TRIFLE: white chocolate mint brownie magic

Think brownies, white chocolate mint mousse, chocolate pudding, and holiday happiness. You will haz all the happy. I promise.

Okay so, the prelude to this one's gonna come atchu in steps. Cause I like numbers and lists.

Step 1. Ship your twin off to Africa.
Step 2. Wallow in hopeless, dark despair for 3 months. Conclude only possible respite is preparing a trifle for her glamorous homecoming.
Step 3. Violently desire trifle dish. Search everywhere, high / low, near / far, hither / yon, etc.
Step 4. Fail miserably. Realize no one knows what you're talking about, and find no such dish. Settle back into grief and self loathing.
Step 5. Recall that you tutor for fancy Georgetown family. Upon next visit to their mansion, casually mention your casual need for a trifle dish. Be slightly disappointed when they don't have one you can borrow. Sadness.
Step 6. Wake up next morning to discover fancy Georgetown mom standing outside your door with not one, but TWO brand new trifle dishes. Express genuine, unabated glee. Truly, a Christmas miracle.

And now onto trifle making. Ingredients:

Boxed brownie mix (plus the eggs / oil / water it says you need)
Heavy cream
4 egg yolks
Sugar
White chocolate chips
2 packages Chocolate Pudding mix (plus the milk it says you need)
Brand new trifle dish
Leo's mints, stolen
Arab slave helper
Mint extract

White Chocolate Mint Mousse: The night before you want to have the trifle ready, you make the mousse. From scratch. Seriously. Start by beating 4 eggs yolks with an electric mixer (I know, I always use a fork too, but for this its actually important. Unless you have a bionic arm.) Add in 1/4 cup of white sugar.

Heat up one cup of the heavy whipping cream in a small pot on the stove (note: a real recipe would invoke the term "saucepan" here ... but who the hell has ever made sauce in one of those?). Don't let it boil or anything, just until its hot. Put half of it into the egg/sugar bowl, mix, then add that all back to the remaining cream in the pot. Continue cooking this creamy egg stuff for a few minutes over low heat STIRRING CONSTANTLY. Add in the white chocolate chips, stirring until they melt. Now, I missed that part about stirring constantly. And yes, that did mean that I had, temporarily, concocted not white chocolate mousse, but white chocolate scrambled eggs. It was heartbreaking. So yeah. Don't do that. Stir constantly bitches.

Refrigerate the above masterpiece (covered) for about 2 hours. Now beat 1 and a 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream in a bowl, fold this into the now-cold egg mixture. Cover, and put this whole thing into the frig again, leave it there overnight.

Brownies: Do what it says on the box. Cool completely. Like actually completely. Again, I never follow that direction but this time its important. This is an excellent time to utilize your Arab kitchen slave, if he isn't busy with vegetables, which they often are.

And he won't mind, because his other option was working with crazy meat lady:

Chocolate pudding: Again, read box instructions. Follow them. Now take a second to breathe, cause shits about to get real.

Magic & Mystery: Because you follow directions perfectly and allowed the brownies to cool (before your roommate ripped them out to make broccoli something-or-other in the pan), you can easily cut them all into small one inch rectangley-square things. Arrange half of these in a gorgeous circle on the bottom of your trifle dish (having settled on the smaller dish at the recommendation of your Arab. They're good with spacial reality.) Fill in small holes in the brownie circle with more brownie, obvi. Now spoon half of the chocolate pudding on top of the brownie layer and smooth out. Thats layer #2. WOW.

Next, get ambitious, and add a few teaspoons of mint extract to your mouse, gently mix it in. Now spoon half of your MAGICAL MOUSSE YOU MADE FROM SCRATCH into the trifle as your third layer. Repeat the brownie-pudding-mousse layers, pausing to absolutely flip out before the second layer of brownies because you don't know if they'll sink and ruin the whole thing. Another great job for your Arab: taking initiative and really gettin' after it with the second brownie layer, fearless.

After 2 or 3 victory laps around the house and squealing for your twin's approval, put the finished trifle in the frig and go to the gym. Cause you're gonna get fat tonight.

On the way back from the gym, casual saunter into Leo's and steal some of their red and white mints. Hide them in your Nalgene, and GTFO.

At home, put the mints in a plastic bag, and beat them with the back end of scissors (because you can't seem to locate a mallet). Sprinkle on trifle. Succumb to your child like glee (and apparent psychosis):

SERVE AND BE DELIGHTED. HAPPY HOLIDAYS FRIENDS.

p.s. as always, photocred to Erica Begoun.

BACON BOUQUET

“Violets are blue
Bacon is red.
We love you so much,
and we’re glad you’re our friend.”

For our beloved (and soon-to-be-famous) Danny Rivera’s last theater performance at Georgetown, Eclaire and I wanted to do something really special. We couldn’t do roses because Danny is much manlier than that, but were aiming for that sort of sentiment, at least.


This is where the internet came to our rescue. A dozen bacon roses. Perfect for the manly men in your life.

To put together this greasy token of undying love, you will need:

1 package bacon, the thicker the better
bamboo skewers
green food coloring
muffin tin

Caution: you will get greasy. REALLY greasy. Have lots of soap on standby.
Take a strip of bacon and start rolling it like.... well, like a fruit roll-up, only bacon. You have to roll it pretty tightly at first so you have a place to stick the stem later. When you’ve got the whole rosette assembled, you can arrange the outer petals artistically. I do apologize that you’ll never look at a rose the same way.


If you have a mini muffin tin, you can just pop that rose in there and move onto the next one. If you have a normal muffin tin, use tin foil to make a bacon support ring. That sounds weird, but here’s a picture, you’ll get it.

Put the tray into a 375 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes, until the bacon is cooked-pink but don’t let it burn! Cooking time will depend on your muffin tin situation, but you know what cooked bacon looks like.

While your bacon is baking, dye your bacon skewers. The best way is to put a drop of food coloring onto the skewer and rub it into the wood. Your fingers will get stained green, but this is why you’re doing it after the bacon. Because we don’t want green bacon.

So, let your skewers dry completely, and when your bacon is done you’re going to want it to sit on a paper towel and de-grease anyway. When everything is set, poke the skewer through the bottom of the bacon rose, and arrange the roses in a... vase? Cup? Idk, whatever you have on hand, really. 

You might wanna use toothpicks to hold the whole thing together, especially if the roses are looking rickety. Deliver with utmost love, but avoid dogs on the way.

GINGERBREAD FRIENDS

We’re uncommonly blessed by Alissa’s fetish for cake decorating, which has provided us with baking tools heretofore unknown to mankind/ErinandMelissa. Did you know they have markers to draw on cookies?? They do. So gather all the decorating bits and pieces you’ve got, and you will also need:

3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoonfuls ground ginger
1 large spoonful cinnamon
a couple shakes ground cloves
a couple shakes nutmeg
1 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg

Mix your flour / salt / baking soda / spices in one bowl, and beat together sugars / butter, and then egg, in another. Combine bowls. Mush the cookie dough into a ball, cover it, and put it in the refrigerator overnight. 

Now is the messy part. If I were you, I’d put down a lot of wax paper onto whatever surface you’re working on, then sprinkle a couple of spoonfuls of flour onto said surface and spread it out. Now I know there’s no chance in hell you own a rolling pin, so wash the outside of an empty wine bottle out of your recycling pile, thoroughly dry, and flour the wine bottle.

I’m not fucking with you. 

Use the wine bottle to roll out the dough until it’s about 1/4 inch thick, sprinkling more flour as necessary to keep things from getting too sticky. Flour a cookie cutter, and cut out gingerbread people! Or, dip a knife in flour and freehand it, but that’s awfully ballsy. Bake those bad gingerboys for about 12 minutes. It depends on the size of your cookie cutter, but the edges should start to brown and the centers should be firm.

OK now decorate! Let the cookies cool completely, cause otherwise the icing will melt and you’ll be sad. You can use icing with those fancy decorating tips, or you can use tubs of icing or the recipe below:

2 cups sugar, 1 stick butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 1/2 tablespoons milk. Beat it up. Like, really.

Anyway, if you don’t have fancy decorating tips, load up icing into a ziploc bag, close it (obvi), and snip a tiny bit of the corner. You can also divide up icing and make different colors by adding a few drops of food coloring. If you run out of ideas for decorating, scroll through facebook.

Or, pick your favorite celebrity. Say a basketball player you’d love to marry.

Please come back, Chris.

Hands down the creepiest thing I've ever done.

TACO FIXINS

(803): I'm practically paying him in tacos to have sex with me.


Make it happen. You will need:

1 avocado

1 large tomato

1 large red onion

several cloves of garlic

a bunch of cilantro

1 lime

a tablespoon or so olive oil

salt and pepper

1 tablespoonish salsa

GUAC

When you get an avocado, you want one that isn’t rock solid and has some give to it. However, Safeway will try to sell you ones that are so mushy they’re practically liquid inside-- don’t get that either. 

To open the avocado, you cut a longways seam around the entire thing, cutting all the way down to the pit. Holding each half, you should be able to pull the halves apart, but you might need to twist it a little bit. At any rate, you should end up with two halves, one with a pit in it. Hold the avocado in your hand, and smack/slice the pit using a big scary knife. The knife should get lodged in the pit and you can pull it out. Dump both avocado halves into a bowl.

To keep the avocado from turning brown, you need to add lime asap. Cut the lime in half, and zest/juice one half on top of the avocado.

Dice both tomato and onion pretty small. Add a heaping spoonful of each to the avocado, season liberally with salt and pepper, and mash with a fork. Add a spoonful of chopped cilantro and about a clove of minced garlic as well. You can add a spoonful of salsa if you want a little spice.

PICO DE GALLO

Throw the remainder of the tomato, onion, and chopped cilantro in another bowl. Zest/juice the other half of the lime. Add a splash of olive oil, a small clove of minced garlic, and salt/pepper and mix. Tastes best if you leave it in the fridge for an hour or so.

Because I really get off on stuff like this, I garnish both with a sprig of cilantro in the center. But it’s overkill and no one but me ever notices, so you probably shouldn’t bother.

CHRISTMAS COOKIE SHOTS

An adoring fan recently pointed out that the most difficult part of the holiday season is having to choose between drinking and dessert. Well, here at Crack Den Cookies, we believe that no one should ever have to choose between their two favorite categories of edibles. And, as enablers, we’re going to make sure you have the tools you need to get both fat and drunk.

First: the cookie shot glasses. You will need:

1 heaping cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick butter 

1/4 heaping cup brown sugar

1/4 heaping cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

1 cup MINI chocolate chips. MINI, I SAID.

mini-muffin tins and mini-muffin-paper-liners


Note: this is a halved recipe, so when I say heaping, I mean heaping. I’m not gonna tell you to measure out eighths of a cup, because that’s stupid.

Next, from the liquor store...

1 container alcoholic whipped cream. Your liquor store will have it, just ask.

vanilla vodka

creme de cacao

amaretto

Mix together butter and sugars, then mix in egg and vanilla. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt, then add that to the wet stuff and mix in your chocolate chips.

While your oven is preheating to 375, line your mini-muffin tin. Drop 1-inch-diameter cookie dough balls into your muffin tins, then bake for about 15 minutes until nicely golden brown. When you take them out of the oven, the centers will start to fall, and that’s actually what you want. Use your fingers (or the handle of a knife if, like Paul, you believe that the use of tools separates humans from chimpanzees) and poke down the center until you have a nice little cookie cup. 

While the cookie cups are cooling, mix up your shots. 2-1-1 vodka, creme de cacao, and amaretto.

Fill cookie cups with your whip-a-hol. Shoot shot. Shoot cookie. Love.

MAN COOKING

Sunday Night Mouse Movies. The few, the proud, the greatest Henle tradition since not-being-written-up-ever. After a few SNMMs filled with female-baked pies, cookies, and assorted carboloaded, chocolate covered bars, the men decided to storm the kitchen. And by that I mean Phil showed up with peanut butter and Hershey's kisses and told us to GTFO the way. Bufe helped. Cause hobbits stick together.

And I speak with utmost uncertainty when I say it involved the following :

1 stick of butter (ya, we know)
1 cup peanut butter (go with low-fat if you wanna save yourself way more guilt than is proportional to how much fat you're actually saving)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
rittle bit vanilla
rittle bit baking soda / powder / whatever / you do you
2 tablespoons of milk
1 and 1/2 cups flour
teeny bit of salt


Get out your mixing bowl (in some cultures they call it a pasta pot), and mash the butter and peanut butter together with your mashed potatoe masher, because this is man cooking and you can. It will get stuck in the masher, but fear not, you're men, and YOU CAN HANDLE THIS. Get a fork. Behold:

Add both sugars, mix, then the egg and vanilla, mix again. Summon your sous chef, secure 2 more pots, don apron (its about to get man-messy) and glare in the direction of giggling women. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt, concentrating deeply on your pot. Look generally adorable.

"its all queer domestic bliss in the foreground... and crack den in the background" (copyright: Us, 2010)

Mix until you don't feel like mixing more. Compliment self on facial hair. Combine pots.

Roll into cookie dough balls, and to add a bit more fat & sparkle to Sunday Night Mouse Movies, roll in sugar. Cause why not. Men love sugar.

Bake for 9 minutes (Not eight to ten. Nine.) at 375 (again, depending on your apartment's cooking ability) until they look like cookies. With whatever Hershey's kisses you have left after being absolutely pillaged by the fat girls that live in the apartment, press immediately into warm cookies. Utter the phrase "MAN COOKING" several more times, snuggle up to your women, and commence SNMM.

its-this-or-my-thesis COCOA APPLE MUFFINS

Alright just roll with it. I could either sit down with a giant PDF full of Foucault and human rights law, or I could combine our lack luster ingredient shelves into Monday night calories of joy. Which are my really favorite kind. Of calories and of joy.

I'm literally going to make this up as we go, so here's your play by play. Rummage through your cabinets, find the magic bullet you shoved in there cause it was cluttering up your counter, and fill it with two small apples (cubed). And one... two... THREE.... APPLESAUCE!! Maybe when I'm still unemployed next year, Magic Bullet infomercials will hire me.

So put the apple sauce (should still have chunks) in a large bowl with an egg. Add 4 tablespoons of melted butter and 1 cup sugar. Now reconsider your plan when roommate proposes putting hot cocoa powder in the mix. And fuck it, this is your recipe, you do you. Add 1/3 cup hot cocoa powder. Seriously.

Realize you don't have Michael Buble's Christmas Album on. Put it on.

In another bowl, combine 1 and 1/4 cup of flour, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, 1/4 tsp baking powder, and (ready for this?? I'm so excited), 1/4 tsp of chili powder! BOOM.

Add half the dry bowl to the wet, mix, then the other half, mix. Taste batter, notice it tastes like A CHAI LATTE. Squeal with glee and this unexpected turn of events. Put in muffins tins (greased or lined with paper) and bake on 375 for.... TBD. I'll get back to you.

**wait wait wait wait wait pretend to write paper wait wait wait**

Okay so it seems to take about 12 minutes. And they're yummy!!

CAR BOMB CUPCAKES

Due to a non-existent budget and a predilection for cheap vodka, us having good alcohol on hand is a little bit of a rarity. We do, however, sometimes surprise even ourselves on holidays like St. Patty’s Day by splurging on the good stuff. These alcohol-laced cupcakes are scrumptious, adorable, and innocuous-enough-looking to bring into the housing office without getting anyone fired... yet.

Besides Bailey’s, Jameson, and Guinness, which you should already have in preparation for the holiday, you will need:

For cupcakes:

1 cup Guinness

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

3/4 cup cocoa*

2 cups flour with some salt sprinkled in

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

2 eggs

2/3 cup sour cream

For ganache (think fudgey chocolate filling)

about 2/3 a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips* 

2/3 cup whipping cream

2 tablespoons softened butter

2 tablespoons Jameson*

For frosting:

2 cups (4 sticks) softened butter (I’M SORRY IT’S SO MUCH, DON’T THINK ABOUT IT)

5 cups powdered sugar

6 tablespoons Bailey’s*

*NOTE: chocolate and liquor make people happy, so be generous. Just not TOO generous, you want the consistency to stay the same. But generous enough. You know what I mean.

Now cook!

In a pot, bring the Guinness and butter to a simmer, then stir in cocoa and whisk until smooth. Take it off the heat and let it cool a little. While it’s cooling, mix together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda in a separate bowl. In yet another bowl, beat together eggs and sour cream using a fork because you’re too poor to afford an electric mixer. Add the chocolate-beer to the egg stuff and blend. Gradually add in and mix together all the flour stuff. Fill cupcake liners (I found out what they’re called!) 2/3 full of batter and bake for about 17 minutes at 350. 

While those are baking, ignore your roommate’s concerns that you’re using all the dishes in the house and get another bowl for ganache. Fill the bowl with chocolate chips. Giggle. Take just a few chocolate chips for yourself. Refill the bowl because you ate too many. Heat the cream on the stove until it’s simmering, then pour it over the chocolate chips and stir until they completely melt. Stir in the melted butter and Jameson. Anddddd maybe a splash of Bailey’s, cause why not.

HOKAY here’s where things get tricky. It would be absolutely lovely if you had the baking tools necessary to pipe ganache to fill your cupcakes, but you are SO far from that actually happening. Instead, find a butter knife and the smallest spoon you have in your apartment. Using the knife, cut out a 1 inch diameter chunk from your cupcake going about half the way down. Using your tiny spoon, get a glob of ganache approximately the size of your cupcake hole, and drop it in there. Use your fingers, no one will ever know. 

Now for frosting! While whipping the butter, gradually add all of the powdered sugar and Bailey’s. Keep going until it’s light and fluffy looking. Because you’ve got the ganache in there, the best way to ice these babies is to plop a large spoonful of icing on top and then spread it out with a knife or spatula. You can add a few drops of green food coloring if you like, but we preferred green sprinkles.

Behold: the most unflattering picture of Erin and Melissa ever taken, albeit with delicious cupcakes.

PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

...cause sometimes you just need a baking session before you casually perform in an Indian Bhangra show on a casual Friday night.

So, arm yourself with the following and get excited cause these things are effing phenomenal.

1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
just a rittle bit o salt
1 teaspoon baking soda (re: another tsp baking powder cause you can't find the god damn baking soda to save your life)
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon milk
teeny tiny bit of vanilla extract (finger-to-bowl-to-mouth test proved the batter so good pre-vanilla that I was hesitant to put any in at all, but its just one of those things your supposed to put in cookies all the time always no matter what as though there's some sort of vanilla extract mafia just waiting for you to screw up if you don't... so I did it)
2 cups (plus more depending on what kind of mood your in) chocolate chips

In one bowl combine flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. In that bowl's slightly larger cousin, combine pumpkin, sugar, egg, and oil.

NOW PAY ATTN CAUSE IT'S ABOUT TO GET REAL: put the baking soda (or last tsp baking powder, as the case may be) INTO a little thing of milk. The word "dissolve" would come in handy here, if I weren't allergic to science.

Now add that crazy white stuff to its wet friends. Add all dry stuff to all the wet stuff (if you wanna feel fancy, employ the old add-some-then-mix-then-add-more-then-mix trick... as though that somehow affects ANYTHING.) Throw in lots and lots of chocolate chips. Then...

"Drop by rounded tablespoons onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes."

... jklolz I don't actually give a shit how big you make your cookies, I've just always wanted to write that. Cook for 10ish minutes (again, depending on your cooking machine), put onto plate to cool, leave out, and await late-night roommate freakout when they find them. Consider self Christmas hero.

Note: picture not even a little bit mine, but I swear this is what they looked like.

boredinmaine FLOURLESS PUMPKIN MUFFINS

What on Earth does one do with canned pumpkin left over from the world's greatest pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, no flour, and an insatiable desire to make muffins? An excellent question. In short, one recognizes one's useless supply of oatmeal and decides to get cray cray. Cause what the hell else are you doing?

 Ingredients:
3/4 cup pumpkin (...ish. Whatever is leftover from cookies)
1 cup sugar (...ish. Whatever is leftover from boredom-induced Maine baking frenzy)
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup instant oatmeal
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt (does anyone seriously measure salt?)
nutmeg (just shake it. Settle down, it'll all work out fine. people baked before they invented the teaspoon. i think.)
cinnamon (see above)
dregs of flour left at bottom of bag. (fine I guess they aren't technically flourless)

Dump pumpkin, white sugar, egg, and oil in small bowl. Mix. Put oatmeal, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, spices, and a little flour in big bowl. Also mix. Add wet stuff to dry stuff. Mix again. Add a little milk if it doesn't look like muffin batter. If it looks too wet, go with more oatmeal. Always more oatmeal. Again, I really can't recommend the spices too highly. They're lovely.

Fill muffins tins with batter (mine made 6 muffins). Bake 6 minutes on 350 degrees. Take out, top half of them with oatmeal (half of your friends like crunchy stuff on their muffin and half don't. Its science.) Put back in for 8ish minutes, depending your oven's level of ghetto and how fast it turns stuff into edible food.

Nom nom made up pumpkin oatmeal muffins.

IS-THIS-REAL-LIFE WATERMELON SALAD

So this one needs to prefaced by saying: It happened during Summer 2010. Any product of that time (including but not limited to recipes, events, conversations, relationships, and memories) are products not of reality, not of this world, but of pure glittering magical mystery. Like Christmas elves, unicorns, and the rolls on the back of JTIII's head.

As such, the following recipe doesn't so much include "measurements" as it does "stuff you throw in a watermelon and eat with a stolen Leo's fork." But the main point is yummy stuff, mixed with more yummy stuff, eaten out of a watermelon, = yummy.

Yummy stuff:
--Blueberries
--Feta cheese
--Spinach / lettuce of choosing
--Vinagrette (we had Raspberry. And it was fabulous.)
--Strawberries
Plus a watermelon.

So....

Get a watermelon. Half of one if there's only two of you living in your Village A and you can't find any friends that day. Cut it in half (assuming you do in fact have friends and bought a whole one). Cut around the edges of the watermelon, and down the curve in a delicate, nerve-racking procedure whose end goal is a hollowed out watermelon.

After you've cut along the entire rim and down the sides, make vertical and horizontal cuts to begin removing slices. One removed, cut each slice into bite-sized cubes. Or whatever. Just make a watermelon bowl.

Conratulate self on biggest accomplishment since high school graduation.

Fill your masterpiece with spinach (about 2/3 full), sliced strawberries, blueberries, and the cubes of watermelon. Top with vinagrette and mix with freshly hands. Wash them. Because you're germy.

Carry with pride to front lawn. Log hours and revel in knowing you were just paid to hollow out a watermelon.

**no pictures because we violently oppose pictures in the shorts**

AFRICAN DESPERATION CREPES

Once upon a time I was exiled to rural Ghana for a semester and was so hungry all the time I almost ate my roommate. Then I discovered crepes.

2 eggs (I’ve been using guinea fowl eggs, but you can opt for chicken eggs, I guess)

1 cup flour with a sprinkle of salt

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup water

2 tablespoons butter, melted

jam, cinnamon sugar, nutella, etc

Beat together the eggs and flour until smooth. Add milk and water and continue to stir. Finally, stir in butter. It’s going to be really runny, but that’s how it should be.

Make sure your frying pan is lightly greased and really hot before you scoop in some batter (about half a cup at a time) and tilt the pan around to get it thinly spread out. Cook for about two minutes on each side- the crepe should be a nice golden brown. My only African cooking utensil is a teaspoon, so I’ve found the best way to flip it is to flip the crepe onto a plate and then slide it back into the pan. While the second side is cooking, apply filling to one half, then fold and apply filling to one half, then fold again. It should be in folded in quarters and ready to eat! At this point, I dump butter and sugar on the top, but that’s because I’m a fatass.

You do you.

ITALIAN STUFF / THAT THING

Erin and I have been trying to come up with a name for this for the last year and a half. Nothing fits. It is, however, one of the most delicious (and healthy?!) dinners we had during our near-starvation summer, when both of us were spending only $30 a week on food. That meant lots of 88 cent boxes of pasta and 99 cent canned veggies. Desperate. Fucking. Times.

Italian Stuff happened when we just sort of threw everything we like best together and baked it with cheese, because we also like cheese.

half a box of ziti, bowties, or something fun

1 can cannellili beans

1 can diced tomatoes

1/2 cup frozen spinach, thawed and drained

1/3 cup olive oil

2 cloves minced garlic

1 package italian sausage

about a cup mozzarella

parmesan 

1/2 cup italian seasoned bread crumbs

Start boiling water for pasta, and in the meantime cook your sausage in a frying pan with olive oil. I know it’s gross, but use a knife to cut open the casing so you can just dump out the meat-parts. Trust me, it works better this way. Alternatively, use ground beef or turkey and season it liberally with salt, pepper, basil, and oregano. Use a spatula or fork to break up chunks and cook everything all the way through.

Cook and drain pasta according to the directions on box, and mix with olive oil and garlic. Drain tomatoes and cannaneli beans and mix those in with the drained pasta, as well as spinach and meat. Pour all of this into a casserole dish or something else that can go into the oven. Top with mozzarella cheese, then with breadcrumbs and a liberal sprinkle of parmesan. 

Depending on the quality of your campus appliances (ours was poor), bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes until you get sick of waiting. You just want the cheese to get bubbly and the breadcrumbs to start browning, and you may want to turn the oven on broil for 2 or 3 minutes to get it there. 

TEQUILA PINEAPPLE

So. Yeah. Tequila again. It’s our favorite beach tradition, but has also made appearances at tropical parties. It’s quite popular, to the point that Melissa wrestled her football-playing neighbors to get it back.

1 pineapple

big knife

orange juice

tequila

straws

Cut off the top of the pineapple. Use the knife to saw around the perimeter of the pineapple and pry chunks out using whatever tools are at your disposal. The first time we did this, it took a spoon, a fork, a knife, and... chopsticks. Hint: the riper your fruit, the easier this goes. Leave as much juice in the pineapple shell as you can, and fill to about 2/3 full with orange juice. Fill the rest of the way with tequila. Using a chopstick, poke straw-holes in the leaf-part that you cut off. Top off your pineapple and enjoy!

STRAWBERRY BASIL MARGARITAS

So.... I have a thing for tequila. A big thing. And I consider it a little bit of a personal challenge to make everyone else tequila-converts, too. This recipe is perfect for doing just that. It’s a nice summery drink, ideal for picnics and sunbathing on the rooftop in front of prospective students and their families.

1 can frozen limeade

10-15 strawberries (or more, go nuts)

handful of basil leaves

gold tequila 

To a (ideally clear, because these are pretty) pitcher, add the frozen limeade with 2 1/2 cans of water and 2 cans of tequila. Less for the weak-hearted. Slice the strawberries and throw them in there, then crumple the basil and add that, too. The crumpling will help release the flavor. Stir vigorously and refrigerate. Give it at least an hour, if not more, and it will be lovely pink-colored and ready to drink!

TRIPLE LAYER BIRTHDAY CAKE

Nothing says “We’re better than the rest of your friends” more than a three layer personalized birthday cake.

Excessive? Yes. But go hard or go home.

CAKE

So for the actual baking part, you need two boxes of whatever cake mix you like best, plus however much oil/eggs/water go into that. Go ahead and mix up the batter following the directions on the box.

Now, seeing as how you’re not a professional baker and don’t own stacking cake pans, you’re going to have to improvise. The best way we’ve found is to use 3 different size pots, which you probably do have if your parents set you up right. Or... check with your neighbors. If you’re lucky, the handles won’t melt in the oven. Spray your three pots liberally with Pam and then divide your batter between them. Don’t separate it into thirds, just try to get the levels the same in every pot. 

For several reasons, including the fact that you’re using a pot and each layer is a different size, they’re not going to bake evenly. Start at about 20 minutes in a 350 degree preheated oven, and then check all the layers using a toothpick inserted into the middle (toothpick should come out clean if the cake is done). The smallest one will cook pretty quickly, the largest one might take up to an hour. Just keep checking ever 10 min or so. Remove the layers as they finish baking and let them cool completely before removing the cake.

Now, you can either ice it with whatever you’ve got around, like the one below with store bought vanilla frosting, or you can really go crazy.

FONDANT

you're going to have to write this one, hun, i still have no clue how you pulled this off. here's a picture though!

GEORGETOWN DAY BREAKFAST OF BOOZE

First, the inspiration: 

Second, the occasion: Georgetown Day 2011

Georgetown Day is... it’s better than Christmas. It is a day of pure joy and fun and friends, celebrated by drinking from sunrise til whenever you pass out that afternoon. Of course, any college student knows that a solid day of day-drinking begins with a well-balanced, alcohol-laced breakfast. And that’s where our boys at Epic Meal Time came in.

A sunrise booze banquet for our closest friends was a pretty big undertaking, and there was lots of prep time the night before, which I definitely suggest. HOWEVER, totes worth it, turned out pretty legendary.

We’ll start you out slow: MIMOSAS

You need cheap champagne and orange juice. Stock up on both. Half and half. Boom.

BEER WAFFLES

2 cups flour

12 oz Guiness

1/2 cup butter (1 stick) melted

1/4 cup milk

2 eggs, separated 

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

chocolate chips

How to separate an egg for beginners: crack it in the middle, but don’t shatter it cause you actually need two halves of the shell. You kinda slide the yolk back and forth between the two shell halves, letting the egg white fall into a bowl below. The important thing is that no yolk gets into your white-bowl, otherwise they won’t beat properly.

Mix flour, beer, butter, egg yolks, milk, sugar, and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they have “stiff peaks,” which is to say they hold their shape when you make an egg white pyramid with your fork. Fold egg whites into the flour mixture gently.

Spoon into preheated and sprayed waffle iron. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top and close waffle iron. Cook until deliciously golden brown.

JACK DANIELS SYRUP

Half Jack, half Jemima. Or less if you want, we were just really getting after it.

BAILEY’S WHIPPED CREAM

For the ladies. Mix 2 tablespoons Bailey’s into a caup of heavy cream and beat until stiff. Don’t overbeat, or it’ll get nasty.

JELLO SHOT FRUIT

1 package Jello (orange or strawberry, because those are breakfast flavors)

1 pint strawberries

2ish oranges

1 cup vodka

1 cup water

First things first: prepare your fruit. For oranges, halve and hollow out so you just have the skin. Strawberries take a little more work. Wash them, then cut out the leaf-part so it’s hollow. To make it stand up, you have to slice a little off the bottom to make it flat. Be careful though because if you slice off too much, you’ll make a hole and the jello will seep out and you will just have.... a plain strawberry cut funny.

Make your jello. 1 cup boiling water mixed with jello powder. Wait for it to cool a bit so you don’t evaporate off the alcohol, then add 1 cup vodka. Using a spoon and a lot of patience, spoon jello into the hollowed out strawberries. I suggest standing them up in a brownie pan in case there’s a leak. When you’ve finished your strawberries, pour the remainder of your jello into the orange halves and put those in the brownie pan too. Put the whole thing in the fridge overnight to harden

In the morning, slice the oranges using the sharpest knife you own. Do this... before you start drinking. 

CANDIED BACON

Ok, this isn’t alcoholic. But it’s delicious. Line a pan with tin foil and arrange slices of bacon on top. Sprinkle brown sugar over the bacon slices. You’ll probably need 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar, depending on your tastes and the amount of bacon you have. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes or until crispy.

GOLDSCHLAGER CINNAMON BUNS

Our friend Rennie came up with this one, and it was a delicious and surprisingly alcoholic.

1 package crescent rolls

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon (or more, depending on taste)

3 tablespoon melted butter

goldschlager

1 cup powdered sugar

First, mix the butter, sugar, cinnamon, and about 2 tablespoons of goldschlager

Open the packages of crescent rolls and unroll them, but don’t separate the rolls where they’re perforated. Spread the cinnamon sugar mixture all over the crescent rolls and then roll the dough up into a long, tight... log.

You can put it in the fridge overnight, then slice into 1 inch cinnamon rolls when you’re ready to bake. Bake at 350 on a greased cookie sheet for about 15 min, but keep an eye on them so they don’t burn!

While they’re in the oven, mix 1 cup powdered sugar with about 3 tablespoons of goldschlager. You don’t want the icing to get too watery, so it’s probably best to do this in little doses so you get the texture right.

When the buns are out of the oven, stack them on a plate and pour icing over them.

AND THERE YOU GO. Breakfast of champions.