Freakin Brilliant!

Put the cone INSIDE the ice cream...BRILLIANT! Is there nothing better then a DQ blizzard on a hot summer's nite? I'm going to say no way, jose! And this summer DQ has come out with a FABULOUS new blizzard.

Caramel Waffle Crisp Blizzard Treat
Waffle cone pieces, rich chocolate chunks and caramel blended with creamy vanilla soft serve. Yummy!

Ok, i'm just going to say it, this has to be the BEST BLIZZARD EVER! Seriously every bite you take has a fresh crispy cone in it. AMAZING!

So RUN don't walk to your nearest DQ and get your blizzard on! ;)

Egghead

...this is your brain on drugs, any questions?
Well actually...YEAH! Why the heck did my fried egg get stuck in my buttered non-stick pan?

I totally think of that 'this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs' commercial every time i fry an egg, which obviously isn't too often. Powerful advertising, lol. So, that being said, this is my brain on drugs after it wouldn't come out of the pan!

Doesn't really matter, i only eat the yellow anyways. I was inspired by a loaf of fresh Cuban bread, which i dutifully dipped into the warm runny yolk. So yeah, not a picture perfect fried egg, but it was still good. ;)

Did you know...

You could cook bacon in the oven? Yup, it says so right on the package. After YEARS of making crappy bacon in the micro, i just discovered that right on the bacon package there's directions for cooking it in the oven.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400
put bacon on pan
bake for 10-12 minutes.


Can you believe how easy that is? And the bacon turns out perfect! And if you normally made bacon in the micro, there's no pieces of paper towel stuck to the bacon. Or if you actually fried bacon in a pan, your house doesn't smell like fried bacon all day long, and no grease splatters either. It's AWESOME people.

A hidden little gem from the back my bacon package to your kitchen, try it out, it totally rocks! :)

This cookie has 2 faces

I had read a TON of chocolate chip cookie recipes the other day and ended up making this one, Award Winning Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies. With a lofty name like that, i had super high expectations. I mean award winning makes you think ooh...ahh...right?!

So i made the first dozen as written and baked immediately after mixing it up. They came a solid OK. I put the rest of the cookie dough back in the fridge feeling somewhat disappointed. The cookies were good, but it got me to thinking about who exactly were the judges handing out this award?!

The next evening rolls on by, and i asked my hubby if he wanted a fresh baked cookie. He says sure, and i go to the kitchen, but decide not to turn on the oven and i just put 6 cookies on a pan and baked it in my toaster oven at 350 for 6 minutes. I pull them out and they are nice and brown on the inside and all melty on the inside. We enjoyed 1 piping hot out of the oven and let the others sit out.

Here's the best part. We forgot about the cookies until the next afternoon and when we tasted them, they were super soft and really good! I told my hubby it's like those 'soft baked' cookies in that red package.

This recipe is pretty good, i'm guessing it's the pudding that keeps them nice and soft. I can't say it lived up to all my lofty expectations as an award winning cookie. I don't know if i'd give this recipe a blue ribbon, but it's definitely deserving of a red ribbon. ;)

Doesn't this look good?

I mean, really good?

Well, it didn't taste very good. poo. This was my first and probably ONLY attempt at Spaghetti Carbonara. I found this recipe Spaghetti Carbonara II halved it, made it exactly as written, and it turned out super bland, like it was totally missing something.

I was impressed by the egg being cooked by the heat of the pasta, but my hubby, not so much. His assessment, it tastes like breakfast, and not in a good way. Ouch. I don't even think we finished it. It was lousy, i can't recommend this one, but it was a pretty picture. ;)

Jill's Ziti and Broccoli

My girlfriend Jill taught me how to make the easiest pasta dish waaaaay back in the day, back in the 90's, GASP! lol. This post was inspired by all the cd's from college that i'm finally getting around to throwing in my itunes. So yeah, back to the food.

Jill was a girl from Staten Island, you know home of the spaghetti and gravy no matter what kind of pasta you were eating. Well, needless to say, she came with a plethora of good recipes. This one i've been making just about every month since she showed me how. And it's so quick and easy that my hubby cooks this one too!

Jill's Ziti and Broccoli
1/2 package of ziti
1 package broccoli (fresh or frozen)
evoo
garlic
fresh grated parmasean cheese
s/p

In a large pot, bring salted water to a boil. If you are using fresh chopped broccoli, throw in salted water for about 1 minute, until the broccoli turns bright green. Then scoop out of the water. Then throw the pasta in the same water. If you are using frozen chopped broccoli, just cook pasta as directed and cook broccoli as directed as well.

In a small pan heat evoo over medium heat, then add minced, chopped, smashed (however you like it) garlic, heat until soft. Drain pasta and return to pot, add broccoli and pour oil and garlic and add most of the parmasean. Adjust seasonings (s/p, evoo) to your liking, toss, serve and enjoy! :)



So simple, so delish! So next time you forgot to defrost something for dinner and are thinking of making spaghetti with tomato sauce, try Jill's Ziti and Broccoli instead. It's YUM... :)

Meli's Deli

Here's what was on the menu at Meli's Deli on Sunday...
Deli Style Brisket
Cheddar Mashed Potatoes
Honey Glazed Carrots
Eclair Cake


Let's start with dessert first, shall we? I had a random half eaten can of chocolate frosting and no desire to make a cake. I found an interesting recipe, Eclair Cake, using not only the frosting, but using the other half eaten random stuff in my pantry- Sweet! :)

I halved the recipe and made it in a loaf pan. I used sugar free vanilla pudding and fat free cool whip and i couldn't taste the difference. The recipe halved just lovely, until i realized i had run out of graham crackers for the top layer, and had a mini oh shit moment. But then the light bulb of ingenuity dinged in my head, and i topped the last layer of pudding in graham cracker crumbs! Brilliant, you say?! Well, it worked just fine, it was delicious and deceptively light (you know sans the thick chocolate frosting layer) but it was a bitch to get a good photo cause the frosting kept sliding off.


I HIGHLY recommend this recipe, it's super easy, looks good and tastes wonderful AND you probably have most, if not all the ingredients in your kitchen now... BONUS! :)

Now, lets get to the main course. I wanted to cook a nice Sunday dinner, my hubby wanted to go hang at the pool. So i found a super quick to throw together, slow cooker recipe for Deli Style Brisket . The ingredients were so simple, i thought i was going to hate it. i mean how excited can i possibly get about ketchup and onions and water. ech, blah, prob what they eat in prison. :P

This literally took about 1.5 minutes to throw together. And later that afternoon, i told my hubby, our neighbor must be cooking something good for dinner. Then remembered, DUH, that's me!



It DID live up to it's rep of being the most tender brisket i've made. And even though i did make the mistake of just throwing the flour in the gravy (instead of mixing it with water first which lead to squishing floating flour balls for about 5 minutes, AY!), it was a really super easy, carefree way of making some really good comfort food. Simple, tasty. The following day, the leftovers made a great sandwhich. ;)

Roasted and Toasted

I found a recipe for Roasted Cauliflower and have been holding onto it for a while. I finally had the chance to make it and well, i wouldn't go so far as to say it tastes better then french fries, but i will say that it's pretty good. It WAS pretty stinky, in that cooking cauliflower way, for the first 15 minutes, but as it roasted, it smelled better. lol.

Roasted Cauliflower

cauliflower
olive oil
s/p
the herbs/ spices of your choice

Heat oven to 475, I used a bag of prechopped cauliflower, coat in oil and spices, roast in shallow baking pan, turning every 15 minutes until desired level of crispiness has been acheived. For me, that was about 45 minutes. ;) Enjoy!


I used a pinch of cayanne pepper. It was ok, but i'm looking forward to trying different spices like curry or cumin. Who knows, we'll see, the possibilities are endless! What do you think is a good spice for roasted cauliflower?

Simply Delightful

Doncha just LOVE Hawaiian bread? We LOVE it. But i only buy it in the small 4 pack of rolls cause variety is the spice of life! It's just one of the many types of bread we normally eat around here.

Every once and a while, i'm tempted to make what is known to my brother Chris as THE BEST GRILLED CHEESE EVER. When he told me his friend makes the best ever, i said bullshit. Then he came over and showed me how. We were toasting cheese sandwiches left and right, and i have to say, he wasn't that far off the mark.

The Best Toasted Cheese Sandwich

Hawaiian Bread
Butter
Your fave cheese

Heat a non stick skillet over medium high heat. I used Hawaiian bread rolls, so cut the rolls into 1/4's (this means you'll get 2 small sandwiches from 1 roll). Butter the insides of the roll, place butter side down, and add cheese (not too much) then place the other side of the roll butter side up. After about 1-2 minutes flip. Another minute or so, remove from heat and ENJOY!

When Chris first taught me how to make these, we used oodles of different kinds of cheeses, smoked gouda, swiss, cheddar, american, we were toasted cheese sandwich fools! It was fun, i liked them all. The combination of the salty cheese and the butter with the sweetness of the roll is AWESOME, it really is.

Make sure you come back and tell me what kind of cheese you used and how fabulous it was! ;)

I almost felt like an archeologist!

Thursday night it pizza nite, every Thursday, you'll find us eating pizza, and since this Thursday i was no where near The Big Cheese, i decided to actually MAKE the pizza dough. Oh boy! This dude, Jay, has the highest rating on allrecipes for his pizza dough, so for sure, this is THE ONE.

Jay's Signature Pizza Crust

Allrecipes also uses his dough for their Forming Pizza Crust tutorial. For sure, THIS is the pizza dough to make if you are going to try any on that website, THIS is it. So i did.

I gotta tell you, it was v. easy to make and punching down dough is REALLY fun. But our dough came out from rising super sticky. So we tried to get it to be less sticky by adding flour, and more flour and yes, more flour.

The pizza stone was patiently waiting in the oven, nice and hot at 500 for the pizza. Well, you see, we've made pizza a whole 3 times already and when we get to the putting the pizza in the oven phase. We um...DEFINITELY need some help. I read about a pizza paddle or a peel (a large wooden thingy to slide the pizza onto the stone). And by coincidence my mom was headed to BedBath&Beyond, i asked her to find me one. They told her they don't carry it, but may have it in stock soon. Okie dokie.


So we substituted of a sturdy piece of cardboard, well floured. Yup, you got it, MORE FLOUR!

Do i need to tell you what happened or can you figure it out?! Our pizza came out of the oven and well i didn't even take a photo, my hubby paused and everything before he started to slice it up. Like as if to say, hello...picture?! lol.

As he lifted my slice up to put it on my plate, i said omg, no way! i couldn't eat that, a white and i'm talking pure white pizza crust, white from all the damn flour! lol. I ran to the kitchen and got natural bristled basting brush and started brushing. It came off with no problem, but i felt like i was going to uncover hieroglyphics under all that flour! lol.

Our pizza was ok, we had much better success with the premade dough from the Big Cheese, but i can't blame the recipe. I'll blame BedBath&Beyond for not carrying a pizza paddle. :P NO, but in all honesty, if you readers out there can help a girl out. How do you transfer the pizza onto the pizza stone?!


I did eventually take a photo, but the most important thing in this shot is ALL THE DAMN FLOUR! lol.

More Food of the Gods

Have you ever tried Greek Yogurt? If you haven't, YOU MUST! It's amazing. :)

My folks went to Greece a couple years back and i remember my mom coming home and raving about it. We started frequenting this local Greek place, Mykonos, and told my mom i LOVED their moussaka. On our recommendation, my folks went and my mom asked if they had Greek yogurt. The guy told her that his mom flies it in from Greece every so often. So if you are lucky to come in when they have it, they will gladly serve it up to you. We continued to go and ask every time we went in there, cause seriously, if my mom said you MUST try Greek yogurt one more time...

Well finally that day had come. In a plain styrofoam container, there was a glob of thick white yogurt drenched in golden honey and sprinkled with walnuts. Let me tell you, it WAS something to rave about.

Now, i'm not really a yogurt person, i'll eat it, it's just not something that i get excited over. But one taste of this Greek yogurt and well, i'm hooked. It's rich and creamy, teamed with the sweetness of the honey and the woodiness of the walnuts, i'm in heaven!

I'm thinking, where can i find this stuff. I can't just wait for this dude's mom to fly it in! So i go on a mission. I scour the yogurt section at Publix and find nothing. Boo. I ask the dairy guy and he's like oh yes and takes me to the yogurt drink section. I'm like no dude, it's not a drink it's like really thick. He's like i know this is Greek yogurt. I'm like it's really not. back and forth, back and forth and what do you know, the Greek yogurt is 2 shelves UP from where he was pulling bottles off the shelves. WOO HOO!!! Don't worry people, i'm not gonna leave you hanging, here it is (so you know exactly what to look for).



Ok, mom just called, she's super excited, but she did remind me that it IS fattening, so enjoy in moderation! ;)

Mykonos
1201 SW 22nd St
Miami, FL 33145
(305) 856-3140