Pass The Sushi!

The trains of pro­gres­sion and moti­va­tion are mov­ing faster in my head then in the real world. There’s a bil­lion bril­liant ideas, but I can only hold two light bulbs at once, and that just isn’t enough. Right now schools still at a stand still even though I am old enough to fill out the papers, the school year that they will mat­ter for wont start until July and unless I want to pay $1500  a class out of pocket — I just have to be patient. Whats another 6 months? Doesn’t stop them from call­ing three times a day. If you want me so damned bad, ante up.

In the mean time, I am work­ing on a group of retro-y silly quick draw­ings that I plan to illus­trate in Adobe and make into a cal­en­dar to maybe sell on the cheap at the shop. I am also back in full swing with apron mak­ing. I want to sell a few to help pay some bills. Who knows, maybe they will catch on. I have a few designs at the moment and they just need to get exe­cute at this point — which should hope­fully be next Thurs­days project. I’m also full swing knee deep in design projects (appar­ently, the more on my plate the more I want and the bet­ter I work). I have a few post­cards going out for the shop, orga­niz­ing sign­ings and shows, and a blog redesign, and well, if you give a mouse a cookie.… Hope­fully Sil­hou­ette Graphic will see a new face lift soon as well.

On top of my fast paced mind — my real world adorable o’s and o’s (kit­tens) met my boyfriends 70lbs of love puppy in a roller coaster of crashes, booms and bangs. Things are kind-of-sort-of start­ing to smooth out. Don’t ask me what an o’s and o’s is. I have no idea. It’s just one of their many nicknames.

And cook two new recipes a week. Lol.

This weeks two resulted in one well left­overs meal and a com­plete fail. I don’t know what I did wrong, but after sep­a­rat­ing 12 egg whites, my Angel Food Cake from Alton Brown came out flat and rub­bery. I sifted, whipped, peaked and reserved and still no love. Per­haps it is the 2 min­utes in the food proces­sor that I did neglect that was my wrong doing. I believe that its my un-love of Alton Brown com­ing through in my food. Either way — flat rub­bery angel food cake is in the trash…

My other attempt was Chicken Divan by Paula Dean from the left over chicken I baked ear­lier this week. I can tell you I already feel fat­ter with two cans of cream of mush­room soup, a cup or mayo and a cup of sour cream in the mix — not to men­tion the cheese. I dig Paula and hate her at the same time. She screams fake in a way that very much reminds me of other peo­ple I have known, but her food, its real. Any time you can have books and tv shows when every recipe starts with a stick of but­ter and bacon fat — it really can’t be all that bad. The chicken divan was pretty much exactly what I expected. I would prob­a­bly add red pep­per flakes, more lemon juice, and some­thing else — though I’m not sure what — just to add a lit­tle zing to it. You can check it out here. The best part about this one is that it can all be eye­balled with no mea­sur­ing involved.

My two new recipes for this week come early in the week, and thank good­ness for it. By Tues­day our nor­mal sched­ule was thrown into a new rou­tine that will need some get­ting used to. My boyfriend went to the local col­lege to sign up for classes and as it turns out, they started that day too. Now two nights a week he wont be get­ting home until 10pm. They also hap­pen to be the two nights I don’t close my store, so two other nights a week I don’t get home til 8.

So really, I’m going to just have to make meals that we can have in the fridge ready for him when he stops home from work for 5 min­utes, and when he finally gets home at night. He’s going to be beat once this gets past the intro­duc­tion classes after work­ing all day so I want yummy, healthy food to be the last thing he has to think about.

Beef with Red Wine Sauce from Myrecipes.com

This week was awe­some! We are almost done remod­el­ing our bath­room on a dime. The tiles been laid, the sink spray painted (yes, that’s right), the walls painted, new toi­let installed (that accord­ing to my boyfriend ‘could sink the titanic’), & towel rack hung. All that’s left is another coat of paint on the two easy walls and trim. It looks so nice! And I think I am happy with a pos­si­ble color pal­let for the rest of the house! Plus a cus­tomer of mine is a paint prod­uct tester and since Hand­some is a con­trac­tor we may get hooked up with some paint! Rock out. I am super happy that there is progress being made on his house. Sends out good vibes in the house and it needs all the good vibes it can get.

On top of it being a pro­gres­sive week, my two new din­ner choices were super easy. One was deli­cious and I will tweak and make again and again the other one fell of the train to fla­vor­town a few miles before the exit ramp.

South­ern Stuffed Rose­mary Chicken adapted from Myrecipes.com (the orig­i­nal recipe was dou­ble this but that would have gone bad long before two of us fin­ished off the leftovers)

• 1  (6-oz.) pack­ages corn­bread stuff­ing mix
• 1  large egg, lightly beaten
• 4  skinned and boned chicken breasts
• 1/4  cup  olive oil, divided
• 1  table­spoon  chopped fresh rosemary
• 1  tea­spoon  salt
• 1/2  tea­spoon  pepper
• 1/4  cup  grated Parme­san cheese
• 1  (8-oz.) pack­age sliced fresh mushrooms
• 4  green onions, sliced
• 1  (10 3/4-oz.) can reduced-fat cream of chicken soup
• 1  cup  chicken broth
• Gar­nish: fresh rose­mary sprigs

1. Pre­pare stuff­ing mix accord­ing to pack­age direc­tions, and let cool. Stir in egg.

2. But­ter­fly chicken breasts by mak­ing a length­wise cut in 1 side, cut­ting to but not through the oppo­site side; unfold. Spoon stuff­ing mix­ture evenly down cen­ter of one side of each but­ter­flied chicken breast; fold oppo­site side over stuff­ing, and place in a lightly greased bak­ing dish. Pack any left­over stuff­ing in around the chicken. Stir together 3 Tbsp. olive oil and chopped rose­mary; brush evenly over chicken. Sprin­kle chicken evenly with salt, pep­per, and Parme­san cheese.

3. Bake chicken, uncov­ered, at 400° for 20 min­utes or until done.

4. Sauté mush­rooms and onions in remain­ing 1 Tbsp. oil in a large skil­let over medium-high heat 5 min­utes or until ten­der; stir in soup and chicken broth. Reduce heat, and sim­mer, stir­ring often, 5 min­utes or until thor­oughly heated. Spoon mush­room mix­ture evenly over chicken; gar­nish, if desired.

This recipe would be great with a cran­berry sausage stuff­ing as well — which is my plan for the next time I make it. Its super dence and has a tone of carbs in the stuff­ing so I served it with a spinach salad but I think some­thing else to share the gravy and make friends with the stuff­ing would be awe­some. I’d feel carb guilty later, but awe­some.
My only real prob­lem with this recipe is it didn’t have an over­whelm­ing rose­mary fla­vor or aroma so I’m not really sure with rose­mary is in the title. Its there, and its nice, but not enough to be noteworthy.

Next up was a fail.

Mex­i­cali Ham­burger Casse­role from bhg.com

1–1/2 lb. lean ground beef

1 15-oz. can Mexican-style diced tomatoes

1–1/2 cups frozen whole ker­nel corn, thawed

1/2 cup plus 2 table­spoons finely shred­ded Mex­i­can cheese blend, divided

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup yel­low cornmeal

1 Tbsp. sugar

1–1/4 tsp. bak­ing powder

1 egg, beaten

2/3 cup milk

2 Tbsp. cook­ing oil

1 Recipe Fresh Tomato Toss, (see recipe)

1. Pre­heat oven to 350 degrees F. In 12-inch skil­let cook and brown beef; drain off fat. Stir in undrained toma­toes and 1 cup of the corn; heat through. Trans­fer to greased 2-quart bak­ing dish. Sprin­kle with 1/2 cup of cheese.

2. For corn bread top­ping, in medium bowl com­bine flour, corn­meal, sugar, bak­ing pow­der, and 1/2 tea­spoon salt. Stir in egg, milk, and oil. Evenly spread on beef mix­ture. Sprin­kle remain­ing 2 table­spoons cheese. Bake, uncov­ered, 30 min­utes or until top­ping is set. Let stand 5 minutes.

3. Fresh Tomato Toss: In bowl stir together 1 cup red grape toma­toes, halved, 1/4 cup coarsely chopped cilantro, remain­ing 1/2 cup corn, and if desired, 1/3 cup green olives, halved; spoon over serv­ings. Serves 6.

Even after adding taco sea­son­ing to the meat, extra cumin, pinto beans and about a cup of taco sauce I still felt this recipe lacked fla­vor and depth. It was kinda of just blah. Sure there was meat and Mex­i­can themed thingys but man, a nice crunchy taco with dis­tinc­tive fla­vor and tex­ture would have one upped this any day of the week. My boyfriend didn’t mind it, but he said it didn’t com­pare to what I nor­mally bring to the table.

I love my some Christ­mas cheer but every­thing gets so stress­ful at times. My uncles birth­day is New Years Eve and that stinks cuz he never gets a party just for him­self, but on the other hand, the whole world cel­e­brates his birth­day. Kind of. So we were finally able to get together Thurs­day night to exchange Christ­mas gifts and cel­e­brate his birth­day. I made a gin­gered beef stir fry and choco­late cup­cakes with a cream cheese peanut but­ter frost­ing. How­ever, due to the stress of try­ing to get the house un-Chirstmased, tidy­ing up for guests, and mak­ing din­ner, I for­got to take pics. It sucks because it was a beau­ti­ful dish with bright colors.

I havent fig­ured out what next weeks two new meals are yet. We’ll see when we get there. Hope­fully, I remem­ber to take pics.

Let me intro­duce you to my new best friend Cajun sausage and chicken pasta.

The first meal of the year, the first meal of my new try two every week, and my god, was it good. I have been eye­ing up this recipe for a while and finally after my boyfriend put a hard days work in rip­ping out and redo­ing his own bath­room, I fig­ured a great meal would be a good reward.  Cajun sausage and chicken pasta tweaked from South­ern Liv­ing was as amaz­ing as I had expected. I just warn you, the tim­ing is tricky. I have tried to work some of that out here for you, but bear in mind that this did take a while.

Its rich, loaded with calo­ries and other bad good­ness and worth every not weight-watchers bite. If your New Years res­o­lu­tion involved los­ing weight, I sug­gest run­ning a few miles both before and after you enjoy this.

Cajun Chicken and Sausage Pasta: tweaked from South­ern Living

Prepa­ra­tion

Peel shrimp, and devein, if desired. Set aside.

Pre­pare fet­tuc­cine accord­ing to pack­age direc­tions; drain pasta, and set aside.

Cook sausage in a large Dutch oven over medium heat 10 min­utes or until browned; remove sausage, and drain, reserv­ing 1 table­spoon drip­pings in Dutch oven. Set sausage aside.

Melt but­ter in drip­pings in Dutch oven over medium heat. Add shrimp, and cook 5 min­utes or just until shrimp turn pink. Remove shrimp, and keep warm.

Add onion and next 3 ingre­di­ents; cook, stir­ring con­stantly, over medium heat 10 min­utes. Stir in Cajun sea­son­ing and flour. Cook over medium heat, 1 minute, stir­ring con­stantly. Grad­u­ally stir in chicken broth. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stir­ring occa­sion­ally. Boil 1 minute. Reduce heat to medium-low, and stir in heavy cream; cook over medium-low heat 8 min­utes or until mix­ture sim­mers. Add pas­teur­ized cheese cubes, sausage, and chicken, stir­ring until cheese melts.

Stir in chopped green onions, Parme­san cheese, and chopped fresh pars­ley. Serve over hot cooked fettuccine

Ok, so my notes for this recipe are that the tim­ing is waaaay off. You could wait until you add the chicken broth to cook the fet­tuc­cine and it would be much nicer. Accord­ing to SL this recipe takes 40 min­utes top to bot­tom. It didn’t. It may next time now that I have expe­ri­enced it, but the first time it took about an hour and a half. It may also be my stove top, but I had to turn the heat to medium to return any­thing to a sim­mer and it took about 15 min­utes, not 8. There is also enough left over (maybe) to fill a casse­role dish for freez­ing and enjoy­ing later. I will try to remem­ber to make a note about how that goes.

All in all it is a recipe that is 100% worth it.