Waiting until the last minute to grocery shop on Thanksgiving is usually a bad idea.  A very bad idea.  However, considering our work schedules, MP and I had no choice.  So we headed out to the “Social Safeway” in Georgetown (where, rumor has it, if you’re there on Saturday nights you can find your way to a party or get yourself a hot date).  We were pleasantly surprised to see the place hadn’t been completely pillaged like the LA Riots had just come to town.  Our shopping list included cornish game hens with fixins, rice, salad goods, asparagus, mashed potato ingredients and of course, wine.  I can handle not making all the “traditional” things on Thanksgiving but it’s really not a meal without mashed potatoes.  Drat!  The man has no mixer so we were prepared to eat nasty pre-made or boxed mashd potatoes.  I wasn’t thrilled about it but it would have to do.

While passing by the meat section, I saw these orange patties that I assumed were salmon burgers.  Oh my goodness, they were not salmon burgers.  They were YAM PATTIES!  I had never seen such a thing but he suggested we whip them together, add some yummy topping and we’d be good to go.  It is important to note that this man has never eaten a yam in his life and generally does not eat much that wasn’t included in his Greek mother’s repertoire.  This was a big moment folks.

When it was time to start the dinner I unwrapped the orange goodness, praying to god they’d turn out as planned.  I placed all the patties in a bowl, added some margarine goodness, whipped ‘em together and spread them in a low pyrex dish.  In a bowl I poured brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, diced pecans, cut in some more margarine and then sprinkled that sweet goodness on top of the yams.  I baked that bad boy for 30 mins. at 350 and holy mary mother of god, they were amazing!  Even the picky ass Greek LOVED them!  We’ve got enough leftovers to last us 4 days and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into that sweet, but healthy goodness.  If you see these things in the market (made by Flanders Burgers out of Arkansas …. random), you must buy them.

I am kind of a ba humbug when it comes to the holidays.  The over-consumerism makes me sick and the jingles in every damn store and oh boo on me, who the hell invited Negative Nancy to the blog tonight?

Aside from the shopping and ornaments and stockings and dreidels and Kwanzaa colors, you have GOT to buy these cookies from your local Trader Joe’s.  If you don’t have a Trader Joe’s near you, uh, you should move.  Immediately.

These cookies are Christmas Cheer in your mouth.  IN.YOUR.MOUTH!

Once again taking a note from Steve at The Sneeze, I’d like to welcome you to the Fall Edition of LilSass Puts It In Her Mouth.

Several weeks ago I read a quick note in our free morning paper about a special fall edition of America’s favorite besito, the Hershey Kiss. Folks, they invented a kiss that personifies the taste of fall and the second I read that, I ran to my computer, searched for the details online and emailed all my fellow pumpkin enthusiasts. As I have mentioned before, Fall is definitely my favorite season. Not just because my birthday falls in the fall (soon and very soon this lady will be getting older before your very eyes!) but because the weather is gorgeous, I love a cable knit sweater as much as the next girl riding a horse through the Adirondacks and fall brings all-pumpkin, all-the-time!

Let me g’head and tell you that I hate pumpkin pie. The consistency is disgusting to me and I have weird food texture things. However, all that goodness that goes into a pumpkin pie is magic! Pumpkin pie mix, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves mmmmm. So as you can imagine, when I read about this new Hershey Kiss, I could barely contain my excitement. My BFF IRL Kris, promptly ran out to Target and reported back that she had acquired said Pumpkin Hershey Kisses. For some reason it has taken a while for this treat to show up on our shelves among all my other Halloween favorites Smarties & Dum Dums.

This past Sunday I picked up two bags and promptly tossed one in my mouth as I left the store.

Quick interjection: have you ever had a weird taste bud experience when you have a preconceived expectation about what something is going to taste like and when it doesn’t, you’ll all weirded out? No? Let me provide an example. In true 70s fashion, my sister and I used to drink out of those tupperwear cups at the dinner table. They were thin and tall and usually brown, orange or avocado green - the true landscape of the time. In our house our beverage choices were non-fat milk, water and OJ. However, we were only allowed to drink milk at dinner. Very, very rarely we had OJ for some sort of “special occasion” (yeah, my parents knew how to treat us right). As you know, you cannot see through 3 inch thick green tupperwear cups and when it would be a special OJ night, I’d put the cup to my lips, expecting to taste milk and it wasn’t and it totally freaked me out for .2 seconds. My sister and I STILL reference this when we’re surprised by something. “Yeah it’s totally like when you’re expecting it to be milk ….”

Back to the current moment in time. For some reason, when I uwrapped the foil kiss, I didn’t actually LOOK at it. Yeah, I’m bright, I know. But I was expecting it to taste like cinnamony-clovey-netmegy chocolate (which would totally kickass, right). But it’s not chocolate. It’s … It’s … I don’t even think I have the words to describe what it tastes like but my reaction was EXACTLY what Kris had said. “It’s weird at first. It’s really sweet and you think it’s too rich. And then you put another in your mouth and you’re HOOKED!” I feel like I could sit down with a bag of these and a glass of milk and totally wreck shop. Or a chai latte or even a glass of my favorite tea Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice. (OMG!! DGMS on that tea guys. It’s SO AMAZING!! Rush out and buy some right this second!! It’s cinnamon-y and clove-y and nutmeg-y and cardamom-y and it’s FALL IN A GLASS!!)

Final verdict: I think these could be dangerous. I think the little orange kisses, filled with some sort of white gooey concoction may be my ass’s arch nemesis for the next month or so.

If you love Fall, get your ass out there and get some. Your backside will curse you, but everything about it is oh so right.

So I’m officially 13 days into the meat fast (wait, 12 days cause I had that whole “lamb incident”) … and I am happy to report that all is well. Although I got the official go ahead by the Meat Watch: 2008 team (that’s you guys) that drunken behavior is exempt from punishment, my completely inebriated weekend in New York went off without a meat slip-up. I didn’t end up going to Coney Island (although I vowed to stay away from those dirty dogs anyway) and my company were all vegetarians so all was safe.

I have an obsession with taking pictures of food so I present to you my Sunday morning breakfast. Juevos Rancheros made directly by God and sent down from Heaven:

For those of you not so versed in comida mexicana, well … welcome to America firstly. Secondly, it’s only the best food ever invented. So on the top you see black beans, moving around the dish in a clockwise fashion you’ve got rice and that chunky white goodness is where the magic is. That’s sour cream on top of tomatoes on top of lettuce on top of tortillas with spicy green salsa on top of 3 eggs over medium. You Massholes have never experienced such sex in the mouth as Juevos Rancheros, I promise.

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Now that that’s over with, let’s get to the Operation: Meatless Month update. Although I have been doing ok with my veggie intake and trying to get kidney beans, cheese and hard-boiled eggs into my salads, I still craved more protein. I mean, I’m not lifting weights here and clearly I am not a growing boy but I certainly don’t want to have a Meatless Month turn into 400 lbs. of carbs later, which are useless calories and kinda defeat that whole “eating conscientious” thing. I wanted more black beans Sunday night for dinner (can you imagine?) but realized my SFAH didn’t come equipped with a can opener -silly me. So I went to the market last night to buy one and to stock up on some protein items that hopefully won’t send my cholesterol through the roof.

So remember that post last week about the pickle-flavored nuts and how stuff that’s flavored like other stuff is gross? Yeah well, I lost all sensibility in the store tonight. That whole “don’t knock it til you try it” shit won me over and I bought cancer meat. I bought a “meat product” that is fake shit and protein er something, and an assload of sodium all masked to appear like carcass. It’s the zorro of food products if you will. But here I am trying to be open minded and all that crap. Sue me.

So I went home and make some fake meat carcass that I am convinced will give me cancer. I mean, I can at least die knowing I tried the meat before it gave me cancer. (Don’t get all upset guys, I of all people don’t joke about cancer srsly, c’mon). But this shit is so manufactured, that it CAN’T be right for you, right? So I go home with zorro cancer meat, make some black beans and some Peruvian rice called Chimicurri rice (HEAVEN.ON.EARTH!) When living alone, sometimes these insta’meals are where it’s at and the Trader Hoes products always have less sodium.

Here are some shots:

Next are some action shots of the zorro cancer meat (it doesn’t look right, right? )

Mmmmm rice

And black beans with sour cream and a dash of Chalula. Heeaaven!

The verdict on the zorro cancer meat: FAIL!

HAVE YOU SEEN THAT PICTURE??

I hate being wasteful but I couldn’t stomach more than 3 bites of the weird texture chewy business. So I’ll keep eating beans and cheese and edamame and milk and whathaveyou for protein.

Zorro cancer meat is not right at all.

Generally speaking I don’t like food products that don’t taste like themselves. You know, like those orange-flavored craisins? I mean, cranberries as themselves without the drag queen additives are good as is. Why the hell would you want a cranberry to taste like an orange? You want some vitamin C, eat a damn orange. You want some dried fruit goodness to give you some roughage? Eat a craisin. Don’t get all nasty on us and try to marry the two!

Now … I LOVE me some nuts (’that’s what she said’) and artificially flavored nuts are alright by me. A nut is just some crunchy goodness and it seems alright to me to add some cinnamon or wasabi or chili and lime or what-have-you. Yeah I know, I’m such a hypocrite. I also love pickles (’that’s what she said’) almost as much as I love bacon. So when I saw these dill pickle cashews I HAD to have them! Cashews are usually expensive but I found these at Targhetto, which spells affordable, right?

Taking a note from, Steve Don’t Eat It, I thought I’d provide a narrative as I explored this delectable delight.

I opened the bag and saw they were sprinkled with plenty of cancer-causing additives. Yuuuuumm-mmmyyy!

After I snapped these pics for your enjoyment, I put some in my hand. Oh I was salivating!

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First one in the mouth.

Mmmm.

Salty, like your standard cashew.

I must have more to make a fair judgment.

Mmmmm so damn good.

Like a pickle?

I mean, I taste dill. Like fresh dill that’s added to yummy cream cheese on a veggie bagel. But a pickle? I mean, it’s not slimy and wet. It’s not crunchy like a pickle (obvi). But a subtle hint of dill … AMAZING!!!!

I add dill to fresh summer salads and sometimes to scrambled eggs. Hell, you can’t go wrong with dill, right? So how ’bout we call ‘em dill cashews. Dill pickle cashews? Not so much.

I mean, you can’t replicate the food orgasm that is a pickle but these nuts are refreshing and fun and I give ‘em two thumbs up!!

Now if someone would just make bacon cashews. Mmmmm