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Homemade Pesto

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What do you do with a garden full of basil?
Make pesto, of course!
I made a big batch of pesto earlier in the week and I’ve been using it in recipes all week long.  We’ve been having pesto appetizers, pesto on sandwiches, and pesto on our pasta.  It’s so fresh and yummy!  I just love it!  Once my daughter got over the muddy green color, she fell in love.  My son loves any type of food you put in front of him, so it wasn’t a hard sell for him.

I’m sad to say, I can’t even share my pesto recipe with you.  It was one of those – a little of this, a little of that – type things.  I put as much basil into the food processor as I could fit, added garlic, olive oil, pine nuts, and Parmesan cheese.  I added salt to taste and called it good.  How’s that for a precise recipe?  Thankfully, we’ve had a pretty dry summer, so I’m sure there will be more basil to come!
Happy gardening!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

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I’m not sure how I got lucky enough to have kids who will eat just about anything with veggies in it.  I was the pickiest eater known to man, when I was growing up.  I’m still pretty picky, but I will eat most fruits and veggies.   My kids’ favorite soup is homemade vegetable beef.  They will gobble it up and ask for seconds!  When I spotted a recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup on Pinterest, I hoped my kids would like it, but wasn’t convinced it would be a keeper.
 

 
 
This was the bowl I served my daughter.  The first thing she said was, “Aren’t you going to fill that up some more?”  I told her that I’d see how she liked it and then she could always have more.  Well, she asked for seconds and told me it was her new favorite soup.
 
Here’s the recipe that I adapted from Pinterest:
1 carton of chicken stock
1 can of corn- drained
1 can of diced tomatoes, drained and rinsed
1/2 of a white onion, diced
2 cooked chicken breasts, cut into pieces
1/4 of a small jalapeno, diced
1/8 tsp chili powder
1/8 tsp garlic salt
salt and pepper to taste
Cilantro for garnish
 
Cook in a Crock-Pot, on high, for 4 hours.
 
My daughter said she like the “little kick” of heat as she was eating it.  We don’t usually like spicy foods, which is why we only used a quarter of a jalapeno and an 1/8 tsp of chili power.  Still, it had enough spice that she liked it, but wasn’t overwhelming. 
 
Happy Crock-Pot Cooking!

Easy Crockpot Lasagna

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I posted this recipe for Crockpot Lasagna quite a while ago.  When I made it for dinner last night, my son started begging me to make it more often.  My whole family loves it, so I figured it’s worth a repost.

First, let my say that when you dish it up, straight out of the crockpot, it does not look this pretty.  Honestly, it looks like a sloppy mess.  This picture was actually taken of the leftovers.  Once it’s cooked, it cuts perfectly and looks much prettier.  But, who am I kidding, no one in my family cares about pretty lasagna.  They just want yummy lasagna.

Here’s what I did:

Mix together:
15 oz ricotta
2 cups mozzarella
1 cup Parmesan
2 cups chopped spinach
1 egg
1 tsp salt
dash of pepper

I buy 2 bottles of Newman’s Own Alfredo sauce when I make lasagna. For this recipe I also bought some precooked chicken sausage.  It was one of those yummy sausages from Costco that has sundried tomatoes and cheese inside.  I’ve also made it with browned Italian sausage, but use what you like.

Pour a little Alfredo in the bottom of the crockpot. Then put in a layer of lasagna noodles.  I use the kind that you don’t need to boil ahead of time.  The noodles are rectangular and my crockpot is oval, so I had to break the noodles up so they would fit.  Next comes a few spoonfuls of the ricotta mixture, then chicken sausage, and a handful of mozzarella cheese.  I continued alternating those ingredients until I ran out.

Sauce
Noodles
Ricotta mixture
Chicken Sausage
Mozzarella
Repeat

I set my crockpot to low for 5 hours, and then had it switch to warm until I got home.  (I love having a crockpot that I can program like that!)

Happy cooking, friends! You’re going to love this!!!

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The Perfect Clam Chowder

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I’ve always loved clam chowder.  I consider it my personal mission to find the best chowder in the Pacific Northwest.  So far, in my opinion, Pike Place Chowder holds the record.  Their Salmon Chowder (ok, I know I said CLAM chowder, but it’s just really good) is to die for!  I’ve made several different recipes over the past few years, trying to find my own perfect version of clam chowder.  Well, friends, I think I’ve come up with a homemade winner!  Now, it doesn’t even compare to Pike Place Chowder but my family agreed that this one is pretty good.
 
 
 
 
My recipe requires a couple of different pans.
 
 
Start by frying up 5 pieces of thick bacon.
Chop the cooked bacon and drain the grease, but don’t clean out the pan completely. We like those little bits of fried bacon that are stuck to the pan.
Add some chopped onions to the bacony pan and saute until translucent.
I used about half an onion, but use whatever you have or like.  Green onions work too.
Then, add some diced potatoes.  I used 5 Yukons, peels off.  Again, use what you like.
Once the diced potatoes are in the pan with the onions, add the juice only from 2 ten ounce cans of baby clams. Put a lid on the onions and potatoes and cook over medium heat until the potatoes are soft.
 
 
Time for pan #2.  In a large pot, melt 1 stick of butter.  Add 1/2 cup flour.  Cook the flour slightly, and then SLOWLY add a quart of half and half.  Cook this mixture until it thickens. I used my hand blender at this point to make sure the flour, butter, and half and half mixture didn’t have any lumps.  Throw in the baby clams and chopped bacon, and add the potato/onion mixture to the big pot.  Add a teaspoon of salt and a handful of chopped parsley. If you like your chowder on the thin side, add a little milk to thin it out. 
 
Dinner is served!
 
Again, here are the ingredients:
 
5 pieces fried thick bacon
1/2 large onion
5-6 diced potatoes
2  ten ounce cans of baby clams
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup of flour
1 quart of half and half
2 Tbsp chopped parsley
 
Happy cooking!

Dinner Group Pioneer Woman Style – My Turn

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A few months ago, a friend of mine started a dinner group.  It’s a really fun idea.  The hostess chooses four recipes that she hasn’t tried before.  Before the guests arrive, she sets up stations, each one with the recipe the guest will be cooking and all of the supplies and ingredients she will need.  There are four of us in this dinner group, and so far it’s been lots of fun!
 
I love this idea because it takes the pressure off of being the hostess.  If the recipe doesn’t turn out, it’s ok, and there is not nearly as much stress as preparing all of the food for a dinner party all on your own!
 
The first two months of our dinner group featured a few Thai recipes.  I can honestly say that they are recipes I would never consider making on my own.  They included ingredients like Fish Sauce, which I had never even heard of before.  (I love to cook and bake, but I’m certainly not an adventurous cook!)
 
This time it was my turn to host the dinner group.  I had no idea what types of recipes to choose.  I wanted to come up with a theme, but my brain was on overload with school stuff. Instead, I just chose a cookbook that I had on my shelf, but hadn’t really ventured into yet.  I chose PW’s Food From My Frontier.  I love P-Dub and I knew she wouldn’t let me down with her recipes.
 
*Full disclosure here: I love food photography, but I just didn’t have it in me to plate up and photograph the food this time.  These pictures are from freedigitalphotos.net.*
 
The Whiskey Meatballs were yummy.  They didn’t turn out quite as pretty as the picture.  Once the gravy was cooking with them, they started falling apart.
 
The Roasted Shrimp were SO yummy.  I would make these again in a heartbeat. My hubby and I devoured the leftover shrimp for lunch the next day. 

 
The Cauliflower Soup… well, the cauliflower soup needed a bit more cooking time.  I really should have started this ahead of time and then had the chef for this station just finish it up.  We all tried the soup, but decided that the recipe was not a keeper.  (Sorry P-Dub, just being honest!)

 
In the cookbook, Ree suggests serving the meatballs and shrimp with rosemary dinner rolls.  We made the meatballs into little meatball sliders and then also used the rolls to dip into the yummy shrimp sauce.  The rolls were a good filler since the meatballs and shrimp are more appetizer-ish recipes.

 
Dessert was Tres  Leche cake.  It was soaked in three different types of sweet milk and topped with whip cream.  It kind of had a bread pudding texture, which isn’t my favorite.  I was too full of shrimp to finish it, but it was pretty good. 

 
Overall, I think I needed to throw a vegetable in there, since the cauliflower soup wasn’t our favorite.  I liked the meatballs, shrimp, and rolls.  The cake and soup weren’t my favorites.  I was surprised that I liked the meatballs because they included spicy mustard and whiskey, neither of which I particularly like. 
 
To top off the night, we had apple cider with cinnamon sugar vodka.  Talk about warm and yummy!  I’m not a drinker, so I’m sure if anyone saw me trying to buy whiskey and vodka at Safeway they would have had a good laugh.  I had no idea what I was doing…. I was just trying to figure out which bottle was the cheapest!
 
I love this idea for a dinner party!  We’ve had a lot of fun and it’s pushed me to try a few new recipes (and venture into the whiskey isle at the store). Next month – putting our feet up and ordering pizza at Dawn’s house!  Hey, don’t judge.  It will be November and we’ll need a break.
 
Happy cooking!

Baked Mac & Cheese Cups

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I make Mac & Cheese quite often at my house.  My kids LOVE home made mac and cheese, and I will happily spend my time preparing something that’s not loaded with all of the chemicals that are found in that “blue box” I served my kids for years.  Once in a while it will find its way into my house, but for the most part we buy an organic boxed mac and cheese, or make it from scratch.
 
My kids’ favorite it smoked Gouda mac and cheese, but cheddar cheese and cream cheese are the stars of the show in this recipe.

 

1 sleeve of Ritz crackers, crushed
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
2 cups cheddar cheese, grated and divided
4 tablespoons butter, melted
4 and 1/2 cups cooked elbow macaroni (about 8 ounces uncooked)
6oz of cream cheese
2 large eggs
1/2 cup half and half
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
Parsley, for garnish, optional

Crush up the crackers and add melted butter.  Spoon this into 16 muffin tins, reserving about a quarter cup for topping.  I used paper liners, sprayed with a little olive oil. Cook and drain the noodles.  Add cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, and 1 cup of cheddar cheese to the cooked and drained noodles.  Stir until mixed together.  In a separate bowl, mix eggs, half and half, sour cream, and salt.  Combine the two bowls.  Add the remaining cheese and mix it up.  Use an ice cream scoop to spoon the mixture into the muffin tins.  Sprinkle with the remaining cracker crumbs.  Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.  Garnish and serve warm.

Happy cooking!

Twix Caramel Corn

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A few days ago I made a Pinterest board dedicated to popcorn.  We have an air-pop popcorn maker and it hasn’t been used much this summer.  When I ran across the Twix popcorn recipe, the kids started begging.
 
I found a recipe over at Six Sisters, but I altered it slightly.  Here’s my version.
 
Twix Caramel Popcorn Recipe
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups popcorn kernels – or enough popped popcorn to fill two large pans
1 cup butter
2 cups light brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
A pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
24 “fun size” Twix candy bars, chopped into bite-size pieces (unless you have a family like mine – which will require you to buy 2 packages of 24 fun size candy bars, because they can’t stop eating the little bite sized pieces long enough to get them into the recipe)
2 cups chocolate chips, melted

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 250 degrees and place the popped corn into two large pans.  I use both halves of my roasting pan for this. Lining the pans with foil and spraying them with cooking spray will save you a lot of time when it comes to clean up.

In a saucepan melt butter over medium heat. Stir in the brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Let mixture boil for about 3 minutes. Remove saucepan from heat and mix in baking soda and vanilla extract. Pour caramel over popcorn and stir until all of the popcorn is evenly coated.

Bake the popcorn/caramel mixture at 250 degrees, stirring every 15 minutes, for an hour. Spread caramel corn onto parchment paper and cool completely.

Break popcorn into pieces and mix in chopped Twix candy bars. Drizzle melted chocolate chips all over the popcorn. Let the popcorn cool until the chocolate hardens (which seems to take forever!)
 
Enjoy!


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A New Way to Host a Dinner Party

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Are you ready for this?
 How would you like to host a dinner party, but not have to spend hours in the kitchen before the guests arrive?  Actually, you don’t even need to cook anything! Sound too good to be true? 

I was invited to be part of a dinner group and we had our first dinner get together earlier this week.  This is a SUPER fun way to host a party.  There were four of us having dinner together.  The hostess selected four different dishes for us to make and purchased the ingredients.  Each person had their own little cooking station.

This station has everything set up to make Thai Corn Fritters with Chili Pepper and Cilantro Sauce.

Next, we have the Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Soy Balsamic Dressing.

This was my station.  I made Crispy Pork and Mango Lettuce Wraps with Pepper-Lime Dressing.

Finally, there was a Peach and Raspberry Cobbler.

I didn’t actually get the name of the cookbook that all of these recipes came from. It is the job of the hostess to find a cookbook, along with recipes that they have NEVER tried before.  Then, they set the ingredients out for the guests.  Below, you can see two of my friends cooking away. 


We’ve decided that we should cook all of our meals together this way, Sister-Wives style.  It was so much fun to chat with friends while preparing a meal, and the finished meal was TO DIE FOR!

(Please excuse the quality of the iPhone photos.  Next time I will remember to bring my camera!)

The salad had quite a bit of cilantro in it, which I love.  It had the perfect blend of ingredients and the dressing gave it just the right amount of tang.  I can honestly say, this is the first time I’ve tried roasted butternut squash and I really liked it.

Here’s another shot of the salads, and you can see the dessert ready to go in the oven.

Once everyone was done cooking their portion of the dinner, we sat down to eat.


Oh. My. Goodness.
This was such an incredible meal! Everything was absolutely delicious!

Corn Fritters are another item I have never eaten.  We don’t eat much that we need to fry at home, but… wow.  I’d make these again!  The dipping sauce had a sweet flavor that was YUM-MY. (That was a pause in that word for effect.)

 

It’s not the best picture of my lettuce wraps, but seriously… I could have eaten these all day.  Some of the ingredients in the pork included lemongrass (another first for me), red onion, mango, cilantro, red pepper, garlic, ginger, lime, and fish sauce.  (Again, I’ve never used fish sauce before!)  This really tested my culinary skills (or lack thereof) AND my adventurous eating skills.  Those of you who know me well, know that I’m a very boring eater.

How can you go wrong with Peach Raspberry Cobbler?  We topped them with vanilla ice cream, but this was the prettier picture.

So, what do you think?  Doesn’t this sound like the most fun dinner party ever?  You get to try new recipes.  There’s no pressure to serve a perfect meal, because all of the recipes are experiments, and you get to have fun cooking (and dining) with friends. 

So. Much. Fun.

September is my month.  I’ll have to hit the library and find a good cookbook.  If you have any great suggestions for a theme, please let me know.  It’s going to be tough not to do something like “taco bar” or “burger night”.  I need to be a little more creative and adventurous. 

Thank you to our gracious hostess. Another thank you to my friends for their fabulous culinary skills and great conversation!  It was truly a fun night with AMAZING food!

Happy cooking!

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Sundried Tomato, Pesto, and Cream Cheese Spread

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Here’s a super-simple recipe for you to tuck away until you need a last minute appetizer for a party.  It’s almost embarrassing to call this a recipe, because it’s that simple.

Start with a block of softened cream cheese.
Chop a small handful of basil and mix it into the cream cheese.
Spread the mixture on a plate.
Top with pesto (homemade is best, but store bought will do just fine).
Dice up a few sundried tomatoes and spread those over the top.
Garnish with a sprig of fresh basil.

We served this dip with Pita chips and it was pretty yummy.  One of my hubby’s coworkers asked for the recipe and I was truly embarrassed at how easy this was.

The mint brownies we brought to the party took quite a bit more work, so at least I didn’t feel too guilty!

I loved being able to use the fresh mint and basil from my garden for these two dishes.  Fresh herbs make everything pretty. Here’s the link to the mint brownie recipe if you missed that one.
Happy gardening, cooking, and baking!

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I’m linking up to Fertilizer Friday to share my herbs!

Sausage Biscuits with Eggs and Cheese

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Breakfast is served!

I have a breakfast time weakness that I need to confess.  I love, and I mean LOVE, those bacon egg and cheese biscuits from McDonalds.  We only eat breakfast there about twice a year (if that), but I swear I might be able to eat there every day.  Ok, not every day.  That would be really gross. But, you get the idea that I really like those breakfast sandwiches.

The kids have been loving the Morning Star veggie patties (from Costco) lately, so I decided to make them into little sausage biscuits with egg.  I made whole wheat buttermilk biscuits, a few veggie patties, some scrambled eggs, and topped them with some smoked gouda cheese.  First of all, I know McDonalds does not make whole wheat biscuits, nor do they use veggie anything instead of meat, but I have to say they were pretty yummy.  My hubby thought there was too much bread, but he’s just wrong on that one.  There is no such thing as too much bread in my opinion. 

Here’s to staying away from McDonalds and using whole wheat and veggie patties instead!!!

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