Whip, box of instant pudding mix, and milk. Make sure it's well combined before icing the cooled cake.
If you are not serving the cake immediately, store in the refrigerator. (Also, keep leftovers in the refrigerator.)

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Imperial Chicken – Nance and Robyn make the same recipe.

Posted on March 3, 2014 by admin

[box type=”info”] Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Imperial Chicken. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. The original recipe was found in the Cooking With Pryde cookbook by Pressley Ridge.[/box]

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe was another one that Nance found in an old cookbook. I’m all about finding something to do with chicken, though since I hadn’t made this recipe before (and didn’t know if we’d like it), I opted to use chicken from the grocery store rather than our own chicken.

Your ingredients:

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, bread crumbs, Parmesan, milk, melted butter, lemon juice, garlic and paprika. Note: the recipe calls for seasoned bread crumbs; I used plain ol’ Panko bread crumbs (unseasoned), because that’s what I had on hand. Also, the recipe calls for 6 chicken breasts, but LIKE HELL was I going to make that much chicken for just the two of us, so I made 3 chicken breasts.

Put the milk in one (large-ish) bowl and mix the Parmesan and bread crumbs in another. Then mix the lemon juice, melted butter, and garlic in a small bowl – I used a glass 2-cup measuring cup, because I read ahead and knew I’d be drizzling the lemon juice/butter/garlic over the top of the breaded chicken. Which is not to say that I didn’t slop it all over the place anyway, but I didn’t slop it as MUCH as I would have if I’d used a bowl, so there’s that. The less slopping going on, the better.

Dip the chicken in the milk and then in the bread crumb/Parmesan mixture.

Please note that I always do whatever I can to make sure that my fingers don’t touch raw chicken, because it ooks me out. And yes, we have chickens, and YES I touch them with the fangers, but that’s a different situation entirely, so SHADDUP, YOU.

The bread crumbs didn’t want to stick to the chicken, so I basically grabbed up a handful of bread crumbs and kind of mooshed them onto each piece of chicken until there was a decent coating.

Then I carefully moved each piece of chicken to the baking sheet.

Yes, those chicken breasts are on parchment paper. In 2011, I bought 500 sheets of parchment paper from The Baking Queen. That $32.99 for 5 – 6 years’ worth of parchment was, y’know, a HUGE EXPENSE that I know not everyone can swing, NANCE, but not having to scrub crap off the baking sheets every time I use them was worth having to take out a second mortgage on the house.

Drizzle the lemon juice/butter/garlic on top of the chicken breasts, then sprinkle with Paprika.

My big gripe with the original recipe is that it says “bake at 350 degrees covered for 30 minutes. Then uncover and bake an additional minutes.” Well.. HOW MANY additional minutes? Proofreading is your friend, Pressley Ridge (says the woman who never bothers to proofread ANYthing). I ended up baking it for an additional 10 minutes. At that point, the chicken was golden brown and cooked through, so I figured it was good enough.

There ought to be a picture of the chicken on a plate, looking all pretty and stuff, but there isn’t. Because I was having a scatter moment and completely forgot to take that picture. Hopefully Nance will do better.

The verdict? Nope, nope, and nope. This chicken didn’t appeal to me at all, in the slightest, not one teeny tiny little bit. Fred didn’t care for it much either, but due to his frugal nature ate the leftover piece for dinner the next day (I would have been happy just to toss it out). I’m not saying that if this chicken were served to me that I’d barf on the plate or anything – I could eat it, and probably wouldn’t even gag while I was doing so – but I wouldn’t be happy to find out that that’s what was for dinner. I wouldn’t request it, and I’m sure as hell not making it again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nance’s Take:
[box type=”info”] I’ve been tied-up with work lately so Shirley (aka: Mom) stepped up and made this recipe for me. She also took the pictures. Consider yourselves warned.[/box]

I told my mother three things before she made this recipe.

Stick to the recipe! But use our parmesan shaker cheese in place of shredded parmesan because I couldn’t be arsed to go out and buy the good stuff.
Double the coating ingredients because I saw she had a shit-ton of chicken out.
Use the lens to zoom. Weaving your body back and forth at the food will not help. Yes, she does this. Yes, I mock her for it.

I went into the living room and proceeded to work while keeping my ears on the kitchen in order to count the swear words. The amount of swear words I heard would determine the difficulty of this recipe. We call this Cooking With Love. I also knew my mother would be sure to tell me all about this recipe if it were a pain in the ass because this family loves to beat a dead horse.

My mother swears like a sailor, but does not say the f-word. She’s a big fan of dramatically saying Jesus Christ or Goddammit. But the f-word is a horrible thing that she finds appalling. You figure it out because I can tell you that her daughter and grandchildren don’t understand. And no, this does not stop us from throwing around f-bombs. It does, however, allow us (especially Alex) to riff on her about taking the Lord’s name in vain much to her chagrin and our hilarity.

Here’s a lovely picture. I’ve learned not to ask, but it perfectly sums up the relationship between my mother and I. We definitely see things very differently.

I hadn’t heard any swear words yet, but I did notice that she was bitching at the animals more than usual. My mom is the person that feeds the dogs. She usually stands at the counter, cutting up people food and making sure that everything is equal and fair. The dogs get regular dog food, but Shirley feels they need a little something special (people food) to go with it. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve watched my mother make the dogs eggs (sometimes with toast) when we didn’t have any leftover meat.

She was bitching because they had her surrounded thinking it was their dinner-time. Moving back and forth was a huge pain in the ass with them in the way. Not my problem, Shirley. You’re the one that spoiled the dogs.

She was probably dying about now because my mom is the one that likes to hurry up and get shit done. I have banned her from the kitchen at times due to her trying to rush me around when I needed to stop and take pictures for DCEP. So yeah, she was probably ready to shit bricks by now.

That butter in the bottom of the pan concerned me. And I would have probably left it in the oven longer so the coating would get brown, but she stuck with the recipe and added only enough minutes for the chicken to be baked through.

The finished product. Everybody ate it, they said it was okay, but nobody raved about it. This might have been made better by the use of shredded parmesan cheese (hopefully Robyn used it so we can see). My mother said that she ate it cold the next day and it was delicious so she thinks the next time we make it we should do it a day ahead.

The dogs enjoyed the hell out of the leftovers.

Since she didn’t take any pictures of the animals I leave you with a grainy selfie of me (with my bleach blonde hair which is now back to brown) and The Beagle that I had posted on Facebook a while ago.

Imperial Chicken - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe.

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

50 mins

: Entree

Cuisine: Ye Olde Cooke Booke

Serves: 6

Ingredients

½ c. seasoned bread crumbs
¼ c. shredded Parmesan cheese
6 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
¼ c. milk
¼ c. butter, melted
juice of one lemon
1 clove garlic, minced
paprika

Instructions

Combine the Parmesan and bread crumbs in a large bowl; blend well.
Dip chicken in milk and then into crumb mixture.
Place coated chicken breasts in a shallow baking dish.
In a small bowl (or 2-cup measuring cup) mix the lemon juice with melted butter and garlic, and mix well.
Drizzle over chicken and then sprinkle with paprika.
Bake at 350ºF covered for 30 minutes.
Then uncover and bake an additional 10 minutes.

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Fried Green Beans – Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Posted on February 13, 2014 by admin

Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Fried Green Beans. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. The original recipe was found in the Cooking With Pryde cookbook by Pressley Ridge.

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe was one that Nance found in a cookbook, scanned, and sent to me for my approval. As is the way, when I got the scan, I thought “Oh, that’ll be neat to try”, and then when it actually came time to MAKE the recipe, I was all wailing and rending my garments, asking why why whyyyyyy Nance hates me so much. I mean, I know. I KNOW. It’s my own stupid fault for okaying the recipe, right? But seriously. Why do you think Nance hates me? Is she jealous because I’ve got so many cats, you think? I bet that’s totally it.

So, fried green beans. Fried. Green beans. I swear, I’ve fried more stuff since we started this site than in all my previous mumblety-six years combined.

Your ingredients:

2 lb fresh green beans (I ended up with 1 1/2 pounds, I think. There’s only the two of us, after all!), flour, eggs, milk, salt, baking powder, and oil.

Just a note – I was all ready to make these damn things, when I realized that the milk was 2 weeks past the expiration date. Yeah, apparently we don’t use milk all that much! But I’ve read – somewhere – that you can use evaporated milk in place of regular milk when you’re cooking or baking (I don’t think I’d eat it on my cereal or anything), and since I always have a can or two of that on hand, I decided to give it a try. I’m pleased to announce that it actually worked okay, so I’m going to keep that in mind for the future.

First, you cook your green beans in salted water. The recipe gave no guidelines (“cook beans in salted water” is all it says), so I’m telling you that I boiled my beans in salted water for 10 minutes so that they were cooked through, but not overdone. You can see that I threw the beans in the pot, then remembered I was supposed to salt the water, and just dumped some water in on top of the beans. I’m such a professional.

Alice snoopervised from her spot near the top of the kitchen cabinets.

“Why you never make anything tasty, lady?”

When the beans are done cooking, drain them and let them cool.

I let them cool for about 10 minutes, then I was impatient and unwilling to wait any longer because AS USUAL I’d waited until an hour before dinner to start making this shit, and WHY do I do this?!

Place the beans on a sheet of waxed paper (I used parchment paper; I’m sure I’ve got waxed paper around here somewhere, but I have no idea where the hell it is. You’d think “With the tin foil and plastic wrap” would be the correct answer, but NO.) and then cover with flour.

I used my hands to kind of roll the green beans around so they’d be coated on all sides.

In a large bowl, mix eggs, milk, baking powder, and salt; whisk together well. Take your floured beans and place in the bowl of egg mixture, then stir so that they’re well coated. I imagine this might work better if you do it in batches, but I did all the beans at the same time.

Heat an inch of oil in a skillet over med-high heat. When it’s hot, spoon beans into the oil and fry until browned. “Turning only once”, says the original recipe. Yeah, well, fuck that. I didn’t turn them at all. I just reached in with the (metal) spoon and stirred once or twice so that the beans wouldn’t stick together too badly.

It didn’t take them too long to cook, and then I put them on a thick layer of paper towels to drain. I think it took about three batches to get all the beans done.

The verdict? NOPE. I mean, they weren’t BAD, but nothing to write home about, nothing I want to have again, and WAY too much of a pain in the ass. NO THANK YOU.

***************************************

Nance’s Take:

Our family grew our own food and that’s probably the reason I can’t be bothered with gardening to this day. I’m over the whole becoming one with nature bullshit. That dream died as a child when I was snapping bushels of motherfucking green beans while trying to avoid that little yellow bug that lurked on them. We canned the green beans (oh, the joy of washing jars in scalding hot water) and fried them in lard. Full disclosure: I do not appreciate fresh green beans.

Since this was a new recipe I decided to buy a bag of what appeared to be fresh beans. I’m suspicious of any green bean that isn’t limp and has a color that resembles camouflage hunting pants.

The color of these green beans looks fake. More full disclosure: I was also making dinner (another new recipe coming soon) and my mother was finishing up the batch of homemade pierogies we had started that afternoon. What does this all mean? My kitchen was in chaos when I made these stupid green beans.

The recipe called for 2 pounds of green beans. I had exactly 14 ounces. I realized my error after I had already dumped the full 2 cups of flour on the damn things.

This part really pissed me off because how in the hell was I suppose to stop that baking powder from clumping? I have the same problem when I make French toast and add flour to the eggs/milk. This kind of shit annoys me and if anybody has any idea how to do this, please tell me your secret.

The first green bean goes in. You can see to your left where I had another burner lit up for something else I was making. I was in A.D.D hell.

WTF? It looks like a worm.

I got fed up and put a bunch of them in the oil because I don’t have all day, beans! Note the oil that’s splattered everywhere – I was getting really cranky.

At this point I had my mom, Rick, The Beagle, Sadie, Waldo, Julie and Felina all up in my kitchen business. Trey came down to nebshit, but I told him to get the hell out of my way so he went back upstairs to his bedroom. He’s a smart young man.

I had better luck with those freaking corn dogs and y’all know what a disaster that was! Just look at that greasy mess of rubbery vegetable-tasting shit.

This is a grocery bag full of floured green beans. We each tried one, hated them, and agreed wholeheartedly to pitch the rest in the garbage.

But wait! A few brave souls tried the beans and actually liked them.

The Beagle finished the fried ones off with a little help from The Chihuahua (aka: Felina/FiFi). And now we know who the freaks in the family really are.

This is definitely a recipe that I’ll never make again.

Fried Green Beans - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

40 mins

: Side dish

Cuisine: Fried!

Serves: 6

Ingredients

2 lb fresh green beans
2 c. all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1 c. milk
salt
1 tsp baking powder
oil (Robyn used Canola oil)

Instructions

Clip ends of green beans.
Cook beans in salted water for about 10 minutes. Drain and let cool.
Place beans on wax or parchment paper and cover with flour (use your hands to roll the beans around so that they're evenly coated).
In a large bowl, beat eggs and add milk, baking powder and 1 tsp salt.
Take floured beans and place in bowl with egg mixture. Coat beans completely.
Fill skillet with 1 inch of oil. Heat on medium/high heat.
Spoon large spoonsful of bean mixture into hot oil. Fry until browned - turning only once (ha) or using a spoon to stir the beans so they don't stick together too badly.
Life out onto paper towel and drain. Salt, if desired.

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Deep-Dish Pepperoni Pizza – Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Posted on February 3, 2014 by admin

Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Deep-Dish Pepperoni Pizza. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. The original recipe came from a cookbook Nance found somewhere (hopefully she’ll provide the info on that).

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe is one that Nance found in an old cookbook, scanned in, and sent to me for approval. I didn’t even have to check with Fred on this one – I had no doubt that he’d want to give it a try, because he’s a pizza lover. The ingredients:

A packet of yeast, olive oil, sugar (I don’t know why it looks like so much sugar, it’s only 1 teaspoon!), salt, all-purpose and whole wheat flours, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni. The original recipe called for tomato sauce, Italian seasoning and garlic powder, so you could make your own pizza sauce. I had a jar of Pizza Quick sauce in the cupboard, though, so that’s what I used. If I’d had a jar of Shirley’s Pizza Sauce, I’d have used that, but I was all out. SAD FACE.

In a medium bowl, combine the yeast and warm water and let it sit ’til the yeast is foamy. I wandered off for about five minutes.

Mix the oil, sugar and salt into the yeast; then add both flours and then either stir ’til a soft dough forms or until you’re tired of stirring, whichever comes first.

Dump the whole shebang out onto a lightly floured surface.

Knead 10 times, at which point you should have a cohesive dough. Put it in a greased bowl, turning to grease the top of the dough.

Cover with a damp cloth and then put in a warm place for 20 minutes or until the dough rises to double in size. Then punch the dough down so that it deflates. If you’re very lucky, the dough might make a farty sound for you, so you can giggle like a 12 year old boy.

(My dough didn’t fart. HMPH.)

The directions said to use a 9-inch cake pan for this – I don’t have a 9-inch cake pan (well, at least not a round one), so I used a pie plate instead. Press the dough in the bottom and up the sides.

Bake until lightly golden brown, 8 – 10 minutes.

Sprinkle 1/2 cup mozzarella on the baked dough. Then, if you’re using a prepared pizza sauce, dump that in. If you’re not, then mix your tomato sauce, Italian seasoning and garlic powder together and dump it in.

Top that with half your pepperoni, sprinkle with a cup of cheese, top THAT with the rest of your pepperoni, and then sprinkle the rest of your mozzarella on top.

Bake it!

Let it cool for a few minutes, and then eat it!

The verdict? It was DAMN good. Fred’s not usually a fan of deep dish pizza (he prefers thin crust), but he liked it a lot, and suggested that we have it again in the future, very soon. Next time I make it, I’ll use more toppings (mushroom, onion, maybe some green peppers for Fred). Two thumbs up to the deep dish pizza – Nance picked another winner! I have no cat, kitten, dog, or chicken pics for you this week because I’m a slacker, so let’s take a look back at one of my favorite pictures – Chef Tony who, after spending a month at Petsmart, finally got his silly self adopted last Thursday. ABOUT DAMN TIME.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nance’s Take:

Source: Giordanos.com I have never had a stuffed crust pizza. Last year Cheyenne (my son’s fiance) and I were going to ride a train to Chicago to try Giordano’s stuffed crust pizza. The trip was postponed, but I still had pizza-on-the-brain when I saw this recipe.

I used my handy-dandy yeast measuring spoon for this recipe. I bought it a while back because I buy my yeast in bulk. The spoon is equivalent to the amount in one standard yeast envelope.

Please don’t mind the huge copyright mark – I have no idea what I was doing and I wasn’t going back to fix it. Meanwhile this is an action shot of olive oil. I’m sure you’re impressed.

I didn’t get a picture of the proofed yeast, but you can sorta see it around the flour mound. When it get’s bubbly like that it’s proofed (which in normal language means it’s ready to be used). The bowl that I’m using is spectacular. They’re KitchenAid Mixing Bowls and they have a handle on the side (of course I didn’t get a picture of it) that makes it easy to use. It also has a special texture on the inside that allows the bowl to be easily scraped clean. I got mine at Marshall’s on clearance thinking they would be okay for cake mixes and now I use them for everything.

I was horrified to see this because OHHELLNO. This is when I took the spoon out and went all in WITH MY HANDS. I absolutely hate to have my hands in any kind of food like this, but sometimes they are the best tools and you have no choice.

Don’t ask. Just know that I kneaded that bitch while trying to take a photograph. And yes, I do have a tripod. I just don’t use it.

I don’t grease the bowl for pizza dough. I put oil in the bottom of the bowl…

And rub my pizza dough in it and then flip it over and do the same. The pizza dough is covered, but the bowl is not. What the hell do I know about making pizza? Just do it any old way you want to do it. I’m not the boss of you.

I went ahead and used the sauce that the recipe called for and we all thought it was really good.

You can tell that Rick wasn’t here by the looks of my dough. Had he been in the kitchen this shit would have been pretty. I cannot make a pretty anything when it comes to cooking. Hell, I’m doing good to make edible.

My dough is pre-baked per the recipe and I put the cheese on the bottom. Did I mention that I doubled this recipe? We were ALL home and hungry. I was a little nervous about the amount of sauce it called for, but I was determined to stick to the recipe.

Ready to go into the oven.

This is what came out of the oven. The one on the right has onions, peppers and ground beef. The one on the left was made from the recipe.

If you have ever made a lasagna, you know that you should let it set for a few minutes after it comes out of the oven. The same thing applies here, but everyone was hungry and I didn’t wait. Can you say Regret?

Jesus H. This is what happens when people cannot wait.

This is me trying to get the rest of the filling out for the one slice that we just had to cut immediately. For shits and giggles go ahead and scroll back up to the first picture and compare.

This is the slice that had the hamburger, onions, and peppers in it. The pizza was pretty good, but I don’t know if I’ll go through all that hassle to make it again (probably not). I will, however, be using the sauce recipe because we all really liked it. I believe this is a sorry substitute for a real deep-dish pizza from Chicago so I think I’m just going to wait until I can try the real thing.

Deep-Dish Pepperoni Pizza - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

45 mins

: Entree, Snack

Cuisine: Pizzaaaaaaaaaa

Serves: 4

Ingredients

1 pkg (1/4 oz) active dry yeast
2 T olive oil
1 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt
1 c. all-purpose flour
½ c. whole wheat flour
¾ c. tomato sauce, 1 tsp Italian seasoning, ½ tsp garlic powder OR canned pizza sauce
2 c. shredded mozzarella cheese
4 oz sliced pepperoni

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425ºF. Lightly spray a 9-inch round cake pan with nonstick cooking spray.
Combine the yeast and ½ c. warm water (105ºF - 115ºF) in a medium bowl until the yeast is dissolved and foamy.
Add the oil, sugar and salt. Mix well.
Add the all-purpose and whole wheat flours.
Stir until a soft dough forms. Turn out onto a floured work surface. Knead 10 times until you have a cohesive dough. Place the dough into a greased bowl, turning to grease the top of the dough.
Cover bowl with a damp cloth and let the dough rise in a warm place until almost double in size, about 20 minutes. Punch the dough down.
Press the dough into the bottom and up the side of the prepared pan, pinching any holes to seal, if necessary. Bake until lightly golden, 8 - 10 minutes.
Combine the tomato sauce, Italian seasoning and garlic powder in a small bowl. (Alternately, you can use canned pizza sauce instead)
Sprinkle ½ c. mozzarella over the baked crust. Pour the tomato sauce mixture over the cheese. Place 2 oz. pepperoni evenly over the sauce.
Sprinkle with 1 c. cheese. Arrange the remaining pepperoni over the cheese. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
Bake until the cheese is melted and the crust is golden brown, about 15 minutes.
Let cool for a few minutes and then serve.

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Sandy’s Taco Dip – Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Posted on January 28, 2014 by admin

Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Sandy’s Taco Dip, submitted by reader Jennifer Arnold. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post.

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe was submitted by reader Jennifer Arnold, several months ago (according to the time stamp on my email, she submitted it back in August!) It was initially scheduled for us to make sometime in February, but Nance suggested that it would make more sense for us to make it this week, what with the Superbowl coming up. And she was right!

(As an aside, don’t forget that last year we made Stuffed Cheesy Bread on Crack, which is also an excellent Superbowl-type dish. When it comes to the Superbowl, we’ve got you COVERED, yo.)

Right off the bat, I loved how this recipe didn’t require a bunch of different ingredients.

Ground beef, taco seasoning, cream cheese, shredded cheese, salsa. That’s it!

Brown your ground beef in a large skillet.

While that’s going on, spread your (softened) cream cheese in the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish.

It totally looks like a thick layer of buttercream frosting, doesn’t it? YUM.

Once your ground beef is done browning, drain it, then follow the instructions on the taco seasoning packet – which is pretty much always going to be to add water to the browned ground beef, then let it simmer for 3 or 4 minutes. I didn’t take a picture of this part, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

Layer your taco meat on top of the cream cheese.

In retrospect (and looking at this picture), I wish I’d let the liquid completely simmer away before I did this, but oh well. It worked out anyway – there was plenty of liquid in the salsa, so it’s not like this was going to be a dry food.

Layer the entire jar of salsa over the top of the taco meat.

Then sprinkle your cheese over the top.

Bake until the whole thing is bubbly – I took mine out of the oven at 12 minutes, but I think it would have been fine to go to 15.

After you take it out of the oven, let it cool for a couple of minutes before digging in with the tortilla chips.

The verdict? This stuff was GOOD. I actually ate a ton of it with tortilla chips, and then ate some more over angel hair – I know, it sounds weird. It was lunch time, and nothing in the fridge looked good to me, so it was Angel Hair Taco Dip for me.

Fred liked it even more than I did – though he thought it had too much cream cheese, and he ended up putting some in a bowl, adding more salsa, and stirring it all together before eating it with tortilla chips.

I know there are a ton of taco dip recipes on the internet (I looked!), but most of them are kind of fussy, with the shredded lettuce and chopped tomatoes and chopped olives. This recipe right here is super simple, goes together quickly – and really, who are you trying to impress? If you’re making this stuff for a Superbowl party, you’re talking about a bunch of ingrates who’ll drink all your beer and wine and get into fistfights over some game-related nonsense. Don’t go overboard for those assholes.

Chefan is once again unhappy with me; since there’s onion in this (from the salsa), he can’t have any. WOE.

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Have a recipe you want us to make? Check out this page (there’s also a link to that page up there under the banner) and follow the instructions to submit a recipe!

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Nance’s Take:

I asked Robyn to tweak our recipe schedule so we would be doing this one before the Super Bowl because you never know when someone is planning a Super Bowl party, right? Go Seahawks! LOB (Legions of BOOM). Yeah, trust me when I say it’s going to be tense up in here because Shirley’s rooting for Denver. We’re gonna need food to keep our shit-talkin’ mouths busy!

This is a Facebook conversation I had with my oldest son. Barring the salty language, the implication is true. He’s basing it off of our last get-together in which we all heckled the Golden Globe Awards. Our gatherings are small and LOUD. Robyn can testify to The Crazy that is my family, but we always have food and a good time so there’s that. Unfortunately, work schedules didn’t allow for a Grammy Awards party, but I still made the dip.

When I decide to make something I want to do it right that minute (dammit). The ground beef being in the freezer caused a bit of a dilemma. Thank God my microwave has an express defrost button.

The Beagle does not appreciate the fact that I am ruining her chances of eating ground beef by putting taco seasonings in it.

The microwave also has a soften button which saved my ass when it came time for the cream cheese. If only it had a dust my house button.

By the way, I halved this recipe.

This is where I start to wonder if Rick is going to even try this stuff because he doesn’t like cream cheese. And now you know why I halved this recipe.

Awkward action shot. Salsa! Tequila! Whoops! Just Salsa!

I just noticed that there are two (2) copyright notices on these pictures. Better not try to lift my prints, yo. There’s a pretty good chance that I have listened to way too much rap music today, but you probably already figured that out.

The cheese. Probably way more than the recipe called for. But if you think I’m ever going to worry about having too much cheese, you are SO WRONG because cheese IS LIFE (unless you are no longer eating cheese – and if you get that reference my husband will think you’re the shits). Although I really don’t like pre-shredded bagged cheese because check out that shit that’s coating it. Anti-clumping stuff…blech, I hate that.

I very specifically told Rick that this was done when the cheese was bubbling. That cheese was not done when he took it out of the oven. And HE took this picture since I was too busy doing running commentary on The Grammy Awards so everyone on my Facebook would know my thoughts on Robin Thicke (love the song, hate that leeeeeezure suit wearin’ douchebag).

Anyway…

This dip was so easy to make and we thought it was fabulous. Definitely a keeper!

Sandy's Taco Dip - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

15 mins

Total time

25 mins

Original Source/Author: Sandy!

: Appetizer, Snack

Cuisine: Mexican, of course. DUH.

Serves: 12?

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef
1 pkt taco seasoning
3 (8 oz) pks cream cheese (left out to soften for an hour or so)
8 oz shredded cheese (Taco/Mexican blend adds more flavor)
15.5 oz jar salsa

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Spread softened cream cheese in a 9x13" pan.
Brown ground beef; drain and then prepare according to the directions on the taco seasoning packet. Spread over the layer of cream cheese.
Layer salsa over the taco meat.
Sprinkle shredded cheese over it all.
Bake until bubbly; 12 - 15 minutes.

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Granny’s Chocolate Cobbler – Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Posted on January 16, 2014 by admin

Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Granny’s Chocolate Cobbler. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. The original recipe can be found over at Tasty Kitchen.

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe came about months ago, when Richard suggested that we make chocolate cobbler. He didn’t provide a link to a recipe (RICHARD), so I Googled around for one, and so here we are.

You guys know how I am when it comes to recipes and shit. I glance at the picture, glance at the ingredients, and don’t bother to actually look at the instructions until it’s time to actually make this shit. I do it totally half-assed – why use a whole ass, when a half ass will do? So it wasn’t until I was gathering the ingredients that I realized that this recipe is pretty much identical to the Easy Fudge Cake recipe in my Cooking Down East cookbook, by Marjorie Standish (the only difference being that the Marjorie Standish recipe uses shortening instead of butter). I hadn’t made it in many years, but it’s a good cake to throw together when you want something sweet and chocolatey without having to run to the store for something.

So, your ingredients:

Flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder, sugar, milk, melted butter, vanilla extract (WHICH YOU COULD MAKE YOURSELF!)(PS: I love how many of you had NO idea that vanilla extract has alcohol in it. You are SO my people), light brown sugar, and hot tap water.

Firstly, stir together your dry ingredients.

Then add the milk, melted butter, and vanilla, and stir ’til it’s well mixed.

Next (not pictured), dump your batter into an ungreased 8-inch baking dish. Then in a small bowl, stir together your remaining white sugar, brown sugar, and cocoa.

Sprinkle that mixture evenly over the top of your batter.

Then pour the hot tap water over the top of the whole mess.

DO NOT stir it together after you’ve added the water, just pop it in the oven and go have a consultation with a visiting chef.

“Chef Sugarbutt not approve of this “chocolate that cats cannot have” nonsense.”

When the center is set (ie, not jiggly), your cake is done. Remove it from the oven, let it cool a bit, and then serve with vanilla ice cream

Don’t forget to take a terrible picture of it before you eat!

I’ve figured out why I can take good cat pictures and not good food pictures. It’s because cats are ALIVE and give you something to work with, with expressions and ears and go-fuck-yourself looks. They’re FUN to take pictures of. Food just lays there looking like it needs to be eaten (or not), and so it’s more work to get an appetizing picture of it. Clearly, it’s not a skill that I possess, and obviously I’m not that interested in making myself a proper FOOD BLOGGER. Those of you who can make food look appetizing, you have my admiration. It ain’t easy!

So the verdict on the chocolate cobbler? It’s good when it first comes out of the oven, a big ol’ scoop of vanilla ice cream made it even better, but it doesn’t reheat well. Fred said it was “okay” hot, but wasn’t interested in having more than a bite. Basically, I ate a piece, he had a bite, and after I took a bite the next day, the chickens got the rest. Make it and serve it if you’re not going to have leftovers, or if you’re craving something chocolatey and sweet, but don’t expect to eat it for a few days.

Will I make it again? Possibly, but I’m not rushing to do so.

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Nance’s Take:

I had to go to Ree Drummond’s (aka: Pioneer Woman) social-recipe site to get this recipe. Oy. There is a particular type of woman that makes my skin crawl and boy, there are a shit-ton of those type over there. I will take your crazy food porn comments over uptight and prissy any motherfucking day!

This particular entry would have been posted earlier, but the Golden Globe Awards got in the way. The kids were all here and I made three racks of baby back ribs using the recipe we featured a while back. I was planning on making the cobbler for dessert, but we all ended up sitting in the living room eating ribs, potatoes, and corn on the cob while critiquing every single actor/actress on the screen. Any dessert was completely forgotten by the time Jacqueline Bisset made her cringe-worthy speech.

And…I just made it today and I’m typing this entry the night before we’re due to post. Procrastination. WINNING!

The recipe immediately annoyed me because it had the dreaded word divided in it. It forces me to pay attention and that’s the kind of shit that will drive me right outta the kitchen. Ugh.

It also takes 1/3 cup of butter and I knew that was going to be a pain in the ass. I like things that don’t require me to figure out how to measure it. Just gimme a recipe that takes a stick of butter, for chrissakes. Why do I have to work so hard?

Okay, this part wasn’t hard. Please note: I used Shirley’s special Wolfgang Puck whisk that she has been hiding from me. The woman needs a strait-jacket.

And tell the truth…how many of you really measure out your vanilla? I’m all about guestimating it with always trying to error on too much. I bet Robyn (aka: Miss GoodyTwoShoes) measures her fucking homemade alcohol fueled ladeeda vanilla.

Nectar of the Gods. And also, a wee bit over 1/3. FML.

Apparently I’m not happy if I’m not making a huge mess.

Action shot!

This batter was delicious.

Same batter. I’m just having moderate to severe lighting problems. I do not, however, have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. Am I the only one that thinks that commercial’s particular wording is a little awkward?

The topping gets dumped and spread all over.

And you finish it off with a nice drink of water.

This is what came out of the oven. You’re supposed to serve this with homemade ice cream, but homemade ice cream sucks. I opted to just try it without any ice cream and it’s…okay. This recipe tastes like warm pudding with chocolate cake on top. Except sweeter. After it cooled I tried it again. And it just tasted like room temperature pudding with cake on top. Except sweeter.

Blurry Sadie is not impressed with this recipe and neither was I. It wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’t our thing.

Granny's Chocolate Cobbler - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

45 mins

: Dessert

Serves: 8

Ingredients

Cake:
1 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
3 T cocoa powder
¾ c. sugar
½ c. milk
⅓ c. melted butter
1½ tsp vanilla extract
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Cake topping:
½ c. sugar
4 T. cocoa
½ c. light brown sugar, packed
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1½ c. hot tap water

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Stir together flour, baking powder, salt, 3 T cocoa, and ¾ c. white sugar.
Add milk, melted butter, and vanilla to the dry mixture. Stir until well mixed.
Pour the batter into an ungreased 8-inch baking dish.
In a small bowl, mix together ½ c. sugar, 4 T cocoa, and brown sugar. Sprinkle evenly over the batter in the baking dish.
Pour the hot tap water evenly over the top of it all. DO NOT MIX.
Bake for about 40 minutes or until the center is set and not jiggly.
Let cool for a few minutes, then serve with ice cream.

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Pierogi Casserole – Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Posted on December 9, 2013 by admin

Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Pierogi Casserole. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. The recipe was submitted by reader Jamie.

Robyn’s Take:

Jamie reports that she got the original recipe for this casserole from a cookbook her mother’s law office (in Canada) puts out every few years, but that she’s changed the original recipe a lot. When she submitted this recipe, I was all about trying it. Because guess who’s never actually HAD pierogies? That’s right, as far as I can recall, I’ve never had a single pierogi. I mean, Nance can apparently make them in her SLEEP, and I’ve visited her like 3,000 times, but has she ever actually made them for me? NO, SHE HAS NOT.

Why you hate me, Nance?

Anyway, when I actually got around to making the pierogi casserole, I was a little overwhelmed with all the different layers, but once I actually started doing it, it came together easily, and worked out like it was supposed to. Pretty much what it is, is a mashed potato/bacon/onion/cheese lasagna.

Your ingredients:

Lasagna noodles (the ones you have to boil, not the oven-ready ones!), flavored instant potatoes, cut-up bacon, diced onion, minced garlic, shredded cheddar, cottage cheese, one egg, dried chives, green onions, and a package of Kraft dinner cheese powder.

Now, I don’t know if Kraft sells their cheese powder in a packet by itself, but I certainly couldn’t find that anywhere in the store, so I bought a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese, and just used the powder from the box.

First thing, boil your lasagna noodles.

While that’s going on, fry the bacon, garlic, and yellow onion over medium heat until the onion is cooked through (about 8 – 10 minutes).

And also, make your instant mashed potatoes.

In another bowl, mix the egg and dried chives into the cottage cheese.

When the lasagna noodles are done, drain them. I didn’t get a picture of it, but once they were drained, I set each noodle down, flat, on parchment paper on the counter, so that the noodles wouldn’t stick together.

And when the bacon, garlic and onion are done cooking, add HALF of the mixture to the instant mashed potatoes, along with the powdered cheese.

So, to sum up: before you start putting your casserole together, you have:

ONE bowl with cottage cheese/egg/chives mixed together.
ONE bowl with instant mashed potatoes/powdered cheese/half the bacon/onion/garlic mixture, mixed together.
Cooked lasagna noodles.
Half the bacon/onion/garlic mixture still in the pan.
And a packet of cheese over on the counter, minding its own business.

Grease a 9×13 pan (I used Pam), and cover the bottom with a layer of lasagna noodles.

Spread 1/2 of the potato mixture on top of that.

On top of that, another layer of noodles. Then the entire bowl of cottage cheese mixture on top of THAT, and the shredded cheddar on top of the cottage cheese.

Another layer of noodles, the rest of the potatoes, and the last layer of noodles on top of that. Top the noodles with the rest of the bacon/garlic/onion mixture, and then sprinkle the chopped green onions on top of it all.

Chef Tony says “This very complicated, lady.”

What it looked like before it went into the oven.

And after it came out.

I let it cool for 15 minutes, and then we ate.

(Note: I didn’t have any sour cream on hand, but I think it would have only enhanced the experience.)

The verdict? It was good! Jamie referred to it as comfort food, and it very much was. Fred didn’t enjoy it as much as I did, but he ate it a couple of times, so he certainly didn’t HATE it.

The things I would do differently: I’d probably cut the lasagna noodles into smaller pieces because getting the pieces out of the pan was a pan. Also, next time I’ll use the herb and butter instant potatoes that Jamie suggested, because I got the roasted garlic ones, and HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, all the vampires in a 30-mile radius turned and fled en masse. That was some garlicky-ass shit, right there. I mean, I love garlic, but I don’t love smelling it coming out of my pores for two days afterward, thanks.

In summation: two thumbs up from me, one and a half thumbs up from Fred, definitely comfort food, and I recommend it. Thanks for the submission, Jamie!

“Once again, Chef Tony not get to eat ANY of it. Y’all are some onion-eating motherfuckers.”

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Have a recipe you want us to make? Check out this page (there’s also a link to that page up there under the banner) and follow the instructions to submit a recipe!

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Nance’s Take:

Truth Game: I discussed this recipe with Robyn last week. If by discussed you mean that I sent Robyn an email asking her if she actually followed this recipe. She replied that she had followed the recipe and I told her that was a good thing because I wasn’t going to. Translation: I didn’t want to listen to the family bitch.

My happy ass knows some shit about pierogies. I grew up eating and making pierogies so I can’t be playing when it comes to these things. We take our pierogies as seriously as we take our football team and yunz know how we are about our Steelers!

We have on very rare occasions made up a pierogi casserole/lasagna, but the truth is, it’s not even close to eating real pierogies. It is, however, a great way to use up leftover mashed potatoes. Our recipe is very simple. Noodles, mashed potatoes, cheese. Bake.

My God, this babydoll is getting old! But I can still count on her to be in the middle of the kitchen floor when I have some cooking to do!

I had good intentions when I started – that’s why I got the big pasta pot out. I took a picture before I noticed that I didn’t have much water in it.

Turns out that it didn’t really matter since I only had a few lasagna noodles in my house. Sigh.

I decided to use a bread pan in place of a casserole dish since I only had 5 motherfucking lasagna noodles.

I sprayed the shit out of that bread pan with cooking spray because I didn’t want to clean up a mess. Then I threw one cooked noodle in there and slapped some potatoes in it.

Spread the mashed potatoes all over the noodle and sprinkle with way too much cheese.

Keep repeating until you hit the top.

I baked it until my need to eat transcended my need to make it look good.

I know this looks horrid and let me tell you why…
I willingly poured melted butter all over this shit because I lost my damn mind. The reason for the butter was because real pierogies are boiled and then fried in butter and onions. I didn’t want to mess with onions, but I thought I would try just throwing some butter in there. Don’t do that. If you want to fry some onions in butter and layer them on top of the noodles go ahead. Just don’t be a dumbass like me.

Between the melted butter and the greasy cheddar cheese this was probably the grossest thing I ever ate. Don’t do that. EVER.
You can barely see it, but even Sadie was giving me the side-eye.

Since I half-assed this recipe I promise that Shirley and I will take a day to make real pierogies and I’ll post it on DCEP. This way everyone can know the joy that is stuffing your piehole with our family’s version of soul food.

Pierogi Casserole - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

50 mins

: Entree, Side Dish

Cuisine: Polish Comfort Food

Serves: 12

Ingredients

12 lasagna noodles (don't use oven-ready)
2 packs of flavored instant potatoes
8 slices of bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces
1 yellow onion, diced
1 T minced garlic
1 pkg of Kraft dinner cheese powder (I used the packet of cheese from a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese)
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
2 c. cottage cheese
1 egg
2 tsp dried chives
4 green onions, sliced

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9x13" baking dish with cooking spray.
Boil the lasagna noodles according to directions on the box. Drain and set aside.
Over medium heat, fry bacon, garlic and onion until the onion is transparent, about 8 - 10 minutes.
In a large bowl, make both packages of instant mashed potatoes. Mix in powdered cheese and half of the bacon/onion/garlic mixture.
In a medium bowl, mix 1 egg and chives with the cottage cheese.
Place a layer of noodles in the bottom of the baking dish.
Top with ½ of the potato mixture.
Add another layer of noodles.
Spread with all of the cottage cheese mixture, and sprinkle with shredded cheddar.
Add another layer of noodles.
Top with the rest of the potato mixture.
Add the last layer of noodles.
Sprinkle the rest of the garlic/onion/bacon layer across the top, and top that with the sliced green onions.
Cover with tin foil.
Bake for 25 minutes, then uncover and bake for an additional 5 minutes.
Let cool for 10 - 15 minutes before serving.
Serve with sour cream, if desired.

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Not-From-Texas Chili Pie – Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Posted on November 18, 2013 by admin

Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Not-From-Texas Chili Pie. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. The original recipe can be found over at Woman’s Day.

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe was submitted by Paula (who also submitted the Kung Pao Chicken from last week!) Every year around this time Fred (who loves him some chili) starts mentioning that it’s time to have chili, and so Paula’s submission came at a good time.

Ingredients, all lined up and ready to go:

Ground beef, onion, garlic, chili powder, flour, black pepper, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, beef broth, Tabasco sauce, kidney beans, diced green chiles, corn chips, scallions, and sharp cheddar.

Of note: the recipe calls for cumin, but I don’t do cumin if I can possibly avoid it (it smells like dirty gym socks, YOU KNOW IT DOES), so I left the cumin out and used some extra chili powder in its place.

Firstly, brown your ground beef. Mine was still frozen in the middle because I didn’t take out of the freezer soon enough to completely thaw. Luckily, that doesn’t matter.

When the ground beef is cooked through, drain off the fat, add onion and garlic, and cook for another five minutes, stirring every now and again. Add the chili powder, flour, cumin (if you’re using it), and pepper, and cook for about 1 minute.

Add the (undrained) diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, beef broth, and Tabasco and simmer 15 – 20 minutes, ’til it’s gotten nice and thick.

I was standing stirring the chili, waiting for it to get thick, when I got a visitor.

He sniffed everything on the counter, gave me a dirty look for making something that, once again, was off-limits to kitties. I bet MY kitchen is going to get an F minus on the kitty cooking blogs.

Then he was like “Oooh, bread. I BELIEVE I’ll EAT SOME OF THIS!”, and tried to eat the bread (homemade, thank you very much – and yes, one of these days I’ll do a post for the bread, which is SO FREAKIN’ GOOD). I ejected Inspector Silvio from the kitchen for that. Keep your lips off my bread, cat!

I added the beans and chiles to the skillet, and let it simmer for another 5 minutes.

The recipe says to use a 2-quart broiler-proof baking dish for this next step. It seemed pretty clear to me that all that chili was NOT going to fit in my 2.5 liter dish, so I got out a big bowl. I can’t swear to it, but I’m 99% sure that’s a 4-quart bowl. And thank god I did, because it fit perfectly (I think a 9×13 pan would work, too.)

Dump the chili mixture in a broiler-proof baking dish, top with corn chips, and then top those with scallions and then cheese.

(That’s a pink Gooseberry Pyrex dish, which my mother passed on to me. I LOVE it. I have the whole set, and I use them all the time.)

Stick it under the broiler for 3 – 5 minutes, until the cheese is melted.

Then let it cool off for a little while or you will burn your lips right off your face, and I don’t want to hear about it, ya big babies.

The verdict? Two thumbs up from Fred, two thumbs up from me. But we both like chili, and so I’m not surprised that we both liked this. A LOT. We both think it could have used one more can of beans, but that’s just a personal preference. We like us some beans.

Also, the fact that it involves corn chips means that I didn’t have to make a pan of cornbread to go with it, so additional points for that.

A++, will make again – thanks for the submission, Paula!

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Have a recipe you want us to make? Check out this page (there’s also a link to that page up there under the banner) and follow the instructions to submit a recipe!

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Nance’s Take:
I like chili. But let’s face it…it’s pretty much just a beans and beef soup. Cow chowder? Steer Stew? It’s just not that big of a deal in my world. I like it, I make it, I eat it. I will never understand chili cook-offs and all that shit because in my world there is no such thing as bad chili. And there is no such thing as award-winning chili. It’s just a hearty meal for a cold day.

Which is why my soul died when I saw this recipe and it made me announce my feelings to the world…OH HELL NO. I refuse to stand there and measure out 10 million ingredients in order to make chili for this dish. I did make my own easy version that everyone in my family actually likes and will eat without complaint.

2 lbs. ground beef
3 Tablespoons A-1 Steak Sauce
3/4 cup chopped peppers
3/4 cup chopped onion
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can kidney beans
3 envelopes Great Value Mild Chili seasoning (WALMART Brand)

I browned my ground beef. You can add pepper if you want, but I don’t since all of my seasoning comes from those groovy little envelopes. Drain that shit because you don’t need all that grease in your chili. Yuck.

Throw in the peppers and onions. See how small these are diced? That’s because there are a few of us that like the flavor of these things, but have no appreciation for the texture. And also, ew, vegetables. Using small pieces also means there’s yummy goodness in almost every single bite. Yummy goodness that a lot of people (children) won’t recognize. It’s a win no matter how you look at it, so take a minute to dice those bitches up small. Or, do what you want. It really doesn’t matter to me unless I’m coming to your house to eat.

Secret ingredient. Throw that in there and for some reason people think you know some shit when it comes to making chili. I have no idea when I started doing this or why, but I make sure that I do it every single time I make chili now.

I use three of these bad boys and I make sure that my brain doesn’t think about the sodium because it would surely explode.

Even though there is only one can in the picture make sure you use TWO cans of diced tomatoes. The vegetable haters in the family don’t mind diced tomatoes for some reason. Maybe because tomatoes are really a fruit. Only one can of kidney beans because two is just too much. Just open the cans and throw it all in, but make sure you drain those kidney beans first because bean sludge is gross.

Throw it all together and cook on medium heat (with the lid on) for about a 30 minutes. Stir it frequently to make sure nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pan because who the hell wants that cleaning nightmare? Adjust your heat as needed. The real purpose of this is to cook those freaking kidney beans because nobody wants to gnaw on a squeaky un-cooked bean. I make this chili in the morning and turn the whole thing off once the beans are cooked. Then I basically re-heat the chili for dinner. It’s even better the next day.

I didn’t bother to use a casserole dish, but for the purpose of this recipe I put my chili in an oven-proof dish.

Action shot!

I eat my chili in a bowl with saltine crackers so this is kind of weird for me.

Per the recipe, I added cheese. This is getting even weirder.

You will never see scallions in any recipe that I make so we’re gonna just pretend the scallions happened. This is what it looked like after I broiled it. The entire family loved it (of course, FRITOS and CHEESE).

I didn’t get any pictures of the animals the day I made this so here is a picture of my grandbaby. Her name is Khaleesi and I sorta kinda forced her on Alex and Cheyenne. Cheyenne has been wanting a kitten and Alex was the brick wall asshole that was stopping it from happening. When I saw her, I picked her up out of the cage and handed her to Cheyenne. Of course she was adorable and I offered to pay for shots and spaying. Alex never had a chance. But guess who loves the shit out of the cat and talks all about her? Alex Michael.

She comes here every Sunday for dinner.

Not-From-Texas Chili Pie - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Prep time

25 mins

Cook time

5 mins

Total time

30 mins

: Entree

Cuisine: NOT Texan

Serves: 8

Ingredients

2 lb (85 percent lean) ground beef
1 lg onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 T chili powder
1 T all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground cumin (or leave out the cumin and use extra chili powder)
¼ tsp black pepper
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
1 c. low-sodium beef broth
½ tsp Tabasco sauce
1 15½ oz can kidney beans, rinsed
1 4 oz can diced green chiles, drained
3 c. corn chips (ie Fritos)
4 scallions, finely chopped
4 oz extra-sharp Cheddar, grated (Robyn used sharp Cheddar, pre-shredded)

Instructions

Cook the ground beef in a large saucepan over medium-high heat, breaking it up with a spatula or big spoon, until browned (around 5 minutes). Drain meat in a drainer, and then put back in the saucepan.
Add onion and garlic to the meat and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in chili powder, flour, cumin (if using) and ¼ tsp black pepper and cook for about 1 minute.
Add the tomatoes (undrained), tomato sauce, beef broth and Tabasco and simmer until the mixture has thickened, 15 - 20 minutes.
Start broiler preheating.
Add beans and chiles to the saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes.
Transfer the meat mixture to a broiler-proof baking dish (the original recipe called for a 2-quart dish. I used a 4-quart bowl, and that's what I recommend, although a 9x13 baking dish would likely work well, too.)
Top with corn chips and sprinkle with scallions and top with cheese. Broil until the cheese melts, 3 - 4 minutes.

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Best Chocolate Cupcakes Ever! – Nance and Robyn make the same recipe.

Posted on November 14, 2013 by admin

Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Best Chocolate Cupcakes Ever. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. The recipe was submitted by Penny, who adapted it from a Nestle recipe card.

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe was submitted by Penny, who adapted it from a Nestle recipe card she got a few years ago (which it says right up there in the beginning of this post, so I don’t know why I feel the need to tell y’all again. But I am! So there!)

Your ingredients: chocolate fudge cake mix with pudding in the mix, instant chocolate pudding, sour cream, corn oil (Penny says any vegetable oil will do, but she thinks corn oil gives it the best flavor), eggs, chocolate chips. Not shown: warm water.

This is a very difficult and technical recipe, so PLEASE just TRY to follow along, okay?

Throw everything in a mixing bowl.

Mix it.

If you’re a total klutz like me, you might accidentally bump the switch to the mixer so that some of the stuff in the bowl goes splashing out onto the counter.

Just scrape it up the best you can, and toss it back in the bowl. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.

Now, this recipe is meant for cupcakes, but I am OVER cupcakes. I am useless when it comes to making them the same size, and I have a hell of a time getting them out of the tin in one piece (and don’t even get me started on those damn cupcake liners, which I HATE peeling off of cupcakes because half the damn cupcake peels off with the liner, grrrr.) Cupcakes are just not my thing, is what I’m saying – although if YOU want to make me cupcakes and have better skills in that area than I do, you should certainly feel free to do just that.

So I made a cake instead, in a Bundt pan – lucky for me, Penny had included the baking time for a cake as well as for cupcakes.

Lookit those scrumptious chocolate chips.

Penny recommended using a cream cheese flavor frosting. I was going to just go ahead and use my Best Buttercream Frosting instead. But then I decided to ask Fred what he wanted, because sometimes I like to let him think he has a choice when it comes to that sort of thing. He wanted chocolate frosting, so FINE. Chocolate frosting it was – I just used the Best Buttercream Frosting recipe, added 1/2 c. Hershey’s Cocoa Powder, and an additional splash of heavy cream, and it was perfect.

And the verdict? Oh, holy cow. This is a damn good cake! It was perfectly moist, perfectly flavorful – and I don’t know what it is about the texture of chocolate chips in a cake that is SUPER EXTRA AWESOME good, but it was the perfect touch to this recipe. This recipe’s going into the recipe box (when I get around to it, so… sometime in 2020), and I’ll definitely be making it again!

My rating: phenomenal. Fred’s rating: “really good, but you know, I don’t like chocolate cake as much as you do, so” (and then I tuned him out.)

“You keep making recipes that I can’t eat, and I’m about to take that personally, stupid lady.”

Thanks for the submission, Penny!

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Have a recipe you want us to make? Check out this page (there’s also a link to that page up there under the banner) and follow the instructions to submit a recipe!

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Nance’s Take:
You should probably know that Robyn and I discussed this recipe at the beginning of the week (we were talking about how I would be late-again). This is exactly what was said regarding this recipe (cut and pasted from emails)…

Nance: Did you make the actual cupcakes – when I saw that she said you could make a bundt cake – I did that. NO FUSSING!

Robyn: Ha – it looks like we’re both cupcake haters! I made the Bundt cake, too. I’m not skilled enough to make cupcakes. Either I make some way too small and some way too big, or I drip batter all over the damn tin. Drives me nuts!

Nance: ROBYN – GOD DAMMIT

I cannot believe you made the BUNDT cake.

Robyn: This is just like all those damn times when you say something and I say the exact same thing! No one who reads us is going to be the slightest bit surprised that we both made the cake! 😀

So now you know why Robyn and I were never Scout Leaders or voted President of the PTA. We just cannot be counted on to bring the damn cupcakes.

Making this was a piece of cake (har-dee-har), but I have to admit that I was a little bit concerned about how thick this got when I was mixing it. It should probably be noted that I chose to use a sugar-free cake mix and sugar-free pudding. I don’t think they make sugar-free chocolate chips. I should correct that and say that I probably wouldn’t buy sugar-free chocolate chips anyway. Oh hell, I only bought the sugar-free cake mix because it was on sale and the pudding so Diabetic Rick could have it as a snack. Fuck sugar-free. It’s all POISON anyway.

I might be losing my mind a little bit here. Please ignore.

Felina is concerned about my mental well-being and the fact that I have so much sugar-free shit in my home. Please note the huge can of Crisco in the background. We’re not that healthy around here.

This bundt pan is beat to fuck, but I love it and will never get rid of it. You know what drives me crazy? That mess of cake batter on the left side of the pan. Pisses me right the fuck off. NOTHING that I do in the kitchen is neat and/or tidy. I have tried a million times to cook like those women that are comfortable in the kitchen and it always ends up looking like raccoons were having a bake sale.

Here, look at The Beagle’s ass instead of my gross pan.

I thought those cracks were going to make this cake a huge fail.

But when I turned it over it came out okay.

I didn’t bother to wait for it to cool before I started slicing it. I should have waited so the chocolate chips could have firmed-up a bit. We tried it when it was warm and, of course, everybody loved it. It’s freaking chocolate-chocolate cake! I also liked the fact that I didn’t have to make frosting for it.

I don’t have anything else to say so here’s a picture of Felina rolling her tongue. Weird, huh?

Best Chocolate Cupcakes Ever! - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe.

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

25 mins

Total time

30 mins

Original Source/Author: Penny

: Dessert

Serves: 24-30

Ingredients

1 chocolate fudge cake mix with pudding in the mix
1 4-oz pkg instant chocolate pudding mix
8 oz sour cream
½ c. vegetable oil (recommend: corn oil, but any vegetable oil will do)
½ c. warm water
4 lg eggs (Penny reports that 3 eggs will work, too, if you realize you don't have enough eggs on hand)
1 c. chocolate chips (I used semisweet)
1 container of frosting, or make your own (Penny recommended cream cheese frosting)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Dump all ingredients (except frosting) in a large mixing bowl. Mix until all ingredients are combined and batter is smooth (about 3 minutes). Scrape down bowl and beater, and beat for an additional 30 seconds.
Pour batter evenly into greased cupcake tins, filling each tin about ⅔ full.
Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
ALTERNATELY, pour batter into a greased Bundt cake pan and bake for 50 minutes at 350ºF.
Makes 24 - 30 cupcakes, depending on your cupcake tins.
Alternate suggestions (from Penny) : substitute rum or Kahlua for the water.

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Hamburger Stroganoff – Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Posted on October 22, 2013 by admin

Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Hamburger Stroganoff, submitted by reader SC Amy. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post. The original recipe came from The Betty Crocker Recipe Card Library

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe was submitted by reader/commenter SC Amy. I love me some stroganoff (beef, mushrooms, noodles? Yes, please!), so I was all for giving this a try!

Your ingredients:

Ground beef, chopped onion, butter, flour, salt, minced garlic, pepper, mushrooms, condensed cream of mushroom soup (original recipe called for cream of chicken soup, but I always have cream of mushroom on hand, so that’s what I used), and sour cream.

Cook your ground beef and onions in a big skillet over medium heat until the ground beef is browned and the onions are cooked.

Is there anything that smells better than ground beef and onions cooking? I think NOT. You might think there is, but you are wrong.

Then drain your meat and onions.

While the grease is draining off that stuff, throw your butter in the pan and let it melt.

Put your beef and onions back in the pan, then add flour, mushrooms, garlic, spices, and stir like crazy. The recipe says you should stir for 5 minutes, but since you drained off all that grease, it doesn’t take that long to cook. I think I let it cook for about three minutes before I was all “Let’s get this show on the ROAD.”

Stir in your soup, bring it to a boil (“stirring constantly”, says the recipe. I think we all know that constant stirring is an urban myth. I stirred it frequently, but not constantly. Sue me.) Reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes (actually, I think I stopped around 8 minutes because I’m a rebel like that.)

Stir in the sour cream, heat through, and then serve over cooked egg noodles.

I started the water for my egg noodles right before I started the stroganoff itself, and the noodles were ready long before the stroganoff. Luckily, egg noodles are known for their patience.

HURRY IT UP, BITCH. WE’RE GETTING COLD.

Okay, before you say it – I KNOW. I know how it looks. There are some things you just can’t take a damn flattering picture of, no matter how you try.

The verdict? SC Amy, I think you are THE BOMB, but we just didn’t care for this stuff. I think it had too much sour cream in it. Fred wouldn’t even eat it a second time, and that’s when you know he REALLY doesn’t like something (he’s… “frugal” is the word he likes to use, and he dislikes seeing food go to waste, so he’ll usually finish off food I refuse to eat.) The chickens got the leftovers, and as usual they thought it was awesome.

I have no kitten picture for you today – I’m coming off a vacation to Myrtle Beach, and I am still scattered. (That’s my excuse, and I’m stickin’ to it.) Here, have this possum picture the gamecam caught in the side yard one night.

“Motherfucking STROGANOFF?! That shit is AWESOME. Hand it over, lady!”

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Have a recipe you want us to make? Check out this page (there’s also a link to that page up there under the banner) and follow the instructions to submit a recipe!

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Nance’s Take:

Do you ever wonder what people were thinking when they decided to add sour cream to a casserole? I mean, who does that? “Oh, I think I’ll just throw a dollop of this soured milk product into my meat. Or maybe I’ll toss some into this chocolate cake mix and see what happens. The possibilities are endless!”

People confuse The Beagle.

I started this recipe out on a good note. I was cooking and stirring my meat. Apparently I stopped reading after that.

This is me being all health-conscious and draining the fat off of my ground beef. How cool is that strainer thingie? I thought it was cool and had never seen such a thing until this year. I don’t get out much. And no, I didn’t strain it out on my stove. I just took it over there to take a picture (so you wouldn’t see what a mess my sink was).

Following directions is sooooo hard. I fried that ground beef and then added my butter and onions instead of doing them all together like the recipe said. I should probably stop skimming so much. But sometimes there are just too many words (and I’m not wearing my glasses).

This is where I get to show you the particular brand of Crazy that I deal with on the daily thanks to Shirley (aka: my mom). Please note the size of my thumb in relation to how many noodles are left in the bag. Who does this kind of shit? Seriously? I saw that and was all, “WTF, Shirley! You couldn’t just use all of those noodles?”

True confession: I had it in my head that this was a casserole so I made it in the morning thinking that I would have it for dinner that night. Guess who had beef stroganoff for breakfast? Yup. I’m a genius.

No need to adjust your monitors. This does indeed look like something I vomited after the great Happy Meal and Southern Comfort fiasco of 1987. Not pretty. And not a good time in my life. Well, okay. It was a damn good time in my life, but don’t tell my kids because they need to do as I say, not as I do.

Sour cream. I really wish I knew who started this craze and why? A way to get some calcium? Wondering about something like this could drive me crazy. I’m going to be googling that shit until I get answers.

And now you know why I’m glad Robyn does the step-by-steps. She actually pays attention to the recipe and has the ability to focus for more than 30 seconds.

This is what it looked like after I stirred the sour cream in. I immediately thought of sausage gravy which I think is the most disgusting and foul food on the planet. Yeah, I said it. Southerners be crazy with liking that shit. lol

My breakfast (not Polish pottery). At the end of the recipe it said that you could add parsley from your kitchen garden (as if) or a generous shake of paprika to garnish. I added both and obviously I am a wee bit heavy-handed when it comes to paprika shaking.

I did end up throwing the rest into a casserole dish and heating it up for dinner.

The verdict. All four of us ate it and liked it. It’s going into the recipe file because it’s a quick and easy meal.

But The Beagle is still confused. So am I, Beagle. So am I.

Hamburger Stroganoff - Nance and Robyn make the same recipe

Prep time

5 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

25 mins

: Entree

Cuisine: Um... German?

Serves: 4

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef
½ c. chopped onion
¼ c. butter or margarine
2 T flour
1 tsp salt
1 clove minced garlic
¼ tsp pepper
1 4-ounce can mushrooms stems and pieces (drained)
1 - 10½-ounce can cream of chicken (or cream of mushroom) soup
1 c. sour cream
8 oz. medium egg noodles, cooked

Instructions

In a large skillet over medium heat, cook ground beef and onions until meat is brown and onion is tender.
Drain meat.
Add butter to pan; once it's melted, add meat and onions back to the pan. Stir in flour, salt, garlic, pepper, and mushrooms; cook 3 - 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Stir in soup; heat to boiling.
Reduce heat. Simmer uncovered 8 - 10 minutes. Stir in sour cream; heat through.
Serve over cooked egg noodles.

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