“Why Buy It For….” The Making Vs. Buying Mindset
21 Sunday Nov 2021
Posted in Life Happens, Uncategorized
Aiding and Abetting
15 Monday Nov 2021
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Several winters ago, when we weren’t baking, writing, and posting, knowing that I am a knitter, Tracey sent me a message and asked if I could make her a capelet like the one worn by Brianna Frasier in the Outlander series. She had already found a pattern online so I was fairly confident that I could make it. We discussed yarn and colors via text messages and finally settled on the yarn and color specified in the pattern, something I almost never do. But, since I had never seen Outlander, this gave me faith that the finished product would be all that Tracey hoped it would be.
It didn’t take me long to finish the capelet. I boxed it up and sent it on its way to Michigan. It’s arrival sparked some serious discussions about knitting in general. How can one learn to knit? What supplies are needed to get started? Where are the best places to buy yarn? What is a good first project? Even through text messages, I could feel the wheels turning in Tracey’s head. I know her well enough to know that she subscribes to the philosophy:
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
As an interesting aside, the origin of this quote is not clear. What we do know is that it has been included in several journals and treatises whose focus is on how to reduce poverty in the world, the goal being to teach people trades that allow them to support and sustain themselves.
Our updated version of this quote is:
Give a girl a knitted capelet and you’ve given a girl a knitted capelet. Help a girl learn to knit and you’ve created a lifelong yarn-loving knitting machine.
It makes me happy that we now have one more thing that is a common interest. Tracey was a quick study and really has been a knitting machine! Over these last couple years, we have shared patterns, and tips, and yarn sale coupons. Most importantly, we now share a love of knitting!
Knitting may not be any less expensive a hobby than baking, but we definitely don’t consume as many calories! In fact, knitting actually burns calories…especially when you are ripping it out mistakes. :-). My Apple Watch consistently asks me if I want to record my elliptical workout when I am ripping out several rows of knitting. I’m not proud. I’ll take those exercise minutes any way that I can get them!
From Tracey:
Ok, I have to jump right in and say yep – everything she said!
I had tried crochet MANY years ago and I it never stuck with me. I had a really cool afghan going, but it kept going and going and going because I wasn’t very good at keeping a consistent tension etc. Then I thought I’d try knitting, and (as much as this is dating me) back then the only way to learn out of books – and I can honestly say that this kind of skill is not one I can learn from scratch out of a book. I got so frustrated I put it away and never looked back. Until that caplet.
It was Claire’s, and I had never noticed it. Then they put it on Brianna in another season and I discovered how cool it was and I wanted one! But, I didn’t know how to knit – but I did know who to ask. And the *actual* pattern for it was found (there are lots of others out there that are great too, but thanks to a little research I found *the one*), for the original that was featured in the show. And it’s wonderful, I absolutely adore it and love when the weather is right for it! But as Kris said, that got me thinking. It was at dinner one night when telling Jeremy about it, I said I wish I had learned to knit. He looked at me funny and said, “uh, Tracey, you know it’s not too late to learn right?” I suppose I HAD thought it was too late!
And so I started asking Kris what one would need for this undertaking. Back then, we had the learn-a-craft-via-video service, BluPrint, one of those learn anything you want to do kind of things (was Craftsy originally, then BluPrint and now it’s Craftsy again) and they had a Learn to Knit kit! I jumped in head first and bought it, and that combined with the video-learning format (so much easier to “see” things), I was on the path to being a maker! With lots of back and forth texts, she got me on the road to being fairly proficient at this stuff! It’s been so nice having her to help me, her patience with all my photos of “why does this look wrong?” and talking me through things I needed lots of help with. And now that I have a handle on things, books can be very helpful when you have an understanding of what you’re doing. Not to mention that, with a wonderful teacher like Kris, one can learn to do anything.
I can never thank Kris enough for her help in getting me going with this hobby, even if we tease saying she brought me over to the dark side! It’s been something that has kept me sane in these crazy times and brought me soooooo very much joy in creating things! (even if I don’t like the “finishing” very much, lol!) And as Kris stated, it sure has saved on the calorie-consuming, plus – yarn doesn’t go bad like food-stuffs!
But, alas, along with the good, also comes the bad. I now have a addiction to yarn buying and pattern buying. It’s definitely an affect of the down-the-rabbit-hole that is being a maker in the knitting arena!
The Season of Reflection
07 Sunday Nov 2021
Posted in Life Happens
Tags
All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Day of the Dead, Halloween, Life, Memories, parents, reflection, remembering, seasons
It is often obvious common interests that draw people together. Tracey and I initially become friends through our shared interest in photography and our soft hearts for animals. We then discovered our common love of cooking and baking. It is easy to maintain a friendship when you can share recipes back and forth or cute photos of puppies and kittens. It takes something more, though, to develop a deeper friendship, the kind where you trust someone with all of you thoughts and feelings, no matter how crazy or weird they may be, because you know that they will totally understand.
We share common emotions around this early part of the month of November. Many people are coming off of the fun and excitement of Halloween and heading straight into the frenzy of the holiday season. Not us. We both find ourselves needing some time for pause and reflection during this first week of November.
From Kris
When my girls were little, we embraced everything that Halloween had to offer. I made homemade costumes for many years. None of them were passed from the oldest to the younger daughter because they have totally different personalities and Eeyore just wouldn’t suit Offspring #2, my happy little mouse. I loved this time of my life. I liked the creativity of figuring out how to make the costumes exactly as the girls wanted them to look. And trust me they had their own visions! I wish I could find the photos of the bookworm costume I made for Offspring #1. It was a worm in a book. And not just any book. It had to be Black Beauty and it had to look just like the cover of her book. Yes, I painted the cover of Black Beauty on muslin and made a book complete with a leather spine and gold letters into which my little bookworm climbed.
I enjoyed those days, but I can’t say honestly that I miss them. I am enjoying reliving bits and pieces of them vicariously as my younger daughter has picked up the mantel of homemade costumes for her boys. She told me this year that I set the mom bar for Halloween costumes high. That was not intentional. And one only has to rise to that bar if you )the mom) and the kids enjoy and appreciate the process. If one of those things is not true, the hours given to costume making are definitely not worth the hour or two they are worn for Trick or Treating!
Fast forward twenty-five years and Halloween comes and goes at our house without much notice. We did not even pass out candy to kids this year…not because we are mean old people, but because we had big holes in our front yard where plumbing is being dug for our home addition. I was scared that excited kids might move from house to house across the lawn instead of on the street and might get hurt.
As I’ve gotten older, the “holidays” that fall on November 1 and November 2, All Saints Day and All Souls Day, have become more meaningful. As a church musician, we always sing a large Requiem on All Souls Day. This is an opportunity to remember all those who have departed this earthly life. Naturally as we age, the list of family and friends on this list grows each year.
This remembrance became much more personal when my dad died in 2014 and his memorial service was on November 1, All Saints Day. This timing was not intentional on my part. It’s just the way things worked out. Dad died on October 17. He was buried on October 23. His church memorial service was not until November 1 to give people time to travel. The at the time having his service on this date seemed to have been based in practicality, I’m not so sure that is the case. Now each year when our choir sings the Requiem Mass on November 2 (This year we sang Gabriel Faure’s Requiem) it is a moving moment as I remember my dad.
From Tracey
Oh my goodness where does the time go? It seems like every year, before I know it, it’s October. Which is totally fine in a lot of respects, it IS my favorite month after all! There’s something about it that just makes me happy, the changing light I think is my favorite part, plus lots of good memories that have been etched into my brain, and that are tightly tied to the time of the year. Well, that and it’s Spooky Month!
I used to look forward to Halloween all year long. Not the candy part of it, but the costume and decorating part of it. I always made my own costumes (my mom’s bedsheet inventory took a big hit one year!), that was half the fun – collecting the right things for whatever I decided to be. There were a handful of times my costume was bought, in fact my earliest memory of Halloween and Trick-or-Treating was when I still lived downstate in Garden City. What I remember is (and I must’ve been about 4-ish) was that I had the prettiest pink princess costume and it rained – which made my costume shrink up, it was crazy, just like in the movies of instant-shrinkage, lol.
But these days not much happens around here for it. Harrison for some reason doesn’t share my love of Halloween (ugh, I know right?). He thinks it’s smarter to just BUY the candy you want instead of going door-to-door, hoping you get your favorites, in a costume he could care less about. Geesh. I still say he can NOT be my kid (remember, he didn’t/doesn’t like to color either!). So, due to lack of interest, Halloween just kind of slides by.
While it does slide by, it also has been tinged for me with another association, as does the beginning of November. My mom had the stroke that she passed away from on Oct 29th/30th, if I recall correctly. (funny how our minds work for some things in the memory department.) And on November 1st, I had to make the decision to end life support. (It was actually a very easy call in some respects due to the fact I knew she would be very not happy with me if I’d kept her on it.)
I had mentioned to Kris the other day when we were talking about her getting ready for the Requiem Mass, that in all of our connections we had, that date, November 1st, we also shared regarding our parents in very similar ways. All Saints Day and Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) have come to mean much more to me. Especially the Day of the Dead – because I associate that the most with celebrating her life, and in the way she would like best – with bright colors, happy memories and offerings of her favorite foods! She loved fun and food, lots of food! There’s so many funny and fun stories around my mom and food, makes me laugh just thinking about them. And I know she’s laughing with me too.
So, when October goes from colorful and fresh feeling, to starting to look more brown and golden-yellow, I know we are closer to Halloween. And that means closer to November, and all that that brings with it. But also tucked in there is November 2nd (All Souls Day), which brings along a pretty important event – we get to celebrate a birthday – Jeremy’s birthday! So wrapped up in 2 days of the year, back to back, we celebrate a life lived that left the world, and the day a speical life came into the world!
*************************************
It may sound as if we are starting of this month on a down note, but, in reality, taking this time to remember and celebrate our parents’ lives brings with it a sense of peace that we both understand and share. And with this shared understanding comes much gratitude for our friendship.
The Fall
21 Thursday Oct 2021
Posted in Uncategorized
Happy Halloween! We are ending this month with a new start. After a hiatus of much too long, actually longer than we realized, we are back to mixing things up here at Sifted Together. Read on if you are interested in where we have been and where we are going!
_____________________
What do you think of come the fall? Cooler temperatures? Colorful Leaves? Apples and pumpkins? Halloween? Beginning your holiday shopping? That seasonal PSL? Those are all normal thoughts at this time of year…unless you are us. When we think of fall, the first thing that comes to mind is falling off of the blogging bandwagon.
We knew it had been a long time since we last posted, but neither of us realized that it has been over two years. Two years!!! How they hell did that happen??? Here’s how. Our last post was in June of 2019. Throughout our blogging “career” we often took the summers off because it was too hot to heat up the kitchen baking, especially for the one of us that does not have central air conditioning. To be perfectly honest, we can’t remember why we did not pick back up in the fall of 2019. But, we didn’t. Then came the holidays. Then came COVID. At that point, all bets were off as far as anything normal happening. One of us was teaching seven college courses totally online having never taught online before and the other one of us was responsible for getting a fifth grader through his last year of elementary school in a totally virtual setting. Needless to say, the learning curve and daily responsibilities had us both up to our eyeballs in work. The only writing we did was daily text messages bemoaning our current state of life. Then again came the summer heat. Also, during COVIDtime, obtaining ingredients for scheduled baking became unreliable and expensive. Since neither of us was getting out of the house and thus were getting minimal move minutes on our Apple watches, we didn’t need the extra calories that came from anything that we baked. Staving off the COVID 15 was hard enough without adding weekly baked goods!
Another fall came (2020) and we were both still responsible for education from home. Who knew in September of 2020 that this would last for the whole next school year?! Virtual learning should have gotten easier for both of us. In some ways it did in terms of navigating the process, but the amount of work did not diminish. In all honesty, it was exhausting for parents, teachers, and students.
Then came vaccines and another summer. It looked like things might return to some semblance of normalcy. Yeah, no. Things changed, but nothing was normal. Harry went back to in-person school. Though that reduced mom’s responsibility for his education, it upped the worry factor in terms of COVID exposure while at school.
Then, the other one of us retired from teaching after thirty-five years. Yay!
Fast forward to the present…
We have maintained our regular silly communication with one another throughout this time. Many times we have both said that we need to get back to regular blogging, but we didn’t make it happen. The intentions were there but for whatever reason it never felt like the right time. With the dawn of Fall 2021 we now feel able to pick ourselves up from our “fall” and get back to it. As we all search to discover the new normal for life after the past eighteen months, we too are doing that with Sifted Together. It was photography and food that brought us together. For that we offer much gratitude. That said, our interests have changed. The good thing is that we still have many common interests. Yay!
So, for good or for ill, we will approach our new content with the same personality that we brought with our baking posts. We’ll just be writing about different stuff. Don’t get me wrong, we still love eating and a recipe or two will very likely creep in every now and then, but our posts will be more broad, likely giving you a bigger picture of what being Sifted Together really means to us.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! If you followed us in our previous incarnation, thank you! If you are new, welcome! We are glad you are here.
We’ll be back VERY SOON with words of wisdom…or humor…or irreverence…or…
Friday Faves – How I Am Wasting My Summer Vacation
21 Friday Jun 2019
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For the nine months of the school year, we long for those three months of summer vacation, anticipating less stress, relaxation, and a sense of freedom – the freedom to do all those things that there doesn’t seem to be enough time for during the rigid routine of the academic year. So here we are, weeks into this much anticipated time. What are we doing?
It seems we both have an issue with lack of structure. The more we have to do, to more we get done. No routine brings with it an almost paralyzing sense of “what do I do now?” Our almost daily conversations have an element of “Where has the day gone?” or “I don’t feel like I have accomplished anything!” or “There are so many things that I want to be doing and I’m not doing any of them.”
We decided to stop and take a serious look at the source of these uncomfortable feelings. What is it that we really are doing? How are our days actually being spent?
from Kris B.
- I seem to spend more time planning than doing. I make lists of books I want to read instead of reading them one at a time and moving on. I peruse recipes and knitting patterns looking for things I might make “later.” I write chore schedules in my planner and then don’t look at them. This approach gives me a clear picture of what I want and what I need to do. Unfortunately, it also gives me perhaps a more clear picture of all of the things that I am not getting done.
- I have discovered the Happy Color app on my iPad. It is truly mindless entertainment, a digital color by number activity. For whatever reason, it has a power over me. I don’t have to make any creative choices. I can spend an hour or more with this and it feel like only minutes. I simply match numbers to colors and the magic happens. My brain gets a rest without being totally idle.
- I am less aware of time. During the school year, I live by a very rigid schedule. Everything that needs to be done is written into my daily planner and I look at and follow that schedule faithfully. I know where every minute of every day goes. Not so over the summer. I don’t set an alarm most days. We eat when we are hungry rather than at a predetermined time. I don’t worry about how long things take. I write things in my planner and then fail to look at it; this would be the death of me during school. It almost was today as I hadn’t looked carefully at this week and didn’t realize that I have theater tickets for tonight. 🙂
I am worried that August will come and I’ll head back to work being resentful of the fact that I didn’t do all the things that I thought that I wanted to do over the break. But, if I am gentle and compassionate with myself, I also realize that my mind and body need this kind of break. I can’t go 24/7 all year long with the kind of intensity with which I do from August to May.
from Tracey G.
• I too seem to have fallen into the “there-are-so-many-things-I-want-to-do-that-I-can’t-seem-start-anything” trap. I’m paralyzed by having TOO many things I want to do and learn! I’ve a gazillion wanna-do knitting projects – which I just started one today that’s actually for me, instead of it being solely for the purpose of *learning*. Even though it is something I’ve never done before, it’s going to be trial by fire learning!
• That first entry leads me to the “wanting to learn” thing. I’ve spent so much time teaching myself how to make things (I’ve maybe not mastered them but by gosh I can make them) – I can now make: mittens, gloves, fingerless gloves, hat, scarf and many variations on fingerless mitts! But that has left no time for actually creating something – I have all these practice pieces around! But, I’m also reminding myself each stitch made is a practice and will boost my skills.
• And lastly, the above two have lead to the next thing I’ve wasted time on – knitting pattern searching. It’s a rabbit hole for sure that I’ve gone down. I’ve got so many things I want to make I have no idea if I’d ever accomplish them all! And that in a weird way also lends itself to brain inertia – overwhelming choices! But I’ve found that I’ll set out to find a certain pattern for something, and 2 hours later I’m looking at patterns for stuffed cats, which I do for another two hours…
So, dear readers:
How are you spending your summer? Do you prefer routine or spontaneity?
Mix It Up Monday: Mix Week!
04 Tuesday Jun 2019
Posted in Mix It Up Monday, Mix Week
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Tags
chowder, cranberries, cranberry, not available, nothing is ever easy, pumpkin, pumpkin spice, quick bread, quick bread mix, soup mix, story
from Tracey G.
Bountiful Pantry Pumpkin Chowder Soup Mix
Well, it looks like this particular mix, the Bountiful Pantry Pumpkin Chowder Soup Mix, is out of stock – it didn’t come up in my search on the KAF site in the soup mix area, so I accessed it via my account from when I ordered it. I did order it last fall apparently, so I’m wondering if it’s just a seasonal product maybe? Either way, I hate it when I buy and make a mix just to find out at the last minute it’s not available for whatever reason. Ugh. But persevere I must…
This soup was super easy to make. You provide just 3 ingredients: water, chicken broth & milk or cream. I used milk when I made it.
It cooks up nicely in about total of 40 minutes. They suggest if you want a creamier soup, that you pop it into the blender ⅓ at a time, and purée. I wanted to do that, but just used my immersion/stick blender for the job. And I didn’t make it completely smooth – it does have rice in it, so I wanted that to still be apparent!
This is an interesting mix. The flavor is sweet and spiced up as you would expect of pumpkin anything – you know, cinnamon etc. It’s good. And, I really enjoyed it, but it’s something for me that one bowl is good enough. Then I’m done. I have a bunch leftover that I don’t think I’ll eat, which bums me out. I may try freezing it. But it’s a soup I’d enjoy ordering out in a restaurant where I don’t have to deal with leftovers and whatnot.
I’d also say it’s one you’d have to try so you could decide on it, it’s hard to describe – but it’s very distinct. Hopefully if you ever do want to try it, they’ll have it back in stock!
from Kris B.
I am beginning to think that I should stick to story telling rather than baking because this post, like many of my recent ones, is about the story rather than the recipe.
As is the case with Tracey’s soup mix, I also ordered this mix for Ancient Grains + Cranberry Bread awhile back and it no longer seems to be available. Unfortunately though, it is not just out of stock; it is not even listed in the possible King Arthur mixes anymore, which is too bad because the bread is good if you like cranberries and ancient grains – millet, chia, barley, and oats.
I remember buying this Essential Goodness Ancient Grains + Cranberries Super Slice Bread mix because I thought I could get bread with a variety of grains without having to buy and store all of the grains myself. Seemed reasonable at the time. Then, when I was ready to photograph the bread from the mix, I decided that the loaf itself looked rather boring. I knew that I had cranberries and oats, but I’m not a fan of scattering loose ingredients around a finished product. I decided that I would place the oats and cranberries in small bowls just to add a little extra color and texture to the photo. When I went to tha pantry to get those two things, I realized that I also had chia, millet, and barley. Apparently somewhere along the line I forgot the conversation that I had had with myself about not needing to buy all of those things.
After the parceling out of grains into little bowls for the photo, I noticed that I had used such a shallow depth of field that you can’t even tell what they are anyway. 🙂 I could have just as easily, and effectively, used popcorn, chocolate chips, and Rice Krispies! Oh well…live and learn!
When I realized that I actually had all of the grains that are in this bread mix, I decided to go to the King Arthur Flour recipe search and see if they had a comparable made from scratch bread. My search yielded:
Score! Or so I thought.
Nope. This is a yeast bread rather than a quick bread. It doesn’t have cranberries. And, it doesn’t give you the individual measures for each grain. It relies on King Arthur Flour’s Super 10 Blend, a blend of spelt, millet, rye flakes, barley flakes, quinoa flakes, chia seed, amaranth, teff, buckwheat, and sorghum. Though this recipe may be very good, it is meant to be a sandwich type bread rather than a snack bread like the mix.
I am disappointed that the Ancient Grains + Cranberry Bread is no longer available. It is a tasty snack just out of the box, but also included on the box are ways to enhance the basic mix. The standard mix calls for the addition of 4 eggs, milk, and butter or oil. However, suggested alternatives are substituting Greek yogurt for some of the milk or bananas for all of it. The addition of nuts and protein powder is also an option.
I wish that if King Arthur was going to discontinue a good tasting mix, they’d create a close make-from-scratch version of the recipe first! Oh well. It was good while it lasted.
Perhaps I can figure out a comparable recipe on my own. I need to do something with all of those grains! Stay tuned!
Friday Faves – 10 Things Every Pet Parent Needs to Know and Accept
01 Saturday Jun 2019
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Tags
cats m, dogs, funny, humor, pet parent, pet parenting, pets
With being a pet parent comes many of the same responsibilities and sacrifices as does being the parent of a human child. Here we share 10 things we’ve learned from being pet parents.
10. Pet hair is a design element.
9. At bedtime, the animals get in bed first and you perform contortionist acts to find a place for yourself.
8. Pets are just as picky as kids when it comes to eating.
7. People judge you by the behavior of your pets just as they do the behavior of your kids.
6. There will always be toys strewn around.
5. Scratching posts are sometimes just a suggestion.
4. No matter how many pet beds and blankets you may have, your lap as always the most comfortable place to be.
3. You will never go to the bathroom alone again.
2. The box the expensive toy came in is more fun than the actual expensive toy.
- Your life is not your own…and that’s OK!
Mix It Up Monday – Pesto, Presto, Posto Part Two-O!
27 Monday May 2019
Posted in Mix It Up Monday, Mix It Up Monday - Throwback!
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from Tracey G.
When Kris was telling me of her recipe for last week’s post: Mix It Up Monday – Pesto, Presto, Posto!, I thought of this recipe and we’d discussed adding it to hers. But then I decided since it was actually a Throwback from our old blog, I’d post it for today on its own! It’s one of my favorite chicken dishes. Not only is it it so easy it should be criminal (as I state in my original post!), but the simple ingredients combine to make a sort of au jus/sauce that if I could I’d eat with a spoon by itself, lol!
I don’t think I have run across any recipe, ever, that has surprised me as much as this one. I never expected such flavor from such simple ingredients as are found in this recipe, in this combination. And it’s almost criminal how uncomplicated and effortless this dish is, lol, but yet, tastes like you put hours into it! It’s gone through some changes, and that sounds funny when I think about it, but it had a few other things as toppings along with the cheese, but I found that if I boiled it down to the basics, it was yummier and easier as less ingredients were needed to get it done.
And here we are – the ingredients. Yep. Just 3. Boneless skinless chicken breasts, prepared pesto and provolone cheese. Usually I use shredded, but thisall I could get my hands on were slices and it worked just fine of course, lol. 🙂
Preheat your oven to 400°F. While it’s preheating, time to put this together. Start by placing the chicken breasts in a 9×13 inch baking pan. The recipe calls for 4 breasts, but sometimes I only use 3 so I downsize my pan a bit.
Once the chicken is arranged in the pan, spoon the pesto over the chicken breasts. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup. I ended up using the whole 8 oz jar this time because I wasn’t thinking and contaminated it all with raw chicken by using the same spoon to scoop it out of the bowl and to spread it around on the chicken, lol. Normally I just measure out what’s needed and proceed from there. Oh well, the pesto is the best part and it was just as yummy with all of it as only a 1/2 cup, lol.
Once you get the pesto evenly spread on the chicken, it’s time to bake it. Usually takes about 35-45 minutes for the chicken breasts to be cooked thoroughly, but I always get out my meat thermometer and check at the end of 35-40 minutes or so to see where I’m at with doneness.
After you’ve baked your chicken and it’s the correct temperature for proper doneness (which according to foodsafey.gov is 165°F and can be found here: foodsafety.gov Safe Minimum Cooking Temperatures), it’s time to put on the cheese! Now, here’s where I normally use the shredded provolone, but the deli-style slices worked just fine. Pop them back into the oven for 1-2 min or until the cheese is melted.
Once the cheese is melted and as browned as you’d like, pull it out and let it rest for about 5 minutes (I’ve let it sit for 10 minutes before and had no ill consequences, lol) before serving.
I served this batch with a garlic-buttered noodle that had some green beans mixed in, it was a bit of overload on green, lol, but it’s one of the few vegetables Harry will eat these days, so I work them in a lot, lol. It is one of my favorite ways to do a quick side dish though, while the noodles are cooking I toss in a handful or two of frozen cut green beans, so that when the noodles are done, so are the beans and they’re already tossed together that way – and then you can season any way you like 🙂
Pesto Baked Chicken
serves 4
Preheat oven to 400°F
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, about 6 oz each
1/2 c prepared pesto
1 c (4 oz) shredded provolone cheese
Place chicken breasts in an ungreased 9×13-inch baking dish, spoon pesto over chicken.
Bake, uncovered, at 400°F for about 35-45 minutes or internal temperature in the thickest part of the chicken breast reaches 165°F. Remove from oven and sprinkle with cheese. Bake 1-2 minutes longer or until the cheese is melted. Let stand about 5 minutes before serving.
Mix It Up Monday – Pesto, Presto, Posto!
20 Monday May 2019
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Mix It Up Monday has new meaning this week.
Tracey and I are beginning to think that we might need to redefine what a “normal schedule” is for us. As hard as we work to plan our weekly posts and then execute that plan, it doesn’t seem to be working at all these days. And we all know what they say about doing the same thing over and over expecting different results…
We are both in the midst of new babies in our world. Don’t jump to conclusions! I have a new grandson and Tracey has a litter of feral kittens at her house. You’d think, since neither of us is solely responsible for the care of said babies, our lives wouldn’t be so disrupted by the newborn goings on, but they have been. I was working to get through my final week of school last week while being distracted by our newest family member and Tracey has been working to confine the kitty population in her neighborhod and get them to an agency that will spay and neuter so that she doesn’t have more babies at her house. And then there is her human boy, whose care she is responsible for. I am only responsible for fur babies on a daily basis.
Even with all of the goings on, I have actually been cooking real meals over the past week, though I haven’t done any baking. I’ve done “necessary” cooking but not “fun” baking. Unfortunarely, neither of us has any baked goodies to share with you this week. In lieu of that, however, I am going to share my newest favorite recipe.
On Friday we went to spend a few hours with our new grand baby. Since my daughter is recovering from a C-section and is still adjusting to the lack of sleep that comes with having a nursing newborn, I offered to bring lunch for us so she didn’t have to worry about playing hostess. My daughter lives about 45 minutes from us – close in travel time, but far away enough that deciding what type of meal might make the trip best required a little bit of thought. I decided that some kind of casserole would be best because that would also result in leftovers enough for at least another meal for her family.
A few months ago, I made the Bacon White Cheddar Pesto Mac and Cheese recipe from the February/March 2019 issue of Allrecipes magazine. This was by far the tastiest macaroni and cheese I have ever had! The addition of pesto takes the standard mac and cheese flavor up several notches.
My previous favorite mac and cheese recipe is Michelle Obama’s Mac and Cheese recipe that uses pureed cauliflower instead of the traditional roux for its cheese sauce. This link has an adaptation of that recipe, which is amazing. As a side note, cauliflower may be the most underappreciated vegtable there is, but that’s another story for another post! When I have a chance, I want to try merging these two recipes…use the cauliflower base, but add the pesto. I see no reason why it won’t work, no reason why the result won’t be macaroni and cheese perfection!
Though bacon is the first word in the title of this Bacon White Cheddar Pesto Mac and Cheese, the bacon can be omitted without sacrficing the overall flavor of the mac and cheese. It can easily and successfully be made as a vegetarian meal. I usually make the recipe half with bacon and half without.
If you are a mac and cheese fan or a pesto fan, or, even better, a fan a both, I strongly recommend giving this recipe a try. It is great for a family meal or a make-ahead dish for a potluck kind of event. I’m positive that you wont be disappointed.
Bacon White Cheddar Pesto Mac and Cheese
Mix It Up Monday Throwback: Mom Made It – We Loved It!
13 Monday May 2019
Posted in Mix It Up Monday, Mix It Up Monday - Throwback!
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In honor of Mother’s Day, Kris and I decided to spend the weekend enjoying ourselves and the family! Kris got to spend time with her new baby grandson, and I enjoyed my two boys being home and acting their usual crazy selves! So, we decided it would be fun to go with a Throwback post – albeit it’s a mash up of two different posts, but it IS about a couple recipes our mom’s made, that for us, are the gold standard in these treats we love!
Hope you enjoy!
from Kris B.
Despite my admitted coffee addiction, I am not one of those who spends nine months of the year waiting for Starbuck’s to begin making pumpkin spice lattes, but I do spend a good part of the year waiting for fall so that I can make pumpkin bread. There really is no reason that pumpkin bread can’t be, as Cookie Monster says, “an anytime food,” but I have always thought of it as a fall food, a fall food that I absolutely love. In fact, I prefer pumpkin bread to pumpkin pie ALWAYS.
This recipe is one that was passed down to me from my mother. Perhaps I still associate pumpkin bread with fall because that is when my mom always made it. When I was in college, she always sent me a loaf in my midterm care package. I have no idea where my mom originally found the recipe. She gave it to me on a handwritten recipe card with no reference as to where she had gotten it. In all these years, I have never even tried another pumpkin bread recipe. To my taste, this one is perfection. And honestly, I have never tasted any pumpkin bread anywhere that beats this one. I’m sure there are some tweaks that could be made, perhaps to make it a bit healthier, but I don’t think I am going to worry about that. Some things deserve to stay the same; for me, this recipe is one of them.
INGREDIENTS
1 2/3 Cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 1/2 Cups sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 Cup vegetable oil
1/2 Cup water
1 Cup pumpkin
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease a loaf pan and set aside.
Sift flour into a large bowl.
Mix in the remainder of the dry ingredients – sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and spices.
In a medium sized bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients, oil, water, pumpkin and eggs.
Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients stirring until they are mixed well. Add the vanilla.
Pour the batter into the greased loaf pan or pan(s) of choice. This recipe works well in mini loaf pans or muffin tins also. Bake for 1 1/2 hours or until knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then remove it from the pan and continue cooling on a wire rack.
I am lazy when it comes to washing dishes so it is always my goal to use as few vessels as possible when I cook. Since this recipe uses 1/2 cup each of water and oil, it is “efficient” to measure them both into the same measuring cup!
Thanks for reading!
from Tracey G.
As Kris and I were getting ready for this “Friday’s” post, everything seemed to just go downhill in my camp, lol. I ended up having to take Harry to the after-hours clinic at our doctor’s office due to ear pain on Thursday evening after a miserable Wednesday night, and come to find out he’s got an ugly ear infection. So, the past few nights since, oh, Wednesday, have involved very little sleep, and every time I get something on a roll after he’s asleep, he’s awake and my work gets put on hold, lol. I am hoping that a couple full days on the antibiotic will start to see some improvement! Poor kid is miserable and the first day of school is Tuesday. What a way to start the year, the doctor wanted to see him back next Friday, so the first week of school he’s either going to be late on that day or absent depending on the efficiency at the doctor’s office, lol.
So, that’s my reason why Food Friday became Food Saturday for me as well!! 😉
Labor Day weekend reminds me of a special dessert my mom would make, not that she made it, every Labor Day weekend, because I couldn’t even tell you if she ever made it on a Labor Day weekend, lol – but simply because it did. Her birthday was just August 22, so I guess she’s been on my mind a lot. But anyway, the dessert would be the Stern Reunion Blueberry Torte, my mom was a Stern so was from her side of the family. I didn’t call it that because to me, and one of my best friends who I think loved it more than me (if that was possible!), it was simply known as my Mom’s Blueberry Torte, lol. The funny thing is, I’ve never made it. My friend requested it as a wedding gift, lol, a pan of it all for her that she didn’t have share – she may have shared with her new husband, lol, I’ll have to ask her one of these days, but she’s made it through the years, and I can’t believe I never have. It’s not like I didn’t have the recipe, lol. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I’d even had it… So I knew it was time to make it.
As I was making it, I had to laugh – mom only made it for special occasions, holidays and whatnot, so I always thought it was labor intensive so therefore, saved for certain occasions – like the pecan tarts she’d make every Christmas, they were special because that was the only time of year we had them, lol. But the torte was REALLY simple to put together and fast, lol. I was reminded of the old Rice Krispies Treat commercial where the mom dusted herself with flour before she took the treats, wearily, out to the family as if it had been one of the most difficult things to produce, yet she and we knew it was one of the easiest. 😉 I knew mom more as a “cooker” instead of dessert maker/baker kind of person, so whatever she did make as a dessert, I guess would be her signature items, lol, like Blueberry Torte or Pecan Tarts. This truly was one of the things I grew up on, she’d made it ever since I was a kid, and eating it was a total blast from the past – and in such a good and yummy way!
The crust ingredients are: flour, brown sugar, vegetable shortening, butter and chopped walnuts.
Mix all of the crust ingredients together and press into the bottom of a 9×13″ pan. Then bake at 400° F for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. While that’s cooling start getting your filling ingredients ready…
The filling ingredients are pretty simple too – the filling part is made up of: vanilla, powdered sugar, cream cheese and Dream Whip prepared per package directions. The “topping” is a can of blueberry pie filling. It’s about 2 cups – so if you wanted to make your own with fresh blueberries sugar, water and cornstarch kind of thing that’s the least amount you’d need. I do have a note in my recipe book to use 1-2 cans of filling, so the amount is another one of those things that can be played with to suit your taste 😉 Next time I make it, I am going to use more, likely 2 cans or make my own blueberry filling/sauce. Oh heck, for that matter, you could use whatever pie filling captures your fancy, I would like to try lemon and also make my own fresh peach filling to try on top…or even a raspberry….I guess I could keep going, lol. But you all get the idea. 😉
With a mixer (either handheld or stationary) combine the powdered sugar, cream cheese and vanilla until smooth. Then, prepare the Dream Whip according to the package directions. If you have the space, you can make the whipped topping ahead of time and refrigerate it until you’re ready to use it.
Fold the whipped topping gently into the cream cheese mixture until thoroughly combined…
…then spread the cream cheese filling, evenly, over the cooled crust. Now, at this point, had I read my little notes on the recipe, I would have read the suggestion from Mom that you can refrigerate the torte at this point for awhile – it would have made the pie filling easier to spread over the top. I battled the cream part wanting to be pulled into the pretty pie filling, lol, and that could have been avoided. 😉
I put the pie filling on in even lines/spoonfuls so that it can then be spread a little easier to cover the top. After you do that, all that’s left is to refrigerate at least 2 hours before you serve. Now, again, here’s a note on that – one that’s not in my book but that I discovered while eating this the same day it’s made – the crust is rather hard, lol. But, the next day, it was perfect, easy to cut and easy to eat. Next time I’ll remember that – and it even just tasted better, lol. 😉
Mom’s Blueberry Torte (a.k.a The Stern Reunion Blueberry Torte)
Crust:
2 c flour
1/2 c brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 c vegetable shortening
1/2 c butter, softened
1 c chopped walnuts
Mix together the ingredients. Press into the bottom of a 9×13″ baking pan and bake at 400° F for 15 minutes or until lightly browned.
Filling and Topping:
2 pkg Dream Whip whipped topping mix
1 8 oz. pkg cream cheese, softened
1 c powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1-2 cans blueberry pie filling
Mix together the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla until well blended and smooth. Prepare the Dream Whip packages according to package directions. Fold into cream cheese mixture until well blended. Spread over top of cooled crust. Top with pie filling. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving.
(you can refrigerate the crust/cream cheese mixture layer before spreading on the pie filling, makes it easier to spread!)