28 February, 2011

My daddy MacBook has finally returned to me!  Yay!  Unfortunately everything had to be deleted and reformatted.  I believe I've lost a lot of pictures and that's just the beginning.  I did a back up, but according to the geeks many files were corrupted.  :(  

Just in recent years I've taken an interest making Indian food.  The rest of my family (excluding my oldest) doesn't share that interest.  I can only hope that in exposing my younger sons to a variety of ethnic foods they will someday expand their taste buds and learn to experiment because you never know until you try it.  

  This time I made Butter Chicken.  The sauce is similar to tikka Masala in looks, but the spices are different.  This is a combination of a couple different recipes I've found.  It's particularly good if you make it one day and eat it the next.  The flavor friends sitting together overnight in the fridge turns friendship into love and it's really worth the wait.  


Butter Chicken:
4 pieces Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (cut Into Bite Sized Pieces)
5 cloves Garlic, Minced
1 teaspoon Salt
½ teaspoons Black Pepper
½ teaspoons Cayenne Pepper
¼ teaspoons Ground Coriander
¼ teaspoons Cumin
¼ teaspoons Cardamom
1 whole Lime, Juiced
1 whole Onion, Diced
¼ cups Butter
1 can (14.5 Oz. Can) Tomato Sauce
1 can (14.5 Oz. Can) Petite Diced Tomatoes
1 pint Whipping Cream (or 1/2&1/2)
1 bunch Chopped Cilantro, to taste
Basmati or Jasmine rice
Combine first 9 ingredients in a ziplock bag and marinate overnight.
Saute the onion in the butter until soft. Add marinated chicken and cook about 10 minutes. Add the tomato sauce and diced tomatoes. Cook for 30 minutes over medium-low heat with the lid on. Add the whipping cream.  You can add the cilantro and eat now.  I like to let it sit in the fridge overnight and serve the next day.  Serve over rice.

23 February, 2011

Extra Virgin

Debi Mazar is so hilarious.  I've always been a fan of hers.  So...the chance of me tuning in on her and her hubs new Cooking Channel show were umm...a pretty sure thing.  She has such great comedic personality and when she's paired up with her straight laced Italian cook of a husband it's so much fun for me to watch.  Not to mention those beautiful daughters of hers with the gorgeous ice blue eyes. The food looks pretty great too.  It's on Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. on the Cooking Channel.  Check it out.    http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/extra-virgin/index.html

Waffles

Unfortunately my Mac has been having internet connecting issues.  After trying to get it corrected ourselves we finally broke down and took it into the Mac Dr.  Anyway, that's the reason for no recent posts.  Today I'm attempting to post from my son's pc. We'll see if I can get my pics to download or not.
My boys dig waffles.  My oldest son especially.  He isn't a pancake person so he loves it when I make waffles.  I find it more time consuming and to be honest I really dislike cleaning my waffle iron.  I have a old Martha Stewart recipe I use, but I ran across this new one which is quite similar but uses half the butter of M.S.'s recipe.  Being rushed for time I used canned pie filling but I did make homemade whipped cream. If you have frozen strawberries you could add a little sugar, water and boil it down to a thick syrup.  That is what I prefer, but like I said I was in a rush.
 Buttermilk waffles:
1 3/4 c. all purpose flour
1 T. baking powder
1 T. sugar
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. baking soda
3 large eggs, beaten well
4 T. butter, melted
1 1/2 c. buttermilk
Mix your flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and baking soda with a whisk.  In a seperate bowl combine the eggs, buttermilk, and melted butter.  Mix the wet into the dry and blend gently.  Don't overmix.
This made 12 small waffles.  You could easily use all whole wheat or 1/2 whole wheat flour with good results. 

Club sandwich Wednesday. All meat by Boar's Head.  Spend the extra money and get quality cold cuts.  Boar's Head is totally worth the extra money for flavor, gluten and preservative free.  This sandwich is "Jerk Turkey" (my boys' fav), Rosemary and sundried tomato ham, Colby cheese, bacon and avocado on top of Publix Italian sandwich bread with Boar's Head honey mustard.  Right on.

11 February, 2011



  My current leather sofa and love seat are going on eight years old.  They are soft, broken in, and oh so very comfortable. I've been on the lookout for something new for quite a few months now, and I've even come close on a couple different occasions to bringing something home.  The trouble is I tend to over think everything(often exasperating my husband). I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, after all, if I'm going to have it another eight years I need to be sure right? So, I search on. I think I've had about 4 or 5 different rugs with this furniture, I kind of collect them. If you want to change the look of a room, but not spend a lot, a rug will do wonders.
 A favorite textile designer of mine is Madeline Weinrib. Her rugs make me drool a little. Her designs are outrageous pricey. I just like to dream and use them for inspiration. Here are a few of my favorite pieces from her collection.


      http://www.madelineweinrib.com/mw/woolflatweaves/index.html
                          http://www.madelineweinrib.com/mw/furniture/SlipperChair.htm
               http://www.madelineweinrib.com/ama/cotton_flatweaves/Orleans-PinkOrange.html


                          http://www.madelineweinrib.com/ama/tibetan_stripes/index.html



I'll be doing an upcoming post on recliners.  The incessant debate with my husband of comfort vs. style goes on.  I continually state that stylish recliners don't exist.  Fortunately, I've come to the realization that there are some great options in recliner chairs now that are comfortable, stylish, and do a great job of concealing the fact that they are recliners. Yay!

Sandwich pockets

 Do you buy those expensive little Smucker's Uncrustables?  They are enclosed little pockets of bread full of peanut butter and jelly.  When they first came out I had to laugh.  How much easier could it get than to make a PB&J for your child?  Had we become so ridiculously lazy that we now needed to pull a pre-made, packaged one (with umpteen unrecognizable ingredients) out of the freezer?  I will admit I bought them once when Publix had a BOGO sale plus coupon.  I paid very little for them.  My boys thought they were pretty neat.

 We've all seen the crust-cutter-off-ers but this is way better.  While perusing the bread aisle at the store my middle son spied this cool little tool that cuts the crusts off of sandwiches and makes them into little pockets.  These may have been around for awhile and I haven't known about them.  Either way I'm excited about about my "new"                                  
discovery.  I'm going to use it to make different kinds of sandwiches with different bread and fillings too.


See the little Wonder tool?  Here's how to use the tool:  Spread your filling on your bread but don't spread the filling all the way to the edge.


Place your Wonder tool on top the sandwich
Push down the white end on the sandwich first.  This cuts off the crust.
Next you push down the red part of the tool.  This seals the sandwich.
                                                 The sealing part is pretty magical. :)
                                                      Look at how cute that is!
A little pocket of crunchy peanut butter (see the peanuts?) and jelly.  good stuff.  My boys are older but it's still nice to make lunch fun.  

08 February, 2011

Last week I injured my back rather seriously.  This resulted in much bed rest, a doctor's visit, and much more bed rest.  A ruptured disk with displaced cartilage was the diagnosis for now.  As I was beginning to feel some back relief, hoping to say goodbye to all day bed rest, I came down with a stomach bug that left me in bed another 3-4 days.  So basically over a week was spent (wasted) in bed while I helplessly convalesced.  It was all part of God's plan and His will for these last 8 days of my life for some reason.
To say my hubs took exceptional care of me would be far too inadequate.  He stayed home from work with me a day and a half and I don't know how I could have managed without him. Walking was an extremely painful task. He helped me out of bed, walked me to the bathroom, helped me shower and dress, and waited on me hand and foot.  My kids were taken care of and didn't miss a meal (albeit hot pockets and pizza rolls) thanks to their daddy.  A real man loves and cares for his family like that.  He is my sweetheart and my hero all rolled into one. :)
DLP made several trips to the grocery store with the boys.  A couple days ago he comes home with thrice washed organic spring mix (he knows I love spring mix), balsamic vinagrette, and some very nice Porterhouse steaks (he may love those more than me) and announces he's got stuff to make me a steak salad (he knows that's one of my favorite things).  I was right in the midst of the stomach bug so the appeal value was scoring pretty low on the appetizing scale. But..his thoughtfulness in picking out those things just for me because he knows how I love steak salad (when I'm well) was an extremely sweet and a loving thing to do.  I love that guy. 
So I had to wait until my stomach was well enough to eat it, and that was tonight.  DLP did his magic and grilled those Porterhouses up with his special marinade--Grey Poupon and Montreal steak seasoning. 






 Rub the steaks first with the mustard and then sprinkle on the steak seasoning.












Did you know a Porterhouse Steak is a filet on the left side(smaller half) of the bone, and a NY strip on the right side?


Here's the delicious steak salad DLP made for me.  It was wonderful. We had it with our favorite Hahn pinot noir.  


I'm taking it slow and feeling better everyday.  I thank the Lord for giving me such a wonderful husband.