Cooking in fits and starts.

Onion pie.....I LOVE onions....my new found obsession is French Onion Soup, which as well all know is like a heart attack in a bowl.

I might have to be stealing this from you....after having added some provolone cheese to the mix.

Dinner at Chia's house!

I don't measure stuff much either, Chai Tea. When I'm making something new I'm a little more careful.

Your post really makes me miss having time to really cook.

yaaaa ..........

that was ages ago blue. We've prepared the meal sat down eaten it done the washing up and set the world to rights since then, where you bin?

if you want to try the frozen way of making tofu, never freeze the soft stuff. It just ends up like frozen jello

A quick recipe for frozen tofu-
1 block, thawed in the freezer IN PACKAGE, cut corner and squeeze until all water is gone, but not hard enough to CRUSH the tofu.

Wamr pan ( no oil ) crumble the tofu and let sit for about 20 minutes to make sure all the water has evaporated out of it .

1/3 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1/3 cup tamari sauce
3 table spoons olive oil
2 tbsp seasoned salt
1 tbsp Tumeric powder

After the tofu has lost all water, pour some of the olive oil on top of the tofu and stir.
Then sprinkle season salt and tumeric.. stir it well so it doesnt clump in the oil.
slowly and evenly .. drizzle the rice vinegar evenly over all the tofu.
Let set on med-high heat pan for about 15 minutes
Add tamari , serve on a bed of cool baby spinach, with diced tomatoes.

yummy yummy yummy.. that is what i call my breakfast scrambler..
vegan style. :-)


( ppbbthh.. no , IM not vegan.. and if i was, i would be the fattest vegan in history.. )

For those of you who may be following my kitchen exploits and for me, who is trying to keep distracted here is tonight's experiment.

(Littlek, look away)

The non experimental part was brining the chicken. One hour per pound in a saline, wee bit of sugar solution.

I removed the chicken and dried it then I got to the what should I glaze it with stage.

Hmmm.

What do we have around here?

Olive oil! Mustard! Fig jelly! Cayene pepper!

That sounds good. Glaze, toss in oven.

(littlek, you can look again, now)

Green beans (the skinny kind), wild rice and fresh tomato slices from the garden will round out the meal.

Hey, I may be a mostly-vegetarian, animal loving gal, but I'm no wuss!

lil'k, did you see I posted the minipumpkin recipe earlier...

Awesome. Chai, you're definitely right.

shewolf, thanks for the recipe. Can I sub something for tumeric? I have about everything else in the spice rack but that. Hmmm.

Oh, measuring? That's for baking, which needs more precision so that chemical reactions (e. g. rising) will really work. But otherwise don't measure. You taste, you estimate, you check, and pretty soon, you just know.

PS Tonight, small grease fire. RP was not yet home. Took me about a second to process what was going on. Turned off the burner. No harm, no foul. Sausage was not burned, pasta was fine, all is well, there wasn't even any smoke.

So now I'm wondering if maybe I'll do that deliberately some time and make bananas foster.

Lk a wuss?
ppbbtthh.. in yer dreams. ;-)


how do you ' dry' chicken? What do you mean by that boom?

I know littlek isn't a wuss but I didn't want her to get upset over my chicken butchering.

I dry it simply by wrapping it in a towel and letting it sit for just a bit - it helps the skin get a bit crispier when you roast it.

Question for the frozen veggie group.... did I get a bad bag or do all frozen veggies come out pretty soft and limp? I made snow peas last night. Ick. Not tender crisp. More like squishy mush.

most of the time theycome out limp

unless you can put them into warm water and let them thaw that way.
Takes more time and attention, but that raises your chances of having them crisp vs soggy and limp

I think I'll be sticking with fresh. More work, better taste.

At Costco I buy these giant bags of "petite green beans" that are sooooo good. I like them as well as fresh beans and much better than canned.

So, maybe it was just the brand?

They aren't squishy?

It's called "Flav-R-Pack" brand. They aren't squishy at all - which is why I hate canned green beans.

I sometimes have problems with even fresh snow peas getting them to stay crisp. Try snap peas - they taste very similar and seem to hold up better.

I have noticed that Dole brand bagged veggies are more floppy then Green Giant..

dunno why?

Have you seen the Green Giant? With pants that tight, everything looks less limp.