Best of 90s Food: DIY Lunchables

This year, the Baltimore Sun's Mobbies is asking each blogger to blog about the thing that she would like to bring back from the 90s. Being that this is a food blog, I went straight for everyone's favorite snacks from the 90s. Earlier this week, I posted a recipe for Hot Pockets and Dunkaroos. Today is a "recipe" for DIY Lunchables. Enjoy!

Cheddar & Roasted Garlic Beer Muffins

I love beer, cheese, and garlic. I love muffins. Must I go on? This recipe is based off of a recipe from the amazing Beeroness (I love her blog so much) and makes about ten muffins.

Slow Cooker Scalloped Potatoes

It's Thanksgiving time again, which means wanting to make all the food, but really not having enough time to do so. If you remember, last year I made cheddar and cranberry cream cheese biscuits and a leftover Thanksgiving pizza. This year, I'll be making my (in)famous hash brown casserole, a holiday couscous salad, homemade stuffing, and these incredibly decadent slow cooker scalloped potatoes. I adapted this recipe from An Oregon Cottage and it makes an entire 4-quart crockpot full of cheesy potatoey goodness. Enjoy!

Me vs Myself: A Mac & Cheese Competition

My awesome friend hosted a get-together at her house this weekend, where she hosted a rib competition and a mac & cheese competition. It was going to be my partner & me competing against each other for the mac & cheese competition, but I ended up making both of our recipes for the competition, so it was literally a win-win for me. I made two delectable recipes: a truffle cheddar mac and a beer & gruyere mac (yes, I did choose the ingredients based on the fact that they rhymed). The beer & gruyere won the competition, but I'll let you choose what you think is the tastiest! I hope you enjoy.

Guest Post: Old Bay Cheese Crackers

This weekend, I want to welcome a good friend, Martine, as my guest blogger. She's an amazing (!) cook & is always trying something new in her kitchen. In fact, be sure to go check out her awesome vegetarian food blog. I am thrilled that she offered to guest blog for me (and keep an eye out because I'll be guest blogging something for her this month too!).
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Despite being born and raised in Maryland, I've never eaten crab. What can I say? I was a bit of a picky kid, and then I became a vegetarian fairly early in life. And you know, when I hear people gushing about crab season, I think I'm probably better off not knowing what I'm missing. As a way to cope, I've convinced myself that what everyone's actually excited about is just using the crabs as a vessel to consume hypertension-inducing quantities of Old Bay.

Like any Marylander, I'll pour Old Bay over my french fries and popcorn. I'll put it on anything involving eggs. I'll dump it in a bloody mary, and I even used it to infuse vodka for holiday gifts last year. I brought a can with me when I studied abroad in college because I couldn't bear the thought of five months without it.

And yet, non-Marylanders just don't seem to have the same fervor for my spice blend of choice. My main squeeze Andrew, who is from Ohio, claims that his mother has had the same dusty can in her kitchen cabinet for "probably like twenty years." How does that happen?

Old Bay and sharp cheddar is one of my favorite combinations, so it only made sense to add it to a zippy cheese cracker. I like to use the 30% less sodium version, but the regular will work -- you just will want to start at 1/2 a teaspoon and give your dough a taste test before adding more, because the cheese is very salty as well. This recipe is adapted from smitten kitchen's cheese straws.

Food Bloggers Against Hunger: Cheesy Avocado Grits

There are millions of Americans that can only afford $3-4 per day to eat, and 1 in 4 kids in America don't know where their next meal will come from. For those of us with sufficient food on the table (and sometimes too much), this can be startling. Because of these financial restrictions, the food that is eaten is usually not enough, or is nutritionally barren. In response to the hunger epidemic in America and the new documentary, A Place at the Table, The Giving Table began a movement called Food Bloggers Against Hunger.

In doing what I can as a food blogger, I am helping to bring visibility to this issue of hunger and malnutrition in America, as well as provide a recipe that only costs $3-4 per serving (in this case for two servings). I have decided to make one of my personal favorites, Cheesy Avocado Grits topped with an egg. This recipe makes two servings and is great for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

St. Paddy's Day: Cheddar Ale Potato Soup

To follow up the delicious Irish soda bread recipe I posted earlier today, here is an amazing cheddar ale potato soup to pair along with it (and trust me, I did). I hope that you all had a happy St. Paddy's Day & enjoy the soup! This recipe is an altered version of this one and makes about six servings.

Cauliflower Cheddar Soup

I have been sick all week and this soup has proved itself as a perfect comfort food. It has a deep savory flavor and will warm up your whole body. Making it did feel a bit time consuming, but I threw it in my slow cooker so I didn't have to actively watch it. I do wish the photos would have turned out a bit better, but let's blame it on my being sick at the time! This recipe makes about three cups and is based off of this Closet Cooking recipe.

Portobello Sliders

Inspired by a recipe on The Curvy Carrot's website (what an awesome blog name, by the way), I made these delicious and filling portobello sliders for dinner. My recipe is slightly different from hers, since I had different ingredients on hand. My recipe makes four sliders (and feeds about two people). Enjoy!

Guest Post: Veggie Cheddar Soup

Welcome the wonderful Candace as my newest guest blogger! Check out her delicious and cozy veggie cheddar soup recipe, below.
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The huge amount of dairy in this soup makes it deliciously good, if not exactly good for you. The recipe has been developed off of the inspiration of a pureed soup recipe card that my partner and I picked up at our local grocery store. What I like best about it is how customizable it is. For instance, we usually make it with chopped celery but since we went shopping on Super Bowl Sunday, there was nary a stick of celery to be found, so I just added extra potatoes and carrots to this batch. This recipe makes 8-10 servings.

Guest Post: Anthony's Perfect Black Bean Burger, served California-style

Please welcome my partner and best friend, Anthony, for the next guest post! The best part about this recipe is that I got to taste the result and it was incredible. Enjoy!
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This is my favorite recipe for preparing black bean burgers. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've tasted few recipes that even come close to this one. It's flavor- and texture-rich, and even better, it's easy to prepare. It is the perfect dish to serve with a beer for a late-spring supper on the porch or rooftop, but it is hearty enough to fill you up during these colder months too. This recipe is adapted from "Spiced Black Bean Burgers" at epicurious and makes four burgers.

Cheesy Hash Brown Casserole

It's both finals week and holiday party season. Casseroles are, in general, perfect dishes for busy weeks because cooking them doesn't require constant attention, they're filling, and you'll have tons of leftovers! Since they're also great for holiday parties, I figured I'd bring this one to share at work. This hash brown casserole tastes just like the dish at Cracker Barrel (meaning that it is both amazingly delicious & probably not-so-healthy). I actually made this the night before the party & heated it up in the morning.

Thanksgiving Biscuits

I'm traveled for Thanksgiving this year, so I wasn't really involved in making any food. I did really want to be put in charge of something, so I made biscuits. Because of that, this holiday turned into that episode of Friends when Monica lets Chandler make the cranberry sauce and he makes too much of a deal about it. That's me. With biscuits.

I made two different kinds for dinner: cheddar and cranberry cream cheese (original recipes linked). Between the two recipes, this makes 24-30 biscuits.

Vermont Cheddar Apple Soup

A good friend of mine and I are doing an Autumn Soup Exchange and I couldn't be more excited. She is also vegetarian, which works out really well. This recipe is my first of the exchange. I will be posting all of my soups on here (and she might guest blog too!), so you'll see one or two soup recipes every two weeks.

This recipe makes about six cups of soup. When I made this recipe last week, I didn't have a food processor (but that has all changed now!), so it was more of a boil down and strain thing, but you can process all of the veggies to make a thicker broth (the original recipe using the food processor is here). I hope you enjoy!

Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients
One (1) stick of unsalted butter
One (1) large leek, chopped finely -- use the white part only
One (1) medium carrot, peeled and finely chopped
Two (2) medium celery stalks, finely chopped
1/4 cup of all-purpose flour
Four (4) cups of veggie stock -- Whole Foods also sells a "Chik'n" stock, which is vegetarian chicken-flavored, and that works well too.
One (1) cup of soy half-and-half creamer 
1/2 pound of Vermont white sharp cheddar, shredded
One (1) teaspoon of dry mustard
One (1) teaspoon of vegan Worcestershire sauce
One (1) apple, peeled, cored and finely diced -- I used a Honeycrisp apple because they're in season and delicious!
Pepper to taste

Directions
Melt three-fourths of the butter in a pot over medium heat.
Add the leeks, carrot and celery and sauté for about 3 minutes.
Add the flour into the mixture and stir for 3 minutes. Cook evenly.
Whisk in the vegetable stock, and bring to a boil.
Once you've reached a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 40 minutes.
Strain the vegetables out of the soup and keep the broth in the pot. Simmer.
Add the cream, cheddar, mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Stir until the cheese is melted.
Season with pepper. Set aside.
Melt the leftover butter in a separate pan and sauté the apple pieces. Make sure that they are slightly crisped on each side.
Add the apples to the soup. Enjoy!

Zucchini-Potato Frittata

Again, I'm trying to make recipes with foods that I have on hand. My coworker gave me a beautiful zucchini from her garden, I picked up gorgeous onions from the farmer's market this weekend, and I had some red potatoes in my pantry. This frittata was meant to be. The original recipe was posted here, but I made some changes to fit my preferences. This will make enough for dinner and then breakfast the next day. I hope you enjoy!

Pair with: a hard cider like my favorite, JK Scrumpy's.

Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 30-40 minutes (some cook & prep time will overlap)

Ingredients

Potatoes & onions ready to be cooked

One (1) medium zucchini, sliced
One (1) teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
Three (3) tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
One (1) pound of red potatoes, sliced
One (1) large onion, halved and sliced

Zucchini ready to be cooked

One (1) cup of sharp cheddar, shredded
1/2 cup of  sun-dried tomatoes

Seven (7) eggs, beaten
Garlic to flavor and taste



Directions
Preheat oven to 350F degrees.

Sprinkle salt over zucchini slices and set aside in a colander. After about 20 minutes, pat dry with a paper towel.
Heat oil in a skillet and toss in the potatoes and onion, over medium-low heat.
Cook potatoes for about 20 minutes, or until soft.
Increase the heat and saute the potatoes and onion for another five minutes.
Remove the potatoes and add the zucchini and sun-dried tomatoes to the skillet, and cook for five minutes.
Add beaten eggs and pepper to a greased casserole dish.
Stir in potatoes, zucchini, onion and then add cheese to the mixture.
Bake in oven for about 30 minutes.
Let cool, slice, and devour.