Tag: recipes

Still Here, Still Cooking!
Recipe Roundup

Still Here, Still Cooking!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recipe Roundup

All The Food!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recipe Roundup

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

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Hello from the variable weather of today. Yesterday it was so windy and cold that I couldn’t go outside for long because I like breathing without coughing. Our meals lately have been a lot of warm things, soups, and things without dairy as we both have a cold. We’re finally getting over it, although the Husband thinks he’s getting sick again. He better keep it to himself this time! I don’t need a second round, thank you.

I have been making sure to eat a good breakfast, even cooking, when I actually get up in time. I made these double chocolate, peanut butter chip muffins from a Food Network website recipe, but wasn’t happy with them.

They were super greasy, which was pretty disappointing. Normally I have good luck with FN recipes. I won’t post this one though, because it’s not very good.

I even made a fancy breakfast of French Toast for us last weekend. Nothing fancy, couple eggs, a cup of milk, and some cinnamon. I added cinnamon to whipped cream too. We used our friends’ homemade maple syrup as well and had chicken sausages.

I made chocolate chip pecan waffles for dinner one of the nights the Husband was moving his office late. I used Penzey’s Pie Spice in the batter as well, for a little extra deliciousness.

I got excited upon seeing a sale on passionfruit at the grocery store and bought 5 of them to play with. I ended up making passionfruit curd, which was absolutely delicious! Here’s the recipe I used. https://www.theflavorbender.com/make-passion-fruit-curd/

The Flavor Bender website has a lot of popup adds, so I almost used a different site, but it looked like the easiest one and had freezing directions as well. Here’s what the curd looked like on homemade yogurt.

It has a very distinct smell, which when you got a certain whiff was actually mildly unpleasant. The pulp smells like what you think tropical things smell like. It’s hard to describe! I was a little bit doubtful because of that and the Husband almost took the dog for an extra walk to escape it. It’s deliciously tart and has some texture from the seeds. It was amazing in yogurt, as they tamed each other. I felt so fancy!

Right as the Husband started the move in his new office, and coincidently his cold, we had corned beef in the crock pot. I don’t have a picture of that because we ate at different times, but I do have a picture of what I made with the leftovers. We had corned beef hash.

I used a recipe from The Spruce Eats, but left out the carrots and cabbage. https://www.thespruceeats.com/corned-beef-hash-with-cabbage-and-carrots-3054282

It may look homely, but it was delicious. The potatoes could be a little crispier, but they tasted good. The Husband raved about it and requested corned beef again, specifically so we could have this hash. We had fruit for a side as well, of course.

Tequila lime chicken with cilantro rice made an appearance on our menu again. It’s super easy and tasty.

We had burgers a week apart as well; beef burgers first and then turkey burgers.

The Husband requested seasoned fries and we had toasted buns. Mmmm. I used Montreal Steak seasoning in the burgers. I didn’t use a recipe for either burger, just made it up as I went along.

Here’s the turkey burgers with Cajun spices and seasoned fries. I was going to serve chips, but the Husband said that fries would “be good for my soul,” so that’s why we had fries again.

The turkey burgers turned out yummy as well.

We have been using Jet Tila’s 101 Asian Dishes You Need To Cook Before You Die. It’s been good so far, but I will save those recipes for a cookbook review, as there’s a couple more that we want to try first.

The Husband and Fancy are snoozing on the couch next to me and it’s making me super sleepy. It might be time for bed. Hopefully that will help kick the last of this cold!

Have a cozy night!

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!

Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

Wordy Wednesday- Cookbook Review- The Chew

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It’s been a while since I have reviewed a cookbook! I haven’t been interested in using just one lately. There’s a large chance that I accidentally obtained a few more too. 😉 And by chance, I mean, we went to book sales and I was unsupervised in the used book store…

For this cookbook, it took me a while to make the recipes I wanted to try, so they’re spread out over a month or two.

The recipes weren’t hard to follow, but they did have multiple steps and some required specialty ingredients.

This one is Michael Symon’s Holiday Mac And Cheese Casserole. It called for a full pound of bacon, half and half, marscapone cheese, Guyere, and butternut squash.

I had my doubts about the cheese sauce, as it was looking pretty runny, but it thickened up in the oven. I watered down cream for the half and half and used marscapone and a shredded cheddar jack blend. We didn’t enjoy the butternut squash in it at all. I have added squash before and it was fine, but this time it was gross. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too rich! I would make it again, but remove the squash.

This is General Tsao’s Chicken by Clinton Kelly.

It was a pretty quick dinner to make. The recipe had a lot of steps, but they all went quickly. I left out the broccoli for the Husband and made it on the side instead.

I’m not entirely sure I made it right. I think it was supposed to be crispier? It tasted good though. Definitely adding more sauce next time would be good. The rice was a little dry without it.

We tried Carla Phall’s Peach Cobbler. It was alright, but I thought it needed less crust and more seasoning. We ate it with churro flavored ice cream, which made it good. I don’t know if I would make it again. It smelled lots better than it tasted.

We also tried her fried Chicken Recipe. Oh man.. It was probably the best thing we tried out of the book.

We used drumsticks and thighs for it. The breading was slightly too salty for me, but the Husband loved it. The chicken sat in a dry rub for most of the day and then got dipped twice in a seasoned flour mix. It was tasty! The Husband ate it voraciously and declared me “the best wife ever.” Of course, now he wants more of it. 😄

I can’t find a picture, but we also tried the Turkey Meatball Subs by Mario Batali. I don’t remember thinking they were the best thing ever, but I think they were pretty good. If I were going to use them again, I would use less panko crumbs. They were kind of bready. I used homemade Spicy Scillian Pasta sauce instead of making a new batch. We also used turkey Italian sausage instead of the pork. It’s probably a safe bet that if I cannot remember them, I won’t be making them again.

Overall, it’s s good cookbook. The instructions are generally clear. It is arranged seasonally, so you do have to think of that when trying to find recipes. There are little hints and tips, plus the behind the scenes info about the show that are neat to read. It also fits nicely in my cookbook holder.

There are a few recipes that I still want to try. Soda bread, whoopie pies, and a potato leek soup are next on my list. I will be holding on to this cookbook for a bit yet, I think.

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!

Eat all the Food!
Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Eat all the Food!

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Let me show you, first of all, what happens when my friends who cook and I have “just a simple game night!”

B and K came over with their spouses and our friend S, also came and there was so much food!

B made tortilla wraps and these little bruschetta toasts with a creamy cheese spread. Both were fantastic and the Husband has requested tortilla wraps for lunches soon.

K made Southwestern wontons, which were spicy and yummy! Her husband did the frying and he did an excellent job.

I made Hot Buttered Rum cupcakes from The Prohibition Bakery book and they were definitely alcoholic. Delicious, but not for kids! The cake part didn’t have booze in it, but the caramel filling was rum based and the frosting wasn’t cooked and had 1/3 of a cup of spiced rum. Man, they were delicious! I was kind and left the frosting off some of them, so that J and the Husband could eat them. They wouldn’t have liked the rum hit from the frosting.

There were also pickle wraps, which I was a little doubtful of, but were pretty good from K.

I didn’t realize that it might be intimidating for people who aren’t fond of cooking, or don’t do a lot of it to show up and be presented with an entire table full of homemade food. I honestly don’t care what people bring, or even if they bring anything, but I’ll have to work on being less intimidating, I guess.

We’ve had some other fun meals lately. Nachos were kind of like a party, but just for us.

We had these after the previous party to use up the Pico. It was a good idea!

Also, kebabs for the Labor Day canning day. I used the Galena Street rub on them, I believe.

Also, to use up a party leftover a while ago, we had pigs in blankets. I used all beef mini sausages from Costco and puff pastry. They were delicious, even if I did feel about 5 years old while eating them. 🙂 For the record, I did have more veggies and fruit, but had started eating before taking the picture.

I made up a few recipes for chicken and steak. For the chicken, I baked breasts in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and fresh herbs. We had roasted potatoes with it. The Husband always forgets that he likes balsamic vinegar, but he did enjoy it.

I was super proud of myself for the steak, because, not only did I season it (Montreal Steak Seasoning) and cook it without using a recipe; I also made a mushroom red wine pan sauce! Take a minute. I know it’s shocking. I’ll wait… 😉

We had it with garlic mashed potatoes and I cooked up red peppers and swiss chard with some garlic and Sandwich Sprinkle. It was a tiny bit overdone, but not chewy or anything.

Another meal I made up lately was this burger, which we grilled a few weekends ago. We also grilled portobello mushrooms and I cooked bacon. I used an Applewood Smoked salt from The Salt Cellar at the Ren Fest. There was garlic and other spices as well. It added a nice smoky kick to the meat. My burger was topped with garden tomatoes and I had seasoned waffle fries (Sandwich Sprinkle!) and homemade spicy pickles with it.

I did use a recipe for the Carbonara from the Bacon 24/7 cookbook. I don’t generally have good luck with it, so wasn’t sure enough to wing it. It turned out pretty well, I think.

After my canning experiment, I had half a pint of jam left over, so I gleefully ate it on lemon poppyseed muffins for the last couple of mornings. I had chicken sage sausages and a hard boiled egg too.

I am still working on a cookbook review. I only made three of the recipes from it that I wanted to highlight, so maybe by the end of the week, I will have that done. I hope your day is going well and your food is as delicious as these recipes were!

Adventures In Canning
Canning and Preserving · Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Adventures In Canning

LSieh2 Comments

Every time I have tried to can things recently, I have been thwarted by life! It’s been very frustrating. I’m hoping to get some more of the jams canned this Friday. We have a house work weekend planned, so then I won’t mind too much if the kitchen gets a little sticky. We can just clean it right up!

Some of the fruits I have waiting to be jam are strawberries, rhubarb, and apricots. I might pick up some more pomegranate juice too and try some jellies. I meant to make Jasmine Tea Jelly for my FIL for Father’s Day, but it never quite got made. Maybe I can get it done for Christmas.

I have made one jam so far and it was the Plum Cardamom jam that I fell in love with last year. This year I tripled the batch and didn’t bother straining it, just blended it with a stick blender. I think it worked just fine. The original recipe is from the Small Jars, Big Flavors book, but I only sort of followed it. I ended up using the old school method for one cup sugar to one cup fruit. It was still so good, that I was licking the ladle. 🙂 I ended up with 13 half pints of jam. I might not be as possessive this year. Last year I only had 8 jars and I had 4 of them myself. 🙂 Here is the jam, pictured with my next two canning experiments.

I ran out of cucumbers for my pickles, so may make some more. Some of them went bad before I could get to them. These are Hot Garlic Pickles from the Taste of Home Canning magazine. I made them last year and they were a hit. I want to make some plain garlic pickles too and some more squash pickles. (Don’t tell anyone, but my Dad ate zucchini voluntarily!! Oops…. 😉 ) I have to have enough pickles for future pickle trays, after all. I ended up with two jars of pickles.

The third other jar is pickled red onions! I love them on sandwiches, so thought I should have some. I haven’t tried them yet, but I think they look super pretty!

My friend K and I got together and made the Husbands play video games and snuggle the dog while we canned tomatoes over Labor Day. We ended up with probably 40 lbs of tomatoes? We made Zesty Salsa from the Ball Blue Book, and Roasted Garlic Pasta/Pizza sauce and Spicy Sicilian Pasta/Pizza sauce, I believe from the Better Homes canning magazine.

K took home half of them and some of the tomatoes. The salsa had some garden peppers and tomatoes. She brought a whole bag of mixed hot peppers, including habeneros and cherry bomb peppers, so it might be super spicy again. I’m excited to try it!

She canned the rest of her tomatoes, and I tried out our new dehydrator to make sundried tomatoes for the freezer. I cover them in olive oil and they keep for about 6 months in the freezer? To be honest, I have kept them for longer than that and they do fine. I didn’t quite get the consistency right, as I didn’t quite know how to make the temperature increase in the machine. Now I know and I want to try to dry some herbs next.

Don’t they look so pretty? I added some basil, oregano, and garlic too them before they were dried. The house smelled amazing!

My garden hasn’t been as successful as I wish it was. It looks pretty sad right now. I have to try digging the radishes and carrots. They were both small when I tried before. I was sad. Next year, we’ll have to try some different things.

My strawberries are still producing though and if the squirrels haven’t stolen my poblano peppers yet, I should have two out there. We also have some more purple peppers started. I think I might need to read some more garden planning books or something to figure out how to be more productive with it. Next year, I would also like to add the third bed, which might be partially herbs, and actually cage the tomatoes. They were unwieldy again this year and it was very annoying.

Back to canning talk… I have a new canning magazine (Better Homes and Gardens- Can It! Freeze It!) which has some very interesting looking recipes in it, such as Vanilla-Caramel Butter, Vanilla Citrus Plums, Brandied Strawberry jam, Roasted Tomatillo-Corn Salsa, and Sage Peach Jam.

I’m not sure exactly how many more things I will get done. I want to try some wine jelly and a whiskey ginger jelly too, but those I can really do any time.

I’m going to take Fancy’s example and go to bed to dream of new and interesting canning options though. I’ll leave you with a picture of my prized possession: a large jar of Penzey’s Sandwich Sprinkle! The Husband just shook his head, but I know he’s excited about it too. 😉