Corn Salad

Here is another recipe that is super easy to make but usually a big hit at gatherings. Give it a chance...I know it sounds odd when you look at the ingredients, but it is really, really tasty!!

Corn Salad

2 cans White Shoepeg Corn (drain what little juice there is)

5 - 6 green onions, sliced fairly thin

1 small tomato, seeded and diced

mayonnaise

black pepper (fresh ground preferred) to taste

cayenne pepper to taste (you want it to have a little bit of a zing

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. I usually start with a couple of heaping spoonfuls of mayo, and add to it if it doesn't seem moist enough. Let chill for at least a few hours so all of the flavors mingle.

Crab Rangoon Dip

Wow!! I really suck at keeping up with this! So sorry. And to those of you who asked for the recipe a couple of weeks ago, I am sorry for taking so long to post this.

My disclaimer: I don't measure, so I will give you ingredients and approximations, but do to taste.

Crab Rangoon Dip

Cream Cheese, Softened (I usually use 2 bricks)

Fake Crab, Finely chopped (About 4 - 6 oz.)

Grated Swiss Cheese (About a cup)

Water Chestnuts, finely chopped (1/2 - 3/4 of a small can)

Green Onion, sliced fairly small (1/4 - 1/2 cup-ish)

1 Jar Sweet and Sour Sauce

1 pkg wonton wrappers

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients except sweet and sour sauce and wonton wrappers. Spread in baking dish of choice. Spread sweet and sour sauce over the top. ( I usually don't use the whole jar, but again that is to taste.) Bake for approx. 30 minutes or until edges are just starting to brown and cheese has melted. Meanwhile, cut wonton wrappers in half diagonally, and either fry in hot oil until golden brown on both sides (only takes a few seconds depending on oil temp) or place on a baking stone, lightly spritz with oil, and bake for 8 - 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Serve while hot.

Sunday night dinner....

In days of yore families sat down to a big Sunday dinner together...LOL just kidding

But seriously, my extended family has always been separated all over the country so we didn't usually have the traditional Sunday dinner. My mommy always cooked yummy meals but we didn't do the stereotypical Sunday family dinner that I have read about in books and watched in movies. Now that I have my own house, I do like to try to do a bigger Sunday dinner when I can. One of mine and Eric's favorites is Pot Roast. That is what I am making for dinner tonight (Sunday here in Oki). Here is my recipe, which makes its own gravy right in the pan. So yummy and super easy!!

Pot Roast

1 package dry onion soup mix
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can beef broth
1 Chuck Roast (I prefer boneless but my mom likes bone in)
pepper, garlic powder, cayenne (notice a trend? I put these in almost everything)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Rinse and dry the roast. Sprinkle with spices (more garlic powder, less cayenne). Brown on all sides on the stovetop. In a baking dish (just a little bit bigger than the roast if possible), mix onion soup mix, cream of mushroom soup, and beef broth. Mix as good as possible, but it is ok if there are some chunks/lumps, they will be gone by the time it is done cooking. If you are using a really large roast you may need to double the ingredients for the gravy. Place browned roast into baking dish. I use a spoon to coat the top of the roast with the gravy. Cover with a lid or foil and place in the oven. Bake until meat breaks apart easily with a fork, turning the roast over every 45 minutes to an hour and re-covering. Mine usually takes about 2-1/2 hours but that can obviously vary based on the size of the roast. I usually make about a 3 pound roast so we have leftovers for lunches.

Goes perfectly with mashed potatoes.

It's BBQ season

Just in time for all the barbeques that I am sure will be happening this weekend I figured I would post one of my favorite foods to eat at a barbeque (well besides my mommy's amazing potato salad which I don't have the patience to make). My mommy's amazing baked beans!! The only catch is, I think I may have mentioned it before, I don't have measurements on this one. I will give you the ingredients and the steps, but you kind of have to figure out how much to your own taste and to the size batch you are making. Sorry.



Baked Beans



Van de Kamps Pork and Beans

Brown Sugar (The sweeter the better to me so I use a lot)

Ketchup (a pretty good amount)

Bacon, sliced into 1/4 - 1/2 inch slivers

Onion, chopped

mustard (just a touch)



Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a frying pan, start cooking the bacon. When it is just starting to brown, add the onion. When the bacon is brown, but not crispy, drain on a paper towel.

Choose a baking dish that is appropriate for the amount of beans you are making. In that dish, combine Pork and Beans, brown sugar, ketchup, bacon and onions, and mix together. Add a little mustard (maybe a Tablespoon per large can of pork and beans) and mix thoroughly. Bake for about an hour.

Enjoy!!

My how time flies....

This last semester in school was insane. Boy did I bite off more than I could chew. I barely had time to cook, let alone post any recipes. So sorry I neglected my loyal fans...all 4 of you LOL. I was just looking back at my previous posts and I could have sworn I posted more than 3 recipes, but I guess not. I have a whole list of recipes I'm going to try to post over the next couple of weeks. School starts again in just over a week but the first week is usually not too stressful. I can't believe how fast my break flew by.

So here's the first one...Cajun Chicken Pasta. We had this for dinner tonight. So yummy!

12 ounces angel hair pasta (or whatever kind you like - linguine, fettucini)
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces
3 Tablespoons cajun seasoning
3 Tablespoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
3 Tablespoons flour
1/2 stick butter
3 - 4 large cloves fresh garlic, crushed or finely minced (optional)

1 small red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 small green bell pepper, thinly sliced
4 oz. mushrooms, sliced
4 or 5 green onions, chopped (about 1/2 inch thick)
3 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 - 1 teaspoon lemon juice

parmesan cheese (I prefer fresh grated but use whatever you prefer)

1. Cook and drain pasta
2. Place the flour, cajun seasoning, 3 Tablespoons of garlic powder, and 1 teaspoon pepper in a bag and shake up to mix. Add cut up chicken and shake until well coated.
3. Melt butter in a large, deep frying pan or a 4 - 5 quart sauce pan. Add crushed garlic, if using, and saute for a minute or so, until just starting to brown. Add chicken and cook until just about done. Maybe 8 - 10 minutes
4. Add all vegetables and saute until vegetables are done to your liking. (I like mine pretty done, I don't like them crunchy in a pasta sauce) You can add more butter if needed. Another 4 - 5 minutes or so.
5. Stir in cream. Add basil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and lemon juice and stir well. Let simmer for 10 - 15 minutes or until cream is heated through and just starting to thicken.
6. Stir in pasta.
7. Serve topped with parmesan cheese.

Hope you enjoy this one as much as we do.

School is driving me crazy...

So sorry I haven't posted in a while. I will try to get back to it soon. I am just putting up a quick post to let you all know that I haven't quit already, I have just been crazy busy with school and haven't had the time to devote to this. Not to mention, Eric left for 6 weeks so I haven't been doing a whole lot of cooking. I will try to get a couple new recipes up toward the end of next week.

Hope all is well out there in the "real world." Take care and you'll be hearing from me again soon.

Sarah

Quickie Peach Cobbler

A.K.A. a dump cake

This isn't one I have made recently but it is Eric's favorite dessert and one of my good friends just asked for it AGAIN. :-) So I thought I would put it up on here.

Ingredients:

2 large cans or 4 small cans of sliced peaches (juice drained from half and kept from half)
1 yellow cake mix
2 sticks of butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Dump Peaches (including half the juice) in the bottom of a 9 X 13 pan. Spread cake mix evenly over peaches. Cut butter into small cubes and spread out over top of cake mix. Bake for 1 hr. to 1 hr. 15 minutes, until top is almost completely golden brown and bubbly.

Caramel Apple Pork Chops

Sorry it has been a while since I put a new recipe up. See what I mean about not keeping up. School has kind of been stressing me out the last week. These short semesters are going to kick my butt.

So we tried these Sunday night and they were really yummy!! Not quite what I was expecting or hoping for but still definitely worth making again. Let me know if you have any suggestions on how to change them.

Ingredients:
4 - 6 pork chops (I used about 1/2 - 3/4 inch thick boneless chops)
vegetable oil (or canola or whatever you use)
salt & pepper to taste
minced or crushed garlic to taste
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
2 apples, peeled, cored & sliced (original recipe called for tart but I used galas and it turned out fine)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Pour a little oil in the pan and heat it up. Add garlic and saute just a touch to bring out the flavor. Add the pork chops. ( I seasoned mine first with my usual seasonings I put on almost everything - garlic powder, fresh ground black pepper, and cayenne pepper.) Brown on both sides until almost done or just done. Transfer to 9 X 13 baking dish. Add butter to same pan. When just melted, add brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt & pepper, and apples. Cook until apples are just tender. Pour apples and sauce over pork chops in 9 X 13 pan. Put in the oven to bake for 20 -30 minutes.

My original intention had been to serve over rice, but there wasn't enough sauce to serve with 3 - 4 servings of rice, so I made mashed potatoes. I contemplated adding some apple juice to stretch the sauce, but I didn't have any on hand so I haven't tried that yet. Again, if anybody comes up with a way to improve this one, let me know.

Jalapeno Popper Stuffed Burgers

My lack of measuring really comes into play in this recipe.

Ingredients:

Burgers:

• Ground Beef

• Whatever you use to season your hamburgers ( I use ketchup, worchestershire sauce, garlic powder, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and dried onions)
• You are going to want to find good buns for these cuz they should be pretty good sized burgers...like a good onion roll or something, not the cheapy hamburger buns

Filling:

• Cream Cheese (helps if it has been softened)
  
• Shredded Cheddar Cheese
• green onions, sliced
• real bacon bits
• chopped jalapeno, to heat preference ( fresh or jar, I used jar)
• For a pound of ground beef I used 4 oz. cream cheese, around a 1/4 cup cheddar cheese, about 2 or 3 green onions sliced including green part, about 4 slices of bacon chopped up and cooked, and probably 1/8 cup of chopped jalapenos. It had a slight kick but nothing too crazy. I did have about enough for 1 more burger left.
  

Mix up hamburger meat and seasonings. Make patties creating a dip or well of sorts in the middle of half of the patties.

Mix together all filling ingredients. Put some in the well of each patty. Take flat patties and put over filling making sure to seal the sides well. Cook as desired.

Mom and I have talked about this filling and think that it could be used in a whole variety of ways. Our thoughts were as a cheese ball of sorts served cold with crackers, served hot and gooey with tortilla chips, mixed with chopped or shredded chicken (possibly without the bacon bits) as an enchilada filling with green sauce, or with boneless/skinless chicken breasts pounded flat then wrapped around the filling and rolled up then dipped in bread crumbs or panko crumbs and pan fried. Let me know if you can think of any other ways it might be good.

Just the beginning....

Well I am not the best at sticking with things so we'll see if I am able to keep this up.

For all of you that know me, you know that I love to cook and hopefully most of you would agree that I am pretty good at it. Unfortunately, meals lately have been feeling a little boring. I get stuck in a rut....whether in cooking or eating out....and once I find something I like, I stick with it. Sooooo....I make the same dishes over and over. They are still good, just getting a bit tired of them. Thus, I have decided to start trying out some new recipes so as to expand my repertoire. So far, I think I have happened across some pretty good successes that will be added to the regular line-up. And as my friends, I have decided to share with you all. Please let me know if you try anything, and if you find a way to improve on it. Heck, if you find anything you think I might like, throw it up there for me.

A couple of disclaimers (warnings):

We LOVE garlic, so everything I cook, except sweets, has tons of garlic in it. Feel free to cut back on it if you are not so enamored with this wonderful spice, herb, whatever it is. I can't promise the outcome of that, of course.

I don't always measure, so when I can, I will at least provide approximates, otherwise just go with what you think looks good. (or tastes good)

I am not looking to change the world, or make people think here. Just looking to provide my friends and family with some new ideas for the kitchen.

I may throw other things in here from time to time if I get comfortable with blogging. As the title says, this is just the beginning so we will see where we go from here.

I cannot promise how often I will post, because as most of you are aware, I have recently started back to school and that is taking up a whole lot of time.

I hope you enjoy.