A Bit of Cheese

• Cottage Cheese
• Drizzle Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper

This is so delicious!

If you have historically assumed that the texture of cottage cheese would be objectionable, I was once like you. Then I was served some as a side at a hotel restaurant that’s been around since the ’50s, and was surprised to find it creamy and satisfying. Then! I read about a chef has it for lunch every day, and was like “Oh yeah! Cottage Cheese is tasty.” Yum.

I was shopping for my favorite oolong tea recently and noticed the phrase “bug-bitten,” which I’d never seen before.

“Before the harvest, this tea was bitten by green leaf hoppers, setting off a chain reaction that ultimately created a unique honey-like flavor within the leaves. This bug-bitten Tung Ting Formosa oolong has the aroma of orange blossom honey, with a rich, thick body redolent of tropical mango and passion fruit, and the finish of buttered rum.”

Besides, honey and obvious pollination requirements, is this a thing? Are there any other foods that are known to taste better because of bug interaction?

Photo from Tea Mountains.

I never learned cooking basics, so I’ve relied on recipes for most of my life. You want a grilled cheese sandwich? Let me pull my recipe card. Crap. We don’t have any basil.

Anyway, I finally figured out how to make simple, healthy dinners with prep time under 10 minutes. The below links aren’t recipes so much as skills I failed to acquire from my mom. Apologies if this is derp to you, but I keep coming back to these links, so I’m just putting them all here.

There are a LOT of words on those pages, so my cliff notes versions are below the links. For all of these, line your baking pan with aluminum foil so you can just throw the mess in the garbage and you don’t have to scrub the pan.

How to Bake Salmon from Better Homes and Gardens
Preheat your oven to 450. Salt and pepper the fish on both sides. Bake 8-15 minutes. It’s done when it’s “flaky and opaque,” i.e. you can flake bits off with a fork, and it doesn’t look raw inside. There’s probably a YouTube video somewhere if you feel hesitant.

Baked Chicken Breasts from Gimme Some Oven
I skip the brining, but you do you. Preheat to 450. Rub oil on the chicken, wash hands. Season both sides with salt, pepper, and maybe one other spice (parika, rosemary, thyme are good). Wash your hands again, raw chicken is like slimy poison. Wonder why we eat this. Bake 15 minutes.

Perfect Pork Tenderloin from Food.com
Preheat to 500. Before you throw it out, check the meat wrapper to see how much your tenderloin weighs. Season tenderloin with salt and pepper, maybe some mustard if you’re into that. Bake exactly 5.5 minutes per pound.

While the meat is baking, I steam a veggie, and dress some mixed greens. Bam! Food.

If you have ten-minute prep meals, please tell us. All of us are hungry.

My Halloween drink recipes all in one place. Here’s to you and your sexy Ira Glass costume.

Bourbon Pumpkin Shakes

Persimmon Bobs

Halloween Spiked Cider

Vampire Wine

Killer Bloody Mary with Mushroom Skull Garnish

I’m always looking for cute baked goods that don’t require a pastry chef course to execute. I found these jack’o’lantern cupcakes on Pinterest last year.

The full tutorial is over on The Bearfoot Baker. They were fun to do, did not frustrate me, and were a huge hit with the kiddos. Endorsed.

This video is pretty touching. Do any of you relate to this kid too? I remember finding meat so upsetting in childhood that I would have trouble finishing meals. His mom’s response feels so evolved compared to the response I got, which was more like, “Eat it.”