Pupsciles

My poor little blog! I have not forgot about you! Recently my husband had to have surgery to remove part of his lung & a tumor that was growing there. Its been a crazy last few weeks which has pretty much brought my cooking adventures to a halt... for now, hopefully in a few weeks I can pick it back up...

So what do I have for you today then if I haven't been able to cook? Well why not something for the four legged friends of ours?

Recently my husband has had to change his diet because of his cholesterol. So no more dairy for him (well he can have cheese just not MILK).  So this yogurt expired before I could get Eli to eat it all himself (I don't eat yogurt).

My solution instead of throwing the yogurt away was to make some pupsicles for the dogs. :)

With the temps this week reaching over 100 I thought this would be a perfect gift to cool them off!



Very quick and simple (really it took me like 2min to do)
Directions:
1 cut a slit in the top of the containers.
2 stick dog treat in the slits to create a "stick"
3 toss in the freezer and allow to freeze
4 run under warm water while rotating just long enough for the yogurt to pop free from the container
5 watch them enjoy their summer treat!

 The frozen product, this was "strawberry banana" and the "sticks" are beggin strips.

This is Twix, she is 4yrs old, she is our Carolina Dog/Husky/I believe Wolf. Yes I know what a combo huh? She LOVED the pupsicles. She quickly learned to just lick lick lick. She even figured out how to pick it up by the "stick" and carry it into the yard off the hot patio. Smart thinking!

This is Reeses, she's our "old" gal. Almost 9yrs old and starting to finally show her age. She is an Australian Shep/Border Collie mix. Didn't care for them as much, I have a feeling if she was younger she'd have chowed down on them though. She used to eat anything we gave her.

Yumm yumm yumm!

I had read there are other recipes you can do, plain yogurt with peanut butter and banana etc. I only did it this way because the yogurt we already had was expired. I think some of the other flavors I might mix some peanut butter in for them.

It was really simple to remove the frozen yogurt from the cups, like I said just run for a few seconds under warm water. I was squeezing the bottom the whole time and soon was able to just push it up like a push pop. I had also seen another recipe that talked about using paper dixie cups and just peeling away the paper. :)

Either way, this was a good way for the dogs to cool off! I know Twix was busy licking hers for a good 20min even thought it was 105 yesterday when I gave them these in the late evening (I bring them in during the heat of the day) because the yogurt was so thick it lasted awhile. :)

Hope your dogs enjoy this summer time treat!

PB2 Peanut Butter Cream pie

Prepare to die (in a good way) this recipe is SO good! I will have to post pictures a little later as the pie is currently "setting" in the fridge. So this review is based off sample tasting the batter and giving my hubby the spatula to lick after finishing.

So my husband and I have a deadly addiction to peanut butter cream pie. Really its a shame, recently we picked one up at the store and I was FLOORED to discover that it contained 600 calories per serving! I mean COME ON! I decided that I was going to research and see if I could find a recipe that calls for PB2 instead.

Don't know what PB2 is? Well let me introduce you! It will quickly become your best friend as mine has and I JUST opened our first jar!

This size jar (actually the ONLY size jar I saw) I found at hy-vee and was $4.49 not bad considering I'm sure while its small it probably makes a lot of PB since its in a powder form.

Seriously, for any of you who have a love/hate relationship with PB because of the fat and calories. Well here ya go, 85% less fat and calories! Not to mention it was about 50% less in carbs I think too.

You simply mix it with water and laugh at the amount of calories you are missing out on!

The only time you will find me posting "topless" pictures. Just to give you an idea of the powder. By the way, it also smells awesome!

Ok so enough about my newest friend (so long old PB). Here is the recipe for the most amazing PB cream pie.

Ingredients

• ½ cup of water
• 1 packet of unflavored gelatin (I believe that this would be about 1 tablespoon)
• 1-6 ounce container of plain non-fat Greek yogurt
• 8 tablespoons of PB2 peanut butter powder (or ¼ cup)
• 1/3 cup Splenda
• 1-8 ounce container of fat free Cool Whip

Directions

1. Bring ½ cup water to boil and add the unflavored gelatin. Stir the gelatin until there are no lumps. I will usually measure my water in a glass bowl and heat in microwave for 2-3 minutes on high to get the water to boil.
2. Allow water to cool (not too much because you do not want gelatin to form just yet, but cool enough to touch).
3. Add the PB2, Splenda, and Greek yogurt. Mix well until there are no lumps.
4. Add half the container of Cool Whip. Save the other half for topping.
5. Pour the peanut butter mixture into a non-stick sprayed pie pan. Place in refrigerator for an hour.
6. Add the other half of the Cool Whip as a topping across the pie. Place back in refrigerator for another hour.
7. Cut into 8 pieces.

Calories: 163

Carbs: 18

Fat: 6

Protein: 9

Honey Mustard Chicken

Its spring time in the Kansas City area which means BBQ season! Sadly We have yet to actually grill out (so need to do that soon). While I LOVE BBQ I also don't do a lot of grilling myself, unless you count the indoor grill/griddle we have. Today's Recipe came to me in e-mail from allrecipes. They send daily recipes and I rarely actually cook any of them but this one sounded awesome and I thought I might be able to get a taste of KC BBQ without having to turn on the grill. I wasn't disappointed.

Fresh off the grill.

I only made a few small changes to this recipe. I added some seasoning to the chicken (I really don't think you'd notice without it). Also being from Kansas City I had to add a little KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce (original) to the mix. I added about 2tbsp to it. Also since I didn't feel like firing up the big BBQ grill outside for just a couple pieces of Chicken I just used our "Forman Grill" (Not really a Forman grill but similar). The chicken still turned out moist on the inside and BBQ flavorful. It was wonderful! I really loved it, my husband said it was Good but wouldn't give me anything more then that. I know he wouldn't lie about it but I didn't get the overwhelming "Oh wow this is good babe!" That I would get if he LOVED something. That aside I LOVED it.

Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is and I just finished eating it!

Today's recipe like I said came from allrecipes.com here is the link.
Allrecipes Honey Mustard Chicken

Honey Mustard Chicken

Prep Time:  15 Min   Cook Time: 20 Min   Ready In: 35 Min

Servings  (Help)

US Metric Calculate  
Original Recipe Yield 4 servings

 

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup Dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon steak sauce
• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

Directions

1. Preheat the grill for medium heat.
2. In a shallow bowl, mix the mustard, honey, mayonnaise, and steak sauce. Set aside a small amount of the honey mustard sauce for basting, and dip the chicken into the remaining sauce to coat.
3. Lightly oil the grill grate. Grill chicken over indirect heat for 18 to 20 minutes, turning occasionally, or until juices run clear. Baste occasionally with the reserved sauce during the last 10 minutes. Watch carefully to prevent burning!
   
   

DIY Rapid Bath Cartridge Refill!

Ok, so this isn't a recipe but I just had to blog about this. Depending on the size of your dog though I guess it could make your house smell pretty heavenly!

We have two large dogs, 60lbs each at least (they haven't been weighed in some time). One is a Australian Shepherd/Border Collie mix. The other is a Carolina Dog/Husky mix. For any Husky owners out there you understand the huge coat blow out twice a year. Carolina Dogs do that as well. Needless to say this time of the year and in the fall we have HUGE fluff balls all over the place. Its a mess and we sweep and mop consistently to try and win the battle. We never do till she is through her blow out season. This dog Twix is her name is the wildest dog I have ever owned. When I say Wild I don't mean like hyper and crazy, I mean like WILD as in I'm pretty sure she's part wolf. We have never been able to get her to accept bath time, even though I bathed her often when she was a small pup. There are just some things we can't get her to accept period, when the Rapid bath system came out I was interested yet cautious. Could it really be true? 5min to bathe a dog and even the ones that fight bath time stand still for it? I have to admit I thought that last part was impossible but the fact that it would be easier to bathe her even if she was fighting appealed to me.

Our dogs are the two on the right that are waiting for their treat facing my husband. This was Twix's birthday party complete with a cake made just for the dogs that was safe for them to eat.

So a couple of years ago we bought one at Walmart. It came with the shower conversion kit that would allow us to use it indoors or out. We loved it, yes Twix really does stand still for it. She doesn't LIKE it but it doesn't spook her for some reason as bad as a regular bath. Not only that but it does a great job, the dogs get super clean and smell great in just a few minutes.

So last night I was bathing the dogs outside, hey KC hit a record high temp yesterday of 92 and its only April folks! Perfect time to bathe the dogs outside! As I was bathing the dogs I ran out of the shampoo in one of the cartridges... No biggie I had a 2nd one ready. When I was done I got to thinking, I wonder if these things can be refilled at home? I've seen blogs where people show you how to refill your swiffer wet jet bottles maybe I can find something online about refilling the rapid bath at home too.

So I googled it, the only thing I found was a message board where someone mentioned doing it with a syringe and how she was able to take the top cap off. But no pictures and no step by step directions. So I sat down and started playing with it myself and guess what? I DID it! So here are your step by step instructions WITH pictures! :)

Highlights Studios is my photography business.

Supplies:
Your empty shampoo cartridge
Your shampoo of choice
Pliers
Syringe, this one is a 3cc/ML but I read that a 2oz one with a 60cc tip works great too. This is just what I had on hand. Its nice having 2 kids cause you have all sizes of these laying around. This one was small so I had to refill it several times but it got the job done.

Visit: http://highlightsstudioskc.com for my business webpage.

 Step 1:
Use the pliers to remove the small white cap. 

The cap shown off, there is a small black cork thing inside the hole.

Step 2:
Remove black cork.

Showing the opening after removing cap and cork.

 Step 3:
Make sure syringe tip will fit in opening.

 Step 4:
Fill syringe with desired shampoo. I used dawn dish soap, its gentle for the dogs (even dogs with skin allergies it helps) and it kills fleas, smells great and makes the dogs coat super soft. Not only that but its much cheaper then the dog shampoo's you can buy. Its a win win win win!

Step 5:
Inject shampoo into the cartridge.

Step 6:
Repeat steps 4 & 5 till the cartridge is full.

Step 7:
Replace black rubber cork.

Rubber cork inserted.

Step 8:
Replace white cap.

Your done! Its all put back together and ready to reuse!

The refilled cartridge ready to use!

And just because I can I decided to try storing it this way to keep it from leaking.....

Vacuum sealed and labeled to keep from spilling.

I don't know how many times you can refill these but we'll have to see. At $3.99 a cartridge its not a bad price really and I can easily bathe 3 dogs the size of my 2 dogs on one cartridge. But any little bit of savings helps. I figure if I can refill it a few times it will pretty much cost us just pennies each time we bathe the dogs. Which will mean bathing them more often. What I love about this system is we can do it at home, no pricey groomers or self washing stations that still cost $10 a dog or more.

And finally, this is what my Daughter thought about the whole process as she was watching me work. I was so excited while I was doing it. Clearly she was less excited. Ha

Now get out there and wash those puppies! :D

My awesome pizza with a twist

One of the recipes I've blogged about was this awesome home made pizza crust. After reading some tips on how to improve on homemade pizza crusts I tweaked it some and I believe I blogged about that too and how that came out (even better!) I've been trying to get my family on a healthier eating habits, so the pizza hasn't been one I've been as willing to make. Last week my husband requested that I make the pizza again, so I did that over the weekend. I wanted to try and make it a tad healthier for us so I made some more adjustments.

For the dough I made a couple of adjustments. I think I will try getting rid of the brown sugar all together in my next attempt.

• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit for 10 minutes.
2. Stir the salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour.
3. Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until double; this should take about 1 hour. Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out. Use for your favorite pizza recipe.
4. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). If you are baking the dough on a pizza stone, you may place your toppings on the dough, and bake immediately. If you are baking your pizza in a pan, lightly oil the pan, and let the dough rise for 15 or 20 minutes before topping and baking it.
5. Bake pizza in preheated oven, until the cheese and crust are golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.
   
   
   Here's what I did, I added about 1/2 teaspoon of honey, I was going for the honey wheat taste however the honey flavor was very slight so I think I'll try completely replacing the brown sugar with honey. I have been told I should do more honey then the amount of sugar called for so next time I'll try that for sure
   
   Also since I wanted to make it more healthy I got rid of most of the white flour, not all but most. The recipe calls for 3 1/3cups flour so I did roughly 2 1/3rd cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup white flour. That seemed to be a pretty good balance. It depends on the weather on how much extra flour you have to add to the dough to get it not so sticky and I found that it was right around a cup that I added.
   
   I don't have a pizza stone, which I've heard makes the pizza that much more fantastic. I did read on another blog though about how if you don't have a pizza stone you can turn a cookie sheet upside down and bake the dough on the bottom of the pan. I have a round pizza pan so I turn that upside down and place the dough on it for baking. It seems to work really well and it helps to bake the pizza evenly. If you don't have a pizza stone bake the dough before adding the toppings for a short time to make sure its well done.
   
   This recipe makes a large amount of dough, easily enough for 2 smaller pizza's. In the past I've cut just under 1/2 the dough off and use that to make bread sticks. This week I was lazy so I just rolled out the dough. However it greatly overlapped the pan so I decided to roll the edges up. Since I was going to roll the edges up I thought it would be good to put some string cheese in the crust. Sadly I only had 1 stick left, so I tore it into little strips but I didn't really have enough to really notice it was there. I have before used the string cheese and rolled the bread sticks around the cheese and had cheese stuffed bread sticks were were awesome. So I think next time I'll make sure I have plenty of string cheese on hand. We're not much on toppings in our house, so for us it was just plenty of cheese on the pizza.
   
   The result was pretty awesome, I over baked the pizza a tad... Oops but only the cheese was burnt on top, however that left the crust slightly tough and not as crispy as I would have liked. But my husband really loved the pizza and can't wait for me to make it again. 
   
   

   

   Wheat super thick crust! You should have seen it before it baked! Yumm

   
   

   

   I burnt the top... I really need to remember NOT to bake it on the top self as it burns the cheese to quickly!

Melt in your mouth Chicken

I'm on another health kick, hopefully this one is for good. I feel like it is, I'm very motivated to try eating healthier. Not just for myself but for my family as well. I want my kids to learn to love all things good for them, but also my husband has high cholesterol and I would like to get that under control without the use of medications. So I've been searching for healthier recipes. I found this one on pinterest, I am trying to incorporate more Chicken into our diet and not so much red meat... In fact I would like to do away with red meat almost all together eventually. This one is pretty simple, here is the recipe...

• 4 boneless chicken breast halves
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• ½ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
• 1 ½ teaspoons seasoning salt
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions:

1. 1
   Mix mayonnaise, cheese and seasonings.
2. 2
   Spread mixture over chicken breast and place in baking dish.
3. 3
   Bake at 375°F for 45 minutes.

Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/melt-in-your-mouth-chicken-breast-37336#ixzz1prqqTJqK

I did make a few small changes to this recipe. I used "light" mayonnaise instead of regular. Since I haven't tried this recipe any other way I can't say you didn't notice a difference but it tasted pretty darned good so I'm not going to use real mayonnaise. I cut the recipe in half since its just me and my husband and it worked fine.

I also added a little bit of onion salt to the mix as well as some poultry seasoning but just a tad of each.

It says to bake at 375 for 45min, now let me tell you that for us that was not long enough. I checked temperature of the chicken and I was glad I did. After finding that it was only around 150 on the inside (should be 190) I popped it back in the oven. I turned the oven up to 425 and it took about another 15-20min or so. I also had baked potatoes going at the time so maybe that was part of it. Regardless it came out wonderfully and my husband really liked it. The chicken was tender and moist and the flavor was awesome. I personally felt like it was a tad heavy on the pepper but my husband thought it was perfect.

Needless to say this came out really nice and even made a pretty picture with the mixed veggies! Hope you enjoy!

BBQ Pulled pork

Recently my husband put in a request that I find a BBQ Pulled pork recipe to try. Said it would be something different he'd like to try. So I logged into my trusty allrecipes.com and searched it. I found a simple recipe that would be easy to try. So first I'll post the recipe and then I'll blog on how I did it.

Like I said the recipe is very simple.
1 12oz can root beer
1 2lb pork tenderloin
1 18oz bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce.

Place root beer and tenderloin in crock pot and cook on low for 7-8hrs till the pork will pull apart with a fork.
Drain, shred the pork and mix in your BBQ sauce.

So this is how I did it, was so easy!
We have had a sick little boy here at our house so after getting the kids down for the night I went ahead and got the tenderloin and the root beer in the crock pot and just let it cook on low all night long.

The next morning when the kids and I got up I drained it and shredded the pork with a couple of forks. It was so juicy and tender!

This is what the tenderloin looked like just out of the crock pot. Yummy!

Shredding the pork with forks.

The shredding took a little time, I'd say probably about 20min and it made a ton. I did end up getting like almost a 3lb tenderloin instead of just a 2lb. I also didn't actually measure the root beer or the BBQ sauce. With the root beer I just bought a cheap brand of root beer figuring it would cook out and you wouldn't taste it. I also put some seasoning salt on the tenderloin on all sides before placing it in the crock pot.

After shredding the pork I placed it all back in the crock pot and added my favorite BBQ Sauce which I have to say is the best in the world! :)

KC Masterpiece..... Need I say more? In my mind one of the best sauces there is. But you might only be able to buy it in the Kansas City area I'm not sure if its global or not.

Finally since it was like 10am in the morning instead of serving it right away I put it on low and let it just simmer in the sauce. Again I didn't measure the sauce, I just added how much I thought it looked like it needed. Ended up being more then the 18oz though as I used more then half a 40oz bottle! I made sure I stirred it every hour or so to keep it from burning and would alternate between the warm setting and the low setting. Now it would have been perfect had we eaten dinner on time, but as it turns out our son spiked a huge fever and we rushed him to an urgent care center leaving the dinner in the crock pot for several more hours unattended. But even so it was still yummy! Just the edges touching the sides of the crock pot were a little well done. I'd say this recipe is a keeper for sure, I really liked it. Now a fair warning for those that don't like root beer (like myself) you CAN taste it a little. So you might want to make sure you use a root beer you do like. My husband said he thought I should try it with A&W root beer as it has a different taste and it would give it a little more zest. He said he could tell I used the cheap root beer. But other than that he enjoyed it!
I think we'll be serving it at our sons birthday party instead of the planned pizza. :)

Pizza and Chicken fried Chicken

So 2 posts in one because I didn't have time to blog about my latest attempt at something different.

A few posts back I posted about making pizza from scratch. I was going to make that recipe again and since I had read some helpful tips on another site I thought I would apply them to the recipe.
One of the things the other site suggested was making sure you knead the pizza dough 6min to give it lots of gluten. I had also noticed by their pictures they posted that they used their stand mixer with the dough hook to do all the hard work. Genius! I hadn't thought of that! That was the only down side to making homemade pizza was the work that went into kneading the dough! The only thing I noticed was that due to not having the oil in my hands combine with the dough I had to add more flour to get the dough to not be sticky. Eventually I gave up adding more and more flour and just set the dough in a bowl and let it rise. That is of course after kneading it for 6min.

It rose to nearly double the size it had the first time I made it. The other site also suggested using a pizza stone but said if you don't have one you can get the same effect by turning a cookie sheet upside down and cooking the dough on that. We have a large round pizza pan that has sides like a cookie sheet so I just used that. I rolled the dough out on the inside of the pan (place it on wax paper to help transfer the dough to the back of the pan) then I took the formed pizza crust out of the pan and flipped the pan over and put the pizza on the bottom. Then you crank the oven to 500 and put the pizza in the cool oven. I noticed the crust was VERY thick but it was VERY good too. This time the crust actually tasted lighter and you could see little air bubbles in it. Since it was very thick my next thought is next time I'm going to try taking some of all that dough (as it makes a LOT) and making bread sticks to go with the pizza.... I might even attempt to makes stuffed bread sticks! So I guess be looking for a blog about that in the future. :)

So this week my new recipe to try (and I have a few this week) was a "Chicken Fried Chicken" recipe from allrecipes.com
It sounded good and the reviews on it were good. Although I have to admit as I was making it I started to wonder about using the 30 saltine crackers. Those reservations were valid and lets just say I will be looking for another recipe. Now don't get me wrong, it was decent but it wasn't good and I felt like if I was going through all that work that it should taste better. My husband actually scraped the breading off the chicken cause he didn't care for it. Well I know I got that recipe off of allrecipes.com but I think thats one I found while using my tablet computer and I didn't actually SAVE it to my recipe box online and just transferred the recipe to my tablet. That being said I don't have the recipe but you won't want to use it anyway. Just avoid one if it says to use 30 saltine crackers.



The recipe was pretty simple in itself. It called for the crackers, seasoning salt, flour, oil, pepper and of course egg. Of course you used the egg to dip the chicken in before coating it in the cracker/flour mixture and then cooked it in a skillet  in the oil. I had read on some of the reviews that people had trouble getting the breading to stay on the chicken and they had actually solved that problem by first sprinkling flour on the wet chicken before dipping it in the egg. So I did that, then I coated and cooked. I noticed right off the bat that still the breading was coming off in chunks on some of the pieces. Also I noticed that in order to make sure the chicken was well cooked you had to pretty much burn the breading. Needless to say this recipe wasn't that great. Have I mentioned that? I was very disappointed. My thought on the chicken was it just tasted like fried saltine crackers that were burnt. Yuck. So on to try a different and hopefully better tasting Chicken fried Chicken. :)

Again, no pictures of this dinner as I felt like it was to ugly and to burnt to mess with taking a picture and posting it. Also I will note here that I kept a close eye on the chicken the whole time, turning it a lot to try and keep it from burning and it still did. So it wasn't just a case of my getting distracted and forgetting I was cooking.... Which I'll admit happens often! Haha

Most awesome Pot Roast

What a perfect dinner to cap off my "Slow Cooker Week" Ok so I know its only Thurs but we go to my mother in laws every Fri for dinner so that means its only a 4 night cook week for me. Now You may notice I also haven't blogged any other recipe's this week except 1. Well that being because the first one was nothing really to blog about. Simply throw some chicken in the crock pot and pour BBQ sauce over it and let it sit and cook for a few hours. I prefer to use KC Masterpiece but that's probably just the Kansas City girl in me. :) Tues' dinner I blogged about and last night well I wasn't feeling good so I skipped "cooking" and just did chicken nuggets and fries...... A Good back up plan for when you don't feel well. Haha

So tonight's dinner I wasn't real sure about, I'm not normally much of a roast person and after the somewhat flop of the Stew I was worried that it might not turn out as good as I originally had thought. However I kinda feel like we'll try it once and if we don't like it we won't do that recipe again. I have to say it was SO easy too! I started it in the crockpot around 10am. I mixed the simple ingredients together, then threw in the roast. I left it in till about 2pm on low then I kicked it up to high. Then around 4pm I added some potatoes and carrots. Around 5:30 we were ready to eat and it was DELISH! So far my husband hasn't been really commenting much on the new recipes I've tried. He tells me "Its good babe" but that just means its not nasty! LOL Tonight he was like "This is REALLY good!" So I asked him "So is this recipe a keeper to you?" he was like "YES!" Then I asked him if he would feel like having the left overs on Sat for dinner or should I store it in the freezer for another night next week? He was like "Yes! Sat sounds great!" Hahaha So its a keeper. Now the veggies were add on's to the recipe. My husband also enjoyed having 2 slices of bread open and the meat on top with sauce all over it. I had 1 slice of bread on the side and used it to sop up the extra very thick yummy gravy. Our plates were clean in record time! Eli however took a bite, spite it out and proclaimed "YUCK!" But we have had trouble getting him to eat meat so far at this age. I'm sure as he gets older he'll like it. :)

Hubby's roast on bread and covered in sauce! 

Ok so here's the recipe.... Again taken from allrecipes.com
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/awesome-slow-cooker-pot-roast/detail.aspx

• 2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 1 (1 ounce) package dry onion soup mix
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 5 1/2 pounds pot roast

Directions

1. In a slow cooker, mix cream of mushroom soup, dry onion soup mix and water. Place pot roast in slow cooker and coat with soup mixture.
2. Cook on High setting for 3 to 4 hours, or on Low setting for 8 to 9 hours.
   
   I forgot to mention above that the only changes I made to this recipe was that I added some seasoning salt to the roast on both sides before putting it in the crock pot. But again thats optional. Well I guess the whole recipe is optional. Haha Enjoy!

Pork Tenderloin

So as I've said this week is slow cooker week in our house, Monday started with an easy to make BBQ Chicken in the slow cooker. Easy because you just add chicken and pour BBQ sauce over it and let it sit for several hours. However last night was Pork Tenderloin, again I've never cooked this but the recipe sounded so good!

This weekend has been a rough one for our family, Fri Casey didn't have work so stayed home. We decided to get him in to see the Dr because he's been sick. Turns out he has bronchitis and I have a sinus infection. Casey has been home ever since till today when he finally went in. Having a sick man in the house is like having another child in the house. Its been exhausting, so yesterday as I prepared the pork tenderloin in the crock pot I wasn't feeling well. As I added ingredients I felt worse because the last 3 added smelled HORRIBLE! They were, Red Wine (a cooking red wine), Soy Sauce and minced garlic. YUCK, as I covered the pot I looked at that expensive dinner and thought "You'd better taste good!" I was worried that it would taste horrible. As it cooked the smell changed and wasn't as horrible, although you could still smell the cooking wine. I think its cause it seems to be mostly vinegar which I hate the smell of.

So finally the 4hrs passed and dinner was ready, now being in a haze the last few days I totally didn't think about what side to go with it till it was done! As I was dishing up dinner I thought at how potatoes and carrots would probably compliment this VERY well. Note to self, instead I steamed up some broccoli. The recipe called for a 2lbs pork tenderloin which is a lot for 2 people to eat. So I put it in a vacuum bag and sealed it up and stuck it in the freezer.... I also put the rest of the sauce in a bowl and stuck it in the freezer for future use. So now if I don't feel good one night I can take those out, stick them in the crock pot for like an hour with potatoes and carrots and viola! I'll have dinner!

Sadly I'm just now realizing I forgot to take pictures of dinner last night! Ha oh well. Again this one came from allrecipes.com
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/amazing-pork-tenderloin-in-the-slow-cooker/detail.aspx

Ingredients

• 1 (2 pound) pork tenderloin
• 1 (1 ounce) envelope dry onion soup mix
• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cup red wine
• 3 tablespoons minced garlic
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Place pork tenderloin in a slow cooker with the contents of the soup packet. Pour water, wine, and soy sauce over the top, turning the pork to coat. Carefully spread garlic over the pork, leaving as much on top of the roast during cooking as possible. Sprinkle with pepper, cover, and cook on low setting for 4 hours. Serve with cooking liquid on the side as au jus.

The recipe says it takes about 15min to prepare and I found it was pretty close. This was very good! I also added some seasoning salt to the mix just to make sure it had lots of flavor. I think maybe if it cooked a little longer it would be falling apart on its own. As it was though it wasn't hard to cut at all. I will be keeping this recipe! :)

Store Adventures

So I have blogged about how I am trying to expand my cooking abilities. I have also blogged that this week is slow cooker week. Where I"m going to cook everything in the slow cooker. Should be easy right? Well that is until its time to shop for some of the ingredients for this weeks meals. So on the menu this week was pork tenderloin and pot roast.... So I found the tenderloin pretty easily, but the recipe also calls for red wine (to cook with). Now I have never bought wine before, so I look in the "beer" section at price chopper and I don't find any "WINE". So I figure I'll skip that and let Casey stop somewhere and get some anyway. Well in another section I find a "Cooking" wine. Which I guess you don't even have to be a certain age to get cause I didn't get carded! LOL Anyway next I had to find a "Pot roast". Harder then I thought.

With the pork tenderloin it said right on it "Pork tenderloin" so it was easy, with the pot roast I was looking for it to actually SAY pot roast. Also their selection was poor, so I finally settle on something that says "ROAST" on it but dang it was $16! Just as I was walking away one of the workers come out with a rack full of meat. He asks if I"m finding everything ok and I finally summon up the courage to tell someone I don't know what the heck I'm doing and what is it I need? He tells me that as long as its a "ROAST" its ok, just some people prefer certain kinds (arm or rump). He also tells me that I have an EXPENSIVE one because its all natural (no growth hormones etc). So finally I get some meat that is much less expensive... There was also a lady there looking at the meat and she overheard and was telling me the best way to cook a roast etc. Was all pretty funny if you ask me. Just another adventure in my learning to cook. :)

2-step inside out chicken pot pie= 2 delicious

Today was try a new recipe day again. Normally I'm not much of a veggie eater but what was in today's recipe I actually enjoyed.... All but the red peppers and I didn't mind the taste to much but with a 4mo old that is nursing and has been a very colicky baby I didn't want to risk it with the peppers. I didn't follow the recipe to the letter this time but pretty much.

I started out with 4 chicken breasts.... What I figured to be about a pound of chicken, I cooked the chicken till "brown" which is actually more of a grey like the directions says, the recipe doesn't call for it but I added a little poultry seasoning to the chicken to make sure it had lots of flavour it turned out really well!

After the chicken was cooked I also did another step that the recipe doesn't call for (so I guess I ended up with 4 step inside out chicken pot pie) and that was to cut the chicken up into little chunks. I figured that most chicken pot pie its not full chicken breasts and it would help the chicken cook faster.

Next I added the veggies and soup, for the veggies I got a "Red Roasted potatoes" mix, it has Red potatoes, red peppers, onions (although I never saw any) and broccoli. While it was all simmering I put the biscuits in the oven. It was simple, pretty fast and yet yummy! We even had enough to have some left over, for those of you who don't know my husband very well let me just say he can eat... and eat.... and eat some more. So unless we fixed a HUGE amount of food there isn't normally any left over. Either way this recipe is a keeper!

Everything simmering in the pot... Look at those yummy veggies!

Served up on the hot biscuits! Yummy!

Most of you might be surprised to hear that I said I enjoyed this, broccoli and all but I actually did! I like cooked broccoli I have found out I like it as long as its cooked and in something like this. :)

Next week we will be doing everything in the slow cooker! So stay tuned!

Oh and here is this recipe again taken from allrecipes.com
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/2-step-inside-out-chicken-pot-pie/detail.aspx

Ingredients

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut-up
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can Campbell's® Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup (Regular or 98% Fat Free)
• 1 (16 ounce) package frozen vegetable combination (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots)
• 8 hot biscuits, split

Directions

1. Cook chicken in nonstick skillet until browned, stirring often.
2. Add soup and vegetables. Cover and simmer until done. Serve on biscuits.

Beef Stew = so so

My first attempt at home made from scratch stew and it was ok but not great. My adventure begins when I was looking for a potato peeler and thought we didn't have one (I later found one). So I decided I would have to use a knife to peel them. Thats what they used to do in the old days right? I chose a knife that wasn't to terribly sharp so as to avoid cutting off an appendage. It was pretty tough having to peel 6 potatoes with a knife but I managed eventually. As I was cutting the fresh peeled potatoes I couldn't help but think about all those TV shows and movies I've seen where the wife/mother/woman of the house is in the kitchen cutting up lots of vegetables for dinner. I've never been THAT kind of wife/mother before. I do fix dinner but well not the big fancy dinners that requires cutting of fresh produce. Or at least not that often, I even hummed a little personal theme song in my head and pictured myself wearing an apron with my hair pulled back in a bun and perfect make up on.... Ok scratch the makeup I can't stand the stuff. In stead I was dressed VERY casual and had my hair thrown into a very messy ponytail. Ah well can't be perfect!

Next up was the celery and carrots. Casey had recently just bought a bag of baby carrots because he had the munchies so me trying to be frugal I decided to just use those instead. I just cut them up a little smaller and there you have the carrots. I added all the produce to bowls to add in the stew when I was ready for them.

The recipe calls for browning the meat on all sides and then browning the boiling onions on both sides before combining everything in the pot. Which is what I did, at this point the house smelled WONDERFUL and I really was feeling VERY domestic! I will say all this "prep" for the simmering takes about an hour so allow plenty of time!

Finally it was time to add everything in the pot for a good long simmer. I learned something, the recipe calls for adding all the veggies and meat BEFORE the broth for a good reason..... It WILL SPLASH! Ok, it wasn't a huge deal really. As I was dumping the veggies from their prospective bowls (green bowl for celery.... orange bowl for carrots) I couldn't help but feel a little like Martha Stewart. "Take this marvelous cut celery and add it to the broth, followed by your marvelous carrots, onions and last but certainly not least your stew meat. Stir it all together and wow doesn't it just smell wonderful?" Haha Yes I was having a grand time. I put it all in and then after it came to a boil I put the lid on, turned down the heat and let it simmer for the 2hrs it called for.

Everything ready for simmering.

Finally it was time to taste the stew, it was ok. It was good enough but nothing special. I think next time I will ad a little more seasoning then the recipe calls for. I think also since my husband wasn't fond of the texture from the potatoes turning to mush I will probably ad those about an hour into the simmering instead of letting them simmer for 2hrs with the whole stew. I have to say other then the meat it was all pretty mushy. The meat however was VERY tender and flavorful just not the rest of the stew.

Finished product with biscuits.

So finally here is the link to the recipe... Again I found it on allrecipes.com You might want to check out the reviews for suggestions. I was just reading them and realized I should have waited to put the potatoes in till around a half hour before the stew is done. Dully noted, on with the recipe...

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/angels-old-fashioned-beef-stew/detail.aspx

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 pounds beef chuck, cubed
• 12 small boiling onions
• 6 large potatoes, peeled and diced
• 6 carrots, sliced
• 3 stalks celery, sliced
• 3 (10.5 ounce) cans beef broth
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon cold water

Directions

1. In a large pot heat oil over medium high heat. In a resealable plastic bag mix together the flour, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Add a small handful of meat at a time and shake until well coated; brown in hot oil, about 1 minute per side. Remove the browned meat and continue until all the meat is browned.
2. Lower heat to medium and add onions. Brown onions on both sides, about 3 minutes per side, then remove from pot and set aside. Drain excess fat from pot.
3. To pot add potatoes, carrots, celery, reserved onions, browned meat and broth. Stir all together and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
4. For a thicker broth: 1/2 hour before stew is done, combine 3 tablespoons flour and water in a small bowl and mix well, then slowly stir mixture into stew.

Made from scratch pizza = YUM!

Recently I have been trying to plan our meals about 2 weeks in advanced. Like I said in an earlier blog I have been searching for new recipes to try. This was one I found on allrecipes.com and I do say I think its a keeper.

The adventure began after the kids were down for a nap, this recipe is pretty basic and easy to follow. I did everything as it said but when I got to the part about turning the dough out and kneading in more flower is where I started to get a little concerned. My concern was this, it seemed to be a very THIN dough and I was worried I hadn't done something right as it was VERY VERY sticky. No fear though, I started kneading in the extra flour like the recipe calls for and it began to thicken up. I think I used more flour then the recipe called for though.

At the end I did change up some things, I put it into a metal pizza pan and brushed the dough with melted butter with a brush. Then I cooked the dough for about 5min before adding toppings. It was a VERY thick crust and I wanted to make sure it was baked well enough. After that I took it out of the oven and put on my toppings. Hamburger and lots and lots of cheese! YUMMMM!!! Oh yeah and of course the sauce. I found I only used about half a can of sauce so it might be better to purchase the sauce in a jar instead so you can store it easier.

After adding the toppings I again brushed on extra butter around the crust and then sprinkled garlic salt on the crust. I baked the pizza till it was nice and golden and it tasted wonderful! I think next time I'll use a tad more butter and garlic salt though. It probably would have done 2 smaller pizza's better but this large pizza was still nice and thick. You could probably split it up for a nice thin crispy crust though.

 

The ready to bake pizza... I also used a shredded Cheddar cheese.

Here is the recipe from allrecipes.com
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/jays-signature-pizza-crust/detail.aspx

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit for 10 minutes.
2. Stir the salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour.
3. Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until double; this should take about 1 hour. Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out. Use for your favorite pizza recipe.
4. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). If you are baking the dough on a pizza stone, you may place your toppings on the dough, and bake immediately. If you are baking your pizza in a pan, lightly oil the pan, and let the dough rise for 15 or 20 minutes before topping and baking it.
5. Bake pizza in preheated oven, until the cheese and crust are golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.
   
   
   We ate our the pizza so fast we burned our mouths it was that yummy! I didn't even get a chance to snap a picture before we dove in. Oh well it was a nice looking pizza and twice as good! Happy eating!