Too Damned Easy Vodka Sauce with Peppers

I find myself apologizing more than anything on this page. Work and life have most definitely gotten in the way of keeping up with my food pages. My school keeps switching between fully remote and hybrid learning, so I'm constantly shifting gears. The Wife's school has voted to go back to 4 days a week with full classrooms despite the fact that positivity numbers are through the roof. We've moved the Spud back to fully remote since her school will no longer guarantee social distancing of any kind. I won't even go into the nightmare of election anxiety. It's just been a shitstorm and I forgot about one of my core coping therapies: cooking. I got myself into the kitchen yesterday and I threw this recipe together from scratch. I may be falling apart at the seams mentally, but this was just the best vodka sauce I've ever had. I don't normally crow about my own cooking, but this was restaurant good. And I'm not talking Olive Garden. I'm talking a real Italian restaurant. Anyways, it was delicious and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as we did. Everybody take care and be well. As always, notes are in blue.

Too Damned Easy Vodka Sauce with Peppers

Ingredients

• 1 yellow bell pepper, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced (there's nothing stopping you from using 2 of one color, or even green, if you prefer)
• 1/2 yellow onion, chopped
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 can, 28 ounces, crushed tomatoes
  
• 2 ounces vodka (omit if you don't do alcohol, but then it's not vodka sauce anymore)
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

Directions

1. In a pot (I used a 5 quart enameled Dutch oven), heat olive oil over medium high heat. 
2. When oil is heated, add peppers, onion, and garlic. Sautee for 5-8 minutes until the onions are translucent and the peppers still have just a bit of snap left in them. Take care not to let the garlic or anything else burn.
3. Add the tomatoes, vodka, oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Simmer for about 10 minutes.
4. Stir in heavy cream. Remove from heat and serve over pasta of your choice. 

Good times!

Cottage Cheese Bread

It's been a long time since I've bought a loaf of bread from the store. Baking fresh bread on a Sunday has become a favorite activity in my house. The Spud loves to help with the dry ingredients and is mystified by the rising of the dough. She is under the impression that if she kisses the dough, that provides the magic to make it rise for baking. No clue where she got that idea. We like to keep a basic loaf available for sandwiches and toast. Normally I used a Dill-Seed bread recipe, and just left out the dill. However, that, and many other of our standard loaf recipes called for whole-wheat flour. If the pandemic lockdown has caused any odd impact, it's that I absolutely can't find whole-wheat flour anywhere in two counties. I wound up altering the recipe and came up with a very serviceable white bread that is great for sandwiches and toasts very well.

Cottage Cheese Bread
adapted from James Beard's Dill-Seed Bread recipe

Ingredients

• 1 package fast-rising yeast
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 cup warm water (100-115F, 38-46C) 
• 1 cup cottage cheese at room temperature
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 cups white flour

Directions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and sugar. Proof for about 5 minutes.
2. Add cottage cheese and egg to the yeast mix.
3. In a large bowl, mix flour, salt and baking soda.
4. Add flour to wet mix and mix/knead until you get a slightly sticky, but elastic dough (I did this in my Kitchenaid and it took about 4-5 minutes to get the right consistency. By hand it would likely take 10 or more minutes)
5. Put dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let it rise to double in size (about an hour)
6. Punch down dough and place in a greased loaf pan. Cover and allow to rise to double size again (about another hour)
7. With a super sharp knife, run a slit down the center of the loaf.
8. Place in a preheated oven at 375F (190C, Gasmark 5) for 40 minutes.
9. Cool on a wire rack

Good times!

Spicy Pork, Mushrooms, and Noodles

I have to tell you, I've been a hot mess lately. Literally.  The blower on our house AC died the first hot day we tried to use it. The hoses on The Wife's truck's AC gave out. We've also been busy with having the roof of the garage torn off and reshingled, and we're still in the process of filling in the in-ground pool once and for all. In all that excitement, I've fallen off on giving you the High Quality Content that you all deserve. I thought for sure I had lost this particular recipe, but while The Wife was moving stuff around, it materialized. So here you have it. A simple recipe for spicy pork and noodles. We used some leftover pork from pork steaks we had cooked before. If you don't have precooked, you can just cook it up in the pan before you add in the veggies. The heat on this dish is easily adjustable. It's also easily made vegetarian by leaving out the pork and using sauteed tofu or some more veggies. 

Spicy Pork, Mushrooms, and Noodles

Ingredients

• 8 oz. Thai red rice noodles (we found them at ALDI. If you can't find them, just use fettucini)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 cup sliced, cooked pork
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 3 scallions, sliced
• 2 tablespoons spicy mustard (we used a couple packets of hot mustard from the Chinese restaurant. Look around, I'm sure you have some in a drawer somewhere. Maybe in the bottom of the lettuce crisper)
• 1 tablespoon black bean garlic paste
• 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
• 1 tablespoon sriracha
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon white sesame seeds

Directions

1. Cook noodles a little shorter than the directions on the package call for (they will finish cooking at the end)
2. In a bowl, add the mustard, bean paste, hoisin, sriracha, pepper flakes, soy sauce and sesame seeds. Stir to mix.
3. In a large pan/wok, heat oil over medium high heat. Add mushrooms and scallions. Stir-fry for about 5-7 minutes.
4. Add the cooked pork and noodles to the pan. 
5. Pour sauce over everything and toss to coat. Lower heat to medium and cook another 3-4 minutes, tossing regularly, until the noodles are the desired tenderness.

Good times!

Mexican Style Rice Casserole

Time for another inauthentic recipe! This one made use of the copious amount of white rice we had leftover from the last time we ordered Chinese take-out. Normally I'd use it to make rice pudding, but we didn't have anything for dinner. Desperate times call for desperate measure. What we ended up with was a surprisingly tasty and filling meal that was super easy to make. It works as a side or main, and is easily made vegetarian by leaving out the ground beef!

Mexican Style Rice Casserole

Ingredients

• 4 cups cooked white rice
• 1 can (14.5 ounces) tomato soup
• 1 can tomatoes with jalapeno (10 ounces)
• 3/4 can (about 1-1/2 cups) corn
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1 pound ground beef, browned and drained
• 1 packet Sazon seasoning
• 1 teaspoon dried cilantro
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• more cheese, dammit.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F (191C, Gas Mark 5)
2. In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients except the extra cheese.
3. In a 9x13" greased baking dish dump in everything from the bowl and spread evenly.
4. Top with as much extra cheese as you can possibly tolerate.
5. Cook for 30-40 minutes or until top is starting to bubble.

Good times!

Stir Fry Pork Steak and Green Beans

So we're still desperately trying to work through last year's produce to make sure we have room for the new stuff from the garden. In this case, we needed to use up some surplus green beans. We had a couple nice pork steaks in the freezer that worked perfectly.  I can't promise you'll have all these ingredients on hand. Black bean garlic paste and hoisin sauce are not something every home keeps in stock. If you don't have those, you can probably get away with teriyaki sauce, or a molasses based barbecue sauce. Or just drown it in Sriracha, which is never wrong. This ended up being a very tasty and fairly quick meal. Over rice, it was filling and a fair substitute for ordering out Chinese food for dinner.  As always, notes are in blue.

Stir Fry Pork Steak and Green Beans

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons sesame oil (in a pinch, vegetable oil would work, but you'll lose the wonderful flavor you get from the sesame oil)
• 1.5 lbs. pork steak, cut into 1/2" wide strips
• .5 lbs. green beans, cut into 3" pieces
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup soy sauce (we used reduced sodium. Otherwise I blow up like a balloon.)
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon black bean garlic paste
• 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
• 1-1/2 tablespoons corn starch
• 1-1/2 tablespoons cold water
• Cooked white rice, for serving

Directions

1. In a wok (or whatever large pan you have) heat oil over medium heat. 
2. Add garlic and onion. Stir fry for 3-4 minutes or until the onion starts to get tender. Do not let the garlic burn.
3. Add the pork and stir fry for another 5 minutes or so, or until the pork is not longer visibly pink.
4. While the pork is cooking, in a bowl, mix the soy sauce, brown sugar, pepper, black bean paste, and hoisin sauce. 
5. Add the green beans to the wok, along with the sauce mix. Toss to coat evenly. Cover and cook on medium for 5-6 more minutes. There will be a fair amount of liquid in the pan. This is fine.
6. While everything is cooking, in a small cup, mix the corn starch and water. 
7. Take the lid off the wok (I feel I have to emphasize taking the lid off or some smartass will just pour the cornstarch over the lid) and add the corn starch mixture. Stir contents of the pot until sauce thickens. Turn off the heat.
8. Serve over rice. (I imagine this would be good over rice noodles as well. Or even without rice.)

Good times!

Red Sauce with Yellow Squash, Zucchini, and Pork

Bad news, we're still stuck at home. Good news, the garden is in! This means we need to start using up the veggies we put aside last season to make room for the glut (hopefully) of new produce! This recipe was really nothing more than a desperate attempt to use up two pounds of squash and zucchini. It actually was quite tasty and works really well with rotini pasta (yes, I know the picture shows linguine. We had it with rotini the next day). My only complaint was that we used sliced squash and zucchini that we had frozen. I wasn't a huge fan of the consistency, and in the future will chop them instead. The Wife said they were fine and I was just being nitpicky. That could be. I have some weird consistency issues with some food. That aside, it was easy to make and good. It also converts easily to vegetarian by simply leaving out the meat. This sauce could also be served over rice if you wanted a more goulash vibe.

Red Sauce with Yellow Squash, Zucchini,
 and Pork

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 pound ground pork (ground beef or ground Italian sausage would work, too)
• 1 pound zucchini, chopped
• 1 pound yellow squash, chopped
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 red bell peppers, cut into 1" strips
• 1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes, with liquid
• 1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
• 1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried basil

Directions

1. In a large pan (I used a 5 quart Dutch oven), heat oil over medium heat. Add ground meat and brown (my meat did not yield much grease, so I didn't drain it. You may find you need to depending what you used).
2. Add zucchini, squash, onion, and peppers. Cook for about 7-10 minutes, stirring regularly to make sure the veggies cook evenly. (If you like the veggies with more snap, shorten the time. Lengthen the time if you want your veggies to be a bit mushier.)
3. Add the tomatoes, paste sauce, and seasoning. Stir to get the tomato paste evenly mixed. 
4. Bring to a simmer and let simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Mexican Style Lasagna

I can't believe that we're still cooking meals this far into the stay at home order. I figure at some point we would have devolved into an endless parade of frozen pizzas, ramen, and mac & cheese. And yet here we are! We're even modifying book recipes! Go us! This particular recipe originally called for lasagna noodles, which we thought was dumb. Also, we didn't have enough lasagna noodles and I didn't feel like making them from scratch. We swapped in and out a bunch of ingredients. If you don't have sofrito laying about, or can't make it from scratch, just use a pack of taco seasoning or some chili powder. Go wild. It's all gonna be poop in the end. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this. It had a lot of flavor and was very filling. It's currently sitting in my stomach like a brick. Mocking me. TWAS HUBRIS THAT BROUGHT ME HERE. Sorry, I'll go.

Mexican Style Lasagna

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 16oz. can refried beans
• 1/4 cup sofrito
• 1 tablespoon dried, minced onion
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 12 corn tortillas (6" diameter)
• 1 16oz. jar of your favorite salsa
• 16 ounces sour cream
• 3 ounces (about half a can) of black olives, sliced
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F (177C, Gasmark 4)
2. In a skillet, brown ground beef. 
3. Drain the beef and add the minced onion, cumin, garlic powder, oregano, and sofrito. Cook another 3-4 minutes.
4. Add the refried beans to the meat and mix until completely incorporated.
5. Grease a 9"x13" baking dish. Add a layer of 6 corn tortillas. (We discovered if you cut the tortillas in half, you can put the flat edges against the edges of the pan and make a uniform layer.)
6. Take half the meat mixture and spread it evenly over the layer of tortillas
7. Add another layer of tortillas and top it with the rest of the meat mixture.
8. Top with the salsa and cook at 350F for 35 minutes.
9. Take out of oven and add a layer of sour cream. Then top with cheese and olives.

Good Times!

Spicy Vinegar Braised Riblets

As we have been sheltering at home for some weeks now, we have started to run out of really good meat. We still have what we call "garbage chicken" and a couple odds and ends. We decided to support our local businesses and put in an order to a seed and beef service in the area. We gave them a budget and told them to just give us an assortment of beef and pork. Once of the pork products we got was riblets. Very little fat, little ribs. They were adorable. I found a recipe to braise them, and then immediately ignored most of the recipe and happily went off in my own direction. The result was ribs with meat that was tender and falling off the bone. Flavor? HELLS YES. They were tangy from the vinegar with a nice bit of heat from the peppers and Cajun seasoning. This recipe is stupid easy and just about fool-proof. Enjoy!

Spicy Vinegar Braised Riblets

Ingredients

• 2 lbs pork riblets (you could probably use any pork ribs you want, we just liked the idea of little ribs!)
• Cajun seasoning
• 1 cup hot pepper infused vinegar (if you don't have this you can get by with a cup of white vinegar and a couple chopped jalapenos or a teaspoon or so of cayenne)
• 1 can (8 ounces) tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon dried, minced onions

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300F (150C, Gasmark 2)
2. Liberally sprinkle Cajun seasoning over both sides of riblets. 
3. Cut riblets into individual pieces and put in Dutch oven.
4. In a bowl, mix the vinegar, tomato sauce, and onions
5. Pour contents of bowl over riblets
6. Cover Dutch oven and put in oven for 75 minutes or until meat starts to fall off the bone

Good times!

Homebound Day #35: The Other Shoe Falls.

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since my last blog post on the stay at home order and much has happened. For one, our governor has declared school buildings will not reopen for the remainder of this school year; all classes will continue online. So that means it's a good thing I cleared the yogurts out of my classroom fridge before I left.
The other big thing was that my car died. With The Wife and Spud in it, and the dogs, and $100+ in groceries, and the curbside order from Chili's we picked up. Stone dead. Friday evening. Had to get the mother-in-law to come pick us up. I had a spectacular meltdown. Had the car towed to the dealership. Good news, the battery just died. Like forever dead. I also found out I needed front brakes and a tune up (this was not a surprise, the car has like 115,000 miles on it.) Fortunately, it's not like I need the car for anything.
I also discovered that white flour is Nigh Impossible to purchase. Stores that do have flour are selling it in one pound zip bags, like cocaine. The other choice is the convenient 25 pound restaurant/hotel bag.

But at $15.99, I can't complain.
Time to bake 6,000 cookies.

Amazingly that curbside pickup from Chili's was the first meal during this ordeal that was not cooked at home. (They also screwed up my order and gave me fries instead of the onion petals I paid an upcharge for. Granted, the world is coming apart at the seams, so I'll let it go.) I've been cooking a lot, even more than normal. We even ordered a box of meats from a local farm to support the locals and ensure we have good things to eat. 

As far as booze, we've worked through about a third of our supply of wine (originally 48 bottles), and we're close to running out of tequila and gin. We will soon find out how a tequila sunrise is with vodka.

The Spud is taking it all in stride, especially now that the weather will permit her to hang out in the yard. She does comment that she misses school and her friends, and we worry what will happen if her 5th (!) birthday is socially distanced. Honestly, if the cake is big enough, she will be fine.

Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe!

My Other Hobby: Tabletop Gaming #2: Cooperative Games

Cooperative is a very neat genre of tabletop games. In a cooperative game, the players are all working together against the game itself. This is nice because competitive games can get ugly, especially if there is player elimination. You know what I'm talking about. You get smoked early in Monopoly, then sit there like a schmuck as a couple players sit there for 3 hours trying to wear each other down. It sucks, and can easily end in a flipped over table or a punched player. Cooperative games still carry that risk, because you are can lose to the game or to your fellow players' stupidity! FUN!

To be honest, cooperative games are a lot of fun and there is a great sense of accomplishment at beating one. What you do need to avoid in some of co-op games is the phenomenon of the "Alpha Player." This is a player (usually the most familiar with the game) who tries to direct every other player on what they should do for their turn. In the event this happens, you need only tell them "shut the fuck up and let me take my turn."

Here are three of our favorite co-op games:

Hanabi

Number of players: 2-5
Time to play: 25 minutes
How do you win?: Arrange stacks of cards by color and number
Difficulty to learn/teach: Easy

Hanabi is a very accessible card game and is great fun. Every player starts with a hand of cards (cards come in five colors and are numbered 1-5). The object is to create five stacks of cards, one color for each stack, each stack in order from #1-5.
Simple!
Except everybody holds their hands with their cards facing AWAY from themselves. You can see every other players' cards EXCEPT your own. Each turn you can do one of three things:

1. Lay down a card. If the card will go on one of the stacks, excellent. If not, that's a strike. Three strikes and everybody loses.
2. Give another player a hint. This costs a token. The group has a finite amount of tokens to use. You can then tell another player how many of a color OR number they have, but not both. You are allowed to point to the cards.
3. Discard a card to regain a token.

That's it. The game is deceptively difficult but a lot of fun. You're not allowed to give any sort of clue that a player is about to play/discard something they shouldn't. You have to sit there stonefaced as they either succeed to fail. Great game and fairly inexpensive.

Pandemic

Number of players: 2-4

Time to play: 45 minutes
How do you win?: Find cures for four different diseases
Difficulty to learn/teach: Medium

Pandemic is one of the most well known cooperative games and generally the game against which other cooperative games are measured. It is also extremely topical right now. Four different diseases have broken out at once, and the players are a group of scientists/professionals who are charged with controlling the outbreak and finding cures before the diseases overtake the board or time runs out. Each turn a player can take several actions such as moving, building facilities, controlling outbreaks, or curing the diseases. The game is extremely tense and it is very possible to lose the game quickly. Each player takes a specific role with special abilities no other player will have. There are several expansions to this game which you certainly do not need right away. There is also a Legacy version of this game. Probably avoid this version first. The Legacy game has a finite amount of plays and the game gets permanently altered as you play. This is arguably a must own game for any collection.

Space Alert

Number of players: 1-5
Time to play: 30 minutes
How do you win?: Survive for 10 minutes as everything goes to shit
Difficulty to learn/teach: medium/difficult (the game includes a great system that slowly eases you into the game, adding new mechanics each play)

This game has a fairly steep learning curve, but is totally worth the effort. The players are the crew of a survey ship. The ship simply has to sit for 10 minutes. However, during that 10 minutes, literally everything that ever went wrong in Star Trek occurs during that 10 minutes. IN REAL TIME. There is a CD (also an App) that will play announcements from the ship. The crew must then respond to those threats by playing cards to move their crew members around, charging shields/weapons, firing weapons, etc. All as the ship relentlessly gives more and more alerts of things going wrong. These things can be meteor swarms, attacking ships, boarding parties, aliens, etc.

At the end of 10 minutes. You basically rewind time and then go turn by turn and see if your planning actually worked. Generally it does not. You end up with people fighting for the elevator, trying to fire weapons that haven't been charged, or standing there helplessly as large portions of the ship are exposed to the screaming void of space.

The game has been best described as "imagine putting five people into a giant hamster ball. Give them all meth, then have them try to navigate a Super G downhill ski course." There will be an amusing amount of screaming, then everyone dies. Repeatedly.  That being said, the game is extremely good and a great game if you can get four other willing people.

Next time we'll take a look at games for two players!

The World Needs Another Cheese Dip Recipe

As the world slowly descends into utter madness, I realize what we need now, more than ever, is another Rotel-style cheese dip. There's a pretty good chance I've managed to create something that already exists, which begs the existential question:

If I created something that has already been created, but I had never known about it, was it still an original creation?

Honestly, who the fuck cares. It's really good dip and that's all that matters.

Objectively Original Cheese Dip

Ingredients

• 1 pound cooked and shredded/crumbled meat of your choice (Seriously, almost any meat will work. We used pork loin. Chicken, ground beef, ground turkey, fake crab, shrimp, go nuts. Maybe not like salmon or clams, but the sky's the limit. Or leave out the meat if it's not your thing)
• 1-10.5 ounce can cheddar cheese soup
• 1 -10 ounce can diced tomatoes with jalapenos, drained 
• 4 ounces cream cheese
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Throw everything in a slow cooker and cook on LOW for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally
   OR
   Put everything in a deep saucepan and cook on medium heat, stirring regularly, for about 7-10 minutes, until the cream cheese and cheddar are incorporated. Don't let it simmer or it's going to scorch in the pan.
2. There is no step #2

Good times!

My Other Hobby: Table Top Gaming. Gateway Games

As many of you know, my other hobby is table top gaming. Board, card, miniatures, you name it. I love games. And as we are stuck at home for an extended period of time, gaming is a great way to pass the time. Every now and then I'll put up a post suggesting games for certain situations. Today, I have three suggestion for those who may be new to the hobby, or don't want anything to deep. I've tried to keep the price point reasonable, between $25-35. Most of these games can be found on Amazon or Walmart, but do consider helping out your Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS), and ordering from them instead. Brick and mortar game stores are taking a huge beating during the shutdown. Many are more than happy to ship directly to you. If needed, contact me and I will be happy to suggest some great FLGS's to contact.

Gateway Games

Tsuro

Number of players: 2-8
Time to play: 15 minutes
How do you win?: Last man standing
Difficulty to learn/teach: Easy

Tsuro is as simple as it gets. Every turn you'll choose one of three tiles and lay it in front of your piece, then follow the path you have created until you reach the end of the path. If the path takes you to an empty space, your turn ends. If the path sends you off the board, you lose. If the path sends you into another player, you both lose. HOWEVER, you can never intentionally send yourself off the board or into another player unless you have no other options. Last person on the board wins. It is also possible for everyone to lose or in rare cases, have a tie. This is a super easy game to learn with a fair bit of strategy. The theme is simple and accessible.
Problem: The game is currently unavailable on Amazon, so you may have to look around. The other option is to get Tsuro of the Seas, which has the base mechanics of the original, but adds a couple new things.

Carcassonne

Number of Players: 2-5
Time to Play: 45 minutes
How do you win?: Most points
Difficulty to learn/teach: simple/moderate

Carcassonne is a tile-laying strategy game. Each turn you will draw a tile from a bag and lay it in a way that it matches up with another tile. You will create roads, cities, farms, and abbeys along these tiles to score points. Points are scored by playing "meeples" (your pieces) on these features. You have a limited amount of meeples to use during the game, so you must carefully consider your strategy. Most points wins the game. This is a nice game because there is not much direct competition. You can certainly try to lay tiles to mess up someone's strategy, or claim features before another player, but nothing that makes you want to choke a bitch out.

King of Tokyo

Number of Players: 2-6 (best with 3 or more)
Time to Play: 30 minutes
How do you win?: Last man standing
Difficulty to learn/teach: simple/moderate

King of Tokyo is best described as Combat Yahtzee. Each player takes the role of a giant monster attempting to take over Tokyo. Each turn you will roll dice, Yahtzee style, to attack, heal, or gain energy. Energy is used to buy cards to add powers to your monster. The combat is high risk, as only one monster can stand in Tokyo city. If that monster attacks, he damages ALL players outside the city. Conversely, all players outside the city can only attack the monster IN the city. This game is absolutely about direct competition, and trash talk and wild gesticulating is encouraged. Highly thematic and lots of fun for all ages.

Next time, we'll look at cooperative games, where you're all on the same team, playing against the game itself!

Homebound Day #20: Red Sauce

Holy moly. We are heading into our 4th week of sheltering in place. I finally had to risk it and run out for milk for the Spud. I figured I'd pick up a few essentials, as well, since I'd be out. We didn't have any masks available, so I had to improvise.

And I figured maybe I could rob a train on the way home. 

I decided to stay close to home and hit the Dollar General in town. Milk was $3.69 a gallon, which was horrifying. Milk, creamer, cheese, orange juice and a few other staples set me back nearly $75. Granted, the store was mercifully devoid of people and within a mile of my house. With my adventure out of the way, I whipped up a batch of red sauce, and added some meatballs, rib bones, and Italian sausages. We served it up over some ravioli with some home made giardiniera. 

Just like you'd get at Olive Garden, but good!

Whenever we make this sauce, we have plenty of leftovers, which is intentional. The Spud loves the meatballs and the sauce is versatile. The next day we had The Wife's Eggplant Parmesan with the sauce. Today we took the leftover Italian sausage and made grinders with pepper jack cheese and giardiniera. 

Just like Portillo's, but totally not!

During this time, we worked through the last of the turkey pasta we made with our "Thanksgiving" leftovers. We also have been enjoying a tray of chocolate chip peanut butter bars for our treats. I was saddened to see that I'm working through my supply of bottom shelf bourbon faster than I'd like. I will have to console myself with vodka, gin, scotch, and rum. 

I don't know when this will all be done. As I've mentioned before, I think the school year is done for. It will likely be online learning for the rest of the year. I am at least encouraged by the fact that we were able to go nearly four weeks without needing to go to the store, and were it not for milk, we'd probably last another 2-3 weeks. 

Stay Safe!

Too Damned Easy Turkey Pot Pie

Remember when you were a kid, and you wanted a pot pie? And your mom would have to preheat the oven? Then you'd have to wait like another 45 minutes for the pot pie to cook? Then you'd be so hungry that when it finally came out of the oven, you wouldn't wait and you'd take a bite and burn the living shit out of the roof of your mouth? Good times. This recipe won't take quite as long, but can still blister the hell out of the roof of your mouth if you don't wait. We cannibalized a different recipe to make this. In retrospect, the pie to biscuit ratio seems off. There is way more biscuit than filling. I'd recommend at least adding some more gravy and possibly increasing the amount of the fillings. The flavor is fine, it's just a bit biscuity. As always, notes are in blue.

Too Damned Easy Turkey Pot Pie

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 stalk celery, finely chopped
• 1/2 pound frozen hash brown O'Brien potatoes, thawed
• 1 6 oz. can mushrooms, drained and chopped
• 1 medium carrot, shredded
• 2 cups cooked turkey, chopped (cooked chicken would work just as well. You can use puffin for all I care.)
• 1/4 teaspoon marjoram
• 10 ounces gravy (in retrospect, I feel you could add another 6 ounces and be fine, if you prefer a more gravy-based pot pie)
• 1 can Pillsbury Grand buttermilk biscuits (we used their Sweet Hawaiian. You can use any flavor. Also feel free to use a non-name brand equivalent. I promise not to tell anyone)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400F  (200C, Gasmark 6)
2. Heat oil in cast iron skillet. (Don't have a cast iron skillet? Philistine. In that case you're going to need to prep everything but the biscuits in a pan, then transfer to an oven-safe dish)
3. Add celery, potatoes, mushrooms, and carrots. Saute for 5-7 minutes.
4. Add turkey, gravy, and marjoram. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.
5. Lay biscuits over the contents of the pan. (If you're not using cast iron, transfer the contents of the pan to a 9" round oven safe dish and then lay the biscuits down on top)
6. Cook in oven at 400F for 14 minutes or until biscuits are golden brown.

Good Times!

Homebound Day #15: Tempers Flare

We are into the third week of shelter-in-place and we got the news from the Governor: the order to hunker down is extended through the end of April. At this point it is unlikely we will be able to avoid going to the store for that long. At least not as far as milk goes. Supplies are doing well. However, we have noticed that tempers are a little shorter than normal. Fortunately, we have lots of good food to keep our spirits up, or there'd probably be casualties by now. We've been having quite the exciting time with food. We decided to do a Thanksgiving in March.

The upshot is this Thanksgiving was relatively quiet due to the lack of visiting relatives.

We've also made sure to make a few kid friendly meals. You'd think any 4 year old would be happy to have cheesy pigs in a blanket and French fries!

You'd be wrong.

We've also been making sure to bake something fun at least once a week. Last week we made two loaves of colored bread. This week it was something sweet: chocolate chip peanut butter bars.

These should last about 18 minutes.

We had a fair amount of leftovers from our Thanksgiving. Not surprisingly, an 8-1/2 pound turkey breast was a bit too much for two adults and a four-year-old. I had a brilliant idea and made it into a tasty turkey pot pie that my daughter would not eat.

See her turn it down in HD!

So there we have it. We're at home for another month. Hilariously, we just got the coupon book for our local grocery. I figure we'll wait another week so anyone who has to get in there right at the first of the month can do so. Then I'll get in there, grab some necessities, and get the hell out before I catch something.

Stay Safe!

Homebound Day #8: Casualties of the Bar

As we head into our second week at home with no end in sight, we had our first casualty. I finished a bottle of Lawson's Super Spiced Scotch. This is a genuine problem as they do not make this particular libation any longer.

Which is why I bought a case and a half.

I have to hope that the 16 bottles I have left can hold. I also found a 1.75L bottle of Tito's Vodka that I had forgotten about, so the day wasn't a total loss. The find was bitter sweet as I realized we are almost out of white rum.  will have to make due with the handle of Admiral Nelson and the two fifths of premium rum I've stashed away. 

The pork loin has come and gone. It turned into carnitas and is now well on the way to turning into poop. Circle of life and all that. Tomorrow we're going to cook up some ground beef and make tacos. 

Spirits are medium-high. In a fit of boredom, I decided we would finally move a cabinet down a flight of stairs and convert it into a game cabinet for the Spud. This was accomplished with no discernible screaming.  That's it for now.

Stay safe! 

Mexican Style Slaw

As the self quarantine works into the second week, I realize I need to make sure we don't waste any produce. As I planned on making carnitas, it seemed reasonable to use up my cabbage to make a Mexican style slaw to serve with (or on) them. I got to use up some produce and ended up with a tasty slaw! This would also be a serviceable side salad. You can ramp the heat up or down with more or less jalapenos. Yes, I will be having this meal with margaritas. I'm not a total savage. As always, notes are in blue.

Mexican Style Slaw

Ingredients

• 1 medium head cabbage, cut into thin ribbons
• 1 medium red onion, chopped
• 3 radishes, finely chopped
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered (or 2 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped)
• 1 can (14.5oz) black beans, rinsed
• 1 cup corn
• 2 tablespoons pickled jalapenos, chopped (feel free to use more to spice it up. Also, fresh is fine if that's what you have on hand)
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 teaspoons dried cilantro
• 1 teaspoon adobo seasoning

Directions

1. Throw the first 7 items in a big bowl
2. In a smaller bowl, combine the remaining ingredients and whisk to incorporate.
3. Pour the contents of the small bowl into the large bowl and toss to get the dressing mixed evenly among the slaw.
4. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Good times!

Coffee Breakfast Smoothie

So a few weeks ago I found an Instant Pot Ace Blender from Walmart for the unspeakably low price of $49.99. We've been getting our money's worth. We've been making smoothies on a fairly regular basis. This particular recipe was modified from one I found on the intertubez. That called for cinnamon and I wasn't convinced that it was a good idea. I'm also not entirely sold on the oats in there, but I'm sure that's just me. I guess it's a nutritional addition. Either way, they're not bad for a quick and pretty filling breakfast. I threw the link to the YouTube video down at the bottom.

Coffee Breakfast Smoothie

Ingredients

• 1 cup coffee
• 1/2 cup vanilla Greek yogurt (in retrospect, I'd bump this up to 1 full cup)
• 1/2 cup quick cooking oats
• 1 banana, sliced
• 2 cups crushed ice
• 1 cup milk
• 1 ounce coffee liquor (optional)

Directions

1. Throw everything in a blender. Hit the "smoothie" button if you have it. Otherwise just blend until smooth. 

Stay Safe!

Homebound Day #6: I Get Productive

Days are already starting to blend together, so I have to make sure I have some time markers. One of my standard time markers was Sunday. Normally, it would be marked by weeping that I had to go to work the next day, but that doesn't look to be a real concern for some time. So I have to remember, Sundays Are For Baking. I figure I'll just keep up with my habit of baking something every Sunday.

The baking took the form of two loaves of sour cream bread. They hold well and are great for sandwiches. Plus, it's a very simple bread to make.

And if you let your daughter help, you get to add 25 drops of blue food coloring.

While the bread was rising, we through a couple of things in the slow cooker. We used the last of our smoked chicken for a Faux Pho. 

This was unbelievably good.

We also threw a pork loin, onion, and some cucumber-honeydew preserves in another cooker. No pictures, as there's not much to look at. It will likely become carnitas, or possibly a stir fry or soup. This is our multi-use food for the week.

 

Finally, The Wife reminded me that we had a single pie crust in the fridge, as well as a couple of containers of  strawberries that were not long for this world. 

So naturally we made a strawberry pie.
Not much to look at, but tasty.

And that's where we are right now. Food supplies are still good. We still have a couple of gallons of milk and plenty of toilet paper and napkins. Fairly likely we will make the two week mark without needing to go our for anything. Past that, we will run out of milk and possibly one or two other minor things. If I keep baking, flour may be a concern. 

Stay Safe!

Almost forgot, I made coffee smoothies for breakfast:

Slow Cooker Faux Pho

We are still attempting to make it through the imposed homebounding using only the supplies we have in the house (apart from eventually having to get milk for the Spud). This has forced me to be creative and ensure we use up all of one thing before we make the next. Two days ago we defrosted a whole smoked chicken that was in our fridge. The first night we had it as is. The next night it was chicken wraps. This time, since IT WAS FUCKING SNOWING AGAIN, I decided to use the last of the chicken to make soup. I thought it would be neat to try making Pho, but real pho is a Pain In The Ass. Lots of straining and demand for a perfectly clear broth. Screw that. It all went into a slow cooker. Was it authentic? No clue. I've never had authentic pho. I'm guessing it wasn't even close to authentic. Was it good? HELLS YES IT WAS.

Slow Cooker Faux Pho

Ingredients

• 5 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup water
• 1 sweet onion, minced
• 3/4" ginger, grated
• 1/8 teaspoon ground clove
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• salt to taste
• 2 teaspoon dried cilantro
• 3 teaspoon fish sauce
• 1 can 14.5 ounces, bean sprouts, drained
• 1 pound cooked, shredded chicken
• 8 ounces rice noodles
• Lime wedges and Sriracha sauce for garnish

Directions

1. In a 5-6 quart slow cooker, add all ingredients except for the last 4. Set on LOW for 5 hours.
2. Add the sprouts, chicken, and noodles. Recover the slow-cooker and cook an additional 30 minutes.
3. Serve with lime wedges and Sriracha.

Good Times!

Homebound Day #5: Made it to Saturday

The first week of homebound is drawing to a close and we are officially shelter in place. It looks like there will be no real possibility of returning to school before April 14. Naturally, the weather is still cold and gloomy, so getting out into the yard is still not an option. Today, I decided to make something special for breakfast: French Toast. Granted, this is not really all that special but for bread, I'm using something I normally do not use for anything under any circumstance.

Panettone. I fucking HATE Panettone.

I truly hate Panettones. I am extremely vocal about how much I hate these. Naturally, my mother-in-law insists of inflicting these on us every year. This particular one has sat up on top of the fridge for over two years.  This is a testament to how unnatural they are. This was still squishy. I'd trust a Twinkie more. Panettones are the cockroach of the baked goods. They last FOREVER. However, The Wife likes them. The only way I'll tolerate them is if I can convert them into French Toast and drench them in butter, jelly, and syrup.

And they still have the consistency of gas station fruit cake.

With breakfast out of the way, we all found things to do on our own. The wife started getting seeds prepared for our garden, the Spud rampaged around the house until she discovered mahjong on The Wife's tablet. The kid has a knack for the game. I amused myself by playing some games on my Steam account that I loaded back up after a seven year hiatus.

Dinner was a simple affair. We made chicken wraps with the leftover chicken from last night, and served them with some more corn on the cob and the last of the jar of dilly beans. We finished up with some ancient rice pudding for dessert. 

A little spicy brown mustard and garlic herb cheese spread seals the deal.

There was enough chicken left that I'm going to try my hand at Pho for dinner tomorrow night. I'm pretty sure I have all the ingredients. So far my plan of using up all of one main ingredient before starting another is working well. We'll get at least 3 days of meals from that chicken, depending how much Pho I end up with. We are also defrosting a pork loin for use in the slow cooker tomorrow.

Toilet paper and booze supplies still look good. 

Stay Safe!

Homebound Day #4: Shelter In Place

So as we enter into day 4 of homebound, we get the notice. The Governor will be ordering to "shelter in place" until further notice. Pretty much you can leave for food, medicine, or doctor visits. Other than that, don't go anywhere if you don't have to. We actually did have to go out, as our dog has Addison's and needs regular injections of a steroid or his kidneys eventually fail and he dies. Other than that, he's the picture of health. He's had Addison's for about 10 years

Look at that face. He's worth it.

We went into town, took care of it, then headed back home. Many places were empty, but the Sam's Club was absolutely jam-packed.

Breakfast was once again a simple affair of toast with butter and Vegemite and a fried egg. The Spud had a toaster strudel. We skipped lunch as we were getting ready to head out for the dog appointment. The daughter had another tray of lunchmeat, fruit and yogurt with a cookie. The Wife had to make a trip to her school for some supplies. While I waited, I got peckish and had a snack:

Sardines in mustard sauce and Ritz crackers. Don't judge me.

The Wife returned home and we had a pretty nice dinner. Corn on the cob, dill bread, pickled dilly beans, and a smoked chicken that one of my student's parents gave me as a gift for rehabilitating his son. This dad does BBQ competitions, so this chicken was crazy good. For dessert, we polished off the rest of the pineapple cake.

Who said teaching is without reward?

There was plenty of chicken left, so I stripped the carcass and stored the meat, and then did what any survivalist would do during the apocalypse: I boiled the carcass to make stock, which I will freeze for later use. 

Celery seed, onion salt, pepper were added.
Bear Grylls can bite me.

So now we head into the weekend and a serious lockdown. I'm looking to download Tabletop Simulator and finding some people willing to do the same, so I can play games with people. I'm also looking at setting up an RPG group to play online.

Stay safe!

Homebound Day #3: The First Cracks Appear

We are into the third full day of being stuck at home and the first cracks are appearing. It's been raining for the last 48 hours and we can't go outside. Today, everybody overslept and we immediately fell behind schedule. I actually had a fair amount of school stuff to do today, so the Spud wasn't supervised like she's been. Everybody was a bit on edge today.

Breakfast for everyone was a simple affair. The Spud had a bowl of Fruit Loops and a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon because what child doesn't wan't $15/lb. smoked fish on a daily basis. The Wife and I had toast with butter and Vegemite and a fried egg.  Coffee supply is solid.

Lunch/Snack for the Spud was a half bag of chips and some grapes. I had a leftover smoked sausage. The Wife had a bag of chips because she will die/kill everyone if she doesn't get enough sodium.

Dinner was a slow descent into madness. We served the rest of the shepherd's pie and realized it wasn't going to be enough. Then I realized we had corned beef left. That's when it happened. I suggested an atrocity and The Wife cheerfully said it was a great idea.  BEHOLD:

Reuben quesadillas. 
I am become death, destroyer of worlds.

We'll be outside gnawing on tree bark before you know it.

The Wife seemed to think these were absolutely wonderful, she finished hers with great gusto. I was less enthused and finished mine mostly out of spite and to finally be done with the corned beef and cabbage we were working on since the weekend. The Spud wisely avoided this entree and opted for yogurt, fruit, and some sliced turkey lunch meat. Everyone had another slice of the pineapple upside-down cake from yesterday.

Fortunately, the temperature is climbing into the high 60's. Once the Spud is in bed, we're retiring to the patio for Adult Beverages and  I will have a Big-Ass Cigar. 

Stay Safe!