Satisfying All Around...Another Food Edition.

I'm not going to lie. It's never fun to try a new recipe and have it bomb. Or have someone, ehem... unwilling to even try it. Today I tried a new Pinterest recipe for pork chops and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I even had to do some modifications for lack of ingredients.

Baked Pork Chops I modified it by adding a few dashes of Tabasco to the egg mix. I also didn't have any seasoning salt so I rubbed some cajun seasoning in... and it wasn't spicy in the end. Just flavorful. I also tried carmelizing some onions with the pork chops and then adding them to the gravy mix. I doubled the sauce mixture and when I didn't have another can of cream of mushroom, I used this recipe on Pinterest to make a substitute (with garlic, but not the mushrooms). Instead of baking the pork chops as long as it said, I modified that by baking for 45 minutes, adding the sauce and making for another 30-40 minutes.

Last week I tried a recipe for Garlic Herb French Bread and it was so good that I nearly ate the entire loaf myself...  On Tuesday, I made it a second time in a week to go with spaghetti. Not only was it super flavorful... but I tried a method of getting my bread to rise using an oven and also tried braiding my loaf.

To satisfy my sweet tooth I tried this Caramel Crispix recipe using up some rice chex and wheat chex. I had the equivalent of one box so I halved the recipe and it worked just fine. I'm not sure how a person could screw this up. Yum.

The only recipes I tried that weren't quite "wins" were the ones for bok choy. This is something I've never cooked before and I wasn't quite sure what to do. I opted for splitting the bok choy and trying two different sauces to see which flavor and method I prefered. What I learned was that both flavors were great and neither prep method was quite what I wanted it to be. I think I needed baby bok choy and I had the full size stuff. I should have chopped it up I think. Instead I tried an oven method and a frying method and neither yielded a result that resembled the picture... either I didn't cook it long enough or at the right temp or perhaps I'm just not sure what the texture should be when cooked.

The spicy roasted bok choy was indeed quite spicy, but I love spicy so I thought it was pretty awesome.

Baby Bok Choy with Sweet and Tangy Sauce might suit the masses more. It was tangy and  not at all spicy, but quite nice.

Next up... I plan to make Crème Brûlée. I have tried this recipe when a friend made it and served it at our wine club. I'm determined to try it myself. Yum. It was so very dangerously delicious. I'll update one I've actually conquered this one!

What's Cooking? A (Pinterest) Recipe Roundup for this Week

I struggle to remember what I used to cook before Pinterest. A lot of homemade macaroni and cheese, perhaps.

Tonight's meal featured a "Tested and Approved" meal option: Stromboli.  I love this one for the ease and deliciousness. It's got a few steps but still pretty easy.

Sunday felt like a day that needed a sort of Super Bowl type food so I opted for my very favorite sliders.  Oh man. Little delicious burgers from heaven. Yum. If you search for Sliders Four Ways on YouTube you can also see a print version of each of the recipes in the description.

Saturday, we ate Swedish Meatballs and mashed potatoes (very rich and creamy... my secret lots of cream, butter, sour cream and some tabasco... all whipped in my KitchenAid Mixer). My mom pointed out that this recipe was nothing like the one she uses, so here's the link. We like this version. Super tasty.

Friday, we had Spicy Sausage Rigatoni with Tomato Cream Sauce. I really like this one, but it is pretty spicy for those who don't like that sort of thing.

Earlier in the week I made Chicken Lazone and served it over angel hair pasta. This one is also a little spicy since I tend to cut up my chicken into bite size pieces and dip in spices before cooking rather than coating a full breast or tender.

Not sure if you've noticed but all our meals seem to have one common ingredient--cream. The only one that didn't was the stromboli from tonight. Sheesh.

In addition to this week's main course menu I tried a new recipe: Scottish Shortbread and am happy to report it was a success.

I also made homemade granola bars today but the jury is still out on those. They don't seem to be holding together very well. I skipped the brown sugar in this recipe and just used butter, honey, and peanut butter for the liquid bits. Didn't add any vanilla. I mixed in oats, peanuts, sunflower seeds, craisins, and sliced almonds. I've really liked crushed pretzels in this recipe but I didn't have any. I also decided to skip the chocolate for this batch so it hardly seems like I even followed the recipe, but I think the idea is that can be altered.  I wonder if I added a bit of Karo Syrup if it would stick together better.

Almost every week we make Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins for the little monster who can't imagine a breakfast without one. This week was no different.

And lastly, I made one more batch of our favorite ranch dressing. This one is a Whole 30 recipe that uses coconut milk and is fabulous. So quick and easy to make if you have the ingredients on hand. And tastes good enough to drink! I typically don't bother adding cilantro or any other spice since the first time I made it without and it tasted so good, I've never tried it another way.

The Rumors are True

I've been hearing about this place for ages and finally had an opportunity to try it out. I'm not going to lie, the Dante's Inferno English teacher part of me really enjoyed the trip to hell.

Pretty sure my lemon pancake tasted like a little bit of heaven, not a fresh piece of hell.

More menu humor -- I like good coffee too!

Artwork by Ralph Steadman, of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson fame.

Eating my Way through the Summer...

The best part of traveling is discovering new restaurants. Recently my pal Julie and I were in St. Paul and we followed up a recommendation from Rebecca who has her finger on the pulse of all things gluten free and good to eat in the Twin Cities. Neither Julie, nor I required the GF menu but that didn't stop us from enjoying Pizza Luce!


I love a good pizza and they had a wide variety of deliciousness to choose from. I got the Pizza Athena -- fresh spinach, tomato, feta cheese, Kalamata olives, Greek oregano, artichoke hearts, red onions, with toasted garlic and light mozzarella on Bianca sauce. I'd highly recommend it!

Even their menu had a sense of humor. I love that in a menu.

Swedish Storage Solutions

God bless IKEA. Where else can you get a breakfast like this for $2.67. Of course, the rest of my trip cost nearly $200.00. That's how they get you... Lure you in with tasty inexpensive breakfast items, seduce you with good deal after good deal until you're buying extra blue IKEA bags to haul your booty away.

I set out to buy a CD storage set up... something to house my 500 CDs and I found it, but I couldn't haul it home in the Civic. Also it cost about $120 and that seemed a bit much. Earl's solution was to upload the CDs and ditch the hard copies, but I'm old school. I like cover art. I like to be able to hold my music in my hand from time to time. I needed to buy two of the BESTA shelves and an additional 7 shelves for each of them in order to make this work. Instead I invested in drawer liners that hold about 100 CDs each.

When I got home I discovered my mom had an unused 5 drawer dresser that matched the wood of my TV stand and I was sold. Here you have it. Chockful of CDs all cozy and alphabetized in my new somewhat Swedish storage solution.

The black shelves are ALSO from my IKEA trip.

Wordless Wednesday -- Cream Cheesy Cupcake Heaven

The 86 Days of Summer

Grand Beach, Manitoba

Some people create New Year's resolutions.

I create a list of...

68 things to do in 86 days of summer!

Here's the approximate breakdown:

10 items are food related
5 are related to exercise and wellness
17 of them are sports/leisure/hobby type activities
7 are literacy related
at least 12 of them involve travel
11 will help me build some mad skills
and 9 of the list items are purely indulgent

I'm sooooo looking forward to summer!

Guilty Pleasures

This week I've been indulging...

Season 6 -- I could not stop watching. Thank you, Sidereel.

Everything's better with a little music.
The hard part is not singing along when others are present.

Sometimes a romantic comedy just hits the spot. I'd recommend this one.

And a Peanut Buster Parfait... well, what can I say?

Thai Today, Gone Tomorrow?

Demers and Philadelphia Sushi Rolls

Recently a new Thai restaurant opened in my area. For months, the rumors had been circulating, but I wasn't sure when or where it would appear. I've been eagerly awaiting its arrival and was even more excited to learn that it came with yummy sushi options too. Little Bangkok & Wasabi is on the corner across the street from Cabela's in East Grand Forks and my heart sank a little when I saw the location. It's the Bermuda triangle in the restaurant circuit. I think we've seen an Irish Pub, an Italian restaurant, and something else too all reside in that location for a brief time before poof it closes its doors for good or gives way to something new. Now, I may be wrong on this, but I think this new restaurant is a branch of the successful Fargo Thai places: Drunken Noodle, Thai Orchid, Wasabi.

Pad Thai

My first visit was two weeks ago and I had pad Thai and shared a rainbow sushi platter with my pal, Anna. This time I ordered the basil stir fry with chicken and I shared some sushi--one sushi roll from the regular (Philadelphia) and one from the deluxe (Demers Ave). Both times I had a small garden salad (mainly iceberg lettuce) but the ginger salad dressing? To die for. Tonight, we made the meal complete with some heavenly coconut ice cream. Yum!

Basil Stir Fry with Chicken

Coconut Ice Cream

Tonight was my second trip and I suspect I'll need to keep working my way through the menu. I hope this place sticks around long enough for me to do that!

P.S. Rumor has it we'll have an Iraqi place called Babylon down the street from The Toasted Frog. Yum! Things are looking up!

Everthing's Better with Feta

Labor Day Lunch

Fresh From the Garden Salad: lettuce, onion, cucumber slices (soaked in vinegar), cherry tomatoes, and feta cheese... I added lemon pepper chicken chunks before I ate... it was still a-cooking when I got camera happy.

Time for a peck of pickled peppers?

This is just Friday's take from the garden. I have some spaghetti squash for a few meals this week and I'm trying to think of something yummy to make with the Acorn Squash (is that the right name for that variety?). I have been looking online for ideas for my peppers. I think I'm going to try to do some preserving. Yikes. Directions differ wildly and some stress caution when canning to avoid botulism but other recipes seem to suggest it's easy peasy... I'll keep you posted.

Sweet Eats.

I love food blogs. I've said it before--they are my "porn." I experience a lust that I imagine is how some men view the other sort. I can feel it all through me... the appreciation for the beauty of the food. The mouthwatering. The ache. :)

I have a few favorites that do the exaggerated explicit photographic instructions on how to craft their delectable recipes. Yet, another favorite foodie is Oh Joy Eats. Joy's blog features favorite restaurants, food related products, desserts, dishes, recommendations, sweets, treats and more all styled to perfection. I enjoy her other blog too.

A Summer Treat -- Revised

S'mores Stuffed Brownies

I just saw this recipe on The Picky Palate blog and can't wait to try it. I'm forever trying to figure out how to ingest S'mores when there's no campfire to be found. Follow the link for details... Mmmmmm.....

God Bless Dairy Queen!

It was my birthday today and I celebrated by helping my youngest sister break in her new grill. She's recently moved out of my mom's place into a house with four other girls, three dogs, and three cats. :)

Her roomies were so sweet and joined in the feast, provided mostly by my mom who knows how to do cheezy potatoes right. And since most everyone knows I do not like cake, my mom went the extra mile and picked up a yummy Dairy Queen number. Delish!

The best bit was Shade (Ashley's border collie) was back home and on the mend (will post more on him later).

Every year I forget to get my free movie rental on my birthday over at Hollywood Video and for once I remembered, probably because they've got "going out of business" signs up all over. Still, I stopped in to pick one out and discovered they aren't even renting anymore. Just selling everything off. Sad, sad day. Maybe they are out of business because they gave away too many free birthday rentals? Oh well, not to me, anyway.

Instead we watched 2012 which I picked up at the public library. As films go, it wasn't fantastic or anything, yet it was a bit thrilling and my geologist loving was kicked into high gear as I tried to imagine the south pole shifted into the space where Wisconsin once was. And of course, there's John Cusack.

I had a good night and a good birthday. Yay. Here's to an even better year!

Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

I was surprised by how much I liked this show. I guess it follows in line with my frustration with our school lunch program. It does seem like, despite my angst, that our school district is doing a bit better than the one that Jamie was dealing with. If you have a bit of time, watch the 6 episodes of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and be inspired.

Mmmmm Pizza.

I discovered a new favorite frozen pizza at Sam's Club the other day. Bellatoria pizza. I tried both the Five Cheese variety and the Margherita one (as seen in the pic). Man, oh man, they were both sooooo good. They have eight thin crust varieties, and I should try the rest but I loved both of these so much it's going to be hard to to switch. I highly recommend this pizza.

I am craving this pie...

Fire up the oven!

A Watched Egg Never Cooks?

Thanks to Swiss Miss, I just discovered this hilarious site. I love it. It offers up directions and a very entertaining egg timer.

Matinee Monday

Up in the Air

Once again, George Clooney (Ryan Bingham) hits it home. For some reason his job reminds me a bit of the one he had in Michael Clayton. This film explores the role of connections and relationships, of baggage and the ways we protect ourselves, of loneliness and unemployment. Vera Farmigna is fantastic in her role as a "female version of Ryan Bingham" and Anna Kendrick (Natalie Keener) plays an uptight 23 year old who has a lot to learn and some teaching to offer too. I'd recommend it.

It's Complicated

This film provided fodder for dinner conversation and was a refreshing take on romantic comedy, looking at a couple at the other end of the age spectrum. Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin explore the what ifs in their relationship ten years after their divorce. John Krasinski is really fantastic as the future son in law. Hunter Parrish of Weeds plays their son Luke who is graduating from college and together the siblings on the film look like they might actually be related. Steve Martin plays Adam, the architect who is showing interest in Jane (Streep) and his role is charming and funny. The film explores marriage, divorce, family, the older man/younger woman phenomenon, infidelity, therapy and is sure to leave you craving delicious food since there are a number of yummy baked goods and delectable meals.

Champagne Salad

I got the following recipe from my friend Diane. This dish is further proof that potlucks are a good thing, because I tried it first and fell in love. Mmmmmm.... Now I need a jello mold, since my makeshift one didn't work quite as well as I wanted.

Champagne Salad

Ingredients:
1 8 oz cream cheese
3/4 cup granulated sugar
10 oz frozen strawberries
1 can crushed pineapple
2 bananas sliced
8 oz cool whip
Directions:
1 8 oz. cream cheese blended with 3/4 cup sugar
Add 10 oz frozen strawberries with juice to blender.
Pour this into a bowl and add 1 can crushed pineapple with juice, 2 bananas sliced and 8 oz cool whip.

Freeze.
Remove from freezer one hour before serving--should be served partially frozen, not melted.

Lost in Linkland...

Candy Corn Hershey's Kisses. These are to die for.

I think I need to embrace the mustache craze and get one of these magnets...

Fairy Tale finger puppets patterns

The Meaning of Photoshop by Khoi Vinh -- an article that ponders the role photoshop plays in our perceptions of beauty, real or imagined and whether such a thing is a destructive force if not acknowledged.

Photos of Marilyn Monroe reading, reading, reading... via Sheila Variations

a few others:

Yep, reading is sexy.