Tag: breakfast

Recipe Roundup · Uncategorized

Deliciousness

LSieh2 Comments

Well, it was winter briefly! Now it’s spring again and I have no idea what next week will be like. My food tastes are all over the place too. I told the Husband yesterday that I was just so tired of cooking, even though I’m not doing too much more cooking than usual. I think I’m just burning out on all of our regular meals.

I made this really pretty shrimp and veggie stir fry to cheer us both up. It was good and we had jasmine rice with it, as I forgot to have us make rice in the rice cooker. It was quicker. Plus, we are still not done with that weird parboiled rice and I really didn’t want to eat it. 😬

I made these rainbow crepes for Valentine’s Day brunch. I discovered I should get some more food coloring. All I have are red and blue. I did make whipped cream and a berry compote to go with them.

We had our default pizza, although it was more fun because I used a fancy Italian blend flour from Janie’s Mill.

My older brother sent us a four pack of fancy flours for Christmas and I was inspired to try some more. I need to move them downstairs though, as you are supposed to keep them cold. They are a whole grain product and keep better that way. I have to play with them some more and post about it.

The pizza was good. We had our usual ham, mushroom, and onion toppings.

This was supposed to be a garlic knot from this recipe: https://www.ihearteating.com/30-minute-garlic-knots/?epik=dj0yJnU9OEI3TDVkeUY2WjV4ZkZjcUxialBld1ZmT0ZHZ1A5blImcD0wJm49Zmt1cnZDRFZYX2pudTREN1I0OHdvdyZ0PUFBQUFBR0FWNnRj

They didn’t stay tied, as you can see, but tasted good. We had spaghetti with them.

Another quick meal was cheeseburgers. I used the pepper palace spice blend, so it was spicy.

I tried this recipe for baked gnocchi and learned that for the most part, you can leave the gnocchi uncooked and it will cook in the sauce. Not the prettiest dish, but yummy! I omitted the meat and used homemade sauce. https://damndelicious.net/2020/05/16/weeknight-baked-gnocchi/

I’ll leave you with a classic comfort food- chicken potpie over noodles. It was warm and delicious and helped use up leftover chicken.

I hope you’re having good food! We’re trying to do some more interesting meals again and actually meal plan. Wish us luck!

End Of The Year Food
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End Of The Year Food

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I got overwhelmed with food while simultaneously not wanting to eat anything again the last couple weeks of the year. Writing about food has not been something that has been super interesting to me. I started to go over all my food posts for the year to get a count of everything, but it was a lot. So I’ll show you some fun foods from the end of the year and beyond. The featured picture is our charcuterie tray from the virtual wine tasting with the Husband’s work.

The traditional family meatballs were served on Christmas Eve along with noodles, buttered herbed carrots, and pickles of course! Cookies were served for after dinner treats, but they are in their own post.

We made Rulle for New Year, as we had planned to have our bubble friends over, but it didn’t quite work out. We ended up having a party foods dinner with the rulle, pigs in blankets, and crab dip. It was yummy! I was quite pleased with my rulle this year. I got enough allspice in them finally.

We had lobster mac and cheese later, since we had been planning to have it NYE. It was yummy, especially with the crunchy, buttery panko crumbs on top. I used the recipe from Grandbaby Cakes. https://grandbaby-cakes.com/lobster-mac-and-cheese/

I did reduce the recipe by half though, as we didn’t need 14 servings.

We tried a new chicken noodle soup recipe with a mix from a local charity, Motown Soups, that helps support local food pantries, clinics, and shelters. We actually liked it better than the one we normally use, so I think I’ll buy some more from them. I made pizza dough cheesy breadsticks to go with it. It was very warm and comforting.

I made this amazing Red Wine Chocolate cake with some of the wine from the Husband’s work. It’s probably the best chocolate cake I have ever made. I used a different recipe for frosting, as I didn’t think we would like the wine in the frosting listed. That recipe is from Sally’s Baking Addiction. Here’s the cake recipe: https://bakerbynature.com/red-wine-chocolate-cake/

Here’s the frosting recipe: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/favorite-chocolate-buttercream/. My only criticism for myself was that I should have added more buttercream in the middle. I seriously could eat this frosting by the spoonful, it’s that good! It’s chocolately, creamy, and not super sweet.

I made a couple different breakfast things, egg muffins, fruit muffins, and a really good Greek Yogurt Coffee Cake. Recipe for the coffee cake is here: https://belleofthekitchen.com/greek-yogurt-coffee-cake/

We had a country scramble after eating glazed ham and potatoes for dinner one night. It was delicious. We cooked them separately, as the Husband didn’t want peppers and likes it squishy with cheese.

I made pancakes on one of our vacation days and topped them with yogurt and a dollop of fruit soup. Oh, it was so good! I think I made an almost perfect fruit soup this year!

We had regular mac and cheese too. I used ritz crackers for the top, as we were out of panko. It was also good. Those are dino shaped noodles, by the way. We’re almost out of silly shaped pasta, so I should add some to my next grocery order. 🙂

We had a few stir fry dishes. One chicken and one special fried rice with ham and shrimp. That’s literally what the recipe is called in the Wok and Stir fry cookbook I was using.

I would definitely make both again. They were pretty tasty!

I don’t have a picture of the chicken, I don’t think, but ended up using some of it in this filling chef salad. I made homemade naan with it too, as I had meant to make it with curry the night before.

Here’s the curry. The Husband had pork. I used dried chickpeas for this, which I soaked/cooked in the Instant pot. It only took about an hour instead of having to soak them all night and I was very pleased with that. This curry wasn’t as thick as some and I wasn’t sure if it needed more cook time, or if it was because I was using a carton of coconut milk instead of a can of it. I’ll have to do some more experimentation.

This potato soup was lovely, although I paid dearly for the bacon. Apparently my digestive system hates bacon as well as pork. I’m going to refuse to believe it though and just make sure I have stomach meds on hand. It’s so good!

I need to make more pasties, but make them a little bit bigger next time. These were more like snack pasties than dinner pasties. They were yummy though

I had a hankering for a fried chicken sandwich yesterday and used this recipe to make a knock off Popeye’s sandwich. It was good, although I had problems keeping my oil to temp. I made a quick spicy mayo by adding garlic powder and sweet chili sauce to mayo. We were out of fries, so had some roasted potatoes for dinner as well. https://gimmedelicious.com/popeyes-chicken-sandwich/

One thing I didn’t like at all this past week was this Asian Crockpot Shredded Beef. It was weird because it smelled really good while it was cooking- I was home all day getting tortured by the smell. And then when I opened the lid and started shredding it I was just absolutely done. I couldn’t even eat it! I think I took two bites and that was all I can manage. My stomach was upset for the rest of the evening too. I ended up eating chicken with pico and cilantro rice leftovers instead.

I’ll leave you with this ‘love-ly’ apple pie I made today because it looks so pretty even if it did have a slightly soggy bottom.

I hope your week is as sweet as this pie!

Foodie Friday
Recipe Roundup

Foodie Friday

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Food poisoning really makes me not want to write about food, much less cook it. We’ve had a few soup and sandwich suppers lately, while I’ve recovered. Trying to boost my interest in cooking and baking again, I have picked a new cookbook to review. I’m hoping to go through them all again too and start weeding some out. Oddly enough most of the recipes have just been made up ones.

This is baked mac and cheese and roasted curry carrots. Both were yummy and I had a fruit as well. I did my usual “throw all the cheeses in the fridge in a pot with a roux.” Next time, I think I would toss the panko with some butter to get it brown and crispy. It was kind of insipid without it. The carrots came from a carrot that was as big as my wrist. It was ridiculous!

We decided that we didn’t like the texture of this Instant Pot chicken marsala and would rather have it made on the stove top so it would maintain the crispy coating. It tasted good though! The recipe is here: https://littlesunnykitchen.com/instant-pot-marsala-chicken/

This was a thrown together after food poisoning soup with mini Costco cilantro chicken dumplings. It was yummy and light.

You’re probably tired of seeing Instant Pot Korean beef, but it’s so yummy.

Beef noodle stir fry made for a quick dinner. I sliced up a steak and threw a bunch of sauces at it. It worked out pretty well.

I roped K2 into making a cookie recipe from my Pinterest while I was making bao. It worked out well for all of us! The frosting recipe with it made them ungodly sweet. I’ll use it on a spice cake for the distance Hobbit party instead where the spice will balance the sweetness.

I made a different kind of breakfast for dinner this week, so I could have some egg cups for breakfast. I need more protein in the morning and these generally work. I also made current muffins, but didn’t add enough oil, so they weren’t very delicious.

I like breakfast for dinner, but the Husband doesn’t, so sometimes I will make it just for me and he’s on his own. This one worked out nicely. I like the egg cups for breakfast too, since they’re really quick and keep me full through my morning appointments.

I’m hoping to have some more interest in food again. I’ve been trying to bake, as that can sometimes help. The Husband suggested food in movies, so let me know if you have any good suggestions!

Recipe Roundup

Cooking Adventures

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Hello! I’m staying up late tonight because I’m cranky about going to bed. I’ll only have myself to blame tomorrow when I’m cranky about getting up, but such is life.

We’ve been experimenting some with recipes these past couple of weeks. I made some fancier foods and some regular recipes. This week is kind of a terrible week for food pictures, as the Husband’s job is moving buildings and everything is apparently a mess. I never know if he will actually be home for dinner or not. I’ll start with the fancy foods and then give you a quick run down of the regulars.

Probably the fanciest meal we had was duck! We had potatoes and swiss chard cooked in the duck fat as a side, as well as some kind of fruit that I can’t remember.

I followed this method from The Kitchn for cooking the recipe, just added the Swiss chard to the potatoes. https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-cook-duck-breast-254046

I like their recipes as they are pretty uncomplicated and easy to follow. I was nervous, but I think I did do a fairly good job on cooking it.

We also had a fondue date night a few weeks ago and watched Star Wars. A cheesy dinner with a cheesy movie was perfect for us. Fancy drooled all over our feet and attempted big puppy dog eyes, but alas, no fondue was provided. Cheese is life to Fancy.

It was really rich and delicious. I shared the plate of fondue dippers in the Blue Plate Special photos, but here it is again.

It was a fun dinner. We had butterkase, sharp cheddar, and fontina cheeses in the fondue. I heavily modified a recipe from the Melting Pot. I used the leftover fondue to make mac and cheese which was also delicious.

Apparently I have been using my flamingo pink Fiestaware a lot lately. I should probably do a regular color rotation for the dishes. 🙂

Here’s the pink plate again, this time with a Valentine’s Day dinner of roasted chicken, stuffing, and buttery herbed carrots. I used the herb butter I made with garden herbs in all three items. The stuffing is Stove Top. The Husband likes it, so I do occasionally make it. It’s growing on me a little.

Here’s another fancy dish on the pink plate. 🙂 This one is a lamb shoulder chop with Cajun roasted potatoes and roasted zucchini for me. The Husband had a salad.

It was pretty decent, although a bit fatty for me, of course. The lamb was seasoned with garlic and rosemary. I used garlic, oregano, salt, pepper, and olive oil on the zucchini and Cajun seasoning on the potatoes. Here’s the recipe for the chops. https://www.craftbeering.com/lamb-shoulder-chops-recipe/

I ended up frying the rest of the potatoes for breakfast the next morning. They were delicious.

I had them with eggs and sage chicken sausages. It was a good breakfast.

We’ve been pretty good about using leftovers for the most part. I made taco meat for taco salad one weeknight and we used the leftover meat for nachos on Saturday for lunch.

I added beans that I cooked down with lime juice, cumin, garlic, cilantro, and chili powder to mine and it was yummy! I also used fritos in my salad. I think the Husband used tortilla chips. Here are the nachos from the weekend.

We had delicious sandwiches for lunch one day too. When our toaster finally only toasted things properly on Thursdays, we decided to get rid of it and the Husband wanted to get a toaster oven so he could have toasted sandwiches. I do enjoy them as well.

I like them even better with homemade dilly beans!

We have also had some staple meals: mushroom cream pasta, chicken pot pie, and chef’s salad.

This has pesto in it as well!

And of course, some baking. I made cupcakes from a box, but used a super fancy frosting recipe with chocolate marscapone cheese to make up for the box mix. We had them for dessert for my MIL’s birthday. They weren’t really interesting to photograph though. I thought I had saved the frosting link, but it appears that I haven’t actually done that. Whoops!

Tonight we had spicy wonton soup, since the Husband is starting to get sick. I used the wontons from Costco, plus a bunch of spices, including turmeric, white pepper, ginger, garlic, 5 spice powder, soy sauce, fish sauce, spicy chili oil, mushrooms, green onions, and carrots. It was lovely and spicy.

We’re supposed to get lots of snow tomorrow, so I’m not sure if I will end up at work or not. I haven’t had many cancellations yet, but that may change with the weather in the morning. I’m torn between wanting to get paid and seeing clients and staying home to bake, sew, and snuggle the dog. I’ll leave you with a picture of a snuggly Fancy to help you guess which option is winning. 😉

Happy Snuggling and Good Night!

Recipe and Cookbook Review
Life Posts · Recipe Roundup

Recipe and Cookbook Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Before I do the same, I will say goodnight!

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!

More Food, Please!
Recipe Roundup

More Food, Please!

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Meal planning has been a bit weird with the play going on, so I haven’t been experimenting with new recipes lately. We were lucky enough to be gifted some duck and chicken eggs a few weeks ago and I’ve been hoarding them. I’ll start with what we’ve been using them for.

I made this batch of chocolate pb ice cream with two of the duck eggs. Pinch of Salt ice cream base (search cinnamon ice cream on the blog for the link,) with cocoa powder and melted pb. Next time, I will add more chocolate and more pb. And I will not melt the pb, as it kind of disappeared. It tasted good though.

I also made rhubarb ice cream from a different ice cream recipe.

http://faithhopeloveandlucksurvivedespiteawhiskeredaccomplice.com/pink-rhubarb-ice-cream/

This one had no eggs! In fact, none of the ice cream recipes seem to have eggs in them! It is still delicious and creamy! I definitely want to try some more of them.

It is a little more pink than I wanted, the gel dye was a bit more pronounced than I expected. The recipe started with making a syrup with the rhubarb pieces, sugar, and water. Then you added that the to cream mix and let it chill overnight before churning it. I actually left it about a day and a half, as I forgot it was in the fridge! I think it made it thicker though. I would make this again. Maybe with chunkier rhubarb pieces though.

I also made these Chocolate Chip Muffins with two of the duck eggs, as I wanted to try them in baking. I realized that the Chinese market that we go to has duck eggs, so I will have to get some more. Although, my friends’ eggs will always be better! :). These are from Baking Unplugged by Nicole Rees. The muffins are extra rich with sour cream and the duck eggs. Mmmm…

I’ve made a few breakfast items lately. I’ve been finding myself getting bored with my usual yogurt. I tried a scone recipe from Bernard Clayton’s Small Breads. The Husband and I were not terribly happy with it. It had no sugar, so was more bready or biscuity than usual. It was also pretty bland. I added dried cherries to the batter too and those were probably the best part. Please ignore the dog tongue that I couldn’t edit out in the upper left. Someone really wanted to sample my breakfast and I didn’t notice until after I had already eaten them.

I don’t think I would make this again.

I did make these pancakes again, in fact, I have made them twice this month! They are Coconut Cream Pancakes from The Spruce Eats.

https://www.thespruceeats.com/coconut-cream-pancakes-4066020

These are delicious! Plus, I don’t have to share them, as the Husband doesn’t like coconut. I added mini chocolate chips to some of them, but the didn’t really need it. I had this batch with chicken sage sausages. Both batches were made for dinner on nights the Husband had play things happening. Fancy shared my apples as they were honey crisp.

My Mom was visiting for a few days back when I was super sick and we made Matzo ball soup aka Jewish Penicillin. 🙂 It did seem to help, as I could sort of talk the next day. It was an interesting and delicious experience. I consulted some recipes, but I ended up using the recipe on the box. Sort of.

I did use a mix for the matzo balls. I thought trying to actually make the mixture might be too much for my poor, sick self. Mom helped too and it turned into a delicious soup. I did make my own broth, with Penzey’s Mural of Flavor spice mix and some extra garlic. I would make this again. Both Mom and the Husband liked it as well.

We had store rotisserie chicken one night with some sautéed swiss chard and berries. I made the chard garlicky and used Tuscan herb flavored olive oil. Mmmm. It was lovely.

I made chicken salad with the leftovers and discovered that french fried onions make a perfect amount of crunch.

I made this Middle Eastern Rice dish one night and it turned out to be pretty good. I don’t think the Husband ever tried it. The recipe is here. https://www.themediterraneandish.com/lebanese-rice-hashweh-recipe/

I would probably make a smaller amount of this again. It was pretty quick to put together. Maybe the Husband will even try it next time.

I made chicken breasts last night with some Knorr noodles for a side. Today, I meant to make beef tacos, but left the meat out on the counter and completely forgot to put it away before going to work. So… We had chicken tacos with the left over chicken, homemade salsa, and enchilada sauce. They were messy, but good.

Now I have to find something else to make for Thursday, as enchiladas were my plan for Thursday… Oops.

I also made Fancy some treats, but haven’t had a chance to take a picture of them yet. She gets super excited about them. They have ginger, pumpkin, molasses, oats, and flour in them. I thought the ginger might be good for her stomach. A friend also sent me a biscuit book and a list of egg subs, so I’m excited to try some of those too. You know, in my copious amounts of free time. Ha! Sometimes I crack myself up.

Well, I’m headed off to bed to dream of deliciousness. Have a great night!

The Spice Must Flow
Recipe Roundup

The Spice Must Flow

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I’m such a dork. In other news, we’ve been using a lot of spice mixes lately and I thought you might be interested in hearing more about them. Most of them have been from Penzey’s. They have excellent spices and had a super good sale and now my spice cupboard is full of Penzey’s.

I’m using them though and it’s helped me get over my food funk. This isn’t a sponsored post, by the way. I’m just discovering new things to try and cook.

A couple of them have been good enough that the Husband has requested them “on everything.” 😁 The Galena Street rub was one of them. We had that on the chicken drumsticks. The chili powder was in the veggie chili that I made while the Husband was gone.

We had Mural of Flavor on the turkey pot pie for Pi Day. It had a stuffing crust on the bottom and top.

I knew it was a winner when the Husband said, when I walked in the door “We have a problem. You have to stop making such delicious food.”

We also had Cookies and Cream Pie for Pi Day from Icebox Pies by Lauren Chattman.

It was kind of a cheater pie. I mixed vanilla ice cream with crushed Oreos and used a store bought Oreo crust! But it was still delicious!

The Husband suggested this steak seasoning over the weekend. He had tried some as a sample at Costco and it was very good. I didn’t ruin the steak! It was actually very tender and juicy.

There were also roasted potatoes with paprika, garlic, seasoned salt, and pepper and a roasted carrot recipe from the Guarnaschelli book. (Pretty sure you could play a nice drinking game with how much I’ve been referencing that cookbook…) I was surprised the Husband liked the carrots. They had honey, cumin, coriander, and s+p on them. They were pretty good, although I forgot the finish of red wine vinegar, which would have cut through the sweetness nicely.

Fancy was mad that she couldn’t have the steak or the carrots. She drooled on my foot the whole time.

I made some things for our game night too, but of course, forgot to take pictures. We had chocolate covered strawberries, almond flour brownies, and chocolate chip cookies for sweets. Savory things included crab stuffed mushrooms, cheeses and sausage, and Firebreather salsa.

We’ve decided we’re done with winter, so last night had panko crusted shrimp with cilantro rice and homemade peach salsa. I also had a Moscow Mule and some tropical fruit.

I made lemon strawberry muffins (with lemon peel from Penzey’s) this morning too, since I was still craving spring.

I have been doing some sewing too, but not necessarily things I can post. I finally tried a bra pattern, but am quite sure my Dad doesn’t want to see it. 😂 So I’ll figure out a way to update the sewing posts soon.

The latest issue of Food Network included 100 Recipes for Butter Lovers and I got all starry eyed with a pitted patter heartbeat. Possibly from the thought of ingesting all the butter recipes! I can feel it calling my name too, so am going to go pick out some recipes.

Fancy is quite content at the moment, being adorable in her blanket. Any time she gets up, it gets stuck on her tail and she walks it all over the house.

We discovered tonight that she lives up to her name. She will not eat regular oranges or apples, but happily accepts blood oranges and Honeycrisp. Fancy, indeed!

Well, bad jokes aside, I hope this post gave you some ideas to spice up your cooking!

Canning and Preserving · Monthly Review · Recipe Roundup

Not So Simple Sunday

LSiehLeave a comment

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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