revenge of the gardener!

It has been brought to my attention that the meatloaf I made last night was liked by all. Check that one in the imaginary recipe box! I was able to mow the grass today. I had fun driving the mower through the garden. Slashing and cutting the broccoli that never flowered and squishing and pulverizing our midget corn that was once a beautiful green that turned into a sun-yellow. Although, I did run over part of the hose. And yes, it was damaged, well cut, well mutilated...but I think its still fixable. So now our sunflowers that once were towering above us looking down upon the beings below is now looking like it needs to be brought to the flower hospital and put on life support. What we need is some good compost. The soil needs some good ingredients. Or maybe it just needs to rest. So why don't I have an actual recipe box? I have my gram's but I never think to use it. Maybe I should try it, give it a whirl and see what happens....

hello??!! is it me you're looking for?

Last night I didn't quite make the stew I was hoping for....my hunger won and I decided to do the easy version...just some canned chicken, with some chopped onions, add a little chicken broth and corn starch with a side of green beans and some stuffing...voila! Dinner is served. Tonight is another attempt at the meatloaf. I did it pretty much the same as last time just added some mexican spices to it. so....we shall see, it will be a flop or a new menu item. I think I'll make some garlic mashed potatoes and wax beans to go with it. I know, not that exciting but hey the leaves are changing, the wind is blowing and comfort foods are knocking at my door...might as well let them in and say hello!

MyMenYou

Cell phones and I don't mix well. If you ever call me on my cell, please have some compassion on me during our conversation. For some reason, when I talk on a cell I can barely hear what the other person is saying and/or I'm in a place that is very distracting! I am not a multi-tasker and for that I am truly sorry. The groceries I just bought are all put away and I keep seeing my reminder note to freeze some cheese...gotta do that soon!

On the menu this week is....

1.meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes, green beans

2.Baked chicken, potato wedges and salad

3. Pizza/mini hot dogs in a blanket (for Wed night, AKA: church night)

4. Chicken stew

5. kielbasa Spaghetti, garlic bread, salad

6. Pizza for the babysitter and kids and roast beef sandwiches to bring to a get together!

7. ?? no clue!

I did make the meatloaf last week. I liked it a lot! I followed the recipe and it was a very fine meatloaf :) I liked it so much I want to make another! Maybe I'll make the meatloaf tonight? hmmm....maybe I'll wait until tomorrow...its rainy today and the chicken stew sounds pretty good....whats on your menu for the week??!!??

I will....

Ok, so Loryn and I are the only ones who liked last nights dinner...remember the kielbasa, wild rice and corn? Yeah, Dave and Syd didn't like it, they said it tasted too "sharp". Oh well, that's ok. It doesn't matter....mostly because I'm sipping a banana shake topped with some soy whipped cream and the whipped cream has sought and found my nose more than once....that's all that matters right now. "Carpe" the moment. Right? Food does rescue me from so many things. I use it to heal and make things all better. Not such a great thing, in the grand scheme of things. Just one of my many flaws...

This week I will attempt meatloaf. Every time I've tried it, it hasn't turned out well. I've given myself some "I wills"...

1. I will use a recipe

2. I will take its internal temp.

I think I'll be safe if I stick to those principles. I love meatloaf sandwiches so if all goes well we'll be enjoying some leftovers. If not, I'm sure I will write about it...

Daily Deglaze

Cooking is definately relaxing for me, not the clean up but the cooking. I've got some kielbasa, onion, corn, mixed rice cooking together in some chicken broth. As I started the chopping then the sauteeing my mind began to wander...yes, my mind wanders quite a bit but its a theraputic wander. Before I deglazed the pan, with the chicken broth, the rice was beginning to stick to the pan and I thought about how our lives can become stuck from stress/chaos then we get frazzled and panicky. Some, like me, have a low "boiling" point. I don't multi-task well and I don't handle stress well. I begin to panic and become stuck like the rice. Now others have a much higher "boiling" point. Some people can be in a situation and be totally calm and think things through. Lets just say for people like me, we need people like that in our lives. As I began to deglaze the pan, I saw it as a stress reliever. It was relieving the rice from the pan, it was calming the rice down. I think sometimes we can allow ourselves no chicken broth, we think we can push through the heat and eventually we'll be done. But what we don't see is that we need the chicken broth to be done quicker and better. So deglaze and pour on the chicken broth!

'Tis the season...

Apple pie. The most ingenious combination of dough, sugar, fruit and spices. By far, my favorite dessert. Today I made two pies. They're still in the oven. The process took quite a while. Let's just say I'm not the fastest peeler or dough roller...I believe it took about 40 minutes to peel, cut and slice/dice the 10 apples. Then an additional 30 minutes to make and roll out the dough. I do like my pie to have soft apples. In order to make a soft apple pie, I do a few things that deviate from the recipe...I know, big surprise. I almost always stray from the recipe. When I cut the apples I don't make them all uniform, making sure to cut out any of those horrid seed cocoon/shell things you find every once in a while. I slice some thin, some thick and some are cubed. This makes for different textures and consistency in the pie. So you have some slices that are fully intact and then you have a somewhat homemade applesauce as the filling. I also don't add in as much cinnamon but then add in a little extra nutmeg. As far as cooking time goes, the first ten minutes is at 400 degrees then after that I drop the temp down to 325 for 50 min. The entire cooking time is 60 min. Most recipes say about 30-40 min at 400 degrees but I like how everything cooks slower and longer. I may be tempted to just have pie for dinner tonight...I hope no one calls the food pyramid police.

rebellious couscous

Couscous, that funny little pasta. Each time I've tried it, I haven't really liked it. Recently I bought some to try it again...but this time, I didn't follow the directions. I know, I'm such a rebel. A rebel with a cous...yeah, I'm corny. I added garlic and my usual seasonings and extra water! What a difference some seasonings and extra water can do! Last night I cooked some diced onion and kielbasa together, added my usual spices, varying amounts than the usual just to come up with a different flavor and then some chicken stock...in 3 minutes it was done. My husband was rather unsure of it when he saw what we were having....I was glad to see he had seconds :) I made some Amish bread to go with it, some wickles (wicked good pickles) and applesauce on the side. Somewhat of an odd combination but it worked.

So if you don't like something, try it again but make it your own way...you may end up liking it like that.

Great Expectations....

Except for eating at Five guys, Dipsy Doodle and a recent burger at the 99 I'm disappointed when I go out to eat. Why is that? Is it because I'm expecting too much? Am I conceited b/c I like my own cooking? Am I too critical or picky? Am I selfish b/c I want my food to yell at me and say "Hello! I'm the best thing you've eaten all year!" Do I have my own agenda of wanting to convince myself and others that my cooking is the best??? Deep down, honestly, the answer is no. I guess everyone in their own way, likes their way the best. But is that what motivates us to have an opinion? Is being confident about what we like or don't like to fulfill a selfish desire or want?? Maybe for some...So what motivates us to have an opinion about what we like or don't like?? What motivates me? That's a good question. I'll have to think about that and get back to you.....in the meantime, I wouldn't get the chili from the new place on Rt 3 in Tilton....

doggy biscuits

This holiday weekend we had my sister, her husband and kids come over for a barbecue. We had a great time! We had our annual game of catch with a softball followed by all of us showing our kart wheeling skills... I must say, I was rather impressed by every ones techniques and abilities! We gabbed for a couple of hours while we made the kids go outside and play....Muhahahahah! Adults have such power...

For our lunch I made 2 lbs of burgers and two packages of Hebrew National hot dogs. We had some wickles and kosher pickles on the side, Dave made some barbecue beans, I made a tuna pasta salad with the wickles...if you haven't tried wickles they are a fantastic pickle that's "wicked" good...their slogan is wicked good pickles, hence the name wickles. Wickles have a hot chili pepper with garlic in the jar with them. So your mouth goes through a carousel of flavors and heat with each bite...its wonderful! My sister brought 13 ears of corn, of which I successfully burnt and undercooked them all at once! The grill was literally on fire! I was so disappointed in myself. She also brought a tortellini pasta salad. Once everyone had eaten and it was time to clean up, we had a TON of hot dogs leftover! So for the next three days, guess what we ate for lunch and dinner???!!! By Monday night I didn't want to see another hot dog but that's what we had so we had to make do. I had actually run out of my non-dairy hot dog rolls so I made some biscuit dough, rolled it out and wrapped a couple of hot dogs with it. I had a heated skillet with some olive oil and cooked them up...I was pleasantly surprised! The outside of the biscuit had browned nicely and the hot dog was nice and hot. I dipped them in some honey mustard sauce along with some barbecue sauce. It was very good! Now I know how to make pigs in a blanket in a cinch. Maybe, someday, if I ever have you over for dinner and on the menu is doggy biscuits, you'll know what it is!

Condiment Confessions

I confess, I love condiments....ketchup, mayo, mustards, barbecue sauce, dressings, A-1, you name it and I will most likely have put it on something, sometime in my life. I've been trying to lesson the drenching and increase the "natural" taste of what I eat. Since doing that I have found I like my food moist! Yes, moist. Not like "oh this is a moist piece of meat", I like it dripping with something that makes it gooey....It sounds gross but thats how I like it. I experimented today with my lunch. I cooked up some chicken tenders and some rice. The rice is a mixture of white, brown, wild and red. I added some spices to it and extra water. Once the rice and chicken were cooked I poured the rice on to my plate and the chicken on top of the rice. The rice was kind of soupie but not so much it was like soup, just enough to dip the chicken into it! It turned out to be pretty good, the rice had a lot of flavor! Yay, for experiments!

Blogcation

My blogcation has been good and very refreshing. The kids are in their second week of school and I'm starting to figure out our new schedule. Today has been very productive. It feels good. Some days feel like you've been working all day and everything is worse than you started! I just finished making some pasta for our dinner tonight, its chilling in the fridge. Pasta salad is one of those life preserver sides. When there's nothing to go with that main course, there's always pasta salad. We like ours pretty plain and simple. I just boil some kind of small pasta, tonight it was rotini, then drain and pour Italian dressing on it then throw it in the fridge. Before I serve it, I just pour a little more dressing on it and toss. Everyone likes it so it works for us. My husband had requested Sloppy Joes. He recently got invisiline so when he puts a new set in, his mouth is really sensitive and needs easy foods. I feel funny sending him off to work with oatmeal and applesauce...but its better than nothing. The sloppy joes consist of ground turkey, green/red peppers and onions from the food processor, and tomato paste with various spices. Sometimes I make Sloppy Jose's. That's the same thing just with "Mexican" spices like cumin and such. Its so easy to make sloppy Joes like this, plus we like it better than the can or the packets.

Now that I'm back from my blogcation, I shall be writing more about my love for that little thing I like to call food. (yes, that was supposed to be a lame joke...)