my fake food blog

Oct 15 2012

Homemade Peanut Butter. Subtitle: Why I am moron [sic]

I made homemade peanut butter today. What did you do today, Felix Baumgartner?

No. I didn’t ask about yesterday, I asked about today. I WIN. YOU LOSE.

I took today and tomorrow off, so I’ve been cleaning, making bacon, egg and gouda sandwiches (…you fancy, huh?) and watching Doctor Who on DVD.

I also have a fake food project I’m working towards. Someone asked me to make peanut butter cookies, so make them I shall. Peanut butter cookies aren’t my favorite, but I found a recipe that my Gramma gave me. So, it’s on.

And why not make the peanut butter cookie process a lot more difficult and time consuming by making the peanut butter yourself! Like a dbag!

Honestly? I decided to make this homemade peanut butter so I could justify buying myself a full-size food processor. I’ve had a mini one up until now, but unless you’re making a tiny marinade for like…one chicken wing, it’s not really that useful of a tool.

So, I found a recipe for Alton Brown’s homemade peanut butter on foodnetwork.com. And this is where the trouble started.

First thing, I could NOT find peanuts in their shells anywhere. George Washington Carver, the inventor of the peanut, wept in his grave. (I also could not find a joke that works…but whatever.) Went to Whole Foods. Went to Fresh Market. Found other nuts in their shells, but no peanuts.

I settled on unsalted, blanched peanuts, because they already had their skins removed. But I tasted them and they taste like unsalted, blanched cardboard. I had to fix this or I would have spent $12 on peanuts that I would have brought home from the store and then more than likely thrown in the garbage.

I decided to roast the peanuts at 375 for about 15 minutes with a generous sprinkling of salt, which kind of does the trick.

A helpful hint: When you go to take a picture of something you pulled out of the oven, don’t grab it with your bare hands. Like I did. Who do you think you are, the husband in a Frigidaire commercial? (Callback machine!)

Anyways. Now, here’s the rest of the recipe, minus the roasting fiasco.

Ingredients:

15 oz. of roasted peanuts, shelled and skinned
1 tsp of kosher salt
1 ½ tsp of honey
1 ½ TB of peanut oil

Combine peanuts, salt and honey in your food processor and process for one minute.

And process for one minute.

…And process for one minute.

….Why won’t this damn thing turn on.

I tried a different outlet. I tried a different outlet in a different room. And then I got angry. And went upstairs and put on regular human clothes (please note, I was doing this at 5 pm) so I could leave the house and speak to people and return the broken food processor. I threw all the peanuts away, washed the food processor bowl, when my friend Katie responds to my curse-laden text about the food processor with “did you have the lid on right?”

…No… No, I did not.

After my large slice of humble pie, I roasted a new set of peanuts and processed.

The smell of the freshly processed nuts had almost a coffee aroma to them. I had to add a bit more peanut oil than the recipe called for to get the peanut butter smooth, almost another 2 tablespoons

The results are tasty, but not the most spreadable. In his recipe, Alton Brown notes that for making peanut butter, one should use Spanish peanuts because they have a higher oil content. I don’t think I had Spanish peanuts because the texture of this peanut butter isn’t quite right.

Jif would definitely win a beauty pageant and this peanut butter would get Miss Congeniality. (She sure is trying hard!) But there’s a really good roasted flavor with a background of saltiness. And it’s not overly sweet, which I think is nice. Not sure if I’ll bake the cookies with it yet. Maybe I’ll make one batch with it and one batch with the Jif, just to see how it turns out.

Felix Baumgartner makes history. I make peanut butter. He may have the upper hand, but mine tastes better.

Tagged Alton Brown, Cookies, Peanut Butter

Oct 14 2012

Got some cheesy drizzle/Running down my chizzle

Did you ever want something so bad but not KNOW you wanted it until you actually GOT it?

As I was blow drying my hair before work yesterday, I got a gift straight from The Man Upstairs. I was doing my usual lap of social media on my phone: Twitter, Facebook, and lastly, YumSugar where I saw a link to some fried EFFING gold on Grubstreet. It was a video of the hottest rap/food collabo in town.

Snoop Lion (nee Dogg) rapping for Hot Pockets.

What song did he choose? …You’re joking, right?

Y’all. It’s the LONG awaited pastry-filled remix of Drop It Like It’s Hot.

May I introduce to you: Pocket Like It’s Hot

At 5:48 am on Saturday morning, I emailed this to a group of my friends. PEOPLE NEED TO SEE THIS.

Yesterday, it was at around 300,000 views. Today, it’s at over a million. PEOPLE ARE SEEING THIS.

And how could they not be with such ah-mazing features like:

“I just heat it up to eat it up.” (EW)
A dancing Hot Pocket with sunglasses and a pimp-ass cape
Music that is really similar yet SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT from Drop It Like It’s Hot (Legal reasons, y’all)
Aforementioned Hot Pocket in a hot tub with some beyotches. To quote the Grub Street write up, “somehow [the Hot Pocket] can withstand a leisurely jacuzzi soaking without detriment to his crispy pastry exterior.”
A rapper named DeStorm Power (who with a name like that, should be rapping for the Electric Company) with a blinged out necklace that says HOTT CHEESE
Lyrical brilliance like: “pepperoni pizza much better than some fish heads,” “let’s sign the pre nup/me and Hot Pockets is never gonna split up”, “Got some cheesy drizzle/dripping on my chizzle”
And a shot towards the end of Snoop taking a real life Hot Pocket out of the microwave and saying “Oh yeah, now it’s time to undress you.”

I… I’m… I just. I just have to ask a question. ….Do the people want to sex the Hot Pockets? I’m getting that vibe. It’s not an American Pie thing, right? Because I’ve eaten Hot Pockets before. And they scald your mouth so you can’t taste for DAYS. So, I’ve got to imagine what they could do to your swimsuit area.

PS, my favorite Hot Pocket thing ever? When Jim Gaffigan talks about it in his stand up. But probably wasn’t endorsed or paid for by Hot Pocket themselves.

Honestly, I’m not sure what marketing purpose it serves. But frankly, we’re all talking about Hot Pockets. So, points for that.

But it doesn’t make me want to eat one. And I definitely, DEFINITELY don’t want to bed one.

Tagged advertising, Hot Pockets, Snoop Dogg

Oct 09 2012

1 Comment

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Gramma Soup

Yeah… That’s kind of a misleading title for this post.

Makes the soup sound like it’s made out of Grammas.

Yes. I know that it’s not ACTUALLY spelled Gramma. To be honest, I don’t remember when I started calling my grandma ‘Gramma.’ But I just liked it better. Everyone else calls their grandmothers Mee Maw or Gammy. A woman named Myrtle shouldn’t be called Gammy. It’s ridiculous. Let’s just call her Gramma and be done with it.

My Gramma makes the most delicious, simple vegetable beef soup. When I was in college she would actually make it, freeze it, and send it to me from northern Indiana to North Carolina. It was the perfect comfort food before play rehearsal or cramming for a test or if that cute guy didn’t call when he said he would.*

*I’m joking, of course. He ALWAYS called when he said he would. That’s why I’m almost 30 and have a fake food blog and not a real boyfriend. (Please tip your waitresses!)

So, for my first real food post on My Fake Food Blog, I thought I’d go for a classic: Gramma’s Vegetable Beef Soup.

The best thing about this soup is that you can totally tailor it to your tastes. Want to make a half batch? Easy. Hate carrots? Cool. Want to add some seasonal parsnips? Alright, calm down.

Here’s what you need:

Ingredients:

1 to 2 lbs stew beef (1 lb if you want to go heavy on the vegetables/light on the beef, 2 lbs if you want more beef in there)

2 cups celery, chopped

2 cups onions, chopped

2 cups green pepper, chopped

2 cups potato, chopped

2 cups turnip, chopped

2 cups carrots, chopped

2 32 oz. containers of beef stock

2 32 oz. cans of crushed tomatoes

2 15 oz. cans of tomato sauce

1 6 oz. can of tomato paste

2 cups of frozen peas

2 cups of frozen sweet corn

2 cups of frozen green beans

Salt & Pepper

You also need: a cutting board, a knife, a giant pot and some sort of wooden spoon.

1. Cut your stew beef into small, bite size chunks.

When it’s chunked (gross), put it in your pot and add water to cover. Season with salt and pepper and turn to medium heat. In 15-20, minutes, meat should be just cooked through and you’ll have a nice meaty flavor base for your soup.

2. While your meats a-heating, peel and chop your vegetables.

3. Add your liquids (crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste) and vegetables to the pot. Season with more salt and pepper. Taste. And then, what the hell, do some more salt and pepper because if you’re like me, you did not put enough in.

4. Bring to a boil. Then reduce to a simmer, uncovered, until your vegetables are tender but still toothsome.

Again, if you are like me, you will forget to reduce your soup to a simmer, so you will have accidentally left your pot on a full rolling boil for a solid 25 minutes. Which was kind of awesome because all the vegetables were perfectly done.

5. Add frozen vegetables. Stir and heat through, 5-7 minutes.

6. Taste one last time for salt and pepper. Is it seasoned enough? IS IT?

Serve with crusty French bread or a lovely salad.

Makes: A TON. Seriously. If I did the math right, you can get 16 very healthy servings out of this soup. Like most soups, this is going to be so much better the next day, after the flavors meld together. And it freezes splendidly.

A couple notes.

-My Gramma always puts cabbage in her vegetable beef soup. I didn’t have any on hand and didn’t feel like buying it. But if you’re a fan, go for it. Green cabbage or savoy, not red.

-If you have cans of vegetables at home and want to throw those in, you can. Just make sure you follow this basic principle: hard vegetables that will take a long time to cook go in first and longest. Frozen and/or canned vegetables that just need to be heated through go in at the end.

-Gramma also always puts turnips in the soup, but I’d never done it before. So, I bought my very first turnip and put it in the soup, y’all. I bought an EM-EFFING TURNIP. It was a lot less intimidating than I thought. I wanted to impress you guys. Are you impressed? Probably not. Haha.

So that’s Gramma Soup. ~~100% human free.~~ Made BY Grandmothers, Not OF Grandmothers.

PS. This is Myrtle on her 90th birthday. You know how you’re still a badass at 90? By eating soup.

Tagged Gramma, soup

Oct 07 2012

3 Comments

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Will somebody PLEASE get that man some pot holders?

In my professional life, I’m a broadcast producer at an advertising agency. I produce television commercials, video content for the web, agency videos, all kinds of stuff. It’s pretty rad. It’s how I met Big Bird.

Basically, this is how you justify a career of watching TV. (I HAVE to watch TV. I NEED to see the commercials!!)

If I’m not watching the best television there is (British television), I always have Food Network or Cooking Channel on in the background. I’m not even going to lie, I actually LIKE Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. But I refuse to go to Flavor Town. I know inexplicably disgusting innuendo when I hear it.

But that’s not the point here. I watch a ton of food TV, so I see a ton of food commercials. And I happened to see this great Frigidaire spot last night, which you can see on their site here. All about the history of Frigidaire and how their company made innovations in the last century. They’re even making innovations today, with this amazing double oven that lets you cook things at multiple temperatures.

And then the commercial shows the oven. Then it shows the temperatures the oven is cooking at, which are 350 and 400 degrees, respectively. And THEN it shows the husband carrying two dishes to the table, presumably from the oven, with his BARE HANDS.

What the what?!

Preppy Husband carried two casserole dishes straight from the oven with his bare hands. He was smiling and NOT crying, as I almost did when I had to touch a too hot plate at a restaurant earlier this week.

The spot is very well produced. And I really want that oven. I just want to buy that man a pair of pot holders. Or at the very least, take him to the hospital. He clearly has some issues.

Tagged advertising

Oct 06 2012

2 Comments

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My Fake Food Blog

Let’s just ask the real, tough question here: why in the world do we need another food blog from an amateur home cook?

Well, because I was born in the 80s and my parents told me I should do anything that would make me happy. (Thanks, Maria and Dave!)

Truth be told, I love to cook. And I love social media. So, naturally, when I cook, I love to post pictures of what I cook to my social media. Obnoxious as that may be to some of my followers.

I’d been playing around with the idea about starting a food blog for several reasons. They are threefold:

I’m already cooking and taking all the pictures. Why not aggregate all the content into one place?
I’m hi-larious. And frankly, not enough people are getting to enjoy my wit and vim.
Everyone else has a blog and I was getting jealous. (Yes, I am an only child. Why do you ask?)

So, my plan is to find recipes from blogs, cookbooks, my friends, my Gramma, my mom, you name it. This is the fake part of My Fake Food Blog. I don’t really have the skills to make recipes up, but I DO have the skills to STEAL something from someone else. And then credit them, of course. Calm down, thought police.

Regardless, I’m going to cook. Then I’m going to share the recipe and post pics of my successes and my failures.

Welcome to My Fake Food Blog. The food is real. The blogging is fake.

my fake food blog

Real Food. Fake Blog.

Homemade Peanut Butter. Subtitle: Why I am moron [sic]

Got some cheesy drizzle/Running down my chizzle

Gramma Soup

Will somebody PLEASE get that man some pot holders?

My Fake Food Blog