Recipe box tabs
Originally uploaded by Hayley a.k.a. Prism
So I had a recipe box that had a set of dividers that didn't exactly work right for me. They weren't high enough, and there weren't enough of them. Somewhere on a blog online I saw these cute things for modding notebooks as recipe books. Much fiddling with open office and my printer later, I made these!
Mom's Typewriter is the font if anyone wants to know.
It seems I constantly fall behind on this blog! This is the first of 2 catch up posts as this one has been sitting in draft a while. So first, two bentos that have been made. I had been out of town some lately and busy at work a lot so not much cooking going on but here we are.
Bento #10
For this one I made beef soboro, and I was getting really sick of sticky rice, so I made whole wheat couscous instead. Edamame completes the lunch. It's not super filling, so warning (inverse of bento #6 perhaps).
SparkleFox's Rating 4/5
Beef Soboro from Just Bento -4/5
Tips: I used beef that was too fatty for this, so I drained it. Unfortunately that means the whole thing wound up a little too dry once I mixed it with couscous (you'd have the same issue with rice). Next time I'm going to get a leaner bit of beef and not drain it. As a note, I left out all the "optional" parts of cooking the couscous, litterally just water and grain - no butter or salt as I figured the soboro would have plenty to make up (and if I'd done it right, it would have).
Couscous - 4/5
Overall - 4/5
Edamame does take up a lot of space for what it is, this bento is one that could safely use a snack for my workday and not be too much food like Bento #6.
Bento #11
Breakfast bento! It's not that interesting, except I got around to decorating it! I found some Fox Run alphabet cutters on clearance at an overstock store, as well as pancake molds (silicone ring type). And some nice sprinkles of the shaped kind that I'm sure will appear later.
SparkleFox's Rating 5/5
Apple Maple Chicken Sausage (Favorite, found in the nice meats section of your Harris Teeter if you are lucky).
Pancakes - use recipe on back of Bisquick Box.
American Cheese
Shirred Egg Muffins with Onion and Green Pepper. - 5/5
I've done a variation of egg "muffins" like these that didn't make it into a bento, they're incredibly simple and really wonderful. Basically stir up some eggs just like you would for scrambling them, add some salt and pepper, and then start throwing ingredients in. This has green bell pepper and onion, I have also done sausage, onion, and green chili pepper which was superb as well. Stir it up, throw it into a silicone muffin pan (or silicone muffin holders), and cook at 350 degrees F in the oven until cooked. When done they will be moist, and the top may be wet but they will be slightly browned on the edges and a little fork in them will let you know they're done.
Overall - 5/5
Tasty, and decorative, and filling. Probably not very healthy though. oh well.
Moving on on the craft front -
I finished A's Harry Potter Scarf. I gave it to him immediately after I finished it as I was doing it while playing D&D. I have started E's Potter Scarf in Air force colors, pictures of both below.
For my trip to dragon con a little crafting was in order for goth-dressing purposes.
I ordered a mold off ebay and made these. There are several photos as I try to close up.
I then made these using the same thing - a ribbon necklace and a necklace with a setting. I had to make another rose just for the setting and didn't notice the green on it till I was already wearing it. Oh well, goths dont have to match. They are all roses although the photos may be too dark to show. (I got the setting at Micheal's and it had another clay cameo in it, which J helpfully demolished for me). And then I got a set of beads that screamed "earrings" so I did the simple task of putting them on french hooks.
So other than that - The room is an atrocious mess. I did go to a store called Knitch in Atlanta courtesy of a friend (we'll call her MB). I got my first pair of addi turbos and I see why people like them, as well as some lace-weight wool and some fingering weight wool/nylon. The former for a shawl, and the latter for yoga socks. I did try to start the yoga socks and frogged them out after realizing quickly they were way too small. The pattern I was using had no exact guage listed - so went back to the drawing board there. Turns out adding 6 stitches gave me the right size and I've made some more progress.
I also have an account at Ravelry now for those who may be interested in patterns/weights/colors/brands etc etc of what I do. However all the "blogging" will go here. I'm mostly using it as an online notebook right now, and plan to continue that. My user name there is "Prism".
I know, behind on the posting, by a lot.
So, I have to update you guys on Bento #10 (and then I fell out of the bento habit and need to get back into it), and the 2 craft projects I have finished, as well as all the cleaning crazyness. But, that's for another post. Here are some more cooking reviews of things I have made recently.
Honey Chicken Salad - SparkleFox's Rating:4.5/5 (My version, not theirs!)
This comes from Southern Living 2006 Annual collections, however it is apparently availible online for free at Myrecipes.com
However, I have modified it - because noone in their right mind would put that many calories/much mayo in a salad. At least nobody *I* consider sane. So the modifications I have for a better salad are-
More celery
More cranberries
More pecans
All of that is to taste.
Go to 1 cup not 1.5 cups of mayo, and I used 1/2 regular Hellman's, 1/2 reduced fat hellmans (I use the same 1/2 1/2 mixture for my other chicken salad). Cuts your calories in 1/2 and the salad is still quite moist enough for me. I didn't actually even use all of it.
The "Other" Chicken Salad: SparkleFox's Rating: 5/5
While I'm at it, another chicken salad recipe that I have used before I found this one is to have red seedless grapes either concord or chopped in 1/2s in the salad, chicken, apple cider vinegar (add after mayo to right taste, i tend to add a tiny bit of mayo, then a little vinegar, and work up so it's right), salt, pepper, 1/2 regular mayo 1/2 full fat (ratio, not measurement, this is all to taste), walnuts, and celery. Very tasty.
Sausage Egg "Muffins": SparkleFox's Rating: 5/5
Source: All Recipes
This is an EXCELLENT recipe! No photos, I used lean sausage and a key here is to DRAIN WELL. It was even okay leftovers. I got 8 muffins not 6 out of 1/2 the recipe but I was eyeballing the peppers and onions and probably added more than they have measured. Obviously brush your teeth after this one!. It's also very savory by itself, but is plain enough you could dress it up with salsa or whatever blend of spices you prefer.
Chicken Cordon Bleu II: SparkleFox's Rating 1/5
Source: All Recipes
For a top rated recipe, perhaps I did something terribly wrong here, but boy did this not turn out well. I ate most of it but what I froze I may just throw out instead. Of note- I made 1/2 the recipes.
First- I found it pretty hard to wrap the things up so the cheese wouldn't fall out. But this is ok and forgivable, better chefs than I probably could have done this better.
Second - I cut the butter I think in 1/2 of what was called for (I made it a while ago) and it was still too greasy. What the hell are these people thinking?
Third - I don't agree with the choice of Paprika here after tasting it.
Fourth - Cream as a sauce on top of a dish this rich is not cool. I wound up using very little on the first one and skipping it after that.
Needless to say, I'll be looking for a different Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe if I bother trying again. My current stance is the microwave kind can't be much unhealthier for you than THIS and they're way tastier!
So last week before I went out of town, there were 2 more recipes that I tried.
Here's how it went.
Huge Cookies!
Yote wanted cookies, so I decided to make him some. I used real vanilla not imitation vanilla extract for these, and I think it made a HUGE difference. They really do taste a lot like bakery cookies, and I found that storing them in a tight container they didn't get too hard. If I had put a piece of bread in there to keep them moister that would have worked too. The only downside here is how HUGE the cookies are (Soda can included for reference). For the record, the dough if you aren't terrified of the raw egg in it, is absolutely the best.
It may be my (crappy cheap) oven, but contrary to the reviewer's comments about needing to shorten the cooking time, I needed to lengthen it by several minutes.
SparkleFox's Rating 5/5
Big Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie From All Recipes.com
Greek Restaurant Whole Wheat Bread
Unfortunately no photo again. I have to get better than that.
I was fairly disappointed really. I used non-fast acting yeast and converted the times per the books instructions, and I also note I don't use parchment paper but silicon baking liners.
Problems:
1. Even cutting the time to the "low" end of the conversion, I let the bread rise much too far on the first rise, so it came out very big, but a little too dense and flat in the end as the second rise didn't go as far. The crumb wasn't bad otherwise.
2. The bread was fairly bitter. That may be how wheat is supposed to be, but I was already disappointed in the density so this did not make me any happier.
I am considering trying this one again, adjusting my rise times, as #1 may have caused #2. I may also need to make a slightly firmer dough for the spreading vs rising on the 2nd rise.
Overall I'm not sure this recipe is really worth a second try for the bread itself, but I do think I will just for the learning.
SparkleFox's Rating 2/5
This one came from A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman.
No book rating yet, this is the only one I've tried. I will say, I have never seen a book so exacting in it's instructions of how whatever must be done "just so".
H sent me a lot of bento stuff from Japan at my request, and I have fallen in love. The dangerous thing here is the amount of money I could (and have already) spent on supplies. I will make future posts about what tools I have and like, and what I've improvised. Anyways, you might notice that I start listing around Bento #6. I did not take photos of Bentos 1-5. However they weren't that interesting, and did not include recipes you won't see posted here for later ones.
You can check out the pictures of the bento goodies I got and some of the in-cooking progress at my flickr account. Anyways, here's the photos of bento #6, which was intended for lunch and 2 snacks for a long day at work.
Catching up on all the bento entries will come shortly.
For now, a few thoughts on other things.
I will be linking all the recipes or sourcing them for everything here from here on out, regardless of the rating.
My other thought is, I need to find a good personal recipe organization system.
There are like 50 billion recipes online, all in different websites, not to mention the ones I make up, come across scraps of paper, or the over 120 cookbooks in our house (and they don't even span all the food types I like, there's nothing there for Korean, and nothing really printed after 2000 except for a handful so little fusion or new food).
This is driving me crazy because I have no way to search all of these at once, and no good way to organize them all, nor any way other than writing in the cookbooks themselves what I thought of them or what I changed. Which only solves it for the physical cookbooks, unless I start printing everything out on recipe cards (which I may do). But that wouldn't solve the searching bit, and even then most of the websites I know of don't have the greatest searches either. Admittedly once you've been cooking 20 years, you probably know just where to find your favorite recipe for most common things. I'll update here if I come up with a system that works.
No update on all the crafting projects, it's been a busy couple weeks and all, and not much cooking gone on.
Hayley's reminder list -
Post all the bento stuff in 1 big entry.
Write up about the wheat bread recipe and the cookie recipe.
Find an organization system!
So, for anyone looking for the couple of posts that were here before, I've changed the nature of the blog. I dont intend to post about the things I originally thought I would. Instead I have decided to make this blog about the things I like to create. That includes at times artwork, knitting, coooking (learnign to rather) - my latest thing for bento boxes, and anything else that along those lines.
So to sort of catch up all at once.
I am currently working on the knitting needles - A harry potter scarf in raven claw colors for Panda. I'm 5% done with it at best and Need to get on it.
I am also currently working on a rug, on 2 knitting nancies (spools as some call them). One of them a store bought embellish knit for the smaller yarn, and one I made of clay and nails (photos to come), for the larger. I still have NO idea how i'm going to sew it together when I'm done, there's a methodology to it but it's only in one book i know of for like $30 on amazon. I may get it anyways. That and I'm not sure I'll actually finish this one, it's taking FOREVER by hand to do the I-cord.
I owe, lots of people lots of crafts, i'll come up with that later.
I'm also working on a meditation pillow, if i can ever figure out where to go with it (photos forthcoming). I'm good and stuck on it. I think i screwed up entirely. But it's a little late to back out now.
And, for the cooking, I recently made
Strawberry Muffins - (SparkleFox Rating - 3/5 stars.)
They came out not exactly the texture I'd really like in my muffins, I think next time I will try a different recipie. They still taste okay, but they are too moist on the outside and too dry overall.
Lemon Poppy Seed Pound Cake (SparkleFox Rating 4/5 stars)
This was a test run, I will be making it again for him but with sugar glaze. Very lemony, not really "my" preference, but he liked it, and it's his birthday in two weeks. The texture is fine, a little bit dry, but that is because of the container I put it in I think. Next time I will use a different one. I also think the sugar glaze will help.
FireWine Shot (SparkleFox Rating 4.5/5)
There was also an experiment with booze, to make a drink called Firewine. It's got nothign to do with wine and is entirely a reference to something from a Planescape game. It looks like this when it's done.
It consists of spicy ginger beer (get the good stuff, it's hard to find here though), Goldschlagger, redhots, and a cinnamon stick. It's actually very good, but it's very much a "boot to the head".
And there we go. Not exactly an intro, but, long enough for now. I'll get the rest up here later.
