Lunchtime!

Boursin bacon burgers.  Mmmm!

Lunchtime!

Today we're having aged, rotten pumpkins.  These ones are about three years old now.

Lunchtime!

Today we're having upside down gourd.

Lunchtime!

We're havin' gumballs with PeeWee and Regis today!

Lunchtime!

Pork chops baked with bacon and apples, potato pancakes.  More food processor magic!

Breakfast!

Turkish coffee, dark chocolate, Italian bread and butter.  Dare ya.

Mornin'

Here's some pie porn.  Enjoy.

Lunchtime!

We had a ton of leftover sliced peppers from the wedding.  And I had a vat of stuffed pepper filling in the freezer.  Ta-dum- stuffed pepper casserole!  Yeah, I know my dinners look like dog food, but this was really good- way better than burnt oven crud, honest!

Paula Dean Would Be So Proud

This is my mister actually putting BUTTER on a toasted cider donut.  Appallingly unhealthy but I gotta admit, I took a bite and that shit is GOOD.  Okay, several bites. 

Lunchtime!

Leftover pheasant on cold pizza

I know it looks bad but you know whut?  Omg did it taste good.  Rating:  5 out of 5 stars.  Would eat again.

Lunchtime!

Steak stir fry with zucchini, carrots, potatoes, onions, parsley and goodness.

True fact:  The way to a woman's heart is through her stomach.

Lunchtime!

Okay, more like dinner time but it'd still make a nice lunch!  We had "picky dinner".  Not picky as in fussy about food.  Picky as in you put a lot of little foods out and then just pick and snack for hours.  So hummus, blueberries, pumpernickel bread, cukes, carrots, cheese and crackers and my mister's tomato/onion/cuke salad.  Oh, and the aforementioned birthday brownies after.  

Also, Monster would like you to note how sad he is that this meal doesn't feature any meats.

Even Better!

Cheddar omelet with parsley, basil and carmelized onion (in bacon fat), with fresh tomatoes/ onions/ basil/ parsley on the side- and bacon!  And orange juice.  And coffee.

My mister saw my first post this morning and decided to one up the inn.  He calls it the Vermontlet (Vermont style omelet- get it?).  Also, we grew the parsley, basil and tomatoes ourselves.  And you can smoke indoors here.  I reckon it's not so bad being home after all.

Breakfast!

We went to a Vermont inn for a few days.  Now we're home and we can't just go downstairs for awesome breakfast.  Damn it.  I'm hungry.  (That's fresh tomato juice.  Fresh.  As in homemade.  It was amazing.  I want more of it.)

Lunchtime!

Okay, so it was actually dinner last night.  My mister made a zucchini-pepperjack-breadcrumb awesome fucking casserole inspired by Kevin's recipe here.

PS:  If you want to use our recipe instead, just look at the ingredients in the top picture and figure it out yourself.  The mister is out mowing.  Maybe he'll give you the recipe later.

Rusty Mojito

So we're growing Chocolate Mint.  You have to be careful with the mints.  They're powerful mojo.  Mints are very aggressive plants, and can take over a bed very quickly.

Fortunately, Broken Barn Flower Farms has many acres of space, and we can easily accomodate plants that would decimate a more restricted gardener's bed.

Chocolate mint has a definite high hint of cacao aroma when crushed, and the leaves sport brown highlights at the veins and edges.

So.   What do with??

Rusty Mojito
1 ripe lime
1 stalk chocolate mint
1 favorite bottle of rum
2 big spoonfuls of dark brown sugar
ice
seltzer (plain, lime or cranberry flavor is okay)

In mason jar, combine juice of 1 lime with two heaping cereal spoons of brown sugar.  Add 6-10 crushed chocolate mint leaves, 2-3 shots of rum, and 4 large ice cubes.  Shake until jar is cold to the touch.  Mint will be macerated by the ice.  Put four fresh ice cubes in heavy tumbler glass, strain mixture over ice to fill 1/2 way.  Add seltzer water to rim, stir and serve.

Caution:
If you make this right*, it will taste a little like ginger ale, without the ginger.  It will go down so easy, you'll wonder if you remembered to put in the rum.  You might make it again with double rum, just to see if there was some kind of mistake in the recipe.  And you'll find that it still tastes the same.  You have found the black hole of Schrödinger's Rum.  You can now drink as much rum as you want without noticing it at all.  Sounds like magic?  Just don't try standing up!

*Protip: If it tastes strong to your palate, use significantly more sugar.  Don't be afraid.  It won't make the drink taste any sweeter, only smoother.  There is a high sugar saturation point with this mixture, so don't be stingy.  You'll know when it's right.  You have two kinds of spoons, use the big ones.

We're Having a Bad Recipe Contest

Exhibit 1:  All of the ingredients for a jello mold extravaganza.

Exhibit 2:  My Mister's answer.  Soup.

Exhibit three (mine):  Party mix.

Exhibit 4 (the Mister's):  Flaming Gut.

Damn it.  He wins this round.  Til next time,

I hope you've enjoyed this segment of Shit Not To Eat!

Lunchtime!

As further proof that Giada's got nuthin' on me, I share with you this delicious and healthy recipe.  I call it...

Snack

Breton Crackers
Liverwurst
Scallions
Red Onions
Pepperjack cheese

Spread liverwurst on crackers.  Embellish as desired with other ingredients.  Serve on your finest paper towels in front of the TV.  Eat.  Mmmm!

Last Mango in Upstate New York

Mango mayo base

Add bacon (required)

Start experimenting with other ingredients

Destroy delicious sandwich!

We had one mango left last night.  And an inspiration.  Why not MLBs instead of BLTs?  It was one of those ideas that sounded weird at first but the more we thought about it, the more sense it made.  We didn't have any lettuce on hand, so we just got out a bunch of stuff and started experimenting.  The mister tried his with basil and red onion.  I tried a bit of mine with chocolate mint leaves.  Mango is kinda subtle so I thought the basil, mint and onions were too overpowering.  The mint was okay if I broke it into little tiny pieces and didn't use much of it.  Ultimately we decided that a mild green lettuce would have been best but holy shit these sandwiches were good.

Here's the combo that I liked best:

Mayo on toasted bread

A little Grey Poupon on one side

Slices of mango (as thick as you'd slice a tomato for a sandwich)

A little black pepper

Bacon (fuck yeah)

Imaginary mild lettuce

The mister liked all of the above but he used a different spicy mustard plus onion and basil.  This is a juicy, messy, greasy, to-die-for sandwich!  I think we should call them Bangoes instead of MLBs since everything other than the mangoes and bacon is optional.

Bouquet of the Day (And something new)

There's a thing called Amazon Associates that you can add to your blog.  Then when you want to recommend a product, blog readers can click on the thing.  The click will take you to Amazon where you can buy it.  You buy stuff, we get money!  For obvious reasons, I think  this is a brilliant idea.  Now just to see if we've set it up right, I'm going to try it out.  

Let me start by saying that I will never ever ever recommend something that I don't absolutely love just in the interest of earning some money.  I have a long history of being bad at doing things for money that I don't fully support (hence my sorta checkered job history).

That said, let me tell you about this Turkish coffee.

It's dark and sticky like good hash.  It's strong as hell, but it doesn't make you jittery like when you've had too much American coffee.  I learned about Turkish coffee years ago.  My mom brought some back from a trip to Israel and it's just amazing.  If you don't have any fancy coffee making equipment, you just do this:  

Boil enough water for a cup of coffee.  Dump in a heaping tablespoon of the Turkish.  Stir briefly, then let it foam up/ almost boil over.  Take it off the heat till it settles, then put it back on again for one more trip to foamy land.  Then pour it in your mug and let it settle for a bit before drinking because there will be a lot of sediment in the bottom.  You don't drink the sludge at the bottom.  (Some people use it to tell fortunes.)  I like to add a teaspoon of anise sugar too.  The smell is heavenly.  You can also add some to your regular coffee to amp it up- we just add it to the regular in the filter basket.  It doesn't come out sludgy that way.

Until this year, I rarely got to have Turkish because it's hard to find here.  Never in a million years would it have occurred to me to look for it on Amazon, but it just so happens I have a clever Mister.  He found it there and got it for me this Christmas.  Needless to say, I was delighted especially when I realized I can now get it any time I want!

Long story short, if you click on the highlighted "Turkish Coffee" above, you can go to Amazon and buy some!  Oh- you can also use it in baking or do things like roll truffles in it.  And just to prove I'm not bullshitting you, here's a picture of MY Turkish Coffee.

Turkish coffee, demitasse, butterfly weed

PS:  You can also click on the link and buy some for ME since I'm almost out.  Yet another brilliant idea, no?