Anyone that's a regular reader of my blog knows that I like to experiment with newly found grocery items. Sometimes I just buy the stuff and it sits, and sits, and sits (sigh) but for the most part I get up enough courage to try something new and different. This past weekend at Wegman's, I came across these:
Interesting, no? Here's their website ... while I didn't find their website until after I'd made these, they do have some good recipes for different types of sushi rolls.
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2011 was a long year for me as I know it was for a lot of people. Some good, some bad, some awful; I'm very glad to see it go and have a whole 366 days ahead of us to make the most of life. Getting things back on track isn't always easy, but it's definitely worth it in the end. I'm not one for resolutions (too easy to feel like a failure if it doesn't happen), but over the next week I hope to share some of my goals for this new year.
One of the things I've done for years is change my desktop wallpaper every month. For the last year or so I've been using wallpaper from Smashing Magazine. The website is an online magazine for web designers and I always find an interesting article or two in addition to the beautiful wallpaper they post once a month. This month, this is the one I was first on this list (here's the link) and the quote that was centered says "Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending." It was designed by Lina Itskovitch and totally sums up how I feel about this year. I hope we all make the most of what this year has to offer and enjoy good health and happiness.
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I've only been to Jamaica once, and since we had an almost 2 year old with us, it wasn't the most memorable of trips. I wish I could say I remember finding the best jerk chicken and how it tasted but, alas, I can't. I do remember walking across the street from the hotel and playing miniature golf (or what comprises miniature golf there), does that count?
I am a sucker in the grocery stores for buying new things that catch my eye. Wegmans is particularly bad for me because they have the coolest things. (Trader Joe's is bad too ... wish we had one close!) One of my latest purchases was Busha Browne's Authentic Jerk Seasoning along with Busha Browne's Spicy Jerk Sauce. In looking over their website, it looks like they have a bunch interesting products I may just have to get my hands on.
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All I can say at this point is "wow" ... I have the best of intentions of getting this blog back up and running again and post one or two posts and then can't seem to get my mojo back. Either life interferes or my menu just doesn't seem too inspiring and I figure no one wants to see pictures of boring meals. (Or I honestly just run out of things to say ...) So, here I go again, and we'll see if I can make it "stick" again. I do miss blogging and the food blogging community - man how is grown! Well, enough prelude, on to the actual post ...
This summer I spent 10 weeks working full time plus and it was an experience. The good thing is I know I can do it - and really don't mind - but that leaves meal planning and cooking up to either chance or sheer luck. This week I'm back to part time and had a menu but decided that what was on it I really didn't want. Do you ever do that? And if you do, do you suck it up and stick to it, or change it?
I had bought a pound of ground pork and was going to make won tons and egg rolls but decided I didn't really want to make them (they are extremely unhealthy, sigh, and I'm trying to get us to eat a little healthier). The problem is there's not a whole lot of options for ground pork. For such a mild meat, it's got a very distinctive taste to it that doesn't always make a good substitution for ground beef. In comes this recipe for Thai Ground Pork Salad from Food & Wine.
I served it with white rice, an egg roll (one of the kind that is from the refrigerated section of the supermarket that you bake), and some California rolls. Wrapped up in a lettuce leaf, topped with chopped peanuts, diced jalapenos, some Srirachi sauce, and a squeeze of lime, it was perfect for dinner - and everyone requested I make it again soon. Yum!
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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? :-)
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Yesterday was Don's birthday so I told him to decide what he wanted me to cook for dinner. For me if someone asked I'd probably come up with something exotic and out of the ordinary but he just wanted spaghetti and sausage. To make it seem I did a little more work then just throw that together I opted to make some homemade breadsticks to go with it.
The unfortunate part? I thought they'd like the harder kind of breadsticks to dip into their spaghetti sauce but it was received as a "eh, don't do that again". I'm sure by today they'll be fine (I put them into a zipper top bag to soften up) but last night, while they were eaten, they weren't inhaled.
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Yeah! My iMac seems to be back to working again (after replacement of its logic board and hard drive). All I can say is thank goodness for backups. Luckily we kept a drive specifically for backups (and it backed up daily) so I didn't lose anything. And the best part? I can start blogging again!
This first post back I'm going to share with you what we had for dinner oh, about a week and a half ago. When my brother comes for dinner I try to do something a little out of the ordinary and that night I decided to tackle coconut shrimp.
There are many, many, many recipes for coconut shrimp out there. Originally I was going to use the one in my Fried and True cookbook (written by Rick Rodgers) but finally opted to go with one from Emeril on the Food Network site: Coconut Shrimp with Pineapple Habanero Chutney (it was the habaneros that won me over).
How was it? Good. Well, very good. The chutney had just enough zing to it to spice up the shrimp and the shrimp fried up nice and crispy. The only change I would make next time is to not mix in the coconut with the batter -- I think it would be better served by dipping it into the batter and then rolling it in the coconut before frying. Not something I'll make again soon (not healthy at all!), but it would be great for appetizers at a party (as long as I get a bigger deep fryer).
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Yesterday I was planning on blogging dinner but lo and behold, Adrienne woke up with 103.2 fever and we ended up back at the doctor. Her strep throat is back and she's now on a stronger antibiotic. Hopefully this will take care of it and our household can get back to its normal healthy status. (Yes, I'm DONE with sick kids!)
As some of you know, my latest obsession is WoW (World of Warcraft). Sometimes when we're not questing, the guild I belong to has a habit of discussing whatever it is that we're eating. This past week, one of the members has been talking about the cheesesticks his wife makes him. And not just once -- several times. So, I decided we were going to have cheesesticks this weekend. Then yesterday he was talking about eating sliders -- those little mini cheeseburgers -- and that's how this menu was born.
I was informed that he eats the cheesesticks with hot sauce mixed with vodka (weird, huh?) but I just served them with some Cajun hot sauce. (In all fairness, I was going to add some vodka to just see what it would taste like, but we are out of vodka and didn't think rum would give it the same effect.)
The sliders were just ground beef patties grilled topped with American cheese - simple but effective. The recipe for the cheesesticks comes from All Recipes and they were fantastic. I think if I had made more Travis would have kept eating them until he popped. :-)
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While I'll post the fun cards we did tonight at stamp camp in tomorrow's post, I thought I'd share with you 2 new recipes I tried for our "eats". The first is from Nigella Lawson's newest book (I think it's her newest at least), Nigella Express: Banana Butterscotch Muffins. The combination of banana and butterscotch was great and the outside had a really nice crispy crust to it. No more thrown away bananas in this house -- this recipe is the answer.
(Just so you don't think we had all junk food I also put out a tray of fresh veggies and fruit -- that's usually what gets eaten first.)
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What did you think about the game yesterday? It was such a nasty weather day yesterday that we stayed home and goofed off with the game in the background. I was amazed (along with everyone else I'm sure) at what a low scoring game it was -- and happy to see the Giants win. (Gotta love the underdog.)
Travis wanted "junk" food for munching on during the game so we had some chips and salsa and I made some sausage stuffed jalapenos. (The recipe for that can be found here.)
They came out so good -- I got probably 2 of them and the rest Don and Travis ate in record time.
My other cooking project for this weekend was a recreation of Outback Steakhouse's bread. A couple of weeks ago we went there for dinner and Liam just loved it. He's been bugging us to go back for their steak and their bread (2 of his favorite foods). My problem with that is if/when we do go back we have to get him an adult meal -- the kids steak was much too small for his appetite -- and I have objection to spending $20 on a meal for a 6 year old. Luckily I came across this recipe on Recipezaar.
The only change I made in the recipe was to omit the food coloring -- I figure we really didn't need to add artificial anything to it. It really is a great recipe and Liam declared it just as good as Outback's (though he did ask why it wasn't darker in color). I can see this on our menu again soon.
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