Makeshift Foodie Project

This week I also decided to try to make some onion rings, as I had purchased an onion at the grocery for the pizza casserole but opted not to use it once I re-worked the recipe. I've used eggs in the past to help coat things, so I thought a little flour seasoned with salt and pepper would coat the onions sufficiently.

I hate cutting onions. I worked at a ballpark concession stand one summer and had to cut onions almost every day. I could never do it without my eyes burning immensely, so I thought this time I'd try some no-cry tips for cutting onions. I used the overhead fan on my oven, burned a candle next to the cutting board to help absorb some of the fumes, and I also rinsed the onion multiple times in hot water while slicing it. I did all this while breathing through my mouth instead of my nose. I still had some tears and burning in my eyes by the end, although it wasn't near the experience I usually have. I tried. The real problem I ran into was my laziness. I only wanted to have to put the rings in the oven one time, so I cooked multiple rings together until my tray was full. See?

This turned out to be not such a great idea. The rings in the center of larger rings didn't get brown enough, while the thinner ones were dangerously close to burning by the time I was done. I think I had the oven on 425 still, as I did these the same day I cooked the potato. I may have bumped it down to 400. Here's the finished product:

The onions themselves were done enough, so I had no problems there. However, I would not recommend coating with mere flour. All I could taste was onion and flour. They didn't have that great crispy taste that fried restaurant rings tend to have. They certainly weren't terrible, but they could have been far better. If I attempt this again, I will certainly try with a different coating or batter.

Pinterest Project: More Foodie Ventures

I mentioned my newfound fascination with Pinterest in my last post. I've found several recipes on there, but there are a lot I haven't tried due to the fact that I'm only one person, and cooking for one is a bitch. It's easy to make casseroles and large dishes, but I have to eat on them for so long that by the time I'm done, I am so sick of whatever I prepared that I won't eat it again for months. This happened last week with the dish I posted about, the pizza casserole. It was delicious, but by the second day of eating two meals worth of this, I was over it. Fortunately, I was able to share a serving with a friend of mine who thoroughly complimented me.

I also mentioned last time that I was looking for avocado recipes. I decided to go with an avocado-banana smoothie recipe that I found online. This was decent, but it was a little too thick and a little too heavy on the banana flavor for my taste, so I'm still looking to expand on this avocado trend.

One foodie project I tried this past week was one I had spotted a while ago but just hadn't attempted yet. Another was one I stumbled upon and tried almost immediately after discovering. The first was a twist on the baked potato. Here's the photo:

The instructions were to cut thin slices in a whole potato, almost all the way through but not quite. (As you can see, the one in the picture also contains chives.) Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, sprinkle some parmesan on top, and bake at 425 for 45 minutes. I had a pretty simple time cutting through the potato.

I didn't have any parmesan, so I decided to use some shredded mozarella I had left over from the pizza casserole. Knowing how cheese behaves in the oven, I waited until the potato was almost done before throwing some mozarella on there. It still browned a little more than I intended, but it tasted fine. I didn't have to leave the potato in for but about 35 minutes. It came out like this:

The next thing I tried was a "mug cake", which in this instance was more like a mug cookie. It was ingredients for a single chocolate chip cookie dough cake mixed in a coffee mug and cooked in the microwave. It only took a minute, minute and a half and the clean-up was amazing.

Click here for the link. As you can see, I did not use chocolate chips, but I did have part of a dark chocolate bar on hand, so I broke that up into small pieces and used that instead of the chips.

Ta-da! All that was left was to top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and I was good to go.

The first few bites while the cookie was still warm were quite delicious. I'm not sure if the ice cream softened it up or what, but once I got further down the cookie/cake was just too spongy and chewy for my taste, so I threw the rest of it out. But I was proud of myself for having the gumption to try something like this. And all in all, it was another successful foodie project - successful as in it didn't catch fire or taste like shit.