Cooking is Going to be Different Down Here

I'm on Pinterest now. I'm a little obsessed. My email is now full of recipes from Pinterest and from wherever on the web pinterest has led me, but cooking is going to be different down here.

Snelling's recipe for Kielbasa Stew was not on Pinterest, but I was thinking about food and it led me to her blog as a standby for food I know has been vetted by a friend, tasty and healthy. So, in anticipation of Calhoun's return home I planned on making Kielbasa Stew!

Unfortunately, the grocery stores had a different plan. I stopped at two, the HyVee and Sunshine Foods, and neither had kale! No where. Nada. I also wanted to surprise Calhoun and make this incredible looking mug cake (courtesy of Pinterest, aren't these pictures awesome?) and couldn't find espresso powder either, and no one in the grocery store knew what it was. It's clear that I can't just pick a recipe out of the sky and expect to find the ingredients. Clearly, more thought and planning is going to have to go into meals if while we live down here.

So, adaptation was required. Although one of the main reason's I wanted to make Snelling's Kielbasa Stew was because of the kale in it, I love Kielbasa and rice so I decided to go with it anyways. And, since I also love mushrooms I figured there was no way I could go wrong. And I didn't! Although the final dining result was a far cry from Snelling's beautifully green stew, it was still delicious. And, as usual for our household, I doubled her recipe. So, we had:

Kielbasa and Mushroom Stew

2 lbs. Kielbasa

A bunch of carrots

2  eight ounce packages of baby bell mushrooms

1 c. rice, uncooked

2 white onions, chopped

4 cans chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

Brown onions and kielbasa, then toss in chicken stock and rice to cook rice, add mushrooms and carrots until done!

So, the next night we had a different strategy for dinner. We had a lot of food we needed cooked, so we cooked it! We love sweet potatoes in this house and usually use them in a standby mashed sweet potato recipe from America's Test Kitchen. I will not post this recipe because it is a strong belief of mine that you should own their cooking book, "The Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook " - well worth the $30. Anyways, we love sweet potatoes and had a few of those and some chicken thighs that needed to be cooked soon. Calhoun set about finding a recipe and we ended up taking inspiration from a variety of recipes and made amazing

Roasted Chicken and Sweet Potatoes with Honey Glaze

Three chicken thighs, skin on

Two sweet potatoes, skin on, cut in 1/2 in. chunks

aprox. 2 tbs butter

Roasted in 400 degree over for 80 minutes. Cover with tin foil, remove after about 50 minutes.

Make glaze:

Butter

Honey

Apple Cider Vinegar

Parsley

Oregano

Poultry Seasoning

(according to Calhoun, "until it tastes good")

Both cooking adventures were successful! Even though the local grocery stores don't carry all of the variety of the metro area, we will still be eating well down here, even though the cooking will be different!