Browned bits!

Today I had my first proper deglazing with red wine and scraping up of browned bits on the bottom of my Dutch oven. Yay!

My sister commented that the browned bits are actually called "fond". I am fond of the fond.



It was steamy and lovely.

Sweeeeeet!

There wasn't anything wrong with my old set of pots and pans YET but we tend to replace them every few years because the nonstick coating starts to flake off. I remember I made a batch of Almond Crack candy once and I saw little bits of black nonstick whatever were floating in the candy mixture. I threw that mixture away, of course. The pan too. It seems very un-green to buy pots and pans every few years, soooooooooo when I saw this stainless steel set in the Sunday Macy's ad, I decided to just get them.

They are purty. 14 pieces. I will still keep a nonstick skillet for eggs and things, but I'm hoping this set will last awhile.



This saucepan is cool because it has spouts on the side and a built-in strainer in the lid! Fancy!


The bottom part is the 3 quart casserole but it has two inserts- one is a steamer and the other is a double boiler. Melting chocolate the right way instead of the microwave, not that there is anything wrong with the microwave, but I can't wait to melt chocolate :)

I also can't wait to follow a recipe and truly follow the instructions of "scraping the brown bits" from the bottom. My nonstick pans never created brown bits. This probably doesn't make sense to you? Oh well :)

Mr. Bento

I love my new lunch jar! This was another Christmas gift. My sister Ana has one too, and she warned me that I would cause a lunchroom sensation and I did a little. It is quite amazing that all of these little containers fit into the jar.


I love the little containers because it does force you to consider portion sizes.

In this day's lunch and snacks (I don't eat all of this at once), from left to right: pretzels, blackberries & clementines, leftover bbq chicken flatbread pizza, Greek yogurt with berries and a tiny amount of sugar.

I love my spork!

Belgian Waffles

I received a great gift of a waffle maker for Christmas. Yay! Great waffles are just minutes away now :) I just used the simple recipe in the waffle maker manual.


James won't touch them but the adults love them. With just a bit of butter and syrup. I need to experiment with different flavors... I saw a great looking recipe for gingerbread waffles. Yum.


So I do recommend this waffle maker- It's the Presto Flipside. I did forget to spray it once and the waffles stuck. But with the next waffle I sprayed with nonstick spray and it was perfect.


Classic Waffles

2 cups flour
1 T sugar
1 T baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups milk
2 eggs
2 T vegetable oil

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk the wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Whisk the milk mixture into the dry ingredients just until the dry ingredients are thoroughly moistened. Preheat waffle maker. Spray the waffle grids with cooking spray and then pour 1 cup batter onto the center of the bottom grid. Close top and flip waffle maker. Bake until brown, about 3 1/2 to 4 minutes.

Makes 4 waffles.

What's for Dinner?

Well, I was by myself tonight. I hadn't planned anything but I defrosted a salmon fillet quickly and then baked it with this dry marinade. I like this stuff a lot- it's sweet and tangy. I found Wee Willy's at Cub, in the spice section.

The salmon is from Sam's Club. You can buy a package of them (10?) for like $19. It's a nice, quick option to have in the freezer.

The coleslaw is leftover from last night's dinner.

Star Wars pancakes

Happy Father's Day! My husband and small child are SW geeks so I thought making special pancakes were fitting for this special day. My husband saw the SW pancake molds too early- he had a friend who sent him the Williams Sonoma link and he very excitedly told me about the molds. I was disappointed because I was going to buy them secretly and then surprise him with the pancakes. Oh well. I bought the molds and showed them to him, content to just surprise our son with the pancakes that morning.

They were very easy to make, especially with my pancake pen! I just had to let one side of the pancake cook in the mold for 2 minutes, remove the (nonstick) mold carefully, and then flip the pancake. It held its shape nicely but I used a toothpick to trim some extra edges and to make sure the eyes and other cut-outs were neat.

Darth Vader, Stormtrooper, and Yoda!

So I definitely give these pancakes molds a big thumbs up! I know we'll use them often :)

Pancakes

It's one of my favorite meals. Breakfast. Any breakfast is good. It's also an easy meal for the nights when it's just me and the little boy :)


I have a product rave- my first one! I guess I should have raved about my pancake pan a long time ago but just recently I bought a Pancake Pen and I love it! It's especially good to fill up the small pancake holes in this pan. I can't believe I lived without this pen for so long :)




I also tried out the pancake pan that my sister sent to my son from Japan. It makes a pancake in the shape of a pig! He loved it! It was also easy to make with my new pen. Woohoo!

Porky got a little toasty but I cut myself some slack since it was my first time using the pan.

These pancake balls will last us maybe the week. My son eats 4-5 at a time!

I've blogged about this pancake recipe before. I think I need to experiment with other recipe though.