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Archive for the ‘Magical Magical Animal’ Category

It’s officially fall…

I am on the road.  Insanely on the road.  Next week I actually get to be in the office for the whole week, but other than that I’m spending most of my time out of town until Thanksgiving.  Fun and new places, but exhausting!

Even though I have a bit more time while I’m on the road to write, the preparation for the travel has made blog food scarce.  We’ve been relying on a lot of old standby meals, leftovers from the freezer, and way too much restaurant food.  We’ve also done some crazy travelling as we’ve moved from summer into fall….including our trip to North Carolina, during which Santana stayed at PetSmart.  The very next weekend we zoomed down to Berkeley for a wedding, which Santana can also fill you in on.  Both were a bit quick and chaotic, but really fun and relaxing.  I loved being able to have a couple trips with Matt to just relax and enjoy our time together without work craziness getting in the way.

In better food news, since fall has definitely set in, it is crock pot weather for sure!  We actually used the Crockpot a decent amount during the summer, but fall means lots of soups, stews and chili…plus lots of leftovers to restock our freezer!

We said goodbye to the summer with a light meal that lasted us through two dinners and 1 lunch for me.  Tomato bacon quiche (which we had frozen from a couple months ago) with a spinach honey mustard salad and some lightly salted Kettle chips.  We were both huge huge fans of this meal, which is why it was repeated twice…usually we make some changes, switch up the side dishes, etc.  This time the same meal found its way to our plates two nights in a row.  So delicious and satisfying.  And a nice light end to the summer.  Bonus: homemade garlic croutons!

 

To welcome in the fall, we made a vegetarian chili cornbread casserole that completely outdid itself as a shared dish at a potluck, dinner for us at home, and is lasting Matt through this week while I’m out of town.  To make the chili, I mixed 4 or 5 cans of black and pinto beans (1 can of beans got mashed up) in the Crockpot with sautéed onion, green bell pepper and garlic.  I also added some spices, hot sauce and a can of green chilies.  Two cans of diced tomatoes rounded out the liquid in the pot and it cooked all day on high, bubbling away. 

I poured the cooked chili into two casserole dishes and topped each one with the batter for this cornbread with the addition of some shredded cheese to the mix.  They baked for about 40 minutes or so and then one went to the potluck, while the other chilled in the fridge, waiting for us the next day.

For our leftovers, we covered the 2nd casserole and popped it back in the oven to reheat.  While that was cooking a tossed some fresh broccoli with a tiny bit of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Into the oven it went to roast away.  It got crazy crispy and had a tiny zing from the balsamic.  Really wonderful.

The other star of the potluck and our leftovers was a fruit cobbler with fresh plums, pluots and nectarines, frozen blackberries, and a whole wheat cobbler crust.  Served with vanilla ice cream, obviously. 🙂

 

Meanwhile, Santana’s meals have remained pretty steady.  Because of her allergies and anxiety, she gets Benadryl and Pepcid before dinner.  Since she is so fussy, she gets the wonderful treat of having her meds wrapped in peanut butter (freshly ground peanuts from Whole Foods….Matt and I don’t even get this fancy for ourselves!). She follows this up with some dry food which must be amazing because she gobbles it down like a fiend.  What a gourmand.

 

The summer is flying by!

So I’d like to say that I have been off on some amazing adventures and that is why I’ve been absent from the blog for so long (almost a month!), but that is definitely not the case.

I have been busy with normal every-day things along with visitors, work events, hot weather and generally lots of stuff to distract me from new recipes and setting aside half an hour to write a blog post.

I do have a recipe almost ready to post from mid-July…since then there has been lots of comfort food, old recipes, hodge-podge dishes and eating out…LOTS of eating out.

A few food-related things to bring me back into blogland:

-        Julie & Julia

• Matt very wonderfully agreed to go see this with me.  I have been a huge fan of Julia Child since elementary school, when sick days meant I could lay in bed with my Grandma and watch Julia Child and Graham Kerr on PBS.  Not only do I love her story and her food, but her attitude cracks me up…every time I catch her on TV I can’t help laughing.  If you aren’t familiar with her background, the movie does a good job of the events leading up to her cooking fame.
• The Amy Adams portion of Julie & Julia was done really well.  It’s a great comparison of the cookbook/food television/celebrity chef pioneer in Julia Child and the food blogging/internet celebrity pioneer of Julie Powell.  The two stories butted up against each other nicely and Adams and Chris Messina portray a really uniquely intimate couple with an amazing and fun relationship to food and the role it plays in their lives (even before Julie sets out on the year-long blogging endeavor).
• Of particular importance…the FOOD!   There are plenty of times in movies and books when the food looks or sounds so amazing that I need to go out and find a recipe…there were several points in Julie & Julia that I felt this urge.  The most was with the bruschetta near the beginning of the movie, when Julie and her husband come to the conclusion that she should write a food blog.  The fried bread topped with the juicy pile of cherry tomatoes soaking in looked AMAZING. I may have to make some of this very soon.
• Beyond all this, Meryl Streep as Julia Child blew the movie out of the water.  She was insanely amazing.  If Julie Powell’s story was made into its own movie, I might go to see it…would definitely get it from Netflix after it was on DVD.  If the Julia Child portion of the movie stood on it’s own, I would be all over it.  Not only because Child’s story is so interesting, but because Meryl Streep did an unbelievable job of portraying such a unique and iconic figure in our culture.  She got the voice, the mannerisms, the humor, everything down pat.  Loved it.  I spent a lot of time laughing, and a few times crying along with Julia (in both happiness and sadness).
• Bottom line, the movie made me HUNGRY!  Good thing we had dinner plans afterward… 🙂

-   As a part of the Tastemaker program with Foodbuzz, I had the exciting pleasure of getting a box full of goodies from Emeril a few weeks ago!  With a chicken spice rub (yet-to-be-tried), a large box of organic chicken stock (HOORAY!), Emeril’s Original Essence Seasoning (fun!) and specialty kicked-up horseradish mustard (brown mustard that we used in recreating this dish and Veronica used on her sandwiches for lunch during the two weeks she was visiting), I had a very very Emeril-filled kitchen for a while.  The seasonings are still in my cupboard, since they’ll take a while to get through, but the stock got used up quickly in a few different dishes and the mustard was perfect in the Maple Pork and Apples.  Delicious!  Thanks Foodbuzz and Emeril (who I’m not a huge fan of, but who makes some pretty delicious products and recipes)!

-    I also have some coupons from Nakano Seasoned Rice Vinegars which I hope are still good…I haven’t redeemed them yet, but am excited to try some out with the recipe book they included! There are a bunch of flavors on their website. I’m not sure which I want to try!  The garlic and pesto sound yummy, but I am also a big balsamic fan, so I may have to go that route…we’ll see what our grocery store offers!

Goals:

1 – Post the blog that is sitting there waiting for me to add pictures and hit “Publish”

2 – Find some Nakano vinegar and create something yummy to share with you

3 – Get back on track with new food adventures and blogging regularly

Wish me luck!

(Matt’s mom & aunt are in town this weekend! Exciting! But, probably not a ton of blogging will be done…stay tuned!)

Recipes From Home

Things have been ridiculously busy, and I’m about to head to KY for a long weekend to celebrate a friend’s wedding…plus we have been reheating leftovers from the freezer and having boring meals lately, so there hasn’t been much to post.  Plus, Santana has been exhausting me lately….she’s fussy about her food all of the sudden, sometimes doesn’t eat her breakfast, and last night I had to sleep on the couch with her to keep her from howling all night.  Not so good.  Hop on over to her blog to read about our hike last weekend.

My mom, however, has been on a roll cooking up some of my favorites (and some new things).  She sent me massive info about all this stuff, and I’ve decided you’re lucky enough to get a peek at her cheesecake.  It’s way down at the bottom of this post and it is my absolute most favorite cheesecake ever.  Especially when she uses the mini chocolate chips.  I can’t wait to go home (hopefully in September!) so I can get some of mom’s cheesecake 🙂

These are recipes that are simple, easy and satisfying.  My dad usually eats them several times in a row for lunch, and lots of times they’ll have leftovers for dinner throughout the week.  I love my mom’s recipes because a) she’s hilarious and b) it’s a refreshing change from the fancy blog recipes you sometimes see.  Plus, the ingredients are straightforward, easy to find and not intimidating…my mom was NOT excited about trying edamame or tofu at any point.  🙂

Mom & Dad’s Chicken Dinner

POTATO SALAD

Cook cut up potatoes until done. Cool. Add the following:

• Cut up hard boiled eggs (I use lots)
• diced dill pickles
• chopped green olives (unless you are serving Matt)
• diced carrots or/and celery if you want

Season with seasoned salt and pepper. Add a few tablespoons of the pickle juice and yellow mustard. Toss with miracle whip and chill. Turns out different all the time but after a while you get a feel for the mix and consistency you like.

3 BEAN SALAD

I had a recipe to try with fresh beans but in Unadilla, there were no fresh beans at our HUGE store. So I can across this one in a cookbook I had before I got married –  New and Revised Betty Crocker 1978 !!

• 1 can (16 oz) green beans, drained
• 1 can (16 oz) wax beans, drained
• 1 can (15 oz) kidney beans, drained
• ¼ cup chopped onions (calls for green)
• ¼ cup snipped parsley ( I used 1/8 cup dried)
• 1 cup Italian dressing
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed (once again from my limited pantry – I used 1 teaspoon minced from refrigerator)

Mix beans, onions and parsley in large bowl. Mix dressing, sugar and garlic. Pour over salad and toss.  Cover and refrigerate, stirring occasionally, at least 3 hours.  The recipe says to serve in lettuce-lined bowls…. Of course, I didn’t..

TEXAS-STYLE FRYER CHICKEN

  From Taste of Home Chicken Cookbook

• 1 Tablespoon seasoned salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 broiler/fry chicken (3-3.5 pounds)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced (or in my case 1 teaspoon minced from jar)
• ½ cup butter
• ½ cup chicken broth
• ½ cup lemon juice

Combine seasoned salt and pepper; rub inside and outside of chicken. Place chicken on rotisserie rod on grill (we subbed by putting on a rack in a disposal pan). In a small saucepan, sauté garlic in butter until tender.  Stir in broth and lemon juice. Pour into drip pan and place under chicken. Baste with sauce every 15 minutes for 1 to 1-1/2 hours or until juices run clear. Dad made this so I don’t even know how much of this he followed!!

Boiled Dinner

(I will pick the ham and potatoes out of this, but always hated the way the cooking cabbage made the house smell! -Mallory)

 

Add to large crock pot:

• 3.5 lbs ham (I used half of a bone in one)  Froze the rest for another meal.
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Onion
• can of broth

Remember to leave enough room for cabbage later..Cook on high 3 hours. Add cabbage wedges. Cook 2 more hours..

That’s it.  I didn’t add salt as ham can be salty.  I drizzle vinegar over mine.

Mom’s Cheesecake

(I generally love cheesecake, but this is my FAVORITE, especially when it has the chocolate chips-Mallory)

• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 3 tablespoons margarine, melted

Combine crumbs, sugar and margarine; press onto bottom of 9 inch springform pan. I bake in the oven when preheating but only for a few minutes. Make sure it is cooled off before adding cake mixture.

• 3 8-oz pkgs of cream cheese (softened) -  I bring to room temp and then microwave at 50% for 1.5 minutes. You can use one “Lite” cream cheese but don’t use 3 – really changes the consistency
• ¾ cup of sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate pieces
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine cream cheese and sugar, mixing at medium speed on electric mixer until well blended.  (This is when the mix flies all over if the cream cheese isn’t softened enough). Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Blend in chocolate pieces and vanilla; pour over crust. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 250 (leave oven door open a crack until temp. reaches 250. Continue baking 35 minutes. Loosen cake from rim of pan. Cool before removing rim of pan.

Chill.

 

Next week I should have more recipes to post…but for now I’m headed to KY and dreaming of cheesecake from home in NY 🙂 Miss you mom!!!

What to do with all this apple butter??

A quick morning treat that we had along with a ham, cheese, onion and red pepper scramble to give us the energy for a little hike with friends today!

Apple Cinnamon Sweet Rolls

• 1 tube crescent roll sheet (Pillsbury makes crescent roll dough that isn’t cut into triangles because they realized that people like me like to use crescent rolls for EVERYTHING!).  You could also use actual cinnamon roll dough if you were inclined to make such a thing
• 2 heaping tablespoons of apple butter
• 3 Tb AP flour
• 3 Tb brown sugar
• 2 Tb butter
• 1/2 Tb cinnamon
• 1 cup sifted powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 Tb orange juice or milk

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Unroll crescent roll dough and spread with apple butter (try to leave a little space at the top of the sheet where your roll will end.
3. Mix flour, brown sugar and cinnamon and cut in cold butter until crumbly.  Spread this on top of the apple butter.
4. Roll either lengthwise or widthwise, depending on how many/how big you want your rolls. 
5. Slice into even rolls and place in ungreased pan (I used a glass pie plate).
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes…keep an eye on them so they don’t burn.
7. While they’re baking, mix powdered sugar, vanilla and juice/milk.  Add more liquid if necessary.
8. Let the rolls cool just a bit before adding glaze.

Sweet and yummy! A great morning treat! The glaze sort of soaked into the rolls a bit while I made the eggs. 

We’re headed out for a mini-hike with our friend Nicki and Santana’s good friend Bonnie.  When I say “good friend”, I mean Bonnie and Santana have had 2 play dates at our apartment.  Once, Bonnie threw up.  Once, Santana peed on the floor.  Neither time did they try to play with each other.  GREAT friends.  I am interested to see them on neutral territory today.  Santana thinks she is too human for other dogs.  If she wasn’t so adorable and sweet, this would be a problem. 

Bonnie inherited Santana’s pink jacket, since it actually fits her.

 

Santana was skeptical…

Very very skeptical.

We’ll see how they do today and maybe get some adorable pictures of puppies possibly becoming friends???

catching up with Peanuts and Pork

I am super-slacking at the blog lately.  It’s been busy all around, we’re planning lots, friends are in town, and we really haven’t been going crazy with new meals that I can post.  But I have a few things, and a yummy noodle dish!

First, remember the pork chops with rhubarb sauce? We opened up the leftovers to use them for a meal earlier this week, so here’s what the final product of the pork and chutney looked like (after sitting in the fridge for a couple days anyway, and also a little fuzzy…):

Find out what we did with the leftover chop down below.

Second, here are Matt and Santana, viewed from above.  The weather in Seattle has been GORGEOUS, and with our windows open, I heard them walking outside and ran to the balcony to see!

I yelled down for Santana to sit and then threw her a treat from the 2nd floor…SO cute!

Another follow-up picture.  Remember the amazing apple butter also from last weekend? Here it is on some toast!  It is AMAZING! And because it is SO sweet, you only need a tiny bit on the toast.  These slices had a little too much apple butter on them for my taste.  I think you could probably cut down the amount of sugar that goes into the original recipe if you didn’t want it quite as sweet. 

 

Onto the recipe:

Peanuty Pork Noodles

• canola oil
• 1/2 white onion, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, grated
• 1/4 cup red bell pepper, chopped
• 1/2 cup frozen edamame
• 1 leftover pork chop, chopped
• 1/4 cup unsalted peanuts
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped
• peanut sauce (I’ve made my own in the past, but this time we just used one we had in the fridge)
• a tiny bit of stir fry sauce (I like this to add a little bit to the peanut sauce)
• Cooked pasta (we used thin spaghetti, but if we had vermicelli or some other kind of noodles, I would have used those instead)

1. Heat oil over medium-high heat until almost smoking.
2. Add onion and garlic and stir fry until just starting to brown on the edges.
3. Add pepper and edamame.  Since the edamame is frozen (and so was our pepper), there will be some liquid released, which will actually help cook the frozen veggies through.  Sauté until liquid has evaporated and veggies start to brown.
4. Remove to a platter
5. Add chopped pork, peanuts and green onion to sizzling hot pan and stir fry for just a couple minutes to heat through.  The pork will get nicely browned edges.
6. Add veggies back in along with peanut and stir fry sauces to your desired sauciness. 
7. Toss with cooked pasta and adjust seasoning. 

This was a SUPER easy way to use up the pork leftovers as well as some of our frozen vegetables.  And it was really yummy.  It hit the Thai/Chinese noodle craving that I get pretty frequently. 

We had some tender red greens still left in the fridge that would only last a day or so more, so I wanted to make a side salad to go with the noodles.

To cut through the creaminess of the peanut sauce, I went with a vinaigrette that I completely eye-balled.  There was no measuring at all.  Unfortunately, it was a little too vinegar-y for Matt, but I LOVED it.  I basically topped the salad with my noodles and ate the two together. 

In a small plastic container I put the following ingredients, closed the lid, and shook until completely mixed.  Then just tossed with the greens. SIMPLE.

• sesame  oil
• olive oil (about half as much as the sesame oil)
• rice vinegar
• red wine vinegar (about half as much as the rice vinegar)
• soy sauce (just a dash or two)
• honey (a tiny drizzle)
• white pepper
• ground dry ginger