Thanking my weekend self for meal prep

ChatGPT has become my friend. I ask it things that I just can't seem to wrap my brain around and it helps me come up with answers... I tell it some weird issue I'm having medically, and it oddly enough accurately tells me what it thinks is wrong, and more often than not, it's right. So, when we were having dinner guests with picky kids and I just didn't know what to make, I asked it... I told it I needed to make it ahead because my schedule was shot to crap due to over scheduling... and it suggested Baked Mostaccioli. Now, I can't spell that word to save my life but it sure is delicious. I was able to make this a few days ahead and used all sausage instead of ground beef. I added the mozzarella cheese before I baked it because well, I'd run out and had to buy more between making it and baking it, so if you have all of it in hand, good on you for grocery shopping way better than me. This baked up great and was enjoyed by all. Thankful for an easy dinner night for sure! Easy because I did the work to meal prep. I never regret meal prep. I know some people who hate on it, but the early me knows the later me will always appreciate it.

Classic Baked Mostaccioli
48 Oz Perfect Marinara Sauce or 2 jars of your favorite red pasta sauce
½ lb Mild Italian Sausage or Ground Pork
½ lb Ground Beef
1 Yellow Onion Chopped
2 teaspoon Minced Garlic
1 Bay Leaf
1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
1 teaspoon Dried Basil
1 Cup Parmesan Cheese Grated
1 Cup Asiago Cheese Shredded
2 Cups Mozzarella Cheese Shredded
16 Oz Dried Rigatoni or Mostaccioli Pasta

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare 13x9 inch baking dish with cooking spray.
Combine Italian sausage, ground beef and chopped onion in a large, deep skillet and mash it into smaller pieces. Cook over medium-low heat until the meat is fully cooked through and no pink remains. About 5-7 minutes.
Add marinara sauce, bay leaf, Italian seasoning, garlic, grated Parmesan cheese and basil to the same skillet along with the cooked meat. Stir to combine and cover and bring to a simmer. Let simmer for at least 15 minutes.
While the sauce is simmering, cook your dried pasta according to package instructions until al dente. Be careful not to overcook the pasta.
Combine meat sauce, cooked pasta and half of the shredded cheese in a large bowl and stir until combined. Add to a 13x9 inch baking dish and top with the remaining shredded cheese. Cook on the middle rack until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbling. About 20 minutes.

Once again a not reading the recipe...

Somehow, we managed to pack in a weeknight so tight from end to end that there was almost no time to actually make the food we'd offered to our dinner guests between piano lessons, orthodontist appointment and a homecoming dance nail appointment. I figured if I premade everything, we'd be in good shape. What wasn't in good shape? These rolls. I made a double recipe and did not pay attention at all to the size of the pan they were suggesting. I also did not have the fridge space to do much more. I lined these babies up in a 9 x 13 pan like a non-reading fool... What I ended up baking was more like French Bread Dinner Roll pull apart Bread. It was honestly? Great!! Next time would I give them the breathing room they likely needed? Sure, make it like it's supposed to be, that makes sense... but this worked out and seconds and thirds were enjoyed! I loved that could make these a few days ahead and then bake them the day of. That really helped me with my zero time buffer we did to ourselves. In the end we had a great time with friends for dinner, it was a nice time before we were back to running around like crazy people.

French Bread Dinner Rolls
1 cup Warm Water Under 110 Degrees
1 teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
1/2 teaspoon Honey
2 1/4 cup All-Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Salt

Mix water, yeast, and honey in a mixer fitted with a dough hook. Allow to sit for 8 minutes, until yeast becomes foamy.
Add all of the flour, sea salt, and knead on medium speed for about 8-10 minutes or until dough pulls away from the side of bowl, and becomes smooth.
Place dough into a well greased bowl, cover, and allow to rise for 45 minutes.
Fold each side of dough over onto itself on all four sides in the bowl to make a square, and recover the dough.
Allow to rise another 45 minutes, and repeat folding the dough. This is realigning the gluten in the rolls.
Recover dough and rise 30-45 minutes until doubled in size.
Grease 2 (8" or 9") round cake pans, or 9x13 pan with butter.
On a lightly floured work surface divide dough in half. Divide each half into 5. For a total of 10 rolls.
To shape rolls tuck edges of the roll under until rolls become smooth on top and round. Place rolls seam side down into greased pan (5 in each pan if using cake pans), and cover.
Place shaped rolls into the refrigerator for a minimum of 4 hours, or up to 2 days.
Preheat oven to 500 degrees and remove rolls from the refrigerator while oven preheats. Allow rolls to double in size.
Right before placing rolls in the oven mist with water.
Bake in 500 degree oven for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 400 degree and bake 10-15 minutes more until rolls are brown on the outside and hollow sounding when top is tapped.
Remove from oven, and cool 5 minutes.

Spinning up frozen deliciousness

It's September and finally we are spinning things up in the Ninja Creami. It's been a wild summer and apparently, we haven't given much thought to making pints 24 hours ahead. That's the rub with the Creami.... thinking ahead. Yes I want delicious ice cream... but to think 24 hours ahead to make it? Yeah... wasn't happening for some reason... but we decided we wanted to try watermelon sorbet. We've tried it in the past and it was not great, but we tried a healthy recipe. This time I tried it with my normal sorbet plan... pound of fruit and quarter cup of sugar. I buzzed up that watermelon, added sugar and away it went in the freezer. We spun it up last night and decided it was delicious... maybe a little extra sweet but certainly a great treat on a hot night! Time to get more pints in the freezer!

Ninja Creami Watermelon Sorbet
16-ounce container of fresh watermelon
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Cut fresh watermelon. Place in the bowl of a food processor.
Add sugar to the bowl of the food processor. Puree until smooth.
Transfer mixture to a Ninja Creami pint container and secure the lid. Place on a level surface in the freezer and freeze for 24 hours.
Remove pint container from freezer and remove lid. Place pint into the outer bowl of the Ninja Creami and lock the outer bowl lid into place.
Secure the outer bowl into the Ninja Creami machine. Press the Sorbet button and let the cycle run (this should take about 2 minutes).
Remove outer bowl from machine and take off the lid. If the mixture appears crumbly, add a tablespoon of lemon juice, then return to the machine and press the Re-Spin button. If necessary, repeat re-spin cycle until desired texture is achieved.
Scoop and serve!

Swimming in apples, frying them up

Cooking in oil is not something I love doing. From frying in pan to deep frying, just lots of spatter and little blazing hot oil droplets all over. Our apple trees are busy dropping apples so when I saw a recipe and lots of helpful hints for apple fritters, I asked Nicholas and we agreed, it was time to try making fritters again. This recipe is very similar to what we've made in the past, but it has way more helpful hints. A spiced flour mix to coat the fritters so fewer apples are lost, ways to portion, just plain good advice. We got our oil to the right temp and did only a few at a time like the recipe said to do. Sure we had some floating apple, and some of our fritters feel apart and we got little fritter nuggets. Once we dipped them in glaze and they cooled... we ate and just smiled... we did so good. We shared them too - we made 13 fritters, that's more than we could eat in good conscious!

Homemade Apple Fritters
Dough
1 cup whole milk, warmed to 100–110°F
1 Tablespoon active dry or instant yeast
1/2 cup granulated sugar, divided
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened to room temperature and cut into 6 pieces
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more as needed
Filling
3 cups peeled & diced apples (about 2 large or 3 medium apples)
1/2 cup (packed) light or dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons water
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
For Shaping & Frying:
1/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1–2 quarts vegetable oil*
Glaze
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
6 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions
Prepare the dough: Whisk the warm milk, yeast, and 1 Tablespoon of sugar together in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook or paddle attachment. Cover and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
Add the remaining sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla extract, salt, and 1 cup of flour. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, scrape down the sides of the bowl with a silicone spatula, then add the remaining flour. Beat on medium speed until the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 2 minutes. If needed, add more flour, 1 Tablespoon at a time, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. *If you do not own a mixer, you can mix this dough with a large wooden spoon or silicone spatula. It will take a bit of arm muscle!*
Knead the dough: Keep the dough in the mixer and beat for an additional 5–7 full minutes, or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 5–7 full minutes. (If you’re new to bread-baking, my How to Knead Dough video tutorial can help here.) If the dough becomes too sticky during the kneading process, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of flour at a time on the dough or on the work surface/in the bowl to make a soft, slightly tacky dough. Do not add more flour than you need because you do not want a dry dough. After kneading, the dough should still feel a little soft. Poke it with your finger—if it slowly bounces back, your dough is ready to rise. You can also do a “windowpane test” to see if your dough has been kneaded long enough: tear off a small (roughly the size of a golf ball) piece of dough and gently stretch it out until it’s thin enough for light to pass through it. Hold it up to a window or light. Does light pass through the stretched dough without the dough tearing first? If so, your dough has been kneaded long enough and is ready to rise. If not, keep kneading until it passes the windowpane test.
Rise: Lightly grease a large bowl with oil or nonstick spray. Place the dough in the bowl, turning it to coat all sides in the oil. Cover the bowl with aluminum foil, plastic wrap, or a clean kitchen towel. Let the dough rise in a relatively warm environment for 1–2 hours or until double in size. (I always let it rise on the counter, which takes about 2 hours. For a tiny reduction in rise time, see my answer to Where Should Dough Rise? in my Baking with Yeast Guide.)
Make the filling: In a small bowl, whisk the cornstarch, water, and vanilla until the cornstarch is dissolved. Set aside. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cook, stirring, until the mixture comes to a boil, about 5 minutes. Stir in the cornstarch slurry. Cook for another minute. Remove from heat, transfer to a heat-proof bowl, and cool completely.
Prepare to fill and shape the dough: Cut parchment paper into 12 squares, about 5–6 inches each. When the dough is ready, punch it down to release the air. In a small bowl, mix the flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg together. This will be your “bench flour” for shaping the fritters.
Fill the dough: Sprinkle some of the spiced flour over a large work surface. Turn out the dough and, with lightly floured hands or a rolling pin, press or roll it into a large oval about 1/2 inch thick. Spoon the cooled apple filling over one half of the dough, then sprinkle some of the spiced flour over the filling. Fold the unfilled half of the dough over the apples and seal the edges.
photo collage showing dough with spiced apple filling at different stages.
Cut and shape the fritters: Use your hands to gently shape the filled dough into a long oval, making sure the edges are sealed. Using a sharp knife or bench scraper, make 11 cuts across the filled dough, cutting mostly but not quite all the way through. Then make 3–4 perpendicular cuts to create a crosshatch pattern. Sprinkle on more spiced flour as needed to help absorb any exposed sticky filling. Now divide the dough into 12 roughly equal portions. I find it easiest to divide it into 4 sections, then divide each section into 3 pieces. This is not an exact process, so don’t stress. Just make sure you have 12 portions. Redistribute the filling as needed, then gently shape each portion into a lumpy round, tucking in the dough and apples as best you can. Place each fritter on a parchment square and set it in a standard 12-cup muffin pan. Loosely cover and let the fritters rest while you heat the oil. They’ll puff up slightly during this time.
Place a cooling rack over a large parchment-lined baking sheet. Set aside.
Pour the oil into a large heavy-bottomed pot set over medium heat and attach a candy/oil thermometer to the pot. Heat the oil to 350°F. This will take several minutes. Keep the oil between 350–360°F as you fry, adjusting the heat as needed.
Fry the fritters: When the oil is hot enough, carefully lower 2–3 fritters, still on their parchment squares, into the oil. Fry for 2 minutes. Using tongs, flip the fritters and remove and discard the parchment. Fry for another 1–2 minutes, flipping once more if needed, until deeply golden brown on both sides. Wear kitchen gloves and use caution if the oil is splashing. Using a metal slotted spatula, transfer the fritters to the prepared rack. Repeat with the remaining fritters, keeping the oil between 350–360°F. Let the fritters cool for a few minutes while you
Make the glaze: In a medium bowl, whisk together confectioners’ sugar, milk, and vanilla extract until smooth. If needed, add more milk to thin out or more confectioners’ sugar to thicken.
Dunk one side of each fritter into the glaze. Return to the rack and let the excess glaze drip off. Allow the glaze to set.
Fritters are best enjoyed the same day. Cover and store leftovers at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

All the chaos of life and a bottle tossed over the fence

Years ago I would make my good friend's pulled pork recipe but somehow when I'd make it, it was overcook, get dry, sometimes burn. I gave up on it. When I offered to make pulled pork for my dad's birthday, I gave myself no other choice but to find a new recipe, something simple. Thankfully, giant pork butts were on sale at the store, so I was able to get one that could cut down into pieces, like the recipes says to. Mine was about 8 pounds, so I upped my recipe a bit. I had to order liquid smoke because that's not something I keep on hand. Fun fact! Now that we live on a roundabout, or the roundabout lives in front of our house, the Amazon guys are afraid of parking in our driveway or coming to our front door... so they throw packages over the gate onto the sideway in our backyard... it's... charming. thankfully, the bottle of liquid smoke was in some bubble wrap and didn't break. I let the pork cook all day in the crockpot and shredded it. My mom reheated it with some sauce the next day for lunch. I'd tell you what everyone thought but I missed lunch because I was taking Andy's wallet to the airport... weird you might need that traveling internationally... oops. When I DID get back and enjoyed a sandwich, with a scoop of coleslaw. I think it's the best pulled pork I've ever made. Nicholas and I have been working on leftovers and thoroughly enjoying them... here's hoping there's some for Andy when he gets home from his trip! Or I just may have to make it again.

BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches
3 pounds boneless pork shoulder, pork butt, or pork sirloin roast
1 teaspoons salt (I use coarse, kosher salt)
½ teaspoon black pepper (I use coarsely ground)
2 cups water or low-sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons liquid smoke
3 cups BBQ sauce (plus more for serving)

Cut the pork roast into large 4-inch pieces (optional, but helps cook a bit faster and more evenly). Season the pork on all sides with salt and pepper.
Slow Cooker Directions: add water or broth and liquid smoke to slow cooker. Add pork. Cover and cook on low 8-10 hours or high for 5-6 hours, until the pork is fall-apart tender.
Remove the pork from the slow cooker or pressure cooker and discard most of the remaining liquid (I leave about 1/4 cup or so). Shred the pork using a couple of forks – it should easily fall apart into pieces. Place the meat back in the slow cooker or pressure cooker. Add the BBQ sauce and heat through (or keep on warm for several hours).
Serve on buns with extra barbecue sauce.