Tag: steak

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!

Recipe Review and Cookbook Spotlight
Cookbook Review · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Review and Cookbook Spotlight

LSiehLeave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Party Post and Recipe Catch Up
Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Party Post and Recipe Catch Up

LSiehLeave a comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fancy was very determined to share our dinner.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Happy Family Time!
Crafty · Simple Sundays

A Happy Family Time!

LSiehLeave a comment

We’re back! I have a few posts to catch up on. I had my recipe information with me, but was having way too much fun and it slipped my mind. I’ll do the recipe review tomorrow and talk about our vacation today.

We went up north to see my parents over the weekend and got to bring Fancy to the big lake. She loved it! We had to keep her on a long leash, as she doesn’t always listen to us when we call her. She got to spend time with her secret dog friend, Moose, too. They pretend to ignore each other, but we think that deep down they like each other. When Fancy saw Moose’s Mom, but not Moose, she got very confused and kept looking out the door. There were tails wagging on both sides too, so we know they like each other.

Fancy went right in the lake and discovered that there were rocks in there that she could pick up and bring to shore. She didn’t want to chew on them, but she was particular about where she dropped them. She had trouble with depth perception too and it was funny to watch. She would dig at the rock she wanted until she could pull it up to the shore without putting her whole head in the water. She would also chase rocks when we skipped them.

The Husband got a great video of her jumping off the big rock. It wasn’t a far jump, but she kept going back to it after to do it again. Once I can figure out how to make it play on the blog, I will post it.

There were also chipmunks for her to chase. She was extremely interested in them, which is weird, because she won’t chase the stupid squirrel in our yard when we want her too. This tiny little chipmunk eats my Mom’s strawberries in front of her and chortles while he does it, so she was in favor of it getting scared off.

She loved the whole trip, I think. She slept almost the entire way home and wouldn’t get out of the car when we got home. She was determined to go on another car trip. I had to bribe her out with chicken. She’s currently curled in her new favorite chair recovering.

The Husband and I had fun too. My Mom is an excellent cook, so we ate so well! Breakfast one of the days was pannukaku (Finnish pancake,) with Thimbleberry jam, bacon, eggs with cheese, and cranberry scones. Mmmmmm…. Pannukaku is amazing and I have the recipe in one of my family cookbooks to post.

Dinner was steak, mashed potatoes, grilled veggies, corn on the cob, and salad. The zucchini was from our garden. We brought some fresh herbs too.  Mom made an amazing vinegarette with Meyer Lemon infused olive oil and late harvest Riesling vinegar. I have a Sicilian lemon vinegar and a blood orange olive oil that I am going to add together to see if it is as good.

Fancy very much wanted to join us for dinner. She decided she would rather eat the steak, not her own dinner. It had coffee chipotle rub on it though, so she wasn’t able to eat it.

We went to the gravel pit one of the days to shoot .22s and shotguns. It ended up being a short trip, as it started raining on us. The Husband is a much better shot than I am, even though I have been shooting since I was little. Not that I’m bitter about it or anything…;)

Here are some of our targets. We made them roll up the hill. We got both of these for Dad for Christmas for a couple of years, but hadn’t had a chance to shoot them ourselves. For the shotguns, we used empty coffee cans.

We also went to a lot of rummage sales with my Mom. I may have gone overboard with the books…

According to the Husband at least. I firmly believe you can never have too many books. I’m not aversive to giving away them away when I’m done with them though. I mostly buy my four favorite authors when I see them. They are expensive new! They are all historical fiction, or semi-trashy romance. 🙂 Stephanie Lauren’s, Julia Quinn, Lisa Kleypas, and Eloisa James are the ones I typically keep after I’m done. The others I will read and give away.

The Husband got a few books for himself too and got a fantastic deal on two older drills. We went to a downsizing contractor’s rummage sale and ended up walking out with two of the, for $20. One of them has a tendency to stop working, but it doesn’t do it all the time, so the guy threw it in when we bought the other one. They came with two batteries each and a bunch of drill bits! Now we can stop borrowing my father in law’s drill all the time and maybe get some projects done here. The top book is another quilt book. It had some new patterns that I hadn’t seen. I know, I know… I just couldn’t resist.

There were also cookbooks that looked like they would be very fun. The Husband is in favor of more cookbooks, as it gets him more delicious meals. The “Fried and True,” was one I had previously looked at buying, as it’s all fried chicken and sides. It should be fun.

The Peking Table Top cooking has all sorts of info and recipes for grilling, hot pots, and a “Mandarin Pancake Party.” We’re excited to try the recipes and tips. Soufflés and cast iron recipes will be fun to try too.

There was also a plate, with what we think is my name flower, the Linnea flower on it. It’s a tiny bit different, but similar enough that at 25 cents, we bought it.

I can never resist craft items at a sale. Zippers for 10 cents each? Yes please! Considering they are over $3.00 new, I snap them up. I do need to make some more zippered bags though, to use them up. There was also quilt fabric that was all washed and pressed. I only got a little bit of it though and it’s all smaller pieces. I talked the church ladies running the sale down in price because it was a bit expensive at first. They were quite amazed and happy that I sew and quilt.

For the record, in case my decluttering friends are reading, I have a large box of giveaway items waiting to be taken to the store, so I am ending up giving away more than we brought home. 🙂

It was a long car ride both ways. We had a car scare on the way there. Apparently if the Husband’s car gets over filled, it shuts down until the gas evaporates. We spent about an hour and a half in a dealership with Fancy while they figured that out. Then on the way back, it was pouring rain pretty much the entire time.

We are home now though and sort of looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. Here’s hoping the next few days are gentle to us, as we ease back into the normal routine.

Stay tuned for last week’s Recipe Roundup tomorrow!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSieh2 Comments

The featured picture was taken on Wednesday, perhaps it was a warning of things to come. When I pulled the ice cream out of the freezer, it came with a disappointed face in the lid. I have a feeling the Husband and I will be sending it to each other frequently when we need a laugh.

I had a pretty productive week, up until yesterday when my day involved the dog’s poo bags breaking, a violent and unpleasant digestive reaction to ham in my salad, and an unexpected guinea pig in session. I never thought I would need to utter the phrase “Please don’t bring live animals to session.” But now that it has happened, at least I will be prepared for the future…

I made four new recipes this week and two were not main dishes! I have plans for this weekend for the smoker, assuming it works. The Husband has had it for years, but hasn’t ever used it. If those recipes work out, it will be very exciting, as one of them is homemade bacon! It’s up in the air about whether or not I will actually be able to eat the homemade bacon. I had a bad stomach ache from store bacon in the last few weeks and now a terrible reaction to ham. I’m hoping they were just isolated incidents, but this is how the pork issues originally started, so I’m a little nervous.

Anyway, here are the recipes I used this week.

1-Fresh Herb Scones from Pillsbury Best Muffins and Quick Breads. Section: Biscuits, Scones, Popovers, and Doughnuts.

Modifications: I added a little more rosemary than needed, but it didn’t make them taste any different. I used herbs from the garden: rosemary, parsley, and thyme. We had these at a belated dinner for my father-in-law. They turned out nice and fluffy and tasted good. Everyone seemed to enjoy them.

2- Chewy Crisp Chocolate Chip Cookies from Baking Unplugged by Nicole Rees. Section: Cookies & Bars

Modifications: None, I did follow the recipe. These were eaten too fast before I could take a picture. They did not brown up as much as most cookies do, so I was a little worried they would ve doughy, but they turned out nice. I was even eating them and typically I don’t like them. They did have melted butter in them, which changed the browning and texture, I think. It also called to use a bowl and spoon, but I was in a hurry and used the mixer. These got the Husband’s stamp of approval.

3- Caramelized  Onion Grilled Cheese from Food Network. October 2016, V.9, N. 8

Modifications: I completely forgot to add in the sherry and added the thyme last minute and used dried, instead of fresh. I also used Texas Toast, as the Italian bread I had was too thin, I thought.  We had it when I was hosting craft night and it was lovely. I used pepperjack and Gouda in two of them and Colby jack in mine. We had a friend staying with us and she loved them as well. The onions were an extremely delicious addition. I would definitely make these again.I was so distracted that I almost forgot to take pictures of the sandwich and had to steal the Husband’s half eaten one to make sure we had a pic. We had this with salad.

4- Whiskey Marinated Rib Eye Steak from The Book of Steak. Section: Up Front Cuts

Modifications: I marinated the steak for longer than it called for and it got extremely whiskey soaked near the ends. It was quite strong! The other flavors were good though and I cooked the steak perfectly, according to the Husband. We had salad and scones with this. I debated putting the salad on the plate, but the steak was dripping everywhere and I don’t like steak flavored salad. I couldn’t do it, even for pictures. I only ate about half the steak and if there are leftovers, I may make a potato steak hash with it for breakfast over the weekend.

Fancy was haunting the kitchen while I was cooking and was extremely disappointed that she couldn’t have any. I caught this picture gem while she was trying her puppy dog eyes out on The Husband. After I showed him the picture he said “Oh, just give her the steak!” The marinade and sauce were definitely not okay for pups though, so she didn’t get any.

The other cool thing about this steak recipe was that the sauce was flambeed! I watched my Dad flambé things a lot when I was a kid and it was fun to do it myself. It burned for a surprising amount of time. The paper towel in the background is not on fire, I just didn’t think to move it before pictures.

It was pretty neat, but hard to get it lit. On TV, it looks so easy, but in reality, I was attempting to not pour sauce all over the stove. I would definitely flambé more things, now that I’ve tried it once.

I do have one more recipe, although I think it is more of a method. I used the yogurt maker to make my first batch of yogurt. I didn’t have time to heat it, like it said, so it made a looser yogurt. I had some yesterday with the rhubarb marmalade and had an orange, strawberry, coconut milk smoothie for breakfast today with more.

I just followed the directions in the instruction book. It turned out very good. Unsweetened of course, but I typically use jam in it anyway. This would be perfect for baking. I did use 2% milk and I think I’ll experiment with whole milk and non-dairy milks as well. It made 7- 6 0z jars. I am also going to try making it in a large Pyrex bowl and straining it for Greek yogurt. I’ll make sure to take pictures and write reviews for comparison. It is the basic Euro Cuisine yogurt maker.

Today is the first anniversary of moving into our house! If my head stops hurting, I may make a cake I will use a new recipe, of course! 🙂