If you’ve been to some sort of party that hasn’t had cheesy potatoes as a food option then I’m not sure what’s going on with the people you know.  Every graduation party, wedding, or other social event should have cheesy potatoes.  If you aren’t a good enough host to have cheesy potatoes, then I’m not going to be a good enough guest to stay.  It’s just… not cool.

What a lot of people don’t realize is how easy they are to make.  Seriously, 8 bucks and 45 minutes later you have yourself an enormous pile of cheese and potatoes.  Who doesn’t like that combination?

Ingredients

• 2 lb. bag of hash browns – Get the diced variety.  The ones that are cut into squares.
• 1 bag shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• Butter
• 1/4 of a large, yellow onion, diced.
• Salt, pepper

Directions

• Mix everything together, throw any remaining cheese on top, and bake for 45 mins.  Really difficult.

Just for the record, I’m not really down with putting Cornflakes on top.  If you want a little texture, throw some breadcrumbs on it.  Don’t be crushing up breakfast cereal and putting it on food.  That’s just weird.

I know I’ve been an absentee bloger lately and I apologize for that.  I would offer you several good excuses, but I don’t really have any.  Not going to make any up either.  I simply needed a little bit of time off.  Eating and then writing about it is really hard work.  You just wouldn’t understand.  It is EXTREMELY stressful at times(actually, not at all).  After a couple weeks of short posts with pictures stolen from the internet, I am back with a short post with a picture that wasn’t stolen off of the internet.

I made a grilled cheese last night.  On this grilled cheese were Kraft singles, turkey, and mayo.  It was really exciting. Actually, it was exciting because this is the first post which will contain a picture taken by my HTC EVO.  It’s pretty much the most amazing piece of technology I’ve ever owned.  This little device is going to allow me to post content more frequently due to a Wordpress app that lets me post directly from the phone.  Yes, me and my phone are awesome.

Anyways, on to the grilled cheese.  It was delicious.

Just a few days ago I had the day off from work and not much to do.  I decided that it would be perfect to make one of my favorite meals in the entire world, which is fajitas.  After much thought, it came to me that fajitas were just not enough for this glorious day lacking any sort of labor.  I decided to take my world famous fajita recipe and turn it into enchiladas.  You may ask yourself how I can claim that my fajita recipe is world famous.  I would direct you to Tios Mexican Cafe, where they have declared their wet burrito to be world famous.  Apparently anyone can now claim that any dish is world famous, so I will now freely use this title to describe any food I cook. 

My fajita recipe was one of the first things I posted on Epic Portions, way back in February of 2009.  My mom found a fajita recipe in the Detroit Free Press and made some changes based on our likings.  We lost the recipe in a move a few years ago so I took it upon myself to re-create it.  It’s not the exact same recipe that we used before, but I think I did an admiral job at putting everything back together to emulate a similar taste.  I did add a few things to add a little spice, which is more to my liking than my family’s, but it is fully adaptable if you’re not into that kind of thing.  I’ve had people say that this is more similar to a taco recipe than fajitas, but it’s my damn recipe and I’ll call it what I want.  Haters.

Remember that when I cook I’m more of a “throw everything together based on memory” kind of guy, but I’ve done my best to give you measurements where I can.  Like I said before, the best thing about this recipe is that it’s fully adaptable to however you like things.  If you don’t like your veggies cut as small as I do, leave them as larger slices.  Want to add additional seasonings?  Go ahead.  I’ve never been someone that ever uses or follows recipes.  I find it more fun to take an idea and make it my own.

Just a little heads up, my family eats A LOT.  This will make you a whole lot of chicken but you can seriously turn this into any dish you want.  The leftovers make great tacos, quesadillas, and nachos.

Ingredients:

• 4 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 cup tequila
• 1/3 cup lime juice
• Canola Oil
• 1/2 White Onion minced
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2 tomatoes finely chopped (a can or two of Rotel will work as well)
• 3/4 cup fresh cilantro — This is what makes the recipe, I think.  Use as much or as little as you like, but I usually keep it around 3/4 cup, finely chopped.
• 2 jalapenos minced — I include the seeds and membranes because I like the heat.  If you don’t like the heat, just add the skins and throw away seeds and membrane.

• Salt
• Pepper
• Cumin – 2 tsp — Don’t overdo it.  This adds a smokey element to the dish.
• Cayenne Pepper – 1 tsp — Depending on how spicy you like it.
• Chili Powder – 1 tbsp
• Paprika – 1 tsp
• Basil – 1 tsp

Directions

1. Cut chicken into small pieces to your liking and place in bowl.
2. Add tomatoes, onions, garlic, jalapenos, and cilantro to bowl.  Mix.
3. Add all seasonings and mix.
4. Add tequila, lime juice, and 1/3 cup of the Canola Oil.  Mix.
5. Let sit, covered, in the refrigerator for a minimum of 2-3 hours.  The longer these sit the better they are.  I would let them marinate over night.
6. When ready, cook on high heat until chicken is done.

With everthing has been marinated, your ingredients should look like this while cooking.  My apologies for the following pictures.  I did not have my camera so I had to rely on my Blackberry camera.

At this point, you could just throw these into some tortillas if you didn’t feel like doing the whole enchilada(HAHA!).  This, however, is an enchilada recipe, so I will keep going.

From there, get whatever fixings you want ready.  I added black beans and fiesta rice.  Roll the chicken, beans, rice, cheese, or whatever you’ve added into tortillas and line them into a pan.  Top with enchilada sauce and cheese then throw the pan in the oven on 350 for about 30 mins.  I like the cheese to be a little brown on top before I serve them.  This is why it looks like I used yellow cheese.  Please trust me, I did NOT use yellow cheese.

I haven’t posted a good recipe on here in a hot minute, so I figured I should share one of my favorite dips with you.   Buffalo Chicken Dip.  Seriously, Buffalo wings in dip form?  How can you lose?

Ingredients

• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup blue-cheese salad dressing
• 1/2 cup buffalo wing sauce (i tend to use Frank’s)
• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese
• 2 cups shredded, cooked chicken

Method

1. Boil chicken and shred into bowl.  This is the only time you will ever catch me boiling chicken.  You could also grab one of those store bought rotisserie chickens and shred that.
2. Preheat your oven to 350°.
3. In a bowl, add cream cheese. Whisk in salad dressing, wing sauce and cheese until smooth.  Then stir in the chicken.
4. Transfer all that to a heatproof container, and bake in oven for 20 minutes or until mixture is heated through. Stir well.
5. Serve with crackers, chips, or whatever you want.  You could eat this stuff with a spoon if you really wanted.

If you like it a little crunchy, feel free to add breadcrumbs to the top.  Enjoy.

You're being given a police escort directly to Pleasuretown. Bottoms up!

That’s about all you need to know.  Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words.

Vodka (I prefer Russian Standard, shown in the photo) + Cran = Cape Codder

Vodka (1/3) + Cran (1/3) + Champagne (1/3) + Lime (until overflowing) = Cape Todder.

Shake well, serve over ice in the largest, fanciest glass you can find.  Cheers!

My friends were pretty excited when I announced that I’d be blogging here – not just because they’re supportive and stuff, but because I also announced that I’d be hosting regular dessert parties in order to have something to write about. This past Sunday was our first: I made Lumpy Bumpy Toffee Cake, a chocolate-mascarpone-Baileys-toffee creation that was even better than I expected… and which, aesthetically, lives up to its ridiculous name.

I should note that I did not make the toffee myself. Have you ever tried to make toffee? Perhaps some day when I have nothing else to do, I’ll give that a shot. In this case, I already had two other delicious layers to make up, so I left the toffee to a pro: Audra Martin, a local toffee whiz. I bought a small jar of milk chocolate toffee and a small jar of dark, mixed them together in a ziplock bag, beat them into submission small pieces with a rolling pin, and I had my topping.

As for the rest – this is a combination of about five recipes, inspired by a sort-of similar cake seen at Sugarland in Chapel Hill NC.

Lumpy Bumpy Toffee Cake

A chocolate sponge cake with Bailey’s-mascarpone cream and toffee topping.

For the cake:

6oz good-quality dark melting chocolate (I use Ghirardelli 60%)
3 tablespoons coffee
6 large eggs, separated and brought to room temperature
2/3 cup white sugar, divided into two 1/3 cup amounts
1/2 tablespoon salt (I prefer baking with popcorn salt for the texture)

In a double-boiler, melt the chocolate and the coffee together, then allow to cool almost to room temperature. Don’t force it in the fridge, you’ll mess up the texture. Leave it be, go watch a movie or something, and just let it cool.

In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks, 1/3 cup sugar, and the salt until it all turns pale and thick. Fold in the melted chocolate.

In a separate bowl, with clean beaters, beat the egg whites until soft peak form.  Gradually beat in the other 1/3 cup sugar until it just holds soft peaks.

Gradually fold the egg whites into the yolk-chocolate mixture. Pour batter into a 9″ springform pan and bake at 350F for about 25 min or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool in the springform on a wire rack.

A note: this cake is going to deflate while cooling.  One minute it’s filling the pan, then you set it to cool, and suddenly it’s 3″ tall. It’s OK.

For the cream:

100ml Baileys Irish Cream
16oz mascarpone
2 tablespoon white sugar
slightly less than 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream (the cream and Baileys should add up to about 3/4 cup liquid)

In a large bowl, beat the mascarpone and sugar until combined. Add the Baileys and cream, and beat until it reaches a consistency you like. Try not to eat it all before you get around to assembling the cake.

To assemble:

Remove the cake from the springform and place it on a serving plate. If yours is anything like mine, your cake will have deflated, leaving a crater in the middle with slightly raised edges. Fill the cake crater with a thick, lovely layer of mascarpone, and top with roughly 2 cups toffee crumbles.

Enjoy!