Nevertheless, I’ve come across quite a few spookily-themed foods of late. This one, in my humble opinion, is pretty jolly gross. And I figure, why should I have all the fun?

Mind you, this meal is someone else’s brainchild. It appears on AllRecipes, courtesy of Angela O. Maybe you could serve it just before heading out to trick… or treat. So without further ado, I bring you Bloody Baked Rats.

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds ground beef
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup dry bread crumbs
• 1 (1.25 ounce) packet meatloaf seasoning mix
• 1 cup cubed Cheddar cheese
• 3 (10 ounce) cans tomato sauce
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 ounce uncooked spaghetti, broken into fourths
• 1/2 carrot, cut into 1/8-inch thick slices
• 1 tablespoon frozen green peas

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, onion, egg, bread crumbs, and meatloaf seasoning. Use your hands to mix until well blended. Measure out 1/3 cupfuls of the meat mixture and mold around a cube of cheese like a meatball. Shape into a point at one end and lengthen the body a bit by rolling between your hands. Place your ”rat” into a shallow baking dish, and continue with the remaining meat. Insert pieces of uncooked spaghetti into the rounded end of the rats to make tails.
3. In a medium bowl, stir together the tomato sauce, sugar and Worcestershire sauce. Pour over the rats in the dish and cover the dish with a lid or aluminum foil.
4. Bake for 45 minutes in the preheated oven. Uncover the dish and continue to bake for another 20 to 30 minutes, basting occasionally with the sauce to glaze the rats.
5. While the rats finish baking, heat the peas and carrots in a small bowl in the microwave for about 15 seconds.
6. Carefully transfer the rats to a serving platter so that their delicate tails don’t fall off. Press peas into the pointy end to make eyes, and insert carrot slices to make ears. Spoon some of the tomato sauce around them and serve.

-Liz

Check out Kate’s ideas for beating Halloween hunger here.

Recipe and photo for Bloody Baked Rats courtesy of AllRecipes.com

“Will we be eaten? Or tossed to the curb with all that shiny fake green grass?”

Which is where I make a confession. As much as I love boiled eggs and deviled eggs, I have a real problem eating them after they’ve been dyed for Easter. Oh, sure. I know the dye is OK to eat, but there’s something about seeing that cooked white turned every color of the rainbow that just doesn’t sit well with me. Am I alone on this?

Anyway, I digress. Because a refrigerator full of eggs is opportunity in the making! So many things to do with those boiled eggs. So few hours in the day… So instead of me grumbling about the yucky color on the egg whites, let’s operate on the waste-not,-want-not premise – at least for today. May I present…

Liz’s Top Seven ways to use boiled eggs

• Deviled – or dressed – eggs. Mom often asks me to bring dressed eggs for family dinners. Does that mean the other eggs are naked? Or is it a throw back to the old saying “dressed for dinner”? Anywho,  cut the eggs in half, remove the yolks, mix some mayo, a pinch of sugar, maybe a dash of mustard, salt, pepper and paprika with the egg yolks and fill the egg white halves. When I’m feeling really creative, I put the yolk mix in a plastic baggie, cut off a corner of the bag, and pipe the mixture into the egg whites. Clearly, that doesn’t happen very often, but it sure looks good when it does.
• Egg salad. As far as I’m concerned, this is another way of saying easy deviled eggs. While this one may be a given, I also think it is often overlooked as an easy use for boiled eggs. It can be as simple as chopping up the eggs and throwing in a little mayo, salt and pepper. Or you can kick it up a few notches with some tuna, olives, capers, onions or whatever floats  your boat. Can be eaten on bread or toast, or straight out of the bowl.
• Spinach salad. What better way to go healthy than by throwing chopped or sliced boiled eggs on a mound of fresh spinach? Add some onion, mushrooms, and crumbled bacon, and whip up a nice hot bacon dressing. Dinner is served.
• Cobb salad. If you’ve never eaten a cobb salad, here’s a pretty traditional recipe to check out.
• Potato salad. What is more American than a good potato salad? Boil a few potatoes, add some mayo, pickle relish, onion, salt and pepper and fold in a few chopped boiled eggs. Summer comfort food, if you ask me.
• Giblet gravy. A hands-down favorite of mine. Ladle over fried chicken, turkey, pork chops or mashed potatoes.
• Easy chicken-rice casserole, courtesy of Cooks.com:

• 3 c. cooked chicken
• 3 1/2 c. cooked rice loosely, tossed
• 2 c. diced celery
• 2 cans cream of chicken soup
• 2 tbsp. chopped onion
• 2 tbsp. lemon juice
• 1 1/2 c. mayonnaise
• 1/2 c. water
• 5 sliced hard-boiled eggs (optional)

Mix chicken, rice, celery, cream of chicken soup, onion and lemon juice. Add mayonnaise which has been mixed with water. Add hard-boiled eggs. Fold all together gently and place in 9 x 13 greased pan. Make the day ahead. Take out 1 hour before baking. Top with crushed barbecue or regular crushed potato chips.

Bake at 375°F for 45 to 60 minutes. Don’t overcook.

Enjoy your boiled egg leftovers!

-Liz

How much do you love a holiday that has as it’s main objective encouraging you to pig out? I’m talking about Fat Tuesday, of course, which just happens to be today.  Or perhaps in this politically correct day and age, we should call it “big-boned Tuesday” or possibly “full-figured Tuesday”. You may also know this celebration as Mardi Gras ( French translation: Mardi – Tuesday, Gras – fat), Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, Paczki Day and Pancake Day. (I’m going to take the prerogative to completely ignore the whole bead throwing/flashing aspect of the holiday. Sorry guys!)

So how in the world did Fat Tuesday come to be known as Pancake Day? If you have no clue, well don’t feel bad, because until last night I had no clue either. Thank goodness for google. It seems that as medieval Christians were about to enter into the season of Lent (which is the period of 40 days of prayer, penitence, and self-denial leading up to Easter) they would enjoy one last day of feasting. On this day they would use up their eggs, butter, sugar and milk – all of which were forbidden during Lent – by making pancakes and pastries.

Over the years this tradition has evolved into Pancake day. In my house, Fat Tuesday gives us an official reason  to pig out on pancakes, bacon and hash browns. For me specifically, it’s an excuse to make an easy and delicious dinner that everyone loves.

So in the spirit of Fat Tuesday, I have three delicious syrup recipes for you to look through. Give one a try for your Pancake Day Celebration. If you don’t already celebrate Fat Tuesday, well, there’s no time like the present.

Magleby’s Buttermilk Syrup

(So unbelievably delicious, once you try it, you may never be able to use store bought syrup again!)

Ingredients:

1 cube butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1 Tbsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. corn syrup
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Directions:
Bring first five ingredients to a boil. Remove from heat immediately and add Baking Soda. To avoid boil over, use a large pan.

Cheater Pancake Syrup

So what’s a “Cheater” recipe?  It’s a way to end up with a delicious home cooked meal, side dish or dessert without spending lots of  time to get there.

This recipe was sent to us by Coffee Break reader, Susan Stephens. I (Kate) decided to give the Cheater Chicken Parmesan recipe a try this week to see if the family would like it.  I took some pics to show you just how yummy it looked.

Cheater Chicken Parmesan

28-oz. jar spaghetti sauce

1/4 cup red or white wine or water

4 to 6 Tyson fully cooked frozen breaded chicken patties

4 to 6 slices provolone cheese

2 to 4 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a 13×9 pan with cooking spray.  Spread the spaghetti sauce in the pan.  Pour the wine or water over the sauce and stir.  Arrange the frozen chicken patties on top.  Place a slice of provolone on top of each patty; sprinkle with the Parmesan.  Cover the pan with foil and bake for 20 minutes.  Uncover and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes or until cheese is bubbly.  Serve over cooked spaghetti.

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The Verdict: Everyone LOVED it!!!

A big Coffee Break thanks to reader, Susan Stephens, who submitted this great recipe. If you have a cheater recipe you’d like to share with us and our readers, please send it to lizandkate@live.com.

Gobble ’til You Wobble!

A perfectly acceptable motto for one day of the year, don’t you think?  Well, maybe you could stretch that out to two days, if you have enough leftovers.  But three days?  Don’t try it unless you are expecting a gym membership for Christmas.

The star of every Thanksgiving feast is certainly the turkey.  And probably nothing strikes more fear into a cook than taking that heavy, slimy, pale blob of meat and bones, and turning it into the perfectly golden delicious main dish.  I myself have only cooked one turkey over the years, as that Thanksgiving tradition  has always been left to my mother and mother-in-law.  I’m sure my day is coming.

I  found an amazing website that will take all of the guess work out of preparing your Thanksgiving turkey…

SeriousEats.com

They have everything you could ever want to know about cooking a turkey.

Serious Eats’ Ten Turkey Tips You’ll Be Thankful For

• What Kind of Turkey to Buy
• What Size Turkey to Buy
• Thawing Time
• To Brine or Not to Brine?
• Calculating Cooking Time
• Roast Turkey Recipes
• Non-Roasted Turkey Recipes
• How to Carve a Turkey
• Still need help? Turkey Hotlines
• What to Do with Turkey Leftovers (Yay!)

So those of you attempting to tackle the big bird this year…be brave. With these tips, I’m sure your Turkey Day will be a grand success.

And here’s a little Turkey-day wishbone FYI for you, sure make you look like Mr. or Ms. Smarty-pants at the Thanksgiving dinner table discussion.

Apparently the origins of the Thanksgiving tradition of breaking the wishbone date back to 2,400 years ago with the Etruscans who lived on the Italian peninsula.

The Etruscans believed fowl were fortune tellers because the hen announced she would be laying an egg with a squawk and the rooster told of the coming of a new day with his early morning crowing. A circle was drawn in the dirt and divided into twenty wedges that represented the twenty letters in the Etruscan alphabet. A piece of grain would be placed in each wedge. A hen would then be allowed to peck at the grain. As she ate, a scribe would list the letters in order and those letters would be interpreted by the high priests to answer questions.

When one of these chickens was killed, its collarbone was considered sacred and left under the hot sun to dry. Anyone was permitted to stroke an unbroken bone and make a wish, thus, the name wishbone. The Romans took many of the Etruscan customs as their own and since everyone wanted good fortune, they fought over the bones, breaking them.

It is said that the phrases “I need a lucky break” or “I never get a break” come from being the loser in this tug of chicken bone contest.

The English heard of this superstition from the Romans and called their wishbones merrythoughts after the merry or happy wishes that most people desired. When the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in the New World, they brought along the custom of breaking the wishbone. When they discovered the northeastern woods of North America were filled with turkeys, they changed their custom from the chicken bone to the turkey bone.

And remember…

Gobble ’til You Wobble!

~Kate

Enjoy your Coffee Break!

My how things change. This year, a host of stores will be open on Thanksgiving Day. Theories are aplenty – perhaps it’s because lots of people want to beat the Black Friday crowds, or maybe stores are trying to generate the additional sales. Or maybe we’ve just lost touch of Thanksgiving all together.

Is it that difficult to stay clear of the stores for one day? That difficult to stay at home, eat some turkey, watch some football and chill?

I realize the movie theaters and bowling alleys are usually open Thursday. And I really don’t have as big a problem with that, because I’ve done the family movie and family bowling on Thanksgiving. But that seems different from going shopping. Why is that, I wonder?

Let’s face it – if you’re that desperate to shop on Thanksgiving, there’s really no need to leave your home. Just jump on the internet and shop until your heart’s content.

It just seems as if we continue to fall even deeper into the consumerism trap, further away from our values and closer to the total annihilation of the family. So I’m curious. What will you be doing on Thanksgiving? How will you spend the day?

Is Thanksgiving a day of gratitude and blessings? Or just another day of the year?

-Liz

President Truman with the 1947 turkey, who wasn't lucky enough to be pardoned.

Yep, this is it – the day of days for the gobblers out there. The day when one lucky bird gets the ultimate gift: a pardon. Meanwhile an estimated 45 million will be landing on our dining room tables. For that, I am thankful.

Anywho, the presidential pardon will be given today. This whole pardoning thing began in 1989 with the elder George Bush, and has continued since. And two turkeys are pardoned, not one. (Think of it like the Miss America contest or something – if the winner can’t fulfill her duties, the alternate takes over…).

-Liz

Which is where his recipe comes in. The app features a list of his “app-only” recipes – many of which I’ve written down, hoping I’ll get around to fixing them. Last night, I was searching for something simple, relatively low in carbs and extremely high in taste.

Enter his recipe for Oven Baked Boneless Chicken Tenders. I’m telling you it was OFF THE CHARTS GREAT! (Actually they tasted just like the best hot wings I’ve ever had at a restaurant.)

The chicken part wasn’t that difficult. But for our purposes of simplicity, buy a bag of your favorite chicken tenders or nuggets and bake according to package directions. How easy is that?

Here’s the ultra-surprising simple sauce (at least I was surprised):

Heat a 1/4 cup butter with 1/2 cup hot sauce. (I used Franks). Yes, it was that easy. I was in chef’s heaven, I tell ya. Stir or whisk often while chicken bakes.

The other interesting twist David added was shaved celery. When the chicken is cooked through, place it in a bowl with the celery, pour over the hot sauce and toss well to coat. Personally, I like the celery to have  hot sauce on it, too. So this worked out great for me (ok, I didn’t shave the celery, I just cut it into thin sticks).

At this point, you’re ready to eat! Just serve with your favorite dressing. David, you out-did yourself with this one. Not only is it a keeper, it’s already a family favorite.

-Liz

But sometimes I out-do myself. Like last night. Granted, I’ve fixed many a dinner that I really like. But this dish is ranking up there with one of my all-time favorites. And for a chick who doesn’t like to eat her own cooking, that’s saying something. So I figured it would be fun to highlight those dishes that rise above the fray – that stand out as the best of the best. Top Dishes, if you will. (I wouldn’t look for me to run this new feature often if I were you, though. How often can I get this lucky?)

Anywho, in today’s inaugural Top Dishes post, I bring you

Tarragon Chicken

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 4-6 boneless chicken breasts, cut or pounded thin
• Seasoned flour
• 1/2 stick butter
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1t. dried tarragon
• 1 c. cream (I used regular, not heavy cream)
• 1 c. Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1/2 c. dry white wine (or cooking wine or chicken broth)
• Couple dashes of hot sauce
• Angel hair pasta, cooked

Here’s how to put it together:

Dust chicken with seasoned flour. Melt butter in large skillet over medium heat and saute chicken a couple of minutes on each side. Mix together garlic, tarragon, cream, Parmesan cheese, salt, wine and hot sauce in bowl, and pour over chicken. Continue cooking over medium to medium low heat for about 20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Sauce will thicken as it cooks. If sauce gets too thick, add a little chicken broth. Serve over warm pasta.

Now if I can just figure out what to fix for dinner tonight…

-Liz

Now, on to the meat of the post. I have pine mouth.

I know what you must be thinking. “Did Liz eat a pine tree? Did she drink Pine-Sol? Did she put pine cones in her salad?”

No, no, and no.

This whole fiasco began last Friday, when, in an effort to tide me over until I ate real food, I popped a Ghiradelli’s Chocolate Hazelnut square in my mouth. As soon as I began to chew, my mouth was filled with a horribly bitter, maybe even metallic-y nasty taste. Kinda like I’d just eaten an asphalt and sheet metal sandwich or something (although I really don’t know what asphalt and sheet metal sandwiches taste like. I’m trying to make a point, here, people. Work with me).

I didn’t think much about it at first – just figured I needed real food – maybe the chocolate had mixed poorly with the toothpaste.

Flash forward to lunchtime at one of my all-time favorite Mexican places. Since Hannah had just gotten home for spring break, it seemed only right that we kick things off in style. Let’s make no mistake, here. My favorite restaurant is my favorite restaurant because they have what I consider the best salsa in the world. Except when it tastes like asphalt and sheet metal.

And thus went the rest of the meal. So I came home and did what any self-respecting person who was consumed with worry would do. I Googled it, and landed on about 967,000 results. But the third one on the list caught my attention. And let’s be honest. That’s a good thing, because Googling “bitter taste in the mouth” turns up some pretty wicked results, for crying out loud.

Anywho, on to result No. 3:

Pine nuts left a bitter taste in my mouth.

On reading it, I thought, “wow! mine, too!” You see, I’d decided to kick things up a notch on St. Patrick’s Day (thanks a lot, Kate). Instead of cooking cabbage with the corned beef, I decided to try a shredded Brussels Sprouts recipe. The ingredients? Those cute little sprouts (of course), olive oil, crumbled bacon and …

PINE NUTS!!!!

Aha! I thought. That’s IT! As my research continued, I came across some very interesting articles. Apparently, “pine mouth” as it is often referred to, is a fairly new phenomena. Some  say it’s caused from Chinese pine nuts. Some say its caused from one or two nuts that have gone rancid, some say it’s caused from old or stale nuts.

It would seem the only cure for this completely annoying and, quite frankly, scary bitterness, is time. But just how much time are we talking? Well, check out this headline from ABC News:

‘Pine Mouth’: How Pine Nuts Can Ruin Tastebuds for Weeks

Let’s break this down. We are currently at Pine Mouth, Day 4. I don’t think I like where this is going…

-Liz

First of all, let me tell you that I am truly sorry for your Pine Mouth, not to be confused with your potty mouth, which is an entirely different matter to be dealt with on another day:) This does not sound fun, Liz, but I refuse to accept any responsibility for your Pine Mouth. Nowhere, I repeat, nowhere in any of my St. Patrick’s Day posts will you find a suggestion from me to use pine nuts in your St. Patrick’s Day food. That was all your doing. (Btw…shredded Brussels sprouts? Who ever heard of such a thing?) This whole Pine Mouth malady does cause me some concern, though. I love pine nuts. During the fall and winter months there’s a pine nut man who parks his car at a local gas station on Main St. and sells pine nuts from his trunk. He even has a little stove set up so he can roast them for you on the spot. He gets them from our Utah mountains, which are hopefully free of whatever it is that makes a delicious little innocent pine nut turn into an evil Pine Mouth causing nut.

Speedy recovery of the ole taste buds. Liz!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you’re not really responsible for the Pine Mouth. And if you’d work with me here, you’d find that shredded Brussels Sprouts are really no better than the frozen round ones that we get in the little box in the freezer section. But here’s the thing – they’re SOOOO CUTE!! And I want to grow some this year. But it seems a waste to grow them if I can’t acquire a taste for them Anywho, the main reason I picked the recipe in question was because I, too, love pine nuts! Well, I used to… As for the local roaster? You’re on your own. I wouldn’t wish Pine Mouth on an enemy – no matter how evil! (On second thought…)