Potato Latkes

Potatoes + fried = good. Made potato pancakes tonight! I shredded 5 potatoes an onion, 3 carrots, and 3 cloves of garlic...thank you food processor. I added 2 eggs, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. I know, breadcrumbs. Did not have matzo-meal, (We are not Jewish so don't know what I am doing) and I am pretty sure I made it not kosher because the bread crumbs most likely came from leavened bread. I did not think it through until the crispy, salty, amazing little pancakes had disappeared. Amazing. Eat them with sour cream and apple sauce, eat them all. Make more. We also had some leftover chicken soup and a small salad. "Gather round the table I'll give you a treat, dreidels to play with and latkes to eat!" Happy Hanukkah!

Thanksgiving Pies

I don't make pies unless they are frozen pie shell and pour kind of things. However this year my good friend gave me a great cookbook with an amazingly easy pie crust recipe and this monster apple pie recipe. I did it. I made the pie dough, I rolled it out, I peeled and sliced the apples, I crimped, egg-washed...and we have pie. Barefoot Contessa is her name and her pie crust just works. I changed the inside a little. I omitted allspice, only because I did not have any and when I went to get it everyone else apparently needed it too because the store was out! I like my apple pie tart, crisp, not too sweet, not to spiced up, and buttery; this pie delivered just that. Oh I added a little butter as well. I guess you could say I made it my own but I followed the recipe for the most part, in baking you can't mess with the science! My husband likes his apple pie, super sweet, gooey and tender so this was not his favorite. More for me!

Now the pumpkin pie he was all over. Again I used a recipe (baking), thank you Sandra Lee, not my favorite food network personality but this pumpkin pie RULES! It's her pumpkin cream pie. It's just different from regular pumpkin pie that you notice how much better it is but it still looks and tastes like the old standard enough so you don't feel like you are missing out on the tradition. A little cream cheese, heavy cream and we are in Thanksgiving nirvana. The trick is to make sure the cream cheese is at room temperature or it won't incorporate and you will have little white lumps. I did not have pumpkin pie spice so I used separate spice and again no allspice! My two year old ate most of the pie! She did not like the crust so I ate her crusts and gained a few...thanks ladies! Good pies!

Breakfast for dinner disaster

Just a disaster. I burnt 4 of the pancakes, and all of the eggs. At least the bacon was adequate. What was to be pumpkin pancakes, omelets and cheddar cheese and strips of bacon turned out to be a few edible and okay pancakes and some bacon, no husband home in time, a huge burnt pan mess, and me feeling very crappy. You can't win them all. At least my little one came over and said, "Mama, don't be sad!" and gave me a big hug.

Boo-licious Dinner

I am back! Really busy, long and hard month. Time to start a new one. Welcome November! But back to October for this post. Halloween dinner...I had ideas of black spaghetti noodles with cream sauce and orange bell peppers with sauteed chicken in wine. But that was too much work to tick or treat and cook. So I used the oven! I popped a whole chicken in the oven with 2 onions, 6 cloves of garlic, baby carrots, thyme, salt, pepper, olive oil and Dr. Pepper. That's right, I said Dr. Pepper. Oven on 350 and out the door we went to get our Trick or Treating on. Three hours later, I took the chicken out added mushrooms and orange bell peppers upped the temperature to 410 and back in in went and I started a some white rice and 20 minutes later is was awesome. The sauce reduced, the peppers and mushrooms cooked and the chicken rested. We where famished! My favorite part is the orange and black Halloweeniness of it! I love Halloween!

I wonder...

I wonder how many blogs there are that have one or two posts on them and then the blogger never blogged again? I hope mine will not be like that. I've made it to five!

Card making??

I love cards and real mail. I never get any but I sure send them. My mom made me send cards to everyone all the time as a kid. I did not like it much then, now I am a card-aholic. I've always wanted to make my own cards, stationary and other paper things, Etsy style. Unfortunately I am not creative, I have terrible handwriting, and I lack the much needed tools to make up for my short comings. So I got a box of cards and matching envelopes from Target 9 bucks for a zillion of them if a lovely array of colors. I got a stamp from the clearance section, some glitter and a few of those scissors that cut cool wavy crinkly lines and I got to work. Cut around the edges with wavy scissors, stamp the middle, pour glitter on top, dry, pour glitter back into glitter jar and you have got a pretty nice handmade card. Sign, seal, deliver.

German Roast

A hankering for Germany.

I lived in Germany for 3 years and I loved it. Fall and Winter just take me back. October in Texas though not as crisp and fall-like makes me remember the smells of the streets of Heidelberg. Roasting meats, hot apple strudel, potato pancakes and apple sauce, cabbage...the nose can take you back to anyplace for a second if you catch the right whiff! So I was ready to pack up Julianna and head out to The Bavarian Bakery and Cafe or to Greenwoods for lunch. Since we are trying not to spend every last penny I looked in the refrigerator and found a half a head of red cabbage (leftover from fish tacos) and a jar of unsweetened apple sauce and a jar of caraway seeds. Shredded the cabbage, added apple cider vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, a little apple sauce and some caraway seeds to a giant pot. Boil, low heat 3 hours. Headed out to the market for a few more things to make my German masterpiece. Picked up a pork roast, some fat carrots, organic canned pumpkin (for a later treat), and a cute cardigan (hey it was Target). Ran home and in 10 minutes I threw 2 sliced onions, pork, 5 peeled and sliced carrots, salt, pepper, touch of olive oil over the top of the meat, splash of white wine, water, touch of milk, lots of caraway seeds, a chicken bouillon cube (no msg), in a roasting pan. Covered in the oven on 400. Then I dashed off to take Julianna to music class and I actually made it on time! When I came home the house smelled like a cool German evening with delicious swirling all around. Checked it, added a touch more water, and some apple sauce took the meat out and put it on a sheet pan to finish browning. Stirred rediculously good smelling red cabbage and whipped up a batch of instant mashed potatoes. I was planning on making homemade potato dumpling but there was no time and as my husband said while eating this dinner "Instant mashed potatoes are better than no mashed potatoes!" So we ate it and it was rad. We have leftovers, lots of leftovers so I might try making the dumplings with the leftovers. We have so much cabbage I don't know what to do!

What the Fluff?

My husband suggested I start a food blog. I love to cook, he likes what I cook. I might add other stuff too. I thought I would treat it more like a multimedia journal, I don't expect anyone but myself to read it. Here goes.