Category Archives: Food

Healthy Livin’: Squash Time

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Hey Sudden Bachelors, fall is here so lets get cooking with some healthy fall favorites. Both of these recipes will keep you energized for workouts, and your significant other warm during those crisp fall nights. They are all healthy and easy to prepare. You can make both of these dishes in advance so it gives you plenty of time to hit the gym or do something good for yourself.

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

Ingredients:

1 Batch of Already Cut Butternut Squash (or half of a whole one)

3 Honeycrisp Apples (skin removed and sliced)

1 Small Onion Chopped

1 Container of Low Sodium Vegetable stock (organic)

Dash of Thyme

Dash of Black Pepper

1 Tbsp Olive Oil

1 Small Container of Fage 0% Yogurt

Preheat Oven to 400 degrees. On a baking sheet place your squash, apples, and onions. Coat everything with the thyme, olive oil, and pepper. Place into the oven for about 30 minutes. In a pot place your vegetable stock and heat, once heated thru turn on low and simmer till vegetables are done. Take your vegetables/fruit from the oven place it in the pot of vegetable stock. Let it come to a boil for about 5 minutes so that everything is soft. Take a blender, food processor or emulsion blender and whip everything together. Remove from heat for and let it cool a bit before you place your yogurt. Once cooled add the yogurt and some more pepper to taste whip or stir on last time. Heat again and serve.

Tips:
I loved the way this came out. It sounds weird but it is so clean tasting and healthy that you can eat 2 bowls and not have all that salt and crazy spices. Plus you get added fiber from the apples, and protein from the yogurt. I used yogurt so that I can get a creamy texture without the fat.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Ingredients:

3 Acorn Squash (or use however many you are serving)

1 package of Sweet Turkey Sausage links (casing removed)

1/2 tsp Minced Garlic

1/2 tsp Olive Oil

1/2 tsp Pesto

4 Vine Tomatoes (chopped)

1 cup Chopped Spinach

3 Tbsp cooked Quinoa

3-4 Tbsp Marinara Sauce

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Take you acorn squash and slice the tops off, scooping out the seeds and taking the stringy flesh out. Place squash in the microwave for 3 minutes till slightly soft. Remove and let sit to the side to cool. Now take your saute pan and place your olive oil, garlic and sausage. Let the sausage cook till no longer pink. Put your pesto, spinach, quinoa, chopped tomatoes, and marinara to the mixture and stir together over medium heat. Let it blend together for about 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat and place your squash on a spray baking tray, scoop your mixture into the squash and place in the oven for about 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve.

Tips: I served this with a roasted vegetable salad. It was really good and yes you can eat the skin. Make sure the squash is really soft, so that it is easy to eat with a spoon or fork. This is a great complete meal. You get protein, complete grain, and vegetable. Easy to serve for large party or group.

Healthy Livin’: Grilled Stuffed Turkey Burgers

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Hey Sudden Bachelors, its Labor Day weekend and all the big Football games are starting.  Get on the healthy track and have some food the girls will eat. Remember we want them to want to watch the games. These burgers are super simple and really healthy, even you won’t know the difference. So give it a try with a simple salad and Light Beer!

Grilled Stuffed Turkey Burgers

Ingredients:

1 Package of Ground Turkey Meat

1 Cup Marinara Sauce

Ms. Dash Tomato Basil Garlic Seasoning

Squirt of Pesto from a tube

1 tsp grated Parmesan Cheese

1 bag Fresh Baby Spinach

Sliced Low Fat Mozzarella

1 Small Jar Roasted Red Pepper (Drained)

Heat your grill or skillet to medium heat. In a bowl combine your ground turkey, marinara, seasoning, pesto, and grated cheese. Make a total of 8 patties. What you are going to do is place on small patty on top of the other and seal it shut. Before you top the burger place a few pieces of spinach, your sliced mozzarella and a roasted pepper. Then seal the burger by placing on top of the other and then on the grill. Repeat this pattern for all your burgers and enjoy.

Chef Sara Moulton & Her “Fried” Catfish BLTs

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One of the major stumbling blocks for many Sudden Bachelors is food (lack of, preparation, etc). While we’ve delivered a few somewhat edible recipes, most of you will default back to pizza. So SBs, in an effort to help bring some new flavor to your lives, we are very excited to have our friend Celebrity Chef Sara Moulton check in and hand pick one of her recipes from her new book “Sara Moulton’s Everyday Family Dinners” (Simon and Schuster, 2010) specifically for you Sudden Bachelors. If you want more Sara, be sure to check her out on The Cooking Channel and Good Morning America. Now – over to Chef Sara Moulton:

“Fried” Catfish BLTs

This is a good recipe for a Sudden Bachelor because:
A. It is not something alien – meaning it is simply a take on a BLT and
B. It is a perfect recipe for a novice and
C. It is healthy and filling, basically enough for dinner with just a simple side dish such as cole slaw

The Husband tends to scorn the BLT as an “air sandwich.”  Of course it’s delicious – nobody ever goes far wrong as long as bacon’s involved – but it’s hardly what you’d call filling.  That’s why I’ve bulked up the traditional BLT with some “fried” fish.  (Actually, the fish is breaded and sautéed, which gives it that fried crunch without all the oil.)  I’ve also tricked up the standard-issue mayo with some fresh basil and a little lemon zest.  The result is a sandwich buff enough to kick sand in the face of the skinny little BLT.  Indeed, it is a sandwich worthy of dinner entrée status.

Continue reading →

Thanksgiving: Sudden Bachelor Style

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divorce-and-thanksgiving

For many Sudden Bachelors, the end of the year holidays can be an especially trying time. Take Thanksgiving for instance. Last year, you might have had a grand meal with your family that your wife or girlfriend cooked with love, a meal fit for a king. Well, this year, the queen is gone and you are left on your own – just you and your TV. While it is possible that some of you might spend the day heating up a Swanson’s turkey TV dinner while watching a Survivor marathon, you can make your first Sudden Bachelor Thanksgiving a memorable one. Forget the TV dinner – how about some deep fried turkey? Lets face it, guys like fried food and your ex probably told you not to eat much of it. Well, now it’s your turn. Go to the grocery store, buy a turkey along with the best beer available and then get down to business. How does one fry a turkey? There are all types of tutorials on youutbe – and most involve a deep fryer gizmo like the one below:

deep-fried-turkey

While this could be a lot of backyard fun, you also run the risk of burning your house down (more on that later). Upon further investigation, we stumbled upon a post by the folks at The Bachelor Guy called “Mmmm… Deep Fried Turkey – Butterball Indoor Electric Turkey Fryer.” Perfect! A safe indoor way to deep fry that turkey!

butterballturkeyfryer

Butterball has teamed up with Masterbuilt to give us this electric countertop fryer, capable of taking up to a 14-pound turkey and cooking it to deep fried perfection in about 4 minutes per pound. For you math whizzes, that means what used to take all day, can be achieved in just under an hour.

All you need to do is pour about two gallons of your favorite cooking oil into the porcelain-lined inner pot, turn the adjustable thermostat control to the desired temp, and let the oil heat up. Then take your fully thawed bird (and I can’t stress “fully thawed” enough… you don’t want to experience what happens when ice hits hot oil), season it to taste, put it in the fryer basket, and slowly lower it into the oil. The built-in timer let’s you know when it’s time to pull it out and drain it.

For $145, looks like a winner. Not only will you have a tasty Thanksgiving, but you’ll have plenty of fried turkey left over for the week ahead (plus you can brag to your ex that you fried a turkey). A word of caution: If you decided to go the old school route of frying a turkey, here’s how NOT to do it:

Gobble Gobble

Mail-Order Food That Tastes Good

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As you can see, food is a reoccurring topic here at Sudden Bachelor. We are always looking to help our SBs eat well. So, for those of you who are taking a little longer to familiarize yourself with the kitchen, the good folks at Details.com posted a nice piece of info called  “The Most Delicious Mail-Order Food.”  While we encourage plenty of pizza eating, check out their recommendations and live a little. If you feel a serious depression coming on, plan ahead. Forgo Dominos and have some Wet and Dry Ribs from Corky’s Ribs & BBQ in Memphis (pictured above) sent to you via Fed-ex. It will make the beer taste better….

Breakfast In Bed: Huevos Rancheros

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OK Sudden Bachelors. Most of you don’t know how to cook (and most probably don’t know how to make a relationship last – but that’s another topic). Not only do you now need to know how to cook for yourself (see our dumb guy recipes), but as you enter the dating world again – cooking for a woman (and having it taste good) is a great way to earn cool points. Want to be the ultimate catch? Well, if you are lucky enough to be waking up next to someone special – make her breakfast in bed.  We promise, you’ll definitely get that 2nd date!

Now, obviously you want the food to taste good, but presentation is also important. Here’s an easy recipie for Huevos Rancheros – a delicious breakfast that looks good too!

Ingredients:

Eggs
Tortillas (corn)
Grape Seed or Olive Oil
Salsa
Cotija Cheese (google it)
Refried Beans (canned is fine)
Jalapeño Peppers
1 Avocado

Directions:

In a small frying pan, pour in some Olive Oil, heat the pan and then put a tortilla in and lighly fry each side until crisp. Do this for several tortillas, then put aside on a plate.

In a small sauce pan, pour in some salsa and heat slowly.

In a small sauce pan, pour in the can of refried beans and heat slowly.

Chop up a Jalapeño Pepper to use as garnish

Crumble up some Cotija Cheese to use on top of the eggs and beans.

Take your frying pan, pour in some more oil – crack 2 eggs in the pan and fry (ask her how she likes her eggs – over easy, well done, etc)

Once eggs are fried, take the out of the pan and place on top of 2 fried tortillas and lightly salt.

Pour warm salsa over the eggs and tortillas, scoop warm beans on the plate next to the eggs, sprinkle the crumbled Cotija cheese over the salsa and beans, top with a few Jalapeño slices for garnish.

Cut avocado in half, then scoop out a half with a spoon, slice and place on plate.

You know have some pretty damn good Huevos Rancheros.

If you want to really go the extra mile, brew some fresh coffee and squeeze some fresh juice.

Put it all on a tray and bring it to the bed for your lady friend to enjoy.

huevos

Mac & Cheese Wars

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sexymac

OK Sudden Bachelors, Sadie here. That recent recipe post for Kraft Mac n Cheese? Lose it. At least if you are making it for someone of the opposite sex. It’s gross! You are NOT going to impress a date with that 99 cent carb feast known as Kraft. If you want to sit in your kitchen alone like a loser eating boxed mac n cheese go for it. If you want to actually have a life, even you can manage this much better alternative.

OK, get an 8 cup casserole dish. Spray it with Pam.

1 pkg. (8 oz) elbow macaroni

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup

3 cups grated cheddar cheese

1 large can of Durkee onion rings

1 1/4 cups milk

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

Can use whole wheat pasta in this recipe which impresses women who care about what they weigh!!! and good for you guys too! we’re all getting old here……

Boil macaroni in water for 10 minutes; drain. Mix with soup, milk, Worcestershire sauce and pepper; stir until well blended; fold in cheese. Layer half the mixture into an 8-cup casserole; top with half of onion rings. Repeat and top with remaining onion rings.

Bake: 375 deg. for 30 minutes, or until bubby hot.

OK and I know you lame-O guys can handle throwing together a green salad of some sort here so there’s something healthy in the meal. If you cannot, then get your ass over to Whole Foods and buy one already made. While macaroni and cheese is baking, prepare this simple dessert that you certainly can handle.

While you’re at Whole Foods purchase one already made graham cracker crust, 2 containers of non-fat frozen yogurt (like raspberry or lemon or your fav flavor), and lastly one container of Cool Whip.

Fold the two containers of yogurt together with the Cool Whip. Then put into graham cracker crust. Refrigerate until firm. Again, women will be impressed with the non-fat yogurt dessert…..

Lastly purchase a very nice bottle of your favorite red wine. Cause we women really love red wine. This is an evening guaranteed for success. Unless of course you’re totally a loser in which case back to your cave!….

For more of Sadie’s recipes, click here.

Mac and Cheese and… ANYTHING

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mac-with-da-cheese

OK SBs- I’m writing at about 11 on a Sunday. A witching hour of sorts for SBs, since many of you are waking up just about now feeling like- your head was crushed in a giant nutcracker? And you’re wondering- WTF did I do last night with- OMG- no, not… And yet, there she is, lying next to you snoring like a buzz saw, the woman you met- where? And how? Did you use…?

OK let’s set aside those questions and think about dinner tonight. Albeit you won’t be able to think about food til like 9 at night if at all. Like prior recipes, this will help separate SBs into the categories of food slobs and food snobs. We aim to provide advice and assistance to both, but since your humble correspondence falls into the first category, I will need to give you what I know about cooking. Which is NEXT TO NOTHING! If you on the other hand are in the food snob category- we recommend you look away, the following scenes may contain violence to your delicate sensibilities.

So- IF you’re in the food slob category, AND you don’t want to or can’t afford to go out for dinner every night, AND you refuse to eat at Mickey D’s every night (not that that’s a bad thing…): here’s a food slob recipe for you:

Mac and Cheese and… ANYTHING

macncheez

Ingredients:

  • Kraft Mac and Cheese (or some other kind but Kraft is like $1.00 and practically invented the mass market category! And your kids will probably like it if you are nuts enough to make dinner for them…)
  • Olive oil
  • Something else

Directions:

  • Follow instructions on the box for the mac and cheese (even a monkey could do it, hence me…).
  • While the mac is boiling, you are first nuking something else in the microwave, a vegetable is good, it can be almost anything. I find corn to be a good neutral veggie for insertion in mac n cheese. Or Brussels sprouts (if you go in for that sort of thing). Or cauliflower or shrooms. First you nuke it, then you saute it in olive oil to avoid sogginess and add a little- oomph.
  • B.t.w. ground beef works well too, ideally with one other ingredient like- again, shrooms or something.
  • When the mac is ready, remember to put the cheese powder on the mac RIGHT AFTER you take it out of the pot. And leave a little water on the mac to help melt the cheese. Stir thoroughly before adding a little milk (if you’re not lactose intolerant, dispensable if you are). The finer points of making boxed mac and cheese from someone with experience!
  • Once the mac is enbowled (should there be an expression for ‘bowling’ something like mac? No? OK then once it’s in its bowl, whatever: Add the other ingredient(s), plate it, serve it, gobble it down like the pigs we all are…
  • And you might want to think about a salad on the side or something.

Et voila- cheap, cheerful, arguably bad for you but isn’t everything and if you do get those extra five years of life from 90 to 95 from being a f-ing vegan, is it REALLY worth it, since you will be a near-vegetable anyway- I mean really what is the quality of life those extra years you get by painstakingly spending like years of your life (cumulatively) sorting out your food situation and annoying everyone you know to be a vegan??? Just do what I do and take anti-cholesterol meds and delude yourself that that’s enough…. OK I will shut up now.

Canned Chili With Hot Dogs

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You never were much of a cook.  Actually delete the “much of”.  You have no clue what to do in a kitchen aside from drying dishes or waiting for your wife or girlfriend or significant other to finish dinner.  And now- after you have exhausted your ability to tolerate pizza and Chinese  every day for the initial 6 years of SB-hood (OK 6 months, maybe even weeks), you need to head in there.  You are going in, in to the kitchen, to make something.  This is part of regaining a shred of the self-respect you lost in the divorce along with all your money, the house, the wife, even the dog.  She didn’t even LIKE the dog.  She did that just for spite.  But you are going to rise above it, you are going to take command of this part of your life and be willing to eat like the slob you were in college.  Here’s your first recipe.

CANNED CHILI WITH HOT DOGS

Ingredients:

  • 1 can chili.  Or 2 or 3 if your kids are with you, or your girlfriend, or whatever.
  • 1 pack Hebrew National hot dogs.  Not because I’m Jewish.  But because they’re probably the most sanitary, I mean, if you’re reduced to eating hot dogs, they might as well be blessed by a Rabbi.
  • 1 fresh vegetable of some kind according to taste.  Green pepper.  Carrots.  Something, from the produce shelves, not from a can.  Why?  Because that way you add a fresh ingredient and it almost seems like you’re not the subhuman lazy slob that you actually are, making chili out of cans for your kids or your girlfriend or whatever.  The voice in my head?  That’s my ex-wife’s voice, and she’s saying, SAUTE IT!  So sauté the vegetable, in olive oil, before you put it in the chili.   That’s right, olive oil.  You owe yourself at least that much, I don’t care how broke you are.  If I can use it you can.  It’s so much better than cooking oil which still looks to me like it should go in a car.  Aren’t there cars?  That are powered by cooking oil?  Anyway.

Directions:

  • Open the can.  Scrape the orangy fat stuff OFF the chili and throw it away.  That stuff is disgusting, I don’t care what anyone says.
  • Place chili in a pan.  Clean the pan before you do that.
  • Turn on the burner (or if you’re in severely reduced circumstances or are a really lazy slob, the microwave).
  • Cut up hot dogs into ¼ to ½ inch slices.
  • Put the hot dogs in the chili.  Stir.
  • Cut up the pepper, or carrots, or whatever vegetable
  • Put the vegetable in the chili.  Stir.
  • Or actually, cut up everything first, before you start cooking the chili, and then put it in after you start cooking the chili.
  • Stir
  • Try not to burn the pan beyond recognition
  • Take the stuff out, heap it on a plate, and cry.  Just a little.  Because you have now come full circle to the kind of cuisine you ate in that apartment off campus with the piled up pizza boxes containing fossilized pizza crust and the Chinese food cartons with things living in them and laundry heaped on the floor waiting for the next vacation to take it home to mom.  Reduced to this.  But no self pity!  Just eat it, you actually like it and, the lemonade out of lemons here is your wife is not there to tell you how utterly disgusting it and you are.