A blog of musings, experiences and morning coffee…
I love coleslaw but I have always taken the “easy and fast” way out with it, buying bottled coleslaw dressing or a coleslaw “kit” in the bag. Now I am a convert – yes, it took maybe 15 minutes to make this coleslaw dressing (and yes, I purchased a 14 ounce bag of shredded green cabbage, carrot and red cabbage, so I cheated a little).
Here’s my version of this recipe – a mash-up of several I have tried but none of which ever added up to my expectations. This one pleases my taste buds enormously.
Hubby and I have been needing to reduce calories. We do not spend as much time on the treadmill as we did before he went back to work. We try to get our minimum 7500 steps – preferring to make it to 10,000 steps on our Fitbit watches. But it doesn’t always happen. After taking off 40 pounds during the Covid-19 lockdown, I did not like that in the past 6-9 months I have gained back 10 of those hard to lose/lost pounds. Continue reading “A new twist on tuna salad”
This is a recipe I concocted from about 5 different recipes, none of which appealed to me. I took one ingredient from here and one ingredient from there and, voila! my personal version of shrimp scampi. Cheap vodka is ok because the alcohol cooks off before serving. We like to be skimpy with the pasta since we are working on trimming calories for weight control (hence angel hair or thin spaghetti).
COVID-19 changed our lives, and yet, those changes were already happening. My husband and I adopted an austerity program when we returned from Lisbon in June 2019. Several reasons led us to this program – a desire to retire permanently with more travel involved was a main reason. Home improvements (including upgrading kitchen appliances & a major bathroom renovation) was another. Continue reading “Our COVID-19 lockdown: gardening-cooking-exercise, Part 1”
I just made a 16-bean soup that is perfect for a 40-degree (or colder) winter day. It is really pretty fast to make – cooking times range around 2 1/2 to 3 hours for the beans to be perfectly cooked.
16 Bean Soup ala Carlanne
Servings=10
Total time=3 Hours
For my first experiment with this soup, I used both diced and sliced dehydrated potatoes.
Backstory:
I had received a free ten pound bag of Russets in the fall of 2020. With just the two of us, that was more than we could eat before it would go to ruin. So I bought a dehydrator and got to work. The mandolin is helpful with slicing of vegetables. I made the potato slices 1/8th inch thick. The dice was roughly a quarter inch dice. In order to keep the potatoes from turning an off color, after slicing and dicing, I put them into a pot of boiling water to which I had added the juice of a half of a lemon. They stayed in the water about 4 minutes. Then, with a spyder ladle, I lifted them out and into ice water to stop the cooking. Then I drained them thoroughly and patted them dry before putting onto the shelves of the dehydrator. It takes about 6 -8 hours to dehydrate the 6 shelves of potato slices at 165 degrees Fahrenheit. I then loaded the potatoes into quart mason jars and used a Food Saver type machine with a “wide-mouth” jar device to seal the jars. Then into the pantry they went.
Continue reading “Winter warmth – cheese & bacon potato soup”
Safeway delivered 4 
huge russet potatoes a couple of days ago. They look like they are this year’s crop, at least. I decided with one I would make a soup. With another I will be making Colcannon (Irish mashed potatoes) and the other two I am going to dice up and dehydrate for the coming winter. We can’t eat four huge potatoes before they go off so drying is my go-to method for preservation (although freezing comes in second, only due to space in the freezer which is full to the brim from our summer gardening bounty). I admit I am looking forward to just cooking with all the yum-licious foods I have been preserving since last Spring. However, I am growing weary of the preservation jobs. Continue reading “Creamy Potato Soup”
I am in the midst of cleaning out old files, which includes old recipes. I came upon one I have to share as it was one of my most favorite desserts in the 1970s. I used to hang out a lot at a restaurant/bar in Honolulu called Horatio’s. Needless to say, it had a nautical theme and an absolutely divine version of Pimm’s Cup No.1. It also had “burnt crème”. The first time I tasted this kind of dessert was at Horatio’s (Ward Avenue locale). So in looking through the recipes I am either going to document, or discard, I came upon just that recipe card. It was so popular it was also shown in the recipes section of a Sunday Honolulu Advertiser issue (shown side-by-side, here). So here is the recipe for Horatio’s Burnt Crème:
Since I am trekking down memory lane, The Advertiser used to go out to restaurants with popular recipes and get the chefs to let them print the best of the best. Spats was an Italian restaurant in Waikiki at the Hyatt Regency that turned into disco when the dinner time was over. They closed in the 80’s. But here is their Amaretto Torte recipe for your enjoyment:
Recently a neighbor/friend of mine brought us a delicious raspberry glaze sheet cake made from her mother’s recipe (credit to Gloria Forney & Samantha Forney). Samantha gave me permission to put this up on this website. Hope you enjoy it!