I know, I know

I am well aware that it has been awhile since I posted last. Today is 3 days post Christmas and we are all getting over the flu. None of us, kids, hubby or myself, have eaten much since Tuesday. Today we finally showered and got out of the house. We only made it to church and back, but that was enough. We came home and all were hungry. My solution was onion soup. I knew it needed to be something not to heavy, as all of our tummies are very delicate right now.

I have always followed different recipes when making French onion soup, and have never used the same one twice.  I figured I had enough variations in my mind I could do one on my own without a recipe.

Here it goes. 4 red onions sliced into thin rings. Garlic. 1/2 cup real butter. Thyme.  Salt and pepper. Put this into a large pot and saute until golden and soft.  This took about 30 min.

I added 1 1/2 cup of white wine. Boiled it until the wine dissolved. Then removed the thyme stalks. It is kind of thick and pasty at this point.

I stirred in 1/4 cup of flour, and cooked it until the bitterness of the flour was gone. It got even thicker now.

Add in 8 cups of chicken stock and bring back to a boil. I then added two handfuls of mozzarella cheese. Then I turned heat down to medium and let slowly boil for about 15 minutes.

As this was finishing up I sliced french sandwich rolls into thin slices. Added garlic powder and topped with mozzarella cheese. These went into the oven on broil until it was golden brown.

By the time the rolls were done so was the soup. I put the soup into oven safe bowls for each of us. I floated a slice of cheese bread on top and covered with more mozzarella. These went back into the oven on broil for about 5 minutes until these cheese was golden. Took out and served.

It was so good. I think tomorrow it will have aged a bit to my benefit. It will only get better.

Turmeric shrimp

Following the same track as yesterday led me to shrimp and turmeric. I started with shrimp boiled in white wine and covered until almost fully cooked. Then added garlic, turmeric and onions. This one smelled very mustardy. Not even sure if that is even a word. But it did. The taste was heavenly though.

Perfect paring was pasta shells. That way the sauce from the turmeric shrimp can be caught in the shells.

It was a delightful meal.  Kids finished off it all. Here is the after.

So far turmeric works with both chicken and shrimp. No turmeric for a few days, do not want to burn the kids out on turmeric.

Turmeric Chicken

Not sure why but my Pintrest has been inundated lately with the health benefits of turmeric. Not sure if it is a new American Fad or if I am just late to jump on the bandwagon. Crazy enough I already had this in my cupboard. It was in a recipe that I used quite a while ago. I have never used it since. I could not even tell you what recipe I used it on and have never used it since. That being said I actually love it, as of yesterday.

My cooking consist of me smelling spices and adding them to my dishes based on smell. If anyone has smelled turmeric, it smells like mustard. Not really something that seems like it could be added to many dishes.

Yesterday I asked the kids what they wanted for dinner. Benjamin responded with the usual, Bean and cheese burritos, followed by Quesadillas. Jasmine gave her usual anything but pasta. I settled on chicken and couscous.

I started with olive oil, and chicken breasts on the skillet, high heat. I sprinkled turmeric, garlic salt and some grilled onions (from yesterdays dinner) over the chicken. One side got nice and golden and then flipped the chicken over. I again sprinkled turmeric and pepper on the chicken. I turned the heat down to med-lo and added in 1/2 cup of white wine, and covered it. This cooked for about 5-7 minutes. Then I turned it once more and added in a 1/4 cup of water and some bacon bits (the ones from Costco that come in a bag). Covered it again and cooked for 2-3 minutes. Then took the cover off and turned the heat way up and boiled off the liquid.

What was left was a oniony garlicky sauce, along with the chicken breasts. The turmeric did not have a mustard flavor at all. It added just a touch of spice to the chicken. It ended up so juicy and good. Not sure why I have not been using this spice more often. I needed to hop on this band wagon quite a while ago. It is a new and different flavor that is amazing.

The couscous was just a basic couscous that I add a bit of salt, onion powder, dried onion (I like how it stays a bit crunchy), sun flower seed and grilled garlic slices. It is easy and the kids like the various textures.

I did not get any pictures of this meal. By the time it was done, the kids were starving and I was not going to fight them to let me get a picture before they ate. But know this, all the food was gone. I usually make 3 chicken breasts, the kids each eat half and Rougeh and I eat a whole one. Last night, Benjamin ate his and asked if there was any more, I gave him half of mine, he loved it that  much.

Another score of mommy! If anyone has a spice that they would like to introduce me to I would love suggestions. This will be tried in many different dishes for the next, who knows how long.

BTW, ORANGES are in season!!!

Shrimp and pasta

Driving home from church and family says,  "what's for lunch we are starving?" No idea! Hubby says how about shrimp.

Shrimp it is. Now what to do with it. Google my trusty friend shows me lots of shrimp recipes, but none seem to sound good. Even the 5 star ones. All this in the 15 minutes it takes for us to get home.

We get home. I put a pot on the stove to start boiling water, because no matter what I do to the shrimp, pasta will work.

Now on to the shrimp. I started with coconut oil and garlic. Always a good place to start. Then added in some white wine and diced onions. Bring that to a boil, add in fresh oregano, stem and all. Boil that. Then add in cayenne pepper, garlic salt and cracked pepper. At this point I removed the stems of the oregano, but left the leaves. Once that was done I then added in the shrimp. Turned the heat down to simmer and covered. Cook the shrimp for about 5 min. Turn the heat off and flip the shrimp. Let the shrimp stand as you finish the pasta.

By the time the pasta was done. The shrimp had stood long enough.

Plated with pasta on the bottom and shrimp with sauce on top. 

Start to finish this took 20 minutes. Jasmine asked if I can make this for dinner too. Haha. I made enough for both meals, but planned on having enough to pack Rougeh a lunch tomorrow. No such luck. 2 pounds of shrimp and 1 pound of pasta all gone. 

Tilapia and pasta

Today is the aftermath of over indulging from yesterday. Thanksgiving was amazing, just too many items to blog about. Today is a new day though. I am a proud mom. I asked the kids what they wanted for dinner. One said chicken and the other said fish, if only they would always agree on everything! I said ok lets start with the side, one said couscous and the other said pasta, Ughh. Love these kids.

We settled on Tilapia and pasta, each is happy. Benjamin asks when will it be ready. LIGHTBULB! They are going to be making dinner, supervised of course. I have them look up recipes for tilapia. First three are immediately vetoed, fourth looks good. Only issue with the recipe is that we do not have jars of alfredo sauce. Both the kids look at me confused. You see the look of "Oh, No we cannot do this one too." Ha Ha, they had no idea that I always make my own. Instead of just giving them the recipe and have them do it, I make them look it up.

10 minutes later, we finally have alfredo sauce in the making. They made the sauce totally on their own. They measured, stirred, and seasoned it themselves.

















Then on to the Tilapia. It needed to be baked with Creole seasoning, another thing we do not keep in stock here. Back to good old Allrecipes.com. Guess what, we have everything we need to make our own creole seasoning. Surprise surprise! Both sides of the tilapia get seasoned and into the oven at 425 for 10 min.

Two fidgety kids later, we have fish done, alfredo sauce done, and garlic crescents in the oven. Jasmine says "we are ready to eat" Benjamin, "What about the pasta? Man this cooking thing is hard work."

They get out the pan and start the boiling water. Start to finish they make the spaghetti on their own. Tasting the half cooked noodles WAY too often, but still getting it done.

Over an hour later and a full meal, they have done it!

Side note: This meal is crazy good. They were a little heavy handed on the cayenne pepper, which I love. It added the touch of fire that you want from a creole seasoning. So good.

Pasta fagoli

Let me start by saying, I know I butchered the spelling of this soup. I began the morning I'm looking for a dairy free soup to make. I decided I was going to try to remake Olive Garden's pasta fagioli. After looking through about 30 recipes I decided to compile them all and make my own version of it.

I love simplicity. This recipe is garlic, spices, Italian sausage, tomatoes, pasta and salt and pepper. It only took me about 20 minutes start to finish for this recipe.

I took garlic and sautéed it. Then added in carrots, celery and onions, all diced. Sautee then until soft.  Then add in vegetable broth, tomato sauce (fresh tomatoes boiled until soft and blended), tomatoes diced and 1 cup of water. My family is carnivores (except for me. I could never eat meat and be happy as can be) so I added in spicy Italian sausage, grilled and crumbled. Bring to a boil then simmer for 15 min. I did not need salt, but did add pepper.  When everything was ready to go I added in red kidney beans and white beans. Heated until beans were warm.

When I served it I added in the pasta so it would not get soggy.

End result over kid loved it,  one not so much, and hobby love it. My son did not finish his, and ended up just eating a bowl of the pasta. 3 wins and 1 loss. Good odds? Only 75‰ not great but acceotable I guess.

I thought it was amazing and am excited there are left overs. It will age wonderfully!

Caramels

As the weather is getting colder I begin making the best dessert of all times, Caramels.  It is the kids favorite also. PLUS fun to make. Here is my recipe.

Caramels

1 can sweet condensed milk
2 cup sugar
1 cup butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup white Karo Syrup

Pour all the ingredients into a pot. It needs to be a big pot. turn the heat to medium. Stir constantly. It will start to boil, keep stirring. The color will start to change to a caramel color. Keep stirring. If you have a candy thermometer that is the best it needs to get to 240 degrees. But if you do not have one, just keep cooking until it is a very brown/caramel color. It takes about 45 min to an hour to get it to the right temp. then pour it into a 9X13 pan that has been sprayed with PAM. Put it in the fridge until it is cool. Then pop it out and cut it up. Wrap in parchment paper and store in air tight container.

Spicy Sausage Lasagna

Last night not sure if I call it a failure or not.

I made lasagna. Normally this is a huge hit. I change it up a bit every time, but the basic recipe is the same. Sauce, noodles, ricotta cheese mixed parmesan cheese, mozzarella, meat, veggies and repeat. Last night was a much smaller dish, I realized that making a 9x13 dish for a family of 4 is WAY too much. 8x8 in theory would be perfect.

So changed up a few things, I made some spicy sausage for the meat, skipped the veggies, and fresh tomatoes peeled and boiled. This whole process takes about an hour to cook it all, layer it and top it. I put it in the oven and left instructions for my husband to turn the oven on 30 minutes before I would be back home from taking the kids to karate.

It looks amazing, it smells amazing and will cook to a golden bubbly brown delight. I come home to a husband that has followed my instructions perfectly and the lasagna is done. Right on time. The stars have aligned to a perfect meal.

Only issue. My husband came home from work to an empty house, and snacked (that is what you do after work right, EVEN when you are the one finishing up dinner,Ughh). Son had a tough workout at karate and just wants to go to bed and daughter is not feeling well and just wants some tea and bed.

As sit down to a dinner that only I eat I realize this was a wasted meal. No one will be eating my hard work. I cut my little slice of heaven, then sadly cover the rest and put it in the refrigerator. Man it was a great lasagna. Oh how my family missed it. Dinner tonight. They will be getting Lasagna, it is better the next day right?

Lazy mom's dinner

Last night I was worn out from a day of fun with the kids, plus a meeting at 6pm. Solution was a one pan dinner. I made margarita chicken pasta. Never made this before, but not quite sure why I never have.

Penne pasta, chicken breasts (sliced), tomatoes (chopped up), garlic, basil, butter and mozzarella cheese. Boil the pasta to al dente. Drain it them and set aside. Grill chicken without any seasonings in a large skillet. Do not cook thoroughly, just until the inside is VERY slightly pink. Put all the other ingredients, except for the cheese into the skillet and set on simmer. Cook until tomatoes are soft, chicken will be done cooking by this point also. Add the pasta and cheese back into skillet with all the other ingredients. Simmer covered for 5-10 minutes or until the pasta is warm. Add what ever seasonings you would like. I add salt, pepper and a bit of pepper flakes just to give it a bit of spice.

The kids both loved this meal. I think it will be added to my easy meal ideas.

On a side note, the kids are crazy for English muffins right now.

I am going to veer off for a moment. Anyone with kids knows, that they do not always call things by the correct name. English Muffins are one of those things for my kids. They have called English Muffins, Indian bread for as long as I can remember. As such we also call it Indian bread. Just about a month ago I finally asked them why they call it that, as they are old enough they know what they are actually call. Thomas English Muffins have a horse and carriage on the package. My son pointed to the picture and said, "because it has an Indian on it."

Back to my point. They love English muffins. We are going through about 4 packages (that is 24 English muffins) in about 5 days. They eat them for breakfast with just butter and sometimes jelly. They eat them after school with cream cheese. Then at dinner they are eating them as garlic bread. Last night was no exception. We toasted the English muffins, buttered them then added garlic powder to them. The kids ate 2 whole English muffins (we cut them in half, so 4 halves) along with their pasta.

Tonight we are going to be having spicy sausage Lasagna!

Weekend fun

We have had a full house since Friday. Thank you to all our loved ones that traveled up to us for the weekend. It was a blast.

I knew I would be doing a lot of cooking this weekend with 12 extra mouths to feed. First up was on day one we started out with Cake batter pancakes and waffles. It is exactly what it sounds like. I made cake batter and made them into waffles and pancakes. We topped that with whipped cream, Pomegranate syrup, chocolate chips and butter. It is as sweet as it sounds. Kids love it. Guests stuck with syrup and butter.

Dinner was a BBQ at our house. We started with a salad. I am not a fan on lettuce salads, so I tend to use baby spinach. We added dried cranberries, sesame seeds and pomegranate arils, topped with balsamic vinaigrette. This may be a new favorite salad (at least as long as we have fresh Pomegranates) I marinated some chicken breasts with rosemary, thyme, peppercorns crushed, oregano, dried garlic, dried onions and garlic salt. Then threw it on the grill. Hubby was the grill master for the night. He rocked it. Chicken came out so juicy and full of flavor. I made for the side rice. The rice was sauteed in butter until golden then boiled with coconut oil, vegeta and ground pepper. Perfect pair with the chicken.

Dessert was a real treat. I wanted to continue on with the pomegranate theme. Like that should surprise anyone? With the help of two adorable little helpers we made dark chocolate shells filled with white chocolate pomegranate mousse. The shells were an easy make. Just made a batch of chocolate, but instead of making it milk chocolate I it dark with the use of some bitter cocoa powder. Very rich. The filling was made by making a batch of white chocolate, but not letting it harden. As I was in the process of making that I had my daughter making the pomegranate part. This was just pomegranate juice mixed with gelatin, set aside to harden. Then on to 2 cups of heavy cream beat to fluffy and stiff, thanks to my son for that part. Add in a touch of vanilla, the white chocolate and pomegranate gelatin mixture. Whip it all and refrigerate to harden.

By the time the filling is set the shells are too. Now just use a pastry bag and fill the shells. We topped them with a couple arils and they were light and delicious.

Like one dessert is enough. Ha! We have a fire pit in our backyard and a nice bonfire going so what better second dessert then one cooked over a fire pit. We made campfire pies. This is something I should sell as kits. They are easy and amazing. You take biscuit dough, and  dowel (about a 1.25 inch diameter by 4 feet long) press the dough onto the dowel and wrap it around the end. Slowly cook it over the fire. SLOWLY is the key to a fully cooked pie crust. Once it is cooked remove it and fill with your favorite pie filling and top with whipped cream. The end result is what we call a campfire pie. It is warm and sweet, a perfect mixture.

Pot stickers and cheese

My son ran in the championship cross country race for elementary ages today. He rocked it. As such he asked for a celebration dinner. He wants his favorite homemade meal, Pot stickers and baked cheese sticks. Now pot stickers are not my favorite thing in the world, but then again neither are lima beans. Cheese sticks on the other hand, I love.  Jasmine is like me, pot stickers are not her favorite either, but she will eat 8 cheese sticks with tomato sauce.

The ones I make are from Costco, I do not make them as directed. I boil them in water until they float then sear them with coconut oil. It makes them better. The sauce that they come with also needs a bit of tweaking. I add garlic and honey to the sauce. It just makes it better.

The cheese sticks are also from Costco. Directions say to fry them in vegetable oil. I do not listen and instead bake them on a cookie sheet at 425 F for 20 minutes. 

Not much healthy about it and not much work to it. I do not even count this as "making" dinner. It is more like warming up stuff. 

Benjamin is happy, Jasmine is content, Hubby loves both and I am done with dinner in less than 30 minutes.

French onion soup

This dinner was incredibly easy, yet oh so delicious.

Slice 3-4 large onions very thin. Brown with 1/2 stick of butter on very low heat. After 45 min the onions will be golden brown and nice and soft.

Then add in lots of broth, (chicken, beef, or vegetable all work equally well). The recipe that I was roughly working off of asked for a cup of white wine. I skipped that step, I think It would make it too sweet. Instead I added extra water. This comes to a boil then simmers for 30 minutes. After I bring this to a boil and add in 2 teaspoons of flour, not part of the recipe but I wanted it a bit thicker. Mix that in really well then I turned it off and left to Karate with the kids.

We got home from Karate 2 hours later. The soup was still warm, but not hot anymore. I decided to veer from the recipe again, I love my soup with a nice browned layer of cheese. I have had French Onion soup with Swiss cheese, Mozzarella cheese, but never my favorite cheese Provolone. I scooped the soup into bowls (only three, because my son is running in the District Cross Country finals tomorrow, he only eats pasta the night before a race). I cooked the soup at 450 F for 10 minutes. 

The cheese melted into the soup perfectly. There was some golden brown cheese along the edges.  Perfection.

My husband and I loved the soup. My daughter not so much. She said it was "too oniony" Lol it is french onion soup. Love this girl. She ended up eating pasta with my son. This is saying a lot because she does not like pasta, especially if it has tomato sauce on it, which this did.

Oh well, I will be making this again for just my husband and I.

Kids, Cleaning and Fish

The kids had off of school today. I know who gives them JUST a Tuesday off. Oh well I will take what I can get. We spent the morning in PJ's watching TV and playing games. Then cleaning house, still in Pj's. By this time it was noon and the kids requested bean and cheese burritos. Ugh, I think they are so gross, but to the kids they are the greatest lunch ever.

I make my refried beans. So at least it is kind of good. Then kids add cheese, and hot sauce. They wrap it all up, devour it and make a second. Huge hit, I on the other hand, made some chili, it is a cold day (54 F when we ate lunch). I must confess I get this from a can. I love Stagg Chili. I did make some garlic bread to go with it. Well making garlic bread my be a bit of a stretch also. I took English muffins, toasted them, slathered them in butter, then sprinkled with garlic powder. It is so much yummier than it sound.

For dinner we are going with tilapia. Specifically,  I am breading it with flour, parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, paprika and cayenne pepper.  After the fish is cleaned and dried I do an eggless breading. All I do is make sure the fish is dry and put it in a zip lock bag with the breading mixture. I kind of smooch the breading into the fish, both sides. Then put it in a pan that has BUTTER melted into it. Bake for 7 min at 450 F. Flip and bake for 7 more minutes.

It should be golden on both sides.

I pared this with couscous and asparagus for my husband and I. The kids do not like couscous so they got mashed potatoes and asparagus. The mashed potatoes were made with red potatoes boil until soft and mashed with cheese, sour cream, and a bit of milk.

My son took seconds on the fish ( he ate and entire tilapia filet). My daughter ate her fish, potatoes and asparagus, then took more potatoes.

They are enjoying my food. That is a victory!

Loaded baked potato soup

So good on a cold day.

This is such an easy meal. I start by boiling potatoes. I use Russet Potatoes as often as I do the Red ones. Before I boil them I score them all around the width. I do not bother peeling them. Once they are boiled and soft throw them in a bowl of cold water. Once they are cooled just put the potato in your hand and kind of roll it and the skin just comes off, like magic.

While the potatoes are cooling I saute garlic in butter. Once the garlic is ready I add about 2 cups of vegetable broth. Bring that to a boil, then add pepper, and any other seasoning you may want. Add to that 3 cups of milk. More if you want it creamy. I then add cream cheese, about 1.5 cups, 4 cheese mix 2 handfuls, and chives.

The potatoes should be cooled by now, mash the peeled potatoes to a very course mash. I like to have nice size chunks in it. Add this into the soup and let simmer for an hour or so, covered and stirring occasionally. 

I serve this topped with fresh chopped chives, cheese and bacon bits. It is a great easy and tasty soup for a cold night.

All is right again

Today I decided I was not going to be a conquered woman. My kids were harder to convince. I let know we needed to go to the grocery store. When asked what needed to be on the list I gave them the basics, chicken, heavy cream, beef, butter, milk, cocoa, bread, chocolate chips... I figured I would break them slowly into the fact that it was going to be day 2 of brownie making.

Once we started shopping my daughter put it together.  She asked if we could do cookies instead. She is ever the politician. But, I will not be beat by brownies.

We get home and I ask who wants to bake with me. My son says,  "I will, if Jasmine has to taste them." Come on guys it was not that bad. In reality it was, but man these kids are food critics now. One miss step and my kids are jumping ship. They were ready to call grandma for reinforcements on desserts. I was thrown over board and had a full mutiny in my kitchen. No alliance at all.

Batch 1 back to my basic brownies. The mix perfect, they bake perfect, while they are still warm we cut through the candied crust and enjoy the fudge perfection that is a perfect brownie. Once Benjamin realized they were amazing, he had no trouble sampling the whole pan with his sister.

Batch 2, not to be outdone by Mrs. Fields, I decide I have baked these enough I should be able to tweak them to make them even better. I be honest I was a little worried to have another disaster, but batch 1 gave me courage.  So substituting milk for heavy cream, adding chocolate chips,  and cutting back the sugar but adding more sweetened cocoa along with the dark cocoa. I baked in watching it very closly. 45 minutes later the kids, regained faith in my abilities,  could not wait to taste.

I stopped them at one slice each. It was a brownie domination!  So good. So chocolatey. So gooey. So perfect. So worth revisiting yesterday's failures.

This is what is left of the pan of batch 2.

Different can be good, right?

Tonight I decided we needed to go visit my in-laws. They only live about .3 miles from us. Easy walking distance. So I packed up my cooking supplies, spices, raw foods, kids, dogs and scooters, and off we went. Once I got to my in-laws I quickly took an assessment of the kitchen. My mother in-law keeps a well stocked kitchen! Tonight's dinner was seared Ahi Tuna and rice.

I began by making my seared ahi like I have done countless times, only to realize I forgot to bring a can of beer. I search her house for a beer substitute, red wine, white wine, cognac, really any alcohol would work. All I found was a nice chilled bottle of Champagne. Now I have never tried cooking with champagne in ANY capacity, so not sure how it would work in seared ahi. I tasted the champagne, I was in luck, it was not too sweet. Actually it was not sweet at all. Let's start the Ahi, I ground pepper, added wasabi paste, mustard seed and salt. I rubbed a thick layer on the Ahi and quickly seared it in a pan with coconut oil. Removed the ahi and made a sauce out of the reminisce of the pan, more mustard seed, soy sauce, a little garlic and pepper. Pour this over the ahi and it is perfect. My mother in-law had beat me to the rice and made it already. She is the rice whisperer. Hers is always so soft and fluffy. She adds 1/2 milk and 1/2 water. I have tried but can never get it right.

On to dessert. We LOVE brownies in this house. I have my basic Mrs. Fields fudge brownie recipe that I have used for years. It never comes out wrong, EVER. Tonight I just mixed up a batch, told my son to turn on the oven and in they went. Now my kids have been cooking and baking with me in the kitchen since they were old enough to sit on the counter. They have turned on the oven, turned off the oven, taken stuff out and put stuff in for the last 2+ years. So this is nothing new. He turned it on and said, "Why did it do that?" Not really paying attention to his question was my first mistake. I just said, "No idea." and continued stirring my mixture. Nice and smooth. Taste the batter, perfection! My daughter pours it into the pan and in the oven it goes. I tell the kids to set the oven to 20 minutes and hear it beep twice, again something new, but I made my second mistake of the night. I did not pay attention to the odd beeps.

15 minutes pass. I am almost done washing the dishes. I notice the oven is smoking a bit, quite a bit. I try to open it to see what is going on. AHHHHH, the oven is in self clean mode, that has been shut off, but is still locked because the temp is too high! The weird thing that the oven did when my son first turned it on was, go into clean mode, but he did not push start, just set the temp. When the kids started the timer they then pushed start and clean mode locked the oven up, cranked the temp up, then said, "oh no, something is in me" and shut its self off. I call for my husband to "fix it" and get my oven open NOW. I can see the brownies turning to charcoal. They were gone, but I was hoping they would not start on fire. Hubby reset the whole oven, got it open. Brownies are solid black bricks. No good.

Round 2. I figure round one was such a failure lets try a new recipe. I Google fudge brownies and pick one that looks good. It requires much more work than I am used to, cooking butter and sugar, mixing in three different bowls, combining them all and baking. My oven did not sabotage me this time. I notice that they are cooking a bit differently then I am use to. I finish them and let my husband and son taste them. Husband gets a crumb in his mouth and refuses to eat any more. Son takes a big bite, and spits it right back out. I am laughing, with 2 cups of sugar and 1/2 cup of Butter, it cannot be that bad. Oh, it is and worse than I thought. Imaging chocolate flavored play-do. Now imagine baking said play-do and that is what I made. It was gross. Batch 2 in the trash.

I figure by this point I am on a roll. Third times a charm right? Haha not with me or so it seems. I again went to Google and found a recipe with 5 stars. Looked similar to the previous recipe except this one had milk and much less flour and baking powder. The other quantities were all a bit off from the last and this one added chocolate chips. Again, I mix it all up. The consistency of this one is MUCH better than the last. I turn on the oven, grease the pan and at the last minute decide to taste the batter before I poured it into the pan. It is paper mache glue with a bit of cocoa in it. How is this edible? How is this 5 stars? Maybe when I bake it, it will get better. Turns out that was wishful thinking. It too was horrible. My poor husband would not taste the batter, and my son was scared. My daughter happily comes over to taste, she had been in the shower for end of round 1 and all of round 2. She takes a big bit and asks if she can wash her mouth with milk, it was so bad. I hope she does not end up with a tummy ache. Tonight's brownie baking was one glorious failure after another. I give up.

By this point my kids and husband do not trust any new dessert I am making, so I make Pistachio pudding. It is a tried and true recipe that I can make in 15 minutes. Finished it, cleaned kitchen and giving up on any brownie recipe that is not Mrs. Fields.

Good Night

Spinach ricotta stuffed shells

Today was all about what I had in my cupboard. Plus, using up my fresh picked spinach. My family loves spinach just about any way I make it. 

As I was cleaning out my pantry this morning I found a box of pasta shells that I bought last week, but totally forgot about. I knew I wanted to stuff them, but the choices on what to stuff them with was almost endless

I began by boiling the shells for 9 minutes, just to soften them up a bit. While they were boiling I made a cheesy spinach filling. To do this I ground up spinach, added ricotta cheese (just enough to cover the spinach), mozzarella cheese (lots of this), parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. I also added just a touch of cayenne pepper to add some heat.

I then stuffed the shells and laid them filling side up on a 9x13 pan.

This whole thing was covered in sun dried tomatoes and marinara sauce. Which was in turn covered in cheese and a bit more cheese. 

I covered it with foil and it is baked in the oven at 400 F for 30 min.

The end result is a spinach cheesy pasta treat.

The kids love this. Hubby loves it. My tummy is still really upset from being sick, so I am just eating chicken broth for dinner. But OH how I wish I could eat some of this.

Sick and still cooking

I have been sick for the last few days, but cooking must go on. Yesterday was cold here, 58 F, so soup was in order. When one is sick chicken soup is in the books. I have not eaten solid food in a few days, even though I have made awesome meals lately.

Yesterday I decided that chicken soup would work well for my tummy and getting my family nice and warm. I started by boiling chicken breast for 3 hours in water with onions and garlic. After 3 hours of boiling, adding water, and boiling more I added chives and pepper. I then boiled it for another hour.

The chicken is falling apart by this time, I took it out and shredded it. Then added it back into the broth. I added in 2 cups of rice. After the rice is nice and soft I added 1 stick of butter. I love creamy soup.

The soup ended up very good. The kids loved it, both took seconds. Hubby loved it too. I only ate about 1/4 cup of just the broth, but that too was tasty. Tonight I hope to eat solid foods. On the menu for tonight, stuffed shells and chicken breasts.

Pork with pomegranate sauce, asparagus and couscous

Today's dinner was yummy. I made a sauce with chicken broth, red wine, pomegranate, green onions and honey. Boiled it all down until it was thickened.  The strained off the onions and sediment. Added a bit of butter to make it creamy.

While I was boiling it down I browned the pork loins on the stove for about 2 min per side. Then baked in the oven at 500° F until cooked pork to 155° F. 

I poured the sauce over the pork prior to serving.

I grilled asparagus for a side. I used a touch of butter, salt and pepper. Couscous was our other side.

It was all so YUMMY!

Rainy cold day

Usually on a rainy cold day soup would be in order but, soup did not sound good for lunch. Look in the fridge and find locally grow zucchini. What can I do with that? And what can be added?

Solution, white basmati rice with parsley and coconut oil, teriyaki meatballs and grilled zucchini.

The rice was made on the side. I made the meatballs then removed them from the teriyaki sauce and boiled it down to thicken it. As that was cooking I grilled zucchini with oregano, cracked pepper and garlic salt.

I ate it with the teriyaki sauce on the rice with the meatballs and zucchini on the side. My sister and her husband chopped it all up and mixed it together. 

We had two extra people here so I made 3x the amount I usually make for just my family. I did not want to not have enough food. I am so glad I did. All the food is gone. 3 cups of uncooked rice, 25 meatballs and 6 zucchini. It was so good. Kids loved it. Hubby loved it. Sister and her hubby loved it.

Another successful meat!

Pomegranates

We live in a agricultural rich area. Currently it is pomegranate season. That means that I can use any amount of pomegranates I can pick or get my hands on. A friend of mine knows my love for pomegranates and has generously let me go over and regularly pick them. For those of you who do not know what a pomegranate tree looks like (though if you googled it, the actually grow on bushes) it is a huge 8 foot tall and covered in 2-3 inch thorns.
One of her trees has very scary looking bugs on them, they are leaf footed bugs.  These bugs are like the devil himself. They not only fly, they jump at you and cling to you to scare you at a later time. They are over an inch long and so gross. Needless to say my picking is accompanied with lots of yelps from me, and laughter from my kids and friend.

First trip yielded about 60 of them. I had never done anything with them except eat them or drink the already processed juice. I have never processed it myself. After a google search I found a few ways of getting the juice from the seeds. I decided to go with the easiest way. I just get the arils (red juicy seeds) from the pomegranate, throw them about a cup at at time into a blender and blend for a few seconds. It bursts the arils open and releases the juice. I then drain it through a double folded cheese cloth, to strain the juice from the seeds and the skin of the arils.

I now have beautiful fresh juice to do what ever I want with! In the past two weeks I have made pomegranate jelly, syrup, molasses, white chocolate pomegranate mousse pie, pomegranate cupcakes and pomegranate pork chops. Plus, lots and lots of frozen pomegranate juice to use at a later date.


I think my family by this point is getting tired of pomegranate everything, but my husband still brought me home another box of them yesterday! Not sure what I will be doing with this batch, but once they are processed into juice I will figure it out. Any Ideas?

Only day 2

Today is only the second day of my new cooking challenge and I already hit a wall. I actually Google what can I make for dinner? 30 or more recipes later I was ready to quit. But then I came across Almond Dijon Tilapia. Sounds good right. Only problem, I do not have tilapia,  almond flour, or dijon mustard. 
This recipe got my wheels spinning. How about substituting chicken breast for tilapia? I will still work. Can I create my own almond flour by grinding almonds up? Can I take out the dijon mustard and add garlic and ground pepper? Mmm fresh parmesan cheese would be good too.
This is just ending up to be almond parmesan grilled chicken. I am doing a flash fry then baking it for 20 min. Right before it is done I topped it with a little mozzarella cheese and browned.
Serving it on a bed of macaroni. It is nutty, cheesy, delicious goodness. 

Blueberry pie

Last night I decided to make pie crust from a basic biscuit recipe. I made the dough, then baked it on the back of cupcake tins.

This is the result. Blueberry pies for breakfast. I think it is safe to assume Benjamin likes it.

Vietnamese spring rolls

This is the kids favorite meal to make. They love the rice noodles, rice paper and filling it with the vegetables they want. Tonight we are doing lettuce cucumber, zucchini, carrots, sprouts, chicken, mint and anything else the kids may want to add to it.

For mine and hubbies we have rice noodles, lettuce, sprouts, grilled wasabi chicken, zucchini, cucumber, carrots and mint. I made a sweet and spicy dipping sauce.

Full disclosure: this is our 5th time making them. The first time it took me 2 hours to prepare all the veggies, cook the shrimp and 3 attempts at the rice noodle before they were correct. The first attempt ended with very soggy gross noodles. The second attempt was slightly less gross noodles. The third was magical. The rice paper was also a learning curve. Very steep curve at that. Either the paper was perfect or a soggy mess. There really was no in between.

TOO long

It has been too long since I last blogged on my cooking. I will begin again tonight. The meal for tonight will be Spring Rolls. Let's see how this works out.