Yep, that's a good sign

- I have to measure the amount of butter in our meal in cups (and I'm not the one making dessert).

- The kid has been up since at least 6am, and our company doesn't get here until 1pm.

- And did I mention she's hopped up on allergy meds, which make her simultaneously hyper, sleepy, and surly?

- I haven't checked, but there's a good chance I don't actually own enough serving dishes for the volume and variety of food I'm serving. Skillets on the table - classy!

- And I already had to ask my guests to bring their own containers for leftovers because we're perilously short on plasticware as it is.

- Number of new recipes I'm trying out on my guests: two. Hopefully the infamous "melt an entire stick of butter to grease the pan" cornbread will make up for any less-than-stellar veggies or ham glaze.

- My awesome carrot shaped candles don't fit in my candleholder that well, which Jason solved by jamming a piece of paper towel in around the base of the candle to stop the wobble. I don't think it will catch on fire when the wax drips down to the paper, do you?

- I have wisely managed to plan my meal so that everything gets baked at the same temperature. I unwisely planned my menu so that everything gets baked - the giant ham, the bread, the veggies, everything. I'm doing a lot ahead, but there's still going to be a lot of last minute oven slight of hand to get everything on the table while it's still warm.

- One of the things I'm preparing ahead is the roasted cauliflower. I love this stuff, and it's entirely possible that there won't be enough left to serve at the meal after I finish snitching pieces every time I walk by the kitchen.

- I have promised myself that I won't cut the cornbread until the guests arrive, because if it's whole I can't snitch from it. And I would totally eat the whole thing, given the opportunity.

- It's starting to look like it's going to "chance of rain early in the day" on us at lunchtime. Good thing I haven't hidden any eggs outside yet.

- Seriously, someone needs to come take the cauliflower away from me. It can't be a good idea to eat an entire head of it right before guests are due, right?

Guess what I did for two hours today?

Good thing I had the radio on, as pitting eight cups of cherries at one sitting is a bit on the tedious side.

Geez, nobody guessed my new project is "mushroom farmer?"

Ha!  Just kidding!  I leave all fungus propagation to the professionals.

In reality, I'm working on a new blog, (Sort Of) Sustainable Summer.  It's me rambling about my attempts to feed my family this summer using mostly locally- and/or organically-grown foods.  I'll be collecting and sharing my resources, both national and local, and talking about how I'm weaning my kid off string cheese and V-Fusion and onto real food.  When I find good recipes - ones that even my non-locavore friends will eat - I'll pass them along, and hopefully all our lives will be tastier as a result.

The project is just starting right now - I'm about done with the research, and I'm almost ready to pack away all of my processed "food" items and start eating better ... just as soon as I get back from vacation in early June.  Because if you look at our handy made-just-this-morning harvest calendar, you'll notice that May is pretty darn sparse on local produce when you live in the snow belt.

And since I don't have a pantry full of local produce I "put up" last summer - and I do have a pantry full of crap we bought and probably should eat up - we'll take baby steps until June.

So pop on over to the new blog and check it out.  You won't find much in the way of ranting or proselytizing, but hopefully you'll find it interesting.  And if it makes you think about your food in new ways, well, then that's a good thing.

Also - cute pictures on farms and stuff!  Just wait until we go visit the lady who raises chickens down at the end of our street ...

Oh, hai. Are you still here? Here, have a cookie recipe, it will make you feel better.

Here's a new cookie recipe, courtesy of Liza pointing to a picture of a cookie and my tweaking of a recipe in my first edition copy of the Betty Crocker Cooky Book (published in 1963 and laboriously hunted down in an antique shop in Avon, Ohio, in 2000). Best. Cookbook. Ever.

And these cookies are pretty darn good - light, crispy, buttery, lots of orange flavor that's not overpowering, crunchy sugar on the outside, festive but still appropriate when it's not Christmas ... are you drooling yet? You should be.

adapted from Petticoat Tails/Kaleidoscope Cookies (makes 5 dozen)

1 cup butter

1 cup sifted confectioners' sugar

1 tsp orange extract

2 1/4 cups Gold Medal Flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp finely grated orange rind

food coloring

decorator sugar

red cinnamon candies

Mix butter, sugar, and extract thoroughly. Mix flour, salt, and orange rind; stir in. Mix with hands. Add food coloring to tint to desired color. Mold in rolls about 2" across. Wrap in waxed paper; chill several hours or overnight.

Heat oven to 400 F. Cut roll into slices about 1/8" thick. Roll the edge of each slice in decorator sugar. Place a little apart on ungreased baking sheet and press a red cinnamon candy into the center of each cookie. Bake 8 to 10 min., or until barely browned.

The original recipe was double this size, and it specified you could use vanilla, rose, wintergreen, or almond extract. The orange was my idea, as was the addition of the rind, which I got from two little tangerines I had in the fridge. The cinnamon candies were my idea, too, mainly because I know the rest of my family won't eat them, so the half of the recipe I baked with candies is safe from predation.

For K-A

http://www.dianaskitchen.com/page/favorite/pretzel.htm

Try it - it's strangely compelling. Also, if you put enough of it on your plate at Thanksgiving, nobody notices that you didn't try the turnip greens.

Whew.

Today I helped cook:

- the roasted vegetables for a salad

- a pumpkin/apple pie

- the stuffing

- pretzel salad

I'm a little bit pooped ... and the complicated cooking doesn't start until tomorrow. Gah ....

But it sounded like such a good idea at the time

We've got lots of jam to use up, so I decided to make a jelly roll. I'm not sure exactly how it happened, since this it the first time I've ever attempted one, but the thing turned out beautifully - behold, the perfect jelly roll!

Well, it's perfect as long as you don't actually taste it. I'm not sure which ingredient is to blame, but this thing smells and tastes like wet dog hair. It's actually bad enough that Jason (who doesn't care for jelly-filled things to begin with) won't even taste it. I don't know if my eggs were slightly off, or the vanilla is bad, or what, but Jesus H. Christ, this thing is awful.

But very, very pretty.

Cookbook review: The South Beach Diet Taste of Summer Cookbook

Yeah, so my doctor told me I needed to lose some weight.  Like, 12 pounds in the next three months.  Not too difficult, but I figured some healthy new recipes might help jumpstart things.

I didn't find many appealing "diet" cookbooks at our library, but one that stood out was The South Beach Diet Taste of Summer Cookbook.  I knew that cutting out the "bad" carbs was going to be part of my diet approach, so this seemed like a good way to find recipes that weren't so focused on pasta, tortillas, and toast.

I like the fact that the recipes don't seem like diet cooking ... there are no weird techniques you'd never use in regular cooking, and very few odd ingredients that you wouldn't normally use.  There are some artificial sweeteners in some of the recipes (mostly desserts and a few breakfast smoothie type things), but those would be easy to sub in a smaller amount of regular sugar if you wanted to avoid the chemicals.  I think the best thing is that lots of the recipes are self-contained, with veggies and protein all in one shot.  That means fewer things to think about when trying to get food on the table, and it also means I don't feel like I'm missing out on something by cutting back.

It's also nice that there are recipes for all three "phases" of the diet, which means there are very low carb recipes, moderate carb recipes, and some recipes that are for the "maintenance" side of the South Beach lifestyle.  There are also suggestions on how to take the phase 2 recipes and make them lower carb, for example, which makes things more flexible.

This week we tried four recipes from the book:  two chicken, one beef, and one vegetarian.  Three of them were great and I'll definitely be making again, and one was good, but probably won't show up again for us.  Here's what we tried:

Spicy Chicken and Black Bean Tacos:  This makes a ton of food, especially considering you're supposed to cram it all onto four tortillas.  We ended up serving it open-faced, and there was enough of the filling mixture to cover the tortillas about 1/2" thick all the way around.  The chicken/bean mixture is a bit dry, so we added a small bit of shredded cheese and some salsa at the table.  The chicken preparation was very easy, and yielded chicken that was still tender on the inside while being nice and crispy on the outside.  Definitely going to keep this recipe, although in the future I might tweak it with more tomatoes or something else to make it a little saucier.

Herb Marinated Sirloin with Roasted Asparagus and Tomatoes:  This is the stand-out recipe of all the ones we tried.  Put the rub on the steak, let it sit around for a while, then pan-fry it.  While the steak is resting after it's cooked, roast the asparagus and tomatoes in the oven for less than 10 minutes.  Perfectly done, perfectly complementary, and really, really tasty.  We'll definitely be making this one again, and I'll be using the asparagus/tomato technique a lot.  We love our asparagus around here!

Curried Chicken Salad with Peanuts: This was the only disappointment in the bunch.  It tasted fine, and the mix of textures in the salad was nice with the tender chicken and crunchy veggies and peanuts.  But the recipe makes an insane amount of dressing for the amounts of salad ingredients, and if you follow the recipe, you're making the dressing in the serving bowl before adding the veggies, so you don't know until it's too late that you're actually making soup.  Seriously, we saved half of this for leftovers the next day, and in the 7" tall plastic container we used, at least 3.5" at the bottom was sauce.  If I made this again (which I probably won't - curried chicken salad just doesn't do it for me), I'd make the dressing seperately and add it at the last minute in small increments.  You could always pass the extra at the table in case anyone wants theirs drowned in dressing like the original recipe suggests.

Vietnamese Style Vegetables with Rice Noodles:  This is the only one I can't find online already, and it's so good, I can't resist sharing the recipe with you.  Considering how few ingredients are in the sauce, this has a remarkable depth of flavor ... sweet/tangy/spicy/smoky.  Yum!  My only quibble is that the directions given in the recipe for cooking the rice noodles didn't match the ones on the package, and I should have followed the package instructions.  There was a little bit of last-minute panicked improvisational rice noodle cooking, but I think it turned out okay anyway.  

Vietnamese Style Vegetables with Rice Noodles 

The South Beach Diet Taste of Summer Cookbook 

2 ounces rice noodles

1 tablespoon chili paste (from a jar)

1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 large head broccoli, cut into small florets (4 cups)

1 medium red bell pepper, thinly sliced

1 medium red onion, thinly sliced

1 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced into half-moons

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

4 lime wedges

Cook noodles according to package directions.  Drain and set aside.

While noodles are cooking, in a small bowl whisk together chili paste, fish sauce, lime juice, and vinegar.

In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over medium-high heat.  Add broccoli and toss to coat; cook, tossing gently, until tender, about 4 minutes.  Transfer broccoli to a plate.

Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil to the skillet and heat over medium-high heat.  Add pepper, onion, and zucchini; cook, stirring frequently, until vegetables are just beginning to soften, about 4 minutes.  Return broccoli to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes more.  Stir in chili paste mixture, cover, and cook 1 minute more.

Add noodles to the skillet and toss well.  Add cilantro and toss again.  Divide among 4 plates and serve warm with lime wedges.

Makes 4 servings.

31/365

1. Blowdrying my hair for the first time in months and having it look perfect.

2. Starting a hat and finishing it the same day, and having it turn out exactly the way it was supposed to.

3. Holly's cornbread recipe**. Oh. My. God.

4. "No, Daddy, the WHITE blood thingees are the part that fight off the germs, and the RED blood thingees are the part that take the food and air all over your body."

5. Realizing that my daughter will attempt to read an almost infinite number of new words, as long as they are on flashcards that can be turned into a game of go fish, memory, or "jump on the matching word on the poster on the floor and I'll make a funny noise if you're right."


** From a cooking forum post by "Holly" from years ago, which I attempted to find but couldn't. I consider that due diligence, so I don't feel at all bad about sharing the recipe now. This makes a sweet cornbread with a sticky/crunchy top, and I swear I have to be physically restrained from eating the entire pan by myself.

1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Melt the butter in a 9x9 pan in the oven (this greases the pan and melts the butter for the recipe). Meanwhile, combine flour, cornmeal, salt and baking soda in a bowl.

Beat eggs, sugar, and buttermilk in a second bowl, then add melted butter.

Incorporate dry ingredients into the wet mix just until combined.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs on it.

According to my recipe software, 1/12th of this recipe has 210 calories (almost 40% of which come from fat), which could explain why they taste so very, very good.

Menu planning

Yeah, so I haven't been cooking much, what with the crappy weather coinciding with the blues and the total failure of the grocery pixies to come and drop off ingredients in my refrigerator. But I'm going to get it in gear this month, starting with an idea I read somewhere for how to save money on groceries - plan out menues for a whole month, so that you can minimize waste and maximize the usefulness of leftovers.

I'm not going overboard, but I did sit down this morning and come up with 20 of my favorite recipes that are going to be the backbone of this month's menues. I've got a vegetarian meal, a soup, and something that makes lots of leftovers each week, plus two days each week for using leftovers up or going out for a treat. I've got rough ideas for side dishes listed (which ones get a fresh vegetable, which a frozen, which a salad, which don't need anything extra). Should make grocery list preparation a bit easier for the next few weeks.

So, without further ado, here's the plan (minus the side dishes):

Week 1: Vegetable lasagna, California pot roast, roast chicken, Crock-Pot chili, and tomato gorgonzola soup.

Week 2: Broccoli mushroom spaghetti, pork roast, sloppy joes, chicken tetrazzini (with leftover roast chicken from week 1), pork salsa soup (with leftover pork from the roast this week)

Week 3: Vegetable fritatta, goulash, chili beef noodles, homemade pizza, lemon chicken rice soup

Week 4: Huevos Gretcheros*, beef Burgundy, pork tenderloin, Crock-Pot beef carnitas, pork wild rice soup (with leftover pork from the tenderloin)

It will be interesting to see how long I manage to stick with the plan (I give it two weeks until real life intervenes and I end up eating nothing but peanut butter for another week), and whether twenty recipes are sufficiently varied to keep from getting boring. I have a lot more recipes I'd like to include, so I figure I can swap out some of the heartier ones for more summer-friendly recipes when the weather starts to warm up. Because as much as I'd like to, I don't think we're going to be digging out the grill to make any yakiniku in February, and my grandmother's spaghetti sauce is a waste of time unless you use fresh tomatoes that are actually ripe.

So, what are your favorite standby recipes? How do you plan your meals each week/month/year? Talk amongst yourselves :)


* Basically, scrambled eggs with ham and cheese (and whatever else I feel like throwing in), wrapped up in tortillas, covered with salsa and baked until they're all heated through and the cheese is melted. Not quite huevos rancheros, not quite egg burritos, they're my own recipe, and they're never the same twice.

Merry Christmas!

Here's the official Circle of Sock Goodness, as of about 8am this morning. Shortly thereafter we shared a coffeecake that looked like it was born with a horrible deformity and then run over by a truck.

Yeah, that Bundt pan has been nothing but trouble since I bought it. That sucker's headed for Goodwill tomorrow. Good thing the coffeecake tasted better than it looked, or we'd all be in the hospital for food poisoning by now.

Hope everyone had a great day and is looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend!

That was a first

This year I decided to bite the bullet and buy an offical Honeybaked Ham for Christmas dinner. We've had imposters in the past, and while they were okay, for some reason I'm convinced that this one will be ambrosial. For what I paid, it had better be.

In order to procure this most crunchy of holiday entrees, I had to drive in the snow for half an hour, at which point I found out that the store was so busy they had police directing traffic for the parking lot. Like, half a dozen cops, with orange cones and "lot full" signs and the largest boom box I've seen in years blaring Christmas carols out into the scrum.

We managed to park at the restaurant next door, and I carried 40 pounds of sleeping preschooler across the icy unshoveled parking lot in 9-degree cold (with a wind chill in the negative teens) to wait in the cattle line they had set up inside the front door. Luckily, there were only a handful of people ahead of me, and they had - no kidding - eight people working to pull hams for customers, plus another four or five on cash registers, so we were out of there before Liza even woke up all the way. I still got to carry a 40-pound kid in one arm and a 10-pound ham in the other, all the way back across the ice.

And this was AFTER the $185 trip to the grocery store, when I purchased the heaviest load of groceries in recorded human history. Start off with a 25-pound bag of rock salt, five pounds of flour and a couple pounds of sugar, and it's all downhill from there. I think I was probably pushing 150 pounds of cart/kid/groceries by the time I got to the register. Let's not do that again, okay?

Stepping up

I was busy wrapping Liza's Christmas presents, Liza and Jason were looking for an activity, and I had a tub of cookie dough that needed to be transformed into edible somethings in time for the dance recital tomorrow. Which is why I got to see this today:Daddy-daughter bonding time over mint chocolate chip cookies.

Everybody, on the count of three ... 1, 2, 3, awwwwwwwwwww

Go to your room and stay there until I write a blog entry about how naughty you were

Apparently five minutes is too long to wait for cupcakes that have just come out of the oven and are 350 degrees and were specifically placed off-limits until they were cooler. I left the room for two minutes to pee and this is what I found when I got back.

Good thing this wasn't the pan of treats to take to school, or she'd be in her room for the rest of the evening.

Omnivore's 100

Okay, I may be the last person in the blogosphere to complete this, but here's my Omnivore's 100.

Here’s what I want you to do:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. (I hate having to do the html to get the crossout, so I'm going to italics them)
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/ linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (it was alligator sausage, but that counts, right?)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich (PB&Nutella is better)
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (thank you, Matt)
19. Steamed pork buns (didn't like them)
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas (thank you, Delta airlines)
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut (thank you, high school trip to Europe where wienerschnitzel was unavoidable)
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail (thank you, Peter in Holland)
41. Curried goat (thank you, Pete in Holland)
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu (thank you, Kylie-Ann, and the cardboard sign tacked on a telephone pole you used to recommend which place we should try)
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips (thank you, hippie babysitter in elementary school)
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers (carnations and nasturtiums, thank you high school friends)
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

37 isn't bad for a start, right? I think Jason may actually have a higher score than I do, what with him actually liking seafood and all. Bet I've got him on the carob chips, though!

Smoky Baba Ghanouj

My god, this is soooo good. And it only took two grocery stores and half an hour of staring at the imported food section to find the tahini (hint: it was in the Kosher food section). Go forth and baba-fy the world while the eggplants are cheap at the farm markets!

From The Complete Cooking Light Cookbook, p. 24, not that they were nice enough to put this online with all the other recipes or anything.

Smoky Baba Ghanouj

Prep: 30 minutes, Chill: 2 hours

6 (6-inch) pitas
cooking spray
2 eggplants, cut in half lengthwise (about 2 pounds)
1 garlic clove
1/4 cup tahini
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
Dash of paprika

1. Preheat the oven to 400F
2. Split pitas; cut each half into 4 wedges. Place wedges in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake at 400F for 9 minutes or until crisp and browned. Set aside.
3. Coat a grill rack with cooking spray and place on grill over medium-hot coals (350 to 400F). Place eggplant halves, cut side up, on rack; grill, covered, 20 minutes or until very tender. Remove from grill and cool slightly. Peel eggplant and set aside.
4. Drop garlic through food chute with food processor on; process until minced. Add eggplant, tahini, lemon juice, and salt; process 45 seconds or until smooth, scraping sides of the bowl once. Transfer to a bowl; cover and chill.
5. Sprinkle with paprika; serve with toasted pita bread wedges.

Yield: 24 servings (serving size: 2 tablespoons dip and 2 pita chips)

I love being on the first page of google search results

"tomato gorgonzola soup"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS260US261&q=tomato+gorgonzola+soup

#10 and rising, folks ... anybody want to go and click through a couple times to see if it raises me up a few notches? I will personally donate $100 to the ASPCA if we can get me to #1 by the end of the month. Who's with me on this?

Last week's recipes

After weeks of "I don't know, pick whatever you want to eat," Jason inexplicably requested that I cook Thai food last week, and I obliged by hauling out Step-By-Step Thai and cooking all of our meals from it. The winners:

Chicken and Noodle One-Pot, which is sort of a coconut/curry/lime soupy noodle dish. Yummmmmm!

Sesame Hot Noodles, which I served as a side dish to go along with the Roast Red Pork and some stir-fried snow peas. All of them were good on their own, but they were much better when we mixed them all together and called it Thai Lo Mein. The pork wasn't quite the same as the red pork you get in Chinese wonton soup or fried rice, but it was good - the allspice made it almost sweet, and while it didn't smell too appetizing, the taste was really good and it was really hard to stop nibbling pieces off while I carved the loin into slices.

Carrot and Cilantro Salad, which I served as a side dish with Sesame Skewered Chicken with Ginger Baste. I really liked the salad and couldn't stop snitching from it while we were waiting for the chicken to cook on the grill. Jason was less enthused, but I think I can convince him to eat it again. We both agreed that the chicken was excellent, and regretted having to share it with the friends we were cooking with that night (just kidding, guys! sort of...). I used some of the red Sriracha chile sauce (the stuff in the squirt bottles on the tables at Thai restaurants) as a dip for the chicken, and it perked things up nicely.

Since I've been working on the patio all this week, I've fallen back on my tried and true recipes, including an asparagus frittata, the horribly named Zippy Beef Mac and Cheese, and Tomato Corn Chowder. Nothing inspiring, but I know how long the recipes take to fix, I know they turn out edible, and I know the leftovers freeze well (except the frittata ... but there's never any leftovers of that, anyway). Not exactly a glowing endoresement, I know, but hey, we can't cook gourmet every week, can we?

Cooking update

Chicken and Salsa Soup - really good for something so simple. We used the lime-flavored corn chips and about twice as much cheese as the recipe recommended, and I think we'll do both next time we make this.



Also from Better Homes and Gardens was a grilled vegetable sandwich recipe that isn't anything special ... except for the cumin mayo. We didn't do these as sandwiches, we grilled them at a friend's house and served them over spinach as a side dish salad, and boy, were they good. I'm going to be using that mayo recipe for other veggies ... or as a pasta salad dressing ... mmmmmm.



I'm switching cookbooks for a few weeks because I'm sick of looking at this one on the counter ... so we'll see if Cooking Light has anything worth sharing with you guys. Here's hoping so!

Even Jason thought this was really good

Usually I like my cooking a lot more than Jason does, or at least I'm more demonstrative about it, but last night's dinner was the exception. I thought it was pretty good, but he just raved about it. And he liked it even more when I told him the green stuff wasn't cabbage, it was broccoli. Liza even ate one of the pieces of chicken, and she nibbled a few of the vegetables while she waited for her quesadilla to heat up. If anything is worthy of a blog mention, I guess it's the recipe that scored the trifecta in our house.

Thai Chicken Wraps, from the Better Homes and Gardens Big Book of 30-Minute Dinners - kid-tested, husband-approved. And yes, if you push it you can actually have these done in 30 minutes, especially if you don't have a 3-year-old "helping."

****
In other cooking news, yesterday I tried a new variation of my mother's standard banana bread recipe, and boy, did it work well. The original recipe specifies to cook the batter in a small loaf pan, but usually by the time the center is cooked, the outside has gotten dark brown and borders on crusty. It's unfortunate - I'm forced to nibble around the outside edge of each slice first so that the last taste in my mouth is the yummy center.

Yesterday I tried cooking it in a 8x8" Pyrex pan, and it was SOOOOOOO much better. The whole thing cooked in about 45 minutes, it's a nice light brown, and there's none of that weird bitter chemical almost burnt taste to the outside. Liza actually prefers the outside part to the inside, nibbling off the top and sides and leaving the rest in a forlorn little pile of banana-y goodness that I'd totally devour if it wasn't covered in kid spit.

So here's the recipe:

Bohl* Babes' Banana Bread

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup Crisco
1 egg
3 whole bananas, mashed (the older and mushier, the better)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 pinch salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix ingredients in order in an electric mixer. Bake in a greased, floured loaf pan for 50 minutes (or a greased, floured 8x8" pan for about 45 minutes) or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean. Cool in the pan for a few minutes, then release from pan and cool completely on a wire rack. Store in airtight container or plastic bag.


*Bohl is my maternal grandmother's maiden name, and it's how I sometimes refer to the women on my mom's side of the family. Grandma is one of 10 or 11 kids, so there are plenty of Bohl ladies around, even if very few of us have "Bohl" in our actual names ... and we're all stunningly beautiful, of course. They're the family I visit when we go to reunions.

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Edited to add: tried another recipe from the BHG cookbook tonight. I wasn't crazy about the chicken, but the veggies and sauce were nice, and they would make a great side dish on their own. Check it out: Thyme Chicken Marsala.