hmmm... What to show you....

I have two new things I've done recently, plus all my crafty stuff, and I was trying to decide what to show everyone.... I guess I'll show you Samosas first. :) and next time I'll talk about my Tiramisu cupcakes :D If I remember to post again soon.... lol :)

(Wow, my last post is from August?? I'm super lame...)

So, don't know samosas?? Where have you BEEN??? They are a wonderful little deep fried appetizer like item that is so amazing and delicious and filled with potatoes, peas, onions and all sorts of Indian spices, yum!

I actually managed to make mine a little healthier too by baking them! WHAT?

First you make the filling... I boiled cut up potatoes until they were soft, and in a pan sauteed in oil onions, curry powder, and garam masala, garlic and ginger and maybe something else, I can't remember, and then I drained the potatoes, mashed them and added the spice mixture, a little lemon juice, and frozen peas...

Then I made the wrapper, which was basically whole wheat pie dough, easy enough, flour, butter/oil, baking powder, a little water to bind it, and then you roll it out into little circles, which if you want to get fancy you can do it like real Indians do and make it into these cute little triangle purses, nope, too lazy... I just rolled it into circles, put a couple tablespoons of filling in it, a little water on the edge to make sure the pastry sticks together, press it, put them all on a baking sheet and baked them until the outside was browned. :D

Rollin' rollin' rollin' dough

My filling :) Which I believe also had Cilantro... Makes it tastier..

                                                                    Filling.....

                                                   This is before baking...

Now, also....

I made a cilantro/mint chutney...

Blend mint, cilantro, garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper.... It makes a LOVELY dipping sauce :)

Now, my recipe was partially made up/partially from www.foodnetwork.com

I would advice you to find a recipe on Food Network or some other online cooking source... Because mine is VERY non-exact...

yum...

I'm hungry now.

Paninis! :D

I have never made a panini before...
Until a few days ago that is... ;)
This is truly one of the most delicious sandwiches I've ever eaten, and certainly the most delicious I've ever made! It is actually a WW (weight watchers) recipe so I was fairly skeptical, but it was awesome.

It goes as follows:

*Using a grill pan (or you can probably roast these in the oven) grill bell peppers, zucchini, yellow squash, and eggplant. (or substitute your favorite veggies that you like grilling) I just seasoned them with salt and pepper and used an olive oil spray to grill them.
*In a small bowl mix together:
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp quality extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic glove minced
*Use a ciabatta bread roll (or whatever favorite roll you have, it should be a hearty bread those, nothing flimsy!) and brush vinegar/olive oil mixture on both sides of bread, fill with veggies, and a slice or two of Swiss/provolone/mozzarella cheese (I used light Swiss), add fresh tomato slices and whole basil leaves on top of the cheese, then place in grill pan and then put something REALLY heavy on it, I used a heavy pan, you could also use your husband depending on how annoying he's being... Also, I've seen this on a cooking show, get a regular old brick and wrap in aluminum foil so it's food safe and place on top of sandwich. The point is to get a nice, flat-ish sandwich with a crispy outside, the cheese melted, and delicious. Turn the sandwich over to get the other side cooked, this can be a little difficult considering ingredients can fall out, ultimately you are "supposed to" take some of the inside of the roll out, but then you're snacking on little pieces of the inside of the bread, so I just smashed it down a little and left it in.

The finished product....

Some of what I used in my sandwiches :D :D :D *AND GREW MYSELF!*

Now, you can also add pesto to these sandwiches or sun dried tomatoes, or things of that nature, it would only make it even better than it already is.... :)

(Just a note to any weight watchers peeps: it's 7 points plus a sandwich using 1 slice light Swiss cheese, and I using Pam to grill veggies, I used an olive oil sprayer, which using very small amounts is like Pam I believe...)

Just some pictures :)

Here are a few pics of the cakes I've decorated.... :)

Adventures in Cupcakeland

Obviously, I haven't been as bored as I was earlier this summer, I've been playing softball (although that's coming to an end) and just plain being busy doing stuff... But, I've taken time to take a cake decorating class graduating with honors (after just 4 weeks!) ;) and going to continue onto class 2, by then I'll have that bachelor's degree. ;D

Anyway, for my dear bratty brother Nils' birthday party I made cupcakes, they were inspired by the Nils himself, since he is a fan of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I made peanut butter and jelly cupcakes. :D They are SUPER easy, take your favorite yellow cake recipe (that's NOT from a box! if possible anyway...) and use a piping tip to pipe seedless jam of your choice in the middle (I chose strawberry), then top with peanut butter frosting which is just:

1/2 cup butter
1 cup creamy peanut butter (you can use crunchy if just spreading, I put mine in a bag with a tip so it would clog the tip if I used crunchy)
8 oz cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar

Cream together until smooth and fluffy, and this does make a SUPER fluffy, creamy, decadent frosting... :D

yum. yum. yum. yum. :D :D :D :D

More Independence Day Foods...

This is what dinner consisted of.... ;)

Are you hungry yet???

Hope ya'll had a Happy Independence Day!!! <3

Ice cream adventures...

We celebrate every holiday with food, if you don't, I'm sorry, you're either terrible people or a family of anorexics. ;)

It was Independence day yesterday and our menu consisted of:

(vegetarian) Corn dogs
Potato Salad
Corn on the cob
Grilled eggplant and zucchini
Vanilla ice cream
and
Brownies

I actually used a weight watchers recipe for the brownies, and even cut out sugar since there were equal parts sugar and flour, yeah, because THAT'S healthy!

My vanilla ice cream was from scratch, the recipe is originally from Better Homes and Gardens, but I altered it a little...

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream:

2 1/2 cups fat free half and half
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract (the REAL stuff or I'll break your kneecaps!!!)
and
1 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Freeze according to manufacturers directions, blah blah blah.

Oh, that IS if your ice cream maker motor doesn't go out before you start making ice cream!!!!!
Which sadly I noticed once everything was poured into the ice cream maker, the rock salt and ice packed around it and I just kept hearing "whir. whir. whir." of a sad little ice cream maker that wasn't going...

Now, Aaron, being an auto body tech/mechanic took a look at it and said something to the effect of, it's dead. But, being the awesome, smart person that he is, and obviously patient too, brought a drill in, attached it to the top of the ice cream maker, and sat there for an hour holding the drill until the ice cream was stirred properly and starting to freeze. We made the best of it and watched "The Next Food Network Star" while waiting...

It all worked out in the end...

Now it's time to buy another ice cream maker. :D

(or a soft serve machine!!!) LOL ;D

Obviously, VERY exciting work :D

Thai Goodness....

Tonight on the dinner Menu:
Thai Curry
Brown Rice
Tofu "Steaks"

AHHHHH!!!

If there was ONE type of cuisine that I could go in and bother the cooks and apprentice under them, it would be Thai food. Now, I can make it pretty well, I wish it tasted more like restaurant Thai food though. It was pretty amazing. I need to go to one of those lovely Asian stores and get me some more ingredients, especially for Thai fresh rolls, which I will feature at a later time. ;)

The ingredients for the curry go as follows:
Yellow curry paste
oil
onions
garlic
ginger (FRESH!!!)
carrots
yellow zucchini (that *I* grew!!!) :)
potatoes
broccoli
and
coconut milk
Plus a little fresh mint, cilantro, and basil in it, and a little basil garnish.

It was amazing deliciousness... :D Of course it leaves me wishing I had some coconut sticky rice topped with mango for dessert, although I've tried that before with some success and need the ACTUAL ingredients next time.

My tofu steaks I got from a Weight Watchers magazine, it's just tofu pressed between paper towels until a lot of the moisture is absorbed, then salt and pepper them and cook on a grill pan sprayed with Pam so they get those lovely grill marks. (Please remove the paper towels before cooking...)

My grill pans, one of the best presents I've received, besides my bike and my children. :D

A look at the amazingness.

BTW: Annalena LOVED it, and the tofu steaks, which kind of cracks me up because there's not much too them, and since it was the first time I had made them like this before I guess I'll have to do it again for her benefit, maybe with a bit more than salt and pepper next time. Zaylie and Kirsten liked it, not as much as Annalena who got seconds... :)

Caramel....

Try #1: So on Monday I decided to make caramel sauce. I have seen it made on cooking shows, and a recipe in particular looked good and fairly easy. This turned out to be a complete failure. Making any kind of candy product is always hard, but there's a fine point between good caramel and burnt caramel. First thing is you boil sugar and water together until the water is basically dissolved and the sugar turns golden, this is where failure probably most often occurs... Then when that's boiled down you turn off the heat and add heavy cream and butter and stir wildly until incorporated and beautiful. Well, I didn't let it caramelize enough, so I ended up with a sweet cream and butter sauce. Not cool. So I boiled it down until it became thick, well then when it cooled it got hard and crystallized. Sigh.

Try #2: To the rescue, brother Lars, the chef. We made the second batch together, with his advice we ended up with an amazing caramel sauce that was delicious. I ate it on ice cream yesterday morning. Yes, not the healthiest breakfast, but it was tasty.

Lesson learned: Ask Lars first.

I didn't bother taking pictures because the first batch made me so sad...

I'm okay now. :)

Cupcakes....

So, yesterday I committed an unpardonable sin.... I bought cake mix... I feel that cake mix is something the devil created so that we wouldn't ever learn how to bake and be truly creative and learn how to make a delicious cake. Maybe I'm over-reacting a little. I was lazy. Which probably 99% of the people who buy cake mix are, plus maybe cake is just a receptacle for frosting, I don't know... But I bought it, and made mini cupcakes with the girls today.

Now, the consolation is that I DID make my own frosting. Which is a truly SECRET recipe... So secret they post it on the back of powdered sugar boxes everywhere. I can't tell you which brand or it will spoil the secret. It is the BEST frosting recipe I've ever used. Ever. I'm not the best froster of cupcakes, usually it ends up looking like a pile of poo (which is why my chocolate cupcakes are nicknamed "poo cakes") which, despite the horrible name these cupcakes are eaten so quickly there are no leftovers no matter how large of a batch I make. :( sadness.

These are not diet friendly. No baked goods should be... And since they are mini cupcakes, I can eat more... ;)

You can thank my daughters for the lovely display of sprinkles. Crunch. Crunch.

Cure for Boredom...

I was on facebook one day asking for advice to cure boredom, well, okay, it was only yesterday that I asked, what is a cheap or free hobby that I could be doing?? (Oh yeah, BESIDES raising and homeschooling 3 children...) When my dear friend Tina suggested starting a blog chronicling the fact that my kids eat basically whatever I put in front of them while your kids are sitting there still crying over the fact that their canned spaghetti sauce has chunks. But whatever, so my kids are adventurous, and I love bragging about the fact that they'll eat Indian food for breakfast. There are things they don't like, sure, but they like trying new things.

So, this will be a chronicle of our eating adventures, me trying new recipes, maybe even posting a few, if you're lucky.

Of course this isn't without dilemma, I'm on weight watchers, I've lost 30 pounds (thank you very much!) and I have to not only make stuff to feed a hungry husband and small children, but me, who is on a "diet" of sorts.

So, here goes nothin'...

My Babies <3