Easter Casserole

I'm not big on Easter, but when u have kids that doesnt matter. With a baby growing inside of me, I get tired easily, so needless to say I was beat by the time dinner came around. I had a small turket ham thawed, but wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Then it hit me: casserole! It mustv'e been my moms inner voice, because as a kid, I deemed my mom the casserole queen. She could turn just about anything into a casserole. So, I cubed ham and red skin potatoes. I cooked the potatoes in a pot until just softened so they wouldnt be hard when the casserole came out of the oven. In a giant bowl I mixed the potatoes, ham, and a can of french cut green beans. I defrosted a block of frozen cheese to crumble into the mixture. Ive realized that cheese doesn't defrost well, because most of the block was melted, but thankfully it tasted the same. I tossed that into the mixture and added black pepper, onion flakes and roasted garlic powder. After put in the casserole dish, i sprinkled some french fried onions on the top, just for a little something extra. I baked it til the cheese was melted and served it as Easter dinner to my son and me. It was delicious! It just goes to show that casseroles are not out dated and there are more casserole options than just tuna and green bean :) Happy Easter!

Betty Crocker for a day

I don't know why, but I'm assuming it's my nesting instinct setting in. I have been baking up a frenzy! Over the past week or so, I have made strawberry rhubarb puff, oatmeal raisin cookies, pumpkin cranberry muffins, and strawberry jam bars. By the end of this week ill also make chocolate chip cookies, coconut fudge filled cupcakes, and baked vanilla cheesecake with a strawberry rhubarb sauce. I'm a huge strawberry rhubarb fan! I'll try anything with those ingredients! And ironically, I've never made anything with them in it. But the other day I found this old recipe for strawberry rhubarb puff, so I decided to give it a shot. I was nervouse because I know if you don't make it sweet enough, the rhubarb can be too tart and overpower the dish. However, this did not happen to my dish. Now, I'm not sure if people made things with lots of sugar back then, or the recipe just called for too much sugar, but this came out a little sweeter than I would have liked. The recipe was from 1972, i think. I mean, it wasn't so sweet that I couldn't eat it, but the whipped cream definately helped tame it. I also learned that making it was much easier than i thought. As I was adding the sugar, i thought that it seemed like too much, so maybe I should just learn to go with my instincts. Either way, it came out delicious, but I definately made sure to make a note about the sugar in the recipe :). I can't wait to make it again. Now especially since i have 4 pounds of strawberries that I'm not sure what to do with! The fun begins...

aaaaand im back...with chili!

I know I havent posted in a while, I'll admit I'm very bad at remembering to post. So, I figure I'd write about my chili. There was this chili cookoff at my school, and I thought that something like that is perfect for me! So I decided to make a chicken taco chili. I didn't want to make a regular, typical chili. So, i chopped up and added things that I normally wouldn't add to chili, such as a jalapeno and canned corn. I'm not a huge fan of corn at all, so I never add corn to my food. I tasted as I went, which I also admit I never do. I know all the professionals say that is something so important when cooking. But when I'm the only one eating it, that step doesn't really matter to me. But I made sure to do it with this cookoff. I added plenty of veggies and lots of cumin. Cumin is my newest favorite spice! I always loved taco seasoning but I didn't know what was in it that I loved so much. But then I tried cumin. So anyway, I put plenty of it in the chili to make it taste like a big bowl of taco, and it worked! I didn't add much spice to the dish, since other people would be eating it. I served it at the cookoff with tortilla chips, and people loved it! Since i was only 1 of 2 people that entered, we both won, lol but I don't see it that way. I see it was I made a kick ass chili and I won! It has helped me become more confident in my cooking, and gets me another step closer to cooking for crowds.

fun with vinegar

It's a very sad fact that where I live I cannot have an outdoor grill. This is unfortunate because I love the taste of grilled food. So, I was determined to figure out a way around this. I remembered that I have a grill pan for my stovetop that fits over 2 burners. I figured that even tho it won't taste exactly the same, I'd try it anyway. Now, I'm not a fan of regular bbq sauce. So, I went online to try to find a different bbq sauce recipe. The one I settled on was ok, but I think from now on I'll be going to the store for my sauce. (Hey everyone can cheat from time to time.) So I made my sauce, and the first time it came out tasting way too much like vinegar. The recipe called for cider vinegar, and I figured there can't be much difference between the kinds of vinegars. I only had balsamic and red wine vinegar. By the way, I was wrong. I made the sauce twice, each time using one of the vinegars I had, and both times I could definately taste the vinegar. Looks like I'll be buying a bottle of cider vinegar the next time I'm at the store. But, the red wine vinegar was a better option than the balsamic, so that's what I went with. So I made the sauce and marinated the chicken. I put some sauce in a can of pork and beans, hoping that it would make them taste better than usual, since I'm not a big fan of those either but I wanted them out of my pantry. So I heated up the grill pan and just went for it. The chicken got pretty grill marks on it and everything! But, it of course didn't taste like regular bbq food. But, it was moist and delicious! I even ate the leftovers! And the people that know me well know that I don't eat leftovers. So i sauteed up some bacon and onions to add to the beans. I added it all together and it was really yummy! I even whipped up a potato salad to go with it, and I felt like I was outside at a bbq! (minus the annoying bugs of course) All in all, it was a great success!! Sometimes you hafta get creative with what you have!

an old favorite

The other night my mom and I had a phone conversation about food. I want to learn how to make her Thanksgiving turkey, and that turned into a whole big conversation. Somehow, pizza burgers got brought up. She used to make them all the time when i was a kid. And that of course got me in the mood for them. And up until last week, I thought my mom was the one who made them up! To the contrary, I was very wrong. Even my grandmother used to make those, and I found out that some of my friends even had their moms make pizza burgers for them when they were kids, too! I guess it really is true that you learn somethnig new every day.
So, off I went to the kitchen. How basic can you get? English muffin halves with a little red sauce on it, and then sprinkled with some cheese. My mom told me that she also used to put ground beef on them, but I had no interest in that. So, I put together my pizza burgers, hoping they would come out tasting like just like my moms. So, while the cheese was melting on them in the oven, I started some homework. I was worried that I had left them in too long, so I went to go check on them...they were perfect!! The cheese was all crispy and light brown, and the muffins were a little crispy too. I couldn't wait to try them, and I was in heaven when I did! They tasted just like my mom's!! I ended up eating 4 of them! (But I blame that one on the baby) :) I'll definately be making those a lot more often, now that I know I can get them to come out mjust like my mom's. In the process, I also learned from friends that theirs was made much differently! With lots of different toppings! And yes, I suppose that there are many different ways that you can make these, but I'll stick with my moms version for now. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!!

help from a friend

A couple of nights ago, my best friend Amber asked me for an easy chicken recipe she could make for dinner. I told her the first one that came to mind, which was chicken fingers. Afterwards, she told me that she didnt have an egg to dip the chicken strips in, so she used peanut butter instead. Now, I thought that was very creative! But that got my creative gears turning. I had this recipe idea floating around in my head about taking apple jelly and putting it on chicken somehow. Well, after the peanut butter idea that gave me the perfect idea for my apple chicken! I took the apple jelly and thinned it out with a little warm water, and let the chicken strips sit in there. I coated them in a mix or breadcrumbs and crushed cornflakes, and fried them up in a pan. I wasn't sure how they would come out, since apple jelly doesn't have a very strong flavor. But, my son and I both inhaled them! They had just a hint of sweetness, and they were delicious! My son didn't even need ketchup to dip them in! Which of course made me very happy. Needless to say, there was no leftovers last nite. So, sometimes when ur out of something and hafta use a substitute, it comes out better than you planned! So get creative, and share your ideas with others, cuz it would always lead to a great idea!!

the best compliment i ever got on my cooking

Now, I have had compliments on my cooking before, but this one tops them all. One night over the summer, I made my Surf and Turf with White Wine Sauce. Now, at this time we lived out in the woods, so my brother decided there just had to be a campfire out there somewhere. So, he proceeded to make one. And I made the dinner. Beef tenderloin steaks smothered with baby scallops and mussels, with a heavenly sauce of garlic, shallots and white wine all over the top. And to go with it some fresh asparagus. I was really looking forward to eating this, and so was my friend Skye that was over for dinner. He always went straight for the fridge, because I don't eat leftovers. So, I plated everyone's dinners and we proceeded to eat out by the campfire. As Skye was eating, he was so in love with the food that he dropped his last bite on the ground. He was so upset, and he loved the dinner so much that he picked it right back up off the ground and ate it!! Now that must have been some amazing food if he was willing to eat it off the ground like that! Him and I still to this day tell people this story when people don't believe how good my food is. I know he will be first in line at the grand opening my of my restaurant. Thanx Skye!!