New Name, New Look and New Recipe!

Now it will be even MORE exciting to write in here because while my sister was in town, she gave me some "blogging" lessons so I can do things like add labels, links and also ways to spruce it up.  Along with the new look, we came up with a new name and I am stoked beyond belief!

She and my niece flew in from Fort Lauderdale Thursday night, and we were so blessed to have family time all day Friday and Saturday and part of Sunday, also with my brother who just hit 5-0 last Thursday.  I asked him what he wanted for dinner on Saturday night (when we would officially celebrate) and he answered exactly how I thought he would - Mom's Beef Stroganoff!

Talk about teamwork - my niece, daughter and I did the grocery shopping while my sister helped Brad with some errands on Saturday.  We were ready to roll with prep work at 3:30 or so, and divvied up the tasks amongst all of us so that it would all get done.  And the result was amazing!!!

The first step was to get the Ribbon Pie going - that is also one of Mom's famous recipes that Brad loves.  The first step is to cook the pie crusts, something I forgot until the first layer of pudding was done, but it worked out fine.  Here is the recipe for one pie - we made two, but you can adapt for one.

Ribbon Pie

Pie crust (cook according to instructions)
1 small box of instant vanilla pudding mix
1 small box of instant chocolate pudding mix
Milk (see boxes for directions on how much)
Cool Whip

Bake the pie crust according to instructions and while it is cooking, prepare the vanilla pudding according to the instructions.  Once the pie crust cools, fill halfway with vanilla pudding.  Refrigerate and let set for 2 hours.  Once it is set, make the chocolate pudding according to instructions, and layer over the vanilla pudding.  When ready to serve, spread cool whip all over the top.  Can you say DELICIOUS?!?

I then started on the beef stroganoff, another easy recipe, but I had to laugh at the lack of measurements in my mom's original recipe.

Mom's Beef Stroganoff

Cut round steak in cubes.  Salt, pepper and flour.  Brown with 1 medium onion (chopped) and one clove of garlic (minced).  Add 1 can of undiluted beef bouillon soup (or 2 beef bouillon cubes) and 1 cup of water.  Simmer until tender.  Add sour cream during the last 5 minutes.  Serve over cooked egg noodles.

So you may be wondering - how much of everything?  We bought 3 pretty good sized packages of the meat - since 3 of the folks we would be serving were grown men who like their meat and potatoes.  After I did all the simmering, I put it all in the crock pot to continue to slow cook.  I added about 1/2 container of sour cream.  We cooked 2 packages of the "No Yolks" egg noodles and had TONS leftover - will probably be making some kind of soup tonight since the fridge is STILL not working properly.

We put together an amazing salad with greens, fat free feta cheese, strawberries, walnuts, avocado slices, and mangos along with some rolls and Brad was one HAPPY camper!  A super fun birthday celebration for my awesome brother.

Uh oh...I was about to upload pictures and that icon is missing.  Somehow I was able to upload the pie picture above, but I have made a LOT of changes.  Will publish this for now and look for it later!!!

YAY!  Finally got my old toolbar back!  Won't even say how long it took, but here are some pics of the yummy dinner!  Beef stroganoff just isn't a "sexy" meal, so though it does not look as appealing, it really was tasty!

Banana Bread (Crumble)

Since it's trivia night (so no food pictures), I figured I could share my recent baking debaucle.  How I managed to screw up my mom's tried and true banana bread is just beyond me.  Oh wait - I actually know why.  I am not a baker as self-admitted.  And as embarrassed as I am to admit this (but said I would stay true to everyone), I made the mistake of confusing a bundt pan with a large copper ice mold.  I knew the copper pan didn't look quite right - but - it  had pretty much the same shape so I figured it would work.  I then learned that it was much more shallow (evidenced by all of the batter that overflowed and burned onto the bottom of the oven and made for a horrid stench instead of having that yummy "my grandmother is baking something" scent).  What makes it more ironic is to see my note in the actual recipe below!

Anyways, this is a great recipe to use up over-ripe bananas IF you use the right pan.  Honestly, we still enjoyed it.  Just wouldn't have been something I proudly served.

Mimi’s Famous Banana Bread
Ingredients:	Directions:
·         1 cup sugar	Grease pan (best if in bundt pan).  Cream margarine.  Add sugar, eggs and the flour which you will sift with baking soda.  Mash the bananas in a separate bowl with lemon juice.  Add those to the sugar mixture and add the nuts.  Bake in bundt pan at 350 for one hour or until done.  You could probably use another size pan like an 8 x 8, but you’ll want to bake it for less time and keep an eye out for it.  Or maybe do muffins???
·         2 sticks margarine
·         2 cups sifted flour
·         2 eggs
·         2 tsp lemon juice
·         3-4 ripe bananas
·         1 tsp baking soda
·         ¼ cup nuts (chopped pecans)

And here we have it...a crumbled (but tasty) mess!!  I'm thinking it will be a yummy topping for oatmeal or yogurt!



On a brighter note, we did some AWESOME back to school shopping today!  Scored 5 pairs of shorts, 5 shirts, and a dress for $115.  This was between Kohls, Ross, TJ Maxx and Target!  And as for the shorts, they are all too big in the waist so she can wear a belt this year and just take it in a notch each year (hopefully).  Here is the score from Kohls.  Gotta love it when you save 3 times what you spent.  Oh - and earned $10 in Kohls cash!

My Chicken Challenge Victory

When I first started thinking about this blog, I wanted to try new ingredients and new recipes, as well as new "methods", for lack of a better word.  I realized that I have never in my life cut up a whole chicken, even though I seriously can't ever think of my mom buying chicken that was already cut up.  At 79 cents a pound, and with this in mind, I decided to tackle her "Orange Chicken", complete with the cutting of the chicken.  Here is the end result; vegetarians, shield your eyes when I get to the starting pictures!

Again, thank goodness for the internet so that I could watch a few videos and some illustrated diagrams of how to actually cut a chicken.  Let's just say that it is MUCH harder than it looks.  For my first attempt, my pieces were in relatively good shape, and if I try it again, I hope to improve.  In addition to cutting it, I boiled the bones which I strained for homemade chicken stock which I used with water to boil the brown rice in tonight.

So after tackling that task, the perfect recipe to use was my mom's tried and true recipe, a flavorful and moist way to cook the chicken pieces.

"Orange Chicken" or Chicken A La Mimi

1 chicken, cut up
1/2 cup orange juice
1 tsp mustard (I used dry - not sure what Mom used to use!)
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1 clove minced garlic (not in mom's original, but I added)
A few drops of worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup oil (I used olive; mom probably used vegetable)
1/4 cup white wine
1 can mushrooms, drained (I omitted b/c the rest of my family doesn't like them)

Blend all but the chicken, wine and mushrooms above in a blender.  Add wine to the liquid.  Pour over chicken and bake at 425 for one hour, turning and basting ½ way through.  Add drained mushrooms (if you are including) the last 10 minutes.  I actually flipped the chicken over 1/2 way through since I couldn't find my baster, and also put the oven on broil for two minutes after the chicken was done to give it some crisp.

I boiled a bag of brown rice in 1/2 water with 1/2 of my homemade chicken stock, reheated the roasted butternut squash and did some baked zucchini slices, dipping them in egg white and then a mixture of breadcrumbs and parmesan and cheese.  For the zucchini, I put them in with the chicken at 425 and did 5 minutes on one side, then flipped them and did around 8 minutes the other side.  They were nicely golden brown.  I added in a salad, and voila, dinner was on the table. 

I've been typing this on commercials while watching the Olympics Ladies Individual Beam and Floor Exercise events and just realized that I am going to be going through withdrawals after tonight!  I can still remember my days as a gymnast - if only my talent matched the heart I had for the sport.  I can remember literally running down the stairs in my parents house to do front flips and round off back handsprings in the living room.  That house on Bonnington Court sure did have a lot of wonderful memories, usually built upon the gathering of people and my mom's cooking.

Well, the floor exercise just ended, and that was the coolest music I have heard - a bit of a take on a Pink Floyd song I believe?  All I can say is YAY for Ally Raisman - what an incredibly beautiful performance.  I'll have to be sure to check the listings for any events coming up because it has been an amazing gymnastics Olympics!

I was going to include my "Banana Bread Crumble" which was supposed to be Banana Bread, but I'm going to save that for tomorrow so I can finish my book (The Language of Flowers - by Vanessa Diffenbaugh) and get some sleep!

Ciao for now ;)

A Vegetarian Meal!

I needed a dish tonight that didn't call for too many ingredients, and this was because our kitchen fridge went on the fritz today.  Instead of the 37 degree temp it was supposed to be, it was 52...and kept on rising throughout the day.  Luckily, we have a refrigerator in the garage, and I quickly stocked that and also filled a cooler with other items (mainly tightly sealed sauces etc).  Once the fridge was completely cleaned out, I realized that it also needed some major CLEANING which I did - scrubbing and wiping until I was satisfied.  Ewwww...this will definitely inspire me to do a deep clean on the fridge more often! 

So...as I was putting the perishables in either the garage fridge or the cooler, I thought about what recipes called for a small amount of ingredients.  The first one that came to mind was a Pasta that featured a Creamy Butternut Squash Sauce.  I bought the squash the other day knowing this was going to be a new "try" and I checked the other ingredients and score - I had them all.

I think I mentioned that one of my goal is to work with new ingredients at least once a week with a goal of trying out new foods 3-4 times a week.  I want to learn how to peel them, cut them, make them.  I am interested in the textures and tastes and intrigued by how many items are out there that I have never once tasted, let alone cooked.

Butternut squash was one of those.  Growing up, my mom made yellow squash, and I have to say, I HATED it.  She baked it and I hated it.  She put it in a cheese squash casserole and I hated it.  It's cousin the rutebaga I hated even more...so let's just say that I have never really set out incorporating root vegetables into any of my creations.

Reading this recipe made me want to try it.  My first lesson was in cutting the butternut squash.  I just can't tell you how thankful I am for the internet; I watched a video and read some different articles.  The most interesting discussion seems to be whether or not to peel the skin, so in my adventurous quest for perfection, I did both.  One of the squash I cut in half, removed the seeds, peeled and diced.  The other one I did the same but kept the skin on.  I roasted both in cubes on two separate pans for 30 minutes at 400 degrees, and I have to say that the taste really didn't matter at all.  I did realize that I had an awful lot of diced squash, so decided to use the one with the skin for the pasta sauce and the one that was peeled as simply a roasted vegetable.

Penne with Butternut Squash Cream Sauce
She adapted from Tart Reform and I adapted a bit from hers

Ingredients:

• 1 lb pasta (I used a mixture of rigatoni and rotini)
• 2 lb butternut squash  (I used one squash for the sauce and the other for a side dish)
• 1 cup half and half  - yogurt might be a viable substitute but I went with the real thing
• 1/2 cup parmesan plus more to top - you bet I used a little more on top
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg (optional - I did not use any)

1. Dice squash and roast in a 400 degree oven for 30-45 minutes, until fork tender
2. When squash is done, transfer to a pot on the stove, add half and half, and puree with an immersion blender until smooth.  Stir in nutmeg.  (Ruh roh.  I don't have an immersion blender and wasn't even sure of what one was!)  I used an old fashioned potato masher and just got it as smooth as I could which was still creamy.
3. While the puree heats to a boil, cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling, salted water, until al dente. I went ahead and stirred the parmesan cheese directly into the squash mixture and added a touch of the pasta cooking water.  I only used a little bit of the pasta cooking water b/c I knew I wasn't mixing directly with the pasta.  If you were mixing the sauce with the pasta, you would probably want to use the full 1/4 cup.  But I knew my 15 year old would want her pasta without any sauce and didn't want it to get too watery)

That's it - it's all done and was delicious.  I served the roasted diced squash (sprinkling with salt and pepper and roasting for a few extra minutes to make them crispy.  They tasted a lot like baked sweet potato fries.  Added a green salad and that made a meal!  Unfortunately, for some reason my photos did not come through on my phone.  NO IDEA of what happened, but imagine a plate of rigatoni and rotini topped with a delicious sauce made of pureed butternut squash and half and half, with a side of roasted diced butternut squash and a side salad.  Tasty, healthy and very filling.