okay, NEW new address

I don't know what happened. The last try didn't work, so it's at www.cooking-with-m.blogspot.com this time. :)

I'm moving the blog!

I have been keeping two blogs with separate logins and stuff, and consequently never get on to post on this one.... even though I am doing exciting kitchen things! To make my life easier, I am moving this blog to www.mellacooks.blogspot.com so come on over and see what's up! :)

hello again

Well, Jack was born on Sept 18th, and then Caiden (my nephew) arrived on November 7th, and all in all, I've been kind of busy. :) However, this week I had a particular success making peach-mangosteen jelly!

A mangosteen, for anyone who's wondering (everyone, in short) is a fruit that looks like a garlic bulb encased in a small eggplant, and tastes like peaches and strawberries with some light tartness thrown in. I had some peach-mangosteen hippie juice from Starbucks (where I work) that had just reached its expiration date. I threw 4 cups of the juice and 4 cups of water into a pot and did the whole jelly-making thing.

What do you know, it jelled! I can't believe it! And it tastes really good! I'm beginning to think that the secret of great jellies and jams is to include peaches in some form. :D

apple pie a la mode

....without the boring "pie" part. :)

I just chopped up apples and made the spiced sugary filling out of them, then baked them in a covered dish instead of bothering with a pie crust. It produced a REALLY delicious, syrupy apple-pie-insides kind of thing. I took one taste and realized it has to be dumped over vanilla ice cream for best effect, so I am getting some of that later tonight. :D

a quick catch-up

I did trick almost all the family into going "apple picking" at the farm near us. (Amy couldn't come because her parents in law were up for a visit that weekend.) We ended up picking raspberries and blueberries, and buying apples, peaches and corn from the farm stand because I was a bit too tired to keep going on with the pick-your-own. We also got some ridiculously yummy feta, tomato and basil dip which is just perfect on veggie crackers!

Since starting maternity leave, I have made soda bread, strawberry-peach jam, quiche, beef stew, apple pie, many pancakes, and a bunch of more regular meal stuff. The jam came out especially tasty. A bit thin, since I didn't put a lot of sugar in, but who doesn't want low sugar, seedless strawberry peach jam? I usually share my jams with the rest of the family, but Alex has pretty much forbidden me to do that this time!

farmer's market

I know I've written about the farmer's market before, but I just went yesterday and got inspired all over again.

I got two ears of fresh corn (picked that day) and two of the tastiest white peaches I can recall eating, for a heaping total of $1.50. All these goodies were from a farm about 10 minutes down the road from us called Applecrest Orchards. I am right in the middle of planning an apple-picking trip there with the rest of my family--and of course, I will be visiting their farm stand while we're there. :D

delicious dish

Ripped off from my beloved Mommie, of course--who better to steal tasty recipes from???

1 link (1 lb) of turkey kielbasa (just as yummy as the pork stuff but MUCH less fatty)
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 cup rice
about 1 tomato can's worth of added water (at least for my rice, which is proving to be somewhat incorrigible about water quantities and cook times)

Throw it all in a skillet and simmer it until the rice is tender.

DONE!

And it's ridiculously good. You wouldn't even believe it. Bo was feasting delightedly on the grains of rice I gave him, because they were so tasty he thought they must be meat.

check your ingredients list

I was VERY offended to find that some pudding mix that I bought had aspartame in it! This was after I had specifically chosen the "regular" one that was sitting right next to the "sugar-free". WHY would you use artificial sweeteners in the one that's already sweetened with sugar?? (It's probably cheaper, one would assume.)

Anyway, aspartame is one of the items that pregnant ladies are specifically not supposed to eat. Good thing I read pretty much everything that's in front of me, and my eyes wandered over the ingredient list while I was mixing up the pudding!

a small flaw in my plan

The food I made to save is too enticing--I had some for dinner tonight. :P

and for an encore this morning

Pancakes with fresh blueberries swirled into the batter. :D

Tonight I believe I may make sloppy joes!

WHY I cooked enough for a small army

I'm freezing meals for when we have a new Critter to tire us out and distract us from any real food prep! :)

I am very pleased with myself for thinking of this --much better than relying on take-out, or just eating toast all day or something. :)

a cooking frenzy!

Tonight I made giant batches of beef stock, beef stew, chicken stock, chicken pot pie, and followed it all up with a loaf of delicious soup bread (made with beef stock instead of water). I am soooooooooooo tired! I think I was in the kitchen for at least 3 hours straight. But I probably made enough to feed me and Alex for the better part of a week. :D

EDIT: I forgot to mention the jello (with blueberries from the farm down the street) and the mac & cheese that ended up being dinner!

bread experiment

I was getting sick of the tiny bit of sweetness that shows up in my Favorite loaf of bread, so I decided to try a batch with NO sugar added.

Well, it really didn't rise much, ultimately, even though I gave it more time. I did know that the sugar is there to feed the yeast, so I'm not too surprised. It tastes good anyway --it's just about 1/2 the size of usual loaves!

baked macaroni & cheese casserole

This is the best mac & cheese in the WORLD and makes a giant casserole. It used to feed my whole 5-person family when I was growing up, with leftovers!

1 box (16 oz.) elbow macaroni --$1.20
8 oz. cheddar cheese, grated --$2.00
2 tbsp butter or oil --8 cents (vegetable oil)
1/4 tsp salt --negligible
2 tbsp flour --2 cents
2 cups milk --50 cents
1 sleeve saltine crackers --43 cents
Total: $4.23

That's less than $1 per person.

If anyone wants me to start posting recipes instead of just ingredient lists, I can totally do that, but for right now I'm mostly excited about the prices (and how low they are)!

gorgeous bread!

I have a favorite bread recipe, which I make pretty much whenever the weather's not too hot. I prefer making bread at home to buying it in the store anyway. I made this today:...and then in the spirit of what Alison and I have been talking about, I got to wondering whether/how economical it really is to make my own bread. I did a bunch of research, and here's what I came up with:

1 package yeast --67 cents
1/4 cup warm water
7/8 cup warm water
1 1/2 tsp salt --1 cent
1 1/2 tbsp sugar --2 cents
1 tbsp vegetable oil --4 cents
3-3 1/2 cups flour --56 cents

Whole loaf: $1.30
Comparable loaf from the store: $3.89
Saved: $2.59!

Even if you're just getting a loaf of Wonder Bread, it's $3.19. I'd much rather have mine!

new project

Alison and I were talking sort of casually about how it's a good Wife's Job to cook tasty yet frugal food, and how neither of us has been particularly good at it, but that I'm working on it. I told her I would see what I could pass along to her for the tips that I've learned, and it turned into a kind of big discussion....

Now we are on a mission to lower her grocery bill while getting her tastier and healthier menus! No problem, right? :)

free yeast

A while ago I did a survey for Fleishman's (NO idea how to spell that!) yeast, and they sent me coupons for SIX free packets of yeast. What do I make? Cinnamon rolls? Coffee cake? A new kind of bread? :)

the latest challenge

Since my stomach seems to have given up entirely on the whole don't-give-it-back thing, I am working on what I can eat that at least won't be TERRIBLE to taste again for the next six hours.

Foods so far: Apples, pancakes.

.... though there definitely could be worse menus, this could get dull.

yum yum

I came up with a big pile of sliced tomato, avocado, orange bell pepper and cucumber with a light drizzle of Greek dressing. It was REALLY good!

dying for a good snack!

I am really searching for a snack that I can just munch on, without getting a bunch of empty calories and feeling gross afterward. I don't know if this exists, but I am on the hunt!