Bits and Pieces

I may not have been on the blogging wagon, lately, but I have done some cooking.  This is a collection of things that don't necessarily deserve a whole post, but that I happened to photograph and thought I should throw in.

I keep trying to make soups in the Vitamix with limited success.  This was an especially gagworthy cabbage one.  I talked about it with Kathy, a coworker, and we both think that Vitamix soup recipes usually have far too much onion, and heating it in the blender container doesn't temper the raw oniony flavor.  Another failed recipe was a carroty ginger one that used milk as a fluid base.  Problem: milk foams when blended.  The milk turned to bubbles.  Eating bubbles isn't much fun.

 

But my Vitamix attempts aren't all bad.  I've been doing smoothies as simple, high-fiber dinners.  It takes about 10 minutes to put one together, and it always makes me feel full.

While Mom was visiting, I got some peaches from a friend, Kristen.  They were getting too ripe, so we cut them up, sprinkled them with Splenda, and made an impromptu crumble with oatmeal/brown sugar topping.  I got to make it in my vintage cast iron 8" Le Creuset gratin dish.

I had a 50% coupon on my first Taste Trunk subscription box.  I have a subscription box fetish, and love getting surprises each month, but it can get pricey for things you know you don't actually need.  The coupon brought the price down to around $20 for 5-8 gourmet food products, which I could justify.

It was pretty cool.  The box was beautifully wrapped, and each of the ingredients came with a recipe--almost like a challenge.  This is the result of one of the recipes.  It's a southwest pizza with chipotle dip as a sauce.  The crust made of refrigerated crescent rolls, patted out into a sheet.  It was super easy and pretty darn good.  This is only a half batch, so half #2 is coming, and I look forward to it.