Well, it was winter briefly! Now it’s spring again and I have no idea what next week will be like. My food tastes are all over the place too. I told the Husband yesterday that I was just so tired of cooking, even though I’m not doing too much more cooking than usual. I think I’m just burning out on all of our regular meals.
I made this really pretty shrimp and veggie stir fry to cheer us both up. It was good and we had jasmine rice with it, as I forgot to have us make rice in the rice cooker. It was quicker. Plus, we are still not done with that weird parboiled rice and I really didn’t want to eat it. 😬
I made these rainbow crepes for Valentine’s Day brunch. I discovered I should get some more food coloring. All I have are red and blue. I did make whipped cream and a berry compote to go with them.
We had our default pizza, although it was more fun because I used a fancy Italian blend flour from Janie’s Mill.
My older brother sent us a four pack of fancy flours for Christmas and I was inspired to try some more. I need to move them downstairs though, as you are supposed to keep them cold. They are a whole grain product and keep better that way. I have to play with them some more and post about it.
The pizza was good. We had our usual ham, mushroom, and onion toppings.
They didn’t stay tied, as you can see, but tasted good. We had spaghetti with them.
Another quick meal was cheeseburgers. I used the pepper palace spice blend, so it was spicy.
I tried this recipe for baked gnocchi and learned that for the most part, you can leave the gnocchi uncooked and it will cook in the sauce. Not the prettiest dish, but yummy! I omitted the meat and used homemade sauce. https://damndelicious.net/2020/05/16/weeknight-baked-gnocchi/
I’ll leave you with a classic comfort food- chicken potpie over noodles. It was warm and delicious and helped use up leftover chicken.
I hope you’re having good food! We’re trying to do some more interesting meals again and actually meal plan. Wish us luck!
Believe me, I’m just as shocked as you are that it’s already February! Lunar New Year snuck up on me again. We did celebrate by having baked beef buns made from leftover Crockpot Mongolian Beef. I added a side of stir fried Brussels sprouts and bok choy and the Husband had chicken wonton soup as his side. The veggies were too green.
The buns were really, really good! I used the dough recipe from the Woks of Life, but substituted the leftover beef cooked down in the cooking liquid for the filling. I added chicken stock and rice wine to give it a little more moisture for the buns. Also, some extra shallots and garlic. Here’s the bun recipe: https://thewoksoflife.com/chinese-bbq-pork-bu ns-cha-siu-bao/
I also made traditional almond cookies from The Foods Of China and it worked out much better than the first time I made them. They are addicting and I may hoard them like a cookie dragon.
I’ve been actually using my blood oranges this year for Lunar New Year inspired foods. Oranges are considered lucky, as is the color red, and I feel like we could definitely use some extra luck this year. A note, you may be able to find blood oranges as “Raspberry Oranges.” A friend of mine got some and I think they just rebranded them.
So far, I’ve made both sweet and savory items with them for a couple of different meals. I used them in this Winter Citrus Salad with Avocado.
It’s really not a thing you need a recipe for. Even the dressing was just blood orange juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper. I added iceberg, romaine, cucumbers, red peppers, carrots, crispy jalepenos, cheese, sliced almonds, and avocado to mine. It was very refreshing. I think It would be excellent with arugula too, but I didn’t have any on hand. I’m ordering some in our next grocery order though, so will probably make this for work one day.
I would also like to try the donuts in that link as well, but haven’t made them yet and am running out of oranges. I’m not super fond of these. I have to add a lot of sweeter and heat them to get past the texture and at that point, I may as well just make regular oatmeal.
I was very fond of these Blood Orange Coconut muffins though, although I wish the glaze had been pinker.
I also made dark chocolate chunk orange scones, but ate them before taking a picture. I also apparently forgot to actually save the recipe I used… I do have one that I am intending to try as it uses Spelt flour and I have some that my older brother gave me for Christmas to try.
This Blood Orange Rosewater Mocktail was interesting. I think I would reduce the rosewater by half next time. It was a bit over powering. I did use ginger ale instead of sparkling water, as it was what I had open.
Probably my favorite two recipes were the Blood Orange Amaretto Sour and the Orange Cardamom Cake.
Isn’t it so pretty? The Husband actually had one with me, but he couldn’t finish his. He doesn’t drink often and this was pretty stiff even after I dropped the booze by two ounces. I thought it was lovely! Not overly sweet like they sometimes are, but not super tart either. Also, it’s just amaretto, lemon, and orange juice over ice. One of the simplest recipes I found so far.
Now the cake. Oh My Gosh. This was so dreamy and delicious. Extremely aromatic from the orange and especially the cardamom. The glaze wasn’t as thick as the recipe, so it didn’t look as pretty but it made up for it in taste. I think my eyes crossed when it came out of the oven because it smelled so good. I brought it into work and you could smell it every time you walked by it. Torture, sure, but such delicious torture! It got rave reviews from my coworkers too. I brought a whole cake minus a piece to work and brought back half a cake.
I’ll leave you with a picture of a spring roll wrapped Piggy. Someone gets a little cold during naps. 🙂 May your new year be full of peace, luck, prosperity, and joy!
I got overwhelmed with food while simultaneously not wanting to eat anything again the last couple weeks of the year. Writing about food has not been something that has been super interesting to me. I started to go over all my food posts for the year to get a count of everything, but it was a lot. So I’ll show you some fun foods from the end of the year and beyond. The featured picture is our charcuterie tray from the virtual wine tasting with the Husband’s work.
The traditional family meatballs were served on Christmas Eve along with noodles, buttered herbed carrots, and pickles of course! Cookies were served for after dinner treats, but they are in their own post.
We made Rulle for New Year, as we had planned to have our bubble friends over, but it didn’t quite work out. We ended up having a party foods dinner with the rulle, pigs in blankets, and crab dip. It was yummy! I was quite pleased with my rulle this year. I got enough allspice in them finally.
We had lobster mac and cheese later, since we had been planning to have it NYE. It was yummy, especially with the crunchy, buttery panko crumbs on top. I used the recipe from Grandbaby Cakes. https://grandbaby-cakes.com/lobster-mac-and-cheese/
I did reduce the recipe by half though, as we didn’t need 14 servings.
We tried a new chicken noodle soup recipe with a mix from a local charity, Motown Soups, that helps support local food pantries, clinics, and shelters. We actually liked it better than the one we normally use, so I think I’ll buy some more from them. I made pizza dough cheesy breadsticks to go with it. It was very warm and comforting.
I made this amazing Red Wine Chocolate cake with some of the wine from the Husband’s work. It’s probably the best chocolate cake I have ever made. I used a different recipe for frosting, as I didn’t think we would like the wine in the frosting listed. That recipe is from Sally’s Baking Addiction. Here’s the cake recipe: https://bakerbynature.com/red-wine-chocolate-cake/
Here’s the frosting recipe: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/favorite-chocolate-buttercream/. My only criticism for myself was that I should have added more buttercream in the middle. I seriously could eat this frosting by the spoonful, it’s that good! It’s chocolately, creamy, and not super sweet.
We had a country scramble after eating glazed ham and potatoes for dinner one night. It was delicious. We cooked them separately, as the Husband didn’t want peppers and likes it squishy with cheese.
I made pancakes on one of our vacation days and topped them with yogurt and a dollop of fruit soup. Oh, it was so good! I think I made an almost perfect fruit soup this year!
We had regular mac and cheese too. I used ritz crackers for the top, as we were out of panko. It was also good. Those are dino shaped noodles, by the way. We’re almost out of silly shaped pasta, so I should add some to my next grocery order. 🙂
We had a few stir fry dishes. One chicken and one special fried rice with ham and shrimp. That’s literally what the recipe is called in the Wok and Stir fry cookbook I was using.
I would definitely make both again. They were pretty tasty!
I don’t have a picture of the chicken, I don’t think, but ended up using some of it in this filling chef salad. I made homemade naan with it too, as I had meant to make it with curry the night before.
Here’s the curry. The Husband had pork. I used dried chickpeas for this, which I soaked/cooked in the Instant pot. It only took about an hour instead of having to soak them all night and I was very pleased with that. This curry wasn’t as thick as some and I wasn’t sure if it needed more cook time, or if it was because I was using a carton of coconut milk instead of a can of it. I’ll have to do some more experimentation.
This potato soup was lovely, although I paid dearly for the bacon. Apparently my digestive system hates bacon as well as pork. I’m going to refuse to believe it though and just make sure I have stomach meds on hand. It’s so good!
I need to make more pasties, but make them a little bit bigger next time. These were more like snack pasties than dinner pasties. They were yummy though
I had a hankering for a fried chicken sandwich yesterday and used this recipe to make a knock off Popeye’s sandwich. It was good, although I had problems keeping my oil to temp. I made a quick spicy mayo by adding garlic powder and sweet chili sauce to mayo. We were out of fries, so had some roasted potatoes for dinner as well. https://gimmedelicious.com/popeyes-chicken-sandwich/
One thing I didn’t like at all this past week was this Asian Crockpot Shredded Beef. It was weird because it smelled really good while it was cooking- I was home all day getting tortured by the smell. And then when I opened the lid and started shredding it I was just absolutely done. I couldn’t even eat it! I think I took two bites and that was all I can manage. My stomach was upset for the rest of the evening too. I ended up eating chicken with pico and cilantro rice leftovers instead.
I’ll leave you with this ‘love-ly’ apple pie I made today because it looks so pretty even if it did have a slightly soggy bottom.
One of the things that I have noticed myself being grateful for is the ability to get and cook food. My cooking confidence has definitely grown and this year I was confident enough to make a turkey! It was lovely and golden brown, but of course, I forgot to take a picture of the whole turkey. Here’s the full Thanksgiving plate with turkey!
We had a basic herb and butter basted turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and roasted rainbow carrots from the garden!
We also had Ranch deviled eggs and the white chocolate snack mix for snacks before dinner.
K2 made this amazing sweet potato pie with this absolutely scrumptious mile high meringue with a hint of orange. It was so smooth!
The Husband requested this raspberry Jello salad dessert which is lovely as well. I accidentally forgot to add the Cool Whip with the cream cheese and ended up using two packs of cream cheese with the filling ingredients and had the Cool Whip on top. It was still really good! Recipe is here: https://iwashyoudry.com/raspberry-pretzel-salad-recipe/
Of course, I made homemade cranberry sauce. This time I used oranges, 5 spice, sugar, and water. It was so yummy! It was a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. We used our fancy china and goblets that were my great aunt’s. Aren’t they pretty?
We enjoyed these English muffin pizzas with homemade sauce and a salad side. We used ham, peppers, mushrooms, and onions. They are a super quick dinner and quite good.
I accidentally made a buttermilk batter instead of a dredge for these chicken tenders, but they turned out pretty good. I ended up making onion rings a week or so later with some more buttermilk. I don’t think I have that picture loaded yet, so it’ll come later.
A quick, but yummy dinner was these stuffed chicken breasts. We get them frozen from the store, because I don’t have time to make them from scratch.
I’ll leave you with a picture of my pasties! We used beef, potatoes, and onions, since I can’t eat pork. They were really good! I haven’t made them in quite a while, so it was nice to do it again. We even have some in the freezer. One of my friends said I must be really grown up, because I served it with a salad, or in my case, green beans. Mmmm. That makes me hungry again!
I hope you have had some delicious meals with treasured family or friends lately. I do think food has a unique ability to bring people together and we could all use a few more connections right now. So enjoy!
No time for dinner? Unexpected guests? Forgot to turn the crockpot on? Have no fear, these recipes are here to save the day!
We found this cookbook at last year’s Bookstock and I had to get it. Would you have been able to resist a brilliantly colored popart style cookbook? Here’s the contents page.
It has fun tips and pictures.
It’s a surprisingly comprehensive cookbook and includes a pantry list and a fridge list. Most of the items are pretty standard, so I could make the recipes with ingredients we had on hand, which was helpful. A lot of the desserts call for frozen puff pastry or fillo cups, so we didn’t try many of them, as we didn’t have any of them. Grocery shopping is annoying right now, as with the shopping services, you don’t always know what you’ll actually get.
One of the first recipe we tried were these Toasted Pastrami Sandwiches. I had turkey instead of pastrami on mine and the Husband had both. They were really good! Toasty, warm and delicious.
These are the Fig Muffins. They were super soft and yummy, but were too sweet for me. This was pretty surprising, as I have a big sweet tooth, but I would reduce the sugar by probably half next time. I also subbed dried cranberries, as I didn’t have figs and was still weirded out by fig wasps.
We really liked the Chicken and Salsa Soup. It was pretty simple. I added a half can of Rotel and used different spices. It was also yummy.
For Thanksgiving, we had this snack mix with white chocolate, dried cherries and cranberries, cashews, and pretzel chips. I think I ate most of it. I don’t normally like white chocolate, but it was lighter than usual.
I tried to follow the recipe in this Broccoli Cheese Rice but it made more sense to just make it. K2 made this for us when we went to visit last time, so I just threw some things together while the Husband had pork chops.
I enjoyed it! Overall, I really enjoyed this cookbook. I would like to try a couple more of the recipes from it too. I’m glad we got it and it definitely makes me smile when I look at it. Hope you enjoyed seeing it as well!
I’ve started my 25 Treats of Christmas this week too, but have only made a few so far and need to catch up on the Thanksgiving foods. Have a delicious week!
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. 🙂
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.
Covid has really put a crimp in our social life. Zoom isn’t the same and I’m online so much for work, that I really have little desire to be on it for social events too. Although it is very nice to see family over Zoom! We decided we really wanted to try something new for the fall party, so we sent people on an Unexpected Culinary Journey.
A mix of luncheon and afternoon tea
How did this work, you might ask?
We put a big red plastic tote on the porch to protect against package eating squirrels. Sidebar: Did I tell you about Steve the Stupid Squirrel’s latest misdeed? He ate into a package from my Mom that had peanut butter balls in it! The mail person left it on the porch with some other packages.
Let me tell you, we had words, although he didn’t look repentant. You do not want to get between me and Mom’s peanut butter balls. I’ll throw hands. 😤 We’re now even more in a war. Stupid Steve Squirrel.
Anyway, back to the actual story. I made a ridiculous amount of food, but actually got to give most of it away. I mailed four packages with delicious treats (and ducky pjs to the Brother.) Then I told people to show up and they would get a container of delicious food from some of the 7 Hobbit meals. A Hobbit Tasting Box, if you will. We actually had a lot of responses, including from some friends from college that we hadn’t seen in quite a while and the Husband’s aunt and uncle came too!
When people got here, they were very polite and masked up for us, which I appreciated greatly. We had everyone’s food labeled and they picked times, so that there wasn’t an overlap. Our three Covid bubble people actually hung out for a bit, so that was fun too. Piggy was very excited to meet new people in the yard, although she was disappointed that she didn’t get to eat the foods.
We didn’t end up eating things from all the meals, as we were too full! The Husband and I continued the Hobbit recipes into this week and I’ll probably make some more this weekend.
Since the movie was starting at 11 AM for Elevensies, I made these honey pear muffins, along with some chocolate banana bread, and deviled eggs.
I do have to say, I texted K2 the day before indignantly saying that I was “offended on behalf of tastebuds everywhere” as the recipe said you “didn’t have to add any spices.” 🤨 Obviously this would not do, so I added Penzey’s Baking Spice into the flour mixture. They were yummy, so I do think you need some good fall spices in there.
There are a bunch of literary food recipes around and I did a lot of research to find some of them. The Wizard’s Cookbook has four or five, but they required ingredients I didn’t have and I was trying to be frugal. I tried some new recipes, including this fun pork pie recipe from A Feast of Starlight.
I was told they were delicious. They used a hot water dough, which made me feel like I was on the Great British Baking Show. It was pretty easy to work with, I found. We didn’t use the mashed potatoes, as I was making these for luncheon with a light salad. K2 let me put her to work and she made these leek and potato cakes for me. They were yummy! https://picklebums.com/leek-and-potato-cakes/
I think I would add more cheese and more spices next time. K2 provided a lovely salad for our luncheon. I was proud of myself for letting her help me, so I wouldn’t be too run ragged.
I was apparently too busy eating, so I didn’t get good pictures of all the cookies, but these cookies I called the Arkenstone cookies. I used my Nordic Ware cookie stamps in star shapes and was very pleased with these cookies. They were extra delicious with a dollop of cream.
We had Earl Grey Shortbreads, which were delicious with cream as well, little apple butter tarts with the leftover pork pie dough, and apple butter crescents for breakfast. The apple butter was a gift from my friend from work, who’s name also starts with a K. (I’m gonna have to give them all nicknames to keep them straight. At this rate, if I talk about a friend, you could probably safely assume their name starts with K. 🙂 ) Here’s that recipe: http://herbakinglab.com/best-british-earl-grey-tea-shortbread/
These Strawberries and Cream Cookies were mostly to go into the giveaway boxes to represent Tea Time, but there were enough of them to keep as well. They were decent, although I wanted more flavor other than just cookie dough. https://www.acozykitchen.com/strawberry-cream-cookies/
I bought myself a Tomte (mischievous Scandinavian gnome like creature) shaped cookie cutter for my birthday (the cookie stamps were from my birthday too,) so I used that to make glazed gingerbread dwarf cookies.
The glaze was thinned out brown sugar cinnamon frosting from a different recipe. It was way too sweet on the other cookie recipe (coming at a later date), but worked perfectly on the gingerbread. I didn’t like the gingerbread after a couple of days. It got soft and not as nice. I don’t know that I’d make this particular recipe again. I liked the Peppernus cookies better that I made last Christmas. I used this recipe: https://themondaybox.com/gingerbread-fall-leaves/
I’ll wait while you either gasp in horror or laugh hysterically. They look like poop. And not just poop, poop with gross bits. 🥴 This is what they looked like after I baked them.
At this point I stared aghast at them again and then burst into hysterical laughter while the dog and the Husband wisely stayed in the living room until I got myself under control. Then I re-read the recipe and discovered that I had probably left out at least a cup of flour. After adding that in, I made another pan, which resulted in still flat cookies, but ones that held their shape. They were so problematic, I ended up throwing out the entire batch, except what I could salvage for my parents and the Brother. They all liked them, but I was so mad at the recipe for making me waste all the ingredients, that I will never make them again. They’re in the recipe box of doom along with the fudge that makes me want to hurl. ( I can hear my Mom now- “Lin-ne-a, we do not talk about hurling in public! We say we ‘do not care for that particular item.’” She tried, but occasionally I’m still not fit for polite company.)
It was a really fun way to get to see people and share food. A bunch of people who came actually went home and watched The Hobbit too, so that was nice. Piggy napped like a boss the next day. She partied too hard! I’m already plotting how to make the Epiphany party work. It may involve a traveling tablecloth and cookie tray. 🙂 We’re attempting to figure out how to make a Covid safe candy slide, just in case we do get any kids for candy on Halloween too. If not, we’ll at least amuse ourselves. For now, enjoy this picture of a zonked out party Pig and have a lovely night!
Food poisoning really makes me not want to write about food, much less cook it. We’ve had a few soup and sandwich suppers lately, while I’ve recovered. Trying to boost my interest in cooking and baking again, I have picked a new cookbook to review. I’m hoping to go through them all again too and start weeding some out. Oddly enough most of the recipes have just been made up ones.
This is baked mac and cheese and roasted curry carrots. Both were yummy and I had a fruit as well. I did my usual “throw all the cheeses in the fridge in a pot with a roux.” Next time, I think I would toss the panko with some butter to get it brown and crispy. It was kind of insipid without it. The carrots came from a carrot that was as big as my wrist. It was ridiculous!
We decided that we didn’t like the texture of this Instant Pot chicken marsala and would rather have it made on the stove top so it would maintain the crispy coating. It tasted good though! The recipe is here: https://littlesunnykitchen.com/instant-pot-marsala-chicken/
This was a thrown together after food poisoning soup with mini Costco cilantro chicken dumplings. It was yummy and light.
You’re probably tired of seeing Instant Pot Korean beef, but it’s so yummy.
Beef noodle stir fry made for a quick dinner. I sliced up a steak and threw a bunch of sauces at it. It worked out pretty well.
I roped K2 into making a cookie recipe from my Pinterest while I was making bao. It worked out well for all of us! The frosting recipe with it made them ungodly sweet. I’ll use it on a spice cake for the distance Hobbit party instead where the spice will balance the sweetness.
I made a different kind of breakfast for dinner this week, so I could have some egg cups for breakfast. I need more protein in the morning and these generally work. I also made current muffins, but didn’t add enough oil, so they weren’t very delicious.
I like breakfast for dinner, but the Husband doesn’t, so sometimes I will make it just for me and he’s on his own. This one worked out nicely. I like the egg cups for breakfast too, since they’re really quick and keep me full through my morning appointments.
I’m hoping to have some more interest in food again. I’ve been trying to bake, as that can sometimes help. The Husband suggested food in movies, so let me know if you have any good suggestions!
I realized I hadn’t posted about our dinners lately and thought I should remedy that. I need to get back on track with trying some cookbooks, as we are having a lot of the same things again. There’s nothing wrong with delicious favorites, of course, but it is nice to have a little variety. I was able to rework my schedule again to have one more night where I could actually cook at home too. Now, on to the foods!
A quick, but good dinner was these chicken sausages with onions and cheese. Also a little handful of garden veggies and probably a fruit of some kind, although it’s not pictured.
Kebobs made an appearance over pearl couscous. I marinated the steak in Galena street rub from Penzey’s. They were yummy.
We had apple crisp after our trip to the apple orchard. I think this had three different types of apples in it. We used the extra donuts to make decadent caramel donut sundaes the day after. It was a very delicious idea, especially after toasting the donuts. It is in the featured picture.
We used the Instant Pot for this chicken and dumplings. It was so delicious! I’ll definitely be making it again, especially in the winter. I did use canned biscuits for a shortcut and they weren’t bad. Here’s the recipe: https://lifefamilyfun.com/instant-pot-chicken-dumplings/
Due to the meat issues, I made chickpea curry again. It wasn’t as spicy this time, but was still comforting and tasty. I have some dried chickpeas in my cupboard that I need to cook so I can make it again. I liked switching up the veggies. This version had corn, garden beans, carrots, and butternut squash.
The Apricot Rosemary Streusel bars were a hit at work. I used a recipe from the 9 by 13 pan book. I have been wanting to try this recipe for a while and recently found out that a few of my coworkers don’t like chocolate. I know, the horror, right? 😳 The Husband declined to try them. I think I would make them again. They were quite tasty and it was unusual to have the savory rosemary with the sweet. I would skip the pine nuts next time though. They were really expensive and didn’t a ton of interesting flavor.
Some favorites that made an appearance were pancakes and bacon with the best maple syrup from our friends’ sugar shack, chicken divan, toasted turkey and cheese sandwich, and loaded potato soup. We totally watched the movie “Ratatouille” while we ate the soup. 🙂
I’m looking forward to making soups and other yummy fall treats soon. I have a jar of apple cider in the fridge that wants to be something scrumptious, I know. I may even bring more treats to work, if I can get the school to stop thanking me so much. 🙂
Having my younger brother here was fun and educational regarding the state of our liquor cupboard and the drinks we could make from it. We don’t imbibe very often at all and I’m more likely to add something yummy to hot cocoa than make a cocktail. I’ve always wanted to play with the fancy ones though, so it was fun to get some ideas.
The Brother introduced me to Difford’s Guide, which is fantastic for searching for different drink ideas. The link is here: https://www.diffordsguide.com/
We set up a drink station one Friday after lunch and had summery cocktails out in the yard using things we had at home. It was so much fun! I’ve been wanting to play with drinks and light for a while, so now you get to see the results. I have plans to do this seasonally. We have a lovely fireplace after all and I made a fun Christmas table cover for drinks a year or so ago with that intention.
Our first batch was non-alcoholic libations.
I made sparkling ginger limeade with the flamingo stirrer. It was yummy! I made my own limeade with fresh lime juice, simple syrup, and ginger beer. The red is hibiscus ice tea with Hibiscus Ginger tea from Tea Runners. It is lovely and refreshing. The purple is actually sparkling White Peach and Butterfly Mango Tea from Tea Runners. It does something super cool! When you make it, it’s blue and when you add acid, like 7 Up, in this case, it turns purple! It’s so cool. I found a bunch of fun color changing drinks with it too, both boozy and non-boozy.
Since there were only two of us, we moved on to the cocktails. These are all based on garden herbs we have in the garden.
How gorgeous are these? I loved how they looked in the sunlight and they were all tasty. My favorite is the one in the music glass- a sage Bee’s Knees.
This was probably the strongest drink of the three. I liked it better once the ice melted a little. We thought making a thyme infused simple syrup would make it even better.
The next group was more summery drinks, including “The Blue Drink,” which we had to have for Shark Week. My brother was horrified, but drank most of it. It was his idea to serve it in the Star Trek glass and call it Romulan Ale. 🙂
He used 3 oz Prosecco, 1 Oz blood orange bitters, 1 Oz Heering (cherry brandy,) served over the rocks topped with 7 up, and garnished with a cherry. He said it was definitely a sipping drink and a bit heavy.
The last drink is a N’oreaster, which should really be a winter group, but it is lovely any time. It’s a variation of a Moscow Mule, which is one of my favorite drinks. This one has maple Syrup and bourbon. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016278-noreaster
Here’s an up close at my fancy owl mug.
I bought it to use at our Harry Potter party this year to hold delicious Butterbeer, but alas, we got food poisoning and had to cancel.
It was fun to try some new things out and get some lovely pictures. I quite enjoyed the shadows made by the trees. I also made some yummy Cajun spiced nuts and ranch crackers to eat with our drinks. I have a bunch of cocktails and mocktails saved to try later and some even have tea in them! It’s a fun thing to do while still having home vacations.
I hope you enjoyed hearing about them and maybe are inspired to make your own. Difford’s is a great resource for alcoholic drinks. I’ve found a couple of websites for mocktails too.
