Skillet Lasagna and Bacon-Ranch salad

I forgot to take pics of our meal Friday night; we were too hungry! I had my mother-in-law over for dinner, but I was short on time and energy, so I made a really easy Italian meal from Simple & Delicious: Skillet Lasagna! You don't have to cook it in the oven, and it's ready in about 30mins from start to finish!

The side dish was salad with a homemade, easy dressing. This one came from the Pink Tea Room cookbook. This lady in Calera turned her living room into the Pink Tea Room and served amazing food there. Then she published a cookbook! The great thing is, most of her recipes are pretty simple, except for her ridiculously complex pie crust. The dressing is called Bacon Ranch Viniagrette, and it's sweet and sour and yummy on spinach:

1 packet of Ranch dressing mix
1/2 cup veggie oil
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 T. light brown sugar
4 T. bacon bits (I just fry up four short slices of bacon and crumble them)

Enjoy!

Beef Stroganoff

The Betty Crocker Bridal cookbook has a great beef stroganoff recipe. However, DO NOT add the sour cream until the very end. (If the sour cream gets too hot, it curdles or something.) I added it at the beginning and remembered just in time to turn the heat down, so the other stuff didn't get to simmer together like it was supposed to. Ah well! It turned out great, with a side of roasted asparagus (Martha Stewart recipe): After washing and snapping asparagus, place on cookie sheet with a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roll the asparagus around on the sheet to get it evenly coated. Then sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top. Cook at 400 for 8 or 9 minutes. Fast and delicious!

Thrown-together meals

J's been busy this week, so I haven't done much cooking. However, one night I did make one of my favorite slapdash meals: Gourmet breakfast burritos!

I don't really like breakfast burritos, but these things are great!

Cook smoked sausage (or I buy the pre-cooked kind, so I just warm them in a skillet) OR Polska Kielbasa. Keep warm.

Then fry up some potatoes (I like sliced new potatoes).

Scramble some eggs.

Serve all piled up with salsa in a flour tortilla!

Tabouli!

Yum, yum, how I love tabouli! Unfortunately, I didn't get this recipe online, so no links here. I was picking up some fresh fruits and veggies in Wal-Mart, and spied a package of "Taboli" wheat, made right here in Oklahoma! It's a company called Bishop Brothers, out of Bristow, and the recipe on the back was good. I think I'll add some minced garlic next time for a little more kick, though. Good add-ins (they were suggested on the bag) were green onions and chopped cucumber.

Alas, I thought I had a pic of this, but I don't. I'll try to post one, because it is a truly beautiful food! I'm going to buy some pita bread today so I can fully enjoy it in all its Greek glory.

A Tabouli haiku:

Tiny bits of health
Tomato, wheat, parsley
Crunchy, munchy, yum!

Shrimp fajitas!

Tonight was an example of a little bit of a bunch of stuff going a long way. I had half a bag of frozen shrimp, one bell pepper and as much onion as an onion-loving girl like myself could want. Of course, I always have Guaca-Salsa, Cheddar Jack cheese, and Tostitos restaurant-style salsa on hand, so I grabbed this stuff, too.

Thus, Shrimp Fajitas were born! I threw the stuff in a pan, and after they'd gotten pretty well cooked, I added about half a cup of water and about half a bag of fajita seasoning and let it cook a little longer.

P.S. I have newfound respect for food stylists, a career I heretofore considered utterly silly. It's tough to make especially my sloppy style of cooking look appetizing on film.

French turkey

I tried another TOH recipe last night: Turkey with mushrooms and sour cream, a dish that is supposed to be decidely French, so I thought hmm..tres bien! Uh....not so much.

Don't get me wrong; the dish was excellent, but it turned out more like quick turkey and rice than Turkey with mushrooms and sour cream on a bed of hot rice.

First of all, the sour cream sauce went totally awry. I didn't have as much sour cream as the recipe called for (my 8oz was only short a couple spoonfuls, though!), but that couldn't have been the only reason the sauce came out looking like a lumpy gravy (that's the muck in the Pyrex cup), instead of a smooth white sauce. Hmmm...don't really know what happened there. Maybe it was because I also had to substitute chicken broth for water and chicken bullion (but that should be pretty comparable, though, right?). I don't know. Here what I did when I saw the sauce staying muddy brown: I panicked. I scanned the fridge for more sour cream or something comparable to sour cream (here I go again with my crazy substitutions!), and grabbed a squeeze bottle of mayonnaise! What was I thinking?

Anyhoo, the idea of a bed of hot rice didn't really appeal to me too much, so I cooked minute rice and then added some cream of mushroom soup and chicken broth. Now that's a bed of creamy, yummy rice!

Overall, Jay and I gave the meal two thumbs up, despite the minor catastrophes during its preparation. I even had Jay going for a minute when I told him I'd tried to make caviar (the mushrooms were chopped a bit too fine, and did resemble yucky fish eggs a little).

Chunky Apple Cake

I made this last night for Diane's b-day dinner. It was excellent! (So excellent I forgot to take a picture until I'd already eaten my piece--this is J's half-eaten piece.) Anyway, it should be excellent: it won Taste of Home's apple recipe contest! Find the recipe here. It's not like an ordinary apple cake: it's like half apples and half very stiff cake batter. The crowning glory is a de-lish butterscotch sauce (easy, too: butter, brown sugar, and whipping cream) that you pour over each piece. It soaks it in like a sponge!

P.S. Thanks for the fish tip, Audrey! It's really hard for me to remember to defrost meat; I rarely decide what I'm going to cook until about an hour before dinnertime.

Good ol' Southern meal

Dinner was pretty good, but not so healthful:
Fried fish
Fried okra
Corn on the cob

Note to self: Fried okra does not count as a vegetable. Do not serve next to a fried entree, such as deep fried fish. I'm feeling a little bit of the not-so-fresh feeling right now...

Unearthed the Frydaddy tonight, filled it with half a bottle of veggie oil and tossed some cornmeal-coated fish in. How big of a pain is it to defrost frozen fish? Anyone have a better way to freeze fish so it doesn't get all partially cooked and mutilated and torn apart when you defrost it? What do you do, Audrey? I used Pa-in-law's famous fish coating recipe, but it wasn't so good to me. I think I overcooked the fish, so the flavor wasn't as full. I think the recipe is kind of a secret, so I'm afraid to publish it here. I'll give one secret ingredient: Ranch dressing. That's all I'm going to say.

No more Mexican corn!

Why oh why did I think cream cheese corn would be good if it was Mexican cream cheese corn?! I never like cream cheese corn--non-sweet cream cheese is never good for me. Yet, I had NO side dishes for Mexican casserole, so I thought Mexican cream cheese corn would be good. Yuck!

Ingredients, in case you care: frozen corn, frozen chopped bell pepper, cream cheese, butter, minced garlice, and chopped onion. All those ingredients are so good individually and in other recipes, but in this one, it was a mixed-up mess.

Mexican cream cheese corn: Unsuccessful venture into unknown recipe territory!

Pot o' beans

I've had a request from one of my (okay, my only) reader (love ya, Liss!) about how I make beans. Yes, they're a favorite in our family, ALWAYS mashed up with cornbread, unless you're weird like my husband. (He eats them with ketchup, with cornbread on the side, the sicko.)

My last pot was AMAZING and PERFECT--my first time for this! So now I'm an expert. The previous pot stunk up the whole house, I burned them so bad. I do not recommend cooking beans on heat higher than medium.

Here's what I do:

Quick-rinse the beans by rinsing them in a colandar, then dumping them in the pot and then filling it up with water. Do this three times. Fill the pot half-full with water and place it on the stove on medium heat. While the burner is warming up, add chunks of onion and the meat of your choosing. Note on the meat: A very seasoned, savory hambone is the absolute best, but bacon will do as well. In fact, my PERFECT pot of beans was done with bacon. Add a couple tablespoons of salt. I've learned it's best to add a small amount of salt early, and then add the rest when you can taste the beans later.

Bring this to a boil and then cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer for three hours or so, adding water every half-hour or so.

That's it! It's a fine art, beans-making.

Breaded pork chops, fried spinach, roasted onion potatoes

Great dinner tonight, if I do say so myself...and I do. (I must get this from my Nana--quick, but hilarious side story: At an after-worship ice cream social, I told Nana her homemade vanilla was excellent. She answered: "Yes it is! It was so good I had to get a second bowl!" I laughed and said, "If you do say so yourself!" Nana said, "That's right! I'm not afraid to brag on myself!" Oh, Nana, gotta love it--and emulate it!)

Anyway, I made a meal in about 45 minutes, but about 15 minutes in the middle was downtime to talk with Hubby and clean up my little kitchen messes, making for shorter cleanup time after. The longest thing; the thing I have to start first--even before defrosting the meat---was the roasted onion potatoes. Dice new potatoes and use the recipe from the back of the onion soup mix box. Once you've got that in the oven for 35 minutes, start the other dishes. Defrost the meat, and then, if you're using frozen spinach, stick four cups or so in the microwave for defrosting. While that's going, get started on the breaded pork chops--so easy and good! Get the dippers ready: Beat an egg in a shallow dish, and then a mix of bread crumbs, salt, and Parmesan or Romano cheese on wax paper, and then warm some olive oil in a pan. In another pan, melt 1/8 stick margarine AND veggie oil. Throw in some minced garlic and let the mixture get almost clear and very thin. Now, wring out the defrosted spinach really good with a clean dishtowel (watch out; it's hot!). Then toss in the spinach. Now dip the chops in the egg and the read crumb mixtures, and then put them in, and the spinach and chops can both cook at once, for about five minutes.

The chops are really moist and flavorful--I might even use Italian bread crumbs next time, so that there's more spices on them. The potatoes have a big, bold onion flavor--use less mix if you don't like the taste of onion so much (me, I love it!). The spinach is not as limp and mushy as it has been for me with other recipes, because you cook it so fast, and the butter and garlic make it a little less sharp-tasting.

GREAT, easy dinner!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

This recipe is a possible contender for my first-ever Simple & Delicious submission. It's a combination of chicken tortilla soup recipes from All Recipes. Perhaps I should rethink the name though, considering there's no tortilla found in the soup.

Here it is, straight from a wrinkled, broth-spotted piece of yellow legal pad paper:

Ingredients:
1/2 an onion, chopped as fine as you like it (I use my mechanical chopper for a fine cut)
1 t. minced garlic
2 big squirts of lime juice
1/2 jar of salsa
1 can creamed corn
1/2 bag of frozen sweet corn
1 can green chiles
1/2 box chicken broth
1 can cooked chicken OR 2 uncooked chicken breasts, sliced
1 packet fajita seasoning
A couple dashes of cayenne pepper
Tortilla chips, Mexican cheese, sour cream, guacamole

Saute the onion and garlic in lime juice in a big soup pot. When onion is clearish, add the rest of the ingredients, except the fajita seasoning and cayenne. (If you're using cooked chicken, don't add it until you add the seasoning later.) Bring these ingredients to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer until chicken is cooked through. Add fajita seasoning and cayenne, cook a little longer. Serve over corn chips, with Mexican cheese, sour cream, and guacamole as add-ins! (Wal-Mart's Guaca-Salsa is AWESOME)

Delicious meal in a bowl!

Goal for this blog

I love Taste of Home and Simple & Delicious magazines, and all the recipes in it are written by home cooks like me. Actually, they're not like me, because they must be organized to have actually written down a unique recipe and kept it on hand. My unique recipes are usually spur-of-the-moment deals that are the result of emergency substitutions, leftover rebirth, or wild combinations of favorite flavors. I forget what all went into it as soon as it's edible.

One of my goals for this blog is to document one of my tasty, unique recipes and see it published in one of these great mags.

Oh what a proud, happy day that will be!

Great meatloaf

Definitely going in my reliable recipes file. Even Hubby, who professes not to like meatloaf, got seconds! The good stuff: lots of finely chopped onion, parsley, and a topping of ketchup, brown sugar, and dry mustard.

I quadrupled the recipe for our weekly after-church meal, making two 9 x 13 pans of it, and it was just enough. (Perhaps I should quinutple it next time even?)

From the BH&G cookbook!

Welcome to my kitchen!

Well, this place is pretty plain, but words will fill it up better than nothin'. I'm having problems remembering which recipes were good, which ones took forever, which ones I want to try, etc. So here I am, with another blog! I'll chronicle my attempts at whipping together dinner every night for my hubby, and the occasional guests. It's generally haphazard; 30-minute meals are my specialty (although I've never tried one of Rachael Ray's).

I cooked a ginormous amount of meatloaf this afternoon because it's my turn to bring meat tomorrow for the after-church meal. I'll post tomorrow on how it turned out.