March Munchies

I love the food threads. :)

Pancakes and bacon for breakfast here, because I could.

Last night I made hash from left over tri-tip, left over garlic mashed potatoes and I added onions, chipotle chilies, chili powder, tomatoes. Real comfort food.

Baguette rolls stuffed with brie cheese, cucumber slices and spicy Italian salami for dinner. Because I could (son is staying over with my parents).

Oh! Busifer! Now I know what's for dinner! It was the cheese mention that inspired it. We will be munching on hamburgers, grilled onions and blue cheese, served on ciabatta rolls!

Dinner tonight is toasted Jarlesburg cheese sandwiches on Heatlh Nut bread, with lemon peppered sliced fresh tomatoes on the side, and little bit of plum wine. Maybe a small mixed green salad to finish it all off.

I had a nice, house-recipe mac&cheese with diced tomatoes, today. And the Cadbury mini-eggs are on sale now! I love those things. :)

I had Pizza Hut pizza for supper last night, because 1. we traveled half-way across the state to play in the district finals game; 2. we won; 3. we celebrated.

Have you ever seen 20 high school boys go through a pizza buffet?

Were there any crumbs left?

Oooh, Rozax, that macaroni and cheese sounds soooo good. But my favorite spring treat are those candy and chocolate covered, egg shaped, malt balls. They only come in 2 pd bags. So bad, but I eat at least one bag every year.

Think I'm making whole wheat pasta with pesto and chicken,pesto, parmigian meatballs from Costco.
Easy and yummy.

mamzel: no crumbs. no crusts. no soda. Like a giant 40-legged Hoover.

#9 - a giant 40-legged Hoover

Wait, are you sure Morphy hasn't been tinkering with the Roombas again? Are we missing some of our pool boys?

>3 MrsLee:
Your post made me grab a Black & Blue burger from Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. Mmmmmmm.

Our favorite restaurant opens today for the season - Minnetonka Drive-In. It's open from March to September. They have the best fried chicken in the world. We are SO having chicken tonight. And yummy sweet BBQ sauce. And crinkle fries. And coleslaw.

And, you know, the Roombas don't EAT the pool boys, just, um, tie the up for me. Bwhahahaha.

I'm suddenly on a muffin kick. Made apple cinnamon muffins last night. Mmmmmmmmm...........

More varieties to follow.

Made a broccoli, shrimp, sundried tomatoes, garlic and spices pasta thing last night. Was very yummy.

#11 - My first attempt was so good I had another for lunch yesterday!

Pasta seems to be the thing. Last night I made a spinach + Italian parsley and pine nut pesto with whole-wheat angel hair pasta, along with some steamed blue hake (a white fish rather like cod).

This morning for breakfast I made a pan of whole-grain cornbread. Yum!!!

I am going to have to label this thread as "dangerous to your weight losing diet..." I went to my weigh in yesterday and lost another 4 pounds! Woo hoo! But I do have to avoid some of the aforementioned treats for a little while longer.

#16 Way to go. Or should that be "Weigh to go?" I'm very proud of anyone who sticks to a reducing program.

Tonight we indulged son so had Swedish meatballs with boiled 'taters, lingonberry jam and traditional cream sauce.

Last Sunday I made some great cod with creamy lemon sauce. I'm tempted to do so again, very soon.

I want fish!

> 18 Busifer, you just mentioned one of my major reasons for going to Ikea (food nostalgia), and one of my favorite Danish-nostalgia meals. Have you ever included shrimp and/or fish balls in your creamy lemon sauce, or is that strictly a fancy Danish variation?

Now my mouth is watering for all the Danish foods/meals that I haven't had since I got back from my exchange-student experience. Is it wrong to return to a country, just to eat?

#1 MrsLee - Hash obviously means something very different to you! To me its not something you admit to making/taking online, lol :)

I was slack last night & had bruschetta pizza, twas soo yummy!!!

Tonight I'm thinking I might grab some arracini (?spelling?) balls from the deli on the way home & have them with pasta sauce & some spinach & beetroot salad...

#19 - Perhaps not fish balls, in my personal case, but shrimp - definitely. I'm not a fan of warm shrimp though so I often add them afterwards.

Oh man. Here's another than really needs to hit up Ikea for meatballs. Yum.

Made orange cranberry muffins last night. Next up, raisin bran muffins.

@23 Dried or fresh cranberries? Would you PLEASE post the recipe :) I made yet another batch of your Forest Fruit Bread last weekend. Yum!!

#21 Thinks: wouldn't it be fun to win the lottery and take Busifer (and family) to the Costa do Sol in Maputo for prawns piri piri -- hot in every possible way! ;-)

#20 - It can mean that here, too, but the cowboy meaning was around a long time before the other one. At least in my life. :)

Tonight I baked halibut and salmon with lemon-pepper, salt and butter. Also cooked some basmati rice and peas. Very simple.

#25 - That would be awesome! Sadly the lottery (any lottery) doesn't seem to like me, at all...

Dried cranberries.

Here's the recipe:

ORANGE CRANBERRY MUFFINS

Ingredients:
1 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup orange juice
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tspn baking powder
1/2 tspn baking soda
1/4 tspn salt
1 tspn powdered/ground ginger
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter at room temp.
1 tbls orange zest
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tspn vanilla extract
1 tspn orange extract
2 tbls vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk (whole, low-fat, or non-fat)

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease muffin pan (6 large or 12 regular) or line with muffin papers.

2. Cut orange in half and squeeze juice for 1/3 cup. Peel orange and use food processor to grind up peel very fine for the 1 tbls orange zest.

3. Put orange juice and cranberries in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes, stir as needed, then remove from heat and set aside stirring every few minutes. The cranberries will absorb most of the orange juice by the time you are ready to add to muffin mixture.

4. Thoroughly mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and ginger. Set aside.

5. In a large bowl, cream the butter, orange zest, and sugar until fluffy. Then add eggs one at a time, vanilla extract, orange extract, and oil. Blend until fully combined.

6. Add some flour mixture, alternating with some milk. Repeat until all added. Do not overmix, just until moist.

7. Fold in cranberries.

8. Scoop mix into prepared muffin pan, no more than 2/3 per muffin cup.

9. Place muffin pan into preheated oven, about 20 minutes.

10. Remove from oven and let pan sit for 5 minutes. Then remove muffins to a cooling rack.

11. Let cool, then enjoy.

So, I've finally gotten around to make a few loaves of whole wheat using the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cookbook I've had for over a year. I'd used it for stromboli and a few other things, but I never remembered to buy the powdered milk needed for the whole wheat. I did alter the recipe a little, by adding Cinnamon and raisins and just one TBS of butter, but I've made it three times now and it's been awesome. (I mailed off a loaf to my mom yesterday.)

@28 great and thanks! I look forward to trying this weekend!!

You're welcome, glad to share.

I seldom cook, (that's now hubby's job--I fed the kids for 20+ years), but I made a pretty yummy pasta dish last night, copied as closely as I could figure out from a favorite restaurant dish. Chicken strips sauteed in olive oil, with green onions, kalamata olives, and grape tomatoes. Served over penne pasta with feta cheese. It's pretty darn close to the restaurant version.

My son wanted fried fish, peas and mashed potatoes for his birthday dinner tonight.

We will be having corned beef, cabbage, carrots and potatoes on the 17th, and this weekend at some time I have been informed that I am cooking a turkey.

I'm happy, because though my daughter was not tempted to come home for fish or her brother's birthday, she couldn't resist the corned beef dinner. :)

I had almond butter for the first time yesterday. WOW! I like this stuff. Even better that almonds are one of those foods that diabetics should incorporate into their diet. Decided to try it as an alternative to eating whole almonds.

Barney Butter comes in creamy and crunchy variety. Also available in condiment style "snack packs" which I have to find now.

Last night I made braised lamb chops with onions, mushrooms, and mushroom gravy (aka canned condensed mushroom soup over the top whilst baking). Also, a tomato-crouton casserole with onion and oregano, and oven-roasted asparagus. It was all yummy-yummy.

I'm glad I still like the tomato casserole. I have found that my tastes change over time, and some of my "old favorite" recipes aren't to my liking anymore. This has happened more than once, most recently with a ham-loaf recipe that I just don't think I'll be making again.

Has this ever happened to you? What was/were the disappointing dish/es?

>35 walk2work: I'm thinking--I suppose I'd just assume I didn't make it right if I didn't like it as much as I remembered doing. Mostly it seems to go the other way--I like things I didn't think I did.

Breakfast for dinner tonight--hash, eggs, pumpernickel toast.

Today's a public holiday, so I have time to cook slowly. The meat's marinating for a Portuguese-style stew. The marinade is composed of red wine, onions, garlic, bay leaves, oil and spices. After lunch I'll throw in some olives, carrots and potatoes and cook it (not myself! -- the weather's hot enough to do that) s-l-o-w-l-y for a few hours.

I roasted a turkey on Sunday, with yams on the side. Monday I wanted to use up some frozen apricots *whispers* which had been in the freezer since 2007. They didn't taste bad, just had lost a lot of flavor.
I made an apricot cobbler, only, I didn't have enough flour, so I used the flour I had, with some corn meal and cornstarch for the topping. It was pretty good. I squeezed some orange juice into the apricots to give them a boost and sprinkled tapioca over them to absorb excess juices. It came out yum.
I also pureed some apricots to put in a pork stew with green chilies, garlic, onions, carrots, celery and potatoes, with spices. It was also Yum.

Now I hope not to cook for another week.

With the leftover corned beef I served green cabbage slaw that had pineapple bits hither and thither inside it.

#39 That sounds tasty! The thing about leftover corned beef is, no matter how much I cook (this year it was 2 of the largest pieces I could find), I never have enough leftover to do anything creative with. Everyone just wants to glom it down in its original form the next day.

The hollowed out ends of a loaf of bread, with mashed potato, steamed veges and chicken patties with cheese between them, topped again with mashed potato and a sprinkling of oregano. Bland food made interesting.

> 41 Is there gravy? Sounds like there ought to be gravy.

I am planning to make turkey-black bean chili tomorrow. No recipe, just making it up as I go along.

There wasn't gravy - the chicken patties had a surprisingly tasty batter.

I was snowed in yesterday, so made myself a small batch of cookie dough.

Boneless pork chops seasoned with salt, pepper, and cayenne, lightly floured and cooked with an onion and a red pepper and a bit of garlic; sauteed first and then simmered in chicken broth with a dash of Worcestershire. Very simple recipe but surprisingly flavorful. I'm going to heat it up tonight and throw in some barley, as there's a fair amount of broth with this.

And I'm about to make English muffins, so I can eventually make eggs Benedict. Very self-indulgent.

Thanks for reminding me of Worchestershire! Wonder if it goes good with chili powder . . . (American chili powder, a mix of spices predominated by paprika and cumin, not powdered cayenne pepper.)

So far my chili has in it:

Onions, diced
Garlic, crushed
Ground turkey, browned
Celery, diced
Canned tomatoes
Reconstituted ancho chili
Possibly some chicken broth, or else bean broth
Black beans
Chili powder

Oh yeah - forgot to mention that I got some silken tofu today, with plans to make it into yegan "sour cream." I've never tried this before, and am unclear whether it will really work. Maybe I'd be better off using it for something else . . .

Chili is such a wonderfully customizable dish! I do put a dash of Worchestershire in mine, along with a bit of cocoa or chocolate. And a bottle of dark beer. Sometimes green peppers. Depending on how hot the ancho chili is, maybe some red pepper flakes or hot sauce?

I'm working on cleaning up leftovers from my weekend of cooking, but today my son had me try a Blue Moon Ale. Interesting, but not my favorite. It seemed like it should be chewy, I really tasted the oatmeal.

Well, the chili is simmering away as I type. I decided against the celery, deeming it not authentic. I found some tomato paste in the freezer, so that will make it nice and thick. I was pretty generous with the garlic and ancho chilies - and I also added a little of dried mulato chili, too - so I think for me it will be plenty hot without any hot sauce or pepper flakes!