Christmas Cookies

I made two batches of cookies today.  This is the first weekend in a long time that I actually stayed in my apartment for two days.  It sort of makes me feel like I didn't have a weekend.  I didn't want to really go out because the stores are crowded and I'm finished with my Xmas shopping.   At least I got a lot of cleaning done. 

So, today I made a batch of cookies called Drop Sugar Cookies from The All New Good Housekeeping Cook Book (2001).  This is one of my favorite cookbooks.  Almost everything I have tried in it has been a success.  The only complaint I had with this recipe is that it says it makes 42 cookies and it really only made about 30.  I followed the instructions and I even used my cookie scooper.  I might have doubled it if I wasn't already planning to make another batch of different cookies.  I started out putting red sugar sprinkles on the first batch.  I thought they looked okay but I decided to do the rest plain.  They taste really good and are much easier than having to use a cookie cutter to make sugar cookies.

The second batch of cookies I made were my grandmother's anisette cookies.  I have the recipe in my old recipe box tin that I've had since I was a little girl.  I don't think I really copied the instructions for the recipe right because I left out some of the ingredients in some of the instructions but it was easy enough to figure out what to do.  These cookies really need to be formed using a cookie press or pastry bag.  My grandmother used to make them with a meat grinder with a pastry attachment hooked onto it.  I couldn't remember if I had a pastry bag but I had a pastry tip.  So, I tried using a freezer bag that I had cut the corner and placed the tip in the corner.  I went through three bags that kept bursting and I just gave up and made the cookies into balls.  After you bake the cookies, you  ice them with a glaze made from confectioner's sugar and milk.  If someone reads this blog and wants the recipe, email me. 

Veal Schnitzel & Egg Noodles With Mushrooms

First let me say that this recipe set off both smoke detectors in my apartment.  That was a first.  I guess I had both pans warming too long while I was chopping...I also just realized that I forgot to sprinkle the chopped parsley on it before I ate it.  Oh well. 

These recipes are from Rachel Ray's 30-Minute Meals 2 (2003) which I barely ever use.  I guess I don't like this book because it gives all the meals together like main dish & side dishes together on the ajoining pages.  I think this makes it really hard to find recipes for things you want.  You can use the index though.  I have another cookbook that does this and I don't use it as much.  Anyway, I'm going to try to find more recipes in it that appeal to me. 

This veal recipe was pretty good. She said to use cracker bread crumbs and that you could find them next to the regular bread crumbs or near the fish.  Well, I looked near the fish and then I looked near the bread crumbs and none of them said "cracker bread crumbs".  So, I just bought panko bread crumbs.  I don't know if that's what she meant.  The whole time I was cooking it, I was saying to myself "this better be good because I could have used this veal to make veal scallopini or veal parmesan."   It was pretty good though.  The noodles were just cooked mushrooms with shallots and butter.  They were very tasty. 

Beer Bread Part II

A while back I made that beer bread from Tastefully Simple.  I think the mixes were like $5 each.  So, I've been looking in the stores to see if anyone had anything similar that I don't have to order.  When I Googled "beer bread", I came up with Dassant Beer Bread on Amazon.  It was like $15 for 6 boxes, so obviously much cheaper.  I found the Dassant Web Page and they make all sorts of bread mixes and it said they sold to BigLots.  This was pretty strange to me because I thought all the stuff in BigLots was discontinued stuff.  There is a BigLots right down the street from my condo.  I went there and all they had was the apple bread mix. So, I broke down and ordered the 6 pack from Amazon.  It came this week and I made my first loaf with Budweiser.  It was pretty good.  It doesn't taste that different from the Tastefully Simple Mix. I think I'll go get some Guinness for the other loaves though.

Happy Halloween

Well this Halloween turned out to be a bust for thousands of Connecticut children because of the first "winter" Nor'easter that came through on Saturday.  Over 700,000 households in the state don't have power and there are trees in the roads in many communities that are making it very unsafe to have a Halloween.  Derby didn't get hit that hard.  There weren't very many people who lost power.  My parents (in Farmington) have had no power since 4 p.m. on Saturday and they have a large limb sitting on top of their house. 

So far I've had about 1 group of kids every 10 minutes.  So, maybe I will get rid of all this candy I bought.  Most of the kids are from the neighborhood.  I never really understood why we don't get more kids since it's a condo.  You'd think a lot of kids would want to come here since there are so many units in a small space.  Maybe we have a reputation of having a lot of grumpy old ladies, ha ha.

Betty-Crocker Lemon Apricot Chicken

This was pretty okay...well it was good.  This is like the first time ever I have had all the ingredients for a recipe I wanted to make except for one thing, apricot preserves.  I have the frozen chicken breats in a bag in the freezer. I thought they would defrost if I put them in the fridge during the day.  They didn't quite defrost all the way so I cooked the chicken 10 minutes more. The chicken turned out slightly overcooked.  I would say this is a good busy weeknight recipe.  Nothing spectacular but tasty enough...

Here's the link to the recipe: http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/lemon-apricot-chicken-cooking-for-2/.

I had couscous and corn with it.  I didn't use the healthy bisquick.  One serving is 7 points on weight watchers.

Blackberry Muffins and No Playoffs

So, if the Yankees had won I was supposed to go to the American League Playoffs tonight. Instead I stayed home and made sloppy joes and blackberry muffins. Oh well. Here's a picture of the giant screen at Yankee Stadium when I was there for game one of the ALDS before it started pouring.


The blackberry muffin recipe is very similar to the raspberry lemon ones I made a while back in my blog. I guess I am a creature of habit. I'll try to try newer things in the future. I was thinking of making pear muffins but I didn't think the pears would be ripe enough. When I got to the store I saw they were pretty ripe but I hadn't brought the list of ingredients with me that I needed. Anyway, this recipe is from the William Sonoma Muffin Cookbook (2003), p.38. The blackberries were tarter than the raspberry recipe. I think I liked the muffin part of the raspberry recipe better, but these were still good.

42 Tomorrow

So, at work we have to bring our own cakes for our birthdays. I wasn't in the mood to make a cake or cupcakes this year so I tried this recipe for Chocolate and Peanut Butter Struesel Bars from the SuGood Sweets Blog. I should have just made the cupcakes because this recipe was just as much work. I stupidly didn't read the instructions first. I just bought the ingredients. So, after you put a layer of peanut butter dough on the bottom, you put a layer of dark chocolate ganache, then you are supposed to roll the leftover dough into little pea-sized balls and it's supposed to be like struesel. I just ate one and they were still a little warm. They seem kind of dry to me. I don't think making pea-sized balls is equivalent to struesel, it just makes dry balls on top of ganache. I suppose I could have watched the oven a little more and not have let them get that dark but oh well, that's what I'm bringing to work for my birthday.

I think I'm going to unfollow that blog. The author said to go to some touristy bakery in Times Square and it wasn't that good. Then I made these and they were dry...

No, they aren't enchilladas...

For my dinner tonight I chose a recipe from Crepes : Sweet and Savory Recipes for the Home Cook by Lou Seibert Pappas, 1998. I don't know how long I've had this cookbook but I got it for Christmas one year and I don't think I ever used it.

The book was never really in any danger of being weeded from my cookbook shelf but I figured I would cook something from it since I never have. I used to be a real crepe-girl when I was in college. I really liked to make strawberry crepes for my friends. So, it was kind of a joy getting back to it. I'll have to make them more often. They are so good and tastey.

The recipe I chose was on page 55, Wild Mushroom Crepes. Well, you can't get wild mushrooms in the Ansonia, Connecticut Stop and Shop, so it had to be half fresh white mushrooms and half shitaki mushrooms. You fry up some shallots in olive oil then cook the mushrooms for a minute. It smelled so good when the mushrooms and shallots were together. Then after that you mix ricotta cheese, shredded gruyere, salt, pepper, an egg, and tarragon and then mix with the mushrooms. Then you roll the crepes and top with shredded parmesean and bake it for 15 min. They turned out pretty good. The recipe showed one crepe with a piece of salmon, but I just ate two crepes and that was my meal.

For the savory crepes, I used whole wheat flour. There were also other savory crepe recipes you could chose in the book. The only thing that was kind of a pain was you had to let the batter sit for 2 hours. I just made it last night and put it in the fridge.

Apparently there is a 2006 update for this book. I don't think I'll need it. The Wild Mushroom Crepes are still in that edition!

This counts as cooking something new....



I've been just cooking my usual dishes because it's hot and I don't want to plan anything that I have to stand over the stove or turn on the oven.

So, technically all I did was boil up some rice, cook up some chicken and open a can but I'm still counting it as something new. I was in the store a while ago and saw this can of Korma sauce in the Indian section. I always order Chicken Korma or Lamb Korma when I go to Coramandel my favorite Indian restaurant. I thought it would taste the same as the restaurant but it didn't. It was good but it wasn't quite Coramandel. I think I might stick to the restaurant for this dish for now on. For this dinner I went all out and got the Naan bread from the store. It was okay. I still like the restaurant better for that too.

Too Hot To Cook

I didn't cook anything new this week. I did cook..but nothing new. It's been so hot and I'm uninspired. Today I went to lunch at one of my favorites, Modern Apizza in New Haven, with the gals. I had sliced tomato w/ basil. Delicious.

Back from New Orleans
I was in New Orleans for about 6 days last week for the American Library Association Annual Conference. It was very hot and humid for most of the days. I didn't have much time for sight-seeing but I ate a lot of good food. Here is a picture of Shrimp and Grits from Emeril's NOLA Restaurant. I also posted my photos on flickr.

This is Cool: Two different Colored Flowers, One Plant

I haven't cooked for two weeks. I've been really really busy. Luckily I have a lot of leftovers in the freezer.

So, isn't this cool? I started out with this plant in 2006 and now I have 6 large plants from it. Some of the flower are white with purple splashes and some have morphed onto just plain purple flowers. This potted plant is ready to be separated into three plants. I think I have to wait a while though because I'm waiting for others to root. My office is starting to be overrun with violets.

Walt Disney's Chili and Beans

This recipe is from Mickey's Gourmet Cookbook from 1994. I've been wanting to try a new chili recipe and I haven't cooked anything from this book yet. I think I gave this book to my grandmother for her birthday when I was in college (might have been the earlier edition). I couldn't find it when she passed away so I ordered another copy from half.com.

All of the recipes in the book are from restaurants in the Disney restaurants, except of course the one I picked. This is supposedly Walt Disney's personal chili recipe. I have never used dried beans before and that was an adventure. The recipe calls for 2 pounds of ground beef and 2 pounds of dried pink pinto beans. I think it has to be a typo because after soaking the beans overnight, you're supposed to put them in a 2 quart sauce pan with 2 inches of water covering the beans. There's no way that you could possibly fit that many beans in a 2 quart sauce pan, let alone add two inches of water to it. So, I had to fill the 3 quart sauce pan up with what looked like half of the beans and I discarded the rest. Then I just barely had enough room at the top for a little under 2 inches of water. At the end when I combined the meat with the beans, it seemed like there was a high beans to meat ratio, maybe 60 percent beans and 40 percent meat. If I made it again, I would definitely use less beans.

I thought it tasted alright. You have to cook the beans with onions for 2 hours and simmer the meat with garlic, celery, canned tomatoes, chili powder, paprika, and thyme for an hour. Then you combine everything for another 30 minutes. I got tired of waiting after two hours and just combined everything and made a bowl for myself. I suspect it will taste better tomorrow. I think it's a decent recipe and it's pretty healthy.

I Googled "Walt Disney Chili and Beans" and several different recipes came up. This site has the closet to what is in the book: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/15/WaltDisneysChiliAndBeans65030.shtml



This is what it looked like when I combined the beans and the meat mixture->

This week I weeded one cookbook off my shelves. I'm getting rid of Willard Scott's All American Cookbook. Most of the book is made up of anecdotes and the few recipes that are in it don't appeal to me. They seem to be a little unhealthy, too.

Guinness Brownies

I don't remember how I came across this recipe but it's from about.com. Here's the link: http://homecooking.about.com/od/dessertrecipes/r/blbrownie1.htm

They are super rich and chocolatey but I don't think I will put it in my recipe collection. This is kind of a cake-consistency brownie. I'm more of a fan of the chewy kind. It was weird putting Guinness in the batter. I don't think I mixed it long enough because when it came out of the oven, it looked like a science experiment. Maybe it was the beer making it rise. I don't know... When it cooled the bumps settled and it was flat.

Sort of Tandoori Chicken

This week I chose the Bristol, Connecticut Hospital's cook book from 1988 called Tastefully Done : What's Cooking? at Bristol Hospital. (I don't know why the question mark is where it is in the title. I took this from my late grandmother's house when we were cleaning out her things when she passed on. This is the first time I really looked at it. I'm thinking I won't want to cook most of the recipes. So, it's a candidate for weeding from my "collection".

This Tandoori Chicken recipe from page 78 looked pretty good and easy. You just had to marinate it overnight in yogurt, vinegar, and spices. I mixed up the marinade last night and baked it tonight. It was okay. The recipe said "brown vinegar" and I stupidly thought that meant balsamic vinegar, but I think it meant malt vinegar. I could really taste the balsamic and I don't think that was how it was supposed to taste. I don't know if I'll make this again. It was okay, but I'm not sure I want it again. I'll eat the leftovers, of course. I got kind of lazy and made Rice-a-Roni with it instead of using basmati rice. As you can see, I wasn't too lazy to garnish it with lemons ;)

Busy Week

I've been so busy this week I decided I'm not going to cook any new dinners. I have been cooking dinner every night except tonight I went to a place called Thai Flare in Naugatuck, CT. It was decent for a Valley restaurant. We don't really have high cuisine in the Housatonic Valley. I was the only one sitting eating in the restaurant. So, I suspect they do more of a takeout business. The few people who came in for takeout kind of looked at me funny.

Anyway, I went to Naugatuck which is like 15 miles from where I live in Derby to attend an author talk at the public library there. The author was Mike Shalin and he was talking about his recently released book Donnie Baseball : The Definitive Biography of Don Mattingly. The program was supposed to start at 6:30 but there were a bunch of men buying the book so it didn't start on time. I was a little disappointed that the librarian who put on the program didn't ensure that it started on time. I guess that's just me, expecting everything to be perfect. It was a little annoying watching all these silly people trying to talk to the author and just wondering when it was going to start. When it finally started, it was a very good program. It was interesting hearing the stories of a reporter and his life following baseball teams. I don't think the book got a good review so I didn't buy a copy for myself. (I might check it out of the library later) I bought one for my friend Mary's son because he is a huge Don Mattingly fan. I kept thinking when I was driving home that I had my picture taken with Don Mattingly when I was in high school and what an awful haircut I had in that picture.

For cooking something new this week, I chose a muffin recipe from Yankee Magazine's Country Inn Breakfast Cookbook. There's no ISBN or copyright date in the book. The listing for it on Amazon says it's from 1970 but I don't believe that. I think I must have gotten this bundled with a copy of Yankee Magazine or free with a subscription. If I subscribed it would have been in the late 1980's or early 1990's. I have a lot of these small magazine type cookbooks. I really need to go through them and decide if I am going to keep them. I am definitely going to keep this cookbook. I made the Raspberry Lemon Muffins on page 34. The recipe says its from the Richard's Bed and Breakfast in Narragansett, Rhode Island. I think these muffins are one of the best recipes I've made for muffins ever. I just ate one when it was warm so I hope they taste just as good when they cool tomorrow. I am going to bring the remaining 11 that are left to work so I don't eat them all myself. I used fresh raspberries instead of frozen but the recipe says you can use either. They also have a delicious pecan strudel topping that finishes them off very nicely.

Sassy Meatloaf

So, this week I didn't feel like cooking at all. I had cereal for dinner last night and Monday night I think I continued eating my lentil stew from last week. I have so much lentil stew now. I hope it freezes well. Forcing myself to cook tonight, I decided to go for meatloaf. I don't really have a favorite meatloaf recipe. It's not really something I cook that often. I think I have a few good recipes that make pretty tasty loaves. One of them is Jacques Pepin's recipe that calls for ginger and I think ground turkey from his "Simple and Healthy Cooking" book.

Since I'm cooking new recipes, I chose Sassy Meatloaf on page 217 of "Simply the Best : 250 Prize-Winning Recipes" from Weight Watchers (1997). The recipe looks pretty healthy. You use lean ground beef, oatmeal, plum tomatoes, mushrooms, shredded carrots and salsa. It tastes pretty good. I don't know if I would call it "sassy" though. For a side dish I pan-cooked some spinach with olive oil and a clove of garlic. I think I overdid it with the garlic because the garlic taste was pretty strong as I was eating the meatloaf. The recipe was tasty though and now I have five more servings of meatloaf. I am going to try to put them in small freezer bags and hope that they don't break up when I put them in the freezer.

I use this cookbook often. So, maybe I should have chosen another cookbook to find a recipe so I could try to de-clutter. I actually set one cookbook aside for donation last week if you can believe it. I think it was something I picked up in a dollar store when I was in college so I don't know if it really counts. At least it's not taking up space on the shelf anymore.

Weekend Recap

Friday Yankee Game - surrounded by obnoxious adolescent Canadians screaming "Let's Go Toronto" in my ear. I've been reassured by my ticket rep that I won't be surrounded by middle-schoolers for the rest of the season but so far I'm 3 for 3. So, it doesn't look good.

Saturday Cracker Barrel and Buffalo Wild Wings (unhealthy choices, eh). Watched "Red" and "Megamind" both were good.

Sunday - walked 16,000 steps in the city. Went to the auto show. I don't recommend Mickey Mantle's restaurant on Central Park South.

Lentil Stew

I just found out that Comcast is making everyone get a cable box to go digital instead of just plugging the cable right into the TV. I got my new cable box tonight from UPS. The instructions said that it could take 45 minutes to initialize your new equipment. So, I chopped up the veggies for this stew and set it up to simmer while I tried to hook up the cable equipment.

I chose this recipe from the Betty Crocker's Choices Cookbook, copyright 1993. I have had this cookbook all these years and I've rarely used it. Since I'm trying new things, I thought I'd better find something I want to cook in this book or donate it.

The stew turned out pretty good, the new Cable equipment didn't. Now I'm stewing literally while I eat my lentil stew that I have to take a half day off of work Monday to wait for the cable guy.

New Choices Cookbook gives little symbols at the top of each recipe so you can see how healthy each recipe is. This one says it's low calories, low fat, low cholesterol and high fiber...almost a full house of healthiness. The one thing it doesn't say is "low sodium". I didn't think 1/2 tsp. of salt was much though.

This is the first time I've tried a recipe that uses the spice mace. It is pretty good. The stew is a little on the spicy side. I'm not sure that the recipe is something I would really crave but I might cook it again.

What can I do with this blog?...
Sometimes I feel like deleting my blog because it's so boring and I never update it. I need to post more often or just give up already. Tonight while I was cooking dinner, I thought that maybe if I cooked a new recipe once a week, that would give me some motivation to blog about something. I have like 50 cookbooks. Don't those de-clutter guru's say if you haven't used it in a year, get rid of it? I can't bring myself to get rid of my cookbooks either so maybe this will serve a dual purpose.

I'm actually baking something I've never baked before right now. It's a Beer Bread from Tastefully Simple. It's basically a mix that you just add 12 oz of beer or soda to the mix and that's it. I had a sample earlier in the month when I attended a fundraiser for Ovarian Cancer. I chose to use Guinness for my beer to add. The batter smelled really good. I just have to wait until it cools to see how it tastes. Technically it can't count as a recipe but at least it's something I've never done before.



...Later...I was a little worried that the Guinness wouldn't be carbonated enough but the bread is really delicious and you can definitely taste the distinct hint of stout in the bread. Now I have to bring this to work tomorrow because I can't be eating all these carbs.

Okay, let's see if I post next week.

I'm ready for baseball

http://tocej.webng.com/yankees.html