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I figured the best way to cap off this goal would be to cook the goat that I’d hac in my freezer for entirely too long. I had to cut the recipe down to a fifth (because I only had about a pound of goat) and I did put in the split peas, and I used my Agent Orange instead of peppers. And it was SO GOOD I need to go out and buy more goat now and make a full-sized order. And then have a Goat Party.

I’ve never made a gratin before, so I decided to do a little research about how they are made. Turns out, I had everything I needed at the house! Once again, I jury-rigged two recipes together and made Individual Potatoes Gratin With Blue Cheese. And it is delicious! A wonderful snack, or probably more appropriately, a side dish. But tonight, it was a snack.

Until a while ago, I didn’t realize that mushrooms on toast was a thing, but apparently it’s a British tea-time tradition. I found two separate recipes and jury-rigged the two together. I think I might have cooked the mushrooms a little too long, as they’re more brown than golden in my recipe, but it tasted delicious. And it goes well with beer as well as tea!

I found this page when I was looking for something to make in the slow cooker at a party a couple of weeks ago, but you can barely call it a recipe. Then I looked up how to make Buffalo Sauce and figured that combining the two of them (and leaving out the ranch powder) would make a pretty decent recipe. The Buffalo sauce was really good, and the chicken was moist and delicious. With some blue cheese on top and between some rolls, everyone was pleased and satisfied!

I’m on a bit of a bean kick, apparently! Beans & greens is a traditional Italian dish: it can be a soup, a casserole, or a pasta dish (apparently). And Mark Bittman did it again for me. 3 cups beans, 3 cups boiled cabbage, 2 small onions (fried), 230 grams pasta. Mix it all up with just under a cup of chicken stock and serve when it’s moist but not soupy. And of course, you serve it with delicious parmesan cheese!

Sometimes you have a lot of leftover refried beans and want to figure out what you can do with them. And then you talk to your friend, and he mentions bean dip. Finding a recipe that has everything you need right in the house, you cut the recipe in quarters and make your own personal-sized bean dip. And although you wanted to eat so much more, you are satisfied because that bean dip is ROCKING AWESOME.

One of my cooking heroes (and life heroes, really) is James Barber, also known as The Urban Peasant. His philosophy was that cooking didn’t need to be fiddly or incomprehensible or tough to do: it could be quick and hearty and delicious if you just “get on with it,” in his words. So this afternoon I took his philosophy to heart. Here’s my recipe.

Brown around 250 grams of ground beef in a Dutch oven; drain almost all of it. Slice up half a head of cabbage and two carrots; cook in the pot with some salt and pepper. Add the beef back in and pour in some leftover bean water that you saved from when last you cooked beans (which I did yesterday), and top off with a little more water until it covers everything. Bring it to a boil, then simmer it with the lid on for 30 minutes. Then eat it.

It was delicious, fast, and simple. Thanks, James. Today, at least, I lived up to your example.

The bean recipe’s here, and the tortilla recipe’s here, and all I have to say is, they can’t all be winners. The refried beans are good: I used red beans instead of pinto because, well, that’s what I had, and I used some Agent Orange instead of jalapenos. The tortillas were a letdown: I can’t roll them thin enough, so instead of making small and light bean burritos mine were doughy and thick. Ah well, I guess you have to learn your limitations. The beans are solid, so I can be proud of that, I guess.

I know how the recipe spells it; I’m spelling it this way. It was easy and fast, and I might have made the icing if I didn’t have cans of icing just sitting in the pantry (one of the reasons I decided to make cupcakes in the first place). Despite the fact that the chocolate is kind of faint, they were pretty tasty, and my friends seemed to enjoy them too!

The day I made this recipe my face felt like I’d gotten a sunburn but I’d never even gone outside. All those boiling peppers. I’ve spread it on toast and I’ve added it to chili; I’ve had to be judicious with it but it is a good way to heat things up.