(no subject)

[sam_gamgee]

Yesterday, I cleaned some things out of the refrigerator (thankfully, nothing green and fuzzy) and gathered up all of the loose recipes in the "cookbook drawer" so I can go through them and possibly attempt a few of them. (Most of them are ones my dad will pull out of the paper thinking it looks interesting, but it's either a) something we'll never make - *ever* or b) the same recipe five times with one little variation that's not enough to make it different.)

Today, my grammy wanted me to get some things for her from the dollar store, so while I was there, I picked up a few things too. I got a bunch of two cup Rubbermaid containers so I can cook stuff and not feel overwhelmed by larger sized recipes (and literally feed myself for a week! :-P) and two Nalgene-type bottles - one for ice tea (when I don't feel like making a big pitcher) and the other for water (I've found I'm more willing to drink water outside of meals when it's in a container instead of a glass - not sure why).

And I cooked today too! A lot!
- I made a batch of baked oatmeal for breakfast this week.
- I made two chicken dishes - one with egg noodles and veggies and the other was a cheesy Mexican dish - that I divvied up into the newly purchased containers for dinners this week. And I had part of the Mexican chicken recipe tonight for dinner. (I think next time, I'm going to skip the cream of celery soup that the Mexican dish called for - it was a bit much with the cheese and I have a feeling it'll taste better with out it. Why do all chicken dishes find it necessary to use cream of ___ soups in their recipes? They're disgusting!)
- I cut up an onion, a tomato, and a cucumber and mixed them with some olive oil, vinegar, and spices and stuck it in the fridge, so it'll be interesting to try it after it's had some time to marinate. The cucumber was from my granddad's garden. I can't wait until the rest of the stuff starts coming in - peppers, tomatoes, eggplant.
- I cut up a few apples we had left over from last week and some of the plums my dad bought today and mixed them with some blueberries also left over from last week. I think they might need a little sugar to make them juicier, but we'll see.
- I made chocolate oatmeal drop cookies. I didn't get as many as the recipe said I would, but whatever - they're still good.

Comments

[ahavia.livejournal.com]

Yummy!
Ahavia

[sam-gamgee.livejournal.com]

So far so good with everything! :-)

I haven't tried the casserole yet, but the Mexican dish was good, though I think it'll be better with a bit of tweaking.

[justhuman.livejournal.com]

A lot of recipes out of newspapers still have the 70s style recipes that rely on using a prepared food like cans of soup. I know that you're trying to improve your diet by cooking more, so avoiding things like the soup are a good idea - they're packed with sodium among other things.

Here's a fantastic chicken recipe that I made the other night-
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/nigella-express/coq-au-riesling-recipe/index.html

And here are the variations I made on it, because I was too lazy to fully look it up ;-)

Instead of mushrooms, I chopped up some small zucchinis with the skin on. Any kind of mushrooms would work here

I used chardonnay instead of Riesling because it was what I had in the house

I happened to have some panchetta (Italian style bacon) and a duck hot dog and used that instead of the bacon. <-- okay what I did was *weird* but the point is that instead of bacon, subbing in a sausage link cut into cubes or even some Virginia ham would work. Tip: If you're grocery store has "ends" for deli meats, this is a great way to get a small amount of ham for dicing cheap. If you're feeling adventurous, a hot Italian sausage or a chirizo would be an interesting twist. Of course, there's nothing wrong wit just using bacon.

I happened to have a leak, so I used it. If I didn't have one, I'd go with some thinly sliced onions - maybe not as many as the leaks because onions have a stronger flavor.

LOL - I didn't remember the herbs at all and ended up using some dried thyme

So, you can see that it's a versatile recipe. It really was perfectly done in 40 minutes - I could use a wooden spoon and split the thighs into large chunks, but they still had some life left to them.

***

Why don't you add a cooking show to your weekly viewing? For some easy cooking, here are a few of my favorites

10 Dollar Dinners or Giada at Home or Everyday Italian or 30 Minute Meals or Mexican Made Easy.

and if you're intrested in branching out

or Nigella Express or Indian Food Made Easy or Chinese Food Made Easy -- both of these last two will require you to expand the pantry with new spices and condiments, but the recipes are totally yummy looking. Nigella Express is on the border - very simple cooking techniques and small amounts of ingredients, but not all of her main ingredients are every day.


Even if you don't want to watch a cooking show, the Food Network site and the Cooking Channel site are also good places to search for recipes. I use google all the time, but a lot of times you get too many options. On The Cooking Channel and the Food Network you can type in an ingredient like chicken - there's a billion recipes. But then on the left, they have a variety of ways to narrow down the search, including adding a second and third ingredient to the mix.

[sam-gamgee.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the info! And the coq au vin recipe looks good. And I'm always up for tweaking things. (One of these days I want to be like my brother in one aspect - he can look at food and know how to make stuff without a recipe. I don't trust myself yet.)

And I was good with the soup and went with the "healthy choice" option - which has less fat and sodium.

I can't wait to go through all those websites for recipes. Sadly, I know they're there (since my grammy loves watching cooking shows), but I never think to use them. And I like using allrecipes.com (http://www.allrecipes.com) for the same reason - I can put in ingredients I do and/or don't want and can find recipes.

Thanks again! *hugs you*