They ate that?!

And that would be Roasted Butternut Chowder with Apples and Bacon, from Mark Bittman's The Food Matters Cookbook, which I will have to purchase.  Yes, the kids ate it!  I think the main reason is because Daddy told them it was bacon soup.  I did put in more bacon than he requested, but bacon is gooood.  And then they ate it as leftovers!  The only bad part was actually cutting the squash.  Next time I may have to try a fine bladed chain saw.  Can you buy squash already cut into chunks?  I may have to find that out.  Here are the basic engredients:  butternut squash, apples, onion, garlic, bacon (and more bacon), wine, chicken stock and some spices.  There's roasting involved then cooking in the pot, then pureeing (also key, my kids don't like unidentifiable chunks and neither does their mom).  Seriously easy.  Two thumbs up. 

Has anyone watched the Anna and Kristina's Grocery Bag show on OWN?  They have my dream job!

Good to the Grain's Choc chip cookies

Well, I tried the first recipe from Good to the Grain.  I really want this book to work because I think it has amazing ideas for how to incorporate different whole grains into your meals.  That means a healthier you!  So the first recipe was chocolate chip cookies.  I followed the directions (some of you may know that I don't always read the directions all the way through and sometimes that comes back to bite me, but this time I did!)  It says to mix the butter and sugars together just until they are blended.  Normally you want to cream the butter and sugars together, which is a good few minutes at the mixer.  So, I mixed until just blended and went on with the recipe.  The end results were: #1 mine didn't look like the picture and that bothers me, and #2 they were hard as a rock unless you devoured them right out of the oven, which I did, and that gives you roof burns!  So, my conclusion would be to cream the butter and sugar, not just mix.

As for my goal of trying to cook something out of the mountain of magazines I get every month, I'm gonna try.  But I was thrown a little curve ball by the 2 year old.  He has developed food allergies to peanuts, tree nuts and milk.  So, we'll see how that goes.  Bon Appetit usually doesn't make their recipes allergen free!

By the way, if anyone is going to be in House Red's neighborhood in Oak Park on Jan 20, my friend Kevin from Kokku Gourmet is having a chocolate and wine tasting.  Check it out!

I also forgot to mention that I found a show on Oprah's new network that I love, love, love!  It's called Anna and Kristina's Grocery Bag.  So far, they've been picking recipes from random cookbooks, testing them out under a time constraint and then having other chefs critic their work.  Would soooo love to have that job!

New Beginnings

Well, I've ruminated enough about the holidays, time to move on to something more productive and yummy.  I bought some new cookbooks over the holidays (I can hear everyone's gasp of shock!)  I bought Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table (it's backordered.  That's what happens when you offer the book at $12!), Rice, Pasta and Couscous (I thought it would be more Italian and French, it's really more Mediterranean, like Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt) and then I received Good To the Grain.  If I were to pick one book to bake my way through, I think it may be this one.  There are soooo many yummy looking recipes that I may be able to do just that.  I was planning on making the first recipe tomorrow, Choc chip cookies with 100% whole wheat.  We'll see how that goes.  How can that be bad?