Recipe Test: Pineapple Angel Food Cake

My Pineapple Angel Food Cake

So I got bored and was on Pinterest again...seriously, this is what I do with my off time because it's so weird to have any I feel like I should be doing something.  So I found this recipe for Pineapple Angel Food Cake  that look ridiculously easy.  It had two ingredients and all you do is dump, mix and place in oven, I could have actually slept through the whole thing and it still would have been lovely.

Their Pineapple Angel Food Cake

I used the Duncan Hines Angel Food Cake Mix
and a 20oz can of the Kroger brand pineapple tidbits in juice.  Honestly, I followed all the instructions which is what went wrong.  The recipe said to follow the cook time on the box (approx 30-40 minutes).  The box of Duncan Hines said 38-48 minutes so I did 38 minutes.  It was a lie.  As you can see from my cake there is a dark almost, but not quite, burnt layer on the top of the cake.  Other than that, the cake was great.  I had totally forgotten that Angel Food Cake is basically the cotton candy of cakes because it had been so long since I had any.  Next time, will definitely just do the 30 minutes and then check on it.  I am not sure if it's just because my oven sucks or because I didn't put it in a bundt pan because my 9x13 has a lid which makes me happy.

Good things: this was super easy to make and pretty tasty after I scrapped off the almost burned part.  Also, it says you can use low calorie cherry, blueberry, or lemon canned pie filling instead of pineapple so it's pretty versatile.  The ingredients are cheap and it makes like 12 servings so it's great for a budget.

Bad things: The box lies...don't listen to it if it says 38-48 minutes.  

Recipe Test: Bacon Cinnamon Rolls

I made these!

Sometimes I get bored and poke around on Pinterest and stare at recipes that I will probably never make.  However, lately, I have been actually trying more and more of these recipes that I have found.  The other day I made Bacon Cinnamon Rolls.  Yup, you heard me correctly.  I mixed the eewy gooey-ness of delicious cinnamon rolls covered in delicious melty icing with the duct tape of food that is bacon.  We all know that bacon makes everything better, right?

So I bought the generic Kroger brand cinnamon rolls rather than the Pillsbury Grands! that the recipe calls for.  I lucked out because the reason it calls for Grands! is because many of the prepackaged cinnamon rolls no longer actually unroll, they're a lie, and instead are cinnamon biscuits that you cover in icing.  Luckily, the Kroger brand isn't a lie so I was actually able to unroll them and shove in the bacon.

I may have over done it a bit with the bacon.  I totally didn't follow the directions and cook it first before rolling one piece in each roll.  Rather than roll one piece of bacon in the center of each cinnamon roll I did two pieces that went from end to end.  The issue was that it meant the rolls didn't have dough to seal itself with on the outside and made them want to fall apart rather than stay tightly rolled.  Also, the bacon didn't get as cooked as I wanted.  These are things that happen when you don't follow the recipe!

The pictures to the right are the ones from the website.  The one above is what I made.  I used super thick and delicious Pine Street Market bacon and it may have just been too much for those little rolls!

So over all, yum and something I will probably try again, but next time I might follow the directions and if I feel the need to have the extra bacon I'll just crumble some on top!

30 Day Blogging Challenge: Day 13

Day 13: What's inside your fridge

Wow, am I supposed to list everything in my fridge?  Seriously?  That's so much stuff.

2.5 gallons of milk, orange juice, mixed power greens, organic vanilla yogurt, 5 different types of cheeses, butter, smoked turkey lunch meat, roast beef lunch meat, hamburger buns, eggs, 2 types of smoked sausages, 3 soda stream bottles, Dr Pepper, 2 cans of Low Carb Monster, an almost empty jar of Pickled Pigs Feet (this is a B thing), sour cream, ALL OF THE CONDIMENTS.  Like seriously: Yum Yum Sauce, Bloomin' Onion sauce, low sodium soy, ketchup, deli mustard, yellow mustard, ranch dressing, italian dressing, thousand island dressing, sweet relish, cocktail sauce, mayonnaise, Louisiana hot sauce, etc...

And one bottle of Invader Zim energy drink...

30 Day Blogging Challenge: Day 11

I am a day behind because I got super busy.  I suck.

Day 11: 10 Favorite Foods

1) The perfect food is a chili cheese dog.  It has all 4 food groups and is portable.  Seriously, think about it...

2) Bacon.  B always talks about how Bacon (really the entire pig) is a condiment.  Think about how many time you sprinkle bacon on things to make them taste good...see, you're starting to understand

3) The combination of Chocolate and Raspberry is my favorite sweet treat.  It's how I like my coffee and my candy bars!

4) Swedish Meatballs.  I'm not sure if it's a genetic thing or not, but I seriously love them.

5) Seafood pasta from Coop's in NOLA.  It's worth driving the 7 hours just for that.  Love that place so much!

6) Eggplant Parmesan.  It was one of my favorite meals when I was a vegetarian.  Yeah, I used to be a vegetarian, how funny is that?

7) Taco Bell, favorite fast food restaurant.  I really dig the ease and portability as well as the price.  Sure, it's 100 items made out of 5 ingredients, but it's delicious.

8) Sushi, sushi is awesome!  I don't even really like rice, but I love sushi.

9) BBQ Vienna Sausages are my guilty pleasure food.  I don't have them often but when I do I enjoy them way more than I should!

10) Cheese, all the cheese.  I actually could have just written about 10 different cheeses which is why this is number 10, I saved the best for last.

Pallookaville: From cart, to truck, to brick and mortar!

If you live in Atlanta and ever leave your house to take in one of the bazillion festivals around town through out the year you've probably at least heard of Pallookaville.  Famous for it's gourmet corn dogs, (as seen below on The Tonight Show) Pallookaville started as a converted vintage hot dog cart before evolving into an old US Mail truck that was given a new life as a food truck.   The star of the dogs was the Fryinstein Monster: part 100% beef frank, part Polish kielbasa, and part Italian Sausage dipped in Cornbread with your choice of pepper or cheese...seriously, this is a thing and it is amazing!

Whether or not you've actually gotten to eat this amazing food depends on your luck and/or dedication as it often found with a line around the block because the food is that good.  A once special occasion food can now be a part of your regular diet!  The most recent step in Pallookaville's evolution includes an actual brick and mortar restaurant!  No longer do you have to wait for a festival to get these delicious items and they've expanded their menu as well.  The menu of gourmet carnival food includes Reubens, foot long hot dogs, burgers, poutined fries, specialty syrups for amazing drink concoctions and boozy milkshakes known as Shaketails!

I sadly wasn't able to go to the soft opening on Halloween night since I was working at Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse, but you better believe I was there for opening day on November 4th.  I drug a few friends from school with me for lunch around 1pm and it was hopping!  We put our name on the list and after a surprisingly short wait we were seated and on our way to deliciousness!

After scoping out the menu Martha and I got Black Cherry sodas while Justin braved the Tiger's Blood.  (I say braved because we really weren't sure what Tiger's Blood was, but it sounded cool so he ordered it.)  For food: I got the Fryinstein Monster and Poutined Fries (Poutined is gravy and cheese curds), Martha got the 100% beef frank and cheese fries (she's boring and only eats 3 things ever so the fact that there was something she wanted was pretty amazing!), and Justin joined me in Fryinstein goodness!  (Funnily enough, Justin had already eaten lunch when I text him to go to Pallookaville, but he could not resist the siren call!)

Tiger's Blood turned out to be a fruit punch type flavor (who knew) and the Black Cherry sodas were delicious!  The food came out really quickly, which was impressive with how busy they were.  Everything was delicious, but I admit I was defeated by the fries and corn dog and had to take half of it to go.  I went to school right after and gave the left overs to Xander because he is Canadian and nothing makes him happier than Poutined Fries, seriously you would have thought I gave him a brick of gold he was so happy!

The staff was great, it does help me feel comfortable that I knew quite a few people that work there, however I did not know our waitress and she was super awesome.  They asked if we wanted to separate our checks when we went up to pay, that's so rare that somewhere will ask rather than you having to ask them.  Seriously, that little extra touch of awesome customer service already sets this amazing place ahead of many others.  Not to mention the super amazing atmosphere that is a cross between the old soda shops of the 1950s and the best carnival parts of Coney Island which includes lots of autographed photos up on the wall from many of Jim Stacy's amazing life experiences.  From his amazing hidden eatery show Get Delicious, to being a previous partner in the Star Bar and the Starlight Drive-In, Jim has always been ahead of the curve on what's hot just by being true to himself and what he enjoys doing.

So yeah, that was last Monday and I have a lunch date there with my bestie on Wednesday.  At about 2 miles from my apartment, I think that Pallookaville will be a regular stop on my culinary rotation.  Once I've tried everything on the menu maybe I'll do an update.  Did I mention there are seasonal items as well?

UPDATE 11/13/2013: Went to lunch there today and had the Pastrami Reuben, poutined fries (I may have a pouitne problem) and a Butterscotch Soda.  My bestie Andy had the B. Franklin with swiss fries and a butterscotch soda and Martha again had her hot dog and cheddar cheese fries with a coke.  The Reuben was AMAZING, with the fries I could only eat half of my sandwich  since it's a HALF POUND OF MEAT!  I traded a bite of my sandwich for a bite of the B. Franklin, it was also wonderfully delicious.  Everything is so much food, at well over 6 feet tall I can only assume that everything there is Jim sized!  Andy is the only one of us that made it to the clean plate club today.