March 13, 2013
I’m not sure if I have told y’all or not, but I’m in charge of a tea.
Okay, I’m not in charge of the whole thing, just the food. If you follow me on Pinterest you may have seen my Tea Party board.
The group I sing with, Top of the Rock Chorus, is having a fundraiser tea.
This morning I tested out two recipes–scones and clotted cream.
Oooo-la-la!
I wanted to eat the whole batch!
Today I only have pictures for you. I’ll have a GRAND post after the tea is over and done with.
March 8, 2013
We recently had some of our good friends over for dinner. Since the last time they were at our house, Joanna has discovered that she needs to stay away from gluten.
Well, that ruled out all the stand-by “company’s coming” recipes. This was going to be an adventure for sure.
You may have seen me begging for ideas on the Pork Chop Tuesday Facebook page. Thank you for your suggestions!
I really thought about a Mexican dish of some sort. I ended up going with Chicken Curry.
(I probably should have stuck with the Mexican food. My family loves Chicken Curry. I guess it was kinda risky to spring an exotic flavor like curry on guests.)
Chicken Curry
(This is my Mom’s recipe. I don’t know where she got it.)
2 Tbsp. butter
1 ½ cups apple, finely chopped
½ cup onion, chopped
½ cup celery, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. flour (use corn starch for gluten-free)
2 ½ tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. salt
1 ½ cups chicken broth
1 small can tomato paste
2 cups chicken
Melt butter; add apple, onion, celery and garlic. Cook 5 minutes. Stir in flour (or corn starch), curry powder and salt. Slowly stir in chicken broth and tomato paste. Cook and stir until thick. Add chicken and heat thoroughly. Serve over rice.
Top with your choice of condiments:
Raisins
Shredded coconut
Chopped boiled egg
Crushed pineapple
Crumbled bacon
Chopped peanuts
Mango Chutney (Ok, I don’t ever use the chutney. Mom loves it. Since it is her recipe I felt like I had to put it in there.)
The condiments are really the best part. I remember when Mom would fix curry when I was a kid. I loved being in control of the “extras” that went on my plate.
Plus, they look pretty. I used a plastic tray I had saved that came with veggies and dip one time. I sat it on top of a gold charger on top of a Lazy Susan. The fake flower ended up in the middle rather than the chutney.
The kids had their own set of condiments. They got to use this cute little set Mom got me for my birthday last year. I love the tiny spoons! The kids ate at the coffee table and sat on the couch cushions.
Here is the curry without any “extras”.
Whew! We made it through the main course gluten-free!
Dessert was a different animal altogether.
As I scoured the internet for GF recipes, everything called for specialty flours. I priced some at the health food store a while back. They are very expensive!
I didn’t have time or money to make a trip to the big city health food store. I had to find something that would work. By work I mean that I could buy ingredients in town they didn’t cost an arm and a leg!
I came across a recipe for Fudge Mountain Cake. Her cake was beautiful! Could it really taste good without flour?
Here is what mine looked like.
Her recipe says that she actually made a double recipe and used milk chocolate in between the layers.
I opted for the single recipe with some of the ganache between layers. If I make this again, I will make a double recipe. The cakes rose up nice and tall in the oven. As they cooled, they shrank down and got compact.
Baking without flour is a little different from baking with flour.
My cakes fell apart. I had to “glue” them back together best I could.
The cake was very dense and rich.
The original post had fancy chocolate curls on top. I went with the whipped coconut milk. I had never had whipped coconut milk. I had pinned a recipe/how-to on Pinterest not too long ago.
That part was really easy. I just stuck a can of coconut milk in the refrigerator overnight. When I opened it up, I had whipped coconut milk. No shaking, stirring or mixing. You can add a little sweetener or even chocolate if you like. We went plain.
I was glad I added a strawberry along side of the cake. I really added it for looks. The strawberry actually helped to cut some of the richness of the cake.
Ok, the single piece of cake looks a little better than the whole thing. We will end with that.
I didn’t have the Critics review the Chicken Curry. They have eaten that numerous times and love it every time.
Here’s what they had to say about the cake though.
Critics’ Corner
Chip: Apparently flour just holds cake back. This was one of the best cakes I’ve ever had.
Megan: Moist, rich, and c’mon: it’s chocolate cake.
Katie: Chocolate cake is a splendid treat for all ages. This cake sky-rocketed to the top of my cake list!
March 1, 2013
February 28, 2013
As you know, I have been trying to cut calories lately. That means a lot of my “go-to” recipes are out the window, at least for now.
I hit good old Pinterest to find some low-cal options. I found a few to try.
I really have been cooking lately. I just have not quite been in “blogger” mode.
Quite frankly, it has made dinner a little easier. Stopping to take photos at every step does kinda slow you down.
So, here are some of the recipes we have tried recently with only a screen shot of the recipe from my Pinterest page!
Please visit the links provided under the picture to see the original post by the original blogger. You might consider following me on Pinterest, too!
Cheesy Vegetable Chowder from Lulu the Baker
I liked this recipe. It was cheesy enough to be yummy, yet I felt like I was eating a healthy meal.
Serves 8
219 calories per serving
Critics’ Corner
Chip: I don’t normally like veggies in my cheese, but this time I’ll make and exception. Very good.
Megan: It was much thinner than I expected, but that turned out to be a good thing. I don’t normally like cheese in my veggies, but this time I’ll make an exception. (silly girl!)
Katie: It was really, really, really, really, really, really, really, good, good, GOOD!
Baked Chicken Parmesan from Gina’s Skinny Recipes
Holy Cannoli, Batman! This was yummy! I needed to put a little more sauce between my pasta and my chicken. That’s an easy fix. This one is a keeper!
Serves 8
216 calories per serving-doesn’t include pasta
Critics’ Corner
Chip: Molto bueno (or however Italians say “That was crazy tasty”!)
Megan: Like pizza on a chicken breast.
Katie: I love me some chicken parmeeseean! : )
Mexican Shredded Beef form Skinny Ms.
This was very yummy! You can see by my Pinterest comment that I didn’t quite follow the directions. I’ll have to try it again the right way. There was a lot of juice, which made for yummy meat. It also made for drippy dinner.
Serves 6 (at least when I used the leftovers)
152 calories per serving-meat only
Critics’ Corner
Chip: Additional Mexican food recipes can only be a good thing.
Megan: This may be the only time something was too messy. The juice dripped all over my plate (and even on me) and reminded me of Chico’s Tacos.
Katie: I found it rather dee-lish-ee-ous!
February 18, 2013
What a great day we all had on Valentine’s Day!
It seemed to be a day full of FOOD! Yes, I know a muffin doesn’t actually mean “I love you.” My diet has not completely gone to my head!
(By the way, I managed to make it through the day without gaining any weight!
I’m now down 12 pounds! Woo Hoo!)
I didn’t really plan to take pictures of breakfast. Since it was an after-thought, there are bites missing.
We started the day with a toad-in-the-hole. The hole was heart-shaped!
For those of you who may not know what a toad-in-the-hole is, here is what you do:
Cut out a hole from the center of the slice of bread.
Throw a pat of butter into a hot skillet. Add the “holy” bread and the cut out part.
Crack an egg into the hole. Let it set up nicely.
Add more butter and flip to toast on the other side. Finish toasting the toast and cooking the egg.
You can toast then flip and add the egg for a sunny side up egg. My family likes it the other way. They really like the little cut out toasty part, especially with strawberry jam!
I passed out little donuts and tried to say “Do you not know I love you a whole bunch.” Inspiration came from this cute idea. It came out all garbled and strange. Everyone got a big kick out of that!
On to packing the kid’s lunches.
I have been going to do this for a long time. When I cleaned out the craft closet I came across my supplies and MADE myself remember to do it!
These little boxes came with stoneware cookie molds in them from Pampered Chef, like these. I saved them all these years to make them into pizza boxes! I just used some double-stick tape to attach a piece of cellophane over the opening.
I made cheese pizza from good old Pillsbury Pizza Crust. We usually make homemade crust. This was not the day for that.
Don’t you like my corny little Valentine saying?
The girls LOVED their pizza surprise. They usually take PB&Js to school. Pizza is king in the teen/pre-teen world. Score!
Not only did they have cute pizza boxes in their lunches, but they also had cute cookies!
I got the idea for these here on Pinterest one day. Why have I never done this before?!
This is what I took to my hubby for his Valentine treat:
A cellophane bag filled with store-bought mini muffins. Yes, it was another Pinterest inspiration! There are a lot of creative people out there! I did make my own tag though!
Dinner was our traditional steak and potato meal.
The girls took charge of the table this year.
White tablecloth, pink tea light candles, red sequins.
It just wouldn’t be our Valentine dinner without tomato roses. I usually use Roma tomatoes. Walmart was out of them when I went shopping. I think the slicers actually made a better rose!
I got some lovely REAL roses from my Valentine! They looked great on the table, too!
Let me just say, the fancy dessert we had this year was to die for!
Barefoot Contessa’s Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp.
Oh, my lands! I can not even begin to tell you how yummy this was!
I have seen Ina make this before on her program. I had never had rhubarb before this Valentine’s night. You can read all that Wikipedia has to say about rhubarb here.
I had no idea what I was going to make for our fancy dessert. I was at the health food store with some friends last week when I saw the rhubarb. I recalled seeing the recipe on tv. I bought 5 stalks. Just a hint: unless you are really into organic food, don’t buy rhubarb at the health food store. The tag was missing from the produce section. I only was buying 5 stalks, how expensive could it be? $6.27! I almost didn’t get it. I knew my time to track down more was scare, so I bought it anyway. I’m really glad I did though!
Just look at that fruit! The smell was amazing! This is the strawberries, rhubarb, sugar, orange zest, and orange juice mixed with corn starch.
There was so much crumble topping! Oats, sugar and butter=heaven!
There were lots of oohs and ahs when it came out of the oven.
I borrowed the fancy glasses from my Mom.
The “Critics” are off at school today. If I remember, I’ll add their comments later. They did fuss at me for once again putting a vegetable in dessert. Hey, the Beet Cake was good, too!
February 13, 2013
Oh, yeah! I made ‘em!
Okay, this information is actually from LAST Valentine’s Day, but it never got posted.
As soon as I saw this tutorial for Bacon Roses, I knew I would have to make them for my sweetie!
The tutorial is great!
Now, as I said, I made these last year, so the details are a little fuzzy.
I do wish I had made more!
I did not drill a hole in my muffin pan like the link suggests. Seems like I just rolled up the bacon slices and put them in my mini muffin pan. I may have stuck a toothpick through them.
I made them on Valentine’s morning–if that lets you know how easy they were.
They were a HUGE hit!
My quartet helped me deliver my treat along with a song!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Click here to see more of our family’s Valentine craziness.
What are you cookin’ up for your Valentine?
January 30, 2013
I didn’t know if you knew it or not, but the Chinese New Year is coming up on February 10. This year will be the year of the snake. To learn more about this holiday click here.
With that in mind, I wanted to share a birthday party we had several years ago, like 9. This was looong before my blogging days. There are several pictures I wish we had taken. Oh, well.
Let me show you the inspiration for this party to begin with.
Precious, I know!
My mom had bought these adorable outfits for the girls. They wanted to wear them all the time! Megan’s birthday was coming up, so the outfit was the inspiration.
Couldn’t you just eat them up!
We made these little hats for all the girls at the party. That was one of the pictures we didn’t get.
We also did not get a picture of the cute little kimono invitations we sent out. We ordered them from Oriental Trading Co. They don’t even carry them any more.
I loved this party! We put it all together on such a shoestring budget.
These cherry blossoms were made from a stick from the yard and some pink tissue paper from the gift wrapping closet. All we did was cut out square stacks of tissue. Then we folded each square three times into a cone shape. Then we used scissors to round off the end. I used a pencil to help glue it to the branch with tacky glue.
Homemade construction paper lanterns, along with a few store-bought lanterns, hung form a piece of scavenged bamboo in the garage. I wish I could relay the hysterical laughter and giddiness Mom and I experienced gathering this bamboo from a strangers yard and hauling it home in the trunk of the car!
We had some crafts and games of course.
One craft was to make a paper lantern of their own.
This was very easy. Fold the paper in half “hotdog” style. Cut slits in the paper about 1/2 to 1 inch away form the edge. Open it up. Wrap it around. Staple it. Add a handle. The girls stamped their lanterns with some Chinese letters before assembling them.
The other craft was kinda hard. That is probably why we have not pictures. It took all hands on deck. We made folded paper dragons. They were cute. We decorated the heads with sequins and such. Then attached them to a bamboo skewer like a little puppet. Sorry there isn’t a picture. To tell you the truth, the memory of it isn’t real clear either.
Pin-the-tale-on-the-monkey was one of the games. Seems like when there is a birthday party, you HAVE to pin-the-something-on-the-something. It was the year of the monkey that year, so it made sense to use a monkey.
Then we had the cotton ball pick up game. Pick up the cotton balls with the chopsticks and put them in the take-out carton. Have teams race against each other.
Not everyone played by the rules.
The last game we played was catch the dragon.
Chip made a great dragon head out of construction paper.
Someone wears the dragon head. Naturally, this was the birthday girl. Everyone files in behind her and holds on at the waist.
We stapled black and red crepe paper streamers around the kids’ wrists for extra effect.
The dragon runs around to try to catch the person at the end of the line. Then the next kid goes.
After the dragon game, we headed in for refreshments and gifts.
More lanterns covered the lights in the kitchen. These large ones were made out of red poster board.
Snacks were goldfish crackers, mandarin oranges, chow mein noodles and “green tea” with paper umbrellas(green kool-aid).
Then came the fortune cookie birthday cake, homemade, of course.
Bamboo skewers held the “Happy Birthday, Megan” fortune. No, it did NOT catch on fire!
Each girl went home with a take out box filled with folding fans, chopsticks, fortune cookies, fish-shaped water toys, kimono stickers, more paper umbrellas, and maybe some other things I can’t remember. They also took home their lanterns and dragon puppets.
What a fun time for so little money!
Happy Chinese New Year! (But not until the 10th)
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 | Dianne on Tea Party Desserts |
 | Tea Party Desserts |… on Luscious Lemon Angel Roll |
| CC on Scones with Clotted Cream and… |
| Dianne on Scones with Clotted Cream and… |
