Superbowl Grumpday

Dang it.

I was totally going to jump in on this Superbowl Food 2015 blog post situation and then I totally blew it.

Cruse you, internet. I overextended myself.

All I can say is that I was planning on making soft pretzel bites paired with a beer-cheese dip. (I know, it was going to be so amazing).

All I can say of what actually happened is that at 4:00pm on Superbowl Sunday I found myself at the Weaver Food Market in Hesston buying 12 dollars worth of chips, salsa and queso. It was everything I could do to not roll up in a ball, ignore the rest of the world forever and watch Gilmore Girls until my eyes fall out.

That's not what I did. I still was social. I watched the game. And things were fine. But holy dang girl, do I put a lot of emotional energy into what I am cooking. This is great when it turns out because I get overly excited. I am floating around the house in a culinary glow. But when things don't go the way the internet told me they were, grrr.... I become a gross, grumpy version of myself.(Ask my sister. I used to yell).

I keep telling myself that for social situations, I should definitely only make recipes I know are bulletproof instead of getting seduced by pinterest. (Save that for my recipe guinea pig, Levent, who graciously tries anything I make).

But to be fair to myself, (which is something I often need to remind myself to do), this past week did have a lot of new recipe victories. I have starting pouring through my cookbooks, telling them they have to be useful otherwise they have to get out. Now, I fill up their pages with little pink sticky notes, indications of recipes that should be tried, and tried soon. It's actually made meal planning a lot easier. I just flip through a couple of options and then boom boom pow, I know what I want to make.

Let's focus on the good, shall we? (And I should apologize that since this isn't a food blog, I am not including the recipes, for the most part. Just consider this motivation to dive into your own cookbooks).

These blueberry muffins. Have we talked about them? Have you told everyone you know about them? Because, oh my gosh, you totally need to shout the recipe to the masses. That Joy the Baker is a muffin master. I'm not lying. The ones featured here are from her first cookbook that I got for Christmas 2 years ago and have, sadly, barely made very much from. Enough is enough. And just like the peach cobbler muffins I made from that very book a couple of weeks ago, these will not let you down. It's the browned butter that really makes them stand out from the rest of the world's below average muffins.  This past weekend, I made this recipe again, but Joy's lemon blueberry poppy seed version she put up on her blog awhile ago. You are welcome.

Speaking of Joy the Baker, I also made her raspberry cream cheese brownies from her new cookbook that are worth celebrating by eating them so fast you don't even remember to take an instagram of them. Sorry, internet. It's called living in the brownie moment.

In other cookbook news, I've been making way more things out of my Smitten Kitchen cookbook (also a Christmas gift from 2 years ago). For the most part, I thought things were either too unapproachable for what I can do in rural Kansas on a tight budget.

I have been proving myself wrong.

For supper this week, Levent and I made the Smitten Kitchen's chicken milanese with a kale salad (served alongside Rachael Ray's goat cheese mashed potatoes). Fancy, fancy, served up on a Wednesday. While it's not quite the same, the chicken recipe on the Smitten Kitchen blog is a version of what is in Deb's cookbook. I am sure it's worth trying for those of you who want to play along at home.

Finally, as my grand finale from last week (of things that turned out), I made a whole wheat sesame bread that we cannot stop smearing hummus all over. Life without living with roommates with Kitchen Aids means that I don't make bread very much anymore. But when I do and it turns out, watch out world. (This recipe is from Simply in Season, a recipe book I thought looked kind of weird on the outside but have found that is it is filled to the brim with good things).(Also, I wish a magical Kitchen-Aid fairy would just bring me a powdered blue Kitchen-Aid. Is that a thing?)

Cooking wise, it has been a good week. Let's just plan to not talk about the Superbowl and plan to completely chill it out in 2016.

Go team.