Hi Internet People,
This week my recipe is actually over on the iZombie Support Group site. Here’s the link to the brand new page we set up, iZombie Cookbook 2.0, the first recipe is the realistic brain with all the gory details.
Here’s the companion How to Video:
You can find me on Twitter, @kleffnotes, on Snapchat, thenerdygirlexp, and I write for The Nerdy Girl Express.
Talk to ya tomorrow,
Katherine
Hi Internet People,
This week’s brain was not just sweet, but deep fried. I got the suggestion from our fearless leader over at The Nerdy Girl Express, Erin. Now okay, technically these are strawberry cheesecake chimichangas, but I totally didn’t roll them correctly and they look a bit more like something you’d get at Taco Bell then from Meat Cute. I love Taco Bell, but I was hoping for them to look a bit classier. Here’s my best picture of them, with a bit of garnish.
Before the recipe I need to share with you my cooking drama. I’ve never deep fried anything before and I don’t know if I will ever do it again. In the recipe I found they said use a skillet with three inches of oil in it, which I prepped on the stove. This is exactly what it looked like.
There were a number of issues with the three inches of oil instruction. One, my pan was not really that deep, I didn’t have a deeper pan. Should have just used a pot of oil. Second, my pan wasn’t level. It literally kept tipping while I was trying to use it. Three, I didn’t have an oil thermometer, which meant I had not clue when the oil was hot. Four, I literally had no idea what the heck I was doing. On the second chimichanga some oil got on the burner and a small flame popped up so I turned everything off and proceeded to just put the chimichangas in oil so they’d be coated. Then I waited a good hour for everything to cool off, cleaned everything off, and just laid the chimichangas in a clean pan to grill. The two I actually fried look delicious and the others look edible, just a bit more browned. Also I totally got mini splash back burns from the oil, don’t hurt now, but seriously ouch!
Okay, now to the actual recipe. You’ll need 8 ounces of cream cheese, 1/4 cup sour cream, 3/4 cup of chopped up strawberries, 6-8 flour tortillas (I needed 8, but the recipe called for 6. I just couldn’t wrap things well.), vegetable oil (enough to fill whatever you are frying in. I’m totally not giving you instructions for that since I almost set my house on fire. You should probably just Google it.) , 1 tablespoon of sugar. To coat the finished chimichangas you’ll need an additional 1/4 cup sugar and some cinnamon (I just tossed some in the sugar until I thought it looked good.) You also need toothpicks to hold the filled up tortillas together.
All your ingredients need to come to room temperature before you start whipping them together. After that your first step is to take the cream cheese, sour cream, tablespoon of sugar, and strawberries and mix them together. I used a hand mixer on low/medium speed
. 
I added a couple drops of red food coloring to make it a bit pinker, but you wouldn’t have to. I then used a spatula to put a little bit of the cream cheese mix into each tortilla and wrapped them as best as I could. Admittedly they looked really ugly and the filling was oozing out, but they are edible. I just used a lot of toothpicks to rig them closed.
Now if you fry them you will need a plate with a paper towel on it to help collect the extra oil.
I already told you how badly the entire frying thing went for me so I’m not going to go into that. You can get by just coating them in oil and putting them in an ungreased pan to brown one at a time. It still works out.
Let them cool a bit and then roll them in the cinnamon sugar. The best picture I got of the finished product was with the fried ones. Even if it was a disaster they looked good.
Here’s the finished product again. I garnished it with a bit of whipped cream and some strawberry syrup.
If you try this recipe let me know what you think in the comments or on Twitter, @kleffnotes. You can also find me on my kleffnotes YouTube channel. I write for The Nerdy Girl Express and I run their Snapchat, thenerdygirlexp. I also post all my recipes on the iZombie Support Group site.
Talk to ya tomorrow,
Katherine
Hi Internet People,
I’ve been working really intently on this project for the iZombie finale. It’s a huge deal and I’m working in conjunction with Jon of the iZombie Support Group site, but I thought I would tease it a bit by mentioning that I have been doing a lot of working in the kitchen. As you know I do weekly iZombie recipes, I have one ready to go for this week already thanks to Erin over at The Nerdy Girl Express. She found the recipe and I thought it looked delicious and perfect for a brainy kitchen.
Now this top secret project is going to involve a lot of things, besides just a one day reveal like I do over here with my normal recipes. Oh no, this one, once I have it mastered is going to be my crowning brain achievement. It’s going to give me a new way to make brainy dishes and I need to figure out the exact way to make it work to ensure that this goes perfectly. I am super excited and each stage of the process has been exciting. I have learned a lot, and I can’t wait to share it with you all in detail. There will be an article, a recipe, a video, a cosplay, seriously this thing is a big deal.
In other recipe news I’ve found a cool source for tasty recipes online from a surprising source. The U by Kotex YouTube channel has been posting videos called Please More Snacks and I just made their over night oats and they were delicious. I’ve made the recipe twice in less than two weeks. I’m trying their sweet tea float recipe this week. It sounds tasty, and involves blueberries and sherbet so it should be delicious.
You can find me on Twitter, @kleffnotes, and on Snapchat, thenerdygirlexp. You can also watch me in fun videos over on my kleffnotes YouTube channel. You can also find me on the websites that I linked above.
Talk to ya tomorrow,
Katherine
Hi Internet People,
Today’s brain treat is a very brainy bread full of sugary goodness. I couldn’t resist making something sweet this week, I mean come on sugar was in the title. Now I will say the bread reminded me more of a cake than a bread. It was sweeter than most breads I make and it was frosted, which I only ever do for cakes and cupcakes. The frosting really sold the brainy aspect of the cake and I thought it was really tasty so it’s definitely worth trying. Here’s a pic for you:
The official recipe was cherry bread with cream cheese frosting. The bread wasn’t too hard to make, though the recipe I found had you mixing in the butter at the end, which I wasn’t a fan of doing. You needed to add an entire stick so I think it would have been easier to just warm it up and add it in at the end without cutting it into little pieces.I’ll talk about that more when we get to that part of the recipe.
For the bread you will need:
2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder, dash of salt, 1/2 cup butter (one whole stick), 2 large eggs, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, and one 10 oz jar of maraschino cherries.
You will first need to drain the juice from the jar, you need to keep the juice for the recipe so pour it into a cup. Then you need to chop up the cherries. I dumped them into a little bowl and cut them up into little pieces.
In a separate bowl I added the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, eggs, vanilla, and cherry juice all together and stirred them up. Then I dumped in the diced cherries.
Already looking a bit brainy, right? Then I cut in the butter, but seriously don’t do that. My hand started to cramp trying to mash up the hunks of room temperature butter and it took forever to get it integrated. Instead take your stick(1/2 cup) of butter, put it on a small plate, heat it in the microwave for 15 seconds so it’s mushier, then throw it in your batter. That should make it way easier for you.
It’ll also probably keep your batter from looking as chunky as mine. Then I poured my batter into a greased bread pan.
After it was in the pan I took a container of red food coloring and some skewers. I dipped the skewers in food coloring and then stuck them in the batter and swirled them around to get red streaks into it.
Then I put it in the oven for one hour at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. While the bread was in the oven I mixed up the frosting.
For the frosting you’ll need 4 oz of cream cheese, a tablespoon of milk, 1/4 cup of butter (half a stick), and a cup of confectioner’s sugar.
I mixed that with an electric mixer on low/medium speed. Once it was whipped and looked like frosting, I added about five drops of pink food coloring and briefly mixed it again to make it pink all the way through.
I sealed up the container with the frosting to be used when the bread was cooled. It got done about the time I got done mixing up the frosting and this is what it looked like fresh out of the oven.
I let it cool for about four, five hours and then popped it out of the bread pan onto a plate. After it was on the plate I covered in with the frosting and then used a squeeze bag of red icing to add brainy lines. Here’s another pic of the frosted bread.
Then I made sure to taste test the bread and I cut myself a slice.
I’m definitely going to make this again, but I think I’ll double the recipe and make it a cake. My friend really loves cherries and cream cheese so this will be perfect for her birthday.
If you try this bread you should totally tweet me pics, @kleffnotes. You can also find all of my other recipes on the iZombie Support Group site. I also write for The Nerdy Girl Express and run their Snapchat, thenerdygirlexp. I also have a kleffnotes YouTube channel.
Talk to ya tomorrow,
Katherine
Hi Internet People,
Today is brainy kitchen day for me, though no pics for you guys yet. I actually made up tonight’s brain a bit early because I wasn’t sure how the recipe would turn out. It actually turned out better than I thought. I think I’m going to use it in the future for my friend’s birthday. I already promised her she could have some because it has two of her favorite things in it. No hints brainies, I like to keep these things under wraps.
Now the rest of my day is going to involve some more brainy cooking. I need to work on my finale test brains and I have to work on trials starting today to make sure that everything works out. I want these to be perfect because this is a really big deal recipe. I also bought a lot of supplies for trial runs so I definitely have the means to make a lot of brains.
I really am just excited to perfect this brain recipe. I’m going off of one YouTube video, which had no measurements, just references to ingredients and even though there were visuals, none helped me gauge amounts or anything concrete. For the next couple of weeks my kitchen will be a mini Meat Cute. I can’t really run a full scale butcher shop or a mortuary so think of it as Meat Cute Express. All the brains and none of the ambiance. I’ll tweet out tonight’s brain during the 9 pm est and the 9 pm pst airings, I’ll also post the recipe here and link it on the the iZombie Support Group site.
I’ll also be live tweeting the episode, @kleffnotes, when I am able to watch it at 2 am est. You can also find me on The Nerdy Girl Express and I run their Snapchat, thenerdygirlexp. I also have a kleffnotes YouTube channel.
Talk to ya tomorrow,
Katherine
Hi Internet People,
I had some plans for brainy recipes to make this week based on some great Twitter suggestions, but I have struck out finding two crucial ingredients, cauliflower and veggie meat. I’m going to have to go to a specific grocery store to get them, but I found a recipe that struck my fancy while browsing the internet for ideas.
This Tuesday’s episode is called Pour Some Sugar Zombie, which made me think I should do something on the sweet side. I also just really like the song, Pour Some Sugar on Me, and I’m very possibly going to do something goofy involving singing during the episode. Yes, there might be some psuedo strip teasing, but only because I really do like dancing to that song. The recipe I found involves cherries and baking, not too many hints, I like leaving my recipes a secret until Tuesday nights. It looked delicious in the pictures and I really like making baked goods.
I also have a really big brainy project that I need to get to work on. I have been planning something for the finale with Jon of The iZombie Support Group and it is definitely going to take a few test runs to get it perfect before the big night. We did some video watching and some internet searching and I really think it could be amazing, I just need to get it worked out. No hints beyond it’s brain related, but if I can get it just right this will be epic. I’m also going to cosplay it up so you should definitely get excited.
That’s my big update for today. If you want to see more of me you can find me on Twitter, @kleffnotes, and I post my recipes on the iZombie Support Group site. I’m also a writer for The Nerdy Girl Express and I run their Snapchat, thenerdygirlexp.
Talk to ya tomorrow,
Katherine
Hi Internet People,
Last night we finally had iZombie back in our lives and I got back to my iZombie kitchen to whip up some tasty brains. This week I present to you brain salad on a bagel, here’s the pic.
Okay, so this brain salad is really egg salad, but I thought that with Easter coming up on Sunday I’d give you a recipe to help use up those dyed eggs you might be making. Now first off you need to hard boil some eggs. I always forget how long you need to do this for, so here’s a quick how to. Put the eggs in a pot and cover them with water, put them on the burner and set it on high, with the lid on the pot. Once the water comes to a boil turn off the burner, but don’t remove the pot with the eggs. Leave it there and covered for 12 minutes. Once that’s done remove them from the water and let cool.
Now once they eggs are cool, I let them chill in the fridge for a few hours. I picked three eggs and peeled them. Then these three chosen eggs spent the night in a sealed tupperware container soaking in a mix of water and red food coloring. By the next day they were bright pink, perfect for brains.
I then took a paper towel and dried the three eggs a bit by wrapping the towel around them and squeezing very lightly. I then cut up the eggs into bite sized pieces and threw them into a larger bowl.
Next I added two large heaping spoonfuls of mayo, you can use miracle whip or whatever you prefer. I’d say total I added about roughly 3/4 of a cup.
Then mix up the egg and mayo so it’s evenly combined.
Then add some mustard to taste.
Since this is a meal fit for a zombie, I added a dash of hot sauce.
You can add as much hot sauce as you want, but make sure you mix it all in.
Then I added one drop of pink food coloring to make the salad a bit brainier.
I let the mixture chill a bit, but you could totally eat it right after mixing it up. Here’s the finished sandwich again for you.
Let me know if you try this recipe, I’d love to see pics. You could add ketchup or extra hot sauce to make it a bit gorier. I’d also consider enjoying it with some of these Lay’s chips I found, fiery roasted habanero. Super spicy and super delicious.
If you want to see more of me you can find me on Twitter, @kleffnotes, on my kleffnotes YouTube channel, and I write for The Nerdy Girl Express. I also run their Snapchat, thenerdygirlexp. I also post all of my iZombie recipes on the iZombie Support Group site.
Talk to ya tomorrow,
Katherine
Hi Internet People,
We have an 80’s Night happening this weekend at work and while asking some of my friends for help, namely Jon and Erica, I came up with the idea for a very interesting looking cookie. After they suggested I do something Ghostbusters themed, I got to work on figuring something out. What I came up with has been affectionately named The Slimer Cookie. Here’s a pic for those of you who didn’t see it on Twitter:
With the new Ghostbusters trailer released these cookies are perfect for pretty much anyone, well except vegetarians like me. While the recipe is super easy, it does involve lime jello mix and marshmallows, which both contain gelatin. Again, super easy recipe perfect for Ghostbusters fans and really for anyone who wants to try and gross their friends and family out.
I was a bit lazy and used a boxed sugar cookie mix instead of a mix from scratch. This is what I used in case you are curious, though you could use any sugar cookie mix or recipe that you want.
To make both batches I needed two eggs, two sticks of butter, and one lime jello mix. After mixing it all up I added mini marshmallows. I just sort of dumped them in until I thought it looked good, it was about 3/4 of the bag. This is what it looked like with the jello powder and marshmallows added.
Then I took pretty heaping spoonfuls of the batter, yes I suck at portion sizes I just make really big everything. It’s just so much easier than measuring out precisely.
I baked the cookies for about 5 minutes at 375 F, though depending on your mix and location the time and temperature might vary, and they turned out the way they appeared in the picture above, which I’ll show again for you right here.
If you try out my Slimer cookie recipe let me know what you think. I’m selling them at a bake sale this weekend so hopefully people will buy them. I thought they looked really cool.
You can find more of my recipes on the iZombie Support Group site, in the fan made cookbook. You can also find me on Twitter, @kleffnotes, and on my kleffnotes YouTube channel. I also write for The Nerdy Girl Express and run their Snapchat, thenerdygirlexp.
Talk to ya tomorrow,
Katherine
Hi Internet People,
Last night was a caffeine fueled episode of iZombie and it also happened to be National Toast Day. So to keep with the coffee shop vibe of the episode and the random national holiday I decided to make brains on toast and hot sauce laced hot chocolate.Here’s the pic I shared on Twitter of the finished products.
I feel like I say all of my recipes are super easy, but this took me maybe ten minutes to put together both parts. Seriously, super quick, and I even have lots of leftovers. I’ll start with the hot chocolate because it’s the fastest to make.
First you’ll need hot sauce, hot chocolate mix, and whipped cream.
You put about two to three drops of hot sauce in the bottom of your mug, it doesn’t have to be a skull, but I thought it was fitting.
Then I cheated and used the Keurig to make the hot chocolate, adding the liquid over the hot sauce helps it get mixed in.
Then I added a generous amount of whipped cream, I let it melt into the hot chocolate before I drink it.
Now for the brainy feature, brains on toast.
All you need is cream cheese, strawberry preserves, and a little bit of red food coloring.
I mixed up the container of cream cheese and two massive spoonfuls of preserves in a Tupperware bowl, you can already see it at the bottom of those pictures. After I got it super mixed up I added in three drops of red food coloring to make it look pinker.
Pretty gross, huh? It tastes delicious I swear. Though fun fact, they actually use cream cheese and strawberry jam in tv shows when babies get born. That might not make this more appetizing, but hey, still a fun fact and honestly I swear this tastes delicious. Here’s the close up of the toast itself.
If you try this out you should definitely let me know what you think and send me pics. You can comment below or tweet at me, @kleffnotes. We have forever until a new episode of iZombie, seriously guys so many hiatuses are not cool, so we need to do something to get us through.
You can also find me on my kleffnotes YouTube channel. I write for The Nerdy Girl Express and run their Snapchat, thenerdygirlexp.
Talk to ya tomorrow,
Katherine
Hi Internet People,
Yesterday I asked for suggestions for my iZombie Tuesday brainy dishes and I am excited to say that I received some great ones. Now for the first time all the suggestions were for savory instead of sweet treats, I do have one idea of my own that would be a bit sweeter.
The first suggestion was to do something with cauliflower. Now I am a huge fan of veggie dishes and have actually seen recipes for buffalo style cauliflower, Hannah Hart even did a video where she made some, and I’ve eaten super cheap microwavable buffalo seasoned cauliflower. I’m thinking I would do something along those lines, but either keep the entire head of cauliflower whole so it maintains a larger brain shape or cut it up and add it to a pasta or rice. It would be spicy, but possibly not the right color. I’m considering finding a marinade or making one that would tinge the cauliflower a more red or pink color. There will be some experimenting.
The second suggestion was to make a brainy meatloaf with decorative ketchup. Now I don’t really know how to cook meat. I’ve browned ground beef before, but I’m mostly a vegetarian, I occasionally eat shrimp, and I have never cooked a meat dish. There is a Meijer near where I live and they have a pretty diverse vegetarian section. I’ve seen some fake meat that looks a bit like ground beef in a tube, which could work. I’m going to peruse the section and see what I can find. There should be something that I can get to cook up like a meatloaf.
I’ve been tossing around the idea of scrambled eggs and an egg salad dish, both of which I can get to look pretty brainy if I set my mind to it I think. I’m also thinking about doing a quick brains on toast, which would be exceptionally easy. With the two suggestions and the three things I’m thinking I just need one more recipe to finish off the season. For the finale I want to do something super awesome so keep leaving me your suggestions either in the comments or on Twitter, @kleffnotes.
You can also find me on The Nerdy Girl Express and I run their Snapchat, thenerdygirlexp. I also have my kleffnotes YouTube channel.
Talk to ya tomorrow,
Katherine
kleffnotes 