Yummy doughy goodness

Posted on April 26, 2013 by casadeberry

My husband sent me a recipe he found online, a couple of weeks ago, to make pretzels just like the ones sold at the Auntie Anne’s stores. We had everything at hand and gave it a try:

Steve kneads the dough:

The lovely things in the oven

The lovely things out of the oven:

The lovely things ready to be eaten

I have to say this is one of the rare copycat recipes that I have tried, that actually gives you a product resembling the original. These pretzels are DE-LI-CIOUS!!! This is actually the second time we have made them in the past month because they turned out so yummy the first time. The biggest “tip” we can offer is the one in the recipe itself, to roll out the dough super thin because after you shape it into a pretzel, it will puff back up, but either way the pretzels taste so good.

Given that neither of us is a baking or a breadmaking expert, and that we’ve made this twice with delicious results both times, I’m going to vouch for this recipe as a good one, so if you’ve been wanting to make pretzels at home, I’d give this one a try.

The “Chopped” Project

Posted on February 22, 2013 by casadeberry

I love competitive cooking shows. My favorite is MasterChef; it is one of the few shows my husband and I make a point to watch together, but sometimes I’ll catch a few episodes of Chopped. If you haven’t watched it, the premise is that you compete by making the best use out of a mystery box of ingredients. I decided to have my own little Chopped project, competing against no one but myself, in order to use up some ingredients in my pantry.

The list included: Rolled oats, au gratin potatoes, quinoa, lentils, Italian style bread crumbs, tikka masala curry sauce, mango nectar, and Moroccan spice mix (ras el hanout). Nothing earth-shattering, but I wanted to use some things that had been sitting in the pantry for a few weeks and add some variety to my usual meal rotation.

Next week I will share the meals I made to use up my ingredients – I hope your weekend is a wonderful one!

Garden Update: First Week of May

Posted on May 7, 2012 by casadeberry

There has been a lot of growing going on in our backyard — I can’t wait for harvest time to start enjoying our veggies and fruits, do some canning with friends and family, and feed my family lots of wonderful, homegrown food!

Imagine about 40 of these babies and you’ll get an approximation of what we have in the backyard. From the original 72 plants I grew from seed, I gave some away and donated some to my youngest’s school. I figure a few are not going to make it, but the truth is, I need to buy more cages — eek!

We grow some of our strawberries on the top of those upside-down hanging tomato planters. Last year we got lots of berries and lots of tomatoes, so we’re going for it again. A friend gave me another planter so hopefully they both do well.

My roses make me smile every time I go out to the backyard. I think some of them are going to decorate our home this week.

Our plum tree will give us lots of sweet, juicy plums this year. Plum jam is a pain to make but just so good!

There are hundreds (thousands?) of tiny grapes, the size of a pin’s head, all clustered and green right now. They’re Concord grapes, and once they’re ripe, my boys love to run around the backyard, scooping up a few each time they pass the grapevine.

I had never heard of Swiss Chard until I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle — and no wonder Barbara Kingsolver likes it so much! We bought the plants once, three years ago. It just comes back on its own. I did get some Chard seeds for my 40th, so I’ve added to Chard Row.

One of my favorite fruits to eat as I’m working in the backyard are blueberries. I’ll be weeding for half an hour or pulling tomatoes off their plants and run over to grab a few blueberries. Then the boys see me and pretty much empty the plant of its fruits within 10 minutes. And hey, that’s why I grow stuff, right?

I have lots more to show you in the next Garden Update – peas, broccoli, corn, carrots, beans, etc. Stay tuned!

A Peruvian St. Patrick’s Day

Posted on March 19, 2012 by casadeberry

I know, weird, right? But let me tell you how it happened.

Recently, I saw on Facebook that my brother was a fan of a Peruvian food truck called Sanguchon. The main locations are up in San Francisco, but, much to my delight, I saw that they were also in various places around the bay area. My husband, his parents and our oldest had business to attend to on Saturday – they would be gone the whole morning and part of the afternoon, so I decided to take my youngest to try a bit of Peruvian food. Our good friends J&M were free for lunch and live super close to where the food trucks would be, so we met up there.

The menu looked pretty good, many Peruvian dishes made into sandwiches or wraps, and lovely side dishes, dessert and drinks were also available.

The first offering on the picture above is Pan con Chicharron – a sandwich that includes the ingredients for the traditional weekend breakfast in Peru. The bread was crunchy but not hard, made specially for Sanguchon, and the meat inside was flavorful and moist. At home we would serve this on a plate instead of as a sandwich, the meat alongside the fried yams, with some red onion and spicy yellow pepper sauce. I was happy that the flavors worked all together in the sandwich, and my friends seemed to enjoy theirs as well.

My friend M holding up her Pan con Chicharron. Yum!

The next picture is of Lomo Saltado, which, again, we serve as a meal, but next time I would love to try it as a sandwich. It’s stir-fried pork or beef with fries, tomatoes and onions. My husband learned to make this for me

Next are Yuca Fries, which, I will be totally honest, are not my thing. I find Yuca to be too dry and am happier with sweet potatoes or yams as a side dish.

Inca Kola is the national soda of Peru – back there we love to drink it with anything, but for some reason it really seems to work with Chinese/Peruvian food. Every Chifa (Chinese restaurant in Peru) says that their food goes great with some Inca Kola, and it’s true. It’s very sweet and crisp and I love it. They now sell it at my local Target (???) and I do my best to avoid it because there is no Diet Inca Kola.

The last item in the picture is Chicha Morada. Peru has many varieties of corn, including a purple corn that we use to make this sweet drink and a sweet pudding called Mazamorra. My dear friend K loves Mazamorra and calls it “purple stuff” ;D I’ve discovered that Whole Foods carries Purple Corn flour from Peru so I’m going to try and make some Mazamorra.

Our favorite part of lunch, however, were the Alfajores:

I love alfajores. Alfajores are so bad for me, because I can’t eat just one. My little man was chowing down on these and kept asking for more. Shortbread cookies with dulce de leche (or manjarblanco, as we call it in Peru) in between, dusted with powdered sugar. So good. These were excellent. The cookies were very tender and the filling just right.

A good friend of my family has a killer Alfajor recipe, and now I need to get it from her because I didn’t realize how much I had missed them! Who knew a dessert of Arabic origins, brought from Spain to South America, would become such an integral part of our cuisine?

And what on earth does Sanguchon mean? Well, in Spanish, the word “sandwich” became “sanguche” (SAN-goo-che) and a Sanguchon means a big sandwich. I ate only half of mine and saved the rest for later. It was a nice surprise to find Peruvian food and be able to share it with our friends. If you’re in the SF Bay Area, check out Sanguchon’s schedule to see if there a food truck near you!

Oh, and if you’re going to try the alfajores, please don’t wear black pants like I did – the powdered sugar went everywhere! ;D

Pantry re-org 2012

Posted on January 13, 2012 by casadeberry

I try to go through my pantry every couple of months, but who am I kidding, two months becomes three and four and by the time I get to it, the poor shelves have become a mess. To begin the year with a clean slate, I took everything out and grouped things on my dining room table before putting them back.

Again, I didn’t spend a cent on this – I had most of the bins already in the pantry and found a few others throughout the house. I made the labels and hung them with some denim-stitching thread. Easy peasy, simple, and it makes me happy to open the pantry doors – btw, they are old cabinets that my husband repurposed so we’d have more food storage.

Here is where I store many prized items from Peru – a powder mix for lucuma ice cream, mazamorra mix packets, and various others. I’ll tell you more about Peruvian food soon.

The soups and broths bin, plus a rogue tub of french fried onions. We love miso soup, it makes for such a comforting meal, or snack, depending on what you put in it.

Potatoes and rice. And lentils, apparently.

A veritable cornucopia (ha) of sauces. Pasta sauces, white sauces, Indian cuisine, etc. We do love our sauces. What I like a lot is that I can cook two pieces of chicken and put spicy sauce on my husband’s plate and not on mine. Spicy hot food and my esophagus do not get along.

The most often used bin in the pantry. My oldest boy eats pasta every single day, and lots of it. I buy pasta at Trader Joe’s, where it’s still 99 cents/lb., cheaper than anywhere else. I also buy plain marinara sauce at TJ’s, and then doctor it up with spices.

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. We have a ton of jams and jellies, and pancake and crepe batters. Yum yum.

That’s my pantry as of two days ago – I can find anything I need easily and it’s also easy to see how much I have left of various items. There is another shelf at the bottom where the bulk items go, i.e. flour, coffee, etc. At some point I do plan on making the pantry prettier, but “organized” will have to do for now

Our Christmas

Posted on December 27, 2011 by casadeberry

My oldest decided to use a whole jar of sprinkles for Santa’s cookies ;D

it was all about quality, not quantity because the rest of the batch was deemed not worthy of decoration.

The key words this year were “super hero” for my oldest, and “Godzilla” for my youngest, so most of their considerable loot was in one of those two camps.

I love little-boy bedhead!

My husband did an outstanding job with dinner, again, with a few dishes made by mom and me. We made the little Santa hats that were all over pinterest.

All too soon, the festivities ended, mom went back home, and we got some much-needed sleep. In a few days we will host the last of our holiday season events, a New Year’s Day brunch. We are doing it potluck-style, with us providing coffee/tea and pancakes/waffles, and everyone else bringing other items. So far, our response list is looking scrumptious!

Our 2011 Thanksgiving

Posted on November 25, 2011 by casadeberry

Our thanksgiving lunch went beautifully; Steve and I planned, made lists, set up a schedule, and with some help from our family, we had a great time. I printed the menu and set it up in the dining room:

My father-in-law showed up early — he was in charge of the turkey — and also helped out with the rest of the cooking. He and my oldest had a blast peeling potatoes:

Soon my boy was a potato peeling expert!

I had told my husband that I’d seen (can’t remember where!) an idea to use a wreath as a centerpiece and he came up with this:

Isn’t that cool?

Soon the rest of the family showed up and we started doing the oven-revolving-door dance. Dishes would go in, in twos and threes, and something yummy would come out. Soon our dining room table looked like this:

This was about half of the food we made. The wine took up one of the hutches ;D and the desserts people brought took up another.

Here is some of my wonderful family.

The little cups hold the butternut squash bisque, which was DELICIOUS – Steve made it from scratch and I am so happy there is some left over, because I’m having some of it for lunch!

One of my favorite moments was when we all shared what we were grateful for and my oldest said he was grateful for “the colors of autumn”, I thought that was so unusual and sweet.

I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful, and if you don’t celebrate it, then I hope today is a great Friday and I wish a wonderful weekend for everyone! I’m going to leave you with the menu we had for our Thanksgiving Lunch.

Nuh-oh is so good for you

Posted on October 24, 2011 by casadeberry

My youngest’s love for oatmeal cannot be denied. It is a love that is all encompassing, and it is also a love that keeps him regular – win/win! It started with my oldest, in fact, who started eating some of the oatmeal my mom would make for her own breakfast, and then it became a ritual. He outgrew his love of oatmeal but once my youngest started eating it, he was hooked.

Because of his autism, my little boy was slow to speak, and when he wanted his favorite food, he couldn’t say oatmeal, so he settled on “nuh-oh”. Now he has no problem saying oatmeal but he still prefers to call it nuh-oh and I think it will be nuh-oh until he’s all grown and out of the house.

My mom uses the packaged instant oatmeal but I’ve switched to the quick 1-minute oats that come in the big tubs. And I know, I know, everyone knows how to make oatmeal, but I just wanted to share what I do to make my boy’s breakfast as nutritious as possible.

This is about twice the amount that would be in an instant packet

The gorgeous canister label is from Leen’s shop, I love them.

We use rice milk because of my son’s (and my) allergies

Trader Joe’s has the cheapest price in rice milk, and since my son eats oatmeal 3 times a day AND drinks it as well, I make sure to stock up.

After two minutes in the microwave

I add a heaping tablespoon of peanut butter for some good protein.

The bulk oatmeal has a lot less sugar than the instant packets, but I do add some honey

both for flavoring and because it helps his allergies.

The last touch

is a bit of cinnamon, yum yum.

I usually add a sliced banana, but the ones I had were super green, so this was Sunday’s breakfast for my little guy:

Warm, hearty, flavorful, and it fills his belly with lots of goodness.

It’s so good that I’ve been known to make myself a bowl to warm up on a chilly morning. I usually skip the banana, but it gives me a good start to the day. As I was editing this post, my son came over and smiled as I showed him each picture in sequence. When I showed him the last one, he threw his hands in the air and said, “nuh-oh!”. He REALLY loves his oatmeal.

BTW, have you heard that peanut butter prices are going up? I’ve stocked up, just in case!

Have you met the Queen?

Posted on August 23, 2011 by casadeberry

If you’ve spent any time around the blogosphere, then you are probably familiar with vinyl decals being used around the home. In my case, I was longing for some order mixed with ornate for my pantry, and I found it at Leen the Graphics Queen’s site.

She has a really cute set of canister labels, which added to my new IKEA canisters, resulted in a seriously pretty addition to our pantry.

Or rather, my husband liked them so much that he asked if we could get them off the pantry shelf and put them above our microwave. They look great and bring order and prettiness to things we use often. The labels are custom-made so you can have them say whatever you wish – as you can tell, we don’t really use sugar, so one label reads Splenda!

I was not paid or gifted anything for this post, I purchased this set and was so happy that I wanted to share with y’alls. I’ve also purchased Leen’s chalkboard decals and liked them a lot. Her prices are very reasonable and she ships very quickly – go do some browsing! Now!!!

What’s the use of pinning . . .

Posted on July 18, 2011 by casadeberry

if you don’t put your pinning to good use? This week’s menus are taken straight from Pinterest, I’ve been collecting recipes for a few weeks now and figured it was time to use them – I’ll report on the results next week, but here are the meals my family will be (hopefully!) enjoying this week: