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Recipe: Slacker poutine

Someone on Twitter mentioned poutine, which made me remember my potatoes and leftover brown gravy in the fridge.

So I present to you…

Poutine for Slackers

You will need:
* potatoes (Frozen potatoes or fries work great for maximizing the slacker nature of this recipe)
* brown gravy (You can get a can in the store to maintain the slacker name. Or do what I did: save some leftover takeout gravy. To give you an idea of how lazy this recipe gets, I used KFC gravy.)
* cheese (“What, no cheese curds?” I hear you cry. Dude. This is a slacker recipe, not a genuine attempt at poutine. Also, I didn’t have any cheese curds handy. Read that italicized part again.)

Got all that? Good.

1. Prepare your potatoes. If you’re using frozen potatoes you can just pop them in the oven or fry them or whatever the bag says. If you’re using fresh potatoes like I did, chop them up and throw them in some oil. Cook until they’re done. I like mine golden brown and a tiny bit crunchy.

2. Prepare your gravy. If you used the premade bag, you’ll actually have to make and stir the stuff. If you’re using a can or leftover gravy, pop the gravy in the microwave until it’s warm.

3. Place potatoes on a plate or other serving dish of choice. Pour gravy on top. Sprinkle cheese on top (I used mozzarella). Enjoy.

I was going to get a photo of the completed product, but that stuff disappeared in mere minutes. Another time…. oh who am I kidding, I’ll never remember.

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Happy World Nutella Day! (and the best sandwich in existence)

Today is World Nutella Day, one of my favorite and tastiest holidays. We almost didn’t have a Nutella Day this year thanks to a cease and desist from Ferrero, the manufacturer of Nutella. Thankfully they saw sense and allowed Nutella Day to continue, leading to this post today.

My love affair with Nutella began in high school during my French Club membership. This was a casual affair, and I didn’t realize what a driving force Nutella would be until I visited France in college and ate Nutella on bread for breakfast.

Every. Single. Morning.

And this doesn’t include the many Nutella crepes I ate for lunch, sometimes with banana, sometimes without, from a street vendor.

Then I found Nutella at the store in America. And that’s where the fun and exploration really begin.

These days I almost always have at least one jar of Nutella in the house. Friends can count on me having one of the big jars around. Heck, when I taught and had to bring a lunch every day, I packed pretzels as part of the lunch… and Nutella to dip them in. This became a joke among my students and coworkers. But come on, who wouldn’t love something this amazing?

With that in mind, let’s talk my new favorite Nutella discovery: the Nutella, cookie butter, and banana sandwich. Those who follow me on Twitter know that I won’t shut up about this thing, and for good reason. This sandwich is nothing short of perfection.

I love banana and Nutella, I love banana and cookie butter, and heck, Trader Joe’s sells a cookie butter and chocolate swirl jar. That has to be good together, right? So wouldn’t all three together taste good?

I was right. But I wasn’t prepared for how right this combination would be.

“But Sushi,” you say. “I’ve never heard of this cookie butter. What is it? Where can I get it?”

Cookie butter, or for the uninitiated, perfection in a jar consists of cookies ground up to a spreadable peanut butter-like consistency. Trader Joe’s sells a cookie butter, along with Biscoff (you know, the cookie you get on flights). Cookie butter is magical, and I don’t usually keep it in the house because I can and will eat it with a spoon.

Got it? Good. On to the sandwich.

Cookie Butter, Nutella, and Banana Sandwich
(or the Best Sandwich In Existence)

Ingredients:
Cookie Butter
Nutella
1 banana (you can probably use other fruits, but this has given me the best results so far)
2 slices of bread

1. Toast the bread if you like.
2. Spread cookie butter across one slice of bread.
3. Spread Nutella across the other slice of bread.
4. Slice the banana and place it on the bread so it touches one of the spreads.
5. Put the sandwich together.
6. Eat! You’ll probably have banana left. Eat it if you like.

Seriously. This sandwich is just good. My stomach is rumbling right now because it’s hungry and I know it just wants this sandwich.

Just go try it. I’m going to hit post on this, then go home and make one in honor of Nutella Day.

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The decimal makes all the difference

I’ve done a lot of math in my time and endured a lot of comments from people who not only aren’t great at math but who, whether intentionally or not, make obvious mathematical mistakes. Today at a Wendy’s drive-through I saw a sign that made me wonder if anyone proofreads the signs before hanging them.

Four sauces for a penny? Sure!
(Click for bigger)

Four sauces for a penny? I’ll take that. Better yet, I’ll take just one and watch you make change for this penny. Making change for higher denominations of currency would be cruel and unusual punishment. At this price I should buy four hundred for a dollar and sell the sauces for twenty-five cents each. I’d make ninety-nine bucks. Multiplying my money ninety-nine fold isn’t bad at all. Maybe I should look into this.

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Meet the Frankenburger

My brother loves fast food. I don’t like most fast food, but my love of the occasional greasy bacon cheeseburger is undeniable, even if the grease goes straight to the heart afterward. At least it’s not Big Mac sauce, I tell myself. Some people love it. I’m not one of them, choosing to squirt ketchup and mustard (no mayo; that’s another condiment I avoid) on my burgers.

But what if you want to combine the best of every fast food burger? The sauce (if you’re into that), the vegetables, the burger, the cheese, the bun? Where do you start?

Enter the Frankenburger. It combines what the testers believed to be the best of the Big Mac, the Whopper, and the Half Pound Double from Wendy’s. Of these three, I would only eat the Half Pound Double on its own, which is why I find the Frankenburger especially disgusting. Maybe that’s because of the sauce–and the vegetables. We must be careful not to neglect those.

Oh, and the fries. The addition of fries in a burger is new to me, but maybe they were added to this creation so the consumer can eat an entire meal in fewer bites. Fast food just got faster. Considering the majority of the Frankenburger that I would actually eat are made of Wendy’s components, I think Wendy’s is safe for now, especially since Wendy’s has Frosties.

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Turtle soup and grits

Anyone want some turtle soup?

I’m more amused that this was on the Food Network than anything else. I don’t tune into the channel often, but Emeril doesn’t strike me as the type to try out the turtle. These cheesy bacon grits, on the other hand, may be the death of me. How’s that for a meal or two?