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!

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:

Let's Get Cookin'

Halloween has come and gone. I’ve had way too much candy! I don’t really have a sweet tooth except for when candy is around. There is no way for me to ignore it, I must eat it.

To ease myself back into cooking I made a Crockpot dish last week. I love the Crockpot! Throw everything in and do nothing with it for 8 hours and then it’s time to eat. How could you not love that?! The recipe is very simple and just contains a can of tomato soup, water, garlic, spices, potatoes, onions, carrots, and turkey thighs. You put the veggies in the Crockpot and lay the turkey thighs on top. Mix up the sauce and pour it onto the turkey thighs. The end result is very tender, fall-off-the-bone turkey meat. It’s a very simple dish, but it's well worth pulling the Crockpot out to make.

Final Product:

In the last week or two I've also made:

Pumpkin Penne

Shrimp and Grits

I know I have been M.I.A. lately, but I plan on coming back strong this week. My menu is: Pasta e Fagioli (my father-in-laws recipe), Mini Cheese Meat Loafs, Buenos Burritos (turkey burritos), Vindaloo Chicken, and Lentil, Spinach, and Bulgur Stew. I don’t except to run into any problems. I’ve made the meat loafs, burritos, and chicken before and the soup and stew don’t seem difficult to make. Of course there is a chance that take-out might play a part again this week, but I’m really going to try to cook Monday-Thursday and one night this weekend.

If you want to try any of the above recipes click on the link to the right of the post call Recipes Used for The Hesitant Cook.

"There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't and that's a wife who can't cook and will."
Robert Frost (1847-1963)

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!

REALLY?!!

The burrito recipe I found was horrible. I've yet to understand why someone would want to eat that. People gave it really good reviews. I'm not even giving the recipe the privilege of being posted anywhere on my blog. The recipe had black beans, canned tomatoes, garlic, onion, red pepper, cream cheese, cumin, and chili powder. It was blah at best. Way too soupy to go into a tortilla. Anthony helped me by adding the bean mixture to the yellow rice I made for a side. We were able to get it a little less wet that way.

Picture of the inside:

No final picture necessary; it wasn't good. I'm sticking with the turkey burritos I normally make and NEVER trying something like this recipe again. What is going on??? Why is nothing going right in the kitchen?! It's icky food every day that keeps leaving my kitchen! Let's say it's just this week and that next week things will turn around. I need to be more optimistic. If I don't keep optimistic I'll give up and start blogging about something else. Don't worry I refuse to give up yet. If my cube steaks come out good tonight, then a turn around is a coming. Stay tuned!

Getting Bored

I've been super busy and haven't had a lot of time for blogging. I also didn't bother cooking Friday or Saturday this weekend. We went out for Japanese food at Blue Ocean. It opened last year near where we live and it was so exciting for us since there are no other sushi places where we live. And we love our sushi! On this occasion we decided to try something different and both ordered Bento boxes instead. I got mine with Tempura Shrimp and Teriyaki Beef and Anthony got Tempura Shrimp and Chicken Teriyaki. The bento boxes come with miso soup, salad, a California Roll, tempura veggies, and sticky rice. These were actually really good. I'm glad we branched out and tried something more then sushi. I'm also grateful that our town finally has some ethnic food other then Italian. We do have a very good Chinese take out place, I would say it's one of the best I've ever had, New Fong Kitchen. Anthony suggested I do some research on the demographics of our town and write an editorial for the local paper about why we need more diversity in our food choices around our town. I would die for some good Thai, Indian, and Mexican!

I made a few dinners this week. The first was Caramelized Chile Shrimp from Good Housekeeping magazine. I was very hopeful and that should have been a sign. It really wasn't very good. The sauce burned a bit and it was sticky. I hate sticky! The noodles were cold (intentionally) and I found that odd. Also I substituted parsley for cilantro and ended up over doing the parsley. That was basically all you could taste on the shrimp. Boo to this meal. I will not be trying this recipe again, there wasn't anything super appealing about it.

Final Product:

The other meal I cooked was Sausage-Cauliflower Spaghetti, from Food Network magazine. Thank goodness I got that great soup in the acorn squash recipe from this issue or this issue would have been trash. Pasta and I just don't mix and I should realize that and move on. It's not that this dish tasted bad, it was fine. Possibly a little bit bland, but it just wasn't great! There was nothing about it that made it memorable and it seemed like a waste of time.

Final Product:

Maybe I'm becoming bitter I hate cooking Kim again. I'm just not impressed with this whole cooking process. It's dull and boring and the end result hasn't blown my mind this last week. I need something to awaken my taste buds, until then I'll continue to be bitter and bored.

Next up Bean Burritos, I need to go back to making stuff that I can handle and that I won't hate to eat. Does anyone have any recipes that might get me back into the swing of things? If you do comment below!