Long time no post :(

Apparently during your last semester of your masters program and during that summer you get really bogged down with work/finishing your thesis/moving 8 hours away/etc. I have a lot to catch up on and hopefully will get caught up in the next few days. Here's what we have coming up:

• Cajun stuffed bell peppers
• Meaty marinara sauce
• Pizza
• A tour of my mom's garden (just so you can all be jealous)
• Roasting peppers

This is Maebe being an adorable puppy. Good girl!!!

My least sustainable meal yet

I debated on whether or not I would actually share this meal with you as it’s a little odd and the only local ingredients in it are pork and lettuce but they were so delicious that I’m just going to do it anyway!

Pork tacos with mango and pineapple salsa (so delicious!)

I got pork chops in my last CSA delivery and I was unsure as to what I was going to end up doing with them. We had some leftover mango pineapple salsa from the night before so I figured I’d make delicious tropical pork tacos. All the fruits and avocado were bought at Aldi, the delicious German grocery store scattered throughout the US that has food for entirely too cheap. I’m not sure how they’re allowed to discount their prices so much but they don’t provide grocery bags so I support them. I got 2 mangos, a pineapple, and 5 (yes 5) avocados from them for a whopping $8. Are you freaking kidding me?! Avocados there are $0.89!!! That’s $2 cheaper than at the teet. 

I’ve decided to add a new segment to my blog which I think you will all find very helpful: a grocery list :)

1 pineapple

2 mangoes

Cilantro

Purple onion

Green pepper

Pork chops

Tortillas

Cheese

Sour cream (you should always have this in your fridge. Sour cream : Eastern Europeans :: EPI pen : someone having a massive allergic reaction)

Orange Juice

Garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil

Let’s start with the mango pineapple salsa, shall we?

½ pineapple

2 mangoes

Cilantro

Garlic (if there ever isn’t garlic in one of my recipes, that was a typo)

½ purple onion

Salt

Pepper

Step 1) Cut up about half of the pineapple while occasionally snacking on pieces of it. Dice it up real small like into bite size pieces. Do that with the mangoes and the purple onion.  Also dice up the cilantro so your kitchen and your hands smell wonderfully like cilantro.

Step 2) Throw all your fruits, veggies, and cilantro into a bowl.

Step 3) Add in about 1 clove of garlic, salt and pepper to taste

Step 4) Mix it all together all delicious-like and enjoy with chips while you make your tacos.

Seriously that is one of my favorite summer snacks. It’s cool, calm, and collected (like Maebe when no one is watching).

Pork Tacos!

½ Purple onion

Green pepper

Avocados

Lettuce

1 slice (about ¾ cup when measured out) of pineapple

2 Pork chops

Tortillas

Cheese (we used pepper jack and it was the bomb)

Sour cream

Orange Juice

Garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil

The marinade:

This was a bit tricky because I used the Alison methodology of following recipes which is to glance at a few recipes online, follow the common theme while cooking, and see what happens. This generally works but this past time it did not. I’ll modify it here now, without having tested it just like this, and hopefully it will be delish.**

                **what we ate was delish but these modification should make it more delish.

Step 1) Put ½ cup of orange juice, ¾ cup ish of pineapple, ¼ onion, salt, and pepper into a blender and press liquefy. This will make what looks like a smoothie but, as a former professional blendgineer, I would recommend you don’t drink it. Put this in a Tupperware or plastic zip lock bag, or whatever your marinade/meat container of choice is.

Step 2) Chop up the pork into bite size pieces and throw them in with your marinade. It looks gross, but you’ll like the results (I hope).

Step 3) Go derp around for a little bit. Maybe walk the dog, go for a jog, perhaps throw a Frisbee around. I personally enjoy pestering the neighbors although there is also always work to be done.

….2 hours later….

Los tacos deliciosos:

Step 1) Get out a nice big pan for sautéing and, on medium heat, put in olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Step 2) Put the pork (not the pork and marinade as you probably have more marinade than pork) into the pan and add a little bit of marinade.

Step 3) Watch it simmer and cook for about 5 minutes.

Step 4) Ask Jordan to remove the batteries from the smoke detector temporarily. Too late. When is my lease up?

Step 5) Did you dice your green pepper yet? I didn’t tell you to do that yet. Oops. Dice it up and then throw it into your pan. It should look something like this:

Assembly:

On top of your tortilla combine pork with peppers, lettuce, avocados, cheese, salsa, and sour cream… or whatever else you want. I bet black beans would be a nice addition to this dish but I happen to think they’re nasty.

I was skeptical about this dish but it turned out to be pheNOMenal!  One of our lovely neighbors walked into our apartment and said it smelled heavenly! Boom! I wish my smoke detector had the same sentiments…

Delicious Level: 4/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom)

Difficulty Level: Not too bad. Lots of steps

Lesson Learned: Figure out the marinade :D

Here's to eatin' good and eatin' local! Cheers and uff-da!

and now... the recipe you've been waiting for (whether or not you knew it): Milk stout marinated steak!

During my first semester at ECU, my boss took me to dinner to meet our guest speaker for the following day and wine and dine them. We ate at Starlight Cafe in downtown Greenville. That place is amazing. Steak is one of my favorite foods and of course they had on special, a 20oz local steak marinated in Duck Rabbit Milk Stout. My jaw hit the floor. As Ron Swanson once said "that's my #2 favorite food wrapped around my #1 favorite food." Once I realized it was far and away the most expensive thing they were serving that night and I wasn't picking up the bill, I thought I'd be polite and order the chicken (womp womp). I have never seen this steak at Starlight since that night. This summer I made two giant steaks for dinner and marinated them in Duck Rabbit Milk Stout and they were pretty phenomenal. Nick and Jenelle stole Whit's grill for the evening so I figured it was time to make and share the 4 steaks I had sitting in the freezer. Only this time, I made kebobs!!!!

All in all I think I had about 4lbs of Chuck Eye Steak and Flat Iron Steak

Here's what I used and how this mouth watering deliciousness made it into my belly:

• 2-3Yellow Onions
• 4lbs steak
• 2 green peppers
• Cherry tomatoes
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 cup of Worcestershire Sauce (the day I spell that correctly on the first try will be a magical day)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• 6 pack of Duck Rabbit Milk Stout (you'll only use 1 to cook, the other 5 are for drinking)- Side note: This isn't a chicken. You can't just stick a can of Beer 30 (google it) in the steaks ass, throw it on the grill, and expect a delicious steak. You have to use good beer.... and make a marinade.
• African Smoke Seasoning (if you have it... did you go to Trader Joe's and get some yet? I asked you to do that the other week!)

Step 1: Chop up your meat. I didn't do that. I was trying to make my marinade while chopping meat and that was somewhat of a disaster. Chop the meat into little bite size pieces about 1" cubed. Put it in a gallon zip lock bag or a large Tupperware.

Step 2: Ask Jordan (or anyone, you can do this step yourself if you'd like) to drink about 1/4 of the Duck Rabbit/Milk stout of your choosing

Thanks, Jordan! What a guy!

Step 3: Cut up your garlic and onions into small pieces. If you're going to marinate an entire steak, I would leave the onions in rings but sliced rings that are separated.

Step 4: Put some olive oil in a pan large enough to hold the beer, Worcestershire sauce (didn't get it that time), onions, and garlic.

Step 5: Throw in the garlic, onions, salt, pepper, and smoke seasoning and let it all flow together all juicy like for a few minutes on medium heat. We don't want to set off the smoke detector again (too late).

mmmmmmmmmmmmm already smelling delicious

Step 6: Add in the Worcestershire sauce and let things simmer a little longer. Simma down now.

Step 7: Turn the heat down a little bit or you will set the alarm off.

Step 8: Alarm is going off anyway. 

Step 9: Pour in about 3/4 of the milk stout and let it simmer for a little bit longer.

Step 10: Pour your amazing smelling marinade on the steak and put it into the refridgerator and enjoy how everyone who is walking into your apartment is talking about how good it smells! Honestly though, hot Worcestershire sauce will make anyone's mouth water.

om nom nom nom

Generally I like to let the marinade soak for a few hours. When time isn't on your side, 2 hours is sufficient.

Step 11: Clean up some stuff around the apartment and hire a nice young lady from Wisconsin to chop up 2 bell peppers and 2 yellow onions into 1" or so squares.

Thanks Janna! What a gal!

Step 12: Once your nice Wisconsinite has stabbed all the meat and veggies with the skewers, allow her to have a beer and then take the kebobs down to your grill master. In this case, my grill master was a terrifying yoga teacher from PA.

This picture of Nick is actually a little terrifying.

Step 13: Once the steak is cooked to your liking (burnt to a crisp or bloody as hell) pull them from the grill and enjoy!

These were particularly spectacular, if I do say so myself!

Delicious Level: 5/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom nom)

Difficulty Level: Easy but many many steps.

Lesson Learned: Start earlier so the steak can marinate longer.

Here's to eatin' good and eatin' local! Cheers and uff-da!

Cheeburger, cheeburger, cheeburger no coke, pepsi!

What do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef :) Now, I should end my post with that phenomenal joke but I will continue because you're probably dying to know what I did with the pounds upon pounds of natural ground beef in my refrigerator. The ground beef is generally saved for taco night and it's generally amazing. Since that would be a four-line post, I'm going to instead talk about these amazing burgers that I made the other night. To begin, I must admit that my mom makes the BEST burgers (for full disclosure I've never had a juicy lucy) so I come from a line of great burger makers. That being said, I'm generally not allowed to make hamburger patties or grill them because they end up being little ground beef balls rather than patties.... but things are going to change! This time I made some mix between a patty and a ball!!! Almost there.

Here's how it all happened...

I got some awesome burger like stuff together and threw it in a bowl with 1 pound of ground beef

I used these things:

Oils and sauces and spices, oh my!

Step 1: Throw olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, salt, pepper, and South African Smoke Spice from Trader Joes. That stuff is SO good and I highly recommend you pick up a bottle next time you see a TJ's.

Step 2: Put a healthy amount of each of those things in with your beef and mix it up real good. You're going to have to use your hands to make the patties so you may as well mix all the stuff with your hands and just get jiggy with it.

Step 3: Start to make the patties. I have no tips for this... Ms. Joy might have some tips so you could consult her. Really I just want the little burger patty press my mom has. Add it to the registry! Until then, I'll do my best!

This is me doing my best

Step 4: I don't have a grill so I just put those suckers on the stove. They had so many fabulous things mixed in with them that I don't think they really lost too much flavor.

Step 5: BACON!!!!!! Here's another little lesson for you. From my experience and generally speaking, people from the south have family rooted in the south for many many many generations. People in the north and midwest can trace their family back to their roots (or ruts if you're from the midwest) outside of the US in 2-3 generations. Example: Whit's last name is Winslow. Winslows are a dime a dozen in Eastern, NC because there was a Winslow that came over on the Mayflower. No joke. Similarly, my dad's side of the family has roots in Tennessee and our family has apparently been traced back to manifest destiny days. My mom's family, on the other hand, is from Cleveland area (I love Cleveland). My grandparents are from Slovenia/Slovakia/Hungary. We love sour cream. In Cleveland there are butcher shops and restaurants serving European fare from people 1-2 generations fresh off the boat. This means a few things: 1) I eat like a boss when I'm visiting my family in Cleveland; 2) I get to stay connected with my eastern European roots; and 3) I get to bring home so many Slovenian smoked meats from artisan butchers whenever I leave Cleveland. My uncle calls my mom and I meat smugglers. He's right. Weeping Radish Brewery in Manteo has bacon artisan butcher made bacon. I suggest you buy all of it and then give it to me for my birthday.

Step 6: Step 5 wasn't really a step.

I think I love this bacon more than most things...

Step 7: Take your delicious artisan butcher cut bacon and throw it in a pan until it's all crispy-like.

Step 8: Put a little Munster cheese on your burgers (I once asked my mom for cheese to put on my burger and she called me high maintenance (again, that's another story for another day)).

Step 9: Remove the burgers from the stove, add your delicious cooked bacon, and some avocado slices. Oh yes. Avocado bacon cheese burgers! How do you think I keep this figure? It's not with salad.

Step 10: Assemble your burgers and enjoy. SO delicious!

Delicious Level: 5/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom nom)

Difficulty Level: Pretty easy. Bacon access is limited though.

Lesson Learned: Buy a freaking patty press. My inability to make a quality patty is out of control.

Here's to eatin' good and eatin' local! Cheers and uff-da!

Laissez le bon temp rouler!!!!

Tuesday was Fat Tuesday!!! This time last year I was in New Orleans celebrating Mardi Gras with my brother and some of our closest peeps. Traveling to places like New Orleans during Mardi Gras or Brazil during Carnival really makes you understand the culture and atmosphere that surrounds those holidays (if you’re traveling right (that’s another topic for a whole other day)). When James and Parker cooked for us in New Orleans, we ate like kings and queens (Andrew, you’re in the queen category). When we went out to eat, it wasn’t as good (we’re poor people). We had Boudin, won a king cake, and so many other delicious meats and meals.

This Mardi Gras Jordan and I were way too broke to head back down to New Orleans to defend our Mardi Gras Frisbee tournament championship title and drink copious amounts of alcohol for three days. We stayed in Greenville, drank wine and beer, and played Headbanz with the rest of the members of the Tar River Compound (Garrett, Kristy, Whit, Jenelle, Nick, Janna, and Erin).

                This little get together and celebration was somewhat of a last minute decision. Since we had some pork sausage in the refrigerator that we had no idea what to do with, I figured we’d make a makeshift (wordmaster word) jambalaya in the crockpot. Here’s how that went down:

• 4 pork sausages 
• 1lb chicken breast
• green bell pepper 
•  1 large onion 
•  2 ribs celery
• 1 can chicken broth 
• 1 28oz can of diced tomatoes 
•  2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 tsb dried pasley
• 2 cups cooked rice

Step 1: Cut everything into little bite size pieces and throw that junk into a crock pot (except the rice. Don’t cook the rice yet)

Step 2: Set the crock pot for whenever you’re going to come home to eat the food

Step 3: Your peeps are arriving so go ahead and make the rice. This is my little twist which I enjoyed a lot! If your jambalaya is looking really watered down in the crock pot then substitute the water for cooking the rice with the juices from the jambalaya. You can mix half water/ half jambalaya juice but I had a lot of juices so I just cooked my rice completely with jambalaya juice. 

Step 4: Throw the rice in the crock pot, stir it up, serve yourself, and then tell everyone it’s ready.

Serve and enjoy!

Jordan likes it

Step 5: Have a friend make the beignets. They’re delish

Step 6: Bead up! It’s time to party!!!!

Delicious Level: 5/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom nom)

Difficulty Level: SO Easy!

Lesson Learned: None? That was really really really easy.

Here's to eatin' good and eatin' local! Cheers and uff-da!

Little darling, stir it up!

After reading this you may rethink my qualifications for having a cooking blog. I've never made stir fry before. I've never even cooked rice before. There! I said it! phew glad I got that off my chest!


We had some new beef stir fry meet ready to be cooked so I figured I'd go ahead and tackle it. We didn't have soy sauce (bought it, left it in Raleigh), sesame oil, peanut oil, or cooking wine. We also had no rice, carrots, onions, or bean sprouts. Basically the only thing we had in the fridge was the beef stir fry meet. Oops. In insight next time I make this meal I'll probably make it a 'clean out the fridge' type deal.

What you need for beef stir fry a la alison:
1 onion
3/4 cup of sliced mushrooms
white rice (or whatever kind of rice you choose to use)
1lb beef stir fry meat
head of broccoli (is that a measurement?)
handful of beansprouts (somewhere between Shaq's handful and Jen Arnold's handful)
Peanut oil
Sesame oil
vegetable oil
white cooking wine
soy sauce
garlic clove
ginger root (Ginger?! Whatcha doin, Ginger?!)

No, not that Ginger!!

Step 1: Find all of these things.
Step 2: chop up all the vegetables into delicious sized pieces and mix them together (bean sprouts are fine the way they are (just like you ;)))
Step 3: chop up the garlic and some ginger (Ginger?!) and throw it in your massive pan that you will use non stop throughout this meal. Make sure it can hold ALL the crap you plan to throw in it. Seriously.
Step 4: Chop up your stir fry meat into little cubes.
Step 5: Throw some peanut oil, sesame oil, vegetable oil, soy sauce and some of that nice cooking wine into a pan with your garlic and make it nice and steamy in your house. This combo should make your house smell like an Asian restaurant (in a good way). If it doesn't smell like an Asian restaurant then add some more of your favorite oil from the ones you already put in.
Step 6: Toss in the meat! Oh yeah! Cook it on medium heat so it slow cooks and cooks evenly. Your apartment should smell like deliciousness even more now.

This picture reminds me... go ahead and cook your rice. It doesn't have to be hot when you add it into the pan, just cooked.

Step 7: Remove the meat from the pan and put it in a bowl beside the stove. Add some more veggie oil and some more of that rice wine... maybe some more of the other oils too if you're feeling saucy (see what i did there?). Make sure it's all mixed up real nice like.
Step8: Throw all your veggies into the pan and stir it up. It should continue to smell like delicious. If it no longer smells like delicious then you put something gross in your stir fry. Don't do that again. Stir the deliciousness around for a while until it's all coated in the sauce and make sure the broccoli is cooked all the way. Your mushrooms won't cook through because as we learned from Julie and Julia, you can't crowd the mushrooms if you want them to cook and honestly we just threw them into a big ol' pot of grand central station at 5pm so you're a little S.O.L. on the 'not crowding' thing.

Step 9: Throw the Meat in. This will make it browner and meatier and deliciouser. If you don't eat meat, I don't know why you read this blog as all of the recipes have amazing meat in them. You should start eating meat.
Step 10: Seriously. Start eating meat. It's so good if you do it right :D
Step 11: Add the rice and keeps stirring. 

Good grief that looks amazing.

Step 12: Put it on a plate and freaking crush that stuff! It was super tasty.

Step 13: Say bye to your man as he walks out of the house for the weekend, leaving you with this:

Oops. That was way too many dishes for this simple of a meal. My b.

Delicious Level: 4/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom) - Super delicious but still haven't topped those short ribs!

Difficulty Level: Kind of a pain in the neck in terms of cleaning up and having enough hands to get it all cooked at once but overall it was pretty easy.

Lesson Learned: Use less dishes. Dear lord.

Here's to eatin' good and eatin' local! Cheers and uff-da!

Tackling the HAM!!!!

I have been cooking from my CSA lately but honestly it hasn't been exciting enough for a blog post. Delicious sausage patties to go with some pancakes when I realize 'oh no! we're out of cereal' is not a bad way to start a morning but that story is hardly worth making you read. The CSA delivery for December was entirely pork. Outside of cooking Johnson's Italian pork sausage, I really have no experience cooking pig... and I love pork. Our december CSA consisted of 6 sausage patties, 4 pork sausages, and a ham. Jordan loves ham but I don't know that I've ever made a ham when it didn't come with a package of sugary seasoning that said: "1) Put on ham. 2) Bake ham. 3) Serve after 15 minutes." Despite those directions being ridiculously easy, I was still nervous about cooking a ham that had already been smoked.

Hold the phone, there honky! Do that thing say what I think it do? Weeping Radish Brewery?! Zoom in there for a second.

Weeping Radish! I knew it! Now I'm going to go ahead and drop a bit of knowledge on you. Weeping Radish Brewery in the glorious Outer Banks of North Carolina was the first brewery to open in North Carolina post-prohibition. The owner of this glorious brewery helped to motivate the brewing industry by driving down to the capital city and demanding the legal ABV of a malt beverage be raised to 15.4% and that free tastings be allowed during tours. Now that he has somewhat gotten brewery laws to a good place, he's moved on to butcher shops. A LOT of meat in NC was being produced in NC in humane ways but because of butchering laws farmers had to send their meat to Virginia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and other states to be butchered. Uli Benowitz of Weeping Radish said 'ENOUGH' and is now lobbying for butchering laws to be relaxed in NC so that people like me (and hopefully you) can buy your meat from a farmer 50 miles away, have it processed and packaged within another 50 miles of that, and then dropped at your door with minimal gas miles on it.

This message brought to you buy my thesis.

Moving along.... I decided to cook the ham tonight. Boneless 3 lb smoked ham. I looked up some recipes and since I'm a broke college student I decided to make do with what I had in the kitchen and just buy oranges and cloves to complete the recipe. By the way, Ms. Joy of Cooking was very little help for this meal. Anyway, here's my modified smoked ham recipe**:

1 3lb ham (or whatever size they give you at your local butcher shop)

1/2 cup Honey 

2 Oranges

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup brown sugar

Buttload of whole cloves

**all measurements for this recipe were eyeballed and then guestimated for your cooking ease.

Oh... you noticed my oranges are on a Krispy Kreme box? Let me explain. 1) The hot sign was on and you know I can't not stop when the hot sign is on. 2) It says 'fun' right there on the box and I'm always down for a good time. 3) The Krispy Kreme Challenge is in less than a month and I had just gone on a run and I'm in training mode.

Step 1: Go to school, work, play with the dog, go for a run, then take the ham out to thaw (oops). I would recommend moving the ham to the refrigerator before doing all those things I just said.

Step 2: Thaw ham in the microwave for about 5-7 minutes

Step 3: Ham still a little too frozen to stab the cloves in? Grab those tongy things from your grill kit (you know the giant fork with only two prongs) and stab your ham multiple times so you can put the cloves in the newly created holes.

Step 4: Combine honey, cinnamon, and brown sugar in a mixing bowl. Squeeze the life out of the oranges so you get as much juice out of them as possible into the mixture. Put some of the pulp in there too for good measure (and then eat the remaining pulp)

You should now have a very stabbed ham and some orange goop that smells amazing. If you don't  have these two things.... I don't know what to tell you. This is a very easy recipe.

Step 5: Crap. Did you preheat the oven? Go with 375. Seems to be a good temperature for meats.

Step 6: Put the ham into a shallow baking dish and dump the orange gobbledygook on top. It should appear something delicious looking like this:

Ok. If this doesn't look/smell awesome already then you should probably give up the vegetarian game and start eating meat. For the record... ham does not photograph well. This looks like every picture of spam from housewife manuals from WWII

Step 7: Put the ham in the oven and throw an aluminum tent on top of it. This should help it cook through without drying out; like a turkey. Every now and then go baste it. It should really just take an hour to cook but mine took more like and hour and 15 or an hour and 30. It's done with your meat thermometer says 130ish. Since it's already smoked it should be good to go.

Step 8: Make all the other sides... broccoli is always delicious and you probably have some in your freezer or buried back in the depths of your vegetable drawer. Now is a good time to eat that. Ham also always comes with mashed potatoes because mashed potatoes are the best. Make sure to use 1 stick of butter per 3 potatoes in your mashed potatoes. Don't worry... you went for a run today so you're allowed to eat the whole stick of butter.

Step 9: Begin preparing all the things together and yell at everyone in the living room to pause the movie so you can watch too (rude).

Step 10: Serve and enjoy.

Delicious Level: 4/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom) - Tasty but dosent hold a torch to those short ribs!

Difficulty Level: totes whatevs

Lesson Learned: Thaw ham before cooking. Derp.

Here's to eatin' good and eatin' local! Cheers and uff-da!