Banana Pudding

This week's chefs are Bobby and Jamie Deen, but since the Food Network site doesn't have any of their recipes we could choose on of Paula Deen's recipes instead. I needed something to take to the North American Women's Club potluck, and this banana pudding recipe was spot on.

Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding
Courtesy of Paula Deen

* 2 bags Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies
* 6 to 8 bananas, sliced
* 2 cups milk
* 1 (5-ounce) box instant French vanilla pudding
* 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
* 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
* 1 (12-ounce) container frozen whipped topping thawed, or equal amount sweetened whipped cream

Directions

Line the bottom of a 13 by 9 by 2-inch dish with 1 bag of cookies and layer bananas on top.

In a bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well using a handheld electric mixer. Using another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk together and mix until smooth. Fold the whipped topping into the cream cheese mixture. Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and stir until well blended. Pour the mixture over the cookies and bananas and cover with the remaining cookies. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

The Verdict: This is VERY good. Since I don't have easy access to Pepperidge Farm stuff, I used some coconut flavored biscuit cookies instead. If I make it again I'd just ditch the cookies because you don't really need them and it just makes it slightly harder to dish up. I do think that this would work really well in a graham cracker crust. I did use pudding mix, but it's a little hard to come by here and I don't see any reason that you couldn't just use the "vla" that you can buy in a carton here. I used real whipping cream and "Klop Fix" (by Dr Oetker) to keep it fluffy. I'll add this to my make-again file, but probably will only use it for very special occasions since it's so rich.

DIY Range Hood Filter Replacements

My sweet friend Shari from My Practically Perfect Life is hosting a blog carnival called "Make Do Mondays."

At Make-Do Mondays we discuss how we’re simplifying, downsizing, repurposing, buying used, and using what we’ve got. It’s a carnival celebrating creative problem-solving, contentment, patience and ingenuity.

So without further ado, here's our "make-do" for this week.

We have a range hood from IKEA that takes not only one, but TWO filters which they recommend replacing every 6 months. The first time Martijn went to buy new ones they wanted about €30 a PIECE for them. They've since come down in price, but it's still a €40 recurring charge every 6 months if you buy new ones.

So, he did what any stingy Dutch person frugally minded person would do. He took the old ones apart and replaced their guts.

The filters just have charcoal in them, and upon further inspection it looked an awful lot like the charcoal you use in aquariums. It's not 100% the same, but it does serve the same purpose and seems to work just fine in this application.

He couldn't find the pellets so he bought a really fine charcoal and we've since discovered that it doesn't work as well and is insanely MESSY. Luckily we came across the pellets at another store so the next time it wasn't so messy.

After some liberal applications of hot glue and another layer of filter fabric, the job was complete!

The total spent on these for the filter fabric, charcoal, and hot glue was less than €10 and that was with a LOT of leftover supplies to make them in the future. I can deal with that!

Please be sure to check out more Make-Do Mondays and join in!

Menu Plan Monday- October 12, 2009

A recap of last week:

I STILL haven't made that stupid spaghetti squash and it's staring me in the face, mocking me. I WILL make it this week!!

The Bobby Flay Chicken Parm recipe that I made wasn't bad, though it needed quite a lot of tweaking to minimize waste and it could've used a little more flavor.

The 12-Hour Salad is also going to be a carryover to use up leftover bits and pieces of veggies in the fridge.

My veggie casserole TASTED good... but that's about where it ended. It was more like veggie soup in a casserole dish. I'll have to try it again and figure out how to get rid of some of the liquid.

Shoarma is always good and I got to try the whole wheat pitas I bought in Belgium a couple weeks ago. I think I'll stock up on more next time I go since I know they're good now.

click the banner and "Menu Plan Monday" for more menu planning ideas

This week I am choosing recipes that will use up stuff that I have in the fridge, freezer, and pantry. I do have to buy a few things for the Daring Cooks Challenge but otherwise the grocery load should be pretty small.

***

Tacos

Ham and Leek Cobbler

Spaghetti Squash & Red Sauce

Fried "Rice" & Lemon Chicken

Tuna Muffins & Asparagus Soup

Daring Kitchen Challenge- It's a secret til the 14th!

Fragmented Freewrites- October 9, 2009

Time for Fragments!

My mom called me this week and left a message saying "I'm in Amsterdam and was just thinking of you..." Too bad she meant Amsterdam, New York. I'd have been on a train to the airport so fast!

My in-laws have chickens so sometimes we get yummy fresh eggs from them.



I think one of the chickens is a cross between a chicken and an ostrich. Check out the size of those two eggs on the left! The funniest part is the egg in the middle is NOT small either. These things are massive.

When we got our new bikes several people asked me if I'd given it a name. I hadn't, but now I'm going to call it Bucky. I totally biffed it, so I'm going to blame the bike and say it bucked me off, rather than taking the blame for turning the corner too sharply. I tore a giant hole in my pants, skinned my knee, had gravel embedded in my hands, got stabbed in the chest with my handlebars and landed quite heavily on my shoulder. I should live but I'm probably going to be in agony uncomfortable the next few days. The score currently stands Bucky-1, Me-0. The worst part is I wasn't even trying to do anything cool like escape a mob of angry ninjas.

I always get thrown off when I hear "God Save the Queen" because it's the exact tune of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." Then I get annoyed that they're singing the wrong words, even though "God Save the Queen/King" was set to that melody way before. It's not logical, but it's how it is.

I need to stop reading the news, I'm just better off not knowing.

I'm thinking of doing some sort of "Ask me anything" post. Should I do it??

Chicken Parmigiana

I started this adventure of the FNCCC fully intending to choose recipes and follow them exactly (or as closely as possible due to ingredient availability) so that I could decide if the recipe as written was good or if it was a stinker. I've managed to do this so far, but this week I ran into a wall. I don't know WHO is proofreading these recipes before they go up on the website but I have some serious doubts about ingredient amounts on this one. There was also an ingredient that I didn't recognize, so I Googled it. The only hits Google had were pages of this same exact recipe which didn't exactly give me confidence since there were no other mentions of it anywhere. I don't think it really exists. That said, I made some adjustments to this one.

Most of the Bobby Flay recipes were grilling recipes. I didn't want to do a grilling recipe... so I chose one of the few that wasn't! My thoughts are in parenthesis and italics.

Chicken Parmigiana
Recipe courtesy of Bobby Flay

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups all-purpose flour, seasoned with salt and pepper (You do NOT need two cups of flour to dredge chicken breasts in... I used a half a cup for two breasts and probably still could've done two more)
4 large eggs, beaten with 2 tablespoons water and seasoned with salt and pepper (Four eggs?! Serious overkill. One large egg should be enough)
2 cups panko bread crumbs (1 cup is plenty)
1 cup vegetable oil or pure olive oil (You aren't deep frying the chicken, so I have no idea why this calls for so much oil. A couple tablespoons in the bottom of the pan is more than enough)
Tomato Sauce, recipe follows
1 pound fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced (This is actually just about right, fresh mozzarella is heavy!!)
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
Fresh basil or parsley leaves, for garnish

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Season chicken on both sides with salt and pepper. Dredge each breast in the flour and tap off excess, then dip in the egg and let excess drip off, then dredge on both sides in the bread crumbs.

Divide the oil between 2 large saute pans and heat over high heat until almost smoking (Honestly, I think dirtying up two pans for this step is silly, if your meat doesn't all fit just do it in two batches). Add 2 chicken breasts to each pan and cook until golden brown on both sides, about 2 minutes per side (I pounded the chicken REALLY thin, and my oil was hot, so 2 minutes per side would've resulted in very burned breaded chicken- 30-45 seconds per side was better). Transfer to a baking sheet.

Top each breast with some tomato sauce, a few slices of the mozzarella, salt and pepper, and a tablespoon of Parmesan. Bake in the oven until the chicken is cooked through and the cheese is melted, about 5 to 7 minutes (7 minutes was just right for mine). Remove from the oven and garnish with basil or parsley leaves.

Tomato Sauce:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large Spanish onion, finely chopped (The all knowing interwebs inform me that a "Spanish" onion is a regular old yellow onion)
4 cloves garlic, smashed with some kosher salt to make a paste
2 (28-ounce) cans plum tomatoes and their juices, pureed in a blender
1 (16-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
1 bay leaf
1 small bunch Italian parsley (I have no idea how much a "small bunch" is, so I used a handful which isn't really any more of an accurate measurement than "small bunch" is, sorry!)
1 Cubano chile pepper, chopped (This doesn't exist... I figured out that they probably meant a "Cuban pepper" which eventually led me to a cubanelle pepper. I couldn't seem to find one of those either, so I substituted a yellow bell pepper which is supposedly somewhat similar.)
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Heat olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and cook until soft. Add pureed tomatoes with their juices, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, 1 cup water (I wouldn't add this next time), bay leaf, parsley, Cubano pepper, and bring to a boil. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Reduce heat and cook until slightly thickened, about 30 minutes (I let mine simmer for an hour or so because I like a thicker sauce).

The Verdict: The chicken was SO amazingly tender, but we both thought that it should've been seasoned a bit more. I'm thinking seasoning the chicken beforehand, or seasoning the breadcrumbs would both work. I thought the sauce recipe as written was a little bit runny, so I'd leave out the water next time but the flavor was nice. The recipe makes A LOT of sauce. Way more than you'd need for your chicken, so keep that in mind and plan it into your leftovers for the week!

Menu Plan Monday- October 5, 2009

I haven't done a menu plan for two whole weeks! I need to start getting back in the habit...

click the banner and "Menu Plan Monday" for more menu planning ideas

This week:

Bobby Flay recipe that I'll unveil on Wednesday.

Spaghetti Squash and Red Sauce

Veggie Casserole- I think I'm gonna wing this one, but someone mentioned making a casserole with cauliflower and creamed corn and it just sounds so so good right now!

Shoarama in pitas and salad

I'm also going to make this 12 Hour Salad to eat during the week and some sort of dessert to take to the potluck on Tuesday. I'm still trying to figure out something delicious, impressive, and not exceedingly time consuming for Tuesday, any ideas?

Fragmented Freewrites- October 2, 2009

This week has been... well, I don't even know what it's been.

On Monday I went and did my integration exams. I was feeling pretty unhappy with the speaking test, but felt good about one and it could've gone either way on another.

Tuesday I went and got a haircut and then headed to the city center to meet up with a friend. We did some shopping and then went for lunch. I found a rather tasty looking sandwich and had taken a couple of bites when... THERE WAS A WORM IN MY SANDWICH! Not even a fun chewy gummy worm. They have lots of fresh produce in there so I'm sure it was from that but... BLEGH. I got a new sandwich but I'd lost my appetite for it by then. Luckily I'd had some worm-free soup and a muffin so I didn't go hungry.

Wednesday was fairly drama free! I had a language course and then spent the rest of the afternoon doing errands and tidying up.

Thursday the fun began again. My friend (same friend as on Tuesday) and I went to Belgium to do some shopping and have lunch. We figured it'd be a pretty carefree day. It was, until we started on our way home and I rolled down the window to take a picture. I pushed the button, the window went about halfway down... I poised to take the photo and ALL OF A SUDDEN the window just FELL and crashed down inside the door!! It completely jumped the track. So, we did the only thing we could do and drove home with the window down. I'm just glad it wasn't raining! The dealership was on the way home, so we stopped there and said "Haaaaalp!" They did fix it, so that's good, but I felt horrible about it.

Now, we were joking that she's my bad luck charm, though I don't really think that (I'm probably HER bad luck charm!).

While we were in Belgium I decided that their supermarkets have a much better selection of... well, everything. I restrained myself and only came back with some pickle potato chips (they are delicious), whole wheat pitas (MIRACLE FIND), cheap beans, a new pasta mix to try, and some cellophane (which I can buy here, but they had it and I'd been needing it).

I had a couple people comment on my Homemade Mayo post that they needed to get a food processor, and I say to them "YES YOU DO!" I found mine at the thrift store for €10. It is quite amazing. Martijn asked me if we needed to peel off the price sticker and I said "No! I want to remember what a good deal we got!" I really probably should remove it though...

I'm headed to a baby shower tomorrow. I made a terribly cute present (if I do say so myself), but the recipient does read my blog so I'm going to wait until after I give it to her to post a photo.

My poor little camera has to go to the camera hospital. I hope they'll fix it under warranty because it's their BAD design that caused the problem in the first place AND it's still less than a year old. If they won't fix it under warranty, then I might just have to keep a roll of cello-tape in the camera pocket of my purse. The battery door has broken and now doesn't stay closed on one side, so it's not detrimental to the operation of the camera, but it's annoying! I don't think it would've happened if they'd designed the battery compartment better.

I find it worrying that when you try to update Windows Media Player it pops up and tells you if you have system restore disabled and that they recommend you stop, turn it on, and THEN update WMP. Microsoft is SO uncertain about the stability of their updates that they suggest that you make sure to turn on your system restore so you can start over when it destroys your computer!!!

Finally, I would like to share with you some GOOD NEWS! They told me my test results could take about 4 weeks. Try about 4 days...

See that on the right side that says "Geslaagd." That means PASSED!

So, at the very least, the week ended on a good note.