Riot and Frolic

a mostly ballroom dance, but also a bunch of other stuff, blog

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I own and rock people’s faces off teaching ballroom dancing at Dancers Studio in St. Paul, MN. My husband and I compete professionally in American style and wrangle eight children in our spare time. I’ve been teaching and competing in ballroom dancing for over 25 years and have lots of opinions on it. I am an expert by any means, but there are quite a few dancers who are better than me and I have a solid knowledge of basic technique, so suck it.

Food Frenzy 2013

I wrote a post last year that is consistently one of my highest rated, so with only my SEO in mind, here goes the 2013 version:

Pinterest and I are good friends and I actually use the site as a virtual bulletin board.  Like the 2012 Food Frenzy?  I made all of those.  

So there were only 3.  What?

This year, I'm upping the ante and listing my top 5 dying-to-try dishes.  

  1. almond milk: I drink this stuff like it's going out of style and also add it to oatmeal, coffee, smoothies.  I'm curious to see if the homemade stuff will A) taste as good as store-bought B) be less expensive to make myself C) be a pain in the arse to make.
    almond milk

  2. DIY Velveeta: what.  Do I really need to describe this?  I mean, it's Velveeta.  But without the creeping, inherent sense of plastic you might be ingesting.  
    american cheese

  3. Peanut Butter Cups: these look divine.  I've tried a couple other PB/chocolate things that I didn't like.  I know, blasphemy.  But the ratio was off or the peanut butter was too salty/sugary/crunchy/not Reese's.  So, this is the next experiment.
    pb cups

  4. Cookie Dough Bars: I mean, if you're gonna eat dessert, you might as well go all out, and it had better involve sweetened condensed milk.  Because SCM is the shit. 
    cookie dough bars

  5. "Heroin" Chicken: I highly oppose using a drug reference to indicate how good something is supposed to be, but apparently calling it "Delicious Chicken" did not suffice and they didn't have a thesaurus, or a sense of creativity.  In any case, this recipe involves a lot of butter.  And you guessed it.  Butter is also, The Shit.
    ambrosial chicken

Yum yum yum yum yum.  

Who's hungry now?

Have you tried any of these?  Want to?  What were your winners from 2012?  Any new dishes that blew your socks off?  Next week, I'll share my kitchen failures from 2012.  

Chris-hemsworth

watching the Avengers movies
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7 responses to “Food Frenzy 2013”

  1. Seth Avatar
    Seth

    Those cookie dough bars look fuh-mazing!
    Recipes I have made in the past year that were successful:
    Spicy Black Bean soup
    General Tso Chicken fried rice
    Teriyaki Chicken fried rice
    Approximate (because that’s how I make it) recipes available upon request.

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  2. Kate Bratt Avatar
    Kate Bratt

    I am quite intrigued by this spicy black bean soup. Yyyyyuuuuummmm.
    Measuring is for suckers.

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  3. warren Avatar
    warren

    Holy cow I want to roll around naked in #2, #3, and #4!

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  4. Kate Bratt Avatar
    Kate Bratt

    Dear Lord, that is a graphic and awesome way to put it! Not #5? I’m surprised at you! I’m going to try 3 or 4 this weekend. I do not promise I won’t be bathing in it.

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  5. Seth Avatar
    Seth

    This is the basis for my black bean soup recipe:
    http://www.weightwatchers.com/food/rcp/RecipePage.aspx?recipeid=99601
    However, I make the following changes:
    I don’t follow their blending instructions. Here is what I blend: Only 1 can of beans, the cumin & garlic (I often just use garlic powder, or dried minced garlic. They usually have a conversion printed on the container, in my case 1/4 teaspoon dried minced garlic = 1 clove), and approximately 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (not in recipe).
    Note that the cayenne pepper is in addition to the red pepper flakes. The original recipe, even though it calls itself spicy, is really not.
    The other thing I do to make sure it’s good and spicy is to use HOT Rotel, though the local grocery store doesn’t consistently stock it in “HOT”. How dare they!
    The onion, I sautee, but don’t blend. I happen to like pieces of onion in my soup.
    Also, the recipe calls for 14.5 oz of chicken broth, but I use much less. I would say about 1/2 cup.
    Lastly, I sometimes add cubed pieces of chicken breast to change things up.
    My serving suggestion: add a dollop of sour cream, and sprinkle shredded cheese on top. You can also top with crispy tortilla strips, but I feel like those add more look than flavor, so I usually don’t. I guess they add crunch, too, so if you want some crunch, knock yourself out! Not literally.

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  6. warren Avatar
    warren

    #5 looks spicy…I am afraid it might be too harsh on my delicate parts!

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  7. Kate Bratt Avatar
    Kate Bratt

    Thanks for the recipe!
    Warren, I’ll let you know. I’d like to try it next week.

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