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!

bean harmony

sorry for the lack of updates this past week, but i've been busy checking in on my competition. you may not have realized it, but i'm actually not the only food blogger on the interweb. keeping tabs on what everyone else is up to helps me keep my little mental kitchen to do (and not to do) list fresh.

one great source of inspiration is the cook and author of the smitten kitchen. she and i have so much in common it's downright scary. for starters we're both from new york and we're both named deb(bie). and then of course there's the obvious - that we're both amazingly talented behind the camera and in the kitchen... and not to mention witty as fuck.



i figured it was about time i share one of her recipes (along with some much needed improvements) with all of you. deb certainly had the right idea but it just lacked that special something. luckily i've come along and tweaked the recipe to perfection.

mixed bean salad with tomato and lemon (by smitten kitchen)

• 2 medium tomatoes 1
  
• ½ pound yellow wax beans, ends trimmed and beans halved crosswise 2
  
• ½ pound haricot vert, or slim green beans, ends trimmed and beans halved crosswise 3
  
• 2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil 4
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced 5
  
• pinch of red pepper flakes
• glug of white wine 6
  
• salt and pepper 7
  
• juice of one lemon 8

1 substituted half a can of whole peeled stewed tomatoes
2 omitted
3 substituted one can of cut green beans
4 omitted
5 substituted jarred minced garlic in olive oil
6 substituted red wine
7 omitted
8 used only half a lemon



microwave green beans for two minutes and set aside. heat garlic and red pepper in a large pan. add tomatoes and simmer for a couple minutes. add a splash of red wine and continue to simmer. lower heat and toss in green beans, coating evenly with tomato and garlic. squeeze the juice of half a lemon over everything and serve.



as you can see there was none of that slotted spoon, ice bath, or colander nonsense that deb seemed so fond of. and yet the end result is still a perfectly light summery meal. nice try deb, but next time you might want to check with the expert first.

trendsetter

one of my favorite bloggers, carrie (aka adam's wife), tipped me off to a hot new food trend a few months back - whole wheat.



well look what i stumbled across at the store the other day. i don't usually fall victim to short lived cooking fads, but i figured i'd give this one a whirl.



trendy peanut butter & jelly sandwich

• 2 slices whole wheat bread
• one heaping tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter
  
• one heaping tablesoon of jelly

spread peanut butter evenly on one slice of bread. repeat with jelly on the other slice. combine bread slices (jelly side to peanut butter side) to form a sandwich.



i'm sure this trend won't be around for long - but it sure is fun to play around with in the meantime! thanks carrie!!