Last night's Dinner was Sweet & Sour Chicken Meatballs from AllRecipes.com. They were a great way to use up some ground chicken that I had in the freezer. Tuesday night Matt seemed to be jonesin' for a taco, so I decided to keep tacos in the game for this week and shift the fish & pork chops to next week.
Back to the recipe: it was alright. I made it mostly as written, but ended up with a 280 ml can of broth and 680ish ml can of tomato sauce, so I left out the ketchup. I also used red peppers instead of green, left out the carrots, and chopped up the half-zucchini that wasn't grated into the meatballs to add to the sauce. I also added more vinegar and a touch of Tabasco sauce, because the sauce was tasting a little bland. I used breadcrumbs instead of a slice of milk-soaked bread, and the meatballs still seemed pretty wet. They cooked nicely in the sauce, though.
Moving on: there was a lot of sauce. Once Matt and I had dinner and I had packed up some for lunches, there was still half a big skillet of sauce & vegetables left. I froze them to use as the base for a pork stir fry another week. To be honest, if I do repeat this recipe, I will probably do it with pork instead of meatballs. Unless Matt requests it with meatballs, which would be a surprise, since he apparently hates chicken. The point I am trying to make is that the sauce was good, but I just don't think we're chicken meatball people. That said, I will be having leftovers for lunch and supper today.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Regular Posting Schedule Fail
It's only a week in, and I've already failed miserably at keeping to a posting schedule. I'll get better, I promise!
The story so far...
Once again, this week is not shaping up according to plan. Yesterday a trip to Costco meant dinner at Costco (A hotdog and a drink for $2... how could you not?) Thursday Matt will be at a bachelor party and I will be climbing 25 flights of stairs. As a result, tacos and honey butter pork chops will be postponed to next week, and I may cook something on Friday. We'll see. In any case, this past weekend was full of culinary fun!
Eyeball Cookies
I made Eyeball cookies for the Halloween party Matt and I attended on Saturday. Matt called them creepy. I got the idea from Annie's Eats, who got it from Confections of a Foodie Bride, who got it from Epicurious. My only real deviation was to make them cookies instead of cupcakes, since Courtney made cupcakes for the last party.
The recipe I used was "The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies" from allrecipes.com. The recipe makes 60 cookies, so I halved it. I then added 50% more sugar as per reviewers' notes. I chose to roll the dough into balls and flatten them, instead of rolling the dough and cutting out shapes, since the cookies were going to be circles anyway. The cookies baked for exactly 6 minutes at 400 degrees. Next time I will probably add some lemon zest or cinnamon or something, but they had a nice taste and texture.
The best part of the cookies was the decorations! For the icing, I mixed some confectioners sugar with milk, vanilla, and a little bit of margarine until I achieved an icing-ish texture. The irises are gummy savers, the pupils are brown m&ms, and the veins I drew on with purchased gel icing.
Dijon Crusted Rib Roast
Sunday night I made Dijon Crusted Rib Roast, as printed in Canadian House and Home, originally from "A Year in Lucy's Kitchen" by Lucy Waverman. The roast was delicious, which is good, because it's supposed to be pretty hard to mess up a nice cut of meat.
That said, I did have a couple of issues. For starters, the roast I had was about half the size that the recipe was written for. I bought myself a meat thermometer. Problem solved, right? Next up, I apparently don't know where to stick a thermometer in a roast. (Advice Appreciated!) After about an hour and a half in the oven, one thermometer location was reading "Well Done" and another spot was reading nothing. Since that was about half the time that the recipe called for, and we tend to like our beef medium , I pulled the delicious-semlling chunk of cow out of the oven.
The roast was on the rare side of medium-rare in the center, but nice everywhere else. The flavour was excellent. I served it with steamed carrots, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Dinner was an hour sooner than anticipated, but hey, live and learn. An extra half hour next time will do it. And there will be a next time...
Droolingly yours, until (likely) tomorrow,
Emily
The story so far...
Once again, this week is not shaping up according to plan. Yesterday a trip to Costco meant dinner at Costco (A hotdog and a drink for $2... how could you not?) Thursday Matt will be at a bachelor party and I will be climbing 25 flights of stairs. As a result, tacos and honey butter pork chops will be postponed to next week, and I may cook something on Friday. We'll see. In any case, this past weekend was full of culinary fun!
Eyeball Cookies
I made Eyeball cookies for the Halloween party Matt and I attended on Saturday. Matt called them creepy. I got the idea from Annie's Eats, who got it from Confections of a Foodie Bride, who got it from Epicurious. My only real deviation was to make them cookies instead of cupcakes, since Courtney made cupcakes for the last party.
The recipe I used was "The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies" from allrecipes.com. The recipe makes 60 cookies, so I halved it. I then added 50% more sugar as per reviewers' notes. I chose to roll the dough into balls and flatten them, instead of rolling the dough and cutting out shapes, since the cookies were going to be circles anyway. The cookies baked for exactly 6 minutes at 400 degrees. Next time I will probably add some lemon zest or cinnamon or something, but they had a nice taste and texture.
The best part of the cookies was the decorations! For the icing, I mixed some confectioners sugar with milk, vanilla, and a little bit of margarine until I achieved an icing-ish texture. The irises are gummy savers, the pupils are brown m&ms, and the veins I drew on with purchased gel icing.
Dijon Crusted Rib Roast
Sunday night I made Dijon Crusted Rib Roast, as printed in Canadian House and Home, originally from "A Year in Lucy's Kitchen" by Lucy Waverman. The roast was delicious, which is good, because it's supposed to be pretty hard to mess up a nice cut of meat.
That said, I did have a couple of issues. For starters, the roast I had was about half the size that the recipe was written for. I bought myself a meat thermometer. Problem solved, right? Next up, I apparently don't know where to stick a thermometer in a roast. (Advice Appreciated!) After about an hour and a half in the oven, one thermometer location was reading "Well Done" and another spot was reading nothing. Since that was about half the time that the recipe called for, and we tend to like our beef medium , I pulled the delicious-semlling chunk of cow out of the oven.
The roast was on the rare side of medium-rare in the center, but nice everywhere else. The flavour was excellent. I served it with steamed carrots, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Dinner was an hour sooner than anticipated, but hey, live and learn. An extra half hour next time will do it. And there will be a next time...
Droolingly yours, until (likely) tomorrow,
Emily
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