Time to start posting menu lists again, I keep losing the sheets of paper where I write them.
Mac & Cheese
Spaghetti
Sloppy Joes
Chicken Italienne
Mock Rissotto
Cranberry Pork Roast
Crock pot chicken
Italian veggie soup with soft bread sticks
Sheppard’s Pie
So, I have a favorite new recipe blog that I thought I would share with you. I was already planning on typing something up today mentioning her site and then she decided to have a little contest. All the more reason to share Foodie with Family.
A few months ago, I was looking for a quick and easy smoothie recipe to make for the kids. “The Purple Cow” came up and sounded like such a fun name that there was no way I could not make it. Easy to make and really tasty. It was a hit.
Because of that, I decided to check out more of the recipes on her blog. You should too because they all sound really good. Her Cuban Pork has quickly become a staple recipe. What’s not to love about something that practically cooks itself, makes enough for 3 meals for our family of 5, and is incredibly delicious? In fact, it’s cooking right now for our dinner tomorrow.
Stop by Rebecca’s site, decide to make some of her recipes and enter yourself into her giveaway!
Hey, I know. It’s been a while since I posted our meal plans or anything else for that matter. It’s time to get back into the swing of things. So, here we go.
It seems like you can’t find many healthy recipes that don’t include fish. Since I don’t like fish, this doesn’t work for me. Sure it’s brain food and all, but I like to think that I am pretty smart without it. In an effort to try and eat healthier, I’m going to be cooking a few more vegetarian meals. They are the only other truly light and healthy alternative I can find. Things won’t be strictly vegetarian around here though. I am too much of a carnivore for that to happen.
When planning out our meals, I ask everyone in the house what they would like to have served at least once during that time. With five of us, that almost fills up a weeks worth by itself. Invariably, the kids always pick the same meal.
Sloppy Joes (Nathan)
Fettuccine (Zoey)
Spaghetti (Allison)
Green Chili Enchiladas – (something Mexican for Greg) This recipe calls for veggie chicken patties? I seriously doubt I will be able to find them in our stores so will just substitute real chicken. Also, I may have to make the avocado tomatilla salsa.
Chili and Cheese Enchiladas – Going to have a veggie enchilada cook off. I’ll report back on which is the winner.
Black Bean Burrito (Indian Style)
Braised Kidney Bean and Sweet Potato
Orange Chicken
Lemon Chicken
Bean and Mushroom Stroganoff
BBQ Chicken
So, I’m doing a sampling of recipes from my new, oh so lovely, cookbook. “Apples for Jam” by Tessa Kiros. Many of the recipes for this period are from her book. Again, I’m typing this up during the second week, so I have a few reviews for some of the dinners already.
Meat Lasagna – from new cookbook. Not nearly as tasty as the other lasagna recipe in the book. I will probably just stick with it and add in some sausage and spinach.
Chicken Casserole – from new cookbook. This was pretty good. May make it again to see if it is better.
Macaroni Cheese – from new cookbook. This wasn’t bad, but I already make a pretty good mac & cheese. It did give me some ideas on how to improve my own.
Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Salad – This was last nights dinner and we have plenty left for lunches the rest of the week.
Fettuccine – on rotation pretty regularly in our house
Sonic – With school back in session and football practices getting ready to gear up, sometimes there just isn’t time to cook.
Philly Steak & Cheese sandwiches – I made these once before, and while they were ok, they weren’t show stoppers. I made a few tweaks this time and man, oh man, they were delicious.
Up for this week – If the storms that result from Gustav don’t leave us without electricity:
Chicken sauteed with milk and cheese – from new cookbook
Sloppy Joes -homemade sauce
Taco Salad
Tandori Chicken
Spaghetti
Tomato Lasagna
If we lose power, it will be chicken, burgers, and hot dogs on the grill. Or a bunch of PB& J Sandwiches.
This is the last week for the “Whip It Up Challenge“. It has been a fun experience trying completely new recipes each week. The theme for this week is desserts. Even though I made the Lemon Sandwiches last week, I knew there would be no complaints about having more desserts from the household. Since I wanted it to be a good one, I decided to go with The King.
Zoey and I have already determined that made from scratch cakes are far superior to box cakes, so I first had to find a white cake mix. All Recipes always comes to the rescue.
Elvis Presley Cake
Ingredients:
For the cake (one 9×9 square cake or one batch of cupcakes)
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup milk
For the topping
This makes enough for two cakes
1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple with juice
2 cups white sugar
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1/2 cup butter, softened plus 1 tbls
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans
Directions
For the cake:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour (or sugar if you are me) a 9×9 inch pan or line a muffin pan with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.
Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well.
Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth.
Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch. Allow to cool.
For the topping:
Combine pineapple and sugar in saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer until sauce thickens slightly. Allow to cool. I drained off the juice from the pineapples to save for something later (maybe sweet and sour sauce?).
Melt remaining tablespoon of butter in small skillet. Add pecans and brown 5 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
In a large bowl, cream 1/2 cup butter and cream cheese until smooth.
Add powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add vanilla.
Spread pineapples across the cake.
Spread cream cheese frosting over pineapples.
Sprinkle pecans over top of cake.
Dig in.
The recipe was easy to follow. The topping was super simple to make. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner, but pineapples and cream cheese are such a good combination. While this cake was pretty good, it wasn’t exceptional. I may make it again if someone requests it, but it won’t go into our favorites.
I have a beautiful new cookbook and really wanted to try some of the recipes in it. I have tried a few and so far each one has been delicious. I thought about doing this one next week, when the Whip It Up theme is desserts, but couldn’t wait that long to make it. I guess that means we’ll have to have a new dessert again next week. Darn.
Please don’t make fun of my duct tape labels. They are not meant to be permanent but are there to help young minds learn how to read.
Lemon sandwiches filled with raspberries and cream
from Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros
Ingredients:
For the bread
1/2 lb plus 2 tbls butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
Finely grated zest and the juice of 1 lemon
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla
For the filling
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tsp confectioners (powdered) sugar
1/2 cup Greek style plain yogurt
1 cup fresh raspberries, halved
Confectioners sugar for dusting
Directions
Preheat oven to 325f. Butter and flour 4″ loaf pan.
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add in eggs 1 at a time.
Sift in the flour and baking powder.
Mix in the lemon zest
lemon juice
cream and vanilla.
Whisk well to get a smooth batter.
Spoon into loaf pan and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until toothpick poked into center comes out clean.
If top is browning too fast, cover with aluminum foil. After baking, remove from oven and cool completely.
For the filling, whip the cream and confectioner’s sugar
until it holds peaks. then fold in the yogurt.
To make the sandwiches, cut the lemon loaf in slices about 1/4 inch thick.
Spread some of the whipped cream on a slice
add some berries
top with another slice
and dust with powdered sugar.
This recipe was super easy to follow. Just like all of the others in this book. This one seems to be one of the more labor intensive of the recipes. It is completely worth it. I didn’t have access to Greek yogurt, but found that it is basically just super thick yogurt. To achieve this, I followed one of the online tips I found (I don’t remember where and didn’t save the link). I used a coffee filter and strained some regular plain yogurt overnight in the refrigerator. It worked perfectly.
Even though I bought the berries the day before, they had already started to mold. Gross. As a quick substitute we used some strawberry preserves. There is no doubt that I will be making this again. Next time, I will make it the day we buy the berries.
Sure, sure, it’s half way through our 2 week meal plan, but I’m going to put it up here anyway. I almost lost the list last week and would have had to figure out what to make with all of the groceries I bought. I’ll break it down between what we’ve eaten (along with whether we liked it or not) and what we have left.
BBQ Chicken with Mashed Potatoes -yum
Taco Salad – Basically taco meat with a garden salad. I baked some tortilla chips and made some guacamole to go with it. We may start having these instead of tacos. They feel slightly healthier.
Summer Pasta Salad – Greg and I both liked this. My usually not too picky kids did not. They ended up having cereal for dinner.
Spaghetti – always loved
Sloppy Joes – everyone in our house loves these except for me. I make them because they ask.
Lasagna with Half Moon Rolls – I’ll write more about this on it’s own.
Fettuccine
Ravioli
Burritos
Chicken Caesar Salad
Tandori Chicken – we still haven’t had this yet.
Marinated Chicken with Naan Bread – we have this often enough that I need to put the recipes up here.
Chicken Chili Relleno
This week for Whip It Up, the theme is appetizers. Finding a new appetizer is such fun. Sure you can eat them for just snacks, but I’m thinking things to have around for football Sundays. Something besides buffalo wings. Yum, buffalo wings. I decided to try out The Pioneer Woman’s Jalapeno Bacon Wrapped Thingies. I didn’t take pictures because hers are already lovely.
Things you will need:
Fresh Jalapenos (as many as you want, I think I bought about 1 1/2 lbs)
1 lb bacon (I tried it with both hickory and maple smoked bacon. I liked the hickory better, but that’s just me)
1 large package cream cheese (trying to be a little healthier, we use the 1/3rd reduced fat version)
Pineapple chunks (optional)
Baking sheet
Aluminum Foil
Metal Cookie rack
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375. Line baking sheet with aluminum foil. Put wire racks on top of foil. Cut Bacon into thirds. Slice Jalapenos in half length wise. Scoop out seeds and membrane (a spoon works great). Fill Jalapenos with cream cheese. Top with pineapple chunk. Wrap with one of the pieces of bacon. Stick the wrapped jalapeno on the wire rack. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Devour.
The Verdict
I made some with pineapples and some without. I could not really taste the difference so will likely not use them next time. There will definitely be a next time. They are addictive. They were too spicy for the kids, but man they are tasty. The are a great alternative to spicy buffalo wings. I hate to admit it, but I had to have a nice big glass of milk to go along with them. Some of those jalapenos were so hot.
Last week’s Whip It Up challenge. The theme for the week was produce. We were running low on groceries. When this happens, we usually have breakfast for dinner; Omelets, Pancakes, Cereal. I have always wanted to make homemade hash browns but never really got around to it. Last Thursday seemed like the perfect chance.
Ingredients:
Potatoes! Surprise!
Shred the Potatoes. Then squeeze all of the moisture from those suckers. The more moisture left in, the chewier the hash browns. Eww, chewy hash browns.
Heat some vegetable oil in a large skillet.
Spread the potatoes thinly and evenly. Season with salt and pepper. Let brown on one side (hash BROWNS). Then flip!
Once both sides are done, serve and eat.
We had them with fried eggs and toast.
Everyone liked them, especially the kids topped with lots of ketchup. I made two batches, one plain and one with some onions fried up with the potatoes. The second batch was much tastier. I don’t really know if I will go through the effort of making these again, it’s just so easy to buy the frozen hash browns.
Technically, this should be over at the food blog. But it is hosed. So, Instead I’m putting it up here. I don’t want to miss the Whip It Up Deadline.
I let the kids go through the cookbooks when I’m making the shopping list and pick out something they want to cook. Luckily, Zoey picked something that goes with this weeks vegetarian theme for Whip It Up. Because it’s from a cookbook for children, it was super easy to follow. We had it for dinner, but it didn’t feel like a full meal. Don’t get me wrong, it tasted great. Especially when you top the falafel with the tzatziki. Greg mentioned that it would be a great football party snack.
Falafel with tzatziki from DK Children’s Cookbook
Ingredients
Falafel
15 oz can chickpeas (drained)
2-3 sprigs of fresh parsley (torn)
1/2 small onion (chopped)
1 clove garlic (chopped)
2 tbsp flour (plus extra for shaping)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
salt & pepper
1 cup sunflower oil (I did not have, used vegetable oil)
Tzatziki
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 cucumber
1 clove garlic (crushed)
1 cup plain yogurt
1 Tbsp fresh mint (chopped)
salt & pepper
Put chickpeas, onion, garlic, cumin, coriander, flour and parsley into food processor and blend them together until they are smooth.
Lightly flour work surface and turn out the mixture. Divide into 12 equal portions and shape each into a flat round patty.
Pour oil into frying pan and heat it over medium-high heat. Shallow fry the falafel for 2-3 minutes on each side, or until golden brown and crisp. Remove from pan and place on plate lined with paper towels to drain.
Deseed (cut in half length-wise scoop out seeds) and then grate the cucumber. Wrap the cucumber in a clean dish towel and firmly squeeze out any excess moisture.
Mix together grated cucumber, yogurt, lemon juice, mint, and garlic. Season with salt & pepper.
Serve together with pita bread.
|
