food

Feeling Like Fall

Andrea — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:55:21 -0500

Well, no, it doesn't really FEEL like fall (still SO hot here in Alabama), but at least it's starting to look that way. I spent this afternoon making pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies (recipe courtesy of Heidi Swapp):

and these centerpieces/door prizes for my MOPS meeting tomorrow night:

Found the photo stands at Pier 1 and gussied them up. Our theme this month is "photo booth", so I thought a photo strip of pumpkins was appropriate until people are able to fill the slots with their own photos.

Inside my Freezer...

Andrea — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:13:49 -0500

Inside my freezer, you will find 6 prepared meals, ready to thaw, cook, and eat. I spent about 4 hours this afternoon preparing 7 meals and freezing them for later. (Well, one we ate and one is in the refrigerator for tomorrow...so I guess technically 5 are frozen).

I'm testing out a few recipes from the book "Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer". A few years ago Ben and I bought a round of meals from Dish it U p in Rochester, which follows the same premise...spend one day preparing several meals, freeze them, thaw them and cook them when you're ready. It's meant to help eliminate planning and prep time later on. We weren't thrilled with the Dish it Up meals, but only because they were pretty bland and we like a little more spice and flavor in our meals. Generally we liked having frozen meals ready to cook...as long as we remembered to thaw them in time! So I decided to attempt the same thing on my own.

I don't know for sure yet that it's saved me much time, or money (because I didn't really buy all the chicken i used on sale...if there's a next time, I'll wait for a good sale first), but I'm really hoping that they'll taste great and I'll at least have some new recipes to throw into the mix. I'm pretty tired of tacos, spaghetti, stir fry, and fajitas. It seems like we've been eating the same things for 8 years.

I felt a little bit like a chef must feel in a restaurant, trying to juggle lots of orders and keep track of ingredients. And BOY was it hot by the end of the day! Although the verdict is out on the final product for each meal until we eat it, the prep time went reasonably well. Only one meal looks like a disastrous mess. I just hope it tastes better than it looks. :)

On the menu (I'll try and post reviews as we eat them):

Chicken Cacciatori (will cook in crock pot)
Chicken Parisienne (also a crock pot meal)
Chicken Wellington (the messy one..it's supposed to be crescent roll wrapped stuffed chicken, but my chicken wasn't flat enough to roll and the dough was getting warm and unmanageable)
Cheesy Chicken (basically parmesan chicken)
Spinach and Mushroom Manicotti
Baked Ziti (recipe not from the book)
and tonight's meal: Crustless Spinach and Mushroom Quiche (recipe also not from book)

The Quiche was SO good and very easy to make. So my first attempt at a new recipe (although not from the book and not really a freezer meal), was a huge success. Even Ayla ate spinach and mushrooms without realizing it. :)

So now I'm hot, tired, and need a bowl of ice cream. I think I burned a lot of brain calories today!

btw...the last time I was pregnant, I had a sudden domestic urge to cook too, which is very uncharacteristic of me. So I guess we'll all enjoy it (with the appropriate amount of trepidation) while we can!

Sa-sa-Salsa!

Andrea — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:00:23 -0500

Ben makes world-famous fresh salsa. Seriously...it's so good, and now all of you know about it and this is the world-wide-web. There you have it. World Famous.

Pico De Gallo Salsa:

Mango-Cucumber Salsa:

Ooh...better go get a glass of water, my mouth is burning from the hotness already! Can't you just taste it?

Sorry, I cannot divulge recipe secrets....we might need to start a salsa business one day and if we gave you our recipe, no one would need to buy it from us (sorry, from Ben, not me...I'm just the taste tester and food photographer)!

Have a great day!

Startcooking.com

Andrea — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:08:53 -0600

I ran across this site today in my blog-reading, and I'm LOVING it. It's a web site made for people like me, who aren't even sure how to boil an egg. They have all kinds of step-by-step videos for dummies like me.

http://www.startcooking.com

Check it out!