In Which Amazon.com Ruins My Birthday

Following is the actual piece of feedback I just sent Amazon.


Complaint: in which Amazon.com ruined my birthday.


Forewarning: this will be a long ranting piece of feedback that covers many topics, but will hopefully ease the troubles of future customers.


Previously being quite a fan of Amazon, I requested an Amazon gift card for my birthday. Receiving one from my brother, I selected a few books to purchase. When I proceeded to checkout, I found myself looking at what I would describe as a "pre-populated summary page." I carefully checked the default payment method, as I have unwittingly in the past used the wrong card -- with no real consequences.


Being a Prime member, I waited the two days for the majority of my items to arrive. On the "estimated delivery date," I was quite excited: "BOOKSIES!" When my books failed to arrive, I went to my inbox to check the order details, only to finally realize... the books (all three shipments of them) had been sent to my parents' home address which is in a different state than the university I am currently attending.


Issue #1: streamlined checkout flow makes mistakes often inherent, and less obvious. Please make it simple to use the old flow where each item is hand-selected.


My first thought was "have the packages arrived yet?" I texted my hard-of-hearing mother, but received no response. My next thought was "this must happen fairly frequently, as far as ordering problems go; surely, Amazon will know what to do." I navigated onto the help page, but was unable to find any items on this particular problem. After that, I searched for several minutes on for the "Contact Us" link, which for some reason I always gloss over.


Issue #2: No help topics on "what to do if you've put in the wrong shipping address AFTER the order has shipped."
Issue #3: No "Contact Us" in the "normal" places (e.g. bottom of page, upper right corner), and existing button may be glossed over by some users looking for it in the rest of the page content.


After finally having an "ohhhhhhhhhh" moment, realizing the Contact Us button is right there on the page, I ended up choosing the chat functionality to resolve my problem. Enter Amazon Rep #1. Part of the reason customers choose to converse with a real human being is because they have a situation that needs to be resolved, but don't know how to begin solving it. This first rep kept asking me how she could help me, but I didn't know -- all I could do was keep explaining what I knew about the situation.


Issue #4: If no help page exists, have reps explain "here's something you can do" instead of repeatedly asking "what can I do for you?"


She ended up telling me that one part of my order was still in a packing center for UPS and that they could hold it there. This made some sense because one of my guesses of "what to do first" had been to have my parents refuse delivery. However, the rep's concurrent advice was that I should call UPS myself. Assuming Amazon's part in this process was done, I ended my chat with the first rep. Now, due to no fault of Amazon, UPS's customer service phone line is completely useless in cases like this. After being unable to speak to any person from UPS over the phone, I investigated their website a little further. I found an option to change the delivery address, but to do so, one has to be in physical possession of the package (to read a number off its label) or be the sender. Not being in physical possession of the package, I hoped Amazon could clarify further. Feeling more impatient, I opted to speak to a representative on the phone this time. Enter Amazon Rep #2. I began to re-explain my situation to the second rep when she informed me that Amazon couldn't help with the marketplace portion of my order and that I would have to contact the vendor, which, in fact, I had already done, but was less concerned about now, considering it wasn't being delivered TODAY. I tried to explain that I wanted to clarify if Amazon could, as the seller, redirect the UPS portion of my order, but the second rep informed me that "oh, that package has already been delivered; we can't help you with that." At that point, the inconsistencies combined with lack of any real instructions pushed me past a point of frustration I haven't experienced in years. I immediately hung up the phone, not wishing to deafen the rep with a string of incredibly loud obscenities.


Issue #5: get customer service reps on the same page; have a way to continue a particular issue and share notes between multiple representatives.


After fuming for a bit, I decided I needed to still clarify where my UPS package was and what still needed to be done. Knowing I was far too frustrated to speak with someone on the phone in a rational manner, I chose to use the chat functionality again. Enter Amazon Rep #3. Now having some more specific questions in mind, I was able to get some clarification. Indeed my package was still with UPS in another state. Apparently, it is possible to redirect packages en route within a certain city, but not outside of that (although, I have not independently verified this). Unfortunately, my failure to notice Amazon selected a shipping address I have used roughly ONCE in the past year means to receive my order at all (not in the two days for free that my prime membership gives me) the following needs to happen: potentially make my parents PAY shipping to return the items to Amazon, or wait for a few days before the mail service decides to return the items, wait while the package is transported back to Amazon, wait for Amazon to process the return and refund me, then PURCHASE THE ITEMS ALL OVER AGAIN -- which, mind you, I cannot do immediately and have the refund credit the money I spend this time because it was from a gift card which I fully used.


Issue #6 (aka the most important issue of all): for what I can only imagine is a relatively common mistake, DON'T SCREW OVER YOUR CUSTOMERS. There should be some sort of streamlined process to deal with this. Maybe a one-time return-shipping forgiveness policy. Maybe a way to "re-purchase" items without needing to wait on the refund (I'm sure Amazon can afford to loan me $30 while my refund gets processed.


I have been a big fan of Amazon for some time now. I literally told all my family members to give me Amazon gift cards for my birthday. If you guys hadn't been nice enough to give students free Amazon Prime this year (read: if I didn't get free 2-day shipping), I would literally stop using your service because of this incident.


I hope this piece of feedback actually inspires some changes.

Orange Dreamsicle Mini-Cupcakes

This ever-so-mildly alcoholic cupcakes made a great new year's eve snackable. The alcohol comes in the frosting, where it is not baked away, but is really a negligible amount comparable to using any-flavored extract in frosting. Regardless, it's fun and festive to say they're alcoholic for some occasions.

Williams-Sonoma's Vanilla Cupcakes recipe served as the base for these. I omit the vanilla in the recipe, and add 1 Tbsp of orange liqueur. I used Grand Marnier for the liqueur, but any orange-flavored liqueur should do. Using one tablespoon makes for subtle flavoring, which I wanted. In fact, with the frosting, it was hard to tell whether the cupcakes tasted like orange at all. You can increase the orange liquor in the batter if you like, but I wouldn't exceed 2 Tbsp. To bake, line or butter a 2-dozen mini-muffin pan, and fill each well/liner with 1 Tbsp of batter. Bake at the recipe's 350 degrees for 14 (not 18) minutes or until slightly golden and test clean.

For the frosting (which is the important part for these cupcakes), cream 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter with a stand or hand mixer. Add 1/2 cup of powdered sugar at a time until the frosting reaches your desired taste and consistency (1-3 cups), adding a splash of cream or milk as needed to keep smooth. Once the desired consistency is achieved, add 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract and mix until incorporated. At this point remove 1/8-1/4 of the frosting (~1/2 cup) and set aside.

To the remaining frosting, add the orange liquor, 1-2 Tbsp, depending on how strong you'd like the orange flavor, and mix until incorporated. Add yellow food coloring a drop or two at a time until the frosting is a noticable yellow. Add red food coloring one drop at a time until the frosting turns orange. You may add more or less food coloring depending on how vibrant or pastel you would like the frosting.

To the ~1/2 cup of frosting previously set aside, add 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract and stir to incorporate.

Now to frost adorably.

Fit a piping bag with a wide round tip, or snip the corner off a large ziploc bag. Spoon the orange frosting into the bag. Frost the cupcakes in a shallow spiral from the outside in. Try to keep the frosting fairly flat on the cupcake. Clean the piping bag or grab another plastic bag and fit with a decorative tip, or the same wide round tip. Pipe a dollop, star, rose, or whatever shape you please of the white vanilla frosting onto the center of each cupcake.

Marvel in your baking prowess, share, and enjoy.

That's right... marvel in your baking prowess.

Cupcakes X-otic

 
I had a thought this week.  That thought was: "you know what'd be delicious?  Vanilla cupcakes with strawberry filling and strawberry cream cheese frosting."  I decided I should make such cupcakes, but I would need both filling and something to flavor the frosting -- and naturally "flavoring" implies "liqueur."  However, unable to find any suitable strawberry liqueur at my favorite liquor store, and being intrigued by something called "X-Rated," I decided to wing it a little more than I had originally planned.  As a result, I've got  a new, tasty-licious recipe coming at you.

Cupcakes are a tweaked version of Williams-Sonoma Vanilla Cupcakes and frosting base from Love and Olive Oil.  In both cases, I halved the vanilla extract and added some X-Rated infused vodka, and for the frosting I halved the sugar as well.  A note on the filling: you want to find something that approximates the flavors of the X-Rated, which are blood orange, mango, and passion fruit.  I found something called Fruit Fusion fruit spread in a Peach, Mango, and Blood Orange flavor.  Also, I reproduced the recipes from their original sources below, but I don't follow all the very particular rules Williams-Sonoma gives for the cupcakes.  Pretty much if you mix everything together and it's not lumpy, you're good to go.  Also, you might worry that you are filling the cupcake-liners too full, but these cupcakes are rather dense and don't easily overflow.  Anyway, here's the recipe.

Cupcakes X-otic
Ingredients
Cupcakes:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 6 Tbs. (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 whole egg plus 1 egg white, at room temperature
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 Tbs. X-Rated infused vodka
• 1/2 cup milk

Filling:

• 1/2 cup jam/preserve/"fruit spread"

Frosting:

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup cream cheese
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 Tbs. X-Rated infused vodka
• Red food coloring (optional)

Directions
From Williams-Sonoma:
"Preheat an oven to 350°F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with paper or foil liners.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together the sugar and butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and add the egg and egg white one at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in the vanilla *and X-Rated*. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the milk in 2 additions, beating until just combined; scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat just until no traces of flour remain, about 30 seconds; do not overbeat.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about three-fourths full. Bake until the cupcakes are lightly golden on top and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes. Then transfer the cupcakes to the rack and let cool completely, about 1 hour."

From Love and Olive Oil:
"For frosting, cream together margarine and cream cheese until just combined. Add confectioners’ sugar 1/2 cup at a time, mixing each addition until smooth and creamy. Add vanilla, *X-Rated, and food coloring, if using,* and beat until fluffy and smooth."

To assemble, spoon fruit spread into piping bag fitted with narrow tip.  Make sure the spread is as uniform as possible (read: not lumpy), so it will flow through the tip easily.  Fill each cupcake.  Frost, and enjoy!

The Great Cheese Fiasco of 2010

So, there was a moment in time last week where I thought to myself, "I should write a blog post with this somewhat entertaining story."  Then, on Friday night, another incident blew that story right out of the water.

Friday started normally enough.  Headed to work.  Got bored at work.  Desired great weekend funtimes.  Was irritated by failing coordination and flaky people.  I had one desire: to do something fun that evening.  Didn't matter what it was, just as long as it was fun.  I had planned to meet my visiting brother and his friend at a beer garden, but they informed me it was a bust.  We then decided to meet back at my apartment to conceive further plans.

As I was waiting for them to arrive, I received another call: "Let's just cook at your place."  I agreed this was perfectly reasonable and suggested a run to the local Safeway, but they said they would just grab some ingredients on the way back.  This is where fate intervened.

There happens to be, a few blocks from my home, a cheese shop.  I've never been inside, but it seems like a place you need to visit.  So, my brother visited.  They bought several types of cheese, some noodles, milk, and some wine.  When they arrived home, I was informed we'd be eating macaroni and cheese.  This sounded quite pleasant to me, so I helped cook.

Now, when you live in a temporary home, and you never eat there, you tend not to have basic cooking ingredients either.  It occurred to me that we had no flour -- a key ingredient for making the roux that causes the cheese sauce to thicken properly -- but we, for some reason, decided to proceed anyway.

The first attempt resulted in a butter, milk, and wine terror sauce.  Apparently, when you mix wine and dairy, you have to do it in a particular way -- lest your milk curdle on you.  The second attempt seemed to be going ok, so we added the cheese.  It was unclear whether the cheese would incorporate or not with the rest of the sauce.  There were moments of hope, when it seemed to be mixing, intertwined with moments of despair, thinking this food would not become edible.  In the end, the cheese sauce was a bust.  The cheese, although melted, would not incorporate with the buttery liquid that also inhabited the pan.

We let it be for a bit while we looked up places to get delivery from, and, once it seemed we were back on track to food, I decided to clean up the kitchen.

Now, we had a large pan full of liquid-y cheese-y hellishness.  My first thought was to drain of the liquidy part and trash the cheese, but this seemed like a very difficult task.  My next thought was "garbage disposal," but I don't trust our kitchen sink.  Not only did we have to baking-soda-and-vinegar the shit out of it a few weeks ago because there was a terrible odor emanating from it, but I also have to run the garbage disposal any time I pour out a pot, bottle, or pitcher of water -- lest it take five years to drain.  So I'll say it again, I don't trust my kitchen sink.

Now the next part is one of some contention.  My roommate believes I am a crazy person for even thinking to do this, but, especially growing up in a house without a garbage disposal where it was -- not common, but still not unusual practice -- I stand by my decision to flush the cheese sauce.

Even my brother's friend concurrently suggested flushing the sauce when I thought to do so.  So, I walked in the bathroom, poured the sauce in the toilet, and flushed.

That was the lapse in judgment -- that one moment between starting to pour and the flush.  It should have occurred to me that if I didn't trust the sauce in the garbage disposal, I shouldn't have trusted it in the toilet.  It should of occurred to me as I was pouring this "sauce" into the toilet, that this wouldn't work.  But it didn't.  See the problem was a disconnect -- cheese sauce would probably flush just fine, but this was no ordinary cheese sauce.  This was the cheese sauce devil, with pure buttery liquid concealing a large mass of pliable cheese under the surface.  Even with this type of culinary fail, it's possible the sauce would have flushed, just not in such a large volume.

As soon as I flushed, it was obvious to me what a mistake I had made.  When the water abruptly stopped, my first instinct was to do no more until a suitable solution could be properly thought through, but I panicked.  I yelled to my brother and his friend that the cheese would not flush.  My brother joined my in the bathroom attempting to flush again, but to no avail.  I became hysterical.  How could this happen?  How do you get cheese stuck in your toilet?  How does this happen?

The first step was, of course, to plunge, but we did not have a plunger.  Hardware stores aren't usually open on Friday nights, either.  I decided to head down to the Safeway -- open 24 hours -- to get a plunger.  I couldn't stop laughing to myself on the walk there.  I plugged my toilet with cheese.   A solid mass of cheese.  I swear this is something only I could do.

Equally fun was the half mile walk back with the one plunger Safeway carried in hand.  The plunger actually came as a threaded dowel and the rubber bottom, so I kept thinking I should be using the bottom as a hat and the dowel as a cane for a dance number as I was walking up the street because I swore this situation couldn't get any more ridiculous than it already was.  But there was no time; I had to get home to try to fix this before my roommate got home.

Did I mention my roommate was gone through this whole ordeal?  I had sent her two texts.  One when the cheese sauce failed: "Our kitchen is full of fail right now...."  And one immediately after the cheese got flushed: "Oh my god.  The horror.  THE HORROR!"

Being at dinner with her mother, apparently she had neglected to check her phone at all before arriving home, with a serious need to pee.

Meanwhile, I'm power-walking up the nearly vertical (and when I say "nearly vertical" here, I really mean "nearly vertical") hill that we try to avoid at all costs that leads up to one end of our street.  My roommate calls me, now in hysterics: "What did you do?!  I have to pee!"  I tell her that I'm close, but she needs to go knock on a neighbor's door because I'm fairly convinced that A) plunging is not going to work at all and B) even if it does, it's going to take a while.  She seems to disagree, so she waits the next minute while I walk, exhausted, back into the house.  At this point, my brain is beyond any functional place.  There's cheese in our toilet.  It's Friday night.  I just wanted to do something fun tonight.  Anything fun tonight, but instead I have cheese-toilet.

My roommate remains for a minute or two of the initial plunging, then runs off to knock on neighbors doors to find a working toilet.  After much toil, it's apparent the poor-quality Safeway plunger isn't going to do anything.  Some of the overflowing cheese-water has to be scooped out into the bathtub.  Our bathroom... is a nightmare.  All I keep thinking is how this is so much worse than my JetBlue horror story (ask me sometime, if you've never heard it).  I'm still in panic-mode, so I text our downstairs neighbor -- who's not there -- to see if he has a plunger or snake, or knows someone we can borrow from.  He responds, and I go down there to find he has the same terrible plunger I just purchased.  After a tiny bottle of Southern Comfort and a long slump on my bed, I text him again, asking if he has extra keys and "can we use your bathroom until we get a plumber?"  He obliges, and I am the most relieved I've been in some time.

We finally get around to ordering some pizza to eat, and call several plumbers.  The rates are mostly outrageous, with the only reasonable company tied up fixing a water main for the city.  Since we have a key to the toilet downstairs though, we decide to let it wait.

My roommate is still upset -- and rightfully so -- because our bathroom is disgustingly cheese-y.  She wants to shower, but the tub has been a channel to drain cheese-water.  So I grab a bottle of basil dish soap from under the kitchen sink and clean my best.

On Saturday, we finally get a plumber out, who snakes the toilet.  Within five minutes, our toilet is functional again.  We pay the man -- who, uhhhh, might've allowed us to pay less under the table -- and are glad to have things back to normal.

Our bathroom is still a little greasy, but damn, I can handle that for now.

Inverted Double-Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes

So... the power of advertising is strong... in some ways.  I saw an add on a website that was simply a picture of an adorable cupcake.  I first independently searched for a cupcake joint to go to, but that was a bust.  Naturally, I decided some delicious cupcakes needed to be handmade.

Now, I have been having some serious chocolate cravings lately, so the cupcakes obviously needed to have chocolate.  I went to loveandoliveoil.com, my go-to for cupcake recipes, and while the new one sounded good, it wasn't something I wanted to try today.  I searched through recipes there that I had already seen, and somehow decided that I was going to try my own thing and make chocolate cupcakes with caramel in the middle.  Sounds delicious right?  I used The Go-To Chocolate Cupcake from Love and Olive Oil.  I decided that some kind of caramel-y frosting was necessary, so I ended up browsing around and finding this Cupcakes With Salted Caramel Frosting recipe on cupcakeblog.com.  I am a big fan of mixing and matching recipes, so I opted not to use the cupcake recipe, and naturally, I halved the frosting recipe.  With the cupcake recipe(s) decided, we headed to the store.

I made the cupcakes.  It took more than three hours total.  This culinary experiment came rife with lessons to be learned.

Lesson #0: (I actually learned this earlier, but finally made use of the knowledge)  With fluffy cupcake recipes (i.e. this chocolate cupcake recipe), seriously only fill the cupcake cups half-full, lest they overflow.  I also took some other advice and ran my oven a little hotter this time, but seeing as my oven has an old analogue knob, I can't really say what temperature it was at.

With the normal cupcakes good to go, I cut store-bought caramels in half, balled up each piece and pushed it into the center of the cupcake.  I threw them in the oven and waited anxiously.

Lesson #1: Don't put soft fillings close to the bottom of you unbaked cupcakes.  My first attempt to retrieve what looked like a gorgeous cupcake out of the pan failed.  Failed pretty hard.  Turns out, the caramel I used not only exploded on the bottom of each cupcake, but also has the odd property that once heated and cooled, it becomes incredibly hard, despite being rather soft to begin with.  After ruining two cupcakes.  I decided to wait to extract the rest.

Some of the fail-cupcakes.

While I was waiting for the cupcakes to cool some more, I decided to start on the frosting.  At this point, I actually hadn't realized the odd hardening property of my caramel, so I figured I would just throw some of that in the frosting and it would work fine.  WRONG.

Lesson #3: When cooking with caramel, ain't nothing like homemade.  This may have been one of my saddest cooking experiences.  I figured the caramel might be a tad bit too solid, so I warmed it up a little bit before I threw it in the frosting.  It was more that a tad bit too solid.  It was just solid.  No matter how I tried to beat it into the frosting, I was just making large hunks of solid caramel change shapes in my frosting base.  I decided after a while, that this was futile, and that I had to make homemade.

Curse you, store-bought caramels!

I searched for a simple caramel recipe.  I found this caramel sauce recipe on simplyrecipes.com.  Only sugar, butter, and cream. Shouldn't be too hard, right?  WRONG.

Lesson #4: When making caramel, use corn syrup and REALLY HIGH TEMPERATURES.  The recipes says that you might burn your sugar, and if you worry about this, you can start out with sugar and water and let the water cook off.  I decided to take this cautionary route, but added far too much water.  I whisked and whisked and whisked for quite some time before it looked like the water was about to cook off all the way.  I was right about that.  I was not right thinking this was a good thing.  My water seemed to all at once disappear, leaving me with solid structures of sugar, not like candy... just sugar in solid chunks, like when it dries out in the pantry, except more stubborn.  I made a few seriously ill-advised attempts to salvage this batch, before coming to my senses and cleaning out the pan.  For the second batch, I decided adding the butter first would be a good idea.  It did not go any better, I got to the point where it looked like it might spontaneously dry out again, so I decided adding some corn syrup might help the ingredients mesh with each other and form something that looked like caramel.  This seemed to help a little and I became less worried that it would turn bone-dry, but it still didn't look like caramel.  I thought maybe the temperature was off maybe too low, or too high, and ended up turning the heat up all the way.  It started to actually look like it was melting.

I didn't want the sweet-to-butter ratio to be off, so I tweaked by adding a little more butter and corn syrup until it finally looked like caramel.  Took it off and added the cream and finally had what I wanted.  Until it cooled and was clearly too solid for my frosting needs.  I took out half (OH MY GOD, SO TASTY) and heated back up the rest and added more cream to thin it out.  Now I truly had the caramel sauce (of about molasses consistency) that I needed.  I finished up the frosting, which turned out softer than my normal buttercreams.

I pulled the rest of the cupcakes out of the pan with little difficulty, but they still had bottoms mostly of caramel.  I decided the remedy to this sticky situation (haha, get it?) was just to let the caramel be on the top under the frosting.  Thus I finally had my Inverted Double-Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes.

21st Birthday Brunch

So for my birthday, I decided what could be better than good food, friends, and festivities?  That said, I knew I didn't want to get drunk, but what kind of 21st would it be without any alcohol?  I then decided that some alcoholic cupcakes were the classy and delicious solution.

Thanks again go to love & olive oil, for providing both of my alcoholic cupcake recipes.  The tequila sunrise cupcakes had better frosting than cake, and the chocolate amaretto cupcakes had a slight baking fiasco that made them structurally unsound.  All in all though, mmmmmmmm.

After cupcakes were prepared, more of the menu was prepped.  I made a quick ratatouille.  NOTE ON VEGETABLE DISHES: be aware that once you cut up a vegetable, it makes a lot more food than you thought it would.  My ratatouille excluded eggplant because there's no way to make a reasonable amount of true ratatouille without throwing away vegetables, and I do not approve of wasting food.

Morning of, I got up early, got clean, and set to work.  Step one was the unprepared sausage frittata.  While it baked, I made crepes to be filled with the ratatouille.

My first guests arrived 10 minutes late -- my neighbors -- and after that rolled in for a while longer.  I hurriedly prepared plates for them, sauntering around in my lovely new cocktail dress and Google apron.

With everyone fed brunch, we had some nice conversation, then moved over to the neighbors for some gaming and cupcakes.  An afternoon of Mario World later, we settled in for a super bowl study party.  A few more hours of catching up, and I had a full day of company.

I highly recommend food and friends for a good lazy day.  Can't think of a better way I could have spent it.


Recipes:
Quick Ratatouille
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 small zucchini (sliced)
1 small yellow squash (sliced)
1/2 onion (diced)
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1 can (~15oz) crushed or diced tomatoes
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano

In medium frying pan, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add onions and garlic and stir until translucent and soft.  Add zucchini and squash to pan.  Cover and let cook, stirring occasionally, until softened.  Add tomatoes, thyme, and oregano.  Stir until heated through.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Sausage Frittata
1lb bulk breakfast sausage (sage sausage)
4-5 green onions (chopped)
4 cloves garlic
10 eggs
1 cup mild shredded cheese

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Spray a large ovenproof frying pan with cooking spray, add sausage, and cook sausage over medium heat.  Stir occasionally to keep sausage from sticking to pan.  When almost fully cooked, add green onions and garlic, and cook until softened.

In large bowl whisk 10 eggs.  Add cheese, and stir until incorporated.

Pour egg mixture into frying pan over sausage.  Lower heat to low.  Stir gently to redistribute sausage, onions, and cheese evenly.  Let eggs begin to cook, sliding spatula around edges to allow uncooked egg underneath.  When bottom and edges of frittata are set, carefully transfer the pan to the oven.  Let bake for 45 minutes.  Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick or knife in the frittata to have it come out clean.  Remove frittata from oven and let cool shortly before serving.

Tart Begets Instant Cheesecake

 
For Christmas I received a Hershey’s cookbook.  Being something of a food snob, I was convinced I would make little use of this gift, until I took a look at the recipes.  They looked delicious, and really, who can turn down shiny shiny chocolate?  My first recipe attempt was shockingly devoid of chocolate-y chocolate; instead, I chose a white chocolate tart. 

You can find the recipe on the Hershey’s website.  In my defense, the online recipe’s picture (shown above) is way more involved than the one shown in my cookbook which had a small smattering of fruits the chef seemed to have on hand.

Lesson #1:
Having your recipes come out right is much more probable if you own the necessary equipment.  But how hard could it be to emulate pressing tart dough into a 12” pizza pan?

Well, helped by my complete inability to judge measurements, my tart crust came out too small, too thick, and with a sketchy little only-raised-in-some-parts crust.  I made the topping, spread it on, dropped some peach on there, and covered the whole thing with a variation of a sort of glaze the recipe called for.

My first slice was quite disappointing.  The inordinate amount of crust made it more like a stale pecan sandy with a tiny bit of yumminess on top.

I found that after refrigeration, the tart had improved in quality, but was still none-too-exciting.  I don’t let leftover food sit in my fridge for long, so the tart went pretty quick, and a few days later I sat down with a bowl of the remaining peaches and topping.  I found that, honestly, the topping was quite good by itself; it could easily be used as a filling for fancy cupcakes, perhaps dipped in chocolate to make truffles, or used as a sort of ganache.  Being easy and quick to whip up, it’s also fully satisfying for those times you have a hankerin’ for cheesecake.  This is especially true if you’re like me and are not a big fan of graham cracker crusts.

So maybe not a success, but at least I’ve got new material for creating my own dessert recipes.