first post of 2014(!?!)

our menu last week:

Su: roasted sweet potatoes; sauteed chard
M: Glazed Sausage; Sauteed Cabbage
T: out
W: Mac & Cheese
R: left-over Cream of Parsnip soup (from Roots)
F: Mushroom Bourguignon; egg noodles; salad; Apple Sharlotka
Sa: left-over Cream of Celeriac soup; grilled cheese

a cocktail recipe from V

Honey-Lemon Vodka

• 2 oz vodka
• 1/2 oz orange liqueur
• 1/2 oz honey liqueur
• juice of 1 Meyer lemon

Pour all ingredients over a shaker 1/2 full of ice. Stir for 20 seconds. Strain into desired serving container.

Chicken & Leek Stir-Fry

I made this stir-fry, then realised I picked up the cookbook it's from at a library sale a few years ago. Many other tasty-looking recipes there as well.

my feet hurt; also my back

This has been a fantastic year for apples here in MN, and our front-yard apple tree is no exception. Not only did we get a much larger-than-average yield, the individual fruit have been enormous - some nearly grapefruit sized. We don't do much to the tree other than to thin the fruit in mid-June (and keep it more-or-less trimmed), so I hadn't planned on dealing with so many apples.

Fortunately, our neighbors and friends have been enthusiastically helping with both picking and processing. I think in another few weeks we'll be finished.

Last weekend, we harvested our first fruit with our next-door neighbors. Those apples turned into several batches of apple butter (I started them in the evening, took off the lid before I went to work, and then canned the resulting butter the following evening). I mostly followed the recipe from Not Your Mother's Slowcooker. I also put up a batch of Apple-Mango Chutney from The Joy of Pickling.

This weekend some other friends came over and helped with both picking more apples and peeling/slicing/coring (truthfully, my friend Niki liked this so much she did probably 90% of the processing).

In addition to applesauce (which I pretty much just winged - one batch was sweeter and had an orange in it; another was unsweetened; a third was lightly sweetened with honey), I also put up apple pie filling. I'm especially pleased with how it came out, and am very much looking forward to a winter of delicious apple pies. (Recipe from this Better Homes & Gardens cookbook.)

Mostly just putting this here for myself.... to make a pie using this filling:

Preheat oven to 375F. Pour a quart of the filling into a 9" pie crust. Dot with butter and put on the top crust (I love a lattice top). Seal and flute edge. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until crust is golden and filling is "singing."

just some menus

I'm still hoping for more time to write here, but for now I would settle for just keeping decent notes so that I can find recipes later (...which is the point of this blog, after all). To that end (lunches are in square brackets*):

Week of Aug 25
Su: [tomato, basil, mozzarella salad]
  grilled veggies; left-over chicken
M: [couscous salad]
  out
T:  [out]
  out
W: [EFM]
  pasta with red sauce
R: [soba salad with orange-sesame dressing and wakame]
  yogurt chicken; pesto potatoes
F: [leftovers]
  out

Week of Sept 2
Su:  [tomato, basil, mozzarella salad]
  out (P & P)
M: [banana pancakes; bacon]
  hot dogs; quick pickles; roasted CSA veggies
T: pizza with mozzarella and red sauce (smitten kitchen pizza dough recipe)
W: lemon-garlic yogurt chicken; pesto potatoes (J & A)
R: challah (Rosh Hashana dinner with D & M)
F: out
[also made lime curd tart, plus added sweetened cream cheese as a base and golden raspberries]

Week of Sept 9
Su: [tomato, basil, mozzarella salad]
  grilled sausages; roasted CSA veggies
M: [leftover sausage and veggies]
  pesto pasta
T: [EFM]
  out
W:  [out]
  yogurt-marinated "Vindaloo" chicken; rice; left-over roasted veggies
R: [leftover chicken, etc.]
  out
F: [more leftovers]
  out

* (an "EFM" is an "Exciting Frozen Meal")

Grab-Bag

Made this marmalade last month; I should have looked up how much water is usually added to marmalade, but I blindly followed the "add water to cover" direction and the result is too watery. At some point I plan to remake the jam.

Had Meyer-Lemon Lentil Salad a few weeks ago - it was kind of fussy to make, but delicious.

We've mostly been eating "old favorites"-type recipes that I've already written about here on the blog. It's been a busy time for both of us, and that looks to continue for at least the next few weeks (in fact, one or both of us will be traveling from now until the very end of April). Probably not a lot of updates as a result.

Last week's menu:

Su: fancy-pants steaks; mashed potatoes with crispy leeks; salad with blue-cheese dressing
M: pasta with marinara
T: soup-swap soup (Beef with Barley, it was excellent!) and bread
W: pizza with caramelized onions, rosemary, and local camembert-style cheese
R: take-out
F: roasted sweet potatoes & cauliflower
Sa: roasted chicken with carrots, parsnips, and rutabaga

Bacony PB Cookies

Made following this recipe from the brown-eyed baker; substituting bacon drippings for the shortening gives them a subtle bacony flavor.