Cooking fun

So I've been away from the house for most of the month of September, but from here on, things are going to hopefully get a lot easier. This means I'll be able to spend more time doing one of the few things that really allows me to achieve a zen-like state of happiness:

COOKING!!

Ok, so here's what I made this weekend:

Friday (I took friday off because I'd already worked 44 hours by Thursday evening):

Breakfast was boring, we re-heated pancakes we'd made last weekend and had some juice (the boy loves the orange juice).

The boy and I then ran to the store and just walked around to get a feel for what was out there.

We ended up making squash soup for lunch (previously described here). This was pretty funny because the boy has kind of a hard time with eating soups. He's decided he's no longer going to sit in a high chair, but he's not really tall enough to see what he's eating out of a bowl. So I made the soup a little thicker, and it basically had enough texture to stick to the spoon. Then I 'tempted' him to try it by putting croutons in there. He loves croutons. Well, he was eating the croutons (with bits of soup stuck to them). Then I said "Actually, that's soup. You can eat it like this" and demonstrated. He took a big spoonful, shoved it into his mouth. Looked blank for a second, and then scrunched up his face as if he had just eaten the most disgusting thing in the world. When my wife came home, she underestimated his distaste and gave him a spoonful of her soup (he wasn't paying attention). He promptly spit it back out, into my hand (I was anticipating that).

So then we had chicken nuggets.

For dinner I prepared the pork chili/stew that I've previously written about. Interestingly enough, I hadn't made either of these dishes since about a year ago. The pork chili included pattypan squash (cuz I had some sitting around), so we're sort of on a squash kick. I also bought another acorn squash and a butternut squash and a pumpkin. I think I'm going to make some dumblings. I also made cornbread, which I hadn't made in so long I couldn't even remember how to do it. I had also forgotten how little time it takes...like 10 minutes of prep! And they tasted great!

I think I'm getting better at figuring out how to put meals together.

Anyway, Alton didn't want to eat any of the chili for dinner (he had like a handful of bites), so he had a grilled cheese. I'm slowly learning what he doesn't like (if it ain't green, odds aren't good).

Saturday I was sick. Sunday we had lunch out, but for dinner we had:

BREAKFAST FOR DINNER!

Have you felt that slight chill in the air that means it is autumn? We got that for the first time last week (hence the soups). But what that did, more than anything, is tell me that my pickling days are coming to a close for this year, and my pumpkin days are beginning to emerge. And how does pumpkin work into a breakfast for dinner?

You guessed it: Pumpkin Pancakes. I mostly followed the recipe on AllRecipes (google it). They turned out great...fantastic actually. The recipe itself was too weird (called for vinegar!) and too thick (more like a dough than a batter). So I added a lot more milk and fiddled with the spices a little. But gosh dang, it turned out great. Everyone like it. I think I do well with pancakes because I have a ton of griddle patience. I am perfectly willing to keep the heat really low, because it seems to allow the most amount of rise in the pancakes. With these pumpkin pancakes, they needed all the rise they could get.

While I had the pancakes going, I also had bacon going. The idea was to have pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs. But then I realized we had three small red potatoes left over from a few weeks ago. So I had my sous chef shred those, and I thought I would make a hash (with the bacon grease). But apparently I don't know what I'm doing with a hash, because it really didn't work out. It just didn't taste right. So then I took all the eggs (egg beaters actually) and poured them into the pan, with some milk, and made a frittata. This was funny because I was using a pan you can't put into the over (the handle wasn't built for that), but I needed to broil the surface. So I had to shove it as far as I could into the toaster over and turn on its broiler. That worked, but if the door is open, the broiler won't work....so I had to rig up a knife to prop 'on' the little trigger that tells the toaster the door is closed.

Which was great because the knife was on the verge of flying across the room the whole time. But it all worked out and the fritter turned out really amazing.

So we had pumpkin pancakes with smart balance butter, turkey bacon, and a hash-brown and cheddar frittata.

It was actually embarassingly good. My wife was like "holy cow, I can't believe how awesome you are", which was nice, but I kinda felt like it all just came together super easy. And we've got 8 or so pumpkin pancakes frozen to use as breakfasts over the next few weeks!

So even though my last month has been hell and I'm sick of everything, cooking is really fun and yes please, I'd like to do more :)

And in case you're wondering, here's what I've pickled this year (i.e., it is considered a pickle or I canned it):

Thai Cucumber Pickles

Quick Dill Pickles

Really Quick Dill Pickles (yes, there is a difference)

Bread and Butter Zucchini Pickles

Bread and Butter Cucumber Pickles

Yellow Cucumber Pickles

Apple Ketchup

Mango Chutney

Lower-East Side Sours (a fermented pickle...that is actually looking pretty weird...not sure if I'm going to eat it or not)