How to Make Koolickles

And make it look sexy….

 

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Lazy Mexican Chili

This one is for all of you foodies out there, ahem, Vyv (but read it anyway even if you are not a foodie, because I used jokes). I may not make cupcake Frankensteins, but I do treat my kitchen like a science lab on occasion. When I began blogging, I was on a serious cooking kick. I could bust out a stuffed chicken parme-something or a stuffed bell pepper without even looking at the recipe.

Lately? Not so much. I can barely find a clean cup to drink out of let alone put some Julia Child shit on the table. And, as I have mention before (in a post long ago), cooking for one can be … discouraging. So, how did I make it better? I experimented. Ultimately, Lazy Mexican Chili was born.

What you need:

1 lb ground beef
1 can sweet corn
1 package taco seasoning
H2O
Salsa
Sour cream
Mexican shredded cheese (not shredded by actual Mexicans)
Tortilla chips (optional)
A feline companion or Tequila

What to do with your junk (not your naughty junk):

Brown your ground meet. Drain it and try not to burn yourself with beef grease. Say beef grease out loud because it sounds hilarious. Say it louder so your neighbors and/or significant other can hear you and laugh too. If you have neither, tweet it to your internet friends.

Get back on track and warm up the corn in a separate pot. Put your pan with drained ground beef back on the stove and add in 2/3 cup water and the taco seasoning. Imagine your worst boss’s face in the bottom of the pan and have at it with a ladle or something. This will help break up the meat to allow for better chewing during the consuming process.

Give the beef about four minutes to get its taco on while you crumble some tortilla chips in a bowl. Once your beef is all seasoned up, put some in the bowl with the tortilla chips and start mixing in copious amounts of salsa, sour cream, corn, and cheese. Felicidades! You have made Lazy Mexican Chili. Put on a sombrero and eat it.

If you did it right, you will look something like this and a cigar will manifest itself.

NOTE: It dawned on me after writing this that the title of my dish may sound as if I am implying that Mexicans are lazy. I am not. I am implying that this recipe is lazy. I’m lazy. I am not Mexican. Glad we settled that.

There is something different about 25toFly since yesterday. I wonder what it is?

Related articles

• [Guest Post] Tacos, Enchiladas, and Mole: Mexican Culinary Staples With A Twist (thecultureur.com)
• Shredded Pork Tacos (annashortcakes.wordpress.com)
• Chili – Jamie Alexander (fox8.com)

How NOT to Cook Dinner – 20 Painful Steps

I think I am a little… off these days. I have nothing else to offer you other than specific instructions on how not to cook dinner.

Expectation

Reality (minus consoling male figure)

*All instructions are direct results of thorough investigation and experimentation by scholars of the 25tofly cooking institute on 11/26/2012 at 6:00pm.*

Nah, actually these instructions result from my lack of fluid motor skills and general cognition without wearing my LJs and consuming alcohol while cooking. If you learn anything from this, it is that you never deviate from standard protocol.

1. Buy all ingredients for a slightly unconventional Thanksgiving meal because you never got to eat any leftovers at your parents house. Include a rotisserie chicken in place of a turkey.

2. Get home and put that chicken (plastic container and all) in the oven just to keep in some of the warmth.  Leave oven off.

3. Make candied yams that look like baby food mush because you bought the wrong canned yams. Ignore this and add brown sugar to feel like you are still making it the correct way.

4. Set sweet potato slop aside and cut veggies for stuffing while slicing fingernail in half. Be thankful it wasn’t your entire finger.

5. Begin mixing the stuffing even though you realize you don’t have enough sherry to complete the recipe.

6. Forget about turkey chicken in oven and preheat to 400 degrees.

7. Add way more melted butter to the stuffing than you usually do, because the stuffing is acting like Rain-X to all moisture attempts.

8. Realize you left the chicken in the oven.

9. Panic and spill your apple cider.

10. Pull out mutated, and now surely radioactive plasticken.

11. Turn off oven and try to separate chicken from plastic container.

12. Try a piece, almost choke, and realize you will have to discard all of the chicken skin.

13. Place sides in the oven to bake for twenty minutes, but burn your hand while you are at it.

14. When the timer goes off, pull out your sides being careful not to burn your other hand.

15. You turned the oven off in step 11, dumbass.

16. Preheat oven again after you step in that drink you spilled but forgot to clean up. Your socks are now properly wet and gross and sad.

17. Bake sides for another twenty minutes while you stave off starvation by eating half of the rotisserie chicken.

18. When sides are finished baked (for real this time LOL), make yourself a plate.

19. Top it off with a roll that you smashed while trying to butter with cold butter.

20. Congratulations, you are no longer hungry. Now, put everything in tupperware, and do the dishes in scalding water to make sure you irritate your burn.

I’ll be ordering take-out tonight. You should too.

Related articles

• Make-Ahead Tips for Novice Thanksgiving Cooks (readramble.typepad.com)
• Let Your Kids do the Cooking this Thanksgiving! (cdmfun.wordpress.com)
• Thanksgiving Recap: Sweet Potato Bake (youfoodisnotsogreat.wordpress.com)

New Reads and Pumpkin Seeds

Oh, so you thought my obsession with men’s long johns was a lie? You were sadly mistaken.

If you don’t already know about Robert Hookey’s new book The Bellman Chronicles, you fail at internet, reading, and life. Just kidding… or am I?

I have been following his blog, You’ve Been Hooked, for quite some time now. The Hook handles his profession very seriously but knows when to poke fun at all that comes along with it. His hilarious takes on the wide variety of characters and situations he encounters on the clock as a Bellman are always a pleasure to read (to put it simply). So,  when I read that he published a book, I knew I had to check it out.

If you want me to get all mushy about it, I’ll say that I look up to him as a writer and think he is generally an outstanding human being and shit. He also is one of my top commenters/cheerleaders. It took me a while to get to it on my to-do list, but I finally ordered a copy which came to my doorstep last night. I’m considering it a Chrsitmas-in-October present to myself. You should do the same.

I’d also like to give a present to you while I am at it. My gift comes in the form of a recipe, but you will have to read my little story first. Get excited.

Cookies for One

[I have a thing I like to do. They call it cooking. There are a few favorite things I enjoy whipping up, but ultimately I enjoy all recipes, even if it only requires separating perforated cookie dough squares and arranging them on a pan.]

Last night I made quite the southern dish of rice and gravy with a side an entire plate of cookies. There were also some mashed potatoes involved, but I swear they weren’t instant. I wouldn’t be a real chef if I dared to make something so atrociously easy. Oh yes, that’s right, I am in fact not a chef. Thank you Idahoan loaded style instant mashed potatoes. Without you, how would I ever have gotten all of those chocolate chip packed squares divided in time? Whew.

After I clicked the last burner knob into the off position, I realized I hadn’t the slightest intention of eating anything I prepared. From the cookies to the ridiculous vat of rice and gravy, I had enough food and dessert to easily feed a family of four. Sadly, I am but one measly person. Why did I make an entire package of cookies? I don’t even eat cookies. Like ever. At least, I rationalized, the rice and gravy was not a lost cause seeing as I could eat off of that all week. But, the cookies? The cookies were futile.

I suppose what happened there was the result of my subconscious attempting to create a sense of false comfort by having a plate of cookies sitting on the kitchen counter. When you are young, single, and living in a tiny apartment where you can hear the next door neighbor blinking, it is easy to lose that i’m-at-home feeling. I must have absent mindedly come up with this cookie ploy while lost in the dairy aisle somewhere between the milk and I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-egg… or whatever. While I have yet to eat any of the cookies, maybe, just maybe, the maintenance guy will steal a couple while I am at work. That would be fantastic. I must go take cookie inventory now, but I have left last night’s non-meal recipe below. Bare with me, however, I am not good with specifics when it comes to seasonings. Just throw that shtuff in there until it tastes like Channing Tatum’s abs.

Paperback Pause

[Look! I have a really cheesy cover, and I am cheap, but it’s what’s on the inside that counts, right? Click my obnoxious cover to buy me on Amazon. Yay!

[Also, the title says “for grown-up girls”, but that shouldn’t stop the fellas from checking it out. Would I steer you wrong? Well, not intentionally at least.]

I returned to reality and a Sunday of cooking stuffed bell peppers with a new addition to slide onto my make-shift bookshelf. In her normal fashion, Booger handed down a book to me as an early Birthday present. Its title is The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown-up Girls by Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas. Her name makes my jaw hurt a bit, and I didn’t even attempt saying it out loud. Filled with activities, projects, goal ideas, and new learning/experience opportunities, you could think of this book as a sort of generalized bucket list and guide. My initial appreciative reaction was quickly followed with eagerness to start flipping pages. Upon doing so, something unexpected happened.

The beginning of this year had me sulking in the realization of all the things I have yet to do in/with my life. I have a hard time being patient when on a quest. Nothing was helping, especially not seeing all the cool stuff other people around me were doing. Then, I began writing again and went from sulking to basking in the new-found determination I had to start doing things. New or different or scary or silly or constructive or whatever kind of things, it didn’t matter. No more ruts.

The Little Things

I make an effort to buy two different flower arrangements (the cheap ones that are usually ignored but are still just as pretty) once every week or two for each of my vases. I starting doing this when I heard or read somewhere that it can help brighten your mood. I’ve kept doing it ever since, so I guess it works. These flowers were my favorite of the two I picked up yesterday. I didn’t even catch what the name of these were, and I don’t even care. Lie! If you have an eye for this sort of thing , speak up… learn me something. The point is, when I wake up with this little bit of life staring me in the face and give them a whiff, I am suddenly able to hone in on my optimistic side. It’s the little positive things… Do them because you can.

Before my horticultural hunt Sunday morning, I slept in until my eyes would stay sealed no more. That’s when I made a grocery list (laughing at myself later for forgetting trash bags). So, while my trash would be chilling in the nude shortly due to my lackluster list making skills, I did manage to grab something not on my grocery list (naturally). Coffee. I have been the obviously not so proud owner of a single cup coffee brewer since I moved away from home six years ago. It has never been used. Quite sadly, not once.

A Long Overdue Date With My Kitchen

If you have been reading any of my posts, you may know that I am not only in love with my bed but also my kitchen. Until about a year ago I knew how to make two dishes:

1. Baked chicken (I know, hold your applause).

2. French Toast.

After getting out of school and starting my job, I had a pretty good shock to the system while converting myself to a budget. I knew I would have to start making a go at cooking meals during the week to save some paper. A lot of families around here cook rice and gravy and gumbo as cheap fixes that last for days. So, I took my first cooking crack at the rice and gravy. Don’t let the name deceive you. It is not simply making some rice and adding some gravy. There is beef involved along with a tedious process for making the gravy from scratch. It is actually pretty easy to screw up (which I did… twice) if you don’t have some practice under your belt.

From there, I began Googling different recipes, downloading recipe apps on my phone, and eventually I was introduced to the almighty Pinterest. Needless to say, I’ve become a roux making, chicken stuffing, baking, sauteing boss.  Fine, I am not a boss of anything, but I can certainly crank out a pretty decent tasting and aesthetically pleasing meal. The picture above is from my cooking endeavors last night. There are a few items I must have present when showing my kitchen some TLC. Magazine for browsing while I wait on the oven to preheat? Check. Alcoholic beverage (last night I went for vodka tonic with fresh lime)? Check. Music? Check. Ingredients ready to go? Check.

[Hey, is that a diploma photo bombing my ingredients? No, I strategically placed that in the picture so you will all know how smart I am. Joke! I am not allowed to hang things on the walls of my pad, so it chills in my kitchen.]

I had only cooked once in my apartment since I moved in about a month ago, so I decided I was long over due for firing up the burners.