Fat Witch Bakery's Blonde Witch Brownie Mix

A vintage scooter.

Mont Blanc cufflinks.

USSR-era Russian pocket watches.

A used Mac.

An off-brand Zune. (No lie, it was called the Creative ZenE)
All of these are examples of the incredibly extravagant, fairly dumb things I have purchased in the past. It's safe to say that I'm not good at bargain hunting. There are, however, a few things that I can't bring myself to buy, no matter how adorably pretentious they may be. One of these is any baking mix above $5. Baked comes out with a new Williams-Sonoma exclusive brownie? No can do. Momofuku packages their cookie mixes? Sorry. I can't see the value in a small, pre-portioned amount of baked goods, some of which are fairly sub par at the source, for the price of seeing a mediocre feature film.
Needless to say, I nearly peed myself when I walked into our local organic grocery outlet slash butch singles bar and saw brownie mixes from Fat Witch for the mere price of $3 and change, a brownie mix that typically costs $10-12 before shipping. Holy crap, Betty Crocker's most shameful mixes cost more than this. Fat Witch has been on my radar for a while now. Though I haven't had the chance to go, I figured it couldn't hurt to bake up a batch of "witches" at home and see how they fared.
The box illustrations are incredibly cute, albeit a hair twee, and the instructions are succinct and actually useful. Too often do I grab a mix and start preparing it, only to find that in addition to the one stick of butter, I need a mixer, six small bowls, and an extra bottle of dishwashing fluid to complete the recipe. The instructions include not only a list of needed ingredients, but a list of dishes or utensils you may need. Some parts are annoyingly vague, like the step where you let the brownies cool without any suggestion for time. As anyone with a sweet tooth knows, this is a terribly relative amount of time. "Cool" for me is any temperature where I can dig my hands into the pan without risking a third-degree burn. Second-degree, I can deal with.
Mess-wise, it's a cinch to prepare and still feel like you're putting in some work with very little clean-up involved. It's a one bowl recipe if you have a stainless steel bowl that can be heated on the stove. The rest of the ingredients are mixed in, the entire process taking roughly ten minutes. The batter was strangely pliable, like non-sticky peanut butter. This photo sort of illustrates it. I liked that it didn't take a lot of butter to make a smooth dough. The included chocolate chips were sized perfectly, rather than some of the minis or behemoths I've seen in other mixes.
The blondies came out of the oven smelling sweet and nutty, with a slight saline scent that quickly wore off and a lingering cakiness. The top had a delicately browned crust with pools of melting chocolate scattered around. After waiting an agonizing hour, I cut into the brownies. They were fantastic, with a slightly gummy, tender texture and extremely moist interior, with addictive and chewy crisp edges. The flavor didn't shy away from salt, and carried a savory, yet blatantly dessert-y quality. We still felt that they could have used more salt, as the chocolate chips were fairly sweet. Fresh out of the oven, the warm pieces had a gooey, indulgent texture reminiscent of eating a Tollhouse cookie pie. Room-temperature, they settled and lost some of the airiness that made them so moist, but were still chewy with no crumbliness. $10 blondies? Not really. But for around $3, they're some of the nicest I've had from a box.

GIVEAWAY: West Bend Versatility Cooker

Have you seen my Facebook page? No? You should. It's pretty awesome. It's the mecca of all the behind the scenes fun that I don't post on the site. I can't write about everything that comes to mind, believe it or not, and often have to be pretty selective. Oh, and I'm also giving away a slow-cooker on it.
West Bend sent me an awesome slow cooker for the winter and is also providing one for a very lucky reader. Details for the giveaway are at the bottom, but here's my scoop on all things slow. Like I said, the Facebook page exists solely for me to show off my leftovers and creepy creations to the general public without being the recipient of a restraining order. One of my favorite recent posts was the onslaught of tacos I made back in November- simple, easy homemade masa tortillas with shredded chicken and the best salsa in the world. I can easily eat six at a time, for I am the great taco destroyer.
With the Versatility Cooker featuring a slow cooking function and a griddle, making these was a no-brainer. They're easy and deeply spicy, with a heat that threatens to vanquish even the most clogged nose or sorest throat. Chicken soup v2.0, if you will. Setting up the cooker was pretty easy, and the parts came apart for simple assembly and later storage. There are a few neat customizable settings on the cooker- low heat, high heat, keep warm, and griddle, as well as a timer so you can set your own time should you so choose.
I found that my recipe, which made roughly three servings of shredded chicken, definitely didn't require the five hours allotted for the high heat setting or the nine hours for the low heat. The preprogrammed cooking times are definitely formatted for larger quantities of food. Not necessarily a bad thing, but also a little much for a smaller recipe. I chose not to fiddle with the customized timing and just set my tacos on high, checking periodically and stopping about two hours in when I felt it was finished. There's a reason why "set it and forget it" is so appealing- a few hours later, dinner was ready. The cooker is perfect for multi-taskers with limited space. While the chicken cooled, I cooked the tortillas on the griddle.
Everyone loved them.
Yes, everyone.
Clean-up is a little unwieldy as the griddle cannot be removed from its base, so you're limited to the space around you to clean it in. Scratching is also a hazard. It includes a stainless steel roasting rack, another feature that slightly worries me with the metal-on-nonstick friction, never a good sign. While the pot can be cleaned in the dishwasher, I'm leery of trying it out as I'd hate for the non-stick finish to get warped or scratched in any way. That, and the somewhat harsh beeping the cooker makes when it is turned on or any setting is changed, are the only two features I wasn't keen on. It's a fantastic appliance for anyone with limited space or time and is incredibly easy to use.How do I win this awesome device? Easy. If you're already a fan of my Facebook page, you're ahead. Simply email me at foodette.reviews@gmail.com detailing the next recipe or idea you think I should use with my cooker and you'll be entered into the running. I'll pick the best recipe on Sunday, January 15th, and follow up with a feature post!
Chicken Tacos Verde
Ingredients (serves 3)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 boneless chicken thighs
2 cans or 6 whole roasted jalapeno peppers
3/4 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper
1/4 teaspoon of cumin
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder, or one garlic clove
1/8th cup of Cognac
1/4 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice
1/4 teaspoon of orange zest
2 cups of water
Salsa verde and tortillas to assemble
1. Put all ingredients (with the exception of the salsa and tortillas) in a slow cooker or pot on the stove, allowing the mixture to slowly simmer for four hours.
2. Remove chicken and shred with two forks.
3. Serve with tortillas and salsa and enjoy!

Hungry Jack Funfetti Buttermilk Pancakes

Well, it's happened. The internet's obsession with combining the crap out of various foodstuffs has seeped out, like a spilled red velvet cupcake fudge milkshake onto a white Maud Sienna carpet, staining the world of brands as we know it. Yes, Virginia, there are now Funfetti-flavored pancakes, Funfetti being the socially acceptable way to literally eat candy with candy. And I have eaten them and lived to tell the tale.
Hungry Jack, the company that brought you breakfast by Dad on school days when Mom was busy and the Australian Burger King now offers up an easy pack of pancakes dotted with the perennial birthday party favorite, sprinkles. Visually, these look like the calling card of a rogue, murderous IHOP employee on a quest for vengeance. I'll call him Murray the Pancakinator. They're upsettingly neon with a lazy heaviness to them, a density that emcompasses a mental weight far beyond sprinkles and pancake mix.
The mix, which could double for a My Little Pony recreational club drug, ballooned from a scant two cups to like, thirty cups of gloopy batter a result of sitting out on the counter for five minutes while the stove heated up. The first few pancakes were pretty and evenly speckled with sprinkles, while the remaining pancakes took on a dingy grey tinge, the result of the sprinkles melting together like a cheap watercolor set.
After cooking, the result was fairly underwhelming from an edible perspective. Funfetti is just another way to add delicious sugar and birthday colors into an already sugary edible, the cupcake. When you take the sugar out, in the case of the pancake mix, you're basically eating the poor man's Funfetti. And man, is it awful- the flavor is chalky with no sweetness to speak of outside of a few sharp little pockets of astringency from eating straight up sprinkles. The heaviness from the batter translated poorly to the pancakes. Each one was leathery on the outside with a burnt flavor, despite being a perfect golden brown color, and had a doughy chew to them.
But there are options. Yes, there is always a plan B, in this case, B for Birthday Massacre. Also known as, BM. In true Buddy the Elf fashion, we pimped out these pancakes with three different kinds of frosting, butter, syrup, and powdered sugar. We even garnished them with candy canes because we are literally sugar pimps. And you know what? Despite looking like clown vomit, they tasted pretty darn good. The excessive amounts of sugar definitely gave it a more cake-like flavor, which made sense being that it contained all the components of a cake but fried in a pan, and even moistened the dry little suckers up to make for a fairly manageable one bite before we and everyone in a three mile radius contracted diabetes.
So, the moral of the story is this: when you have a product that tastes like sand, copious amounts of frosting and food coloring will prevent it from being bland. Or so the saying goes. Honestly, the real moral of the story is that it's never good to trust $1 pancake mix, even if it does seem to be a small price to pay for sugary childhood memories.
It does get a point for value- it used water and nothing else and yielded nine medium-sized pancakes, but when that value roundhouse kicks your health and dental insurance plan in the stomach, you begin to realize that your money would be better spent hiring a psychiatrist to unbox your childhood instead of pancakes. But on the plus side, #fuckyeahrainbowpancakes!
Seriously, don't do it.

Terrestrial Crab Cakes (a.k.a, a very wd~50 Thanksgiving)

I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't incredibly impressed by wd~50 to the point of wanting to use some clever tricks in my every day cooking. While I didn't bust out my supply of emergency sodium citrate and calcium chloride, I did try to take back the concept of taking a concept- holidays, udon noodles, Jackson Pollack, and translate it into food.
With all the Thanksgiving leftovers lying around, I wanted to make something a little classier than the standard sandwich 'n' hash deal (though I ate plenty of that as well) and decided to try what Keepitcoming Love later dubbed the Terrestrial Crab Cake- a croquette made of leftover Thanksgiving offerings that emulated the buttery, stringy texture of a crab cake with no seafood.
It's fucking delicious. And simple. I literally can't believe that I made this in no time at all with such perfect results. Speaking from the humiliated perspective of someone who isn't all that keen on Thanksgiving foods, this completely swayed me. Eaten with a sunny side up egg atop the whole mess, it made a decadent, but subtly complex meal.
Terrestrial Crab Cakes (Thanksgiving Hodgepodge)
Ingredients (serves 2)
1 small leek, thinly julienned
1/4 cup cranberry jelly or sauce, preferably with whole cranberries
1/2 small Poblano pepper, diced
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup sopressata, sliced and cubed
1 large turkey breast, cubed
3/4 cup leftover mashed potatoes
olive oil
dried or fresh sage to garnish (optional)
1. Gather your ingredients and cut as specified. In a small pan, drizzle a little olive oil and pour in your leeks, cooking slowly on a low heat until caramelized.2. When leeks are soft and almost cooked, pour cranberry sauce, peppers, and water into the pan and turn the heat up slightly, cooking until most of the liquid is reduced.
3. Put remaining ingredients in the pan until all are mixed together and hot. Put the mash on a plate and let cool until you are able to handle it and mash it into small patties.
4. Form into patties and prepare another small pan with a thin layer of olive oil. Cook patties on medium until they are golden brown and crisp on all sides and serve with sunny side up egg or on their own.
Eat this. Just eat it. Even a baby could cook this. It surpasses the sandwich and slaps the leftovers upside the head with subtle, sweet flavors.

Gingerbread Float Cocktails

For most Americans, the next two months are going to be chock-full of activity and preparation. Not simply for holiday meals and travel plans, but mental, ninja-like preparation for steeling themselves against the onslaught of annual family members whom literally nobody enjoys.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure you love your Uncle Roy despite his unflagging tendency to bring his own vegan quinoa salad and home-printed pamphlets about the brutality of turkey slaughter in the United States. And I've no doubt you occasionally enjoy the company of your cousin Jeremy, who will play Modern Warfare 3 with you for five hours straight after dinner but will casually bring up the subject of medical school, even though you dropped out in 2002.

But don't try to convince me that you like your great-aunt or grandmother asking your date if they're married. Or if you, politely clad in a starched Brooks Brothers shirt and pressed slacks, if you are getting married. Or if you're ever going to bring a nice Jewish boy home to meet the family. (No. No. Not a chance.)

Don't bust out the Prozac yet, guys. I have something special for you.

Once upon a midnight dreary, I sat home listening to Steely Dan and taking shots of this beautiful, sultry liquor, Root, alone in the dark. Your tax dollars at work! After sobering up, I realized that I needed to give this to the masses in a less collegiate, more family-friendly fashion like, immediately. And from my loins, this Gingerbread Float was born. I tested many combinations with my faithful friend and killed many gingerbread men in the process, but the results were so delicious that I couldn't possibly keep them to myself.

Representing the high-priced, mild flavor of Connecticut. Hell yes!

Try to find Root. Please, please, please try to find this, because on its own it tastes like the best, most deeply smoky ginger beer you've ever had, with a snappy, sweet flavor like straight bourbon vanilla and a comfortingly warm finish. As well it should, being 80 proof. What makes it so remarkable is how versatile it is. I'd happily drink this like Scotch, with a finger or two in a tumbler with ice, or in a cocktail (warmed cider, perhaps?) or like this in a milk-based drink. You need this. I need this.

Rimming is essential. You know what I mean, don't give me that look. Water will do in a pinch, but in later permutations of this cocktail, I found that a little maple syrup or melted caramel sauce was better for maximum stickiness for the gingersnap and spice coating. These are so freaking good. I know that as a full-time student at a full-time party school, I'm genetically obliged to tell you that something with copious amounts of alcohol and ice cream is freaking good, but this is good because it's nuanced in a way that makes it an easy drinker as well as something to really savor. Whipped cream is unnecessary.

And yes, that's not a typo. You deserve a cocktail with four ounces of booze, so don't skimp.

Gingerbread Float Cocktails

Ingredients (makes 1 cocktail- multiply for more servings!)

1/4 teaspoon cloves

1/2 teaspoon brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

2 Pepperidge Farms Ginger Men cookies, crumbled

2 oz Root liquor

2 oz vodka

1/2 cup vanilla bean ice cream or gelato

3/4 cup whole milk

Maple syrup for rimming

1. Crush the ginger cookies in a food processor until finely ground. Mix with spices and sugar and put on a small plate.

2. Over the sink, brush maple syrup over the rim of a Collins glass so that the spices and crumbs have a sticky surface to adhere to. Place the rim into the spice mixture and move around so that all surfaces are covered.

3. In a blender, pour in the remaining spices from the plate, the Root, vodka, ice cream, and milk. Blend until smooth.

4. Pour into glass and garnish with cookie and a dash of ground cinnamon.

Do not skip the garnish. It is the absolute alter ego of the cocktail. And it has red sprinkles, ergo, it's really freaking cute. I rest my case. Please just make this- at the very least, you'll have a built-in excuse to avoid backyard football and Republican debates.

Pumpkin Goat Cheese Cornbread Balls

Hypocrisy! I believe we've met. Specifically, the time when I backhandedly insulted cake balls for being little more than a trendy fad. What I didn't count on was loving them. And needing to make them. I still don't see a point in baking cakes for the sole purpose of rehydrating them in ball form, but you tell me what to do with two-thirds of a leftover pan of cornbread, a log of goat cheese, and a three inch-tall bit of salsa left in the jar. Sigh. It's like Chopped for sad bachelors.

Well, long story short, I gussied up my ill-fated flirt with Larry the Cable Guy's muffin mix and turned it into these pumpkin goat cheese cornbread balls. I made them under the guise of pretending to throw a big, impromptu party for all my fabulous associates and dearest friends. In reality, I chilled them and ate them for dinner. They were delicious. They used up all my leftovers. And they are a bite-sized, handheld alternative to brie rings or cheese loaves or crab dip for your (actual) shindigs.

The steps were similar to making the cake balls, substituting cornbread (I had some made from a mix, but you could make it homemade if you wanted to) for cake and goat cheese and salsa for frosting. The outside was a lime-chili spice mixture, and I dipped them in the best jalapeno dip known to man, Dr. Gonzo's Jalapenomash. I encourage you to order it in bulk or use whatever your favorite it- but please make sure it's green. My Jewish family members will thank you and your holiday tablescape will be just as ornate as Sandra Lee's.

Step 1. Mash the cornbread with the salsa and goat cheese.

Step 2. Roll the balls in the spices.

Step 3. ????

Step 4. PROFIT

Pumpkin Goat Cheese Cornbread Balls (makes thirty)

Ingredients

1 loaf of cornbread (packaged or homemade)

1 8 oz. log of goat cheese

1/2 cup of chunky salsa (I used pumpkin salsa, but any type would work)

1/4 cup of chili-lime seasoning for rolling

Salsa to dip in

1. Bake your cornbread. When it is cooled, crumble with hands or a fork until fine.

2. Mix in salsa and goat cheese until it resembles a loose, crumbly dough.

3. Roll into small balls and roll in the chili-lime seasoning.

4. Chill for one to six hours and serve with salsa!

Larry the Cable Guy's Spicy Corn Muffin

Euphe-what? I went there. To whomever neglected to inform me of the wonders and joys of Big Lots. You are a saint. I now have yet another funnel of cake and destruction to fuel my hard-earned paychecks into. This store is a mecca of weird-assed junk of the weirdest and assiest variety. I spent $12.50 on beautiful things and a lifetime supply of Propel in the ever-popular Lemon Pledge variety. Today's selection, however, is not for the faint of heart. It is an item that exists on no websites, with proceeds that go toward prolonging a dubious catchphrase, and is advertised by a celebrity virtually nobody enjoys.

Amidst a gentle background of Conway Twitty, ladies and gentlemen, this is Larry the Cable Guy's Spicy Cornbread mix. Hey, it was between this and a child-sized guitar emblazoned with a hip-gyrating Elvis, filled with festering cheese popcorn. No brainer, right?

You'll notice that I neglected to sample the vast majority of the entire Cable Guy family recipe roster, including the Triple Cheese Cheeseburger Skillet Kit and Lasagna Casserole. This is because I do not fetishize e. coli and stomach pumping. Those of you who do have come to the right place. The first thing worth noting about this is its complete lack of presence on the Almights Lord our Internet. The only trace of this I found, aside from the downright creepy Git 'R Done Association, whose charitable payouts undoubtedly include Big Mouth Billy Bass dolls for all, was the apparently brilliant pyramid scheme of selling these on eCrater for a mere $9.99 apiece. And to think I almost balked at parting with a dollar for the humiliation of having Larry's face grace my kitchen. Eh, I've done worse.
Perhaps the most upsetting thing about this package are Larry's witticisms and advice, scarily intended for an audience to which he is superior. Larry warns me on the back to "taste 'em before you add more hot sauce" and enthusiastically points out that I've "gotta try this." What the fuck, Larry? No offense, I'm sure you're a great guy, but I don't come to you for advice on FDA safety regulations and Frank Bruni-esque recommendations. But I bought this cornbread because I was delirious with glee and also, hungry. For a dollar, it's not terrible. Emphasis on the "not" and the "terrible" part. By that, I mean that it is edible, but only to a certain degree. My friend Larry might compare this to roadkill or one of his second cousins, but it's no better than soul food and no worse than cornbread made from huitlacoche. I'm done. I'm sitting alone in my kitchen eating cornbread branded by a man with all the finesse of a drunk Guy Fieri.

Do not patronize me, Lawrence.

For all its poor advertising, though, the cornbread is a decent value. What it lacks in visual appeal it surely makes up for in taste, with a surprisingly spicy, non-medicinal burn and a tender crumble with a moist center. Too bad it's colored in Home Depot's bestselling "decoy orange" shade. I served it with a roasted jalapeno compound butte- ahahaha, I did no such thing. I ate it out of the pan. In the great, wide world of TV tropes, it's the quickbread with a heart of gold. If you chance upon these, folks, I might say to give them a try. For a dollar they're no worse than Hamburger Helper, but for the love of God, if you must gamble with your life and try the Cheeseburger Dinner, git 'er done- git 'er well done and don't send me your hospital bills.