OMG YUM! Twice the yum for a Saturday!!

So, I woke up early enough this morning with enough of an appetite to make breakfast... YAY!

I decided to use the leftover mashed potatoes from the elk roast I had last night to make some potatoe pancakes. It's not a new recipe, I've used it a few times, but I think I FINALLY got the recipe perfect!! And then there was dinner... HOOOOOLY, yum, so tasty!

So, without further ado...


Leftover Mashed Potato Pancakes

What We Used:

1 and 1/2 cups mashed potato
2 eggs
a splash of milk
salt and pepper


Method:


Use a mixer to blend everything together in a bowl. It SHOULD have a consistancy slightly thicker than pancake batter. Season it with other things if you wish, such as garlic or hot sauce or whatever!!

I cooked my pancakes in the same pan as bacon. Any type of oil would be good, though, and you'll want to use plenty of it or the poor tatorcakes will stick. Cook them much the same as you would pancakes, but be a little more gentle with them since they won't be quite as glutenous as pancakes.

I also ate mine with butter and jalapeno jelly. YUM!



Taco Meatballs with White Kidney Beans


What We Used:


Meatballs

1 pound ground beef
coriander
cumin
cayenne pepper
chili powder
garlic powder
onion powder
1/2 a fresh onion, chopped
1 egg
1/2 cup finely crushed crackers
3/4 cup uncooked rice

1/2 cup grated cheese
1 can tomato soup
1 bottle salsa (We used mild, you can use whatever you'd like)
1 can white kidney beans


Method:

Mix all the ingrediants for the meatballs together in a large bowl. Roll the meat into 1 inch balls and lay in a large casserole dish. Drain the liquid from the beans into a bowl, add the salsa and the soup. Put the beans on top of the meatballs, cover everything with the salsa mix. Put the cheese on top and bake, covered, until the rice in the meatballs is tender. Cook uncovered if you want the dish to be a little more solid and a little less soupy.

We served this with buttered toast, it was DELICIOUS!! Sooo filling because of the rice in the meatballs and the beans.

New Starts! And a new recipe!

Hurray! A new post from a new kitchen! The delay was a long one but hopefully the wait will have been worth it. We've moved into a big, beautiful house together and the kitchen is inspiring to say the least. Since these were such a success last time I made them, I decided to share the recipe with the world!


Sam's Chocolate Banana Zucchini muffins - Super Easy to make

What We Used:

2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup sugar

1 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup shaved chocolate
1 cup zucchini
2 bananas

Mix the eggs, the oil and the sugar together in a large bowl. Add the rest of the ingrediants and stir together till everything is wet. Spoon the batter into a greased muffin tin so the cups are about 2/3rds full, then bake at 375 for about 25 minutes.

While the method for these is super easy, I thought it might be good to add in a few pointers about some of the things included in the recipe!!

For instance, shaving chocolate can be a bit of a chore, so you can substitute chocolate chips for a different texture and flavor and to save yourself a bit of a headache. We have a handy dandy Pampered Chef grater that I used to shave the chocolate, and it works like a dream.

In the case of the Bananas, freezing bananas that are getting too ripe is a great way to do it! You could mash a fresh banana by hand, but a frozen banana is already mush when it thaws, saving a bit of time.

If you're missing the bananas or don't have zucchini, substituting pumpkin would also work brilliantly.

These are very moist and full of flavor, and they're relatively healthy despite the chocolate in them.

Oh Food Blog, how I have missed you!!! Pictures will be put up soon of some of the things we missed blogging about during our long silence!

- Sam

Movie Wednesday: Push

Megan's turn again for movie night, and she chose 'Push'...

"The film centers on a group of people born with various superhuman abilities who band together in order to take down a government agency that is using a dangerous drug to enhance their powers in hopes of creating an army of super soldiers."

Yup. That's about it...

It takes place in Hong Kong, which meant chinese food again, which meant that this time Sam and I were going to attempt a couple recipes out of a really really old cookbook that belonged to my grandpa.

Handle with Care

Signed by the Author

No recipes, since it was all out of a book... but here's some lovely pictures!

Almond Guy Ding. A chicken chop suey with fried almonds.

Chicken chow mein

-Jess

Lazy, hot, monday Taco Burgers.

Still feeling too hot and lazy to cook for the most part, but we deliberated and decided to construct taco burgers. It didn't require an oven or the stove top, so it didn't heat up the Kitchen of Despair too much.

Taco Burgers - Easy

What We Used
(burger)

• 2 lbs ground beef
• 1 egg
• cumin
• coriander
• onion powder
• paprika
• basil
• chili powder
• breadcrumbs for consistancy

(toppings)

• Iceburg Lettuce
• 1 Tomato
• 1/4 onion
• 1 orange pepper
• 2 med avacados
• 3 cloves garlic
• Tortilla chips
• cheddar cheese (grated)
• sour cream

There was really no measurement for the spices in the burger... we just put them in until it smelled right. We mixed all of the burger ingredients together then formed the mix into patties. The mix turned a beautiful red color due to the chili powder and the paprika! Very lovely.

For the toppings, Sam made a pico de gallo out of the tomato, onion and pepper (she chopped these three ingredients into small pieces and mixed them together.)

Meanwhile, G (Sam's bro) made guacamole by smashing the avocados, the garlic, and some of the pilfered pico de gallo together.

The burgers were constructed with the shredded iceburg lettuce, burger patty (grilled on Sam's indoor grill) the grated cheese, guac (or just the pico de gallo if they didn't like avacado) tortilla chips and sour cream on homemade hamburger buns that Sam tried her hand at making.


These were seriously some of the best burgers I have EVER had the pleasure of eating! YUM!

-Sam and Jesso

Wednesday Movie Night and secret recipes!

No recipes tonight unfortunately, though I thought I would come and mention the interesting food we're going to be having tonight. Since we're watching Repo the Genetic Opera, we opted to do 'body part' food.

A blurb about the movie:

"The movie is set in the year 2056; 26 years after an epidemic of organ failures devastated the planet. Out of the tragedy, the biotech company GeneCo, run by Rotti Largo, emerged to provide organ transplants to the needy populace on a financial plan, making it affordable to anyone who needed one. Through his efforts, Rotti also got approval to create the Repo Men, assassins dispatched to deal with customers who default on their payments and made his company become a megacorporation, having influence from politics to fashion."

We're having ribs, a secret recipe from Jess' family that cannot be posted up here, but rest assured they tie for the best damn ribs I've ever had!!

There'll be spinach dip dyed red to mimic brains served in a loaf with a face, 'stomachs' which are actually just more of the infamous pizza bites and possibly other goodies to be had!

See you soon with more recipes and adventures from the Kitchen of Despair.

-Sam

Life and more Pizza Bites

Late update is late. It's been busy and hectic and stressful the last couple of days, there has been much A&W consumed and not a whole lot of cooking going on. We apologize...

Since Doctor Who isn't having new episodes until Christmas, we've decided to start watching Life, the newest in shows along the lines of Planet Earth and the like. We made pizza bites again, but this time with different fillings.

There's a pizza place that does amazing vegetarian pizzas, so we used the same vegetables and spices that they did in an attempt to mimic their deliciousness. We also decided to try bacon cheeseburger pizza bites!!

Hopefully this week will bring more delicious posts for you guys to try. Thanks for tuning in!

-Sam and Jesso

Beach Day, 40 degrees and grilled Souvlaki

After a wonderful day in the sun at the lake, I got the idea to do some sort of souvlaki for dinner since we have plenty of pork tenderloins still and some leftover ingrediants from movie night I've been itching to use.

Pork Souvlaki in Orange Yoghurt Sauce - Easy

What We Used:

• 1 cup plain yoghurt
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• pinch of white pepper
• pinch of rosemary
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1 tablespoon oregano
• 1 orange, zested and juiced
• a dash of Worchestershire Sauce
• 1/4 cup Olive oil
• 2 cloves elephant garlic
• 1 red pepper
• 1 zucchini
• 1/2 onion
• 1 pork tenderloin, cut into medium sized cubes

I prepped the sauce first since I needed to put the pork into it right away. I put the yoghurt, spices, oil, Worchestershire sauce and the orange juice and zest into a bowl, mixing it all together and letting it sit while I cubed the pork. I then dredged the pork in the sauce. YUM. It makes such a lovely sound.

After that, I prepped the vegetables. I sliced the garlic and the pepper into thick slices, cut the zucchini in half lengthwise and then into half moons, and cut the onion into quarters, pulling it into petals.

After everything was ready, we broke out the skewers! You can layer them however you want, add whatever other vegetables you'd like or take things out if you don't like them. We ALMOST had exactly enough stuff for each skewer, but we still ended up with one that was only meat, onions and garlic.



We used our grill, but you can also use a barbecue to cook them, or broil them in the oven until the meat is cooked all the way through and browned however much you'd like.

We paired these with Crash Hot Potatoes, which are such a hit, I think they've become a staple in our house.

-Sam