19 posts tagged “cooking”
I've really been taking advantage of the long days of Summer. During the school year, there isn't much time for meal preparation. We eat a lot of easy meals like spaghetti with meat sauce, chili, or whatever I remember to throw in the crock pot. But for the summer, I've been really going outside my cooking comfort zone. It probably has something to do with watching a lot of Food Network in the evenings coupled with traveling to places that have great food, but that I can't just up and visit whenever I get a craving for the tasty meals I've had in each place.
It started out with a impromptu get-together at my house when Rob and Nicole arrived to pick up my nephew (I watched him while they were out of town) and Steve's brother, Rob and his wife, Kirsten showed up at the same time Sunday night. We all ended up sitting on the porch for awhile just visiting.
I missed my Voxiversary. I think it was on Hannah and Esther's birthday, but I can't remember and I'm too lazy to go look.
I'm tired. Actually, I'm downright exhausted. Today was the "October Olympics" at the kids' school. I played School Photographer today for the yearbook and I was determined to get decent pictures. If I can't find any in the 300+ that I took, I'll be surprised. I got down on the ground, in the grass, dirt and hay to get up close. I even found myself coated with a thin coat of flour. I'll blog about the whole experience later, with pictures, but for now I'm too tired to go grab the camera and upload any photos.
After I got home, I put the kids to work. Gave them each a task to do. It makes the house straight real quick if I give them each one chore. Don't think I'm lazy, I did some stuff too. I did the dishes and put a Pear Coffee Cake* in the oven. I had to bake the cake. When I went to the grocery store, I bought a small amount of premade snacks so it would force me to make the rest homemade. I wasn't very happy with myself for doing that today. Although, now that the cake is in the oven, I'm happy about that. This is one tasty cake recipe. Thanks to my in laws, I have an abundance of pears. Their pear tree is overflowing. I think I've pulled at least 5 dozen off the tree in the past month. And I'm not the only one. I'm always trying to talk people into taking a bagful of pears too. Seriously, they are free. And I've finally got a couple of awesome pear recipes. I'm kinda sad that in a week or two, pear season will be over. Although my family might just be on pear overload.
That was a creamy pear pie that I made for the potluck before the "October Olympics". I think I'll make a couple more later in the week after my Pear Coffee Cake is gone.
Ok, it's officially pajama time. I'm outta here!
*I only used pears in this recipe. I left out the coconut, dates and nuts and used 6 cups of pears instead. It was ridiculously good.
or really really bad. Either way, I think I'm going to whip up my homemade cinnamon roll recipe this week and make 'em like this.
Steve and I had a little date night last night. I knew I could rope him into it if I suggested eating at Ray's Hell Burger up in Arlington. It's kinda funny how we live so close to the state line that we end up in Virginia a lot. It's kinda nice, cheaper to live in Southern Maryland, but if we want to have a nice night out, we can just hop on over to DC/VA. Yup, I like it here.
Anyway, we ate at Ray's. I had the Big Poppa. Peppercorn encrusted burger, medium rare, with onions and mushrooms sauteed in cognac, danish bleu cheese, lettuce and tomato. So good. It's my favorite. I've gone with peppercorn encrusted with bacon and avocado before. These burgers are just ridiculous. I'm usually not a medium rare kinda gal, but these burgers aren't your usual burgers. They added sides to the menu. I tried the mac and cheese. It was eh. Next time, I'll just get a burger. It's huge anyway and even if the mac and cheese had been spectacular, I wouldn't have been able to eat the burger and the mac and cheese.
I had wanted to walk around some of the monuments after dinner, but it was kinda late. We drove by the Iwo Jima Memorial. Neither of us had ever gotten out to look at it, so we stopped off and walked around a bit. It's huge. Like ridiculously huge. I had no clue as to it's hugeness (sure that's a word, deal with it!). I'll let Steve post the picture of me standing in front of it look all dwarfed by the magnitude of it.
I think in my old age I am getting paranoid. It was just Steve and I, and it was 10ish. I was really worried about getting mugged or something. I didn't, but I just didn't like being there in the dark so late at night. I think it has something to do with the last time we were at the Jefferson Memorial at night, someone was stabbed the following weekend (at night).
We had the movie, "Flags of Our Fathers" sitting at home, so we thought it would be a fitting thing to come home and watch after going to the memorial. Kinda depressing. We really need to add some comedies to our Netflix queue. (I love the word "queue". It makes me really happen to have a reason to type it. Americans need to use it more often, like the English do. It makes you sound smarter. Heh. And the word, "daft". I really like that one too.)
Today, we are just kinda doing whatever. I think I'll break into my huge supply of flour and sugar and make something tasty to take to church in the morning. Homemade cinnamon rolls seemed to go over well when I made them a few weeks ago. I think I'll try my hand at them again.
I'm going to need new jeans by the end of the month if I don't stop baking. I made peanut butter and jam thumbprint cookies on Thursday. Ridiculous. Just 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup sugar (I did 1/2 brown, 1/2 white), 1 egg and a tsp of vanilla. I used my cookie scoop to make them into 1 inch balls, stuck my thumb in them, dropped a little grape jam (not jelly). Baked 'em at 350 for 8 minutes. Heavenly.
I bought some seedless boysenberry jam at a roadside produce yesterday after my brother in law suggested it for the cookies. It was really yummy slathered on my pancakes with some butter this morning.
The kids are outside playing volleyball and making shelters a la "Man Vs. Wild". As much as Bear Grylls disgusts me when he does something like drink his own urine, eat a raw fish, or climb into the skin of a dead animal to keep warm for survival, he keeps my kids thinking and learning. We would definetely survive in the wild, that's for sure.
So yeah, that's all my random junk for today. I'm going to go add my complaint for the day to my "Dwight Schrute" notepad that I am just so happy with. It's the little things people, the little things.
I bought 20 lbs of sugar of today. I also bought 25 lbs of white sugar and 4 lbs of brown sugar. I'm figuring it was a wise investment since I went through over 10 lbs of flour alone last pay period. I'm hoping I don't lose my baking mojo now that I've plopped down a chunk of my grocery budget to dry ingredients. Although, I don't really have a choice but to bake and create since I purposely didn't buy enough snacks for the kids' lunches. That will force me to bake. Yup, it will. Hungry whiny kids always force me into the kitchen. Feeding them is the only way to shut them up.
I had big plans for Monday. Yup, I was going to get up, get the kids to school, come home and totally kick butt cleaning up after a busy weekend. I was even going to reward myself with a nap for doing such a good job with the cleaning. Oh, and throw more stuff in the bread machine because a 2 lb weight gain and tight jeans just isn't enough to deter me from making more delicious yeast breads. (Seriously, cinnamon rolls with yeast dough vs. with bisquik, no contest!)
So yeah, I get home from dropping the kids off, pour myself another cup of coffee, grab my Bible study workbook (gotta keep up with the homework), and start to sit down. Think to self, better check Caller ID and make sure no one called while I was gone. See school number. Check voicemail. Find out a child left lunch in backseat. Rush through homework. Jump in shower. Make myself presentable. Leave to take child lunch (one hour roundtrip ride). Come back home. Start working on dishes. Make lunch for husband that is working from home. Phone call from my mom saying she's coming to the kids' soccer/volleyball games. Work harder on dishes so I can attempt to make the rest of the house halfway presentable. Realize I still need to make pizza dough for the calzones I'm planning for dinner. Throw ingredients in bread machine. Do more housework while chatting with a friend on the phone. Parents arrive. Take dough out of bread machine and pop it into the fridge so it doesn't rise and spill over while I'm gone. Run to school. Watch games. Come home. Start assembling calzones and heating up leftover corn chowder for dinner. Remind kids to do homework, repeatedly. Feed parents. Throw more stuff in bread machine for white bread so I can make sandwiches in the morning. Parents leave. Kids showering. Send them to bed. Move my cars (Parking Wars, of course). Rob a jewerly store (Mob Wars, of course). Attempt to catch up on my blogs, e-mail and message boards. Spit out a blog post. Realize I'm exhausted.
And now, I'm going to hit the "Save" button, put on some pajamas and go to bed. Well, maybe after a game of Tetris.....
- Venison Chops
- Rosemary, Garlic and Kosher Salt Oven Fries
- Cranberry-Pear Crisp (made with pears plucked from my mother in law's pear tree)
- pumpkin muffins
- pumpkin bread
- 3 loaves of bread (with the help of the bread machine)
- lacey cookies
- "Whatever you feel like throwing in" snack mix. Mine consisted of a bag of oyster crackers, a bag of pretzels, and a can of peanuts. I just used the Chex Mix recipe. It is very yummy and almost gone.
It's funny how Fall just makes me want to cook and create and bake. The family seems to be enjoying it, although Ashley opted out of having her PB&J sandwich made with fresh homemade bread this morning. I want to make my mom's "Hot Milk Cake" later on this week. I've never tried it, but it's so yummy. It's kinda like a pound cake. The top just gets so crusty and yummy. Then you sprinkle powdered sugar on it and knock it back with a big glass of milk. Mmm. And I wonder why my pants are getting tight. Heh.
It's a grey day here in Southern Maryland and the chill is back in the air. I really appreciate the warm weather my wonderful mother in law sent from Florida (as she promised!), but I knew it wouldn't last forever. I'm kinda glad because I've had all the stuff to make Zuppa Toscana for a couple of days now, but I'm just not big on soup when it's warmer. Now it's cool and cloudy and I'm in the mood to get to work in the kitchen!
But I decided to just add Nutella this time around. I added a 1/4 cup of Nutella to your basic Rice Krispie Treat recipe. It is soooo good. I highly recommend it. I'm bringing the batch I made to Nicole's this weekend. Hopefully they enjoy them as much as I enjoyed my little sample!
