Hittin the Motherload

Last weekend was Mother's Day. A few years ago, my favorite mom moved away from her favorite daughter (sniff). As her only human child (there are furry ones as well), this holiday is starred, highlighted, bold and set up with both 1- and 2-week reminders on my calendar so that I don't miss it (this is why I'm her favorite daughter -- lucky her). Babs also has the same situation with her lovely and sweet mother (Hi Mrs. Robinson!). We only-children with single parents have a lot of pressure and guilt (and we understand how important it is), so we try and do our best. It helps that we have awesome moms.

Anyway, my mom has a food itch like I've never known. Most sweets and desserts just don't cut it. No pie, no cake, no cobblers or cookies. No no.. Chocolate *only* please. She's not just any average chocoholic. If it doesn't include DARK CHOCOLATE, then she puts down her eating utensil and steps away from the table. It's just not worth it. And it HAS to be dark chocolate. Milk and whatever that "white" stuff claims to be (puh-lease) is just not good enough. As one who likes to cook, I know that I better make the dessert with dark chocolate unless I plan on eating alone.

Lucky for her, she makes this so well known to everyone (she's not much of a hinter), that I decided to bake up some Chewy Brownies (uncopyrighted free version) for Mother's Day to send to her. This recipe has been twice recommended to me, even from a source who claims to be 'picky about my chocolate.' Well, ok then. Plus, it's a Cooks recipe, so I have a fairly good chance of success. And they are SO FREAKING GOOD and easy to make (hellllooo sugar!) that I'll definitely be making these again.

I also decided to make some sugar scrub labeled as Gardener's Soap. Fun and easy. I sent that along with a pretty silver spoon with the word 'mom' inscribed on it.

Oh, and one more thing was in that big box o' love. A rag rug I crocheted from fabric to match her new red decor kitchen. Now this one took a long time to make and I butted up against the mail deadline a little too close for comfort (the night before I had to send it). However, I think it looks great and was worth all the effort. Even Rob ripped some of the fabric strips for me. Colby made sure many of the fabric balls had a loop or two around the living room (in his mouth), and even the cat took a nap atop it. What a great gift. Happy Mother's Day Mom!

We need to get some Alfredo Cheese

One meal I forgot to tell you about that I made while the family was here was my Alfredo Pasta. I had never made Alfredo sauce from scratch, but it seemed easy enough. In the process of gathering my ingredients, my dear husband said something that made me realize that all of us cook from cans too much.

He said we need to get some Alfredo cheese.

Now, I am NOT making fun of him. I am NOT laughing at this statement. Up until this point pasta Alfredo came from restaurants or a can - not homemade. The fact that he didn't know that it wasn't made from "alfredo cheese" just shows that we rely too much on other people to make our food. It's not his fault that up until now our Alfredo mainly came from Olive Garden or Ragu.

I found a VERY simple recipe for Alfredo Sauce on Recipezaar.com . Now, I won't fool you into thinking that this was a "healthy" recipe. Butter, cream & cheese. Yeah, not health food - but - it was DARN good and actually easy. WTH would you buy it from a can? 'Cause it's easier?? No, there's not too much easier than this. It tastes better? No way... there's enough fat to make this exceptionally decadent.

Sorry I have no pictures. But you must make it yourself.  Trust me.

El Diablo

My husband and I like spicy food.

No, really, we LOVE spicy food.

We also love Tortilla Soup.

On Wednesday this year, Cinco de Mayo, I had a grand plan to make some yummy cilantro lime tacos - even making the tortillas from scratch!! However,  back in January about my sweet little cat got sick. She's been holding her own, but this week did it again. She wasn't really that sick, just not eating much - which had us worried. We didn't get great news, but that's another post. My point is that my Cinco de Mayo was not a day of celebration. It stunk, actually.

So today, since I wasn't working, I had another grand plan. Make the tacos. But it was rainy. And it was cold. And it was a soup day. So I had a change of plans ... chicken tortilla soup. I had most of the ingredients. The only thing I didn't have seemed simple enough - chiles in adobo. I've seen them many times. Only today, I couldn't find them. I went to my friendly neighborhood store and all the "hispanic" goods consisted of endless jars of salsa, a few cans of enchilada sauce and a few cans of green chiles. Very disappointing. I found myself heading off to Whole Foods where I KNEW they would have them - and they did. They weren't exotic or organic or really unusual. Why didn't the store down the street have them?? Very annoying.

Anyway, so I had all my ingredients including the chiles. I was a little generous with the chiles. Perhaps a tad too generous. It was good. but it was also VERY spicy. Almost TOO much, which is a lot for me. But I liked it. It made eating it a challenge. We called it... El Diablo.

Also very filling since I needed 4 or 5 glasses of water to go along with it!

Want the recipe ?! It's a Cooks Illustrated recipe. I can't tell you how much I recommend subscribing if you are a dedicated home cook. But if you REALLY don't want to pay for it, here's someone who broke the rules and posted this yummy tortilla soup recipe. (oh, and I added corn. Both David and I felt it needed corn. I don't know why. It just did.)

No more cans!

... continuing with the story of having many people stay in my house, I decided to make a meal that that was easy, and I knew people liked. Of course, my vegetarian child wouldn't like it, but that's ok - he got a veggie burger. I opted for Sloppy Joes and Potato Salad. Nothing fancy by any means, but GOOD! The Sloppy Joes were from a recipe on Martha Stewart. Now sure how/why I found it, but it was from scratch - for the most part. It was pretty fast. It was VERY easy. It made me wonder why ANYONE would by sloppy joe stuff in a can. But that's just me, of course!

So, the side dish was potato salad. I have made it before but it was always missing something. I signed up for Cooks Illustrated a few months back, and their recipes are pretty tried and true. Like Hx mentioned before, their site is a pay site, but here's a link to Recipe Zaar that apparently has the same recipe I used. I did use red wine vinegar instead of white. It was SOOO good! Why in the world would I buy it from a deli. I am truly falling in love with cooking from scratch! I look forward to trying new receipes and seeing how great things are when they are made without using cans & premade stuff.

This summer I am growing some tomato varieties that are specific for making sauces. Can you guess what I am going to be making from scratch this summer???

Trying to Please a Crowd

Over the last 2 weeks or so, I had 3 extra guests staying with us. It's not a lot more, but it's 3 adults AND when you are trying not to dine out much, it's hard. My goal when my mom and in laws are here is  to not go out much at all. It gets very expensive with 7 people, so I TRY to cook for everyone. I must admit that I get tired - I am working and running errands and sometimes it's a real challenge. That's mainly why I haven't blogged about the recipes yet. I am probably going to post a few times today catching up on what I made the last 2 weeks!

One of the 1st things that comes to mind is the Vegetable Lo Mein I made for everyone. I chose
this specifically because it was fairly easy, fed LOTS of people and sounded good! I did double the recipe in order to have it feed everyone. I found the recipe on the App on my iPod for Whole Foods. I love the App for recipes because it gives me lots of ideas that are unique and different from other sites that I use. I was shocked that everyone ate it all! There was pretty much nothing left.