From Delivery to Divine

Where have I been?

2011-09-08T22:15:00.001-04:00

Well, I haven't written for a number of reasons, so let's start there.

First, I kept forgetting. No surprise there.

Second, I've been busy! Work has kept me crazier than normal, so a lot of my meals were "standbys" or things I could throw together quickly.

Third, I don't want to say I'm dieting, because I hate that phrase with a fiery passion. I'm working on being healthier. As a result, I've lost 36 pounds since mid-April. What drove me to start writing again is that I haven't lost any weight in a week even though I've been working extra hard. So I'm hoping writing about this "healthy" adventure will help the process.

So what have I been doing?

As far as cooking adventures, my biggest challenge was catering a 40th wedding anniversary party for my parents......at my condo.........for 30 PEOPLE. For those of you who have been to my condo, you know that I only own four chairs. I considered making Musical Chairs: Fight to the Death a party game, but I borrowed and stole chairs instead. That worked out better in retrospect. For said party, I made baked ziti, pulled pork, hoagies (store bought, cuz why go to the trouble?), a variety of appetizers, and potato salad. I planned it out like I would any work project and that worked pretty well. I still ended up cooking and cleaning until midnight the night before, but the short nap I took on the kitchen floor was refreshing. Did I mention this party took place on one of those 105 degree days we had in July? And the power went out twice? And I discovered my fridge doesn't quite keep things cold anymore? Despite the challenges, it was a big success and more importantly, my parents loved it.

Most of the things I make now are calorie conscious (and thus loseit.com friendly), but still tasty. I refuse to eat crappy food just to be healthier. Now it becomes a game of how long do I need to go on the elliptical to fit that extra beer? or cookie? or both?

Tonight's endeavor was a simple recipe, but I'm proud to say I made it up. I made Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese. I've been eating grilled cheese a lot and find myself calling it the "I hate life grilled cheese" because it's insanely boring (thanks Brian for coining the phrase). All "diet" food that I end up forcing myself to eat is promptly dubbed "I hate life_____"

Buffalo Chicken Grilled Cheese (I hate life style, but still good)
1 chicken breast
Buffalo sauce (as much as you see fit)
3 slices fat-free Kraft singles (thus the I hate life bit)
1t reduced fat mayo (fat free mayo makes it "I hate my entire existence" style)
2 slices bread (I used the on-sale Italian bread, 80 calories per slice)

Slop some buffalo sauce and whatever spices you want onto a small chicken breast.
Bake chicken for 35 minutes at 375 (or until elliptical workout is done)
Shred chicken, add a little more buffalo sauce and mayo
Combine bread, cheese and chicken.
Spray each piece of bread with cooking spray and grill to your heart's content

As per loseit.com and my own math, this recipe comes out to 470 calories.

So hopefully I'll write more now that I'm back on the blogging wagon. I have another vacation coming up and I may make the goal of it to make a low calorie cupcake that doesn't suck.

Way too good, way too fattening, way don't care.....Lasagna

2011-02-08T21:06:00.000-05:00

Decided to make a lasagna this weekend, because I had a coupon for every single ingredient. My coupon whoring has expanded to include groceries. It's great for saving money and helping me decide what to make for the week's meals.

I originally planned on making another healthy version of lasagna, then I thought........nah.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

2 - 4oz cans of mushrooms
1 large thing of ricotta (not the superbig, but the not small one)
2 bags of shredded mozzarella cheese
As much Parmesan cheese as you want
1 pkg frozen spinach, thawed
1 box whole wheat lasagna (to watch the calories and all)
2 cans tomato sauce (one big one large)
1 can tomato paste
1T flour
1 onion minced
1 lb-ish of ground beef
Random herbs (Italian seasoning, basil, oregano, etc)
1 egg

Recipe:

Sauce: Brown the beef and set aside on a paper towel. In the same pan, cook the onion with 1T of EVOO until they're sorta clear. Add mushrooms. Cook a bit, mix up and then add 1T of flour. Mix that up and then add in the tomato sauce, tomato paste, random herbs. Let that simmer a bit and then add the ground beef back.
Cheesey Goodness: Mix 3/4 of the mozzarella cheese, the ricotta, the egg and the spinach. Oh and squeeze the crap out of the spinach so it's not all watery.
Noodles: Follow the box and drain. If you don't finish the noodles right away, it's ok. The cheese can sit and wait, the sauce can just keep on cooking on low if you need more time for the noodles. At some point mix in a spoonful of the cooking water in with the sauce.
Preheat the oven to 350
Assemble the above however you want. I put a layer of sauce in the 13x9 pan, layer of noodles, half the cheese mixture, sauce, noodles, the rest of the cheese mixture, sauce, noodles, remainder of sauce. I then covered with the remainder of the mozzarella cheese and a bunch of Parmesan cheese. I know what you're thinking, can ALL of that fit in one pan? It can, it will and it did. I did, however bake it on a cookie sheet just in case.
Loosely tent the lasagna with a sheet of aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350. After 20 minutes, remove the tin foil. After you take it out of the oven, let it sit a bit (perfect amount of time to perhaps make a piece of texas toast like I did).

I loved this lasagna! I should say, this brick lasagna as opposed to lasagna soup like my Mom has made all my life which is still and will always be the best lasagna ever. This is just my recipe for brick lasagna. At least for this month anyway

Too in love with my crock pot to post

2011-01-30T18:45:00.002-05:00

So it's been a few months, but it's been a very busy few months. I still managed to cook a ton. Here are the highlights..........

Potato Chip Shortbread,
50 Chip Choco Chip cookies
Peanut Butter Bon Bons
Crock Pot Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Lasagna
Broccoli Cheese Soup

Pulled Pork:

I've really enjoyed this crock pot. I had no idea how magical it could be. I tried the pulled pork recipe out of my favorite Brian cookbook and it was fantastic. Someday I should buy my own copy and give him his back.

Tonight's adventure is Lemon Chicken via Crockpot. It's been a terribly long week, so I'm looking forward to a week without any nightly cooking.

The recipe courtesy of http://slowcookerrecipes.tv/slow-cooker-recipes/
Lemon chicken with carrots
Perfect when served with noodles or rice.
Ingredients:
1/3 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1" pieces
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 bag baby carrots
1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup ketchup
1/2 cup water (I used chicken broth instead)
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
3 Tbsp. lemon juice
6 oz. can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
3 Tbsp. water
Take a shallow dish and mix together the salt pepper and flour, then roll the chicken pieces in the mix until fully coated.
Brown the chicken in a frying pan with the olive oil. Put the onion and carrots into your slow cooker and place the chicken on top. (I also added broccoli here)
Now make your sauce. Add the ketchup, water, vinegar, lemon juice, brown sugar, and the lemonade concentrate in your frying pan. Bring to the boil while stirring and then pour over the chicken in a crock pot. But on the lid and set your temperature to low for seven to eight hours or high for three to four hours. When you are ready to serve just thicken the sauce by adding a mixture of corn starch and water. On a high setting, cook for about 20 minutes and then serve.

And the result:

Sausage, Sweet Potato, Beans & More Stew!

2010-11-14T19:59:00.000-05:00

So I decided on trying The Other Side of 50's Sausage, Lentil & Sweet Potato Stew
You can view the recipe here: http://www.othersideoffifty.com/2010/03/sausage-lentil-and-sweet-potato-stew.html

Hers is more than like 1000x better than mine, but I was very content with how mine turned out. I had to change a few things simply because the grocery store today was like the set of Hell's Kitchen. Why don't people like strolling through grocery stores now? Everyone was running around like mad. And you can't use Thanksgiving as an excuse yet and if you are, shame on you. I had some guy with a cart so close to my back, I almost turned around and told him he should buy me dinner first. Instead, I moved out of the way and said, "Here, I'll let you pass, I know I'm going slowly enjoying browsing." He moved by me in a huff, I gave him a dirty look. Ugh, people suck sometimes.

In any case, I got most everything I needed with a few exceptions. First off, I could NOT find black lentils anywhere. I'm sure they were there, but they did not reveal themselves to me. I considered using green or red lentils, but having never cooked lentils, I wasn't sure how that would change the flavor. So, I substituted black beans.

Here's what I did:

I got one of those large microwaveable sweet potato jobs, cut it up and then nuked it for 4 minutes. I stirred it up a bit, then nuked again for 4 minutes.
I cut up and browned 3/4 of a pack of li'l smokies (yes, I bought li'l smokies instead of a big sausage so that I didn't have to cut them up as much) and then set them aside.

I food processed 2 small onions, dried my tears and dumped them in the same pan with a little added olive oil.
After about 5 minutes, I added 8oz of canned mushroom slices and 2 cloves of garlic. I also added a little more olive oil cuz I'm fairly certain I burned the onions a little.
After 5 more minutes, I sprinkled 1T of flour over the mix and then mixed up the whole thing.
After about 2 minutes, I added in 1 can of chicken broth which is almost 2 cups, so I topped off the 2 cups with a little water.

After it came to a bubble (and after making my lunch for tomorrow), I added a 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes, the sweet potato chunks and a packet of taco seasoning (next time I think I'll use a mild one as the one I got was a wee strong).
After that seemed to mush together, I added a can of black beans and the sausage.

I let that cook together for as long as it took for me to change into PJs and pour a glass of wine. It was so good! And to top it off, no vegetables were mutilated in the process of this recipe!

Now I guess I should go work out so I'm more prepared next week for the increasing holiday grocery shoppers (just as soon as Smidgen finishes her nap in my lap).

Also, just a preview for a future post. I've decided to make my December vacation a Baking Challenge. I'd like to make Christmas presents for friends and families, but I'd also like to challenge myself to bake a lot in 1 week. I know that I want to try making 2 kinds of macarons - 1 chocolatey normal, 1 maybe with lavendar & hazelnut (recipes yet to be located). BUT, I'm looking for suggestions, so please pass'em along if you got'em!

Chicken Pot Chicken Pot Chicken. Pot. Piiiiiiiiiiiiie

2010-11-07T18:17:00.000-05:00

Hopefully some of you get the reference in the title and I'm not the only dork around who sings the song every time she hears the words "chicken," "pot," and "pie" in the same sentence.

So I found possibly the easiest chicken pot pie recipe on the planet. I'm all about easy some nights and this was one of those nights. I found a recipe on bettycrocker.com and modified it to make it less stupid. Why was it stupid? Because it was like every other stupid recipe that calls for "pre-cooked chicken." Maybe I'm the only person out there who doesn't just always have a bucket of pre-cooked chicken hanging out in the fridge, I don't know. When I make a meal, I generally make the amount of chicken I need for. that. recipe. I don't just make an extra pound of chicken for s**ts and giggles.

I have to then ask the question, how does this recipe want me to "pre-cook" chicken. Bake it? Grill it? Rotissererarie it? (Stern ref, humor me!). I don't know what they want me to do with it. So I google to figure out how to cook it. Turns out no one really else knows. It seems that only those lucky people out there with leftover chicken crowding their refrigerators get to make recipes that call for "pre-cooked chicken." I say no! So I just guessed. Here's what I did to combat the stupid pre-cooked chicken craze.

I took 2 chicken cutlets, threw some s&p & chipotle power (not powder, POW-ER) on them, drizzled a little evoo, stuck'em in a pan and threw them in the oven. I cooked them on 350 for 40 minutes. They came out nice & juicy, so I let them rest a bit while I prepared everything else. Pre-cooked chicken, whatever, voila.

I dumped a thawed bag of mixed veggies of my choice into my corningware dish (the dish that will now no longer be known as the milk soup disaster dish), cut up the chicken and added that, and dumped a can of cream of chicken soup. I mixed it all up and then poured my batter over it (1/2 cup milk, 1 cup baking mix & 1 egg). Turned the oven up to 400 and tossed it in for 30 minutes.

As of right now, it smells pretty good. Still waiting for it to come out. Until then, I'll enjoy a glass of mine and 2 sleepy kitties on my lap. Man I love winter cooking. Also love the fact that I only had to clean 2 spoons, a knife and a measuring cup (aluminum foil around the chicken pan ftw).

I even made strides towards healthier eating by using 0 cholesterol, low fat baking mix!

1 hour later....What, like I was going to finish this blog before I eat? You obviously don't know me very well then ;)

It came out great! I feel like I could jazz it up more next time, but I have the basic structure down.

Li'l Late with the Lasagna Report

2010-11-07T12:33:00.001-05:00

So I was so caught up with eating the rest of my lasagna, that I forgot to write about it. Also, I was being lazy. I guess it was a lazyagna. Yes, you read that correctly.

Last weekend, I decided to make "regular" lasagna. This means non-cottage cheese lasagna that I know, love and my Mom taught me to make. Mom's lasagna will always be the best, but I figured I'd take a crack at "regular." Also, in my efforts to make better meal choices, I tried to make a light version of lasagna (I used fat free ricotta, low fat mozzarella, high fiber whole wheat lasagna noodles and loaded the sauce with fat free ingredients and veggies).

Only had one emergency (get ready for your shout out, Brian). I couldn't remember how to bake the stupid thing. I got it all assembled, and then couldn't remember how long to bake it. Weekly Brian emergency cooking call resulted in 375 for 35 minutes with tin foil and then 15 minutes without. It turned out great! I will still convert all you cottage cheese haters one day, but this week, I enjoyed the dose of regular lasagna.

Now I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to make for dinner tonight (thus why I'm writing this blog now, because I simply can't decide).

Tikka Masala!

2010-09-27T00:33:00.004-04:00

I love Indian food, I really do, but I've always been scared to make it. Partly because I look at my "1001 Indian Recipes" cookbook and I don't know what half of the ingredients are. I try looking online for recipes and I run into the same problem. Now, don't get me wrong, I could look up these herbs and figure out where to buy them - not to mention I have several markets near me that carry every spice you can imagine from all over the world. No, it's pretty much because I'm too lazy. But perhaps now, I have a little more incentive to really try out some more recipes.

I tried this one tonight:

http://theenchantedcook.blogspot.com/2010/09/chicken-tikka-masala.html

I'm pasting the recipe here just in case that link ever gets shut down and I want to make this again - and believe me, I am absolutely making this again. Italics are the original author, bold is me.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons canola oil (I used EVOO)

1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into large bite-size pieces and lightly salted with kosher salt

1 large white onion, chopped

4 large cloves of garlic, minced

1 to 2 inches of ginger root, minced (about 2 Tablespoons)

1 28-ounce can of tomato puree

1 cup Greek yogurt (I used regular)
2 Tablespoons ground turmeric
2 Tablespoons ground cumin
2 Tablespoons garam masala
1/2 Tablespoon cayenne pepper (more or less to taste)
kosher salt to taste
fresh cilantro for garnish (I didn't use cilantro because I always end up with leftover that gets thrown out)

In large, heavy pot over medium heat saute the onions in oil until caramelized. Add garlic and ginger and cook for about one minute longer. Add tomato puree, turmeric, cumin, garam masala, and cayenne pepper and stir to combine. Taste and salt if needed. Cook until mixture is hot and bubbling.

Add chicken and cook over low-medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes stirring occasionally until chicken is cooked through. Stir in yogurt - mixture will turn a vibrant orange. Serve over rice with lots of cilantro to garnish. (Basmati rice works very well.)

So if you look at her blog, you'll see her pretty pot full of spices. Well mine didn't look all that pretty, but here ya go:

I recognized every ingredient so I decided to go for it. The only thing I substituted was regular non-fat yogurt for the Greek yogurt. I'm not a Greek yogurt fan, no reason behind it, I'm just not.

It came out so yummy! See!

Oh and I can tell you that no vegetables were harmed in this experiment. Food processor FTW!

Making it my own

2010-09-12T20:19:00.000-04:00

So for the most part, I stick to recipes, to the letter. I'm really anal about it and I've accepted that. However, I am trying to lose weight. Not for looks. Not for anyone else. Only to gain a bit more energy for the trip to Europe next month. I've lost 10 pounds so far, but I keep getting bored with "chicken & a vegetable" nights - especially when my work food is the same every day.

So now that it's fall (shut up, it's fall, I don't care what you say), I wanted to make that Beef in Wine Sauce recipe I've done a few times since I moved here, but I wanted to lighten it up a bit. This also inspired me to try to make the recipe a bit more my own.

So here's the newly modified recipe:

4 pounds-ish of stew beef (same)
3 - 10 3/4 oz cans of 99% Fat Free Cream of Mushroom Soup (instead of 2 cans golden mushroom)
3 - 4 oz cans of sliced mushrooms (1 additional can, cuz I can't get enough mushrooms EVER)
2 T garlic powder (same)
2 T onion spreckles (new)
1 packet Lipton dry onion soup mix (same)
1 cup dry sherry (instead of 3/4 cup, more liquor is never bad)
1 bag of frozen peas, thawed (new, but I added this before)
1 bag of frozen crinkle cut carrots, thawed (same)

Lightly coat a dutch oven with butter (I only had regular butter, so next time, I'll invest in some cooking spray or something lighter, but oh well).
Add half of the beef and sprinkle 1 T garlic powder & 1 T onion spreckles over. Add the rest of the beef and add the remainder of garlic powder & onion spreckles. I don't know if this mixes it better, but I don't care, I felt all chef like.
Preheat the oven to 325
In a big enough bowl, mix the sherry, soup mix, cream of mushroom soup and mushrooms
Pour the mixture over the beef and stir it all together.
Cover & shove in the oven for 2 1/2 hours (instead of 3)
Add thawed carrots & peas, stir
Cover & shove it back in the oven for 1 more hour

I am now waiting for the 2 1/2 hour mark so I can add the veggies. I then plan to prepare rice with vegetable stock. I figure if I serve it with rice, it'll save some of the fat per serving and it'll make the stew last longer (I'm going to freeze probably half). So we'll see how it turns out....to be continued.......

And a few hours later....

Dinner was great! Very filling and the fact that it was "lighter" didn't make it taste terrible. It was fabulous, I didn't even notice all the light substitutes and the extra veggies. Between dinner, a few glasses of wine, the threat of rain, and two very sleepy kitties on my lap, it's a perfect Sunday evening. Too bad it's followed by work tomorrow, but it's just another day.

Pasta Carbonara Attempt #1 (Attempt #2 is some day)

2010-07-25T20:27:00.000-04:00

So after a long day of cleaning and straightening in this awful heat, I decided to make a quick dinner. And by the way, all of you out there last winter who said, "omg I can't for summer I hate this snow" and I sat here saying "No, summer is awful, winter is fabulous," how do you like it now? Is it fun? lol I hate summer, I hates it, I hates it, I hates it. Ok, enough of that.

Tonight, I made Pasta Carbonara. I did make one triumph in that I did not end up with scrambled eggs. Yay me! But in my efforts to avoid scrambled eggs, I ended up undercooking the pasta. Oh well, I call it Super Al Dente and I'm stickin' with it. I learned something, so there's that, so I think it was a successful dinner.

Now I just need to find a way to use the rest of the eggs I bought. I'll probably have tonight's dinner for 2-3 more meals, but I have 8 eggs left. Breakfast for dinner? Warm egg salad? I dunno, I'll think of something. I want to avoid having two rogue eggs sit in my refrigerator sitting until I throw them out. What am I thinking? I could bake cookies instead!

Made up dinner out of what I had in the fridge

2010-05-19T20:04:00.000-04:00

So I keep trying to save money by making stuff with whatever's in my fridge/freezer, but I keep failing miserably. I can never come up with something. I try googling for recipes using my on hand ingredients, but I never get any perfect hits. Every recipe I come across ends up requiring me to go buy some other additional ingredient that I'll maybe use once. Sometimes I go buy it and tell myself I'll use it again, but I never do. I'm trying to remedy that.*

I used a rogue (aka leftover) tomato from the eggplant tomato surprise fail from last week and did this to it:

1. Cut tomato in half (without slicing fingers as I now regret)
2. Clean blood off tomato if necessary. If you miss some, hell it's your blood anyway and you're the only one eating it.
3. Scoop out the watery parts to make room for goodness
4. Stuff with some cheese (I used leftover feta), bread crumbs, Italian seasoning (that's what my bottle said and I'm going with it), parmesan cheese, salt & pepper
5. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes
6. Add some extra cheese for good measure

I also made a tuna salad sandwich. For the salad, I mixed tuna with a little mayo, horseradish, lemon pepper & stone mustard (rock mustard? I can't remember what it's called and I have a cat in my lap, so I'm not getting up to find out). This may sound a lot like the salmon sauce I made the other night, and that's because I liked it so much, I wanted to have it again sort of.

I still need to use the following in some recipe:
6 pork fillets
1 big bag of baby shrimp
a tiny smidge of feta cheese

I made fish! (and not just the baby shrimp that turned out like crap)

2010-05-16T18:48:00.001-04:00

I used a recipe from "Comfort Food - Diet" magazine. Yes, I know, I hate diets, but I just liked the recipes in it while leafing through it at the grocery store. This is in no way me advocating a diet book. haha.

The recipe had me mix chipotle powder (ok it called for chipotle peppers in adobo, but whatever, I improvised), mayo (ok again it asked for fat free mayo but I didn't have that), stone mustard, lemon pepper mix and horseradish. I spread that over the salmon and baked it. It was great! I also made rice-a-roni to go with it.

First time making fish was not so bad. I was so afraid I'd overcook it. And maybe I did, but I'm the one eating it and I say I didn't, so there. Yum!

One night's dinner fail is the next night's dinner win!

2010-05-16T12:25:00.001-04:00

Ok, so this is after the fact, but I am just now getting a chance to write about it. I started off by making something out of a new recipe book. It's one of those "4 ingredients or less" cookbooks. The dish sounded good in theory, but not in practice. I had to lightly grill eggplant slices, then layer them in a 13" x 9" pan with sliced tomatoes, spices and I added some feta cheese on top. Sounds good, right? Weeeeeeell, not so much. It ended up so watery that it was more like a broth soup with sliced vegetables. It tasted ok and I did eat it, but I think it would have been better over rice or if I had drained some of the tomato liquid first.

In any case, the next night I really didn't want to eat it, but couldn't bring myself to just toss it out. So...a plan came to me (in the shape of Brian who suggested making it into a sauce). I browned some ground beef, added tomato sauce, tomato paste, some garlic powder and the remainder of the dinner fail. It came out great! I mixed it with angel hair and voila a dinner win was born. It also made like 7 servings so I gave it to my Dad to have while my Mom and I went down to Ocean City yesterday. I had the last of it myself for dinner last night.

So now I'm trying to figure out something to make for dinner tonight. I'm back on track cooking-wise, I think, so I don't want to break the cycle. We'll see what I come up with and hopefully it'll be a win right off the bat.

Buffalo Chicken Mac 'n' Cheese

2010-02-27T21:01:00.001-05:00

So as most of you know, NJ has been enduring Snowmageddon '10. I have enjoyed it thoroughly. Who wouldn't enjoy....

Working from home multiple days, no traffic, no driving in snow
Spending entire days with 2 adorable kittens who spent most of their days in my lap
Cooking whatever meals and snacks I wanted
Ending every day with a cup of cocoa or a glass of wine
Wearing PJs and no makeup
Sleeping in
The list goes on and on!

Yes, of course, there's shoveling. But thankfully my condo association takes care of most of that so I can't complain about shoveling either.

Let's see, what did I make through the snowstorms. Well, nothing fancy. I didn't want to make anything too crazy, because if I forgot something vital at the grocery store, I wouldn't be able to run out for it. So there was a really tasty chili (made from ground beef, beans and an easy seasoning packet). I made the Cauliflower Curry Stew again too.

But tonight..TONIGHT!! I made Buffalo Chicken Mac 'n' Cheese. I'll give you a second to contemplate whether or not that would be a good combination. Moment over, it was AMAZING. It took a lot more prep work than I anticipated, so all told it took about 2 1/2 hours to make.

Of course, this meal was not without its oopsies. First of all, once again I mutilated vegetables. I did ok with the carrots, celery and garlic, but the onion did not do as well. I keep watching chefs on TV when they dice onions. I just can't get it! It doesn't help when my eyes start tearing uncontrollably. Next, I *may* have burned the roux. But only a tiny bit. It was just starting to get a couple little brown spots before I dumped the milk in. Bonus tonight, however. I didn't cut myself once! Also, I ended up using so many pots and pans, even though I used each for multiple purposes. It's going to be a dish washing extravaganza later.

Also, the recipe can be found here (which will also show you what it looks like, except that I used shells instead of elbows):
http://www.choosy-beggars.com/index.php/2010/01/19/pub-night-buffalo-wing-macaroni-and-cheese/

Frozen Leftovers are Awesome!

2010-01-20T13:51:00.000-05:00

So I paid bills at the beginning of the month and got a li'l depressed over money. So this month I decided not to go to the grocery store for anything and attempt to eat everything available at home. I'll tell you, it's very strange to have options when I go to the fridge/pantry when just a few months ago my options were cereal, cheez-its and take-out menus.

I kept going with that blue cheese, pear and orange vinaigrette salad and paired it with tuna sandwiches or a few leftover slices of Elio's pizza. Yes, I still have some frozen junk food. What girl shouldn't?

BUT the best part I discovered (thank you Brian) is reheating frozen leftovers. I had leftover Hungarian noodlebake, lasagna and tomato sauce. I didn't slurp the tomato sauce, though I thought about it, but instead made some frozen tortellini to go with it. I'm still working on finishing the tortellini, but the fridge, freezer and cupboards are slowly clearing out. So this weekend I'm finally going to cook.

Not sure what I'm going to make yet, but I think I might also bake something. In addition, I'd like to clean up all the Christmas decorations this weekend (yes, I know I procrastinated). So at the very least I'll be cooking another vat of something new and maybe a Nutella cake because I think I still have all of the ingredients for that.

Dinner Fail - Blue Cheese Pork Stew and Pear Salad with Orange Vinaigrette Dressing

2010-01-01T21:07:00.001-05:00

I had such high hopes for dinner tonight, but it failed miserably, well half failed.

The salad came out great. It was baby spinach, pears, candied pecans, craisins, and blue cheese crumbles with an orange vinaigrette dressing (balsamic, evoo, OJ, s&p).

The stew, not so much. The stew consists of onions, shallots, garlic, mushrooms, shredded pork, heavy cream and various spices. After you pour that mix into a casserole dish, you cover it with a sheet of puff pastry.

First problem occurred when I sliced open my finger when chopping the onions & shallots. No big deal, who needs 10 fingers. The recipe called for 4 cups of "thickened cream." I interpreted that as heavy cream. In retrospect, I should have used MUCH LESS and maybe used half milk, half heavy cream. From the pictures in the recipe, it should not have been as soupy as it turned out. Maybe I should have used more pork too.

In any case, I enjoyed my salad thoroughly, but after eating half of a bowl of the stew, I felt sick. I don't know what the heck to do with the leftovers now other than throw them out. I have such guilt throwing it out. Ugh, I feel like crap and my finger hurts. I don't know why I'm beating myself up so much, but now I feel like I wasted my evening making crappy food.

Vacation, Snow, Fibromyalgia, Lasagna & Cookies, what a combo

2009-12-27T16:44:00.001-05:00

So remember how I said I wouldn't wait so long before a new blog entry? Forget I said that. It's been a busy 2 weeks. I finished off the cauliflower stew the week of the 6th and then the following week I was on vacation (apparently during the busiest week of the year at work, very sorry Devon, Brian & Jen). I didn't cook much during vacation, because I was out most of the time.

Vacation was a lot of fun. I went to Atlantic City and Peddler's Village with Mom and the rest of the time I spent Christmas shopping and getting stressed out. Then came Blizzicane '09. I went to Wegmans with the best of intentions of making a vat of something yummy while snowed in, but alas, they had NO PRODUCE. When I say no produce, I mean NO PRODUCE. Not a single onion or carrot to be had. I ended up making another batch of Hungarian Noodle Bake since apparently no one else needs cottage cheese and egg noodles when they get snowed in. (PS I used onion spreckles instead of real onions and it wasn't bad).

So we all get snowed in last weekend and stupid me found yet another thing that I need to add to my new homeowner shopping list - a shovel. Picture me digging out my Mini with a broom and my arms. Now stop laughing. I pulled the pathisad girl act and some nice gentleman helped me dig out the parts I couldn't reach. If ya got it, flaunt it! Wait that means I'm pathisad, well whatever, I got my car out. Unfortunately, from all the arm shoveling, I threw myself into a wicked fibromyalgia attack that lasted through Tuesday. Thank goodness I had already made the Noodle Bake or I would have been sunk for food last week. I hurt so much, I could barely surf the interwebz.

Now back to cooking....

This year marks the first Christmas Eve I've hosted for my family. My parents came over for dinner and a bit of Christmas present construction. My parents got me a coffee table, end table and lamp for Christmas. I have surfaces and light in my living room now! Thanks Mom & Dad! It was really nice having them over. I bopped between helping Dad build the furniture in the living room and cooking with Mom in the kitchen.

My Mom & I made her famous lasagna soup. Well, it's not soup. It's just mushy non-brick style lasagna and it's so delicious. It's cottage cheese instead of ricotta (stop hacking all you non-believers), it's fantastic. Here it is pre-bake, I'll add another later of what it looks like cooked.

Today, I decided to bake cookies. I had originally planned on giving cookies as Christmas presents, but I ended up not needing to.....but I still wanted to make cookies dammit. I am in the process of making Chipotle Chocolate Chip Cookies. They're not hot hot, but after you eat one you have that tingle in the back of your throat as if you ate something hot. The dough is chilling in the fridge now, so hopefully they come out ok (and gain me some points with coworkers tomorrow :) ).

I figure any recipe that starts out with this much butter HAS to be good:

To be updated soon...

Update: Cookies are done! They still came out kinda flat like they have in the past, but they didn't get so runny that they were no longer "cookie shaped." When people eat them, they'll see where I had to cut them apart a teeny bit, but bite me they're free cookies. I tasted a little corner of one that had cooled off some and it tastes just as good as I remember. I am, however, waiting for my pans to cool before I put in more batches. I remembered from the last time I made these that if I start dropping more cookie batter on too soon, they get all melty and then I end up with one big pan-shaped cookie. (Thanks Dad for pretending it was chipotle chocolate brittle and eating said sheet years ago).

Cauliflower Curry Stew (aka Mandy Kills Vegetables and Can't Make Rice)

2009-12-06T20:19:00.006-05:00

Ok so it's been awhile since I've cooked. I made Pasta Mandese somewhere in the last week-ish, but I've been killing off leftovers mostly. I had also bought a bunch of "quick lunch/dinner" items to have while I was on vacation in case I wasn't able to leave the house. This included Elio's pizza (which btw now sucks because the pieces of pepperoni are about the size of a pencil eraser), chicken nuggets and frozen pasta. Well, I ended up getting out of the house so I didn't need all of those items.

Are you sufficiently snowed into believing why I didn't cook for the last week or so? Ok good, let's move on.

So tonight I decided to get back into the swing of things and make a "vat o' somethin.'" I made Cauliflower Curry Stew from a Good Housekeeping cookbook. It's Cauliflower (duh), chick peas, carrot, onion, yogurt, cilantro, curry, and I added a shot of wine (mostly because of the carrot issue coming up) over rice.

Hurdle #1: Cut Up Cauliflower
Apparently, I'm inept at cutting up vegetables, because I hacked the s*** out of that thing. However, I don't think I did as badly as I thought in the end. Also, I burned the carrots (that I over chopped). So now it's BBQ Cauliflower Curry Stew.

Hurdle #2: Rice
I've never made rice (with the exception of rice-a-roni. I followed the instructions on the back of the brown rice. It said to cook for 45 minutes without lifting the lid. I did that, but noticed a ton of bubbles coming up out of the pot so I cracked it before it exploded. I had to do that twice. Other than that, in the 45 minutes, I left it alone. In the end, it was stuck to the bottom of the pot and had the consistency of sticky rice instead of rice rice. I don't know what I did wrong, ugh!

However....this dish actually came out pretty damn good. I may have taken a few wrong turns, but for the most part I think even I'm incapable of screwing up the recipe. Next time I think I'll add more salt and maybe red pepper flakes. It's not all that hot, so I think I'd like it a little spicier.

So for the next 2 days I'll be having the stew, then I'm not sure what next. Hopefully it won't be as long before I can tell you of my stupidity in the kitchen again.

Pesto Pasta!

2009-11-22T19:08:00.001-05:00

Ok, so I cheated and didn't blend all the herbs in a food processor, I bought the McCormick packet. But let me tell you, it was damn good and damn easy. And the best part, it was only fifty cents! Since I saved money on that and the pasta, I treated myself to pine nuts too. It was so stinkin' easy and it came out very tasty. I added cheese at the end to get all melty. I think I used Pecorino Romano, but it was whatever I had in the fridge. I have leftovers for one night this week too.

I LOVE this. 2 meals for approximately $5.00. And not just lame frozen TV dinners - not that there's anything wrong with those and you can bet I'm still eating them, but it's just so nice to make something for myself rather than count on Wegmans or Lean Cuisine to make it for me.

So now I sit eating with 2 kittens curled up on my lap on day 2 of vacation. Heaven. Later...Heavenly Hash ice cream. Nom nom nom. And tonight's TV menu includes the Doctor Who special. God I love vacation.

Green onions do not exist.

2009-11-21T19:27:00.000-05:00

What a week! I'm so glad I'm officially on vacation and more importantly that my kits came through surgery just fine. I will be spending this entire week relaxing, cooking, eating, and taking care of the little guys.

Rewind...

Thursday night I decided to make egg salad. Yes, I had to ask around for the best way to hard boil eggs. Yes, I roughed it without an egg slicer (though I'm still so buying one). Yes, I took too long mixing it with mayo that it went a little cold on me. But it was still good. Last night was take out as I was dropping off the kittens for surgery and tonight I'm so exhausted that I just nuked a Marie Calendar's (which btw sucks big time, and I may be revisiting the fridge for snackage). It was tortellini in some sort of tomato sauce, but the tortellini ended up so chewy. 2 months ago, I would have convinced myself it was "al dente" but now I'm just mad at myself for not cooking.

However, let's go over grocery shopping last night. First off, I went at 11pm which turned out fabulous. I got all of the ingredients to make some sort of Tex Mex casserole (more details later perhaps) except 1. This brings me to my question. What the hell is a green onion? I'm convinced it doesn't exist. I saw yellow, red, white, spanish, vidalia, purple polka-dot and rainbow, but no freakin GREEN. It is quite possible that I'm stupid and I just don't know what else a green onion is called, but to me if a recipe says "green onion," there should be something in the grocery store that says "green onion." So I bought a yellow onion and the recipe is just gonna have to suck it up.

I did buy a ton of food, though. Lots of quick meals, frozen quick stuff, cereal, snacks, wine, etc. I'm absolutely prepared for this week. I'm also planning on reorganizing my kitchen. Now that I actually have food in it, I'm running out of room to be disorganized!

Ugh, that dinner sucked, that's what I get for being lazy, but man I'm so tired. I'm gonna go make a snack.

Keeping it together for 2 more days

2009-11-18T22:18:00.001-05:00

So I kinda screwed up the Aunt Ednas. Yes, I, Mandy, messed up tuna melts. I didn't make the oven hot enough and I didn't leave them in long enough. The bacon, however, turned out great in the microwave. I was quite amazed. It was still good, but more like a tuna sandwich bacon than a melty cheesey tuna-ey goodness.

I think I'm just feeling off tonight. Something changed and I've got to get myself centered again. Next week will be the perfect time to do so, however. I'm off all next week and I plan to stay home pretty much the entire time. I'm going to try to stock up on groceries and spend the week cooking, beading and reading. Maybe even a li'l baking!

P.S. The new can opener.....EXCELLENT. Much easier than trying to open it with my teeth.

Making the Nutella Self-Frosting Cake

2009-11-15T20:37:00.001-05:00

Hurdle #1: What is the true definition of cream? (non-4th grade answer, plzkthx)
So whenever I have seen my Mother cream butter & sugar, she did it with a hand mixer. The first step in this recipe is to cream butter & sugar. Guess what I don't have. So I called in the big guns. My Mom said while possible to cream butter & sugar, it's a pain in the ass, so best of luck to me. Brian reminded me that they did not have KitchenAids in the 1800s, so I should be ok with a spoon even if it does take a little elbow grease. I don't think they had Nutella in the 1800s either...

So I took the butter out of the fridge to soften. I've had time to flip laundry, take a shower, get dressed, put on make up, and write this post. I still have butter cubes. Meh.

=========
So I finished baking the cake, but decided to put it in for another 10 minutes, the middle was a li'l too mushy. I'm thinking maybe now it should have been just 5 more minutes, but nonetheless. It's sooooooooooo good. I'll add pics to this post soon. For now, I'm going to enjoy. I'm going to bring the spare cake to work tomorrow and decide with whom to share it. hehe.

Cooking Shaken, Not Stirred

2009-11-14T22:11:00.000-05:00

So the whole cooking schedule is a little off this week. I'm not ashamed. My Dad got in a car accident with a tree (the tree won) so my eating habits have been off. My Dad's recovering now, so that's the important thing, but my stomach is very angry.

I finished off the Beef in Wine Sauce on Tuesday night. Wednesday night was dinner out with Jenn & her Mom. Thursday is when all the craziness started. After we knew my Dad was ok, and I had driven through Camden in the rain with 1 headlight, it was time for dinner and drinks. I took my Mom to Friday's with my favorite bar staff and we noshed on appetizers. Last night we ate at the hospital restaurant. It was, as the name implies, the hospital restaurant...with hospital food that didn't nearly suck as bad as I thought it would. I went for a late lunch today with Mom and I'm now eating a frozen Wegmans Chicken Curry.

Now for the good news. I have big plans for tomorrow. I'd like to wake up and make a Nutella Cake. Then I'm going to make.....I don't know yet for my 3-4 nights of dinner. I'm looking through web blogs now and a few cookbooks, but I still haven't settled on anything. If I'm seriously unable to find something on the net, I'm kind of craving Hungarian Noodle Bake again, but I think that's mostly because it's been such a stressful week that I want something familiar.

Recipe: Hungarian Noodle Bake, as promised

2009-11-08T19:26:00.000-05:00

INGREDIENTS
1 –small to medium onion
2 – 32oz. cartons of small curd cottage cheese
1 – 2 cup container of sour cream
2 – T. Worcestershire sauce
2 – Large packages of egg noodle fine noodles
½ t. – poppy seeds
Paprika
Parmesan cheese

PREPARATION
Pre-heat oven to 350˚
Cook noodles and sauté onion in oil or butter
Mix cottage cheese, sour cream, Worcestershire sauce & poppy seeds
Add cooked noodles and sautéed onion
Turn into large (buttered) baking dish
Sprinkle top with paprika
Bake for 30 minutes
Serve with Parmesan cheese

Beef in Wine Sauce....Nom nom Nom nom

2009-11-07T22:05:00.000-05:00

This Beef in Wine Sauce is so good I could cry. Partly because it's so damn tasty. Partly because I made it and didn't f it up! I think the only thing I'd change would be the timing of adding the peas and carrots. I think I'd rather cook them a bit longer. I like mushy carrot cookies, maybe I'm strange. So note for next time, add the veggies 30 minutes before the end, not 15.

Skecher is back to sleeping on my lap. Smidgen is back to sleeping God knows where until 20 minutes from now she'll jump in my lap when her brother is entirely passed out.

You work on commission, right?

2009-11-07T20:31:00.000-05:00

I have a can opener! I went shopping with Mom today to pick up a few odds and ends - more odds than ends. After a long day of shopping, my Mom hung out while I started up the Beef in Wine Sauce. I think she was just amazed that I actually have food in the fridge now.

My house smells so good right now. Dinner is on hour 3 of cooking in the oven now. I'm starving! I took it from a cookbook Brian lent me. It's basically a ton of beef mixed with garlic powder, mushroom soup, mushrooms, dry onion soup mix, carrots, peas and dry sherry. It's very nice to just drop everything in one pot, stick it in the oven and forget about it. I don't even have to watch the kittens to make sure they're not trying to jump on the stove.

To kill time, I've been cleaning like a maniac. I've gotten to mostly everything I wanted to today with the exception of cleaning up the deck. I also want to vacuum and try to hang a new shelf in the bathroom. I was about to start putting together my new desk chair, but poor Skecher was about to have a panic attack. I think he gets nervous when I don't sit for long periods of time. It's understandable. When I'm tired, I hate it when my bed keeps running around the room and I can't sleep on it. Happens more often than you'd think.

As soon as Skecher wakes up, I'm going to pop open the red wine I bought to go with tonight's dinner. It's called ...crap I can't read the label from where I'm sitting. It's something like, "Mom's Time Out." Yummy dinner cooking, sleepy kittens, new romance novel to read, glass of wine and oh did I mention Pretty Woman is on Flix? Perfect, perfect Saturday night.

To be continued with a verdict on the beef....

"How much does it cost?"
"I don't think this would fit you."
"I didn't ask if it would fit, I asked how much it was."
"Marie, how much is this?"
"It's very expensive."
"It's very expensive. You're obviously in the wrong place. Please leave."

Oh I can't wait for the "You work on commission, right? Big, big mistake. Huge. I have to go shopping now" scene!!

Tribute to Aunt Edna Postponed

2009-11-06T21:54:00.000-05:00

So I had the best plan for tonight, but hit a snag.

On the way home, I stopped at Wegmans, picked up the makings for Aunt Ednas and Beef in Wine Sauce. Aunt Ednas for tonight. Beef in Wine Sauce tomorrow (and for at least 3 days after that).

Aunt Ednas is one of those dishes from my childhood. I don't have an Aunt Ednas, no one in my family is named Aunt Ednas, no one had any friends named Edna, but nevertheless, these are always baked in her honor. Since I don't know Edna, I'd make up a story for her, but I'm not that creative. Maybe I'll feel more inspired when I actually get to make them. ...which bring me to the snag.

Aunt Ednas are basically glorified tuna melts. It's (from bottom to top) swirl rye bread (or pumpernickel if you're feeling frisky), 3 strips of bacon (or however many you can fit on said type of bread), tuna with mayo and whatever other spices you want, 2 slices of tomato and 3 slices of cheese.

I had 2 questions when I got home:
1. What oven temp do you use to bake the Aunt Ednas?
2. How do you make bacon? (shut up)

I figured I'd call my Mom about the oven temp and consult Chef Brian on how to make bacon (after he stopped laughing to himself).

I unpacked all the groceries, set out all the Aunt Edna ingredients, and decided to make the tuna salad first. A can opener! That's what I forgot! Argh! I considered using what tools I do have (a corkscrew, a razor blade and a hammer), but scrapped that idea. Aunt Ednas will have to wait until later in the week.

Wine, however, does not. I popped open the Chardonnay I picked up on the way home and nuked Cheesecake Factory leftovers. While still good, it does not pay tribute to Aunt Edna in the way I had hoped.

Twona Melt

2009-11-04T20:31:00.000-05:00

Just polished off the last of the Pasta Mandese (can't think of a better name, but by all means suggest one). Tomorrow's sushi dinner with my parents, so no cooking needed and I think I'll finish off the Cheesecake Factory leftovers for lunch this weekend. This leaves me with figuring out something for dinner Friday & Saturday.

It's so strange to me that I can't pick a meal to make. It's not like I'm running out of days in my life to cook. If I make something crappy, I'll just know not to make it again. That said, what the hell am I going to make?

As of this moment, I'm thinking about making a tuna melt for Friday night and then make something with multiple servings on Saturday that I can eat throughout the week. It has to be something I can make while doing stuff around the house. I'm having company on Sunday so I'd like to make the place a little more presentable. It's really more of an excuse for me to get off my butt and do something for the place.

To be continued...

Oops I don't have a grater!

2009-10-31T22:04:00.000-04:00

Ok, so the carbonara idea got scrapped. This was mostly due to the fact that it started to rain when I got to the grocery store and got lazy. Ok, it was more that I was afraid to make it. So instead, I decided to make up my own recipe. So here's what I did:

1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
Half a box of Wegman's Ziti (no idea how much that is, but whatever)
3/4 of a jar of tomato sauce from Costco
About $3 worth of ground beef from Wegman's
Random spices

Here's how it turned out:

Mental note, well not so mental now that I'm writing it down, remember to boil water before you chop everything and start browning the meat, otherwise you end up with sauce mostly done and no pasta to put in it. Not that that's what I did, I'm just trying to remember how brilliant I was again for later. Did you buy that?

Anyway, it actually came out pretty tasty! I added some grated cheese at the end as well (which I had to buy pre-grated, because oops I don't have a grater). So I have plenty left for at least one more dinner if not two.

Oh what a relaxing Halloween. While cooking, I popped open that old bottle of wine I got at a work party last Christmas. It's going down way too easily. So now there's nothing left to do but relax, pet some kitties and watch too many horror films before bed.

I don't want to "catch a man," I just want to EAT.

2009-10-31T11:40:00.000-04:00

I'm hoping this blog will help document my path from always getting take out to fabulous cooking. Right now, I'm the idiot chef. Well, perhaps that's not fair. I'm more of a nervous chef. I'm so terrified that what I make will suck, that I freeze, give up and just order from whatever menu is close by.

A little about me first to give you a little context for this blog. I'm 29 years old working in the IT field at a pharmaceutical company in Princeton. While the type of job isn't necessarily important, it's important to note that I'm livingin South Jersey commuting to Princeton. This means I get done at the office at 6pm, then drive home an hour, and have to find the will to cook after 7pm when all I want to do is get in jammies, curl up with kittens, eat something fast and go to bed.

I just bought this condo 4 months ago and adopted 2 kittens, Skecher & Smidgen, 2 months ago. So between decorating my very bare condo and taking care of 2 very needy kittens (not complaining, it's freakin' adorable), I have to find time to cook?!?!

After I moved in, I decided I wanted to cook for myself more....well ok for the first time. So I began by doing google searches for "single girl cooking." I found several books that catered to women like me, but they were either out of print or had the tag line "meals to catch a man with." I'm sorry, I just got out of an emotionally exhausting relationship. I don't want to "catch a man," I just want to EAT.

So last weekend, my Mother came to the rescue and helped me make Hungarian Noodle Bake. I think she felt bad that most of my meals are shaping up to be made from the following staples:

Cheez-its
Lean Cuisine (or the like) frozen dinners - PS, Wegmans has some awesome frozen TV dinners, who knew?
Varying types of take-out: Chinese, Italian, fast food, you name it, and
Cereal

The Noodle Bake was fantastic. My Mom says the recipe came from a 1970s cookbook that she got when she got married. I'll be posting the recipe as soon as my Mom writes it up. I have this thing where I want family recipes written in her voice. I took pictures as we made it to include in the recipe. I'd like to continue doing this with lasagna soup, spinach quiche and other recipes that I remember from when I was a little girl. It was great to have the noodle bake all week when I got home from work. It's delicious and microwaveable, woot!

During the last week, I even ended up making myself some Bolognese pasta. Ok, so it was one of those "everything you need is in the bag" meals, but hey I still made it and it didn't suck. The kittens were so confused..."why is Mommy in that room that she only goes into for Diet Coke and napkins?"

I was feeling inspired to cook on my own, but today I'm just feeling overwhelmed. I know I shouldn't. I mean, it's just cooking, right? It's not like I couldn't throw it out if it's awful and order take out in an emergency. I found a recipe for Pasta Carbonara Pie on Rachael Ray's site, so I'm going to attempt that. And all you RR haters can shut up. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find recipes that don't intimidate the hell out of me on the Internet? I can't justify buying another "easy recipes for the new chef" cookbook, so I have to go on the Internet. Some of these sites are crazy. I either didn't know what the ingredients were or knew I wouldn't be able to find them at my local grocery store.

On the bright side, going grocery shopping isn't as much of a hassle now that I have some basics in the cupboard (thanks Mom!) It was so hard shopping and realizing just how many extra things I was going to have to buy - stupid stuff like salt, evoo, kitchen towels, spoon rests, graters, ahhh! I guess I should get off my butt and go do errands.