Fridgg: What's For Dinner?

A new project on Fridgg!

This post is about you guys. I adore you, you guys are incredibly precious to me, and I have a new project that I’ve created just for you.

Kimchee, bacon, and egg sandwich

We all know you guys like food. Looking at photos of food, reading about food, learning about and drooling over all types of different foods.

That much is clear – otherwise, why would you be here?

Cauliflower soup

But what you may not have known is that when I’m not spending all my waking hours cooking for and maintaining this blog like a good food blogger (which as you’ve probably guessed is, ahem, pretty much always), I work as a programmer.

I’m a programmer who loves food, so it was an obvious choice to spend the last two months working as hard as I can on something for people like you and me – something for people who love food.

And while Fridgg has been great as a blog, I’ve always meant it to be more than that (but don’t worry, the blog isn’t going anywhere!)

Zucchini blossom and pancetta pizza

So I present to you, the new Fridgg!

It’s currently in a closed beta, which means it’s not open to the public just yet. So if you want a peek inside before the general public gets their hands on it, you can head over and sign up for an invite!

I’m really excited to finally be able to show the new Fridgg to you guys, and I really hope you guys love it!

UPDATE: Fridgg is now open to the public, so head on over and check it out!

Ramen

Sour Candy Grapes

Sour Candy Grapes

Ah, Pinterest. Now, I’m not really a Pinterest addict – nowhere near it. I can spend maybe 10 minutes on the site at most at one time. But still, it is an excellent place to find new recipes and food ideas.

For example, these grapes. I saw a friend of mine pin a link to these sour patch grapes and had to make them.

Not for me, mind you. I’ve never been much of a sour fan. No, these were for my younger brother. The guy is addicted to sour candies.

Now, I wanted them to be sour, and I wasn’t sure if the melon-flavored jello she used would do that. And since I didn’t have that much time to experiment, I decided to go with something I KNEW would be sour.

So what better than lemonade-flavored Kool-Aid powder?

Verdict? These were a hit. My brother had friends over for the Fourth of July, and they INHALED these grapes. Seriously. They were fighting over them. I’m surprised nobody got hurt.

They taste just like sour candy!

Recipe heavily inspired by the sour patch grapes from Pure Sugar.

Ingredients

• 1 lb green grapes
• 4 packs lemonade-flavored Kool-Aid drink powder
• ~1/2 cup sugar (less sugar if you want them more sour, more sugar if you want them more on the sweet side)

Cooking Directions

1. Wash grapes thoroughly. Do not dry them. (You want them to be damp so the powder will stick.)
2. Mix the Kool-Aid powder and sugar.
3. Roll the grapes in the Kool-Aid mix. (Or you can lay them out and sprinkle the powder over them. This is much quicker, though it may not turn out quite as pretty.)
4. Serve, and watch them magically disappear before your eyes!

An ode to the mango

The moment I rounded the corner into the kitchen, it was like I was hit in the face.

“Wow,” I blinked twice. “It smells really sweet out here.”

He looked up from the mango he was slicing. “Here, have some.” He held out a slice of mango, crosshatched with slices.

“It isn’t one of yours,” he offered. ‘Mine’ being the three mangos I brought home from Camp Blogaway a couple of days ago, which were sitting on the kitchen table, not quite ripe.

No, this was one of the ones he brought home from his parents, probably at least a week ago. Which meant it had sat a week in the fridge, ripening until the skin was wrinkly and speckled, and the flesh gave easily at the slightest squeeze.

I peeled back one edge of the skin, and scraped a small bite of the cold mango flesh off with my teeth.

“Wow, that’s sweet,” I exclaimed, eyes wide. I took another bite and then shuddered, mango juice running down my thumb. It was like eating candy, the sweetness overwhelming without being cloying. Sweet enough to feel like a guilty pleasure, I couldn’t stop going back for more.

In an attempt to feign some sense of decorum, I grabbed a spoon to separate each bite of mango flesh from the skin. And then continued to scrape away at the flesh, trying to get every last bit of that sweet, soft, juicy orange mango, until I had scraped it so thin that the skin was almost transparent in some places.

Now the empty mango skin sits by me, teasing me with its lingering scent. And I can’t help but wonder… do you think he would notice if I snuck off with his other ripe mango that’s tempting me from the fridge?

Cream of Broccoli Soup

Cream of Broccoli Soup

I recently signed up for the Farm Fresh to You delivery service, because I’ve decided I need more produce in my life (and I got a good deal through LivingSocial). Of course, getting a big box of produce also means you have to figure out what to do with everything in the box. The artichokes and strawberries were easy (we ate them right away), carrots went into a big batch of curry, lemon went into honey-lemon “tea” (I spent that week sick as a dog), lettuce turned into salads. But what to do with the broccoli?

Then I saw this recipe for broccoli cheese soup on Brown Eyed Baker, and it sounded really good. So once I got better, I made the soup… with a few alterations. A little more broccoli, throw in the potatoes that I had just because they were there. Add some garlic powder because it needed just that slightest kick of flavor. Cook it a little longer so the vegetables are meltingly soft. And add bacon, because… well, why not? We all know bacon makes everything better.

Of course, the test for whether something is good is never whether Son likes it or not. He’ll eat just about everything, and yet he isn’t much of a fan of cream-based soups. (He ate it anyways.) So instead I brought my dad a bowl of it. The verdict? He loved it.

Ingredients

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
• 1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
• 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 3 cups whole milk
• 1 1/2 cups half-and-half
• 3 heads broccoli, stems removed and discarded, and florets cut into bite-size pieces
• 1/2 lb potatoes, diced
• a pinch of nutmeg
• 12 ounces mild cheddar cheese, shredded (about 3 cups)
• Salt and pepper
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 12 slices of bacon, cooked

Cooking Directions

1. In a large pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, until they begin to soften. Sprinkle the flour over the onions and stir to combine, cooking for about 1 minute. Slowly whisk in the milk and half-and-half.
2. Add the nutmeg, broccoli, potatoes, a dash of salt, freshly ground black pepper, and garlic powder. Cover and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for about an hour, or until the broccoli is tender. You can add the cheese now, or add it to taste when you serve the soup. (I like cheese, but Son isn’t as much of a fan so he didn’t add any.)
3. Blend with an immersion blender, or carefully transfer to a blender or food processor to blend. Top with cheddar cheese and crumbled bacon. (You can also add croutons, if you’d like.)
4. This makes a fairly thick soup. I like it that way, but if you prefer a thinner soup you can mix in a cup of vegetable broth to thin it out.
5. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Bacon Cookies

Cookies for Santa?

There are food bloggers, and then there are food bloggers.

There are those of us who are on top of things… who make a whole Thanksgiving dinner a month before Thanksgiving. That way we can write about all our dishes before the holiday, so our readers can make those dishes for Thanksgiving.

Those of us who already know what we’re going to bake long before December, and have already tested the recipes and taken the photos before there’s even a hint of December in the air.

Those people are probably already starting to think about what they’ll be serving for Easter next year.

Oops…

I… am most certainly not one of those people.

Heh. Yeah. Definitely not.

Holiday baking? Um… haven’t even started.

Right. Gotta get on that.

I’m more the kind of food blogger who cooks for a holiday, like a normal person, and then posts about it after the fact, right about when nobody cares about that holiday any longer. Yeah, I’m timely like that.

Anyways.

I made these cookies, from Joy the Baker way back in June, but at the time I definitely didn’t have Christmas on the mind. (No, these were for my little sister, who was graduating at the time.)

However, these are definitely going to make an appearance for Christmas as well. After all, these flourless cookies made my newly gluten-free grandmother tear up when she realized she could actually eat some! Yes, that totally means I need to make them again…

(Also, as a side note, if you accidentally only put in half the amount of peanut butter, your cookies will turn out very flat. Still delicious, but definitely flatter than they should be… o_0)

Nom.