Twice-baked potatoes with blue cheese

Ingredients

• 2 sweet potatoes, scrubbed, and pierced several times with a fork
  
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp chopped chives
• 2 tsp dried parsley
• 3 tbsp plain yoghurt (just play it by ear)
  
• salt and pepper
• blue cheese
  

Preheat oven to 400.
In the meantime, put the potatoes on a plate and put them in the microwave (MAKE SURE YOU'VE PIERCED THEM SEVERAL TIMES WITH A FORK). Microwave them on high for 10 minutes, or until they're cooked (sometimes it takes longer).
Meanwhile, in a medium-sized bowl, mix chives, butter, and parsley.
When potatoes are done, let them cool a little (not TOO much), then cut them open and scoop the potato out of the skins. Add the hot potato to the bowl and begin mixing. The potato should melt the butter during this process.
When you have a pretty good mash going on, start adding yogurt. Add until it attains the texture that you desire. I think we used about 3 tbsp. We didn't measure it.
Add salt and pepper, to taste.
Fill 2 ramekins with the potato mixture. Fill pretty close to the top. Then take your blue cheese and crumble it over the top of the potatoes. Again, however much you want to use. We actually mixed more in once we took them out of the oven.
Anyway, bake them in the oven for 20-30 minutes, until the blue cheese on top is bubbling.

Thoughts: This was super easy to make and super filling. The only bad part for you is the butter and the blue cheese. Sweet potatoes are pretty much the healthiest thing you can eat. So yeah, we were pretty pleased with this.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Cake in 5 minutes

In a mug, no less. In the microwave, no less.
Ingredients

• 4tbsp flour
  
• 4tbsp sugar
  
• 2tbsp dutch process cocoa
  
• pinch of salt
  
• 1/2 tsp instant coffee (optional - really adds to the chocolate flavor)
  
• 1 egg
  
• 3tbsp milk
  
• 3tbsp vegetable oil
  
• 3tbsp chocolate chips
  
• 1/2 vanilla or orange or almond extract
  

This is for serious. Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, salt, and instant coffee in a microwavable mug. Stir (with a fork or something) and then add the egg. Stir until you get kind of a paste. Doesn't have to be perfectly combined. Add the remaining ingredients except for the chocolate chips, and stir until well combined. Add the chips and stir.

Microwave on high for 3 minutes (for a 1000W microwave) or a little longer otherwise (more on this in a sec). Serve with vanilla ice cream and a staggering sense of unreality.

Thoughts: I figured "heck, why not? If it doesn't work, I'm only wasting one egg." And it turned out. Pros: took five minutes. Pretty great flavor (really). VERY fluffy texture. Cons: A little on the dry side and a little rubbery. This may have to do with three things: 1) I didn't actually use chocolate chips when I made this recipe. They would have added a lot, I think, but I didn't have any. (The original recipe also suggested chopping up bits of candy bar if you don't have chips... I think they meant chocolate bars, but could you use a snickers bar? I PERSONALLY think this would probably be utterly disgusting, but I thought the cake would be too, until I tried it). 2) I didn't add vanilla / orange / almond extract. This, again, was a suggestion in the original recipe, but I didn't want to waste a precious commodity on what I thought would probably be a failed attempt at cake. The added liquid might have helped to keep the cake a LITTLE more moist. 3) I think the cake could have been microwaved just a LITTLE less. About half-way through the cooking, the cake rises above the lip of the mug (about an inch in my case). DON'T BE AFRAID OF THIS - it will go back down and not spill anywhere. The thing is, I think I probably could have turned off the microwave when it fell back to the level of the mug. But I let it keep going the full 3 minutes, and it was a TOUCH on the rubbery side after it started to cool. I bet that if you turn it off 20-30 seconds sooner, it'll be much moister.

Disaster Index: 3/10 - COULD ACHIEVE GREATNESS with a few minor tweaks. Problem is, it's probably tough to control minor tweaks like that. It's tough to play by ear with a microwave. STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES.

Lentil Soup with Italian Sausage and Escarole

Ingredients

• 1 and 2/3 cups lentils, rinsed well
• 5 cups water
• 3.5 cups chicken stock
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
  
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 lb sweet Italian sausage links, cut into 1" pieces
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 2 medium carrots, finely chopped
• 2 celery ribs, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 1/2 lb escarole, rinsed and chopped (4 cups)
• 1-2 tbsp red-wine vinegar

Simmer lentils, water, stock, bay leaves, and half of the garlic in soup pot, uncovered, for 12 minutes.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a pot of medium-high heat until it simmers. Add sausage and brown for 7 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer sausage to another vessel. Keep the sausage oil in the pan.
Reduce heat to medium and add carrots, onion, celery, remaining garlic, salt, pepper, and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.
Stir in tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes.
Add sausage and lentils and cook for 3-5 minutes, until lentils are tender.
Stir in escarole and cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Stir in vinegar.

Thoughts: Delicious. The sausage was absolutely fantastic. I think we actually cooked it with some Marsala wine. But I can't remember. Meh. When you make this recipe, you might as well throw some in there anyway. There's no reason not to add alcohol to any dish you make.
Anyway, this was fantastic. I might even add more sausage.

Disaster Index: 2/10