Pie Thief

My father might be an evil genius. Or perhaps he is just trolling me and it is all a joke and not a conspiracy to drive me insane.  At the very least, it can be said that he is a man that works in mysterious ways.

This past Christmas, my father gifted me five large ramekins. This in itself is not strange. My father has gifted me instruments of baking persuasion in the past.  Five is a little bit of an odd number, but not anything questionable.

The real mystery started with the discussion with my father on what inspired him to send me crockery. I am not complaining about the dishes, I am just curious. My father normally has something that inspired him.  This something that inspired him happens to be chicken pot pie.  The sort of chicken pot pie that has a flakey crust at the top and not the noodle concoction that is native to the area that I live.  The question I had was where did he get the ramekins. The answer I received wasn’t clear. 

After multiple conversations with my father, I have been able to deduce that the crockery came from some sort of place that sells these pies that can be heated at home. My father bought these delicious pies, ate them and saved the crockery. The ramekins are worth at least $9 a piece. My father assume that my husband would not be adverse to pot pies. He was enabling my husband to enjoy a pot pie life. 

The concept that a place will let you make off with their dishware is foreign to me. If feels like a bad restaurant model to replace dishes with take out orders. I have begun to research how to send a pie by mail and if said pie comes in its own crockery.  This search may have resulted in me sending at least on pie to a friend randomly. 

My husband has a theory that my father is absconding with the pies and sending me the crockery to coverup the theft. I do not think my father is a pie thief. However my father has informed me that he has acquired more ramekins. My husband lives in fear that we will be taken over by pilfered crockery.   The more I subtlety question my father about the pot pie, the more vague he gets.  The more vague he gets, the more pie I make, so I can bring up the topic. My husband gets to live his best meat pie life as this mystery continues. 

I have  fixed over half a dozen different pot pies for my husband and brother in law since the arrival of ramekins.  Maybe we all need to eat a little more pie in our life and not worry about the details of the crockery. 

Comfort Food: Twisted Chicken Noodle Soup

Comfort Food: Twisted Chicken Noodle Soup

I should probably call this Thai Chicken Noodle Soup or Not My Mother’s Chicken Noodle Soup, but both of those seemed like really long titles for a recipe this delicious.  (Mom- If you are reading this, your Chicken Corn Soup is awesome and also great comfort food.)

This recipe originated from my husbands work.  They have a healthy eating section to encourage positive life choices and this recipe sounded good to him, so he forwarded it to me. I took what I liked out of the recipe and molded it into something heartier that makes a good meal by itself or an excellent part of a soup and sandwich meal.

Ingredients:

1 large sweet potato

1 tablespoon of olive oil

2 tablespoons water

1 Onion diced

1 tablespoon dried ginger or 2 inches  of fresh ginger rood thinly sliced

2 tablespoon curry powder or 1 tablespoon red curry paste

1 (15 ounce) can unsweetened coconut milk

3 cups of vegetable broth

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro

1 cup edamame 

3/4 cup riced cauliflower & sweet potato mix 

2 cooked chicken breasts chunked in bite size pieces(I use rotisserie to save time)

1 small packet of Thai vermicelli rice noodles

Directions:

1. Wrap sweet potato in cling form wrap and microwave for 7 minutes.  This should cook the potato all the way through.  Put the potato in the freezer to bring down temperature for handling later.
2. In a pot for noodles, fill will water and put on the heat to boil noodles.  A watched pot never boils, so move on to step 3 as the water heats. 
3. In a large soup pot, heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add the onion and ginger; cook until onions are tender and translucent. This should take about 5 minutes. Add the curry and water and stir together with onion ginger mix for about a minute.  Once everything is blended, add the unsweetened coconut milk and vegetable broth to make the soup broth.  It should smell amazing.  Bring soup broth to a boil and then let it simmer while you work on step 4.
4. Take the potato out of the freezer. It should be cool to the touch but not frozen. Remove the skin from the potato and dice into small pieces and put in the broth. If the potato is not cool, it will mush when you attempt this step.  IF the potato is still super warm, put it back in the freezer and work on other steps. 
5. Add the chunked cooked chicken into the broth along with the edamame and riced cauliflower/sweet potato mix.  Stir the the pot every now and then to verify that it nothing has settled to the bottom of the pot.  
6. The water for the noodles should be boiling.  Add noodles to the the pot and stir.  You want to make sure that nothing sticks together. Rice noodles cook quickly.  Once they are done cooking, you will want to rinse the noodles in cold water to stop the cooking process.  Once the noodles are cooked and cool to the touch, refrain from eating them from the bowl and put them in the soup broth. IF the sweet potato is still in the freezer cooling down, take it out of the freezer and it should be fine to dice and put in the soup. 
7. Stir all the ingredients together and let simmer for at least five minutes. You want the potato to gain some of the curry flavor.  IF the noodles seem to overwhelm the soup, it is okay to add half a cup of water. 
8. Add salt, lemon juice, cilantro and sesame oil to the soup.  Stir to the tune of Ring Around the Rosie letting the ingredients incorporate in to the broth and then serve.

This is a hearty chicken noodle soup that is full of flavor and sneaks in a couple of vegetables while providing comfort that only a chicken soup can provide.  

The Chuck

A while back my dad asked me for ideas and what to make with cornmeal that was not cornbread.   I immediately suggested polenta, but somehow that failed to satisfy the hunger growling in his stomach.  Chatting with Gat, I was inspired to experiment with dinner.  I haven’t quite come up with a name for it, but it is basically an inside out enchilada or deconstructed enchilada.  I am still working on the name. Or perhaps I’ll just name it after my father.  

The Chuck

Ingredients

1 pound boneless skinless chicken chopped 

1 can of  red enchilada sauce

1 tablespoon minced Garlic

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 tablespoon cumin power

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1 can of corn nuggets drained or 1 cup of frozen corn

1 box jiffy Corn bread mix

1/2 cup diced fresh chilies or 1 small can of diced green chilies

1/2 cup diced onions

1 can of diced tomatoes (I like the ones with habaneros mixed in, but you can really use any of them.)

1 can of beans  drained and rinsed (I use black or small white, but others will work.  Dealers choice)

2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese

1 egg

1 cup milk

Olive Oil

Tools

Large Skillet

Medium Bowl

Small bowl

9 x 13 baking dish (deep dish if possible)

Spoons

Spatula 

Tequila (just kidding, you don’t need this)

Instructions

Turn the oven on to 350 degrees

In a bowl mix chopped chicken, garlic, chili powder, cumin powder, salt, and oregano until chicken is evenly seasoned. Set aside.

In a large skillet, drizzle olive oil and heat. Once warm, add diced peppers and onions.  Cook until onions are translucent. Add  seasoned chicken mix and cook chicken until cooked all the way through.  Add diced tomatoes, corn and beans, enchilada sauce.  Cook until corn and beans are heated through.  Transfer contents of skillet mix into a 9x13 baking dish and set to the side. 

In a bowl open Jiffy corn bread mix, and mix according to the box. (This is where the egg and the milk come in from the ingredient list.) Once the mix is as smooth as corn bread mix can be, with a large spoon, ladle large dollops of  mix into the chicken mix. Think corn bread dumplings. Once all of the corn bread mix has joined the chicken mix, sprinkle the entire dish with the shredded cheese and place in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes. The cheese should be nice and melty and the cornbread should be cooked all the way through. If the corn bread looks runny, put it in for another 10 minutes. 

The end product is a dish that makes me think of tamales, enchiladas and comfort food all wrapped into one.  Excellent for next day lunches.   While I haven’t tried it, I am sure the concept would work well with shredded beef, pork, or chorizo if you were looking for variety. 

Grocery Store Mayhem

I thought she was going to throw a chicken at me. 

I worry. Sometimes I think that I worry for the sake of worrying.  My brain goes in circles and makes something out of nothing.  It has been six years since I last saw my best friend and I worry that we won’t be able to connect in person.

Faye and I met in elementary school. We saw each other everyday and had frequent sleep overs and joined each other on family trips.  Then I moved when I was fourteen and we have spent the next twenty four years keeping in touch through letter writing and sporadic visits.  The last time I saw her in person, was six years ago. A lot can change in six years. My head whirled over whether or not we would actually get a long in real life.  After all, how was I to know if I had some annoying habit that would drive her up the wall?  Maybe I snort when I laugh or twitch weirdly or worse yet, not get her sense of humor.  Or what if she licks her envelopes? What if we just can’t relate to each other?

Like a true worrywart, it was all for nothing.  We were in the grocery store, picking up supplies for cookies and the she threatened to throw a chicken at me.  I’ll admit I was being a brat. I was twisting her words like an angsty teenager in the middle of a story, and  I was working on her last nerve.  She threatened to throw something at me and happened to have a chicken handy. The crazy look in here her eyes and mirth around the mouth was a definite sign that we hadn’t lost a beat.  I told her to bring it. I was not afraid to get kicked out of a mid west grocery store I’ll never see again.  The kid manning the checkout was not amused with either one of us.  We were causing a scene at checkout number five and the line was beginning to build up. We had confirmed our friendship in the weirdest way. 

Comfort Food: Peanut Chicken

I had this idea that I was going to write this epic post about recipe that is a frequent flyer on the dinner circuit in my house. It was going to patriotic. It was going to be swoon worthy.  It was going to disclose the secrets of comfort food. It was going to involve peanut butter.  In fact I was going to make the recipe to make sure I had all my measurements to correct and that I wasn’t missing any steps, since I can make this recipe practically in my sleep.

Then tragedy struck.  Not major tragedy that change the entire course of lives, but more of a dinner tragedy.  My recipe of ultimate comfort food, the one that I could do in my sleep, I totally fucked up on. 

The problem was simple.  The soy sauce and the Worcestershire sauce are in the same shape bottle and they both have a red cap.  Being on auto pilot and not paying attention to what I was actually pulling out of the fridge, (because why would the bottle locations change) I totally dumped half a cup of Worcestershire sauce in my recipe. I then had to scramble to mellow to taste of Worcestershire sauce and make it be friends with the peanut butter.   It may have one of the least spectacular meals I have ever made.  It was a pretender to the throne.  One bite and you knew it wasn’t the infamous peanut chicken, but more of something that had aspirations of being steak and failed. 

The lesson here isn’t that you should always identify your ingredients before you put them in the sauce, but more of don’t become complacent.  Focus on what you are doing even if it something you have done a thousand times before, because maybe that thousand and one time will be different.

Peanut Chicken  

Use the big stir fry pan or a wok.  This is going to make a lot of food. 

2 1/2 Cups Chicken  Cubed

1/2 Cup Diced Onion 

1/4 Cup Diced Peppers

1 Tablespoon Minced Garlic

1/2 Cup Shredded Carrots

1/2 Tablespoon Chinese Five Spice

1 Tablespoon Chili Garlic Sauce

1 Tablespoon sesame oil

1 Tablespoon chili oil

2 Tablespoons olive oil

Sauté everything together until the chicken is cooked through and the carrots are limp. 

Add

1/2 Cup Soy Sauce

2/3 Cup Chunky Peanut Butter

1 Cup of Chicken broth (Water can be used in a pinch)

This should make a rather liquidy sauce.  If it is super thick, add more chicken broth.

Add

2 Cups cooked rice

Brown rice, white rice, doesn’t matter.  Perhaps not wild rice, that doesn’t hold the flavor as well.   Mix everything together until warmed all the way through and then serve.   The sauce should mix and cover all of the rice.  The meat and vegetables should be mixed in evenly, kind of like a fried rice. 

This is one of those foods that also holds well in a crock pot for hours if you were to make a double batch.   It is spicy, yet savory and has all the comforts of home. 

Pizza Chicken - A Compromise

The Year of the Pizza Chicken

Sometimes dinner takes a little bit of creative compromise.   

Me: What do you want for dinner Christmas Eve?

Jon: 🍕

Me: We are not having pizza.

Jon: 😢

Me: Beef, Chicken or Pork?

Jon: 🐔

Jon: ...🍕🐔

Me: I’ll figure it out.

And this is why I have Pinterest.  I found the perfect combination of Pizza and Chicken that would look good on Christmas Eve dinner plate.  The recipe by Simply Stacie was wonderful to follow.  

My husband took the lead on the prepping the chicken by pounding it flat and then rolling it with the stuffing.  Simply put, the Chicken is laid flat and then filled with a combination of red sauce, pepperoni and cheese. It is then rolled and then topped with more sauce pepperoni and cheese. The cheese rolled into the sauce prevents the chicken from being dry and the pepperoni adds a savoriness to the chicken.  The chicken went nicely with garlic rice and sautéed spinach and carrots.  It was the perfect meal for a semi fancy meal. 

In honestly it was one of the simplest recipes I have ever done, since all I did was the filling and turn the oven on. In fact two out of three people at the table seemed to love the recipe and mentioned that they wouldn’t mind eating it again, which I consider a win for a holiday experiemnt.  If you are looking for something different to fix that leave you with a flavorful moist chicken, I would recommend Pizza Stuffed Chicken.

Peanut Chicken Rice

I just came back from a lovely trip visiting friends in Texas and I should be ashamed of all the food I ate.  There is so much good food out there, that I wanted to sample everything, since who knows when I will be in Texas again.  Once the rush of traveling wears off and I am ready to settle in and have some quality time with my husband and cats, I want some comfort food.  Traveling is great and I love trying new things, but there is nothing like home.  

 One of the favorite comfort foods in my home is Peanut Chicken Rice.  It is a filling dish that is easy to make, and is a cross between a fried rice and Thai chicken on stick with peanut dipping sauce. 

Ingredients 

2 tablespoon Olive Oil

1 teaspoon Chili Oil

1 teaspoon Sesame Oil

1-2lbs chicken breast cubed

3 cups cooked white rice

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup shredded carrots*

1/4 cup peas fresh or frozen*

1/4 cup frozen sweet corn*

 1 cup Chunky Peanut Butter

1/3 cup Soy Sauce

1  tablespoon Minced Garlic

2 teaspoons Chili paste

1/2 teaspoon Ginger Powder

1 tablespoon of Sriracha

1 teaspoon of Hoisin sauce 

1/2 Cup Water or Vegetable Broth

In a large sauté pan heat the oils and add the chicken, onions,garlic,ginger powder and chili paste until chicken is cooked and the onions are translucent.  Add the rest of the vegetables and soy sauce until veggies are cooked through.  Add the chunky you peanut butter, Sriracha, hoisin sauce and water/vegetable broth.  The peanut butter will melt as you stir everything together and will become a loose sauce.  If the sauce is thick, you will want to add a little more water or broth until it is smooth and loose .Add the rice and stir it together until it is all mixed well together.  Once the rice is coated in the peanut sauce, and the chicken and vegetables are mixed in, it is ready to serve.  

 *It may look like a bunch of ingredients, but most of the vegetables can be found frozen or you can use a frozen soup mix if you aren't opposed to green beans being in it.  Some people in my house do not like green beans, which is why I try not to use the frozen vegetable soup mix.

Turkey Bundles

It has been four days since Thanksgiving and I have consumed a Thanksgiving burrito every day. (I am not ashamed, just stating fact.)  It is time to do something with the leftover turkey that does not involve wrapping it in a tortilla.  It is time to make the old family favorite, Turkey Bundles. 

Old Family Favorite 

Turkey Bundles or sometimes Chicken Bundles is one of the staples of my childhood. It was probably one of the first recipes I ever learned and it is one of those recipes that I could probably make blind folded with a spork if my survival depended on it. It is one of those recipes that my mother would trot out for company, because it was easy to make yet unique.   I am not sure where the original recipe came from, and I know that I have seen several variations in Taste of Home, but this is my recipe that I use.  It has been slightly modified to the current household tastes and if you check back with me in ten years, I am sure that there will be even more changes. 

Turkey Bundles

2 Cups- Cooked chunked Turkey

1 ½ Cream Cheese of 8oz Package (total of 12 ounces) Room Temperature

Handful of rough chopped spinach (about 1/3 cup)

½ Cup Mushrooms (They are optional. My husband hates mushrooms, but I love them.)

¼ diced hot peppers or green chili peppers

¼ cup shredded carrots

Salt and pepper

¼ diced onions

1 tablespoon diced garlic

2 tubes of Instant crescent rolls

Bread crumbs

Melted butter or olive oil

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.  In a small sauté pan, cook the carrots, onions, peppers and garlic in a little bit of oil or butter until soft. Once soft, remove from heat and set aside. In a large bowl mix turkey, cream cheese, mushrooms, and spinach until well blended, then add the cooked carrot mix.  I do the cooked part second because it can make the cream cheese a little melty and hard to handle.  Add salt and pepper to taste. (If you are my husband, this is where you add a dollop of hot sauce.) 

Open the tube of crescent rolls and break them apart.  They should be little triangles. You will want to stretch the triangles a little bit and until it is almost double its size.  Take two heaping tablespoons of the turkey and cream cheese mix and put it in the center of the triangle. Use the corners of the triangle to wrap it. It should look like a bundle or a diaper.  Normally this recipe is going to make about a dozen bundles depending on how much your fill the bundle.  When all the bundles are assembled, brush the top with olive oil or butter and sprinkle with bread crumbs.   The bundles get baked on a cookie sheet for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Hot Metal Chicken

Do you ever have one of those moments where you find something funny and you are pretty sure that no one else is going to find it even half as funny as it is to you? Yeah. I seem to have a lot of those moments. 

A Christmas not too long ago my grandmother had gifted me a bottle of perfume.  I don't wear a lot of perfume, because I hate trying to find a scent that I like and going into a perfume store is an instant migraine. I was surprised at the gift (and hoping it was a subtle hint that I stunk).   It was the name of the bottle that caused my mental funny bone to kick in.

I follow The Bloggess.  I read her blog, follower her on Twitter and I have gifted her books more than once. There is a lovely antidote about perspective that involves a six foot tall metal chicken called Beyoncé that is one of my favorite posts and one that has been most shared among my group of friends.  The only reason I bring it up, is that the perfume my grandmother picked up for me was Beyoncé Heat.  All I can think about when I pick up the bottle  and spritz it on my collar line is that I am going to smell like a hot metal chicken and then I start snickering.  I am sure that my grandmother picked it out for it's light citrus scent with a slight honeysuckle  glow, but it doesn't matter to me.  It is my hot metal chicken perfume and I rock that chicken. 

Poland and Ireland on a Plate

I think that winter is made for eating a sleeping. Since I am not allowed to hibernate through the winter, it is only logical that I spend way more time eating than I probably should. I did a mental tally of the cookbooks that I still have to utilize before June 30^th for this Cookbook Challenge, and I am still behind. It doesn’t matter that I may have acquired several for the Christmas holiday, I should still be further ahead than I am. It also doesn’t help that when I walk into a book store, I am drawn like a magnet to a lodestone to the cookbook section.

In an attempt to make some head way on the books that I already have, I have started to use multiple cookbooks at one time for a meal.  This has mixed results. Not bad results, but mixed, because some where I forget to take a picture of something and then debate on if it is esthetically pleasing to take pictures of food glopped together on my dinner plate.   In the end I suppose it doesn’t matter because it is all going to end up in my stomach in the end. (Insert evil cackle here.)

The Bermingham House

Every Wednesday we have was I dubbed as “Nerd Night” at my house. This is where my husband a long with a motley assortment of friends and family come over and eat food, watch a really bad movie and discuss a variety of off the wall topics. My part of this is has to do with the “eat food”. I prepare the food, which makes them the perfect subjects for experimental recipes in this challenge. This past Wednesday they had the pleasure of a mixed culture faire, where Poland met Ireland on the dinner plate and no potatoes were harmed in the process.  Literally there were no potatoes harmed in the process.

Scanning the cooks books I found a lovely stuffed tomato recipe called Mushroom stuffed Tomatoes in my Best of Polish Cooking compiled by Karen West that seemed like it was meant to be a natural side dish for Bermingham Chicken out of my Irish Countryhouse Cooking by Rosie Tinne. I am pretty sure that there is no such thing as a normal recipe. As I scanned the ingredients for the chicken disk, I realized that two slices of ham is a lot of ham. I am not sure if the slices they are talking about in the recipe are the inch thick slices that I picked up at the grocery store or if they were talking about sandwich thin slices. I decided to face it and to use just one large ham slice and cube it instead of two slices and lay them flat at the bottom of my fireproof dish. (The recipe was very specific that I used a fireproof dish, I am going to assume that all of my bake ware if fire proof, because why else would it be able to go in the oven?) Other than the slight confusion with the ham, the overall result of the dish was somewhat like an inside out Chicken Cordon Bleu.  Ham and Chicken are meant to be meaty friends in a cheese sauce. 

The Stuffed Tomatoes were not trouble free as I had hoped they would be.  I thought that I would have issues with coring a tomato and filling it.  That was actually easy.  If anything out of this whole challenge I am building some culinary skills and am a lot more confident wielding knives.  The trouble that I had with the tomatoes was the ingredients that were not listed.  There came a spot in the instructions where it told me to add onion and sauté.  I had no problem adding onion, if the onions were listed in the ingredients to begin with. I ended up scrambling to dice an onion to add to the mix.  Then at the end of the instructions it said to add spices.  I had already added salt and pepper and there were no other spices listed, so I wasn’t sure if this is where I was to get funky with the tomato or not. I just settled for more salt and pepper and hopped that it turned out well. 

Overall both recipes did not cause bodily harm to any of the tasters.  Some suggestions of adding rice to either dish came about, but if that was the only thing I would consider this a success and can cross both of the cookbooks off of my list. It is often amazing how it doesn't matter where food is from, that when it is done well it doesn't matter what is paired with what. It is a wonderful medley in the mouth. 

Fall CSA: The Missing Weeks

My plan was a simple plan. I would write about what I got every week in my fall CSA. It was supposed to get me back in to the saddle of writing after taking a bit longer of a break than anticipated for the holidays.  That was the plan.  I made it two weeks in, and then time skipped forward and I couldn't catch up before the next box of fresh veggies and fruits would arrive.

This is me playing catch up and trying to figure out what to do with sweet potatoes. The last time I wrote I was lamenting over what to do with collard greens and turnips.  My friend, Dr. Jolly is a turnip genius, and I can day that I am no longer afraid of them. Oven roasted with spices and sugar made them an acceptable substitute for potatoes and quite tasty, that even my husband will eat them and not grumble too loudly.  I still want to leave them out for the Hogfather, but seeing that the Hogfather only comes once a year and I have plenty of turnips, there will be more turnips in my future menus until next Hogswatch.

Collard Greens are one of those things that I have to thank Dr. Jolly for also, since otherwise I might have left them out for the rabbits. Instead they ended up in homemade  Kung Pao Chicken.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, and it turned out well. I don't think that Collard Greens were meant to go in Chinese Food, but it didn't hurt anything and I can say that I ate my veggies. Even if they were cooked down and slathered in a spicy sauce.  It still counts as eating my veggies.

Week Three

Gala Apples
Kabocha Squash (Yippee another new squash that I have never heard of and have no idea what to do with!)
Broccoli
Sweet Potatoes (Still not done with the last ones, and now I have a small army of sweet potatoes, and yet can't help but thing about The Bloggess and Sam the Yam.)
Kale

Week Four

Apple Cider
Fresh Greens (Looks like baby Spinach to me)
Brussel Sprouts (I still think they look like alien pods like I did when I was 8.)
Apples
Acorn Squash

I never realized what a lazy cook I was until joining a CSA.  I thought I was a pretty active cook, and that my cook book challenge was keeping me from falling into a culinary lull.  That was all a lie until I joined the CSA, because now I am challenge to figure out what to do with the items in my white box every week. It is not as easy as throwing stuff on the grill and calling it a day. I guess I could do that, if I wanted to stand out in the dark and the cold wind while I try to figure out if the potatoes are done, which I don't.  I don't want to hang out in the cold where the wind has a habit of cutting through you like a hot knife to butter. I like my creature comforts, which means I have to put a little more effort in to my meals, and possibly eat an apple a day to combat the growing number of apples in my fridge.

Despite the challenge that this presents me, I can't help but feel like I won the lottery every week when I open my CSA box.  I never really know what I am going to get, and since my friend, Lizzy is doing it with me, it is a pleasure to know that she also has a sweet potato/apple infestation and I am not alone in this.   It is two days until my next box, and I have only used up about half of both boxes, and part of me wants to laugh hysterically if I end up with another potato and the other part of me wants to cry, because I know I will end up with another potato or possibly some other item bigger than my head that has never graced my kitchen before and I won't know what to do with.  I have begun to believe that laughing and crying are two sides of the same coin.

Cook Book Challenge Slacker

I am slacking in my cookbook challenge. It isn’t that I am not using the cookbooks, but more that I am not writing about what I am doing.  This is going to be a somewhat long post of me playing catch up on the cookbooks that I have used in the effort that it will keep me on track.

I have a sweet tooth. I have discovered this. I did not think that I did, until I really looked at my cookbooks.  I was pleasantly surprised by my Cookies cookbook.  I found a recipe that took me a little bit out of my comfort zone, because it used fresh cranberries. I like cranberries. I like cranberries juiced and mixed with vodka.  This recipe involved chocolate, and in my mind the tart of the cranberry and the rich taste of chocolate would balance each other out into something passable. What I did not expect from the Cranberry and Chocolate Squares was that it would turn out so decadent. The recipe was easy, and because of this I made the bars three times and have probably given myself a cavity on the richness of it.  This recipe I will do again. I will also lie to myself and say that I get an acceptable amount of Vitamin C in my diet from eating a whole pan of chocolate cranberry bars.

Just to prove that I don’t just own cookbooks that have to deal with baking, I thought I would utilize a chicken cookbook that my friend, GAT gave me.  It is probably one of the more embarrassing cookbooks on my shelf, mostly because I don’t participate in the program.  It is a Weight Watchers Everyone Loves  Chicken cookbook.  There is nothing wrong with Weight Watchers, and it works for lots of people, I however have never partaken of the program. I just wanted chicken recipes.  Leafing through the pages I discovered little tidbits of information, such as Hunter Style Chicken and Chicken Cacciatore were the same thing. I flipped through the book several times, before I decided to make the Hunter Chicken.  I love mushrooms, my husband not so much. He says they taste like feet and have a way of permeating a meal, because of this mushrooms were omitted and while it was a good meal, it was missing something and that something was most likely mushrooms.  I am undecided if I will ever try this recipe again. It was a nice change from the sweets, but did nothing to dazzle the taste buds.

Lastly I utilized the Recipes from the Raleigh Tavern Bakery. This book was a gift from my mother in law from some of her many travels.  She had brought me a cook book, along with some rather delicious gingerbread cookies.  The cookies were the size of a small child's head. That could be a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one, since the cookies were huge. The cookbook had a quaint historic feel to them, and seemed simple enough.  Deciding on trying an oatmeal cookie did not turn out as well as one would hope. In fact it made me wonder if I had any sort of baking ability at all, since they did not tantalize the taste buds in the slightest. There was molasses in the cookie, which I think added to the weirdness factor. There was also a point in making the cookies, which it seemed like there was something missing, either an ingredient or an extra step somewhere, because it didn’t seem to come together. I think this is the first time in my adult life, that I have made cookies that no one was the slightest bit interested in eating.  I almost feel like my cook books are going to be taken away from me, because of this kitchen failure.  It is now getting closer to the holidays and I have to wonder if I should experiment on the influx of company or if I should stick to tried and true recipes that won’t kill people.  Jury is still out and I have too many of 63 cookbooks to get through before the end of June.