pillsbury bake on.

ever since i saw a documentary on the food network in 2003, i have been obsessed with the pillsbury bake off.

i don’t know what it is. the massive ballroom full of kitchens? the chance to rub elbows with the dough boy? an excuse to eat as many cinnamon buns as i can in the name of the $1,000,000 prize?

ok, yes to all of those things. but what really really gets me is that at the heart of the bake-off, is hope.

as opposed to throwing my dreams recklessly into the lottery hole- where i leave myself entirely at the mercy of chance, the bake-off gives its entrants the element of control. your chances of making it to the big ballroom showdown are only as good as the magic you can work with refrigerated biscuit dough and canned soup.  like pedestrian top chef (with scary life sized doughboy instead of scary snide gail simmons)!

i’m a top notch food assembler (vs. a real cook), so why couldn’t i attain the same level of glory as the guy who put cookie dough in the waffle iron (genius BTW)?

i took monday off from work to hunker down and tinker with my potentially prize winning “recipes” (adding stuff to prefab cake mix isn’t exactly the true spirit of the term), and i have to say that i’m pretty fucking pleased with myself. i’ve been wanting to enter the bake-off for almost 10 years now (i kept missing the every 2 year slots), and monday was the very last day to enter. i sort of wish that i had given myself more time to hone my assemblies, but as far as my general fatness goes (especially considering my recent puffy run-in at the mall)… one day every two years to gorge myself on biscuit dough and brownie mix (well, i do have to taste test) is probably wise.

i’m not entire sure what the rules are about revealing your recipe secrets, so i’ll refrain from spilling all the details until they announce the finalists in september. but for now, i can tell you that i did something with spicy chocolate and a twist on eggs benedict (2 recipes, no spicy chocolate eggs benedict). i will also tell you that i will probably be disqualified because they think i’m a representative for TOBASCO. what can i say, i was feeling the spicy this year.  [side note: growing up, my next door neighbor was the heiress to the TOBASCO sauce fortune].

so… should i start spending my $1,000,000 now?

but seriously, do any of you out there know anyone who has ever been a finalist? i want the first hand dish!

in the test kitchen: foolproof granola bars.

good granola bars are expensive. you know, the kind that actually fill you up for more than a nanosecond, and that contain ingredients not synthesized in a laboratory? i will pay upwards of $2 for a really good granola bar, and i’m not ashamed to admit it. although i probably should be…

a while back, chris over at part time vagabond gave me an assignment to make my own granola bars. i’m not much of a baker, and assumed that the experience would be terrifying and catastrophic. but as it turned out, it was actually  pretty easy and very delicious, with minimal emotional (or physical) scarring.

now, i’m OBSESSED with home made granola bars (sorry nature valley, we’re breaking up).  the recipe i used was obscenely easy, and pretty much impossible to fuck up (even if you cook them too long, they just become crunchy granola bars instead of chewy), but i finally feel ready to make something a little more complicated- does anyone have a granola bar recipe that they love?

i am also searching for interesting flavor combinations.  i’m looking for great innovation in the world of flavor combinations. can i put cheese popcorn in granola bars? skittles? nori?

weekend pickthrough- underwater edition.

much like a gigantic jellyfish, this week came out of nowhere. i had all these brilliant plans about getting 8 hours of sleep and being a productive and worthy human… and giant jelly just wobbled in and knocked the infrastructure out of my whole week. fuck.

obviously the wordpress.com feature was totally awesome, but my goal to try and answer all my comments is slowly killing me. maybe i’m 1/4 of the way through… and then of course there was the demon dog. not only did i have to pick up poop for the first time in my life (not impressed jamie- please stick to your regular pooping schedule!), but i also had to rearrange the whole way i formatted my life. no reading in bed because the light will keep the dog up… get up half an hour earlier than usual to take the dog on a walk… my texts to the boyfriend during the work day were no longer about our days or our plans, but about the dog’s bathroom habits and who was next on the walking schedule…

and then this morning, i awoke to find that the gentlemen putting on my new roof, had sealed me into my condo with a large piece of plywood over the door and several layers of blue tarps. i had to locate a hole in the tarps to scream through so that they could let me (and the dog) out. they seemed unimpressed. also, i got asphalt in my hair.

because i was so crazy sleepless behind this week, i haven’t mined as many great pickthrough items as usual.  but hopefully you can still find something to enjoy in this slightly truncated and hastily thrown together weekend pickthrough:

i thought that reviewing applebees on tripadvisor was the lamest possible thing you could do on the internet, i was wrong.

ghost towns of the recession.

does anyone else have one of these? i’m obsessed with trying one out (and frankly i see the “sexually suggestive” nature of the product to be a pro and not a con).

amanda jennifer shows us the hidden hazards of spanx.

what’s better than an adult spelling bee? a DRUNKEN adult spelling bee.

wait, you mean that the 3rd dimension isn’t new? incessant ramblings on the suckyness that is 3-D.

dirtnap daydreams. that portland food coma guy plans the ultimate fantasy binge before he heads to the big vomitorium in the sky. (bonus points for wanting to eat sushi off a naked lady).

am i totally stupid for not realizing that you can make ketchup in your very own kitchen? yeah, probably.

and of course, the week isn’t complete without a wistful fanboy wave goodbye to LOST (i don’t know about you, but i’d cut a bitch to get my hands on daniel faraday’s notebook).

baking day of doom- now with less doom!

well, the month of january has come to a close, as has my first official baking day month. it started out as kind of a clusterfuck, and after the vegan pulled pork disaster and the missing pizza dough, i wan’t entirely convinced that this was a lifestyle that i could happily lead. but once my portions were neatly stacked in the freezer, and i was able to steal back the little portion of my day usually reserved for food preparation, things started to feel a little less hopeless and a little more sexy. not perfect indeed, but i did learn a few very important things:

1. unthawed veggie shepherds pie takes 2 hours @ 450 to cook. if i intend to do this again, i really need to learn to thaw things out overnight, for the sake of both my stomach and my electric bill.

2. if frank’s red hot wing sauce can make my vegan pulled pork (screw you and your crappy recipe vegetarian times!) edible, then it may very well have other essential curative properties. we should look into that.

3. just because a recipe says that it serves 8, doesn’t mean that it actually does (maybe if everyone is served dinner in an egg cup).

4. this is the most delicious thing i’ve had in ages.

5. as it turns out, my faux chicken & biscuits recipe gets really bland in the freezer (who knew!). luckily, copious amounts of shredded parmesean cheese & red chile flakes (combined with my macgyveresqe culinary skills) turned it into my best batch ever.

6. i eat out way too much. just because the meals are pretty much oven ready, doesn’t mean that i won’t still find ways to be lazy about it.

7. i can make a little less. after everything, i still have 1 portion left of lasagna roll-ups, spaghetti sauce, veggie chile, sausage gravy, & mushroom gravy. although it is comforting to know that i have back up food in case of emergency.

8. trying to make my own pizza dough is a terrible idea.

9. a little dessert would have been really nice.

10. i felt extremely guilty about the ziploc & aluminum toss factor that came heavily into play this month (even if it made my freezer look real pretty). it might be nice for me to invest in some freezable (and reusable) glass baking dishes.

so yes, i’m doing it again. sunday is the day (with a hearty & coupon laden grocery shop on saturday). here’s the master plot:

2-3 portions of vegetarian meatballs
2 faux chicken pot pies
2 veggie shepherd’s pies (the biggest hit of the month)
2 double batches cheesey broccoli & potato soup
2 double batches sausage gravy
1 batch spicy green chile corn muffins
2 enchilada pies
3 batches bisquick biscuits
2 portions orange curry faux chicken & rice
1 batch cookie dough in frozen single portions (i’m thinking maybe oatmeal/walnut/chocolate chip)
1 batch chocolate lava cupcakes (if i can just choose the right recipe!)

i’m iphone famous!

prepare for some serious horn tooting! i’ve done little bits and pieces of graphic design for the totally awesome local vegetarian cooking show delicious tv for about a year now, so how cool was it when they wanted me to help them design  their first iphone app! well, it’s on the market, and it was actually featured in the portland press herald this morning. woot!

veg-ez is packed full 50 great recipes & 32 videos from the show (all nicely sorted by category). what i love about the delicious tv approach, is that they’re not militant about vegetarianism/veganism. they’re not trying to convert anyone, they just want to make the concept of meatlessness more accessible to everyone. they make beautiful comfort food, accept the existence of dairy products (though they always give vegan alternatives), and are presenting their recipes in a way that can be appealing to everyone (not just the veggies).

anyway, i’m total small-time freelance non-professional graphic design dabbler, so this is kind of a huge deal for me.  i’m pretty freakin proud to be associated with something so cool.

baking day 1.0- part 1

well, my first baking day has officially begun. what’s that about me stretching the definition of the word “day”? well, i ended up having an appointment this morning that went until noon… and then i decided to go and see a movie with friends at 4ish (nine- beautiful, but utter garbage), so i didn’t exactly spend the full day as it was originally planned.

thus, since i make the rules- i’m extending baking day into tomorrow so that i can finish up everything that didn’t make the cut today. truth told, i feel like kind of an asshole about it… but i’ve come so far!

today’s successes:

1. i was able to make the following dishes from my list:
2 servings veggie chili
2 servings chicken stew
19 spinach lasagna rolls
2 shepherd’s pies
2 servings cheesy polenta casserole
2 servings cheesy vegetable soup
2 servings sausage gravy

2. the vegetable soup was something i frankensteined together from a recipe i found in a magazine, my imagination, and what i had in my fridge. it tastes good!

3. the bechamel i made as a base for my sausage gravy was the best i’ve ever made!

4. my freezer looks everything beautiful with everything stacked up so neatly!

5. the semi-picky boyfriend said that he would eat everything! (plus, he’s going to do the dishes)

on the not so great side:

1. i wasn’t able to finish the following dishes:
pulled faux pork
mushroom gravy
spaghetti sauce
corn bread
biscuits
pizza dough

2. i was one onion and a can of corn short- and somehow that involved a $12 trip to the whole foods. *angry eyebrows*

3. my kitchen looks like fucking armageddon.

still, the thumbs up list outnumbers the thumbs down list. and even if i gave up today, i’d still have a good chunk of stuff to live off of for a while. after a semi-successful day 1a (assuming that the food doesn’t taste like complete shit after it’s been unfrozen), i’m predicting that baking day 2.0 is a distinct possibility.