Cheesy Potato bread and more chocolate variations...

So, I actually pulled some of that dough from my freezer. I always wondered about whether dough would actually defrost well, and it really did! I was worried about frozen centers, with rising exteriors, but it didn't really seem to do that for some reason.

On Sunday I made Teriyaki chicken (baked whole chicken with teriyaki sauce under the skin and in the cavity, with salt and pepper over, then poured the sauce over the outside of the chicken when there was ten minutes left to bake... really simple) , so on Tuesday night I made chicken soup-- with brown rice (which disappeared completely) 1/4 bag of frozen corn, 1/2 bag frozen peas, 1 bag frozen broccoli (aka, what I had on hand). It was a little boring-- I forgot to sautee some onions first. I will never make stew without onions again!

But, having it for lunch again yesterday, I wanted to do something special for Kevin, so we pulled that dough out of the freeze, took a third of it aside, put the rest back to freeze, and filled the remaining third with sharp cheddar cheese and topped it with butter and garlic salt. Yummy! It turned out well except for the fact that I made one of those totally elementary mistakes that I blush to confess-- I forgot to butter the pan, so it's stuck in there pretty firmly!

Today Kevin asked for some cookies, so I threw together my basic recipe, with a few white chocolate chips in as well, 'cause I had them in my freezer. They just came out of the oven, so we'll see what Kevin says about them. I'm finally out of that stupid self-rising flour that Keith accidentally bought me about a year ago, so I'll start experimenting with more wafery cookies.

Hehehe! Kevin just helped himself to a cookie. He says 'Yeah, Buddy!'

Day of food comforts

Sorry, no pics today. I have to replace the batteries in my camera.

Last night, after a rather stressing day, I decided to throw a few things I had together for a quick dinner. This involved two boiled potatoes from when I was making my bread yesterday, a bag of steamed veggies in the fridge, about a lb of thawed ground beef, a can of cream of potato soup, curry powder, sour cream, and some milk. This made a very yummy stew and we had it with fresh bread, which was a nice addition. 2 year old Kevin loved it. It was even better for lunch today with more of that bread. Kevin was picking out the whole, steamed, baby carrots, which are his favorite.

Considering how much bread I have in the house today I decided to go ahead and make some bread pudding-- the version I made up for Keith's mom when she wasn't feeling well and was having a hard time getting herself to eat. I broke up three thick slices of my bread, and poured over it a mixture of about two cups of whole milk beaten with four eggs, cinnamon and sugar. I usually would have vanilla in there too, but I forgot! This I put in a casserole dish in the oven until it's browning on top. It's quite yummy. Definitely qualifies as comfort food.

Potato Hawaiian Bread

I took 2 lrg cans of crushed pineapple, liquified it in my blender. Did the same to about 5 medium potatoes in the water they were boiled in-- added yeast, sugar, honey, salt, eggs, melted butter, and flour. I ended up freezing over 2/3 of the dough. The remaining dough made 6 large loaves. I rub the tops with butter so they're soft and shiny. More pics later! I'll let you know how it tastes!

Beef Au Gratin

This is just a variation on my chicken au gratin. It's a one-pot meal. I made this the night that we moved into our new house with very little effort on my part. I simply chopped an onion, let it get translucent, added about a lb of ground beef, browned it, added the potatoes from a package of au gratin potatoes (to let them absorb some of the grease from the beef and get some texture rather than getting mushy). I let the potatoes start to brown a very little and threw in the cheese sauces from the au gratin potato package, a second cheese sauce from mac n' cheese and some water and milk (just the amounts from the au gratin package). I let that simmer a little, then added the broccoli (I pkg frozen). I served while the broccoli still had some character to it.

It was a hit. Go figure. This is my 'don't feel like making an effort' meal.

Choco-choco Cookies

We ended up eating these three days in a row because I just made up a bunch of dough and then stuck it in the fridge and baked it up as desired. Originally I just threw it down on the cookie sheet from a spoon like I normally would, but the other two times I actually rolled them into balls before putting them on the cookie sheet and those made really pretty-looking cookies. Kevin wanted to have tiny ones yesterday so we rolled them into tiny little balls and ended up with nice little delicious cookies. The extra time rolling them all into those little balls was made up for by the fact that they cooked really quickly!

All these are is butter, sugar, vanilla, two Tblspns cocoa powder, self-rising flour, and chocolate chips. I made it in my food processor. I didn't add more sugar to my cocoa powder, which results in a more grown-up rich chocolate taste rather than over-poweringly sweet. I'll be making these again.

Keith doesn't like them, of course. Once I unpack the oatmeal we'll try variations of oatmeal cookies.

Gluten-Free All-Purpose Cheese Sauce

My mom suffers from celiac disease (which, for those who don't know, means she can't have gluten). I used to cook for her, so I kept trying to figure out how to make her foods she loved. When she first tasted this her immediate reaction was 'I can't have this!'

It's very simple.

Simply steam a head of cauliflower. Put this in your blender and add a little milk (emphasis LITTLE) to help it become smooth. Now add some cheese chunks-- blend! It actually tastes more cheesy than a white sauce version and no one has been able to guess my secret ingredient!

*note: I pour this over fresh broccoli-stuffed chicken (just hammer chicken flat and put sauce and broccoli inside, roll it up, then smother in sauce), then slice sweet potatoes and put those on top before baking the whole thing in the oven-- it's so good!*

Curry Chicken

This is really easy and my sweetheart's favorite dinner.

1 lrg onion. Heat until transparent on the stove with about 2 tbspns butter.

2 Boneless Skinless Chicken breast (depending on how much you want to make, of course), cut into small, bite-sized chunks. Cook this on the stove with the onions until cooked through.

Add curry powder. About a palm. Sniff it and you should be able to tell if its enough.

Add:
1 bag frozen peas.
1 head cauliflower
1 pkg sliced mushrooms.

Cover and stirr occassionally until veggies are soft. You may want to add more curry powder.

Add 1 heaping spoonful of sour cream (or more, according to taste).

We serve this over rice.