Lady Sheherazahde's Journal

I made a big batch of macaroni salad today. I put in hard boiled eggs and tuna fish. It occurs to me that egg salad, tuna salad, and macaroni salad are have the same basic recipe: pickles, onion, celery, Miracle Whip, and mustard.

If you add tuna to egg salad it become tuna salad, but if you put tuna and/or egg in Macaroni salad it stays Macaroni salad.

So, I made my big Thanksgiving dinner on Tuesday.

Wednesday we just heated up the leftovers and had Thanksgiving dinner again. With store bought Pumpkin pie and homemade whipped cream.

Thursday I cleaned the turkey carcass and boiled the bones for stock. Then I made Turkey soup with Knopfli (Spaetzle Dumplings). Buddha came over and I made Deluxe Spinach Rice & Cheese Casserole (baked w/ Portabella mushrooms, eggs, and Bac-Os on top.) (Tammy dropped by and gave us some Cheesecake for dessert) (and I made chocolate fudge w/ walnuts)

Friday I'm going down to my parents for a family get together.

P&C had a really good deal on boneless skinless chicken breasts, so we have been eating a lot of chicken.

Friday I made homemade chicken sausage with red sauce and whole grain pasta. That turned out well.

Last night I made my instant chili with ground chicken breast instead of beef. That turned out well too.

Now that I have finished my test and can eat beef again I made my instant Minestrone with ground beef!

I made Eggplant Parmesan for dinner tonight. My Eggplant Parmesan is addictive (to me at least).

1 medium eggplant
1 lb shredded mozzarella cheese
1 26oz jar pasta sauce
1 cup parmesan cheese
1 cup whole wheat breadcrumbs
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
salt & pepper to taste

(The whole wheat isn't necessary, I'm just on a whole grain diet.)

Preparation time: 30min
Cooking time: 60min

Pre-heat the oven to 350°F.

Mix the breadcrumbs with the parmesan cheese. (I make my own breadcrumbs in the food processor, from bread that is on hand.)
Beat the egg and mix it with the milk.
Prepare three shallow dishes: one with the flour salt & pepper, one with the egg and milk mixture, and one with the breadcrumbs and cheese mixture.
Slice the eggplant into rounds 1/4"-1/2" thick.
Dredge the eggplant rounds in the flour, then the egg mixture, then the breadcrumbs and cheese.
Cover the bottom of a 9"x13" cake pan with breaded eggplant slices.
Sprinkle some of the shredded mozzarella cheese over the eggplant.
Pour some of the pasta sauce over the mozzarella cheese.
Repeat the layers until you are out of eggplant.
Pour any leftover egg and milk mixture over the whole dish.
Mix any leftover flour with the bread crumbs and sprinkle on top.
Bake at 350°F until dark brown (poke the center with a knife to make sure the eggplant is cooked), about 1 hour.
Let rest for 15-30min (or overnight is even better).

( Vegetarian Vegetable Spanish Rice )

Today has been a cooking day.

I started out making the Easy Southern Banana Pudding (only without the Cool Whip topping) I used Lactaid milk so The Best Neighbor Ever™ could have some. (fritterfae should comment since he has a 'Nana Puddin' icon ) It is basically Banana Cream Pie with Nilla Wafers for a crust. A good potluck recipe though.

Then I made Four Cheese Broc & Cheese (actually it is more like Cauliflower and Cheese but that doesn't have quite the same ring) basically it is Mac & Cheese with Cauliflower and Broccoli instead of macaroni. (The four cheeses were Colby, Monterey Jack, Cheddar, and Parmesan.) I think I over cooked it. Maybe next time I will just do the stove top version instead of the baked version.

Then I made a batch of Ratitouille for the Pinkwater Ratitouille diet.

I made a vegetarian birthday dinner for The Best Neighbor Ever™

I made Brown Basmati Rice, Tofu Saté, Klatchian Curry w/fried tofu (instead of chicken), Leek and Potato soup, Chocolate Tofu Pie w/Pecan crust (thanks for the tip about the guar gum soulspirals)(Maybe next time I will make a peanut butter cookie crust for the chocolate pie)

The Tofu Saté tasted great. It could have used a little kick of something (I need to talk to my dad about his recipe again). But it was still really yummy. I marinated Wegmans Extra Firm tofu overnight than simmered the tofu in the marinade (w/some peanut butter). The tofu fell apart in the cooking, which I was not happy about. It ended up looking like tofu mush. I'm not sure how to solve that problem. For the Klatchian Curry I fried the tofu and added it to the curry last, but that means it has very little time to absorb flavor. I want to marinade the tofu but still have it dry enough to fry. Maybe if I used just the liquid from the coconut milk to carry the spices in the marinade and saved the cream to add after the tofu has fried. Of course another option is to use the spices as a dry rub then fry the tofu in the coconut cream.

Hmm I just looked it up and apparently Saté (or Satay) actually refers to the meat grilled on skewers, aka shish kebab (or the speedies I grew up with). It is just that Indonesian shish kebab has curry in the marinade and is served with peanut gravy. I will have to work on the recipe some more.

There was a lot of Klatchian Curry. Remind me to make that when I have a lot of people to feed. But it has the most ingredients so that shouldn't have been a surprise.

The leek & potato soup ended up more of a mashed potatoes w/leeks. Not very appetizing, but tasty.

Something I ate last night is bad for me. My throat hurt. It may be the mace in the leek soup. We shall see.

The Best Neighbor Ever has one thing that she is fairly intolerant of. I'm generally in favor of tolerance but I indulge her in this one thing since it does make her physically ill.

When we were shopping the other day she got very excited about some Chocolate Fudge Jell-O pudding mix, and I suggested that we buy some Lactaid Milk and make it. But I couldn't afford it that day. She does so much for me I like to do things to make her happy so Friday I bought 2 packages of Chocolate Fudge Jell-O pudding mix 1qt of Lactaid Milk and 1qt of WestSoy Low Fat Plain Soymilk (although she has since expressed a preference for Silk).

We did an experiment to see which works best with Prepackaged Pudding mix Lactaid Milk or Soy Milk.

The Results were:
The Lactaid Milk pudding set up perfectly.
The Soy Milk pudding did not set up at all.

The Beast said they didn't taste any different than regular pudding. But I though the Soymilk was a bit thin.

The Beast believes it is the milk fat that thickens the pudding. It is possible that a Soymilk with a higher fat content might work better.

Some of the meat I just flash froze so I can throw it in the crockpot (for which I purchased crockpot liners).
2 disjointed chickens (3 meals)
3 bags of stew beef (3 meals)
1 bag of thin sliced beef for stir fry (2 meals)

I started by making the bread crumbs
then I made low-Carb Sunflower seed and Parmesan crackers
Rouladen (3 meals)
Turkey meatballs, baked (35)(3 meals)
Roast Beef (2 meals)
Ground beef, cooked (3 meals)

Tomorrow I want to make:
Beef meatballs
Minestrone soup
Zucchini Meat loaf
Brajole

I'm trying to do this "Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month" meal planning. But I am having trouble remembering what it is I actually cook for dinner. I do almost all the cooking in our household but I have no idea what it is I cook. Ok I have some ideas
( What I cook )
My Friends, I ask you, Are there any dishes I have made for you that I have not listed?

Last night Sarah (The Best Neighbor Ever™) wondered by looking for something to eat. She is a vegetarian and she was having 'woman's problems' so I wanted to come up with a vegetable tofu dish. I was originally planning this as vegetable side dish, another way to get more veggies in my diet. But it freezes and reheats well and is good for a quick breakfast or box lunch.


Spinach Tofu Casserole

2 lbs. (2 boxes) frozen chopped Spinach
1 box (12oz) silken soft Tofu
5 Eggs
1/4 c Olive Oil (or butter)
1 cup Milk (optional)
2 t Onion powder
2 t Salt
Pepper

Defrost and drain the spinach.
Put all the ingredients in a blender and liquefy (I put the tofu and eggs in first to make sure it is fluid enough to blend in the spinach).

Pour into a casserole and bake at 350°F for 1 hour.