Baked Bacon

Well, well.  I tried to bake some bacon - which if you don't know how to do this yet, for the love of all things holy I will tell you - this is something worth knowing.

Take a jelly roll pan - you know, it looks like this.

Source

Is this something worth knowing? - the difference between a jelly roll pan and a cookie sheet?    Sometimes all these fancy names for stuff well, it's just another way for the cogiscienti to make you feel like crap.  Don't let them.  Fuck them.  It's a cookie sheet with sides - which if you tried to bake bacon with a cookie sheet like this...

you'd have your oven smoking like there was a fire - which there might be with all that fucking grease everywhere.  But my job here is to be the dumbass here, never to make you feel like one.   So please don't let me. (BTW, my oven was smoking so bad 2 weeks ago when we had friends for a playdate that I had to open a window.  It really looked like I needed to call the fire department.) So on we go.

So when you bake bacon, it's awesome, because the bacon turns out perfect and you don't have to babysit it and there is no grease splatters all over your cooktop and there is no flabby microwave bacon.  BEST. METHOD.  EVER.

Source: the irony of the fact that this JollyMom.com calls her post
"Oven Baked Bacon:  Perfectly Crisp Every Time" is not lost on me.  

So you basically fill a jelly roll pan with bacon, throw it in the oven at 425 degrees and check on it starting after 10-15 minutes, depending on how ballsy you are and how willing to play chicken with your bacon you are.
Well, I had a great idea that I would bake bacon while making beds and doing a few things on the computer.  Guess what?!  Our fucking hated printer wouldn't work, then our computer had issues and about an hour later my "Perfectly Crisp Every Time" bacon looked like this.  Sigh.  What a waste.

Perfectly Crisp for who?  Lucifer?

It's Officially Happened to Me!

So if you remember from a while back - I posted about how I wanted a Honda Odyssey and it fucked me up so bad to admit that I wanted a god damned mini van I didn't post for almost two years.  Seriously.

link for this gem
This is really how I felt about it all.  And then I remembered, "Oh yes, I am the mother..."  Quickly followed by, "Oh shit." 
Well, let's start off by saying, I am not mature enough to be married, let alone have kids.  (I'm not mature enough to have a real job either, which is part of why staying at home works well for me!)  I for sure am not mature enough to have a fucking minivan!  But it was what I really wanted - and I looked desperately for a way to make it driveable through irony.
  I thought about doing something drastic to try to make it cooler - but you can see how this idea just fucking totally backfires.  Really, what the fuck were these people thinking?  It looks like a goddamn hoover.

Website for image

Then I was thinking that a funny sticker might do it.  Something like 2Fast2Furious might have worked - but didn't really suit me.  I also considered "I am Stig,"  but really, my husband enjoys Top Gear way more than I do, even though it was funny.  I then thought maybe some cool vanity plates.  After months and months of racking our brains, my husband came up with this....

And that sums it up perfectly!  I can have my van and love it too!

Yucatan Shrimp -

On first glance this may look like a win.  Let me assure you, it is not.

 This is from someone else's website - but you can see why I'd like to make this...

We used to have a fancy dinner at home for Christmas Eve in years past - and for the past few years other plans made it so that wasn't possible.  Until this year!

Well, my family makes the most butter laden and rich Christmas Eve feast called "fish dinner."  It originated, I think, as an edict from the church to fast on Christmas Eve and have no red meat.  Well, if anybody could figure out how to make a fast night into a feast night, it would be us Italians.  (I've always said that I am one of the few people I know who can make a salad into something very very bad for you.)

Anyways - there was no way in hell I was going to make anything that was on the menu for fish dinner - which includes crablegs, lobster thermidore, fish, anchovy spaghetti, calamari and a dessert. (I seriously think I left something out.)  But I wanted something similar - so I chose to make Yucatan Shrimp.  This is a recipe from a place in Florida called Doc's and oh my freaking lord is it delicious!  I decided to make it using the following recipe.

Yucatan Shrimp

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large clove garlic, minced  (maybe more?!)

Juice of two large limes

1 tablespoon Indonesian sambal (preferably sambal oelek, by Huy Fong, though sriracha will work as well)

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 pound large, fresh, shell-on shrimp

1 teaspoon jalapeño, seeded and chopped (optional)   (Use chiles instead)

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro.

1. In a small saucepan set over low heat, melt 1 tablespoon of butter. Add the garlic and cook, stirring for 2 minutes.

2. Add remaining 3 tablespoons butter to saucepan. When it melts, stir in the lime juice, chili sauce, salt and pepper. Turn off the heat and allow the sauce to rest.

3. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add the shrimp and cook for 2 minutes or until they are just firm and pink. Do not overcook. Drain into a colander and shake over the sink to remove excess moisture.

4. In a large bowl, toss the shrimp and chili sauce. Add jalapeño, if desired, sprinkle with cilantro and toss again.   Serve with crunchy French bread.  Serves 4, messily. Adapted from Greg Nelson at Doc Ford’s Sanibel Rum Bar and Grille, Sanibel Island, Fla. 

Well, well.  Seems simple enough.  I gathered my ingredients and after a last minute run to the store for cilantro - which I had accidentally bought parsley - I was all set.  I was even able to find the Sambal Oelek - which yes, I was impressed too!  I followed the recipe EXACTLY.

And it turned out beautiful for our fancy ass dinner.  Look at that!  I felt so proud of myself - which is normally a sign of impending disaster.  (yes, I had to make it super big, because it is so pretty!)

And yes.  There was a surprise lurking.  If you know me, you know I don't cook, and you also know that I NEVER cook seafood.  So I didn't clean the poop vein out of the shrimp.  Yep.  It was a
shrimp-poop-a-palooza.  Disgusting and ruined our dinner.  Trying to get all the shit out of the shrimp while eating them, yes, well it was too much for me as well.

                                                             site for pic
Fucking Gross. Next time, I will know because I am putting it in the god damned recipe to clean the fuckers for other people like me who need all the steps laid out for them.