Tag: Cookbook

Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

Cookbook Review- Recipes To The Rescue

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No time for dinner? Unexpected guests? Forgot to turn the crockpot on? Have no fear, these recipes are here to save the day!

We found this cookbook at last year’s Bookstock and I had to get it. Would you have been able to resist a brilliantly colored popart style cookbook? Here’s the contents page.

It has fun tips and pictures.

It’s a surprisingly comprehensive cookbook and includes a pantry list and a fridge list. Most of the items are pretty standard, so I could make the recipes with ingredients we had on hand, which was helpful. A lot of the desserts call for frozen puff pastry or fillo cups, so we didn’t try many of them, as we didn’t have any of them. Grocery shopping is annoying right now, as with the shopping services, you don’t always know what you’ll actually get.

One of the first recipe we tried were these Toasted Pastrami Sandwiches. I had turkey instead of pastrami on mine and the Husband had both. They were really good! Toasty, warm and delicious.

These are the Fig Muffins. They were super soft and yummy, but were too sweet for me. This was pretty surprising, as I have a big sweet tooth, but I would reduce the sugar by probably half next time. I also subbed dried cranberries, as I didn’t have figs and was still weirded out by fig wasps.

We really liked the Chicken and Salsa Soup. It was pretty simple. I added a half can of Rotel and used different spices. It was also yummy.

For Thanksgiving, we had this snack mix with white chocolate, dried cherries and cranberries, cashews, and pretzel chips. I think I ate most of it. I don’t normally like white chocolate, but it was lighter than usual.

I tried to follow the recipe in this Broccoli Cheese Rice but it made more sense to just make it. K2 made this for us when we went to visit last time, so I just threw some things together while the Husband had pork chops.

I enjoyed it! Overall, I really enjoyed this cookbook. I would like to try a couple more of the recipes from it too. I’m glad we got it and it definitely makes me smile when I look at it. Hope you enjoyed seeing it as well!

I’ve started my 25 Treats of Christmas this week too, but have only made a few so far and need to catch up on the Thanksgiving foods. Have a delicious week!

Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

Wordy Wednesday- Cookbook Review- The Chew

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It’s been a while since I have reviewed a cookbook! I haven’t been interested in using just one lately. There’s a large chance that I accidentally obtained a few more too. 😉 And by chance, I mean, we went to book sales and I was unsupervised in the used book store…

For this cookbook, it took me a while to make the recipes I wanted to try, so they’re spread out over a month or two.

The recipes weren’t hard to follow, but they did have multiple steps and some required specialty ingredients.

This one is Michael Symon’s Holiday Mac And Cheese Casserole. It called for a full pound of bacon, half and half, marscapone cheese, Guyere, and butternut squash.

I had my doubts about the cheese sauce, as it was looking pretty runny, but it thickened up in the oven. I watered down cream for the half and half and used marscapone and a shredded cheddar jack blend. We didn’t enjoy the butternut squash in it at all. I have added squash before and it was fine, but this time it was gross. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too rich! I would make it again, but remove the squash.

This is General Tsao’s Chicken by Clinton Kelly.

It was a pretty quick dinner to make. The recipe had a lot of steps, but they all went quickly. I left out the broccoli for the Husband and made it on the side instead.

I’m not entirely sure I made it right. I think it was supposed to be crispier? It tasted good though. Definitely adding more sauce next time would be good. The rice was a little dry without it.

We tried Carla Phall’s Peach Cobbler. It was alright, but I thought it needed less crust and more seasoning. We ate it with churro flavored ice cream, which made it good. I don’t know if I would make it again. It smelled lots better than it tasted.

We also tried her fried Chicken Recipe. Oh man.. It was probably the best thing we tried out of the book.

We used drumsticks and thighs for it. The breading was slightly too salty for me, but the Husband loved it. The chicken sat in a dry rub for most of the day and then got dipped twice in a seasoned flour mix. It was tasty! The Husband ate it voraciously and declared me “the best wife ever.” Of course, now he wants more of it. 😄

I can’t find a picture, but we also tried the Turkey Meatball Subs by Mario Batali. I don’t remember thinking they were the best thing ever, but I think they were pretty good. If I were going to use them again, I would use less panko crumbs. They were kind of bready. I used homemade Spicy Scillian Pasta sauce instead of making a new batch. We also used turkey Italian sausage instead of the pork. It’s probably a safe bet that if I cannot remember them, I won’t be making them again.

Overall, it’s s good cookbook. The instructions are generally clear. It is arranged seasonally, so you do have to think of that when trying to find recipes. There are little hints and tips, plus the behind the scenes info about the show that are neat to read. It also fits nicely in my cookbook holder.

There are a few recipes that I still want to try. Soda bread, whoopie pies, and a potato leek soup are next on my list. I will be holding on to this cookbook for a bit yet, I think.

Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

Cookbook Review- 13x 9: The Pan That Can!

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I thought it might be time for another cookbook review. I have used this book for five different recipes, but I really want to use a bunch more. There’s a bar dessert recipe that makes me drool just looking at the picture.

We found this book at the weird discount store by us. I don’t go there alone because I’m pretty sure I might get lost and end up in Narnia. Which might not be the worst thing ever, but I just don’t have time to deal with eternal winter right now. I just got warm again!

Anyway, I picked it up on a whim and it has really surprised me. A lot of the recipes call for things made from scratch. For example, these cheeseburger swirl rolls.

The dough was a potato bread made from scratch! They grew very large because apparently I have a magic hand with dough. Or maybe let it rise for too long. These were pretty good, but I might use more meat next time. We left off the ketchup and pickles. I would make these again, just halve the dough.

I made these apple rolls as well, which also had a scratch dough.

These were a request from the Husband. They are huge and need more apple, but tasted yummy. I would definitely make these again. The Husband requested more apples, but did like how they tasted.

The book has several sections, not just bready things. It has mix an match one pan meals with a bunch of different protein and veggie options. We tried the greek seasoning mix on some chicken one night and it was delicious.

We had Stovetop stuffing with it. The Husband loves stuffing, but I do not and have trouble finding a good recipe for it. He was very happy. 🙂 I love the one pan options. They are super easy for me to set up and the Husband to cook when he gets home.

I tried the Dutch Oven Pancake from the breakfast section and discovered that I do not, in any way like it. It was crusty and chewy at the same time and not very good. It was also very bland.

I will stick to Pannukakku, thank you. Even the homemade jam didn’t really help it.

My most favorite thing I have made so far from the book is this recipe for brownies topped with a bittersweet ganache.

I made these for my boss’ birthday. Everyone liked them. They were super dense and fudgy and rich. The ganache was the finishing touch. The Husband liked them a little warm, with a scoop of ice cream. It was lovely.

My overall impressions of the book were that it was extremely well written. The pictures of the foods are lovely. Some of the recipes use short cut things, like pre-cooked meat or pre-made doughs, but most of them are from scratch.

It has a lot of information about different cooking materials for the pan, how to reduce it, and how to increase it. A lot of the recipes have instructions for how to make them ahead and freeze them, if possible.

Other than the Dutch Oven Pancake, the recipes have all been very tasty. If you can find the book, I would definitely recommend it.

Now, I need to go cuddle a sad puppers who was left alone this evening. Have a good night!

The Almost Forgotten Food
Recipe Roundup

The Almost Forgotten Food

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I keep making food and then forgetting to post it! The Bad Birthday Fairy brought me a “wicked bad cold” – according to the hipster PA I saw at urgent care. I haven’t been cooking this week much, other than the chicken sausage pasta dish yesterday. Tomorrow it will be crockpot chicken soup.

I did make fresh bao last week. They were big dinner sized buns this time. The Husband was quite impressed. I had Brussels sprouts on the side. They had olive oil and “Sandwich Sprinkle” on them.

This was Fancy’s reaction to not getting to eat the Chicken Bao.

Poor thing… So neglected!

I tried Giada’s House Soup from Food Network, which was pretty good. Not our favorite, but we would eat it again.

With the soup, we had Cheese Twists from “Small Breads.” They tasted okay and were fun to make, but there were too many and the Husband didn’t like them.

We had Antelope Meatballs Stroganoff. It was weird and we’re not sure we like antelope. We’ll probably not eat more antelope. It had a strange aftertaste.

Another miss was this Crockpot Chicken Curry, also from Food Network. The Husband has decided he likes curry spice, but not by itself. It was too much for me to eat by myself. The Husband didn’t really comment on the coconut milk in it, so I think it wasn’t a strong enough taste. I wouldn’t make this again.

We had Ricotta Cheesecake with a Warm Berry Sauce from “The Home Cook” by Alex Guarnachelli. The Husband didn’t like it at all, he thought there were too many textures. There was a not sweet cookie crust. There was candied citron in it and it freaked him right out. My work people loved it though, so it didn’t go to waste.

I think it was too soft, but the flavor was delicious. I like the firmer cheesecakes though, so I don’t know that I would make this again.

We had Nancy Fuller’s Stovetop Mac and Cheese, which had cream cheese in it to make it extra creamy. It was pretty good, not too rich. Quick recipe too. I would use this again.

I attempted to have a Girl’s Night when the Husband was going to be gone, but ended up with a nasty migraine and a ridiculous amount of mini cupcakes with no one to eat them.

They were from the Cupcakes and Cocktails cookbook that I found in a secondhand book store. It has recipes for both and I used three of the cupcake recipes.

Margarita Cupcakes with Lime Buttercream (not the meringue frosting in the book,) Pomegranate Orange Cupcakes, and Chocolate Chili Cupcakes. The Pomegranate ones originally had green tea powder, but I have thrown it out apparently, so I used orange instead.

All three of them were tasty. The chocolate ones were never frosted and the Pomegranate ones had a glaze and were sprinkled with edible glitter. I would definitely make all of them again, but especially the lime buttercream.

I have been trying out some new ideas and will have another cookbook review coming up soon. I want to try one or two more recipes to get a good overall review first. My garden sprouts are coming along well, so I’ll share my gardening plans. For now though, I’m going to go nurse my throat and hope I can actually talk tomorrow. Otherwise, I may be holding sessions via whiteboard!

Life Posts · Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Dragon Hoard #3

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“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install a lovely bookshelf on the wall.” – Roald Dahl

“The person who deserves most pity is a lonesome one on a rainy day who doesn’t know how to read.” – Benjamin Franklin

“A well-read woman is a dangerous creature.” – Lisa Kleypas

“Read. Read anything. Read the things they say are good for you, and the things they claim are junk. You’ll find what you need to find. Just read.” – Neil Gaiman

I’m Just Here For The Food
Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

I’m Just Here For The Food

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I have a Cookbook Review for you and a Recipe Roundup tonight. Hopefully my pictures are right side up. I uploaded them from my phone (through the air, Mom!) and they seem to adjust themselves automatically. If not, pretend I meant to put them that way. It’s way too cold and my hip doesn’t like stairs at the moment.

The Husband was gone on a business trip for a couple of days, so I had a vegetarian feast week planned. It didn’t go quite as well as I hoped, as I ended up with no time to shop for the couple of things I couldn’t find. I did use the cookbook enough to be able to review it though, since I have used it before as well, for mac and cheese. I also had so many leftovers that I had to eat up, that I didn’t end up needing to cook as much as I thought I would.

The cookbook I used is called Vegetables! It’s by Pippa Cuthbert & Lindsay Cameron Wilson. It has some extremely fancy recipes in it, some of which are a little intimidating. It’s a very colorful book. Everything has fancy names and some of them are all about the 15 ingredients that you’ll only use once.

This recipe had baked chicken breasts on the side, as the Husband was still home at the beginning of the week and apparently likes regular meals. 😉 It was Linguine with Swiss Chard and Sweet Onions.

The sweet onion part is misleading, because you just caramelize them, not actually use sweeter onions. I was a little disappointed in that, as I think it would have gone well using them. I used rainbow chard for extra happiness and chicken broth instead of wine. I also added baked chicken on the side. I was a rebel!

Really though, we had a seasoning mix from Penzey’s called “Krakow Nights” that I wanted to try. It is a Polish style seasoning and tastes delicious. The Husband also likes meat. I had herb goat cheese crumbles on the top of mine. The recipe was pretty simple though, so I don’t know if I would use a recipe again. You basically caramelize the onions, sauté the chard, take it out of the pan, deglaze with the wine/broth, then add everything back in along with the noodles. The chicken and the onions made it a longer dish, but everything else cooked while the noodles were boiling. I actually made the onions in the morning and just reheated them. We would have this again.

I also made Black Bean And Vegetable Chili. I didn’t bother with the cilantro-lime creme fraiche (see what I mean about the fancy names?) as I knew I wouldn’t actually like it. I had this as a three course meal after work, with frozen popcorn shrimp, and arugula salad.

Mmmm! I love arugula! The Husband does not, so I don’t have to share! This also means I need to eat the entire container of it myself. Hmm.. I should probably have a rather large salad tomorrow.

The chili has chipotle chilis in adobo sauce in it and it makes it have the most delicious and smoky taste. I brought container of it to work and a co-worker tracked me down to find out what the delicious smell was! I would make this again, but was glad I made just half the batch. The Husband is not a fan of chili.

I’m in two minds whether to keep this book or not. I think there are some very good looking recipes in it, but I have had it for quite a few years and have made exactly three things out of it. The Husband’s dislike for vegetables makes it unlikely that I could make many more of them for both of us. It’s too much work to make separate dishes! But if I keep it, I could supervise the Husband’s pork cookery and make these for myself. Decisions, decisions… (Also, there are two book sales on the horizon and the Husband and I may have come home from shopping with three new cookbooks…)

For our other meals, we have had a variety of things.

I had the urge to make a chocolate cake a few weekends ago from the Alex Guarnaschelli book, so I did just that. (I know! But I can’t stop! Too many good recipes!) What the Husband doesn’t know is that it was the Mayonnaise Chocolate Cake recipe. Don’t tell him, or he won’t ever eat it again! I didn’t use the vanilla frosting though. It involved corn syrup. We don’t get along. I made a chocolate cream cheese frosting from the Better Homes book instead.

This was hands down the best chocolate cake I have made. It was super moist, even after a few days and very lovely and rich. It soothed my soul!

My only complaint was my frosting job wasn’t even, but I have not had a lot of practice with actual layer cakes. I will definitely make this again.

This banana bread was also from A.G’s cookbook. It was a spectacular failure in that I accidentally froze the butter while mixing it, by using partially frozen bananas. I had to put the metal mixer bowl in the preheating oven and it was a mess. Tasted delicious, but was sooooooo dense and wet at the same time.

There was a small mishap when I tried to turn the first loaf over. Half of it came off, so I had to eat it. I ended up throwing it away though. It was not good after a day or two. I may try it again with ripe bananas, not frozen, and halve the recipe.

Another failure this week was on Sunday, when I attempted to make quesadillas and had four fall apart on me for unknown reasons. I was mystified, as I make these all the time with leftover taco meat!

These were the “good” ones. I cooked up hamburger and added green chilis, onions, and some of our Fire-Breather salsa. Then I added it to the tortillas and that’s when it all fell apart. I was a little mortified, but we ate the evidence, so no one needs to know.

Something that did work out well, was the drumsticks.

I used another Penzey’s spice mix, the Galena Street Rub. I swear they didn’t sponsor this post, but they probably should have. Sometime soon, I might write a post about my spice cabinet contents, as it has grown exponentially and deliciously. I also had canned peaches with mine. The Husband has requested this spice rub on everything. 🙂

We also had venison and beef Christmas/Swedish meatballs and noodles at the beginning of the week last week. They were delicious as usual. Fancy was extra excited as she got a tiny bit of the raw venison. No pictures, as we ate them too fast.

Last, but not least, I made Pannukakku, or Finnish pancake this morning and had lingonberry jam on it. Sadly, my thimbleberry dealer is slacking and I am out of it again. 😉

It made my little Finnish heart all warm and cozy this morning. If the dog weren’t pinning me to the couch, I would post the recipe. Although I may have posted it before.

So that’s what we’ve eaten lately. With the exception of the two missteps, which both still tasted delicious, I think it was a pretty good couple of weeks. Now to pick the next cookbook to focus on! And find room for the new cookbooks…

Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

Food, Glorious Food!

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I think it was pretty glorious at least. You can let me know what you think after the post. Not surprisingly, we ate a lot of Chinese food after the party. 

The Husband happily ate the shao mai the next day. We also had a fried rice dish that was an experiment and actually worked out! The Husband ate pork slices too.

This one is a meatball dish called Lion’s Head Meatballs from The Food of China. These were very good! They were browned and then braised for an hour and a half. Deliciously tender meatballs were the result. They get their name from the bok choy that they are cooked with that looks like a lion’s man. We did sub chicken for pork.

I had them with rice and sautéed Chinese greens- gai lan and bok choy, with mushrooms, green onions, and garlic. I used sesame oil for the saute oil. I’ve wanted to make these for a while. The Husband had just plain rice with his.

Another Chinese dish was West Lake Beef Soup from The Joy of Chinese Cooking by Lo Mei Hing. We have a similar dish when we go out for fancy Chinese food at Christmas with the Husband’s family and I was excited to find a recipe for it.

One interesting thing about this cookbook, which we found at a booksale last year, is that every single recipe, except desserts, calls for MSG. We omitted that, for obvious reasons, but it tells you how old it is.

After the soup, we got a little tired of Chinese food, so we had a creamy pasta and mushroom dish and a creamy shrimp dish. I only have a picture of the mushroom pasta dish because we were too hungry and devoured the shrimp dish.

The Husband also requested Chicken Marsala and it turned out delicious! We enjoyed it a lot. We had it with a salad and fruit.

I posted a naked pizza picture on Instagram because it was just too pretty to not document. 🙂

The crust is the Pioneer Woman recipe, which I believe is linked here already. It makes a very nice friendly dough. You can also freeze it, but I have not had good luck with that.

Here’s a picture of the finished pizza. We used diced ham, mushrooms, and onions. It had homemade roasted garlic pizza sauce on it too and mozzarella cheese too.

I tried to give Fancy some cheese while making the pizza, but she moved and it all ended up on her back instead of her mouth. Silly girl! Don’t worry, she found it all and snarfed it all up.

I’ve also made waffles and muffins for breakfast and we had grilled cheese and canned soup tonight.

I’m still debating the next book. I kind of went through Food of China by Deh-Ta Hiusing and Nina Simmonds, pretty quickly, but have used a lot of it in before as well. I will do a little bit of a review for it here.

First off, the pictures are gorgeous! It’s a huge book, more of a coffee table book rather than a regular cookbook. The instructions are pretty clear. They requesting using light soy sauce a lot, which tastes horrible, so I generally just reduce the amount and add broth or water instead.

It’s a pretty extensive book, covering everything from appetizers, dim sum, main dishes, and desserts. We’ve used a lot of the recipes from it and they’ve turned out well. If you can find the book, I would get it. It’s definitely worth it. We got it as a gift, so I don’t know where it came from.

Fancy’s latest culinary adventure involved getting her Wobble open to cheat and eat the treats faster. Apparently sweet potatoes are a high value treat option.

She’s a smart dog, but we think it might have been by accident. Hopefully. We need her to not know how to do this regularly, thank you!

This week, I hope to pick a new cookbook to focus on for meals. We had a busy week coming up, so it may be a little interesting schedule wise. The Husband has another play starting soon. Auditions are next week. If anyone wants to come snuggle Fancy, I’m sure she’d be more than happy to accept any and all belly rubs. 😉

I always have trouble knowing how to end my blog posts, so I guess I’ll just say “have a good night!”

The Home Cook Review
Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

The Home Cook Review

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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!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

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Whew! I always forget how much I depend on electricity. We have a gas stove, but it has electric starters, so unless we wanted to light it with a match, we had no stove for a few days. We were out for about two days. Now we have power again and I have done some cooking. Here’s the recipes:

1- Slow Cooker Chinese BBQ Beef from Food Network v. 8, n. 10. 

Modifications: I used full strength soy sauce and just reduced it a little. We’ve not had good luck with finding a reduced sodium soy sauce that doesn’t taste horrible. Next time I would also reduce the Chinese 5 spice. It was a little too licorice flavored for me. I ate this on the second day since I had put it in the crockpot the night before while working. The Husband said he liked it and had it over rice. It was good, but I don’t know if we liked enough to make it again.

2- BLT Mac and Cheese from Bacon 24/7: Recipes for Curing, Smoking and Eating by Theresa Gilliam. I bought this book for the Husband for our first anniversary (paper) almost four years ago and haven’t used it at all! This is a perfect example of why I decided to write this blog. I kept looking at it and saying I needed to make things from it, but never did. We are planning on making our own bacon this summer, when it isn’t snowing outside. I’ll make sure to take lots of pictures.

Modifications: I tried to half the recipe, but forgot halfway through and ended up making almost the whole sauce recipe. The sauce turned a little red, from too much tomato sauce, but it evened itself in the end. I used dry basil, no fresh to be found, and used the rest of the romano cheese as well, instead of just all Parmesan. I also had a freak out moment where I couldn’t figure out where the bacon went in the recipe. I made the noodles and the bacon ahead of time and saved part of the bacon grease in the fridge. The Husband kindly pointed put that I was supposed to make the bacon and then add the cheese sauce ingredients directly on top of it. It worked out in the end and tasted very good. It was less cheesy than most mac and cheese, but the sauce did thicken up. I would like to try it with fresh basil, so may make it again in the summer.

3- Grilled Chicken Over Spinach from Taste of Home: The Market Fresh Cookbook. This is another cookbook I’ve had for a long time, but haven’t tried a lot out of it. Mostly veggie recipes are included in it, which might be why. The Husband doesn’t like a lot of veggies and I tend not to cook extra recipes just for me. This book is where I get my pear bread recipe from and it is delicious.

Modifications: I broiled the chicken instead of grilling it, since it was way too cold. The seasoning was very nice, kind of Italian based spices and olive oil. I also added more garlic to the spinach and made a smaller amount. This was a really fast recipe after a long shift and I would make it again. I picked it because I had a bunch of spinach in the fridge and was tired of seeing it go to waste. It made good leftovers the next day too and I think the spices would make the chicken good for leftover recipes like potpie or chicken salad.

4- Roasted Turkey with Smoked Paprika from a Meijer recipe card.

Modifications: It’s only been a few years since I have been able to eat turkey again. I had some bad experiences with cafeteria style turkey and fake mashed potatoes and couldn’t stand it for about 6-7 years. I wouldn’t even eat my Mom’s apple cider and bacon turkey and she makes excellent turkey. I still bring a few slices of ham to my inlaw’s house for Thanksgiving to this day. We’ve discovered that the less it tastes like turkey, the more I will eat it, and I don’t like it if it’s been frozen. (I know, for a food blogger, I sound so picky.)

The Husband tried a sample of this in Meijer one day and said I had to taste it and he was right. The spice rub is extremely full flavored with smoked paprika, garlic, and Italian spices. I reduce the recipe for this one, since it’s originally for a whole turkey. We normally have it on turkey breasts or tenderloins. We’ve had this a couple of times and it’s been good each time and is on our “quick and easy” list. We had this with mashed potatoes, and roasted carrots and butternut squash in olive oil and spices. No pictures because we were both starving and the carrots took longer, so things were not ready at the same time.

I think you can find the recipe on Meijer’s website as well. Tomorrow for Pi Day (3.14) I am making a chocolate cherry icebox pie that would have been made last Thursday, had there been power. I work late again, so it will be eaten after my shift ends and should be delicious. I’ll be sure to take pictures before we eat it all.