Squiddy's Kitchen Creations: Fiesta!

this is one of our favorite meals. its relatively easy and so so yummy!!! our fiesta dinner consists of chicken quesadillas, tortilla chips and queso, guacamole, and mango salsa and sometimes squiddys special black beans and rice. this is a great meal if you've got hungry guests to feed. the ingredients are pretty flexible so you can add or delete things as you wish and tune the spices and chilies to suit your own tastes. it doesn't take long to prepare, the chopping is the biggest part of the ordeal. if you can recruit one of your hungry guests to chop vegetables while you prepare the food, you're good to go! now send someone on a corona run and lets get cookin!

for the quesadillas:

dice the following:

• 2 medium/large chicken breasts
• 1 large green bell pepper (or a bit of a yellow/red/green combo)
• 1/2 clove garlic
• 1 large tomato
• 1 medium onion
• 2 ears corn, shaved
• 1 large jalapeno chili
• 1/2 to 1 large habanero chili, depending on taste
• 3 large basil leaves, shredded and minced
• juice of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 lime
• 3 bushy stems of cilantro
• 3 or 4 generous handfuls of shredded cheddar and mozzarella and monterey jack/pepper jack cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

mix in a large bowl. heat a large pan and coat generously with butter. on medium high bring to a sizzle, then place a large tortilla on and cover pan. after 30 seconds, cover tortilla generously with a thin layer of cheese and an even layer of the quesadilla mixture and cover with a second tortilla. you can also only fill half and fold the tortilla. cover and heat on medium for a few minutes until cheese is nice and melty. cut into wedges and serve.

for the tortilla chips:
fry in a thin layer of butter a few tortillas ripped into pieces until nice and crispy.

for the queso:
dice and combine the following:

• 1/4 onion
• 1/2 large tomato
• 1/4 clove garlic
• 1 jalapeno chili
• 1/2 habanero chili
• 4 or 5 handfuls cheddar/monterey jack/pepper jack/mozzarella
• salt and pepper
• *bacon salt

heat and add a few dollops of whole milk/half and half/heavy cream slowly. simmer until creamy. YUM!!!


for the guacamole: this part is my favorite. i like the avocado chunks to be mashed nicely, but still about 50% chunky after stirring. 1" cubes seem to do the trick for this. the chilies give it a nice rosy bite, the bell pepper adds a good hint of crunch and the tomatoes cool it down. don't forget the lemon and lime juice, or it'll turn brown on top real quick. when you fridge this, cover the surface of the guacamole with plastic wrap, which will help it stay nice and green.

dice and combine:

• 3 large ripe avocados
• 2 ears corn, shaved
• 1 large onion
• 1 large bell pepper
• 2 large tomatoes
• 1 clove garlic
• 3 sprigs cilantro
• 3 basil leaves
• 1 or 2 jalapenos
• 1/2 to 1 habanero
• juice from a lemon and a lime
• salt and pepper

stir until about half the avocado is mashed but mixture is still chunky. chill in fridge.



for squiddys special salsa:::

• 1 large bell pepper
• 2 ears corn, shaved
• 3 large tomato
• 1 medium onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 jalapenos
• 1 or 2 habeneros
• cilantro, salt and pepper
• lemon and lime juice
• 1 mango
• 1 peach
• a few berries (i use strawberries, raspberries and blueberries)
• some lemon and lime zest
• 1 Tbsp sugar or honey
• 1 tsp salt, more to taste
• a dash Marsala wine
• a dash vinegar

dice and combine all but a handful of mango, peach, and tomato. set aside.
take the reserved fruits and add a sprinkle onion, citrus juice, and a few pieces of chilies and saute on high heat for a minute or two with a dash of vinegar and a sprinkle of sugar and salt.
you want to soften up the mango pieces but let them get a bit singed and caramelized on the outsides. once the mango chunks start to get soft and mashy when you stir, add the berries, the sugar, salt and pepper, zest, and a healthy dash Marsala. and stir, then cover and simmer for a few minutes, stirring frequently to avoid burning or sticking to pan.
when nice and caramelized but still a bit runny, combine with the chopped salsa mixture and stir for a few minutes, then chill.

the thing i love about this salsa is that it has a nice robust flavor, the sweetness contrasts to the spiciness of the chili's so nicely. its great to eat right out of the serving bowl, but the flavor develops even more yumminess when its been chilled a while.



pair these items with some rice and beans, and you've got yourself a fiesta!!!

busheviks

At Least I Can Say I'm Not Surprised

what a fucking ASSHOLE.

a comment on reddit summed it up pretty nicely:

"so, basically, in spite of the trampling of the constitution, the disregard for our rights, the wars of aggression, the lies, the treasure squandered, the blood spilt, we are no safer today than we were 09-13-2001...?

if that is the case, we should just shut down the entire anti-terror operation. it clearly has failed, will continue to be a failure, and i don't really like throwing good tax money after bad.

then the criminally incompetent masterminds of this fiasco should be held accountable for their fuck ups, preferably with life prison sentences."

the only thing i can really add to that is: criminal prosecution, conviction, and hanging for High Treason

YAAAAAAYYY

i had an interview today, and got offered the position within a few hours! yaaayyyyyy!!!!!
and now i will be able to GET A VEHICLE!!!!! more yayyyy!!!!

i'm gonna go celebrate hard tonight.


YYYYAAAAAAAAYYYYYY

ps- !

Squiddy's Kitchen Creations: things i need for my kitchen, part 2

Wine Glassesi loves me some wine! but i have been drinking it out of my flying dog pint set which just feels wrong, so i need some wine glasses. and on that note...


A Corkscrewall i have is a shitty dollar store corkscrew that is broken in half. before that you could observe me in my tiny kitchen, hacking away frustratedly at a bottle with a screwdriver and pliers for 20 minutes before i got access to that sweet nectar. (bonus points for extra bits of cork floating around in it. its fiber. yum!) but now i have half a corkscrew. hopefully someday i will have a WHOLE corkscrew! i need a good corkscrew!


A Chef's Knifemy current good knife came from the dollar store as well, and is a bit flimsy. i need one of these babies! or even a whole set!


A Deep Freeze Chesti like to cook a lot, as i have mentioned. part of this includes freezing meals for future eating. usually these are lunches to take to work, so that i dont have to spend money on fast food. i have found that in general, eating only food that you cook yourself from scratch is a whole lot cheaper, more healthy, and more fun, so i try to do it as often as possible. (although i admit i have a particularly obscene fondness for the taco bell)
i need a big chest freezer to store all my extra shit in. the booze takes up enough room.


a microplane graterthese are great and dont muck up yr knuckles. nuff said.

Squiddy's Kitchen Creations: Things I Need For My Kitchen, Part 1

Welcome to my Kitchen! watch out for flying objects, keep your elbows tucked in, and BYOB, cos its crazy cooking time!

today i will be writing about things i need for my kitchen (as you may have noticed from the title. how smart you are! lets continue)

i live in what is technically a one bedroom apartment, so as you can imagine, our kitchen is rather small and humbly-equipped. we have a sink, a stove, and a bit of counter, and that is about it. the rest we make up for in creativity, ingenuity, and flair! pretty much all of my cooking equipment and utensils have been inherited from loving friends and family, and a few from those nice folks at the thrift store down the street. actually... now that i think of it, i cant really recall any object in our kitchen which was purchased new. so we really do... make do. that is not to say that it prevents us from making delicious food though. oh ho ho no. DEE-RICIOUS is how we roll down at Squiddy's Happy Critter Cottage. (or as the boyfriend calls it, the ZooQuarium)

so this is the beginning of what will be a sort of wish list for my kitchen, which undoubtedly will grow exponentially over time.

i just started the list this morning, and its already a page long, so this might be typed in installments, as i am at my desk in the cube farm currently.

here goes.


A Mortar and Pestlei cant tell you how many times a week i say to myself "damn, i wish i had a mortar and pestle to grind/mash/mix this crap" and yet i somehow always forget to buy one. i am a big fan of herbs and spices, and a bigger fan of fresh herbs and spices, preferably grown and picked from my garden seconds before use. (yes that's right, i have a garden in a tiny apartment. i rock.)
i want to get one soon, but i will be sticking to either porcelain or granite as they are more durable and tend not to absorb stains/odors/flavors as much as those horrid wooden ones. soapstone is out of the question. i am quite rough on my tools. rough but loving. like your moms prom date.
here are some online.



A Woki love cooking in woks! its wonderful! these round-bottomed pans are so versatile, they heat so nicely, and the surface area is way larger than a normal frying pan since you can use the sides too. great for any fried or sauteed thing you can come up with, and you can even use them to steam veggies or meat in combination with a steaming basket! i really need a wok.


A Cast Iron Skilletcast iron cookware is great for frying and high-heat/slow cooking for long periods of time. it is a pan that will grow with you as it ages, developing a better coating over time for great non-stick and seasoning properties. a good cast iron skillet is the pride of a kitchen. i have a very small one, at home, but it is one of those crappy cracker-barrel ones, and not much bigger than a chicken breast really, so it isn't very versatile. i need a big deep frying pan like the mama had.


A Rice Steameri know, you can cook rice in a regular pot. but it sucks. it burns. its always too mushy, or really dry. but with these, its almost always perfect. plus, you can use them to steam veggies, meat, or even as a slow cooker! rice steamers are awesome.



A Chef/Butcher/Chopping Blocki love to cook with fresh ingredients, so i usually do a good bit of chopping, slicing, dicing, and julienning by the time I'm ready to cook. at the moment i have a small (6x8) beveled glass cutting board, which does the job, but is quite loud. also, i am always waiting for that one fateful blow that will shatter it. it washes quite easily, and it has an embedded photograph taken by my beloved room-turtle, but that's about the best i can say about it. i have been eyeing up the chopping blocks online for some time now, and i hope to eventually acquire one of those fancy pants Chopping Block Kitchen Islands one day, once i have a stationary home and larger kitchen. (i can dream) but for now I've got my sights set on something like this.


More Counter Spaceas i said before, there isn't much to be had in my current setup. whats there is already partially taken up by a dish rack, coffee pot, and microwave. if our kitchen was bigger, i would get an island, but its barely big enough for 2 people as it is. i need more surface area!!!


A Double Sinkit would be easier not having a dishwasher if i had one of these.





and now it is time for me to get lunch. more kitchen wishes later.

Squiddys Kitchen Creations: An Introduction

i LOVE to cook. cooking for me is akin to a really fun experiment in chemistry and physics, only you get to EAT your results! yum! i think my love of cooking was born early in my childhood. some of my very earliest memories involve food, and as i come from a very large family of folks who lived in many various places throughout europe for a good portion of their lives, there was always an abundance of crazy delicious dishes every time the family got together. i remember watching my opa toss pizza dough from my highchair and playpen. i remember the family fall honey and berry harvest at my aunt and uncles farmhouse which was always the start of a wonderful weekend-long cooking extravaganza involving a kitchen full of cooks, a house full of children, and so many good foods you couldnt count or try them all. i remember standing on a dining room chair to reach the kitchen counter so that i could perform various "food experiments", an activity which my mama inexplicably encouraged no matter how much of a mess i made, and how bizarre the resulting "recipes" were. she taught me that it was perfectly fine to try different things together and experiment with various cooking methods and so on, but also that i must eat what i make, because otherwise its just "playing around", and my mama was not fond of waste. she educated me on the basics of cooking and food safety so that i would know enough not to make something poisonous or undercooked, and made sure that i knew to come to her if i ever had a question about anything. in fact, this is one of the things i most love and respect my mother for, her persistence in always giving me a full and honest answer to any curiosity i might have, to the best of her knowledge and abilities, and avoiding at all possible costs the dreaded "because i said so" or "that's just the way it is" response. (although i suspect this may have been partly due to my steadfast refusal to simply accept these sort of answers and instead question the matter further, on of my most enduring and endearing qualities. this one is also most likely rubbed off from her. thanks mom!) i have always thought this was the main reason i became so interested in science at such a young age, a cultivated insatiable curiosity of the natural world.
but that's a tale for another day... moving on back to the COOKING!!!

i still do a great many "food experiments" only now they are pretty much all delicious. (and i make a bigger mess!) so in order to exercise my blogging discipline, and further my recent efforts at regularity (not the fiber kind) i will be writing about my various kitchen capers (not the pickled kind). first up is Squiddys Kitchen Creations: Things I need For My Kitchen, Part 1.

Bon Appetit!

the catalyst

sometimes there is a moment where you realize that you have been fooling yourself. seeing only what you wanted to see, and hearing only what you wanted to hear. the problem with this is you are usually the last person to see it.

tentacle jewels

these octo jewelry pieces are so cool!!!
i want them all!


go check out this etsy store!

the Holy Trinity: Southwestern Breakfast Vodka Trio

lately i have been experimenting with Infused Vodkas.
i have so far had much success with Cocoa Infused Vodka, Lemon and Lime Vodka, Lemon Vodka, Lime Vodka and Ginger Infused Vodka. I have found a whole lot of ruckus on the web over Bacon Vodka, and a load of other Scrumptious Bacon-ey Things, which will be addressed later. however, my Roommate and I have come up with the most wonderful of all alcohol mixes, what i refer to as "The Holy Trinity" : The Southwestern Breakfast Trio (or as i call it, Breakfast Of Champions).



this consist of Bacon Vodka, Jalapeno Vodka, and Corn Vodka.
the Bacon we had wanted to try, since seeing the idea on the internet. the jalapeno was my own idea, being a chili head. after i made it i googled jalapeno vodka and discovered that i am not the only one to think of this GENIUS idea. the corn vodka was all his idea, but i works extremely well paired with the other two. this is what i call "The Breakfast of Champions: the Southwestern Vodka Trio" and it is, for lack of a better adjective, AWESOME!

the bacon vodka smells questionable at first, but goes down smooth with a robust meaty finish. it is literally like drinking liquid bacon! i was excited, then skeptical, then ASTONISHED at how delectable is really is. it is great alone, but even better in a Holy Trinity Shot.

the jalapeno vodka is the most amazing thing i have ever ingested, with the exception of Absinthe (for obvious reasons). it tastes like a crisp bite of a freshly picked pepper, but subdued enough to drink with food, warms the throat but doesn't water the eyes, and tastes nothing like vodka at all. seriously, it is the most wonderful thing since cocoa vodka and sliced bread. for the full deliciousness effect, i suggest taking shots and chasing them with quesadillas or hot dogs. or more jalapeno vodka. :) this is worth drinking by itself.

the Sweet Grilled Corn Vodka tastes... well, it tastes like corn! corn on the cob, like a picnic. not the most expected thing, but rounds off the trio quite nicely with a sweet, cool finish.

the best way to drink these is The Holy Trinity Shot, where you pour 1 full shot of each and slam them down.
its a great post work reboot, or even better as a festival breakfast.

SquidFire!

this.

is.

awesome.

COLOSSAL SQUID is coming for yooooou!

here is a post by Tacky Raccoons (a very cool blog-thing) about my favorite of all squids: the mighty Mesonychoteuthis Hamiltoni, or the COLOSSAL SQUID. you should all quake in fear of these guys... they have razor-sharp serrated swivelling hooks in each sucker, get lots bigger than the more famous Giant Squid (architeuthis dux) and supposedly are capable of shredding several pounds of meat per minute off anything unfortunate enough to be caught in their loving arms.

i also liked the quip about macadamias at the end of the post. i can tell you personally, there is a very good reason they sell them pre-shelled. those fuckers are hard to crack!!! i ordered some raw macadamias from nutsonline earlier this year, and still have half a bag left, as i can only manage to get a few out with a hammer, a rock, and a good deal of effort. (and lots of noise. the neighbors now think i am crazy, but what else is new)

but boy are they delicious.

Talking Squids In Outer Space: The Pinnacle of Sci-Fi

Apparently, Margret Atwood once commented that "Oryx and Crake" isn't real science fiction, because sci-fi is "talking squids in outer space" and things that have not been invented yet. i remember reading a bit of this book way back when, and now i really want to reread it in full after having read the wikipedia entry linked above. i have had a few conversations recently about remembering bits of the story, and how intriguing it was, but frustratingly could not remember enough details to deduce the title or author. ill be going to the library soon!
anyway, her comment about squids in space led some people to wonder, "how many sci-fi books are there with talking squids in space? or on earth, for that matter?" and thus: talkingsquidsinouterspace.com was born.

this is a wicked compendium of sci-fi books involving (obviously) talking squids in outer space. this is everything i could have hoped for! they even have squidliographies and daily links to neat ceph-stuff.

go check it out!!!



ps- i just love todays story of the day "sheena 5" by Stephen Baxter
its about a super-intelligent squid with a super brain gen-gineered by NASA.
ive got a friend called sheena who will get a kick out of this...

Giant Squid Condoms?

this is cute, but wouldnt you need a multi-pack???

MAD SCIENTIST DAY CAMP

the Mad Scientist Day Camp is something i wish had been around when i was a kid. it sounds excellent! heck, i would go there now if i could.