Thursday, April 23, 2009

Chicken Broth vs Chicken bouillion with water?????

So, I'm looking around for a yummy chicken noodle soup recipe and I found one that got great reviews. It calls for 4 cans of chicken broth...my question, can I just use my chicken boullion with water? I've never used chicken broth so I'm just wondering what the difference is.

I'm not sure if anyone reads this, but it you know the difference please share your knowledge since I'm NOT experienced in this area.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Fruit Cobbler

When I'm trying to be healthy this is what I make for dessert. The problem is that it is so tasty I usually eat half of it the first night. Oh well.
This is the recipe I use and follow to a T for the topping. Cobbler It is basically a cookie with less flour. :) So healthy.
For the Fruit here are the combinations I've tried:
1. Cherries
2. Cherries and Apples
3. Cherries and Strawberries
4. Apples
5. Peaches(canned, I know, I'm lazy) and Strawberries
All of them are delicious. Just lay down whatever fruit you want and pour the topping over top. If you're using sour cherries or apples I would sprinkle sugar over the fruit first. I usually have to let it cook at least an hour sometimes more, for some reason the topping has a really hard time cooking. Any ideas?

Monday, April 20, 2009

The best Slow cooker Beef Stroganoff!

This is a gem of a recipe. I found it here and with over 1500 reviews, I think this ones been perfected. Here is my version of the recipe with all the comments put together.


Ingredients:

-1-2 lbs beef (I get stew meat and cut off some of the fat)

-2 cans GOLDEN MUSHROOM Soup

-1/2 cup water

-1/2 cup chopped onion

-3 cloves chopped garlic

-1 tbl Worcestershire Sauce

-1 beef boullion cube

-1/2 packet onion soup mix

-1 can mushrooms sauted

-4 oz cream cheese

-1 large scoop sour cream


I know there are a ton of ingredients, but I promise this is totally worth it.


Just put everything besides the mushrooms, cream cheese, and sour cream into a crockpot and cook on low for 5-6 hours. Add in the final 3 ingredients and serve over egg noodles or rice.


I've tried with cream of mushroom soup and I thought this was nasty. With golden mushroom soup it is WAYYYY better, I loved this last night! Zac said it was one of his favorites!

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Homemade Pizza

We had BBQ Chicken Pizza and it was yummy. I used this recipe for the crust and it was SO yummy Pizza Crust. It is a great crust recipe and it is really simple. We cover it with BBQ sauce, onions, garlic, peppers, chicken, and cheese. SO good!

The hardest part is making the crust a circle, I'm kind of a professional at it so you could probably learn a lot from this video. ;)

Friday, April 17, 2009

Pigs in a Blanket-this is one for the hubbies!

These were a HUGE hit tonight, Zac loved them and so did Teagan. I liked the taste, but knew they were probably horrible for me so it was too hard to enjoy completely. The best thing about it was that I spent a total of $2 on this meal and it took about 15 minutes to put together. Thank you Kim for the great idea.
Ingredients:
-pre-made biscuits (I got the jumbo size)
-5 or 6 hotdogs
-taco meat
-cheese
For the pigs in a blanket I cut the biscuit into thirds and flattened them out a little. I cut the hotdog in half and then cut them in half again so that the cross-sections were semi-circles. Just wrap the doggies up in the biscuits.

After making a half a cookie sheet of these I decided that I wanted something else for me so I made taco pockets. I took some leftover pork taco meat and cheese and made hot pockets! I'm guessing you could do the same thing with spaghetti sauce or ham and cheese. Maybe I'll jot down some ideas next time I'm walking down the frozen food isle.

I cooked them at 350 for about 2o minutes and they were fantastic. I didn't get a good picture of the finished product because we were too hungry.

As a side note, I made a huge thing of broccoli that we ate while these were cooking so that we would have at least something nutritious. I should have taken a picture for proof!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Tostadas

Something about San diego has gotten me excited about Mexican food! My favorite meal lately is tostadas, I am ALWAYS in the mood for them! They are great because you can make it nice and fancy for company or keep it simple on a busy night. Here are a few of our favorite toppings:
1. Pork
--2 cans of sliced green chillies
--3 cloves of garlic chopped up
--3 tbl taco seasoning (I usually add 2 at the beginning and add more at the end if it is too bland)
--1 tbl Chili powder
--1tsp oregano

Just mix all the ingredients into a paste and rub it over a pork roast. I cook mine in a crock pot on low for 6 or 7 hours. About an hour before serving I get a couple forks and shred the meat and adjust seasoning and such and let it cook another hour.

2. Beans
--Beans
--chicken/tomato bullion
--2 cloves of garlic
--onion.

These i have NOT mastered yet. I put everything in a pot with plenty of water and let it cook on low heat until the beans are soft. I usually have to add water a few times through out the cook time. It took 2 hours yesterday!!! They are yummy though. Does anyone have any suggestions, I know canned beans are nice.

3. Rice

I make my rice like normal: twice as much water as rice, but I add the chicken/tomato bullion. The bullion makes a HUGE difference. I find it in the Mexican food isle of my grocery store. This rice is YUMMY!

This pic has the rice, beans and meat, all homemade and yummy! Too much salt, but that's better than fat!


4. Cheese
5. Guacamole- so good, but we never have avocado unless my mom is with us!
6. Lettuce
7. Tomato
8. Sour Cream
9. Ranch
10. Salsa

Pretty much anything goes on these babies. Just pile it all onto a tostada (these are like a huge round chip). We put the cheese down first and zap it in the microwave. yummy!

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Omelets tonight.

Whenever I am not in the mood to cook we have breakfast for dinner. Usually the clean-up and preperation are super easy, what's not to love?

Tonight was omelets. I chopped up some veggies, cheese, and sliced ham in about 10 minutes and with the help of my amazing husband we had the yummiest omelets tonight.

Do you notice the egg arrangement? I have a serious OCD problem with eggs. I have to take them out of the carton in a specific pattern. I had to include them in the picture when I opened the carton and saw the perfect design.

Omelets aren't complicated...but I took pictures and wrote explanations anyways.

1. Pour some egg into a greased pan and let it cook on medium low for a few minutes

2. Pile on the veggies, cheese, and meat to your hearts content. let it keep cooking until the egg isn't too runny.3. Fold it over and let it finish cooking. Zac squishes it with the spatula to make any uncooked egg come out of the omelet and finish cooking on the pan.
4. Enjoy. The great thing was that I dirtied one knife and one pan. Me and Zac were even able to share a plate because I was done eating mine by the time his was done cooking.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Tie-Dyed Cupcakes!

I found this great idea off of this blog. They are normal cupcakes with a tie dye twist. Perfect for a 70's birthday party or EASTER!

You start with your choice of white cake. I didn't remove the egg yolks and it made the colors look a little browner, I would recommend removing the egg yolks for a true WHITE cake.

This is the recipe I used, it is really good, but you need to follow the instructions very carefully!
White Cake
Decide how many colors you want and divide up the batter and put in the food coloring.
Mix them all up.
This part allows for creativity. The idea is to just spoon a scoop of each color into each cupcake holder. It doesn't have to be neat. I found that if I wanted the colors to really swirl I needed to only put a small amount of the last color on top. Does that make sense? This is what mine looked like about half way through. I just randomly scooped different colors into each tin.
Then use an object to stir the batter, LIGHTLY. A toothpick was too small. I used the head of a screw driver. A chopstick would probably work too. Some turned out awesome, some were just okay. I stirred my second batch too much and then ended up meshing all together.
Bake normal and you get party cup cakes! ( Do you see what I mean about the brown tint? You live and learn!)
The bottom 4 are from the first batch where I put too much in each scoop and on the top color so the colors didn't really blend. The top 8 are the second batch. I did lots of small scoops of batter and stirred alot. I think some combination of the two would be the ultimate winner.


I was so sad to frost these babies, and cover up the art, but what is a cupcake without a heap of cream cheese frosting on top???

Here is how I make frosting.

Mix a package of cream cheese with a big scoop of margarine and a small scoop of shortening until it is nice and fluffy. Add about a capful of vanilla and keep adding powdered sugar until it tastes good. Very rich and healthy!

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

New Blog

Hey Everyone.

I love cooking, but I am SUPER new to the cooking world. I'm always trying new recipes and constantly reading reviews trying to perfect them. Then I forget the changes that I make and I have to start over from the beginning. This blog is going to be my personal recipe book so that I can keep track of exactly how I make The Foods We Love.

I'm really looking to create a bigger pool of meals to pick from, but I can never think of any. Please let me know if my list on the right is missing any of your family favorites.

If you have any suggestions to make my food better please leave a comment. Check out my birthday enchiladas below.

Pork Enchiladas

These enchiladas are SO yummy, but they look a little weird...I will explain how to fix that though. I took an enchilada recipe from allrecipe.com and then picked my hispanic neighbor's brain on how to make the sauce. Together they make a DELICIOUS dish. I use fat free and reduced fat items and it still tastes good.

allrecipes link:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cottage-Cheese-Chicken-Enchiladas/Detail.aspx

Here's how I make them. You make a cheese mixture, the meat mixture and sauce and put them into tortillas and bake 'em up.

Ingredients:
10 tortillas
1-2 C grated cheese (do you like them super cheese, or not super cheesy?)
everything listed below


1. Cheese Mixture: Mix the ingredients in a bowl
--2 C. Cottage Cheese
--1/2 C sour cream
--1/3 package cream cheese (adjust to your desired richness and fat content :)

2. Meat Mixture:
--1 lb of cooked shredded meat (beef, pork, chicken)
--1 can diced green chillis
--1/2 onion-chopped
--3 cloves of garlic cut into tiny pieces (minced???)
--1 package taco seasoning
--1 tbl oil

Fry the onions and garlic in the oil first, then add everything else and cook on medium for a while... I usually let it simmer for 20 min.

3. Sauce:
Either:
--1 can of enchilada sauce
OR
The ingredients shown below
--4 small tomatos
--2 tomatillos (green tomatos)
--1 jalapeno
--3 cloves of garlic
--a bundle of cilantra
--chilli pepper

Boil the everything but the garlic and cilantra until soft. The jalpeno and chilli take a little longer. put it all in a blender (including garlic & cilantra) and blend it up to get your sauce.

Change the ratio of tomatos to jalapenos to get a more spicey sauce...this was VERY mild, there was a small kick though. I wouldn't recommend using both tomatoes and tomatillos since it made a puke brown sauce (still very tasty though).

Assemble the enchiladas:

--Use 10 tortillas. Put in a scoop of the cheese mixture, meat mixture, and a little shredded cheese in each tortilla. Wrap the tortillas and put them in your baking dish. I put a little sauce in each enchilada and then drizzled the rest over the top. I used 2 square pyrex dishes and put one in the freezer for a meal a week later (still tasted delicious).

Some pointers:

1. You can put as much or as little cheese and meat into each tortilla, if you are a meat eater then you might want to double the meat mixture so you can really load them.

2. For the meat I tried making it in the crockpot the night before and it worked beautifully! I got a pork roast and mixed all of the ingredients for the meat mixture together and smothered it all over the roast. I let it cook on low all day and then shredded it up. We used it for tostadas that night and then i used the leftovers to make the enchiladas. It eased up a lot on the work!
3. You can be very creative with the sauce. My neighbor originally told me to just use 2 jalapenos and 3 large tomatoes. Then she said if I wanted it fancier I could add all the other stuff.