Funny Sophie Picture


a combination of me balancing my Sunday dinner on my lap and Sophie licking her chops, hoping my balance is not so good.




and since you're curous: green salad, chili, and George-Foremanized grilled cheese.

Oh My!!

Yes we have been eating food here at the Wolfe house. I've even tried a few new things. I have no real excuse as to why I haven't been updating my food blog. I've been busy substitute teaching, and sometimes it's a stretch to get dinner on the table, and getting dinner on the blog is a very remote possibility. But anyhoo, here's what's been cooking:


Beef and veggie stir-fry with brown rice and a fruit salad. I got a delicious black bean and garlic stir-fry sauce from Importfood.com that makes me want to stir-fry everything! I was kind of in a stir-fry rut, so I was glad to find this product. I like to make stir-fry dishes because I can get away with a favorable vegetable:meat ratio.


Next up: last weekend, we went to the downtown Leesburg Farmer's Market and got some stuff for that night's dinner:


These are what the vendor called Cranberry Beans, I'm guessing because of the color. I had no idea what they were until I saw them shelled, then I realized they were pinto beans!

Here they are freshly shelled and ready to be cooked. As you can see, these are much more colorful then the dried variety you get at the grocery store.



On the table, with fresh grilled pineapple (brushed with honey and brown sugar). grilled chicken, and some baby carrots. This was a great meal! Very fresh tasting.


These are pumpkin bars from the latest Penzey's spices catalogue. My mom made these first and raved about them, and I had some canned pumpkin left over from the pumpkin cream cheese muffins, so I decided to give them a try. They have a browned butter icing on top.

I've never tried my hand at browned butter icing, but I must say that it was VERY rich. Almost too rich for my taste. The bar part was very good, but I think next time I'll try it with a cream cheese icing. To me, cream cheese and pumpkin go together like Gators and football!




Last night we had breakfast for dinner: waffles, hashbrown casserole, and a fruit salad of bananas, apples, and pineapple. The waffles were made with my all-purpose baking mix, but last time I made the mix I replaced half of the AP flour with whole-wheat flour. I think they still turned out well. I'm quite proud of the casserole; it's the first one I've made that turned out halfway decent. I always underestimate the cooking time!




And finally, the spoils from this morning's farmer's market:

Rome apples, very fragrant green onions, baby asparagus, whole wheat bread, and some handmade soaps.

A New Recipe

I am totally addicted to this new recipe, Parmesan Crusted Chicken. I tried it by itself the first time and it was delicious, but we've discovered it's even better on a salad! It's great cold or warm from the oven.



And as a bonus, my very first fall table:

Punkin' Crazy!

This time of year, I get the craving for everything pumpkin!! I saw these Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins in an old issue of Taste of Home my mom gave me and I just had to try them. Doesn't this picture make you want to lick the page?

The only downside of this recipe was the nutritionals. They taste great, but holy cow, TWO CUPS of sugar for twelve muffins? I cut it down to one and a half cups and still felt like I was coming off a sugar buzz after eating one. A total of three eggs doesn't help, either.

The other weird thing about this muffin was the fact that it says it makes 24 muffins, but I wound up with twelve. I might have been able to stretch it out to 16, but there was no way I could have made 24. Yet I had enough of the filling to make twelve dozen of these babies!

These muffins are good, but I think I'll mosey on over to Dee's Eating at Home? and see if her recipe is a little less guilt-inducing.

We've continued to enjoy some cooler weather here in Florida, even though it's been accompanied by LOTS of rain. It's nice to use my oven again! Mike and I went to Sam's Club last week and got a bunch of meat for our new freezer (did I mention we got a deep freezer? We got a deep freezer). We got ground beef, two packages of boneless skinless chicken breasts, frozen vegetables, and pork tenderloin, all of which got repackaged into individual servings and frozen. I've already used lots of it, such as these meat loaves, topped with a sauce made of ketchup and Chinese oyster sauce.


Another use for the ground beef: meat sauce over whole grain pasta with a Tuscan Garlic Loaf from Publix. We had a salad with this meal, too. I decided to include such a simple meal because I needed to rave about the BREAD. Oh my goodness, this bread was amazing. There were whole garlic cloves in it, which were soft from the baking process. If you love garlic half as much as I do, go buy this bread NOW!


When I browned the beef for the pasta sauce, I made extra for tonights dinner; soft tacos.
As you can see, everyone was excited about tonight's dinner! We were in for a surprise when we starting eating, though. I made the taco meat the same way I usually do, but I used cumin from Penzey's spices for the first time. A word to the wise: cumin from Penzey's is a LOT stronger than the stuff you get at the store. That stuff should come with a warning label. Of course, I'm a spice wimp, but even Mike thought it was extra spicy!

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!

The weather continues to swelter here in Florida, so there hasn't been a lot of cooking going on. It's like the heat is sucking out my creativity! My cousins did visit for the weekend, however, so for dinner Saturday night we made personal-sized pizzas. I mixed up a 2-pound ball of whole-wheat pizza dough, then divided it up and rolled them out. We all put on our own sauce, cheese, and toppings:

Rachel and April's: green peppers, onion, and pepperoni (for April).

Mine (pepperoni) and Mike's (green peppers, onions, and pepperoni).

Rachel putting together her pizza.

The pizzas were great - you can't beat homemade pizza! We used Newman's Own Vodka Sauce for the pizzas, and it was delicious. The girls seemed to enjoy picking out the toppings and putting together their own pizzas.

We also made homemade vanilla ice cream in my ice cream maker. I received it as a wedding gift, but it didn't get much use in our small apartment because I had no storage space and couldn't put it in an accessible place. I had forgotten how good homemade ice cream is. I used the clear vanilla extract I have for cake decorating, thus the pretty white color.

We've all heard of the "double-churned" low-fat ice cream, and I wondered what would happened if I tried it myself. So I used low-fat milk instead of whole and let the ice cream maker churn for 40 minutes instead of 20. I plan to do the same thing next time, because it was delicious! It was the most like store-bought ice cream I've ever made, as far as texture goes. Yummmm.



Onto tonight's dinner: chicken and broccoli stir-fry with Pillsbury dinner rolls. I've never been into making stir-fries, but I found a neat chart in a cook book that lists all the different meats, veggies, and spices you could use. It also includes some cool stir-fry tips, like freezing your meat for 30 minutes to make it easier to thinly slice (it works!).

I used chicken breast, broccoli florets, black pepper, soy sauce, and lime juice. It turned out well, but I was surprised at how quickly the broccoli went from firm and bright green to pale and a little limp. They had to sit for a few minutes while the rolls finished browning, so next time I will be more careful to finish everything at the same time. I also realized when I was dishing everything up that I should have made rice to go with the stir-fry! Rolls were the only carb I could think of when I was planning dinner. Like I said, the heat is taking it's toll on my brain! But I still think dinner turned out well.

Just a note to let you know that by request, I have posted the recipe for the Chocolate Cake I made for our anniversary. I have named it Chocolate-Covered Oreo Cookie Cake, and you can get to it by clicking here. Enjoy!

Also by request, I have added hand-mixing instructions to the Rosemary Bread recipe. Personally, I think it would be easier to just go buy a breadmaker, or do what I did and put out the word and have your relatives look for one at a yard sale. Breadmakers seem to be a pretty common item at garage sales, not sure why. Maybe people start out with good intentions to make their own bread, then fall from glory? I know I use mine enough!

Although I wholeheartedly agree with Dee that it's too hot to cook much, I did make a special dinner for my mom's birthday on Friday. Thus, you get lots of new recipes! To start with, Rosemary Bread that the recipe states tastes like the bread from Macaroni Grill.

I've only been to that particular restaurant once, years ago, so I can't tell you whether or not it did, but I can tell you that this bread was delicious! I replaced some of the bread flour with whole wheat flour, so I doubt it was exact. I let my bread maker mix up the dough, then baked it in the oven to avoid that weird rectangular shape my bread maker turns out. We had this bread with olive oil and dipping spices, and it was almost gone by the time the main course was served!


I tried a new pork tenderloin recipe that used my crock pot, featuring an Asian-style glaze. I decided to try a new recipe for tenderloin because I felt like I was in a rut with my favorite way to prepare the dish. I would have never thought to try tenderloin in a crock pot, because it works so well with cheap, tough cuts of meat, but I must say I was quite pleased with this recipe. The pork was super-tender and moist, and the glaze was amazing. The recipe also works with ribs, so I plan on trying that as soon as I can lay my hands on some!


Last, dessert! I tried the blueberry-orange cheesecake recipe from the latest issue of Taste of Home, but with a few twists. First, once I had decided to make this recipe and had assembled the ingredients, I remembered that my springform pan has been MIA since the move. I decided to go ahead with the recipe, but make them into individual-sized cheesecakes. They were much easier to serve that way, and I think they still turned out well. Second, I used strawberries to creat a pretty design on top of each cupcake. I decided to try this recipe because it uses cottage cheese instead of cream cheese, and I wanted to see what a difference that made in taste.

It definitely was different - more mild, but with the sour cream-sugar concoction on top, and the pretty berries on top, it was a great dessert, and not as heavy as New-York style cheesecake, which was great after a big meal.
I think this meal was a success! Happy birthday, mom!

Playing Catch-Up

As I've said on my personal blog, I took a few days off from blogging to celebrate Mike and I's anniversary, so now I have a slew of pictures to show you! First off, the special dinner I made for our anniversary:


The steaks were thick ribeyes that I got at Publix for $6.99 a pound. They originally had porterhouses and t-bones on sale at that price, but the selection was picked over, so the butcher gave me these amazing-looking steaks for the same price. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love Publix. They were EXCELLENT! I'm salivating right now just thinking about how good they were. Mike also requested mashed potatoes and cheesy broccoli, so we had that along with strawberry daiquiris:


And then...the motherlode!! I've been wanting to try my hand at recreating Ruby Tuesday's Chocolate Tallcake, because I think it's one of the best desserts out there. I'm the type of person who typically prefers the creativity and freshness of locally-owned places, but Ruby's got this dessert right. I looked online for a copykat recipe to no avail, so I had to combine several different recipes: one for an oreo-embedded chocolate cake from a mix, one for buttercream icing which I combined with crushed oreos for the filling, and one for chocolate mousse for the icing.


This was a very involved process, but holy cow, just look at it!! It was sooooooo good. I noticed that this cake seemed to taste even better after sitting in the fridge for a day. Paired with a tall glass of milk, eaten while floating in my pool....yes please!

Now let's all wipe the droll off our faces so I can show you tonight's dinner. I used the rest of the steak from our anniversary dinner to make steak fajitas. They were sauteed with green peppers, onions, and...zucchini? Yes, that's right. I don't care much for onions or green peppers, so I decided to throw some zucchini to sautée for the last few minutes and try that in my fajita, and I must say I enjoyed the extra serving of vegetables. Even Mike enjoyed some zukes in his fajita! I was careful to take out some of the squishy, seedy stuff out of the middle, much like you core an apple, and I think that helped.

Tonight I used my crock pot to make dinner. I love my crock pot, but I don't use it as much in the summer because of the heat it generates. I know I could set it on the washer in the garage, but that's way too much work. Anyhoo, tonight's dinner was beef pot roast with Yukon gold potatoes and a can of French onion soup poured over it all. I've used cream of mushroom and chicken soups before, but I was bored of that, and the can of French onion soup had been sitting in my pantry for a long time, waiting to be used. It turned out very well, the soup tenderized the meat and gave it a nice flavor. A taste test a few hours in revealed that the dish was a little bland, but some celery salt fixed that.

We also had pretzel rolls from the Yalaha Bakery, one of Mike's favorite, and some sauteed green beans from the freezer. By the way, if you like the Yalaha Bakery as much as we do, go here and vote for them for WESH Channel 2 news' A-list contest. They're up against some big bakeries in Orlando, so they need lots of votes. Everything I've ever had there has been absolutely delicious, and they deserve to be named the best bakery in Central Florida!

I wanted to share this summer family favorite with you all: Fruit Pizza!


This picture is of the fruit pizza my mom made for my uncle's birthday. It has a sugar cookie crust, cream cheese filling, and a fruit and glaze topping. It's perfect for summer, and always gets compliments when we bring it to a gathering.

I actually didn't used to be a big fan of this dessert when I was a kid, but now I LOVE it! I think it's not something that kids traditionally go for, because it doesn't have icing, chocolate, cartoon characters, etc. But I love it now, and it's especially good for when you don't want something too heavy.