Author: teacher-chef

“40” Garlic Chicken

“40” Garlic Chicken

FALL OFF THE BONE… When you hear those words, you know you are eating something delicious! As this chicken made its way to the plate and people started to take their first bites, I heard the comments “how long did this cook” “it melts in 

French Onion Soup

French Onion Soup

I have really had a craving for French Onion Soup – and in all honesty, I figured since I have become a better chef over the past few months (years) – why not just create it myself! I was amazed when I found this recipe 

Lehigh acceptance!

Lehigh acceptance!

Rich LOVES cookie dough…Cookie Dough

I found this out when we first started dating & it just so happens my mom brought me up to be an expert at reading the back of the Nestle’s chocolate chip bags in order to create the best chocolate chip cookies (and dough) that one can make. There are lots of debates about cookies & cookie dough [and my mom’s are awesome, and she learned from “Aunt Jean”] – but I really think that Nestle has this one right and its one of those “don’t mess with a good thing” (although I do 50/50 on butter/shortening because I feel you get the best crunchy/chewy ratio that way.

SO – when we found out that Rich not only got a great score on his GMAT, but that also got accepted into the Lehigh MBA program I knew it was time to celebrate!

Veggie LasagnaI started the evening off by making him veggie lasagna (bottom layer mushrooms & garlic, middle layer frozen spinach, top layer onions). This is one of those “recipes” that I don’t follow to a “T” (or at all – you take your basic lasagna that you grew up with/love & roll with it) which is frustrating fun when it comes out different every time I make it!

I promised him some cookie dough to celebrate his acceptance (I plan on trying to figure out some new fun ways to make cookie dough. Hopefully we have a lifetime of experimentation to figure out lots of fun new ways to make this treat for him 😉

Lehigh Cookie Dough

Congratulations to Rich on his acceptance & may this just be one more step for you on the way to all your dreams falling into place!

Always remember [my advice that I am giving out free of charge – just for today]: Life hands us many twists and turns & we need to hold onto all those happy times to get you through the sad ones!!

Loaded Potato & Beer Soup

Loaded Potato & Beer Soup

A few weeks ago we had a “quiet” day planned for Rich to study for his GMAT exam  (he ended up scoring in the 75% percentile – more on that later) and my parents were going to join us to see the High School production 

Chocolate & Cheesecake Bars

Chocolate & Cheesecake Bars

At school we do a weekly Friday Breakfast. Every Friday we have about a 1/2 dozen people scheduled to bring in goodies. These breakfast treats range from store-bought bakery items, cut fruits, & bagels to homemade treats ranging from award winning desserts to egg casseroles 

Cooking to Cope

Cooking to Cope

I’m sorry for the lack of posts this past week-ish, but this has been last priority!

About 2 weeks ago my grandmother (on my mom’s side) told me that my grandfather had pneumonia and the doctors wanted to send him to the hospital, but his is stubborn & old and didn’t want to go, so he didn’t! Then about a week and a half ago he went to two different doctors (his doctors love to see him: eyes, heart, teeth, old people things, etc) one referred him to someone else for the following week and the other scheduled an appointment for 4 months. Then my grandparents went to the store and went on their way, so later that evening my grandmother looks at my grandfather who is now ashy-colored and called the ambulance.

The admitted him, gave him oxygen & he was ok. The next day they tried to give him food for lunch (my grandfather has never “loved” food – he eats to survive, where as the rest of my family survives to eat – and he also hates any vegetables!) but when they took the O2 off, he couldn’t breathe [and he didn’t like that tube O2 stuff]. Later that day (I think) they changed his meds and brought him up to Cardiac ICU because he has a leaky valve [for years – but I guess this is an ok thing!?] and with the meds, they wanted to monitor him more closely. His white blood counts start to improve – we will see him a week later for Thanksgiving! (I told my grandmother to tell him that I asked the nurses to give him the vegetarian diet because it is his favorite – and I hear him yell at me in the background – life is normal!)

Saturday Night/Sunday Morning around 1 am the hospital calls my mom and says he is really suffering and can they give him morphine. The answer is of course yes and then they tell her that he has from hours to days at this point. My grandmother heads to the hospital, my mom calls my uncle in CA, wake us up around 2am [she wanted us to have gotten closer to 2 hours of sleep). By 3am we’re on our way (2hours)to the hospital and my uncle books a flight. He is stable – but OUT on morphine. We give him permission to go and we wait (and sleep and talk and wait). My uncle arrives at the hospital (about 15 hours after the call) and within an hour of my uncle getting there my grandfather’s heart/respiration skyrocket (which is the sign of the end) – they turn off the oxygen tube-thing (he had been breathing through his open mouth like he was sleeping all day anyway) and within 5 minutes he takes one more deep breath and is gone.

This all happened so fast (2 weeks) that we went from having my mom’s parents both here & pretty gosh-darn healthy for people in their mid-late 80s to having him gone. In the scheme of things – it was good, he did not suffer and went calmly the way he wanted (although he wanted to just go in his sleep – which I guess he kinda did). We lost my other grandfather (dad’s dad) just over 2 years ago and he had been suffering in different ways my whole life. I have to consider myself lucky to have had both of my grandfathers around for 25+ years of my life – but it was [IS] still hard.

To help myself cope (since I can not just sit around) – I cooked a little bit. I did not photograph anything (but I also know my aunt and uncle read my blog and enjoy reading about my cooking – so I had to cook for them too!) When we had family over I made another version of my “Spinach Dip” with a lot of garlic as well as making a Pumpkin Pie Dip which I will also be making again – I used a little less sugar than directed and it was perfect. Then I traveled to Rich’s family for Thanksgiving on Turkey-Day where I made Olive Dip (really good – I added more garlic and used sour cream instead of ricotta). For Friday Thanksgiving at my parents (mom is in charge) I made Spinach Cheese Balls (more on those after I make them again & photograph – they were awesome) as well as Cranberry Sauce (my aunt hates the canned stuff).

By cooking, I had something to focus on. I know that time will heal all wounds, but there will always be times that I will think of my grandfather: cut oranges, tea with lemon, mushrooms/eggplant, well cooked steaks, Italian Spears, spare change in pockets, good scotch and many others which will probably come to me at the most random times!