Copy Cat

Copy cat recipes, I don’t fully understand them. When I go to a restaurant yes, the food is good. But it is very rarely because I can’t make food as good as they can. It’s because I don’t want to cook. I don’t want to clean. I want to order my food and usually I want to have some nice college kid bring it to my table and keep my glass full of Pepsi. Usually, a copy cat recipe is a truck load of ingredients that I don’t typically keep around the house, so that requires shopping and also spending. And also figuring out what the heck a ripe tomatillo is supposed to look like cuz I’m pretty sure, I chose wrong. Copy cat recipes, in my experience, are usually just lots of work, lots of ingredients, and sometimes, lots of heartache, over something that tastes not quite as good as what I could have gotten for ten bucks and a 15 minute car drive.

I live in a fairly large metropolitan city. One may go so far as to say very large. So there’s not much I can’t get behind the wheel of my car and go get. Maybe that’s one reason I don’t fully understand the allure of the copy cat recipe. Some people LOVE Cracker Barrel’s cheesy potatoes. Personally, I like mine better but that’s beside the point. Once upon a time, the nearest Cracker Barrel was a 4 hour car ride away. Now it’s 20 minutes maybe 30 in traffic. And some mystery cook prepares them where I cannot see them or the mess they’re making and a nice person with gold stars of awesomeness embroidered on their aprons brings them to me from the mystery place and refills my Pepsi and they taste infinitely better because I don’t resent the potatoes for being a lot of work.

Recently, I found myself with a little over a pound of pork shoulder in my freezer and I was trying to think of things to do with it when I remembered this little site I had pinned on Pinterest. Strangely enough, I found this website completely separate of the fact that I know the family responsible for it. We went to the same church, I babysat one of their kids. Isn’t the internet funny like that? I didn’t know they had a blog of deliciousness but there they were. Hi guys!

Anyway, I digress.

I had pork. I needed dinner. I decided to go try copy cat Café Rio pork. In spite of the fact that there is a brand new Café Rio, less than 10 minutes away from my house. It looked easy enough, and I already had the roast! I had to go to the store for almost everything else but that doesn’t matter right?

The night before I was going to wow myself and handsome with this deliciousness, we got pretty absorbed in Lego Lord of the Rings and ended up staying up til like 1 am battling Lego Orc’s and I completely forgot to put the roast in to marinade. So when Pumpkin Pie woke up at 4, strange that infants don’t have an on off switch isn’t it? I fed her, got her back to sleep, and proceeded to throw together my marinade, and clean the kitchen while I was at it. I mean, I was already awake so why not? Actually, I’d had a doozy of a nightmare and wasn’t excited about going back to sleep. So I put a still mostly frozen pork shoulder in a bag with some Pepsi, and brown sugar and went back to bed.

We woke up the next morning, I transferred the roast to the crock pot with some more Pepsi and water and set it on high, and we went to church. When we got home the crock pot was still cold. I don’t know what had happened, either the circuit was tripped, or something was wrong with the switch on the crock pot and it didn’t realize it had a task to fulfill. Anyway, it was no closer to being food than it had been that morning and I was frustrated, and sleep deprived. But Handsome talked me down, I plugged the crock pot into a different outlet and dinner was on again!

Then came the waiting, and the shredding, and the adding more sauce and cooking some more. Remember when I mentioned they were a lot of work? And I didn’t want to stop at pork. I wanted, cilantro lime rice, and genuine Café Rio black beans, and homemade tortillas, and the whole works. By this time I was really tired, and tender from my nightmare (another story entirely) and had another hour or so of cooking in front me but I was determined. I put together my tortilla dough and they turned into basically pie crust. They were nowhere near round, the edges looked tattered and torn and I couldn’t roll them thin enough. So I asked Handsome to get tortillas. I would not be deterred! And then I tossed some crushed garlic into a frying pan and it quickly turned to cinders. That did it for me. I cried at Handsome for awhile then packed up what was supposed to be dinner and walked away from it all.

When we did eat our Faux Café Rio I must admit it was pretty delicious and Handsome said it could go in the favorites box so I’ll be trying it again. I think I’ll skip the marinating and maybe even the slow cooking in the Pepsi part. I’ll just cook the roast, shred it, and add the sauce then let it cook and get all stewed together. In doing things the hard way, I figured out some short cuts so hopefully next time I won’t cry. And next time, I’ll write up everything I do differently so if you don’t want to do the things the tear filled heart broken way, you’ll have another option.

After harping on Copy Cat recipes for an entire post, I feel like I should leave you with a good one. This is easy and tasty and pretty much fool proof. Enjoy.

Tony Roma’s Baked Potato Soup

Soup

2 medium potatoes (about 2 cups chopped)

3 tablespoons butter

1 cup diced white onion

2 tablespoons flour

4 cups chicken stock

2 cups water

1/4 cup cornstarch

1 1/2 cups instant mashed potatoes

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon basil

1/8 teaspoon thyme

l cup half and half

Garnish

1/2 Cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 cup crumbled cooked bacon

2 green onions, chopped (qreen part only)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and bake the potatoes or 1 hour or until done. When potatoes have Cooked remove them from the oven to cool.

2. As potatoes Cool prepare soup by melting butter in a large saucepan, and sauté onion until light brown. Add the flour to the onions and stir to make a roux.

3. Add stock, water, cornstarch, mashed potatoes, and spices to the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

4. Cut potatoes in half lengthwise and scoop out contents with a large spoon. Discard skin. Chop baked potato with a large knife to make chunks that are about ½ inch in size.

Mama Makes: Bourbon Chicken and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I found this little gem on Pinterest a while ago and we here at OBW really like it. I like it because I pretty much always have all the ingredients on hand. No running to the store. The only thing I'm sometimes missing is apple juice and I'm pretty sure that as Pumpkin Pie gets older, that won't be a problem.

You start by cutting three chicken breasts into bite sized pieces. You're looking for a little over a pound of chicken bites.

You can decide what bite sized is. You might have a freakishly large mouth. I don't know your life.

Then lightly coat the chicken bites with cornstarch. If you get too crazy with the cornstarch your end product will be gloopy. You don't want gloopy. You want delicious. Not that they're mutually exclusive... just lightly ok? You'll thank me later.

Throw your lightly dusted chicken bites in a frying pan or wok with a couple tablespoons of oil. Vegetable, canola, whatever. I won't judge your oil choice if you don't judge me for eating half a dozen cookies for breakfast.  You're looking for lightly browned. You don't have to cook them completely because they'll get cooked more in a minute. Calm down!

Remove chicken from oil and drain on paper towels. Like this!

 



While your chicken is browning, mix up the following plethora of ingredients in a small bowl. But don't let your bites burn. Nobody likes burned bites.

1 garlic clove (minced)
1/4 teaspoon ginger (I use ground cuz it's on my spice rack. Fresh might be good too)
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (it's not spicy. If you like spicy add more)
1/4 cup apple juice
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup soy sauce

Pour this tasty juice into the hot skillet (with the oil from chicken frying) and bring to a boil.

Add the chicken back to the pan. Reduce heat, cover, and let simmer for 10 minutes. Don't stir, don't poke, don't bother it. Just let it luxuriate.

 

The sauce reduces and gets delicious. The chicken soaks up all the goodness. Magic happens. After 10 minutes dump the whole delicious brew over some rice or quinoa (snob :)) and chow down. I serve with green beans but do what you want. You're a grown up.

 

Here's a picture of the finished product!

 

 

Oh... uhm... Sorry about that. It was too good to wait for picture time.

 

And now, chocolate chip cookie time. This is like super top secret k? Don't go blabbing my secret recipe to just anybody. I'm telling you cuz we're friends. I hope I won't regret this later.

 

2 1/2 ish cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter and 1 stick margarine softened OR 2 sticks butter. Don't use 2 sticks margarine. Gross.
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs

1 bag chocolate chips

 

I know it's a whole lot like that super popular recipe EVERYBODY uses but there are a few tiny differences.

Mix together the butter, sugars, and vanilla in a large bowl. Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition til they're all incorporated and your batter is fluffy. Next, add the baking soda and salt and give that a quick stir. I don't do that whole "mix the dry ingredients in a bowl then the wet ingredients in another bowl" thing.

Say no to extra dishes. That's my motto, yessirmaamsir!

Add the flour to your batter and combine thoroughly. That other recipe calls for 2 1/4 cups flour. I use a little more than 2 1/2. You're offsetting the extra egg and giving the dough a little more body so that your cookie stays a little thicker and has a little better chew.

Scoop onto ungreased cookie sheets using your favoritest scooping method. I have a handy little cookie scoop that makes me glad to be alive.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes. Or if you want them to be perfect and you have way more time and patience than I do, preheat the oven to 375, put the cookies in, then turn it down to 350 and bake for 8 minutes. If your oven is like my oven, these will be perfect. If you don't want to do all that silliness. Leave it at 350 and  bake for like 8.5-9 minutes. They will be slightly less perfect but no one has to know but us. Leave on the cookie sheet for about two minutes, then transfer to cooling racks.

Try not to eat them all in one sitting.

Did you guys have a lovely labor day? We went to the Mesa flea market and wandered around for a couple hours then had lunch at Nielsen's Frozen Custard on Saturday. I have to admit, I'm not terribly impressed with Nielsen's food but man do I loves me some frozen custard, especially lemon. And they have fry sauce! Who doesn't love fry sauce? Only people who haven't tried fry sauce. And my husband. Weirdo. Monday we ran errands, visited some book stores, and came home to relax. Handsome played with his records, Pumpkin Pie slept from 4 pm to 6 am the next day, and I did some crapbooking. Yes you read that right. It's scrapbooking for people that suck at it. What'd you do?





Just Shut Up and Do It!

I've wanted to write for as long as I can remember. When I was little, like maybe seven years old, I wrote a story called the Rainbow Dove about a dove who thought she was boring so she went about trying to fix it. She flew through a sunbeam to become a canary. She flew through a storm cloud to become a pigeon. She flew through a rainbow to become a parrot. Etc... I know, it is a new and exciting concept that has never been tackled before in children's literature. Except for by everyone. Pumpkin Pie has a book about a bunny that does basically the exact same thing. But when I was seven I didn't know that everyone had already done it. To that little girl it was a masterpiece of creativity.

Since then I've started dozens of stories. Some never make it out of my head and on to paper. Some never make it past the first few pages. Some make it a few chapters and are then lost forever. One showed so much promise. I had even started plotting out the sequel. Then my computer was stolen and with it, hours and hours of work. I still want to be a writer, even though I've never finished one of my stories, I believe that someday I will. I'd love to have a book on the shelves (physical or digital) with my byline on it.

I realize I don't have to write an entire book to be considered a writer. I blog, so that makes me a writer right? I don't know. The point is, I've always wanted to write so I write. But it would be great if I could write for money. This thought has been bouncing around in my head for awhile now. I could finish a book, maybe get it published, or self publish and sit back and just let all the money fall in my lap. Cuz that's how it works right? Isn't that what Stephanie Meyer did? Write bad vampire fiction then just start raking it in? Seems easy enough.

What has me thinking about all of this today is an old coworker of mine. I won't name names cuz I'm about to be real mean. Girl was dumb. Cute as a button. Sweet as Christmas Fudge. But DUMB. Bless her heart. She had many outstanding qualities but she was one of those girls that other girls just can't help but hate a little. Tiny, thick long blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect make up, talented. A living, breathing, Barbie doll, or maybe Skipper. Today I was surfing Pinterest looking for dinner ideas when I came across a pin with her smiling face all over it. Now, you may be surprised to learn that we have not kept in touch so there's really no reason for us to have crossed cyber paths. Curious, I did a little digging and discovered she's now a successful beauty blogger. She writes for an online magazine and has an e-book that's sold over 7000 copies and a contract to write another one. She also has really bad grammar and is all successful anyway because she's found her niche. She has the amazing ability of making her hair look pretty.

So what do I have to offer? Maybe there are a few places online that would pay me for what I have to say. Perhaps one of the parenting websites where new moms go to find out all the things they're doing wrong or not doing enough of. You mean your baby is three weeks old and you haven't started teaching them sign language yet? Failure! A beauty blog like my old buddy? Who wouldn’t want to read about my strict beauty regimen of maybe showering once a day and applying eyeliner if I'm feeling especially fancy. A craft blog? I could call it my big box of unfinished crap dot com. Or the A.D.D. craft junkie dot com. Or you finish it I’m bored dot com.

Maybe not.

I miss seven year old me. She didn't know that the story she was writing had already been written. She knew she had an idea and she wanted to put it on paper and share it with the world. Nobody had taught her that her idea wasn't good enough or original enough or important enough. Nobody had taught her that she couldn't do exactly what she wanted to do. So she did it. Thirty year old me, feels decidedly differently. Thirty year old me usually feels like she has nothing to offer outside the four walls of this cozy little one bedroom. I can take care of me, my baby, my husband, and the dogs and I have to say, I feel like I'm getting pretty good at it. But I don't have anything outstanding to offer. The things I know won't change anyone's life. I'm not an expert couponer, crafter, or cook. I'm just me. A new mom that's doing her best to figure stuff out and fend off as much of the mom guilt as she can. A wife that's doing her best to meet the needs of her husband while not completely losing sight of her own needs. And a woman who's (maybe) getting a little better at the balancing act every day.

So, I'm trying hard not to wallow in my old acquaintances slightly bizarre success and instead will try following her lead. I can't be this awesome and not have something to offer the internet!

A Plague Upon the Land. Wherein, I Am the Land (also some Batman)

Our little one bedroom was recently struck by the freakin plague. Wednesday evening my husband and I started feeling achy and tired. He blamed it on allergies but I’ve never felt allergies in my ankles before. Pumpkin Pie had a rough time getting to sleep that night and by the time we got to bed we were practically dead on our feet. That night we shifted between freezing and sweating through the sheets about a dozen times and spent Thursday with high fevers and severe body aches. Even getting up to wash the dishes seemed impossible since literally every bone in my body felt like it had been hit with a hammer.

Luckily, Pumpkin Pie is the sweetest happiest baby girl in the world and either slept, allowing us to sleep, or happily squealed at her blue jay, Bruce for most of the day. Today we are just dealing with headaches and some minor body aches thank goodness. We have decided not to take any chances and to stay inside and rest. Groceries and laundry and everything that’s not taking care of Pumpkin Pie and the olden dogs is just gonna have to wait.

We don’t know where this nastiness came from. Coincidentally, Pumpkin Pie and I had spent Tuesday at the Children’s Museum of Phoenix with our friends Hayley and Aiden. So maybe I picked something up there and passed it on to him. Or maybe he picked something up at the hospital and passed it on to me. Maybe it was just our turn.

Speaking of the Children’s Museum, that place is kinda radical. Pumpkin Pie is still a little young to really enjoy a lot of it. She enjoyed looking at the pretty baby in the mirrors.

 And she really liked this room that was all magnetic walls covered in different fabrics and stuff. We hung out in there for awhile while I fed her and just enjoyed all of the crazy stuff on the ceiling and the weird toadstool tent things in the center of the room. It would be awesome if I could figure out how to make one for her when she gets a little older. I want one in my size. Everybody needs a little hidey hole right?

 

 

I’m really looking forward to taking her back when she’s a little bit mobile and more aware of what’s going on around her. Right now she’s not much into anything but her blue bird Bruce and Elmer Phunt her elephant. We walked in to the museum and I was like “Whoa!! Cool treehouse” and she was all “Whatevs Mom, I tots just pooped myself. THAT’S cool.” She did enjoy the little papasan nest things in the baby room though. And if she’s anything like me, she’ll totally dig the arts and crafts room. I didn’t get many good pictures but they have this giant rocket that kids just paint and paint and paint. Now it’s all purplish and lumpy. Aiden was very worried that he was getting dirty. The worker told him to just wipe his hands on his smock and he was
like “Lady, you gotta be kiddin me.”

 

So even though it may have nearly killed my husband and I, it was a fun day. It was good to see friends and get out of the house and have a reason to wash my hair.

Finally, since I have identified myself as a nerd, I suppose it is my duty to chime in on the current "scandal." Ben Affleck is going to be Batman. I feel decidedly undecided. Confession, in college, Ben Affleck was my one true love. He was featured prominently on the wall of hotties in my dorm room. Do I think he'll be a good Batman? Not really. Do I think he'll be the worst Batman ever? Not really. I just think Batman has been done and done well and that we should let it breathe for a little while. If they want to make a sequel to Man of Steel that's swell. I didn't see the first one (I had a baby instead) so I can't weigh in on whether or not that's a good idea. But I think they're rushing the team up thing (I don't care if the title says versus they'll be hugging and crying by the end) so that they can make ALL THE MONEY just like The Avengers. I'm more worried that they're trying to make what should be a huge movie in less than two years and that they don't even have a script yet. This movie has much bigger problems than Mr. Affleck. Give the dude a break. It's not like every movie he's in can be as good as Gigli.

I do just have to mention, however, Warner Brothers said they wouldn't make a Wonder Woman movie because they decided it wouldn't be financially lucrative but Ben Affleck super hero movies are freakin GOLD MINES! *cough* Daredevil! *cough* I know that that's what every nerd on the internet is already comparing it to and that I'm just jumping on the bandwagon but I didn't actually hate Daredevil. I'm just saying perhaps it wasn't a particularly lucrative franchise is all and that maybe it's time to try something new.

Where Am I?

In August, 2001 I was 18 years old. It was my freshman year of college and I was sitting in an auditorium full of a few hundred, maybe a thousand, fellow freshmen listening to some quasi important business somebody or other trying to motivate us to do our very best in college and not waste time. I don’t remember much of what he said to be honest. It didn’t really resonate. I do remember that one of the first things he asked was “Why are you here?” Why had we decided to go to college? He provided us with the standard freshman answers. He said things like “I’m here because my parents are making me, or because I didn’t know what else to do.” With a mock macho lilt to his voice he bellowed “I’M HERE TO PLAY SPORTS!!!” Then standing primly he sighed sweetly “I’m here to find my future husband,” imitating the girls we jokingly said were working on their MRS degrees. Finally he stood straight and said “I’m here to find myself” then he threw his hands in the air and said “I’ll find you! You’re right there! Give ME the money!!”

 

I don’t know why I was at college. At the time I remember being very certain about a lot of things. I had a theatre scholarship because I thought I wanted to be an actor and I had convinced some people I was pretty good. I definitely wasn’t one of the MRS girls (or so I tell myself). In reality I didn’t know what else to do and college was fine. I definitely wasn’t there to find myself. I was 18 and knew everything. I certainly knew myself.

 

Now that I’m 30, married to the love of my lfie, and a mom to my sweet little Pumpkin Pie, I realize I didn’t know anything, least of all myself. Maybe I knew myself back then and have lost myself since I don’t know. I know I like to cook and I want to get better at it. I recently tried making bread and it was disastrous. Right now I make a few things fairly well but I want to broaden my horizons. I want to bake bread, I want to master pizza crust, and try macaroons. If it’s there, I want to make it and I want it to be good. I consider myself a nerd, I love movies, comic books, TV shows, and novels. I’m one of those Doctor Who fans currently taking the world by storm but I liked Who before everybody liked Who so I’m the superior Who fan. Obviously. I’m crafty, but in a very unfocused way. I have about a dozen different unfinished projects in a tub in my closet and they’re not even the same thing. I quilt, I crochet, I paint, I sew, I cross stitch, I scrapbook (badly), I used to be a pretty good cake decorator. I just really want to create ALL THE THINGS! I live in the 4^th largest metropolitan area in North America (or so I’ve been told) and I really want to make the most of it. I grew up in a small town in southern Utah and spent a lot of time complaining about being bored. Now I have everything I could ever want at my fingertips and I spend my days in a recliner watching Supernatural reruns while my daughter sleeps. I want to go and do and find and experience. I want to take Pumpkin Pie out into the world and show her great things so she doesn’t grow up plugged in and living in a pretend world with pretend people that are really actually scary people. Enough of that. I want to find more time to read. I love books I love that you can turn the page and turn the world off. I collect things like pens and notebooks because I’m a little obsessed with filling blank papers with words. There’s something beautiful and hypnotic about the dark swirling lines spreading over stark white sheets of paper. I love to read and when I finish a good book, I just want to DO that. I want to create worlds, and people, and relationships, and I want them to feel real to someone else someday. I want to inspire imagination. I want someone to pick up my book instead of pick up their TV remote.

 

Saying I want to find myself is cliché and doesn’t really convey the meaning of what I’m trying to do. It’s like I’m the google earth version of me and I’d kind of like to be the street view version. I want to use this space to explore the things I love and maybe find some more things I love. I know where I am. I'm here. In my little wonderful one bedroom apartment with my husband, my baby, and two geriatric pugs and life is so sweet. Maybe I owe Mr. Quasi Important Business Somebody some money or something.