I made popsicles

July 29, 2010 in dessert, recipe, snacks | Tags: popsicles, summer, bee pollen, sweetened condensed milk, vitaminka | by Thu Tran | 1 comment

So I impulsively bought some popsicle molds the other day. I had all this fruit in the fridge and on the shelves and in the freezer that I knew I was never going to eat, and I had already eaten pie 2 days in a row, and quite frankly, watching all this fruit just lay around was really stressing me out.

I had some bananas, some frozen blueberries, and a tray of strawberries. I was like, oh duh, I’ll just make these popsicles.

First I pureed the fruit with a hand blender. I drizzled a little sweetened condensed milk in with all the fruit.

For fun, I added some bee pollen in with the banana mix.

Is bee pollen good even for you? I wondered briefly.

This website says NO. If you have allergies, you can die, and if you’re trying to cure yourself from diseases, maybe try taking some medicine, instead of messing with this hippy shit.

This website says YES. The benefits being weight-loss, prostate care, PMS relief, better sex life, the list really goes on…

Who cares really, it’s really weird and tastes magical, and that’s good enough for me.

So, after everything was pureed, I loaded the popsicle molds and put them in the freezer.

And there they sat overnight.

This morning when I woke up, all I could think about was, oh boy! Time to eat a popsicle! I ran one of them under warm water…

And then I popped it out and ate the shit out of it!!

It was SO GOOD!! Especially because of the real fruit aspect of it. And the sweetened condensed milk flavor really saved it from being a boring fruit pop.

So after I finished my popsicle and washed out the mold, I looked back in the freezer and looked at the lonely spot where the popsicle I ate once was. I felt terrible for it for some reason, so I immediately filled the mold back up with something, anything that I could find, you know.

This Vitaminka juice is my jam!! Any variety! This kind is carrot, banana, and apple flavor. I filled up the popsicle mold with it and stuck it back in the freezer. After it froze I ate it. This is a good popsicle too! (Albeit, much healthier tasting.) Summer just got a lot more WINTY.

Refrigerated Pie Crusts are changing my life

July 29, 2010 in dessert, recipe | by Thu Tran | Leave a comment

I’ll be the first to admit that I am a pretty timid baker. I’m terrible at measuring things, I don’t like to measure, I don’t have the patience to wait for things to rise, I mix things poorly, I set timers and forget about them, etc… But boy oh boy, do I love to eat pie!!

And then, Peter Van Hyning opened up my eyes to the world of ready made pie crusts. I’ve been using this kind:

Much to my happiness, all I had to do was:

preheat the oven (I set mine at 400 because it runs a little hot, but I think the instructions call for 450)
unroll one of these bad boys onto a pie tin
load it up with some fruit (I used RHUBARB for this pie)
sprinkle some sugar and flour on top
unroll the second pie crust on top
cut out a funny face:

And then I baked it for 30-45 minutes.
BOOM, you have a hot pie.

I ate the crap out of it!! And it was so good!

I made another pie yesterday with strawberries and bananas, and that also ruled. If I make enough of these pies, maybe one day I’ll stop being a pussy and make my own pie crust.

>>>>>ZAPP’S VOODOO POTATO CHIPS!!!!!!!!

July 28, 2010 in buy this, food review, snacks | by erikaneola | 2 comments

Whilst gathering snacks for my bike ride to the beach I came across this witchy bag of chips and could not pass them up!

This company called ZAPP’s from Louisiana seems pretty sweet. Check out their silly website: http://www.potatochips.com/

The explanation for the flavor is on the back of the bag. They claim an employee spilled all the flavor dust together, took a taste and voila! VOODOO! I’d like to think that the chips contain some secret witchy power. The flavor of these chips is SALT ‘n VINEGAR meets BBQ. It’s rather satisfying. Pretty sweet and sour. Also, I am pleased that ZAPP’s neither uses any really strange ingredients nor MSG! Plus, their phone number is 1-800-HOT-CHIP!!!

Survey says: BUY THESE CHIPS!

Current fave Chicago shout out/ Hotdog Hype/ Hip-Hop video

July 27, 2010 in gangsta cuisine, meat, video | by davekrofta | Leave a comment

it’s not a long list, but this Kid Sister video is currently at the top. Big ups to Super Dawg!

Pierogi Fest 2010!

July 27, 2010 in Me!, events, party, video | by davekrofta | 1 comment

On Sunday, Shawn and I had several hours free, and a unbelievably beautiful day on or hands so we decided to make the 30 minute drive to Whiting Indiana’s Pierogi Fest for some stuffed dough goodness. I have had my share of small town midwestern festival goodness, but was really in for a surprise when I stepped onto the main drag at perogi fest.

Meet Mr. Pierogi! The Whiting Indiana Pierogi Fest official Spokes-pastry.

No Shit.

Are you kidding me? This festival was out of control. And everyone was so happy! The perogi guy was running around high-fiving everyone, there was a guy dressed as a stuffed cabbage roll running a found being grumpy and hot…

Insanity. It was really A DREAM COME TRUE. I had never seen so many folks happy about pierogies and summer fun since the now defunct 185th street festival days back in Cleveland. The Whiting Pierogi fest has been on for 16 or so years and is 90% focused on Pierogi, and 10% focused on Polka. To that end, and to add to the ever growing list of costumed characters running amuck at the festival, there is even a lady named Polka- hontas who is the festival’s official polka ambassador/ mistress.

That being said, the reason we came here was pierogi. And we had a lot to pick from, and many many lines to wade through to get to them. Which was not nearly as bad as one would think,other than the occasional asshole with a stroller every one we encountered was happy and incredibly polite. I sneezed three times while i was there and EVERY SINGLE TIME someone said “bless you.” Impressive. We waded through the immense and incredibly polite crowd, and found at the far end of the fest Kasia’s pierogi booth selling pierogi for basically a buck a piece.

The selection was pretty standard, beef, beef and cheese, sausage, potato, bacon cheese and potato, spinach, cheese and jalapeno, sauerkraut, sauerkraut and mushroom… Shawn did a survey of seven. I did the same, but only the meatless options.

Pretty standard serving size, coupled with the ubiquitous condiment of choice.This stand also offered the classic applesauce and not so classic pico de gallo, but we decided to keep it classic and creamy.

All in all delicious. It’s pretty hard to fuck up a pierogi, and it’s equally hard to reinvent the pierogi, not without risking pretentiousness. I would say these did the genre proud, but no points for invention. But to be fair that is not the point here, the point is to eat starchy stuff and get down to polka, and that kind of stuff never goes out of style.

To end here’s a little video treat of the annual pierogi toss.

MEATOPIA 666

July 27, 2010 in alcohol, dining experiences, events, exotic places, food review, kinda gross, meat, party, restaurant review, sandwich, wtf | Tags: meatopia, govenor's Island, buzz | by mistabee | 1 comment

There once was a thing called “Meatopia” (If I was a radio DJ I would be punctuating with air horn blasts the spaces between paragraphs, so imagine one sounding off now if you will.)

Don’t believe the hype. DON”T BELIEVE THE HYPE. I’m speaking for the little guy here. If you read a good thing about this farcical festival of food, you read an untruth.

Mista Bee buzzin with a review of the first annual “Meatopia” a so called food festival.

You’ve never seen a bee, a little flying bee, wait in a line of people to get some food before have ya? But wait I did in several lines, waiting for a meaty morsel patiently, waiting waiting, and then as each food vendor ran out of food, you read that right, (food vendors out of food?) I was told along with all the people in line waiting “sorry we’re out of food.”

As each of the 30 “Meatopia” food vendors ran out, so on it went each line getting longer, and before a taste of food the vendor would inform the line “sorry all out.”

For two and a half hours I waited and was not fed a scrap. The bullshit of it all was the food was pre-paid for, I’d paid 45$ for 6 tastes. I thought innocently “Meatopia…six tastes…hamburger…hotdog..ribs…pulled pork…lamb…maybe some meat i’d never tried like rabbit?Yumms! I’d bought a ticket online and I showed up hungry and with 3-4 hours left of this so called Meatopia. I expected to eat, heck I’d spent 45$, anybody living in Cleveland can feed their two kids for a week on that much cash. TRUE.

I’d say there was a hell and I was in it if I wasn’t a bumble bee.

Sad and Hungry, if it was Meatopia I’d witnessed the fall of it.

Final notes, I’d like to say damn Meatopia’s creators, kiss my bee hind now and in the next years to come jerks, and I’d also like to thank Meatopia for ruining my afternoon. lucky I don’t sting ya.

Remember this?????

July 23, 2010 in dessert, video, wtf | by erikaneola | 2 comments

Classy.

3 Great Potato Chip Flavors

July 16, 2010 in snacks | by Thu Tran | Leave a comment

I ate these chips over a year ago!!! I even went thru the trouble of scanning the bags!! But the flavor is memorable!! I’ll never forget….

chips

Grippo’s Hot Dill Pickle potato chips, I ate these chips in Cincinnati on a trip with Peter Van Hyning and Nick Pinkerton. Nick says these are native to the Cincinnati region, and I believe him. These are awesome. It’s about 50/50 powdered dill flavoring and flaming hot flavoring, but more on the Utz end of things, as opposed to Lay’s.

Herr’s Ketchup chips are my favorite chips right now. There is an awesome MSG aftertaste, which compliments the tomato powder very well. Eating too fast will give you an MSG buzz. Compliments beer and cheeseburgers. They also nailed the lycopene flavoring here as well.

Smith’s Bacon Flavour Fries are pretty amazing. First of all, it’s shaped like a Sun Chip, which I guess mimics the the wavy form of bacon. Secondly, the chips are processed like Pringles, except the potato texture is COARSE instead of smooth the way Pringles are. It gave the chips a Munchos quality without the bubbles. And the bacon flavoring is closer to Bacos than bacon. Oh, and when you buy a small bag, there are 6 chips in the bag!!

chips_0001

2010 GSS jello mold competition highlights

July 15, 2010 in dessert, events | by Thu Tran | 1 comment

This happened June 26th, 2010. These photos have been sitting in my camera for a little while now, which is great because it was able to preserve this memory for me! So apparently according to these photos, I remembered that I hosted the Jell-o Mold Design Competition at the Gowanus Studio Space. I got to eat all the jell-o I ever wanted to eat, and there were some awesome ones and also some that looked really crazy! Jello is crazy because you can make it look and taste however you want, and what makes it jello is the fact that it is jiggly, and flavored, and molded. I had a great time!!!!

Here are a few that I ate there:

Apple pie, everything here was jello, even the crust. This contestant made velvet cake and the pink coconut donut as well. These tasted awesome, and I’m pretty sure they won the Flavor Award as well.

This sushi was made with agar agar. Someone always pulls out the agar agar at the jello competition, and nine times out of ten they are asian and they know what they are talking about. This sushi was fruity and refreshing without the horse hoof aftertaste.

Tiles. These were awesomely sugary.

I can’t lie, didn’t eat these oysters, which were oyster and beer flavored? I pussied out.

I didn’t eat these either.

There were a few people really into this Pill theme.

This is classic. These were surprisingly pleasurably bitter as well because of it setting in the rind.

These CUPS were made of JELLO.

Not sure….

I can’t remember what this tasted like!! It was weeks ago!!

I was a little psyched on these really crazy tray presentations.

And CORN!! hahaha!! This person probably wins the WTF award, with their corn light bulb chandelier. The jellos here were deliciously savory.

This was the GRAND PRIZE winner this year. These bloody virgin mary’s were actually very strong in Vodka flavor as well. The flavor is unforgettably a solidified well-crafted bloody mary.

More pills…

I was really psyched on this as well and would probably win second place in the WTF category. These are inspired by the boobtacular turd processing plant in Greenpoint!! The flavor was a very pleasant raspberry vanilla.

This is supposed to depict the recent oil spill disaster.

This depicts something really crazy.

These crafty contestants made a Tiffany Lamp. The metal part is gum paste.

These trophy heads were my second favorite next to the bloody mary’s in the flavor category. It’s pork flavored and beef flavored. They tasted just like refrigerated pho broth.

These were the cute ribbons the winners took home. Congratulations!!!

Fried Chicken Cookies

July 15, 2010 in snacks | by Thu Tran | Leave a comment

I ate these cookies the other day, they were so wild!! I bought them at the Asian Convenient store on 3rd Ave and 11th St. They were tiny crunchy chicken drumsticks, or rather a thin veneer of a breaded baked drumstick. Hollow in the middle. The flavor most closely resembles the exteriors of Totino’s Pizza Rolls. Seems a little absurd that “chicken in a biskit” crackers are not as literal as these.

Q-Bees.. WTF!?

June 20, 2010 in buy this, dessert, kinda gross, snacks, wtf | by davekrofta | Leave a comment

So, this afternoon after a thrilling Fish and Chips Lunch, complete with Bloody Marys at Duke of Perth , Shawn not so subtly hinted that he wanted a sweet cold treat to round out his fried food fullness. So I hopped out of the car and headed to the store with the intention of picking up some frozen snickers bars. Alas there were none. HOWEVER, lo and behold I found there in the freezer, Q-bees (pronounced cube-eez)!

Which are Rice Krispie (style) Treats filled with ice cream, and available in three flavors each with their own name and anthropomorphic idiosyncrasies. Dave, the chocolate tree hugger and outdoors man, Esquivel the vanilla extreme sports enthusiast, and Suzy Cube, the ubiquitous strawberry girl flavor. After searching around, and coming up with little to nothing about them on the internet, I did find out that this company is trying new marketing stuff this year, and has since developed new looks for each of the different flavors, hats, lady faces, up dos, and each of them also have twitter pages where you can read along as they bicker Twitter style. SO BIZARRE. Nothing makes me want to eat a vanilla treat like reading a transcript of it making fun of the strawberry treat’s obsession with wearing pink outfits while the chocolate flavor insists every one “chillax.” Anyway, I picked up a pack of the vanilla, as these were this was the only flavor available at the Dominick’s near me.

Here, Shawn considers the cube and then devours it.

So the long and short is, this is a nice little cube of ice cream with a crispy sweet out side, but it really didn’t hold up to the excitement my brain and stomach created while the helped me imagineer a Rice Crispy Treat pregnant with vanilla ice cream. It was weird. Now I almost forgot to mention that this treat is all natural. The whole thing is kosher, vegetarian, and the cream is from cows that are growth hormone free. Which could go either way really, they could be the less than delicious, and sort of “fat free” or “diet” tasting, or they could be extra good rich “handmade” tasting. Sadly after much debate, we decided that there was something sorta Boca about the taste, being totally slammable, but not as good as the bad for you real deal.

And there you have it kids, tasty, good for you, almost entirely guilt free, but not as interesting as advertised.

Food Painting

June 7, 2010 in snacks, video, wtf | by davekrofta | 2 comments

Today, i was eating one of my favorite snacks, Flamin’ Hint of Lime Cheetos, and saw a little blurb on the bag asking “What can you do with 28 Cheetos” which is the approximate size of one serving. So i looked on their web site and was invited into a whole world of amazing things people do with 28 Cheetos.

It was there that I discovered Eclectic Asylum, who does all of these photo-realistic drawings and paintings out of food and lipstick and all kinds of stuff. One of my favorites is “Speed Painting on velvet with crumbled Cheetos.”

and this one of Conan O’Brien

NUTZ!!!

Cheetos is not all this guy does, check out this amazing portrait of Morgan Spurlock from Supersize Me, made with ketchup and fries!!!

Dumpster-diving cat turds

June 2, 2010 in buy this, dessert, events, gangsta cuisine, kinda gross, wtf | by davekrofta | Leave a comment

This is a little love note to all the dumpster diving, freegan, gray water using kids out there, doing their stinky shameless best to use up all of the crap businesses throw out everyday. This takes a special sort of diligence and commitment to ideals to proudly and prosperously live off of other peoples less than perfect garbage. And it takes balls to have a bake sale, and make all of the pastries out of dumpster dived food..

but it takes extra big balls to make dumpster dived pastries in the shape of cat shit, and laugh and take peoples money in exchange for them.

The recipe for these is just a chocolate no bake cookie, rolled into a log shape, and then rolled in granulated sugar. Besides being delicious , these prove that basically anything can be a turd if it’s brown and you roll it into a log shape. These were a lovely treat after a night of videos and beer, and all of the proceeds went to Odd Obsessions Video, which is an independently owned video store that operates like a co-op, being run almost entirely by volunteers, and specializing in weird, out of print , and cult favorites. Check them out today!

I AM SO OLD!

April 17, 2010 in candy, dessert, dining experiences, food review, kinda gross, snacks, wtf | by misslisa | 2 comments

Tonight I had a really bad night. I found out that my bike is irreparable unless really good looking parts are replaced. FART! This can’t be happening. So to comfort myself I bought some gummi worms. They cheer me up! But the gummi worms I purchased… may god have mercy on their tiny souls for the poor flavorings they offered me. TOO SHORT! TOO BLAND! I swear to Christ on his gosh darn cross one of them was cinnamon flavored. UNHEARD OF!!! This is horrible. Why am I telling all about this? To spread my misery? NO! and yes. I once thought there was no such thing as a bad gummi. I thought there was only good, better, and best gummis. Long, tender, sweet. Beware it is not so! OH GOD! You think you can trust a thingy and a thingy lets you down. People can break my heart all day long but a bad gummi? FOR CRYING IN A BUCKET!

So you know what else? I wanted to instead get for myself a consistant and reliable snack condiment: coleman’s mustard, the best mustard. The store was closed! WHY ME! You know what else is bad? TEENAGERS. They’re too young. Why do they dress like that? Do they know they look SO STUPID?