love – Page 4 – Peaceful Reader

Weekly Recipes

What I cooked this week…

With two kids home again I’m back to that grind of “what can I make that will please everyone…” It’s never easy to please everyone, even when that means only 4 people. I like it when those four/five people eat the food that I prepare with minimal fuss/pickiness. Working full-time to come home and prepare dinner, I want that sit-down affair to be a happy time.

For a year and 1/2 teenage boy was living on his on in Colorado and it was just husband and I with Groovy Girl to attend to and I could cater my meals in her direction. My husband literally will eat most everything set in front of him as long as it’s not peanut butter or shellfish.

We are ecstatically happy that Teenage Boy returned home to go back to school even though he does throw a new twist into my meal plan. If I went way back to early blog posts he is the one who “asked” us to think about eating meat. He played sports and as an active young male he begged, pleaded, and begged some more for me to add meat into our diet.

I don’t mind meat as long as it comes from a healthy and local source, which also makes it expensive. We can’t do meat every night (which is what Teenage Boy would like). He can through a meatless meal if pasta is involved.

The last couple of years I’ve tried to stay away from so much gluten. We’ve ruined wheat and it makes it hard to enjoy bread, pasta, sandwiches, and a nice cold beer. It’s okay; I’ve found many other delicious pleasures like hard cider, but it makes meal planning that much more interesting.

With all our different preferences it makes it difficult to plan the perfect meal. It takes creativity and ingenuity. And sometimes I just have to have a salad and be happy with that. It’s all good.

{source}

1. Calzones: I made these on Monday night when husband was not home and I needed a purely kid-friendly dinner. I mixed two recipes together and Groovy Girl did the calzone part on her own for both. I made a lovely salad for myself and let the kids enjoy the cheesy, steamy calzones. They loved them. I used this pizza dough and filled it with good sausage, marinara, black olives, and cheese. Will make again especially because GG did all the work.

2. Artichoke and spinach pasta: This we enjoyed all together. Love it when we are all at the table as one. We had a salad so I could have just had that but the pasta looked and smelled amazing so I had a small portion. Yum! The family ate it up. Again I combined two recipes from Pinterest: food network and budget savvy diva; I used what I wanted from both recipes making it as natural as possible. I used real spinach, 1 can of artichokes, parmesan shredded, fettuccine noodles, and a little cream cheese to add creaminess. The roux was easy to make and the people at my table had 3-4 helpings. I filled my plate with salad and had a small amount of pasta to try it. (meatless)

3. Bean burritos: I created these one night using quinoa, a can of black beans with sautéed sweet peppers mixed in. The kids ate these with flour tortillas and I had corn, tastier, to me, and a much smaller portion. (meatless)

4. Stir-fry: This cleaned out my vegetable drawer; the last few spears of asparagus, last stalk of broccoli and cauliflower, a few peppers, a jar of Trader Joe’s simmer sauce, a pot of brown rice and we had dinner at the table in record time. I mixed in a little coconut milk for a change of pace and to tame the simmer sauce a bit for Groovy Girl. They didn’t even know they were eating “leftovers”. (meatless)

5. Black bean soup: this is for tomorrow. I cooked down a pound of black beans earlier in the week.

So all-in-all it was a creative week of meals at our house. And the BB soup will be a wonderful way to begin the week because it can be used in a variety of ways. How was your food week?

Starter curry from Jenny

I love my copy of Dinner; A love story for many reasons. It has fantastic recipes, amusing stories, and I agree with her on many topics. We love dinner at our house. Sitting down together eating and sharing conversation. When my son moved back after living on his own for a year and a half it was the dinners together that he raved about missing. Every night he felt blessed to be back at the table eating good food with family surrounding him.

Even though I love this book I’ve only made a few of the recipes from this book. Chicken cutlets and dark and stormy are two top favs. I pulled the book out the other night and decided I was going to experiment with more of her recipes.

Tonight I made Curried Chicken with apples. Everyone had 2nds and fought over scraps. Groovy Girl sadly didn’t like some of the ingredients but she loved the chicken and the sauce. Apples confused her and those she refused to eat. She suggested a potato instead of the apple.

[yep, already had a bit or two but you can see the cilantro, yogurt, etc}

Here’s the recipe so you can try it yourself.

Starter Curry; Curried Chicken with apples (it is only one apple…really)

2 T canola oil, plus more as needed
1/2 large onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 large stalk celery, chopped
1 large apple, such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and cut into bite-size pieces
1 tsp grated peeled fresh ginger
2 T madras curry powder
3 medium-sized boneless chicken breasts (about 1 1/2 lbs) {Organic or farm-raised by someone you know preferred)
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup light coconut milk
Handful of frozen peas (optional) {I opted out-don’t like frozen peas, or any pea from a pkg}
Few dollops of plain yogurt
Suggested garnishes: chopped cilantro or mint, sliced or chopped almonds

Heat the oil in a deep, large skillet over medium high heat. Add the onion and saute until it begins to soften, about 2 minutes.
Add the garlic, celery, apple, and ginger. Cook for 2-3 minutes and then add the curry powder, stirring to combine.
Push the ingredients to one side of the pan, add a little more oil, and brown the chicken on all sides. If your pan is too stuffed, you can do it in two batches.) Stir all the ingredients together then add the broth and coconut milk. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Add the peas (if using) then cover and cook 10 more minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.

Serve with basmati rice or flatbread and top with a dollop of yogurt and desired garnishes.

Enjoy this delicious recipe and many others in Jenny Rosenstrach’s book and website.

Good Food, Good Friends

{I have no idea why this posts in all caps when it does not look that way in editing. Strange but I don’t have time to keep messing with it. Enjoy. }

I made a meal yesterday for two musically talented friends who came to town to play a gig. I offered to make them food as I’m all into this entertaining without cleaning utopia. I did actually do a bit of cleaning but I just don’t get stressed out about it. I mostly tidied up a week’s worth of daily clutter and swept our one hardwood floor that shows all the dust bunnies, dog prints, and crumbs.

I have several go-to meals I pull out of my hat that are easy to put together and still make a good impression. Homemade pizzas are a big winner~especially if you ask the kids to help scoop the sauce and decorate the pies. A Mexican burrito or tostado bar is another. This is the one I did today as I came across this great recipe for a Mexican-inspired quinoa dish from Damn Delicious. I woke up early yesterday morning and made the quinoa dish so it would be ready and I’d only have to reheat it.

(Sarah Prineas, Maribeth Boelts, and Jill Esbaum)

I spent my day at the public library for a book festival. We had an amazing time. There were book characters, yoga story time, music, drama, and three Iowa authors. This was the first festival and I think a few things we could do differently but in general it was a good time for all. Groovy Girl had the opportunity to “be” Olivia and she LOVED it. She hugged lots of small people, posed for photos, danced and generally played it up. It was hot and sweaty in the costume yet at the end of the day she didn’t want to take off the huge costume.

After the book festival it was easy for me to wash some greens, saute a pound of grass-fed beef with homemade taco seasonings, reheat the quinoa dish, and fill little bowls with sour cream, cilantro, cheese, and avocado. Right before they arrived I heated corn tortillas on our griddle just enough to make them crunchy. And the best part was cracking open a container of feta cheese to sprinkle over the top. Mmm. It was good, not too heavy, and we were able to eat within about 45 minutes so my friends could travel the 8 minutes to set up their equipment. The most important thing was the lovely conversation around the table between my two children, my two young guests, and myself. There was storytelling and laughing. Entertainment bliss.

Springtime

Little green shoots are popping up in the dark black soil out in my yard. Birds are chirping and swarming around our bird feeder. Rain drizzles making everything richly green. Of course it is still freezing and I’m sitting here in my light winter coat because I turned the heat off two days ago.

I had an amazing arugula salad for dinner tonigh with pecans crumbed on top. I bought the arugula this time with hopes that soon I will have some growing in my backyard. I love the flavor-it has so much more to offer than lettuce. Mixed with lettuce it’s all pretty good.

We’ve had our first backyard fire of the year and it was fantastic. We roasted Hebrew hot dogs, turkey dogs, and bratwurst. We had all the trimmings: suaerkraut, mustard, ketchup, buns, homemade pickle relish and wasabi. We had bad-for-you-chips and bottles of crisp cider. It was all delicious.

Something about spring makes everything just crack open in an exciting way. Life begins anew. It’s refreshed and earthy. In the midwest we treasure it because we’ve been hibernating just to keep warm. I, for one, am ecstatic to have warmer weather here and to share time outside with family.

{Young Hansen gardeners}

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Like everyone else out there I loved Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park (2013) and knew that I would want to read whatever else she produced. Then you get on with life and read a bazillion other authors because you have a pile to read. Then fast forward into my Christmas break and I came upon review or an online conversation about Rowell’s book Landline and how it takes place leading right up to Christmas. And just like that Rainbow was back in my life.

I need to keep up more as she is quite a prolific writer; four books in basically two years. Wow.

Landline (2014) is an amazing story of Georgie McCool, a television scriptwriter who has a major writing opportunity right before Christmas. In order to accept the gig with her hip writing partner, Seth, they have to put together several scripts over the holiday! This is a chance of a lifetime, Georgie tells her husband Neal. Neal, though, chooses to travel to his mom’s house in Omaha on his own with their two daughters, Namoi and Alice. She can’t believe he does but he does it and while she feels a little abandoned she puts in long hours with Seth working on the show.

The first few nights she can’t face going back to their house on her own she finds reasons to end up at her mom’s house. It is here in her childhood room where she fishes out an old rotary phone to call Neal one night. She has cell phone problems and it’s easier than going home for the charger. The phone makes a call to the past and she ends up talking to a young Neal, a college-age Neal. And the conversations are so wonderful that she gets pulled back to that time herself as they chat and flirt and remember all that was good.

A quote:

“Hi Mrs. Grafton,” Georgie said.
“Yes?”
“It’s Georgie.”
“Oh hi, Georgie. Neal’s still asleep. He must have been up pretty late. Do you want him to call you back?”
“No. I mean, just tell him I’ll call later. Actually, I already told him I’d call later. But-I was going to ask him something.” She couldn’t ask about the president; that would seem mental…”Do you happen to know who the Speaker of the House is?”
Neal’s mom hummed. “It’s Newt Gingrich, isn’t it? Did it change?”
“No,” Georgie siad. “I think that’s right. His name was at the tip of my tongue.” She leaned closer to the base of the phone. “Thanks. Um bye. Thanks.” She dropped the receiver onto the hook and stood up suddenly, taking a few steps away.
Then she dropped to her knees and crawled under the bed, reading for the telephone outlet and unclicking the plug. She pulled the cord away, then backed out from the bed and crawled to the opposite wall staring at the nightstand.
She had to deal with this.
It was still happening. (108)

If you haven’t picked this one up please do. I now have to wrestle Fangirl from my librarian friend Denise’s hands.

Beautiful soup!

I love soup. If I had to pick a last meal I would pick soup and I’d have to make it myself. I’m not a fan of canned soup or most soups in a restaurant. They generally don’t excite me-even though I want them to be splendiferous. When I order a tomato-basil soup I want it to be great-as great as the one I make or better even!

Jason’s Deli makes a good soup but we don’t have one around here. We had one in Little Rock when we lived there and used to go after church and have soup, sandwiches, and salads. I found one in Denver, Colorado when I needed to order chicken noodle soup for my 19-year-old son who was sick- I sent him a delivery person with soup. I couldn’t be there so this was the next best thing. It’s all about the soup.

Soup, glorious soup. I found a keeper as I scanned through my very special copy of Dinner; A love story by Jenny Rosenstrach. I found myself standing in my kitchen lazily paging through looking and reading many of Jenny’s stories (again) when I came upon this soup and I had all the ingredients (Love that!) + I’m under the weather so perfectly in need of a bowl of quality soup.

{Jenny’s photo}

Butternut Squash Soup with apples (101-102)

1 medium onion, chopped
few glugs of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
leaves from 1 sprig fresh thyme
1 T. curry powder (optional)
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1 butternut squash, peeled, halved, seeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes. (about 4 1/2 cups cubes)
2 apples (Fuji, Macintosh, or Cortland preferred., but just about any except Red Delicious will work.)
3 1/2 cups or more of chicken broth (or vegetable broth-which is what I used)
Garnishes: Chopped walnuts, chopped chives, sour cream

In a Dutch oven or a large stockpot, brown the onion in oil until wilted, about 3 minutes. Add salt and pepper, thyme, curry powder and cayenne. Stir in the squash and apples, then add enough broth to cover it all by about a half inch. Bring to a boil and then simmer uncovered for 30 minutes-checking and adding water or broth every 10 minutes or so-until the squash is tender. Turn off the heat and puree with a handheld immersion blender or in batches in the blender (see warning about spinning hot liquid), adding more water or broth until it reaches desired consistency. Serve with toppings.

Hopefully by now everyone has an immersion blender because they are one of the greatest kitchen tools ever invented! Mine is a Braun and I’ve had it for about 14 years and it is still going strong.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads; Weekend Cooking meme. Click her link to find many other food-related posts. Maybe others are talking about their deep love of soup as well.

Signs of Spring

{new fountain addition}

It’s been a glorious weekend. We had exciting events to attend to and the weather stayed fairly nice all weekend. I have tulips popping up in my front garden that my mother and I planted late fall. I worried that the massive population of squirrels that reside in our front yard had dug up the bulbs but nope, there are 10 tulips plants springing up! Joy!

This afternoon my husband completed a fountain project that has been two summers in the making. Do-it-yourself projects often run long here but they always get finished. Tonight we dined outside and the fountain bubbled happily behind us. I love the sound of flowing water; it breaks up static energy or maybe provides good feng shui for my environment. We spend a lot of time outdoors in the spring and summer and I know this fountain will be a draw. We have a popular bird feeder that sits near the fountain and I think the birds will enjoy the fountain as much as we will. Our kitchen table sits facing a window that looks out on the back yard and the pond will be in our view. We need a few more rocks around the edge of the pond and Groovy Girl says we need more fairies. Naturally.

Weekend Cooking.

Busy week. Not enough sleep. Badddd sleep week. Does this happen to you? Sleep has been an issue for me the last few years. I look forward to summer when I can sleep in and have a more relaxed schedule.

{copyright: Eating Well magazine}

I managed to whip up some healthy, happy meals this week including the Southwest Quinoa Cakes from Eating Well magazine. Candace at Beth Fish Reads featured this recipe and I knew when I read her post that I would make these cakes. They were delicious and fun to eat. And the recipe makes a lot! Making these in my very ancient muffin tin made me wish for a new one as I had trouble getting them out of the oiled pan.

Groovy Girl is busy acting in a new play and we are sharing carpool duties with another family. That gives me and husband some alone time (so rare). On Tuesday night I made her a simple dinner and sent her out the door with the other mother leaving me time to pull these cakes out of the oven, plate them up with all the fixings and sat down and ate with my husband. We talked. It was grand. I had leftovers for school lunches too! Win-Win.

{My cakes with two baby peppers}

Saturday I made these Lemon Cookies from Two Peas and their Pod for a Thai dinner we hosted at our church. A local restaurant catered the main entrees and they were amazing. I had three helpings. Someone told me later they thought the cookies were from the restaurant also. I grinned like a three-year-old. I love lemons and will make these again.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads’ Weekend Cooking meme. Please click her link to find many other good food posts.

Have a great week. I’m off to bed.

Weekend Cooking…a little curry dish.

I listened to my daughter and her friend swoon about the chicken curry at our local Indian restaurant and ever since then I’ve had a craving for curry. Naturally I wanted to make my own though so I pulled out Six Spices; A simple concept of Indian cooking by Neeta Saluja. My stepbrother Sean recommended this book to me as we both love Indian food and the author is his ex-girlfriend yet-still-friend’s mother~always nice to have a family connection!

I pulled the book out to see what type of curry recipe I could make with what I already had at home and decided the mixed vegetable curry would be perfect on this very chilly early evening. I had 90% of the ingredients and would have to make due and my husband was impressed as he walked through the door an hour later as I was elbow-deep in spices.

Mixed-Vegetable Curry
{Rase wali Mili-Juli Subji}

Ingredients

6 cups assorted vegetables (carrots, cauliflower, turnips, potatoes, or peas)
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
1 tsp garlic, chopped
1 tsp ginger, chopped
1/4 tsp red chili powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp coriander powder
7 T cooking oil, divided
6 T + 2 cups water
1 large tomato, chopped
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
2 T fresh cilantro, chopped

Method:

1. Peel and cut all the vegetables into somewhat large size pieces.
2. Place onions, garlic, and ginger in a blender. Add a small amount of water and run blender intermittently until it makes a smooth paste.
3. Add chili, turmeric, and coriander powders. Run blender again to mix the spices into the paste.
4. In a medium saucepan, heat 4 T cooking oil on medium high heat. When oil is hot, add the onion mixture. Cover pan to avoid spattering.
5. Reduce heat to medium. Stir mixture continuously to avoid burning and scorching. Add 6 T of water, one tablespoon at a time, to prevent burning. Cook until most of the moisture evaporates. At this time the oil will separate from the onion paste, and the raw smell of onion and spices will change to a more roasted and flavorful smell.
6. Add tomatoes and a little of of the salt. Cover the pan. Cook, stirring the mixture occasionally, until mixture forms a smooth paste and oil is separated.
7. Heat remaining oil in a large skillet. When hot, add cumin seeds. Stir in all chopped vegetables and fry for 6-8 minutes.
8. Add fried vegetables, and the rest of the salt to masala (curry paste). Stir the mixture.
9. Stir in 2 cups of water and let the vegetables simmer on medium heat until potatoes are cooked.
10. Garnish curry with cilantro and serve hot.

After the holidays I haven’t felt much like whipping up multi-step recipes as I think I wore myself out cooking (joyously) for the two older kids and other friends and family. This recipe brought me back to life.

The two substitutions I had to make; I did not have nor do I usually buy tomatoes in the winter so I used a little canned tomato juice from my pantry, which has tomatoes from my mom’s garden plus I somehow ran out of cumin seeds over the holidays and forgot to replace them so I added the veggies (potatoes, carrots, and peas) to the oil and then I added some garam marsala just to add something to the potatoes as they cooked.

I love everything about cumin so was sad not to have that smell and flavor. I would absolutely make this dish again and I will try more from this book. I get so used to “googling” for a recipe or searching Pinterest yet often what I need lies right in my own cabinet. Yep.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads weekly cooking meme, Weekend Cooking, where many other foodies talk about food. Click her link to find out what everyone’s talking about today.

Blessings counted.

What a beautiful day it is! I have a farm fresh chicken, nice golden bakers, brussel sprouts, and fresh cranberries all waiting to be cooked. A simple meal that won’t take me all day in the kitchen. I made a sweet potato pie last night which looks amazing. I’m going to throw together my lovely bread pudding recipe with bourbon sauce this morning as I watch the parade. Excessive on the desserts as we are having good family friends come to share them with us and play a game. Perfect day all played out in my jammies. I slept until 8:30 this morning. Amazing!

I am forever thankful for my husband, my three creative children, my mom, my step mom, my in-laws, my two sisters, my six brothers, my school family, my friends Barb, Verda, Jennifer, Tina, Diane, Rita, and my new friend Gabbi. You all bring so much to my life. Life is rich and full with good food, excellent and bountiful books, and happy memories. I feel blessed.

Have a grateful day!