Bowling for Soup

I'm a month late in posting this one, but in my defense we were getting ready to travel to the other side of the world the next day, so my mind was on other things?

Better late than never right? So, here's what I did on July 23!

This was my first attempt at homemade soba soup. I think it turned out more like Ramen due to the style of noodle I used beeing too thin, but it was Uber tasty. I served it with "pork cutlet".

To make the soup I boiled the heck out of a ham hock. Boiled it all day in fact, in just plain water. I just checked on it to make sure it had water in the pot all day. Once I was ready to make the soup, I picked the ham hock clean and left the meat in the broth then added half a head of cabbage, chopped, and 1 and a half bags of noodles and their flavor packtes ( not sure what's in those flavor packets) and just heated till the cabbage was soft and the noodles heated through. The Pork Cutlet is just "scallopini" (a thin cut of pork sirloin, if you cant find it, cut a sirloin roast into half inch slices and then pound flat) seasoned with Chinese 5 spice, and salt and pepper. First dredge them lightly in cornstarch, then dip in eggs seasoned with salt and pepper, and then coat with Panco (bread crumbs found in the Asian section, or there's a Corn Flake's version.) Pan fry till dark golden, and then turn over.

It's a simple but filling meal and the clarity of the soup is a nice contrast to the fried cutlet. This is served at restaurants with a shredded raw cabbage salad.

It’s alright to tell me what you think about me I won’t try to argue or hold it against you

DD#1 and I have a tradition. She has a birthday, and I sew her whatever she likes.

This year she wanted a skirt made out of a particular fabric. So I whipped out a circle skirt with a handkerchief hemline, trimmed in two kinds of lace. On her birthday she climbed in to bed with me and we had this conversation.

I told her she was growing up way too fast, and she said "NO, Mom, it's going VERY slow."

The sad part is, I can remember seeing it from her perspective. But I can also swear I was just changing her diapers and snuggling up to my first baby! Hopefully she never outgrows letting me sew for her.

I also took her to get a pedicure, she loves having her toes painted up.

OH WAIT, COOKING!! right

I have been doing some of that, not anything too exciting. Made a good last minute stir fry on the 10th. I used 1.5 lbs Sukiyaki (thin sliced beef) carrots and spinach and a bottle of Teriyaki (one day after our trip to the states I'll make Tracy's but I had a bottle in the pantry, so it got used) and put it over rice.


On the 15th I broiled some Salmon (random herbs) and made one of my favorite summer side dishes. Black bean salsa! 2 cans drained and rinsed black beans, 1lb thawed bag of corn, 2 cans of tomatoes, parsley, garlic, onion, salt and pepper to taste. Serve at room temperature. It's kind of a starch and a veggie at the same time, so I didn't fix anything else to go with it. And was refreshing after spending the day out in the sun weeding the flower beds.

Every day for us something new (except today)

Been doing boring stuff for dinner, spaghetti, salad with pork strips (instead of chicken or steak), hot dogs, just regular non blog worthy food.

I'm also trying to whittle down my pantry so that IF we manage to get to the states for the end of the month I won't have a lot of food in the house while we're gone.

We did have a fun cookout with our neighbors (well half a cookout) for the 4th. One neighbor cooked everyone's meat (hot dogs, ribs, steak strips, Korean style ribs) on the grill while the kids all played in the yard, and we all made our own sides, then the bugs set in so we divided up the meat and ate in our own houses.

I'm also slowly on the mend with my ankle, and my hand is feeling about half better? See totally not blog worthy at all.

Flight of the bumble bee

Supper last night (the bottom pic) was brought to you by: OH SHOOT it's 7:00 and I haven't started cooking yet! AND This is what's left in the pantry and freezer.

I had planned on cooking these chicken breast strips, and tiny red potatoes, so they were thawed (thankfully). I coated my largest cast iron skillet in olive oil, and threw in some salt, pepper, onion, garlic, and marjoram. Halved the potatoes, and placed them all cut side down to crisp and heat thru (the good thing about frozen potatoes, is they kinda turn to mush when you thaw them, so they take no time to actually cook). The pan was pretty full since I used 2 bags of potatoes to feed my army. I had 2 bottles of varying amounts of the same kind of BBQ sauce left in the fridge, go figure. I added a little water to one, shake shake shake, pour into the next bottle, shake shake shake, to combine for a full bottle of slightly watery BBQ sauce. I used an entire 2.5 lb bag of the bonless/skinless chicken breast strips and just lined my pan with them (again a pretty full pan here) and dumped the whole bottle of sauce in, let it simmer and the sauce reduce. Some of the kids wanted sliced pears, and DH wanted Pineapple Chunks, while I wanted Guava paste (it's in the Hispanic section I think?, I get mine via my Panamanian friend/neighbor who gets it sent to her from her dad in NY). It's kinda half way between Jello/Jam/Dried fruit.

The top two pics were a Quiche I made Thursday. It was missing Sausage, so it wasn't my favorite, but the kids gobbled it up, and it had bacon bits on top so DH was in heaven!

I use a casserole dish to make my quiche in because I don't like dainty slices, I want to eat one piece and be DONE (unless it's a brunch, then I do it in a cupcake pan tho, and it's snack size). It takes a double batch of pie crust, 1 doz eggs, 1 lb bag frozen spinach, and 1 cup parmesean cheese, 2 cans drained mushrooms (or 1pt fresh chopped) and usually 1lb cooked sausage, garnish with bacon bits (I make my own).

Just crack and beat the eggs, then stir in the spinach and mushrooms, some salt and pepper, and sausage (if you have it). Pour into the pie crust lined casserole. I use the parmesean to create a top crust, just coat the top with it, it'll melt and harden as it cooks, and be YUM.

Quiche is one of those dishes that you can pretty much add what ever you like to, if it'll be good in an omelet it'll be good in this. Bake at 350 for about an hour, you kinda have to slice into the middle and peek in to see if it's still runny in there.

Pie crust, 1 1/4 cup flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 stick butter, 3 tbs COLD water, mush the salt, flour and butter, together, till it barely holds it's shape, then drizzle in the water a little bit at a time till a nice dough is formed. Let sit for at least 10 min, roll/pat out.

Alohoa Oy

There is no pic of this, and that is sad, because it's pretty and colorful and most importantly YUMMM!

Hawaiian Chicken. It was one of the dishes I made and just didn't have the energy to blog about before, but now that all I can manage is to sit here with my foot up, I've got PLENTY of time!

I make this in large batches because it keeps well in the fridge and is a dish that is almost better as leftovers.

1 bag of boneless, skinless Chicken thighs cut into bite size pieces
1 large can of fruit cocktail
1 large can of pineapple chunks
1 medium onion rough chopped
2 cans stewed tomatoes (or 2 pints of halved cherry/grape tomatoes) (use what ever you have on had/whichever is cheaper)
1 bag frozen sliced bell peppers (2-3 sliced bell peppers of various colors, again, what ever you have on hand/whichever is cheaper)
salt, pepper, Chinese 5 Spice (season to taste)

Everything into a LARGE roasting pan, and bake at 350 till chicken is done (stirring 2 or 3 times to make sure all the chicken gets cooked)

Put this over rice, it has a sweet and sour thing happening with the fruit and the onions and peppers.

I also usually have everything in the pantry to make this dish at all times.

Another fun chicken dish I learned from a friend, we just call it Zesty Chicken
2 lb chicken breast meat cut up (if you have a smaller family use less chicken and only half bottles of dressings)
1 bottle Italian dressing
1 bottle ranch dressing
Maranade the chicken in the dressings, then dump it in a baking dish all together and add in 2 bags of that broccoli, carrot, cauliflower veggie mix. bake at 350 till chicken is done

Put over Tri color pasta. It's creamy and zesty, and colorful, and as close to a casserole as we get in our house.

High on the mountain top, The Badger chased the Squirrel.

Had the Missionaries over again last Friday for supper! They are always so fun to have, and I never have to worry about leftovers! No poetry this time, they sang for their supper tho! I'm horrible with names, so I'll not bother, except for the two in the 3rd from the top, that's the Savages! My real dinning table is in storage back in the states and since every time they come over it's raining, we get to eat on the couch! (Except poor Elder Campbell, he always gets the floor?)

I fixed them some Dirty Spaghetti, Herbed rolls, and Pound cake cup cakes with Cherry topping. And what a treat for us, they sang for their supper afterward! I made a triple batch of sauce (a large crock pot FULL) and 3 lbs of pasta, 47 rolls, and 30 cup cakes to feed them. There was very little left over!

The Pound cake is a family recipe that I'm not sure I'm allowed to give out, but I'll give out the topping, I used 3 bags of frozen pitted cherries, about 3/4 cup sugar, 2 cups 100% berry Juice (Juicy Juice I think) and a corn starch slurry to thicken. just like Pie filling pretty much. And just globbed it on top of the cup cakes.

The bread and sauce I've done before and linked in, so they're clickable, if you need. That was Last Fri and it's Thursday again, we had steak and mashed potatoes with halved Roma tomatoes that I sprinkled with dried basil then put a dab of mozzarella cheese on, then put under the broiler till cheese is bubbly (it's my fav summer side dish, and takes like 5 min to make). I think there was some hot dog action in there, and some leftover/clean out the fridge happenings too.

I have been doing some cooking, between Dr apts. just been forgetting to take pics, and like most things, out of sight out of mind for me. AND I managed to sprain my ankle BAD, so I'm now on crutches, and my foot is an amazing purple/blue/green color! OH!, and remember my hand, that was fracture, no sprained? well, I had a follow up appt and a new xray by my regular Dr at the 6 week mark, and guess what? Totally fractured that puppy, you can tell cause it's half way healed now and you can see the calcification on the new xray, too late to cast, or do anything about now, but good to know huh? DOUBLE guess what? when you have a half healed hand (that would be fully healed had they casted that sucker 8 weeks ago) and now you're on crutches and leaning with your full weight on your hand it HURTS, and will probably re-break any healing that's taken place if I had to guess. But what do I know?

Last night DH and DD#1 did the actual cooking while I directed from the sofa. DD#1 did the rice in the rice cooker and green beans in the microwave! DH did the fish in the broiler, DS#1 brought me a small dish and the herbs I asked for so I could mix them up (salt, pepper, onion, garlic, paprika, marjoram, parsley, water and Worcestershire sauce in the bottom of the broiler pan), and DH sprinkled them on to the fish.

I didn't feel like gimping it over to the desk for the camera. I will however take a pic of my ankle for you! According to the Dr it's not broken, I just popped off a tendon or something, but I'm going to follow this up with my regular Dr ASAP since I'm having tons of swelling and numbness in my toes.

Not sure what we're doing for meals over the weekend, we might just do take out or I might call the Missionaries to see if they can call the Relief Society and have some meals delivered. I'm NOT going to be up in the kitchen on crutches that's for dang sure I can tell you!

I'm a driver, I'm a winner; things are gonna change, I can feel it.

I've been neglectful, I have no excuse. Been cooking, and sometimes I take pics, but just haven't felt like blogging it.

So, here's my attempt at catching up in a series of posts. Lame I know.

From bottom up (cause that's oldest to newest, one day I'll figure out the order to load them in so I can talk about them in an order that makes sense!).

Cheesy Orzzo (saute 1/2 small onion in butter, and then add uncooked pasta, toss around till some is browned, add in 1 box chicken broth, and some water, cook till tender, and 1/2 lb cheddar cheese till melty). My kids won't eat home made Mac and Cheese but they'll eat this, go figure. Spinach and Corn with ham flavor. That's it no trick, DS#1 invented it about 2 years ago, the kids love it. Pan fried pork chops, I herbed them with randomness and then fried them in a skillet on the stove top till golden and crisp.

Cheaters Chili. 2 lbs Lean ground beef 2 packets Taco seasoning, 2 cans Black Beans, 3 cans Stewed tomatoes in the flavor of your choosing (I think I used plain, garlic, and bell pepper) most of a family size bag of frozen corn, half a bottle of BBQ sauce (I use the Jack Daniels Honey Smokehouse kind) 1 small can of tomato paste, water. Brown meat with taco seasoning, add the cans without draining and then the rest. Heat, enjoy. It really did taste like I had cooked it all day, and it only took about 20 min. Best of all, it fed my kids twice more for lunch! (I think it would freeze nicely too!)

Chicken broth soup. The name pretty much sums it up. Dice up some chicken breats, add to crock pot, add in some broth and some bullion, and 2 bags of soy beans right at the end, put over rice. The kids were not feeling too swell after about a weeks worth of rain and being damp, so we had a light supper one night.

And lastly a melted finger. I was stiring some rice in a pot, it was all gooey and bubbly, and it splattered. Before I could wipe/rinse or anything it melted the flesh off. YAY.

The offending dish was YUM, but not photogenic tho. It was Mexican rice, the way my Mexican neighbors taught me to make it in Idaho is this (the only thing I added is the ground beef, cause my DH likes it with meat in). Beans, and home made tortilla chips.

Saute 1 onion with butter, and 3 cups uncooked rice, till rice is nice and golden, add in water, and chicken bullion and 2 cans stewed tomatoes with green chilies. Cook (stirring occasionally) till rice is tender (I brown ground beef first, and add that in). In the crock pot, 1lb pinto beans and about 3/4 gal water, cook on hi all day till beans are tender, then add chicken bullion or salt or both, to taste. Mash slightly. Cut up some Tortillias (we use flour, cause that's what Dh likes) and fry in a large pot full of oil (BE CAREFUL) (or use a fry daddy thinger) lightly salt. Enjoy your fresh tortilla chips, and rice and beans! YUM, just don't melt your finger (I've been making this dish for about 3 years and it's the first time I've melted my finger, so don't worry, it's unlikely).