Pickles

I've been trying to post in the middle of the week, so I'm not sure if Sunday would be considered really late, or really early... :) We'll just say it's a couple days late.
I made several new recipes this week and I took pictures, however, I took them on my phone and when I tried to email them to my computer, they didn't all go through. I only got one and, unfortunately, I deleted them before I could re-send them. *Sigh.*
The first thing I made was rice pudding! I tried it when I was younger and for some reason I loved it--guess it's kind of a cozy, comfort food thing for me...although that said, I can't eat it all the time. I found a recipe on www.allrecipes.com and made a few little tweaks to it and it turned out pretty good. Lots of cinnamon and raisins--yum! :)
The second one I made was baked potato soup. I LOVE the kind served at Outback, so I keep looking up recipes for it, hoping to find something even slightly close to that. The one I tried was okay... I can't remember the blog I found it on, but I wrote down the recipe, so it's one I'll probably make again. The base is mostly broth, then you stir in a little milk and sour cream at the end (the first potato soup recipe I tried had more milk and cheese, so it ended up way too rich...hard to eat very much at a time). This one was very filling, but was easier on the stomach! I had a nice picture of a bowl of the soup, topped with bacon, cheese and green onions, but...you'll have to just imagine how good it looked! :)

And the last thing I tried this week was homemade pickles! I love pickles. My Mom cans her own every year and she has a super easy recipe that doesn't have to be processed, so I wanted to start with that. She usually pickles cucumbers and carrots (I know, pickled carrots sound weird, right? But they're really good!) but this year she also added green beans to the mix! I haven't tried pickled beans, but I'm sure they'd be good. Maybe.
Anyway, I picked up all the ingredients except cucumbers. I don't know if I waited too long in the season for little ones, of if nobody sells them that small but I couldn't find any. I like pickled carrots just as much so I picked up a 5 lb. bag of carrots and I eagerly awaited Parker's next nap. :) Once he was snug in his bed I went to work. I peeled and cut the carrots, then packed them into the jars. I wasn't sure how many jars it would take, so I did three quart-sized ones and two pint-sized. I alternated the carrot sticks with a few sprigs of dill, then once they were full I poured the brine over them to fill the jars. I had a little more of the brine left over, enough for another jar, but I had already used up all the dill and most of the carrots, so I just poured out the extra. Finally, the jars were covered and sealed and sitting in my cupboard for the next four weeks until I can open one and try them! Yum! :) Since this is my Mom's recipe, I can post it on here!

Dill Pickles
1 qt. vinegar
2 qt. water
3/4 cup pickling salt (course salt without iodide)
1/2 cup sugar
lots of small cucumbers or carrot sticks
dill weed

Wash and sterilize jar and lids. Wash vegetables and pack into jars, alternating layers of veggies with sprigs of dill. Set aside.
Combine vinegar and water; boil for 5 minutes. Stir in salt and sugar and boil for 1 minute longer. Pour over vegetables, filling jars almost to the top. Cover and seal. Allow pickles to set for 4 weeks before opening. Makes 5 quart-sized jars.

Once again, the pictures I took did not go through, except for one of the final product...

Gifts from My Boys

Well, it seems I have already broken my do-something-new-every-week streak! I was planning to try a recipe yesterday but I didn't have the right ingredients, so it'll have to wait. Maybe I'll do something extra next week to make up for it! :)
Since I wasn't able to bake what I wanted yesterday, I decided to take Parker and go to the mall for a while...and to see what's on sale! I went in a few stores but didn't really see anything I liked. Okay, I did see a few things I liked, but they were new arrivals and I wasn't about to pay full price. I went to Gap, hoping to find something on which I could use the remainder of a giftcard. Didn't see much in the baby section so I went to the womens' floor. I found a pair of jeans on sale for about $19. Not my favorite pair ever, but I need jeans and for Gap that's a pretty good price. So I took them to the check-out and they rang up for $14! And once I used my little giftcard, I ended up paying $7 total. Yay! Parker didn't seem as excited about that as I was. :)

On a totally unrelated note, I have a couple pictures I've been meaning to post! Our anniversary was a couple weeks ago, on July 25th. Hard to believe we've been married 8 years already! The 25th was a Monday, but I was spoiled that whole weekend... on Saturday he gave me a really pretty crystal vase (shown in the first picture), and on Sunday he and Parker got me flowers! Kyle picked the white ones from outside, and Parker got me the bouquet of wildflowers! Aren't they pretty? And they smelled wonderful.

On Monday we had made reservations to go for dinner while our neighbors watched Parker. Unfortunately, he decided he wasn't going to nap at all that afternoon so by 5:00pm he was as grumpy as could be! We didn't think our neighbors would appreciate that, so we ended up re-scheduling our reservation for the next night instead. Even though we didn't go out on Monday, Kyle still had a gift for me--a saphire ring! I couldn't get a good picture of it, but it's beautiful!

We finally made it out for dinner on Tuesday evening. I had looked up local Italian restaurants and Fontana's had a pretty good rating so we ate there--it was very good! We will definitely go back.
So, once again, I've been thoroughly spoiled! I'm thankful for such a great husband! I couldn't be happier, and I look forward to seeing what this year holds for us!

Baked Ziti

Whew--almost didn't get my weekly post done! :) Seems like the past few days have been busy and every time I sit down to update it Parker wakes up, or it's time to start dinner, or ...etc., etc. But here it is! This week I tried another new recipe--Baked Ziti! Why baked ziti, you may or may not be asking? Well, I was talking to a friend recently about making some meals to freeze, so one night I started looking up recipes/meals that freeze well, and a blog popped up with this. It looked really good so I thought I'd try it and see how it turned out. Most ziti recipes I find use a jar of pre-made sauce and they're not my favorite but this one is all from scratch. Here's the website where I found the recipe: www.annies-eats.net/2009/07/02/baked-ziti/. I think it's actually from Cook's Illustrated.

Baked Ziti
1 lb. cottage cheese
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups parmesan cheese, divided
table salt
1 lb. ziti
1 Tbsp. olive oil
20 oz. turkey sausage
1/2 cup yellow onion, finely chopped
5 med. garlic cloves, minced or pressed
1 can (28 oz.) tomato sauce
1 can (14 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh basil, divided
1 tsp. sugar
3/4 tsp. cornstarch
1 cup heavy cream OR whole milk
8 oz. mozzarella cheese, cut into 1/4" cubes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together cottage cheese, eggs and 1 cup parmesan; set aside. Boil a pot of water. Stir in a Tbsp. salt and the pasta. Cook until pasta softens, but is not cooked through, about 5-7 minutes. Drain and leave in colander.
Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add sausage and cook until almost browned. Add onion and garlic and cook until onion is soft and the meat is thoroughly brown. Stir in tomato sauce, tomatoes and oregano; simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup chopped basil and sugar. Season with salt and pepper, if desired.
Stir together milk and cornstarch in a small pot. Cook until thickened, about 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat; stir into cottage cheese mixture. Add 1 1/2 cups of the tomato sauce mixture and 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese. Add pasta and toss to coat thoroughly. Pour pasta into a 9x13 pan and spread remaining tomato sauce on top. Sprinkle with remaining parmesan and mozzarella.
Cover pan tightly with foil and bake 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 30 minutes, until cheese is bubbly and begins to brown. Let stand for a few minutes before serving. Sprinkle with remaining 2 Tbsp. basil.

I only made a few little changes... I decided to make it without meat and it was still very filling! I used egg noodles rather than ziti, and I used whole milk, which didn't really thicken with the cornstarch but it seemed to work fine anyway. And rather than make a 9x13 pan, which is way too much for the two of us, I put it into two smaller pans and froze one of them. I wanted to see how it tastes after being frozen/thawed. Other than that I followed the original recipe and it was pretty good. I love the fresh garlic and basil--makes a big difference in taste! :)

I'd like to make some other meals for the freezer, too. It's wonderful when you can have a home-cooked meal already made and ready to put in the oven after a long day! :)