Just a quick note to let you all know that the bread bowls I alluded to in the last post totally flopped. Literally. I couldn't get them to rise, they just spread all over the place. I think I need a better recipe. Tonight is a new venture: lasagna in the crock pot, since Mr. NoPasta will be at praise band practice and won't be around for dinner! Stay tuned!

Fall is Coming!

We're finally getting a little relief from the heat here in Florida (and by that I mean temperatures in the low 90s) thanks mostly to frequent rainshowers. Right now we're getting the steady soaking we need! Anyhoo, I've actually been doing a fair amount of cooking this week. Here's our dinner from Sunday:


Crock Pot Chicken and Dumplings with green beans. This is a great "comfort food" type of dish, and I'm glad we can start eating warm dishes again. Plus it's much easier to make this dish in the Crock Pot than the original recipe.


Next, a new recipe. My mom cleaned out her magazine collection and gave me an entire stack of Taste of Home magazines, and I've had fun going through them. It's interesting to see how food has changed since the mid-90s; it used to be all about "low-fat," now it's all high fiber. I noticed that they also discontinued their bread machine recipe section. This is one of the many recipes I clipped: Sausage Swiss Muffins, which were very easy to make. The recipe called for shredded swiss, but it was so darn expensive I got sliced and cut it into tiny pieces. I don't think it turned out quite as well as it would have with shredded cheese. I think next time I will try shredded cheddar. Mike said the muffins tasted like my mom's traditional Christmas sausage balls.




Next, another new recipe, PB&J Spirals, which I made for lunch yesterday. These were tasty, but not so much more tasty than regular pb&j to justify the extra fat you get from crescent rolls. At least I used reduced-fat crescents.



Next up, yet another new recipe, Banana Oat Breakfast Cookies. These turned out really well for having no oil or butter in them. They have peanut butter, banana, oats, honey, and raisins in them, and they'll be great for breakfast. I stuck half of them in the freezer so we can enjoy them later.



Last up, a new chili recipe: Cowpoke Chili! I decided to try it because the Lima beans in it looked interesting. It also has a few tablespoons of sugar in it, which I was wary about at first, but it enhanced the flavor of everything else. I definitely plan on making this recipe again. I even have enough for another meal! Bread bowls, anyone?


Oh, and we had biscuits because I forgot I am now keeping my cornmeal in the freezer. So much for cornbread! I brushed them with garlic butter, so they turned out well, even if they weren't typical chili fare.

I just realized I'm on the computer in a thunderstorm. See ya!

Not much interesting cooking has been going on, due to the painting I've been doing. However, I did accrue an exciting hand-me-down from my mom: a waffle iron!! I've been wanting one for awhile, so when mom mentioned she wanted to get rid of hers, I jumped all over it. We had breakfast for dinner the next night, with the waffle mix made with my all-purpose baking mix, except I replaced half of the regular flour with whole wheat. I like to make my own baking mix instead of buying Bisquick - it's cheaper and much tastier.


On the side we had a fruit salad and a hashbrown casserole:



The only other interesting thing I've made this week was a peach cobbler. The peaches have been excellent lately, so I decided to make the best of it. The cobbler has a biscuit topping:

Topped with a little homemade ice cream, it was great!!

I've heard talk that Thunder Dave will be frying 65 pounds of chicken this weekend. Makes me want to go to Ohio and invite myself to a rehearsal dinner :) While I also cooked chicken this weekend, it wasn't nearly as exciting - just baked chicken strips for a simple Saturday lunch. I marinated the chicken overnight in Italian dressing, then today Mike crushed some Rice Krispies cereal and rolled the chicken in the crumbs. The point of marinating the chicken was to add some more flavor and hopefully eliminate the need for butter, but I have to say that without the butter, the breading didn't stay on nearly as well. But hey, it was still good!

We also had some homemade french fries and a fruit salad with a simple lime dressing. Tasty.

Here we have tonight's dinner. And Mike. Please excuse the funny look he has on his face - he doesn't usually have two chins.

We had beef tacos, and I cooked enough beef to make chili later. Unfortunately, that's the only thing I planned WELL about this meal. This week has really fried my brain. So when I went grocery shopping today, I knew I was going to make tacos, but I forgot to get taco shells. No problem, Mike can pick some up on the way home from work. Then we're putting everything on the table, and I say, "what am I forgetting?"...and then I realize that I also forgot to buy cheese. AUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!! I had an Italian blend, so we had Mexican/Italian food tonight. It works.

While there has been a fair amount of cooking going on, by the end of the day I'm just not into blogging. I guess I'm going through a bit of a "dry spell" with my blogging. I have tried several new recipes lately, so here's what's been cooking at the Wolfes:

First, Mike can come home for lunch during the week if he wants to, and I made French Dip Sandwiches in the Crock Pot one day last week. I don't think I've ever tried a French Dip, so I'm not sure what made me want to try this recipe, but try I did, and Mike loved it! I did, too. It was so...satisfying. And easy!




I've been into making stir-fry lately, and here's my first made with beef. I sliced the beef while it was still partially frozen to get thin slices, then sauteed it with sugar snap peas, broccoli, and sliced garlic. Paired with brown rice, it was a very healthy, tasty meal.



Here's a dessert I decided to try from a book I got from the library about making bars and squares. They're brownie cheesecake bars, and boy were they rich! The brownie part was closer to fudge. Incredibly good, but cut into small pieces.



On to tonight's dinner: cedar-grilled salmon and spinach salad with a warm bacon dressing. The fish was marinated in a mixture of Penzey's new spice blend, Tuscan Sunset, olive oil, and Dijon mustard. Mike then cooked the fish on the grill with cedar planks, which made them very moist and tasty. The spice paired very well with the fish. The salad was also very good.

The dressing I made.

While we were scarfing down dinner, I had peaches roasting in the toaster oven, sprinkled with brown sugar and drizzled with honey. What a great end to a satisfying meal!