Recipoo

 Tonight, we're introducing a special guest:  the recipe.

Recipes and I have a complex relationship.  It's love and then it's hate, spiraling together in a dust cloud.  We're... frienemies. 

...enemigos.

Mostly this twisted affair goes in one direction.  By that I mean that recipes, like those friends whose incredible selflessness you almost don't trust, have always been really accessible and helpful to me.  While I, a jealous and ungrateful storm of pride, discredit the recipes' superior experience, ignore their obvious suggestions, and instead, senselessly blaze toward an ill-conceived finished product in complete denial of my crippling hubris.

If recipes are Abel, I am Cain.

Which works as a metaphor in another sense:
                                                             in that I often kill them.

Tonight, things are gonna be different.

Tonight, I'm taking Cooking Light magazine's lead by momentarily believing in a thing such as a '20-minute meal'.   

Suspension of disbelief, folks.

Here's the objective:

"Tilapia Piccata"or, "Cheap white fish with an Italian-sounding name."  

Okay, okay, I'll try not to be too judg-y.  

For me, following this recipe will be an exercise in both humility and patience, two qualities which I am quick to proudly assert that I already have enough of, thank you.

Breathe.

Keep calm... and....

chop.

then, get your shit ready.  that's what the directions are for.

okay, look at everything so ready to be delicious! 

 (Many thanks to my Aunt Jeanne for the pig timer... and for the love for butter and sweets.)

Note:  while it may look like it in the image, I did NOT use the $9 bottle of Sauvignon Blanc for cooking.  She's just posing for the picture.  I DID use a $2.29 bottle of salt water from Kroger's that stole the label from a bottle of cooking wine.  "Chablis," it says.  Or, if you don't speak French but are still gay enough to make anthropology jokes, "Homo Chabilis."

 The most fun part, as always, was getting to 'deglaze' the crusty pan with wine and lemon juice*.  Mostly because I think I sound like people on the food network when I say words like 'deglaze'.  That, and it makes a really nice sizzling sound.

*pro tip:  i actually used lemonade instead of lemon juice, because that was what i was drinking at the time and WHO has two seconds to cut a lemon!

My finished product:

Not a half bad forgery.  

Although, if I'm allowed to make a critique,

flavor-wise this is a little.....Light.  As in, light on flavor.

Remind me, next time, to make something out of Cooking for Aspiring Fatties.

chiles rellenos

Okay, Wasn't it Cinco de Mayo recently?

Whatever, it's always Cinco de Mayo in my life, since I'm pretty sure I spend 50% of my life pretending that I'm Mexican.

Let me poorly imitate a cuisine classic que me encanta.

Enter chiles rellenos inautenticos.  For the lazy.

Yeah, that lazy.

 Also known as "cheating".

And that.  Although this is Kroger brand and all wrong, it's cheaper than imported and the label is in Spanish, rite??

Still not exactly Aaron Sanchez-approved.

 

 Just look.

 

Eh, throw it in, whatever whatever.

Light everything on fire  

Decorate.

Consume; act like you just beat America in futbol; don't tell anyone that what you're covering up with Herdez salsa is actually factory processed.   ¡Buen provecho!