Meatballs w/ Garlic Bread

I found an old recipe from Everyday Foods and made a few tweaks to make meatballs with garlic bread. I combined about a cup o f Italian bread crumbs, 1 lb ground beef, 1 egg, oregano, cumin, salt, and pepper. Then I made around 20 meatballs.

Over about 1 table spoon of olive oil, I cooked the meatballs over med-high heat in a dutch oven, rotating at 7 minutes total. Then I added a can of garlic diced tomatoes. I boiled and then simmered it for around 20 minutes. Then I added 1/4 cup of sugar and let that set with the lid on for about 10 minutes.

I cut french loaf bread in half and drizzled olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper. I toasted in the oven at 400 for 10 minutes.

I recommend this!

Pan Seared Pork Chops

On my day off, I decided I wanted to make a delicious meal for my husband when he got home from work. I didn't use a recipe for dinner and thought of what a man might like for dinner after a hard day back from Christmas break.

I wanted to Christen my new All-Clad stainless d5 french skillets (Christmas present) so I decided I would pan sear some thick bone-in pork chops. I would then roast it on top of chopped potatoes, onions, apples, chopped fresh rosemary (from my herb garden), olive oil, and salt/pepper. Prior to putting the dish in the oven, I drizzled a little balsamic vinegar over the meat and veggies/fruit (not too much). I am learning the art of not over doing the seasonings. Then I cooked it at 400 for about 60 minutes. I let it rest about 7 minutes (covered with aluminum foil) after taking it out of the oven.

Also, I cut come fresh mixed lettuce from my veggie garden on the back deck. I made my own dressing. Half a lemon's juice and zest, coarse sea salt, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil.

For dessert, I wanted to use my new Williams Sonoma jelly role pan from my mom (another Christmas present). I followed the recipe on the pan packaging. What a moist excellent cake! I still haven't perfected tight rolling, but with practice, I should be able to make more rolls. The batter might have been too thick, who knows. Yum.

Christmas Breakfast - Breakfast Muffins

A few months ago I made breakfast muffins. I cooked some bacon and put 1 piece of loaf bread into a muffin pan hole then added bacon, cheese, and 1 egg (uncooked). Then I baked it in the oven until the egg was cooked. It was very unique and cute.

For Christmas breakfast at my parent's house, my mom decided to copy my recipe from memory. She used store bought biscuit dough instead of bread. But it was so much better that way (great thinking mom)! We learned that if you use biscuit dough you have to use extra large muffin pan holes cause when the biscuits rise, they push the eggs up. Other than that, it was excellent. Another excuse to purchase a new cooking pan! Joy :-D

Egg White Cookies

I'm not sure what they are called, but tonight I asked my mom how to make my favorite cookie. It is the simplest recipe and the best cookie ever!

2 egg whites - beat until peaks form

add 1/2 cup sugar

Add 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

fold in pecans and butterscotch chips

place spoonfuls of mixture on parchment paper

heat oven to 350 - turn it off and place cookies in the oven

Let stay in the closed oven over night

Chocolate Peppermint Biscotti

I made my 4th batch of biscotti this season to bring home to my family for an accompliment for some coffee and hot chocolate dipping. Yummm...

Christmas Tea

Last Sunday afternoon I had a few of my girlfriends over for a Christmas Tea. I served gingerbread cookie hot tea along with homemade orange poppy seed scones and an assortment of cookies I purchased and my friends brought over a few. What a wonderful, stress free way to celebrate Christmas!

Crock pot - Beef and Taters

My husband and I wanted to go out Christmas shopping last Saturday and come home to a stress free meal. So I threw a chopped up onion, frozen green beans, beef tips, and cut up russet potatoes into the crock pot set on high for 4 hours.

We had enough time to do some shopping, pick up my brother in law, and sit down to a hot meal.

Easy, cheap, somewhat good... but the texas toast was what made the meal along with the seasoned wild rice underneath the beef-tater mixture.

Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

When I was a little girl, my mom made a cranberry and almond biscotti. I remember how excellent it was. I googled biscotti and found this recipe Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti. I tried it out tonight. My husband was happy to come home from work to have brewed decaf coffee and homemade biscotti for dipping!

Lettuce Harvest

I harvested my first crop of lettuce for dinner tonight. I grew it from mixed lettuce seeds in a deck railing planter out back. I do believe it was the freshest lettuce I have ever tasted!

My husband grilled steaks and I made mashed sweet potatoes and garlic cressant rolls. Yummm...

Chicken - Stuffing, Cream, Cheese

I had an unused package of stuffing and heavy cream that was about to expire.

I combined stuffing, broccoli, cream, mozzarella cheese, and chicken breasts.

I popped it in the oven at 400 for 40 minutes.

Easy, cheap, frig/pantry clearing...

Rosemary Potato Soup w/ Crispy Carrots

My husband was home sick today so I decided to boost his spirits by making him homemade soup for dinner. I swayed from Martha today and used a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens December 2011 issue.

1 tbsp butter

1 yellow onion, chopped

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

4 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut in 2-inch chunks

4 c water

1 spring of fresh rosemary chopped (my variation)

1/3 cup veg oil

4 baby carrots (my variation)

Thanksgiving left over turkey (my variation)

Saute onions in butter until translucent. Add chopped potatoes, salt, and pepper along with 2 c water. Bring to boil and simmer for 20 min covered.

While potatoes are simmering, fry baby carrots ribbons for 2 minutes. Remove from oil and coat with sea salt while on a paper towel.

Mash potatoes, add remaining 2 c of water and bring to a boil then simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.

Serve with cracked pepper and fried carrots on top of the soup. I backed some garlic butter cressant rolls for dipping.

My husband had 2 servings without me pushing him so you know it was good. I only have a little left for lunch tomorrow :-)

Leftover Turkey Soup - Mom's Genius

Mom decided we needed to make some turkey soup with the Thanksgiving leftovers. The secret ingredient is curry.

We also made mushroom cream sauce pizza.

Leftover Ham Biscuits

For Saturday easy breakfast for the family, I had my husband pop in some Grands biscuits. Then I cut up leftover spiral ham and mixed it with cheese and scrambled eggs for some delicious ham biscuits. Strawberry jam was an excellent addition to my biscuit.

Finale

Food was good, but not cooking again for at least a month! Thankful for my family and all of the food we had today!

Home Stretch - Turkey 40 min

The turkey is looking beautiful and golden brown. 40 minutes left then adding the sides to heat up while the turkey sets and I make white wine gravy.

Thanksgiving AM

Yesterday on my day off I got to see Rachel Ray for the first time. She made homemade mushroom soup for a green bean casserole. She made it look so easy. I forgot to purchase a can of Campbell's soup for my traditional mixed veggie casserole. I didn't have mushrooms so I used onions instead.

Heat olive oil, onions about 5 minutes. Add dry white wine and have most of the liquid evaporate. Then add a little chicken broth, flour, and heavy cream. This is the cream substitute in my veggie casserole.

As for the turkey, I heated olive oil, 7 stings of lemon zest, minced rosemary (from the backyard), and garlic. This is what I'm using to baste the turkey. It is smelling pretty good.

As for the stuffing, I mixed everything together with my homemade bread from yesterday that I left out overnight to let it get hard.

I put the ingredients in the bread machine for the dinner role dough. Can't wait to smell fresh baking bread throughout the house.

Breakfast Casserole

Thanksgiving AM was accompanied with breakfast casserole. It is basically a plate of breakfast food in 1 bite.

Layer cressant roles, sausage, hash browns, and cheese. Top with scrambled eggs and bake. It is pretty easy.

Thanksgiving Prep - Wednesday

As part of my post-college graduation tradition, I host Thanksgiving at my house in Raleigh. I love putting all of the stress on me and making an amazing meal for my loved ones. The first few meals weren't always the best, but they are getting better with experience. I normally take Wednesday off work so I can slowly prep everything.

At 8 AM I poured all of the ingredients into a borrowed (thank you Mom) bread machine for homemade stuffing! No kitchen bought stuffing this year. I'm following Martha's mushroom and walnut stuffing recipe.

Next, I cut up the sweet potatoes and followed Martha's sweet potato casserole, but added a requirement of pecans and brown sugar.

Finally, I followed the canned pumpkin - pumpkin pie recipe and made 2 pies this am. My mom is going to bake the pecan pies (1 traditional and 1 chocolate) tonight because I have never been able to create one that was as good as hers!

Nothing else to do until Thanksgiving day.

Cranberry-Orange Pancakes with Cranberry-Maple Syrup

My husband's father is visiting our house this weekend. When anyone comes to visit, you are never hungry. I found an excellent recipe in the cranberry section of the November 2011 Coastal Living magazine - Cranberry-Orange Pancakes with Cranberry-Maple Syrup. Since my husband is the breakfast man, I asked him to try it out and see if the recipe was worth keeping.

This was excellent with fresh cranberries. I believe we will be saving this recipe and making again next weekend when my family comes for Thanksgiving.

10 Minute Lunch

Portobello mushrooms sauteed in butter are an excellent substitute for ground beef in regular spaghetti. This strawberry salad mix is an easy 10 minute lunch on a vacation day.

Greek Style Chicken with Pickled Onions, Tomatoes, & Tzatziki

I am not feeling well tonight so my husband cooked dinner. He made Everyday Foods Greek-style chicken with pickled onions, tomatoes (from my garden), and tzatziki. The herbs used were grown in my back deck flower boxes. He did a very good job! We will be saving this recipe because it is good competition for Greek Fiesta.

Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Fall Vegetables

Lentils were a first yesterday and parsnips today. I chopped red onion, parsnips, and Brussels sprouts then tossed it with olive oil - salt - pepper. Then I roasted it at 450 degrees for 25 minutes. Once roasted, I tossed them with 1 fresh lemon juice. This was very yummy with roasted pork tenderloin.

Lentils & Mushroom Soup

Lentils are mentioned many times in the Old Testament, the first time recounting the incident in which Jacob purchases the birthright from Esau with stewed lentils (a "mess of pottage").^[14]

I tried a bland vegetarian meal from Everyday Foods. It was nasty. I'm not really a fan of lentils. I did save some leftovers for 2 lunches. I won't be cooking lentils again.

Steak Pizza with Caramelized Onions and Bell Peppers

Dad came for dinner tonight so I decided to cook steak. Ryan got the best looking sirloin 1.67 large cut of steak from Lowes Foods. I caramelized red onions, yellow and red bell peppers. This pizza was excellent! Thank you Everyday Foods!

Braised Chicken with Butternut Squash and Cranberries

I found the perfect Fall staple when people come over for dinner. Everyday Foods had a recipe for braised chicken with butternut squash, red onions, and dried cranberries. I first made it for Ryan's brother's birthday. I followed the instructions on the recipe and used my cast iron dutch oven, but the chicken took way longer to cook than recommended. The second time I made it, I still used the cast iron dutch oven to braise the skin-on dark meat chicken and precook the butternut squash, fresh copped sage leaves, and red onions (coated with flour, coriander & nutmeg), but when I added chicken broth and dried cranberries, I transferred the mixture into my crock pot. I cooked it on high for about 1.5 hours then turned it to low for about 30 minutes prior to serving.

This was excellent with Near East's wild rice box mix.

For dessert, I tried a low calorie option when my friend, Lauren, came for dinner. I sliced a naval orange, red ruby grapefruit, and plum. I placed the sliced fruit in shallow creme brulee ceramic dishes and sprinkled brown sugar on top. I broiled them on high for about 5 minutes. Next time I will broil them on low for 8 minutes since the orange burned a little bit on the edge. Also, I served homemade chocolate bars. I melted dark chocolate morsels and spread it on wax paper. Then I chopped mixed salted nuts and pressed them into the melted chocolate mixture. I put it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes then I broke it up into bit sized pieces. Next time, I'm going to use no-salt pistachios with a little orange zest and coarse sea salt.

No Gluten

I made a gluten free dinner tonight. Chicken with quartered potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, curled parsley, and yellow onions.

Making Garlic Paste

My first retweet of my blog Twitter post occurred yesterday. Thank you @CabotCoop.

This gave me the motivation to crack open a new recipe and conquer. Pg 114 of September 2011's Everyday Food had a recipe with ingredient staples I had in the house already. Salt, garlic cloves, paprika, coriander, vinegar, olive oil, and chicken. What made this recipe fun was what I did with the salt and garlic cloves. I covered 2 peeled garlic cloves with 3/4 teaspoon of salt. Then I chopped the garlic into the salt and used the flat side of the chopping knife to mash the garlic/salt mixture into a paste consistency.

The sides were Near East's 100% Long Grain & Wild Rice - Garlic & Herb mix, stir-fry veggie mix with stir fry sauce, and Rhode's dinner rolls.

Mr. David Reynolds, 96, as in Reynolds wrap died today. His father started Reynolds in 1919. In his honor, I used Reynolds Parchment Paper under my chicken while baking. No sticking to my Emile Henry azur oven bakeware tonight!

Reduced Sodium

I have been feeling dizzy today at work so I decided to make an easy dinner. I chopped pork and made some reduced sodium Zatarain's Jambalaya. I ate it on the back deck with the hubby.

1. Only make Zatarain's with Polish kielbasa.

2. Don't buy reduced sodium. It tastes very bland.

Gluten Free Risotto Mix

Lundberg's Gluten Free: Creamy Parmesan Risotto box mix

I give this a thumbs up. Let it sit a little while for it to thicken, but don't keep it in the pot for second serving cause it dries out fast.

I served this with microwave steamed broccoli. Since I keep Cabot seriously sharp white cheddar cheese in the frig, I grated some on top of the hot broccoli to give it a good bite :-)

Rainy Day Chili

using a cooking torch to melt a huge block of Cabot sharp cheddar cheese inside a toasted dinner roll isn't a good idea. It lights the entire top of the roll on fire. We watched our neighbor's grass-less hill wash down the street while eating our chili. Lots of clay!

Sunday - Dessert Day

I'm going to try to make 1 dessert a week for Sunday dinner. This past Sunday I made banana creme pie. My husband doesn't allow me to buy cool whip and makes me make the creme from scratch. He underestimated the whipping cream so the pie was a little too thick, but still tastes good.

All this rain lately was has made my thyme grow so I decided to make up my own marinade. I minced 3 garlic cloves and combined it with white wine vinegar, olive oil, and fresh squeezed lemon. I got out my meat tenderizer and made pork tenderloin cutlets. I marinaded it in the refrigerator for 4 hours before grilling it. It was pretty good. Might try it again sometime.

Survived Hurricane Irene

We survived Irene in Raleigh. No real damage at our house. Only a little rain and occasional wind gusts.

I'm making a simple dinner of left over basil, pine nut, parmesan cheese, garlic, and olive oil pesto with some fresh tomatoes from my garden on pumpernickel bread. Thankfully our electricity never went out.

Husband's Turn to Cook

I guess my cooking all last week inspired my husband to try it this week. Yesterday he made fajitas and we ate on the deck out back. Tonight he asked me to harvest 2 cups of basil from my garden for some pesto on a homemade pizza. He put basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, and parmesan cheese in a food processor and used that as the pizza sauce.

Question: Is he cooking because he wants to compete or because he hated my new recipes last week???

Thai Shrimp Stir-fry

Fish sauce... my husband and I went to Lowes Foods with the Everyday Food grocery list. We had no idea what it was or where to find it. I looked in the seafood section, but just old bay and cocktail sauce. So my husband started googling. It is in the Asian section.

When I was cooking the thai shrimp stir-fry from pg 81 in September 2011 Everyday Food, everything looked good until I opened that fish sauce. It stinks and the whole time I was cooking it, I was nauseous. When I served the food over the rice, I made sure to use a slotted spoon to avoid excess liquid.

The dish was pretty good, but I'm going to throw out the rest of the fish sauce. I don't think I'll be purchasing that again.

Fish Sauce ingredients: anchovies, water, salt, sugar

Stovetop Chili Mac

Wednesday, pg 80 of Everyday Food, suggested stovetop chili mac. This was super easy. The only thing I would change is I didn't cut the zucchini small enough and it took longer to cook because of it.

Since it is still summer, this dish seemed out of season. I think I would love it after a long fall hike through my backyard, Umstead. Our house is just 2 miles away from Lake Sycamore where we like to go fishing off the pier. We just put the fishing poles in our fishing bags and hike on out there. Awww this makes me wish for Fall, probably my favorite season.