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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!

Family Kitchen Stories
Life Posts

Family Kitchen Stories

LSieh2 Comments

If you know me or my family at all, you knkw we feed pretty much anyone at the drop of a hat (although I will say, I’ve discovered this doesn’t happen with people I don’t like.) Not just feed either, we adopt people and give them more food than they know what to do with. It’s our way of showing love along with bad puns and teasing, of course.

Time spent cooking and baking comes with all sorts of memories ranging from silly, to lovely, to just plain ridiculous. For example, Dad sneakily tying my apron string to a chair, singing loudly into a spatula, fights over who gets the first prune tart from the oven, sneaking behind doors to lick the dessert plate (that one was all Grandma Shirley,) making family recipes, pickle trays, and the infamous Christmas butter count.

I remember making lovely tea parties with Grandma Shirley and getting big chocolate chip cookies in oatmeal cartons from Grandma Florence. And, of course, telling my younger brother for years that I made him a “special-no sauce” chicken potpie (that absolutely had sauce!) until he learned that he actually did like the sauce. Oh, he was so mad!

Not surprisingly, family kitchen lore is really weaved into my family history. After sharing the picture of my Mom’s hanging rolling pins in her birthday baking post, we had a lovely chat about the origins of those particular pins. That led to thoughts about all the kitchen heirlooms I’ve inherited over the years. I thought it might be fun to share them with you too!

I’ll start with the rolling pins, as I was charmed to know their stories, although they aren’t mine.

I made the ornament on top for my Mom out of a canning jar ring that was starting to look a little wonky to can with, but works great covered in thread! The top pin was made for my Mom by my Grandpa Ed. The middle pin was gifted to my Mom by my “winter grandma,” a dear family friend, Nancy. The bottom pin belonged to my Grandma Florence.

Continuing the rolling pin theme, I have the Husband’s paternal Grandma Ruby’s pin. I knew my MIL liked me when she started giving me family kitchen things. 😁

I was also given a cookie press and a sifter belonging to my Grandma in Laws- Ruby and Mary.

The same year I was given that cookie press, I was also given my Grandma Shirley’s cookie press, so now I could keep one as a gluten free press if needed. I have used them for at least a couple of Christmases to make delicious spritz cookies.

This year I also received a cake plate that belonged to Grandma Mary as well. Look how pretty the underside is!

One of our family traditions is sand tarts, a Norwegian almond cookie. They are made in little shaped tins. My Grandma Shirley had quite a collection of them and I have some of them. Some of them probably came from out family’s bakery that was started by my Great Great Grandpa Sivert.

A few are probably getting too rusty to use and I’m thinking of making keepsake ornaments with them. Those are most likely the older ones, so it makes them more special!

I have a pie plate and a bread pan from my Grandma Florence that my Mom gave me when I moved out on my own.

My Dad makes really lovely wooden spoons and he gave this one to us! He also carved a wee doll spoon for my Kirsten American Girl Doll.

Since it’s Christmas, my favorite family kitchen heirloom is a relatively new one, but no less special. It’s our very own Christmas tablecloth made by my Mom in 2011. It made me cry, of course! Now it’s a huge part of our Epiphany party. This year we delivered cookies and took the tablecloth with us!

There’s a post online that been going around for a while that’s about a family who has a signed table cloth going back 16 years. It cracks me up every time, since the original family one for us was started in the 60’s!

It makes me wonder about other family traditions and kitchen stories, so if you have any to share, please feel free! I hope you’ve enjoyed these small memories and stories. I will be posting some year end and feview posts shortly!

Thankful Cooking
Recipe Roundup

Thankful Cooking

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One of the things that I have noticed myself being grateful for is the ability to get and cook food. My cooking confidence has definitely grown and this year I was confident enough to make a turkey! It was lovely and golden brown, but of course, I forgot to take a picture of the whole turkey. Here’s the full Thanksgiving plate with turkey!

We had a basic herb and butter basted turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and roasted rainbow carrots from the garden!

We also had Ranch deviled eggs and the white chocolate snack mix for snacks before dinner.

K2 made this amazing sweet potato pie with this absolutely scrumptious mile high meringue with a hint of orange. It was so smooth!

The Husband requested this raspberry Jello salad dessert which is lovely as well. I accidentally forgot to add the Cool Whip with the cream cheese and ended up using two packs of cream cheese with the filling ingredients and had the Cool Whip on top. It was still really good! Recipe is here: https://iwashyoudry.com/raspberry-pretzel-salad-recipe/

Of course, I made homemade cranberry sauce. This time I used oranges, 5 spice, sugar, and water. It was so yummy! It was a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. We used our fancy china and goblets that were my great aunt’s. Aren’t they pretty?

We enjoyed these English muffin pizzas with homemade sauce and a salad side. We used ham, peppers, mushrooms, and onions. They are a super quick dinner and quite good.

I accidentally made a buttermilk batter instead of a dredge for these chicken tenders, but they turned out pretty good. I ended up making onion rings a week or so later with some more buttermilk. I don’t think I have that picture loaded yet, so it’ll come later.

A quick, but yummy dinner was these stuffed chicken breasts. We get them frozen from the store, because I don’t have time to make them from scratch.

I’ll leave you with a picture of my pasties! We used beef, potatoes, and onions, since I can’t eat pork. They were really good! I haven’t made them in quite a while, so it was nice to do it again. We even have some in the freezer. One of my friends said I must be really grown up, because I served it with a salad, or in my case, green beans. Mmmm. That makes me hungry again!

I hope you have had some delicious meals with treasured family or friends lately. I do think food has a unique ability to bring people together and we could all use a few more connections right now. So enjoy!

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!

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!

Culinary Adventures
Recipe Roundup

Culinary Adventures

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I realized I hadn’t posted about our dinners lately and thought I should remedy that. I need to get back on track with trying some cookbooks, as we are having a lot of the same things again. There’s nothing wrong with delicious favorites, of course, but it is nice to have a little variety. I was able to rework my schedule again to have one more night where I could actually cook at home too. Now, on to the foods!

A quick, but good dinner was these chicken sausages with onions and cheese. Also a little handful of garden veggies and probably a fruit of some kind, although it’s not pictured.

Kebobs made an appearance over pearl couscous. I marinated the steak in Galena street rub from Penzey’s. They were yummy.

We had apple crisp after our trip to the apple orchard. I think this had three different types of apples in it. We used the extra donuts to make decadent caramel donut sundaes the day after. It was a very delicious idea, especially after toasting the donuts. It is in the featured picture.

We used the Instant Pot for this chicken and dumplings. It was so delicious! I’ll definitely be making it again, especially in the winter. I did use canned biscuits for a shortcut and they weren’t bad. Here’s the recipe: https://lifefamilyfun.com/instant-pot-chicken-dumplings/

I made bbq chicken thighs, roasted potatoes, and Cilantro Lime coleslaw and the only part of the meal I liked was the potatoes. I was having weird meat issues and by the time this cooked, I couldn’t even put the chicken in my mouth without gagging and the coleslaw was way to acidic. Here’s the recipe for the coleslaw if you’d like to try it. https://wonkywonderful.com/cilantro-lime-slaw-no-mayo/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest&utm_campaign=tailwind_tribes&utm_content=tribes&utm_term=897097434_39013176_312821

Due to the meat issues, I made chickpea curry again. It wasn’t as spicy this time, but was still comforting and tasty. I have some dried chickpeas in my cupboard that I need to cook so I can make it again. I liked switching up the veggies. This version had corn, garden beans, carrots, and butternut squash.

The Apricot Rosemary Streusel bars were a hit at work. I used a recipe from the 9 by 13 pan book. I have been wanting to try this recipe for a while and recently found out that a few of my coworkers don’t like chocolate. I know, the horror, right? 😳 The Husband declined to try them. I think I would make them again. They were quite tasty and it was unusual to have the savory rosemary with the sweet. I would skip the pine nuts next time though. They were really expensive and didn’t a ton of interesting flavor.

Some favorites that made an appearance were pancakes and bacon with the best maple syrup from our friends’ sugar shack, chicken divan, toasted turkey and cheese sandwich, and loaded potato soup. We totally watched the movie “Ratatouille” while we ate the soup. 🙂

I’m looking forward to making soups and other yummy fall treats soon. I have a jar of apple cider in the fridge that wants to be something scrumptious, I know. I may even bring more treats to work, if I can get the school to stop thanking me so much. 🙂

Canning and Preserving
Canning and Preserving · Gardening

Canning and Preserving

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Hello from Canning Central! I’ve been busy canning delicious yummy things lately. K2 reminded me that we “didn’t have to wait until winter” to use the things and I gave her a really funny look. In my head I have to wait until at least December! She is right though. It’s nice to have a shelf of home canned things, but even nicer to actually eat and enjoy them!

I joined a Facebook group about canning and it’s absolutely inspiring, but yet also altogether intimidating to see others’ canning progress. I haven’t posted there yet with my measly looking 5 jar haul. 😳 Luckily, I can post here, no matter how small my batches are.

Now, to get to the actual point of the post! The featured picture is my lemon verbena ready to be dehydrated for teas and other things. I used the arugula forest to make this lovely peppery pesto with parsley and walnuts.

The pesto is in the freezer for quick dinners later. I made this mimosa marmalade as well, for the fridge. It’s from the Little Jars, Big Flavors book.

I don’t have a picture of it, but did make cinnamon crockpot applesauce for the freezer, although we did eat some of it for dinner as well. I have more apples, so will make more after I make the apple chips. These were the not canned other things I made.

Dried lemon balm and lemon verbena (for teas,) dried sage, and freezer marinara sauce. The little jar is lemon verbena sugar.

I did can a marinara sauce from one of my canning magazines. A friend shared extra tomatoes with me, so I gave a jar to him and his wife as a thank you. Also, to encourage more excess produce sharing in the future. 😁

We have two kinds of salsa, although I would like to make more. I used the Ball Canning recipe for Jalepeno Salsa and this recipe for the Fire-Roasted Salsa. https://thehungrybluebird.com/fire-roasted-salsa-canning-recipe/

They are both pretty spicy. The Jalepeno salsa is more of an end spicy kick and the Fire Roasted is more spicy on the front end. We polished off the half jars that were left over pretty quickly.

I made another marmalade too. This one is a Citrus Vanilla Bean Marmalade. It was a pain to make and I was mad at it for being so much work, so haven’t tried it yet. It smelled delicious though. This recipe is from my Little Jars, Big Flavor book.

Three kinds of pickles were made. Garlic Chips and regular dill spears.

I also made one jar of kohlrabi pickles which are a fridge pickle. I haven’t tried them yet, but will soon. I also have no picture of them.

Tomorrow I’m making salsa verde and I have some more jams I wanted to make, so there should be a second canning post. It doesn’t feel like I’ve made much this year yet, but seeing it all written out, I guess I have after all!

Oh, and an update to the Squirrel War Chronicles! I was dismayed to find out that I may owe the squirrels a tiny apology, as I discovered a certain dog munching on my tomatoes the other day. She was going through the plants happily slurping the ripe ones right off the vine! Then when I yelled at her and started to go out to chase her off, she started eating them faster! She even hopped into the garden to snack in there! 🤨

We’re not going to tell the squirrels though, because they stole a bunch of other items. Or did they?! Piggy has no shame, of course, and is peacefully sleeping the sleep of the pure hearted. Dogs, man.

Anyway, enjoy the canning goodness and I’ll share the rest as soon as I have it done.

Recipe Roundup

I’m Hungry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We had Shrimp Scampi on our actual anniversary.

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

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

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

Still Here, Still Cooking!
Recipe Roundup

Still Here, Still Cooking!

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Isn’t the starry bowl pretty? My Mom was sweet and sent us two of them after I had mentioned that I wanted them, but couldn’t justify getting them right now. I had cereal, yogurt, and fruit salad leftovers in it and it was the perfect breakfast size.

They didn’t get here in time for the 4th of July breakfast (that I have rechristened “Ice Cream for Breakfast Day” to better explain it to people.). We couldn’t find good blueberries this year. The ones in our shopping order were sneakily moldy, so I had to throw them out. I like breathing and mold makes that stop pretty regularly. We didn’t have time to try and find more of them. We just used blue bowls instead!

Cereal on the bottom as is correct. Don’t listen to my older brother!

We had strawberry shortcake with homemade “Busy Day Cake” from the Better Homes and Gardens book for the 4th of July dessert with my in-laws. We sat in their gazebo in the yard and had delicious burgers and sides. I, of course, brought dessert.

My younger brother is staying with us for a bit and is an excellent cook, so he’s made us a couple of good meals. I don’t have a picture of the Instant Pot pulled pork, but have it on good authority that it was delicious. He made his own BBQ sauce and I believe added hard cider to it.

I do have a picture of the yummy chicken, potato wedges, and salad that he made. Yesterday he made jambalaya with smoked turkey sausage and shrimp. We’re going to miss him when he moves out.

Tonight we had a deliciously spicy, oh so tender, beef ribs from the Instant Pot. I used this recipe: http://foodyschmoodyblog.com/instant-pot-country-style-ribs/

We used a Chophouse spice mix from the Pepper Palace. We bought that on our California trip forever ago. I had forgotten how yummy it is. I even mixed my meat with my potatoes! I will definitely be making this again. The Instant Pot has been getting more use, since it’s ridiculously hot.

One Instant Pot recipe that I was very disappointed in was a Moroccan Lentil Soup from I heart vegetables. It was so bad that I’m not even going to link the recipe. Also, it won’t let me link it for some reason, so it worked out. It was so watery and bland. I felt like I was just eating water with some weirdly cooked lentils in it. Blech. Even adding more spices at the end didn’t help and I ended up wasting a lot of it. I accidentally added carrots and celery and even that didn’t help. We had extra basmati rice from the pork that the boys ate that night, so I added those on the bottom.

I will not be making this again, although I would like to find a good lentil IP recipe.

Luckily, I redeemed the lentils by making IP Korean beef from Damn Delicious. Recipe is here, although I’ve probably shared the recipe several times. We have it about once a month because it’s that good. https://damndelicious.net/2018/02/21/instant-pot-korean-beef/

I made a fruit monster salad too! Basically any fruit in my house gets tossed together. I love summer.

We had lava cakes again, although I made them in the oven this time. It makes 3 tiny cakes, so the perfect size for our dessert. Really, you can’t go wrong with ooey gooey chocolate. Mmmmm…

I have made a couple of fun breakfasts. I used rhubarb from the garden for this rhubarb pecan bread. It’s good, but needs a little more flavor.

We’ve eaten a couple of fun fried dinners. I made chicken tenders with my own recipe. Penzey’s Cajun seasoning in the flour/panko mix breading and salt and pepper in the flour step. 3 step dredge and fry. Baked frozen fries and some fruit as well. They turned out pretty good. My brother looked at me with big eyes when I asked him how many chicken tenders he would want and said “ALL OF THEM.” He had visions of a fried chicken sandwich the next day for lunch. 🙂

Before my brother was here, we tried tempura fried shrimp and veggies, from Jet Tila’s cookbook.

The dipping sauce I had was just some sweet chili sauce. It was fun to try and pretty good. Pretty messy though! I especially enjoyed the zucchini. The Husband liked the shrimp and mushrooms, but spurned the other veggies, of course. We would make this again! It wasn’t as scary as I thought it might be and fun to have a different sort of dinner.

The Brother doesn’t eat a lot of dairy, so we had chicken sausage pasta. It was good, as usual. The sauce wasn’t as thick as it normally is. I used our last jar of homemade garlic pasta sauce. I’m waiting for tomato canning season to start so I can make more sauce. Hopefully make all the jams I didn’t finish last year too. This year, I will pick cooler weekends though. Our air conditioning is super cranky and old.

We had a veggie filled beef stir fry too. No recipe, just threw together everything until it looked good. I cheated and used hoisin in the sauce, so it had a good flavor.

We’ve been craving comfort foods lately, so the Husband requested a pot roast. It turned out very tender and yummy. I used basil and some seasoned salt along with the pepper and Wochestshire sauce.

I tried to make puff pastry, but ended up kneading it too much in the food processor and ended up with the flakiest pie crust ever.

We used it for chicken pies. They were yummy and now I know the secret for super flaky pie crust. Hint- it’s tons of butter. 😉

I think a good buttery recipe is a good way to end this post, so I hope I made you hungry! As Penzey’s says “Love people, cook them tasty food!”

Recipe Roundup

All The Food!

LSiehLeave a comment

Sometimes looking back at my food pictures makes me hungry again. 😁 The Husband starts traveling for work shortly, so you might see a few more vegetarian meals and thinks like barley and lentils. I thought I might be lonely, but Piggy is turning out to be goofy and so lovable that I might be less lonely than I think. She came with me to a new and beautiful park today for my outdoor staff meeting and charmed everyone. She mostly snoozed after saying hello.

We don’t think she has had much people food. She doesn’t even seem to get excited about peanut butter! That’s fine with me, it’ll be more peanut butter for me! I haven’t made any blog worthy pb recipes lately though. I’ll have to work on that.

Tonight’s chicken dish was good. I made tequila lime chicken with cilantro rice. We had chips and salsa on the side.

I made chocolate chip pecan muffins for breakfast that were pretty yummy. They were just my standard recipe with add ins.

Instant Pot Korean beef made an appearance. It’s super quick and delicious, so works well for work nights.

We had steak and potatoes on a sheet pan as well. I don’t remember where I got the recipe though. We used round steaks.

We needed some quick and easy comfort food one night after both of us were missing Fancy, so I made delicious caramel apple waffles with homemade caramel and whipped cream. Mmm… I made everyone jealous at work when I brought them for lunch the next day. I also cannot find this recipe, but you can use your favorite waffle recipe and store bought caramel for easier waffles. I just peeled and cooked down three or four apples with butter, cinnamon, and sugar.

On one of our nicer days, we grilled these chicken tenderloins and had them with a Mexican rice side and fresh pico. They were yummy!

And last, but not least, pasta salad with transportation shaped noodles. Hey now, I know what you’re thinking, but adults need whimsy and fun noodle shapes too! 😁

We’re trying to get back in the habit of meal planning again. Our days have been messed up, so we have taken our 3 month dive into on the fly dinners again, but it’s not super relaxing, so are trying to get structure back. I took all next week off from work, so am going to try to experiment with some new dishes. I may also can or bake, but we’ll see how lazy I feel.

I’m headed off to bed. I do have a new recipe to write up, but got a little too much sun today resulting in heat hives, so am super sleepy from the allergy meds. I think you probably want the recipe to actually make sense. 😬 So have a lovely night!