Lunch is Served

Using my Fire-Roasted Tomato sauce and turkey meatballs
I made this yummy meatball sandwich on and herb french
roll. 

Lazy Dog Pics

She's actually out playing here, but look at those dirty
paws!  She had an undercarriage bath when we got home.

Cookie Bonanza!

I have been baking an absurd amount of cookies lately.  I think I'm actually getting a little bit of carpal tunnel in my right hand from using the cookie scoop.  Last week when it was cold and dreary I decided to make some Snickerdoodles to warm up the condo.  They were a hit!  My office loved them and Christopher requested another batch.  I used Mrs. Sigg's Snickerdoodle recipe and added a tsp of nutmeg, substituted the shortening for butter, and double the butter amount.  Instead of using one cup of butter, I used two.  Maybe next time I should try the normal amount, but they came out so moist and buttery that I don't know if I want to go back!

I also learned a pretty neat trick from reading the Snickerdoodle comments. Instead of rolling the dough in your sugar and cinnamon mixture you can put them in a baggie and shake.  Shake and Bake!  It works so much better and is a major time saver.

I had also gotten a request for my normal ginger cookies so I made a batch of those as well.  

Thanksgiving Feasting

I swear that my stomach has stretched in the last five days.  There was so much good food to be had on both sides of my family.  I love Thanksgiving!

Unfortunately, I was too involved with talking and the normal bustle around the kitchen that I didn't take any pictures at my Uncle David's feast.  It was all so delicious!  Auntie Wendy made super cute little turkey cookies too.  

Pizza "Pinwheel"

As I was making my meatballs, I found that I had too many to put on my trays.  I decided to break some of them up to make a little appetizer to bring to my Aunt's for Thanksgiving.  In true Allison fashion, I overstuffed the thing so that I couldn't roll it.  So though it's not exactly a Pinwheel, it's a stuffed flat-roll.

Turkey Meatballs

One of my favorite foods is spaghetti.  Lately I've been making spaghetti sauce and the freezing it to eat during the week when I don't feel like cooking.  What goes well with spaghetti?  Meatballs of course!

I had purchased ground turkey from Safeway at a buy one get one free price and picked up some Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage at my local Food Maxx.  Using what herbs I had in the fridge, basil and parsley, I made about 100 meat balls to freeze.  (I also minced some onion and one egg per batch to throw in there.)  These were super easy to make and only about $9.00 total.  I look for any excuse to use my Kitchen Aid mixer so I put it all in for a little whirl, but you can use your hands and it will be fine.

I used my cookie scoop to make them all about the same size.

Freezing them flat like this first will allow me to put them in a large baggie
later without them sticking to each other or molding into one big turkey
meatloaf.

They only take about an hour to freeze. I have a second tray waiting in the
fridge since my freezer is too small to do them both at the same time.

Wah La!  I made Hot Sausage and Sage Sausage varieties.  Now we can have
spaghetti and meatballs whenever we like,  I'm also excited to have some
meatball sandwiches!

The Big Game 2011

Surprisingly Cal did a lot better than anyone expected.  With the final score of 31-28 Stanford, we were all pretty pleased with the outcome.  Of course, nowadays I go for the tailgating.  Since the crabbers have yet to figure out crab prices we were treated with some lobster. Yum yum!

Roasted garlic potatoes, filet mignon with mushroom gravy, lobster, broccoli
salad, and later, sticky rice. 

It was quite cold and rainy out.

Linda and Rob graciously agreed to help me watch Emmy.  As a thank you, I made them a big pot of Cioppino, salad, and lemon bars.

Go Bears!

Tomorrow is the 2011 Big Game between Cal and Stanford.  Though I know winning is not in Cal's favor, one can still hope.  The tailgate is what I look forward to the most.  In preparation for the big day, I used my Konad to get festive.

No Flash

Flash

Fire-Roasted Tomato Sauce

On my day off for Veteran's Day I made a scrumptious pasta sauce.  This is no joke, my best sauce to date. The fire-roasted tomatoes gave the sauce a really nice smokey flavor and all the veg gave it a hearty texture.

Spaghetti Sauce 5: Fire Roast Tomatoes Spaghetti Sauce 

1lb ground turkey

2 onions, diced

5 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp fresh sage, minced

1 tsp anchovy paste

2 red bell peppers, diced

2 yellow bell peppers, diced

3 yellow squash, cubed

1 cup red wine

3 8oz cans tomato sauce

2 14.5oz cans fire roasted tomatoes, pureed

Salt and pepper to taste (about 1 tsp of each) 

Directions: 

Over medium high heat, brown turkey in large sauce pot.  Let 75% of turkey juice evaporate.  Add onion, garlic, sage and anchovy paste, sauté until soft. Sprinkle in salt and pepper. Add bell peppers and squash.  Saute veggies and add wine.  Cover and let veggies steam in wine sauce.  

Meanwhile, using a blender or food processor, puree fire roasted tomatoes. Add fire roasted tomatoes and tomato sauce.  Bring to boil.  Once at a boil, leave lid cracked and let simmer for 2-3 hours. 

Poor-Man's Tomato Soup

As a child my Mom always bought chicken noodle instead of tomato soup.  It wasn't until college that I had it with a grilled cheese sandwich and thought it was amazing.  This week I tried something new.  I wanted to make a tomato soup that was easy and affordable, plus I wasn't feeling well and didn't want to go to the store to get some.  My local Food Maxx is having a sale on their 8oz tomato sauce cans for $0.24 each.  I simply poured the sauce into a pot and added about 8oz of chicken stock.  After bringing it to a to a boil it looks just like the store bought stuff!  It's a little bit acidic so next time I'm going to add a pinch of sugar, but for about $0.30 I made a 16oz bowl of tomato soup to go with my ham and cheese sandwiches!  I might even spruce it up with some pepper and oregano next time, but I love how easy and simple this is. 

For my sandwiches I've been layering Swiss cheese and ham with a little bit of mustard and ranch dressing.  When I get to work I heat it up in the microwave and wa laa!  Melty ham and cheese sandwich!  It's been my thing for a few days now and I love it. 

I know it doesn't look like much, but sometimes some of the simplest things
are the most delicious. 

Knives, knives, and more knives!

This is what my drying pad looks like after Nick and I cook together:

Family Dinner

This weekend Nick and I planned a big family dinner to watch Captain America and celebrate my Mom's bday. Since Safeway was having an extremely good sale on whole chickens we decided to do our Sage-Rosemary butter chicken.  We also made our normal garlic green beans and tried out some wild rice and drunken mushrooms.  I wasn't a huge fan of the rice and for some reason I had a really heavy hand with the salt for the mushrooms so they were rather salty.  If I decide to perfect the recipe I'll post it, but as of now, they were just kind of "eh".

Nick and I started off the day with a hearty meal and some football.  Well, he watched football and I took a long food coma nap.

I whipped up a little spicy sauce to slather on his toast and piled on left over
London broil, mozzarella, and eggs.

For myself I fried eggs and put them on top of bologna
and english muffins.

By 3:30pm we started cooking.  

Before

1 hour into baking

2.5 hours later

I had also decided to make a couple of Dutch Apple Pies.  Instead of using classic chunks of apple I sliced them thinly. 

Make it glitter make it rain

I was so excited to find this nail polish at CVS the other day.  It's just by Wet n' Wild, but I've been wanting a similar OPI polish called Teenage Dream.  This is good enough for me.  The best part is that instead of being the normal $0.99, it was $0.69.  It's not much of a difference, but I have to get my kicks some how.

For this look I used a light pink nail polish as a base and put about three coats of the glitter.