Tortillas

One of the fascinating things I find about cooking dishes from different cultures is that there is always some variation of bread - some combination of flour, water, and heat.

And bread is always good.

Now that I'm pretty much a full resident of southern California, it was time I made tortillas.


Beautiful, no?

I'm glad I tried it. Probably wouldn't try it again. They're a lot of effort, especially if you don't have a press to get them really, really thin. And they're so cheap and tasty from the store, why mess with success?


Slow cooker salsa chicken. Always a win.

Oven Fries

I try, very hard actually, to eat well. Stick to healthy food, more vegetables than cookies, easy on the meat and carbs.

But we went to BJ's. I had chili, which was good, but other people had fries. French fries!! Rolled in trans fats and dipped in MSG!

As soon as we walked in the door I started chopping potatoes, without any real direction.

I'll guess I cooked these until crispy-looking at 350 degrees. With Lawry's salt and ketchup.


Why don't I make these more often?

Red Lobster Biscuits

Don't laugh.

You've been to Red Lobster. You know these biscuits are probably the very best part of a trip there. Actually, Red Lobster is one of my family's places. There aren't a lot of places to get good seafood there - we're so spoiled here on the coast! And I will not eat something out of the Mississippi River. Just trust me.

Plus, I have a special memory from a dinner there. My grandmother, who by the way is one of the coolest people ever, told me to try one of her crab legs. And I did, even though I wasn't a seafood-eater at all. Thus started an expensive habit.

Anyway, recipes kept popping up everywhere. To the point that I finally gave in.


And, sadly, these didn't cut it for me. But I'm pretty sure it was my fault. I bought this "heart smart" Bisquick the last time, and I don't think it's as good as the real thing. And then I didn't have any oregano (I know!!), so I substituted parsley. Fail, guys. Fail.

I'd try again, and pay better attention to the recipe. But I'll stick to my California seafood.

Baked Potato Eggs

Why didn't we think of this before? I agree. Why didn't we think of this before??

Why baking a potato, hollowing it out, and cracking an egg inside it was suddenly the talk of the day, I'll never know. Such is the case with all the blogs I read. They all seem to get the same brilliant ideas at the same time.

Think of these as a kind of twice baked potato, without the mashed potato filling. I used a recipe from Real Simple, but there's a lot of opportunity here.

Have you ever noticed how enormous the regular white potatoes are? Is that just my neighborhood? I swear each one itself weighs a pound.

Step 1: Bake potato.

Step 2: Hollow out, insert egg. Be careful, and hollow out as much as you can. They're delicate. I don't know about you, but I always buy extra large eggs. No reason.


Step 3: Add cheese. Everything is better with cheese.



They ended up being kind of a lot of work, because it takes a long time to bake a potato and you almost have to bake it twice. I know you can make baked potatoes in the microwave, and I wouldn't blame you for trying it. On the other hand, they keep well, so you could always make a big bunch and refrigerate or freeze them. A half of one of those giant potatoes? Perfect for a relatively healthy lunch (if not smothered in cheeeeeeeese).

Roasted Garlic & Potato Soup

January is, without a doubt, diet month.

I'm not about to go on a diet. But I like light soups, and I like potatoes, and garlic. I won't begrudge a recipe for being moderately healthy, either.

There is a Nordstrom's down the street. No clue if it has a cafe. But if it did, and they were serving roasted garlic and potato soup, I might be down for stopping in.


One of the nice things about soup is that they can be as low involvement as you want them to be. Yes, chopping potatoes is sort of time consuming. But using pre-chopped garlic and dehydrated onion flakes really gets things going fast.

OK, I'm a little embarrassed that I admitted to use onion flakes. But they were on sale. In a really big tub. Not. helping.

I didn't have any thyme. Or a rind of parmesan. Or chives. So between that and the onion flakes, I have a pretty lame kitchen. I did have some parsley to garnish the top. And after hearing all kinds of horrors about people putting hot soup into their blender and it exploding everywhere, I'm really happy to have an immersion blender too!

This really was as good as the author expounds. It's light and not overly garlicky, even though there's a lot to it.

Nope, no Nordstrom's cafe at my local mall. They don't post prices on their menu though, so it's probably just as well.

Chicken & Ratatouille Dinner

There you have it. That's lemon pepper seasoning on the chicken, and the ratatouille recipe was actually one where you boil it in a pot. Baked is way better, but the pot is quicker.

Yay winter squash!

Green Bean Casserole

This Thanksgiving, I was set on making green bean casserole. Yes, the cliche green bean casserole; the reason for French fried onion and cream of mushroom soup's existence. I'm not even really a fan of green beans or green bean casserole. I think what I was really craving this particular Thanksgiving was tradition, since my past few holidays have been so untraditional.

I actually made it twice; the first for Thanksgiving, and the second for a Christmas party just a couple of weeks later.

For Thanksgiving, I added bacon because I was feeling punchy. Also, I used cream of broccoli soup instead of cream of mushroom. First, because we didn't have any cream of mushroom soup on hand. Second, because my husband hates mushrooms, and I doubt we'll ever have any on hand. I don't particularly hate mushrooms, but they're on the list of "foods that I want to like, but just don't, so it's justified." It's a short list.


The bacon-version went over well.

For the Christmas party, I wanted something different. Not that I have a particular aversion to making the same thing twice, or that I like to mess with success. I think I was just craving cheese.

So the second time, I made it with broccoli cheese soup. Despite not particularly liking green beans, these both turned out really well. Since it was a fairly large party, I made two batches (and there wasn't much left!). Guess everyone else was craving some comfort food this year, too.

Pizzoccheri II

I had a whole bag of egg noodles and some parmesan, or grana padano, (I forget which) from Trader Joe's, on hand. Since I was making a store run anyway, I picked up a head of cabbage for Pizzoccheri round two. And again, this cleaned out my kitchen just a little more.

Special note: as much as I hate Trader Joe's, they have an amazing yet reasonably priced cheese selection. Sigh.

Our giant bag of potatoes was long gone, but I almost preferred it without the extra carbs. I also added bacon, since bacon is like pizzoccheri's long lost soulmate.

I can see this becoming quite the staple in our household, with all kinds of variation. Egg? Bell peppers? Chicken or turkey?