Please believe me

Tonight's dinner was a full on production. I began with a thorough search online for a way to use up some black licorice and came up with a recipe for black licorice ice cream. To tell you the truth, I'm a little skeptical, but we haven't yet come to the dessert portion of the evening - I'll keep you updated. But I haven't made ice cream for a while, and I figured that I'd give it a shot.

I got the "ice cream batter" all ready and put it in the fridge to cool. Then it was off to the gym for Thatboy and I where we lifted weights and discussed our dreams. Mine involved him traveling with Thatdad and Thatbrother instead of taking a trip with me. I woke up so angry with him! The funny thing is, his dream involved him with another woman, so he woke up feeling pretty guilty.

When we got back from the gym I put dinner in the oven and the "batter" in the ice cream maker while Thatboy heated himself up some butternut squash soup. I steamed some corn, and voila dinner was ready. By the time we were done with dinner, the ice cream was ready. Everything just came together easy peasy.

Chicken and Potato Casserole

• 2 red potatoes, sliced thinly
• 1 cooked chicken breast, shredded
• 1 can sliced water chestnuts
• 1 stalk celery, sliced
• 1 cup cheddar, shredded
• 1 cup green beans

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Spread potatoes on bottom of baking dish.
3. Spread chicken, water chestnuts, and celery on top of the potatoes.
4. Spread half of the cheddar on top, then top with green beans and the rest of the cheddar.
5. Bake 40 minutes.

Serves 2.
Each serving has:

Calories		378.8
Total Fat		11.8 g
Total Carbohydrate		45.3 g
Protein		22.8 g

I'm growing wild

I have a special place in my heart and stomach for cajun food. I love the spices, I love the flavors. One of my cajun loves is dirty rice - rice cooked with livers and spices. There are those who aren't huge liver fans, but chopped liver has always been a favorite holiday treat of mine. My mother has a recipe that one day she will pass down to me - along with her meat grinder which only makes it's appearance in order to process the livers.

Traditionally dirty rice is made by cooking the rice with the livers. I make mine separately though, so I can have leftover "clean" rice to use later in the week.

Dirty Rice

• 1 pkg chicken livers
• 1 1/2 onions, chopped
• 1 cube chicken bouillon
• 1/2 green pepper, chopped
• 2 Tbsp canola oil
• 5 oz can tomato sauce
• 1 Tablespoon salsa
• 1/2 cup uncooked rice
• 1/3 cup flour

1. Place livers, bouillon, and 1/2 onion in saucepan and cover with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for an hour.
3. During the last 20 minutes, prepare the rice. Heat canola oil and cook remaining onion and the bell pepper until onions are translucent.
4. Add tomato suace, salsa, rice, and 5 oz of water. Bring to a boil.
5. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook 18 minutes.
6. Combine flour and 1/4 cup water and stir together. When livers are done cooking, add the flour mixture and stir. Cook on medium heat for 2 minutes, or until sauce thickens.
7. Combine livers and rice.

Serves 4.
Each serving has:

Calories		194.1
Total Fat		7.8 g
Cholesterol		27.6 mg
Sodium		256.4 mg
Potassium		262.3 mg
Total Carbohydrate		26.7 g
Protein		4.7 g

That will do for sometime

As I was making dinner tonight, it struck me that although I have posted mashed potatoes on this blog before, I've never actually posted a recipe. The only reason I feel like this is important is because up until about two years ago, I honestly thought mashed potatoes were made by adding milk to potato flakes.

Okay. Maybe that's not true. I'm sure I knew they could be made from real potatoes, but we didn't really have mashed potatoes growing up. We were more baked potato kind of people. Or roasted potatoes - which we called "french fries."

This entry is was also inspired by something else I learned how to make in the past few years diet soda cake. Have you made one of these yet? Basically you sub diet soda for any oil/water in a boxed cake mix and you end up with a moister, more figure friendly cake. But the magical properties of diet soda don't end there. It's also fantastic as a marinade! And it's one of the only ways Thatboy will let me use diet soda. He has a hatred for the stuff. And in general, it's not a problem, because we don't have soda in the house on a regular basis, and artificial sweeteners have been on my "avoid" list for years now. But we always have some left over from parties, and this is a great way to use it up.

And speaking of getting Thatboy to ingest something he doesn't love... tonight I learned a very important lession. Adding sour cream to peas is not a great way to get Thatboy to eat his veggies. He was not a fan. Although he loved the addition of hardboiled egg, he said he would prefer them without the addition of sour cream. I wrote that down in my extra creepy "everything Thatboy likes" diary so I'll remember in the future. I really have difficulty explaining the black eyes. There's only so many times you can "run into a door."

Diet Soda Chicken
1 whole chicken, cut into eight pieces, with skin removed
1 can of diet soda (I used diet sunkist)
1/4 cup soy sauce
Preheat oven to 325. Place chicken on a foiled lined baking pan. Season with salt and pepper.
Combine soda and soy sauce. Pour over chicken.
Bake for one hour.

Serves 4.
Each serving has:

Calories		234.5
Total Fat		4.4 g
Total Carbohydrate		1.2 g
Protein		44.6 g

Basic Mashed Potatoes
3 redskin potatoes
1/4 cup milk
2 Tbsp butter
Peel potatoes and cut into quarters. Place potatoes in a large saucepan and cover with water. Cover and cook over medium heat for 20 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.
Place potatoes in kitchen aid with milk and 1 Tbsp butter and beat until desired consistency is reached.
Add 1 Tbsp butter, and season with salt and pepper.

Serves 2.
Each serving has:

Calories		308.9
Total Fat		11.8 g
	Saturated Fat	7.3 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	0.5 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	3.3 g
Cholesterol		31.7 mg
Sodium		32.8 mg
Potassium		1,128.1 mg
Total Carbohydrate		46.0 g
	Dietary Fiber	5.6 g
	Sugars	2.0 g
Protein		6.3 g

Baby it's getting late

Yesterday I promised you vegetarian meatloaf and I intend to deliver on my promise, with interest. A vegetarian meal so good you won't even realize you're missing meat.

Let's start with the main event. I have a little confession here - this recipe is one I had saved to my computer, and I have no idea who it came from. So if this looks familiar, let me know so I can give you credit! I remember saving this recipe into my "Word" file because it said something like "your friends won't even know there's no meat in it!" I saved it because I have a number of vegetarian friends - some year round, and some just during Lent. I like having a dish I can make for mixed company other than my butternut squash lasagna (which gets my friend S through Lent every year). I decided to give this one a chance. My review? This is a good entree, but there's no way anyone would mistake this for meat. Thatboy kept telling me it smelled like banana bread (but we all know he's nuts). It does taste like a really really hearty loaf of thick bread. It went over really well.

Next came the sides - steamed spinach with lemon juice, butter, salt, and pepper. This is Thatboy's favorite way I make spinach. He claims to not like spinach, but he LOVES it when I make it this way.

And vegetarian baked beans. Start with the can of baked beans, add brown sugar, chopped onions, ketchup, and mustard and you're good to go. Thatboy was SO excited when he saw the beans on the stove. It's the first time I've made them and I had no idea they were one of his favorite things ever. Between the loaf, the spinach, and the beans he couldn't have been a happier camper.

Vegetarian "Meatloaf"

• 2 cups fresh breadcrumbs
• 1 cup walnuts, ground
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• 1 tsp parsley
• 1 tsp sage

1. Preheat oven to 350. Thoroughly mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl.
2. Spray loaf pan with nonstick spray. Pour mixture into dish.
3. Bake 1 1/2 hours. Remove from oven and let cool till it can be removed easily onto plate.

Serves 2.
Each serving has:

Calories		549.7
Total Fat		34.9 g
Cholesterol		213.7 mg
Sodium		335.7 mg
Potassium		555.9 mg
Total Carbohydrate		44.6 g
Protein		20.2 g

Komm zu mir

I know I know I know. Where have I been? Well the truth is - I've been out of town. September started our traveling and now we have a trip every couple of weeks or so. We got back in last night and it's been almost a full week since I've cooked last. I mean, sure, I could have cooked last night - but there was this restaurant I've been dying to try and it's on the way back from the airport....so we stopped there instead. And I'm already looking forward to bringing friends back to the place - always a good sign.

Of course the beauty of my profession is that there's no such thing as a vacation, which means I bring piles of work with me and still have mountains to do when I get home. So I got home especially late from work tonight and my plan of creating a vegetarian meatloaf was dashed to bits. Stay tuned for that tomorrow since it's in the oven right now so Thatboy can actually eat dinner tomorrow at a normal person's hour. Instead I came home and decided we'd have to do pasta since neither of us had eaten and it was too late for anything else.

I decided that at least I could make a homemade sauce while the pasta cooked, and since we'd been doing a lot of marinara lately I thought I'd throw together some pesto. Normally I use parsley in my pesto - but since I wasn't home last week to go shopping, and I wasn't expecting to make pesto, we had no parsley. We did however have spinach - which works just as well.

I like to think of myself as a good neighbor, which means I don't like using my loud appliances late at night. So instead of using my food processor, I just mixed the ingredients together. It creates a very chunky pesto, but it's still garlicy and delicious. Just remember to take something if you're a heartburn sufferer.

Spinach Pesto

• 1/2 cup spinach, finely chopped
• 1 Tbsp basil, finely chopped
• 1/2 tsp salt
• dash of pepper
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
  
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated parmesean
• 1 Tbsp boiling pasta water
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1/4 cup pinenuts, finely chopped

1. Combine all ingredients in small bowl and stir with a fork until combined.

Serves 3.
Each serving has:

Calories		353.6
Total Fat		35.3 g
	Saturated Fat	8.8 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	6.8 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	18.0 g
Cholesterol		23.5 mg
Sodium		703.3 mg
Potassium		134.8 mg
Total Carbohydrate		3.7 g
	Dietary Fiber	0.6 g
	Sugars	0.5 g
Protein		8.9 g