Morning glory muffins

I volunteered to make meals for some friends who just had babies. My recent inclination has been to make muffins and egg cups because they can be eaten with one hand- something that I found out is fairly essential when juggling a new baby and everything else that new parents need to do. I have also been working on using things I have in my freezer and I had shredded carrots and frozen pineapple, so I decided to make some Morning Glory Muffins. I followed the recipe for the most part, but of course used pineapple instead of the grated apple. I thought they turned out really well. They were pretty moist, almost too much.

Veggie pot pie

I made pot pie for dinner after planning to make it for more than a week. When someone asked how I made it I did have a good answer, because I took bits from different recipes.
I took 2 carrots, 1/2 an onion, 1-1/2 potatoes, a rib of celery, and three white mushrooms. Cut them up and sautéed everything so they were mostly soft.
To that, I added about 1 cup of mushroom gravy which I had made prior. On top of that I spread Betty Crocker's drop biscuits. I baked everything for 23-25 minutes at 450degF.
I thought it turned out pretty good, but forgot to season, so it could have used a bit more S&P.

Gnocchi with cheesy pomodoro sauce

I made this Gnocchi with cheesy pomodoro sauce in the instant pot. I sautéed the onions and garlic, added the herbs-all dried, then added the tomatoes, s&p, red pepper flakes, an extra 1/2 cup of water and a package of frozen gnocchi. I programmed the IP for 4 minutes on high pressure, and then did a quick release. I added shredded mozzarella cheese then transferred to a baking dish. When in the dish, I topped it with mozzarella and Parmesan then broiled for about 5 minutes.
There was a lot of sauce, which might have been because I used crushed tomatoes vs whole. I liked how it turned out, but may not make again due to other great gnocchi recipes.

Pizza dough

I tried this dough recipe from the NYT. I didn't give it enough to rise-only about 1.5 hours- so I will hold final judgement until I follow the recipe better, but it was just ok with our  cheese and cheese, onion and roasted red pepper pizzas.

Tofu Bahn Mi

After spending most of the week making dinner by the seat of my pants, and from fairly simple ingredients we had on hand, I finally made this Tofu bahn mi. I spiralized the carrots and cucumber the night before and let them sit in the vinegar mixture. I also left the siracha out of the mayo and the adults just put it on separately. I thought it was ok, not spectacular, but the fresh veggies and cilantro were welcome to my palate, since I've mostly made cheesy and/or fried dishes prior this week. I think I'd make again, but wed to improve the tofu and onion marinade somehow.

Lemon blueberry muffins

Someone in my Facebook dinner group suggested a challenge to work through things in your freezer and pantry. I didn't comment or commit, but it has inspired me to try to plan some dinners around what we have. This summer when Ebon was making lots of lemonade, I tried to save most of the zest. It has been in the freezer since then waiting for me to make something with it. Lemon poppyseed muffins are my favorite but Leela likes blueberry muffins, so I tried to compromise by making Lemon Blueberry Muffins .
Of course I changed things around, I used some greek yogurt instead of the milk which made it quite a bit thicker, so I thinned it out with more milk.
I liked the way they turned out, not too sweet, but plenty of lemon flavor. Leela didn't like them though. More for me!

Gingerbread cookies

I made these cookies before Christmas. They were a lot of fun to make with Leela, though required a bit of patience on the preschooler's part while I rolled out the dough. They tasted pretty good too!