2 recent wins inspired by Tik Tok

 It must be good when The Boy is grabbing from the table before we've sat down, right?

These were roasted carrots with a spicy sauce - cut the carrots into sticks, toss with olive oil, paprika, salt, onion and garlic powders, then toss again with parmesan cheese.  Lay them out on a baking sheet and bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes.  I have a bottle of Franks Hot Honey Garlic sauce I've been waiting to open so I stirred that into some mayo and it was SO good on not only the carrots but also the broccoli and chicken we had that night.

Another night I made these chicken tenders

Season your chicken with salt, pepper, paprika, onion and garlic powders, then dip in beaten egg and then into crushed cornflakes.  I baked them in the air fryer for about 8 minutes and drizzled them with a sweet-garlicky-soy sauce I mixed up.

Very delicious.

book club 42 - you do you by sarah knight

 2023-42

 

book club 41 - The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve

 2023-41

 

the corner of my kitchen

 There is a corner of my kitchen that has been the bane of my existence for years now.  YEARS.

It is where the fruit bowl and bread products are kept.  Above the counter is the cupboard full of glass jars, measuring cups and water bottles.  Below is the plastic container drawer.  

We used to use multiple bowls to hold the fruit, but that didn't work well, because then there were multiple bowls on the counter.  So I bought a multi level fruit bowl, but it was too tall, and blocked the cabinet door.  I was mad, and couldn't return the fruit bowl, so we kept it.  But I was only ever the only one that would MOVE the fruit bowl so jars and cups and stuff could be put in the cupboard.  Everyone else (The Mister) would leave them on the counter.  Same with the plastic containers, even though there was nothing blocking THAT drawer.  

The bread products were a similar disaster, usually tossed in a pile, until The Mister bought a giant humongous bowl that took up a bunch of room and then no one could see - or would look  to see - if anything was going moldy beneath the surface.  

Kitchen towels would get tossed there, the kids would leave chip and cracker bags there, and I hated it.  

Then a couple of weeks ago I realized - I don't have to live like this!  And bought 2 baskets from Amazon.  I took everything out of the corner, cleaned it all up and then it looked like this - 

I would be embarrassed it anyone knew how often I just stood in the kitchen that weekend and admired the corner.  It was a lot of time.

Does it still look this good now?  God no.  But does it look better than before?  A thousand yeses.

11/11

 

delicious butter chicken and no i did not take a bite out of the naan bread

 We have definitely had butter chicken on the brain since our trip to Harrison.  I got serious one night and googled on my phone until I found a recipe that sounded perfect to me.  I made it last week and while it was not as good as restaurant butter chicken, it was dang good.

recipe - butter chicken

book club 40 - Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon

 2023-40

 

 

book club 39 - Mother Daughter Muder Night by Nina Simon

 2023-39

 

 

book club 38 - The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

 2023-38

 

book club 37 - essentialism by Greg McKeown

 2023-37

 

angel food cake from scratch

 I had a hankering for angel food cake this summer - beautiful and light served with berries and whipped cream outside on a sunny day.  Mmmm!  

So I went to the store to buy a mix.  And then another store, and then another store.  Not one store had angel food cake mix!  I stood in the aisle of the last (and of course most expensive) store and googled angel food cake.  Recipe after recipe confirmed you needed cake flour, cream of tartar, superfine sugar, and lots of egg whites.

It physically pained me to see the prices of the stuff I needed. 

cream of tartar $7.99

pastry flour $8.79

egg whites $4.69 

I didn't even stop in front of the superfine sugar.  Regular sugar would be just fine, thank you. 

 LOOK at that.  Angel Food Cake perfection on the outside.

 On the inside????  Maybe not quite so much.  It looked great, and tasted great, but was definitely heavier than an angel food cake should be.  I bet that damn superfine sugar would have made a difference.

 

Recipe from Back in the Day Bakery

book club 36 - Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas

 2023-36

 

book club 35 - Triptych by Karin Slaughter

 2023-35

 

book club 34 - The Hawthorne Legacy by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

 2023-34

 

3 things i made on saturday

 I always have a ton of windows open on my computer and my phone with recipes I want to try.  I have books laying out, marked up with lists and post it notes.  And then I struggle every day to find something to make for dinner.  So this Saturday I was like - Let's make some stuff!  The plan was 5 recipes.  The Girl and I went to the store for supplies and then came home and she scrammed off to do something more interesting, and I started making buns.

Not just any buns, Copycat Texas Roadhouse Rolls.  The Mister stood by frowning as someone other than HIM made bread as I put together the easy dough.  After a couple of rises, we were treated to these delicious looking beauties from the oven.

They were very very good, even without the cinnamon butter which I did not make but will make next time, for scientific purposes ONLY.

While the dough was rising I started on the Brown Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.  And the first thing I did was to screw up and immediately start creaming the butter and sugar together, and to actually READ THE RECIPE and be reminded that I was supposed to melt the butter and brown it.  Ooops.  I had to stop a few times and work on lunch and supervising because The Girl had a friend over for lunch and a play-date and I had destroyed the kitchen with my baking so far.  The Boy appeared at this point was interested in helping for approximately 7 minutes before vanishing again, and I managed to get the cookies all baked, and my testers all approved.

It was then I knew I'd taken on too much that day.  On Thursday and Friday I'd had 3 vaccine shots - flu, covid and shingles (because I am an old), had one of the most stressful work weeks I've had in years, and had vicious nightmares the night before that kept me up most of the night.  I cleaned the kitchen, handed the play-date off to The Mister, and went and laid down with heating pad on my bed.  As soon as the friend went home, I closed my eyes and had a nap.  

Waking up and feeling alert after the nap was harder than it should have been, but I finally managed and staggered off to the kitchen to make soup for dinner.  Vegetable Pastina soup, found on the ole Ticky Toks.  The broth, so simple, was to die for, and the only problem was the stupid little pasta I'd chosen took over 20 minutes to cook and stuck to the bottom of the pot every time you stopped stirring.  But it was divine, everyone loved it, and I will buy new pasta and make it again soon.

book club 33 - Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

 2023-33

 

book club 32 - Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

 2023-32

 

bites

 Because spooky season is almost over, here are my little yarn pumpkins that I started making early this month

I saw - the the ole ticky toks of course - a recipe to scoop out the inside of your bagel and fill it with egg and ham and cheese and air fry it.  We didn't have any bagels but we did have buns and gave it a go and was so good.  I still haven't tried it with bagels.

We had a ton of cherry tomatos all ripen at once and we tried a marinated baked recipe that was pretty meh, so we squished them and covered them in feta and baked them and ate it on bread. 

Speaking of feta, I also tried the feta egg recipe, where you sprinkle feta in your pan, let it start to melt and then crack in an egg.  I don't like fried eggs, so I tried a scrambled, and it worked pretty well.  Cherry tomatos on top of course.

These pancake-sausage bites were GOOD - add cooked crumbled sausage and shredded cheddar cheese to your prepared pancake batter and bake as muffins or mini muffins.

I had a bunch of apples that were suddenly not looking their best, so I searched for a fast applesauce recipe and found a super super great one  here - not only does it not have any added sugar, but you don't even had to peel the apples!  The authors pureed the skins into their sauce - i pulled them out after it had cooled for a bit and left the sauce chunky.  So good.

very good lentils

 I can no longer find the recipe that inspired these amazing lentils, but here is a rough recipe for what I did.  We served it with rice and a big handful of cherry tomatos from the garden.

Tomato Coconut Lentils

Chop up a good 5-6 garlic cloves and grate a thumb size knob of fresh ginger.  Add them to a pot over medium heat with some oil and sizzle for a couple of minutes.  Add in about a teaspoon each of ground cumin, coriander and turmeric and cook for another minute or so. Add in  a cup of rinsed red lentils, 2 cups veg broth, a tin of diced tomatos and a tin of coconut milk.  Stir it all up, cover and simmer for 30 minutes until the lentils are soft.  Season with salt and pepper.

book club 31 - The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

2023-31