Tag: turkey

Recipe Roundup and Gardening
Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup and Gardening

LSieh2 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Almost all the plants have tomatoes started.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSieh2 Comments

So I frequently get an email from my Dad after he reads the blog, but this latest one contained a shocking revelation about St. Urho.

First, he was from Finland, not Norway, and here’s the shocking part….He was made up by some old Finnish guy who was mad about all those Irish people celebrating St. Patrick’s day!

I’ve gone all of my life thinking he was real! Dad swears up and down that he told me he wasn’t real, but I don’t think anyone did. My Grandma Shirley celebrated him too, which is where I got Norway from instead of Finland. She was Norwegian. I was shocked!

Here’s a link to the Wiki page about how the legend got started. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Urho

Fancy was shocked and sad that my own father could have tricked me like that. This is her disappointed face. 😉

Regardless of my whole life being rocked by this revelation, I did make a bunch of new dishes this week.

I psyched myself up last Sunday and made Instant Pot Lamb Pho from Chef de Home. http://www.chefdehome.com/Recipes/801/pho-recipe-instant-pot

It was a little off-putting smell-wise. I loathe the smell of raw lamb to begin with. It makes me gag every time and we don’t have it often because of that. The Husband walked into the kitchen as the stem was being let out and said “It smells like lamb mixed with feet…” I’m having trouble eating meat at the moment (texture issue) and still had the raw lamb smell stuck in my brain, so it wasn’t as successful as it could have been.

That being said, it tasted much milder than it smelled. It actually tasted pretty good and I just avoided most of the meat. We had all sorts of things to put in it. I ended up eating two bowls of it. Not pictured are the rice noodles and the pickled ginger, which is the pink stuff in the bowl above. It had a ton of spices and we had black cardamom, which was new for us. We might try it again with beef.

We also had apple pie with cinnamon ice cream that night. The pie recipe was from our Pie Contest kit and was supposedly an award- winning pie. I’m not trying the throw a lot of shade at the original pie maker, but it was pretty much a complete failure…

It called for 1 1/3 cups sugar, which is more than the ice cream had in it. That is way too much sugar for an apple pie. It was so watery! I had it in for an hour and it just soaked the bottom crust. There was no flour or anything to absorb the liquid. I used the Better Homes pie crust and it also didn’t cooperate. I ended up rolling out small circles of dough because it was too thick. It looked pretty, but was not nice.

The ice cream though… I tried it after it was churned and I’m pretty sure I almost cried, it was so good. Creamy, silky, rich, not too sweet, perfect hint of cinnamon. Mmmmm…. Updated: Here’s the link for Pinch My Salt. http://pinchmysalt.com/a-sweet-goodbye-to-summer/

I want to make more right now. I also want to use the custard base with other flavors. I may have found my perfect custard recipe. It only has two whole eggs in it too, so it doesn’t leave me with wasted bits of egg.

Fancy loves cinnamon. We could put cinnamon on cardboard and she would eat it. Okay, she would at least gnaw on the cardboard anyway, but still. I make her sweet potato fries with cinnamon and they are her favorite treat. This was her whenever I was eating the ice cream. (I’m not sure why it looks like I have three legs…I assure you, I’ve got the normal two. I must have been sitting cross legged.)

Maybe I’ll make her some banana “ice cream” with cinnamon.

We tried a new turkey recipe too. It was Parmesan Crusted Turkey Tenderloins from Ginger and Oregano. We had roasted carrots and I had roasted zucchini and summer squash. I broiled it for a few minutes to get a crispier crust. It was a tiny bit salty, even for the Husband. Now he wants everything Parmesan crusted. 🙂

I think that’s it. I’ve made yogurt as well, but just the regular recipe. I have a sweet potato to make Fancy more treats, but am feeling lazy tonight. Maybe tomorrow. I hope your Friday night is treating you right and you’re relaxing as well. 🙂

Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

I used two new cookbooks this week and got a new one as a birthday present from a friend. The new one is freezer recipes and will be fantastic for my late nights at work.

We also had spaghetti and the Husband cooked some pork chops that, sadly, turned out to be not so good. I hadn’t marinated them this time, just added some dry spices and olive oil. They were actually thawed this time too and I think it made them dry.

I made a chicken that we ended up using in three different meals and I used the carcass to make chicken broth! I was pretty proud.

1- Roasted Chicken, no recipe. I put some bread dipping spices on it, along with olive oil. Baked it at 375 for about 80 minutes. It was still a tiny bit frozen. It was good all by itself with raw veggies and fruit.

2- Chicken Tortilla Soup, method by me. I was still sick and congested at this point, so I wanted something spicy to break up my sinuses. I used a couple of boxes of broth, cooked chicken, a can of generic tomatoes and chilis, frozen corn, onion, and carrots. Also, oregano, garlic powder, and fresh garlic, cumin, and chipotle chili powder. It turned out to be pretty good for something that was just thrown together. It was very spicy, so I think it helped.

3- Chicken Puffs made with homemade crescent dough with some rye flour. I ran out of all-purpose flour and didn’t have time to run out and get more. They turned out more hearty than usual. I used chicken, cream cheese, green onions, cheddar cheese, and a spicy 3 pepper cheese. I mixed all the filling ingredients up and rolled it up in the dough. Baked at 400 for about 20-25 minutes. http://gatherforbread.com/easy-no-knead-crescent-rolls/

4- Lettuce Wraps, based on a Damn Delicious recipe. http://damndelicious.net/2014/05/30/pf-changs-chicken-lettuce-wraps/

I’ve made these before and have no idea what mods I did this time, as I didn’t actually use the recipe. They turned out good.

5- Shrimp Albondigas from Classic Southwest Cooking by Carolyn Dille and Susan Belsinger. Section: Soups and Stews. 

Modifications: My Dad gave me this cookbook for my birthday! I was excited to find another way to use shrimp, but was not excited to food process them. They got really sticky and gross looking. I did not like touching them, but they ended up being tasty. They were put into a soup. I did add some garlic powder, salt, and pepper to the broth. I also used chicken broth instead of fish broth. We don’t eat fish, so I didn’t have any on hand.

6- Boller i karry/Meatballs with Curry from Scandinavia published by World Cuisine. Section: Main Dishes

Modifications: These looked so weird when I was mixing them. I thought for sure that they were all wrong and they weren’t going to stay together in the water. They were pretty gloopy looking. They did stay together though and they were pretty good. The curry sauce needed a lot more seasoning, so I added more curry powder, salt, and pepper. These were pretty good. I think I would double the recipe the next time.

It was a pretty good week for meals. Other than the pork chop, we had all good meals. I’m not sick any more and have a fancy new freezer cookbook to try. I also remembered to take pictures of all my dinners at least.

This week I have a few late nights, but have a few slow cooker or easy meals on my list, so it should go well. Since we had spaghetti tonight, we’ll have lasagna this week and we have leftover rice that I may try to make into fried rice.

It was fun getting back into using my cookbooks!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSieh1 Comment

Whew! I always forget how much I depend on electricity. We have a gas stove, but it has electric starters, so unless we wanted to light it with a match, we had no stove for a few days. We were out for about two days. Now we have power again and I have done some cooking. Here’s the recipes:

1- Slow Cooker Chinese BBQ Beef from Food Network v. 8, n. 10. 

Modifications: I used full strength soy sauce and just reduced it a little. We’ve not had good luck with finding a reduced sodium soy sauce that doesn’t taste horrible. Next time I would also reduce the Chinese 5 spice. It was a little too licorice flavored for me. I ate this on the second day since I had put it in the crockpot the night before while working. The Husband said he liked it and had it over rice. It was good, but I don’t know if we liked enough to make it again.

2- BLT Mac and Cheese from Bacon 24/7: Recipes for Curing, Smoking and Eating by Theresa Gilliam. I bought this book for the Husband for our first anniversary (paper) almost four years ago and haven’t used it at all! This is a perfect example of why I decided to write this blog. I kept looking at it and saying I needed to make things from it, but never did. We are planning on making our own bacon this summer, when it isn’t snowing outside. I’ll make sure to take lots of pictures.

Modifications: I tried to half the recipe, but forgot halfway through and ended up making almost the whole sauce recipe. The sauce turned a little red, from too much tomato sauce, but it evened itself in the end. I used dry basil, no fresh to be found, and used the rest of the romano cheese as well, instead of just all Parmesan. I also had a freak out moment where I couldn’t figure out where the bacon went in the recipe. I made the noodles and the bacon ahead of time and saved part of the bacon grease in the fridge. The Husband kindly pointed put that I was supposed to make the bacon and then add the cheese sauce ingredients directly on top of it. It worked out in the end and tasted very good. It was less cheesy than most mac and cheese, but the sauce did thicken up. I would like to try it with fresh basil, so may make it again in the summer.

3- Grilled Chicken Over Spinach from Taste of Home: The Market Fresh Cookbook. This is another cookbook I’ve had for a long time, but haven’t tried a lot out of it. Mostly veggie recipes are included in it, which might be why. The Husband doesn’t like a lot of veggies and I tend not to cook extra recipes just for me. This book is where I get my pear bread recipe from and it is delicious.

Modifications: I broiled the chicken instead of grilling it, since it was way too cold. The seasoning was very nice, kind of Italian based spices and olive oil. I also added more garlic to the spinach and made a smaller amount. This was a really fast recipe after a long shift and I would make it again. I picked it because I had a bunch of spinach in the fridge and was tired of seeing it go to waste. It made good leftovers the next day too and I think the spices would make the chicken good for leftover recipes like potpie or chicken salad.

4- Roasted Turkey with Smoked Paprika from a Meijer recipe card.

Modifications: It’s only been a few years since I have been able to eat turkey again. I had some bad experiences with cafeteria style turkey and fake mashed potatoes and couldn’t stand it for about 6-7 years. I wouldn’t even eat my Mom’s apple cider and bacon turkey and she makes excellent turkey. I still bring a few slices of ham to my inlaw’s house for Thanksgiving to this day. We’ve discovered that the less it tastes like turkey, the more I will eat it, and I don’t like it if it’s been frozen. (I know, for a food blogger, I sound so picky.)

The Husband tried a sample of this in Meijer one day and said I had to taste it and he was right. The spice rub is extremely full flavored with smoked paprika, garlic, and Italian spices. I reduce the recipe for this one, since it’s originally for a whole turkey. We normally have it on turkey breasts or tenderloins. We’ve had this a couple of times and it’s been good each time and is on our “quick and easy” list. We had this with mashed potatoes, and roasted carrots and butternut squash in olive oil and spices. No pictures because we were both starving and the carrots took longer, so things were not ready at the same time.

I think you can find the recipe on Meijer’s website as well. Tomorrow for Pi Day (3.14) I am making a chocolate cherry icebox pie that would have been made last Thursday, had there been power. I work late again, so it will be eaten after my shift ends and should be delicious. I’ll be sure to take pictures before we eat it all.