Saturday, January 26, 2013

Saturday Experiment: Nutella Swirl Muffins

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "What kind of Google fail caused my search for 'Winter Gazebo Maintenance' to land on this page?" (hint: remove the quotation marks.) 

Alternately, if you actually came here on purpose (which is unlikely), you're thinking, "This chick who makes lentil soup that tastes like dirty water experimented in the kitchen? What kind of disaster was that!"

Well ye of little faith (and ye of the winter gazebo maintenance), let me tell you it was awesome! It was the best thing I ever did. Nothing will ever compare to my Nutella Swirl Oatmeal Muffins. Nothing!

Except maybe the dirty water lentil soup I'm making right now.

Is this sink or swim?
*sigh* It sounded like a good idea at the time. I saw this recipe online for Nutella Swirl Banana Muffins where you just made banana muffin batter as usual, dolloped Nutella on the top of the batter once it was in the pan, and then swirled the Nutella into the batter with a toothpick.  It sounded so simple:  I could just swirl Nutella into any muffin and have a tasty, wavy gravy, Nutella treat.

Alas, that was not so. First of all, oatmeal muffin batter is kinda thick. Second of all, because it's been cold, my Nutella was kinda solid.  The result was that I couldn't actually swirl the Nutella into the batter. Instead it kinda just mushed into the top of the muffins. 

The result was oatmeal muffins with gross-looking Nutella tops. You should be happy that I don't take pictures of my food before it's eaten.

It wasn't bad. I washed it down with some coffee. Spousal Unit liked them, but Spousal Unit also drinks almond milk. 

Fortunately I only ruined half the batch of muffins. I just put chocolate chips in the other half and called it a day.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Keep Your Turkey Away from my Chili!

There's this guy in the office who eats chili every day. OK, he may not eat it every day, but he eats it so often that if I smell chili reheating in the microwave, I assume he's nearby.

His chili smells really good, and one day I asked him for his recipe. He told me his recipe wasn't authentic, and Ireplied that I didn't believe there was such a thing as an authentic chili recipe. But then he told me that his was made with ground turkey and lima beans, and I changed my mind.

Then again, I eat lentil soup that tastes like dirty water.

Anyways, Spousal Unit bought organic, free-range, antibiotic-free, all-natural, old cow ground beef the other day. I asked him if, for the love of all that was good and true, he could, for once, not insist on making spaghetti with meat sauce with it. He asked what I suggested, and I suggested chili with black beans.

Spousal Unit hates black beans -- but he loves lima beans, ironically enough -- but he made it anyways. I brought the leftovers for lunch. He made himself a turkey sandwich instead.

Not authentic, but lima-bean-free.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

100th Post! Polenta! Chicken! Cheetos!

Hello everyone -- if anyone is reading this at all at this point...

Welcome to the 100th post here at Food I Have Eaten.

Posts have been few and far between lately. I have an actual deadline approaching at work and a toddler who doesn't believe in sleep, so I have almost no time to actually write anything that doesn't go something like, "When developing a custom component, ensure that you have imported all the SDK libraries."

To top it off the God of the Snack Closet i.e., Linda, the office manager, was on vacation for a while before and after the Christmas/New Year break. This meant that the snack closet was bare. There was literally nothing in the closet. It was so bad that people started eating the sugar. I kid you not:  By the second week of the new year people had eaten through the whole giant box of sugar packets and everyone had to have their coffee -- espresso included -- black.

Needless to say, mutiny was imminent.

Fortunately Linda came back from vacation and the closet was replenished. And what bounty! There were chocolate chip cookies, Two Bite Brownies, chips, crackers, and, the piece de resistance, Cheetos! And not just any Cheetos: The crunchy kind!

The chocolate chip cookies and brownies disappeared within a day and a half. I had two cookies on the morning the package was opened. That was it.

The sacred imprint of crunchy Cheetos!
But Linda, in her wisdom, had provided us with a family-size bag of Cheetos. Oh how we pigged out on those! We had them for breakfast; we had them as lunchtime condiments; we had them with our coffee; we ate them as a late-afternoon snack. It was glorious!

During this time, spousal unit and I decided that we were sick of  making food that consisted of opening a can and heating it up. Just because there's a resurgence of 60s/50s nostalgia doesn't mean we have to eat like we're still on war rations.

Anyways, as such we made chicken cacciatore with polenta.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking how two people who seemingly can't get a lentil soup to not taste like dirty water can make a chicken cacciatore with polenta that doesn't suck. Well the answer's simple: chicken cacciatore is easier to make than lentil soup. You can't really fuck up a dish that involves chicken, tomato and wine -- it practically flavours itself. Meanwhile, you can totally screw up flavouring lentils boiled in water.

As for polenta: it's deceptively easy to make. You should try it. It's very tasty.

Easier than a lentil soup! Faster than a beef stew! It's chicken cacciatore!