Some fall harvesting
Even though this year’s garden wasn’t a great success, I had a lot of fun and tried a lot of new things. My container garden has its limits but I decided to try to grow a few beets and carrots.
I’ve got two more that I have yet to pick :)
I also pulled another carrot, which didn’t turn out to be a dwarf this time.
It was even growing a baby!
10 things you didn’t know you could do with your microwave
Do you use your microwave much? We sure don’t. The only time we really use it is when reheating leftovers every now and then, or defrosting some bread (we mostly keep ours frozen since we don’t eat it fast enough).
We have a toaster oven that we do use a lot!
I came across this fun post about things you didn’t know you could do with your microwave. Check it out below!
10 Uses for Your Microwave That May Surprise You
Dry herbs? Disinfect cutting boards? Woulda never thought!
Stove-top apple crisp
We were having a leftover dinner, with burgers and potato pancakes, all of which were already prepared. While those were heating up, I thought it was time to make a desert. We really don’t have desert often, for two reasons:
1) I don’t really like desert. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth!
2) Teav is diabetic. Haha I guess that’s probably a main reason?
We had lots of apples in the fridge, some of which were overripe, so I thought, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if I could make a stove-top apple crisp”?
As with most of my life, I like to google something before I do it. Sure enough, there was such a thing, and I consulted a few recipes. The result is a bit of a hybrid, but very simple and straightforward.
I don’t have a specific recipe for it, but that’s how you should be cooking anyway. We started with making a crunchy topping with oats and brown sugar, and a bit of butter.
Don’t put too much butter, the brown sugar will melt and help it stick. Spread it out somewhere to cool where it will harden a bit.
Slice your apples and start cooking them down:
Add things you like, such as butter, cinnamon, maybe a bit of brown sugar. No need to be precise!
And as easy as that, you can put it on a plate!
And this was Teav’s attempt at taking some more foodie-like pictures. I feel that this point and shoot really has no potential and I’ve resigned myself to not-so-great food photos, but he insists we need to try harder.
I gotta admit, this looks pretty good:
Banana muffins
I loooove banana bread and banana muffins. We make them often to have as breakfasts or quick snacks on the go. My friend Alex recently posted a banana bread recipe on her blog and I thought I’d try it.
I always have some overripe frozen bananas in the freezer. I normally just put them on defrost in the microwave so they can easily be incorporated into the recipe.
Mix wet and dry ingredients
Put into the oven!
Fajita night
Marinate a flank steak in the Best Marinade for Steak„ which I have previously written about twice.
Grill some hot peppers that you bought for 1$ in the market from a vendor that said “No, they aren’t very spicy” and proceed to be completely unable to eat them because they are so incredible hot and spicy.
Make your own flatbread because you are too cheap to spend the 3-4$ that they usually cost.
Let dough rise
Roll out the dough
Cook it quickly
Try to make sweet potato fries on the grill that will end up burning and not actually getting cooked and you will throw out.
Lay out a sweet spread of what you made for dinner:
Make a sweet fajita, over and over again:
Dirty & Delicious: Fried chicken and French onion soup
Now that I have 10 lbs of onions, I needed to find some onion-heavy recipes. What better to use tons (pounds) of onions than French onion soup!
And of course, what better to go with French onion soup than fried chicken. Clearly a match made in heaven.
Steps to perfect French onion soup, everytime.
Melt butter
Chop onions (or place them in your food processor and pretend you chopped them).
Cook them for a really long time, add spices (bay leaves, pepper, salt), add red wine (or, if you don’t have any, red wine vinegar), add some flour and cook it down for 10 mins, then add broth. Then cook some more.
Steps to making fried chicken
Dip chicken in some kind of flour mixture (flour, paprika, salt, pepper, other spices, maybe even some bread crumbs), twice, alternating with a milk slash egg mixture.
Fry for a while in some oil (15-20 mins).
Let drain and cool down
EAT YOUR DELICIOUS SOUP AND FRIED CHICKEN
Oh, and add some veggies and dip just to feel like there is more nutritional content in your meal.
