Vicky Learns to Cook

Hello Readers! I've been asked to teach a class on Middle Eastern food.  It was actually a while ago, but some things take time and I forget sometimes to do things. Also I have so many favorites, it's hard to pick what to teach. And if I teach them all we would have to start the day before! So right now, I am going to blog my journey to narrowing down the foods to teach. Or maybe make it more than one class? Or heck, a cookbook. Who knows where this will lead (laughs). World domination! Okay maybe not that far. Today's test came from getting a new grill (thanks to my neighbors who are awesome and got a mega super awesome grill with sensor lights - its really a holy moly kinda thing - so they sold us their original one. ) I'm not a grill person, well, I have not been up until now. So I didn't really know what I was doing. I'm not entirely sure I do quite yet, but I have learned a few lessons: 1.) The grill must be on, properly. If it has a trip switch, c...

I'm so tired I have no desire to bake, Yea you heard me. I'm that tired. :) But I can direct, so I am having the boy make oreos. Because everyone should know how to make this! I mean, just look at them: Oh yes, homemade oreos! The dough is so dark and yummy it's all i can do not to eat it all before we bake it! Must. Not. Eat. The smell is just killing me. (drool) I need another oven. Hurry up please. They take a whole 20 minutes to cook because they are so dense and dark. Yum! Get them off the pan right out of the oven or they stick. Just don't eat them yet. HOT. I kid you not, I said make ONE. He put about 1/2 cup of the bakery frosting in the cookie. It was gross. I made him turn it into a double stuffed sized cookie. Jeez. Anyway here is the recipe. We had left over frosting from the bakery supply store after making a cake, so we didnt use their filling. Hope you enjoy! http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/oreo-cookies-r...

Sorry I've been gone so long, blog readers! Mostly I was transitioning my work and home schedules. When I go through a transition, I tend to set things down and ponder the best way to fit all the pieces of the puzzle that is my schedule back together in a new way. Once done, I tend to go back to the things I love doing. Guess this is one of them. :) So, here we are. Back from being "on the lamb". It's time to eat! I've never really been a fan of lamb. To me it tasted ... "doggy". It smelled kinda funny too. But adventurous me wanted to give it another shot. And I can tell you, I am now a convert. Unfortunately I am alone in my family for liking lamb. The spices used were good to use on beef as well. Heck, my imagination was spurred to even consider selling spice mixes such as this one. Of course, rather than do the smart thing and make sure I have all the ingredients before landing on this recipe, I do the opposite most of the time. I buy t...

Chicken Roma I have to say it was a pretty good day. I spent hours in the garden and then cooked a fabulous dinner. I even got to read a book! Since the hubby has been working so hard on his diet, I've been looking for really good tasting recipes that are good for you, and from scratch. This one didn't even seem to take that long (but I was doing what I love, so it may have been an hour or more). I had to share it with you so you can try this recipe! The first thing you notice is that the recipe calls for both chicken breast and chicken thighs. I don't think I've seen one like that before. You cook the chicken first in olive oil until browned and then take them out of the pan to rest. Of course I ran OUT of olive oil, and by the way, if you turn your back on it, olive oil smokes. A lot. So I supplemented the olive oil with cooking oil. It was fine, and I didn't burn the oil. Whew! Chicken browned on left. Prosciutto and garlic on the right. See...

So the Italian parsley is in at the stores. (Big grin) which is really cool because now I can make the parsley sauce. I love parsley sauce on my fish. There are a lot of fish recipes out there, but this one makes me want to actually eat the fish, as opposed to the others I muddle through to get to the carbs I added to my plate. But you need fresh parsley, see, and you can only get it in the warm months. Well, it's warm! I picked up some Tilapia from the big Kroger down the street, the kind they show in the window, and threw it right into the freezer until I had time to work with it. Fish has like NO shelf life in the fridge. None. Once I found the parsley, the soft leafed Italian parsley just tastes better in my opinion, I knew it was time. I thawed the fish, salted it and added pepper. I put butter and olive oil in the big pan and laid the fish in. As that browned, I grabbed the parsley bunch and pulled an entire section out, instead of ripping the leaves off the top....

This is my husband's favorite German meal. I have yet to perfect it but this turned out pretty good. It's rare I find veal in the supermarket, to be honest. But I found it recently. And of course you may not ever want to eat it, if you really think about what it is you're eating. So if it bothers you, you can always buy pork cutlets and make Jager Schnitzel. That's good too. The trick is to ensure you don't overcook it. This is what you're going for ^ so this is not my schnitzel, but it was close. I never got a photo of After, I was too busy eating. True story! It is thin, about 1/4 inch, and breaded using Parmesan cheese in the egg mixture, which frankly I'd never tried before. I think it makes a world of difference. You put flour in bowl 1; eggs, parmesan cheese, parsley, salt, pepper, and a touch of nutmeg in bowl 2; and bread crumbs in bowl 3. Some people use panko bread crumbs....really for everything.... but I find a finer crumb is wha...

I'm sitting here, stuffy nose and watery eyes, wishing I had some brownies. I feel pretty bad for me. But I want to be healthy.  It's a constant struggle, ya know.  I'm pretty sure I drank all the tea in the universe yesterday.  And to ease my need for health,  I'm sitting here tinkering around with veggie baked goods recipes. I found some recipes that add vegetables to your baked goods. Oooh! Some of them sound really yucky, tho, like savory cauliflower cookies? I mean, it ceases to be considered a cookie when it stops being sweet, in my opinion. Don't you think? Also, it sounds gross if you're thinking of really big chunks of veggies in your brownies, but we're talking about pureeing or grating them and adding them to the batter.  Thing is, you don't notice them.  And they make the baked goods moist. Dry baked goods are yucky. Today I am going to try Zucchini Brownies.  Mostly because I have a lot of zucchini and I want ...