It Doesn't Have to be Fancy to be Good..

I have come to realize that the majority of people think that if you're "cooking" it means something time consuming and fancy. That is NOT the case. You can take the simplest of ingredients and make a really good meal. For example, last night we had chili dogs, mac & cheese, veggies and dip, and watermelon. For dessert, I made a almost chocolate cheesecake pie. There was nothing that difficult and everyone enjoyed it. You can spice up a box of mac & cheese with different veggies, peppers or as my brother-in-law said "hot sauce". Another idea is after boiling the dogs, crisp them up in a skillet. Only takes a few extra minutes but oh so good.

OK, so now you are wondering how I made the almost chocolate cheesecake pie, right? It was a "make it up while I wandered the store" recipe. It needs a few tweaks but was pretty good. I took 2 small boxes of Sugar-Free Jello Cheesecake Pudding (http://www.kraftbrands.com/jello/products/pudding/fat-free-sugar-free-instant-pudding/) and mixed them with 2 cups of cold milk, let it set for a whole minute while it thickened up, then folded in a tub of Chocolate Cool Whip(http://www.kraftbrands.com/coolwhip/products/product-detail.aspx?productcode=4300000946). Then I dumped it in a graham cracker crust (http://www.readycrust.com/) and stuck it in the fridge to chill. It was really good. I think that next time I might try folding in some of that new Creamy Philadelphia Cream Cheese (http://www.kraftbrands.com/philly/products/Pages/philadelphia-original.aspx) to see what that tastes like.

Planning on grilling burgers and making homemade fries and beer battered onion rings for Sunday, so I gotta go to the store for buttermilk. I have found the best way to do onion rings is to slice them up and let them soak in buttermilk for at least 4 to 6 hours (overnight is best) before cooking them. There is something about the buttermilk that makes the batter stick better. I normally use a couple of cups of seasoned flour and a beer for the batter. I season the flour with Emeril's Essence (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/emerils-essence-recipe/index.html) and salt and pepper. Always a hit and very hard to get to the table.

The secret to making crispy home-made fries is double frying them. You can do homemade potato chips this way too. Just put them in for a couple of minutes. They will look greasy and limp but don't worry, they will come out great. Do all your potatoes then go back and put them back in the fryer a second time, cooking them until they are golden brown. They are so good this way. If you are doing chips it takes a lot of time since  you need to put them in one by one. But I'm telling you now, it's worth it. And don't forget to salt them as soon as they come out of the fryer. Not sure what else we'll try this weekend, have some thinking to do.