Category: Recipe Roundup

Monthly Review
Gardening · Monthly Review · Recipe Roundup · Sewing

Monthly Review

LSiehLeave a comment

Well, hello! It’s hard to believe that it’s time for a review again, but I guess it is. My garden has exploded in the past month with all sorts of new growth. I had a salad made with lettuce from the garden just yesterday!

I picked some of both, buttercrunch and romaine. It was delicious! I’ve been picking the basil for caprese salads a lot too. I can’t wait to have homegrown tomatoes and basil for it.

My zucchini plant has taken over part of the garden. (Pictures withheld as to not frighten my father…)  I have five blossoms on it. I may be giving away zucchini shortly. 🙂 I think part of the plant ended up in every picture I took of the pepper box. Except the lettuce.

The tomatoes have absolutely taken over their box. I had to find some sticks to stake up the plants. The Early Girls are huge!

Mr. Stripey is holding his own in the corner.

I have some tomatoes started on the plants, but they are hard to get pictures of, as they are small and green. It’s exciting to see them growing though. So far, no sign of blossom end rot, which was the bane of my existence the last couple of years. I think the garden soil is keeping everything much more stable, moisture wise.

The peppers plants have a few flowers on them and seem to be holding up well, despite the encroaching zucchini. The herbs are also doing well. The strawberries never flowered, but that’s alright. I’ll keep them through the winter again and get some more plants for the berry boxes next spring. A friend has some raspberry plants that we can steal cuttings from too.

I’m pretty pleased with how it’s working out. I think we’ll get a lot of yield this year.

I’m also pretty pleased with my sewing this month. I have made lots of useful wardrobe items and am considering what of my ready to wear clothes I can replace or how to fix previously made items that don’t quite work.

My favorite things this month have been my harem pants, my Harry Potter table runner, the abstract floral dress, the blue lotus Agnes, and my Cocoon Cardigan.

I haven’t blogged about the cardi or the three pairs of shorts I have made in the last couple of days yet. 🙂

I finally found a pattern for pj shorts and pants that fits the Husband. He got his minion shorts a few days ago and I can catch up on Christmas pjs too. He has flannel pants with sweater bears on them that are not yet made. Here are the minions.

They were from the book Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. The failed slipper pattern was from this book, so I was glad to find a pattern that worked. 🙂

I realized that all of my recent patterns have been ones that I’ve traced! My friend slowly dragged me over to Team Trace when I wasn’t looking. She tempted me with PDF patterns that I couldn’t resist. I’m not very mad about it, for being firmly on Team Cut That Sh*t Out (terms coined by my favorite sewing group on Facebook- The Self Sewn Wardrobe by Mallory Donohue.) I will admit that it does make sense, but I still hate printing and taping PDF patterns.

I will admit, this Cocoon Cardigan by Patterns for Pirates, had a lot to do with it as well. It looked so snuggly and wonderful on everyone online who made it that I had to have it.

The shoulders look weird in this picture. I swear it doesn’t actually make me look like I’m a linebacker. 🙂  They are a dolman sleeve, so they start sloped and pick up the sleeve partway down your shoulder. It was a new technique for me and I was super nervous, but it came out so nice. I have plans to make a lighter weight black cardi with an owl appliqué on the back. It’s going to look so cool!

The stars are french terry, which is a new fabric for me too. Here’s a closeup of the stars. They are multi-colored.

There’s a grey colorway with pink stars on the website and I think I want it too. Next time I make this in a non-stretch fabric, I’ll add a tiny bit in width to the lower arms. They are a tiny bit tighter than I’d like.  I wore it to work and received several compliments.  A very stylish coworker said “I don’t even ask anymore, I figure if you’re wearing it and it’s cute, you probably made it.” 🙂 Also, it has pockets!!

The other PDF pattern I have tried and loved has been the Linen Loungers by Patterns For Pirates. I made two pairs for myself yesterday. I may have flamingo fabric ordered to make another pair…

They are both sleep shorts and have a yoga waistband. They are very comfy and didn’t make me feel fat and horrible, which most shorts do. I will be making more of these. The pattern comes with  curved hem option, pants, and bermudas as well.

I’ve done a bunch of organizing in the basement, so I’d like to keep it that way.

Foodwise, we did pretty well. We mostly planned pur meals and we used the InstantPot. We had 24 recipes, with 9 being completely new.

Hits were Korean Beef,

Chophouse Cheesy Burgers, Cinnamon Coffee Cake, and the chewy chocolate chip cookies. The Husband also tried searing pork and did an excellent job!

We only had one miss, the blueberry muffins that were very dense. I managed to make dinners even though I was horribly sick. Overall, a pretty good month.

We’re looking forward to trying to have more new recipes this month and also grilling some more.

Goals for the month:

Food Goals: 

– Try a new Instant Pot recipe

– Two canning recipes

– Battle Cheesecake

– Meal plan

– Pantry meals

 

Sewing/Craft goals:

– 1 or 2 new patterns

– 1 or 2 UFO projects

– Continue to organize

 

Garden Goals:

– Put together composter

– Keep everything alive

 

Well, I have to to get ready for a family wedding. I’m wearing a me made dress and my starry cardigan, so I will feel cute all day. 🙂 Plus, I get ice cream! Have a great weekend!

Belated Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Belated Recipe Roundup

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I blame not having power on Saturday for why this Recipe Roundup is late. Well, no power and this:

This would be what it looks like when a safety glass desk explodes with no warning. Specifically what it looks like when it shatters at 6:30 AM and you’ve already picked up three bags worth of glass. Luckily, no one was in the room at the time, so no injuries, other than glass cuts while cleaning up.

Fancy is sad and doesn’t understand why she isn’t allowed in the Husband’s office any more. We keep finding bits of glass though, so we can’t risk it. We’ve got a gate up for her and she’s been good about not trying to get over it. The Husband has a new desk, but it took most of Friday to get it cleaned and all of Saturday to get the new desk here and put together. Then we lost power in the evening for a bit. It was a rough end to the week. We’re hoping this week is better.

My throat has finally healed enough so I can eat normally. It still hurts a little bit if I eat something too hard, or too big of a bite, but it no longer feels like knives regularly. I also managed to get pictures of meals this week, even the ones we had before.

We had Instant Pot Korean Beef from Damn Delicious and it lived up to the website’s name. 🙂

https://damndelicious.net/2018/02/21/instant-pot-korean-beef/

The Husband would like this sauce on everything. It was a very easy and quick recipe. I used full sodium soy sauce though, not reduced sodium, and stew meat instead of cut chuck roast. It came out super tender. We had basmati rice with it.

I went on a baking spree as well on Sunday and used lemon thyme in shortbread and made homemade chewy chocolate chip cookies.

The shortbreads were from the Better Homes and Garden book and the chocolate chips were from the May 2018 issue of Food Network. The little insert cookbook was 50 chocolate chip cookie recipes. The Husband likes his cookies chewy and these were his favorite so far.

I have a picture of the cookies in my new favorite way to eat them, in ice cream. Hudsonville Sea Salt Caramel ice cream, to be specific.

Mmm… I don’t have a picture of the shortbreads. It needed more lemon to compliment the herbs, but they were pretty good.

We were going to grill these burgers, but it was still over 80, so we broiled them instead. They have Chophouse seasoning, onions, and cheese in the burger patty. I made nice thick burgers this time.

We also had fruit and I had cucumbers. Still need to work on getting the whole dinner in the picture.

A quick mushroom cream sauce also made it on our menu. I could eat noodles again, so was very excited.

Because we are so classy, I made garlic toast with a hamburger bun. Hey, when carbs are needed, any bread will do in a pinch. 🙂

Did you notice new colors? I finally found some on sale dishes and bought new colors of the Fiesta. Really, just the three colors in the featured picture, but we now have 13 dinner plates!

The chicken divan looked divine in the new turquoise bowl. 🙂

I pulled some basil from the garden today to make Caprese salad for lunch. It was fun to use the purple basil too!

A goal for the summer or fall is to try to make my own mozzarella cheese. Supposedly it’s not that hard and I do have a “cheese cookery” book. Think of it, Caprese salad made completely by me… I could win the whole summer.

Speaking of winning, my friend and I are having a “Battle Cheesecake” at the end of July… Her husband said something jokingly about how if we were to ever face off in the kitchen, that everyone would win. So of course, we ran with it. Not surprisingly, we had several volunteers to be judges. We’re keeping it small, both in people numbers, and cheesecake categories. 3 cheesecakes each isn’t too much, is it? 😜 We’re having a fruit, chocolate, and an “out of the box” flavor category.

I asked the Husband if I should be practicing and he said “Do you want to win?” Ha! He’s much more serious about cheesecake than I am.

So although I did try a cheesecake recipe, I can’t give it away yet. I’ll put my recipes in a party post after the fact. My friend reads the blog, so I’ve got to be cagey… Feel free to link your favorite recipe in the comments. Maybe we’ll both end up trying it!

On that note, I’m off to dream up more cheesecake combos! Have sweet dreams! 😉

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

It’s hard to be creative about food when you can’t swallow anything and just getting dressed requires a nap. The featured picture was my essential meals for a couple of days. Smoothies, soups, and tea for days! Not that you could tell I have even been drinking tea. My stash is still quite large. More tea parties should be in my future, I guess.

I did manage to make some dinners and actually take pictures too! Fancy’s dog friend Moose, came with his owner for a visit and we had French Onion soup.

Both dogs were pretty well-behaved. Fancy didn’t try to jump on Moose at all! The soup was good. I used half beef and half chicken broth. One of our food shows once said all beef broth would make it too salty. I’ve also used all veggie broth to make it vegetarian. All of the versions seem to come out delicious. Katy helped make the salad, as I was trying to limit my germ exposure.

Mac and cheese was also on the menu. My throat is better, but softer meals seemed to help.

This was pretty much all cheddar. Made with a roux to start, it came out nice and melty. I baked this too. I added mushrooms and red pepper.

Turkey lettuce wraps helped us get some extra veggies in. 

I’ve made them enough not to use a recipe. I used soy sauce, hoisin, oyster sauce, sesame oil to cook the turkey, and sweet chili sauce. They were a nice quick dinner.

Last night we had chicken stir fry. I used a bag of marinated chicken and veggies I had made for freezer meals. I just sliced it up and added bok choy and mushrooms. The sauce needed to be a little thicker, but it worked.

I might set side a smaller amount to use in stir fry next time. This was  two packs of boneless skinless leg meat from Costco. Originally, it would have been baked and served with rice, but I was home and wanted something different. It turned out pretty good.

This morning, I was in a baking mood and made this Cinnamon Coffee Cake from Pillsbury’s Best Muffins and Quick Breads. 

It’s delicious! It has a cinnamon sugar glaze poured over the top. Just sweet enough, not overpowering. I did cheat and add cinnamon to the batter too. It only called for it in the glaze and I was concerned it wouldn’t be enough. I don’t regret it, even though the Husband teased me for it. Sometimes you just know what a recipe needs. 🙂

I’m in a baking mood today, so I might try a shortbread with lemon thyme (from my garden!) and a new chocolate chip recipe for the Husband. He’s been working hard and should probably have some cookies.

I’ll post a garden update soon. Other than the squirrels eating my marigolds, things seem to be growing well. 🙂

If I can get the dog off my lap, I’ll be baking up a storm shortly. Have a great, relaxing weekend!

Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello! I hope your weekend is going better than mine. I started to get sick yesterday and it’s much worse today. I’ve slept for a lot of today. Fancy has been napping with me. She’s a good dog. 🙂 I’m hoping it’s just a cold, but my throat hurts a lot, so if it is worse tomorrow, I’ll go get checked out. I’ve been hydrating and taking it easy.

We had some friends over for dinner last night and grilled for the first time this summer. It was very good.

We had grilled boneless/skinless chicken thighs in gyro seasoning that a family friend gave us. Salad, pita breads, and hummus were also present. We had sweet potatoes too. We’ll definitely be grilling more.

The Husband made his own dinner tonight! Seared pork chops with apples and a pasta side. He seasoned them with the Chophouse seasoning from The Pepper Palace.

The Husband was very proud of himself for learning how to sear them and finishing them off in the oven. We may have cooking lessons on Saturday nights. 🙂

I had potato salad, which I made yesterday for lunch.

It was pretty good. I had a craving for it, but the Husband doesn’t enjoy it. I made it for my sewing lunch.

I made Blueberry Muffins from Gordon Ramsey’s In The Heat Of The Kitchen.

They were a little dense. Not sure why as I actually followed the recipe. My parents enjoyed them for breakfast while they were here.

Speaking of my parents, they really need to come visit more often. My mother went into low kitchen orbit and we had 2 loaves of french bread, a lasagna, and two loves of nissu in the kitchen. It was beautiful. I didn’t have to make anything for craft night at all.

So that’s this past week. We’re having French Onion soup tomorrow with some garlic bread made from my Mom’s bread. Sorry for the short post! My cold meds are making me quite sleepy.

Have a great Sunday!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

Hi everyone! I hope your long weekend is going well. The Husband and I keep reminding each other that it’s only Saturday! We took Fancy to the pack walk on Friday morning, since the Husband had the whole day off. She enjoyed herself and since we walked for 45 minutes and went for three car rides, she was one tired out pup.

We’ve planned small yard work projects for each day this weekend. Yesterday’s was putting down mulch and today’s was chopping the lilac tree that had fallen and cleaning up the rest of the spot. The tree actually fell on our neighbor’s daughter’s car! Luckily, there was no damage. The tree core was hollow. It looked like ants had gotten to it. We’ll watch the rest of the trees there to make sure they aren’t dangerous too.

There were so many different kinds of trees in this tiny little spot, that I thought we could play an excellent drinking game. A shot for every different tree… We would be smashed in about 10 minutes. We had other things to do though, so we declined.

It’s been super hot lately, so we had a cold chef’s salad tonight. I left my salad on the tray table and went to get a drink tonight. I came back to a suspicious wet spot on my table, cheese outside the bowl…

And a very innocent looking dog…

Now, I’ll let you decide what you will about it, but it wouldn’t be the first time she’s tried to steal a taste of my dinner… Please excuse her toys. We put them away and she has such fun spreading them all over the floor again. Silly dog.

Last night we had broiled chicken sausages and fancy seasoned fries.

We also had strawberry shortcake for dessert. Store bought angel food cake and ice cream. The Husband loves berries macerated with sugar and we can “have them any time.” 🙂

They are quite delicious.

We had Chicken Bao or steamed buns last weekend and watched the Firefly episode “Our Mrs. Reynolds.” It seemed appropriate, since it includes the line “Did she really make fresh bao?” 🙂

They were delicious, as usual.

We had a crockpot meal this week as well. Scalloped Potatoes with Cheese from The Spruce Eats.

https://www.thespruceeats.com/crock-pot-scalloped-potatoes-with-cheese-3055527

I added cubed ham and spices. It was alright. Not my favorite thing. I probably won’t make this particular recipe again. The cheese separated in the sauce. Dairy is hard to manage in crockpots.

We also had a sandwich night, but no pictures, as we were in different spots.

I’m excited to start the garden. We have plans to dig out the spot tomorrow morning and get some flowers for the front boxes as well. It should be a fun day and we will still have a whole extra day! Just think of the things we could do!

I’ll leave you with this picture of my favorite part of summer; all the berries I can eat!

Have a great weekend!

 

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

I did a little better on pictures this week. We had my in-laws over Mother’s Day dinner and served crock pot stroganoff over homemade fettuccine noodles, roasted carrots, and homemade ice cream. I cannot find my recipe though…

It was deliciously tender and tasted very good. The pasta was giving me trouble by sticking together, but it worked out okay in the end.

I used the no cook ice cream recipe and it was good, but I do like the cooked one better. I also made a homemade ganache for a topper.

We also had a thrown together pasta and shrimp dish with the leftover pasta. I sautéed bok choi, green onions, and striped peppers together with garlic and olive oil. It was pretty good. No recipe, I just put things in a pan. 🙂

The Husband had pork with an extra bit of hoisin sauce in them. He enjoyed them.

I made Butternut Squash and Amaretti Mezzluna, from Luca Manafee’s In My Italian Kitchen for my crafting lunch with my sewing buddy. No pictures because I was super sick and couldn’t look at a screen to save my life. I think I’m having vertigo, but haven’t been able to get to the doctor. Friday was the worst day so far.

The pasta was good though. I have to make up the rest of it for the freezer. I used canned pumpkin instead of the squash and greek yogurt instead of ricotta, as there was no way I was driving anywhere.  Also, dried herbs instead of fresh.

For a breakfast experiment, I made Peanut Butter Banana Muffins from Kraft Recipes. 

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/peanut-butter-banana-muffins-133277.

I added dark chocolate chips too. It was a nice treat.

Dinner last night was nachos with homemade pico. I was still feeling sick and loopy. These were a quick way to still eat something.

I haven’t done meal planning yet for next week. We’re having sandwiches one night and something with extra chicken. We have friends coming for dinner tomorrow and are having roast chicken, potatoes, and carrots. Not sure on dessert yet, but it might be ice cream. 🙂

Fancy was suspicious today when we got home. We smelled like other dogs! We had gone to visit her rescue at the Zoo adoption event and donated the toys she tried to steal and keep for herself. There was one male dog who looked almost exactly like her and who almost came home with us. He did the dancing paws and the sad eye looks and we had a very difficult time walking away. Right now is not the time for another dog though, so we left, hoping he got a good home.

It was fun to see the rescue volunteers. Some of them remembered Fancy and so we got to show off pictures. They were happy to see the toys, as somehow they had got forgotten. The dogs were certainly happy with them.

Fancy is currently curled up next to me napping. It’s a sad, rainy kind of day. I’m planning on doing some sewing and some cooking. I hope you’re having a relaxing weekend.

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

Somehow this week, I got two pictures. 2. Granted, I wasn’t home too much for dinner, so that’s why. I did take the great picture of my hamburger buns though. The buns are from Small Breads by Bernard Clayton. I have used the book bere, but this may be a new section.

We had hamburgers with Chophouse Seasoning from The Pepper Palace in San Francisco. It was spicy and delicious.

Toasted homemade buns, mushrooms and onions, and garlic butter carrots accompanied the meal. There’s cheese on the burger too.

We used the leftover buns for pulled chicken sandwiches on Tuesday. My lovely mother was in town after antiquing her way across the state, so she got to enjoy some too. No pictures, because I wasn’t home until late. The recipe was from Natasha’s Kitchen. https://natashaskitchen.com/slow-cooker-bbq-chicken-recipe/

I did have some when I came home and it would make a good freezer recipe.

The Husband had pork chops with the Chophouse Seasoning and said it was spicy and he would have liked it seared first. He’s going to learn how to sear things soon. 🙂

My Mom was headed back home yesterday, so she stayed with us again. We had homemade pepperoni pizza, but I got distracted and forgot pictures. A certain dog wouldn’t stop jumping on the couch and forcibly cuddling Mom. She’s a terribly vicious, you know, even if she is scared of the wind rustling her poop bags…

Tonight we were going go have pot roast, but were having such a good time at a friend’s birthday party, that we stayed until after dinner. I’m going to make it for lunch tomorrow. 🙂 We’ll have some excellent leftovers.

I’ve acquired several new cookbooks. My parents gave me two and I found some at the book sales, and I found a “Book of Festive Tarts” at the thrift store with my Mom.

My dad got me this one for Christmas and I think it got put in a “safe place.” You know the one where everything goes to never be found again?

So I finally got it and it fits in well for the blog theme. I’m excited to try some of the recipes.

They also gave me this pretty one called The Virgina Housewife. 

It has super old recipes and cooking tips. Some are slightly horrifying, especially when talking about killing chickens and pigs. It’s pretty cool. I’ve not had a chance to go all the way through it, but it seems useful.

So that’s my roundup for the week. We’re having the Husband’s parents over for Mother’s Day dinner tomorrow and I really need to clear the table. It’s been taken over by sewing things.

Wish me luck!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello there! I hope you’re having a wonderful day. My social media feeds have been exploding with “May the 4th” Star Wars jokes and pictures. I had no idea you could find that many Star Wars fabrics, much less make them work as garments. It’s quite fascinating.

For my part, I celebrated accidentally. Star Trek is more my thing, but I ended up making fancy galaxy leggings out of the fabric in the featured picture. You’ll hear more about that this weekend or Monday. I’ve been on a sewing rampage! (Although is it a rampage if I’m making things?)

This post though, is about the food. We had French Onion in the crockpot this week and a leftover day as well.

I used a new cookbook, Fried and True by Lee Brian Schrager and Adeena Sussman. It might be the Husband’s dream cookbook because it contains over 50 recipes for fried chicken and sides.

We had Honey’s Kettle Home Style Smashed Garlic Fried Chicken. 

We had oven rosted potato slices on the side and I had some veggies as well. It was a very good recipe. The batter fried nice and crispy and it was super flavorful. The Husband thought it was super hot as well and we were both blowing our noses a lot. You dry marinate the chicken in about 10 spices and then the coating has a lot of the same ones, plus extra. It also has corn meal and cake flour for an extra crunch. It was very good, but definitely time-consuming. I would make it gain and the Husband was very excited to have fried chicken finally. Fancy was not excited, poor girl…

It’s possible she was plotting how to trip us “by accident” so she could eat the chicken.

I made chocolate orange muffins for breakfast one morning, as my reward for actually getting out of bed. 🙂 Mornings man, they kill me…

I used my normal muffin recipe and added 1/4 cup cocoa powder in place of that amount of flour. They turned out less orangy, but pretty good.

We also had hot dogs with sautéed onions, cheese, and mushrooms. Nothing too fancy for sides though. We were going to grill, but it rained all day and was still pretty damp. It was a good day though because I actually was home before 7, due to cancellations. It felt so weird! We had apples with it and discovered that Fancy will gobble golden delicious up in addition to honeycrisp. I might be able to feed the Husband and her less expensive apples!

Tonight we tried a Brothy Chinese Noodle recipe by Eating Well. http://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/250009/brothy-chinese-noodles/

I will admit to laughing at the recipe in the middle and changing it. I used regular sesame oil to cook the chicken because I forgot to grab the spicy sesame oil. I added mushrooms and doubled the garlic to 4 cloves. I scoffed at reduced sodium soy sauce (that stuff is nasty!) and used regular. I also cooked the turkey, threw everything else in and didn’t take the turkey out to cook the broth. That may have led to it tasting a little chewy, but it seemed like an unnecessary step. We had cilantro from pico, so I threw that in as well.

So… I followed the recipe in my style… It turned out delicious though, so I’ll take it.

The Husband would like to experiment with other seasonings. He liked this version a lot. I was excited that he ate bok choy!  It made up really quickly too, so it would be good for late night dinners, especially if the Husband was my sou chef.

So there’s our Roundup. Not bad, I think.

I’m supposed to be making a Mexican themed chocolate dessert and possibly pico for a party tomorrow too. I have enough of the galaxy fabric left to make a pencil skirt and new patterns to try, so that may or may not get done. Maybe I’ll just stay up really late… I don’t have to really be fully awake for my staff meeting, right? 🙂

I’ll leave you with this last thought. May the 4th be with you… (and the Lutheran in me says “and also with you.”)

Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

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The rose is my beautiful birthday rose from my Dad. I’m a very bratty daughter and wouldn’t let him stop sending them even after I got married and got old. 🙂 I literally send him flower store information and where I will be on my birthday about a week before. 🙂

He started the tradition when I was seven, sick with the flu, and couldn’t be close to my new baby brother. Even though it was Easter, it was a terrible birthday, but the flower helped. So obviously, it can’t stop. I enjoy getting them and my work ladies were very impressed. It’s stayed good for a long time. This was yesterday and my birthday was over a week ago!

This post isn’t all a birthday recap though, it’s about food! For familiar recipes this week we had spaghetti and the Husband had Asian marinated pork. I’m making lasagna for tonight with fresh parm and fresh mozzarella.

A new recipe was English Muffin Bread from The New Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. 

It makes very good toast. I’ve made rye bread for the Husband before too. He likes toast in the morning. He liked this one, but I’ll have to make more rye for him to compare. It’s been a while.

I also made yogurt again. Last time, it was a terrible failure and I have no idea why. I used part half and half, but that should have made it thicker. This time, I followed the recipe and it turned out just fine.

This is it with cherries and granola at work. Mmmm…

I also made a really good chicken stir fry from the Food Network Magazine, March 2018, V 11, N 2. It was Stir-fried Udon with Chicken and Vegetables.

I don’t know if I’ve had udon noodles before. They are a thicker wheat based noodle. They soaked up the sauce nicely though and tasted delicious. The Husband was very impressed and said we could have it anytime. I subbed pretty much all the veggies. We had broccoli, mushrooms, garlic, onions, bok choy, and carrots. It  was tasty.

We finally had a movie night again and watched “Coco” with some of our friends. It was a terrific movie, making me cry, as Pixar does. We had pizza with the movie and made out own personal pizzas.

I made a white sauce from this recipe from Bon Appetite: https://www.bonappetit.com/story/white-pizza-sauce-recipe-joe-beddia

I didn’t listen and tried to cook it and it eventually worked itself out, but do yourself a solid and actually follow this recipe… Then you won’t panic in front of guests because your sauce isn’t working. 🙄

I didn’t get a picture of the topping buffet, but we had mushrooms, ham, pepperoni, onions, garlic, sautéed Swiss chard, red and yellow peppers, and chicken sausage. We also had the traditional red sauce. I made my pizza with the chard, onions, peppers, mushrooms, and sausage. It was delicious!

It worked out perfectly. We had six people and three pans are all that can fit in the oven. Kayla brought a birthday chocolate cheesecake and it was delicious as usual. Also, as usual, everyone laughed at me when I started cataloging additional foods in case the pizza wasn’t enough…

I used The Pioneer Woman’s recipe for the pizza dough, but tripled it, as the one that came up was for one pizza. We had one portion of dough left over that I made into a pizza the next day.

In other news, Fancy is being a terrible brat at the moment. I know many of you won’t believe that, but it’s true.

She really wants the lasagna and someone to play with her. She seems to like it best when we are both in the same room so she can keep an eye on both of us. She also gets concerned when I do yoga. I think she thinks I might be dying when I’m laying down. Then when I do child’s pose, she gets all excited thinking I’m play bowing. She also tries to lick my face and sit on my head. Here’s a cute picture of her guarding me while I stretched.

I’d better go give her some attention and spare the Husband. Silly goof.

I hope your weekend is full of fun and goofy moments!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

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My coworkers got me an assortment of tea infusers and a huge tumbler, as well as a Joann’s gift card for my birthday. They know me so well. 🙂 I’m excited to use all of them, but especially the shark one.

One of the books we found at the library book sale was this gem: The Gallery of Regrettable Food by James Lileke. 

It has pictures and commentary on old foods and recipes from the late 50’s – 70s. The author wrote the book after finding some of the old cookbooks that had been given to his mom after they moved into their new neighborhood. The chapters are titled things like “It’s 10 P.M. – Do You Know Where Your Wieners Are?, Moldorama, Glop in a Pot!, Dreck from Foreign Shores, and So You’re Going to Serve…a Salad.” Also, my absolute favorite “Eat Brains and Whip Hitler!” Not surprisingly, that last one has wartime recipes for offal and rarely eaten parts of animals. It’s fairly horrifying.

This description is from one of the party sections.

The pictures of hotdogs in jello do not seem appropriate for a family blog… They are also black and white, so seem vaguely sinister. The writing is excellent. At some points, I was laughing too hard to share with the Husband. I would highly recommend reading this if you get the chance. It’s too funny to pass up.

Now, on to serious food talk. 🙂 I made crockpot beef stew, and homemade mushroom alfredo this week, in addition to some new recipes.

I tried another muffin recipe from the Food Network Jan/Feb 2018 issue. This one was definitely pretty much a cupcake, although it was a little less sweet. It was a Double-Chocolate Salted Caramel muffin.

They were delicious. Since I had leftover dulche de leche, I made Dulche De Leche ice cream from Laylita.

Homemade dulce de leche ice cream

This was also delicious and has received the Mom seal of approval. 🙂 She stayed with us overnight while waiting to fly to visit my sister in law. Fancy was ridiculously excited for someone else to pet her.

It’s a little less sweet than I expected, but it’s lovely and smooth. I was surprised that it didn’t turn icy, since it doesn’t have eggs in it. It does have three cups of cream and a cup of whole milk. I used half and half instead, which may have helped. 🙂 I’m planning to eat it with my coconut cake from my birthday. 🙂

I made one of the husband’s recipe picks. Prosciutto Wrapped Chicken from Food Network May 2016. 

I made homemade pasta and sautéed chard, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, and garlic in olive oil. The Husband tried the veggies and did eat them, although they were not his favorite. He likes the chard better in things than by itself.

So those were our dinners. This week starts my week with more late evenings, so it will be interesting. We did go to Costco and stocked up on a huge pile of meat, so we do have a lot for slow cooker and freezer meals as needed.

Now, I need to go sew something. Fancy kept me from doing that by laying on my lap all day. Pets were more important. 🙂 Have a great night!