Thursday, May 17, 2012
Cream Cheese Frosting -- I could eat this by the spoonful!
Please forgive me for this just being a link, but I change nothing about it. I really do love this stuff and I really thought I should share it.
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/cream-cheese-frosting-ii-2/Detail.aspx
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Simple Bacon Quiche
6 Eggs lightly beaten
2-3 Handfuls of shredded cheese (Your preference, I used colby jack and cheddar)
1 Sheet pepperidge farm puff pastry
1 Pound Bacon
Fully cook bacon and crumble to your liking. I chopped mine in the food processor because obviously it's easier. Mix together with egg and cheese. Add salt and pepper if desired.
Roll out puff pastry on floured surface. Place in greased 9"x 9" dish/pan letting excess hangover sides. Place all of mixture in dish, and pull excess dough over filling till fully covered
Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Allow to stand for 10 minutes to allow settling before serving.
I will say that even though there's not much to do, it does take some time. Some things to help ease some of that pain would be to buy precooked bacon. Obviously a bit more expensive, but if you like your time, by all means, this is a good way to go. Also, you can get the pre-done pie crust, however you lose the flakiness of the puff pastry and of course it's no longer fully enclosed. I could be wrong, but I believe that a quiche isn't supposed to be fully enclosed so that way may be a bit more true to quiche anyway. But if you haven't learned yet, I kind of make things the way I like them. And, well, I like dough. PLEASE keep in mind that if you don't fully enclose it, you may need to change the cook times. Just look for browning of the top and make sure it's cooked all the way through.
Don't be afraid to make any meat or cheese substitutions you'd like or any additions for that matter. I did this recipe based on what I had on hand. Most quiche recipes have variations of juice, cream, herbs, and vegetables. Mine is a very simple version so don't be afraid to add what you like. If you use other liquids, be sure to research other recipes to give you an idea of how much to use. Too much can cause your quiche to be a mushy mess and won't settle properly. I've attached just such a recipe for your reference if needed.
If you notice I stole their picture. :-) For once, mine turned out very pretty, but that was before I was doing the blog and I never saw much point in documenting my food. Looking back I totally should've because my food rocks! But now I know.
Oh, and before I forget, this fed four adults and two children.
Original Recipe: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Bacon-Quiche-2
Happy Cooking!
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Delicious Veggies!
~Frozen veggies:
The biggest thing is using frozen veggies. Some people think that you lose nutrients in frozen and canned goods, but frozen may actually be better than fresh. Veggies are frozen soon after being picked and the nutrients get locked in whereas the grocery store fresh produce sits out losing nutrients till they are consumed. They may actually lose more than what is lost in the cooking process of frozen.
~Replace butter and bacon with some form of liquid and garlic/onion:
I've been trying low sodium soy sauce or balsamic vinegar. Balsamic vinegar is a bit hard for me to stomach, but if I use just a bit, the cooking takes away some of that twang. I also throw in some minced garlic or onion with either one. With both of these, I've found no need for salt or pepper.
Soy Sauce is great with green beans, sugar snap peas, broccoli, and cauliflower.
Balsamic is great with carrots, corn, broccoli, and cauliflower.
You can probably interchange all of this, but this has been what I've worked with.
If you are concerned about the price of frozen, I've found that the store brand is on sale often and comparable to canned.
Squash, Zucchini, Carrots
Used fresh or frozen (if fresh, cut into spears)
No liquid! Just toss with cooking spray and salt and pepper or favorite seasoning, blacken in a skillet and you have a crispy delicious veggie! (Tony Chacharies (sp?) is great for this!)
Spinach
Yeah, I've got nothing here. If it's fresh, I like it loaded with italian dressing and parmesean cheese, and if its cooked, i like it with garlic and bacon. Or creamed with cream cheese and ranch, so I'm just kind of screwed there.
Smoked Sausage Rolls
Hillshire Farms Smoked Sausage (or any of them, I just used this because I got a bunch recently on sale)
6 Slices Cheese (I used Velveeta brand)
Pepperidge Farms Puff Pastry
Melted Garlic Butter
Prep:
Set oven to 400
Slice sausage down the center, then cut 5 time to
give you a total of 12 sausage chunks
Lay out puff pastry onto floured surface, roll out
(very thin). You will need 12 strips of dough, approximately 5"x
3".
Slice cheese down the center
Wrap cheese around sausage, then wrap dough around
sausage. Make sure to close ends or the cheese will melt out and burn.
If your dough is a bit hard and won't stick to itself, just wet your
fingers, then press the dough. Also, make sure that when you finish
rolling, you lay the roll on the pan with the extra flap of dough facing down.
Otherwise, when it bakes, it will puff up and separate from the roll.
Place the rolls on a sprayed cookie pan and brush with melted garlic
butter. Bake for 20 minutes or until crust is golden.
Obviously, there are many options with this recipe.
There are a couple of things that could make this much easier and less
time consuming.
~First being using cresent roll dough. You
don't have to worry about flouring and rolling out dough. I get that.
But my beef with that is you don't get full coverage with this kind of
sausage, and I think puff pastry is considerably fuller and more flaky. But
if you like the cresent rolls, by all means, please use them.
~Second, you can use the smoked sausage franks.
I don't because of price. I don't find these
on sale ever, so I just ignore the fact that they exist. Plus, they don't
scream healthy to me and if I could make these one at a time, I would without a
doubt eat them much more often! Anyway, if you notice this one has bacon
and cheddar. So in that respect, you may actually be able to save a bit
by not using sliced cheese. I personally like a good amount of cheese,
but if you want to cut back a bit on the amount, here's a great option for you.
Also, if you use these with the cresent rolls, you don't have to worry
about as much cheese burn when the roll doesn't fully enclose the sausage.
And in my opinion, the best option of all is
selection! There is such an enormous variety of sausage and cheese out
there that you can make these spicy, by throwing in some pepperjack cheese, or
really hot by using hot links (great for sports parties). You have a
variety of meat choices as well. I used Turkey in my latest one because,
well, that's what was on sale. And for the most part, smoked sausage
taste like smoked sausage. Sorry to diss on turkey bacon, but it's
terrible, but when it comes to smoked sausage, you don't lose that great juicy
flavor. They also have chicken and beef so experiment a bit! I
seriously don't think your family will notice a difference.
If you or your family is like my husband and you
aren't a fan of hot dogs or sausage, look at what your family does like and use
it. I've got an idea for maybe some roast beef and provalone or shredded
chicken with taco seasoning in the future. Is it as easy as making
chicken tacos or a roast beef sandwich? No, obviously not. But it does
offer some variety. Being on a very strict budget means eating at home
much more often than not, and having a large variety of food makes up a bit for
not being able to go out to dinner on a whim.
Some other ideas for filling:
Tuna Fish Casserole (without the noodles or crackers)
White Chicken Chili (Check out recipe in another post)
Barbecue Chicken/Beef/Pork <<I love barbecue pizza so this sounds wonderful
Ham and Cheese
Steak-ums and Cheese
Hotdogs
Pizza Filling
Taco Meat
Pork Loin with Spinach
Pork Loin with Spinach
Hormel prepackaged pork loin (1-1 ½ lbs)
Spinach 8oz, thawed and drained (I just throw it into a bowl
with water, then squeeze out the water before throwing it in the mixer)
Ranch seasoning packet
Cream cheese 8oz softened
Water 1 cup
Mix CC, Spinach, ½ ranch packet
Slice pork to make flat
Spread mix over pork leaving maybe a tbls or two of mix to
the side
Roll loin and secure with toothpicks, place in slow cooker
(keep count of toothpicks, I missed two)
mix remaining mixture with about a cup of water and rest of
ranch
pour over roast
pepper over roast to your liking if preferred
cook on low 7-8 hours
All of this is to your preferred liking. I thought about adding some bacon but
was too lazy. Maybe I’ll do it in
the future, though. Add things you
think you might like. I’m thinking
I might try this with some asparagus and garlic instead of spinach and
ranch. I also love the fiesta
ranch and I’m trying to come up with an idea for that because I love the
stuff. Also, you can beef up the
ranch content in the mix if you’d like.
Ranch can sometimes be overwhelming to me, so I didn’t want too much in
the mixture.
I also think this would be great with chicken! A dish my hubby makes would also work
wonderfully with this! Basically,
it’s chicken, cream of mushroom soup, spinach, bacon, and a mixture of
mozzarella and parmesan cheese.
The recipe that gave me the idea used goat cheese, dried
tomatoes, spinach, and cream cheese.
That sounded way healthier than my version and if you know me, I don’t
really do healthy all to well. I
love very robust flavors, and kind of don’t like dried tomatoes.
Awesome Taco Pie
This is probably a favorite of both Steve and I.
We eat it as is, in taco shells, tortillas, and tortilla chips. I
prefer to eat mine in a nacho type manner and Steve likes to crunch up tortilla
chips and mix it all together. Whatever the case, this is easy and
delicious!
ground beef 1 pound
packet taco seasoning
couple of handfuls of shredded cheese (chedder,
colby jack, mexican blend all work fine. I use what I have on hand)
picante sauce about 2 cups (I eye it so I'm really
not sure. I figure you can use as much as you'd like.)
eggs 2
milk 1 cup
bisquick 1/2 cup
Heat
oven to 400°F. Spray 9-inch glass pie plate with cooking spray. In 10-inch
skillet, cook beef and brown; drain. Stir in seasoning mix.
In
separate bowl, mix seasoning, beef, cheese, and picante sauce. pour into
cooking dish.
In
small bowl, stir eggs, milk and Bisquick mix until blended. Pour into pie
plate.
Bake
about 25 minutes. Top with cheese, bake 2 to 3 minutes longer or until cheese
is melted. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.
Serve
with lettuce, salsa, sour cream, cheese, taco sauce, heck, whatever you like
with your tacos!
Here's the original recipe:
Their's is so much prettier than mine will ever be. :-)
Making food easier and less time consuming
Prepare food ahead of time
Cook up ground beef and chicken ahead of time in
mass quantities. I would only do this for ground beef and shredding or
chunking chicken. Do it by the pound, that way its easier to separate.
~I buy the 5 pound loafs of beef, cook it
all at once (with seasoning), then using measuring cups, separate it into 5
ziplock baggies, then stick it in the freezer.
~Same goes for the chicken. Poach it,
yes poach, don't boil (I'll attach a link for that), shred it, then separate
and freeze. You can bake, grill, or fry breast, then slice it and
separate it, but I wouldn't suggest freezing a whole breast. The
reheating process would take too long to get to the center of the cut and it
would ultimately leave you with very dry chicken breasts.
~Don't forget the seasoning with the
cooking. Once meat is cooked without the seasoning, you can't get that
deep flavor. I've made the mistake before and it really made a difference
in the food.
GARLIC
If you like garlic with your food, buy the big tub
of minced or chopped garlic! It's cheaper than garlic cloves, lasts for a
long time, and taste just a good as fresh garlic and is way better than the
dried stuff! Plus you will save time with not having to prep garlic.
I'll admit there are times when it doesn't fit what I'm doing.
Sometimes I like garlic slivers or you may want to roast some garlic for
bread. And I completely understand. But for the most part, I've
found that the pre-done stuff is wonderful.
Slow Cooker do aheads
So I'm all about preparing meals for the slow
cooker ahead of time, then grabbing them when needed. It's a great idea,
but there are a few things I've learned with doing this. Potatoes and
carrots DO NOT freeze well. I would almost teeter on them ruining the
meal. I'm not sure about celery though. I don't use it because its
a waste of money in my house. My suggestion is to do the other stuff,
then get the unfreezables fresh when you make the dish. Carrots aren't
such an issue if you buy the baby carrots in the bag, but I know potatoes can
be time consuming. My suggestion there is to buy the small red potatoes,
just wash them and cut them up. They are great with the skin!
Onions
If you know my taste in food, you know I don't like
onions. Well, I can't really say I don't like onions. I actually
happen to love the flavor of onions. I just hate biting into them.
No clue where that came from, but it's possibly one the worst things in
the world to me. My solutions, mince them! Yep, I mince onion for
any dish I ever have to have it. But that can be a frustrating process
when I want a quick meal, so I mince up several onions at a time then freeze
them. This can actually be a fairly hefty process because it's really
helpful to get a good portion of the water out before freezing. It's no
fun, but makes it worth while for me. Now to finally get to my point.
You can do this with however you prefer your onions. Slice, chop,
or mince! They really freeze great. Plus you only deal with tears once!
~On a side note, when chopping or mincing, it will
be very beneficial to separate into servings. when the onions freeze,
they become a rock solid mass and it can really damage the flavor reheating the
onion to get portions out over and over. If you separate it ahead of
time, you only have to use what you want without ruining the whole batch.
(I learned this from experience) I'm still experimenting with ways
to accomplish this and I've found that ice cube trays work best. Once
they (minced, not sure about chopped) freeze, I just throw them into a ziplock
baggie and haven't had any issues with them getting mixed up.
Poaching Chicken directions:
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