Oreo Balls recipe

I have to thank Karen for the suggestion that I use Newman's Own Oreo-ish cookies next time. I'm adding them to my list for my Whole Foods Pilgrimage. So I'm gonna go ahead and act like I used them for the purposes of this recipe so that you can make yours all proper like. You know, with this being a real food bloggy thing.

I had these evil, evil desserts at a lock-in last week. They were the only thing keeping me going at 2 a.m. I'm just too old to stay up that late by choice anymore. Those days are so long gone.

I shouldn't have asked the mom who brought them how to make them. I really should've gone on believing they were something only talented and skilled bakers could make. Blissful ignorance would have been better than the truth.

They're easy, easy, easy. Easy.

So get this...all you need is a bag of Newman's Own Oreoish Cookies (or the real deal, if Whole Foods is nowhere near you, either), a couple packages of organic cream cheese (my HEB has Central Market organic), a box of milk chocolate and white chocolate, the kind you melt. Read the ingredients here and get the real stuff--there shouldn't be any unpronounceable ingredients.

Set the cream cheese out to soften enough that you could mix it easily. Crush up the Oreos in a baggy (Glad and Ziploc are both BPA free, so stick with these brands). Mix the two together and make cute little balls out of the mixture. I chilled mine for a couple hours just bc I had somewhere to go, but I don't think there's a rule. Then melt your chocolates and dip the balls in the milk chocolate, and drizzle white chocolate over the top. Chill until the chocolate hardens.

I'm quite sure even with the Newman's Oreos, Jillian wouldn't approve of Oreo Balls. They're pretty much pure sin. But I'm also quite sure Jillian doesn't read my blog, she's not my friend on Facebook, and I don't have to worry about her showing up at my house unless I get sick again for a week (see Lesson #11), so I thoroughly enjoyed each and every bite of each and every Oreo Ball I had.

I did take them up to school and doled them out to all my mom friends, the office folks, and Mattie's class, so they weren't in my house long. But they were good while they were.

So go make some today!! Everyone (but Jillian) will be glad you did!

Lesson #11 - When Mom and Dad get strep in the same week, the goal changes from "let's eat real food" to "what can we have delivered tonight?"

So apparently strep is sweeping through Houston like the Plague; don't know many folks who haven't had at least one case in their household. It started for me on Mother's Day evening, and because of my aversion for doctors, I stayed in bed, miserable, unable to sleep for 3 nights before I finally gave in and went to a Walgreen's Take Care Clinic for a strep test. Two nights later, Jason got it, and there's a whole other funnyish story that goes along with his trip to Walgreen's but he'd have my head if I blabbed it all over the internet.

So a week with both grown-ups sick for most of it translates into a week of really crappy eating. Pizza, day one. Chinese, day two. Smashburger, day 3. I managed to make something one night last week but I don't really remember what it was and I don't think anyone liked it anyway, and then we had some Chick-Fila mixed in there somewhere.

Yeah, so not such a good week. But it was all about survival. And all I have to say is that if Jillian wants to come cook for my family when I'm sick to make sure no laboratory-created "food" graces our plates, she's welcome to come a'knockin. She's got a new show where she makes housecalls, so maybe next time we all get laid out with some crud, I'll give her a ring. But in the meantime, the kids seemed to enjoy the break from the real food crusade.

Until next time, may your food be real unless you're laid up with double-parent strep throat and can't manage to cook anything.

PS: Greek food ROCKS!

So I don't have a lamb shank handy, nor the ability to roast one all day long, so the recipes I found online for gyros all call for ground lamb, and it's grilled over a hot flame in little meatloafey shapes and then sliced. I was a skeptic.

The grilling over the hot flame thing kinda stunk. It was hot, and I kept checking to make sure my eyebrows didn't get singed off. But, true to the recipe's directions, they were ready in just a few minutes. Took 'em off my own version of a spit and sliced them up. Had to sample with some hot pita bread and my homemade tzatziki sauce. Heaven, baby! I smiled as I finished off the last "sample" bite and thought of my dear friend Dana who must be dining daily up in Heaven on this purely heavenly food! She was a huge Greek food fanatic and introduced it to me just a few short years ago.

I think she had a hand in making my first homegrown Greek meal tasty. A little help with the Magic Bullet would be great there, Dana! ;) Miss you Girlie.

Lesson #10: INFOMERCIALS LIE! Liars, liars, liars!

When I saw the infomercial for THE MAGIC BULLET about a month ago, I knew I had to have it. The perfect food processor/blender/margarita maker in a cute handy-dandy little size.

So my sweet mom sent me a box full of cooking goodies for Mother's Day, including MY VERY OWN MAGIC BULLET! It was like Christmas getting into all that stuff. A vegetable washer. An egg slicer. But the headliner of the gift was of course MY VERY OWN MAGIC BULLET! Couldn't wait to break it in. Why bother reading the instructions when I sat through 30 minutes of the Info-Host and Info-Hostess showing me all the tricks this superhero of kitchen appliances was capable of. And all in 10 seconds or less!!

On tonight's menu--Greek--so I thought my very own Magic Bullet would be perfect for chopping up cucumber for the tzatziki sauce. Popped in a relatively small amount--certainly no more than they used on the informercial--and put the little cup on the little base, plugged it in, and looked all over for the "on" switch. Apparently, there is no "on" switch. I must not have been paying that close of attention after all. So the little sticker on my very own Magic Bullet says all I have to do is push down and turn left for on, right for off. I'm pushing down, and it locked in, but nothing. And now I can't get the cup thingie off. Finally, after scaring the crap outta myself when I used a fork to pry the cup off the base and the thing powered on as I stood there connected to the electricity by a metal object, I got the cup thingie off. Switched my cucumber bits to the bigger cup thingie and tried again. EXACT SAME THING HAPPENED. This time, I unplugged the base before jabbed the fork down into it to release the cup thingie.

WHY DOESN'T IT WORK LIKE IT SHOWED ON THE BLASTED INFOMERCIAL???? I don't know why I seem to need a tutorial to operate my very own Magic Bullet. It's been way more than 10 seconds and I still have no chopped up cucumber for my tzatziki.

Uncool Magic Bullet people. Very uncool.

Until next time, may your food be real and may you never get suckered into buying stupid dumb stuff off of stupid dumb infomercials.