It's tasty thyme

Another tragically weird dish assembled by yours truly. 

Potatoes, shallots, garlic, brussel sprouts, shrooms, fresh rosemary and thyme. And a really dull knife.

Upon first glance at the ingredients above, you might think, "Hm, that looks normal enough. Adele must be losing her hodgepodge chutzpah." THINK AGAIN, JERKS!

  

First up, I let some frozen chicken breast bathe in some walnut oil, thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper. 

While my formerly feathered friends were wading in walnut oil, I prepped the other ingredients.

Slice, dice and be nice to your veggies.

I may not have the greenest thumb, but this fragrant little rosemary trooper is grown by me! I would also like to confess that this picture was taken like a month ago. That same rosemary plant now has some freakish yellow mold on it. A moment of silence for this plant and Adele's dignity. 

Evenly slice your mini taters, cook in walnut oil, S&P and fresh herbs. Make sure that the oil in your pan is hotter than dropping it when the pimps in the crib, ma.

 Smellovision would be an immense olfactory experience right meow.

Dayyyyuuuuuummmmm potatoes.

While I cooked up the rest of the ingredients, I left the potatoes on low heat in the toaster oven to stay warm and crispy. 

After cooking the chicken, shrooms and onions, I added some balsamic vinegar. 

ACTION SHOT!

I then added in the brussel sprouts. Rookie move. I should have cooked the brussel sprouts first with the chicken. To remedy my foolishness, I tried to steam everything so that the BS would cook. 

The cooking supplies in my kitchen are just as hodgepodge as the nonsense that I create. So a glass cutting board had to suffice as mondo lid. 

I let all that sit for a couple minutes more, than plated the potatoes, chicken and veggies. 

WILDCARD INGREDIENT!! So the chicken/veg medley with the skillet potatoes were a tad on the salty side and needed some sort of fresh flava. What's more refreshing than guacamole?!

It was a wise choice.

White Trash Fusion: Virgin Mac&Cheese Shotgun Wedding

                               #whitecheddarproblems

#realrecognizerealveggies

I would like to call this genre of cuisine "white trash fusion." 

While this particular dish is missing some Velveeta and a nice pop tart crumble, I quite enjoy the idea of turning ghetto into gourmet. 

The Ben Stein of macaroni dishes.

  

Gee whizz, that just-add-water microwavable white cheddar macaroni and "cheese" sure does look mighty down in the dumps. And I don't mean like a truck, truck. 

Being the mac to somebody's cheese just doesn't cut the mustard these days. This dish needed to enrich more than its pasta. Cook up some zucchini, garlic, tomatoes and fresh basil and faster than Paul Ryan's marathon time -- WHU-BAM! Magic.

Suck it, David Blaine. I just levitated your tastebuds. 

While this is all fine and dandy, I would like to further your hodgepodge experience by offering up my fine culinary expertise. As with any fine meal, your palate is best cleansed and rejuvenated after a good mildly hoppy rinse. Much to my delight, I happened upon my destiny: a commemorative Coors. For full flavor, shotgun your first Coors and then enjoy your meal with a 2nd. 

Because what goes better with gourmet instant mac&cheese than an ice cold Banquet beer?

NOTHING.

Office Snacks on Snacks on Snacks

Welcome to HodgePodge Food Blog vs. The Center for the Next Generation

Hunger strikes. 

Adele reacts. 

Crisis averted. 

With resources at the office scarce and time limited, I had to act quickly. MASH DEEZ FINGZ 2GETHER:

(1) avocado

Yo Ranch!

Siracha

Basil  

  

Its like an awkward, exotic guacamole. You feel like you shouldn't enjoy it, but it's just crazy enough to draw you into its spicy aura. 

Paired with this dip are wheat thins, yellow squash, tomatoes and basil!

Mo' produce, no mo' problemz.

What a cute lil whores doorve! 

After enjoying this snack, I literally did this:

LITERALLY. 

How I feel about the n00b food pics on my blog:

Tofu Tacos Require High Carb Tortillas

What's fresh my funky tofusapiens?! These soft tacos, that's what.

You see that strugglin' lil red onion up there? That is fresh from Mama Axness's garden. No lie, just love in the form of prematurely picked produce. Sorry, ma. 

Marinade, schmerrymaids. 

This tofu marinade was summoned to court. It tastified that it was delicious. The people of the jury included:

1/2 juice of fatty grapefruit

juice of 1 lime

1/2 C. soy sauce -- eh, who am I kidding, I prob used like a whole cup

ginger nuggets, a few

1 diced green onion

1 dwarf red onion, minced

1/4 C. EVOO

a couple minced garlic cloves

lotsa cilantro!

healthy siracha squirts

Be sure to whisk all marinade ingredients together before you add the tofu, so that the tofu stays in tact. 

More garden grub. Thanks mom!

I sliced and diced all of this Axness Farm fresh (and Fred Meyer fresh) ingredients and let sit in the marinade for a bit. 

Bake dat at four hundo degrees for maybe 12 minutes? Don't take my word for it, I never claimed that this blog would learn you good fur cookin' or nuthin'.

Cook other veggies on medium high heat in a skillet until they are more tender than the heart of Bob Ross.

Soft taco accessories

I would have a better pic of the final product, but in my failed attempts to save a couple calories, I got these horrendous low-carb/high-despair tortillas. They tear as soon as you add anything to them. 

WHATEVER. 

Eggs, Apples and Bread That Is Flat.

First thangz first. The general idea of these pizzas is winning. However, do as I say, not as I do. 

More specifically, more cheese please. Even more specifically, I would like to be so bold as to categorize these gems in the flatbread kingdom. Not saucy or cheesy enough to be pizza. 

Too bad, so sad.

To your left, capocolla, egg and pea sprouts (with a healthy drizzle of siracha). To your right, apple, prosciutto, basil and cheddar.

Not shown: Cheddar cheese. The picture that I took when cheesed was U-G-L-Y, and I had no alibi.

Pay no mind to the wasabi almonds, I decided that was a foolish ingredient inclusion.

I know what you're thinking. Pea shoots? What are these shoots of the pea variety that you speak of?! Well shoot. Peas allow me to drop some knowledge on yur noggin. My vision was that these pea shoots would be magically sweet-ish and crunchy fresh, as to compliment the rich italian meats and mascarpone cheese sauce. Little did I know, they suck.

In a very serious taste test by yours truly, I went with the capocollo for the egg & pea shoots pizza. Prosciutto invited apple, basil and cheddar to the flatbread party in your mouth. Calabrese salame was picked last in this foodblog kickball game and was only present for moral support. 

A white sauce was too obvi, so I took a chance on this concoction. Above is the mascarpone, some whole grain dijon, chopped basil and fresh garlic. 

The pizza dough that I ever so carefully rolled out was a super sensi, so in order to not rip the dough, I baked it a smidge before I spread the m-pone sauce on the dough. 

In a perfect world, I would recommend that you placed sliced provo on top of all this goodness above. Let it get a wee bit melty (bake at 450 for  maybe 10 mins), then crack a couple eggs and switch to broil. This is the trickiest part! As you can unfortunately see, I cooked the egg for too darn long and this arugula has seen better days. This is a well intentioned flatbread, but falls..........flat.

What a wonky lookin' meal.

The apple/cheddar flatbread was even less photogenic, so I'll spare your eyeballs and my street cred. It has the same sauce as the other flatbread, but the toppings included prosciutto, sliced pink lady apples, fresh basil leaves and sharp cheddar. 

Go forth and flatbread, ya'll.

Parsnip Pasta

Hey kids, its a two for one evening extravaganza! (See previous salad) 

WOW! 2 blog posts, 1 night and a lifetime of enjoyment!

Last week I crafted a pasta of sorts. 

Ingredients assemble!

Leeks

Garlic

Broccolli 

Parsnips

Butta

Cream of mushroom soup (the Healthy Request version, obvi)

a single Laughing Cow cheese triangle

parsley, so fresh and so clean

Do this:

1. Sautee dem leeks and garlic with a sensible amount of butter.
2. Use a veggie peeler to bust out these ingenious strands of parsnip. Be sure to peel off the regular skin before shredding the rest of the root. Add to sautéed mix. 
3. Add broccoli. 
4. STOP. Collaborate and get a separate pan to make the sauce. And by sauce I mean, you take 1/2 a can of the cream of shroom soup, add some water, and the amused bovine wedge. I used the French Onion flavor. Heat until sawsey. 
5. Add boss sauce to veggies.
6. Daintily caress the dish with minced parsley. 
7. Enjoy the fact that this plate of veggies is creamy and crafty and one hundo percent tasty. 

some salad or whatever

Good evening interwebz. Please extend a warm welcome to guest blogger Blake. Follow him on Twitter. @FoxandRobin. Be extremely unimpressed at his sad little tweetless account. Thank him later for introducing a baller salad combo. And judge me on my crummy post and unappetizing pictures of weird salad. 

Never fear, that mush is tasty avocado mush. 

The real kicker is the dressing. This dressing fiesta included the following guests:

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Dijon mustard

Strawberry jam

hawt sawz

Topped with raw mixed nuts, avocado, dried cranberries and a blueberrymintgrapefruit garnish. 

AND DELICIOUSNESS!

Mmmkay bye.