this week

We finally have a rug in the dining room. The jute rug that was back ordered for months is now in place. Same style rug that we have in the living room, family room, kitchen and hallway. Much better, instantly quieter and cozier. Our friends brought the happy tulips. Florists finally figured out that  no one really wants bright foil plant wrapping. This one is made of kraft paper so no need to pot it into another container.

I refreshed the paint on the chandelier that came with the house with chalk paint and gold leaf paint. I tried it without the shades over the holidays but it cast strange light on the ceiling and it seemed unflattering to our faces. Some of the bulbs turned black even though they work so I put the shades back on, the light is softer with them.

One of the amaryllis is going to bloom soon! Took over two months, I planted both in mid November! I believe they are both Lemon Star amaryllis, it's been so long I forgot which ones we bought. Its sister is still just sitting there with just a few leaves, it feels plump and is green so I think it will eventually bloom. I am rooting some fiddle leaf ficus shoots in water and nursing a shoot that was rooted earlier and is now potted and doing well. Trying to get the kalanchoe plant on the left to flower.

I am continuing with my Ina Garten cooking. I made her Shrimp Scampi recipe from Back to Basics over the weekend when entertaining some friends. I forgot to photograph it secretly (no way was I going to whip out the camera in front of guests as it came out of the oven.) It looked just like the cookbook photo and tasted very good. 

source

Only thing- it called for way too much butter, a stick and a half! The shrimp were sitting in a deep pool of butter. One, it was a waste of butter and two, totally unnecessary. I would definitely make it again but cut the butter in half. Going to make my son happy and make her Penne with Five Cheeses next and make all of us happy by roasting a Lemon Chicken with Croutons which I have made before and it is delicious! 

What are you up to this week?

A Food Challenge : 28 Dishes in 28 Days

Back in November I challenged myself to a "30 Dishes in 30 Days" cookery challenge - the only rule being that all the dishes I attempted had to be dishes that I had never tried before.

I had a great time & a new a totally new love of cooking.

I have decided to try it again next month.

My friend Lori is also going to be taking part and she has made her own list here ....

looks great doesn't it?

I would love it if anyone else would like to take part, I'd be happy to link to your blog and if you want to make your own list or follow one of ours, that's great!

Preparation is the key....

I will be compiling a large shopping list this week-end so that I'm ready to cook.

Do let me know if you will be joining us :)

this week...food and books

 I made Ina's Blueberry Crumb Cake from her Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook. It was delicious, more like a coffee cake because it is not too sweet and has a thick crumb topping. Too much topping we thought, overwhelms the moist yummy cake below. Seemed like half cake, half topping.

Next time, will make much less topping. I used a springform pan to make releasing the cake from the pan easier.

We tried her Mustard Roasted Fish recipe from Back to Basics. Very tangy and good, everyone liked it. Much richer than our usual grilled fish. The color was kind of blah and unappetizing. The food stylist made the fish look prettier for the book. Made her Roasted Potatoes in the oven at the same time. Same method we all know for this dish. Used a separate plate for the salad, this would have been prettier with some green on the plate.

I have been receiving beautiful books in the mail. In January, I go though my Amazon Save for Later cart of book titles. I add them whenever I hear of a good one throughout the year. I then purchase several after researching for the best prices and narrowing down the list. Once they arrive, I ration them, reading through them very slowly to savor each one. It takes me months to go through them. 

I have just started Martha Stewart Entertaining, A Year of Celebrations that was published in 2011.This book is huge and gorgeous! It is the new version of her amazing first book Entertaining that is full of beautiful ideas and does not seem dated.

Each page is a visual treat.  Her gardens, her homes, her collections of every kind of tableware, glassware, etc. the presentations, the recipes, the serving ideas, it is all quite astounding! I am loving this book! 

I also purchased her Martha Stewart Gardening, a Month to Month Guide book which for some reason came without the cover but here is a page from it, equally as pretty as her Entertaining books.

 Here are a few others I bought....

And my husband was sweet to order Carolyne Roehm's Flowers and surprise me after seeing it mentioned on the blog.

These books will keep me company throughout the winter, simple pleasures.....

this week

I have been in the typical January reorganize/refresh/nest mode that occurs every year at this time. Been attacking closets, basement storage and even bookshelves. I love the process of purging, donating and organizing and knowing what I have in the house to find things quickly.

Flowers are at the top of the grocery list each week, loving these mums which have that divine scent of freshness when you first walk into a greenhouse or florist shop. My grocery always offers 3 bouquets for $12 with lots of choices. They do not include roses and tulips but those are often inexpensive as well.

I have been buying hypericum berries for the last month, my favorite early green ones seem to be gone but they still have these sweet matured pink ones. The pens and pencils by Iomoi were in my Christmas stocking purchased by moi to make things easier on my husband who is rather clueless in the gift giving department.

I prefer small little bouquets sprinkled around the house. The candle was a gift from our son's girlfriend, another Anna striped candle.

I veered from Ina's recipes for a moment to make a bean soup in the crock pot from the big fat ham bone left in the freezer from Christmas Eve. Delicious and rich. This photo is  before it simmered for 6 hours.

I also made Ina's spaghetti and meatballs, another recipe from her Family Style cookbook. 

I have not made meatballs in years. I rarely cook meat at home, we eat fish, poultry and lots of beans and lentils.  Everyone knows to order it in restaurants so this was a treat for my husband and sons to have it at home. They were delicious. I forgot the grease spattering part of sauteeing them that required clean up on me and the cooktop.

I have been trying to cook exclusively from the freezers as part of my purging/organizing. We have several appetizers left that I never used during the holidays. Decided to ask friends over for Super Bowl in a few weeks to use everything up. Found  frozen shrimp so last night tried Ina's roasted shrimp cocktail from her Back to Basics book. 

They tasted a bit better than boiled shrimp because well, what doesn't taste better roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper? Quick and easy too, just the sheet pan to clean. Mine were not the gorgeous color that Ina's were though. I think this can be attributed to the fact that I used frozen smaller shrimp from Costco, hers were probably huge fresh ones from a Hamptons seafood shop. I will use this method again and make sure the shrimp are very dry after thawing. Determined to get the pretty color of the ones in the photo. The sauce was good too but the exact way I make cocktail sauce so nothing new.

That's what I am up to this week, what have you been up to in your home? Have a great weekend, we are stir crazy so are going to head to Pittsburgh, one of my favorite cities, tomorrow for a fun day exploring. We are in the midst of a thaw, very warm temps so good to escape for a day before snow again.

A Food Adventure : 30 Dishes in 30 Days

Back in November I started a "30 Dishes in 30 Days" cooking challenge.

It was a challenge that I had set myself - I needed to cook 30 dishes in a month....

the only rule really being that they all had to be something that I hadn't cooked before.

I created the challenge because whilst I love food, I lack confidence in the kitchen.

Over the last year or so, I have taken some cookery courses which I loved....

French, Italian & Thai.

The courses got me out of my cooking rut a little but not enough - they did however make me realise that I can cook & was in fact much better than I thought I was.

I made a plan of what I thought I might cook.

Before November began I went through some of our many cookery books & ear-marked some recipes....I selected about 15 dishes to start with.

I then did a large online food shop, literally working through each recipe & ordering every ingredient I needed.

And so the month began.

I got off to a flying start and by day 7 I'd already cooked around 11 dishes.

Everything went smoothly partly because I was at home all week so able to fit it into my day & partly because I had all the ingredients that I needed ready.

Organisation was key!

However, I then had a week where I was hardly home & didn't even cook 1 dish!

Overall, during the month, I cooked 26 dishes. I did then cook the remaining 4 in early December.

30 dishes. Check!

I have to say that I enjoyed the month enormously, even more than I expected to.

I cooked recipes from cookery books that I had never actually opened.

I cooked the most delicious Indian food - something I'd never even attempted before.

Half the spices now in my cupboard are spices that I'd never used or bought before.

Only 1 dish was a disappointment.
If I need a loaf of bread now, I will almost always make it myself - it's quick, easy & delicious. 

I have cooked nearly all of November's dishes again since.

Spending the day cooking on a Saturday is a very lovely thing to do.

Discovering how much fun cooking can be was truly a revelation. 

I feel confident about attempting just about anything in the kitchen now....

and with a cupboard full of certain basic ingredients, it's so easy to put a dish together.  

      

It was a great adventure & so much fun!

Below are all the dishes that I cooked :

Fish pie

Balsamic Onion & Goats Cheese Tart

Courgette Ribbon & Roasted Pepper Tart

Bolognese Sauce

Chicken Tikka Masala

Aloo Gobhi

Peanut Butter Cookies

Pasta e Cece (chickpeas)

Burgers

Tuscan Bread Soup

Diplomat Pudding

Leek & Potato Soup

Maple Syrup & Vanilla Ice Cream

Broccoli & Pesto Tagliatelle

Garden Pea Soup

Cinnamon Rolls

Lemongrass & Coconut Cake

Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt

Autumn Minestrone

Farro & Borlotti Bean Soup

Lemon & Rosemary Cake

Bread

Brown Bread & Butter Ice Cream

Wholewheat Quinoa Banana Pancakes

Wholewheat Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Vegetable Bhajis

Chicken fajitas

PanFried Chips with Rosemary & Sage

Yorkshire Puddings

Crab Cakes

Some books I really enjoyed using during the cooking challenge were : 

Jamie Oliver's "Ministry of Food" and "Jamie's Italy"

"Apples for Jam" by Tessa Kiros

"Cake" by Rachel Allen - her lemon & rosemary cake above is one the best cakes I've ever tasted.

The Ambitious Kitchen blog has the most fantastic selection of recipes and is very easy to follow.

(Both of the amazing cookie recipes above came from there)

For the ice cream I used my Cuisinart ice cream maker.

Throughout the month I also used the Vitamix blender which does so many things - soups, ice cream, hummus, it's fantastic.     

I enjoyed the whole challenge & got so much out of it that I am planning to do it again next month.

Next week I will put together a month of suggested ingredients/dishes as I did for November and share it on my blog. 

I'd LOVE it if anyone wants to join me....do let me know if you want to.

  

Ina's classic chicken soup

No one is sick (knock on wood) but I decided to make chicken soup yesterday.  I tried Ina's version, another recipe from her Family Style cookbook.  

It's all about the stock. Making homemade stock makes a huge difference. I am usually too lazy to make stock so making stock was kind of fun. Just cut up a fryer, save the breasts for roasting later to add to the soup.  Add the fryer pieces to the pot to cook for several hours with the veggies and herbs. It does smell divine while cooking, everyone asked what smelled so good upon entering the house.

The recipe is kind of boring but good for this time of year. Served it with a Caesar salad which was tangy and full of flavor. I forgot to photograph it and the rye triangle toasts I made instead of croutons. I make the dressing in the Cuisinart with an egg that I microwave in a glass of water for 45 seconds. Add it with garlic, parmesan cheese, several anchovy fillets and puree. Then add salt, pepper, juice of a lemon or two depending on size and then drizzle in olive oil as the motor is running. Yum!!! Restaurant versions are never as good as homemade. I eyeball everything and it always comes out great, just taste it to adjust.

Since my husband and two sons were going to be eating the soup for dinner, I served less broth in the bowls. I am not a fan of hearty wide egg noodles but they really liked them. I would much prefer a skinnier pasta but must make the menfolk happy.

Easy Chicken and Biscuits

This is another recipe that lots of friends have asked me to share, so here it is! 
This is one of those good old standbys that is fast and easy to prepare. It's also 
a real comfort food that disappears quickly - there are never any leftovers! 
For this recipe, you can either cook your own chicken or use a prepared 
rotisserie chicken instead.

Ingredients

The meat from 1 precooked rotisserie chicken, chopped or shredded 

(OR if you prefer, you can cook your own chicken. You will need about 2 & 1/2 cups, which is about 3 breasts)

1 can Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup

1 can Campbell's Cream of Potato soup

1 & 1/2 cups of milk (I use 1% milk)

3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 & 1/2 cups frozen broccoli florets
1 & 1/2 cups frozen veggie mix (I use one that has corn, carrots, peas and green beans)

1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

1 can refrigerator biscuits

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Grease or spray a baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. (Casserole or lasagna dishes work well for this recipe.)

In a large bowl (I use my Kitchen Aid mixer on the slowest speed for just a few seconds) combine the chicken soup, potato soup, milk, and shredded cheese, and mix until combined. Then add the broccoli, veggie mix, black pepper, and chicken. Mix again, until all ingredients are combined. Pour mixture into prepared baking dish and bake in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, until mixture is simmering.

While casserole is baking, prepare the biscuits. Because I use refrigerator biscuits for this recipe, they are often the large or grand size, so I cut each biscuit into quarters before I add them to the casserole. This way, they will bake quickly and evenly, and you won't be stuck with any that are uncooked in the centers, which can happen when you use large sized biscuits. I think the finished dish also looks nicer this way too!

When casserole is finished baking, remove from oven and lay the biscuits on top of the casserole. Return the casserole to the oven and bake, uncovered, for an additional 13 to15 minutes or until the biscuits are golden brown. 

I use kitchen scissors to cut the "Grand" sized uncooked biscuits into quarters

This way, the biscuits will cook more evenly and thoroughly than if you put them on whole

Before going in the oven

Finished!

Delicious!

What do you think?