Dinner in 20: Bratwurst with corn and onions

Made this for dinner tonight. It has been a tough couple of weeks and I just needed to get dinner on the table quick. So I rooted around the freezer and came up with this:

Bratwurst with corn and onions

Cut up 5 bratwurst sausages (or remove them from their skins if you like, other sausages can be substituted if you want.)

Add sausages and a cup or so of chopped onions (frozen ones are fine) and brown over medium high heat.

When it is all browned up, add about 8 ounces of frozen corn kernels and heat through.

Good served with your favorite frozen potatoes (pop them in the oven just before you start the sausage), apple sauce and/or cole slaw.

The brats go really well with the slight sweetness of the corn and onions. The kids really liked it.

Tip of the Day: Onions

Every now and again you find a little tip that is just worth sharing.

I love onions, but chopping them is such a royal pain! One way to get around this is to do the chopping in bulk.

Get out the food processor and either a very coarse chredding blade or the regular chopping blade. Peel your onions and cut them in quarters. Put them in the food processor to coarsely chop them.

Then toss them in a freezer wieght zip lock and toss them in the freezer.

Add them to recipes like you would regular chopped onions. I wouldn't use these for onion rings, but anything else works just fine.

Sidelines: Parlseyed Potatoes

My husband and kids love these. They are easy to make and are great comfort food.

Parsleyed Potatoes

2 1/2 Lbs red potatoes
Butter
Parsley
Salt
Onion Powder, optional

Cut the potatoes into fourths. Put in pot and cover with water. Boil about 20 minutes, until potatoes are tender. Drain.

Add butter, lots of parsley, salt, pepper, and onion powder (if desired) to taste.

Stir well.

Finger foods

When ever I make these up for the freezer they are the first things we run out of. There is just something about finger foods that make them easy to pull out and serve. They have the added bonus that go on the road well if needed.

Use a variety of dipping sauces, BBQ, sweet-n-sour, ketchup, ranch, buffalo, salsa, cheese sauce, ect to add to the fun.


Chicken Fingers, Beef Fingers, Pork Fingers

This is kind of an assembly line process. Cut the meat, chicken breasts, tenderized round steak and pork chips trimmed of fat, into finger-strips.

Take some mayo, dijonaise, or miracle whip and place into a bowl. Don’t over do it as you have to throw away anything that is left over. Do not put what is left in the bowl back in the jar, that can add up to food poisoning!

Brush the fingers with mayo and toss with bread crumbs. Line fingers on a baking sheet.

Bake at 350F, about 10-15 minutes, depending on thickness of meat. Do not over or under cook.

Cool and store in zip lock bags.

Reheat in microwave (1 minute if thawed, adding time if needed) or oven, 350F 10-15 minutes.


Oven Fried Chicken Legs

Brush chicken legs with Ranch salad dressing (one of the flavored Ranch Dressings like the Three Cheese variety is good too). Toss to coat in a mixture of 1/2bread crumbs, 1/2parmasean cheese.

Line on a baking sheet, bake 350F, 20 minutes or so.

Cool, store in zip lock bags.

Reheat in microwave (1 1/2minute if thawed, adding time if needed) or oven, 350F 10-15 minutes.


Meat Balls on a stick

Take your favorite ground meat, about 1 lb. Add 1/2C crumbs, 1 egg, a generous squirt of ranch salad dressing and 1/4C parmesan cheese. Mix well.

Make ping pong ball sized meat balls. Thread two or three meat balls on a bamboo skewer (look in the grilling department or Asian food section). Line skewers on a baking dish (with a lip to catch any juices). Bake 350F 15-20 minutes, until cooked through.

Cool, store in zip lock bags.

Reheat in microwave (1 1/2minute if thawed, adding time if needed) or oven, 350F 10-15 minutes

Little Leagues: Strawberry Banna Pie

Once again I was left with a few extra, too-brown bananas in the fruit bowl. So, here's what we came up with, it's easy, it's different, it tastes good and the kiddos can help too!

My guys loved helping me make it and fought over the one left over piece!



Banana Strawberry Pie

3 very ripe bananas
1 1/2C sugar
1/4C lemon juice
1/4 C hot water
1 envelope unflavored gelatin

Graham cracker crust

Strawberries

Mash the bananas with sugar and lemon juice. Heat water, add gelatin and mix until it is completely dissolved. Add to bananas.

Pour it all into the crust and chill until it is set, a couple of hours.

Slice the strawberries, toss with some sugar. Refridgerate.

When pie is set, top with berries and whipped topping to serve.

Dinner in 20: Sausage with cabbage and potatoes

This quick meal has lots of flavor and some green veggies to boot. My kids loved it, in fact there were no-leftovers! If you like, you can use fresh white potatoes instead of canned, it will add a couple of extra minutes to the cooking time though.

Sausage with cabbage and potatoes

2-3 Cans sliced/diced potatoes or 4-5 diced white potatoes
1 package smoked sausage, diced
1-1 lb bag cole slaw mix
shredded cheddar cheese

Heat large skillet over medium high heat, add 2 T oil and potatoes. While potatoes begin to brown, dice the sausage.

After the potatoes start browning, add the meat and continue to cook until potatoes are well browned. When potatoes are done, add cole slaw, turn down heat to medium low and cover skillet for a couple of minutes.

When cabbage is wilted,toss the mixture, top with cheese, remove from heat and cover again, until the cheese melts.

If you want to double to recipe, use a large (4qt) pot.

This is good with apple sauce and rye bread.

It would also be a good filling for flat bread wraps.

Spring in East Texas

The wild flowers can be really amazing this time of year. We've had so little rain this year that they haven't been as good as other years. But still there were some pretty spectacular fields. Here are a few shots of our neck of the woods.





These are actually about an hours drive from home for us, be well worth it!




Most people head out to see the bluebonnets, but there are other wild flowers out as well.

Snack Attack: Taffy Apple Dip

This one is great for the kids, they absolutely love it. In addition to apples, you can use it for carrots, to stuff celery, on graham crackers, even in place of peanut butter on a sandwich. Good stuff!

Cream together:
8 oz cream cheese (low fat is fine)
3/4 C brown sugar
1T vanilla

Serve with sliced apples.

That’s it! Enjoy!

Company’s Coming: Boneless Pork Ribs

Everyone needs a few recipes that are good enough for company, but easy and stress free to prepare. The nice thing about this recipe is all the work is done hours before they arrive! We had company last weekend and here’s what we had

Slow Cooked Boneless Pork Ribs

Slice up a couple of onions and put them in your crock pot.

Brown 3 lbs of boneless pork ribs in a hot skillet. Just get a nice brown color on the outside, don’t cook them all the way through. Should take about 15 minutes.

Put meat in slow cooker. Cook on low 6-8 hours or high 4-6 hours.

During last hour of cook add a 1 lb bag of cole slaw to the slow cooker.

To serve, remove meat to an extra dish. Mix cabbage and onions and meat juice. Cover serving platter with cabbage and arrange meat attractively on top.

Good with: baked potatoes and apple sauce

Pantry Picks: Chicken and Dumplings

Ah, spring is in the air! So naturally, I’m thinking about….hurricane season! Yep, that’s right, as soon as it starts getting warm, the coastal waters start warming up and that means storm season is on its way!

Seriously, this year they are predicting a worse season that was predicted last year. Between Katrina and Rita, that doesn’t bode well for the Gulf Coast Region. Rita missed us by a hare’s breath, but we were without power for a while nonetheless.

So, I’ll start posting some recipes that can be made with shelf stable ingredients (no refrigeration) and cooked on a grill or camp stove. Nothing fancy for sure, but something other than spaghetti-out-of-a-can that will make the storm effected time a little more bearable.

These recipes are also good for camping and for “I haven’t been to the grocery but need to make dinner” times at home.

My nieces actually ask me to make this one for them when they come over!

Chicken and Dumplings

2 cans mixed vegetables, drained
1 can sliced mushroom
1 large can chicken
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 2/3 cups bisquick® baking mix
2/3 cup milk (use powered milk)

Pour all the cans into a large, lidded skillet. Keep the liquid from the mushrooms and chicken. Mix gently.

Heat the mixture over medium-high heat. Mix Bisquick and milk to make dumpling batter. Drop small dumplings over the top of the soup-veggie mix.

When the soup starts bubbling, turn down the heat to medium low (about 3), cover and simmer about 10 minutes. Dumplings are done when you insert a toothpick and it comes out clean.

Bluebonnet portraits

This is a spring tradition for us. Every year I try to haul the boys out to the bluebonnet fields for some spring portraits. They were good sports about it this time around.

I'll post some flower shots later.