Category: Recipe Roundup

Food Review
Recipe Roundup

Food Review

LSiehLeave a comment

It’s a little weird to be writing about food while I am sick and don’t actually want to eat food, but a blogger’s got to do what a blogger’s got to do, I guess. I picked up the cold that everyone seems to have and am not happy about it at all. Before I was sick, we did have some good food, so I’ll give hou a rundown of that.

I had this delicious pumpkin bread from the Pilsbury cookbook. The tea is a black tea from Tea Runners and the tea cup is from a sale at my dance place. It was only $5! It’s so brilliant and pretty with the color. It inspired me to want to try a tea cup photo shoot. I bought a pretty piece of tea themed fabric to be a backdrop or table cloth, so maybe you’ll see that on a future Wordless Wednesday. The bread was a cider pumpkin bread and it was very moist. It fell apart a little, but it tasted delicious!

These were double chocolate muffins for a day when I didn’t want to get out of bed. The Husband had one too, despite not being a chocolate for breakfast kind of person. He also enjoyed them. I used my TNT muffin recipe.

I made these Eggnog Snowballs for our game night, along with brownie cookies and garam masala chocolate gingerbread cookies and they were all excellent. All the recipes were from Food Network. The brownie cookies were a huge hit. I got the tin on Monday to take them into work and discovered that there were only three left! I don’t have pictures of the other two. We were too busy eating them!

The Snowballs were very creamy, definitely tasted of eggnogg, despite having no eggnog in them, just nutmeg. The chocolate gingerbread were also delicious and I made snowflake shapes and then got my friends to finish frosting them for me. I was quite sneaky, if I do say so myself! 🙂 I have half the dough in the freezer for our Epiphany party, so that will be good. The royal icing recipe from Food Network was surprisingly easy.

I made fancy Chicken Milanese from Pioneer Woman on Food Network for a weekend dinner. It was fun to try a new thing. The Husband had buttered carrots for his veggie side and we both had mashed potatoes. What you can’t see in this picture is Fancy sitting at the bottom of the picture drooling over chicken. Poor girl!

I did make chocolate peppermint cookies, however, I only have a very unappetizing picture that makes them look like poo. Literally. I decided no one wanted to see that! 😂 They were a very soft cookie, from the back of the Ghiradelli peppermint chunk bag. The recipe said to cook them for 9 minites, but they were just an underdone mess at that point, so I baked the rest of the batch for 11 minites. They got rave reviews at work.

We’ve also had shrimp stirfry using the same lettuce wrap sauce ingredients. It turned out to be a delicious plan. I’ve been at work for a lot of dinner times too, so the Husband has had pork and various other things. It’s hard to tell what else I’ve missed, since I lost pictures.

One cool thing we have finally tried out was our Pixar character popcorn maker. It has an arm and is an oil popper. It didn’t come with instructions, so I had to Youtube it and guess. It seeemed to work out though.

It was cool to watch how the arm scooped up the popcorn when they had popped so it wouldn’t burn. We’re still experiementing with it. It’s fun to use. Our previous air popper started getting deformed and the plastic was bubbling, so we thought maybe we should stop using it.

That’s all the pictures I have of our recent food adventures. This post should probably have been sponsored by Food Network, considering how many of their recipes I’ve used so far. 🙂 The featured picture is all my Costco ingredients. I’m particularly fod of my butter tower. 🙂

I hope your weekend up to the holiday is fun and not too stressful. We’re going on an adventure so my Dad can tell me all his blog comments in person this time. 🙂

Cooking Adventures Of The Delicious Kind
Canning and Preserving · Recipe Roundup

Cooking Adventures Of The Delicious Kind

LSiehLeave a comment

We’ve started to get some snow. So much for the yard clean up, I guess. The tree pictures I posted for my picture post were all taken a week or so before the first snow. I suddenly have dog attached anytime I sit down and feel the need for three layers everywhere. Most of my sweater fabric has arrived, so I plan to do a bunch of sewing this Friday to make sure I can actually stay warm this winter. My circulation must be off, because once I get cold, my skin stays cold and I feel cold forever. This winter, space heaters down in my sewing area are a must. That or fingerless gloves and a hat. Brrr… 

Chai spiced chocolate chip muffins with Siamo Spring Tips tea from Tea Runners

In an attempt to stay warm, I have been cooking up some delicious things lately. Fancy got some sweet potato pieces dried. She gets all excited when she sees the bag in the fridge. My dad laughed when I said I made her sweet potatoes with olive oil and cinnamon, but she can’t eat the sweet potatoes raw and both of those things are good for her coat. 

Part of my fun cooking day was on Sunday. The Husband was at his play and I made green tomato mincemeat and the tiniest bit of cardamom plum jam. The jam only made two and half jars. I’m not posting more pictures of it because 1. I didn’t get finished pictures and 2. You all might want it if I post it! I’m finding it very hard to part with. 😉 

I tasted a little of the extra mincemeat and it’s interesting. Vinegary, but not too much, with delicious spices and a little sweetness. Not having had it before, I’m not sure how it’s supposed to taste. 

I used this recipe from The Spruce Eats. 

https://www.thespruceeats.com/green-tomato-mincemeat-3057088

It will be interesting to try it in tarts. It felt super weird with the combination of things that were in my cook pot. There was quite an old fashioned homesteader vibe going on too. Here’s what it looked like in the pot. All those fall spices made it smell delicious!  

Some of the pile of chopped green tomatoes! I did cut the batch in half. 

Here is what it looked like after cooking down for a bit. 

And then the deliciousness after being canned. It got so dark!  

I have made a couple of other things too. More chocolate pudding, this time with my Mom’s homemade kahlua. It was delicious.

We have had Chinese food twice this week. We found these mini wontons at Costco (hooray for sample day!). They are chicken and cilantro based and don’t have any ginger in them. The Husband doesn’t like ginger, much to my dismay. They made a delicious broth with some veggies, garlic powder, white pepper, sesame oil, and soy sauce. 

Our new bowl color- Slate. Kind of like a blueish grey.

Today we had a noodle stir fry with some ground chicken and veggies. I added hoisin sauce, oyster sauce, garlic, sweet chili sauce, soy sauce, water, and a cornstarch slurry. 

My younger brother came for dinner, which was nice. I had texted him earlier in the day to say that the original recipe I had planned wasn’t going to work, but that there would be some kind of dinner. He sent back a text saying “I’m sure whatever there is will be lovely.” Isn’t he sweet? My mother trained him well, I think. 🙂 For the record, both the boys liked the stir fry. 

I want to make Cousin Jack cookies this week, probably on Friday, because I have currants from the mincemeat. Also, pannukaku. I’m out of thimbleberry jam though (hint, hint, mom and dad). My dealer of jam hasn’t been keeping up with the demand. 

In the morning, I plan to try one of these new teas from Tea Runners. I don’t get any money from showing them off, but do have a referral code if you want to try it (disclaimer: I get money off if you use my referral code). It’s a tea club that sends four samples out each month. So far, I have loved it! It’s definitely making me drink more tea and I’m excited to try these. I was especially intrigued by the Carrot Cake Rooibos and the Nutcracker black.  

The fact that it’s run by one of my favorite actresses and her husband, Jewel Staite (Kaylee from Firefly,) makes it even cooler. 🙂 I’m a dork. I’ll admit it. 

Anyway, there is a dog suggesting strongly that I go to bed, or at least cuddle her and share my couch blanket. Since I’m freezing again, I think I’ll join her. Have a wonderful, hopefully warm, night! 

Canning and Preserving · Monthly Review · Recipe Roundup

Not So Simple Sunday

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Well, it has been a long time since I posted a review! I have made a lot of things lately. I pulled the tomatoes from the garden and still have some green ones left. I’m researching ways to use them up. I have green tomatoe salsa in the freezer already. My Dad keeps hinting about green tomato mincemeat, so maybe if he’s nice to me, he’ll get some. 😉 

I did end up buying some tomatoes to round out my recipes, but there’s a good portion of garden tomatoes in each recipe. I was pretty happy with how the garden performed this year. Next year we will be putting it in earlier though, I don’t want to end up with as many unripe peppers as I did this year. 

For canned items, I made little jars of hot sauce and some homemade Rotel style tomatoes and peppers. The hot sauce recipe was from the Ball Canning magazine and called “Red Hot Sauce.” The Rotel was from this recipe: https://amp.thekitchn.com/recipe-rotel-style-tomatoes-recipes-from-the-kitchn-206851

I forgot the lemon juice in the Rotel and had to recan a couple days later, so went from 11 jars to 9, after reboiling. The hot sauce was canned in little tiny jars and I got five out of the batch. I used all of my homemade garden peppers, so I know it will be spicy. I also found out why gloves are necessary for cutting that many peppers. My hands burned off an on all through the next day.

Speaking of peppers, we have used our homemade salsa in a couple of dishes including, chicken tortilla soup- no pictures, and tacos! The tacos also have homemade pico on them. 


I haven’t made any more jams, but do have some jellies planned, including a pomegranate one and a cider whiskey one. But those can be all done at any time.

I know I haven’t been talking a lot about food lately. I think my original purpose for starting the blog was fulfilled, at least in theory. I didn’t use all of my cookbooks, I don’t think, but I was more successful in making more new recipes and such. I’ll continue to use them, but I have also been able to think more about which ones are useful for us. 

I have been trying to use new cooking techniques and equipment as well. I made lentil soup in the Instantpot for dinner last night and the house is still standing. That recipe is here: https://www.cookwithmanali.com/instant-pot-mediterranean-lentil-soup/

It was pretty good. I used brown lentils instead of red, so pressure cooked for 16 minutes instead of the 8. I also replaced the garlic with granulated garlic as I had run out of fresh. I used a Za’tar spice mix to replace everything except the parsley, salt, and pepper. I left out the mint because I didn’t think it would go well with the Za’tar. I had some garlic bread with it. 

I made chocolate peanut butter pudding one night. The Husband is not a fan of pudding in general and especially peanut butter, so I had a lovely bowl for dessert for several nights. The recipe is here: https://www.smartnutrition.ca/recipes/chocolate-peanut-butter-pudding/

It was pretty good, although I think it needed a bit more peanut butter. 

I also made these chocolaty muffins from garden zucchini. They were extremely good and you definitely couldn’t tell they had zucchini in them. Recipe:https://www.mybakingaddiction.com/chocolate-zucchini-muffins/

We had General Tsao’s chicken from “The Chew” cookbook. It was pretty nice, but needed a bit more sauce.

I used the Pampered Chef Stoneware book to make a Corned Beef Philly Cheesesteak ring. I used the crescent roll dough and then pretty much followed the recipe, except using cheedar instead of American cheese.

I wouldn’t make this again. It wasn’t the best and the meat got a little weird after baking it. 

We had Mac and Cheese from the “Vegetables!” Cookbook. It made me giggle, since it was called “Grown-up Mac and Cheese.”

It was super rich and we had to eat small servings at a time. I used different cheeses, since it called for blue type cheeses. I decided breathing was more important than recipe following. 🙂

I’m going to write a separate sewing review. I don’t want to overwhelm you all. 

I’m still trying to decide what to focus on with food, now that the cookbooks aren’t my main focus. The Husband has had several good suggestions including having themed weeks/months, using recipes from movies and books. Or focusing on a series for specific techniques or ingrediants. I also plan to try to write out some of my personal recipes. And, of course, the 25 days of cookies is coming. I think this year I will spread it out and make it the 25 kinds of cookies instead. Then I won’t be so rushed or frazzled in December. 

So let me know what you’d be more interested in reading about food-wise. I’d hate for you all to get bored!

Harry Potter Party
Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Harry Potter Party

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So I was at a bellydance workshop all weekend and Fancy was excited to see me until the heat went on. Then she abandoned me for the heat vent. Silly dog! She’s currently snuggled under an extra sheet on the couch. The past couple of evenings, she’s been a brat until I’ve taken it down and made her a nest with it. 🙂

But on to the party!  It was super fun and we, of course, had lots of food. I didn’t go to overboard though. We also didn’t have too many sweets, as we had a Honeydukes section with a ridiculous amount of candy. Honeydukes is the name of the candy shop in the wizard village. 🙂

Side note, I finally got carded again for buying hard cider. The last couple of times I bought some kind of alcohol, I haven’t gotten carded and it’s a little weird for me… 🙂 This time, I was also buying about 10 pounds of candy, so maybe that’s why. 

So I read the first book again and looked up recipes to make themed party foods. It’s not like The Hobbit, where there’s focus on foods, so there’s only a couple of things that are pretty regular. The Husband requested a large pile of chicken legs, as Ron, one of the main characters, is frequently seen two fisting chicken. 🙂

 I used this recipe: https://juliasalbum.com/buttermilk-roast-chicken-with-garlic/

They were alright, but I would bump the spices next time. 

Butterbeer is the main drink in the HP universe. I forgot to get a picture of it, but the recipe is pretty simple. Use heated apple cider, bourbon, rum, or brandy, ginger beer, and butterscotch sauce. Mix them to taste and top with whipped cream if desired. I got the recipe from a Buzzfeed round up of Harry Potter themed cocktails. There are definitely some more that I would like to try on the list. 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelysanders/harry-potter-and-the-night-he-wont-remember?utm_term=.lid7Yxa9&sub=3654265_4940588#.ov03Z1WV

I used a homemade butterscotch sauce too, because I couldn’t help myself… The recipe is linked in the butterbeer recipe, I can’t get the link to embed in the post. It’s a popsugar article.

For other drinks, we had spiced pumpkin cider, which I found at Aldi, pop, tea, and hot chocolate. The pumpkin cider was a little weird, but not unpleasant. It tasted more like spices than actual pumpkin. Pretty sure it was apple cider with spices.

I attempted to make butterbeer macarons, but they were a total disaster. I couldn’t even serve them! No pictures because when I tried to take them off the pans, they crumbled and looked a mess. I will try them again though! They were from Sensible Sara. 

https://sensiblysara.com/2017/08/butterbeer-macarons-recipe/

One recipe that did go right was Pumpkin Pasties. 

I looked at some recipes and then just made my own up. I used pumpkin puree, goat cheese with honey, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. They were wrapped in puff pastry and brushed with egg, cinnamon and sugar. They were delicious warm. 

We had Bacon Mac and Cheese cups for a dinner snack. I overbaked them a little, but was told they were still alright. They do not reheat well, according to the Husband. And yes, it’s kraft mac and cheese. 🙂

The recipe is here: https://www.thegunnysack.com/bacon-mac-and-cheese-bites/

We had egg cups, partially for brunch, but also to test as a recipe for the Husband to take for breakfast. They turned out to be pretty good and they will work for breakfasts.

https://www.makeaheadmealmom.com/easy-egg-muffins/

We had another dragon cake, because it’s a magical world, so of course, there needed to be a dragon! https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/chai-spiced-pound-cake-recipe This was amazingly delicious! I will probably make it again, as I forgot the baking soda and the cinnamon exploded all over the batter. I apparently also forgot to take a picture of the cake. I decorated it with a maple glaze, edible gold glitter, and green dust. It was cute. I have requested a regular bundt pan for Christmas, as not every occasion needs a dragon cake. 🙂

We had chocolate frogs for part of Honeydukes. It’s something that comes up all the time in the books. My friend Kim sent me a mold to borrow for the frogs and I used Ghiradelli and Baker melting chocolate. These also had green dust on them. http://www.justticklethepear.com/2010/12/chocolate-frogs.html

They were a big hit, even if they didn’t jump around like the ones in the movies and books. 🙂

I made up a recipe for a mushroom tart, mainly because I really wanted it. I used marscapone and Boursin cheese mixed together and then spread on puff pastry. It was topped with sauteed mushrooms- baby bella and white, and caramelized onions. 

Kayla brought dragon spiced nuts, which were sweet and spicy. She also brought a large cooler full of sandwich fixings to go with the French Onino Soup. I also made nuts, but mine were weird, so we’ll just ignore them… 🙂

Here’s some Honeydukes pictures. 

We had Dementor Recovery chocolates, caramels, gummy worms/frogs/bears, PB eyeballs, Golden Snitches, jellybeans (but not the gross ones from the movies!), ginger candies, Ton Tongue Taffy, Acid Pops (Tootsie Rolls,) and Lemon drops. There was a lot of candy, but luckily, people took some home.

I’ll post the decor pictures tomorrow for Wordless Wednesday. You’ve probably had enough Potter pictures today. 🙂

Have a magical day!

Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Things We’ve Eaten

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I’m still not sure what I want to do with the food portion of the blog. It’s a little hard to write about it when you don’t actually want to make food most of the time. Here’s some pictures of our meals lately and some food puns, because they are hilarious!

We had fried chicken and “velvety mashed potatoes” for dinner tonight from Fried and True. It was a Tyler Florence recipe, so we watched Food Network while eating. 🙂

I think we’ve decided we don’t like the texture of purees. They end up feeling funny. This one tasted good, but not enough for me to make them again. The chicken had a little bite to it and was delicious. 

We had lo mein last night. I tried to use a recipe, but ended up just making one up. The sauce from the recipe wasn’t good, so I made my own with soy sauce, a little sugar, sesame oil, rice wine, and garlic powder. Oh, and a little water. It was enjoyed by all. Fancy freaked out and then napped, since we had a friend over for dinner. 

We had caramel or macaroon brownie cupcakes. Okay, now, I have a super secret here… The brownies are the triple chocolate Ghiradeli box mix! I love them. The macaroon recipe was on the side of the box and I have been meaning to try it forever. The Husband doesn’t like coconut, so I added caramel bits to half of them instead. The brownies separated in the wrapper, but still tasted good.

Spaghetti and lasagna made an appearance as well. There were garden tomatoes, oregano, and basil in the sauce this time. 🙂

This was my tomato haul today, so I had plenty of them for the sauce too. I’m contemplating the multiple ways to use up the tomatoes. 

I think this is a 2 or 3 quart bowl? Mr Stripey has give us a few,  you can see one at the edge. They are very pretty!

We had herbed french bread to go with the spaghetti. 

Carbs on top of carbs! 

The Husband had pork this week and I made an alfredo sauce with mushrooms, garden tomatoes, fresh parsley and garlic to go over noodles. Mine looks much prettier! I picked out all the tomatoes for the Husband. 

I made a roux and then added the veggies, cooked them all down, added the cream and cooked it until it was all bubbly. Added grated parm too, for extra fanciness!

One last pun, just because… 🙂 Have a great night!

Not So Simple Sunday- Canning Edition
Canning and Preserving · Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Not So Simple Sunday- Canning Edition

LSiehLeave a comment

I have canned all the things! Well, not quite all, I still have a list. I was determined to make a few things for our party this weekend, so those definitely got done, along with some others. I’ll add the jams to the Recipe Roundup, but the savory ones will get their own post. I had lots of extra time this week, so ended up making lots of new recipes as well. Seeing my low numbers for recipes last review didn’t hurt either.

I’ll start with the jams. 🙂 Several of the canned things have garden or local produce.

Pineapple Sage Preserves from Southern Living Little Jars, Big Flavors. The sage was garden grown.

I have another jar in the fridge, as there wasn’t quite enough headspace to safely can it. It’s delicious! I’m hoping the sage come out more as it sits. It will be going in a cake for our Big Summer Blowout Party. The book includes a vanilla bean layer cake with this in the middle which I think will be wonderful and summery.

When I bought the pineapple, the apricots from the farmer’s market looked good as well, so I made Apricot Riesling Jam from Simple Recipes. https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/apricot_riesling_jam/

This one is a very lovely orange color and has just a hint of the wine. I’m looking forward to this on toast. I think it would be lovely on ice cream.

I’ve made this one before, but it’s been a few years. I love it because it does taste exactly like strawberry lemonade. It uses Myer lemons, which are slightly sweeter than regular lemons.

This batch turned very dark red and I forgot to mash up the strawberries, as I had them in the freezer first. They are from last year and I had forgotten that I had them. There’s still a bag and a half left for my next strawberry jam endeavor. I have an Instant Pot freezer jam recipe and a strawberry basil that both want to be made.

There are more delicious jams and jellies on my list, but I need to regroup and figure out what I need. I ran out of single rings, but have tons of new lids. I may have to start storing them without the rings.

On to the recipes!

The Husband got special cookies for picking up the puppers from the dog sitter and letting me stay home. Chocolate Chips and M&Ms!

These were from the cookbook 101 Things To Do With Chocolate by Stephanie Ashcraft.

He liked these, but he likes the chewy ones better.

I got bored with breakfast this week and couldn’t sleep on top of it, so I made strawberry doughnuts. They were supposed to be mini muffins, but I couldn’t find the mini muffin tins.

These are from the Pillsbury: Best Muffins and Quick Breads. 

I was hosting craft night the same day, so I made meringues  with leftover egg whites from ice cream. These are super crumbly, but they taste okay.

The ice cream is Amaretto Ice Cream from The Cookie Writer. 

https://thecookiewriter.com/amaretto-ice-cream/

I had it with leftover peaches and it was delicious! The amaretto is very light, but you can definitely still taste it. There’s only two tablespoons in the whole recipe, but it doesn’t get cooked out, so bear that in mind.

We used the new Food Network magazine already. It’s the September issue. The Hoisin Meatballs were good.

I thought they needed more seasoning in the meatballs themselves, but the Husband thought they were just fine. We used Udon noodles, mushrooms, and carrots as the substitutions. It was nice to find another use for ground beef.

We had Macaroni and Many Cheeses from the 2014 Food and Wine.

We had to have it because of the name. 🙂 I had Gouda, triple cheddar, and a Monterey jack mix. It was quite soupy at first, but firmed up over time. It had parmesan cheese crusted on top. It was pretty tasty.

We had grilled steak for dinner on our anniversary, after going to the shooting range and going to the chocolate factory for a tour. We weren’t allowed to take pictures at the factory.

Mashed potatoes and grilled zucchini completed the meal. The Husband is an excellent grill master, so everything was great. We had  fun chocolate from the factory for dessert. I had a peanut butter block and he had cookies and cream clusters.

The range trip was fun, but both of our pistols broke towards the end. My back sight fell off my revolver and Eric’s 22 was not having it at all. They definitely both need to be cleaned and we have the name of a good gunsmith. It was a little disappointing but the rest of the day was fun. 🙂

We had Margarita Shrimp for Saturday. We intended to grill, but had an unexpected rain shower, so they were broiled instead. They were from A Farm Girl’s Dabble. 

https://www.afarmgirlsdabbles.com/grilled-margarita-shrimp-kebabs-recipe/

They were still tasty. We paired them with cilantro rice from Five Heart Home. https://www.fivehearthome.com/cilantro-lime-rice-recipe/

We used jasmine rice and it was delicious. This rice will definitely be staying in the recipe collection for a nice side dish. The Husband approves as well, which is surprising, as he doesn’t like a lot of Mexican based dishes. This one is lightly flavored though. It heats up great as it has butter and olive oil in it to keep it soft instead of dried out.

We had it tonight as a side with Tequilla Lime Chicken and pico with the leftovers from salsa making.

The purple plate was awarded for my enormous amounts of canning completed this weekend.

Those are just the jams!

The featured picture is the second set of zucchini and the others as well. I used the peppers in the salsa and the zucchini in squash pickles.

So there’s the update so far. I’ll have a savory canning post shortly. I figured it would be too long, considering how many pickles I made. 🙂

It’s been so much fun to use things from the garden while canning. I’ve tried to use local produce as well, as much as I can. Somehow I don’t think I can find Michigan pineapples…

Stay tuned for more canning! Sewing too, hopefully, but I have been a little busy. 🙂 Have a great night!

Recipe Roundup
Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

I’m sitting on the couch, watching sharks of course, with a dog who is quite certain that she needs pets on her head to help her sleep. 🙂 It makes typing quite difficult. The Husband got me a fancy keyboard for my IPad that’s bluetooth enabled, so the typing part isn’t as bad, but the constant nose nudges under my hands do make it more difficult. Dropping my IPad face down without the cover on the screen didn’t really help the other screen issues I was having. It’s kind of interesting to watch the spiderweb cracks spread across the screen. :\

We just came back from what was about a 3 mile walk on the river. That’s where the featured picture comes from. It was just sunny enough that I wore my shark shorts and a tank top, but there was a nice breeze, so it was a very pleasant, shady walk. Fancy is snoring away. We’re hoping to have her mind less that we’re in and out all weekend.

I have not made any new recipes this week! We had delicious food, but we hadn’t meal planned, so we didn’t really have new ones.

I had grilled cheese one night with chips and veggies. Probably an apple or something too, but I don’t remember.

We had Taco Salad with garden lettuce and fritos on top.

It was delicious! I used my taco meat recipe which is a pound of ground beef, half a jar of salsa, about a tsp or so of ground cumin, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. I also used chili powder this time, but not all the time. It was a little spicy from the salsa and we had pepper jack cheese too.

We also had Shepherd’s Pie with ground lamb and garlic mashed potatoes. No recipe, just cooked up a pound of lamb, threw in some Worcestershire sauce, chicken broth, salt, and pepper. I used half a bag of frozen veggies and cooked off some of the liquid. The potatoes were smaller yellow potatoes, mashed with cream, butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Bake it for 20 or so minutes at 400 until the potatoes get a little brown. We had this on a cooler day that had been pretty grey and rainy. A garden lettuce salad went with it.

I made blueberry muffins too, but ate them all! I remembered to take pictures of our waffles this morning that we had with maple syrup made by our friends in their own sugar shack. It was delicious! I don’t typically like maple syrup because I find it too sweet. This is slightly thinner and has a smoky taste. It’s sweet, but not sickly sweet.

MMMMMMM! I enjoyed breakfast very much. We have bottle for my parents too, but it’s going to be hard to keep it for them until we see them. They’ll have to be very nice to us! I think we’ll get two bottles next year, if we can.

The garden is still growing very well. I was a little concerned because we’ve had some really hot days and have a soaker hose in only one of the beds. The tomatoes are so big, it will be tricky to thread the hoses in there.

Speaking of tomatoes, we have a tomato that is orange! Which means soon I can eat a garden tomato!

It might be a Roma, or an Early Girl. These four are definitely on one of the Early Girl plants. 🙂

And Mr. Stripey has a tomato started, as well as blossoms.

No stripes yet, but they will come. I’m so excited to start using the tomatoes. The hot peppers are growing well. They look about the same, so no pictures. The red peppers may be fighting a losing battle with the giant zucchini plant.

This is the view from the front of the garden. You cannot see the back, but the plant now covers the entire box… Maybe next year, I’ll see if there’s a smaller variety. 🙂

We still have some lettuce growing and the marigolds are hiding, but still there.

Well, I should probably go do some meal planning for the week. Have a good day!

 

Battle Cheesecake- Party Pictures And Recipes
Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Battle Cheesecake- Party Pictures And Recipes

LSiehLeave a comment

Battle Cheesecake was the most delicious battle I have ever been in! It was lots of fun. Fancy was completely worn out, as you can see.

The votes broke down to K winning the fruit and unusual category and I won the chocolate. Overall, it was a tie though. There was a tied vote on the fruit category. Here are all the cheesecakes.

I was a little distracted and didn’t get close-ups of K’s cheesecakes. They are the top ones.

I just want to take a moment to brag that I fit 6 full size cheesecakes in the fridge. 🙂 Who knew my stackable cooling racks would be so handy?

We had seven people attend. We cut tiny slices and put the three categories together. K brought meatballs and we had a salad from the garden lettuce which exploded into growth. Everyone voted anonymously and a friend counted the votes for us. I had a lovely set of kitchen towels and some rubber spatulas for prizes. I kept the jar of jam which was the third prize. 🙂

Here are K’s recipes. She made a Death By Chocolate from Delish.com, a Thimbleberry (with four Yoopers in the room, she totally won this one,) based on the Blueberry recipe from Rae-Gun Ramblings, and a tiramisu one from Allrecipes. 

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/7757/tiramisu-cheesecake/

https://www.raegunramblings.com/2010/04/recipe-blueberry-white-chocolate.html 

She took out the white chocolate and subbed thimbleberry jam for the homemade blueberry jam in the recipe. Also had a thimbleberry mousse on top.

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a50419/death-by-chocolate-cheesecake-recipe/

Her cheesecakes were softer than mine, more mousse texture. They were all delicious and I think her chocolate one was definitely smoother than mine. I had lumps! 😳

Here are my cheesecake recipes. I tried to find some in my cookbooks, but am apparently low on baking cookbooks.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough from Delish.com. 

https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a46039/chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-cheesecake-recipe/

The Husband casually sent me this recipe on a list and there was a strong suggestion that I try it. 🙂 He enjoyed it, but felt it was missing something. This cheesecake must have weighed 5 pounds.

Raspberry Swirl from Martha Stewart. https://www.marthastewart.com/340227/raspberry-swirl-cheesecake

The raspberry puree doesn’t go deep enough for me. It was softer, possibly slightly under baked. Pretty good though. I would make it again.

Kahlua Chocolate Cheesecake by Baker By Nature. https://bakerbynature.com/kahlua-chocolate-cheesecake/

I used homemade kahlua from my Mom. It was good, but not as smooth as I would like. It was topped with a bittersweet chocolate ganache. Mmmm…. chocolate.

It was fun and I would totally do cooking challenges again. We think the Husbands were a little more serious about it than we were. I think we both used mostly new recipes. It was a fun excuse to have a smaller party and have quality friend time.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s Shark Week and The Great White Abyss is on. Have a great night!

Recipe Roundup and Gardening
Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup and Gardening

LSieh2 Comments

I was so mixed up on all my days this week and spent all of yesterday making cheesecakes for Battle Cheesecake. So this is a little belated recipe post and a garden update. I will post the party pics and recipes tomorrow, I think. We all had a lot of fun!

The garden is growing very well! We had the lettuce from it in a salad with meatballs after the cheesecake tonight. Everyone liked it and there’s so much left. We may deliver some to my in-laws, as they weren’t able to plant a garden this year.

These are the three buttercrunch. We had romaine as well, but I forgot a picture. It was a proud moment to share our homegrown produce. I’m looking forward to sharing more.

We have peppers of both the hot and sweet variety starting. This is the small Thai chilies.

The spicy peppers both have actual peppers on the vines and the sweets have just flowers. The sweets are getting kind of taken over by the zucchini plant, but they are fighting the good fight.

I believe this is the Jalefuego pepper. The dragon cayenne is harder to take pictures of, as the peppers are still small.

Here’s the mutant zucchini, you can see some pepper plants coming through the leaves.

I have no idea how many squash we are going to get, if we get as many as the flowers, I may be looking for recruits to take them. After I make lots of zucchini things, of course. I’ve read that you can shred it and freeze it too, so I might do that.

The herbs are going well for the most part. I’ve accidentally murdered a few, but they seem to be hardy and coming back.

And, of course, the tomatoes continue to expand. Mr. Stripey is doing well.

Almost all the plants have tomatoes started.

They are growing a little close to each other, so it’s hard to tell sometimes which plant is which.

It will be fun when they start turning colors. I’ll know for sure then.

So now that we’ve seen the food growing, here’s what we ate!

Turkey cutlets looked good at Trader Joe’s, so I made Turkey Parmesan on Sunday. No recipe, just breaded the cutlets with seasoned panko and fried them up. Regular homemade marinara and fettuccine.

I made this after we had walked around the zoo for the photo safari for multiple hours, so didn’t use fresh herbs. They had been a little wilted too. It was good anyway though. It was fun to try something new. The Husband was very complimentary and wants to have it again.

We had sandwiches a couple of the nights. The Husband got the sandwich maker back from his parents’ house and was very excited. It’s a Betty Crocker “Stuff and Munch.” It makes little sandwich pockets and is his favorite way to eat sandwiches.

This was a pastrami provolone sandwich. It was pretty good.

We also had manicotti, but I don’t have a picture, as I was at work.

http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/easy-manicotti-56784

It says that you don’t have to cook the noodles, but it’s a lie. Cook them at least halfway. The Husband left it in for over an hour after checking it and it finally got soft. It tasted okay.

The cheesecakes were my other new recipes this week, but that will be in the party post.

I hope you’re enjoying seeing the garden. I know I’m very excited that it’s going so well. Have a great night and stay tuned for my party post for Battle Cheesecake!

Recipe Roundup and Concert Pictures
Gardening · Life Posts · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup and Concert Pictures

LSiehLeave a comment

My week got all thrown off by a concert and being still sick. I did go to the doc yesterday and don’t have bronchitis, just really severe asthma flares. I have a stronger version of my meds, so hopefully that will help me kick this. In the meantime, I have been trying to get through it.

We saw Evanescence and Lindsey Stirling with a full orchestra and they were both amazing! Here are a couple of pictures.

It was really hot, but definitely worth it.

I haven’t been wanting to cook or eat, but we did have a couple new recipes this week.

We had chef’s salad with lettuce from the garden! We have so much lettuce right now. It’s been very hot, so the salad was nice and cool. Today it’s already 75 and I’m going to stay hiding inside. My lungs aren’t handling anything well.

We also had a new brand of all beef hotdogs.

They were the Teton brand from Costco and were pretty good. I have to be careful with hot dogs. One of the all beef brands was still in natural pork casings, which wouldn’t have helped me.

I had a friend’s kids over for Lego time and made tacos with homemade tortillas. We had taco meat leftover, so I made a beef taco soup.

I roasted peppers, onions, garlic, and tomatoes and threw everything in the crockpot while I was at work. It turned out good. I like using the leftovers.

We had baked chicken with garden herbs on Thursday, but ate separately, so I have no pictures.

Speaking of the garden, it is growing very well. I do need to water the herbs a little more, but I have lots of tomatoes started!

The zucchini plant won’t even fit in a picture. 🙂 I keep seeing new blossoms on it too, so we’ll have to see how many squash we get.

Here’s the lettuce:

A bunch of the pepper plants have flowers and buds too, so I’m Excited about that. Everything is growing much better than it was in pots!

Well, I’m going to see if I can sleep some more. Hopefully I’ll feel up to doing some sewing, baking, or canning today. For now, I’m content with not coughing quite as much.

Have a great day!