Recipe Roundup

Forgotten Food!

Not in the “bad, now kinda fuzzy, what exactly was this?!” Kinda way though. Ha! This is more in the “I know I took pictures, but maybe not all the time” way. I’ve fallen back on some simpler fare lately, sandwiches, soups, and freezer things. Apparently our AC was worse than we thought and it’s been hard to want to cook. Now that everything is getting repaired, I can hopefully start cooking again.

I am looking forward to soup season! I was promoted at work to a Clinical Director position and it comes with a slight increase in hours to manage the program development and such, so now three days a week, I will be working until 8. I see more crockpot dinners or having the Husband prep more for us in our future. This summer has been definitely more fun than last year, but I am definitely looking forward to fall. It’s my favorite season! I do come down heavier on the apple cider side of the autumn spice war though, than pumpkin spice.

Anyway, here’s some food pictures of things we’ve had recently. I’ll try to note if I used a recipe, but more than likely it’s a me made thing, or didn’t need a recipe at all.

We’ve had a lot of Chinese food lately. I made Scallion Pancakes and wanted to devour them all on the spot. I used the recipe from thekitchn. https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-scallion-pancakes-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-107405

Woks of Life has two recipes for them, a shortcut method and a longer one, but I was in a hurry and didn’t have the ingredients. I’m sure their recipes are delicious too. These are super flaky and delicious! Definitely season liberally though! They are technically laminated, I think, because you fold them and roll them out that way, but the only oil is on the inside of them.

We had hot pot too. I will admit to some silliness as we probably said “Hot Pot!” To each other in weird voices all night. It was tasty, especially with the store egg rolls. I just used beef broth, carrots, green onions, mushrooms, soy sauce, white pepper, and 5 spice powder. We had super thin shaved beef too that I had found at the store.

I don’t remember what we had along side the chicken dumpling extravaganza, but these were yummy. I think they changed the dough recipe, or we normally get a different kind for the wrappers, because they didn’t steam well and were kind of gummy. They only had wrappers that specifically stated they were vegan at the store and we must get egg ones normally, I’m guessing. We really need to go to the actual Chinese grocery store and stock up on authentic ones. I can make the wrappers, but it’s very tedious. We fried some as well. They were delicious!

We had corned beef and veggies, followed up by corned beef hash the next night. I forgot to get a picture of the hash, but it was also yummy. We probably had fruit with this. I thought briefly about making soda bread, but we had this on one of the nights our AC was being replaced and I didn’t want to heat the house more than I had to. I actually put it on high in the crockpot for 6 hours and it came out super tender. I used an awful lot of broth in the pot too though and that helped.

Since it’s been so hot, we’ve been making Chef Salads a lot. This has garden greens, tomatoes, and beans in it. Also, fancy cheese, turkey lunchmeat, and pecans. I would show you a picture of the Husband’s but it is absolutely covered in ranch most of the time. Mine are always much prettier!

I had really good peach and nectarine luck until this last time, when they all molded from the inside while remaining hard. Ugh! These peaches were great though! I made fancy chocolate waffles as well. They were good. I just used the regular waffle recipe and switched out some of the flour for regular cocoa powder.

I made these cheesecake bars for K’s tie dye birthday party! It’s so 90’s bowling alley! It’s a lemon cheesecake with an oreo crust. The crust didn’t work as well as it should have. I really needed to use the food processor, but didn’t feel like pulling it out. As a result, the crust was too thick and hard. The cheesecake tasted good though! The recipe was on the box of the cream cheese, so I don’t have it written down. I would definitely make these again!

These fancy melt sammies were really, really satisfying. I sautéed some onions and mushrooms and used turkey with provolone on a hoagie roll. The Husband had pastrami and roast beef on his. They really hit the spot the day we had them and were super quick. We had them again with the rest of the shaved beef from the hot pot as well. I will admit that I’m glad the Husband requested we get a toaster oven.

The Husband actually made these Asian seasoned pork chops all by himself! I only provided supervision. He pan fried them and used soy, sesame, garlic, and white pepper. I had a lentil curry which was most assuredly not photogenic, so I spared you all the picture. We were both pleased with our meals!

We had grilled boneless rib eyes tonight with grilled zucchini (for me) and cilantro rice with homemade pico.

I used a southwest seasoning blend- Arizona Dreaming, on the steak and the Husband did an excellent job grilling everything.

You can’t really see it, but there is a brownie under the ice cream! I had ordered some strawberries which were not in good condition at all, so I ended up chopping them up for shortcake. Being out of milk to make biscuits though, I made brownies instead. Best idea ever!

And last, but certainly not least, I’ll leave you with my avocado toast with garden tomatoes. i thought maybe I’d reached peak Millennial status, as I was eating avocado toast while waiting for house repairs to be finished with my dog. But my older brother, who is a more Elder Millennial, told me that I had a way to go yet, as there were no fermented items, “ironic text or decorative mustaches.” 😂

Regardless of peak status, it was delicious and I’ll you with that. I hope you have some delicious food planned this week!

Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Battle Cheesecake- Party Pictures And Recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough from Delish.com. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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