Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

I know it's not the most photogenic food ever, but some of the best stuff just isn't, you know?

I've been craving biscuits and gravy for a while now.  It's not something we eat on a regular basis, for fairly obvious reasons.  I think we'll have it maybe once or twice a year.  Oh, but those days are very happy days for me!  I've always liked biscuits and gravy, ever since I was a kid. When we were very poor, my mom would buy those super cheap tubes of biscuits that were about a dollar and make gravy from shortening, flour, and soy sauce.  You heard me right - SOY SAUCE.  Bless her soul, the woman is not ever going to be on Master Chef, that's for certain.  Of course, we were kids and it was all we knew, so at the time we thought it was pretty good.

When I was a senior in high school, I lived with my best friend and her mom.  Now, her mom could throw down in the kitchen.  She made the absolute best sausage gravy I had ever tried.  Finally one day it occurred to me to ask her how she made it, and I've been making it the same way for the past twenty years.  It's really good, simple comfort food.  Don't let the "hot" sausage scare you.  I can't even eat salsa and this isn't particularly spicy to me. My kids ate it too.  The hot variety just adds a little more flavor to the finished gravy.

Sausage Gravy

1 lb Hot Jimmy Dean sausage
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp (about 75grams) All Purpose flour
3 cups milk (I use 1% or 2%, never skim)
salt and pepper to taste

Crumble and brown the sausage in a large skillet.  Once it's browned, evenly sprinkle the flour over the top.  Stir it into the sausage and cook for two minutes, stirring constantly.  Add the milk.  Bring to a boil, stirring frequently and making sure to scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Boil one minute, then reduce heat to a simmer.  Cook until desired consistency.  Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.  Serve over your favorite biscuits.

Not gonna lie - I just make Pillsbury Grands. If you pop them into the oven right before you start to brown the sausage, it will all be done at about the same time.

Summer Macaroni Salad

I know, I know.  The calendar says it's fall.  Unfortunately, I live in the land of perpetual summer.  We're still having 90 degree days over here, folks.  It's gross.

Making me feel better?  This macaroni salad recipe I found on Pinterest last week.

Now, usually I loathe macaroni salad.  Mushy pasta covered in a goopy mayo/mustard mixture with mystery flecks of color added for good measure.  YUCK.

But this?  Let's just say I made it for the second time in less than a week tonight and we all had second helpings.  Even me.

The original recipe can be found here.  I left out the dijon mustard because MUSTARD.  Ew.  I reduced the sugar to 1 tablespoon because I don't like savory dishes to be overly sweet. Using sweet peas instead of plain petite peas made it plenty sweet if you ask me. I also omitted the olive oil, but not on purpose.  I merely forgot it the first time I made this and found it didn't really need it.  Why not save a few calories, especially since this does contain mayonnaise?  I just put all the ingredients for the dressing in the measuring cup that came in my immersion blender and processed them like that.  Made for a really easy clean up, as opposed to using a food processor (which I don't own anyway) as the instructions say.

Seriously though.  Try it.  It's FANTASTIC!

December 2012 in Photos

Not a whole lot of blogging happening here in December.  I think this may be one of my worst blogging months on record!  Here's most of December documented in photos:

We saw Santa and kept our No Crying Children streak alive.

We sent out Christmas cards.

We got ready for the Mayan Apocalypse.

We painted a keepsake plate at one of those pottery painting places.

I scored some sweet Pyrex.

We read Christmas and Hanukkah books by the light of the Christmas tree.

I finally got cold and busted out a hoodie from college.  That thing had not seen the light of day for probably eight years or so!

I started physical therapy and seeing a nutritionist.  One week into the new diet and I'm not only down 5 1/2 pounds, but my wedding ring (that hasn't fit in almost two years) fits again.

New pjs were procured.

Santa came!

We attended Mass for the first time since the baby was born and she slept through most of it.

I made Christmas dinner and served it all in vintage Pyrex.  Realized I needed a Butterfly Gold 043.

I baked a birthday cake for Jesus and Bubba decorated it.  Kelly was into it... literally.

And finally -

Little Miss turned six months old today!

Hopefully you all had a great December!  I hope to get back to regular posting in the New Year.

Thanksgiving 2012

One of the worst part of not having any family living near us is holidays.  We haven't exactly been able to afford to buy plane tickets for every holiday that has rolled around for the past 12 years, which means we're on our own for a lot of these special occasions.  Sometimes a friend will invite us over to spend the holiday with them, and a couple of times family has been able to come here or we've been able to fly to Seattle, which is fun.  However, there do end up being years where it's just us.  

Now, I like to do what my husband calls "event cooking."  The thing is that it just seems like such a huge waste of effort to make a huge dinner just for us.  A whole turkey for just two people?  That's crazy!  Even after Bubba was born it didn't seem worth it, because the boy just doesn't eat very much, and he sure as heck doesn't eat most Thanksgiving foods.  It's still pretty much just my husband and me eating dinner so it never seems worth it.  We usually end up hemming and hawing all day trying to decide what to eat and then end up grabbing whatever we can find.

Last year, our Thanksgiving dinner came from Jack in the Box.  It was sad.  It made me sad.  I decided we wouldn't do that again.  Last weekend I took advantage of a sale at a local store that scored us a free turkey with a $30 purchase.  I picked up some stuff to prepare sides and dessert.  A sure sign that I was meant to make this meal?  

I found an old Pyrex pie plate at the Goodwill Saturday morning.  The mark on the bottom says Patented PYREX May 27, 1919.  From what I can gather, that mark was used from 1919 to 1924, and the 209 (my plate's model number) was introduced in 1920.  It retailed for 90 cents.  :)  That makes this not quite as old as my 193 oval casserole without the date on it's stamp, but still pretty darn old!

I made pies last night.  The boy got his first lesson in how to properly flute a pie crust.

Today I roasted our turkey.  It's been a while, but I've still got it!  One day I'll get a grown up roasting pan.

I busted out the good dishes.  I love my vintage ironstone.

One day, I'll have autumnish napkins too.  :)

We all sat down and had a feast!  Everything came out so good and I'm really glad I did it.

(Let's add "gravy boat" to that "one day" list.  Thank heavens for cream pitchers!)

After we let our dinner settle a bit, we tucked into that pumpkin pie for dessert.  I actually made two.  This is the second one made in my Flamingo Pink Pyrex pie plate. The boy did a decent job on that crust, huh?

Homemade Gnocchi with Browned Butter, Pine Nuts & Spinach

I made this for dinner last week because I was feeling all housewifey and domestic and it left me in the mood to do some fancy work in the kitchen.  Of course, if you find that you're not in the mood to do fancy work in the kitchen you can skip the homemade gnocchi part and just substitute a couple of those vacuum sealed bags of ready made gnocchi from the grocery store.  Those are good too!

First task - make the gnocchi.  You'll need:

2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled and boiled until fork tender
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups (188g) all purpose flour
generous pinch of salt

Directions:
1.  Pass boiled potatoes through a potato ricer.  This ensures uniform potatoes with no lumps.
2.  Add remaining ingredients to the potatoes.  Knead with your hands just until dough is combined and forms a ball that will mostly clean the sides of the bowl.
3.  Working with a small piece at a time on a lightly floured surface, gently roll dough out into thin ropes the width of your pinky finger.  Cut ropes into three quarter inch pieces.  Using the tines of a fork, flatten each piece of dough.  Gently pick up the dough, fold it in half lengthwise so the ridges are on the outside, and gently squeeze the ends toward the center so the ridges are up against each other.  Lay each gnocchi on a wax paper or parchment lined baking sheet to rest while you prepare the rest.

(I know that sounds tedious, but once you get the hang of it and into a rhythm it goes pretty fast)

To cook:

Set a large pot of water to boil.  Once it comes to a boil, add 1/4 cup salt.  Working in batches (I ended up doing three) add gnocchi to the boiling water.  Once the gnocchi floats to the surface, allow to cook for one minute more, then remove using a slotted spoon or a spider to another lined baking sheet to cool.

You're going to want to have these all cooked before moving onto the next step.  If you're using the packaged gnocchi, cook it according to package directions before starting the next step.

 Sauce ingredients:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons pine nuts
5 cloves garlic, minced or passed through a garlic press
5 oz baby spinach leaves, torn into bite sized pieces
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
3/4 cup freshly grated parmigiano reggiano (I may have used a whole cup because I heart cheese)
1. Heat butter in a large pot (I used my 7qt Le Creuset dutch oven) over medium heat.  Add pine nuts and cook, stirring constantly, about three minutes, or until the butter and nuts just start to brown.  Add garlic and cook another minute.  Add spinach and gnocchi, stirring gently but constantly for one minute or until the spinach is wilted.  Sprinkle salt, pepper and parmigiano reggiano over mixture; stir gently until combined.

I did have my husband grill up a large chicken breast, which I sliced up and added in with the seasonings and cheese near the end to make this dish a little heartier, but you could totally leave it out to make this a meatless meal.  This came out incredibly tasty, and it's pretty on the plate too!  I bought the pine nuts in the bulk section of my local market so that I wouldn't have to pay a small fortune for a huge bag I'd probably never finish.

Sausage and Vegetable Soup

It's September, and there is a light at the end of this tunnel we call summer!  Of course, it will be stupid hot here until least Halloween, but hey, I can pretend, right?  I'm forcing myself to leave all the fall decor packed away until at least the middle of this month.  We'll see how I do with that.  I love my bin of fake pumpkins though!

Another part of fall that I love?  Big pots of yummy soup in my pretty green dutch oven.  That makes me so happy!  I decided to bust out some old recipes that I haven't made in a long time and revisit them here.  First up - Sausage and Vegetable soup.  It's super easy and tastes really good.

Ingredients:  a large chopped onion, a 1lb chub of sausage, two 32 oz boxes of chicken stock, 2 cans of diced tomatoes, a teaspoon of dried basil, salt and pepper to taste, 1/2 cup small pasta such as stelline, mini shells, orzo, etc, and 3 cups frozen mixed vegetables.

I accidentally grabbed vegetable broth instead of chicken, but to be honest, I wouldn't have known if I hadn't been the one to buy it.  It tasted like I remembered.  Also, I used cancer tomatoes because I used up all my home canned ones and I didn't find a good deal late enough in the summer this year.  The only ones I saw were back in early June and no way I was canning  tomatoes nine months pregnant!!!

Sauté the onion until softened and slightly translucent.  Add the sausage and brown it until it's crumbly and there are brown bits for you to scrape from the bottom of the pot.  Add tomatoes, broth, basil, salt and pepper; bring to a boil. Taste the broth and adjust the seasoning as needed.  Stir in pasta and reduce heat to medium. Simmer 10 minutes.  Add frozen vegetables and simmer an additional 5 minutes.

I only wish I had made some rolls to go with this.

Twelve of 12 - July 2012

I haven't posted 12 of Twelve photos on ye olde blog for a few months.  I guess it's because I'd been doing a decent job of scrapbooking them and the last few months... well, not so good.  Since I'm not anywhere near getting caught up on my Project Life, let alone my 12 of Twelve pages, I figured I'd just post the photos.  I have been taking the photos at least!

Here's my day.

1.  It's like we don't have any beds in this house!  I got up this morning to go pump and this was the sight that greeted me.  Greeted me... that sounds wrong.  I swear I've lost brain cells since getting pregnant.

2.  Bubba helped keep his little sister entertained while I washed bottles and pump parts.

3.  Chillin' on the couch with my girl.

4.  And so, the freezer filling has begun.  I have four gallon-sized Ziploc bags in there, each containing ten smaller Lansinoh milk storage bags that each hold between six and seven ounces of breast milk.  I'm guessing that's almost 300 ounces so far?  Add to that the fact that baby girl is taking four ounces on average per meal (seven or eight meals a day), and I've also snuck some to Bubba in his chocolate milk here and there... well, THAT is why I'm losing weight so well.  The sick part is that if I pump and only get 7 or 8 ounces, I get a little panicky that I didn't make enough because with Bubba I was getting between ten and fifteen ounces a session.  That's every three hours. 

I have issues.

Also - is "snuck" a word?  Spell check is saying no, but "sneaked" sounds wrong.  I miss those brain cells...

5.  I didn't expect to have to be sorting through clothes that don't fit so soon!  This is a three month onesie.  I've got a nice little pile of stuff that already doesn't fit.  Bubba didn't fit into three month stuff until he was three months old.

Wild.

6.  Bubba surveys the carnage.

He had them all lined up neatly at one point.  I noticed and made a note to take a photo, but when I came back to do so, they looked like this.  The boy works swiftly when he is so inclined.

7.  What I listened to all day.  Seriously, if you haven't heard this guy, do yourself a favor and look him up on YouTube.  It's just so good.  My husband came home one day and told me I had to listen to him because he thought I'd like it.  He was right.  That album was $9 well spent.

8.  I had Italian ice when I was in the hospital, and I had forgotten how good it was!  I picked up a box when I was at Target the other night.  Bubba and I had some today for a snack.

9.  And then we had these after lunch for another snack.  I'm terrible.  I like to pick out all the chocolate ones first, because they're my favorite.  Unfortunately Bubba has noticed that I do this and now he tries to scam all my  chocolate bunnies before I can get to them.  Booger.

10.  The "in and out" log. Someone wasn't very hungry today, and someone else did a poor job of recording diapers before I got out of bed.

11.  It's monsoon season!  That means that every day there's a "slight chance" of rain in the forecast, and the mantra "it's a dry heat" no longer applies.  At about five or six in the evening, the wind will start to pick up, the sky will get dark, and you can smell the moisture in the air.  Now - will it rain?  It's anyone's guess, really.  Sometimes it will in one part of town, but not another.  Sometimes the rain won't come until after dark.  Sometimes we'll just get a big dust storm.  You never really know.

12.  Dinner!  We had Cilantro Lime Chicken that I prepped a few weeks ago and froze along with fresh green beans and steamed rice that my husband prepared.  Please note the binky and sippy cup that also snuck (???) their way into this photo.

This is my life right now.  :)

Gnocchi with Corn and Scallions

I don't like chowder.

I don't like corn chowder, I don't like clam chowder, I don't like any kind of chowder.   Just looking at it in a bowl kind of makes my stomach turn.  Part of it is a texture issue - I don't like mushy food.  I don't even like potato soup.  Come to think of it, I don't like any pureed soups.  Also, it just looks gross.  Blech!

I'm a picky eater, I guess.

My mother in law is in town visiting and she was telling me about how she was thinking about taking a class to learn to make gnocchi.  Well, heck, I know how to make gnocchi!  I wanted something kind of summery though, so I didn't want to use the butter sauce or even a tomato one.  Then, as I was going through an ancient copy of Martha Stewart Living I came across a pasta recipe that I knew would be great adapted to go with my gnocchi.

The magazine described it as halfway between a chowder and a pasta salad.  Maybe it's because I didn't use the pasta for which it called, but I think it's definitely more on the chowder side of things.  Still, the flavors were all things I liked so I decided, what the heck, right?

I know it's not much to look at, but holy heck was this good!  We'll definitely be having this again.  Also, I think I've found my new favorite cooking method.  It involves me sitting on the couch holding a baby and calling out instructions to my husband and his mom, who then execute them.  When dinner is done, someone brings me a plate!  Awesome!


Gnocchi with Corn, Bacon and Scallions

 Gnocchi
* 2 lbs potatoes 
* 2 egg yolks
* generous pinch of salt
* 1 1/2 cups (188g) all purpose flour
* 6 quarts water
* 1/4 cup coarse salt

 Sauce
* 4 cups corn (from 5 ears) 
 * 1/2 cup chicken stock OR 1/2 cup water with 1/2 heaping teaspoon chicken bouillon powder 
 * 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil 
 * 4 ounces sliced smoked bacon, chopped 
 * 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided 
 * 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes 
 * Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper 
 * 3 scallions, thinly sliced 
 * 2 cups baby arugula or mixed greens 
 * Garnish: shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano 


 Directions 
1. Pierce potatoes and bake in 350 degree oven until they are fork tender. Cut into halves or quarters lengthwise so they’ll cool faster. 
2. Set 6 quarts water to boil. When the water comes to a rolling boil, add ¼ cup coarse salt. 
3. When they are cool enough to handle, but still warm, scoop the potatoes from their skins using a large spoon. Use a ricer to mash them finely. 
4. Add egg yolks, salt, and flour to riced potatoes. Gently combine using your hands until dough forms a ball.
5. Working with a small amount at a time, roll the dough out into long thin logs. Cut into pieces about 3/4" long, and make an indentation in each piece with your thumb. 
6. Put them on a baking sheet that has been lined with waxed paper and/or sprinkled with flour while you work. After you've gotten them all made, place them into your pot of salted boiling water. Wait for them to float to the surface, then boil for another minute. Remove cooked gnocchi to baking sheet and set aside. Reserve 2 cups of the salted cooking water. ***The pasta releases starch as it cooks, and the starchy water is essential to the sauce.*** 
7. Puree 1 cup corn, 1/2 cup water, and chicken bouillon powder in a blender. Set aside. 
8. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Cook bacon until crisp, about 8 minutes. Add corn puree, remaining 3 cups corn kernels, 2 tablespoons butter, and the crushed red pepper flakes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cook until corn is soft, about 5 minutes. 
9. Toss in gnocchi, 1 cup reserved cooking water, and remaining 2 tablespoons butter. Cook until sauce is creamy, about 3 minutes. Toss in scallions and arugula. Garnish with cheese.

Summer Corn Salad

A couple of years ago, I went to a potluck held by my playgroup.  It was a recipe exchange; everyone brought a dish to share, plus a printout of the recipe. My favorite dish that day was this salad, hands down.  I know - who am I?  Salad?  But seriously, this salad is so good!

Of course, I haven't ever made it.  That's just how I roll.

Last month I got a random craving for this salad that I've only had one time almost three years ago.  I know - random, right?  Of course, I couldn't find the printout with the recipe anywhere and I wanted to cry because I needed this salad.  You know how fetuses (feti?) are.  In desperation, I posted on my playgroup's Facebook page and someone had it!  Hallelujah!!!

I present to you, my version of Summer Corn Salad.  I'm putting it here so I won't lose it again, because that would be tragic.

First, you need to shuck and grill six ears of sweet corn on the cob.  Turn it with tongs and let it char a little bit.  This gives it flavor.

Use a knife to remove the kernels.  Don't be a dummy like me and try this on a cutting board - use a bowl!  Otherwise, you may find yourself with corn flying all over and with a very happy dog.

Set the corn aside.

Cut up about five slices of bacon and cook.  My husband cooked these and was perhaps slightly overzealous in getting them cooked thoroughly.  They still tasted okay though. :)  Drain on paper towels and set aside.

Tear up five ounces of mixed greens into bite sized pieces.  I used a spring mix.

Top with bacon and corn; set aside.

Next you'll need 1/4 cup super finely chopped cilantro, two cloves super finely minced garlic, and 1/4 cup fresh lime juice.

Combine in a small bowl and set aside.

Now, this recipe originally called for two cups of grape tomatoes, but I don't like tomatoes.  You know what I do like?  AVOCADO.  Yum yum!  I diced two avocados and put them into a small bowl.

I then put a spoonful of my Cilantro Lime mixture in there and gently combined them, so the avocado wouldn't brown.  I poured the rest of the dressing into the corn and greens mixture and stirred until it was well combined.

I served the salad topped with the avocado along with some simple grilled chicken thighs and plain steamed rice.  It made a ton too, so I'll be having this for lunch tomorrow as well.  Looking forward to it!

Do Work

I think, in the last two days I've done more than I have in the past two weeks.  Maybe even the past month!  It's no secret that this pregnancy has kicked my behind as far as fatigue goes.  I was tired to the point of exhaustion pretty much the entire first half, and then it came back the last few months.  I have some good days where I feel like I can actually do stuff, but then I inevitably pay for it the next day in the form of a stiff, sore body, swollen hands, and of course, being really tired.

It kinda sucks. 

I feel like such a lazy slug!  I'm thankful that I don't have one of those husbands who feels his only contribution to our household is to bring home a paycheck.  Seriously, if he thought his work day ended when he came home, but saw no problem with mine being 24 hours, I wouldn't have married the guy.  He's been so good and picking up the slack where I haven't been able too.  He has no clean underwear?  He won't say a word - he'll just throw a load in the wash.  I'm too tired to cook?  No sweat - he'll whip something together or go grab us a pizza.  He understands that I'm having a hard time right now, and that marriage is a partnership - sometimes you give, sometimes you take, but you should always try to support.  I love him for that.

I have 22 days (!!!) until my c-section is scheduled, and only fourteen until my due date.  This means I need to get my behind in gear and try to get this house in some semblance of order.  I still haven't installed the car seat, or packed a hospital bag.  I still need to go buy baby bottles and a few other last minute items.  The list seems huge for the small amount of days left, but at the same time, I find myself not really worried about it.  I'm doing what I can, asking for help with what I can't, and if something doesn't get done, oh well.

Is that Zen or apathetic?  Can't tell.

One of the things I definitely wanted to get done before I have this baby is to make a bunch of meals to freeze.  When Bubba was born, we were in an apartment and had a teeny freezer, so this really wasn't much of an option.  We also had no money to buy a stand alone freezer, and even if we did, we had nowhere to put it.  As a result, no planning or prep for our meals after baby was done and we ate fast food a LOT.  Like, a disgusting amount a LOT.  I'm sure we wasted a ton of money too.  

I don't want to do that again.  I want to have homemade meals, at least most of the time.  Things that I made so that even though they may not be the most nutritious items, they're better than their processed foods counterparts.  My friend Suzy gave me her old freezer since her daughter is off to college and it wasn't really needed anymore.  I've been loving having it, but I haven't been using it to it's full potential. 

Well, the time has come.  Friday while I was doing laundry (all of it!  Nine loads and all dried on the clothesline!  Lots of bending and stretching and carrying and walking) I worked on a meal plan and a grocery list.  Since my grocery list document is dated, I was able to tell that it's been almost a whole year since I've done this.  YIKES.  I pulled my grocery circulars, went through what was on sale, then went through the list of freezer meals I wanted to try (pulled from Pinterest and my own files) to see what matched up.  Then I planned my meals for this week using those recipes.  The idea is that I will make the meal, but double or triple it so I have one for dinner and one or two for later.  Pretty clever, huh?

Yesterday we spent all day shopping and running errands.  There was a Target run in there, as well as a stop at Old Navy for some cheap flip flops to wear in the hospital shower.  We grabbed dinner before stopping for another paint sample from Home Depot.  We stopped to check out a children's consignment store because I still haven't found a going home outfit for Kelly, but they were closed.  We hit Joann for a replacement reusable cup for my husband because he left his on top of the car.  We were all over the place! Finally, after all that, we hit the grocery store where I discovered that I had forgotten my circulars at home so I wasn't going to be able to get all the stuff I price matched for.  PHOOEY!  We grabbed what was not on my price matching list and anything for which they had a better price anyway (one of the perks of listing the prices at all the competitors in one place) and called it good.  I figure I'll get the rest of the stuff later.

Bubba passed out in the car on the way home and since it was a good two or three hours earlier than when he normally goes to sleep, we were thinking GREAT.  Now he'll be up all night!  Nope.  He slept until 12:30 today!  I guess all the errands wore him out too, even though he got to sit in a cart for most of them.  Lucky.

Me?  I was awake.  Very awake.  So was my husband.  I decided to take advantage of the time by prepping the marinade for one of my meals.  I was doing Cilantro Lime Chicken (recipe here) and figured that instead of prepping one batch of marinade, I'd do four.  We'd eat one for dinner and have three stashed for after the baby arrives.  I was in a lot of pain by this point after two solid days of activity so my husband volunteered to help.  We put ingredients in Ziploc bags and added frozen chicken (which I bought in bags in the freezer section) to them before sealing.  The idea is that you pull one out the night before, then as they thaw in the fridge they chicken will marinate at the same time.  All we have to do is add some rice (which can also be made ahead of time and frozen) and a veggie, and dinner will be done in less time than it takes to order a pizza!

After we finished those, we divvied up a package of bacon.  Have you noticed how expensive bacon has gotten lately?  Especially if you like to use the good stuff.  It's crazy!  Also, a lot of recipes call for just a few slices.  What do you do with the rest?  You can't keep freezing and refreezing it.  If you cook it all up, then it's kind of wasteful, not to mention eating that much bacon is probably not good for you.

So, we opened the package of the lovely, thick cut Applewood Smoked bacon that we bought and separated  it.  I cut strips of parchment paper and folded them in half lengthwise.  We then tucked three slices into the fold, and folded the bacon/paper in half crosswise.  I took these little packages and tucked them inside another labeled Ziploc bag.  Now when I want to make something with a little bit of bacon, I can just pull out one of the little paper bundles and use what I need, rather than getting stuck with a whole package of bacon!  The parchment paper keeps them from freezing to each other so it's super simple.

After we finished with that, I looked at the clock and it was 2 am.  Now, I'm naturally a night owl, and an insomniac on top of that.  I also happened to have married a night owl who also insists he's rarely ever tired. Now you know why my kid is up until one or two am and sleeps until after noon!  It's in his genes!

Anyway, I asked him if he was up to doing one more meal prep thing.  He said all he had planned was to play video games, so sure, why not?  (I think he was excited at the prospect of good food with less work later on.)  I pulled out the packages of ground turkey that we bought and we got to work making meatballs.

152 meatballs, to be exact!

By just throwing all the ingredients into the KitchenAid, and then working together to scoop and shape the meatballs, we were able to make four batches of partially cooked turkey meatballs in record time!  After they cooled I divided them up into more labeled Ziploc bags (seriously - label  EVERYTHING if you're going to do this!) and popped them into the freezer.

I ended up with three bags containing about fifty meatballs each.  That sounds like a lot, but they're small meatballs and the soup I make with them usually lasts a few meals.  Since making the meatballs is about 2/3 of the work involved in this soup, we saved ourselves a ton of work somewhere down the line!

Later this week I plan to make some Baked Ziti to freeze, as well as frozen pizza dough and some chocolate chip cookie dough.  I may even try to get some bread dough in there so we can stop buying bread again.  We'll have to see how I'm feeling though, as today my body is paying for all the work of the past two days.

Totally worth it though.  :)

Crafty Christmas

Last night I had a few friends over for a little Christmas celebration. I hesitate to even call it a party, because I only invited three people and one couldn't make it because her daughter was sick. We got together, ate good food (if I do say so myself!), worked on our needlework projects, and chatted. There was even a mini White Elephant exchange. It was lovely. So lovely, in fact, that we chatted until almost eleven without noticing!

Here's a photo of my finished buffet with all the food on it:


From left to right, I had a platter with carrots, cucumber and naan to dip in hummus, chicken salad on mini croissants, deviled eggs, grapes, butter toffee almonds, fruit salad in clementine cups, peppermint wafer cookies, mushroom turnovers, and punch. Can I tell you how hard it is to find a non alcoholic punch recipe that doesn't contain pineapple juice, sherbet, or apple juice/cider??? I don't particularly care for any of those flavors, so let me tell you, I was all sorts of scouring the internet. I checked my vintage cookbooks, but back in the fifties they specialized in booze. Seriously, a punch recipe will read like this:

1 fifth of bourbon
1 fifth rum
1 fifth gin
1 can frozen orange juice
dash of bitters

Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but still. SO MUCH BOOZE. The one I ended up using was a can of frozen lemonade, a can of frozen orange juice, 7 oz frozen sliced strawberries, 1 liter of ginger ale and two thinly sliced limes. It was good - flavorful without being too heavy or super sweet, and the ginger ale gave it a nice bit of fizz. I'll be making that one again!

The chicken salad and deviled egg recipes came from this book:



I picked it up this weekend at the Goodwill for three dollars. It was going to be a white elephant gift because seriously, molded salad and aspic photos in glorious 1967 color??? COME ON! It's awesome. Well, when I got home and decided to peruse the photos, I decided it was just too awesome to give away. After I made the chicken salad and the deviled eggs, it's spot in my library was cemented forever. That chicken salad was amazing - simple, with nothing weird or fruity in it. Just plain old chicken salad without being the teeniest bit bland like it can be. Good stuff. The deviled eggs were the best I've had in a long time too.

After a while, the party came down to this:



Signs you are getting old - everyone ends up around the piano at a party. Never mind that none of us were what you'd call "musically gifted," we had a good time anyway.



Some of us more than others!