Guess I don't use Cream of Tartar much....

Tonight's been a BUSY night! I got home from work around 4:45 and cuddled on the couch a bit with Lucas before he went off to work. I've found that although I miss him immensely when he works nights, I get LOTS of stuff done. I've cleaned out my sons room, shampooed carpets, scrubbed baseboards and many other projects on the nights he works. Tonight I decided to cook.

I had some pumpkin in the fridge I needed to use, and some bananas going bad, and had bought bunches of apples to make applesauce. I also needed to use up the leftover chicken and make some dinner.

I started out freezing the bananas...you'll find out why another day ;)

Then I sat down to a DVR'd Saturday Night Live to attack this pile of apples:


30 minutes or so later:

I used red delicious, roma and golden delicious apples. Bilo had them on sale - 3 pounds for $2...had to get lots!!

I used a different recipe tonight for the applesauce than the other night. I changed this a bit. I added more honey and less brown sugar. I would have used no sugar at all, but I ran out of honey. I also used about a tablespoon or so or lemon juice rather than the orange peel. I'm not sure how exact that is, since I really just kind of dumped some in.


Applesauce, pre-smashed. See that it's already turning to sauce, all on it's own?

I only used 22 apples, not 24 like the recipe called for, but still got 2 and 1/2 quarts. It was tasty warm. I hope it's as good cold. I sealed these jars so we can put them in the cupboard for when we need it.


Next up: Chicken Pot Pie. I previously posted about this recipe here. I really only used the filling and sauce tonight. I used a regular Pillsbury deep dish crust for the bottom and then added mashed potatoes to the top, instead of a top crust. Tonight's picture even looks the same as the other night we made this!!


This is where the camera died, so no more pictures of this meal - just be assured that it came out great. Pot Pie meets Shepards Pie....yummy!

Next on the list were pumpkin brownies. I really didn't want to make a bread, or muffins with the leftover pumpkin so I googled my way to this recipe. I stuck to this recipe completely, and my brownies didn't look ANYTHING like the picture.

(camera re-charged!)




They are very tasty though, and not bad for a first try.

After I got done cooking, I decided to clean out my cupboard that holds all my spices and baking goods. A few months ago, I needed nutmeg for something and dug and dug and found some. Apparently I didn't use it often, because I recognized the jar as being from a grocery store in NY, that had been closed for a LONG time. Sure enough, I looked on the label and saw this:



I don't know if you can see it, but it says 1991!!! However, I keep using it, and it seems fine. Then again, maybe it doesn't....I wouldn't really know, since I don't use it often.

So tonight I found something worse...can you see the date on this can??



Yes, that says 1977. The Cream of Tartar is AS OLD AS ME. I threw both away and put nutmeg on the grocery list. I'll wait on the other until I need it....which probably won't be soon.

Melissa picked a peck of pickled peppers

But first she had breakfast. Pumpkin part 3! I had some very, very yummy pumpkin pie yogurt, topped with this Kashi Apple Orchard granola. It has raisins and apples and some kind of nuts and oats....sooo good!!

I had half a bottle of this apple juice with it, along with my water mixed with pomegranate blueberry that I drink all day long at work. Nice fall-type breakfast!


Lunch was some celery and peanut butter and a chicken sandwich. Not exciting and the picture is even less exciting. I must work on food staging...another day.


So, I didn't pick a peck of pickled peppers. I don't know how much a peck is. But we did have quite a few that needed to be dealt with. We've been harvesting peppers for about a month and just piling them up. Not a peck, probably, but we did have THIS many:

And we didn't pick them already pickled, of course. But every one of these guys ended up in a nice vinegar, salt and garlic bath.


I wish that I had taken a picture of the full jars, but I did not. You get the idea though.

I also put together another jar of dill pickles. These aren't from our garden, but I bought a pile of pickling cucumbers at Lowes Foods on Sunday (it cost me less than $2.00!). I can't wait for these babies to be ready!!



Tonight I decided to use up the apples in the fridge that were going soft. I made some homemade applesauce!!

Yummy apples and cinnamon on the stove:
Applesauce is super easy to make! I peeled, cored and chopped about 8 apples, added 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup of honey, 1 tsp cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg and a splash of lemon juice. Cook it all together until the apples are soft. Let the apples cool and mash it up. I used a hand mixer. It came out just a little chunky, like I like it!



I think I've now preserved everything we had to preserve for the week. I may go buy a bunch more of those cucumbers and look for a bushel of apples, because I'd like to have a cupboard full of this stuff!!

Best Day EVER!!

Well, maybe not ever, but it was definitely a good one, which I needed after yesterday. Yesterday was filled with computer problems at work, kid problems at home and was one of those days where it seemed best to just call it a day and start over tomorrow. Once the house cleared out and calmed down, Lucas and I decided to make an spontaneous "what's in the fridge?" dinner. We decided on some mashed potatoes and veggies, which became an "out of the crust" pot pie. We had some left over chicken from Sunday's cook out, and I mixed up a quick gravy, added the chicken and the Full Circle Organic Mixed Veggies that were left in the freezer and like magic, we had a yummy, hearty dinner that we didn't even know was there!


At the same time, we decided to make our Sweet Watermelon Rind Pickles. We had the watermelon soaking for 2 days, which is 1 day longer than instructed, but I had forgotten to buy sugar the day before.
The recipe was super easy to make, and I just hope that I did it all right! The one thing I had to change was that I didn't have whole cloves, allspice and cinnamon sticks. I used the ground spices and mixed it right in with the syrup. I was a little disappointed because it turned the syrup brown, of course, so I added a little red food coloring to the mix....

And to the wine glass...


And to my face.... I made a mess.



In the end, the jars came out pretty great.



After dinner, we made a special recipe given to me by my boss. He calls them Monkeys in a Blanket. It goes like this:
2 slices of white bread
drizzle of honey
sprinkle of cinnamon
1 banana
2 tbsp of butter, melted.

Roll out the bread with a rolling pin until good and flat. Drizzle honey on the bread and place 1/2 a banana on top of that. Roll the bread around the banana. Sprinkle the cinnamon in the melted butter, then roll the bread/banana in the butter to coat. Place in a 400 degree oven for 15 minutes and you get sweet, hot, gooey, sticky, toasted bananas.





We finished the night with some tv, which Chuck rather enjoyed, too.




Today started out good enough - got to work, no computer issues, got some stuff done. Then I got a message on Twitter from Lowes Foods. They had read my blog entries about their store (see below)and thanked me and offered to send me a free cookbook! Score!!!! I decided right then that I need to pay more attention to my blog, since it's already paid off and I didn't even try!! That led to my awesome husband creating the new title for me...great job, baby!! Then, this afternoon, my brand new food dehydrator arrived at the office. I had mentioned to my boss that I really wanted one, and he went ordered one for me right away! Best Boss EVER, and I'm not exaggerating that one! Finally, my friend and receptionist, Liz, bought a HUMONGOUS watermelon at Bilo (I swear it weighed at LEAST 50 pounds!) She came and asked me to help her cut it up and that used up the rest of my dragging afternoon. I'm hoping to have a picture to post soon so you can see just how huge it is! I sent her my watermelon pickle recipe so she can use the tons of rind she'll have left over!

So I rushed straight home, put down my bags and broke out the dehydrator immediately! I sliced some bananas, apples and kiwi and got them going.


For dinner, I somehow ended up with 5 kids here to feed, so I made them the old standby of grilled hot dogs and a pan of macaroni and cheese. Lucas and I had stuffed cabbage rolls. We had some leftover Spanish Rice from Saturday. I boiled some cabbage leaves and sauteed some chopped up zucchini, mushrooms, pepper and onion. I added the left over spanish rice and some diced tomatoes to the mix and warmed it all through. The cabbage leaves came out so green and not rubbery like cabbage usually is. I wrapped up the rice stuffing, put them in a little casserole dish, topped them with more tomatoes and baked them. Soooo yummy!!





And that brings us to now. Lucas and I have barricaded ourselves in the bedroom and let the kids have the living room and the Xbox. Time for some tv and the stack of Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living and Cooking Light magazines that are piling up, neglected by me.

Have a great night, everyone!

Catching up!

Looks like I have some catching up to do here after a long weekend of no posts from me! This one is going to be picture heavy, to make up for not having many in the last few posts.

Last time we got together here, it was Friday night and we had just eaten my yummy steak-spinach rolls. You'd think that would have filled us up, but at about 10:30 Lucas and I both decided we needed a snack. We rooted through the kitchen and came up with nachos! I had a can of refried beans that had been patiently waiting to be used up, so I warmed them up with some jalapenos and banana peppers (from the garden!) a little onion, cayenne and chili powder and spread all that on some tortilla chips, smothered it in cheese and broiled it. It was better than we thought it would be - and gone in about 4 minutes!



Friday night (Saturday morning?) brought some crazy twists and turns, and we ended up having Dalton and Brianna with us. Brianna, who is 7, was up bright and early and ready to spend the day with us. Lucas slept in (not much sleep was had by anyone the night before) so Brianna and I went out to the garden so she could pick some peppers and beans with me. We cleaned up the kitchen, and I took her out to dump the compost bin from the kitchen, and taught her a bit about composting while we turned the pile. The soil out there is looking amazing, and I can't wait to use it next year! Then we went inside and made some baked apple oatmeal. A cup of oatmeal, a couple of diced apples, a bit of cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and about 1.25 cups of milk, in the oven for 30 minutes and it's warm, gooey apple oatmeal.



The rest of Saturday was spent shopping (Lowes review to come soon!) and on the beach, which I thoroughly enjoyed and really needed. Saturday night we had dinner at mom's, which was pork chops and gravy and after eating it, I realized I shouldn't have. It didn't settle well. It's unfortunate that with all our "clean" eating I can't enjoy some of my all-time favorites as much as I used to!

Sunday was a day of resting and cooking. I love that every Sunday is becoming a ritual of sorts and we spend all day in the kitchen! Yesterday we made strawberry & cream banana bread, pickled some cucumbers and some jalapenos/zucchini/red pepper/carrots, and made chicken pot pies from scratch, which Lucas and I both agree are in our top ten favorite meals ever!

Here is the bread - it tastes as good as it looks!

This is me pretending I know how to pickle things! We followed recipes online, but changed them up a little bit. I hate that we have to wait so long to see how they turn out!

We have pickles!!

Lucas did all the prep work on the pot pies. Actually, he did the prep work, cooked the veggies, made the crusts - much more work on these than I did!!


Chicken pot pie veggies - potatoes, red pepper, mushrooms, garlic, onion and some Full Circle organic frozen mixed veggies


Pot pies, pre-baking

Finished product - SO good, especially with some white wine!


And that brings me to this morning. Breakfast was a huge, juicy Kiwi, orange juice and some Kashi honey grain cereal that we got at the new Big Lots yesterday for $1.80! Got in two superfoods and probably half of my recommended whole grains for the day, which I don't eat enough of!

Ok, on to work, and later will be my Lowes Foods review! My plan is to have a productive, positive day!