Author Archives: Melissa

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About Melissa

Blogger about all things home at http://myhomebaked.com

New! Recipe Index

Posted by Melissa in Admin and tagged with

I’m slowly working on making Home Baked a little more functional and visually appealing. I want you all to enjoy your time here!

The highlights:

  • For your recipe searching pleasure, you can now find a link to every Home Baked recipe on our new Recipe Index page. Just click “Recipe Index” under the “Find what you’re looking for” category at the top of the sidebar on the right. In the future, I may get more complicated and break everything out by ingredient (though that will involve technical skills I haven’t acquired yet), but at the moment recipes are in categories. I promise to keep it updated as I post new recipes.
  • If you’re looking for a particular ingredient, recipe or project, you can also use the Search bar, found a little further down on the sidebar.
  • A new header photo! I love those blueberry muffins, but it was time for a change. I think the colorful photo collage represents what you’re likely to find happening around here most days.
  • Coming soon…a Project Index for all non-food related tutorials.
  • Coming eventually…an index of all my favorite recipes from around the internet.

While combing through the archives, I’ve rediscovered some recipes I’d completely forgotten about. You might find something you’ve forgotten or never seen before, so I encourage you to scroll through the index and see what strikes your taste buds. I think I’ll be making some Crispy Toffee Bars this afternoon.

 

 

Monday Menu & Recipe Review

Posted by Melissa in Food, Monday Menu, Reviews and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thanks to all your helpful comments, I’m going to try reviewing last week’s menu in addition to planning this week’s. If you haven’t already noticed it, you can often click on the recipe title and it will take you to the recipe if it’s available somewhere online.

Last week…

Monday: Polenta with Fried Eggs and Swiss Chard

I love this recipe and will be making it again–for breakfast or dinner! I ran out of cornmeal (polenta), so I used quick grits instead, which worked out just fine. The kids weren’t huge fans of the chard, but they each tried some. You can use any greens you have–I think they really make the meal.

Tuesday: Pasta pesto

This pesto was a “use up the odds and ends” version, so it had artichoke hearts, arugula, garlic, olive oil and lemon. Whenever you have pesto, make sure you reserve some of the pasta cooking water to mix in at the end. This is a staple in our meal rotation–we all love it and it’s incredibly fast.

Wednesday: Turkey burgers, homemade macaroni & cheese

There’s a really great but complicated Cooks’ Illustrated recipe for turkey burgers. These weren’t it, but they were fine. I always mix the ground turkey with a beaten egg, some bread crumbs, and random seasoning–garlic powder, onion powder, Worcestershire or soy sauce. I made a big pot of mac and cheese over the weekend and this was its second appearance.

Thursday: Pizza Margherita

I followed the recipe in the link for the pizza toppings, and I was underwhelmed. While I love the idea of an uncooked pizza sauce (just puree a can of tomatoes, add olive oil and salt), I found it pretty bland on the pizza and a little watery (I could have drained the tomatoes more). I used Jim Lahey’s pizza crust recipe, but forgot to heat the pizza stone, so I didn’t get a good crispy bottom crust. I still love this pizza dough, and I have two more balls of dough in the freezer for next time.

Friday: Crab & Shrimp Cakes, remoulade sauce, salad

We love these crab cakes, but I’ll admit that they’re a little fussy for a weeknight if you don’t prep them ahead of time. I made the sauce early in the day–10 minutes–and could have assembled and breaded the crab cakes, too, but didn’t. They don’t take long to fry. I’m going to share the recipe later in the week, despite the fact that I forgot to take any pictures. I just used canned crab (not the fancy kind) and frozen, precooked shrimp, but they were still wonderful. It’s a great recipe to get kids to start eating seafood.

Saturday: Korean short ribs, rice, Asian-style slaw

This is the second time I’ve made these ribs, but they weren’t quite as juicy as the first time. Maybe the boneless ribs were too lean? Maybe I had too many in the pot (I doubled the recipe)? Still, they were quite good and the sauce is delicious. The slaw was great, and I’m becoming a big fan of cabbage!

 

This week…

When I plan meals for the week, I look at the calendar first. Days with busy afternoons and evenings get assigned the easiest, quickest meals. Then I usually look at what’s already in the fridge or freezer that needs to be used up. We like to rotate things pretty quickly. This week, I already have a chicken and some shrimp in the freezer, so I won’t have to buy any meat. After that, I usually try at least one new recipe (sometimes more, especially if the Hub is planning the menu). Today the creamy turnip soup caught my eye. The kids are pretty good soup eaters, and this looks like a good candidate for trying a new vegetable. There’s bacon in the soup, and there’s a special drink on the menu to further excite them. And extra soup makes good lunches!

Monday: School Fundraiser

Tuesday: Leftover Korean short ribs–maybe shredded, mixed with sauce, and served in tacos

Wednesday: Creamy Spring Turnip Soup, mint limeade, bread

Thursday: Roast chicken, roasted vegetables

Friday: Shrimp Scampi with angel hair pasta

 

I’d love it if you shared one successful meal you made last week!

Monday Menu

Posted by Melissa in Food, Monday Menu, thoughts and tagged with , , , , ,

Okay, Readers, I could use a little feedback here. I’ve been publishing these weekly Monday Menus for nearly a year now, in the hope that people would comment with some of their own meal ideas, and we could all make meal planning a little more fun. Making a commitment to posting the menu each Monday has been hugely valuable for me–it’s become a weekend habit to outline the week and often get the grocery shopping done, too.

But since people haven’t been moved to comment much, I’m considering changing Monday’s post in the future. I know we will continue to plan our menus, and maybe I’ll continue to share them some or all of the time, but I’m thinking instead about reviewing some of the recipes we try from our favorite magazines and cookbooks. We usually put new recipes on the slate and some are winners, and some are…not. What do you think?

Finally, in the next few weeks I’ll be working on a Recipe Index of all the recipes I’ve posted. It’s long overdue, but soon you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for without searching the archives.  I hope you’ll find it useful!

In the meantime, please do let me know whether you find these menus helpful, or if there’s something else you’d like to see instead. I always appreciate your comments!

But hey–here’s what we’re cooking this week!

Monday: Polenta with Fried Eggs and Swiss Chard

Tuesday: Pasta pesto

Wednesday: Turkey burgers, homemade macaroni & cheese

Thursday: Pizza Margherita

Friday: Crab & Shrimp Cakes, remoulade sauce, salad

Saturday: Korean short ribs, rice, Asian-style slaw

Mediterranean Barley Salad

Posted by Melissa in Food, Recipe and tagged with , , ,

A few weeks ago, I shared my attempt to better plan my lunches. For me, the most successful strategy so far is possibly the simplest: COOK MORE. Intentional leftovers, I mean. (If you’re one of those people who doesn’t eat leftovers…well, I don’t have much to say to you. I’m probably thinking, “What!? Are you crazy?” But if you don’t have anything nice to say…) Sure, there are some things that don’t keep very well (leafy greens in dressing, for one), but most things do just fine reheated the next day. I don’t mind the repetition, but you can always alternate days or package up your leftovers in lunch-sized containers for the freezer. But if I double a dinner recipe, instead of just hoping there will be a serving or two left for the next day, I haven’t gone to any extra trouble and I miraculously have several lunches already prepared for the rest of the week. Grains, pastas, soups and slow-cooked meats are especially suited to this treatment.

This barley salad is a filling, all-in-one side dish (we had it with steak), but it also becomes a nice centerpiece to a lunch (I rounded my plate out with the last bit of egg salad), and if you want more protein you can add some grilled chicken or a bit of thinly sliced steak, or maybe a few slices of cured meat. The recipe is scaled up to serve for several meals, and you can vary it by adding other roasted vegetables, scallions, red onions, or lemon juice instead of vinegar. Use what you have, and taste as you go. If you toss the feta with the barley while it’s still warm, it melts and binds the whole dish together, which I love. If you prefer chunks of feta, wait until the salad has cooled to room temperature before tossing in the cheese.

Mediterranean Barley Salad

2 cups pearl barley

5 roasted sweet peppers, diced

1 large onion, sliced thinly

4 ounces feta, crumbled

large handful of cilantro, chopped

2 Tbsp. tahini

3 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

4 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Add the barley and simmer until tender, up to 1 hour, adding more water to the pot if necessary (I keep a tea kettle of boiling water handy). In a small skillet, slowly sauté the sliced onions in a Tbsp. of olive oil, stirring regularly, until they are caramelized. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together the tahini, vinegar, salt and pepper until smooth. Continue to whisk while drizzling in the olive oil. Set aside.

Drain the barley, and add it to the dressing in the bowl. Add the roasted peppers, caramelized onions and feta, and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Prepping for progress

Posted by Melissa in DIY, thoughts and tagged with , ,

So much life and work has been happening in the past week. Along with so many of you, I haven’t had much uninterrupted time to spend working on home projects. Little Five had two days off from preschool, the Hub was slammed with a tidal wave of work, and then we had the Big Snow. Even though I couldn’t get to them, two projects have lingered on my mental list: finish the kids’ bathroom, and make the computer desk for the living room.

I know I already shared photos of the nearly complete bathroom, but I’ve discovered that the beadboard wallpaper definitely needs a second coat of paint to (hopefully) protect it from little dings and gouges. The baseboards still need two coats of paint. I’ve yet to frame and hang the artwork on the empty wall. The tools and the register cover are still hanging out on the floor in the hall.

If anything, this week of busy-ness has demonstrated how useful that new desk is going to be. After the 8 or 10 inches of snow we received on Tuesday, the Hub decided to work from home on Wednesday. He took my laptop and settled at the desk in the master bedroom, which is is the most private workspace in our house. I took my work (blogging and working on a grant application for the nonprofit organization on whose board I sit) and worked at the desktop computer in the living room. I’ve complained before about the computer armoire–how the kids stash their garbage behind the monitor, how the doors refuse to stay closed and the pull-out keyboard tray has lost all its ball bearings–but working there really emphasized the lack of good task lighting and a surface to spread papers and materials while in the midst of a project.

It’s true that I didn’t get either of these projects finished, but I did take some small steps toward making them more likely to happen next week. I took Little Five to the paint store and bought more of the paint I had run out of. I bought the trestle legs for the desk, and picked out which discarded closet door I’m going to use for a desktop. I pondered and consulted the rest of the family, and decided how long to make the desk and how to finish the top (a dark stain plus furniture wax). I bought Citri-Strip so I can strip the paint on the door. The Citri-Strip will later come in handy to start on Miss Seven’s long-awaited dresser, and the paint to freshen up the trim and door in the downstairs powder room.

It didn’t feel as if I accomplished much, but it’s good to know that when that slice of time appears in my schedule, I’ll be ready to jump into these projects and finally cross them off my list.

Monday Menu

Posted by Melissa in Food, Monday Menu

This isn’t a week for innovation in the kitchen. It’s just one of those weeks when I’m grateful I did the thinking ahead of time, because without a plan, my brain wouldn’t be able to spit out much more than cereal and quesadillas. Every night.Some weeks are for trying new recipes, but this week is for relying on the veterans. I can usually count on everyone eating soup, most any kind of Asian-inspired chicken dish, and anything with sausage.

I’ll be trying my very best to spend 45 minutes every morning emptying the dishwasher, prepping dinner as far as possible, and doing a load of laundry (I don’t want to relive the laundry pile I just worked my way through). This morning I’ve already finished two out of three, but I still need to get the last few groceries before I can prep dinner (apparently Al Roker said to get your errands done today, before the next wave of snow sweeps in–thankfully, he’s not using groundhogs to predict the weather).

I have a secret weapon, too: a frozen pizza stashed in the garage freezer just in case one day’s schedule (or my sanity) derails and I decide to give up on cooking. It could happen.

Monday: Pasta with Caramelized Cabbage, salad

Tuesday: Sloppy Joes, broccoli

Wednesday: Baked Sausages with Apples and Potatoes, salad

Thursday: Sesame Chicken (scroll down to the end of the comments), sugar snap peas

Friday: White Bean and Tomato Soup, bread

 

What are cooking and eating this week?

Bananas Foster Upside-Down Cake

Posted by Melissa in Baking, Food, Recipe and tagged with , , ,

Just a little public service announcement…

If you haven’t been reading the Bakers Select blog regularly (add it to your blog reader or click on the link in the sidebar–>), I just wanted to point you in that direction. Today’s post includes the recipe for this Bananas Foster Upside-Down Cake that I adapted from a whole slew of banana cake recipes. I’m excited to make it again soon, because the one sitting on my kitchen counter isn’t going to last long.

You can click right here or on the photo above to get the recipe. Try it!

 

Monday Menu

Posted by Melissa in Food, Kids, Monday Menu and tagged with , , ,

I dropped Little Five off at preschool this morning and went straight to the grocery, feeling so prepared with my list and my reusable bags. But alas, not my wallet. I’m just thankful I realized how light my purse was while I was still sitting in the parking lot, and not at check out with a cart full of groceries! So I came home to write my morning blog post and empty the dishwasher, and I’ll do the shopping on the way to preschool pick up.

A comment on someone else’s blog reminded me of this great Skillet Lasagna recipe from Cooks’ Illustrated. I made it once or twice more than five years ago, and then forgot all about it. I think the kids will like it. They’re also beginning to come around to salad, which is such a relief (well, not Little Five–he’s deep into a veggie-hating phase). Mr. Ten used to say, “Salad just isn’t my thing,” but he’s progressed from eating just the tomatoes to adding a few leaves on his plate. Miss Seven doesn’t like the tomatoes, but at the Band Spaghetti Dinner last week, she asked for a bowl of salad. And then she ate it. It must be time to teach them how to make salad dressing!

Other vegetables still aren’t very successful, but I keep making them. I doubt they’ll eat any roasted cauliflower or more than a couple of bites of zucchini (I just don’t understand why they don’t like squash, but they’ll eat broccoli), but at least they always eat raw carrots and ranch dressing. Maybe in another ten years they’ll like zucchini, too.

Monday: Skillet Lasagna, salad

Tuesday: Garlicky pork chops, roasted cauliflower salad

Wednesday: Turkey Tetrazzini (from the freezer), Zucchini with Lemony Crumbs

Thursday: Olympic Seoul Chicken, rice, green beans

Friday: Fish tacos, refried beans, cabbage slaw

For lunches: Chicken noodle soup (the broth, chicken and noodles are all left from Sunday’s chicken dinner); barley with roasted peppers and feta

Kids’ bathroom progress part 2…almost done!

Posted by Melissa in Design, DIY and tagged with , ,

So, so close.

Since last week, I finished painting the gray walls, installed two shelves on the wall over the toilet, hung the beadboard wallpaper, scraped and sanded the old caulk off the baseboards and reinstalled the shoe moulding, caulked, and painted the beadboard wallpaper. It’s obviously not a big room, so it took 15 minutes here, an hour there. Still to do: paint the baseboards and perhaps give the beadboard a second coat, and finish hanging artwork. I was on a roll and probably would have finished yesterday, but I ran out of paint. But if you don’t look at the baseboards, it looks good!

For fun, here’s the evolution of this bathroom over the past 6 years:

Before

Before

This is how it looked before we moved in. Certainly not terrible, but the details became annoying after we lived with it for a while. Wallpaper, shower doors (have you tried bathing a squirmy baby when you can only reach half the bathtub?), two-toned hardware. And a toilet paper holder waaaay too far for a kid to reach when he needs it!

First attempt

First attempt

After the first major set of changes to make this bathroom more functional for three small children: removed the shower doors, installed hook rail for towels, painted the vanity and changed the hardware, moved the toilet paper holder, stripped the wallpaper, changed the light fixture. At this point I wasn’t really sure where the color scheme was going.

After

After

Now, the gray and white is a cool backdrop for the kids’ bright towels and accessories. There aren’t any heavy glass shower doors to clean or worry about safety (one fell off the track once–very scary!), and there are plenty of hooks to hang towels, robes, and wet bathing suits. The colors feel more like us, and the room functions much better.

How much did I spend on this final stage?

  • Ikea shelves: $30
  • Ikea towels: $22
  • beadboard wallpaper: $19
  • wallpaper paste: $5
  • 1 quart Heather Gray paint: $2

The rest of my supplies I already had…caulk, white semi-gloss paint, etc. I got my wallpapering tools from Freecycle! Even though I need to buy more paint to finish the baseboards, I have lots of other trim in the house that needs a fresh coat.

I’m very pleased with the beadboard wallpaper. For a novice like me, it wasn’t difficult to hang. As I hoped, caulk and paint disguised my sloppy edges and less-than-precise measuring. It only took about an hour to measure, paste and paper that half wall.

Ikea towels come with loops for hanging!

Until I get around to buying that paint, I’ll focus on hanging the rest of the artwork. Miss Seven will be pleased when I get the stack of frames out of her room and onto the wall.

Bubble prints made at the school art fair

Pumpkin chocolate bread pudding

Posted by Melissa in Baking, Food, Recipe and tagged with , ,

It’s one of those blustery, snowy February afternoons. Little Five is in the living room, being put through his paces by the piano teacher. I’m in the kitchen, sniffling over a fresh mug of tea and the last slice of gingerbread (it does keep remarkably well). But since I’m just reheating dinner tonight in between the Tuesday marathon of piano/karate/extra chorus rehearsal, I thought it might be nice to make dessert. It’s one of those extra things you do for the people you love, like picking up your socks and clearing off the kitchen counter, even if these are not your own priorities.

Even though I’m spent from fighting (and losing to) a cold–not to mention the emotional effort of filling out kindergarten registration forms–this is a homey dessert that takes all of 10 minutes of lackluster effort. Five minutes to dice up all your leftover bits of bread, five minutes to whisk together the custard. If you put the pudding in the oven right after school, people are in a much more cooperative frame of mind concerning homework. Call it aromatherapy.

Pumpkin Chocolate Bread Pudding

1 cup half and half or light cream

1 cup milk

1 15-oz. can pumpkin puree

1 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. ground cloves

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

10 cups (about 10 oz.) stale bread (not too soft and not too crusty–I used a combination of challah and an Italian loaf), in 1/2-inch cubes

3/4 cup chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

Butter (or use cooking spray) a medium baking dish (8″ x 8″ or a deep dish pie plate). Put the bread cubes and chocolate chips into the dish. In a large bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Pour over the bread and chocolate and mix gently so that all the cubes soak up some custard. Turn on the oven to 350 degrees and let the pudding soak until the oven is ready. Bake for about 40 minutes, until a thin knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Serve warm, with a little vanilla ice cream or whipped cream if you like.