10.14.2012

Chicken was BOGO at the supermaket this weekend - so we bought a two-pack and put up one in the freezer, which left us with one to cook with. D and I decided to grill all three breasts - some for spinach salads, some for sandwiches and some for.... stuffed shells. Yes. D was craving Italian so Chicken & Spinach Stuffed Shells it was. I basically followed this recipe only I halfed the cream cheese and added bell pepper.

I forgot to take a picture of the shells drying out after cooking, but you can just barely see them in this picture with the chicken. These breasts were huge - one made 2 cups of meat, which is what the recipe called for. Must have been big chickens....

The recipe didn't call for cooking the onions (and peppers) before baking, but D and I are picky about our onions. D mentioned we had the colors of the Italian flag represented. Nice!

The filling looked so yummy. We had to keep reminding ourselves there was raw egg in it so we didn't just pop a spoonful in our mouths.

One pan for now, one for the freezer....

The hardest part of this recipe? Waiting for it to finish baking. Yum!

10.2.2012

I've been losing a lot of time lately to Pinterest. Everything I see I want to do, make, buy or bake. But I can't say it's a completely bad influence because it's been educational as well. For instance, had I never been on Pinterest I would not have known about Pake. That is, Pie + Cake.  Oh yes.

Pictures like this had my sweet tooth fairly buzzing out of my head. 

I was dying to make one, but it felt too extravagant for just the two of us. Then one day at work they mentioned the annual United Way fundraising campaign, starting off with a cake auction. And suddenly I knew exactly what I was going to bring.

Some people bake their pie from scratch too, but I read that an already-baked pie isn't as runny when the Pake is sliced. And going with ready-made pie is easier too.

I had to use a springform because my regular cake pans were too small for the pie. If you put the pie upside-down,  when you flip to frost it, the pie would be right-side up! It was so difficult to pour cake batter on top of the pie -- it just seemed wrong!

Interesting how it didn't rise as much in the middle where the pie is.

The finished Pake - all set for the auction! Too bad I didn't get to taste it, but it was for a great cause!

The Pake brought $15 at the auction! Yay for United Way!

The nice lady who purchased it told me she didn't tell her husband what to expect, she just let him discover it on his own. She said he rushed into the room all excited saying "Honey! There is a Cherry Pie inside this cake!" She said she laughed and laughed and it was worth every penny just to see his face. He asked her if she thought I would give him a volume discount if he bought 5 from me!

9.10.2012

When it comes to pasta, D and I have always been red-sauce people. Recently I wondered if, now that I'm nearing 40, I would like Alfredo sauce. My palate should be as mature as it's going to get! I looked at a few jar sauces at the market but none of them, not even the 'all natural' ones, sounded good. So, we did it from scratch

.

The verdict? Not bad. Maybe next time with better quality Parm, something with more presence. Maybe with some grilled chicken. Maybe as a white pizza. Hmmmm...

9.9.2012

Yesterday D and I got a hankering to cook.  We weren't quite sure what exactly, so we sat down and Googled a few recipes. It is amazing the trip that Google can take you on. For instance, we have been fascinated with Hawaii lately and stumbled upon a recipe for Kalua Pork which made us curious - did they use coffee or what? We found that most all of the recipes were the same: liquid smoke, Hawaiian salt and a pork butt. Somehow we got over to YouTube and watched several videos of people making Kalua Pork (both in the crock pot and in the oven). We even watched some videos on Hawaiian salt and how it is traditionally harvested. Fascinating stuff. Well, we had liquid smoke and we even had some Hawaiian salt in the cabinet (a gift from some church friends who went a few years ago) so all we needed was the pork, and we were going shopping anyway.

After finding our pork roast (reduced $5.50 off for a quick sale!) we scored the fat just like we saw in the video and began to massage in the salt and liquid smoke. Then we put it on to cook on low all night long.

When we woke up the house smelled amazing. I wasn't even sure I had the patience to wait until after church to eat. Our roast had split where the bone had been removed. We did not add any liquid to the crock, all of that rendered out of the roast during the cooking process. Not that our roast was dry - far from it. It was so tender we almost couldn't get it out of the crock pot. You could call it pulled pork but really, D just barely touched a fork to it and it separated. 

D had made some BBQ from scratch, a recipe we've used before and had good success with. Instead of apple juice he used pineapple juice.

King's Hawaiian sandwich buns, Kalua Pork, pineapple and BBQ sauce. Yum!

6.10.2012

I felt like cooking today. Decided to give this one a try because we had most of the ingredients already.

No, it's not baked spaghetti. How boring. It's Spasagna.  It's definitely easier to make than Lasagna and takes less time to cook. And I believe I like it better - the cheese makes the spaghetti so creamy. This is one internet recipe I'm holding on to!

5.19.2012

Felt like cooking today. It's been awhile. Been reading a magazine called Clean Eating and the recipe for Chicken Sloppy Joes caught my eye.

I decided to pair mine with sweet potato waffle fries.

I split the recipe so it would feed us once with no leftovers... but there was a little left over. D liked it so much, he polished that off too.

1.14.2012

Speaking of the Rachel Ray magazine Mom let me bring back from FL, another recipe in there caught our attention. The French Onion Dip Burger. It's a sauted onion-beef stock-sour cream mixture over a sirloin patty, with pickles and potato chips on top. It was one of the best burgers I have ever had, hands down.

1.11.2012

Last night I was rummaging around in the fridge and I found most of a bag of spinach and half a pound of bacon, some heavy cream and half a package of shredded cheese. I decided it was time to make a quiche. D is not fond of quiche but he agreed to my proposal and helped me with it (in my handicap state). It came out beautifully and I was surprised at how much presence the bacon had because the recipe calls for more than what we used. The spinach and bacon were actually at the bottom of the pie shell and it was interesting to see they rose to the top! It was nice having a hot breakfast on such a rainy, chilly day.

1.9.2012

This morning at work we were all herded into the canteen, where it was announced that GE would be closing our plant in May. We don't know a lot of details at this time. D and I decided to take a half-day and after the second Q & A meeting we drove to FBC and talked and prayed with our minister of music. Afterwards we went home and cooked together.

When I was in middle-school I had a friend named Mandy who introduced me to Chicken Kiev. Her family made it from scratch and used white wine in the recipe. My family never cooked with wine and it made an impression on me. Chicken Kiev in my mind was fancy food and to some degree, still is. My favorite recipe for Chicken Kiev from Cook's Illustrated magazine doesn't have wine in it and I think it's perfect, even if a little labor-intensive. It makes me happy-happy, as Emeril says.

While we were down in FL for Christmas, I spied a recipe in one of Mom's Rachel Ray magazines. I saw chicken, tarragon, parsley and lemon and suddenly Rachel had all of my attention. It was a near-Kiev but without all the prep. In fact, it is done in the crock pot!

So D and I made Rachel's Tarragon Chicken. It's not Kiev but it's close. We think we can improve upon it next time. I didn't have the presence of mind to take pictures all the way through the prep (see plant closing above) but I did manage to photograph the plate before dinner.

9.7.2011

Most people grill out on Labor Day but as it happens, someone left a copy of a Food Network magazine in the canteen at work, and I felt compelled to make the Chicken-Chorizo Paella. I knew there was a pound of Chorizo in the freezer and some saffron in the back of the cabinet. The saffron had been purchased by mistake and we had never found an opportunity to cook with it before.


And it seemed as if the stars were aligning when I opened the mailbox and Netflix had sent us the movie Rio - our theme was complete. There was only one slight problem. Paella is a party dish. The recipe said it fed 4-6 people. A quick call and reinforcements were found!


We were unable to find three of the ingredients listed in the recipe. I hopped on Google and found some substitutions: Rosemary for juniper berries, pimentos+a dash of cayenne for piquillo peppers and as we couldn't find real paella rice, medium-grain spanish rice would have to do.


First we made the from-scratch saffron chicken stock and the poaching liquid:

D man-handled the blender for the 'sauce'.

Now we were ready to actually cook!

I sauted the onions & peppers.

D toasted the garlic, peas, olives and rice.

We combined everything together, covered with foil and set it in the oven to bake. After the allotted time the rice was still a little under-done so we baked it an additional ten minutes. It was such a colorful dish! We ate it all.


But the scene-stealer was BBL's chocolate cake. It was one of the best cakes I have ever had. And it was a perfect followup to the paella.


BBL was kind enough to leave some cake here. One of us, and I'm not saying who, actually had seconds of cake around Midnight. The other was disciplined enough to wait until breakfast. It was a wonderful evening - I was so glad we didn't just grill out.

1.12.2011

"The sun is shining... ... but the ice is slippery!"

The sun was shining today and the boss-man sent word that it was time for all of us to come out of hibernation and get back to work. If only SCDOT had gotten the word - It was quite a nerve-wracking experience getting to the interstate this morning. We lost our momentum getting up the hill at Weston, which had not been plowed, and our tires spun quite a bit. Main Street wasn't plowed or sanded either. Main Street! We slid a few times - nothing too bad - just enough to raise the heart rate!

Being in charge of site safety, D was concerned about the walk-way conditions at work. We were also worried about the car. Both entrance/exits are on a hill and we didn't know if we were going to be able to get back out at the end of the day if the ice situation was as bad as what we were driving through (or worse). We were very surprised to find a private snowplow company mowing the lot when we got there. The sound of them scraping the ice was so loud that I could hear it through the walls of my office!

It was a horrible day of catch-up. Especially one particular customer who called me half-a-dozen times over a shipping snafu and had the actual nerve to tell me his patience was wearing thin. Well, mine was too! I was so very ready to clock out.

Things got better once we got home. Four words: Home-made Chicken Pot Pie (with no potatoes, so the only carb-cheat was the crust). We actually made up the filling earlier this week once we realized we had all the ingredients in the fridge (largely leftovers). D baked it and let me just chill-out, which was exactly what I needed. Yum. Truthfully, it could have used a little salt, but I'm trying to decrease my sodium-intake, so I'm fine with it. Old habits die hard.

1.9.2011

The other day D and I made a fortuitous discovery - the French Toast bagel from Panera. It's not just delicious, it makes the Monte Cristo sandwich of my dreams possible... no soggy bread or deep frying... What a nice brunch we had today after morning service!

10.9.2010

I've lost 10lbs since I took out the white starches and sugars from my diet and went on the Metformin. It's been really, really tough to stick to and I do cheat a little, everyone does. I don't miss bread that much and only sometimes do I pine over potatoes. But one thing that I really, seriously crave is bananas.

I love, love, love bananas. Unfortunately, they are on the naughty list - too much sugar. So when I saw this recipe for Ultimate Banana Bread in Cook's Magazine, I tried to flip past it but I just couldn't. Couldn't. Didn't. So we baked some... and it's going to the family reunion tomorrow. That was the Devil's-deal I made with myself. I had two slices but the rest goes away. Those lucky, lucky people!

This really is Ultimate Banana Bread. Most standard recipes use two bananas. This recipe has six!


Microwave five bananas in a bowl for five minutes and let them drain in a sieve for 15 mins.


Boil the banana-juice for five minutes until you have 1/4 cup home-made banana liquor.



Mix the liquor, banana pulp and all the other ingredients together and pour into the loaf pan.


Cut the last banana into shingles, place on top of the batter and sprinkle it all with sugar.



Sit back and enjoy the smell coming out of the oven for a solid hour.