Tag Archives: Recipe

Super Soup Sunday!


Hey, did you guys forget that I like to share recipes?

You did?

Oh, I guess that is because I forgot to share any since the flood of posts in December ;)

Fine – since I will be otherwise occupied for awhile, I will at least make sure to share when I find a gem or two. I came up with my own unexpectedly earlier in the week that I will more properly document and post when I make it again.

This one is courtesy of a friend from high school. Yet another “thank you Facebook!” connection that I made in the last few years. She just started her own blog specifically for sharing recipes and today she shared this Super Soup Sunday idea. First of all, I love that plan. Make a pot of soup to and save for leftovers during the week or freeze for longer time frames.

Soup Recipe

 

That’s direct from the Purely Nourished site.

FWIW, I did saute the onions and celery in lemon juice. I did not buy any garnish, and I did buy some french bread to go with it. Here’s what I had after 20 minutes of chopping:

photo (1)

 

A mixture of organic and not quite organic ingredients. I had to go with what I already had. I did have to make a trip to Jimbo’s to get the red lentils.

For the after picture I am using Jodi’s – it’s much prettier and she at least has some garnish:

Marakesh Express Soup

 

Yum yum and YUM! This soup is packed with proteins and ridiculously excellent nutrients thanks to the beans, spices and veggies. As you might see from her site – that is the focus.

I’m looking forward to more Super Soup Sunday recipes from her.

Recipe Pages organized!


First, yes, there has been a change (yet again) in main theme for the blog – the header picture is the old Point Loma Lighthouse at the Cabrillo National Monument. We visited there with some out of town friends on the 26th.

But, on my To Do list for the holiday break was to more formally organize all the recipes I’ve shared over the years. So now they are split apart in two pages: Cookies & Main Meals (since those are what I primarily try out).

There are tabs up at the top for the two of them. When I try something new and it is good enough to share, I will put up a blog post but also add the successful recipe with my own notes onto the appropriate page.

So feel free to browse the two sections and if you’ve got questions on any of them, drop me an email or a comment.

Happy baking or cooking!

Premier Cheesecake Cranberry Bars


My first attempt at this recipe. As part of my holiday baking tradition I like to mix in a new recipe or two each year. This year, I am going for THREE news ones (yes, I picked another one after making that recipe list earlier).

Anyway, here’s me live blogging this adventure. There will be foul language. Lest anyone get the wrong impression – I am NOT a highly skilled baker by ANY means and I’m about to prove it to you.

I wing it all the time. Any good disciplined cook (like my mom) would probably read and re-read the recipe making sure they understand each step that is coming up. Gather all ingredients and measuring implements. Check to see if anything needs to be softened or set at room temperature (oops!).  You know, stuff that folks who haven’t developed adult onset internet/social media ADHD would do.

Well…I started out the day very well. Checked how many sticks of butter I needed and if they should be softened (7 sticks and yes to all).  I set them out in front of their recipe pages nicely in a row. Planned the three recipes I would do and even ordered them properly. Make the jello spritz dough first since it needs to be refrigerated. Then do the ricotta cheese cookies and bake all of them back to back with the jello so that the oven is then free to handle the longer cooking time of the Cranberry Bars (40 mins). That way too, I was completely done with cookie sheets and cooling racks and could clean and move them out of the way.

Those first two were easy – I have done them before, made all the rookie mistakes and now have them down to a routine. So, I was OK not giving them 100% focus. Though, there was the one batch that went into an oven that was turned OFF vs just the timer being turned off since I was on the phone as I was making the transition. Aack! Again though, I know those cookies well enough to be able to figure out how much longer they needed based on how far along they were and you cannot tell which tray they were.

Then I started the bars…..

Premier Cheesecake Cranberry Bars – a Nestle recipe

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 1/2 cups quick or old fashioned oats
  • 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 2 cups (12 oz pkg) Nestle Premier White Morsels
  • 1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese at room temperature
  • 1 can (14 oz) Sweetened Condensed Milk
  • 1 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 can (14 oz) whole berry cranberry sauce
  • 2 tbl cornstarch

HEAT oven to 350. GREASE 13×9 inch baking pan. COMBINE flour, oats and brown sugar in a large bowl. Add butter and mix until crumbly. Stir in morsels. Reserve 2 1/2 cups of mixture for topping.

With floured fingers, press remaining mixture into prepared pan. BEAT cream cheese until creamy. Add condensed milk, lemon juice and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Pour over crust. Combine cranberry sauce and cornstarch in bowl. Spoon over cream cheese mixture. Sprinkle reserved morsel mixture over cranberry mixture. BAKE for 35-40 mins or until center is set. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cover; refrigerate until serving time. Cut into bars. Makes 30 bars.

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So that first step? Where you combine the flour, oats, butter and brown sugar?  THEN add the MORSELS? THEN line the bottom the pan with BARELY ANY OF IT? Well, I had to do that twice. The first time I dilligently measure out the 2 1/2 cups reserve. And that left me with….almost nothing. I sure couldn’t figure out how it would cover the whole pan! But, I spent close to 20 minutes spreading and rolling with my fingers and palm to get that damn thing spread out. And then….I wondered exactly when I am supposed to add the morsels?

Yeah – I made the mixture and pressed it all in without the morsels. $^#&(@*#&@*$^#(*^#$(!!!!

I scraped it up, put it back in the bowl with the reserved amount, added the morsels and said “Fuck it – I am not measuring this reserve again, it all just better FIT!” So I pressed out two small scoops of the mixture with the morsels back into the pan. Part way through I remember I had greased the pan before and maybe scraping out the first batch had removed some of that? Again – “Fuck it!” I truly didn’t care. My fingers were sore from the pressing. So up there is what it looked like and down there is the reserve amount.

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Now, this delay in step one was actually OK. Because you see, I had not quite picked up on the whole Cream Cheese AT ROOM TEMPERATURE! Thankfully I had been using the oven before, so the stove top was fairly warm. Also I messed up step one so…by the time I got around to picking up the cream cheese container from the stove where I had placed it after reading that little detail, it was pretty damn close to room temp. Close enough anyway. By this point I am cranky as you can tell…

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Now here I should also admit that I didn’t quite have enough lemon juice. Again, I had simply checked before I went shopping last night to see IF I had any – not whether or not I had ENOUGH. Lord…also…my lemon juice expiration date is…..12/26/12!! Weee…makes you want a bite of this right? Whatever – I had a hair under a cup and that was going to have to do. Like I said, CRANKY! It looks pretty nice up there anyway. Poured just perfectly over the first layer anyway.

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No drama mixing the cranberry sauce and cornstarch….

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…but there was some drama spooning it out. As you can see – it BARELY..just SORT OF…covered the cream cheese layer. Sigh……

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Sure seems to be a lot of MORSELS on that last layer eh? I have no idea why. And I don’t care!

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Nicely golden brown on the top – I wont be cutting this up for a couple of days so I cannot give you the full report – BUT – after letting it cool on the counter and just before putting it in the ‘fridge I DID sneak a corner spoonful  Which DID (yay!) scoop up easily so that the whole greasing process seems to have held up despite the scraping up of that first layer.

AND? It tasted pretty damn good! In fact, any more lemon juice and I may not have liked it since I usually want to only taste a hint of citrus in my desserts anyway.
I’ll report on how it is properly chilled and set, but despite that goof ups, I like it.
Not sure if I would do it again though – I think folks will have to rave about them first. Cookies are way easier!

Crock Pot Lasagna


Crock Pot Lasagna before cooking

Crock Pot Lasagna before cooking

 

Courtesy of Dinosaurs Can’t Eat Pizza – a recipe a saved back in January and finally remembered to pull out this week when I wanted to do some crock pot cooking.

Crock Pot Lasagna

Author: Unknown

: Entree, Italian, Crock Pot

Prep time:  15 mins

Cook time:  5 hours

Total time:  5 hours 15 mins

Serves: 6

 

Ingredients

  • 1.5 lb ground turkey (or ground sausage or ground beef)
  • 1 lg chopped onion
  • 1 clove minced garlic
  • 1 lb mozzarella, shredded
  • 12 oz cottage cheese (I used 16 ounces)
  • 1 t. Italian seasoning
  • 8 oz no-cook lasagna noodles
  • 29 oz tomato sauce (I used spaghetti sauce)
  • 6 oz tomato paste
  • Parmesan (shredded or powdered, up to you)

Instructions

  1. Cook turkey (sausage/ beef), onion & garlic over medium heat (drain and rinse if you are using a particularly fatty meat).
  2. Add spices and tomato sauce and paste (if it’s too thick, add water to thin).
  3. Mix the two cheeses together in a bowl.
  4. In the crock pot, put about ¼ of meat sauce, layer of noodles, layer of cheese. Repeat layering twice, topping off with remaining meat sauce.
  5. Sprinkle with parmesan and cook on low 4 – 5 hours.

 

** Tip from a twitter friend after I bitched about the mismatched noodle shape/crock pot shape – soften the noodles a bit by soaking in hot water for a few minutes (perhaps while booking meat mixture). My haphazard breaking off of bits to fill in the curved corners was fine of course. It’s all the same flavor no matter how messy! But it’s less aggravating I assume & I will try that next time **

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It is YUM YUM YUMMY! The boys gave it two thumbs up as well. I went home at lunch to prepare this and it was as quick as promised on the recipe. I used ground turkey because it was on sale this weekend and because I happen to like it a lot more with Italian food. I was afraid that there wasn’t enough rinsing in the world I could do to prevent ground beef from greasing things up too much and with all that cheese it was already plenty gooey!

The one other thing I will try next time in addition to softening the noodles it to substitute ricotta cheese instead of cottage cheese. Robyn did that when she posted the recipe and I just didn’t read through entirely to see that. I am more used to Ricotta being used in lasagna. Mind you – we all still liked it plenty fine with the cottage cheese!!

Oct 18 – Meatball Tortellini Soup


Another recurring theme when I commit to daily posts – recipes!

I’ve done something like this before, but could not find it readily when I was making a grocery list the other day so this time I am documenting it here so I can find it wherever I am :-)

I found this on All Recipes and it is a slight variation from the one I had orginialy used (shared by an August mom I think?!)

 

I did adapt this a little. For one, I hate buying vegetables more than I need unless I have another recipe on hand to make with the unused portion. So, I substituted spinach instead of kale which is actually closer to the original recipe I had in mind. Plus, I already had a pack of frozen spinach on hand. I thawed that along with the meatballs.

There is a bit of an ulterior motive here. 16 eats horribly during the day as do most teenagers so I do my best to pack a ton of vegetables into his dinner. Spinach is a favorite of mine to mix in with something. He notices, whines, and eats it :-)

This is a bit more effort than I normally make on a week night, but it wasn’t so bad.

Obligatory photo of assembled ingredients.

 

Yes, I forgot until I had already started chopping veggies – whatever!

Can you smell that? Onions & garlic in butter

 

I wanted the first step to last forever – it smells so damn good! Any recipe that starts with “sautee onions & garlic in melted butter” is a winner in my book.

After that it is basically just a matter of dumping in everything except the meatballs and tortellini and bringing it to a boil. I cleaned up while that was happening because well..everyone knows a watched pot never boils, plus, there is no way I have the patience to stand there!

Boiling – see the bubbles on the edge – mmmmmm.

 

That’s it! It is a very very filling soup. It’s tempting to serve with bread but it really doesn’t need it and would just be almost too much. Yes, it’s a lot of food even feeding all three of us, but it’s a fabulous leftover and I will be bringing it in for lunch tomorrow.

It’s also really really GOOD and savory and a hit with everyone in the house. Maybe I shouldn’t automatically count on those leftovers….

 

 

October 2 – recipe time!


This is a recipe that I picked up from Pinterest – here’s the original Pin:

http://pinterest.com/pin/563018674823096/

and here’s the recipe that links to that pin:

http://www.wittyinthecity.com/2011/08/man-pleasing-chicken/

I want to make sure I give proper credit to all original sources since I will pin this entry to follow up on my pin – got all that nonsense? Good! (hah!)

So, it goes like this:

  • Boneless skinless chicken thighs (1.5 pounds or 5-6 thighs)
  • 1/2 cup dijon mustard
  • 1/4 cup maple syrup
  • 1 Tablespoon Rice Wine Vinegar
  • Fresh rosemary sprigs
  • Salt & pepper

PREHEAT OVEN to 450

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Prep – Place chicken thighs in foil lined baking dish – sprinkle on salt and pepper. Mix sauce in a bowl (3 ingredients in back)

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Pour sauce over chicken turning thighs over in the sauce to coat completely.

Bake for 40 minutes or until meat thermometer measures 165 in center of thickest thigh.

Sprinkle with fresh rosemary and serve.

I made rice and salad. I placed a chicken thigh a serving of rice and then spooned some sauce over it all.

The result?

Two thumbs WAY UP from both me and 16.

It was ridiculously easy and the sauce, which was something I was skeptical about since I generally don’t like mustard, was a really lovely blend of flavors. Almost light in some way! I know I thought it might be overpowering so I didn’t put a lot over my rice at first, but then I went back for another spoon once I had tasted it.

 

May 17th – AP test day and a new slow cooker recipe


Amber knows where her food is and she’s keeping a sharp eye on it Just In Case!

One of the new routines thanks to Chip’s bladder issues is that instead of leaving dry food out for them all day, I fill their bowls twice a day. This is not a big deal for Chip, but for Amber it is utter hell. I tried to ease her into it while Chip was at the vet, but she’s still in protest mode over the whole indignity of it. One of the OTHER things I need to do is keep their food seperated because I really don’t want Chip eating hers. And heck, I would ditch hers but that’s a large container of not inexpensive Royal Canan cat food and there is no way I am throwing all that $$ out! So, I moved her food bowl around the corner and away from Chip’s eyes and smell. I put his food down in the old spot and as he chows down I move over to the dining area and scoop some food for Amber. When she’s done, I wash her bowl and put it back in the container.

It took her a grand total of ONE day to figure it all out. When she is hungry – that is what she does. Plops herself down in front of the container an stairs hopefully at the top, just sure that the power of her kitty cat sad eyes will cause the container to gush out food for her poor starving self. Pathetic.

Anyhow, while I am happy with the eating arrangements and Chip is eating more wet food I now see that he is not drinking as much as he used to. So, a water fountain will be purchased this weekend and maybe some clam juice to flavor that water for him. He’s fine. Much calmer and not vocalizing as much and (thankfully) not peeing on the floor voluntarily or not and also NOT fussing with his hind end (sorry).

So yes – the title – AP test day!! 15 had to be down there at 7am so he was up at 6am and was actually ready to go on time. Even mildly awake! When I picked him up, he seemed pretty upbeat stating that the multiple choice was so easy that it made his teacher’s questions seem like they were from Harvard. 1 essay was easy, 1 was so so and 1 was hard so he had to do a lot of pulling of information out of his ass  - which we know he is good at – hopefully good enough to get a decent score ;-)

I dropped him at school for the last period of the day after getting him a sandwich and then I came home to listen to a webinar and to some more ebook research. I also started a new crock pot recipe that has been getting rave reviews:

Slow Cooker Creamy Ranch Pork Chops and Potatoes 

I don’t have their handy dandy plug in to display recipes, so I took a screen shot – You really need to click on that link and read their post. They are so damn funny!

I cooked it on high since I was home and could start it later. I have to wonder if cooking it on low would have been better? One pork chop was tender and fell apart fabulously, the other one was tough and seemed overcooked. Same uneven results with the potatoes. It’s a pretty new cooker not used all that much and the last time it cooked perfectly but we almost always use low vs high. 15 cleaned his plate (I gave him the the tender chop) and I came to the conclusion that I just don’t like pork chops. I know – as much as I love bacon I am just not terribly thrilled with any other parts other than a truly perfectly cooked tenderloin. I’m not a huge fan of the pork roast or chop. Sigh…..the sauce was damn good and the well cooked potatoes were quite yummy.

Back at some more technical writing. Oh hey – a little it of what I do has risen all the up to the Wall Street Journal this week. They wrote about the recent Google search update that knocked a bunch of folks off their results pages. Ours was one of those :-( Our traffic has tanked since April 24th. And it was at an all time high plus ebooks were selling steadily until then. I find it funny that Google names their algorithm adjustments after animals. I keep saying that I am a “sad panda about Google Penguin” Heh. Because, you know, we survived the Panda updates but couldn’t get past that damn Penguin!! Anyway, I know, your eyes just glossed over if they didn’t already from the never ending cat/bladder talk. Sorry – documenting this for historical purposes and all that.

Cya

It’s Thanksgiving Eve, and all through the house….


…not a creature was stirring….

 

wait..wait…wrong holiday.

 

I gotta say though, it kinda feels like that other holiday-eve. The house is pretty clean. There are a few lights around the windows.

There’s food filling the fridge ready to be roasted/tossed together/crock potted:

Those are fresh, chopped green beans above the turkey – ready to be created into a green bean casserole that will be slow cooking in the crock pot for six hours tomorrow. I saw the recipe for this essentially from scratch version of the classic side dish and couldn’t resist trying it.  The turkey is brining in this:

Using a recipe from Skinny Taste I prepared the brine omitting the salt. I did use apple cider for part of the liquid. While this was boiling and then cooling down this afternoon the kitchen smelled SO FABULOUS! I did get the brining bags from Williams Sonoma as the recipe recommends and they are pretty damn thick and up to the task. Of course I still put a pan down just in case of any leaking. We will have to turn the turkey over once to coat it evenly. Tomorrow it will roast in this:

My mom gave me this years ago and while we have used it a few times, just by virtue of it’s size, it needs to be stored in an upper cabinet out of the way which means….it’s out of the way and we forget we have it! But it’s perfect for tomorrow. It will cook the turkey in almost half the time (it will be done faster than the green beans!) and it frees up the oven for other goodies. And since I only have one oven (grumble), I am very happy that I can use this, the crock pot for the beans, the stove for mashed potatoes and keep everything spread out nicely around the kitchen.

Because I’ve got all the more laborious prep work done today, tomorrow will move about in nice stages from one dish to another without very much hassle at all. Alex is here, but..well…you can imagine the kind of help a 15 year old will be! If I can get him to clean a pot or two I’ll be lucky.

The tables are not entirely set, but they are in place:

Seating for 10, all set!

The cats are ready in their own way – Chip is as confused as ever and will most likely spend the whole day in my room under the bed though he did inspect things down here for a little while:

Amber is getting herself pretty for the camera and the extra attention she will receive:

..and we heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight: Happy Turkey Day to all, and to all a good night!

Dirty Rice


Tony Chachere's logo.

Image via Wikipedia

It’s been awhile since I dropped a recipe in here, but I made this tonight after my mom and I talked about it this weekend and it was too good not to share:

Ingredients:

1 cup Rice (I used a long grain blend tonight & it was fabulous, but basic white will do)

Beef broth in whatever quantity required for the rice – with my long grain it was 1.5 cups

1lb Ground Beef or Turkey

1 small onion chopped

1 small green pepper chopped

Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning (it’s the green container in the spice area)

Start the rice according to package directions- it is best NOT to use an instant or boil in the bag. No worries as it will cook up perfectly while you get the rest together. The key is to use the beef broth instead of water!!

While the rice is simmering, chop onion & pepper and cook in a frying pan with ground beef/turkey until the meat is cooked through. Drain & return to pan. Mix in the finished rice. Season to taste with the Creole Seasoning. Sprinkle it on like salt. Lightly at first, and then taste. It all depends on how much spice you can handle.

The boyfriend declared it delicious and I really loved it. 20 minutes from start to finish.

Shrimp with tomatoes and spinach – low fat – really!!


Let’s see just how lazy I can be in posting this recipe that I tried over the winter break:

Oh yes! We do have a scanner and Snag It for a reason don’t we? Also, a crappy iPhone camera when we realize at the last minute that this is a recipe worth sharing which makes a kind of pretty dish on the plate as well:

This was one of the best recipes I tried all year easily. Quick & easy. I used kinda cheap (or, less expensive) frozen shrimp in a bag. I did use fresh/organic tomatoes and spinach leaves. This was scrumptious on the first night and also as leftovers. The recipe came from the latest issue of the O! magazine. It figures I would find something worthwhile after I decided to drop that subscription eh?

I figured since I made your mouths water over cake in the previous post that I should balance it with a pretty darn health and extremely yummy main dish  – enjoy!

Oh, and for the record, the 11 other people in class last night (including SportsBoy) only whined a *little* bit about doing 46 birthday burpees with me. Our trainer kindly spread them out in chunks of 10 with 16 at the end so it didn’t wipe us out entirely. Given that most of the other workout crew is younger than me I reminded them that getting through my birthday right at the beginning of the year means that the rest will all seem like smooth sailing!

And yes, that second half of that bundt cake did taste extra specially amazing after the workout!