Danksgiving

This delicious Thanksgiving feast was actually prepared independently by Rachel because she is an orphan and was desperately abandoned by Melody. Nonetheless, it was enjoyed together later.  And it was fuckin' awesome.
First, the smooshed spuds:

Mashed with boiled garlic, Italian cheese, green onions, and buttaaaa.
Then came the stuffing:

"Aren't you gonna tell 'em how you made it?"
"It was from a box, Melody."
And then, the most magnificent side dish ever to grace the plate of a hungry table patron.  Tyler Florence's Best Ever Green Bean Casserole:

I love this casserole like a little child. Like a little prodigy child. Like a little Michael-Jordan-Amadeus-Mozart child who is dunking basketballs and writing symphonies out of the womb. Yeah, a child like that. That you can also eat. You will never taste green bean casserole this good, ever in your life.  Trust me on this, it's amazing.  Fresh green beans, mushrooms, sauteed shallots under rosemary toasted bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese.  If I believed in heaven, this is what it would smell like.
Put it all together on one big plate and you have....

a feastly feast.
Don't worry, we didn't forget dessert.

Streusel-topped pear pie. Yeah, beb.

On the radio we have the one, the only, Mr. Bill Withers. Bring da funk.
......And then Sid came over proclaiming, "Turkey is the fish of the sky."
Happy Thanksgiving
-Rachel & Melody

Almost Famous

My crab cake recipe should be famous.  But it isn't.
On the bright side, more crab for Rachel and Melody!



On this particular evening we were breaking records all around:

1. We were together and cooking by 6pm.  If this seems normal, let me inform you that eighteen hundred hours is exponentially earlier than is usual.
2. Drinking the designated Pinot Grigio while cooking resulted in the unfortunate coupling of red wine with seafood.  Record for fastest bottle of wine finished, eva.

The salad was from a bag, any monkey can do that.  The crab cakes...well, if I told you how to make them, I'd have to kill you.  Lime-cilantro dipping sauce on top, and voila!

For dessert, snickerdoodle cookies from scratch.  Another one of those "should be famous" recipes we've got just lying around this place.

As far as tunes are concerned, we chopped, diced, and mixed with Rebelution laying it down in the background.  But suddenly my phone rang, and it was Lady Gaga, so we just had to answer!  We brought it down a notch to eat our perfectly prepared plates.

-Rachel

Muffin Extravaganza

Vegetable lasagna is a major priority in my life.  Making it, eating it, giving it to my neighbors and friends, marveling at the gooey, cheesy, vegetable-stuffed layers...shall I continue?
Anyway, vegetable lasagna is cool.  Individual vegetable lasagnas shaped like muffins are really cool.

We used wonton wrappers as the "noodle" and layered them in muffin tins with ricotta and mozzarella cheeses, Cabernet marinara sauce, steamed spinach, sliced mushrooms, and zucchini.  Just to show how badass these little lasagnas really are, we used completely raw vegetables (the spinach was pre-steamed) and they still came out perfectly cooked and steaming. Woah.

We served them with improvised vegetable wontons.  I.E. we needed a side dish, so we tossed shredded carrots and zucchini with EVOO, salt, pepper, basil, and put them in the muffin tins between two wonton wrappers brushed with oil. BAM!

For dessert we had cupcakes.  Unfortunately, cupcakes actually belong in muffin tins, which makes it a little less innovative, but still scrumptious.

The only thing we didn't make in muffin pans, were muffins.....

The soundtrack for this miniature cooking experience was, is, and will be STS9 Radio by Pandora. Check it.

-Rachel