Rotisserie Chicken

Hope everyone had a fabulous holiday season. We traveled 3 hours to spend Thanksgiving with part of my side of the family then we spent Christmas here with my husband's family. A baby's first Christmas is always such a special thing seeing them explore all of these new sights and sounds. Evie enjoyed the wrapping paper the most and then got her first tooth the day after Christmas. Our New years was spent camping out on the living room floor with the girls with every pillow we could find in the house watching the ball drop on tv.  Times like that are the most fun and more special.

I've been looking for some new crock pot recipes to make my life easier but don't involve more soup or stew or covering a piece of meat in liquid. I'm trying out the Crockpot Rotisserie Chicken from Semi Homemade Mom today. We get these great little chickens from a local meat market that have been tasty no matter how you cook them but I'll let you know how it turns out. Do you have any favorite crock pot recipes?

Roasting Pumpkins

Thanks for listening to my little rant yesterday. I feel better and I'm going to love every minute not trying to make myself something I think others would like.

Growing up, we never carved our pumpkins. We painted them with acrylic paint so it could be washed off and my mom could cook the pumpkins. I picked up a couple of leftover pie pumpkins the other day because, well, we never got around to buying any for Halloween.

In case you ever wanted to know, this is how to bake a pumpkin... or at least how I do it!

First, wash your pumpkin. Then cut it in half with a good sharp knife. I've heard a serrated knife will slip less. I have no idea if that's true or not, but be careful.  I actually put an oven mitt on my left hand that was holding the pumpkin as I cut with my right. Scrape out all of the seeds and flesh. A grapefruit spoon, you know the spoon with the little teeth on the end, works great for this. Place the pumpkin cut side down in a baking dish or roasting pan and poke a few holes in the skin with a fork. Bake at 350 degrees until your pumpkin is done. This little pie pumpkin only took 30 minutes. When it's done you'll have soft steamy goodness that can be used where ever you would use can pumpkin. When it comes out of the oven, I flip it over, cut side up and let it cool, then spoon it out of the skin and refrigerate for a couple days or put it in the freezer to keep longer.

Applesauce Production

I've got a big production going in the kitchen right now and it's really making me feel like myself again. The whole world stopped when I was pregnant with Miss G just to make sure that she stayed put and was healthy and then I only had a very small garden this year. Oh how I've missed all of it! My husband and the girls and I went to the apple orchard this morning and picked 20+lbs of apples and then bought another variety in their market that wasn't able to be picked. Now the rest of my Friday is going to be spent making applesauce. I don't like making applesauce with one straight variety. I think it gives it a better flavor if you mix two or more varieties. Normally I go for a Gala/Fuji mix but this year I'm doing a Gala/Golden Delicious mix because Goldens were the only variety we could pick today that we like.

101 ways to cook Eggplant

As much as I love eggplant, I have a hard time finding a variety of ways to cook it. I can only think of 3 ways! The only way I remember my mom making it was breaded and fried. When I started growing eggplant myself we starting making eggplant parmesan. This year I added ratatouille to that list of what to do with eggplant but I have so many more eggplants waiting to be picked and as much as I love fried eggplant, I don't want to fry all of them. Do you have a favorite way to make eggplant?

This is the breading recipe my mom always used:

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 slightly beaten egg

1 cup milk

1 Tbsp vegetable oil

1 medium eggplant, peeled and sliced into rounds or cut like fries

Add salt to flour, stir in egg and oil and gradualy add milk. I tend to only use 3/4 cup of milk. I think using the whole cup makes the batter too runny. Dip eggplant in batter and fry in hot oil. I have also adapted the recipe for my own family by adding other seasoning into the flour - Mrs. Dash or a combination of seasonings that I'm in the mood for! I also lightly salt the eggplant when it's done frying.

Pantry Raid

One of the things that I do miss about not having satelite or cable is the Food Network. There are a few shows on PBS that I enjoy - L's Italy and America's Test Kitchen but I can't say I've ever cooked a recipe from either for them. I was searching around Netflix last night looking for something, anything to watch and I found a show from 2007 called Pantry Raid. I have no idea if the show is still on the air but the first season is on Netflix. After watching a couple of them it inspired me that I could whip up something from our pantry without having a recipe. My husband is the throw something together from the pantry kind of person, not me. I need a recipe and I get in a rut of not having something ready for dinner because I didn't have the right ingredients for a recipe. As I type I have steamed corn and a salad from lettuce and radishes that I picked this morning waiting for the breaded pork chops that are in the oven. I did it! It's not a fancy dish, but I put something together without having a recipe.... and the oven is beeping me. Time to eat!

The Dreaded Cookbook Shelf

You are probably tired of seeing my disorganized messes but it's holding me accountable for finishing organizing. This is how my cookbook shelf looked tonight. Since then I've taken everything off, dusted, found other better homes for misc. stuff and put back the cook books.

The problem:

What do you do with all of the recipes you've printed from online? Taken out of magazines?

I think I need to start by paring it down to recipes that we've actually tried. Maybe I shouldn't keep so many in the "want to make" pile.

Tasty Tuesday

I made a combination of the Stuffed Zucchini Boats and the Crunchy Stuffed Zucchini Boats recipes from Kraft Foods.

1. Don't miss the step about par boiling the zucchini. Thankfully cowboy likes his vegetables on the crunchier side and loved this.

2. I was trying to make this a light meal and it needed something more to the filling. Next time I make this we are going to put ground Italian sausage in the filling and more fresh tomatoes.

3. Plant more zucchini and yellow squash next year so I can have enough to try all these zucchini recipes I'm finding now at the end of the growing season.

and the garden keeps growing and growing...

L and I did a large picking of lettuce which we added to some we had in the fridge from previous days and we finally had enough for wilted lettuce salad! Yum! Wilted lettuce is a taste of summer from home for me. We always made it with the abundant lettuce from grandpa's garden.

It's never just the same as mom made it but the recipe is as follows: Cook your bacon, reserve 1/8 cup of grease. Combine 4 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar and 4 Tbsp. sugar, stir until sugar is dissolved. Add reserved bacon grease and a diced small onion. Now, here's the part I'm wondering about, my mom always took the dressing and microwaved it until hot but there were many occasions that it cooked too long and exploded in the microwave. I'm wondering now if it wouldn't be easier to just heat it back up on the stove again, not as fast, but it might take the exploded risk out! Anyway, crumble the cooked bacon over a big bowl of lettuce (or spinach) and pour the hot dressing on. Toss and eat immediately!

Also in the photo are 3 tiny yellow squash. I've been having trouble with end rot on my yellow squash, lost about 8-10 but these 3 hadn't started rotting so I picked them quick! They made a one serving lunch for me. Chopped them up, steamed them and put butter and parmesan cheese on it.

Happy Summer Eating!!

Tasty Tuesday: Budget Addition

Yes, this is a budget addition thanks to a very short grocery budget this week.

My wonderful husband has recently decided he links tuna. I think it was that he has never tried it before! Now that I can buy and make things with tuna, canned tuna that is, my mom shared a few recipes that she makes.

Today I made another batch of cold tuna pasta. The basic proportion is 1 can of tuna to 1 cup of elbow macaroni. Measure the cup when the pasta is dry before you cook it. It's as simple as cooking the pasta, draining it (and I rinse it off to cool it off so I can eat the pasta sooner), mixing it with a drained can of tuna. The other ingredients to mix in are all to your own taste - diced sweet pickles, diced celery, mayo(I do not like mayo so I use miracle whip type salad dressing) and just a touch of yellow mustard.

I made a few modifications today. I added 2 tablespoons of milk to add a little more creamy-ness, although I think I could have added more. Also, we didn't have any celery so I made 2 different batches, one with fresh chives from our garden and the other for Dh with green onions(the white and the tops). He will probably make his hotter by adding hot sauce to it when he eats.

Tasty Tuesday: Layered Enchilada Bake

I thought I wasn't enjoying doing Tasty Tuesday, but I realized if I knew I wanted to post a recipe, I would actually find a recipe and have a good dinner, not a last minute throw it together, not that tasty of a dinner

So tonight I made a Layered Enchilada Bake. Recipe was found at Kraft Foods.

Authentic? No... Healthy? Probably not... Tasty? Yes!!

Tasty Tuesday

Even if no one is reading this blog, I am having a blast having a place to put my random thoughts!

Today for lunch I made this Turkey and Vegetable Sandwich from Kraft Foods. This is actually the second time I've made this, but this time was a more successful version since we actually remembered to buy the artichokes.

One thing I really try to do is modify recipes to things that we have in the house regularly. In this recipe it is the focaccia bread, while it is delicious, wheat bread is easier for us to have around. I chopped up and mixed the mixture with the Italian mix, but I used jarred roasted red bell peppers and fresh green bell pepper as well as a mix of black and green olives. I built my sandwich as instructed on 2 pieces of butter wheat bread and places it on the good old George Foreman and turned it into my own make-shift panini sandwich. Tasty! Even my picky 2 1/2 year old took a few bites of my sandwich!

I love Henrietta!

I think I have tried every "perfect hard boiled egg" tip out there, literally. There is something about my house that does not like to boil eggs. Weather it be the water, pots, stove or a combination, I have tried bottled water, switching pots, etc and I still loose half the egg with the shell. Even my mom, who can make perfect eggs at her house, tried at our house and they were still horrible. All of my egg troubles ended today when my husband and I went to buy a new frying pan, we also bought the Henrietta Hen egg cooker and tried it as soon as we got home. After a long 15 minutes waiting for them to cook, the eggs are perfect! My hard boiled egg nightmares are over! Every single egg peeled perfectly and the yokes are perfectly cooked!

I love my Henrietta!

Yes, it's the simple things in life that excite me!

Nut Free Granola

I LOVE nuts, there is no doubt about it. Black walnuts and peanuts are probably my favorite, but I married a man who is allergic to every type of nut. In the past 6 years since we've been married I have mostly written off old family recipes that included nuts since my husband couldn't eat them, until this year. I have been hungry for granola. I remember making yummy nut filled granola with my mom as a child. I mentioned this to my husband and he said he would be willing to try some if I left the nuts out. In my awe and amazement, he loved my first try!

There are some things I want to tweak and try different recipes as well, but this was my first try, based on this recipe from food network's Alton Brown. It ended up a little sticky and the sunflower seeds are a little over toasted since they were dry roasted to start with it was a good first try!

These were the ingredients I used instead of the ones listed on the recipe.

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup craisins
• 1/2 cup chopped dried apricots