I could never survive on a cooking show

A couple months ago, my sister was watching me take pictures of food. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, but I’d actually bought a set of cheap plastic dishes for the sheer sake of picture some food on the colors.

Foodies present on white. Food bloggers present on white. Chefs present on white.  Food looks great on a white background and cameras can capture their colors best with the white. That’s just the way it is.

All the more reason she giggled at me when I gave her the option of blue or pink (okay, it was magenta, but I didn’t know if she knew what color that even was, hehe).

She watches Chopped on a regular basis and told me how she thinks of me sometimes when she sees the dishes.

“Except yours would never be picked because you’d do it with smiley faces or something. They’d think it was really cute, but you’d never win.”

Lol! It’s true! The conversation went on and we joked about me serving meatloaf rats or arranging the foods into funky shapes. She said sometimes I make them look like the chefs do and talked about how sometimes the chefs end up making a dish look really gross.

All the while, I was arranging bowls of shrimp alfredo into a pyramid.

Sure, the color is off, but the more important thing is the milk on the table you can see on the left hand side. I can get by with this because I’m not a food photographer. Or a chef. Or a photo editor.

I’m Quirky Jessi and kids like building things, even if it’s just a tower of funky colored bowls. :P

Just make it smile – Crockpot pizza

Most of us don’t have the time to make elaborate foods and I, for one, don’t have the energy or desire to always put a ton of time into a dish, even if I had the time.

But smiley faces are so simple and for some reason, they’re always so lovable. It’s one of my go-to “fun things” that the kids love, but only takes an extra 30 seconds of my time usually. I’ve talked about this before, but it’s worth repeating. Just make it smile and you’ll be surprised who will smile right along.

Crockpot Pizza

1 pound ground beef 
1 small onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup water
1 can tomato sauce
pizza seasonings
(you could just use your favorite pizza sauce, too, or google a new pizza sauce recipe to try out)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1 cup shredded cheese (any pizza kind you like will do)
pepperoni slices
1/2 cup sliced olives
any other pizza toppings you like

Brown beef, onion, and garlic as you normally would, making sure you drain off the grease. Mix in the sauce, seasonings, and water. Pour into the crockpot. (I don’t have issues with mine sticking, but if you’re concerned, you can grease the inside of your crockpot).

Mix the flour, milk, eggs, and cheese in a bowl. Pour over the top of the meat mixture in your crockpot. Layer on the rest of the pizza ingredients however you like (smiley face is only an example….get creative!).

Place the lid on tightly and cook for about 3-4 hours on high. When it starts looking brown and puffy, it’s ready to eat.


Meat-copia – Cornucopia made out of sausages, pepperoni, bacon

The site refers to it as a bacon-copia, so you could go with that instead.

Really, it’s a bacon horn stuffed with 20 hot Italian sausages, 4 pork chops, 1 black pudding sausage, 1 white pudding sausage, 1 pound of scrapple (I didn’t even know what that was before now), pepperoni, and salami.

Awesomeness.