Anyone Hungry?

Our menu this week

lindsayrose — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:52:10 +0000

Our menu came together from a variety of sources this week. Usually I end up searching the internet and my cookbooks over the weekend to find 6 or 7 meals. This week, I was lucky to have some suggestions and ideas from people and places.

Tonight, we had gnocchi with creamy pesto and ground beef. We used to make this a lot, but haven’t had it in a long time. Ross randomly thought of it, so we added it to the menu. I just brown some ground beef with some garlic and minced onion, along with a little salt and pepper. I make a packet of Knorr cream pesto sauce and boil some gnocchi. I mix it all together and top it with Parmesan cheese. It’s quick and simple and tastes pretty good.

We are having stuffed peppers one night. I haven’t made them in a long time, and we’re trying a new recipe this time. We were going to have these tonight, but I messed up and only bought one can of tomato soup. Grrrr.

Ross was super sweet this week and remembered that I’ve been craving cold salads lately. He searched for some and sent me this recipe for Broccoli and Tortellini Salad. It sounds amazing and I can’t wait to eat it.

When I was in Walmart this week, I passed one of those displays in the middle of the aisle. It had a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s Buffalo Chicken Dipping Sauce on it for $1.98. I absolutely love Buffalo anything, so I figured I’d give it a try. We’re going to have wraps with chicken tenders, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, red onion and this sauce. Our plan is to have those tomorrow since they’ll be quick and Monday is gymnastics night.

My friend Jennifer knows that we love tomato pie – such a fresh, delicious meal for a hot summer night. She found this recipe that is similar to one that I shared with her, but slightly different. We can’t wait to try it!

One night we are having meatloaf (again) because I crave it a lot lately and because meatloaf mix meat was on sale this week. I’m going to make roasted potatoes with a packet of onion soup mix that I have in the pantry. I’m almost more excited for those! I usually season them with my own spices, but this sounds extra good to me right now.

Last, we’ll be making Baked Spaghetti one night. We haven’t tried this recipe before, but Ross was craving baked spaghetti, so I found the recipe that seemed the best overall. I hope it’s a keeper!

Some New Stuff!

lindsayrose — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 01:09:00 +0000

Last week was kind of a boring food week, but this week we are trying some new things. We started out with a super easy, cheap and quick meal last night – Delicious Chicken Skillet. I get these weekly e-mails from Campbell’s that sometimes have some good ideas. This one was a real winner because Madden loved it! He hasn’t been willing to eat a whole lot of what we eat lately, so I was so excited that he ate a whole bowl of this. He even took some broccoli off of my plate and ate it – he has never TOUCHED broccoli before! He had his own serving after that and ate it all up

Sweet & Tangy Chicken

From: Campbell’s Kitchen

Prep: 20 minutes
Cook: 15 minutes

1 tablespoon butter

1 1/4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

1 can (10 3/4 ounces)Campbell’s® Condensed Tomato Soup (Regular or Healthy Request®)

1/4 cup water

1 tablespoon packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 cup regular long-grain white rice, prepared according to package directions (about 3 cups)

Directions:

Heat the butter in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook for 10 minutes or until well browned on both sides.

Stir the soup, water, brown sugar and vinegar in the skillet and heat to a boil. Reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 5 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Serve the chicken and sauce with the rice.

Recipe Tips:

Ingredient Note: We develop our recipes using a 4-to 5-ounce skinless, boneless chicken breast half per serving. However, there are a range of sizes available in-store, from the butcher counter to the meat case and the freezer section. Use whichever you prefer- just follow the recipe as written above for the best result. If you’re using larger chicken breasts they may require a little longer cooking time.

Tonight we had another recipe from the Paula Deen magazine that I stole from my mother-in-law Layered Tex-Mex Casserole was a hit tonight! Aside from the fact that I had forgotten tomato sauce at the grocery store and had to run back for it, it was quick and easy. This is a keeper for our family.

Layered Tex Mex Casserole (we cut this in half and used an 8×8 pan)

2 pounds ground chuck

1 onion, chopped

1 15.5 oz can black beans

2 10 oz cans enchilada sauce

1 8 oz can tomato sauce

14 (5 inch) corn tortillas – I used 4 large flour tortillas (for the 1/2 serving) because I had them on hand

2 8 oz packages shredded Mexican four cheese blend

Garnish: Mexican crema, chopped tomatoes, minced fresh cilantro

In a large skillet, combine ground chuck and onion. Cook oer medium heat until beef is browned and crumbly; drain. Return beef mixture to skillet. Stir in beans, enchilada sauce, and tomato sauce; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 13×9″ pan with nonstick cooking spray.

Tear tortillas into bite-size pieces. Layer half of pieces in bottom of prepared baking dish. Top with half of beef mixture. Sprinkle 1 package of cheese over beef mixture. Repeat layers, ending with cheese.

Bake for 25 to 35 minutes (20 for 1/2) or until hot and bubbly. Garnish with Mexican crema, chopped tomatoes and minced cilantro, if desired.

Note: This casserole can be assembled up to 2 days before baking. Store, covered, in the refrigerator. Increase the baking time to 25-45 minutes if the casserole is going directly from refrigerator to oven.

We’re also having this Cheesy Ham and Hash Brown Casserole one night this week – it was one of my Daily Dish e-mails recently and sounded tasty. I thought about subbing cream of mushroom for the cream of potato, but some of the reviews said that was a key ingredient, so we’ll see.

Tomorrow is gymnastics, so we needed something quick and easy. I’ll run home at lunch and put this Slow Cooker Pork Cacciatore in the crock pot.

I hate mustard plain, but love it in recipes. I can never turned down French-fried onions, so I’m going to try this Mustard Chicken. Doesn’t get much easier than that!

One night we’re having meatloaf and mashed potatoes because I am really craving gravy. That will also be a quick one that I can prepare in the morning and just pop in the oven after work. Hopefully, Madden will eat it, too.

We’re also going to have Baked Teriyaki Chicken again, because I love it. It’s another one that can be prepared in the morning and just tossed in the oven after work. These days, that is my kind of meal!

Hopefully it will all taste as good as it sounded when I was planning the menu on Saturday!

Random

lindsayrose — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 01:51:58 +0000

Yeah, our meals this week are random. My mom was here for the weekend, so meal planning, grocery list making and shopping all happened pretty quickly. Here’s what we’re having:

Monday: Gymnastics night calls for a quick meal. In the morning, I mixed together some ground chicken, chopped spinach, feta cheese and Mediterranean spices. I made them into patties and put them on a greased cookie sheet, all ready to pop in the oven when we got home. Ross had made some of his famous tzatziki sauce over the weekend, so we topped them with that. I told him we could have some broccoli along with it and he found and made this recipe for Greek Orzo and Broccoli. It was super delicious and we will definitely have it again! (We don’t do olives in our house, so we left those out).

Tuesday: Ross has been craving Mexican pizza, so I looked back on my blog and found this recipe that we really liked a while back (we cheated and used a refrigerated pizza dough). It was still delicious! We used taco sauce instead of salsa and topped it with some sour cream and extra taco sauce.

Wednesday: We are going to have Chicken Tetrazzini from an issue of Paula Deen’s magazine that I came across at my in-laws. We are both super excited about this one!

1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1″ cubes

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/4 cup butter

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

1 (5 oz) package shredded Parmesan cheese

1 cup sour cream

1 cup frozen green peas, thawed

12 ounces linguine, cooked and kept warm

3/4 cup coarsely crushed round buttery crackers (aka Ritz)

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 13×9 inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper.

In a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add chicken, onion, and garlic; cook for 6-8 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Add soup, cheese, sour cream, and 1/2 cup water, stirring until combined. Stir in peas. Remove from heat.

Add linguine, tossing gently to coat. Spoon mixture into prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with crushed crackers. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

Note: This dish can be prepared ahead. Store the unbaked casserole,covered, in the refrigerator for up to 1 day or in the freezer for up to 1 month.

Thursday: This recipe for Easy Cheesy Kielbasa with Beans is super random. I can’t decide if it will be nasty or delicious, but it had good reviews so we are going to try it.

Friday: I had some BBQ chicken in the freezer that I wanted to use and I wanted some sort of past dish (yes, another one). I googled Barbecue chicken pasta and this recipe came up. I’ll let you know how it is!

Our menu this week

lindsayrose — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:35:35 +0000

We have a busy week ahead of us. My Mom comes to visit on Thursday (yay!), so we have some getting ready to do and then just the usual stuff. We’re trying a few new recipes, sticking with a few staples, and throwing in some quick and easy non-recipes.

Last night, we tried something new from our latest Food Network magazine. The recipe is for Grilled Pierogies and Kielbasa, but we didn’t grill anything. It was hot out and we needed dinner ready in a hurry. I threw the pierogies in a pot of boiling water and sautéed the onion and kielbasa in about a tablespoon of butter. When both were finished, I tossed them together with the dressing. I added about a tablespoon (or a little more?) of honey to the dressing to give it a little sweetness to balance out the vinegar and mustard. We really liked this! I think it took about 20 minutes total, if that, when prepared inside. I am sure it would be better grilled (everything is), but in a pinch, this did just fine.

Tonight we had leftovers because we had a super ginormous lunch at my in-laws for Father’s Day. It was delicious, and I am stuffed (though I will probably find some room for some more dessert in a little bit).

Tomorrow is gymnastics so we need something quick. Because it tasted so good to us a few weeks ago, we are going to repeat Tortilla Pie. I am sure there is a recipe for this somewhere (my sister first shared it with me), but the general idea is to place a tortilla in the bottom of a pie plate and layer delicious stuff in between the tortillas. My sister is a vegetarian and this recipe is supposed to be, but we add some meat. We generally do tortilla, refried beans, ground beef (browned with some cumin and chili powder, etc – whatever spices sound good), salsa, cheese, repeat. We finish with cheese on top and bake for about 15-20 minutes at 350. Served with sour cream, salsa and some sautéed Mexi-corn, this is just delicious and couldn’t be easier.

Tuesday I think we’re going to have spaghetti and meat sauce – because it is quick, easy, and we all love it.

Wednesday I am planning on doing some marathon cleaning, so I don’t want to worry about dinner. I’ll run home at lunch time and toss Slow Cooker Chicken Stroganoff in the crock pot and we can eat whenever we are ready. Aaaahhhh, I love my crock pot. Actually , I hate mine, but I love the concept in general. A new one to replace my good one that I broke is at the top of my wish list!

Thursday Mom will be here! Madden and I will pick her up at the airport and then come home for dinner. We’re going to have Three Cheese Chicken Penne Florentine because it is absolutely delicious and I can prepare it ahead of time. My friend Jennifer made this meal for us when Madden was born and we’ve made it several times ourselves since. We can’t get enough of it.

Friday night, Ross is on his own – it’s GNO with my Mom and sister!

Saturday, we’re heading to 18 Seaboard for dinner. I’ve heard lots of good things about this restaurant, so I can’t wait to try it!

My electronic cookbook

lindsayrose — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 01:25:39 +0000

Well, I’m not so good at keeping up with this blog. I enjoyed it when I had the time, but since becoming a Mom, I seem to have lots of other things to fill my time. I do miss the writing part, but mostly I miss the record keeping aspect of this blog. Every week when I go to plan my grocery list, I come here to check for meals that sound good. I hate that over the past year, I haven’t kept good track of what I’ve made, what we liked and what changes I made to the recipe. I don’t like to repeat recipes often, but I also don’t like to forget about ones that we’ve made and loved. And I think that is what is happening.

So, I’m not so sure that I’ll be a good frequent blogger again, but I’m going to make an attempt to at least post my meals for each week on here. It will be good record keeping for myself, and maybe give some people out there some inspiration when attempting the dreaded task of meal planning each week.

Here’s what we’ve had/are having this week:

BLT Mac ‘n Cheese: This one was suggested to me by my friend Jennifer. She, too is pregnant, though even when she is not, she shares my love of food. I am thankful for friends that also search for new and fun recipes and that are willing to share them! We loved it. I brought the leftovers to work yesterday for lunch and ended up having lunch out. I was actually disappointed to not eat my leftovers!

Shepherd’s Pie: Because it is quick and easy and I was very randomly craving it, despite the fact that it has been 100 degrees. We made real mashed potatoes instead of the boxed ones, but the rest is pretty basic and easy.

Ham and Tomato Pie: This is a perfect summertime meal. The fresh tomatoes and fresh basil make it taste like all of the ingredients came from your backyard.

Honey and Spice Glazed Pork Chops: Haven’t made these yet, but I’m looking forward to trying them!

Spaghetti Salad: This link is to a former blog post. This is one of my Mom’s recipes that I’ve always loved. We are having it this week with some Italian sausage.

Long Live the Chicken a la King!: This has been one of my go-to recipes for years now. It is simple, but tasty. This baby loves home cookin’ and I could eat chicken and dumplings every day. This is just a slight variation!

For the 7th night of the week, we’ll go out or see what we feel like on Saturday night!

Zucchini Casserole

lindsayrose — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:12:04 +0000

Cooking has always been something that I enjoyed. Even when I lived alone, I cooked full meals on a regular basis. By the time I finished eating a 9×13 dish of food meant for a whole family, I didn’t want to eat that food again for about 6 months. It was worth it to me, however to do that rather than make frozen meals for one all of the time.

When I married Ross, cooking became even more fun. We cooked together, we ate together and we used up the leftovers together. Everything about it was easier and much more fun.

Now that Madden is eating “real people food”, cooking is taking on a whole new meaning in our home. Growing up, meal time was a very special time in our house. Dinner was the one time of day – guaranteed – that we would all sit down together. No television, no distractions, just the four of us sitting down and talking. I loved that and always promised myself that I would carry on that tradition. Recently, we’ve been able to get that tradition started, and it warms my heart right along with my belly. We are able to cook meals that we are all able to eat, and we can sit down and eat it all together. We enjoy our food and we enjoy each other. It is fun to sit there in a moment and realize that you are living one of your lifelong dreams. It may be a simple dream, but it brings a smile to my face, night after night.

Zucchini casserole has long been a favorite of mine. A few years ago I introduced Ross and he loved it as well. With zucchini being one of Madden’s favorite veggies and with the soft, creamy consistency of this casserole, it is sure to now please our whole family.

Who knew that a few veggies and a can of soup would help my dreams come true.

Zucchini Casserole

1/2 c margarine

1 c seasoned bread crumbs

4 c chunked zucchini

2 carrots, diced (I have also used a huge handful of matchsticks because it was easier)

1/2 c sour cream

1 can cream of chicken soup (use cream of celery/mushroom to make it vegetarian)

1/4 c milk

1/2 onion, chopped

Melt margarine and stir bread crumbs into margarine, set aside. Boil zucchini chunks for 5 minutes, drain. Stir in carrots, onion, sour cream, chicken soup, and milk. Mix well, then add 1/2 of the breadcrumb mixture. Mix well. Pour into greased 8×8 pan or a round baking pan and top with remaining breadcrumb mixture. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

If desired, mix in/top with parmesan or shredded cheddar cheese.

Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

lindsayrose — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:38:57 +0000

The brain of a woman doesn’t always make all that much sense. I am aware of that and happy to admit it. It is good, however, to have confirmation that your brain isn’t the only one that works in a dysfunctional sort of a way.

Over the past few months Ross has started working out. While I know that should make me happy and proud of him, it has frustrated me. I have tried to figure out why I had this underlying feeling of bitterness when he talks about working out, but I haven’t been able to make sense of it in my head. Similarly, when I go to put a dab of butter in the vegetables at dinner, he’ll ask to serve his before I add the butter. While I know I should be proud of him for being healthy (and maybe go ahead and skip the butter myself), it just brings up those same feelings of frustration. Then, like women do, I get frustrated at myself for being frustrated. Which means I am just a big ol’ mess.

A few weeks ago while taking a day trip for work, I tuned into a morning radio show. A man called in explaining that he had been working out and was in the best shape of his life. Much to his dismay, instead of being excited for him, his wife was annoyed with him. The female host of the show explained that while it doesn’t make sense, when the man in the relationship is taking better care of himself, it automatically makes us feel guilty for not doing so. We then tend to express this in frustration and/or anger. While it sure sounds ridiculous when you hear someone else talk about it, I felt better knowing that I wasn’t the only crazy one out there! Maybe I’m normal after all!

Since I have no interest in starting a workout regime at this point, or to cut out desserts, I’ve got to try to convert Ross to my unhealthy lifestyle instead of the other way around. It’s hard to get him to eat desserts, but I can usually tempt him with a cheesecake. Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake is a delicious, refreshing treat. And, since it has fruit in it, it’s healthy. It’s easy to make and if you really work that mixer, you can get a good arm workout in while you’re preparing it!

Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

1 ready crust chocolate pie crust (6 ounces)

6 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk

1 egg

3 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

Preheat oven to 350. With a mixer, beat cream cheese until fluffy; gradually beat in condensed milk until smooth. Add egg, lemon juice and vanilla; mix well. Arrange raspberries on bottom of ready crust. Pour cheese mixture over fruit. Bake 30-35 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool, top with chocolate glaze. Chill.

Chocolate Glaze

In small saucepan over low heat, melt 2 (1 ounce each) squares semi-sweet baking chocolate with ¼ cup whipping cream. Cook and stir until thickened and smooth. Remove from heat.

Making Up for Lost Time

lindsayrose — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 00:36:31 +0000

I try not to have regrets and I really can’t say that I have many in life. I do however have one big one.

I regret that I spent the first twenty years or so of my life not liking sweet potatoes.

Really? What was I thinking? I don’t even think that I actually disliked sweet potatoes themselves. I think I disliked the idea of them. I decided at some point that I didn’t like them – most likely without ever having tasted them – and didn’t eat them for years. Now, I’ve got to make up for it. I love sweet potatoes. I love them prepared just about any way, but this weekend we tested out a new recipe. And I’m a huge fan. It may be one of my favorite sweet potato recipes yet.

The recipe for Sweet and Spicy Sweet Potatoes is delicious not only because it is a sweet potato recipe, but because it adds a savory flavor to the naturally sweet food. The mixture of spices is perfect. Roasted white potatoes with herbs has always been one of my favorites, but for some reason I had never thought of roasted sweet potatoes with herbs. This recipe will definitely be in our rotation of sides from now on. It should be in yours, too!

(Lots) More Baby Food

lindsayrose — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 01:05:48 +0000

More and more each day, I realize how much I love making Madden’s food. It is funny to me because I would have never ever thought that I would be doing this, and now it is one of my favorite things. In no way do I think that baby food that comes in jars is bad, I just think that it is fun and rewarding to make it myself. I love making something and then watching him dig in, seeing that he loves it, and knowing that it is jam packed full of good stuff. In a weird sort of a way, it almost feels kind of like a bonding experience for me. Strange, I know.

This weekend, I made him more peas because he absolutely loves peas. Food Lion frozen peas are beyond delicious. I have no idea why they taste so much better than any other kind of frozen pea I have tasted, but they do. I put them in my Pampered Chef Micro Cooker (love it) with a splash of water and popped them in the microwave. Because he will only put peas in his mouth, but not doing anything with them after that, I still give them a rough chop. I tossed them in an ice cube tray, and 8 minutes later had 7 servings of peas for the little man.

I’ve found out this week that Madden loves corn as well. I wanted to add some more nutrition to the corn, so I boiled it with some black beans (rinsed to get rid of as much of the nasty bean juice as possible) and a pinch of cumin. I tossed those in the chopper and had 9 more servings of veggies in under ten minutes.

Wholesomebabyfood.com has been my go-to website ever since I have started feeding Madden solids. It has lots of great information, right down to what foods are good to mix together. There is a great finger foods section that had a recipe for Apple Turkey Loaf. I tossed the ingredients together and threw it in the oven in no time at all, and ended up with a new favorite for my little guy. He loves this stuff. This is going to be a new staple in our freezer!

This evening, I needed to use up some blueberries that were about to go bad. I also had some very ripe bananas, so I googled something like “baby banana bread” and found this recipe. I wasn’t sure whether it would be good or not, but I was pleasantly surprised. The fruit gives it just enough sweetness. Because Madden is under a year, I used 2 egg yolks instead of a whole egg. I also didn’t have any self-rising flour, so I threw in a teaspoon of baking soda. Madden was already asleep by the time it had cooled, but we’re going to test this out in the morning!

Baby Burgers

lindsayrose — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:24:57 +0000

For quite some time, I’ve been warned about the phases that babies go through. Now, I am finding out about them firsthand. Madden likes to teach me things like that. Since he was about four months old, I have been sure that he was going through the teething phase. Well, here we are a little over eight months with not a single pearly white in sight. My mother-in-law has told me that I can blame teething for any poor behavior until he is at least twenty-one. Apparently I’ve gotten a head start on that.

Along with the four month teething (without actually getting any teeth) phase, Madden has begun to show his independent streak. He has decided that he has no interest in baby food now that he is such a grown up little man. He wants to do it all himself. We’ve been on a hunt for foods that he can feed himself, but that are soft enough for his sweet little toothless mouth to handle. That has gone pretty well, but with a freezer full of pureed fruits and veggies that I’ve made and a baby on a spoon feeding strike, I figured it was time to get creative.

Baby burgers are a creation that came from a need to satisfy my little independent man and use up the “baby” food that he has decided is in his past. Adding the pureed veggies to a pound of ground meat along with some baby cereal to hold it all together ended up being the perfect solution. Madden now has a freezer full of healthy grown up food and nothing has gone to waste. Best yet, he seems to be a big fan of the concoctions. Taking only minutes to throw together and leaving me with a freezer stocked for the next couple of weeks, these baby burgers should leave me with plenty of time to prepare for the next phase.

Baby Burgers

Beef

1 pound ground beef

8 ounces pureed vegetables (I used carrots and broccoli)

½ cup baby cereal

¼ teaspoon basil

¼ teaspoon oregano

¼ teaspoon garlic powder

¼ teaspoon onion powder

Use seasonings that you typically cook with so that your baby learns to like the foods that you regularly make.

Chicken

1 pound ground chicken

5 ounces (half of a box) frozen chopped spinach, thawed (squeeze water out)

¼ cup shredded mozzarella cheese (omit if your baby is not ready for/has not had cheese)

Mix all ingredients together and form into meatballs. Flatten top to make into a small patty. Line a cookie sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray. Place baby burgers on baking sheet and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Cool and freeze. Once frozen, place baby burgers in Ziploc bags for easy retrieval. Warm in microwave before serving.