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I've been lurking for a while but not posting. My cooking kind of cycles now that it's just me. On Sunday, I made a sheet pan dinner with Tuscan flavored chicken sausage, a large russet potato, 2 small broccoli crowns and ½ an onion. It lasted me for 3 nights. Tonight I'm grilling chicken tenders that I'm marinating in oil and Penzey's Mitchell Street from a sample package - I think I'm going to like it. And, I'll roast cauliflower in Fox Point seasoning.

[cwcdesign]

My favorite cinnamon is KAF’s Vietnamese cinnamon. I’ve tried others, but I like the depth of flavor.

We were doing a wine tasting at work this afternoon - everyone liked different ones - everyone’s palate is different so we all have different preferences.

KAF does have black cocoa powder - Mrs Cindy sent me my first package of it - she always put some in the bottom of her measuring cups before adding whatever cocoa powder she was using. My favorite is still their double dark cocoa blend.

[cwcdesign]

Because we’ve had long days at work and I had a 6:00pm meeting on Tuesday (my day off), I made tuna and white bean salad. I will finish this off tonight with a wedge salad from work - the lid popped so we couldn’t sell it - it was made fresh this morning.

On Easter, I made deviled eggs to take to lunch with my manager and her mom. I FINALLY found the answer to cooking and shelling hard boiled eggs - Kenji Alt-Lopez’s article on Serious Eats https://www.seriouseats.com/the-secrets-to-peeling-hard-boiled-eggs - I boiled them, but have now bought an insert so I can steam the eggs the next time. I watched them carefully because of my wonky stove and followed directions exactly. Cooked for 11 minutes, shocked in ice water for 15 and refrigerated overnight. I peeled 12 eggs in less than 10 minutes and the only egg that wasn’t perfect was the one that cracked in the pan. The whites were tender as well - I’m sold.

[cwcdesign]

Because we’ve had long days at work and I had a 6:00pm meeting on Tuesday (my day off), I made tuna and white bean salad. I will finish this off tonight with a wedge salad from work - the lid popped so we couldn’t sell it - it was made fresh this morning.

On Easter, I made deviled eggs to take to lunch with my manager and her mom. I FINALLY found the answer to cooking and shelling hard boiled eggs - Kenji Alt-Lopez’s article on Serious Eats https://www.seriouseats.com/the-secrets-to-peeling-hard-boiled-eggs - I boiled them, but have now bought an insert so I can steam the eggs the next time. I watched them carefully because of my wonky stove and followed directions exactly. Cooked for 11 minutes, shocked in ice water for 15 and refrigerated overnight. I peeled 12 eggs in less than 10 minutes and the only egg that wasn’t perfect was the one that cracked in the pan. The whites were tender as well - I’m sold.

[cwcdesign]

BA, your dinner sounds wonderful. Tonight I grilled chicken tenders that I marinated in my teriyaki-ish marinade - very tender. I had it with arugula, cherry tomatoes and some toasted sourdough curtesy of Will. It’s his birthday today and he received most of his birthday presents. He started a garden at his friends house last week and the arugula popped up this morning - a nice present.

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Last night I made a lemon asparagus pasta. I threw in a can of tuna. This will be good for a few more nights. Tonight I’m going to throw in some cherry tomatoes.

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Tonight I made sheet pan fajitas with chicken sausage and farro and I have dinner for the next couple of nights.

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I would but I just sent him USA pans from Amazon, some of his favorites from King Arthur and a Baking Steel — I honestly didn’t see anything at Breadtopia he would want either except maybe mason cash bowls - the long baker is not something I would buy for myself, but maybe . . . Im pretty disappointed in their offerings

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Joan, I posted the recipe. Chicken Juniper aka Elegant Chicken.

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Aaron. We love using the Baking Steel - I just sent one to Will for his birthday as he moved to Dallas on Saturday. I like the pizza dough recipe from Baking Steel, but Will has been making a sourdough dough which is really good. He seems to have nailed his process and the dough is in the thinner side which I like. The last time, he tried baking for one minute and then putting the toppings on - it really worked- he doesn’t overload the toppings. Also, with the baking steel you bake on the top rack for a very short period of time.

[cwcdesign]

I made 15 minute butter garlic ramen with spinach and a fried egg. Can you tell I need to go shopping tomorrow?

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Thanks Joan! If you want the recipe, let me know and I'll fix it up and post it here - very short.

[cwcdesign]

I have been out of pocket for a while. I had my physical on the 21st and on Tuesday I had an allergic reaction to the pneumonia vaccine I had at my appointment. Ended up in the ER and got pumped full of prednisone and Benadryl. It took a few days to get back to normal, but I had the weekend off to celebrate my weekend. Nathaniel my elder, got engaged for my birthday! Will is moving to Dallas tomorrow- I’ll take him to the airport after work.

So I made him his favorite on Wednesday (his birthday is also coming up) which we call Chicken Juniper but is a 60s recipe known as Elegant Chicken - chicken breasts wrapped in bacon on bed of dried beef with a sauce of mushroom soup and sour cream, sprinkled with paprika and cooked low and slow. I have been frustrated making this recipe because the sauce has not come out right due to the changes in can sizes. So I decided to try something a little different this time, based on the original recipe which calls for 4 ounces dried beef, chicken breasts (I use 2 pounds chicken tenders to mimic the smaller size of chicken breasts in the past), bacon, one can mushroom soup and 8 ounces sour cream.

When I went to the market, I first looked at the weight on a jar of dried beef - turns out it’s 2.25 ounces, so I bought 2 jars - I’d only been using one), I also bought 2 cans of mushroom soup - I decided to use 12 ounces as the amount of an older can - when I weighed the soup from one can, I only got a little over 9 ounces, not even the 10.75 they claim. And, I left the amount of sour cream alone.

I ended up making extra sauce because I had a lot of soup left over, but kept the proportions I decided on - 12 ounces soup to 8 ounces sour cream. When I added, it was 6 ounces mushroom soup to 4 ounces sour cream. This is as close to the original as I have made in years. The sauce was as thick as I remember. Doubling the dried beef was also the right thing to do. I’m going to rewrite the recipe using weight so we can get it right every time.

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I made a whole grain banana bread from the KAF recipe that I like. I added chocolate chips instead of nuts to the batter. Since I brought the dead bananas home from work, I will be taking it in on Tuesday when we are open again.

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Thank you all. Will has made the tiramisu cake from KABC which we will enjoy tonight after I come home from dinner with friends. Tomorrow he’s making chicken piccata. Oh, and this morning he made huevos rancheros for breakfast. Lots of treats

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