Recent Grub

I have definitely been neglecting the topic of food around here. Don't worry, we are eating, I guess I just haven't thought a lot of it to be post-worthy.

But here are a few things I wanted to share.

Apparently, steel cut oats are good for lactating mamas so of course, I wanted to try them out. Also, I like to try to eat a hearty breakfast if I can because sometimes lunch comes a little late for me. The only issue I have with this breakfast is that when I am home alone, it is a little time consuming with boiling and stirring so the babe has to be on her best behavior. I cook 'em up, slice up some fresh fruit, throw in some dried fruit, a little brown sugar, cinnamon and almond milk and yum, yum!

Next up, we have some cookies. Again, another recipe that caters a bit toward the lactating mama, but they are a little healthier, Ben eats them and they are good. They aren't too sweet which makes them a good snack. I saw them posted on Whitney's blog and the recipe is from here. I don't pump my milk very often so I don't have a great gauge as to whether they work or not, but I figure, hey, they are healthy-ish and it can't hurt right?

Moving right along, we started to get a bit unhealthy. While Ben was off last week, we tried a couple of new things. I have always wanted to bake bread from scratch but am always scared. I know. Scared of what? Don't  you just try something and if it works is does and if not oh well? Well, yes. But I pretty much like to succeed in the kitchen. Not fail. I'm the first born, what can I say?

We sometimes enjoy watching the Sandwich King on Sunday mornings. we have tried a couple of his recipes and liked them. So for some reason we think we should try Pretzel Buns with Grilled Dogs and Spicy Cheese Sauce. Yeah. Okay, so we make the buns which turned out delicious. the only complaint we had was that we used wax paper on the baking sheet and the buns stuck like a mother. Other than that, complete success. We were pretty proud of ourselves considering we used yeast, had to let them rise, boil them and bake them. 

The next steps were easy: make a cheese sauce and grill the dogs. We didn't love the cheese sauce as we followed the recipe and used Velveeta. Not awesome. The next day when we ate left overs, we just used regular hotdog toppings: ketchup, mustard and relish and like them a lot better. I think the fakey Velveeta was a little much. A lot much.

Last but not least, we went for homemade pizza. 

We have a confession. Most Friday nights we get a Papa Murphy's take and bake pizza. I don't know why this started but it's typical. We actually hadn't done it in awhile, maybe because we are on a tighter budget, we have been having leftovers or whatever. Anyway, last Friday we decided we wanted to make our own pizza including the crust. Since we had succeeded with the pretzel buns, we deemed ourselves seasoned bakers and figured we couldn't go wrong.

We got the crust recipe out of my trusty Better Homes and Gardens cookbook and went to town. We didn't want to go to the store so we used all ingredients we had on hand: made sauce from scratch, ground pork, tomatoes, cheese and jalapenos. It was delish. I don't know if Ben and I will keep it up now, but I definitely think it will be fun to have a weekly family pizza making night with kids.

Nothing too exciting, I suppose, but it always feels good to try new recipes, discover healthy recipes we like and eat yummy food at home!

The Current State of my Cooking

Not only have my blog posts taken a turn in topic due to my big life change but mostly I have just been pretty embarrassed at how my cooking "talents" have taken a turn for the worse so I haven't been too motivated to post any of my kitchen adventures. I guess by posting mistakes I am being real though so maybe I just need to get on it. I am not bragging and saying I am some gourmet chef, wife who whips up something amazing every single night. However, I enjoy cooking, I enjoy trying new things and I do have my stand by recipes as well. My husband generally likes what I cook and appreciates a home-cooked meal.

The first week Ben went back to work after a week home with us and a week's worth of eating other people's cooking whom had been gracious enough to bring us meals, I decided to put a roast in the crock pot. I put some vegetables, some broth, salt, pepper, etc. I thought, Ben will be so impressed on one of my first days home, I am able to get a meal done. Not that I try to impress my husband and this thought was half sarcasm but whatever. I got the roast in a little bit late for the time I thought we might eat so I put it on high for a while and was going to turn it down. Well, a while turned into basically the whole time. I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't really. Ben arrived home, we chatted, dished up dinner, he commented on how good it smelled and then started eating. Something was on TV so he was watching that and I took a bite of my roast. I looked over at him and said, "This is terrible! It is so dry. How are you eating this?" He replied with, "Yeah, not  your best." And then proceeded to eat.

I was so embarrassed that I had screwed up a crock pot roast. How does that happen? Crock pot=easy dinner, does it not? Apparently not for me in this case.

A couple of weeks later, I put a chicken in our dutch oven and it turned out okay. The last chicken I had made in the oven had turned out so good.

Next up, this past weekend, on Friday night I was half paying attention to one of our favorite shows, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and saw a dish I wanted to try: pasta carbonara. I told Ben this when he walked in the door and he asked if I had recorded the show. I replied that it looked really easy, I knew the ingredients and I didn't need to have the show to be able to make it.

The next night, I set out to "throw" this dish together. I figured I would make the sauce ahead of time so that we could just heat up the pasta and eat whenever we were ready because nowadays around our house there is a certain little lady who dictates when we eat our dinner. Well, this was a big mistake. I assembled the ingredients just as I remembered in the order I remembered them putting them in the pan: bacon, garlic, white wine, lemon, cream, cheese and egg white. I mixed it all together, tasted it and it tasted good. I left it on the stove on low and went about watching a movie with Ben. Our Idiot Brother was a pretty good movie. It was kind of quirky which made it easy to watch.

Anyway, back to dinner. I went into the kitchen and peeked at my sauce. It had curdled/lumped up/turned into a scrambled mess and my shoulders just slumped. I deemed this inedible and Ben tried to re-create it. What a nice husband. He knew how much I wanted this dinner so he tackled it. The problem is that the sauce is meant to be eaten right away. Not left to simmer on the stove. Lesson learned. Ben wasn't too impressed with his dinner but I thought it was good. It is definitely on the rich side but I guess that's what I was in the mood for.

Moral of the story: I don't know what is wrong with my cooking. I need to get my groove back or I may lose my job. I think my mom hat has risen about my chef hat and they maybe need to gain a little more equality.

Any simple recipes out there I could try to gain some confidence in the kitchen back? Any kitchen/recipe blunders you would like to share?

I Think You Should Try These

Since having my time off work, I have been cooking and baking more and loving it! I have also been trying to put some things in the freezer for when we are too busy with the lil' punkin to want to cook dinner. I have put away some spaghetti sauce, a chicken and sausage casserole and some soup. I made a double batch of these cookies last week in hopes to put some away put apparently they were too delicious and have been disappearing rather quickly.

The recipe for these Ranger Cookies came out of my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. Yes, I use it a lot.

Ranger Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats

1 cup coconut

1 cup raisins, dried cherries, dried cranberries or mixed dried fruit bits

{I used dried cranberries and a few white chocolate chips I had on hand as well}

1. Preheat oven to 375. Beat butter with electric mixer for 30 seconds. Add sugars, baking powder and baking soda beating until combined, scraping sides of bowl.

2. Beat in the egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much flour as possible with mixer and stir in any remaining. Stir in oats, coconut, dried fruit.

3. Drop by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the edges are light brown. Cool on cookie sheet 1 minute and then transfer to a wire rack and let cool.

{I ended up baking mine for about 12-13 minutes. I don't know if my spoonfuls were just too big or my oven is weird or what--so just a heads up.}

Also, last week, I realized we hadn't had pork in awhile so I took some pork chops out of the freezer from our "farm raised" pigs and put them in the frying pan, roasted some butternut squash in the oven and added it to some quinoa. 

I cooked the quinoa in the rice cooker with 1C of quinoa to 2C of water. That took about 20 minutes.

While the quinoa was cooking, I sauteed quite a bit of garlic and green onions in a little butter.

Once the squash was done, I let it cool a bit and cut it up into chunks.

I added the quinoa to the garlic and onion, added the squash, some salt, pepper and a touch of cumin and stirred it all together.

I love quinoa but I always forget about it. I think it has great nutritional value, is a grain with protein {which is very important for me right now} and is a nice change from plain rice. We then topped it with some green peppers and yellow onions that had been in the pan with the pork chops. Ben really liked the meal and it was definitely good when you could get most of the ingredients into one bite!

I know these are kind of random recipes to stick together but they were easy, delicious and I actually remembered to take pictures of them!

What have you been cookin' and bakin' lately? Any great quinoa recipes to share?

A Nice Weekend with a Good Dinner

The weekend started out great with Ben working from home so he was home when I got off work. He worked for a couple of more hours and then we headed down to the beach in our neighborhood and swam around with Holly for a little while. A few friends came over and we relaxed in the back yard for a couple of hours.

Saturday morning I wasn't feeling great so Ben made breakfast and we watched some Dexter that we have been waiting on for awhile. Ben had plans to go to the soccer game and I was just going to relax at home. I ended up going out on my parents boat for a little while and when I got back Ben was home. We cooked some BBQ'd beef short ribs with a couscous salad and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Sunday morning we were up and and out running some errands. We got some paint to paint the changing table/dresser and a side table. We also got some shelves for extra storage in our office. We then headed to one of our favorite grocery stores to get ingredients for dinner.

We decided to make "Greek Tacos" after watching Ben's new favorite Food Network show, Sandwich King.  So off to the store we went in search of the ingredients:
ground lamb
red onion
tomatoes
cucumber
pocketless pitas
plain whole milk greek yogurt
feta
tomato paste
mint

At home we already had red wine vinegar, oregano, olive oil, garlic and salt and pepper.

If you want to see his version of the recipe go to his website. But this is what we did.

To make the cucumber relish, I simply diced the cucumber, tomato and half the red onion and mixed it with a few turns of red wine vinegar and a few turns of olive oil. Just so all the veggies are coated. Then salt and pepper to taste.

For the tzatziki sauce, I mixed a cup of greek yogurt, maybe half cup of crumbled feta, a whole cucumber drained as well as possible, a clove of minced garlic, maybe ten mint leaves chopped and salt and pepper. Stir it all around and make sure you like the taste.

While I was making the sauce and relish, Ben was browning up/crisping up the lamb. We put the skillet on about medium-medium high heat and put a turn of olive oil in the pan. We didn't mix around the lamb until it was brown and crispy on one side. Once it is cooked, remove the lamb from the pan and put in a few minced garlic cloves and the other half of the diced red onion. Let these sweat until they are aromatic and translucent. Add the tomato paste and dry oregano. Stir it all together while the tomato paste lets out its sugars. Add a dash of red wine to the pan, or in our case some broth, to deglaze a little and get a little bit more of a saucy texture and then add the lamb back to the pan.

While the lamb was cooking I heated up our Naan. Naan? Yes, instead of pitas, we got Naan because they were sampling it at the store and it was delish.

Once it was all done, we slathered the tzatziki on the Naan, topped with the lamb, topped with the relish, rolled it up and dug in. So, so good and super easy. I would say it's one of the best gyros/Greek tacos I've ever had!

There are Reasons I Need a Man's Help

Lately I have been trying my hand at bbqing. I use the word "trying" lightly because I still prefer to just have Hub do it. Sometimes if I really want to have dinner ready right when he gets home or if he is running a little late, I have braved the BBQ(s). Also, when Ben was travelling so much, I used the gas grill by myself.

A couple of weeks ago I even learned how to light the briquettes on the charcoal BBQ. Ben prefers the charcoal grill, as do I usually, so it's nice if I can start them and then he can grill when he gets home.

Last week, I wanted to grill some chicken for the Chinese Chicken Salad I was making to take for our weekend away. I had some boneless, skinless chicken thighs. I asked Ben what temperature I should grill them on and he told me. However, I had some huge issues with the chicken sticking and it didn't appear that the left burner was on. I started to get frustrated and I'm pretty sure once I moved all the chicken to the hot parts of the grill it became pretty over cooked. Luckily I was putting it in a salad with many other ingredients and dressing.

Ben knows all the ins and outs of his grills, what temps to cook things on, how long it takes and it doesn't stress him out. For some reason, I have always associated BBQing with being stressful. Having to move things around, constantly keep an eye on it, flipping and turning.

Ben, you can have the grills and I will stick with the oven and stove. I just love having such a balanced marriage!

Tasty Tuesday: Spaghetti and Spicy Turkey Meatballs

This meal was actually made for the holiday last Monday that we all refer to as Valentine's Day. I ended up having the night off and Hub thought he would get to come home a little earlier however weather and traffic had other plans. He didn't get home until a little later but I had some dinner ready. I had been inspired by some recipes I had been looking through and decided to try something new as I like to do from time to time. Isn't it funny how we just fall into a pattern of cooking our "go-to" meals and it is hard to stray away? Well it is for me at least. That's why I try to read cookbooks and try to keep main ingredients in my head from recipes listed in magazines so I can remember to try new ones. Anyone else with me on this? Anyway, back to Tasty Tuesday. I prepared this spaghetti dish and it was a big hit with the both of us.

Spaghetti and Spicy Turkey Meatballs

**courtesy of an "archived" copy of a Better Homes and Gardens Magazine

Heat oven to 375

In a bowl stir together 2 eggs whites, lightly beaten, 2 tbsp. olive oil, 1 tbsp. milk, 2 tsp. chili powder, 1 tsp. black pepper and 1/2 tsp salt

In a large bowl combine 2 lb. uncooked ground turkey, 1/3 cup finely chopped onion, 1/4 cup fine dry bread crumbs, 2 jalapeño peppers and 1 tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
Fold egg mixture into turkey mixture; mix well. shape turkey mixture into 1 1/2 inch balls. Place on foil-lines baking pan. Bake 20 minutes or until no longer pink. (170 degrees)

Cook 1 14-16 oz. package dried multi-grain, whole wheat, or regular spaghetti, with one tablespoon of salt added to the water. Drain; keep warm.

In the same pan used for pasta, melt 2 3 oz. packages of cream cheese over low heat. Add 2 cups of milk and cook, stirring until bubbly.

Return spaghetti to pan; toss to coat with cream cheese mixture.

Serve with meatballs, cheese and cilantro.

So. Confession. I did not follow this recipe. I strayed when we started with the sauce. I didn't have any cream cheese and was trying to just use what we had and not go to the store. For the sauce, I made a roux  then added milk to that and season with Italian seasonings, salt, pepper and garlic powder.

I then put a little bit of regular onion, green onion and garlic in the food processor and pulsed that up to go in the sauce. I then thawed out some frozen spinach, dried it out and added that to the sauce. I let that simmer together for awhile, cooked the meatballs when I knew Hub was on his way and came up with this:

Like I said, it turned out really delicious. I am sure it would be delicious if I had followed the other recipe too, however, I am not known to follow cooking recipes too exactly. Enjoy!

What did you have for Valentine's dinner? What is your favorite pasta dish? Do you have a secret recipe for meatballs you would like to share?

Tasty Tuesday

So hopefully many of you had a wonderfully relaxing Sunday full of cozy clothes {maybe some NFL inspired attire}, maybe some drinks, maybe some football, but especially some good food! I have come across many a recipe for White Chicken Chili and I was going to make "regular" chili for Sunday's "big game" however I decided to change it up and opt for the poultry instead of the beef. Don't know why but I did. I perused a couple of recipes for this dish but as some of you may not know about me quite yet, when I am throwing stuff in a crock pot, it is somewhat hard for me to follow a recipe. Time to learn about my version of:

White Chicken Chili

Fits in large "oval" shaped Slow Cooker

{This is just how I made the chili. Add ingredients or omit ones you don't like according to your taste buds!}

6 chicken thighs with skin removed

1 can Hominy

I had never used this before but decided to try it instead
of corn. It is actually a really nice texture and since
it is so hearty, you don't lose it amongst all the other
ingredients.

2 cans Great Northern Beans

1 smallish can of green chilies

2 fresh jalapeños chopped and seeded

1/2 yellow onion chopped

3 cloves of chopped garlic

2 cans or 1 large of cream of chicken soup

32 ounces chicken broth, divided in half

Dashes or teaspoonfuls {basically just to your liking or until it tastes like you want it to} of:

salt

pepper

garlic salt

cumin

cayenne pepper

chili powder

seasoning salt

The preparation

1. I put the chicken in a pot and just barely covered it with chicken broth and boiled it so the skin would fall of the bones.

2. While the chicken was boiling, I combined all other ingredients into the crock pot. {Pretty tough, I tell ya.}

3. Once the chicken was cooked through and falling of the bones, I took the bones out, added chicken with juice and all into the crock pot and set that baby on high for about an hour to make sure the cream of chicken soup dissolved and then turned it down to low for about four hours. I would taste it about every hour and decide if it needed any more dashes. 

I would say this turned out well. Hub isn't always the biggest soup fan, so I don't think he loved it, even though he wouldn't come right out and say it. {A good man he is. No, really, he is usually pretty honest with what he likes and doesn't like or what he thinks could be different about a recipe. We are a pretty good team in the kitchen.}

We served it with cornbread muffins, some with jalapeños and some without.

What are your favorite soups to throw in the crock pot? What was your favorite Superbowl dish? Any special way you have to "spice" up some chili?

Saturday Night In

Lucky Hub and I both worked yesterday morning but we had a yummy dinner planned for last night so we were both eager to get home. We watched the Seahawks win their first playoff game and then set about making Beef Bourguignon. Yes, we were inspired from this movie:

and since we got a Dutch Oven for Christmas, we figured it was time to tackle this meal. Such a fun Saturday night with a few libations and cookin' in the kitchen with my honey. We decided on this recipe from Simply Recipes and it was delicious. For some reason, I thought that it was only going to take a couple of hours but it ended up taking about four so we did eat a little later than we probably would have like but it was well worth it. Here is Hub slicin' up the beef:

Isn't he a cutie?!

I figure since the recipe was already written with pictures over at Simply Recipes, that I would just provide some pictures of our experience. We were so happy it turned out so well because after that long of waiting for dinner, it would have been slightly disappointing if it hadn't turned out. When the aromas started filling the house, I figured if it tasted half as good as it smelled that we were in for a treat and it sure did deliver.

Salt pork

Prepping ingredients-creminis, beef, shallots, carrots

Searing the beef

Preparing part of the sauce

A whole bottle of wine!

If you and yours enjoy cooking, I would definitely recommend making this meal together for a date night. We both contributed to the meal, we could chat, watch the football game and take breaks while different parts of the meal were cooking. It isn't a super high level of difficulty, we didn't think, there are just a lot of steps involved so it is time consuming. Just what were were looking for to spend some time together!

What are your favorite meals to cook together? Do you like trying new recipes for date nights? Have you made this meal before?

The Start of a New Year

There really isn't anything like ringing in a new year and the sense of promise of change and improvement that it brings. Everyone makes resolutions, sets goals or makes promises. It's funny because sometimes I feel like fall is the start of a new year (I guess from so many years of school) but maybe it is good to have two times in a year to feel as though we can start fresh.

Anyway, I am feeling very motivated to get back on track with exercising, eating right, organizing, purging and giving away items we don't use, and tackling some crafting and home improvement projects! A lot of these things come with a price so I am also going to be more mindful of spending and seeking out some screamin' deals.

I have been pouring over some blogs and have a couple of projects I am interested in:

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I came across this on Made it on Monday and it seems like another good beginning sewing project. I learned how to do the ruffle on my pillows, I am sure I can come up with an old pair of pants and what a creative way to not have to go buy fabric. I am learning when I go to the fabric store to actually head straight to the "remnants" pile and start digging because I apparently head straight to the expensive stuff only to cause my eyeballs to bulge straight out of my skull when I get to the register! Oopsie, beginner's mistake.

I am absolutely in love with this beautiful wreath and can't wait to tackle it. I think I have some sort of secret obsession with wreaths that I can't really explain or didn't even really know I had until I see ones I love:

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This cheery gem comes from Tatertots and Jello and appears to be quick and simple as well. I am waiting to see what my mom pulls out of her fabric collection to see what I can pilfer. Since I am taking down the Christmas season wreath today it will be nice to replace it with something to brighten the front door during the rest of the wintery months.

Onto the next hobby: Cooking! I received four cookbooks for Christmas and can't wait to get started. Hub commented last night that I have all these cookbooks and what do I cook out of them? Well, I have my standby:

However, I do have quite a few books on the shelf that don't always get opened too often. The excitement of a new cookbook chalk full of new recipes is always so much more exciting than the dusty ones on the shelf. I want to get out of that mentality. I want to use the books I have: 400 Soups, Better Home and Gardens: Our Best Recipes, and now to include the newbies: The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and Texas Treasury of Dutch Oven Cooking . 

I am also excited that my back is feeling better and it is time to get back into the workout routine with my new heart rate monitor:

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As well as some sleek, new Nike running pants.

Sounds like I have a busy year ahead and a lot of goals to accomplish! I guess the first place to start will be to take down the Christmas decorations....

What are some of your goals/resolutions/promises? Any Christmas gifts proving to be highly motivating for you?