Not Your Dad's Salmon Patties

As I was growing up, the only thing my Dad cooked (other than barbecued items on the grill) was salmon patties. I have no idea why these became a tradition in our house, but at some point during every month my mother would get sick of cooking for all of us and tell Dad it was salmon patty time. I thought these were delicious at the time but as I've grown apparently so have my taste buds. The last time I made these I have to admit I thought they were horrible (sorry Dad). The were tough and dry and not at all tasty. So I made a mental note to NEVER cook them again.

Alas, since I don't live in my perfect world (where I would employ a chef), I found myself staring at a completely inadequately stocked pantry last week with my hungry firefighter breathing down my neck for dinner. The only things that caught my eye were two cans of salmon so I thought "Surely I can come up with a better recipe?"

Needless to say, it was kind of fun to venture in to the no-man's-land of cookbook-less cooking and I managed to again impress The Grump. Here's what I came up with:

Ingredients:
10 ounces canned salmon (drained)
1/2 slice dry sourdough bread
3/4 - 1 cup bread crumbs
1/2 an onion finely chopped
Worcestershire sauce
powdered mustard
dried parsley flakes
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Throw everything together in a bowl and mix. I didn't really measure how much of the seasonings I used so feel free to use whatever tastes best to you. Form into flattened patties (about 3.5 to 4 inches in diameter). Fry in canola oil until both sides are browned.

Yield: 6 patties

Well Finally

For years (yes years) now I've toyed with the idea of making a shepherd's pie but I was always a bit put off by the fact that it looked like it could get time consuming and involve cooking things just to combine them with other things and cook them again (which I get bored with). However, with my newly inspired cooking craze (thanks to all the wonderful cooking blogs I have discovered that keep me from getting too bored) I decided to try it. That and I had nothing else to cook The Grump and he likes food that he can mash up and mix together anyway.

I admit, I googled for a recipe and looked at a couple of the images, got the general idea, and then just gave up on recipes. This is not at all like me but I've gotten sick of the wisecracks I get from The Grump (a natural, no recipe, everything always comes out great, cook) when I adhere strictly to recipes so I thought "I'll show you!" and decided to wing it. Here's what I came up with (while The Grump looked on in what I flatter myself was sheer amazement):

Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients:

1/2 pound ground beef
4 large red potatoes
1/2 can crushed tomatoes
1/2 package frozen vegetables
1/2 onion chopped
2 cloves of garlic chopped
splash of Worcestershire Sauce
1 cup shredded cheese
butter
olive oil
heavy whipping cream

Directions:

Peel the potatoes and chop them coarsely. Cover them with water, add a dash of salt, and bring to a boil. Continue boiling for about 10 minutes while you prepare everything else. When the potatoes are fork tender, drain them and mash them up. I like to add a bit of heavy cream, butter, and season salt too.

In a separate pan brown the ground beef until no red remains. As you are doing that, chop up the onion and garlic and add to a skillet with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Heat until onions are translucent then add the (drained) ground beef. Stir in the tomato sauce and frozen vegetables and cook until vegetables are no longer frozen (about 5-7 minutes). Add Worcestershire sauce and cook another 3-4 minutes. Transfer ground beef mixture to a greased 8x8 inch baking dish and smooth the top.

By now, the potatoes should be about done so distribute them evenly across the top of the meat mixture and smooth until all of the meat is covered. I topped this with about a cup of shredded cheese.

Now pop it into a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes and then enjoy! This makes about 4 servings.

Newness

I love that you can change a few key appearance characteristics of your blog and - viola! - you have a whole new site! Makes me all motivated again. We'll see how long that lasts - you'll notice the new tag line about low expectations. I just plain refuse to be bogged down by a blog that no one reads! That makes sense right?

So, since I am physically (and mentally?) incapable of concentrating on one hobby for longer than a month the new one is - wait for it - cooking!

"How anticlimactic!" you might say.

But seriously, have you seen some of the cooking blogs out there? I am totally addicted. Especially to The Pioneer Woman. I just know that despite the fact that over 30,000 readers routinely enter her prize contests I will one day be the lucky winner of some wonderful bit of kitchen gadget goodness. I just have to keep telling myself that.

Anyway, the boyfriend unit is making no complaints - when he tells me he hasn't had a steak like that since his grandmother's I know I must have done something right because she was one hell of a cook. We'll see how the waistline holds up - I might actually have to enter that 5k I've been threatening to run.

Until next time......... oh and............ please feed my fish. It's addictive too.

Two Firsts

For the first time in probably 4 years or so I am going on a vacation and for the first time in (sadly) more than I year, I am posting to this blog. What better way to start the blogging habit again that by blogging about our vacation?

So, we're on our way to New Mexico for some camping and mountain biking action and true to form, we started out about 2 hours late so I am writing in the car, it's dark, and we still have about 2 hours to go. Props to us for being so on the ball. But it's been an interesting trip so far. First, we stopped for some emergency food at the Dairy Queen in Lampassas and since I love Chris I gave in to his need to eat inside at fast food restaurants rather than just zipping through the drive through like any sane person would. In addition to about 500 flies, the people were, well, interesting. There was a gay couple wearing matching white bandanas that made me wonder if they had somehow managed to find a gang to join that far out of the big city, two old men who sat down and then 15 minutes later asked us what town they were in, and the troupe of mentally challenged kids ushered in by a little old lady who I swear wanted to steal our french fries. Even Chris had to see my point about the usefulness of the drive through after that experience.

Other than that things were pretty uneventful. We've seen some beautiful scenery - I love the bluffs in northwest Texas - and we stopped to waste time for a bit in Sweetwater with Chris' family. I love it - no time constraints and no worries. Now if only the tent could pitch itself in the dark.

Stranded

Okay so I'm stuck here at work waiting on my ride and I'm bored, and I have a ton of FOs to show so I figured - why not write the blog you've been saying you're going to write soon? At the very least, it will make my ride call right before I'm ready to post but here goes.

Most recent FO:



Pattern: an adaptaion from Evelyn Clark's book
Yarn: Southwest Trading Company's Inspiration in Mountains
Needles: US 7 circulars
Notes: I really, really, really love how this turned out. My hands hurt
something fierce after binding off but it turned out beautiful.
I really loved the pattern and will dive into another of hers
(the Swallowtail Shawl) as soon as I finish Spring Things.

Speaking of which:



Pattern: Spring
Things by Susan Lawrence
Yarn: Jaeggerspun Zephyr Wool/Silk in Ruby
Needles: Knit Picks Options US 4
Notes: So far so good. I really love the yarn - sooo soft.

Also, there are socks to report but I only have pictures of one pair:





Pattern: my own
Yarn: Southwest Trading Company Inspiration (don't know the colorway)
Needles: Knit Picks Harmony Wood DPNs US 2.5
Notes: none

Also, I'm hooked on Ravelry (finally) so all of these items (and more!) are available there for your viewing pleasure (My Ravelry Page).

Touched and Inspired

I was just sitting in my office this morning and a co-worker from another department (with whom my team has been frantically working to roll out a new web system) suddenly appeared and gave me this:



How lovely! And it's my initial! Apparently it is a custom in Holland (he's Dutch) to gift people with chocolate in the form of their initial on December 5th. He missed that date by a little but who cares?! It's chocolate and it's from Holland - need I say more? I'm so touched (and apparently such a sap). Gifts are in rather short supply for me this year I'm afraid (which would account for my absolute delight at this unexpected one!).

So now, my mind is busily at work coming up with something to gift him and his team with. I think I have just the thing - pictures to follow!

Say Hello To My Little Friends

We're all still recuperating from our trip to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. Mostly I'm going through withdrawal from all the extra knitting time. The tatting I completed while I was there will soon be for sale in my Etsy store. I'm not sure it will sell for anything but at least it will make me feel like my hobby isn't a complete financial black hole.

The most wonderful thing that came from our trip (aside from the snow) is a new computer complete with internet access and printer and even a new digital camera (though I won that separately in a work related contest). I'm so excited! Now I can blog at home without looking over my shoulder or feeling guilty for stealing company resources. :)

New projects to show (and the inspiration for the title of the blog) are:


Yep you guessed it, that's the Bob pattern from the Mocimochiland blog. I had so much fun knitting it that I knit up another one for my mother and surprised her with it. I think I'll knit up a couple more to give as gifts this season. They're so fast and really pretty fun. I did have some help knitting these though:


As you can see, she's hard at work supervising. In fact, she was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn't even see the potentially hostile alien being creeping up on her:


Okay, enough horseplay, can you tell that I got a new camera and got a little snap happy? I have to get down to business if I ever hope to finish all the Christmas gifts in time. Besides, our connection was so slow last night that I couldn't get any of the pictures uploaded so here I am blogging at work again.