Tag: recipes

Chinese New Year Party Post
Party Posts

Chinese New Year Party Post

LSieh2 Comments

We had a lovely smaller Chinese New Year party this year. This party we tend to keep to around 6-8 people. It gets too crazy otherwise. I’m still occasionally weird about asking people to make or bring foods.

Fancy even got into the spirit, since it’s the Year of the Dog. I made her a little bow for her party harness. This picture was taken after the party. She was so sleepy!

Fancy got some beef scraps and a large amount of carrots. She my have even gotten her pets and belly rubs quota filled, although she would tell you otherwise.

I made a pretty table runner for us, but forgot to take a picture of the table. It currently is waiting to be washed, as it got some cheesecake on it. Whoops! You can see a little of it in the featured picture.

We completely forgot to give out red packets! Traditionally they contain money, but we filled them with other things as well. I may mail them out, or just use it as an excuse to go see people again. 🙂

Now, on to the food!

We had a beef hotpot for the main. We had a bunch of veggies out and then cooked the meat in the broth. I added keffir lime leaves, lemon grass, garlic powder, white pepper, and soy sauce to chicken broth. The meat was marinated with sesame oil, soy sauce, and sherry.

I was told by a reliable source that cheesecake is a perfectly acceptable dessert, if you don’t want to make traditional dishes, so I ran with it. I made a blood orange cheesecake with a blood orange caramel sauce. I also attempted to candy blood orange slices, but it didn’t go as well as planned. I think my water/sugar ratio was off. The recipe is from New River Groves. http://newrivergroves.com/orange-cheesecake-recipe

I have one bone to pick with this recipe. It had me cook it in a water bath and then immediately put it in the fridge to cool. It wasn’t supposed to crack, but take a look….

This was maybe an hour after putting it in the fridge! I was incredibly upset and annoyed. The Husband was probably shocked at the unladylike language that was issuing from the kitchen. I covered up the crack with orange slices and poured caramel over it and it still tasted good. I would recommend leaving it to cool in the oven for at least an hour before pulling it. That’s what I’ve done in the past.

I used the Chicken and Shrimp Jaozi from the Dumplings book from the kit we got for Christmas. We ate the dumplings too fast for me to remember a picture. Here is a picture of when you forget that the flames from a gas stove may, in fact, catch things on fire…

We’ll stick to using our rice cooker as a steamer thank you! The dumplings were delicious though and we have a bunch of them in the freezer. I was originally concerned that they wouldn’t be as flavorful as I would want them to be, but it turned out the recipe was right!

I was brave and made spring rolls! We made them veggie, as the recipe called for pork, but I wanted to be able to eat them. They were  little dark, but were still good. These were from The Food Of China by Deh-Ta Hsiung and Nina Simonds. 

We also used the same book to make char sui bao, or barbecued steamed buns. We had pork and chicken. These are the chicken buns.

I had help putting them together and we marked the pork ones with red food coloring. Technically, that would mean they were sweet in a restaurant, bur my other choice was blue and that would be weird…The pork ones were gone in a flash! I ate the rest of the chicken buns yesterday. They were delicious!

To make the pork for it, I combined soy sauce, char sui bbq sauce, white pepper, and garlic powder. I poured it over 4 pork loin chops and turned them until they were coated and then baked them at 350 for maybe half an hour? Then I chopped them up very small and stuck the pieces back in the cooking dish.

I used this recipe for the chicken buns: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/steamed-chinese-five-spice-chicken-buns/0a40c00f-7750-4e31-935a-c5bd156f44b7

Mmm… they were good!

So I had a request to share the steamed bun dough recipe as well. It’s kind of a weird dough. It raises for 3 hours and you knead baking powder into it right before you form them, which activates and make it very fluffy. I used The Food of China’s basic yeast dough. I will write it out, as I’m not sure where to find the book. No copyright infringement intended.

“Ingredients:

3 T sugar

1 C warm water

1 1/2 tsp dried yeast

3 1/4 C flour

2 T oil- I used half canola/ half sesame

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

“Makes 1 quantity” – roughly 24 small, 12 large

Method:

Dissolve the sugar in the water, then add the yeast. Stir lightly, then set aside for 10 minutes, or until foamy.

Sift the flour into a bowl and add the yeast mixture and the oil. Using a wooden spoon, mix the ingredients into a rough dough. Turn the mixture out unto a lightly floured surface, and knead for 8-10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic. If it is very sticky, knead in a little more flour-the dough should be soft. Lightly grease a bowl with the oil. Place dough in the bowl and turn it so that all the sides of the dough are coated. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and set aside to rise in a draft-free place for 3 hours.

Uncover the dough, punch it down, and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. If you are not using the dough right away, cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

When you are ready to use the dough, flatten it and make a well in the center. Place the baking powder in the well and gather up the edges to enclose the baking powder. Pinch the edges together to seal. Lightly knead the dough for several minutes to evenly incorporate the baking powder, which will activate immediately.

Use the prepared dough as directed.”

So if you follow it, you too can have delicious fresh bao! Let me know how it works if you try it! Happy Lunar New Year!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay tuned for party pictures on Monday and quotes tomorrow!

Recipe Roundup
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Recipe Roundup

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It has been a snowy couple of days! We were supposed to get around 9 inches and we did get about that much yesterday. I got to stay home and snuggle Fancy and bake. The Husband had to go into work, but got to leave early to come home and said it wasn’t too bad.

I waited to write this review because we used the Instant Pot again last night, this time for Pot Roast and Veggies from the recipe book that came with the pot. It was actually a bit bland and would have been way worse if I hadn’t added seasonings before I pressure cooked it. The recipe didn’t even call for salt and pepper on the meat! I added oregano, a bay leaf, salt, pepper, and garlic and it was still bland.

I still like oven roasted pot roast more. My mother-in-laws pot roast is  the best. My Mom makes a good roast, but my M-I-L’s falls apart if you look at it funny.

I did some baking on my snow day. Fancy needed biscuits, so got pumpkin, banana, cinnamon ones from Endlessly Inspired. http://endlesslyinspired.com/2016/09/01/pumpkin-banana-dog-treats/

I added the cinnamon because she likes it.

She enjoyed these very much. 🙂

(Please excuse the blue fluff all over. She’s shredding her rope and any time she moves it we get a million fluffs everywhere.)

Having homemade treats didn’t stop her from licking my carrots later in the day and shamelessly begging for my pasta lunch. It’s a good thing she’s cute!

After I made the treats, I had a banana and half a can of pumpkin left over, so I made Pumpkin Banana Bread from Oh Sweet Basil. https://ohsweetbasil.com/pumpkin-banana-bread-recipe/

It is delicious! I gobbled a bunch of it already yesterday. It has three kinds of chocolate chips in it, mainly because we’ve used up our semi-sweets without realizing it. I had a quarter bag of mini semi-sweet, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate left, so I threw them all in with wild abandon.

I made a lentil dish for lunches this week. Lebanese Lentil Salad with Cumin, Mint, and, Garlic from Kayln’s Kitchen. The link looks unfinished, but it will take you to the right recipe.

https://kalynskitchen.com/recipe-for-lebanese-lentil-salad-with/

I used dried herbs and it came out fine. It smelled a little weird from the combo of herbs, but tasted good. I had it with rice.

The latest Food Network magazine had an overnight oats page, so I tried the Spiced Mango recipe and it was alright. I don’t know if I’m completely sold on them. I might try heating it up next time.  No pictures because I was running out the door with them.

I made a tortilla chicken soup for Superbowl Sunday, even though we actually recorded the game and then fast forwarded through the game to watch the commercials. We’re weird like that. We watched “Pitbulls and Parolees” instead. 🙂

It was delicious as well. Just a little bit of spice on the back end. I tried to measure so I could share the recipe too. The Husband cut the chicken for me, while I messed around with the rest of it and he did a great job. Here’s the recipe!

Linny’s Superbowl Chicken Tortilla Soup

2 cubed and cooked chicken breasts (seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, Penzy’s “Forward” spice, and chili powder. Cayenne pepper is optional. Alternatively, use leftover chicken.)

1-2 jalepenos, one seeded, one with seeds

2-4 medium to large tomatoes, quartered

1 medium onion, quartered

1 bell pepper, any color, roughly chopped

4 garlic cloves, peeled

32 oz. chicken broth

4-8 oz tomato sauce. (I had half a can leftover, but would have used a full can if I hadn’t had a half already opened.)

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 tsp Chili powder

1/2 tsp Garlic powder

Method:

Put the roughly chopped veggies on a foil lined sheet pan and drizzle with olive oil. Broil veggies until char appears and then flip to broil the second side.

While veggies are cooking, cook cubed chicken in batches, either in soup pot or in a skillet.

Chop the veggies or blend them with an immersion blender until they are in small pieces and add veggies to the soup pot. Pour in the broth, add the spices, and tomato sauce. Bring to  boil and then simmer for 30 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings. Serve with tortilla chips.

Chicken Tortilla Soup is one I make frequently when I need a quick dinner idea. There are a ton of recipes out there, so you can customize it as you see fit. It also freezes really well.

We’re doing some meal planning today, I think. We have plans to stay in and be cozy after running the couple of errands we have to do. For now though, I think I’m going to grab a slice of that pumpkin bread and have an Elevensies snack!

Monthly Review
Crafty · Monthly Review · Sewing

Monthly Review

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Here’s to another month! January flew by as usual. We had a lazy first weekend in February. Fancy spent most of her time playing tug with the Husband and her rapidly shedding rope toy, or snoring on my lap. She did not move for much of anything. She was not interested in the puppy bowl, although she was a little confused by the puppy squeaks. She squeaked her ball a lot though, in protest of us watching other pups.

I think I’m off to a good start with sewing. I’ve been working on a bunch of projects and I made some things that I needed and finished a bunch of projects from the UFO box.

This project takes care of both of those categories. I made some hot pads for the kitchen. One has a loop and one doesn’t. They came out a little small, so we’ll probably use them for trivets.

They were easy to make, but not too pretty on the other side. Yikes.. The binding was too big.

I have also started a new rainbow quilt. I’m not counting this one against my total. It’s technically for an old project that I hadn’t started yet.

I swear to finish something big soon. My quilt tops are stacking up. If I don’t finish some, I’ll have to get a bigger tote. I’m considering just backing everything with fleece. I have batting for a bunch of them, but not all.

So for UFOS I have made 13+ tea wallets, the hot pads, a Christmas zippered pouch, the evil fairy bag, and the library bag.

For new projects, I made a self-drafted tunic and the castle shirt.

I have also added two more quilt tops. Well, partial. They aren’t sewn together yet. They are also rainbow, since I apparently can’t do anything else. I think I’ve decided on this block for the pastel rainbow one. I found a cute white on white floral to use for the center of the blocks. I may need to make a few more of the scrap blocks depending on how the layout looks. I also have the chevron one in the featured pic.

Man… sometimes admitting the things I haven’t finished yet makes me cringe. I don’t normally put stock in negative self talk for motivation, but apparently sometimes it works. I’ll be working on some backed up projects for sure this month.

I’ve done much better in food terms this week. 15 new recipes and 12 new cookbooks. Hits were the lamb, the cinnamon ice cream, the Parmesan crusted chicken, and the Gordon Ramsey noodle and mushroom dish.

The hotpot was also a hit. It was a fun dinner with bonus noodle soup!

Misses were the pho (smelled like “lamb and feet”) and the pie contest apple pie. Not too bad for the month.

Goals: 

Sewing/crafting:

– Make the dragon dress

– Fancy up my work clipboards so I don’t get them mixed up with the office ones.

– Fully finish a quilt.

– Sew a pair of leggings! (Eek! Sewing with knits!)

Food goals:

– Use the InstantPot

– Try a new breakfast recipe

– Try a new lunch recipe

– Meal Plan/Pantry shop

– Make more ice cream! (Yes, I know it’s winter, but ice cream!)

I will also try to snuggle this puppers more to her standards. She feels sadly lacking in the snuggle department… You can plainly see she’s terribly sad about it. She probably also needs more treats. I mean, how could we resist?

I think I’ll take her current example and take myself off to bed. Have a lovely, restful night!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

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The weather here cannot make up its mind about what to do. All our snow melted in a day after getting several inches and now it’s freezing again. We’re supposed to get 4-6 inches by tomorrow. Fancy has spent most of the last couple of days curled up on the bed, or by the heating vent. She’s currently keeping my feet warm with occasional breaks to bark at the neighbors.

We had a good amount of variety in our meals this week. For dinner tonight, it will be “clean out the fridge.” I think all we have left is the chicken divan though, so that will be easy to finish off.

We had a pre-seasoned boneless lamb leg on Sunday, with mashed potatoes and fancy carrots from a Food Network magazine.

I consulted a couple of different recipes for the lamb, mainly just for tempature. It turned out really good. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/herb-roasted-lamb-recipe-1943577.html?soc=itksocialsharedefault%7Cios%7Ct Herb-Roasted Lamb By Ina Garten

I think this is the one I finally settled on. The link is being weird and linking back to the app instead of the webpage, so if it gives you trouble, search the Food Network site.

The lamb was delicious! We will definitely be doing this again. The Husband was super happy with it. I liked it. It masked the lamb gameyness and had a bit of a kick to it.

The carrots were from Food Network April 2015, Herbed Green Beans and Carrots. I only used carrots and I used a cranberry-pear white balsamic vinegar. I did reduce the sugar a little in the recipe. I julienned the carrots, feeling very fancy while cutting them.

We also had chicken divan. I accidentally mixed the cheese in and forgot the bread crumbs, so it was a little bit different. I also didn’t measure and under seasoned it. It still tasted alright though.

I made another muffin recipe. Blood Orange Pomegranate Muffins from Food Network, Jan/Feb 2018. 

They browned up a bit more than I was expecting. They have two full sticks of butter in them… The pomegranate arils were supposed to go on top, but I accidentally mixed them in. I didn’t make the glaze. I typically don’t like it. These were good. Slightly over baked, I think. They also made a full 24, when the recipe only said it would make 18. I’m not sure what size muffins they thought I was making…

I had chocolate chip banana waffles for breakfast one night. It had been a rough day, so they were a nice treat. https://hilahcooking.com/chocolate-chip-waffles/

I had them with butter and lingonberry jam. Mmm… I would make these again. The Husband was out for the night, so I didn’t have to share. I would make these again. I reduced the sugar a little and would do so again. The chocolate chips and jam made these sweet enough.

Last night I used the lamb to make a lamb stew, loosely based off a recipe in A Taste of Lebanon by Mary Salloum.

It was spicy from the lamb seasoning and warming from the cinnamon. We had cheese biscuits with it. We ate most of it last night. I would make this again if we have leftover lamb.

In other news, I started an Instagram account for the blog, with the same name- Notso50shousewife. If you have an account, feel free to follow along.

Stay tuned on Monday for my monthly review! I’m starting pretty strong on sewing projects this year.

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

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I really have to remember to take pictures of all my recipes, not just the new ones. This week, we had spaghetti and lasagna and I only got the spaghetti photographed. I ate separately from the Husband most nights, so that’s probably why.

This spaghetti was made on the stove and it cooked for about 6 hours. There was a little too much acid in it and I ran out of tomatoes. I used a can of tomato paste and one can of sauce with two cans of diced tomatoes.

We had lasagna on Monday. The Husband baked it and I ate some when I got home late. No pictures, because I kept forgetting. It had fresh mozzarella, Boursin cheese, and Parm in it.

We also had mac and cheese later in the week. I made it in the morning and the Husband baked it when he got home. It doesn’t photograph well, especially as leftovers, so no picture. No fancy cheeses for this one, except I added a tiny bit of cream cheese for extra creamy texture. We were out of milk, so the roux was chicken broth based instead. I find it’s not as creamy that way, hence the cream cheese. It wasn’t the best thing ever, but it was decent.

We also had caramelized onion bacon pizza. I had a scary moment where I thought bacon might have to come out of my diet, but it turned out to be the dairy instead. I haven’t had any problems since, so I think bacon is still in! We fell on it like starving wolves, so no pictures. I used the thin crust pizza recipe from a Food Network magazine, I think October 2015?

So now for a new recipe, this time with pictures!

Sheet Pan Teriyaki Chicken from The Recipe Critic.

https://therecipecritic.com/2016/09/sheet-pan-teriyaki-chicken-with-vegetables/

I think I ate sautéed spinach with it. I have a picture of the spinach and I remember eating it, but it seems like a very long time ago…

The chicken was good, the veggies were an absolute salt bomb. Blech. Next time, they will not be seasoned, just have the glaze. I’m going to make this up as a freezer meal and it will be a good one to keep around. The spinach was good, just olive oil, garlic, s + p.

Tonight we tried out a recipe from Peking Table Top Cooking by Linda Lew, Anges Lee, and Elizabeth Brotherton. We used the Chimney Soup recipe from the Firepot chapter.

This is the end noodle soup with the extra bits. It was hard to take a picture of the hotpot and the bits, we were eating them too fast! The Husband said it almost reached the level of the duck and requested the 3 ingredient marinade on all the meats. 🙂 Seriously, this magic marinade was 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1 T sherry, and 1 T of cornstarch. The recipe called for Chinese rice wine or ginger juice and I had neither, so subbed sherry. It’s in a lot of the other marinade. I was happy that he liked it so much though.

I did spice up the broth with soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic powder, and ginger.

Mom would have frowned at us though. We pretty much ate standing at the stove, until we had the noodle soup. We couldn’t figure out managing the fondue pot and extension cord on the table and managing Fancy at the same time. She was extra interested, as she got some little pieces of steak that wouldn’t work for the dinner when the Husband cut the steak. He did an excellent job, we had very little waste and perfect strips of meat. We’re trying to figure out if he could do this with pork too. I’m sure he could.

Next week I have all late nights except for Monday, due to some emergency appointments. I really need to start keeping to my hours, or just accept the fact that I probably won’t be home before 8 most nights. That’s a terrible thought though, so I need to figure out something else.

This week includes probably another Instant Pot dinner, possibly pot roast, ice cream, and fancy muffins. It should be fun, assuming I can work it all in.

Possibly also biscuits for Fancy. She’s been super-duper snuggly today and I think misses us. She’s not eating when we aren’t both here and it’s gotten worse. She won’t drink water either. We’re trying to train her to specific meal times. Currently, we have to hide tiny pieces of treats in her bowl in the mornings to get her to eat even a few mouthfuls. Then she eats too fast in the evenings and gets very bad, stinky, gas. Like, clear the room bad. Here she is all mad that I told on her…

Hopefully she will learn that she can eat and she’s safe, even if our schedules change. Wish us luck!

Party Post and Recipe Catch Up
Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Party Post and Recipe Catch Up

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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!

Yearly Recipe Review
Monthly Review · Recipe Roundup

Yearly Recipe Review

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Here goes my last review! It will be back to regular posting for the rest of the week.

The Husband’s favorite recipe was the Thai Sweet Hot Duck, hand’s down. I’m a little nervous to make it again for fear I will mess it up!

We might have it for Valentine’s Day though. We never go out, just eat a fancy dinner at home.

My favorite new recipe was the coconut veggie curry.

It was so comforting. I need to investigate more veggie options for my lunches.

The French onion  grilled cheese sandwiches were also a surprise hit. Messy, but delicious.

I liked the marshmallow ice cream, but the Husband didn’t. We both liked the chocolate ice cream.

I did make two really good chocolate cupcakes, the blackberry ones and my birthday cupcakes.

I normally don’t really like chocolate cupcakes, but these recipes were really moist and delicious.

Of course, the dragon bundt cake was delicious and I was excited to use the pan. It wasn’t too bad to clean or get the cake out either.

Fancy liked all her treats. I couldn’t tell which one she liked the best. She does get so excited when I pull out the frozen sweet potato sticks. 🙂

Misses were the chicken risotto, a couple of stir fry experiments, and the cheese and mushroom souffle.

I used a total of 113 new cookbooks! My idea of sections went a little wonky because there were multiple recipes in each section that I wanted to try. Overall though, I did use new cookbooks and recipes in the spirit of the challenge. I have a bunch of cookbooks left to use.

There are a few cookbooks that I think I may need to just get rid of. The Microwave Chinese Cookbook scares both of us, so it will go. Basically, any cookbook that doesn’t make me want to cook with it should probably go. There’s no sense in holding on to them, if I won’t use them. It’ll make more room for new ones! 🙂

What I learned: 

– Trust my instincts. I know how to cook and bake and if something doesn’t look right, it might not be.

– Up the spices! We like a lot of flavor. Part of this might be to measure things out for a little bit to make sure I’m eye measuring correctly.

– Have fun with it! Play with my food/recipes more.

– Try new things.

– Meal plan. Even if it’s enough meals planned for the week, but not assigned to the specific day.

– Involve the Husband. He can learn to do more of the prep and try new things as well. Plus, it would be fun to have some help.

Goals: 

My goals aren’t that different from last year when I started the blog. I’m debating adding some more social media and trying to grow my readers, but it makes me a little nervous. We’ll see how I feel in a little bit.

So here are my overall goals for the year:

– Take pictures of everything food related. Figure out my photo editing.

– Meal plan consistently.

– Try new techniques.

– Have a Chopped themed dinner party, even though it’s slighty terrifying.

– Actually measure my own recipes, so I can recreate them.

That’s probably enough goals for the year. I don’t want to get too crazy with planning. Let me know if there’s anything else I should do differently, or more you’d like to see!

Stay tuned for a regular Wordless Wednesday post! Have a great day!

 

Monthly Review And Recipe Roundup
Monthly Review · Recipe Roundup

Monthly Review And Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

Sometimes when my baking projects don’t quite turn out like I think they should, I make up little stories. It helps me cope. 🙂 This one was a Christmas Eve series of texts to Kayla when the bread got a bit out of control.

To set the scene: I decided to make a new recipe for what I thought was probably nissu. This recipe was for Pulla from the Scandinavia cookbook. It called for currents, but I left them out. The measurements were all in metric and I forgot I had a kitchen scale that would measure in metric, so it took a bit to figure things out.

Here’s the first picture:

This is where it started to go a little wonky. This is my biggest Pyrex bowl. Before the rise had happened… After 8 cups of flour…

This is the dough after the rise:

Also where my texts started to get a bit silly…

“After the rise, the bread overlord demanded a warm oven…”

“Too scared to disobey, I complied with haste, in hopes that it would spare the household.”

Kayla thought it was pretty funny, but she wasn’t the one being menaced by bread gone wild. The Husband was no help, he welcomes our bread overlords. 🙂

The recipe said it “served four” and I’m not sure who it thought I would be feeding. Ice giants? Trolls? It made a ton of them!

Mmmmmm….. the rolls were delicious. They are all contained now and less menacing after being frozen.

I didn’t cook a lot this week, due to the holiday, but we did have the traditional Christmas Eve meatballs. Eric and I have added buttered noodles to our tradition and I like it.

These were just beef meatballs. Since I know where to find ground venison now, we generally add that too, but I wasn’t able to get to the store. We’ll have mixed ones for the party though. We also had salad with them.

I also figured out that although the peppermint truffle filling was a failure as truffles, it makes a great ice cream sauce. We had brownie sundaes and I made mine a peppermint one.

I also used a Roasted Garlic Chicken freezer meal, which we both enjoyed. My stomach objected to something extremely violently though and I wasn’t able to eat any of the delicious leftovers. The Husband had it as leftovers and was fine, so it was just my stomach being weird, I guess.

Now for the monthly review!

Food Review:

I made 17 new recipes and used 4 new cookbooks. I used four family or my recipes. We had a good track record of eating leftovers. I did horribly at actually making breakfasts and lunches.

Hits were the peppermint sugar cookies, the garlic chicken for the Husband, stuffed Italian meatballs, the GF chocolate Orange cookies, and the Mexican Hot Chocolate Crinkles.

Misses were the garlic chicken for me, peppermint truffles, and the chewy chocolate cookies.

I’m sure I’m forgetting something, so if I figure it out, I’ll post it.

Food Goals: 

-Use the spice grinder and kitchen blow torch. 🙂

-Try to use at least one new cookbook a month.

-Make more tea blends and drink more tea!

-Use the InstantPot.

Craft Review

This month I made 4 hot pads, listed three new items on Etsy, sold 10 tea wallets, organized a little, and made two table runners. I started my Christmas skirt, but it still needs a lining and a cover for the rough zipper ends.

Craft Goals: 

– Finish two quilts from my stack of UFOs.

– Deliver the Rainbow Snowballs (When will it leave my house?!)

– Finish the second OT quilt and mail them off.

– Make a dress.

I have navy fabric ordered that has white baby dragon silhouettes and little gold crowns on it. It needs to be a sweet little dress with a gold Peter Pan collar and slightly puffed sleeves. It makes me giggle to think about it. My kids at work will love it, especially the little girls who think they are princesses. 🙂

I also really need to organize the basement and come up with a system to keep it organized. Hopefully I’ll find my serger pedal while working down there.

We’re possibly having family for the Epiphany party and want to be able to show off the whole house. The basement is a disaster from my fabric spread, the Legos, and Fancy’s proclivity for shredding cardboard. We also just found evidence that there may have been rodents nesting under the dryer at some point before we owned the house. We haven’t seen evidence of any there now, but need to get things sorted to make sure.

If you don’t hear from me by Monday night, send help… The bread overlords may have banded together with the fabric piles to take us down.

Also exciting news, my blog is almost a year old! I’ll be taking most of next week to review the good and the bad that went on this year. I’ll be splitting it up in sections, otherwise I think it would be way too long.

Let me know what you like reading about and if there are things I should change. That’s what the new year is for after all!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

I’ve been actually going to bed early this week and we had some car trouble, so I only made a few new recipes. I am hoping to make a few more new ones over my little break from work.

My clients were amazed that I was coming back to work on Wednesday, but the Husband doesn’t have time off anyway, so I don’t need the extra time. I’m sure Fancy would love it if I were home to snuggle her, but I didn’t really have much planned. A friend and I are going to get together to do some Zumba, I think, but it should be a relaxing couple of days.

I do need to make this cherry fudge for the Husband’s work people. They’ve been asking for it since I made it last year. The problem is, I dislike the fudge itself and it’s a pain to make. The recipe list includes cherry jello powder, white chocolate, and marshmallow fluff… It’s too sweet for me and that should tell you all you need to know about it. It was, apparently, the best thing I made though, so they’ll get it on Wednesday, I think. I have all day Tuesday to make myself do it.

I made two more cookie recipes from the December Food Network magazine, Lemon Spritz and Walnut Cardamom Crescents. They were both good, but I liked the lemon ones better.

1- Lemon Spritz from FN December 2017

I used my Grandma Florence’s cookie press to make these, so that was special. I actually have cookie presses from my side of the family and from the Husband’s dad’s side. Oddly enough, I was gifted both of them for Christmas the same year, I think, from my mom and M-I-L. Now I have to use my second one for another recipe to honor both sides. Oh darn… will have to make another spritz recipe… 😉

These were good, nice and crisp, with a hint of lemon. I had gold sanding sugar too, so they were all sparkly. I brought an entire tin of these to my work, which only has about 7 of us, and when I went back in the afternoon to see how they had gone over, the entire tin was almost empty! The office manager said she had been eating them all day. 🙂

One of the cookie presses has a dog shaped form and I may try to pipe some dog cookies for Fancy with the biscuit recipe I have. Would that be weird though? “Here Fancy, eat this other pumpkin flavored dog…” :p

2-Walnut Cardamom Crescents from FN December 2017

I may have toasted the walnuts for slightly too long. They didn’t look brown, but had a very strong flavor. I couldn’t find the cardamom in them after they were baked. They are a very delicate cookie and kept breaking  when I tried to roll them. I might just stick to my traditional snowball cookie recipe.

3- Stovetop Mac and Cheese, by me.

This version had shredded pepperjack and cheddar cheese in it. It was pretty good, nice and gooey. We used small shells for it.

4-Tacos, by me

No picture, too hungry! I browned a pound of hamburger, drained it, added about a 1/3 of a jar of salsa, cumin, garlic and onion powder, and salt and pepper. I used the leftover meat for quesadillas the next day. Mmmmm…

5- Sweet Chili Chicken and Carrots from Sweet Pes and Saffron https://sweetpeasandsaffron.com/7-chicken-marinade-recipes-freezer-friendly/

I added the carrots so there would be a veggie. We used leg and thigh pieces instead of breasts. We had it for lunch one day when we were both home. It was good. I was having trouble with meat texture, but the taste was good. We had it over rice. I may use the leftover chicken in stir fry for lunch tomorrow.

We are just headed out for a lovely Friendsmas party. I’m wearing my annual Christmas pun shirt. It features a large mustache and says “Staching through the snow.” It is my very favorite holiday shirt. 🙂 I may need to look for another punny holiday shirt though, so I have an extra one. Maybe I’ll find one on clearance!

Have a wonderful day!