Pantry Revisited

Hostess this week was Heide of http://chezzero.blogspot.com/ I have to let you all in on a secret this week.  I had to cheat a bit on this one.  Just a bit.  I did not let it sit overnight in the refrigerator as Ellie says to.  Wasn't sure if it would work to just beat it up and toss it in the oven, but that's what I did.  Drat those time constraints!  But please keep this to yourself.   Don't you just love a good secret? My grocery store did not have fresh blueberries this week.  Not sure what was up with that because we eat them every morning with our cereal.  So I grabbed a bag of frozen blueberries.  Believe me when I say they may be fine for cooking with them, but even thawed they did nothing for our cereal.  Too mushy for me!  But the size of the blueberries was amazing.  Made me wonder where are these giant blueberries when you buy fresh ones?  The ones I buy are tiny like little peas.  These were m...

This month in My Kitchen My World, we traveled to Morocco!!  Chandler and I love middle eastern food so this was a hit with us.  I went through many moroccan recipes before finally deciding on one.  I chose Moroccan Kefta Meatballs in Butter Sauce and I was so glad I did. For those of you, like me, that do not know the true meaning of "kefta," it generally refers to ground meat.  You could make these from ground beef, ground turkey, ground lamb, or do a combination of meats.  For convenience, I had ground beef already so that is what I used.   The meat is well seasoned with plenty of fresh herbs and spices, and then shaped into balls and sauteed in butter.  I was a bit surprised the recipe did not call for an egg to hold the shape, but these did fine without. The recipe said to take Moroccan bread and dip into the sauce, but unfortunately, I had no sauce.  Not sure what went wrong there, but the meatballs were delicious.  I...

Hostess this week:  Leslie of Lethally Delicious One of my favorite blogging friends, Leslie of Lethally Delicious, chose this Tarte Fine for this week's Tuesday with Dorie challenge. I decided to make mine round by cutting my pastry around a bowl as a pattern because I saw Gordon Ramsey do it on a video.  Of course he also torched his end result and it all looked so easy.  All I can say is something happened to mine.  It was abducted by aliens and this is how it came out.  My puff pastry did not rise up around it.  It is lacking an apple because I messed up the first apple I sliced into.  And it needed that apple.  It pains me to look at it.  And the saddest part of this was that this is not a difficult recipe.  It was easy or. . .. . was it? This was not my favorite recipe.  But go over to Leslie's blog and see how hers turned out and you can get the recipe there! 

Hostess this Week:  Melissa of http://itsmelissaskitchen.blogspot.com/ I have been under the weather this week with a touch of strep throat.  I'll be fine soon.. . I hope?  Got a cortisone shot yesterday which kept me wide awake all night last night, but it did give me a tiny bit of relief.  So this will be a quick post!  For those of you who are movie buffs like me, I saw a cute movie last weekend that I got from Netflix.  Killers starring Kutcher and Heigl.   If you liked Brad and Angie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, you will like this one as well. I am not a huge fan of whole wheat pancakes, so I mixed half and half flour, regular and whole wheat.  The strawberry syrup was very easy to mix up.  I wish the strawberries had a richer color in these photos. Click here to go see what the other members of CEiMB came up with.  http://cravingellieinmybelly.blogspot.com/ I love this syrup.  Target brand. While these were good pancak...

Hostess for this week:  Sabrina of http://www.superfluouslysabro.blogspot.com/ I was so excited when Sabrina (one of my favorite bloggers) chose this Cranberry Upside-Downer.  I have been eyeing this recipe for two years now and I do not know why I have not made it before now.  I now have it in my head for a Thanksgiving treat when my children are here from out of town.  It was very easy to mix up.  I had all the ingredients on hand which is always a plus!  Actually had cranberries and pecans in the freezer.  Going to the grocery store is not my favorite thing.  You can go to Sabrina's blog by clicking on the link above and get the recipe for this if you do not have a copy of Dorie's book. While this was baking, I accomplished another chore that I have been putting off.  Cleaning out my linen closet!  All the sheets, towels, etc. were crumpled up and thrown in there one on top of the other.  Now they are all nice and neatly sta...

Host for the week:  Jasmine of Jasmine Cuisine It was just one of those weekends.  The kind where nothing really goes the way you expect.  We left Friday night to go to the lake for the long holiday weekend hoping for some much needed rest after our return from Dallas.  We arrived, turned on the air conditioning and in about 30 minutes realized, there was no air conditioning.  It was about 95 degrees that day, but weatherman assured on the television it was going to get cooler through the night, so we decided to tough it out and call a repairman the next morning. With a fan in the window, a ceiling fan, and a small bedside fan all running at full speed, we went to bed.  Gosh the noise those fans made. Midnight - still hot.  Two in the morning - still hot.  Stay on your side of the bed I whispered!  Don't touch me he said!  Finally about five in the morning we both found sleep.  Got ...