Black Bean Soup

 It's cold and I want warm food.  That means another soup recipe.  In fact, this whole week's worth of recipes is new.  I hope my family forgives me for subjecting them to so many new recipes in one week.

I received Sara Wells & Kate Jones' recipe book of Our Best Bites several years ago for Christmas, and am still working my way through all of the recipes.  So, this week's stuff all comes from there.  Today I tried their Black Bean Soup.  I was "souper" worried because I don't normally serve black-colored food for dinner (besides chocolate), and while the kids seemed apprehensive, they didn't actually say anything.

The soup itself tasted really good and smelled really good when cooking.  I don't use my immersion blender often, so that was a new experience.  (And took a really long time).  I liked adding taco chips and cheese to the soup.  I would definitely make this recipe again...

...but not as a soup.  At dinner, Nate said, "You made a really good bean dip."  And he was right.  The texture was off for soup, but if I'm ever asked to bring a bean dip, this will be what I make.  Yum!

Brown Butter Chicken & Rice

 On the back of the Herbed Skillet Pastitisio recipe page, there's another appealing picture for a recipe called Brown Butter Chicken & Rice.  Just a couple of ingredients, and a quick amount of time brought this recipe together.

I really liked how easy the recipe was to cook, and I loved the aroma of spices that I was using.  But the recipe had some problems, too.  I struggle cooking regular white rice outside of my rice cooker, and this time was no exception.  The rice was undercooked and crunchy--not a good thing for my husband who doesn't like rice.  Green beans are out of season, and canned beans just didn't add anything special.

In the end, I liked the chicken and the flavor of the rice,  my oldest did too; but we were alone in our approval of this recipe.  That makes this recipe get 2 stars and the recipe gets tossed.

Chicken Barley Soup

Several years ago, Nate bought a Low-Glycemic cookbook from Deseret Industries (a local thrift store).  I  have been so impressed with the flavors in this book and how full everyone is.  Not everything is a success (I'm looking at you, Sweet Potato, Carrot, and Ginger Soup), but this book has definitely added some fun recipes to my files.  And here's another one.

So, this isn't a new recipe per say because I've cooked it before, but none of my family remembers me serving it in the past, so I'm going to count it.  This is a great recipe for a Sunday because it takes a while to poach the chicken and cook regular barley.  However, I "cheated" this time on a Tuesday with left-over shredded chicken from another meal and "quick barley" which was all I could find at the store.  The chicken was a little dry versus previous time when I've poached and cubed it myself, but it wasn't horrible.

I took a knife cutting class a couple of years ago, so I got to practice my knife skills with the carrots, celery, and onions.  Yay for vegetables.  I left out the mushrooms (eww, gross), but hesitantly added the spinach.  Glad I did.  It was fun to watch it shrivel up and it actually tasted pretty good in the soup.  Even the kids didn't complain, so that's a win.

In the end, this recipe gets 3 stars from us and will remain in my Winter menu rotation.  If you want a copy of the recipe, email me.

Milk Chocolate Marble Loaf Cake

Last week was a main course, today is dessert.  Last week was a brand new recipe, today is recipe that I've had in my file for almost 10 years.  Milk Chocolate Marble Loaf Cake also is a Better Homes and Garden's recipe from November 2011.  This recipe was chosen by my 5-year old as we were getting ready to go food shopping last Saturday.  She said it looked yummy and that we should try it.  So, we did.

I didn't make the Citrus Compote that it recommends, because I thought that might stretch what my family was willing to accept.  (Husband is not a big fan of fruit on most desserts.). I had bought some strawberries to slice and put on top, but I ran out of time.

Prep time for this recipe was a lot longer than I thought.  First the eggs needed to be room temperature.  Okay, guess I'll wash dishes for 30 minutes.  Then I totally messed up melting milk chocolate chips in the microwave.  (Forgot to wash my measuring cup between ingredients.  The milk, eggs, and butter kind of cooked with the chocolate chips into a muddy mess.)  The recipe said whisk instead of blend, so I used whisked by hand instead of my hand mixer.  The final cake was rather flat and I think this is part of the reason.  The other is that it didn't say to let the melted butter cool.  I think I may have cooked part of the eggs when I added the hot butter.

I did line the pan with parchment paper in addition to buttering and flouring the sides of the pan.  That made for easy extraction at the end.  The cake needed to a serrated knife to slice it.  I don't know if this was because of the crust or the fact that after 45 minutes, the cake still wasn't cool.

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If you couldn't tell already, this recipe did not go well.  The marbling effect worked, but the milk chocolate flavor wasn't prominent like the recipe tag-line said.  (I would probably use dark or semi-sweet chocolate next time.). My cake loaf didn't rise much because of how dense it was.  However, it was fully cooked.  The cake takes 45+ minutes to cool, which irritated the whole family because they had to wait.  The flavor reminded me of Amish Friendship Bread but without the sugary top layer.

The family thought it was "fine" but nothing special.  So, it earns 2 starts from the Call Family because it wasn't worth the effort for the mediocre results.  Good-bye to this one.

Herb Skillet Pastitsio

 I enjoying finding and trying new recipes from my Better Homes & Garden magazine.  Looking through a new issue is one of my favorite ways to spend a Saturday before going food shopping.  This recipe for Herb Skillet Pastitsio comes from the January 2021 edition.  I'm always looking for a new way to jazz up hamburger, so I thought I'd try this one.

Anyone who knows me from my childhood knows that I am a picky eater.  While my tastes have broaden slightly as an adult, I'm still cautious when trying a new recipe.  So, the ingredients in this recipe seemed pretty safe: hamburger, onion, garlic, tomato sauce, oregano, ziti pasta, and Laredo sauce.  The only ingredient I questioned was the cinnamon.  In my mind, cinnamon is a great dessert spice, but doesn't belong in a savory dish.  I am intrigued that the recipe uses both a red tomato sauce and a white Alfredo sauce at the same time.  But I'm trying new things this year, so here we go.

The process of making this recipe was pretty easy.  It was a little more work than making Hamburger Helper, but over all not too bad.  I think it took me 45 minutes to complete (the recipe states 40 minutes.).  I liked putting the whole skillet into the oven under the broiler was a pretty ingenious way to brown the Alfredo sauce.  (It also tricked my husband and kids into thinking it was just melted mozzarella cheese.)

I didn't have fresh oregano, but other than that, my picture looks pretty similar to what was in the magazine.

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So, how did it turn out?

Fine.  Like I wrote earlier, this recipe reminded me a lot of Hamburger Helper.  The cinnamon made you think "this is different" with each bite.  I wonder if using ground lamb would make a difference and worked better with the cinnamon.  The recipe suggests lamb as an alternative protein.  (I've only had lamb as a child with mint jelly sauce.)  I really liked the combined tastes from both red and white sauces.

How did the family like it?

Nate didn't like it at all.  While he ate it, I did get a "don't ever make that again" look from him.  Message received.  He doesn't like either excessive cinnamon or Alfredo sauce.  Oops.

Two of four kids liked it, but the other two were on the verge of throwing a tantrum.  

Overall, this recipe receives 2 stars from the Calls and will be purged from my recipe file.  The unique flavors that I didn't mind, weren't worth the dirty looks from half my family.

New Year, New Project

I'm really good at starting resolutions in January.  Finishing them is another thing.  So, I can not promise to blog every week.  But I will try.

While preparing for food shopping last Saturday, I noticed how large my folder of recipes to try someday had become.  Well, someday has arrived.  

One of my 2021 resolutions is to try one of these recipes that I have collected over the last 13+ years of marriage.  The recipe will be prepared and then analysed on ease of making, taste, and how the adults and kids like it.  (Because we all know kids and grown-ups have different taste buds.)

I'm not looking for new recipes.  Trust me, I have more than enough for this year and more.  If you'd like a copy of a recipe, let me know.

Thank you to my dear friend Lisa for this cute apron for Christmas!

Social Distancing Week 2

Church, this second week at home, was more normal, if that's a thing anymore.  Nate was able to administer the Sacrament to us, and that brought peace to my heart. We also had a little more structure in our meeting and I think the kids responded well to that.  Our Sunday School lesson was on Jacob 5.  After summarizing the Allegory of the Olive Tree, Nate took out family outside to see his two peach trees.  One was ready to burst into blooms, the other had no blossom buds.  We could see how the one tree was not doing well and wouldn't produce any fruit.  Then Nate took us over to his apple trees where he had recently grafted in some different types of apples.  Seeing the process really helped me understand the allegory and all the work that is necessary to bring forth good fruit.  It won't happen by itself.  So, what am I doing to help the work of the Lord?  What more can I do?

Week 2 of teaching online found me at my computer from 6:30 am to 8 or 9 pm.  My students were turning in a ton of work (yay!), but being at the computer all day made me feel like I was being horrible mom.  The kids ran around wild and watched hours of TV.    We had a schedule that I printed off each day, but this was survival mode and so the schedule was mostly ignored.  Hopefully, once the oldest start new content next week, some form of normalcy will appear.

To help engage our students in our daily video chats, our team of teachers hosted our own video Spirit Week.  Each day the teachers of Team Fox, and some of the students, dressed up for a daily Zoom meetings.  This silliness made smiles happen as we connected digitally if we couldn't connect in person.

	Crazy Hat day with my Graduation Cap.  Hard to believe that it was almost a year ago that I defended my paper on the Math of Solar Eclipses.	For Character Day, I was a MathNet detective from the 80s PBS show Square One TV.
Crazy Sock means I wore my Math Socks.  Could have gone crazier with all the Fox socks that I have.	Bring your Pet to School day means that Mittens got to see my students. This was probably my favorite day of the week because I had over 20 students in the online meeting introducing their peers to their pets.	Aloha!  We ended up not hosting a video meeting this day, but sharing pictures of our Hawaiian get-up helped us all get through the dreary isolation.

I had hoped to have many more books read, and the house deep-cleaned, and my quilt finished, and my children perfectly dressed, and the laundry done, and... and... and...  But I feel like the one thing that I have had to accept (again) is that good enough really is good enough.  And what is good enough during social distancing is much less than before.  We might not have a bulk supply of toilet paper, but we have enough for our needs.  We might not be able to pick up more than 2 loaves of bread at the store, but we have a wheat grinder and I have a husband he enjoys experimenting with baking bread.  We might not be engaging in home-schooling, but we are home, and safe, and the kids are learning to cope with this strange situation we find ourselves in.  It's far from perfect, it's far from ideal.  But it's good enough.  And that is good enough.