Insulin Anyone?

So, as predicted, the cheesy vegetable pork chops were so good... and the tarragon? Ew! I forgot or didn't know that it tastes like licorice? And I mean the gross kind of licorice. Scott won't let me say "Black Licorice" because he argues that "Licorice, by definition, is black. This is why they specify when it's RED Licorice." Whatever. The salad was GROSS. This is weird because I happen to know that a certain wedding venue here in town serves super-yummy tarragon chicken, which I've had and loved. Oh well. On to the BAKING!!!

I stayed away from gigs this weekend, as I worked about a 60 hour work week doing report cards, culminating with a marathon 12 hour work day on Friday followed by a shopping trip to Michael's for garland (Scott complained about our "naked" Christmas tree), followed by re-decorating the tree, making a wreath with all of our wine corks (if you know us, you know there are many) and watching sad movies. I'm so lame, lol. Anyway, last night I was just too worn out again, and so I decided to make "Luscious Chocolate Truffles." My conclusion regarding truffles is this: unless you have a mold or are cold-blooded and therefore do not melt ganache upon touching it, your truffles will look like turds. Huh. Did you know my spell-check doesn't recognize "turd???" But it has no suggestions. Furthermore, it wants me to replace "ganache" with "panache" or "Ganesha." Now it's getting complicated. So, basically, the truffles, to which I added Butterscotch Schnapps instead of boring liquor are DELISH but U-G-L-Y. Oh well, they're mostly for family anyway. My mom's "friend" M ate two today and had to have a glass of red wine because he liked them so much he said he had to eat them right. He's fun to cook for!

My next Christmas baking attempt from Betty's Book was "Bonbon Cookies." I liked the name of these because they sound so 1950s... and trust me, they look it too. You make a batter and make little balls with "fillings" like nuts, dates, cherries or chocolate. I chose not to put food coloring in the batter (colored batter creeps me out a little) and then I stuffed each one with a glacee cherry and three chocolate chips. I then baked them, cooled them, and glazed them with Betty's "Vanilla Glaze" and threw some red sprinkles on the red ones, and green on the green. This is the only time in my life I've ever made a cookie recipe that yielded MORE cookies than it said it would. Fun! I ended up with 26, which meant Scott and I could each sample one before they went to the freezer. They remind me of these cookies my godmother used to make that were green and sugary and had chocolate chips in them. Ah, nostalgia.

So now my house smells like a bakery, my teeth hurt a little from licking glaze off my fingers, and I'm in the midst of a delightful sugar crash... I love the holidays...

I'm back. This time with pork!

The hiatus is OVA!!! Due to needing to control my fat/carb intake for my sister's wedding combined with the business of being a maid of honour in said wedding, I took a little break from Betty. Well, I'm back! With pork!

I found it kind of nice to revert back to my non -measuring, spicy-cooking self... I made a killer cream of mushroom soup with turkey bacon, a zucchini-instead-of-noodles based lasagna, carb-free tacos, Italian Wedding Soup, my OWN jambalaya recipe, bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, stuffed mushrooms, basil-boconccini-tomato skewers, meatballs and more... FUN.

However, I DO have to admit that I missed the variety that cooking everything from a cookbook offers, and I think I bought more ready-made food. I'm just happy to be back, and I am already planning my Christmas baking with Betty in mind. I don't think I'll make a recipe every night, but I am going to try for 2-3 per week... that should suffice, right?

Right now we are impatiently waiting for the Cheesy-Vegetable Stuffed Pork Chops to finish baking, and we will have them with Fresh Herb Vinaigrette on a salad. You had a million choices of which herbs to get, but I chose Tarragon... oops. It smells bad.

Here we go again!!!

Stinky Eggs. How's that for a Title???

Okay, so seeing as how I have a dress to fit into for my sister's wedding, which is coming up in less than THREE WEEKS (EEEEEEKKKK!!!!), I am doing my best to find low-or-no-carb recipes in the Betty Book. Hence the "Eggs with Kielbasa" recipe... Pretty much eggs, onion, green pepper and kielbasa. But, friends, here's the thing: you were supposed to make it like an omelette, but I messed it up and scrambled it instead. I also didn't use all the egg yolks since I couldn't in good conscience make something with that many fat grams.

Want to know something weird? Cooking kielbasa, peppers and onions stinks. Not like "It's hard, this stinks." but more like, "Scott, come and smell this... I think the eggs are rotten." Not really a good sign when you're hungry and tired. But all weird stinkiness aside, the eggs were actually really good. Yay!

You know what would have been even better with it? Toast. Hash Browns. Pecan Pie. Oh, wedding, you better be fun!

Sometimes a Sausage is Just a Sausage.

So Thanksgiving was a little while ago, but I did make a recipe from Betty's book for the occasion. Because Bets is the Queen of the Basics, I knew the stuffing recipe would rock. I read out the ingredients to my mom, and she said it sounded really similar to my grandma's recipe, except it was lacking sausage. Lo and behold, Betty had a sausage variation. Okay, despite the Freudian theme this post seems to be taking, the stuffing was delicious.

Of COURSE the grocery store was out of bread cubes, so I had to cut up an entire loaf of bread with scissors. And of COURSE I doubled the sausage (I think, it was in grams, Betty wanted pounds, I just wanted enough stuffing for everyone to eat). It tasted just like stuffing should. Oh, the comfort.

To counter-act the insane amount of fat and badness in the stuffing, I made a non-Betty salad. Mixed greens, pecans I sauteed with cayenne, salt and sugar, romaine, dried cranberries, red delicious apples, pumpkin seeds and Parmesan cheese. The dressing was fig balsamic, olive oil, Dijon mustard and cinnamon. O. M. G. It was a hit, I have to admit! I wasn't a huge fan, but my family was happy and it was so pretty!

All in all, alot to be grateful for... Betty included.

Next Time, Stick with Chocolate

What exactly about Swiss Steak is Swiss? It's tomatoes and meat and peppers... weird. The best part about this recipe was that Scott made me buy a meat mallet the last time we went shopping, so I got to pound the hell out of a side of beef. Awesome. No, like really, awesome. Talk about therapeutic! I guess you have to "tenderize" the beef first since you are then going to have to let it simmer for the next fifty years. Okay, for the next hour and twenty-five minutes, but STILL!!!! We were so hungry!!!!

The result??? Meh. I used fresh tomatoes instead of canned, since the only nice tomatoes I could find were in whole entire baskets and Scott doesn't like tomatoes, so I had a bazillion. I actually screamed "EWWWW!!!" when I touched a sticky, gross tomato at the store, and a nice man told me to go check out the baskets, they had nicer ones. This left me with a large amount of over-ripe tomatoes.

I didn't really care for this recipe. It took a long time and didn't taste like much. Swiss Steak is like a metaphor for my life this week... Huge effort, high hopes, beatings with mallets and entirely anti-climactic. I'm not going to hold it against the Swiss, however, as they have brought us such things as cheese and chocolate, army knives and neutrality (all of which are SUPER good) but their steak? I think I'll pass.

Today's Meal was Brought to You by the Letter "P"

I knew pecans were good in pie. I knew they were good when "pralined," but nothing prepared me for Crunchy Pecan-Topped Pork Chops. While I'm not sure Scott was as enamored with them as I was, we had a really nice dinner... along with the pork chops, I made rosemary potatoes. Pecans, Pork and Potatoes. Mmmm, healthy.

Luckily I stole my mother's Braun hand-blender awhile ago, and it has gotten me through many recipes otherwise requiring a blender or a food processor. It has this nifty little container that you put all your "stuff to be chopped" into, then you put the lid on and the hand-blender fits onto the lid and spins the blade at the bottom of the container. It's a modern miracle. And it'll do until I splurge on a Slap-Chop. The "stuff to be chopped" was parsley, pecans, salt and a slice of bread. You throw it on top of the mayo/Dijon/oil sauce and broil the pork. It really does get all crunchy and delicious. The potatoes, I have to say, were an oily mess. GROSS. (I was also feeling awful and cranky, so they were probably just a little wee bit gross.)

Because I am still not feeling any better, Scott handled dinner last night. He made crab legs, and I made rice pilaf and a salad. Betty says the pilaf is "savoury." Once again, Bets and I have a different idea as to what this means. It was also super-watery so I had to reboil it to cook off the liquid. But the crab was amazing. Point for Scott, who, by the way, makes the most delicious garlic butter I've ever tasted.

Potatoes, Pilaf, Pecans, Pork. Hmmm... I wonder if I should try Q next...

Caliente!

Oh, Enchiladas. You are hard to make and worth every minute. Has anyone out there actually MADE enchiladas before? They are time-consuming! You make the filling, with ground beef, onion, parsley, cheese and sour cream, then you set it aside. Then, you make a sauce out of cumin, chili powder, water, bell pepper, jalapenos, and tomato sauce, and boil it down. Then you put the sauce in a pie plate, and dip each side of eight tortillas into the sauce. Then you fill the tortillas with the filling (duh), roll them up and line them up in a baking dish. Throw the rest of the sauce over the whole mess and bake for 20 minutes. You can garnish it with green onions, cheese and sour cream. I used cheese and onions, since the filling used up the rest of my sour cream (Scott had late-night gigs all week and used up some sour cream for post-gig nachos).

We ate our fill Thursday night and I actually brought the leftovers over to my mom's on Friday and we ate them with some chips, salsa fresca and guacamole. They were even better the next day! Who knew Betty could do a Mexican classic so well???

SLIGHT problem: My hands and later on, my face, were almost obliterated by the capsacin in the jalapenos. I don't think my skin stopped burning for hours. Google said to try butter or oil (this blog should be sponsored by some butter company) as capsacin is fat-soluble, but if it's been a few minutes already, forget about it, you're stuck burning for the next 48 hours. AND, to add insult to injury, capsacin is re-activated by hot water. Needless to say, I tried my own home-remedy of Sauvignon Blanc, which helped until I washed my face before bed, which spread the burning to my face upon re-activation. Nice. Get this, though! Last night, as I was making the salsa, I asked my mom to pour some olive oil on my hands after I had handled the jalapenos. It worked!!! Good to know.

I had more wine though, just in case ;)

The future is here, people.

Smoked Gouda and Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breasts with a Mushroom-Wine Brown Sauce and Spicy Corn. Here we go:

-Smoked Gouda? Basically bacon-flavoured cheese. Awesome.

-Spinach? Well, it's spinach. Meh.

-Spicy Corn? Corn on the cob with lemon pepper. Surprisingly good!

-Mushroom-Wine Brown Sauce? Le gross. SO not what I was expecting. And the weirdest thing was, you had to thinly slice an onion and cook it in butter until it was brown. Then DISCARD the onion and add the mushrooms, flour and wine. Okay, maybe Betty had all this money to be cooking things just to throw them away, but Scott and I had trouble with this one. I actually asked him to read the recipe himself just to make sure I wasn't having some sort of culinary hallucination. Nope. "Discard Onion."

Sometimes I wonder what kind of cookbook I would write myself. Like, between "1. Saute thinly sliced onion in butter." and "2. Discard onion." would I have the following directions:

1.25 Blink furiously at cookbook. Question your ability to read. Ask boyfriend to read recipe.

1.50 Argue with boyfriend about recipe. Curse Betty for being such a wasteful b*&#@.

1.75 Burn your finger on melted butter and onions. Scream the F-word until boyfriend FINALLY turns around to ask if you are okay. Say, "Yeah, I'm great. I scream like that when I'm great." Laugh uncontrollably when boyfriend kisses your finger better, smacks his lips and says, "Mmmm... I think you're actually still cooking."

Never, ever a dull moment. My cookbook would be honest though. Just call me Betty 2.0

Meatballs are Romantic!

What if I told you I fell a little bit more in love with Betty last Friday night?

What if I told you it was all because of her balls? Hee hee... meatballs. I made "Italian Meatballs" and "Italian Tomato Sauce." I now have four servings of sauce and meatballs in the freezer as well as a package of frozen meatballs which I'm sure will come in handy when we have a quick dinner to make... mmmmm, meatball subs.

Turns out, dear readers, that while Betty might have a hard time with "exotic" dishes like *gasp* Sweet and Sour Chicken, she makes the basics well. That's an understatement. She OWNS the basics. I felt like someone else had come over and made dinner and left me a plate of good old fashioned spaghetti and meatballs... of course, that could also be because I started cooking at 5, but didn't eat until about 8. I then spent a lovely night catching up on Grey's Anatomy and drinking wine and feeling smug about my irrepressible abilities in the kitchen. Scott ate a plate before his gig, and leftovers AFTER the gig. Success!!!

Now, where do I find a string of decently priced pearls???

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

So apparently, I'm the only person alive who didn't know that Chicken Kiev is butter wrapped in flattened chicken. Weird. Everybody at work was like, "Yeah, I love Chicken Kiev, even though it's bad for you." I was shocked. Huh.

I'm not sure Betty's "Oven Chicken Kiev" is the same as regular Chicken Kiev, but it's what the recipe was. You take butter, chives (I used green onions since apparently there is a chive shortage in this city. Cilantro last week, grrrr...) and garlic. You mush it all together and freeze it in a rectangle shape. Then you pound the hell out of six chicken breasts. I can tell you, after the day I had yesterday, slamming a rolling pin into about three pounds of flesh felt good. Like, really, disturbingly good. Let's just say the chicken was about 1/8 inch thick by the time I had finished giving it the beats. Then, you cut the frozen butter/garlic/chive stuff in six, wrap a chicken breast around each piece, dip the whole thing in milk, then into a bowl with crushed cornflakes, paprika and parsley. Then, according to Betty, you bake it at 425 for 35 minutes. If you are into pink chicken, which I am not, sure, take it out after 35 minutes. If not, cook it for about 25 minutes longer... it's not like it'll get dried out, it's wrapped around butter.

Get this: as a side-dish, we had cucumbers, tomatoes and carrot from my garden! It's not a typo that I didn't pluralize the carrot, there was only one. Wah, wah. Delicious, if scarce.

The only problem? I now am the proud owner of a giant box of cornflakes. I don't eat breakfast. I looked in the book to find some sort of "This is a great way to use up that enormous, ridiculous box of cornflakes you bought to make the Chicken Kiev" Recipe. Not so much. Hmmmm.... this might solve the need for packed lunches for the next three weeks!

Ewwww, Republican Pork.

Whoa... It's been way too long since I blogged. Blame the brutal cold that wouldn't go away, and my sister's shower/bachelorette weekend. Here is what I have made this week:

-BBQ sauce

-Vegetable Barley Saute

-Cashew Chicken

-Beef Fajitas (which were so cool, since it was really three recipes: the fajitas, the marinade and the guacamole)

-vanilla butter cream

And tonight, Szechuan Pork. Whew!

The BBQ sauce was not at all spicy (insert shocked face here!) and the barley and veg were sub-par... I still ended up eating for lunch for two days afterward, since Scott was really not into it. The cashew chicken was pretty good, but I'm questioning the necessity of cornstarch in all "Asian" dishes much as I questioned sugar in the vegetable dishes. I mean, I've spent the better part of my twenties avoiding starch and carbs and pretty much everything else. Now I'm mixing it into my damn food. I thought it was for starching shirts for republicans in the 80's. My bad.

The fajitas were so good, I almost forgot how tired I was after icing and decorating 50 pink cupcakes for my sister's bridal shower. The guacamole was amazing, especially since I added the seeds and membrane of one of the jalapenos (Betty said to remove them. I said, "Betty, it's Friday night and I'm icing cupcakes. CHILL.) Obviously, the butter cream was for the cupcakes. Um, it's icing sugar, butter, milk and vanilla. It's clearly heaven.

Now we're caught up. Phew. I've been all paranoid that I am a bad blogger. Tonight was the Szechuan Pork, and it was pretty good. I tried it how Betty said, then added WAY more crushed red pepper and some soy sauce. Interestingly, there were water chestnuts and peanuts in it, and the pork (which you marinate in garlic, crushed red pepper, soy sauce and cornstarch for 30 minutes) was really tender and flavourful. I'm really trying to keep up with the pictures, too, but I feel like part of my blogs charm comes from my random, ridiculous pictures... any thoughts???

I Kinda Thought It Would Be Orange...

Monday's Dinner was supposed to be Stir-Fried Sweet and Sour Chicken. Since I'm pretty sure I had some form of Swine Flu (no, seriously), we ordered pizza. It was lovely to have dinner show up at the door, nice and hot, and not have had to do a thing. (Scott ordered it online, too, which meant no phone call. I always try to get out of the phone call, I hate it.) The only problem was, I was so stuffed up I couldn't taste, so the jalapenos on the pizza were all for nought. Bummer.

Tuesday's Dinner, therefore, was the Sweet and Sour Chicken. I had this mental picture of sticky, sweet, tangy, orange saucy chicken. Then I made the recipe, and changed my mental picture to Better Crocker sitting in her kitchen inventing this recipe saying, "You know, I think I'm going to make my OWN Chinese Food! How exotic!" Except it wasn't. To be fair, the lack of taste may have had as much to do with my stuffy nose as it did with the ingredients. Once we tasted it, Scott ran for the cayenne and the salt. People, I have to say, until this project, I have almost NEVER salted my food. Except for air-popped popcorn, corn on the cob, or raw mozzarella... things that obviously require it. Now? I'll do anything to get some flavour. Scott and I both took the first bite, kind of looked at each other, and then speared a chicken piece thinking that the flavour MUST be hiding in there! It wasn't, but surprise, surprise! It was hiding in the pineapple! Chicken, green pepper, onion, carrot, pineapple, cornstarch, vinegar, honey and oil. Le sigh.

All in all, readers, not terrible. But it was no Quick Jambalaya.

ps: Sarah, this picture is of the actual food I made. I took it just for you ;)

Betty the Spice Girl!

Quick Jambalaya is just that! And sooooo good! THIS, dear readers, is what I was hoping would happen with this experiment: that I would find some really good, easy recipes that I would want to add to the regular rotation of dinners. Do I like "Quick Jambalaya" better than my own recipe? Not a chance. But would I make this again? Absolutely. The recipe had TWO steps-that's it!

1. Brown the sausage.

2. Add all other ingredients, bring to a boil, simmer 10 minutes.

The only dishes I dirtied were a knife, cutting board, skillet and wooden spoon. And while I am morally opposed to instant rice as it's probably one of the most processed, fake, confusing food items I've ever purchased, I have this to say: Guys, it's a bloody freaking miracle!

Look out, everybody, there was an EIGHTH of a tsp of Cayenne in it! Settle the hell down, Betty! Since I'm suddenly over my sore throat only to be plagued by a chest cold and sinus issues, I was having none of this. I used extra spicy sausage and "accidentally" poured the cayenne into the teaspoon right over the skillet, spilling alot of it around the tsp. Scott was happy, " Wow! A Betty recipe with some kick!" and my sinuses actually cleared for about 5 minutes. Good times, and good leftovers!

Tonight, it's BBQ ribs and veggie-barley saute. As long as the Tylenol Cold/Buckley's cocktail holds out.

Chili Challenge

Wednesday I went to the store to buy chocolate chips specifically to make zucchini bread. Then I got home and realized Scott had used two of the four eggs we had to make soup. This caused unreasonable annoyance on my part, because I was so tired and really didn't want to make another trip to the store. Scott called his dad and asked him if he would bring two eggs over when he came by to pick him up. Scott's dad, being the awesome guy he is, showed up with a dozen eggs. Now I REALLY had to make the zucchini bread! Luckily, the recipe made two loaves, one of which I split in half and shared between a super-nice friend and Scott's super-nice dad... I love giving away baking. I left out the nuts and the raisins and added chocolate chips... after the Roquefort debacle of 09, I figured it was my right. And it was goooooood... I baked and watched America's Next Top Model and I even got a voice-mail from Scott's nieces telling me they loved the bread. That's right. Scott's dad even shared the treat. I am convinced Scott inherited this amazing character trait from his dad... SCORE!

The next night I came home from school with razor-like pain in my throat and not much time before I had to go back to work for Open House. Because Scott is awesome and super-nice (like his dad!) he had everything prepped (chopped, shredded, thawed, pots on the stove, everything!) when I got home. He told me he would have cooked, but this was my gig. Love it! I now honestly understand why people on cooking shows love cooking so much. I didn't even have to open a can! I just threw all the ingredients together like recipe said and voila! It tasted like chili with macaroni. Yep, thanks Betty... another aptly named dish.

I actually feel a little guilty about saying "I" made the chili macaroni. Scott did all the hard part. So what is cooking from a recipe, really? Where is the challenge? I don't feel like I'm accomplishing much by following a recipe... what did I do? Nothing. Usually, it's a big mystery as to what I'll come up with and how it will all come out. With a recipe, well, it's guaranteed success... bland success, but success nonetheless. Maybe it was just the recipe. I wonder if I'll feel this way when I try out souffle???

Tonight, the menu is leftovers if I can move my sick self into the kitchen to microwave. I got chicken soup served to me for lunch with ginger ale... sometimes the simplest recipes are the best. (Plus, he puts cayenne in his soup. Double Score!)

The Cheese Stands Alone... Because It Stinks.

I don't even know where to start. Really. Scott and I had decided to try some of the less appealing recipes in the book so that toward the end of the project there would still be some pleasurable dinners. Um, yeah.

Toasted Walnut and Roquefort Salad with Toasted Walnut Dressing and Lemon-Roasted Turkey Breast with Couscous Stuffing. Here are things about this dinner that were gross:

1. Blue Cheese can be used in the place of Roquefort (they are pretty darn close to the same thing). They are both gross. There is a certain "gangrenous foot" quality to this cheese that makes any dressing I've ever dipped wings in a complete lie.

2. Walnuts are not my favorite nut, especially when on a salad... I like veggies in my salad, pine nuts if there are nuts at all. Walnuts have ruined many dishes (mostly desserts) for me.

3. Raisins are also not my favorite thing, and have also ruined many things I've wanted to enjoy. Um, I think Joon in "Benny & Joon" said it best, "They are humiliated grapes." Well, the stuffing had raisins in it.

4. For some reason I completely despise fruit and meat together. Lemon chicken? Gross. Hence, lemon-roasted turkey? I don't know people, is it just me??? Lemon is for pie or tequila. NOT meat.

Here are some good things:

1. The Jamie Oliver shaker thingie was awesome for making the dressing... it crushed up the garlic and the walnuts and made it uniform, which really surprised me... and relieved me, since I own neither a food processor, nor a blender.

2. If you skipped the outside where the lemon rub was, the turkey tasted like turkey...

3. Grated carrots in couscous? Yum.

Here are some interesting bits of dialogue from the evening:

Renee: Scott, come and take a bite of this gross salad so I can throw it out.

Scott: Okay... hey, what's this dressing?

Renee: Why, do you like it?

Scott: No, it's just oil... (takes a big bite of salad, tastes blue cheese and searches desperately for his can of Ginger Ale)

Renee: So?

Scott: Well, the turkey tastes like turkey. And the couscous is good, because I'm actually not a couscous fan, but with all the stuff in it, it doesn't taste like couscous.

Renee: Maybe we should have chips and salsa on hand, like, you know, all the time, just in case.

Scott: I think so too...

There you have it, folks. Now what? My very smart friend at work says not to waste food and money if you know you absolutely hate the ingredient, just substitute it. She says this is economically sound and in no way compromises the integrity of the experiment. Out of financial necessity and the desire to make food that does not make us barf, I agree.... to an extent. Chocolate chips instead of walnuts in zucchini bread? Yes... Ginger Ale not included.

Is Betty a Vampire?

I am not well and therefore I took the weekend off. Like off, off. But get this: I still cooked a little, and I didn't have to measure a thing!!!! AND I used as much garlic as I wanted! I know vampires are trendy right now (like all you can eat sushi!) but seriously, I LOVE it.

Here is what is so weird about the book: It says in most recipes that contain garlic to use one clove. Does that even make a difference? First of all, I pretty much put garlic in everything I make, and I usually use about 6 or 7 cloves. I wonder if maybe this will be like detox from spice and garlic and then I'll really appreciate it when I can have it! For instance, I made dinner for my mom last night: Kamut Angel Hair with fresh mushrooms, asparagus, onions, tomatoes, garlic, pepper, parm, chili flakes and smoked salmon. (OF COURSE I de-glazed with white wine, it's my favourite!) It was so much fun to just throw a bunch of stuff into a pan without measuring or reading. FREEDOM!!! (Wow. I'm laaaaaaame....) But it was really fun. Probably the company, too :)

Tonight we are having hummus, salsa, olive tapenade, snow peas, mango, sopressatta, olives and dim sum. I'm going to enjoy every morsel, since tomorrow I think it's Roquefort and walnut salad (barf!) and stuffed turkey breast... Yes, kids, the holiday is over tomorrow, so tonight I'm going to cook like it's 1999!

It's the 11% ... I KNOW it's them!

Turkey Tenderloin. What part of the turkey is the tender loin? Especially since the recipe says "Turkey Breast Tenderloin." I finally found some hidden under the turkey scaloppini at the Superstore, so that was cool. But oh, how I loooooooaaaathe people who can't find the stupid bar code on their groceries and yet insist upon doing self check-out. I actually considered ripping the effing box of Minute Rice out of the woman's hands and scanning it myself. People: If you can't find bar codes or scan your groceries without cranky computer voice lady telling you fifty billion times to "remove the last item from your bag," then you are NOT evolutionarily ready for self check-out.

Okay. Vent Complete. Now, onto Turkey cooked in wine and then smothered in (slightly overdone, but still delish) onions that have been caramelized with wine, butter, thyme and brown sugar. Oompa Loompas, come and get it, these were AWESOME. Good thing, too, since "Favourite Green Bean Casserole" is not at all appropriately named. In fact, I personally think it should be called "Would Have Been Amazing with 3 More Cans of French-Fried Onions and Cayenne Green Bean Casserole." Scott made a point that was both nice and guilt-inducing: "I don't really like green beans, but I don't mind this, so it must be pretty good." It helped, but I then felt kinda bad that I totally forgot he doesn't like green beans and then made them a huge part of the meal. Whooops.

I'm thinking I will definitely taste all of the recipes the "Betty" way, but may keep various spicy additions on the table with the salt and pepper. My mom says Betty's generation didn't do "spicy" the way we do now, with most people having access to ethnic foods and ingredients that are ACTUALLY spicy... In other words, they didn't know what they were missing... we do. And OMG, how I miss that spice!!! I'd pay more than I'm proud to admit for a Thai Spicy Green Curry right about now...

Tonight I am not cooking. Nope. Not even if an Oompa Loompa shows up at my door and sings me a song with my name in it that rhymes. (Okay, if that happened, I might whip up some cookies... you know, to be polite.)

xox

Help for the Hamburger?

"Skillet Lasagna" is super easy to make. You throw ground beef, onion and green pepper in a skillet (cleverly named, huh?) and then a jar of spaghetti sauce, water and broken lasagna noodles. Apparently this recipe is a "great way to use up those broken lasagna noodles." Um, Betty? I've never even HAD lasagna noodles in my house, let alone a stock of broken ones that left me to ponder, "What on EARTH should I do with all of these noodles?"

Oh well. We were tired, and it was hot and comforting. Scott said it tasted alot like hamburger helper which made me feel like crying for a second, until I realized it tasted EXACTLY like hamburger helper. We found an upside though: It was fresh, not from a box, and if I make it again I'm substituting beef for turkey, white pasta for kamut, and spaghetti sauce for arrabiatta.

Tonight? I'm trying desperately to find the motivation to make Turkey Tenderloins with Caramelized Onions and Favourite Green Bean Casserole. Is is wrong I kinda wish I had some Hamburger Helper?

xox

Sloppy Joes, Slop-Sloppy Joes

"Well, me and sloppy joe got married.We got six kids and we're doin' just fine...Down in Lunch Lady Land." ~Adam Sandler

You might question the famous lunch lady's logic in marrying "sloppy joe." I, dear readers, do not. Not after the Sloppy Joe recipe I made last night. They were so good... all spicy and sweet and with little tiny pieces of green pepper, onion and celery... and on these sun-dried tomato buns that Scott picked out. It was very late and I was starving, so this may have had something to do with my reaction to the sandwich which was to finish the last bite and yell "Yum!!!!" so loud it scared the dogs. (Scott is used to me being weird.) I think they could have been a little saucier, and my grandma puts cheese on them, which I think would be great too, but all in all, killer comfort food.

The salad dressing was another story altogether. "French" dressing from a bottle is alot tastier than "real" French dressing, which is just oil, vinegar, paprika and ground mustard. I might just be bitter because it leaked all over my lunch bag today and my banana smelled like vinegar. Maybe. But yeah, it's barely even orange, which makes you wonder exactly how they get those dressings to look like they do...

Two things are for sure though: One, Sloppy Joe and I, while not married, are seriously infatuated with each other. Two, I'm done with store-bought dressings... but buying more cayenne.

xox

Oompa Loompas, where are you???

Here we are a week later! So far, so good. I think this whole project might actually help me stay organized since I have to plan out menus and groceries. If all goes according to plan, I should have eight recipes down by Saturday... we'll see.

Scott finished up an acoustic set at Summerfest and then we went grocery shopping. On a Sunday. The LAST Sunday before school starts. Great idea for two borderline agoraphobic/obsessive compulsive germ-phobic snobs. The place was teeming with cranky kids and their parents. On the upside, we actually saw a kid punch his father directly in the crotch which caused him to double over in the entrance. Appropriate? Nope. Hilarious? Absolutely.

Everything we had to buy was making me nauseous and confused. I actually put question marks beside items on the list, and Scott kept looking at me like I was losing it. I was someone else, walking determinedly through the store saying things like, "I think I'll just get a small jar of pimientos," or "Where are the cans of french fried onions?" or (frantically) "Is apple cider vinegar the same as cider vinegar? IS IT? IS IT???"

This was followed by Scott and I dissecting the semantics of pork products upon our arrival home. Are spare-ribs side ribs or back ribs? Are country style ribs the same whether they're pork or beef? After checking Google and the chart in the book, we asked my mom and she said they were side ribs. We cooked them for the longest time on the chart and they were AWESOME! Molasses, mustard and cider vinegar... who knew?

The side dish was rice with mushrooms and parm (not a recipe, just what was available) and a cucumber salad. Get this: Cucumbers soaked in sugar, salt, pepper and cider vinegar for three hours, drained, and mixed with sour cream and dill weed. Despite the image I had in my head of my friend and co-worker M shuddering at the thought of this salad (he fears any and all creamy sauces and dips) it was really tasty. My mom remembers this recipe from her childhood. I think it's really cool to resurrect some of these classic recipes... they've lasted this long for a reason.

One question: WHY does Betty like putting sugar on veggies? With the broccoli and now the cucumbers, it's happened twice. I'm starting to check for Oompa Loompas.

xox

People Eat Breakfast.

By the time I dragged my butt out of bed this morning, it was ten. By the time I finished shredding cheese and grating potatoes, it was almost eleven. Hmmmm...

I know OF people who eat breakfast. I've even done it myself in my adult life, but it usually involves yogurt and coffee or last night's leftovers... I just don't understand the whole "spend an hour making breakfast" thing. I suppose if you want to do all the prep work the night before or else you have tonnes of time in the morning this makes sense. Right now I'm on holidays, so it happened. But, dear readers, do not imagine for one second this will happen once I'm back to work! Looks like we'll have breakfast for dinner alot until the egg chapter is finished!

I made a French Omelette with cheese, cheese being a "variation" of the original recipe. Alot of the egg recipes have the basic egg dish followed by three or four different things you can add to them. (Scott says that it counts for both the French Omelette recipe as well as the "with cheese" variation... I agree, and this means I don't have to eat a plain omelette).

The omelettes had to be flipped a certain way in order to be "french." (Haha, like kissing!) It meant I could only cook one side, which kind of grossed me out, as I hate "wet" eggs. I solved this by pre-heating the oven and throwing the first omellete in while I made the second, and the second in while I finished the potatoes. The result: Scott's eggs were good, mine were prettier (I got the "flip" better the second time) but runnier, blech!

The potatoes were "Hash Brown Potatoes." Basically, potatoes shredded with onion, salt and pepper and fried in (of course) butter. They were kind of wet on the inside and really good and crispy on the outside. I think I should have cooked them longer on a lower heat, but whatev, it was morning and I hadn't had alot of coffee yet.

All in all, Scott (such a sport) loved everything, I thought it was all a little gross. But I DID find a use for the ginormous bottle of "spicy" ketchup.
xox

It's Betty with Butter

Okay! Day four... and no heart attacks yet! Last night I made THREE recipes from the book and they were all actually ready and hot at the same time. This is akin to a meteor shower for me, it happens ever so rarely. On the menu were pesto-couscous stuffed chicken breasts, sauteed mushrooms and stir-friend broccoli with mustard glaze. Here is the wisdom (or lack thereof) I wish to impart regarding this meal:

1. Couscous cooked in chicken stock and then mixed with pesto is AWESOME. Like, hard-to-actually-want-to-stuff-the-chicken-with-it awesome. This was a good thing, since I was worried that it would lack flavour given that I was supposed to be using chicken breast WITH skin, but a)I couldn't find any and b) Seriously, Betty, why don't we all just have a shot of melted butter? Urgh. Which brings me to:

2) There was butter in every damn thing I made last night! I was supposed to "grease the baking pan with shortening." Believe it or not, Sunday was the first day I've ever even purchased shortening... (to make the cookies) so greasing a pan with the stuff freaked me right out and I used Olive Oil Pam instead. Good thing too, since you were supposed to dump two more tsp of butter over the chicken while it cooked. I did this, and for some reason, I had myself convinced that what came out of the oven would be brown, crispy and somewhat KFC-like due to the huge amounts of fat on it. Um, it tasted like chicken. There was also butter AND oil in the mushrooms (and lemon juice, which you could taste rather obviously) as well as in the glaze for the broccoli.

3) Mustard-glazed broccoli sounds gross. It is actually so good. Betty knows how to cook broccoli to that tender but still crunchy point and then you throw this glaze on it made up of Dijon, brown sugar and butter. I wasn't sure how this would go over, but Scott and I were both really surprised, it was really good! (Scott ate broccoli without cheese sauce. This is a miracle.)

If I could run, I would have after last night's dinner... it just seemed SO fattening. I'm usually not neurotic about fat grams, but seriously, this was insane. I feel like my skin is softer because the butter is moisturizing me from the inside out... Buh-buh-buh-butter face, buh-buh-butter face.

Tonight I was exhausted, so Scott handled dinner. Perogies with turkey bacon, onions and yes, butter (but in normal amounts). These were not Betty's recipes, so I threw together a salad and made her Honey Dijon Dressing. Yummy enough, it tasted like honey and mustard, which it was. Upside: I got to use the handy-dandy little tool that my sister made her fiance trek to a bazillion different stores for a few Christmases ago. It's the Jamie Oliver (cooler than Betty, sure, and cuter... but beside the point.) gadget where you put all your ingredients into this bottle sort of thing with a ball in it and shake it and it mixes things really well! I felt kind of cool, since I know Betty never had one of these.

So far, so good. The recipes make ALOT of food, so I halve alot of them. My spice rack now has ground mustard in it, which I saw in my mom's pantry for 29 years and never figured out what it was for. I may or may not be doing irreparable damage to mine and Scott's arteries. Guess we better keep drinking red wine. You know, to counteract the butter.

xox

Greetings from Blandsville

Where do you think in the Thousand Islands region did somebody say, "Hey. Let's put mayo and ketchup together and name it after where we live." Weird.

Welcome to Day 2... Okay, I didn't have alot of time today and I was a little worn out from yesterday. A night out with the band followed by a day of grocery shopping and trying three new recipes to eat at a dinner party? I get so ambitious sometimes! Guess what's for dinner... LEFTOVERS!!! Would Betty approve? Not sure, but there's an economic crisis going on, people! (AND the band is practicing in my basement AND Intervention is on tonight) So, I'm making a new salad dressing and calling it a day.

I bought "spicy" ketchup (made with Tabasco!) hoping that it would (obviously) spice up my Thousand Islands dressing. No dice, Betty. It tastes just like regular Thousand Islands dressing, though, so it's still pretty good. (Side Note: There is a hard-boiled egg in Thousand Island dressing. Ew. Weird.)

Today I noticed a challenge to this project. I am not a "measurer" of ingredients. AT ALL. In fact, I worry people, because even when I bake, I "guesstimate" ALOT. (I have to say, things usually turn out really good. Pat self on back now.) Problem: I don't consider my weird ways of cooking to be "following" recipes, so actually measuring things out and following a recipe is hard! And you know what? Betty hardly puts cayenne or jalapenos in ANYTHING. Seriously!

So the band is still blasting away in the basement, and Intervention is going to start in 9 minutes and I can't hear anything and I'm determined to wait for Scott to eat dinner.

Thank Heavens and Betty for leftovers and PVR.

xox

My Version of the Julie/Julia Project... Day One

So basically, I've wanted to do a Julie/Julia Project for about two years (ever since I read the book) and now I've seen the movie, which motivated me that much more to actually start (I take awhile sometimes).

My version though, hopefully will NOT involve trying to track down a calf's foot, although I think I may have to kill a lobster and (eeeewwwww) shuck oysters... barf! I also worry about Scott's and my physical health as well as our mental well being... given that on this, day ONE of the project, we've both already burnt ourselves and I almost cried. Hmmm...

Okay, so my cookbook is by Betty Crocker. It was given to me when I moved out of the house (by my ever-so-cool mom who is more than happy to give away any and all cookbooks - she's more into the gym and international travel). It covers the basics, which I think I need to learn. I make awesome curries, decent sushi, and I can make really cool cupcakes. However, I have never roasted a turkey, made mashed potatoes or anything "normal."

I'm doing this for a few reasons:

a) Scott LOVES normal food and is jealous of people whose girlfriends or wives make chicken and corn for dinner while we have thai lettuce wraps or glass noodles (or on really bad nights, frozen mango, cheese and wine);

b) I'm not super duper healthy at the moment and I need something to occupy my time at home since I'm usually too tired to do anything major;

c) I DO have this fantasy that I am a 1950's housewife and would LOVE to rave about my swedish meatball recipe while sipping a martini, wearing pearls and vacuuming... whatever, judge me if you must.

So here we go. Day ONE!

This evening R and D came for dinner. They are awesome and not judgy, so I wasn't worried. I made italian dressing (which I halved, since I ran out of olive oil, but then I forgot to halve all the spices) In spite of what should have been "spicy" dressing, I found it bland. But I threw some onion sprouts and cherry tomatoes into the romaine and people said it was good. I also made the Italian Sausage Lasagna. Scott and I ruined a shirt each trying to get the sauce to calm down while fishing lasagna noodles out of boiling water... bad idea? Yes. Good Lasagna? Yup! The last thing I did was make "Snickerdoodles," which, ironically, contain no Snickers bars. But they tasted like little cinnamon bun-like timbit cookies.

Three recipes and a bottle of Chilean Red down, many more of both to go.

xox