All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel
I just scrapbooked a few of the pictures related to my 24th birthday. I have a few more to go but at least it is started. Only 9 1/2 months later….
I loved the color pallet of the background paper. It was neutral so it let the colors in the photos pop.
Patterned paper, solid paper, ribbon, scalloped scissors, sub ones, vinyl accent
I finally got around to scrapbooking pictures from a dinner cruise Price and I went on last summer. It was fun to play with color and patterns.
Supplies: Blue patterned paper: Cocktail Dress Stripe from Luxe; Solid Paper, Flower Pattern Paper, ribbons, rub-ons, dimensionals all from Stampin’ Up! (Striped Patterned Paper is unknown)
We woke up to rain. Lots of rain. Rain pounding down on the skylight over the stairs. Rain does funny things to you. It makes you want to cancel all of your plans just so you can hibernate while watching bad movies and cooking shows. Luckily, Price had a class to go to and I wanted to get to Harvest Fest in Somerville so we were ‘forced’ outside. At least I got to make a comforting breakfast for us… waffles.
Last year my boss Helen gave me the Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. It was a thank you for making all the birthday cakes for our then pod (now I do them for the office). I love the structure of the book as it gives a detailed description of the recipe for an introduction and the recipe amounts are given in several ways from volume and weight measurements. Also, at the end of each recipe there is a section called ‘understanding’ that explains little things about the recipe, like cake flour has less gluten-forming protein than all-purpose flour. There is a pine cone cake (you can see the picture on amazon) that I am dying to try… too cute! Anyway, whenever I want to make waffles now I go to this book for a great buttermilk waffle recipe.
This waffles have a great tangy flavor without overpowering your palate. There is a lot of butter in the recipe so you don’t even have to add anymoreon top. The butter in the batter also helps create a crisp crust. We always make the whole batch and freeze the waffles to save them for a weekday breakfast (as if there is any time) or a dinner.
Makes 6-8 8″ Waffles
Ingrdients
Process
Note-You can freeze up to 2 months. When freezing the waffles free them separately and then store or place a piece of parchment paper between each waffle before freezing.
*If you don’t have buttermilk on hand you can make your own with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar for every cup of milk and let it sit for 5 minutes
I took a few pictures of them last night….
Jack ate, and therefore touched, carrots yesterday….so he got a bit orange.
Bunny eatting some pear this morning
Stymie: It might choke Arty, but it ain’t gonna choke Stymie!
Whenever I hear someone say Artichoke I think of that line from the Little Rascals. I remember my mom making stuffed artichokes when I was younger but I was not a fan then. I slowly came around to them, just like tomatoes. One thing at a time, first it was okay in dips, then marinated in salads, and now I even cooked them for our dinner! Over the weekend I went to grocery store and artichokes were on sale. Crazy on sale…. I got 7 for about $3. I could not pass them up so I called my mom when I was there to find out how she made stuffed artichokes. Luckily, she told me how easy they were so I planned for them to be our dinner on Sunday night.
To be quite honest I don’t have a recipe for this because I just winged it. My mom told me what was in the filling but no amounts so I just got to work and made it up as i went along. I think I was a little heavy on the hot pepper but the amount of garlic and cheese was good. They are easy to eat- snap off a leaf and scrape off the filling and ‘choke with your teeth. Plus, I was able to add all the post meal leaves to our compost.
Mix breadcrumbs, cheese, parsley, garlic, and seasonings together in a bowl. Add olive oil to make a paste to stuff into artichoke.
Artichokes need to be prepped by carefully opening them up. Trim away the tips as you go. Wash them at this point and trip the bottom so it sits evenly. Separate the leaves to you have room for the stuffing. Stuff the artichokes.
Steam the artichokes for 20-30 minutes in a pot with an inch of water, add water if level gets too low. (Don’t walk away and start to watch TV! I almost forgot about them!)
I had a craving for porcupine meatballs on Wednesday night. Luckily, my dad wrote down this recipe along with other family ones a few years ago that I turn to every now and then. There are only 6 ingredients, including water, so I went to the grocery store on my way home from class and grabbed the 3 that I needed.
Porcupine Meatballs is a simple meal made of meatball filled with rice- making it spiky- and served with gravy over noodles. Simply put it’s an inexpensive meal and easy to make. Plus there is a good chance you already have most of the ingredients in your cabinets like me. You can do this with beef but we try to keep it lean so we use turkey. If you use beef then adjust the gravy and rice-a-roni to match the beef flavor. This is so comforting because it is warm and filling- a real autumn/winter food. I made large meatballs to get cooking faster (too tired after a 3 hour class) but you really should make smaller meatballs. This allows the meatballs to cook faster and the rice cooks better when they are smaller.
Porcupine Meatballs
1 lb of ground turkey 1 box of rice-a-roni (I used chicken flavor) 1 egg 2 cups of water 1 lb of wide egg noodles 1 family size jar of turkey gravyStart water on high heat to cook egg noodles until al dente.
Combine the ground turkey, rice-a-roni (including seasoning packet), and egg. Form into small meatballs (1 1/2 dia).
Brown meatballs in a skillet with oil. (You can drain off oil/fat, if you prefer). If the skillet gets too busy with the meatballs you can remove some to get enough room to brown all of them. Once all meatballs are browned, reduce heat to med/low and add 2 cups of water. Cook for 20 minutes. If the water begins to reduce too much, add a bit. When the meatballs have i a few minutes left add in the gravy.
Serve the meatballs with the egg noodles. Enjoy 🙂
Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa is a wonderfully creamy salsa is combines fresh tomatillos and avocados. It’s Salsa Verde that is taken to the next level.
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I swear that since we are so busy we often make dinner of chips and salsa a thing. Maybe too often? NOPE!!! NEVER!!! Gimme chips and salsa every day of the week please!
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This past weekend has been a blur! Price and I went out on Friday night for Brazilian BBQ with a meetup group. On Saturday morning Emily and I went to see “Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs” … in 3D…. on IMAX. Then I spent the afternoon ripping apart the kitchen. I purged some stuff and brought in a shelving unit to put my cookbooks on. So a lot of things shifted around but I think it works a lot better. Then we slept in on sunday, I went to my site for homework, birthday lunch with Pricer, and then lots of baking and cooking. So the next couple of posts will be about food and recipes, then I’ll get back to scrapbooking and random things.
My boss told me that during a recent trip she had green tomato bread. Being that my tomato plants halted their ripening I figured this would be good way to use them up, besides fried green tomatoes. I found a recipe that looked pretty good so I figured it would be worth a try. I’m so glad she told me about Green Tomato Bread and that I actually tried it. I made 2 kinds- lime and chocolate chip- and both came out really well. I never would have thought of using green tomatoes in a bread but it keeps the bread moist and gives it a sweet tomato flavor throughout. I think the lime zest (approx 1 T) brings a sweet tang to the bread. I used 2 cups of chocolate chips, which I think is a bit much but it still tastes pretty good.
Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour 2 9×5 loaf pans. Puree the green tomatoes, add water if needed. Sift the dry ingredients together, set aside. Beat the eggs, oil, and sugar until well incorporated. Add in the green tomato puree and vanilla. Add in the dry ingredients, beat until well incorporated. Gently fold in the nuts and/or raisins, if desired. Divide batter evenly and pour into pans. Bake at 350° for 45-60 minutes.
Other ideas for mixins:
Mini choc. chips (I suggest 1 1/2 cups, max)TIP:
Freezing the puree ahead of time will save you from having the green tomatoes ripen on your counter top while you wait for the spare time to make this treat. If you freeze the puree in 2 cup quantities it will be pre-measured and ready to go for a batch of bread.
Post originally from 9/29/09, text and photos updated 12/31/17
I asked Price what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday and he picked German’s Chocolate Cake. That is his favorite, so it is time that I make it for him!
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