Everything Lo Mein

Tonight we had "Everything Lo Mein" which was on "30 Minute Meals" last night. I had a bit of leftover angel hair pasta, and for the rest of the veggies I used what I had on hand (mushrooms, broccoli, snap peas, green onions, garlic), plus leftover pork chop, and Morningstar Farms Veggie Steak Strips. Don insisted I include the egg too. Instead of scrambling it, I make it like a crepe and then slice it into ribbons, and I didn’t use nearly as much oil as Rachael did. I also threw in a few frozen pot stickers.

For the sauce, I went by Rachael’s recipe & proportions, and used 1 tbsp. (since it was not a whole batch) of hoisin sauce, 1 tbsp. of soy sauce, 1 tbsp. Water, a liberal squirt of Sriracha (instead of Tabasco) plus a dash of sesame oil and about half a teaspoon of chopped ginger. The sesame oil and ginger are, to me, key ingredients and add that "authentic" flavor.

Don had not been too keen on the recipe when I told him what we were having for dinner, but in the end he pronounced it "pretty good." I get burned out on salad so I liked that this was an alternative way to get my veggies.

Banana Bread

Cooking with Rachael and Food Network Friends I can't stand throwing away ripe bananas ... such an excellent source of potassium. I remembered that Paula Deen has a banana bread recipe in her cookbook, so made that. It made a light, bright yellowish bread, really delicious. I tried to serve it with cream cheese, but that made it too sweet. Butter worked much better, although it was so rich that you didn't really even need to add that.

Coconut Macaroons

This is a Paula Deen recipe, it caught my eye on TV because the egg whites were beaten so that the cookie batter was fluffy. Her recipe calls for almond extract but I used vanilla, and I threw in some mini chocolate chips instead of having to deal with dipping them in melted chocolate. I baked them in the toaster oven. They browned on the bottom faster than on top, you can see the one I turned over in the photo, that looks like a latke. Mine didn’t turn out as fluffy as Paula’s did, when I folded in the egg whites the batter kind of got deflated. I think my coconut was too old and dry, not moist enough, so it required more mixing and handling. Still tasted good, though.

I watched Guy’s show on Sunday, and enjoyed it. I want to try his tater tot recipe, and his grilled romaine salad looked good too. I’m sure he was nervous, sometimes he would "talk to himself" too much (I noticed that because I catch myself doing the same thing) and said "OK" a lot, but he managed to get his personality through. I didn’t like how grey and blah-looking the background of his kitchen is. And I was wondering if it is some legal thing that all Food Network folks have to emphasize hand-washing after handling meat. I know it’s a good thing to know and practice, but it seems like they almost "showcase" it.

Strawberry Cream Shortcake

The other day, Walmart had strawberries on sale for $1.50, so I bought a box. When I got home, Don’s sister had given me some too. We’ve been eating them with our cereal and still have a bunch. One of Paula’s cookbooks has a recipe for Strawberry Cream Shortcake. I had frozen a small piece of Tiger Cake (chocolate and vanilla swirled poundcake), and I used that instead of the Sara Lee poundcake that the recipe called for. I used half a 3.4 ounce box of pudding, which is 1/3 the amount in the recipe, and adjusted the other ingredients accordingly. Instead of putting it in one big dish, I assembled everything into 4 individual-size dishes. Don thought it looked fancy, like it was an elaborate dessert.

The cream part is similar to the banana pudding mixture, except there is no cream cheese. The texture is really rich. Both of us liked it but thought the chocolate flavor of the cake I used overpowered things a little. On the other hand, the cake was not too sweet and it balanced out the sweetness of the filling. (I think if you used an overly sweet cake, the whole thing would be too sugary.)

Since I made 4, we have 2 leftover for tomorrow…yum.

I guess it is the combination of both pack-rat and shopaholic genes, that I tend to accumulate a bunch of ingredients and overload my pantry, yet sometimes I can’t find anything to cook. Not too long ago I cleared out a bunch of stuff, and now I find I need to do it all over again. I’ve started a list of things that I put in my freezer, on an index card that I keep in a drawer next to the refrigerator, so I know what’s in there without having to open it up and poke around. In my kitchen, I have some hot links, Canadian bacon, arborio rice, Jello, hot dogs, ham hocks, ricotta cheese, provolone cheese, pasta, Panko bread crumbs, a can of Coco Loco, and a foil pouch of Chicken of the Sea Crab Meat, for starters. I’m too embarrassed to put a picture of my pantry on here because it is such a mess!

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Cooking with Rachael and Friends I've been trying to follow a low fat diet so bought one of the lower fat cuts of pork - a pork shoulder tenderloin. I put it in the crockpot all day with a sauce that came from one of those envelope mixes. You mixed the seasonings in the packet with apple cider vinegar, ketchup and brown sugar, all non-fat and let it cook on low for 8 hours. When I got home from work, I shredded it with two forks and sprinkled some flour on the meat, then put it back in the sauce. The sandwiches came out excellently, we had them for dinner two nights in a row. Today my doctor put me on a carbohydrate lowering diet, which he's sending me in the mail. I have no idea what to eat now, but am supposed to be avoiding sugar and salt and taking flax seed and/or fish oil capsules. Once I receive the diet, I think I'll make an appointment with a nutritionist and find out how to eat from now on.

Toaster Oven

I bought a toaster oven today, I had a coupon for Bed Bath & Beyond for 20% off, which made it only $25. It’s in the 90’s here and too hot to bake. I’m thinking with the toaster oven I can make things like English muffin pizzas, small batches of cookies and muffins and banana bread, etc. I made some no-bake desserts like a fancy pudding that was really good. I used a boxed Jello pudding mix, followed the ingredients for pudding pie, put about 2/3 of it into dessert dishes. Then mixed in some Cool Whip with the rest of the pudding and put it on top, with some crushed Oreos in between. It tasted and looked like a glorified pudding. Tomorrow I’m going to make 1-2-3 Jello, which is Jello and Cool Whip mixed in a blender, and when it gels, it separates into layers.

Tortellini Salad

Last night I made Laura's Tortellini Salad for dinner. It's a chilled pasta salad, which I served on lettuce with hot bread. Laura is a friend of my daughters who lived with us for a year or two. Her recipe is to cook any kind of tortellini as the package instructs and then chill it, which I did. Then I mixed up some Italian dressing, about a cupful, with about 1/4 a cup of orange juice. I added a small drained can of sliced black olives, some shredded carrot and put it back in the fridge. While I finished setting the table, the tortellini puffed up and soaked up most of the dressing. I served it on lettuce and added a couple spoonfuls of fresh Italian dressing which reawakened the flavors. Mmmmm. Everyone agreed that it was easy, light and delicious. I used low-fat Italian dressing and whole wheat tortellini, to keep it healthy.

Gorilla Bread

I’ve been wanting to try this Paula Deen recipe for awhile now. It’s just been way too hot to turn on the oven. Debbie reminded me about using a crockpot to cook with and not heat up the kitchen, and that in turn reminded me that I have a bread machine that has a "bake" function. Instead of baking the bread in the oven I put all the little balls in the bread machine. It cooked it fine, aside from the sauce being a little too chewy.

Don did not like the cream cheese in the middle…at all. He pronounced "YUCK!!!" for this one. I was really disappointed, I guess I take it too personally when something doesn’t turn out well, especially if it takes some effort to put the dish together. I didn’t think it was bad, if you ate around the cream cheese. I think it would be better if the cream cheese had the sugar mixed in, or if the filling was something like apple chunks or chocolate chips.

I saw a commercial for Guy’s show next Saturday (6/25), "Guy’s Big Bite." I’m glad they didn’t go with that "Off the Hook" theme. I’m anxious to see what kind of "vibe" his show has.

Cucumber Kim Chee

I’ve been watching Anthony Bourdain’s "No Reservations" on the Travel Channel. It’s similar to his "Cook’s Tour" on the Food Network, and it’s even better because it's an hour vs. half an hour. My favorite parts are when he has meals in people’s homes, "real" food, with "real" people. Last week he was in Korea. They showed how kim chee is made. I’ve never tried it but have always wanted to. It didn’t sound all that appetizing on the show, though, with fish sauce and oysters to help ferment it.

Anyway, Carol gave me some cucumbers from her garden. Instead of the usual cucumber salad, I looked through a cookbook my aunt gave to me. It’s an Asian cookbook, the "community" style that Debbie had mentioned, put together by the Japanese American Services of the East Bay (JASEB). It's my favorite Asian cookbook. Whenever I want to put an Asian twist on something I'll see what goes into the dish, like teriyaki or wonton. Since it's by regular people (Asian-Americans living in America, cooking Asian food with what's available in the USA) and not chefs, there aren't too many complicated ingredients or procedures. There was a recipe for Cucumber Kim Chee in it, without any unappetizing ingredients.

I used the Benriner (it's an Asian mandolin slicer, my brother calls it the "finger slicer - I've always been intimidated by it) to slice the cucumber paper thin, salted it, poured hot water over the mess and let it sit 30 minutes, then drain. I put it all into a jar and covered it with a sauce of water, vinegar, sugar, sliced garlic, and chili powder. The next day, it looked like kim chee. It reminds me of tsukemono (the pickled cabbage you get at Japanese restaurants) with a kick. Yum. I think it’s an acquired taste, though. I’ve been missing California and good Japanese food, so this helped with the homesickness a little bit.

Coconut Pecan Bars

Cooking with Rachael and Friends I found an old cookbook at a thrift shop. It was one of those books put together by chuch ladies and published in 1968. That's the year I got married and started cooking. It's been a blast from the past - keeps requiring ingredients like oleo and Dream Whip. I made dessert from it tonight - Coconut Pecan Bars, as submitted by a Mrs. Jane Wilelms - because I happened to already have all the ingredients. Among other things, you add a cup of butter and 2 cups of brown sugar. It turned out really well - very moist and yummy. You were supposed to sprinkle powdered sugar on top but I didn't have any of that and it didn't really need it. I weighed in at Weight Watchers today - lost 3.6 lbs on my first week. Even with eating two of those PD Southern Sloppy Joes! Go figure!!!

Sloppy Joes

Cooking with Rachael and Friends This weekend I watched a burger episode of the Paula Deen show and she made the southern version of sloppy joes. I couldn't stop thinking about them, so ran out tonight and bought the ingredients. It was so quick & easy that I had dinner made by the time Kate finished putting the groceries away! I fried up some ground beef, added some flour, a can of french onion soup, spread some mustard on 4 slices of bread and put some cut up sweet onions on two of the slices. I scooped up the ground beef mixture on those pieces, put the other slices on top and * voila * two southern sloppy joe sandwiches! They were really good, we gobbled them right up, flirted briefly with the thought of having seconds, but decided to behave. Mmmm. Kate thought that the onion slices should have been fried up, but there are little bits of onion in the soup. I have to confess, the one item I thought we had for sure - mustard - we didn't. But we had dijon and it tasted mustardly enough. Very, very good for a quick, hearty dinner. Paula also made tuna burgers on that show and I bought the ingredients to make that too. I found the tuna burger recipe in one of her cookbooks but have only seen the sloppy joe recipe on TV. In another episode this weekend, she made fried doughnuts out of canned biscuits. I can't wait to try those!

Oatmeal with 'Nanas and PB

Once in awhile I like to "detox" and have things like salads, grains, drink lots of water, etc., especially after holiday weekends of ribs and banana pudding. For breakfast I tried Rachael’s recipe for "Oatmeal with ‘Nana’s and PB" from the June/July issue of "Every Day." Instead of instant oatmeal I cooked up a heart healthy portion size of Quaker Oats (3/4 cup oats). I had never thought about putting peanut butter into oatmeal but it was good. The only thing I didn’t like was that the raw bananas in the hot oatmeal kind of "cooked" and changed the flavor. Next time I’ll just put them on top.

This was an "Isaboo" recipe so I gave the taste-tester dogs a bite. It didn’t pass muster with them. They licked it and then looked around for something better on the plate, then walked away. I was kind of surprised because there isn’t much that they won’t eat. They’ve been spoiled lately with the bones from the ribs so maybe they are just being picky.

Taco Salad

Cooking with Rachael and Friends

We went to a Memorial Day Barbq at my daughter's house in Beaumont, CA. They had emailed an invitation to all their friends and had no idea how many to expect. So I made a huge taco salad and Paula Deen's Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding. The taco salad was based on one we had at a graduation party a week ago. It was so good and rather than ask for the recipe, Kate and I just sort of poked around at it and figured out what was in it and made our own version.

I cooked about 3 lbs of hamburger - one of those logs, and seasoned it with a dried packet of Taco Seasoning sauce mixed with water. Then I put the mixture into a small 1.5 qt crockpot to keep it warm. I drained a large can of kidney beans, a small can or corn and 2 small cans of sliced black olives. Into a big wooden bowl I put a bag of lettuce, added the drained beans/corn/olives and poured a 2 cup container of mild chunky salsa over it all. It's the kind of salsa where it looks watery and you can actually see chunks of tomato and onion in it. Right before we left the house I poured the hot taco meat on top of it all. Once we got to our destination I added a broken up bag of Dorito nacho cheese chips and two cut up avocados, as well as a bag of shredded mexican cheeses. It was a huge hit. It went over as well as the pork ribs & chicken our hostess grilled.

Needless to add, everyone died over the banana pudding. I had also brought brownie bites from the grocery store - they are the size of a small muffin and have a dollop of cream cheese on top and are SO GOOD.

Barbecued Ribs

Yesterday we went to a BBQ at Don’s sister’s house, her husband had some friends over. My contribution was Paula’s "Not Yo Mama’s Banana Pudding." I mentioned this to Debbie and she said she too was bringing it to the get-together she was attending! I’d say the pudding is hands down the best recipe from the cookbook, so far. Darlene said, "This is definitely not from a box" and at first I said "no" but realized that the pudding part is from a box. Carol liked the chess cookies. I think the fluffy texture makes it sumptuous, as well as that it just plain tastes good.

We were given some leftover ribs. Gary had put a rub on them but we wanted them saucier. I ended up making Paula’s "Barbecued Short Ribs" recipe but using the leftover ribs instead of short ribs, and cooking it in a crock pot. They ended up fall-off-the-bone tender and the sauce made it tastier, but parts of it were dry. It was definitely better than just reheating them in the microwave. (The photo is what it looked like in the crockpot.)

My niece and nephew both have birthdays coming up so I ordered some kids cookbooks for them. I got Rachael’s "30 Minute Meals For Kids" for my niece, and Emeril’s "There’s A Chef In My Soup" for my nephew. Rachael’s book is not as flashy as Emeril’s, and it is smaller and the recipes not as complicated. My niece is only 7 so I think it’ll be appropriate for her, I hope she likes it. My nephew already watches the Food Network and I hope he likes the Emeril book. It is more detail-oriented and better-suited to someone older (he’ll be 9). Claire is a picky eater and I hope she might be more adventurous in trying foods if she has a hand in preparing them.

I got a renewal notice for my Rachael magazine subscription. The notice says 1 year is 10 issues, but the cards inside the magazine say 1 year is 6 issues. I called and asked which it is, and was told that the next year of the magazine will be 10 issues/year. Yay. I haven’t cooked a Rachael recipe outright in awhile, but I do find myself employing ideas she has on the show, like grilling my sandwich instead of eating it just plain, or experimenting with different condiments.

A Paula Deen Mothers Day

Cooking with Rachael and Friends

For Mother's Day partner Kate made me a nice little breakfast; croissants, scrambled eggs and ham. That night we had middle daughter Emily, her partner Robin and granddaughter Rachel over for a birthday party for Emily's 34th. Emily & Rach are picky eaters, they like their food bland and childlike. I figured I couldn't go wrong with Paula Deen's Southern Fried Chicken, Cheesy Biscuits, mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, and corn on the cob. I'm always worried about chicken being cooked all the way through. Robin, who is an excellent cook, said that even she has trouble with fried chicken - burning it on the outside, while it remains raw on the inside.

First I washed and seasoned the chicken with lots of seasoned salt and a bit of garlic salt and put it back in the fridge for a couple of hours. Then I heated fresh Crisco in two big pans. I made way too much chicken as usual - an entire fryer and a separate package of thighs. As the recipe instructed, I put the pieces in an egg/water mixture, then dredged them in self-rising flour that I'd added lots of fresh ground black pepper to. I fried the pieces until they were golden brown, then put them in baking dishes in the oven for 350 degrees (that last part was a deviation from the recipe, but I wanted to make sure the pieces cooked all the way through and it didn't seem to hurt or alter them in any way.) I left them in the oven for about half an hour while I cleaned up and made the rest of the meal.

The Cheesy Biscuits are the very same ones that Paula Deen serves people waiting in line to get into her restaurant. I messed up though, I didn't remember to save some of the Crisco to put in the biscuits, so had to improvise with butter. They also turned out good, no one seemed especially thrilled by them though. I'm going to retry that recipe again some time with the proper ingredients.

It all turned out very well. The chicken got all around raves. Everyone agreed that it didn't taste greasy at all. I think that some of the grease may have drained out of the pieces while it was heating in the oven. I think that the trick to cooking good fried chicken is having your grease hot enough. Messing with hot grease is always an adventure though. Our little female daschund Maggie was right under foot the entire time and I was worried about her getting spattered. We both ended up covered in flour but didn't get burnt.

The mashed potatoes were from a package at Wal-Mart. Not a box, an actual package of real mashed potatoes in the deli section. No one seemed to notice that they weren't home made, as people can usually tell with boxed, rehydrated potatoes. I also use canned chicken gravy - sorry but I've only ever made real gravy once in my life. I just always use canned and again, everyone seems to like it.

For dessert we made cupcakes and also purchased a little decorated cake for the actually blowing out of the candles. This little square cake was probably about half the size of a 1/4 sheet cake. It was perfectly sized for our group. Usually we get those huge cakes at COSTCO, which are yummy but then everyone has tons of cake left over.

Broccoli with Toasted Garlic

I wanted broccoli for a side dish to go with some filets from Omaha Steak that Don's daughter had sent to him for his birthday. My "beef," if you will, is that he likes his broccoli swimming in butter. To me that completely negates any healthy aspect of eating veggies. I've been watching some of the other Food Network personalities and saw a preparation that sounded healthy. It was on "Healthy Appetites with Ellie Krieger." She made broccoli with toasted garlic, the garlic was toasted in a small amount of olive oil, then the cooked broccoli was added to the garlic infused oil, with the garlic chips sprinkled on top. Don isn't a garlic fan but he tried it, and didn't much care for it. I thought it was delicious, the garlic complimented the broccoli, and the small amount of fat keeps it all healthy. I like her show, the way she explains anecdotes about why certain foods are good, what nutritional value they have. It adds another dimension to a cooking show, so it's not just all "how to."

Buttermilk Pecan Pie

Our local electric co-op publishes a magazine with "country" recipes. This month’s issue had buttermilk pecan pie. It’s more of a chess pie than a pecan pie. I looked at Paula’s cookbook and she has a recipe for a lemon chess pie that is pretty similar, except it has lemon in it, and milk instead of buttermilk. Most of the recipes I saw call for the same amount of sugar - 2 cups. Anyway, the pecan recipe calls for sprinkling ½ cup of pecans in the bottom of a pie shell (I had some leftover toasted coconut so I added that too), then mixing together sugar, buttermilk, butter, eggs, vanilla, flour and salt together and pouring it all over the nuts. The topping gets a crunchy crust on it as it bakes.

I think it’s one of those things that you either like or you don’t. I liked it, Don thought it might be better tomorrow after it refrigerates, but he likes "regular" pecan pie better.

Blackberries are coming on strong out here. Tomorrow I’m going to make pancakes or waffles, and make a berry compote to put on top. I got the recipe from Rachael’s Pain Perdue recipe from an old "30 Minute Meals." The berries make you feel like you’re eating something healthy, along with the 800 calorie waffles.

Deviled Ham a la Rachael and Debbie

The ham we had the other night was good but just a tad salty for something like a sandwich. Debbie had suggested ham salad. I remember a "30 Minute Meals" episode where Rachael made one of her mug toppers for soup, with deviled ham. I took what I remembered from that episode and combined it with Debbie’s recipe, put chunked ham in the food processor with some onion and ground it up, then mixed in mayonnaise to get it to spreading consistency. Rachael is always talking about how "it’s the method, not the ingredients" as far as adlibbing recipes with what you have on hand or what your personal preferences are. After-the-fact I looked online and saw her recipe has paprika and hot sauce, and no mayo, but yellow mustard to thin out the mixture. I did put mustard on my sandwich but spread it on the bread instead of mixing it in. Anyway, it turned out yummy. "Diluting" the ham by making it into a salad helped with the saltiness.

Corn Casserole and Cherry Cream Cheese Pie

We had a belated Easter dinner last night since it was 90 degrees here on Easter. Don tried "baking" it on the propane grill outside last night, since it was cooler but still in the 80’s. We’d never done this before. I put the ham in a Reynold’s oven bag and we cooked the ham until it was 140 inside. It looked a little blackened and the twist-tie on the oven bag melted. Next time I think I will use aluminum foil or a foil bag so I don’t get as many carcinogens baked in. Anyway, it actually tasted fine and was moist.

To go along with the ham, Carol made scalloped potatoes, and I made Paula’s Corn Casserole (which Debbie had recommended, and I’d read good reviews of online). I was disappointed with the corn, it was too sweet for my liking, and it was mushy in the middle. I don't think I baked it long enough plus I put it in a small, tall pan, and I think a wide, flat pan (like a pie plate) would have worked better. I’m going to try making corncakes with the leftovers by shaping them into patties and browning them in a little butter.

For dessert, Gary made jello with bananas, and I made another Paula dessert, her Cherry Cream Cheese Pie. This was a bigger hit than the corn casserole. Gary thought it was really rich and the pie filling put it over the top. Don’s Mom makes a similar pie with lemon pudding mix and cream cheese that is lighter in texture. Don was surprised, he thought it was better than he’d expected. Unlike Debbie I don’t have a lemon tree in my backyard so I ended up using lemon juice from one of those lemon-shaped bottles. The fresh lemons at the store looked rotten. Next time I’ll just use lime juice, since I can get a big bag of key limes for $2 at Walmart.

(Rant: I don’t know why some things are so expensive and others are so cheap! The fresh, rotten lemons were going for 50 cents apiece. I can buy a giant bunch of cilantro for less than 50 cents yet a grapefruit grown in Texas is nearly a dollar, and cheaper in California even after it is shipped all the way there.)

Easter Peeps

Cooking with Rachael and Friends

I've been sick as a dog for days, just managed to drag myself into work today. I made myelf go in because I have a sit down job and am on the mend, so figured I'd probably get more rest at work than I would at home where partner Kate is cleaning the carpets.

Needless to say, I haven't done much cooking recently. So this blog entry is "An Ode To Peeps", my all time favorite easter candy. One memorable easter, about 10 years ago, I packed on 20 lbs by indulging my every Peep whim.

Subsequently, I've been much more reserved in my Peeping and only bought and ate a couple packages this year by waiting until the last week before Easter to buy them. Then, being sick for 4 days, kept me off of them even longer. So last night I finished a package and will eat the 2nd package tomorrow and I promise, promise, promise not to hit the 50% off after-holiday sales.

My daughter Emily and her partner Robin are hosting Easter dinner and I offered to bring the desserts. Daughter Jeanne promised to help, as I'm too weak to pull it off myself. So we agreed to make our new favorite dessert - Paula Deen's Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding and get a strawberry pie (Emily's favorite) from Cocos. Robin is very excited that we're making the banana pudding, as she's heard so much about it.

Happy Easter everyone!