You should really buy my maze book. It has mazes like this, only in black & white. It has all the solutions, too.
Of course, you can just enjoy these here for free too, just like all the other ones on my blog. I really like it when people share their solutions in the comments or by tagging me on social media.
You can use my maze book like an adult coloring book too. Some people color in all the dead ends until the path is revealed. I fully support maze solution anarchy.
Maybe print these out & try them while you’re waiting for Easter dinner to cook, passing time before your seder meal for Passover, fasting for Ramadan, or you’re contemplating what to plant in your vegetable garden.
If you do celebrate Passover, Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, Beltane, Ostara, Imbolc, Chaitra Navratri, Ram Navami, Vishu, Ugadi, Vaisakhi, Baisakhi, Hanamatsuri, Qingming, Walpirgis, just Spring Equinox… or some other holiday… Would you like a maze themed for that? I try to approach everything with a mix of reverence & levity. I like to learn about other people’s holidays and the meaning & traditions behind them.
I may have to do a guinea pig themed maze soon…
Oh yeah, you can get the vegetable garden one on a T-shirt or a bunch of other stuff at TeePublic or RedBubble if you’d like to wear it while you garden or hang it on your wall.
I did it. No one died. Everyone seemed to like it. I’ll put my recipe down here first & the shenanigans after that… because Threads gave me some shenanigans. Trigger warning for Nonnas worldwide:I put brown sugar in jarred sauce. Proceed with caution.
Preheat oven to 375° (Next time I may do 350° for a longer time, but we were in a but of a hurry.)
Brown the beef in a pan on the stove with some of all your spices to taste. (I could/should have included onion here.)
Mix the ricotta, one bag of the shredded cheese, the grated parmesan, a bit of the shredded parmesan, the eggs, fresh parsley, & shredded zucchini in a large bowl, again with all the spices including the garlic.
This filled two 9×13″ glass baking dishes for me. I think I layered them both a bit different. Follow your heart. Put sauce on the bottom, sprinkle in some brown sugar, the dry lasagna noodles, the ricotta mixture, the ground beef, some more shredded cheese, more sauce, more noodles, and just keep going. I did put a very little bit of water in the jars of sauce to swirl around & empty more.. and put that into the dishes too. Sprinkled cheese and made sure there was lots of sauce on top of each.
Cover them tightly with foil & put them in the oven for 50 minutes.
Take out, sprinkle on some more of the shredded parmesan, cook for another 10 minutes.
Pull out, rest for a bit, then serve.
Notes:
Like I said, lower & slower next time. Maybe 350° for an hour then uncover & go for another 15 minutes?
Carrots may be good in with the ground beef… and/or mushrooms?
Maybe spinach in the cheese mixture or as another layer. Let’s get some fiber up in here.
I don’t generally like sausage, but if you do it’d be good here for sure.
What would you do?
🍝
Readers, let me tell you… people have feelings about calling that strip of pasta a “lasagna noodle.” There is also the fact that “American” lasagna has ricotta, but traditional does not. I was even told that because I added shredded zucchini it is no longer lasagna. I have made it replacing the pasta with long thinly-sliced zucchini planks and still called it lasagna.
People have lost their damn minds. No one knows that food and language evolve over time and across regions and even households?
I did plug my ingredients list into Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, & Copilot to see what they would churn back out, but honestly I didn’t follow through with any of their advice.
I look forward to your thoughts about lasagna, your tips, tricks & recipes, and the nuance of semantics involving pasta naming conventions in the comments. How do you layer yours? I feel like I need a way deeper pan. Do you go “traditional” and eschew ricotta? Do you call lasagna noodles lasagna noodles or are you pretentious?
It’s cheeseception. I wanted to try that cheesy beer bread in some grilled ham & cheese sandwiches… and I needed some soup for the side, right? Why not up the cheese level with my old broccoli cheese soup or my potato soup? I thought the fiber from the broccoli may be beneficial. 😆
Roasted Broccoli Cheddar Soup and a Cheesy Beer Bread Grilled Ham & Cheese Sandwich
I probably should have stuck with a traditional tomato soup to combat the absolute decadent richness, but this soup was pretty damn good. I want to try to make a roasted butternut squash soup eventually too… but not sure that would pair well with this sandwich?
I did spice-up my original broccoli cheese soup recipe. This could be a full meal, or a side to a nice turkey or roast beef sandwich. Recipe down below. That’s what I did this time. I’ll probably make it slightly different next time. Everyone does that, right?
As far as the sandwich, I just cooked some lunchmeat ham for a few seconds on the panini grill, sliced up the cheesy bear bread, buttered the outsides with softened butter, and stacked it with some individually wrapped cheese slices… cooked on high on the countertop grill to sear & melt it all at once. I should have gotten a side view, but I was hungry.
Fresh real bacon would be incredible here, maybe more of it… or even bits of cubed ham.
You could skip the beer & do 1½ cups of water with the ham bullion or Better Than Bouillon. I like to use Straub Amber to cook too.
I wonder if a red bell pepper would be good in this too?
This makes a large pot, so hope you like leftovers.
My apologies to vegans, the lactose-intolerant, and the dairy-allergic.
🥦🧀🥣
OK, so how would you make your broccoli cheddar soup? Can I call this broccoli cheddar when it also includes other kinds of cheese? What are your thoughts on the roasting? Would you try this? Do you have a broccoli cheese soup go-to recipe? How about any tips & tricks?
Ever have an idea that you can’t shake? I had all the ingredients. I wanted to make them into a sandwich. I didn’t want to fry the components in separate pans & use the oven… so I did it all on a big baking sheet.
It worked. Mostly.
The hashbrown patties came in the shape that I wanted to mimic, so I wasn’t interested in a muffin tin for the eggs or the corned beef hash. I may just used canned corned beef next time & not the hash… and I may end up cooking the eggs separately. Maybe.
This is how I did it this time. I made 4 of them.
Ingredients:
8 frozen hash brown patties
1 can of corned beef hash
4 eggs
Milk (optional)
Salt, Pepper, Onion Powder to taste
4 slices of American cheese singles
Spray oil
Heavy duty aluminum foil.
How I did it…
Preheat the oven to 425° on the air fryer setting.
Make 4 foil rings the size of your hash brown patties and set them aside.
Sprayed the (large) backing sheet with the cooking oil.
Pop those hash brown patties on like a checkerboard.
Put it in the oven for 5 minutes.
Take it out, flip the patties, and spoon the corned beef hash into some of the empty spots. (Think if each row or column like 1 sandwich.)
Pop it back in & crank it down to 400° on air fry for another 10 minutes.
While that is going mix your egg, milk. & spices.
Pull the chaos triple checkerboard out and flip the corned beef.
Put the foil rings in place in the empty spots, pour the eggs in there, and put it back in the oven for 5 minutes.
Pull it out, remove the foil rings that barely worked, toss on the cheese slices, and pop it in for 2 minutes.
Take it out, let it cool for 3½, and stack it on a plate! (I added ketchup here too – should have also used some Red Hot or something similar.)
That’s…
-Hashbrown Patty-
—— Cheese —–
——– Egg ——-
Corned Beef Hash
-Hashbrown Patty-
Eat it!
It’s a work in progress, but it was delicious. What do you think? How would you do it? Our oven has a convection setting and an air fry setting. I could see this working with either, or just by baking it… adjusting the time & temp. I didn’t want to stack it like a casserole, but I certainly could have… and frozen hash browns or tater tots may have worked…. The egg would probably have to be used as a binder for that and/or the corned beef… but then were in casserole land again, not a stacked sandwich.
We recently went camping, and one of my favorite things to do when camping is cooking over a campfire. We did hobo packs the first night and mountain pies the second night. Both nights were a hit with the whole family.
Pretty much anything you throw in foil packet and toss over a campfire will work here. You can go right on the coals, but this was a recent fire, so I put them on a grate on top. There’s 2 layers of heavy duty foil here, but you don’t want it over a direct flame. These would work great on the grill too. I went for 30 minutes, flipped it, & let it go another 30 minutes.
I was looking for stew meat or cubed beef in the grocery store, but the Aldi on the way to the campground had beef that was marked as “Good for Carne Asada” and it looked perfect.
Ingredients:
Beef
Onion
White Mushrooms
Russet Potatoes
Red Bell Pepper
Orange Bell Pepper
Carrots
Zucchini
Butter
Spices!
Black pepper
Season salt
Onion powder
Garlic powder
Mrs. Dash’s Table Blend
What would you put on yours?
Mountain Pies
I have made mountain pies many different ways, but this time we went with the classic pizza ones, and some Italian sub ones for dinner. Everyone went rogue for dessert.
Mine were done up proper…
Pizza Mountain Pie
White bread
Pizza Sauce
Shredded Mozzarella
Pepperoni
Roasted Red Peppers
Black Olives
Mushrooms
Italian Sub Mountain Pie
White bread
Ham Lunch Meat
Salami Lunch Meat
Pepperoni
Turkey Lunch Meat
Sliced Provolone
Roasted Red Peppers
Black Olives
Italian Dressing
Banana Split Mountain Pie(This is the one I had!)
White bread
Jif Choclolate/Peanut Butter Spread
Sliced Banana
Mini Marshmallows
Strawberry Chocolate Mountain Pie
White bread
Sliced Strawberries
Hershey’s Choclolate
Powdered Sugar (on top)
In the past I’ve made Mountain Pie Reubens (on rye), baked bean pies, leftover vegetable soup (thickened up) pies, apple pies, peach pies, peanut butter cup pies, breakfast (eggs & ham) pies, and probably more. The possibilities are endless. Sloppy Joe? Chipped ham BBQ? Grilled cheese? Ham n’ cheese? Turkey melt? Cheesesteak? Hot PB&J? Hot dog & baked beans? Biscuit dough around something? How do you do yours?
Of course, this doesn’t cover all the possibilities of campfire cooking. There’s hot dogs, s’mores, campfire banana splits, campfire corn, baked potatoes, & more. What do you do over your campfires?
Apparently beer & cheese have been on my mind lately. I saw a post by @swampmuse on threads of some cheesy beer bread and it looked awesome. She was cool enough to share her recipe. That got me thinking about beer cheese dip because of the shared ingredients. I was in a cooking mood last night. I’ll definitely be making the bread again, and the cheese dip would be great for pretzels… so maybe new years or a cold October night?
They were good together. I wonder if beer cheese bread in beer cheese dip is meta, or merely going hard?
I hardly drink any more, and the big bird was out of Yuengling bottle six packs & only had Straub Amber can 15 packs… so, I ended up with 2 big-ass 24 oz. cans of Yuengling Traditional Lager.
Brush additional melted butter on top @ 35 minutes.
Notes: I’m a dumbass, I left all the butter for the end when I should have mixed it in. Next time! I may have went heavy on my pinch of salt, too. I did brush all the butter on at 35 minutes, & it went for another 15 minutes, & was perfect. I think I will also sprinkle some additional shredded cheese on the top at the 35 min. mark… because, I mean… why not?
My 10 year old said he “thought it was going to be gross because it looked all bumpy” but was an immediate fan upon tasting.
Thank you so much to @swampmuse for the original post, the inspiration, and the recipe!
Beer Cheese Dip 🍺🧀
I had this on my mind, looked at a bunch or recipes online, and just winged it.
Ingredients:
1 16 oz. block of Velveeta
1 8 oz. block of cream cheese
1 cup beer
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar
1 cup shredded Gouda
ground mustard to taste
white pepper to taste
yellow mustard to taste
Instructions:
Cube up the Velveeta & cream cheese, put it in a crock pot on high.
Toss on the mustard powder & white pepper to taste, add a dollop of yellow mustard.
Stir it every 10 min. or so until it’s melty.
Add in the beer, stir.
Add in the shredded cheese, stir.
Stir.
Be incredibly patient.
Stir.
Notes: It takes longer than you think & looks weird until it hits that “just right” point. This is probably a different time estimate for every appliance. You could obviously do this in a sauce pan or double boiler if that’s what you’ve got. The mustard is an emulsifier and helps with smoothness. I picked white pepper over garlic or hot sauce as other recipes noted. I also skipped Worcestershire sauce as some recommended as it can contain anchovies, and weirdly anchovies can trigger shellfish allergies. Dropping some jalapeño or poblano from the garden into this also would have been pretty killer.
Overall, these recipes are just a guide, and you can go all anarchy on them. What kind of beer do you like to cook with? What kind of cheese or spices would you add or swap out for? And, what would you dip in it? Would you did the cheesy beer bread in the beer cheese dip? Got any recommendations on either recipe?
🍻🧀🍺🍞🍻
While you’re making or eating these, consider rocking out to these playlists…
Like everyone who has a vegetable garden, or even just one potted plant, we have an abundance of zucchini. I was asking AI language models for casserole cooking times & temperatures based on what I had around & could easily grab from the store, and I sort of picked a hybrid of all of them. I used ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, & CoPilot. Originally I had been asking about zucchini bread recipes, then asked about the casserole. It is interesting to bounce ideas off of them.
“Zucchini!” (But, say it like a Jawa yelling “Utini!” in Star Wars.)
I had the idea for the lil’ zucchini things last time I made breaded zucchini & ran out of breadcrumbs before zucchini.
Zucchini Ditalini Chickpea Chikini
I hesitate to call this a casserole, because the kids are on a brainrot social media kick where they have been informed somehow that Crock⬩Pot meals & casseroles are bad. The best part is they both ate & loved it… one even went back for more. It was a hit with the wife too, and I’d eat it again.
Zucchini Ditalini Chickpea Chikini
I felt like making a casserole, but not making a mess by pre-cooking/par-cooking or measuring anything. So… I ended up making two 9″x13″ casseroles. Here it is to the best of my memory.
2 (8 oz.) blocks of cream cheese, softened (Leave it out for a bit, nuke it, or cradle it in your armpits.)
1 (2 cup)bag of shredded white cheddar cheese
1 (2 cup) bag of Havarti cheese
1 (1½ cup) bag of Gouda cheese (Same damn size bag – thanks, shrinkflation!)
1 (32 oz./4 cups) box of chicken stock
1 stick (4 oz./½ cup) butter.
Breadcrumbs – Maybe 3 cups?
2 Tbsp. minced garlic from a jar because elicits unwarranted hate.
Seasonings to taste – I used Rotisserie Chicken seasoning, Mrs. Dash’s Table Blend, Black Pepper, White Pepper, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Paprika, & dried parsley. Ain’t nobody measuring all that.
I was going to include some “bacon pieces,” but I must have left them in the store, or they fell out in the car, or I put them in a weird place or threw them out, because they absolutely are in what may as well be a pocket dimension.
The Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 375°
Grease apparently two 9″x13″ glass baking dishes with a stick of butter.
Get two mixing bowls. In one, whisk the egg, then fold in the cream cheese, the chicken stock, the garlic, the (drained) chickpeas, about half of each of the shredded cheeses, the dry Ditalini, and spices in one mixing bowl.
Slice up the bell pepper, onion, zucchini, & chicken in consistently sized cubes. (If you left the zucchini in the garden too long like I did, cut out the spongy center.) Put all that in the other mixing bowl, toss it with some more of all the spices.
Mix the contents of the two bowls together as you string together new swear words and wish you have an even more ridiculously larger mixing bowl.
Put those into the baking dishes. Or one big one, or a casserole dish, or whatever you’ve got. Cover with foil, place in oven, & bake for 45 min.
Melt the remainder of the stick of butter in a microwave safe bowl. Or a microwave unsafe bowl if you’re an agent of chaos. Dump in some breadcrumbs and toss them in the butter, so the breadcrumbs are coated but not all gross. I used a mix of panko & regular. I did not measure.
Pull from the oven, but leave it on, remove foil.
Spread the remaining shredded cheese on the top of the casseroles, then the buttery breadcrumbs… and put it back in the oven. I swapped it to 350° on a convection setting at this point for 15 minutes… but you do you.
Notes:
YOU DO NOT NEED TO PRE-COOK THE CHICKEN, PASTA, OR VEGETABLES. You certainly can, and it may deepen the flavors and reduce baking time, but I wanted to do this all in one go. I checked the chicken in a few sports with an instant-read and it was a bit over the USDA recommended 165°.
I was going to mix the cheeses together at the end, but why dirty another bowl? I dumped them on almost somewhat evenly.
Obviously, cut out what you don’t like, add what you do, skip stuff, or add stuff.
I may try this again with bacon or ham… but there was a good bit of salt in all the cheeses already, and probably the chickpeas.
I may try this with shredded zucchini and maybe leaving the chicken breast cutlets whole on top. Maybe.
Ricotta instead of cream cheese may be good too.
Use chicken broth, bone broth, vegetable broth, milk, water, or whatever… just give the pasta enough liquid to absorb.
Pizzucchini Teeny Mini
Again, this was a quick idea I had last tame I made air-fried breaded zucchini and ran out of bread crumbs because the zucchini multiplies as I sliced it. I did it in the oven quick after I yanked out the “let’s not call this casserole a casserole.”
Pizzuchini Teeny Mini
Ingredients:
1 normal-sized zucchini.
1 (2 cup) bag of “pizza cheese”
1 (15 oz.) squeeze bottle of pizza sauce
a bit of EVOO
Maybe ½ cup of breadcrumbs
The Method:
Do you really need instructions here? I put the oven on 400° on the air-fryer setting. I didn’t pre-heat it because it was already running.
I sliced the zucchini about ¼-inch thick, and put it on the baking sheet over a bit of EVOO.
I dropped on some sauce, some cheese, and a tiny bit of breadcrumbs.
I put it the oven for 15 minutes.
Notes:
What the hell is “pizza cheese?” It said that on the bag. I guess mozzarella & provolone? Please tell me in the comments that it is all plastic & slowly killing me. Maybe I should have read the bag.
I will probably skip the EVOO or get a cooking rack for the air fryer setting.
~🧀~
OK, so that’s it. Hit me up with suggestions, questions, love, or hate in the comments! Share your zucchini recipes, too!
Die, slugs! Die! Recently I had an issue with what appears to be slugs going to town on the bean & pepper plants in my vegetable garden. It has been rather wet lately. It certainly could be other nefarious garden pests, but I may have a prejudice for these creepy little mollusks thanks to my shellfish & mollusk food allergies.
In with the shellfish thing, I’m weird about diatomaceous earth. It; seems like breathing it in can be sus, and it can be harmful to bees. I have crushed up some egg shells and strewn them about, but I’m not certain how effective that is. I try to always rinse them well & add to my compost anyway.
I decided to make some slug traps out of stuff from the recycling bin & a PBR. It was weird to buy 1 can of beer. I rarely drink any more & didn’t need a case or a 6-pack. I did finish off what was left of the 24 oz. can after I baited the traps though.
🚫🐌
I used two empty sour cream tubs, an empty cottage cheese tub, an iced tea jug, & a coffee container. We are perpetually excepting rain, so that’s why I made the covers. I made the cuts very quicky & very sloppy with my pocketknife because I’m impatient at times and of course decided to do this as the sun was going down.
I probably should anchor the covers somehow… but they have not blown away yet.
This morning, I counted 3 slugs overcome by a compulsion to consume delicious fermented hops.
Pour one out for the dead slugs, and drink to their memory as you listen to my Beer 🍻 playlist. Or, if you wanna get crazy, I have a Pabst Blue Ribbon 🥇 playlist. Why are there so many songs that name drop PBR? All I can think of that mentions Yuengling is Nerf Herder’s “New Jersey Girl.” Do any songs mention Straub?
What has proven to work well for you to repel garden pests? I have a small garden this year. I do like to keep the pollinators happy, and the birds n’ squirrels too.
I have been slacking on the bird feeder filling lately as we have had some stuff going on, but I made a sure to get ’em filled today. I grabbed some photos of what I bought & mixed as people are always asking what others use. I wish I could tell you I am consistent. I generally grab whatever looks good, or is cheap, or whatever is available. This is what caught my eye today.
I put all this in a Rubbermaid tote, stirred it with an unused garden stake, and went to fillin’. The powdered spices seem to be cheaper than the oils or the hot seed mix. I think they work well enough for me. I feed the squirrels & chipmunks on their own anyway.
I do have suet blocks hanging too, I got the C&S Hot Pepper Delight and the C&S Woodpecker Treat to hang in my double-block feeder. I like to get the orange or berry varieties sometimes too.
Urine Speaks Louder Than Words
The pissing gnome is still hiding among the pollinator wildflower mix under some of the feeders… they generally look like weeds until august. Got any tips on how to keep a nice-looking pollinator garden? I do like how it obscures the scattered seed… and I’m growing some errant sunflowers.
Teriyaki Stuff [November 19, 2023] Why I want this sauce.
La Choy Teriyaki Terror [December 8, 2023] · I sent a maze to La Choy (Conagra) to literally illustrate my fristration at not being able to find their sauce.
World (and Lunar) Domination 