Category Archives: Recipes

Super Soup Sunday!


Hey, did you guys forget that I like to share recipes?

You did?

Oh, I guess that is because I forgot to share any since the flood of posts in December ;)

Fine – since I will be otherwise occupied for awhile, I will at least make sure to share when I find a gem or two. I came up with my own unexpectedly earlier in the week that I will more properly document and post when I make it again.

This one is courtesy of a friend from high school. Yet another “thank you Facebook!” connection that I made in the last few years. She just started her own blog specifically for sharing recipes and today she shared this Super Soup Sunday idea. First of all, I love that plan. Make a pot of soup to and save for leftovers during the week or freeze for longer time frames.

Soup Recipe

 

That’s direct from the Purely Nourished site.

FWIW, I did saute the onions and celery in lemon juice. I did not buy any garnish, and I did buy some french bread to go with it. Here’s what I had after 20 minutes of chopping:

photo (1)

 

A mixture of organic and not quite organic ingredients. I had to go with what I already had. I did have to make a trip to Jimbo’s to get the red lentils.

For the after picture I am using Jodi’s – it’s much prettier and she at least has some garnish:

Marakesh Express Soup

 

Yum yum and YUM! This soup is packed with proteins and ridiculously excellent nutrients thanks to the beans, spices and veggies. As you might see from her site – that is the focus.

I’m looking forward to more Super Soup Sunday recipes from her.

Fence Staining Project Rain Delay and Minestrone


First, the recipe – yes, it was good enough to share! Added to the Main Meal Page too.

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Slow Cooker Minestrone

Origin unknown – this basic recipe serves 6 – I didn’t want a bunch of leftover open containers of ingredients so I doubled it froze 1/2

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 1/2 onion chopped
  • 1 & 1/2 carrots, chopped
  • 2 stalks celery
  • 1 28oz can of tomatoes, undrained
  • 1 8 oz can of red kidney beans – drained
  • 1 8 oz can of white kidney beans – drained
  • 15oz of beef stock
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons oregano
  • 1 1/12 teaspoons pepper
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons parsley
  • 1o oz of spaghetti sauce
  • 4 ounces pasta (I used mini pinwheels)
  • salt to taste – start with 1/2 tsp

Brown beef in a skillet & drain. Add all ingredients into the crock pot except pasta. Cook on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 4-5 hours. In the last 45 minutes add pasta.

Per my tips above – the ingredient sizes are odd – I honestly don’t know where this recipe came from yet it is a fairly new one I printed out. But really – 10 oz of jar spaghetti sauce? 15oz beef stock? 1/2 an onion? And of course I couldn’t find an exactly measured 1lb package of ground beef either. Hence the doubling and NO leftover items :-) The recipe itself doesn’t call for salt, but we found it did need it. Otherwise – YUM! Fabulous winter day meal!

Day Two of The Great Fence Staining Project of 2012!

I *thought* I had another clear, dry day ahead of me to complete the fence, right? Wrong! Woke up at 7am and watching Up and thankfully I read twitter a bit and saw updates from LA friends about THUNDER and RAIN! Shit.

Checked San Diego and yep – now it was a 60% chance of rain TODAY! Argh! So I loaded up the local radar and it looked like I had until about noon to stain. That would make sure that whatever I did stain would be well dry before the first showers hit around 1pm. All right, then let’s DO THIS:

First hour - slow going because I had to get behind/around the planter again.

First hour – slow going because I had to get behind/around the planter again.

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This was around 11am – I had to also stain the top of the fence up to this point because the neighbor behind me on that section has left hers without paint or stain so far. I didn’t want to leave any part “raw” like that because I was already seeing mold in this section – which is the darkest corner of the yard. Also, I swear that the side I share with my next door neighbor was done with wood that was better treated to begin with. As soon as I transitioned this morning to this back part, the wood seemed more porous and already showed some wear :-( I’ve done my part – now I just have to hope since her side gets more sun that it’s not so bad over there. Thankfully the other backyard neighbor who I share the majority of the fence with did have hers stained right away. Still, since they used the same person for the entire section, I am still seeing some of the same mildew patterns at the bottom already. Even some bits of the wood splintering off on one post. And of course, I cannot say anything since they both took on this project out of their own pockets and have graciously allowed me to pay them back over time. Anyhoo…

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Just to give a feel for the time it takes – I’m covering every surface – including up under those cross beams.

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So, here is what I had left to do at 11am – that next section being more out in the open meant I figured I could get it done and have it dry before the rain (at this point the earlier section behind the planter that I started on at 9:15 was plenty dry. So, check the radar:

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Gonna be close!

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Noon! Mission Accomplished! No sign yet of rain – trouble is, my stomach was growling. I knew the rain would be there once I ate lunch (leftover minestrone of course). So then my strategy was to clear out the plumbago after I ate because it didn’t matter if I did that during a little rain:

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That bush really grew in thick since the fence was put up! So, I knew it would recover after another hacking – especially with all this rain we are getting.

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All clear! Left a small spray of the bush that is growing out about a foot clear of the fence – will be plenty easy to work around that – certainly easier that it was getting around the peach tree and planter box! So this was taken at 1:30 and the rain had just started spritzing a bit.

It’s now rained for almost 2.5 hours – all just light showers, but there is no way I will be hitting that last bit today. It needs to dry out first and right now there are these off and on showers predicted through tomorrow morning.

Grumble.

Recipe Pages organized!


First, yes, there has been a change (yet again) in main theme for the blog – the header picture is the old Point Loma Lighthouse at the Cabrillo National Monument. We visited there with some out of town friends on the 26th.

But, on my To Do list for the holiday break was to more formally organize all the recipes I’ve shared over the years. So now they are split apart in two pages: Cookies & Main Meals (since those are what I primarily try out).

There are tabs up at the top for the two of them. When I try something new and it is good enough to share, I will put up a blog post but also add the successful recipe with my own notes onto the appropriate page.

So feel free to browse the two sections and if you’ve got questions on any of them, drop me an email or a comment.

Happy baking or cooking!

S’mores Cookie Recipe


S'mores cookies partially baked

 

 

Adapted from Always with Butter

Ingredients

  • 11 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup brown sugar, packed
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 2 ½ cups flour
  • 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips – IMHO these are optional. Or, use dark chocolate chips. The dough is plenty sweet without the chips.
  • 1 cup mini marshmallows
  • 3 regular sized Hershey’s bars, broken into pieces (I used Special Dark)
  • 1-2 packages graham crackers, broken into squares

 

Instructions

  1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, sea salt and cinnamon to combine. Set aside.
  2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter with white and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.
  3. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixer and combine on low speed.
  4. Fold in the chocolate chips and marshmallows. Chill dough in refrigerator for 1 hour to overnight.
  5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line baking pans with parchment paper. I used an 11×17 pan and filled it up once and partially filled it with the second batch. It all depends on how thick you want the cookie part to be.
  6. Lay out graham crackers side by side on the pans as close as possible (they should be touching). I used 24 graham cracker squares on one pan and 10 squares on another. You may have to add or remove graham crackers according to how much dough you have. If you want your cookies thicker you will use more dough and less graham crackers.
  7. Place tablespoons of dough on graham crackers about 1 – 1 ½ inches apart. I averaged about 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough per graham cracker square as seen in the picture above. Press down slightly with fingertips.
  8. Bake for 5 minutes then remove from oven to press Hershey’s bar pieces on to the top. You can place as many pieces or as little as you want depending how much chocolate flavor you want.
  9. Bake for an additional 5 – 7 minutes or more if your cookies are thicker. They will be done when the edges begin to turn golden brown. Remove to a wire rack to cool. For clean cutting make sure cookies are completely cool and cut with a sharp knife.

When making these again I will DEFINITELY make them somewhat thinner. Don’t get me wrong – this thicker batch was good – but I think I’d like just a tad more balance in the flavors. Just me!

This batter when raw? AMAZING. Almost as good as the ricotta cheese cookies. Almost.

 

Premier Cheesecake Cranberry Bars


My first attempt at this recipe. As part of my holiday baking tradition I like to mix in a new recipe or two each year. This year, I am going for THREE news ones (yes, I picked another one after making that recipe list earlier).

Anyway, here’s me live blogging this adventure. There will be foul language. Lest anyone get the wrong impression – I am NOT a highly skilled baker by ANY means and I’m about to prove it to you.

I wing it all the time. Any good disciplined cook (like my mom) would probably read and re-read the recipe making sure they understand each step that is coming up. Gather all ingredients and measuring implements. Check to see if anything needs to be softened or set at room temperature (oops!).  You know, stuff that folks who haven’t developed adult onset internet/social media ADHD would do.

Well…I started out the day very well. Checked how many sticks of butter I needed and if they should be softened (7 sticks and yes to all).  I set them out in front of their recipe pages nicely in a row. Planned the three recipes I would do and even ordered them properly. Make the jello spritz dough first since it needs to be refrigerated. Then do the ricotta cheese cookies and bake all of them back to back with the jello so that the oven is then free to handle the longer cooking time of the Cranberry Bars (40 mins). That way too, I was completely done with cookie sheets and cooling racks and could clean and move them out of the way.

Those first two were easy – I have done them before, made all the rookie mistakes and now have them down to a routine. So, I was OK not giving them 100% focus. Though, there was the one batch that went into an oven that was turned OFF vs just the timer being turned off since I was on the phone as I was making the transition. Aack! Again though, I know those cookies well enough to be able to figure out how much longer they needed based on how far along they were and you cannot tell which tray they were.

Then I started the bars…..

Premier Cheesecake Cranberry Bars – a Nestle recipe

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 1/2 cups quick or old fashioned oats
  • 1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 2 cups (12 oz pkg) Nestle Premier White Morsels
  • 1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese at room temperature
  • 1 can (14 oz) Sweetened Condensed Milk
  • 1 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 can (14 oz) whole berry cranberry sauce
  • 2 tbl cornstarch

HEAT oven to 350. GREASE 13×9 inch baking pan. COMBINE flour, oats and brown sugar in a large bowl. Add butter and mix until crumbly. Stir in morsels. Reserve 2 1/2 cups of mixture for topping.

With floured fingers, press remaining mixture into prepared pan. BEAT cream cheese until creamy. Add condensed milk, lemon juice and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Pour over crust. Combine cranberry sauce and cornstarch in bowl. Spoon over cream cheese mixture. Sprinkle reserved morsel mixture over cranberry mixture. BAKE for 35-40 mins or until center is set. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cover; refrigerate until serving time. Cut into bars. Makes 30 bars.

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So that first step? Where you combine the flour, oats, butter and brown sugar?  THEN add the MORSELS? THEN line the bottom the pan with BARELY ANY OF IT? Well, I had to do that twice. The first time I dilligently measure out the 2 1/2 cups reserve. And that left me with….almost nothing. I sure couldn’t figure out how it would cover the whole pan! But, I spent close to 20 minutes spreading and rolling with my fingers and palm to get that damn thing spread out. And then….I wondered exactly when I am supposed to add the morsels?

Yeah – I made the mixture and pressed it all in without the morsels. $^#&(@*#&@*$^#(*^#$(!!!!

I scraped it up, put it back in the bowl with the reserved amount, added the morsels and said “Fuck it – I am not measuring this reserve again, it all just better FIT!” So I pressed out two small scoops of the mixture with the morsels back into the pan. Part way through I remember I had greased the pan before and maybe scraping out the first batch had removed some of that? Again – “Fuck it!” I truly didn’t care. My fingers were sore from the pressing. So up there is what it looked like and down there is the reserve amount.

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Now, this delay in step one was actually OK. Because you see, I had not quite picked up on the whole Cream Cheese AT ROOM TEMPERATURE! Thankfully I had been using the oven before, so the stove top was fairly warm. Also I messed up step one so…by the time I got around to picking up the cream cheese container from the stove where I had placed it after reading that little detail, it was pretty damn close to room temp. Close enough anyway. By this point I am cranky as you can tell…

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Now here I should also admit that I didn’t quite have enough lemon juice. Again, I had simply checked before I went shopping last night to see IF I had any – not whether or not I had ENOUGH. Lord…also…my lemon juice expiration date is…..12/26/12!! Weee…makes you want a bite of this right? Whatever – I had a hair under a cup and that was going to have to do. Like I said, CRANKY! It looks pretty nice up there anyway. Poured just perfectly over the first layer anyway.

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No drama mixing the cranberry sauce and cornstarch….

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…but there was some drama spooning it out. As you can see – it BARELY..just SORT OF…covered the cream cheese layer. Sigh……

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Sure seems to be a lot of MORSELS on that last layer eh? I have no idea why. And I don’t care!

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Nicely golden brown on the top – I wont be cutting this up for a couple of days so I cannot give you the full report – BUT – after letting it cool on the counter and just before putting it in the ‘fridge I DID sneak a corner spoonful  Which DID (yay!) scoop up easily so that the whole greasing process seems to have held up despite the scraping up of that first layer.

AND? It tasted pretty damn good! In fact, any more lemon juice and I may not have liked it since I usually want to only taste a hint of citrus in my desserts anyway.
I’ll report on how it is properly chilled and set, but despite that goof ups, I like it.
Not sure if I would do it again though – I think folks will have to rave about them first. Cookies are way easier!

Baking List for the year


I’ve started a tradition a few years ago of baking cookies and bringing them into work during the month of December. My next door neighbor sometimes also has a neighborhood cookie exchange party. Last year I was a cookie elf bringing treat plates to Renee & Eve and Renee & Quyen (yes, the two couples in my training group are female, and, there is one Renee each). It is not confusing AT ALL! Anyway…I suggested that this year the training group have our own cookie exchange party and I volunteered my place for it. We’ve set the date for the 19th so I’ve got lots of time to prepare, but I would also rather make sure I plan ahead for all the baking I want to do and get the right combination of ingredients to take advantage of free blocks of time. So today I sifted through recipes, scoured Pinterest…and made my choices. Oddly I didn’t end up with anything new from online sources but instead chose a combination of staples and some older recipes I’ve had in my folder and never tried.

I need to save this someplace so I don’t forget:

  1. Ricotta Cheese
  2. Jello Spritz (use existing jello packets only)
  3. Chocolate Sugar
  4. Cranberry Cheesecake Bars
  5. Chocolate Raspberry Thumbprints

I figure that’s a good blend of chocolate & sugar varieties along with some fruit themed flavors.

Starting off with some blue raspberry jello spritzers tomorrow per 16′s request :-)

Crock Pot Lasagna


Crock Pot Lasagna before cooking

Crock Pot Lasagna before cooking

 

Courtesy of Dinosaurs Can’t Eat Pizza – a recipe a saved back in January and finally remembered to pull out this week when I wanted to do some crock pot cooking.

Crock Pot Lasagna

Author: Unknown

: Entree, Italian, Crock Pot

Prep time:  15 mins

Cook time:  5 hours

Total time:  5 hours 15 mins

Serves: 6

 

Ingredients

  • 1.5 lb ground turkey (or ground sausage or ground beef)
  • 1 lg chopped onion
  • 1 clove minced garlic
  • 1 lb mozzarella, shredded
  • 12 oz cottage cheese (I used 16 ounces)
  • 1 t. Italian seasoning
  • 8 oz no-cook lasagna noodles
  • 29 oz tomato sauce (I used spaghetti sauce)
  • 6 oz tomato paste
  • Parmesan (shredded or powdered, up to you)

Instructions

  1. Cook turkey (sausage/ beef), onion & garlic over medium heat (drain and rinse if you are using a particularly fatty meat).
  2. Add spices and tomato sauce and paste (if it’s too thick, add water to thin).
  3. Mix the two cheeses together in a bowl.
  4. In the crock pot, put about ¼ of meat sauce, layer of noodles, layer of cheese. Repeat layering twice, topping off with remaining meat sauce.
  5. Sprinkle with parmesan and cook on low 4 – 5 hours.

 

** Tip from a twitter friend after I bitched about the mismatched noodle shape/crock pot shape – soften the noodles a bit by soaking in hot water for a few minutes (perhaps while booking meat mixture). My haphazard breaking off of bits to fill in the curved corners was fine of course. It’s all the same flavor no matter how messy! But it’s less aggravating I assume & I will try that next time **

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It is YUM YUM YUMMY! The boys gave it two thumbs up as well. I went home at lunch to prepare this and it was as quick as promised on the recipe. I used ground turkey because it was on sale this weekend and because I happen to like it a lot more with Italian food. I was afraid that there wasn’t enough rinsing in the world I could do to prevent ground beef from greasing things up too much and with all that cheese it was already plenty gooey!

The one other thing I will try next time in addition to softening the noodles it to substitute ricotta cheese instead of cottage cheese. Robyn did that when she posted the recipe and I just didn’t read through entirely to see that. I am more used to Ricotta being used in lasagna. Mind you – we all still liked it plenty fine with the cottage cheese!!

Oct 18 – Meatball Tortellini Soup


Another recurring theme when I commit to daily posts – recipes!

I’ve done something like this before, but could not find it readily when I was making a grocery list the other day so this time I am documenting it here so I can find it wherever I am :-)

I found this on All Recipes and it is a slight variation from the one I had orginialy used (shared by an August mom I think?!)

 

I did adapt this a little. For one, I hate buying vegetables more than I need unless I have another recipe on hand to make with the unused portion. So, I substituted spinach instead of kale which is actually closer to the original recipe I had in mind. Plus, I already had a pack of frozen spinach on hand. I thawed that along with the meatballs.

There is a bit of an ulterior motive here. 16 eats horribly during the day as do most teenagers so I do my best to pack a ton of vegetables into his dinner. Spinach is a favorite of mine to mix in with something. He notices, whines, and eats it :-)

This is a bit more effort than I normally make on a week night, but it wasn’t so bad.

Obligatory photo of assembled ingredients.

 

Yes, I forgot until I had already started chopping veggies – whatever!

Can you smell that? Onions & garlic in butter

 

I wanted the first step to last forever – it smells so damn good! Any recipe that starts with “sautee onions & garlic in melted butter” is a winner in my book.

After that it is basically just a matter of dumping in everything except the meatballs and tortellini and bringing it to a boil. I cleaned up while that was happening because well..everyone knows a watched pot never boils, plus, there is no way I have the patience to stand there!

Boiling – see the bubbles on the edge – mmmmmm.

 

That’s it! It is a very very filling soup. It’s tempting to serve with bread but it really doesn’t need it and would just be almost too much. Yes, it’s a lot of food even feeding all three of us, but it’s a fabulous leftover and I will be bringing it in for lunch tomorrow.

It’s also really really GOOD and savory and a hit with everyone in the house. Maybe I shouldn’t automatically count on those leftovers….

 

 

Oct 8 – Another Recipe and all football weekend fun


First, the recipe which was a huge hit and super easy to make:

The original source is the Ultimate Slow Cooker BBQ Shredded Beef recipe found and shared by an August Mom who also has to feed a house full of hungry boys!

My house was full because one of 16′s teammates stayed with us Sat night so I got up and put this in the crock pot Sunday morning to be ready for lunch. Our guest ate 2 large sandwiches so I gather this has been approved :-)

I mentioned previously that this weekend was potentially going to be weird and melancholy since I was missing my mom friend’s annual gathering. Well, Thursday night we took advantage of technology and used Face Time so that I could join in on the post dinner nighttime conversation session. Two hours later I was feeling pretty filled up with the sounds of laughter and friendship – enough to carry me through this weekend without feeling too down at all! Which is good since I subsequently didn’t have time to hang out with them virtually the other nights.

The Friday Night game was bad..the team lost 35-0. Sat night I took the boys down to the SDSU Aztecs football game which was a lot more fun to watch. We left early with the Aztecs leading by a ton, but didn’t want to risk the big fireworks show bugging 16′s concussion. Plus, the boys wanted to play video games for awhile and I had ordered a midnight cutoff so that he could get some much needed sleep and keep healing.

Meanwhile I had volunteered to handle the varsity team’s participation in a fundraiser requiring me to mail out forms. Those were delivered to me Saturday so I spent the morning on Sunday stuffing envelopes and then I had the boys label and stamp them. We did all this while watching morning NFL games.

Yes, that’s high school, college and NFL games that we watched over the weekend. While stuffing envelopes for a football fundraiser.

You think we like football just a tad?

So my fear of a being sad all weekend was unfounded. Technology, football and time spent with the boys cleared all that up nicely :-)