Meals Dec 3, 2012

Breakfast: grandma's grain with pecans and maple syrup.

Snack: cheddar cheese, rice crackers, dates. Banana was after lunch.

Lunch: Moroccan chickpea soup with rice mixed in. No bread (old photo reused).

Snack: wasabi peas and roasted chickpeas

Dinner: taco salad

Snack: (half of) pear, four mandarins, and some grapes

Snack: popcorn with dill pickle seasoning

Meals Dec 2, 2012

Breakfast: grandma's grain (millet, brown rice, quinoa, pot barley)
with a dried apricot, pecans, and cinnamon (no sugar)

Snack: granny smith apple, cheddar cheese, boiled egg, coffee

Lunch: Moroccan chickpea soup with bread and margarine

Dinner: green curry leftovers

Snack: two handfuls of spicy ketchup chips

Snack: small piece of homemade caramel (thanks sis)

Meals Dec 1, 2012

Breakfast: homemade "rice pudding": rice, milk, maple syrup

Snack: egg, hummus with broccoli stem sticks

Lunch: (too much) green curry leftovers

Snack: handful of roasted chickpeas and wasabi peas, plus one random date

Dinner: Moroccan chickpea soup and a slice of bread with margarine

Snack: half a fruit plate (hubby ate the other half)

Meals Nov 30, 2012.

For reasons I'm not going to detail right now, I've decided to track everything I eat in photo form. Here's the first day I actually managed to do it. 

Breakfast: spoonful of peanut butter, pumpkin rice pudding (leftover rice, milk,
Tbsp of pumpkin pie filling, cinnamon stick, pecans), and a big thermos of tea

Snack: Cheese cube and boiled egg

Snack: popcorn with garlic powder, dried basil, and parmesan cheese

Dinner: green thai curry with broccoli, tofu, peas, and mushrooms.

Snack: Bowl of seedless grapes

Snack: Small bowl of spicy ketchup potato chips

Snack: Two mandarins

Snack: Two pieces of hazelnut chocolate bar

recipe: pumpkin pie crescent rolls

Yeah, my snacks normally look this good. 

Kyle and I just moved from two separate, fully-functional apartments into one (very small) coach house apartment.  It has been a very trying experience to find places for everything we own, but I think it will be good for us.  In the unpacking process, I found a can of pumpkin pie filling that I accidentally purchased while trying to buy pumpkin purée. Nearly all pumpkin recipes call for pumpkin pie purée and specifically NOT pie filling, so I have been at a loss with what to do with it (yes I know: pie is the obvious answer, but I'm not a huge fan so I wanted something else). So it sat on the shelf, and was eventually moved to this new apartment. I refuse to let it take up space here, so I vowed to find something to do with it.

After a few days of staring at the can (I had it sitting on the back of my stove, next to my Tetley tea bags - essential for my morning routine), and after moving the bread machine from place to place to place, I had the 'brilliant' idea to combine bread machine dough with pumpkin pie filling. But in what form?  Perhaps crescent rolls, inspired by that apple dumpling recipe I tried last fall?  Would it work? Crescent roll dough + pumpkin pie filling? Could it be so simple?

The day after this flash of inspiration, I saw a friend's Pin for pumpkin croissants. I'm not crazy! It's been done! Alas, the recipe called for purée.  But I blundered forward anyway in my quest to use the pie filling, and thus I made pumpkin pie crescent rolls. Overall it was a success, I'd say. They're very tasty, with a good balance of sweet and savoury without being too sweet. They're quite doughy, which is a result of this dough recipe, and they'd be fluffier (and probably sweeter?) if you used Pillsbury dough.

Straight out of the oven...

Recipe notes: I changed the croissant recipe by omitting cream cheese (because I loathe cream cheese). I changed the dough recipe by subbing in some whole wheat flour and by using brown sugar instead of white. Also, I added a tsp of vanilla which made the dough smell really good but I'm not sure that I can taste it once baked. I split the dough into three uneven balls to roll out and cut triangles. Only after the first bunch did I realize that rolling a giant circle and cutting pizza slices would be better than trying to make a big rectangle... And then on the last tiny bit of dough I realized that cinnamon bun-style rolls would be way easier - roll a rectangle, smother the whole thing with pie filling, roll up and slice. And they taste the same as crescent rolls so... go with whatever you prefer. Oh and lastly, I still didn't use up the whole can of pumpkin filling... even with 37 crescent rolls!

I couldn't resist and ate a few while they cooled...

Pumpkin Pie Crescent Rolls

Ease: 1 very easy
Time: 3 somewhat quick
Ingredients: 2 easy
Source: Loosely based on Shaken Together's pumpkin croissants. And I used Food.com's bread machine roll dough, with some modifications.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup warm milk (70 to 80 degrees F.)
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1/4 cup golden sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 3 cups all-purpose white flour
• ~2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (I spilled some from an old opened packet + 2 tsp from a new packet)
• 1 540mL can of pumpkin pie filling
• ~ 1 Tbsp white sugar
• ~ 1 tsp cinnamon

Dough - ready to go in the oven

Directions:

1. Combine dough ingredients (from milk to yeast) in bread machine in this order. 
2. Set dough setting and let the machine do its thing.
3. When dough is done, turn it onto a lightly floured surface and roll (you may want to divide it into two pieces for this).
4. Cut into triangles of approximately the same shape and dimensions. See recipe notes for tips. (My batch made 33 triangles and 4 cinnamon bun style rolls.) 
5. Spread some pumpkin pie filling (straight from the can) onto each triangle and roll it up.
6. Grease a baking dish. 
7. Place the rolls in the dish with 1" spacing between each one.  
8. Sprinkle them with a mixture of cinnamon & sugar. 
9. Let them sit for 30-45 min.
10. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

recipe: sundried tomato & parsley pesto

I love cooking with fresh herbs, especially basil and cilantro. I hate how quickly my herbs go bad in the fridge.  When I grow up, I want to have an herb garden - or maybe two. One in my glass-walled reading room (because that will exist), and one outside.  Anyway, I had leftover tortellini from a soup I made last week, as well as some broccoli that was on sale, and some leftover basil. We always have 10% cream hanging around, so I figured I'd do a basil cream sauce. Alas, not to be. By the time I got around to making the pasta, my basil had gone bad. SO, now what?

I asked Facebook, and the winning suggestion was sundried tomato pesto.  I've never heard of this before.  I decided to use up some of my parsley as well, and I added walnuts and sunflower seeds to fill the pine nut role.  However, I forgot a very important lesson from kindergarten: red + green = brown. Especially when you add balsamic vinegar, walnuts, and sunflower seeds.  It's definitely the ugliest pesto I've ever seen.

However, it's really tasty so I'm posting anyway.  The recipe only made enough pesto for 3 meals (whereas the tortellini package serves 4), so keep that in mind.

Sundried Tomato & Parsley Pesto
Ease: 1 very easy
Time: 1 very quick
Ingredients: 2 easy
Source: My facebook friends and some crazy imagination!

Ingredients:

• One package of cheese tortellini
• 1 head of broccoli, cut into florets
• 3 Tbsp sundried tomatoes (I used the kind in oil)
• 1-2 medium cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 cup walnuts (or less)
• 1.5 Tbsp sunflower seeds (or less)
• 1 cup curly leaf parsley
• 1 Tbsp olive oil (note: my pesto was more of a paste, so more oil could be useful)
• Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Cook tortellini and broccoli together in same pot. Drain and set aside. 
2. Meanwhile, make the pesto.  Combine remaining ingredients except Parmesan cheese in a food processor for a few seconds until everything is a bit chopped and pasty.  I didn't want to blend it too much or it would have been a uniform brown paste.  At least this way I can see chunks of green and red. 
3. Mix pasta/broccoli with pesto and serve!
4. Top with Parmesan cheese. I only used a tiny sprinkle - it didn't need the extra flavour.

recipe: mushroom stroganoff

I make weekly meal plans to avoid throwing food in the garbage (I abhor waste). I knew I wanted to eat "Mexican Night" this week, so I needed something else that would use a lot of sour cream. Stroganoff just seemed logical.  I've never actually eaten homemade stroganoff; I usually just stick with Lipton Sidekicks. Sooo... this was uncharted territory for me!

As usual, I grabbed inspiration from a few different recipes.  I'm very happy with how it turned out. If I needed to make one modification, it would be to reduce the broth for LESS time, since my sauce ended up a bit thick (hah, upon reading my notes more carefully, I accidentally used 1/3 of the amount of water requested so that would be my error.  The recipe below is how it should probably be made). Otherwise, it was very tasty.

The actual type or ratio of mushrooms is up to you.

Mushroom Stroganoff
Ease: 1 very easy
Time: 3 somewhat quick
Ingredients: 2 easy
Source: Primarily All Recipes Portabello Mushroom Stroganoff (and details in comments), although I also looked at the Food Network and Rachael Ray's version.


Ingredients:

• Egg noodles, pasta, or rice 
• 2-3 Tbsp margarine (or olive oil)
• 1 large onion (I used 3 smallish onions because that's what I had on hand), chopped
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced 
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 large portabello, sliced
• 5 large cremini mushrooms (or equivalent)
• 8 largeish shitake mushrooms (or equivalent)
• 1  1/2 cup vegetable broth
• 1 tsp mushroom soy sauce (or normal soy sauce, but mushroom sauce is very strong and tasty)
• 3/4 - 1 cup sour cream
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 1/2 cup chopped parsley (or less; I really like parsley)
• splash white wine (i actually didn't include it, but I wish I had some to try it out)
• black pepper

Directions:

1. Cook your starch (egg noodles, pasta, or rice) while following the rest of the recipe.
2. Heat margarine/oil in large frying pan on medium heat. Add onions, shallots, and garlic. Sauté until tender. 
3. Turn heat up to med-high. Add mushrooms and saute until they've released their liquid and are cooked. Transfer mushrooms from pan to plate and set aside.
4. Add broth and soy sauce (and wine, if using) to same pan and simmer until reduced to 1/3 volume. 
5. Mix sour cream and flour in measuring cup. Add to frying pan and mix with broth until smooth. 
6. Add mushrooms and mix well. 
7. Serve over starch. Top with fresh parsley and ground black pepper.