Indonesian Chicken Curry Soup and Yogurt Cheese

I love cookbooks, and that's an understatement. I read them like they are novels and really...can you have too many cookbooks?!
For Christmas my hubby gave me Tosca Reno's Clean Eating cookbook. While I've read that some of the nutritional values are incorrect...for a girl that does occasionally eat at Taco Bell...it has to be better than that...so I'm not judging.
Last night I made the Curry Soup. (Sorry I forgot the page #) As I live in North Idaho it was a tad difficult to find some of the ingredients, so I made some substitutions and it worked out find. Items diffucult to find: Laos powder, sambal oelek (chili paste) and flat rice noodles. I just used regular chili paste, the little clear rice noodles and added garam masala in place of the Laos powder. It was the best I could do. Still south Asian in flavor.
It was SUPER easy to make and really good. I've spent some time time living in the South Pacific and curry powder is a staple there. It's been a long time since I've made something heavy on the curry and have forgotten that it makes my eyes swell up. Just a comment on my inability to handle my curry...not a reflection on the dish.
I'm rating it an 8 out of 10. Oh and my kids (age 5) ate it without too much complaining of the spiciness of it.

I also made yogurt cheese. I'm new to yogurt cheese, but apparently people have been making it forever. It's a lowfat alternative to cream cheese. The basics are to line a fine sieve with 4 layers of cheese cloth, and pour in plain lowfat yogurt, letting the liquid drain out overnight. The result is soft dense "yogurt cheese". In the craze of the grocery store with a disobedient 5 year old, I ended up with VANILLA yogurt instead and it still worked out just fine! Like favored cream cheese. We ate it on our toast this morning and it was very yummy. Look for yogurt that does not have gelatin or pectin added, as the binding ingredients wont make it drain the liquid off as well. Great alternative to butter's high fat, margarine's chemicals and mayo's just plain grossness.

Baking Powder Biscuits - from Heaven!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fluffy-Whole-Wheat-Biscuits/Detail.aspx  Yum!  I doubled the recipe, and used 1/2 buttermilk and 1/2 skim milk.  Delicious!

Pioneer Woman's Pasta Primavera

This was disappointing. Good meal - but didn't need the recipe. Basically, you lightly stir-fry all of the veggies, remove from the pan, add whipping cream, light cream, chicken broth and basil leaves to make the sauce. Oh, and grated parmeson cheese, of course. It's yummy, but runny. You combine the sauce with the veggies and pour over some cooked noodles. I'd rather have some gooey, cheesy macaroni and cheese with a salad or some steamed veggies on the side.

French Breakfast Puffs

Found on page 66 of The PW's cookbook is the recipe for French Breakfast Puffs. Where do I start with this one...

First of all whatever you do, DO NOT lightly spray your muffin tins. You're going to need to spray heavy or butter/grease and then flour your tin, because my first batch all I got were muffin TOPS. Not cute on people and not fun when you are trying to get whole muffins out of tins. Yuck and irritating.

There is 2/3 cup of shortening in the batter and then you roll the warm muffins in melted butter and then roll again in a sugar/cinnamon combo. I let mine cool overnight and we ate them the next morning before church. While they ARE good, they left my teeth feeling slick with butter, sort of oily feeling. (Hello all that butter and shortening!) John thought the same thing, and didn't eat nearly as many as I guessed he would have. While I didn't ask him to rate them on a scale of 1-10, I'm guessing because he didn't really eat very many that they were a 5 or a 6.

I will make them again at some point because they were good, but next time I'll remember to not "lightly spray" my muffin tin!

Cowboy Toast

We call an "Egg in the Hole" cowboy toast at our house. Found on page 46 of the PW's cookbook, you too can figure out how to cut a hole in toast and fry up an egg in the middle. While I personally do not eat eggs. Just call me crazy that way...my kids love Cowboy Toast and eat it all the time for breakfast. How we came upon the name "cowboy toast" is beyond me...but we've forever called it that. BEFORE the Pioneer Woman became..THE Pioneer Woman. :)

Mmmm Red Velvet

For a review of the PW's Red Velvet Cake, hit up my friend Dawn's blog . She and her girls made the Red Velvet Cake found on page 233 of the PW's cookbook. While I haven't tried it...it looks like a 10 to me! :)

The PW's Skillet Cornbread

OK...can I just say, I've wanted to recreate my Arkansas Grandma's cornbread since...forever and now...ta da...I have! Thank you Ree. The recipe calls for buttermilk, but come on who buys buttermilk?! Her directions say you can make your own buttermilk (which apparently is a known fact to everyone but me.) With a little added vinegar to milk, I did indeed make my own buttermilk. The recipe calls for "shortening" I'm telling you, since recreating the PW's recipes I've never used so much shortening in my life. Not only do you melt it and add it to the batter, but you also melt some in the pan prior to pouring the batter in. Ree's recipes are not for the slim of hip, but SO good! It isn't a very sweet cornbread (which I don't like anyway) but it is full of great texture. My husband told me I could make it everyday and he would be happy, I'd say that's a 10.

*This recipe can be found on page 102 of The Pioneer Woman's new cookbook.

Pioneer Woman's olive cheese bread and ginger steak salad

This was not a hit. Well, hubby gave the meal a 7, and I would give it about a 6. Both of us enjoyed the asian flavours of the salad dresssing. The marinade for the steak was so-so. There was waaaaay too much cheese/olive topping for the bread. With that said...I didn't have french bread, there was none left at my grocery store, so I used focaccia. Maybe my bread surface was too small. Anyway...I found it to be too bitter tasting. I would probably make the cheese bread again, but next time with the french bread, and I'd use fewer green olives.

Hot and Sweet Drumsticks

Ohhhhh - this was delish!!! Made Terri's Hot and Sweet Drumsticks from the Tasty Kitchen site. Let me tell you - easy and tender and mouthwatering and...!! The kids looooved them, and so did I! Hubby gave them an '8', he said they only had a 'moderately high' score because he thought that last nights chicken parmigiano was an '11', and tonights meal was bound to score lower. Anyway... we had Pastor Ryan's Roasted Carrots, and the Crash Hot Potatoes from P.W.'s site to go with the chicken. Yum. Yum. The kids and I scored everything on the plate tonight at '10'!

Pioneer Woman's Chicken Parmiagana

Mmmmm...this one got the thumbs up from the whole family! The tender was soooooo....wait a minute...I mean, the chicken was sooooooo tender!!!! And the sauce...mmmmm...the sauce was rich, full of flavor and made me feel a bit better about eating chicken that had been basically deep fried. But...wow. So worth every pound of fat! I will make this for company one day when I really want/need to show off. ;-)

Marlbro Man's Favorite Sandwich (Pioneer Woman) and Jennifer Chandler's Greek Salad

Okay! I'm excited about our meals for this week...went shopping with grocery list that included a weeks worth of recipes - mostly Pioneer Woman's. Well, $350.00 Canadian later....

Tonight I made Marlbro Man's favorite sandwich. I forgot to take a pic - but it's not the most child-friendly in appearance. My kids asked what kind of worms were falling out...and um...that the meat looks like...poo. Yes, I need to focus more on some dinner table manners. Anyway, once the kids got over the appearance of the long strips of meat and onions, they actually quite enjoyed the sandwich! Hubby really liked it. It is definitely a manly sandwich! I thought it was a nice change. This is a cheap and easy sandwich, that is satisfying enough for dinner.

We also enjoyed a delicious Greek salad. The dressing recipe came from a cookbook that I have used probably once a week for the last seven months since buying it. It's called "Simply Salads" by Jennifer Chandler. LOVE IT. I followed the dressing recipe - easy - and then made a salad from a variety of peppers, feta, tomatoes, kalamata olives and a bunch of baby spinach. Mmmm!