The Secret to Delicious Monkey Brains!! aka Monkey Bread!

If your'e looking for a super delicious, mouth watering, cinnamon sticky treat, that is almost as fun to bake as it is to eat, monkey bread is exactly what you want! Like most things in life, their are many variations to this recipe, but cinnamon is the traditional and in my opinion the only real way to make Monkey Bread.

Monkey Bread has been a family favorite for nearly ten plus years. Unfortunately, I can't recall where we had originally gotten the recipe or who had introduced it to our family, all I can recall is once our family tasted it, it had become esentially a part of our family...as strange as that may sound.

My earliest memory of having Monkey Bread was when I was in fifth grade, and for some reason I had made it and brought it to school and no one had ever seen anything like this before, so of course they were all skeptical, as they had asked what it was called. Someone had mistaken my words and had thought I said "Monkey Brains," which I can understand where they are coming from by looking at it..but once my class had tasted it, UGHHH they were hooked just like we were.

From that day on, Monkey Bread has always been my favorite dessert to not only bake for others but to enjoy myself. To this day, I have not yet met one person who doesn't enjoy this cinnamony and sugary sticky treat.

It is extremely easy to make with very few ingredients, most of which if not all can be found in your pantrys already. Sooo...without further anticipation, heres the recipe. I hope you all try making it at least once in your lifetime and enjoy it as much as I do!!

ENJOY my friends, enjoy!!! =)



MONKEY BREAD:

Ingredients:

4 cans refrigerated biscuits
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter (3/4 cup)
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9-10 inch bundt pan.
2. Mix sugar and cinnamon in a medium sized bowl. Cut the biscuits into quarters and toss them in the sugar and cinnamon mixture until evenly coated.
3. Toss the pieces in the bottom of the bundt pan. Continue layering until all the biscuit pieces are coated and in the pan.
4. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the butter and brown sugar. Pour this mixture over the layered biscuits.
5. Bake for 35 minutes. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn it upside down onto a plate. Pull apart and enjoy!



"Wings, Beers, Sports:" Restaurant Review of Buffalo Wild Wings

Every Thursday evening, for the past year, my boyfriend Nathan and I have been going to Buffalo Wild Wings to enjoy their delicious and rather cheap boneless wings. However, last semester I had a night class on Thursdays, and then, well summer school started, so we havent been there in waay too long, which is completely unacceptable, considering wings are my favorite!!
My boyfriend and I also have another tradition; ever Sunday we go out to lunch and then spend the day relaxing and winding down after a long weekend. So this Sunday, I chose Bdubs :) Great call on my part, let me just tell you.

We sat at the high tables at the bar, or else we would have been waiting, which we were just not into. Since it was a Sunday afternoon, we opted out of ordering our usual tall bud lights, mine with lime. He just got a water and I got a ginger ale. We ordered our usual appetizer of chili conqueso dip with tortilla chips. Now at first, I was not a fan of this, because it contains beans, which I hate, but I promise you, one bite and you'll be hooked. The chili conqueso is actually pretty light on the beans, heavy on the cheese and beef and flavor! So good. My boyfriend and I usually eat waay too much of this, that when our wings there were full.

After we ate the appetizer we finally got our wings, and my mouth could not stop watering as I watched her place them on the table. Nate got his usual eight boneless honey bbq; which seem to be a customer favorite. Personally, I dont care for them, because I'm not the biggest fan of bbq sauce and dont really like honey. As for me, I got my favorite; six boneless mild. The mild ones are my favorite because they put just the right amount of sauce on there and once you dip it in the ranch, the flavors just melt in your mouth. Mild is a nice blend between of spicy and sweet; it gives me just the kick of flavor I so desire.

Buffalo Wild Wings, and well wings in general are probably my favorite food. I would HIGHLY recommend taking a trip down there, if youve never been...but lets face it, I'm sure everyone and their mother have been there to enjoy a drink, those tasty little wings, sports, and just a good time with friends.

I MEAN COOOMMEEE ONN!!! HOW GOOD DO THESE LOOK!!! = ) I wish I had some right now.

Julia Child: An Inspiration to Food Lovers Everywhere!

Julia Child is most notable for introducing French cuisine to the American Public. She had accomplished this through her cookbooks as well as her television programing. My Life in France was a very significant book to illustrate the things in which Julia had loved most in life; being her husband, France, and of course cooking and eating.

Julia Child's life/book is very similar to Ruth Reichl's, being that both of their stories were autobiographies depicting their journeys throughout life and the many significant events/people that had led to their fame as well as success. Both Julia and Ruth's lives were extremely similar as they recall in detail their culinary experiences and the process of their success. Both stories illustrate every person, place, recipe, ingredient, and evet that had led to their fame and overall success. I had enjoyed how both stories which included pictures of their lives and the most important people in them. After reading both stories, Julia as well as Ruth should be an inspiration to any food lover!

Food Inventory

As of June 2nd, here is my food inventory for six days: here goes nothing.

Thursday June 2nd: one personal Digorno pizza
                               one snack sized bag of hot chips
                               water
                                Ft. long on italian bread veggie delight from subway; this included mayo,
                                cheese, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, pickle, spinach, jalepano, and green pepper

Friday June 3rd:       Six taquitos with sour cream
                                water
                                kiwi
                                peach
                                banana
                                three twisted teas
                                two 32 oz beers
                                one vodka cranberry

Saturday June 4th: (Graduation Party)
                              one piece of spicy chicken
                              salad with italian dressing
                              five beers
                              four margaritas

Sunday June 5th:    Flamin' hot cheetos
                              three bottles of water
                              ham and cheese sandwhich
                              cranberry rasberry juice
                              rotisserie chicken
                              brown rice
                              broccoli
                              carrots
                              cantelope

Monday June 6th:   Nutty Bar
                              Water
                              two chicken ranch snack wraps from McDonald's
                              salad with italian dressing
                              breadsticks from olive garden
                              five cheese ziti from olive garden
                              strawberry daquri
                              cranberry rasberry juice

Tuesday June 7th:   two salads with italian dressing
                              water
                               leftover five cheese ziti from olive garden
                               cool ranch doritos
                               cranberry rasberry juice

***Thus concludes my food inventory for six whole days. The conclusion I can draw from this is that I don't eat out much or get fast food and I hardly eat two let alone three steady meals a day. My diet consists primarily of water and one major food course throughout the day and a couple of snacks here and there. Food appears to not be my thing. However, I did get the chance to go to my favorite restaurant and order my favorite things!

"A Hamburger Today" Blog Review

WOW! Before even reading anything about the blog, the pictures alone had caught my attention, as I had found myself drooling over the very realistic pictures..It was like the burgers were all sitting right there in front of me, waiting for me to grab them and take a bite..if only I was so lucky! I mean, really, take a look at this :

Who would not want a bite outta this badboy!!! Anyway, moving past my burger obsession and how badly I want one at the moment, I had taken the time to review a very appetizing blog, entitle A Hamburger Today

The blog was very nicely organized, as different people post reviews about some of their favorite burgers and the stories that go along with the deliciousness! From what I had gathered, the purpose of this blog is to share your favorite kind of burger, the recipe, the story associated with it, and of course a very DELICIOUS looking picture of the sucker! I enjoyed reading and exploring this blog, because it not only offers extremely appetizing visuals, personal stories, recipes, it also provides you with direct information as where you can get the opportunity to enjoy these delicious pieces of heaven; the writes provide the viewers with the restaurant, the address, the website, phone number, and exactly how much $green$ were talkin on spendin on one of these...all being extremely reasonable.

Since the writers of the blog are all different people, it makes the blog very relatable..each of us sharing our stories about one of our all time favorite burgers and the experiences that went along with it. The language of the blog was understandable, as it felt like conversation, which I had really enjoyed.

In an attempt at trying to connect this blog to Pierre Bourdieu's theory, I had found this to be extremely difficult, as I could not construct any connection. The only thing I could come up with from this blog in relation to Pierre's theory is that taste differs between culture and class. For instance,the more outgoing and adventureous your culture is, the more willing you will be to taste a burger like this:

However, coming from a different culture or social class, this "hot-n-tasty" bbq burger might not be the one for you. Coming from a "higher" social class, or "more respected" culture, your buger might look like this, which to me hardly resembles a burger at all.

Anyway you grill it, in my eyes a burgers still a burger. And going completely against Pierre's theory, one day I would like the joy of experiencing something like this!!! = )

Food Writing

* My experiences with both reading & writing about food are very limited. Food is not one of the subjects I had even considered when it came to my writing. The only food I have ever read about was in cookbooks.

* Food plays a major role in my life, only for the mere fact that I need it to survive. My entire life I have had a love/hate relationship with food. Food is important to me to sustain a healthy lifestyle. Food has never been simple for me, it has always been complex and forced at me.

*The role of food in my life has significantly changed over the years, however, I am not at the point in my relationship with food that I would like to be at. As a child, my parents had to physically force and threaten me to eat, because it was not something I had wanted to do, because of body issues. Growing up, my realtionship with food had gotten worse, for I had limited myself to what I could and could not eat and also gave myself a time period where I could and couldn't eat. As I have gotten older, only as recent as the last year, I haven't been as concerned with food the way I used to, but it is still an issue I struggle with. Most of the time I only eat once a day, which isn't good, but I'm still working on it.

* I think that the food we eat says a lot about who we are. It can define your social status, your personality, your heritage, etc. the list could go on. I do think we judge as well as classify others based on what they eat. For instance, if you see a girl eating nothing but sweets and junk food, and she is on the heavier side, one would assume that is the reason for her being heavy. One might even call her a fat slob that needs to put down the cheeseburger. Whereas on the other hand if you see a tiny girl eating a side salad, one would assume she has an eating disorder. We also judge people's social status when it comes to food. If their is a man and women enjoying a nice glass of wine and caviar, personally, I would assume they are rich snobs. Whereas if you see someone ordering the cheapest item on the menu, one would assume they are broke or cheap. Our perceptions of others based on what they eat are the same way based on what they look like, and it is a sad world how unfairly we judge others.

* At one point in my life, I was a vegetarian for almost 2 years. That was one of the most difficult times in my life because it was so hard going out in public, for I was alienated by my life choice. At that time, the vegetarian options were nothing like they are today. Everytime I would go out to eat with friends, I had to order a salad because that was virtually the only option there was. People assumed I didn't like to eat or was on a diet, rather than a lifestyle choice that wasn't supported by others.