Banana Bread

Low light photography should not be attempted while holding a baby. Camera shake ensues...

Chicken Pot Pie

I decided to go with a biscuit crust, but didn't make nearly enough dough. I should really start measuring things again instead of guessing.

Shortbread and Whole Roast Chicken

I made shortbread this morning. I made shortbread this afternoon. This is the afternoon batch. It's slightly less toasted-looking. LV had said the pseudo-Ranger Cookies were the best cookies he had ever had. But these were bordering on insanity they were so good. I was like, "Really? Because they melt in your mouth?" And I was joking, but he was serious. "Yes!" Who knew shortbread could be such a hit?

I roasted a little chicken for dinner. Rather than serve it with more potatoes like I have been doing, I made more biscuits. Between the cookies and the biscuits and the chicken, the oven was on pretty much all day. Which was nice because I had decided 58 degrees was plenty warm enough for opening all the windows.

Oh, and those things that look like pickles in the background... I put green squash in the bottom of the roasting pan with the chicken. Luckily I didn't put them all in there. They turned really mushy. I tried to bake them like fries later (again, more with the oven), but that didn't work well. So I served raw squash to Scrappy. I didn't think she'd be down with squishy squash.

Roast Chicken

This is roast chicken breast, penne, frozen chopped kale, and tomatoes. The chicken was still pretty frozen when I stuck it in the roasting pan (I stuck in the freezer after I brought it home from the store because I wasn't sure when I was actually going to do anything with it), which worked out really well. With the lid on, it created a nice little poultry sauna. I threw sliced a lemon in there and everything. It helped create a sauce so this didn't have to be as bland a meal as it could have been.

Muffins & Chocolate Chip Cookies

I wanted to make something for breakfast. No, not really. I wanted to eat freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, but that seemed an inappropriate thing to do with Scrappy around. To set a better example, I made oatmeal muffins with cinnamon streusel topping.

Then I made chocolate chip cookies. (You can tell these were from the last of hte batter because there are no chocolate chips visible.) I didn't give the oven enough time to cool down after the muffins. This batch is a lot crunchier than the previous round.

Cranberry Nut Bread

I'd been staring down the cupcakes for a few hours, looking for anything else to eat, when it hit me: I could make bread. LV and I were so excited for the bread (not just because it was something tasty from the oven but also because we needed it to finish baking so we could leave) that I completely forgot to take a picture until the next day (which seemed like two or three days later going on baby time). But here it is in all it's baked wonderfulness.

Chocolate on Chocolate

Those lemon-coconut bars taste like a combination of Trix cereal and coconut donuts, so the tray is almost gone now. I decided to use the last of the cake mixes—Devil's Food cake—to make cupcakes. Then I made my own butter cream frosting with hot cocoa mix (why look for unsweetened chocolate powder). Sadly, Scrappy will not be here for several days. I keep running through scenarios for how to package one of these cupcakes in order to get it to her without it being ruined. It could be quite the happy Valentine's Day to her.

Chicken Pot Pie and Lemon Cookie Bars

Hooray! I finally got to turn that leftover chicken into a pot pie. This is part of the chicken that was leftover from the last whole chicken I roasted. I added too many potatoes to my new and improved (and more filling) version, so there is still more chicken leftover. (Which is good because I'm kind of tired of peanut butter and jelly for lunch.)

"It looks like a pie," LV said. So, click click click. I took a picture to remember. The crust was really good this time. I think it was combination of giving it enough of enough baking time with better prep work.

Apparently Target had baking ingredients on sale. LV brought me one bag of chocolate chips two weeks ago. "Don't you want cookies every week?" I asked. I sent him back for more of anything the following week. He brought me coconut flakes. What can I do with coconut flakes... We had a box of lemon cake mix in the cabinet from when cake mix had gone on sale. I hunted around for a recipe that would tell me how to turn cake mix into cookie bars (luckily, I had been tempted by the peanut butter fudge bars on the side of the yellow cake mix box), and then mixed the coconut flakes with vanilla frosting. Scrappy thought it was delish. But she's not shy about complimenting her own cooking. This was the first time in forever that I had her bake with me. (Her and the baby and LV. It was a family affair.) I kind of like making cookies alone...

Leftover Pernil

I saw this picture in the hopper and thought, Didn't I already post the turkey? Oh, that's right. I used up more of the leftover cranberry BBQ sauce on leftover pernil and fresh egg noodles. ("Fresh" in the sense that I just boiled them. Not that I just rolled them out by hand. I haven't begun making pasta yet. There are too many things to try long before that.) Between the pernil and the BBQ sauce, there was a whole lot of flavor going on in this dish.

Spice Rubbed Turkey with Cranberry BBQ Sauce

Years ago, way back at the start of this blog, I flagged recipes in the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook that looked good. I never actually thought I'd make spice rubbed turkey breast, but I also never bothered to remove the flag. Then Key Foods put a 6.5 lb turkey breast on sale.

The cranberry bbq sauce was really good. I mean, the turkey turned out well, but... that cranberry sauce was super tasty. Scrappy wasn't a fan. Things like cider vinegar and hot sauce boiled with cranberry isn't really her thing. Oh well.

Extreme Close-Up

We ate the last batch of chocolate chip cookies in record time. Something about ingredients being on sale or maybe me thinking that if I stir them by hand instead of using an electric mixer (as I have been for the past three batches (and they seem to come out better when I mix by hand)) then that burns all the calories necessary to offset eating so many cookies... These are oatmeal scotchies.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mmm... Monday morning cookies. This time I added pecans.

Roast Chicken, Muffins, Mini Quiche

My parents came to visit. I made a chicken.

I also made mini quiche (much better when I didn't haphazardly add salt) and...

muffins for Sunday morning. (I was up *real* early on Saturday.) The muffins are oatmeal-cranberry-pecan. Because that's what was around...

Swedish Meatballs

These are more frozen IKEA meatballs, but the sauce is all homemade. And this time I gave it about 20 minutes. Soooo good. So much better than the last time I tried to make a sauce without using the real drippings. Maybe too much sauce, though.

Baby Food and BBQ Biscuits

I made a dozen biscuits, thinking I'd eat those during the week. But then dinnertime rolled around and I realized that I could use them for dinner again tonight. I don't know why (I don't think I've seen any TV chefs pushing the idea lately), but I was inspired to take the leftover pork roast and mix it with a chopped onion, some bottled BBQ sauce, some homemade BBQ sauce (ketchup, vinegar, brown sugar, dry mustard), and serve it hot over frozen vegetables. Yeah, frozen vegetables are my friend. Scrappy really liked it.

Meanwhile, I've decided the baby is ready to start learning to eat from a spoon. (The self-timer on this camera goes nuts flashing a red light on the subject, hence eye contact from baby.) I bought the rice cereal, but for now he's starting with milk on a spoon. It's not like he takes more than a few tastes.

Good Steak

When I picked up the London broil, I wasn't thinking, Mmm, this'll be good. I was looking more at the size. But oh my god it was so good compared to the beef we've been eating lately. So good. The biscuits, not so much. I thought I had left them in there long enough, but it wasn't the same as the last really good batch.

Pork Roast

I had made my first pot roast, so now it was time to embrace the pork roast. This time I included the potatoes in the dish while it baked. So good.

A Whole Chicken

I see whole chickens in the store or on some cooking segment and think I'd never make that. But then I finally bought one. I made a whole chicken.

Tacos

I had second half of a pack of ground beef in the freezer. None of the usual options sounded appetizing to me, so I decided to make tacos. That's imitation shredded cheese. It was fine in the tacos, but, when there aren't so many other foods going into your mouth at the same time, the "cheese" sticks to your teeth. Eek.

Bacon Wrapped New Year

When we invited LV's family to come over for brunch the day after Christmas, I thought I would make mini quiches and a ham and I don't know what else. They declined the offer, but I still wanted to try making mini quiches. So I made them on New Year's Eve (and added way too much salt). Luckily, one of the recipes I found online said that they freeze really well. The three of us weren't about to eat two dozen of these before midnight.

Mini quiches seemed appropriate because I wanted to try wrapping bacon around anything, and bacon and eggs go well together, right? So, I just had to decide what I was going to wrap the bacon around (after I found which store had bacon on sale). Apples became my answer. (Again, I have a lot of time to ponder life's mysteries...) Apples are cheap and they would give it that sweet-salty combo. And if that didn't work well enough, then there would always be mozzarella sticks... wrapped in bacon.

The heartburn was pretty extraordinary. But bacon wrapped goodies are still tasty the next day during your Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon.