Food... my true love.

Cooking and baking: 2 wonderful things I have been revisiting in the past few weeks. Now that I have a boyfriend to help me eat all this food, I have a reason to keep cooking (let’s face it… 4 days of eating leftovers is enough to kill the desire to cook or bake just about anything!).


I am going to post a few pictures, but here are a few things I have tried recently:

Sloppy Joe’s: A pretty standard recipe using Morning Star fake ground beef

Stir Fry: Went to Super H Market and got a ton of fresh veggies for this one. Honestly, not to sound conceited, but it was probably the best stir-fry I’ve ever had! I think the ginger and vegetable broth really did the trick. Note to self… stick with traditional Asian veggies only, and avoid the green peppers next time.

Mashed Potatoes: Oh, I was so nervous to mash them! I’d never made mashed potatoes before, and I was afraid my masher wasn’t good enough (I’m nuts). Once the potatoes started to mash I got super excited and they came out GREAT. Here’s the recipe I used… except I added some browned garlic to the mix. http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/basil-chive-red-potato-mash

Cream of Spinach Soup: I couldn’t find a good recipe, so I used one for cream of broccoli and made a couple of small substitutions.. it turned out delicious! I love that you can freeze soup and enjoy it at just about anytime and plan to really take advantage of my garden veggies that way this summer.

Lemon Butter Cookies: I’ve learned next time to spread out the pans out in the oven more (the lower pan burned a bit, but I think I might have used a bit too much egg yolk on that batch anyways). Still, these are delicious and relatively easy to make… though I was disappointed when I realized I had to chill the dough for 2 hours and not get to eat them sooner! (Another note to self: Read recipes more thoroughly before starting. ALWAYS!) http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/lemon-butter-cookies

 

Lemon cheese Bars: So, for these bars I used a lower fat recipe, though you can’t really tell. The only real difference that I can name would be that they use cottage cheese instead of cream cheese (think lemon cheese cake bars). But… whether it be the pan I used (I sprayed it with cooking oil first), that I pressed the crust down too hard, or if it is just part of the fun of a healthier recipe, I had one hell of at time getting the first couple of pieces out of the pan. I got frustrated and was about to chuck them, that is until my boyfriend showed me how easy they came out of the pan after the first couple. We needed to use a super sharp knife, but they came out… and they were a hit with my family!

Those are the few that come to mind right now. I am going to do my best to keep up with this blog and really talk about all of my creative endeavors, whether they be food, jewelry, or other craft related.

Slainte!