Maybe not again...

36.46, 36.47, 36.48, 36.49 and 36.50 Try 50 new recipes

So, ever cook something that just wasn't all that good? Yeah, I have. A few times...here are a few of the recipes we tried that we probably won't be trying again.

"Sourdough" Bread

Alex and J gave me a bread maker for my birthday last year, but it took me ages to actually use. We were having something for dinner that went well with homemade bread, but because I hadn't actually taken the time to figure out how the bread maker worked or to buy stuff like vital gluten, I couldn't make bread in the bread maker.

This "sourdough" recipe came from the Good Housekeeping Cookbook. It's not really sourdough bread; it uses yogurt and water as the wet ingredients. I knew this recipe was a disaster before I baked it...you don't proof the yeast - you mix it in with the flour and then add the wet ingredients. [Our pizza dough recipe is the same, but it ALWAYS works] The dough didn't really rise at all, but I figured I'd bake it and see what happened.

It came out looking like this. It was crunchy and hard and not very good. I'm not sure what I did wrong - maybe my yogurt had too much fat, maybe the yeast was a bit too old, who knows...anyway, we're not having this again...

Apricot Pecan Bread

This was the first bread recipe I made in the bread maker...I chose this one partly because it looked yummy and partly because I still had no vital gluten and this recipe didn't need any. The bread maker is supposed to have a beep function that tells me when to add the add-ins, in this case apricots and pecans.

What's wrong with this picture?

Yeah, the bread is done but there are no add-ins. I'm not sure what happened, but the beep never beeped. I sat and waited and waited and waited...

At least this one wasn't a total loss...it was still yummy bread. I might try this one again. I've now mastered the bread maker, so even if it doesn't beep, I know what it sounds like when it's mixing in the extra stuff, so I could probably get the goodies in...

Breakfast Quinoa

We like quinoa at our house. Even J likes "special rice". My sister has been telling us for ages how much she likes quinoa for breakfast, so I went in search of a recipe to try. We have had luck with pretty much every Martha Stewart recipe we've tried, so I figure her Breakfast Quinoa was a safe bet. It also had blueberries in it and since we add blueberries to our oatmeal pretty much everyday, I thought it would be good.

Not so much. J and I had something else for breakfast this morning and Alex, who will usually eat pretty much everything, called me at work to find out if I'd be gravely insulted if he threw it out since he couldn't eat his either. I don't think anything was wrong with the recipe - I asked a couple of breakfast quinoa eaters and they all thought the recipe looked fine - I think maybe the people in our house just like their quinoa in savoury dishes...

Black Beans

We have two slowcookers. I love them. I wish I had more good slowcooker recipes. I've made a few recipes that Jenna at Eat, Live, Run has posted and had great results, so when she posted slowcooker black beans and gushed about them, I decided I had to try them!

They weren't horrible, but they weren't even close to as good as she said they were. We ate them. But they were boring. Because of the length of time you cook this particular recipe they weren't even really good for using in other recipes.

So yeah. Sometimes things don't work out in our kitchen...I'm just glad that most of the time what we eat is most certainly edible and often tasty too.

This brings me to 50 recipes, but because I wasn't paying very close attention, I did more than 50 and because I've got pictures and half written posts, I'm going to [eventually] post them all...Yay, one more to cross off the list!

Bountiful Harvest

Yesterday J and I met up with Rebecca and went to the Kitsilano Farmer's Market. I hadn't done any meal planning yet - I wanted to see what I came home with and then I was going to build my menu around that.

We stopped and god a bunch of yummy carrots, J picked out her own cucumber and then we decided to get some plums. We were just going to get a container of the purple plums, but the woman at the booth gave us a sample of the smaller, reddish plums.

So good! They were sweet and juicy and I immediately added a basket of those to our haul. I've spent the last 24 hours trying to keep J from eating more of them! The woman told me what they were called, but I've forgotten. Does anyone know?

Not long after we got home, I got a message from Kelsey who had been up in Kelowna over the weeks - she had a bunch of fruit and vegetables for me, could I please come pick them up? We returned home with two boxes of home canned stuff, apples, more carrots, more cucumbers, potatoes, onions, tomatoes and green beans. I had dumps dinner in the slow cooked before we left yesterday morning, but we did add a side of fresh green beans to our dinner. I am pretty sure the beans, tomatoes and cucumbers all come out of my parents' garden. They also send some canned pears, peaches, tomatoes with basil and peach marmalade.

I was soooooooooo glad I didn't plan anything and even more happy that I hadn't gone grocery shopping. I have to pick up a bit of protein and a few staples on the way home tonight, but we're actually pretty much set for the week with all the goodies yesterday brought. I love fall.




This week's menu (I am so happy to once again have a functioning slow cooker, can you tell?)

Monday: Quesadillas with carrot sticks and cucumbers

Tuesday: Slow-Cooked Tex-Mex Chicken and Beans

Wednesday: Beef Stew

Thursday: Leftover Stew

Friday: Calzones with homemade tomato sauce [I'm on a Martha Stewart kick this week, hey? The calzones are premade and already in the freezer]

Saturday: Turkey dinner - early because I have a whole day to make dinner

Sunday: Leftovers or soup or something light because we're going for Thanksgiving brunch with Alex's family

Happy Thanksgiving week! I've linked to Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie where I'm sure you'll find that not all the menus are Martha Stewart-heavy!

The Annual Let's-Get-Ready-for-Christmas Christmas Party

And with this party I got to cross off #62: Host a Christmas party and one more recipe (36.14: Try 50 new recipes). I did not get to cross off #11: Mail Christmas cards before December 24th

I did it...

I didn't think I'd get to it this year, but it happened. As always it was a girls' night the last Saturday in November and the idea was that everyone would bring their unfinished projects for the holidays (cards, gifts, decorations, whatever) and we'd work on our projects and hopefully get something done before crazy December arrived.

Ha!

We had a great time and had lots to eat, but there was no work done.

And that's okay. Because we had a great time and had lots to eat (yes, I repeated that on purpose)

It was a bit of a challenge for me because it ended up being the first or second evil weekend of the GAPS diet, so I couldn't eat a lot of the yummy things that were spread out on our table.

Like this yummy looking hummus that I made. Apparently I took no pictures that night...this is the next day...I didn't even take pictures of the pretty food table with yummy goodies and a pretty Christmas table cloth...


Yes, another Martha Stewart recipe...and it was apparently yummy. I just got to smell it. I did substitute almost a whole head of roasted garlic for the two cloves, but it wasn't overpowering. Oh end of the GAPS diet, I am looking forward to you so that I can once again indulge in things like hummus!

And my cards didn't get done. TECHNICALLY I could cross it off the list because Alex mailed a batch for me before we went away and no where does it say ALL my Christmas cards, but I know my intent was all. So I'm not crossing it off.

Next year. Good thing there are three Decembers in this challenge! If it doesn't happen in 2011, then there's always 2012!

36.5 Try 50 new recipes - Turkey Sloppy Joes

Oh Martha, you've done it again! These Turkey Sloppy Joes were soooooo good! I think Alex had about 350 helpings!

Immediately though, I did something that I don't like doing the first time I make a new recipe. Can you spot it in this picture? (PS YAY for remembering to bring the good camera home and not having to use the cell phone)

Yeah, I used chicken. Maybe it's because it's Thanksgiving this weekend, but neither of the two grocery stores I usually shop at had ground turkey this week. So I substituted ground chicken thighs. And it was fine. I also missed the part where it says crushed tomatoes. Luckily I have a stash of canned goods for when the world ends. And while I didn't have crushed tomatoes, with a hand blender, a can of whole tomatoes can very quickly become crushed tomatoes.

These sloppy joes have a secret ingredient that totally ups the veggie content. Grated carrots.

Pretty orange, grated carrots.

Tasty, delicious sloppy joe! Can barely taste the carrots. And they were a hit. At least with two of us. J had already gone to bed. She didn't manage to eat her lunch or sleep at nap time at daycare, so she was exhausted and cranky. I got her in the door, got a peanut butter sandwich and an orange in her tummy, we skipped the bath, called Daddy at work to say goodnight, read two stories, and she was sound asleep before I finished singing song number two.

I sent some in her lunch today, so we'll see how it goes over. Daycare lunch consumption is not a gauge for whether or not she actually likes something. My leftovers were yummy though.

36.2 AND 36.3 Try 50 new recipes - Broccoli Calzones in Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

Alex is working days.

This is good. Mostly. BUT. Well, dinner time sucks. Before J started at her new daycare, when Alex worked days (which means he starts at noon), he would take J to daycare and I would go to work early. I'd leave work early so that I could pick her up. Which meant I'd pick her up around 4:00 or 4:30. And we'd get home no later than 5:00. And because she went in with Alex and not me, she didn't have to get up until 7:00 or 7:30. Not just after six like she is now.

Which means she's tired and cranky and hungry and just wants to play, read and cuddle with Mommy. But if Mommy does that, well, when will we eat???

So, I decided to hunt down some recipes I could make ahead and freeze.

And the first one was Martha's Broccoli Calzones. They require pizza dough, so I used Martha's Whole Wheat Pizza Dough recipe as well.

I stupidly started just before nine on Sunday night. A Sunday night when I really should have been in bed by about 8:30!

I haven't baked anything requiring yeast for a few years, but I still wasn't happy with how much this foamed.

But, since I didn't have any more yeast to start that part again, I said to heck with it and soldiered on. We needed something for dinner for Monday night.

Saute this up a little (more Avtar garlic. That stuff is good!)

Mix up three kinds of cheese (as long as your husband hasn't made a snack of them)

Mix the two together to get this yummy filling.

Oh, and the dough doubled, just like it was supposed to. Maybe the yeast *was* foamy enough...

Make little calzone parcels and freeze or bake (or stick in the fridge for tomorrow. Don't forget to tell your husband not to take them in his lunch. They're not quite done...hello, still raw!)

Toss them in the oven when you get home and spend the next half hour or so playing with your toddler. Your toddler will be thrilled that you're not in the kitchen!

Cheat a bit with the sauce and use your favourite bottled marinara because you just want to spend time with your kid.

Alex and I loved it. J, not so much. She had steamed broccoli and cauliflower and a peanut butter sandwich for dinner. She told me about sixty-eight times "Jocie no like soup!" and "Red soup yuck!" I even served hers in one of those plates with compartments and the sauce wasn't touching the calzone. Oh, and "Yucky white broccoli. Yucky green broccoli. Jocie no want cheese. Yucky."

Oh well. This kid isn't a fan of pizza either. And really, that's all a calzone is - a folded up pizza.

So, the calzones were definitely a grown up hit (I'll try again with J in a few months) - tasty, filling, and with secret vegetable servings for he who eats no green. I'll be making this again - I'm looking for other filling suggestions, so if you have any, please let me know!

Emerald-Green Velvet Soup

It was cold yesterday. And wet. And grey. And winter. Even though fall had only been here for less than 24 hours. It was winter (it still is today). La Niña is a bully and scared fall away already.

So it was a definitely a soup night. Pretty convenient that soup was actually planned too.

I lucked out. Kelsey is training to be a teacher right now and asked if she could come over after school to practice reading to J. So I picked her up on my way to daycare to pick up J and we all went home together. And it only took me 15 minutes to put dinner together - Emerald-Green Velvet Soup and quesadillas (because we had leftover tortillas from Tortilla Pie) - because J was occupied by Kelsey and didn't care that I was in the kitchen behind the gate and not playing with her, colouring with her or reading with her.

Pretty veggies (Martha says one bunch of parsley makes 5-6 cups, but I needed two). There's that Avtar garlic I mentioned before.

Simmering goodness...my phone makes that pot look very tall and skinny. It's not.


It was sooooooo good. J didn't like it. But that's the story of J's life right now. Kelsey and I loved it. Alex ate later - not sure if he had any or not. We were so hungry that I didn't get a shot of it last night - this is leftovers for lunch (the colour isn't quite as brilliant)

YUMMY!! I'm so happy winter food is here for a few months.

Tortilla Pie

I saw this recipe somewhere and actually wrote it out in a little book that I was carrying around with me at the time (I always have a little book with me and I make sure I keep them when they're full because there is almost always something of interest in them that I need later). Anyway, why I wrote it out and didn't print it, I don't know. Pretty sure it didn't have spinach in it then. Maybe because we had a desktop and no printer and I needed to have the recipe in the kitchen. Or maybe because we had a laptop and no counter space (hello pink ghetto).

Anyway.

I printed this and decided to make it for dinner tonight. We were supposed to have leftovers from last night's yummy dinner, but, well, there just weren't enough. No way it was going to feed three people, so I took it for lunch and it was just enough for one person.

So, I needed a solution.

And this is it. Except, well, I think it's a different recipe. It's the right picture and it's almost the same, but I'm sure the original one I made had black beans in it. Actually, I'm positive it did. And I think it had beer in it too.

ANYWAY. None of that's important because I'm really just using the recipe as a guide - I'm going to do my own thing. Like substitute chili powder for cumin and add Black beans....follow along and you'll see.

EDIT: I was right, THIS is the actual orginial recipe I used. See. Black beans and beer. No spinach. I'm not losing it completely, just partially! Or something. I'm finding it very interesting that the meat version serves four, but the vegetarian version serves six. Hmmmm....

My parents brought some yummy Papa Billy vegetables down a few weeks ago and in one of the boxes I discovered some Avtar garlic. Avtar is the foreman at the nursery and has been in charge of the garden for a while (and now that Papa is no longer with us and Avtar is in charge completely, maybe I should start calling them Avtar vegetables...anyway...) and he grows this yummy garlic that has really stiff, purple casings. I have no idea what kind of garlic it is, but it's so good. So, Avtar garlic went in with the onions and the house smelled heavenly. I only used three cloves and it smelled like I used a whole bulb. MMMMMMmmmm....

After the garlic and onions were nice and soft, I divided them up between a small pot and the frying pan.

The beef went in the frying pan and sizzled away for a bit...

And the beans (with some water, not beer) went in the pot. I seasoned both with cumin and chili powder and mmmmm....I'd use more chili powder the next time (I used all the chili powder we had)

I trimmed the tortillas while the meat cooked and the beans simmered.

I made three layers with four tortillas - one beef, one bean, another beef. I only used 1 1/2 cups of cheese...

And then we cooked it...make sure you put it on a cookie sheet (I'm not sure if the recipe tells you to do that, but do it!) or you'll have big mess to clean up. It looks a bit shorter than usual, but that might just be my modifications.

Let it sit for about ten minutes so it doesn't totally fall apart when you cut it. If I used more cheese, it probably would have stayed together better. Also, I couldn't get it off the bottom of the spring form pan - it was too heavy and would have crumbled everywhere. So, I just cut it carefully on the bottom piece. It survived.

Oh, and note to self: cut the top tortilla slightly larger than the pan to compensate for the shrinkage.

Trying to keep the falling-apartness to a minumum. It sure looks yummy!

So, there you have it, a wedge of tortilla pie. Can you see what I forgot to add? Which is why it was short?!?!

Cashew Chicken - take two

Friday night we had Martha's cashew chicken again.


Mmmmm....so good! I made my little modification - I added some celery and it was so good. We even had it on brown rice this time and mmmm. This has earned its way onto our list of regular menu items. Quick, tasty and yummy. What could be better than that? And, if I chop everything (except maybe the chicken - I'm all about not handling chicken multiple times if it can be avoided) the night before, it probably takes about 20 minutes to make. I just have to remember to take some out of the pan before adding the nuts if J is going to take leftovers in her lunch.

If you like cashew chicken, this is a recipe I highly recommend!

MMmmmm...Chinese

We love cashew chicken at our house, but we don't order Chines food very often. When we do, this is one of the standard dishes. I was excited to try this cashew chicken recipe - it looked easy and tasty (and was cheaper than take-out!). It was on last week's menu, but it didn't happen because someone I somehow made all of last week's menu either beans, chicken or chicken and beans and by the end of the week, we were all done with chicken and beans. Part of the reason I plan our meals for the week is to avoid boring repetition...obviously I didn't check for variety when I did that plan!

Anyway.


I was disappointed in this garlic. Garlic has not been a nice item to purchase lately. See those two large cloves back there, yeah, they were really bunches of 5-6 little tiny cloves. My plan to actually mince the garlic was tossed aside and I pulled out the garlic press. (Shhhhh, don't tell, but I plan on buying Alex a bottle of chopped garlic to start his foray into cooking. He is a huge perfectionist and if we let him chop garlic I'm afraid that will take longer than cooking the entire dish that he's making. Besides, we are going to be short on time come September, so any little short cut that isn't horrible is okay by me). Oh, and scallions vs green onions - anyone want to wade into that debate? Are they the same things and Martha is just trying to use big words or are scallions similar but larger?


Raw chicken makes me slightly sick to my stomach, so maybe I'll avoid shots like this in the future! I used my electric frying pan (because I have not yet purchased a decent sized frying pan) so I cooked everything at once - first the chicken and then added the onions and garlic.


Looking good...almost ready!


YUMMY! The one we get from our local take out place has celery in it, so I'll probably try that the next time. I actually served it on white rice because I was a bit behind and needed rice in 15 minutes, not in forever. Normally I'd use brown rice (although this was a nice special treat!). And yes, we do eat other vegetables and not just broccoli and cauliflower. But right now J is guaranteed to eat those two vegetables, so we eat a lot of them.

Definitely making this again - it's one of Martha Stewart's 30 minute meals and it really is almost that quick (probably would be that quick if there was no toddler wrangling happening concurrently!)

Martha leftovers...

It's been hot.

I don't want to cook.

Martha doesn't include what do with leftovers.

I made these (again!) on Monday - we had them for lunch for two days. And then no one wanted them anymore. But I still had a bunch of chicken.


What to do...well...I still had all the extras except the avocado/guacamole plus we had some cheese, so...

Quesadillas!


Yes, they do involve the stove, but thankfully not for long. And they were yummy. And they used up almost all of the chicken. The rest I froze to go with the broth I made so that we can have chicken soup some cool fall or cold winter night.

Cool food for the summer

Besides getting dinner on the table within a millisecond of walking in the door from work, my biggest challenge right now is coming up with interesting meals that don't repeat too often and don't make the house hot.

Yeah.

Not so easy.

So, we do have a BBQ, but there are a few problems with that. Our balcony is small and home to the BBQ, a few random stools and a double Phil and Ted's stroller. To use the BBQ, the stroller needs to move. I have a toddler who loves to be on the balcony with you, but the balcony is small and the BBQ is hot. Generally pre-dinner time means Alex is in the shower getting ready for work and I'm hopping back and forth over the kitchen gate constantly while wrangling a toddler. A toddler who would love nothing more than to have Mommy stop cooking and Daddy stop showering and play with her. Also, our balcony faces due WEST. That means, at dinner time it's stifling and in direct sunlight. NOT CONDUCIVE to a BBQ!

So, the BBQ gets used rarely.

So, what to make. On Friday I was tired. I was hungry. We had company coming for the weekend (but staying elsewhere). UGH.

But Martha saved the day. We ended up making a modified version of her Southwestern Chicken Wraps.


We made a few changes. I don't eat sour cream (more about that and the rest of my crazy diet on Get Fit Chicks), but I wanted something to spread on my wrap so it wouldn't be dry. Instead of avocado slices, I made some guacamole. Because there were onions in the guacamole, we omitted the red onions (I might use them next time anyway because they would give it another little touch of colour - no tomatoes in mine. see aforementioned crazy diet). Those who eat sour cream spread guacamole on their wraps and then put the sour cream sauce on top.

MMMmmmm...these were good! J isn't a big fan of sandwiches or wraps these days, but I had some mini pitas in the freezer for her from when we had pita tacos last, so she got a compartment plate with chunks of chicken and avocado as well as some beans. She often eats everything separately, but when she saw that Auntie Tati, who came for dinner, had a wrap, she stuffed her pita full and ate it that way too!

I don't have a picture of the finished product because they were eaten so quickly there wasn't a chance. This also made a good lunch for Alex to take to work - another challenge we're working on. LUNCHES.

And because I bought a rotisserie chicken, I did this as soon as dinner was over:


And we had yummy chicken soup for a few nights - I used the leftover beans and added some chopped peppers, corn and Tabasco and it was yummy! It was wet and cool this weekend, so soup was a welcome meal!

Food. Dinner. Weeknights. Working Mom.

It all goes together. We need to eat. We eat dinner every night. I work. Weeknights suck.

But I'm trying to change that. I've got a binder that we keep in our kitchen that is supposed to keep us on track. And it's kind of working. It would work better if I were not so sleep deprived.

But we're trying new recipes. The idea being quick and tasty are important. Make ahead is good too. We're relying a lot on Canadian Living, Martha Stewart, Jamie Oliver and Bonnie Stern for inspiration. And my collection of other cook books.

Anyway.

This week I made Martha Stewart's Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Herbed Couscous.


I prefer basil to mint, so I substituted. I also forgot to buy pine nuts (even though they were on the list) so I used cashews (because I bought WAY TOO MANY) instead. It was yummy. Definitely something we'll make again. (I also need a bigger frying pan. I had to use two because mine are pathetic)


Don't you love my picture. Yuck. I used my phone because I'm lazy and have needed to clear the memory cards for the real camera for quite some time. AND Alex didn't have dinner with us, so this is my plate, after I've mutilated my chicken so that J could share my dinner.

Next time...yes, there will be a next time...I would probably make half the recipe. It's too big, even if Alex ate with us, for us and I'm not so keen on reheating stuffed poultry. I'd also cut the chicken breasts in half so that there were four pieces. Because I really found these chicken breasts to be HUGE! And I'd make this couscous, just to have couscous, but with chicken broth not water if it's on its own. J love the special yellow "rice".