Peaches, peaches and more peaches!

I've been obsessed with peaches this summer.  It must be a good year for them!

One day on Facebook, my daughter saw the mini peach cobblers made in a muffin pan.  So we made that and it was as good as that basic peach cobbler recipe is.  You know, the one with milk, flour and sugar combined and poured over the butter in the pan...yeah.   I can't find the link now or I would show you.  Anyway, don't do this unless you enjoy cleaning those 12 muffin holes.  Takes about as long as making the cobbler!

In the midst of the kitchen remodel, I rediscovered a couple of cookbooks.  So I tried one of the cobblers in there, hoping to recreate the crispy crust peach cobbler we had back in the school cafeteria.   It turned out just ok.

But I love the Simple Peach Sorbet that I ran across in the Southern Living Homestyle cookbook.  Only 3 simple ingredients!  It's a great way to finish off those peaches that are getting ripe.

Simple Peach Sorbet

4 or 5 fresh ripe peaches, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup sugar
 1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

1) Process in a blender until smooth, stopping to scape down the sides.  Pour mixture into a pan.  Cover and freeze 3 hours or until firm.
2) Remove the pan from freezer, let stand 10 minutes.  Break frozen mixture into chunks and process again until smooth and serve.

In step 2, after letting it stand long enough to scoop it out of the pan, I skip the rest of that step and just eat it.

Yummy!  Now gotta go join Jamie, she's having a peachy party and Michelle's always having a potluck!

The kitchen is closed

The kitchen is closed due to illness.  I'm sick of it.

The pans won't fit in the cabinets.  It's not that the cabinets are full (which they are), but they physically will not fit into the narrow door openings!  So they must sit on top of the stove ALL the time.  The taupe countertop has got to go as well as that corner sink.  A corner sink?  Yes.  Sounds and looks neat but put more than one person in there ... well that is the problem...you can't get more than one person at the sink!

The tile floor is cracked and the grout is gradually crumbling away.
 

It's been 2 months since I've talked about anything except to share a recipe experience with the Sweet As Pie Cooking Club.   No painting projects, no craftiness, no crochet, no sewing.  No project of any kind has received any attention except this one:  the cabinet layout for the kitchen redesign.

Goodbye old kitchen!

Goodbye sunroom floor.

After week 1, the house is a mess with the contents of 3 rooms being shoved into 2 rooms and out in the garage.

The cabinet install started today and I am getting excited to see it come together!

More to come!

Delicious Healthy Pizza

Delicious Healthy Pizza is one of the Sweet As Pie Cooking Club selections for February.   This is not just your typical lightened up pizza.  There's no crust here.

After looking at the ingredients, I admit I was more than a little skeptical at first.  I had never prepared leeks or portabella mushrooms before.

Leeks are...well...exactly WHAT are they?

And portabellas are...just plain ugly...and BIG...and don't even look appetizing.

But that's what this cooking club experience is about, trying something new!  So here goes.

Brown the onions.  This is always a good start!

Add in chopped tomatoes and garlic.

Add the leek.   I had heard about the dirt inside and about rinsing it well.  So I just went with it.

Squeeze in some lemon juice.

Add yummy basil.

Stir it all together.

Enter the portabellas.  I removed the stem, I don't know why, maybe to make more room for the filling.

Pile on the parmesan cheese.  I might have added more than the recipe called for.

Bake until heated through about 12 minutes or so.

These were good and so filling!  I was pleasantly surprised.  I have been eating pretty heavy lately and this was a healthy meal at just the right time.

Chicken Lettuce Wraps Ya'll

We love the lettuce wraps at PF Changs.   The last time I had them though, they were extremely salty!   Since I wanted to make these at home, Chicken Lettuce Wraps from SouthernPlate was my selection for the Sweet As Pie Cooking club.

While the chicken is cooking, chop the mushrooms, water chestnuts and green onion.

When the chicken is done, chop it up too.

I added in extra green onion and mushrooms.

The sauce is simply soy sauce and brown sugar.  Pour it in with the chicken and veges and heat thoroughly.

Spoon the mixture into chilled lettuce leaves and roll or fold over.

I ended up spooning much more into that leaf!   And I skipped the crunchy rice noodles.

My family enjoys these.  To me, they are much milder and less tasty than I remember them being the first time I made them.  I added chili sauce to mine to spice them up.  I guess I was missing that yummy sauce at PF Changs!

This version might be a basic starter that would work for picky eaters or maybe kids.

I have since run across a couple of other lettuce wrap recipes that I want to try.

Easy Pasta Carbonara and Roasted Chicken

I've never had Pasta Carbonara so I was looking forward to trying this Sweet As Pie Cooking Club selection from the Pampered Chef Easy Pasta Carbonara.    We had it along with what I should call "Don't try this at home" Roasted Chicken.

Starting with the chicken, I got one of the "free" chickens.  No additives, no antibiotics, no hormones, no, no, no, etc.  It was a pricey chicken, but it was going to be healthy and hopefully actually taste like chicken.  Just add simple seasonings in a roasting pan and it should be done in 1 hour according to the recipe.

At a blazing 500 degrees.  Sounds good so far.

Right.

Now that the chicken is in the oven, I got the pasta going.  We can't seem to convert to the "other" bacon, so I used regular bacon.  This dish was starting to remind me of Hamburger or Chicken Helper, put it all in the pot and let it cook down.  Easy enough.

A few minutes into all this, smoke began coming from the oven.  Oh ok, one of the comments on the roasted chicken recipe said something about smoke but I wasn't worried about it.  But it didn't stop!  The chicken continued to spit and sputter all inside the oven.  Smoke everywhere!

The smoke detector went off and the chicken wasn't even close to being done.  After 1 hour it looked like this.  From all that smoke you would think this thing was burned to the bone!

I made a cut into the leg and it wasn't even close to done.  So I put it back in the oven just to let it "smoke" some more!    I turned on the vent fan which didn't help at all and opened the door to let some fresh air in.  My throat and nose were burning from breathing all that smoke, ugh.

I have NEVER fanned the smoke detector like this, it was so frustrating!

 Now back to the pasta, it's done and ready for the next step.  Add in the yummy cheeses....parmesan

and yes cream cheese too!

Finally, I took the chicken out of the oven, I don't know how long it was in there.  Maybe an hour and half?  It was very moist and I should have checked the temp to see if it was done but I didn't.  I cut off what I thought was done and left what I wasn't sure about.  I had a meeting to go to and just wanted to eat dinner and go at this point!

The Bassman was a bigger fan of the Pasta Carbonara than I was.  He had 3 servings for dinner and took leftovers for lunch the next day.  I thought it was a little bland, but it could be that my sinuses and taste buds were so irritated from the smoke that I couldn't taste it!  I'm glad I used real bacon and added extra red pepper flakes.

And I will never roast a chicken like that again!

Fat Tuesday

One of these days, the Bassman (who we believe is part cajun, hee hee :) and I will go to the southern part of our state and enjoy the local Mardi Gras food.   In the meantime, we enjoyed the best crawfish etouffee this side of New Orleans and beignets at Albany Bistro and wiped out a few pounds of steamed crawfish at Tim's Cajun Kitchen.   That brings me to today's fat food.  It happened along with an effort to get some stuff out of my frig without wasting it.  

I have been in the mood for sausage balls.  There doesn't have to be a holiday, football game or other special day to have sausage balls.  So it's time to try these Cream Cheese Sausage Balls.  The Bassman and his friend will be fishing this weekend and they can just grab these on their way out the door (and I won't eat them all).

She mixed it up using the stand mixer and the dough attachment.  Now why didn't I think of that?!  I've been using a big bowl and a big spoon or fork or whatever worked that day to get it all mixed together.

In just a couple of minutes, the mixing was done for me!

I think the 400 degree oven is too high or 20 minutes is way too long or I might have sat at the computer a couple of minutes AFTER the timer went off.  They're very crusty on the bottom.   That's ok, we'll still eat 'em!  The next batch I turned the oven down to 375 and they turned out better.

Too crusty

And the other fat food was some cookies made from that fund raiser cookie dough.  You know the kind that will keep out at room temperature for about 20 days?   They're good cookies, but I've got to wonder about the preservatives that will keep food for that length of time.  

Maybe next year I'll just make a donation and they can keep the cookie dough!

Nutella Fruit Dip

Plop a heaping tablespoon of Nutella in a half of a cup vanilla greek yogurt.

Stir.

That's it.

Dip your favorite fruit in it or just your finger.    It's also good with homemade granola sprinkled on top.

Thanks to The Better Baker for sharing this Nutella Fruit Dip.  

It definitely moved from my Pinterest Recipes to Try board to the Recipe Keepers board.

Cooking Club: Pork Chops with Pineapple Fried Rice

Making fried rice and other asian inspired dishes at home has been on my to cook list for a while now.  Especially since one of my daughters LOVES fried rice.  Unfortunately she is away at college and not at home to enjoy Pork Chops with Pineapple Fried Rice with us.  But I was glad to look up a basic fried rice recipe for her to try for herself.   

This is her plate.  She said the rice was missing something but it was still good.  I'm proud of her for trying this.  It saves money at college and should be healthier than ordering take-out.

And this is my plate of pork chops with pineapple fried rice.  For some reason, I've become less interested in taking pictures of the process and just try to get a shot of the final product!

The Bassman liked this dish and fixed a plate of leftovers for his lunch the next day.  Now we have a new way to prepare pork chops.  Next time, I may use the bone-in cut for more flavor instead of the boneless although the boneless cook faster.

The pineapple could have been much better if I used fresh.  But at $4.99 each, more than the pork chops costs, I chose just to give the canned slices a try.  I love pineapple, so the canned version was still good.

To top it off, we added a sprinkle of green onion on top!

Nutcrackle and Cookie Swap

My daughters get together with their high school friends during Christmas break while everyone is home from college.   This year, instead of their usual gift game, they had a cookie swap.  One of the friends is such a "Baker", hee hee, her last name too!  Corny, yes, but I like to joke with her about it.

One chose to make pretzels dipped in white chocolate.  Although it's not a cookie, it's something that everyone likes and is swapable (is that a word?).

The other choice was these nutella cookies called Nutcrackle that she found on Pinterest.  We're expanding our nutella use!

We learned to leave a lot of powdered sugar on as opposed to shaking it off before baking.

We also omitted the hazelnuts themselves.

These were slightly crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.  Due to overload on Christmas goodies, I put the leftovers in the freezer to crumble and use in a crust later on.

I should have taken a picture of the platter they brought home from the cookie swap.  There were a couple of cake mix cookies and a cream cheese cupcake thingy with a mini oreo on top that I had to have a taste of.

I thought the idea of the cookie exchange was great.  It eliminated the shopping stress and was an opportunity to try something different.

Linking with:

National Championship Appetizers

Well, the doc told the Bassman he needed to lose some weight and my pants waistband could stand to be a little looser too!   But we still had to enjoy some snacks while watching Alabama play in the national championship game.

Here's what I chose:


Warm Artichoke Dip with veges and pita chips from the 400 Calorie Fix.   Looking at the ingredients, you would think it would have more flavor than it did.  I like a spinach artichoke combination better.  And it wouldn't hurt to throw in another vege, would it?

Bacon Wrapped Chicken Bites with chili sauce from SkinnyTaste.  This is one of my favorite recipe sites.  The Bassman loved these.  Man food.

Andouille Stuffed Mushrooms and Jalepenos from Tasty Kitchen.   I cringed at the thought of buying frozen jalepeno poppers, so I used the same stuffing  in some fresh jalepenos.  The Bassman loved those too!

Actually, we just went ahead and called it a meal.   The good side is they are all low carb and we did get some veges in.   The bad side...we might have eaten one too many.

Butternut Squash Challenge #3

With all the mouths to feed on Sunday's at our family lunch gatherings, I'm always looking for a rather large dish to share.  Sometimes it turns out to be the same old food but often I'm looking for something new to try.   So here's the third dish of my self-imposed butternut squash challenge and definitely not the last butternut squash dish that I'll make.

Even with it's tough exterior, which can be baked with peel on or off, it's a very mild, very filling and healthy vege. I asked the young girl at Isom's Orchard if she had ever cooked a butternut squash and she said "no, but it tastes like whatever you cook it with".  I got a kick out of her comment and it's pretty much the truth!

This Butternut Squash Gratin recipe turned out to be very similiar to a "regular" squash casserole.  It has lots of onions and I used some of my home dried thyme.  I choose to leave the crumb topping off.

And yes, that's where I helped myself before I thought to get a picture.  And, in spite of my awful kitchen lighting, it is that bright yellowish orange color!

Now the question is, what should I do with the squashzilla?  Ha ha!

PW Red Velvet Cake

I did it!  I made a Red Velvet cake from scratch.   It's not like it was on my recipe bucket list since Red Velvet cake is not my first choice at the dessert table.  But boy do some people love it and just go on and on about it!    I was just curious so I did it just to say I did it, plus I needed a dessert for Christmas Day.

The recipe is simple enough to put together.  I'm not one to gather all the ingredients together on the countertop then measure them out.  I get one ingredient out, measure, get the next one out measure.  Probably not the most efficient way so it seemed to take me forever just to get this stirred together and into the oven.  

I was surprised at how much red food coloring and how little cocoa goes into this cake.  Finally, after leaving things out at room temp, stirring, baking, cooling, cooling some more, stirring some more and icing it was finished.

We ate it on Christmas Day after our traditional red beans and rice dinner.  It's the buttermilk that makes it so yummy and moist.  Oh, and the cream cheese icing is good too!

Baked Chicken Parmesan

Looking at my posts this week, it looks like the "week of food" at the well!  The Bassman and I both agreed this meal was a great break from the holiday food that we've been devouring lately.

I paired Baked Chicken Parmesan from Skinny Taste with a super easy authentic Italian pizza sauce from Frugal Ain't Cheap.   Both dishes are so easy and healthy too.

Add some pasta (or not) with the same delicious pizza sauce plus something green and enjoy!

Notice how my plate is mostly pasta?   Hee hee ; )

Thanks Dani, the sauce is very good!

Sharing at:

PW Roasted Cauliflower

We especially love roasted asparagus and even roasted young tender green beans and broccoli.  But I had never tried roasted cauliflower until this recipe showed up on the Sweet As Pie Cooking Club for November.

The Bassman doesn't like cauliflower so I prepared this dish for one of our Sunday family gatherings.

It's easy, as is roasting any vegetable.   Cut, toss, sprinkle and bake!

I think my oven is old and tired.  A new oven and a kitchen update are on our to do list ... but not until after our daughters graduate from college.  The cauliflower had only a few roasted brown areas and I was short on time.  I'd like more brown roasting on there so next time I'll roast it at a slightly higher temperature.

The cauliflower must have been small for the amount of bread crumbs called for in the recipe.  That's way too much bread crumbs, I only used a cup and it was still way too much in my opinion.



I let the crumb topping brown only slightly so I could heat it up and brown it more at lunch time.  This was a different side than usual and most of the family did give it a try but no one commented on it at all.  

The roasted cauliflower is good, I'll definitely add that to my roasting vege options.  And I'll just leave off the bread crumbs completely or use a lot less and maybe add some of the variations like parmesan cheese or herb seasonings.