Gadget du jour: Rice cooker

My mother loved gadgets in the kitchen. Touble was, it didn't take long to run out of storage place and the gadgets became more trouble than they were worth. So, I am not big on gadgets in the kitchen.

There are however, some gadgets that really are worth the cabinet space they take. This is one. It was a Christmas present from my mother-in-law, a Black and Decker rice cooker.

Basically it is like a crock pot, you put the rice and water it in and turn it on. It takes over from there and cooks the rice with no attention or fuss from you. It's great, the rice is never burned, never crunchy and I get the space on the stove freed up for other purposes. What more can you ask?

This one is definitely worth the space it takes in the cabinet.

Little League: Grilled Peanutbutter-wiches

This is a fun change from grilled cheese sandwiches.

I can't claim the recipe is original though. I first had it at my mother-in-law's house when my husband and I were still dating. It was a family favorite in his family and now it is in ours as well.

Peanutbutter-wiches

For each sandwich, spread two slices of bread with butter/margarine. Stack the bread with the buttered sides facing. Spread peanutbutter on the top slice of bread. Finish with a squeeze of honey or a spread of honey-whip and place butter-side down on a skillet heated on medium heat. Top with the other slice of bread, butter-side up.

Grill as you would for grilled cheese sandwiches.

Yumm!

Pantry Picks: Corn Bread Chili Casserole

If you are making this with access to refridgeration, you can add shredded cheese and cooked ground beef instead of sticking with the cheese spread and beans.

Corn Bread Chili Casserole.

In a 9x13 pan mix: 1 can corn, drained, 1 can beans, drained and rinsed, 2 cans chili.

Spread a small jar or processed cheses spread/dip over the top of the chili and veggies.

Mix up 2 envelopes of corn bread mix (get the one that doesn't require eggs). Spread over cheese.

Bake according to corn bread directions.

Dinner in 20: Couscous with spinach and tomatoes

Couscous are a very tiny pasta that only needs soaking in hot water to cook. It is a great basis for a quick meal.

Couscous with spinach and tomatoes

Fix 1 box of couscous with beef broth, according to package directions.[basically, bring the broth to a boil, add couscous, cover and remove from heat]

Brown 1 lb ground beef. Add 8 oz frozen spinach, 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 can of mushrooms, garlic to taste. Stir until the spinach is thawed.

Add in the couscous. Mix well.

Serve with parmeasean cheese.

Tip of the Day: Grocery lists

It drives me nuts when my family wanders by and tells me we need this and such from the gorcery store and I have no grocery list in my hand! Usually that stuff gets forgotten and requires another trip to the store.

We solve the problem with a $5 white board from Walmart. I have an 8x11 white board on magnets on the fridge. Who ever notices we need something simply writes it on the board and I check it before I go to the store.

It has worked for us, and anything that makes life a little easier is worth sharing.

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.

Spring has sprung!

Well, spring has sprung in our neck of the wood! I didn't cook today--spring fever! Instead I got out the camera for a little creative spree.

We had a doozy of a spring storm this morning, thunder, pouring rain, hail, the works. When it all blew over, I couldn't resist taking some pictures of the flowers that survived the storm.



My husband's favorite flower.



Azaleas are the flower du jour right now. They really are a spectacular sight in their full glory.





I loved the water dripping off the leaves of our sago palm.



Our silver leaf bushes that screen my bedroom window.





A fern on the front porch.



Our loquat tree isn't producing as much as last year, but we're stil getting some nice fruit.

Dinner in 20: Spinach-Alfredo Fettucini

At our local pizza buffet place, my kids absolute favorite pizza is, believe it or not, the Spinach-Alfredo pizza. The pizza is green--white sauce, spinach and cheese. And somehow it manages to cover up the strong taste of the spinach and the kids wolf it down.

So, I experimented at home and discovered I could make a very similar sauce for pasta at home. It is a simple fix and a nice change from spaghetti and tomato sauce.

Spinach Alfredo Sauce

Put your water for the pasta on to boil.

[I do this in a 4 C pyrex measuring cup, but you can use a 1 quart microwave safe dish. ] Measure in a liquid measuring cup, 2 C of frozen spinach. Add milk on top of spinach to make the liquid level up to 2 cups. Pour into dish if not using 4 measuring cup. Add 2 envelopes of powdered alfredo sauce, the margarine called for by the mix and garlic acccording to your tastes.** Mix.

Pop in the microwave and heat 1 minute at a time. Mix after each minute. Stop when the sauce is hot and thick. How lon it will take overall depends on the power of your microwave. Don't try to heat all at once because it will boil over and make an awful mess in the microwave. Guess how I KNOW that...

Cook your pasta while all this is happening.

Serve your sauce over your pasta of choice. We like fetuccini, but anthing you like will work. It looks like a whole lot more work than it actually is.

**If you use an alfredo mix that requires 1 1/2C of milk, increase everything above to 3 C.

Out of the Frying Pan....

This week oone of the local grocery stores had a really really good sale on boneless chicken breast tenders. Usually I don't buy these puppies because they are way to expensive, but they were a great buy, so I had 5 lbs of them sitting in the kitchen! And we weren't about to eat 5 lbs in one week either. So here's what I did with them: (You can use childen breast tender, boneless breasts sliced into tenders or boneless thighs sliced into tenders. You could also use slivers of turkey breast or thighs if you like.)

First, divide the meat into one lb. increments. Then pull out two skillets (with lids if possible) and put them on the stove. (Doing more than 2 at a time is more than I can keep up with! But you can do three or four skillets at once if they'll fit on your stove.) Add a little oil to the skillet and turn the heat up to medium high.

When the pan is hot, add in a pound of chicken. Stir frequently and cook the meat until it begins to brown. Then turn off the heat(if using electric heat, turn it to low if using gas heat) and add one of the following to the pan:

• BBQ sauce
• Sweet and Sour Sauce
• Cream of Mushroom soup, condensed
• Cream of Chicken Soup, condensed
• Sesame-Ginger marinade/sauce
• Honey Dijon salad dressing
• Raspberry Vinegrette Salad dressing
• Lime-garlic marinade/sauce
• Enchillada sauce
• Tomatillo (green enchillada) sauce
• Spaghetti Sauce
• Your favorite sauce, avoid alfredo sauces though, they don't freeze very well
  

Cover the pan and let set 3-5 minutes, the sauce should come to a simmer.

Then, transfer the cooked chicken into a freezer container or a dish for further cooling. Give the skillet a quick rinse and wipe down and put it back on the stove for another round.

I got all five meals done in about half an hour.

When you reheat the chicken, you can add some frozen veggies that fit the sauce if you want. You could also add the veggies into the freezer bag before you put it in the freezer. If you do that though, make sure the chicken is cooled before you add the veggies. Otherwise, the veggies will thaw completely before you freeze the meal and , well, it just makes them yucky on reheating.

These are all good served over your favorite carbs--rice, noodles, tortillas, biscuits, potatoes, what ever you like.

Snack Atttack: Creamy Spinach Garlic Dip

I was 'making it up as I went' in the kitchen the other day. My kids absolute quiver with excitement when I tell them that. They hover around and insist on helping out in the creative process. This was no exception.

I had a hankering for that warm creamy spinach garlic dip you can get as an appetizer at some resturants, but no desire to go out and find some.

So, I hit the fridge and come up with something remarkably like the resturant stuff for a small fraction of the price!

Creamy Spinach Garlic Dip

Start with a 10 oz. bag of fresh, washed spinach. Stuff it into the food processor, a about 1/3 at a time. Pulse the processor to mince the spinach. Add more as what is in the processor gets minced.

When all the spinach is minced add 2 blocks of cream cheese (low fat is fine, but not fat free), as much minced garlic as you like (we like A LOT!, like 1/4C!), 2T of red wine vineagar, onion powder and a generous does of parmesean cheese.

Whirl it all around in the processor until it is all well blended. You may need to scrape down the sides a couple of times. This makes a very generous portion of dip.

You can gently warm this on the stove, over very low heat, stirring frequently, in the microwave or in the oven.

I actually spread this on ciabatta bread, topped it with pepperoni and toasted it all in the oven. The kids fought over the last piece!