Cook More Veggies

The great thing about cooking extra veggies is that you can have a large selection of leftovers to choose from.


Steak with broccoli, home grown kale, sweet potatoes and mushrooms.


The toddler ate it.

Strawberry Shortcake

I love the idea of strawberry shortcake but actually I like strawberries and cream with cake cake.

Pizza

I don't think the toddler has had anything but homemade pizza once.


This is caramelized onion, yellow pepper and bacon with fresh mozzarella pizza.


This is turkey pepperoni, genoa salami pizza.

Because Kia asked

Fried Chicken

(This is what we did last night)

8 Drumsticks
1/3 cup hot sauce
1/3 cup salt
Water

Flour
Salt
Two pinches cayenne pepper
Four pinches baking powder
Four pinches black pepper


Take the first four ingredients in a large bowl and soak in the refrigerator for at least four hours or over night.

Combine the next five ingredients in another large bowl.

Drain the chicken.

Put in the seasoned flour mixture. Let it rest for ten minutes so it gets a nice crust then put in hot oil. Fry until golden brown and yummy.

Fried Chicken

My yohboh makes the best chicken:

Fried Chicken, that is.

My Bento Dorkdom 2.0

I like to make the toddler a bento for her snack. I do not do the complicated, I do the easy to eat with fingers bento. I like to use picks like this one:


because it is easy to use, not too pointy especially for a toddler and she likes using them to pick up potentially sticky items like cantaloupe.

I also have a few that give me pause. It makes me think I have a dirty mind. For example:

That elephant looks like it is not standing on its feet.

And then these two:



definitely gave me pause.

Brunch

I like brunch.

But for the life of me I cannot understand why people would wait for over an hour for eggs, pancakes and bacon. Oh and coffee.

I like brunch at home. I make a good pancake and yohboh rocks at eggs.

Din Sum is a totally different story. But the longest I have ever waited for Dim Sum is 20 minutes.

The Toddler's Favorite Book

Roasted Cauliflower

I made this up.

I took one head of cauliflower (this is a weird word to type, btw) and made it into florets. Then I drizzled olive oil on it and put lots of salt on it and baked at 350 for 30 minutes.

It was really good!

Bacon Comparison

I like to bake bacon because it causes less spattering and it makes for nice flat strips. I had a little bit of Smithfield bacon and some Kroger bacon so I baked both and this is the comparison:


The Smithfield is on the right. When the strips were placed, they were all about the same length. The Kroger brand shrunk, significantly. However, all bacon is equally delicious.

I am so making these

Hello Kitty Cake Pops here I come!

Not bacon popcorn

So I made popcorn in a pot with bacon grease. I wish I could tell you it made it incredibly bacon-y but it did not. It tasted like popcorn. Yummy popcorn. But not bacon popcorn.

Fajitas

When it gets warm, there are fajitas.

Pasta Salad

When it gets warm, I make pasta salad. I know a lot of people are indifferent on pasta salad, but that is probably because you bought it. When you make it, it's quite nice.



That is whole wheat pasta, by the way. Because it is healthy.

What kind of cook are you?

I think I am giving with a innovative rising. Take the quiz here.

Rerun - Cottage Pie

Did you know that the average household has about 10 recipes that are in their dinner cycle? So sometimes, I repeat things. So this is dinner:


I make this once a month or so.

Presents!

DBW went to a comic con today and brought me these:



It's like feeding an addict, I swear. Thanks DBW!

Homemade Vanilla Extract

So last year for my birthday, I bought some vanilla beans. I used some to make vanilla sugar that I gave out at Christmas and I used some to make vanilla extract. I am sure someone out there is rolling their eyes thinking, "Minjenah, why would you make something that is so easy to get at the grocery store?"

Well:
1) I wanted to see if I could do it
2) Many commercial vanilla extracts contain sugar and coloring and stabilizers.
3) It was cheaper to make it then buy it. I used 12 beans which were three and a half dollars and a fifth of vodka which was ten dollars. Eight ounces of vanilla extract is $14.74. I made a little over 25 ounces for fourteen dollars.
4) It tastes a lot better. When you bake with it, it has a purer vanilla flavor and much more pronounced.

I am also the weirdo who has made her own vinegar and pickles.

Smitty's Potato Salad

This is the best potato salad ever.



Smitty's Potato Salad

6 large potatoes cut into eighths boiled until almost mushy
10 strips of bacon, crisp cooked and crumbled
4 scallions, finely chopped
1/4 cup mayonnaise
Salt
Pepper

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and toss to coat. Let sit for at least 30 minutes for the flavors to marry.

My friend N. says if I ever die that she would regularly hook up with yohboh so that she could get this potato salad.

Stuffed Shells

This is a two times leftover dinner. I used leftover meatloaf meat to make the spaghetti sauce. I used the leftover spaghetti sauce to make these shells. I used the recipe on the back of the box but I added some broccoli to the ricotta stuffing so there was some veggies in there.




The toddler loved it.

My Bento Dorkdom

So I got this:

It is the Dreamlang Egg Mold. It makes eggs with yolks into shapes. I love the Japanese for inventing this. In a meeting in Toyko, "You know what the problem with eggs is? They don't have heart shaped yolks!"

Here is what the eggs looked like:


My life is better with a flower shaped egg. FYI.

Cheese Popcorn

So a comment on my blog got me thinking about making cheese popcorn at home.

So I got some of this cheese powder stuff:

(I made the label.)

and mixed it with three tablespoons of melted butter (Do you know that Yohboh and I have never had margarine in our house? I think it attests to the strength of our marriage. That and the rockin' nooky.) I made this:


I should add the popcorn was oil popped because I have to say that once you go oil popped, you never go microwave.

Apple Turnovers

There was a deal at Kroger last week that resulted in me being paid to take some pop the can biscuits home. Yohboh was a little bewildered by this because I normally do not buy pre made food. I told him I would come up with some use for them.

So I got creative and made these:


These are apple turnovers.


Apple turnover in a bowl.


Apple turnover with everyone's best friend, vanilla ice cream.

They were good.

Minjenah's cheater apple turnovers


Filling:
One apple, peeled and bruniose (this means cut into tiny cubes, like smaller than peas--don't think I am Cheffy-I learned this on Top Chef)
1/2 Tablespoon Vanilla Sugar
1 Sprinkle nutmeg (I grated a whole nutmeg three times on a microplane grater)
2 Sprinkles cinnamon
Juice of half an orange
One pinch of salt

One can of five pop the can biscuits, rolled out until they are twice their original diameter.

Milk
Pearl Sugar

Preheat oven to 350.

Take the first six ingredients and leave them in a bowl so the apples get all juicy. You can do this and then roll out your biscuit dough.

Put about one heaping tablespoon of the filling on a pop the can biscuit and seal it shut with a fork. Use the fork to stab little holes on the top.

Brush a little milk on top and sprinkle a little pearl sugar on top. (This step is optional but it made them look very pretty)

Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Very good warm, just as good at room temp.

Cooking Too Much

Since it was wicked COOHLLD (said with a Bostonian accent), I overcooked. Also, I got a good deal on some proteins today so here is what I made tonight for dinner:


These two chickens were six dollars total. There had to be sold today and so I bought them. I also baked potatoes on the same pan. You can see there is a wing on top because Yohboh and I are people who like to nibble for dinner.



These are mini meatloaves. It is Alton Brown's recipe. I like to make little ones because: 1)They are cute and 2)They cook faster. I had some ground pork, beef and lamb frozen so that is what is in here.

There were also baked potatoes and broccoli. The toddler liked it.