My Casserole Invention

I made this casserole for some friends who just had a baby. They said it was tasty.

 

1 can of black olives, drained

1 can of corn, drained

1 can of diced tomatoes, not drained

1 small can of enchilada sauce

some cooked elbow macaroni

1 lb. of ground beef

1 pkg of your favorite shredded cheese (I used cheddar and colby jack)

seasoning of your choice

I boiled some water and cooked elbow macaroni while I thawed and cooked the ground beef on the stove. Add some seasoning to the meat – unfortunately I can’t remember what I put in it, but there are a lot of good options – salt and pepper if you can’t find anything else. When the meat is about cooked through, add the corn and olives to it to and a little more seasoning. 

After that, I put the pasta in the casserole dish and then added the corn, olives, and meat. I poured on the tomatoes including the juices from the can and spread the enchilada sauce over the whole thing. You can mix it up a bit to distribute everything evenly. I only put cheese on the top but it could have used more inside, so next time I make it I would mix cheese in with everything, so you can have cheese in all layers. After that put it in the oven at 400 C, until it looks like its done – maybe 20 minutes? Keep a close eye on it. 

It’s a pretty basic casserole dish that I just came up with as I pulled ingredients out of my cabinet. And it can last a while, which makes it a good meal to give to someone who is sick or doesn’t have a lot of time to prepare meals. Or you can just make it at the beginning of the week and eat it for several days during a busy week.

corned beef, cabbage and other fun vegetables

Since we have a lot o Irish in us I thought a post about corned beef would be appropriate!!!

Basically you put the hunk of corned beef in a big pot full of water. Be sure the meat is fully covered with a lot of water. Noxt you open up the little pack of ball shaped spices and put that in too. Dad said I should have put a cover on the pot once it came to a boil and I turned it down a bit.

If it were up to me I would boil the meat for five or six hours but it really depends on the amount of meat you are cooking. I think the rule is to boil it at least one hour for every pound.

About an hour before the corned beef is through cooking you can put chopped up cabbage in. You can also cut up other vegetables like potatoes and perhaps carrots (good idea Abby) to add in as well.

I would recommend having plenty of water handy to drink with this meal since corned beef is very salty.

 

Good luck and top o the mornin to yeh )

Easy cookies for your Valentine

Mom, if you want to do the baking for one day for dad and Colin for Valentine’s Day (or another day I suppose), here is a really simple but tasty recipe for some cookie bars. I got it from one of my favorite places to find recipes of all kinds, The Pioneer Woman. I am also going to be learning to plant a garden from Ree’s blog this spring, I hope. Anyway, here’s a link to the recipe for “spreads” (here’s the printable recipe). And here are the ingredients you need:

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup margarine
1 egg
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 to 8 oz. chocolate chips (about half a bag)

Before you bake them you should click on the recipe above, but basically all you do is mix together everything but the chocolate chips into a dough, spread it out on a cookie sheet, put it in the oven on 350 for 20 minutes or until brown, then take out, sprinkle the chocolate chips onto the top, put in oven for one more minute, remove, spread the chocolate to cover the whole thing, and you’re done!

It is so easy but satisfying. Good warm and cooled. I made some earlier this week and we have been savoring them. Let me know if you think of any good variations on this one.

Overestimation Extra: Mini Gooey Pancakes

As you know, I’ve been trying to cook and bake more lately. A lot of the new recipes I try require obtaining one or two ingredients that I don’t normally use. I don’t cook a lot of things that require extensive new ingredient shopping because: 1. I’m cheap, 2. I probably won’t know if I’d like it if it varies too much from my normal diet, 3. It seems like too much work and I’m lazy. But I wouldn’t be able to make many new things if I never branched out, and often it even results in expansion of my pantry/regular items. Sometimes it results in awesomeness. Here’s how. When I find a recipe I want to make, I pull out my grocery list and write down any new ingredients I need to purchase for it. But I ignore the part where it lists the amount I need, and don’t think about that part till I’m in the dairy area, looking at the cream cheese selection, wondering how much to buy (I bought too little that time).  In an effort to minimize # of trips to the store and cooking difficulties, I have lately tended to err on the side of too much. The potato soup recipe I posted a while back was a product of one such situation; I baked something that called for heavy whipping cream and ended up with about 2 cups extra of the cream. I used this great feature of allrecipes to find something to use it for, and wound up with the soup. I like it so much I bought the whipping cream again for soup. Well it looks like I have a knack for this.

I made the crock-pot lasagna you posted. I was going to put in some frozen spinach I have in the freezer but I forgot. Anyway, it was delicious, but per my usual, I bought this huge 2 lb. tub of ricotta cheese when I only needed a small container. I used about 1/2 lb. of the cheese for the lasagna. I didn’t know what I would do with the rest. I know that it would have lasted long enough that I could have used it for lasagna again (it doesn’t expire until April), but I was impatient. So I found a delicious Italian pastry recipe, which I will probably buy ricotta cheese for in the future.

Okay, here it is:

Sfinge di Ricotta or Ricotta Puffs

Ingredients:

• 1 pinch salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 pounds ricotta cheese
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 cups cake flour*
• 4 eggs
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup milk (optional)
• 1 cup vegetable oil for frying

*Note about cake flour: I don’t know if I would ever have cake flour, but one of the comments on allrecipes.com provided a substitute. For every cup of flour, subtract 2 tablespoons of flour and add 2 tablespoons of cornstarch.

1.) Mix eggs, sugar, ricotta cheese, salt, and baking powder until smooth and creamy. Stir in vanilla and flour (I got to use my electric mixer here!). If the batter is dry add in a little milk (I didn’t have any so I only used 3 cups of flour).

2.) In a frying pan over medium high heat, heat the vegetable oil. Drop tablespoonfuls of batter into the hot oil and fry until golden (you can make crunchy if you would enjoy crunchy pancakes). The recipe actually called for teaspoonfuls but I didn’t notice that, plus that would probably make my arm even more tired. Turn them to brown evenly, place on paper towels to drain. The recipe says you can sprinkle them with confectioner’s sugar but I didn’t have any – I like the semi-sweet taste of them plain but a topping might be good too.

These are so delicious. They taste like pancakes with a yummy creamy filling. I think they taste best when warm. It would probably take 6-7 people to eat all of them in one sitting though. Microwaving them works okay too. If you are like me and don’t like cooking around people who are waiting for you, this is a good recipe, because you could pre-make the mix and then your guests could eat them while you cook them.
Here’s how you find Overestimation Extra recipes: go to allrecipes.com and click on the Ingredients tab above the search engine, it will take you to this page. You can search for recipes containing ingredients you want (like ricotta cheese) and ingredients you don’t want (like lasagna). If you find a good one, you should post it too!

boring but good crock pot chicken

4-5 boneless chicken thighs
+one head of cabbage, tall shreds
+some small carrots,circular sliced
+low sodium chicken broth powder
+3 large tablespoons of minced garlic, jar type would be good

mix 2 cups hot water with the broth powder and add the cabbage, the chicken, the garlic the carrots, put pepper on top, cover.

Let it cook for a few hours on high, the chicken will break apart on it’s own when stirred after it is done. You could add many things to this recipe to personalize it and maybe make it less boring.

Chicken in or on Lettuce

A few days ago Chad and I went to the Chinese place we go to in Grinnell and they had a new lunch menu. It was mostly the same but had a few new dishes, including an appetizer called “minced chicken in lettuce”. I thought that sounded odd and not very exciting but we ordered wontons as usual so I forgot about it. Then today I was looking through some cookbooks I got at a book sale in the fall but never actually looked at or remembered to pull out. One of them is a Better Homes and Gardens book called Cooking Chinese:

This book is a pretty nicely organized set of recipes, many of which I hope to try, as Chinese food is one of the categories of food in which I would like to learn more dishes. On page 14 of Cooking Chinese I found a recipe for “chicken on lettuce” which seems to be the same dish we saw on the menu in town. I had lettuce, chicken, and this sauce we found in the self-proclaimed “ethnic” section at Hy-Vee, so I decided it was worth a shot. And it was super easy and so delicious, you should really try it out. It is so delicious and it kinda looks like you put a lot of work into it.

When I made this, I doubled the recipe to use all of a package of boneless chicken and when I am through with the leftovers I will probably have used all of a bag of romaine lettuce. If you use that amount for 3 people or 4 like we had, you will probably have lots of leftovers, though now I don’t have to think of anything else to do with some chicken and remember to use the lettuce for a salad or something. I’m going to list the original recipe here, which is plenty for 4, especially if you eat anything else.

Ingredients:

1 whole large chicken breast or a couple strips of boneless chicken (about half a standard frozen package)

1/4 cup silvered almonds (I was going to use pine nuts here but forgot)

2 green onions (I used one medium white onion)

1/4 cup fresh bean sprouts [note: if you like sprouts. I don't, so I left this out]

2 tablespoons cooking oil

romaine or leaf lettuce leaves (one bag or 12 leaves)

first sauce:

2 tablespoons dry white wine(I used Chardonnay)

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

dipping sauce:

1/4 cup hoisin sauce

2 tablespoons dry white wine

1 tablespoon water

Directions: Skin and bone the chicken if necessary; finely chop it and set aside. Chop the chicken sort of like below:

Now chop the almonds if you use them and set aside. Thinly slice green onions or finely chop white onion, and set aside. Set aside bean sprouts, any substitute or other finely chopped or other wise small ingredients (remember that simple is better because later you want to wrap this stuff inside lettuce).

Prepare the first sauce that will go on the chicken, veggies, and nuts. First, stir the white wine into the cornstarch. Then stir in the soy sauce and ginger. Set it aside.

Preheat a wok or large skillet over high heat and then add cooking oil. Stir-fry the onions in this for about a minute. Add nuts and sprouts and stir-fry for a minute and a half. Remove from skillet and set aside. Now put the chicken in the skillet and stir-fry it for a few minutes before adding the previous ingredients back in to continue cooking the whole thing. Stir the first sauce (the wine mixture) and then stir it into the skillet with the chicken & co. Continue cooking until there is no pink left in the chicken.

Next, remove the stem end of heavy center vein from leaves. Spoon one rounded tablespoon of the chicken mixture into the center of each leaf. Fold up the leaf from the bottom (stem end) to the center. Fold the two sides in, and turn fold down on plate to keep in place.

Dipping sauce: Combine hoisin sauce, white wine, and water, or just the sauce and water, so it is markedly thinner than the original consistency of the sauce. Try to dip the lettuce bundles into the sauce.

I am going to eat more of these tomorrow for breakfast, because it is so good. I’ll post an update if the new style use to put the lettuce and the chicken together works. Because it was kinda hard to keep them together all the time.

Enjoy!

Blizzard Cuisine

Okay, so we haven’t had a blizzard here yet, and it’s unclear to me whether you have in Rockford. But it’s only the middle or January in the Midwest and we’ve had so much snow and so much extreme cold, and I imagine that plenty more is on the way. So I thought I would post my new favorite cold weather dish – creamy potato soup.

This is a good set of ingredients you might want to use:
-2-4 cups of heavy whipping cream
-2-4 cups of chicken broth
-at least 4 med. sized potatoes, peeled and cubed
-salt
-pepper
-garlic
-whatever spices appeal to you as you read or make this
optional/not all required for the following seasoning:
-green onion
-other onion, chopped
-chives
-bacon
-cheddar or mozzarella cheese, grated
(I think sour cream and maybe diced tomatoes would also be good as topping, but I’ve never tried it)

I love potatoes. I will probably post many more recipes involving potatos. Mashed, scalloped, boiled, baked, etc. Though this should be no surprise to you, mother, since you were there when I first began to profess my love to these taters.

Okay, so this barely qualifies as a recipe. It is so dependent on how thick or thin you like your soup, how much soup you want, which ingredients you prefer, etc. But basically put the peeled and cubed potatoes in a med-large pot to boil, in the heavy whipping cream and chicken broth. Season the soup while you are waiting for them to boil, and also about 10 minutes after you add the potatoes add any other veggies you might want, such as the onion. Cook some bacon if you have it, and crumble it to make bacon bits for the top. For all of the toppings like cheese, bacon, sour cream, chives, or green onions, put them on top of the soup in individual servings for individual preference. You could also eat it with bread or as a sauce over leftover pasta. It is easy to make and I think a nice warm food for the harsh winter weather.

An amazing cooking resource

Thanks for the recipe Mom, it sounds delicious! So a lot of times when I am looking for something to cook, or ideas about new dishes to learn to make, I go to allrecipes.com or a few other handy recipe or cooking sites. I also have maybe 6 cookbooks here that I can look through for ideas. I’ve never really watched cooking shows though, and now I don’t even have cable, so I don’t think I will start watching them anytime soon. I don’t know any cooking shows that we would get on the basic channels, and I mostly turn on the TV when I already have in mind what I am going to watch, like People’s Court (don’t judge me!) or House or my trashy ABC medical dramas. However, I might start watching one online. Via Boing Boing I came across the story of Chef Julian Kreusser, in Portland, OR, who has his own cable access show (think Wayne’s World beginning style) called Big Kitchen With Food. He started cooking when he was three, and he is now five, and he has his own cooking show. He has also created a recipe of his own, Yummy Yummy Citrus Boys. That is one of my cooking-related resolutions, I am making it public – if Julian can invent a recipe, I vow to have my own recipe, that is not merely involve throwing together odds and ends in my refrigerator, by the end of 2009.

Anyway, I think this might be just the type of inspiration and speed and patience I need to improve my cooking. I watched one of the episodes here and found out that besides the actual baking in the oven, Julian went through the whole recipe step by step, with humor, charm, and confidence.

Also Mom, Julian’s recipe involves clementines, one of our true loves, so I think I see it in both of our futures.

Check out more by listening to the recent NPR interview, NPR’s blog with recipes, and the archive of the show on blip.tv.

crock-pot lasagna

You can adjust to eliminate the noodles, and use sliced zucchini or eggplant, and spinach. Soak lasagna noodles in a shallow pan of water while cooking the meat. Brown 1&1/2 lbs ground chuck with diced onion, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper. Spray the crock with non-stick spray if you have a ceramic pot. This will brown the lasagna like when it is cooked in the oven. Also, it will stick if you don’t spray the sides. Put some spaghetti sauce in the bottom of the crock-pot, break up the noodles so they fit the bottom of the crock-pot and put that on top of the sauce. Next put on a layer of meat. .Mix small container of part-skim ricotta cheese and some shredded mozzarella cheese. Put 1/2 the mixture on top of the meat (dollop is fine, it spreads out). Repeat layers. Top should end with a layer of pasta, sauce shredded mozzarella and parmesan. Cook on low for at least 4 hours, but could go up to 6 hours.

Starting with Leftovers

Thanksgiving 2008 consisted of many firsts for me. It was my first not spent with my family in my hometown, the first one that I helped cook, and the first one which involved only a turkey breast rather than a whole turkey. Nevertheless, there was some continuity – mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, leftovers, etc.

After my boyfriend’s mom left our place that weekend, we still had a lot of turkey to consume. I found a link to this recipe, and we got to cooking. It was delicious. I made it again with my family with Christmas turkey leftovers. My mom said I should post it here, so here we are. The recipe was easy to follow but I added a few things and found it easier to change some of the set-up, so here’s what I did to make this turkey leftover dish:

First, the ingredients that I used:

1 package of pasta (the recipe called for egg noodles but I used
macaroni- you could probably use whatever you want)

1 package of frozen broccoli or 2 heads of fresh broccoli

some chopped onion – maybe 1/5 of a medium onion

a small can of peas

5 tablespoons of olive oil

garlic to taste/as you like (the recipe calls for 6 med. cloves but I
only have powder and packaged minced)

2 cups of thinly sliced cooked turkey

2 tablespoons soy sauce

4-5 teaspoons sugar

2 large eggs

Note: the veggies in this recipe are what I have tried in 2 versions of this dish. I would highly recommend the broccoli and some other veggies, but specifically it depends on what you like the best or have in the kitchen.

1.) Boil water for cooking pasta. Cook the pasta. Don’t overcook, it
could probably be a little undercooked, since you are going to be
putting it into a frying pan later. Drain when done and set aside.

2.) Cook broccoli, but don’t make it too soft. If you are cooking in
water in the microwave like I did, just do it for little less than you
normally would. It can still be a little crunchy. You can also cook the peas at this point too, or corn, or maybe green beans, if that’s what you have around.

3.) Heat 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a medium to large pan over
medium-high heat. When it shimmers, add garlic, and cook it for only
about 1 minute.

4.) Now add the noodles, broccoli, turkey, soy sauce, and sugar to the
pan, and cook until warmed through- at least 3 minutes.

5.) In the recipe I read they scrambled the eggs in the same pan, but
I didn’t have room. So probably get another pan (can be small) and add
1 tablespoon of oil, then crack 2 eggs into it.

6.) Add onions and carrots to the eggs as you cook them. Scramble the
eggs, then when you are happy with how cooked they are, dump them into
the bigger pan with everything else and mix it all together.

And that’s it. I felt sorta bad posting this when most people don’t have turkey leftovers, but I’ve got to start somewhere and also this stuff is so delicious, we might just go buy some turkey to cook so that we can have extra for this wonderful recipe.

So now that I’ve posted, Mom you can post your crock pot lasagna instructions. Because I want to make it. Next for me might be shortbeard, or something that requires using my new electric mixer. Also, a delicious apple dip that I re-discovered last night, as soon as I buy apples. And the ingredients for the dip.