Category Archives: recipes

Keto Chicken Vegetable Soup, for When You’re Sick or for When You Just Want Soup

I have been meaning to post this Keto soup recipe, but it is the kind of recipe I make without measuring, and I knew I’d need to measure things before I could tell anyone else how to make it; and also I’d probably need to take some photos, and I don’t know how to make food look good in photos. So I kept putting it off, and then today Life of a Doctor’s Wife mentioned that she has extreme soup cravings while on keto, and so that was sufficient motivation, and I assume by now you are accustomed to the level of photojournalism you can expect around here.

It doesn’t even manage to look HOT

 

As I made the soup today, I weighed/measured things. But in almost every case, I first collected what I was going to put into the soup, and then I measured it—so most of these measurements are in no way exact, and will vary each time I make the soup. The measurements are for a single portion, and it’s fast and easy: I forgot to time it, but I started making it at 12:15 or 12:20, and at 12:55 I was done eating the soup and realizing I’d forgotten to time it. First I will write the recipe out in the “walking you through it” way, which I think makes it easier to learn the gist so that you could make your own modifications. And then after that I will write it out the normal way, so that you are not driven up a tree by having to paw through heaps of words to find the few you need.

In a small saucepan (mine is a 1-quart), I put 1.5 cups of water. I add ground pepper and ground crushed red pepper flakes, and I counted how many cranks of each, but that isn’t helpful because different grinders are more or less generous. But I did 15 cranks of the crushed red pepper flakes (ungenerous grinder), and 7 cranks of black pepper (medium-generous grinder). I turn the burner on and get the water/spices heating up while I handle the vegetables.

You can use whatever keto vegetables you like / have on hand. I use either one branch of celery, or else one jalapeno pepper (seeds/ribs fully removed), or sometimes I have half a pepper left over from something else, and then I’ll use that plus half a branch of celery. Today I had celery, so I used that; I diced it up and weighed it, and it weighed 3 ounces. I put that into the water along with the crumbs from the bottom of the bag of frozen broccoli. I go through a lot of frozen broccoli, and the crumbs are hard to eat but it feels wasteful to throw them away; this is the perfect moment for them. I weighed this particular bag of crumbs and it was 1.5 ounces, but it seemed like fewer crumbs than usual; I would think 2-3 ounces would be ideal. I put those into the water too. And maybe you don’t have broccoli crumbs, because you had like four bags of them in the freezer and realized this was ridiculous so you finally threw them out! So then you’d use celery AND a jalapeno, or maybe you’d put in non-crumb broccoli, or maybe you have other keto vegetables on hand so you’d use those instead. Whatever you have, like 5-6 ounces of it.

When the water/vegetables boil, I turn them down to a nice hearty simmer and let them cook for 5 minutes. (I would cook for longer if I were using broccoli florets instead of crumbs.) Meanwhile I have been turning my attention to the chicken. One of my keto staples is Perdue Short Cuts pre-cooked chicken breast strips. They’re perfect for when I just want to add a little chicken to an omelet or something, and they’re perfect for quick soup. I take out several pieces of chicken and dice it up; I weighed it this time and it was 3.5 ounces, but the soup seemed a little heavy on chicken this time, so I would think 3 ounces would be ideal.

When the timer rings, I add the chicken to the pan and turn the heat back up. I also add 1.5 tsp of chicken bouillon; I like the Herb Ox brand. And let’s be honest with ourselves: I kind of heap up the measuring spoon, so it’s probably more like 2 tsp. I also add a few shakes of salt. And I add a dollop of butter. Don’t skip the butter: once, I made some soup and it just did not seem very good, and I wondered if I was Over the soup—and then I realized I’d forgotten the butter. If you use a nice fatty chicken broth instead of water + bouillon, you can probably skip the butter—but otherwise, it’s the butter that stands in for the chicken fat that ought to be in there, and it is quite important—and even more so if you are sick and need Building Up! When I measured it, I used 1 tsp, but that didn’t seem like enough while I was eating the soup and so I added another half-tsp; and then I was remembering that when I first started making this soup, I sautéed the celery/pepper in butter before adding the water, and when I did it that way I was probably using more like a tablespoon of butter, and that was not too much butter. So in short, use butter one way or another, and don’t skimp on it. Butter and salt are two of the good things about keto, and they are what make this soup yummy rather than pitiful.

 

Keto Chicken Vegetable Soup

1.5 c. water
ground pepper
ground crushed red pepper flakes
5-6 ounces of keto vegetables (e.g. celery, jalapeno peppers, broccoli)
3 oz cooked chicken, diced
1 T. butter
1.5 tsp chicken bouillon
salt

In a one-quart saucepan, combine water, ground pepper, pepper flakes, and vegetables. Heat to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes or so. Add chicken, butter, bouillon, and salt, and return to a boil, then remove from heat and CONSUME.

Strawberry Cheesecake Recipe Request

May I access our hive mind? Paul would like strawberry cheesecake for his birthday dessert, and I have never made strawberry cheesecake (I believe he is imagining a plain cheesecake, with a strawberry topping). I HAVE made a very successful chocolate-crusted pumpkin cheesecake, and I’d love to just make that but completely different, but it’s not a quick ‘n’ easy modification: I could leave out the spices, but leaving out the pumpkin is a totally different matter; and I would need an entirely different crust, because I don’t want it chocolate.

I can of course search online for recipes myself, and I have been doing that for the last 20 minutes—but for one thing, I keep finding recipes for people who are BORED with strawberry cheesecake and want something FRESH, so it’s, like, “STRAWBERRY MANGO CHEESECAKE CROISSANT BITES!!” or whatever; and for another thing, we all know the best way to get a recipe is from someone who makes it all the time and knows it always works out well (see above for a chocolate-crusted pumpkin cheesecake recipe).

Unexpected Holiday Baking Fun

I realized yesterday to my dismay that I HAVE NOT BEEN WEARING MY CHRISTMASSY EARRINGS. Normally I start wearing them on December 1st! And I just somehow completely forgot until December 20th! I am not going to panic or freak out or mourn those lost days, I am just going to REALLY ENJOY wearing Christmas earrings every day from now through Christmas. And also I am going to wear glitter eyeshadow each day, to make up for the lost festivity.

It turned out, to my complete surprise, that I DID suddenly want to do a bunch of holiday baking, so it’s a good thing I bought those four pounds of sale butter on my last shopping trip! I always THINK I like and miss baking, until I am actually at the point of baking, at which point I feel uninterested and overwhelmed, so it seemed unlikely that that would change—but it DID. What happened was, I remembered how extremely happy and festive it felt last year to drop off a little plate of mixed cookies at the house of our neighbor, an older woman who lives alone. It was after I went to a cookie swap, and I ended up with kind of a lot of cookies, and I thought it would be fun to give her one each of the eight or nine kinds, and it WAS fun.

No cookie swap this year, but I still wanted to give her some cookies. And once I had that motivating seed of an idea, I built it up to myself encouragingly: I don’t have to make LOTS of kinds of cookies! Even ONE kind of cookie would be fine if it was a nice festive one like gingersnaps! And I don’t have to make tray after tray: I can make ONE tray and freeze the rest as cookie-dough balls to bake another time! And if, after making the gingersnaps, I feel like making one other kind of cookie or bar, well then how nice! But no pressure!

So I made the gingersnaps, and then I thought it was a good moment to try a recipe I got from a friend for Double Delicious cookie bars: it looked pretty quick and easy, and I’d already bought the ingredients, so why not? And then when those were in the oven, I was thinking that really MY favorite cookie was oatmeal scotchies, and if I were going to spend a lot of time baking, wouldn’t it be nice to end up with a bunch of my favorite cookies and/or cookie dough balls in the freezer for a future day? And oatmeal scotchies aren’t particularly festive-looking, but they’d look nice/assorted on a plate with ginger snaps and cookie bars. So I made oatmeal scotchies.

Well, and that was apparently the tipping point: seeing that second large ziploc bag of frozen dough-balls in the freezer on top of a large ziploc bag of cookie bars must have set off some sort of canning/preserving-related instinct. So then I made mint brownies (Paul: “Oh, when you said mint brownies I was hoping you meant the ones with the crackly mint topping“—so I’ve booted him into the sun). And then I tried to go play Candy Crush or browse Twitter, but I was restless and felt like doing something else, and I realized what I felt like doing was ADDING MORE BAGS OF TREATS TO THE FREEZER, so I made Homemade Nutter Butters, which are one of the best cookies I have EVER eaten and I don’t even think of myself as particularly liking peanut butter cookies. (I don’t make them in peanut shapes, because that’s a giant pain that adds a lot of time/fuss to a recipe that is already a little time-consuming and fussy; I just make them round. And if you have a #70 disher ((the small Oxo cookie scoop is a #70 disher)) you can use that to make the cookie balls and also to measure the filling, and it’ll come out just about perfect if you have eaten the right amount of dough, which is about five cookies’ worth.)

And after I made those, I didn’t have time to make anything else before bed, so instead I made a list of all the things I might choose from to make today: fudge! penuche! some sort of bark! those pretzel/Kiss/M&M things, which add such a nice little spot of color and interest! Christmas Crack, which I’ve never made but have heard people rave about! those little round cookies that have a Hershey Kiss or mini Reese’s pushed into the center! No-Bakes! Flourless Fudge Cookies! I am having a lot of unexpected fun with this.

Archer Farms Monster Trail Mix Recipe (With Regular-Size M&M’s OR Mini M&M’s) PLUS Cost Comparison

Post 1 on this topic: Figuring Out the Proportion of Ingredients in Archer Farms Monster Trail Mix
Post 2 on this topic: Figuring Out the Proportion of Ingredients in Archer Farms Monster Trail Mix: DO-OVER!

You may wonder why, in the title, I make a point about M&M size. It is because, when I was for some now-forgotten reason reading the reviews on Target for this trail mix, I saw a LOT of comments complaining about the switch from full-size to mini M&M’s, along with a number of comments praising the change. I just want to make it clear I take NO STANCE on this obviously very controversial issue, and am currently using the regular-size M&M’s because my grocery store is not stocking the mini ones.

In case you are here for the recipe and not for the post (I have heard all the arguments FOR and AGAINST lonnnnnnnnnnnng posts before you get to the recipe, but if it’s on a blog I don’t usually follow, I generally scroll rapidly down to the actual recipe), the recipe is:

7.9 ounces unsalted roasted peanuts
4.2 ounces milk chocolate chips
7.2 ounces raisins
4.0 ounces peanut butter chips
4.9 ounces of either regular-size or mini M&M’s.

(I’ve linked to the ones I’ve been buying, except in the case of the M&M’s: they have not been available for shipping lately so I’ve been buying those at my grocery store. Also, I usually buy Party-size bag rather than Family-size, but assumed most people wouldn’t want to commit to that big of a bag of them.)

Anyway, here is how I make it. First, all set up on the counter: my kitchen scale, which I have tared to include the measuring bowl; my big mixing bowl; the empty container of trail mix we keep reusing; and the recipe.

And, on a nearby kitchen stool: the box of ingredients, boxed in the hope that it will keep the children from snorfing up all the ingredients before I can use them; also, one cat (optional) (not recommended).

 

Here is how it looks after I’ve weighed all the ingredients but right before I put my (freshly-washed) hands into the bowl to mix it all together:

After I mix it, I tip it all to one side of the bowl and use the container to scoop a good deal of it up. Then I pour the rest into the container, using my hands to coax the mix into a narrower pour than it would by nature be inclined.

And here it is tucked tidily into its container, ready for the children to consume the contents and leave the empty container on the counter to be refilled:

The thought may be crossing your mind that I could have the children make the recipe and refill the container themselves. It will not, I hope, surprise you to hear that that idea has already occurred to me: it’s not a difficult recipe or idea; I don’t love seeing the empty container waiting for me; and I don’t eat the trail mix, so it doesn’t make sense for me to be the one to make it. But within seconds of thinking of that idea, I thought of a serious flaw, based on remembering being a child: as a child, given this recipe to assemble, it is absolutely certain that I would have gone wayyyyyyy light on the peanuts and raisins and wayyyyyyy heavy on everything else. Also, I would have eaten many, many M&M’s and chocolate/PB chips as I worked—possibly just as many as I used in the mix. And one of the main reasons I don’t mind the children eating a trail mix full of M&M’s and chocolate/PB chips is that they are ALSO eating peanuts and raisins (unless they are discreetly dumping those into the trash, in which case I am happier not knowing about it). Therefore I am in charge of the mix. Plus, it’s relatively fun to make, once I nudge aside the resentful feelings.

Now! For the cost comparison. The container of trail mix is selling at my Target for $7.99 right now. I used to wait for it to go on sale before buying it, but that was In The Beforetimes, so $7.99 is the price we will be comparing the home-assembled mix to. Here, once again, are the ingredients I use:

7.9 ounces unsalted roasted peanuts
4.2 ounces milk chocolate chips
7.2 ounces raisins
4.0 ounces peanut butter chips
4.9 ounces of either regular-size or mini M&M’s, or what I’ve been buying, which is the Party-size bag of the regular-size M&M’s.

Using today’s prices (U.S. dollars) on Target.com (because I have not been in a Target store since March):

• The peanuts are $2.79 for 16 ounces, which is $.17/ounce. I use 7.9 ounces, which is $1.38.

• The milk chocolate chips are $1.99 for 11.5 ounces, which is $.17/ounce. I use 4.2 ounces, which is $.73.

• The raisins are $2.99 for 20 ounces, which is $.15/ounce. I use 7.2 ounces, which is $1.08.

• The peanut butter chips are $2.39 for 10 ounces, which is $.24/ounce. I use 4 ounces, which is $.96.

• The Party-size bag of regular-size M&M’s is $9.59 for 38 ounces, which is $.25/ounce; I use 4.9 ounces, which is $1.24. The Family-size bag of regular-size M&M’s is $4.99 for 19.2 ounces, which is $.26/ounce; 4.9 ounces is $1.27. The Family-size bag of mini M&M’s is $4.99 for 18 ounces, which is $.28/ounce; 4.9 ounces is $1.36.

So TODAY’S trail mix cost:

$1.38 peanuts
$0.73 chocolate chips
$1.08 raisins
$0.96 PB chips
$1.24 M&M’s

A total of $5.39.

But we can’t compare that to the $7.99, because my mixture weighs less: the Archer Farms container holds 36 ounces, and I made only 28.2 ounces. The Archer Farms mix is $.22/ounce, and mine is $.19/ounce. If I’d made the same amount as the Archer Farms container held, mine would cost $6.88 for 36 ounces, assuming all those many maths check out.

So! Mine is cheaper! Which is gratifying! But! When I used to buy it on sale, it used to be about $6.99. So mine is not enough cheaper to justify making it at home in Normal Times, UNLESS I had specific reasons for wanting to do it, like wanting to adjust proportions.

Grocery Shopping; Two Coleslaw Recipes

It has been awhile since we have checked in about grocery shopping! Partly it’s because there’s been less to report. Supplies have seemed steadier overall, with a few persistent exceptions: usual bread still not available, usual pizza sauce still not available, disinfecting wipes/sprays and my usual disinfectant cleaning spritzes still not available, still only a few kinds of chicken nuggets, still very little yeast, still only unfamiliar-brand hand sanitizer in what looks like water bottles. Frozen fruit is still patchy, but better. Vegetarian meat-equivalents have been VERY patchy, but I’ve been able to find enough to get by.

I don’t think anything at my grocery store is currently limited to a certain number of items per customer: not the meat, not the flour, not the sugar, not even the toilet paper or paper towels. In fact, the paper products aisle is STUFFED FULL, with extra paper towels taking up space in the still-depleted cleaning-supply section.

I’m noticing a LOT of store-brand merchandise, including for products that didn’t used to have a store brand (or perhaps I just hadn’t noticed the store brand, and/or it wasn’t so prominent before). I’d heard online that soy sauce was hard to find, so I checked for it, and on the shelf was one single extra-large bottle of Kikkoman soy sauce, and the rest of TWO ENTIRE SHELVES was filled with store-brand soy sauce. And they were out of our usual pasta sauce, and that area of the shelf was filled with a store-brand equivalent I don’t remember ever seeing before. Most of the abundance of paper towels and toilet paper are the store-brand.

Eggs have been oddly small. We’ve had some dozens where some of the eggs are regular size but maybe half of them are so small I use three eggs as the equivalent of two.

Flour variety is still patchy. Last week I went to the smaller branch of our grocery store that’s nearer to us (during the pandemic I’ve been going more often to the larger branch further away, because they have better supplies and wider aisles), and they had only two kinds of flour, and also I noticed they were charging SEVEN FORTY-NINE for it. I know such things vary regionally, so for comparison this was for the more-expensive-brand flour that is usually right around four dollars at that exact store. I wonder how long I might have been paying $7.49 without noticing? I am normally a price-noticer, but the last few months I have not had the available neurons for that—and also, with some products out of stock and others filling in the gaps, it can be hard to even find the price. Today I went to the larger branch, and they had MANY more kinds of flour (even the unbleached version of one brand), and they were charging normal prices for it. But it makes me wonder if the reason our grocery bill has been high is not just that I’m buying more per trip, but also that things have been priced higher than usual without me noticing.

I have been craving coleslaw, so I bought another bag of the pre-shredded cabbage blend to make it with, and when I got home I noticed it said “Use by July 28” on it. (Today is July 31.) Not even “sell by,” but USE by. (Checking expiration dates is another task I don’t have the available neurons for.) It didn’t seem slimy, just extra cabbage-fragrant; I made coleslaw out of it anyway. Do you want my coleslaw recipe? It’s based on my dad’s recipe, but he uses Miracle Whip so I changed it to accommodate mayonnaise. Here’s my dad’s recipe, if you use Miracle Whip:

Swistle’s Dad’s Coleslaw Recipe (Miracle Whip)
1 lb. shredded coleslaw mix
3/4 c. Miracle Whip
1.5 T. sugar
1.5 T. vinegar

Mix all ingredients together. Refrigerate awhile to allow flavors to blend.

 

We used to use Miracle Whip, too, but then I was on keto so we switched to mayonnaise and we haven’t switched back, at least not yet. I looked up how to substitute mayonnaise for Miracle Whip, and found several LONG and INVOLVED recipes, including one that wanted me to COOK the mayonnaise with the additional ingredients (honey, no), but looking at a bunch of different recipes it seemed as if the gist was that if I used mayonnaise I should add some vinegar, sugar, and salt. Since my dad’s recipe already calls for vinegar and sugar, I just used more. I also added salt. And then I impulsively shook in a little bottled lemon juice. So here’s my recipe, if you use mayonnaise:

Swistle’s Coleslaw Recipe (Mayonnaise)
1 lb shredded coleslaw mix
3/4 c. mayonnaise
2 T. sugar
2.5 T. vinegar
a good pinch of salt
like a teaspoon or so of lemon juice

None of that seems like it has to be super precise. I put in more like 1.5 T. of sugar when I made it today, because 2 T. just seemed like kind of a lot; we’ll see if it makes a difference. [Update: It made a difference. Not a good difference. I added more sugar. I like non-sweet coleslaw recipes, too, but this is a sweet/tart one and it needs the sweet to balance the tart.] I like to mix everything except the bag of shreddies in a big plastic bowl, then add the shredded stuff and stir it, then spatula it into a 1.5-quart lidded glass bowl. I know that makes for an extra bowl to clean, but I don’t like to have to be careful when I’m stirring, and coleslaw is fun to stir, and the extra bowl is quick to wash.

 

For the past FOUR trips (remember we’re still talking about grocery shopping), the store has been out of the Gardein Beefless Ground I use for the vegetarians in our household. We have tried other brands, and none of the ones we’ve tried have been anywhere near as good. This time they FINALLY had it back in stock, and I bought three bags—but now they’re out of the Morning Star faux-chicken patties and nuggets.

I am still doing the shopping before my daily shower, so that afterward I can shower off the real and imaginary germs without feeling as if perhaps I am going a bit far with this. Also, I am much more tolerant of being hot/sweaty if I know I’ll be showering soon, and it’s always hot and humid now. Also, because of the heat/humidity, I need to get the groceries inside and put away QUICKLY, which means I end up even hotter and sweatier and stressier. A nice cool shower is a good reset button. (And I count the shopping and putting-away as my exercise for the day.)

Speaking of the heat and humidity, I was explaining to Elizabeth that I would not be able to successfully purchase the Klondike bars she was hoping for: the grocery store I was planning to go to is 20 minutes away, and I don’t like to count on the ice cream making it that long in summer. She suggested bringing an insulated bag, and I reminded her that the store is not currently allowing customers to bring in their own bags. “…But you can still use it in the car,” she explained gently. My goodness, imagine having all those fresh youthful brain cells!

So I DID bring the insulated bag, with several ice packs in it. Normally (normally during a pandemic, I mean), when I come out to the car after shopping I triage the groceries a little, putting things that don’t mind the heat so much (toilet paper, flour, cereal, canned stuff) into the trunk, and the rest of the stuff into the air-conditioned interior (this helps me prioritize things to bring in / put away soonest when I get home, too); and this time I added the extra step of putting some of the frozen stuff (the Klondike bars, the frozen fruit) into the insulated bag. It was GREAT. I have added “insulated bag and ice packs” to my pre-grocery-shopping checklist. I might purchase MORE insulated bags.

 

How has your grocery shopping been going lately? Do you have a coleslaw recipe you like?

Two Cooking Questions: Unsweetened Coconut Milk and Tater Tot Casserole/Hotdish

I have two cooking questions. The first involves the two 13.5-ounce cans of unsweetened coconut milk I received instead of the two cans of soup I ordered. I am not going to trouble Target with such an error at a time like this, when they are no doubt very busy. So what do I do with unsweetened coconut milk? And does anyone know if unsweetened is the default? Like, if a recipe calls for “coconut milk,” is it assuming unsweetened? or is it assuming sweetened, and has to specify if unsweetened?

The second question involves the thing I have heard of called Tater Tot Casserole/Hotdish. I have never had it or made it, but I feel instinctively that now is the time. I have a bag of tater tots, but I need a tried-and-true recipe.

Righteous Vegetable Breakfast

I am crabby this morning, but I don’t think I was crabby before Paul asked me five times why I was crabby this morning.

This morning I had one of my favorite breakfasts, but I hesitate to tell you about this breakfast because I think it sounds untrue and also very much like Food Righteousness Humble-Bragging—like, “Oh, for snacking I like nothing better than a giant bowl of raw cauliflower! Yum yum!” / “Oh, I just made SUCH a pig of myself on raw veggies and air-popped/butter-free/salt-free popcorn last night!” Like, OBVIOUSLY anyone’s favorite breakfast would be stuffed french toast with strawberries and whipped cream, sausage AND bacon, hash browns, scrambled eggs, and a side of sourdough toast with butter and jam, not this vegetable nonsense I must be pretending to find delicious so that I can brag to you about how many vegetables I just LOVE to eat. (I do also very much like the french toast breakfast and am worried I will never get to have it again.)

Actually I see I have already posted about this breakfast here. The recipe evolved after that post, so that now I make it with one egg and more like 3/4ths Ziploc steamer bag (this thing, if you haven’t used one before) of vegetables. I will try to give approximate measurements because I so resented my mother-in-law’s refusal to give any on the family recipes she wanted to hand down (a cinnamon roll recipe that calls for “a batch of dough” and “some butter and brown sugar” cannot be called “her” recipe), but I am not precise with any of this and you can adjust it for what vegetables YOU like/have. I like some frozen corn (3-4 T.?); a generous all-fingers-pinch of pre-shredded carrots (the ones that are really thick shreds) or else five or so baby carrots cut into thickish coins (I don’t like them to get to the mushy/sweet level of cooked); a few pieces of frozen cauliflower; and the rest of the way filled with frozen broccoli; microwave in the steam bag for 4-5 minutes depending on your microwave and how cooked you like your vegetables (they’ll cook a little more in the pan with the egg). I also cut up some red bell pepper (2-3 T.?) and cook it with the egg before adding the rest of the steamed/drained vegetables and chopping everything up small with the spatula. Then plenty of salt and sriracha and shredded cheese: I zig-zag the sriracha back and forth across the whole pan of egg/vegetables, and I put in about two big pinches of the cheese and stir it all up. I like the pre-shredded kind of cheese because it has a very little tiny bit of starch added to keep the shreds separate, and this makes it melt beautifully; when I tried to shred some cheddar off a block of it, it seemed like it just kind of turned into liquid and mostly disappeared. Plus it was more work.

This also makes a pretty good side dish to divide among multiple people. You might think, “Oh, I will just leave out the scrambled egg because it seems weird to have scrambled egg in a dinnertime vegetable side dish,” but I wouldn’t if I were you. My sister-in-law described the egg as “adding richness” and I’d say that’s just right. I have also tried leaving out the cheese, and that was a mistake. Obviously if you can’t eat cheese or can’t eat egg you’d have to leave them out, but I’d think of it an egg-and-cheese recipe with vegetables, so it would be like the comments on an online recipe: “I can’t eat gluten or dairy, and this mac-and-cheese recipe was TERRIBLE without gluten or dairy.”

I’m sorry I spent three paragraphs talking about my breakfast. Do you want to talk about YOUR breakfast? I will listen attentively.

The Best Chocolate Cake Mix (or, Okay, Scratch Recipe)

I don’t know why I ever ask anything on Twitter when I know perfectly well I will never be able to find that information again and instead will be searching futilely in my blog archives for it, thinking “I KNOW I asked about chocolate cake mixes, I KNOW I did, so where IS it??”

And so I hope you will indulge me in a little time-travel. I am going to ask AGAIN here, and those of you who are willing to indulge this ridiculous ask are going to say your opinions AGAIN, and THEN it will be here as a reference later. We are going to pretend that I have not already chosen a chocolate cake option, and that the Hershey’s-chocolate-cake,-the-one-with-boiling-water-at-the-end is not in fact in the oven RIGHT NOW, looking and smelling delicious, and I am going to ask again as I asked on Twitter:

Because I REALLY DID/DO want to know your favorite chocolate cake mix! I am continually standing in the baking aisle of the grocery store, looking at cake mixes and remembering that I had a STRONG preference for either Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker, but WHICH??? And/or should I take a chance on one of the third-party cake-mix options?

But ALSO, it turned out I had a STRONG spite urge to defeat Paul’s family’s “Crazy Cake” scratch-cake recipe. (If you are feeling a little defensive of the recipe, I think you might feel better if you read the posts I linked to, which go on and On and ON about how I DO understand about sentimental/family/traditional/hard-times recipes, and that this is mostly an issue not with disliking the actual cake but more with disliking my mother-in-law.) (Though for heaven’s sake, 2 T. of cocoa is not enough for an ENTIRE CAKE in times when we have the option to do more.) The Hershey cake, with SIX TIMES the amount of cocoa of the Depression Cake, seemed like a good candidate for the first round.

Now, with wide innocent eyes, I ask you as if for the first time for your favorite chocolate-cake CAKE MIX. (Or scratch recipe, if it isn’t made with hard-times rationing ingredients.) (But I REALLY want to know which mixes you like best.)

Office Party Report: Recipe for Little Spiral Sandwich Bites, Pictures of the Outfit

The office party went fine! Which is I think just about the best that can be said for an office party! I successfully handed over the hostess gift, I met people, I shook hands, I made small-talk, I sipped the wine, I praised the food, I said a gracious and grateful farewell. It was a four-hour open house, and we stayed one-and-a-half hours. Bonus: the one thing I was most worried about, which is that every single advanced professional would in turn ask me “So, what do you do?” DID NOT HAPPEN EVEN ONE TIME.

There was a sign-up sheet for what to bring, and it would be fun to say it was Paul’s fault I didn’t know about it before consulting you, but the fact of the matter is that he showed it to me earlier and we were both completely overwhelmed by it (18/30 slots filled for appetizer, 23/30 slots filled for dessert, etc.) and also overwhelmed by everything in general, so we decided that with so many slots still available in every category, and so many total slots to fill, we would just choose what we wanted to bring without regard for available slots.

But then there were so many good ideas in the comments section of that post, and it was hard to pick. So THEN we went back to the sign-up sheet, and we noticed that, for example, there were already many, many people signed up for cheese-and-crackers, fruits-and-vegetables, and dips (the top three contenders), so we scanned everything else and noticed that only one person had signed up for finger sandwiches. I brought a tray of egg-salad finger sandwiches, which were barely touched (I think they looked Too Big, and also maybe Someone Else’s Egg Salad is a risky proposition), and I also brought a tray of my mom’s friend’s spiral sandwich bites, which were gone almost immediately, and those are what I will bring from now on, because in addition to being yummy they were pretty. I will try to remember to take a picture the next time I make them, and add it to this post. [Edited to add: I remembered to do this! I only made them with spinach wraps this time, because I thought those looked better. I’m not sure the picture does them justice, but at least you get the idea:]

I will tell you basically how to make them. If you have made cinnamon rolls, you are going to recognize the gist of the technique. My mom’s friend uses burrito-size tortillas; I used sandwich wraps in spinach (green) and tomato (coral) because I wanted the color. Take a sandwich wrap and spread it with a spready cheese. Then put down a layer of thinly-sliced deli meat (I did three slices of meat per wrap). Then a layer of a yummy sauce. Then a scattering of something interesting. Then a layer of lettuce. Then salt/pepper if you want. The fillings should stop about one-half inch from the border of the tortilla/wrap, but it’s not a huge deal; this is mostly to keep them from pushing out as you roll, and if some DO push out, you can trim them off; it matters most on the far end of the tortilla (the place where you’ll finish rolling) because you’ll cut the sides off anyway. Roll the whole thing up as tightly as you can, and wrap it in plastic-wrap nice and tightly (I made a hot mess of this but everything was fine anyway), and put it in the fridge for a couple hours (I don’t know if length of time is important; the idea is to get everything all firmed up and accustomed to its new rolly form, especially the spready cheese which you might have softened to make it more spready.) About 15 minutes-per-two-rolls before you leave for the party (and this might be quicker once you’ve gotten the hang of it, but it was a learning curve for me), unwrap a roll, put it on a cutting board, trim off the messy end, and then cut off slices—about half an inch each? I think? I am not good at estimating measurements. I speared each slice with a frilly-ended toothpick before actually slicing it off, then sliced the slice (using a bread knife to reduce roll-squashing), then pushed the toothpick further in so it stuck out the other side of the slice, then put the slice on a plate with all the frilly ends facing toward the outside of the plate. Two rolls was enough to lightly fill a large paper plate; it would have looked better with one-half to one more roll’s worth on there.

I did two different fillings, but you can do whatever you are familiar with and like the flavors of. For one, I did a layer of jalapeño cream cheese; then a layer of deli baked ham; then a layer of a sauce Paul makes out of mayo, yellow mustard, and creamy horseradish; then I skipped the Something Interesting because I forgot (I’d planned to do minced-up banana peppers, or minced-up black olives); then a layer of lettuce; then salt. The lettuce made it hard to roll (I used iceberg) but was so good in the finished item, I wouldn’t skip it; I might experiment with a bendier lettuce, maybe baby spinach.

For the other, I did a layer of regular cream cheese (microwaved to make it more spreadable); then a layer of honey-cured deli turkey; then a layer of most of an extra packet of Wendy’s honey mustard sauce (the kind you can get when you order nuggets) I had in the fridge; then some cut-up dried cranberries; then lettuce; then salt.

My outfit was Just Right, I’d say—or maybe it would be better to say I felt exactly comfortable in the range of what other people were wearing, which varied from “gold skirt with tight black velvet top and black velvet heels” to “khakis and a sweater.” One hitch was that my matte-gold-sequined tank top was much too big. Those of you who have lost weight at some point (some of us many, many, many times) will recognize that bad-good feeling of putting on a reliable favorite and finding it too big. The tank top used to have a more bodacious effect, but now it is more flapper/tunic. Well, it was fine. Here’s the whole outfit:

I have no idea how to handle this new WordPress format, which from my point of view just uploaded all the photos into a block of six. It works for me, I guess, but isn’t what I was expecting, and we’ll see what it looks like after publishing. Anyway there should be a view of the whole outfit (unfortunately with my phone blocking neckline/necklace—but note fancy wrists/hem on cardigan); a close-up of the black sequined shoes (last-minute substitution for the cranberry velvet, which worked better when this outfit included dark-wash bootcut jeans); a close-up of the velvet flocking on the pants; an attempt to capture the combination of tank-top plus cardigan plus necklace plus earring (this view more accurately represents the color of the cardigan); the shimmery fingernails done at the last hour when I realized I hadn’t done my nails; and the earrings/necklace/ring.

I’m adding a section here because I always want to know where people got their clothes. I got the black sequin shoes on Amazon, and I highly recommend them despite the crummy product photos. They are cheap and cute, and I have them in black and in silver; they’d be a fun gift idea. I got the black flocked-velvet pants from Roaman’s, on a good sale (Roaman’s is the kind of place where everything’s pretty much always on sale). I got the cardigan from Marshalls a few years ago; the brand is Belldini (I just looked on the Belldini site to see if I could find something similar, and now feel driven to tell you I paid $24.99 at Marshalls.) I got the matte-gold-sequined tank top from Old Navy a few years ago. The flower necklace…I forget. Target, probably. The earrings are from Claire’s several years ago; it was a six-pack of the same earrings in different colors. The ring was my grandmother’s. Nail polish is OPI in Super Star Status, and it dries super-fast; I probably got it from Marshalls last year.

Turkey-Vegetable-Egg Scramble Recipe and Gift Ideas from Swistle’s House

I was going to tell you about one of my favorite ways to use leftover turkey, but then I realized it also uses up an atypical Thanksgiving side dish so let’s start with that. It’s an easy vegetable dish that I started making as a thing to go with salmon and rice. I’m afraid this is one of those recipes without good measurements; if I’d realized I was going to tell it to you, I would have measured as I made it last time. But I will try to at least give you an IDEA of the measurements, unlike my late mother-in-law who gave me her treasured cinnamon roll recipe that tells me to combine “cinnamon, butter, and sugar”—no measurements at all.

Cut up one red bell pepper, one small/medium summer squash or zucchini (I don’t peel it), and some carrots (I do peel those, or else I use baby carrots). The goal is to have about equal amounts of the three vegetables, all in smaller than bite-sized pieces because I like to have a couple of pieces combined with each bite of whatever else I’m eating; I cut the carrots in not-too-thin slices because I don’t like them to get mushy and cooked-carroty. I put all the cut-up vegetables in a 2-quart casserole dish because that’s the only one I have that has a lid, but they don’t fill it so you could use something smaller. I pour on some bottled lemon juice; my guess is that I put on a tablespoon or two. Then I add a pinch or two of thyme, and some ground pepper, and stir it all up. (You could skip the thyme/pepper or use a different spice.) Then I drop in a blop of butter, probably a tablespoon. I put the lid on, and I put it in the oven for roughly half an hour at roughly 350 degrees F, but really it goes in with whatever I’m cooking—so if I’m cooking at 400 degrees F, it goes in at 400 degrees F and I just take it out sooner. When it’s done, I give it another stir to mix the butter around, and I add some salt.

So! Now for how I use up the leftover turkey: scramble some eggs with cut-up turkey and a good scoop of these vegetables (ideally the right number so that every bite has one piece of egg, one piece of turkey, and one to two pieces of vegetable), plus as much Tostitos Queso Blanco dip as I can heap on a spoon. Just stir it alllll around.

Now. What was it I was going to say after the recipe part? Oh, yes! Today we are doing Gift Ideas from Swistle’s House: I am going to wander through my house finding things I highly recommend buying for other people. This idea seemed so great when I thought of it, but the execution was more challenging than anticipated: one’s own possessions sort of VANISH into the house, so that even though I periodically think, “Oh, I just love this shower radio; I should recommend it!,” I don’t then SEE the shower radio when I’m looking for gift ideas. Well, I did see the shower radio. But there are other things I DIDN’T see, is my guess.

Bloom County Complete Library. Children ruin everything, including one’s cherished paperback Bloom County books. There are five hardcover volumes altogether (I have the first three, because those are my favorite era of Bloom County), and the children are not allowed to touch them.

Texts from Jane Eyre. These are even funnier if you’ve read all the books featuring these characters, I imagine, but I haven’t read Wuthering Heights and still laughed a LOT at Cathy and Heathcliff’s texts:

good that’s so much love

 

Tinted Chapstick in Merlot, for someone’s stocking. It’s $4.99 at Target, sometimes a better price on Amazon. It’s just the right amount of color for not needing to look in the mirror. I tried Hello Bordeaux as well, and it’s pretty good but a little bright on me; the Merlot is my definite favorite.

Burt’s Bees Lip Shimmer in Plum. A more intense color; I need the mirror for it.

 

The promised shower radio. This surprisingly expensive item ($80 as I’m posting) happened because Paul ordered me a much less expensive one that we couldn’t get to work, and he got frustrated and ordered this one to replace it. Anyway, I love it. I use it the whole time I’m getting ready in the morning. If you don’t need Bluetooth, there’s a radio-only version for $60 at time of posting.

 

Drambuie. My friend Miss Grace suggested this when I had a lingering cough that was driving me crazy. I bought it as Very Expensive Cough Syrup (it’s around $30 for the bottle), but now I like to have a bottle on hand for occasional treats: it’s one of the only liquors I like the taste of well enough to sip. It’s sweet and warming, and I guess it tastes like black licorice but I strongly dislike black licorice so I don’t understand why I like it, then. To me it tastes more like honey and spice, not spice like pumpkin spice but more like…well, licorice. But I don’t LIKE licorice! It’s puzzling.

 

Honeywell Circulator Fan. I tend to run hot, and I hate being hot, so I love this fan. It’s just the right size to get a pleasant breeze going, and it tips to various angles. I discovered it because my sister-in-law put one in their guest room and I stayed over and it was perfect.

 

Munchkin Deluxe. I hate this game. But the children love it, and fortunately Paul will play it with them. We also have the Munchkin Apocalypse, which is a complete playable game on its own (but not Deluxe, so it doesn’t have the playing board) but can also be used as an expansion pack with the basic game.

 

Vintage Charm Lidded Bowls. These try very hard to imply that they are Pyrex, but as far as I can tell, they are not. They are INSPIRED by Pyrex. I do love them so much, and they have LIDS. The price goes up and down a lot; I got a pack of three bowls with three lids on a Goldbox deal for $20, but more often they seem to be in the $30s.

 

Melissa and Doug giraffe. Have I…mentioned this giraffe before, or is this a little awkward? I bought it impulsively on clearance at HomeGoods last year and it is one of the joys of my life. The comments/photos on Amazon are funny/entertaining and show that others feel the same about their giraffes. We often dress her in hats and scarves, but I happened to catch her in a contemplative moment right between wearing a small turkey on her head and being draped in Christmas lights and a Santa hat.

 

Anker PowerCore 5000 portable phone charger, or the smaller/lighter Anker PowerCore Mini 3350. My brother bought me one of these for Christmas one year and now I always have one in my purse. We have about five of them total because they help soothe my Disaster/Preparation Anxieties, too.

 

Dishers! I have the Oxo small (2 teaspoons) and the Oxo medium (1.5 tablespoons), both of which are good for cookies, depending on how big you like to make cookies. I also have a Vollrath size 20 (1-5/8ths ounce), which is good for muffins. They are surprisingly expensive, so they make nice gifts. Paul gave me the Vollrath one and I thought it was way too expensive until I tried it, at which point I added “more dishers” to my wish list.

TacoProper Taco Holders. Before we had these, it was impossible to contemplate dishing up plates of tacos for five children. By the way, I don’t have any but have you seen the triceratops taco holders? I love them.

Joie Oink pig spatula. A good spatula AND ALSO VERY CUTE. The mini ones are good for scraping the last bits of peanut butter out of the peanut butter jar and into your mouth.

The cuteness of the pig spatulas reminds me of my Happy Spoons (not shown—they’re in a utensil jar on the counter).

 

LG microwave. Speaking of expensive. But maybe you and a house-sharing adult like to buy each other household appliances for holidays. The price varies a bit; I bought it for about $150, but I’ve mostly seen it higher than that. It is not a compact microwave, by the way, and I hadn’t realized there was a difference, so that was a bit of a surprise (our old microwave was compact). I was like, “Look how it fits EXACTLY on the microwave cart! …..Ohhhhhhhhhh!”

 

Denim 24/7 Bootcut Jeans. I really like these. (Don’t buy anything on the Roaman’s site for full price: they are the kind of site that has constant sales.) I have them in a few different shades of denim (I particularly like Stonewash Sanded), and recently got bold and ordered them in Red Ochre, which reminds me of the red-orange Crayola crayon. I wish I’d been a little bolder and gotten the Golden Amber instead, which I wanted more than the red-orange but was also more nervous about wearing; I saw them on someone else and they were fabulous. Well. I’ll add them to the next order.

 

Wet Brush. I bought this because Kelly told me to (which is also why I have Daisy razors instead of the crummy ones I used to have). You don’t have to use it on wet hair. It’s the best brush I’ve ever owned, and Elizabeth and I now own four of them between us. For a gift, I recommend combining it with a Turbie Twist hair towel.

 

Duluth Fire Hose pants. If you are buying for a gentleman who prefers pants to be cargo and sturdy, I can tell you that Paul says these are the best pants he has ever owned. They have pockets upon pockets within pockets, and they seem beautifully stitched. Furthermore, his barber took one look and said “Great pants. Duluth?” Also, as the one who does the laundry, I can add that they don’t get all wrinkly in the dryer if you don’t take them out right away. They are kind of expensive; sign up for the email list first, because they have constant sales of the “25% off plus free shipping” type. If you need something to bring the total up a bit to meet a free-shipping requirement, Paul also likes their Big Ass Bricks of Soap.