Cook. Craft. Enjoy.

Breadsticks

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.

Ehh... Muffins

If you've noticed, I've done a little more baking than usual lately -- or I should say my kids have gotten into cooking and they've been doing a little more baking than usual.

This is another recipe from Muffins Galore by Catherine Atkinson that Travis tried out while my mom was here.  The title is "Chocolate Cheesecake Muffins" and use a chocolate muffin batter with a cheesecake-ish filling topped with almonds.

How were they?  Eh .. not memorable.   Amazingly they didn't have much flavor and didn't seem to be worth eating.  (Though refrigerating them seemed to help their texture.)  So, a recipe we won't be making again.  (Makes a great looking photo though!)

What else is happening around here?  Well, our beautiful new pool has not been getting the workout I thought it would -- Liam developed his first ever ear infection so he's been banned until at least Wednesday.  The weather has just been miserably hot (like 108) so we've all been staying inside as much as possible (and to the kids happiness they've been play Warcraft a little more than I would like).  Oh and speaking of Warcraft, Travis got his 2nd character ('toon) to 70 last night with a little help from me and another player so he's a happy camper.

Happy Monday all!

Muffin or Biscuit?

Travis has really started taking an interest in cooking lately.  Saturday it was our dinner (which I'll blog about later) and yesterday it was these muffins.

Last week I got a few new cookbooks from Costco including this one:  Muffins Galore by Catherine Atkinson.  There's several cookbooks in the series including Cookies Galore and Cupcakes Galore both of which I also own.  I like them because they have fabulous photographs and because they're published in the UK give a little different spin to desserts than those we usually find here in the US.

The recipe Travis chose looked simple:  Vanilla Chocolate Chip Muffins.  Just 8 ingredients and 4 steps ... easy, right?  Um, mostly.  The recipe has you cut the butter into the flour like you're making biscuits -- and then combining it all with the wet ingredients.  And yes, they did come out with a biscuity taste to them -- but that's not a bad thing -- just unexpected.  Guess if he makes them again I'll have to go to the garage and find my pastry blender.

Strawberry Bread

Last week I bought blueberries, strawberries and raspberries from Costco and while we've eaten most of them, yesterday the rest of the strawberries were looking a little sad and I knew I needed to do something with them before I had to throw them out.  A quick search online and I came across this recipe on All Recipes for strawberry bread.  Perfect!

I did change the recipe a bit (sub'd applesauce for the oil, cut down on the sugar, added vanilla and sub'd chocolate chips for nuts) but I'm sure without my changes it would be just as good.  Travis liked it so well yesterday he had it for a snack after school and then before bed.

BLT Pizza

Sometimes you just want to have something that doesn't take too long to make but gives a lot of flavor.  A couple of weeks ago I made some homemade pita bread and then used those to make a BLT pizza.

I'll post the pita recipe after the link, but basically for each serving you'll need 1 slice of bacon (cooked crisp), about 2 tablespoons mashed avocado (I mixed it with a little light mayo to thin it out a little), chopped tomatoes, arugula (or lettuce), and red onion (all the veggies to taste).  I think this will make a great summertime dinner along with some fruit so I'll keep in my "go to" pile!

Leftovers, But Not Really

Have you noticed the price of food lately?  I don't know about where you live but here there has been such an increase in the price of everything in the last couple of months.  At the grocery store yesterday I paid almost $5 for a half gallon of milk (I buy the organic) and $3 for a dozen eggs.  I hope this isn't a sign that prices will continue to rise -- it'll be hard for a lot of people to feed their families.

In thinking about the cost of food I've been trying to use up as much of our perishables as possible before they have to hit the trash.  This past weekend I had purchased bread from Costco (6 mini loaves) and still had 3 left.  I knew they wouldn't last long so my mom and I brainstormed Monday night and came up with the idea of French bread pizza.  That was fine but I would have had to go to the store to get Mozzarella cheese and pepperoni (kind of defeats the purpose of "leftovers").   Then it hit me -- Rachael Ray's Nacho Bread Pizza.  I had all the ingredients in the house except for the tomatoes and everyone liked it the last time I made it (except Liam who doesn't like melted cheese so he had some baked chicken).

I even think the photo came out better this time.   The taste reminds me of a black bean burger (which I love) and I need to remember to make these more often.  For the cheese this time I used a combination of white cheddar and Monterey Jack -- I think those flavors are a little bolder than the yellow cheddar and is what I'd use next time.

Southwestern Chicken and a Vent

I am so angry right now.  Adrienne's antibiotics are a 10 day course - 4 times a day.  That means we've been waking her up at midnight to take her dose and she needs to take a dose during school at lunch time.  This morning Don went in to her school with their policy printed out that states that she can self medicate herself as long as it's not a controlled substance.  They took the forms he filled out, and her prescription and let him know as soon as they checked their list of controlled substances to make sure it wasn't on there they'd call her out of class so she can take her dosage.  I picked her up and she told me they didn't call her until after school.  So, 2 1/2 hours after she was supposed to have her dose.  I know, I know, what's the big deal, right?  Well, since this is her second antibiotic for strep I want to make sure that she has it every 6 hours so it doesn't recur.  Besides which, we told them this morning what had to be done.  What happens if it was a medication she needed for a life-threatening illness?  How irresponsible of the office staff.  Tomorrow morning they will be getting an earful.  I know, I know, you don't come here to hear me vent <grin>.  But, it does make me feel better.

Onto what you really come here for, food.  This weekend Travis and I both decided that it was time to get back to real cooking.  I don't mean throw together meals (like last night's chili dogs) but real recipes and tasty food.  Tonight's recipes come from The Big Book of Easy Suppers by Maryana Vollstedt.  This is a cookbook I've had for a while but haven't yet made any recipes from. 

Unfortunately dinner was not well received.  The kids didn't like it much at all - though Adrienne did eat the chicken.  Don and I both really enjoyed it and I especially liked the corn pudding. (The author calls it a polenta -- but this doesn't remind me of anything like polenta.  There was very little cornmeal flavor and it had the consistency of a bread pudding.  All in all, not a repeat but nice.

Stamp Camp Yummies

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.

The second recipe I tried tonight was a chili cheese dip.  I usually try to have some type of warm crockpot dip and fall back to Buffalo Chicken dip or an artichoke spinach dip.  Tonight I wanted to try something different and really it was a mistake.  It tasted very institutionalized (does that make sense?) and didn't get eaten much.   Back to the old standby next time.

(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.)

Weekend Cooking

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.

A Favorite Repeat

Today has been such a lazy day.  I got a few things done crafting wise, some World of Warcraft time in, and a little bit of watching Stargate SG-1 (my newest TV show obsession).  I have a list of chores to do tomorrow and do them I will, but for now it's nice to just be restful.

Though I have blogged about it before, Don's favorite chili recipe really is good enough to revisit.   It's one of the recipes that through the years we've kept and made over and over when it's cold (and sometimes when it's not).  Warning, though, it's not for those that like things mild.  In fact Adrienne has to eat it with LOTS of sour cream to kill some of the heat.  But it is yummy.  I mean really yummy.

Sometimes I serve it with a sweet cornbread.  Sometimes just some crackers.  But tonight I opted for a bread machine yeasted cornbread.  Good choice in that EVERYONE loved the bread and I will happily make it again at some point.  I'll post the recipe for the cornbread in my jump -- if you want the recipe for the chili, click on the above link and it'll take you to the original post.