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.