Gen's damned fine yam fries

Recipe for Yam Fries (made from several recipes I found online, using the least amount of ingredients and some substitutions for what I had in my cupboards)


Ingredients:
2 huge honkin' yams (I had no idea yams were that big)
PAM
olive oil
rock hard brown sugar

1. Peel the huge yams, taking care *not* to drop one of them in the sink full of soaking dishes from previous meals
2. Rinse the soap off the yams after dropping them in the sink anyway
3. Cut the yams in half
4. Rinse the dirt from the floor off the yams after they go skidding out of control while you're trying to chop them in half (remember - these are HUGE yams)
5. Cut them so they vaguely resemble fries... very vaguely
6. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
7. Spray 2 cookie sheets with PAM
8. Lay the cut yam fries on the cookie sheets so they're not touching. Rinse off the ones you drop on the floor while doing this. Abandon the ones the kitten gets and hope that yams agree with kitten digestive systems.
9. Lightly coat the yam fries with olive oil
10. Swear profusely when the olive oil comes out much faster than you though. Mop up the excess with paper towel
11. Using the butt of your sharp knife (to keep the dishes to a minimum) try to pound the brown sugar back into granular form. Lightly coat the yam fries with sugar.
12. Lightly coat them with sugar again... can't have too much sugar!
13. Put the cookie sheets in the oven for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, take them out, flip them, and put them back in for another 10 minutes. Try not to drop them when the heat from the oven fogs up your glasses
14. Eat up! Just try not to eat them all at once. Remember how *huge* those yams were before you cut them and control yourself
15. Save the leftovers for lunch tomorrow... mmmm....

Cooking with Babel Fish

I found a Dutch food store, and went to visit it on Friday. I picked up some tasty Dutch treats, and two packages of Bahmi Goreng mix.



I love Bahmi Goreng - it's Indonesian food, but if you ask anyone in Holland, they consider it authentic Dutch food (which amuses me). It can be very spicy, but I choose to make it much, much milder.

Anyway, I flipped over the package and realized all the instructions on how to prepare this meal are in Dutch. This isn't too big a problem for me, as I can always type up the directions and email them to my Dad, but I don't want to bother him if I can figure it out myself.

Enter Babel Fish.

I typed in the Dutch instructions as they are written on the package, and got some interesting results. This is how you prepare Bahmi Goreng, according to the literal internet translator:

INGREDIENTS

250 grammes mie

250 grammes ongezouten pig flesh (“bacon??”)

50 grammes ham in cubes

300 grammes vegetable to choice

sambal oelek or sambal tjampoer

2 eetlepels conimex wok oil

DIRECTIONS

- cook the mie according to the instructions for use

- however, the contents of this small pocket in 100 ml boiling water (minimum 10 minutes)

- barge it cut in dobbelsteentjes flesh brown in the wok oil.

- joint the welled mix drill bahmi goreng with 1 tea spoon sambal

- joint the fresh vegetables and back these 2 minutes

- joint finally ham and the cooked mie and warmly whole under constant omscheppen well

SUGGESTIONS

- barge a omelette and serves the bahmi with omeletreepjes and peanut sauce

- serve with relish and kroepoek

Mmmm... tasty!

If I say it's easy, you know it's gotta be easy!

I had an interesting recipe a few days ago, found in my Betty Crocker cookbook (yes, I own a cookbook - more than one, actually) in the 20 Minutes Or Less section (the only section I use)

Just thought I'd share. It may sound kinda gross when you read it, and it definitely looks gross when you're making it, but it tastes really good!

Asian Chicken Roll-Ups (not to be confused with fruit roll-ups, which are entirely different)

2 tablespoons crunchy peanut butter
2 tablespoons teriyaki baste and glaze (you can substitute stir-fry sauce for this, which is what I did)
1 tablespoon packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon hot water
1 teaspoon sesame oil or vegetable oil (I used canola because it was the only thing I had. Maybe using the proper oil will make it taste even better!)
4 flour tortillas (8 to 10 inches)
8 slices cooked chicken deli breast
1 1/2 cups shredded iceburg lettuce
1 1/2 cups shredded carrots (you can use preshredded lettuce and carrots. I used broccoli slaw)
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1. In small bowl, beat peanut butter, teriyaki/stir-fry sauce, brown sugar, water, and oil with wire whisk until smooth.

2. Spread about 2 tablespoons peanut butter mixture over each tortilla. Top each with 2 slices chicken, about 1/3 cup lettuce, about 1/3 cup carrots and 2 tablespoons cilantro. Roll up tortillas.



And that's all there is to it! Easy, tasty, and very quick!
If you don't own a dishwasher, make sure you soak the bowl that had the peanut butter in it right away. That stuff hardens like concrete!