My New Computer Review

I am typing this on my new computer, a HP Envy dv7.  I was a little mad because I had intended to hurry up and get a new laptop before Windows 7 was gone. I waited too long and now I have Windows 8.  I've been using it for like 4 days and it isn't as bad a I thought it would be.  You can pretty much make it behave like the old Windows if you just ignore the ap screen.

I will miss my old laptop because I don't think I'll spend that much time with this one.  I can see it is going to be a good computer but now we are using our phones to look at stuff more and I don't sit for hours online like I did in "my youth".  Haha.  I have noticed that while I've been typing this, the keys don't always punch what I'm typing if I don't tap hard enough.  I guess I will have to get used to that.

I didn't get a touch screen version because I didn't want to spend the extra cash.  I think this will be fine though.

Finished - "Colors by" Crossed Wing Collection

So, I just finished this cross stitch design called Colors.  The designer makes mostly bird cross stitch patterns and dyed materials.  I chose to stitch this on white linen.  There was also a saying along the bottom of the design but I opted to omit the saying and just continue the border pattern all around. This was the largest cross stitch project I have ever done.  There were 9 pages in all for the pattern.  I think I've never done any design that was more than 3 pages.  It was really epic.  Here are some pics of the progress of the project. 

There was so much green in this picture.  It seemed a little tedious at times making all of the leaves.  The birds were also very small and detailed.  So, I think I took longer than I should have completing this.  Now that it is done though, I am looking forward to moving on through my stash of patterns and going on to the next project.

No cooking since March?

I haven't posted anything since March.  I guess I don't really like cooking in the summer. 

Banana-Walnut Muffins

The William Sonoma Muffin Cookbook is so awesome.  These muffins turned out really good.  They even look better than the picture in the cookbook.  I was afraid they would be moist like banana bread but they are more "muffiny." The walnuts make the texture of the muffin very nice.  I will definitely make these again.

Happy New Year! Picadillo "Pockets" (Sans Pockets)

So, to continue my trend of cooking orangy-red chili type foods. I found this recipe in the Women's Day Cookbook (1995).  It was really tasty.  It is made with ground turkey, onions, green pepper, cumin, golden raisins, tomato paste, and green olives.  I guess it's supposed to be stuffed into pita pockets but it also suggested corn bread.  I was going to make corn bread but I was really tired tonight so I just bought corn muffins at the store.  I would definitely make this recipe again. 

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 ;)