Thursday 13: Cats, Finally Some Good News, and Leftovers

This week’s Thursday 13 is another one without a theme.

1.    Mortimer and Theodore don’t typically cuddle together, but Nick got this cute picture of them hanging out together.

2.    Theodore is at that very active kitten stage where most of the pictures we get of him are blurry or when he’s sleepy.  Here’s one of him napping.

3.    We finally got some good FEMA news! 

4.    As I said last week, we were notified that we needed to submit paperwork from a company detailing the damages and the cost of repairs.  Even though we had already submitted all of that before, we submitted it again.  We heard back fairly quickly that we were approved for aid.  Finally! 

5.    The total amount ended up being just under half of what all of the repairs have/will cost.  After pretty much giving up on getting any FEMA aid, we were thrilled.  It makes sense that they can’t fully pay for everything for everyone, but getting significant aid is a huge help.

6.    Ironically, about half of the aid we received was for “immediate” needs, such as temporary housing.   I wouldn’t call February immediate for something that happened in September, but we’re still very grateful to have gotten aid. 

7.    This is what the backyard looks like right now. 

8.    Remember, once upon a time, it was kind of pretty?

9.    We’re still working on fixing the drainage problems.  Funding and weather have been the holdups.  We’ve mapped out the plan for catch basins, pipes, and dry wells.  The red yarn represents pipes and the orange plates represent catch basins/dry wells.  I know it’s kind of weird, but we don’t always picture things the same way, so something like this works to make sure we’re actually talking about the same thing.

10. We’re still waiting for a decent stretch of time when it’s not raining/snowing and the ground isn’t frozen to be able to start on the drainage work, so we don’t have a firm plan yet.  We’re tossing around the idea of hiring someone with equipment to do the digging, and then doing the pipes, gravel, and catch basin/dry well installation ourselves.  We’re hoping to find a good middle ground between saving money and being realistic about how much digging by hand we can handle.

11. Even though I love to cook, we like leftovers a lot, and it’s nice to have a break from cooking (especially during the week) without going out or getting takeout.  Monday was a perfect leftovers night.  I made tacos over the weekend, and we had leftover taco meat.  So, when I got home from work Monday afternoon, I turned the leftover taco meat into crock pot chili.  I added beans, tomato sauce, and seasoning.  Like this.

12. A few hours later, it turned into this, which was a delicious, almost zero-effort dinner.  I can’t really explain it, but it absolutely delights me when leftovers work out that well.

13. Another cat picture seems like the perfect way to end this Thursday 13, so here’s one more of Theodore.

Recipes

Since I love to cook and the cooking theme that some bloggers are doing for the A to Z Challenge has recipes on my mind, I thought it might be fun to talk about recipes for my R post. 

It seems that most people either follow a recipe exactly, or they view it as more of an inspiration or a very loose guideline.  Which one are you?

I tend to follow recipes exactly when it comes to baking and view them as more of an inspiration or very loose guideline when it comes to cooking.  I’ve heard people say that cooking is an art and baking is a science.  I don’t think I’m an artist, but I know for sure that I’m no scientist.  I can usually troubleshoot cooking recipes (though there are some that are beyond help).  I can’t troubleshoot a baking recipe.  If it seems fixable, I ask Nick’s mom.  Otherwise, I move on to another recipe. 

I do think I’m fairly good at judging whether or not a recipe will be good.  When it comes to baking, it seems like buttermilk and/or lots of eggs are usually a good sign.  Trying to decide between two different recipes for the same kind of cake?  Go with the one that has more eggs. 

I’m a lot more adventurous when it comes to cooking.  I come up with a lot of ideas on my own.  Some are great!  Some are terrible.  If you’ve ever wondered if sloppy joe pasta is a good idea, I’m here to tell you that it definitely is not.  Fortunately, Nick is very patient with my cooking experiments, and the good ones far outnumber the bad ones.

When I’m not concocting my own recipes, some of my favorite sources are old cookbooks.  It seems like the fundraiser (usually for a church or some kind of charity) cookbooks have some of the best recipes ever.  Sometimes the comments and notes are kind of cute, too, things like “sure to make your husband smile” or “Herschel’s favorite chicken.”  I like the stories that go with the recipes. 

The only drawback to some of those cookbooks is that they sometimes have instructions like “cook until done,” “bake in a hot oven,” “add a large scoop of …”  I’m usually willing to take a guess when it comes to the cooked ones, but not when it comes to the baked ones. 

I don’t know if anyone even does the fundraiser cookbooks anymore.  I imagine it might be hard to get someone to buy them when there are so many blogs with recipes.  Though, recipes from blogs seem to be very hit or miss.  Some of my tried and true favorites are Good Cheap Eats, Budget Bytes, and The Frugal Girl.  We’ve consistently liked enough of those recipes (and my modifications to them) that I feel confident in trying new ones from them. 

Some tips I’ve learned for avoiding bad recipes are to look at other recipes on the blog/website to see if they sound good or if they sound gross, leave me with some food safety concerns, or sound too good to be true.  Have a recipe for cooking kidney beans in the crockpot?  I’ll pass on all of them from that site.  Food poisoning is something I prefer to keep off the menu, thank you very much.  Have a recipe that promises to take something that takes hours to prepare and have it done in 20 minutes?  I’m probably passing unless you have a very compelling argument for why/how it works.  Seem more focused on keeping the recipes under a certain price point?  I’ll probably pass.  Some things are just more expensive to prepare, and making cheaper substitutions just gets weird.  I’d rather wait and make the real thing.

I also love taking cooking classes.  A local Mediterranean restaurant offers cooking classes, and I’ve learned so much from them.  I had no idea what Tahini was before those classes.  That’s also where I finally learned to make an omelet.  It helps when you’re the most fearless person in the class.  (Cooking class is the only place where I will ever be the bravest person in the room!)  I’m willing to try it anytime they ask for a volunteer, which means I’ve gotten a lot of hands-on instruction. 

They stopped offering cooking classes during COVID but are starting them back up again.  Now I just have to wait for one I haven’t already taken. 

Where do you find recipes, or do you create your own?  Are you a strict recipe follower, or do you make changes? 

Panini

One thing the A to Z Challenge is definitely good for is making me finally get around to writing posts and looking things up.

Nick’s mom gave me a panini pan for Christmas a few years ago.  No, it wasn’t a “you need to cook for my darling son more” type of gift.  I asked for one.  

Shortly after that Christmas, I began my adventures with the panini pan.  We love panini!  

There seems to be as much difference between a panini and a regular grilled cheese as there is between a cold cheese sandwich and a grilled cheese.  I’m not sure why squishing it makes such a difference,  but it really does.

Every time we have panini I always say I’m going to look up the history.  I’m very curious what made someone say, “I bet this grilled sandwich would be even better if I squished it while I grill it.”  I know sometimes I come up with food ideas, and I’m not sure how, but I was hoping that there’d be an interesting story to panini.  Squishing a sandwich while grilling it seems very deliberate and specific.

I didn’t get a satisfactory answer.  It appears that there was mention of a panini in a 16^th century Italian cookbook, though nothing I read said anything about how or why.  They became popular in Italy in the 70s and made their way to the U.S. sometime after that.

There’s also mention of a sandwich grill from the 30s, though it sounds more like the appliance was popular and panini was a way to use your sandwich grill. 

I did learn that most of what we call panini isn’t technically panini since it seems that the real thing isn’t made with sliced bread.  Ours may not be authentic, but they are delicious.

I found nothing on why someone decided to squish a sandwich while grilling it.  My made up theory (since I can’t find a real answer) is that someone was grilling a very stuffed sandwich (because lots of toppings/fillings usually mean a very good sandwich) and was concerned about getting everything melted/warmed, so they squished it into the pan to help the process along.  It seems plausible, right?

Regardless of why, I’m glad someone came up with the idea.  Cooking a sandwich in the panini pan always makes it taste better and seem like a more exciting meal.

Do you enjoy panini?  Do you know how they got started?  Or care to make up your own theory?   

Not Exactly A Regular Menu Post

So much for my plan of posting our menu every week.  That went about as well as my goal of not getting any takeout or delivery.  There was a lot of that over the last two weeks!

Here’s what I have cooked, in no particular order:

Greek meatball inspired meatloaf and sauteed zucchini, squash, and onions.  This was an experiment that turned out extremely well.  In addition to the usual egg, breadcrumbs, and Worcestershire sauce, I added feta cheese, chopped bell pepper, chopped onion, and Greek seasoning to the meatloaf.  I poured a jar of pasta sauce over it for the last 25 minutes of cooking. 

The veggies were sauteed in olive oil with salt and Greek seasoning.

It was delicious!  Definitely one of those meals that have you excited for leftovers.

Grilled chicken, marinated using this recipe.  The chicken was delicious, and I think this may become my go-to marinade for chicken.  I did learn, however, that it is absolutely no fun to grill out on a windy day.

Huevos Rancheros.  My sister visited Costa Rica last year, and brought us some delicious sauce, which I used on mine.

Biscuits and gravy.

Veggie pizza, using dough made in the bread machine.

Muffins, from a box mix.  Not the most exciting thing, but they are good.

Rotini and meatballs.

Cauliflower fried “rice”.

Taco salad.

And that was pretty much it. 

So what have you cooked over the past two weeks?  Have you tried any new recipes?

This Was Our Menu For The Week 04/12/20 - 4/18/20

No pizza order last week!  We did get takeout twice, though.  My goal for this week is no takeout or delivery.  We’ll see how it goes.  We picked up a fairly large grocery order from Wal-Mart on Friday evening, so I  have no excuse not to cook, and I definitely want to make sure the produce doesn’t go bad.

Sunday: It was pretty chilly here, and very rainy and stormy, so soup seemed like a good choice.  I made my version of Olive Garden’s Pasta e Fagioli soup, and it was delicious.  I also made a loaf of Italian Herb bread in the bread machine.

I made a buttermilk pie for dessert on Sunday that we enjoyed through most of the week.  I know it’s not pretty, but it’s so good.

Monday: Cheese Enchiladas.  I used this recipe, but halved it.  We also had refried beans with our enchiladas.

Tuesday: This was when the takeout started.  I had Thai food, which I love, but Nick is less crazy about.  Nick had Arby’s, which I refuse to eat.

Wednesday: We had burgers and milkshakes from the McDonald’s drive-thru.

Thursday: Cheese Tetrazzini.  It’s not the prettiest dish, but it was so good.

Friday: Taco salad.  We were actually able to get lettuce on the grocery order, which was a nice change from the last few.

Saturday: Nick made pancakes for breakfast.  I love pancakes, but mine are absolutely terrible.  Nick’s are really good, and these were even better than usual.  There is no picture of the pancakes because I was too busy devouring them.  We had leftovers (taco salad and cheese tetrazzini) for lunch and dinner.

Breakfast was mostly cereal, with one day of egg sandwiches, and one day of this Dutch Apple Pancake, which I did an experiment on.  I read recently that oat milk works the best in baking if you’re not using regular dairy milk.  I wanted to test it out, but I wanted to do it on something fairly low stakes.   We were out of milk by Friday morning, so I gave the oat milk a try in the Dutch Apple Pancake.  We’d had it before, so knew how it was supposed to taste, and it wouldn’t waste a lot of ingredients if it was bad.  It was fine.  Neither one of us could tell any difference.  I feel fairly confident now in using oat milk in baked goods if we’re out of regular dairy milk.  That should help limit our grocery trips/orders a little more.

I think I may have finally figured out a system for getting produce right now.  I’m trying to only do grocery orders every two weeks, or even a little longer if we can manage it.  That makes it a little tricky with things like fresh produce and milk.  The oat milk experiment mostly solved the milk problem, so that just leaves the produce problem.

There doesn’t seem to be any particular pattern with what’s available as far as produce, so I’m learning to be a little more flexible.  I put a variety of produce on the grocery order, knowing we wouldn’t get all of it.  We were able to get lettuce, spinach, yellow squash, zucchini, onions, strawberries, asparagus, a couple of tomatoes, cilantro, cauliflower, carrots, celery, and a very tiny head of broccoli.  We weren’t able to get cucumbers, parsley,  butternut squash, raspberries, green beans, or any shredded broccoli or coleslaw mixes.

My plan is to use the things with the shortest shelf life first, then move on to the things that will last a little longer, and then to probably use some frozen veggies the last few days before our next grocery order.

So what about you?  Have you changed the way you shop for groceries?  What produce have you been able to get, or not been able to get?   Have you tried any successful substitutions?

A Late Menu Post Week of 4/5/20 - 4/11/20

So much for my plan of posting a menu on Saturday.  Last week wasn’t a stellar cooking week or blogging week. 

I don’t have a lot of food pictures, so I’m supplementing with some more pictures of blooms from the yard, because they’re gorgeous right now.

I did a little better with breakfasts than I did with dinners, so let’s start there. 

I made this apple pancake dish one day.  We had cheese grits and eggs another day.  Friday was a holiday for both of us, which meant Nick was home from work and I wasn’t working from home, so we had a nicer than usual breakfast of scrambled eggs with feta and dill, toast, and asparagus.  My sister gave us some pineapple papaya ginger marmalade from Costa Rica from Christmas, so that’s what I had on my toast.  It was delicious.

Sunday: We ordered pizza from Papa John’s.  It was supposed to be a no contact delivery.  It was not.  So, we won’t be ordering from them for the foreseeable future.

There were a few nights of not really making dinner, so we had leftovers, PB&Js, and cereal.

Wednesday: Creamy chicken tacos.

Thursday and Friday: Cubed steak with carrots and gravy over rice.  There was a fairly large package of cubed steak in the freezer, and we had a lot of carrots on hand, so this lasted us for a while.  Somehow I managed not to take a single picture of it. 

I didn’t make any dessert last week because Nick’s mom mailed us cookies.  They were so good!  Chocolate chip for Nick and Oatmeal Scotchies for me.  I don’t make good cookies, and Susan makes wonderful cookies, so it’s always a treat to get hers.

And now for some yard pictures since this post is a little short on pictures.

One of the many azaleas currently blooming.

The lilac bush.

Another view of the lilac bush.  Can you tell I really like the lilac bush?

What did you eat last week?  Have your cooking habits changed at all during COVID-19?

What We Ate Last Week: 3/29/20 - 4/3/20

It seems like quite a few of us are turning to food for comfort right now.  Bijoux made the comment on one of my recent posts that we’re living for food now.  That certainly seems to be the case for us. 

It also seems like it’s hard to find some items in the stores right now, leading to some creative substitutions, and a lot of people are cooking much more than they’re used to. 

I think reading other people’s blogs involves a certain amount of voyeurism, in a totally non-creepy way.  It’s nice to get a peak at how other people live, and it’s especially interesting right now, when everyone’s world seems to have shrunk down, to get a little peak into someone else’s.  To that end, I thought I’d share a weekly menu post.  The Frugal Girl does a weekly menu post every Friday, and I enjoy reading those.  It’s also a great way to get ideas when you’re drawing a blank on what to make for dinner. 

So here’s what we had:

Sunday: I haven’t been handling social distancing and some other things very well.  I’m following the rules, but I’ve also spent more time than I care to admit wallowing in fear and sadness.  That means I kind of let a lot of household chores go, so we spent all day on Sunday getting the house back in good shape.  We were pretty wiped out after that, so we ordered pizza from Papa John’s, and had a no-contact delivery.  We’re both still working our normal hours, so we also tipped a little more than usual.

Monday: Potato Soup and Beer Bread.    We’re running a little low on all-purpose flour, so I made it using the self-rising flour version.  I did still add some salt.  It was just as good as usual, so whichever method you choose will be delicious.

Tuesday: We still had lots of potato soup left, but wanted a little break from it, so Nick made calzones for dinner.  He makes really good calzones! 

Wednesday: Broccoli cheddar soup and leftover beer bread.  I made a few modifications to the recipe.  I always add more garlic, and a few sprinkles of cayenne pepper to this recipe.  I’ve made quite a few recipes from this site, and overall we like them, but they do lean a little more toward the bland side, so I recommend adding a little more seasoning than the recipe calls for.  We also don’t have much shredded cheddar cheese on hand, so I substituted Velveeta cheese instead.  I didn’t think to measure, and just added cubes of Velveeta until it looked good.  I think it can work with varying amounts, it just depends on how indulgent you want it to be.  The recipe calls for fresh broccoli, which is what I’ve always used.  Our neighbor has used frozen broccoli, and says it works well.  She’s a great cook, so I’m inclined to trust her on that.

Thursday: The chili I posted about here.

Friday: Leftovers. 

Saturday/Today: I think we’ll probably be having chicken tacos. 

I also made this apple crisp, and we’ve been enjoying it all week.  In case you can’t tell, I definitely use food as a coping mechanism.  This has plenty of butter and sugar, so it’s great comfort food. 

Breakfasts have been egg and cheese tortillas or cereal.  Lunches are pretty much always leftovers from the day or two before.

So what about you?  Are you eating more comfort food lately?  What did you eat last week?

Chili - With A Few Modifications For Social Distancing/Quarantine

We’ve had colder weather this week than we did last week.  Fortunately, it hasn’t dropped down to freezing, so all of the blooming flowers and bushes are doing just fine.  It has, however, been cold enough to warrant making some soups and general comfort foods.

Chili is one of Nick’s absolute favorite foods, so it seemed like a good time to make a batch of chili. This recipe is based mostly on my usual recipe, which you can find here.  On a side note, I posted the original recipe over six years ago.  It’s hard to believe I’ve been blogging that long.  Some of you have been visiting that entire time, or very close to it.  Thank you to all of you who visit and comment.  I enjoy your online company.

Anyway, back to the recipe. 

The biggest modification I made to this recipe was with the meat.  I’m not sure about where you are, but meat seems to be in very short supply here.  We’re in the western part of the state, and my sister is in kind of the middle of the state, and she said it’s the same there.  We have a chest freezer, and I tend to shop sales and stock up anyway, so we were actually in pretty good shape going into this, without panic buying.  However, it does seem prudent to try and stretch things a bit more now.  It seems like every time a new restriction goes into place there’s another round of panic buying, and I just don’t think we’ve reached the height of our social distancing yet.  So, again, I think it’s prudent to go ahead and get a little creative now instead of being forced to get super creative later.

We had three leftover grilled hamburgers in the freezer, so I decided to use them instead of a package of ground beef.

I defrosted them and chopped them up into very small pieces, and used them in place of the usual ground beef.

I browned the onion (half a yellow onion and half a red onion that were in the fridge leftover from other meals) and pepper (from the freezer) in a small amount of avocado oil.  We happen to have a large bottle of avocado oil at the moment, so that’s why I chose it.  I really think whatever your usual oil of choice is will be perfectly fine. 

I added everything to the Crock Pot, and just stirred in the taco seasoning, chili powder, and cumin since they weren’t cooked with the meat.  I left it on low, and it was ready for dinner.

We ate it over macaroni noodles and topped it with shredded cheese and sour cream.

It was delicious!   This turned out to be a very good recipe modification.  The grilled meat really added a depth of flavor to the chili.  Nick said it was the best chili he has ever had.  I think I may try to keep some grilled hamburgers in the freezer for chili in the future. 

I highly recommend giving this a try if you happen to have any grilled hamburgers on hand.

So what about you?  Do you enjoy chili?  Are you modifying any recipes due to lack of availability of certain items?