Chicken, again?

Manwich Pie

2008-12-22T17:24:00.003-05:00

I saw a picture of a recipe in one of those Pillsbury cookbooks that you pick up as impulse buys in the checkout line for a recipe that I then adapted into this one. It was SUPER EASY and SO YUMMY!!!

Manwich Pie:

1ish lbs. ground beef (or other ground meat of your choosing)
1 can Manwich (I used the bold flavor)
2 cans of that new Pillsbury Crescent Recipe Creations (basically sheets of crescent roll dough that are not perforated, so you don't have to piece them together)
2 cups cheese (of your choice)

Brown ground beef and stir in Manwich. Heat through. Lay one sheet of crescent dough in a 13X9 pan. Top with beef mixture. Top with 2 cups cheese. Top with remaining crescent dough. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until top is golden brown. Serves 6-8 people.

SO GOOD!

Basic Baked Spaghetti

2008-12-08T18:32:00.002-05:00

Another recipe from allrecipes.com, this time followed faithfully.

Basic Baked Spaghetti

3/4 lb. ground beef (Oh, wait. I lie. I used a little more than a pound.)
1 16 oz. jar spaghetti sauce (I used Francesco Rinaldi.)
1 pound spaghetti
1 cup shredded mild cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to350 degrees F. In a large skillet, cook hamburger until brown.
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Mix in pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente. Drain. (I cooked it for 9 minutes.)
Mix together spaghetti and meat mixture and pour into 9X13 pan. Top with cheese and bake for 30 minutes, or until heated through and cheese is bubbly.

Enjoy!

We had wind chills in the teens today, and this was a nice, comforting, warming meal. We will definitely be having this again...and the time from starting to brown the beef to taking it out of the oven was only about an hour...30 minutes of which was oven time!

Slow Cooker Mac and Cheese with Ham and Peas

2008-12-06T16:25:00.002-05:00

Wow, I haven't posted here since October 6, 2007, which happened to be my husband's birthday...but not this year. Last year. Whoops!

Quite honestly, I have not been doing a ton of cooking. However, my New Year's resolution is going to be to cook at least four meals per week. And as a precursor to that, I am trying to get a little cooking under my belt now so I can get used to it.

This morning, when I got home from work, I put into my slow cooker the ingredients for macaroni and cheese. I created this using a recipe I adapted from allrecipes.com. Here is the recipe, with my edits in italics:

Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese (with Ham and Peas)

1/2 pound elbow macaroni
1 1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
1 can evaporated milk
4 cups cheese (divided)
1 t. salt
1/2 t. black pepper
2 ham steaks
1 box frozen peas

Coat crock of slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray (I used a slow cooker bag...I love them, even though they are totally unnecessary.) Combine milks and eggs in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Add 3 cups of cheese and mix together. Add salt and pepper (I didn't measure this...just threw in some salt and did some twists of the pepper mill.).

It was at this point that I mixed in the ham and peas.

Sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Cook on low for 5 to 6 hours. Avoid stirring or removing the lid during cooking time.

My slow cooker cooks very hot, I think. It has a "keep warm" setting that I use almost like a low setting. I worked last night, so I was sleeping for about eight hours today and didn't want to have to worry about checking on it. Therefore, after heating the slow cooker up on high, I switched to the keep warm setting and let it go for eight hours.

This was a really good recipe! The flavor of the sauce was really good, and the ham and peas added a nice touch. The only change I would make from what I did is that I would add an entire pound of the pasta. The sauce was more than enough to handle it, and when I was eating, I had a lot of fork fulls with no pasta at all.

A keeper!

Cooking over the past week...

2007-10-06T12:26:00.001-04:00

I have been on vacation from work for a little over a week now, and I should have been cooking much more than I have been. However, I am lazy, especially when I am on vacation, so I have not been. However, I do have some recipes to share...one from dinner the other night and three from a party that we are throwing today to celebrate my husband's and my stepson's birthdays!

From last week, we have roasted vegetables:

I make roasted vegetables often, all winter long. For this incarnation, I used:

baby red potatoes
yams
yellow onion
asparagus
olive oil
Adobo

I cut the vegetables up in chunks and tossed them in olive oil in my 13" X 9" pan. I then sprinkled them with Adobo, stirred them up, sprinkled with Adobo, stirred them up, and sprinkled them with Adobo again. I baked them at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes...until the potatoes and yams were fork-tender.

This is a great recipe for a family because people can always pick out what they don't like. I sometimes us different potatoes, add carrots or turnip, or use spicier seasonings. Yum!

Today, I made some of my favorite soup, Cabbage Patch Soup. I first had a soup like this at the home of an ex-boyfriend's dad and stepmom. I found a close-enough recipe on the Internet and adapted it to make it my own:

For this recipe, you need:

1 - 2 pounds ground meat (I used meatloaf mix, but anything ground will do)
1 head cabbage, chopped coarsely
3 cans diced tomatoes
6 cans broth (I use four can vegetable and two cans beef)
2 to 3 cans beans (whatever kind you like - I used kidney and white beans)
carrots

Brown the beef in your stock pot. Once it is brown, add the tomatoes and the broth. Allow to come to a boil. Add beans, carrots, and cabbage. Turn down heat to allow soup to simmer. The cabbage absorbs a lot of liquid, so you might have to add water or broth. Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally.

This soup is even better the next day or so!

I also decided to make a homemade-from-scratch cake, my first-ever, for my husband's birthday. I found the recipe for this cake and icing on the Food Network's website:

Chocolate Cake (by Cathy Lowe)

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 t vanilla
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 9-inch cake pans by rubbing with butter, sprinkling with flour, and tapping our extra. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix together with a wooden spoon and set aside. In a small bowl, combine eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla. Beat well with a hand mixer. Slowly add boiling water and mix. Add wet ingredients to flour mixture and fold and stir until smooth. Pour batter into pans, dividing evenly. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes (note - mine only needed 30 minutes). Remove cake from pans and cool on racks.

Note - My dog ate a hunk off of one of my layers, forcing me to make another layer. The recipe halved well. Also, I tried some of the layer he destroyed, and it was yummy! Also, he got put in time out.

Basic Buttercream Icing (by Colette Peters)

1 cup unsalted butter or margarine, room temperature (I used salted)
1/2 cup milk, room temperature
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla or other flavoring (I splashed extra vanilla in)
2 pounds confectioner's sugar

Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix at slow speed until smooth. This recipe is enough to cover and fill a 9" X 13" sheet cake or 2 9" cake layer (note - I had a good amount left over).

I have never made cooked icing, and I didn't feel like trying it today. However, this icing was yummy! I have to note that I am really not good at icing cakes, so this one isn't looking so fantastic. I hope everyone forgives me that when they see how good it tastes!

Bon appetit!!!

Crock-Pot Conversation

2007-08-14T14:56:00.000-04:00

Like just about everyone else I know, I registered before my wedding for the biggest slow cooker I could find. I use it most often for making stuff to take to parties...dips and chili and wings and barbecue. For a while, I was using it also to make meals for my husband and me at home. I work night shift, so it was very convenient to stop at the grocery store on the way home in the morning, pick up some ingredients, throw them in the slow cooker, and wake up to a home cooked meal. However, that biggest slow cooker I could find was pretty hot, and I found myself sometimes using the "keep warm" setting to do the actual cooking because I wanted it to have to cook for seven or so hours while I was asleep. On some days that my husband worked from home, he actually had to turn it off after four hours because the food was done. And when he didn't work from home and I slept past the point when it should have been turned off, we ended up with dry tough meat and a slow cooker that was a pain in the butt to clean.

Several months ago, I was wandering around my local Wal-Mart, and I came across a smaller (2 quart) Crock-Pot for $9.94. I was sold. It has been sitting in my garage since then, but I pulled it out today to use it to make the pork for the Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches, and I have to say that it has been cooking for about four hours now on the low setting and there is still plenty of liquid in the pot, and it is looking like it will be nice and moist. I am thrilled!

One thing I used to hate about the smaller slow cookers is that they didn't have removable stoneware insert that the big ones did. However, this one does have a removable crock, which means it can go right into the dishwasher! And the lid is plastic, so I don't have to worry about it ending up shattered all over my kitchen floor!

My Crock-Pot dreams have come true!

OMG, is she actually going to COOK????

2007-08-14T14:42:00.000-04:00

To be fair (to me), I also cooked last week...once. Well, that may not exactly be true. I bought filets and corn and marinated the filets. My husband did the actual cooking on the grill. Well, I cooked the corn...so I guess I did half the work?

Tonight, I was going to make eggplant parmesan because a friend gave me a home-grown eggplant from her garden the other day. However, it is hot here, just like it is everywhere else in the country, and the thought of Italian food was NOT doing it for me.

I was flipping through some foodie blogs today (which I also had not done in a long time), and in a few different places, I found a recipe from allrecipes.com for Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches. The recipe is as follows:

INGREDIENTS:
1 (2 pound) pork tenderloin
1 (12 oz) can or bottle root beer
1 (18 oz) bottle your favorite barbecue sauce
8 hamburger buns, split and lightly toasted

DIRECTIONS:

1. Place the pork tenderloin in a slow cooker; pour the root beer over the meat. Cover and cook on low until well cooked and the pork shreds easily, 6 to 7 hours.

2. Drain liquids and stir in barbecue sauce to taste. Serve on hamburger buns.

I used a can of birch beer because that is what I was able to lay my hands on. And I bought lite hamburger buns because of that whole Weight Watchers thing. Oh, and I also bought some coleslaw to put on the sandwich because I love my pulled pork with coleslaw on top. The pork is still cooking as I type this...and it is looking nice a shredded without me even having to put a fork to it!

I plan to serve this with more corn on the cob (the season will wind down soon, and I will miss it terribly), along with some roasted red potatoes with Adobo on them. I bought my corn and the potatoes at a local produce stand, and they are great!

Oh, and there will be no pictures because my husband left my camera somewhere in Cleveland over the weekend...which is sad. But I am going to get a new camera...which is happy! But it won't be until Christmas...which is sad. As soon as I can get to my mom's, I am going to borrow her little point-and-shoot because, of course, my dog has been freakin' adorable all week, and I have no way to take pictures of him! Silly husband!

UPDATE: The pork was yummy! Still no camera!

Who has time to cook?

2007-06-26T09:41:00.001-04:00

I work night shift as a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit of a local hospital. My shift is 7 PM to 7 AM, and I usually work three nights per week. That is a nice schedule that would seem to leave plenty of time for cooking. However, that is not always so.

We have recently been overrun with little preemies to take care of, and, as a result, I have been picking up all kinds of extra hours. Therefore, I have been surviving less on my own home-cooked food and more on the stuff made by the nice people at Lean Cuisine. This week, I have four nights off in a row, so I plan to do some cooking at least two of those nights. Next week, I work six of seven days, so it will be back to frozen meal land.

I did make a fun dessert for a bridal shower this weekend. I wouldn't call it cooking because nothing in the dessert has to be cooked, but it does get put together quite nicely. This is a recipe that my husband's aunt Charlene makes for family gatherings, and I have always loved them!

Phylo Cups with Fruit

Two packages frozen phylo cups
1 8 ounce block cream cheese
1 container whipped topping
vanilla extract
confectioners sugar or Splenda
fresh berries

Soften cream cheese. In large bowl, mix cream cheese with half of the tub of whipped topping (I used Cool Whip). Add vanilla extract and sugar or Splenda to taste. Using pastry bag with star tip attachment, pipe mixture into phylo cups. Top each cup with fruit of your choice.

These were a big hit, and they are easy to make! And you could experiment with flavors and make them something all your own!

Some Everyday Italian, lightened up...

2007-05-30T18:37:00.000-04:00

Tonight, I made a recipe by Giada DeLaurentiis that I saw in the orange kitchen for Ricotta and Crab Cannelloni. The recipe is as follows:

1 box (8 ounces) cannelloni or manicotti pasta (about 12 shells)

1 cup whole milk ricotta cheese (I used part skim.)

3/4 cup grated Parmesan, plus 1/4 cup for sprinkling

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves (I used 1/2 cup of basil paste.)

1 pound lump crabmeat (I used three cans of Chicken of the Sea lump crab meat.)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper (I used mixed peppercorns.)

Bechamel Sauce, recipe follows

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain pasta. In a large bowl, mix together ricotta, 3/4 cup Parmesan, egg yolk, basil, crab, salt, and pepper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Fill the cannelloni with the crab mixture and place in a buttered baking dish. Top the filled cannelloni with the Bechamel Sauce and sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan cheese. Bake until bubbly and the top is golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve immediately.

Bechamel Sauce:

5 tablespoons unsalted butter (I only had salted.)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

4 cups whole milk, warmed (I used 2%.)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper (I used the mixed again.)

Pinch freshly grated nutmeg (I used jarred.)

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and whisk until smooth, about 2 minutes. Gradually add the warm milk, whisking constantly, until the sauce is thick, smooth, and creamy, about 10 minutes (do not allow the sauce to boil). Remove from the heat and stir in the salt, pepper, and nutmeg. (The sauce can be made up to 3 days ahead. Cool and then cover and refrigerate.)

I would say that my substitutions worked fine. I have never had a Bechamel sauce, so I can't speak to its authenticity. It didn't end up being very thick, but it kept the pasta wet during the baking process. The meal turned out very well, although I would imagine that it would be even better if Giada herself had made it for me!

Here's the final result...

Foodie Blogroll

2007-05-25T17:08:00.000-04:00

I am now, in the infancy state of this blog, a proud member of the Foodie Blogroll. If you happen to find your way here, please leave me a comment! And if you happen to be a foodie blogger, please join the Foodie Blogroll! It will make it that much easier for me to stalk you...

Italian-inspired eating...

2007-05-25T06:51:00.000-04:00

Last night, I had some pork chops all thawed in the fridge and ready to go. I didn't want to do my usual marinade-and-bake or shake-and-bake (yummy and not too bad for you if you are in a hurry or a bind). I had just been reading somewhere about all the different ways you could stuff chicken, and since I had pork on hand instead of chicke, I decided to stuff that instead!

I started out with the following ingredients:

I had the pork chops and garlic at home. I picked up, from my local food store, some basil paste (much better than the dried version, and I don't use fresh quickly enough), some fontina cheese, some grape tomatoes, some prosciutto, and some shredded parmigiano-reggiano cheese.

I butterflied the pork chops, after trimming off some of the excess fat, and placed in the center of each a slice of fontina cheese and two slices of prosciutto. I then put them in the baking dish and sprinkled Italian-style bread crumbs over the top, alone with some of the parmigiano-reggiano.

I then halved the grape tomatoes and sauteed them in a little bit of olive oil (I got this idea here) with three cloves of garlic (two were pretty small, while one was a decent size...not three large cloves of garlic). After they were soft and releasing some juice, I added a couple of squirts of the basil paste (I had never used the herb pastes before, but I was really pleased with it!). I sauteed that a little longer while my penne (I used Barilla Plus) finished cooking to an al dente finish. Then, I mixed those together and heated them through.

Here's the final result:

I sprinkled more cheese on top of the pasta, and it was a fantastic meal! I will definitely make this or some form of it again...enjoy!

Mexican Wontons

2007-05-19T13:52:00.000-04:00

My sister and her boyfriend came to a party at my house last weekend and brought some cheeseteak wontons that really wowed the crowd. I chatted with them about how they were made and thought I would try to make a wonton recipe myself. A quick search of the Internet found this recipe. I appreciated that it had a WW Points value assigned to it, but I wasn't feeling so virtuous today, so I tweaked it a bit. Here's my recipe:

1 pound lean ground beef

1 cup shredded cheddar and jack cheese

1 small can diced green chiles

2 t cumin

2 t chili powder

olive oil cooking spray

wonton wrappers

First, I browned my beef and added to it the cheese, seasonings, and green chiles.

While that was cooking up, I laid out some wonton wrappers.

Once the beef mixture was ready, I dropped it by the teaspoon onto each wrapper.

I moistened the edges of each wrapper, folded each one over, and shaped each into a wonton shape.

After spraying a cookie sheet with olive oil cooking spray, I placed the wontons on the sheet. I then sprayed the top of the wontons with the cooking spray, and into the oven they went!

After 15 minutes at 350 degrees, this is what they looked like:

I served them with some salsa (served them to myself because Bill is still out of town).

I actually made about 3 dozen wontons up, but I froze the rest of them for some other time. I could probably have made about six more, but I was getting sick of the process and gave up.

Next time, I would probably use more cheese and maybe some kind of soft cheese (cream cheese, maybe?) in addition to make the mixture more soupy.

Also, next time, I won't leave the wonton wrappers at the checkout at the first grocery store I go to, thereby bringing about a second grocery store trip after I was done with all the swearing.

Bon appetit!

When the husband's away...

2007-05-17T21:07:00.001-04:00

No meat need be served!

I was wandering through Wegman's this morning after my third 12-hour night shift (Note to self: Don't shop then. Healthy decisions are NOT made in the wee small hours of the morning), and I came across the garlic butter spread that they make and sell right near the other butter and margarine choices. And I started thinking about how it would make a nice white pizza.

One tub of garlic butter spread, one can of Pillsbury pizza crust dough, and one bag of Sargento's light four-cheese Italian mixture later, and we have this:

Healthy? Not really. But at least I don't use the whole milk mozzarella! And it will be perfect to sit in front of the TV with as I watch The Office season finale on my DVR. And that will start...NOW!

Out of my rut and into my kitchen...

2007-05-14T14:09:00.000-04:00

In my perusal of The Nest's bulletin boards this morning, I came across the "What's for Dinner?" board and was immediately drawn in. I generally struggle about what to make for dinner and often opt for the old protein-starch-veggie combo, which gets old after a while. We eat a lot of chicken. Mostly, it is marinated and baked or grilled. Sometimes, it's thrown into a casserole or a one-pot meal. Someday soon, we may start to cluck.

I have admiration for my friend Amy who is not afraid to try new recipes and who actually cooks for her husband almost every night. When I got married in October, I thought I would try to do the same thing. Now, almost seven months later, and I can say that I have not yet gotten in the groove of that. I am working night shift, and I did experiment a bit with my slow cooker to make easy meals during the day while I was asleep, but it has been a while, and I am back in my rut.

This past weekend, my sister and her boyfriend were here for a party, and they were talking about some of the stuff they cook together. They definitely are not afraid to try out new things, and they come up with some great food! I found myself thinking that it would be fun to be a little more daring with my cooking in order to jazz it up a bit and make it seem like less of a chore.

I headed to the Internet, where I found this recipe for stuffed yellow peppers. They are stuffed with a spicier, more Mexican-style meat mixture, instead of the usual Italian-style beef and rice. They also have a black bean recipe to accompany them. I will be making these two items for dinner tonight. I headed to Wegman's to get the ingredients (because I don't imagine that a spicy chicken sausage is something that can be found at my local Mr. Z's), and I also picked up a couple of magazines for inspiration. The biggest challenge for me is that I want to make these yummy and adventurous foods fit into my Weight Watchers lifestyle. Therefore, some of the heavier and more decadent ingredients have to go. Luckily, there are plenty of recipes out there on the Internet that incorporate healthier ingredients, and with the recipe builder on the WW website, I can figure out the Points values for the things I am cooking.

Wish me luck...tonight's the first night of my culinary adventure!

********

Update:

My trip to Wegman's netted me some smoked chicken chorizo, but no fresh spicy chicken sausage. Therefore, instead of crumbling and browning the sausage, I cut the sausage I bought into chunks and cooked it with the other ingredients. I also added a can of diced green chilis that I had on hand in my pantry.

Below, the fruit of my labors:

I know the beans don't look pretty, but they were so, so good. And the change in sausage made for a good dish, although I can't compare it to the original since I haven't had the original. All in all, I would say it was a hit with me, and I am sure that my husband will enjoy it too.

Experiment #1 was a success!