From Scratch

I've loved having adventures in my kitchen for years. There are so many things to explore, and it's fun to see just how much can be done from scratch. Through the years, I've created cinnamon rolls, peanut butter balls, asiago & onion bagels, pot-stickers, breakfast burritos with beans, bacon, eggs and cheese, pulled pork, roasted chicken and vegetables, grilled pork tenderloin, cookies of all sorts, citrus stuffed turkey, my grandmother's enchiladas, stuffed shells, lasagnas, corned beef and cabbage, soups and chili, stuffed cabbage, mocha cupcakes with Bailey's icing...and now I'm drooling on my keyboard. And that's just the short list of what I can think of right now off the top of my head.

When I'm in a good mood, I love to cook. I don't necessarily want to eat it all, but I want to cook it. Thankfully, I can bring some of the items into work. Now, it's a bit harder to get into the swing of cooking. Half of the time, it's just me at the dinner table, so it has been a little bit of a challenge for myself to make real food, rather than another turkey sandwich on wheat, not that I don't do that on occasion.

The other half of the time I have Aiden, and though I try hard to just make something I would eat, and have him eat it too, I've resorted to shortcuts on occasion. Any mom who tells you they never had, is likely lying through their teeth. I'm already proud to say that I never fed him jarred baby food - I made my own, and had control of the ingredients. Plus, meats should not be any shade of gray.

In the past few weeks, I've been making a sincere effort to meal plan both for when it's just me, and when Aiden's with me. When Aiden's here, he often wants to see everything I'm doing, so I make sure to lift him up, he reminds me the stove is "hot," and I show him what I'm doing as best I can. His interest in what I'm cooking spurred me to get him a play kitchen for his birthday. Together we go through the play foods, and I let him know what they are.

Momma's kitchen helper in his very own kitchen

So tonight, I decided to make something...from scratch. It wasn't fancy. It wasn't gourmet. But it was good, satisfying, and I got myself back in the kitchen. Tonight it was just dinner for me, so I was able to eat after the sun went down rather than before. It was simple, and it was delicious: teriyaki marinaded chicken with sauteed snow peas & onion. Again, not anything fancy. No high tech gadgets used, no huge prep time (other than marinading the chicken, but that was passive prep).

So it wasn't anything fancy, but it was GOOD. It's small steps getting me back into my kitchen. Some of my kitchen is still packed in boxes somewhere in my garage, but I'll get to them soon. In the meantime, I'll just have to "settle" with dinners like these!

Adjusting to the New "Normal"

In the past 7 months, everything has changed. I moved, sold our house, moved back with my parents in their home for 6 months, and one month ago moved into my own house. Though, when I say house, I went from a really lovely house that I could see myself living in for the duration, to a 2 bedroom duplex, where I expect to see out the term of my lease.

When I bought the house back in 2010, I loved it for its kitchen. Extended counters, gas stove, dual ovens, large dual side sink, amazing dishwasher (an important tool when you like to cook), and cabinets galore. We bought a kitchen with a house attached. It was, for lack of a better word, my dream house. LOTS of common space, great space in the kitchen, open, and functional. I had 5 years of time in that kitchen. I had 5 years of kitchen experiments, of Thanksgiving dinners, persimmon cookies, Irish feasts, family nights, and of course, "oops" moments while I cooked.

When I moved into my parents' house, it was home, but not really HOME. My kitchen remained in storage. It was perfect for what I needed at that time - a safe, stable home during a time of great transition. That kitchen was the one where I learned to cook, where I would help my mom make dinner as a child. It became the kitchen where either my dad and I, or my mom and I would make dinner, often with Aiden wanting to see what we were doing, or with him directly underfoot.

Now, both of those homes have sold. Aiden and I are now in our own little space - it's not fancy, but it's functional. It took me a while to even want to cook in here, perhaps because it doesn't feel like it's mine. Gone are the big counters, the gas stove, and the copious cabinets. It's in its own separate room - quite different from any other kitchen I've had, even in apartments. They at least opened into the living room. Well, and my washing machine didn't reside in them, either.

But, I'll make it work. My storage space has moved into the garage, as has my pantry. I'm learning how to cook on an electric stove once again, and how to not make a huge mess in such a small space. Meal planning has become a requirement, since I don't have the space to have stockpiles of stuff. I have just enough space for just enough.

Soon, I hope, I'll be ready to venture out into culinary adventures once again. Soon. Once I finish unpacking the rest of my kitchen which is boxed up safely somewhere in my garage. I think.

That's basically everything...stove/oven, counters, sink, dishwasher, and...washing machine.

The dining area, which includes seating for 3.5, and a built-in ironing board!

Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Apparently I let time slip by a bit too long - two weeks since my last post? Whoops! My apologies!

Now back to topic...Chicken Lettuce Wraps. It's what we had for dinner! I've been trying very hard to stick to a pretty strict diet, since I live with Type 2 diabetes. Random foods set off my blood sugar, and some foods don't seem to have as much of an effect, but one thing is for sure - if I mix carbs with protein, I don't "spike." So I've been making an effort to keep my fruits to earlier in the day, have my carbs at lunch, and have fewer carbs at dinner, with lots of good, lean protein and lots of veggies!

In perusing Pinterest (one of my late-night recipe searching addictions), I found a recipe for PF Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps. Sounds good, right? They were!

All my ingredients in place!

Here's the recipe, including the items I added:

• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 lb. ground chicken (I diced 3 chicken breasts)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced (I used 6 cloves)
• 1 onion, diced
• 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
• 2 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp. rice wine vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. freshly grated ginger
• 1 tsp. Sriracha, or more, to taste
• 1 (8 oz.) can whole water chestnuts, drained & diced
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced
• Kosher salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1 head butter lettuce

Everything is cooked together at pretty much the same time, though the recipe says to cook the chicken first...alone. I tried it that way, and I think had it been cooked with all the sauces, onions, etc., then there would have been a better flavor within the chicken. Perhaps even let all the ingredients hang out together for an hour or so before cooking. Then the chicken would really take on all those other wonderful flavors. 

Once the chicken is all cooked, it's then served in the butter lettuce leaves. No breads, no rice, just lettuce. I think a little bit of rice would have been delicious with this, too...I thought about making some, but I was hungry!

The finished product!

I also have to add - my husband asked, mid-meal, if I took pictures of my food for the blog. Of course I did! I have a few ideas stacked up, so I'll have to get caught up! Some lemon blueberry bread sounds like a wonderful treat for the office next week...and a great subject for another blog!

Banana Nut Bran Muffins...A Childhood Favorite

When I was a child, I remember the phases of the banana: too green to eat, yellow but not quite ripe, perfectly ripe, and black. The only negative phase was the first, and one of the best, the last. Black bananas represented time to make banana nut bran muffins. I realize they're "bran muffins," but they're so moist and delicious, it doesn't matter.

I'm trying to swap out some ingredients in recipes for a bit healthier options, so one of the key ingredients that I swapped out was the flour. Instead, I pulled out my food processor and some old fashioned oats. A few seconds later, I had ground oats.

Oat "flour"

So here's the recipe I've followed since as long as I can remember:

• 2 cups bran (found in the bulk section of grocery stores)
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 overripe bananas
• 1/2 cup nuts (chopped)
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 cup flour (or ground oats)
• 1/2 cup sugar (or all-natural applesauce)
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/4 cup molasses (measure the oil first, then measure the molasses)

Add in the first 6 ingredients, and pulse in the food processor to moisten the bran and the milk. Then add the rest of the ingredients, inlcluding raisins if desired (I always desire raisins in mine!). Divide into sprayed muffin cups (up to 3/4 full), and bake at 400* for 20 minutes, then check for doneness. Cool for 5 minutes, remove from the muffin tin, and then put into a plastic bag while still slightly warm. Typically makes 12 muffins.

Banana bran muffins baking away!

These are moist, dense muffins, and are sweet, but not overly sweet. The sugars from the banana really make these wonderful, and they're not so "bran" that they're dry or obviously "healthy." For me, it's just a perfect mid-morning snack at work. Just enough, not too much, and full of all sorts of goodness! 

Hope you enjoy these!

Slow Cooker Korean Beef Tacos

While wandering Pinterest one evening (I'm an electronic recipe hoarder), I saw a recipe for Korean beef tacos, cooked in the slow cooker. SO good...

Yesterday, I prepped the "sauce" that the beef would be cooking in: onions, garlic, jalapeno, soy sauce, brown sugar, fresh ginger, and rice wine vinegar...oh, and the beef. Can't forget that. Then in the last 30 minutes of cooking, coleslaw mix was added to the beef. Coleslaw mix is so underrated, but it's quite a versatile item! And easy to make without having to buy the store-bought mix. C'mon - it's just thin sliced cabbage and grated carrots. Easily done.

All the ingredients in the pot! Now to let it sit for 8-10 hours on low...

The sauce for the beef prepped the day before, ready to go with directions and all!

Mondays are my longest days at work (typically, but this week I'm covering for a coworker while she's on vacation, so I have a LOT of long days this week), so throwing something into the crockpot that was healthy, fresh, and ready to go when I got home from was was absolutely ideal. The prep took me maybe 20-30 minutes yesterday, and then less than 5 minutes this morning. Then this evening, it shred so easily, and that was it. Tortillas, some fresh cilantro, and that's it. Dinner. 

My only recommendation for future Korean tacos would be to make a vinegar-based pickled salad with the cabbage, carrots, onion and fresh cilantro. It did need a little crunch, but overall, so delicious. I'll definitely do this one again!

The finished (delicious!) product!

Through the Generations

I have a strange item that I love to hang onto after family members have passed: their recipes and cookbooks. Not just what the recipes are, but the actual recipe itself, in their own hand. It's a weird connection between the generations before me, and those that will follow. My son will be able to read out and use recipes written in his great-grandmother's hand, or his great-great-grandmother's hand. It's an odd thing to keep, but I'm somehow drawn to them.

My grandmother Dorothy's old cookbooks 

with hand-written recipes in the front cover 

My grandmother Anna's recipe box. The front ones are hand-written,

but the back ones came in the Betty Crocker box set.

I'm quite proud that my great-grandmother, Elsie Ryan, had her recipes published in a cookbook. It may have been the church cookbook, but still...she's been published! 

A well-loved, much-used cookbook 

Great Grandma Elsie's brownie recipe - hands down the best!

My great-grandmother was known for her persimmon bread, my great aunt for her persimmon cookies, my grandmother for her pies, my mother for...well, you're getting the point. Cooking, recipes, and having a focus on quality food for our families has been part of our lives for generations. My great-grandmother would chop walnuts for persimmon bread with a hand-crank nut chopper, and would bake hundreds of loaves of bread (each batch called for 1 cup of nuts...that's a lot of chopping). Even now, it feels wrong to make persimmon bread or cookies without using a hand-crank chopper for the walnuts. I was lucky enough to find the same style chopper in a thrift store in Eureka, CA for $1.50. Well worth the memories, and doing things "right."

Plus, how fun is it to flip through old cookbooks and see what was considered mainstream meals at that time? It might be even more fun to give some a try. 

Pan Seared Brussels Sprouts - A Pinterest Experiment

In addition to being a foodie, I'm most definitely a recipe hoarder, and there's no better way to amass a random variety of recipes than...Pinterest. I'll speak more on my collection of cookbooks and family recipes in another post, but tonight, the recipe is from the interwebs.

My cousin saw me "pin" a recipe for Pan Seared Brussels Sprouts, and suggested that it be used for a coming blog. So here we are - I even happened to have all the ingredients at home, including those mini-cabbage like vegetables.

Here's what I needed for tonight's adventure, and the swaps/additions I did:

1 lb. brussels sprouts, stem removed & cut in half
2/3 cup fresh cranberries (I used dried cherries)
1/3 cup gorgonzola cheese (I swapped for blue cheese)
1/3 cup pecans
1 cup barley, cooked per the instructions on the package
1 Tbsp. maple syrup
1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Salt & pepper

I started the barley first, since the package said it took 45 minutes to cook, then prepped my sprouts, and gathered everything else. About halfway through cooking the barley, I added the oil to the pan, and then threw in the sprouts and the cherries (I thought I had cranberries, at least dried ones...I was wrong). I let that cook for about 8-10 minutes on medium, seasoned with salt & pepper, then tossed in the pecans. Next time, I'll likely toast the pecans first - then they have a little extra crunch, and the flavors are just that much more amazing. At that point, I also added some bacon...not part of the original recipe, but looking at the other ingredients, it sounded like it would fit (and it did!).

Cooking away - before the additions of the maple syrup, vinegar, barley & blue cheese.

Once the sprouts, cherries, bacon and pecans were cooked, the maple syrup and balsamic go into the pan. At that point, it's darn near done. Luckily, by then the barley was done, so I tossed that into the sprouts. To top it off, a sprinkling of blue cheese.

All done, just without the blue cheese

I have to say, SO AWESOME. I'm glad I added the bacon - it adds a little extra punch. And next time I think the barley needs to be seasoned a bit more. I ended up having just this for dinner, and I bet if it needed to be altered to accommodate a gluten-free diet, quinoa would be a wonderful substitute.

I'd recommend this recipe...it was good, filling, and easy. SO easy. Bon Appetit!

The final product!