Ok.  Enough is Enough.
I've had this sitting in the wings.  Waiting.
I made the mix.  I burnt it a little - totally my fault.  I missed the tobasco.  My fault.  I took really crappy pictures.  My fault.


Then I thought, 'I've got a lot that I haven't used yet.  I'm going to make this again and do it right... and take better pictures, 'cause... damn.'  Then I didn't.  I didn't make it again.  I didn't take better pictures.
I just looked at the stuff sitting in the bags every time I opened my cupboard.  I would think, 'not today'.  Then we went back to school and mysteriously the corn chips disappeared after day 3.  That was weird.  Then by school day 4 the cashews had disappeared.
Later that same day the cheerios made it into the after school snack roster.
It was then that I decided that the whole project was a bust.  I realized the obvious.  I was not going to make this again anytime soon.
I still haven't acquired any tobasco.  The cheerios have by now dwindled to half of their original volume.  The cashews and corn chips have been demolished and only the pretzel's and shreddies are in amounts even close to necessary.


Since I feel guilty for totally procrastinating on the remake I'm not going to continue procrastinating the post itself.  I apologize for absolutely sucky pics but I can recommend the recipe itself.  It's worth it.  if you consider the amount of butter combined with the cereal and chips you gotta know that it's pretty much impossible to go wrong... unless you burn the edges just a little like I did.  If I were to make it again then I would turn the oven down to about 275 degrees and then work up if that's not quite enough.  Please don't leave out the tobasco because it really does need the punch.  This makes a great giveaway and it also makes a great movie night snack.  Or tv night.  Or friends visiting.  Or snack with a drink after the kids are in bed.


Roasted Chex Mix adapted from 'Food in Jars'
makes a lot but I would double it if you want to do some giving away and keeping.

4 cups cheerios
4 cups shreddies
8 cups chex
2 cups pretzel sticks (not the round ones)
2 cups corn chips
2 cups peanuts
2 cups cashews

1 cup butter
5 heaping tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp cayenne (or 5 - 8 dashes tobasco - I didn't have any)
10 good dashes (about 2 heaping tsp or so) garlic powder
coarse salt to sprinkle

Combine the cereals, pretzels, chips and nuts in a huge bowl.  Mix well.
In a saucepan melt the butter.  Once melted remove from heat and add in the Worcestershire, cayenne and garlic salt.
Pour the butter mixture over the bowl of stuff... stir constantly.  If you can get a helper then one can pour while the other one mixes and it's much easier.
Heat the oven to 325 (although I ended up turning mine down just below 300 - I think my oven just gets too hot) degrees F.
Divide the mixture between two deep roasting pans.
Bake for just over an hour stirring every 10 minutes.
Cool completely by pouring the mixture out onto parchment paper and spreading it out.  (otherwise it sticks).  Cool and place in jars or containers to give away... or in a nice big bowl in your house and munch away.

It's only just occurred to me that I could be one of those bloggers who has a 'one year ago/two years ago' spot at the end of each post.  Have you looked at any other food bloggers?  A lot of them have posted what  they cooked or baked a year ago, two years ago and so on.  And yes... it's just occurred to me that I've now been blogging for two years.
I guess that I knew the time was passing.  I remember thinking about it a couple of times - you know 'Hey, I've been blogging for almost two years now' kind of thing.
It's pretty cool, this blogging thing for me.  I started doing this largely because of my sister.  A few years ago I began a little cookbook for her and each Christmas I would add a couple of recipes to the book.  She lives very far away from me so doing it was a fun way of passing on a love of something that we both shared.  Things like spaghetti sauce, chocolate cake, chocolate cupcakes and some joke ones too.  I started to think that this could be a lot easier if it was online somewhere.  I really wanted to do a realtime cooking thing on youtube but my house is not really set up for it  - my lighting is horrible and my smoke alarm goes off just about every time I turn on the stove.  I thought it would be hilarious to shoot whatever time it took to make a recipe from start to finish - complete with kids in the background, phone calls, you get the idea.  Anyway, that went the way of many other great ideas... nowhere.  Then one day my sister forwarded me this recipe from Heidi Swanson at 101cookbooks.  Beautiful, intelligent and artful.  I loved it.  What a thing, this food blogging.
That's when the light-bulb went off - I could do this food blog thing and then my sister could access my recipes and see what I'm cooking or baking anytime.  This could be cool.  It also served my love of attention without confrontation perfectly.  I started taking pictures of my christmas baking that year, figured out how to work this blog/typing in the data/thingy, finally got my head around how to get pictures on it and all that and, well... the rest is history.  At first the pictures were really small and I'm a little embarrassed but what the hell... I did it.  I wanted to, I figured it out and I did it.


Now that we are two years on I've discovered more about myself than I ever thought I would just by doing a food blog.  I've gained a lot of respect for writers.  I've tackled some recipes that I would never have even considered before.  I've ranted and raved and probably made a right fool of myself sometimes and other times I may have achieved a level of coherence that I hadn't imagined possible from little ole' me.  In short, I had no clue what I was getting myself into but I'm really glad that I did.


To celebrate I've posted this wonderfully exciting soup recipe (WTF).  Seriously, I wasn't thinking about anything celebratory when I made the soup - obviously.  It's soup.  Goop in a bowl.  More white stuff that looks like porridge until you taste it.  I doctored this soup so far from the recipe that it's barely recognizable but when I tasted the original recipe result the boredom nearly knocked me out.  The soup contains bacon which should cover a multitude of boredom but somehow did not with this recipe.  Doctored up the soup is great although I still throw some chilli pepper flakes on the top of mine before I down it.
Special thanks and love go out to my little sis' for inspiring me to start the craziness.  Thanks to you all for reading my crap and hopefully being entertained and maybe occasionally feeling inspired to make some of it.  Cheers and here's a spoon salute to you my readers for coming with me on the two year journey.   Grab and spoon and dig in.


Roasted Cauliflower, Bacon and Cannellini Bean Soup adapted liberally from... I can't remember... a food magazine...
serves 6 - 8

5 cups roasted cauliflower (broken into florets, tossed in oil and roasted at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes)
1 medium onion, diced
2 lg cloves garlic, diced
1 rib celery, diced
4 slices of bacon, diced
2 tbsp thyme
2 tbsp salt (I was using low salt bouillon so start with 1 tbsp and add if necessary)
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 dash saffron
2 tbsp sugar
1 540 ml can of cannellini beans (or white kidney beans), drained well
4 cups veg or chicken stock

In a soup pot (or dutch oven) heat oil over medium heat.
Add the onion, celery and bacon to the pot.  Turn the heat down a bit to med/low.  Brown together for about 5 minutes.  Add in the garlic and brown for another 3 - 4 minutes.
Add in the cauliflower and mix well.  Cook together for about 5 minutes.
Add in the thyme, salt, pepper, cayenne, saffron and sugar.  Mix.
Add in the drained beans and stock.
Simmer for about 15 minutes.
Check the tastes and adjust if necessary.
Blend with an immersion blender or ladle into a blender and blend until smooth.

Chocolate Chip and Cherry Muffins adapted from Taste of Home
makes about 10 large or 12 medium muffins

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk (2%)
1/2 cup canola oil (or other tasteless oil)
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup diced cherries (tossed in a little bit of flour)
2/3 cup dark chocolate chips or small chunks

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Line a muffin tin with papers or silicon muffin cups.
Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together in a bowl.
Whisk together the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla in another bowl.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined.
Add in the cherries and chocolate.  Mix
Spoon into the muffin cups.
Bake for about 22 minutes or so.  Cool and eat.