Family Day, Beta Read,

Not being gainfully employed any more, I really don't like holidays. Never really know what to do with them. Couldn't go bowling, no exercise class, not really much of anything to do.

However, having been sent a book to proof by Susan Gourley-Kelley, I made a start on it and read quite a bit. It's a winner for me because it's a dragon story. I am always delighted to read dragon stories although, as I said to Susan, I prefer good dragons to bad ones. I have always like the ones on Pern in the books by Anne McCaffery who sadly is no longer with us. Her children have written some stories set on Pern since she died but they just don't have the same flavour somehow.

I couldn't make up my mind what to cook for supper so decided on macaroni and cheese in the Instant Pot. I then realised I didn't have enough cheese for the recipe I use. I hummed and haaed and then got some frozen cheese sauce out. I made the noodles the same way as before, but I then opened the lid and stirred in the defrosted cheese sauce. Worked a treat. Now I don't have any cheese sauce which I use for Cauliflower Cheese as well. I usually make up a pretty big batch of it, it keeps so well in the freezer.

Instant Pot Mac and Cheese

This macaroni and cheese is every family's favorite comfort food pasta recipe made easy in the

Instant Pot!  You can have creamy, mouthwatering, homemade mac and cheese for dinner in about 10 minutes!

8 oz Uncooked Elbow Macaroni
2 cups Chicken Broth
1 Tbs Butter
1 tsp Hot Pepper Sauce
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp Pepper
1/2 tsp Salt
1 cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1/2 cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
1/4 cup Shredded Parmesan Cheese
1/2 to 1 cup Milk

1. Add the uncooked macaroni, chicken broth, butter, hot sauce, garlic powder, pepper, and salt to the Instant Pot.

2. Place the lid on the pot and set to sealing.  Cook on manual function, high pressure for 5 minutes.  Then, do a quick release.

THIS IS WHERE YOU ADD THE CHEESE SAUCE

I assume you don't need a recipe for cheese sauce,there are dozens on the internet, just add a good quantity and stir it in to the cooked macaroni then enjoy.

Servings: 4

Have a great day
 

Weekend, Radio, Fear of Flying, Family Day,

Basically a quiet weekend with a bit of cooking thrown in. Saturday night I cooked pork chops - hadn't had any for a while. I can buy two pork tenderloins for less than two pork chops. I wanted them broiled but Matt always says they are too tough so I baked them in a sauce. Good, but not the same taste as broiled.

We had to switch radio stations because the local one was playing horrid stuff - to me anyway - and had fired at least one DJ who played my kind of music. Found another but this morning, Sunday, they are playing all kinds of weird stuff. I hope it's only one programme. We shall see. The rest of the day turned out OK.

My ex husband was afraid of flying and the guy in the office at our garage is terrified of it. I see British Airways are running a one day course on how to overcome your fear of flying. My first husband used to get blotto when he had to fly, but in the end the doctor gave him, what he called "happy pills" which enabled him to fly with confidence. Don't know what they were.

Like an idiot I was all prepped up to go bowling tomorrow (Monday) when I heard somebody on the radio mention Family Day. It had slipped my mind that the bowling alley will be closed as they are every year on this day and that it is a holiday. It is a holiday which has been introduced since we first came to Canada, it was celebrated into Ontario in 2012. Funny, I thought it was earlier than that, whilst we were in the States. It was first observed in Alberta in 1990. I knew it was President's Day tomorrow and had it in the back of my mind that it was a holiday here too but completely forgot it.

Just watched Sanditon and I am in a fever of anticipation as to whether Sidney Parker is going to ask Miss Hayward to marry him or not. If so, I am rather sorry for the other young man who is in love with her.

I love French Onion Soup but haven't made it in years. This is a different take on the usual recipe and sounds rather good.

Gratinée des Halles

Andrew Zimmern’s take on French onion soup—bright with sherry vinegar and thick with onions—is

a perfect, buttery version of the classic.

2 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
2 large onions, halved and thinly sliced (7 cups)
2 leeks, whites and light green parts only, thinly sliced
1 cup thinly sliced shallots (2 large)
Kosher salt
5 garlic cloves, minced
3 Tbs tomato paste
1 Tbs herbes de Provence
1 bay leaf
1 cup dry red wine
1/4 cup sherry vinegar
8 cups beef stock or low-sodium broth
Freshly ground pepper
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into chunks
12 baguette slices, cut 1/2 inch thick
4 oz Gruyère cheese, shredded (1 cup)
Finely chopped thyme, for garnish

1. In a large enameled cast-iron casserole, heat the olive oil. Add the onions, leeks, shallots and a generous pinch of salt and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until very tender and caramelized, 40 to 45 minutes; stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons of water if the onions look very dry.

2. Add the garlic, tomato paste, herbes de Provence and bay leaf to the casserole and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until fragrant and the mixture is glossy, about 3 minutes. Add the wine and vinegar and simmer over moderate heat, stirring, until reduced by half, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the stock and bring to a boil. Simmer over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until the soup is well flavored and reduced to 8 cups, about 45 minutes. Discard the bay leaf. Season the soup with salt and pepper and keep warm over very low heat.

3. Meanwhile, in a very large skillet, melt the butter. Add the baguette slices and cook over moderate heat, turning once, until golden and just crisp, about 2 minutes. Transfer the croutons to a plate.

4. Preheat the broiler and position the rack 8 inches from the heat. Arrange 6 heatproof bowls on a large rimmed baking sheet. Ladle the soup into the bowls and top with the croutons and cheese. Broil until the cheese is melted and browned in spots, 1 to 3 minutes. Sprinkle with thyme and serve.

Author: Andrew Zimmern
Source: Food and Wine

Author Notes
The onion soup can be refrigerated for up to 2 days. Reheat gently before topping with croutons and cheese.

Have a great holiday.
 

Saturday Bulimia, Snow, Family Day, Men's Figure Skating,

I have decided I a have Saturday night Bulimia!! Yes I was sick again - just sick this time, but it has left me with devastating muscle aches in my gut. I am feeling very sorry for myself today. I have no idea what is causing this but I am not a happy camper. I am not eating or drinking anything that I haven't eaten or drunk for years. I don't know why anything would suddenly decide to upset me. Maybe I will switch to bread and water on Saturdays! O course I am not doing this on purpose and bearing in mind how I feel right now, I don't know how anyone could.

It was supposed to snow last night and bearing in mind our exercise instructor has gone snow boarding, I hope it does so for his sake. However, we haven't seen a flake so far.

Tomorrow, being Family Day in Ontario, there is no bowling nor exercise class. Just as well, right now I don't think I could do either.

I finally caught some skating, men's singles. I didn't see the short programmes but did see most of the free skates. Nathan Chen from the States skated a wonderful programme, but unfortunately he had

screwed up so badly in the short programme that he didn't make it to the podium. The Japanese who won, Yuzuru Hanyu was trained by Brian Orser in Canada as was the Spaniard who got the bronze. Seems a bit screwed for a Canadian to train the skaters who beat our own contestants!! Brian Orser seems to be one of the few older skaters who hasn't gone bald. Not sure why but lots of them are now. Our Patrick Chen did a good programme  but didn't make it to  the podium. One guy I was particularly impressed with was the young man who skated for Israel, Alexei Bychenko. He was originally from the Ukraine but Israel invited him to skate for them and he accepted. He skated an excellent programme.

For supper Sunday night we had packet Chicken Noodle Soup!! We have some Sweet and Sour Pork left from Saturday night, but.....I decided to be sensible and go with fairly bland. Talking of the Sweet and Sour Pork, this is  the second  time I have made it. One starts off by flouring the pork in cornstarch and cooking until crispy, seems pointless because you then add a sauce which makes the pork go un-crispy so I don't think I will bother again. It does say optional so I will take the easier option.

This is a pretty simple little recipe and would be good for someone with my present internal troubles. In the picture that broccoli looks somewhat overcooked to me.

Oven Poached Salmon with Cherry Tomatoes and Broccoli

5 Ingredient Oven Poached Salmon with Cherry Tomatoes and Broccoli makes for the perfect quick and easy weeknight dinner. Ready in 30 minutes with minimal clean up. Gluten Free, Dairy Free and

can be made Paleo.

3 cups cut up broccoli florets
2 cups cherry tomatoes
1 lb salmon fillet cut into 4 4 ounce pieces
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbs gluten free tamari omit for Paleo version (or replace with Coconut aminos or Paleo Fish Sauce)
salt/pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.

2. Cut 4 long pieces of aluminum foil and lay flat on the counter.

3. Add equal amount of broccoli and cherry tomatoes to each piece of aluminum foil.

4. Add salt/pepper to taste and drizzle with olive oil and tamari (optional).

5. Place salmon piece on top of each broccoli cherry parcel.

6. Add salt/pepper to taste. Seal the aluminum foil parcels.

7. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until salmon is cooked through.

Servings: 4

Source: Avocado Pesto

Have a great day
 

Family Day, Children, Brining

Today is Family Day in Canada which means the bowling alley is thick with kids and the noise would be horrendous. The bowling alley cancels our league for the day - I am not quite sure I approve of  that. I guess they make more money from families on that day than they would from our league. Even if we bowled, the kids would still be there in force, downstairs if nowhere else. I was saying to Matt earlier (Saturday) I wish they had introduced Family Day during our working life. Would have been an extra day off during the year. They were certainly talking about it but didn't make it into a stat day until the time we were living in the US. Ah well.

I sell Avon working with another rep who supplies me with my product.  She, poor woman, was involved with her daughter the last few weeks. Her 3 year old daughter who has been pronounced legally blind. What a horror at 3. I am so very sorry for the family.

As you know, I have been having problems with Matt and tough meat. So Saturday night I decided to have pork chops and ended up brining them then doing them in a Korean style way. I have posted the brine. I don't know, but Matt did eat all his pork chop so maybe it worked. I did brine them for 4 hours.

BRINING Pork Chops

3 cups cold water, divided
3 Tbs coarse kosher salt (or 2 1/2 tablespoons table salt)
Optional flavorings: 2 smashed garlic cloves, 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, 1 bay leaf

1. If you have time, brining the pork for even a brief period adds flavor and ensures juiciness in the finished chop. Bring 1 cup of the water to a boil, add the salt and optional flavorings, and stir to dissolve the salt. Add 2 more cups of cold water to bring the temperature of the brine down to room temperature. Place the pork chops in a shallow dish and pour the brine over top. The brine should cover the chops — if not, add additional water and salt (1 cup water to 1 tablespoon salt) until the chops are submerged. Cover the dish and refrigerate for 30 minutes or up to 4 hours.

Korean Style Pork Chops - a simple recipe for Korean style marinated pork chops, resulting in melt in your mouth, super delicious pork chops. Best ever!

4 pork chops
1 Tbs olive oil
1/4 cup soy sauce low sodium
2 Tbs honey
4 cloves garlic minced
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp ginger minced
2 tsp sriracha sauce
black pepper to taste

1. Brine first

2. Preheat oven to 400 F degrees.

3. In a medium size bowl whisk together the soy sauce, honey, garlic, ginger, sesame oil and sriracha sauce. Pour over pork chops and let marinade for about 20 minutes.

4. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet for medium high heat. Add pork chops, without marinade, and cook for about 5 minutes for the first side, or until it gets a nice brownish color. Flip the pork chops and pour the remaining marinade over them. Cook another 5 min on this side.

5. Place the skillet in the oven to finish cooking them. Roast for about 10 minutes, or until pork chops are completely cooked through.

Servings: 4

Tips
If your pork chops are not very thick, mine were about 1 inch in thickness, you might not need to finish cooking them in the oven.

Author: Joanna Cismaru


Have a great day
 

Valentine's Day, Judge Scalia, Unpacking, Stress Test,

I hope you all had a Happy Valentine's Day. We kind of celebrated on Saturday when I made Steak Diane for supper. An old recipe, but a favourite one. Sunday we finished off the Shrimp Creole from Friday. However, most of our time, at the moment, is focused on gradually putting our home back together. We now have all our switch plates back on the walls, outlet plates too, not sure what they are called. We also cleaned all the silver which, in this home takes a lot of effort. The silk flowers with which I decorate the living/dining room are back in place once more. Some of the pictures are back on the walls. It is beginning to look like home. Next we have to concentrate on laundering stuff or just putting things (like shoes) in the dryer. As well as unpacking glasses and ornaments. I might say we have found a few dead bodies (bed bugs I mean) around the place as well as the odd Asian Lady Bug. I am still not prepared to say we are totally in the clear. I feel that would be challenging the fates. I still itch, but I think/hope I am still being plagued by old bites.

Once again I am knackered. We unpacked three plastic storage boxes and one large garbage bag and of course had to put all the stuff back where it lived. If I were still a youngster, this would be no problem. Sadly I'm not. I am missing a lid from a piece of china. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out where it got to either. Must be the Borrowers (it's a book) - in the States I had a small lamb which had a sign saying "I love ewe" which Matt gave me - I still had it when we left NC but I haven't seen it since.

A lot on the news about Supreme Court Judge Scalia's death today (Sunday) someone I personally have never heard of. I guess his replacement is going to cause a lot of political upheaval according to the pundits on Good Morning America.

Today, Monday, is Family Day here which means no bowling for our league. Matt and I will be bowling on Tuesday afternoon instead.

I now have an appointment for my nuclear stress test. My biggest problem, it turns out I am not

allowed to drink coffee for three days. Nor am I allowed to take Tylenol 3. In fact nothing which contains caffeine. I didn't even know Tylenol 3 had caffeine in it. My appointment is on Thursday with a second on on Friday but I have to stop the caffeine on Wednesday. I can, apparently, take Tylenol Extra Strength so I will have to go get some. Luckily I drink decaf coffee so maybe it won't be so bad, maybe.

This recipe came up on Yummly and I thought it looked delicious. When I followed it to it's source I found it was actually from Pinch of Yum I think this would be really good with cauliflower too.

5 Ingredient Coconut Curry

serves: 3-4

INGREDIENTS
1 can coconut milk
2 tablespoons red curry paste
2 small heads broccoli (and/or other veggies of choice)
1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
½ tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 2 tablespoons cold water
optional: minced garlic or onion

INSTRUCTIONS
Sauté broccoli (and onion/garlic if you're using it) in a tablespoon of oil. After a few minutes, add the coconut milk and let simmer for 5-8 minutes. The broccoli should soften but still be tender-crisp.
Add the curry paste to the pan and whisk it until it combines with the coconut milk. Add the chickpeas.
Bring to a slight boil and add the cornstarch. Boil for about a minute, then reduce heat and let cool slightly. Sauce will thicken as the mixture cools.
Have a great day
 

Holiday. Weekend Cooking, Skating,

Today is Family Day in Ontario. This is a relatively new holiday, first observed in 2008, and is not universal in Canada although most provinces have a statutory holiday in February. It does mean that our bowling alley will be swamped with families with parents and kids so they cancelled our League today. However, many of us are going to bowl tomorrow afternoon instead.

We had quite a lot of snow on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Luckily we haven’t had the snow which has hampered most of the States.

As you may have seen from the comments last week, I changed our planned menu for Valentine’s Day to decrease the calorie intake somewhat. We ended up having spaghetti with a shrimp in white wine and tomato sauce inspired by a recipe by Kevin’s Closet Cooking followed by the Chocolate Volcanoes. Saturday we had our fillet steaks which I served with a Balsamic sauce. Matt did not like the sauce, but I did. When we made the chocolate volcanoes we ended up with three egg whites. Saturday afternoon I turned them into meringues – I am not very good at meringues, but they turned out pretty well. It is one of my favourite things to eat, especially with cream. Cornish cream for preference of course. Sunday we had a favourite standby of Chicken Breasts with Lemon and Capers. Hadn’t had it in a while so it made a nice change.

Been watching a lot of the Olympics over the weekend too. Was so disappointed that Patrick Chan didn’t manage to win the gold especially as the Japanese skater, Yuzuru Hanyu, left the door wide open for him. However, everyone was falling and Patrick Chan was no exception. I though both the winning skate and Chan’s skate were rather boring and I much preferred that of the American skater Jason Brown. However, I am not the judge and I can’t tell one jump from another anyway. I never managed to stay upright on skates without hanging on to someone.

I have posted this recipe for Chicken with Lemon and Capers before, but I thought you might like to see it again as it was a long time ago and it is such an easy but tasty recipe.


Chicken Breasts with Lemon and Capers

1/4 cup Flour
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1/2 tsp Paprika
2 Skinned, boned chicken breasts about 1 lb, halved and pounded to ¼  in thickness
5 tsp corn oil
1/4 cup chicken broth
2 Tbs lemon juice
2 Tbs Capers, drained

1. FLATTEN the chicken first by putting it between two sheets of Saran wrap and beating it with a mallet, using the side not the spiked part of said mallet.
2. Combine the flour, pepper and paprika on a plate. Press the chicken breasts  into the mixture, coating them evenly all over and shaking off any excess.
3. In a heavy 10 in skillet, heat the corn oil over mod high heat for 1 mins. Add the breasts and cook about 3 mins on each side, do not overcook. Transfer the breast to a heated platter.
4. Add the chicken broth to the skillet scraping up any browned bits on the bottom. Stir in the lemon juice and capers and heat through. Pour the sauce over the breasts and serve.

Have a great day

Holidays, Books and Language

Today in Ontario is Family Day which is a relatively new holiday. In fact I hadn't even registered its existence until it was announced that there would be bowling today. Such holidays don't mean a lot to us any more, its just another day. In the States, today is President's Day. On GMA this morning they had Dr. Rosen talking about the aging of Presidents. Its not just that they mostly end up with white hair and wrinkles, but many of them get pretty sick too due to all the stress and the fact that they don't get much in the way of downtime or even family time. They showed a lot of before and after photos and it is quite incredible the appearance changes. It was pointed out that although most Presidents are pretty active, jogging or playing various sports, etc. they don't have a lot of time for friends or even their families. However, he seemed to think Obama would 'sneak' friends in and have a baseball court set up. I must say, I don't know why there is so much desire to be President, I wouldn't want the job. Anyway, to all my North American readers, happy Family/President's Day. Talking of holidays, I hope you all had a good Valentine's Day. We certainly enjoyed our dinner on Saturday night, the recipe for Cuban Pork Tenderloin, which I posted on the 11th, was very good as was everything else we ate starting with the smoked salmon. Mind you smoked salmon is one of the foods I am nuts about. We used to have a local restaurant where the owner smoked his own salmon, he also smoked Arctic Char in the same way. He let me have a taster one time and it was equally as good, if not better, than the Smoked Salmon. Unfortunately, after some 30 years, they closed down a couple of years ago. Horrors, I have run out of books. I am presently doing some re-reading. I haven't had time to go down to the library and although I have several books on hold, they haven't yet come through. When we moved back to Canada from the States, I disposed of hundreds of books and just kept my all time favourites. Mind you that still made a lot of books to carry back. Not to mention all the cookbooks we have. We have 5 large bookshelves absolutely stacked with novels and cookbooks. Quite a few reference books too which include several language dictionaries, Greek and Spanish to name a couple. I also have several language CDs as well. Talking of language CDs, have you come across the language series called Rosetta Stone? Its great. On their website I went through a little demo and found the system extremely easy and efficient. Unfortunatley they are not cheap so I won't be buying them, but I would if I could. Brilliant series. Check them out at www.rosettastone.ca there is probably a .com site too. They guarantee you can learn a language in 6 months. From what I saw, I would say you could be very familiar with the language in a lot less time. I have just come across a couple of Chinese type recipes in The Best Four and Five Ingredient Cookbook. I have never cooked ribs because Matt wasn't keen, although recently he has eaten some which are really meaty. His main complaint was its "just chewing bones" which he doesn't like. There is also a good pork chop recipe which I give you below. Chinese Spiced Pork Chops Five-spice powder is a fantastic ingredient for perking up dishes and adding a good depth of flavour. The five different spices - Szechuan pepper, cinnamon, cloves, fennel seeds and star anise - are perfectly balanced, with the aniseed flavour of star anise predominating. Serve the chops with lightly steamed pak choi (bok choy) and plain boiled rice. Serves 4 4 large pork chops about 7 oz. each 1 Tbs Chinese five-spice powder 2 Tbs soy sauce From the store cupboard 2 Tbs garlic infused olive oil Arrange the pork chops in a single layer in a non-metalic roasting pan or baking dish. Sprinkle the five-spice powder over the chops, then drizzle over the soy sauce and garlic infused oil. (Alternatively, mix together the oil, soy sauce and spice powder and pour over the chops) Using your hands, rub the mixture into the meat. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours. Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F. Uncover the dish and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the pork is cooked through and tender. Serve immediately. Have a great day.