Tag: Bread

Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

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

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 and Bread Experiments
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup and Bread Experiments

LSiehLeave a comment

I have one recipe this week. I think I’m losing my way a little. I know I’ve said this before too, so I apologize for repeating myself.

Meal planning has been out the window and my schedule has turned into late nights almost every night. That should be a little more under control in a bit. Fridays are going to be off my schedule after tonight. I need to go back to dance and have a night in. My Monday nights will be earlier too when I am able to switch to just one center, probably only until 6:00 pm. The Husband will be happy to see me, I think. 🙂

My one new recipe was Jerk Chicken, which was a freezer recipe from Sweet Peas and Saffron. https://sweetpeasandsaffron.com/7-chicken-marinade-recipes-freezer-friendly/

I got home late and haven’t tried it yet, but the Husband said it was good. He had it with rice and we had applesauce or strawberries as sides.

We also had spaghetti and lasagna this week. The Husband pointed out that I change how I make those each time. He’s right, it changes with what I have in the fridge. The spaghetti had celery and less mushrooms than usual this time.

I used some of my flamingo pasta for lunch one day with the spaghetti sauce. It made my lunch more fun for sure.

The lasagna had fresh mozzarella instead of ricotta and didn’t have any shredded parm. It also had a mix of shredded mozzarella and provolone. The Meijer brand, I think.

I also made bread, well, attempted to make bread with my Dad’s method. It did not go well.

The spoon in the first picture was made by my Dad for our wedding. I love it too much to use it. I just gaze at it. I have very distinct memories of watching both my parents make bread, but I associate it more with my Dad. We had a huge bread bowl that would hold enough dough for three or four loaves. My brothers and I would fight over who got the end piece with butter… Mmm… He sent me his method written out, but I forgot to see if I could post it. I’ll ask him and post later maybe.

This, kids, is what happens when your yeast dies a horrible death…

I didn’t use enough yeast and it got too cold. It didn’t rise even after being in a warm oven. Our house is freezing. We’re playing the “See how long you can go without turning on the heat” game. I’m perpetually cold, no matter what, so just add hoodies and socks. Fancy snuggles more, but she doesn’t seem to mind as much as me.

Poor bread. It tastes good, but it’s pretty sad. I’ve made bread before lots of times, but always with measurements. My Dad has been making bread for many years, so he knows all the tricks. I’ll have to study his methods a little more. For now, I might stick to recipes.

Speaking of recipes, I was overcome at Costco and now we have 5 dozen eggs… This week we will have the crustless quiche, homemade ice cream, and I will have egg salad for lunch. Possibly also chef’s salad and I’ll have to bake something. Many things… They are good until the end of the month, so I’ve got time. We’ve also got our Elevensies/Lord of the Rings Party coming up, so it should be okay. If you have any other ideas, let me know!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go cuddle this cold puppy and find more egg and party recipes. I’m behind on planning.