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

Soup in the Summertime

I'm still in the mood to cook, so far so good. No issues have happened in the kitchen this week to make me feel like giving up yet.  So Saturday night with my spirits high it was time to get busy in the kitchen making soup.  I rarely make soup in the summer.  I think it's just something in my head that makes me think if it's hot outside than we shouldn't be eating soup.  This recipe looked too good to pass up, Spiced Coconut Lentil Soup.  No blender necessary which was a big plus. I hate having to pull the blender out of storage to make soup.

I minced the red onion in my food chopper (stored in the kitchen so it's not a hassle to use it) and put it in the dutch oven to saute with some coconut oil.  Let's stop here for a second.  I bought coconut oil during that $160 shopping trip that I made.  This stuff isn't cheap, $7.49.  I couldn't bring myself to taste it right out of the jar.  I tried, but it reminded me of candle wax or something else equally as unappealing.  So I'm not really sure if it helped with the flavor of the dish or not.  I figured it was a good investment since we make a ton of curries and Asian food and we can use it in place of other oils for that.  Apparently it's pretty good for your skin too and it's gives instructions on the jar for how to use it that way.

Then you add minced red chili (couldn't find a red chili so I used a hot pepper), ginger, and garlic and saute until the softened.  Now the recipe says for both of these steps (onion and chili, ginger, garlic) to cover while it's cooking.  I covered the onion and ended up burning it a little, so I wouldn't suggest covering it and I don't see why it's even needed. 

(sorry so blurry, I'm having some camera issues)

Next rinse your red lentils (which look more orange or pinkish in color) and add them to the pan with the spices ground coriander, cumin, and paprika, mix this well.  Add the coconut milk and water and crumble half of a vegetable bouillon cube into the pot; season with salt and pepper.  (I did not invest in pink Himalayan, not point in my opinion.) 

Cover the pan and bring it to a boil, than lower the heat so that you have a low simmer.  You will need to stir the soup a bit because the lentils could stick to the bottom of the pot.  Once the lentils have disintegrated (about 40 minutes), take the soup off the heat and stir in 1 lime's worth of lime juice.  Do not skip this step.  I tasted the soup before the lime juice and after.  It's so much better with the lime juice; it just gives it this extra depth that it needed. 

Final Product:

My thoughts:  Super good!  I loved everything about this soup.  The lime juice was perfect with the coconut milk and the lentils.  It was creamy and had a lot of flavor.  I served it with some sour dough bread, which was perfect to dip into the soup.  This recipe will be in heavy rotation.

Next up:  Budget Meals.  After overspending at Wegmans last week I can not afford to have the same thing happen again this week.  My first budget meal I will be testing out is Broccoli and Cheese Quiche.  Yes, I am on a bit of an egg kick, but eggs are soooo cheap. 

Chicken Tikka Masala and Minestrone Soup...Not on the Same Day!

I'm positive I've mentioned my love of Indian food numerous times now. Nothing I make at home ever tastes as good as what I get here. Of course I can't always afford to eat out every time I'm craving some Indian flavors. Chicken Tikka Masala is one of the ways that I appease my craving. It's a simple dish to make and if you are not sure about Indian food this is probably one of the more tame dishes to try.

I'm getting much better when prepping my food. I've found a comfortable way to chop onions and you will need one onion chopped for this recipe. For the rest of the prep you will need to crush 1 clove of garlic, grate 2 teaspoons of ginger, and cut 1 1/4 lbs of chicken breast into 1 inch chunks. Nothing too difficult or time consuming.

Your first cooking step is to get your basmati rice started. You have to use basmati rice when making Indian food it's so much better then the normal white rice. If you don't have a cinnamon stick to add to the water, you can add some ground cinnamon like we did this night. Heat oil in a skillet and add the onion and cook for about 6 minutes. Next add the ginger, garlic, and curry paste (I also added a little Tikka Masala Paste too; not necessary I just wanted to finish the jar), cook for 3 minutes. Add the chicken, some salt, and black pepper and cook until chicken in not pink on the outside. Then add 1 can of crushed tomatoes, cover the skillet and cook for 5-6 minutes more. Once the chicken is cooked uncover the skillet and stir in 1/2 cup of half-and-half and the cilantro if you can eat it. That's it. Simple, easy, tasty and cheaper then take out!

Tasty, tasty!! We enjoy this dish a lot. I recommend it to any of you!

On to the Minestrone Soup. I'm constantly looking for ways to exclude meat from our diet. It much healthier to eat meatless a few times a week. I'm not saying you should cut out meat from your diet every day, but a couple times a week is definitely heart healthy! Soup is also something I'm a big believer in making because it's normally quite easy to make and you usually have leftovers for lunch the next day.

This soup was great. I'm really glad I found this recipe in Food Network Magazine. So as not to bore you with all the details of how to make this recipe I'll just let you know what's in it. The main ingredients are onion, garlic, celery, carrot, green beans, diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, kidney beans, elbow pasta, and parmesan cheese. There are a few other basic ingredients, but if you like all of the items I just listed you will like this soup. Now start cooking! This will be great leftover! Next time I make it I'm going to double the recipe and freeze what we don't eat. Super yummy and basically healthy. I love soup! Have I told you guys that yet! Delicious!

Final Product:

My next two posts will be the beer brewing process and the results of the tuna noodle casserole. Let's just say I didn't hate it.

Stew and Soup to Warm You Up!

I’m back! It’s been busy around these parts, so I haven’t really had time to blog about my cooking. I HAVE been cooking and it seems to be going better. I wonder if that has anything to do with the no blogging. Maybe it’s less pressure or maybe I’ve just been cooking easy things.

It’s my favorite and yet least favorite time of the year. I love the holidays! The decorations, the music, the togetherness, and the food all make me happy. Unfortunately I live in Upstate NY, so along with all the cheer and festivities we have snow. The madness has started intensely this year. I don’t think we normally have the amount of snow we are getting right now until January or February. The cold, the wet, the driving…bah humbug!

Taking into account the snowy weather I decided to make a stew and a soup. Both are super easy to make so I wanted to share them with you in case you are also knee deep in snow and need heating up.

The stew was just a basic chicken stew. You take a pound of chicken breast and cut it into ½ inch cubes. I browned it with ½ of a chopped onion. Then you add whatever vegetables you want. I put in some celery, carrots, and peas. The recipe calls for a 16oz bag of frozen stew vegetables. I didn’t see that at Wegman’s, so I added fresh veggies except for the peas, they were frozen. You are supposed to add one jar of gravy. I forgot to buy that so Anthony made some from scratch. He used the juices from the browned chicken, flour, water, butter, and salt (I think that’s it). Last I added some rubbed sage, dried thyme, and ground black pepper. Let that simmer on the stove for 15-20 minutes.

Final Product:
It was quite tasty and it just felt really comforting to eat. Anthony’s home made gravy was much better than the jarred kind. I’m glad I forgot to buy it. I will definitely make this again and maybe add some potatoes next time.

Soup is wonderful. I just love it. I could probably eat it every day as long as I was given a variety. I saw a recipe for Refried Bean Soup on a blog recently that looked delicious and as I was browsing my cook books I found a recipe for it. I’m not sure if the blog recipe was more complicated than the one I found, but I was happy to see how simple this soup is too make. Take a big can (28 oz) of crushed tomato and 1 small chopped onion and bring that to a boil. Once it boils, lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes. After that you add refried beans (I used two 15 oz cans), 1 can of chicken broth, and some spices. The recipe just calls for cilantro, but we don’t use that in our house so I added chili powder and parsley. You stir that together and let it simmer for 15 minutes. That’s it people! It’s that simple. If you would like some crunch; take some corn tortillas and cut them into strips. Bake them at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. Top with whatever other garnishes you want. We used sour cream and Monterey jack cheese.

Final Product:
This is a very hearty soup. You probably won’t want to have grilled cheese or anything with it. We just had sourdough bread with both of the recipes (Anthony loves sourdough bread!). I’m going to find the other recipe for this soup and see what the differences are, but this was satisfying and I would have it again.

I’m cooking one more time this week and maybe again on the weekend. I plan on posting my holiday cookie making too! I missed blogging! This is fun!

A Soup and a Pie

I needed to get back to cooking this week. It’s hard, but I’m pushing through. Nothing has turned out spectacular so far. I made two meals this week, Onion Chowder with Cheese Popovers and Sweet Potato Topped Shepherd’s Pie. Both recipes are from Everyday with Rachael Ray Magazine. I’ve made the chowder before, but I had never tried the shepherd’s pie and thought it seemed like a good Fall dish. The only complaint cooking wise that I have for the week is those dang onions. They are killer to my eyes. I feel like the pain will never end! It’s on my list to try cooking something without onions! Sadly even though my kitchen experience this week has been going fairly well, the food just hasn’t been up to par.

The soup was a bit too oniony. I probably didn’t cook the onion long enough. There really isn’t anything other than onions, chicken broth, and milk in the chowder. It was also too watery to be chowder. Chowder is supposed to be a bit thick. Not quite a stew, but like a stews little brother. The popovers are normally good, but not this time. They were starting to brown so I pulled them out and still they didn’t cook all the way through after 35 minutes in the oven. Are you kidding me?! The popovers are good with any soup; they have a piece of cheddar cheese in the middle of them. I will be making them again, but I think the soup is a lost cause and I won’t be attempting that again. I’d rather just make French Onion Soup if I’m going to make onion soup. Anthony agrees that I didn’t cook the onions enough and that the popovers were not quite done. I’m sad about that, he usually loves those popovers.

Final Product:

On to the Sweet Potato Topped Shepherd’s Pie! It seemed like a good idea at the time, now that I’ve thought about it for awhile I guess it really isn’t a good idea. I have this issue where if I already know how to make something (Shepherd’s Pie), then I have to try to one up it with a different version of it. Anthony always tells me I should leave well enough alone, but I just don’t learn. I honestly don’t think that it has ever worked out in my favor when I’ve tried cooking something a little different then I have cooked it in the past. At one point I had 3 pots on the stove which is never a good idea when I’m cooking. I can only truly concentrate on one item at a time. In one pot was sweet potatoes, another had the ground beef mixture, and another had the sauce/gravy. That is way too much stimulation for me. Nothing turned out bad. I did have to use pumpkin beer in the gravy since that’s all we had in the house. I also forgot to add the peas to the beef, onion, garlic, mushroom mixture. Oops! The gravy tasted fine, but was too thin. Using sweet potatoes didn’t ruin the Shepherd’s Pie, but it certainly didn’t bring anything to the table. I would rather have it the good old fashioned way. Anthony just thought this was weird. It didn’t taste bad, but it isn’t worth the effort. It's also not very attractive. Just look!

Final Product:

It looks as if my rut is continuing. What can I do?! If tonight’s meal doesn’t turn out awesome I am going to get really sad. At first this was just making me mad, now I’m starting to feel depressed about. STOP MESSING WITH MY EMOTIONS COOKING!! WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?!

Tonight is Shrimp and Grits with Okra, southern food here I come! COOKING YOU BETTER STOP MESSING WITH ME!

Do You Miss Me?

After all the terrible food I made last week, I just haven't really had the desire to make any meals that I haven't tried before. We have been eating raviloi, chinese take out, japenese resturant food, and not a whole lot of anything else. I plan on working up the nerve to try all over again next week. Not having the time to go grocery shopping this week, I didn't get a chance to pull a menu together. We are flying by the seat of our pants when it comes to dinner.

I asked my friend and follow blogger for ideas for something fast and easy. She told me to make a southwest influenced soup that she had posted on her blog. Thank goodness for friends! It was fast, easy, and it tasted really good. Plus it made enough soup for plenty of leftovers! Yay finally something has gone right. Here is where you can find the post about the southwestern soup: Edible Healing. I might have to steal a few more recipes from her if they all are going to turn out this well!

Final Product:

Make it, your stomach will thank you!

Tonight we are having leftover Chinese. The hope is that by the weekend I will get so tired of easy meals that I will be ready to venture into the unknown again. Cross your fingers!

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.

Curried Cauliflower Soup

Day 17-Yes, I did finally cook again. But first I would like to talk about our recent invite to a friend’s house for dinner. I had been admiring my friend’s pictures on Facebook of the food he has been cooking every night. The food always looks so much fancier then what I do and rightly so since it is. He uses goat cheese, shitake mushrooms and various ingredients like that. I obviously don’t. He also just throws things together, which I really wish I could do. So I mentioned that he should be writing a blog, since his food looks so much better then mine. Then I suggested that he cook for us, so I can actually try his food. This week he finally invited us over and I was not going to pass up the offer.

I won’t get the name of what he made for us exactly right, but it was along the lines of: Tri Tip Steak with Mashed Red Potatoes (there was some kind of cheese in them), Asparagus, and Shitake, Baby Bella Mushroom, Artichoke Crostini. The mushrooms and artichokes were on this bread from Wegman’s with garlic and other goodness in it. The whole meal was very good! This coming from the girl that only rarely eats beef. I don’t even know if I’ve ever had Tri Tip before. So maybe this is a beef I could actually like! The crostini was so good that I had at least 3 and these were not small. Our friend said that he is starting to write down the recipes for the meals that he makes if they are really good. He wants to open a restaurant some day and he will need to have the recipes available for that. I’ll never open a restaurant, but I sure won’t mind eating at his!

It was time for me to get cooking last night. I really wanted to try the recipe for Curried Cauliflower Soup that I had found on a blog. One, it sounds pretty healthy and two, it has curry in it and that means turmeric! (If you don’t know why I love turmeric so much please look at my post entitled “Curry Pork Sausage Couscous”) Things went pretty smoothly last night. The ingredients needing to be cut for this recipe are one apple (Golden Delicious), 1 head of cauliflower, 1 small onion, 1 clove of garlic. I wasn’t really sure how to chop the apple so I sliced it and then chopped the slices. The cauliflower took awhile since I’m not a fast chopper, but it was easy enough. No problems with the garlic and onion since I use those ingredients a lot, but I’m so tired of all the tears when I chop onions. It’s almost unbearable and then my eyes are stinging from my lotion and mascara dripping into them. Yuck.

The rest of the soup making was a breeze. That’s one of the reasons I love making soup, it’s usually fairly easy. First you heat up 2 tablespoon of olive oil, then you sauté the onions in the heated oil. Once they are soft, you add the apple, garlic, and 1 tablespoon of curry powder (this might be too much if you don’t like spicy foods, so cut that back some) and cook for 2 minutes. Then add the cauliflower and 4 cups of vegetable broth and bring that to a simmer. Once it’s simmering turn down the heat to medium-low and cover. Simmer for 20 minutes and then take it off the heat to cool for 20 minutes. Once it’s cool blend the soup in a food processor or blender and stir in 1 teaspoon of honey and 1 teaspoon of rice wine vinegar. Officially you are done after that, but I reheated the soup because Anthony wanted hot soup, not lukewarm soup.

Final Product:

My thoughts: Ah it was okay. It was nothing spectacular. Anthony said it was a boring soup. There was nothing that took it to the next level. I wouldn’t call it bland, since it was too spicy for both of us and we had to add some sour cream to it. Would I bother making it again? Probably not. Trust me I really wanted to love this since it’s healthy, but I would say there was only a mild like. I’m not sure what we could have done to this soup to make it better, but I’m not giving up on ways to add more turmeric to our diet!

Totals: 10 minutes prep, 30 minutes cooking time, 1 pot, 1 blender or food processer