What now?

So now that I've decided to blog again.....all of a sudden I can't decide what to write about.

What's going on in my kitchen?


Not too much these days. The whole working thing has limited my time so much I find myself not planning anything for dinner and then having to come up with something on the fly. It actually got so bad the week before last that I spent a good deal of last weekend cooking ahead so that we wouldn't have to eat yucky food for dinner this past week. It actually worked pretty well.

This time of year I am inundated by squash and cabbage. I decided to make Deb's Butternut squash soup, which is really easy, really tasty, and the kids really like it. Plus, it freezes well. I posted the recipe on here before, but I'm too lazy to search for it and link to it. Do it yourself, if you're interested.

I also made a curried rice with cabbage and bacon from Bon Appetit. It was really simple and quite tasty. It made great lunches for Steve, and Hannah liked it too. I think Alex might have wept if I'd tried to make him eat it, although I do love torturing the boy with vegetables. Why is it that young boys don't like vegetables? Actually, that's not really true, there are quite a few he likes, but just not the variety that the rest of us like. And he is better than his brother; I don't think anything green passed that boy's lips from the time he was six until he was sixteen. And now he'll eat anything. Anything. And he does. A lot. But he's a Marine, so he's allowed.

Another great do-ahead I made was wontons. Wonton soup is one of my favorites and wontons are really pretty simple to make and they freeze wonderfully. Of course I also had some chicken parts in the freezer so I made chicken stock, too, so now I am all set for an easy, really satisfying dinner.

Here's all you do to make wontons:

Mix 1 lb ground pork with 1/4 C chopped scallions, 1 tsp sesame oil, and 1 T minced or grated fresh ginger. (No! You may not use ground ginger! Unless you live in Brazil and have no access to fresh ginger. In which case, you probably can't get wonton wrappers, either, so you're screwed.) Put 1 tsp ground pork mixture in each wonton wrapper, moisten the edges and fold over into a triangle. Cook for about 5 minutes in boiling water, then remove to a soup bowl. Cover with hot soup stock and drizzle with soy sauce and sesame oil. You can also boil some sliced cabbage with the soup stock, if you like.

Wontons can also be deep-fried and served with a plum sauce. Freeze wontons in a single layer on a cookie sheet and then store in a Ziploc bag after they are frozen. Defrost before cooking.

Wontons are one of the most popular appetizers I have ever served. People swoon over them. I'll save the story of the "hamtons" for next time!