Adventures · Wordless Wednesdays

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday- Vacation Ice Cream

I forgot to write down where we had our ice cream from on our out East trip in September, so you’ll just get the pictures and if I can remember, the flavors and places. We had a couple more too that I didn’t get pictures of. Not quite every day, but close to it at least!

Pizzi Farm was a really cute local place close to our motel by Boston. They had a Cowch, as well as good ice cream. They were super busy, but had lots of room and a really fun variety of people for people watching. I had a flavor with Bailey’s and Kaluha and the Husband had a caramel brownie one, I think? https://www.pizzifarm.com/

It was a miserable dribble for our first night in Bar Harbor and this ice cream was not as good and didn’t have much variety, so I have blissfully forgotten the name of the place. It was a touristy place on the main street though. Sadly, they didn’t even have waffle cones! The Husband got a cookies and cream flavor and I had a kalua flavor.

This was the second night in Bar Harbor and the ice cream parlor we chose that day was a much better choice! I have forgotten the name, but it might have been Mt Desert Ice Cream because I think I remember the name of the street being Firefly Lane. I had a black raspberry that was delicious and The Husband had a double chocolate. https://www.mdiic.com/

The Husband had a salted caramel and a chocolate combined, I believe. I had a blueberry crumble and coconut combined one. This one was from Gelato Fiasco, which yes, we went to because of the name. It did turn out to be excellent gelato though. https://www.gelatofiasco.com/

We did have ice cream a few more times, but I didn’t get a picture. Hope these pictures made you hungry at least!

Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

I think I’m sort of back in a cooking routine again. It’s been weird being home, but still working. I lose track of how much time I need to actually make things before having to retreat to the basement to start my telehealth sessions. I think I’ve managed to get out of my cooking rut at least. I made homemade puff pastry to top a steak and mushroom pie for Pi Day, for example!

I was impressed with myself! This is even the cheater version and it still has super flaky layers and loveliness.

I’m spoiled now and plus, I have all this butter… I see more puff pastry in my future. The puff pastry recipe is here: https://www.homecookingadventure.com/recipes/rough-puff-pastry

We used the Instant Pot to cook the filling! I left out the bacon as we had none thawed and surprisingly, the Husband liked it without it! He said to leave it out next time too. Apparently, there should be several next times for this meal. 🙂 The steak and mushroom pie recipe is here: https://www.jocooks.com/recipes/steak-and-mushroom-pie/

We also had baked chicken thighs with a spicy rub. The Husband had a salad and rice and I had buttered, herbed brussel sprouts.

An old favorite made an appearance, spaghetti! This one was cooked on the stove. This time I used two cans of tomatoes and two cans of sauce and that seems to be the perfect stove top method for us. We like it a little more saucy.

We, of course, had lasagna, after the spaghetti. I used my favorite french bread recipe to make herbed bread. Don’t tell the Husband, but I used the Sandwich Sprinkle in the batter and it was lovely.

I made Chicken Bacon Ranch pasta with the leftover from the chicken dinner. It was a fun recipe to try. I wasn’t sure how I would like the combo of spices, but it was fun. I made my own ranch dressing spice mix. The Husband is interested to try homemade ranch with the spice mix soon too. We would probably eat this again.

The recipe is here: https://thetoastykitchen.com/chicken-bacon-ranch-pasta/

Another fun recipe that I have had on my list to try for a while is Shrimp Hushpuppies from Tasty Kitchen. Since we had some extra time this week, I whipped up a batch.

They were pretty good and a fun recipe to try. We were thinking of other things to try in the batter. They reminded me a little of the corn fritters that my Mom used to make. Here’s the link: https://tastykitchen.com/recipes/appetizers-and-snacks/shrimp-hushpuppies/

These were the other pies we had on Pi day! We used this recipe to make apple turnovers. https://anitalianinmykitchen.com/apple-pie-breakfast-turnovers/

They were yummy! My inlaws helped the Husband move a server cage into our house, which at one point involved taking off the doors so the Husband could stand in the middle of it to get it down the stairs. Fancy tried to rescue him when it ended up hitting his shins. It was a circus, but the turnovers helped make up for it.

To finish off on an even sweeter note, here’s the latest homemade ice cream experiment. When we cleaned the freezer, we discovered a sad looking bowl of strawberries that were obviously in need of rescue. Since they didn’t look like they would be good to eat, we made ice cream instead! It was delicious and made with no eggs!

We needed a chocolate sauce, so I made a chocolate ganache and we ate it over Ghirardelli brownies the next couple of nights. It was amazing with both! Here’s the recipe: https://theculinarychase.com/2012/06/easy-homemade-strawberry-ice-cream/

Yum! I’ve made a few more fun things, including some new treats for Fancy, but those will be in a later post, as I don’t have the pictures yet. I hope you’re finding time to experiment with fun foods and things to do! Stay healthy!

Recipe Roundup

The Spice Must Flow

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!

Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

I did a little better on pictures this week. We had my in-laws over Mother’s Day dinner and served crock pot stroganoff over homemade fettuccine noodles, roasted carrots, and homemade ice cream. I cannot find my recipe though…

It was deliciously tender and tasted very good. The pasta was giving me trouble by sticking together, but it worked out okay in the end.

I used the no cook ice cream recipe and it was good, but I do like the cooked one better. I also made a homemade ganache for a topper.

We also had a thrown together pasta and shrimp dish with the leftover pasta. I sautéed bok choi, green onions, and striped peppers together with garlic and olive oil. It was pretty good. No recipe, I just put things in a pan. 🙂

The Husband had pork with an extra bit of hoisin sauce in them. He enjoyed them.

I made Butternut Squash and Amaretti Mezzluna, from Luca Manafee’s In My Italian Kitchen for my crafting lunch with my sewing buddy. No pictures because I was super sick and couldn’t look at a screen to save my life. I think I’m having vertigo, but haven’t been able to get to the doctor. Friday was the worst day so far.

The pasta was good though. I have to make up the rest of it for the freezer. I used canned pumpkin instead of the squash and greek yogurt instead of ricotta, as there was no way I was driving anywhere.  Also, dried herbs instead of fresh.

For a breakfast experiment, I made Peanut Butter Banana Muffins from Kraft Recipes. 

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/peanut-butter-banana-muffins-133277.

I added dark chocolate chips too. It was a nice treat.

Dinner last night was nachos with homemade pico. I was still feeling sick and loopy. These were a quick way to still eat something.

I haven’t done meal planning yet for next week. We’re having sandwiches one night and something with extra chicken. We have friends coming for dinner tomorrow and are having roast chicken, potatoes, and carrots. Not sure on dessert yet, but it might be ice cream. 🙂

Fancy was suspicious today when we got home. We smelled like other dogs! We had gone to visit her rescue at the Zoo adoption event and donated the toys she tried to steal and keep for herself. There was one male dog who looked almost exactly like her and who almost came home with us. He did the dancing paws and the sad eye looks and we had a very difficult time walking away. Right now is not the time for another dog though, so we left, hoping he got a good home.

It was fun to see the rescue volunteers. Some of them remembered Fancy and so we got to show off pictures. They were happy to see the toys, as somehow they had got forgotten. The dogs were certainly happy with them.

Fancy is currently curled up next to me napping. It’s a sad, rainy kind of day. I’m planning on doing some sewing and some cooking. I hope you’re having a relaxing weekend.

Wordless Wednesdays

Thoughtful Thursday- Ice Cream Edition

The featured picture is the good luck ice cream for the wedding, gelato from a local place near the wedding. 🙂 The Husband had Salted Caramel and I had Italian chocolate chip.

So the ice cream shop- Fenton’s, featured in the last scene in “Up” was in Oakland and we, of course, had to go.

Cookie dough for the husband.

Chocolate pb crunch for me.

Enormous banana split for the SIL’s friends. I snuck some of the strawberry ice cream and it was yummy! My inlaws had mint chip and strawberry milkshake. The SIL’s boyfriend had a strawberry banana milkshake. They were all really good. 🙂

Stay tuned tomorrow for a post about tea!

Life Posts · Recipe Roundup

Travel Food

I am a newer social media convert and still think it’s still silly to take pictures of restaurant food, but the desserts I’ve had have been so delicious and adorable, that I tried to get over it. 🙂

On our Disneyland day, we were lucky enough to attend the California Adventure Food and Wine Festival and it was so much fun.

We fell on the food like starving beasts though, so I didn’t get pictures. We also had some friends of my sister-in-law with us too and I didn’t want to be weird. I should probably work on that…

We tried to have something from every booth, but missed a couple. My inlaws had wine, but I was too thirsty for that.

Here’s a list:

– Korean BBQ beef short rib tacos from LA Style, which were delicious! I think they had pickled cabbage on top.  The meat was so tender!

– White Cheddar Lager Soup in a Sourdough Boule from California Craft Brews. I didn’t eat this, but apparently it was good. The Husband didn’t enjoy it, too much beer flavor.

–  Jalapeño Popper Mac and Cheese, Sustainable Salmon Peruvian Poke with Cucumbers and Salsa, Lime Margarita with Jalapeño Garnish from Peppers Cali-Ente.

The drink was not the greatest and not worth the price. 🙁 The poke was delicious, according to the inlaws, and the mac and cheese was lovely and creamy. It had bacon!

– Sparkling Wine Tropical float from California Uncorked. This was interesting, but also kind of weird. My sister in law thought it was too sugary. My MIL got the wine flight too.

– Strawberry Pineapple Float with Strawberry Popping Pearls from Strawberry Patch. This was very refreshing drink. It didn’t taste heavy at all. I was surprised that I liked the pearls, but they had a little extra strawberry juice in them. My SIL and the Husband also liked it too.

– Crispy Orange Chicken & Rice with a Garlic Cracker and the world’s biggest Meyer Lemon Macaron from Citrus Grove. Seriously, this cookie was about 4-5 inches across and had raspberry jam in the middle as an extra surprise!

– Grilled and Chilled Artichoke Hearts with Romesco, and Fried Artichoke Carbonara from I ❤️Artichokes.  These were both good. The carbonara gave me heartburn. I think it might be time to admit that bacon and I are not friends… I had it tonight again and it gave me some trouble.

– Salt and Beer Vinegar Parmesan Chicken Wings from Cluck-a-doodle-moo. I didn’t eat these, but was told they were very good.

– Shrimp Boil Tacos with Andouille and Caramel Corn Crispy Treat from Off the Cob. The crispy treat was not satisfying. It was a little too bland for me. I didn’t think and ate the tacos, so the andouille may have contributed to the heartburn. They were good though.

– Creamy Mac and Cheese with Garlic Bread Crumble and a Black Garlic Soy Braised Pork Belly Banh Mi. I liked the jalapeño popper mac and cheese better. This one wasn’t as creamy. I looked on sadly while other people got to devour the banh mi. It smelled amazing and was delicious according to everyone else.

I also got these cute macarons from Kayla’s Cakes. 

I picked six flavors to try. The unicorn was vanilla, the grey starry one was salted caramel.

I also got an oreo cheesecake one, raspberry, peach Bellini, and of course, Belgian chocolate. So far they have all been delicious. I’ve been eating them for breakfast. 🙂 We also had ice cream, but I don’t have that picture yet. 🙂

Today it was raining and gross while we explored San Francisco, so we stopped for an ice cream break at Ghirardelli Square.

I had the small one in front- Muir Woods Black Cherry sundae, the Husband and MIL had the Ocean Salted Caramel sundaes, and my FIL had a Salted Caramel Shake.

My goal is to eat ice cream as often as possible. We have a gelato place picked out tomorrow already. 🙂

Our dogsitter told us Fancy is being very good and is a fantastic snuggler, so although we are missing her, she is well taken care of. We also have a dog place picked out and will probably being home treats. 🙂

Tomorrow is a big day, so I should probably head to bed. Have a great weekend!

Crafty · Life Posts · Recipe Roundup · Sewing

Recipes and Adventures!

I only made two new recipes last week and then we went on an adventure! I did help make a new ice cream recipe on our adventure, but our friends did the cooking, which was so nice.

I have one picture of the three recipes I made before we left. I redeemed myself from the chicken potpie that we don’t speak about, using leftovers from a roasted chicken.

The chicken recipe was from The Family Recipe Keeper. We had roasted potatoes from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. I threw some carrots in with the chicken.

Here’s the potpie and Fancy, being so jealous.

We also had Meatball Marsala, from one of the Food Network magazines. I’ve misplaced it, but when I find it, I’ll post the edition number. It was good. I made fancy mashed red potatoes to go with it. It wasn’t a very pretty looking dish though.

Fancy was very concerned that we were leaving her behind and started laying on our bags or sticking like glue to one or the other of us. She also didn’t let me finish the quilt I needed for this weekend.

I ended up attempting to car quilt, which just made me a little car sick and then finally finished it while everyone else was napping.

I believe it’s a split 9 patch from Bonnie Hunter, but set on point instead of regular. The pattern has something funny with it, but still looks okay. Baby S loved it and spent at least a half an hour rolling around in it. This is what happened when I first attempted pictures.

Fancy loved her time with the tiny human and was so concerned about him that she spent the whole weekend following him around and whining when he cried.

She was very gentle with him, although she did try to chew on almost all of his toys. She shared hers, for the most part, but did very nicely take the ball back from him when he grabbed it. She was a spoiled dog and got a tennis ball of her very own, but chewed some holes in it instead of playing nice.

K made some lovely baby and dog friendly treats and S didn’t like them cold, so he shared them all with Fancy. She quickly learned that his highchair  meant delicious dropped things from up above.

The Husband and I ate very well too. There was beef stew waiting fir us when we arrived. We had homemade butternut squash ravioli and beef and parm ravioli for lunch.

The squash were cooked in butter and sage and the beef had a homemade golden marinara sauce over it. Mmmmm…. K gave me  ravioli maker to play with, so I might be making some pasta on Friday.

We had the traditional dinner of corned beef and cabbage, with roasted veggies and carrots. Traditional soda bread too. It was all delicious!

We made Irish Whiskey Salted Caramel ice cream for dessert. One of the coolest things about K and A is that they have chickens and ducks! We got to use extremely fresh eggs for the ice cream. Guess which egg yolk is a duck egg yolk…

The ice cream was a little soft and a lot boozy! It was delicious though. Had it been harder, we probably would have made ice cream sandwiches with the giant homemade cookies that were made for the Husband. 🙂

I think we used a Pioneer Woman recipe for the Caramel sauce.

We had a great time and it was fun to meet the baby. He definitely helped wear Fancy out. She slept for most of yesterday.

Now she’s out basking in the sun. If we would let, her, she would probably stay there all day. 🙂 Hope your day is as sunny as her day!

Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

We’re dogless for the night. It’s weird without having dog trying to eat our food and giving us sad sighs when we won’t share the chocolate ice cream. She is having a trial run with our friend who will be watching her on future vacations. Apparently, she is doing very well and has stopped trying to make the cat play with her.

Yes, I did make a second batch of the chocolate version of my favorite ice cream. And even better, I remembered to put the custard base in the fridge! Whoa. The Husband was very impressed.

I chopped up some Oreos for something different. Apparently, I hold the “Best Wife” title for the idea. It was good. Slightly eggy, but so smooth and creamy! I’m definitely going to make more in other flavors. The Husband has requested strawberry next.

We had a delicious pasta dish tonight, Rigatoni with Sausage and Fennel by Ina Garten from Food Network Magazine, Jan/Feb 2018. 

The tomato paste made it turn Kraft dinner orange. It was a little weird, but delicious. We’ll make it again. The fennel was quite mild.

I made Steak Soup from Plain Chicken for Wednesday. http://www.plainchicken.com/2015/11/slow-cooker-steak-soup.html?m=1

It was my long day, so the Husband normally gets a slow cooker meal, pork, or leftovers. He said it was good. I forgot to have him take pictures though and didn’t eat any yet myself. I added carrots.

I also left Asian spiced chicken thighs and drumsticks for dinner one night and that was tasty! I used boneless, skinless packs from Costco. Still no pictures though. 🙁

We had kind of an international week this week, food wise. Asian chicken, Italian pasta, and these beef meatpies that were  recipe from the first preschool I worked at. We had an international week there and got to try all sorts of foods and had a cookbook of sorts at the end.

I used the french bread dough, instead of pizza dough. They have ground beef, curry powder, and onions in them. The recipe is pretty simple, so I’ll share it. You can use whatever type of bread dough you’d like.

Meat Pies

Filling:

1 lb ground beef

2 large onions (I only used one medium, 2 would have been way too much)

1 T curry powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Pizza dough, or bread dough

Directions: 

Cook beef for 10-12 minutes. Add onions to beef, add salt/pepper and curry powder. Cook for an additional 15 minutes, or until onions and beef are done. Set aside to cool completely (I totally ignored this step.) Divide dough into 1 1/2 – 2 inch balls. Roll dough balls into 3-4 inch circles. Fill center of circles with one full tablespoon beef mixture. Fold into half circles. Seal edges with water or egg wash. Bake until golden brown. (I baked them at 400 for about 20-25 minutes, I think.)

Apparently they freeze well, but we scarfed them all too fast to check on that. The Husband was nervous about the currry. He thinks he doesn’t like it, but his favorite dish has lots of curry powder, so I generally ignore that.

Two batches of this french bread dough were made this week. The second was made when we were talking about ordering pizza and I realized that we had all the things we would be ordering on pizza. Plus, my first person of the day cancelled. I had some extra time at home.

So I made ham, mushroom, and onion pizza. It had a big fluffy crust and was delicious. There’s something very satisfying about making bread. This dough sat in the fridge while I was at work and turned out perfectly. It’s the featured picture today because it made me happy. 🙂

I think we’re getting back to the swing of things fairly well. We are going to be visiting some friends next week, so our meals will be smaller, but I’m hoping to make some good ones. One of the other ladies in my supervision group is getting her full license, so will only have one more group. I’m going to make her cookies! We also have enough ingredients to make one more batch of ice cream too.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a nice glass of wine to finish, on our dog free night. There’s also a quilt waiting for me to pin it, but that will probably get done in the morning.

The glass says “Infoxicated.” Have a good night!

 

 

Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

Mmm…crepes. They weren’t as good as my friend, Steph’s, but they were still delicious. She spent a year in Switzerland and learned how to make perfect ones there. I’m still learning. 🙂

My usual goal of 2-3 new recipes was definitely met this week. I surprised myself a little with how many I made.

I also made a second batch of the Pinch My Salt cinnamon ice cream, but this time, left it just vanilla. It was still so creamy and delicious. My plans for today include making another batch, but adding cocoa powder to make it chocolate.

So for new recipes, I used 3 online ones this week and one from a cookbook. Two were from Pinterest, one from a sewing blog, oddly enough. I’ll start with the one I have no pictures of. It wasn’t the prettiest of dishes anyway, so it’s probably okay.

It was Creamy Slow Cooker Portobello Chicken from Cutefetti.com. https://cutefetti.com/2015/04/portobella-mushroom-chicken-slow-cooker-recipe.html 

It needed more mushrooms, but I hadn’t had time to get more, so only had half. I also got nervous and added some water to the slow cooker and didn’t really need too. It was alright, not the best thing I had ever eaten, but not something I will probably make again either. The Husband agreed.

The next recipe was a hit. It was Spicy Beef Tortellini Soup, from The Slow Cooker Gourmet. https://slowcookergourmet.net/slow-cooker-spicy-beef-tortellini-soup/

The Husband thought it had a kick, but I didn’t really find it. There’s a chance I’m turning into a chili head without realizing it. It was a nice meal on a cold day. The stew meat was mostly frozen when I added it in, but it got so tender by the end that it just fell apart. I used my frozen tomatoes too. The Husband doesn’t like the skins on the tomatoes, so next time I use them, I’ll have to pull those first. He did like the soup though. I’ll keep this one in the soup rotation.

We also tried Salt and Pepper Chicken from Sew Petite Gal. http://sewpetitegal.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2014-08-17T12:38:00-07:00&max-results=2&start=32&by-date=false

While it felt a little weird to make a cooking recipe from a sewing site, it was a good recipe. The chicken was coated in cornstarch before being fried, so it was a new technique for me. It was also double fried.

We had it over rice and I added a bunch of veggies to it. It needs a sauce, I think. I’m pretty sure it’s meant more as a snack, rather than a meal, but it was easy enough to make a bigger amount and add veggies. It tasted good and wasn’t greasy, like I feared it might be. I’ll keep this and start experimenting with it. The Husband liked it and is requesting more fried foods.

The recipe we used from a cookbook was from Good Housekeeping, section: The Story of Meats. We had bacon wrapped burgers with sautéed mushrooms and onions.

We the Husband cut the onions and mushrooms and did an excellent job. You can just see Fancy’s feet in the corner, she was very jealous and grumbled and whined throughout the entire meal. We ignored her, but did laugh a little first.

We had a couple of leftover meals this week, so this was pretty much all we ate. It’s nice to have leftovers. I had intended on making longevity noodles yesterday to celebrate, but was sick with nasty migraine, so we ended up having the beef soup again instead. We have a shopping trip to the Chinese market today to get party foods, so we’ll probably have the noodles tonight.

I never got Fancy’s new collar made, as I kept forgetting to get the last part I needed. If I’m honest, my organizing work in my fabric this week has made me realize I can’t be trusted at fabric stores when upset, or when in a shopping mood, so I never went back to get it. I might have something that will work downstairs though, so I’ll look. She may just get a pretty bow to wear with her party harness. Either way, she will be thrilled to see everyone.

Stay tuned for party pictures on Monday and quotes tomorrow!