2015 Wrap Up, Plus 4 Recipes

It seems like the thing I do most often with this blog is completely drop it for long periods of time.  This is, what, the fourth time I've just completely abandoned it?  At least it didn't take me three years to get back to it this time.

Anyway.

2015 was pretty awful.  We definitely had good times - lots of them, in fact - but also some pretty huge bad times, too.  Between us, my husband and I lost three Grandmas, leaving our son with only one set of Great Grandparents.  This necessitated two drop-everything-and-go-to-Spokane trips for me.  Randy and I both had some pretty serious health issues (although thankfully not long lasting).  In addition, he worked a lot of really long hours over the spring and summer, although with the downturn this year that's a little more like a good thing than a bad thing.

I'm really looking forward to a nice, normal year in 2016.  Good health, happiness, and low stress all around!  Oh, and a Powerball win would be nice, while I'm wishing for things.

I didn't get on just to whine, though.  I do have four recipes to share to close out 2015 and get 2016 started.

1.  German Red Cabbage  This is not really a new recipe for me, I've made it a couple times in the past, but I like it a lot and wanted to share it.  I fussed over this recipe the first time I made it, but have since taken a "throw it all in the pot and clean the kitchen" approach, which seems to work just as well.  This is a nice side dish for meat (I serve it with pork chops), and is very flavorful.  It's also pretty good for you, as proven by this nifty Self.com chart thing.  (Note, the serving size on that site is for one leaf, which has to be the most useless but still vaguely correct unit they could come up with).  Two things to remember about cabbage, though:  not everyone enjoys it (this is apparently a genetic thing), and it will make your house smell like poverty while it's cooking.

2.  Banana Bread Muffins   This was technically a new recipe for me, but it's basically "make banana bread batter, pour into muffin tins", so I won't waste much space on it.

3.  Turkey Soup with Sweet Potatoes  My husband requested soup from the leftover turkey, so I found this.  I tried to keep the ratios of things about correct, but didn't have green beans so I used the rest of the celery from Thanksgiving and threw in some frozen mixed vegetables instead.  I also left out the pasta.  I was a little worried that the sweet potatoes wouldn't cook, but I cut them into about 1/4 inch cubes, and they seemed fine.  Not amazing, but a decent use for leftovers.

4. Herb Roasted Pork Loin  This was a new experience for me, because I very rarely cook large pieces of meat in the oven.  I liked how this turned out, but somehow it took almost twice as long to cook through as the recipe said it would.  I did put a few carrots and potatoes in the bottom of the pan, but I wouldn't have thought that would do it.  I think now that I should have turned the meat over part way through, but I'm not sure that would have helped.  The sauce is very good, though, if you like sweet and salty.  I've made it since to serve with stir fry.

So, there you go.  A blog post only 8 months late.  I think the next one will be about craft projects I did in 2015, then I'll try to update once a week with either a recipe or craft.  I like having a blog, although I am clearly the world's least consistent blogger.

Gut Bombs Away!

Wow, so it's been a while ... I don't even really know why, but life has been stressful recently. I just took a little solo trip, so I was getting ready for that. We also have some big projects at the house, and my grandma is sick. I don't know if all of that sounds like not enough to justify the level of stress I feel, or if that's even a good question to ask.

Anyway, besides kind of not being in the mood to write, this next recipe didn't turn out all that well. It is another one from allrecipes. Pork butt steaks were on sale, and it was a nice excuse to try cooking a big piece of meat in my new(ish) pans. I think I've mentioned that I'm nervous about doing that, and it is probably why the recipe didn't turn out so well. I used extra butter in the pan to make sure nothing stuck, and in so doing probably made the sauce too rich. I mixed some fried rice in the pan after the pork was cooked, which soaked up all of that rich sauce. It wasn't too bad - it was salty and the pork turned out fine. It was just too rich to be eaten in one sitting. I could see trying something like this again, but I would definitely try to cut the amount of fat next time. Which would probably result in a tuck-to-the-pan disaster... Maybe I won't try this again soon.

Texas Coleslaw

I'm trying to type this out on my phone, so it will be short and sweet!

Recipe 13: Texas Coleslaw

Here is another recipe from AllRecipes. I had a little cabbage left over from St. Patrick's day, so I added a small head of red cabbage, and whipped this up. As you can probably tell, we are a spice loving family, and we were pretty happy with the kick. I did use a little less cumin than called for, and added a scant quarter cup of sugar, partially because I used bottled lime juice, which tends to be bitter. The one thing to note is that it does mess up the refreshing quality of a standard coleslaw.

Speaking of, here is my standard slaw recipe, which is as basic as they come.

1 small head of cabbage, cut into small pieces
2 (or so) grated carrots
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup mayo
1 teaspoon (or more for desired consistency) lemon juice and/or apple cidar vinegar.

"One head of cabbage" isn't exactly a standard unit, of course, so I generally find I need to double the dressing to get everything covered.

Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St Patrick's Day 2016?

Now that we have a toddler on our hands, we can really only celebrate with food, and this year I kind of failed. I didn't plan ahead, so we had corned beef the day after St . Pat's, and it was the saltiest corned beef I've ever made. However it did spawn this sweet double recipe blog update!!!! So, not a total loss.

Recipe 11:  Irish Soda Bread

The http://m.allrecipes.com/recipe/16947/amazingly-easy-irish-soda-bread/?internalSource=staff%20pick&referringId=1452&referringContentType=recipe%20hub&page=0>
recipefor this comes from All Recipes, and through serendipity, maybe the very recipe my aunt offered to send me a few days ago.
As promised, it was pretty easy. Combine the dry ingredients, cut in the butter, add the wet ingredients. I used sour milk (1 Tablespoon vinegar in enough milk to make a cup) instead of buttermilk, but I also used butter instead of margarine, so hopefully I didn't lose much flavor.

Normally I would use a pastry knife to cut in the butter on a recipe like this, but my son was "helping", so I just used the stand mixer. I used the paddle instead of the pastry hook, but it worked fine and still did some of the kneading for me.  The dough was very soft, and not too sticky. I brushed the top of the loaf with semi-melted butter with a little milk in it (I got too lazy to try to make the real deal). I don't know why the recipe recommends checking the loaf after 30 minutes. For me, it was nowhere near done.

I don't think I've had soda bread before, and I really liked it. Fresh from the oven the crust was like a thick cracker, and the inside was soft and dense. It wasn't very flavorful, but that was actually a good thing since it was served with the world's saltiest corned beef and cabbage. Unfortunately, it pretty quickly became uniformly dry and crumbly, so if you aren't going to eat it the first night, be prepared for a little disappointment when you get into the leftovers.

Recipe 12: Colcannon




Because the corned beef was so salty, I didn't want to just reheat it, so I found this recipe. For some reason, I thought it would be a soup, which it most certainly is not. It is basically super rich mashed potatoes with boiled cabbage and corned beef.

I really don't know what else needs to be said about this recipe - if that description didn't make your mouth water, you are clearly a robot. The one thing I would note is that salting the water you cook the cabbage in is probably a good idea. I didn't (call me gun shy), and I felt like it was just slightly bland. This recipe is definitely going in the "things to do with leftover meat" file. I could see almost any leftover working really well in this, with the right added spices.



Alright! I think I am caught up! There have been twelve full weeks this year, and I've done twelve recipes! It has been a lot of fun to try new things, and it's been nice to see some views on the blog. If anything I make ever reminds you of a recipe, please send it to me! Maybe you'll see my attempt on these very pages.

Sopapillas

This was a super quick recipe, so it will be a super quick blog post!

Recipe 10:  Sopapillas

Taking pictures from below an object is pretty much my only trick to make an "artistic" shot. Note the use of the hood light to add an angelic glow...

Does this really count as trying a new recipe if I just used store-bought raw tortillas instead of making them myself? I'm saying it does. This was definitely a skin-of-my-teeth situation, but since I recently had a double recipe week I'm saying it balances out.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to share my mom's recipe for tortillas, which is much simpler than the Food Network recipe above, and I cannot vouch for its deliciousness.

Basic plain tortillas

2 c flour

1 tsp salt

2 Tbsp oil

Stir together the flour and salt, then drizzle the oil over and stir it in. It should break up into little balls/chunks.

Stir in about 3/4 cup of warm water -- the amount depends on your flour -- and knead until a stiff dough forms.

Cut into 8 pieces (I use a bench scraper), and keep the pieces under the inverted bowl while you work.

Roll out one piece at a time and cook in a hot, dry frying pan. Flip when there are bubbles all over one side.

Let rest in a plastic bag.

The main thing to know about mom's recipe is that it is very difficult to roll out. Expect to have your tortillas tear, especially if you are trying to make them very large. I don't know specifically how this recipe would translate into sopapillas, but I would guess quite well.

Now, on to the Food Network recipe. Like I said, I just used raw tortillas from the HEB. They were the smaller palm sized ones, and not very thick. This ended up making them much quicker to cook than the instructions indicated. The instructions say to roll your tortillas out to a 1/4" thickness, which is incredibly thick. They gave their sopapillas 2 minuted on each side, but if mine were in the pan for a minute total, I would be surprised.

Look at em go!

I also wanted to mention that I used coconut oil instead of peanut oil. I really like having coconut oil around. It stays stable in the cupboard, it is supposed to be good for you, and I haven't run into anything I can't make with it. I've made brownies, cookies, and pie crusts with coconut oil, all with good results. The one big difference is that it doesn't taste like anything, but if you want a butter flavor in your baking I've found using half coconut oil half butter works well.

Anyway! Back to the recipe at hand. I thought the sopapillas turned out really well. They were relatively crispy even the next day, not too greasy, and fun to eat. The one thing I should have done is sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar as they came out of the oil, because once they cooled the sugar just rolled right off.

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Indian Butter Chicken

Well, so much for getting caught up! I plan to try another new recipe today, which will put me two behind. Oh well.

Recipe 9: Indian Butter Chicken

The recipe this week is courtesy of my cousin, who posted some delicious looking pictures of this meal when he made it last month.

I jumped on the chance to get a new butter chicken recipe. I had made it in the past, but it was really labor intensive, and involved simmering a sauce made of butter and heavy cream, so I generally managed to "break" it. (For anyone who hasn't broken a sauce here is a good example and instructions on how to fix it.)

This recipe still required multiple steps, but was much easier to complete. I mostly followed the instructions, but I got paranoid about the chicken not cooking completely in six minutes, so I covered it while it cooked. I don't think this was actually necessary, and did make the yogurt mixture the chicken cooked in look a little strange. I also cooked the chicken in the same pan I had cooked the sauce in (does it freak anyone else out when people call sauce that isn't made from fat drippings "gravy"?), I just wiped it out in between steps. I should also mention that I couldn't find Tandoori BBQ mix, so I used Tandoori Marsala mix instead.

The resulting dish was very satisfying, and quite a bit spicier than butter chicken I've made in the past. I had so much sauce (probaby in part because i heated it *very* gently) that a few days later I mixed it into stir fried rice, and got another large and satisfyingly spicy meal out of it. I also wasn't sure how much ginger to buy, and ended up getting twice what I needed, so I have three ounces frozen in cubes in the freezer for the next time I make stir fry.

Plus, now I have a new website to mine for recipes!

Slow Cooking the Winter Away

Alright! Let's power through a couple of posts and catch up!

Recipe 8:  Slow cooker White Chicken Chili

This is yet another recipe fromBudget Bytes.

I decided to make this before going to the store a few weeks ago, but was apparently not committed enough to actually read the instructions before picking up ingredients. So, some winging occurred.

I have a pretty large crock pot, so I doubled the recipe, as recommended. The main change I made was to use five bone-in chicken legs instead of two breasts. Four servings off one chicken breast? I like Budget Bytes, but I'm not willing to cut back my meat intake to save money to the same extent the author is. Even my mother isn't that Scottish. 

I also bought canned green chilies instead of salsa verde, so I had to add a cup of red salsa to compensate. This made the chili more tea colored then white, but didn't taste too out of place. I also used a yellow bell pepper instead of a jalapeño, because I wanted to be able to offer the chili to my baby.

I also took this opportunity to use up the rest of the great northern beans I had purchased for the White Beans and Sausage. I remembered to soak them overnight this time, and cooked them all day in the crock pot, but they were still a little waxy for my taste. I guess that is just how they are. 

The yeild on this recipe was very good. I believe we ate two dinners and a lunch from it, without really adding sides. I thought it was a little bland at first, so when I reheated it, I added some lime juice, which perked it up. I'm completely willing to conceed that my alterations are probably what made it bland in the first place, so I'll have to try it again sometime with the right ingredients. Since winter seems to be lingering where I live, I'm sure I'll have an opportunity sooner rather than later.