Bow-tie Lasanga

I admit I haven't been cooking much theses days. I really really do have a good excuse. I've been attempting to work out more. Somewhere things have to give, so lately we haven't had much to post. Actually, that is kind of a lie, we have had lots of things, I'm just too lazy. Except I'm not lying about the working out thing.

Tonight's dinner comes from here

What you need:

• 1 pound beef
  
• 1 package Bow Tie Noodles
• 3 cups Spaghetti Sauce
  
• 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• ½ teaspoons Garlic Powder
• 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
  
• ½ cups Mozzarella Cheese
• ½ cups Sour Cream

Brown your meat in a small pan. Meanwhile, cook noodles according to package directions.

After noodles are cooked, drain, return to pot and drizzle with olive oil. Mix in your spaghetti sauce.

Add your fried hamburger, seasonings, cheese, and sour cream. Fold together and allow it all to combine and melt together, over low heat, for about 5 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

This dish was a :
SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!

Oh my gosh this was sooooo yummy. But word to the wise. Make sure you double check your list while at the store. It really blows to be 5 mins away from sitting down to eat an amazing dinner, and having to send your husband out to the store to by the last ingredient. Also blows at 10pm and all you wanna do is eat!

Yummy gooey-ness Monkey Bread

For our 4th of July party I had looked into making a yummy monkey bread mini sized. I thought the process looked like a lot of fun and it just looked good all around. I read the recipe a few times and thought that it didn't look too complicated. Somehow, I don't know how, I've never had a hard time using yeast. I have heard enough horror stories to know better though. I loved the idea of individualized breads so that when people picked at it, that it didn't look pathetic. Lots of people loved them: which in the end made me happy, and that's all that counts right?!?

Source : Yummy Yummy Monkey Bread Mini's
**** Side note: My directions are for use with bread maker, please see above link for directions without a bread maker, and I wish you the best of luck with that!***

For the dough:
2 3/4 cups bread flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
3/4 cup very warm water
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg, room temperature

For the coating:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

For the icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2-4 teaspoons whole milk

1. Place the dough ingredients into your bread machine pan, starting with the wet ingredients (the egg, butter, and water). Next add in the bread flour, then the sugar, then the salt, and then make a well in the dry ingredients and add in the yeast, being sure that it doesn’t touch any moisture. Set your bread machine for the dough cycle and continue with your day for an hour and a half or so.

2. Grease 44 mini-muffin cups (or/and 12-15 regular muffin cups) with non-stick spray (I used non-stick spray). In small bowl, mix the 1 1/2 cups sugar and 4 teaspoons cinnamon. Punch down the down if needed. Divide the dough into 44 equal ping-pong ball sized pieces for mini-muffins (a lot of work, but worth it) or 12 equal pieces for regular sized muffins. Pinch each piece into 3 small dime-sized balls for mini-muffins or 6 smaller balls for regular muffins.

3. Dip the smaller balls into the butter, then into the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place the corresponding balls (3 dime-sized and cinnamon-sugar coated balls for the mini-muffins, for example) into greased muffin tins side-by-side. Do this until you’ve used up all of your dough.

4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 12-14 minutes for mini-muffins. Allow to cool completely before icing and/or removing.

5. Combine your icing ingredients and drizzle over the muffins (you want the icing to be thin enough to drizzle, but still thick enough that it will stick to your spoon for a bit before falling off). Allow the icing to harden, then jimmy the muffins out with a toothpick. Store in an air-tight container at room temperature for 24 hours, then store in an air-tight container in the fridge for another day or two.

This dish:
Success!!!

Meet Bertha:

I know its not the greatest picture ever. Its from my cell phone, but you get the gist. I have wanted a Kitchen Aid mixer for 2 years now, but I do have a hard time justifying spending hundreds of dollars on something like this. Although Bertha will be a staple in my kitchen until my dying days. Soon you shall see lots of recipes that Bertha helped make :-D

Chicken Parm Meatloaf

I am not, and have never been a big fan of meatloaf. It was one of the few things my mom used to make. This is different. Not sure I am in love, but it is different. DH enjoyed it, and we might need to put it on rotation.

Source: here

What you need:
1 lb. ground chicken (or ground turkey, whichever you prefer)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 c. breadcrumbs (we only had Italian style, but will get normal next time)
1 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 an onion (optional)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese
1/2 c. pasta sauce
1/2 c. shredded cheese (I used mozzarella and cheddar)

What you will need to do:
Preheat oven to 350 and grease and medium loaf pan and set aside. In a large bowl, combine the chicken, egg, breadcrumbs, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, onion, garlic and grated parmesan
cheese. Mix well just until combined. Place the mixture in the prepared loaf pan and top with pasta sauce. Bake uncovered in the preheated oven for 40 minutes. Top with shredded cheese and bake an additional 10 minutes. Let meatloaf sit and cool for 10-15 minutes, slice and serve.

This dish was:
Success

Early Memories

Soon I will have a few new things up, but for now, a story.
Like all good stories in life, there was a lesson in this one. When we were young, A and I would go to her house for "meals" and my house to make our own. Luckily we were only 4 houses apart, so when ours didn't turn out exactly like we expected (which happened a lot) we went to her house for a nice home cooked meal. Summers were filled with lots of interesting foods that we believed to be the best thing ever invented. Please do remember we were just kids and our attention span wasn't exactly one a chef should have, I don't think I grew out of this. My mom had purchased a cook book from our elementary school that had some of the parents favorite recipes. One such recipe was called Black Midnight Cake. What could be better than a cake?!?!?!?!? The ingredients called for coffee, now being young and energetic, we measured out the coffee grounds needed for this cake and went on our merry way putting together this cake. Sadly, at one point it said: add in wet ingredients in this order and one of them was coffee. HUH? Oh well, we continued on and baked it. At one point my sister and her boyfriend had come home and helped us frost the cake. I am sure they also cleaned the kitchen as that was not part of house we cooked. Then we all sliced it up and took a nice big bite of the beautiful cake we made. Guess what?!?! It was crunchy. I will never forget the look on my sister's face. They then asked us what we put into it, and we promptly threw it out. Lesson learned- coffee = made coffee, not grounds :-D. Stay tuned for the time we made sugar cookies for the entire street.

Baked beans are BBQ food

Today was my cousins high school graduation bbq. His mom emailed me a few days ago and asked me to bring something. She also sent a list of things that I could not bring since others were. Unsure of what I should bring I asked a cooking board what would be good. A few responses were baked beans, so I set to searching for a recipe for baked beans. This one was good, I got a lot of good responses on them. They were simple to make.

Source: Here

What you will need:
1 pound navy beans
4 strips bacon, finely chopped
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup ketchup or barbecue sauce
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
1 dash hot sauce

What you need to do:
Soak beans several hours or overnight with water to cover. Drain and rinse beans, and add to crockpot with rest of ingredients.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, until beans are tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 2 days.

This dish was a:
Sucess

Cheese cake fill strawberries

The first time I made these (a couple months ago) everyone loved them. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. Including my mom, who by the way is allergic to strawberries. Tomorrow is going to be the last dinner with family here from Holland and I was asked to bring desert. My first idea was to bring cupcakes since I've had a hankering to make them, but mom nicely asked for them. Even brought up the fact that she is allergic, but she wants them and I shall give in. So cheesecake filled strawberries it is. They are a simple yummy treat, The recipe has been swimming around for a while. I don't know exactly where it came from, but according to everyone, its yummy.

INGREDIENTS

1 pint fresh strawberries
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, or to taste
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

Cut the tops off of the strawberries and carve the middle out, so you are basically left with a strawberry shell

Beat together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth in a mixer or a food processor. Place into a piping bag (or a ziplock bag), either using a tip, or just cu the edge, doesn't have to be perfect. Pipe into each strawberry and arrange on a serving platter. Or dip in melted chocolate (which I will try this time).

Enjoy!!!!!

Chicken and fried Top Romen

HUH? Friend top Romen?!?!? Yep. When we were kids my friend, A and I would play "restaurant" when we were at my house. Generally it was a lot of grilled cheese, top romen, and well the rest we will get into in a later post. With how much we/I ate top romen we needed something different. We decided to fry it. It has a different taste/texture that gives it a different feeling. I haven't actually had it since those days, but I was talking to the H about it and he wanted to try it. So....

The chicken comes from this website . I really needed to change it up a little bit. Mostly because when I was making the sauce I hit the bowl and ended up having to clean at least half of it off the counter.

• 10 drumsticks (although the H has asked me to use boneless next time)
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• A couple swigs of soy sauce (we used spicy garlic)
  

In a bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, honey, oil and additional soy sauce. In a zip lock bag put the chicken in and pour in your mixture. coat best possible and let marinate for 30 mins or more. Remembering every once in a while to coat again. Put chicken in greased roasting pan (although I'm sure a baking sheet would be fine too) and pour left over mixture over chicken. Put chicken in 350 oven for 1hr and 10 mins.

Now for fried top ramen. Its exactly as it sounds. Make your ramen as you normally would, then drain. Throw into a pan with heated peanut oil and fry it up. Dont forget to move it around so that you get all of it.

The H enjoyed it. I am unsure of this, therefore this meal was:
Not a total failure

Irish Chicken and Dumplings

Months and months and months ago I got a need, and when I say need I mean it, to get a Dutch oven. At the time every single recipe I came in contact with needed a dutch oven. So eventually we got a gift card to Macys and I spent hours, if not days, researching dutch ovens. The day came and I got one. Oh my gosh, life was grand. I took pictures of it, I set it on the stove for days! Then I realized the sucker was huge, and I had no where to put it. While I was in love, I don't think I could stare at the thing every day. I finally found a spot. There it sat until today. Yeah, see that's how things work in my kitchen. Need, need, need, then forgotten. Poor dutch oven. I am not a huge fan tonight's dinner. Everything is too big my mind. If I make this again, I'll definately cut the potatoes up more, and the onions. The recipe came from Easy everyday favorites by allrecipes.com. DH was given the book from his school because it has pork recipes in it.

Ingredients:
2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup
4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves
3 cups of water
1 cup chopped celery
2 onions, quartered (I used one)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 potatoes, quartered
5 carrots, sliced (I used 3 and cut them up)
1 package frozen green peas
3 cups baking mix (WTF)
1 1/3 cups milk (used different recipe for dumplings)

How to make it:
In large, heavy pot, combine soup, water, chicken, celery, onion, sald, poultry seasoning, and pepper. Cover over low heat about 1.5 hrs

Add potatoes and carrots, cover and cook another 30 mins

Remove chicken from pot, shred it, return to pot. Add peas and cook 5 mins

Add dumplings into boiling stew, simmer covered for 10 mins, then uncovered 10 mins.

And enjoy.

DH and his friends (who randomly showed up) enjoyed this dish. Apparently this is "Keith" approved. I managed to cook for 3 hrs with no fires, and it was eatable.
This dish is a:
SUCCESS

Lesssons in not starting kitchen fires

As a newly wed I am slowly learning my way around the kitchen. I will say that at this point the meals are more of a failure than actually eatable. There are a few reasons for this: I am impatient and don't take the time to read directions well. Also I did not come from a house with home cooked meals. We were dashboard diners. Our commute from school to home was some times 2+ hours, so by the time we got home, Mom wouldn't be in the mood for cooking. I ate a lot of sandwiches, frozen meals and take out. By the time I was 10 my Mom started working a lot, so I made myself dinners of mac and cheese (boxed of course), sandwiches, and hot dogs. Now knowing this I am sure you can see how a lot of this is new to me.

One of my best cooking memories as a child:
One morning when we moved back to civilization my Dad was home and decided that today was the day he was going to teach me how to make scrambled eggs, so that from this day forward, I would be able to make them for him. I'm sure it as summer time, and Mom was at work. So Dad set to teaching me how to make scrambled eggs. At one point he sat down on a chair and started to read the newspaper, as my father did every morning. I got on the back on the chair and gave him a back rub. At one point Dad smelled something burning and realized it was his eggs, so he quickly stood up and and i quickly flew back a long with the chair. Needless to say Dad took me out for breakfast that day.