You’ve heard of cherry coke, there’s even vanilla coke, there are weird diet cokes, and random odd flavors that come out every now and then. This concoction you have to make on your own though.
Last year at an Italian festival nearby, there was a stand advertising, vanilla coke, cherry coke, and chocolate coke. I’m a coke addict so I had to see what was going on, and the lady at the stand showed me how to make it, and now I will share it with you!
Ok, its not that big of secret. If you haven’t figured it out yet, the ingredients are simple:
Pour in the coke.
Add some chocolate syrup and stir. (It has to be syrup, chocolate milk powder mix DOESNOTWORK. Believe me, I tried.)
I recommend adding ice, after mixing in the syrup, otherwise you get little chocolate globules floating throughout the drink.
Also don’t worry when it fizzes up when you add the syrup, its just what it does.
My friend and I have spent over half a year renovating a house to live in. Its an old house, over 100 years old. The plaster was falling down and everything was painted bright blue and ugly pink/brown/orange. It wasn’t even awesomely kitchy in tacky 1970 colors, it was just downright ugly.
I would post the pictures directly here but the Realtor is a friend of mine, and she seemed doubtful when my roommate said he’d take it. We plan on having her over once its done completely and hope she doesn’t have a heart attack at 23. So if you’re my house selling friend, don’t look yet! Everyone else click on through.
The plaster from all walls except for one closet was torn down (now that was fun), and this is what the kitchen looked like (and thats after cleaning it up a bit). The kitchen along with the rest of the house has improved greatly. The kitchen is so big I almost don’t know what to do with myself.
Except cook.
The only problem is that we hadn’t done any real grocery shopping since well, I don’t even remember. All we had were little bits and pieces that had made it through packing, storage, and then floating around the house for a while. I realized though, that we did have enough for a quick stir fry like meal.
Start by thawing about 1/2 to 1 pound of chicken (whatever kind of chicken you may have) or if you’re vegetarian – tofu, meat substitute or whatever you’ve got.
When you are done using the microwave for thawing (or if you don’t have to thaw the meat at all) cook some boxed rice according to the package’s microwave instruction (this is gourmet cooking we’re doing here).
If you have enough cookware, feel free to cook the rice on the stove. I couldn’t find my saucepan, but I could find a large microwave safe bowl, so that’s how I made it.
Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and lightly shake on some soy sauce.
Heat up a large skillet with a little bit of oil in it (or skip the oil if you don’t have any).
Cook the chicken until cooked through and tasty and golden (or not if you prefer that sort of thing).
Add the frozen vegetables. Yes add them frozen, we’re lazy here people. Use however many vegetables you want. I used a box of Asian teriyaki vegetables, and 1/3 a bag of green beans. Add about 1/4-1/2 a cup of water to help steam the veggies.
Normally this is where I would cover the food to let the steam help thaw out and cook the veggies, but I have no idea where the lid is. I was just happy to find this pan. So if you have a lid, stick it on. Stir occasionally to break up the veggies as they thaw.
When the veggies have separated, its time to add some sauce.
We had some bottled sweet and sour sauce and some soy sauce, so I poured some on. I contemplated using some oriental sesame chicken marinade we had on hand too, but there was already teriyaki sauce in some of the frozen vegetables.
There was still alot of water left in the pan so I decided to thicken it, But then I realized we didn’t have any cornstarch. So I used a few spoonfuls of flour instead, and it actually didn’t turn out too badly.
Spoon out some of the cooking water into a bowl and then whisk in the thickening agent with a fork. Make sure its as smooth as possible before adding it back to the food, otherwise there will be lumps.
Take the rice out of the microwave and laugh at the smiley face the seasonings made as it was cooking, and contemplate selling it on ebay along with mary on toast.
Cook the stir fry for a few more minutes until things thicken up a bit and you’re done!
I made this smoothie this morning to hide a bunch of stuff I didn’t want to taste. I’m suffering from my second spell of illness in the past month. It has not been fun. (It’s also why I haven’t been posting, who wants to eat something a sicko ate?)
My dad gave me some anti-viral elderberry extract to help me get better, and stay better. Its not that it tastes bad, its elderberry extract, its just stronger than strong. Usually when you think of extracts you think of little bottles of alcohol-y fruit flavored liquids you add to things you are cooking or baking. Not this stuff, this stuff is almost as thick as honey, and as dark as molasses. Usually I take a spoonful of the stuff and pour it right down the back of my throat. This morning my brother’s magic bullet sitting right next to the bottle of extract was calling to me.
4 oz wide rice noodles
hotwater
1 lime halfved
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
pinch red pepper flakes
1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp peanut oil
1/4 c cilantro chopped
1 egg
1/4 c unsalted peanuts
1 c bean sprouts
Soak the noodles in hot water in the medium mixing bowl while you make the sauce and scramble the egg.
Squeeze the juice from the lime into a small mixing bowl. Dig out any seeds with your fingers and discard the seeds. Add the fish sauce, garlic powder, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, sugar, and the peanut oil to the lime juice. Beat with a fork to combine.
Scramble the egg in the skillet over medium heat. When the eggs are solid drain the water off the noodles and add them to the skillet.
Add the sauce, the peanuts, and the bean sprouts to the skillet. Stir everything together with the tongs, and cook until its all warm.
Turn off the stove, take the skillet off the burner, and transfer your super fly ad thai to serving plates with tongs. Sprinkle with cilantro.
2 6-oz cans chunk light tuna, drained
1 15-oz can small white beans, cannellini or great northern
10 cherry tomatoes
4 scallions, trimmed and sliced
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
ground pepper to taste
Combine tuna, beans, tomatoes, scallions, oil, juice salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Stir gently. Refrigerate until reado to serve.
The holidays just aren’t the holidays with this tasty
Cocktail Weenies
Currant Jelly
Yellow Mustard
Mix equal parts mustard and jelly, enough to cover the cocktail weenies (but don’t add them yet!). Warm in a small crock pot until jelly blobs are gone. Add weenies and cook until warm.
(You can also slowly microwave the sauce instead of using the crock pot.)
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