Unfortunate Casserole

When I was about 12 or so, I asked my mother about green bean casserole. I’m not sure what brought about the question, but my guess is that some advertiser did his/her job and led me to ask about this dish. I guess it’s only natural that I asked about the casserole, than say, cranberry sauce, since I rather enjoy green beans.

My mother’s response was to find out for myself. Rather, if I was curious about the dish, I should find the recipe and make it — for Thanksgiving. So I tried out the recipe that I found on the back of the soup can and presented it.

It turned out to be a winner. Especially so, since my mother’s family isn’t all that big on green beans. And so I was asked to repeat the performance for Christmas, and the following Thanksgiving, and the following Christmas, and every other holiday we ever spent together.

But as the years passed, I began to get bored with it. So I tried to spice things up, adding fresh garlic, thyme, paprika, and other ingredients to the list. As my cooking prowess grew, the recipe finally began to take shape and I had created something new.

But I never looked forward to making it. The thought of canned soup, and canned beans, and pre-fried onions, put a knot in my stomach that made it difficult to bring myself to making it. And so I stopped making it. Luckily, by this point, I had moved away from home and had stopped visiting for the holidays, so it was never expected of me.

Last Thanksgiving, we ate with some friends of ours and someone suggested that the casserole be made and I was volunteered. So I made it. With a dry turkey, my casserole became my friend again. But I hoped to never have to make it again.

So you can imagine how it bothered me that LorY had somehow managed to volunteer me again this year, with a different set of friends.

But then, she sent me this — a green bean casserole made from scratch! Why it had never occurred to me to look for a scratch recipe is beyond me. But now I’m excited to make this dish again, and maybe, if it works, I’ll have a new-old dish to present should we ever have a holiday with my folks again.

Comfort food with a twist — I should be trying it out tonight. In a separate post, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Not Where You Need Them

As I sit here, drinking my morning chai, before heading out, a few thoughts came to mind.

I distinctly remember having more than three mugs in this apartment. I wonder what happened to all of them?

We have a ton of traveler mugs that keep your stuff warm for hours, but these don’t really do me any good since my car’s cupholders are horrendously small.

Why is it that whenever I need a mug, I can always find them in the dishwasher, waiting to be washed? I guess there’s something to be said for consistency.

I like chai, a lot, but I drink it without any sweetener. What happens if I blended it with a normal heavy-duty plain black tea? Perhaps I’ll try that tomorrow.

That is all.

Just comfort

Sometimes you just want to come home and eat something in the comfort food area. I didn’t want to make any Mexican dishes so I decided to make angel hair pasta and meatballs for dinner. It was a quick and easy dinner. For the meatballs I uused garlic powder, onion powder, season all, Italian seasoning, pepper, and salt. The sauce as usual is doctored up. I really should try to make a sauce but it is a time consuming task and I wanted something quick. I also made my version of bread sticks. I got some potato hot dog buns, opened them up, added butter, garlic powder and Italian seasoning. I put them in with the meatballs at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or so. They are quick and yummy.

ready to go in the oven

my makeshift breadsticks

angel hair pasta, sauce, meatballs with breadsticks ready to eat....

In memory of Fred…. the pumpkin

When I was in fourth grade we did the typical carving the pumpkin lesson. We even named it Fred and put his name in big red letters on the side of the pumpkin. It was neat but my parents would never bother making one and I honestly didn’t care much for it. When the lesson was over my teacher raffled off the pumpkin and I won. I was happy to take this huge pumpkin home. However, I did not like the fact that I had to carry the darn thing to the bus, climb the steps and sit with it on my lap for awhile while the other kids tried to poke at Fred with their pencils. When I got home I showed it to my mom and she put it outside for a couple of days. After that she decided to cut it up and freeze it. She also cut the name out so I could keep it. During November she decided to make pumpkin empanadas. It was such a task ( I learned that the hard way today). I helped in the process in any way that I could. She made a ton of them and packed them for me to take to class. The kids kept asking me about Fred so I figured it was a great idea to take the empanadas to them. So I passed out the empanandas and told them that they were made out of Fred. They looked at me funny and I just thought I said something wrong. Meanwhile, Mrs. West was cracking up at her desk. She enjoyed the empanadas while my classmates looked at me in disgust. They eventually got over it and ate the empanandas too. So on Thursday I was at one of my patient’s house and his mother suggests that I take one of the pumpkins that he had won at school. He was all happy to hear that I was taking one home. She started asking me what I normally do with them and I told her you could make soup, pies, breads and even empanadas. My patient was histerical he couldn’t believe and had a fit. I brought the pumpkin home and left it on the table until today. I boiled it and roasted the seeds. I was off to make the dough but I decided that I was going to wait. I did get to make a few to taste the pumpkin puree. I did not know how much work this was but I do know that I won’t be taking any to my patient because I don’t want him to freak out.

they were good but I am going to wait until later this week

lunch date….. with my kitchen

Yesterday after his haircut Joseph stopped at the butcher shop and picked up flank steak and shell steaks. We lurve flank steak because, der of fajitas. However, when we came from church I did not feel like making fajitas, I wanted something different. I found this recipe and we loved it. I added my touch by also grilling onions with the marinade. It was so delicious. I also made roasted asparagus and plum tomatoes by simply adding olive oil, fresh thyme, salt and pepper, I also made an Asian inspired salad with edamame and carrots. I made delicious dressing that reminded us of our love for hibachi. It was very simple, soy sauce, ginger, lime, agave nectar, and garlic. It was fast and delicious.

edamame, carrots and romaine hearts

roasted asparagus and plum tomatoes inspired by Tyler Florence

flank steak with ginger marinade inspired by Aida Mollenkamp

Apple picking.

If you have ever asked me if I have gone apple picking I will always give you the same response. I reply “Joseph refuses to go because he says that our ancestors did not come to the United States to make life better for us for us to go apple picking for pleasure”. In other words he doesn’t think we should go because our parents put us through school so that we don’t have to go and do the  hard work they had to do. My mom totally agrees. She remembers picking cotton, packing grapes and working so hard in the fields. However, this fall something changed. Joseph actually offered to take me. I had given up on the whole idea because it was probably silly of me to want to go. It was so much fun. On our way over there we stopped at an organic farm, I was in heaven. It was such a nice weekend. We got delcious blueberry-apple pie and of course picked apples.

First apple we picked.

Our apple basket.

blueberry apple pie

at the organic farm

Easy as pie….

Just in case you were wondering what we did with all of the apples we picked. We ate them as snacks and I made 4 apple pies. We ate two of them. I must confess that I bought the crust ready made. Tonight I made pies to thank the wonderful ladies at my church for helping me with the cluttered closet. Here is what our table looks like. I am so jealous I want to dig into them so bad. I ran out of apples for the last pie so I added orange flavored craisins. I am giving that one to my close fried Sherri because I know she might enjoy a new twist on the apple pie.

The pies are cooling down.

delcious apple pie, uh I want some so bad

easy pumpkin pie

this sucker took forever to set grr

cranberry apple pie, keeping my fingers crossed on this one

stuffed peppers

These are simple to make, I added a Mexican twist to them added Mexican rice, black beans and ground beef. I topped them with monterrey jack cheese. It’s a quick meal, you can also just add leftovers.

Last night’s yummy dinner

During the summer Joseph bought a cookbook just for the sauces. I always groan when we buy a cookbook. We both have a really hard time following recipes and I feel like what is the use.  However, we have several of them. I usually get them really cheap and just for reference. Like the huge Mexican book that I got for 7 bucks. When I showed it Joseph he looked at me and wondered why I would need a Mexican cookbook. I told him that my mom is just like me and can’t give a recipe. So when I am not sure what ingredients go in Caldo Tlapeno or how to make the dough for fried empanandas. Well with that said, we got Giada’s Everyday Italian book. It has some great recipes. Yesterday I did something Ziti with asparagus, smoked mozzarella and prosciutto.

Food fit for meatatarians (vegetarians beware too much meat for you to handle)

I was blessed with a big bag of home grown cherry tomatoes and I couldn’t decided what to do with them. Meanwhile that same weekend Marty and Diane invited us for dinner after church on Sunday. I was told not to take anything but I couldn’t help myself. I made a delicious tomatoe salad that I modified from one of my favorite blogs. I followed everything except that I added shallots and peppadews.

roasted cherry tomato salad

meatatarian delight

roasted corn

pork ribs

sangria