Category: Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

Lunar New Year and Blood Orange Dishes

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Believe me, I’m just as shocked as you are that it’s already February! Lunar New Year snuck up on me again. We did celebrate by having baked beef buns made from leftover Crockpot Mongolian Beef. I added a side of stir fried Brussels sprouts and bok choy and the Husband had chicken wonton soup as his side. The veggies were too green.

The buns were really, really good! I used the dough recipe from the Woks of Life, but substituted the leftover beef cooked down in the cooking liquid for the filling. I added chicken stock and rice wine to give it a little more moisture for the buns. Also, some extra shallots and garlic. Here’s the bun recipe: https://thewoksoflife.com/chinese-bbq-pork-bu ns-cha-siu-bao/

Here’s the original Six Sister’s recipe for the Mongolian Beef:https://www.sixsistersstuff.com/recipe/slow-cooker-mongolian-beef/

I also made traditional almond cookies from The Foods Of China and it worked out much better than the first time I made them. They are addicting and I may hoard them like a cookie dragon.

I’ve been actually using my blood oranges this year for Lunar New Year inspired foods. Oranges are considered lucky, as is the color red, and I feel like we could definitely use some extra luck this year. A note, you may be able to find blood oranges as “Raspberry Oranges.” A friend of mine got some and I think they just rebranded them.

So far, I’ve made both sweet and savory items with them for a couple of different meals. I used them in this Winter Citrus Salad with Avocado.

It’s really not a thing you need a recipe for. Even the dressing was just blood orange juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper. I added iceberg, romaine, cucumbers, red peppers, carrots, crispy jalepenos, cheese, sliced almonds, and avocado to mine. It was very refreshing. I think It would be excellent with arugula too, but I didn’t have any on hand. I’m ordering some in our next grocery order though, so will probably make this for work one day.

I also made overnight oats topped with blood oranges. Recipe is here: https://www.themothercooker.com/blog/three-ways-with-blood-oranges

I would also like to try the donuts in that link as well, but haven’t made them yet and am running out of oranges. I’m not super fond of these. I have to add a lot of sweeter and heat them to get past the texture and at that point, I may as well just make regular oatmeal.

I was very fond of these Blood Orange Coconut muffins though, although I wish the glaze had been pinker.

They were quite delicious! I subbed pumpkin protein powder for a quarter cup of the flour to give them an added boost. The recipe is here: https://brownedbutterblondie.com/blood-orange-coconut-muffins/

I also made dark chocolate chunk orange scones, but ate them before taking a picture. I also apparently forgot to actually save the recipe I used… I do have one that I am intending to try as it uses Spelt flour and I have some that my older brother gave me for Christmas to try.

This Blood Orange Rosewater Mocktail was interesting. I think I would reduce the rosewater by half next time. It was a bit over powering. I did use ginger ale instead of sparkling water, as it was what I had open.

Probably my favorite two recipes were the Blood Orange Amaretto Sour and the Orange Cardamom Cake.

Isn’t it so pretty? The Husband actually had one with me, but he couldn’t finish his. He doesn’t drink often and this was pretty stiff even after I dropped the booze by two ounces. I thought it was lovely! Not overly sweet like they sometimes are, but not super tart either. Also, it’s just amaretto, lemon, and orange juice over ice. One of the simplest recipes I found so far.

Now the cake. Oh My Gosh. This was so dreamy and delicious. Extremely aromatic from the orange and especially the cardamom. The glaze wasn’t as thick as the recipe, so it didn’t look as pretty but it made up for it in taste. I think my eyes crossed when it came out of the oven because it smelled so good. I brought it into work and you could smell it every time you walked by it. Torture, sure, but such delicious torture! It got rave reviews from my coworkers too. I brought a whole cake minus a piece to work and brought back half a cake.

Do yourself a favor and make this cake, even if you don’t have blood oranges. You can thank me later. Recipe is here: http://thesweetandsimplekitchen.com/blood-orange-cardamom-cake/

Here are a few more of the recipes I didn’t get to try yet. Hopefully I can make a few more of them before I can’t find blood oranges anymore.

https://itsnotcomplicatedrecipes.com/blood-orange-curd/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest&utm_campaign=tailwind_tribes&utm_content=tribes&utm_term=1124164928_54906702_403476

https://foodnessgracious.com/blood-orange-loaf-cake/

https://www.thekitchenmccabe.com/2015/01/08/coconut-rice-pudding-w-blood-orange-lime-vanilla-sugar/

https://www.craving4more.com/blood-orange-coconut-ginger-soup/

http://userealbutter.com/2019/03/12/blood-orange-sorbet-recipe/

https://www.baranbakery.com/dark-chocolate-blood-orange-cake

I’ll leave you with a picture of a spring roll wrapped Piggy. Someone gets a little cold during naps. 🙂 May your new year be full of peace, luck, prosperity, and joy!

Thankful Cooking
Recipe Roundup

Thankful Cooking

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One of the things that I have noticed myself being grateful for is the ability to get and cook food. My cooking confidence has definitely grown and this year I was confident enough to make a turkey! It was lovely and golden brown, but of course, I forgot to take a picture of the whole turkey. Here’s the full Thanksgiving plate with turkey!

We had a basic herb and butter basted turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and roasted rainbow carrots from the garden!

We also had Ranch deviled eggs and the white chocolate snack mix for snacks before dinner.

K2 made this amazing sweet potato pie with this absolutely scrumptious mile high meringue with a hint of orange. It was so smooth!

The Husband requested this raspberry Jello salad dessert which is lovely as well. I accidentally forgot to add the Cool Whip with the cream cheese and ended up using two packs of cream cheese with the filling ingredients and had the Cool Whip on top. It was still really good! Recipe is here: https://iwashyoudry.com/raspberry-pretzel-salad-recipe/

Of course, I made homemade cranberry sauce. This time I used oranges, 5 spice, sugar, and water. It was so yummy! It was a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. We used our fancy china and goblets that were my great aunt’s. Aren’t they pretty?

We enjoyed these English muffin pizzas with homemade sauce and a salad side. We used ham, peppers, mushrooms, and onions. They are a super quick dinner and quite good.

I accidentally made a buttermilk batter instead of a dredge for these chicken tenders, but they turned out pretty good. I ended up making onion rings a week or so later with some more buttermilk. I don’t think I have that picture loaded yet, so it’ll come later.

A quick, but yummy dinner was these stuffed chicken breasts. We get them frozen from the store, because I don’t have time to make them from scratch.

I’ll leave you with a picture of my pasties! We used beef, potatoes, and onions, since I can’t eat pork. They were really good! I haven’t made them in quite a while, so it was nice to do it again. We even have some in the freezer. One of my friends said I must be really grown up, because I served it with a salad, or in my case, green beans. Mmmm. That makes me hungry again!

I hope you have had some delicious meals with treasured family or friends lately. I do think food has a unique ability to bring people together and we could all use a few more connections right now. So enjoy!

Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

Cookbook Review- Recipes To The Rescue

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No time for dinner? Unexpected guests? Forgot to turn the crockpot on? Have no fear, these recipes are here to save the day!

We found this cookbook at last year’s Bookstock and I had to get it. Would you have been able to resist a brilliantly colored popart style cookbook? Here’s the contents page.

It has fun tips and pictures.

It’s a surprisingly comprehensive cookbook and includes a pantry list and a fridge list. Most of the items are pretty standard, so I could make the recipes with ingredients we had on hand, which was helpful. A lot of the desserts call for frozen puff pastry or fillo cups, so we didn’t try many of them, as we didn’t have any of them. Grocery shopping is annoying right now, as with the shopping services, you don’t always know what you’ll actually get.

One of the first recipe we tried were these Toasted Pastrami Sandwiches. I had turkey instead of pastrami on mine and the Husband had both. They were really good! Toasty, warm and delicious.

These are the Fig Muffins. They were super soft and yummy, but were too sweet for me. This was pretty surprising, as I have a big sweet tooth, but I would reduce the sugar by probably half next time. I also subbed dried cranberries, as I didn’t have figs and was still weirded out by fig wasps.

We really liked the Chicken and Salsa Soup. It was pretty simple. I added a half can of Rotel and used different spices. It was also yummy.

For Thanksgiving, we had this snack mix with white chocolate, dried cherries and cranberries, cashews, and pretzel chips. I think I ate most of it. I don’t normally like white chocolate, but it was lighter than usual.

I tried to follow the recipe in this Broccoli Cheese Rice but it made more sense to just make it. K2 made this for us when we went to visit last time, so I just threw some things together while the Husband had pork chops.

I enjoyed it! Overall, I really enjoyed this cookbook. I would like to try a couple more of the recipes from it too. I’m glad we got it and it definitely makes me smile when I look at it. Hope you enjoyed seeing it as well!

I’ve started my 25 Treats of Christmas this week too, but have only made a few so far and need to catch up on the Thanksgiving foods. Have a delicious week!

Cozy Food
Recipe Roundup

Cozy Food

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We had a couple of really nice fall days and then a bunch of weird warm days. It’s currently raining sideways and so windy outside that I was considering taking down my porch spinners as I thought they were just obnoxiously loud. But then the sideways rain started. Raking leaves tomorrow may not happen after all. I’m terribly upset about that, as you may imagine. 🙂

So with the cooler weather, we’ve had cozy food lately. I ended up making more Hobbit themed food after the party. These are British Chicken and Mushroom mini pies from The Petite Cook. https://thepetitecook.com/traditional-british-mini-chicken-mushroom-pie/

They were yummy! I would make them again. The Husband liked them too, but I did snag him with my chicken potpie, so it’s not surprising. 🙂

I had a lovely afternoon tea for a lunch during a week long virtual training. It was so fancy! I had egg salad, cucumber sandwiches, a pear muffin, and strawberries and cream. It was a nice meal!

We also had tortilla rollups, which are not exactly Hobbit food, but are a good party bite.

We haven’t had this Sausage Tortellini soup in a while. It’s from Our Best Bites. I didn’t use the recipe this time, but I’ll post it for you. https://ourbestbites.com/tortellini-sausage-soup/. It was good! We used turkey Italian Sausage instead of pork and I had no zucchini. It sounds weird, but don’t leave out the apple juice. We did once and it was not good.

We have had breakfast for dinner again as well, this time with a scrambled egg thing with ham and potatoes and pancakes. I have finally admitted that I do not enjoy cheese in scrambled eggs. It makes them slimy. So I baked mine in the oven for a little bit, since it was keeping the pancakes warm anyway. The Husband will get his own cheesy egg pan from now on.

We did cook together one Friday too! The Husband seared pork chops and I made mac and cheese with veggies. I put the panko in melted butter before putting it on the mac and cheese and they got nice and brown. They were both good!

This is a green chili chicken leftover wrapped in homemade crescent dough. I used our homemade salsa verde and it was super spicy! It definitely opened our sinuses right up.

We’ve used the crescent dough a couple of times recently. I really wanted little pigs in blankets, so made it again after the party. We paired them with a nice salad, since we’re grownups and all that. 🙂

These are a few breakfast things I have made. The Danish were made with the leftover crescent dough from the piggies. I used peach amaretto jam from a local orchard and cream cheese.

These are banana breakfast bars. https://www.crazyforcrust.com/banana-breakfast-bars/. I’ve made them a few times and they are good. Piggy also got pb oat banana treats as well, but they are in the freezer. She jumps for treats and it’s super good at not getting fingers as well as treats, so no pictures. She likes them a lot though and will drool if you have them out.

We had corned beef and corned beef hash with the leftovers. Both were yummy. I did have a minute of laughing when it wouldn’t fit in the crockpot and I had to try to cut it down while in a hurry to get to work. It worked out though!

Burgers made an appearance too. The buns got a little overly toasty, but they were tasty otherwise.

I’ll leave you with a picture of butter and herbed garden rainbow carrots! They were delicious, but the husband felt they were too weird. He said “I didn’t even know carrots came in other colors until I met you!” He’s strange, but I think I’ll still keep him.

An Unexpected Culinary Journey
Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

An Unexpected Culinary Journey

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Covid has really put a crimp in our social life. Zoom isn’t the same and I’m online so much for work, that I really have little desire to be on it for social events too. Although it is very nice to see family over Zoom! We decided we really wanted to try something new for the fall party, so we sent people on an Unexpected Culinary Journey.

A mix of luncheon and afternoon tea

How did this work, you might ask?

We put a big red plastic tote on the porch to protect against package eating squirrels. Sidebar: Did I tell you about Steve the Stupid Squirrel’s latest misdeed? He ate into a package from my Mom that had peanut butter balls in it! The mail person left it on the porch with some other packages.

Let me tell you, we had words, although he didn’t look repentant. You do not want to get between me and Mom’s peanut butter balls. I’ll throw hands. 😤 We’re now even more in a war. Stupid Steve Squirrel.

Anyway, back to the actual story. I made a ridiculous amount of food, but actually got to give most of it away. I mailed four packages with delicious treats (and ducky pjs to the Brother.) Then I told people to show up and they would get a container of delicious food from some of the 7 Hobbit meals. A Hobbit Tasting Box, if you will. We actually had a lot of responses, including from some friends from college that we hadn’t seen in quite a while and the Husband’s aunt and uncle came too!

When people got here, they were very polite and masked up for us, which I appreciated greatly. We had everyone’s food labeled and they picked times, so that there wasn’t an overlap. Our three Covid bubble people actually hung out for a bit, so that was fun too. Piggy was very excited to meet new people in the yard, although she was disappointed that she didn’t get to eat the foods.

We didn’t end up eating things from all the meals, as we were too full! The Husband and I continued the Hobbit recipes into this week and I’ll probably make some more this weekend.

Since the movie was starting at 11 AM for Elevensies, I made these honey pear muffins, along with some chocolate banana bread, and deviled eggs.

I do have to say, I texted K2 the day before indignantly saying that I was “offended on behalf of tastebuds everywhere” as the recipe said you “didn’t have to add any spices.” 🤨 Obviously this would not do, so I added Penzey’s Baking Spice into the flour mixture. They were yummy, so I do think you need some good fall spices in there.

There are a bunch of literary food recipes around and I did a lot of research to find some of them. The Wizard’s Cookbook has four or five, but they required ingredients I didn’t have and I was trying to be frugal. I tried some new recipes, including this fun pork pie recipe from A Feast of Starlight.

I would highly recommend this website if you like trying foods inspired by books, movies, and TV. Here’s the recipe I used: http://www.feastofstarlight.com/recipe/pork-pies-and-mash-potatoes-feast-for-hobbits/

I was told they were delicious. They used a hot water dough, which made me feel like I was on the Great British Baking Show. It was pretty easy to work with, I found. We didn’t use the mashed potatoes, as I was making these for luncheon with a light salad. K2 let me put her to work and she made these leek and potato cakes for me. They were yummy! https://picklebums.com/leek-and-potato-cakes/

I think I would add more cheese and more spices next time. K2 provided a lovely salad for our luncheon. I was proud of myself for letting her help me, so I wouldn’t be too run ragged.

I was apparently too busy eating, so I didn’t get good pictures of all the cookies, but these cookies I called the Arkenstone cookies. I used my Nordic Ware cookie stamps in star shapes and was very pleased with these cookies. They were extra delicious with a dollop of cream.

I will definitely be making these again for Christmas. They are crisp and buttery and wonderful. I didn’t add the cardamom to the sugar like it said, as I was wanting to be done faster, but I’m sure that would be even yummier. The recipe is here: http://www.sweetpaulmag.com/food/brown-sugar-amp-cardamom-stamped-shortbread-cookies

We had Earl Grey Shortbreads, which were delicious with cream as well, little apple butter tarts with the leftover pork pie dough, and apple butter crescents for breakfast. The apple butter was a gift from my friend from work, who’s name also starts with a K. (I’m gonna have to give them all nicknames to keep them straight. At this rate, if I talk about a friend, you could probably safely assume their name starts with K. 🙂 ) Here’s that recipe: http://herbakinglab.com/best-british-earl-grey-tea-shortbread/

These Strawberries and Cream Cookies were mostly to go into the giveaway boxes to represent Tea Time, but there were enough of them to keep as well. They were decent, although I wanted more flavor other than just cookie dough. https://www.acozykitchen.com/strawberry-cream-cookies/

I bought myself a Tomte (mischievous Scandinavian gnome like creature) shaped cookie cutter for my birthday (the cookie stamps were from my birthday too,) so I used that to make glazed gingerbread dwarf cookies.

The glaze was thinned out brown sugar cinnamon frosting from a different recipe. It was way too sweet on the other cookie recipe (coming at a later date), but worked perfectly on the gingerbread. I didn’t like the gingerbread after a couple of days. It got soft and not as nice. I don’t know that I’d make this particular recipe again. I liked the Peppernus cookies better that I made last Christmas. I used this recipe: https://themondaybox.com/gingerbread-fall-leaves/

I also used the frosting as frosting on Apple Cider Bourbon Cupcakes. I made virgin cupcakes, as we have some friends who do not imbibe and I had the frosting already. They were delicious, but no good pictures. You can see them on the top picture of the table. A friend who got some in her culinary journey box said she hid them from the other person she was sharing with, as they were too good. 🙂 Here’s the recipe. https://www.forkinthekitchen.com/apple-cider-cupcakes-bourbon-frosting/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest&utm_campaign=tailwind_smartloop&utm_content=smartloop&utm_term=39873120

Now lest you think the party went perfectly (since I apparently forgot to take pictures…) I present the weirdest cookie ever. Here’s the recipe: https://thenovicechefblog.com/apple-cider-cookies/

Here’s what they looked like on the pan:

I’ll wait while you either gasp in horror or laugh hysterically. They look like poop. And not just poop, poop with gross bits. 🥴 This is what they looked like after I baked them.

At this point I stared aghast at them again and then burst into hysterical laughter while the dog and the Husband wisely stayed in the living room until I got myself under control. Then I re-read the recipe and discovered that I had probably left out at least a cup of flour. After adding that in, I made another pan, which resulted in still flat cookies, but ones that held their shape. They were so problematic, I ended up throwing out the entire batch, except what I could salvage for my parents and the Brother. They all liked them, but I was so mad at the recipe for making me waste all the ingredients, that I will never make them again. They’re in the recipe box of doom along with the fudge that makes me want to hurl. ( I can hear my Mom now- “Lin-ne-a, we do not talk about hurling in public! We say we ‘do not care for that particular item.’” She tried, but occasionally I’m still not fit for polite company.)

It was a really fun way to get to see people and share food. A bunch of people who came actually went home and watched The Hobbit too, so that was nice. Piggy napped like a boss the next day. She partied too hard! I’m already plotting how to make the Epiphany party work. It may involve a traveling tablecloth and cookie tray. 🙂 We’re attempting to figure out how to make a Covid safe candy slide, just in case we do get any kids for candy on Halloween too. If not, we’ll at least amuse ourselves. For now, enjoy this picture of a zonked out party Pig and have a lovely night!

Foodie Friday
Recipe Roundup

Foodie Friday

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Food poisoning really makes me not want to write about food, much less cook it. We’ve had a few soup and sandwich suppers lately, while I’ve recovered. Trying to boost my interest in cooking and baking again, I have picked a new cookbook to review. I’m hoping to go through them all again too and start weeding some out. Oddly enough most of the recipes have just been made up ones.

This is baked mac and cheese and roasted curry carrots. Both were yummy and I had a fruit as well. I did my usual “throw all the cheeses in the fridge in a pot with a roux.” Next time, I think I would toss the panko with some butter to get it brown and crispy. It was kind of insipid without it. The carrots came from a carrot that was as big as my wrist. It was ridiculous!

We decided that we didn’t like the texture of this Instant Pot chicken marsala and would rather have it made on the stove top so it would maintain the crispy coating. It tasted good though! The recipe is here: https://littlesunnykitchen.com/instant-pot-marsala-chicken/

This was a thrown together after food poisoning soup with mini Costco cilantro chicken dumplings. It was yummy and light.

You’re probably tired of seeing Instant Pot Korean beef, but it’s so yummy.

Beef noodle stir fry made for a quick dinner. I sliced up a steak and threw a bunch of sauces at it. It worked out pretty well.

I roped K2 into making a cookie recipe from my Pinterest while I was making bao. It worked out well for all of us! The frosting recipe with it made them ungodly sweet. I’ll use it on a spice cake for the distance Hobbit party instead where the spice will balance the sweetness.

I made a different kind of breakfast for dinner this week, so I could have some egg cups for breakfast. I need more protein in the morning and these generally work. I also made current muffins, but didn’t add enough oil, so they weren’t very delicious.

I like breakfast for dinner, but the Husband doesn’t, so sometimes I will make it just for me and he’s on his own. This one worked out nicely. I like the egg cups for breakfast too, since they’re really quick and keep me full through my morning appointments.

I’m hoping to have some more interest in food again. I’ve been trying to bake, as that can sometimes help. The Husband suggested food in movies, so let me know if you have any good suggestions!

Culinary Adventures
Recipe Roundup

Culinary Adventures

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I realized I hadn’t posted about our dinners lately and thought I should remedy that. I need to get back on track with trying some cookbooks, as we are having a lot of the same things again. There’s nothing wrong with delicious favorites, of course, but it is nice to have a little variety. I was able to rework my schedule again to have one more night where I could actually cook at home too. Now, on to the foods!

A quick, but good dinner was these chicken sausages with onions and cheese. Also a little handful of garden veggies and probably a fruit of some kind, although it’s not pictured.

Kebobs made an appearance over pearl couscous. I marinated the steak in Galena street rub from Penzey’s. They were yummy.

We had apple crisp after our trip to the apple orchard. I think this had three different types of apples in it. We used the extra donuts to make decadent caramel donut sundaes the day after. It was a very delicious idea, especially after toasting the donuts. It is in the featured picture.

We used the Instant Pot for this chicken and dumplings. It was so delicious! I’ll definitely be making it again, especially in the winter. I did use canned biscuits for a shortcut and they weren’t bad. Here’s the recipe: https://lifefamilyfun.com/instant-pot-chicken-dumplings/

I made bbq chicken thighs, roasted potatoes, and Cilantro Lime coleslaw and the only part of the meal I liked was the potatoes. I was having weird meat issues and by the time this cooked, I couldn’t even put the chicken in my mouth without gagging and the coleslaw was way to acidic. Here’s the recipe for the coleslaw if you’d like to try it. https://wonkywonderful.com/cilantro-lime-slaw-no-mayo/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest&utm_campaign=tailwind_tribes&utm_content=tribes&utm_term=897097434_39013176_312821

Due to the meat issues, I made chickpea curry again. It wasn’t as spicy this time, but was still comforting and tasty. I have some dried chickpeas in my cupboard that I need to cook so I can make it again. I liked switching up the veggies. This version had corn, garden beans, carrots, and butternut squash.

The Apricot Rosemary Streusel bars were a hit at work. I used a recipe from the 9 by 13 pan book. I have been wanting to try this recipe for a while and recently found out that a few of my coworkers don’t like chocolate. I know, the horror, right? 😳 The Husband declined to try them. I think I would make them again. They were quite tasty and it was unusual to have the savory rosemary with the sweet. I would skip the pine nuts next time though. They were really expensive and didn’t a ton of interesting flavor.

Some favorites that made an appearance were pancakes and bacon with the best maple syrup from our friends’ sugar shack, chicken divan, toasted turkey and cheese sandwich, and loaded potato soup. We totally watched the movie “Ratatouille” while we ate the soup. 🙂

I’m looking forward to making soups and other yummy fall treats soon. I have a jar of apple cider in the fridge that wants to be something scrumptious, I know. I may even bring more treats to work, if I can get the school to stop thanking me so much. 🙂

Summer Sipping
Recipe Roundup

Summer Sipping

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Having my younger brother here was fun and educational regarding the state of our liquor cupboard and the drinks we could make from it. We don’t imbibe very often at all and I’m more likely to add something yummy to hot cocoa than make a cocktail. I’ve always wanted to play with the fancy ones though, so it was fun to get some ideas.

The Brother introduced me to Difford’s Guide, which is fantastic for searching for different drink ideas. The link is here: https://www.diffordsguide.com/

We set up a drink station one Friday after lunch and had summery cocktails out in the yard using things we had at home. It was so much fun! I’ve been wanting to play with drinks and light for a while, so now you get to see the results. I have plans to do this seasonally. We have a lovely fireplace after all and I made a fun Christmas table cover for drinks a year or so ago with that intention.

Our first batch was non-alcoholic libations.

I made sparkling ginger limeade with the flamingo stirrer. It was yummy! I made my own limeade with fresh lime juice, simple syrup, and ginger beer. The red is hibiscus ice tea with Hibiscus Ginger tea from Tea Runners. It is lovely and refreshing. The purple is actually sparkling White Peach and Butterfly Mango Tea from Tea Runners. It does something super cool! When you make it, it’s blue and when you add acid, like 7 Up, in this case, it turns purple! It’s so cool. I found a bunch of fun color changing drinks with it too, both boozy and non-boozy.

Here’s a link for some of the color changing drinks, if you’re interested. I didn’t have things quite prepared, but would like to play around with the recipes later. https://www.theflavorbender.com/magical-color-changing-cocktails-galaxy-cocktails/

Since there were only two of us, we moved on to the cocktails. These are all based on garden herbs we have in the garden.

How gorgeous are these? I loved how they looked in the sunlight and they were all tasty. My favorite is the one in the music glass- a sage Bee’s Knees.

https://saltandwind.com/recipes/396-sage-bees-knees-cocktail-recipe

It was deliciously tasty! Apparently I like gin. Who knew?

The next cocktail on the top of the picture is a gin basil smash, which was also yummy. https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/3282/gin-basil-smash

The next drink is a Thyme Will Tell Sour.

https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/4597/thyme-will-tell-sour

This was probably the strongest drink of the three. I liked it better once the ice melted a little. We thought making a thyme infused simple syrup would make it even better.

The next group was more summery drinks, including “The Blue Drink,” which we had to have for Shark Week. My brother was horrified, but drank most of it. It was his idea to serve it in the Star Trek glass and call it Romulan Ale. 🙂

The Blue Drink is actually a Blue Riband, which was awarded to the ocean liner who made the fastest Atlantic crossing. It’s basically three things- gin, blue curacao, and triple sec. https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/270/blue-riband

The red drink is a Sour Cherry Spritz with some modifications by my brother to replace things we did not have. Here’s the actual recipe: https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/3367/sour-cherry-spritz

He used 3 oz Prosecco, 1 Oz blood orange bitters, 1 Oz Heering (cherry brandy,) served over the rocks topped with 7 up, and garnished with a cherry. He said it was definitely a sipping drink and a bit heavy.

The last drink is a N’oreaster, which should really be a winter group, but it is lovely any time. It’s a variation of a Moscow Mule, which is one of my favorite drinks. This one has maple Syrup and bourbon. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016278-noreaster

Here’s an up close at my fancy owl mug.

I bought it to use at our Harry Potter party this year to hold delicious Butterbeer, but alas, we got food poisoning and had to cancel.

It was fun to try some new things out and get some lovely pictures. I quite enjoyed the shadows made by the trees. I also made some yummy Cajun spiced nuts and ranch crackers to eat with our drinks. I have a bunch of cocktails and mocktails saved to try later and some even have tea in them! It’s a fun thing to do while still having home vacations.

I hope you enjoyed hearing about them and maybe are inspired to make your own. Difford’s is a great resource for alcoholic drinks. I’ve found a couple of websites for mocktails too.

https://www.eazypeazymealz.com/mango-orange-mojito-virgin/

https://midlifeboulevard.com/10-quick-easy-mocktails/

Happy Summer Sipping!

Recipe Roundup

I’m Hungry

LSiehLeave a comment

Currently hungry for more fruit smoothie, but I’ll hold off until the morning. I used the last of my yogurt tonight. We had waffles, chicken breakfast sausage, and a fruit smoothie with oatmilk, yogurt, and berries. The Husband likes a little bit of sweetener in his smoothies, so I added a tablespoon or so of one of the simple syrups in my fridge. I had whipped cream and maple syrup on mine.

I tried a new breakfast recipe as well and discovered that my stomach gets super duper rumbly if I eat that much dairy right away, so may not make it again. It was a breakfast cheesecake cup!

I just went to link to the recipe and the website said the account had been suspended, but basically it’s a block of softened cream cheese, ricotta cheese, and yogurt. Blend them together, add sweetener and flavoring of your choice and a crust or granola on the bottom. This is it with plum cardamom jam. It was alright, but I think I might try another recipe. I would also add some more protein powder to these, if I was to make them again. They didn’t quite have the staying power I needed.

Speaking of staying power, my younger brother had been inspiring me to eat more protein with breakfast. I have made eggs a couple of time along with some muffins. I can’t always eat eggs for breakfast, occasionally they make me really sick.

We had a special weekend treat of baked banana bread donuts with chocolate glaze. They obviously needed sprinkles! I really want to make a bunch of baked goods with sprinkles and experiment with pictures of them for practice. It would be super cute, I think! Just look at how yummy these donuts look.

I used 5 Spice sugar in them for an extra twist and they were yummy. Very subtly spiced. The Brother approved, although the Husband didn’t eat them. He doesn’t like bananas.

Speaking of the Brother, we had some tasty dinners while the Husband was out of town for business. I think they were all Middle Eastern or Indian based foods and oh man… First up is beef kafta over pearl couscous and a cucumber tomato parsley salad. The salad had Za’atar spice in it. All the components were yummy!

He made falafel as well one night and they were so light and delicious. We had them with another tomato cucumber and herb salad. The recipe was apparently terrible and seemed to leave out some steps. It was from The Wizard’s Cookbook which the Husband recently bought me.

Don’t they look scrumptious? In the same cookbook, there was a recipe for “Red Dragon Inn Spicy Broth” and it was basically a curry coconut broth.

We had it with cooperatively made naan breads. Gosh, I’m going to miss having an extra cook in the house! The following picture should help explain why.

When I came home the next day, he was in the kitchen heating up naan, having cooked up some chicken, reduced the curry soup into a sauce and chopped up more romaine and parsley. I added yogurt on mine. It was so comforting and yummy! I will definitely make it again. Now that the Husband is traveling occasionally, I’m starting to plan more meals that he doesn’t like.

More Brother made meals included Blackberry BBQ beef ribs and Spanish Spiced chicken. They were both excellent.

The salad has a couple garden tomatoes and arugula in it.

I don’t have pictures of it, but the boys made themselves pork a couple of times. I had dahl and rice one night (Thanks Jeanne!) and made this ridiculously delicious chickpea curry that I would know like to eat about once a week.

The curry had chickepeas, butternut squash, carrots, green onions, and spicy, spicy fresh cayenne peppers from the garden. I had, I think, five little slices in the whole pot and had to pull two of them back out. It was making my nose run!

We’ve had some delicious favorites, pasta salad, chicken pot pie over noodles, and caprese salad with garden tomatoes and basil.

Also some delicious desserts. This is the strawberry cheesecake pie that I made for our anniversary. Side note, the Husband had stuck with me for 8(!) years! Well, married years, we were together for about five years before that too. I think he sticks around for the food mainly. 😉

I experimented with a no bake cheesecake as well. We tried chocolate and key lime flavors. We ate the key lime before I could take a picture, but it had toasted coconut on top.

I made cookies to take to work with me and shared with the CNA class that shares the other side of our building. They made me a picture Thank you with all of them holding cookies. 🙂 I was so embarrassed. I just wanted to me the cookie fairy! I made white chocolate lime coconut and chili chocolate cookies. Both were excellent! The lime cookies came from a Food Network insert and the chili chocolate cookies were here: https://localmilkblog.com/2013/03/salted-spicy-double-chocolate-chili-cookies.html

They were well received. The Brother had to sample many, but I think decided the lime cookies were his favorite.

Homemade pizza made an appearance. This time it had turkey Italian Sausage, mushrooms, and onions. I made a quick red sauce and actually managed to cook the dough for long enough this time.

I didn’t go too crazy for Shark Week this week. I only made three themed meals and two more shark themed clothing items. Well, five, if you count masks separately, I guess.

We did have Shark fin quesadillas and taco salad on Monday.

We had Shrimp Scampi on our actual anniversary.

And I had homemade arugula parsley pesto over shark themed noodles.

Oh my goodness, was the pesto good! I’m planning on making spinach and herb pesto tomorrow and freezing it all in tiny jars so I can pull it out in the winter and eat it when missing green things. I really enjoyed the pepperiness of the arugula. I can credit my friend K with helping me figure out that I like pesto. She sent us home the last time we visited with a couple of jars of different kinds of pesto and inspired me to make my own.

I think that’s all so far. I may be making an octopus cake for the end of Shark Week tomorrow, possibly a marble bundt cake. Also, I need ideas to use up the enormous thing of ricotta in my fridge. One of my planned recipes is cannoli filling ice cream. It looks really good, but I’ll have to make some other things too. I have a ricotta pancakes recipe too, so maybe I’ll try that. Wish me luck and drop me recipes if you have them!

Still Here, Still Cooking!
Recipe Roundup

Still Here, Still Cooking!

LSiehLeave a comment

Isn’t the starry bowl pretty? My Mom was sweet and sent us two of them after I had mentioned that I wanted them, but couldn’t justify getting them right now. I had cereal, yogurt, and fruit salad leftovers in it and it was the perfect breakfast size.

They didn’t get here in time for the 4th of July breakfast (that I have rechristened “Ice Cream for Breakfast Day” to better explain it to people.). We couldn’t find good blueberries this year. The ones in our shopping order were sneakily moldy, so I had to throw them out. I like breathing and mold makes that stop pretty regularly. We didn’t have time to try and find more of them. We just used blue bowls instead!

Cereal on the bottom as is correct. Don’t listen to my older brother!

We had strawberry shortcake with homemade “Busy Day Cake” from the Better Homes and Gardens book for the 4th of July dessert with my in-laws. We sat in their gazebo in the yard and had delicious burgers and sides. I, of course, brought dessert.

My younger brother is staying with us for a bit and is an excellent cook, so he’s made us a couple of good meals. I don’t have a picture of the Instant Pot pulled pork, but have it on good authority that it was delicious. He made his own BBQ sauce and I believe added hard cider to it.

I do have a picture of the yummy chicken, potato wedges, and salad that he made. Yesterday he made jambalaya with smoked turkey sausage and shrimp. We’re going to miss him when he moves out.

Tonight we had a deliciously spicy, oh so tender, beef ribs from the Instant Pot. I used this recipe: http://foodyschmoodyblog.com/instant-pot-country-style-ribs/

We used a Chophouse spice mix from the Pepper Palace. We bought that on our California trip forever ago. I had forgotten how yummy it is. I even mixed my meat with my potatoes! I will definitely be making this again. The Instant Pot has been getting more use, since it’s ridiculously hot.

One Instant Pot recipe that I was very disappointed in was a Moroccan Lentil Soup from I heart vegetables. It was so bad that I’m not even going to link the recipe. Also, it won’t let me link it for some reason, so it worked out. It was so watery and bland. I felt like I was just eating water with some weirdly cooked lentils in it. Blech. Even adding more spices at the end didn’t help and I ended up wasting a lot of it. I accidentally added carrots and celery and even that didn’t help. We had extra basmati rice from the pork that the boys ate that night, so I added those on the bottom.

I will not be making this again, although I would like to find a good lentil IP recipe.

Luckily, I redeemed the lentils by making IP Korean beef from Damn Delicious. Recipe is here, although I’ve probably shared the recipe several times. We have it about once a month because it’s that good. https://damndelicious.net/2018/02/21/instant-pot-korean-beef/

I made a fruit monster salad too! Basically any fruit in my house gets tossed together. I love summer.

We had lava cakes again, although I made them in the oven this time. It makes 3 tiny cakes, so the perfect size for our dessert. Really, you can’t go wrong with ooey gooey chocolate. Mmmmm…

I have made a couple of fun breakfasts. I used rhubarb from the garden for this rhubarb pecan bread. It’s good, but needs a little more flavor.

We’ve eaten a couple of fun fried dinners. I made chicken tenders with my own recipe. Penzey’s Cajun seasoning in the flour/panko mix breading and salt and pepper in the flour step. 3 step dredge and fry. Baked frozen fries and some fruit as well. They turned out pretty good. My brother looked at me with big eyes when I asked him how many chicken tenders he would want and said “ALL OF THEM.” He had visions of a fried chicken sandwich the next day for lunch. 🙂

Before my brother was here, we tried tempura fried shrimp and veggies, from Jet Tila’s cookbook.

The dipping sauce I had was just some sweet chili sauce. It was fun to try and pretty good. Pretty messy though! I especially enjoyed the zucchini. The Husband liked the shrimp and mushrooms, but spurned the other veggies, of course. We would make this again! It wasn’t as scary as I thought it might be and fun to have a different sort of dinner.

The Brother doesn’t eat a lot of dairy, so we had chicken sausage pasta. It was good, as usual. The sauce wasn’t as thick as it normally is. I used our last jar of homemade garlic pasta sauce. I’m waiting for tomato canning season to start so I can make more sauce. Hopefully make all the jams I didn’t finish last year too. This year, I will pick cooler weekends though. Our air conditioning is super cranky and old.

We had a veggie filled beef stir fry too. No recipe, just threw together everything until it looked good. I cheated and used hoisin in the sauce, so it had a good flavor.

We’ve been craving comfort foods lately, so the Husband requested a pot roast. It turned out very tender and yummy. I used basil and some seasoned salt along with the pepper and Wochestshire sauce.

I tried to make puff pastry, but ended up kneading it too much in the food processor and ended up with the flakiest pie crust ever.

We used it for chicken pies. They were yummy and now I know the secret for super flaky pie crust. Hint- it’s tons of butter. 😉

I think a good buttery recipe is a good way to end this post, so I hope I made you hungry! As Penzey’s says “Love people, cook them tasty food!”