Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Who doesn't love a nice gourd lobotomy?

It's the end of October, which means that it's that time of year again. That time of year when we have feasts and celebrations, sprinkle the blood of an animal sacrifice on our doorway, and light some bonfires to ensure good luck and keep our cattle alive through the winter. Or at least that's how we did it back in the middle ages in various Celtic countries. Nowadays we celebrate Samhain mostly by freaking out about somebody slipping a razor blade surreptitiously into our kids' M&Ms, and by dressing up as a sexy meerkat. Oh, and pumpkins. We carve human-ish faces into pumpkins, kind of like some sort of grotesque gourd serial killer, and then leave the mutilated pumpkins outside of our houses as a warning to the other vegetables. Which means we're left with the classic serial killer dilemma: what to do with the goopy insides that we methodically removed from our victims.

Ingredients:

1 Pie Pumpkin (A pie pumpkin is a pumpkin typically used for pie making. We've genetically bred them to have characteristics that make them ideal. If sentient gourds from outer space ever visit the Earth, this is what will spark intergalactic war)
1/4 tsp Chili Powder
1/4 tsp Garlic Powder
1/4 tsp Onion Powder
A largish human's pinch of Salt

 The first thing you're going to need to do is dismember an innocent pumpkin. But I've been pretty open about that up to this point and you've made it this far, so I'm going to assume that you're OK with that. So let your pumpkin say goodbye to its loved ones, eat a final meal, and then chop its head off like your name is Robespierre. Or the guy who killed Robespierre. Either way. The point is, pull out all of those gross pumpkin innards. This is where we encounter our first problem. Namely, the fact that pumpkin innards like being innards, and have little-to-no interest in making the leap towards being outards. So, using some unholy combination of kitchen implements, your hands, and more gumption than you can shake a stick at, just do your best. Remember, they say that nobody's perfect. Which just goes to show that there really isn't any excuse for coming in second place. Take your pumpkin guts (Or maybe pumpkin brains? I never really thought about it before) and separate the seeds from the other nonsense. Rinse your seeds off and then get ready for the trouble you're going to have with the rest of the ingredients.

Perfect for snacking while you watch TV, read
a book, or lie to friends about reading books

Haphazardly throw the rest of the ingredients on top of your seeds and mix them together. Not everything has to be a challenge. Spread your seasoned seeds down on a baking sheet. It's important to keep them as close to a single layer as possible. If your pumpkin is abnormally fertile or you're just doubling the recipe, use multiple baking sheets rather than clumping your seeds all together. Bake them in a 300 degree oven for about 30 minutes, making sure to wangjangle them around every ten minutes or so to get even crispiness and no burning. And there you have it! Delicious spiced pumpkin seeds! You also have an entire hollow pumpkin which you can mutilate to your heart's content and leave around neighborhood. Or you can cook it. But more on that next week. Happy cultural appropriation holiday!

Roasted Elotes

We use corn for so many crazy things in America that it's
even starting to weird out the other vegetables

Corn is everywhere, especially in the midwest. Some of you sticklers for language might be thinking "there's no such thing as gradient levels of 'everywhere,'"and you'd think that would be the case. But you're wrong. Go to any grocery store. Look at ingredients. Corn is everywhere. Then go to the midwest and drive for 30 miles in literally any direction. I rest my case. Fortunately, corn is also absurdly delicious, and is kind of synonymous with Summer, which it technically is in case the absurd heat and gaggles of unruly children roaming the streets wasn't enough of a clue for you. The point is, we're being invaded by delicious corn, and it's our duty as patriotic Americans to eat the heck out of it to thin out its numbers so that we don't get completely overrun and end up slaves to our corn overlords, working in a butter mine in Montana.

Ingredients:

4 Ears Corn
4 oz. Cotija Cheese (If you can't find Cotija, you can replace it with Feta, but it won't be quite the same)
1/4 cup Mayo
1/4 cup Sour Cream
2 Limes
2 cloves Garlic
1 tsp Chile Powder
1/2 tsp Smoked Paprika
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1/4 tsp Kosher Salt

I've managed to make some pretty easy food here once or twice. Once I just mashed up a couple of fruits and froze their goop. This isn't the easiest recipe I've ever made, but it may be the easiest recipe I've ever made that actually requires any cooking. So first thing's first, heat your oven to 400 degrees and toss your corn in, husks and all. You don't even need any bourgeoise luxuries like a pan. Just throw them straight on your oven racks and leave them there for 45 minutes. Which is awesome because, firstly, there's no dishes to clean up, and secondly you now have 45 minutes to prep everything else. 40 minutes later, after you suddenly realize that you completely forgot about your corn because you got sucked in to whatever reality TV show you're addicted to this week, run to your kitchen with a nervous energy that really has no place near sharp knives. Take a sharp knife and chop the bejeezus out of your garlic. You really want to get it fine. Otherwise you're going to end up biting into a giant chunk of uncooked garlic later, which will end up being bad for you and everyone who has to talk to you for the rest of the day.

I wouldn't recommend letting these sit around for too long if
you're not eating 'em right away. This has yet to be a problem.

Combine your mayo, garlic, sour cream, cheese, and the juice from your limes together (oh yeah, you've got to juice your limes. So go retroactively have done that). In a separate container combine your chile powder, paprika cayenne, and salt. You're pretty much good to go. Like I said, easy. Once your corn is cooked all the way through take it out of the oven and pull the husks off of it. If you have delicate, sensitive, effeminate hands that can't handle second degree burns, use a towel for this. Either way, leave the husk at the bottom of the corn so that you can use it as a handle, and take your delicious snack on the go. This allows you the fun of eating your hot food outside in the Summer heat. You know, where the sun is blazing down on you in its endless struggle to murder you. Anyhow, immediately slather your cream mixture on to the hot corn, and then sprinkle it with your spice mixture. I'm a fan of citrus, so I squirt on a little extra lime juice at the end, but that part's optional. And that's it! You've got a snack that's delicious, filling, and a service to your country. You're technically a veteran now.

Stuffing Muffins

It doesn't matter if you know the muffin man. It matters
that he knows himself.

Thanksgiving times are upon us, which means that it's time to break out the most treasured of all holiday traditions: lying to each other about how good the food is. Because let's be honest here. A lot of classic Thanksgiving food is somewhere between unimpressive and super gross. You've got marshmallows melted on to overcooked yams, green bean casserole that pretty much comes out of a can, and usually some stuffing that amounts to dried out crusty bits of bread loosely held together by a mass of onions and disappointment. Which is a shame, because it really isn't that hard to make some delicious stuffing. And I should know, because I made some this morning. The whole process took about 45 minutes from start to finish, and at no point did I feel like my mouth had turned into a desert fortress from which escape is impossible, which isn't always the case with stuffing. Making it into individual muffins is a fun twist that makes everything self-contained and helps ensure that everybody actually gets some. Also it'll help you deceive your friends and family into thinking that you're creative and whimsical.

Ingredients:

Approx. 8 Cups of Bread (You've got some decent leeway here. Use something hearty, but really whatever bread makes you happy. Tear it into chunks, throw 8 cups of them in there, and be merry)
2 Eggs 
4 Crimini Mushrooms
3 ribs Celery
1 standard-issue Onion
1.5 TBSP chopped Parsley
2 tsp rubbed Sage
1 tsp dried Thyme
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
Salt 
Oil
Water

The first thing you're gonna need to do is learn to ignore people. Because undoubtedly there are already people constructing angrily worded letters about how stuffing is only "real" if it's stuffed into a turkey, and that otherwise you should call it "dressing." It's easy to get angry or annoyed with these people, but remember that they serve an important role in the evolution of our species. Without having obviously terrible people to be a focus for our communal rage and disgust, those feelings would fester and eventually turn into something negative, like dysentery or a world war. Once you've blocked out the voices, it's time to grab your bread. A lot of stuffing recipes start off by having you toast the bread to dry it out. We're not doing that. We're doing the opposite of that. Moisten your bread with a little bit of water until it starts sticking together just a little bit, and set it aside. You don't want it to be soaked and gloppy, so be careful with it.

Just look at those things. I can practically hear a drunk uncle
ruining a pleasant family moment already.

Now dice your onion and sauté it over medium heat along with an average sized human's pinch of salt. Let it cook down for about a minute. You can use that minute to chop up your celery, because now it's time to add it in with the onions and cook them for another 2-3 minutes. Then choppity chop up your mushrooms and add them in along with your thyme, black pepper, and another pinch of salt. It should take about 2 minutes for some of the moisture to cook out of the mushrooms and for the whole thing to start smelling crazy good. Take your vegetable mixture and stir it into your bread along with your parsley, eggs, and one final pinch of salt. Buy or steal a standard muffin pan and grease up the cups before filling them with your bread and vegetable mixture. Pack it in there and try to overstuff them a little bit if you can (you can). Throw those suckers into a 375 degree oven and let them cook for 15-20 minutes, until they start to get a little crispy on top and your entire home smells like condensed holiday awesomeness. Then take them out of the oven, take them out of the pan, and serve them. Or make them ahead of time in which case wait until your actual meal, heat them up, and then serve them. Bonus points if you don't make up an obnoxious cutesy name for them like "stuffins." Happy holidays!

Sugar Cookies

Anything can happen on Halloween. From London to Idaho.

It's Halloween time again, full of festivity, cheer, and little kids dressed up in costumes that cost more than the price of all of the candy they'll get from trick or treating. Also angsty teenagers who vandalize people's houses because they're angry that society has deemed them too old to trick or treat. It's a fun time! So make sure to start partaking in the traditional Halloween activities, such as extortion, alcoholism, and protesting Halloween because it was originally a pagan holiday (So was pretty much every other holiday, but let's pretend we don't know about that to help fuel our outrage). And nothing's quite as in the spirit of the holiday as parents freaking out over the contents of the homemade treats that some creepy neighbor gave out, despite the fact that pretty much nobody has ever tampered with Halloween candy. Who are you to deny them this holiday tradition?

Ingredients:

2.75 Cups Flour
1 Chicken Egg (Raw, by preference)
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Butter (For some reason, there seems to be some sort of holy war concerning butter among people who write recipes. Some people measure it in sticks. Others in cups. Neither of them are willing to admit that the other side exists, never mind how much of one equals the other. Our nation needs some unity and healing. One cup equals two sticks of butter.)
1.5 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 small human's pinch of Salt

Optional Frosting!

The first thing you're gonna need to do is get in the holiday spirit. If you're a strict originalist, you can accomplish this by harvesting your crops, dancing around a bonfire, and carving a turnip. If you're not that odd mix weirdly fascinating and incredibly boring, just drink too much at a party and confess romantic feelings to someone who doesn't reciprocate them. Now you're ready to make some cookies. Start by creaming your sugar and butter (mixing the crap out of them so that the sugar crystals tear into the butter and make little air pockets, for those of you who haven't made my chocolate chip cookies before) in a bowl. Then mix in your egg and vanilla and set it aside. In another bowl, whisk together your flour, baking powder, and salt. Then take your dry ingredients and slowly mix them into your wet ingredients. It's best to work in batches so that you can incorporate all of the dry stuff into the wet, and so that flour doesn't fly out of the bowl dousing everything in your kitchen in a fine white powder. This is a pretty thick cookie batter, so for those of you mixing this manually, by the last batch you might need to abandon your whisks and just mix it with your hands despite the very real risk that you may need to lick batter off of your fingers.

Pumpkin sprinkles added to remind you that pumpkins exist.

Once your dough is formed, roll it into balls and put them on a greased up cookie sheet. You should get about 24 out of this recipe. If you're off on that number by one or two it's no big deal. If you're off by 5 or more then re-roll your cookies. If you're off by 10 or more, re-think some major things about how you live your life. Now, personally, I like a big fluffy cookie, so I leave mine as balls. If you prefer a thinner, crispier cookie, flatten them down with a weird gadget you can buy for about 30 bucks. Or, you know, with your thumb which is usually free. In any case, throw those suckers in a 375 degree oven for 10-18 minutes, depending on the thickness of your cookies. Pretty much, about 5 minutes after your house starts to smell delicious, take them out. Make sure to neurotically check on them every couple of minutes to really give them that homemade touch. When they're done, they should just be starting to brown around the edges. Now you've got some delicious homemade cookies to freak out the neighbors! They (the cookies) have got a mild sweetness going that's super awesome for other days, but this is a holiday predicated on threatening your neighbors into giving you sugary treats. So, once your cookies are cool, feel free to douse them in chocolate frosting. And since we've talked a lot about giving these cookies to kids, I'm not going to tell you to add a little bit of bourbon into the frosting. So don't even think about adding in specifically two tablespoons of bourbon into one standard sized can of frosting. See you next week, assuming you haven't been egged into oblivion!

Nachos

Artist's rendition: Me getting terrible restaurant nachos

Nachos are a sore spot for me. Because they're so so very awesome. But nobody ever makes them right, and it pisses me off. I don't know. I grew up with relatively easy access to awesome nachos, and while I know that not everybody shared that experience, they should at least be familiar enough with the concept to not microwave cheese on top of a bag of chips and try to sell it to me for $8.95. This has been more angry ranting and less fun banter with the voices in my head than usual, so let's all watch this to even out again. We all good? Cool. Back to nachos. The point of nachos, at least to me, is to be able to get a little bit of everything in each tiny bite. Not to have a giant disk of chips held together with congealed cheese that you have to rip apart, getting beans everywhere and grossing out everybody at your niece's Bat Mitzva, or Quinceanera, or whatever. The point is, your clothes are stained, your family is ashamed of you, your date left an hour ago, and it's the fault of sub-par nachos.

Ingredients:

2 15 oz cans of Pinto Beans
1 Standard Issue Onion
2 Cloves of Garlic
8 oz Cheddar Cheese
3 Jalapeños 
3 Cups Milk
1/3 Cup Vegetable Stock
3 TBSP Butter
3 TBSP Sour Cream
3 TBSP Flour (You need 3 of a lot of things in this recipe. Try not to let it worry you. It's in no way a hint to some sort of greater conspiracy affecting your life. Almost definitely)
1 TBSP Chili Powder
1 TBSP Olive Oil
2 tsp Ground Cumin
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
An unspecified amount of salt
Tortilla Chips. All the Tortilla Chips (You can use your favorite store bought chips if you like. Or, if you have the will of the warrior, slice up some corn tortillas, fry them in oil, and then toss a little salt on them. Because it's super easy, crazy awesome, and your therapist said you need to try new things)

The first thing you're gonna need to do is make some refried beans. Because Nachos without beans, while technically pretty authentic, are just little edible plates of sadness. So chop up your onion, and throw it in a pan with your Olive Oil and an ASHP (average sized human's pinch) of Salt over medium heat. Saute` the onion for about 5 minutes, until it starts to get soft and golden. Add in your Garlic, Cumin, Chili Powder, and Cayenne, and Saute` another minute. Add in your Pinto Beans along with one more ASHP of Salt, and let it cook for another couple minutes before adding in your Vegetable Stock. Bring the whole mess to a boil, and let it go for another 5 minutes. Now it's time to get an authentic rustic texture, by taking the back of a spoon, and individually crushing your pinto beans for approximately 3 lifetimes (Bonus points if you use this as an opportunity to express some of the anger you've felt over the years at disappointing nachos, which led to a disappointing life). You want a thick and creamy consistency, but you still want whole beans floating around in there, letting people know what it is they're eating, and generally taunting you about the amount of time you've spend smashing beans compared to the amount of unsmashed beans looking up at you with their stupid bean faces.

Next you're gonna make a cheese sauce. Because of course the cheese should be in sauce form. Any other thought you might have had is blasphemy. Do you want to go to Nacho hell? No? Then stop asking questions about the cheese sauce. It's pretty simple. Essentially, you're gonna take the Flour, Butter, and Milk, and another AHSP of salt to make a thick Bechamel sauce. Too lazy to read that link, but somehow not too lazy to read this? Here's a brief overview: melt the butter in a pot, whisk in the flour slowly, and let it cook for a minute. Then add in the Milk slowly, whisking like crazy until your arm wants to fall off, but can't because of your dumb skin. Got it? Good. Chop up 2 of your Jalapeños, and throw them in the sauce. Then melt in your cheese, in a couple batches so that it actually incorporates and doesn't just end up in a cheesy mess on the bottom of your pot. Keep it cooking over low heat until it threatens to boil but isn't actually boiling yet, and then turn off the heat. Jalapeño Cheese Sauce!

Normally I say something like "they taste even better than
they look. Which is clearly impossible here. I'm gonna
go with "as good." They taste as good as they look. 

Now it's time for the assembly. It's important (To me. And now, because I'm forcing you, to you!) to be able to get a little bit of everything with each bite. So lay down a thick layer of Tortilla Chips on whatever you're gonna be eating these things off of/out of. Then drizzle a layer of your Jalapeño Cheese Sauce (!) over it, followed by a loose layer of your beans. Then add on another layer of chips, followed by another layer of beans, and another layer of cheese sauce. Why does the order of the beans and sauce reverse here? Because it's better that way. What's with all the questions? Do you want to go to Nacho purgatory? Then don't question the order of operations. Throw your Sour Cream down in the middle of your pile of awesomeness, chop up your final Jalapeño, and sprinkle it over everything. And that's all there is to some incredible nachos. And the best part is, you can make enough to share with your friends for the price of an individual portion from a restaurant. Just kidding! The best part is that they're awesome. Eat them all yourself until you get sick.

Scallion Pancakes

Note: Actual recipe may included no blueberries or cardboard

If you're anything like me, you hate paying too much for restaurant food that you can make better yourself. Also, you once carved "I messed with Texas" into a table at a rest stop...in Texas. The point is, sometimes, restaurant disappointment can be kind of like inspiration. You may have been served cardboard with a ketchup and sadness emulsion, but you ordered that crap because it was supposed to be awesome. Which brings me back to scallion pancakes, because they can be great. But more often than not, when I have them in restaurants, I end up more disappointed than 1990s Nicolas Cage having a vision of his future. So I'm taking what I wanted them to be, figuring it out, and making them myself. And that my friend, is the true meaning of Christmas.

Ingredients:

1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup of Hot Water
8 Green Onions/Scallions/Spring Onions/etc. (Apparently, green onions have a stupid number of regional names, and no region wants to give theirs up so we can all call them the same damn thing. Probably because of Onion Politics,  with it's lobbying efforts, corruption, and stubborn stupidity. You know, like regular politics, just more delicious)
1 TBSP Vegetable Oil
1 tsp Toasted Sesame Oil
1 tsp Salt
More flour
More Salt

More Ingredients! For a dipping Sauce, which is kind of superfluous, and therefore optional!

2 TBSP Rice Wine Vinegar
2 TBSP Soy Sauce
1 TBSP Sriracha (The concept of a dipping sauce with these is really an American development, so using an American hot sauce that's designed to taste eastern-ish felt...appropriate)
1 TBSP Sugar
2 Green Onions
2 tsp Crushed Ginger
1 tsp Toasted Sesame Oil
1 Clove of Garlic, crushed

Woo! Sooooo many ingredients. But most of them are for the sauce, which takes like 25 seconds to make, so we'll ignore them for now. Take your flour and sift it in a bowl along with your Salt, using a sifter, a fork, knives, a whisk, or fear itself. You just want to break up the clumps, and aerate it a little bit. Then slowly add in your water, stirring as you go. You may not end up using all of your flour. You want the dough to just barely come together, but there shouldn't be any leftover flour sitting around, looking for a dance partner, striking out, and bringing the whole party down. Cover the whole thing with a moist towel, and let it sit for about 45 minutes. You can use this time to chop your Green Onions into itty bits! You're on your own for the other 44 minutes. Once the time has passed, cover a cutting board, counter, or other flat surface with flour, knowing deep in your heart that you'll never truly be able to get it clean again. Plop half of your dough onto your floured surface, sprinkle the top of it with flour, and knead the crap out of it for 5-10 minutes. If it still feels sticky, knead in more flour. Once you've done all the kneading that your dough needed (Puns!), roll it out as thinly as you can. Take half of your Toasted Sesame Oil, and smear it on the dough, and then evenly throw on half of your chopped Scallions.

Now comes the complicated bit. Take an edge of your flattened onion dough, and start rolling it up on top of itself, until your have a tube of dough. It should look kind of like everything you ever made out of Play-Doh as a kid. Then take that dough tube, and wrap it in a spiral around itself. Then roll it out again, this time about 1/4 of an inch thick. Got that? Because I'm not sure I do. Seriously though, roll up your dough into a dough snake, then make a dough spiral our of your snake, and then roll it flat again. It's not as bad as it sounds. If you can't figure it out, just fold your dough in half a couple times and then roll it out again. It's won't be as layered and flaky, but at least you won't be standing terrified in your kitchen, afraid to move for fear that I'll jump out of your computer and mock you (Which has only happened once, that I know of). Throw your Vegetable Oil into a pan on medium heat, lay in your fledgling pancake, and fry it for about 3 minutes on each side, until it's brown, crispy, and awesome. Put it on a plate lined with paper towels to drain, and immediately sprinkle it with an average human sized pinch of Salt. Then repeat this entire stupid process again with the rest of your flour, Oil, Scallions, and whatnot, while trying not to weep.

Like all fried foods, it's best eaten as soon as possible,
in one sitting, while stubbornly refusing to share

Once you're done weeping, it's time to think about the sauce. This type of food is served as a street food in places like China, and doesn't have a sauce. And it tastes awesome on its own. But in American restaurants, a dipping sauce usually comes with. So, for thoroughness and awesomeness, we're making one too. And it's pretty complicated too. Are you ready? Chop your Green Onions. Crush your Ginger and Garlic. Add them into a bowl with the rest of the ingredients. Stir. Feel free to read this paragraph as many times as you need to to get that down. And there you have it! Delicious, flaky, crispy, delicious bits of reverse-engineered awesomeness that you can take back to that original restaurant that wronged you and rub their dumb faces in it. Not literally. Probably.

Potato Salad

Based on the burning hot sun, the rowdy bands of seemingly parentless children, and the sweating

Dumb potatoes don't even know I'm gonna salad them

pedestrians everywhere, Summer is here. Then again, I live in LA, so I could just as easily be describing December. The point is that Summer is all about grilling and inviting friends over. Which is awesome, don't get me wrong. But chances are you'll go crazy trying to make sure that your grilled meat is perfect, but will completely neglect your side dishes. You know, the things that your guests will be anxiously eating while they wait 45 minutes for you to finish fussing over the charcoal and actually cook their damn food? The truth is, a good Potato Salad is the backbone of any great barbecue. Well, that, and actually owning a grill. Also beer.

Ingredients:

3 lb Red Potatoes

4 large Eggs

1 cup Mayonnaise

1/2  a Red Onion (If you don't have a Red Onion, you can totally replace this with any other onion. If you want the recipe to come out slightly wrong. Or you can go to literally any grocery store, and buy a Red Onion)

2 whole Kosher Dill Pickles (Or 4 halves. Or 8 spears. Isn't math fun?)

2 TBSP Dijon Mustard

1 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Garlic Powder

An unspecified amount of Smoked Paprika

The first thing you're gonna need to do, is forget everything you know about cooking potatoes. Since multiple people have told me that while they enjoy reading my blog, they don't actually cook themselves, this may be relatively easy for you. Take a large pot of water, and bring it to a boil. While you're waiting the roughly 3.7 hours for water to actually boil, you're gonna chop your potatoes into 1-inch cubes. Don't break out a protractor, just do your best. 

Dramatization: Potatoes playing it cool. Real cool.

Drop your potatoes in the boiling water, and cook them about 10-15 minutes, until they're tender enough to let you stab them with a fork all the way to their potatoey hearts without resistance. Then turn the fire off, drain the potatoes, and cover them with cold water until they cool down to room temperature. Why? Because turning off the fire doesn't completely stop the cooking process. There's still a bunch of heat in there. And if your potatoes are perfectly done, but then they cook more, you end up with overcooked nonsense. So pour the water on them to help your potatoes play it cool. 

While you wait for your potatoes to cook, and then for them to cool down, take another pot, and fill it with water and with eggs. Hard boil them there eggs, and set them aside. Also take this time to dice your Red Onion and Kosher Pickles (Note to bigots: A pickle being "kosher" is indicative of it having been brined with lots of garlic and dill. It isn't another rung in some conspiracy that the monsters living under your bed told you about. Unless that conspiracy was about garlic and dill.), and to whisk together your Mayo, Salt, Garlic Powder, and Mustard. Isn't it fun being efficient with our time? This way we finish like 5 minutes earlier, and also have the added bonus of making everything a lot more stressful! Frederick Taylor would be proud. The rest of this process is pretty simple. Once your potatoes are cooled,

Damn. That almost looks good enough to make me foget

about the grilling meat part. Almost.

remove the shell from your eggs, slice them, and dump them in, along with your Mayo concoction, your Onion, and your Pickles. Stir to combine, and then shove that baby in the fridge for no less than 2 hours. Top it with a sprinkling of Smoked Paprika, and serve it to your friends, to make up for what you did to their burgers.

Baked Salami

Not pictured: Honey and Hot Sauce. They know what they did

It's time to get realistic for a minute. Just a minute, and then I'll be back to my normal unrealistic self. Not everybody has the time or inclination to make some fancy bourgeoise recipe every time they cook. Maybe you don't care that much about food, maybe you're super rich and have a personal chef, or maybe you're just lazy, and live in your parents' basement. Whatever the reason, there will still come a time when you'll want to be able to make somebody some awesome food. A girlfriend you hope to turn into something more, your friend who watched Food Network WAY too much, your parole officer. SOMEBODY. And this is a super simple recipe that'll help you impress those people and stuff them full of deliciousness, without the hassle of learning valuable life skills.

Ingredients:

1 lb Dry Beef Salami

1/3 cup Dijon Mustard

1/4 cup Dark Brown Sugar

1.5 TBSP Balsamic Vinegar

1/2 tsp Honey

An unspecified amount of Hot Sauce (You're looking for a good basic heat here. Nothing too fancy, like you kids are into these days, with your sriracha's or what have you. I wanna say.....whippersnappers?)

The first step is to return the pre-sliced, grocery-store, hyphenate-adjective-inducing Salami that you probably bought, and get something better. Because the Salami is the heart and soul of this dish. Also because good salami is an incredible thing and you should find it, get it, and love it. Once you find a salami worthy of your love, you're ready to get started. 

As promised, this recipe is pretty damned simple. Put your Brown Sugar into a bowl, pour you Balsamic Vinegar over it and stir. This will cause the sugar to melt like a roomful of nazis who just saw the ark of the covenant. Hah! Gross. Still hungry? Let's keep going anyway. The meltiness is a good thing. Melty sugar is able to mix much more easily with the other ingredients. Speaking of the other ingredients, now is a good time to take your Mustard, Honey, and a dash of Hot Sauce (how much is a "dash?" A very small amount. How small? Think about how spicy you like things, and figure it out), and splorp them down on top of your vinegar-sugar mixture. Seriously. All of them. Just mix it all together until it's all one homogenous goop. 

Technically, you don't HAVE to smear a little sauce on each

slice. Far be it from me to call you a fool

Take your Salami, and slather it in the goop. Throw it in a pan, and pour any extra sauce you've got lying around all up ons it. If you want to be extra fancy, score it with a knife so it'll crisp up all pretty and make your hypothetical parole officer swoon. Throw that sucker (the salami, not the parole officer) in a 350 degree oven, and cook it for an hour. When you take it out of the oven, try not to be blinded by the sheer awesome you created. Close your eyes if you have to. When you eventually recover from the burns you suffered getting it out of the oven with your eyes closed, slice it, serve it, and enjoy!

Sausage Bites

The ketchup lurked in the shadows, waiting to strike.

Every now and again, there comes a time when you can't take gigantic, wholesome, American bites of your food. Maybe you're meeting your impending in-laws for the first time, and one of them is the town sheriff. Maybe you're throwing a fancy dinner party to finally prove to your friends and family that you're insane. Maybe you just have tiny untrustworthy hands. In any event, it's useful to know how to make some bite sized awesomeness that manages to pack a whole lot of flavor into a small package. #innuendo

Ingredients:

1 lb Polish Sausage

3/4 cup Heinz Ketchup (Normally I don't advocate the use of a specific brand. But come on. Unless you make homemade ketchup or you don't have taste buds, there are no substitutes)

2 Lemons

1 standard-issue Onion
1 package of Fillo Shells

1 TBSP Light Brown Sugar

1 tsp Olive Oil

1 average-sized human's pinch of Salt

The first thing you need to do is make some friends. Because nothing's more sad than eating a tray of party food alone. So work on those personality defects, buy some new clothes, and get cracking on that. Once that's taken care of, chop your Polish Sausage into itty bitty sausage chunks. Then dice your Onion, and sauté it in a saucepan along with your Oil and your official Pinch 'O Salt. The party line is to let it cook until it "starts to get some color," which sounds more like yuppies talking about how they spent their summers than it sounds like cooking, but what can you do? I suppose you could give more reasonable instructions. Cook them for about 3 minutes, until they start looking yellowish, smell awesome and oniony, and aren't as hard as they used to be. Toss your Sausage in to the pan (#innuendo) and let it cook down, stirring occasionally, for about 3 more minutes.

Now it's time for the fun part, and by "fun," I mean "messy." So I guess I experience fun the same way that toddlers and the profoundly drunk do. Toss in your brown sugar, and stir it about until it melts. Then add in your Ketchup and stir it together until it forms a thick gloppy sausage mess. Cut your Lemons in half, and squeeze the crap out of them until they give up their delicious juice, which you should add to your pan. Be careful not to let any of the approximately 174 seeds that live in each lemon drop in with your juice. Pick out the seeds you failed to keep out of your pan, throw a lid on there, turn the heat all the way down to low, and let it cook for about 20 minutes. You'll know it's ready when your entire house smells like lemony, sausagey awesomeness. Also by the clock reading 20 minutes later than when you started.

They pair well with too much scotch. But then again,

so does everything.

Once your sausage mixture is ready, arrange your shells as snootily as you can on a serving tray. Dish a little bit (Or, you know...a LOT. Probably too much. Too much.) of your sausage mix into each shell. And there you have it! Bite-sized, delicious morsels perfect for an unfortunate dinner party, a more fortunate actual party, or for morosely consoling yourself on your failure to make any friends at the beginning of the second paragraph. The only thing left to do is put the delicious bites of sausage in your mouth (#in....your endo)