Strata

Thursday's becoming my turn to cook dinner.  I didn't pick this recipe, but it couldn't have been easier.

Egg and Cheese Strata, from America's Test Kitchen 30-minute meals.

Basically, saute onions, add cubed bread and toast it, then fold in scrambled-egg batter with cheese.  Push down on it a little, kind of like french toast, to get the bread to soak up the mix.  Bake for 12 minutes, and voila!  Dinner.  Add hash browns and sausage for the full effect.

Now, what the heck is the difference between a frittata and a strata??  I must find out.

Playing Catch-Up

Well.

Life has a way of running away with you sometimes, especially around the holidays.  So normally I would have written a post about each of these things individually.  Instead, here's a group post.  These are all things that we've eaten in the last couple of weeks that I thought were noteworthy...

 Spinach frittata.  Something that I had never had before, and it was awesome.  I'm not sure what the difference is between this and crustless quiche, if there is a difference at all.  Leftovers were delicious for a couple of mornings after we had this for dinner.  

 This is called "Cowboy Caviar."  I made it from a recipe online for the resident holiday party last week.  The recipe calls for corn, black beans, black-eyed peas, cilantro, green onion, tomato and avocado.  They didn't have black-eyed peas at the grocery store so I subbed pinto beans.  This was great with tostitos scoops.

We were going to have friends over for a football game one Sunday but they had to cancel last minute.  So we ate the food anyway (of course!)  Mushroom swiss burgers were incredible, and this warm potato salad was simply divine.  It's a stretch calling it a "salad" instead of roast potatoes but you know what?  The name doesn't matter, it was so good.

We Do Snowstorms Right

I'm a lucky girl.  When Brian hears that there's going to be a storm and we're going to be snowed in, he starts dreaming up something good to cook.  Because, if you're going to be stuck inside, you might as well eat well.

This particular storm:  chicken and waffles, and our first homemade ice cream.

First up, chicken and waffles.  I'd never had chicken and waffles before.  I knew that it was a Southern thing, and I've said it before:  I adore southern cooking.  We don't eat a lot of southern food often because done right, it's laden with calories.

Now, I couldn't see what the big deal was about chicken and waffles because I was picturing a fried chicken breast on a plate, side by side with a waffle with maple syrup and butter.  And although that sounded intriguing, it wasn't WOW!  This is incredible!

Suffice it to say, I get it now:

This. Was. Incredible!  Fried chicken, in a batter with tabasco flavoring, served atop a perfectly crisp waffle, and then topped with a pan gravy that has a little bit of maple syrup in it.  The most beautiful pairing of sweet and savory that I have ever tasted.  That being said, it's certainly not going on our menu again anytime soon.  And I don't feel the need, because a once-in-a-long-while treat like this is the greatest.   I don't want it to lose it's special-ness.



And now for the ice cream...Brian got an ice cream maker for Christmas, because when watching Cutthroat Kitchen or Chopped he always remarks "We should make our own ice cream!"  It's definitely not cheaper than buying ice cream, but certainly fresher.  And it doubles as a fun activity for kids.  Will helped make the base, and he smashed the cookies for our inaugural ice cream batch:  Chocolate Cookies and Cream.

It was deliciously rich, and I'm glad it doesn't make a bigger batch.  The only critique that Brian and I agree on:  scrape the chocolate cream out of the oreos next time.

Next time we may make strawberry ice cream.  I'm not a fan of artificial strawberry flavored anything, but I'll bet fresh strawberry ice cream would be incredible!  Or banana, with bits of Nilla Wafers.  Good Lord, the possibilities!

Brought to you by The Letter "F"

No, not that "F".......today's words are Freezer, Frittata and Fail.

First the frittata....last night's dinner was from the Epicurious  cookbook that we like so much....it was called "Kitchen Sink Frittata."  In other words....tons of stuff in it.  In anticipation of (hopefully) knocking some things off the Holiday To-Do list, Brian had dinner on the table early.  The kids weren't interested in the slightest so they had leftover pizza.  Sean's got an aversion to pizza lately, but even he had a little and then some yogurt.  Anyway.....it was delicious.  Not the most filling meal in the world but just have two pieces and you're good to go!  It had tomatoes, basil and potatoes, and plenty of cheese.  Brian said that the recipe had called for bacon but he didn't put it in, given his bacon-cooking woes as of late.  (Smoke, smoke smoke!)  And I now know the difference between a frittata and a quiche....quiche has crust.  And either of them would be delicious at breakfast.

Now for Freezer and Fail.  I've got a lot of friends that have super good luck in freezing things.  There's a lot of pins on Pinterest about freezer meals.  Yet.....I don't have much luck in the freezing department.  Either I forget something is IN the freezer and it gets destroyed over time, or it wasn't meant to be in the first place.  We also seem to have a shortage in plastic containers, but obviously that's an easy fix:  get more containers.  The most recent fail was the other day:  Brian had made bone-in chicken breasts with a corn relish, with mashed potatoes sometime in November.  It was more food than we could eat at one meal and we were heading to Philly in a few days.  I hate to throw food out, so I froze the chicken, relish and potatoes separately.  This week being a busy week (HA!  That's an understatement) I defrosted them.  Only to my dismay....the potatoes were soup and the relish had turned brown.  The chicken was probably fine but I'm throwing it out anyway because I have nothing to go with it.  I want to get better at this, if other people can do it so can I!

Back in Business

Hooray, we've moved!  Still getting settled and will be for a while but let me tell you, it is SO NICE to be cooking again.  Starting out slow, but after weeks of quickie dinners and lots of takeout, it is good to eat decent food.  Not that going out to eat isn't "decent," but it is nice to be cooking again.

The new house has a very nice kitchen, and cooking in the summer is a lot sweeter when you're "slaving at a hot stove" in central air conditioning!!!   Our first home-cooked meal?  Steak on the grill, with potato packets and canned green beans.  Gotta start somewhere.  :)

In the mornings Hubby is doing the kids' dropoff so I actually have time for REAL breakfast.  So here's today's meal: 

dropped egg on toast with leftover potatoes, and Cabot vanilla bean greek yogurt with some blueberries.  Delish!  I'd never had this brand of greek yogurt before and it's great  Lots of vanilla flavor.  Having "breakfast for dinner" tonight and I'm going to make smoothies for the kids with this yogurt and some frozen tropical fruit.

It feels SO GOOD to be back in business!

Egg Pie

Dinner Monday Night:  Alton Brown's "Refrigerator Pie."  Or as many people call it, quiche.

I'll say it:  this is not a great dinner for a weeknight.  It takes 45 minutes to bake, and without thinking ahead there's a bit of prepwork too.  However, it's a good idea for using up leftovers.  You can add pretty much whatever flavors you want, but we do like to keep it simple in this house.  A little protein, some veggie, and usually some cheese.  Salmon works well, as does ham and chicken.  Asparagus, spinach, peppers, even broccoli works too.  Tonight's was by far the best:  maple bacon, green pepper, onion and cheese.  Brian went back for seconds, and maybe even thirds.  Instead of the usual green salad, he shredded some potato and made a "fried potato cake" and a couple of sliced strawberries for presentation.  Fantastic!  Next time a Friday or Saturday, though.

Day 21: Too Hot To Cook

New England is under a heatwave right now, so the idea of turning on the oven is just plain silly.  I considered the leftover spaghetti for me and the kids (Hubby was late headed to school from work due to traffic so he unfortunately got McDonald's) but the I realized that there wouldn't be anything to eat at work today.  Actually, I had brought the spaghetti to work today to eat at lunchtime.  Unfortunately, I brought the spaghetti but no utensils.  Eating spaghetti with your hands, especially at work, is not appetizing.  So instead, I headed out for some lunch.

Kids and I had pancakes, bacon and strawberry-banana smoothies.  And the kids insisted on helping cook...something that I usually encourage wholeheartedly but was difficult last night.  I make the pancakes on an electric griddle and the bacon on a griddle on the stove, and these are on opposite ends of the kitchen.  The boys wouldn't take no for an answer though, so Will broke up bananas for the smoothie.  I turned my back on Will for a minute, to find Sean wiping down the counter of pancake batter.  That was pretty cool!  After swapping his Kleenex (clean) for some damp paper towels, I let him continue.  No way am I discouraging the boys from cleaning ANYTHING!  Will helped put away the baking powder and discovered half a bag of mini chocolate chips, so the last batch of pancakes had chocolate chips in them.  Naturally, they were the best ones!

Friday Night Breakfast

Tonight's Dinner:  "Man Breakfast" by Alton Brown.  Big slabs of bacon, eggs, and the best hash browns I've ever had courtesy of Brian.  The secret ingredient?  They're cooked in a bit of bacon fat.  No wonder they're so damn delicious.  :)  No pictures.  By the time I thought to take one, my plate was clean!

Also, with Sean's impending second birthday in four days, we decided to throw caution to the wind and gave both boys peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for supper.  Sean devoured his like it was going out of style!  I think it's safe to say that he likes peanut butter.

Surprise Pancakes

Conversation at Casa de Crafty Mama tonight:

What's for dinner?

The menu said stir-fry garlic chicken.  But we had that for lunch.  So we'll pick something else to make with the defrosted chicken.

Did you defrost chicken?  I didn't defrost chicken.

Ok---so I guess we won't be having chicken.

Hmmmm......go out?

No.  Don't want to spend the money for neither kid to really eat their meal, and everywhere we can go to eat will be mobbed on a Friday night.

True, true.  Soooo....pancakes then?

You know, I like how you think.


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A trip to the grocery store for maple syrup, juice and bacon later, and we're all eating chocolate chip pancakes with bacon.  I don't know how we'll deal with that.  I mean, that's just so sad.  :)

Where's the Waffles??

There are two well-known facts in our home when it comes to cooking.  One:  If the recipe calls for milk, we will probably forget to put it in.  Two:  Waffles cease to exist in our house, unless they come frozen in a box.

So when we were making the menu for this week's dinner and Brian wrote "Waffle Night" for Friday, I thought he was joking.  He wasn't:  stubborn as he is, he refuses to believe that he cannot make waffles.  

So Waffle and Bacon night it is.  The bacon, having fried up nicely on the stove, is keeping warm in the toaster oven.  The entire house smells beautifully of bacon.  The waffle iron is plugged in, and he's busy doubling the recipe so that we can put leftover waffles in there.  First, he forgets the milk.  Luckily, it is remembered before the mix hits the waffle  iron.  We wait, with baited breath, for our first batch of waffles.  

I am working on the menu for next week and  Brian says "What are we having for dinner on Friday?  I say "chili and cornbread, why?"  He says, "No, how about this Friday.  You know, today?"

The waffle iron has been flipped open and there's.....waffle batter.  The damn thing was plugged in to heat up and it never got hot enough.  The damn thing is broken.  

All you can do is nod and smile.  Brian took it well, with a smile and "I can't believe this s*#t."    The elusive Holy Grail of Breakfast Food has passed over our home again.  So what the hell to do for dinner?  I know!  How about BLT's?  No---No L, No T.  How about bacon, egg and cheese english muffins?  Every egg in the fridge is in the waffle batter.  So with that, dinner is at Friendly's.  The kids were thrilled!

We come home, and the iron is deemed trash.  Waffles have been doomed to frozen and restaurants.  And to add to the misery:  Joey was sitting on the couch waiting for us when we got home from our impromtu Friendly's Feast.  He was not pleased--we left him with the intoxicating smell of bacon and there was none for him to scout.

I'd say better luck next time...but there will be no next time.  

Single-Mom Dinners

Hubby's in Cleveland this week, so dinners have to be really easy.  After all, it's tough to make dinner for me and the Big One, while the Little One is usually clamoring for food too.  The Little One recently discovered that he likes fruit.  Not baby food-fruit, he likes that, but he really likes "real" fruit.  He was lusting SOOOOO hard this weekend after my watermelon slice at a birthday party that I gave in and let him lick it.  He loved it!  I tried the same thing with a strawberry slice this morning at breakfast and he was all over that thing, too.  It's funny what you'll try with a second kid, I never would have held up a piece of fruit to Will when he was a baby to let him "lick a taste."    :)

Anyway, with being a "single mom" and not having the neat-o ability to grow a third arm (why not!!!!)  dinners for me and Will have been super-simplified.  Like quesadillas for him last night and me eating a soft taco, standing up over the sink.  Tonight I said I'd make pancakes.  When I asked if he wanted blueberry or chocolate chip, DUH he said chocolate!  I didn't even bother shredding zucchini in them.  Then, to my horror, I realized that we were almost out of Bisquick.  Nope, not even enough to eke out a batch of pancakes.  Sean was screaming like crazy, the house was hot, and  I had just had a miserable time of changing Sean's crib sheet for the third time this week.  (Seriously...somebody needs to figure out a way to make that easier!)  I very nearly caved and tossed the whole fam damily in the car to have an impromptu dinner at Friendly's.  What stopped me was our quest to save $$$, and Will really was excited by the idea of pancakes for dinner.  And the rain shower had already spoiled my plans of eating the pancakes al fresco.  So I pulled out "The Bible."  And I made pancakes from scratch.  It was surprisingly easy, and the cooked up nice on the electric griddle.  And wow, they were delicious!  I mean, breakfast and chocolate for dinner?  What's not to like?  The pancakes were slightly thin, but so delicious.  I'm telling you, I'm never buying Bisquick again! 

Eggies

I re-learned an important lesson today. I was at the grocery store and was thrilled to find that eggs had little $.75 off! coupons on them. Of course there's a catch...they expire next Tuesday. But hey, you can get through a dozen eggs in a few days if you have some egg salad, scrambled eggs for breakfast maybe, and do some baking? Absolutely!

Eeeehhh......you can do that if you don't already have 18 eggs at home, and a dozen of them are set to expire on Monday!! Note to self: check out the fridge before you head out to the grocery store. I'm trying to make the best of it, having a breakfast casserole tomorrow, baking some cookies and maybe Joey will get a scrambly-egg treat. Oops.

Operation Deception....

....is a huge success!

We returned home from Philly today after a great visit with Brian's parents. We also ate a lot of junk this weekend, including donuts for breakfast twice, and an ice cream lunch on Sunday. So I was feeling pretty motivated to turn that around. All sugar for most of the day does not do a body good!

Upon returning home, I found that my veggie crisper was still pretty full with the week before's produce finds. So I turned out a batch of Sweet Potato Cranberry Muffins, and veggie pancakes. I offered Will "Chocolate Pancakes" which really are chock-full of zucchini and carrot shreds, and enough chocolate chips to cover them up. He devoured them! And talked about them for the next hour! I filled three freezer bags with the remainders and popped them in the freezer. I also had shredded carrot and zucchini left over, as well as some sweet potato puree, so I froze all of that as well. I'd say I put in about 45 minutes of effort today for several breakfasts. I can definitely do that once in a while!

No verdict on the muffins....but if Will likes them in the morning I'll post the recipe to share. Keeping my fingers crossed!!

Breakfast for a Crowd

I went grocery shopping after work on Friday, I really miss going during the week when no one is there! But anyway....I didn't take a real good look at what we already had in the house, so I ended up buying some duplicates. So what's a girl to do, when she has 3 dozen eggs in the house? Turn to the internet to find a breakfast dish, something different than what we usually have. I turned up with this Breakfast Casserole. It didn't take too long to make on a busy Saturday morning, and it was scrumptious! The recipe is from About.com, and though it says it serves 4-6 people, it was just me and Hubby yesterday. So we decided to see if it would make OK leftovers in the toaster oven, and it did! This recipe is pretty basic, you could always dress it up with a different kind of cheese, or use some spices, or even roast some veggies in place of all or some of the meat.

Breakfast Casserole

4 slices of bread, torn
12-16 oz cooked bacon or sausage, drained and crumbled
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
6 eggs, beaten
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon dry mustard

Grease the bottom of a 13x9 pan. Tear up the four slices of bread and place in the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle cooked, crumbled bacon or sausage over the bread pieces. Sprinkle cheddar cheese over the meat. Mix eggs, milk and dry mustard together, pour over casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Serve warm.

"Cay-Cakes"

Another hot night, and another night of not wanting to cook. Hmmm....what sounds good, besides ice cream sundaes?? I know, Banana Pancakes!!

Banana pancakes have been my absolute favorite since I was a little girl. They're especially good with toasted pecans and a dollop of whipped cream, but we're talking dinner, not dessert. Heck, if I'd had whipped cream in the house, I probably would've doused 'em! :) Plus, it's a dinner that Will and I can both eat instead of playing the "I don't want it" game. I even poured chocolate milk for both of us, a rare treat for him. He loves milk so much that I don't usually have to put chocolate in it.

Anyway...nice easy night, complete with paper plates. :)