Tag: beef

Recipe Roundup

I’m Hungry

LSiehLeave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We had Shrimp Scampi on our actual anniversary.

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

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

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

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!

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!

The Home Cook Review
Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

The Home Cook Review

LSiehLeave a comment

As a recap, one of the new things I wanted to do with food on the blog was to focus on one or two cookbooks for a couple of weeks, to give both myself, and you a bigger picture of them. I’m still working out what this will look like. It may involve a lot of weekend cooking, as some of them are not quick recipes. This past week it was Alex Guarnaschelli’s The Home Cook. 

Grand plans were made while lookong through this cookbook! Sadly, grand planning didn’t include fully researching the recipe, leading me to end up making some recipe substitutions. I may have to do one more week of this book, just to try more things out!

The book itself is very easy to read and extremely approachable for home cooks. I would say this would be a good cookbook for anyone, regardless of cooking level. The recipes are clearly marked, broken down into clear steps, and have the cooking terms explained, not just said. It also describes what the results should look like.

I have made several recipes from it already and have some more planned as well. I thought I should give you an update on it, so you knew I was still cooking. 🙂 So far I have made several pasta recipes, three baked recipes, and a soup recipe. They have all been delicious! I have several more planned, but might take a break for a minute. (Ummm, probably not, I may have some planned for this weekend.)

I forgot to take a picture of the Gnocchi Mac and Cheese, but although delicious, it was not photogenic. It was a bit rich and I maybe sort of followed the recipe… I couldn’t find Gueyre and used Havarti and Gouda, as well as some chedder jack. It was good, but I wouldn’t make it again. I have decided that I like my gnocchi crispy. The Husband agrees.

I made Weeknight Marinara and it took a bit longer than expected, but was worth the wait. We enjoyed the little bite from the red pepper flakes.

Very similar to the Marinara was Bolognese with Rigatoni. I was worried the sauce might be too thin, but it seemed to have worked out. I used so much salt in this dish, that I was concerned, but it actually turned out absolutely delicious. The Husband said it was “the perfect dish.” Apparently when you actually measure out the salt and follow the recipe, it turns out good! Who knew?! Seriously though, the salt was all over in the recipe, including making the pasta water taste like sea water.

We both liked this Beef Meatball Soup with Couscous and Paprika. It was delicious. Not terribly complicated to make and the only thing I just changed was to use regular paprika instead of hot paprika, as I only had the regular.

I would definitely make this again. We had it with Parker House Rolls and they were a bit heavy for my taste, but I think it was just that the dough wasn’t warm enough while rising. My house is draftier than I think it is and I should have protected the bowl a little more. They tasted good though, especially after toasting them on the second day with butter to have with the marinara. The recipe made a lot, so we froze the rest. They are the featured picture on the post.

I tried two other baked recipes, the Dark Chocolate Brownies and the Double Dark Chocolate Muffins. (I see a theme emerging…)

The brownies were delicious, definitely gooey in the middle, but not under-baked. We used them to make brownie sundaes.

The Husband liked these as much as the Ghiradelli mix ones and they were pretty quick. The batter was kind of funny though, it baked with a really high sheen and so it looked like it wasn’t done at all, but it actually was. I had to use an ounce of bittersweet with the other unsweetened chocolate, as I had run out.

The Husband didn’t try the chocolate muffins. I may have forgotten to tell him which tin they were in. They were good and held up well. Not as sweet as chocolate muffins normally are, which was nice. I did follow this recipe. I would make them again, but maybe halve the recipe.

So over all, it’s been a pretty good experience with this cookbook. I do have lots more recipes to try, but will mostly be trying them on weekends. They aren’t exactly quick recipes for when I come home late.

We’ve had some other recipes mixed in, of course, including Chicken Pot Pie, Chicken Sausage Pasta, Chicken Noodle Soup, and an Asian beef Stew from The New Pressure Cooker Cookbook by Ellen Brown. The chicken was from a really good roast chicken that refused to cook. It was apparently still a little frozen even though it didn’t feel that way when I baked it. I threw a lot of the spice cupboard on it and it was yummy after it finally cooked.

Here’s the soup! I threw more of the spice cupboard in it and I actually liked it. Normally it’s a little under seasoned for me, no matter who makes it.

The Husband was my sous chef for the chicken sausage pasta dish. Look at this mise en place!

Impressive knife cuts!

The Asian Beef Stew was interesting. I was afraid the Husband wouldn’t like it, but he ended up thinking it was delicious. It had Chinese 5 Spice and orange in it. I used blood orange. Mmm…

 It’s good to have a whole cookbook of pressure cooker recipes to try. I get nervous trying to find recipes and this one popped up and looked good. Some of the recipes are a bit fancy maybe, but most look good.

We ended up having chicken pot pie on the same night as my parents and the night before K and J had it. Apparently great minds think alike on cold, snowy days especially! I’m sure the other two potpies were delicious as well, both my Mom and K make excellent ones.

A Fiestaware mini cast iron!

Fancy is prepping for the upcoming polar vortex tomorrow by eating everything she can get her paws on and then stealing all the blankets. I don’t blame her. It’s already super cold!

She was super mad when we made all the chicken dishes and she couldn’t have any. She kept drooling on my foot as I was working and sighing heavy, guilt laden sighs in hopes I would have pity on her poor starving self.

I’m going to go join her and steal back my quilt now, but I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about the recipes and are looking forward to more to come!

Belated Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Belated Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

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

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

We’re dogless for the night. It’s weird without having dog trying to eat our food and giving us sad sighs when we won’t share the chocolate ice cream. She is having a trial run with our friend who will be watching her on future vacations. Apparently, she is doing very well and has stopped trying to make the cat play with her.

Yes, I did make a second batch of the chocolate version of my favorite ice cream. And even better, I remembered to put the custard base in the fridge! Whoa. The Husband was very impressed.

I chopped up some Oreos for something different. Apparently, I hold the “Best Wife” title for the idea. It was good. Slightly eggy, but so smooth and creamy! I’m definitely going to make more in other flavors. The Husband has requested strawberry next.

We had a delicious pasta dish tonight, Rigatoni with Sausage and Fennel by Ina Garten from Food Network Magazine, Jan/Feb 2018. 

The tomato paste made it turn Kraft dinner orange. It was a little weird, but delicious. We’ll make it again. The fennel was quite mild.

I made Steak Soup from Plain Chicken for Wednesday. http://www.plainchicken.com/2015/11/slow-cooker-steak-soup.html?m=1

It was my long day, so the Husband normally gets a slow cooker meal, pork, or leftovers. He said it was good. I forgot to have him take pictures though and didn’t eat any yet myself. I added carrots.

I also left Asian spiced chicken thighs and drumsticks for dinner one night and that was tasty! I used boneless, skinless packs from Costco. Still no pictures though. 🙁

We had kind of an international week this week, food wise. Asian chicken, Italian pasta, and these beef meatpies that were  recipe from the first preschool I worked at. We had an international week there and got to try all sorts of foods and had a cookbook of sorts at the end.

I used the french bread dough, instead of pizza dough. They have ground beef, curry powder, and onions in them. The recipe is pretty simple, so I’ll share it. You can use whatever type of bread dough you’d like.

Meat Pies

Filling:

1 lb ground beef

2 large onions (I only used one medium, 2 would have been way too much)

1 T curry powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Pizza dough, or bread dough

Directions: 

Cook beef for 10-12 minutes. Add onions to beef, add salt/pepper and curry powder. Cook for an additional 15 minutes, or until onions and beef are done. Set aside to cool completely (I totally ignored this step.) Divide dough into 1 1/2 – 2 inch balls. Roll dough balls into 3-4 inch circles. Fill center of circles with one full tablespoon beef mixture. Fold into half circles. Seal edges with water or egg wash. Bake until golden brown. (I baked them at 400 for about 20-25 minutes, I think.)

Apparently they freeze well, but we scarfed them all too fast to check on that. The Husband was nervous about the currry. He thinks he doesn’t like it, but his favorite dish has lots of curry powder, so I generally ignore that.

Two batches of this french bread dough were made this week. The second was made when we were talking about ordering pizza and I realized that we had all the things we would be ordering on pizza. Plus, my first person of the day cancelled. I had some extra time at home.

So I made ham, mushroom, and onion pizza. It had a big fluffy crust and was delicious. There’s something very satisfying about making bread. This dough sat in the fridge while I was at work and turned out perfectly. It’s the featured picture today because it made me happy. 🙂

I think we’re getting back to the swing of things fairly well. We are going to be visiting some friends next week, so our meals will be smaller, but I’m hoping to make some good ones. One of the other ladies in my supervision group is getting her full license, so will only have one more group. I’m going to make her cookies! We also have enough ingredients to make one more batch of ice cream too.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a nice glass of wine to finish, on our dog free night. There’s also a quilt waiting for me to pin it, but that will probably get done in the morning.

The glass says “Infoxicated.” Have a good night!

 

 

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

It has been a snowy couple of days! We were supposed to get around 9 inches and we did get about that much yesterday. I got to stay home and snuggle Fancy and bake. The Husband had to go into work, but got to leave early to come home and said it wasn’t too bad.

I waited to write this review because we used the Instant Pot again last night, this time for Pot Roast and Veggies from the recipe book that came with the pot. It was actually a bit bland and would have been way worse if I hadn’t added seasonings before I pressure cooked it. The recipe didn’t even call for salt and pepper on the meat! I added oregano, a bay leaf, salt, pepper, and garlic and it was still bland.

I still like oven roasted pot roast more. My mother-in-laws pot roast is  the best. My Mom makes a good roast, but my M-I-L’s falls apart if you look at it funny.

I did some baking on my snow day. Fancy needed biscuits, so got pumpkin, banana, cinnamon ones from Endlessly Inspired. http://endlesslyinspired.com/2016/09/01/pumpkin-banana-dog-treats/

I added the cinnamon because she likes it.

She enjoyed these very much. 🙂

(Please excuse the blue fluff all over. She’s shredding her rope and any time she moves it we get a million fluffs everywhere.)

Having homemade treats didn’t stop her from licking my carrots later in the day and shamelessly begging for my pasta lunch. It’s a good thing she’s cute!

After I made the treats, I had a banana and half a can of pumpkin left over, so I made Pumpkin Banana Bread from Oh Sweet Basil. https://ohsweetbasil.com/pumpkin-banana-bread-recipe/

It is delicious! I gobbled a bunch of it already yesterday. It has three kinds of chocolate chips in it, mainly because we’ve used up our semi-sweets without realizing it. I had a quarter bag of mini semi-sweet, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate left, so I threw them all in with wild abandon.

I made a lentil dish for lunches this week. Lebanese Lentil Salad with Cumin, Mint, and, Garlic from Kayln’s Kitchen. The link looks unfinished, but it will take you to the right recipe.

https://kalynskitchen.com/recipe-for-lebanese-lentil-salad-with/

I used dried herbs and it came out fine. It smelled a little weird from the combo of herbs, but tasted good. I had it with rice.

The latest Food Network magazine had an overnight oats page, so I tried the Spiced Mango recipe and it was alright. I don’t know if I’m completely sold on them. I might try heating it up next time.  No pictures because I was running out the door with them.

I made a tortilla chicken soup for Superbowl Sunday, even though we actually recorded the game and then fast forwarded through the game to watch the commercials. We’re weird like that. We watched “Pitbulls and Parolees” instead. 🙂

It was delicious as well. Just a little bit of spice on the back end. I tried to measure so I could share the recipe too. The Husband cut the chicken for me, while I messed around with the rest of it and he did a great job. Here’s the recipe!

Linny’s Superbowl Chicken Tortilla Soup

2 cubed and cooked chicken breasts (seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, Penzy’s “Forward” spice, and chili powder. Cayenne pepper is optional. Alternatively, use leftover chicken.)

1-2 jalepenos, one seeded, one with seeds

2-4 medium to large tomatoes, quartered

1 medium onion, quartered

1 bell pepper, any color, roughly chopped

4 garlic cloves, peeled

32 oz. chicken broth

4-8 oz tomato sauce. (I had half a can leftover, but would have used a full can if I hadn’t had a half already opened.)

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 tsp Chili powder

1/2 tsp Garlic powder

Method:

Put the roughly chopped veggies on a foil lined sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil. Broil veggies until char appears and then flip to broil the second side.

While veggies are cooking, cook cubed chicken in batches, either in soup pot or in a skillet.

Chop the veggies or blend them with an immersion blender until they are in small pieces and add veggies to the soup pot. Pour in the broth, add the spices, and tomato sauce. Bring to  boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve with tortilla chips.

Chicken Tortilla Soup is one I make frequently when I need a quick dinner idea. There are a ton of recipes out there, so you can customize it as you see fit. It also freezes really well.

We’re doing some meal planning today, I think. We have plans to stay in and be cozy after running the couple of errands we have to do. For now though, I think I’m going to grab a slice of that pumpkin bread and have an Elevensies snack!

Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

I blinked and the week was done! I only got two cookie recipes done this week. We had a lot of snow and my night commutes got very long.

I made up a recipe and we had chicken divan, which is the Husband’s favorite meal. He had his work holiday parties this week too and one of the prizes was an Instant Pot. I’m going to have to dig out the Food Network magazine with the Instant Pot recipes in it. I know it’s the hot gift this year (no pun intended) so it’ll be fun to try it out. It’s basically a pressure cooker, so anyone have any good recipes?

Here are the recipes!

1- Honey Sugar Cookies from Food Network December 2017. 

I found my Christmas cookie cutters! I have a just a few, which is fine. I don’t often make cut outs. This dough was easy to use though. I haven’t made the icing for them yet and I got meringue powder specifically for it. The second batch will have icing. I was empowered by the recipe which just had cut out circles with icing and peppermint candies. That’s my kind of cookie decorating.

2- Mexican Hot Chocolate Crinkles from FN December 2017. 

These need more cinnamon, in my opinion, but they are nice and tender and taste good. These might be made for the party as something different to try

3- Crockpot Taco Soup, recipe by me.

No pictures and it was loosely based on a recipe given to us for our wedding. Here is what I did.

1lb ground beef, browned. I can diced green chilis,  1 can tomatoes, 3ish cups beef broth, half a cup of frozen corn, cumin, garlic and onion powder, salt, pepper, and chipotle chili powder. All the spices were to taste.

I put it all in the crockpot and cooked it for 8 hours. We had it with fritos and cheese. It was decent for a quick dinner. The Husband doesn’t like beans, otherwise I would have added black beans.

I have no idea which cookie to make next. I have a bunch of recipes including peppermint truffles, walnut cardamom crescents, and chewy coffee crinkles. I might go to bed early tonight though. I am exhausted. Baking cookies while tired is not good. I forget things like sugar or baking powder.

Tomorrow is my long distance baking day with my Mom, wearing our matching shirts. I may be baking with a friend as well, assuming I’m feeling okay. Hopefully an early night will help.