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Posts Tagged ‘Cooking’

Lasagna Soup

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , , , on March 3, 2012| 5 Comments »

Are you looking for a rich and hearty meal with some classic Italian flavors?  Look no further!  I found this recipe on Pinterest, of course, and it was pinned from the blog Creatively Domestic.  This is one of the best soup/stews that I have had in a long time.  I hesitate to call it a soup, because it gets really thick and stew-like which is just fine with me.  Yummy!  I won’t hold you in suspense any longer…here is the recipe.

1 onion finely diced
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 tbsp. minced garlic
1/2 lb. Italian sausage

1/2 lb. lean ground beef
2 tbsp. Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
26 oz. spaghetti sauce
4 cups chicken (or vegetable or beef) stock (I used vegetable broth.)
2 bay leaves
8 oz. pasta

 

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In a large Dutch oven, cook the onion, garlic, and meats in the olive oil until the meats are completely cooked.  (Note: I cooked this the day before so the photo will show a skillet.)

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Add the remaining ingredients except the pasta and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.

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Bring to a boil and add the pasta.  Cook for additional 8-10 minutes or until the pasta is al dente.  Enjoy!  I served this with a quick peppery cheese bread that I will highlight next week.  You don’t want to miss it!  They go great together.

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“Come join SoupaPalooza at TidyMom and Dine and Dish sponsored by KitchenAid, Red Star Yeast and Le Creuset”

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Menu Plan Monday Week 8

Posted in Menu Planning, tagged , on February 20, 2012|

We have arrived at the beginning of another week, so it is time for another menu plan.  Do you menu plan and do you find that it helps save time and energy by knowing what you will fix that week?  I know it helps me tremendously!  After working all day, the thought of coming home and having to wrack my brain for something to fix for supper is just a pain.  By planning a week’s worth of dinners, I know I have options. 

I don’t list my meals by the day of the week on here, but on my kitchen calendar I do.  That doesn’t mean I stick with it exactly, but at least I know what I can make and that makes life a lot easier!

Taco Soup (new) with cheesy bread

Grilled hamburgers and oven fries

Sausage bake (2 nights)

Hamburger Stew

Pizza or Eat Out Night

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Menu Plan Monday Week 2

Posted in Cooking, Menu Planning, tagged , on January 9, 2012|

Good morning, my wonderful readers!  Here it is…Monday again and time for this year’s Menu Plan Monday Week Two.  I hope you all had a great start to the new year, because mine has been really good so far.  C & I made it to church two Sundays in a row.  Woo hoo!  Now we just have to keep it up.  We also managed to move two pieces of furniture from my great-grandmother’s house to our on Saturday.

What furniture?  Well, as my regular readers know, I have been slowly finishing our upstairs in the last few months and I am now down to just needing a few pieces of furniture to fill in the rooms.  I mentioned to my Nanny and Aunt M that I was on the look-out for a couple of inexpensive wooden dressers and I didn’t care what shape they were in because I wanted to refinish them.  Unbeknownst to me, they started discussing some old family pieces that were being stored in what was my great-grandparents house.  Talk about serendipity!  I am now in possession of a three drawer dresser with the cutest scalloped top and shelves and also a chiffarobe with three drawers and a door that are just screaming for a little TLC. They both belonged to my great-great grandmother which makes them very special to me! I can’t wait to start on them, which I hope to do this coming long holiday weekend. 

Before I can get to the weekend, I have to decide what to fix this week.  Here goes:

Chili with Cheddar Bacon Ranch Pull Apart Bread (new)

Taco Ring with fruit (2 nights)

Grilled pork chops with oven baked fries

Basic meatloaf with oven baked fries

Pizza night

Dessert chosen by my father-in-law for his birthday.  Happy birthday, FIL!

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Snickerdoodle Cake

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , , on January 7, 2012| 10 Comments »

Do you wish that your kitchen could have that perfect cinnamon fragrance floating in the air?  You do?  Then make this cake right now!  I found this on Pinterest and this link to the blog Giving Up On Perfect will take you to the original recipe.  This writer may be giving up on perfect, but this cake is close to perfection to me.  The only teeny tiny thing I changed was that I made it as a sheet cake in two pans so I could take it to two different dinners.  Other than that, I left well enough alone because this cake doesn’t need any tweaking at all!

1 package yellow cake mix
1 cup milk + 3 tbsp. milk, divided
1/4 cup butter, melted + 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup applesauce
3 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. cinnamon + 1 tsp. cinnamon
4 oz. cream cheese
3 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

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Preheat oven to 350. Prepare two 8” square baking pans. Mix the cake mix, 1 cup milk, melted 1/4 cup butter, applesauce, eggs, vanilla, and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon together and pour into the pans. Bake for 25 minutes (or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean). Let cool.

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After the cake is cool, beat the cream cheese with 1/2 cup room temperature butter until smooth.  Add the milk, powdered sugar, vanilla and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.  Beat until smooth again.  Pour the frosting on the cake and spread to cover.  Chill in the refrigerator for about an hour to let the frosting set. 

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Please join me over at Miz Helen’s Country Cottage where I linked up this recipe for Full Plate Thursday.

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Menu Plan Monday

Posted in Cooking, Menu Planning, tagged , on January 2, 2012|

I’m BACK!  Did you miss me?  Well, I guess I wasn’t really gone exactly, just not posting my weekly menus, but I am back today with a vengeance.  Woo hoo!  C & I both took off from our jobs the week between Christmas and New Year’s and it was so needed for both of us.  C did do quite a bit of work from home, but the main thing was that he actually got to stay home.  A full week with no alarm clock blaring in the morning, just the sound of our four-legged, fuzzy alarm clock to “gently” wake us up.  Believe me, Ellie made sure that we weren’t too lazy in the mornings. 

Last Monday, I started cleaning house and I don’t think I actually finished until Saturday.  It was nice to be able to do a few jobs each day and not have to cram it all in to one or two days.  We had a wonderful Christmas with our families, but when that last dinner was over, I went to work.  The decorations came down and this house was scrubbed top to bottom.  Whew, I was tired but so satisfied with what I accomplished. 

Wow, this post is getting a little wordy, isn’t it?  Let’s save the rest of these thoughts for Thoughtful Thursday.  Here’s the food scoop for this week:

Grilled hamburgers and oven baked fries

Cheesy Steak Sandwiches with oven fries (Hopefully this will cover 2 nights.)

Pizza Pancakes with Dipping Sauce (new)

Baked Ziti with garlic bread (new)

Pizza night

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Classic Cornbread Dressing

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , , on December 24, 2011| 12 Comments »

One of my favorite holiday side dishes is dressing.  Now, I am not talking about stuffing because since I am incredibly allergic to poultry, I never touch a turkey and, really, there is just something about the thought of stuffing these ingredients inside the bird’s…well, you get the picture. It’s just not appetizing to me!  This is classic Southern style DRESSING which I found on the awesome website allrecipes.com.  I don’t know how many times I have been looking for a certain recipe and found it there.  It is a great resource.

1 batch of homemade cornbread, prepared and crumbled

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup chopped celery

1 small onion

2 eggs, beaten

2 cups beef stock

2 tablespoons dried sage

salt and pepper to taste

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Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 9×13 inch baking dish. In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter and sauté the celery and onion until soft.

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In a large bowl, combine the celery, onions, 3 cups crumbled corn bread, eggs, chicken stock, sage and salt and pepper to taste; mix well.

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Place into prepared dish and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

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Here is a photo of the Thanksgiving table at my nanny’s house. Everything was so good!
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Please join me at Miz Helen’s Country Cottage for today’s edition of Full Plate Thursday.

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Coca Cola Cake

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , on December 3, 2011| 14 Comments »

Way back in July, my in-laws treated me to dinner at Cracker Barrel for my birthday.  The food was so yummy and the highlight was dessert-Double Chocolate Fudge Coca-Cola Cake.  Oh-my-goodness!  It was just a rich and decadent as it sounds.  One day at work, I was talking about this cake and one of my co-workers said that she had made it before.  Silly me had not thought about searching for a copy recipe but I did and found one on MayFlaum.com. This is so good and so decadent and so rich!  I could go on and on, but I won’t.  I will just show you the recipe so you can go quickly and make one for yourself and your family.

Here are two little notes before that though: 1. I left out the pecans and powdered sugar in the ingredients photo.  I didn’t read far enough into the recipe before I took the picture.  Oops!  2. I made this in two 8” baking pans instead of one 9×13” pan because I was sharing with C’s parents.

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

3 sticks unsalted butter, divided

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, divided

1 1/2 cup Coca-cola, divided

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

4 cups powdered sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

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Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare a 13×9” baking dish.  Sift together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and cinnamon.  Set aside.  In a saucepan over medium heat, melt 2 sticks of butter with 1/4 cup cocoa powder, 1 cup Coca-cola and 1/2 cup buttermilk.  Cook until it boils.

Add the boiled mixture to the flour mixture and combine.  Then add eggs and vanilla extract.  Pour the batter into the baking pan and cook for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of cake comes out clean.

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During the last 10 minutes of baking, prepare the glaze.  In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the remaining 1 stick of butter with 1/4 cup cocoa powder and 1/2 cup Coca-cola.  Let this come to a boil and then remove from heat.  Beat in the 4 cups of powdered sugar and stir in the chopped pecans.  Pour the warm glaze over the hot cake.  Let the cake cool for a little while and then DIG IN!!!

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Join me at Miz Helen’s Country Cottage for Full Plate Thursday!

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Menu Plan Monday

Posted in Cooking, Menu Planning, tagged , on November 28, 2011|

Good morning to y’all!  I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and holiday weekend.  We sure did.  C & I celebrated with family every night this weekend and we even had time to do some Christmas decorating and online shopping as well.  I spent my Black Friday shopping the easy way…in my comfy clothes in front of my computer monitor eating leftovers for breakfast.  Aahhh, no fighting crowds or getting up before the crack of dawn for me.

This week we will have a bit of traveling to do so my list is a little short, but I still found room for a couple of new recipes that I plan on trying. 

Hamburger Stew

Banana Chocolate Chip Pancakes with Peanut Butter Syrup (2 new recipes)

Grilled pork chops with oven baked fries

Sloppy Joes with oven baked fries

I need to update my oven baked fries recipe for you all.  I have tweaked it a little since I posted it with the steak sandwiches.  In fact, I updated the sandwich recipe, too. 

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Apple Butterscotch Bars

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , , , on November 26, 2011| 8 Comments »

I still seem to be in the throes of cooking with apples so bear with me for one more week.  This recipe is from the same issue of Southern Living magazine as the Apple Cream Cheese Bundt Cake from last week, so it’s not my fault.  The recipes in that issue were just too good to pass up!  Here is the link to the original recipe on the MyRecipes website.

The only thing I changed was the type of apple used.  I used Jonathan because that is what I had and the recipe called for Granny Smith.  The Jonathans worked great and retained their crunchiness just as well.

1 cup chopped pecans, toasted

2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar

1 cup butter, melted

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

3 cups peeled and diced apples

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Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 13×9” baking dish. Stir together the brown sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla.

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Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt.  I just put a fine strainer right over the bowl with the butter mixture and sifted all of my dry ingredients directly in.

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Stir in the apples and pecans.  Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and spread in an even layer.

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Bake for 35-45 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool completely (1 hour or more) before cutting into bars.

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Please join me and other great cooks over at Miz Helen’s Country Cottage for Full Plate Thursday.  I am so honored to have been spotlighted this week for the apple cream cheese bundt cake.  Thanks, Miz Helen!

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Ina Garten’s Corn Muffins

Posted in Cooking, tagged , , on November 12, 2011| 7 Comments »

When my co-worker, A, had a baby a little while ago, I took her family food one night.  Before she went on maternity leave, I asked her what she would like and she said some kind of soup or stew.  Hamburger stew it was!  That was easy enough. 

The night I made the stew, I decided that it needed something to go with it so I went searching for a corn muffin recipe and found this one on Foodnetwork.com.  These are really good and last for a couple of days without becoming stale, but here is a little word to the wise…the recipe says it makes 12 muffins.  It really makes 22 BIG muffins!  Next time, I will cut the recipe in half.  I should have realized that there was too many ingredients for just 12 muffins.

3 cups all purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup yellow cornmeal

2 tbsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups milk

2 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 eggs

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Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line muffin cups with paper liners and set aside.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix the flour, sugar, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt.  In a separate bowl, combine the milk, butter, and eggs.  With the mixer on the lowest speed, pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir until they are just blended.

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Spoon the batter into the paper liners, filling each one about 3/4 full.  Bake for 30 minutes until the tops are crisp and a toothpick comes out clean.

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Please join me at Miz Helen’s Country Cottage for Full Plate Thursday for this and other blogger’s delicious recipes!

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