Knuckle down, buckle down, do it do it do it!

Sometimes you just have to say “Fuck this noise, it’s time to cook.” Today is one of those days. The woman is at work, I have the day to myself, and I have a pretty full pantry. Time to get cracking!

My new Food & Wine came in the mail yesterday with a cool recipe for Sweet Potato and Tempeh Empanadas. We’re not eating a ton of meat these days and have completely cut out pork so I look for alternate forms of protein. I got into tempeh back in college and it’s made a recent comeback in my cooking repertoire. The empanadas use a sweet potato dough that’s currently chilling out in the refrigerator. The filling is a spicy and Spanish-styled that should work well with the tempeh.

I’m also in the midst of preparing a grain-free cauliflower pizza crust. It’s some recipe I found on Pinterest that looked promising. I've gotten to the point where I can read a recipe and know without a shadow of a doubt if the fucker is going to work. This one has so far passed my bullshit detector. I was curious about how it would turn out because it looks pretty cool.

It would be a good idea to knock out a regular batch of pizza crust in case this experiment blows. The mixer is still on the counter. Add that to the list.

Before I ran Kelly downtown to the working place, she asked if I would “Do something with the ground chicken in the refrigerator, maybe meatballs or something.” So that’s exactly what I did. Sometimes I just don’t want to think and if a good idea is presented to me chances are that I will do just that. They’re only seasoned with oregano and basil so they can be used in a lot of different ways. I didn’t travel very far with that idea. Last night a made a peanut satay sauce for some Vietnamese shrimp summer rolls I was craving that will probably be good with the meatball as well. The ‘balls’ will more than likely make an appearance on the pizza crust at some point this weekend.

Since I have become obsessed with the “Thug Kitchen Cookbook”, I have been working a lot with tofu and I have a cut up block marinating in a mojo blend with tons of citrus and spices. I cut the block into 12 pieces that I’ll bake a little later this evening. I’ll use it for breakfasts and various lunches throughout the week. It’s great for tacos!

The other day I picked up a couple whole chickens. One I roasted the other night, and I plan to do something with the other one tomorrow. I mixed up a bit of brine and dunked that bad boy in the pool. I’ll see what inspires me between now and then. There’s a strong chance that thing will get fried.

I washed the truck today too. I rock! Yea me!

Ciao down,

Penn