Cooking Baking Eating

Lately our lives have been one adventure after another. Not only have we been dealing with our day to day lives and everything that usually comes with it, but we made a hugely insane (but fantastic) decision to move ourselves out of the Pacific Northwest and back to sunny Southern California!

Seriously.

We made the “decision” to move early in the year, and I say that with quotation marks because we made a decision but I honestly didn’t think it would work out. There have been so many “decisions” that we’ve made over the years but they never panned out. But as I type this blog in warm and sunny California I would say it panned out!

We made it happen, threw all of our belongings into a moving truck and storage container with a hope and a prayer that everything will work out.

It’s been a bit of an adjustment for the both of us since 95% of our belongings are in storage and we are living with a very generous family member. I’m still trying to learn where she keeps everything in the kitchen, and there are so many of my kitchen things I would love to break out but there is either not enough room in the kitchen for my huge amount of kitchen crap, or I can’t find it because its buried in the abyss of the storage unit..

Mostly it’s all buried. Always an adventure. Read more »

I trust everyone had a very happy and healthy Thanksgiving this year. Since we celebrated Thanksgiving the weekend before, I really wasn’t in that big of a hurry to make any turkey for ourselves. Our dinner with friends was so delicious and I was almost turkey’ed out, but I did buy my own turkey because leftovers are just delicious and we needed those around for a while.

We did the obligatory calls to family on the holiday, but in the end just sat around and did our own thing. It was quite relaxing. The turkey I bought was still mostly frozen, so we decided to wait until Saturday to make turkey. We are such rebels.

One thing I hate about dealing with the turkey is… well dealing with the stupid turkey. I almost always misjudge the cooking times and have a habit of under cooking the bird. That kind of puts a damper on your holiday plans, and generally put me in a really bad mood for the dinner.

So last year I decided that I didn’t want to make the whole turkey, instead I lopped off the breast meat and legs and just cooked those. It drastically cut down on the cooking time and it turned out delicious!

This year I decided to do the same.
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I have decided that the slow cooker is not only a great kitchen appliance, it is also an excellent way to terrorize your husband. Especially if he works from home like mine does most of the time.

I had a wild hankering for fajitas the other day and decided I should find a recipe for the slow cooker. I got everything ready early in the morning before I went to work and had my husband put it on the slow cooker in the afternoon. By the time he left for his meeting in the afternoon he was salivating over the smells this chicken was giving off.

This chicken is to die for.

To. Die. For.

And its easy!
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Balsamic vinegar is one of my favorite things that I really don’t know what to do with half the time. It has the greatest sweet and tangy flavor to it that is fantastic when you dip garlic bread in it.

There is only one main dish I’ve ever had made with balsamic in the actual main dish and as a main flavor. It was someone in college who decided to make us all dinner, and it was awesome. I’ve been trying to figure out how he made it so tasty but I didn’t know how to cook then.

So now I’ve made my own version of it and its pretty darn good. Simple but very tasty.

I also love cooking this in my glass pan. Sometimes I just want to do something different and cook in glass. It wont sear very well but that’s not too much of a problem when I make this dish since I’m just trying to infuse the chicken with the balsamic flavor.

I tend to use a lot of balsamic, mostly because of how I cook this in the pan it gets slightly watered down from the chicken and steam. My house has been really steamy the last few times I’ve cooked, I guess its just been cold in here?

Cooking the chicken slowly also helps the acidic vinegar to really infuse into the chicken and keep it tender. I mostly serve this over pasta, but it would also be good over mashed potatoes. I’m one of those weird ones that likes balsamic drizzled on real mashed potatoes.

I add tomatoes near the end, so that they don’t break down horribly and keep their texture. This time I didn’t cook them at all since they were going in the microwave later and will end up cooking extra there.

I reserve the sauce and juices from the chicken to reduce into a nice and thicker sauce. The balsamic reduces really nicely and I like to add another big splash of vinegar as its reducing to give it an even stronger flavor.

I don’t think there is anything much better than reduced balsamic on tomatoes, it really is the best thing ever.

Top with mozzarella cheese and everything will be right in the world. Mushrooms added with the chicken also makes a great addition and gives it a little more “meat” to it.
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Sometimes I get a hankering for something and decide that I need to make it. Usually what I want to make I actually haven’t eaten before. Like meatballs. Or stuffed bell pepper.

So I tried making a stuffed bell pepper dish. It was alright, nothing to write home about. But I then realized that I really didn’t like the fact that I had to cut it with a knife and fork for some reason. I liked the slightly crunchy bell pepper, and the stuffing. I just didn’t like the way it was made.

So I decided to un-stuff them.

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This sandwich was the whole reason behind making the cranberry sauce a few weeks ago.

I think it has something to do with the fact that now my random craving/want has changed from chocolate. Now, its cream cheese. It’s really random to have that switch, but I’ve done worse.

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There are many things that I don’t ever really remember eating until I met my husband. It’s not because he had pushed them on me, more along the lines that I had never eaten them growing up. Like mac and cheese, chicken and sour cream enchiladas, banana pancakes… I had never eaten or even thought of trying these things until he was around. Now I make them and LOVE them.

Another thing I never had very often while growing up was meatballs. The only time I ever got them was when we would go to a restaurant in Southern California and they had appetizers in their waiting area of meatballs and hand made potato chips. I also decided to change up the normal recipe and go for something slightly healthier: ground turkey. The one problem with the turkey is that it can get dried out easily, so you have to make sure there is enough moisture in the meatballs to keep a good texture.

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My husband is convinced that I’m really not half Scot and half Mutt. He’s convinced that I’m actually half Mexican and Italian, mostly because those are two of my favorite types of cuisine to cook. I think he would have added some sort of reference to baking, but there isn’t a cultural cuisine that is only baking (not that I know of at least).

I love making Mexican food, but its mostly the Americanized Mexican Bastardization that I’m good at. Burritos, tacos, quesadillas, nachos, enchiladas with red sauce… Anything with chips or in a tortilla is fine with me. But there was one thing I hadn’t made yet for my husband…
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