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.

"Chopped"

One of Brian's favorite shows is "Chopped" on the Food Network.  The goal is to create a dish in each of three rounds that uses four food items that are presented at the beginning of the challenge.   It's fun but I think daunting to anyone other than a professional chef....sometimes there are outlandish ingredients or things that just do not seem to go together!

Last year I got Brian a "Chopped" cookbook for Christmas and the couple of recipes thst we've tried were pretty good.  Tonight he made a coconut panna cotta with candied peanuts.  First, panna cotta is kind of like flan.  (Which we love!)  Second, he had every single ingredient in the house and was using up Pantry ingredients.  It was delicious...not super sweet, very creamy.  The peanut brittle topping was the best part, though.   A keeper for sure!

It's Apple Season Again!

We went apple picking this weekend, and managed not to go overboard with the number of apples that we brought home.  That's got to be a record!

The first thing I made was apple butter.  Homemade apple butter is sooooooo good.  Store-bought just cannot compete with homemade.  The apples spent ten hours in the crockpot, which seemed to me to be a really long time.  But it was definitely worth it.  A trip in the blender made the apples nice and smooth, and this batch debuted on some biscuits the next night next to some pork chops and butternut squash.  It made for a LOVELY fall dinner.  :)

This is the recipe that I used.  "Tastes of Lizzy" Apple Butter

Strawberries in September??

I bought a strawberry plant or two for our deck this year.  The summer went by, we got a couple of small berries, but the woodsy creatures got to them first.  I'd pretty much given up on it when Brian told me last week that there was one ripe strawberry on the plant.  I promptly went outside and ate it.  It was the sweetest little strawberry that I have ever tasted!

Then more berries came.  Brian ate a couple, and I put the rest on my Cheerios yesterday.

Then I looked outside this morning and guess what?  MORE!  It's a Strawberry Miracle!

Guess I *will* try strawberry plants again next year.

As for the rest of my plants, I got a ton of cilantro, basil, parsley and oregano.  Good lord, the oregano!  Apparently basil needs to be harvested quicker than I did though, because I chopped some up for chicken soup the other day and it tasted "woody."  Which is a shame, because it's my favorite.

The green beans were a mostly-fail.  Bugs or critters got most of them, we got one handful and steamed them for dinner one night.  I had several jalapenos and anaheim chilies, so I'd try them again, too.  Nothing on the blueberry plant, but tons of cherry tomatoes.  Too bad only a few would ripen at a time, so they became a snack every day instead of in a salad.  All in all, not a bad year!

"Bowl of Red"

The title is homage to the Good Eats episode of the same name.

I had originally planned on making this on a Sunday morning and having it that night for dinner.  A 14-hour power outage changed those plans, so I threw it together on a Monday night.  I hate cooking stuff that takes a while on a weeknight.  But do you know what?  Dinner on Tuesday was just a quick warm-up, and there's plenty of nice things to be said about that.

Also, I don't utilize a chili recipe.  I just throw it together, based on what I have and what sounds good!  This one started with sauteed minced pepper and onion, and then added ground beef, beef chuck, a spice blend that I make up on the fly, tomato paste, a can of crushed tomatoes and a can of drained kidney beans.  This was one of the best chilis that I ever made, allowing it to simmer for 90 minutes really breaks down the meat into soft, wonderful bits of beef chuck.  And the skillet cornbread that Brian made (with my own grown anaheim peppers!) hit the spot.

British Delicious

You know, the Brits have a bad rap when it comes to food.

Sure, they make some strange things, like beans on toast and steak and kidney pie.  (eat a kidney?  No thanks.)  However, they have some good ideas too.  Especially when it comes to pub food.  Jacket potatoes (loaded baked potatoes to us Americans), potpie, chips, pudding, etc.  Toffee.  British chocolates like Cadbury.  (OMG, real British Cadbury is out-of-this-world good!)  And don't get me started on the little slice of heaven that is warm scones and clotted cream.

In our house we have a tradition of going out for dinner after the boys (Brian included) pass their monthly "stripe test" for karate.  We were on our way to a noodle place when I was talking about the new British Beer Company.  Brian looked at the kids menu and the kids were game.  So off we went.

First of all, since it was Happy Hour we got $5 appetizers.  Soft pretzel dippers!  I know, not British but that didn't make them any less tasty, let me tell you.  Then Brian ordered a burger that actually came out cooked medium.  It doesn't happen often.  (I almost said "that's rare" but that's too big a pun, even for me)  And I ordered this thing, called a "New England Pasty."  I'd heard of pasties in reading Harry Potter and other Brit Lit, and good Lord, are they fantastic.  Basically it's like a meat pie, only this one contained hot turkey and cheddar mashed potatoes.  Excellent!!  I could only eat half, so the rest was for lunch today.  And it was every bit as good.

Livin it Up

The boys went to visit their grandparents in PA for a week before the four of us headed to Virginia for vacation.  Sadly, both parents had to work that week.  But night can be fun, especially when there's no kiddie restrictions to dinner!

We stopped at the grocery store on our way back and picked up some live lobsters and fresh corn on the cob.   So delicious, and yes, I'm convinced now that steaming is better than boiling.  The plate doesn't get all waterlogged while cracking for lobster meat.  So, so good.

On Monday,  we fixed Brian's "I've never had a margarita" problem by heading to Mezcal in Worcester.  Upon hearing that held never had a margarita, the bartender asked to make us something special off-menu.  We were not disappointed!!!  Add some tuna tostada, chicken mole and steak chimichanga, and of course, their famous homemade guacamole and it was a great night.  No "ew, what's that" or tears.  Just full bellies and happiness. 

Tuesday was some of the biggest stuffed chicken breasts that I've ever seen.  Filled with spinach and feta cheese, they were dinner for TWO nights.  Thursday brought us to pork lettuce wraps with veggies, ginger, garlic,  housing, spicy peanut sauce, along with almonds for crunch.  Oh, and the second trip for ice cream that week.  Followed by a ton of packing for the trip.

On Friday, we began the drive down. But as a last hurrah, we went back to a special place:  Paul's Pasta in Groton, CT.  We hadn't been on about six years, and some of our early dates were there 18 years ago.  Still delicious, relatively inexpensive and so tasty.

So, our week of Food Comas was complete, including a few trips for ice cream.  It was worth it.