Dessert is to be a chocolate yogurt cake made by my sister. Hopefully it will be yum.
24 December 2010
Meat pie
Christmas eve dinner was a Spanish meat pie (at least, that's what the recipe is called; it's from a newspaper clipping my mother clipped years ago). Ended up making the crust using whole wheat flour instead of white flour; it's kind of dry and heavy. However, the inside of the pie was tasty.
Dessert is to be a chocolate yogurt cake made by my sister. Hopefully it will be yum.
Dessert is to be a chocolate yogurt cake made by my sister. Hopefully it will be yum.
Braciola
I found a recipe for Braciola on a forum I'm on. It involves flank steak, Mozzarella and Provolone cheese, Prosciutto, Italian seasoning, tomatoes, garlic, onions and carrots. It's supposed to involve celery (but I don't like it) and mushrooms (which I forgot). It's also supposed to involve a food processor and pasta, but I don't have the former, and didn't feel like the latter. Oh, and I don't have any pre-made Italian seasoning, but I do have herbes de Provence, so I substituted.
One is supposed to pound out the steak so it's about 1/2" thick (I didn't quite make it there, and next time I should use something heavier than the end of my quite lightweight rolling pin), line it with the cheeses, the Prosciutto, the seasoning, roll it up, tie it up, brown it, and put it in the crock pot. One then sautes the vegetables, then puts them in a food processor with whole canned tomatoes, which is then added to the pot and the whole thing cooked on low for 8 or 10 hours. I used pre-chopped canned tomatoes, and didn't really mix the veggies with the tomatoes before adding it all to the pot.
It came out quite tasty. The best bits are the bits with the seasoning in it. I added a touch of salt, but didn't need to have - the cheese and Prosciutto probably supplied enough. Also, when making rolled steak things, don't cover the entire surface - leave a margin on the side being rolled toward.
One is supposed to pound out the steak so it's about 1/2" thick (I didn't quite make it there, and next time I should use something heavier than the end of my quite lightweight rolling pin), line it with the cheeses, the Prosciutto, the seasoning, roll it up, tie it up, brown it, and put it in the crock pot. One then sautes the vegetables, then puts them in a food processor with whole canned tomatoes, which is then added to the pot and the whole thing cooked on low for 8 or 10 hours. I used pre-chopped canned tomatoes, and didn't really mix the veggies with the tomatoes before adding it all to the pot.
It came out quite tasty. The best bits are the bits with the seasoning in it. I added a touch of salt, but didn't need to have - the cheese and Prosciutto probably supplied enough. Also, when making rolled steak things, don't cover the entire surface - leave a margin on the side being rolled toward.
21 December 2010
Pie was tasty
The pie worked. Yay. It's not very strongly pumpkin, and it also wasn't very strongly apple. It'd be interesting to try it with the apple butter without a blender - mash the apples instead. The spices were fine, as was the sweetness level.
20 December 2010
Rotten Eggs
"Last one there's a rotten egg!"
I'm very glad I decided to follow instructions and break eggs into a separate bowl to beat prior to mixing into the main part of the food tonight. Because the last egg was a rotten egg...
It smelled of sulfur and mold. Eww.
However, the Pumpkin Apple Butter Pie (from Robin's Blog) appears to have worked. After I got new eggs out of the fridge.
I'm very glad I decided to follow instructions and break eggs into a separate bowl to beat prior to mixing into the main part of the food tonight. Because the last egg was a rotten egg...
It smelled of sulfur and mold. Eww.
However, the Pumpkin Apple Butter Pie (from Robin's Blog) appears to have worked. After I got new eggs out of the fridge.
Squash might not be evil
So I decided to try a recipe out of Real Simple magazine (Jan issue) last night (internet was dead last night...)
It involved cutting up a butternut squash and baking it with olive oil, sage, salt and pepper. It then involved frying up some pork chops, then putting them in with the squash in the oven. The final step was wilting some kale in the pork fat. Other than the pork chops coming out a little overdone, it was pretty tasty.
Next time, try it without the bone-in version called for in the recipe. And maybe bake it a little less long.
I also had lunch for today, and two more meals for later this week :D
It involved cutting up a butternut squash and baking it with olive oil, sage, salt and pepper. It then involved frying up some pork chops, then putting them in with the squash in the oven. The final step was wilting some kale in the pork fat. Other than the pork chops coming out a little overdone, it was pretty tasty.
Next time, try it without the bone-in version called for in the recipe. And maybe bake it a little less long.
I also had lunch for today, and two more meals for later this week :D
17 December 2010
Can I take a picture of a smell?
Came home this evening; the apples smell amazing.
Blenderized the apples. Tasted. Really good applesauce... added a touch of allspice and honey (not quite sweet enough for my taste), more to see what will happen than anything else. And let it sit in the crock pot for an additional couple of hours, with the lid on.
When I took the lid off, the butter was still pretty applesaucey in texture... but holy cow on the flavor intensity! I had some with dinner (pancakes), and let it simmer another hour or so uncovered, on low. Still pretty soupy. BTW, pancakes with not-quite-apple-butter and honey is really, really good. Maybe next time use honey instead of white sugar?
After a couple more hours uncovered on low, I've got something moderately thick (not as thick as I envisioned it, but perhaps it'll be better once it's cool), smells really good and tastes better.
It's now in the fridge, and it's time for bed. The crock can be washed tomorrow.
Blenderized the apples. Tasted. Really good applesauce... added a touch of allspice and honey (not quite sweet enough for my taste), more to see what will happen than anything else. And let it sit in the crock pot for an additional couple of hours, with the lid on.
When I took the lid off, the butter was still pretty applesaucey in texture... but holy cow on the flavor intensity! I had some with dinner (pancakes), and let it simmer another hour or so uncovered, on low. Still pretty soupy. BTW, pancakes with not-quite-apple-butter and honey is really, really good. Maybe next time use honey instead of white sugar?
After a couple more hours uncovered on low, I've got something moderately thick (not as thick as I envisioned it, but perhaps it'll be better once it's cool), smells really good and tastes better.
It's now in the fridge, and it's time for bed. The crock can be washed tomorrow.
16 December 2010
Apples
Apple Butter, part one.
I used this recipe. Plus a touch of nutmeg.
5 1/2 lb of apples is a lot of apples.
It also turns out that 5.5 lb minus about half an apple fits in my crockpot. Approximately. If it's supposed to be 5.5 lb before peeling and coring, and not after.
It is too late to start twelve hours worth of cooking tonight, so I will refrigerate the apples and start it in the morning. If I wake up early enough to do the one-hour-on-high thing, anyway...
I used this recipe. Plus a touch of nutmeg.
5 1/2 lb of apples is a lot of apples.
It also turns out that 5.5 lb minus about half an apple fits in my crockpot. Approximately. If it's supposed to be 5.5 lb before peeling and coring, and not after.
It is too late to start twelve hours worth of cooking tonight, so I will refrigerate the apples and start it in the morning. If I wake up early enough to do the one-hour-on-high thing, anyway...
15 December 2010
Pre-resolution use
This blog was triggered by this crockpot attempt. so I figured I may as well blog it.
Cock-A-Leekie soup. Apparently, this means chicken + leeks in liquid. This was made on Monday night.
Cock-A-Leekie soup. Apparently, this means chicken + leeks in liquid. This was made on Monday night.
- A couple pounds of chicken thighs
- The chicken thighs I bought turned out to have not been deboned. Deboning chicken thighs was not entertaining. I did remove the skin as well, which wasn't bad. The chicken got cut up in pieces
- 2 leeks
- Washed and cut up fairly thin, it turns out that 2 leeks fill up the bottom third or so of the crockpot.
- 4 or 5 (relatively wimpy) carrots.
- More wouldn't be bad.
- Chicken broth
- I also used some beef broth to get the liquid to barely get to the top of the food. Could have used a little less, since things cooked down and there was extra liquid at the end.
- Salt
- More flavor would be better. I added the salt at the same time as the barley so as not to oversalt. Salt level was fine.
- Barley
- Lightly rinsed, then thrown in about 3 hours prior to end of cooking
The beginning
So here I am, at the end of 2010, thinking about things I've miserably failed to do this last year. One of these is to eat actual food most of the time. The other is to keep my apartment halfway clean. I would like to try to more or less follow the FlyLady method of housekeeping, but this attempt at blogging is not about that.
So here comes Resolution #1 for 2011: Eat real food at least once a week.
I own a slow cooker. It belonged to my mother, it is a Sears brand cooker, it has 70s-ish gold-and-brown pattern on the sides, a solid, removable, brown ceramic crock inside with a glass lid. It appears to hold 14-16 cups of water easily, which makes it about a 3.5 - 4 quarter slow cooker. It has a low setting, a high setting, and an auto-shift setting. I usually use it on a timer. I also don't use it enough.
Generally, I use it to make one-pot meals. These one-pot meals typically involve meat and several vegetables. They also tend to last several days, meaning that I have lunch to take to work when I actually use the slow cooker. Which I don't do enough of.
Thus, Corollary to Resolution #1 for 2011: Use the slow cooker at least twice a month.
I figure that it'll be harder to lose track of the fact that it's been three or four or five weeks since I last used it if I actually write it down somewhere. So here I am.
So here comes Resolution #1 for 2011: Eat real food at least once a week.
I own a slow cooker. It belonged to my mother, it is a Sears brand cooker, it has 70s-ish gold-and-brown pattern on the sides, a solid, removable, brown ceramic crock inside with a glass lid. It appears to hold 14-16 cups of water easily, which makes it about a 3.5 - 4 quarter slow cooker. It has a low setting, a high setting, and an auto-shift setting. I usually use it on a timer. I also don't use it enough.
Generally, I use it to make one-pot meals. These one-pot meals typically involve meat and several vegetables. They also tend to last several days, meaning that I have lunch to take to work when I actually use the slow cooker. Which I don't do enough of.
Thus, Corollary to Resolution #1 for 2011: Use the slow cooker at least twice a month.
I figure that it'll be harder to lose track of the fact that it's been three or four or five weeks since I last used it if I actually write it down somewhere. So here I am.
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