Eats & Drinks

OK, so it seems only my truly helpful posts get page views up here in this humpty bumpty, so I figured I'd start posting recipes and stuff and not 'cause I'm a chick and think our place is in the fucking kitchen, but because food is awesome and everyone should learn to cook at least one kick-ass thing in his/her lifetime - especially dudes who seem to be less inclined to learn how to cook even though most master chefs are men. Why is that? I do not know. Ah, irony... 

Once upon a time I dreamt of finding a guy who could cook but it looks like that's just not in my cards so I'll just have to be happy that I found one that meets most of my dream guy criteria (attractive, gainfully employed, well hung, etc.).

Anyhoo, here goes it. Even if you hate my recipes hopefully you'll find some sort of entertainment value in them.    

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Perfect Pulled Pork Chili

posted Dec 9, 2013, 9:38 AM by H3ATHER S   [ updated Dec 9, 2013, 9:56 AM ]





I pilfered this recipe from a restaurant, though it turned out not all that similar to their "award winning" chili that they serve - probably because I fucked up the recipe somewhere, though according to The Boy, mine is better. Because it's in my favor, I'm going to say it's a cold, hard fact that mine is far superior. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

This recipe is a complete pain in the ass to make, so you're going to need a lot of time and motivation for this. Generally I have an average amount of the former, but not a lot of the latter, but once I committed I pretty much had to see it through because it's also not a cheap recipe. It uses 5 pounds of chilis which cost me a financial ass-raping by Wegmans, so I was gonna be damned if I let that go to waste.

Anyway, here goes:

Ingredients:
  • 3-4 lbs pork shoulder/butt cut in big cubes (like 2"X2", but you don't have to be scientific)
  • 2.5 lbs (yes pounds) Anaheim peppers
  • 2.5 lbs poblano peppers
  • 2 large onions diced
  • 3-4 cloves garlic diced
  • 2 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes
  • 2 qt chicken stock
  • 3 slices bacon
  • 1 bottle dark-ish beer. 
  • 3 tsp cooking oil
Dry rub:
  • 3 tsp chili powder
  • 3 tsp ancho chili powder
  • 2 tsp cumin
So first you need to mix the dry rub and rub that shit all over the cubed pork and let it sit overnight (in the fridge unless you're into explosive diarrhea).
Pork Pork Pork! (and dry rub)

About 5-6 hours before you want to eat, you need to get your ass in gear and start working on cooking this shit up. First, you need to roast, peel and seed the 5 pounds of chilies. This takes a fuckton of time. If you've never roasted and peeled chilies before, you can google how to do that shit yourself, but in a nutshell, you can do this in the oven or on a grill or over a gas stove. I did it in the oven. 

Quick and dirty guide to roasting chilies
  1. Broil/grill the fuck out of both sides of the chilies (until they are charred and black - 5-7 minutes on each side)
  2. Throw the chilies immediately into an airtight container (like a ziplock bag or a bowl with a sealable lid) and let them fester in there for 10-15 minutes.
  3. Remove the chilies and peel them. The skin should come off fairly easily.
  4. Slice the chilies like you're gutting a fish and remove the stems and get out all the seeds. 
Important note: don't rub eyes or fondle your junk until you wash your hands several times. Even though the chilies aren't that hot, they'll can burn your sensitive bits like a motherfucker. 

Roasted Peppers

So the rest should go fairly quickly. 
  1. First, get a really really big pot and brown the pork in the cooking oil.
  2. Remove the pork with a slotted spoon (leaving the drippings) and then cook the onion and garlic until soft and almost caramelized. 
  3. Add cooked bacon - you can throw it in uncooked, but cooking gets rid of a lot of the unnecessary grease 
  4. Throw in the beer and stir it around
  5. Add pork, chicken broth, tomatoes and chilies (you can throw them in whole, but I cut them up into large-ish chunks)
  6. Cook on a low simmer for 3ish hours - I kept it partially covered for the first two hours and then uncovered it and raised the heat up a smidge for the last hour to reduce the liquid
Blurry pic after everything is combined in the pot. 

Serve with cheese, tortillas, chips, sour cream, etc. 

Note that there's no beans in this chili. It's awesome without beans, but if you want to fuck it up with beans I guess you could add some.

Don't Throw Those Beet Greens Away, Asshole!

posted Jun 17, 2013, 7:42 AM by H3ATHER S   [ updated Dec 9, 2013, 8:33 AM ]


So I bought some beets at the local farmers' market this past weekend. I shop at farmers' markets to feel superior because it's what all the cool kids do.

Anyway, if you didn't know already, not only can you eat the root part of the beet (that would be the round red part for you idgits out there) but you can also eat the greens. The greens are similar to Swiss chard or kale and they're good for you so you should fucking eat them if you happen to buy fresh beets.

But then the question is how you cook them. Pretty much you cook them the same way you'd cook any other leafy green, but here's a quick, decent recipe:

Ingredients:
  • Beet Greens
  • Diced onion
  • Smoked Salt*
  • Black Pepper
  • Olive Oil

The amount of each varies based on how many greens you have. You can pretty much wing it.

  1. Wash the beet greens well, then dry well and chop them into large pieces
  2. Steam the greens until they are wilted and then remove from heat
  3. Saute the onions in olive oil until tender
  4. Add beet greens to the onions and heat through
  5. Finish with smoked salt and black pepper to taste

And that's it. 
*A note about smoked salt:

If you've never had this, its pretty awesome. I bought mine at Target for like 4 bucks, but if you're a pompous asshole you can buy the overpriced shite that they peddle at Williams-Sonoma, or if you're a true hipster you can make your own by grilling salt over hickory or mesquite (but seriously, ain't nobody got time for that shit, right?).

Also, bacon salt might be pretty awesome with this recipe.




Perfect Roasted Potatoes

posted Aug 17, 2012, 10:58 AM by Heather S   [ updated Dec 9, 2013, 8:34 AM by H3ATHER S ]



Everyone has fancy schmancy recipes for roasted potatoes. They're all crap. Potatoes don't need rosemary or honey or paprika to be awesome. The key isn't in the spices. The key is in how you cook them.

During recent months I've probably made more roasted potatoes than the rest of the world combined. Seriously. The boyfriend could literally live off of potatoes. And you might now surmise that he must be a big fat fuck, but you would be wrong. He's pretty much the antithesis of a fat fuck. In fact he could probably stand to put on a few pounds...

Anyway. The key to roasted potatoes is getting them crispy. Soggy smushy potatoes suck, as do undercooked one.

As a disclaimer before I begin, there is nothing healthy about most of my recipes. You can try and substitute less fattening shit, but I guarantee that this will fuck up the recipe and make your food taste like crap.

And with that, here goes:

  • 2.5 pounds yellow or white potatoes (that would be half a 5 pound bag for the math rejects out there)
  • 1 stick butter - and use REAL butter
  • Salt and Pepper to taste (I like to use Lawreys seasoned pepper, but use whatever you want)
Those are the only ingredients you need for kick-ass potatoes. Seriously. I shit you not.

OK, so first you peel the potatoes and then you cut them into large bite-sized pieces, like a piece that you could shove in your mouth all at once if you were eating at a medieval feast and had a fist-sized fork in one hand and a giant turkey leg in the other, but that may make more sense to cut into a couple of smaller bites on any other occasion. So for your average potato, this means cutting it into quarters.

Throw all your potatoes into a pot of water with a good slug of salt and then bring them to a boil on the stove. Cook them until they are just tender enough to get a fork into them with little difficulty, but try not to overcook them to the point that the outsides are mushy.

Once your patoots are cooked through, drain them and then pour them into a shallow, butter-greased baking pan (use the stick you've got on hand). 

Spread out the potatoes so that all of them are touching the bottom of the pan and none is piled on top of another. 

Melt the rest of your stick of butter and then pour it as evenly as you can over your potatoes.

Season with salt and pepper and then bake them in the oven at 350 for at least 90 minutes (I prefer closer to 2 hours). The longer you bake them the crisper they get. The side of each potato that is touching the pan will get a really nice crunchy buttery crust - this is the key to the most awesome roasted potatoes. 

You can also bake them around a roast which makes them even more awesome because the potatoes will absorb the juices.

And there you have it. Come to think of it, it's sort of a stupid recipe. I mean, how hard is it to roast potatoes, right? But the thing is that most peoples' (and restaurants') roasted potatoes suck ass, so I guess it must be pretty hard.

Anyway, here's a picture of some leftover potatoes that the boyfriend housed in one sitting. Next time I make them (which will probably be soon), I'll try and get a better picture of them fresh from the oven, though don't hold yer breath on that one because my memory sucks donkey balls. 


The Perfect Margarita

posted Aug 15, 2012, 2:02 PM by H3ATHER S   [ updated Aug 16, 2012, 9:22 AM ]





Why not start out this recipe extravaganza with a recipe for booze? Whoever said that love made the world go around was full of shit. It's booze. Booze makes the world go around. Case-in-point: ever been to a dry wedding? It blew right? If love made the world go around, basking in the blossoming love of the bride and groom should have been enough to warm your heart, but it wasn't, was it? BOOM! There you go, love is crap. Booze is where it's at.

Anyway, the perfect margarita requires 4 ingredients, a garnish, a glass and salt if that's what floats your boat. That's it. And most importantly the perfect margarita does NOT require a blender. Frozen margaritas are for sorority girls, underaged drinkers (which I do not condone in any way shape or form of course) and half-wits. If you're looking for a frozen bar drink, go buy a  Slurpee® and add your shitty alcohol of choice to it. Or better yet, learn to cultivate some adult fucking tastebuds.

So here's what you need:
  • 1 shot Tequila* - Make it a good one. I'm partial to Don Julio, but Patrón can do in a pinch. Get a Reposado - or if you want to go balls to the wall, an Añejo.  Stay the fuck away from the Gold.
  • 1 shot Cointreau or Grand Marnier - DO NOT use standard Triple Sec. The only thing that shit is good for is kamikazes and the only thing kamikazes are good for is getting shitfaced so you can wake up with ugly strangers.
  • 1 shot Rose's lime juice (you can also use regular lime juice to cut the sweetness)
  • Ice
So you take all the shit listed above, shake it with some ice and then pour it over ice in a glass (that can be salt rimmed) and garnish it with a wedge of lime.

That's it. And no substituting margarita mix. Margarita mix is disgusting.

* OK, for those of you unfamiliar with tequila, they are grouped into categories based on the aging process - Gold/Oro/Joven, Blanco/Silver, Reposado, Añejo, and Extra Añejo. The Gold is generally shit. This is rail tequila. This is what they usually make those shitty frozen margaritas out of. The best tequila is 100% blue agave - this is what makes tequila tequila. Gold tequilas add other shit making it that gold color (though sometimes blends of various aged 100% blue agave tequilas are also called "Gold" so read the label). 

Blanco or Silver tequila is 100% blue agave tequila that is not aged (or aged less than 2 months), so it's going to have a very strong flavor. Some peeps like this. Most peeps don't. Because it's un-aged, it is clear in color, hence the name. If you're scratching your head right now because you don't understand that last sentence, "blanco" means "white" in Spanish, you effing moron.

Reposado is aged for at least 2 months up to a year in oak barrels, so it'll start to take on a gold color. Don't confuse this with Gold tequila. 

Añejo is aged for over a year, up to 2. And Extra Añejo is aged for longer than that. The longer booze is aged the smoother it gets. If you know anything about booze, you should know this already. If you think tequila is really just for margaritas and shooting, you'd be wrong. A really good Añejo and even some Reposados are great sipping tequilas. If you hate tequila because of some horrible incident in college involving dry-heaves and waking up naked in the chem lab, that's a shame because you're really missing out on some pretty kick-ass booze. It's also possible that you hate tequila because you've never had a good one, so perhaps you should find a good Añejo and give it another go.



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