Happy Pi Day!

It is Pi Day! That's pi, not pie - as in 3.14. Yes, I am a nerd.

I didn't realize it until this morning. Bummer. Apple pie sounds really good, but I made brownies yesterday. They have been calling my name. I wonder if I can pass tonight's quiche off as pie.

I am picky about my brownies. I love chocolate, but brownies and chocolate cake tend to be rather dry. I think that is why I like to middle of the brownies and can't stand the edges. The picture of these brownies definitely caught my eye. You had me at hello. (Name that movie.)

They looked so fudgy and were topped with chocolate ganache. I just had to try them. I have never made brownies from scratch and these were very simple! I used dark chocolate instead of unsweetened. Yum! I really need a kitchen scale because I guessing at the chocolate I was putting in there. (Unfortunately the pound plus bars at Trader Joe's don't seem to be divided into neat one ounce squares.)

The brownies turned out very tasty. They are dense and more fudge like, but I still stayed away from the outer edges. Yummy!!!

Back to School

On the first day of school for the past three years, I have made a pencil-shaped brownie cake. It was something I saw somewhere and thought it would be fun. Last year I almost didn't make it until Lovey said that he was excited to have it.

With two different first days this year, I wasn't sure how to pull off the pencil cake. Lovey's day was first, but I wanted Littlebit to have a cake too. I wasn't about to make two cakes. Ugh.

I decided to substitute the brownie cake with giant pencil sugar cookies. Lovey ate his on his first day and Littlebit had hers the next day. Problem solved.

Tried It

I have a soup recipe that is one of Big Daddy's favorites and one of the ingredients is kale. Now I like kale in the soup, but I haven't found another recipe I like it in. Last week I came across Elana's Pantry and she had a recipe for lemon kale chips. It sounded strange, but I did have a bunch of kale in my refrigerator that I didn't want to go to waste, so I thought I would try them. I think I need to try them again. They weren't bad, but I know they weren't right. At first they were green, but not crispy so I put them back in the oven. That is where I forgot them for a while because I had homemade fries in there too. Then some were too crispy and yellowish and some were still soft. I think I did add to much lemon juice though, so maybe that was the problem. Lovey tried one, but thought it was too lemony. I didn't love them, but I didn't hate them. I think I will have to try it again.

One recipe we did love was Individual Scallop Potatoes with Ham. This one was a definite winner. Big Daddy only had one bite, when he said I could make them again. I thought that would be the case because it is similar to the twice baked potatoes that we have at Easter and Christmas. I had never microwaved a potato before, so I think I left it in there too long because my potato was soft. I was also thinking that they might hold together like a muffin, but mine didn't. I think I would use less butter next time too. I still have three bags of ham left in the freezer, so I am sure that we will be making these again. Yum!

Yum! Yum!

For Christmas my sister-in-law gave me The Pioneer Woman's Cookbook. Love it! Thank you, thank you. Especially knowing she stood in line for a really long time to get it signed too. I've been going through it looking at all of the recipes, wondering what to try first because there are so many that sound good. Yesterday I decided on Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich and it was a hit with my family.

I'm always at a loss as to what to do with cube steak and I found one package left in the freezer and thought this would be a perfect opportunity to try this recipe. It was very fast to make and so good. I didn't use a lot of hot sauce and thankfully because the onions really absorbed that and the kids found some bites to be too hot. I also put red peppers in with the onions and melted mozzarella cheese on top. Delicious! It also made great leftovers for today.

Trying Something New - Cauliflower Soup

Often when my in-laws come to visit, they bring us their box of CSA produce. Even when they visit for a day or two. I don't know why they don't keep it for later in the week, but I'll take free produce. This was the case on Christmas. They brought the box to our house on Christmas eve and we put it in the garage where it was cold and out of the way.

Two days after Christmas we finally opened the box and found lettuce, carrots, avocados, oranges, apples, grapefruit, cauliflower and an acorn squash. Squash and cauliflower are not my favorites and usually I try to give them away or they go in my compost, but everyone had already left and  I didn't want it to go to waste.

While perusing one of my favorite blogs, I came across this post for cauliflower soup. Even though cooked vegetables make me gag, I thought I would give it a try. (The thought of cooked cauliflower made me think of when I was younger and just could not swallow the cooked cauliflower we had for dinner. Just. Could. Not. Do. It.) In my mind though the cauliflower would break down and be creamy and if all else fails I could make a PB&J sandwich.

Littlebit and Lovey wanted to help, so they put on their aprons and chef hats that I made them for Christmas and gave them a cutting board and butter knives. Lovey was quick at chopping his carrots and celery, Littlebit's celery was rather stringy and her carrots were tiny, but it all went in.

The smell was delicious as it cooked. Now it did take a little longer than the time frame on the recipe, but that could have been caused by my two helpers. The recipe also says serves six. There are four of us and two had second helpings and we could have easily had the soup for two more days. The cauliflower did not become mushy or gross and I did not gag, in fact I had two bowls. It was a little more brothy than I was expecting and quite buttery. I even added less broth than it called for, but I would still add even less.  This made a lot of soup. Too bad my little ones were more focused on their cornbread muffins.

Comfort Food

Yesterday we woke up to snow. Today it was rainy and windy. While other parts of the country are getting ready for spring, only a few days away, I'm still fixing winter, warm-you-up, comfort food.


Tonight we had beef and vegetable soup with dumplings. Soup sounded so good on a rainy, windy day. The soup bones were not as meaty as ones we have had in the past, so this was very heavy on the vegetables and the dumplings. Cornbread muffins with honey rounded out the meal. Lovey devoured four muffins! He seriously inhaled them.


The rain is supposed to continue, so tomorrow is Lazy Lasagna. I'm not a huge lasagna fan and maybe that is because I really don't care for marinara sauce (although I do like mine). I like Lazy Lasagna though because it is easy and fast to put together, costs very little, and makes two. This way I get to put one in the freezer for later. I just buy a large tub of cottage cheese at Costco, mozzarella, no boil lasagna noodles, and two jars of sauce. Okay, I make my own sauce and store it in the freezer, but if you don't it is about two jars. Put a little sauce in the bottom of the pan, layer with noodles, cottage cheese, sauce, mozzarella and repeat. I usually do two or three layers. Then either bake covered with foil at 350 for 45 minutes and then 15 minutes with the foil off or freeze to enjoy later.

Yummy recipe...

This is the first year that basil has done well at my house, so well in fact, that I have been giving it away. Finally today I made a lot of pesto with it and used some of the pesto to make Grilled Chicken Pesto Farfalle from Cooking Light Magazine September 2008. Yummy. My husband said that the sauce was good and did I get it out of a package. I glared at him and said it was from scratch. Okay so maybe that was meant to be a compliment and today was not a good dinner preparing day. He was over 2 hours late (which I knew about it advance) and I had a very defiant child and another who likes to scream while I cook. With all of this going on I burned the garlic and had to start over, but the sauce was REALLY GOOD! I highly recommend it.

Our first CSA delivery

Today was our first CSA delivery. I am so excited. We have radishes, pints of strawberries, lettuce, chives, parsley and some other things. We even got something new - garlic scapes. They gave me a recipe for garlic scape pesto. Let's try something new. Yippee. This will compliment our garden which is only producing spinach right now. I can't wait to go plan our menu for the week around our fresh local organic vegetables!