Ham & Cheese Waffles

Artsy Photo of the ham & cheese waffles, courtesy of my husband Shane

 The first waffle, an absolute failure. See below for details

This recipe came from one of my moms' cooking catalogues. It is a perfect blend of sweet and savory, and hearty enough to have as breakfast for dinner. I started off by using my favorite waffle recipe from the Better Homes & Garden cook book and once that was done I cooked up some applewood smoked bacon. I cooked the bacon until it was partially crispy and then chopped it up. Then I shredded some extra sharp Tillamook cheddar. The recipe said to add the batter to the greased, preheated waffle iron and sprinkle the cheese and bacon on top. This ended up being the biggest mistake. The waffle stuck to both sides of the iron and we had to spend about 10 minutes detaching it. The bottom picture is the result of this. After that fiasco, we decided to stir the ham and cheese into the batter and it worked much better that way. Once they were done we served them with warm maple syrup and they were fantastic.

Homemade Chicken & Molé

  My cousin David and his girlfriend Angie came over for dinner

Chicken enchiladas with molé sauce, black bean and corn mix, mexican rice, homemade guacamole and chips & peach salsa from the store

 preparation of the enchiladas the day before

My cousin and his girlfriend were in town from Michigan so we invited them over for dinner and games. I chose to make chicken and molé because it is my favorite meal at Mexican restaurants. It is a warm creamy chocolate and chili sauce. It has a bit of a kick to it, but is not too spicy. I found the sauce at Winco in a little glass container. All you have to do is follow the directions on the back and combine it with water. Make sure you add enough water because I did not add enough at first and it was way too thick and spicy. I did not have all the ingredients I needed for the guacamole so I just made a simplified version using avocados, onions, salt, pepper and a little lemon juice. We had a great time eating together and then playing a few fun games. I am definitely looking forward to the next time we entertain :)

Pork Roast

Pork roast marinated in white wine and garlic, topped with salt, pepper, garlic and fresh rosemary. Sides include roasted carrots and potatoes.

My parents are wonderful. When I went over to the house on Saturday they loaded me up with groceries from their own refrigerator, including part of a roast that my mom was preparing for a dinner party.  From a thawed state, this roast took about 45 minutes to cook. I baked it in my 12" cast iron skillet alongside the carrots and potatoes which I drizzled with olive oil and italian seasoning. The pork was a little more rare than I prefer, but still scrumptious. We ate out on our deck because having the oven on for so long made our apartment disgustingly hot and we do not have air conditioning. So note to self, stick to making roasts in the winter when you need the extra heat. 

Berry Good French Toast

French Toast is Shane's all time favorite breakfast meal

French toast topped with blueberries, blackberries and powdered sugar, accompanied by applesauce and fresh cantaloupe 

As you can see in the picture above, my husband loves to eat french toast. I used left over bread from the wedding that we put in the freezer. It had been frozen twice so my mom suggested using it for this meal because it had gotten a little stale. This bread worked perfectly. I was able to reconstitute it with eggs, milk and cinnamon. We did not have any syrup so I combined the last bit of our blackberry jam with strawberry jam and warmed it up to make it more like syrup. Shane suggested the title of this blog purely from how many berries we used. It was delicious and I will be making it again and again, just for Shane ;-)

Ham and Cheese Omelette

Ham, cheddar cheese, onion and spinach omelette with fresh berries and toast

Omelette's are really simple. Start by deciding what you want in it. Shane and I decided on these because that is what we had in our fridge. I am all about using every thing we have before going back to the store. Shane helped a lot with this meal, I chopped up all the ingredients and he whisked the eggs with some salt an pepper. Shane poured the egg in the pan and after it cooked on on side, then he flipped it over to cook the other side and that is when I added the innards. We have come to discover that we make a great team in the kitchen. This omelette was scrumptious. 

BBQ Chicken

Pan seared chicken with homemade BBQ sauce, roasted rosemary potatoes and steamed broccoli 

This meal was really simple. I started by caramelizing some onions in the pan and once those started to brown I cooked the chicken with salt, pepper and butter. As the chicken was cooking I started boiling the potatoes and created my own version of a sweet but tangy BBQ sauce. Here's the recipe if you want to try it.

Brooke's BBQ Sauce

1 1/2 cups ketchup

1/2 cup Jack Daniel's horseradish mustard 

a few shakes of worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup brown sugar

Combine ingredients in a small bowl and whisk together. 

If you like you BBQ sauce sweeter, like I do, add a little more brown sugar. If you like it more tart add more mustard and worcestershire sauce.

When the chicken was done cooking I poured my sauce over top and let it cook together to warm the BBQ sauce. I left it there on low heat while I finished the rest of the meal. For the potatoes all I did was boil them and then place them on a cookie sheet with olive oil and rosemary and baked them for about 20 minutes. The broccoli I steamed in the microwave. All in all this meal only took about 30 minutes total. You should try it and let me know the results of you BBQ sauce. I would love to get more ideas from my readers. 

Blueberry Waffles

Blueberry waffles topped with a maple and blackberry syrup

 Waffle maker my mom gave us. Still works perfectly

Shane and I had the day off together so we decided to start it off by making waffles together with our "new" waffle maker. I used a recipe from a better homes and garden cookbook that I found at a thrift store for $2.00. We did not have enough maple syrup for both of us so I added blackberry jam to it, mixed and heated it in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Here's the recipe if you want to try it. I added my own touch by putting about 1 cup of fresh blueberries in the batter.

Better Homes and Garden Waffle Recipe

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 TBSP baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 egg yolks

1 3/4 cups milk

1/2 cup cooking oil

2 egg whites

In a mixing bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl beat egg yolks slightly. Beat in milk and oil. Add egg yolk mixture to flour mixture all at once. Stir just till combined but still slightly lumpy.

 In a small bowl beat egg whites till stiff peaks form. gently fold beaten egg whites into flour and egg mixture, leaving a few fluffs of egg white. Do NOT over mix.

Pour about 1 cup of batter onto the preheated and greased waffle iron and bake accordingly. This recipe makes 3 to 4 waffles. 

Shepherds Pie in My New Kitchen

 Finished shepherds pie, made in my new cast iron dutch oven

 Always be sure to check inside the oven before you pre-heat. This used to be a spatula 

My parents and Shane sharing our first meal in our new apartment 

 On Father's day Shane and I invited our parents over to celebrate. Like you saw in the picture above, I melted a spatula. I try to be real and honest about my mistakes on this blog and this is one of the most foolish I have made so far. Shane had a leftover cookie cake and spatula in the oven, which he told me was there but I had obviously forgotten. Needless to say, we are one spatula short. Fortunately the shepherds pie turned out flavorful and delicious. I found the recipe in my new Dutch Oven Cookbook by Sharon Kramis and Julie Kramis Hearne. Let me know if anyone wants it. It is relatively labor intensive but worth the results!  Later that night Al, Tammy and Sindy joined us and we all looked at our wedding pictures together. It was a great night.

Married Life

We are married!!! This is just a quick post to showcase my new kitchen! Shane and I love our apartment, it is small but already feels like home. More to come soon :)