I’ve resuccumbed to Instagram. Find me @ selanad if you so choose.
Dinner tonight:
Salad CHOP CHOP
Because it’s more fun to call it that than Chopped Salad.
Mix of romaine & wild greens (arugula, rocket, dandelion greens), tossed with chopped tomatoes, mushrooms, green onions, jicama, Persian cucumbers, snow peas, & chicken breast sautéed w/ onion powder, garlic powder, and lemon pepper.
Yesterday’s Dinner:
Pasta Primaverish
Penne with zucchini & butternut squash, basic marinara sauce.
Dinner tonight: Taco Salad!
Chopped butter lettuce and spring mix, lean hamburger (will switch to turkey next time) cooked with taco seasoning, diced tomato and avocado, and shredded cheese. The dressing for the entire salad is made of a single serving of nonfat Greek yogurt with a scant spoonful of reserved taco seasoning mixed into it. Verdict? It’s a keeper.
Drunkenly prepping John Wayne Omelette for tomorrow! Did I mention I have a stein that can hold nearly an entire bottle of champagne? WAAAAY classier than swigging from the bottle.
Stuffed Carnival Squash (Easy Version)
So this is basically a quickie version of a stuffed squash. I’ll be posting my stuffing recipes after Thanksgiving.
First off: carnival squash is really pretty, comes in small to medium sizes. I got mine at Trader Joe’s, but they can be found many places. You can also sub acorn or any other smallish seasonal squash.
Equipment
- Knife
- Roasting Pan
- Pot/Saucepan
- Spatula
- Large Spoon
Ingredients
- 5 medium carnival squash
- 1 pkg Stovetop or similar stuffing
- Butter or Olive Oil
- Salt & Pepper
- Broth (I use Veggie)
Preheat oven to 375°. Cut tops off of squash and gut them. Set them in the roasting pan. If they roll around or feel unsteady, cut a small slice off the very end to make a flat spot. Be careful that you don’t cut too deep and make a hole in the end, as the squash seem to be very thin there. I made a few tiny holes in the ends of mine. Coat the inside with butter (or olive oil), salt, & pepper.
In your pot or pan, prepare the stuffing according to the boxed instructions. You want it very moist, almost soggy, because the squash and the oven are going to dry them out considerably. Stuff the cavities of the squash, kind of packing it in there, but not firmly. A loose pack, mounding it up nicely. Arrange the stuffed squash in the roasting pan and set in the oven, baking for about an hour before testing the squash with a fork or knife. The outer shell will obviously be hard and brittle, but you should be able to reach the flesh near the top. You are looking for a VERY SOFT consistency. Ours actually took about an hour and a half. This all depends on the size of the squash and how tightly they are stuffed.
For presentation, serving one of these on a plate alone or with something else (we had a bit of ham) as is looks great, but you will probably want to cut them in half or quarters to cool more evenly.
Register to Vote yo!
Heya, just a final reminder before I log off and head out for the day:
If you are of age and eligible to vote, and you haven’t registered, do so today!
Here’s a non-partisan link:
https://turbovote.org/register
and another:
and another:
http://registertovote.org/index.html
SO MANY FUCKING CHOICES!!!!!zomg!!!!
Seriously, register. Don’t be an asshole.
This Sunday’s dinner: Moroccan Braised Chicken. Recipe found in some magazine I’ve lost track of. I’ll drag my stack of Recipes To Try out sometime and take pics. It’s daunting. Pictures will be coming sometime Sunday night, as well as a review and the recipe itself.
Dinner is called: cleaning out the damn pantry. Tinned beef cooked with salsa, refried beans, sad packet of microwave Mexican rice, revitalized tortillas steamed to give it a bit of moisture, and tinned French beans. (Taken with Instagram)
Not bothering to post the recipe. It was basically: open can, apply heat, eat crappy burritos.
Going to try to update this more regularly. Trying at least 1 new recipe a week. Occasionally reviewing stuff.
Thank you, those random followers, for sticking around and thinking I post interesting things.
Happy “Ground Zero of the Zombie Apocalypse” day!
1,979 years ago today, the plague began in incubation!!! I’m roasting my very first ham on Sunday to celebrate the rise of the the first zombie in widely-accepted-social-Christian history! Hopefully, this won’t be the ham-pocalypse! If all goes well, I’ll post pics and recipe!
Bex Chex
So I make a few versions of Chex Mix, and one was is so beloved by my cousin that I’ve renamed it Bex Chex. She requested the recipe, so I’m posting it now, but no pictures currently. Cool thing about this? SUPER easy to make vegan if you have friends/family with those needs!
Equipment
- Roasting pan or 2 cake pans
- Whisk
- Rubber spatula
- Small bowl
- Wooden spatula or spoon
- 2 large cookie sheets
Ingredients
- 1 C butter or margarine (use a vegan
- 4 T soy sauce
- 1 T Old Bay Seasoning
- 2 T garlic powder
- 2 T onion powder
- 4 C Wheat Chex
- 4 C Corn Chex
- 1 C Rice Chex
- 2 C unsalted mixed nuts
- 1 C pretzels
Pre-heat the oven to 250°F and melt your butter in your roasting pan. When it’s melted, pull it out and whisk your other ingredients into it, making sure to coat the bottom of the pan with seasoned butter. Scrape the excess out into a bowl to pour over your mixture later.
Now dump all the dry ingredients (chex, nuts, and pretzels) into the buttered pan and toss lightly to mix. Pour the removed butter over the top and stir till coated. Pop it into the oven and set your timer for 15 minutes. Every 15 minutes for 2 hours, you’re going to jump up from whatever you’re doing, and stir the mix with the wooden spoon/spatula. After 2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes, pull out your roasting pan and divide the mix between the two cookie sheets to cool/dry. Store in an airtight container. This is totally shippable, and will keep for MONTHS in a cool, dry place.
Damn, I make good meatloaf. No recipe because I wing it every time.
Chicken Fried Steak
Equipment
- Heavy pan. Preferably cast iron. I am luck to have my great aunt’s cast iron to use for things like this.
- 3 shallow dishes. I use pie pans. I have a plethora.
- Serving plate or platter
- Fork or tongs for flipping
- Whisk
Ingredients
- 1-2 cube steaks for each person eating
- 1 egg for every 2 steaks
- enough milk to make an eggy batter
- 3-4 C flour
- asst. seasoning (salt & pepper, whatever tickles your fancy)
- oil, butter, or shortening
- milk
Method
Warm your pan and your fat on a medium-low heat while you bread your steaks. You’ll up the temp when you’re frying, but only to medium. Now get ready to get messy. Set up your pans in this order: meat, egg batter, flour, platter. Start coating your steaks as such: dip the meat in the egg batter to coat thoroughly, coat in the seasoned flour, back to the egg batter, back to the flour, onto the platter. Yes, it’ll get messy. Very messy, but it’ll be oh, so worth it.
Once all of your steaks are coated, turn the heat up on the pan (just to medium!) and add your first batch of steaks. Cook till golden, flip, repeat. Bits of breading will come off, that’s fine, it’ll make your gravy better! Remove the fried steaks and put on your serving platter. I keep my serving platter in my oven on warm, you can do whatever.
When you’ve finished frying, it’s time to make the gravy! Take some of the leftover breading flour and add it to the fat in the pan. using your whisk, cook it in the grease until the seasoned flour is browned and the lumps are gone. Slowly add milk, cooking and stirring. Add milk a little at a time, thinning out the cooked flour bit by bit. When the mixture has been thinned to a watery sauce consistency, stop adding milk and just keep stirring with the whisk.
Gravy is a funny thing, you’ll cook and stir and cook and stir, and nothing will happen, and then, suddenly, of nowhere, it’ll go from seasoned milk to GRAVY! When that happens, remove it from the heat, or it’ll go from gravy to paste just as fast.
Best served with mashed potatoes and something green to break up the brown. Leftovers are delicious slammed between two slices of bread. Enjoy!
