Category: Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup · Simple Sundays

Show And Tell Sunday

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Apparently a stomach bug is going round and the Husband and I both got it. I had a milder version than him, but we both had some icky days. We had to cancel our Harry Potter party, which was sad, since we had food all ready and everything is decorated. It was better to be safe than give anyone else stomach issues though, so cancelled. The Husband has two plays coming up in December and January, but we’re hoping to be able to reschedule. I thought I would show you the party foods I made and some other delicious meals.

These are the green tomato mincemeat tarts and the Cornish Currant Cake. They were both delicious.

The Currant Cake was originally going to be Cousin Jack cookies, but the batter was super weird and I got nervous.

So I did what any other self respecting Midwestern housewife would do- I called Mom in a panic. 🙂 She suggested putting it in a glass pan and treating it like a bar cookie. It worked out very well!

The tarts were especially good with whipped cream. I was surprised at how much I liked the mincemeat. It had a hint of vinegar still, but was sweet and gooey. I would make it again.

We also had pumpkin banana bread. I used the Pioneer Woman recipe: https://thepioneerwoman.com/food-and-friends/pumpkin-banana-bread/

It was very good and a hit at work. The Husband’s coworkers also liked it. We decided not to make too much more food, but I did make turkey pinwheel rollups for dinner this week. I was hosting my craft group this week, so didn’t get a picture of them, but they were pretty good and originally for the party.

Since we were sick, we had some soup, french onion and some buttermilk biscuits from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

A favorite: Chicken Divan was also enjoyed.

Brinner is one of my favorite dinners when I don’t know what to cook, but the Husband isn’t terribly fond of it, so we don’t have it often. I call this one “Take that Ihop!” Cheesy scrambled eggs, buttermilk pancakes with macerated strawberries, and chicken sage sausages. And whipped cream, of course! The pancakes were from the Better Homes book as well.

Another quick dinner was Loaded Baked Potatoes. I forgot how good they are, so we’ll definitely be making them again. The Husband cooked his own potato and skipped the broccoli.

We had two poblano peppers from the garden, so I used them to make beef fajitas, along with a garden purple pepper. I’m planning on growing some next year too. The tortillas are homemade, so are rustic looking. 😉

We had a fun day making peirogi with K and J and we got to take a bunch home. So of course, we had to try them! These are with a cheddar chicken sausage and fried in butter and olive oil.

We have a new favorite fried chicken recipe from this website: https://blog.sweetopia.me/2019/05/how-to-make-buttermilk-chicken-tenders.html

I seasoned the waffle fries with Sandwich Sprinkle. The Husband just shook his head at me, but did admit they were delicious.

And for the last item, we have delicious popovers with plum cardamom jam. They were delicious!

I’m planning to make a couple of the party foods for just regular day foods. Who says Tuesday isn’t an occasion befitting a chocolate dragon shaped bundt cake? 🙂

For now though, dinner awaits. Have a great week!

Eat all the Food!
Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Eat all the Food!

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Let me show you, first of all, what happens when my friends who cook and I have “just a simple game night!”

B and K came over with their spouses and our friend S, also came and there was so much food!

B made tortilla wraps and these little bruschetta toasts with a creamy cheese spread. Both were fantastic and the Husband has requested tortilla wraps for lunches soon.

K made Southwestern wontons, which were spicy and yummy! Her husband did the frying and he did an excellent job.

I made Hot Buttered Rum cupcakes from The Prohibition Bakery book and they were definitely alcoholic. Delicious, but not for kids! The cake part didn’t have booze in it, but the caramel filling was rum based and the frosting wasn’t cooked and had 1/3 of a cup of spiced rum. Man, they were delicious! I was kind and left the frosting off some of them, so that J and the Husband could eat them. They wouldn’t have liked the rum hit from the frosting.

There were also pickle wraps, which I was a little doubtful of, but were pretty good from K.

I didn’t realize that it might be intimidating for people who aren’t fond of cooking, or don’t do a lot of it to show up and be presented with an entire table full of homemade food. I honestly don’t care what people bring, or even if they bring anything, but I’ll have to work on being less intimidating, I guess.

We’ve had some other fun meals lately. Nachos were kind of like a party, but just for us.

We had these after the previous party to use up the Pico. It was a good idea!

Also, kebabs for the Labor Day canning day. I used the Galena Street rub on them, I believe.

Also, to use up a party leftover a while ago, we had pigs in blankets. I used all beef mini sausages from Costco and puff pastry. They were delicious, even if I did feel about 5 years old while eating them. 🙂 For the record, I did have more veggies and fruit, but had started eating before taking the picture.

I made up a few recipes for chicken and steak. For the chicken, I baked breasts in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and fresh herbs. We had roasted potatoes with it. The Husband always forgets that he likes balsamic vinegar, but he did enjoy it.

I was super proud of myself for the steak, because, not only did I season it (Montreal Steak Seasoning) and cook it without using a recipe; I also made a mushroom red wine pan sauce! Take a minute. I know it’s shocking. I’ll wait… 😉

We had it with garlic mashed potatoes and I cooked up red peppers and swiss chard with some garlic and Sandwich Sprinkle. It was a tiny bit overdone, but not chewy or anything.

Another meal I made up lately was this burger, which we grilled a few weekends ago. We also grilled portobello mushrooms and I cooked bacon. I used an Applewood Smoked salt from The Salt Cellar at the Ren Fest. There was garlic and other spices as well. It added a nice smoky kick to the meat. My burger was topped with garden tomatoes and I had seasoned waffle fries (Sandwich Sprinkle!) and homemade spicy pickles with it.

I did use a recipe for the Carbonara from the Bacon 24/7 cookbook. I don’t generally have good luck with it, so wasn’t sure enough to wing it. It turned out pretty well, I think.

After my canning experiment, I had half a pint of jam left over, so I gleefully ate it on lemon poppyseed muffins for the last couple of mornings. I had chicken sage sausages and a hard boiled egg too.

I am still working on a cookbook review. I only made three of the recipes from it that I wanted to highlight, so maybe by the end of the week, I will have that done. I hope your day is going well and your food is as delicious as these recipes were!

Adventures In Canning
Canning and Preserving · Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Adventures In Canning

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Every time I have tried to can things recently, I have been thwarted by life! It’s been very frustrating. I’m hoping to get some more of the jams canned this Friday. We have a house work weekend planned, so then I won’t mind too much if the kitchen gets a little sticky. We can just clean it right up!

Some of the fruits I have waiting to be jam are strawberries, rhubarb, and apricots. I might pick up some more pomegranate juice too and try some jellies. I meant to make Jasmine Tea Jelly for my FIL for Father’s Day, but it never quite got made. Maybe I can get it done for Christmas.

I have made one jam so far and it was the Plum Cardamom jam that I fell in love with last year. This year I tripled the batch and didn’t bother straining it, just blended it with a stick blender. I think it worked just fine. The original recipe is from the Small Jars, Big Flavors book, but I only sort of followed it. I ended up using the old school method for one cup sugar to one cup fruit. It was still so good, that I was licking the ladle. 🙂 I ended up with 13 half pints of jam. I might not be as possessive this year. Last year I only had 8 jars and I had 4 of them myself. 🙂 Here is the jam, pictured with my next two canning experiments.

I ran out of cucumbers for my pickles, so may make some more. Some of them went bad before I could get to them. These are Hot Garlic Pickles from the Taste of Home Canning magazine. I made them last year and they were a hit. I want to make some plain garlic pickles too and some more squash pickles. (Don’t tell anyone, but my Dad ate zucchini voluntarily!! Oops…. 😉 ) I have to have enough pickles for future pickle trays, after all. I ended up with two jars of pickles.

The third other jar is pickled red onions! I love them on sandwiches, so thought I should have some. I haven’t tried them yet, but I think they look super pretty!

My friend K and I got together and made the Husbands play video games and snuggle the dog while we canned tomatoes over Labor Day. We ended up with probably 40 lbs of tomatoes? We made Zesty Salsa from the Ball Blue Book, and Roasted Garlic Pasta/Pizza sauce and Spicy Sicilian Pasta/Pizza sauce, I believe from the Better Homes canning magazine.

K took home half of them and some of the tomatoes. The salsa had some garden peppers and tomatoes. She brought a whole bag of mixed hot peppers, including habeneros and cherry bomb peppers, so it might be super spicy again. I’m excited to try it!

She canned the rest of her tomatoes, and I tried out our new dehydrator to make sundried tomatoes for the freezer. I cover them in olive oil and they keep for about 6 months in the freezer? To be honest, I have kept them for longer than that and they do fine. I didn’t quite get the consistency right, as I didn’t quite know how to make the temperature increase in the machine. Now I know and I want to try to dry some herbs next.

Don’t they look so pretty? I added some basil, oregano, and garlic too them before they were dried. The house smelled amazing!

My garden hasn’t been as successful as I wish it was. It looks pretty sad right now. I have to try digging the radishes and carrots. They were both small when I tried before. I was sad. Next year, we’ll have to try some different things.

My strawberries are still producing though and if the squirrels haven’t stolen my poblano peppers yet, I should have two out there. We also have some more purple peppers started. I think I might need to read some more garden planning books or something to figure out how to be more productive with it. Next year, I would also like to add the third bed, which might be partially herbs, and actually cage the tomatoes. They were unwieldy again this year and it was very annoying.

Back to canning talk… I have a new canning magazine (Better Homes and Gardens- Can It! Freeze It!) which has some very interesting looking recipes in it, such as Vanilla-Caramel Butter, Vanilla Citrus Plums, Brandied Strawberry jam, Roasted Tomatillo-Corn Salsa, and Sage Peach Jam.

I’m not sure exactly how many more things I will get done. I want to try some wine jelly and a whiskey ginger jelly too, but those I can really do any time.

I’m going to take Fancy’s example and go to bed to dream of new and interesting canning options though. I’ll leave you with a picture of my prized possession: a large jar of Penzey’s Sandwich Sprinkle! The Husband just shook his head, but I know he’s excited about it too. 😉

Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Party, Party!

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We had our Big Summer Blowout a couple of weeks ago and I have not had a chance to blog about it. We had some exciting times before it and I learned a good lesson about asking other people for help and actually getting things done ahead of time. We had water in the basement the night before the party and I hadn’t started more than one thing.

There were several panicked texts to friends and one of them even baked the Husband some lovely chocolate chip cookies!

Here’s the table pictures:

I think there are more, but the Husband took the pictures for me and I forgot to specify.

I made a couple of new recipes for the party and some older ones. I made an enormous bowl of pico for the Husband. The biggest Pyrex bowl we have was pressed into service and the Husband was super happy.

It was full of garden tomatoes and jalepenos! I had four kinds of tomatoes. Yellow tomatoes, Cherokee purple, Romas, and some cherry tomatoes. It was delicious and not too spicy.

I also made a fruit pizza! I used a couple of different recipes, one of which was the crust from this recipe: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/fruit-pizza/

I used the Pampered Chef pizza stone and it was delicious! I did jazz up the cream cheese by adding orange extract and zest to it.

It does indeed look it was bitten… We’ll just pretend that I was going for the “monster ate it” look…

We also had vanilla cupcakes that were supposed to be toadstools, but turned into watermelon. What can I say? Cupcake decorating isn’t really my strong suit.

They had pineapple sage jam in the middle. I did use a really good buttercream recipe from this website: https://www.bakedbyanintrovert.com/basic-vanilla-buttercream-frosting/

It was pretty delicious frosting and I would definitely make it again. The cupcakes were a white cake recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens book.

We also had two different types of cheesecake bars, but I don’t have a good picture of them. One was Oreo Cheesecake and the second one was Chocolate Covered Key Lime bars. I can’t find the Oreo Cheesecake recipe, which I swore I put on my Pinterest. Hmm… I’ll keep looking about it. Here is the Key Lime cheesecake recipe though.

https://www.barbarabakes.com/chocolate-covered-key-lime-cheesecake-bites/

I made homemade pickles from one of the summer Food Network magazines and they were pretty good. Had to have a good pickle tray, after all!

We tried Puff Pastry cheese swirls, but I didn’t really like them. I just put cheese and spices in puff pastry and baked it for around 20 minutes. Perhaps you will have better luck with experimenting.

We had a meat and cheese tray, crackers, little pigs in blankets, and a friend also brought a veggie tray with hummus and pita chips.

It was a very fun party! We enjoyed our friends’ company and are looking forward to having more company in the fall. Fancy, of course, adored the company.

I’m attempting to get my blogging back in order. We have been very busy lately. Also, I have developed sewing related tendonitis and have been having difficulty keeping up with my responsibilities when they mean moving my thumb much. Wish me luck for a fast recovery. Maybe send the Husband Legos too, to help him deal with me not being able to sew!

Recipe and Cookbook Review
Life Posts · Recipe Roundup

Recipe and Cookbook Review

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I promise we have still been eating! It’s taking a little while to get back to normal. This week we will be having smaller meals because we have party leftovers and we’re going visiting at the end of the week, so don’t need leftovers for the weekend. We’re leaving Fancy with a friend who’s housesitting for us though, so she might be persuaded to eat some delicious leftovers if need be. 🙂

The featured picture is our Anniversary ice cream. 🙂 The Husband had a Cookie Dough Frostbite (Like a DQ Blizzard,) and I had the Margarita ice cream. They were both good and we were in the store where we took our wedding pictures. 🙂

I haven’t picked a new cookbook to focus on lately, but we did use The Joy Of Chinese Cooking by Lo Mei Hing a few weeks ago. I’ve used this cookbook before, but there were a couple of new recipes that I thought we could try. The book is older, so ignore the part of every recipe where it says to add MSG. It’s got good pictures and very detailed instructions. Oddly, there are only about 10 beef recipes in the whole book, I think. It’s quite a thick book too. We tried the “5 Color Shau Mai,” but only used three colors. We used imitation crab, bok choy, and mushrooms for the color toppings. The recipe also included instructions for scrambled eggs and seaweed, neither of which sounded good.

They were kind of bland and we liked our normal dumpling recipe better. We used chicken instead of pork.

We tried one of the fried noodle recipes and it turned out pretty close to the restaurant version, although we used different noodles.

It was pretty good and we would try to make them again.

We also used the “Beef with Green Peppers” recipe, but I added a bunch more veggies. Also only sort of, maybe, kind of followed the recipe?

It was a pretty good stir fry. We’ll keep the book, because it has some interesting looking recipes in it, but I will need to go with my instincts on when to change things around.

Rounding out our Chinese food journey was a Shrimp Stir Fry and an Asian Meatball recipe from Gimme Some Oven.

https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/saucy-asian-meatballs/

The Husband ate his plain, but I sauteed a veggie mix that I had in the fridge to go with mine. We liked them and might make them again. (So, we didn’t have these on the same night, despite having the same bowl for all three of them…)

We’ve also had some staples, like Tequilla Lime Chicken and Pico, Spaghetti, and Pizza. The potatoes in the first picture were thinly sliced and roasted with the Galena Street Rub from Penzy’s and some olive oil. The chicken looks oddly pink, but I think it must have been a little frozen when we put it in. It was cooked properly.

This pizza is a white pizza with chicken sausage, mushrooms, and onions. It was delicious! I didn’t used a recipe, just made a garlicky white sauce and slapped it on.

The spaghetti was the Husband’s suggestion when I had to go out of town suddenly. He ate for most of the week, so we probably won’t have spaghetti anytime soon.

I tried a couple of new breakfast items. Blueberry Banana Bread from the Pillsbury: Best Muffins and Quick Breads cookbook, and a Cinnamon Coffee Cake Recipe from Baking Unplugged by Nicole Rees. Both were yummy!

I would make both again. The Husband didn’t really care for either of them, so I might only make half a recipe in the future.

We have had a couple of good storebought meals too, which I do need to remind myself, count as actual meals as well. One of the things I’m working on is not beating myself up when I’m just not able, due to scheduling, illness, etc, to actually cook.

Two of those meals were these Panko Crusted Shrimp from Costco and Crab Cakes and a salad from Aldi. I think we had both of these during Shark Week!

Also pictured with the shrimp are Kung Pao Chicken mini egg rolls, cilantro rice, a pear, and a yellow garden tomato.

For a belated Shark Week recipe, we had “Shrimp and Scallops in a Creamy Garlic Sauce” from chef Robert Irvine on Food Network.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robert-irvine/shrimp-and-scallops-in-garlic-cream-sauce-recipe-2014083

It was good, although we used Bay Scallops rather than Sea Scallops. They are smaller and less expensive. I didn’t like it as much as I might have, but I am in a little bit of a food funk and didn’t really want to cook that night, which is probably why.

We did have a party on Sunday, but I am falling asleep, so will detail that post and the Husband’s birthday meals in a different post. For now, here’s a picture of my very alcoholic Shark Week drink, which I have lost the recipe for.

It was pretty much rum, blue carauco, and sprite, I think. Possibly orange juice as well? I’ll see if I can find the recipe. It was pretty delicious, but at one point the gummy shark had so much booze it flipped over upside down… Whoops!

Before I do the same, I will say goodnight!

Gardening Meals!
Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Gardening Meals!

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I love having a garden! I inherited some of that from both Grandpas and it was encouraged and fostered by my Mom. My Grandpa Ollie was a missionary Papua New Guinea who helped with agriculture. My Grandpa Ed was a fabulous gardener and I remember seeing his garden as a kid. I have very fond memories of gardening with Mom in the summer. Mmm… tomatoes fresh from the garden, pea pods off the vine, crunchy carrots, and raspberries! Now I have both garden plants and some very pretty flowers that I do absolutely nothing with. It’s a nice balance. The featured picture is our hydrangeas by our front door.

I have started to get some produce from the garden! I was getting worried, but went out to check and found some cherry tomatoes! I also have peppers to use in pico.

We’re talking about putting in another garden bed for next year, which I think will house the things with vines. I’ve gotten only two tiny baby zucchini this year from my plant. It doesn’t like being in a pot apparently.

Speaking of baby zukes, I had both of them sautéed in olive oil with some Sandwich Sprinkle with the rest of my garden haul tonight for dinner. We also had steak and mashed redskin potatoes.

It was delicious! I could have cooked the steak a tiny bit less, but I was distracted by apple recipes. I suddenly have a surplus, which will be turned into crockpot applesauce tomorrow.

I have officially used the Sandwich Sprinkle on a sandwich! I’ll give you a minute to absorb that information. 🙂 I even took a picture of it to prove it. It did add a bit of zing to the sandwich. I definitely need a bigger jar of it though!

I had fruit salad along with it. I’m a fruit monster in the summer and wanted all the fruit!

We had pizzas made with fancy things too. I used a pizza dough recipe that didn’t require a long rise time from The Kitchn. https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-pizza-dough-recipe-221367

It did rise for a couple of hours at least. The Husband had mushroom and ham with fresh mozzarella. I had a lovely Margherita Pizza with fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, and fresh mozzarella. The recipe was also from The Kitchn. https://www.thekitchn.com/easy-recipe-classic-margherita-pizza-recipes-from-the-kitchn-174103

They were both lovely! The crust for mine was baked on an upside down cookie sheet, which made it super crunchy. The Husband’s was also nice and crispy, but I used the pizza stone instead.

Here’s some pictures of the rest of the garden as well. Herbs, tomatoes, radishes, and carrots.

Oh! We have strawberries!

I’m excitedly waiting for them to turn red so we can get them before the squirrels! We don’t always have good luck with that. Things are growing pretty well. I have to re-stake some tomato plants. They’re falling over with the weight of the tomatoes. Next year, I will get some cages and will hopefully be better prepared.

For now though, I will leave you with this very relaxing picture of Fancy. I hope your night is as lovely as her nap was. Good night!

Recipe Review and Cookbook Spotlight
Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Review and Cookbook Spotlight

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Hello! I have a new cookbook to feature along with some recipes for this post!

I used Michael Symon’s cookbook 5 In 5 a lot in the past couple of weeks with great success!

It has a lot of different sections, including desserts! The recipes are easy to use and pretty much all have only five ingredients. There’s a section at the front of the book that details flavor profiles for different proteins. The pictures are very clear and bright and look very enticing.

The only thing I noticed that can be confusing is that sometimes things like water, or salt and pepper, are only included in the recipe itself instead of the ingredient list.

The first section we used was the “Pasta” section. We had the Spaghetti With Olive Oil, Garlic, and Red Pepper Flakes. We ate it as a side with a marinated turkey breast from the store.

It was pretty spicy! I wouldn’t make it as a full dinner, but it worked well for a side. The turkey looked oddly like salmon, but tasted okay.

We also used a kebab recipe from the “On a Stick” chapter for a fun weekend with some friends. No pictures because we were too hungry to take them. We used the Sirloin with Lemon and Oregano recipe and enjoyed it. They were surprisingly good for only being marinated for a short amount of time.

We tried a steak recipe, Beef Tri-tip with Spicy Peppers, from the “Man with a Pan” section. It called for Tri-Tip, but the only one we could find was already marinated, so we used strip steak instead.

I got super confused thinking it was a stir fry and it was definitely not. It was quite tasty though, even with the wrong cut of steak. We would make this again maybe, but would reduce the peppers. We ate it with cilantro rice.

We used another steak recipe on the grill too from the book. Grilled Skirt Steak with grilled portobellos, corn, and a raw zucchini salad recipe, also from the book.

I wouldn’t make the zucchini salad again. I don’t know if my proportions were off or what, but I didn’t like it all that much. Too much oil, I think.

My favorite recipe was a Whiskey Caramel Sauce from the “I Scream, You Scream” section. I would like to eat all the sauces from this section. They all sound mouthwatering! I had underripe peaches for the 4th and 5th, so we couldn’t try the Grilled Peaches and Honey recipe, but it’s on my list. I stole this picture from a friend.

So those are all the recipes from this cookbook. There’s a lot of fish recipes, but also some shrimp and chicken ones. I’m excited to keep trying them.

In other food news, we had fried chicken from Fried and True. It was the Loveless Cafe recipe and we used boneless, skinless chicken breasts and thighs.

We also had Parmesan Chipotle potato wedges and a salad. Everyone enjoyed it. It has a very thin coating on it, but did end up with a good crust. We would eat it again. I might even remember to wear an apron next time!

We tried the Strawberry Cheesecake Pie with Raspberries instead and it didn’t set up as well. We will stick to the Strawberry version, but it was still tasty.

I was also homesick for my old summer camp and made Oreo pudding. Not very appetizing to look at, but delicious!

We’re looking forward to trying some new things this week too. Hope this made you hungry!

Tuesday Treats
Gardening · Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Tuesday Treats

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We’ve had some exciting new recipes lately and a few older favorites. With my schedule stabilizing, I have been able to do a bit more meal planning, along with adding an “on your own” day permanently into the rotation. That has been super helpful for Wednesdays or Thursdays. The Husband has been requesting more dishes too, which helps. Today we had chicken pot pie over noodles, which we haven’t had in a while. I was hungry, so forgot to take a full picture!

I loudly and snottily announced that I was going out to the garden to pick fresh herbs and the Husband laughed at me, but then told me that I should probably be Instagramming the whole experience. I was the one laughing then. Silly Husband! I was not Instagram dressed! They did look really pretty cooking down with the onions though.

The potpie was made with leftover chicken from this dinner:

Herb Butter Baked Chicken Breasts with Stovetop Stuffing and roasted carrots. I used the Sandwich Sprinkle on the carrots (seriously, I need a bigger jar of it) and fresh garden herbs for the butter.

Rosemary, thyme, sage, basil, and oregano were all included. I actually used some lemon thyme and basil in my strawberry shortcake, which we had for dessert.

This was the lemon thyme batch. It needed a little more herb in it, but it had a subtle lemony taste. The basil one came out much stronger, but basil is a stronger herb in general. I’ve been eating that one over yogurt too and it’s delicious!

So why all the strawberry things, you might ask? I dragged the Husband (yes, dragged, he doesn’t enjoy it) picking with me on Sunday after a panic moment of “what if they run out?!” We may have helped with that. We picked in between 12-13 pounds!

We tried a new farm, but didn’t like it as much, so will stick with the old one if we go together again. I might go on my own one more time, but I can also just pick some up from the farm market. I have a back quartered for eating or jam, and a batch left whole in the freezer. We have some to eat fresh in the fridge and some as shortcake. The shortcake ones will probably be made into jam, as they need to be used up quickly.

I also made this:

Is your mouth watering yet? No? Here, try this picture instead:

MMMMMMM! This recipe is soo good! I found it online at Pumpkin Inn Spice. https://www.pumpkinnspice.com/strawberry-pound-cake/. There were lots of delicious looking recipes, but this one said it was one bowl and that was good enough for me! I finally used the Bundt pan that Mom got me for Christmas.

I have a Strawberry Cheesecake Pie in the fridge that I’m super excited about too. I tasted the filling and man, oh man! I could have eaten it like a pudding! I’m looking forward to trying it tomorrow after it has set.

I’m still plotting what to do with the jam strawberries. I know I want to make Strawberry Rhubarb and I want to try an InstantPot Jam recipe too. We’ll see how ambitious I get.

We had a mental health professional game night this week and I forgot to get any pictures! We were having too much fun! I did make some things for it. We had a Caramelized Onion dip (https://pinchofyum.com/onion-dip) and pico. K brought a Chicken Bacon Ranch Dip. Of course, we had a veggie tray for the hummus, but no pickles. It wasn’t a formal party, Mom! I didn’t need the pickles! I made sure to tell everyone that I had some though, if they wanted them… 😉 I also made Chocolate Fondue for a dessert dip. We ended up just talking instead of playing the second game, which I think says a lot about the group of friends we have. 🙂

Oh, I did get a picture of the drink I made for the party the next day. I used the basil to make Basil Lemonade from Southern Living: Little Jars, Big Flavors. I have wanted to make that since I got the book, but my basil did not do well last year. You make a simple syrup infused with basil and then make up the lemonade.

It was deliciously tart and then mellowed over the course of the day. I will definitely be making more. You could taste the basil, but it wasn’t super overwhelming, which can happen with basil. It was so good!

We had cream sauce over pasta this week too. Since the Husband has convinced me that I can use up the half gallon of cream from Costco, I have been using it a lot more to be my go to meal.

Mine had asparagus added, but the Husband had the plain one mushrooms and the Sandwich Sprinkle. Gosh, I might need a spice intervention here! It’s just so useful! It has Italian herbs, salt, pepper, and garlic! Basically everything that runs in my cooking veins, I think. Eventually, I promise to use it on an actual sandwich! Knowing how things go, I’ll probably end up hating it in a sandwich. 🙂

I forgot to share this recipe, I think. Pardon me, if I have done so before. This is Balela Salad from Reluctant Entertainer. https://reluctantentertainer.com/balela-salad/

I had this first at Trader Joes and liked it so much that I decided to make my own. Lo and behold, I had actually pinned a recipe a long time ago! I used fresh parsley and basil in this. I didn’t have mint, so left it out. I had this at my sewing day with a friend and it was yummy! I would definitely make this again.

We had slow cooker BBQ flank steak tacos this week. I had them the second time as tostados, but I think I really wanted puffy tacos instead. For the leftovers, I added green enchilada sauce in a skillet and rewarmed it basically. We liked the meat. It was nice and tender. I was at work the first night, so only have a picture of the tostados. The Husband stuck with tacos.

I didn’t use a recipe for either dish, just threw things in the slow cooker or pan and added a few spices. Surprisingly, not the Sandwich Sprinkle! 😉

I think that’s all the foods since the last food post. Stay tuned for more strawberry recipes soon. I still have a bunch to use up!

With that, I’m off to dream strawberry dreams! Have a sweet night!

Monday Munchies
Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Monday Munchies

LSiehLeave a comment

Sorry for missing Simple Sunday. I had a very bad migraine and screens were making my vision double, so I couldn’t concentrate enough to pick a topic or see to find quotes. I’ll do a Wordy Wednesday post with some pictures and quotes later this week.

I was going through my food pictures though and realized that we have been having a lot of delicious meals. The featured picture is Fancy at our dinner tonight. She was very hopeful that she would get some and was very sad to only get her own dinner. We both seem to be out of our food funk, so even though meal planning has been haphazard, we have made it work.

Tonight, for example, we were supposed to eat yesterday, but the Husband had to go into work. Apparently bad things happen to electronics if the power goes out? 😉 He had to go make sure everything turned on okay. I knew there was no way I was going to make this just for me, so we had a very fancy dinner on a Monday. May I present Garlic and Rosemary Crusted Rack of Lamb?

Rosemary from the garden, olive oil, and garlic made up the crust. I completely forgot salt and pepper and neither of us noticed. Here is the recipe I used. https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/garlic-crusted-roast-rack-lamb

It was very good. Sometimes I don’t enjoy lamb, but this one was much milder than normal and tasted more of herbs than the gamey taste it can get. I think I cooked it just to done, not overly done too, so that was good. We had cheddar biscuits from the Red Lobster mix and I had asparagus as well. I also tried mango sprinkled with Pico De Fruita from Penzey’s.

It’s a spicy seasoning for fresh juicy fruits like mango and peaches. It has a surprising bite, but did give another layer of flavor. I might try this in a fruit salad with mangos and strawberries and see how it is. I think it would be good on grilled pineapple too, which I do plan on making this summer.

Side note, how is it suddenly summer? I still haven’t managed to completely switch my heavier clothes out of my drawers and have realized how many tank tops I need, but don’t have! Luckily, I have a couple of patterns to try, but that’s another story. Back to food!

We have grilled again this last week, on the one day it didn’t rain! Now that I’m home earlier on Monday and Tuesday, dinner can be a little more fun. We had grilled steak kebabs!

I would say I followed a recipe, but my parents told me never to lie. 😉 I did use the cook time in a Food Network magazine, but used our own ingredients and spices. They were seasoned with Sandwich Sprinkle from Penzey’s, which I have used on approximately 10 things, none of which are sandwiches… It’s basically Italian Seasoning, garlic, salt and pepper, if you wanted to try to recreate it. My kebabs were the ones with tomatoes and peppers. The Husband had manly kebabs- no veggies allowed, just meat and starch. They were delicious! We will definitely be making them again. Kebab all the things!

We have had a couple of fancier breakfasts too, not just dinners! I made the sour cream muffins from a couple of weeks ago with blueberries instead of chocolate chips.

They were good, but I think I liked the chocolate chip ones better. The Husband tried the blueberry ones and did like them. He’s not a huge breakfast eater.

I made these egg cups this morning in an effort to eat more protein to ward off migraines. Newsflash, it didn’t work, but they were a good breakfast. They would be a good lunch too.

They are filled with chicken breakfast sausage, red peppers, green onions, mushrooms, and fresh parsley, oregano, and basil. I forgot to add cheese and any spices, including salt and pepper. My brain was having fits this morning. They’re still pretty tasty though. The Husband will hopefully help me eat them. I had them with cinnamon toast, but had eaten in stages this morning, so no pictures.

We had a few standbys: Shells and Cheese with veggies and chicken sausage, Creamy Shrimp Pasta, and Instant Pot Korean Beef.

The Husband had the Korean beef sauce on country style pork ribs in the crockpot, but they messed with his stomach, so I don’t think he ate them all. Too fatty, I think. We haven’t had them in forever, since it seemed like too much for him to eat on his own. He said they tasted good though, just regretted it in the morning.

We did enjoy lettuce wraps too and I had the leftover meat on a salad the next day, which was pretty delicious.

We discovered that the Husband likes Boston lettuce better that romaine, so we might switch to that. Chef’s salad is more appealing in the summer sometimes.

Another really fun new thing I tried was Pineapple Sage Lemonade!

My pineapple sage is growing like crazy and I know you can make it into tea, but the hot tea wasn’t sounding appealing in 80 degree weather, so I made lemonade instead. I looked at a recipe, which I cannot find, but in the end, just made something up. I didn’t think to grab fresh lemons at the store, so I mixed about an 1/8 th cup of lemonade concentrate with water and then added sugar to taste. I bruised and ripped up five or six pineapple sage leaves and threw them in and let it sit for a while. It turned out to be very good! There was a subtle taste of the pineapple sage and it went really well with the lemons. I am planning on trying some cocktails too. Here’s some websites if you’re interested!

https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/pineapple-sage-tea-hot-or-iced-386388

https://punchdrink.com/recipes/pineapple-and-sage-martini/

https://www.fakefoodfree.com/pineapple-sage-bourbon-lemonade/

And some food recipes too!

http://theessentialherbal.blogspot.com/2009/05/pining-for-pineapple-sage-recipes.html

I have used the lemon thyme in my water too, which gives it a lovely flavor. I’m excited to investigate other ways to use the herbs this year, since they are all growing so well!

Fancy is being super weird about the windows. We think there’s a small animal out there taunting her, but we haven’t smelled skunk yet. I’d better go distract her before she attempts to exit the house through the window. Have a lovely (non-smelly) night!

Foodie Friday
Recipe Roundup

Foodie Friday

LSiehLeave a comment

Featured picture: Panko breaded shrimp with Asian sautéed veggies and berries.

Hello! We haven’t been very good about meal planning lately, so our meals have been kind of hit and miss. I tried to get pictures of most of them! My schedule at work is slowly changing for the summer and I’m going to be keeping it for the fall. I’m planning to work 10:30 – 6 on Monday and Tuesday and then 12 – 9 on Wednesday and Thursday. I’ve started scheduling actual dinner breaks at work, which has been helpful.

I brought this pasta salad for one of those dinner breaks this week. I bought sea creature and dinosaur themed pasta last week. Definitely not a reaction to the Husband getting a new used car and car payment at all… Obviously we need the sharks for Shark Week. Plus, they were on sale and we did need pasta.

I thought it was dino-mite! Ha! I made up my own recipe for it, which is basically chop whatever veggies you want, along with some cheese (gouda and mozzarella in this case,) cubed ham (but you could use sliced lunch meat,) and add a bunch of Italian dressing. I currently have Ken’s Steakhouse Italian Vinegarette in the fridge, but I will generally just use whatever I have that’s oil based. It made a very good and quick dinner.

Another quick dinner was my mushroom cream sauce pasta with fresh herbs from the garden. I used all the basils (sweet, purple, and cinnamon) and parsley. It was delicious as usual.

We’ve had steak a couple of times. Once in the broiler because it decided to pour that day, luckily after we had finished yard work, and one on the grill.

For the broiler steak we used a marinade Recipe from Food Network Magazine, July/August 2017, by Bobby Flay. It was the Rib-eye Marinated in Garlic, Oregano, and Chilis. We left out the chilis as my stomach was not having a good time at all and I thought spicy would be way too much for it. It looked super pretty while it was marinating with all the fresh herbs. Of course, I used our own oregano for it. 🙂

We had mashed red potatoes with garlic as a side and some fruit.

The grilled steak is from the same issue of Food Network as the Rib-eye. They had a whole section on grilling different cuts of meat in that issue. The recipe was Guy Fieri’s Grilled Tequila Garlic Lime Flank Steak.

It was pretty good! Sometimes steak and I do not get along, but this one worked out well. It was fun to try grilling it too. We had grilled bok choy and grilled/roasted red potatoes. We did not eat these back to back, there was about a week in between. It’s hard to remember when exactly we ate things sometimes, so I tend to just group them as they fit.

The grilled potatoes recipe was adapted from a Grilled Potatoes and Olives recipe from the same issue. I left out the olives and lemon juice. They were just on the edge of being done when we took them off, so I did finish them in the microwave. We used our own fresh rosemary. 🙂 We’ll definitely be making these again. They were very tasty.

The Grilled Sesame Bok Choy recipe was from another Food Network Magazine, the June 2017 issue. The picture was for baby bok choy and I used regular, as that was what I had. We didn’t really like this very much. The flavor was good, but I think there were execution flaws that brought the dish down. I don’t know if I would try this again, even with the baby ones.

For dessert with our grilled steak, we had strawberry shortcake with store bought angel food cake and ice cream. The Husband really likes berries this way and it turned out well.

Our other grilling experiment was burgers with fancy toppings. I used a burger recipe from the same Food Network- June 2017, because it had a whole booklet with burger toppings in it. The Husband had gouda topped caramelized onions and mushrooms and I had homemade bbq sauce, gouda, lettuce, and french fried onions.

They were both delicious! The burgers weren’t overcooked either, still nice and juicy. I had grilled asparagus too.

I forget how much I like grilled foods, especially since it generally means that the Husband does most of the actual cooking part. 🙂 He does do an excellent job grilling. I’m hoping to do some more of it this summer.

So that’s been our food lately. We’ve had a couple of freezer meals too. The Husband had pork wontons last night. I’ve also been eating Caprese salad for lunch because in the summer I can’t get enough of it with the fresh basil. The herbs from the garden are growing really well and I need to find some recipes for the pineapple sage. I should try some as a tea, since that’s the main purpose I bought it for. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’ve got some sewing projects to do today. I had originally planned canning, but haven’t been able to sort out my canning equipment yet, so will do it next weekend instead. It seems a little early to start, but I have some fruit in the freezer that I’m going to use up. The husband has a work thing next weekend and has to be on call all weekend, so we can’t do much anyway. It’s the perfect time to take over the kitchen!

Have a lovely weekend!