Pages, Pucks and Pantry

Free Ice Cream

Free Ice Cream

It's Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day. Around the world, Scoop Shops are opening their doors from noon to 8:00 pm, to serve up a free scoop of your favorite flavor. Please check with your local Ben & Jerry's for more info!

Get em while they're hot...er, cold!

Taco Bells Doritos Locos Tacos

Yes, we went there. Amid the Fresco Crunchy Tacos that were only 150 calories each and 13 grams of carbs...we bought the new Taco Bell Doritos Locos Tacos. You know the ones, where they replace the standard crunchy corn tortilla with a Doritos Nacho Chip tortilla.

This new taco, to celebrate Taco Bells 50th Anniversary (which was yesterday) is actually a "Taco Supreme® made with premium seasoned beef, crisp lettuce, diced juicy red ripe tomatoes, real cheddar cheese, topped with cool reduced-fat sour cream, in a shell made from Nacho Cheese Doritos® Chips". The regular Locos Taco is 170 calories, 13 grams of carbs. The Supreme version is 200 calories, 15 grams of carbs.

The surprising part to me, was the fact that there wasn't that big of a difference between the regular Locos Taco and the "healthy" Fresco Crunchy Taco.  They were close on calories and carbs and there was only 30 more mgs of sodium.

I kinda liked this. It really is just a regular taco in a Dorito potato chip coat. The flavor isn't as strong as eating a Doritos chip right out of the bag (and the actual shell is much thinner than a regular Doritos chip). I thought that it was saltier than a regular shell which worked for me (because lets be honest, it's a frigging potato chip and they have to be salty!). The bottom line is if you like Nacho Doritos, you'll like this taco. But if you like the regular Taco Bell taco shells, I think you might still like the Doritos Loco Taco, it's not that much of a huge taste difference to me.

Would I order them again? Probably. I go so rarely to Taco Bell these days, but if I get stuck and have to order something, I can see me ordering the Loco Taco. Mr. L? Not so much. But I do think, in general terms, the Taco Bell Doritos Locos Taco is a success.

Also Opening At The Plant

Also opening at The Plant is Pauly's Famous Franks n Fries. I tried finding out some info but nothing came up. Anyone ever heard of this place? It says its famous :)

Opening Soon at The Plant

The sign said opening in March on the outside of the building. It's March, so Guy where are you???

Hobee's Oscar Breakfast

Oscar Food

I have friends who host an annual Oscar party which I look forward to going to every Oscar season. Sometimes folks dress up (I haven't yet but maybe next year), we play Oscar Bingo (cry winner, cry!) and of course we chow down on a big feast of Oscar related food. Mr. L and I try to contribute a food that references a past movie (we had a sausage pizza delivered reminiscent of Fast Time at Ridgemont High) or a current movie (Balloon Pops for Up). Normally we've seen most of the Best Picture nominees so it makes it easy to come up with some sort of Oscar food idea.

This year though, we've only seen one of the nominated movies...The Help...which meant a complete lack of knowledge about what kind of food might have shown up that we could duplicate. Yes, a Chocolate Pie with a, er, surprise, crossed my mind but I figured since pretty much everyone I know saw The Help, that there might be more than one Chocolate Pie showing up on the table. So I went on a search, looking for some ideas of possible foods I could bring to the Oscar Party.

Below is a list of ideas that I found (just in case, like me, you waited until the last minute). None of these are my original ideas so if you're looking for the recipe, just do a Google search like I did. Some are plays on the title of the movie, some are foods that might have been served in the town or era of a nominated movie, some were foods that were actually served or cooked in the movie.

THE ARTIST
Black and White Food (black and white cookies seem to be the trend)
Smoked Salmon Canapes
A Tart (for The Tartist)

THE DESCENDANTS
Ice Cream
Mai Tais
Slow-Cooker Kalua Pork on Hawaiian Rolls
The Crescendants (something made with crescent rolls)
Spam Mushibi
The Decendips (some sort of dip)
Any Hawaiian food

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE
Fig Newtons
New York Style Pizza
New York Cheesecake
Something Extremely Hot and Incredibly Crunchy
Extremely Cold & Incredibly Sweet
Extremely Green & Incredibly Salty
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Toast
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Roast
Any food that might normally be found in New York

THE HELP
Fried Chicken
Lemon Meringue Pie
Chocolate Pie (sans merde)
Deviled Eggs
Mini bite-sized Chocolate Filled Tarts
Luncheon salads made of aspic
Finger Sandwiches
Hamburger HELPer
Any food that might have been served in the 60's or in the South

HUGO
Croissants and Milk
Petit Pains au Chocolat

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
Macaroons
Cheese plate
Quiche
Midnight in Pear-is (something with pears)
Mushrooms in Paris
Any French Food

MONEYBALL
Ballpark Franks
Peanuts in the shell
Beer (poured into paper cups)
Cotton Candy
Cookies or Cakepops frosted or decorated like baseballs
Honeyballs
Soft Baked Pretzels
Pigs in a Blanket
Boxes of Cracker Jacks
Ice Cream Malts
Popcorn
Meatball Sliders (Moneyball Sliders)
Garlic Fries
Twinkies
Meatballs in a crockpot with BBQ sauce (Moneyballs)
Billie Beane Dip
Any food that is shaped like a baseball, might be served at a ballpark

THE TREE OF LIFE
The Brie of Life
The Tea of Life
The Tree of Life (make a broccoli tree)
Pasta Salad starring Brad Pitted Olives
The Tree of Life Cereal

WAR HORSE
English pub style food
Recipes with Turnips (the families failed crop)
Apples and Oats Cookies (what the horse was fed)
Stout Braised Short Ribs
War Horse-Radish Roll Ups (recipe online)
Apple Pecan Crisp (made with apples and Oats)
Something made with War HorseTershire Sauce

Then of course there are foods that are nods to movies that were nominated in other categories:

Girl with the Chicken Hong Sue
Girl with the Pan Fried Tofu
The Girl with the Dragon Fondue
My Week With Marinated ______ (pick your food)
My Week With Maryland Crabs
Harry Potter and the Deathly Marshmallows
Tinker Tailor Soldier Pies
Tinker Tailor Soldier Fries
Turkey Taco Salsa Spy
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy-ghetti
Hamsformers
Pies of the Planet of the Apes
Fries of the Planet of the Apes
Iron Ladyfingers
The Eggs Hangover Easy
Octopus In Boots
Souper 8
Chili Con Carnage
Rice of the Planet of the Apes
Rise of the Planet of the Grapes
The Ides of Margarine
Red Trail Mix
Gin and Tin Tin Tonics
Margarine Call
A Better Life Cereal
Albert Cobbs Salad
Rango Mango
Pina Colada

Yes, some of the above are pretty esoteric and if you don't know the movie or haven't seen it you might not get the reference. I'm sure the day after the Oscars, you'll be able to find many more cool takes on food that was served at the many Oscar parties that will be held tonight.

What am I making? I've narrowed it down to bringing a dish from a movie that I figure most folks at the party probably haven't seen. If it turns out, I'll post it here later this week.

Feel free to add any of your ideas, or links to Oscar food you made and served in the comments below!

 

Operation Pantry Project

Last year, during the month of January, I made some cooking resolutions. To be quite honest, I wrote them down and then completely forgot about them. Same thing happened the year before...I even posted the resolutions up on the blog. If I actually followed through on any of the cooking resolutions I've made in the last few years, it's probably been by accident, not a conscious effort to keep up with the resolution. So maybe this year, I thought, it's best that I make no New Year cooking promises.

But in looking back on those resolutions (haven't tried Beer Can Chicken yet or made biscuits from scratch) one kind of stuck out for me...Better Use of Leftover Fridge Ingredients. I've actually made a good effort the past couple of years to not let ingredients or leftovers in the fridge become science experiments and end up in the garbage can. We have regular "fridge tapas" nights were we have bits and pieces of what I might find in the fridge. Mr. L and I will split the last four jalapeno olives left in the jar.  A portion of lasagna that wouldn't feed one gets divided between us. 3 slices of salami left? Dab some cream cheese on them, add a sliver of pepperocini or jalapeno and yes, that's part of our "tapas" dinner.

Alas, this resolution didn't seem to make it to my pantry (or freezer for that matter). You see, as a "food enthusiast" I kinda collect foods.  I can't go on vacation without finding interesting local foods that need to come home with me. Visiting the Liberace Museum in Vegas? Oh, they sell Liberace Lemonade, I must buy! I need a bottle of Kyles Golden Syrup to make a dessert but they only sell them in cases? Well, I can figure out what to do with those extra 5 bottles right? Oh look at that, ostrich jerky, we should so try that! It doesn't help that grocery stores are full of "bright shiny objects" as my husband calls them. To most folks that might mean diamond bracelets or Jimmy Choo shoes. For me bright shiny objects are interesting food products that just need to be bought because someday I'll figure out what to make with them. So my pantry is full of strange shaped pastas, canned pumpkin because there was going to be a shortage (the fact that I rarely use canned pumpkin didn't enter my mind), three different colors of quinoa, gifts of salts of the world received as a Christmas present, strange flower scented honeys, gourmet mustards, boxes of Ina Gartens mixes picked up at Williams Sonoma and I even think there might be a jar of sauce from Targets Giada promotion.

Mr. L tried to put away some items in the pantry recently and I realized after he stood there for a minute that he was probably calculating the amount of time it would take him to pull everything out and rearrange the items just to fit one more in. I countered the exasperated sigh I heard from him with the suggestion that we play a little game with our pantry. Every week, he gets to pull an ingredient out from the pantry and I'll figure out what to cook with it. I saw a light in his eyes. Yes, he could pull something out of the pantry and put in that one little item that he was holding in his hand and escape. Thus began Operation Pantry Project.

I'm going to use "Pantry" here to incorporate more than the jumble of goods you see in the photo here (there is another shelf that isn't pictured by the way, and all those shelves are a good two feet deep). I'm going to include the canned goods shelf and the oil and vinegar shelf under our kitchen island, the freezer in the garage (which is full) and the, ahem, for lack of a better description, overflow pantry shelves also located in the garage. Oh and some of the stuff stuck in the shelves on the refrigerator door. This is going to be a grand undertaking indeed.

I think this project will also help me get out of a bit of the cooking funk I've been in. When you have a gazillion, too many, a lot of cookbooks you are trying to cook from, figuring out which recipe to make can be a bit daunting. Now that I know I'm going to have to cook that 8-pound pork shoulder Mr. L just picked from the freezer or that I will have to make something with that jar of organic flower blossom triple filtered honey, it might be easier to find recipes to coincide in that stack of overflowing cookbooks.

There is of course, a slight problem to this and that is the accumulation of more goods that need to go into the pantry. But, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

So what does this all mean? Well, the first thing I need to do is go through everything and toss any items that have expired. I'll take foods that I know I'll just never get to or at least not before they expire and donate them to the local food bank or homeless shelter. I'm sure my coworkers will be gifted with a few items (will I ever really use that can of Liberace Hot Cocoa Mix?).  I'd like to suggest that maybe my readers do the same. Take a bit of time this weekend to clean out your pantry. Get rid of stuff that's old and donate that stuff that you know you'll just never cook with to a place that can put it to good use. And then pick something from that cupboard or freezer that hasn't seen the light of day in a while and make a feast!

Halloween - October 2, 2011

There are many recipes online where you can make Halloween goodies that look like fingers. In fact, several years ago I posted a recipe from Martha Stewart for "Ladies Fingers and Mens Toes". And while I adore Martha Stewart, I can't live on four hours of sleep like she can and I don't always have time to make edible Halloween appendages.

So please forgive me when I cheat and buy these Shortbread Fingers from Williams Sonoma. Made from all natural ingredients, these shortbread cookies are hand rolled and decorated. Each 3 inch finger is individually wrapped.

$19.95 for a set of 10 (8 ounce total)

You can find them here.

Free Slurpee Day!

Today is 7-11's birthday and they are giving out free Slurpee's at participating stores between 7 AM and 11 PM.

Should you require a bit more Slurpee than the free stuff they are giving out be sure to check out the new "Cowboys and Aliens" cups they have.

Alas there are no 7-11's near me (the closest one burned down over a year ago and though they just started rebuilding, it will be a while before it's up and running) otherwise I'd get my staple...a cola slurpee. I've tried some of their new flavors over the years, but nothing stacks up to just a plain old cola version to me.