fenchurch: (DeSoto)
We had some sweet potatoes left from our weekly produce delivery and I decided I wanted to make Sweet Potato Chicken Curry. So, I found a recipe that looked good from some of the ones I've saved over the years, picked up the ingredients I needed for it and then went to make it for dinner the other night, only once I started in on it, I realized the cooking time was over 90 minutes and not the 30 minutes I was expecting. Weird. Okay, so the last stage of the recipe simmers for 30 minutes, so that was probably what I'd been thinking of. Also, it had a few ingredients I'd apparently missed earlier that we actually didn't have on hand (technically, we did have some canned garbanzo beans, but they were all dated as Best By sometime in 2020, so I figured it was best not to use them). It was all very strange and I couldn't figure out how I'd gotten it so wrong.

So, tonight I started in on it again... better supplied with all the ingredients I would need and plenty of time to get it done before dinner. Guys, I was a full hour into making this thing before it finally hit me that there were TWO DIFFERENT RECIPES with basically the same name (one, which is the one I'd actually wanted to do, that I'd apparently saved off 13 years ago(!) and one I had found more recently). The older recipe took 30 minutes to cook, but the one I ended up attempting tonight was a whole lot more involved, had a whole lot more ingredients (which is why they'd been missing the night before) and took a whole lot longer. *facepalm*

So, at this point, I looked over both recipes, dropped a few ingredients that hadn't been added yet from the one I'd been following, tossed in a few from the other recipe that I thought would taste good and just winged it. And wow... was it good! I sat down and wrote out what I did, because I will definitely be making this again.

Recipe under the cut for anyone who might be interested. )

Reposted from my Livejournal, with a photo over there (I haven't been able to recall how to post them here).
fenchurch: (Fenchurch Place)
A week or so ago, I posted this on FB: "On Saturday, I made drop biscuits to go with our leftover beef and barley soup... this evening, I made sausage gravy to go with our leftover biscuits. It's the Circle of Dinner."

And I really love being able to do things like that... leftovers from one meal that work well as an addition to the next. In that case, it was even better than that, because the beef and barley soup happened due to having enough extra beef to make the soup, leftover from what was needed for a previous meal.

A few days ago, I realized we had a couple of bunches of kale in the fridge that really needed to be used... so I went looking for a new way to cook them and happened upon this recipe out at the Weight Watchers website (which currently kinda sucks when it comes to linking to recipes, so I've included it here under the cut): Potato-Kale Soup. )

Before I pulled out the immersion blender, I decided to give it a taste and... well, it was really bland. I had [personal profile] rackham give it a try and we debated what we could add to give it some pop. We put a few tablespoons of the soup into a couple of ramekins and tried adding spice blends, finally settling on hot curry. And it was pretty good! Not the best thing ever, but if I end up with a bunch of kale and some potatoes I need to use, I'd probably do it again.

And then last night, I got to do one of my favorite things... I used it to make something else entirely. I cooked up some carrots and cauliflower, added some chopped up raw chicken breast and a little more curry, then dumped the leftover "Soup" in with it and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Oh my word, it was *perfect*. I would totally make that soup again, only not as a soup... but as a base for curries. I'm actually wondering how well it would freeze, so I'd have a quick and nearly ready-made dinner on hand.

Crossposted from my Livejournal.
fenchurch: (Fenchurch Place)
I got to do one of my favorite things this evening... take leftovers, combine them with other ingredients I have on hand and make an entirely new dish! In this case, the leftover stuff in question was just a bit over a serving of the spaghetti sauce I made the other day. Behind the cut so I don't bore everyone with the details! )

Oh my gosh, you guys, it turned out so well! I'm definitely going to have to keep this technique in mind for future spaghetti sauce leftovers. Even better, it turned a single serving into four servings... so now we have leftovers of our leftovers!

Crossposted from my Livejournal.
fenchurch: (Fenchurch Place)
So, I don't post for months and now I get all chatty. :-p

We picked up a rotisserie chicken from Costco the other day, which meant we had the makings for several meals: drumsticks or drumsticks and thighs the first night along with Costco's quinoa salad, curried chicken salad the next night (sometimes I do a gorgonzola chicken salad instead) with leftovers for lunch the next day and possibly the day after and then I strip the carcass (saving any remaining meat for soup later) and toss it in the crockpot with onions, carrots, celery, garlic, peppercorns and a bay leaf... cover it with water and let it simmer all day (or all night, depending on when it gets started). Usually there's enough to make soup that night and have leftover stock to go in the freezer for later. Costco rotisserie chicken is the BEST.

Tonight's soup turned out so well, I decided I'd better write it down before I forgot what I'd put in it... because I definitely want to try that one again! Still not sure what to call it, but for now it shall be known as:

Spicy Chicken Corn Soup )

This particular combination came about because we had cobs of corn from our produce delivery that needed to be used... and, of course, I also needed to use up the garlic scapes, so they were added in place of garlic. It was VERY zesty and if I was making it to share with other people, I'd probably add less of the Southwest Seasoning next time. It might also have been good with a bit of cilantro at the end, but we didn't have any on hand.

Crossposted from my Livejournal.

Parsnips!

Jan. 28th, 2015 12:45 pm
fenchurch: (Barefooter)
I usually just add them to a mash with other roots and that works okay... or I'll add them to soups, but seriously, if I just use them for that sort of thing, it's going to take forever to get through them. Does anyone have any favorite recipes that might help us use up our overabundance of parsnips a bit faster?

Crossposted from my Livejournal.
fenchurch: (Default)
Spongecake. I think. It's very tasty, but the texture isn't as smooth as a regular cake. I don't think it would work very well with frosting, but suspect it would be fantastic with a glaze of some sort (lemon or pineapple, in particular) or perhaps just with some berries on it or both.

Method to my mixture. )

And here's the finished product. )

Final verdict: I would definitely make this one again!

Crossposted from my Livejournal.
fenchurch: (Fenchurch Place)
I've been going through my grandma's recipe box recently, which is cram packed full of mostly handwritten recipes for cookies and cakes (with the occasional main dish thrown in for good measure). Today, I came across this list of ingredients written on the back of a ticket for the 24 July 1969 Pioneer Day Celebration Ball Game between Idaho Falls and Ogden:

10 oz Butter or margarine
1.5 lbs sugar
6 large eggs
1 lb 4 oz flour
1 oz baking powder
3/4 Tbsp salt
2 cups milk
1 Tbsp vanilla

There are no instructions and no indication what this is supposed to be making. Anyone have any ideas? I may just have to try mixing it up and see what comes out... although I do wonder if there might be a particular method that would work better.

The other amusing thing I've come across are the number of recipes that make 150 servings or more. My grandma was a lunch lady at school back in a day when they actually made everything from scratch.

Crossposted from my Livejournal.
fenchurch: (Fenchurch Place)
One nice side effect of having my brother-in-law come over to help with the couch on Saturday was that it actually occurred to us that we should invite him over for Easter dinner on Sunday (his wife is currently out of town, so he's on his own for the moment). Of course, it was only later that we realized we had absolutely no plans in place for what wanted to cook for said dinner! We did a bit of brainstorming while driving home late Saturday night after returning the rental truck, stopped by a grocery store to pick up a couple of things for side dishes and decided to pretty much wing it on the main dish, using stuff we already had at home.

Moroccan-style lamb. )

Crossposted from my Livejournal.
fenchurch: (Fenchurch Place)
...which, I'll warn you, is fairly boring. Ran out to our old neighborhood this morning for my weekly walk with [profile] taradaktyl and her dog, Toby. This was a bit tricky, since we're finally getting some of that rain for which we're so famous... and it was actually, at times, pretty heavy. Of course we didn't bring any umbrellas with us (umbrellas, shumbrellas...) and ended up getting pretty soaked. I picked up my weekly produce delivery (they don't deliver out at our new house, but Taradaktyl already gets deliveries from them as well, so I just have my produce dropped off there) then headed out to grab a quick Geocache, getting even more soaked in the process. I got to my piano lesson looking a bit like a drowned rat, I suspect. Started on some new songs this week (yay!), even though I still haven't quite mastered the last ones. I tend to do a bit better if I'm not just constantly practicing the same things over and over, so I'm excited to be adding something new. Off to a late lunch, then to grab a photo and head home.

Bridge over the Snoqualmie River )

And, well, that's about it. Did some housework, contemplated doing some yardwork but decided it wasn't worth getting soaked again. Oh! And made a fantastic risotto for dinner (with [personal profile] rackham's help stirring... my arms get tired too quickly). So far my goal of using up all the produce from our deliveries each week has been going really well! A nice side effect being that we're eating out a whole lot less, too.

If I remember correctly, I originally got this recipe from a flyer put out by a local grocery store chain: Barley, Mushroom and Winter Squash Risotto )

It's not particularly difficult, just a bit more labor intensive than I like to do regularly. On the major plus side, it used up the squash, the shallots and the mushrooms we already had in the house (particularly the squash, which had been sitting on the counter for a few weeks). I love it when a meal comes together like that!

Crossposted from my Livejournal.

Hoecakes

Jan. 27th, 2014 07:44 pm
fenchurch: (Fenchurch Place)
For dinner tonight, I started up one of our favorite recipes, Potato and Canadian Bacon Slow Cooker Chowder, before heading out for the day. It worked really well, since we still had some potatoes, leeks and carrots from last week's produce delivery, plus I was able to throw in the last of the the British Bacon we bought a month or so ago (it's been in the freezer). I subbed in a coconut based milk substitute for the cow milk dairy this time and I really liked how it turned out (I usually use hempmilk, but I had the coconut stuff open already) Yummy food that uses up things from the fridge... yay!

And to go with it, I whipped up some Hoecakes using Alton Brown's recipe. Another old stand-by, because they're very easy and quick and we usually have the ingredients on hand. Plus, they're yummy too! )

Crossposted from my Livejournal.
fenchurch: (Space Shuttle)
Sorry for posting two in a row like this, but I wanted to get this one out before I forgot!

We ended up having a rather late lunch today, followed by that fun hike up to a Geocache and the visit to Snoqualmie Falls, so when we got home we decided we didn't need a really big dinner and we also didn't want to have to go back out to get any ingredients. I glanced around in the fridge and grabbed some leftover cooked barley, a couple of oranges, some chevre and some other bits and pieces and came up with this.

Recipe and photo behind the cut. )

Crossposted from my Livejournal.
fenchurch: (Fenchurch Place)
I found my copy of this recipe recently (as dictated to me by my grandma) and I was going to title it "My Grandma's Banana Pudding" but I'm pretty sure it's the same recipe everyone's grandmas used (since I think it originally came from the back of a Nilla Wafers box).

2/3 cups sugar
1/4 cup flour

Mix flour and sugar together and add

2 eggs, beaten
2 cups milk
1 Tbsp butter
dash salt

Mix and cook in a double-boiler until it thickens.

Remove from heat and add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.

Line the bottom of a bowl with sliced banana rounds and pour on the pudding. Top with Nilla Wafers and chill before serving.

And now I really want to make some.

Crossposted from my Livejournal.
fenchurch: (Cake is a Lie)
Yummmmmmmmm....

After figuring out the issue with my homemade sweetened condensed goat's milk (this time, I melted the butter first... the original recipe I found mentioned nothing about this, but I think it has to be necessary to get it to turn out right), this morning I made [personal profile] curiouswombat's Tablet recipe and YUM!!

Of course, I have no idea what Tablet is actually supposed to taste like, but from the descriptions I've read, I've at least got the texture right and the taste is yummy, so I'm just going to go with it!

(I am planning on taking some over to my neighbor, who has had it before, to see if I got it right.)

Crossposted from my LiveJournal
fenchurch: (Cake is a Lie)
Has anyone ever made sweetened condensed milk before? I just tried it using this recipe and it came out looking more like frosting than what I would expect from sweetened condensed milk. Is this normal? And if not, does anyone have a better recipe they could recommend?

Thanks!!!

Crossposted from my LiveJournal.
fenchurch: (Default)
So, I finally cracked the thing open this evening. By which I mean, of course, that I peeled it, chopped it and ran it through the mandoline to give it a nice matchstick cut. I also sampled it a bit to at least have an idea how it tasted before cooking with it... I ended up using it in place of the celery in a mirepoix (sweating it with the onion and carrots) and it turned out really well! I tossed in some diced chicken thigh meat, some chopped fresh rosemary and thyme from the yard and then used some homemade turkey stock from the freezer. I'd cooked up some brown rice separately and put that in bowl before ladling over the soup. Yum!! I'd definitely do that one again!

And I could definitely see tossing kohlrabi into several other dishes... particularly salads. Sort of reminded me of a cross between broccoli stems and jicama.

Crossposted from my Livejournal
fenchurch: (Huntsman)
My mom and step-dad were in town over the weekend (my step-dad, a physical therapist, was attending a training seminar in the Seattle area). My mom and I ended up spending most of the weekend making trips to Trader Joe's (a prime shopping spot for my mom when she's in town) and watching episodes of the new Doctor Who... it was just like old times! (She's the one who got me hooked on the original series when I was 10.) Sadly, we didn't make it up to where we'd experience the hotness that is Jack, but that just means we've got a lot to look forward to the next time she comes to visit.

My folks wound up having to leave about four hours earlier than they'd planned (step-dad even left the seminar early), due to the rockslide over Snoqualmie Pass... meaning they had to first drive down to Portland and then over to the other side of the state. Right now *the* main East/West route in the state of Washington is still completely closed down and has been since early Sunday morning... last I heard, they thought they might have one lane in each direction open late tomorrow... and they're hoping to have more lanes open by Thanksgiving (this may seriously curtail our plans for that weekend, because I'm not keen on the idea of getting stranded on the other side of the Pass). All the other passes are getting seriously overloaded with traffic, and some are closing down due to snow. It's going to be a nasty year for holiday travel.

(Note to our Governor: BTW, some people don't respond too well to blackmail. Just thought you should know.)

In other news, I will be so incredibly happy when this election is finally over... no more stupid campaign ads! There's one in particular that sets my teeth on edge every time I hear it... and makes me want to hunt down the people responsible and hurt them. The reason is completely separate of the campaign item, and has everything to do with the structure of the ad's "plot."

Behind a cut because it's stupid and it's just me rambling on about an annoying commercial )

Sunday night, I ended up tuning into "Category 7: The End of the World" a bit late... missing about the first 40 minutes, where I'm guessing we probably got one or two extreme weather effects and a whole lot of interpersonal relationship backstory (if it followed the disaster movie formula at all). I often find that the best way to watch these sorts of movies is with a DVR and a pause button... then you can fast forward through the boring bits and just watch the parts where things get torn apart or it starts to hail fireballs or whatever. But maybe that's just me. :-p

Anyway, it's shaping up to be a lovely cheesy disaster movie: mostly mediocre acting, some bad dialogue, fairly bad special effects, bad science and bad plotting. What's not to love? Oh, and on the even more hugely plus side, there's Schanke from Forever Knight and Krycek from The X-Files!!! I hadn't seen either John Kapelos or Nicholas Lea in anything for quite awhile. Oh, and can someone please tell me when Randy Quaid, a man who used to be a fairly decent actor, suddenly became the king of the B-grade disaster movie?

I did have to wonder, just a bit, about the wisdom of airing this mini-series now... right after so many people have gone through some fairly horrific and very REAL natural disasters. I know that there's almost always something going on in the world that would fit that description, but it still seems like they might have been better off waiting at least until the next sweeps period to give it a teensy bit more of a time buffer. I dunno, it just seems a tad bit tacky.

We made our first ever batch of croutons yesterday, a la Alton Brown. They were particularly good in Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup.

Tomorrow is A Feast For Crows Day!! Fan-girlish Squee!!! And I get it before [livejournal.com profile] rackham because he's still uselessly plodding through reading the latest Robert Jordan book.

And finally, I've recently discovered the yumminess that is Trader Joe's Chocolate Soymilk. That stuff is the best thing since sliced Great Harvest Dakota Bread!
fenchurch: (Looking Up)
We had a fantastic time down in Oregon... )

We got home a bit after midnight last night, and I completely crashed (you know, after I checked my email) and failed my perceptiveness roll or something... because this morning my "alarm clock" (the full spectrum light I have hooked up to a lamp timer) came on at the same OLD time. Yuck. (It's definitely been reset now!)

It's been dark all day, making me even happier that I have that full spectrum light around (even if it did come on too early this morning). This is the time of year when the weathermen say things like "Well, it'll be sunny this morning, but then the clouds will move in... they should clear up again sometime in February." (Actually said by a local weatherman last week.) Technically, while we're likely to have a day or two of occasional sun, in all likelihood we won't have sunshine consistently again until July sometime... probably about a week after Independence Day. I love it here. (No sarcasm intended!)

I was looking up some stuff about Boonie Peppers this morning and ended up following a link to a place I assumed sold the dried peppers (for family recipes, I use the Chili Piquins that are sold at Penzys, though they aren't exactly the same). Nope. It's a nursery in New Jersey that sells live Boonie Pepper plants and will even ship them nationwide!!! Guess what I'll be trying to raise next spring!

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