Jagged Little Wontons

We realize we have been gone a while, which saddens me. As stated before, Liz and I went on vacation right before our 3L year began, which affected our cocktail times. And, normally when we start school there are about 2 weeks to coast and get accustomed to learning again...this time however, we were instantly as hectic as Aunt Sandy's minions attempting to find the perfect matching kitchenaid. We will not be able to post as often as we did before (unless we fail out) but we will try to keep this going, because it has been a lot of fun (despite the indigestion and barely-edible food). Also, this could be the time where you guys come in and create your own cocktail time!

Back to Semi-Edible! For today's amazing adventure we dive yet again into the sodium packed condensed soup world with a super simple, super disgusting Vegetables with Broccoli Lemon Sauce. First you place 12 quartered red potatoes into a saucepan, cover them with water and cook them for 10 minutes. Then you add bell peppers cut into rings and broccoli florets for 5 minutes or until they are tender (which would never take 5 minutes). While the vegetables are cooking you "prepare" the abominable sauce by heating up: one can of 98% fat free cream of broccoli soup (which we couldn't find) with 1/2 cup low-fat mayonnaise (ick!), 4 finely chopped green onions, 1 Tbsp. lemon juice and 1/4 tsp. dried thyme leaves. First, why this is called Broccoli Lemon Sauce and not Broccoli Mayonnaise Sauce is beyond me. Why did she choose to emphasize the lemon when it's the ingredient least used?!? You can't even taste the lemon through the suffocating thyme-mayonnaise-flavored sodium. Second, this russipe is from her "Low Fat" episode. What would have been low fat would be to not use the 1/2 cup of mayonnaise! Yes, she states to use low fat, but still- it is completely uncalled for. So anyway, once the broccoli and peppers are tender, you strain them, put them into a serving dish and pour the sauce over the whole thing like so. See how gross ours looks? Blech.

Before making this I checked out the reviews (as I usually do) and found that most people complained about the potatoes not being done. This is completely accurate. At first, Liz and I were eating the potatoes and they didn't seem so bad. But then I bit into a raw potato and my opinion of the dish was ruined. 15 minutes to cook quartered red potatoes and 5 minutes to cook bell peppers is ridiculous. The red peppers were mushy and the potatoes were crunchy. Perhaps this is the only way Aunt Sandy knows how to create textures. Also, why are the bell peppers cut into rings? This is completely nonsensical.

After many bites (and dare I confess- a second helping) both Liz and I thought the sauce, when most of it was wiped off the vegetable before consumption, was not horrible and in fact was decently edible with the broccoli and potatoes...but not the peppers. Also, sometimes we got bites that tasted purely of mayonnaise which was gross, but overall it was indeed a semi-edible dish (but not something we would ever make again, nor recommend for you to make).

For dessert we made Wonton Napoleons which are really easy, look harmless, and yet are deceivingly violent. You fry up wanton wrappers and then dust them with cinnamon. Then you layer the cool wontons in between 2 Tbsp. whipped topping, sliced strawberries and raspberries. That's at least 5 Tbsp. whipped topping per napoleon. As you can see in the photos, they look pretty tasty. And they were good (if you like whipped topping, which we kinda do), except that they were impossible to eat, super messy and shards of wonton kept jabbing into our gums. I think one drew blood at one point, but the mouthful of whipped topping acted as gauze and quickly absorbed the blood (ewe). Also, they are way too large and should be scaled down to 1/4 their size to make them easier to eat. After eating half, Liz and I took the whole thing apart and picked out the berries.

This was a fairly uneventful cocktail time, perhaps because we didn't have the cocktail to soften the blow of the semi-edible food. Next time, we will make cocktails... we were foolish to ignore the essential element to any cocktail time. So until next time: keep it salty, keep it condensed, keep it "low fat" and always use too much whipped topping!