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Archive for the ‘Cooking’ Category

Menu Plan Monday

Posted in Menu Planning, tagged , on July 9, 2012|

Here we are again at the beginning of another hot summer week, but hopefully we will see some rain around here.  (We had rain last night! Woo hoo!) The chance is greater this week than it has been in a long, long time so say a little prayer that South Central Kentucky gets a good slow soaking rain!

Last week’s menu went a little sideways with me because there were a few unexpected things that popped up. I made famous pork chops instead of the baked ziti.  C’s family decided to have an impromptu family reunion on Saturday so I made cheeseburgers bundles and lemonade cake for that.  The cake recipe was new so I will be posting about it in the next few weeks. C, my dad and his friend, and I celebrated Independence Day by watching the new Spiderman movie at the Imax movie theater at Opry Mills in Nashville, TN.  If you haven’t been to that theater, let me tell you…it is really nice!  It was re-done after the 2010 flooding and it is a wonderful place to catch a movie.  I ordered tickets online and was surprised to see that you can actually choose your exact seats just like in a big arena or auditorium.  We will definitely go back there again.  Oh, the movie was really good, too!

Here is what I plan on fixing this week:

Bubble Up Enchilada (new)

Cheesy steak sandwiches with oven fries (2 nights)

Sausage bake

Pizza night

Homemade sloppy Joes

I am having a big urge for some kind of pasta salad so I will probably throw one in somewhere.  Hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed week!

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday. 

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Honey Zucchini Muffins

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , on July 7, 2012| 18 Comments »

My co-worker, K, gave all of us at the office some of her garden overflow which included a beautiful head of cabbage and some zucchini.  You will have to check back in a little while to see what I do with the cabbage, but I knew I wanted to bake with the zucchini.  I have made zucchini bread in the past before and really enjoyed it, but this time I decided to search for a different recipe.  When I found this muffin recipe at Weelicious, I knew it was the one I wanted to try since I could include honey made by my father-in-law and his cousin.  There is nothing like eating local if you can!

Honey Zucchini Muffins

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs, whisked

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil

2/3 cup honey

1 1/2 cups zucchini, shredded (I used one medium zucchini.)

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Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and put liners in a muffin pan.  This recipe made 12 regular sized muffins.  Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another.  Then pour the wet into the dry and stir just until combined.  This is called the “muffin method” and keeps the muffins from becoming too tough and dry.

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Fill the muffin cups about half full and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool and enjoy!  These make a great breakfast with a glass of orange juice on the side.

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Menu Plan Monday

Posted in Menu Planning, tagged , , on July 2, 2012| 2 Comments »

Please join me over at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday, where I and many many other great bloggers, tell you what we are having for supper this week.  We are still in the throes of a major heat wave and dry spell here at home.  It has been weeks since the last time it rained and the yards and fields are brown and crunchy.  I am watering my little garden beds and planters so they are still doing fairly well despite multiple days with temperatures well over 100 degrees.  It’s just HOT, folks, there is no other way to say it!

This week our wonderful country will celebrate its birthday and I hope everyone has a happy and safe Independence Day.  Watch out for those fireworks…we don’t want any fires getting out of control.  C & I are planning on seeing the new Spiderman movie that day if all goes well.  We saw a preview of it at the Imax theater in Newport and it looked awesome!

Grilled pork chops with oven fries and apple coleslaw (new)

Philly cheesesteak sloppy Joes (new) with oven fries

Country ham and biscuits with roasted potatoes and fresh veggies

Pizza night

Baked ziti

Peanut butter bars (new)

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Apple Braised Pork Loin

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , on June 30, 2012| 3 Comments »

Since I am severely allergic to poultry and C is not a big seafood lover, I like to search for new ways to cook beef or pork.  I found this recipe, of course, on Pinterest.  (Yes, I am addicted, but at least I am making the things I pin. That makes it all right, doesn’t it?  Doesn’t it???)  This recipe is from Allrecipes.com and I have used that site so many times. 

This tenderloin turned out so tender and juicy with just a hint of sweetness from the apple juice.  Yum!  Even the leftovers were delicious.

2 tsp. Tuscan Sunset seasoning from Penzey’s Spices

1 teaspoon pepper

1 (3 pound) boneless pork loin roast

1 tablespoon canola oil

1 cup chopped onion

1 tsp. dried minced garlic

1 large apple – peeled, cored and chopped

1/2 cup frozen unsweetened apple juice concentrate, thawed

1/2 teaspoon salt

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Rub the seasoning and pepper all over the tenderloin. 

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In a Dutch oven over medium heat, brown the meat on all sides in the oil then remove and keep warm.

In the same pan, sauté the onion and garlic until tender. Add the apple, apple juice concentrate and salt, then bring to a boil. Return meat to the pan. Cover and bake at 325 degrees F for 55-75 minutes or until a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees F, basting occasionally with juices.Remove to a serving platter and keep warm.

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Menu Plan Monday

Posted in Menu Planning, tagged , on June 25, 2012|

Good Monday morning, everyone!  We are starting the last week of June and July is right around the corner.  You can tell summertime is here and in full swing because it has been HOT and DRY!!!  Please join me and say a little (or big) prayer for some rain here in South Central Kentucky.  I don’t know if we are officially in the drought zone yet, but we have got to be close.  Our yard has dried up and my four rain barrels are almost empty for the first time in the three years that I have had them.  I am trying to conserve by only watering every other day, but I am still literally scraping the bottom of the barrels.  I really don’t want to use “city” water on them because of all of the chlorine, but I may have to.

I will say, even though we are dry, the little water I am putting on my garden beds is making a big difference.  The cucumbers are producing like crazy, the pepper and tomato plants are loaded down, and there are several baby watermelons out there along with plenty of blooms for more to come.  Yay!  I can’t wait to harvest my first watermelon.

Since it is the end of the month, it is time to clean out the freezer before grocery shopping.  You will see that I am repeating the deep dish pizza casserole from last week.  I was cleaning out my kitchen junk drawer and found three Cracker Barrel gift cards.  I thought that there just must be a few dollars left on each one or that they were empty, but I had better check before I threw them away.  There was $55 still left on the three of them so we had Cracker Barrel the night I was going to fix the pizza casserole.  Yum!  We love Cracker Barrel!

Deep dish pizza casserole with salad

Tacos with fruit salad

Grilled pork chops with oven baked fries

Sausage bake with salad

Pizza night

Grilled hamburgers with fries

Homemade nutter butter cookies (new)

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Taco Dip

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , , , on June 23, 2012| 6 Comments »

C & I were invited to a Super Bowl party back in February so I went looking for a new dip recipe to try.  Of course, I found this on Pinterest from the blog My Kitchen Addiction.  This is the link to the original recipe.  I tweaked it a little to suit my taste and the ingredients I had and it turned out great.  There were no leftovers at all to bring back so I know it was a success.

1 pound lean ground beef

1/2 white onion, diced

1 tsp. dried minced garlic

8 ounces light cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup light ranch dressing

2 tbsp. taco seasoning

4 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded 

Tortilla chips

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Preheat oven to 400 degrees and spray a pie pan (or rectangle baking pan) with nonstick spray.  The pan I used is about 6×8”.  In a skillet over medium heat, cook the ground beef, onion and minced garlic until the beef is cooked through.

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In a bowl, combine the cream cheese, ranch dressing, chili powder, and ground cumin.  Add the beef mixture and half of the shredded cheese.  Stir to combine.  Pour that mixture into the prepared baking dish and top with the remaining cheese. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese is golden and bubbly.  Serve with tortilla chips or corn chips.

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Menu Plan Monday

Posted in Menu Planning, tagged , on June 18, 2012|

Good morning, everyone!  I took last week off from menu planning since C & I were officially on vacation.  I ended up cooking more than I thought I would, but it was actually fun to do.  We stayed home most of the time so I could just cook when I wanted to without having to worry about having been worn out from working all day.  It was NICE!  At the end of the week, we went to Newport, Kentucky to celebrate our 11th anniversary.  If you have never been to the complex, Newport On The Levee and you live nearby, you definitely need to go.  Check back this Thursday and I will have lots more details and photos.

Back to this week’s menu…it is still a little off-kilter.  I am taking an extra few days off from work to catch up on a little housecleaning so I will probably be cooking those days and we have a wedding to attend on Saturday night so that will probably be supper out.  The other days will just have to work themselves out! 🙂

Deep Dish Pizza Casserole

Tacos

Cheesy steak sandwiches with oven baked fries (2 nights)

Grilled pork loin with grilled potato slices (new)

Please join me at I’m An Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

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Turtle Cake

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , , , , on June 16, 2012| 18 Comments »

Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows that I LOVE chocolate and I think caramel is pretty tasty, too.  My MIL subscribes to a magazine called “Midwest Living”, which is a lot like Southern Living just about the Midwest.  This awesome looking cake was featured in one of these books and I knew I had to make it as soon as possible. 

I think I have found my new favorite cake recipe because this is one of the best things that I have ever put in my mouth.  I am not a coffee fan.  Love the smell, hate the taste, so I have never been brave enough to try a chocolate cake recipe with brewed coffee as an ingredient.  Coffee is included in this cake and now I know why so many recipes to include it.  There wasn’t a strong coffee flavor, and the cake was so moist from it.  This would make an awesome birthday cake or even a groom’s cake.  It is that good!

1 egg, slightly beaten

1 cup buttermilk or sour milk (see note)

2/3 cup cooking oil

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 3/4 cups sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder + a little extra for dusting the pans

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

Chocolate Frosting (see recipe)

1 1/2 cups pecan halves, toasted

3/4 cup purchased caramel ice cream topping

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Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare three 9” cake pans by spraying with non-stick spray and dusting with extra cocoa powder.  Then line them with wax paper circle.  In a small bowl, combine the egg, buttermilk and cooking oil.

In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Gradually add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, beating with an electric mixer until combined. Gradually beat in hot coffee. Pour batter into prepared pans; spread evenly. Layers will appear thin.

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Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool for about 10 minutes in the pans then turn the cake layers out of the pans to cool completely.

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Chocolate Frosting

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk

6 tablespoons butter

12 ounce package (2 cups) semisweet chocolate pieces

1 – 2 teaspoons freshly brewed hot coffee

In a small saucepan, combine sugar and milk. Add butter. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add semisweet chocolate pieces. Using a wire whisk, mix until smooth. If frosting is too thick or grainy, stir in coffee.

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Now here comes the fun part…

Place 1 cake layer, top-side down, onto a serving plate. Using an icing spatula or wide knife, frost the top of this layer with one-third of the frosting, pushing it out slightly from edges to make ripple or petal effect. Arrange one-third of the pecans on top and drizzle with 1/4 cup of the ice cream topping. Top with the second layer, top-side down. Repeat with frosting, pecans and caramel topping. Top with the third layer, right side up. Repeat with remaining frosting, pecans and caramel topping.  Chill for 1 to 2 hours before serving.

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Just look at all that decadence.  Mmmmm…wish I had a piece right now.

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Taco Soup Version 2

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , on June 9, 2012| 3 Comments »

Can there be too many versions of taco soup?  I don’t think so, especially when it originates from a local source.  A lot of local churches produce cookbooks for fundraisers and this recipe comes from a co-worker’s church.  Well, the original comes from this cookbook, but I changed it up a little or maybe a lot.  This called for three different kinds of beans and I am just not a huge bean eater so I pared that down to one kind.  I also cut back on the amount of ground beef to make it a little more economical and it didn’t hurt the taste at all.

1 lb. ground beef

1 15oz. can pinto beans

2 10oz. cans chopped tomatoes with green chiles

1 29oz. can tomato sauce

1 1/2 cups beef broth

1 pkg. ranch dressing mix

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 can Mexicorn

1 pkg. taco seasoning

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Cook the ground beef and onion until the beef is cooked through.  Rinse and drain beans.  Mix all of the ingredients together in a large pot and simmer on medium-low for 30 minutes.  Top with shredded cheese if desired.  If the soup is thicker than you want, add about 2 cups of water while it is simmering. 

That’s all there is to it. Enjoy!

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Non-Menu Plan Monday

Posted in Menu Planning, tagged on June 4, 2012|

Guess what?  It is the first full week of the month and I haven’t been to the grocery yet so that means a pretty bare kitchen.  I probably will fix supper a night or two this week, but not much more than that.  C & I will take advantage of a couple of restaurant gifts cards we have and I MUST go grocery shopping since we are on vacation next week. 

Did I just write that we would be on vacation?  Yep, I sure did and we both can’t wait.  This will be a staycation for us except for a day or two of travel so hopefully we can piddle around the house and get a little extra rest. 

I hope all of my readers are enjoying the beautiful beginning of June because the weather has just been great around here!

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