My Greatest Contribution to Mankind

If you or someone you love is a fat kid at heart, then you or her or she probably loves French Silk pie -- "Fat Kid Pie" (FKP) as its known around my house. If you're like me, you've probably noticed that your local Baker's Square has probably closed down because of the economy (or whatever), so you had to gain Fat Kid Pie independence. If this hasn't happened to you yet, hold onto your butts because I'm about to make them a little bigger.

A quick note before we begin: I make my FKP on store-bought graham cracker pie crust for two reasons. One is because my husband prefers graham cracker pie crust to any other pie crust in the known universe. Two is because I'm lazy and nothing in the known universe is easier than a store-bought graham cracker pie crust.

To begin, take your unsweetened baking chocolate -- make sure it's unsweetened -- and grab 4 oz.


You can melt them in the huge squares, but I find it easier to cut those big squares up into smaller pieces. Anyway, get all 4 oz. into a microwave-safe dish.


Microwave for 30 seconds, stir, and repeat until the chocolate is melted and pourable.


Remember when we discussed the importance of letting melted butter cool before adding it to a mixture? The same is true for melted chocolate. Melt it first so it has time to cool down for a bit before you let it join the rest of the group.

Throw two sticks softened salted butter and 1-1/2 cups white sugar into the bowl of your electric mixer and beat at a medium speed until fluffy.


I hate to say it and risk excluding anyone, but a stand mixer is a non-negotiable necessity for this recipe. Sucker your sweetie into buying you one for V-Day if you don't have one. Promise them this pie, and they'll buy you anything.

With the mixer on low, pour in the melted (and cooled!) chocolate along with a teaspoon of vanilla.


Now this is the most important part of the recipe, so listen up. This is one part where the technique is of utmost importance, so no skipping anything! Put your mixer on a medium speed, and leave it like that. Don't stop it, don't scrape the bowl, don't second-guess the texture of what's inside. Just take some deep breaths and go with it. While the mixer is mixing away at medium speed, you are going to add 4 eggs. You are going to add them one at a time, and you are going to add them over the course of 15-20 minutes.


Add an egg, wait five minutes, add another egg, etc. For this recipe it is particularly important to listen to your grandmother's advice about never cracking an egg directly into the bowl. Since the finished product contains raw eggs, you want to be very particular about which eggs you use. The moment before it goes swirling away into what would have been delicious FKP filling is the wrong time to find out you got one of those gross bloody eggs, am I right?

While we're on the subject: THIS RECIPE CONTAINS RAW EGGS. While this is fine for most of us, please be aware that there are some people who should avoid eating raw eggs such as the very old, the very young, the pregnant, the immunocompromised, etc. But that's ok -- more for you.

Five minutes after the last egg has joined the fray, the filling is ready. If you're a normal person who's perfectly happy to leave well enough alone, you can pour the filling into the prepared (prebaked if you're using standard pie crust) pie shell of your choosing and refrigerate for at least two hours (but overnight is by far better) before serving. If you're decidedly abnormal like yours truly, go find your jar of this stuff:


And do this with it:


Spread it around gently into a mostly-even layer. The Fluff is very sticky, so it will pull up the pie crust in places if you're not careful. I didn't let it bother me, though, since the Fluff is like glue so I know it would hold onto whatever graham crackers it grabbed. NOW you can pour the FKP filling into the pie shell.


Use the back of your spoon to even out the top a bit.


Lick the spoon. And the bowl. The pie needs to be refrigerated before it can be served. Two hours is the absolute minimum I would ever settle for, but I almost always let it chill overnight. Trust me. Cut into it the next day and you get this:


Graham cracker crust held together by gooey, sticky marshmallow topping with an inches-thick layer creamy, chocolately, and oh-so-rich FKP filling, all being overseen by tiny cute dollops of whipped cream. Life just doesn't get any better than this, friends.

***

Fat Kid Pie with S'more Crust
4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
2 stick butter, softened
1-1/2 cups white sugar
1 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
Marshmallow Fluff
Graham cracker pie crust

1. Melt chocolate in microwave; allow to cool slightly.
2. Beat butter and sugar in the bowl of electric mixer with whisk attachment until fluffy.
3. With mixer running on low speed, add the melted and cooled chocolate and vanilla.
4. With mixer running on medium speed, add eggs over the course of 15-20 minutes.
5. Spread Fluff over the bottom of pie crust in a semi-even layer.
6. Pour FKP filling into pie shell; even out top with the back of a spoon.
7. Cover & refrigerate overnight before serving.
8. Serve in thin slivers.

Blackies

Whether you're a hopeless romantic, a curmudgeonly old bastard, or something in between, Valentine's Day is coming up. And no matter where you fall on the spectrum, if you're anything like me, you've never turned down a brownie. Sure, I've met lots of brownies I didn't like (I'm talking to you, all brownies with nuts!), but that never stops me. I'm a glutton committed, man.

I've been on a quest for years to find the perfect brownie recipe. My luck has been such that I've never used the same recipe twice. The consistency is too much like cake, or - if they're the right fudgy consistency - they're way too thin. OR, if they're not too thin nor too cakey, they're not nearly chocolatey enough. (Cue infomercial announcer voice) There's gotta be a better way!

Enter Alton Brown, host of Good Eats and all-around food smartypants. Good Eats was on the other night while I was trying to fall asleep, and it's was awfully difficult to drift off to dreamland while Alton's voice was coming in and out, telling me the secrets to amazing brownies. I did some googling this morning to find that the recipe featured on the show was indeed on Food Network's website, so I wrote it down, went to the kitchen, and now I'm going to share my success with you. Make them for Valentine's Day whether you've got a Special Someone with whom you'd like to sleep or you're going to spend the day alone, bitter, and looking to eat your feelings (I've been there, man).

Alton Brown's Cocoa Brownies (original recipe here)
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar, sifted
1 cup brown sugar, sifted
8 ounces melted butter
1-1/4 cups cocoa, sifted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (I used regular salt, and I used a full tsp of it. Go with it.)

Any time a recipe calls for melted butter, melting the butter is the first thing I do after I preheat the oven. The reason for this is that melted butter must also be cooled before it can be added to anything containing eggs. If the butter is too hot when you add it to the batter/dough/whatever, it will slightly cook the eggs. No one wants to bite into a brownie to find little bits of scrambled egg. Nasty. So, preheat the oven to 300 and start melting the butter. Cut it into chunks, put it in a microwave-safe cup, and nuke for 30 seconds at a time. Stir between each trip back into the microwave. If you find that it's all melted except for just a few pieces, don't bother putting it back in; just stir it for a minute and the last pieces will melt. This will also help ensure it won't be too hot when you add it in.


Hello, beautiful.

You may have noticed that every dry ingredient in the recipe has the word "sifted" after it. No sifter? No problem! I placed a strainer on top of my mixing bowl, poured the dry ingredients in, and shook the strainer like I was panning for gold.

White sugar!


I did the brown sugar next, but it was too moist to go through my sifter. I added it directly to the bowl and used a whisk (another poor man's sifter replacement) to combine it with the white sugar.

Cocoa!


Flour! Salt!


I took my whisk out again at this point and gave the bowl a final stir just to make sure everyone was getting along nicely.

Get the eggs into the bowl of your electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat the eggs on a medium speed until fluffy and light yellow.


This should take a minute or so; be careful not to overbeat the eggs or your whole life will suck forever and your house will burn down. Then, with the mixer on a low speed, gradually add in all the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined. I didn't take a picture of this because I was too busy making sure my eggs weren't overbeaten.

Then add that sweet, delicious, melted-and-cooled butter:


Again, keep the mixer on low speed while you do this. Now would be a good time to add the vanilla extract, too. As soon as you see everything is well combined, turn that mixer off. Overmixed brownie batter will ruin your life in so many more ways than overbeaten eggs ever could. Your dog will run away from home. You'll get shortchanged by a nickel at Dunkin Donuts. Your TiVo won't record the new episode of Jersey Shore because it's too full of Law & Order: SVU reruns, even though you've seen them all at least three times. Seriously -- BAD THINGS HAPPEN. Those unspeakably catastrophic horrors aside, overmixed batter gets too much air incorporated into it, resulting in brownies with air pockets, a too-tough texture, and an uneven, cakey consistency. If that happens to you, anonymously leave them in the break room at work and act like you don't know who put them there.

Most brownie recipes actually call for you to mix everything together with a spoon to avoid these horrors, but Alton trusts us with a mixer. You can do it!

Anyway, dump the delicious batter into a greased and floured 8" baking pan.


Bake for 45 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Turn over onto a cooling rack and cut while they're still hot, then allow them to cool on the rack.


Note: if the batter and brownies look exceptionally dark to you, it's because they are. I have an enthusiastic preference for dark chocolate, so I made these brownies with Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder -- feel free to use the regular stuff. The finished product was so dark my husband called them "blackies". But he also called them "delicious", and he was soooo right. They're moist, thick, chewy, extremely chocolatey, and so rich they buy a new Aston Martin every time their current one runs out of gas.

In summation, my quest for a good brownie recipe has ended by finding a GREAT brownie recipe. Make it today for yourself. Make it on Valentine's Day for your sweetie. I don't care why you make them, just make them! And soon! You'll thank me, I promise.

No Excuses

Oh, the Bears didn't make it to the Super Bowl? Oh, your most-hated team in the entire NFL did? Oh, you're not even going to watch the Super Bowl? NO EXCUSE!

Friends, there is no excuse for not eating like you're watching a major sporting event, even if you're not watching a major sporting event. So mash those avocados into guacamole! Put those jalapeno poppers in the deep fryer! Douse those wings with ranch dressing! There's never an inappropriate occasion to host an Eat Like It's the Super Bowl party. And remember, step one in any great plan is taco dip.

My taco dip is pretty far from actual tacos, but it's got enough generic taco flavors that it fits the bill. It's easy, it impresses, it's delicious, and it'll clog your arteries and kill you the second you turn you back on it.

Step 1. Taco Dip


16 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 package regular ol' taco seasoning
1 16-oz can regular refried beans
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Put the cream cheese and seasoning in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until well combined. Spread into the bottom of a 9" cake pan or any similarly-sized oven-proof dish.

Spread the refried beans evenly over the layer of taco-flavored cream cheese.

Spread the shredded cheese evenly over the layer of refried beans.

Cover tightly with aluminum foil and heat at 350 for about 20 minutes, until warm throughout. Remove the aluminum foil and put back in the oven for another 5 minutes. Serve warm with chips aplenty or spoon it directly into your mouth if no one is looking. Not that I would ever do that . . .

Winter Weather Advisory

I got this recipe from my best friend Caitlyn, who got it from her sister, so the two of them together saved the day. You see, all of Chicago was covered in twenty inches of snow last night, so leaving the house was absolutely out of the question unless you planned on digging your way to wherever you were trying to go. This recipe is 1. extremely easy and 2. requires ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen, and that meant that we didn't have to dig out a god-knows-how-old frozen pizza for dinner. That's what we did for lunch. Anyway!

Renee's Southwest Chicken & Pasta Skillet
Gather your ingredients:

2 cups (uncooked) "medium-sized" pasta (I'm not an expert on pasta since I hardly ever eat it, but this whole grain rotini more than got the job done)
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 oz. cream cheese, softened and cut into smaller bits
1 16-oz jar of your favorite store-bought salsa
2 cups of frozen corn (the recipe Caitlyn sent me mentioned that 2 cups is an awful lot of corn, so feel free to reduce it. I used 1.5 cups)
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 cup shredded Mexican cheese (or whatever shredded cheese/cheese blend that makes you happy)

Start cooking the pasta according to the package. Cut the chicken up into 1", bite-sized cubes. Cook over medium heat in a skillet sprayed with cooking spray (or with a bit of olive oil if you're me and think olive oil makes the world go 'round) until done.

Just toss it around until there's no pink. The smaller the pieces, the faster they'll cook. Take care not to overcook the chicken, though. Nasty.

Add the cream cheese and mix gently until it gets nice and melty.


Dump the entire jar of salsa in and stir gently.


Do the same with the corn and the cumin.


At this point, the smell will be attracting the members of your household. They'll come into the kitchen and ask you when dinner will be ready. They'll tell you they'll love you forever if you'll let them have a taste. Or they might suggest that you add a small can of mushrooms. If the person who suggests mushrooms also happens to be the person that carried you in her womb for nine months and then birthed you without anesthesia, you might want to oblige.


Anyway, mix it all together gently -- with or without mushrooms -- and let it simmer for a few minutes. When the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the skillet along with 1/2 cup of shredded cheese.

Keeping it real: the recipe calls for a cup total, but a cup of cheese isn't nearly enough for a glutton like me. I added a cup at this point, using a total of two cups of shredded cheese for the whole recipe. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

Mix the pasta and cheese in gently, then let it simmer for another three or so minutes. Remove it from the heat, top with the reaming cheese.


Cover it and let it stand for 5 minutes before serving to give the cheese a chance to get all melty.

Is this a "gourmet" dinner? Absolutely not. Is it a warm, filling, easy, delicious way to satisfy an entire family? It absolutely is. It's customizable, too. The spiciness builds up as you eat more of it; just imagine how different it could be just by changing the hotness of the salsa. Throw in some chopped green chilies, maybe some diced green or red pepper. The best part is that it made enough food to feed a family of five that was hungry from a day of snow removal and I still managed to package up enough for lunch tomorrow.

No, wait, I change my answer. The actual best part is that I fed my truck driver father and teenage brother whole grain pasta and, because it was covered with cream cheese sauce, they had no idea. Mwahahaha!