Coupon Spotlight....Betty Crocker potatoes

So bigg's has Betty Crocker boxed potatoes on sale for 10/$10.

I have two coupons for $.50 off two. That doubles to $1 off two.

So instead of getting 4/$4, I got 4/$2.

The regular price was $1.99, making four boxes $7.96.

I saved $5.96 between the sale and the coupons.

Yeah...that's fairly awesome.

Maybe I should start a coupon spotlight?

So I've been reviewing my page views for my various blog posts, and it seems that my coupon posts get the most views.

Now, I'm not looking to make money off this blog or anything, but more page views (like 17 as opposed to 3, I know, I might crash the site) is a nice thing to see.

So I'm going to start a coupon spotlight.

Especially since I have little time to cook during the holidays. I'm attempting to be crafty. That's time consuming.

Anyway, so here we go.

My preferred coupon blog is The Krazy Coupon Lady. I like it's tips, shopping lists, and format. Also, It feels like there are fewer ads, even though there might not be. I even like that they organize sending expired coupons to military families. I've sent them two envelopes already.

So, it turns out The Krazy Coupon Lady is on Pinterest. Totally starting following that, especially the Freebies, Steals & Deal board.

And because I follow that board, I saw this deal on Stouffer's meals at Target.

See, I had seen something similar in the Target circular, but the prices were off. The circular said buy two, get a $5 gift card, but the two were the 57- to 96-oz. Stouffer’s family meals for $11.39 a piece.

I was intrigued, mostly because I knew I had four $1.50 off one Stouffer's family meal coupons in my envelope. (Yes, I have an envelope. I haven't graduated to a binder yet.)

So I grabbed the circular and my coupons and went to the store.

Where the But 2, Get a Gift Card was as The Krazy Coupon Lady said. I could buy the smaller portions, the ones that were $5.49 or $5.99 each and still get the $5 gift card.

So, let's do the math. The meatless options were $5.50 (because I'm rounding to make this easier). You need to buy two to get the gift card. That's $11 for two. Minus the $5 gift card, $6 for two. Minus the two coupons ($1.50 each, $3 for the pair), $3 for the two. That's $1.50 for a family-size meal.

For the meat options, $6 each, two for $12. Minus the $5 gift card, $7. Minue the $3 in coupons, $4. That's $2 a piece of a family-size meal (with meat).

And these things feed six people easy.

Seriously.

I wish I owned an upright freezer. Or had the space for one in my apartment. Boo.

I bought four, two meatless, two meat. I knew I really didn't have room in my freezer for four, so what did I do? I proceeded to sell my mom two of them for her freezers (because she gets to have a fridge in the garage). I figured they were easy things for my dad to throw in the oven while he's off work recovering from knee surgery. He can have dinner ready for her when she gets home, that lucky lady.

And that was my awesome score of the week.

Yes, More Coupons. Deal.

Hamburger Helper is 10/$10 this week at Kroger.

I got six boxes for $4.

See this post for the math.

Cherry Beer Margarita

Yes, it is fall. Yes, this is definitely a summer drink.

But it was so tasty sounding, I couldn't help myself.

Plus, I had limeade in my freezer. So Cherry Beer Margaritas it was. 

I had put my friends in charge of getting the ingredients over a couple of weeks, and I bought the Corona, so we were ready to go.

I made it up as directed, skipping the Mason jars, because really, who has the time? 

(And I don't know where this photo has got to either. Oh well, you can't taste the alcohol through a photo anyway.)

It was super delicious. Tasted a lot like summer beer, but, you know, with cherry. 

Just make it. You'll like it.

Crescent Roll Jalapeno Poppers

I find it frustrating that the coupons for Pillsbury products always require you to buy two or three cans.

But as frustrated as I am, I still do it because I have the coupon. I do, however, try to line up up a few meals in a row that can use them.

Or in this case, an appetizer or two.

I decided to make these Crescent Roll Jalapeno Poppers. I was hoping my dad would still have some jalapenos at his shop, but he did not, so I did have to buy that. I had baked the bacon the day before so all I had to do was assemble and bake.

I followed the directions. I kinda wish I owned a pizza cutter because it was difficult to cut the raw rolls in half with a regular knife. Maybe next time I should flower it?

Either way, I used a butter knife to put portions of cream cheese on the dough, stuck on the bacon, places on the jalapeno slice, and wrapped up as best I could.

Then I baked them.

My friend Amy was the first to try them once they came out of the oven. She said they needed a sweet sauce, like you get with poppers at Arby's. I asked her how she felt about strawberry jam. I then pointed to where the strawberry jam was. (Not in the fridge, but in the pantry, with the other unopened condiments.)

Evidently the jam made them a hit.

(And I seem to have lost the photo of my own...they looked unimpressive.)

But I think there was room for improvement.

First, although I'm not usually a fan of overly stuffed anything, the cheese to dough ratio was off. I needed to put in more cream cheese, which I will next time.

Additionally, I want to try the pickled jalapenos from a jar instead of fresh. Sure, fresh are better for you, but I think the pickled ones have a better bite.

Lastly, I liked the crunch of the bacon, but I didn't think it was necessary.

I'm definitely glad to know this recipe now. I will use it again!

Apology, Random Coupon Score

I swear, readers, I haven't forgotten the blog. We've just had some family stuff going on, so I haven't been able to finish up the blogs I have started, much less have time to keep cooking. I hope to post some more this week.

The good news is, I found an awesome deal for area bakers.

I was at Jungle Jim's International Market this weekend with an out-of-town friend. While she was perusing the map (the fact that there was a map boggled her), I looked at the circular.

A jar Fleichmann's Yeast was marked down to $4.49, a savings of $3.16. And, oh, what is this? A manufacturer's coupon? Yes, I had that too, $1 off. The jar of yeast cost me $3.49, I have $4.16.

I view it as a mandate to bake.

Frenchy

I like it when drinks sound delicious. And simple. Emphasis on simple. Who wants to make complicated concoctions when you've already had a few?

So the Frenchy is three things, all of which I already had. The only odd ingredient is pear vodka. But guess what? I love pear vokda. I can't drink it straight up, but I love it mixed with any fruit juice I've tried, cranberry and pineapple being my favorites.

Pretty!

And this recipe calls for my favorite vodka and two preferred juices?


Um, yes.

So I made it up.

Not nearly as pretty

It wasn't nearly as pretty as the picture, probably because I didn't pour the cranberry juice gently enough over the other liquid, but it was still really tasty. I will totally make this again.

Slow Cooker Barbecue Ribs

I've been on a let's-not-spend-more-money-on-food-than-I-have-to kick, which was inevitably led to a let's-clean-out-my-freezer-and-pantry kick.

Which meant that I wasn't about to buy meat for my most recent dinner. I had pork ribs I had picked up a whole ago when they were on sale (yay for freezers), so I found a slow-cooker recipe to go with them.

BBQ Country-Style Ribs in the Slow Cooker
Ingredients:
   1 small onion, sliced in half-moon rings
   4 garlic cloves, chopped
   2 pounds country-style boneless pork ribs
   9 oz. of prepared barbecue sauce
   1 tsp. dried oregano
   1/4 tsp. ground cumin
   Pinch dried ground chipotle powder or squirt of hot pepper sauce
Directions:
   Spray inside of slow cooker with nonstick spray. Place sliced onion on bottom, sprinkle garlic on top. Rinse and pat ribs dry, put them on top of onion and garlic. Pour barbecue sauce on top, sprinkle herbs and hot sauce on top. Put on line and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

So I followed the recipe exactly, other than prepping everything the night before so all I had to do in the morning was put the pot in the crock and turn it on.

Per usual.

Unfortunately, I think my crock pot runs hot.

The recipe called for 8-10 hours on low, which I did, but I can home to burnt smelling ribs.

We ate them anyway. The flavor wasn't bad, but they were dry. Because they were overcooked.

They even look dry in the picture. Sad.

I might try this recipe again, but I'll definitely change the amount of time or the temperature.

Taco Bake

This one will be short and easy.

And fantastic.

I wanted something cheap to make for my friends, and since I had almost all of the ingredients for this taco bake, that's what I made.

Hers looks so much prettier than mine.

The only thing I didn't have was the queso sauce. But you know what I did have? Campbell's condensed nacho cheese soup. Totally pulled that substitution.

I cooked the meat, I stacked everything in my 9x9 (or is it 8x8?) inch square cake pan. I don't own a springform pan, although I do now think it could be useful.

I baked it.

I served it. With salad and Spanish rice, which I also had in my pantry.

The whole thing. I think the spring form pan would have allowed me to get the meat closer to the edges.

It was delicious.

I even sent the recipe home with a friend.

Brilliant.

Look, a whole, composed meal!

Super Sausage Dip

Occasionally, my boyfriend likes to have people over.

I see this as sign that I should cook, since I won't have to clean and since his idea of providing munchies is opening a bag of chips. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I prefer something more substantial and/or creative.

So I decided to make this super sausage dip since I was fairly certain I had all the ingredients. And I own a fondue pot.

Now, the pin I used said one can of Rotel tomatoes and green chilis, while the recipe itself calls for fresh chopped tomatoes and a can of green chilis, in addition to an onion and half a green bell pepper (I used a whole, small yellow one since that's what I had from my parents' garden).

I used the can of Rotel. It was just so much easier.

I followed the cooking directions exactly. I changed the color of the pepper and I added a couple dashes of hot sauce because, for some reason, I thought the recipe called for spicy sausage and I had regular. Turns out, I can't read. It took a while for the cream cheese to melt in properly, but I had time. It's not like people show up on the dot.

I then transferred it to the fondue pot and tasted it.

Oh.

My.

God.

Yes, it really is so good that those words deserve not only their own sentences, but their own paragraphs.

Everyone loved it. At least everyone who tried it did. I think everyone tried it.

We did have leftovers, as there were only maybe 6 or 8 of us at my boyfriend's house. I put the leftovers in the fridge, hoping he'd reheat it for a snack and let me know who that worked.

But he did not reheat it. And neither did his roommate.

I threw the leftovers away a week later.

I will totally make this again, but for a bigger group of people.

7-Up Biscuits

So, when I pinned the recipe for 7-Up biscuits, I didn't click through to look at the recipe. I know, we've been over this, it's a bad idea.

Anyway.

When I went to the recipe to find the directions (the ingredients were listed in the comments), there was nothing. It was one of those dump pages when a website has been taken down and they put up ads in its place.

So I searched Pinterest for a pin of 7-Up biscuits that actually had a recipe. I found one. The pictures looked nothing alike. But I had already settled on it, so I was going to make the darn biscuits.

And then I made the darn biscuits, following the directions exactly. The only thing I had trouble with was dividing them up equally after they had been mixed. But I did alright.

I wish I could say the same for the biscuits.

If you like what my mother always called Drop Biscuits, you will like these. Crumbly consistancy, more like a cake donut than bread. If, however, you are like me, and don't like that type of biscuit, you will not like these. See, that first picture made the biscuits look really yeasty and poofy. And obviously that was not the case.

I won't be making these again.

Random Coupon Score of the Week

So I know I usually don't do this, but I was really pleased how this turned out.

I went to my preferred grocery store (Remke bigg's, because they are in colusion with Speedway to garner my loyalty) to pick up a few things. All in the dairy section, but since I always carry my coupons with me, I decided to use a few.

I decided to pick up a few boxes of Hamburger Helper. Yes, I know, not the healtiest thing in the world, but I make one batch and it's lunch for a week, which is really nice to my pocket book.

It's especially nice to my pocket book this time around.

See, the coupon is for $.75 off of three boxes. Bigg's doubles up to a dollar, so it becomes $1 off three. Hamburger Helper is on sale, 10/$10. So, $1 per box. I was only going to use one coupon, but I had two identical ones and this was a good sale, so I used both coupons and got six boxes. I kept thinking of it as "Buy 2, Get 1 Free."

But it's better than that.

See, the boxes are originally $1.79 each. So I paid $4 for six boxes, when that would usually cost $10.74.

I like saving 60 percent on groceries.

"Sangria" with Fresca

So, I had an itch for sangria. Don't know why, doesn't really matter. I just wanted to make some sangria.

So I pulled a few recipes from Pinterest, like you do, and went to the store to get ingredients.

The first recipe called for brandy, so that wasn't happening because brandy was not in the budget. The next recipe called for  beverages I didn't know existed, but the writer really liked the Target brand, Archer Farms. So I went shopping at Target.

And after scouring two aisles and asking an employee, said juices were no where to be found. Maybe come October. He said he remembered the blood orange soda around Halloween. But then again, my Target just had a major remodel, so who knows what they'll carry.

So I went on to the next recipe. Super easy. White wine, Fresca and fruit (fresh or frozen). I'd give you a link to the recipe, but my pin doesn't seem to have a link to the recipe. The only amounts you need to know are 1 bottle of wine, 3 cans of Fresca, and as much fruit as you want.

Although I have no doubt my friends and I could drink that much in a night, it seemed a little excessive for a Friday.

I had a bottle of moscato in the car, so I could skip the wine. I actually bought the moscato months ago for the express purpose of making sangria. There was a rebate involved. I know moscator is sweet, so I figured it would do well. I don't actually like moscato, so it's not like I'll drink it when it's not mized in something.

So I needed Fresca. Now, I love Fresca. If you've never had it, I suggest trying it. It's a Coke product. It's a grapefruit-flavored pop, but it's not sour like grapefruits actually are. It's bascially just a slightly tarter (more tart?) lemon-lime soda. **It only comes in diet.** They don't even bother to attempt to make this with actual sugar. This works out really well for me because I only drink diet. This works out well for any non-diet drinkers because there is no "regular" for them to compare it to!

Fresca accomplished.

Next, fruit.

I wasn't sure if I wanted fresh or frozen, so I went through the fresh area first. Yes, my Target now has fresh fruit. I wanted some berries, so I checked the price.

Then I went to the frozen fruit section to do a comparison.

Now, I don't remember what the actual price comparison was, because as soon as I found a small bag of assorted frozen fruit, I went for it. My Fresca was warm, my wine was warm...I figured the frozen fruit would act like ice cubes! So that's what I did.

I took it all to my friend's house, made it up, and poured myself a glass.

Pretty!

It wasn't bad. It certainly wasn't the best sangria I had ever had, but it was completely passable. Next time around, I won't use moscato, and might change the proportions. There ought to be more wine to the pop.

Carmel Apple Dip

When I make things for my friends to try, I do try to offer a variety. And something sweet.

Sometimes that something sweet is dessert. Sometimes it's an alcoholic beverage. Sometimes it's fruit.

This time, it was fruit. With a dip. Because I can't blog about just fruit. That would be boring.

So with this meal, I decided to make spiced caramel apple dip. I had some apples. All I needed was the cream cheese.

And since I was making another dish that required me to go buy cream cheese, this wasn't a problem.

So I mixed everything up as the directions specified. I thought the brown sugar left the texture a little gritty, but oh well. Mine was also much darker for some reason.

We all like this, although it made too much for one night/so few people.

Aunt Karen's Pound Cake

Now this is less a recipe and more an improvement.

We would go camping at least twice a year when I was younger, and we usually went with some Metz cousins. By usually, I mean it was rare if we weren't camping with my mother's twin brother and his family, and sometimes other brothers and their families came, too.

Now, I have no idea if Aunt Karen came up with this, but I have always associated her with this. Just like I can't not think of her when I eat M&Ms. Or Lorna Doones.

Anyway, this is another dish that reminds me of Aunt Karen, and I don't even know if she's the one who came up with it, or if she's just the one who always brought the pound cake.

The aunts coordinated things pretty well on our camping trips. Maybe synchronized is a better word.

So. What you do, is you go buy a frozen pound cake. A couple brands make them, I think, but I had a coupon for Sara Lee, so that's the kind I got. Make sure to get the butter one, not the lemon one.

Then, you make sure to thaw it. This is where I went wrong. I left if in my fridge over night, then on the counter for a bit, but it was evidently still frozen in the middle when I did this.

You put a whole mess of butter or margarine on top, then pack on some brown sugar.

Then bake.

You can tell my brown sugar was too clumpy, but you get the idea.

Here's where it gets dodgy. I have no idea how long you're supposed to put it in the oven. I put mine in until the brown sugar was melted, and then another few minutes, but it was cold when I sliced it. (I put it in the microwave for about 10 seconds to take care of that.) It also wasn't as moist as I remember.

So. I think the first thing that went wrong is that I didn't cook this by wrapping it in foil and throwing it in a camp fire. The secong thing, more butter. The third thing, more time. Or thaw it better.

But when this is good, it's oh so very good.

Promise.

Shark Attack

Sometimes, you just need a big pitcher of something adult.

Enter Guy Fierri, who seems to like make alcoholic beverages by the gallon.

I bought myself his cookbook after getting rid of his Diners, Drive-ins and Dives book. The cookbook is going to be awesome, even if I might have to have my Brother the Chef make some of the recipes.

So, to go with various appetizers that I was passing off as dinner, I decided to make a pitcher of Shark Attack. I mentally went through my bar and pantry, and realized I had everything but orange juice, grendaine, a lemon and maraschino cherries.

I bought the grendaine, and assinged my friends the juice, lemon and cherries.

I pulled everything out of the pantry to mix together in my glass pitcher, when I realized it.

I didn't have any rum.

Why was the rum gone? Where did it go?

Well, it must have been consumed, for it was nowhere to be found.

I suppose I could have just left out the rum. Or perhaps double the tequila. But I put in vodka instead. Probably not the best choice, but it's the one I made at the time.

I also doubled (maybe tripled?) the recipe because although the directions say to make it in a pitcher, there was actually very little liquid.

Look. Doubled (or tripled?) and it's still a very small amount in the pitcher.

The resulting drink was not bad. Rum definitely would have been better. And less fruit. Seriously, the man goes a little overboard with the solids in the drink. But this is something I would make again.

Queso Blanco Dip

My friends and I love us some cheese.

Seriously.

We were introduced to cheese fondue, and it all went down hill from there.

I think after fondue (complete with the fondue pot, although ours aren't '70s-tastic), our favorite melty cheese dish is queso blanco dip. If a Mexican restaurant has it, we want to try it.

I've tried to make it before, although I didn't blog about it. Probably because the recipe came off a Velveeta box.

Either way, I found this recipe for queso blanco dip, so I knew I had to try it.

(Side note. Queso means cheese. So saying "queso cheese dip" is an redundant as "9 a.m. in the morning " or "frozen ice" or, more timely, "forcible rape". It really bothers me.)

So I went to the deli counter to find the white American cheese since  the recipe said most deli counters have that. I didn't see it, but I asked. They did, she just needed to get the block from the back. I think I confused the poor woman when I said I just wanted a big block. I don't think they have actual knives behind that counter. But when I told her it could be multiple blacks if that helped, she calmed down. And managed to get the weight right on the nose.

The only substitution I made was that I used 2 percent milk instead of the recommended whole milk. I knew that might change the consistency since whole milk has such a higher fat content, but I was not about to buy special milk for this. I don't drink much milk period, and any leftover whole milk would have just been thrown away.

I don't remember how long I put it in the microwave. I kept putting it is for a minute and a time, then stirring. But the time the big glob of cheese was mostly melted, it was pretty runny, like the recipe said it would be. I apologized to my friends, who really didn't mind. Turns out, they like it a little runny so it can coat the whole chip without being too much cheese.

Not the best picture, but seriously yum.

So we ate. And it was tasty! Definitely better than whatever I made with Velveeta. And I will definitely make it again, and continue not bothering to decrease the recipe amount.

Because it reheats wonderfully.

Seriously! I ate chips and queso for a week. It was delicious. I'm considering making it and using it for a taco night.

Cheesy Bacon Apple Fritatta

I wanted to use stuff up before I went to Mexico. I just have going on vacation and then coming home to a fridge of food I need to throw away. So, I looked through my fridge, looked through my recipes, and decided I could make this frittata, and then package it up for lunch for the week. I mean, I think breakfast caseroles make great leftover, shouldn't a frittata?

So I followed the directions, but remembered what happened with the frittata I made from a Martha Stewart recipe -- it was bland. And not cheesy enough. So I resolve from the beginning to up the chessy-ness.

How it's supposed to look.

And I'm gonna tell you right off the bat, I used regular bacon and skipped right over that "organic" word when it came to the eggs. Seriously. Organic is expensive and I've got grad school student loans. And I substituted cottage cheese for the ricotta cheese, because of the price and because I had cottage cheese in the fridge. (Mom uses it as a substitute in her stuffed shells to help control the cost, so I know it's legit.)

Anyway. I actually baked the bacon the night before, so I went to work on the apple.

I proceeded to follow the directions about everything, adding some butter to the pan to make up for the lack of bacon grease. I added extra cheddar to the dish, but not extra cottage cheese.

I made a couple of mistakes, but I didn't know it until after I pulled the frittata out of the oven.

(This is where I had intended to put the photo of my fritatta, but I seem to have lost it.)

First, I made sure with Martha's frittata that I got the butter way the heck up on the sides of the pan. Since this one started with stuff in the pan, I totally forgot to do that and the egg dish didn't slide out nearly as easily.

Second, The recipe said to make sure the apples and bacon were evenly distributed along the bottom of the pan. So I didn't stir everything together after I put the eggs in. Maybe I wasn't supposed to. But the apples burned, so I think I should have stirred, even distribution be damned.

Third, like I just said the apples burned. That would be the bottom. And the top got brown like it was supposed to. But I'm not entirely convinced the middle was cooked all the way. It might just have been the cottage cheese, but it seemed mushier than it ought to have. I blame that on the high heat for a short period of time. Next time, I'll follow Martha's cooking directions because a broiler didn't cut it.

I proceeded to eat the fritatta for lunch that week. It heated up just fine, but the aforementioned issues didn't make it the tastiest lunch.

If I decide to make this again, I'll try to merge this frittata and Martha's.

Mississippi Sin

I wanted to make dinner for my friends the other night. But I didn't want to spend a lot of money.

And all I felt like making was appetizers.

So all I made was appetizers.

We decided to call them tapas (Spanish little bites), but that's mostly a misnomer since I made a bread full of cheesy dip. There was nothing small about it.

I just makes us feel better.

So, Mississippi Sin.

I have no idea why it's called that. But I thought it looked really tasty.

See? Yummy looking.

I followed the directions pretty well except for two things: My grocery store didn't have French bread, so I went with the Italian (heck, it looked the same), and I didn't want to spend more money than I needed to, so I substituted the beef I use in my cheese ball for the ham since I already had a packet.

Side note about cost savings. I spent about 5 minutes staring at the sour cream in the case because the 8 oz. containers were 10/$10 and a 16 oz. container was $2.39, making buying two small ones cheaper than buying one big one to get the same about of ounces. I was having trouble making sense of that math since buying smaller is rarely if ever cheaper.

Anyway.

So after I mix everything together (using twice the required amount of green onion because I chippoed and froze two together), I turn to the bread. I don't slice some of the bread off the top first because that just seems silly. I just slice diagonally down into it. And after I take that piece out and rip it up to dip in the dip later, I hollow out the bread just a little bit more. I did this for two reasons. First, I wasn't sure the dip was easily going to fit. And second, I wanted more bread for dipping!

I dumped the dip in the bread bowl, covered it up as best I could, and stuck it in the oven until my friends arrived.

It wasn't as warm as I had anticipated when I pulled it out, but it was definitely a warm dip. I'm sure it being in bread was the big difference. We ate it. We liked it!

Even adding beef instead of ham, it looks very similar.

And then the ripped bread ran out, so we started trying to pull apart the bread bowl.

That's where we ran into a problem.

The bread was hard to tear. Obviously, because it had been baked a second time. And the bread right next to the dip was soggy. In a gross way. It looked like it had been sitting in water. Not appetizing.

But, hey. This is such a good dip, I'm certainly not going to let gross bread prevent me from making it again. Maybe even with the ham next time. I'll just put it in an oven-safe container.

And chunk the bread up on the side.

Conclusion: Use a dish.

Sweet and Spicy Freezer Pickles

To be honest, this is a recipe I've made before. I made it last summer, when I was underemployed. Or maybe it was the summer beofre that, when I was unemployed? Either way, my mother is still bothering me to come get pickles out of her freezer.

I'm posting this recipe not because it's something new, but because people think I'm something special when I say I make pickles. Specifically, sweet and spicy freezer pickles.

I swear, I'm not special.

These things are so easy, anyone you trust to use a knife or stove can make them.

And freezing is SO much easier than canning.

Don't get me wrong, I wish I knew how to can. I wish I had time to can. And when the zombie apocolypse commences and power grids fail, sure I'll lose the pickles. But I'm trying, in the mean time.

Anyway, back to the pickles.

I went to a flea market on July 4, and bought cucumbers. Four for a dollar. I'll take that deal, thank you very much.

I already had nearly all the other ingredients. Heck, I had picked up white vinegar just because, with my coupon, the bottle was less than a dollar. I just needed a couple of jalapenos.

I just so happen to know a guy.

My dad owns John Rauf Mower Service. He also has an amatuer green thumb. So he gorws a bunch of things over at the shop. And by bunch, I mean irises out back and vegetables in pots. This soil has had grass clippings folded into it was 30 years. That's some nitrogen-rich dirt! And there's a significant lack of squirrel on Delhi Pike, so the family actually gets to eat what he grows. In addition to the (I think) six tomato plants, he has been doing pepper the past few years, too. So instead of going to the grocery store, I just head to Dad's to pick a couple jalapenos.

I picked two, since the recipe said I needed two.

When I got home, I realized that I probably had twice as much cucumber as the recipe called for, so I probably should have grabbed another two jalapenos. But I needed to get this done, so I was going to have to make do.

I peeled and sliced the cucumbers. I was not very good at keeping the slices consistent, but that has never bothered me.

I put in a couple spoonfuls of the pre-minced garlic into the bowl to start to meld with the cucumbers while I sliced the onions. 

I used double what the recipe called for as far as onions, but I did try to slice then very thin.

Then I diced up the jalapenos, saving the seeds to dump into a pot of soil I have on my porch (it had zinnias before the squirrels for to them).

Then I followed the directions for the liquid, doubling again. And I added some Tabasco at the end, just a couple of dashes, to make up for the lack of jalapeno. Yes, I know they aren't at all the same thing, but they've both got heat, right?

I mix everything as well as I can in a bowl that barely fits it all.

The pickles!

You let it sit for two days then package them up. I had reservations about the amount of liquid when I first covered them, but the cucumbers broke down enough that everything was eventually immersed. You have to freeze them with the juice/brine, too, so I filled five plastic containers to the brim. I'm sure plastic zip bags are a cheaper way of doing it, but containers stack better.

I don't know how they taste yet because I have yet to take them out of the freezer. In fact, I won't take them out until I run out of pickles in the fridge. Or perhaps I'll take some camping?

Either way, if they aren't hot enough, I'll add more Tabasco. But I'm sure they'll be tasty either way.

PAMA Bay Breeze

I was paging through my behemoth on a Tuesday. The day before my weekly dinners. I kept thinking to myself, "I should make a dessert." But it was hot. And I was tired and didn't feel like baking.


Screw dessert, I thought. I'll make an adult beverage.


I had just bought a pack of small can of pineapple juice (because I had a coupon) that I figured would be good for making alcoholic beverages. I mean, the least expensive containers of pineapple juice are usually those cans you have to pop a hole in, and how are those supposed to stay fresh? I like pineapple juice, but it has more sugar than I want to drink in a sitting. Hence the smaller cans.


So I paging through the behemoth and see all those recipe I snagged from the little booklet around the PAMA pomegranate liquor bottle neck. One of those was for PAMA Bay Breeze. It had the PAMA, pineapple juice and cranberry juice. Well, hells bells, all I needed was the actual liquor!


So I went and bought it. Yes, I know after the other couple of drinks, I said that it wasn't worth buying especially. But it's just so easy! I already had everything else!


I mixed everything in my pitcher before my friends arrived. Then all I had to do was pour.

I'd say I need prettier glasses, but I have no room for more glassware.

We liked it. It needed ice, or better yet lemon-lime soda, but it was good. Just a little too concentrated.


And so much easier than making dessert.

Oops

So I've totally failed these past two weeks. I went to Mexico last week, and was in last-minute prep mode the week before.


I promise to make up for it this week. I think I have three blogs partially started? And I'm going to need to make salsa verde (since now I know I can freeze it!) to use the tomatillos I bought.

Gorgonzola Garlic Bread

We are all familiar, by now, with my love of coupons.

Sometimes, I go a little crazy with them. But it's fine! Because the food gets eaten. Or the items get gifted. (My Christmas shopping routinely starts in June because that's when the Main Library has their used book sale, fyi.)

Anyway, I had this coupon for Stouffer's lasanga. I knew it was good because my uncle has actually served it for Christmas dinner. And I knew there would be a day when all I felt like cooking for dinner was a side and dessert.

So I bought the smallest size allowed with my coupon (which still fed 6-8 people) and stuck it in my freezer.

Until the other week, when I decided I wanted to make gorgonzola garlic bread. I mean, really, all I needed was the bread. How could I not make it?

Cheese and butter. Nothing better.

Now, I couldn't find a loaf at my local market that was long and narrow like the picture, and I really wish I had because I think that would have made the bread to butter ration better. But the only loaf that were long and skinny were those take and bake ones, and I didn't know if I could trust that. I will next time.

Unimpressive looking loaf.

Anyway, I followed the directions exactly. Including not slicing all the way through the bread. That made it tough later, and I'll probably clise all the way through next time.

I did mix in some of that basil puree I still have, because the directions said it was optional, and I need to use up that tube.

I put the bread in the oven, but I think both the time and the temperature were off since the lasanga was in there, too.

Tasty bread.

The bread turned out well. It's hard to evenly distribute the cheese and butter mixture when the slices were still attached to the loaf, so some spots had significantly more flavor than others, but that can be fixed for the next time.

We all liked it, and it did all right when I reheated it two nights later to go with the leftover lasanga. 

Easy Lemon Sugar Snaps

I like any recipe that has the word "easy" in the title.

So of course I wanted to try this recipe.

I doens't hurt that it's a lemon cookie. I really do love all lemon desserts. Or, rather, I have yet to find one I dislike.

Pretty!

Although, this one may be a contender, unfortunately.

So, I started this cookie excursion as I start most of my kitchen excursions: with a trip to the grocery store. I needed the cake mix and corn meal.

I started with the cake mix. I figured that would be easier. There were only two options for lemon cake. However, I didn't see "with pudding in the mix" on either. So I couldn't decide if I wanted the one that claimed to be moist or that one that was cheaper.

Then I actually picked the boxes up. "With pudding in the mix" was in small print in the lower corner on just one of the boxes.

That's the one I went with.

Then I needed to figure out what the deal was with corn meal. Have you any notion of how many different options there are? It's crazy. Do I want white or yellow? Meal or mix? There might have been a bleached option. All of them seemed to be "degerminated" and I don't even know what that means, so the word made me nervous.

I picked a brand I new, and a container that easily resealed.

Then I went home and made cookies.

I followed the directions exactly, except for measure the lemon zest. Because who measures fresh zest? That seem unnecessary.

I used my small cookie scoop to make perfect dough balls, then rolled them around in regular sugar.

I baked them as directed and did move them from the baking sheet to the cooling rack to finish cooling off.

Of course, I had to try one before they were actually done cooling.

Mine.

And I didn't care for it.

It wasn't the flavor, by any stretch. I really enjoyed the flavor.

I just couldn't stand the texture.

Seriously, that corn meal killed it for me. Sure, it might not have helped that the cookie was a thick ball of dough, and maybe next time I need to squish it down a little, but I would not get past the grittiness of the corn meal.

I warned my friends and co-workers of the texture before any of them ate the cookies. No one else had the issue I had. Which verifies, to me, that it was just me, and I can totally make these cookies again, as long as I'm aware I won't be eating any.

Honey Butter Pork Tenderloin

While I'm usually tempted to cook for my friends a dinner of all appetizers (can I call them tapas just to sound less silly?), I do try to avoid that.

And occassionally when avoiding that, I make something that resembles a real, grown-up meal.

Last week, I made pork tenderloin.

But not just any pork tenderloin. Honey Butter Pork Tenderloin.

Mmm, pork.

I followed this recipe pretty much exactly. Although, I didn't have any honey in my place, so I used agave nectar. Because why wouldn't I have agave nectar? I mostly got a chuckle out of using a vegan substitute on meat.

So I put the tenderloin in the pan with the melted butter and agave nectar. I set the timer so I knew when to flip it, and start to set the table. I come back every other minute or so to spen the meat in the pan so the butter/nectar mixture doesn't have the opportunity to burn.

That's when I notice the loin is starting to split down the middle, length-wise.

Now, I've eat a lot of tenderloin in my day, but I've never seen one split. Perhaps it was too longer pieces cut and packaged together like that? And they were finally thawing enough to come apart? Perhaps that was a serious line of fat that melted in the heat? I really have no idea. But it just kept butterflying until it was time to actually put it in the oven, when it completely came apart.

Well, I thought, at least it'll cook faster.

I threw some carrots in the pan, too, to roast with the pork.

I brought the meat out at the suggested time, and saw it was still raw on the sides. I'm not scared of medium-cooked pork, but rare is a no.

I put the meat back in the oven. I think for another 10 minutes? I moved the pieces of pork further apart to cook faster.

When I took out the meat the second time, I busted out that nifty meat thermometer My Brother the Chef told me to buy. It said medium pork is 160 degrees, so when the thermometer wouldn't climb past 150, I put the pork back in the oven. I decided it really must be done, though, so I turned off the oven and let the meat sit until the last friend arrived for dinner.

I checked the meat again, and it came up to 158 degrees. I decided it was still time to slice the meat.

That's when the power for my entire apartment complex, and the surrounding area, went out.

So there I am, slicing meat, in the dark, hoping I don't need anything else out of the fridge.

I have an electric stove, so it's a good thing I didn't plan on doing anything with the sauce anyway. The recipe says add water, reduce and pour over meat, but I had added a little water to the pan, swirled it around to get all the honey and butter off, and poured that over the tenderloin before cooking it. And it barely reduced in the oven. There was no way I was going to add more water.

Not the prettiest slicing, but it was dark!

I didn't measure the Cajun seasoning or the pepper when I browned the meat, I just sprinkled it on. I think next time, more Cajun, less pepper. But we all really like the pork. My friend who doesn't even like pork tried a little piece.

She liked the sauce.

She still doesn't like pork.

But I will totally make this again. Making sure to thaw the meat all the way first, and then not cooking it as long.