Fruity Feet

Good afternoon! While Liz "enjoys" snowy Northern New York, I enjoyed a meat-filled cocktail time in sunny Southern California! First up was the kiddie cocktail (mocktail): the Desert Cooler. This russipe doesn't even include a suggestion to transform it into a cocktail (Gasp!) for the adults in the room. What was Aunt Sandy thinking?! By itself, it is simply lacking something... probably a kick of booze. You combine equal parts orange jews, pineapple jews and sparkling apple cider- pour it over ice and garnish with pineapple. Yawn. It wasn't horrible, but it also didn't taste like much. My Aunt said it tasted mainly like pineapple, but I thought it mainly tasted like apple (the sparkle gets dulled down by the other jews). I don't know why someone would want to waste good sparkling apple cider (which by itself is delicious and always a kid's favorite holiday treat... at least it was mine) without putting some booze in it! Everyone said it needed spice rum.... and almost everyone threw their glass out.

Next was the return of condensed Campbell's cheese soup (yeay!) with the ridiculously salty Cheddar Cheese Baked Potato Soup. First you take a russet potato and put it in the microwave for 7-8 minutes. Never having cooked a potato this way, I was happy my aunt told me to poke holes in it, lest I want the thing to explode, because the russipie gives no such instruction. After 7.5 minutes, the potato was shriveled and sad looking, so I supposed it was "done." While the nuked potato cools (Sandy warns "it will be HOT!"), you heat up 2 cans cheddar cheese soup, 2.5 cups low-sodium chicken stock and 1/4 c. real bacon pieces into a medium pan. You let it simmer for a bit, add the potato (which you cut into 1/2 inch cubes once it cools) and let the whole thing simmer for 5 more minutes. To serve you garnish the soup with a dollop of sour cream. Okay first, can I just tell you that the low-sodium broth, I imagine, does nothing to compensate for the insane amount of salt in the canned cheddar soup, not to mention the bacon?! My dad took one spoonful and said, "well, that's my daily intake of sodium for the day." He wouldn't eat any more...and my dad loves salt. My sister, cousin and I actually ate some. It tasted good once our tongues were numb from the sodium overload. The potato chunks left something to be desired. Their texture felt like a really poorly made, dense gnocchi: they were gooey, chewy and gummy.

Since the soup was a bust, we moved on to a real cocktail, the Palm Springs Punch. Once 11 oz. can of pineapple jews mixes with 1 L. ginger ale and 1 c. bourbon. You pour this over ice and then add 2 (15 oz.) cans of fruit cocktail. Yes, you heard me right, fruit cocktail in a fruity cocktail...how clever, Aunt Sandy. Now as you will notice in the picture below, the can of fruit cocktail (which looked completely normal on the outside) was completely ruined and void of jews on the inside, so we had to throw away the kind with cherries (my favorite) in exchange for some fruit cocktail cups my mom had stored in the pantry for god-only-knows how long.

I didn't make as much as the russsipe called for, because no one was really interested in drinking in the middle of the afternoon (my family was not interested in following the sacred rules of cocktail time), but they were sports and took a sip. My sister's boyfriend said it tasted rancid, but that was really the worst review it got. My sister and I thought it was quite tasty (I drank mine and then picked out the booze soaked fruit afterwards), but then again we loved fruit cocktail as children, so anything that reminds us of that is delicious. In all honesty, I think it would make an excellent springtime cocktail. It also wasn't nearly as boozy as Aunt Sandy's normal monstrosities.

Pleasantly pleased, we moved onto the final dish: Sweet and Sour Chicken Skewers. In a pan, you bring to a boil: 1/2 c. apple cider vinegar, 1/4 c. brown sugar, pineapple jews, 1 T. cornstarch and 1 T. water. You let the sauce thicken for about 8 minutes, then you reserve half for the dipping sauce. As this was cooking my sister said it smelled like feet. When my Aunt and cousin came over, they said the same thing. It got so bad, my mom had to open a window. As the sauce cooled and the kitchen aired out, my cousin and I made the skewers. We alternated chunks of chicken, pineapple and red pepper, salt and peppered them, and then popped them onto a medium hot greased grill. After cooking for 4 minutes on each side, we basted them in the sweet and sour sauce. These are to be served with the dipping sauce, but my mom threw it out as soon as everyone tasted it (but me). It tasted like feet apparently. The skewers themselves weren't bad. They weren't very sweet or sour, but they had a nice mild flavor to them...and really, can you go wrong with grilled kabobs? That nice charred taste will subdue any nasty foot flavor a sauce may have.

So that just about does it for my California Cocktail Time. Liz and I will have time for a couple more entries before our winter break is over, so keep a lookout! Until then, remember to keep it a cocktail, keep it botulism free, keep it footloose, and always keep it Semi-Edible!

The One Where Nothing Was Bad.

Hey boys and girls and welcome to another edition of semi-edible! Today our menu is light on food, heavy on cocktail and lo and behold we liked ever single thing we made. At this point, Jillian and I thought this day would never come but the Fiesta Fondue, the Academy Cocktail, and the Gin Plush were actually sodalicious!

So first up, we began with the grand semi-edible tradition of enjoying a cocktail (the best part of the day I'll have you know) while we "cook." Enter the Academy Cocktail: mix 1 cup vodka, 1 cup orange liqueur, 2 cups white cranberry juice, and 1 juiced lime. Now I realize that the ingredients listed call for white cranberry juice, but in the photos you'll notice that the drinks are pink. Yeah well that's because I totally failed to notice

that it wasn't regular cranberry juice that would have set this drink apart from a traditional Cosmopolitan. It wasn't until Jillian was putting together the cocktail that she noticed the lack of white cranberry juice. Whoops. Oh yeah and I also failed to add an orange to the impromptu grocery list so instead of a super cool orange peel garnish we have a super cool apple peel garnish. And I think it really improved the visual appeal of the drink. Anyway, the drink is served in a merlot glass over ice and for once, a cocktail was not overpoweringly boozy or sweet. Neither of us cringed or had to plug our noses to finish it! We would even make it again! We were drinking a cosmopolitan after all. Hooray!

Ok so now that we had enjoyed a delightful cocktail it was time to move on to solid food - usually the downfall of these experiments (because while the cocktails often leave something to be desired, they still have a booztastic purpose). The Fiesta Fondue

brings back an oldie but a goodie- Campbell's Condensed Cheddar Cheese soup! We haven't seen this sodium packed slime since the Cheesy Cauliflower Gratin that no one liked. Jillian aptly likened the cheese soup to handi-snack cheese, which she loved as a kid but I didn't. But I digress. To the cheese soup add 8oz. shredded sharp cheddar cheese, 1 cup of whole milk, and a cup of chipotle salsa. You basically just heat everything up until it is smooth and then transfer it to a serving dish and enjoy. The dip is paired with dippers. Aunt Sandy suggests tortillas, bread, carrots and jicama. All of these ideas are great, but we couldn't find jicama. Anyway, it should be said that the dip is quite salty, but with a whole can of condensed cheese soup that is to be expected. We enjoyed a baguette, pita chips, carrots and broccoli for dippers. The worst thing about the dish was Jillian's genius idea to use apples as dippers. We both acknowledged that the apples were a bad idea. Overall, we like it. We both sat there dipping for the rest of the night.

So it is usually at this point in the post where our next endeavor reminds us not to get our hopes up about Aunt Sandy's culinary abilities and we muster the courage to continue with this blog. To add to this twilight zone-esque cocktail time, the Gin Plush was really good! And I genuinely mean it. You stir together 1/3 c. of gin and 1/4 c. of guava, pineapple, orange juice and club soda. Add ice cubes in the glass and serve! As a side note, I want to make a statement about kitchen safety. Opening club soda bottles is serious business and should be done with care. I unfortunately learned this the hard way when awash with elation from our first 2 successes that I failed to use proper care when opening the brand new bottle. The result was an explosion of club soda all over my crotch. Fail. Anyway this drink was very refreshing, not too boozy and not too sweet. The acidity of the pineapple and the bubbly of the club soda made this sodalicious. I'm not typically a fan of gin but it was really really nice!

So there you have it. 2 drinks and a appetizer. All Edible!!! So until next time keep it light, keep it refreshing, keep it safe, and occasionally keep it edible!

Tears of a Vampire

:::Insert requisite unnecessary laughter here::: Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Semi-Edible! I'm Aunty McFred and today we have for you 5 sodalicious russipies that are sure to bring Halloween revelers' digestive tracts to a screeching halt!

First up we have have the Black Cloud Cocktail. This delightful cocktail is comprised of 1/2 cup of orange soda, 1 cup of orange jews (please pronounce jews for authenticity), 1 shot of orange liqueur, and 2 shots of black vodka. This supposedly makes 2 servings, but really, you can get 3 out of this.

Jillian generously layered a shot of black vodka atop each drink and gave us a stick of black licorice for garnish(except me because I don't like it). Now I'm not usually the biggest fan of orange and vodka (at least not since college) but this really wasn't that bad. The first sip is the worst, because of the shot of vodka floating on top, but you do get the orange which kinda takes to edge off. The only problem with this drink is the effect that layering black vodka on something orange...it turns brown. A rather unappetizing shade of brown. The fact that we used orange juice with pulp didn't help. But overall, not too bad. And festively pleasant.

The first dish, the Spider’s Nest Dip bore a striking similarity to 7-layer bean dip. So it sounded pretty innocuous...good even. The Aunt Sandy spooky twist on this is the sour cream “nest” in the center of the dip – you know, so it’s festive. So first the layer of refried beans goes in the bottomed of the microwave safe dish followed by a healthy layer of cheese. This then goes into the microwave to achieve melty goodness. Jillian popped it into the microwave for the allotted 1 minute and...nothing happened. It wasn’t enough time to even soften the massive mound of requisite cheese so she put it back in. But with this she blew right past the softening phase and right into the totally melted. Oops. Oh Well.

We then layered on the drained salsa, olives (mmmm pre-slices black olives), and then the sour cream, cream cheese taco seasoning packet mixture. This was topped with a layer of store bought guacamole. After the guacamole layer comes the fun part. Too bad Brycer wasn’t here because he would have really loved creating the spider’s nest (Brycer: Aunt Sandy don’t they call that a web? Aunt Sandy: Cocktail time!!!). You put a healthy dollop of sour cream in the center, then pipe it in concentric circles around the dollop. Then you take a toothpick and drag it from the center to the outside creating a "nest" er...web effect, and voila! Festive appetizer!

So starving and excited at the prospects of this appetizer, we all dug in with our blue corn tortilla and....snap! The chip broke off in the melted cheese. We tried bigger chips but to no avail. Nothing was getting through the solid layer of melted cheese. Our dreams of the perfect bite were totally dashed (note the 4 chip pile-up in the photo) We had to resort to using spoons. So lame, but tasty! The taco seasoning, for once was not overpowering and I think using slightly better than bargain-basement store-bought guacamole didn’t hurt. Sure the chip problem was annoying, but nothing a spoon couldn’t solve. Overall this was.... EDIBLE!!!! One might even say enjoyable!

So since we had a win – we followed up with dessert, the White Pumpkin Cakes. Sadly, neither Jillian nor I own mini bunt pans (we have our fingers crossed that we get them this Kwanza). But anyway, combine Pillsbury pumpkin quick bread with 2 eggs, water, and vegetable oil. We had the option of substituting apple cider for water, but someone (Jillian) thought it said apple cider vinegar on the russipie. She was wrong, so we didn’t buy any. Place in muffin tins – don’t forget to coat the muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray! And bake for 12 to 14 minutes. First off – it’s really about 20 minutes to get them golden brown, an instruction that I overlooked I think thanks to the Brown Cloud Cocktail, and got seriously annoyed with checking them every 2 minutes. But after 20 minutes they achieved golden sodaliciuos status and were set out to cool.

So after I missed the direction about the timing, I was extra careful in reading the directions for the icing. 2 cups confectioner sugar, 2 tablespoons orange liqueur. Nope, not right. Let me read that again. 2 cups confectioner’s sugar, 2 TABLESPOONS orange liqueur?! Ok. I combined the 2 ingredients and got something that looked like small hail and smelled like old lady perfume – worn by an old lady alcoholic (aka, Aunt Sandy in 5 years). Nothing near the “glaze" I was promised in the picture. Now, I know it doesn’t take much liquid to make confectioners sugar turn into frosting, but you do need more than 2 tablespoons. So after reading the reviews, I added some water, and made the glaze.

Again – epic win!!!! These were quite good, considering her track record for desserts! Because they were so good, it prompted Jillian to ask “How different is this from the box recipe?” I said I had no idea, I didn’t read the box. So I looked. The answer? No different. The russipe we “semi homemade” is exactly the same as the back of the box. Thanks Pillsbury for making pumpkin flavored bread products so good even Aunt Sandy does not require us to “improve” upon it.

Finally, Jillian made Bat Sandwiches for an impromptu rooftop gathering with friends. It's not really a russipie- you make a sandwich out of white bread, mustard, prosciutto and monterey jack cheese. Then you cut out the sandwiches into bat shapes. They were tasty (despite the weirdness of the monterey jack with prosciutto), cute and uneventful. Every meat-eater ate and enjoyed them and Jillian got to eat a lot of crusts in her free time, because each sandwich made one bat-sized sandwich. Lame.

So with 3 wins and a semi-win, you know we were bound to have out semi-bubble burst. Enter the Vampire Kiss Martini. 1 part chilled vodka, 1 part champagne, 1 part Chambord. 100% nasty. It tasted like extra dry Robitussin. But actually worse because Jillian really likes Robitussin and hated this! Nothing about it was good. And drinking it made me super sad. I actually tried to drink this while plugging my nose, much like I take liquid medicine to this day and nearly choked to death. Our friend Tony, ever polite, said it was kinda good. That's kinda false, but thanks Tony. What we didn't understand was that on the episode this cocktail is featured, Aunt Sandy uses vanilla vodka and pours some jager on top...that's it...where is that russipie?

As always- keep it spooky, keep it icky, keep it Semi-Edible, and be sure to keep Cher in your heart and mind!

Peaches y Crema

Hola! As stated in the last entry, our friend Joey wanted to host a Mexican Fiesta party, semi homemade style. As soon as he mentioned it, Liz and I jumped all over this opportunity. What better venue to get a huge amount of victims…er subjects….er friends to taste lots of Aunt Sandy’s good ol’ Mexican delicacies? After all, Mexican food is Sandy's favorite food so there were plenty of super simple russipies waiting for us to test. I brought a hot, semi-delicious pot of Creamy Green Chile Soup while Liz tackled what I feel was one of the grossest russipies to date: Halibut Tacos with Peach Salsa. For cocktail time Joey served up Cosmoritas.

Because cocktail time is the best time of the day, I'll start with the Cosmorita. You shake an ice filled martini shaker with 1 shot of tequila, a splash of lime juice and 2 shots cranberry. You strain the concoction into a glass and garnish with a lime wheel. This doesn’t sound that bad- and it wasn’t. If you haven’t guessed it by now, Aunt Sandy took most of the ingredients in a cosmopolitan and added tequila instead of vodka. How. Original. And if I liked tequila more, I probably would make this again. But I don't, so I wont. This is a strong tasting drink- we all passed around and sampled one glass as opposed to each of us drinking one and then being floored. Needless to say for the rest of the night, the rest of us stuck to margaritas, sangria and tecate.

My favorite item of the night (that was from a Semi-Russipe) was my Creamy Green Chile Soup. In a pot you boil 1 c. frozen chopped onions (this was our first russipe using frozen onions! I was so excited and can I just tell you they were super easy to find in the store), 1t. garlic, 1c. frozen corn, 2 cans diced green chile, 4c. chicken stock and 1tsp. Mexican seasoning. I could not find Mexican Seasoning (does it exist?)…just Mexican Taco mix, so I used that. While this boils, in another skillet you add 2Tbs butter, 1c. corn and 1 can green chiles. Then you add 1 package of fresh (gasp!) sliced mushrooms and sauté for 10 minutes. This is quite the complex russipe. The directions from there get kind of confusing. I deciphered them (and Liz corroborated my idea) to mean that you then puree the soup mix, and as the final steps add the sautéed vegetables, stir in ¾ cup crema and pepper the shit out of the soup to get a decent flavor (no salt necessary). There are warnings in the directions to keep the blender from blasting scalding soup into your eyes and all over the counter… heed these warning. Because even if you heed the warnings, the soup explodes. In all fairness I was running late, so I didn’t really let the soup cool before blending, but hey, I like to live on the wild side sometimes. This soup was fairly well received at the party once it was garnished with cilantro and cheese. Everyone said they would eat it again or would want to eat a bowlful of it. Liz didn’t like it, and though I thought the mushrooms were slimy- I enjoyed it. I took the leftovers home, added some chicken and had a couple delicious meals out of it. All in all, I would say this was not so super simple (considering the ease of her other russipies) but worth making.

Next was Liz’s heroic creation of Sandy’s Halibut Tacos with Peach Salsa. Now really, just looking at the title of this is deceiving. Sure there’s a slight hesitation at the thought of peaches on fish tacos, but mangos and pineapples have been successful, if not delicious, on tacos. And everyone loves fish tacos, verdad? Si. But then you learn that there’s allspice involved. And not just a pinch of allspice, but a whole heaping teaspoon! Ick times 5. But I am getting ahead of myself here. First, Liz took a pound of tilapia and marinated it in a packet of hot taco seasoning mix for 30 minutes. She chose to diverge from the russipe and use tilapia instead of halibut for two reasons. First, we are poor law students. And second, we aren’t about to waste good halibut on something as gross as this. The sodium infused fish is then grilled and put on corn tortillas. It is topped with coleslaw mix and the peach salsa. Despite the taco seasoning mix, this still sounds harmless, if not tasty. But no, the peach salsa is absolutely, without a doubt in my top 3 worst Semi-Edible dishes. You take 2c. mild chunky salsa, add 1c. chopped frozen peach slices and 1t. allspice. Aye dios mio!

First off, 99% of pre-made salsas are inedible to begin with... adding allspice and frozen peaches would make even homemade salsas inedible. Liz and I decided it smelled and tasted like old people and potpourri salsa. After we finished gagging and gulping down our margaritas to kill the aftertaste, we made sure everyone tried one bite before we ditched the salsa and ate the fish tacos plain or with guacamole. It was absolutely inedible and I am sorry I ever put that in my mouth.

There are three other sodalicious items made for the fiesta that we will post next week. In all honesty, they weren't bad. Although, in my opinion, nothing short of the Hot Crab Rangoon Dip can ever be as bad as that peach salsa. It gives me chills just thinking about it.

So until next time remember to keep it Mexican, keep it slimy, keep it allspice free, and always keep it Semi-Edible.

2- 4oz. jars baby food?!

Welcome to Semi-Edible! Today, we are very hesitant to continue on with this project, due to the disgustingly disgusting crab fest from last cocktail time. So, we attempted to pick seemingly decent russipes from Aunt Sandy’s decorative and festive recipe box.

First up was the Spinach Salad with Mangos, Dried Cranberries and Chocolate Vinegar-ette.It seemed harmless enough: a bag of baby spinach, diced mangos, cranberries and chopped walnuts are tossed in a dressed up Newman’s Own balsamic vinegar-ette(this entails mixing the already delicious dressing with 1Tbs. cocoa powder and 1tsp. sugar). With these creative touches, no one is going to know that you didn't make this from scratch. Sound simple and possibly delicious right? Wrong. With this russipe, people are going to think you suck at cooking (and possibly life). First off, the proportions are completely off. We halved the russipe so we wouldn’t waste anything and can I just tell you? ¼ cup vinegar-ette for 4 cups spinach is way way way too much vinegar-ette. And you can’t take it out, because the directions say to mix the dressing in the bottom of the bowl in which you then add all the salad ingredients. It was awful because the dressing just sat there in a disgusting shallow pool and sogg-ified the mangos, walnuts and cranberries. Not only was there too much dressing, but the addition of cocoa powder is not good. I used really good dutch cocoa powder and it made the dressing taste choc-y chalky. To fix this, I recommend using the same ingredients and ditching the vinegar-ette. Fail.

Next we tried baby food! Well, not just baby food, but a whole slue of ingredients mixed into apple cinnamon muffin mix to make the semi-edible Carrot Coconut Muffins with Honey Butter. A pre-made box mix is combined with 2(maybe 4) jars pureed carrot baby food, 1/4c. apple juice, 1tsp. cinnamon, 1/2tsp. ginger and 1c. toasted coconut. This makes 12 muffins and looked like vomit when mixed (mmmmm, delishhhous). There is some contention on this recipe's review board as to the amount of baby food required. On the show she added 2 jars, but the recipe says 4. Numerous people who used 4 complained that the muffins never cooked all the way through....so we used 2 jars. The muffins were super gummy and stuck to our teeth. Liz, being the texture freak that she is, only took 2 bites. The flavor wasn't anything special either. All we could taste was cinnamon, carrot and sometimes a hint of coconut. The apple from the original muffin mix was completely lost, although perhaps that is the point since Sandy's russipe title has no mention of apple. This was served for her Garden Brunch episode; I woudn't even serve these to babies let alone brunchers. In all honesty I would gladly eat straight up baby food before making these again.

For Cocktail time we made the Big Sur Cocktail: a highball glass filed with 1 part amaretto, 1/2 part blue Curacao (is there really any other color?) and 1 part white cran juice. Harmless enough right? While it wasn't bad, it wasn't good either. And I definitely don't want a highball glass full of this ridiculously sweet concoction. It was too sweet and would work as a shot, but not a drink. Don't make this unless you like super sweet drinks. Also, please note the color difference between our drink and Aunt Sandy's. I don't know where Sandy buys her Amaretto, but mine is tinted brown, which means her drink is a fraud! Although to be honest, mine looks more like Big Sur than hers- hah.

So this cocktail time was fairly unmemorable, but at least it helped to talk us off the ledge (seriously, that crab crap was the worst experience ever. I may never eat crab again. Thanks a lot Aunt Sandy). Well, we are all out of time today so remember to keep it sweet, keep it over dressed, keep it fraudulent and always keep is Semi-Edible.

We've got crabs!

Yeah, that's right. On this week's soul crushing edition of Semi-edible with Sandra Lee, it's all about crab. We've got three god-awful dishes all featuring crab! That's right, we said crab. What in the world possesed us to make three crab dishes, I don't recall. But the end result was both a tragedy and a cause for concern.

First up was Hot Crab Rangoon Dip with Won Ton Chips. At first glance, this super simple russipe doesn't seem too bad, until you see that a key ingredient in this slop is condensed shrimp bisque. To quote the eloquent genius Liz Lemon, "What the what!?" Condensed shrimp bisque? That's not real. Can't be. And, it turns out that if it does exist, it's pretty difficult to find. So we used the most reasonable substitute, cream of shrimp soup (thanks Cambpell's, for bringing this can of pure salted evil into existence). But anyway, you throw in some lump crabmeat, shrimp soup, a brick of cream cheese, worcestershire and soy sauce with some scallions and bake it till bubbly and 'delicious'. Well, let's just say, that the dip does in fact bubble after 10 minutes under the broiler, but no amount of time spent in the oven could make this slop approach delicious. And, after smelling this concoction before it went in the oven, we knew that this wasn't likely to be good, let alone delicious. After a little cooling time, it looks

like skin with second degree burns....seriously. Mmmm, skin. And, we were correct. The crab was pungent, to say the least. But it tasted... honestly, I'm sort of at a loss for words to describe the taste. The best I can come up with is: hot, rancid, salted fish drowned in cream cream cheese and sadness. The one good thing I can say about this dip is the won ton chip fried in peanut oil. I longed for a time machine so we could go back in time and make better choices. Even Jillian said this was the worst thing we have made so far and couldn't take more than two bites. With Kwanzaa Cake being a not-so-distant memory, I disagreed. But we still had 2 more crabtastic dishes to taste. Why did we think this was a good idea?

Next up was Aunt Sandy's famous Crab Cakes with Sassy Tartar! These crab cakes were action packed with flavor! Too bad the flavor was once again salt. Thanks to the cajun seasoning (mixed with tarter sauce, hot sauce, and scallion) and Old Bay, mayonnaise, egg and crabmeat breaded with saltines(not a typo) this crabcake was pure salty goodn... I was going to say goodness, but that would be a lie. Notice how the FN website's picture has visible lumps of crab and looks tasty by comparison.

It's a lie. The crab itself was the least awful thing about the crab cakes; however, the rangoon dip had already made us kind of hate crab and ourselves, and with so many other senseless ingredients in there, it was too much.

Last but not least was the interesting and unfortunate Crab Salad with Mango Salsa. First off, how the hell she gets off calling this mango salsa is beyond me. Wanna know where the mango comes from?! Tropical fruit cups! Fruit cups!!!!! Like in a 5 year old's lunch bag! You mix the fruit cup, I mean mango(?) with cilantro, lime, ribbed, seeded, and minced jalapeno peppe

rs, and scallions. Then you layer a red wine glass with shredded lettuce, then the "salsa," then the

plain, unembelished, flavorless crab meat. You top this all off with a large dollop of sour cream. A lime wedge garnishes the top. In this episode she describes the wine glass presentation as, "Just like you would get in a gourmet restaurant!" Um...not. No self respecting restaurant would serve this crap, least of all any restaurant that claims to be "gourmet." I thought it was the least awful thing we had during this round of culinary disasters, however, it still wasn't good and I could only take two bites. The salsa was so sweet, I assume from the fruit cup juice. It's amazing that food can taste like so much and so little at the same time. Because the crab had no seasoning and the sour cream didn't taste like much of anything, and the extra sweetness of the fruit cup mixed with the cilantro, really it should have been called cilantro salad, and some filler. Also, we had no idea how Sandy wanted us to eat this. Were we to mix it up or take a little bit of each layer? I wasn't going to find out.

Finally, everyone's favorite part of the day, Cocktail Time! This week we sampled the Beach Paradise. This drink combines 1 part dark rum, 1 part guava juice, orange juice, sugar, and genadine into a completely forgettable drink. Honestly, it didn't taste bad, but I think our spirits were so broken from the nastiness that we were just greatful that it washed some of the rancid fish taste our of our mouthes and tummies.

Well as always here at Semi edible we want to remind our readers to keep it simple, keep it sweet, and always drink responsibly.

Drive-In Delights

Welcome to another episode of Semi-Edible! Today is all about recreating that fun and fabulous drive-in food we all loved as teenagers. We start things off today with a super simple Green Parsley Slaw that’s going to taste so bland, no one will really be able to complain about it. Next we are going to make Sandy's favorite burger as a child, the Drive-In Walnut Burger. Not only does this russipe include yet another flavorful seasoning packet, but it also looks like dog food! Finally, it’s cocktail time- the best time of the day! And have I got a walk down memory lane for you. We all know Aunt Sandy’s fondest memory as a young adult was ordering her favorite Orange Smoothie from her local diner and then pouring in whatever cheap alcohol she could find when no one was looking. It is super smart, super sophisticated and you have got to try this (except don’t because it’s super gross).

We started off with the Parlsey Slaw, which requires a bag of shredded cabbage, a little mayo, sour cream, white vinegar, pinch of sugar and then 1c. chopped parsley and 1/2c. scallions. Can I just tell you, I will not buy bagged cabbage, it's around 10 times the cost of the ridiculously affordable heads of cabbage. So I bought a head, cut it in half, rinsed it off, finely sliced it....ten minutes LATER I finally had shredded cabbage. No, it took 2 minutes- tops. Ms. Lee is a lunatic, but I digress. This being the first russipe we tasted, we were pretty happy. It didn't taste like anything except cabbage and parsley lightly coated with mayo, and sometimes it had a delicious surprise crunch of scallion. Overall, it was average something that needed to be doctored up. So today when I used the second half of cabbage I added cider vinegar, sour cream (no mayo) dry mustard, cumin and smoked paprika...it was much better. Everything is better with cumin.

Happy that this side dish was edible, we moved onto the burgers. Everyone knows my disdain for items masking themselves as "burgers," but Liz is a veggielover so I have to eat them from time to time. Additionally, the putrid orange patties looked so disgusting on the show I just had to make them. These things were made from 1c. walnuts, 3/4c. canned chickpeas, breadcrumbs, 1 Tbs grill seasoning, paprika, red pepper flakes, cider vinegar, olive oil and an egg. Ick. My food processor is broken so we had to make them in the blender, which isn't a problem. The very sticky patties looked so gross, but they formed and were quickly grilled. FYI, this russipe says 4 minutes per side, but be prepared for one side of the burgers to be burned. Also, what old fashioned drive-in sells walnut burgers? Once burned errr..cooked, we put the hard as rock "patties" on buns with avocado, lettuce tomato and the Pièce de résistance- honey mustard. If not for making a delicious honey mustard, this would have been

inedible. The inside of these suckers looked like dog food mush. It was creamy but dry at the same time. After three bites, I kid you not, I had to put it down because my jaw started hurting. The seasoning packet was too much. These may be better with some serious tweaking (ditch the packet, less bread crumbs, etc). Also, they sat in our stomachs like a brick. Ick.

Finally for cocktail time we made the Spiked Orange Smoothie. Which sounded a lot like her DarlingClementine, but more healthy. You take a can of frozen oj concentrate, a packet of sugar free, fat free vanilla pudding, orange cream yogurt (whatever that is), lowfat milk, 1c. vanilla vodka, 1/4c. orange liqueur, ice and blend it all together till it's thick and creamy. It smelled like a boozy orange. That being said, the taste was even worse. We have often talked about perhaps making this a video blog just so y'all can see the amazing faces we make when trying this food (especially Liz, who tends to hate everything way more than I do). Nothing we have tasted before has ever evoked such faces as this drink. Like the Kwanzaa cake, every flavor was there. The thick vanilla, the fake oj juice, the yogurt and then you get hit with vodka, vodka, vodka, orange! It's a horrible taste that no one should suffer through. It made four glasses so we drank them anyway after it diluted a bit, but oh my god. The only proper way to really show our facial expressions throughout this drink is in the following video where babies suck on lemons:

Seriously, Liz looks just like that quite often after tasting this food. So this was not the best cocktail time we've ever done. I consider it a win since our stomachs didn't get gnarly on us. So until next time: keep it over-seasoned, yet keep it bland, and always keep it Semi-Edible!

Cocktail Time - Deep Woods Edition

Like Jillian said, 4th of July weekend in DC means one thing and one thing only to me - I gotta get the hell outta DC, and fast. So some of our friends planned a camping trip to the middle of nowhere Virginia. We loaded up the Benz on Friday morning and headed out to commune with nature for a few days. So I thought, how can I bring Aunt Sandy to the great outdoors? Do I make a dish? Do I make a drink? Perhaps both? Then I remembered that Aunt Sandy's culinary delights can cause indigestion the likes of which isn't usually seen outside of Mexico, so that's probably not a good idea. Drink it is! Also, while the Benz is a luxury vehicle, it does not have a ton of trunk space and 5 of us plus one dog was going to mean a lot of togetherness for several hours - better not have too many ingredients. So I thought back to an episode of Semi-Homemade when Aunt Sandy did something that made my heart weep, she mixed beer with lime juice concentrate. I've been "enjoying" this foray into liquor cocktails for this little experiment, but truth be told I'm a beer girl. Good beer should stand alone. No need for frills or garnish, just beer. So watching the botox grimace version of delight on Ms. Lee's face when she poured limeaid into a pitcher with Corona, I must say that a little piece of my soul died.

But anyway, I wanted to make something, and it was the only thing that made sense. So after we put up the tents I whipped out a can of semi-frozen limeaid, a rubbermaid

pitcher and prepared to inflict yet another Frankenstein beverage on my friends. Enter the Lime Beer Cocktail. 1 6-pack of beer, 1 can of limeaid, 1 half of squeezed lime, lime wedges for garnish. Simple enough. The recipe recommends Corona, but we were on a budget and had limited space so I settled for a mixture of Yuengling and Miller Light, cause I'm classy. I poured one for everyone, while assuring everyone that it would not hurt my feelings if they didn't like it, and to be honest. I think we still need some work on that "be honest" thing. Lindsay said she would have liked it more if she didn't know that there was limeaid in it. Everyone else said it wasn't that bad, a little sweet, but not bad. I wasn't a fan. It was syrupy sweet. I feel like it left a film in my mouth. Not to mention a brief flashback to my younger days when I consumed things like Smirnoff Ice and Fuzzy Navel on the regular. It was a 17 year-old chick drink. Like the here- comes-the-airplane version of beer. So if you are ever in a situation where you must serve an alcoholic beverage to someone who hates beer, or if beer is all you have, you are desperate for a drink, and happen to have a can of limeaid hanging around, this is a solid option.

Hope you all had a safe holiday weekend, and not to get you too excited, but a slow cooker edition is in the near future.

Startini Dreams and a Beer Cocktail

Cocktail time- it's the best time of the day!

Today we are doing cocktail time from two locations. The first is the comfort of my(Jillian's) own apartment whilst the tourists descend upon D.C. like locusts with strollers (I must admit, I would probably rather deal with locusts) The second is some remote location in the Virginia south where Liz & company decided to set up camp for the Fourth of July weekend (also to get away from the tourists). I get to "enjoy" a martini and Liz gets to push yet another recipe on our friends, some kind of a beer cocktail, because they are roughing it.

Sister and I were sitting on the couch waiting to venture to the Mall for the 4th of July dress rehearsal and (of course) one of this week's recorded Semi episodes (Shower Soiree) was on. Having just finally been able to find berry vodka I was ecstatic to see it being used in the Startini Dream! For a few weeks now I have been under the impression that

Aunt Sandy made up the elusive berry flavored vodka as I could not find it in liquor stores on both sides of the coast. I saw cranberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, acai berry but no plain berry. Just yesterday I was walking in my local liquor store, saw Finlandia berry vodka and thought, "Ewe, I can't buy finlandia" but then after some consideration and a good pondering of, 'What would Aunt Sandy do?' I decided to ignore my liver and buy the cheap stuff! The whimsical Startini Dream is made with 2 parts berry vodka, 1 part orange liqueur and a splash (not a dash) of lime juice. The drink is stirred and poured into a cocktail glass with fresh blueberries. The blueberries give the drink that delicious fresh flavor. They freshly floated on top of the drink until they grew intoxicated and sunk to the bottom (not a good sign).

I handed the cocktail to my sister and walked back into the kitchen. From the living room I heard a moan and gagging sound from my sister. Also, not a good sign. I tested the cocktail and thought she was nuts. The only bad thing about it was that I used cheap vodka. It was boozy, but it wasn't bad. I would drink this with a good brand of vodka. That being said, I have finished half the cocktail and will not be drinking the rest of it. G-ross. I hope Liz's beer cocktail is better than this.

Saccharine with a Cherry on Top

Sister is taking a nap, Liz is camping and I am sitting around watching yesterday's semi episode, "Girl's Hoe Down." I don't understand how a Cowboy Cooler (tequila and beer) is appropriate for a girl's evening, but I digress. I was equal parts inspired and bored so I went on foodtv.com to see what I could make with my ever expanding liquor cabinet (I hope one day to have a liquor closet like Aunt Sandy, which is inevitable the way this experiment is going). This led me to the Waikiki Cocktail: one ounce of dark rum and guava juice are shaken with the juice of 1/2 a lemon and 1/2 an orange, a teaspoon of sugar and a dash of grenadine. What is the difference between a dash and a splash? Anyway, pretty sure I added just a dash, I shook the ingredients in a shaker, poured it into a martini glass and dropped in a maraschino cherry. Anything with cherries gets my vote of approval without even tasting the potentially hazardous concoction. Even if something is undrinkable, there is always that perfectly red cherry so pumped full of processed crap that even the worst drink couldn't penetrate its plastic skin. Delicious. Seriously though, I love the lil' buggers. Anyway, upon my first smell I was bombarded by the dark rum. Not a huge fan of rum, I grimaced and took my first hesitant sip. The drink doesn't taste like rum (thank god), it tastes like sweetness....but not in a very good way. It starts out tart, but then the sugar overload seeps into the tastbuds. You can taste mainly the guava and the lemon. I think the teaspoon of sugar is beyond unnecessary considering the dash of cloying grenadine and juices.

Wanting a second opinion, I just woke up my sister and shoved the drink in her hand. She said it was pretty good and wasn't too sweet for her. She must still be dreaming. Once again Aunt Sandy, this russipie is an affront to my palate.

Revenge of the Chili Seasoning

My sister's visiting so I am making meat dishes without Liz. I have been excited because so far 2 of 3 meat dishes have been good: shrimp in spicy coconut sauce and the chicken caesar salad pizza. Batting at 66% (and considering I can count the number of good recipes to date on one hand) this is the most successful category of russipies and I was pretty stoked. Having not eaten all day, my sister declared she was starving and craving chili fries. I knew exactly what recipe to choose, because I remember the Fountain Fantasy episode and I explicitly remember thinking, "Holy mother of god, that's a lot of chili sauce and packet seasoning! I would never, ever make this." Well I did make it. I made it and I ate it. And about 30 minutes later... I regretted it. But that's getting ahead of myself, first The Chili Fries start with crinkly frozen french fries (because the crinkle cut is the most childish and easiest to identify as a store-bought product). While the fries are in the oven, you brown ground beef. Aunt Sandy didn't say to drain the fat from the meat, so we didn't. Then you add an entire bottle of heinz chili sauce and an entire packed of chili seasoning. A reasonable person might think these ingredients are overdoing it already, but not Aunt Sandy. This concoction can't possibly be flavorful enough; something is needed to mask the processed taste. So she has you add mustard, onion powder and worcestershire sauce. This is how Aunt Sandy pawns this off as homemade: "Nobody's every going to know this wasn't homemade. Your guests are going to think you slaved in the kitchen for hours." I would never serve this to guests. Once combined, this gorgeous concoction bubbles on the stove for 30 minutes (which is quite a long time for someone who loves super simple russipies). After that, you know how chili fries work. Needless to say, this was not very good and I wont be making it again. My sister and I were pretty hungry though, so I am quite ashamed to say...we ate it...all.

To balance and cleanse our greasy palates we made the Gin Plush. The russipe says it makes 1 serving, but it's apparent that's a lie the second you start making the drink. Honestly, I should have known better based on prior experience with Aunt Sandy's cocktails and the fact that she clearly is a lush. The recipe calls for 1/3 cup gin (a clear hint of the serving size) poured over ice and mixed with 1/4 cup of each: guava, pineapple, orange juice and club soda. I found it bright, refreshing and was quite happy it made more than stated. Slightly tart with a nice tropical flavor, this is perfect for a hot summer evening. While I would totally make it again for people, my sister needed to add lots of sugar. She likes girly drinks, which I thought this was. Regardless, I was super happy to finally find a drink of hers that I can make again!

Up next (because a plate of fries was not enough for us. We were on a ground beef binge with half a pound just sitting there and waiting to be used) we made Fiery Tex-Mex Chipotle Cheeseburgers. I must start of by saying I am a bit of a purist when it comes to making burgers so this russipe scared me. I like the taste of meat (hah) so I only add salt and pepper and that's usually it. I can handle a black bean burger or something like that, but I don't like changes. Lately, I have seen the weird burger recipes from the likes of Rachel Ray and Giada. The burgers that are called "burgers" but aren't really, like the "Open Wide! Tur-Chicken Cub Burgers" (wtf kinda name is that?!) or the "Danish Burger with Herb Caper Sauce"(ick). Don't call it a burger just because it's on a bun. Anyway, this Fiery tex-mex chipoodleeee....(forget it, there are too many words in the title) already started off on my bad side. Okay. That said, this "burger" is made by mixing ground beef with 2Tbs of Tex-Mex chili seasoning, 2 chipotle chilies and 1/4 of beer. Two things:

1. What do you do with the rest of the seasoning packet?! I have seen Aunt Sandy do this numerous times on her show, so what happens to all those lost half-empty packets?

2. I had no idea there was such a thing as Tex-Mex chili seasoning, but it was right there in my grocery store next to the regular chili seasoning. If anyone can tell me how the two are different, I would really appreciate it.

The burgers are grilled and put on buns with pepper-jack and a basic chipotle mayonnaise. We had an avacado fiasco at the grocery store, so that didn't make it on the burger and is still sitting in its brown bag- hard as a rock.

The positives:

*I love chipotle and it masked the flavor of the season packeted burgers (I may or may not have used more than the recommended amount of chipotle and didn't remove the seeds at the directions suggested...oops!).

*They were messy.

*They were moist.

The negatives:

*They didn't taste like burgers.

*The beer in the burgers made them mealy and mushy.

*They had the consistency of a bad meatloaf, which weirded me out.

*I am unsure if it was the over processed chili fries, the too-juicy burgers or the amount of sodium-filled chili seasoning packets we consumed, but neither of us want to eat chili for a long time. Something didn't sit right and it felt like a big lump in the bottom of our stomachs for quite a while. Not good.

The lesson gleaned from this cocktail time? Seasoning packets are bad; gin plushes are good.

Ah the dessert course...

First off, I'd like to remind everyone that the first 2 courses were not a total fail, then came dessert, and oh what a dessert it was. We made Mocha-nut Cream Cups which, despite having the word Mocha in the title do not have chocolate as an ingredient anywhere. But we figured with whipped topping, sugar free cheesecake pudding mix, and coconut extract, it must still be awesome right?! Well, not so much. The directions say to mix whipping creme, coconut milk, espresso powder, and coconut extract together, then sprinkle (sprinkle as opposed to unceremoniously dumping) sugar-free cheese cake pudding mix over the mixture and beat with a hand mixer until "medium stiff beaks" form. I'm sure you are all reading this and thinking beaks?! Medium stiff beaks? What does that entail exactly?

Well after about 10 minutes beating this coconutty mixture on low speed with the hand mixer, you realize 3 things: 1. There is no such thing as medium stiff beaks, 2. There must be an unfortunate (read drunken) typo in the recipe, and 3. I could stand here all night and attempt to whip this light brown mush into medium stiff beaks and it's never gonna happen. Ever.

So being a practical person, I gently folded in the shredded coconut and put it in the fridge for a while, hoping that refrigeration would somehow magically form the beaks. After the pre-made piecrust cooled, and after a few drinks, I placed the brown coconut goo into the cups with a healthy dollop of whipped topping and added a delicate sprinkling(this recipe is all about the sprinkling) of toasted coconut to the top and served it up to our friends.

Well, first let me say this dessert was kinda pretty. On the glass cake plate it looked really nice...edible even. But then came the taste test, and this is where it all went downhill. At first I tasted the whipped topping, then the pie crust and thought this is not so bad! 3 out of 3! But then the coconut extract finish kicked in. And then came the sudden realization that there was an uncomfortable amount of shredded coconut in these cups. It was an odd texture and a bad aftertaste. I took 2 bites and realized that the only things I liked about this dessert were the pre-made pie crust and the whipped topping, and I wasn't alone. Most of our guests proceeded to scoop the whipped topping off the top of the goop in the cup and leave the rest, for fear of getting that weird flavor back in their mouths. Jillian ate most of hers, but

lets be honest, that girl is a trooper, with a much higher tolerance for nasty than the rest of us.

Having decided to cut our losses, we moved onto the Darling Clementine to round out the evening, because nothing says consolation prize like 2 cups of orange sherbet, orange liqueur, and a cup of vanilla vodka. Once all of the parts of the blender were located, I must say, this drink was not half bad. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the Tall Dark and Handsome, but I will say I liked it. It tasted like a creamsicle. A boozy creamsicle. If you, like most of us, occasionally have to sit through awkward family gatherings on summer afternoons but don't want to hug a bottle of gin like a security blanket in order to cope, I would highly recommend this drink.

Until next time, keep it simple, keep it sweet, and always keep your liquor cabinet fully stocked.