automaticable » cooking

Cooking Cheap Snacks 101: Granola Bars

Scott Wegner — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:34:43 +0000

Tonight Stacy and I decided to make our own granola bars, and they turned out pretty darn good. I had been wanting to try making them for a while now, and finally got around to it. It’s a great snack to make because it’s relatively easy to make, pretty healthy, you can throw in whatever you want, and really cheap. We made a 9″ x 13″ tray of granola bars for around $5 in ingredients (not to mention they were mostly organic). And the best part, is they’re delicious. We’re talking:

Rolled Oats
Flour
Brown Sugar
Raisins
Chocolate Chips
Walnuts
Almonds
Honey
Sunflower Seeds
Vanilla
Salt, canola oil, etc.

I mean, it sounds great, doesn’t it? And now I have snacks for the next couple weeks– cool. I can’t wait to make it again, there’s already a few other things I want to try (namely, peanut butter, mmmm).

Does anybody else have a tasty they like to make? Or perhaps the missing ingredient to my nearly-perfect granola bars? Let’s hear it in the comments.

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Bawk: Memorial-Day Weekend Chicken Cook-off

Scott Wegner — Wed, 28 May 2008 23:06:17 +0000

This Memorial Day weekend marked the culmination of months of planning and bad chicken jokes for my parents: Saturday was their First (Annual?) Chicken Cook-off. I wasn’t able to make it, but from what I can tell it was pretty fun. My mom was so excited, she even wrote a guest blog post about it. Keep reading below for the details, as well as some pretty funny pictures.

Our first ever Chicken Cook Off was a smashing success. The idea being born during the cold dreary days of late winter, planning through the weeks and months anticipating the arrival of summer, and finally Memorial Weekend is here and we started it off right!

I recently discovered Evite, a wonderful tool for getting an event together, but a dangerous toy for a party planner like me. With my Evite address book preloaded with all my buddies’ contact information, it’s a snap to choose a theme, whip up a cute invitation and click–you’re having a party! Evite allows people to publicly RSVP to the web based invitation with the option of leaving a comment or not… a fun little thing that creates interest and excitement about the party. Since most of my parties are pot luck type dinners, I love the convenience of loading in the menu categories and allowing people to choose what they’d like to bring. If we’ll need 3 main dishes and 3 side dishes, those options will fall off the list as people choose them, thereby satisfying those categories without duplication. I love evite…but someone please tell me if I’m having too many parties!

We had about 40 people attend yesterday and 9 chicken cookers competing for First Prize. (the most eggcellent recipe won!) It was a fury of activity here with people at the grill, the electric smoker, the outdoor stove, indoor stove, oven, and outdoor propane fryer, all getting ready for the 6 pm buffet. Luckily I was on the outdoor stove frying my birds and didn’t get too mixed up in the indoor chaos… but I heard there were a LOT of people in the kitchen!

The incredibly delicious Cheesy Chicken recipe was the winner (ingredients by order must have been something like: cheese, more cheese, chicken, cheese, butter) with Rosemary Chicken coming in 2nd. We also had chicken chili, honey lavender grilled chicken, beer can chicken, fried chicken, smoked chicken, tandori chicken, and chicken and sausage. All incredibly delicious and real crowd pleasers!

There was a chicken joke telling contest… first place won a package of chicken feet!

Here’s the winning joke:

An old guy approaches the window of the movie theater with a chicken on his shoulder, and asks for two tickets. The girl at the counter wants to know who is going in with him. He replies, “Well, my pet chicken, of course!”

The girl tells him that he can’t take a chicken into the theater, so he goes around the corner, and stuffs the chicken into his pants. He returns to the window, buys his ticket and goes in.
Inside the theater, the chicken starts to get hot and begins to squirm, so the man unzips his pants so the chicken can stick its head out and watch the movie.

Sitting next to him are two old women. The one closest to the old guy nudges her companion and whispers, “Lucy, this man over here has just unzipped his pants!”

Her companion whispers back, “Oh, don’t worry about it. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.”

“I know, but this one’s eating my popcorn!!”

If you’re ever looking for a great party theme, I’d highly recommend The Chicken Cook Off. And don’t forget to make Paula Deen’s incredibly delicious, yummy biscuits infused with melted butter and honey!

Bawk.

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My First Herb Garden

Scott Wegner — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:11:01 +0000

Last night I went grocery shopping and ended up buying seeds for a few different cooking herbs. It’s something that I’ve been talking about doing for a while, and I finally have the opportunity to do it. I picked up some chives, oregano, green onion, and sweet basil, as well as a parsley plant that’s already potted. Since we haven’t quite felt the affects of spring yet, I plan on planting them in pots by a window inside to start. Once they start to grow and the weather gets nicer, they’ll move to our balcony outside.

This is really my first “gardening” experience on my own, as minor as it might be. The seed packets have some basic instructions on them that I think will get me through. But, what other suggestions do people have? How will I know when they are ready for “harvesting”, and how much can I cut off without killing the plant? Are there any other herbs that are nice for growing in the kitchen?

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