And my poor radishes

Good thing we weren't planning on eating the green tops!! This is their fate.... (click here)

This little light of mine...

My food photography has been a work in progress. I started with a point & shoot and some really grim food pictures. I saved my lunch money for almost a year and bought myself a 'fancy camera'. It's a Canon Rebel Ti1 and I LOVE IT.

Anyway, I am slowly but surely 'getting it'. I know I love my new camera, but there's SO MUCH to learn about how to use it. One of the biggest thing I've discovered so far is that more than anything, LIGHT is the key to success. The pictures that I take in good, pure, daylight are SO much better than ones I take when it's dark outside. I've been reading and researching about light. I thought I might like a light box (here's an example in case you're not sure what I'm talking about), but the more I read, the more I drooled over the Lowel Ego Light.

Today, I bit the bullet! YES! I can't wait for my light to arrive. So stay tuned to see if my pictures improve themselves LOL I sure as heck hope it helps, but in any case, thank you for being patient with me while I learn the ins and outs of food photography!

My poor pot cabinet...

It needs help. I need to see your pot cabinets. How do you store yours? There has to be a better way than what I've got going on. This is embarrassing....

It's a pile of lids and pots and anytime I need something, it's a loud clanging activity to find what I need. And a matching lid?! HA! Not gonna happen. We also have this problem - the cabinet won't ever shut right. Partially from the hinge being wonky, but mostly because of pesky pot handles.

So I'm open to any suggestions on better ways to store, modifications I can make to my cabinet, etc etc. Show me your pot cabinet/storage?! I appreciate the help!!

A word about the Indonesian Chicken

Due to my inability to stop eating the cauliflower last night, there were very few leftovers. So we were left with 2 of the Indonesian Chicken breasts for lunch today. I'm happy to report that they tasted great sliced up and put on a nice green salad. One of my favorite salad dressings is Ken's Lite Asian Dressing....

It's got a sesame ginger taste similar to the dressing you get on the salad at a sushi or hibachi restaurant. Anyway, with the Indonesian Chicken, Ken's dressing, and lots of veggies, I was a happy happy girl!! So try it out with your leftovers this week!! (and for what it's worth - nobody is paying me to say this, this is just my 2c!)

You know that old saying?!

The saying is something along the lines of throw spaghetti to the wall and see what sticks!? Well that's the kind of day I'm having in the kitchen! So far we have:

- Queso dip prepped for tomorrow. This will be good. Love this stuff.

- Lemon Stirfry - this was really good (I ate a serving for lunch)

- The 3 Cheese Bread - first of all, I am out of flour?! WHAT?! So I decided to try wheat flour. Then I forgot to click the bread machine in place  so it just sat there spinning for like 20 minutes. DUH. It came out in a mighty weird shape, but it was tasty. But it wasn't cheesy AT ALL. What the heck!?!

- Cajun Shrimp Dip - the flavor on this is AWESOME but it's like soup :( Bummer.

- Lasagna is in the oven. Im holding out hope for this one. It's the most gigantic lasagna I've ever made. We'll see how it turns out. It's about a 70/30 shot on this one.

I can see how cooking is frustrating to people I love doing it and am not too worried about the whole trial-and-error aspect of it, but it still stinks to have things go wrong! Stay tuned for reviews...

Here's another one for your files...

Mirliton!!?

Lord, I cook A LOT, and I feel like I know a lot of random ingredients, but in my continued hunt for Cajun recipes, I came across a few calling for Mirlitons...

So it's off to google I go. Love google!!


"Mirlitons (pronounced MEL-lee-tawns or MER-lee-tawns) are a type of squash found growing wild and in backyards throughout southern Louisiana. They're pale green, with a delicate flavor and a large, dense central seed. In other parts of the country, they're called chayote squash."

And there you have it. A big green fist, I mean SQUASH.
Now back to recipe hunting....

Thinking about the Superbowl

For most, Superbowl food is wings, nachos, chips, dips, and other sinful things!! We love that kind of stuff (and will probably have some of it!), but this year I'm feeling adventurous. We are Steelers fans in this house and live in Jaguar country, so you can probably guess we don't give a rip about who's playing this year. Since the Colts always are beating up on the Jags, we made a group decision to cheer for the Saints! Plus, they have never been in the Superbowl before, so we've gotta cheer for the underdogs, right?!

So that being said, I'm going to do a New Orleans themed menu! I'm super excited to start planning it and I doing some thinking (dangerous, I know!) about what makes New Orleans cuisine?! The top things that come to mind immediately are gumbo, crawfish, andouille sausage, beignets, and boudin. YUM.

Boudin? What the heck is Boudin??

I know, I know, it sounds weird. I was looking for a gorgeous picture to show you, but really, it's sausage. How pretty can sausage be, after all!? Boudin is a cajun sausage that is typically pork, rice, onions, spices, etc. I've only ever had it at my friends house and not in casing, just on crackers. It's TASTY! But it doesn't seem super easy, quick, or cheap to make. If I was feeding a crowd, I'd go there, but since we will be staying home, I'll find another appetizer to make. But if you're feeling adventurous one of these days, try it!!

A few notes on Cajun ingredients
(File this away in the "random things I learned today" file! And yes, I know this nowhere near an inclusive list... but it will get you started and hopefully teach you a few new tidbits this week :) Do you feel smarter yet?)

Andouille Sausage -  (I say it like and-dew-eeeee but I think some say ahn-dooo-eee) Cajun Andouille sausage is generally made with pork, garlic, and other spices and is then smoked. It's the smoking that gives it the real flavor!

Creole Mustard Creole mustard is a coarsely ground mustard that still contains many of the mustard grains. What makes Creole mustard different is that the mustard seeds are marinated in vinegar beforehand. There is also horseradish added into the mix, which makes it a little zippier than regular American mustard!

Filé -  (said like feeee-lay) This is dried and ground up leaves of the sassafrass tree! Filé is most often used in gumbo for flavoring and thickening and is generally added after the gumbo has been removed from the heat.

Now, I'm back to my recipe hunting. I will post my choices soon! I can't wait to cook us up a Cajun feast!

Dinner tonight....

I completely forgot that we had a fundraiser to go to tonight. Every year a lot of the restaurants in St. Augustine do a big fund raising effort. Local celebrities wait tables at popular restaurants and the tips go for the charities. I also suspect that the restaurants donate profits to the various charities, too, but I wouldn't swear to it. Anyway, we ate at a local seafood restaurant and we were waited on by the head of our division at work. Super fun outing and REALLY good fried shrimp and hush puppies! Big Brothers, Big Sisters were the real winners, though!!

So that derailed my menu for the week, but that's ok! I prepped the Breakfast Casserole tonight for tomorrow. It took me 20 minutes from start to drying dishes, which was great. In a side note, I had an awful hard time finding turkey breakfast sausage (in a tube/bulk), but guess what?? In the freezer section. AHA! I bought Louis Rich brand and it smelled good :) I think it's very true that you learn something new every day!!

Happy Tuesday! :)

More on this tomorrow....

Let's Learn About: Chipotles

Marji asked a question in one of her comments - can you substitute chipotles for jalapenos. The answer is YES!!! And here's the scoop on the peppers and why you can make the substitution (in most cases!)....

Why?
Because chipotles are jalapenos that have been smoked/dried.

But what's the difference?
They are just as spicy (in my experience), but have a smokier, deep flavor.

How?!
If you're cooking with a dried chili, you can put it straight into a soup or stew to impart a smoky flavor and some heat. You can also boil up a cup or 2 of water and drop the chili in. Let it sit until it's soft then remove, cool, and chop!!

Other forms: 

Chipotles in Adobo

These come in small cans like this and the peppers in a tomato/vinegar/herb sauce. You will end up with quite a few peppers in the can, which can be annoying (because I hate wasting food!!!). I have found a pretty easy solution to this problem. On a small plate, scoop out one pepper with a little sauce into a pile. Make several separate piles on your plate and stick the plate in the freezer for a few hours. When they are frozen, pop the individual pepper balls off and put them in a ziplock baggie and store in the freezer. Then whenever your recipe calls for 1 pepper, you can grab it out of the freezer and not waste a whole can! VOILA!

Chipotle Powder

One of my favorite places in all the world is Penzeys. It's a spice store with locations all over the country and they have EVERYTHING. If Penzeys doesn't have it - you're not going to find it (not easily, at least!!). They are also super affordable! Anyway, the chipotle powder is great and very versatile. You can use it in soups, stews, bbq sauce, the possibilities are endless!

Happy Chipotle-ing! :)

Oh me oh my!!!

I am giddy and wee bit nervous!!

I am a big fan of The Pioneer Woman. If you don't know who she is, she's a woman living somewhere cold (Oklahoma, I think!?) on a cattle farm in the middle of nowhere. She is an amazing photographer, makes some awesome recipes, and is overall a pretty funny person. Someone I'd love to drink a glass of wine with!!

Anyway, she started a website called Tasty Kitchen. It's a user community (mostly of her 4 zillion blog readers, I suspect) of personal recipes, photos, etc. It's pretty cool! Anyway, I finally got the guts up to submit a recipe around Christmas time. Since they need to be original recipes and I mostly just cook from CL, I don't have much to contribute. My cranberry muffins (well, my mom's!) were the first submission. This weekend I submitted my pumpkin bread.

Tasty Kitchen actually reviews and approves all of the recipes. So today I went online to see if my bread had been approved and OH.MY.GOD. Not only had it been approved, I'm one of the top 5 featured recipes of the day!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

This is seriously exciting! It's also a little stressful! What if I'm the only one in the world who like this!? Ok, well, my husband and daughter were stuffing it in their faces too, so maybe not the only ones... but you know what I mean.... a little nerve-wracking!!! But I'm pretty pumped!

So if you're wondering what that sound is, it's me, tooting my own horn!! It's also me encouraging you to check out both The Pioneer Woman and Tasty Kitchen!!

Baking in dark pans

Good morning!! I am tinkering with a recipe for pumpkin bread right now. If it's good, you'll see it on this blog and if it stinks, well, forget I ever said anything about it! :)

Anyway, I'm baking in dark pans. I can never remember what to do, so I came to google and I thought I would blog about it (1) for my memory's sake and (2) to share the info with you in case you didn't know.

The general rule is - if you're baking in a dark pan, reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees. You have to watch it a little closer and make sure the middle gets done, but this should help you not burn the bottom of whatever you're baking!

More on the bread in a bit. Happy Saturday!

Holiday treats

It's that time again! YAY! I am SO not a baker, but I can't resist trying my hand at new treats around Christmas. Our cooking club makes cookies every December. We gather again this coming Sunday and I can't wait!! This year my contribution is a scrumptious gooey sandwich cookie that I got from my neighbor (and baking GODDESS!), Tonya. YUM. I can't wait!

I read an awful lot of food blogs and have recently come across two additional things I plan to make this holiday season. The first is macaroons. No, not the pile of coconut things. Blech. I'm talking about REAL macaroons. The French kind. *DROOL*. I fell in love with macaroons when we went to Paris a few years ago. They are heaven in cookie form! Let me tell you, the airport security guard almost made me leave them behind because the jelly was 'liquid like'!?! SAY WHAT?! There was an angry American woman in Charles deGalle!! Thankfully, he understood the lure of the macaroon and let me pass!! ( but not before he frisked my husband! WEIRD experience... but I digress).

I made basic macaroons a few years ago and didn't screw them up, so this year my attempt will be Candy Cane & Egg Nog Macaroons from one of my recently discovered blogs, Tartelette. She's a French woman living in Charleston, so I'm gonna go with my gut and assume she knows her macaroons!

The second thing I want to try just comes out of a recent craving. I don't know WHY (and no, I'm not pregnant!) but I have been craving caramel corn! Well lo and behold, my Google Reader delivered me this tasty post on Saturday! SCORE! Caramel corn, here we come!

So now, please share with me some other tasty treats that I need to try my hand at this holiday season?!! Let the calories begin!!

A note about the sugar cookies

I'm beyond excited to tell you that I ran the nutritional information on the sugar cookies and the results were better than I hoped! I wanted to take the 'ignorance is bliss' route but decided to be a good girl. I went to my favorite recipe calorie calculator - Sparkrecipes.com. 

The way we made the cookies, it made 30 cookies. That gives you 120 calories/6g fat per cookie. If you make as written and get 5.5 dozen (66 cookies), you come out to 55 calories/3g fat per cookie. Now that's nutritional information that I can handle! Everybody needs a little sweetness in their life :) I'd rather have one big cookie than one of those crappy 100 calorie packs!

Happy snacking :)

Food photography

Now that I've got a new camera (a cute little red Canon SD780IS Elph!), I have no excuse not to take pictures of dinner. HOWEVER, I am not a pro by any means. I have been doing some googling and reading online for tips, but I'd love to hear your food photography tips or favorite websites to read up on this!

So please and thank you - leave a comment for me and hook me up with your best info :)

Why oh why oh why?

Am I the only person in the world who can not make rice? I think I might be. I can not make a good pot of rice to save my life, so I've come here to ask for help - PLEASE! I need tips, pointers, a play-by-play, SOMETHING. I can't live the rest of my life without rice.

I have tried the rice cooker. I have tried on the stove. I have tried in the microwave. It's either too wet, too dry, burned, etc. blah. I suck. HELP!

Please and thank you!

Random question of the day...

Can flour go bad??

And the answer that I found when researching this question is YES... especially whole wheat flour. I think that may be to blame for my lack of love for the upcoming recipe. So if you have some flour that you aren't quite sure how long you've had it - throw it out!

What do you call it??

When worlds collide, there's bound to be a little bit of confusion, right?! I'm from SE Virginia. My husband is from Pittsburgh (but lived most of his life in Tampa). So I'm the southern girl - you know, the kind that has a jar of bacon grease in the refrigerator! Yeah, that's me... I'm not the only one out there, am I? Anyway, he's the guy who loves kielbasa (pronounced cuh-bahss-eee, according to him and my mother in law!) and craves his mom's German-heritage meals like haluska.

Anyway, one of the weirdest things to me when we got together was how we differed on what eggs were called. If you put an egg in a hot pan and cook on both sides until the white is done but the yolk is runny, what do you call it?? He calls it "dippy eggs", I call it "fried".

I made some for breakfast this morning and it got me thinking - what does the rest of the world call it? Please leave a comment on this post and weigh in!!!