Pickled Cucumber Salad

I love cucumber salad when Surferman takes me for sushi.  From lots of recipes, I've developed this one to make and enjoy at home.  It's crunchy, refreshing and a great way to get an extra serving of vegetables into your day.

Pickled Cucumber Salad

ingredients:

salad

cucumber washed and sliced thin

carrots washed and sliced thin (optional)

radishes washed and sliced thin (optional)

daikon radish washed and sliced thin (optional)

I always make a huge batch.  My family loves it and we happily eat it all week.  

Until recently, I didn't think I liked radishes. Radishes keep coming in our CSA box, so I gave them a try. Rarely, they are too hot, but usually they are crispy and refreshing like water. If you don't think you like radishes, pick up a daikon radish and give it a try. Daikon is very mild and a great place to start with radishes.

dressing:

3/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1/4 c. fish sauce

1 tsp grated giner

1 tsp chopped garlic

2 tsp brown sugar

These are the ingredients you might not have on hand.  I buy the Fish Sauce in the "oriental section" at the grocery store.  It is a thin brown liquid.  I understand it's made from dried fish, which doesn't sound super appealing, but give it a chance.  It has a salty taste and is really the magic ingredient in this salad.  The Ginger paste comes from the produce department.  It's refrigerated.  You can grate fresh ginger instead.  The paste is soooo easy though.

directions:

Slice the vegetables into a plastic or glass container.  I use a hand-held mandolin to slice the veggies thin.  Use cucumbers and add the other vegetables as available.

I scrub the vegetables well, but don't remove any of the peels.  

Mix dressing ingredients together and pour over vegetables.  Stir well and let sit (the longer the better) before serving.  

Enjoy!

Cilantro Lime Shredded Chicken for Tacos and More!

Here's a recipe we've been enjoying lately.  It's great for stocking the freezer and easy to prepare for serving.  It cooks from frozen, so this is great for when I forget to plan ahead.

I like to triple the recipe putting 2 batches into the freezer for later.

ingredients: (per batch)

2# boneless skinless chicken breasts, thighs or combination

1# frozen corn

1 can black beans - rinsed and drained

1  onion - chopped

2 tsp cumin

3 cloves garlic - chopped (I use frozen garlic cubes from Trader Joe's)

1 bunch cilantro chopped

1/4 c lime juice (about 2 limes)

gallon freezer ziplock bag

directions prep:

1) label ziploc bag with date and crockpot directions - 4hrs high or 8 hrs low (I always cook this on low)

2) put all ingredients in the ziplock bag and place in freezer - if you can freeze in a round container that will fit inside your crockpot, it will be easier when it's time to cook it. 

directions cooking:

1) spray crockpot with non-stick spray

2) remove meal from the freezer 

3) carefully peel the ziplock bag away from the frozen ingredients

4) plop ingredients into crockpot

5) set on low (my preference) for 8 hrs or high for 4 hrs  - as crockpots vary check occasionally to prevent overcooking.

6) when chicken is cooked through, use forks or tongs to shred the chicken

tacos:

1) heat tortillas over gas flame on stove

2) serve with shredded lettuce or cabbage, guacamole, shredded cheese, hot sauce, salsa, etc.

I've made the leftovers into enchiladas, baked taquitos, nachos and taco buns (like a sloppy joe).  It's a very versatile recipe.  Hope you enjoy.

(recipe is based on a couple different recipes)

Beth's Zucchini Bread

My sister has spent a lot of time perfecting a healthier zucchini bread.  The two loaves below just came out of the oven.  Grom's going to love it (and the fact that he's eating vegetables!)

Beth's Zucchini Bread

1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1 1/2 c. white flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3 eggs
1/3 c. vegetable oil 

2/3 c. apple sauce
1 c. white sugar
3 t. vanilla extract

3 c. grated zucchini
1 c. diced apple

Spray two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.

Beat eggs, oil, applesauce vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and apple until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

Bon appétit!

Beet Chips

I found a way to get Grom to happily eat veggies. Beet Chips!

They are pretty easy to make. Here's how we do it...

1. preheat your oven to 350F.

I use our convection setting.

2. wash and peel your beets

veggie peeler works great.

3. use a mandolin to slice the beets into thin slices.

Grom has mad knife skills. He respects a sharp blade and is very careful. I was still watching close when he gave the mandolin a spin.

4. spray a cookie sheet with olive oil spray.

I like to use my Pampered Chef stoneware pans.

5. arrange the beets in a single layer. it's ok if they overlap a little bit.

6. give the beets a light spray of olive oil.

I think Grom thought he was spray painting them. He got a bit heavy handed. In his defense, I think spraying cooking spray is fun too.

7. give the beets a gentle sprinkle of salt.

Our last batch was pretty salty. I think I'm going to try giving the sliced beets a salty water bath before cooking next time.

Don't worry if your hands get stained. It just shows that you really made these amazingly yummy chips. (And it comes off pretty easy with a little hand soap.)

8. bake for about 15-20 minutes. flip them over about half way through.

9. chips crisp up as they cool.

10. enjoy!

Be warned, beets can make you think you're having a medical emergency. This too will pass... literally. hee hee.

Cookies!

One of the fun things about having a blog is the fun opportunities that present themselves. This week we got to make cookies. I received a prize pack through My Blog Spark. It contained a package of Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix, a set of Gladware disposable storage containers and a gift card for Safeway Stores (we have Vons around here).

One day last week it was time to break out the fun.

The mix was easy enough... add some butter and an egg... and...

stir it up. I love the look on Grom's face as he supervises his buddy's turn at stiring.
Next time I'd use my Kitchen Aid. It would've been a little quicker.
And the little boys had some trouble getting all the butter incorporated.

I used my cookie scoop to portion it out. To get the kiddos involved, we added some M&M's. The Girlies did a great job of pushing the candies into the cookies.
A few M&M's got pushed into their mouths.

My sister has been decorating cookies with the girls.
Their cookies were cooked and they could eat them straight away.

It was a little hard to convince a 2 1/2 year old to wait 12 minutes
before they could enjoy their sweet treats.

It made a batch big enough to eat immediately,
give some away, and stash a few in the freezer for later.

These cookies Grom and Surferman took to our neighbor Connie.
She crashed her bike and broke her femur (ouch!).
We were hoping these would cheer her up.

So here are my thoughts on the products...

You don't see the Glad containers. They are in the freezer or fridge. They were put to use immediately. They sent the large size. It's a great size for leftovers and putting meals away in the freezer. They are inexpensive so I don't get upset when they get stuck in the freezer for a while.

The cookie mix was good. The mix sped up the cookie making process, which is important when your sous chefs are 2 1/2 and 6 year olds. We baked some sweet memories.

disclosure: I was given a prize pack by Safeway, Betty Crocker and Gladware through MyBlogSpark. My opinions however are my own and are independent of the BlogSpark.

Avocado - seed to tree

We've been eating a lot of avocados lately. Gogo loves guacamole. Surferman loves guacamole. Even Grom gets into it.

All those pits. Grom and I had to see if we could grow a tree. Watch along. We'll update as changes are observed.

October 5

Robin's Guacamole
2 avocados - peeled and smashed (keep 'em chunky)
1 clove of garlic pressed (I like to use the frozen cubes of garlic from TJs)
juice from 1/2 lemon
your favorite hot sauce to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Organizing Challenge 2010

I participated in Organizing Junkie's Organizing Challenge back in 2007. I came out of the challenge with a beautiful studio / craft room.

Fast forward to today. My beautiful studio has been piled high with office crap stuff. I used to love my studio. It's the room where I get away. It's where I surf the internet. It's where I sew, scrap and bead.

In my opinion, but it doesn't seem like my opinion really matters, it's not a place of mail and bills and other grownup serious stuff. I lost my office space and now I have to deal with it.

I'm entering the Small Space category. My goal is to organize the papers, create a system for keeping up with the papers and keep all the office stuff from bumming my creativity

I hope I'm up for the challenge. Look for some before pictures soon.

Baking with Grom

Grom and I did some baking for a Christmas outreach our church did last week.

We made brownies.

We made pumpkin bread.

We made banana bread.

I measured and mixed.
Grom cleaned out the bowls.


I promise that I make him wash his hands and face between batches.

When life gives you avocados...

make guacamole.

My recipe is simple. Smash ripe avocados. Add lime and lemon juice. Add lots of garlic. And a few shakes of Marie Sharps. Salt if needed, but there is usually enough on the chips.


This yummy batch is in the freezer waiting for a bag of chips.

Amish Friendship Bread

Or as I now call it... Amish You're-No-Friend-Of-Mine Bread

A few months ago a neighbor came by the house. She came bearing a ziploc bag full of goop and a photocopied sheet of instructions of how to take care of the bag of goop. The paper promised that if I was diligent I could make some delicious Amish Friendship Bread and have enough goop to pass it on to a number of my friends.

I looked at the goop (ok it's technically a fermented leavening agent - like a sourdough starter) and thought about my good friend and neighbor who lovingly shared it with me. What I realized is that she is a neighbor and only a neighbor. We've lived near one another for probably 10 years and I know she loves cats. That's it.

The first few days of parenting the goop are pretty easy, you just mash the bag. It's easy enough to do this as you move it to wipe the kitchen counter after cooking a meal. Then one day I looked at the goop and realized that I had missed the day that I was supposed to do something to it to prolong it's life. I wasn't a day late. I was a week or more late.

I was an Amish Friendship Bread failure.

Fast forward to this week. My sister leaves me a ziploc bag full of goop and photocopied sheet of instructions of how to take care of the bag of goop. I was indignent.

I got her on the phone.

Turns out her good friend and neighbor (wait, only a neighbor) brought it to her. My sister is a little quicker than I am. She didn't wait for the step where it multiplies and you have to find unsuspecting victims friends to give it to, she just gave it to me.

So... today I buried the bag of goop in the trash can. This is it's memorial service.

Let's stop passing this stuff around.

Or at least change the title on the instruction sheet...

Buffalo Chicken Enchiladas

I found this recipe for Buffalo Chicken Enchiladas. I love the flavor of Buffalo Chicken Wings, but don't like wings. They are messy and fatty. A fast food place we go to sometimes offers a Buffalo Chicken Sauce for dipping chicken strips. It's great. I saw this recipe and thought I might be on to another variation.

I made it for a friends 40th birthday celebration and they were quite good. Of course I made changes. Here's my recipe...

Buffalo Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients:

3 cups cubed cooked chicken breast
3/4 cup Frank's Red Hot Sauce

flour tortillas

1 can cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
2 T. dried onion
1 t. dried parsley
3/4 t. ground black pepper
1 t. garlic salt
1/4 t. onion powder
2 pinches dried thyme
1/2 t. dill weed

1 c. shredded 2% sharp cheddar cheese (more if desired)
1/2 c. blue cheese crumbles (more if desired)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven 375F
2. Toss chicken with hot sauce in a bowl and set aside.
3. Mix soup, sour cream, herbs and spices in a bowl until smooth and incorporated.
4. Spray a 9x13 casserole dish with cooking spray.
5. Place tortilla in the bottom of the casserole.
6. Spread each tortilla with about 1 T of the soup mixture and then chicken.
7. Roll as enchilada.
8. Repeat until pan is full and filling is used up.
9. Spread remaining soup mixture on top of enchiladas.
10. Cover with foil.
11. Bake for 35-40 minutes until hot.
12. Remove foil. Top with shredded cheddar cheese.
13. Bake 5 more minutes.
14. Top with blue cheese crumbles before serving.

Update! I baked the second pan tonight. I watched the time better and they still came out a bit drier than I'd prefer. Next time I make them, I'm going to try adding a cup of milk to the soup/sour cream mixture before pouring it over the top. I'll let you know how it goes.

I can blog about it now...

A few weeks ago I was expecting my quilting friends. My goal was to entertain from my pantry. I put together a nice spread... BBQ meatballs, stuffed eggs and hummus with veggies. Dessert was a team effort. Surferman and Grom baked the cake and I put it together. It was a lucious lemon icebox cake. I'm sure it was delicious. It was beautiful. I had found some little lemon tissue paper decorations. I was proud.

How does the saying go? Pride goes before a fall...

As I was putting the cake back in the fridge, it slipped right off the cake stand. SPLAT!

Fortunately there were some Girl Scout Cookies in the pantry. And Surferman cleaned it up for me. Surferman rocks!

Make Your Own Laundry Soap

Laundry Corner, originally uploaded by house_n_baby.

This recipe is for a dry powdered version.

Mix together:
1 bar Fels Naptha Soap - grated
4 cups washing soda
2 cups borax
essential oil (lavendar, tea tree, or your choice)

Store in an air tight container.

Use 1 T in regular loads. 2 T in dirty loads.

Recipe Box Swap - Fun Foods

Randi at "I have to say..." hosts a monthly recipe swap. I'm joining in this month. Here's how she describes February's theme....

This month's theme is "Fun Foods". You know those foods, you don't make often, but they are staples in your family's menu just because they are fun. Fun foods are usually sticky, salty, sugary or fattening, and we all love them!

Bop over to her blog for more Fun Food recipes. Here's mine...

I've posted these before, but they really fit the bill for Fun Food.

Robin's Top Secret World's Best Brownies

Ingredients
1 box brownie mix - the cheapest box on the shelf, tastes best if bought on sale
ingredients for above box of brownies

1 can chocolate frosting

Directions
Follow the directions on the brownie mix package. Bake the brownies as directed for the shortest time recommended. Set a timer and do not let them cook a moment more.

While the brownies are still hot... Microwave the can of frosting in 30 second bursts until the frosting is smooth and melted. Usually about 1 minute.

Pour half of the frosting onto the warm brownies. Tilt the pan to cover the corners and edges with frosting.

Let cool before serving.

Ooey, Gooey, Yummy.

The Bane of My Existence

I thought she might offer to come and do my laundry. Unfortunately (and fortunately) Beth at My Simpler Life just offers some great tips.

If only she had linked back to my blog...

Cookbook, Shmookbook.

There are notes like these all over my kitchen. The scratches of a woman who doesn't want to print the recipe she found on the internet. I write just what I need to remember - the ingredients and measurements. The directions are instinct I guess.

I'll find the slips of paper weeks later and sometimes I'm perplexed as to what it could've created. With the internet, I don't have a lot of use for cookbooks. I like to check them out of the library, but I rarely purchase them anymore.

Recipe Sources:

1) Blogs - I read blogs through Bloglines. (If you haven't tried this reader, you should. It lets you gather all of your favorite blogs in one place. It lets you know when new entries have been added. It's the best). With Bloglines, I'm able to email recipes that I might want to try someday to myself. I can search my in box for words like, "kale" (I'm always looking for a good kale recipe) or "bread" and can find things pretty quick.

2) All Recipes - This is my go to site when I'm looking for a recipe. The general search is pretty good. But really great is their ingredient search that lets you put in items you have on hand and it'll find a recipe for you that includes them. It's great for cleaning out the fridge or using the things in your pantry. Most of the recipes are rated and reviewed. It's very helpful to find out what works and what doesn't work with a recipe. Some of the reviews are a crack up... "I changed this and I added that and I did this different too and this recipe really stinks"... umm... maybe it stunk because you didn't follow the recipe?

3) Epicurious - I head to Epicurious when I have a little more time to cook or am looking for something a touch more gourmet. It has ratings and reviews also; the cooks are snootier. The advanced search is helpful, but not as good as All Recipes.

4) Google - When all else fails, Google will find it.

5) Cookbooks - I do have a couple of favorites.

• The Joy Of Cooking - I love the edition from the early 60s. I think it's 1963. Subsequent editions aren't quite as good. It's a great book to learn cooking basics. I was stoked to find one at Gigi's during the clean out. Now I can get rid of the one that is duct taped together.
• The Passionate Vegetarian by Crescent Dragonwagon - I think of it as the vegetarian version of The Joy of Cooking. Great book.
• Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. I waited just under a year to get this from my public library. It is so packed full of info, I'm going to have to buy it. Maybe it'll be my Valentine's Day present.

What are your favorite cooking websites? cook books? Anyone have a great vegetarian / vegan resource?

Chicken Spaghettini

I was taking a meal to a friend who had surgery. Hmmm... what to cook? I looked to my pantry and Allrecipes.com. They have a great feature where you can put enter ingredients you want to use and it finds all the recipes they have that include those recipes.

I wanted to use cooked chicken. The last time Albertson's had an 8 hour sale, chicken breast was a steal. I bought 10 pounds. Surferman grilled them up. They are in the freezer waiting to be made into quick meals.

I found a recipe for Spaghettini Chicken . After reading the reviews (another great feature of Allrecipes.com), I made some modifications. It was delicious and a definite keeper.

Here's my recipe...

Chicken Spaghettini (pretty original eh?)

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 cups chicken broth or 6 cups chicken base or 6 cups chicken bouillon
1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style diced tomatoes (or such, or add italian seasoning to diced tomatoes)
1 teaspoon dried basil, crumbled
salt and pepper to taste
12 ounces thin spaghetti
2 cups diced, cooked chicken breast meat
1/2 bag fresh spinach leaves

Grated Parmesan cheese (garnish)

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat; saute onion and garlic until onion is translucent.
2. Stir in broth and tomatoes; sprinkle basil into sauce. Simmer for 15 minutes over medium-low heat.
3. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until cooked as desired.
4. Add cooked chicken to heat through; stir in spinach just before serving to cook for 2 to 3 minutes.
5. Serve in bowls. Garnish by sprinkling with Parmesan cheese.

Complete the meals with Salad and French Bread.

School Room FINISHED!

Way back when, I wrote about our new school room. Go there and you can see some "before" photos.

It's been done for a while, but I haven't had a chance to post the "after" pictures. I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Surferman was very helpful and had to get into the shots.
We put a shelf along the wall above the door.
It's great storage for things Grom needs to grow into.
I get great deals at garage sales and have some fun stuff for later.

Here's our reading chair and art gallery.

Bookshelf

Bookshelf (close up)
All labeled and sorted.
We have a basket for books to be reshelved.

The view of our back deck.
ABC clings decorate the door.

Toy bins.
So far it's working to have toys in here.

Storage

Storage

Storage

Storage!

This weeks stuff

Bulletin Board and Work Table

White Board

Grom's learning station

FLOR carpet.

Besides paint and the FLOR carpet, the only thing I purchased for the room is a plastic table from Costco. Our stimulus check is (mostly) in the bank.

I pray that lots of learning, fun and memories happen in this space.