FALL in love

Fall really hit us today, so what better to come home to than a hot pot roast, already cooked and waiting for me! As of today I have officially fall-en in love with my slow cooker. It cooked me a nice hearty meal while I was away at work, so all I had to do was come home and enjoy. This recipe is so delicious. (I keep sneaking back into the kitchen to have another bite!) Greg doesn't get home until 6:30-7ish, so I'm trying to save an appetite so I can eat with him when he gets home. I don't know if Im going to make it though!

To make this pot roast I just cut up my potatoes and carrots the night before. I also defrosted, patted dry, seasoned with salt and pepper, and seared the roast (which took about 4 minutes after my pan was hot). Next, I put the meat in the ceramic pot that goes in the slow cooker. Then I spread the potatoes and carrots around it. I put the whole ceramic pot into the fridge to wait until morning. Then I made the seasoning/juice. Into a Tupperware bowl, I mixed 1 tablespoon of canola oil, 3/4 cup of water, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, 1 teaspoon of beef bouillon granules, 1 teaspoon dried and crushed basil, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Those ingredients again

•  1 Tbsp cooking oil
• 3/4 cup water
• 1tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1tsp beef bouillon granules
• 1 tsp dried and crushed basil
• 1/2 tsp salt

This morning, I took the meat, potatoes, and carrots out of the fridge and poured the seasoning over the top.

Then I put it on low for 8 hours. Luckily this worked out. I didn't check to see how long you should cook a pound of meat. I also didn't look up how many potatoes or carrots to put in. This is the epitome of wingin-it Allison-style and, surprisingly, it worked!

(I used 5 medium-sized red potatoes cut in half, and 5 carrots cut in half, by the way)


Here I am putting the lid on and setting the time this morning. You can just barely see the sky lightening up through our tree in the front yard at 6:30 AM.

I was almost giddy when I came through the front door tonight. It smelled like I had hired a little old grandmother to come in and cook for me. The house felt warm and cozy right away!

This was the sight that awaited me. You can see where I pulled a chunk of meat off. Actually pulled isn't the right verb because it was like slicing through warm butter. It slid right off and was juicy and not dry or overcooked at all! 8 hours on low, 8 hours on low....this is my new mantra.

Here I am digging in.

Do you cook pot roast? How do you do it? My mom always made it in the oven in a roasting bag and it was delicious! It's so easy and so worth it to put in a few minutes of prep the night before to come home and not have to worry about preparing a meal.

I'm starting to think about Thanksgiving this week since it's now only 2 weeks away. I am in charge of making an apple pie, green bean casserole, sauerkraut, and corn (and maybe candied yams).  In the spirit of remembering to stay thankful...Thanks for reading my thoughts about food and happy November!

Halloween Night

Tonight is Halloween and I'm eating some leftover corn chowder from last night. It's basically cooked in bacon grease, so it's super salty, but delicious!

First cook the chopped bacon until almost crispy and then add chopped onions and cook for about 5 more minutes.

Then add about 3 small diced red potatoes and 4 1/2 cups of milk. Bring to almost boiling (don't actually boil it) and then simmer, covered, on low-medium for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.

Finally, add the defrosted corn (or the corn you scraped from the cob, you overachiever). Then take 1 1/2 cups of the chunks out with a slotted spoon and puree them in a food processor. When it's smooth, add this back to the soup to thicken it. There should still be a good amount of chunky stuff left in the soup after taking out 1 1/2 cups. Add 1 tablespoon of butter, add salt (you won't need too much) and pepper (about a teaspoon) to taste.

Then savor it! You don't eat this much saturated fat very often, so enjoy!

By the way, trick or treating is 1 hour in and I've already had a little witch (it was her costume, I swear)  walk into our house because she saw Camden standing behind me at the door. She chased her down and was almost in our dining room when she finally caught Cam and gave her lots of pats and snuggles.It was so cute!! The dad looked mortified though!

A Week of Meals

I've been stirring, steaming, boiling, and baking! Here's a week in the life of my busy little kitchen!


Monday (Our 2nd anniversary)

Creamy Chicken with Mushrooms over Fettuccine

Green Beans with Garlic and Shallots

Anniversary Dinner

Dessert

Tuesday:

Spaghetti with Homemade Meatballs, Tomato Sauce, and Grated Parmesan

Wednesday: (The meatballs were made the night before with the spaghetti).

Meatball Subs

 Thursday:

Sausage and Spinach Quiche

Friday:

Pork Chops, Scalloped Potatoes, and Steamed Green Beans

  


Saturday: (Greg had four of these)

Ham and Swiss Panini

Sunday:

Baked Ziti

So there you have it, a normal week of dinners at the Davis residence. The only thing not normal about this week was that I actually cooked all 7 nights. Usually on the weekends we have obligations with friends or family and end up eating out at least once. My favorite meal this week was the chicken with mushrooms. I die for anything in cream sauce and anything with mushrooms. Oh, and can you tell that I have a pepper obsession? The quiche, pork chops and green beans, and the ziti are covered with pepper. (Recap: Cream sauce, mushrooms, and pepper rock my socks).

Shopping

Going to the store

I have  few posts that I've been meaning to share this week, but I haven't had a spare moment to sit down and write them. It's been a crazy few weeks at work to say the least. I think a mental health day may be in my future.

Meanwhile, life goes on and I've been cooking up a storm. I baked a pound cake for the first time for my grandmother's birthday last week. It was pretty good, but it's not hard to admit that we would have enjoyed a  super-sweet Entenmann's pound cake just as much. It's the thought that counts, right? Then, last night I made vegetable beef soup because it was cold and nasty out and I'd had a lingering cold for six days. We bought a baguette of crunchy bread to go with it. Yum! And wouldn't you know it, I woke up this morning feeling chipper and having no cold symptoms to speak of. Amen!

So anyways, I have been busy, even though I haven't been posting that often. I've been thinking for a few weeks about posting an update about my dreaded grocery shopping adventures. (If I haven't mentioned it before, I hate grocery shopping with a passion). I thought I'd share a little bit about my weekly shopping experience and how it's evolved a bit since this post.  Another year has passed and I have modified my shopping rituals to make them a bit less painless. Maybe this can help you if you also dread the grocery store like I do. Or maybe you have a better method that you could share. Oh - and I'm also going to share a picture-iffic post showing a normal week of meals here at the Davis casa.

Planning the Meals:

For me the hardest part of shopping is the first step, figuring out what we want to make the following week. This was the most stressful part of the whole weekend for me. Last year I would spend an hour looking through cookbooks and racking my brain to come up with the perfect menu.

Let's just say I've let that go. To plan more efficiently, I came up with an at-home menu of all of the meals that I have cooked and had success with. Much of that list was compiled by looking back at the blog and remembering what I had cooked, and what actually tasted good when I cooked it. I used to try to cook at least one or two new recipes a week. I have gotten to the point now that I will only cook a brand-spanking-new recipe if:  a). It's a special occasion b). I see or hear about a recipe that I am really excited to try or c.) I'm super bored of everything on my menu and I feel like digging out a cookbook and trying something new. I have enough guilt in my life that I don't need to add one more thing to the list. (Abbreviated guilt list: not sweeping the floors enough, not taking my dogs to the park enough, not grading papers fast enough, not calling my family enough, not working out enough, not changing my pillow cases enough...need I go on?) Not on the guilt list? Cooking the same meals again and again. I started this blog as a food journal of sorts and I'm not going to let it guilt me into anything, dammit. 

If you don't blog, this might not be a problem for you, but you may still feel like you have to "keep it fresh"  by trying new things so your family doesn't complain or so you don't feel like you're cooking the same thing every night.

The menu has helped me because it is a quick reference that I can use every week to make choosing meals utterly painless. I have it broken up into categories by main entree.

For example, here is my "chicken" category:

Chicken:
Creamy Chicken
Chicken Cordon Bleu
Chicken Parmesan
Chicken Tenders
Barbecue Chicken
Baked Chicken Breast (breaded or non-breaded)
Tandoori Style Chicken
Honey-mustard Glazed Chicken Thighs (or other)
Garlic Chicken Stir-fry
Chicken Tacos
Chicken Curry (Indian)
Chicken Fried-Rice
Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce
Pan-seared Chicken Breast with Balsamic and Garlic
Baked Chicken over Portobello Mushrooms
Chicken Pot Pie
Chicken Salad Sandwiches
Chicken Noodle Soup (also in soup section)

I usually select at least one item out of this category because we always have left-over chicken from the week before. For example, last week I made Chicken Noodle Soup and Chicken Parmesan. Other items that we make frequently (usually just because I have the recipes memorized and don't have to look anything up) are:

Homemade Pizza - with sausage, green pepper, and onion
Pan-seared Pork Chops - with a veggie and a side
Chili - in the fall and winter I make this about once a week
Spaghetti - or some form of pasta
Creamy Chicken- with tons of mushrooms
Chicken Parmesan - I can usually get Greg to make this, which is a huge bonus


 Making the List:

After selecting the menu, we make the list. This is also something that I have finally gotten smart about. I typed up a pre-made list of things that we get every week like deli items, onions, mushrooms, fruit, veggies, chicken, granola bars, and juice. Each week I just print out the list, add what I call the "week-specific items" and head out the door.  

I also split the list into two sides because we shop at two different stores each week. Okay, side note: We are a tiny bit crazy (we call it cost-efficient) because every weekend we go to Whole Foods and Target for our shopping. We go to Target for the boxed stuff like granola bars (they have Kashi for about $2 less per box than W.F.!) and paper and cleaning products like t.p., paper towels, Windex, etc. At Whole Foods we shop the perimeter of the store. We get fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, yogurt, bread, cheese, and deli items. It would be way too expensive for us to buy all of our food and other supplies there, so luckily there is a Target in the same shopping center and we can get a lot of the items on our list for a discounted price.


The last thing that I did to simplify my life was to put the list in order of the store's layout. For example, in Whole Foods,  the first stop is the fruit area. So, the first thing on my list is fruit. The vegetables are behind that, followed by the seafood and then meat counter and so on. Therefore, as we are walking around the store, we can just go down the list and easily cross things off instead of searching for them.

 Liking my Weekends:

You may think I sound OCD or crazy for putting this much effort into a few stupid lists, but what I have realized is that taking about an hour or two of time once to make my menu and organize a pre-made grocery list has saved me about an hour and a half of time every weekend. (Remember, I was spending almost an hour each week just looking through cookbooks before writing my list). That makes my monthly allotment of fun-weekend-time about six hours longer. And life is good.


Thanks for reading my very wordy thoughts about food and being only slightly OCD. Stop by in a day or so to see my photo tribute to a week in the life of the Davis meals. (AKA: The product that comes out of this crazy planning stuff).

Have You Seen This?

Have you seen this? It makes me want to scrap my plans for making chicken noodle soup on this rainy night and go out some place exotic instead! I so want to try the apple covered in popcorn! What looks good to you?

I originally saw this and his two other videos here.

Eye Candy

Have you ever tasted heaven? Check out this eye (and taste bud) candy.

 Welcome to maple whipped cream on pound cake. 

 

A cup of cream. 

A teaspoon of sugar and a half teaspoon of vanilla extract.

A heavy-handed tablespoon, ahem...or two of Maple Syrup. This is from our Vermont trip.


Whip it with a whisk (luckily I have a whisk attachment on my hand-held mixer) until the cream begins to form stiff peaks. Finally, sprinkle with cinnamon.

Indulge.

Comfort Food

 I made some chicken tenders last night that you won't find at any fast food joint. They are so scrumptious that I wanted to share my simple recipe with you.

 First I season the chicken with salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.

Then I roll the pieces in bread crumbs and season them again with a bit more salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper.

 While I am seasoning the chicken, I heat about an inch of canola oil in a pan. I keep it on medium heat so it only spits if I drop some batter in, but it's not boiling or hissing yet.

 I gently place the pieces in and wait for about 2-3 minutes. In the picture you can kind of see that it's still pink on top, but the bottom and sides are pretty well cooked.

 I check the bottom a few times to make sure they're not getting too dark, and then I flip them. I let the chicken cook for another 2-3 minutes on the other side.

 I pat the chicken with a paper towel to blot off some of the oil and serve them crispy and hot. 

Meanwhile, I cook my quartered potatoes in the toaster oven. (There are just two of us, so the portions are small enough that I don't need to turn on the big oven).

 On my potatoes, I always use about a teaspoon of canola oil, and a few shakes of the following herbs/spices:
Basil
Parsley
Rosemerry
Salt
Pepper
Thyme

P.S. Even though there is oil on the potatoes, they will still stick to tin foil or a baking sheet. Make sure you spray some kind of non-stick spray like Pam before spreading out your potatoes. I bake them for about 20 minutes on high (400-425) in the toaster oven. You may need to cook them for longer (30-40 minutes) if you're using the regular oven, or if you have larger chunks of potato. 

Add your favorite dipping sauce (we like barbecue sauce and honey mustard) and eat with a fork and knife or just dig in with your fingers! Enjoy!

Thanks for reading my thoughts about food!