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-Mike and Kim

Ah Nuts!

Yeah, so I made some nuts.

Gorgonzola (without the Cheese) Ribeye Steak

Yeah, so we were able to score some cheap ribeye steaks from Ralphs, so we totally went for it! We found a recipe for Gorgonzola Ribeye Steaks and followed the recipe, but since we didn't happen to have any Gorgonzola cheese, we excluded it. The steak was pretty bland, so we just went ahead and added some Grizzly Joes and all was well with the world.

We pan seared the steak and then tossed it into the oven. The steaks were super thin, so we should probably not have cooked it for quite so long...

Almost Cream of Mushroom Soup

Snack girl to the rescue book

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream

For Desert tonight, I had Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream. I had to make it last night, as it needs some time to freeze. It is essentially cookie dough without the eggs with ice cream mixed it (we used vanilla ice cream instead of yogurt). The cookie dough, with all its butter and sugar is of course delicious, but overall this dessert is quite decadent and in any quantity a little overwhelming. If I could only figure out how to mix the dough into vanilla ice cream as little nuggets, instead of mixing the two together into one concoction, we would be hitting a grand slam!

http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2012/08/chocolate-chunk-cookie-dough-frozen-yogurt/

Breakfast Pizza

For breakfast this morning, Kim had me make a breakfast pizza. The composition of the pizza is actually rather simple, it has dough, eggs, bacon, and cheese (along with a few herbs for flavor composition).

The first thing that you have to do is to bake the bacon, the recipe called for three strips of bacon (or extra for snacking), so I naturally had to make 4!!! Then I rolled out the dough on my plastic sheet into a reasonable circle. Unfortunately, the dough did not successfully transfer to the cookie sheet, so I ended up having to re-roll it out. It did not shape as well the second time, so we had a slightly thicker and smaller base. In accordance with the instructions, I baked the pizza for 4 minutes to cook the dough and the Parmesan cheese. Once done, I pulled the pizza out and sprinkled the cheese on. We didn't have any more mozzarella cheese, so I used our normal Costco 3-cheese blend. I made little "nests" for the eggs to sit in. I apparently made the first one not big enough, so part of the egg whites tried to escape. I didn't make that mistake for the next two eggs. Tossed the pizza back in for another 4 and then 5 and then 3 minutes, and it was done!

I liked it, I thought it came out very well. And the bacon was delicious to eat while waiting for the pizza to cook. However, 1/4 of one of the bacon strips mysteriously disappeared.

Recipe:
http://www.thepeche.com/home/2011/1/24/bacon-and-egg-pizza-pie-via-the-big-sur-bakery-cookbook-pie.html

Zucchini Crisps

My mom had given me a zucchini.  When Bruce saw it, he mentioned how good zucchini crisps are.  I figured I would give it a try, since I'd seen recipes for them before and they looked decent.

I only made half the zucchini, since I figured that I would make minestrone with the rest.  After Mike tried the zucchini crisps, he said that he'd rather have more of these than the minestrone.

I looked at various websites before deciding to make the one from the Food Network website.  The reason I decided to make these Zucchini Crisps is because they are baked.  Other sites had similar recipes, but called for frying the crisps, and I don't like frying.

Needless to say, I will be using the other half of the zucchini to make more of these soon.

Tomato Basil Risotto

I love risotto.  I love all kinds of risotto.  It's probably my favorite dish.  However, it's not very healthy because most risotto dishes use heavy cream.  As a result, I try not to eat it too much.  It also is one of the more expensive dishes at a restaurant.

I found this Tomato and Basil Risotto recipe that doesn't use heavy cream.  It looked amazing in the picture, and I had all of the ingredients, so I figured why not.

It was amazingly delicious.  I would definitely make this again.  I didn't put any sugar in it since it said to put in just a pinch of sugar, and I figured that if it was too tart I could add that in at the end.

I also used canned, diced tomatoes instead of grated fresh tomatoes since I didn't have fresh tomatoes.

Chicken Divan

I found a recipe for Chicken Divan in the Comfort Food Makeovers book.  It basically looked like a chicken, broccoli and rice casserole.  It looked amazing and I knew I had to make it.

At first I thought the dish was OK, but when I ate the leftovers at another meal, I felt that the mustard/tang was too strong.  After that, I couldn't eat any more of it.

I also felt like the rice was a little too soft.  I like my rice a little hard.  The rice was first cooked in the Dutch Oven then baked in the oven, causing it to become too soggy, in my opinion.

I wouldn't make this dish again.

Before Heat:

After Heat:

Herb'd Chikin

BAM!

Neapolitan Chicken Pizza

Chicken Pizza!!!

Healthy Bread

I made some super healthy bread...

http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2013/12/whole-wheat-honey-oatmeal-bread/

Rotini bolognese

I've seen Bolognese sauce at restaurants before and usually just associate them with being a ground meat sauce.  I've never really had cravings for them.  I just thought they were tomato sauce with ground meat.

This recipe had much more flavor, even without the anchovy and porcini mushrooms.  The recipe called for these, but I didn't have any mushrooms since Mike hates mushrooms.  I also didn't know where to buy anchovy and didn't think Mike would touch this dish if it had anchovies in it.

I also have pancetta, so I used about 10 small pieces of thinly sliced ham that I had in the freezer.  I don't remember why I bought this ham.  Perhaps it was for Mike to make himself sandwiches for lunch?  It had been in the freezer for a while, so I wanted to use it.  I figured that pancetta is often described as being similar to ham, so why not sub ham for pancetta?

I was supposed to chop the carrots separately from the pancetta, mushrooms and anchovies, but since I was only going to process the carrots and ham, I just made them at the same time in the Vitamix.  Most of the carrots were finely chopped, but some did turn out a little big.  When I put the mixture in the Dutch oven, I just put the 2 or so pieces of carrots back in the Vitamix and chopped them up with the tomato sauce.

The dish was delicious, and a great way to cook carrots, since you really can't taste them!  I wasn't sure how long to cook the pasta, since I used Rotini instead of Linguini (which I didn't have).

Pork Lo Mein

I made the Pork Lo Mein recipe from the Comfort Foods Makeover book since I had some pork loin in the freezer that I wanted eaten.  I was surprised by how tender the pork was.  Mike didn't like the dish because he doesn't like pork.

The dish was a little salty, but that's probably because I didn't use mushrooms.  Mike hates mushrooms so I don't buy any, and I didn't put any in the dish since I thought he might like this dish.  He didn't like the dish, because he doesn't like pork.  I was under the impression that he didn't like pork because it's often overcooked and dry.  This pork was definitely not overcooked or dry.

The recipe called for spaghetti, but I used some chow mien that I had bought to make chow mien and never did.  I also used spinach instead of napa cabbage.

Chicken Parmesan

Mike loves Chicken Parmesan, so I've been looking for some good recipes.  We found a pretty good one online, but the recipe calls for lightly frying it before finishing it in the oven.  There is also quite a lot of cheese on the chicken.  The meal was pretty good, but felt pretty unhealthy.

I found a recipe in the Comfort Food Makeovers book where the chicken is baked.  I figured I would give it a try since this book is supposed to make healthier versions of regular dishes.

The recipe called for 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts, which are then pounded until they are about 1/2 inch thick.  I didn't have any, so I used 3 boneless skinless chicken thighs and cut them in half.  I didn't pound the chicken, but I figured that they were pretty thin already.

I "over toasted" the Panko, so it was quite dark.  Next time I will toast it less, or just try to make the toasted Panko in the toaster oven.  I think there was a lot of extra Panko and other breading since I made 6 much smaller pieces of chicken.

The chicken was also a little dry since I cooked it too long.  I would definitely cook it for a shorter amount of time next time.  I was afraid of changing the cooking time since my chicken was probably thicker than 1/2 inch, even if their other dimensions were smaller.

I also made Roasted Garlic Creamy Tomato Sauce using the Vitamix instead of making the Tomato Sauce from the recipe book.

Seasoned Potato Wedges

Apparently this recipe called for 3 large baking potatoes (2 3/4 pounds).  I used about 12 or so russet potatoes.  This might explain why I had so many potato wedges.

I tried to put them all in my biggest baking pan, and then put some more in a 13" x 9" pan and had to use a baking sheet for the rest.  I wondered how they said that it would all fit in one pan, and also how it would make 6-8 servings.

According to this recipe, I should have ended up with 24 wedges.  I had about 96.  I also ran out of the seasoning/coating and had to make the same amount of seasoning again.  I ran out of that, but made due with what I had and put some garlic salt on the rest, since I was out of flour and did not have enough to make another more seasoning/coating.

The potatoes were OK.  They did take a really long time to make, though.  I didn't feel like they had enough seasoning on them.  They definitely needed more salt/flavor.  The most prevalent flavor was the Parmesan cheese.  I was hoping to make seasoned potato wedges similar to that sold at fast food restaurants or grocery stores (in the hot food section).

Pork Chops with Garlic and Wine

I had bought two packages of pork chops from the grocery store, since they were guy one get one free.  However, since they were on "Manager's Special", I had to eat them right away.  I had used one package to make some baked pork chops and wanted to make a different dish.

I found a recipe for Pork Chops with Garlic and Wine on the Pioneer Woman's website, and decided to give that a try.  Although I like some garlic, I don't like a lot of garlic, and I doubt I would like a whole clove of garlic.  As a result, instead of using whole garlic cloves, I minced a garlic clove and used that instead of the 6 whole garlic cloves called for in this recipe.

I also didn't have any red wine and didn't want to buy red wine just for this recipe, so I used white wine.  The recipe did say that I could use white wine instead for a lighter sauce.

The pork chops smelled pretty good when I first pan fried them with seasoning, as the recipe specified.  However by the end, it was a little dry, and the "sauce" was reduced to be way less than I would have expected.  I only had about a tablespoon of "sauce".  Just enough to cover one side of the pork chops.  In the pictures associated with the recipe, there is much more sauce.  I'm not sure what I did wrong...

I did not enjoy this recipe, and would not make it again.  If I buy pork chops again, I will definitely look for another recipe to use.

Shepherds pie

Dinner is served!  I'm pretty sure Mike went back for seconds.  This picture looks like a pretty small serving.  What's even more amazing is that even though they finished all 20 or so potato skins which I had made as an appetizer, they still finished about half the Shepherd's Pie for dinner!

This dish is a definite keeper!  It's another recipe from the Comfort Foods Makeover book.  It was pretty good, though it did take a while to make.  This could be because I was trying to make the Loaded Potato Skins at the same time.  If I made the potatoes using the technique specified in the book instead of using the insides of the baked potatoes, perhaps it would have been faster.

Mike did help me make the mashed potatoes since I was running out of time, and was trying to cook the meat mixture while also putting toppings on the Loaded Potato Skins.  He used his KitchenAid mixer to mash the potatoes and mix in the butter.

I didn't have any Worcestershire sauce, so I used soy sauce, as Michele suggested.   I don't think Mike noticed that it had a slightly Asian flare.  I also didn't add the cornstarch at the end, since the sauce already seemed really thick to me.  I think I would probably add it next time, since the meat mixture seemed slightly water (but not overly so) at the end, after I broiled the dish.

The dish called for 93% lean ground beef (which they didn't drain, but that might be because it's so lean).  I didn't have this, so I used ground turkey instead.  I think it tasted fine, but it might have been better with ground beef.  Ground turkey is healthier anyway.

I also used corn in this recipe instead of mushrooms.  Mike deplores mushrooms, and won't touch a dish where mushrooms have been in the same vicinity as the food.  I also had some leftover canned corn from the Minestrone anyway.  I'm not sure how much I used.  I just used all of the corn that I had in the can.

Here is the whole Shepherd's Pie as it came out of the oven.  The recipe said to put the meat mixture in a 10 inch broiler safe skillet.  I didn't really have one, so I put it in a Corningware dish.  The dish is probably about 8 inches by 10 inches or so.  As a result, most of the dish was filled with the meat mixture.  I'm glad the mashed potatoes fit in the dish as well.

Loaded potato skins

Mike loves loaded potato skins.  They are delicious, but very unhealthy, with quite a bit of cheese, bacon and sour cream.  I wanted to make some for him anyway (at least at home I can control how much bad stuff is put in it).  I was able to use the potatoes that I scooped out to make Shepherd's Pie, but that's another post.

There are quite a few "recipes" out there for this dish, many of which use butter.  I found this recipe for Loaded Potato Skins which looked good and didn't look too unhealthy.  I really only used the recipe as a guideline.  I didn't brush butter on the potato skins.  Instead, I just used cooking spray.

The potato skins were OK, but they were a little dry.  I think I baked/broiled them for too long.  It was hard to tell when they were done.  I wanted the skins to be "crispy".

Loaded baked potato soup

I bought ten pounds of potatoes to make the clam chowder recipe.  I debated between buying five pounds vs ten pounds, but I knew I wanted to make Shepherd's Pie and this soup, which would also use potatoes so I bought the ten pound bag of potatoes.  I'm sure the fact that the ten pound bag was only 50 cents more than the five pound bag had nothing to do with my decision....  As it turns out, I also made loaded potato skins and will probably make seasoned potato wedges to finish off the bag.  I've gotten quite a lot of use out of all those potatoes!

Mike loves loaded baked potatoes.  Who wouldn't?  They usually have a lot of cheese, bacon, and sometimes other goodies.  This soup sounded like it would be pretty good, and the picture in the Comfort Food Makeovers book looks amazing with "big" chunks of crispy bacon.

This recipe also turned rather bland.  Again I used turkey bacon in this recipe (I had one package of turkey bacon and had to find many uses for it.  I ended up using the last of it in the Loaded Potato Skins.  Of course the next day Mike asked me if I had any more bacon since it he wanted to put it on his pizza.  I would've saved him some instead of using it all on the Loaded Potato Skins, but alas he made his request too late).  If I made this recipe again (which I don't plan to do), I would definitely use regular bacon.  The fat from the bacon is used to make crispy potato skins.  I feel that the turkey bacon didn't have enough fat left over in the pan.

The recipe called for Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, in order to be slightly healthier.  I went to the grocery store to buy Greek yogurt, and I thought I had bought plain Greek yogurt.  It wasn't until I had returned home and was putting the food away that I realized I had bought Pomegranate flavored Greek yogurt.  Yes, Pomegranate.  I didn't accentually buy Strawberry, Peach, Blueberry or some other flavor which I might have actually tried, I bought Pomegranate!

It's a lot harder to find plain Greek yogurt in small containers than one would think.  The grocery store sells big containers of plain Greek yogurt, but what would I do with such a large container of Greek yogurt?  They also sell many different flavors of Greek yogurt in the small containers, most of which were not plain.  I had to look very carefully to find what I thought was plain Greek yogurt.  I used sour cream in this recipe instead since I had that in the refrigerator and the recipe was trying to use Greek yogurt as a sub for sour cream anyway.

At the end, the recipe says to puree about half the soup mixture so that it will still have chunks of potatoes, but will also have a smooth texture.  I tried to puree about half the soup in the Vitamix, but I must have used more than half since the soup seemed a little light on potato chunks when I served it, but seemed very heavy on the potato chunks before I took out the soup mixture to make the puree.

Mozzarella sticks

Kim found a recipe for making one of Mike's favorite treats... Mozzarella Sticks! These were made of predominantly string cheese and panko bread crumbs. Regardless, they came out to be delicious. I thought that it was interesting, that they underwent a three step dipping process, first in mix primarily made of flour, then egg white (the glue), and finally the panko bread crumbs. They came out wonderfully and didn't last very long.

 Recipe Source: Comfort Food Makeovers

Clams and linguini

I've always liked Linguini in Clam sauce.  I've made quite a few recipes from A Teaspoon of Happiness, and they tend to be hit or miss.  I've loved some of her recipes and found some of her recipes to be not as good.  The first few recipes which I tried from her website were delicious.

This recipe was a definite miss.  I'm not sure why the recipe calls for adding a whole bottle of clam juice to the sauce.  It came out way too watery.  The sauce was also really bland.  I tried to add a bit of garlic salt and later added cornstarch to it.  I couldn't save this recipe.  I would definitely not try to make this particular recipe again.

New England Clam Chowder

I love New England Clam Chowder.  I tend to forget that there are actually two types.  I love the creamy goodness of the New England Clam Chowder.  It's much better than it's tomato based "cousin".  I'm sure it's not as healthy, but it's worth it for a good cup of clam chowder.

I've wanted to make my own clam chowder for a long time, since I love it so much, and the taste really does vary, depending on where you get the soup.  A while ago, I had tried to make it using the crock pot.  However, the recipe we used called for a specific amount of clams, and we weren't sure if that amount was the "dry weight", or with juice.  We ended up using double the amount of clams because we like clams, and it was supposedly the correct amount.  The soup turned out very clammy, and tasted terrible.

This soup was OK, but was rather bland, even after I added the salt and pepper (to taste) to it.  I bought a big can of clams from Costco (about 51 ounces) and weighed the clams/juice to get the amount specified in there recipe.  It could be that I did not get enough clams or juice, but I don't think that was the issue.

This recipe uses a small amount of bacon to get the "fat content" and smokey flavor without being too unhealthy.  I found the recipe in Comfort Food Makeovers, where the recipes for popular dishes are updated to be healthier than the original versions.  The problem may have been that I used turkey bacon instead of regular bacon.  As a result, the bacon probably didn't impart as much flavor, or have as much fat as the original dish created by the recipe writers.

I also wasn't sure what they meant by "instant potato flakes".  I bought instant mashed potatoes and used those instead.  However, I think I might have used too much instant mashed potatoes.  The potato flakes are supposed to thicken the soup, but it made it too thick.  If I had to make this recipe again, I would put half or even less of the instant mashed potatoes.

My quest for a good clam chowder recipe continues, as I don't think I would make this recipe again.  If I'm going to eat a soup that is rich and on the unhealthy side, it might as well taste good.

Oven Fried Chicken

My quest for a good fried chicken recipe is finally over.  Well, not really, because I love fried chicken and would probably be willing to try other recipes, but I don't need to actively look for one anymore. This recipe is delicious!

I found this recipe in the Comfort Food Makeovers book, and knew I had to try it.  They actually use bone in chicken breasts, but I had boneless skinless, chicken thighs, so I used those instead.  I did cut them in half, though.

The recipe also uses crushed corn flakes.  I didn't have those and didn't want to buy them just for this recipe, so I used Panko breadcrumbs.  They're crispy, delicious and I can use them in other recipes.

What's interesting about this recipe is that you only put the breadcrumbs on one side.  This way you don't have to flip over the chicken pieces, which makes the chicken really crispy.  Since the chicken is pretty thin anyway, when you eat a bite of it, you don't really notice that it's not crunchy on both sides since you get a good crunch anyway.  It's an excellent technique.  I've noticed, while making other "oven fried chicken recipes" that the chicken is not that crunchy, since one side usually ends up "wet" when it is flipped over.

From the perspective of the book, since there is bone on the other side anyway, which will not be eaten, there is really no point in putting breadcrumbs on the underside of the chicken.

The recipe also calls for using a wire rack, which would also probably help keep the underside crisp, but I didn't have one of those, so I just put mine on top of aluminum foil on a baking sheet.

Turkey Chilli

Mike loves corn bread with chili.  I don't quite understand the combination.  I think it tastes OK, but he thinks the combo is phenomenal.  He used the Jiffy mix to make cornbread.  I personally wanted to have him make his own cornbread, but according to Michele, it's cheaper to just use the mix.  Also, I would've had to buy cornmeal.  I don't know which other recipes I would've made with cornmeal, so I just bought the mix.

Mike and I both love chili.  We especially love Cincinnati Chili from Hard Times Cafe.  We bought the spices from Hard Times to make our own chili at home, and have made it a few times.  It's pretty good.  Still, I wanted to make my own chili from scratch.  That way I would know what spices are in the dish.

Here is the chili as it is still cooking.  The red kidney beans are quite evident in this dish.

Mike thought the dish turned out rather bland.  I didn't put any cayenne pepper in there since I didn't have any, and I don't like spicy food.  I also didn't put any bell peppers in there since Mike and I both don't like bell peppers.  I also didn't put any red pepper flakes in here either since I don't have those either.  Luckily I only made half the recipe.

I also used stewed tomatoes instead of crushed tomatoes since I had stewed tomatoes, and couldn't find a recipe to use them.  Most recipes which use stewed tomatoes are either chili recipes or pasta sauce recipes.  The can showed that the stewed tomatoes did not merely contain tomatoes.  It also contained other ingredients, such as bell peppers.  I was hoping that by using these tomatoes, it would add more flavor to the chili.  Apparently I failed.  I did process the stewed tomatoes in the Vitamix in to make them smaller.

The recipe does say to "season with salt and pepper to taste".  Mike finished making the recipe since it had to stew for a while.  At the end he did not add any salt and pepper.  It might have been OK if he had.  I have had to add extra salt/pepper to some of the recipes in the Comfort Food Makeovers book if it didn't seem to have enough seasoning.

We are definitely getting a lot of use out of this muffin pan!

Here is another artistic shot of the corn bread in the pan.

Just the chili.  There are beans in there, but it's hard to tell from this picture.  I think I was supposed to use a whole can of the kidney beans, but I just used however much I had leftover from the Minestrone.  I didn't want to buy a whole can just for this, and I didn't have a use for the rest of the beans leftover from the Minestrone.  I thought about adding the Garbanzo beans that were leftover from the Minestrone, but I wasn't sure they would go well together.

Minestrone

Mike loves Minestrone soup.  I don't really understand it, but it the fact that I don't like beans may have something to do with that.  Minestrone is actually pretty easy to make and is a pretty healthy soup, since it's mainly a tomato soup with vegetables in it.

I made this particular broth using the Vitamix, and just added the veggies in at the end, simmering the soup to let it heat up.  The only issue is that I had to buy Garbanzo beans for this soup, and now I have about 3/4 of a can of Garbanzo beans which I'm not sure how I will finish it.

Here is a close up of all the good stuff.  Look at all the vegetables!  The best part about this soup is it is quick to make, healthy and Mike likes to eat it!

PB Pie

Here