Tag: new recipes

Recipe Roundup

Forgotten Food!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

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We seem to have gotten some of our food mojo back and I’m remembering to make simpler things for my longer days. We’ve had a couple of take out meals too.

I’ve even made fancy breakfasts! We had homemade hash browns, bacon, eggs, and homemade cinnamon bread from the farm store. We learned two things after this meal. 1- Bacon might be out for me. I felt super sick later that day. 2- Don’t put the frosted bread in the toaster oven without a tray otherwise it will catch on fire… The breakfast was still tasty though.

Technically, I think I ate these ableskiver for dinner, but they are breakfast food. I didn’t try to fill them this time and used fresh buttermilk and they were much better than my last attempt. The jam is plum cardamom.

These muffins got a little more brown than I expected, but they weren’t over baked. I used this recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction. https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/banana-muffins/comment-page-8/

I subbed some of the flour for pumpkin seed protein powder and added mini chocolate chips and sliced almonds. I would make them again.

I made myself an oat smoothie bowl too, but it doesn’t look very photogenic, so I won’t share it. It was pretty good though and included frozen and fresh berries, ground oats, pumpkin seed protein powder, and yogurt. Probably a little of whatever juice we had in the fridge too.

We had some fancy desserts. This one sounded like it might be ok, but it turned out to be not as pleasant as I thought it should be. It’s a 2 ingredient chocolate mousse pudding. You don’t really even need a recipe, as you just replace the milk called for in the instant pudding recipe with heavy cream and go from there.

It felt kind of greasy and was super rich. I don’t think I’d make this again. The Husband didn’t like it either.

We just had Oreo pudding, which was much better.

We of course, had fancy pies for Pi Day. I made quiche in the morning, apple hand pies for lunch, Chicken Cottage Pie, and Oreo Pudding pie for dinner.

Here are the links:

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/quiche-recipe/

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/apple-hand-pies/

https://thehealthyfoodie.com/chicken-cottage-pie/

I can’t find the exact recipe I used for the Oreo pie, but this one, also from Sally’s Baking Addiction looks similar. https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/cookies-cream-pie/

We had turkey Italian Sausage pasta one night for a quick dinner.

These were accidentally super spicy beef enchiladas. No recipe, I just cooked the beef with onions, salsa, and garlic, added some store enchilada sauce, wrapped them up and baked them for about 20 minutes.

Apparently the chili powder I used is very hot, plus the enchilada sauce was medium hot, and the salsa was our Fire Roasted salsa, which we hadn’t tried yet. 😳 Lots of liquids were consumed and we both had ice cream for dessert. Take it from me, always taste your salsa!

Now that I’ve made myself hungry again, some salsa sounds good. I think I’ll go sample some more!

Cozy Food
Recipe Roundup

Cozy Food

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We had a couple of really nice fall days and then a bunch of weird warm days. It’s currently raining sideways and so windy outside that I was considering taking down my porch spinners as I thought they were just obnoxiously loud. But then the sideways rain started. Raking leaves tomorrow may not happen after all. I’m terribly upset about that, as you may imagine. 🙂

So with the cooler weather, we’ve had cozy food lately. I ended up making more Hobbit themed food after the party. These are British Chicken and Mushroom mini pies from The Petite Cook. https://thepetitecook.com/traditional-british-mini-chicken-mushroom-pie/

They were yummy! I would make them again. The Husband liked them too, but I did snag him with my chicken potpie, so it’s not surprising. 🙂

I had a lovely afternoon tea for a lunch during a week long virtual training. It was so fancy! I had egg salad, cucumber sandwiches, a pear muffin, and strawberries and cream. It was a nice meal!

We also had tortilla rollups, which are not exactly Hobbit food, but are a good party bite.

We haven’t had this Sausage Tortellini soup in a while. It’s from Our Best Bites. I didn’t use the recipe this time, but I’ll post it for you. https://ourbestbites.com/tortellini-sausage-soup/. It was good! We used turkey Italian Sausage instead of pork and I had no zucchini. It sounds weird, but don’t leave out the apple juice. We did once and it was not good.

We have had breakfast for dinner again as well, this time with a scrambled egg thing with ham and potatoes and pancakes. I have finally admitted that I do not enjoy cheese in scrambled eggs. It makes them slimy. So I baked mine in the oven for a little bit, since it was keeping the pancakes warm anyway. The Husband will get his own cheesy egg pan from now on.

We did cook together one Friday too! The Husband seared pork chops and I made mac and cheese with veggies. I put the panko in melted butter before putting it on the mac and cheese and they got nice and brown. They were both good!

This is a green chili chicken leftover wrapped in homemade crescent dough. I used our homemade salsa verde and it was super spicy! It definitely opened our sinuses right up.

We’ve used the crescent dough a couple of times recently. I really wanted little pigs in blankets, so made it again after the party. We paired them with a nice salad, since we’re grownups and all that. 🙂

These are a few breakfast things I have made. The Danish were made with the leftover crescent dough from the piggies. I used peach amaretto jam from a local orchard and cream cheese.

These are banana breakfast bars. https://www.crazyforcrust.com/banana-breakfast-bars/. I’ve made them a few times and they are good. Piggy also got pb oat banana treats as well, but they are in the freezer. She jumps for treats and it’s super good at not getting fingers as well as treats, so no pictures. She likes them a lot though and will drool if you have them out.

We had corned beef and corned beef hash with the leftovers. Both were yummy. I did have a minute of laughing when it wouldn’t fit in the crockpot and I had to try to cut it down while in a hurry to get to work. It worked out though!

Burgers made an appearance too. The buns got a little overly toasty, but they were tasty otherwise.

I’ll leave you with a picture of butter and herbed garden rainbow carrots! They were delicious, but the husband felt they were too weird. He said “I didn’t even know carrots came in other colors until I met you!” He’s strange, but I think I’ll still keep him.

Wordless Wednesday- What We Ate Catch-up
Recipe Roundup · Wordless Wednesdays

Wordless Wednesday- What We Ate Catch-up

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Chocolate chip pecan banana bread

Chicken Divan

Beef Quesadillas and salad

Chicken/Turkey burger with mushrooms, cheese, and onions

Pot roast with noodles, carrots, and potatoes.

“The Best Mac and Cheese!” -According to the Husband. I used marscapone.

Blueberry muffins

PB Molten Lava Cake in the Instant pot.

Recipe Roundup

Cooking Adventures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I like them even better with homemade dilly beans!

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

This has pesto in it as well!

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

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

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

Happy Snuggling and Good Night!

Recipe Roundup · Simple Sundays

Show And Tell Sunday

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Apparently a stomach bug is going round and the Husband and I both got it. I had a milder version than him, but we both had some icky days. We had to cancel our Harry Potter party, which was sad, since we had food all ready and everything is decorated. It was better to be safe than give anyone else stomach issues though, so cancelled. The Husband has two plays coming up in December and January, but we’re hoping to be able to reschedule. I thought I would show you the party foods I made and some other delicious meals.

These are the green tomato mincemeat tarts and the Cornish Currant Cake. They were both delicious.

The Currant Cake was originally going to be Cousin Jack cookies, but the batter was super weird and I got nervous.

So I did what any other self respecting Midwestern housewife would do- I called Mom in a panic. 🙂 She suggested putting it in a glass pan and treating it like a bar cookie. It worked out very well!

The tarts were especially good with whipped cream. I was surprised at how much I liked the mincemeat. It had a hint of vinegar still, but was sweet and gooey. I would make it again.

We also had pumpkin banana bread. I used the Pioneer Woman recipe: https://thepioneerwoman.com/food-and-friends/pumpkin-banana-bread/

It was very good and a hit at work. The Husband’s coworkers also liked it. We decided not to make too much more food, but I did make turkey pinwheel rollups for dinner this week. I was hosting my craft group this week, so didn’t get a picture of them, but they were pretty good and originally for the party.

Since we were sick, we had some soup, french onion and some buttermilk biscuits from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

A favorite: Chicken Divan was also enjoyed.

Brinner is one of my favorite dinners when I don’t know what to cook, but the Husband isn’t terribly fond of it, so we don’t have it often. I call this one “Take that Ihop!” Cheesy scrambled eggs, buttermilk pancakes with macerated strawberries, and chicken sage sausages. And whipped cream, of course! The pancakes were from the Better Homes book as well.

Another quick dinner was Loaded Baked Potatoes. I forgot how good they are, so we’ll definitely be making them again. The Husband cooked his own potato and skipped the broccoli.

We had two poblano peppers from the garden, so I used them to make beef fajitas, along with a garden purple pepper. I’m planning on growing some next year too. The tortillas are homemade, so are rustic looking. 😉

We had a fun day making peirogi with K and J and we got to take a bunch home. So of course, we had to try them! These are with a cheddar chicken sausage and fried in butter and olive oil.

We have a new favorite fried chicken recipe from this website: https://blog.sweetopia.me/2019/05/how-to-make-buttermilk-chicken-tenders.html

I seasoned the waffle fries with Sandwich Sprinkle. The Husband just shook his head at me, but did admit they were delicious.

And for the last item, we have delicious popovers with plum cardamom jam. They were delicious!

I’m planning to make a couple of the party foods for just regular day foods. Who says Tuesday isn’t an occasion befitting a chocolate dragon shaped bundt cake? 🙂

For now though, dinner awaits. Have a great week!

Gardening Meals!
Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Gardening Meals!

LSiehLeave a comment

I love having a garden! I inherited some of that from both Grandpas and it was encouraged and fostered by my Mom. My Grandpa Ollie was a missionary Papua New Guinea who helped with agriculture. My Grandpa Ed was a fabulous gardener and I remember seeing his garden as a kid. I have very fond memories of gardening with Mom in the summer. Mmm… tomatoes fresh from the garden, pea pods off the vine, crunchy carrots, and raspberries! Now I have both garden plants and some very pretty flowers that I do absolutely nothing with. It’s a nice balance. The featured picture is our hydrangeas by our front door.

I have started to get some produce from the garden! I was getting worried, but went out to check and found some cherry tomatoes! I also have peppers to use in pico.

We’re talking about putting in another garden bed for next year, which I think will house the things with vines. I’ve gotten only two tiny baby zucchini this year from my plant. It doesn’t like being in a pot apparently.

Speaking of baby zukes, I had both of them sautéed in olive oil with some Sandwich Sprinkle with the rest of my garden haul tonight for dinner. We also had steak and mashed redskin potatoes.

It was delicious! I could have cooked the steak a tiny bit less, but I was distracted by apple recipes. I suddenly have a surplus, which will be turned into crockpot applesauce tomorrow.

I have officially used the Sandwich Sprinkle on a sandwich! I’ll give you a minute to absorb that information. 🙂 I even took a picture of it to prove it. It did add a bit of zing to the sandwich. I definitely need a bigger jar of it though!

I had fruit salad along with it. I’m a fruit monster in the summer and wanted all the fruit!

We had pizzas made with fancy things too. I used a pizza dough recipe that didn’t require a long rise time from The Kitchn. https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-pizza-dough-recipe-221367

It did rise for a couple of hours at least. The Husband had mushroom and ham with fresh mozzarella. I had a lovely Margherita Pizza with fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, and fresh mozzarella. The recipe was also from The Kitchn. https://www.thekitchn.com/easy-recipe-classic-margherita-pizza-recipes-from-the-kitchn-174103

They were both lovely! The crust for mine was baked on an upside down cookie sheet, which made it super crunchy. The Husband’s was also nice and crispy, but I used the pizza stone instead.

Here’s some pictures of the rest of the garden as well. Herbs, tomatoes, radishes, and carrots.

Oh! We have strawberries!

I’m excitedly waiting for them to turn red so we can get them before the squirrels! We don’t always have good luck with that. Things are growing pretty well. I have to re-stake some tomato plants. They’re falling over with the weight of the tomatoes. Next year, I will get some cages and will hopefully be better prepared.

For now though, I will leave you with this very relaxing picture of Fancy. I hope your night is as lovely as her nap was. Good night!

Recipe Review and Cookbook Spotlight
Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Review and Cookbook Spotlight

LSiehLeave a comment

Hello! I have a new cookbook to feature along with some recipes for this post!

I used Michael Symon’s cookbook 5 In 5 a lot in the past couple of weeks with great success!

It has a lot of different sections, including desserts! The recipes are easy to use and pretty much all have only five ingredients. There’s a section at the front of the book that details flavor profiles for different proteins. The pictures are very clear and bright and look very enticing.

The only thing I noticed that can be confusing is that sometimes things like water, or salt and pepper, are only included in the recipe itself instead of the ingredient list.

The first section we used was the “Pasta” section. We had the Spaghetti With Olive Oil, Garlic, and Red Pepper Flakes. We ate it as a side with a marinated turkey breast from the store.

It was pretty spicy! I wouldn’t make it as a full dinner, but it worked well for a side. The turkey looked oddly like salmon, but tasted okay.

We also used a kebab recipe from the “On a Stick” chapter for a fun weekend with some friends. No pictures because we were too hungry to take them. We used the Sirloin with Lemon and Oregano recipe and enjoyed it. They were surprisingly good for only being marinated for a short amount of time.

We tried a steak recipe, Beef Tri-tip with Spicy Peppers, from the “Man with a Pan” section. It called for Tri-Tip, but the only one we could find was already marinated, so we used strip steak instead.

I got super confused thinking it was a stir fry and it was definitely not. It was quite tasty though, even with the wrong cut of steak. We would make this again maybe, but would reduce the peppers. We ate it with cilantro rice.

We used another steak recipe on the grill too from the book. Grilled Skirt Steak with grilled portobellos, corn, and a raw zucchini salad recipe, also from the book.

I wouldn’t make the zucchini salad again. I don’t know if my proportions were off or what, but I didn’t like it all that much. Too much oil, I think.

My favorite recipe was a Whiskey Caramel Sauce from the “I Scream, You Scream” section. I would like to eat all the sauces from this section. They all sound mouthwatering! I had underripe peaches for the 4th and 5th, so we couldn’t try the Grilled Peaches and Honey recipe, but it’s on my list. I stole this picture from a friend.

So those are all the recipes from this cookbook. There’s a lot of fish recipes, but also some shrimp and chicken ones. I’m excited to keep trying them.

In other food news, we had fried chicken from Fried and True. It was the Loveless Cafe recipe and we used boneless, skinless chicken breasts and thighs.

We also had Parmesan Chipotle potato wedges and a salad. Everyone enjoyed it. It has a very thin coating on it, but did end up with a good crust. We would eat it again. I might even remember to wear an apron next time!

We tried the Strawberry Cheesecake Pie with Raspberries instead and it didn’t set up as well. We will stick to the Strawberry version, but it was still tasty.

I was also homesick for my old summer camp and made Oreo pudding. Not very appetizing to look at, but delicious!

We’re looking forward to trying some new things this week too. Hope this made you hungry!

Tuesday Treats
Gardening · Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Tuesday Treats

LSiehLeave a comment

We’ve had some exciting new recipes lately and a few older favorites. With my schedule stabilizing, I have been able to do a bit more meal planning, along with adding an “on your own” day permanently into the rotation. That has been super helpful for Wednesdays or Thursdays. The Husband has been requesting more dishes too, which helps. Today we had chicken pot pie over noodles, which we haven’t had in a while. I was hungry, so forgot to take a full picture!

I loudly and snottily announced that I was going out to the garden to pick fresh herbs and the Husband laughed at me, but then told me that I should probably be Instagramming the whole experience. I was the one laughing then. Silly Husband! I was not Instagram dressed! They did look really pretty cooking down with the onions though.

The potpie was made with leftover chicken from this dinner:

Herb Butter Baked Chicken Breasts with Stovetop Stuffing and roasted carrots. I used the Sandwich Sprinkle on the carrots (seriously, I need a bigger jar of it) and fresh garden herbs for the butter.

Rosemary, thyme, sage, basil, and oregano were all included. I actually used some lemon thyme and basil in my strawberry shortcake, which we had for dessert.

This was the lemon thyme batch. It needed a little more herb in it, but it had a subtle lemony taste. The basil one came out much stronger, but basil is a stronger herb in general. I’ve been eating that one over yogurt too and it’s delicious!

So why all the strawberry things, you might ask? I dragged the Husband (yes, dragged, he doesn’t enjoy it) picking with me on Sunday after a panic moment of “what if they run out?!” We may have helped with that. We picked in between 12-13 pounds!

We tried a new farm, but didn’t like it as much, so will stick with the old one if we go together again. I might go on my own one more time, but I can also just pick some up from the farm market. I have a back quartered for eating or jam, and a batch left whole in the freezer. We have some to eat fresh in the fridge and some as shortcake. The shortcake ones will probably be made into jam, as they need to be used up quickly.

I also made this:

Is your mouth watering yet? No? Here, try this picture instead:

MMMMMMM! This recipe is soo good! I found it online at Pumpkin Inn Spice. https://www.pumpkinnspice.com/strawberry-pound-cake/. There were lots of delicious looking recipes, but this one said it was one bowl and that was good enough for me! I finally used the Bundt pan that Mom got me for Christmas.

I have a Strawberry Cheesecake Pie in the fridge that I’m super excited about too. I tasted the filling and man, oh man! I could have eaten it like a pudding! I’m looking forward to trying it tomorrow after it has set.

I’m still plotting what to do with the jam strawberries. I know I want to make Strawberry Rhubarb and I want to try an InstantPot Jam recipe too. We’ll see how ambitious I get.

We had a mental health professional game night this week and I forgot to get any pictures! We were having too much fun! I did make some things for it. We had a Caramelized Onion dip (https://pinchofyum.com/onion-dip) and pico. K brought a Chicken Bacon Ranch Dip. Of course, we had a veggie tray for the hummus, but no pickles. It wasn’t a formal party, Mom! I didn’t need the pickles! I made sure to tell everyone that I had some though, if they wanted them… 😉 I also made Chocolate Fondue for a dessert dip. We ended up just talking instead of playing the second game, which I think says a lot about the group of friends we have. 🙂

Oh, I did get a picture of the drink I made for the party the next day. I used the basil to make Basil Lemonade from Southern Living: Little Jars, Big Flavors. I have wanted to make that since I got the book, but my basil did not do well last year. You make a simple syrup infused with basil and then make up the lemonade.

It was deliciously tart and then mellowed over the course of the day. I will definitely be making more. You could taste the basil, but it wasn’t super overwhelming, which can happen with basil. It was so good!

We had cream sauce over pasta this week too. Since the Husband has convinced me that I can use up the half gallon of cream from Costco, I have been using it a lot more to be my go to meal.

Mine had asparagus added, but the Husband had the plain one mushrooms and the Sandwich Sprinkle. Gosh, I might need a spice intervention here! It’s just so useful! It has Italian herbs, salt, pepper, and garlic! Basically everything that runs in my cooking veins, I think. Eventually, I promise to use it on an actual sandwich! Knowing how things go, I’ll probably end up hating it in a sandwich. 🙂

I forgot to share this recipe, I think. Pardon me, if I have done so before. This is Balela Salad from Reluctant Entertainer. https://reluctantentertainer.com/balela-salad/

I had this first at Trader Joes and liked it so much that I decided to make my own. Lo and behold, I had actually pinned a recipe a long time ago! I used fresh parsley and basil in this. I didn’t have mint, so left it out. I had this at my sewing day with a friend and it was yummy! I would definitely make this again.

We had slow cooker BBQ flank steak tacos this week. I had them the second time as tostados, but I think I really wanted puffy tacos instead. For the leftovers, I added green enchilada sauce in a skillet and rewarmed it basically. We liked the meat. It was nice and tender. I was at work the first night, so only have a picture of the tostados. The Husband stuck with tacos.

I didn’t use a recipe for either dish, just threw things in the slow cooker or pan and added a few spices. Surprisingly, not the Sandwich Sprinkle! 😉

I think that’s all the foods since the last food post. Stay tuned for more strawberry recipes soon. I still have a bunch to use up!

With that, I’m off to dream strawberry dreams! Have a sweet night!

Monday Munchies
Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Monday Munchies

LSiehLeave a comment

Sorry for missing Simple Sunday. I had a very bad migraine and screens were making my vision double, so I couldn’t concentrate enough to pick a topic or see to find quotes. I’ll do a Wordy Wednesday post with some pictures and quotes later this week.

I was going through my food pictures though and realized that we have been having a lot of delicious meals. The featured picture is Fancy at our dinner tonight. She was very hopeful that she would get some and was very sad to only get her own dinner. We both seem to be out of our food funk, so even though meal planning has been haphazard, we have made it work.

Tonight, for example, we were supposed to eat yesterday, but the Husband had to go into work. Apparently bad things happen to electronics if the power goes out? 😉 He had to go make sure everything turned on okay. I knew there was no way I was going to make this just for me, so we had a very fancy dinner on a Monday. May I present Garlic and Rosemary Crusted Rack of Lamb?

Rosemary from the garden, olive oil, and garlic made up the crust. I completely forgot salt and pepper and neither of us noticed. Here is the recipe I used. https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/garlic-crusted-roast-rack-lamb

It was very good. Sometimes I don’t enjoy lamb, but this one was much milder than normal and tasted more of herbs than the gamey taste it can get. I think I cooked it just to done, not overly done too, so that was good. We had cheddar biscuits from the Red Lobster mix and I had asparagus as well. I also tried mango sprinkled with Pico De Fruita from Penzey’s.

It’s a spicy seasoning for fresh juicy fruits like mango and peaches. It has a surprising bite, but did give another layer of flavor. I might try this in a fruit salad with mangos and strawberries and see how it is. I think it would be good on grilled pineapple too, which I do plan on making this summer.

Side note, how is it suddenly summer? I still haven’t managed to completely switch my heavier clothes out of my drawers and have realized how many tank tops I need, but don’t have! Luckily, I have a couple of patterns to try, but that’s another story. Back to food!

We have grilled again this last week, on the one day it didn’t rain! Now that I’m home earlier on Monday and Tuesday, dinner can be a little more fun. We had grilled steak kebabs!

I would say I followed a recipe, but my parents told me never to lie. 😉 I did use the cook time in a Food Network magazine, but used our own ingredients and spices. They were seasoned with Sandwich Sprinkle from Penzey’s, which I have used on approximately 10 things, none of which are sandwiches… It’s basically Italian Seasoning, garlic, salt and pepper, if you wanted to try to recreate it. My kebabs were the ones with tomatoes and peppers. The Husband had manly kebabs- no veggies allowed, just meat and starch. They were delicious! We will definitely be making them again. Kebab all the things!

We have had a couple of fancier breakfasts too, not just dinners! I made the sour cream muffins from a couple of weeks ago with blueberries instead of chocolate chips.

They were good, but I think I liked the chocolate chip ones better. The Husband tried the blueberry ones and did like them. He’s not a huge breakfast eater.

I made these egg cups this morning in an effort to eat more protein to ward off migraines. Newsflash, it didn’t work, but they were a good breakfast. They would be a good lunch too.

They are filled with chicken breakfast sausage, red peppers, green onions, mushrooms, and fresh parsley, oregano, and basil. I forgot to add cheese and any spices, including salt and pepper. My brain was having fits this morning. They’re still pretty tasty though. The Husband will hopefully help me eat them. I had them with cinnamon toast, but had eaten in stages this morning, so no pictures.

We had a few standbys: Shells and Cheese with veggies and chicken sausage, Creamy Shrimp Pasta, and Instant Pot Korean Beef.

The Husband had the Korean beef sauce on country style pork ribs in the crockpot, but they messed with his stomach, so I don’t think he ate them all. Too fatty, I think. We haven’t had them in forever, since it seemed like too much for him to eat on his own. He said they tasted good though, just regretted it in the morning.

We did enjoy lettuce wraps too and I had the leftover meat on a salad the next day, which was pretty delicious.

We discovered that the Husband likes Boston lettuce better that romaine, so we might switch to that. Chef’s salad is more appealing in the summer sometimes.

Another really fun new thing I tried was Pineapple Sage Lemonade!

My pineapple sage is growing like crazy and I know you can make it into tea, but the hot tea wasn’t sounding appealing in 80 degree weather, so I made lemonade instead. I looked at a recipe, which I cannot find, but in the end, just made something up. I didn’t think to grab fresh lemons at the store, so I mixed about an 1/8 th cup of lemonade concentrate with water and then added sugar to taste. I bruised and ripped up five or six pineapple sage leaves and threw them in and let it sit for a while. It turned out to be very good! There was a subtle taste of the pineapple sage and it went really well with the lemons. I am planning on trying some cocktails too. Here’s some websites if you’re interested!

https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/pineapple-sage-tea-hot-or-iced-386388

https://punchdrink.com/recipes/pineapple-and-sage-martini/

https://www.fakefoodfree.com/pineapple-sage-bourbon-lemonade/

And some food recipes too!

http://theessentialherbal.blogspot.com/2009/05/pining-for-pineapple-sage-recipes.html

I have used the lemon thyme in my water too, which gives it a lovely flavor. I’m excited to investigate other ways to use the herbs this year, since they are all growing so well!

Fancy is being super weird about the windows. We think there’s a small animal out there taunting her, but we haven’t smelled skunk yet. I’d better go distract her before she attempts to exit the house through the window. Have a lovely (non-smelly) night!