Four Foods on Friday #129 #130

The week flew by!

I’ve been cooking a little more frequently. The refrigerator has been bare because I procrastinate the grocery shopping chores…. so I cook to give the family leftovers to eat! How’s that for a weird family! I cook so they can eat leftovers! LOL

Well, anyway. Oh yeah, Four Foods on Friday!

#129 The first question is, Is there anything you eat or make that you don’t follow the directions for?

Um, this would be pretty much everything. I am always adding different things (or missing ingredients), etc. I rarely ever follow a recipe perfectly, unless it’s baking cookies. They never turn out very well with experimentation.

#130 This week’s question is, Do you have any food quirks?

This would be pretty much everything! LOL. I guess I am an eccentric kind of cook. But let’s see if I can think of any specifics…

1. I can’t stand fresh or dried tomatoes or tomato juice, but I love spaghetti sauce, cooked tomatoes in soups and stews, etc.
2. I cannot eat breakfast. Even the smell of food before noon makes me feel queasy. I don’t know why that it is. But once noon or 1pm rolls around, I suddenly HAVE to eat something or else I may feel sick. It’s just weird.
3. I sometimes wish I never felt hungry. I wouldn’t eat food if I didn’t feel the hunger. I’d rather just not eat! Sounds like a great method for weight loss, we wouldn’t need those supplements for weight loss anymore! I wish.
4. I don’t like dinner (or supper, as some call it). I’d rather throw together some raw veggies and nuts, or maybe chick peas and feta cheese, and eat that stuff. I don’t like cooking dinner, I don’t like eating dinner. It seems that many women are that way. We’d rather just have a bowl of cereal at the end of the day. But I think we cook because the husband wants dinners. Sad thing is, dinners make women fat. Give me a bowl of cereal any day! LOL

CrockPot App Recipe Review

I mentioned earlier that I downloaded a new app for the iPhone, the Crock-Pot Slow Cooker Recipe Finder app. I’ve been toodling around with it a lot. I’ve built a list of favorite recipes from it. The best thing I like about the app is the ability to save a recipe, and the app with include all the ingredients into a shopping list. It’s make meal planning SO SO easy. I think it’s the best thing about the app. I’m looking for more apps that do similar things. I’ll let you know when I find them) and if you know of any, please let me know!).

Well, I tried the Beef Stroganoff recipe last night. It was “OK.” I’m not a big fan of cream sauces, but the kids like stroganoff. Stroganoff is, I believe, a Russian dish. I find it bland…. I wonder if the Russians really made it as bland, it’s like eating the leather from ugg boots, to me. It always needs more salt and LOTS more spices.

The recipe is a basic Beef Stroganoff (you use beef strips and not ground beef). It has onions, mushrooms, beef broth, Worcestershir sauce, etc. The recipe called for white wine, but I had none so I skipped that. I also usually add some of my own ideas when cooking– I was tempted to add paprika to this recipe to give it some kick, but I decided not to. I wanted to see how this would taste if I made it straight by the recipe. Again, just “OK.”

The recipe also calls for sour cream (another bland ingredient, I think). I added it very carefully, but it still curdled from the heat a little. (I haven’t been able to stop sour cream from doing that for any of my crockpot recipes! I’m going to avoid sour cream altogether next time).

The kids liked it, enough to eat it all! The beef was nice, but a little strong (always is in crockpot). The gravy consistency was good, but bland. I would make this recipe again, but I would spice it up a bit.

I’ll have more from this app (and any future app) to come. I’m looking forward to making some of the chicken recipes, especially a lemon-herb chicken dish that looks great! Stay tuned…

Cold Weather Makes Me Want to Cook…

… but I have been SO BUSY that I haven’t had time to cook! The Hubs is working days and nights lately, so I’m off the hook when it comes to cooking these days. Yeehaw, talk about weight loss pills that work– no cooking helps, too!

Yet the weather has been so pitifully gloomy and cold that I WANT to cook. This time of year is perfect for lentil and ham soup YUMMM, for black bean soup, YUMMM, for lasagna and freshly baked bread and roast chicken and biscuits.. YUMMMM!! But my WAHM work has been overwhelming of late. I also feel a lot of pressure to make money because I am paying off the kitchen renovation, too. I have had no leisure time, no time to just relax, in many months now. I’ve always been a bit of a workaholic, but yow. I’m dog tired.

Things will slow down this winter, hopefully. I am really looking forward to snuggling up in my blanket, reading a good book and sipping hot soup with warm flax seed bread. I also bought some apple cider spices today– with dried nutmeg and cloves!!!— and cannot wait to use it. It will make the house smell SO good.

Do you start to cook more when the weather turns cooler? What do you like to make, breads? soups?

I Boiled Water Today!

That may not sound like bloggable news to you, but it sure is to me!!

We haven’t been able to boil water on the stove in FOUR months. Today was the day, baby! It was like getting new toys, I tell you what!

In case you have no idea what I am babbling about– we have gutted our kitchen and dining room, and are slowly restoring it. It’s been nearly four months since the plaster and lathe was torn out. It’s been a loooooong four months. Yow.

Well, we got the stove hooked up today. It was quite the adventure. In an old house, nothing is level, nothing is predictable. We had to drill a hole up from the basement to snake the electric cable to the service plug. Yeah, rrrright, JUST drill a simple hole, right? I’ll spare you the painful details, but we finally got it after trial #3.

So the son boiled water and boiled some edamame for us tonight. It was SO good. I stuffed myself with them.

Thank God, things are starting to come together.

Four Foods on… Friday? Monday? Tuesday?

I can never seem to get this meme straight. I look for it at Val’s site, but I can’t seem to find it on Friday. Then, when I visit Chatbug Karen’s blog and By the Sea blog, they have theirs posted. I feel left out. lol.

Well, even though FFFF #119 has been issued, I’m going to try to play catch up with the previous ones first. The questions are interesting. Sorry I am so inconsistent with this meme!

1. Do you prefer soft serve ice cream or hard ice cream?

Ice cream is ice cream! I’ll eat it either way.

2. What is the strangest sandwich you’ve ever made?

I’ve probably made a lot of weird stuff… recently, we make hummus wraps. They are very good, and very filling. But because hummus is a food that people either love or hate, our sandwich gets strong reactions. You can see our recipe with photo here.

3. What’s your favorite type (not flavor) of potato chip?

Anything but the ripped. I don’t like those. They are too heavy and crunchy.

4. What size spoon do you usually eat soup with at home?

I don’t eat soup. Yuk. OK OK, on those RARE occasions that I do eat soup, it’s with a regular spoon.

Here’s FFFF #119. I like the questions because they are “language” oriented. I like learning about how other cultures interpret words.

1. How do you pronounce manicotti? Men-e-got, man-i-cotti or some other way?

I don’t think I have ever said this word, just read it. And I live in an Italian area! I guess it’s man-i-cotti here.

2. What do you can the carbonated drink that comes in a bottle? Soda, tonic, pop, fizzy or something else?

Soda. I have never heard a northerner say “pop.” I always thought southerners said it that way. I have never heard any northerner say “tonic,” either. You suuuuure he wasn’t pulling your leg, Val?

3. What do you call a sandwich on a long roll? Sub, grinder, hoagie, hero, poor boy or something else?

A sub.

4. Do you call it broth, boullion or stock? How do you make chicken stock?

I have always thought the three were entirely different entities. Broth is the cooked juices of meat without the addition of vegetables, isn’t it? Stock is the cooked juices of meat with vegetables, isn’t it? (Or are they the other way around??). Boullion is flavored powder pressed into cubes, no? How do I make chicken stock? Well… most of the time I buy the cans. Sometimes when I am extremely motivated, I cook the carcass. Right now, I can’t cook because I don’t have a kitchen yet. Here’s hoping I can save up all my nickels and aj madison coupons and finish this kitchen by the end of August!

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