Cook. Craft. Enjoy.

Two for the Price of One

Yesterday Adrienne had an eye doctor appointment after school to update her glasses prescription and order a new pair so dinner had to either be take-out, something quick, or ready when we got home.  I opted for the "ready when we got home" and tried a new crockpot recipe for chili.

Liam likes his chili with just "beans and sauce" so this was perfect for him.  The meat in it?  Fresh chorizo.  I'd never worked with the "tube" of chorizo that you find by the sausage section of the supermarket -- and it wasn't what I was expecting.  The recipe stated to cook the chorizo and then slice it when it's done but when I cooked it (no casing) it almost disintegrated leaving a very fine paste.  I was seriously worried about the taste and texture of the final dish but I have to say I was impressed.  Just the right amount of spice and a good texture.

When we were eating it last night I realized it was the perfect consistency for a topping for hot dogs or even french fries so tonight's dinner idea was born ... chili dogs (and Travis' request chili cheese fries).  Great way for me to use up the leftover chili and the kids are happy because they get hot dogs.  :)

 

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?  :-)

A Little Different

How many cooking magazines do you subscribe to?  I think my list is down to about 4 but still one of my favorites is Eating Well.  It's not the biggest cooking magazine out there, and unfortunately it's not published monthly, but usually the recipes are pretty down to earth and look delicious.

A few weeks ago I felt like something a little different and chose their Middle Eastern Chickpea Platter. 

A salad made of eggplant, garlic and chickpeas in a tahini based dressing, add some Kalamata olives, feta cheese, tomatoes and pita bread and you've got a light, healthy delicious meal for summer.

The big question is how did everyone like it ... Travis, my brother and I really liked it.  Don I don't think was crazy about it and Adrienne and Liam didn't even give it a shot (good thing they like pasta with parmesan cheese!).  I'm not sure I'd make it again anytime soon (mainly because I hate having to make multiple meals) but it's something to keep in mind when you're looking for something light, fresh and tangy.

Lisa commented about yesterday's post and asked what I served the dip with -- they're Plantain chips from Trader Joe's (what was recommended).  And by the way, I tried the leftovers yesterday and they just weren't good straight from the refrigerator.  I think the tang of the cotija mixed with the slightly metallic taste of cilantro clashed.  So if you are going to make that dip, I don't think I'd save the leftovers.

Polish Sausage & 'Kraut

I've said this before but one of the things I like about warmer weather is I can get away with simple dinners.  Last week when I made the baked beans, we had enough leftover for the next night's dinner as well so I opted to grill some Polish sausage, stick it on some rye bread with some sauerkraut and sliced onions and we were good to go.

Usually I'll just throw the kraut on whatever we're having it for but I decided to try a recipe I found on All Recipe's site:  Sauerkraut Hot Dog Topping.  How was it?  Not bad but I don't think it added anything more than "plain" sauerkraut would.

This sandwich reminded me of one they serve at Wienerschnitzel - same kind of deal, Polish sausage, mustard on rye bread though with theirs it's served with pickles instead of kraut.  I honestly can't even remember the last time I ate there (we don't do a whole lot of fast food) but it was fun to have some kind of food memory.  Is there something that you remember eating years ago that would be fun to recreate?

(BTW, how do you like the new blog look?  The black was way too hard on my eyes so I'm hoping this will be slightly easier to read.)

Turkey Burgers and Salad

While I really used to look forward to making my weekly menu, lately nothing (and I mean NOTHING) sounds good and it's becoming increasingly harder and harder to figure out what I'm going to make for dinner.  Yesterday I spent about an hour searching online through recipes and still only ended up with dinners through Sunday night (sigh).  I hope my menu making skills will come back to me soon -- I'm tired of scrambling for what we're going to eat!

For last night I decided on turkey burgers and a salad.  Relatively easy and when I make grilled chicken for Liam along side of it, something everyone will eat.  I opted for this recipe from Food Network for an Asian style turkey burger though had to make some substitutions (basically didn't use their glaze and had to leave out the cilantro since my grocery store didn't have any).  I'll let you go over to get the recipe if you'd like -- it was good, but not a "oh goodness, let's have this again" type meal. 

The salad, however, was surprisingly good.  It also come from Food Network but this time from Rachael Ray.   I was worried that the salad dressing would just be, well, yuck, but I have to say I'd have it again.  Just the right amount of sweet/savory (with the addition of lots of pepper) and it worked really well with the burgers.  If you get a chance, give it a try!

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.

Crockpot Sloppy Joe's

I'm sure every family has their busiest day of the week and ours just happens to be on Wednesdays.  Travis has tennis and Liam usually has one sport or another (this session it'll be basketball I believe) and it just makes getting dinner on the table an issue.

Thinking of this I've decided to make Wednesdays crockpot days.   Being that my family doesn't care for most crockpot meals this should prove an interesting prospect.  I'm sure we'll find many we don't care for but at least we'll give it a shot.

Tonight's first recipe is for sloppy joe's.

It comes from one of my newer cookbooks:  Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook by Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann.  I think I'll find a few recipes to cook this year out of it (it boasts over 350 recipes though not all of them are crockpot recipes) and it'll be fun and challenging to find ones we like.  (No, this isn't the only cookbook I have on this subject so it won't be the only one I'm cooking out of).

The verdict on the recipe?  Amazingly Don, Travis and Adrienne voted it a 4 with Travis even declaring it a 4 1/2.  Liam?  He had a Lean Cuisine Fettuccine Alfredo so he doesn't get his vote tonight.  As for me, I went out to dinner with some friends so I did not do more than taste it before I left and it was pretty good.  This is not something you can leave in the pot and go to work, though.  I ended up stirring it a couple of times and switching it from low to warm a few times as well.  Otherwise I think it would have burned and been pretty awful.  So, with the slight modification of stirring we'll settle it in on a 4.

PPN: Spaghetti Sandwich

A couple of weeks ago I had Food Network on in the background and the show was Food Network Challenge:  Super Heroes.  They had four chefs competing against each other in an "ultimate sandwich battle".  One of the chefs, Jason Paskewitz, of Chicago, submitted a spaghetti sandwich for the panini round.  At the time I thought it was kind of a cool idea -- though he didn't quite get his sandwiches crispy enough for his liking.

Fast forward to yesterday when I was deciding what we were having for dinner.  Travis volunteered to cook and I agreed if he could give me a grocery list quickly.  I told him if he couldn't come up with something we were going to have spaghetti and meatballs instead.   His choice?  Grilled cheese sandwiches.  I told him that was more of a lunch thing than a dinner thing so pick something else.  Nothing else came forth, and remembering that spaghetti sandwich, that's what I opted for.

Making some slight modifications, I was pretty true to the recipe and honestly we all enjoyed it.  Definitely a different idea, but not any stranger than eating spaghetti, meatballs and garlic bread.  And, because of the spaghetti, I'm submitting this to next week's Presto Pasta Night over at Ruth's Once Upon a Feast.   I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a spaghetti sandwich over there yet.  :-)

The finished product isn't the most attractive, but isn't taste what matters?

Video Games and a Yummy Sandwich

For the last month or so I've been working on and off on my Super Paper Mario game (video game for the Wii console).  Tonight, finally, I beat the game.  I'm sure if I would have spent more quality time playing it would have been sooner, but I'm happy to announce the game is solved and that it was a good one.  It always makes me sad when I come to the end of a good video game -- there are so few that I truly like and can spend the time playing. 

I think my next video game purchase will be Crash of the Titans but I haven't yet decided which platform to purchase it for.  I'll have to take a look at the boxes when it comes out this week and see what the differences are.   I'm just hoping it's not as pathetic of an attempt as Crash's last major video game, Twinsanity.  Man, that was horrible.  In other video gaming chat, we downloaded Soltrio Solitaire for Xbox 360 and I've been getting quite a bit of mileage out of that -- it's got my favorite solitaire game (spider) on it so it's a good way to relax.

On to the sandwich portion of this post, tonight I finally made Ina Garten's Caesar Club Sandwich.  It was just as good as I hoped it would be and simple to boot.  I used a rotisserie chicken instead of making my own from chicken breasts and I don't think the recipe suffered from it at all.

With the addition of the sun-dried tomatoes, this is my submission to Sweetnick's ARF/5-a day Tuesdays.  Tomatoes in any form are high in lycopene, vitamin C and antioxidants.  What a delicious way to get some great nutrition.