Image Credit: Yummly.

To get an idea of how impressive the food should be, football announcer John Madden brought back the popularity of the Turducken during the Thanksgiving Day game. For those of you who don’t know, the Turducken is a de-boned chicken, stuffed into a de-boned duck which is then placed inside a de-boned turkey and then cooked, sometimes stuffing or sausage meat is used to fill the cavities not taken up by poultry. Sounds delicious, I know. If you could find a way to get beef in there then it would be my idea of heaven, but that’s was just for the Thanksgiving game!

Image credit Wikipedia.

Sorry to any vegetarian readers, but I’m allergic to fruits and veg (seriously) so meat has become my best friend. I’m getting a little off topic. The Superbowl spread has to be awesome and that’s what I’m here to help you with today! This culinary creation is inspired by a dish from Japan where you can actually order it from Pizza Hut! I have no idea why this was never made on Iron Chef, but ladies and the two or three gentleman who read this blog, I give you…THE PIGS IN A BLANKET PIZZA!!!! *choir of angels*

As you can see it’s a pizza, but the crust is made up of pigs in a blanket!!! Brilliant!!! I’m gonna guide you through making this, but I would like to start by saying that if I could have gone to shops and bought crescent dough for the pigs in a blanket, I would have. It tastes so much better, but it’s pretty hard to make and you can’t buy it in stores here. The reason I didn’t use puff pastry is because I takes about 30 minutes to bake and the pizza takes 15, so it would burn.

You will need:

• Flour
• Oregano
• Salt (I use garlic salt because we love garlic)
• Sugar
• Dry yeast
• Sausages
• Pineapple
• Ham
• Basil
• Tomato paste

Then REALLY start by combining 3 cups flour, 1 tsp oregano, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar and 3 tsp yeast. Yeast varies from type to type, so see how much you will need against how much flour you’re using and whether it needs to be dissolved in water first.

Mix everything up and then make a well in the middle and add 1 and a half cups warm water. Mix that up until it it makes a rough sticky dough.

Pull a stupid face because your hand looks like it’s mutating.

Pop the dough onto a well floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes. I like the folding technique. Once it’s come together in a nice ball, pop it into a well greased bowl and cover it with cling wrap. This needs to sit in a warm area to rise, I fill my sink with about 4 inches of fairly warm water and put the bowl in that. Let it rise for 30-45 minutes until it’s doubled in size.

Does it looks like this? If so, congrats, you didn’t kill the yeast!

At this point you can work out how many sausages you’re going to need.

Deflate the dough by dropping it onto a floury surface once again and then flatten it. At this point you need to work out how much dough is going to be your pizza base and how much is going to be for wrapping your sausages. I put two thirds to the dough and one third to the sausages. This gave me a medium crust and plenty for wrapping.

Roll out your sausage dough into a square (or if you’re an idiot like me then a circle for some reason) and then cut the dough into triangles. This is much easier if your dough is a square…roll your sausages up in a triangle of dough. If you REALLY like your guests then at this point you could also wrap the sausage in bacon and add a little cheese. Mmmmm heart attack-y!

Smooth your pizza dough to fit your pan and place the wrapped sausage around the outside. I used a little bit of water to help them stick.

For my sauce I use tomato paste and a sprinkling of dry basil.

This is going to be a Hawaiian creation, so I added ham and pineapple.

Add some cheese and it’s almost done! Stick it in a preheated fan forced oven at around 170c (330f) for 15 minutes

Done!!!

Just in time for some stupid eating poses!!!

Seriously, it tastes awesome. I meant to brush on an egg wash over the sausage dough, but I was REALLY hungry at this point. Eat the pizza part then dip the pig in a blanket into some ranch/BBQ/tomato sauce, you’re gonna love it! Yummy! Now sit back and enjoy the game. GO PATRIOTS!!!!

• 2 Timtams
• Blueberries
• Strawberries
• Thickened cream (heavy cream/whatever the type of cream you generally eat with cake is called in your country, something with at least 35%+ fat)
• Sprinkles
• Fruitcake (not really needed but I had some spare to use up)

Now I see a lot of people making these fancy looking desserts in fancy looking wine glasses etc. I love how pretty they look but I also hate eating out of them because it’s hard to get the last bits out and the ones we have are small compared to regular glasses so I say screw prettiness, go with the biggest cup you have >:D

Left: Very pretty. Right: Realistic of how much I want to eat chocolate.

So this is the simplest concept ever: layering!

Stick a spoon full of fruitcake in the glass and pour a spoon of cream on it. If you’re not using fruitcake you can substitute with regular sponge cake or more chocolate biscuits.

Add some blueberries and chopped strawberries.

Roughly chop the Timtams and add some.

More cream!

Continue layering deliciousness until you get to the top.

Lastly add the sprinkles and enjoy!

eat while watching crappy movies or playing video games.

Took around 5 min to make and as the cream melts into the Timtams it forms the most delicious mush in the universe. *craving again*

Food Friday is as healthy as ever ;) Next week I’m going to share my budget recipes, money is tight here at the moment so we’ve been cooking frugally. Sometimes the best comfort food recipes are the cheapest! ^_^

If you feel like it you can also add some cut up seaweed to the top as garnish, I like using those flavored pre-cut snack versions. Yummy and great to cool down in summer!

Next this is something James wanted to experiment which I found hilarious because he hates both seaweed and fried rice so I had to be guinea pig >_<

Basically it involves lef tover fried rice and again those flavored pre-cut seaweed snacks. I could eat so many of those *_*

So take a sheet and place a spoon full of rice on it, warm up in the microwave for a few seconds so the rice wets the seaweed enough to stick.

Fold it up into a little cone.

Repeat until you’re not hungry anymore. I wasn’t expecting to like these, sometimes James makes the weirdest food especially when he’s trying to make stuff I would eat. He can’t eat fruit or vegetables and I loooove veges so it’s always odd seeing creations made my someone who doesn’t eat that kind of food… like when Bender from Futurama was a chef XD I hope he doesn’t try cooking me a pony! *_*

Anyway long rambling aside it was actually pretty nice! I would probably be lazy next time and just eat it all with a spoon :D

I’ve been here a couple of times for yum cha and the food has been fairly average, this night we had a banquet instead and it was delicious, much better than the yum cha!

They do the BEST ice tea too, I always get strawberries and cream and it’s perfect for hot days.

Vanessa and Nikki being generally adorable.

The prices here are on the higher side of things but the atmosphere is nice so I would come here for a business lunch or if I had to take my parents out ^_^

Salt and pepper squid that was delicious!

Vanessa and I both have a love for vegetables, I couldn’t help but take this photo of her showing her true colours ;)

All in all it was a delicious dinner. Next time I’ll know to skip yum cha and go straight for the delicious tea and menu items!

On the way home James and I felt like something sweet so we stopped in at Harakuju Crepes… which is basically as the name indicates: Harajuku style crepes.

They do all the standards like strawberries and cream etc but they also do specialty crepes like cheesecake… which is literally a slice of cheesecake wrapped in the crepe with whipped cream, strawberries and sauce XD They also do savory versions but I’ve not tried any yet.

I tried out the new green tea flavour and it was very yummy. Best flavour ever: green tea crepe with strawberries, icecream and chocolate sauce inside. Very yummy dessert!

The last of my food related adventures for today was trying the new schnitzel place which just opened in the Melbourne Central food court.

I am a big fan of parmigana so I was very excited, probably slightly sadly so ;)

Schnitz kind of reminded me of Grill’d but for schnitzel. The prices were similar too, I went for the Swiss Schnitz roll which is a “Schnitzel of your choice plus Swiss cheese, avocado, semi-dried tomato, baby spinach & sweet chilli mayo.” That in a small combo with chips and a drink was $16.40 so more expensive than most of the other food court shops.

Overall I actually liked the chips better than I did the schnitzel roll. There was nothing particularly bad about it but it didn’t stand out as being awesome either so I can’t imagine myself craving it again enough to spend the money. I do still want to try their parmagana though!

The chips were actually really good though, they were seasoned with something yummy and they tasted almost like honey. Odd flavour to begin with but quite addictive!

So those were my food adventures for this week! Have you guys had anything good to eat this week? Anywhere you think I should try out? I’ve been eating out way too much lately, I’m guessing the next few weeks will be back to budget pasta at home to make up for it haha!

Whip it with an electric beater until it starts getting fluffy and the butter gets a little lighter.

Add in the egg…

And the food colouring…

Whip it again and until it’s fairly fluffy.

The recipe here differs depending on who you are…

If you are James then: take forever finding a clean bowl and sift all the flours together making sure to mix thoroughly. Add it to the cookie mixture and mix until it forms a dough.

If you are Violet: get bored looking for a clean bowl and start dumping the flours into the current bowl, sifting is for suckers and people who don’t want to get some crafting done tonight too! Finally dig out a sifter half way through because of the look James is giving you. Sift it all into the bowl and mix until it forms a dough.

Stick the bowl into the fridge for 20 min to cool, when you get it out again it should be easy to roll into small balls and put on a baking papered tray. I used the 20min to go to the 7/11 and procure chocolate, but you should use yours for preheating your oven t0 180 degrees Celsius :D

It probably wasn’t actually 20min because my dough was still fairly soft. I was impatient to finish and sit down after having walked most of the day so I ignored the instructions :D

Aaaanyway poke your thumb into the middle of them so it forms a little well for the jam.

Then spoon in some jam! This is my favorite one, it’s strawberry and rose petal.

I decorated mine with some of those little sugar balls that I can never remember the name of.

Finally, stick them in the oven for 15minutes or until they look cooked. Interestingly enough it wasn’t the lack of precise measuring that killed my cookies… it was my being distracted by watching Xmen First Class and forgetting they were in the oven hahaha!

So mine were a little crispier than usual but still very delicious!! Be careful if you put in too much jam they will boil over. Also be VERY careful when you take them out because the jam will be liquidy and very hot so don’t burn yourself!

Still very yummy but I’ve decided to leave these to James and perhaps retitle this section from Food Friday to “Violet Sucks At Baking… Mostly Out Of Laziness And Lack Of Allocating Enough Time”. Catchy yes? I can totally make a Violet Sucks At Baking icon ;)

If you’re curious, they did actually taste the same as James’ version just a little browner ;)

• Fancy glass to put it in (seriously this is what makes it that much more awesome)
• Strawberry milk, or strawberry Nesquick etc, something pink and milky :D
• Chocolate
• Cream to whip (or whipped cream in a can for extra lazy points)
• Something to make the bunny ears, I used thick shards of honey comb from a failed attempt to make crumbly honey comb
• Sprinkles

Break up some chocolate and microwave it 30 sec at a time until it’s all melty.

Mix it well so it’s consistant and easy to pour.

Get your fancy cup and dip the top in the melted chocolate.

Use a spoon to eat the rest of the chocolate drip more of the chocolate inside the glass. This makes the drink super yummy and chocolatey :D

Pour some of the pink milk into a mug and microwave it for 30sec at a time, stirring until it’s hot. Be careful not to boil it! Fancy people would probably do this on a stove… but it’s hard to be fancy when you’re about to sit down and watch Clueless and the original version of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie… and Can’t Hardly Wait :D :D :D

Pur the hot pink milk into the glass, the chocolate should have set a bit by now so it won’t just run everywhere. If you were smart you would have realised that it’s hard to pour from a mug into the tiny mouth of a mini wine glass so you would have transferred the milk into a milk jug BEFORE spilling it all over the counter… apparently I’m not that clever.

So now you’ve got something like this:

Fill the top with whipped cream. Don’t over fill it or you’ll make an even bigger mess on the bench >_<

Decoration time! Sprinkles first…

Then ears out of failed honey comb, you could use shortbread or flakes or anything vaguely pointy.

Use  a little bit of melted chocolate and a finger to draw the bunny’s eyes and nose. Mine looks kind of evil…

He’s probably mad because I spilled half of the melted whipped cream all over the counter too >_< This cooking thing is messy business!

Do you guys have special movie night food? We usually just pile as much junk food as possible on to the couch and go nuts :D I’m running out of 90′s comedies to watch though, do you guys have any recommendations?