Week 27: Losing Some Steam

Recipes to Go: 507 241

Weeks to Go: 52 25

Recipes Made This Week

Chicken & Tomato Risotto

Chicken Nacho Dip

Frosty Toffee Bits Pie

Toasted Butter Pecan Cake

Pesto Rice-Stuffed Pork Chops

Southwest Barley Salad

Bacon Quiche

Shrimp Wrapped in Bacon

Lemon Rice Pudding Brulee

Tuesday was my half-birthday, which usually I'll very keen to celebrate, but this year it almost passed by unnoticed. Thankfully, my mom sent me an email, which reminded me. And in lieu of the traditional flowers, The Husband opted to make dinner. I chose the risotto. This time I had arborito rice, but he still had to stand in front of the stove for awhile. We have both decided that while we love risotto, it will have to be a special occasion dish because of the time commitment. Although, unlike gnoche, it is actually worth the effort.

This risotto was different because it called for spaghetti sauce at the end. I didn't like it as much as the tomato and corn risotto earlier, but The Husband liked it better. I also liked the orzo pasta as a substitute for arborito rice. We didn't agree on that either.

Wednesday I needed something fast and simple, and it seemed to me that it had been far too long since we had refried beans with anything. They aren't usually a staple at our house, but I missed them, so it was great that this chicken dip called for it. It is kind of like a 7-layer dip only it is missing 2 or 3 layers and the rest are all mixed together. But other than that . . . We all liked it and it was sufficient as a dinner all by itself.

Wednesday I also made the Frosty Toffee Bits Pie, mostly because I was hoping the weather would cooperate for us to go to DC on Thursday and I wouldn't be able to make it then. And since it sits in the freezer until I'm ready to eat it, it is still residing there now. We didn't have Game Night, it's original intended use, but it'll keep. And I don't really know how it tastes, but the batter was excellent.

Thursday we did go to DC, so I spent all day on the road, eating leftovers and listening to 80's music and Toy Story 2. Not a bad day, in the end. And we got home at a reasonable enough hour that after we put The Captain to bed, I had plenty of time to make the Toasted Butter Pecan Cake.

My intension was to take it to class in the morning. I was assuming, since we had driven all day and knew the roads were clear, that school would be normal the next day. I was wrong. While they did actually hold school, there was a two-hour delay, which means my class, held before school was cancelled. Which means we ate the cake ourselves. There was no complaining by The Husband. In fact, he said this cake was very beautiful, and because it spends its spare time in the fridge, it is the easiest thing to cut and it stays beautiful after you cut it. Nice.

Friday, I had to play catch up. I made the pork chops. I was putting this off a little because I'm still not sure if I love pork chops or not, and the answer is I don't think I do. I'll eat them, but they are definitely not a favorite.

And I learned with this recipe that I am not capable of slicing them to stuff them. I suppose it would have been easier to attempt if they were still a little frozen, but still, meat is not easy to slice for me. So instead of being stuffed, they were topped with pesto rice. It was still yummy, right?

The southwest barley salad was nice to go with the pork chops. I didn't measure out the sauce, just eye-balled, but it definitely needed more salsa.

But, like, a ton more, so we just dumped it on our servings. Delicious.

Saturday morning I made the bacon quiche. I finally cooked the bacon to my satisfaction first, so this was especially delicious to me.

I also used crescent rolls instead of a prepared pie crust, so that was really tasty too.

We didn't really want to eat anything big for dinner, so I made The Husband put together the Shrimp Wrapped in Bacon

while I did the Lemon Rice Pudding Brulee. Both were very yummy.

Half-Way There

1/2 of 507=253, rounding down. And as you may remember from the last post, I have completed 250 recipes, which means I'm finally ahead of the game! This brings me much joy, since I will be out of the country for two weeks and unable to make anything. I am still planning on finishing on time, which means a little double duty, but with some more holidays and a few fun parties, I think I'll manage.

So here is my latest Top Ten List (this one has no imput from The Husband, since he is out of town right now, and only comes from recipes made after the Quarter-Way marker)

In no particular order

1. Roasted Vegetable Turkey Pinwheels
2. Forgotten Jambalaya
3. Zucchini Latkes
4. Ginger-Streusel Pumpkin Pie
5. Chili for a Crowd
6. Apple Pie Pastries
7. Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes
8. Caribbean Quesadillas
9. Peach Bliss Dessert
10. Simple Lemon Pie

My original list was 18, so there's a lot that almost made it. I'm sure The Husband will agree with most on this list, okay at least half.

I'm happy to report that some other aspects of my goal are also coming true:

• my knife skills have improved greatly
• I am now pretty good at juggling multiple recipes at once
• I can organize my time with different recipes so they are all done at once
• my pantry is almost fully stocked so that I could make my favorite recipes (minus one or two odd ingredients) without a shopping trip

It's hard to believe that I'm more than half-way done with the recipes. Quite honestly, some days I didn't think I'd make it. But as hectic and stressful as it often is, I am so grateful I decided to do this. I will probably never have the time and stability or energy to do this again in my life, and it has worked out so well thus far. So looking back I'm grateful and overwhelmed that we've eaten so much food.

Week 26: Soup Galore

Recipes to Go: 507 250

Weeks to Go: 52 26

Recipes Made This Week

White Bean Chicken Chili

Cheesy Corn Chowder

Pizza Margherita

Supreme Pizza Burgers

Brown Sugar Date Squares

Taco Minestrone

Pretty Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns

Ham Salad Croissants

Forgotten Jambalaya

Sunday, having consumed or thrown out most of the food in our fridge, it was time to start again. It being January and cold, I naturally went with soup. For most of the week, actually. I can't help it, the weather turns cold and I crave soup; the weather gets warm and I want salad. And to me, Sunday and soup are a perfect marriage. So I threw together the White Bean Chicken Chili. I didn't have white beans, so we used pinto. This may have been a fortuitous substitution. The recipe isn't high yielding in the first place, so there ended up only enough leftover for lunch for me and The Husband the next day.

I know chili gets better as leftovers, and I know pinto beans don't usually have a lot of flavor to them, but for some reason, the leftovers of this soup were the best thing I have ever tasted. Okay, maybe that's a little much, but they were the best soup leftovers I've ever had. Hands down. I could have eaten a whole pot again by myself, and all I got was a measly little cup-full. It was cruel, I tell you. So I will make this again, and while I may try it with white beans, I may not. Why ruin the best leftovers ever?

Well, since the chili was gone on Monday, I made soup again Monday night. This time, a chowder. I have never been a fan of chowder, but I was hoping since this was a corn chowder that maybe I'd like it better. I didn't. But it was mostly because of the chewy bacon. I can't stand chewy bacon in recipes. It was partially my fault.

I chop my onions pretty small and since the recipe called to throw everything in together, the bacon didn't have much time to cook before the onions were burning. So next time, start the bacon sooner. But it's only partially my fault because I don't think crispy bacon would really be true to the idea of a chowder. I don't know, what do you think? I guess I'm doomed to not love chowder all my life.

Sadly for me, the chowder made tons, and I didn't really want to eat it at every meal, so on Tuesday, I made pizza instead. I'd been craving pizza for awhile now, but it's hard to justify going out to a pizza joint when I have 10 recipes to make a week. Luckily, there are multiple pizza recipes in the book. Based solely on ingredients, we made the Pizza Margherita. It was divine. Exactly what I hoped for. Which is why I ate more than half of it. I didn't even save any for The Husband's lunch, in the hopes that he would eat more of the chowder for me. I ate it so quickly, that I didn't stop to take a picture. Sorry.

The pizza craving out of the way, the next thing to go was a hamburger. I'm not usually one for fast food, but I hadn't had a really yummy burger in ages. This is partially because fast food and yummy burgers are not synonymous. I was saving the burger recipes until we got a grill, but I decided we'd make due. The taste buds will not be denied!

We used our George Forman Grill for these, which was a bit of a mistake since they stuck to the grill horribly. So instead of burgers, we kind of had sloppy joes. And rather than pizza sauce, I used ketchup. But it was okay because rather than provolone cheese, I used pepper jack, so it evened out the flavor a little. These were also amazing. Just what I needed.

Thursday night, in the hopes that I would be able to teach my class of teenagers in the morning, and knowing that Fridays are usually when we have treats, I decided to make the treat myself. Unfortunately, I hadn't planned on it when I went shopping, so I had to use what I could. I decided to make the Brown Sugar Date Squares, but use raisins instead of dates. Other than the fact that raisins smell horrible when they are cooking, they made a good substitution. These ended up tasting like a really, really good version of a breakfast bar. And since I didn't teach class the next day, I already had a treat ready for Game Night.

Soup break was over, so on Friday I made the Taco Minestrone. This was under the Meals in Minutes section, which I can understand, but The Husband and I decided that it is really a good way to get rid of leftover minestrone that no one wants to eat any more. I doubt I would ever reach that point since minestrone is my favorite soup, but for those who don't fall under that category, this recipe might be for you. It's ridiculously easy and simple and completely transforms the minestrone into a southwestern treat.

You just add 1/2 lb. ground beef, 2 cans ranch-style beans, and 2 cans diced tomatoes and green chilis to 2 cans minestrone. So easy, and no draining, so it is an uber fast meal.

Saturday a big storm rolled in. Luckily, The Husband had gone shopping for me the night before, so we were well prepared to be snowed in. Having nothing else to do, I baked the whole day. It was after noon by the time I finished the Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns. I debated halving the recipe, but decided to go for it. Lesson learned: my KitchenAid cannot handle 7 cups of flour. So I will be halving all further such recipes. The yeast finally agreed with me and I ended up with 2 dozen beautiful pumpkin rolls.

And because there was pumpkin involved they stayed moist at least until we got through the first pan. But 10 secs in the microwave was all they needed to be delicious once again. So breakfast was taken care of for the rest of the week, at least.

Instead of ground ham, which I don't plan on keeping around, I used tuna for the croissant sandwiches. I also used the leftover hamburger buns instead of the croissants. No one complained as this may have been the best tuna salad ever.

And that's a lot for me to admit since I thought I made a pretty good tuna salad on my own. I didn't follow this recipe religiously, so I guess my own experience contributed, but I can tell you that from now on, sunflower seeds will be added to my tuna salad every time. Genious.

Saturday's recipes are almost backwards from when I prepared them to when we ate them. I got the jambalaya ready first thing in the morning, before I started on the pumpkin cinnamon rolls, which were busy rising when I made the ham salad croissants.

I do love me a good slow cooker recipe, and this is going to become a staple. I'm sure I can keep shrimp around and sausage so that I can make this a few times every winter. This really was the greatest.

The meat was good, but the sauce was the outstanding part. We ate this for three days straight, two meals a day, and no one complained, or even thought about complaining. It just kept getting better. So I was sworn by The Husband to make this a future staple. I will happily comply.

And this week makes the half-way point, which means another non-recipe checkpoint blog post is coming up.

Week 25: Appetizers

Recipes to Go: 507 259

Weeks to Go: 52 27

Recipes Made This Week

Pizza Fondue

Stuffed Portabello Mushrooms

Greek Pasta Salad

Colorful Turkey Salad Cups

Double Chocolate Fondue

Roasted Vegetable Turkey Pinwheels

Fancy Phillo Cups

Texas Snack Mix

Crisp 'n' Tender Corn Waffles

I could not eat any more food. I think if I looked at stuffing any more I would hurl. The idea of all that dessert, not to mention the reality of it on my counters was clogging my arteries. I think I may have overdone it a teeny, tiny bit for Christmas. It was too much. We needed to eat something that wouldn't have ridiculous amounts of leftovers. Something that wouldn't sit on my stomach like gravel. So I decided to make appetizers the whole week.

It was Wednesday when I made this decision. I went to the store on Tuesday. I felt like I was shopping blind. I haven't gone to the store without a list since July. I wasn't sure what to do with myself. How did I do this all those years before I started this project? I remembered a few of the things we'd run out of during the holidays, and a few of the recipes that I had glanced at, but I didn't get much other than that. Once I got some idea of what the week would be like, I hit up Walmart. We started with the Pizza Fondue.

It sounded perfect to me, warm for a cold winter night, but only eat what you want, or you can fit. Plus, while I dearly love chocolate, there's something about pizza/spaghetti sauce as a fondue that makes it uber yummy. It really hit the spot. The Captain liked it too.

I had purchased portabello mushrooms on Tuesday, during the blind shopping, knowing about this recipe and figuring now was as good a time as any. They were pretty good, but the mushrooms were so big and I had to eat two because they certainly weren't going to keep. They would not have been good at all as leftovers. Add to that the Greek Salad we had--which was excellent, I made it vegetarian to make it not as filling--and my stomach was starting to protest again.

Friday was New Year's Eve. I wasn't originally planning on doing anything. I assumed most of our friends would have plans, so Game Night was cancelled as far as I was concerned, but when our friends wanted to get together at their house, I said it was far easier for us to host, so Game Night was back on. And still wanting to get a decent amount of recipes made this week, I tried to take advantage and put together some food for the New Year.

We still needed dinner first, so I made the Colorful Turkey Salad Cups, only instead of turkey, I used the leftover ham from Christmas. It went really well with the recipe since it was a good blend of sweet and savory, just like the fruit/veggie combo in the rest of the salad.

The recipe had all my favorites in it, but I just could eat more than two servings. And though The Husband took leftovers to work, I had to throw some out in the end because it didn't look very appetizing just sitting in a bowl. Much better wrapped in a lettuce leaf.

Now for the New Year food. I got started earlier in the day with the roasted vegetable part of the turkey pinwheels. I think these won the most awards of the night because of the spread, which if you overlook the oil (minimal) used to roast them and the cream cheese, which would be in any wrap spread, then it was extremely healthy. Surprisingly so, because healthy things aren't supposed to be addictively good.

But these were. And though they took some time, they weren't time intensive, just a lot of baking and chilling mostly, which left time to work on the other foods.

The phyllo cups were really hard to get out of the muffin tins. And I sprayed them before I put the phyllo in. I guess this was a time that it would have been better to grease with shortening. The cups definitely needed to set up in the fridge before eating, but they also got rave reviews.

Luckily, when they were set up, you could eat them in two bites without making a mess because they are just barely too big to eat in one. Maybe next time I'll make them in a mini muffin tin since as an appetizer, I think one bite should be sufficient.

I bought quite a few boxes of Chex cereal when it was on sale because I knew there'd be recipes like this. And since I couldn't just use part of the cereal, I made Muddy Buddies, too. Can you believe The Husband hadn't heard or tasted Muddy Buddies until 2 years after we'd been married? Don't worry, he knows he missed out, and tries to make up for it by eating them multiple times a year now. Anyway, the Texas Snack Mix was way more addictive than I anticipated.

The sauce seemed so small in comparison to the snack mix I wasn't sure it would have an affect on all of it, but it did. And I think next time I'll add the sauce in two batches with a stirring partner to avoid those few pieces that were just too intense.

The fondue never set up. It stayed pretty thin and goopy, but that didn't stop us from eat a lot of it anyway.

I forgot to put out apples, but everything else made a pretty good showing. The Husband has some mad stabbing talents. He can spear a Vanilla wafer every time without cracking or breaking it. We were all very impressed.

New Year's Day, when we finally rolled out of bed (thank you, The Captain, for sleeping in til 8) I made the corn waffles. I haven't always been a fan of waffles in the past. As a kid, I thought they were thick and heavy and choked me. But now I think the waffle iron The Husband got for our anniversary this year will end up being a good investment and will get used beyond the scope of this goal.

The waffles were yummy, and The Captain is unsurprisingly addicted to syrup.

So for a week were no one felt like eating and I didn't get started until Wednesday, I don't think I faired too badly.