First Time Baking - Chocolate and Potato Chip Cookies

Mark Lim - When it comes to cooking I'm pretty impatient. I'm the kind of guy that cooks stuff with twice the heat so it finishes in half the time. I also hardly ever measure anything. I usually just toss everything in a bowl and whatever happens, happens. Oh, and I'm also really cheap and will substitute ingredients for the crappier versions or just entirely not include the ingredient at all.

With that said, tonight I will be baking Chocolate and Potato Chip cookies. I feel the perfect storm of chaos is brewing...

That's what they're supposed to look like. You'll see how they're not supposed to look like at the end of this blog.

Before I start I just want to say that I've never actually baked before. The closest I ever got was when I saw something on the internet and decided to make 3 minute brownies in the microwave. Wow. So disgusting but so quick.

Anyway, this recipe for Lay's Chocolate and Potato Chip Cookies was given to me as a challenge and even though I am severely incompetent in baking I decided to accept.

Here is the recipe given to me:

Chocolate and Potato Cookies - Try this recipe for a delicious twist on the traditional chocolate chip cookie!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose gluten free baking flour or your favorite blend
• 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum or guar gum
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened coconut
• 1/2 cup canola oil or butter (chewy or crisp)
• 2 tablespoon agave nectar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup brewed coffee
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup miniature milk chocolate chips
• 5 oz. LAY'S® Classic Potato Chips (about 4 cups or 75 chips), processed till finely minced but not mealy

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.2) Process 4 cups of LAY'S® Classic Potato Chips and weigh until you have 5 oz. (about half the bag).
2. In a large bowl, whisk together baking powder, xanthan gum, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Stir in the brown sugar, and mix until combined.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil (or butter), vanilla extract, agave and 5 tablespoons coffee.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring until smooth. If the dough is too stiff, add more coffee as needed to soften. The finished dough should be thick.
5. Stir in potato chips.
6. Roll dough into walnut-sized balls and place two inches apart onto a sheet pan lined with parchment. Bake on the bottom rack for 15-17 minutes.
7. Remove from oven to cool for five minutes then transfer cookies to a cooling rack.
8. Repeat until all dough is used

So first things first. I don't like coconut so that's not going in. I have no clue what xanthan gum is so that's out. I also don't have agave nectar so I'm just going to use some honey instead. I have no clue what is going to happen.

 I follow the directions exactly. 1) I mix the dry ingredients. 2) I mix the wet ingredients. 3) I mix the wet and dry ingredients. 4) I make little balls on parchment paper.

Here's where things go wrong.

10 minutes go buy and something hits me. I forgot to add the freaking chocolate chips! This is a picture of me panicking and just frantically throwing chocolate chips on top of the cookies that have been baking for over 10 minutes. Sigh.

 

This is the final product. It's messy and shaped funny but it's a very sweet and savory treat. Even when I totally messed everything up it still turned out pretty good. I suggest you guys try it out but DO IT CORRECTLY and tell me if you like it.

I will probably leave the baking to my wife from now.

Be Fat! Be Happy!

            

Homemade Sushi

Mark Lim - Some people say that American blood flows through my Asian veins.

Yes, I married a white woman.

Yes, I own two chihuahuas and don't plan to eat them.

Yes, I put mayonnaise on everything, even my sushi.


I've tried to Americanize sushi before and failed miserably. (Read here) Now I know that hot dogs, bacon, and Hormel chili do not make good fillers for rice and dried seaweed.

This time I tried a more traditional approach. The first thing I did was purchase discount cooked shrimp at the local Food4Less. The trick is to look for the package that has the most stickers on it that say "Buy this now and it eat it fast because if you wait too long to eat it you will probably die. Here's $2 off. - Seafood Department Manager"

After that, I put some mayo and Saracha hot sauce in a food processor with the shrimp and blend it all to make the awesome filling.

Next, I just take the sushi rice (rice with rice wine vinegar/sugar/salt) and spread it on the "Nori" or seaweed paper, place the shrimp filling in the middle, roll it up, and cut it into small pieces.

It's actually pretty easy. Hopefully next time I will be using raw salmon but I'm a little scared to buy fish at the local craphole supermarket and eat it raw.

Anyway, Be Fat! Be Happy!

Lazy Man's Kogi Truck Homemade Tacos

Mark Lim - I remember when buying food out of a truck either meant you were poor or you weren't wearing a shirt that day so you couldn't eat inside a restaurant.

Now it's the ultra hipster thing to do like buying storage lockers at an auction or occupying the streets of the white man.

I've never actually eaten out of the truck because I rarely leave the house anymore but the one everyone always talks about is the Kogi Truck.

The Kogi Truck combines the powerful communist secret flavors of North Koreans with the large hat wearing culture of the Mexicans and their version of a flat bread called a "corn tortilla."

Last week, for the first time ever, I saw an Asian man married to a Mexican woman and I believe this is where the idea of the Kogi Truck was born.

Now, I'm too poor to drive to LA and hunt down a truck just for a couple tacos so I decided to make my own this evening replacing all the ingredients with crap in my pantry.

It didn't look that good but it actually was awesome.

1 Chunk of mystery meat that was in the fridge
3 Squirrel sized handfuls of mayonnaise
2 Drip drops of rice wine vinegar
3 Bushels of brown sugar and soy sauce
4 Shot glasses of cabbage
2 Squeezes of Sirachi's hot sauce
4 Corn Tortillas (Mexican version of bread)

All I did was create a marinade with the brown sugar and soy sauce and let the mystery meat soak in there for a while. Then I created a slaw with the mayo and cabbage and drizzled sugar and rice wine vinegar to taste.

Then I cooked the meat in the pan, fried up the tortilla, and put the slaw on top with a little Sirachi's hot sauce and there you have it!

Poor man's Kogi Tacos.

Be Fat! Be Happy!
4 Corn Tortillas

Homemade Pizza

Mark Lim - Been making pizza almost every day trying to get it right, improving with each build. This is a 4th generation version 2.0 pie. I will be the Chinese Steve Jobs of pizza.

Weird Sushi

Mark Lim - When the celestial bodies of boredom, the Food Network, and a fridge full of junk magically align it can produce a whole lot of weird.

So today, on my day off, I was watching Chopped on the Food Network and decided to build the weirdest snack I could from my fridge. I would like to introduce to you:

1) Bacon and String Cheese Sushi Rolls
2) Hot Dog and Chili Sushi Rolls
3) Hot Dog and String Cheese Sushi Rolls

The Bacon and String Cheese ones were ok and so was the hot dog but I think I totally missed the mark when I tried to add Hormel chili, lol.

Oh well, I guess I would have been chopped.

Be Fat! Be Happy!

Homemade Sushi and Tempura

Mark Lim - How dedicated I am to eating fatty hamburgers and writing reviews about them? So dedicated that I split my pants at Walmart today. -->

Yes, the fat has won and has destroyed my favorite pair of jeans. The worst part is that I'm at a stage in my life where I really don't care about myself and I debated if I should continue shopping with my new thigh vent instead of going home and changing.

Sanity was able to take control and I quickly went home to put on a pair of baggy loose fitting shorts.

The purpose of the outing, before my crotch exploded, was to surprise my wife with a special dinner. I've been trying to get more vegetables into my system and figured deep frying would give me the best odds of not throwing them back up.

I decided to pick up some zucchinis, string beans, and sweet potatoes to make vegetable tempura out of. I also saw some discount shrimp and figured I couldn't pass up $4 a pound.

It's pretty hard to get sushi grade fish in our town but I figured I could still make California Rolls and throw some shrimp tempura inside.

Walmart actually had a decent selection of international food and had everything I needed to make my surprise dinner.

Secret Dynamite Sauce - Mayonnaise mixed with Sriracha "Rooster" sauce

Next time I'll make a video of myself rolling the sushi. They're not perfect but they're edible. I'm still learning how to cook and trying to get it into my thick skull that measuring things isn't a waste of time. You really can't eyeball something if you have no clue what you are doing.

The wife loved it or at least was being nice. A win for me either way.

Be Fat! Be Happy!

It Has Come to This - Peanut Butter and Mayo Song

Mark - I've been very unhealthy and poor lately so I haven't been able to buy fancy burgers. I'm on a new P90x workout program cause my chins are starting to slap together but here's the kind of horrible meals I've been forced to eat while broke and fat.

Grilled Cheese and Bacon Breakfast Sandwich

Mark Lim - Normally I would just microwave a slice of cheese on a piece of white bread for breakfast but lately I've had the urge to actually cook using fire and oil.

I'm still eating on a budget so I've been trying to make simple meals with the cheapest fattiest ingredients I can find.

I've never made this before but here's my Grilled Cheese and Bacon Breakfast Sandwich:

Deep frying fatty fat fat cheap bacon and coating bread with margarine

Cheesing up some of that crispy burnt bacon so it melts all over the buttery bread

Breakfast and a Heart Attack!

Enjoying my sandwich with my bed head

My nightly cravings are usually filled with Mac and Cheese and Top Ramen. I actually tried to crack an egg into a bowl of noodles and it just made the whole soup yellow. Yuck.

Mac and Cheese 78 Cents at Walmart

Another day another unhealthy meal

Yes, I miss real food. I've been dying to eat something good for a long time. Hopefully I make some good sales this week to feed my blog!

Be Fat! Be Happy!

Home Cooked Food

Mark Lim - This is the first meal I cooked in our brand new house. I'm not a very good cook but I wanted to make Lauren dinner since she worked all evening and came home at 1am.

I didn't know how much spaghetti to cook so I used the whole bag, and I almost used two which probably could have serve 12 people.

I also made some sort of cheese bread with bacon which turned out ok.

Anyway, here are the pictures:

Working 4 burners. I smell fire.

Hey! I made bacon!

Food!
Cheesy Bacon Bread

I couldn't find any forks while unpacking so we had to use chopsticks

I promise to get back to eating fatty burgers once we're settled into the new house and I have a little extra money. For now I foresee a lot of Top Ramen and cereal for dinner :) Maybe I'll jazz them up with some bacon.

Here's my dog William choosing what sauce I should use. (I used both because I was craving tomatoes)

Be Fat! Be happy!

Homemade: Steak and Mushrooms ($3.00)

Mark Lim - Fattening up for winter is harder and quite a bit more expensive than I thought so I've been buying discount meat and cooking it at home like people did in the Depression. Mmm... horse...

I never seem to get it to cook right and probably have some sort of worm living in my stomach because of undercooked meat.

I've also decided to grow a beard as a social experiment to see if they still card me when I go watch a rated R movie.

I've gotten to the point where I'm so sick of steak that I make that "bleuhhh" sound whenever I smell meat cooking.

No one ever taught me how to cook so I've kind of just been experimenting all my life. There have been a few grease fires and second degree burns but I think I'm getting better.

I'll probably be dinning out more the next couple weeks just for my own safety. I've been so out of it lately but I'm coming back around so I'll be able to update this blog. I hope everyone is doing well :)

Sarah's Graduation Party Food (Free!)

Food always tastes better when it's homemade and free unless it's my world famous microwaved quesadillas made with Kraft Singles that everyone always makes fun of me for. Ok, so I'm no chef but my Uncle Dave and Aunt Debbie are. This weekend we celebrated my little cousin Sarah's high school graduation with a party and lots and lots of home cooked food.

My cousin Sarah and the cake

Uncle Dave Mixing the Fettuccine

BBQ Chicken for the Fettuccine

The Homemade Sausage and Peppers Pizza

The first of many of my trips to the counter of food

I kind of just mixed everything together since it all goes to the same place, right? Oh, my Aunt Debbie makes the best Chinese Chicken Salad.

I always enjoy getting together with my alternative universe Mexican family because they're the ones that took care of me and fed me growing up. I've had plenty of dinners with people I couldn't stand and I can tell you that food always tastes better when you're with people you like.

Taste ------------- (10) Friends and Family are the best side dishes
Presentation ---- (10) Great but Uncle Dave needs central air. It gets hot.
Price ------------- (10) The only way it'd be better is if they'd paid me to eat.
Availability ------ (2) I'll have to wait till the next big event.
Quantity --------- (10) Unlimited always has its consequences
Satisfaction ----- (10) Happy as a clam. I never understood that saying.

I stuffed myself to the point of no return because I knew all I had waiting for me at the apartment was shredded wheat and 2 frozen burger patties. I slept good that night.