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Left to right: Tofu Meatloaf Birthday Cake stuffed with chili carrots, Tofu Meatloaf Birthday Cake stuffed with BBQ corn, and the two Stuffed Tofu Meatloaf Birthday Cakes This recipe is what I call my masterpiece. Out of the 80-something recipes I have done, this one is the longest(the video is a little over 12 minutes long, and I thought it would exceed 15 minutes, so I enabled my channel to upload videos longer than 15 minutes. All I had to do was verify my account. Did you know YouTube allows videos to be uploaded to their site that are as long as 11 hours and as big as 128 GB! That amount of gigabytes is the amount you can store in an iPhone 6S! Can you imagine uploading your iPhone-sized video to YouTube! That's crazy!) This blog post is going to be super long, so bear with me. I got my inspiration for this recipe months ago after seeing a video of a meatloaf birthday cake being made(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50fSQXXG_jM). So shoutout to Cookies, Cupcakes, and Cardio! That cake was made out of beef and covered with mashed potatoes. But I have a vegetarian uncle who didn't eat the very first meatloaf I made for my extended family last Easter because it was made with beef. So I wanted him to be included in trying my recipe, which is why I substitute eggs for unsweetened applesauce. Plus, let's face it people, mashed potatoes, even on a meatloaf cake are pretty boring. Now mashed sweet potatoes on the other hand... I didn't make my mashed sweet potatoes from fresh sweet potatoes. I used instant mashed sweet potatoes- the type that comes in a packet and only requires hot water, butter, milk, and a microwave for cooking it. It was less time consuming. You can get them at http://www.amazon.com/Betty-Crocker-Potatoes-Mashed-Potato/dp/B00LWZZ4LM/ref=sr_1_1?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1448299646& The meatloaf birthday cake video I saw used a two 9-inch cakes pans, so the cake was a 2 layer cake. But it wasn't stuffed with anything, unlike mine. When planning this recipe, I honestly thought I would need 6 pounds of tofu if I used 9-inch cake pans, which is why I ordered six 4-inch cake pans, figuring I would only need 3 pounds of tofu. In reality, I only needed 1.5 pounds of tofu, so I could've bought two 9-inch cake pans and would still be able to make a regular-sized cake. It would've probably been more noticeable at the table during my family's Thanksgiving dinner. i also could've assembled the entire cake at home and brought it to my aunt's house to warm it up in the oven. Then I wouldn't have gotten the feedback that the cakes were not warm. But I naively thought mashed sweet potatoes melt in the oven(they did when I made my Thanksgiving Turkey Meatloaf), so I decided to assemble the cake at my grandpa's house(which, in good traffic, is an hour away from my home; in rush hour traffic, allot 90 minutes), because my aunt wouldn't let me do the assembling at her house. But at least my dad and I got the driveway parking space to my aunt's house- my dad and I agreed to drive my eighty-something year-old grandpa to the dinner. Although my grandpa didn't understand the logic of what I was doing with the cakes. As for the decorations in the video I saw, the cook/chef(her name is Jenn, by the way) used piping bags for making mashed potato flowers that lined the edges of the cakes, as well as the writing on the cakes(it was made with ketchup). Fun fact about me: I am not a cake decorator! I don't know how to use a piping bag so the easier route for me was to use broccoli florets instead of mashed potato flowers, and I took two packets of sauces from one of the Lunchables kits I had in my fridge and used those for icing the cakes(like I said, I'm not a cake decorator, so I didn't write actual words on my cake. I just drizzled the sauces around the cakes). Jenn made bacon roses, made with carrots, scallions, tomatoes, and actual bacon. I made "roses" made from tempeh bacon(remember, this is a vegetarian dish) and baby carrots. Guess whose method of making savory flowers is easier? It's mine! About tempeh bacon: Like meat-based bacon, it's tastes crispy and like smoky BBQ sauce. However, unlike meat-based bacon, it has a weird, off-putting texture. It reminds me of the rice and seaweed rolls on a sushi roll. Maybe that's because tempeh bacon is actually made with brown rice. As for the pinata part of the cake: Elise from My Cupcake Addiction(who I met at StreamCon NYC last month) stuffed her cake with M&Ms. It makes no sense for me to go stuffing my meatloaf cakes with candy if it's being served as an entree. Isn't it cool that you can stuff a cake with vegetables!? Maybe then you can get kids to finally eat their vegetables. Shoutout to My Cupcake Addiction as well! I mentioned in my video nobody at the other table was eating the cake stuffed with carrots- they did 15 minutes after stuffing their faces with turkey and ham. It turns out they liked the dish, just like the table I was sitting at that ate the cake stuffed with corn. Now in all actuality, only half of each cake was eaten at Thanksgiving. I took the rest home and ate it as leftovers over the following days. I think I have said enough, so here's the recipe: You will need: For the cooking equipment: Six 4-inch cake pans(http://www.amazon.com/Wilton-2105-1829-Mini-Round-1-25-Inch/dp/B007SQ7XXQ/ref=sr_1_2/187-5584609-1966045?ie=UTF8&qid=1448827832&sr=8-2) Aluminum foil to cover up the cakes if you are traveling(FYI, this recipe can't go on airplane flights, so if you want to travel on a plane with these- you can't. There's a 99.9% chance the TSA doesn't allow it) 2 lasagna pans A large bowl A frying pan Nonstick cooking spray A cleaned out pill bottle as a stencil for making the circular holes in the cakes For the meatloaf cakes: For each batch(you will need two): 1/2 tbsp. of onion powder 2/3 cups of unsweetened applesauce 1/2 cup of marinara sauce Pinch of paprika Pinch of cayenne pepper Pinch of black pepper Pinch of salt 2 packets of uncooked raisin oatmeal 1 pound of chopped, drained, crumbled up extra firm tofu For stuffing the cakes: 1/4 cup of cooked frozen vegetables of your choosing(I used those BBQ corn and chili carrots. They're those Bird's-Eye seasoned vegetable steamer bags) For the "roses": 1 slice of pan-fried tempeh bacon 2 baby carrots For decorating each cake: 1/4 cup of mashed sweet potatoes(http://www.amazon.com/Betty-Crocker-Potatoes-Mashed-Potato/dp/B00LWZZ4LM/ref=sr_1_1?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1448299646&) 2 tbsp. of cooked frozen vegetable of your choosing(I used ranch broccoli, which is also a Bird's-Eye seasoned vegetable steamer bag) 1 sauce packet of your choosing(I used nacho cheese sauce and salsa) To assemble the cakes: 1. Wash your hands! :) 2. Put all meatloaf cake ingredients in a large bowl. 3. Mix the ingredients up with your hands until they are all distributed evenly among the mixture. 4. Spray the cake pans with nonstick cooking spray. 5. Place the mixture in 4 of the pans. Place those 4 pans inside a lasagna pan. 6. To fill the remaining two pans, repeat steps 1-3. You're going to end up with leftover meatloaf mixture, so spray one of the lasagna pans with nonstick cooking spray where you will form 1 loaf from the mixture. Use the rest of the second lasagna pan for the other two pans. 7. Bake everything in the cake pans and lasagna pans in a 350 degree Fahrenheit preheated oven for 40-45 minutes. 8. Let the cakes cool off for 5-10 minutes. To make the "roses": 1. Pan-fry two slices of tempeh bacon on both sides. Allow slices to cool for 5 minutes. 2. Place 2 baby carrots in the middle of each slice. 3. Wrap each slice fully around the carrots. For assembling the layers: 1. Determine through sight which 2 of the 6 cakes looks the least stable. Do not remove those 2 cakes from the pans. These will be the bottom layers of the cake. 2. For all the other 4 cake pans, remove the cakes from the pans by using a knife around the pans and turning the pan upside down. Put each cake onto a small plate. The cakes need to mostly hold together, so if they're a crumbled up mess- you're out of luck. 3. Make a circular indentation using the outside of a pill bottle halfway through the bottom cakes. This will serve as the base for where the stuffed vegetables will lie. 4. Place the 2 cakes that will form the middle layer on top of the bottom layers. 5. Make a circular indentation using the inside of a pill bottle in the middle cakes that goes all the way through those cakes. 6. Spoon out the center of the middle cakes. 7. Place cooked frozen vegetables into the holes you just made in the middle layers. They should rest on the indentation you made on the bottom layers. 8. Once you stuffed your cakes with vegetables, top them with the top layer cakes but do not put any holes in the top layer cakes. 9. Make or cook the mashed sweet potatoes. If you aren't traveling with the unfrosted cakes, skip the following section. 1. Place the now three-layered cakes in a lasagna pan. 2. Cover up the lasagna pan with aluminum foil. 3. Place covered lasagna pan in the fridge overnight. 4. Place "roses" in a tupperware overnight. 5. Place cooled down, cooked, mashed sweet potatoes in a separate tupperware overnight. 6. Once you get to your venue, warm up the cakes in a 325 degree Fahrenheit preheated oven for 10-15 minutes. 7. Let the cakes cool for 5-10 minutes. 8. Warm up the "roses" in a microwave for 30-60 seconds on a microwave-safe plate. 9. Warm up the mashed sweet potatoes in a microwave for 1-2 minutes on a microwave-safe plate. 10. Cook the frozen vegetables that will go on top of the cakes according to package directions. Allow vegetables to cool down for a couple of minutes. To decorate the cakes: 1. Wear plastic gloves for putting the mashed sweet potatoes on top of the cakes. 2. Cover the visible tops and sides of each cake with the mashed sweet potatoes. 3. Once the cakes are covered up, place cooked vegetables in a circle around the tops of the cakes. 4. Place the "roses" in the center of the vegetable circle. 5. Pour sauce over the tops of the cakes. 6. Bon appetit!
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 I don't know why I just lost two subscribers today! :( I thought my videos were getting better, not worse. Maybe YouTube just deleted some inactive accounts. But Thanksgiving is this week and I should be thankful for the 83 subscribers I already have- and I am. I almost didn't make this recipe, but then I thought to myself, "What if I could combine all the elements of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner into a single meatloaf?" My family on Thanksgiving, has way more food for dinner than just green beans and French fried onions, turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and mashed sweet potatoes. They also have ham and pineapple, and people bring other stuff, like dinner rolls and olives(yuck!). Thanksgiving in my family is more of a potluck than anything else, and I'm contributing 3 items to the cause this year(my Meatloaf Birthday cake, sweet potato pie, and a store-bought birthday cake that is hopefully chocolate and peanut-butter flavored). Last year, I only brought a store-bought birthday cake to the dinner. So I'm really proud of myself for making a dessert AND an entree for Thanksgiving! My mom never brought an entree over to Thanksgiving. Heck, when I was a kid, I asked her to make a pie for Thanksgiving and she said she didn't know how to make pies. She thought pies were too complicated. :( The dough to make it is, but you can get ready-made crusts from the supermarket. But it would just be gross putting EVERY single Thanksgiving dish into a meatloaf. Besides, most people only stick to the turkey, mashed sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beans, and gravy. About the omission of gravy in this recipe: personally, I think gravy is disgusting(though to be fair, I made pumpkin spice gravy last September for one of my videos, but it was just too watery). On Thanksgiving, I eat turkey with cranberry sauce and without gravy. Most people usually pig themselves out on the dinner itself. But I pig out on the dessert course- there's always lattice apple pie, pumpkin pie, and coconut cream pie, in addition to my birthday cake and this year, sweet potato pie. You can put gravy in this meatloaf, in addition to, or instead of the cranberry sauce though. As you can tell, I love Thanksgiving. But it's a real shame my homebound grandma that lives in my basement can't go out for Thanksgiving. My original intent wasn't to make this recipe for her though. I just thought my dad and grandma would have this turkey meatloaf and some vegetables. But I had leftover green beans, mashed sweet potatoes, and stuffing from this recipe. So I gave my grandma this meatloaf with mashed sweet potatoes and green beans. It's a shame this is her only home-cooked Thanksgiving meal this year, even though my dad buys a Boston Market turkey dinner for her, but come on people, it's not the same thing as a home-cooked meal. My dad put ketchup on his turkey meatloaf! I think that's a little sacrilegious- nobody in their right mind asks, "Pass the ketchup" on Thanksgiving! But like I have said countless times before, my dad is a meatloaf traditionalist- he will always put ketchup on his meatloaf. But at least my dad ate this meatloaf! He said it was one of the best meatloaf recipes I've made! I said in my video I used instant mashed sweet potatoes(yes, that's a thing!). Here's a link to where you can buy it: http://www.amazon.com/Betty-Crocker-Potatoes-Mashed-Potato/dp/B00LWZZ4LM/ref=sr_1_1?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1448299646& It's so much easier than making mashed sweet potatoes from fresh sweet potatoes. I usually cook my (fresh) sweet potatoes in the microwave for 10 minutes, and that's just for 1 sweet potato! I don't think 1 sweet potato is enough to make 1/2 a cup's worth of the mashed kind. So what's in it for you? I can find a number of scenarios where this meatloaf would be perfect for Thanksgiving: 1. You're alone or are with a small amount of people, but want a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. 2. You are snowed in(it happened to me one year, and my dad said this would be a perfect recipe to eat at home if this scenario came to fruition. Although my dad said, "if you can get all the ingredients in the supermarket before Thanksgiving". I'm not sure about the sides, but I'm pretty confident most supermarkets will have ground turkey available even until the last minute). 3. You don't have the know-how or just don't feel like cooking a 8-20 pound turkey. Seriously, that's enough leftover turkey until the New Year! There's a some prep for this recipe- you need to cook some stuffing and some mashed sweet potatoes before making the meatloaf. But trust me, it will be worth it in the end. You will need: For the cooking vessels: A lasagna pan A large bowl Nonstick cooking spray For the actual meatloaf: 1/2 tbsp. of onion powder 2 beaten and whisked eggs 1/2 cup of canned, drained green beans 1/2 cup of French fried onions 1/2 cup of dried cranberries 1/2 cup of mashed sweet potatoes(see helpful link) 3/4 cup of jellied cranberry sauce 1 cup of cooked stuffing(I used the Savory Herbs flavor, as to me it makes no sense to use beef stuffing or chicken stuffing for a turkey dish) Pinch of sage Pinch of black pepper Pinch of salt 1 pound of ground turkey Carrots as a side dish(optional) 1. Wash your hands! :) 2. Put all ingredients inside a large bowl. 3. Mix all the ingredients together until all the ingredients are distributed evenly among the meatloaf mixture. Since the cranberry sauce is jellied, you're going to have to break it up into smaller chunks using your hands as you form the meatloaf mixture. 4. Spray a lasagna pan with nonstick cooking spray. 5. Form 2 loaves. 6. Bake in a 350 degree Fahrenheit preheated oven for 50-55 minutes, or until the turkey is fully cooked. 7. Bon appetit!  I was going to call this recipe " '90s Gone Wild Meatloaf", but that wouldn't sound specific enough to my viewers. Although to be fair, this meatloaf was a wild recipe. When I came up with the idea for this recipe, I came up with some hypotheses for the how this meatloaf was going to turn out: You would see lots of purple, blue and green ketchup that was successfully made to look like the ketchup that used to be sold in stores back in the '90s, and this meatloaf would be good enough to have for lunch the next day. Two of the ketchups didn't come to fruition and this meatloaf was not good enough to have for lunch the next day. I talked about my failed attempts to make blue ketchup and green ketchup in my blog post about my How to Make Blueberry Ketchup video. You may be wondering why this meatloaf wasn't good enough to have for lunch the next day. You see, I haven't had bologna in almost 15 years and I didn't realize, as an adult, how gross it is because it's so greasy, each bologna slice sticks to the slice next to it. It's weird because when you're a kid you love greasy foods but then when you grow up and try those foods you had as a kid, you wonder, "Why did I eat this s*** when I was [insert age up to 10]!?" Although, to be fair, most kids foods in the '90s were artificially colored, obscenely sweet, and/or greasy. Lunchables used to sell a bologna, cheese, and crackers lunch kit when I was a kid. They don't anymore. If you want meat, cheese, and carbs, there's another brand of food that sells a kit consisting of wine-infused salami, white cheddar cheese, and baguette chips! What has this world come to!? At least Lunchables's pizza combos have stayed deliciously the same throughout the years. I read somewhere you lose taste buds as you age throughout life, which is why my choice to go to Denny's to celebrate my birthday doesn't sound so appealing anymore- I'd be too tempted to have their Pumpkin Pecan Pie Pancakes and their Santa's Milk n Cookies milkshake in the same meal. That's way too much sugar! People, realize that sentence came from someone who loves sweets. Most Dannon and Yoplait's low calorie yogurts are also too sweet for me anymore. I might go to Chili's instead and have a burger, fries, and dessert, but this is dependent on whether or not I still feel full two days after Thanksgiving. I can see why correctional facilities serve bologna sandwiches to their inmates- it's a gross meat that is really cheap. After having this meatloaf, I got tired of bologna for a very long time. My grandma tried this meatloaf and she said it was too salty, so maybe I shouldn't have added any salt to the meatloaf since bologna is salty to begin with. I did say this meatloaf was good in the video, which is true, and I had that entire slice of meatloaf for dinner, but I opted to throw away the remaining slices. Even instant mac and cheese sounded better than this recipe. Cooking is an experiment so all was not lost. I did my research on bologna, and the only recipes I found featuring warm bologna were fried bologna recipes. Yuck! Cold cuts are already cooked so it doesn't take too long to warm them. But you get what you paid for(in terms, of time in this case). Makes four 4-ounce slices(of meatloaf, not the bologna) You will need: For the cooking utensils: A lasagna pan Nonstick cooking spray A large bowl For the meatloaf: 1/2 tbsp. of onion powder 2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce 1/2 cup of blueberry ketchup 1/2 cup of French Toast Crunch cereal 1/2 cup of Oreo cereal 2-3 crumbled up slices of sandwich thins Black pepper(no added salt needed for this recipe) 1 pound of crumbled up bologna 1. Wash your hands! :) 2. Put all ingredients in a large bowl. 3. Mix all the ingredients together until they are all distributed evenly among the mixture. 4. Spray lasagna pan with nonstick cooking spray. 5. Form 2 loaves from the meatloaf mixture. 6. Bake in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 10-15 minutes. 7. Bon appetit?  As you can tell, this meatloaf I made has nothing to do with food I ate in the '90s. Heck, when I was a kid I hated onions! I made this meatloaf in memory of all those that lost their lives last week in the Paris terrorist attacks. This meatloaf isn't meant to be a political statement. That's why I don't talk about the attacks at all until the end of the video. Using the sad music in the video I did about the meatloaf in honor of Chandler, my deceased cat, would just be too weird, in my opinion. I initially intended for this meatloaf to be an escargot meatloaf(read: snails) but that would almost certainly dissuade my dad from eating it. My dad makes a lot of sacrifices when we make these video in terms of what he eats for dinner- he usually ends up eating fast food or an unhealthy TV dinner after we are done recording, and it's nice for him to have a home cooked meal, especially when it's made by me. I mentioned in the video that the meatloaf was moist, but it was a kind of bit on the dry side. But that's easily remedied by topping the meatloaf with some ketchup. I originally intended the put canned French Onion soup in the meatloaf to make it moist, but the supermarket ran out of that soup flavor, of all the days I needed French Onion soup. In an ideal world, I would have French Onion soup mix and canned French Onion soup in the meatloaf, but alas, that wasn't meant to be. :( I honestly thought the shredded Gruyere cheese would moisten the meatloaf, but it fell short in that area, for I couldn't taste any cheese in the meatloaf. Not even the addition of 1/2 a sauteed onion could provide enough moisture either. To me, it would've been an insult to the French if I used faux French ingredients like French fries or French dressing. Actually, I have never had French Onion soup before in its liquid soup format. The soup mix is really good though. This meatloaf makes four 4-ounce servings of meatloaf. You will need: For the cooking materials: A lasagna pan Nonstick cooking spray A large bowl For the meatloaf: 1/2 a sauteed onion 2 beaten and whisked eggs 1 packet of French Onion soup mix 1/2 cup of shredded Gruyere cheese(you're going to have to do the shredding of the cheese yourself using a cheese grater, as most supermarkets only sell Gruyere cheese in brick form) Pinch of sage Pinch of marjoram Pinch of salt Pinch of black pepper 1 cup of breadcrumbs 1 pound of 93% ground beef 1. Wash your hands! :) 2. Put all ingredients in a large bowl. 3. Mix all the ingredients together using your hands until you get a firm meatloaf mixture. 4. Spray lasagna pan with nonstick cooking spray. 5. Form 2 loaves in the lasagna pan from the meatloaf mixture. 6. Bake in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 60-65 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the meatloaf reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit. 7. Bon appetit!  This video was supposed to feature three ketchup recipes based on those weird ketchup colors you saw in supermarkets back in the '90s(ex. green, blue, purple). Here's the story of my original plan for this video: Artificial food dye isn't the healthiest for you so I decided to make my own blue dye and green dye. I would then use those dyes with a white ketchup recipe I found in one of Alan Wong's cookbooks and in an ideal world, the end result would be green ketchup and purple ketchup just like I remembered when I was a kid. I successfully made green dye but when I mixed it in with the white ketchup, I got a light green, creamy sauce that tasted like soap due to the goat cheese(which I learned I hate- come on, who eats that s***!?) As for the blue dye, I ended up with a turquoise dye. When I mixed this now turquoise dye in with the white ketchup, I got a light purple, creamy sauce! I decided to spare the Internet from these epic fails. #ketchupgate Luckily, I also made blueberry ketchup, which turned out to be delicious, so that is the recipe I decided to show you folks. The blueberry ketchup was supposed to represent the purple ketchup I remember eating. I think I'll try making actual purple ketchup in the future using artificial blue dye and red ketchup. Red + blue = purple, supposedly. If I ever find enough yellow tomatoes, I will make a yellow ketchup and mix artificial blue dye in to hopefully make a green ketchup. I'm SOL for the blue ketchup though(if you don't know what SOL is, Google it). But even purchasing the blueberries was a hassle. Here's the Blueberry Odyssey: I bought a pound of blueberries on a Saturday during my weekly grocery shopping, It all landed on the floor due to my dad's epic clumsiness. That was $10 down the drain and I was pissed! So I asked him to get me a replacement pound of blueberries the next day, except I didn't tell him a pound of blueberries, so he mistakenly bought two 4.4 ounce boxes of blueberries, which thought wasn't enough for the ketchup. The supermarket didn't carry 1-pound boxes of blueberries that day The following day, I bought another 4.4 ounce box of blueberries from the supermarket. They didn't have 1-pound boxes of blueberries that day either. In the end, I only needed one 4.4 ounce box of blueberries to make the blueberry ketchup. I'm not going to waste the blueberries, so I'll just drizzle some honey or cinnamon on top of those and eat them. But here's the real kicker: on all 3 days the blueberries were purchased, blueberries weren't in the supermarket's computer! It had a bar code that wouldn't scan, so they had to get the manager to insert a key to enable the purchase, which held up the line behind me. Even the blueberries weren't in the pharmacy's computer! One of the cashiers even asked me if I actually needed the blueberries(of course I do!) since getting the manager is a hassle. I've never heard of a supermarket that deletes an item from their computer and yet still sells the item. In my opinion, if you sell the item, it better be on the computer. Otherwise, just don't sell the item! **end rant** Here's the recipe: You will need: For the cooking vessels: A small bowl if you're making your own red wine vinegar A medium saucepan For the ketchup: 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar or 1/4 cup of red cooking wine and 1/4 cup of white vinegar 1 1/4 cups of blueberries 1 tbsp of onion powder A little over 1 cup of granulated sugar 1 tbsp. of allspice Pinch of salt Pinch of black pepper 1/2 tbsp. of lemon juice French fries to serve with the ketchup 1. If you don't have red wine vinegar, mix the red cooking wine and white vinegar in a small bowl to get a red wine vinegar. 2. Put the red wine vinegar in the medium saucepan, along with the rest of the ketchup ingredients. 3. Mix all the ingredients up. 4. Bring saucepan to a boil on the stovetop on medium to high heat. 5. As the pot is boiling, stir the pot until the sugar dissolves, which should take 2-5 minutes. 6. Once the pot is boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer. 7. Stir the contents of the pot as it's simmering. 8. Simmer until most of the blueberries have broken down and the sauce has thickened, about 20-30 minutes. 9. Turn the stove off and let the ketchup cool down. 10. Once the ketchup is cooled down, pour it in a Tupperware and put in the fridge overnight to let it set. 11. Serve with French fries. Bon appetti!  I was going to call this recipe "How to Make Oreo O's" until I actually made the recipe and they didn't look completely like the Oreo O's cereal I ate as a kid in the '90s. They really should bring back that cereal. You can get it in South Korea but not anywhere else on Earth. I thought this recipe didn't look like Oreo cereal, but looking at the edited picture, it kind of does look like Oreo O's. In my video, I initially used a vanilla extract lid as a kind of stencil, but it didn't really work, which is why I don't list it down below. It's just easier to use tongs to break off the pieces of the dough. You will need: Cooking equipment: A plastic bag A hammer A large bowl A large spoon Parchment paper A baking sheet A rolling pin Tongs 2 forks Toothpicks For the actual cereal: Makes 3 large bowls 10 Oreo cookies 1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour 2 tbsp. of milk 1 egg 1/4 cup of honey 1/4 cup of mini marshmallows 1. Separate the cookies from the cream of each Oreo cookie. 2. Put all the cookies in a plastic bag. Zip that bag up. Get a hammer and smash the cookies into a powder. 3. Put the cream and the smashed cookies in a large bowl, along with the flour and milk. 4. Break 1 egg and put the egg in the large bowl, in addition to the honey. 5. Mix all the ingredients together using a large spoon. At some point, you will get a thick dough, at which point you will need to form the dough into a dough ball, using your hands. 6. Place parchment paper on a baking sheet. Put dough ball on parchment paper. 7. Flatten dough ball until it is an inch in height. 8. Put it in the fridge to let it set for 10 minutes. 9. Once it is done setting, place another piece of parchment paper on top of the dough. Flatten the dough further using a rolling pin, until it is a 1/4 inch thick. 10. Break a piece of the dough off using tongs. Split the dough on tongs into two circles on another piece of parchment paper. Repeat this process until you have a full parchment paper. You're going to need to do this a total of 3 times. 11. Poke a hole in each cereal piece. 12. Bake in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 6-7 minutes. 13. After 6 minutes, flip each cereal piece over using two forks. Return cereal pieces to oven to bake for another 6-7 minutes. 14. Repeat steps 11-13 for the remaining batches. 15. Once the cereal is cooled off, place the pieces in a small bowl. Add mini marshmallows. Mix the cereal and marshmallows up. 16. Bon appetit!  It's a universally known fact that kids don't like eating vegetables. My parents knew this and took me to McDonald's when I was 7 or 8. At the time, McDonald's had McSalad Shakers on the menu, which was basically salad in a plastic Slurpee cup that came with salad dressing, which you poured into the cup. Then you shook the cup around. It didn't do a very good job at distributing the dressing throughout the salad. Maybe that was why this product was discontinued a few years later. I'll tell you something about my childhood- I used to be overweight until I was 12- and I loved going to McDonald's for only the French fries(OK, to be fair, I also had chicken Mcnuggets and the fried apple pie as well), especially the ones that came in Super Size. I was a picky eater too and of the three shaker flavors(garden salad, chef salad, and chicken Caesar salad), I only recall having the garden salad shaker. Being the French fry fiend that I was, I had fries with my salad shakers and I dipped my fries in some French dressing that came with the salad. It was a compromise my parents and I made. It wasn't until my teenage years that I actively sought out new foods to try, which is probably why I love grocery shopping every week. Except for the fact it is now more crowded now that one of the three supermarkets within a 1-mile radius is closing by Thanksgiving. There's a 4th one in the area, but it's kind of small- but not for long. This 4th supermarket will be moving to the soon-to-be closed supermarket. OK, that was a mouthful, but I'm trying not to reveal which supermarkets are in my area since supermarkets are regional by nature. Salad shakers do exist on the Internet today- but only in mason jars- I'm looking at you, Pinterest! I don't have mason jars and I also don't plan on buying 3 Slurpees from a 7-11 for this recipe. Slurpees are no good for you. I told my friend this in 9th grade- I said Slurpees were basically liquid sugar- which is true, but that didn't deter her from drinking the stuff. I was considering putting the salads in coffee mugs, which I have a lot of in my house. My dad uses three coffee mugs a day(not for coffee but for tea, orange juice, or water). I don't use coffee mugs- I prefer to drink my water or orange juice in plastic cups. The problem with my coffee mugs is that they aren't see-through. The whole allure of the salad shaker is to see your finished product in its entirety! As for plastic cups, they are see-through but they aren't very sturdy. I'm a big stickler for not wasting food, which is why I harvested my chef salad ingredients from a chef salad kit I bought at the supermarket. I could've also harvested my chicken Caesar salad ingredients from a chicken Caesar salad kit, but they didn't have any at the supermarket. Besides, buying grilled microwavable chicken is a good excuse to bake some French fries to accompany it. That is today's lunch. You will need: 3 Slurpee cups, mason jars, or glass cups Some fries of your choice to go along with the salads(I used zucchini fries, as they probably were about to be freezer burnt within the next couple of weeks, but you can use traditional French fries) For the garden salad: Lettuce 2-3 cherry tomatoes Shredded cheddar cheese A dressing of your choice 1. Put lettuce in your container and fill it to the half-way point. 2. Add 2-3 cherry tomatoes and shredded cheddar cheese in the middle of the container. 3. Top with more lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and cheese. 4. Pour the dressing of your choice(I used mango chipotle dressing, but you could use whatever dressing you like) if you plan on eating the salad immediately. If not, see note. 5. If you are using an Slurpee cup, put the cover on the cup and shake. If you're using a mason jar, put the lid on the jar and shake. If you're using a glass cup, cover the top with aluminum foil and shake. 6. Bon appetti! For the chef salad: Lettuce 1/2 inch slices of ham 1/2 inch slices of turkey 2-3 cherry tomatoes Shredded mozzarella cheese Ranch dressing 1. Put lettuce in your container and fill it to the half-way point. 2. Add 2-3 cherry tomatoes, meats, and shredded mozzarella cheese in the middle of the container. 3. Top with more lettuce, meats, cherry tomatoes, and cheese. 4. Pour ranch dressing into your container, if you plan on eating the salad immediately. If not, see note. 5. If you are using an Slurpee cup, put the cover on the cup and shake. If you're using a mason jar, put the lid on the jar and shake. If you're using a glass cup, cover the top with aluminum foil and shake. 6. Bon appetti! For the Chicken Caesar Salad: Lettuce Cooked strips of grilled chicken Shredded mozzarella cheese Caesar dressing 1. Put lettuce in your container and fill it to the half-way point. 2. Add 2-3 cooked strips of grilled chicken and shredded mozzarella cheese in the middle of the container. 3. Top with more lettuce, chicken, and cheese. 4. Pour Caesar dressing into the container if you plan on eating it immediately. If not, see note. 5. If you are using an Slurpee cup, put the cover on the cup and shake. If you're using a mason jar, put the lid on the jar and shake. If you're using a glass cup, cover the top with aluminum foil and shake. 6. Bon appetti! Note: If you are not planning to have the salad immediately, don't put any dressing in it and store it in the fridge.   One of the best Lunchables© I remember eating as a kid was the boxed known as "Pizza Treatzza", which was a kit to make pepperoni pizza AND a dessert pizza with candies and chocolate frosting! It's a shame they don't sell those anymore. I know Kraft made changes back in the '00s to make their Lunchables© healthier but now they have individual desserts in the brand now, so it's not like they made all their Lunchables© healthier. But it wasn't enough for me to just recreate the pepperoni pizza I remember eating as a kid- I wanted to make it more "modern"- like something you would see on the Food Network. So instead of pepperoni, I used chorizo, which is a Spanish sausage that's kind of like a pepperoni, except it's much harder to cut up. Which is why I suggest you remove the chorizo from its casing before cutting it up. Also, instead of tomato sauce, I used a red wine reduction sauce. It doesn't sound as hard as it is- to me anyway. My dad was very confused about the fact that the sauce in the pot had to be reduced three times. Although, looking back on that sauce, it reminded me of soy sauce in both the consistency of the sauce and the saltiness- which is why I dumped the reduction sauce I didn't put on the pizzas down the drain. I should've used actual wine. For the dessert pizzas, I made my own chocolate frosting instead of buying the chocolate frosting crap(pardon my language) that you can buy at the supermarket. I'm not a cake decorator and I don't eat frosting out of the can(eww!), so I would only be using the frosting once. I hate to waste food, which is why all stale breads my dad throws out after buying new ones shall be turned into bread pudding from here on out. Or at least when the New Year comes. Every year my dad buys two pies from the university he works at- one for me and one for him(he usually picks pumpkin pie or apple pie, I choose chocolate cream pie(he's not fond of chocolate). So that's 8-10 days worth of desserts. In addition, I buy an ice cream cake every year for my birthday(another 8-10 desserts) that 99% of the time I'm the only one eating it(it's my cake after all!). Plus I'm making my own ice cream cake this year too. And who knows if my family is going to fully devour my meatloaf birthday cake on Thanksgiving. Hence why I made my own frosting. It's the same recipe I used for my Fried Chocolate Pigs' Feet. Crispy M&Ms© were really popular back in the '90s and it's a good thing they are back. In the video, I mistakenly refer to these M&Ms© as Crunchy M&Ms©(which have never existed). My mistake. Sorry! Here's what you will need: For the cooking vessels: A medium saucepan to make the reduction sauce A small bowl to make your frosting A large Tupperware to store your pizza components For the actual pizzas: For the red wine reduction sauce: 2 cups of a stock of your choice(I used veal stock but you could use chicken stock or beef stock instead) 1 cup of red cooking wine Some onion powder 1 tbsp. of tomato paste Some marjoram(or thyme or oregano) 5 tsp. of butter Salt and black pepper to taste For the pizza Lunchables©: 3 sandwich thins that are cut in a circular shape Red wine reduction sauce to taste Shredded mozzarella cheese to taste 1 cut up chorizo link that has been removed from its casing For the chocolate frosting: 1 tbsp. of whipped cream 1/4 cups of baking chips(I used holiday baking chips but you could use chocolate baking chips instead) For the dessert pizza: Chocolate frosting to taste(see chocolate frosting recipe above) 4 Crispy M&Ms© 1. Pour the stock into the saucepan. Bring to a boil on the stovetop. Then let it cook until there's only 1/2 a cup left(about 10-15 minutes). 2. Pour reduced stock into a small bowl and set aside. 3. Pour red cooking wine, onion powder, tomato paste, and marjoram into the same saucepan. Bring that to a boil. Then let it cook until there's only 1/3 cup left(about 6-8 minutes). 4. Stir reduced stock in with the reduced wine mixture. Bring to a boil. Then let it cook until there's only 2/3 cup left(about 7-8 minutes). 5. Remove saucepan from stovetop. Add butter, salt, and black pepper to the sauce and stir until the butter melts. To assemble the chorizo pizzas: Note: The sandwich thins sold at most supermarkets are much bigger than the pizza crusts Lunchables© sells today, so I suggest you buy a pizza Lunchables© and use one of the pizza crusts as a stencil for cutting the sandwich thins into a smaller circle. 1. Stencil the sandwich thins with the pizza crust(see Note above). 2. Pour sauce on pizza crust. Top with shredded mozzarella cheese and chorizo. For the chocolate frosting: 1. Place whipped cream and baking chips in a small microwavable bowl. Mix the chips into the whipped cream. 2. Microwave the bowl for 30 seconds. After that, mix up the melted baking chips until you get a chocolate frosting. For the dessert pizzas: 1. Cover stenciled sandwich thin with the frosting. Top with M&Ms©. Bon appetit! I have two things to talk about in this blog post: my experiences at StreamCon NYC and November announcements for this channel. I'll talk about StreamCon first. I initially planned on going on both Saturday and Sunday into NYC for the convention but my dad and I were so physically exhausted from Saturday's event that we didn't go Sunday. Keep in mind I had to wake up at 5:30 AM on Halloween and I haven't woken up that early since my college days. Then my dad and I left the house around 7:15 AM, drove 60 minutes west to my Grandpa's house in Queens, and took two subways to the Javits Center in Manhattan. Then we had to repeat that commute to go home We didn't get home until 5:30 PM that day. I didn't go Friday either because I had a backlog of videos to upload. Even if I was caught up with my videos I still wouldn't have been be able to go that day as my grandma that lives downstairs needs my dad to give her medicine every night. My dad doesn't feel comfortable allowing me in NYC at night even though plenty of women get around NYC at night safely. This isn't Saudi Arabia, people(i.e. where women need to be chaperoned by men at ALL times)! My pass at StreamCon allowed me to go to Creator Camp, which was basically a bunch of panel discussions by industry professionals about various topics regarding all digital video(it wasn't just a YouTube convention- there were Periscopers and Vine creators there too!). My favorite panel discussion was called "Get Legal!". It was hosted by this law firm that specializes in working with video creators, talking about patents and waivers. Did you know that if you wanted to make a movie about someone, you need the written permission forms from every sponsor whose product appears in the video, in addition to the people themselves? Let's just say I'm more careful about showing logos about products I use in my recipes now. That is, I measure out the ingredients before recording, except for the spices. For that, I think I will cover the logos of the jars with duct tape or something. I had a cheeseburger and fries for lunch. It was really delicious! But I have to say I'm surprised not as many people were in attendance as I initially expected. Then there was the Meet and Greets where you can meet famous digital video stars. You needed a paid VIP pass to see some stars like Rosanna Pansino from Nerdy Nummies. There was a 30-person deep line for paid VIP passes so I forgoed seeing her. My pass allowed me to see 3 VIP stars for free. I only knew 1 of those stars- Elise Strachan from My Cupcake Addiction. She has over 2 million subscribers. There were only two pairs to see her(my dad and I, and this mom and her 8-year old daughter). Now for this guy named Connor Franta on the other hand... There were literally 100 people on a line to see him! Anybody that wanted to take a selfie with him was disappointed as I heard one of the volunteers say "no selfies" due to the huge amount of people wanting to see Connor. This long line reminded me of the time my mom and my sister spent hours on a line in front of a now defunct electronics store(it was called The Wiz, which is a dumb name for a store, considering today the word "wiz" is a verb meaning "to urinate"!) waiting on line for tickets to an N*SYNC concert when my sister was 12(I was 8 at the time, so it was in 1999). Spoiler alert: tickets were sold out by the time they got to the front of the line. But I saw the wonderful Elise in person! I told her about my channel and she was really fascinated by it. She follows me on Instagram now! Of course, we took lots of selfies(because it's 2015 and selfies with celebrities garners you lots of likes on social media), but I also got her autograph too. This was the best part of the day! So thank you, Elise! Now, for the announcements: My birthday is this month(my dad told me not to reveal the date although it's pretty apparent online if you look hard enough)! I'm making a (tofu) meatloaf birthday cake that will be filled with seasoned vegetables and the "frosting" will be mashed sweet potatoes. I will try to write on my cake using ketchup. This is a cake I'm serving on Thanksgiving when I see my extended family. Not only that, I'm making a traditional(read: dessert) birthday cake too. Hint: it's based on a certain cake style from the '80s and '90s that isn't hip today for some reason. As for the other videos, they mostly will be based on foods I remember eating back in the '90s. These foods were either sold at fast food joints or supermarkets and they haven't been revived(yet) for mass consumption, unlike crunchy M&Ms and French Toast Crunch. OK there is one recipe that's just a recipe but I remember refusing to eat it when I was 5. I have said enough already. I'm excited and I hope you are too! |
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