I've been sick. The kind where you can't sleep at night because you can't breath through your nose and you think you might die from suffocation from lying down because your sinuses are so full. Yeaaaah, not fun.
The thing that sucks about being sick, other than the obvious miserable symptoms, is that you can't taste food. Everything is bland. Plus, you are usually trying to eat and breath through your mouth, at the same time, which I think it's an amazing feat. Major strategic analysis involved.
When I'm down and out, soup is a great comfort food. It's warm, easy to eat and really easy to prepare. None of this make your own soup base when you're sick, instant chicken noodle soup from a package. Works for me!
I tend to also beef up our chicken soups by adding vegies and more noodles. Feels more heartier and nutritious.
Sigh, I'm off to go blow my nose for the umpteenth time. boo hoo.
Ok, I lied. I got tired of just eating the
raspberries right off the branches. The problem is that within a week, we had so many raspberries that I couldn't keep up with them. The novelty wore off after chewing the 100
th berry and 1000
th time of picking seeds out of my teeth.
I had to do something with all these berries (I froze 4 bags of fresh berries already) and cookies seemed like a good alternative. You can freeze them too and eat them over time. But, when I scoured cookbooks or hit google search, I only found recipes that would use raspberry jams on top of cookies or raspberries in or atop of cakes. So I thought, I'd wing it and try my hand in making a cookie with fresh raspberries as part of the ingredients.
This is a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I modified to add raspberries to and the only real modification is that I added extra flour so that the dough wasn't too wet before baking. Refrigerating is also very important before baking so to firm up the dough.
I also do not sieve the raspberries to remove the seeds. I prefer to call it rustic cooking/baking versus the alternative, that being "lazy".
This experiment gave a definite raspberry tasting chocolate cookie. I made sure not to overbake to prevent dryness and the cookies came out decently moist. It's just a nice way to incorporate my abundance of raspberries.
I actually made a double batch and have 1/2 of them sitting in my freezer. I have also tried the defrosted ones and they are just as moist and delicious.
Wanna come over for coffee and cookies???
There is a lot of salad eating in the summer with the abundance available to me. My parents have a large garden in their yard and they are like pushers, always begging me to take some since they have so much(
they actually pared down the size of their garden this year but they are still relentless! When will they learn to plant less!!) And now my hubby has been getting his thumbs green with his own vegetable garden this year. I'm quite surprised that I haven't turned green myself yet.
Though I like salad, I admit, I really hate washing it and chopping it up. And when you are getting it from your own yard, you have to be thorough in the cleaning because I have had one too many bugs, spiders and caterpillar/sluggy type things staring at me atop my lettuce leaf as I'm about to deliver it to my mouth via my fork. This is probably why the bagged salad industry has been doing well because you, like me, don't like to do the dirty work. Come on, 'fess up, your not alone!
When it's hot, I'm not very eager to be creative. So the bulk of our salad eating is done very simply with a easy oil, vinegar and salt dressing. You can use any variety of oil or vinegar, there are so many to choose from thus making it fun to try the different combos out.
I chop up some salad, and green onions and toss it together with the wet ingredients until I find a palatable taste. Not too vinegary, not too much oil but I do prefer it saltier than others around me do. I like the salt and vinegar combo and with a kick of green onion, my simple salad is an easy hit with the folks everytime.
I started experimenting with breadmaking when I lived in another city. I didn't have too many new friends thus had time on my hands so I tried breadmaking for the first time. In this last year though, I haven't made any bread so I felt it was time that I did. And am I really glad I did. I love this bread. Not just loved it, but couldn't-stop-slicing-more-and-eating-it-nonstop loved it.
This recipe was from my KitchenAid mixer instruction book. It was originally Herb Garlic Baguettes but I modified it to make a loaf full of sundried tomatoes and calamata olives. (I recently bought a big bag of olives and was getting tired of stuffing myself with olives thus I came up with adding it to this bread).
The sundried tomato was a perfect blend to the herbs and garlic in this bread. The calamata olives added a bit of saltiness but I found that it didn't give as much of an olive taste as I expected. But, the color and texture it adds, alongside the tasty sundried tomato, is a wonderful medley in my mouth. I highly recommend adding sundried tomato to any bread, it's so good.
Best part about making your own bread? Smothering it with butter when it's warm, right out of the oven and savoring every last bite. hmmm...
...
Herb Bread with Sundried Tomatoes & Calamata Olives
yield 36 servings (18 slices/loaf)
1 pkg active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup warm water
3-1/4 to 3-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp fresh chopped basil or 1 tsp dry basil
2 tsps fresh chopped oregano or 1/2 tsp dry oregano
2 tsp fresh chopped thyme or 1/2 tsp dry thyme
1 tsp fresh minced garlic
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped sundried tomatos
1/2 cup chopped calamata olives
3/4 cup cold water
Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water.
Place 3-1/4 cups flour, basil, oregano, thyme, garlic, salt, sundried tomatos & calamata olives in bowl. Attach spiral dough hook and mix 30 seconds on speed 2. Stop & scrape bowl.
Continue on speed 2 and slowly add yest mixture & cold water, mixing for 30 seconds. If dough is still sticky, add remaining 1/4 cup flour. Knead on speed 2 for 3 minutes.
Place dough in greased bowl, cover and let rise in warm place for 1.5 to 2 hours (or until doubled in size).
Punch down dough to remove all air bubbles. Shape dough into long loaf and place onto greased baking sheet or loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1 to 1.5 hours.
Bake at 450F for 15 to 18 minutes or until deep golden brown. Remove from pans and cool on wire racks.
adapted recipe: Herb Garlic Baguettes, KitchenAid Instruction & Recipe book
The header to this blog is indeed my kitchen. I thought that since this is a food blog, you can have a glimpse at where all my food prep happens. The "magic" so to speak.
I love my kitchen. It has come a LONG way from it's original form.
It was renovated by me and the hubby many years ago. It was our first major reno and we didn't have a lot of bucks to spend toward it but we did splurge on the stove. The dishwasher was covered with a stainless steel cover and spray painted black near the top. The fridge (not pictured) is still a glaring white but on the other side of room and I wishfully countdown for the day that it dies so that I can buy myself a nice stainless steel one.
IKEA is where the beautiful cabinets came from, people never believe me when I tell them that. My hubby made the countertops out of concrete and all the plumbing and electrical was moved so that we can change the layout completely. The worst part of the job had to be the removal of 5 layers of lino and subfloors.
But, it was all completely worth it.
Feast your eyes on a
BEFORE picture below, wasn't it a beauty?
Yeahhhhhh, hope you aren't choking on your carrot stick looking at the ugly before picture.
This is the most favorite part of my house and really, I live here. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, you can find me here. Chopping, slicing, frying, baking or cleaning up. Is it any wonder why I wouldn't have started a food blog?
