goodbye 2013

Last day of 2013!   We've had a relaxing break at home, and even tackled a home project.  We now have 3 shelves in our workout room to be able to store and organize the cable box, new bluray player and dvds.  This project will make all the difference in getting us both to use that room more often - netflix streaming while I work out, yes please!

Its not as exciting as a holiday trip, but something that we'll enjoy for many days/weeks to come.  We've come a long way in our at home projects, found the studs pretty easily and only ended up with one extra hole in the wall (a HUGE win for us!)

We have no big plans for tonight, just fixing a pot roast, and will have champagne at midnight (or maybe at New York's midnight) and protect our big bad dog from the fireworks in the neighborhood.   We've been hearing them all week, and he's not a fan....

I had to post our pizza picture from yesterday, it kind of (if you squint) looks like a firework (or maybe an amoeba).   Its our first attempt at a completely homemade pizza.   We had a tough time getting the dough to spread out and part of the odd shape is because we then had a tough time getting it onto the pizza stone, it stuck to the peel.

The flavor of the crust was good, but since it was uneven parts were still doughy.   We ended up having it as an appetizer and ended up going out for a pizza....It was made with a lot of love, but we need to work on the skill level....we'll try again with the other part of the dough (and after reading a bit more on how to do it).....some of the most memorable meals are the cooking fails....

I'm glad this is one of the last meals of 2013 and not the first of 2014 -- we might worry that it shows what the year will be like, I try not to be superstitious but do find myself wanting to make the beginning of the year great to set the tone for the year.

Have fun celebrating and stay safe!!!

easy way to shred chicken

Here is a cooking tip that I recently discovered and its quite the time saver.

You can shred chicken with a stand mixer.

I used to shred the cooked chicken using two forks -- hold the chicken with one fork and scrape pieces with the other one until it was shredded.   It was time consuming and quite the workout.   I made a double batch of a casserole once - one for us, one for our neighbors who'd just had a baby - and thought my arms might fall off from all the chicken shredding.

I read (on a blog I'm pretty sure) that you could shred chicken with a stand mixer, and I had to try it.
It works SO WELL!  Just cook the chicken as you usually would and then drop it in the bowl and let the large paddle do the work for you.   It didn't seem like it would work at first -- it just pushes the pieces around ,but give it a little time and it does work!

I wish I'd thought to take a photo of before/after, here is the blog I think I read it on - they did put up a photo, and apparently its on pinterest too.

We've done it twice now - once for the casserole and once this week for chicken tortilla soup.   Kevin said the soup was better this way (and I have to agree) since the chicken was all the same size and you got the same amount in every bite.

I'm going to be on the lookout for recipes calling for shredded chicken now!

This day must be noted.....Kevin decided (on his own) to cook vegetables as part of our dinner, and not just any safe vegetable - butternut squash and green beans with pine nuts.   The green beans were good, the butternut squash was great!  They both accompanied pecan crusted fish.   Kevin outdid himself and I think he may need to become the cook of the house, though I'm not sure he'll go for it.

He baked the squash, scraped it (my contribution to the meal) and pureed it with some syrup and a pinch of salt.  We needed spoons more than forks to eat it, and he liked it!

We have such different approaches to cooking, he just 'wings it' and I want to try that approach more often..

He was inspired by his meal at Backstreet cafe a while back.   If this is the result of a nice meal, we may have to treat ourselves more often :)

Getting excited about the Color Run this weekend and the Texans on Sunday night football!

freeze those shells

We made some delicious gumbo today. I love being able to make my own stock and made use of a hint I'd learned on the internet.   I froze the shells from the times we've had shrimp this year and used those for the stock - which gave us many more shells than we usually have and let me start the stock in the morning, even though I hadn't gone to the store yet.

The shells from the shrimp we used in the gumbo will go in the freezer for the next time we make stock...

I am not a good cook by any means, so have to share whenever I have a cooking tip :)

Rain day

Other parts of the country have snow days, we have rain days...

I knew it was going to storm, but I think the amount of rain surprised everyone.  I went to work like normal and the rain wasn't too bad - some rain, mostly a lot of thunder and lightning, but later in the morning it looked like night outside it was so dark!

There is a bayou right outside my window at work, so I watched the water creep up and up - and overflow into the parking lot of a local restaurant.  I'm quite lucky to have a window, I know many offices don't and I think I'd feel so disconnected from the day without it - I like knowing if its sunny, rainy, etc.  outside.   Last week I couldn't figure out what was going on - it was hazy from a grass fires miles away.

Back to today, I use the level in the bayou as an indicator of how bad it might be getting home, especially since one way out of work goes right over the bayou and is notorious for flooding.  That way did flood, like expected.  They decided to close the school at 2pm, so I headed on home.  I was glad to be able to get home pretty much like usual - many streets around town were underwater.

It was a great day to have done a crockpot soup - our trusty chicken tortilla soup was ready to go this morning and all K had to do was put it in the crockpot and turn it on.

We did make a new meal this weekend - stirfry and it turned out great.  We did a lot of chopping to have everything ready to cook all at once, and used our new electric wok.   It turned out great and is a good way to get some veggies in our day - bell peppers and mushrooms for me!   I don't really have a recipe since K was the main chef and he likes to 'wing it', I'm definitely a stick to the recipe cook, but both work.

I know that he used soy sauce, hoison sauce, red pepper flakes, sesame oil, and curry powder in the sauce. I may've left out an item or two, we had all those items on hand from various cooking adventures!

He cooked the meat first (chicken and beef - good mix we usually have one or the other in most of our meals), then did onions, garlic, and ginger then added the veggies (red and green bell peppers, and later mushrooms for me), that cooked for a bit and then he added the sauce.  I did get a picture of the peppers, so pretty with the different colors!  

Baking Adventure

I am already having a great Christmas vacation!  I took Thursday off from work to get the house ready to host my family for the weekend.   It was a busy day with cleaning house and the big trip to the grocery store.   I love that I don’t have to work until 2012 (one of the perks of working for a university is it is closed the week between Christmas and new years).

This year for Christmas I wanted to learn to make my husband’s favorite cookies, crinkle cookies that his mom makes each year.  I got the recipe, bought all of the ingredients and all was going well.

The dough gets pretty thick and the mixer was struggling.  I told K that it smelled like it was burning and the mixer held on until I finished mixing but was smoking by the end!   Kevin has had the mixer as long as I've known him (almost 8 years) so it served him well, but just couldn't take the thick dough.

Just that afternoon I'd said that if I kept baking that we might need to get a stand-mixer, but I wasn’t planning to get a new one this quick!  

We have to have a mixer for some other cooking we’re doing this weekend (they are a must for mashed potatoes!), so I braved the crowds this morning and went to find a new mixer. I’d done my research online and could not believe how many models were only available online, usually I don’t mind it but the timeline I was one even next day shipping wouldn’t work.  My ‘plan b’ was to borrow one from my in-laws, but I wanted to get one of my own!  Target was out of them, but I found just what I wanted at Kohl’s – a KitchenAid stand-mixer in empire red.

I finished the crinkle cookies today, and they look and smell great!   I even got to break in the mixer when I made peanut butter cookies, it is wonderful and makes mixing so easy, now I wonder if I shoulnd’t have burned up his mixer long ago….hehehe

While I was out, another gift appeared under the tree, I don’t know what it is..I love surprises!

We'll have a busy weekend with family, so I'll say it now MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Cooking class

I attended a cooking class through Leisure Learning on Monday, and it went really well! It was my first hands-on class, and I didn't really know what to expect. It was held at a house, but this is no ordinary house. The house has a large kitchen with the stove arranged so that it overlooks the next room where there were two long tables set up for us to sit at. Surrounding the stove is a HUGE counter, great for prep work. Above the stove and work space are mirrors set so that we can see what is happening in the kitchen from our seats. It is a demonstration kitchen owned by a chef and rented for such classes by our chef-instructor.

I love Asian food so chose to take a class called "Spring Roll Workshop" and I was not disappointed. First we made four different sauces (one person made each of the sauces). I made a sweet and sour sauce, someone else made a peanut sauce, classic sauce, and an oriental sauce. We did the sauces first so that when we made each of the dishes we could eat them with one or all of the dipping sauces. I tried all four sauces, and my favorites were the sweet and sour and the classic sauce.

Once the sauces were made we moved onto the food - we made spring rolls and also made classic Chinese eggrolls, and dumplings. I definitely need to practice the rolling, but was pleased with how well they turned out, and they tasted great too. I love that this food is forgiving, especially the spring rolls its really put in it whatever you like (glass noodles, shrimp, cucumber, carrot, etc). Here is a twitpic of the last of the spring rolls that I made: http://twitpic.com/251po4 I was so pleased with how they looked and tasted.

It took me til the end of the night, but I finally realized that the oriental sauce reminded me of the sauec they serve with dumplings at this great dumpling place in downtown Houston. mmmm, dumplings

I will definitely be practicing these dishes at home!

Key Lime Pie

Our lime tree is finally producing limes (after about 2 years)! Soooo, we decided to make a Key Lime Pie. We used this recipe and it turned out wonderfully. We did have to add some store-bought lime juice to the fresh lime juice. We had a lot of limes but even after squeezing them all we had only about half the juice we needed. Squeezing them was a workout!

We made the pie, then had dinner and washed the dog. we made it early so it would have time to chill long enough before we ate it. It was so refreshing on a hot day, and something to look forward to while we washed our dog (always an adventure). Kevin is amazing at smashing graham crackers into crumbs...our blender wasn't doing it, so he just used a ziploc bag, a rolling pin, and his own strength....

I think this was my first attempt at a pie from scratch - except for maybe a pumpkin one as a kid when we'd carved pumpkins around Halloween. This was so much better! and the whole kitchen smelled of graham cracker crust all evening (drooling just thinking of it). We had enough crust makings leftover to make a second crust and will make another pie (maybe chocolate this time) after we finish this one.

We are seriously considering digging up the tree and taking it with us when we move. It took so long to produce limes and has such a great smell....we first noticed it when Kevin was cutting the grass and realized he smelled limes.

Summer recipe

It has been quite a while since I’ve posted a recipe we’ve tried – yes I have been cooking, but not as many new things since we’ve been househunting and now houseprepping. I am quite proud of myself that last night I not only made dinner, but after dinner I put together tonight’s dinner (beef enchiladas) so that all we have to do tonight is pop it into the oven! I’m on a constant hunt for easy, good recipes and want to find more stuff I can make ahead of time. Here is a recipe we tried recently. Kevin found it at cooking.com. This was a great meal to have since it has been so hot and dry in Houston recently.

Saffron is quite a pricey spice – THE most expensive by weight according to Wikipedia. I’ve never bought a spice for that much - $12! But we used only a teeny-tiny bit of it, and it smells really good so I'm sure it added to the flavor. I’d charge a lot for it too if I had to take apart flowers and they dry them to make the spice. My dad has found that he can buy spices online cheaper than in the stores, so you may want to go that route if you want to use spices like this one or vanilla beans which I see in the store sell with only ONE in the bottle.

It tasted great on a hot day, and we opened up a mojito mix I've had to complete the tropical meal. I forget what sides we had - rice I think...

Creole Red Snapper

We went to 2 stores and neither had red snapper, so we used tilapia. We also left out the olives, other than that we followed the recipe.

4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped scallions
2-1/2 teaspoons finely chopped garlic
1 cup chopped tomatoes, fresh or canned with juice
1 lemon, peeled, seeded, and chopped
16 small pitted whole olives
Pinch of saffron
4 red snapper fillets, skin on
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Fresh dill, for garnish (optional)

DIRECTIONS
Put the vegetable oil in a sauté pan. Over medium heat sauté the onion, pepper, and scallions until the pepper loses its raw green color, about 5 minutes.
Add the garlic and sauté for 1 minute.
Add the tomatoes and cook for another minute.
Add the lemon, olives, and saffron, crushing the saffron between your fingers before you add it, in order to bring out the flavor. Stir and cook for 5 minutes.
Put the fish fillets, flesh side down, into the pan. Cook for 3 minutes.
Turn fish over carefully, using a spatula or two, and sprinkle with lemon juice, salt and pepper, to taste.
Cover and continue to cook until desired doneness, approximately 3 more minutes.
Carefully remove from the pan, and garnish with fresh dill if desired.

legal stuff: Recipe reprinted by permission of Doubleday. All rights reserved.Date Added: 01/01/2008. Hopefully they won't mind that I've copied it for you, but I did give credit :)

Busy Tuesday

I am so tired. After dinner tonight we worked out in the front yard to finish up the flowerbeds. We finished trimming the plants and got ALL of the mulch down (I lost track of how many bags we used). It was exhausting, especially after a full day at work, but it looks great and feels even better to have it done! Now we'll just have to keep up with the weeding and watering. I am so glad that it didn't freeze at our house last night, some areas did have freezing temperatures - in Houston in April?!?!

For dinner we tried out a new recipe I'd gotten from Self magazine, and it was a success. I followed the recipe fairly closely and will add what we did differently. It had a good flavor. Next time I'll make it a little hotter, but its a success when its good enough that we eat it and even better when we actually WANT to have it again.

Five-Spice Shrimp
Classic Indian seasonings give this shrimp dish a fiery jolt.

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1-inch piece ginger
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/8 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 2 medium tomatoes, pureed -- we actually used a can of peeled tomatoes
  
• 1 pound large shrimp, shelled and deveined
• 2 1/2 cups cooked rice
• Coriander sprigs - we omitted, I didn't feel like buying at the store
  

Preparation

Heat oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Sauté onion until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Grind ginger and garlic into a paste; add it and remaining spices and tomatoes to pan; simmer 5 minutes. In a separate pan, sauté shrimp 30 seconds. Add sauce and stir continuously on high heat, 2 or 3 minutes, until most of the liquid evaporates. Serve over rice. Garnish with coriander.

After simmering the sauce, we blended it to make it a smoother consistency. Also, because we used more tomatoes ( a can instead of just 2) there was a lot more sauce then the recipe (and photo) indicated, but I like a lot of sauce, so it worked out.

I was really pleased with the smell of the dish and we plan to play with this combination of spices to try out some other Indian dishes.

Recipe 1 - Success!

Our first try at a new recipe was a success! On Sunday we made a Garlic Curry Chicken and Spinach. I am so proud of Kevin, he ate the spinach, and actually liked it :) His ongoing challenge has been to find vegetables he likes and work them into his diet, so this dish helped that goal as well as being fairly healthy. We used light coconut milk and it still tasted good. Next time we make it, we'll spice it up some more - I doubled the curry from what the recipe called for, but it could still use more curry and garlic. I'd picked this recipe up as a freebie at Wal-mart a while ago, and found it in my recipe files. We'll file this one under GOOD! I wanted to type the recipe to post it, and had the thought I wonder if its on their website, silly me, of course it is, they actually have an entire recipe section, located here.

Here is the recipe: Garlic Curry Chicken and Spinach

Hot cooked rice (optional)

2 Tbsp. olive or vegetable oil

1 Lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch wide strips

2 Cloves garlic, minced

1 Tsp. curry powder ( we doubled this and plan to use even more next time we make it)

1 Cup coconut milk (we used light, and the entire can because we like a lot of juice to pour over the rice)

4 Cups fresh spinach, cut into strips

Directions

Prepare rice, if desired.

In large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat until very hot but not smoking.

Add chicken; cook and stir 4 to 6 minutes or until browned.

Add garlic and curry; cook and stir 30 seconds.

Stir in coconut milk; reduce heat to medium-low.

Cook 3 to 4 minutes or until chicken is thoroughlycooked.

Add spinach; toss to mix. Cook just until spinach is wilted.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with hot cooked rice, if desired.

Resolution - cooking

One of my resolutions this year is to improve my cooking and add more variety to what I can cook. I have a few dishes that I make pretty well, but I hope to expand what I can cook and be more confident in my cooking abilities. I plan to take a class or two at Central Market, but know that most of it will be trial and error on my own, with my sweet husband as my guinea pig. I'm also recommitting myself to being healthier - both by working out regularly and being consistent with logging what I eat in Weight Watchers - so I'd like to find healthy recipes. They are separate but connected goals.

We already plan out our meals a week at a time, and I think the most attainable goal is to try one new dish per week. So, what are some of your favorite dishes to make? I hope to post my success stories as I work on this.

Blender Fiasco

Yet another kitchen fiasco from yours truly. I can't even call it cooking fiasco because I didn't get that far. The other day, I was going to attempt to make pesto, but in getting the blender out of the cabinet I caught it on the oversized lunch bag I had in the cabinet and the whole thing tumbled out and broke :( Our brand-new, fancy, schmancy blender. I cleaned up the glass, and was just mad at myself for letting it happen. I figured I could remedy this by using the old blender we never got around to getting rid of (why couldn't I have broken it instead?), but then saw that the fresh basil I had was 1) probably not enough, and 2) slimy - thanks packaging that I can't see through. I wanted to pick out my own, but HEB had about every other kind of spice in bulk, so I went with the pre-packaged in the produce section, never again.

I was clearly not meant to make pesto, so I abandoned that plan and went to plan b (invented on the spot) of making the Mongolian Chicken that we had a spice packet for. Turned out pretty well for being a plan b but it is so salty we probably won't have that for a while, at least until we figure out a better way to make it. The oversized lunch bag is now in a closet, far from the kitchen, and yesterday morning when I went to throw out the broken pieces, I cut my finger....not too badly, and I bandaged it up, but just one more haha from the blender.

In happier news, this was my first week with fitness release time and I love it! I am impressed that I remembered my clothes each day and was able to get out of the office and over there each of my three days. I did almost forget my gym back there yesterday, but realized it as I was walking to my car and hightailed it back over there, not that I think anyone wants to steal my clothes but would not be good to leave it there overnight.

I left work at 4pm three days this week (M, T, TH) and went to the gym, changed clothes and worked out there until 5pm. Monday I took a class and T and TH I did the treadmill. I like getting to workout on work time and it should help me to be consistent in my workouts. I did get up W and do a little bit of weights, but did NOT get up today. Its perfect time since the weather and the daylight are reflecting that yes, it is winter.

Kitchen misadventures

Other people have cooking blogs, I'd like to have one but I'm afraid my kitchen misadventures are often more memorable then my cooking successes. On Friday, I was going to make a roasted chicken for dinner, it takes longer to make then most of our week night dinners, but since I took the day off I could do it. So I prepped the chicken - took out the 'giblets' and rinsed it out, chopped up garlic, and put garlic/rosemary/lemon juice combo between the chicken meat and the skin, and put half a lemon inside the chicken. We've made it once before and it was so good, so I was excited to make something good (and healthy) for me and my hubby. I put it in the oven. Over an hour later I went to see how it was doing, and the oven wasn't on! Turns out when I was trying to set the timer on the oven and mistyped in how long I wanted and hit cancel on the timer I'd actually hit cancel on the oven, so the oven turned OFF, and the chicken had in fact been sitting there in a cooling off and then cold oven. I was so mad at myself! This is beyond blonde moment, I feel truly dumb when I do something like that...why didn't I notice that it wasn't hot or just make sure the red light was still on after having problems with the timer??

At that point we were too hungry to wait (and not sure that it was safe to eat since it had sat at room temperature for over an hour), so instead of my yummy chicken, we had a last minute change to pizza :(. I'll try again next weekend and we have yet another inside joke, remember the chicken will be talked about for years.