Wordless Wednesday : My Solace

Crock Pot Lattes

I've abused used my crock pot to cook up various meals, mainly for dinner, but I'm slowly (pun not intended, maybe) finding out other uses for my slow cooker. This past winter, that is still lingering in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I discovered a great slow cooker site called A Year of Slow Cooking and to my delight found a recipe for Pumpkin Lattes!
I didn't have all the ingredient on hand and also substituted milk with soy milk and they still turned out great. The advantage of making it in the crock pot was that I was able to multitask on chores and not have to worry about overcooking the delicious concoction. I'm not a heavy coffee drinker but sometimes just the aroma of freshly brewed coffee is enough to awaken my senses on a groggy morning. Smelling the pumpkin and coffee merging into one made doing chores in the kitchen, and close by living room, seem not so bad :)
During my on-going spring cleaning of my kitchen ,before my full time job begins, I'm hoping in the depths of my cupboards that I will find a forgotten can of pumpkin from holidays past and give it a warm makeover.

You can find the recipes for the Pumpkin Lattes here.

Delicious Almost Garbage

I hit the clearance bins at stores long before I was unemployed but I used to shy away from the reduced produce. Til my beloved vegetable was 54cents for a huge bunch I just had to rescue it from certain doom aka garbage bin.
I brought the still delicious kale home and cut off some tips that were beginning to turn yellow. The leaves themselves were still hearty so I wasn't worried about the taste (was fine.) I threw some jasmine rice that I had on hand in my rice cooker and began to think of how to prep the kale for lunch.
Staring in my fridge I noticed I had a little bit of marinated artichokes left, that magically disappeared when I opened the jar, and then it hit me in the face: Use the left over marinate for the kale!
I threw the kale and marinate in a pan and sauteed it and had it over a nice bowl of rice that I sprinkled with rice vinegar *my new crack.
It is obvious that with produce that's marked down its best to use it that day for meals but I didn't give much thought to my own "reduced" section in my fridge. Items that were ready to be tossed ,thinking they served their purpose, are now going to be given a second look to see if I can give them one last meal idea before its too late ( and by late I mean expiration dates.)
I make it a habit to go through my fridge once a week, every garbage night on my street, and toss any items that spoiled or expired. I think this week I will stop to see what twists I can use to break the monotony of some of my go-to dishes.

Wordless Wednesday

Gardening Cheats!

This year I am determined to have a kick butt garden! So much so that I got a few starter kits for herbs and flowers currently taking over window ledges and cramped living room end tables. I remember seeing the Buzzy brand grow kits at Target last year and was kinda meh about them but this year I'm giving them a shot, especially since it was only $1 for the chives kit.

The kits come with a little plastic pot, a soil pelt, and of course a packet of seeds.

The only thing to add is some water to the soil pellet and then tada magically enough soil for the plastic pot is created!

It is mildly amusing to see the hockey puck sized soil pellet soak up the water and grow in size. After I took the above picture it grew taller than the bowl and naturally flew over :)
I did plan on getting some plastic pots at the Dollar Tree along with some herb seeds but for what I would have paid to make a kit at home for one herb it was much more cost efficient to get the kit from Target. I have a few seeds left over that I am going to save for my garden. Now the question that remains is whether it will actually grow or not.

Drop It Like It's Hot: Egg Drop Soup!

I make this simple soup whenever I get a craving for chinese food but don't have the funds to get takeout (curse you unemployment.) I've heard of some people doctoring it up with some freshly grated ginger or soy sauce but I omit them since I usually don't have ginger on hand and I'm not to crazy about adding sodium to dishes.

1 quart chicken brooth

1 egg *beaten well

Bring chicken broth to a boil. Remove from heat. Slowly stir in the egg and let cook for an additional minute. That's it! I like to use a whisk when stirring in the egg to create smaller ribbons but you can also stir it in with a fork. Sometimes I'll throw in a handful of egg noodles since they take about 5 minutes to cook up.

Chicken Pot Pie Without the Pie

I was going to snap a picture on my craptastic tmobile phone but when I made this the other night it disappeared!
I like pot pie but I didn't want to mess around with making a dough from scratch so I grabbed what I already had on hand and made pie-less version :)
I chopped up a few carrots, 2-3 potatoes, and grabbed a handful of frozen peas I had in my freezer waiting to be used. I buy chicken tenders in bulk, and divide and freeze in family meal portioned bags, so I pulled out a bag and cut those suckers up in bite size pieces. I cracked open a can of cream of chicken and combined everything in a random casserole dish. I baked it at 350 degrees for at least 30 minutes.
The cream of chicken soup really cooked down to a nice thick goodness of flavor heaven, next time I may use two cans but I only had one in my lazy susan, that girl needs to get her act together and stock up more often! :)
This would be great to try in the crock pot too. With the temps finally warming up in Scranton I plan to be digging up my yard and prepping for my veggie garden so I will be abusing I mean utilizing my crock pot so I can stay outdoors and not worry about dinner that night. 

I Wanna (Never) Go to Friendlys!!

Since I'm unemployed its rare for me to eat at a restaurant but I went buck wild and got breakfast today at Friend-lies after taking my friend to an interview.

Lately I've been trying to master the art of omelets, specifically the tri-fold that Ina Garten created so effortlessly!, and I figured it would be safe to get that for breakfast. I cut out soda to a bare minimum , only occasionally drinking the new Sierra Mist, and all greasy food except for monthly runs to a local pizza shop (Maronis.) Anyways, I get my plate and low and behold it has a slab of grease on the side.

I don't remember ordering grease with my omelet. Or did I?

The table right next to mine ordered extra sides of sausages, bacon, and probably deep fried lard so I think some of the grease from their orders slimed its way on to my plate.

It wasn't til I got home after running around all day that I got to take a good look in the mirror at myself. I broke out horribly. After slathering on a face mask and drinking 32 ounces of water I feel somewhat better, somewhat. I don't have any interviews lined up this week but I want to keep my face for when I do. Tomorrow for lunch I plan on steaming up some kale and having it over a nice clean bowl of rice. I believe the power of kale will help ease the flash backs of what my skin looked like in high school.

Fake? Outs

Hungry Girl Fake Outs

One of the reasons I keep my digital cable, other than a parental unit that shudders at the though of life without it, is for the Cooking Channel. Unlike the Food Network there are several shows that don't involve sticks of butter being deep fried in pork fat and served on a platter.
I've heard of, and devoured, kale chips before as a substitute for potato chips so it was refreshing to see them featured on an episode of Hungry Girl for a "fake" out. Some of her recipe swaps include using artificial ingredients which I am trying to avoid using. 

How to make kale chips:

Spray or toss kale in olive oil
Spread on a cookie sheet
Bake at 350 degrees for ten minutes

Bam! That's it. I like to sprinkle a touch of salt on mine before popping them in the oven. I know that was an exhausting list of ingredients and steps but I think its worth trying at least once.

Mmm Delicious Kale

My facebook status may be single but the truth is my heart belongs to someone dear to me, kale. Whether baked, boiled, steamed, and flung delicately into soups its been my favorite vegetable this past winter/fall.
Not sure how this vegetable would fair growing in PA but I am tempted to get some seeds and try it out this summer.