In the Kitchen with Sluggy

I've been trying to use/use up stuff around the house here when making meals as most of us are having to do during this "Stay Home" time.
And only going to the grocery store or having Hubs go for me to the big stores once a week or less has led to some other challenges.

Hubs went to Weis(PMITA)Markets 2 weeks ago now and he decided to get himself some bananas to put on his cereal in the morning.  So he brought home a bunch of about 28 bananas.
He has/had no clue that these will not all get eaten before they go bad. A ripe banana(and he didn't buy green unripe ones)will last up to 1 week in most circumstances.
Now I am not a big fan of banana bread so the thought of having to make 40 loaves of that(and use XX lbs. of flour I didn't want to use too)to use up what he didn't eat wasn't going to fly.  And putting them all into the freezer for smoothies would work if A-I had that much room in the freezer and B-if anyone here liked/drank smoothies.....so that was out.

I went into the pantry and found 2 boxes of banana creme pudding mix and a box of Nilla wafers(except the Nillas were lemon flavored).  The cookies weren't lemony enough to not use them to make Banana Pudding(but I had Danish Butter Cookies in a tin I could sub if needed)so that's what happened here late last week.  I sacrificed 4 cups of milk to the dish and voila!, Banana Pudding.....

Going to the Restaurant Supply store meant I had to buy this many scallions instead of a small bunch at a grocery store(which didn't have any).......

That was 2.5 POUNDS of scallions! Plus they were quite large to begin with.  So I've been chopping them up as my hands allow me to and putting them into quart sized baggies and throwing those into the freezer..........

And I've been subbing scallions in for some dishes I usually put yellow onions in because my body is not liking yellow onions very much these days.  I can tolerate scallions better than reg. onions so far.

After seeing how much we were spending on take-out Chinese I decided to try my hand at one dish I've never made before-Sweet and Sour Chicken.
We have a deep fryer that daughter left here and I have a killer recipe for tempura batter(1 Cup of Flour to 1 Tablespoon Corn Starch plus salt/pepper and add Seltzer water until it's a slightly runny batter).

Then I found a very good recipe for Sweet and Sour Sauce online HERE.

1 Cup Pineapple Juice
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar *You can use low sugar substitutes here-see recipe online.
1/3 Cup Rice Vinegar
3 TB Ketchup
2 TB Soy Sauce
1.5 TB Cornstarch in 1 TB water to make a slurry

Add, mix and boil the first 5 ingredients, then add the slurry slowly, wisking the whole time so it doesn't clump up.
Boil a bit longer until the sauce thickens up.
You can add some red food coloring if you want it the atomic red color from the restaurants(just a couple of drops though).

This Sauce recipe can be doubled, tripled, etc.  It lasts for about 2 weeks in the fridge(if you don't eat it all before then lol).
It really does taste just like what you get at the Chinese restaurant but I like that you can control what does in it(and there are no preservatives).  Plus it's not hard to make.

So I made Sweet and Sour Chicken.  Sorry I forgot to take a photo of that.
And this Sweet and Sour Sauce is also a vital ingredient in the Sizzling Rice Soup I make so I made extra sauce and made a pot of this soup too.

Since we had leftover tempura Chicken I also made myself this for lunch one day.............

It's Chicken in Plum Sauce.
There use to be a restaurant near where my mother and brother lived we'd frequent before Hubs and I had kids.  We'd go there and they had this dish on the menu.  I have never seen it at another Chinese restaurant since.
It's just the Tempura Chicken pieces like in a Sweet and Sour Chicken dish but instead of SandS sauce you pour over a Plum Sauce(which I just happened to have in my stockpile), add scallions(I gots LOADS of those now!lol)and Walnut pieces.  You could serve over rice, add veggies like  broccoli too if you want.
It's so good. ;-)

I've been making a dent in the list of meals I had the ingredients for of a few weeks ago...............

Now here's what's left.....

I added 4 more meals too and quite a few are scratched off.
I've still got 17 dinners to get through on this list which will put us well into May.

My mom grew up in rural Southern Virginia.  She grew up eating all sorts of dishes y'all modern folks, even y'all Southern modern folks don't/won't eat nowadays.  Things like tomato pudding, eggs with calves brains, tom thumb(an Eastern NC sausage), spoon bread, chitlins, pickled pig's feet, salt on your watermelon and cantaloupe, and a dessert that was essentially a leaf of iceberg lettuce with a pineapple ring sitting on top upon which was placed a slice of processed(from a wrapper)American cheese and a big dollop of mayo.  Good eats, right?
And as a kid I ate all these strange old timey concoctions she served.

But there is one Southern dish I had never eaten or heard of until last week......
A Georgia Cracker Salad.

Paula Deen is doing a series of Quarantine Cooking videos on YouTube.  I'm not sure why she calls this Quarantine Cooking other than it's cooking at home when you can't go anywhere. lol  Maybe it's recipes using stuff you have in your house?.....I don't know.

Anyway I watched this video and now I can't wait until I can get a homegrown tomato to try this(which will be around August here!).
It sounds nasty to me, and a waste of a good tomato you could make into a lovely tomato sandwich but what the heck!  If I've got saltines, mayo and a tomato I'll give anything a try at least once.





Any interesting food adventures at your house lately?
Have you had or would you try the Georgia Cracker Salad?


Sluggy

Making a New Asian Recipe

I got a great deal on broccoli late last week at the Shursave market so what to do with it?
I decided to try my hand at Beef and Broccoli for the first time.
Even though I am not a fan of her cooking usually I tried the recipe HERE.

                        Picture from the Food Network website.

The worst thing time wise with making this was all the prep work.  The beef has to be sliced thinly and a marinade/sauce put together and the veg has to be chopped.
Actually cooking time was minimal plus it only used one pan on the stove top so good here on Tuesday when the weather was unseasonably hot.

I served it over ramen noodles since we have quite a few packets of that here and I put the water on to boil for that when I started quick cooking the broccoli.
I didn't put the beef stock in my version but just water as the recipe called for so much cornstarch that the sauce tightened up too much.

I didn't have mine over noodles as it was hearty filling enough without and it was tasty.
Even though I used a low-sodium(sort of an oxymoron, isn't it?lol)soy sauce I still thought this was way too salty for me!   Hubs thought it was borderline salty(his tastes have changed to be more sensitive to sodium since I cook everything he eats)but Daughter thought it was fine as to the saltiness.

I plan to keep this in the meal rotation but next time I'll use/do one of 3 things instead of soy sauce........1-try coconut aminos(gives you that umami quality w/out any salt), 2-make a soy sauce substitute to use or 3-sub half the soy sauce(still using low-sodium one)for rice wine vinegar, water or more sherry.


Sluggy

TW3

TW3?
It's short for "That Was The Week That Was"........TWTWTW........TW cubed......get it? lol
TW3 was a satirical series from England in the early 1960's that spawned an American TV version couple of years later.

So here is  the TW3 report for Sluggy--

SUNDAY-got the storage emptied and cleaned.  Shoved more stuff into the garage, after transferring 90% of it to tubs out of cardboard boxes.  Disposed of the cardboard a la fire!  Feeling like something got accomplished.
Make a proper Sunday dinner of Pork Chops, Stuffing and Rot Kraut Mit Apfeln(otherwise known as Red Cabbage with Apples).   Hubs had eaten this Kraut dish in Pittsburgh at the Hofbrau Haus on our trip there and loved it so I tried my hand at it, successfully!

 It did take longer to cook than the recipe said.  If you like sweet and sour type dishes, you will enjoy this.

The recipe can be found HERE .  This recipe is from the Luchow's cookbook.  Luchow's was a landmark NYC German restaurant back in the day so this version should be pretty authentic.

MONDAY-I spent more time in the garage(as the weather was a bit milder that day), organizing all those now full tubs of stuff from storage, so we can locate things out there and aren't tripping over other things.  I cleaned up the kitchen that day as well....living the dream folks, living the dream!!! lolz

TUESDAY-Wrote the 1st installment of our Pittsburgh Christmas Trip and posted it.  Vacuumed the rug in the living room as the beagle has claimed it as her napping spot on sunny days, so she leaves tuffs of herself behind on it.  Between the dog hair and the vacuum not wanting to "roll" on that rug, I got my aerobic workout for the day.  ;-)

WEDNESDAY-Spent lovely hours on the phone sorting out our new medical coverage.  In the end not much was accomplished besides the acquisition of a nice headache and an elevated blood pressure.
Channeled my anger into ruthless cleaning of the desk and immediate area.

Also emptied 2 tubs of fabric and wrestled with it all to get it laid out for photographs. 

In addition, I hit the grocery store, as Wednesday is my usual shopping day.  Spent a whole $25.57 for the week(no more grocery/toiletries shopping this week).  Got some ramen for #2 Son, lunchmeat, OJ, strawberries and a 10lb. turkey breast(I'll cook this Sunday and have leftovers for next week).

THURSDAY-Wrote another installment of the Summer Road Trip saga(to post later today).  Went out for a free Birthday meal at local Italian restaurant.  Also had a gift certificate for a medium pizza so Hubs and #2 son split that, which made for a cheap meal out. 

Spent the evening assisting #2 Son organizing the getting of letters of recommendation Funfest he gets to perform on Friday(and Monday).  Being a music candidate not only does he have auditions to prepare for and participate in before he finds out what schools he is accepted into, he needs recs from music persons as well as the usual academic recs to file....and these have to be either on file or in hand at the audition dates.  He has NOT been successful pinning down these teachers/instructors so far and his 1st audition is Feb. 1 at Temple(big school in Philly), followed by Feb. 3 at Mansfield U(state school in the boonies), Feb. 15 at VCU(out of state school in Richmond, VA)and Feb. 21 at Marywood U(private local college).
He hadn't even printed out the forms some of them require recs to fill out!  So we got that all done and I addressed envelopes and stamped them all so the rec person just has to fill out a form(or write a letter on school letterhead), drop it into an envie, seal it up and drop it into the mail.  I told him to make it as easy as possible for them since they probably have been pestered by leagues of students for the exact same item.

I really don't know why schools insist that artistic types jump through so many more hoops and keep it all straight when it comes to getting into college......come on!  These are for the most part scatterbrained individuals due to their being right-side brain dominant plus they are all suffering from TEEN BRAIN so it's like nailing down Jello to get them organized. lolz
All this bureaucratic folderal for the great honor of overpaying for a musical degree which will leave the majority of them mostly unemployable at a living wage upon graduation because you KNOW who much our culture values the Arts, don't you?
Good times!

FRIDAY-First thing, I got to deal with an angry eBay customers in the UK.  She's not happy about the import duty her government charged her for the toy I sent to her.  I don't falsify customs forms like some do on eBay and if she wanted me to lie then she should have asked for me to do so, so I could have cancelled the transaction then and there.  Don't blame me because you live in a country with protectionist rules....
Who needs this crap?!

Packed up and put in the mailbox an Etsy order.
Speaking of Etsy, I also sort of made about 40 new listings there for items to sell this week.  They are in draft still since the PO rates are going up a week from this coming Monday, so I'll wait until then to launch them with the new rates.  Better to wait than to launch them now and then have to go back into them and edit all the rates on the 26th.....less work this way.

I might work on my genealogy stuff today as I got an inquiry this week from someone who just got their DNA matches on FamilyTreeDNA this week, and I match some of their genetic material.  Now we get the great fun of figuring out HOW we are related! 8-)

So that's the highlights(or lowlights)of my week.
What's happening in your world and what's on tap for today?

Sluggy