riceballs

Okay, we had this meal two weeks ago (the post date above) but I'm just typing it up tonight (13 July) and for the life of me I can't remember what we had with our rice balls. I know I must have had one more dish, but the Haitian must have been here because that memory is bye-bye.

Sooooo, we had rice balls filled with tamago and this cashew-mushroom filling minus the cashews from my Sunset Vegetarian cookbook. They were meh at best. For one thing I forgot to make them out of sushi rice so they were falling apart like nobody's business. And the rice was bland. I'm going to put sushi rice seasoning stuff in them next time. I've made them before but I didn't have the cookbook (I checked it out from the library previously.) and, well, it's just not worth anymore words on this post. I'll make them again...but differently...more like last time.

spanakopita + salad

See that picture? That is a giant, extra-large pizza pan holding one of the world's most delicious dishes, spanakopita. I adore spanakopita. I love it.

Tonight I tried something new. I used a tried-and-true filling but instead of using filo dough, I made my own crust using the directions from my Laurel's Kitchen cookbook. It was crazy and I made it entirely on the faith that Laurel knew what she was talking about because the directions didn't look like it would work. I mean it called for a three to four foot 1-inch dowel to roll it out with. I had to raid my daughters' closet and take out one of their rods! Then you take the dough and wrap it around the dowel and roll it while the entirety of the dough is still wrapped up! Wasn't it going to stick together and I end up with something akin to a wooden bagel dog? But no, it worked fabulously! I ended up with two three-foot see-through-thin-in-some-places crusts in which to encase my spinach/feta filling. This is now my go-to method for divine spanakopita.

The filling is Spanakopita (Greek Spinach Pie) from Allrecipes.com. If I'm following that recipe in its entirety (including phyllo dough) I tweak it in the following ways: I make sure the stems are removed from the spinach and I add the juice of one lemon. I also make it in a 9x13 instead of the suggested 9x9. When it says to remove the spinach mixture from the heat and set aside to cool I also drain it of excess water. Lastly, after I've assembled it and before I put it in the oven I cut the dish into pieces. (It's easier to cut before cooking.)

I'm not going to give you the dough recipe from Laurel. It's pretty in depth and has diagrams and is complicated. If you really want it just ask, otherwise you can get the book and have your own private lesson.

All in all? Total deliciousness wrapped up in gigantic super thin crust! Oh! and I made a salad.

pizza

We had one cheese, one pepperoni, and one cheese, pepperoni, pineapple and olive. But tonight my pie was extra-special. I bought a hydroponic basil plant from the San Antonio Farmer's Market when I was visiting my parents like a month or more ago. We used most of it but I thought I might try planting it and see what happens. Apparently that basil wanted to put down some roots and watch them grow, 'cause it's one happy plant right now.

All of that to say this: fresh basil on pizza is so unbelievably phenomenal. I had sauteed onions, lightly steamed broccoli, olives and after it finished cooking, tossed some of those happy, healthy basil leaves on top. Que Magnifique! Do try it. Do.

enchiladas

Tonight marked a turning point in our family. We demolished an entire 11x15 pan of enchiladas. Either I have to make a 9x13 and the 11x15 from now on or I need to add salad, chips and mexican rice, because what we did would have been more accurately portrayed by a zombie attacking a fresh brain. But there's a definite reason. These suckers are so dang tasty.

Confession: I adore soggy flour tortillas. I'm sure that ranks right up there with overcooked pasta in Chef Law Atrocities. Sorry, it's the way things are. One of my favorite things is to eat the guts out of a burrito and then eat the soggy leftover tortilla by itself with extra hot sauce. Mmmmm, so good. Because of this I make our enchiladas with flour tortillas. I make one batch of my de-hotified enchilada sauce (for the hubby) and pour it over flour tortillas rolled around crumbled queso fresco. That is it my friends. I let it incubate for 15-30 minutes in a 350 degree oven and we are ready to stuff ourselves with delicious enchilada heaven. And we do.

The sauce recipe is here and it is enough for one 11x15 pan, and my tweaks are as follows:

1. I use regular flour
2. Drop chili powder to 2 Tb
3. Increase tomato sauce to a 16 oz can
4. I don't add any extra salt. The onion salt is enough.

"chicken and dumplings"

I really wanted chicken and dumplings but I didn't have enough time to make it. I tried anyway and was rather disappointed. While it tasted okay, I really just should have saved it for another day. Another day with all the best ingredients and the necessary time to do such a delicious dish justice.

No recipe here, just threw scraps together attempting to make something out of nothing. Definitely didn't earn full, or even half, marks tonight. I'm sorry Chicken & Dumplings that I would trade in your true deliciousness for some quick and dirty substitution.

sandwiches + coleslaw

Using the leftover chicken from a few nights ago, I made chicken salad for sandwiches. I made it in the food processor because it's so easy. I think that's the difference between a real foodie and me. A real foodie would make chicken salad with the right chunky chicken texture. Me, I practically make a pate. I'm sure my family would appreciate something with a little bit more consistency than baby food. Sorry, family.

We had a yummy coleslaw from my Veg Fam cookbook with the sandwiches. Officially it's titled Cabbage, Apple, and Raisin Slaw. Apparently I have made it previously because I had little notes to myself in the margins and a smiley face next to the title. (In my cookbooks that means "yummy.") No recollection, but that's what notes are for, right?

Cabbage, Apple and Raisin Slaw recipe

chef salad

Chef salad! You've got to love chef salad. I mean, you're the one making it. If you don't like it, it's no one's fault but your own.

There was nothing unusual about this one. Same ingredients as usual:

• romaine
• carrots
• cheddar
• red cabbage
• grilled chicken
• pickled beets
• olives
• hard-boiled eggs
• sunflower seeds

tostadas

You know what's almost magical? Mexican food. I mean you take a fresh-mex place like Senor Sam's or Chipotle and you can make about four thousand different dishes with the exact same ingredients. I tried to use that magic tonight with tostadas.

Instead of taco shells and tortillas I used tostada shells. (You know, the small corn tortillas that have been fried and look like they'd make good bite-size chips for Abe Lincoln's Memorial statue.)

It worked. The fam was happy and I have another variation on tacos so I can keep the repetition craziness away.

It's also mango season. There's this guy on the side of the road who has a bunch of the Ataulfo mangoes for sale. My hubby went and negotiated and came home with 44 mangoes for the cool price of $16. Nice! We decided to make mango sorbet. Hooboy! That stuff came out super rich and thick. Kinda reminded me of baby food, but it was so mango-y I didn't mind. (Ataulfos are my favorite mango.)

roast chicken + other things

I am writing this post almost two weeks after the fact. Please excuse me for my fogginess. (The post date is the day we ate it, not the day I wrote the post.)

I decided to try America's Test Kitchen's method for roasting a chicken. I'll be honest. It looked much nicer than it tasted. It was moist but bland. Rather bland indeed. Because of this I'm not going to give you the recipe. I can't recommend it so why do I want to go to all the trouble of rewriting the recipe?

We had the chicken with mashed potatoes and a gravy. And I'm rather certain we had a vegetable but I didn't take a picture of the finished meal and I can't for the life of me remember. Sorry. I failed you this time.

bread pudding

My son has been asking and pleading and begging for me to make bread pudding. I did. Yes I did.

For dinner tonight, we had bread pudding with whiskey sauce (minus the whiskey, subbing vanilla). That's it. The kids and I (Daddy is gone) finished off the entire pan.

Really the only bad side is the sugar amount. I mean it has a lot of eggs and bread and raisins. By themselves that ain't so bad, right? But with the sugar and whiskey sauce you've added a little helping of guilt, too.

If it's just once in a while, I think I can handle that. (Especially when the guilt is almost completely overshadowed by the warm and happy satisfied tummy feeling.)

Bread Pudding with Whiskey Sauce recipe

soup + bread (again!)

Nothing new. This is almost a complete duplicate of a meal in April. I feel so unoriginal when I do this, but what can you do? I made the bread into a loaf instead of a focaccia-type thing. And look! No salad again. There really needs to be something of color in this meal and flecks of parsley in the soup don't count.

In case you're wondering, the glass is filled with Iced Green Tea. Mmmmm, so refreshing. Just in case you want to know: Take about one quart of just boiled water and soak eight green tea bags for four minutes. Pour the super-concentrated tea into a gallon container, add one cup of sugar and enough water to fill. Add ice to your glass or wait a few hours for it to cool in the fridge. Either way you've got refreshment. Tasty, tasty refreshment.

pizza beans + salad + bread

No imagination for dinner tonight. I made my husband's favorite Pizza Beans, added a salad and a loaf of bread.

Imagination was present, though, in the form of my youngest son's "Tiki Statue." That's the strange, bug-eyed, rather angry-faced gray thing in the background. He inspired all my kids to wrap old yogurt containers in duct tape. Then our friends came over and they made "Tiki's" resulting in a complete depletion of duct tape in our house.

This resulted in a bug-eyed rather angry-faced Daddy. (I mean who can blame him. Duct tape is man's ultimate survival tool. A house depleted is a house unprepared.)

chef salad and then some

There is no going wrong with "choose your own adventure" dinner. It's win/win all around. The kids eat what they like out of all the (mostly) healthy options available. My daughter also made a rather good honey dijon vinaigrette from ATK's Family Cookbook.

Choices tonight:

• romaine/green leaf blend (actually, not a choice, a requirement)
• shredded carrot
• shredded purple cabbage
• lightly steamed asparagus
• sliced olives
• pickled beets
• grilled chicken breast
• hard-boiled egg
• sunflower seeds
• grated cheddar cheese

I love salad night. But, it wasn't all good eating. Well, what I mean is that it wasn't all healthy. You see, I was going to make pitas and hummus for dinner originally but after I got my pita dough going I realized that I was out of garbanzos. I decided to turn the dough into doughnuts! Yep, after a good, healthy with not-too-much-dressing salad we cranked out a double bread batch worth of those deep-fried confections.

Apparently tonight was option night because you had your choice of powdered or peanut butter glazed. The awesome part (out of all the awesomeness that we partook had partaken) was that I didn't have to make breakfast the next day. We had more than enough for the morning. Once again, winners all around. Well, that is except for our arteries. Poor fellas.

catch-up (again, sheesh)

I've been at my parents' house. My husband was traveling and now he's home for a while. (I think hope.) I actually made some yummy meals at their house, but I've been unable of doing anything but keeping my children alive and watching instant movies on Netflix in the foreign genre. Now that I'm back home and emotionally balanced by my husband-anchor, I feel like I can once again report on the evening eating.

Our first night home we had pizza. My husband's favorite food, it was a love token. I even bought pepperoni! (Well, it was turkey pepperoni, but who's splitting hairs?)

I also tried making thin crust and it was pretty successful. Normally with my pizza dough I double it and make three pizzas. This time I cut it into fourths and by rolling the dough very thin, managed four pizzas the same size as the usual three. The crust was nice and crispy and the whole family thought it was a tweak that needed to stay permanent.

Second night? Tacos. What is it about tacos? It's one of the few things that I make the same on a consistent basis. I alternate between ground beef and tofu but other than that, our tacos don't change. The special factor is that we make double deckers. (That's one good thing you get credit for, Taco Bell.) Soft tortilla "glued" to a taco shell with refried beans. They are goo-oo-od.

Tonight I made the only chili that my husband likes: Cha Cha's White Chicken Chili. You see, he is not fond of chili. I kept trying different types of chili, hoping I'd find one that he liked. Finally, one day he said, "You know, Tricia, I just don't like the taste of chili powder." That would explain the chili disdain but we didn't say this sooner because...?

Cha Cha's chili has absolutely no chili powder. It has green chilis, cumin and oregano. That's it. And did I mention its absolute tastiness? It is three-bowls full, stomach-painfully-distending delicious. But to my credit, I only had one bowl tonight, thank you.

The original recipe is from Allrecipes but I've added a few tweaks that I think improve it drastically. (Although if my husband wasn't such a spicy-baby-mouth I wouldn't decrease the spice factors at all.) They are as follows:

1. To decrease the spicy factor I skip the jalapenos but double the green chiles.
2. I omit the cayenne pepper.
3. I decrease the chicken broth to one can.
4. I increase the beans to four cans.
5. We serve it over rice with sour cream and the cheese as garnish.