Cook. Craft. Enjoy.

Grandpa Sandwich

Ask anyone that knows me and they'll tell you I'm not the emotional sort - not given to outward bursts of emotions and certainly not overly sentimental.  Truly, however, I am both of those things at heart.  Growing up I was taught that those things weren't "good" or "wanted" so I have learned to wall myself off from outward displays, but deep down, my roots are what they are and I love how I am.

My grandparents both passed away many years ago - my grandmother on Christmas Eve of 1986 and my grandfather shortly after the 4th of July, 1990.  Growing up I have many, many fond memories of them - especially my grandfather whom I loved more than anything. 

My grandfather and grandmother at their wedding

They were a wonderful couple - through everything in all their time together loved each other with all their hearts

Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger, Anyone?

The last few weeks I've been having some insomnia issues.  I get up at 5:45am during the week to get Liam ready for school.  I'm okay when I first get up but the days seem to drag for me and I'm exhausted!  Exhausted that is until it hits about 7:30pm and then all of a sudden I'm awake.  So awake that I can't usually fall asleep until after 1am.  It's a vicious circle unfortunately.

That also means that things get put aside because I have no creative energy to spare - and unfortunately this blog has suffered the past couple weeks - I'm sorry!  I've made a few things that were delicious, but once cooked, I have no interest in plating and photographing them, let alone sitting down at the computer and blogging them.  Sigh.

Last night, though, I forced myself to go to bed at 8:30 and amazingly after reading for about 20 minutes fell asleep.  Granted I woke up at 1:30am feeling like I'd slept for days, but was even able to go back to sleep after that.  The tides hopefully are turning.

A couple weeks ago I was recipe hopping and came across this recipe from Rachael Ray for an In N Out burger and fries clone.  Since I now live in Northeastern PA and the closest In N Out is in Texas, you can guess I don't get there that often.  When we flew out to California last summer at 11pm on the way from the airport we met our friends at In N Out before going to their house.  Are they really that good?  Mhm.

Now their menu is simple enough - burgers and fries, drinks, shakes.  That's it.  But in the way you order can turn your whole world upside down.  "Animal style" means them putting their "special sauce" on your burger, fries, whatever - and one of the best things they've done is "fried mustard".  Yep, they spread the mustard on the patty before cooking.  Delicious.

Here's the homemade version via Rachael Ray's recipe - the biggest difference I made is that she uses 8 oz of ground beef for each person (2 4 ounce patties) and I used 4 oz for each person (2 2 oz patties) - they were awesome and I can't wait to have one again!

Lunchtime

School lunches have taken a life of their own around here.   Liam's been easy ... he hit middle school (okay, I still say it's wrong that 5th grade is middle school here) and he only wants to buy lunch.  I can understand that completely.  I know when I was in school it was embarrassing to bring a school lunch and I can't imagine it's much different today for some kids.  I'm happy to say that they do have healthier options at his school so he's not just eating junk food.  The other thing I like is on his lunch account it links what he buys so I get an idea of what he's eating every day.

Adrienne, on the other hand, refuses to buy lunch.  She used to be happy with sandwiches, but not so much anymore.  Her favorite, though, is pepperoni rolls.  I try to make them every couple of weeks, but sometimes my days don't quite go as planned and I end up not getting them made.  When they're not made, she takes cheese, meat and crackers along with the every day yogurt, fruit and chips or a cookie.  This past weekend, though, I made them a little differently.

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.