Tag: pasta

Recipe and Cookbook Review
Life Posts · Recipe Roundup

Recipe and Cookbook Review

LSiehLeave a comment

I promise we have still been eating! It’s taking a little while to get back to normal. This week we will be having smaller meals because we have party leftovers and we’re going visiting at the end of the week, so don’t need leftovers for the weekend. We’re leaving Fancy with a friend who’s housesitting for us though, so she might be persuaded to eat some delicious leftovers if need be. 🙂

The featured picture is our Anniversary ice cream. 🙂 The Husband had a Cookie Dough Frostbite (Like a DQ Blizzard,) and I had the Margarita ice cream. They were both good and we were in the store where we took our wedding pictures. 🙂

I haven’t picked a new cookbook to focus on lately, but we did use The Joy Of Chinese Cooking by Lo Mei Hing a few weeks ago. I’ve used this cookbook before, but there were a couple of new recipes that I thought we could try. The book is older, so ignore the part of every recipe where it says to add MSG. It’s got good pictures and very detailed instructions. Oddly, there are only about 10 beef recipes in the whole book, I think. It’s quite a thick book too. We tried the “5 Color Shau Mai,” but only used three colors. We used imitation crab, bok choy, and mushrooms for the color toppings. The recipe also included instructions for scrambled eggs and seaweed, neither of which sounded good.

They were kind of bland and we liked our normal dumpling recipe better. We used chicken instead of pork.

We tried one of the fried noodle recipes and it turned out pretty close to the restaurant version, although we used different noodles.

It was pretty good and we would try to make them again.

We also used the “Beef with Green Peppers” recipe, but I added a bunch more veggies. Also only sort of, maybe, kind of followed the recipe?

It was a pretty good stir fry. We’ll keep the book, because it has some interesting looking recipes in it, but I will need to go with my instincts on when to change things around.

Rounding out our Chinese food journey was a Shrimp Stir Fry and an Asian Meatball recipe from Gimme Some Oven.

https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/saucy-asian-meatballs/

The Husband ate his plain, but I sauteed a veggie mix that I had in the fridge to go with mine. We liked them and might make them again. (So, we didn’t have these on the same night, despite having the same bowl for all three of them…)

We’ve also had some staples, like Tequilla Lime Chicken and Pico, Spaghetti, and Pizza. The potatoes in the first picture were thinly sliced and roasted with the Galena Street Rub from Penzy’s and some olive oil. The chicken looks oddly pink, but I think it must have been a little frozen when we put it in. It was cooked properly.

This pizza is a white pizza with chicken sausage, mushrooms, and onions. It was delicious! I didn’t used a recipe, just made a garlicky white sauce and slapped it on.

The spaghetti was the Husband’s suggestion when I had to go out of town suddenly. He ate for most of the week, so we probably won’t have spaghetti anytime soon.

I tried a couple of new breakfast items. Blueberry Banana Bread from the Pillsbury: Best Muffins and Quick Breads cookbook, and a Cinnamon Coffee Cake Recipe from Baking Unplugged by Nicole Rees. Both were yummy!

I would make both again. The Husband didn’t really care for either of them, so I might only make half a recipe in the future.

We have had a couple of good storebought meals too, which I do need to remind myself, count as actual meals as well. One of the things I’m working on is not beating myself up when I’m just not able, due to scheduling, illness, etc, to actually cook.

Two of those meals were these Panko Crusted Shrimp from Costco and Crab Cakes and a salad from Aldi. I think we had both of these during Shark Week!

Also pictured with the shrimp are Kung Pao Chicken mini egg rolls, cilantro rice, a pear, and a yellow garden tomato.

For a belated Shark Week recipe, we had “Shrimp and Scallops in a Creamy Garlic Sauce” from chef Robert Irvine on Food Network.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robert-irvine/shrimp-and-scallops-in-garlic-cream-sauce-recipe-2014083

It was good, although we used Bay Scallops rather than Sea Scallops. They are smaller and less expensive. I didn’t like it as much as I might have, but I am in a little bit of a food funk and didn’t really want to cook that night, which is probably why.

We did have a party on Sunday, but I am falling asleep, so will detail that post and the Husband’s birthday meals in a different post. For now, here’s a picture of my very alcoholic Shark Week drink, which I have lost the recipe for.

It was pretty much rum, blue carauco, and sprite, I think. Possibly orange juice as well? I’ll see if I can find the recipe. It was pretty delicious, but at one point the gummy shark had so much booze it flipped over upside down… Whoops!

Before I do the same, I will say goodnight!

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

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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!

Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

Food, Glorious Food!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Things We’ve Eaten

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I’m still not sure what I want to do with the food portion of the blog. It’s a little hard to write about it when you don’t actually want to make food most of the time. Here’s some pictures of our meals lately and some food puns, because they are hilarious!

We had fried chicken and “velvety mashed potatoes” for dinner tonight from Fried and True. It was a Tyler Florence recipe, so we watched Food Network while eating. 🙂

I think we’ve decided we don’t like the texture of purees. They end up feeling funny. This one tasted good, but not enough for me to make them again. The chicken had a little bite to it and was delicious. 

We had lo mein last night. I tried to use a recipe, but ended up just making one up. The sauce from the recipe wasn’t good, so I made my own with soy sauce, a little sugar, sesame oil, rice wine, and garlic powder. Oh, and a little water. It was enjoyed by all. Fancy freaked out and then napped, since we had a friend over for dinner. 

We had caramel or macaroon brownie cupcakes. Okay, now, I have a super secret here… The brownies are the triple chocolate Ghiradeli box mix! I love them. The macaroon recipe was on the side of the box and I have been meaning to try it forever. The Husband doesn’t like coconut, so I added caramel bits to half of them instead. The brownies separated in the wrapper, but still tasted good.

Spaghetti and lasagna made an appearance as well. There were garden tomatoes, oregano, and basil in the sauce this time. 🙂

This was my tomato haul today, so I had plenty of them for the sauce too. I’m contemplating the multiple ways to use up the tomatoes. 

I think this is a 2 or 3 quart bowl? Mr Stripey has give us a few,  you can see one at the edge. They are very pretty!

We had herbed french bread to go with the spaghetti. 

Carbs on top of carbs! 

The Husband had pork this week and I made an alfredo sauce with mushrooms, garden tomatoes, fresh parsley and garlic to go over noodles. Mine looks much prettier! I picked out all the tomatoes for the Husband. 

I made a roux and then added the veggies, cooked them all down, added the cream and cooked it until it was all bubbly. Added grated parm too, for extra fanciness!

One last pun, just because… 🙂 Have a great night!

Recipe Roundup and Gardening
Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup and Gardening

LSieh2 Comments

I was so mixed up on all my days this week and spent all of yesterday making cheesecakes for Battle Cheesecake. So this is a little belated recipe post and a garden update. I will post the party pics and recipes tomorrow, I think. We all had a lot of fun!

The garden is growing very well! We had the lettuce from it in a salad with meatballs after the cheesecake tonight. Everyone liked it and there’s so much left. We may deliver some to my in-laws, as they weren’t able to plant a garden this year.

These are the three buttercrunch. We had romaine as well, but I forgot a picture. It was a proud moment to share our homegrown produce. I’m looking forward to sharing more.

We have peppers of both the hot and sweet variety starting. This is the small Thai chilies.

The spicy peppers both have actual peppers on the vines and the sweets have just flowers. The sweets are getting kind of taken over by the zucchini plant, but they are fighting the good fight.

I believe this is the Jalefuego pepper. The dragon cayenne is harder to take pictures of, as the peppers are still small.

Here’s the mutant zucchini, you can see some pepper plants coming through the leaves.

I have no idea how many squash we are going to get, if we get as many as the flowers, I may be looking for recruits to take them. After I make lots of zucchini things, of course. I’ve read that you can shred it and freeze it too, so I might do that.

The herbs are going well for the most part. I’ve accidentally murdered a few, but they seem to be hardy and coming back.

And, of course, the tomatoes continue to expand. Mr. Stripey is doing well.

Almost all the plants have tomatoes started.

They are growing a little close to each other, so it’s hard to tell sometimes which plant is which.

It will be fun when they start turning colors. I’ll know for sure then.

So now that we’ve seen the food growing, here’s what we ate!

Turkey cutlets looked good at Trader Joe’s, so I made Turkey Parmesan on Sunday. No recipe, just breaded the cutlets with seasoned panko and fried them up. Regular homemade marinara and fettuccine.

I made this after we had walked around the zoo for the photo safari for multiple hours, so didn’t use fresh herbs. They had been a little wilted too. It was good anyway though. It was fun to try something new. The Husband was very complimentary and wants to have it again.

We had sandwiches a couple of the nights. The Husband got the sandwich maker back from his parents’ house and was very excited. It’s a Betty Crocker “Stuff and Munch.” It makes little sandwich pockets and is his favorite way to eat sandwiches.

This was a pastrami provolone sandwich. It was pretty good.

We also had manicotti, but I don’t have a picture, as I was at work.

http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/easy-manicotti-56784

It says that you don’t have to cook the noodles, but it’s a lie. Cook them at least halfway. The Husband left it in for over an hour after checking it and it finally got soft. It tasted okay.

The cheesecakes were my other new recipes this week, but that will be in the party post.

I hope you’re enjoying seeing the garden. I know I’m very excited that it’s going so well. Have a great night and stay tuned for my party post for Battle Cheesecake!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

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

LSiehLeave a comment

We’ve been eating leftovers, since Chinese New Year. We had so many! I made steamed buns on the day when every appointment, except my very last one, all cancelled for various reasons. I did make a few new things though.

Tonight we had a mushroom cream sauce over mini ziti, with baked calamari. The calamari were from Costco, I only baked them.

The Husband says that I just “wave my arms about” and food appears. Tonight was one of those recipes. It turned out good.

Here’s what I did:

Creamy Mushroom Pasta, recipe by me! 

1/4 cup butter (half a stick)

2 T olive oil

1/2 onion, finely chopped

5-6 garlic chives- optional

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup chicken broth- approximately. I forgot to measure.

1 lb mushrooms, sliced- I used button mushrooms.

2 T flour

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Cooked pasta- I used half a box of mini ziti.

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Put the butter and olive oil in a skillet and turn the heat to medium. Add the onion, garlic chives, garlic, and mushrooms. Cook until veggies are soft. Sprinkle the flour over veggies and stir until coated. Add in the chicken broth, cook until the it thickens. Add the cream and cook until thickened and bubbly. Add garlic powder and salt and pepper. Add the Parm and stir. Put the cooked pasta in the sauce and mix until coated. Serve and enjoy!

I made a new breakfast recipe- Chai Pear Scones by Baked By an Introvert. https://www.bakedbyanintrovert.com/chai-pear-scones/

They have delicious bits of fresh pear in them. I would maybe up the spices a bit, but they were good. I did use the glaze, which I typically won’t do, but it was delicious. I brought them to my Supervision groups for the last two days, but sadly came home with a lot more than I can eat. I’m going to try freezing them, even with the glaze.

I had a craving for turkey burgers, so I found a fun Asian inspired recipe. It was originally a beef recipe from Carlsbad Cravings. https://carlsbadcravings.com/asian-burger-recipe/

I didn’t have a recipe when I went to the store, so ended up not using the slaw part. We also didn’t bother with the ketchup. Neither of us like it. I did make a little sweet chili mayo and it added a nice bit to the burger. It looked a little plain, so I sautéed mushrooms and green onions in olive oil. They turned out to be a pretty decent burger. I would make them again.

This week, the Husband is going out of town for a couple days, so I’m trying to decide what recipes I want to make just for me. Any good vegetarian ideas? Send them my way if you have them. I may also have some Lebanese food. Mmm… For now though, I’ve got some figure skating to watch and am trying to decide which thing to sew next. Have a great weekend!

Party Post and Recipe Catch Up
Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Party Post and Recipe Catch Up

LSiehLeave a comment

I realized I never shared the party post! And I have a lot of recipe catching up to do! I’ll start with the Epiphany party, because that’s much more fun. 🙂

I made way too much food as usual, and people kept getting th cold or flu that was running around, so it was a smaller party this year. The Husband’s Grandma and some of the other family came though, so that was fun. Fancy got to see her favorite uncle who buys her fun toys. 🙂

Fancy did very well at the Epiphany party. We kept her on leash and in her party harness, so she seemed to be a bit calmer. We had several friends who were comfortable holding the leash for us too, so we could actually talk to people. She had one incident of guarding/biting a box, but she did give it up when the Husband got out a beef chew for her. She was very sleepy that night and the next day.

New recipes included two gluten free/dairy free cookies, one of which was Keto friendly. We also had pigs in blankets with homemade crescent dough, because I couldn’t help myself.

I mean, I could have used the crescent roll dough in a tube, but that doesn’t taste nearly as good.

The smaller ones are gluten free almond flour chocolate chip cookies from off of the Trader Joe’s almond flour bag. The butter was switched out for margarine.

The other ones are Keto friendly snickerdoodles from I Breathe, I’m Hungry. https://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/low-carb-snickerdoodles-keto-gluten-free/

They were both pretty good. They ended up being soft, due to the almond flour. I’m not the biggest fan of artificial sugar, so I borrowed some from my friend Kayla.

She was lovely enough to come help the Husband and I food prep for the party and it worked out well to have help. Something hilarious happened though that kind of made the kitchen look like the Mayhem commercials happened…

This would be what happens when you hit the mixer switch to the highest setting by accident and have just put about a pound of powdered sugar in the mixer… After the initial shock, Kayla laughed too and I’m pretty sure she was the one to remind me to take a picture for the blog. 🙂 I had removed a few things from the counter  before taking the picture, I think, the spatula and a measuring cup. It was a mess. We got it all sorted though.

I made peppermint bark from the December Food Network Peppermint Insert, but completely forgot to serve it! We had plenty of other sweets. 

I had frozen the other honey sugar cookie dough, so those were made into sweater bears. The Husband likes bears in sweaters, ever since I bought a tin with a bear in a sweater holding a tree a few years ago.

We also had regular chocolate chip cookies, Berliner Kranzer, peanut butter balls, and the peppermint sugar cookies.

Other savory options were crab dip, a cheese and sausage tray, chicken salad, and the traditional rulle.

Also, a veggie tray and pickle tray. The Husband brought home some fancy popcorn and sugar cookies, so we had those too. It was lovely. We have been happily munching on the leftovers.

So that’s the party part of the post. On to the regular recipes!

I think I mentioned we got an Instant Pot and maybe the fact that I was a little terrified of using it…

It wasn’t as scary after I let the steam out the first time. I made a tomato, hamburger, and pasta soup.

https://www.skinnytaste.com/beef-tomato-and-acini-di-pepe-soup/

It needed more seasoning and I already added more than what the recipe called for. It was good enough to add to the recipe bank though.

I also tried two recipes from the Gordon Ramsey’s In The Heat Of The Kitchen cookbook. Homemade pasta and Tagliatelle with Mushrooms, with the homemade pasta. Technically this is fettuccini, but it worked.

We had the mushroom dish with steaks on New Year’s Day.

The pasta was delicious. I thought it was one of the better batches that I’ve made. It was silky and smooth. The dough was drier than previous dough and I think it made it less prone to sticking together.

Fancy was very determined to share our dinner.

I have made two recipes from the 2018 January/February Food Network Magazine already.

It has 12 muffin recipes! I used the Lemon Zucchini muffin one, but switched out the lemon to orange. I had the latter, but not the former.

Mmmm… they were delicious! I will happily make them again.

We had the Chili Shrimp from the stir-fry insert tonight and it was also good.

The last couple weeks have been a blur, so I’m sure there are ones I’m missing. I’ll post them when I remember them.

Have a wonderful weekend! My back is acting up again, so I may not be able to do much, but can maybe get some meal planning done. There are more Instant Pot recipes to be explored!