Saturday in the Kitchen & WDB #17

Today I felt like baking. Over at Cookie Madness, there are a plethora of tried and true cookie recipes, complete with pictures. I chose the Travis House Cookies. These are made with an egg-white base, brown sugar, and pecans. I am trying to 'clean out' my pantry and freezer, so I also added 1/4 cup of mini-chocolate chips.

These were very sweet--I think next time I'd omit to chocolate chips because they are plenty sweet as is. They are chewy in the middle and crispy on the outside. This cookie is definitely a repeater.

Dinner was a salad. Mixed greens, toasted pecans, red bell pepper, red onion, cucumber, avocado slices, bosc pear, and a piece of crumbled bacon all topped by a Gorgonzola vinaigrette that I whipped together loosely based on this recipe from Bobby Flay. It was very tasty and I am stuffed.
For the vinaigrette, I only used about 1/4 t. of bacon drippings, heated the white wine vinegar in the pan I cooked the bacon in, added olive oil, garlic, oregano, S&P, and heated. I then whisked in Gorgonzola cheese. This was very good--the Gorgonzola didn't overpower but complimented the flavors of the vegetables nicely.



For this weekend's Dog Blog, here's a flashback to my pups' younger days. Check out Sweetnicks Sunday night for all of the other cute pups out in blog land.

This is Harley at about 10 weeks. Look at those feet! We knew he was destined to be a big boy, but we had no idea...


And here's Peanut at about 8 weeks. She was still tiny, but had grown some from the 7 lbs. she was when I brought her home.


Togetherness. Actually, Peanut was lucky in her younger days that Harley didn't bite her head off. He could've on many occasions--I even have a picture where they are playing and her head is in his mouth!
Found it!

Friday Night Dinner

TGIF! I am exhausted--it's been 'one of those weeks'. It doesn't feel like I'm just off of Christmas break. It feels like I haven't had a break in WEEKS. So goes my world. At least I have a 3 day weekend ahead. I brought a big basketful of work to ponder. I have a ton of documentation things to get done.
I went to Sprouts tonight on my way home from work. I stocked up on veggies, so hopefully will eat more healthfully at least for the next week! They also had chicken thighs for .79/lb. (I guess that's cheap--I've never purchased them before!)

I generally don't like the dark meat (unless it's part of good fried chicken). B,ut, in an effort to be more budget conscious, I decided I'd try them.
I made Oven-Fried Chicken Thighs and mashed potatoes topped by sauteed garlic mushrooms. I looked at a recipe of Robin Miller's (Food Network) and made a few minor changes to the spices used (and I didn't measure). Not bad, a recipe I may want to play with later. I definately think I'd like this better with boneless skinless chicken breasts.

OK, so the picture is ugly because my plating and photography are pretty bad (and this picture is a bit blurry. Oops). Add to that is the fact that there is nothing but BLAH colors on my plate. I guess I shouldn't apply for any food stylist positions anytime soon.

Pepperoni Pie

ETA: Lunch was a huge hit. I had requests for the Pepperoni Pie recipe. It's all gone now. This isn't light (I did use low fat milk :) ), it will be a repeater for those times it's not just me eating. It comes together quickly and is delicious! That's Sweetnicks!

Tonight I made Pepperoni Pie, from Sweetnicks site. It's to take to school tomorrow for our lunch bunch. I forgot to go to the grocery store (worked late, ate out) so i had to scramble to get a side dish together. I'm almost embarassed to say what it was. Fresh garlic, onion, and baby bellas sauteed and then I added frozen corn, a little bit of half and half, butter, S&P. There you have it. My very ungourmet side dish.
I pulled some banana bread out of the freezer for dessert.
This is what I do when I get home at 9:30. Ungourmet, quick, thrown together.

I'll have to review the Pepporoni Pie tomorrow. Until then..

Is it Friday yet?

So, I think the food part of my blog will have to be put on hold once again. Right now, work is so crazy and I'm usually so exhausted that cooking (or eating) is not much of a priority.
I got to work at 7:30 and left at 7:15. I had to run some errands (one for work) and it was almost 9 when I got home.
Now, I need to go take a shower, wash my hair of the baby food that got in it from a flying spoon today (at least it wasn't the spinach), and crash.

One recipe I did try earlier this week was Cranberry Bog Gorp. This is a simple, quick snack mix that has satisfied my sweet tooth the last few nights. Butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, and a bit of curry to make it a bit different are melted together, than mixed with dried cranberries, walnuts, and pretzels.
Next time, I may add a dash of cayenne to give it a little kick. The curry gave it a different flavor, but it wasn't strong nor did it give any heat.

Cranberry Bog Gorp

1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp curry powder
1 1/2 cups dried cranberries
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped walnuts and/or slivered almonds
1 1/2 cups pretzel nuggets, lightly salted

1. Preheat oven to 300F. Melt butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup in large pot over medium heat. Stir in cinnamon and curry powder. Add cranberries, nuts, and pretzels, and stir to combine.
2. Spread mixture on greased jelly-roll pan. Bake 15 minutes or until mixture is crunchy and lightly browned.

Makes 20 servings.

WDB #16

Check out Sweetnicks site for this weekend's edition of Weekend Dog Blog. I'm joining in late...so you can just see mine here. :) I brought Miss Tilly home for the weekend. They are all getting more used to each other, though this was only the second time I got her out this weekend. She such a social butterfly, and the dogs just want to sniff her all over.

Wireless

Well, after too much time and who knows what, my laptop is back online. I honestly don't know what I did, but it worked. Blind luck.

Anyhow, here is a picture from my parents' house last week. One of my favorite things there are the sunsets. I think I've said that before. I missed the most part of it, and this looking a bit north west. The colors were much more vivid in person.

Beef and Barley Soup

OK, so I've had computer troubles so my hope of going to bed early were shot once again. TGIF tomorrow.

I worked late (again) and was craving soup. I had ground beef, mushrooms, celery (not sure when I bought THAT, but it wasn't completely limp yet), corn, onion, Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes, mushroom broth, and barley. Season w/ S&P, a bay leaf, and cayenne and that was dinner. Not bad for throwing a bunch of stuff together.
I took a picture, but I've been on the phone w/ tech support (actually my BF's husband) for 2 hours, plus 1/2 hour prior to that was Verizon. We finally called it a night are are going to revisit tomorrow. My desktop is finally connected (obviously) but my laptop is screwed up.

So, until later...Happy Friday!

How about a patty melt?

I worked late, was tired, came home and went for one of the easiest things next to takeout. This is sort of a modified patty melt as I've never had one with feta cheese before, but that's what I had on hand. My original plan was a hamburger, but I am out of buns, tomatoes, lettuce, etc. But I do have mushrooms, bacon, onions, and wheat bread.
I was going to do a side of either corn or green beans (gotta get a veggie in) but was talking on the phone to my parents and forgot. No biggie--I couldn't eat all of this anyway.

OK, so the colors don't make for the most pleasing picture. Oh well. It was still good.

Dinner: Creamy Pea Soup

I went out on a limb and tried something new to me tonight. I ate peas as a child, but as an adult have come to associate them with cafeteria style buffet lines. Don't know where I get that from, but I do. So, when I saw this recipe on The Savory Notebook, I decided to give it a shot. I had to make a few subs--the grocery store did not have shallots or Boston Lettuce. I used sweet onion and bought a pre-mixed salad bag and picked out the Boston Lettuce. I also added the juice of half a lemon.

While this was OK, it was not a flavor combination I was crazy about. It was too sweet (duh! It's made with sweet peas!). However, it was a good easy weeknight fix. I didn't want anything that left me feeling miserable. I have leftovers, so will repeat this tomorrow.

This does remind me of a creamy asparagus soup I haven't made in a few years. Hmmm..need to pull that recipe out. It was a winner, except for that funny thing asparagus does to your . . . well, you know.

The First Low of 2006

OK, so in the scheme of life, this is not really a low. Much worse could happen and happen every day to other people. I just want to whine a bit.

Turns out my garage door opened has gotten finicky. Sometimes it'll open 75% of the way and stop. I haven't figured out why (dad told me to oil the chain--that's on the agenda for tomorrow). So, today I leave. I hit the garage door to open it (can you tell where this is going?). I go around to my side, get in, glance in the mirror--I was checking to see if the trash pickup happened today, and hit reverse. I slowly back out. Wait! What's that noise. Well Sh!t. The door only opened 75% and was scratching the top of my SUV. Do I sit there or pull back in? I was afraid the door wouldn't budge, so I pulled back in. The only damage seems to be to my radio antenna. The top is scuffed some, but it looks like stuff that should buff out. The door is OK. I guess it's good it opened as far as it did, or else I would have went through it. However, if that were the case, I would have noticed as I did check my mirror.

I turned the radio off and the antenna did go back down, though it is broken in the middle. When I got home, I turned the radio on and it came back out--part of it. Now it won't go back in. I guess to drive it I need to wrap/tape a towel around the wire part coming out so it doesn't scratch my car to pieces. I drive a foreign car, so I imagine this is not a cheap fix at the dealership. I'll try another place tomorrow. Geez.

OK, vent over. That's all for now.

ETA: My little mishap cost me $140 at the dealership. I wrapped saran wrap around the external piece so it wouldn't scratch my car. Imagine my surprise and embarassment when the guy laughed and just pulled it out and threw it away.