Cook. Craft. Enjoy.

Pretty Easy and Delicious

One of my favorite recipes that I don't make very often is stromboli.  Meat, cheese, roasted peppers, sauteed mushrooms and onions all wrapped up in a dough and baked.

This is a recipe that I've had for several years now and even blogged about before but I thought it deserves a repeat.  Really it's a little time consuming, but the end result is worth it.  (And it really is easy to make).  This last time I made it I forgot the cheese inside so that's why I put some cheese on the top of the dough.  I'd really NOT recommend forgetting the cheese -- the cheese does a good job melting the inside ingredients together and helping it stay together to eat as finger food.

See, doesn't that look good?  :-)

Sap!

I know I don't mention it often, but our family (minus Don) are all addicted to World of Warcraft (WoW).  With the announcement of a release date of the expansion this week, I thought I'd share with you the comic Liam drew:

A little background first before I try to explain it...  For those of you that don't know, WoW is a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) with over 10 million subscribers.  It's a multi-faceted game that's really pretty simple to play but has complexities to it.  On the surface, it looks like your goal is to get your character to level 70 (soon to be 80 in the expansion) but it really is so much more.  One of the parts Liam likes is battlegrounding.  What that means is you pit yourself and your allies against an equal number or the opposing faction.  Each character class has a different set of abilities:  both in strengths and weaknesses.

One of the abilities of a rogue is to Sap people.  That means he sneaks up to you stealthed, and hits you so you're unable to move.  In the game when you (or anyone) gets sapped there's a swirly circle above your head until you can move again.  Hence, that's what the red circles above the guys heads are.  The little bubble states "No Wonder They Win"  since all the characters except one are sapped.  (And btw, the guy on the left side that's lying down is a hunter that has feigned death but is still sapped.) 

This probably makes NO sence to anyone that doesn't play, but I thought I needed to share it -- he did a great job. :)

If you're curious, here's our character breakdown:  Liam has a lvl 54 hunter, Adrienne has a lvl 43 mage, Travis has a lvl 70 priest, a lvl 70 warrior, and a lvl 46 mage, and I have a lvl 70 paladin, a lvl 70 warlock, and a lvl 50 rogue.  Wanna play?

Mmmmm Brisket

Paula (from The Cookbook Junkie) asked me in the comments section yesterday if my health "issues" were due to a bun in the oven ... well, I'd rather be able to say "yes" then the truth which is at this point I still don't know what the problem is.  Since the end of June I've had varying symptoms -- the worst of which has been debilitating chest pains -- but now is mostly just stomach upset when I eat certain things (but I never know just what will set it off or how badly it will be set off).  I've been to a cardiologist so my heart is fine (thankfully!) and he put me on some acid reflux meds which have really helped.  I go back to him next month and we'll see where we go from there.  So, that's one of the reasons I've been negligent on the blog -- though since feeling better slightly it's easier for me to cook (and post!).  BTW, thanks to everyone who stuck around in my absence ... I appreciate it!

Now on to some food ...

This last week on my Costco trip I picked up a brisket thinking I might use my standard Ina Garten recipe but opted instead to try a new one.   The new one comes from Emeril and is beer braised instead of the tomato braised and I think just about as good as the Ina recipe.  My brother was over for dinner last night too and he said that while they were both different from each other, they were each very good.  One of the things I liked about Emeril's recipe is that you put the vegetables in about an hour before it's done so they have a little more texture to them -- but as my brother said last night also, mushy veggies are good too.

My only changes to the recipe were that I didn't brown the brisket before I put it into the oven, I omitted the tomato paste and doubled the amount of beer and beef broth.  Next time I might even triple the amount of liquid because there wasn't anything left in the pan after I took it out.  (Oh, and I cooked it for about 4 hours.)

Luckily I have leftovers today for lunch (as long as they'll agree with me!)

White Chili

In my quest to find quick, easy, healthy meals I came across this recipe for white chili.  I was thinking this is a unique way to make it -- cook the "chili" part of it separately from the chicken (which you grill) and then combine it all together.

How was it?  Well, I don't think I'll make it again.  I didn't eat it (my stomach still isn't behaving itself) but Don and the kids just gave it an "eh".  I mean, it got eaten, but not gobbled.  Hence, I'm not posting the recipe... but if you'd like it (and it looks good to you!), click on the above link and it will take you to it on Food Network's site.

In other "news", Liam's second soccer game yesterday was another win.  Yeah!  I'm so glad he has fun playing soccer -- he played the first 3 quarters and thankfully it wasn't as hot as it was last weekend.  (Though the game was at 8am so that helped).

A Crockpot Recipe that Works

Thanks, everyone.  I'm glad to be back.  :-)

While I was on my hiatus from blogging I took maybe 2 pictures of things I could share.  I'm not proud to say that over the last 2 months we've eaten a lot of quick throw together things as well as a number of take out meals.  When you don't feel good it's hard to get excited about cooking (or anything for that matter).

One of the meals that I actually cooked and we liked came out of the Crockpot cookbook Better Homes & Gardens Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes.  It's not very exciting, but it worked.

Yes, it's a pasta sauce recipe.  Unfortunately it's not just a "throw all together in the morning and let it cook all day recipe" but it was nice that it was ready to eat when we were and at 5:00 I didn't have to stand and cook.  The original recipe says you can cook it all day (well, 6 to 8 hours), but in the past I've found if you cook Italian sausage all day in the crockpot it gets, well, mushy and unappetizing.  I opted to throw all the actual sauce ingredients into the crockpot in the early morning and then about 2 hours before dinner throw in the browned sausage (and mushrooms).  All in all something I could happily repeat again.

Almost A Month

Yes, I know it's been a month since I've posted (sigh).   No excuses, no complaints, just an "I'm back, thanks for sticking it out with me".  :-)

While I don't have anything foody to share with you today, I wanted to put a shout out to Liam's new soccer team - the Infernos.  Their first game was last weekend and it was SO hot.  Game time was at 11:45 and the temperature was already over 100.

Liam had to play the entire game (we only had 7 players show up) and during the 4th quarter it was all he could do to walk after the ball (poor kid was so hot and tired!)  They all played a great game, though, and won 6-0.   I'm hoping this will be a great start to a great season.

Thankfully our game this Saturday is at 8am -- it will actually be pleasant outside and we won't have to melt.  (I feel sorry for the poor goalies who have to wear long sleeve shirts and gloves!)

GO INFERNOS!