Weekend Cooking; Recipes Galore

My new trick is searching for recipes on my Kindle while standing in my kitchen.  Who knew this would be my new favorite thing?  My only wish is that I could figure out how to put a pin-button on my kindle-there must be a way so if any of you smarties out there know how it's done I would be pin-happy!  It's been a busy week and yet I've accomplished some good meals throughout-even some that everybody liked.

Last Sunday I cooked the last of our farm chickens from Shamrock Farms.  We had a very traditional meal of roasted chicken, baked potatoes, and a salad.  I love grabbing potatoes from our pantry in the basement. They arrived a few weeks ago as my mother dug the last of her potato piles up, tossed them in a box, dirt and all, and brought them to me.  I have a hard time ever purchasing store bought potatoes after our supply runs out.

From the leftover chicken scraps I made this Chicken Alfredo which made the family absolutely swoon.  They were mesmerized by the carbs and chicken combination as I don't usually make this dish.  It was far from the overly-drenched saucy thing I picture in my mind, the recipe was easy to follow, and it took me less than 30 minutes to make since the chicken was already cooked.  I didn't have fettucine noodles but I didn't let that stop me and just substitution another pasta shape and I'm pretty sure my peeps didn't even notice.  Obviously not my photo then above either for those quick thinkers. On the side we had these delicious zucchini oven chips-which took longer to make than the pasta but were pretty worth it.  It was our last zucchini from our very own garden also so we celebrated that.

My mom brought me venison steaks from well, a deer, my step-father shot with his manly bow and arrow last season.  For a girl who's been vegetarian her whole life this was a reach but  you can't get more local than his farm so I gave it a try.  Other than some jerky he shared with us last year none of us had ever had venison before and yet it was a winner.  I found this great marinade recipe and soaked the four steaks overnight.  My mom gave me very specific instructions that I should cook them only 3 minutes on each side or they get too dried out and I didn't listen. Or more accurately I didn't believe her.  I did 5 minutes but I think the marinade counter-balanced that a little bit because except for the smallest piece they were all moist and readily eaten up even by the ever-picky Groovy Girl.  I only ate half of mine, choosing to focus on the leftover salad from Monday.  If my mom chooses to share again I will take them because the family ate them up, especially Teenage Boy.  I thought they were gamy tasting but then I'm happy with salad and potatoes.

Yesterday I used the chicken bones and made a delicious chicken noodle soup for dinner.  I had my own recipe in my  head and yet I have to admit I googled a recipe just to check if I was missing anything major and found this great post and Hyacinth's recipe  @ PW.  I might go back to that recipe next time I want to make broth-I loved that she left the onion skins on!  Bold move.

I also whipped these cookies up last Sunday night to serve at our Teacher Preview book fair event. I made these into stars with yellow frosting for the theme of Every Reader's a Star!  I wanted a super easy recipe that would not require two hours of refrigeration and this recipe rocked.  Making Christmas cut-outs will be so much easier this season.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme.  Click to her site to find many other food-related posts.