someone call the doctor!

hungry readers, i regret to inform you that i am grievously ill.

yes, it's true.

the sickness that ails me is the dreaded universitystudentitis.


universitystudentitis: (n) an airborn virus that spreads rapidly and peaks during exam periods. symptoms: loss of will to cook, flavour apathy, shortness of tastebud and general dissatisfaction. 


here are some photos of my symptoms:

no, these are not snacks. these, my friends, are meals. 


i know it's disturbing and even a little sad, but stop crying in a corner, clutching my photo, singing sarah mclachlan's "i will remember you," universitystudentitis isn't fatal. it's only really unsatisfying. AND there's a cure! homecooked meals and holiday baking. both of which, ms cleo tells me, are in my near future. 


and she's right. promptly after my exam at 2pm, i will be fleeing UofO as fast as my wee legs will carry me. if you see me running through campus, don't be alarmed. i'm not being chased by a sexual predator, i just want gingerbread. to translate, i'll be bidding adios to hottawa and heading home for christmas until the fine month of janvier.


you'll be pleased to know that i have some delicious holiday plans for the blog, none of which include pizza pops or ruffles chips. stay tuned!

but for now, it's babybels and pepsi for dinner at the library. again. 


please note: universitystudentitis is a serious illness that affects millions of young adults around the world. if you have morbid thoughts of eating just cereal for dinner or are starting to believe energy drinks are one of the major food groups, seek help. talk to your doctor today. together, we can build a more delicious tomorrow. 




p.s. i wrote this while i was supposed to be studying and while taking up a luxurious study room in the library while various others suffer in their inferior cubicles. i'm a bad studier. and person, it seems.
p.p.s. hi jasmine. 

winner, winner, southern fried chicken dinner!

howdy hungry readers, how ya'll doin'? 

for this edition of culinary meandering, i'm venturing down yonder to the deep south to satisfy my hankerin' for some classic comfort food, just like memaw used to make. so grab yer sweet tea, your coon dog and your wife/cousin and let's git cookin'! 

if you've had the pleasure of spending extensive amounts of time with me, you know that an unhealthy majority of my free time is dedicated to the food network. as such, i have come to know each of the tv chefs by name and often refer to them as if they were my own friends. (i'm not crazy, my mother had me tested)

one of my most favoured food network bffls is paula deen. if you've never seen her show, here's how it goes:

 "hey ya'll, we're gonna make [something southern and filled with butter] today... *cooks* *eats her creations in a way that is uncomfortably passionate* sendin' you love and best dishes from my kitchen to yerrrrrs."  

i caught an episode of her making fried chicken a few weeks ago and since then i've been craving it like a hormonal pregnant woman. in the words of my friends elvis presley and willie nelson, "[fried chicken] you were always on my miiiiiiiiiiind." *cut to me singing this alone in the dark, clutching a picture of a drumstick*

anyways, after seeing the infamous ms. deen make fried chicken and being the culinary meanderererererer that i am, i had to make it myself. in retrospect, a trip to KFC would have been easier and i am a complete fool. but alas, where would the blog be without such foolish decisions. 

so here's the menu i put together for my southern feast: 

fried chicken, baked beans, wisdom teeth mashed potatoes (don't freak out, i'll explain later), and cawwwnbread.  

first thang's first, ya'll. grab your ukulele or your ipod and blast some country music. i highly suggest john denver's "country road" or, of course, zac brown band's "chicken fried" - in fact, play that on repeat while you read this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4ujS1er1r0&ob=av3e

let's start with the cawwwnbread. 

so this was my first attempt at cornbread and after the perfection that is the cornbread at montana's, i was quite unsure of myself. as i've said before, attempting to duplicate perfection is often a one-way ticket to disappointment. on a 57 degree bus. sitting between two fat guys. with no leg room. 

nevertheless, i proceeded. first thing i did was soak 1 1/2 cups of cornmeal in 2 1/2 cups of buttermilk and let it sit for 10 minutes. 

side-note: buttermilk is the most horrendous smelling substance on the face of this earth, so if you make this, fight the urge to throw this mixture off the nearest cliff - it's worth it in the end. 

next, in a separate bowl, i mixed 2 cups of flour, a tablespoon of baking powder, 1/3 cup of white sugar and 1/3 cup brown sugar. 

after the 10 minutes was up, i combined the two bowls, then added 1/2 cup peanut oil (because that's all i had, okay!) and 2 eggs. then i mixed it all up, poured the batter into a muffin tin and baked them at 350 for 30 minutes. 

this was the result:

beautiful. now, on their own, these cute little beebs would be just fine. but you know me, i can't leave well enough alone when i cook. i decided that i'd brush the tops of my cornbreadlettes with a mixture of honey, butter and salt. so i stuck a tablespoon of the first two and a pinch of the last into a tupperware and zapped it in the microwave. 

DISASTER. i meant to set the clock to 20 seconds, but accidentally set it to 2 minutes. since i was running around like a (fried) chicken with my head cut off trying to multitask, i didn't realize anything was wrong until the timer beeped and i opened the microwave. 

this was the result:

okay, that's not my house. but this is what it smelled like. the butter/honey had burnt, melted the tupperware onto the little revolving glass plate. smoke filled the kitchen and being the brave little soldier that i am, i dove my arm into the microwave, retrieved the revolving glass plate and bolted out the back door. i'm not going to call myself a hero, but if the medal of honor fits.....

after we successfully aired out the kitchen, i tried again and there were much fewer flaming catastrophes. i brushed the cornbread with the mixture and all was right in the world. 

NEXT! the beans. these are super easy.

i started by frying up some bacon strips and diced onions in a pan until the onions were browning. then, i picked the bacon out and chopped it up. at this point a strip or two of bacon went missing. investigations are pending - police have no leads... protect yourself against the pains of bacon theft and always make extra. ALWAYS. 

next, in a pan, i combined two cans of beans in molasses with a 2 tablespoons of mustard, worchestershire sauce, some garlic powder and paprika, a splash of coke and 1/4 cup of ketchup and my favourite bbq sauce. 

then i mixed it all together, including the bacon and onions. it looked something like this:

i stuck these in the oven for an hour. as soon as they were in the oven, their heavenly beany aroma filled the kitchen and the roommates came begging. some were even driven to the point of drooling. 

kind of gross, yes. but flattering, nonetheless. 

moving along to the potatoes. the wisdom teeth potatoes to be exact.

please note: this recipe does not include actual wisdom teeth. i only put them in my christmas fruitcake. what?! no one eats that shit! NO ONE. 

okay, so the back story. once upon a last summer, i had my wisdom teeth extracted. this was a very painful experience in more ways than one. firstly, there was the raging pain in my jaw/mouth to deal with. second, eating is nearly impossible after said surgery and this coupled with my love of food made for an emotionally agonizing day. yes, day. day two of my post-surgery life, i had had quite enough of popsicles, so i sprang from my sickbed and ventured to the kitchen to make potatoes. loaded whipped potatoes, the consistency of the clouds upon which cherubs and jesus lay. for the next week, i ate nothing but these potatoes, moved to ireland, and gained 400 pounds. except that i did not move to ireland or gain 400 pounds. anyways, aside from the fact that someone had pulled two teeth from my head, it was a glorious week. perhaps the recipe will show you why...

i start by making classic mashed potatoes - boil 'em, mash 'em, stick some butter and milk in them. then i whip them. usually using a mixer, but last night with my bare hands. bare hands meaning with a whisk, by the work of my own elbow grease. elbow grease meaning.... okay, forget it! i whipped them. all the while adding a little more milk and butter to get it to the right consistency. then, shit gets real. i add chives, shredded cheddar cheese and bacon, like so:

if you are not salivating at this point, pavlov's dog, there is something terribly wrong with you. seek help. anyways, after adding those glorious ingredients, i do another few monster mashes and that's it! 

FINALLY, the chicken. oh sweet, succulent chicken - as selena gomez-bieber says, i love you like a love song. 

i started by venturing to my local grocer and picking up a whole chicken. i then proceeded to the butcher and asked him, as i batted my lashes and flipped my hair, if he would "like, please help me out because i totally have no idea how to like, cut up a chicken" or because whole chickens gross me out and make me think of chicken little and how i'm cutting into his dead body and how i'm basically a chicken murderer and how i am really wimpy. anyways, mr. francois the butcher obliged, life was beautiful and now i can sleep at night. 

side-note: this method of getting what you want is always effective. especially with old men. especially with french old men. especially if you're a woman. 

next, i brought my dehumanized (de-chickenized?) meat home and bathed it in buttermilk. just like they do to wilbur in charlotte's web. except that they loved wilbur and i planned on picking my chicken's bones dry like a vulture. too far?

anywaaaaaaaays...yes, i soaked it in buttermilk: paula deen's favourite kind of milk. lolz.

next, i took each piece of chicken and tossed it in a mixture of flour, garlic powder, paprika, black pepper and a herb blend. what i call my "white people" herb blend.

side-note: i feel that i need to clarify, not for the first time on the blog, that the preceding comment is not racist. you see, i have an italian, a cajun and an indian spice blend sitting in my cupboard. then i have one that's basically rosemary, thyme and other spices you put in english meals. hence, white people herb blend. okay, maybe it's a little racist. but i toss my chicken in it anyway! like so:

then, after shaking them off at bit, i tossed the chicken into a pan 1/3 full of blazing hot peanut oil and fry it. 

i cooked it on each side for about 5-7 minutes. but that just cooked it through, it wasn't crispy yet. to make it crispy, you have to leave it in the oil for a suuuuuper long time and that's all well and good and if you like chicken so greasy you can slick your hair back with it (biz) - i, however, did not wish to die of a heart attack at the age of 20, so i took them out of the oil and stuck them in the oven on a high broil for 10 minutes. much healthier. at least that's what i told myself. 

then, i served it to my four rodeo clowns roommates and one biz sanford. 

the roommate/biz review

biz - "The meal was wonderful, although I had trouble enjoying it because the chef's tiny hands were making me extremely uncomfortable. My favourite part was the corn bread and then the mashed potatoes with cheeeeeese!!! I didn't care much for the beans, but I've never bean (haha) much of a fan :)"

well, bless your heart, elizabeth. your sweet words could charm the morning dew off the honeysuckle. (anyone who gets that reference without googling is my soul mate or my grandmother)

owing to their busy celebrity schedules, the roommates were unavailable for comment. instead, i'll let their pictures speak for them, since they are worth a thousand words.

clearly, from this crazed look we can conclude that any interruption of allannah's eating is quite hazardous. 

julie seems to be adopting a smeagol-esque protection over her food. i base this on her expression in the picture and the fact that throughout the meal she whispered "my precious" to her plate. 

jasmine has never been happier in her life. clearly i did something right. also, she got a cute new haircut for the occasion, so saying she was looking forward to the meal is quite an understatement. 

i am going to interpret chelsea's model-like pose as a representation of the perfection of the food. also, you'll notice how she mixed her beans and potatoes together so as to get as much of the meal into her mouth at once as humanly possible. 

to summarize their viewpoint i will say that second helpings were enjoyed and silence reigned for the first 10 minutes of the meal (always a good sign). overall, the collective opinion was about an 8 on the roommate review scale, although allannah's drooling pushes it closer to a 10. 

http://theresacesareo.blogspot.com/2011/08/roommate-review-scale.html

review de moi:

warning: what follows is the textbook definition of tooting one's own horn. please excuse my big, chicken filled head. TOOT TOOT!

the cornbread was fantastic by itself, but the butter/honey glaze just made it unreal. luckily, the recipe above makes a lot, which was good because it is likely that a shortage may have resulted in a fight to the death between biz and i. and as i always say, cornbread should bring people together, not force them to kill their only college chum. but yes, the cornbread was so awesome that i have stored the left-overs in my room so as not to have to share them. sorry roomies, i love you, but this is cornbread we're talking about. 

the potatoes were just as heavenly as i remembered, but infinitely more so because i was not suffering from earth-shattering jaw pain. whipping them with a mixer would have made them better, but alas, one must work with what one has. and what one has is biceps that are inadequate in every way. 

the beans - ahh, the beans. just spectacular. i love canned beans anyway, but the bacon and onions added so much more flavor to them. that and the addition of all the spices and sauces - so sweet, yet so savoury. good lord, i'm salivating. good thing i rationed them so i could have some today. and yes, this is the great depression.

finally, the chicken: crunchy, yet juicy. classic, yet flavorful. just lovely. the oven part was definitely a good idea, not too greasy. paula deen would have been proud. 

i think it's safe to say that she would have been proud of the whole meal. granted, she might remark that i could have used more butter, but chances are i would have burned down sandy hill in the process. 

so the moral of this story is: when you want fried chicken, make fried chicken - don't settle for fast-food.

and if chicken isn't your thing, then lucky for you, the fine people of the south have invented various chicken-fried recipes: chicken-fried steak, chicken-fried bacon (good lord), and chicken-fried deer steak, chicken-fried alligator, chicken-fried olives, you name it, you can be darn tootin' there's a hillbilly somewhere fryin' it like a chicken. 

meanwhile, i'll stick to my fried chicken because you know, i like my chicken fried, a cold beer on a wednesday night, a pair of uottawa sweatpants that fit just right and the food network turned uuuuup! 

thanks for reading, ya'll :)

p.s. paula deen, if you're reading this - please know the jokes i poke at you are only out of love. but damn woman, do you really need to use so much butter?!

p.p.s. congratulations to my dear saudi arabian friend Stephanie Dubreuil for her correct guess of fried chicken during yesterday's contest! your pony is in the mail. except that it is not in the mail. 

we're gettin' fried tomorrow, kids!

any guesses what meal we might stumble upon during tomorrow night's culinary meandering?



(biz sanford, the roommates and those gifted with foresight are excluded from guessing.)

cluck, gobble, pop! theresa's cake turkeys©

hungry readers of the internets, i'm baaaaaaack!  


if you have the beautiful privilege of being a canadian (like such as me), you should currently have a distended stomach bulging over your loosest pants and be fighting the urge to slip into a turkey-induced coma. 


my hungry readers from abroad may be confused by this so i'll state my point plainly:
IT'S THANKSGIVING!
huzzah! 


now, as i may have hinted previously in the blog, food-related holidays are my most fav. thanksgiving is no exception to this, and as per usual, the cesareos have gone all out. unfortunately, i am prohibited by law/my mother to disclose the secret recipes of the feast itself, but i can say that it was quite extensive. there may or may not have been a 35 pound turkey, 20 pounds of potatoes, a bucket of gravy, a dozen plates of side-dishes and one very mysterious ham. 


clearly, we don't mess around. but even in spite of the above scrumptiousness, the most celebrated item of the day was stick-less cake pop turkeys handcrafted by your's truly. 


my usual process for making cake pops is the one detailed earlier in the blog. see here: http://theresacesareo.blogspot.com/2011/08/my-cake-pops-is-cool-my-cake-pops-is.html

these original cake pops are classic. but i have come to the realization that their plainness (while practically perfect in every way - love you bb, never change xox) makes them boring and as a culinary meandererererererer it is my duty to branch out. *salutes*


prepare yourselves, hungry readers. we're getting festive. 


i present you with this:

i'll give you a minute to drink that in...








...i know, i know. it's beautiful. so inspiring. i almost changed my name to Turkesa and moved to Turks and Caicos in its honor. turns out i don't know where that is, so the immigration process proved quite difficult. anyways, wipe your tears of joy and let's get to the method behind this masterpiece.


i started by making cake pops as usual. bake a cake, crumble it, add icing, roll into balls, freeze and dip it in a coating of your choice.


the only difference with these ones is the lack of stick. the reasoning: how many turkeys do you know (since i assume that you, like me, know many personally) with lollipop sticks protruding from their backsides? in my experience, the percentage is low. also, i made my cake balls too big and they kept sliding down the stick, so there's that...


then, like god, i sculpted the features and face of my turkeys. hopefully not in my own image.


side note: by likening myself to the lord, i am not suggesting that you worship me. but if that's what you want.........


ahem. let's begin with the face.  

for the beak i grabbed some orange starbursts and flattened them with a rolling pin. then i cut out some wee triangles and made 'em curved and beaky. 


in much the same way, i fashioned each of my turkeys a wattle....


wattle: (n) the strange red apparatus that hangs from below a turkey's beak. suggested by theorists to be an ornament that is key to the attraction of sexy turkey-ladiesssss. also commonly referred to as the turkey's necktie. maybe just by me. 


...using a pie crust cutter. 


for eyeballs, i used micromints with a pupil drawn by a food colouring marker. 


for the head itself, i used chocolate almonds. 


then, using melted chocolate for glue (a method that i think should be adopted by elementary schools everywhere) i combined the above features to make a face. like a plastic surgeon. a turkey plastic surgeon. which is a real career path, no matter what my guidance counselor and psychiatrist say...

please note: the feeling of having your soul peered into by this turkey head was not intentional. to avoid this and be able to sleep at night without visions of this face flashing before my eyes, i should have made the pupils more googly by placing them anywhere but the dead center of the mint. 


next, i attached the turkey head to the cake ball with some more melted chocolate.

after that, i used sour patch kids to simulate wings and tail feathers. once again, attached with melted chocolate. you could also use candy corn or actual feathers. or not actual feathers.

finally, i attached some pretzel sticks as legs - which, admittedly, aren't a perfect representation of turkey legs because they lack feet and are not as delicious when slathered with gravy...

i then repeated this about 20 times to create a turkey army. 

during this process there may or may not have been several references to "my minions" and a few exclamations telling them to "going forth to do my delicious bidding." 

moving along... my personal favourite was this guy in the front: 

a very accurate representation of a turkey, if i do say so myself. the ones i know are deranged with a menacing head-tilt. 

i then served these for dessert post-actual turkey feast. 

those that ate them enjoyed them thoroughly, though it took a great deal of persuasion to have people bite into them. 

amid the "mmmmmm"s and lip licking, the collective cry was "it's too cute to eat!" 

fear not, the cake turkeys, like falling in love with darren criss during one of his seranades, could not be resisted. yes, i did just draw a comparison between cake and darren criss. what can i say - they both make me happy ;)

all in all, a delicious dessert that proved a worthy competitor to the traditional thanksgiving puddings (as my friend harry would say) of pumpkin and apple pie. 

while these turkeys are quite obviously a holiday-specific creation, they would be equally delicious on the 364 days of the year that are not thanksgiving. though you may get a few sideways glances should you decide to recreate and eat them on one of these days, i assure you the taste will comfort you in your ostracism. 

in conclusion, be thankful, as i am, to the pilgrims and native peoples of the americas that enabled the creation of this glutinous holiday and by extension these delicious cake turkeys. 

now, i think the time is right for yet another turkey sandwich followed by a nap. 

thanks for reading :)

feelin' saucy! again.

as you may know, from my very subtle hints in the previous post, we Cesareos are pretty proud of our tomato sauce.

if you didn't believe in its awesomeness before/are downright bonkers, i am pleased to contradict you and announce that the Cesareo tomato sauce has hit the big-time and become a tv celeb!

YES, that's a Breakfast Television logo in the corner!

check out this link to see my cousin Francesca competing for the title of the best tomato sauce in the GTA on yesterday morning's episode of BT!

http://video.citytv.com/video/detail/1173409709001.000000/best-tomato-sauces--pt2of2/

sweet, delicious fame. it almost makes up for the fact that we didn't win. contestant blonde-and-tall will sleep with the fishes. i mean... congratulations!


sidenote to the paparazzi and fans: the sauce just wants to live a normal life, like it did before the fame. it asks that you respect it's privacy and refrain from mobbing it in the streets like a crazed twihard. rest assured that scheduled autograph signings and photo-ops are in the works.

feelin' saucy!

happy september, hungry readers! 

while many of you have been groaning while watching the calendar all too quickly tick down the days until school, i found myself eagerly awaiting the arrival of september and embracing the decline of summer. 

not for the return to school. get real. 

for tomato sauce. 

now, before you roll your eyes or have me committed, you must understand that a big part of being italian is family traditions centered around food. 

in my family, celebrating christmas means eating the feast of the seven fishes. fall means wine-making. spring means sausage-making. and those are just the big ones. at least one night a week is pasta night. sunday is icecream night. and in between, we have quite a few pizza nights. 

but the most important out of all of my family's food related traditions is sauce day.

sauce day: (n) a joyous holiday of the autumnal equinox observed by those of italian heritage. rituals associated include: gathering of families for the creation of a heavenly tomato-based concoction in a large ceremonial cauldron followed by a grand feast of carbohydrates slathered in said concoction. known to cause euphoria, italian pride and excessive consumption of pasta. 

in plain english, sauce day is the one day a year when all us wops get together to make several dozen jars, an annual supply, of tomato sauce. 

i know this may be hard for some of you plain jane canadians to understand exactly why we do this on such a large scale. but let me explain further, as i did to my friend jasmine who's first thought upon hearing i made nearly 100 jars of sauce this year was "i hope you sold all that sauce!" 

as a 50% italian household, the bellevegas based cesareos consume pasta or some tomato sauce-based dish at least once a week.  that means at least one jar of sauce a week. times that by 52 weeks a year. and add a few extra dozen for the inevitable family gatherings complete with 30 hungry italians demanding (with emphatic hand gestures) to be fed. that averages out to about 75 jars needed per year. and at $2ish a jar at walmart for the equivalent - that comes out to a savings of exactly one pretty penny. so to avoid bankruptcy by tomato sauce, we cesareos make our own. and in addition to being the cheaper option, the taste and quality are something you could never get out of a store-bought sauce. 

in summary, a win-win situation. 

SO! now that you know my life story in regard to tomato sauce, let's get on with the actual preparation. 

welcome to tomato sauce 101!

step one: obtain a quantity of roma tomatoes suitable for feeding a small country/italian family. cut the ends off and half them. 

step two: set fire to the house to cook your tomatoes. or use a propane fueled element in your garage, like so:

step three: wittle down an old pizza paddle to create the world's biggest wooden spoon. use this to stir your tomatoes until they're soft. check softness using mouth. 

step four: plot your wife's death. laugh about it. 

step five: remove tomatoes from pot and place in a straining apparatus to remove excess juice. suggestions: a table cloth in a pizza pizza crate sitting on the lawn.

step six: round up trusty sidekicks and prepare other pasta sauce ingredients:

red peppers, onions, garlic, olive oil, salt, italian seasoning, basil, etc.

be sure to use protection ;) for onions, that is. 

also, be sure to strike a pose. 

step seven: cook the sidekick ingredients. 

step eight: go back in time 20 years and have your grandfather construct a machine that removes the skins and seeds from the tomatoes while simultaneously crushing them into sauce. return to the present day and run all of your drained tomatoes through it. 

step nine: add all the sidekick ingredients and have each family member stir and/or taste the sauce. 

family friends may also stir the sauce only if the friendship exceeds 10 years. 

the use of pasta is encouraged for tasting.

please note: the cesareos do not endorse or recommend this sauce to pasta ratio. 

step ten: prepare for glory! also, prepare your jars. start by sterilizing them and putting basil in each one.

step eleven: have your mother pour sauce into each jar. you can use a ladle, we have something a little more practical: a pot. 

step twelve: seal jars and pose with them. 

ensure maximum family enclusion, like so:

step thirteen: boil jars in water to make them air-tight. 

step fourteen: retire to the kitchen and cook some pasta. 

step fifteen: ladle glorious tomato sauce on top. 

step sixteen: serve alongside meatballs; check all items off Italian Stereotype List.

step seventeen: enjoy!! 

 useful tip: avoid being called a mangiacake and impress your italian friends by utilizing a spoon to spin your pasta neatly onto your fork to eat. let frank demonstrate:

there can be no review or rating for this sauce because A) i'm incredibly biased in this matter and B) it's something you have to experience to understand. like 'nam, man. 

but i invite anyone all the extended cesareos or anyone who has tried the infamous cesareo tomato sauce (what we call sugo pronto) to leave a comment to attest to its greatness.

 now, i know this is a long process if you're a student or some other form of lazy and i can sympathize with the temptation of effortless store-bought sauce. 

but to you lazies i say this: cook, my little puppets, cook! 

you've can't say you've truly eaten italian until you've tried a homemade sauce. 

there are so many things you can do with it!

 add meat to it to make bolognese, add fish to it, add hot peppers to make arrabiata, add cream to make rose, add beans to make pasta fagioli, cook meatballs in it, cook veal cutlets in it for sandwiches, spread it on your pizza or use it as a dipping sauce, add vodka and make a bloody mary out of it, bathe in it, use it as hair gel. the uses really are infinite. 

while there are some things about being italian that i am not entirely fond of, such as the constant battle to keep my eyebrows apart or the inability to control the volume of my voice,  the food-based traditions like sitting down to a bowl of pasta with the fam after sauce day make the rest bearable. 

thanks for reading :)