Sole with Breadcrumbs
Lactose Free Strawberry Ice Cream
Prime Rib roast with a new great rub
Broccoli Quinoa Casserole
Cranberry Yogurt Flan
I can't believe that it is a month since I did my last food report. Brenna arrived 5 days ago, so menu planning has changed a bit. Lots of vegetarian options and lactose free cooking in the works. We also hosted a dinner with Chris and Monica and the three girls on Friday and that was fun and the menu worked out well.
In regular cooking for Stewart and I before Brenna arrived, I have to say that it was more of the usual. Stewart was busy with the launch of Prime Surprise Sweets so tried to stick to meals that we know. I did use the steam roasted techniques from the fall Fine Cooking. Always turns out very tasty! I did finally serve some fish to Stewart. I made Sole with Sourdough Breadcrumbs from Market Recipes. They had Petrale on sale and this was a recommended recipe. I liked the cooking method and it worked well. I loved the breadcrumbs, but it had too much garlic so that it over powered the fish. I would omit the garlic and use more parsley and lemon for next time.
In preparation of Brenna arriving I found Green Valley Organics Lactose Free Dairy at Central Market. Disappointed that they not make whipping cream, but they do yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese and Kefir. They had an on line recipe for Strawberry Ice Cream using sour cream and Kefir. Tried this and it worked out really well! Brenna and I really like it.
For the dinner with Chris and Monica and family, I went with my standby rib roast, roasted vegetables and the snap peas all from A Matter of Taste, by Lucy Waverman. The vegetables I did the recipe, but with the roasted veggies I did do the steam method. I cooked in the large oven and really it would have worked better on convection. Must not be afraid of the convection for cooking large quantities. I love the peas, but with the lemon juice it can turn them a weird shade of green. I should try just using lemon zest and not the juice and see if I can get the lemony result with out the colour problem. I did regular scalloped potatoes from Canadian Living. Did these early and in the small oven. They were a big hit. For the roast I found some different rubs. I tried one with salt, pepper, herbes de Provence and garlic. Again the roast was done in the large oven and had to end up on convection. Not sure what it is, the roasting pan or just the size of the oven. The end result though was one of the best tasting roasts I have ever made. Will take that recipe to Jackson hole, that is for sure!
For a vegetarian option we made a Broccoli Quinoa Casserole from Eat Good 4 Life website. I think the idea was good but way too much Quinoa. Brenna is trying to figure out if she really can eat Quinoa!
For dessert I made the Cranberry Yogurt Flan, that Katja Gilmore first served to me years ago for my birthday. I love this dessert it tastes and looks like cheesecake but is so much lighter!
I have started on some Christmas cookies but will do a small separate post on those selections for this year.
So up to date for now, though I think the next 3 weeks will be busy with lots of cooking and baking. Kaitlin will be arriving tomorrow night. Off to make dinner of simple pork chops, broccolini, salad, roasted potatoes and Brenna is going to saute some tofu for herself.
Monday, December 19, 2016
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Trying to get back to normal
Whole Grain Spaghetti with Wild mushrooms, Bacon and Rosemary
Steam Roasted Roots with Maple, Sriracha and Thyme
Tom Douglas Tomato Soup
Mincemeat!
Sometime in the future I will look back at this blog and wonder why I wasn't cooking very much, particularly two weeks ago. Then I will remember the day that I wrote my last entry was Election Day and hopefully the emotions that I and may I say a good portion of Seattle felt with the result of this 2016 Presidential election will have faded. I have pulled myself up and I can thank the Seattle Seahawks for starting it with a great game and win over the Patriots on the 13th and another win over the Eagles this past weekend. Thanksgiving is tomorrow and I may just pull out some turkey from the freezer, but will have to let you know the result later
I did find some great recipes again in the October/November 2016 Fine Cooking to try. They have a section called, Learn to Love Whole-Grain Pastas. It totally made sense when they said, just using whole grain spaghetti with sauce..... "only to find the result, shall I say, underwhelming" That says our experience in a nutshell. We tried the spaghetti with wild mushrooms, bacon and rosemary, throwing in a bit of leftover steak to be absolutely delicious. Mixing the more assertive flavour and texture of the pasta with more earthy, bold flavours was brilliant. I need to try a couple more!
Another section was about steam roasted vegetables. We were really happy with the cauliflower dish from the the previous post, that we tried the steam roasted roots with maple sriracha and thyme. I used carrots and rutabaga. Love it! Maybe with turkey tomorrow we should try the butternut squash with crispy sage.
For lunch on Sunday, Stewart and I thought that we would like tomato soup. No Campbells in the the cupboard, so pulled out the Central Market recipe. Stewart looked up Tom Douglas's version that we had at the Dahlia Lounge a few weeks back So working from both recipes made a very nice soup. I didn't have celery seed, but had celery salt. I thought it ended up too salty but Stewart liked it very much. All my notes are on Tom's soup recipe.
For a quick dinner I finally used the last of the Al Pastor marinade that kept really well in the fridge. I used it first with pork, next with steak and finally used it up on BBQ chicken thighs. It again was great and something that I will do all over again in the new year. Another quick dinner was pork chops with Penzey's Bavarian spice and apples. Simple and delicious. A couple of other standbys this past week. Lamb Kebabs from the New York Times cook book, my stir fried bok choy with garlic, ginger and scallions from Fine Cooking and the Sunday morning favourite of whole wheat crepes.
Talking with Sheila and Mom on my birthday I was inspired. Sheila was in the process of making a new patch of mincemeat. So looked up the recipe and got all her pointers and Stewart and I went shopping on Sunday to get all the special ingredients. I started it last week and on Monday did the final cooking and was able to package 6 pie's worth. That was half a batch of my Great, Great Grandmother Jordan's recipe. Stewart is anxious for me to make some tarts so that he can take them to work. They should be fine and I will make them just before Christmas.
Girls will be arriving in less than a month so I will have to start thinking about cookie baking, but not quite yet.
Steam Roasted Roots with Maple, Sriracha and Thyme
Tom Douglas Tomato Soup
Mincemeat!
Sometime in the future I will look back at this blog and wonder why I wasn't cooking very much, particularly two weeks ago. Then I will remember the day that I wrote my last entry was Election Day and hopefully the emotions that I and may I say a good portion of Seattle felt with the result of this 2016 Presidential election will have faded. I have pulled myself up and I can thank the Seattle Seahawks for starting it with a great game and win over the Patriots on the 13th and another win over the Eagles this past weekend. Thanksgiving is tomorrow and I may just pull out some turkey from the freezer, but will have to let you know the result later
I did find some great recipes again in the October/November 2016 Fine Cooking to try. They have a section called, Learn to Love Whole-Grain Pastas. It totally made sense when they said, just using whole grain spaghetti with sauce..... "only to find the result, shall I say, underwhelming" That says our experience in a nutshell. We tried the spaghetti with wild mushrooms, bacon and rosemary, throwing in a bit of leftover steak to be absolutely delicious. Mixing the more assertive flavour and texture of the pasta with more earthy, bold flavours was brilliant. I need to try a couple more!
Another section was about steam roasted vegetables. We were really happy with the cauliflower dish from the the previous post, that we tried the steam roasted roots with maple sriracha and thyme. I used carrots and rutabaga. Love it! Maybe with turkey tomorrow we should try the butternut squash with crispy sage.
For lunch on Sunday, Stewart and I thought that we would like tomato soup. No Campbells in the the cupboard, so pulled out the Central Market recipe. Stewart looked up Tom Douglas's version that we had at the Dahlia Lounge a few weeks back So working from both recipes made a very nice soup. I didn't have celery seed, but had celery salt. I thought it ended up too salty but Stewart liked it very much. All my notes are on Tom's soup recipe.
For a quick dinner I finally used the last of the Al Pastor marinade that kept really well in the fridge. I used it first with pork, next with steak and finally used it up on BBQ chicken thighs. It again was great and something that I will do all over again in the new year. Another quick dinner was pork chops with Penzey's Bavarian spice and apples. Simple and delicious. A couple of other standbys this past week. Lamb Kebabs from the New York Times cook book, my stir fried bok choy with garlic, ginger and scallions from Fine Cooking and the Sunday morning favourite of whole wheat crepes.
Talking with Sheila and Mom on my birthday I was inspired. Sheila was in the process of making a new patch of mincemeat. So looked up the recipe and got all her pointers and Stewart and I went shopping on Sunday to get all the special ingredients. I started it last week and on Monday did the final cooking and was able to package 6 pie's worth. That was half a batch of my Great, Great Grandmother Jordan's recipe. Stewart is anxious for me to make some tarts so that he can take them to work. They should be fine and I will make them just before Christmas.
Girls will be arriving in less than a month so I will have to start thinking about cookie baking, but not quite yet.
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Christmas baking begins!Pacific Northwest Christmas Cake
Traditional Christmas Pudding
Yellow Split Pea Soup
Pot Roast
Steam-roasted indian-spiced cauliflower
Low Carb Almond Flour waffles
Chocolate chunk and chip cookies
Pecan Sandies
To continue on the baking theme, I finally started to tackle my beautiful Bouchon Bakery cookbook that Stewart got me last year. I tried the Pecan Sandies and I thought they turned out well. I also did the Chocolate Chunk and chip cookies. I started both with the "weigh ingredients" method that they recommend. When doing the second type of cookies, it was evident that the scale was not working that well. I switched to the measuring cup method. This resulted in very flat and tasty puddles, but puddles non the less. I believe there was too much butter and this caused the cookie to basically melt into puddles. We switched out the batteries on the scale this evening, hopefully that will make things more accurate. The old batteries by the way were from or good until December 1999!
For dinners I tried a couple of new recipes. The first was Yellow Split Pea Soup with smoked ham hocks. This was developed at Central Market and I found it very tasty indeed. The recipe called from 1 to 2 tablespoons of hot sauce, but I only used a little less than a 1/4 tsp of Dave's and it was plenty spicy. Not overly hot but with a nice warmth. From the current Fine Cooking, October/ November I made the steam-roasted Indian- spiced cauliflower. A wonderful and easy side dish good enough for company. I also made Pot Roast with Parsnips, turnips and pearl onions from The Ultimate Cookbook, Recipes from the Canadian Living Test Kitchen.. Very good but Stewart would prefer to replace one of the turnips with a potato. This made two nights worth of dinner and still some leftover vegetables for lunch.
That leaves us with Sunday Breakfast. Stewart has been a waffle lover for years. As they are one of the most carb rich breakfast options, we decided we need to find an alternatives. We love our whole wheat crepes that we make instead of pancakes but waffles can be tricky. We tried Almond Flour Yogurt Waffles, from alldayidreamaboutfood.com I changed the 2 tablespoons of sweetener to a tablespoon of sugar, the whey powder to white whole wheat flour and joined the baking powder and baking soda into the double acting baking powder that I would like to use up. Also used milk for Almond milk. Those changes added only a total of 25g carb to the recipe so a 4 inch waffle is now 6.7 grams of carb. They cooked fast and were best when the griddle was really hot, keeping their shape well. We found them to be very good, a bit more chew than white flour, but what do you expect. We will add them to the rotation of weekend breakfast.
Friday, October 28, 2016
Dinner adventures this week.
Pasta with Sausage and Kale
Grilled Skirt Steak with Adobo butter
Kafta, Tzatziki and Tabbouleh
Shrimp and Black Bean Quesadillas
Roasted Squash with ruby chard and green rice
Tacos Al Pastor
Looks like we are not keeping up with this family blog. Stewart has suggested that I start using it to keep track of recipes that we would like to repeat. We have had two dinners this week from the October/November 2016 edition of Fine Cooking.
Yesterday we had, Pasta with sausage and kale. This was very good and I served it with a salad. I cut the kale and pasta in half but increased the amount of sausage just a bit and kept the cheese the same. Quite simple to make and kale goes really well with pork. Paired is with a Sangiovese type red wine from Italy.
Tonight we had Grilled skirt steak with adobo butter. I had the adobo chipotles already open from the Mexican dinner on Saturday with Julia and Noah. A great quick cooking steak. Served with baby broccoli, bbq pineapple and baked potato that you can have more of the adobo butter on or I had guacamole and sour cream. Very nice indeed!
Returning from Canada on Thursday last week, I brought home fresh Lebanese pita so indulged in Tabbouleh, Tzatziki, and Kafta dinner on Friday. Stewart found the Kafta recipe on Allrecipes. It was excellent, basically Lebanese hamburgers on a skewer, have to it make again. The tzatziki was called Chef John's again from allrecipes. The garlic needed to be cut in half otherwise very tasty. The tabbouleh is so much work and was better the next day. I found the parsley to be a bit tough at this time of year and I really needed to chop it finer.
Saturday night we had Julia and Noah for dinner. Ted was working overtime. I made a Mexican dinner from Jamie Oliver's Issue 71 of his magazine Jamie.
Started with Shrimp and black bean quesadillas, sans shrimp. Used the fresh whole wheat tortillas from Central Market. Noah ate his with just cheese and ate the whole thing. I really liked the addition of smoked paprika to the shredded cheese, it gave it a nice kick.
I did roasted squash with ruby chard and green rice. Loved the green rice and squash and the chard was okay but a bit plain. Lastly did the Taco's al Pastor and that was also really good with pineapple salsa. The pineapple was a bit unripe so BBQ'd it first and used half the pineapple. After barbecuing the balance of the pineapple tonight, the salsa would have been much better if it was riper.
On Monday for dinner used the Mexican dinner in basically a burrito bowl, Lining a plate with salad greens and topping with the heated up rice, squash and pork. Really yummy.
Afraid that I set the bar a bit high this past week! Have to start planning for the weekend and maybe I will have to start taking pictures!
Grilled Skirt Steak with Adobo butter
Kafta, Tzatziki and Tabbouleh
Shrimp and Black Bean Quesadillas
Roasted Squash with ruby chard and green rice
Tacos Al Pastor
Looks like we are not keeping up with this family blog. Stewart has suggested that I start using it to keep track of recipes that we would like to repeat. We have had two dinners this week from the October/November 2016 edition of Fine Cooking.
Yesterday we had, Pasta with sausage and kale. This was very good and I served it with a salad. I cut the kale and pasta in half but increased the amount of sausage just a bit and kept the cheese the same. Quite simple to make and kale goes really well with pork. Paired is with a Sangiovese type red wine from Italy.
Tonight we had Grilled skirt steak with adobo butter. I had the adobo chipotles already open from the Mexican dinner on Saturday with Julia and Noah. A great quick cooking steak. Served with baby broccoli, bbq pineapple and baked potato that you can have more of the adobo butter on or I had guacamole and sour cream. Very nice indeed!
Returning from Canada on Thursday last week, I brought home fresh Lebanese pita so indulged in Tabbouleh, Tzatziki, and Kafta dinner on Friday. Stewart found the Kafta recipe on Allrecipes. It was excellent, basically Lebanese hamburgers on a skewer, have to it make again. The tzatziki was called Chef John's again from allrecipes. The garlic needed to be cut in half otherwise very tasty. The tabbouleh is so much work and was better the next day. I found the parsley to be a bit tough at this time of year and I really needed to chop it finer.
Saturday night we had Julia and Noah for dinner. Ted was working overtime. I made a Mexican dinner from Jamie Oliver's Issue 71 of his magazine Jamie.
Started with Shrimp and black bean quesadillas, sans shrimp. Used the fresh whole wheat tortillas from Central Market. Noah ate his with just cheese and ate the whole thing. I really liked the addition of smoked paprika to the shredded cheese, it gave it a nice kick.
I did roasted squash with ruby chard and green rice. Loved the green rice and squash and the chard was okay but a bit plain. Lastly did the Taco's al Pastor and that was also really good with pineapple salsa. The pineapple was a bit unripe so BBQ'd it first and used half the pineapple. After barbecuing the balance of the pineapple tonight, the salsa would have been much better if it was riper.
On Monday for dinner used the Mexican dinner in basically a burrito bowl, Lining a plate with salad greens and topping with the heated up rice, squash and pork. Really yummy.
Afraid that I set the bar a bit high this past week! Have to start planning for the weekend and maybe I will have to start taking pictures!
Dinner adventures this week.
Pasta with Sausage and Kale
Grilled Skirt Steak with Adobo butter
Kafta, Tzatziki and Tabbouleh
Shrimp and Black Bean Quesadillas
Roasted Squash with ruby chard and green rice
Tacos Al Pastor
Looks like we are not keeping up with this family blog. Stewart has suggested that I start using it to keep track of recipes that we would like to repeat. We have had two dinners this week from the October/November 2016 edition of Fine Cooking.
Yesterday we had, Pasta with sausage and kale. This was very good and I served it with a salad. I cut the kale and pasta in half but increased the amount of sausage just a bit and kept the cheese the same. Quite simple to make and kale goes really well with pork. Paired is with a Sangiovese type red wine from Italy.
Tonight we had Grilled skirt steak with adobo butter. I had the adobo chipotles already open from the Mexican dinner on Saturday with Julia and Noah. A great quick cooking steak. Served with baby broccoli, bbq pineapple and baked potato that you can have more of the adobo butter on or I had guacamole and sour cream. Very nice indeed!
Returning from Canada on Thursday last week, I brought home fresh Lebanese pita so indulged in Tabbouleh, Tzatziki, and Kafta dinner on Friday. Stewart found the Kafta recipe on Allrecipes. It was excellent, basically Lebanese hamburgers on a skewer, have to it make again. The tzatziki was called Chef John's again from allrecipes. The garlic needed to be cut in half otherwise very tasty. The tabbouleh is so much work and was better the next day. I found the parsley to be a bit tough at this time of year and I really needed to chop it finer.
Saturday night we had Julia and Noah for dinner. Ted was working overtime. I made a Mexican dinner from Jamie Oliver's Issue 71 of his magazine Jamie.
Started with Shrimp and black bean quesadillas, sans shrimp. Used the fresh whole wheat tortillas from Central Market. Noah ate his with just cheese and ate the whole thing. I really liked the addition of smoked paprika to the shredded cheese, it gave it a nice kick.
I did roasted squash with ruby chard and green rice. Loved the green rice and squash and the chard was okay but a bit plain. Lastly did the Taco's al Pastor and that was also really good with pineapple salsa. The pineapple was a bit unripe so BBQ'd it first and used half the pineapple. After barbecuing the balance of the pineapple tonight, the salsa would have been much better if it was riper.
On Monday for dinner used the Mexican dinner in basically a burrito bowl, Lining a plate with salad greens and topping with the heated up rice, squash and pork. Really yummy.
Afraid that I set the bar a bit high this past week! Have to start planning for the weekend and maybe I will have to start taking pictures!
Grilled Skirt Steak with Adobo butter
Kafta, Tzatziki and Tabbouleh
Shrimp and Black Bean Quesadillas
Roasted Squash with ruby chard and green rice
Tacos Al Pastor
Looks like we are not keeping up with this family blog. Stewart has suggested that I start using it to keep track of recipes that we would like to repeat. We have had two dinners this week from the October/November 2016 edition of Fine Cooking.
Yesterday we had, Pasta with sausage and kale. This was very good and I served it with a salad. I cut the kale and pasta in half but increased the amount of sausage just a bit and kept the cheese the same. Quite simple to make and kale goes really well with pork. Paired is with a Sangiovese type red wine from Italy.
Tonight we had Grilled skirt steak with adobo butter. I had the adobo chipotles already open from the Mexican dinner on Saturday with Julia and Noah. A great quick cooking steak. Served with baby broccoli, bbq pineapple and baked potato that you can have more of the adobo butter on or I had guacamole and sour cream. Very nice indeed!
Returning from Canada on Thursday last week, I brought home fresh Lebanese pita so indulged in Tabbouleh, Tzatziki, and Kafta dinner on Friday. Stewart found the Kafta recipe on Allrecipes. It was excellent, basically Lebanese hamburgers on a skewer, have to it make again. The tzatziki was called Chef John's again from allrecipes. The garlic needed to be cut in half otherwise very tasty. The tabbouleh is so much work and was better the next day. I found the parsley to be a bit tough at this time of year and I really needed to chop it finer.
Saturday night we had Julia and Noah for dinner. Ted was working overtime. I made a Mexican dinner from Jamie Oliver's Issue 71 of his magazine Jamie.
Started with Shrimp and black bean quesadillas, sans shrimp. Used the fresh whole wheat tortillas from Central Market. Noah ate his with just cheese and ate the whole thing. I really liked the addition of smoked paprika to the shredded cheese, it gave it a nice kick.
I did roasted squash with ruby chard and green rice. Loved the green rice and squash and the chard was okay but a bit plain. Lastly did the Taco's al Pastor and that was also really good with pineapple salsa. The pineapple was a bit unripe so BBQ'd it first and used half the pineapple. After barbecuing the balance of the pineapple tonight, the salsa would have been much better if it was riper.
On Monday for dinner used the Mexican dinner in basically a burrito bowl, Lining a plate with salad greens and topping with the heated up rice, squash and pork. Really yummy.
Afraid that I set the bar a bit high this past week! Have to start planning for the weekend and maybe I will have to start taking pictures!
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