With life finally settling down, last week was one of the best ones I’ve had for cooking in a long time. I made some old favorites and tried some newer things as well, including jambalaya and cream of cauliflower soup. Those are not technically “new” recipes to me, just things I don’t make all that often.

I did try one new recipe on Saturday morning though and I am pleased to say that in spite of some initial skepticism from my children, it was a total hit – Pumpkin Pancakes.

I pretty much followed the recipe as is was except that I followed the suggestion of one of the reviewers and used 2 eggs instead of 1 and upped the spices quite a bit. The result was wonderful. The pancakes were pleasantly pumpkin-y but not too sweet. The next time I make them, I’ll likely try replacing some of the white flour with wheat germ or ground flaxseed (Ssshhh!).

The rest of my kitchen equipment is due to arrive tomorrow morning from Cairo. Once I get it all organized and put away, I won’t have any more excuses not to cook (except time!). My current goal is to cook a nice meal at least 4x a week. The other three nights? I think may need to assign those nights to the other three members of my family! It may mean Cheerios for dinner but I could live with that once in a while if it meant I didn’t have to cook every night

I had only been married about five years when we first moved abroad and during that time my husband did most of the cooking. It was a very happy time for me I wasn’t working when we moved so it made sense for me to take over some of the cooking at that point. It wasn’t necessarily an easy process because I had to teach myself to cook with actually ingredients, from scratch. There weren’t many convenience options available and the ones I could find were absurdly expensive. Who pays $10 for a brownie mix or a can of pumpkin? Sometimes even what seemed to me to be basic ingredients were hard to come by so over time I had to get good at substituting and improvising.

I didn’t make a Thanksgiving dinner this year, and the dinner to which my family was invited featured many dessert options, but no straight-up pumpkin pie. I do not do eggnog-pumpkin-pecan. I could happily skip the rest of the meal but the one thing I do want is pumpkin pie. I could eat pumpkin pie any time of the year – my daughter is the same way and often requests pumpkin pie for her birthday, which falls in July!

Sadly, there was no canned pumpkin available in the local groceries this year (as yet!), and I have gotten so used to being able to get it that I didn’t bring a can home in my suitcase this year. There were a few actual pumpkins around but frankly I wasn’t up for dealing with an entire pumpkin. Instead, I decided to get a jump on my recipe resolution for December and make a sweet potato pie.

Yes, technically I made the pie in November, but I’m counting it for December. Sue me.

It was infinitely easier to process one large sweet potato than it would have been to process a pumpkin. I microwaved the potato for five minutes before I boiled it for twenty minutes. Then I skinned it under cold water as instructed and since I don’t have a mixer, I popped it in my food processor with the butter and the rest of the ingredients. As suggested in the comments of the recipe, I used evaporated milk instead of regular and added a bit of flour to the filling. It looked a whole lot like pumpkin pie to me when it was finished.

I also made my own pie crust. I admit that for as few ingredients as are in pie crust, I am terrible at making it. It requires a fine touch and I usually handle it too much. I must have done something right this time because this one actually turned out nice and flakey.

The verdict? My husband declared he liked the sweet potato pie better than pumpkin pie and both the children liked it every bit as much. We ate it room temperature the first day and I liked it – but it didn’t seem to me to be quite as rich as a pumpkin pie. More like a diet pie – a “lite” pumpkin pie. I liked it much better the next day after a night in the refrigerator. Then again I like my pumpkin pie cold better too. It would have been better yet with fresh whipped cream but without a mixer, I think I’m out of luck on that.

All in all, I declare the sweet potato pie a success – but not a successor to pumpkin pie. Just an understudy, waiting for an opportunity to snatch the starring role in times of pumpkin famines. It’s always nice to have a back-up plan.

The same day I also made Moroccan Chicken Stew, another success. I pretty much followed the recipe but next time I will up the amounts of all the spices and toss in a bit of chili powder. It was flavorful, but could have used more zing. I’m sure it has more zing as prepared in Morocco!

I imagine that I’ll get to at least one more new recipe in December – I’m really hoping to be able to make my step-mother’s truffle recipe and also have plans to make salt dough ornaments with the children (does that count??). I have to say that my recipe resolution is perhaps the most successful resolution I’ve ever made and I’ll probably continue with it in the new year as well.

I’m always encouraging my daughter to keep up with her homework assignments – encouraging her to do them now even if they aren’t due for a week – so I’m happy to say that I too am ahead of myself a bit with my recipe resolution for the month. What did I make? Beef stew.

For most of you, this wouldn’t qualify as a new recipe but rather an old classic. A staple of cold weather cuisine. Having married a man who has been a vegetarian for most of his life, I have never had the occasion to make beef stew so it’s new to me. It’s only been in the last year or so that my husband has decided to expand his eating options a bit and much to his chagrin, beef is his favorite meat so far. (He feels far less guilty eating fish but sadly, he does not like fish.)

The stew was fairly easy to make and very tasty. My husband said it gave him flashbacks to being a child when his mother made beef stew. I took that as a compliment because his mother was a great cook. My children were attracted by the scent but not as enthusiastic about eating it. Though I enjoyed it, it took long enough to make that I am not sure I’d do it again with such mixed reactions – though I did enjoy using my grandmother’s cast iron pot to cook it in.

The month is still young and I have two more recipes I intend to try: Brazilian Black Bean stew and Moroccan Chicken Stew. Do you sense a theme?

In other news, I have started to format / proof of HERE TO STAY in preparation for the rights reverting to me in the new year. The double edged sword of digital / self-publishing is the impulse to endlessly revise things. I have to keep telling myself that it’s not necessary or even a desirable thing to do at this point. Maybe if I repeat it often enough, I’ll start to believe it? Or maybe having three books for which formatting / proofing needs to be done will simply force me to stay on track and not meander off into the woods…

I’m disappointed because I have fallen behind with my new-recipe-a-month resolution. How hard can it be to do ONE new recipe a month after all? I deliberately set my goal low because I knew one a week was never going to happen, but if I can’t do one a month that’s just sad.

I don’t think this counts, but this week I made something up out of my head. I had some frozen fish fillets in my freezer and I decided to adapt a recipe I’d looked at that called for shrimp. I sauteed an onion and garlic in olive oil, then threw in some chopped tomato, frozen chopped spinach, the remainder of a jar of pizza sauce, oregano, and basil. Once that was cooked, I added the thawed fish and let it cook for a few minutes before I mixed in some crumbled feta and put it in the oven just to warm it all through.

I wish I could say that the result was great, but it was merely meh. It did not have nearly as much flavor as I would have liked. I would have loved to have included some black olives, but you can’t get the sort of black olives I wanted here and I decided against the splash of balsamic vinegar because I was worried it might get too tart. At the end of the day, I probably should have just used shrimp!

So you tell me, does that count as a new recipe since it was 1) not really a recipe and 2) not a huge success?

I have found a few new recipes that looks like they would be very nice: one for baked falafel and a couple more summer salads that include shrimp. I hope to try both in the next couple of weeks, before I leave on vacation. I can pretty much already admit that I do very little cooking while traveling so even if I catch up to my resolution this month, I’ll be behind again by August. Oh well.

That’s why it’s better just to call it a “goal” rather than a “resolution”.

I just hope that in the end, my pottery projects come out as I envision.

On another topic, housing is provided with my husband’s job and a while back we requested to be moved to a larger apartment. I’ve loved the one we are currently in for the nearly four years we lived here, however we’ve outgrown the space and the children really need their own rooms. The housing department called us on Thursday to say they had a place for us and could we move on Tuesday? My initial reaction was um…no! I’ve gotten pretty good at moving, but I’m not THAT good! The movers I called yesterday for a quote on moving our large furniture items gave me such a good quote on moving everything that I decided in the interest of my stress levels and the remaining disks in my back to let them! They also suggested they could move us on Tuesday and since they are also responsible for the packing, Tuesday it is! Fortunately, our new place is only a few blocks away so things don’t have to be packed quite as carefully as they would if we were moving countries, but it’s still a big job.

Bigger still will be the job of cleaning / sorting / unpacking on the other end!

I also wanted to report that I did try a new recipe over the weekend (February – check!) I made shrimp chowder, using a fish chowder recipe from my Jane Brody cookbook. The only things I changed were I substituted shrimp for fish, I omitted the white wine, and I added a can of corn. It was amusing how much the frozen “cooking shrimp” I bought shrunk in the process though – in the end they were so small they could have been sea monkeys! The chowder was a hit – very tasty – and I’ll definitely be making it again.

I suspect the rest of this week we’ll be eating sandwiches and pizza however!

But when everyone else starts talking about what they are going to do, my own wheels start to turn. And it’s not as if there isn’t room for improvement in my life. So here goes – my goal for the new year is to try at least one new recipe a month. I’m posting it here to keep me honest

Doesn’t sound like much, I admit but I’m kind of excited all the same. Since I’m the one at home, I’m responsible for the bulk of meal preparation in our home. And when our schedule gets busy I admit that I get into menu ruts. I thought about one new recipe a week but that seemed like a goal doomed to fail early. A month seems totally doable – and if I get really inspired there’s nothing to stop me from trying new recipes more often.

I’m happy to say that I already tried January’s recipe this week: Lentil Walnut Burgers, from The New Moosewood Cookbook. It probably doesn’t sound all that appealing to the non-vegetarians out there, but it appealed to me on several levels. I had all the ingredients, the instructions didn’t look too daunting, and both walnuts and flaxseed are things that my husband has been trying to work into his diet to deal with high triglyceride levels.

I normally follow the instructions on a recipe the first go round before I start to mess with it, unless it says something silly like the garlic is optional. (garlic = yum) These burgers were very good – they had a nice texture and flavor and everyone in the family enjoyed them, even my son who isn’t the most adventurous eater. The only thing I might do differently next time is add a bit more salt, but that’s just me. Also, I’d take the time to cut up a fresh tomato.

Overall rating: definitely will make this one again!

I’ve activated my Curves membership. I haven’t been many times yet but that’s not entirely my fault – their hours during Ramadan didn’t mesh well with my schedule and then I was away and when I came back the kids were off school, blah blah blah. Their new hours are much better for me so I went this morning. While I’m not totally sold on their “rah rah” motivational atmosphere (their wall clock says “Time to Amaze Yourself”) I do like their thirty minute approach – cause that’s about all I want to spend there anyway!

I’ve also tried out a couple of yoga classes at a new studio in my neighborhood and signed up for a water aerobics class. Can I just say now that water aerobics, done right, is hard!? I couldn’t walk for about 4 days after my first class. I wondered if I was going to be limping around Italy! I did enjoy it though and since I’ve already paid, I suppose I’ll be going back this week.

So, after two years of doing next to no exercise, I have a new (ambitious) plan. Barring school holidays, travel, or illness I intend to do yoga once a week, Curves three times a week, and water aerobics once a week. Next week will be my first full week. We’ll see how it pans out.

I’ve also been eating better – having so many evening sports activities with the children has forced me to do more meal planning. We’ve been eating such nice meals that I’ve even been able to keep my occasion longings for fast food in check. So what’s the problem?

The problem is when people like Shelley Munro go and post a recipe like this on their blogs! How’s a girl supposed to resist that? Optional chocolate chips, my foot!

Nothing good can come from it – well, maybe one thing: I’m sure to get crowned Best Mom ever after school today.

Ingredients:
One box devil’s food cake mix (about 18 ounces)
One 15-ounce can pure pumpkin

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix the two ingredients together. The mixture will be very thick, but don’t add anything else! Place batter into a 12-cup muffin pan lined with baking cups or sprayed with nonstick spray. Place pan in the oven, and bake for 20 minutes.

On to cookie baking now. I ran across one reader on another blog who says she has close to 2000 cookies already made in her freezer, ready for distribution. My own plans are much simpler by comparison! I thought I’d share a recipe that I got from my grandmother. I have no idea where she got it, but whenever I eat these, I’m right back in her kitchen.

Toffee Bars

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

Cream together butter, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla. Mix in flour. Pat into a greased pan, 10″x15″ and bake for 15 minutes at 350F/180C. While hot, top with 6 plain Hershey bars. Spread chocolate when melted. Let cool before cutting.

NOTES: you can use a bag of semi-sweet choc chips instead of Hershey bars. Sprinkle with chopped nuts if you like.

Based on the ingredients, I shouldn’t have to tell you that these are decadent. I will however warn you that they are also addictive. I rarely make them outside of the holidays because no one in my family can resist them!

A friend gave me a bag of MINT choc chips this year. I’m thinking of trying them on this recipe but I’m afraid that I may not want to share them. Mint choc is my absolute favorite combination!

We’ve had visitors for the last week and I’ve been cooking – a lot. Last night it was potato cheese soup, fresh asparagus, beer bread with cheesecake for dessert.

I had made everything but the bread many times before. I don’t normally try a new recipe when I have guests but I reviewed the ingredients and thought how bad could it be?? It not only came out nicely but was the perfect compliment to the rest of the meal. Last night I was queen

Thought I’d post the recipe for anyone who was interested:

A healthful, foolproof recipe for high-fiber beer bread from the book Tailoring Your Taste, by nutritionist Omichinski:

Ingredients:
2 3/4 c all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp each sugar, baking powder
1/4 c ground flaxseed
1 tsp each salt, dried basil, dried rosemary, thyme
1/2 c unsalted sunflower seeds
1 Tbsp cooking oil
12 oz beer, at room temperature

Mix all the dry ingredients. Add oil and beer. Stir until dough is just mixed. Put dough in a greased 9x5x3-inch loaf pan. Bake at 375 F for 45 minutes or until nicely browned. Remove from oven and let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan to cool some more.