Shift the Balance: Reza's Cheese Soup or Sausaquences and Peppers

Guess what today is! Guess what, guess what, guess what!

Okay, you're not going to guess so I'll tell you: TODAY IS THE DAY THAT DREAMFALL CHAPTERS: BOOK 5 COMES OUT!

No, but you guys, you have to understand, it's the final part of the final game of The Longest Journey saga, and it's been so long since Book 4 came out, and the ending of Book 4 kind of left me sobbing on my keyboard and I just...

I have a lot of feelings, okay?

Anyway, since we all know I celebrate with food, and since I already made Balance Cupcakes, I decided to make something out of the game itself.

Pretty early on in Book 1 (it seems so long ago...), Zoe-- one of the main, playable characters-- has a simple fetch quest: pick up lunch for her boyfriend Reza, and bring it to his office. Seems simple enough, right? It's designed to help you get used to navigating the Propast area (which is totally my favorite in the game), so it's not trying to trip you up or anything. Go to the food cart, talk to the vendor, pick up a food item, find Reza. Easy peasy. Reza even gives you free reign to pick whatever you like, though Zoe knows he doesn't have the most adventurous palate.

However, this is a gritty technopunk future, so when Nela reveals that she has some very rare real pork sausages for sale, it's a bit of a game changer.

Zoe knows that Reza would prefer his usual order of cheese soup, but she also wants to broaden Reza's culinary horizons, and the pork sausages are hard to say no to. So, it's up to you as the player to make the choice.

It seems like an innocent enough choice, something simple for the devs to throw in to give the player the illusion of control. However, as the end card says when you finish Book 1, this choice actually has unexpected and far-reaching consequences. Or sausaquences, as Zoe refers to them in her journal.

And, after one dev tweeted about everything coming back to a choice to you didn't think mattered, everyone's pretty nervous about the sausaquences coming back to bite us.

In honor of that potentially fatal choice, I decided to make both foods so you can make the choice for yourself.

Since it's mid June and it's been pretty warm here in NJ, I decided to make both meals in the slow cooker. Not that Nela does that, but I didn't feel like standing over the hot stove or turning the oven on. Plus I don't have Karl to help out. (Karl is the name of Nela's food cart. It makes more sense in context).

Reza's favorite cheese soup I decided to make nice and hearty. The broth is creamy and flavored with sharp cheddar cheese, and it's chock full of broccoli, potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions. Plus, to thicken it up a bit, since there's not much evaporation in the slow cooker, I added a couple tablespoons of instant potatoes. That's totally optional: you can add rice or noodles with will absorb some of the liquid, go for a cornstarch slurry, or leave it as is, but I liked it this way.

One note is that you really need to add the cheese at the end. Cheddar breaks very easily if it's cooked for too long. You can always use Velveeta to avoid that, but we all know real cheese tastes better.

As for the sausages, since I wasn't going to make my own (Nela didn't either, so we're square), and plain sausages doesn't seem like much of a lunch, I went with sausage and peppers. Or, sausaquences and peppers, get it?
...
I thought it was funny.

Sausage and peppers is a ridiculously simple dish that I think every Italian knows how to make, and it's a fairly common street food around here, especially down the shore (usually served on a roll), so I thought Nela might approve.

My family usually makes it in the oven (dump everything in a baking dish, cover with foil, bake until the sausages are done), but now I might always make it in the slow cooker because holy crap on a cracker did it turn out good. The sausages were so tender they were like butter, and everything just came out so flavorful that I ate like three helpings when I went to taste it. Plus, it's even easier to make it in the slow cooker than the oven, since I don't have to preheat the oven or worry about a timer.

Now, you can brown the sausages on the stove first if you like. I won't stop you. Many people do, to cut down on grease and crisp up the casing. But that just seemed too much like work to me.

So now you have a very important choice to make: Reza's cheese soup or sausaquences and peppers. The fate of two worlds may be in the balance. Or possibly just the fate of your dinner.

Reza's Cheese Soup
Yield: 12 servings

Ingredients 
3 ribs of celery, chopped
2 potatoes, chopped
1 head of broccoli, chopped small
1 onion, diced
1 cup shredded carrots
6 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp. ground cumin
2 cans evaporated milk (I used skim)
3 tbsp. instant potato flakes (optional)
16 oz. shredded sharp cheddar
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan
Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions
In the bowl of a slow cooker, add the first eight ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours until the vegetables are soft and the potatoes are fork tender. Add the evaporated milk and potato flakes, stirring until the flakes have dissolved. Cover and cook 30 minutes, until heated through. Add the cheese, half cup at a time, stirring until completely melted. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve.

Recipe by Kim

Slow Cooker Sausage and Peppers
Yield: 6 servings 

Ingredients 
12 sweet Italian pork sausages
1 (28 oz.) can crushed tomatoes with basil
2 red bell peppers, sliced into strips
1 onion, sliced into strips
2 tsp. garlic powder
Salt and pepper, to taste
6 large rolls, to serve

Directions
Add the peppers and onion to the bowl of a slow cooker. Season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Add the sausages and crushed tomatoes. Give a quick stir to coat. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, until the sausages are cooked through and tender. Serve in rolls.

Tip: if you have leftover sauce, add it to rice or pasta

Recipe by Kim 

Breakfast Burritos

So, remember when I told you about my love of frozen foods? Well, that kind of goes double for breakfast foods. I love breakfast foods, but they always take way too much effort to make for breakfast, you know? I especially love those frozen breakfast burritos with the cheese and the potato and the sausage and the peppers, yuuuuuum.

I'm good though; I very rarely ever buy them because they're pricy and kind of terrible for you, especially the ones with cheese. Those are about 97% sodium.

I was looking through my refrigerator for something to make the other day, and saw scraps from a bunch of other meals. Half of a bell pepper, half of an onion, a package of bacon with only a couple slices left, a small hunk of white cheddar, a couple of potatoes. Then I remembered I had tortillas in the freezer and a new carton of eggs. I had all the fixin's for a breakfast burrito.

Now, these are much better for you than the frozen ones, but are they healthy? Probably not. You can always up the health factor buy skipping the bacon, upping the veggies, and going with egg whites and whole wheat tortillas. Me, I already like the unhealthy stuff, so slightly healthier than that works for me.

And this has got all the good stuff. Eggs and cheese and bacon and peppers and onions, oh my! Super delicious and super satisfying, and totally customizable. Make it with sausage or steak strips. Use your favorite shredded cheese. Add spinach or tomatoes or whatever your little heart desires. These puppies take a little longer to make than the frozen ones, but the effort is totally worth it. Especially when you have leftovers that you can just pop in the toaster oven when needed.

Breakfast Burritos
Yield: 4 burritos

Ingredients 
4 burrito style tortillas
3 strips of bacon, diced
1 medium potato chopped small
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 bell pepper, diced
salt and pepper, to taste
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup shredded white cheddar cheese
1 tbsp olive oil

Directions
Place the tortillas on a microwave safe plate and heat for a few seconds in the microwave until soft.

In a large, non-stick skillet, cook the bacon over medium high heat until browned and crispy. Add the potato, onion, and bell pepper, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the potatoes are fork tender. Add the eggs and cook, while stirring, until the eggs are cooked through. Stir in the cheddar and remove from heat.

Divide the filling equally between between the tortillas. Fold sides and ends of tortilla over filling and roll up. Add the olive oil to the skillet and heat on low. Add the burritos and toast on each side until golden brown. Serve hot.

Recipe by Kim

Buffalo Chicken Twice Baked Potatoes

Happy 2015! How were your holidays? I got sick just in time for Santa to arrive. I wasn't feeling especially great when I was leaving my uncle's house on Christmas Eve, but I figured I ate too much. When I got home, it was a different story, and after I was, erm, finished, I looked at the clock and saw that it was just after midnight. My only thought was, "Gee, thanks, Santa!"

I'm still not sure what that was all about. It wasn't a stomach virus, nobody else got sick, so it couldn't have been food poisoning. Maybe since I didn't put up a stocking, that was Santa's creative alternative to coal?

It wasn't all bad, though. I did get a slow cooker and a rice cooker (I have this block against cooking rice. I can make a risotto, but I can't make rice. Does this make sense to anyone?), so basically I have a ton of appliances that help me avoid using my stove. Yay!

The parentals also bought me a new TV, since all I had was my little 17 inch one, which served me fine in the past, but since my living room is actually pretty big, it looked kind of sad and tiny (also, the sound was starting to go wonky, and it didn't have an HDMI port for my blu-ray player. It was time). It's a smart tv, so I've been fascinated by the fact that I can watch Netflix on something other than my Kindle. It's the little things in life.

Anywhozzle, I've totally had this potato craving lately, which made me realize: I don't think I've ever made a potato dish. Like, ever. I mean, I've made baked potatoes (mostly in the microwave, because I'm usually just making one for me), and I've put potatoes in soups and things and on my Italian Hot Dogs, but just potatoes? Nope.

Well, thinking about it now, I have made potato salad and roasted potatoes, and I made a potato nacho thinger where I sliced up a potato and pan fried it and smothered it with cheese and bacon and baked it. But I had to really think about it, so they totally don't count.

And that's totally crazysauce because I love potatoes. I love all things potato. Potato chips and french fries and mashed potatoes and potato croquettes and potato salad and my Aunt Sophie's potato pie. Potatoes are awesome.

So one night, I was making a baked potato in the microwave for dinner, like you do, and I suddenly decided I was going to put buffalo sauce on it instead of butter, and it was like a revelation. I was in love with the combination of potato and buffalo sauce, so the idea stuck me: what about buffalo chicken twice baked potatoes?

Now, I'd never actually had twice baked potatoes, but I liked the idea of them. You take baked potatoes, scoop out the insides, mash them up and mix them with yummy good stuff like sour cream and cheese, put it back in the potato skins and bake it back up until the cheese is all melty-gooey. What's not to like? I figure I'd just add some hot sauce, some diced red onions, peppers, and celery, a little cilantro and chives, top with some chicken, et voila, buffalo chicken twice baked potatoes.

And you guys, it's like baked potatoes meet mashed potatoes meet potato salad meet buffalo wings. It's epic. And while it sounds fussy and hard, it's really not. It takes a while, but that's mostly because the potatoes take a while for the first baking. I really like that I can do all the prep while the potatoes are in the oven. You'd have to wait anyway, so it gives you something to do while waiting. Since I hate waiting, that's a plus.

You could totally make these ahead, just follow the steps up until the second baking, cover and put in the fridge. When you're ready to serve, just pop them back in the oven for the second baking. The skins won't be as crisp, but it will still be yummy.

I love that these are super versatile too. Serve one potato half as an appetizer, or two potato halves as a meal. You can eat them with a knife and fork or pick them up with your fingers. You could even skip the chicken if you want, or use premade chicken strips from the grocery store. My original intention was to make shredded chicken and mix it in with the potatoes, but I make a lot of shredded chicken and wanted to try something different. That's always an option if you want a less saucy and messy finger food. You could totally just eat the filling and not put it back in the potato skins, which I had to stop myself from doing.

Twice baked potatoes. You need them in your life.

Buffalo Chicken Twice Baked Potatoes
Yield: 8 potato halves

Ingredients
4 large russet potatoes, scrubbed and dried*
olive oil
salt (optional)
1 chicken breast, cut into strips
1 tbsp ranch seasoning (I used this mix, minus the dill)
2 tbsp. prepared buffalo sauce**
1/3 cup sour cream
2-4 tbsp. hot sauce
1 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
1 tbsp. chopped fresh chives
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 small red onion, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
About 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese.

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. Prick the potatoes a few times on all sides with a fork. Rub with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, if using. Bake for 45-60 minutes, until the potatoes are fork tender.

While the potatoes are cooking, heat about 1 tbsp. of olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the chicken and ranch seasoning. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is almost cooked through. Add the buffalo sauce, and continue to cook until the chicken is done. Set aside.

When the potatoes are done, use a sharp knife to cut them into halves, being careful not to tear the skin. (use a clean dish towel to hold the potatoes, since they will be very hot) Use a spoon to scoop out the inside into a bowl, leaving about a quarter inch in the skin to keep its shape. Use a handheld potato masher to mash the potatoes. Mix in the sour cream, butter, and your desired amount of hot sauce. Mix in the diced vegetables.

Divide the filling equally between the empty potato skins. Sprinkle liberally with shredded cheddar, and bake about 5 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Top with the cooked chicken in buffalo sauce, drizzle more buffalo sauce on top, if desired, and serve immediately.

Note: If you prefer softer veggies, you can saute them with the chicken

*My potatoes were kind of on the small side, so I used the 4 biggest I had plus one small one
**You can make your own buffalo sauce using 2 parts hot sauce to 1 part melted butter

Recipe by Kim

K-9's Italian Hot Dog

It's Doctor Who Saturday! And guess who we're featuring today? Probably my number 1 favorite character in the entirety of time and space: K-9!

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Can I just tell you guys a secret? I love robots. I think they're adorable. When I was a little girl, R2-D2 was my favorite. I had a little R2 gigapet. (Remember those things?) Except it was really upsetting because you had to shock him when he was bad, and I never wanted to do that. So R2 pretty much did whatever he wanted. Kind of like in the movies, actually.

You know what else I love. Dogs. Well, all animals really. I'm an animal lover. But there's just something about a dog.

And when you put the two together: epic squee!

K-9 with the first 5 doctors. Because K-9 is BAMF

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Now, I actually haven't watched much of classic Who (I know. I fail as a fangirl), so my first introduction to K-9 was in the episode School Reunion, which also brought back one of the most beloved companions, Sarah Jane Smith.

And let me tell you, when I first saw K-9, it was love at first sight.

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Sarah Jane and K-9

Not only was he an adorable robot dog with a good measure of sass, but in that first episode I saw with him he pretty much singlehandedly (pawedly? doggedly?) saved the Doctor, Mickey, Rose, and Sarah Jane. And he was willing to sacrifice himself to do so.

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So in that one single episode, I fell in love, I squee-d, I cried, and then I squee-d again when the Doctor fixed K-9.

It was an emotional roller coaster, let me tell you that.

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So. Much. SQUEE!!!

So my original thought for K-9 was to do a sort of replica made out of bread, wrapped around a hot dog. That's my favorite way to make hot dogs, and I thought it would be fairly easy, since K-9 is such a simple, blocky, shape.

It really wasn't. Although I did get one that kind of looked like Falcor from the Neverending Story.

I'm really exposing all my geek today, aren't I? K-9, it's all your fault.

That's my K-9 from ThinkGeek. Isn't he just the cutest?

Anyway, do you know what I just recently realized? That Italian hot dogs are a strictly New Jersey thing. I mean, you might find them in Pennsylvania or New York (cultures tend to bleed a bit in the tri-state area), but not like in New Jersey where you can get them at any pizza joint or burger place.

So for my K-9 post, I decided to do an Italian hot dog. Not that K-9 really has anything to do with New Jersey. Or hot dogs. Or Italians. Or that he eats. He's a tin dog, it's a hot dog, you can see where I'm going with this.

An Italian hot dog is just a hot dog with fried potatoes, peppers, and onions. Spread some deli mustard (spicy brown) on a torpedo roll, or a chunk of Italian bread. Hot dog buns are far too wimpy. Get yourself a quality hot dog- all beef, natural casings, no mystery meats here, please. Sausage works, too. Then grill or fry or cook it on a skillet. No boiling. This is a Jersey dog, it's hardcore. Cook up some peppers and onions just until soft. Fry up some potatoes- or, if you want to be lazy, you can do what pizza places around me do, and just use French fries. Layer it all in the prepared roll, then fuhgeddaboudit and stuff it in yer face.

For the rolls, I actually bought refrigerated Italian bread dough, and shaped it into 4 rolls before baking. Then I prepped the other ingredients while it was in the oven, so when I fixed it all up, every thing was hot and fresh and yum. And then I had to take pictures. Sometimes being a food blogger kind of sucks, you know?

But then I totally had to chow down so I could show you a picture of the inside. Totally imperative.

So it's a hot dog. And K-9's a tin dog. They're not really related except that if I had a K-9, he could totally cook the hot dog for my with his little shooty nose laser. He has a laser in his nose. Bet you didn't know that could ever be adorable. But it is. Because K-9.

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Italian Hot Dogs {Printable Version}
Yield: 4 hot dogs

Ingredients
2 large potatoes
2 bell peppers
1 large onion
4 quality hot dogs (all beef, natural casings preferred)
Vegetable oil
Salt
Deli mustard
4 torpedo rolls, or 1 loaf Italian bread, divided

Directions
Peel the potatoes and slice into thin rounds. In a large skillet, heat just enough vegetable oil to coat the bottom over high heat. Add the potatoes in an even layer and cook on either side until golden brown, 1-
3 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels, and salt lightly if desired. Reserve about 1 tbsp. of the oil, and
discard the rest.

In the same skillet, cook the hot dogs over medium heat until browned, turning occasionally to cook
evenly. Remove and cover to keep warm.*

Cut the onion and peppers into strips and add to the skillet. Cook on medium-low heat until softened to
your liking.

Slice open the rolls and spread generously with mustard. Line with the fried potato rounds, and add 1
hot dog, and peppers and onions to your liking. Serve hot.

*Or grill the hot dogs, if you'd prefer.

Recipe adapted from various sources

And because this is my new favorite gif in the entire world:

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