OH THAT’S RIGHT! One of the integral parts of Cooking with Cat Ears is WRITING IT DOWN!

So, I may be a little delirious with hunger. I may have also watched eight episodes in a row of Cutthroat Kitchen. CLEARLY I CAN COOK AND I’M AWESOME AT IT! (neither fact is true)

So I decided to make sloppy joes! They made it in CK and it was awesome! I love sloppy joes! Who am I to let things stop me, such as my lack of cooking knowledge, my unwillingness to look up a recipe or THE COMPLETE LACK OF MEAT IN THE HOUSE?!

This is going to be fucking hilarious. And in cat ears

So, let’s start with some potatoes. Good base. Get those in some oil on the heat, and then after a couple minutes (when they start making the cooking noise, I’m gonna dump in an entire can of beans.

The beans say to cook for 5-7 minutes. The potatoes probably wanted longer than that. Oops.

As a side note, the whole reason this particular mission was started is I saw we had some English Muffins and I thought “oo, yes, what can I toss on some toasted of those?”. Sloppy Joes is what I came up with. Without meat. I am not a clever man.

After the beans, we need to add some flavoury stuff, and also more vegetables. I think I will nix the “mixed veggies” can in favour of a carrot and some onion. I possibly should’ve chopped these first. THIS IS THE MOST ARBITRARY CWCE!

(Most of this was written steam-of-consciousness style as I was doing things. Later notes will be in these nifty italics. Anyways, this really is the most arbitrary Cooking with Cat Ears I've ever done --notably, I don't have any sort of recipe for what I'm making. That...that is not how I cook. I am an engineer, not a scientist. Recipes are _crucial_.

You know, this onion has been in the back of the fridge for a while. :/ BRB

Okay! I talked to the roommates! They say as long as it smells like onions, it’s probably fine! Time to chop this bad boy.

Oh hey,my camera memory is full. Of *course* it is. And after all the bullshit I went (am going) through to try and get my iphone to be able to take photos for this. It is not able to. Somewhere, apple's proprietary bullshit has gone *extremely* wrong.

Alright, anyways, the onion is really just a fancy spice. Let’s add some less fancy spices: Salsa, paprika, oregeno, and crushed red pepper. And normal salt and pepper. Oo, and cayanne, I couldn’t find it earlier, sweet!

Obligatory ingredients shot, since I forgot it earlier.

OH HI IT’S MY ROOMMATES THEY ARE INTERFERING BY WHICH I MEAN GIVING ADVICE actually mustard sounds like a pretty great addition. Ohright! I have v8 juice, good tomato base! As well as more salsa

Okay! I think it’s time to just sautee this for a while. Fry. Stir. Simmer. I DON’T NEED NO FANCY RECIPES AND ALSO NO FANCY AND USEFUL COOKING TERMINOLOGY!

Do that thing where I let some of the liquid evaporate off by having good heat

“More potatoes isn’t a terrible idea at this stage, right?”
Adam: “dubious silence”
Me: “I mean, I’m mostly just saying that to see if you scream in horror”
Adam: “Well, uh…it’s not like you have anything that won’t suffer from being overcooked”
Me: Excellent. Muahaha.

“It’s like a formula. You know how you adjust the formula, and then you get a different graph at the end. Like math.” —Hannah, dropping some wisdom on me.

GUYS THIS STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS COOKING THING DOESN’T WORK IF YOU’RE BEING COOL AND SOCIAL okay they left, that was pretty good though, I like my roomates and they know way more about cooking than I do.

Okay! Added some cinnamon and some more salt. All the beans have turned to mush!

Ohman, Joseph suggested curry paste, which would’ve been fucking perfect! this is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT A CURRY. We have no curry paste. Goddamnit.

Okay, this isn’t overwhelmingly amazing or anything, but it’s interesting, and I can eat it for lunch over the next few days (which is what will happen with it. I’m debating chopping up some fresh mushrooms to put into an English muffin and sloppy-joe-curry sandwich, but that might be pressing my luck (and a waste of fabulous mushrooms. Definitely time to toast a muffin or two though. Especially since it’s starting to get a little baked and gross around the edges.

Woohoo! I cooked a thing! Without even using any sort of recipe!

We will never speak of this again.

Chicken and Pasta!

You know what's the ups?
Gee Sor, no! What is the ups?
I've got a delightful houseguest at the moment, and he's got a not at all delightful migrainey thing. Neither of us has eaten dinner yet. And I own a pair of goddamn cat ears.

Let's.
Do.
THIS!

For those of you who don't remember those halycon days of 2012, back before I had a job (no really), I once came up with a totally brilliant idea for a side blog project, and then never put any work into it again. It's called Cooking with Cat Ears, and details how completely shite I am at cooking.

But the cat ears help.

Anyways, the zeroth step is always to put on some AWESOME LOUD MUSIC! We're gonna start with P!nk's "Raise Your Glass", and see where things go from there.

Tonight's dish is gonna be a hodge-podge of stuff I foolishly suggested to Amul, namely, pasta with pesto, chicken, and mixed veggies. Oooooooo. Mostly oooo because I have _basically never cooked meat before in my life, oh many shits.

Also oooo because I do not have a recipe. BUT! I WILL PREVAIL!

Step one, wash hands.
Step two, gather ingredients:

Wait, no, step one-point-five is "where's my goddamn apron?
And step one-point-seven-five is "what's in my pocket?"

Ah. That's right, I forgot that I didn't eat all the szecuan peppercorns that I poured out (too many by accident) when I was at Timmc's house, and so I put the extras in my pocket for later. They've been through the wash! I wonder if that has affected their taste!

That goofy grin means "no, it has not affected the taste in the slightest, you just go ahead and weird out your mouth kiddo, what's the worst that could happen".

ANYWAYS! STEP TWO! GATHER INGREDIENTS!

That's frozen veggies and store bought pesto, because piss off, that's why. You can also see my awesome skull glass, and a thing filled with amazing trail mix that 42itous made for me 'cause she's the best.

Anywho, Amul suggested I boil the chicken, and cut it once its cooked, so I'm totally going to do that! One hundred percent!

...how does one boil a chicken? Oh goooo-gle!

Great, found a thing, this looks dead simple! Lemme just open this chicken up and...
...
...
...

Fuck.

I...I should've thawed the chicken. That is what I should've done. Okay. I am going to unpackage the chicken and stick it in some warm water for ten minutes. The internet would totally not lead me astray, right?

And THEN, I will take it out of the sink, and toss it on the boiler and bring the water to a boil at medium-high heat and then lower the heat and watch the chicken until it turns all white! OKAY I CAN DO THIS I CAN DO THIS (I totally cannot do this.)

At any rate, I'm making a box and a third of pasta, so I better get that water boiling.

This is a boring part of the cooking process. I believe I am going to spend the next ten minutes eating trail mix and dancing to Shriekback and Moxy Fruvous.

Or, unloading the dishwasher because I am a REAL ADULTgood housemate.

*tentatively pokes chicken* Oh! Oh, that's getting pretty floppy, oh go--WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!

I don't know. I don't care. It has a terrible texture. The chicken package has no information. I am going to drop it in the sink and wash my hands forever.

(actually, because I am working with chicken and raw meat freaks me the fuck out, I am washing my hands approximately every third picture. This was just weird.

Oh.

David suggests it's some form of thing to prevent odors or whatever. Probably harmless. O-okay then.

At any rate, the chicken is floppy, which the internet says is time to cook it.

Floppy proof:

And cooking!

(of course the pasta water boiled at the same time as the chicken was ready. Of course. But here they both are!)

Man, it's been like ten minutes and I am poking at the chicken with a chopstick and I think I may have totally ruined a package of chicken, and the chicken water isn't even boiling yet and goddamnit. I ruin everything I touch*

*in the kitchen.

Amul does not seem to share this belief, which is very kind of him. Anyways, time to do the veggies. Because you know what we own?

Pampered Chef awesomesauce veggie steamer. This thing is the greatest thing. I need to remember we own it more often, and get like two hundred frozen veggies to put in it. It's dead simple, add veggies, add water, nukerwave for three minutes, drain, serve. BAM!

Okay okay okay! Everyone came into the kitchen, and so between talking to real! live! people! and doing the quick "take everything off the stove" nonsense, I didn't really document the process. But I drained the pasta, which I've been doing forever, that part's easy, and pulled the chicken out of the pot and onto a cutting board with a fork.

Then I sliced the chicken, which was dead easy, because chicken and good knives. It turned out to be a little dry, but not actually bad! Huzzah!!

And here we have it:

I have made a thing!
It's about damn time.

2 AM Chili

(Originally posted 2011-11-13)

So, I've spent this week going to the grocery store and idly pricing out ingredients. 'Cause I've got a need for something _delicious_. And because I keep trying desserty type-stuff, I think I probably ought to try my hand at something more closely resembling an actual meal.

And oh, would you look at that. It so happens that there's a blog called Cooking Comically. And it so happens that they have a recipe for something savory that sounds totally delicious.

(Normally in these adventures, I post the recipe at the end. You're going to get more out of this post if you read it first, however.)

So! Let's make some muthafuckin' 2 AM Chili, with this guy. And cat ears.

Although wait! Disaster has struck! As I survey my GIANT PILE OF INGREDIENTS--


Seriously.

--I happen to notice that I have a box of delicious corn muffin mix--


And I hear corn muffins go awesome with chili. HOWEVER, corn muffins taste about four thousand times better when you substitute creamed corn in for the milk. One can makes about two boxes worth.

It's time to get my shopping on. I will return apace! (what does that even mean?) However, the lack of non-laptop camera means you get no pictures of me shopping in cat ears and a Sweeney Todd apron. SO IT GOES. (There is a bonus pic here though, of me in cat ears and a leather jacket, pretending to be a badass)

Okay! I'm back now, we're good. Except that all the roommates are home, plus one. I have never tried to cook with this many people in the house. It's VERY VERY DISTRACTING.

Anyways, music is on, hands are washed, food ingredients are gathered. Lets grab us some non-food ingredients too! (We're gonna set the corn muffins aside for a bit)


I have never had all my supplies take up the ENTIRETY of the dishwasher top before (where I normally work from).I am, frankly, intimidated.

And while putting spices together, we run into the first snafu. Luckily, it's the easy kind of this problem --namely, that I misread TBSP as TSP. Now, to Google! Because I need to know how many teaspoons to a tablespoon

Right then. Now that we've fixed that, let's continue making a delicious mix of spices.

I feel it's worth noting somewhere in here that, of the four people currently in the house, one of them is deathly allergic to like two thirds of my ingredients. Well, okay, mostly just the tomatoes, chili powder, and cayenne. Not that this is going to stop me, it just means I might have to open a window and cook in a cold-as-fuck kitchen. The things I do for you people (and delicious chili)

NOTE: IF YOU GET CAYENNE PEPPER ALL OVER YOUR HAND, THE CORRECT REACTION IS NOT TO LICK IT UP. Honestly, what did I think was going to happen?


I mean, I already knew well enough to listen to music while I cook. But getting to dance like an idiot to ke$ha while mixing spices? YEAH THAT WAS AWESOME!

Spices done! Let's do some more cooking!

So, the next step in the recipe is to brown some beef. If you noticed in my ingredients pictures, I don't have any. This isn't for any intelligent reason, like I don't want raw meat to come near the rest of my food. I just have a vegetarian roommate. While I'm sure I'm gonna wind up eating most of this myself in the first place, I figure being able to at least offer it to her would be nice.

Also, meat is _way_ more expensive than a couple extra cans of veggies. And I'm a broke-ass unemployed kid.


Quick guys. What is a good recipe for the other half of this onion? Also, how long will half an onion last if I put it in a baggie in the fridge?


It made me cry⁰! Damn onion! Why did you have to say all those things about my writing ability? Douchey vegetable knows how to hit where it hurts. :(

I also have most of a garlic head left. What is a good recipe for half an onion and a bunch of cloves of garlic? That won't cost me a fortune in ingredients?

Peeling garlic is amazingly unfun.

NOTE: YOU SHOULD ALSO NOT LICK GARLIC OFF YOUR HANDS. I am terrifically bad at this, aren't I?


I would like you all to admire how finely I chopped that garlic. I rock.

Anyways, first rule is in effect --I have finished chopping, so now I wash, dry, and put away the nice knife. Because I am only allowed to have nice things if I treat them well.

Next step! Put all the cans in the pot!


Holy shit, this barely fits.


Ancient Cooking Secret passed down from my mother --use a magnet to lift the lids of cans.

Okay, this is going great! Cooking with This Guy is so easy!

"Sauté them veggies"

...Goddamn you, This Guy. To the Googlenets! Tell me googlenets! What is "sauté"?

Sauté. Thank you googlenets.


Done? I hope? I have no idea how long to sauté things before they're done, but a piece of pepper popped out, and I tried it, and it was pretty good. So I guess that was enough? They went for like, the entirety of La Vie Boheme, and that's a long song.

Alright. I have now added all the ingredients to the mix. Adding the spices smelled _awesome_. The recipe calls for a shot or two of beer, but I don't have any. Would a shot of whiskey work? Is that a waste of my good whiskey? What if I use a shot of Fighting Cock?

(I suspect the answers are "maybe, yes, and oh gods, I thought you liked your roommates")

Reduce to a simmer! What's a si--wait! Wait, I know this one now!

(If anyone was wondering my tertiary purpose for doing this...maybe quadinary¹-- anyways, that was it, right there.)

Simmer for as many hours as I can. Oh my! What will I do with that time? It's not like I have an e-mail to reply to, or like it's NaNoWriMo, or like I have all these cans in the sink to rinse out or anything...

As an aside, I'd like to note that I am a very exact cooker. Instructions like "for as many hours as you have" are terrible instructions, and make me freak out. I want to know EVERY INTIMATE LITTLE DETAIL of what I am trying to make. Luckily, I keep going anyways.

At any rate, with all this leftover time, you know what I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna MAKE ME SOME MUFFINS!

(Pee-ess: it is 9:15. I probably don't want it to simmer more than, say, three hours. I could be wrong about this. Googleresearch will be warrented at some point. But first, muffins!)


As you can see, muffin recipe is ridiculously easy. I substitute one can of creamed corn (per two boxes of muffins) for the milk. However, last time I made these, Nurit complained that they were too dry, and she asked me to add some extra milk. I can...uh...ohgods.

I've made these before, so this is TOTALLY LOW STRESS! It's exciting, cooking something and not being stressed about it.


Okay, it's not _all_ low stress. How much milk is "a little extra milk"? Oh god, oh god, are my muffins TOTALLY GOING TO BE RUNNY SHIT SHIT!?!?

(I added about three seconds worth of milk. Hopefully that's the right amount. And fuck you, I can totally measure milk in seconds if I want to.)


INTO THE OVEN WITH YOU! DARKEN MY DOORSTEP NO MORE EXCEPT IN 15-20 MINUTES WHEN I WILL TAKE YOU OUT AND EAT YOU ALL!


Okay, I really _shouldn't_, what with the raw eggs. Dear kids! Do not eat things with raw eggs in them! Not even if they taste good!

(This is why I have to make Ria-cookies more often --no eggs. If only I had pumpkin and chocolate chips just waiting in the pantry for something like this oh hm look what is that². >.>)

While I'm waiting for those muffins to come out of the oven, I would like to point out that I just put my face over the chili and inhaled deeply. Oh hell yes. My fears that this will be completely terrible and I will have to eat all of it myself are very slightly assuaged.


Yes, that is fewer than a dozen muffins. Nurit stole one, and because I'm dumb, I forgot to grease the pan. Those are all the muffins that looked good after I got them out with a knife.


They're really quite good! And no, the chili's not quite ready yet, but it still tastes good on a muffin. Spicy! I am excited for the next week or two of leftovers. I guess that means ALL MY FEARS HAVE BEEN ASSUAGED omg.

I will have to come up with a new one. Here: the chili will reduce such that the spicyness becomes intolerable and I get holes in my stomach. YAY!

Anyways, I think I'm gonna leave it on, stirring occasionally, for another two hours. This makes it midnight-fifteen chili, as opposed to 2AM chili, but that's okay. Maybe I will eat a bowl at 2AM just for completeness sakes.

In the meantime, I am going to write some words!

***

Oh hey look at that, it's midnight! I wrote 2377 words, which is pretty good, although I'm still more than a day behind. But! I broke 20k words, and I've hit the parts of the story that I've written before, which might make this a lot easier. But this post is not about NaNoWriMo, dammit. It is about CHILI!


Here is the pot of all the chili.


Here is a bowl of chili and corn muffin and sour cream that I am going to eat.


Here is me eating it.


And here is my verdict. In two words?

Fuck.
YES!

This chili will knock you on your ass with how spicy it is (my throat feels so deliciously burny right now), but it's really good, especially with the cornmuffins and the sour cream. I am devouring it like a monster.

Thank you, Tyler Capps! 2 AM chili is a hell of a food!

...now to figure out how to deal with the pot I still have of it. Hey friends...!

0: Crying because of onions reminds me of Horrible Turn, which you should all watch as soon as you've seen Dr. Horrible. It's _excellent_.

1: Primary goal: To entertain myself/get some interesting writing done.
Secondary goal: I am hungry
Tertiary goal: I actively want people to consume the things I create, in this case, I refer to both the food (which I share) and the entries (which I might put into a separate blog and crosspost).
Quadinary goal: I don't know how to cook, and people think I ought to fix that.

2: Well, I have to bring some for the Scottish Dancers to enjoy. And a secret other reason. Actually, two secret other reasons.

Candied Lemon Slices

(Originally posted 2011-11-06)

So I sez to Ria, I sez "should I make candied lemon slices tonight"

"The better question is why aren't you?" she replies, which is a valid enough thing to ask.

I'm honest to Ria. So she probably wasn't surprised by my response: "Because I'm laaaaaazy"

However, Ria is a wonderful roommate, and has no truck with that. An immediate response: "PUT ON YOUR HIGH HEELS AND GET IN THE KITCHEN"⁰

...
...
...

So I put on my high heels and get in the kitchen. I mean, what else can you do at that point? I have a recipe, an apron, and high heels. And for completeness, I put on a string of pearls. And a pair of cat ears.

This is apparently becoming a trend in my world. I don't know how to feel about that.


Ears, pearls, and heels. Do you know how hard it is to get a picture with both your feet and ears in the same shot? outtake here

So, first step of any good cooking adventure is to gather ingredients. No wait, we went through this already. First step is to wash hands, zeroth step is to PUT ON SOME AWESOME MUSIC (Next to Normal? it has that fifties housewife zen while being crazy enough to keep up with me).

Now that all that's done, we can find ingredients.


W-wait, seriously? That's it? That and water is all the food stuff required? This recipe is awesome!

Don't expect that to make this post any shorter than the last one.

Next step: Find all the pieces that aren't edible. This means excuse to use my FUCK YES knife. I approve of basically any recipe that includes that excuse.


Seriously. This recipe involves _this little_.

...this does not make me any less fretfilled.

Anyways, real first step is slicing me some lemons

OKAY THIS ISN'T WORKING.

So, the instructions tell you you want thin slices, and you get those by using something with a bit of thickness as cutting guides. Theoretically chopsticks work. Except, apparently I am supposed to have three hands. Which leads me to believe I'm not doing a very good job of making slices. This means it is time for CAREFUL SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS, because the opposite of fear is data¹.

...oh. Apparently I am not holding the lemon flat to the cutting board. That'll do it. Let's try again!


You know what? FUCK THIS PLAN. I will have slightly thicker slices of lemon and you can DEAL WITH IT.


Yeah, okay, this worked basically infinitely better at the "getting actual round slices of lemons things. I feel much better.

Next step! Boil a couple cups of water! Toss the lemons in! Blanche!

....Blanche?

OHWAIT! I almost forgot the important step: WASH AND DRY THE GOOD KNIFE. Because otherwise we are not allowed to have nice things.

Anyways, where was I? Oh right. Blancheing.

Ice water? This recipe just got twice as complicated. The sad part is that I'm not even exaggerating that badly. Anyways, while I'm waiting for the blanching water to boil (seriously blanche, is that even a real word?) might as well clean the cutting board.


DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE JUDGE ME. What the hell did you think would happen when I had to make a recipe involving fresh lemons? Lemons are basically the MOST DELICIOUS FOOD EVER.

Also if you lick enough lemon juice off a cutting board it makes your tongue feel all tingly. Just saying. Wow. That's...that's intense actually. I might have to stop this. But there's still lemon juice on there...

...you _really_ don't want to know what I was doing for the five minutes while I was blanching the lemons. Actually, I take that back. You probably really do want to know. I just _really_ don't want to tell you.

Anyways, now to mix a fuck-ton of sugar in with some boiling water. A lot of my lemons died (unfortunately) because they were crappy lemon slices, sliced by someone who is a crappy lemon slicer. So as an experiment, I am re-using the boiling water with lemon in it (instead of clean boiling water SCANDAL) to see if that helps. And now I go put a couple cups of sugar into that pot.

Blah blah blah, so much stirring, okay. Bring water to a low boil and then simmer for an...fuck.

To the googles! Tell me googles! What is "simmer"

Oh. Well. That was actually quite helpful. Anyways, as soon as it boils, I do that for an hour. Then I drain the lemons (saving the magical lemon-sugar-water mixture for...nefarious purposes I haven't determined yet) and put the lemons out to dry.

So, here's the skinny: I don't think I'm gonna get a lot out of this one. My slicing was too erratic --you really need whole rounds, any of the half or 3/4 slices I made (lots) didn't really survive the blanching. I think I went too thin, which is not usually my problem when cooking.

That being said, aforementioned lemon-sugar-water? OHMYGOD, does it smell good, and it hasn't even simmered for an hour yet. I'm pretty much entirely okay with this plan. And I think I will have enough candied lemon slices to give one to me, Nurit (the finder of the recipe) and Pi (in exhange for pie).

Alright, simmer time! It's 1:09 in the morning. I'm gonna type up my words and send some e-mail, and then get back to this. Ohwait! Hangon, first this:


As you can see, there's a couple workable slices in there, and mostly glop. We'll see how well it does.

Also as you can see, my pot has a giant dent in it. It came like that, and we don't actually own that many pots, so I suffer so.

Okay, it's 1:44. There are actually some small effects happening to the lemon slices, which is reassuring. I am still more confident that this recipe will fail, and yet somehow very non-fretty about this.

Maybe because I'm trying to candy lemon slices, and I don't know how to cook. I'm pretty sure candying things is like, at least cooking 302 or something. I myself have flunked out of the 101 class, and they have sent me back to remedial cooking school. It's very unfortunate.

Okay! I have taken them out of the boiling water and put them onto the cookie rack, where they will dry for a while.


...yep. That's it. A few measly slices and mostly rinds of lemons. But you wanna know what? I put one of those rindy bits into my mouth and ate it.

A DOUBLE PLUS WOULD EAT AGAIN!

So, Obviously the next time I do this (which honestly might wind up being within the next week, since we still have fresh lemons) I need to slice it thicker and make more consistent round slices. Although the bits of rind are pretty damn good, and surprisingly gummy.

And as an aside?


That is not maple syrup. (It is also not delicious boozamahol, stop thinking it.) That is what happens when you throw sugar, lemons, and water into a pot and let it boil for an hour.

I am pretty sure I am going to make crepes and put it on them, having reached the lemon-sugar singularity. Until I get to that, this is going in everything I eat or drink for the next week. Because I have tried little bits of it and it? Is delicious.


So I'm calling this experiment a reserved success. I need practise slicing, and next time I should use a lot more lemon, but look! I candied something. Those ridiculously good gummy candies that I would eat SEVEN HUNDRED of if I could? Yeah, I can _make those now_.

The world is mine.

0: I feel I shouldn't have to say this, because you lot are clever people, but just in case: Ria is not actually a raging misogynist. Her and I say terrible things to each other, because laughing at the terrible shit makes it feel just the slightest bit better sometimes.

1: For more details, see the study "jere7my is not down with the sickness", 2011.

And in case you were wondering, the recipe I used is here