BLOGHUNGRY

Chicken Corn Chowder

Chowder was recently defined on NPR as a soup that is thickened with potatoes. Who doesn't love that?! I made this recipe recently with some corn bread and a summer cocktail for my bad movie night group. I can still taste the smoky bacon and red pepper in the creamy broth. I also added a handful or two of frozen chopped spinach, because Popmuse  watches too much Dr. Oz. It came out pretty great.

Chicken Corn Chowder

1 lb boneless chicken, cut into 1" pieces
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
5 slices bacon, chopped
1 onion, chopped
5 large ears corn or equal amount of frozen corn
1 3 medium zucchini, chopped
1 pound small potatoes, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 teaspoon paprika
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons flour
1 quart chicken stock
1 cup half and half
1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley, a couple of generous handfuls,
A few dashes hot sauce, to taste

In a medium soup pot bring stock to a boil and add chicken pieces. Cook until poached about 5 minutes and turn burner off. Heat a large skillet or medium pot over medium-high heat with extra-virgin olive oil. Add bacon to hot oil and cook until crisp at edges. Add onions and corn, zucchini and potatoes and bell pepper as you get them chopped. Also add to the soup pot the bay leaf, thyme sprigs, paprika, and salt and pepper, to taste. Cook for about 7 to 8 minutes to begin to soften the vegetables. Sprinkle flour into the veggies, stir and cook 1 minute. Stir veggie mixture into chicken and the stock pot and bring it come up to a bubble and thicken up a bit. Then stir in half and half, parsley and hot sauce, to taste, and simmer 5 minutes.

BH on 7up vs. Sierra Mist

I can no longer be silent. What happened to 7-Up and what the fuck is a "Sierra Mist"? Admittedly, I grew up in a Sprite-drinking household and prefer ginger ale to all soda. However, 7-Up had a good campaign, taste, and packaging going for it. Who didn't like the red dot? Sierra Mist is just a Sprite knock-off and is clearly a bastardization of Sprite and Mountain Dew campaigns that took a turn for the generic. Every time I see Sierra Mist at a restaurant or movie theatre I feel like I am being forced to consume the product of a corporate hack who is still hung up on "XXXtreme sports" and targeting customers with zany Southwestern furniture sets or Bed Bath and Beyond color-blocked bistro paintings. Shame on you corporate hack. Haven't those people suffered enough? Every time I pass by your product I shed a tear for empty robotic soul.

Feta and Sun-dried Tomato Lentil Salad

I enjoy lentils and feel like they are highly underrated. This lentil salad from Gourmet Magazine has a lot of good flavors happening. I'm a fan.

Feta and Sun-dried Tomato Lentil Salad

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crumbled
1/4 cup drained finely chopped sun dried tomatoes packed in oil
1 cup lentils picked over and rinsed
1/2 cup crumbled Feta cheese (about 2 ounces)

In a large bowl whisk together oil, vinegar, thyme, tomatoes, and salt and pepper to taste. Add lentils to a large saucepan of salted water and bring water to a boil. Cook lentils at a bare simmer until just tender, about 20 minutes. Drain lentils in a sieve and rinse gently. Toss lentils well with dressing and gently stir in Feta.

Orange Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am a big fan of pairing dark chocolate and orange. Here is a recipe for some reinvented chocolate chip cookies that will surprise and excite you.

Orange Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 c butter
1/2 c Crisco
3/4 c white sugar
3/4 c light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
zest of one orange
juice of one orange
2 1/4 c self-rising purpose flour
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Cream the butter, shortening, brown sugar, white sugar, orange juice, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Stir flour and zest into the creamed mixture. Fold in chocolate chips lightly and chill for 20 minutes or so. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on lightly-greased baking sheet and bake 8-10 minutes until light golden brown and still soft, but set in the middle. Let cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes and then remove to cooling rack or counter. 3-4 dozen cookies.

BH's Favorite Spinach, Egg, and Bacon Pizza

This is my new favorite pizza. I love salty bacon mixed with spinach, Parmesan, and a runny egg yolk. It really makes all other pizza it's bitch. Forget everything you thought you knew about good homemade pizza and make this recipe.

BH's Favorite Spinach, Egg, and Bacon Pizza

Premade pizza dough for 1 crust
2 cups tomato sauce
2 cups thawed frozen chopped spinach
2 cups grated Parmesan and/or Pecorino Romano
6 slices bacon, cooked until crispy and roughly chopped
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spread the dough out with a rolling pin or just by using your hands onto  a pizza pan. Top with the sauce, spinach, cheese, and bacon and bake for approximately 15 minutes until crispy. Crack 2 eggs in the center of the pizza and place in the oven for an additional 6 minutes until egg is just cooked. To serve, cut slice and serve while hot and egg is runny.

BH Hearts BK

I have eaten a lot of fast food in my life. Like many kids growing up in the 80's, I was raised to keep special place in my heart for McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's. In the 90's I opened myself up to Checkers, Sonic, and Hardee's. Since moving to California I have tried Carl's Jr., Tommy's, In and Out, Astro Burger, and many more. However, they were all just carnal moments of shame compared to the flame broiled complexity of a Burger King burger and the salty crispness of their fries. After a lot of research, I am now ready to proclaim Burger King the best fast food chain burger and fries in the industry.

Recipe For The New Mariah

I have heard the new Mariah Carey album and figured out the real formula for her new album. Forget "E=MC2", just take Fergie and add a dash of Tyra.

Cereal Rainbow: The Winner

I am finally getting around to posting the results of the cereal rainbow competition. Here is the official CR bracket from the weekend. It took 2 days and 3 types of milk to get down to a final 3 and ultimately revealing Cinnamon Toast Crunch as the judges' overall favorite. Through this process I learned a lot about myself and the composition of cereal. I found that cereal texture, cereal flavor(s), and milk flavor to be the most important factors for judging any cereal. Cinnamon Toast Crunch offered all of these in spades.

Also, after the competition with what little hunger for cereal that I could muster, I began to make cereal combos. After some experimentation I recommend Honey Comb/Golden Grahams and Cinnamon Toast Crunch/Apple Jacks, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch/Golden Grahams. I will also say that the Cocoa Puffs/PB Capn' Crunch combo is not as good as Reese's Puffs.

Blueberry Cupcakes w/ Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting

As soon as I heard this song in 2003, a margarine spread commercial started playing in my mind. I pictured Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow sitting and buttering muffins from a tub of butter substitute and singing to each other. In honor of them and buttered muffins everywhere here is another muffin turned dessert recipe by Bloghungry. For the fans of my stellar video scripts, I am posting the outline for the video that I pictured at the time. 

"Pictures" Script Outline fo Sheryl Crow/Kid Rock

Enter on Kid Rock rolling out of bed in a trashed hotel suite. Surrounded by empty bottles, he stumbles out of bed and to a glass door with the drapes closed. He picks up a broken framed picture of Sheryl lying on the floor.

Cut to Sheryl seated on a patio table singing and sipping coffee. She is surrounded by a backdrop of grassy vineyards or wheat fields and is painted in the golden light of a sunrise.

Cut to Kid pulling back the hotel room drapes, opening the sliding glass door, and walking out to a balcony sunrise. He clutches the picture and sits at a table on the balcony.

Cut to Sheryl and pull back to reveal that she has been sitting next to a giant wall of blueberry muffins. She pulls a muffin from the wall and butters it with a knife from her tub of margarine.

Cut to Kid to reveal that he is sitting on the other side of the giant wall of blueberry muffins. He pulls a muffin from the wall opening a hole to reveal that Sheryl is sitting on the other side.

Cut to Sheryl realizing that Kid is present and accessible on the other side of the giant muffin wall. Wide shot to reveal the two feverishly pulling muffins from the wall, buttering, and eating them. With each bite they become more intoxicated with love. The muffin wall collapses and they fall into each other's arms surrounded by muffin carnage.

Blueberry Cupcakes w/ Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting

6 premade blueberry muffins
1/4 cup butter @ room temperature
6 oz cream cheese @ room temperature
1/8 cup sour cream
1/2 cup blueberries
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 16oz pkg powdered sugar

Beat the butter, cream cheese, and sour cream together in a large bowl until light. Add the blueberries, vanilla, and sugar, mixing well until fluffy. Spread over premade blueberry muffins and keep refrigerated until serving time.

Cereal Rainbow: The Process

After last Thanksgiving's success with Pie Rainbow, we decided to expand the concept to other foods. Cereal Rainbow was born. This time the process was more involved than cutting slivers of pie to join together for the ultimate piece of pie. Cereal Rainbow is a long process of cereal selections and competitions where only one cereal can rein supreme. This is the journey of Cereal Rainbow.

1. A list of all cereals available was compiled.

2. Cereals were nominated by receiving a 3/4 majority vote from the judges.

3. The nominees were narrowed by allotting each judge 12 votes to disperse in any way to their chosen cereals. Judges were allowed to give 1 vote to 12 chosen cereals or more than one vote to a fewer number of chosen cereals.

4. The cereals receiving the most judges votes were put on the list of elected cereals. Cereals with equal amount of votes continued in a run-off election until a top 12 list was elected with 2 alternates.

5. The elected cereal boxes were lined up in order of the color spectrum and paired off into a bracket of competing cereals.

6. Cereals were judged two at a time and rated on a scale of 1 to 3 by each judge. The cereal with the highest cumulative rating went to the next round.

7. The the bracket of competing cereals continued until one cereal reigned supreme.

Top 12 Cereals

1.Special K w/ Strawberries
2. Post Raisin Bran
3. Cinnamon Toast Crunch
4. Fruity Pebbles
5. Lucky Charms
6. Count Chocula
7. Peanut Butter Capn' Crunch
8. Honey Comb
9. Golden Grahams
10. Frosted Flakes
11. Apple Jacks
12. Cinnamon Life

Alternate Cereals

1. Pops
2. Cocoa Puffs

The results will be posted soon.

4 Minute Banana Cupcakes with Banana Cream Cheese Frosting

Recently in a late night dessert panic, Bloghungry baked and iced a 2 layer chocolate ricotta cake with homemade vanilla buttercream from pantry to plate in about 30 minutes. In honor of the new Madonna/Justin Timberlake song 4 Minutes. I attempted to throw together a banana cupcake with banana cream cheese frosting in just 4 minutes. It took a little longer than 4 minutes, but only because I used a pastry bag.

Also, Bloghungry has a hobby of scripting out music videos for songs while sitting in L.A. traffic. I've done it for years and I fully believe that if Brittney would have just called me for her last few videos, her career and life would be in a better place right now. Here is an outline of my thoughts for the Madonna/J.T. song.

Bloghungry's "4 Minutes" Video Outline:

Enter on Madonna (lip-syncing) being wheeled down a hospital hallway on a gurney as she extends in Top Modelesque poses. A 4 minute digital countdown clock begins in the corner of the screen.

Cut to J.T. (lip-syncing) in GQ doctor fashions walking in a hurried runway walk down a hospital corridor. He busts through some double doors.

Cut to Madonna (lip-syncing) sprawled out on an operating table in heroine chic awkwardness as her clothes are cut off her by sexy mod nurses to reveal bathing suit-like unitard. Sexy mod nurses circle around in a medical dance panic.

Cut to J.T. (lip-syncing) scrubbing his hands, putting on gloves, etc. and bursting into the operating room with Madonna. He rushes to her side and they both lipsync as he is operating on her general midsection in no specific way. Sweat drips from his brow with great intensity as sexy mod nurses dance around and are sprayed with Technicolor blood and medical fluids originating from Madonna's general midsection. The nurses turn into an orgy on the dance floor as the surgery becomes more heated. The clock in the corner of the screen counts down to zero and Madonna's monitor flatlines. J.T. hangs his head as Madonna and the sexy mod nurse orgy lie lifeless.

4 Minute Banana Cupcakes with Banana Cream Cheese Frosting

6 premade banana muffins
1/4 cup butter @ room temperature
6 oz cream cheese @ room temperature
1/8 cup sour cream
1 banana mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tiny dash nutmeg
1 16oz pkg powdered sugar

Beat the butter, cream cheese, and sour cream together in a large bowl until light. Add the banana, vanilla, nutmeg, and sugar, mixing well until fluffy. Spread over premade banana muffins and keep refrigerated until serving time.

It's Coming

In Cereal Rainbow, only one cereal can reign supreme.

Bloghungy On: Rich People Food

Since I have been in Los Angeles, I have been to some pretty fancy-pants restaurants. Overall the food has been very good, but the menus are also filled with dishes straight out of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. To be a cultured foodie is to face a survival challenge filled with fish heads, organ meats, and bone marrow. To order sweet breads is to eat the thymus gland or pancreas of a young animal. The ever-popular pate de foie gras is a gelatinous loaf made from the fattened livers of force fed geese. Whatever happened to a nice cut of beef and a buttery pastry. Rich people are so desperate for cuisine that will separate themselves from lower classes that they have decided to eat the inedible. My guess is that this organ-eating drive is the same force that motivates the them to vote republican.

Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr. Pepper

This is really gross.

Bad Ice Cubes

My refridgerator as an adult makes the same ice cubes as my childhood refridgerator. The cubes are long, flat on one side, and rounded on the other. Their unfortunate shape creates the perfect dam on the side of your glass to block your drink until you tilt it to the point it spills all over you. I hate these ice cubes.

Home Town Buffet

A few weeks ago Popmuse and I were running some errands and trolling for a hot breakfast in the valley. We finally landed at the Home Town Buffet. You should know that in my youth I was no stranger to my neighborhood buffets. My dad used to call them "food troughs". "Let's go to the food trough tonight", he'd say with his gruff excitement. We went to the local trough at least once a month or more if there was a baseball, football, or soccer banquet. However, even with my history with sneeze-guarded food, I was not prepared for the Home Town Buffet.

Atmosphere: You enter the doors into a crowd-control railway not unlike a theme park. The room opens up to booth seating and rows of bars lined with bulky dark green drapes caked with dust and topped with plastic plants. Around you, top 40's music from the 90's to today plays like a set list for American Idol. However, all of this fades into your peripheral vision as you come up on the oversized vats of food on the bars. The general vibe is that of a crack den for emotionally void suburbanites looking for a fix.

Clientele: church goers, large families with tons of kids, overeaters who have long stopped tasting their food

Food: The food is processed and in bulk. It lacks the flavors and freshness you would get with fresh meats and real produce, but for $7 all-you-can-eat dehydrated frozen food it was pretty decent. It should also be noted that there was a taco bar and nacho bar with enchiladas, mashed potatoes and brown gravy, and a full dessert/ice cream bar at 8:00am.

Bloghungry's Top 10 Candy Choices

As you can tell I'm a big list maker and the trip to Chicago was a long one. Here is my list for my favorite candy choices. Also, it should be noted that Milky Way midnight would have been higher as would other caramel-filled candies if they hadn't changed their caramel to "Better Tasting" caramel that is more sweet syrup than buttery creaminess. I'm onto you Milky Way/Mars Co.!

1. Harbo Gummi Twin Cherries
2. White Chocolate Covered Lemon or Lime Peel
3. Chocolate Covered Orange Peel
4. Reese's Peanut butter Eggs
5. Fast Break
6. 3 Musketeers
7. Red Vines
7. Twizzlers
8. Milky Way Midnight
9. Heath Bar
10. Buttercream-filled Chocolates

Bloghungry's Top 10 Dessert Foods

Here's my second desperate airplane activity list. This was a difficult list for me because I love so many pastries and dessert flavors. I am a huge fan of fruit flavors, cinnamon, and caramel. I almost went to pastry school a couple years ago to explore my love further. However, after some soul searching I settled on more classic homegrown standbys for my list. A pear custard tart with salted caramel glaze and sherry cream reduction just isn't satisfying my inner child as much as chewy cookie. There are two #9's because I really can't choose between my favorite childhood cookies.

1. Southern Caramel Cake
2. Hot Fudge Sundae with Salted Peanuts
3. Fudgy Browne with Ice Cream and Hot Fudge
4. Key Lime Pie
5. Apple Pie a la mode
6. Ice cream Sandwich with chewy cookies
7. Southern Banana Pudding
8. Apple Turnover Coated with Chunky Sugar
9. Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Walnut Cookies
9. Chewy Buttery Sugar Cookies
10. Fudge with Pecans or Walnuts

Bloghungry's Top 10 Comfort Foods

I've been really overworked the past couple weeks, but now I am on vacation in Chicago for a few days and thought I'd share a few lists I made while trying to contain my contempt for the woman sitting next to me on the airplane. This is the list for my top 10 favorite comfort foods. If you feel like inviting me for a home-cooked dinner all of these would be a safe bet. I am a big fan of a carb with a juicy/sauce factor involved. There was a tie for #'s 4, 5, and 6 so I guess the list is really my top 13 comfort foods.

1. BBQ Sandwich on Thick Garlic Toast with Fried Okra
2. Chicken and Dumplings
3. Meatloaf Sandwich with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
4. French Dip Sandwich with Melted Gruyere
4. Chicken Pot Pie
5. Chicken Noodle Soup
5. Batter-dipped Fried Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
6. Chicken Tikka with Aloo Gobi and Jasmine Rice
6. Grilled (stinky or sharp) Cheese with Creamy Tomato Soup
7. Swedish Meatballs with Egg Noodles
8. French Onion Soup covered with Gruyere
9. Lasagna with Rich Tomato Sauce, Sausage, and Bechamel
10 Prime Rib with Jus and Gorgonzola Mashed Potatoes

Pastry Wrapped BBQ Meatloaf Stuffed with Blue Cheese and Spinach

I created this recipe as a Superbowl recipe for a Superbowl recipe contest a few months ago. Saddly I didn't win, but I did get to eat a whole meatloaf in the process. So I made out pretty well afterall. This is really just a different spin on my Italian Spinach Stuffed Pastry Wrapped Meatloaf for people who perfer BBQ sauce and blue cheese. I made my own crust, but you could skip that step and wrap yours in a premade rolled crust from the grocery. Just make sure you let it thaw until it's plyable and you may need to flour and roll it to the right size.

Pastry Wrapped BBQ Meatloaf Stuffed with Blue Cheese and Spinach

Meatloaf:
2 lbs ground turkey or beef
2 eggs
3/4 cup blue cheese crumbles
1 cup bbq sauce
10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
2 cups bread crumbs
1 medium onion, finely chopped
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350. In a small skillet saute onion with a tablespoon of oil or butter until softened. Mix the meat, eggs, bread crumbs, bbq sauce, salt and pepper, and onion together in a large mixing bowl. Line a cookie sheet with a generous amount of foil. Pat out the meatloaf so that it completely covers the cookie sheet evenly. Layer the spinach and blue cheese in a line lengthwise in the center of the meatloaf. Use the foil to help fold the edges over the spinach and cheese, shaping tightly into a loaf. Make sure the loaf is smooth and sealed. Bend the foil over loaf and seal tightly. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Wrap with pastry and continue to bake as directed below.

Crust:
2 1/2 cups flour
2 sticks butter
1 egg
1/2 c. sour cream

With hands or food processor, combine flour and butter to form a crumbly texture. Add egg and sour cream and combine into dough. Turn dough out onto generously floured surface and roll into a rectangle roughly the size of the cookie sheet. Place the cooked meatloaf in the center of the sheet of dough.  Wrap the dough around the loaf.  Dampen the edges at the seams so they will seal well. Place the pastry-wrapped loaf in a greased shallow pan (you may have yet more fat cook out) with the seam down. Bake at 375 degrees F until the crust is golden brown, usually 25 to 30 min. Serve hot or at room temperature.  Cut slices across the loaf to show the layers.