Red Wine Tri Tip Roast: Cooking Meat is NOT Hard

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Really not that difficult....

My friends always say that they can make pasta or vegetables or fish or whatever, but they don't know how to cook meat. But seriously, it's not hard. If you can turn on an oven and set a timer, you can cook meat. Just don't over cook it. And let it rest. 

Fool proof instructions below. But, if you just don't like touching raw meat (I really think that's a major issue for a lot of people), just get over it.  And turn on your oven.

Shepherd's Pie with Turkey and Butternut Squash: My ugly but delicious, healthy version of a classic

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You are so, so, so ugly... but delicious.

So, I don't cook the healthiest food.... delicious, but not usually something a dietician would endorse. Not to say that I am as bad as Paula Deen, but I also don't consider salads meals. 

This was my attempt to be healthy, and seasonal, and use up random ingredients in my mom's kitchen.

I think it was successful, and my brother agreed... he ate two giant servings. Although, he also called me crazy and "meticulous" for cutting up tons of carrots, celery and onion in the same tiny shapes...

Fall Pasta and Midnight Pasta

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Pasta with pumpkin beer braised short ribs, butternut squash, peppers, onions and tomatoes.

Jungle cats have a mixed history with pasta:

Note: this is simply a reenactment of Julian cooking "midnight pasta."

Pasta is J's go-to late night food. However, J has had mixed success with making midnight pasta, and is the queen of "charred spaghetti." I am not one to gossip, but J may or may not be on speaking terms with her roommate due to an incident last week involving pasta, fire, and the smoke alarm in the wee hours of the morning.

I am more of a "make ahead and microwave" lady, so today I am making a big pot of whole wheat linguine with pumpkin beer braised short ribs, roasted butternut squash, and a red pepper and onion tomato sauce. My mother is out of town, and I am headed to Florida to be in my childhood best friend's wedding, and both of us fear my brother will subsist only on Wendy's unless we leave him with something that is both nutritious and delicious. Also, I am on a hearty fall flavors kick. 

Jungle Cat Short Rib Mac and the Claque's Mac Off!

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Winners' Circle!

It's no secret: we love good cocktails. One of our favorite neighborhood haunts is Huckleberry Bar. They have an amazing spicy tequila cocktail ("The Sampogna"), friendly bartenders who actually know our names (and high-five us.... and give us shots... and maybe think we're crazy), and their food smells amazing. 

During a post-work cocktail, we noticed that they were hosting a a macaroni and cheese cook-off. Of course, we decided to enter (i.e., we sent in a last-minute entry request weeks after official entry had closed, and sent enough emoticon-laden emails that they allowed us in).

Flash forward to this weekend: we buy a ton of cheese, and we make a plan, and then, life happened. Well, our cluster-f*ck dinner party happened, and J fell victim to the weekend work plague. After Saturday's festivities, J arose and made it in to work by 8am, where she slumped over her desk, wrote a memo, and reassessed whether being a corporate lawyer was truly worth it. I slept in, called J to ascertain that we were really doing it, and went to buy the remaining ingredients.

Jungle Cat Essentials

Kristin originally started this blog with her friend Julian, inspired by their joint desire to be hip socialite Martha Stewarts. Before Julian and Kristin really knew each other, Kristin attempted to set Julian up with one of her friends.  Halfway through the date, the guy mysteriously texted Kristin that Julian was “agile like a jungle cat.”  The guy didn’t stick but the name did.  Shortly thereafter, a dashing young man at a bar called Kristin a cougar and said she looked like a combination of Lana Del Rey and Ann Romney, thus confirming that Julian and Kristin are in fact quite feline (and that the men they meet are bafflingly bad at descriptions), and providing the name for this blog.

Please Note: No one in this photo resembles Lana del Rey or Ann Romney.

After throwing several dinner parties together and placing third in a competitive macaroni and cheese contest with Kristin, Julian met the love of her life and moved to California to live happily ever after on the sunny beaches of the West Coast.

Cocktails and smiles.

Kristin continues to reside on the East Coast, working as an attorney and trying to find the time to cook for her friends and family and detail her culinary exploits on this blog. After a long absence, she was motivated to begin blogging again by her friend Tammy, with whom she is entering another mac and cheese cook-off. 

Keep reading, and expect lots of butter.

Kristin cooking(ish).

Brussels Sprouts Pizza, Butternut Squash Pizza, and Cluster-F*ck Pizza Parties

Both pizzas, before going in.

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On Friday, we decided to throw a last-minute Saturday night dinner party. Our friends were eager to attend, especially when we promised amazing and seasonally appropriate fare (and booze!), but on Saturday afternoon, we experienced first-hand the major downside of having insanely intelligent and successful friends: weekend work. BOO.

With half of our friends bowing out last minute or expressing uncertainty as to when they could arrive, we revised our menu and settled on pizza with fall ingredients as well as a salted caramel apple tart. However, the food was not the cluster-f*ck portion of the evening....

While I was doing the prep work, Jungle Cat J set out to buy alcohol, flowers, and clean the apartment. Beverages and beautiful arrangements were successfully acquired, and when J set upon the last task, cleaning, some issues...... ummmmm, arose?

Expecting visitors, the commode chose to stop flushing or draining. J waited patiently, then decided an intervention was needed. She set out to purchase a plunger, and returned exasperated, with a very small bag:

K: Plunger?

J: They didn't have any.

K: So.......

J: I bought lipstick and playing cards!

In my mom's words: "lipstick will make the toilet look pretty."