Is it cheating if you cook with condiments?

After trying to cook dinner at my friend’s house last week I realized: my fridge holds an inordinate amount of condiments. Who knew, right? I never realized it, but I figured that having the whole fridge door filled with condiments was normal. But it’s not true, some people have like, two things on their door! Trying to cook with only ketchup and one kind of condiment made me think; am I really cooking if I’m using condiments?

Chefs are amazing for making flavors, but condiments are equipped with their own flavors already. So it would seem that I’m not a creating flavors like a chef if I’m using condiments to season meat like shrimp and chicken. What do I mean by seasoning with condiments? Okay so last night I needed to whip up some shrimp because I didn’t realize how late it was and how angry my stomach was at me. So I threw some shrimp in a pan and added some balsamic vinaigrette, pesto, sweet chili sauce, and Sriracha. All condiments! But the shrimp tasted great; sweet, spicy and a little bit tangy.

But after trying to cook without these accoutrements, I was struggling! I mean, my pasta still came out really good, but I thought I was good at cooking. Urg. Am I really cheating though, it’s still creative to combine all of those things… I think. I have cooked some pretty kick-ass things without using condiments, it’s really only my unplanned-I’m-starving-and-need-to-eat-now meals that have me grabbing a bunch of condiments like a crazy person. I don’t know if any of you out there do that too, but if you do, I’m telling you that I, a random person writing stuff on the internet, have declared it acceptable. If you made it, and it tastes good, it counts. Go us! *Clinks glass,* to the lazy and/or creative and hungry chefs out there, cheers!

The snow is filling my fridge

When they know a storm is coming, most people tend to fill up their fridge with as much food as possible, and it gets emptier as the storm goes on. Well, not my fridge; I can’t stop cooking! Talk about getting stir crazy (pun definitely intended). As you may have noticed on Instagram, I have been cooking a lot more than I have been baking. It’s really weird, I very rarely get this into cooking, but I’m not going to lie, I really like it!

Baking is one of my favorite things to do, but cooking is much more fast paced, which I like. I always shied away from it because of the raw meat, but it hasn’t been that much of an issue. I have been cooking roasted chicken, paella, soup, sandwiches and pasta; I am learning most of it as I cook. I admit it, I’ve had some help from my Nana of course (she’s the cooking lady I look up to), but the training wheels are starting to come off. So while you may be missing some pictures of chocolate mousse and cupcakes (which I actually have made but not shown you), let’s cook a little!

 

National Coffee Day! Celebrate with Coffee Cake

My love for coffee is as strong as my first phone, the Nokia 3650. But right up there next to coffee is cake. Put them together and you get magical breakfast cake for your coffee: Coffee Cake! It can come in many delicious forms, but the recipe that I have been using for years is a triple threat: easy, delicious, and big. Box cake mixes are as frowned upon as mixing sandals and a snowstorm, but this recipe is one of two loopholes.

The reason I allow myself to use a cake mix for this is because it’s not necessary to bake a cake from scratch to eat for breakfast, and scratch cake would actually be too much for this. The cake mix cake is squishy and light, it’s the right consistency so that the coffee cake isn’t too heavy.

For this recipe, use your favorite (if you have one) vanilla/yellow box cake mix; I usually use good ol’ Duncan Hines. You’ll also need:

• 4 Cups of All-Purpose Flour
• 1.5 Cups White Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon of Cinnamon
• 1 Teaspoon of Vanilla
• 1 Pound (4 sticks) Melted Butter

Okay here’s what you have to do: preheat the oven to whatever it says for the cake mix (probably 350 F). Make the cake mix how it says on the box in a greased and floured 11″ x 16″ pan, bake for 15 minutes. While that bakes, multitask the topping. Put all of the above ingredients together (it’s better to put the liquid in first) and mix with a wooden spoon until it’s all combined.

Take the cake out of the oven after 15 minutes, it doesn’t matter if it’s done yet. Now grab some handfuls of the topping that you made and squish and crumble it all over the cake. Put it back in the oven for another fifteen minutes, and make sure you let it cool. Once it’s cool, go to town on it with powdered sugar! Seriously, like a winter wonderland mess all over it. Then you’re ready to eat! Or if you’re a nice person with self control I guess you’ll share it with people, your call.

If you want to be creative or an over-achiever, you can try different types of cake mix. Pumpkin could be good for the fall, if anyone tries it let me know how it is!