Tag: Food

Messes With Mick

Hey you guys! I know I was gone for a week but sometimes you need a break. And with this blog today I want to honor those much needed and deserved break. And I challenge you all to take a break this summer and just honor yourself. You got through a  tough year at one of the best art schools in Mississippi. If you’re a senior, You just graduated. Celebrate it. You don’t have to endure another year of panic and terror of not passing your classes. You’re free to do what you want. On my break, I had the highs and lows. And I made food with the people I live with.  I will  not include an anecdote related to this recipe because I don’t have any to tell.  But as I made this meal, I listened to my favorite tunes and freed my grounded mind and allowed myself to relax. So, if you decide to use this recipe, just relax and listen to some tunes. And now, without further ado, my recipe.

Chicken and Beef Enchiladas

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb. ground beef
  • 1 lb. chopped chicken breast
  • paprika
  • cayenne pepper
  • chili powder
  • cumin
  • salt
  • pepper
  • 15 oz. enchilada sauce
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 1 cup of water
  • 2 large quartered tomatoes
  • 2 seeded and chopped jalapenos
  • 1 chopped onion
  • 1 cup of shredded colby cheese
  • 1 cup of monterey jack cheese
  • 6 inch corn tortillas

Prep

  • Preheat oven to 425 degrees
  • brown beef and chicken in large saucepan. Add pepper and salt. Drain and return to pan.
  • Add garlic, peppers, and tomatoes and enchilada sauce. Bring to a boil and simmer for 45 mins. to 1 hour, until chicken shreds. Turn off the stove.
  • Season the enchilada mixture with the cumin, cayenne, paprika, and chili powder. 
  • Steam tortillas by putting damp paper towels or cheesecloth on a plate. Layer tortillas on them and add more damp paper towels on top of them. Microwave until the moisture is gone from the paper towels.
  • Pour enough enchilada mixture into thee casserole dish/es until the bottom is covered.
  • Start stuffing and rolling the tortillas with the filling and line the dish/es until you run out of tortillas or are finished.
  • Cover with cheese and bake for about 30-45 minutes.

Making Messes With Mick; Blogs About Making Food

Hey guys! I was in the lab, talking to Mr. Patrick, our outstanding technology coordinator because he’s always in here. And we were talking about how I’m terrible at writing blogs. And he was like, “Why don’t you write about your baking?” Because everyone knows I like to make food. So, I am starting a blog series about making food. It’s going to take effort on my part because as of the moment I will have to go by asking my sister (who is a better food creator than me) because I didn’t bring recipes to school. Now, let’s get started.

This week’s recipe: Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

I recently made these for some classmates of mine. It was one forty-three a.m when I pulled the last baking sheet out of the oven. Anyway, back to the food.

  • 1 cup of butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp. (teaspoon) pure peppermint extract (there’s a difference between pure and imitation trust me)
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp. baking soda
  • 3/4 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1 1/2 cups mint chocolate chips

Honestly, the longest part about this is getting the ingredients out. At least for me, it is.

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
  2. Mix the butter, sugars, and eggs and beat until combined and creamy. Then stir in the peppermint extract.
  3. Add in the remaining ingredients and stir until well combined.
  4. Stir in the chocolates. Then, using spoons (I prefer teaspoons), drop batter onto an ungreased baking sheet and flatten slightly. 
  5. Bake for 8-12 minutes (depending on how large your little drops of batter are) until golden brown. Cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then move the cookies (using a spatula) to a wire rack to cool completely. 

The funny thing about this recipe is that when I baked the cookies for some classmates, I also baked some for one of my favorite staff members, Mr. Benney. I gave him his cookies and the next day when I saw him, he had the biggest smile on his face and rubbed his belly. So now, every time I see him, he does the same thing. It trips me out every time. Now, I’m not going to lie, this was a new recipe that I stumbled upon. I usually use a different recipe but I couldn’t find it. I wasn’t a big fan of how the cookies, but I have been told by several people that they were good. So, time to play cookie roulette.

 

 

Weird Alone

Hey y’all! Here I am, again.

I have come across a series of unfortunate events. A series of events that has led me to endure living on my own for the past couple days.  It was not nearly as fun as I thought it would be.  

First off, I never realized how much work thinking of dinner ideas was. It may seem very lazy or dumb on my part, but there is a such a struggle for me in generating meal ideas. On top of that, then I have to make it, and then on top of that, I have to put up all the leftovers, and on top of that on top of that, then the kitchen and all the dirty dishes have to be cleaned. All in all, it is a process that exhausts my little gay self and leaves me slumped on the couch watching my kdramas (Korean dramas) until I fall asleep.  

OH MY GOD, and don’t even get me started on the quietness. I never realized how even just having one person in the house changes the feeling of the sounds so much. Like, now when it’s quiet, I feel so scared and want to turn on every light on the house. Before though, I guess it may have been the same level of noise I just never had the opportunity to focus on it? I’m not really sure. I hope you get what I mean. Maybe if I was in a big city it wouldn’t be so bad because there would at least be cars, trains, airplanes, and other miscellaneous noise. Who knows? 

Another thing I’ve faced is that I just don’t like going places alone. Like, I go to school, but then after and before it’s just me and my solo adventures. The idea has potential for fun because of the freedom to do whatever I want, but I still have yet to feel that way. I just get home, and don’t really know what show to watch, when to go to bed, when to eat, or just what to do in general. I am most likely just too indecisive for this very temporary lifestyle I am going through. Oh well! Everything is just kind of more boring. Like, I have no one to go off of for entertainment. It’s such a bizarre feeling really.  

I guess living alone just isn’t for me, or maybe it is, and I just haven’t found my groove yet. I feel as though possibly some could thrive in an environment like mine, however, I am not that type. Maybe you could try it sometime! Hey who knows? Might just be your way… 

But not mine.      :/ 

 

Italian’s Do It Better

Heyy. *in Wendy Williams voice* How you doin?

So, here I am. There you are. We are going to talk about cooking.

I used to want to be a chef when I was a child. (A baker if we are getting all technical about it. ) Through a series of events though, I changed my mind. I have never really thought about the fact until recently. Out of the blue I felt a rekindling for the fun of cooking. There is an emotion you get when you cook something good for someone, and they enjoy it. It’s one of those warm feelings that help you remember why you get up in the morning. So satisfying. 

I recalled this because I recently got the nice urge to be nice while staying with my two brothers in their apartment. I told them I would try and cook like gourmet meals every night. Well, due to another series of unfortunate events, that turned into only one night of the week. What I did cook though, was fabulous. I served the children a nice Creamy Tuscan Chicken Roll on a bed of spinach with cheesy fettuccine on the side and a couple meat calzones. It was an Italian’s wet dream, and they loved it.

This meal was no joke though. It was actually very hard to make for me, only a novice to intermediate chef. 

The Creamy Tuscan Chicken Roll. This one took the most time and was the one I was also most worried of preparing because the process involved never performed procedures. At least, by me. I had to split the raw chicken breasts in half and then smash it like there was no tomorrow. My brothers didn’t have a rolling pin or meat tenderizer though. Instead, I had to use what we had in the toolbox, a hammer. Then, I would put sun dried tomatoes and spinach and other things on that and roll it up tightly. The fridge cooled them down which helped solidify the rolls.

The sauce that went on top of them was not hard to make, at all, I just never had made a sauce that dealt with like flour and heavy cream and stuff like that. It paired nicely, and once that was done, I started frying the chicken rolls.

This part was what I was scared for because we don’t really fry in my house, so I’m not used to it. I knew then, this was gonna be a trip. And it was. I first off made a genuine mess trying to get a hammered chicken roll in the egg wash, flour, and breadcrumbs. Chile…anyways. Once I set them in the oil, I realized that the oil might’ve been too hot. The outside was cooking way quicker than the inside. I didn’t wanna serve raw chicken and give the whole house food poisoning cause that’s not my place to be doin’ that.

What gives me the right? Ya know? 

Since I messed up, I had to stick them in the oven until they reached the correct temperature. 

The fettuccine was actually really easy. It came from a box. I just slapped some butter and milk in a pot and kept going with life. 

The calzones were not hard, but they took time. I had to make the dough, which would not stop sticking to my hands. Then, I had to put it in a bowl with some olive oil, and let it rest and grow. It was so sticky though, so I gave it a good bit of the oil. Maybe too much.  Yeah, with stuffing and wrapping those up my meal was complete.

It took me four hours to complete all the food. Obviously, if I knew what I was doing better it wouldn’t have taken so long. I definitely could’ve managed my time better with when to prepare what, so everything was done at close to the same time. I would say the food was not Gordon Ramsey level, but it was still pretty decent. Honestly though, it was still super fun. If you ever get the chance to cook for some folks. Go and serve it up!