In the Kitchen with Donald

[crazyfordisney2000]

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/garlic-knots-recipe/
I made these for christmas dinner last year, and that were a hit.

What an awesome idea! Thank you! I already make my own pizza dough so I’ll just do that and make the knots!

 

[Pumpkin1172]

Well, this thread inspired me. We have bread, so (once I got some yeast from the local grocery store) I decided to make cinnamon buns. I used this THIS RECIPE and they turned out great! I had to hide them or DH would have had 2 or 3. Me, too. They'll be nice for breakfast in the morning.

This is very similar to the recipe I use for the dough for my cinnamon buns. It is the best dough for cinnamon buns!!! They are just sooooo fluffy and light. Everyone gobbles them up when I make them. They are the best when warm from the oven. I don't use that filling, but once I roll out the dough, I put a good layer of butter over the whole surface of the rolled out dough, sprinkle with a thick layer of brown sugar and then a light sprinkle of cinnamon. Then before I put them into the pan once they are cut, I also put a generous layer of butter topped with a good layer of brown sugar. That makes for some ooooooey gooooooey warm sugary goodness lol. I did whip up a pan on Sunday and they were gone when I got home from work last night lol. I'm not a big sweets person...but THIS is one of my comfort foods!

 

[Gigi22]

Did a senior’s early morning (7-8 a.m.) shop at the local Metro. Got ingredients for some recipes I wanted to try out. I now have a very big pot of homemade minestrone on the stove! Waiting for it to cool off enough for me to be able to portion it up and freeze most of it. These days I find homemade soup very comforting. And, minestrone is roughly equivalent to salad!

 

[Donald - my hero]

Since this is supposed to be all about being in the kitchen with each other I thought it would only be fair to share with everyone what I'm currently eating. I'm still baking and cooking for hubby with most of the recipes but i figured I've share what I've been eating, day in & day out for weeks now. Milk has successfully been added back into my diet but sadly, wheat didn't make the cut even though i gave it a valiant effort. I was sooo looking forward to being able to expand my choicest to include things like cereal, tortillas, fresh pasta and crackers but alas, it's not in the cards for now I had to accept the fact this morning after my BP dropped and i needed to sit on the floor before i could finish baking hubby's cheese bread <sigh>

THIS, this lovely tray of food is my breakie, lunch dinner & snacks. For excitement I might even fry up some taters for dinner to get something warm! Frozen blueberries, can of tuna with blueberry syrup i made using the same blueberries, glass of milk with the same syrup and even MORE frozen blueberries and a mug of water. Good thing i like blueberries, right?!

 

[isabellea]

Since this is supposed to be all about being in the kitchen with each other I thought it would only be fair to share with everyone what I'm currently eating. I'm still baking and cooking for hubby with most of the recipes but i figured I've share what I've been eating, day in & day out for weeks now. Milk has successfully been added back into my diet but sadly, wheat didn't make the cut even though i gave it a valiant effort. I was sooo looking forward to being able to expand my choicest to include things like cereal, tortillas, fresh pasta and crackers but alas, it's not in the cards for now I had to accept the fact this morning after my BP dropped and i needed to sit on the floor before i could finish baking hubby's cheese bread <sigh>

THIS, this lovely tray of food is my breakie, lunch dinner & snacks. For excitement I might even fry up some taters for dinner to get something warm! Frozen blueberries, can of tuna with blueberry syrup i made using the same blueberries, glass of milk with the same syrup and even MORE frozen blueberries and a mug of water. Good thing i like blueberries, right?!
View attachment 484872

I really feel for you Jacqueline! I find that my diet is restricted but yours makes my diet look scrumptious! Could you try gluten-free grains?

Right now, I am making a sugar shack dinner for my oldest who will have a shared dinner on Zoom with her cheer teammates and coaches as we were supposed to have a team dinner at a sugar shack last Friday. Maple ham is in the crockpot since this morning and just finished making sugar shack baked beans (with molasses, maple syrup and bacon instead of lard) in the instant pot for the first time. Canot wait to see if all that is any good.

 

[Donald - my hero]

here's the cheese bread I made this morning. It's all cut up, wrapped in packages of 3, stored in the freezer. That will be hubby's breakfast for the next 3 weeks! Loaves ended up being a bit squat because I took them out of the pans too soon - I wanted to get out and enjoy some sunshine and he won't care about the shape

 

[Pumpkin1172]

One of our favourite instant pot recipes:

Instant Pot Better than Take-Out Beef and Broccoli
https://www.adventuresofanurse.com/instant-pot-better-than-take-out-beef-broccoli/

I made this last night. It was AWESOME!!!!!! I added some fresh ginger as well. So yummy. It was an everyone eat meal. The hubby would rather have it with noodles...but the boys and I loved it with rice. So easy and tasty!!!! Thank you for a new recipe to put into my rotation of meals

 

[bababear_50]

Blueberry Milk,,looks good and I hate blueberries,,lol

https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/blueberry-milk/
Hugs
Mel

 

[Donald - my hero]

Blueberry Milk,,looks good and I hate blueberries,,lol

https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/blueberry-milk/
Hugs
Mel

That's more or less what i do, except i can't have sugar yet so I'm using glucose and to thicken it up enough to use in more than just milk I add a slurry made with tapioca flour. Super happy milk has passed the challenge because it let's me grab something in a hurry that's got a decent punch of protein. I've gone to drinking 3% Lactose free because my weight was dropping too quickly.

 

[Donald - my hero]

I really feel for you Jacqueline! I find that my diet is restricted but yours makes my diet look scrumptious! Could you try gluten-free grains?

Right now, I am making a sugar shack dinner for my oldest who will have a shared dinner on Zoom with her cheer teammates and coaches as we were supposed to have a team dinner at a sugar shack last Friday. Maple ham is in the crockpot since this morning and just finished making sugar shack baked beans (with molasses, maple syrup and bacon instead of lard) in the instant pot for the first time. Canot wait to see if all that is any good.

It's not the gluten that's the problem (hopefully, i don't need more restrictions to my diet!!)
Backstory to my limited diet for those who care is below(if you don't just don't click on the spoiler below )

Spoiler: Lengthy backstory to my stupid restrictive diet for those who care!

I've been dealing with severe gastritis for years now and we believe it was started when i was using an anti-inflammatory medication at a dosage that has since been discovered to be high enough to cause erosion of the stomach lining. I've also always had reactions to several foods and just took those in stride. Last January i was in constant pain and then developed extremely troubling reactions - welts in my mouth, swollen lips & tongue, occasional uncontrollable coughing fits and hives on my hands, neck & face. It got to the point that it didn't matter what i put in my mouth, i was in trouble, so i was sent to an allergist. He spent almost 3 hours with us and sent me on my way with a list of foods to avoid until i could start an elimination diet. Sulphites are a HUGE problem for me, oatmeal is high in nickle (one of my allergies but didn't know the connection!!) chicken is a no-go (thank god, cause i HATE IT) rice caused a big reaction (main component to most gluten free products). It's almost easier to list the foods that were SAFE. We all agreed that i could wait until we got home from Florida and we whittled down to a small list of foods while we waited. Fast forward to February when i started the 5 food diet for 6 weeks consisting of : fish (which i hate), lard (which i reacted strongly to and stopped fairly quickly), tapioca/cassava flour (the first looks like something someone coughed up and the 2nd tasted like dirt) glucose (which is hard to source) and blueberries. We called desperate for help after struggling for 2 weeks and the Dr told me to add potatoes & canola oil - luckily both are fine! At the 4 week mark I stopped all of my stomach meds because the Dr believes my gastritis now has an allergic component. I get to add one food every 2 weeks while i try to figure out what I'm reacting to. Dairy is too broad meaning milk first. Wheat was next so i could eat something "solid" but as i mentioned, no-go. Back to my now, 6 foods wait a week before we try the next food. It will be beef because the one type of fish that is safe (a single type of canned tuna) is becoming increasingly hard to source.

I'm growing frustrated with still needing to cook for my hubby, bake bread & cookies - without being able to even taste any of it - and doing all the shopping during this time but I'll get thru to the other side eventually and hopefully have much bigger list of safe foods than i had in January. I do all of the food prep because that's how our division of labour has always existed. Hubby does things that I simply can't do, we BOTH know he hates cooking and honestly? He's not very good at it! The shopping has become my chore because he has a constant cough which is not appreciated right now in public AND it puts him at risk. Self-isolating is actually a blessing in regards to my diet because I no longer need to give excuses for why we can't go out to eat!!!

For those who are curious, here's what i gave the chefs in Disney. The red foods are absolute OMG don't even let my food touch those and the green foods were all I had eaten for 7 months and i didn't want to eat anything else.

 

[Gigi22]

Just reviewed the flour I have on hand and had an "Oops" moment. I have some cake & pastry flour I need to use up. I baked Eagle Cake (Spice Cake), substituting cake & pastry flour for all-purpose flour, (it's 1 c. all-purpose flour to about 1 1/8 c. cake & pastry flour).

Eagle Cake (Spice Cake)
1/2 c. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 c. raisins
1 c. sour milk
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Oil or butter a loaf pan. Combine butter, sugar, egg with 1 c. of the flour. In a separate bowl combine 2nd c. flour with baking soda and spices. Add raisins and sour milk to butter and sugar mixture, then add in the remaining flour and spices. Bake in a loaf pan for 40 minutes. Cool on a rack and then turn out of pan.

 

[Donald - my hero]

I haven't had time to really look over this list but i can tell you that i have NEVER had any problems using any recipes from King Arthur Flour's Kitchen, in fact that's where my bread recipes and hubby's favourite cookies come from. Soon people will be running out of ingredients and this blog entry of theirs is very timely!!

What to Bake when you run out of ingredients??

 

[Starwind]

I made this last night. It was AWESOME!!!!!! I added some fresh ginger as well. So yummy. It was an everyone eat meal. The hubby would rather have it with noodles...but the boys and I loved it with rice. So easy and tasty!!!! Thank you for a new recipe to put into my rotation of meals

So glad you enjoyed it ! We love it and are happy to share such a great find !

 

[Donald - my hero]

today's stress buster was a loaf of banana bread which allowed me to use up some nasty frozen bananas. I decided to toss in some chopped nuts leftover from my Christmas baking and some chocolate chips that had started to bloom. I'll add the recipe later if'n anyone wants to see it.

 

[bababear_50]

Anyone make bread pudding here?
My mom used to make it all the time. Just wondering.

Hugs
Mel

 

[tinkerone]

today's stress buster was a loaf of banana bread which allowed me to use up some nasty frozen bananas. I decided to toss in some chopped nuts leftover from my Christmas baking and some chocolate chips that had started to bloom. I'll add the recipe later if'n anyone wants to see it.

View attachment 485709

That looks amazing!

Anyone make bread pudding here?
My mom used to make it all the time. Just wondering.

Hugs
Mel

I make it occasionally but DH doesn’t like it. Since it’s pretty much just the two of us at home now I end up eating most of it. Can’t have that.

 

[Donald - my hero]

hubby's not too sure how he feels about all my stress baking ... he loves the food that's just appearing like magic BUT


here's yesterday's stress buster- banana chip squares. Used more frozen bananas, the leftover Graham crumbs, shredded coconut, chopped pecans and can of sweetened condensed milk from my Christmas baking plus the last of the chocolate chips that had bloomed



my freezer is getting extremely full!!!

 

[marchingstar]

my latest foray in home food prep...I jumped on the sourdough wagon! I only just started the starter, so it’ll be a good week before I know how it’s going. I used the instructions from King Arthur Flour, and I’m hoping it starts to look alive soon!

Anyone else make their own starter? Tips or tricks?

 

[isabellea]

hubby's not too sure how he feels about all my stress baking ... he loves the food that's just appearing like magic BUT
View attachment 486231

here's yesterday's stress buster- banana chip squares. Used more frozen bananas, the leftover Graham crumbs, shredded coconut, chopped pecans and can of sweetened condensed milk from my Christmas baking plus the last of the chocolate chips that had bloomed
View attachment 486232
View attachment 486233

my freezer is getting extremely full!!!

That looks really good! Can you please share the recipe?

 

[dancin Disney style]

Anyone make bread pudding here?
My mom used to make it all the time. Just wondering.

Hugs
Mel

I make it but only for special occasions now. It's made with croissants, cranberries and orange zest.....it's my favourite one, it's a nice balance of sweet and tarte. Then I also have another one with raisin bread and apples.....at least I think that's it, I haven't made it in years.