food

Miscellaneous Cooking Tips

Please replace all or   part of the flour in any recipe with whole wheat instead of bleached or   unbleached regular flour.You do not have to use   all the ingredients in specific recipes. Sometimes it effects the flavor,   other times it may actually improve the dish to leave something out or add   additional seasoning or ingredients. Just experiment with common sense. You   cannot make Chicken and Dumplings without the Chicken.

Learn to cook without   the need for measuring ingredients, except for baking. Don’t ever cook   without any seasoning or salt, much too blah!

Use Vinegar to rinse   fresh fruits and vegetables. I have seen washes specific for cleaning produce   that are expensive and I have even heard of some who use detergent to wash   off the various pesticides. Watered down vinegar solutions are great for   washing fruits and vegetables, much better than just water, safer than soap   and much cheaper than store bought products.

Be careful using   pre-washed and bagged leaf vegetables and baby carrots. You don’t really know   how clean they are and they may put various additives to preserve and prevent   browning. Fresh is best. Use a large clean bin or kitchen sink to clean all   the leaves in water with slight amount of vinegar. Then drain and rinse with   plain water. You do not have to bother with vinager if you know the products   were grown organically, such as the produce you take from your yard,   depending on how polluted the area you live in is.

 Miscellaneous tips from pogirlshines.com.

Creating Creative Breakfast

I used to think that breakfast meant cereal, yogurt or eggs and whole wheat toast.  Even bagels and cream cheese from Panera or an Egg McMuffin.  I have decided to shed about 10 pounds in the next month or two and I am now trying to streamline my eating for this loss.  Then I figure I can add fairly normal carbs to each meal, even a small dessert, and maintain as long as I stay physically active.

The most important part of breakfast to me now is protein.  A little fiber and even less sugar is OK too.  I know my muscles need the protein and as long as I have sufficient carbs higher in fiber, it will be good for me even while losing the weight.  I sometimes make up 6 of these little breakfast h’orderves.  I do know that if I keep my portion small with enough protein, I do not feel hungry soon after like I was doing eating larger meals.  It is a deadly cycle.

Eat alot, crave alot!  I hate it!

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These are some breakfasts that taste good, and are high in protein but equally high in fat so not so good for you.  Just make sure to eat smaller amounts.

Love Those Lattes!

Enjoying the latte art I am seeing posted online.  Thought I would try it myself sans the Cappucinni maker.  I got one of my son’s a machine years ago, but since I was never a coffee drinker, did not partake.

  I made espresso and frothed my 2% milk with a wand.  I attempted to pour it in at the one side as suggested.  Not thick enough.  I then attempted this again with foamier milk and got some type of shape, your guess is as good as mine what it might be.

 

 I tried to outline a heart shape with chocolate syrup in the first failed cup.  Ended up looking more like South America.

                                                    They tasted great and that’s the most important thing coffee needs to do.  That and the caffeine kick! 

The Usual Makeshifting of Recipes

The Cake of Many Flavors

Big mistake.  I love to take creative license with almost every recipe I use, when I use one.  This time it was a bad idea, but cook & learn. 

I started making a banana bread, did not have nuts.  I thought, “What would Elvis do?”  I added a half cup of peanut butter.  Then thought, “Chocolate & bananas, good, chocolate and peanut butter, good” so I added a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder.  I had about 1/2 cup of freshly homemade strawberry syrup in the fridge without any long-term plans, added that as well.  Need to add that I use less sugar then the recipes call for when I bake to lessen SUGAR SHOCK!  Needless to say, it was disappointing.  Not horrible, but confusing.  After I tried a couple of sad bites.  I tried to figure out what the problem was, but decided it was because one bite you could slightly taste peanut butter, the next bite you could just taste some strawberry, maybe if you tried real hard.  So decided I had too many flavors combined to have anyone taste really stand out and with the semi-sweetness, eatable but very mediocre.  Whoops, forgot about the yogurt to replace half of the oil and the cup of whole wheat flour. 

Put most in the freezer, will not share this one with anybody.  If I get a desperate sweet attack, I can take a piece out of the freezer to prevent me from making an ice cream run.  Needless to say I am not posting the recipe.

Ingredients for the Cake of Many Flavors
Putting it in to bake.

Had Better Luck with Chicken and Pasta  The original recipe was Penne with Chicken and Mushrooms, which consisted of: 1 oz butter, 1 Tb of olive oil, 1 clove garlic, 2.5 oz prosciutto, 9 oz chicken, any meat, 4.5 oz sliced mushrooms, 1 peeled & sliced tomato, 1 Tb tomato paste, 1/2 C white wine, 1 C cream, served on 1 lb penne pasta.My recipe consisted of: 1 med sliced onion, 1 can of cream of chicken soup (or cream of mushroom), 1/2 C white wine, 1/2 C milk, 1/2 C water, 2 Tb tomato paste, 1 lb of chicken, 1/4 C parmesan & romano cheese, 1/2 tsp of garlic powder on 1 lb of bowtie or farfalle pasta.  Technically it is probably a completely different chicken pasta recipe, but the original gave me the idea for mine.  Thankfully, no pictures.  Made another chicken & pasta dish with mushrooms a few weeks ago with similar ingredients, no tomato paste or onions and substituted the bowtie pasta with whole wheat capellini.  Again used the cream of chicken soup instead of cream of mushroom which could have been used.

Chicken and Mushrooms with whole wheat pasta