Herbed Chicken and Dumplings

Last night was a comfort food kind of night. I'd never made this before, but it sounded so warm and cozy-like that I had to try it! It was really easy to throw together, and was really tasty! Scott even approved, especially of the dumplings. Take note that the recipe is only for 2 servings, so you'd have to double it or triple it to feed a family. It's quite easily done though. Also, you might want to add even more of the dumplings than the rest, because there aren't that many if you follow the recipe. That probably makes it less "light", but oh well!

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=10000001842347

As it was cooking, I decided that the base was looking a little bit more like soup than I wanted, so I added about 1/4 c of milk mixed with 2 or 3 T of flour to make it a little creamier and thicker. It worked pretty well, although Joe and Scott still called it soup. :)

Camera battery was still dead last night, so sadly no picture again, but both batteries are charged up and ready to go now! I won't be cooking too much for the next month or so since Joe is out of town and I filled the freezer ahead of time to save myself some trouble while I'm on my own. Whatever I do make will be documented and posted, though! Chances are pretty good that whatever I post will have chocolate in it due to the joys of temporary single parenting! :)

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day I decided to make one of Joe's favorite meals, Flank Steak Teriyaki. It's actually his mother's recipe, and it's really really good. Sadly the battery in my camera died just as I got it out so I don't have a picture. Next time, I promise! Anyway, it's pretty simple to make. Just buy a flank steak- her recipe says 1.5 lb, but I've used it for up to 3 lbs with no issues- and sit it in the marinade for a couple days, and then throw it on the grill. Here's the recipe:

3/4 c vegetable oil
1/4 c soy sauce
1/4 c honey
2 T vinegar (I use rice wine vinegar)
2 T finely chopped green onions
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

Mix all that up in a big zip-loc bag, then put the steak in and smoosh it all around to make sure it's well covered. Stick it in the fridge for a day or 2, turning it every time you go in there. Grill it, and enjoy! It's awesome paired with grilled veggies and mashed potatoes, with some fruit on the side.

I'm still here, I swear!

Well. It sure has been a while! Life became a pretty intense whirlwind shortly after Rebecca was born, and I let a lot of things slide. We had a baby in April, moved halfway across the country in early June, spent 2 months camping out in my parents' basement while we fixed up my mother-in-law's house for us to live in (yeah.... we planned for 2 weeks, not 2 months), worked on the house while Joe job hunted, and trusted God to work out all the details when we couldn't fathom how it would all be resolved. At the end of August, we finally got our household goods delivered to the house, moved in, and then Joe started working! Praise God! Since then we've been settling in, enjoying spending time with friends and family, and adjusting to being Marylanders again. We've enjoyed a not-so-scorching summer, and awesome Fall, and a winter that actually got cold and had SNOW! So exciting! Nine and a half months after the whirlwind started, I'm starting to pick things up again and feel like my feet are back under me.

Since getting settled, I've been cooking loads, but haven't had the discipline to take pictures or blog about it. What I did take pictures of, though, I'll highlight here for you.

First we have a White Chocolate Bread Pudding. This was in July, so I don't remember where I found the recipe, unfortunately. Probably allrecipes.com since that's my go-to place. I made this for dessert after we went raspberry picking one day with the kids, and it was SO GOOD. Joe and his cousin came back to my parents' after a long day of drywalling and sanding, and between all of us we ate the entire pan! I think if I'd made a white chocolate sauce to go over it it would've been even better. Hmmm.... maybe I should make it again and give that a shot...... :)

Next we have an absolutely awesome crab salad sandwich. We had a Crab Feast here to thank everyone that helped work on the house, and I made this out of the leftover crabmeat. Oh. My. Gosh. It was SO GOOD!! Light, refreshing, yet still crabby. I'm officially hungry just thinking about it. I'll hunt up the recipe upon request since I don't feel like getting off the couch and breaking my stride right at the moment. Forgive me. :)

Next is another Cooking Light recipe.... Hoisin Bourbon Glazed Pork Tenderloin. I actually just made this again last night. It's served with Three Fruit Salsa, which is time consuming to chop up, but so worth it. The pork is super easy, and is grilled so there's almost no clean-up. Always a winner in my book. Y'all know how I love my grill! I serve it with rice, some sort of veggie, and the salsa. I also reserve some of the Hoisin basting sauce as extra sauce to drizzle on the rice. Good stuff!

Now you know I can't cook every night and not make any desserts, so of course there's more of the good stuff!! This bad boy is a German Chocolate Cheesecake. I'll say it again... German. Chocolate. Cheesecake. 'Nuff said. Ok maybe not. :) It's yet another Cooking Light one (I think they should pay me for all the advertising I'm giving them), and it definitely doesn't taste "light"! As I recall, it wasn't difficult to make at all, and it got rave reviews from all who tried it! I even had a rew requests to FedEx slices around the country! To save on postage, here's the recipe: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=10000000225964

For Christmas, my mom gave me a Martha Stewart Cupcake cookbook. I'm not generally a humongous Martha "Jailbird" Stewart fan, but I definitely can make an exception for the sake of this book. It has tons of awesome ideas, and some amazing techniques that I'm anxious to try. I present to you the first thing I tried out of it.... the Snickerdoodle Cupcake. It seriously tasted just like a Snickerdoodle! It was amazing. They were a little dried out because Einstein (yours truly) left them out on the counter all day after they cooled, but they were still pretty darn good! The frosting is her Seven Minute Frosting, and it was also really good. Let me just tell you, though, that "Seven Minute Frosting" does NOT mean that it takes 7 minutes to make! That's what it sounded like to me, and it is absolutely not the case. It means 7 minutes of beating the daylights out of it once you have everything mixed in with the egg whites. I should've timed how long it actually took, but it was probably around 20 minutes. Bear in mind, though, that I have 2 kids and 2 dogs constantly underfoot, so that tends to extend cooking times on anything I try my hand at. Ok, ok, enough babbling about the dern cupcakes. Try them, they're great!

The last, and most recent, thing is French Onion Soup. I somehow ended up with 2 bags of onions from the Organic Co-op that I piggybacked my way into, and wanted to use them up before they all rotted in my fridge. What better way to go through 15 onions than with a giant pot of soup? I'd never tried making it before, so I hunted this up from allrecipes: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Rich-and-Simple-French-Onion-Soup/Detail.aspx I didn't entirely follow it persay, just kind of used it as a guideline. (I totally just almost quoted "Pirates of the Caribbean" there. I know, I'm a dweeb.) I didn't have canned beef broth, so I used beef boullion packs instead. Same difference, really. I also didn't have Sherry, so I used a little bit of Cab Sav that I had. I did use the Parmesan the night I made it, but skipped it when having leftovers for lunch, and liked it way better that way. Just throw the slice of Provolone on top, then tear up a slice of Swiss on top of that, then throw it in the toaster oven to broil. (I found that out toaster oven did a much better job of broiling than the regular oven.) It's a really good soup, perfect for warming you up on a cold wintry day! Just be prepared for your house to smell like onions for the next 3 days! :)

Well since I jumped back on the bandwagon here, hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it!

Who knows, maybe eventually someone will even read this thing! :)