Chicken yet again

So, I defrosted chicken breasts...then came the mad dash for dang it what am I going to make with it?  so recipe sites here I come...I couldnt find anything that caught my eye on Foodnetwork, so moved to all recipe and decided on something french, with some corn bread and rice on the side, ok so only the chicken was french!

Famous Chicken Francaise...famous where? I think someone just picked a name for it.

Anyhow was really good!  At the end I had all of this left over sauce, so I added a tablespoon of flour to it, turned up the heat and wisked the heck out of it until it thickened and then poured it over the chicken.

And OMG even the kids ate it.

OOOOOO and before i forget I learned from watching all kinds of cooking shows, to use Chicken Broth instead of water when making rice WOW WOW WOW what a difference that makes.

Cream Cheese Pie? Is that anything like cheese cake?

Sorta..... I used a Paula Dean recipe.

I didnt use Cherries I tried strawberries and blueberries.  Jeremy liked the blueberries, the kids the strawberries. They loved it.

Me, way to sweet for me but then I dont have a sweet tooth.

Saturday Dessert

So, like I said..left over butter milk what to do what to do.....

pancakes? naw i cant cook those
bisquets? with what just alone nope
PIE...thats it Buttermilk pie and i have all the stuff i need including the frozen pie crust.  So
Emeril Lagasse to the rescue!!!!


Buttermilk pie!

Ok, so here i am making this pie.  1st off let us remember Cari CAN NOT bake, Jeremy is the baker, but he is busy and running errands... So, i can do this right? how hard could it be...measure some ingrediants, mix them up and pour them in a frozen pie shell right? RIGHT!

So, mix it all up, zesting my own lemon and EVERYTHING! and I am like ok what the heck is buttermilk pie, i never heard of it let alone had it..but i really needed to off load this buttermilk, i dont want it to go bad. and so i stick in my finger to give it a taste and you know that????? Its dang custard! not that custard is bad, i was just not expecting that.  Oh and it tasted a bit to lemony for me so i added about a tablespoon of vanilla and it made it just right!

Ok his recipe says cook 25 min, that wasnt enough time in my oven, i need to let it go for an additional 16.

Friday's Dinner

Decided to make some fried chicken, but didnt want all the oil and such..so found a great Cat Cora recipie

where i could bake the chicken instead of fry it. I let the kids help as i figured they would get a kick out of crushing the corn flakes (which they did). And it used some buttermilk...had left over, see Saturday nights dessert for what i did with that.

Any how...the only change i made to the recipe was i added honey, i dont like just dijon mustard, wanted more of a honey dijon.

I thought it was great.  Connor loved it. Alex ate it, and Jeremy said well you know i am not a big fried chicken eater and left it at that..so guessing he didnt like it. :(

Thursday's Dinner

So, I had some ground beef defrosted and i didnt want to make my sloppy joes again, so i figured well i can take the same recipe, minus the tomatoes and make hamburgers out of it.

Nope didnt work..dont give it a try.

So, what I did this evening

When Jeremy rode over to the produce market the other day he brought back some extra veggies and they had to be used or be tossed, and I hate tossing food.  So, I defrosted a couple of chicken breasts and decided I was going to roast the veggies and potatoes and figure out something interesting for the breasts.

So here is the the marinade I made for the breasts.  No mind you I forgot to marinade them, would have been TONS better had I actually marinaded.  Also, I cant give you exact quantities because frankly it depends on how many chicken breasts or pieces you are going to use. But here is what I combined.

Mustard
Honey
Worcestershire
Soy Sauce
Pepper
Garlic
Butter

Marinade the chicken then cook in the oven and YUMMY YUM YUM!

As for the roasted veggies and potatoes....Ok 1st of I cooked the 2 potatoes in the microwave until almost done. Then I sliced into thick chips.  I cut a red pepper into strips, and cut a tomato in half.

The cookie sheet I used got a light oil coating.  All the stuff going on it got butter, honey, salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary and the tomato got a sprinkle of bread crumbs.

The corn and the potatoes seemed to come out good. Didnt like the peppers or the tomato too mushy.

Alex LOVED the chicken and the potatoes.

Not sure Jeremy liked any of it, but I loved the chicken and the potatoes and the corn, lol.

If you give any of this a try let me know!

Friday Night

Last Friday night we went to GroveFest at my kids elementary school, Citrus Grove Elementary School.
They had carnival rides and food and stuff.

But the reason that I am posting this here is because we ended up eating dinner there and the food was being donated by Olympic Diner. They serve Greek Food. It appears that there are 3 restaurants:  Olympic Diner located in Palm City, FL, Olympic Taverna Jensen Beach, FL, and Spiros Taverna, Jupiter, FL.

Jeremy and I both had Gyro Platters. It came with The Gyro, and a greek salad.  OMG the salad dressing was YUM YUM YUMMY! And the gyro was tasty, however it was light on the sauce so mine was dry.  I am chalking that up to the fact it was at GroveFest and would be better at the restaurants.

Gonna have to take a trip to one of them soon and see what I can find..baklava is HIGH on my list of must haves.

Tonight was sorta my own

Ok so Jeremy and I both had a craving for sloppy joes, and well i wanted to make my own. I know probably cheaper to buy the can at the store, but not as much fun.

So I went to the web and looked around for recipes. I couldn't find any that I liked so Jeremy and I decided to play. He wanted to be my Prep Chef..isnt that the cutest thing ever! So earlier in the day when I realized I didnt have pepers he got on his bike and rode to the produce market.

Then he chopped my pepper, my onion and browned my meat for me...like I said so cute!

So here is what we did.

1 red peper
1 onion
1 garlic clove (i use jar minced garlic)
1 lb ground beef (you can use whatever though, like turkey)
1 tablespoon of majaram
salt
pepper
1 14oz can of diced tomatos
1/2 teaspoon of worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup of steak sauce/marinade
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon chili powder
a sprinkle of cayane pepper

Chop all your vegitables to a nice smaller size

Put a bit of oil in the bottom of a skillet and then add the vegitables, including the garlic and cook until they start to get transparent. Once they are done, remove them from the skillet and put them aside for later.

Add the ground meat to the skillet and then cook until browned.

Add back in the vegies and mix it up.

Add the rest of the ingredients.

Cook until some of the liquid renders off to a sloppy joe consistancy you like.

Be sure that you taste taste taste to make sure you get it to the flavor you like.

Make sure you toast your buns for serving it makes ALL the difference in the world

We liked it .. if you give it a shot let me know whatcha think!

Dinner from Thursday Night

Sorry I know I didn't post this the night I made it but, it has been CRAZY around here.  Anyhow, I made Thanksgiving Tonight, recipe by Rachel Ray. Ok let me just say YUCK oh yeah and can we say YUCK! The sauce wasnt too bad, maybe if u were going to use it on a pork roast or even meatloaf, but the meatballs for this thing were OMG not nice tasting. And it gave me heartburn? Aggita? Gall Bladder Attack? Not sure which one but it gave me something.

If you are going to venture into making this I suggest:
1. READ the ENTIRE recipe 1st.  It has you multi tasking so you need to make sure your prep is done and ready and that you can make pasta, meatballs and sauce at the same time.

2. Saute the raw vegitables before using them, as they were still crunchy in the meatballs..not a nice texture in a meatball.

3. I wouldn't soak the stuffing, the meatballs were way to wet and I had to keep adding dry stuffing mix to even get them to stick together.

Anyhow if you do try it and you get it to work, let me know.

Ground Turkey Goulash

SO, the recipe tonight is by Rachel Ray


and can be gotten from the Food Network, Great Goulash: Ground Turkey Paprikash and Macaroni

I wanted to make something that I had the ingridents for.  Ground turkey! I needed just a few things, Cumin, couldnt get away from it this time and pasta.

This was eh! Jeremy seems to be enjoying it, he had 2nds. 

1. Made a crap load again.  So will be freezing this too.

2. Kids think it stinks!

3. Was not what I was expecting.  For some reason when I think goulash I think Hungarian, and frankly this was more Spanish. I mean it had a nice flavor and all, but well eh..you know?

ok Alex doesn't like tomato sauce, sooo...

AS excited as he was to have his own chicken pam...as Connor started to get the stuff ready to make it for him he realized that he doesnt like tomato sauce and wanted to switch the tomato sauce for bbq sauce. soo..we changed the cheese to shredded chedder.

So Alex can now chef his own meal and feel creative, chicken nuggest, bbq sauce and chedder.

Poor Connor, he is all upset he didnt get to "be a chef" for Alex.

Maybe nex time :(

Kids Chicken Parm?

Ok so Connor was looking for left overs for breakfast and he wanted chicken parm I made earlier in the week. Well there was none left over, as I only made 1 piece per person.

So he was having a temper tantrum (what else is new around here) when I came up with a great idea to satisfy him.  I found in the freezer some Banquet Dino Shape Chicken Nuggets.  I layed them in a plate, put a little bit of tomato sauce on them, and then added some shredded mozzerella cheese.  Then nuked it all for 1 min and there you have it...FAST EASY and kid FRIENDLY chicken parm.  And best of all he can now make it on his own and he is very excited about that!

Tonights Dinner Not sure how it went

So I tried my hand at Risotto.  I used the basic directions on the back for how much liquid went to how much rice. Thats what Risotto is, it's an Italian rice.  Any how, I also read a bazillion recipies on line on it and added some stuff that wasnt on the back of the bag.  I substituted broth for water, and I substituted 1/2 cup of White Wine for some broth.  I added fresh steamed asparagus, and a crap load of grated parm cheese.

This is not like making regular rice.  The 1st off i heated up some olive oil and butter in the bottom of a pot.  Then I added 1 chopped onion and garlic.  I cooked that until the onions were transparent (might have aughta used 1/2 an onion) when that was done I added my risotto so it could absorb a bit of liquid. Then I added my 1/2 cup of wine.  Then once that was absorbed in I started added my broth 1/2 cup at a time until I achieved what I think was the right consistancy. But to be honest I never ate it before, so I dont know what it should taste like.  Jeremy said it was good. It was definitely firm..but not crunchy. Ok and make sure to stir a lot, you want the liquid to absorb, and add more as needed. You are trying to make a creamy looking sauce.  After all the liquid was done and in, I added a bunch of grated cheese, that should be done to taste. Speaking of taste ALWAYS taste as you are going, because if you dont you really could be putting something that taste nasty on the table. When the asparagus was done steaming I just stired it right on it.

With that as a protien, I did medallion size rib eye steaks.  I just gave them a quick pan cooking.  I heated up olive oil and butter, I know not sure where I saw that, I think it was Paula Dean, but it does cut some of the nasty taste of that olive oil.  Anyhow I forgot to take my meat out 30 min early, you should do this, cooking meat right out of the fridge doesnt let the meat cook well.  Anyway, I seasoned it with just some meat seasoning I had.  I have no idea what is in it, but it makes meat taste good, lol.  So, dry rub done, and pan all hot I put the steaks in.  Cooked about 2 min on each side and then took out.  I also should have let it rest for about 5 min to finish off the cooking.  Some of the pieces were RARE, not MED RARE.  I like my meat to moo, Jeremy prefers med rare.  So we just had to get him the correct piece is all.

So all in all he said it was a very tasty meal.  Me, I am iffy on it.  Oh and while Alex wouldnt even get near the risotto, it had green veggy in it, he ate 2 pieces of the steak..stinker!

Tonights Dinner

Ok tonight I wanted to get a bit "fancy"

I am going to try my hand at risotto (I am scared) they say it is really hard and takes practice. I told Jeremy I wouldn't poison him but that it might not be really good either. He is a good sport and willing to give it a try.

And steak and maybe some shrimp (skrimp as Connor calls it) ooooo and I got some fresh aspargus on sale yesterday too,

Will let you all know how it goes...wish me luck!

Joni's Chili Recipe or is it Wendy's?

DO NOT TRY UNTIL YOU READ THE ENTIRE THING AND THEM MY CHANGES AT THE END.  This way you can decide what you want to do.

I'll be honest I have no idea. 

But here is what it says:

2 lbs Ground Beef

1 29oz can of Tomato Sauce

1 29oz can of Kidney Beans (in liquid)

1 29oz can of Pinto Beans (in liquid)

1/2 cup Diced Green Chilies (2 Chilis)

1 Medium Onion, Diced

1/4 cup Diced Celery (1 Stalk)

3 Medium Tomatoes, Chopped

2teaspoons Cumin Powder

3 Tablespoons of Chili Powder

1.5 teaspoons of Black Pepper

2 teaspoons of salt

2 Cups of water.

Brown the ground beef in a skillet over a medium heat, draining the fat when done.

Using a fork, bruble the beef into pea size pieces

In a large pot, combine the beef and all of the rest of the ingredients

Heat to simmering over low heat

Cook for 2 - 3 hours, stirring every 15 minutes

Serve topped with chopped onions and shredded cheddar cheese, if desired

Makes about 12 servings.

Ok here are the changes I made:

I did NOT add ANY water at all.  I found that by adding the juice from the beans into the pot it was plenty wet. 

I did lid my pot, it didn't say to but I found it kept it moist.

I did NOT stir every 15 minutes, are you kidding me for 2 - 3 hours with 3 kids and a husband around? Who has the time for that.

I taste tested it every 30 min.  I found that it needed LOTS more salt and LOTS more chili powder.  Now, I did not have any Cumin, thought I did, but I was wrong.  I tried reasearching on the net what was be like cumin but nothing was, and we found that it wasn't missing. But, in all fairness having not used it or even tried this recipe before I dont know what kind of difference it would have made to add it.

This was SUPER YUMMY!!! However, it was a lot of food for me and Jeremy, the kids wanted nothing to do with it. So my suggestion, Cut it in half.

Joni's sent me Recipies!!!

Ok Aunt Joni sent me some recipes she has collected to give em a shot with my new cooking binge.

Last night we made Chili.  It was supposed to taste like Wendy's Chili.  Not sure it was the same the appearance and textures were WAY off. 

So I had to go to 3 stores to get all the stuff I need to make this thing.

Recipe and outcome next post!

Paula Dean's Swiss Steak

Ok, so while watching the Foodnetwork on TV I found Paula Dean.  And there she was in all her southern glory making mouth watering foods.  And she made it look so simple.  The thing she was making today was her momma's swiss steak in a dutch oven. The recipe can be found here Swiss Steak Recipe: Paula Dean.

So, I said that's it, I am going to get off my butt and make that swiss steak!

I went to the store, got all the stuff I needed, even had the butcher at Publix Supermarket, custom make me my cube steaks from the correct cut of meat Paula said to.

AND WOW!!!! Success 2!

Oh and for left overs the next day we took soft taco shells, and used the left overs as frajitas, and frankly it was an entirely different meal.  So, 2 for 1 on that one.

Christmas 2010

Since we couldn't afford ham this year we decided to do turkey.  So, this is my 2nd turkey I have ever made alone, I wasn't expecting much out of it.  I didn't know much about making fancy sauces for it, and when I looked at my "go to website", Allrecipes.com, at the time all the recipes seemed way above my pay grade.  I did do a little bit of research on the web just about cooking times and the such.

So, I made it like a make a chicken (which really isn't often).  I cleand the turkey and took out all that weird yucky looking stuff from inside it and tossed that out. I understand there are things you can use it for, but frankly that was too gross for me.  Then I added 3 pats of butter under the breast skin.  I took some plain old vegitable oil and painted the turkey so that is wasn't dripping but just shinned. Then I added seasoning.  I am fairly simple when it comes to seasoning, so I don't have many choices.  What I used was salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder.  Then we stuck it in the oven.  Something I read on the web said NOT to open and baste it a lot. And to turn it as anything facing the back of the oven will cook faster so to even out the cooking you need to turn it. So 1/2 way through Jeremy came out and turned it around for me, (I snuck my basting in then) and then we closed it up until it was time and the thermometer was at 170 degrees, Jeremy didn't get me 1 with a pop out timer (sigh).

Well all I can say is Jeremy said it was 1 of the best turkey's he ever ate.  That the breast meat was so juicey and tender that it melted in your mouth :)

Yippeee success 1