i <3 salad

well it's time for me give a shout out to my favorite fellow blogger again. i'd been waiting for a special occasion to make this awesome recipe, but finally i decided i would just treat myself!

in this sweet summer treat you take something plain and simple like this:



and mix it with other fun ingredients containing things like high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, and modified food starch to make something like this:



pretty great, huh?

snickers salad (by carrie's dad's girlfriend kelly)

• 6 chilled snickers candy bars
• 6 apples (granny smith and/or red delicious)
• 1 container cool whip
• 1 box instant vanilla pudding

mix cool whip and pudding mix together (i substituted lite cool whip and sugar/fat free pudding for a healthier option). core and chop apples and snickers into bite size pieces. even though i substituted individually wrapped snickers minis (all that packaging makes me feel safe from food contamination... and terrorists) , i still halved or quartered each one. combine apples and snickers with cool whip / pudding mix. drizzle with caramel and chocolate and chill for at least an hour.



this is quite possibly the sweetest thing i've ever ingested (and this is coming from me - the girl who eats ice cream by the tub and donuts by the dozen). i actually wound up using only half the apples called for because there simply wasn't any more room in my bowl to mix up more salad - so perhaps more fruit would have offset the cloying flavor a bit. but as we all know, the more saccharine the better when it comes to desserts - which means the snicker salad is pretty much perfect!

cool summer lunch (aka the boyfriend special al-mode)

i know you're all probably already insanely jealous of the way my significant other wines and dines me, so i must admit i was hesitant at first to post this entry. i'm just going to have to ask the ladies and the gays to do their best to exercise some self control and keep their hands off my man after reading this.



cool summer lunch (by the boy)

• one deli sammich
• one bag of cool ranch doritos (the "cool" part of the summer lunch)
• one iced tea
• one pint of ice cream
  

accept boyfriend's offer to pick up some lunch, and do your best to hide the annoyance in your voice when you realize he's hitting up the deli again. argue with boyfriend over phone while he stands in the deli and insists they don't have any teany or honest tea even though they've had them every. other. time. you've been there. settle for some apricot shit from inko's that tastes like acetone instead. enjoy with an al-mode side of ice cream eaten directly from the container (cause we're classy like that).




i've actually watched them make this meal at the deli several times myself and i think i've nearly perfected the at home version of it. it involves slicing a roll as well as some lettuce and tomato so it's a bit advanced, but i'll be sure to post it anyway once i have it all worked out.

one brainwashing to go please (lg15 12 of 12)

so it's over. and i'm thinking i could use a nice healthy dose of some of the stuff daniel got before the miss me? video. after all, it did wonders for danny b, just think what it could do for me...




i'm far too exhausted to even pretend to have a recipe for this one. i live in new york for fucks sake, the pizza came from the pizzeria on the corner and the ice cream is ben & jerry's from the bodega on the other corner. and here's some virtual spin art to seal the deal.

i'll return to my regularly scheduled gourmet blogging tomorrow and see the rest of you lonelycrackers on the interwebs on monday!!

i like donuts (lg15 6 of 12)

donuts have made several appearance in lg15 videos. jonas longed for one in the unthinkable happened, daniel stole one in let's play doctor, sarah declared her fondness for them (for the second time) in entertaining myself, and spencer ate one for breakfast in his car during i'm here to help.



this recipe is much easier than stealing a donut from a nurse's station. simply walk or drive to the nearest dunkin donuts and purchase a donut with chocolate frosting. et voila! dessert doesn't get much simpler than that!

dishless dinner

here's an amazing, quick, and easy meal you can make when you're in a hurry. and the best part is you don't have to dirty a single dish in the process.



cold soba

• one container of pre-made soba from your local health food store or co-op

remove lid from container, insert fork, and enjoy!



soba is one of those fancy japanese imports that's all the rage in new york these days. it's actually a noodle made of buckwheat!



for dessert i had some lemon ginger soy frozen yogurt by whole soy & co (which i was tipped off to by my friend amy). there was a typo on the container though because it claimed there were actually four servings in there when clearly you're meant to eat the entire pint in one sitting.

isn't it amazing what sort of meals you can whip up without any cleanup??

cooking with friends

my friend karolyn invited me over to help her cook dinner last night.



it was a good thing i got there when i did, because she was attempting to prepare ratatouille on the floor!

i swooped in to save the meal and make the quinoa.

red quinoa

• one box of ancient harvest inca red quinoa
• one pot of water

open box of quinoa (be sure to open plastic bag inside of box as well). pour entire box into pot of water. boil for approximately 15 minutes or until karolyn pays attention and turns off the flame.



i know some of you were a little intimidated by the stove top usage in the hard boiled egg recipe, so you might want to check out this tutorial here. in fact it might be best to do several practice runs before actually making any real food.

while i did all the hard work, karolyn busied herself with useless endeavors like building towers of ratatouille and quinoa out of recycled cans.



unfortunately, the hard, sad reality of gravity soon set in. amazingly enough though, this dish tastes identical in both a vertical and horizontal position.



for dessert we had cupcakes from sugar sweet sunshine provided by ian, another dinner guest. it's a good thing that he and i were there to save this meal from being a total and utter disaster. however, i did learn that it's difficult to photograph cupcakes while intoxicated.

it's so good to know that my friends can really count on me to help them eat well!!*

*though i must admit part of me secretly isn't sure just how grateful they are, seeing as how they repaid me by forcing me to play a five hour game of pirates which nobody actually won...

obligatory post

while my parents were in town my mother was insistent that we partake in some chocolate by the bald man. unfortunately max brenner falls a bit below my usual dining standards, so i feel i'd be doing my readers a disservice by devoting too much time to them. i'll do my best to spare you all and keep this brief.




i started off with a not-quite-caesar salad (romaine, croutons, and parmesan with citrus vinaigrette instead of caesar dressing). my dressing was served on the side in a miniature erlenmeyer flask - which i think was a sad attempt to convince me that there were some scientific methods behind their food preparation.




for dessert we shared the melting marshmallow crepe (melted chocolate chunks and marshmallows, vanilla ice cream, gummy bears, warm chocolate sauce, white chocolate chunks) and melting chocolate heart cake (warm chocolate cake with melted dark and white chocolate heart, fresh strawberries, vanilla ice cream and warm chocolate sauce). i think they like to name their desserts "melting" to distract customers from the fact that they're clearly unable to serve things in their proper frozen state. thankfully though, since i'd just eaten a salad, any and all calories in the chocolate were thereby completely negated.

if you're in search of light and savory eats paired with rich and decadent sweets then go here if you must. but don't say i didn't warn you.