Chaotic Chef

Flickr by StarSammy via WeLoveDataVis

RecipeLook has tons of illustrated recipes to peruse.

via ReadyMade

Sometimes you don’t feel like going to the grocery store, yet you have only limited options available in your fridge and pantry.  What to do?   Cook chaotically.

Begin with a ready made pie crust.  Add a sprinkle of bacon bits as the bottom layer.

Sprinkle some shredded cheese on top.

Cook up some frozen tater tots and mash them into the bottom for the next layer.

Looks tasty already.

How about some more cheese?

Using the Quiche ratio, mix up some eggs and milk (or cream) and add some more shredded cheese and spices (in this case – garlic, onion powder, dried onions, and basil) and turkey slices.

Let’s throw in the rest of that yummy garlic hummus from the fridge and mix it up.

Pour in the quiche mixture and add more cheese!

Add a top to this pie with some phyllo dough that hasn’t been used yet.

Take any leftover ingredients and stick them on the leftover dough…

… into little phyllo balls.

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Bake for a while on 350 degrees, until everything is nicely browned.

And, wallah!  Another tasty chaotic quiche!

Lifehacker has a post titled Iron Chef Your Leftovers and Stop Throwing Away Perfectly Good Food, and more often than not, that is the motivation behind my chaotic cooking. Lifehacker gathered tips from various food bloggers for the article. Here are some they mentioned that I also use:

• Memorize a few simple kitchen sink recipes.   (Ratios!)
• Turn old bread into breadcrumbs.
• Soup, and lots of it.

I’ve only posted chaotically lately, because I’ve only been cooking intermittently, and have nothing really worth sharing yet, and I haven’t made much progress on the Kitchn Cure.  But, I ran across this interesting recipe for Moroccan crepes via Wild Yeast’s Yeast Spotting feature.

It’s a Moroccan crepe (I <3 crepes!) whose name means Judge’s Turban, and it looks like a fairly complicated recipe with simple ingredients.  It makes my mouth water.  Yum!

Here are a few mouth-watering soups I’ve run across on the internets:

Rustic French Green Lentil Soup	Spinach-lentil soup with saffron and manchego	Apple Butternut Squash Soup
Vibrant Spinach Soup	Potato Leek Soup	Red Potato Soup
Kabocha French Lentil Soup	Chock Full of Broccoli Soup

via Sheldon Comics

OMG, this makes me want to go home and cook!  (and eat!)

Cheesy bread!

via Shakesville

recipe via King Arthur flour

Also:  step-by-step instructions with photos at the King Arthur food blog

The Chaotic Chef has finally gotten around to starting the Week # 1 assignment of The Kitchn’ semi-annual Kitchen Cure.

As you might imagine, chaotic cooking lends itself to a chaotic kitchen.  The first step in Week #1 is documenting your kitchen through photos. You can find the cobwebs, dust, and crumbs I’ve documented over at Flickr.  Beware, when food manufacturers determine food expirations dates, they are using ME as the example:

To account for all manner of consumer, manufacturers imagine how the laziest people with the most undesirable kitchens might store and handle their food, then test their products based on these criteria.

The second step is to de-clutter and purge old food, and the third is to wipe down the cupboards, fridge and remaining containers. I actually just did this, but you might not be able to tell from the photos.  Just imagine what it looked like before that!

We’ll see what next week brings.

Pierre Auguste Renoir, Strawberries, 1905 oil on canvas, 46 x 28 cm, Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, France

Strawberry Lemon Many-Layered Pie

It took me a while to decide what type of dish to create for Feasting on Art‘s Recipe Contest.  Feasting on Art takes inspiration from still art food paintings and turns them into delicious recipes, and had challenged her readers to do so as well, with the above painting as our inspiration.   From what we call tell from the painting, we need to have lemons, strawberries, and some mystery item from the container with the spoon (sugar?  cream?).

I really wanted to do something savory with strawberries, but couldn’t settle on anything.   I went for sweet dessert instead (the natural thing to do with strawberries), but couldn’t decide on which type of strawberry pie to create – so I combined them all together (with delicious results)!

Richest Crust Ever

• Dough pie crust  (store-bought or make your own)
• Graham cracker pie crust (store-bought or make your own)
• 12 oz bag of chocolate chips
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 14 oz bag caramel candies
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• chopped nuts (optional)

Bake the dough pie crust as per instructions.

Meanwhile, mix chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk in microwave for two or three minutes, until melty, then mix together until it turns into a nice creamy fudge.

After the pie crust is browned and cooled, add a layer of fudge to the bottom and sides of the pie crust.   Put the rest of the fudge in a greased pan and put in the fridge and you’ll have fudge later!

Add a layer of graham cracker pie crust on top of the fudge.

Mix the caramels with the cream and microwave for two or three minutes, again until melty enough to make a nice caramel layer (add nuts afterwards), and pour it on top of the graham cracker layer.

This crust is so deliciously rich, you could eat just the pie crust as a dessert.

Strawberry Cream Layer

• 2/3 C boiling water
• 1 pkg strawberry jello
• 1/2 C cold water + 1/2 C ice PLUS
• Whipped cream
• Strawberries, chopped

Mix boiling water with jello til jello is dissolved.  Mix with cold water and ice.   Add whipped cream and strawberries until you get a nice, creamy consistency and then chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Lemon Cheesecake Layer

• ¾ cup sugar
• 8 ounces softened cream cheese (softened)
• 1 (3 oz) package lemon jello
• ¾ cup water (boiling)
• 1 teaspoon lemon extract
• ¼ cup lemon juice (I used 1/2 of a lemon, squeezed)
• 1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk (chilled)

Mix jello and water until jello is dissolved, then mix everything else together.  Set aside in fridge until ready to add to pie.

Strawberry Pie Filling

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 TB cornstarch
• 1 cup liquid cranberry/raspberry concentrate, thawed
• 3/4 cups water
• 4 cups strawberries

Heat all ingredients over medium heat until it turns into a nice gooey thickness.   Set aside until ready to add to pie.

Toppings

• Additional strawberries
• Whip cream

Layers Upon Layers

You can add the layers in whatever order you prefer.    This recipe is chaotic, so the measurements will leave you with leftover pie filling, caramel, fudge, strawberry cream, lemon cheesecake, strawberry filling, and even whip cream.  So far, we’ve made caramel covered apples with the caramel, and the fudge has quickly disappeared.

The Verdict

As happens often in chaotic cooking, some of the creamy layers weren’t as sturdy as I would have liked, but oh, the taste!   The crust was decidedly AWESOME, though, and the strawberry layers were pleasantly contrasted by the bittersweetness of the lemon layer.   All taste testers were thoroughly impressed (and the children really enjoyed helping make this).

Inspirations:

Cool ‘N Easy Strawberry Pie

Gooey Caramel Butter Bars

Lemon Cheesecake