Category Archives: Food

Food

Super Easy Gnocchi Dish

1 Comment

Yummy looking, right? It was super easy too! The longest thing was boiling the water!

All I did was cook 3 packages of gnocchi (hey, they are small packages and there are 6 of us;). Then I heated up 2 cups of cooked, sliced steak (I had in the freezer) and 1 package of chopped spinach (thawed and squeezed out). I melted 1 stick of butter and then sauteed 2 teaspoons of prechopped garlic. I added 1 1/2 tsp of salt, 1 tsp pepper and 1/2 tsp of paprika. Mix it together and eat up!

An added note: I often put in chopped chicken instead of steak. It really is that simple!

(This has been linked up to Works For Me Wednesday, Delicious Dishes, and Tasty Tuesday)

Food

It’s Time for Food!

Leave a comment

It is menu planning time! Things are cooling a bit around here so I think I might do a little baking this week. I think I will back some butterhorns, some cookies and maybe some pear bread. But back to business… Here is what we are eating!

Monday: Mac and Cheese for the kids while NerdDad and I got to the TasteFresno tweetup at Eureka!
Tuesday: BBQ’ed Pork Ribs, Broccoli, Corn
Wednesday: Eggs, Bacon, Pancakes
Thursday: Chicken Kiev, Buttery Rolls, Broccoli
Friday: Gnocchi with Chicken and Spinach in a Butter Garlic Sauce

Food

Custom Cake with Non-Custom Ingredients

1 Comment

The Nerdster wanted a Batman cake for his 5th birthday this last week. And as you see, he got one;). But it was a bit of a process to get there. Now, as usually, I started with a box cake mix. But, I had planned on using homemade butter cream. Genius me forgot to get powdered sugar (which I thought I had) but I had 2 tubs of chocolate icing with chocolate chips and 1 tub of white cream cheese frosting.

So I started by frosting in between the layers and the edges of the cake with the chocolate chip frosting. Then I took a bat image that NerdDad found online. I cut it out.

Then I buttered the edges lightly with chocolate frosting so it would stick to my cake top. Then I mixed yellow gel food coloring into my white cream cheese. I frosted the top of the cake with yellow frosting but was careful to stay off the Batman image.

Then I used 2 strips of duct tape to remove the Bat symbol. Then I filled in the image with more of the chocolate frosting!

So there you have how I made fully custom cake using totally non-custom ingredients! Just a box mix, canned frosting and picture of a bat!

Food

Peach, Peach, Peach

1 Comment

I love peach season but once you bring them home they just don’t seem to last all that long. I got some from my friend Bethany’s tree on Monday and decided to make some peach puree to freeze. Why? Well, you can use it to flavor oatmeals, make smoothies and so much more! So how?

First, put a pot of water on to boil. Then, cut an X into the bottom of each peach. Once your water is boiling, drop your peaches in for 1 minute.

Then pull your peaches out and plunge them into an ice bath. An ice bath is literally a bowl of water and ice. You put the fruit into it in order to stop the cooking. This is a technique called “Shocking”. The peaches only need to be in there a little bit until they are cool to the touch. Then so to your slit in the bottom and use a knife to peel them! Chunk them up and put them in a bowl. I added a little honey because these are just a touch tart and the kids would prefer it sweeter in oatmeal.

Then take a stick blender to it and blend away! I took the puree and put it into an ice cube tray. Then I popped it into the freezer. Tomorrow I will put them into a zipper bag and take them out as needed.

This is super easy and a great way to extend the season! You can use this technique for just about any fruit!

So what all would you use fruit purees in?