Korean Food Adventure

I met Denise and Sarah this last week for dinner......the country of choice as they PUSH me around the world was Korean. Being such a brave person I happily went and here is your place setting, this itty bitty little bowl and chop sticks!Denise had her write up from the paper for this place so we ordered off that and what Sarah had eaten at another place one time. We tried fried dumplings, they were a little like Chinese egg rolls.
Then there was this interesting bowl which came to the table sizzling, the bowl was heated and cooking yet, under it was sticky rice and then all these vegetables and meat.....still not sure what that meat was, it looked really pretty UNTIL I saw the raw egg floating in the center....hmmmmm..... but they said you just stir it all up......raw egg....hmmmmmm....didn't do so well on that one. But it was pretty to look at.
This was a beef dish that was quite tastey and then you had all these bowls of different things. The one on the top right was paper thin sea weed....I did taste it... The one on the left top was apple slices with this creamy dressing....The middle left was a cabbage thing with HOT red sauce stuff, next to it was these bean sprout things...on the bottom left was these diced radishes with more of the red hot sauce, and the thing on the bottom that looks like green beans....sea weed. So I was brave and tasted everything but I must say the choice for the next round in our adventure is ITALIAN!!! I CAN DO THAT !

Apples!

Remember all the apples from my parents home in the woods, well this Sunday was apple day! They went from this....To this! Yea for the apple peeler!
I decided I wanted this batch to just be frozen slices for the freezer, so I think there are a few pies or apple crisps in our future! And none of it went to waste, Ken took all the scrappys down to the cabinet shop and threw them into the gravel area under the trees for the birds!

My trip to Venezuala.....

Well my friends took me to experience Venezuelan cuisine this week. We went to My Arepa which is in Mesa and written up as the best Venezuelan food in the valley. I had to google the country to see exactly where in South America it was. It was very good and fun to get to try another country on our quest of worldly foods! Denise and Sarah and I ordered several things so we could try them all, they cook alot of corn, so that the bread looking things were actually ground corn based . The one on the left was folded over with cheese inside, the other 2 are like a sandwich, again the corn based part that was the "bread" and then one had chicken and slices of avocado and the other was beef with plantains and black beans. This is the 3rd way I've had plantains, and much better than the ones I truely experienced in Belize. I guess these sandwich things are arepa's and they sell them on the street like you might get a street taco in mexico or a hot dog here!
this dish was very interesting, the outside part holding it together was actually a huge plantain and then inside was a shredded pork with a coleslaw like topping, it was very good. So now that I"ve experienced Venezuala I can say I enjoyed it! Thanks Denise and Sarah for trooping me along.....I'm hearing Korea is next....yikes what do they eat?

Middle Eastern Food

Well it was Middle Eastern Cuisine tonight for The Team Sarah/Denise who are taking Terry around the world ! Haji Baba's was the place, I drove by thinking something was wrong with their sign and then realized that is some sort of writing ! Sarah knew right what to order so they just jumped in ! We started with this wonderful humus and pita's, warm, ahhhh they were wonderful and so was the humus, very smooth ! I'd never seen it served so pretty with the paprika, pickle and olive !
They ordered me this gyro. It was really good, it's lamb and beef and it was served with this lettuce and sauce, there was a tomato hiding in there and a pickle, then we had this wonderful rice with it. So it was a very tastey meal, 1/2 would have done me just fine, it was a ton of meat , course after you eat all that wonderful pita/humus no wonder it was alot ! The sandwich came all wrapped up in foil, so we unwrapped it and ate it with a fork. The meat combo was great, very flavorful and tender. So yea, I did Middle Eastern ! I'm hearing authentic chinese is next, Denise knows somewhere that they make their own noodles.

Peach Butter

It worked ! I tried the same recipe that I did with the apricots to make apricot butter, only with peaches. I didn't even peel them, just washed, pitted and put them in the blender. It's been cooking all day on high in the crock pot.....And it worked ! We now have Peach Butter !

Ethiopian Food

Well these friends of mine decided I just needed some worldly travel experience, so tonight, Denise and Sarah and I met at this Cafe Lalibela for Ethiopian food. I who made it thru the Indian cuisine thought, why not !
So Sarah and I started out with Ethiopian Beer. She had a dark one, rather fruity in taste, mine was light and sort of had more of a lemony taste, I thought it was very good.
Then they bring you this basket of the strangest stuff. It's the "vehicle" for getting the food to your mouth as they have no silverware or plates, kind of tasteless and what looks like it was made on a big griddle, probably poured out and it has this sort of bubbly texture, rather spongey. Compared to the wonderful Indian sorts of breads, this was rather strange ! It's not dry like a tortilla, but just sort of felt like a sponge !
So we ordered this vegetarian meal ( safe !) It's served on this big plate in the middle of the table, everything was placed on another one of those "sponge" things on the plate. Everything was very flavorful, but it was all the same texture....MUSHY. Like everything was stewed. Alot of it had a great taste, there was lentals and yellow peas and cabbage with potatoes and carrots and green beans that had a tomatoey sauce. Then they had a bit of fresh lettuce and a tomatoe with pretty good light dressing. One of the little things was cold. A couple of them had a spicey kick. It was all very interesting. I don't know that I really loved it, but I didn't really not like it either. Wouldn't be something I'd crave, just different.
So once again I've taken pictures of food and no people, but thanks Sarah and Denise for introducing me to Ethiopian food, I'm glad I got to try it. I'm hearing next month it's on to a Middle Eastern place !

Time for Peaches

I just love having a mature back yard with fruit trees. It's so fun to go out and be able to pick fresh fruit several times a year. We love our citrus in the winter, oranges, grapefruit and lemons, and now the apricot tree is done for the year ( altho I'm still dealing with the bumper crop) The peaches are ready so I've been picking them a few a day, the birds have sampled a few but they really haven't hit the fruit to hard this year, either that or we had such good crops we didn't mind sharing. It's like having a garden, one of these years I'll get my garden wound back up again....need to find some eager guy that will build me a nice shade screen over it first and maybe a nice little watering system....maybe next Jan. I'll get to it ! Our gardens need to go in by the first of Feb. to be ready before the heat, some hardy things will last thru the year yet if they have shade. I'll be thinking of peach recipes if we don't eat them all first !

What do you do with more apricots ??????

Time for 2 more bowls full of apricots to come out of the refrigerator ! They've been ripening on the counter for 2 days so tonight they entered the "dehydrator zone". Wonder what they'll look like tomorrow morning !!!!
Another bowl came out of the refrigerator to ripen next.....I think more apricot butter will be in the making this weekend !

Chocolate Trifle

Marcy asked me to post this recipe, I took it to MB's for brunch, I got it from Denise a few years back and have made it several times....so here you are....

Chocolate Trifle

1 pkg. chocolate fudge cake mix

1 package 6 oz instant chocolate pudding mix

1/2 cup strong coffee

1 carton 12 oz frozen whipped topping, thawed

6 heath bars crushed

Bake cake according to package directions. Cool. Prepare pudding according to package directions, set aside. Cut cake into small square crumbling it, reserve 1/2 cup. Place half of the remaining cake crumbs in the bottom of a 5 qt. trifle dish or decorative glass bowl. Layer with half of the coffee, half of the pudding, half of the whipped topping and half of the crushed candy bars. Repeat the layers of the cake, coffee, pudding and whipped topping. Combine remaining crushed candy bars with reserved cake crumbs, sprinkle over top. Refrigerate 4-5 hours before serving. Serves 8-10

Now I have done this several ways and sometimes do the top different, on Sunday I just decorated it with fresh strawberries. Also have made a berry trifle using pound cake mixed from a box mix, and vanilla pudding and cool whip and then layering in fresh raspberries, blueberries and strawberries, very pretty too. Serve by scooping out with a big spoon. This works well made the night before you serve it too. I found my trifle bowl at Ross, very inexpensive, but makes such a pretty presentation on it's stand. Enjoy !

Indian Food !!!

Well, this was a first for me tonight ! I went out for authentic Indian food ! Sarah and Denise and I met after work at this little restaurant called Dhaba in Tempe.
We entrusted Sarah with the ordering as Denise and I had never experienced this before.
They brought out this wonderful very thin cracker kind of bread first with 3 sauces, I loved the plum sauce, the other 2 were good, hot and spicey but good. The cracker bread was to die for, it looked like a big tortilla but very very thin. you could poke it with your finger and it'd break apart.
We had this chicken dish along with this puffy bread. And this other chick pea saucy stuff that was to die for ! I could have taken that whole little pot of the saucy chick pea stuff and spooned it down !
Next came out another chicken dish in this thick red sauce that was so good ! And 3 more kinds of bread that you just pulled apart, so yummy to sop up all the good sauce with !
By the time we tried all this we were stuffed, I think it's all the bread ! Oh but I'd order all that same stuff again, altho we lacked any veggies come to think of it, a few onions and peppers on the chicken kabob was it. Everything was so freshly made. The people working there were very quiet and reserved and polite, they packaged up the leftovers very quickly and quietly and even brought us newbies cards to fill out so we'd remember what we ate and liked and menus to bring home to remember all the strange names ! What a fun meal to get to try. I do believe you have to experience this sort of thing with someone who knows what they are doing, so we had Sarah or we'd have not had a clue what to order and whether it'd be good or to spicey etc. So Yea for Indian food, I did it ! And now I get home and realize I only took pictures of food again and none of my dear friends ! We've been trying to meet for dinner once a month so who knows what next month will bring, but maybe I"ll try to get people in a picture then !

Hard Core Hunting !

Well Ken now has a new passion.....Scorpion hunting ! Chris and he hunted at his house one night when we were there for dinner and found 2 outside along the wall. So now Ken got this official light to hunt with ! The scorpions glow in the dark ( nasty things !) We found this one that has a broader range light so Ken bought Chris one too so he can have a better range for his hunting too!!!! For the last 3 nights.... we are minus 2 scorpions per night ! Chris happened over the other night and brought his trusty new light along so both of them went out in the yard on their quest ! Scorpions at our houses better be ware as these guys will get you !!!!

Cream Puffs

Here's a recipe for you all that I tried as our dessert on Christmas Eve. Linda had told me about doing them and how really easy it was but how pretty they looked to serve. So this recipe is out of my old Betty Crocker cookbook, so thankyou Linda and thankyou "Betty" ! They were so easy, I actually made the puffs a week ahead and froze them. Then the day before I made the pudding so it'd be cool, then the morning of actually filled them. I'm thinking this might be great for a friends lunch too using the puffs to hold chicken salad, or miniature versions. Have fun if you try them ! They looked really pretty on each plate with the cherry pie filling dribbling down the sides of each, yum! Cream puffs
1 cup water
½ cup butter
1 cup flour
4 eggs
Vanilla pudding ( cooked kind, made according to package …I made it ahead so it would be cold and put plastic wrap right on the top to avoid a skin forming)
Confectioner’s sugar
Cherry pie filling - optional
Chocolate glaze – optional

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Heat water and butter to rolling boil. Stir in flour. Stir vigorously over low heat about 1 minute or until mixture forms a ball. Remove from heat. At this point I put it in a bowl that I could use my mixer in. Beat in eggs, all at one time; continue beating until smooth. Drop dough by scant ¼ cupful’s 3 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake 35-40 minutes or until puffed and golden. Cool and cut off tops. Pull out any filaments of soft dough. Carefully fill puffs with vanilla pudding. Replace tops, dust with confectioners sugar. At this point I made a chocolate glaze to drizzle over the tops using milk, powdered sugar and a square of semi sweet chocolate I had melted. Store in refrigerator until serving. When serving top with a spoonful of cherry pie filling. (I found my pampered chef large scoop wonderful for getting all the same size dough mounds and also for filling with the pudding)

Reindeer brownies

The big boys and I had the afternoon to play so we made Reindeer brownies ! I had planned to do that with them before and then everyone got sick so the neighbors got the cupcakes, so we needed dessert for the evening as everyone was stopping by for a bowl of Chili so.... Garrett had fun !

And so did Aiden
( Ethan got to go finish the christmas shopping with Mommy and Daddy !)

Apple Dumplings

Here is a fast yummy dessert to make. I had them first up at Bear Cabin and I made them for my work holiday party. Jamie called me one day and told me she had made the same thing for their Thanksgiving dinner. The recipe is on a couple of our favorite web sites/blogs and their pictures are much better, but if you havn't seen it here is the recipe....

Apple Dumplings

2 granny smith apples
1 can crescent rolls
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 stick butter melted
6 oz. mountain dew

Peel, core and cut apples in quarters, Roll each quarter in a crescent roll, pinching to seal. Place Dumplings in a baking dish sprayed with pam. Mix sugar, cinnamon and melted butter, glop over all rolls. Pour mountain dew over all. Bake 375 degrees, 30-40 minutes ( I found mine were done around 35 minutes, when I took the first trial out at 30 minutes I felt they were more doughy on the bottom.)

here they are before you bake them....swimming in the mountain dew !

They are so good warm and served with vanilla ice cream.

Pancake Molds

Denise gave me these pancake molds for my birthday and we gave them a whirl this weekend when the boys came. They worked great ! As you can see an airplane and a truck. I sprayed them with cooking spray and then you preheat them with the griddle, you push them out when it's time to flip them. They have handles that turn up.

And it worked ! So if you see these neat little things, they really do work !

Veggie Dip

Here's another recipe for you... I call it Amy's veggie dip as it's her recipe and from whom she got it from I don't know but it's yummy !Amy’s Veggie Dip

8 oz. Cream Cheese 1/3-cup sour cream
½ tsp salt ½ tsp. Horseradish
½ tsp. Mustard
½ cup carrots, finely chopped
2 radishes finely chopped 2 T. green onions
¾ cup nuts
Mix together with mixer and serve with chips or crackers or veggies

I put the veggies and nuts all in the blender to chop them up and then mixed it all into the cream cheese with the mixer but then thought I probably could have done it all in the blender, will try that next time.

I took it to the halloween block party we went to at Chris and MB's. If you try it enjoy !

Cold and Crunchy Dessert

Here is another favorite recipe of mine. A dessert that you can make ahead and everyone loves. This one came from a very special lady named Linda, a very dear friend who passed away a few years ago. She always brought a dessert to our Thornberry quilt meeting so this one came from her. I always think of her when I make it.

Cold and Crunchy Dessert

2 ½ cups rice Krispies
1 cup coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
1 stick butter, melted
¾ cup brown sugar
½ gallon vanilla ice cream softened
Mix rice krispies , coconut, pecans, and melted butter in a long shallow baking pan ( jelly roll pan worked well ). Toast at 300 degrees for 30 minutes until golden brown, stirring occasionally. Add brown sugar to hot mixture and stir well. Put half of mixture in 9x13 pan. Spread ice cream on top. Add rest of topping. Cover and freeze. Serve cut into squares with caramel sundae topping.