Recipe #13: Applesauce

There is nothing so wonderful as eating a warm bowl of homemade applesauce-- Especially in the fall! I think it epitomizes the crisp fall air and the feeling you get when you get to pull out your warm sweater for the first time. BUT, currently it feels nothing like that! Bummer, I love fall.
I had a couple of left over apples though so I decided to use them to make some apple sauce/puree for Alex. So it technically is being used as a baby food, but I am going to go ahead and write the recipe anyways, because I did enjoy several delicious bites!

You need:
12 apples, cored and sliced into thin pieces. I use Fuji because they are so sweet and they are the best. I think we will be eating fuji apples in heaven! :)
1/4 cup water, and more to add as you cook.

(For Baby Food: I used probably 5 apples and ended up adding quite a bit of water, I would say maybe like 2 and 1/2 cups to keep it from burning in the pot.)

Add the apples and water to the pot. (I used a medium sized sauce pan because I was not doing as much.)
Boil the apples until done. It will take probably at least an hour. Stir occasionally. Add water as needed to make sure it doesn't stick to the sides or burn. You can decide how chunky or smooth you want your apple sauce to be!
(For Baby Food you can also go a step further and puree the apple sauce to make sure no big chunks are left)

The end result: wonderful, warm, sweet apple sauce (no sugar is needed)! Can you see the steam rising from this deliciousness?

Recipe #12: Tom Ka and Laab

Yesterday was a long, tiring day. As we thought about what to eat for dinner, Will and I turned to our comfort food...Thai! :) The smell of Tom Ka can turn my terrible day around! Best of all it is easy...because we cheat! Head out to your nearest asian food store and look for these seasoning packets.

Tom Ka (pronounced Dom Ka) is a coconut soup and Laab (pronounced Laap) is a spicy meat. Delicious. If you have never had it, and live in or near Columbia be sure to try some at Thailand on St. Andrews. It is the crazy colored restaurant! :)

Anyways, for the Tom Ka you need:

Two packets

3 cans of coconut milk

some chicken, cut into thin strips

lemon juice, just a bit

you can also get some other veggies like mushrooms etc, but we don't always put that in.

This is Will's job-- the directions are on the packet, but basically add water and boil, add chicken until cooked.

In the meantime, heat the Tom Ka packet in some hot water. 

Once the chicken is cooked add the coconut milk and then the Tom Ka packets and a bit of lemon juice. Enjoy the smell and the taste!

On to the Laab...my job. 

You need:

One Laab packet

1lb ground meat, we normally use ground turkey because that is what I buy, but we have done it with beef or pork too. 

Cook the ground turkey, add a 1/4 cup water while cooking. Add the packet, mix it up and you are done! 

More deliciousness!

While you are cooking these things you need to cook up some rice, Jasmine is good. We buy sweet, sticky rice and it is delicious. Put some in your Tom Ka and then eat the rest with the Laab!

Instantly bad day worries disappear and life seem so much better!

Recipe #11: Breakfast sandwich

I love breakfast, especially a hearty one. I could eat eggs every day! So, instead of going to McDonalds or some other place where you eat a breakfast sandwich that is completely processed and huge and too high calorie...make your own! :)

You will need...
2 eggs
cheese
breakfast meat--sausage or bacon. sometimes i even just use a slice of cold cuts
bread--toast, mini bagel, english muffin or a torilla

Scramble the eggs. Often I use one whole egg plus one egg whites. Add some grated cheese to the eggs before you scramble them for delicious cheesiness!
Prepare the breakfast meat and bread.
Put it all together! :)

So difficult I know. If I am short on time I often just put what ever cold cut meat we have around so I can cut out a step. The best part is you know exactly what goes in! Literally it takes 8 minutes...or less.
Tastes extra delicious with a cup of coffee!

Side Dish #1: Hockey sticks and pucks!

Periodically I will have a 'side dish' to highlight a fun craft or to share a great book I read. Just because. I want to.

Anyways, several months ago I was at Joanns and found a fun little remnant of fabric that had hockey sticks and pucks all over it! So I had to buy it because my brother-in-law, Eric, is an avid hockey fan. I really had no idea what I wanted to do with it, just that I had to make something from it.

Let's back track a bit, I love experimenting with a variety of crafts, sewing was one that I had done a while back, but in the last two or three years my sewing machine had collected dust because I didn't know what to do. Enter babies, and a whole new world of sewing projects opened up to me! My Spring break was filled with crafting toys and ties for babies.

Okay, back to the hockey themed fabric. I had some fun making some stuffed toys for the babies (besides my son I have two nieces who are all born within two months of each other!) then it hit me. Lizzie needed an early start in her hockey skills, so why not make her a stuffed puck and sticks so she could get some practice in with dad without her mom worrying about the damage she could do to her surroundings! And that is what I did this morning! (Can I say again how much I love summer vacation!) It was a fun, quick little project. Guaranteed, the hockey sticks don't look exactly like real ones, but at least Lizzie will be familiar with how to hold a hockey stick and how to hit a puck so that when she gets to hold a real one she will make her daddy proud! :)

Recipe #10: Will's Iced Tea

We live in the part of the country where people wave as they walk by because it is the nice thing to do, where ya'll is the way we made do with not have a plural form of you, where we close schools at the thought of snow because it is so foreign, and where the water we drink is actually tea. Tea, down in the south, the waiters don't ask if you want it sweet because that is the only way it is made.

But on that note... Sweet Tea needs to maintain it's tea form, not syrup which to me it often tastes. Fortunately I married a man who makes WONDERFUL tea. I don't touch the tea in this house, that is Will's domain and he does a fabulous job.

He starts with a mug of water and heats it up.
Then he adds 2 Lipton family size tea bags and lets it seep for at least 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes (or sometimes longer!) he pours the tea into a gallon size pitcher and adds 1 cup sugar.
Stir that up so the sugar dissolves, Then fill with water.
Chill and enjoy!

So, for those of you who don't live in the wonderful south (or those who are leaving--Eric and Mary!) you can now enjoy a wonderful taste of the south in your glass any time!

Bread, Bread, Bread.

There is this bakery in Japan that makes the most delicious bread. It has these little cubes of cheese baked in at the top which makes it so divine! Well, i decided that I wanted to experiment and see if I could replicate that!

So I pulled out the last of the boule dough I had from the recipe found here. Then I cut up little cubes of mozzarella and stuffed them in the top of the loaf just before putting it in the oven.

Out came, not quite what I expected, but such deliciousness, I had to resist eating the whole thing! :) I knew Will would want some too. :P
This is what deliciousness looks like! The cheese had bubbled over and you could taste it in every bite!

Then I needed to mix up a new batch of bread dough. I did one full batch of the plain boule bread, but did a half batch of herb boule...it is very easy. At the very start the recipe (found here), when you are adding the yeast to the water mix in some herbs too! I did a tsp of dired thyme, and a tsp of fresh rosemary. In the future, I would add more because I don't feel like the taste of either came out enough, but it was still delicious and a nice part of our Italian meal! :)

Recipes #8 and #9: Spaghetti Sauce and Caprese Salad

Well, my husband is doing the dishes and my son is in bed, and I finally get to put my feet up...and write my post! Today was a great day in my kitchen. Lots of fun! When Will and I were deciding what we should eat tonight, we knew it had to involve one thing...bread! (another post on that coming soon!) So I decided to make another Plunkett favorite...Spaghetti!
 
You need:
carrots, just a couple
onion, one
olive oil, a drizzle
stewed tomatoes, one or two cans
tomato sauce, equal parts to the stewed tomatoes
basil, to taste
oregano, again whatever you like
salt, a pinch or two

I didn't have all of that so I substituted crushed and diced tomatoes for the stewed tomatoes and tomato paste for the tomato sauce... I actually think it helped it cook faster because it was already thick and small pieces. anyways, you could also use roma tomatoes instead of the stewed, i just didn't have enough.

• grate up carrots and dice onions, saute with the olive oil until soft.
• add tomatoes and sauce and let simmer
• add basil, oregano, and salt. I added rosemary too, both the rosemary and basil were from my garden! :)
• Simmer over low heat until the tomatoes cook down and thicken stirring occasionally.
• it may take 2-3 hours depending on what you use, but if you use a short cut like I did it won't take that long! 

The noodle were special--straight from Italy, thanks to a friend. I was just waiting for a fun occasion to use them!



Along with the spaghetti we had some herb bread and caprese salad, another italian favorite, taking several things I love and putting them together!
Caprese Salad:
Mozzarella, go for the good stuff, not the low fat stuff...
roma tomatoes
basil, fresh is best
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

I like to cut up the mozzarella and tomatoes into small chucks. then i added some fresh basil that my boys went outside to pick for me, only moments before I made the salad! :) drizzle the olive oil on top and mix together. Fresh and delicious!