Take Two

Oh, the frustration!!  I finally got around to writing about the dinner I made from the cookbook this week only to have my computer crash and lose it all!  And no, I can’t recover the document; it kept sending up messages saying it couldn’t auto save, etc.  I had opened my original post talking about how I loved cooking and eating but didn’t enjoy writing so much.  Oh, the irony!  So here I am, writing this post again.  (Should I also mention I have about 3 other posts to write?  Why write when you can read or knit?)

Since I’m so far behind, I will work backwards and start with this week’s menu.

Menu

Chicken Cordon Bleu (p. 150)

Ruth’s Chris Potatoes (p. 80)

Pumpkin Bars (p. 291)

(I have just saved what I’ve written so far. . .) I started with the chicken.  Since some of our eating habits have changed, our family has a hard time eating an entire chicken breast; so I used chicken tenders.  The conventional chicken breasts seem to be getting bigger and thicker—have you looked at a chicken recently?  There is no way that what is in some of those packages is natural.  And when I discovered that the companies don’t have to disclose on the package if they add water or sodium fillers, I started changing the way I buy chicken.  Right now, I like Trader Joe’s choices.  (I would love to get a chicken directly from a farm; but until that happens, I will be content with what I can find.)  So, I lined the bottom of the casserole dish with chicken tenders and then followed the recipe exactly as is in the book.  (Press save here.)

I have made traditional chicken cordon bleu before.  It is one of my favorite ways to eat chicken, but I do not enjoy preparing it.  I don’t enjoy pounding the poultry, spreading the layers, rolling the poultry, putting in toothpicks, and dredging it in egg and then bread crumbs.  And when you are trying to keep peace and order in that post-nap/pre-dinner part of the day, who has time to do all that anyway?  But I was committed to making this recipe and doing that if I had to.  You can imagine my extreme delight when I discovered that all this recipe called for was layering everything on top of the chicken!  So simple!  And the flavor was just as savory as I remembered.  The texture was slightly different; a little more like a casserole than the traditional cordon bleu, but for a family meal, who cares?  Certainly not I, and neither did my husband or my son.  I think they may have enjoyed it even more.  This dish would work quite well for company or to take to a pot-luck.  (Press save here.)

Next I made the potatoes.  I chose this recipe because I didn’t want to peel potatoes, and the recipe didn’t say one had to do that.  The trickiest thing about making this recipe was scrubbing the potatoes and then slicing them.  You do have to “babysit” these potatoes a little bit in order to uncover them partway into the baking process and then add the cheese.  But in my opinion, that’s fairly easy to do.  And who can go wrong with potatoes, garlic, and cheese? 

The pumpkin bars were a little more involved and not just because I had a little help in the making of them.  I put the mix into an 11x7 pan just as the recipe said, only to discover that it made the bars really thick.  I went ahead and baked it that way though, as I am trying to follow the recipes.  Since the mixture was so thick, I ended up baking it for 45-50 minutes rather than the 25-30 the recipe suggested, and the middle was still slightly gooey.  If you make this recipe, I would recommend putting it in either a 9x13 pan or even splitting the mix between two smaller pans.  The smell of the pumpkin and the spices baking was wonderful, and the taste was everything a fall recipe should be—but really, any excuse to eat cream cheese icing will work for me!

(And save.)

A Series of Unfortunate Events

At the beginning of last week, we were on the ball at my house.  Monday was grocery shopping day; so I picked out all the recipes and made a list to ensure I would get all the ingredients I needed.  It was then that my series of unfortunate events started.  As I arrived at the grocery store, I realized the list was still on my dining table at home.  However, all the correct ingredients still ended up in my shopping cart.  I was super excited as the meat I was planning to fix was on sale!!  Added bonus! 

Tuesday morning, immediately after breakfast, I opened the cookbook to see what I needed to do first.  I knew the meat would take some time to prepare.  That’s when I noticed the “marinate overnight” phrase.  Normally, this wouldn’t stop me from making the dish.  I’m not cooking for prizes or stars or critics.  But since I’m really trying to follow the recipes, I decided this recipe would have to wait and we would eat something else.  So I then found another recipe that looked super easy and was basically a one-dish meal.  I decided I would make biscuits to go with it as well as cookies.  My new menu looked like this:

Menu

Easy Pot Roast (p.107)

Freezer Biscuits (p.215)

Rosie’s Peanut Butter Cookies (p.308)

Naturally, I didn’t have everything I needed for the pot roast (mainly, the roast), so it was off to the store for the second day in a row.  We took this adventure after lunch, and on arriving back at the house, it was naptime.  Once the children were in bed, I started in on the pot roast preparation.  “Easy Pot Roast” is an accurate title, for it was very easy to prepare.  I turned the oven temperature to 325° and began to put everything in my pot. I don’t have a roasting pan, so I used my large stock pot that I normally use for roasts.  I placed two celery stalks on the bottom of the pan in place of a wire rack.  I completed the preparations and had it in the oven in under 15 minutes!  I then proceeded with my other work of laundry, bills, phone calls, etc.

Let me put in a side note concerning a couple things I really like about this recipe.  We are working towards eating as little processed food as possible.  We still have a long way to go, but little by little our diet is definitely changing.  More veggies & fruits, more whole foods, different kinds of oils.  Maybe I will post more about that one day, but I wanted you to have a little background.  I love that this recipe uses olive oil.  It is one of the two main oils I am using these days.  (Coconut oil being the other.  I do also use sesame oil at times.)  I also used red onions as they are full of quercetin (http://healwithfood.org/health-benefits/eating-red-onions.php) and good for fighting certain sicknesses.  This recipe also uses carrots and peppers, making it very colorful and full of beneficial things!  The low-sodium V8 juice is another good choice.  The other ingredient I love is the apple cider vinegar.  If you can find an apple cider vinegar with lots of “mother” in it, you are making some really good choices for your family. http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/the-benefits-of-apple-cider-vinegar/

But back to my unfortunate cooking day.  I remembered that I had forgotten to put the thyme in with the roast, so I planned to do that an hour or so before I pulled the roast out of the oven.  It seemed the yummy aroma was starting to fill the air.  (I wish there was a way to post scents along with pictures!  And speaking of pictures, I didn't get around to taking any this time.)  As I opened the oven to put the thyme in the pot, I realized that no blast of heat hit me.  Hmm.  No warmth was coming through the pot holder as I opened the lid; so I looked at the oven controls.  The temperature was set, but I had forgotten to turn on the oven!  I guess the fragrance from prepping the food had stayed in my nose.  By now it is almost 5:00!  Since my pot filled the entire height of the oven, there would be no biscuits.  Thankfully, my husband had a rehearsal and wouldn’t be home until 7 at the earliest, and of course, my children don’t care what they eat.  So I turned ON the oven, upping the temperature to 350° and adding more liquid to try to keep the roast from drying out as I tried to get it to cook a little more quickly. 

We did go ahead and make the cookie batter as I figured those could bake once the roast was done.  At 6:00, I took out some carrots and potatoes that had cooked and used those along with some leftovers for my children’s dinner.  My husband did arrive home at 7:00, hungry.   I decided to go ahead and check the roast to see if it was ready.  It was cooked and flavorful—not quite as tender as if it had it been cooked at a lower temperature for longer period of time, but it wasn’t something one had to chew too much!  We went ahead and ate it, and the taste was as wonderful as the aroma that filled the kitchen!

I then started putting cookies in the oven, the first pan according to the recipe.  Since my son had been asking to make chocolate chip cookies, I added chocolate chips to the next batch.  I sat back down at the table and got involved listening to how my husband’s day had gone, and before I knew it the cookies had been in 3 minutes too long!!  (And my oven overbakes anyway.)  So I quickly got up to take out the cookies.  The plain ones were on the top rack and did just fine.  The chocolate chip ones on the bottom—well, let’s just say that the bottoms of the cookies were the same color as the chocolate chips.  Thankfully, I had a little more batter so I did get about 8 nicely baked ones with chocolate chips in them. 

Maybe next time I forget to let something marinate we’ll just order pizza.