Help Our Kids- Courtesy of Jamie Oliver

Remember Jamie Oliver, once The Naked Chef? How many people were watching his new show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution? Well we were. The show was sort of on at a weird time- Friday nights at 9. But in case you didn't watch it (shame on you) what he did was simple. Jamie went to the unhealthiest town in America (Huntington, WV) and tried to get a food revolution going to make their people healthy again.

Jamie Oliver 's Food Revolution Promo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-mYAoWu-O8

When Jamie arrived at an elementary school he faced a lot of resistance from the adults who seemed too lazy to make any real changes and resistance from kids who would die for their chocolate milk...an literally were. What Jamie found in Huntington were people dying of obesity, entire families getting diabetes, and young kids getting their lives shortened because of the fatty, processed food they over-consumed on a daily basis.

Jamie tried replacing the crappy school lunches (nuggets, french fries, several types of pizza, and and every color of milk except white) at the schools with homemade food that were full of vegetables and nutrients. Real bread, baked chicken, and salads were too much for the lunch ladies...sorry...school cooks to handle. Jamie went through every resource he could to let the people know he had a kitchen up for people to come in and learn how to cook good, healthy, meals. There's one episode left but so far Jamie has taught over 1,000 people in that town a better way to cook. His kitchen is open up to anyone and the people are starting to take notice of their problem and trying to fix it.

Jamie has a petition up so that we can get our kids' school lunches healthier across America and not just in that one town. Here's the link. It's really simple to sign, you just need to do it. We hope you do.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/campaigns/jamies-food-revolution/petition

Also, on the show Jamie showed the town how to make a really awesome looking beef stirfry. He chose it because all the ingredients are healthy and obtainable. We haven't tried it yet but we're dying to soon. Here's the recipe. We'll let you know what we think soon. :)

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/beef-recipes/beef-and-vegetable-stir-fry

Grown Ups and Rice Crispy Treats

So we haven't had much to post these days. We're getting ready to move soon so a lot of time has gone to that. Apartment hunting, school, working... it all takes so much time. Obviously our cooking took a back seat (along with the blog) but we're trying. It's never been that being an adult is hard its just cooking sounded like the last thing we wanted to do after a long day- to be honest that didn't make us very happy. We finally got back into the groove of "cooking" one night when we actually had some time off. (What? Time off? What's that?) Actually we did use that day for school stuff but that night we needed something that would be suiting for our broke-college-student needs (basically cheap and quick... and something sweet!) What did we make? Rice Crispy Treats, of course. Three ingredients and ready in less 10 minutes. You can't beat food that easy. The recipe was on the box, but it wasn't like we really needed it. Melt butter, add marshmallow and melt, then add Rice Crispy cereal and mix well. Done. It's easy but we did change one thing. Instead of adding the given amount of cereal, we added the same amount as the marshmallows. What we ended up with was the perfect amount of chewy and soft- magic for the most part. It was nice to allow the children that we still are at heart to come out for a while. We learned a valuable lesson. Sometimes being in the kitchen doesn't mean we have to produce the perfect 10 course meal, but being silly and not so serious is way more important. It was so worth it.

Mikey and Mo's very grown up Rice Crispy Treats

(Too) Hot Wings

Buffalo wings are something that we try to find wherever we go. There's all kinds to choose from and they're pretty much offered at any restaurant or pizza joint so finding some isn't hard. Ok. Buffalo wings are one thing, but habanero wings are another. This is our slightly ridiculous attempt at trying to be brave while trying to eat 15 habanero wings (5 of which were regular buffalo for backup). We've eaten the wings before which is how we found out about the place called Texas Buffalo Wings in Lathrop, CA. Mo's the one who can handle the spiciness a little better but that doesn't make these wings that much easier to eat. The wings have a horrible habit of being so tolerable for so long that you let your guard down when you eat them next, then when you do, you feel like hell itself has literally taken up temporary residence in your mouth. Pain as actually a word that comes to mind pretty quickly.

Believe it or not the red saucy, spicy looking wings on the left of the picture are actually the regular buffalo wings. The three on the right are the evil ones. So this is how the night went. We got our 15 order of wings and could instantly smell the spiciness through the Styrofoam container. This made us really excited (a short lived emotion). We sat there with a glass of water, a large amount of ranch and enough napkins to almost feel guilty for. We both dipped a wing in ranch and went for it. There was a surprising amount of flavor for just one wing. The surprising amount of heat came next- our mouths burned in pain. They weren't this hot last time! The water didn't help and neither did the ranch. It took us about 3 minutes to recover from the shock of the first wing. After that, we just paced ourselves. Once we would finish one we would seemed to forget the pain and think we could keep going. We did this until we ended up with one of each type left and we just couldn't do it anymore. We'll probably wait a while until we do it again but this definitely won't be the last time that we do this. Overall it was a really fun experience and we recommend them. =)

A Cookie Cake Pie

We must be crazy or in dire need of cavities. This recipe is so simple but be warned- it's incredibly sweet. All we used were ready-to-make desserts so we could throw them together, bake, and eat. This isn't really a recipe, just the play-by-play of our little adventure. The ingredients here are enough to make two Cookie Cake Pies but even we didn't need that much!

Obviously it was a Pillsbury night... no idea how Betty got in there

So we started by laying the (already made) pie crust in the pan, layering the (already made) cookie dough on the bottom to make a layer about 1 inch thick. Then we put that in the oven at 350 for around 7 minutes.

While the crust and cookie were in the oven we started getting everything for the (easy to mix) cake mix. Eggs, oil, and water. It was a piece of cake... (hehehe) Anyway, once it's mixed and the cookie is out just pour enough of the cake mix to fill the rest of the pie tin up.

We put the whole thing in the oven for about 40 minutes. We got worried because it got pretty brown on top pretty quickly and looked wiggly, but it never got much darker and the wiggle went away. While this was cooking we ate the cookie dough. 40 minutes is a long time and we didn't want it to go to waste. What were we suppose to do.

We really had no choice..

 So when the whole thing came out we let it cool for a bit. Mo couldn't wait to put the frosting on so she didn't. We used white vanilla frosting with the sprinkles in them because that was used the confetti cake mix too. When we cut it we found that everything was cooked well. We both make homemade pie crust that is sweeter than what we bought but the less sweet Pillsbury brand worked well with everything else that was so sweet.

Voila!