holy blogging hiatus.

Well, this is a sad little gap in the life o' this blog.

Even more sad is the complete lack of food shtuffs I have to blog for you! I have spent the last week eating out on my parents' dime, and consumed at LEAST my body weight in crawfish. We also dined at the fabulous Phillipe (on Post Oak), which I highly recommend to anyone looking for some good eats in Houston.




So instead of recipes, I bring you some goodies you should pick up for yourself. Number one:




THIS. JUSTIN'S VANILLA ALMOND BUTTER. HOLY HELL CRACK IN A CAN.

Seriously, just buy it. You can thank me later. Just don't blame me for the weird looks you will inevitably get as you wander around your house, sucking on a spoon. (or you could be a bit more normal and spread it on an English muffin)

Alright this next one is if you're feeling ambitious and have time to kill:




The book alone is worth it for the marshmallow-chocolate chip-cornflake cookies. These are also crack. Not exactly the easiest recipe, but follow it to the T and you get this:




Which becomes this:




HOLY HELL BEST COOKIES EVER. even my mom said so. So THERE.

I will be experimenting with some more recipes for a block party this weekend, so I'll be sure to report back.

And maybe I'll be able to whip out a new recipe or 2 soon. Stick around.

world's most awesome, do-it-yourself, crab cakes. promise.

I’m really sorry, but unless you’re allergic to shellfish, there is no reason not to like crab cakes. They are delicious. And crunchy. And summery. And awesome.

The moment I became a real person with my own kitchen (and the subsequent rent – now mortgage – that comes with it), I worked on creating a perfect crab cake, reminiscent of the flaky, crispy delicacies that I tasted in restaurants. McCormick and Schmick’s, though a chain, has, hands down, my favorite crabby patty. I just freakin LOVE when you can put your fork into a good crab cake and it immediately flakes apart, and you get bites of soft crab along with a crispy exterior. I am mildly in love with crab cakes, if you couldn’t tell.

EXCEPTTTTT – problem. I could not, for the life of me, come close to creating a similar masterpiece of my own. I mean, my crab cakes tasted good… but the texture? Not so much. I tried different methods of baking, frying, yada yada yada. No bueno.

Backtrack to Christmas, when my lovely fiancé gave me a gift card to take a cooking class at Sur La Table. I scoured all the menus and immediately pounced when I saw one that included crab cakes on the menu. BOOM. DONE. Would I finally get to learn how to create my own perfect crab cakes?

Alright, I’m gonna give it away – I did. These are so easy, and hands down the best crab cakes I’ve ever created. No lie. I beg you to try to ruin them (short of burning them, but that’s your own fucking fault). I was dubious that I could execute this recipe without the pre-measured ingredients from the cooking class, but I managed to pull them off brilliantly a few days later. Not gonna lie – it was a proud moment in my kitchen.

So, without further ado… crab cakes WOOOOO!

You need –

- Crab duhhhh (just buy one package, I dunno the measurement, but refer to the picture below); I got regular lump crab
- ¼ cup of mayo
- 1 egg, beaten
- FRESH parsley, about ¼ cup, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp Old Bay
- 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
- Garlic powder, salt, pepper – all to taste
- ½ cup panko breadcrumbs




Preheat the oven to 200.

In a bowl, beat that egg up, and then add the mayo, bread crumbs, parsley, Old Bay, Dijon, salt, pepper, garlic. I kinda just eyeballed the Dijon and all the dry spices.




Mix that all up, then dump in your crab meat and fold it in, being careful to preserve the chunks (aka don’t pulverize it). I would suggest tasting a small bit at this point, to make sure the spice ratio is right. I ended up adding a bit more Old Bay, Dijon and salt, personally.




Form your crab patties in any size you’d like (you can do minis for party apps, or full on meal size monsters). On a piece of tin foil, sprinkle some more panko crumbs and lightly roll the cakes in the panko, giving them a light coating.

In a large non-stick skillet, heat REGULAR olive oil over medium-high heat (not extra virgin, unless you wanna burn these things and smoke yourself out of your house). Once the oil is shimmering, gently place the crab cakes in the pan and sauté for about 3 minutes on each side, until golden brown.

Transfer to a SILPAT or tin foil lined pan, and pop in the oven. The size of your crab cake will dictate how long they bake for. Basically, you are warming them through after searing them off. Pretty hard to fuck em up at this point. I made decent sized crab cakes, and I think I baked them for a total of 10 minutes – 5 minutes each side. Oh yeah, flip em half way through.

Serve with any sort of aioli or whatever you like or plain or yeah. Enjoy. Then tell me how awesome they are. I’ll be sure to thank Sur La Table by spending some money there in the next few months.

avocado schnack!!

I love avocado. LOVE LOVE LOVE. Can I say that enough? LOVE.

So when I saw this avocado salad recipe thing on pinterest, I had to try it.

Seriously, it kinda like guacamole with some more texture. AKA it makes guacamole into an acceptable sammich filling, which I’m totally down with.

You can doctor this however you’d like – for example, next time, I’ll probably toss in some ‘maters – but for my first round with this, I followed the recipe (almost) exactly.

You need:

- 1 can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 1 medium firm avocado, chopped
- Cilantro, diced (errr, a ¼ cup? Just eyeball it)
- Green onions, diced (to taste)
- Juice of 1 lime
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Your fave good olive oil (optional)

After you rinse the chickpeas, dump them on a paper towel and take off their stupid little outer shell/skin things. It’s not hard, just time consuming. Basically, if you pinch the suckers between your thumb and forefinger, they pop right off.

Mash up the skinned chickpeas with the chopped avocado, then mix in all your fixins. I added a drizzle of this fabulous fruity olive oil I got at a farmer’s market a few weeks ago. Totally optional.




Spread on your favorite sammich bread (I went with a whole wheat English muffin), add some lettuce or spinach to try and be healthy (I didn’t), and, VOILA. Bonus – this will stay green and yummy for the next day’s lunch, too!

another easy shrimp recipe (imagine that).

I almost managed to forget to photograph anything from this recipe, because it was that quick and easy. The hardest part was waiting for my sweet potato tater tots to bake (they’re from a bag, don’t get all excited here – Alexia brand, if you’re curious). But anyway, if you’re looking for a quick, easy weeknight dinner involving shrimp, here’s a good one. YES, I like shrimp a lot. Don’t judge me.

These are supposed to be some “light” knock-off of Bonefish Grill’s Bang-Bang Shrimp, which, conveniently, I’ve never had. I just made them cuz they looked good. Whatever.

Ok, so for the sauce, you need:

- 5 tbsp mayo (light, regular, homemade if you’re fucking ambitious – you get it)
- 3 tbsp sweet Thai Chili Sauce
- Sriracha hot sauce, to taste

This makes a decent amount of sauce, so if it’s just you, you can half it. Just mix everything together in a bowl. Also, the Asian ingredient are found in the Asian aisle of the supermarket. Big surprise, right?

Alright, for the shrimp, you need:

- Shrimp
- Cornstarch
- Diced green onions
- Shredded iceberg lettuce and purple cabbage (OR, you can be lazy like me, and buy pre-bagged slaw mix or Asian salad or whatever its marketed as in your supermarket)

I personally used big fat fresh shrimp from the seafood counter, but any size or quantity is fine. Between the fiancé and myself, we had 10 jumbo shrimp.

Alright, pat the shrimp dry and coat them well in cornstarch.

Heat a non-stick skillet over medium high heat. Put some oil in the pan.

Cook the shrimp until opaque and pink, about 3-4 mins each side.

Toss with the sauce in the bowl that you should have figured out to make above.

Serve over the slaw stuff, garnish with green onions. TA-DAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Hard, right?