Isopod Butter Cookies

You’ll love these isopod butter cookies. Sweet, savory and buttery. Warm out of the oven, you won’t be able to stop eating them. I’m hooked!

Original recipe makes 3 dozen

• 1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup organic isopods

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease cookie sheets.
2. Mix together all ingredients until well-blended. Isopods may be live for freshness, but it is not necessary. If you do use live isopods, remember to move quickly, because they will too.
3. Roll 2-inch sized pieces of dough into balls and place on cookie sheet. Flatten each with the back of a fork.
4. Bake 13 to 15 minutes until light brown. Let cool on wire rack.

Giant Isopod Recipes

Until now, my isopod recipes have all been using Armadillidium since that is what was easiest for me to start breeding. I would like to start working with Bathynomus, in particular Giant Isopods. I’m starting to make preparations to acquire a stable colony and set up the space to breed them.

My current isopod tanks (Armadillidium vulgare) have been successful for 8 months. I’ve had some good population growth, despite some mistakes, mishaps, and negligence. I can say that they eat like nobody’s business, but I’m starting to see isopod tastes. I’ll shred some carrots for them and they just swarm like locusts. And yet they can be finicky eaters in some cases. I’ve left green onions until they decompose and the isopods will still not eat them. It’s just so fascinating to me.

I’m excited. Giant isopods and giant isopod recipes coming soon!

Pickled Ginger (and Ginger Kombucha)

Pickled Ginger and Ginger Kombucha

Pickled Ginger

Ginger is so good for you, and it’s really easy to pickle it at home. I like eating it with chopsticks straight out of the jar until my face burns.

Ingredients:

• Ginger, peeled and shredded with a peeler
• Vinegar
• Sugar

Directions:

• Shred the ginger and put into a jar.
• add vinegar to the top of the ginger
• add a few tsp sugar
• put lid on jar and swirl until the sugar is evenly mixed
• place in refrigerator and is ready within days

It won’t look too much like the ginger, or “gari”, you get at sushi restaurants, because most gari has a coloring to make it more of the pinkish color.

Ginger Kombucha

While I’m at it, I like to squeeze some shredded ginger into kombucha. Do not shake to mix the ginger in. Lightly swirl with chopstick or swirling stick so that kombucha sediment is not disturbed. I wasn’t too keen on kombucha until I made ginger kombucha. Now I’m a ginger kombucha fiend!

Fried Peanut Butter Tacos

mmm.. hot pb tacos. If only I had pbr to go with them.

I do love me some fried peanut butter tacos. Check it out.

Ingredients:

1. 2 Tortilla
2. 2 heaping tsp Peanut Butter
3. Splash of Oil

Directions:

• Warm up oil in a pan, add tortilla and flip them around so they get evenly oiled and cooked.
• Once tortillas are are beginning to brown, fold them while adding peanut butter with a butter knife.
• Continue to cook folded tortillas until crispy and/or until peanut butter gets runny

Chocolate and Cheese Sandwich

Sometimes I make this for a yummy meal. Its a chocolate and cheese sandwich.

Ingredient:

• Bun, roll, or bread style you like
• Chocolate
• Cheese

Cook it in toaster oven at 375 degrees until cheese and chocolate melt.

Enjoy your chocolate and cheese sandwich! Don’t eat too many, you’ll get stomach ache.

Chocolate and Beer

Chocolate and beer

One of my favorite dishes is Chocolate and Beer. It’s just a really easy dinner to make, plus it tastes good too.

Here I used a chocolate cupcake and free beer.

Ingredients:

• Chocolate
• Beer

Add as much chocolate and/or beer as needed, and you’re done, dinner is served, and clean up is simple. Makes a good breakfast too!

Experimental Fried Liver Nuggets

My experimental cooking has gone to new extremes! I made Experimental Fried Liver! 🙂 I served it with onions.

Ingredient:

• 1 lb beef liver, cut up or sliced style
• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 onion (or 2 if you like onions!)
• 1/2 cup butter (I substitute some with olive oil, but that’s just me.)
• pepper, salt, chili powder, garlic powder

Directions:

1. Rinse liver. Put in a shallow dish. Add milk over liver until its just submerged. Let it soak it in milk for a while.
2. Cut up your onions. Melt 1/4 cup of butter in a pan. Fry your onions until they are golden brown. Put the onions aside.
3. Melt the other 1/2 cup butter in a pan. Mix your flour and seasonings and put in wide bowl or plate. Remove liver from milk, allowing to milk to drain. Roll the liver in the flour. (I messed up my slices through the milk and flour process, which is how they became nuggets.) Add to the pan. Fry the liver until it comes a nice deep brown color.
4. Enjoy your fried liver and onions! 🙂

Check out my new isopod recipe!

Isopods as Sustainable Food

I’m enjoying this isopod recipe. I hope you do too!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup large isopods
• 1 – 2 green onions, as desired
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Pepper to taste
• oil
• 4 cups cold cooked rice
• 1 – 2 tablespoons light soy sauce or isopod juice, as desired

Preparation:

Wash the isopods. Wash and finely chop the green onion. Lightly beat the eggs with the salt and pepper.

Heat a wok or frying pan and add 2 tablespoons oil. When the oil is hot, add the eggs, and stir in the isopods.

Next, stir-fry the rice for a few minutes, adding soy sauce or isopod juice as desired.

When the rice is heated through, add the isopods and eggs back into the pan. Mix thoroughly. Stir in the green onion. Serve hot.

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Beet Pickled Eggs with Star Anise and Cardamom

Since I’m known in my family for enjoying particularly strange food, my sister, Joy (who now also has a recipe blog – http://joyiscooking.wordpress.com/) made me Beet Pickled Eggs for my birthday. Now I’ve eaten a lot of things that most wouldn’t touch, including things like natto, kani miso (crab brains), and durian, but these beet pickled eggs are definitely hella weird. This is the recipe she used:

Ingredients

1 beet, peeled and roughly chopped into 1 to 2-inch sized pieces, cooked*
1 cup beet juice*
1 cup cider vinegar
1/4 onion, sliced
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 cardamom pods
1 star anise
6 hard cooked eggs, peeled

*Simmer the chopped beets in a cup of water, covered, until tender, 30-40 minutes, or used canned beets. Use the beet juice from the cooking water, or the juice from canned beets.

1.  Peel the eggs and place in the bottom of a clean glass jar, quart sized.

2.  In a medium saucepan, add the vinegar, water (or beet juice if using), onion. sugar, and spices. Bring to a boil and cook, uncovered, until the sugar has dissolved and the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.

3.  Add the beets, beet juice, and vinegar onion mixture to the eggs in the jar, covering the eggs completely.

The pickled eggs will be ready to eat after a few days. The longer the eggs sit in the jar, the more the pickling juice will penetrate the eggs. I let mine sit almost two weeks.

Besides being strange smelling, looking, and tasting, the beet pickled eggs affected me quite explosively the next day. I don’t know that I will be eating them again soon. 🙂
Good luck!

The Tale of the Really Weird Onion

I was cutting up an onion earlier and remembered a story from years ago that I wanted to share.  A friend was somewhat new to cooking and was trying out a new recipe that called for 1 white onion.  She goes to the store, picks up all the ingredients, comes home, and cooks the dish. Everything seems to go fine, the dish tasted pretty good, although she notices that that was one potent onion! Like don’t-breathe-on-other-people potent. Like seeping-from-your-pores potent. Like everyone-can-smell-you-a-mile-away potent. She also noted that the onion was peculiar in the sense that it was made up of these numerous sections that she had to separate and cut up individually. Everyone had a good laugh once we figured out that it was in fact a whole head of garlic.