Potato & Leek Au Gratin

A really good "gratin" is such European comfort food... it's kind of like Mac and Cheese, to me, but fancier so you could serve it up with a nice cut of meat, and there it would make for a really festive meal.  But it's also so easy to do. 

I put together this little casserole a few days ago, but didn't have time to write up the description.  So without further ado, here it is, in all its beautiful simplicity! 

Thai Swimming Rama (or Showering Rama)-- Chicken, steamed spinach and peanut sauce

While I’m not entirely sure of the first time I had Rama (or whether it was referred to as Showering or Swimming) it is one of my very favorite types of Thai food.  Basically, it’s steamed spinach, sauteed chicken, and a peanut sauce that is TO DIE FOR.  I seriously have to stop myself from eating half the sauce out of the pot with a spoon while I’m “tasting it” … Yeah, it’s so good. It’s almost like a dessert.  **Edited to say that since I first published this recipe many years ago, I have developed a nut allergy, so I now make this with sunflower-seed butter, and it is basically indistinguishable.** 

Orange Ginger Ahi steaks with Bok Choy

A few weeks ago I tried a recipe for a similar chicken dish with orange, ginger & bok choy, but I wanted to try Ahi steaks, because I just had some delicious seared ahi last night at a restaurant, which usually means I crave it for another 24 hours afterwards.  So I merged the two together here. (This recipe is a little bit of a hybrid between a couple of other recipes on my blog: Mandarin Ginger Glazed Mahi Mahi and Grilled Teriyaki Ahi Tuna –  I just love citrus-savory recipes!)

Pork & Bok Choy Gyozas

Hi all ten of you loyal readers.  It’s been a while.  Did you miss me? I’m sure you’ve been staying up at night wondering when I’d have a new recipe to share.  Oh, don’t you worry.  This one is SURE to disappoint, as I didn’t even take photos… I was up to my wrists in raw meat, and my husband was exercising and couldn’t help hold the camera.  And it was late, dangit.  We were hungry, so I just cooked, and did not pause to consider the repercussions of a photo-free blog.  But take heart – there are OTHER blogs that show you how to assemble gyozas, and they have expertly taken photos, so if you like my recipe, you can just imagine what the photos would have looked like.  And the best part is that this recipe is approximately $5 worth of ingredients and you’ll have about 40 gyozas when you’re done, and you can freeze uncooked ones for later use.

Are ya ready? Okay!

Bacon-Asparagus Lasagna

A few years ago, I found a recipe on Epicurious, that was basically like the recipe I’m about to post here. (I have since made a few substitutions.)   So the second time I decided to make it, was on the day that my in-laws came to our new house, after we got married.  It was only my third time of meeting them (once after our engagement, and then on our wedding and then this third time) so trying to be extra efficient, I started prepping all my ingredients in the morning so that we could just put it in the oven after they arrived from the airport.   Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy.  Right?

Pork Schnitzel with sauteed mushrooms and egg noodles

My husband and I recently celebrated our anniversary by going up to the quaint Bavarian-themed tourist town of Leavenworth, located in the Cascade mountains in Washington State.  Clearly, with the Alpine menu options that are prevalent, we had to do at least one “authentic German” meal.  So we had schnitzel, with red cabbage sauerkraut, and egg noodles with mushrooms. Now back in the day-to-day of normal life, I thought we would try to recreate that meal (all but the red cabbage sauerkraut which I didn't have...) to take a bit of Bavaria back home to us. 

Chicken, Bell Pepper & Mushroom soup with rice

I have been blogging three mushroom-based recipes that I made the last few days with a CostCo container of Baby Bellas. I like buying in bulk and finding fun things to do with the ingredients during the course of a week, without feeling like I’m eating the same thing over and over.


This soup is completely ‘off the cuff’, and I will do my best to replicate the ingredients as I was just kind of throwing them in to my pot.

Beef & Mushroom pie

This is another amazingly simple and delicious dish my mother has been making for years, and who knows where she got the recipe originally.  But given her stack of vintage cooking magazines from the early 1970s and on, there is probably a source somewhere.   However, I don’t know the source, and she probably barely remembers where it came from herself, since she has been making it for decades.
I was in a hurry when I made this, having painted all day at my in-laws’ house, so I used a store-bought crust to expedite it all.  Otherwise, feel free to use the pie crust recipe of your choice.  It’s a pretty standard butter, flour, cold water type of crust.

Potato Mushroom Pizza

The first place I ever had a potato pizza was at the famed Vic's Pizza in Olympia while I was in college. I just don’t go out much these days, being the frugal housewife that I am, so I finally got around to making my own potato pizza.  And seriously… don’t knock it till you try it.  It’s SO good.
Mine, of course, has its own tweaks and variations, and I worked with the ingredients I had on hand—this week, my theme seems to be food with mushrooms.   You’ll see two other mushroom-inclusive recipes in the next 2 installments as well.

Mole Pulled Pork Tacos & Spanish rice

Happy New Year, readers.  Did you miss me? All four of you?

I haven’t blogged for a while, because as much baking & cooking as I did during Christmas it was all Christmas food, with Swedish recipes, and I don’t know how many of you really want a recipe for pickled-herring and beet salad?

Plus I just didn’t cook a lot of new stuff in the busyness of the Christmas season.  Most of the food I made had already been entered on the blog.  But it’s a new year, and I’m hoping to have a few more recipes up my cuffs.

I made this meal yesterday, and mostly made it to deliver to a family from our church that was recovering from a rather major car accident, and in my haste to make the food, I didn’t even think of blogging it, let alone photographing my progress.  So this will be mostly from memory, and you’ll just have to use your imagination.  And you know what pulled pork looks like.

[PS. This was edited a year later after the original posting to adjust the ingredients, because I made it again today and it was even better than the first version.  So here it is -- updated.  Please note that this is still by no means a fully authentic recipe.  At least it's a good pseudo recipe for the harried (or hairy) housewife.]