experimentation

I get so bored of cooking the same things all the time. I go through phases where I get really into using recipes and trying new things...then I go through phases where I just cook the same (easy, memorized) things for weeks on end. Right now, I'm in neither of those phases-- most of my cooking right now involves slapping peanut butter on bread, or ordering from the Sonic drive-thru. It's complex, but someone has to do it. This afternoon, though, I had multiple cooking tasks on my agenda.

Task #1: Amish Bread Bake Day (okay, actually bake day was yesterday, but I didn't have time yesterday. Sue me.) This stuff is a killer because you have to bake it every 10 days and it makes 2 loaves every time...so if you keep doing it, you get a little bored with the same bread over and over. Recently, though, I've began experimenting with the ingredients. I've made banana-pecan Amish bread a few times (delish), and today I decided to take a cue from Katy (okay, copy her) and make Lemon-Blueberry Amish Bread. Sub in lemon pudding for the vanilla pudding, throw in the last of last summer's frozen blueberries, and voila! An absolutely FABULOUS take on an old favorite. Feast your eyes on this:

Yes, it's as good as it looks.

And yes, I eat my bread on a paper towel. Don't judge.

Task #2: Dinner, or lack thereof.

Since we don't spend most nights here at our home-where-our-food-and-cooking-utensils-are (we're at the new house, with its barren kitchen), I haven't been buying a lot of cook-a-real-dinner ingredients. Mostly just stuff we can grab and go. But tonight, as it turns out, we were home at a good time to cook and eat some REAL FOOD (sorry, Sonic, see ya tomorrow!) So I put on my big girl pants and decided to whip up a little something using just what I had-- and here's what I could find: some random (frozen) smoked sausage from New Braunfels, TX (according to the package); red potatoes; an onion. This reminded me of German potato salad, which is a good thing, so I threw those things plus a good measure of EVOO, white vinegar, balsamic vinegar, sugar, and salt + pepper into the skillet and cooked it for awhile. The results?? Awesome!! Very tasty, and the cooked-down onions were really to die for. The potatoes didn't get as soft as I would have liked...if I make it again, I'll pre-boil them for a few minutes...but they did get the yummy browned olive-oily outside thing going on...and the vinegar/sugar flavors were fabulous. All in all, it was a good experiment-- and used up ingredients that probably would have otherwise gone bad or been thrown out (what DOES one do with random sausages?? why do I have them??)

I will now go and spend the rest of the night/week trying to NOT scarf down 2 loaves of lemon blueberry Amish Bread. Lord give me strength...