Suzy Homemaker

I sometimes remind myself of that semi-homemade person on Food Network, minus the obnoxiousness and the stupid tablescapes. Is she still on tv? Okay, so I don't remind myself of her in the least, except that I take a lot of shortcuts in my food where I don't think it matters too much. Like I use frozen bags of shrimp (I apologize in advance to anyone who takes offense at frozen bagged shrimp, but I'm highly allergic to raw shrimp proteins and I can't handle them without gloves. It's bad. If someone wants to come over and fix up my shrimp for me, I'd lessen my carbon imprint and all that for you) ... anyhow, frozen bagged shrimp, giant jars of minced garlic (I only use fresh when I'm roasting whole bulbs) ... you get the picture. I use fresher ingredients when I think it really matters for my food, but I'm comfortable using my shortcuts when I can make a tasty dish faster and easier and get back to living my life and spending time with my family. Awww, right?

I go on this crazy silly diatribe to give you this:

I have never tried the Bertolli's pastas in the refrigerated section of my grocery store, but this week we decided it was time. I give you tomato cheese tortelloni with shrimp and bacon in a garlic cream sauce. It uses 3 pans -- if you can find a way not to use three pans and for everything still to be hot, I bow down to you :)

In a pan, saute 4 slices of raw bacon, roughly chopped. When bacon is almost cooked, add raw shrimp and saute until cooked to your taste (a couple minutes is sufficient).

In a small sauce pan, combine 1/4 heavy cream, 2 oz cream cheese, 1 tbs minced garlic, salt and pepper and a pinch of basil over medium heat until bubbly.

Boil water and cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and combine with sauce, and then add shrimp and bacon.

de-freaking-licious. Yum!

food pictures for which I didn't write recipes

I sometimes take pictures of my food because it's so tasty I don't want to forget how to make it. But then I forget to write down the recipe, and then I don't remember what exactly made it taste so good.



Take this orzo. I remember that I boiled it in chicken broth. There's chicken (I think leftover from a rotisserie), and cilantro, and red pepper flakes. There might be some sort of soft cheese -- goat, feta ... but I don't remember. It was damn tasty.


And this beautiful pork roast was rotisseried all day on the grill, and I know there was a lot of seasonings, but I haven't the slightest what was on it. But that was a magnificent roast.



And this soup. I know that I started with Squash soup, and added cooked orzo and sausage, maybe some onion. I imagine there's fresh parsley in there, given the greenery. That's as far as I know ...

Someday I'll attempt to recreate these dishes. For now I'll just drool at the pictures.

Lost: one bunch of Swiss chard

I bought a bunch of Swiss chard a couple Sundays ago. I had been on the hunt for some for the past couple months, as they don't seem to stock it at my regular grocery stores. I finally found some at the Sweetbay, the weekend before last and snatched it up. I was making creamed chard this week! (Sounds dirty, don't it?)

Then something happened: I couldn't find the darn stuff. I searched the fridge, through the veggie bins, on all the shelves ... I don't really have the biggest refrigerator. I just couldn't figure out what happened to it.

Fast forward to Wednesday. I was cooking dinner, and I went into the freezer for the shrimp. Lo and behold:

Hard as a freaking rock. And then it thawed, and was super soggy. My poor Swiss chard. I guess I'll be taking another pilgrimage to Sweetbay sometime soon ...

My country boy

You can't really see it, but the bottoms of those feet are F-I-L-T-H-Y. Capital "F". My little country boy (that's what my daycare lady calls him) hates shoes. Always has. Do they grow out of it?

Happy Mother's Day!!

a tune up

I think he's getting a ball that had wedged itself under the motorcycle, but doesn't it look like he's checking the oil or something?

never enough strawberries...

I am not a true baker. Baking requires chemestry -- there's a reason I majored in Creative Writing. This is why I cook instead, and use recipes for baking (I fiddle with them a little, but not the main ingredients). However, Sunday morning I could not find a strawberry muffin recipe that I was satisfied with, so I decided to make my up my own. Decidedly tasty!

Strawberry Sour Cream Loaf with Strawberry Butter

• 1 egg


• 1/2 cup milk


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1/4 brown sugar, packed


• 2 tbs canola oil


• 1/4 cup sour cream


• 1 3/4 flour, plus 2 tsp flour, separated


• 2 tsp baking powder


• 1/2 tsp salt


• 1 1/2 cup strawberries, chopped


• 1tbp vanilla


• cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Chop strawberries and set aside. Beat egg, milk, sour cream, oil, and vanilla together. Add sugars and cream (although doesn't exactly cream, just my way of adding). In a separate bowl add the dry ingredients, minus the 2 tsp of flour. Add those to your chopped strawberries and coat. Add the dry ingredients to the wet a little at a time until fully incorporated. Add strawberries, mix and fill a 9/5 loaf pan or make muffins with it. My loaf took about 45 minutes, but was delicious! I have a cheap silicone loaf pan that works terrible, so watch yours; you may not need to cook as long as I did.

For the strawberry butter:

• 3 strawberries


• 1 stick room temperature butter


• 1 tbs brown sugar

puree all in a food processor, spread on strawberry loaf or a bagel or toast.

Enjoy!

you are not your furniture

The local Ikea opens today. My need for free does not compel me to camp out for two days (people started lining up early Monday morning) to get a chair and a chance for free Swedish meatballs. I am excited, as I love Ikea. I have a few minor things in my home that came from the Orlando Ikea -- a component cabinet, a piece of art, Spencer's rug ... but mostly I love the accessories. I could wander through the accessories floor for hours imagining different things in my home. And now there will be one 20 minutes from my house. Ahh, Ikea.

I'll check it out in a few weeks, once the hype dies down a little(unless my husband decides he wants to get lost there for a little while on Saturday ...I'm scared of the lines though).

Of course, if they had the Swedish chef out there, all bets would be off.