HAPPY FOODIE FATHER'S DAY!!!

The bestest dads deserve the bestest treats. And because I wasn't able to spend time with my pops this Father's Day, I thought that the next best thing was to craft an ode to MJA, Matthew James Axness!

Now that my dad is slimming down and cutting out all of the most delicious things in life, I thought I'd e-taunt him with all of his food faves.

UP FIRST!! Fake frugal fritters fo the apple variety. I had made these wanna-be doughnuts before, and they were pretty tasty.

Meet the ingredients. 

Slice'n'dice the granny.

HOLLER AT A PLAYA DEEZ BE APPLES

When sugar and spice isn't nice enough....APPLE CIDER MIX!

I knew that cin/shuga wasn't gonna make these faux-nuts delicious....so I called in the troops. The apple-cider-pop-n-fresh-fake-doughnuts-are-the-best-omg-i-love-my-dad were gonna be the gold medal winners. I had a feeling.

Fry dat. Peanut oil. 

I wanted to capture the applessence, so I squeezed the bejesus out of the dough fo SHO.  

I know what you're thinking....OH MY GAWD, is she a hand model??????

Spoiler alert: NOPE, just bl-izz-essed. Thanks 'rents. 

Axness royalty.

Father/daughter activities circa 1997.

Enough of this nauseating familial nostalgia. Back to the apple fritters!

Coated in sugar and SIN-amon. Oh hayyyyyyyy. 

Fry fry, so fly, breezies be like OH MY. 

Perfection?

NOPE! That ish be dough-tastic. Pilsbury would be all over this, but this is NOT Papa Axness-worthy! So I tried to re-fry.  

Muuuuuuuuuch better. 

In the end, this is what happened: I fried some phoney baloney doughnuts and tried to make them delicious, but in the end....here is the deal: YOU ARE FRYING CANNED DOUGH AND THIS WILL NOT BE YUMMY. 

____________________________________________________

And now for something completely different -- 

I Love My Dad And Want To Show It To Him Via A Blog Post Take 2:

GERMAN CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES!!!!!!!!!

Okay foolz. I had an Ina Garten recipe, because obvi. Little did I know that Ina is a sneaky B and super complicated when it comes to recipes that try to show how much you appreciate your father!! All I know is that German Chocolate Cupcakes are my dad's FAVE birthday/father's day dessert and I needed to make them!

Here we go. 

Like, really?? So. Much. Math.

The butter pulled a wicked witch of the west here. Melted. 

Line dem cake cups. 

I AM HAVING FUN. 

Let the frosting thicken. Double trouble boil and bubble. Not witchcraft, just mad culinary skillz. 

So, I know what you all are thinking. Adele!! What the eff, this isn't a true hodgepodge! You're following a recipie and using all of the right ingredients! NAY, web audience. I did have to improvise. The recipe called for 1 cup blanched sliced almonds, TOASTED. You think I'm about to pay good money for sliced almonds and then toast that nonsense?? No.

I used snack sized dry roasted unsalted almonds from Trader Joes. Then, I whack-a-moled the heck outta the snack packs. My dad was going to name me Adele Resourceful Axness, but somehow that never caught on. 

I was a bit of a sellout with the pecans. You think that the chick with the six thousand dollar HodgePodge Food Blog apron is gonna turn down perfectly measured, chopped and toasted pecans??? COME ON!

Um, yeah. It's as good as it looks. Coconut, almond nut, pecan nut nutty goodness. Coconutception. 

On to the batter! There were a lot of treacherous steps here. Good thing I had my sherpa to help me out, Benjamin.  

Turns out, coca powder is a sneaky lil guy. But I like to think that I rock the coca-dusted look pretty well. 

I was worried that the batter looked a little chunktastic, but I let go and let Ina and threw them in the oven. 

MAJESTIC MOUNDS OF MUFFIN MAGIC. Auf Deutsch. 

      

Feast your peepers on this! They were real good. Totes dad-worthy.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love you!

xo!

Adele

Tomato Tempeh Potato Stew

Yeah, you heard me. Tomato Tempeh Potato Stew! Too weird for you? Too doggone bad. 

This is some authentic hodgepodgery. No grocery shopping for fancy new ingredients like a little fancy pants cotton-headed ninny muggins. Just the shirt on my back and the pleas of hundreds of thousands of fans begging me to create a new post. Okay, and maybe a little help. Twas a collaborative effort between hilarious blog masterminds @Hodgepodge_blog and my new BFF, Thomas. We're like all over the interwebz. Check us out, or be a big dumb dummy. 

Hokay, so. Above we have the ingreddoz. Thats awesome speak for ingredients. 

Leftover marinara sauce, sour cream, juice of 1/2 a lemon,

pitted green olives, one hundo % natural diced tomato, tempeh, 2 cloves garlic. 

Oh yeah, and dem fingerling po-tay-toes. 

I sautéed minced garlic and tempeh chunks in a medium hot skillet with olive oil that was wearing a heavy duty chastity belt. 

[ENTER SCENE] Marinaria sauce, lemon juice arrives shortly thereafter.

ADELE 

Oh no no no lemon seeds, NOT IN MY SAUCE, NOT ON MY WATCH! 

FADE IN: Chopped lengthwise GREEN OLIVES. In comes the DICED TOMATOES, with the kickdrum!

SOUR CREAM approaches sauce. She dollops.

 CUT TO: Worldwide mouth-watering.The lights in Adele's kitchen dim, Barry White begins to play. 

Sour creamy dreamy, baby. 

A side note on the green olives here. When these guys are swimming in such Adeleax deliciousness, they get squeaky on your chompers. If I had to do this all over again, I would have finely minced the olives. You've been warned.   

Now, it's potato boilin' time! A super secret trick to the most awesome fingerling potatoes EVER is to do the following: 

 Pot'o'water + bag'o'taters + 1 cup salt. Just set it, and forget it!! Or at least boil until these carbtastic root nuggets are forking tender. 

Do not be alarmed! These potatoes are gonna make the sides of your pot saltier than Oscar the Grouch on the wrong side of the bed Monday morning.

Let these gents dry for a spell.

Crispy crunch-ish potato nomz! 

For you fatties out there, double up on the butter nugs! Otherwise, a little churned salty cream goo goes a long way. Harlem shake onto your potatoes some freshly cracked out black pepper.

Next, dish up the real meal deal!

Top that toe-mater stew with some parm chee and BUH-BAM! 

Dinner, you better take these court papers, CUZ YOU JUST GOT SERVED. 

Well kids, I hope you had a great time reading this. I hope you've learned a lot and I hope your day tomorrow is whimsical and full of regalement. I hope you dance.

Oh yeah, one last bit of jest before you resume your super awesome life.........

This.