Bad Food Blog

Tag: dessert

• Easter Recap 2020 and Menu Plan 4/19-5/2

  Posted at 11:06 pm by Rachel, on April 19, 2020

  Happy Easter! I hope you all had a peaceful holiday – it was definitely a different feeling this year with a stay-at-home order in effect, and while we all missed getting out to church in the morning, we still enjoyed lots of family time and plentiful food. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I planned to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast, Easter Dinner on 2 Sheet Pans, and a lamb cake for dessert.

  

  Guys, don’t make homemade cinnamon rolls unless you want to ruin the canned stuff for the rest of your life. I grew up eating a lot of cinnamon rolls – my dad made the canned ones for breakfast every Sunday morning and we made pretty frequent trips to the mall Cinnabon – but I never tried homemade until I made this same recipe about 7 years ago. While I haven’t taken the time to make them since then, I haven’t been able to bring myself to buy the alternatives either. This time I did most of the work the night before, and just popped the pan into the fridge after letting the rolls rise in the pan. I let the butter and cream cheese for the frosting soften overnight on the counter, so everything was ready to go in the morning. If you are like me and don’t want to spend an hour or longer making an extra special breakfast in the morning, this is the way to do it!

  

  I started making our Easter dinner on the early side. Maybe it is the houseful of kids, or maybe I am just a particularly slow cook, but recipes almost always take me longer than they say they will. Yet in some sort of Easter miracle, this recipe took me the exact amount of time it said it would. Amazing. The potatoes au gratin were the star at our house, and even my sauce-hating 5-year-old really enjoyed them. I don’t have a mandolin, but my food processor’s 2mm slicing disc worked just as well. One thing I would change about this recipe is the cook time on the asparagus and carrots – it was just too long.

  

  

  This year’s lamb cake started out dramatically the day before Easter when I lost the lamb pan. My kids really looked forward to this cake – they had spent the whole week divvying up the cake, and I had spent the whole week listening to them chime, “I get the head!” and, “I get the tush!” So it was a frantic and sad 30 minutes as I searched and imagined telling them that there would be no lamb cake this year. Of course I did eventually find it tucked away inside my stock pot. It is not the first thing I have stored in the stock pot and then lost, and sadly will probably not be the last. So after all that, I did get the lamb cake made. It was kind of sloppy this year, which is what happens when you forget to take it out of the pan for almost 24 hours and don’t pipe frosting until your kids are asking to eat the cake. The recipe does only call for 3 cups of cake batter, so if you use the The Cake Bible’s recipe for Perfect All-American Chocolate Butter Cake (find the recipe online here), you will have enough leftover batter for seven cupcakes. This year I paired it with Sally’s Favorite Vanilla Buttercream. I think I still prefer the flavor of the coconut frosting from last year, but this one was a lot faster to make and still quite tasty.

  This week we are back to simpler, more standard fare. This will be my first time making the ham and Swiss sliders. We had them at a friend’s house a few months ago and my husband and I both liked them, so they seem like a good way to use up the leftover Swiss cheese from Easter (I subbed Swiss for Gruyere in the potatoes au gratin). The kids will most likely eat a deconstructed version of the sandwiches. I have high hopes for the chicken parm meatballs, which is the other new recipe we will be trying in the next couple of weeks. At least one of my kids is SUPER into meatballs right now and one is moderately interested in them, so my fingers are crossed on that one.

  I hope to make a menu plan for the entire month of May, but our grocery store continues to have shortages of random things, so we might stay more week-to-week for a bit longer. We’ve just gotta stay flexible right now!

  S 4/19 Pasta with burst cherry tomato sauce, green vegetables
  M 4/20 Ham and Swiss cheese sliders, broccoli
  T 4/21 Slow cooker tomato soup (from The Complete Slow Cooker), biscuits, spinach
  W 4/22 Leftovers
  R 4/23 Eggs, vegetables
  F 4/24 Pizza (crust, sauce), vegetables
  S 4/25 Chicken and snap pea stir fry, rice

  S 4/26 Pasta with chicken parm meatballs, vegetables
  M 4/27 Mayo-free chicken salad sandwiches, carrots, fruit
  T 4/28 Potato cauliflower soup, vegetables, bread
  W 4/29 Leftovers
  R 4/30 Eggs, vegetables
  F 5/1 Pizza (crust, sauce), vegetables
  S 5/2 Cheesy farro with chicken and broccoli

  Posted in Menu Plans | 2 Comments | Tagged breakfast, chicken, dessert, Dinner, Easter, food flops, holiday, Menu plan, menu recap, pasta, soup

• Menu Plan 4/5-4/18 and some Covid-19 updates

  Posted at 5:24 pm by Rachel, on April 4, 2020

  Anyone else feel like 2020 is just kicking you when you’re down? I thought so. We started our social distancing about a week or two before guidelines started to come out here in Hawaii because we had a stomach bug (somehow our second stomach bug of the year), so we have been away from other people and our activities for a good while now. Having three kids five and under certainly has its challenges, but I am especially grateful that we have our small hoard of little kids right now because they do the best job of playing with each other and generally keeping everyone’s spirits up.

  In some ways, things seem to be very much business-as-usual around here – we are still in a routine (thanks to the kids, who are home with me all the time anyway), and I am still menu planning and making a grocery list once a week. But now my husband has been doing the weekly shopping trip to minimize our exposure (he still has to go into work) and keep the kids out of the stores, and I’ve been trying to order more pantry staples online because some things are just out of stock around here and it minimizes the time he spends in the store. As with all other online shopping, finding places that will mail food to Hawaii was a challenge. In case you are looking too, this is what I have ordered so far:

  • Real maple syrup from Carman Brook Farm – I received my order 4 days later, in perfect condition, shipping prices are reasonable, and if you order 6+ items you will automatically receive a 10% discount.
  • Chicken and sausages from Perdue Farms – Not many places will ship meat to Hawaii, so I was pretty excited to see that Perdue would ship to me for FREE (I had to spend a certain amount to get free shipping, and it was worth it). Unfortunately they are experiencing delays, and while they are very upfront about this, I ordered on 16 March and my order hasn’t shipped yet. Mainlanders, you have a lot more options for meat and produce shipped to your doorstep!
  • Flour, yeast, and other baking supplies from King Arthur Flour – I was lucky and found everything I needed in stock. I really like that you can see which items are in stock, and I appreciate the current 2-per-item limit they have in place. While flour and yeast are out of stock, they still have a lot of mixes available, including some soup mixes! It took less than 2 days to ship and then arrived another 3-4 days later. If you are looking for flour, a family member told me she was able to order some through Baker’s Authority. Shipping to Hawaii is EXPENSIVE but it might be worth it if you live in the Lower 48.
  • Organic chicken and beef base from Better Than Bouillon – I haven’t seen the organic beef base around here and had been meaning to order some anyway. I started out at Thrive Market, because they have the best price on Better Than Bouillon that I’ve seen and I used to order from them. But after playing around on Thrive Market for probably an hour, I realized that they don’t ship to Hawaii. Womp womp. So I checked the BTB website every day until it was back in stock, and it was delivered to me 4 days later.
  • Dry goods including teas, farro, quinoa, and applesauce pouches from Amazon Subscribe & Save – I added a couple of things to my subscriptions this month, but a lot of this I was already set up to receive. Checking it again now I am actually surprised that the applesauce is coming (because a few days ago it was out of stock), but as of right now it looks like only my regular toilet paper and baby wipes delivery are going to be disrupted. I love Subscribe & Save, even when there isn’t a global pandemic it is worth looking into.

  Now onto the menu plan for the next two weeks!

  S 4/5 Polenta, pesto, & roasted vegetable bowls
  M 4/6 Maple mustard chicken, mashed sweet potatoes, green vegetable
  T 4/7 Pasta and meatballs (from the freezer), green vegetable
  W 4/8 Leftovers
  R 4/9 Eggs, vegetables
  F 4/10 Pizza, vegetables
  S 4/11 White bean and garlic soup, bread, green vegetable

  S 4/12 EASTER – Breakfast: Cinnamon rolls
                                         Dinner: Easter Dinner on 2 Sheet Pans
                                         Dessert: Lamb cake

  M 4/13 BLAT sandwiches, oven fries or carrots, green vegetable
  T 4/14 Beef tacos (homemade taco seasoning recipe)
  W 4/15 Leftovers
  R 4/16 Eggs, vegetables
  F 4/17 Pizza, vegetables
  S 4/18 French onion soup, bread, green vegetable

  Posted in Menu Plans | 1 Comment | Tagged beef, chicken, Covid-19, dessert, Easter, holiday, kid-friendly, Life in Hawaii, Menu plan, soup

• Thanksgiving Menu 2019

  Posted at 3:00 pm by Rachel, on November 26, 2019

  Planning for this Thanksgiving has been the polar opposite from my planning last Thanksgiving. Last year, I knew months out that I wanted to buy a pre-made meal from a grocery store. I researched my options, looked for other people’s experiences, and stalked stores online as I waited for the special holiday fare to appear. It was the best, especially postpartum, and I still 100% recommend this option to everyone.

  This year, I have basically been in survival mode since August. For a long time I thought that we would be living in a hotel over Thanksgiving, and I didn’t take the time or energy to come up with a plan for that scenario. Then we were offered this house… and while that did make things a lot less stressful, I am still running around like a chicken (turkey?) with its head cut off. Case in point: it wasn’t until the beginning of last week that I realized Thanksgiving was only 10 days away. Maybe it is the endless Hawaiian summer playing tricks on me, but I was really taken by surprise here.

  There was still time to order dinner from Whole Foods or a dozen other places, but I wanted to use my new kitchen. So I returned to the easy yet festive option we enjoyed last Christmas… Turkey and Stuffing Meatballs. That was my plan until Sunday night when one of my kids expressed a deep desire to have a traditional roasted whole turkey for our Thanksgiving meal. As delicious as those meatballs are, making my kids’ Thanksgiving dreams come true is more important, even if that leaves me scrambling for the smallest turkey I can find on the Monday before Thanksgiving (it is 13 pounds, by the way, so not really small).

  So now our menu is as follows:

  • Roasted Turkey
  • Homemade Gravy
  • Cranberry Sauce
  • Maple Brown Butter Mashed Sweet Potatoes
  • Roasted Brussels Sprouts
  • Buttermilk Bread – making one plain and one cranberry-walnut loaf
  • Luscious Apple Pie with Perfect Flaky and Tender Cream Cheese Pie Crust (both from The Baking Bible)
  • Homemade Whipped Cream

  And the game plan:

  • Wednesday – Cranberry sauce, buttermilk breads, apple pie
  • Thursday – Turkey, gravy (while the turkey is resting), mashed sweet potatoes (stove top, while turkey is in the oven), Brussels sprouts (prep while the turkey is in the oven, roast while it is resting), whipped cream (right before dessert)

  It was hard to choose just a handful of side items, but I know that there are still going to be a bunch of leftovers even with limited sides. Harder for me was choosing just one dessert (whipped cream is an “accompaniment,” right?) – I love to bake and I have a wicked sweet tooth. But I keep reminding myself that I am only cooking for my little family of five, and I will be doing plenty of special holiday baking in the weeks ahead.

  Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

  Posted in Menu Plans | 0 Comments | Tagged dessert, Dinner, holiday, kid-friendly, pie, thanksgiving, turkey

• Easter Recap

  Posted at 9:54 pm by Rachel, on April 25, 2019

  Happy Easter! My holiday was filled with good food and good company; I hope that yours was too! A few days ago, I shared my Easter menu plan. I want to revisit that post to recap what I actually made, the cooking timeline, and which recipes I will make again.

  This is the list of food I shared in my previous post:

  1. Crudités and fruit
  2. Roasted eggplant dip (from How to Cook Everything and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)
  3. Good cheese and crackers
  4. Good bread and butter
  5. Meatballs (the sauce and the meatballs)
  6. Kolokithokeftedes (zucchini fritters) with tzatziki
  7. Lamb cake
  8. Sugar cookies

  Of that list, we made or purchased everything except for the sugar cookies. It was just a bit more work than I wanted to take on – I try not to spend the whole day in the kitchen on holidays. We ended up with quite the spread and a good bit of leftovers!

  My husband did the shopping on Friday, and I started cooking mid-morning on Saturday. I didn’t have plans to be out of the house so I took my time. As I mentioned, the sauce I make simmers for 6 hours in the oven, so that is the first task I tackled. (It was an unseasonably cool and rainy day here so having the oven on all day was nice.) My kids helped measure ingredients to make the sauce – they loved seeing the peeled tomatoes and smelling the different spices and herbs. I took a little break and then made the meatballs. If you try these meatballs out, I find my food processor to be a big help. I use the standard chopping blade to mince the onion, finely chop the parsley leaves that have been removed from the stems (I chop extra for the sauce at the same time), and grate parmesan.

  I took out the butter and eggs for the lamb cake, ran the dishwasher since I used my stand mixer’s bowl to make the meatballs, and took a long break.

  Later in the afternoon, I started back up again with the tzatziki. I only did a half recipe because I was only cooking for my family, and even half the amount was more than enough to last us several days. This is an excellent make-ahead recipe that even recommends mixing and letting it set in the fridge for a while to let the flavors meld. I used Greek Gods Traditional Plan yogurt; it was nice and thick so I did not have to strain it. I used a combination of dish towels and paper towels to squeeze the water out of the cucumber, but I think for the cucumbers you could get away with using just paper towels. This was extremely easy to whip together and it ended up tasting as good as anything I have had at a restaurant. The next day I just took it out of the fridge, gave it a stir, and it was good to go.

  Next up was the roasted eggplant dip. I preheated the oven and put the eggplant in to roast while we were eating dinner. After dinner I peeled the eggplant skin off by hand (it was quick and easy), finely chopped the flesh, and added the other seasonings. All in all I think it took about 10 or 15 minutes, and then I covered it and set it in the fridge overnight.

  The last dish I prepared on Saturday was the cake for the lamb cake. As you may recall, I used Rose Levy Beranbaum’s recipe for Perfect All-American Chocolate Butter Cake from The Cake Bible (if you do not have a copy of The Cake Bible handy, you can find the cake recipe here). Once the butter is soft and the eggs are at room temperature, this cake does not take a long time to mix. I followed the directions that came with my cake mold and only put 3 cups of batter into the mold (I baked the rest in a 4-cup Pyrex container to make a small cake), and then baked the cake at 375°F for 45 minutes. I’m not sure how long I was *supposed* to leave the cake in the mold to cool, but the mold was too hot to touch for a while so I ended up leaving it overnight.

  

  So again, at a fairly relaxed pace, I prepared the meatballs, tzatziki, roasted eggplant dip, and cake on Saturday. If you are looking back at my list, there are still a bunch of things not accounted for, but most are quick and easy and do not involve cooking. When I got back to work after church on Sunday, I took out butter for the lamb cake frosting, washed and cut up the crudités vegetables (we had fruit but I forgot about it), and cut a few slices of cheese and arranged it with some crackers. My husband sliced some nice store-bought bread.

  

  Then I started on the kolokithokeftedes (zucchini fritters). Now I do not say this lightly, but this is the best new recipe I have made lately! I did not expect to be this wowed by zucchini, but this with the tzatziki was phenomenal. I always worry that new recipes will take 3 times as long as they promise. Fortunately this was not the case. Squeezing the water out of the zucchini took 3 or 4 dish towels – and you’re definitely going to want dish towels and not paper towels for this one – but it did not take more than a couple of minutes. Literally the only potentially negative thing I can think to say about this recipe is that you can’t really work ahead here. It is fried, and you will lose that crispy exterior if you don’t serve it immediately. We did have leftovers which we reheated in the microwave, and they were not as crispy as the fresh fritters. Still very flavorful though!

  Last up was the coconut frosting for my lamb cake. It was not my first time making this frosting, and I am sad to report that it did not turn out as well as in times past. I think the root of the problem was the coconut milk I used to make the reduction, which I started after lunch. The recipe notes that the “coconut milk will boil up high in the pan,” but mine never did. The end result looked kind of wet, gelatinous, and grainy – really not appetizing. When I opened the coconut milk, I noticed that it was a lot more watery than previous times, so maybe that had something to do with it. In case you are curious, this time I used Goya coconut milk whereas I previously used Thai Kitchen organic coconut milk with excellent results. The frosting still tasted amazing, but it was a bit wetter than it should have been. Unfortunately I realized this when a big chunk of frosting fell off the back side of the cake… twice! Oh well, the cake was still a delicious pairing of rich, dark chocolate and sweet, creamy vanilla and coconut. Lessons learned! By the way, I did end up making a double batch and I used almost all of the frosting!

  

  So what would I make again? The meatballs were already a favorite, the lamb cake has become a family tradition, and the kolokithokeftedes with tzatziki were the star of the day. Of all the foods we had, if I had to cut one from the menu, it would be the roasted eggplant dip. Don’t get me wrong, it was good, but it was not life-changing either. It was kind of an awkward addition to the spread because I didn’t make something specifically to go with it. I thought we might dip veggies in it, but we loved the tzatziki so much that we just dipped in that instead. I could see making it again if I had an eggplant that I needed to use up, but I probably will not go out of my way to make it again.

   

  Posted in Menu Plans, Uncategorized | 2 Comments | Tagged appetizer, dessert, Easter, holiday, kid-friendly, recap

• An Easter Menu Plan

  Posted at 8:00 am by Rachel, on April 18, 2019

  So let’s talk Easter. If you recall, I have been trying to decide between a more traditional Easter dinner à la Easter Dinner on Two Sheet Pans, or go the small plates route like we did for Christmas. And after a lot of hemming and hawing, we decided to go non-traditional again. I know that classics are classics for a reason, but there are so many more foods that we would rather be eating than ham and potatoes right now. As an added bonus, this most of this menu can be made ahead of time, and that means more family time on Easter.

  

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  1. Crudités and fruit

  I usually do sliced cucumbers, bell peppers, cherry or grape tomatoes, and olives for my crudités. I might throw in some baby carrots or celery – we will see what they have at the store. For fruit, my kids are partial to blueberries and strawberries, so I will try to get those and maybe a melon.

  2. Roasted eggplant dip

  I still have eggplant on the brain from last month, and saw recipes for a roasted eggplant dip in a few cookbooks when I was flipping through looking for ideas. This will be a new recipe for me. Really I’m going to try a mashup of two recipes – I will use the seasonings suggested in How to Cook Everything but the cooking method from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Consensus is that this dip is good with crackers or bread, but I am kind of curious to try it with some of my veggies too.

  3. Good cheese and crackers

  It’s time to put away your Kraft singles and pick out something from the fancy cheese section! Same goes for the crackers 😀 And in that same vein…

  4. Good bread and butter

  No further explanation needed.

  

  5. Meatballs

  I’ll be making the same meatballs I talked about in My Postpartum Menu Plan. Start with the sauce – this recipe takes 6 hours to cook, so I will be doing this on Saturday. Once the sauce is going, prepare the meatballs. I ignore the instructions for sauce in the meatball recipe and make all of the meat into meatballs, and add them to the 6-hour sauce after broiling. This recipe yields me about 32 meatballs and a bunch of sauce, surely more than we will eat on Easter, so some of these are going into the freezer.

  6. Kolokithokeftedes (zucchini fritters) with tzatziki

  I’ve not tried these before but they look good! Always nice to have a veggie recipe in the mix, and the tzatziki will also go well with the crudités.

   

  And now for dessert…

  

  A lamb cake! I made this for the first time last year, and while my piping job is definitely not professional-quality, we all really enjoyed how it turned out. My kids are particularly excited to have another lamb cake this year. If you are interested, this is the cake mold I used. The mold needs 3 cups of batter. Unfortunately I do not remember the exact recipe I used last year, but this year I am going with the Perfect All-American Chocolate Butter Cake from The Cake Bible. (As an aside, if you have an early edition of this book and measure by volume, know that you will need 16 tablespoons of butter, not 12! If you measure by weight then the recipe is fine as written.) If you don’t have a copy of The Cake Bible handy, you can find the cake recipe here.

  For the frosting I used this recipe for coconut frosting. Actually, the frosting plus that cupcake recipe is really good, but I digress… I really like the flavor of it and it was just the right color for the lamb’s wool, even if it did get a bit melty in my warm kitchen at the end of piping. And speaking of piping, applying the frosting with piping tips uses A LOT of frosting, so I’m going to go ahead and make 1.5 or 2x the original recipe. If you read the whole recipe before you begin, you’ll realize that you do NOT need to make double the amount of reduced coconut milk in order to make a double batch of frosting. Learn from my mistake!

  Really the lamb cake should be enough dessert for our little family, but we had a lot of fun making sugar cookies with the kids at Christmas, so I might put together a batch of cookie dough too. Maybe.

  Posted in Menu Plans, Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged appetizer, dessert, Easter, holiday, kid-friendly

• Freezer Cooking for Baby #3 and My Postpartum Menu Plan (Part 4)

  Posted at 2:00 pm by Rachel, on March 15, 2019

  This is the last part of a four post series on filling your freezer before adding a new baby to the family. Revisit Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

  Well we have made it to the last post in my series, and this one is about all of the “extras.” Side dishes, breakfasts, and desserts may not cross your mind when you start planning a freezer menu but oh, they should!

  A lot of these foods are quick to get going. I made many of them, such as rice, quinoa, breads, and pancakes, while I was waiting on a main dish to cook. Use what may otherwise be dead time to get stuff done!

  Side Dishes

  

  • Cornbread (double batch, wrapped in foil)

  Breads freeze very well. I’ve been freezing the cornbread from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything since 2014 and it has never failed me!

  • Sweet Potato Casserole (single recipe, 2 8×8 foil pans)

  Let me start by saying that while this froze well, I would tweak this recipe more if I made it again because I found it to be sweeter than I generally care to eat for dinner. I froze mine without the topping because I was afraid it would get mushy when it defrosted. The first time we ate it, I did a half batch of the topping (since the pan was half the original recipe) and it was way too sweet. The second time, I halved the sugar and it was a lot better. Both times the topping was pretty scant – I guess that’s what happens with a “lighter” recipe.

  • Buttermilk Loaf (double recipe, wrapped in plastic wrap and foil)

  Wow that was good! I just made the basic recipe, but this was so tender and delicious, even after freezing, that I feel like I need to try all of the variations. Overall this was very easy to make and very easy to double so long as you have two loaf pans.

  • Mashed White Beans (quadruple recipe, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)

  I always double this recipe when I make it because it is never enough. I did the quadruple batch this time to get it all cooked at once, but I think next time I will do two double batches. There was just so much liquid and reducing it took a very long time. They do freeze very well.

  • Rice (multiple batches, 4 gallon-sized freezer bags)

  I had heard about freezing rice before but this is the first time I actually tried it. I watched the rice closely and turned off the heat when there was still the slightest bit of moisture in the pot so that it wouldn’t be dry after reheating.

  • Quinoa (multiple batches, 2 gallon-sized freezer bags)

  Reading that rice freezes well inspired me to freeze some quinoa too. I made mine with chicken broth and – just like with the rice – watched carefully to make sure it did not dry out. This came out so well; it did not taste like it had been frozen.

   

  Other Stuff

  

  • Buttermilk Pancakes and Pumpkin Pancakes (store in gallon-sized freezer bags)

  These are great for a quick breakfast. My kids love when I make pancakes, and sticking them in the freezer makes this a doable breakfast any day of the week. It actually took me a few times to get as many pancakes into the freezer as I wanted to because my kids and husband kept eating them! 😄 I prefer using buttermilk in my pancakes, especially for freezer pancakes, because the texture is far and away superior. To freeze pancakes, cook as normal, cool completely, and store in a large freezer bag.

  • Breakfast Burritos (single recipe, gallon-sized freezer bags)

  This is my husband’s favorite breakfast item for the freezer. I love having a savory fast breakfast option in the mix, especially in the early nursing-around-the-clock days. We make them with bacon instead of ham.

  • Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins (3 or 4 dozen, gallon-sized freezer bags)

  I am not one to say no to chocolate for breakfast. I honestly do not remember how many banana muffins ended up in my freezer as I made more than one double batch, and I know I have made more since the baby was born. I do know that they freeze like a dream. I use the banana bread recipe from How to Cook Everything – one loaf pan translates to one dozen muffins.

  

  

  • Pumpkin Muffins (double recipe, gallon-sized freezer bags)

  Sometimes I do half whole wheat flour so I can feel a little better about my breakfast (I also make them without the icing). My kids ate these faster than anything else we put in the freezer, and I have actually made them several times since the baby was born because my big kids love them so much.

  

  • Brownies (store in gallon-sized freezer bags)

  New moms like chocolate, or at least this one does, so these were a must-have on my cook list. After baking the brownies, let them cool and cut them into squares. Freeze them in a gallon-sized freezer bag. We generally microwaved these and ate them warm, but the fudgey interior pieces are pretty delicious straight from the freezer.

  • Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough (double recipe, 5 dozen dough balls)

  This was my first time freezing cookie dough. We are a big sweets family, and warm cookies are my husband’s favorite dessert, so it was bound to happen sometime. It was so easy! I’ve been suggesting it to everyone I know! Mix the cookie dough and shape it into balls as usual, then flash freeze on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet for one hour. Once the dough is frozen, transfer to a gallon-sized freezer bag. You don’t defrost the dough before baking – put it into the oven straight from the freezer, just add a minute or two to the normal bake time.

  Finally, if you are still looking for something else to stick in your freezer, here are a few things that I planned to make but I ran out of time and energy before I got there:

  • Veggie Packed Freezer Ready Breakfast Sandwiches
  • Blueberry muffins
  • Pumpkin pie and apple pie
  • Hearty Black Bean Quesadillas (for lunch/snacks)
  • Easy Calzones (for lunch/snacks… I like the pepperoni ones)

  This concludes my series on freezer cooking for a new baby. What are your favorite freezer foods? Tell me in the comments!

  Posted in Menu Plans | 0 Comments | Tagged breakfast, dessert, freezer friendly, kid-friendly, Menu plan, side dish

• Alternative Holiday Dinners (Part 2)

  Posted at 9:00 pm by Rachel, on January 8, 2019

  This is the second of a two post series on alternative holiday dinners, where I share two ways to celebrate without cooking a big, traditional dinner. For Part 1, click here.

  When it was time to plan for Christmas, I considered ordering catering from Earth Fare again. But when I checked their menu, it was exactly the same as the Thanksgiving menu. I suppose that there is a lot of overlap between Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, and I guess that is what I do not like about holiday meals: they can be kind of boring. I had already ruled out ordering from other stores because most of their meals were intended for 10-12 people, were too expensive, or just looked kind of gross.

  Some friends had mentioned that they only do appetizers and desserts for Christmas, and we really liked that idea. I think most people can agree that the sides are the best part of any holiday meal, and they generally are less time-consuming to prepare than the main course, so we decided to give it a try. The verdict? This will probably be how we do big holiday meals from now on.

  On the menu for the evening were Turkey and Stuffing Meatballs served with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, Pesto Pizza Rolls, Smoky Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower, cheese & crackers, and crudités (yes, 4/5 of those recipes are from Budget Bytes – all are amazing). It was more than enough for me, my husband, and 2 small children. We were able to have a several leftovers meals in the days following, so this spread could probably serve 6 or so people easily. I wanted a variety of foods including veggies and something that I knew the kids would eat. They love crudités and cheese and crackers, and that is mostly what they ate. We put those out first so the girls could start munching while everything else finished cooking. They also really enjoyed the cranberry sauce.

  We started prepping food a day or two ahead of Christmas. I made the cranberry sauce first. I had never attempted to make cranberry sauce from scratch before this, but I am happy to report that it was quick and easy and kept well in the fridge. Next up were the mashed potatoes. I am glad that I cooked these the night before because they were the most labor intensive item on the menu. I highly recommend this time-saving tip for peeling potatoes, by the way. I’ve peeled potatoes this way a few times now and it always works well for me.

  

  

  On Christmas Day, my husband mixed and shaped the meatballs in about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, I mixed the pizza dough in my stand mixer. I used a spoon to combine the ingredients and then let the mixer do the work of kneading for me (about 6 minutes around level 4 with the dough hook, in case you are wondering). Once that was done, I took the dough out, oiled the bowl, then returned the dough to the bowl to let it rise for a couple of hours. I also cut up the cauliflower and combined the seasonings in a separate small bowl, and sliced up and plated the veggies for the crudités.

  

  All in all I think that was about an hour of work. Once it was done we went over to our neighbors’ house to hang out for a couple of hours before coming home to finish up cooking. We turned the oven on right away, and I tossed the cauliflower with its seasonings and assembled the pizza rolls while it preheated (the pizza dough stretched and rolled up very easily!). Overall, it was still very low stress and the food was better than most holiday meals I’ve had.

  

  

  For dessert, we had an array of Christmas cookies – gingerbread, chocolate spritz, sugar cookies, and snickerdoodles – that we had been baking for the last few days.

  I know that this approach will not work for everyone, but it definitely helped make our Christmas dinner feel more festive and joyous. Really that is how a holiday should feel – more joyful than stressful. If cooking up a big “traditional” meal with all the fixings does not bring you joy, then maybe you would be better suited to an alternative meal.

  Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments | Tagged appetizer, Christmas, dessert, Dinner, holiday, kid-friendly, side dish

• Alternative Holiday Dinners (Part 1)

  Posted at 9:00 pm by Rachel, on January 1, 2019

  This is the first of a two post series on alternative holiday dinners, where I share two ways to celebrate without cooking a big, traditional dinner. For Part 2, click here.

  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours!

  Looking back on this holiday season, it is hard to believe that it was less busy than previous years. Our newest addition arrived before Thanksgiving, which means there are now three kiddos ages four and under in our household. So even though we have pared down holiday travel and other things that cause more stress than we care for, life is full.

  I decided many months ago that I would not be cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Knowing that we would have a brand new baby at home, and not knowing what her temperament would be or how any of us would be feeling, I did not want to embark on the ambitious task of cooking a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Instead I took the ultimate shortcut – grocery store catering. A couple of years ago, we were in a similar situation of having a brand new baby during the holiday season; except back then, we also moved across the country with our brand new baby and ended up hosting a large family gathering two days after moving into our new place. The pressure of it all really set in the night before move-in, so I did some research and saw that Wegman’s would still let me place an order for Christmas Day. The food was so great that I have been tempted to cater every holiday meal since then.

  That brings me back to this year… I looked into several options in our local area, but ultimately went with Earth Fare in Martinez, GA. They offered a good balance of healthier options, price, and portions (many other stores only offered meals for larger groups). Again, the food was delicious. It was a fairly basic dinner – turkey breast, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing, green beans, and mashed potatoes – and if I did it over I would probably want to add sweet potatoes. But it was still a solid Thanksgiving dinner and the only thing I had to cook were some baby carrots for my little ones. I think my favorite components of the meal were the cranberry sauce and stuffing, which really says something as those are typically my least favorite part of Thanksgiving.

  

  

  For dessert we went all in and ordered three pies from The Pie Hole in Augusta, GA. The Pie Hole is a local establishment here that I got hooked on after trying their peach pie last summer. They also sell deliciously fresh coffee roasted locally by Buona Caffe. If you are ever in the Augusta area, I highly recommend checking them out for some pie and coffee. All of their Thanksgiving offerings were so tempting, but we narrowed it down to pumpkin, apple crumble, and chocolate pecan, which I served with homemade whipped cream. My favorite was the apple crumble, and my husband’s was the chocolate pecan. Neither of us knew what to expect from the chocolate pecan, but it turned out to be like a chocolate chip cookie pie. The texture was phenomenal.

  

  There were almost no dishes, and there was virtually no stress. With all of the extra time on Thanksgiving Day, we got to soak in extra time with our kids, go for a long walk, take some family photos, and do some coloring. Speaking of coloring, everyone enjoyed our restaurant-style coloring place mats. We put down an extra-large piece of paper at each place along with some crayons. It made the evening all the more special for our younger party goers.

  If ordering a catered meal doesn’t feel festive enough for you, be sure to stay tuned for Part 2, where I will discuss another alternative holiday dinner option!

  Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments | Tagged Augusta GA, dessert, Dinner, Earth Fare, holiday, kid-friendly, pie, take out, thanksgiving, The Pie Hole

• Food Journal #5: Boston

  Posted at 12:47 am by Rachel, on August 19, 2018

  Earlier this summer we got to spend a few days in Boston. It was not nearly long enough (it never is!) but we did pack in a ton of our favorite things, including lots of good food! I probably would have gained 10 pounds here if we hadn’t balanced it out with a bunch of walking.

  Our AirBnB host left some oranges so we could make freshly squeezed orange juice. Oh man, this was so good! I don’t think I’ve had fresh orange juice before this trip. I’ll say that while I’m not usually an orange juice drinker, this had me considering getting my own juicer. It took 2 large oranges to fill this glass:

  

  Tatte was on our must-eat list for this trip; I have been dreaming of their Balakani sandwich (literally) since the last time I ate it in 2016. While Tatte has several locations, I’ve only ever been to the one in Brookline. It is such a cute little place! It was hard to appreciate the last time we were there because it was so packed (brunch on a holiday weekend is not a good time if you’re looking for a quiet spot!).

  

  

  

  The Balakani did not disappoint this trip either. The eggplant was so perfect – roasted to creamy perfection – and really wonderfully complemented by the salty feta. If you want something salty, this is a satisfyingly salty sandwich.

  

  

  We were there about an hour before closing but they still had a few grab-and-go style sandwiches. This one that my husband picked up wasn’t on the regular menu – it’s open-faced with prosciutto, arugula, and pear.

  Of course we picked out a few pastry items as well:

  

  

  

  

  Honestly, the top 2 pastries with the chocolate crusts are not something I would order again. They are so pretty to look at, and I love the fresh berries, but they are just not as chocolatey as I was hoping for. They were kind of dry too for my taste too. I know that we picked them up at the end of the day, but we usually buy a few items and do not eat them all immediately – if they’re dry after just a few hours, buying for a couple of days isn’t really good idea. The cheesecake cup was better – not dry and no disappointment in the intensity of its flavors. I would get this one again. Fortunately there are a lot of options here, so the next time I am craving a Balakani I can just try a different pastry.

  Next up was Eataly in the Prudential Center. We were headed to the Skywalk Observatory and planned to eat breakfast somewhere in the Prudential. Apparently the food court closed since the last time we visited, and I am the only person left from the Northeast who does not like Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, so we gave Eataly a try. This place is HUGE – so huge that you can grab a map on your way in. It was pretty early when we showed up, so most of the stations inside were closed. We still walked around the whole upper level just to see what there was, and I was impressed. I loved The Italian Store in Arlington, but I always thought that it should have been bigger or carried a wider variety of products. Eataly is more what I imagined the Italian Store would be like.

  

  

  

  The coffee was solid, albeit small. We also ordered a variety of pastries from the cafe next to the front entrance to share. We chose one with almonds, a cream-filled brioche, a chocolate pastry, and a ricotta and jam turnover. My absolute favorite was the cream-filled brioche, followed by the chocolate pastry. I enjoyed the flavor of the jam in the ricotta and jam turnover, and the pastry had a great crunch, but I wasn’t quite sold on the texture of the ricotta. It was kind of crumbly. Really it was not bad – none of it was – but I don’t know that I would order it again when there is brioche and chocolate pastry to eat.

  After breakfast we took the elevator up to the Skywalk. It was such a clear, beautiful day to be up there. You get free admission with a military or dependent ID, although these views are worth buying a ticket to see. My cell phone picture does not do them justice.

  

  After the Skywalk, we walked over to the Public Garden before heading back to the Prudential to pick up our car. It was almost nap time, so we grabbed some quick sandwiches from Eataly to go. By the way, if you do drive in and park at the Prudential, Eataly will validate your parking.

  My husband ordered a PLT (prosciutto, lettuce, and tomato) and I got the Cavolino, which had pesto, cheese, and caramelized onions. These are BIG sandwiches, and you could probably split one between two people depending on how hungry you are. I think I ended up saving part of mine to eat later. The Cavolino was very fresh tasting – I think there was some lemon in the pesto – great for an early summer sandwich. It was also very oily. It wasn’t oily in a gross way, but it was messy, so if you choose this sandwich, keep some napkins nearby.

  

  

  

  

  That night we picked up a few slices from Regina Pizzeria and took them to DeFilippo Playground around the corner. There were a couple of picnic tables and a great selection of toys in addition to the playground equipment. I was too hungry to wait to snap a picture, so if you’ve never been, it’s a perfect, delicious, thin crust pizza. I think I could eat it every day and not get sick of it.

  My husband walked down the street to Mike’s Pastry to pick up some cannoli. We got one plain ricotta, one strawberry, one Florentine, and one chocolate chip. The strawberry was for our 3-year-old, but I did try some – I can’t say I recommend this one unless you are buying it for someone who cares more about the color than the flavor. The others were all great. I always get the Florentine, which has nuts (I believe they are almonds) and honey in the shell, and chocolate chips on the ends. My husband tried a bite and he found the shell to be a bit *too* crunchy. If that’s something that would bother you, then the chocolate chip might be a better match. I really enjoy the extra flavor the nuts bring to the table though.

  

  On the way back, someone commented that we looked super touristy with our Mike’s box. Maybe it is a tourist staple, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t tasty. We’ve been getting cannoli from Mike’s for years and we love them, which is all that matters.

  I was sad to discover that Finale, a fixture of our college days and past trips, closed a couple of years ago. Apparently it was already closed the last time we were in Boston and we didn’t notice it! Whoops! Anyway, we obviously had more than enough food to fill our bellies this time around, and I am sure we will find some new places to visit in the future. In the meantime, I will miss their dessert-centric restaurant in general and their molten chocolate cake in particular.

  Until next time, Boston!

  Posted in dessert, Dinner, Food Journal | 0 Comments | Tagged balakani, Boston, breakfast, cannoli, coffee, dessert, Dinner, Eataly, Finale, juice, lunch, Mike's Pastry, pastry, pizza, Prudential Center, Regina Pizzeria, restaurant review, sandwich, Skywalk, take out, Tatte

• Food Journal #1

  Posted at 8:10 pm by Rachel, on November 26, 2017

  Welcome to my new series, Food Journal! This is where I will write about different recipes I try, what was good, and what wasn’t. Let’s get started…

  11/20 Fast and Easy Pasta with Blistered Cherry Tomato Sauce:

  Fast, easy, pasta… this recipe is basically all of my favorite things 😛 It was really fast and really easy; like Kenji said in the video, the hardest part was slicing (and peeling) the garlic. The second hardest part was putting the tomatoes into the pan without getting burned by splattering oil. Note to self: dumping the tomatoes into the pan from a large bowl will probably work better than tossing them in by the handful. Next time I want to start on the sauce BEFORE I put the pasta in the pot. My pasta cooked and was done probably 10 minutes before my sauce. I guess I’m a slow cook. Anyway, this pasta was awesome and so were its leftovers.

   

  

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  11/21 Slow Cooker Balsamic Chicken:

  I had this recipe pinned for a while but never made it because it looked a bit more complicated than I care to take on for a weeknight (or any night). Well, I made it and it looked JUST like the pictures! I decided to modify the recipe a bit, partly to cut down on the day-of prep work and partly to take advantage of a good price on chicken. After searing the meat, I prepped the sauce, and threw them both into a gallon sized freezer bag. I let it all cool off completely and put it into the freezer until this morning when I took it out to defrost. Prep in the morning was easy – dump the pearl onions into the slow cooker, rinse the mushrooms and dump them into the slow cooker (I used pre-sliced so no chopping for me!), add pre-minced garlic, rosemary, and a bay leaf, then just dump out the contents of my defrosted freezer bag.

   

  

  

  

  The only things I wasn’t crazy about were having to use so many pans & dishes and deseeding the pomegranate.

   

  

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  A lot of slow cooker recipes end up tasting the same: they aren’t interesting or fresh. But this one is! I really loved the recipe, and am excited to eat it again in a few weeks. If you’re like me and tend to skip the fresh herb garnish, do yourself a favor and pick up the fresh parsley that the recipe calls for. It definitely added something extra and rounded out the flavors.

   

  11/22 We had leftovers for dinner (really a great idea for clearing out your fridge the day before Thanksgiving) but I still spent ALL DAY in the kitchen. I baked an apple pie, a pumpkin pie, and some dinner rolls, plus the normal endless snacks for my kids.

  The apple pie took the longest time of the three recipes. I recently gave up on trying to make pie dough in my food processor and decided to try out this pie dough recipe from The Smitten Kitchen. I used a large balloon whisk to cut the butter into the flour – somehow I still don’t have a pastry blender. The whisk worked just fine, but I think a pastry blender might do this job more quickly, or at least be more comfortable to hold. The first crust was either too warm or I did not use enough flour, because it stuck to the counter when I rolled it out. So I pushed it all back into a disc shape, refloured the counter, and rolled it out again. Somewhere in the world a pastry chef is cringing. Really the pie turned out fine despite over-handling the dough, although all the extra flour on that first crust made it hard to seal it to the second crust.

   

  

  

  

  The filling for the apple pie was made of a mixture of 3 pounds of Granny Smiths and 2 pounds of Pink Ladies. I don’t think I want to make another apple dessert until I have an apple peeler of some sort. I think I say this every I make apple pie. But really, peeling and coring the apples with my vegetable peeler and paring knife takes me FOREVER. Also, if you attempt this recipe, remember to use a POT of some kind with a lid and not a SKILLET. I tried using my large cast iron skillet and had to use a mixing bowl for a makeshift lid. It was also really hard to stir the apples because the skillet was too shallow for the amount of food in it. It still worked, but it was a pain.

  

  Once the apple pie was in the oven, I started the bread dough. These rolls were light and fluffy, and the whole process was fast and easy thanks to my bread machine. One thing I learned while making this recipe is that you do not need to melt butter before adding it to the bread machine! Just cut it into smaller pieces and the machine will take care of the rest. Shaping the rolls was trickier than I expected because the dough was STICKY. So I just made basic pan rolls instead of the cloverleaf rolls I had originally planned.

   

  

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  This is my third year making this pumpkin pie recipe. The streusel topping makes it more impressive than the recipe from the canned pumpkin label, but it is about the same amount of work. My only modifications to the original recipe are 1) I double the crust and 2) I use all butter instead of butter + oil. It is a deep dish pie, but I use a deep cake pan and it works just fine.

  

   

  11/23 My mom hosted Thanksgiving at her house, so I didn’t do any cooking that day. However, she asked me to find a recipe for sweet potatoes with brown sugar and cinnamon, and I found this super easy recipe for roasted sweet potatoes that everyone loved. Like, I don’t think there were even any leftovers. I usually make savory roasted sweet potatoes with just olive oil, salt, and pepper, but this was a nice change for the holiday and all of the spices made them feel more special. If you want “holiday” sweet potatoes without the heaviness of a sweet potato casserole, I recommend these!

  Posted in Food Journal | 0 Comments | Tagged dessert, Dinner, freezer friendly, pie, recipe review, side dish, slow cooker, thanksgiving

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