Deadpool 2 Chimichangas

Some movies will always hold a special place in our hearts, unearthing happy memories and bringing people together. Deadpool is one of those for me.

No, really. I promise. Stay with me on this.

So, the first Deadpool came out on Valentine's Day weekend. I and my dear roommate and best friend, Rachael, were both quite single and quite tired and stressed and in need of a little R&R. It was junior year, I was preparing for my thesis research over the summer, we were both starting to think about life after graduation, it was time for a break. So, we got dressed up and took ourselves on a date to a nice dinner and a movie, that movie being Deadpool. We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and since then, it has been a tradition for Rachael and I to go out on a friend date every Valentine's Day.

So, with the second Deadpool movie coming out, I knew I had to do something special. Anyone who's seen the Deadpool movies, played the game, read the comics, or followed any of his many iterations knows that there is one food that is most appropriate for any pre-Deadpool 2 feast: chimichangas. Rachael came over and we stuffed our faces with homemade chimichangas smothered in salsa with some black beans and bell peppers on the side. And it. Was. Awesome. Side note: the movie was awesome, too. If you liked the first one, you'll like this one.

I did start from a recipe for this one, but honestly, I changed it so much that the only similarities it bears are the fact that it's a recipe for chicken chimichangas. This diverges enough from my source that it qualifies as an original recipe. And lemme tell ya, it's good. Look at these beauties.

Yes, it's green. I used spinach tortillas because I like them.

Okay, so here's my recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cooked, shredded chicken breasts, seasoned to taste (I used paprika and cayenne and onion salt)

1 4 oz can green chilies, drained

1 can diced seasoned tomatoes, drained (your preference of spice, I used medium)

1 cup (~2 ears) cooked sweet corn

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp cayenne (or more to taste)

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup Mexican blend shredded cheese plus more for topping

8 tortillas (8-inch)

Salsa for topping

Directions:

-Preheat oven to ⁰400F

-Mix chicken, chilies, tomatoes, corn, paprika, cumin, cayenne, vinegar, and salt in a bowl

-Place ~1/2 cup filling onto a tortilla and sprinkle with cheese. Fold. Look up pictures if you can't figure out how to get the fold, it's hard to describe in words. Don't be afraid to make a mess while figuring it out, this is how we learn, people. My kitchen is not a clean place, but it is a tasty place.

-Bake for ~20 minutes until the tops are starting to brown, then flip and cook for a few minutes until the other side starts to brown.

-Serve topped with salsa and additional cheese.

Adventure and Crepe Cake

So, my mom visited me in the great state of Texas this weekend, and she left me with all of her happiness in life. I took it all like the parasite I am. She sold me her car, for which I am eternally grateful. She brought my cat, which, as anyone who has met her know, is one of the sweetest and most lovable creatures on God's green earth. Look. At. This. Fluff.

(Okay, she doesn't pose well for pictures, but she's a very pretty cat)

My mom and I had a wonderful weekend of adventure. One thing I've really enjoyed about moving to the city is that I can find adventure any time, anywhere. We went to the Grapevine Main Street festival and wandered into some fun shops in the historic part of Grapevine, which I had never seen. We went to the Dallas Arboretum and saw some incredible flowers, despite it being a little rainy. I found a small hole-in-the-wall dinner theater where we saw a production of "Prelude to a Kiss." I can always do something in the city that I've never done before, and I've made some really cool memories this way.

Of course this weekend of adventure included good food. I introduced my mom to one of my favorite types of food, ramen (real, restaurant quality stuff that barely even counts as the same food as the cheap packets), and we had to find some good curry, which we did. Curry is a culinary gift to mankind, If you haven't tried it TRY IT.

Okay, now to the point of why I'm rambling about all of this on my recipe blog. I decided to make a nice brunch for my mother, which included a crepe cake, something I've learned to make since coming to Texas. Crepe cakes combine two of my favorite things, crepes and cake. I love making crepes, there's just something fun about frying up a big stack of the little guys and preparing them for topping. Crepe cakes are basically a pile of crepes with creme in between, sliced and served like a cake. Simple, right? It's not difficult, but it does take time, here's the steps to making a crepe cake:

1. Mix up crepe batter

2. Let it rest for at least 30 minutes. This allows all the ingredients to come together and make your crepes less likely to rip when flipping or stacking.

3. Make crepes. This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour depending on how fast you are.

4. Let the crepes cool completely in the fridge. This is really important. Warm crepes would melt the cream. You can do all of this the night before and cover the crepes in plastic wrap for assembly in the morning.

5. Make the cream. This varies based on what kind of cake you're making. It can be a simple whipped cream, or multiple flavors, or something more pudding-like.

6. Stack the cake. Put down a crepe and smear on a thick layer of cream, leaving a border at the edge so that it doesn't ooze out with the layers stacked on top of it. Repeat until you either run out of crepes or cream.

7. Top with whatever decorations are fitting.

8. Refrigerate for at least an hour. I didn't let this cake set long enough, which is why it's kind of sloppy looking. Letting the cake set gives the cream time to stiffen and seep into the crepes, leaving a moist, cake-like crepe and a thick cream that cuts easily.

Crepe cakes are all about that slice, the thin layers separated by rich cream look incredible when you pull out that first delicate slice. Cutting into the cake is fun, feeling the thin layers fall away under the knife. It's a delicate operation to get a slice to a plate without it falling apart, but the presentation of crepe cakes is stunning. If you're looking for a dessert that will really stand out and taste great, this might be the ticket. The flavors of crepes and cream can be mixed up to create cakes for different taste preferences or occasions. A delicate peaches and cream, rich chocolate espresso, a fancy spin on a classic carrot cake, the only limit is your imagination (and, you know, what actually tastes good).

Okay, so here's how I made the one for my mom. This cake is made from vanilla-almond crepes and has alternating layers of blackberry and strawberry cream. This combination was my idea based on what fruits were in season and what I thought was fitting for a brunch crepe cake.

This was my crepe recipe:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/16383/basic-crepes/

Note: add sugar to this recipe if you want sweet crepes, which will make the end result more cake-like. I added vanilla extract and almond flavoring as well.

The average crepe cake will take about 2 cups of heavy whipping cream. For some flavors, you can mix the flavoring into the cream with the sugar before whipping (chocolate, orange zest, peppermint). For fruit flavors, the process is slightly different. Blend the fruit, then put it in a separate bowl. Whip the cream, then fold the fruit into the cream, losing as little air as possible.

I decorated mine with slices of fruit. The layers of strawberry and blackberry alternate. Just look at all of those tasty layers!

Crepe cakes have quickly become one of my favorite things to make, so I hope this bpost inspires you to have some adventure in your life and in your dessert.

Mom and Scones

Warning: The following post is incredibly mushy and sentimental about my mom. My blog, I get to do what I want. If that bothers you or you just want the food, skip to the end for the scone recipe.

Scones really are great, and full of potential. They come in a wide range of flavors from rich chocolate espresso to savory cheddar and chive. They instantly bring to mind overpriced coffee shops and afternoon tea with the queen. It just feels fancier to order a scone than a muffin or a doughnut.

I don't really remember scones being popular when I was a kid. I had to ask what the heck a scone was when I read the word in a book set in England. Oh how things have changed. Now every bakery and cafe has an ample supply of these crumbly, buttery baked goods.

My first attempt at making scones was for the county fair. I practically grew up on my kitchen counter watching my mom cook, and she taught me all of her baking tricks. She helped me choose my recipes for the fair and was patient with my child-learning-to-cook mistakes. My mom always made an effort to let me do what I loved. If I wanted to cook, she would help me find recipes. When I did plays, she never begrudged the many rehearsals she had to drive me to and from. Even to this day, when some of my hobbies (like cosplay and anime) are a little bit on the strange side, she asks me about them and appreciates what she can, and for that I'm truly grateful. I know not everyone has a good relationship with their mom, and I am blessed to have a mom who was exactly the mother I needed, and I place a high value on my relationship with her.

After making the scones for the fair, my mom started looking up other scone recipes and making them. They became a go-to for a breakfast treat, enjoyed on a quiet Sunday morning. I served as taste-tester for these new recipes from toasted oat or lemon to my favorite Christmas Morning scones with rosemary and vanilla and cranberry (wipe the drool off your face, I'll post that one around Christmas). A tasty scone for breakfast can still be found in my mother's house when I come for a visit. Scones are already delicious, and the fact that they remind me of my mother makes me like them even more.

Now, this year, since I live in Texas, I won't be with my mom on Mother's Day. She's coming for a visit next week, so I'll give her the proper Mother's Day treatment then. In the meantime, I have a different excuse to bake. My car broke down last week on my way to visit Rachael, my college roommate and best friend. Rachael came and kept me company while I waited for a tow truck and let me stay the night at her house, which was nearby. A couple days later, when the car was fixed, Katherine, a college friend who is now my roommate, drove me 35 minutes each way to pick it up. I do believe these ladies have earned some scones. So the purpose of this recipe is twofold, both to celebrate my mother, and to thank my friends. I chose strawberry shortcake scones because strawberries are in season, and the bright red with that delicate white glaze just looked nice and summery.

My method for making these scones differs slightly from my mother's in that I made these at 9:00 Wednesday night while in my pajamas. I get off work at 8, and there's no point in changing from scrubs to normal clothes at that point, sue me.

Netflix and my recipe on my computer screen? Check.

Side snacks to keep me from eating the scones because I hadn't had dinner yet? Check.

Roommate gone so I have no one to disturb by being loud at night? Check.

Let's do this.

I used an interesting method to cut the butter into these scones. I froze the sticks of butter the night before and grated the butter into my flour mixture. If you don't like cutting in butter with a pastry blender, I'd suggest giving this method a try, because it works! It does require a little forethought to freeze the butter, but I prefer this to the pastry blender. These scones came together really quickly and in no time my kitchen smelled incredible. I mixed up the glaze while they were cooling and gave it a nice drizzle over my little creations. 

They aren't the prettiest scones ever, but look at that fabulous glaze work.

Perfect for sharing with mom over coffee

Okay, now that I've gushed about my mom and tortured my readers with pictures, here's the recipe:

https://bellyfull.net/2013/02/06/strawberry-shortcake-scones/

Sprinkles of Kim:

- I added a splash of rum flavoring to the dough, and it really added a richness to the smell and taste. Rum and strawberry are a combination that just works, I love it

- Ignore the frosting recipe batch size, it's way too much. I love frosting, but I want to taste my scones, thank you very much. I just stirred together powdered sugar and half-and-half with the vanilla until I had the consistency and amount I wanted

- I added a few drops of almond flavoring to the frosting, just to give it a little something extra. I always like to give a little something extra

Happy Mother's Day, everyone!

Beer Bread is Magic

As anyone who has tried the stuff knows, beer has a rather broad range of tastes and quality. The barley-and-hops beverage can range from a heavy grain flavor that is very bread-like to almost fruity. Beer is so diverse that different types hardly taste like the same beverage. When beer is good, it's really good. But when it's bad, man is it ever bad. Skunky, rotten-tasting, watery, or all of the above, bad beer is the epitome of gross. However, something happens when this vile substance is baked. Something strange and wonderful. It becomes flavorful beer bread with a smell that will have you hovering by the oven like my cat when I'm making salmon (Yeah, I see you, Puff, and I'm not sharing). Beer bread is some form of kitchen magic.

I discovered this recipe in college when I had the itch for baking and not a whole lot of time or kitchen space to do anything elaborate. It  quickly became a go-to comfort food for cold Michigan winters. When I moved to Texas after college, I made a loaf for a game night with friends and it disappeared like a retail worker after clocking out. Everyone wanted the recipe, which was so simple I had memorized it after making it only once, so I decided to make it my first recipe post. I'm starting simple, trying not to scare my readers away early on. Plus, this is one of those recipes you can easily keep in your back pocket for a potluck, sportsball party, or family event.

There is nothing bad I can say about this beer bread (except maybe the carb count, but if you're eating beer bread, you're not watching carbs). If you are serving a person who is allergic to dairy, eggs, or someone who is vegan, this bread fits the bill with no modifications. Most people have the ingredients in their kitchen, it doesn't need to rise, no kneading required, and it combines two things generally known to be pretty awesome: beer and bread. I won't say it's foolproof because I've seen some pretty impressive kitchen fails in my time but it's pretty hard to screw up. For beer, use the cheapest beer you see at the store. Never put any beer you would actually drink into beer bread, and never taste your bread beer. I did this once and NEVER AGAIN. There is drinking beer, and there is bread beer, they do not overlap.

One great thing about this recipe is that it takes no babysitting, so you can throw a loaf in the oven and go do whatever else you need to do. Clean your house, prepare the rest of your meal (look at you making everything from scratch, you kitchen beast), get dressed for the dinner party where you plan to use this bread to impress people. It bakes for about an hour, give or take depending on your oven. I am a crazy person who rarely uses timers because I can just tell when something is done by sight/smell/intuition. It's my superpower. It's no invisibility or telekinesis, but it's useful.

This bread is a dense, yeasty bread that goes well with heavy, starchy foods. I recommend serving it with a potato soup, clam chowder, or a beef dish. It would probably also be great covered in sausage gravy or as toast for SOS (creamed chipped beef as it is generally and boringly known). Or just smear it with butter and jam fresh from the oven because who can leave warm bread alone long enough to cool?

Enough rambling, Recipe time! I will generally be linking to other blogs for recipes and just putting my modifications here, but I've had this one memorized so long that I have no idea where it came from, so I'm putting the whole thing here.

Ingredients:

12 oz. beer
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 T sugar

Preheat oven to 350℉ and grease a loaf pan. Mix everything except the beer in a large mixing bowl. Add beer and mix with a large spoon or spatula until combined. The dough will have very sticky, taffy-like consistency. Place dough in loaf pan. Bake for ~50-60 mins until the top is starting to brown. Cool before slicing if you can wait that long, or just make a huge mess trying to slice warm bread.

General Cooking Tips

Okay, now that you all know what I'm about (see previous post if you haven't already), it's time for me to share with you all some of the things I do that make people think I'm some sort of kitchen goddess. Here's a few tips that will up your cooking game by 12.4%. Trust me, I took Biostats, I know how numbers work.

1. When you're making anything chocolate (which, if you have any sense, you do quite frequently), use a bit of vanilla. It may seem counter-intuitive, but most modern chocolate has vanilla in its ingredient list, and some of what we think of as the "chocolate" flavor comes from vanilla. A splash of vanilla extract can take things like brownies, frostings, and cakes from "good" to
"I will fight you for the last piece"

2. Cinnamon is amazing. To quote Jerry Seinfeld, "Anytime anyone says, 'Oh This is so good. What's in it?' The answer invariably comes back, Cinnamon. Cinnamon. Again and again" I use a ton of cinnamon in my cooking, but the flavor of cinnamon can be elevated. If you take that lovely spice and give it just a pinch, a little shake of the shaker of cloves, ginger and nutmeg, you nave yourself a cinnamon that is somehow "more cinnamon" than the spice by itself. Now don't go overboard, or your dish will just end up tasting like a chai latte (which are delicious, but not necessarily what you were going for). This little trick is great for cinnamon rolls, hot cinnamon apples, cookies, and any place you want a cinnamon smack in the face. Use it in a sweet potato casserole and even overly-picky aunt Gertrude will admit that someone else in this family can cook.

3. If a savory dish just isn't working, even though the salt and savory flavors are there, it may need a little acid. A splash of lemon juice or vinegar can round out the flavor of a stir fry or sauce to make it just right, and to make you feel like a master chef.

4. Learn flavor combinations that go together and use them in different ways. There's a reason chocolate is always bringing along his buddies peanut butter, mint, coffee, or caramel, but he doesn't usually chill with tomato or green pepper (someone somewhere has probably made that work and I salute them. I am not that brave). If you know rosemary and thyme go together with chicken, spice up your grilled chicken salad with some of that. If you love ginger and soy sauce on your stir fry, try it in an Asian-style soup. Put sriracha on your tuna sandwich, I don't know. Go nuts! The only rule is it better taste good.

5. Don't limit yourself by preconceived notions of what food is "supposed" to be. I checked, there is no law that states that crepes have to be sweet. Savory crepes can be amazing, too. Tofu is not a substitute for meat, but it can be its own food, and even *gasp* eaten in dishes with meat to provide a different texture and flavor. Think chocolate is for sweets? I present mole, a cocoa-based sauce I have occasionally found smothering enchiladas in Mexican restaurants. Don't shy away from foods you have labeled as "weird" and never tried. You may be missing out on something really good.

That seems like enough tips to start with. I am far from a food expert, but this is what I've found out through my experiences. Do you feel like your cooking game has been upped?

Obligatory First Post!

Okay, this is a blog. I said I would do it, and look at that, I made a blog.

So, here's why I started this blog. I've been cooking since I was little more than a toddler on the kitchen counter (shout out to my wonderful mother for teaching me the basics), and I have always appreciated a good home-cooked meal. In the year since I've graduated from college, I've been living pretty much on my own, and on my own cooking. I love eating out, but that gets expensive and there's something satisfying about walking into the house and knowing there's something good just waiting in the fridge. 

Through the massive creativity and time-wasting site known as Pinterest, I started to get ideas. And we all know what happens when Kim gets ideas. I started using interesting ingredients, trying foods from different parts of the world, and cooking without common ingredients (grain-free, dairy-free, no food dyes, etc) just to see what kind of a food experience I could create in the face of a challenge. It is my goal that someone could come over to my house with any allergy, picky-eating preference, or diet kick and I would still be able to make a meal for them that tastes great. It is kind of a strange goal considering that I have no food allergies, I don't follow any particular diet, and I can count the number of foods I dislike on my fingers, but I don't just cook for myself, I love to cook for other people when I have the chance. If my cooking can give someone else a little bit of happiness, then I feel I've done some good. Another reason I started this blog was to have a place to send people when they ask for my recipes. It beats scrolling through the literally hundreds of pins on my Pinterest boards to find the one they want.

So, why did I decide to call it "A Sprinkle of Kim"?

1. It sounded cute. Anyone who knows me knows that I cannot exist without the concept of cute. I'm just a cutesy person. Adorable flows through my veins. If I try to be un-cute, it just ends up being cute. Thus, I embrace the cute, so my blog can embrace the cute as well.

2. A sprinkle is a little something extra that makes things better. Whether it's the rainbow variety atop a hot fudge sundae or that classy dusting of cinnamon on a cappuccino, there's something about that sprinkle that takes whatever you're consuming to the next level. Most of the recipes I use are not my own, but I rarely make them exactly as the recipe says. I taste and alter as I go along, making each recipe to my taste. Each time I post something I made, I'll link to the original recipe, then I'll tell what I did to give each recipe "A Sprinkle of Kim" all delivered in true Kim-fashion: with equal parts dorkiness and sass.

So, join me as I explore the world of cooking and eating. I hope somewhere along the line, you find something you like, or at least get a laugh out of my shenanigans. I get to eat everything I cook, so I win either way!