Thanks Food Network

As I was roaming the internet, thinking about what recipe to try next, I found an interesting feature of the Food Network site. Each day of the month has a little tip to help readers to save money, time and energy while they cook (the link to the cooking tips can be found on the main page of Recipes and Cooking). As I scanned a couple of October's past tips, I realized how uneducated I am in the kitchen; probably because I never paid attention to the little details when my mom cooked. The tips are minor things that most good cooks probably know already- things like how to pick the best frozen fruit or how to keep butter fresh. But many made a difference for me! I read through all of them and learned a lot from the quirky, simple tips. I know that I probably won't be baking a cake needing chocolate shavings anytime soon, but went I do, I will know that a vegetable peeler will create fancy chocolate curls!

I have decided to pick one of the tips each week and share it with everyone. I will also try to cook something that can put these tips to work. It would be great if these tips save me time, money and energy, since I'm usually depleted in each area.

Pancakes or cookies?

In light of the Halloween spirit, I've been craving the taste of pumpkin lately. I've had pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pies, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cake, etc. I thought I had tasted every type of pumpkin… Without digging into an actual pumpkin.

When my mom was working late last Tuesday night, my little sister Nicole wanted to cook dinner. We decided to prepare dinner, so our Mom didn't need to worry about it after a stressful day. However, Nicole wanted to have breakfast for dinner and she was the boss. We found that we had run out of pancake mix, and it was the end of the world.

"How are we supposed to have breakfast, for dinner, without pancakes?!" She exclaimed, as she dramatically flipped her spatula into the sink. Once the drama had ceased, we clicked to allrecipes.com for help, where we found the pumpkin pancakes. We decided to take a whack at it and gathered all the ingredients. After greasing the grill, Nicole poured the mix, ever so carefully. She wiggled her spatula underneath the pancake, checking to see if it had cooked enough.

No matter how burnt the outer surface was, the pancake was still runny in the middle. They tasted like burnt pumpkin with the texture of the guts of a pumpkin. When Mom came home, we told her about our dilemma. She advised us to add in about a 1/2 cup of flour. We also added about a 1/4 cup of brown sugar and oodles of chocolate chips.

The second batch cooked a little better after this “correction” and they weren't near as runny. I didn't need any syrup because these pancakes were basically flattened cookies. Good thing Nicole and I made sausage and eggs to go with breakfast-dinner. Although I would rather have plain, basic pancakes, I had fun cooking with Nicole. If you are a sugar-a-holic, these pancakes are for you.

 http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pumpkin-pancakes/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=pumpkin%20pancakes&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Home%20Page

Healthy-ish

This week I tried to find more healthy recipes to try, which meant no cookies, cake or pie. Pillsbury sends me emails with recipes with servings for a small family (Ryan counts as two). I picked a chicken recipe called Pecan-crusted Chicken. A couple of the ingredients were pecans and fat free Greek yogurt, which are healthy. But I was surprised when I started cooking the chicken. I dipped the chicken in the yogurt and pecan/parsley and slapped it in the skillet with oil. After a few minutes I flipped the chicken to the other side. But when I cut into the chicken to check if it was cooked, the middle was still very pink. I let it sit for another couple minutes, and by then the pecan crust started to burn and crumble off. Luckily, the chicken looked done when I cut it again. A word of advice, buy thinly cut chicken breasts and don’t skip step one. The crust will be better with a thin breast. Although it wasn’t exactly the healthiest recipe, it was very good and was a quick recipe. I guess you can’t judge a recipe by its ingredients. Someday, I want to be able to cook healthy dinners for my mini-Ryans and Toris, so I might as well start eating healthy myself.

http://www.pillsbury.com/recipes/pecan-crusted-chicken/b7a28d0e-c3b9-4236-ae2f-0aa5805568c2

Popcorn Balls

I can barely remember my great grandma, Lucille Evans, who died when I was about 7 years old. I have only a couple memories of her. When we would go over to her house in Montpelier Idaho, she was usually in her backyard, tending her large garden. Christina and I liked exploring her basement, which had thousands of pussy willows and two stuffed animal tigers. But the thing I remember most about her was her popcorn balls. These delicious mounds of rich caramel and fluffy popcorn wrapped in plastic were always handed to us when we came to visit. And now, caramel popcorn instantaneously conjures a picture of my great grandma.

The other day I came across a list of ingredients that makes caramel fit for any recipe. I wondered if it would work with popcorn and tried making popcorn balls this last weekend. Here are the ingredients:

1 cup of brown sugar

1 stick of butter

1 cup of Karo syrup (corn syrup)

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

Sounds pretty healthy, huh? Once you’ve mixed all that in a pan over the stove, you can smother anything with this delectable, heart attack inducing syrup. Pour a little at a time over a bowl of popcorn, carefully stirring the popcorn each time. If you pour all the caramel in at once, it will steep to the bottom and you’ll have a glob of caramel and kernels with popcorn on top. This amount of caramel will be enough for 2-3 bowls of popcorn, depending on how gooey you like your popcorn. Put the bowl in the fridge for 30 minutes to allow the caramel to cool. It will be less sticky and messy the longer you leave it in the fridge. This is a great movie or football game treat! For popcorn balls, all you have to do is cut up squares of plastic wrap and pour a little of the caramel popcorn on the square. Then just wrap the gooey popcorn into a ball and stick them in the fridge for 30 minutes. Enjoy!

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

Soup is a cozy food. On a cold day, a bowl of steamy, creamy clam chowder with a chunk of sourdough bread sounds amazing to me. Last week the weather in Logan really dropped and gradually became more chilly each day. I craved a hot bowl of soup. As I stated a couple posts ago, I had a chicken noodle soup recipe a woman from church gave me that I really wanted to try. She gave me this recipe, a bag of large noodles and a couple of cute, colorful kitchen towels in a beautiful basket with a ribbon around it, as a bridal shower gift. She is known in our church as an amazing cook, and I was honored that she shared a recipe with me. It is so simple and it’s actually quite fulfilling. Because let’s face it, soup isn’t exactly a steak dinner. This recipe makes enough for my family of 7, plus lots of good leftovers. I served it with a loaf of Italian bread and it was a big hit with my family (especially my dad).

Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

4 frozen chicken breasts

4 cups of water

4 t chicken granules

2 cups of chopped celery

2 cups of chopped carrots

1 chopped onion

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 cup of half and half

½ package of cooked noodles (the bigger the noodles, the better!)

Put frozen chicken in a pan with ½ cube of butter and 1.5 cup of water. Cover and cook on medium 20-30 min. Drain and let cool. Boil 4 cups of water, chicken granules, celery, carts and onion until tender. Don’t drain the water! Add cream chicken soup, half and half, chicken and cooked noodles.

Autumn's Drink

While I am sitting here at work with nothing to do, I remembered a drink that was shared with me this passed weekend. The multicolored fiery leaves are falling in Utah and the trees texture the mountain side brilliantly. This is my favorite part of autumn. But the sad thing about autumn is that the temperatures slowly start dropping and the days become shorter. This weekend was a chilly one. Good thing my mom found a homemade drink to warm us up. If anyone loves Starbuck's Caramel Apple Spice, here is a way to make some with a little less money leaving your purse.

My mom and I are both trying out new recipes now and have both come up with some good stuff. She found this recipe on another blog called "A Law Student's Journey" by a law student named Kitty. I encourage everyone to check it out. Its got great ideas and Kitty is pretty funny. She reveals a makeshift way to make a Starbuck's drink at home. And all you need is apple juice, whipped cream, caramel, and Cinnamon Dolce Syrup, which you can buy at Starbuck's. Simple enough. 

I'll give just a few tips I found while attempting to make this. One, its much easier to make your own , instead of a big batch. So if you're only making a couple, I'd make them individually. Also, I would go easy on the Cinnamon Dolce Syrup. A little goes a very long way! Add a tablespoon at a time to your apple juice and take a sip to test how much you like. The first time I made it I put 6 tablespoons in a 12 oz. cup, and the cinnamon syrup was so strong that the after taste was almost unbearable. I found that I like about 2-3 tablespoons. Then warm it up in the microwave. We squirted the whipped cream on and drizzled a bit of hot caramel on top. So good!! Check Kitty's blog out and try it!

http://threeyearsofdeath.blogspot.com/2010/12/ex-barista-speaks-out.html

Secret Recipes

My earliest cooking experience that I can remember was a bit traumatizing. My sister and I decided to take a whack at cooking since Mom did it every night. How hard could it be? I was about eight or so, Christina about 7. We wanted to make something for Dad, to impress him. We carefully selected our secret ingredients and dumped them into the blender. When the concoction was smooth enough to drink, we took it downstairs to Dad. He and Mom were watching T.V. as we asked him to try our new recipe. Dad was extremely cautious, probably because of the bits of red floating around in the yellow, globby liquid, and asked us what was in it. Our secret ingredients we replied. Mom encouraged him to try it. As he took a swig, we both could tell right away that he did not like it. He demanded to know what was in it. We hesitantly told him our secret ingredients. Two eggs, apple juice and some strawberries.

Although many would not have tried or liked our raw egg mixture, I observed over the years that Dad was a picky eater. My mom can attest to this. I know there are certain dinners that my dad despises. For example, he believes that a salad is not sufficient enough to eat for dinner, even if there is grilled chicken on top. The same goes for chicken noodle soup.

Tomorrow I am cooking dinner for my family and I have chosen a chicken noodle soup recipe I was given when I got married. I know this is a dicey choice, but hopefully Dad won’t totally hate it. I may have to make him a large side of meat so he is fulfilled after dinner. Good luck to me. 

Grandma Mac's Lemon Bars

Usually when a woman, particularly a mother-in-law or grandma, has mastered that one famous recipe, you don’t try to replicate it. My dad’s mother would always make her famous fudge chocolate cake on my dad’s birthday. No one was allowed to even touch the frosting before my dad had eaten his first piece. And with a family of seven kids, that is nearly impossible. Years later when my grandma was sick, my mom attempted to bake this famous cake for my dad. The chocolate frosting was great, but the cake was a bit dense… In other words, never attempt to be like your mother-in-law.

So instead of trying to measure up to my mother-in-law, I decided to measure up to grandma-in-law. Well, I didn’t really decide. It was forced upon me by Ryan. Grandma Mac makes lemon bars that Ryan would literally jump off a cliff to eat. Ryan asked if she could give us the recipe. And she did. Along with a whole cook book. Too scared to attempt this feat, I buried the cook book and recipe under the nine other cookbooks given to me when I married Ryan.

I had forgotten about it until the 4^th of July this year. I was trying to decide what to contribute to the celebration and fireworks show at my parent’s house. I pulled the recipe out and Ryan practically started drooling on the spot. The day had finally come and I embraced the attempt.

Ryan assisted me with cooking these lemon bars and encouraged the hell out of me. We followed the recipe in complete exactness. Carefully transporting the goods, we climbed into Ryan’s truck and drove to my parent’s. We arrived and an intense game of football had begun in the backyard. I was too absorbed in the game to notice that Ryan had disappeared.

Ryan came back out and congratulated me for my success. He said the lemon bars were wonderful and that I should have a little more self-confidence. And partly because of that experience, I decided to start this blog. Thanks Ryan.