I'm Baaack!

The last time I posted was April. Three months later I am finally posting again. Three months with no post but don't worry even though there was no posting going on there was still was cooking going on. And definitely eating going on!

 First the soups. Strawberry soup- YUM! I have made similar versions of fruit soup as the one in the cookbook in the past, but this one uses mandarin oranges - which I had never thought to use. I have since made it multiple times - making it the first recipe from the book that I have done more than one time. I also experiment and change up the ingredients. This type of fruit soup will always remind me of my Chicago friend S.S. Its a Keeper!
Next soup is Zucchini Soup. I always can tell if a recipe is successful if my children's friends eat it up and ask for seconds. When D's friend asked for a second bowl, I knew it was a good one. We liked this soup with a little extra pepper.

Next course was salads. Avocado and Hearts of Palm salad. It was so easy and good. I also made a vinaigrette salad dressing. Also good, and I have been using it all week on my salads. Last salad was a barley salad. This was a perfect side dish on a hot Saturday afternoon.

So far so good as we head to the main course. Delicious Balsamic chicken. Now this one was prepared by my Sous Chef, R. I will still count it as I picked it, got all the ingredients and directed R. on how to prepare. You did a great job R, at least the first time. That's how I know that my directions were crucial, is that when R. tried to prepare it again another week without my direct supervision something didn't go quite right. I know there are some out there who would not consider it "made by me" but I count it!

No desserts this time around, but overall a fantastic three months.

Pass on the Passover brownies

Hello out there - some of you may think I had given up on my goal. Admitted my defeat. Procrastinated till another time. Maybe even happy with accomplishing the task of being able to cook something for my family even if its not a new recipe. But , wait, what's that - I am still working at? You got it. It will just take me a lot longer to get through the cookbook. Slow and steady wins the race. I guess I am taking on the role of the tortoise. Good thing that's not in the cookbook.

A pattern has emerged. It seems that the time I am most able to try out new things have been around the holiday time. I guess when you know you will be having lots of family meals its good to have variety.

Passover had arrived a few weeks ago - and there is something so sentimental to me about baking for Passover. I have great memories of baking and preparing with my grandmother, mother and sister for the holidays. It is something I like to share now with my children. We poured, measured, mixed and folded together. I even found an old fashioned manual hand mixer. D got a big kick out of using that to mix the batter, but that only lasted a few minutes before he complained of his hand getting tired then it was back to the Kitchen Aid.

This year we were visiting family the whole time, so what to bring when you show up on the doorstep about an hour before the holiday starts? Desserts!
I made the "I cant believe they are pesach" brownies. Easy enough to make but when they look like a pesach brownie , and smell like a pesach brownie - they probably taste like a pesach brownie. These barely got eaten. We will definitely pass on those.

Another dessert that I made was Mock Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. This happens to be a family recipe that I have made many times over the years. They went over well. I even heard one person comment "There must be something addictive in here - because I cant seem to stop eating them! "

The last dessert I made was not actually from this cookbook. It was a chocolate mousse cake. It came out amazing. The S family were licking the pan clean. There were some similar recipes in the Temptations cookbook that I will for sure try now.

Looking forward to the next holiday where we eat mostly dairy foods. That will give me a chance to work on some sections of the book that I have barely looked at yet.
Fish and Pasta here I come!

Family Fued

I recently moved to a new house and the kitchen is not quite unpacked. As is typical for me I tend to undertake a lot at once- so between moving, unpacking, busy season at work with a long commute, planning A.'s birthday party, and all the regular tasks that come along with managing a household, I volunteer to cook something for the Purim holiday meal we are eating at my sister's house since I can't pass up an opportunity to check off another recipe. I decided to make the Sweet and Sour Brisket, on request from my niece E., and cook it at my parents house. This recipe was pretty straight forward and didn't require too many unusual ingredients that I didn't have so it was a good choice. Time was limited so I went over to prepare the roast on Wednesday night. With my busy schedule I could not go over to my parents house to start until about 10:00 PM. I knew I wasn't going to be able to prepare it, cook it and let it cool all that night, so my mom, graciously volunteered to put it in the oven the next morning - if I prepared it all the night before. As I was slicing and dicing all the vegetables needed, both my parents were keeping me company. Now if you thought back seat baker was bad- wait until you meet the parents. "Be careful with the knife, why are you using that pan?, you should use a different knife..." But can't blame them too much, I was using their kitchen and utensils. Thanks guys- hope I didn't leave too many dirty dishes for you.
At the end the results were great. Brisket was soft and tasty. Some reviews:
Uncle S. - mmm, juicy
Aunt N. - The wine adds a good flavor
Niece E. - its good - I am already thinking of my next request

Results Show

So the results are in - batch number 1 - hamentashen with apricot filling - soft, tasty and eaten up pretty quickly
batch number 2 - delicious chocolate filling (baking chocolate melted ) but slightly over baked- really good inside, but being kept in the oven for about 45 seconds to long, made for quite a crunchy cookie

and the winner is.... some sort of combo of both? Overall the hamentashen were good but had to be super careful not to over bake and to make sure they were stored tightly so they wouldn't get stale. Overall I prefer a really soft hamentashen.

Our next contestant was the Chocolate Mousse Cake. Looked so good in the picture in the cookbook that we must have messed up. I guess that can happen when your sous chefs are 9 yro and 2 yro. Our Mousse cake did not look the same and it didn't taste so good either. I will not accept failure on this one.

I am going to grant this contestant immunity and give it another shot at success.

Cookbook Link

Many people have asked what cookbook I have been using. I am using one called Temptations.
I have attached a link on the side if anyone is interested.

Help Wanted

I have been a little slow in my cooking the past few weeks as I have been traveling out of town.
I was concerned that while I was away my children might fall behind of their homework, forget to bathe or eat cookies for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

No need for me to worry - turns out while I was traveling my children flourished. Not only doing what was expected but actually picking up some new skills along the way. They even began thinking ahead to possible career choices and beginning to develop those areas:

Beautician- giving each other haircuts and yogurt based face masks
Horticulture- attempting to use all house lamps available to help their tu bshvat plants grow
scientist- lots and lots of experiments
Lawyer - worked on establishing a case with supportive evidence to eat Cocoa Puffs for dinner and working on their "gym" homework by playing Wii games.

Thankfully cooking was not one of those things they attempted to "develop" without me.

Now that I am back in the swing of things and ready to cook again I asked my kids what I should prepare for dinner. A. voted for meatballs, so I purchased all the correct ingredients this time and by the time I got home from the store at 10 PM and began preparing the meatballs only then did I notice that the recipe said for them to cook for 2 hours! No way I was going to be able to stay up that late for meatballs. So I halved the recipe and figured I could cook them for about half the time. I think it worked out okay they looked cooked to me and then we have lots of extra tomato sauce to use for the spaghetti.

The other thing my kids requested was desserts - not much of a surprise.
This weekend we will be attempting Chocolate Mousse Cake and finally will work on the hamentashen. Apricot lekvar, chocolate chips, strawberry jam and marshmelow fluff are some of our favorite fillings- What's yours?

Back Seat Baker

Planning menus, grocery shopping and finally the cooking. This is how our family prepares for big family weekends. Uncle J. and Aunt S. and family were coming in to visit for the weekend, so I had another great opportunity to try out some new recipes. My sister and I did most of the work at my mom's house. There is always something special about bonding time in the kitchen. I began with Peanut Butter Chicken. This definitely was by far the most odd combination of ingredients I have ever used for chicken. A shopping cart worthy of an Iron Chef competition. Results- pretty good, pb taste not too overwhelming. Congratulations you advance to the next round!

As I moved on to prepare the desserts, my sister had a request - Chocolate Mousse. I obliged - especially since she had already bought all the ingredients, laid them out on the counter, and prepared fancy individual serving dishes. Can you say Type A personality? As I began to prepare the mousse according to the directions I feel eyes peering over my shoulder, and a little ahem behind me. I turn around its my sister.  "It says - Fold in the marshmellow creme, FOLD not mix." - Who knew there was such a thing as a Back Seat Baker.  Next came the whipped cream. " Don't forget to FOLD it in, not mix" - came the voice of the BSB again. Mousse came out great. Thanks Sis.

Next up Classic Guacamole. It was easy to make with an interesting addition of cumin to taste. It was so good, it practically fed the whole family dinner. Enjoyed by ages 2 until 42.

The next few weeks for me are going to be extremely busy. I have never really been a cook and freeze type of gal,  but I know that if my family is to have any dinner over the next two weeks its either going to come from a take out menu or my freezer. Most of the food I made was easy reliables for me, in order to get a lot done in a short amount of time. I did make a new Finger Lickin Chicken and Meatballs from the cookbook. The problem with cooking and freezing is that you don't have the chance to really taste anything right away. For the chicken I followed the exact recipe, but the meatballs I only had the grape jelly on hand and not some of the other ingredients so I improvised. I talked to the BSB about it and she vetoed it and said it didn't count as actually following the recipe.
 I guess the kids will be eating a LOT of meatballs in the next few weeks.

Cakes, Cookies, and Pie.. Oh My

This week was all about the desserts. We are heading out to visit family this weekend, so I took the opportunity to try some of the desserts. There are actually three sections of desserts in this cookbook - so I guess I will be doing a lot of baking. I actually enjoying cooking better than baking, but I must finish my goal. So I made an apple cake, it seems there are multiple apple cake recipes in the book. I just picked one that had ingredients that I have on hand. The only thing I don't have is a tube pan. So I just baked in a 9 x13 pan. Does it really matter what shape it is? We are going to visit Duncle D. and Aunt S. Problem is Aunt S. doesn't eat any fruit - so not sure if she will sample the cake.
When A. came home from school the delicious smell of the apple cake led her straight to the kitchen. She couldn't resist picking the apples off the top. I hope there are some left by the time we make it to Maryland. I made a coffee cake with chopped pecans. I am always nervous about making anything with nuts because of any allergies - but since it will be mostly adults this weekend I figured it would be safe.
I also did chocolate chip cookies that calls for instant coffee in the dough. Still not sure if that means coffee crystals or liquid coffee. I never was a big coffee drinker but since we had to pick up and move across the county, DD lattes were the only way I was able to make it happen. Now I look for any way to get my caffeine fix!

Apple cake and cookies went over well, even with Aunt S. who doesn't eat fruit. Coffee cake definitely took third place.

Four Pieces

Four pieces. That's right - someone in my family ate four big pieces of chicken. A kid in the family and it was not the 8 yro or the 5 yro. Thanks to Aunt N. because I know it was your recipe in the book. Little E. loved the cracker crumbled chicken. He loved everything about it. He helped prepare it, with some help from Ziploc again and he loved eating it. Loved might be actually be an understatement. Every time I turned around, he was helping himself to some more chicken from the serving dish! This recipe is definitely a keeper.

I finally made the celery soup from last week and although I enjoyed it, no creative name could convince D. and A. to try it. Little E. found another dish he enjoyed. He actually tossed his spoon to the side so he could drink it straight from the bowl. I love how 2 yro will try almost anything.

Also did the Beef with Broccoli, which tasted very much like a dish I already make. I think I will combine my original recipe with this new one to make an even better one. In my first post I stated that I was not good at substituting ingredients but is it really substituting to use frozen broccoli instead of fresh?

I have one more recipe cooking this week. It seems I have raised a family of carnivores. Chicken just doesn't do it for them. Except for R. - he loves chicken - just ask anyone who has hosted us for a meal. Maybe that is where little E. gets it from. The others -nope - they need meat, so I have done the Beef w/ Scallions. This one has a picture in the book. Lets see if mine will look as pretty.

Not too bad!


Next week the kids have school vacation. One activity that will be on our list- baking! Hamentashen anyone?

23 done. 177 to go.

Nothing says get well soon like a nice bowl of ....celery soup

I had my recipes all planned. I was going to attempt the Essence of Celery soup. A soup that would require me to invent a different name before anyone in my family would even consider tasting, but I did not get to use my creative side in the end. My husband R. got sick this week and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to make him some old fashioned Chicken Soup, so the celery/ green lantern/ kryptonyte soup will have to wait until next week.

Back around Thanksgiving time I discovered one of the nice benefits to living in NJ. You could earn yourself a free chicken or turkey from the supermarket just by spending enough money. The only thing I ever got free from the Jewel in Chicago was a new pot. Not too bad either. This frozen chicken has been sitting in my freezer since then and it needed a way out. I looked through my book for a whole chicken recipe. I found the apricot glazed chicken, which had a picture and used a whole chicken - perfect. Recipe was not too complicated and I had all the ingredients at home. Tasted okay but nothing too special. I will attribute it to the fact that I omitted using the dried apricots and only used the apricot preserves.

So far, this cooking week not going so well, but wait, there was still a new side dish still to test out. This led me to a new milestone in my journey - the first dish that I will definitely not be making again. It didn't look good, it didn't taste good and it has some very unhealthy ingredients. Even R. who eats almost anything and hoards leftovers, pretended to look the other way when I tossed it in the garbage.

Hopefully this next week will bring better cooking luck.

17 done. 183 to go.

Help! My cookbook has been hijacked

My cookbook has gone MIA after a weekend visit to Aunt E.'s house. You may wonder what my family ate all week - is it okay for me to cook something not in the cookbook?
Don't worry last night we made tacos and taco salad for dinner. Once my cookbook made its way home and we had our teary reunion, I discovered the taco salad recipe I used was actually in the cookbook, only instead of taco seasoning which I used, it called for fajita seasoning. Not sure what the real difference is between the two but I will definitely be making the taco salad again, as all three of my kids gobbled up the taco salad including the vegetables. Next time I will use the fajita seasoning and try to sneak in more veggies underneath the meat!

When preparing dinner last night, D. (8yro) asked me if there was any brisket left over from friday night. That was the beer braised brisket that was polished off by his friend. hmmm- are you sure the alcohol evaporates out of the meat when cooked? I am not convinced.

Now that I have begun making headway on my project, I am going to begin keeping a tally of how many recipes I have completed towards my goal. The intro to the book says a total of 200 recipes.

15 done. 185 to go.