Last Few Weeks

I've finally started to settle in and accept my unemployed status.  It's tough being unemployed and yes I do realize that sounds ridiculous.  You go through so many different emotions.  At first I was sad to leave the working world.  The first week felt like a stay-cation.  I did as much and as little as I wanted to do and that brought me happiness.  Along comes the second week and reality set in pretty quickly.  There was anger (how come everyone else gets to work!), depression (I'm a sad, boring person now and I hate housework), and anxiety (am I ever going to work again?) all thrown into the mix..  And the BOREDOM!  Never in my life have I ever felt this kind of cabin fever before.  Now I get excited to run even the most mundane errands.  Currently I am in my third week of unemployment and I've dropped the anxiety and anger this week (had an interview Monday).  The depression has turned mainly just into boredom.   It's finally the time to get back to blogging.


Obviously I'm still trying to stick with making cheap yet delicious dishes.  Usually while I'm looking through my recipes I'll look at the ingredient list.  If I have a lot of ingredients on the list and the ones I have to purchase are inexpensive that recipe will make the cut.  Since I've been a bit of a slacker when it comes to blogging, I'm going to recap a few recipes I made.


Rachael Ray's Salsa Stoup and Double-Decker Baked Quesadillas:  I love soup and what could be better than turning salsa into a soup! The quesadillas are cheese and scallion; the scallions really gave these more flavor then you normally get with a cheese quesadilla. I will be adding scallions, leek, or shallots to my cheese quesadillas from now on.


Total Cost:  (I already had the oil, onion, garlic and omitted the cilantro and sour cream) $13.49

Mushroom and Sausage Ragu with Polenta:  Yum this was a great meal!  I added some sauteed kale to it because it needed more veggies and the kale was the perfect choice.  Total cost:   (I had the oil, onion, garlic, salt, and butter and substituted baby bella's for creminis)  $11.65

Both of these recipes had enough left over for lunches the next day.  

That's my update for now.  Next up:  Garlic and Bean Enchiladas and Sweet Potato Soup

The Sandwich That Made Me Cry...and Pizza!

When coming up with ideas for dinners without Anthony, I stated to think about all the things that he doesn’t like (eggplant, mushroom, pineapple). Then I remembered a pizza that my friend mentioned. While it sounds like a weird combination, I could totally see why it would be great. This is why I decided to make a Pineapple and Jalapeno Pizza. Pineapple used to be my topping of choice on pizza and it wasn’t always available. I’ve suggested pineapple on pizza to Anthony before, but he is not into the fruit on pizza thing. Luckily I found a recipe online for this exact pizza. At least some people have good taste out there!


The recipe calls for store bought dough (I had a small thought of making my own crust, but it seemed like too much work). I picked up wheat pizza dough from Wegmans. You can either just stretch the dough by hand over your pizza pan or roll it out with a rolling pin. I stretched it by hand (one less item to wash!) and tried to get it as evenly spread out as I possibly could. Then you make an easy pizza sauce (you could just buy pizza sauce to make this even easier) using a can of tomato sauce, olive oil, 1 clove of garlic chopped, and chopped basil, thyme, and parsley. Spread this over the pizza dough, than add mozzarella and parmesan cheese (1/2 of each). Top the cheese with pineapple (1 large can) and jalapenos (1 can), than add the rest of the cheese. Bake it in the oven for 30 minutes (at least). Mine was in the oven for 35 minutes.

Final Product:

I'm from New Jersey (we like thin crust!) so the crust on this pizza was too thick for me. That fact alone makes me want to try to make my own crust next time. Even though the crust was thick, it was actually pretty good considering it was store bought. I loved, loved, loved the pineapple with the jalapeno. The combination of the sweet and spicy was perfect. Too much cheese for my taste, but with a few little changes this recipe can be perfect!

A few days ago I really wanted to make a vegetable sandwich with eggplant, portabella mushroom and roasted red peppers. I tried combining two different recipes for said sandwich; one where the veggies are grilled the other where they are sautéed. Disaster ensued and it wasn’t just because I was trying to make something up on my own. The first issue was when I decided this would work without using the grill. I thought it best not to try to grill stuff when Anthony wasn’t home, I didn’t want to blow myself up. So I figured why not just pan fry these things (thinking back now I don’t even know why I thought of that, all that oil on a sandwich = yuck). When I took the portabella mushroom out of the fridge it was a little soggy around the edges and when I took the gills out it was starting to break at the edges. I should have just stopped there, but instead I got my eggplant ready. I put some oil in a pan and added half of the mushroom and two slices of eggplant. Another bad idea was adding the roasted red pepper to the hot pan, it started making a popping sound and was sticking to the pan. I pulled that out right away. Meanwhile the mushroom somehow managed to start burning and the smoke detector started shrilling. Everything was way too oily, the mushroom was way too burned and when taking the red pepper out of the pan half of it fell on the floor. Then I when I tried to cut the bread I discovered it was way too hard; I couldn’t even cut it (this is why I don’t like shopping ahead of time!). I got so angry and frustrated with all of it that I took everything and threw it all in the garbage! There is not final product picture for this one. I thought about taking a picture of the trash, but that wouldn’t have been very attractive.


I had been defeated by the cooking. It finally did me in; to the point that I swore I would not be cooking for the entire rest of the time that I was dining alone. Lack of sleep, coupled with being bored sent me over the edge and I ended up in tears over a vegetable sandwich. A sandwich!! I heated up some leftover pizza and took some deep breaths. Is this it? Am I through with all of it? Done?


I really did think I was and then a miracle happened. Last night I got my act together and managed to put a meal together. The recipe was horrible, so horrible I’m not even going to post it, but I cooked. I didn’t let the whole issue of the night before make me lose my confidence in my ability to cook a basic meal.


Here’s a picture of my recovery meal.

It is fettuccini tossed in a mixture of tomato paste, olive oil, garlic, and hot pepper flakes with salad greens added to it. Why? Who knows! Was it good? Not really, but I was happy. Happy that I moved on from the disaster of the day before and had the will to continue on with my cooking adventure.


Can’t wait to see what I come up with for next week. It’s my last dining alone week, so it should be interesting.

Coconut Poached Salmon

It’s been 4 days of alone time for me. Okay let’s be real I haven’t been alone for very long in the last 4 days. I’m typically a pretty busy person and it seems while Anthony is away that hasn’t changed. I went to a Cabi clothes party (very cute clothes, but way too expensive for me. I’m a firm believer in buying cheap clothes so that I don’t have to keep them for years!), dinner with friends at The Crab Shack (I had the clam bake), more dinner with friends at Beale Street (pulled pork sandwich), and then helping friends move. I got home Saturday night (after helping with the move) and needed to cook something for just me. The itch to cook was there and when the itch happens I must cook (simply because it doesn’t happen often and I wouldn’t want to pass up the chance to blog something).




I was pretty intrigued with what I was going to be cooking, salmon poached in coconut milk. Anything coconut just makes the salivating start. Poaching is something I don’t do very often. I’ve poached eggs just the one time for this blog and I’ve poached chicken for a soup that I make a lot. But I’ve never poached fish. I’m totally in love with the concept! Poaching means (in The Hesitant Cook dictionary): Letting a protein boil/simmer in liquid of some type and it not getting all dried out.


This Rachael Ray recipe was pretty easy to follow. As is typical, I forgot to buy something, in this case a lime. Oh well you can’t expect me to be on top of everything all the time. I also did not make this entire recipe because I was not in the mood for watercress. There is a possibility that I will make this again next week with the watercress, although by then I might find another way to cook salmon (I have one fillet left in the house. If you have a good way for me to cook it let me know.) Back to the recipe, you boil the chicken broth until it reduces by half. At that point you add the coconut milk, lime juice (which I did have on hand), lime zest (which sadly I didn’t have) and basil. Add the salmon and poach it for about 10 minutes. I’m not good at telling when salmon is cooked and I figured it wouldn’t dry out using this method so I poached it for the full 10 minutes. Meanwhile I used some of this rice (I’m not ashamed, I can’t cook rice!) and added some coconut milk to it and heated it on the stove.


The salmon and rice were both done and plated when I remembered that I still had to make the sauce! Oops! Luckily I had heated the plate in the microwave so my food stayed warm. The watercress part of recipe was throwing me off track and I thought I was finished. I brought the poaching liquid to a boil, dissolved the cornstarch with cold water and added it to the liquid. I whisked it until it was thickened and then poured in onto the salmon and rice.


Final Product: 

    

          (sorry my pictures are going to be sad since 

                      Anthony has the good camera!)

This was delicious. I ate the whole thing and I didn’t even realize I was that hungry! The fish was very moist. There was a flavor to it that I can’t describe, sorry I tried to come up with the word while eating it but I couldn’t. It was salty and a little sweet. Poaching fish is the way to go! I was very impressed with how moist the salmon turned out. I’m an over cooker and typically my salmon is on the dry side. This method of cooking is going to be something that I do more often. I encourage everyone to try it out. Even non-cooks like me can do this!


Now if only I could figure out why my grocery bill was eighty dollars! I’m only one person this week, how in the world could I have bought $80 worth of groceries? No meat was bought, no cleaning products, no shampoos or anything like that. Also I only bought ingredients for 4 dinners. Thinking back on what I bought I still can’t fathom why my bill was so high. One portabella and one eggplant couldn’t have done so much damage. It baffles me. Completely. Looks like this weekend I am going to the public market for my vegetables and seeing if that makes a difference. I’ll post a blog about the experience and let you know what I discover!


Tomorrow's blog post:  Pineapple and Jalapeno Pizza



Coconut Vegetable Curry

This post will be kind of lame. I didn’t do a lot of cooking the last 4 days. I was supposed to share with you the pork roll sandwich picture, but we had an issue with the pork roll. We bought a roll from Wegmans , but the slices Anthony cut from the roll were so tiny! Question for the Jersey people reading this, was that always the case little bitty slices, because that's not what I remember?! We went back to Wegmans yesterday and the pre-sliced is much bigger than the roll slices. What’s up with that?! I did have Anthony fry me an egg and some pork roll for breakfast yesterday. I’m okay with the pieces being smaller for breakfast, but not on a sandwich. Three of those tiny slices barely filled the Kaiser roll we had it on.

Not sure who was watching the show America’s Next Great Restaurant, but sadly Spice Coast (an Indian fast casual idea) didn’t win. I was pulling for it, because I would eat there a lot! It was between Spice Coast (Indian flavors), Brooklyn Meatball Co (meatballs), and Soul Daddy (soul food). Spice Coast would have been the only place I could eat at more often. I have nothing against meatballs or soul food (I love both a bunch!), but that’s not the type of food I can eat often. Indian is! (In case anyone is wondering Soul Daddy won! Congrats to Jamawn Woods! ) So strangely enough I made a vegetable curry last night, the night that Spice Coast lost. I love Indian spices! I’ve even added curry to my tomato sauce before. Yum!

The actual name of the recipe is Indian Coconut Curried Vegetables. Please don’t judge me when I tell you that I had Anthony chop the vegetables. I’m slow and I just wanted to get the cooking over with and Anthony is so fast at chopping vegetables! Not to mention that cooking should be a family activity right?! So the veggies were prepped: carrot and zucchini sliced, cauliflower cut, green beans snapped (is that what you call that snapped? I did the snapping!), onion, garlic, and ginger chopped. I didn’t buy a chili pepper, because I already had chili paste. I put the onion, garlic, ginger, and chili paste in my little food processor and made it into a paste basically. Put this mixture in a skillet with some oil and added the spices:  coriander, cumin, curry, and turmeric and heat it for a couple of minutes. Then I added all the vegetables and the coconut milk. It says to use 1 cup of the coconut milk, but I added a whole can and added some more of the spices in case the milk diluted it. You cover this and let it cook for 20 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.

                                    (I just love the color of curry dishes!)

I made basmati rice and heated up some naan bread to go with the veggie curry.  Overall this meal was super simple to make! The hardest part is chopping the veggies. The result: ah not so great. It was actually quite bland. I don’t think this is due to me adding a little more coconut milk than asked for since I added more of the spices. I’m not sure what the problem with this recipe is. The only thing I can come up with is to add more salt than the ½ a teaspoon it says to add and maybe even more of the spices. Crazy to think with all those spices we still ended up with a pretty bland main dish. Anthony said it needs chicken, but I’m trying to have as many meatless meals as possible. Although I’m sure it would taste better with chicken in it! I’m actually willing to try it with chicken just to see if it will up the flavor.

Not sure what will be on the menu for this week. I didn’t plan ahead. I wanted my meals to be a surprise this week. I need some excitement in my life, so I’m living on the edge. Yes, for me not having a menu for the week is living on the edge. I’m sure some of you do this all the time, but I’m a planner!

Weekend Cooking

Weekend cooking is much less rushed than weeknight cooking in our house. I decided to cook Saturday and Sunday. This doesn’t normally happen, because I would rather go taste delicious food elsewhere on the weekend rather than cook. Alas Anthony had his last two days of clinical so there was no time to go out for dinner. Since we had to stay in, I took on a challenge that I have been meaning to face for awhile now. That challenge was risotto. I’ve never cooked it before, because I’ve heard it’s hard to get it just right. I am not one to try anything hard in the kitchen. I like easy, fast, nothing too terrible can go wrong kind of recipes but the challenge was ON!


I have a Rachael Ray cookbook that only has vegetarian recipes in it and I found a risotto recipe in there. She also had a few variations of it and the one I chose to use was adding asparagus to the risotto. The recipe added a step I didn’t know you should do when making risotto and that is putting the broth in a separate pot on the stove and letting it simmer. That brings me to my next point about risotto, I had to use 4 separate pans/pots for this recipe. One for the broth, one to steam the asparagus, one to sauté the asparagus, and one for the rice! That would never work for a weeknight, so this should only be made when you have a lot of time to clean all the dishes! I believe this is a very traditional risotto recipe, you sauté onion in olive oil and butter. Then you add the Arborio rice and sauté for a few minutes. We added some wine once the rice was sautéed, it was not in the recipe but Anthony said it’s normally in risotto. Now we are at the point where you start adding the broth, start with a cup, keep stirring the rice and wait for the rice to soak the broth up.   

The recipe says to do this until half of the broth is used (3 cups), than taste the rice and if it needs more broth add it in gradually because you don’t want to overcook the rice. Overcook the rice? Is that possible? I used all of the broth and the rice was still a little bit crunchy. There wasn’t any broth left so I just had to call it quits. I stirred in the now sautéed (with garlic) asparagus and the parmigiano reggiano.

Final Product:

You know what? It really wasn’t all that bad for a first effort. I assumed it would be inedible. The flavor was good; it was just a bit crunchy. My idea for next time is to sauté the rice (before broth is added) for a little bit longer and to heat up more broth. This rice needs a lot of liquid! Those are my tips and I hope you will try to make risotto. It’s really nowhere near as hard and time consuming as people always say it is. You just have to have a little patience. I’m not known for my patience in any situation, but I managed to overcome that while making this risotto.


The other meal I cooked this weekend was, Tuscan Salmon with Rosemary Orzo. Not nearly as difficult and it’s pretty healthy. Once again I have a Wegman’s complaint. Don’t hate on me! Sometimes to make things easier I buy the frozen salmon club pack. There is a disclaimer if you follow the link that states: Although We Have Made Our Best Efforts to Remove All Bones, it is Possible That on Rare Occasions Small Bones May be Found. Would a rare occasion be at least 2-3 bones in every single piece that I serve? We find bones (okay it’s almost always in Anthony’s piece) every time we eat these frozen salmon fillets. That would not be a rare occasion since we eat salmon usually once a week. Wegman’s, you might need tighter quality control!!


Enough complaining…back to the cooking! There isn’t a ton of prep to be done, chopping an onion, cutting cherry tomatoes in half, slicing kalamata olives, chopping rosemary, basil, and parsley. Ok maybe there is a bit of prep to be done, but it was fast! Cook the orzo according to the package and sauté some onion and rosemary. Add the onion and rosemary to the orzo once it’s been strained. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and basil on the salmon, cook for 5 minutes each side or until done (and hopefully you will know when that is!). Take that out and cook up the vegetables (garlic, onion, tomato, and olives), this takes maybe a total of 8 minutes.

After that you take it off the heat and stir in the parsley and basil. Serve the salmon on the orzo and top with the veggie mixture.

Final Product:

Well my first mistake was forgetting to buy basil, so I used dried and that was a fine solution. The other problem I had (I always have this problem when cooking fish) was undercooking the salmon. I had it on much longer than 5 minutes a side, because they didn’t look completely cooked. Finally the salmon started burning so I took it out. Once we got to the table with the salmon, part of my fillet was undercooked. Yes, I know you can eat undercooked salmon (and I do with sushi all the time!), but as a fillet it freaks me out a little. So I just ate around it; it wasn’t a huge piece that was undercooked. This was a very good meal, minus the undercooked salmon. It tastes good and it's healthy. Try it out!


I’m proud of myself for staying in and cooking this weekend. It doesn’t happen often, but I feel healthier for it and also saved money! Since the weekend we haven’t had anything spectacular for dinner: egg salad sandwiches Monday night (had to use up some of the Easter eggs I dyed) and black bean and cheese quesadillas last night. I have been doing really well with not eating meat of any kind this week.  That will be turning around the next few nights. Tonight we will be having pork roll sandwiches for dinner (yes I will be posting pictures since they now have the actual rolls and not just the slices at Wegman’s) and Thursday night we are going to Brewtopia (a monthly beer tasting event) at Rohrbach’s. I will be making a vegetable coconut curry that I will share with you this weekend. Can’t wait, it sounds wonderful!

Destined For Failure...

Are some recipes just destined for failure?  I believe they are.  Seems to me that if you were to write a recipe you would test it out numerous times to make sure everything you were stating was fact.  I would hate to be the cause of someones meltdown in the kitchen.  There are times though when I completly follow a recipe and the meal still turns out terribly.  That is a recipe destined for failure.  Come on recipe writers test these recipes out.  Pretend like you can't really cook and need extra special help to do it.  Make these recipes fool proof.  Yes, I know.  Nothing is fool proof in my hands, but honestly this last one wasn't my fault.

The recipe:  Soba Noodles with Shrimp, Snow Peas,and Carrots.  Healthy, easy, tasty.  Those are the three words that come to mind when I see the title of this recipe and this is food that I really want to eat and enjoy.  Everything was going smoothly.  Prepping this dish was easy enough, though I did lose a little piece of skin from my thumb while grating the ginger.  I survived that though and was still in a good mood.  In fact this night was the most calm and collected night I've had in the kitchen in a long while.  I followed all the instructions and WHAM.  Soba is way over cooked!  Honestly now that I think about it I should have paid more attention to the length of time they have you cook the noodles (7 minutes).  Once before I made soba and noticed it cooked pretty fast then too.  Even the shrimp were a little chewy, that was my fault since I only had already cooked shrimp on hand. 

Final Product:

The sauce was yummy (it has peanut butter in it so that's a given) and I would make this again, but would definitly not cook the noodles for very long.  Whoever wrote this recipe must have had some crazy soba, because I had the normal stuff and it didn't need 7 minutes. 

I Did Cook, I Have Proof!

Finally I have a chance to let you know how my week of cooking has been going. I cooked dinner Monday (with help from Anthony) and Tuesday. Wednesday night I had a headache and was not in the mood to cook so we ordered take-out sushi. Call me crazy, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t be cooking every single night this week. Turns out I also won’t be cooking dinner Friday since Anthony is working that night. The two meals that were cooked this week turned out to be pretty bland.

Monday night I decided to make Anthony’s father’s pasta e fagiloi. The recipe we had for it didn’t seem very complete so we improvised parts of it. Anthony seemed interested in helping me make this, I think partly because the recipe wasn’t complete and partly because it’s his father’s recipe. We sautéed chopped onion, celery (with the celery leaves), and garlic. Then we added chicken broth about 2 cups and brought it to a boil and added a cup of ditalini pasta. You have to keep stirring it because the pasta will stick otherwise. Once the pasta is cooked you add cannellini beans. Let them heat through and then stir in some grated parmesan, salt, and pepper. That’s it; it’s a very simple easy and delicious recipe. Ours turned out a bit bland. It needed more salt and pepper. Everything always tastes better when someone else cooks it, so hopefully next time when his parents visit his dad can make some!

Final Product:

Tuesday night I was supposed to make Chicken Vindaloo. I don’t have all the spices that you need to make an Indian recipe from scratch so normally I will buy the already made pastes that you can buy at Wegmans. They did not have the Vindaloo paste when I went shopping this weekend. Instead I bought a Hot Curry Paste. Any Vindaloo dish I have had has been really spicy and I wanted to get something that would compare to that. So I made the Hot Curry Chicken the same way I make Chicken Vindaloo. I sautéed a cup of chopped onion, then added 1 pound of chopped chicken breast and cooked it until it was white. Then I added 3 medium cubed red potatoes, 4 tablespoons of the Hot Curry Paste, and enough water so that everything was almost covered (that’s what the recipe says to do) and simmered it for about 20 minutes until the potatoes were tender. The end result was pretty watery, I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be. I served it over Basmati Rice and the rice just sucked up all the sauce, the chicken was also a bit over cooked. It just wasn’t Chicken Vindaloo and we found it a little bit bland (that’s becoming a theme with my cooking). A little odd that it was bland considering I put 4 tablespoons of the curry paste in. Guess I won’t be making that again, unless I can find the Vindaloo paste or can make it from scratch. I also served it with Naan Bread and Daal (Indian Lentils). The already cooked lentils was a great idea, they were nice and spicy. If you mixed them into the chicken and rice you got some more flavor out of the meal.

Final Product:

Easy Salmon Cakes

When planning this week’s menu I enlisted Anthony. I’m having trouble coming up with things to eat 5-6 days a week. It’s not the easiest thing to do. I like to have a balance of fish, meat, and no-meat dishes. So I can usually come up with 3-4 meals on my own and then I can’t find 1 or 2 more meals that sound appealing and fit into my balance structure. This week Anthony chose to make fried rice for dinner and he suggested that I make salmon cakes. Salmon anything usually sounds good to me and I found a recipe for salmon cakes on eatingwell.com. Sounds healthy to me!

One of the items I had to buy for the salmon cakes was 15 ounces of canned salmon. I’ve never bought canned salmon. When I’ve made salad and wanted salmon on it I bought it in a one of those pouch/bag type things. I wasn’t ready for what was going to greet me in a can of salmon. I assumed it would be a little like tuna fish. (On another note, I am not a fan of tuna fish, because I don’t really like tuna unless it’s in sushi.) This was NOTHING like tuna fish. The minute I opened it I was scared. The first thing I noticed was the skin on the fish. Ew. Then I noticed that there were bones!! Bones and skin, what the heck! Now skin is fine if I’m pan frying fish on the stove or grilling it. It is not okay if it needs to be removed in order for me to make patties out of it. So I started cleaning the skin off the fish. That was when I noticed the most horrifying item, the spinal cord!! This fish still had a spine people!! That is not okay. That will never be okay to me! I HAD to clean all the bones off this fish. I wasn’t eating any, that’s for sure. SO I pushed the bones off the fish with a knife, one vertebra at a time. I’m still uneasy about this whole experience. I will not be rushing out to buy more canned salmon anytime soon. I googled canned salmon later and found out that some people are actually eating it with the skin and bones still there. Apparently this is possible because it’s mostly cartilage. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to eat cartilage either. You should see how picky I am when eating chicken wings. Forget it! Eating bones is not an option people!

The rest of this was a breeze compared to that first step. In a skillet with oil, cook the chopped onion and celery until soft. Then take it off the heat and stir in the parsley. Next you add an egg and mustard to the salmon and mix that well. You then add the onion mix, breadcrumbs, and ground pepper and mix that well too. Form the mixture into 8 patties and put them in a skillet with some oil and cook the patties until their undersides are golden. Then flip them over onto a baking sheet and place in the oven at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes. .

Final Product:

The salmon came out pretty well. Both of us enjoyed the flavor of the cakes. They were more bready and dense than I typically like my seafood cakes. I’m a more seafood, less bread type of girl. I used a little less then a cup of breadcrumbs and the recipe calls for 1 3/4 cups. That is way too much and even what I put in was too much, so I would start with ½ a cup of breadcrumbs if you decide to try this recipe. It was nice having a salad for a side dish, instead of our usual starch. I also made Creamy Dill sauce to dip the salmon cakes into. That is just mayo, plain yogurt, scallions, dill, lemon juice, and black pepper. It wasn’t bad, though I don’t really love mayonnaise.

I’m not sure what I’m cooking next; depends on what I might be in the mood for. Maybe shrimp. I do love me some shrimp!

Squash Soup in Pumpkin Bowls

Day 24-Well another day, another meal cooked. Things seem to be going better in the kitchen this week, so I’m going to leave last weeks burning mess behind me. Do I have more confidence? Ah, not really. I’m just walking into the kitchen and telling myself whatever happens is not the end of the world…and take out can always be ordered! Last nights meal was exciting. Edible bowls!! I love edible bowls! It’s the small things in life that make me the happiest. I was standing in the check out line one Sunday and saw the cover of a magazine (Food Network Oct, 2010 issue), it showed pumpkins filled with some yummy goodness. So I looked closer and discovered it was butternut squash soup in the pumpkin with a slew of lovely toppings. Of course I bought the magazine and put Squash Soup in Pumpkin Bowls on the menu for this week.

I went to the Farmer’s Market to buy the squash. I purchased one butternut squash for the soup and two acorn squash for the bowls. I didn’t see baking pumpkins anywhere, but the recipe says you can use acorn too. Looking at the squash last night I knew right away that I was going to need help in the kitchen. So I recruited Anthony to make the bottoms of the acorn squash flat and to cut the tops off. He also scooped out the fibers and seeds inside them. Then he peeled, seeded, and cut the butternut squash for me too. What a doll! It’s an easy night of cooking for me, if I don’t have to cut a ton of veggies. We saved the seeds from all of the squash to plant in the garden. That’s something to look forward too!

Once you season the acorn squash with salt and sugar, you bake them at 400 degrees for about 35 minutes. Then you need to start the soup. You melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a pot, then add ½ a small onion, 1 teaspoon of salt, and thyme leaves. Cook until the onion is soft then put the butternut squash and sugar in the pot and get the squash nice and glazed. Next 5 cups of water is added and you bring it to a boil. Then you lower it to a simmer and cook until the squash is tender. Basically after that you just blend it all up (in batches) and add some heavy cream if you want to. Done. You can add a variety of different toppings. I used crumbled bacon, paprika, fried onions, and green pumpkin seeds. I served it with sourdough bread.

Final Product:

Yeah this was good. The soup seemed a bit more watery than I normally like soup, but with the addition of the edible bowls it worked nicely. You could scrape some of the bowl into your soup or onto your spoon to give the soup more texture. It was very good. I couldn’t get enough of the acorn squash, it was very yummy. This will definitely be made again for dinner and hopefully next year we will have our own butternut and acorn squash to use. Try this one! It would really be a great dish for entertaining. Everyone loves edible bowls!

Well that wasn’t too scary. Of course I had some help, but a girl can’t do EVERYTHING by herself. I’m taking a break from cooking tonight to enjoy some leftover chili and soup. I’ll be back with a new shrimp dish in a few days.

Thanks for reading! If you want any of the recipes please use the link to the left called Recipes Used for The Hesitant Cook.

Turkey Bean Chili

Day 23-Let me start out by saying YAY!! After my night of burning everything I really needed a win. We went out for dinner Friday night, so I got a break. Then Saturday I decided to make chili and invited a few people over for dinner. I’m always really nervous to invite people over for dinner if I’m cooking. As evidenced in the last post I have good reason to be worried. Something easy could turn into a complete nightmare. Since I felt pretty safe making a one pot dish, I felt okay about inviting people over for dinner. Also since I wasn’t cutting the recipe I knew I was going to have a lot of leftover chili if I didn’t have company over. Thank goodness everything worked out.

Chili is awesome. I love it. I like cooking it on the stove or in the crock pot. Using ground beef, ground turkey, or some other ground meats. One pot meals are also awesome for clean up purposes. Although at the end of the night our sink was over flowing with items that needed to be washed! One pot turned into a five. I got this recipe from a magazine cookbook called Taste of Home: Casseroles, Slow Cooker, and Soups. All of my favorite things to cook! The recipe is super easy and was a much needed break from the more involved recipes I have done recently.

The prep work included chopping an onion, green pepper, and jalapeño pepper. Also you have to open the 4 cans of stewed tomatoes and chop those up in smaller pieces too. Then you need to drain and rinse 1 can of black beans, 1 can of kidney beans, and 1 can of pinto beans. Next you sauté the onion, pepper, and 2 pounds of ground turkey. Once the turkey is no longer pink, you add all the rest of the ingredients. The three cans of beans you drained, plus a can of chili beans (not drained), the tomatoes, jalapeño, and all the spices. Then you let it simmer for however long you want. That part doesn’t have to be timed out. I was able to let it sit longer then I thought and the longer it sits the better it tastes.

I made corn bread from the Jiffy box. I decided to add the stuff that Anthony adds to the scratch cornbread he makes. So I mixed up the Jiffy with chopped red pepper, a teaspoon of Goya Sazon seasoning, and some chili powder. I used the whole red pepper and I probably only needed 1/2, but I didn’t want it to go to waste. Our guests arrived to see most of my chili and corn bread making. Then Anthony arrived home and decided that he wanted to make fried green tomatoes too! So we had quite the southern meal Saturday night. The only thing missing was the collard greens. Everything came out really well. My corn bread was a little crumbly from too many red peppers, but it was still tasty.

Final Product:

This chili will be made again, most likely in a smaller batch. Corn bread would have been even better if it was scratch, so I’ll try that next time. The tomatoes were also really good, I don’t really know how Anthony makes then, I only know that corn meal is involved. Great food, great time!

Next up, Squash Soup served in Acorn Squash bowls. This has to go well, it’s soup!

Don't forget if you want any of the recipes from this blog, click the link on the right side of the blog titled Recipes Used for The Hesitant Cook!

Seared Pork Chops with Orange-Chipotle Glaze

Day 22-I went into the kitchen with a smile on my face. I was ready and willing to continue my cooking expedition. Last time I made pork Anthony told me that I cooked it just right, so I went into this recipe with a good attitude. Knowing all of this, I am now going to prove to you that positive thinking does not help people who can't cook.

As everyone knows whenever possible I've been trying to keep the food we eat when we cook at home healthy and nutritious. I got the recipe for Seared Pork Chops with Orange-Chipotle Glaze from Fitness Magazine. When I look back I'm assuming that I choose this recipe because of the word chipotle. I love chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. Now I know never to choose a recipe based on one ingredient. Although I don't think that if I had really studied this recipe I would have foreseen disaster.

Things went well at first. I prepped everything easily enough. I mixed the marmalade, chipotle peppers, and parsley together (the recipe calls for cilantro, but with Anthony I have to use parsley instead). I seared the pork until golden brown and then the trouble began. I added the marmalade mixture to the pan and simmered it for a few minutes. Then I put the pork back into the pan, but the marmalade mixture was starting to burn. I turned the heat down lower and then the pork wouldn't cook. I can't eat pink pork, it scares me a little. So I wanted this pork to be cooked through, but with the heat so low it just wouldn't cook. Being the impatient person that I am I turned the heat back up. Only to completely burn the marmalade mixture, so I took the mixture out of the pan and left the pork to cook.

It was impossible for me to get all of the marmalade mixture out of the pan and the remnants continued to burn. It smelled like burnt marshmallows. So I transfered the pork to another skillet. The next thing I know the pork is burning! What a mess!! I took the pork off of the heat and plated it, only to realize that the marmalade mixture was now a concrete hard disaster stuck in a glass bowl. Well, there goes that. So I didn't have anything to put on the pork. This nonsense pretty much confirms to me that I am a horrible cook. How could I burn everything? And how could I have not realized that the glaze would become useless if taken off the heat?

Final Product:

Burnt Marmalade Mixture

This just looks so pathetic and horrible!

In the end the pork was overcooked. Not good. I'm not even going to try to attempt this recipe again. It would only bring this whole miserable experience to mind again and I would rather forget it. I would suggest others try this recipe, as long as you can cook. I stumbled across another blog Abbey's Kitchen, who seemed to have made this perfectly. Am I bitter? No, I just have take it as a loss and venture on.

No worries, my next time in the kitchen was much better. I even had dinner guests! More on the Turkey Bean Chili (much more my style of cooking) next time.