[luvpyrpom]

We had a belated birthday party on Tuesday for my mother. I made baked Korean Chicken wings, roasted broccoli and green beans. And one of the Chinese comfort dishes - sticky rice. It's a one pot dish - using glutenous rice, diced Chinese sausage, and diced BBQ pork. Usually there's diced shitake mushrooms in it too but too many of the kids don't like the mushrooms so I left it out. Tonight we had wonton and noodles, pulled from the freezer. I usually make the wontons ahead of time and freeze them individually.

I also made Swedish Pancakes (recipe from my father) on Monday, with homemade peach syrup and strawberry jam as options to spread on them.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by luvpyrpom.

[luvpyrpom]

Italiancook, every year I tell myself - don't do this again. This year, I actually wrote in next year's calendar of when to start making the cookie dough. I did find it easier this year when I premixed the doughs and froze them in log forms or in tubs so I can just bake when I need to. But it's the prep work that kills me each time - I only have one mixer bowl and each recipe is either doubled, tripled, or quadrupled. So it's a lot of washing!

[luvpyrpom]

Navlys, another thing I do besides what Bakeraunt does, is that I make notes on the margin of the recipes. I have a huge collection of recipes, too. There's actually a section in my 3-ring binder that is labelled "DO NOT MAKE AGAIN" and some recipes do end up there.

[luvpyrpom]

Skeptic, I have the same problem - bought a bag of almond flour to make Chinese almond cookies like what I had as a child and haven't remade them again. Plus, I've met too many people that have nut allergies so I have to be careful of exposing them to the cookies. A friend offered me a recipe that uses almond flour/meal - it's a cake that also has ricotta and lemon. I haven't made it yet as I didn't have the heart to tell her that I can't do dairy. I hope you find something yummy to use your almond meal.

[luvpyrpom]

This week I did more baking than actual cooking. We had roasted salmon and rock fish earlier in the week, korean bulgogi, roasted sweet potatoes, leftover chicken leg quarters from Costco. I did make up a 6 pints of pickled green papaya today - will let it ferment a bit before trying it. There's habenero peppers in it and I'm always unsure how spicy it will be based on the size of the pepper. I did remove the ribs and seeds before using, though.

RiversideLen - love your chicken, it reminds me that we used to have a vertical stand for roasting a chicken. Then we lost that, we used a beer can. Now a whole chicken is way too much for us so now it's just chicken parts.

[luvpyrpom]

This week was prepping all the cookie dough for the holiday cookie trays. I also wanted to make a birthday gift of sunburst lemon bars for a coworker. The recipe is from Barefeet in the Kitchen blog. It was pretty good after I upped the lemon (I really like tart stuff). I wanted to try the same recipe but with lime to make lime bars. I think I need to up the lime on that one, too, as I could barely taste the lime. So for the holiday cookies this year, I decided to try making the dough ahead of time and freeze them in either rolls (so I could slice and bake) or in tubs so I could just scoop and bake. It did make it easier for me to bake more in a timely manner - like today I baked a dozen of each flavor of cookie (total of 8 kinds). I made honey bars, christmas cookies - Fudge cookies, Andes Mint cookies, Snickerdoodles, Peanut Butter, Thin & Crispy Oatmeal, White Chocolate & Cranberry, Molasses, and Lemon-Coconut Snowballs. I also made People Puppy Chow or Chex Puppy Chow or Moose Munch - I guess the name varies by region. I wanted to bake some bread but am kind of tired from being in the kitchen all day.

Bakeraunt, I've been meaning to ask about the Maple Shortbread I saw you had shared on here. Will it hold imprint pretty good? I bought some cookie stamps and I still have my springerle molds and would love to use them with this recipe.

[luvpyrpom]

I haven't made mashed potatoes from baked tomatoes. I have made sweet potato casserole with baked sweet potato. I think the baked potato will help keep the mashed potato from becoming too gluey from all moisture. I did recently maka a batch of roasted sweet potatoes and threw it into the freezer for a future sweet potato pie.

[luvpyrpom]

I know, Mike. I've figured out that a 9x5 loaf of bread will last us about a week and that's with me eating 4 slices a day (2 for breakfast and 2 for lunch). I've figured out that the sliced deli ham is a perfect sandwich protein. Anything bigger than that loaf, I end up throwing part of the bread out that has become moldy.

[luvpyrpom]

This week I made Sunburst Lemon Bars from the Barefeet in the Kitchen website. Also made a double batch of Crack Pie Bars for work. Which left me with 8 egg whites. So I tried the Irish Oatcakes from the Whole Foods website. Good thing I sprinkled sugar on top before baking - it was quite bland. Today I mainly made the cookie doughs for all the cookies I plan to bake for the Christmas platters. I also tried a new recipe for Andes Mint cookies.

I also have an overabundance of apples right now so have made up a couple of apple pie fillings for the freezer. Also made KA Cinnamon-Apple Challah bread.

Bakeraunt, the Gingerbread Biscotti looks yummy - will have to give it a try someday soon.

[luvpyrpom]

Navlys, I forgot to mention that you can freeze your cooked cranberry sauce. I do that all the time and when I freeze it, I place it in 1 cup containers. I use it to make Italiancook's Banana Cranberry Sauce Bread.

[luvpyrpom]

Hello! I'm back after not posting for a while. It's hard to cook for two or one and half (my mother has a very small appetite so things last a long time here). This week I made spinach and vegan ricotta manicotta with meat spaghetti sauce. On Tuesday, made ham fried rice with corn and peas. The Costco here in Seattle, also has rotisserie chicken leg quarters (8 leg quarters for $5) and I freeze each piece. It's enough for my mother and I with the fried rice as a side dish. Yesterday I picked up some fresh rock cod fillets and a salmon fillet for next week.

[luvpyrpom]

I truly didn't really get seriously involved with cooking and baking until the last 15 years. I learned a lot of the cooking from my parents and helping out. As for baking, it wasn't until lately I've started baking bread and other stuff. I always tease my coworkers that baking and cooking are my therapy sessions. And I do bring the goodies to work as my family and I are lactose intolerant. I do a lot substitutions with my cooking and baking as I also have a niece with a nut allergy too. I've learned how to make a vegan ricotta and have used it to make lasagna and spinach manicotta.

I want to apologize for not posting this past year - I've had to cut back on my baking and cooking as my mother and I just can't seem to keep up with all the eating of all the stuff I make. Even ran out freezer space. I am slowly getting back to the baking of breads - just not as many loaves as I used to make.

[luvpyrpom]

I had read someone had posted here how to cook cubed steak. I remember my father making years and years ago and just haven't been able to replicate it again. Then I read the post here and have been happily making them occassionally. This week I made a big batch and cheated a little bit by adding a can of Campbells French Onion soup to help braise them in the oven.

Also made a batch of "Chinese Spaghetti" - it's an Asian style pork sauce that's served over noodles. Another dish that my mother had made when we were younger. We kept asking our father what the dish was called and out of frustration his answer was "Chinese Spaghetti". And it stuck among our family. It's basically ground pork, shittake mushrooms, Asian pickled vegetable, chicken broth, and oyster sauce. My sister-in-law adds shredded carrots in her version.

We also tried the Korean BBQ Beef ribs that's sold at Costco. I like the sauce and saved it to serve with pan fried tofu steaks.

[luvpyrpom]

Sorry, I've been so MIA the last few months. I seem to be baking less and less as I'm struggling to eat them all. Finally have sort of figured out the pace of baking. I finally got back in to baking bread at least.

The week prior I had made Crack Pie Bars - it's a recipe I found on Pinterest and initially everyone loved it. But this time when I made it, the crust and filling all melded together in the oven. So this week I made a smaller batch and chilled the filling for 45 min to see if it would keep from melting all together. Nope, still all melted together. So I need to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I also dug out my pan di mie and made a couple loaves of the KAF Honey Oat bread. The first loaf didn't overfill the pan so the lid was easy to remove. The second one almost exploded out of the pan. Plus I baked them to an internal temp of 205 and the sides didn't sink in like my other loaves have in the past.

Hopefully I will be able to come back and report more of my baking in the future weeks.

[luvpyrpom]

I think I put in my request for a replacement blade around the holidays. Just got my new blade 2 weeks ago. I never got an email or letter stating that I would be getting one soon. It just showed up in my mailbox. Of course, I have been using my old blade prior to the arrival of the new one. I mainly use it to ground up cookies to make crusts.

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