My Boring Saturday Six

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dawnnys

Well-known member
I hate to complain about anything, given the seriousness of the health problems of other posters here... but I sprained my knee - the "good" one - the other day by catching myself so I wouldn't fall in the shower, and I'm laying low and not doing much of anything to help it heal quickly. I've been on my feet too much since it happened. So it's a boring six:

~ breakfast in bed

~ watched 2 episodes of one of my favorite cooking shows on tv - katiebrown.com

~ reading "The Secret Life of Bees"

~ wondering what DH can pull out of the freezer to make for dinner

~ wondering which of the creepy Halloween foods I can send with DS when he goes to a post-Trick or Treat party tomorrow night. Lots to choose from!

~ by 4pm I was going stir crazy, so I got up and chopped some apples, shredded some red cabbage, and made my favorite side dish

Happy Halloween, everyone!!

 
My also-uneventful Saturday Six (Dawn, get well soon!)

1. For dinner, made chicken braised in dark beer, with sweet-potato fries and butter beans with sage.

2. Ambled around the Union Square Farmers' Market today, but it was so crowded that I didn't buy anything... The trick must be to go at the crack of dawn.

3. I'm trying to make an outrageously complete breakfast basket as part of a housewarming/apartment-warming gift for my brother. So far, I plan to include: good coffee (of course), tea, muesli, Lemon and Cranberry Scones, banana bread, a 12-pack of those mini sugar-bomb cereals (as a joke--we were only allowed to have them for breakfast when my family went to the mountains), a bunch of fruit, jams, good bread (baguette, croissants, and a few bagels), and a handful of perishable stuff: milk, cream cheese, ham, and cheese. Essentially, I want it to be the ultimate answer to the night-after-moving-in breakfast. Is there anything I'm missing? (Bear in mind that I'll have to lug all this up on the train.) smileys/wink.gif

4. Lunch tomorrow is breaded pork chops (except mine always turn out as tough as leather), roasted brussels sprouts, and rice pilaf. (I'm aware that this is really boring.)

5. I am addicted to the gingerbread made by Dandoy, a Belgian bakery. And by "addicted," I mean, slicing off only a sliver of the frozen quarter-loaf that remains from when I brought it back from Brussels last month. So if anyone has a good peperkoek recipe, please let me know, since it would take a lot to make me go back to Brussels.

6. This may be the first time in my life that I won't be buying Halloween candy... There aren't any kids in our building, and if I buy it, I usually end up eating it. So someone have a Reese's Pieces for me, please! smileys/smile.gif

 
My Weekend six....

1) I've been busy working, and not cooking much, but I'm trying to get inspired. CathyZ's slow cooker cassoulet got me looking for more slow cooker recipes. It would be so great to come home to have dinner already done. I think I'd rather get up early, and prep the slow cooker, than come home tired, and then try to cook.

2) Thinking about what kind of cookies I'm going to bake this Christmas. I got the new Fine Cooking special publication, Cookies, Brownies and Bars yesterday at Costco. I usually really enjoy their special pubs, but for some reason, this one really looks unoriginal. Guess you can only have so many special cookie magazines, before they all begin to look alike. I've given up on buying Taste of Home cookie mags - every year, it's the same cookies, with the same quotes from the person who submitted the recipe. Grrr.

3) Gonna make Giada's Chicken Meatballs with Spaghetti for dinner tonite. The recipe calls for orechiette, and when I first made it, I couldn't find that shape ANYWHERE! So I made it with spaghetti, and now I can't imagine eating a meatball with the orechiette. They're supposed to be mini meatballs, so do you stab each little ear, then stab a meatball? Or do you scoop it all up with a spoon? (Our stores finally started carrying the orechiette, and I bought a box, but I'm not using it for that dish!)

4) Need to make some cookies for Monday. What to make, what to make?

5) Son is supposed to come home soon, and carve the pumpkin. Maybe I'll help him smileys/smile.gif How much to you guys pay for pumpkins, anyway? My pumpkin is about 10 lbs, and it was 39 cents a pound, so $4 bucks? Practically everything in Hawaii is sold by the pound, and not by the piece.

6) I was trying to shop today for cold weather clothes for an upcoming trip, but it's so hard to look for sweaters and coats when it's 85º here! (Of course you realize that anything under 75º is considered cold to me!!!) Came home empty handed smileys/frown.gif

 
Last pumpkin I bought this year was $1 and it's about 9 inches in diameter - this was

extremely cheap, however, as we bought it from a roadside stand in farm country on a side road where the house was owned by nuns (still didn't get the full story on that!). Fifty cents each for 2 little ones. Last year I found a farm that was almost giving them away at 10 and 25 cents for a sweet sugar "pie" pumpkin. I bought about 20 of them, mostly to roast, but they did look cute all piled up in the yard.

Usually they run about $4-$6 each for a large (12-inch) one. "Pie" pumpkins, about 4-5 inches in diam. run about $2-$2.50 at the local grocery stores.

 
Thanks Erin. I don't think you missed a thing, except for maybe a small bottle of NYS maple syrup?

 
Here's a good crockpot chicken. Let me know if you want more.

Next: Error! Bookmark not defined. (Vicki in VA)
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 17:06:12 GMT
From: Sally BR (Error! Bookmark not defined.)
A crockpot book & recipe
I ve been searching for crockpot recipes for
the past six months in books and the net.
Some of them were so-so, some of them so bad
that made me regret HAVING a crockpot!

Finally, someone gave me a tip about a
crockpot book - it is called "Slow cooker
Ready and Waiting", by Rick Rodgers.
There are several reader-reviews on
amazon.com

The recipes are definitely NOT for lazy cooks
- the crockpot is not going to be filled with
condensed soups and stew meat, turned on at
7AM and off at dinner time!
Most recipes require some preparation
(browning meat, sauteeing the vegetables etc)

So far I cooked three recipes (one chicken,
one beef brisket and one beef stew) and the
results were absolutely great every single
time! They pleased even my partner, who has a
profound dislike for anything coming off a
crockpot....

Now, for a sample recipe (this one does
NOT require advanced preparation, and was
delicious)

Moroccan Chicken and Vegetable Stew

--This North African stew of tender chicken
thighs with chunks of vegetables produces a
substantial amount of fragrant spiced broth
to spoon generously over a bed of couscous

Makes 4-6 servings

1 acorn squash (about 1 pound)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 medium carrots, cut into 1/2 inch thick
rounds

>>>> (I used 4 carrots)
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 chicken thighs, skin removed if desired>>>>(I did remove it)
1 3/4 cups chicken broth, canned or homemade
1 15 ounce can garbanzo beans, drained and
rinsed ---->>>>> (I did not use it, forgot to
get it in the store)
1/3 cup dark raisins

Cut the acorn squash crosswise into 3/4 inch
thick rings and scoop out the seeds. Cut the
rings into quarters and pare off the skin

In a small bowl, combine the salt, cinnamon,
ginger, turmeric and pepper.
In a 3 1/2 quart slow cooker, combine the
acorn squash, carrots, onion, and garlic.
Sprinkle half the spice misture over the
vegetables. Sprinkle the remaining spice
misture over the chicken thighs, and arrange
them over the vegetables. Pour in the chicken
broth, cover, and slow cook until the chicken
shows no sign of pink at the bone when
prodded with the tip of a sharp knife, 5 to 6
hours on low - 200F (I cooked for 6 hours
exactly). During the last 30 minutes of
cooking, add the garbanzo beans and raisins.

Serve over a bed of couscous.


If you find any really good ones for anything -
I would love them. I really want to use my crockpot if winter ever comes.

 
This sounds good! I'm also trying to add more squashes and beans to the diet!

This is just perfect. I assume you can sub one squash for another, like butternut or kabocha, for the acorn, if they're on sale? Or even pumpkin? Squashes aren't used that much in Hawaii, so they tend to be quite expensive, so I'll look for deals on those.

Will gladly take more recipes, though smileys/smile.gif

Did you see the garlicky pork and kale that I recently posted? Or CathyZ's cassoulet? Those were great too!

Thanks!

 
Elaine, I'm so out of the loop. Are you moving?!

My brother decided to rent an apartment in a super-modern high rise in Yonkers. After I trekked to all those lovely little river towns and saw 13 apartments! Grr. smileys/wink.gif Oh, well. He chose the place because he REALLY wanted a washer/dryer in the unit (which I tried to tell him was not really worth another $300/month in rent, but to no avail).

Anyway, the place has a gorgeous kitchen... There are supermarkets nearby, of course, but I just wanted to pull out all the stops for the first couple weeks he's there. smileys/smile.gif

 
Hmm. Re #3, I'd think the rationale behind orecchiette is that it should grab more of the sauce...?

And $4 for a 10-lb. pumpkin doesn't sound too bad--the farmers' market downtown, here, wanted $10 for a 5-lb. one! smileys/wink.gif

 
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