What's Cooking

My knee operation is  over and, I hope, done with. I'll withhold comments on this until I get at least twenty-four hours past the deed.

Until things heal a little bit more, it doesn't look like Sam and I will be doing any cooking projects this weekend. Because so many of you have been asking what we've been cooking lately (none of you, actually), I figured I would post some action packed pictures from from last weekend.

Usually, if we're going to be baking something for a meal (as opposed to something like cookies,) I try to pick out a project that will leave us plenty of left-overs for the coming week. Most of these recipes come from a small recipe book I keep. This week, we tried something new.

I had been searching for casserole recipes - which is something Sam wouldn't have touched a few years ago. He would have, and still does, prefer to have his food neatly separated on the dinner plate. But he's gotten better about a lot of things, so I thought it would be good a good thing to try.

I found this recipe online, and now, looking back, I see that it isn't a casserole, as I've been calling it. But it accomplished the same goal.

I also see on the website, that I could have cut the servings down. I'm not sure I would have done it, had I been paying attention, but it sure made a lot more than I expected. About midway through the prep, we had to switch from our large baking pan (usually reserved for apple pancakes) to our turkey roasting pan (usually reserved for turkeys and spicy party mix). But it all worked out fine.

Sam had me slice the onions, but he sliced the mushrooms and minced the garlic and sliced the potatoes (which we like unpeeled). And he measured everything that needed measuring, all while I browned the chicken. After I placed the chicken in the roasting pan, with a little guidance, Sam took care of adding the rest.

I put it in and took it out of the oven, which is something Sam and I have been working on together, but this was one better handled by me. It weighed a ton and while I'm not necesssarily stronger, I am slightly more confident about dealing with the oven- at least so far. But I expect that to change before too long.

Anyway, this was our Saturday evening cooking project. So far, we've gotten three meals out of it.

For Sunday, we decided to make pizza. We usually make pizza three or four times throughout the winter, but for some reason, I don't think we got around to it at all this year. But we finally got around to it on Sunday.

Actually, like the casserole, and like pretty much all of our cooking projects, it starts with coming up with the idea by Saturday morning. Once we decide what it is we want to do for a project, we check the recipe and then check what we already have for ingredients. Anything we don't have, Sam adds them to our grocery list and it becomes part of our Saturday morning grocery shopping.

But anyway, we finally got around to making some pizza - three of them. We made two that were all meat. Last time, that seemed to be the most popular. Plus, we made one that was mushroom and onion - which turned out to be the most popular this time. So we were left with a refrigerator full of leftover pizza and chicken "casserole".


  

As I write this, I'm not sure why I think anybody would remotely be interested in something like this. Kind of like usual, I guess.

But I had fun.

And so did Sam.