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.

Pickles 2: The Ginger-ing

All you vegetables are just pickles to me

Pickles are awesome. This is an undeniable fact. Some of you might remember that I have strong feelings about pickles, because I've actually totally made them before on this very blog. To be honest, that might be my favorite post that I've made, and not just because of the multiple links to the exact same video clip from the Little Rascals. I'd say it's like 50/50 delicious easy pickles and Little Rascals. The point is, last week when I was supposed to be sitting home alone writing a blog post in a pile of sadness caused by not traveling, I totally was in south Florida instead. It was incredible despite, technically, being in Florida (The gator wrestling capital of the world). And while I was there I ate at a restaurant that served me the best damn pickles I've ever had in my life. I seriously considered asking for the recipe. And by "seriously considered," I mean "I totally did, but they shot me down." You know, like when a guy at work seriously considered asking out Candace from accounting. The point is, they wouldn't give me the recipe. And I only know one solution to that sort of rejection.

Ingredients:

1 English Cucumber (While the nationality of your produce isn't really my business, in general English cucumbers don't have big seeds, and are longer and narrower. All of which are good things since we're going to be cutting everything in to bite-sized slices. So just this once, god save the queen)
2 standard-issue Carrots
1 Red Onion
3 cloves Garlic
1 standard-issue hunk of Ginger
1.5 cups Water
1 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
3 TBSP Salt
1.5 TBSP Honey
2 tsp Black Peppercorns
1/2 tsp Saffron threads
1 Star Anise pod
1 Lime

Now, I just want to be clear. I started experimenting with weird pickle flavors because of the pickles at this restaurant, but I didn't re-create them. Much like Jack Black said, this is just a tribute. A tribute which happened to turn out tasty and super easy to make, which worked out as a nice bonus. That said, the first thing you're going to have to do is make your brine. So throw your water, vinegar, peppercorns, honey, salt, and star anise in a pot and set them to boil. Yes, boiling vinegar will make your whole kitchen smell like vinegar. Yes, it'll be worth it for the food. Plus, you neighbors will stop complaining about you never inviting them over for meals. While this is going down it's time to deal with your vegetables. Peel and roughly chop your ginger and garlic and throw them in to some container with a lid. Peel your carrot and slice it into thin rings. Similarly, slice your cucumber into thin rings, and then peel your onion and slice it in to...not rings. Cut your onion in half and then just slice it relatively thinly. The exactitude of each knife cut isn't important. These are pickles. They'll turn out ok even if they look a little weird, just like children. Just make them bite-sized and as uniform as you can, and then throw them in your container along with your saffron. Slice your lime, add it in to the party, and you're like 99% done with this recipe.

Delicious on tacos. Or burgers. Or cardboard.

Once your brine boils, turn the heat down and let it simmer for about 10 minutes or so. Then dump it all over your jar of vegetables. Let the whole mess get down to room temperature before throwing a lid on it and dumping it in to your fridge. Now here's the deal. Since you cut everything thinly, these pickles will take shape pretty quickly. After about 4 hours they should already taste pretty pickley and delicious. That said, the longer they sit, the more intense flavors will get packed in to them. They should last for a couple of weeks in the fridge. Or, more accurately, if they were in your fridge for a couple of weeks they'd still be good to eat. There's no way they're actually going to last in your fridge for more than a couple of days though. They're just so tasty. Also, pickles are super refreshing on a hot day. Which is all that Florida knows how to do, I think. The locals there start wearing heavy coats and boots when it drops below 80. I'm pretty sure it would take me all day to explain to them the concept of what snow even is. Anyhow, happy pickling!

Savory Sweet Potatoes

Cayenne is shy, but was socially obligated to be in the picture

Happy 4th of July! It's a special time of year when we Americans prepare burnt offerings for Uncle Sam in hopes that he wakes from his enchanted slumber and smites our enemies. And like any good holiday, it's got a pretty heavy food component to it. The traditional fare is usually grilled meats, like burgers, hot dogs, chicken, which are awesome, but it's side dishes that really make it in to a festive event. Think about it this way: if you were on the run from zombies, or ninjas, or gluten or whatever, and you had to stop briefly to make food, you'd totally char some meat over a trash can fire. But you probably wouldn't make cole slaw, potato salad, and succotash. Or sweet potatoes, which brings us to today (roll credits).

Ingredients:

4 Sweet Potatoes

1.5 TBSP Olive Oil
1/2 tsp Chili Powder
1/2 tsp Cumin
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
1/4 tsp Onion Powder
1/4 tsp Smoked Paprika
1/4 tsp Oregano
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
Salt
Black Pepper

The first thing you're going to need to do is get over your hangups. There's often a stereotype of men doing the grilling of meat, and of being weirdly territorial over their grills. Other men are forced to sit in huddled groups talking about classically manly things (killing spiders, Babe Ruth, and Monty Python), while women are relegated to the kitchen to prepare vegetables and talk about traditionally female things (eating salads, dealing with Time Warner Cable, and multi-tasking). Personally, I doubt that this is an actual phenomenon that ever happens outside of television ads and sitcoms. Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of people stupid enough to insist based on some weird gender-based pride that they have to do a specific job. I just don't know anybody willing to play along, especially when that means eating subpar food on a rare day off in the summer, just to satisfy some idiot's need to feel important and special. Anyway, the point is peel your sweet potatoes, and cut them in to long thin wedges, roughly shaped like french fries. Congratulations, you've done like 90% of the work for this recipe.

Delicious, healthy-ish, and orange. Living the dream.

Take all of your spices and mix them together into a giant spice concoction. Or blend. Or whatever. Dump that nonsense into a bowl along with your sweet potato wedges and your oil. Mix until everything's coated, and then spread your sweet potatoes out on to a couple of baking sheets, keeping them in one layer as much as is possible. Throw that into a 400 degree oven for 35 minutes, and you're pretty much done. All that's left is to eat your delicious sweet potatoes along with your traditional meal of beer, charred meats, pickles, and beer. And to watch a fireworks display, in which we fire explosive devices into the sky, symbolizing the American dream to eventually wage war on the clouds and bring their sky-treasure back as tribute. Happy 4th of July!

Strawberry Banana Bites

Dramatic reenactment: every picture on the internet ever

A while back a sensation took the internet by storm. To be fair, it's not all that hard to take the internet by storm. Cats and babies do it on a regular basis. But this happened to catch my eye. People make fake ice cream by blending frozen bananas with other flavorings. According to vegan hipster adherents to the trend, it's totally incredible and it tastes exactly like ice cream, and isn't nature wonderful, and by the way if you're not vegan you're basically a war criminal but worse. According to literally everyone else, it's kind of cool. And it tastes...like bananas. If you're expecting ice cream, don't get your hopes up, but if you like bananas then go for it. You see, the thing is, I do like bananas. But since the ice cream thing is a flop anyway, I figured why not blend it up with something that actually tastes good with bananas? And also why bother blending it all up in to an ice cream shape if it doesn't taste like ice cream? Also, I may not have a blender.

Ingredients:

4 Bananas

1 lb. Strawberries

Some of the more mathematically gifted amongst you may have come to the realization that there's not a whole bunch going on in the ingredient department. That's because there doesn't need to be. Bananas are delicious. So are strawberries. They taste great together. End of story. Except I haven't told you how to make them yet, so more like beginning of story. End of the intro of the story? All I know for sure is that the story begins with bananas. As they ripen, bananas turn from green to yellow, and finally to brown. If you leave them too long, to black. If you leave them way too long, probably back to green again. This is important for us to know because bananas also get sweeter as they ripen, as the starch in them is broken down in to fructose. As you may recall, our recipe doesn't have much in the way of ingredients, so we want to make the ones we have count. This is all a long drawn out way of saying that you should make sure to use ripe, sweet bananas. There shouldn't be any green on them, and you should have some brown spots marring the yellow of your peel. Then wash your strawberries, lovingly chop off their green leafy heads, and throw them in a bowl with your bananas.

So what if I like it when my food tries to high five me?

Take your favorite implement of destruction, be it forks, your bare hands, or miscellaneous, and mash the crap out of your bowl of fruit. It doesn't need to be perfectly smooth, but you shouldn't have any major lumps anywhere. Think of it like jazz. If it's too rough, nobody will be able to appreciate the awesomeness. If it's too smooth it loses all of its character and becomes flat and uninteresting. Got it? Good, now let's never speak of this analogy again. Throw that nonsense in the freezer, and then take it out again after about 45 minutes. Mix it together again, breaking up any clumps and crystallization that may have formed. Then splorp it in to some ice cube trays, or the silicon molds you may have bought during your last adventure that you still aren't sick of. Freeze them until they're solid and then enjoy. They're delicious, fairly healthy, and technically frozen which makes them perfect for absurdly hot days. Speaking of which, it's supposed to be in the mid 90s in this weekend in Chicago. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you let me stay at your place this weekend, I'll totally bring you frozen fruit mush. Chicagoans need not apply. 

Peanut Butter Frozen Yogurt Bites

dramatization

It's that time of year again. The time of year when the ice has thawed, the flowers have bloomed, and the sun does its absolute best to kill us and burn our corpses in to crispy bits. I enjoy the fun added benefit of having what early settlers to this country referred to as "no stupid air conditioning in my stupid apartment," so I get the full brunt of this. The point is, at times like this it's important to find small bits of comfort and relief from the oppressive heat to try and distract us from the grim reality of our impending doom. Being weirdly kind of healthy is just a fringe benefit.

Ingredients:

1 cup Greek Yogurt
2 TBSP Peanut Butter (I used a natural, no sugar added kind of peanut butter because it just tastes like peanuts, which lets me control the final flavor better. But use what you like)
1.5 tsp Honey
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

So, as those of you who haven't been blinded by the sun may have noticed, there's not a whole lot going on in terms of ingredients here. This is for a couple of reasons. Firstly, this is a recipe designed to give relief from the heat. Spending hours dealing with a vast array of ingredients in a hot sticky kitchen isn't conducive to that. Secondly, this is a basic version. Delicious, but you can totally add optional extras, like some chocolate syrup, hazelnut spread, candied almonds, dulce de leche, or nutmeg. Definitely not all of them together. Probably. The point is, make these. Enjoy them. But don't be afraid to add in a little something extra once you've got the hang of it. That said, the first thing you're going to need to do is take all of your ingredients, splorp them in to a bowl, and mix them together. Seriously, that's like 95% of the work. Again. Heat. The less time I spend not lying on my bed underneath a ceiling fan, the better.

Don't let the cool shape distract you from the deliciousness

Now it's time to contemplate containment vessels. The idea is to get bite-sized bits of frozen refreshing goodness. I happen to have just come back from a trip with some cool silicone molds. If you didn't, you can make weird shapeless blobs by throwing some wax paper on a baking sheet and spooning your yogurt mixture on to it. Or, you could just use an ice-cube tray and make life easy on yourself. In any case, throw those suckers in to your freezer for at least 45 minutes, though an hour and a half would be better. Whenever the heat gets to you (so, you know, all the time), grab one, pop it in your face hole, and forget about life for a while. Enjoy, and if you survive I'll see y'all next week!

Egg Salad

All of my bowls are garbage, so you can thank my parents for
the blue part around the egg salad.

I've seen a lot of people posting articles and recipes lately about how the summer isn't over yet. The main point of these seems to be that it's not too late to capture the spirit of the summer and have a great time, and you should totally make watermelon slushies while you still can, and also while you're at it click on some links and buy stuff. I don't know what these people are talking about, because nothing is more summery than going to a picnic or outdoor even of some kind, looking at the egg salad and doing some very frantic math about things like how hot it is outside and how long the food has probably been sitting out of the fridge. There's a reason for this. It's because egg salad is awesome. Or at least it can be. Think about it: if there was a pile of old gummy bears slathered in grape jelly and mayonnaise sitting out there you wouldn't think twice about just moving on to the pesto pasta salad and calling it a day. But egg salad we linger over, because it has the potential for greatness. The fact that it costs like 5 dollars to make a tub of it doesn't hurt either.

Ingredients:

1 dozen Eggs (Preferably chicken eggs. Definitely not fish eggs)

1/2 a Red Onion

1/3 cup Mayonnaise

1 TBSP Dijon Mustard

Salt 

Black Pepper

So straight off we're going to need to boil our eggs. Overcooked eggs end up with hard and discolored yolks which bring shame upon your dojo, and it can be a fine balance cooking them just enough. If only there was someone who had posted egg-based recipes before that you could read and learn from (For those of you too proud or lazy to follow the link, bring them to a boil then turn off the heat and leave them in the water for about 14 minutes. You want more details, hilarity, and also a recipe for deviled eggs? Then follow the stupid link). Once your eggs are cooked and cooled down to a reasonable temperature, it's time to get peeling. Peeling eggs is an art-form inasmuch as it's confusing, frustrating, and everybody who claims to truly understand it is clearly using cocaine. Allegedly, if your eggs are older then the membrane between the shell and the egg becomes more detached, making peeling easier. But, if like me you don't have the time to be lovingly aging your eggs before use, you're just going to have to power through it, and probably yell and cry a lot in the process. Once you've recovered from this process (Physically, that is. The emotional scars will last a good long while) it's time to slice your eggs. And sure, you can get all hipstery and have your eggs "artisanally sliced according to ancient methods," which we all know just means badly cutting your eggs with a knife. Or you can use egg slicers. You know, those cheap and useful things that have been around for decades that make this process take like 2 minutes instead of 20. Slice your eggs, then turn them 90 degrees and slice them again. 

The sandwich jauntily displays itself on a diagonal
cross-section to try and attract a mate.

Now that your eggs are finally finished, all that's left is to choppity chop your onion into tiny bits, then splorp in your mayo and mustard along with an average sized human's pinch worth of salt and pepper, and stir that sucker. Gently. Because the idea is to have a light and fluffy finished product where you can distinguish between egg whites and yolks, not dense and homogenous egg goop. So gently stir until everything is combined, and you're technically done. For a little added color and flavor you can dust the top with some smoked paprika, but that part's totally optional (as opposed to all the other parts of this recipe which are mandatory, and I can totally verify whether you've done or not). Now go ahead and serve that delicious nonsense up plain, or slather it on to a sandwich, or do whatever other weird things you normally do with egg salad. Although personally I think that it tastes better after having a couple hours in the fridge to relax. But what do I know? I don't even artisanally slice my eggs according to ancient methods.

Dark And Stormy

Southern Illinois: where you learn that the sun was really
just the dark lord Sauron after all. 

I'm not an expert in irony, but when a fairly rare celestial event comes knocking on your door and invites you to get excited about it, only to have it be cloudy and rainy, well it's clear that we're being messed with. Not me, mind you. I was in southern Illinois for the total eclipse, and the sky was clear. It was awesome. But it seems statistically likely that you experienced nature trolling you. So your desire to drink your troubles away is understandable. And, if you're gonna drink until you can't feel feelings anymore, you may as well drink something good, and preferably a punny reference to all of the disappointment you experienced because you probably couldn't see the ridiculously cool thing that I totally saw, or at least couldn't get a very good view of it.

Ingredients:

Dark Rum (According to the people at Gosling's Rum, Gosling's is the only acceptable rum to make an authentic Dark 'n' Stormy. They seem objective.)
Ginger Beer
Limes
Ice

So, as you probably already know if you're from Bermuda, know literally anybody from Bermuda, or know any hipster snobs who only drink things out of mason jars, the Dark 'n' Stormy is kind of the national drink of Bermuda. Go figure. Lots of people claim it was invented there, but none of that has much to do with how to make it, so who really cares (historians, probably)? The first thing you're gonna need to do is learn the fine differences between ginger beer and ginger ale. Because one is a spicy, occasionally alcoholic, drink with a light and complex flavor. The other is a sweet fizzy drink with a hint of ginger flavor. Which is fine, but they aren't the same thing. Once you've learned about the fine distinctions between things, take your ginger beer and pour it over ice, preferably into a glass of some sort, until it's about 3/4 of the way filled. Then gently top it off with your dark rum. Add in a squeeze of lime juice, and garnish it with a lime if you're feeling fancy (I, apparently, was feeling fancy. A fact which flies in the face of my carefully crafted reputation as basically a hobo), and you're done! You should have a glass of dark liquid kind of swirling majestically on top of a sea of lightness and carbonation that it's slowly devouring. Which looks awesome, but if you drink it will just taste like one ingredient and then the other. So mix that sucker up if you know what's good for you.

So this, my 4th attempt, was more "dark" than "stormy."
But in my defense...sue me.

You can adjust the amounts of everything here to your personal taste, but I like it with this distribution (that's 3/4 ginger beer, 1/4 dark rum, and a squeeze of lime juice, for the slow class). The spiciness and crispness of the ginger beer lightens up the kind of burnt molasses flavors in the dark rum, and the lime juice kind of brings it all together. It tastes vaguely tropical, and kind of pirate-ey. Which technically isn't a word, but it's a pretty accurate description of the emotional response to drinking these, and I've already had a couple of them so it's a word now. Make sure to tune in next week, when I continue to make the written and spoken word my unwitting servant.

S'mores Cookies

I think my favorite part about this picture is the pierogi stand
towards the back, because it seems so out of place.

It's kind of funny. Last week I worked so much that I didn't have time to post. A non-stop stream of 12-hour shifts, it seemed. This week, I'm working even more because apparently my current employers don't understand the concept of a regular schedule, but that's besides the point. The point is that, despite being overworked to the point of exhaustion/thoughts of sweet sweet vengeance, I managed to make it to a county fair last week. It's one of those things I've always heard about and seen on TV, but never actually experienced myself. And it was pretty awesome. People playing the stupidest games of "chance"you can imagine, rickety rides that were clearly put together wrong by the carnies running them, and food stands selling the most ridiculous foods you can imagine. Deep fried everything, random bits-'o-beef, and even one place that just called themselves "hot Wisconsin cheese," which sounds wrong on at least 3 levels. So I got to thinking about random foods you could make in weird ways. And since s'mores are never far from my mind during the summer (Or winter, or fall. Don't ask about spring.), I got to thinking about how to combine all of that s'morey goodness into something easy the snack on that doesn't require you to have a campfire immediately available. I also got to thinking that I'm avoiding the state of Wisconsin for a while.

Ingredients:

2 sleeves Graham Crackers

1 cup Powdered Sugar

1 cup Chocolate Chips

1.25 sticks Butter

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla

1 largish human's pinch of Salt 

Mini Marshmallows

The first thing you're gonna need to do is stop drooling. Because let's face it: even the concept of S'mores Cookies is enough to set off a pavlovian reaction in any creature with taste buds and the capacity for memory. Once you've got your various excretions under control, unceremoniously shove your graham crackers into a ziploc bag and crush the life out of them with a rolling pin, frying pan, or series of well placed karate chops. Now take a large bowl and throw your butter, which should be room temperature, into it along with your powdered sugar. Realize that you forgot to let your butter warm up, and wait the approximately 3 days that it takes for it to do that. Then beat it together with your sugar until it forms a cohesive paste that already kind of smells awesome. Then take the remains of your Graham Crackers and mix them in. Once the mix gets cohesive, and kind of sludgy, mix in your eggs one at a time, and then your salt and vanilla. Once the whole thing comes together, gently stir in your chocolate chips, and then scoop the cookies out on to a baking sheet (about a teaspoon of cookie dough for each cookie, and leave room because these suckers will totally expand outward trying to escape the terrible heat of the oven you shove them into. Isn't baking fun?)

Not pictured: me writhing on the floor at the taste explosion
going on in my mouth after eating these.

Now comes the fun part, and by "fun" I mean "the heavy burden of decision-making." So I tried these suckers a couple different ways. I tried stirring the marshmallows into the batter, which didn't even kind of work well. Then I tried partially baking the cookies and then shoving marshmallows on top for the second half. And finally I tried completely baking them, then adding marshmallows on top and shoving that whole mess under a broiler for like 30 seconds. The last two ways both worked pretty well. I'd recommend either really, although I think I slightly preferred the half-baked, marshmallowed, and then rest-of-the-way-baked version. In any case, the cookies bake in a 375 degree oven for about 10 minutes. So make them however you choose. Or follow my advice and make them the way I said I prefer. You know, because you ostensibly came here for advice on how to make these things in the first place. Or you came here by mistake thanks to my deceptive advertising. Either way, you're welcome.

Ginger Citrus Salmon

I like how they added insult to injury by posing the fish
as if they were swimming.

Lately, it's come to my attention that death is a looming specter from which escape is impossible. I say this because I seem to be aging at an alarming rate. It started off innocently enough. One day I was able to walk in to a bar and order a beer. Then, a couple years later, I was able to do the same thing even if they asked for ID. This seemed ok with me, and I didn't give it much thought. I was a fool. Because lately, this whole "aging" thing has started to affect me in uncomfortable ways. There are whiny kids everywhere with fidget spinners and bad music, and that's not even the worst of it. I've found that, on rare occasions, there are times when I don't actually crave delicious meat. Every so often I decide to eat something else entirely. This doesn't seem acceptable to me. And sure, some of you might be pointing out that I've often written recipes for things that don't contain meat. And that's true, though it's pretty rude of you to have pointed it out. But while I've certainly eaten other sorts of food before, in my heart I always knew that I was just doing it because I didn't have access to any salami at that specific moment in time. This is different. But, if I'm going to eat sad nonsense food like fish, it may as well be a delicious fish. Gandhi said that.

Ingredients:

4 Salmon Fillets

3 Green Onions

1 Grapefruit

1/2 a Lemon

2 TBSP Chopped Ginger

1 TBSP Honey

2 Large sized Human's pinches of Salt

The first thing you're gonna need to do is go to a fishmonger and get yourself some fish. Sure, you could get some sort of pre-packaged frozen salmon from a giant store that only sells 56 packs. But it won't taste as good. The reason for this is that all regulation fishmongers have a giant pile (or "heap," if you want to use the technical term) of fish lying on way too little ice to effectively keep it cool. This is important, because it allows you to taunt the fish as you're buying it, thus causing it to experience some delicious rage. In any case, go get some fish, then squeeze all of the juice out of your lemon and grapefruit and dump it, along with all the rest of your ingredients, into a ziploc bag. Let that whole mess marinate in your fridge for at least 1/2 an hour. All of the flavors are gonna get to know each other, regardless of whether they want to or not. Confined spaces will do that, as you know if you've ever been stuck on an elevator with somebody.

Recommended serving size: 1 school of fish 

Once your fish is desperate to free itself from the confines of your  bag-o-goodness, take it out and then immediately throw it on a baking sheet in a 350 degree oven. The key here is to move just slowly enough to give your salmon hope, and then immediately crush its dreams. Before making this recipe, chances are you weren't a sadist or a liar. That's some training you can't get in the public school system. Anyhow, leave your fish in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, then take it out and consume it. It'll taste awesome. Try not to think about the fact that you could have chosen to make a steak instead. The Irish had a deity back in the day who got turned into a salmon. That's something. So think of yourself as a devourer of gods, not an old man sadly eating fish and waiting to die. See you next week!

Jalapeño Cornbread

We're gathered here today to mourn our dear friend Eggs...

In the hallowed halls of "foods that disappoint me," cornbread has got to rank pretty high up there. And don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean that I don't like cornbread. It's just that I (and, I assume, everybody) have memories of tasting delicious cornbread, that's light but somehow crumbly at the same time, but doesn't fall apart. This is the cornbread of my idealized youth. And I constantly try to find it. I will pretty much always get cornbread if I see it on a menu, or at a barbecue, or lying unattended in a parking lot, or whatever. And it always disappoints. I pretty much have the same relationship with cornbread that some people have with heroin. So in the spirit of not being perpetually disappointed, and of not ending up an empty[er] shell of a man, I decided to make my own. And in the spirit of lifting heavy things, I decided to make it in my cast-iron skillet. Which (spoiler alert!) turned out to be a pretty good call.

Ingredients:

1.25 cups Cornmeal

3/4 cup All-Purpose Flour (Pro-tip: Don't put the "all-purpose" label to the test. It's pretty much just for cooking and for making paper mache dinosaurs)

2 Eggs

1.5 cups Coconut Milk

1/3 Cup Honey

1 TBSP Lemon Juice

1 TBSP Pickled Jalapenos (Available in pretty much every supermarket. If you can't find em, any canned chiles will do)

1 tsp Baking Powder

1 tsp Baking Soda

1.25 tsp Salt

So, let's address the elephant in the room first. Yes, this recipe has no meat or dairy of any kind in it. Some might even call it vegetarian and/or dairy-free. In my defense, I know a decently large number of vegetarians, and they've gotta eat too. Also, I may have not wanted to go shopping. The point is, this is delicious and you need to stop being so judgmental if you every want to find love. Step one is taking your dry-goods, also known as your cornmeal, flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda, and whisking them together so that they can get to know each other, share some good times, and try to forget that they're going to get baked in an oven until they're golden and delicious. About a minute seems like long enough. What does flour really have to add to a conversation anyway? Now it's time to deal with your jalapenos. If you have a reasonable can from a reasonable brand, they should already be chopped into little bits. If, like me, you have nonsense jalapenos, you may have to chop them down to size on your own. So...get on that.

Slice it like a pie, cut it into squares, or just eat it like a
giant pancake. There's no wrong way to devour this sucker.

Once your (my) jalapenos are chopped, It's time to get cracking with your eggs (puns!). Whisk them into a homogenous egg-goop, and then add in your honey. The coconut milk and lemon juice together do a fair job of simulating buttermilk. Do you technically need to mix them together before you add them in? Probably not. But baking is a lot like witchcraft (Weird big hats, precise measurements of odd ingredients, used to trick people into loving you, the list goes on), so I didn't take the risk. In any event, add them into your egg-goop along with your jalapenos, and mix it together. Next, pour your wet ingredients on top of your dry ingredients, and mix them together briefly. You don't want to overmix. This is technically known as the "muffin method." Personally, I'm not sure that "add the wet stuff on to the dry stuff and don't mix it too much" actually needs a special name, but who am I to argue with nonsense? Anyhow, throw a little oil in your cast-iron skillet, and heat it up in a 400 degree oven for a minute or two. Then take it out, preferably without burning the crap out of your hand, add your definitely-not-muffin-mix into the hot pan. Then toss that sucker back in the oven for about 20 minutes. When it's done, it'll be crispy and golden on the top, and set in the middle. Then take that sucker out and do your best not to eat the entire thing yourself without sharing any with the vegetarian friends you mentioned earlier in your blog post. You know, hypothetically.

Cherry Jager Milkshakes

Yes, I've used this picture before. And no, I don't care.

It's that magical time of year again. That time of year when the birds sing, the flowers bloom, and the sun does its best to kill us all with its terrible terrible heat. At least, that's the way it seems in Chicago right now, where the heat has gotten so bad that the Cubs have been forced to just try and let their opposition wear themselves down, Rocky Balboa style, until the opportune moment to strike. That moment is apparently some time after the game is finished, but I'm sure it'll come eventually. The point is, the sun has it out for us. Again. Because, despite my repeated warnings about it, our federal government has done almost nothing about that dumb ball of gas that sits around in middle of our solar system, without paying any taxes, and expects us to just deal with it pelting us with radiation. So since our elected officials obviously can't be trusted not to kowtow to the powerful "sun lobby," it's up to me to find a way to keep us cool until we can get our sweet sweet vengeance.

Ingredients:

1 Pint of Cherry Ice Cream 
2 TBSP Jagermeister
1 Cup Chocolate Milk

You may have noticed that there's not much to this recipe in the way of ingredients. Is that because like the famed inventor of the clock radio, William Taddly Clocksworth (prove me wrong), I'm a genius who took basic ingredients that were lying around everywhere, and combined them into something glorious that had never before been conceived of? Yes. Yes it is. Anyhow, step one is to take your ice cream out of the freezer, and let it get just a little bit melty. If, like me, you're living in an apartment that doesn't have any air conditioning, this should take about 12 seconds. Once this is done, add in your Jager, and stir that whole thing up to distribute it throughout the ice cream, and  throw it back in your freezer. This is one of the hardest parts. When you feel that blast of cold coming out of the freezer, resist the urge to just set up a tent and live there for the Summer. I know it's hard, but if you persevere you'll be rewarded with cold boozy deliciousness. You know, the American dream.

Semi-stolen Slurpee straws just seem somehow appropriate
for a boozy milkshake. 

The freezer's gonna make your ice cream super cold again. You know, like freezer's do. The alcohol in the Jagermeister is gonna help keep your ice cream from freezing solid, even though it's just as cold as it was when it was frozen. This is because of a fascinating process called "science." Take your boozy ice-cream sludge out of the freezer, and mix it with your chocolate milk. Sure, you can add toppings like whipped cream, sprinkles, and hope if you like. Who am I to stop you? But even without any of those things, this sucker is delicious. And, like with all delicious things, I'm left wondering why you're still here instead of consuming it at this exact very moment. Like, right now. Go.

Sweet And Spicy Baked Beans

Yadda yadda moved cross-country, globe-trotted, got a new
job, had it catch up to me. The point is, I'm back now. You
can tell from how you're actively reading my words right now.

So Summer came early. You can tell from the sweltering heat, rampant humidity, and annoying people with giant floppy hats. If your hat is large enough to cast shade upon an entire family of woodland creatures, I probably have no interest in talking to you. The point is, it's hot outside. And when it's hot outside, humans tend to throw barbecues so that we can eat our food out in all of that heat. Instead of inside, where we have things like air conditioning, and a somewhat less-dense mosquito population. Leading brand-name scientists believe that this is part of an important evolutionary trend known as "doing stupid things because they're expected of you." It weeds out the independent thinkers and radicals from our population so that they can go on to do the truly important work of furthering humanity's intake of McNuggets. Whatever the reasons, the fact remains that you're going to get invited to barbecues, you're going to be expected to bring a side dish, and people will have already called dibs on bringing easy/obvious things like chips or potato salad. Welcome to baked bean country.

Ingredients:

1 lb. dried Pinto Beans 
28 oz. can of Crushed Tomatoes
1 largish Onion 
2 cloves Garlic
1/2 cup Dark Brown Sugar
1 TBSP Dijon Mustard
2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 tsp Rubbed Sage (Despite how it sounds, this is a real thing. You can buy it in supermarkets.)
1 tsp dried Thyme
1/2 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
1 Chipotle Pepper
Olive Oil, for the sautéing and whatnot
An unspecified amount of Salt
An equally unspecified amount of Water

So....that's a lot of ingredients. Some people might look at a long list of ingredients and become disheartened, thinking that the recipe is going to be incredibly labor-intensive and tricky to pull off. Others might see it as a challenge they can rise to, to really prove to themselves that they can accomplish whatever they set their minds to. Still others might think, "it's beans. How hard can it actually be?" These are the smart ones. Step one is to unceremoniously dump your beans into a large pot, which you'll then fill with water. Cover the pot, and let your beans soak for about 8-12 hours. While you totally have the option of using this time to sleep, or go to work, if you hover nearby your beans the entire time, eschewing responsibilities, common sense, and basic hygiene, you'll receive valuable bonus points that can later be exchanged for fantastic prizes (Prizes like eviction notices, cardboard box forts, and hepatitis). Once your beans have finished their soak, drain the water away, and replace it with exciting new water, to confuse and disorient your beans. Now it's time to strike. Turn the heat on to medium, and boil the crap out of your beans for an hour. Put a lid on the pot so that none escape.

I had something for this, but then I saw the deliciousness
and kind of lost my train of thought. 

While your beans are being viciously boiled, it's time to make the...everything else, I guess. Choppity chop up your onion and sauté it in your oil along with an average sized human's pinch of salt. Let it cook down until the onion gets translucent and starts to smell awesome. Then mince your garlic and add it in to the party. After a minute of stirring and salivating from the smell, add in your...all the other ingredients. I mean, chop up your chipotle pepper before you dump it in. But really, just toss everything in the pot along with a largish person's (Roughly Conan O'Brien sized) pinch of salt, and let it cook down for about 10 minutes. By now your beans should be killed to death, so take their corpses along with 1/2 a cup of the water you boiled them in, and dump them in to your sauce. Set it on medium heat and cook it for 10-20 minutes, or until it starts to look thick and kind of sticky. And delicious and whatnot. And that's it! Delicious baked beans, perfect to accompany any meal, indoors or stupid. Happy early summer!

Orange Chocolate Cake

I can do that, but I don't wanna

The Olympic Games are in full swing right now. Those of us who care are spending our days watching the world's best athletes perform astounding feats of athleticism to try and bring home medals for their home countries. Also, synchronized diving is happening. Because while there are many Olympic events and incredible ordeals that you can look on with awe and wonder, some of them are really ridiculous. Who decided that ping pong is an Olympic sport? I don't know, but they were obviously smoking something. The point is, however, that we're all watching incredible athletes perform at the highest levels in front of the entire world. And watching something like that isn't really complete unless you're stuffing your face with cake.

Ingredients:

2 cups Flour

1.5 cups Sugar

1 Orange

3 Eggs

1/2 cup Butter

1/2 cup Milk

1 TBSP Baking Powder

1 tsp Vanilla Extract 

1 average human sized pinch of Salt

Powdered Sugar

Cocoa Powder

More Milk!

The first thing you're gonna need to do is develop the unrealistic opinion that you could totally do what those Olympians on TV are doing if you just started working out a little more. Once you've got that taken care of, you're in prime cake-gorging mode. So whisk together your salt, flour, and baking soda in a bowl. Then take another, even better bowl, and throw in your butter and sugar. Whisk the crap out of them to cream your butter ("creaming" butter is a concept we've dealt with here once or twice. Basically, it means violently whisk together your sugar and butter, forcing the sugar crystals to rip into the unsuspecting butter until the whole thing turns into a smooth sludge. This works best with room temperature butter, but if you want to be a rebel, use cold butter, and end up sobbing in the corner over your life choices, be my guest). Once your butter is creamed to death, whisk in your eggs, one at a time. Zest your orange, and chop the zest into itty bitty zest bits. Then add them in to your butter and egg mixture, along with the juice from the orange, your 1/2 cup of milk, and your vanilla. If you're smarter than I was, save a little bit of zest for later, to sprinkle daintily on top of your cake like you're fancy and have tuxedo pajamas, which apparently are actually a thing somehow.

Remember, if you watched people exercise while you ate it,
it totally has 1/2 the calories. 

Once you've finished mixing your second bowl, googling tuxedo pajamas, and subsequently buying tuxedo pajamas (you're welcome), add your dry ingredients into your wet gloppy ones in 3 equal batches, taking time between each batch to whisk everything together and freak out over whether your batter is getting too thick or not. Once you're done, grease up 2 round 9-inch baking pans, cover your grease in a thin coating of flour, and distribute your sludgy batter equally between the two pans. Throw them into a 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes. While you've got 40 minutes or so to kill, it's time to think about some frosting. Because shoving unfrosted cake into your mouth while watching fantastic feats of athleticism happen is un-American. Or maybe partially American. Like Guam. Don't be Guam. So take 3 parts powdered sugar, one part cocoa powder, and one part milk, and mix it together. The actual amounts don't really matter. Make as much or as little as you like on your cake. But keep the proportions 3 to 1 to 1 if you want it to taste right. Now that your kitchen is a powdery mess, take your cakes out of the oven. Slather frosting on top of each layer, and if you're already fancy enough to be rocking those tuxedo pajamas, add the layers on top of each other to make a double decker cake to shove in your face hole in a flurry of sweet orange flavor, denial, and calories. Happy Olympics!

Jalapeño-Citrus Bomb

Just like a jalapeño, resting on the backs of the working limes 

So I've been sick. Not any of the gross kinds of sick that you don't want to talk about around members of the opposite sex, but definitely the kind that makes you a little crazy, weak, and in need of hydration. Hydration and vast amounts of vitamin C. Because, as everybody knows, even though there's no evidence that vitamin C helps shorten or prevent illness (and the person who tried to convince us of it in the first place was a mad scientist who was trying to become immortal), at least it's doing something. And that makes us feels productive, which is important according to 3 out of 4 of the therapists I'm seeing. Especially when you're sick and quickly sinking into a vast pit of delirium.

Ingredients:

1/2 a Jalapeño 

1/4 cup Orange Juice

1 Lime

2/3 cup Ginger Ale

1.5 tsp Sugar

Ice

The first thing you're gonna need to do is...well, get up. Which isn't easy when you're feverish, delirious, and have already expended most of your energy wishing that you were either healthy, asleep, or dead. Next you're gonna chop up your jalapeño, with the stems and seeds removed. Because they're the spiciest part. And also because it's super weird to drink something filled with seeds, no matter what hipsters tell you (WARNING: link contains hipster nonsense). Throw your jalapeño bits in the bottom of a glass along with your sugar and crush it all together in a process called "muddling," which I've discussed "before," in other "drink recipes." Success is key here. There's always the chance that you might succumb to your weakened state and fail at even this simple task, signaling to your enemies that now is the perfect time to strike.

Possible side effects may include the return of a will to live

Assuming you made it this far and got your jalapeño nice and muddly, add in the orange juice along with the juice from your lime, and stir all of that nonsense together. Then top it off with your ginger ale. Take a separate glass, and fill it up with ice. Then pour your concoction over the ice and you're done! Now just sit back and relax, sipping your delicious drink, as your decaying body betrays you and those you love! At least the citrus will let you lie to yourself that you're proactively treating your illness, and the spiciness will help free your sinuses from their demons in a cleansing holy fire. Also, if you're one of those jerks who isn't currently sick (read: everyone who isn't me) you can also make this and enjoy it. Or, you can add tequila to it, and enjoy it even more.

Brownies

Artist's rendition: Me at every party

Brownies hold a special place in my heart, and several other major organs. They're the perfect combination between a cookie, a cake, and licking delicious raw batter off of a mixing spoon, FDA-be-damned. You can eat them plain, or add various toppings like fruit, whipped cream, or caramel sauce. And yes, your mouth just watered when you read that, yet again confirming Pavlov's famous experiment where he annoyed the crap out of his neighbors. But let's be honest. Your mouth started watering back when you first read the word "brownies." Because brownies are special. They're exciting, and awesome, and if you're lucky enough to have some in your life don't let them go. If you have to stab other partygoers with a fork, so be it.

Ingredients:

1.75 Cups Sugar
1 Cup standard-issue Flour
2/3 Cup Vegetable or Canola Oil
2/3 Cup Cocoa Powder (It's important to note that Cocoa Powder straddles the fine line between "powder" and "gas." It will get everywhere if you're not carfeful with it. It probably will regardless, but at least this way you have the sweet illusion of control.)
4 Eggs
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Peppermint Extract
1/2 tsp Salt

Before we get started, it's important to note that this is part of a number of recipes I got from my mom and then gussied up (from the latin GUH, to blatantly steal, and SEED, to alter very slightly to assuage guilt). Why is it important to note this? Mostly so that I don't get sardonic phone calls all this week. The point is...well, I don't remember what the point is, which makes this a good time to start the actual cooking part of the recipe. Whisk or sift together your flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder. Allow 3-5 minutes to adequately curse at your cocoa powder, and at the stylish cocoa powder stains covering everything you're wearing. In another bowl, because we're high class snobs like that, whisk together your eggs, and beat them until they're light and a little fluffy, so you know they're no longer a threat. Then add in your sugar and beat it for about a minute, just to show it who's boss and keep it from getting ideas.

Words fail me. All I can say is: you're welcome.

Add the rest of your ingredients, including your cocoa mixture, into your egg/sugar ooze. It's gonna get pretty hard to stir. It's gonna be a thick gloppy mess. That's how you know it's good. Take a pan and oil it up, or cooking-spray it up, or whatever. How large of a pan should you get? That's really up to you. The larger the pan, the more spread out the brownies will be, which means they'll be crispier, and cook faster. Which is great if you hate joy and liberty, and love things like kicking puppies and siphoning gas out of the school-buses at the orphanage. The rest of us know that brownies are supposed to be gooey and thick and delicious. So we're all gonna take a 9x13 pan, lube it up, load it up with our brownie sludge, and bake that sucker at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. We might even say that this time we're not gonna eat the leftover batter off the spoon and/or bowl. But we are lying.

Chilled Avocado Soup

Psychic's depiction: seconds before my death

Well, it's official. Summer is back. You can tell from the longer days, the watermelons in the supermarket, and the sticky parentless children running around everywhere. Oh, and the sun is trying to kill us again. Last year I was living in LA, so the sun attacking me was annoying but manageable. But I made the dumb mistake of moving to Chicago, which was originally swampland that some idiots built huts on. Not much has changed. So nowadays when I say that the sun is trying to kill me,  it's more like the sun, along with his homicidal buddies the lake and the air, are all conspiring to kill me so they can live in my apartment and throw parties. The point is, we're gonna need refreshment. Which usually means something fruity and sweet. But you can only do so much fruity and sweet on a hot day before you start to feel all of that sugar melting into a caramel inside your stomach, and that's not as much fun as it sounds. The answer is avocados. Granted, I've lived in southern California for years, so, legally, I'm required to solve every problem with avocados, but this time it actually makes things better.


Ingredients:

2 Avocados
1 Lime
1/2 a Red Onion
1/3 cup Milk (Thanks to hipsters and their ilk, there are WAY too many options of weird nonsense milks to choose from. So don't. Just get actual milk. The kind that comes from a cow, and has some fat in it. You know, milk.)
1/4 cup Vegetable Stock
1 tsp Kosher Salt
1/4 tsp Cumin
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
An unspecified amount of Sour Cream and Cilantro

The first thing you're gonna need to do is chastise your avocados. Because once you cut them, avocados turn brown and gross. Surprisingly fast, too. It's pretty much their national pastime to wreck your day. So let your avocados know in a firm, but caring tone of voice, that you're not gonna be putting up with their crap today. Keep lecturing until you feel like you've really gotten through to your avocados and made a difference in their lives. Then, like any good parent, start preparing for when they inevitably try to betray you. Once you've gotten that taken care of, choppity chop chop your red onion into tiny bits until no one can identify its remains. Add in the cumin and cayenne, and set it aside. Peel and slice your avocados, and throw them in a bowl along with your kosher salt, and mash them with a fork. The large grains of salt you get with the kosher stuff will help punch through the avocado and break it down into a delicious goop. This is where your avocados will stab you in the back, despite all of the progress we made together. So add in the juice from your lime to keep things in check. Avocados may love turning brown, but citrus is having none of that nonsense. Citrus doesn't deal well with change. This party started off green, and as far as citrus is concerned, it's gonna end up green.

That's good enough to almost make up for the heat. Almost.

Now it's time to add your spiced onions in with the avocado mixture, along with your milk and vegetable stock. Stir that nonsense together, cover it, and throw it in the fridge to think about what it's done. Let it sit there for at least a couple hours, but overnight would be even better. Then, whenever the sun is pulling that "95 degrees with 80% humidity" nonsense, go to your fridge and pull out your avocado sludge. Throw it in a bowl and top it with a tablespoon of sour cream, and some chopped cilantro. Or don't, because it's super hot and you don't even have the energy to produce fully fledged thoughts, let alone add crap on top of your soup. Either way. The point is, even though the air around you is hot and sticky, that doesn't mean you have to be. Well, maybe it does, but you don't have to feel like it. Instead you can feel cool, and refreshed, and full of avocados. Like a conquistador, minus all of the rape and murder!

Lemon Sorbet

"Lemon" is ancient Etruscan for "unsuspecting victim." 

I don't know if you've been paying attention, but it's summer out there. And the best part about summer is frozen desserts. Well, no. The best part about summer is day-drinking on the beach without an ounce of shame. But close after that, is frozen desserts. The problem is, that every dumb recipe under the sun involves an ice-cream maker. Which is expensive, takes up space, and is a uni-tasker. And maybe I'm crazy, but I think that when they first started making sorbet, gelato, and ice cream, thousands of years ago, they didn't go shopping at Williams goddamn Sonoma first. So, in the words of my ancestors, "screw that noise."

Ingredients:

2 cups Water

2 cups Sugar

6 Lemons

1 average sized hunk of Ginger

1/3 cup fresh Mint

1 average human-sized pinch of Salt

This recipe is actually pretty simple. Which isn't the same thing as easy, but it's still something. Don't look gift simplicity in the mouth. FDR said that, and it's as true now as it was then. Now the first thing you're gonna need to do is zest the crap out of 3 of your lemons. Make sure that you only get the yellow lemon peel, and not the white pith underneath it. Because the pith is bitter and depressing, whereas the peel/zest is flavorful, awesome, and...not bitter. Peel your ginger, and throw it into a pot along with the zest from your Lemons, your Water, Sugar, Mint, and Salt. Bring it to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is fully dissolved. For those of you paying attention, yes this is a simple syrup, similar to the ones we've used almost every single time we make a drink. It's found a new dessert-y purpose! Anyway, once your sugar is dissolved, let the syrup cool all the way down to room temperature, and strain it. Bonus points if you strain it by hand when it's still hot, securing your masculinity the old-fashioned way, via untreated burns.

Isn't all that hard work worth it? ISN'T IT!? It probably is.

Once your syrup is strained and cooled, add in the juice from all 6 of your Lemons, and throw it in the freezer. And then your job is done. Hah! Just kidding! Wouldn't it be weird if life was easy, and things weren't always a struggle? Take your mix out of the freezer every 25 minutes or so, and whisk the hell out of it. This will break up larger ice crystals that are forming, leave you with a much smoother product, and expunge evil humors from your hands, via centrifugal force (Note: once the evil humors have left your body, consult your local phrenologist to see how this has affected your character)  After a couple of hours, the mixture will start to solidify, giving you false hope that you're almost done. It does this to mess with you because it's a jerk. After a couple MORE hours, it will thicken further, and you can start convincing yourself that it's good enough. Or, alternatively, you could just ignore this part entirely, and end up with a big giant block of sweet lemon ice. Which isn't the same thing, but is still awesome. If you ARE going to take the lazy way out, be smart, and freeze it in ice cube trays so you've got bite-sized awesomeness. Bonus points if you thought ahead and stuck toothpicks in them so you have tiny little popsicles. And finally, negative points for having forgotten all of this, and ended up with an untenable mess of solid ice in the bottom of a bowl, ruining little Timmy's birthday party along with your chances of reconciling with your wife. Happy summer!