Frightening Food! ~ 10.25.09

It's really hard for me to fathom that October is nearly over- which means Halloween is nearly here! EEKS!

I think we have all our costumes.... but Commander Fox and Chewbacca may need a little tweaking. In fact we will, as I'm typing this I'm awaiting the lady on craigslist to tell me if a Darth Vader costume is available. The seven year old has changed his mind... again. lovely.

But these precious little mummy dogs make me smile. Here's how you can make them- visit here!

Last year, we made mummy pizzas. English Muffins with sauce and mozzarella cheese. My kids do not like olives, but my husband does, so it was okay to open a jar just for decorational purposes. I've been using this simple pizza sauce recipe lately and really love it! So EASY to make!

When you serve your kids food like this... they may just make super scary faces at you while you take their picture.... oooooo..... very scary!

So this is usually what they eat for Halloween... simple food that is fast and KID-Friendly.

To find out what I will be eating for All Hallow's Eve... you'll need to check back later this week!

Kitchen Tip: Chopping Herbs ~ 10.15.09

Learned this at a pampered chef party way back when and thought it was brilliant!

Put your herbs in a cup.

Insert kitchen shears (an indispensible kitchen tool I might add) and start snipping, snipping, snipping...

Voila! Dump into the dish you are preparing!

Need a tip? Have a tip? Let me know in the comments!

Review: Walking Tacos ~ 10.12.09

Today's meal is brought to you by Corona and Doritos.

Kidding. But they go great together and are somehow involved in this meal I'm about to share.
I was reminded it of it last weekend while I was at Applefest up in Franklin, Pa. Tons and tons of food vendors and I saw a sign for walking tacos! You're going to love this recipe. I discovered it over at Mennonite Girls can Cook and/or Bless Us O Lord- maybe both.


A walking taco (they're a.k.a. campfire tacos) is: all your essential taco ingredients contained in a very convenient little bag of doritos! Brilliant!

I love them that way b/c :
a) my kids can eat them without tears (they get SOOOO very frustrated when their taco shell breaks and all the stuff pours out of them) and
b) they're so darn fun!

You can make whatever taco meat recipe your little heart pleases, I prefer the America's Test Kitchen one which I'll post down below. You get all your taco ingredients together in little bowls and you buy a bunch of little bags of doritos (Target has them and Walmart, too)- you can buy JUST snack size doritos, as I discovered when I went to make these the first time around.

Here we have taco meat, shredded lettuce, taco sauce, tomatoes, avocados, monterey jack cheese and queso.

Open up your dorito bag and fold the top over just a little. Scoop in your taco fillings, mix it up and bit and eat it with a fork or spoon. Grown ups, add corona with lime. YUM!

If you have leftovers, you can scoop all the ingredients onto broken up pieces of taco shells or tortilla chips.... fun and yummy snack! Little open-faced tacos. Taco bruschetta. Whatever, it's good.

My favorite taco meat recipe:

Beef Tacos - serves 4; (can double, but you'll want to cook the meat in batches)

2 tsp veg oil

1 small onion, chopped small

3 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed

2 Tbs chili powder

1 tsp gr cumin

1 tsp gr coriander (I don't have this)

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

salt

1 pound 90% lean ground beef

1/2 cup tomato sauce

1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth

1 tsp brown sugar

2 tsps vinegar, preferrably cider vinegar

black pepper

• Heat oil to medium and saute onion until softened, about 4 minutes.
• Add the garlic and spices and 1/2 tsp salt; cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 1 minute
• Add ground beef and cook, breaking up with spoon and scraping the bottom of the pan to prevent scorching, until the beef is no longer pink, about 5 minutes.
• Add the tomato sauce, broth, brown sugar and vinegar; bring to a simmer.
• Reduce heat to med-low and simmer uncovered, stirring frequently and breaking the meat up so that no chunks remain, until the liquid has reduced and thickened (the mixture should not be completely dry), about 1o minutes.
• Adjust the seasonings with salt and pepper to taste.
  
  
  

Best Ever Hot Cocoa Mix ~ 10.7.09

Gray, ominous, chilly days like this call for a hot steamy cup of the most delicious hot cocoa.

We tried this recipe last year (or the year before) and it is now a family staple! It is creamy, thick and best with your favorite topping: whipped cream or marshmallows. In the pic above we added some Ghostmallows, could you tell.

3 cups nonfat dry milk

2 cups confectioner's sugar

1 1/2 cups Dutch-processed cocoa powder (I uesd Hershey's as Dutch processed is hard to find)

1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 Tbs cinnamon (optional)

Combine ingredients in a large bowl. Working in batches, pulse ingredients in food processor until chocolate is finely ground.
To make hot cocoa, stir 1/3 cup (I think a 1/4 is fine) of mix into 1 cup hot milk. Top with marshmallows and cozy up with someone you love.

Makes 20 servings

Can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 months (or in my case, a lot longer- just found some in my pantry and drank it tonight. it was from our last batch... last fall)

(inspired by America's Test Kitchen)

Cranberry Jello Salad- a family fave

My Godmother, Deanna, made this recipe for years and its been a longstanding family tradition to have it at the Thanksgiving and Christmas tables. My kids love it and I've taken to making it throughout the year for picnics or as a fun side dish alongside pork or chicken. In fact, I'm so fond of making it that I always have the ingredients for this on hand for when I need a quick side dish- I keep them all together on the pantry shelf so that I know if I'm missing one of them or need to restock on whole cranberry sauce! Good tip.


I often leave out the walnuts when I bring it to a large group event as I'm fearful of nut allergies- so know that it tastes just as good without them as it does with them included.



Cranberry Jello Salad

1 large cherry jello (big package- or two small)
1 can Ocean Spray whole cranberry sauce
1 can crushed pineapple, drained, but not all the way
1 can mandarin oranges, drained
1/2- 1 cup walnut pieces

Boil 1/2 cup of water; Dissolve jello with water in large bowl.

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

Let sit overnight in fridge.



As I was typing this up, I noticed I taped an alternate version of this recipe to the back of my recipe card. I'm thinking I cut it out of a magazine or the coupon section of the paper. I'll post that here as it does sound interesting and the kids might really enjoy it! Let me know if you try it.

Farmer's Market Chili ~ 9.28.09

One of my favorite places to hunt down recipes has always been the newspaper. Funny though because I don't even subscribe! Yet, I know every Thursday, the food section will be in the Post Gazette and if I don't clip it from my parent's stash of papers (which they drop off to me so that I can recycle them at our school) then I can simply go online to find some inspiration.


This recipe appeared a several weeks back when zucchini were abundant and taking over everyone's garden. Unfortunately, by the time I got around to trying this recipe... zucchinis were non-existent at our farmer's market. Not even ONE zucchini was left to sell! I had to trek to the grocery store to buy mine, but it was well worth the price.

I've adapted this recipe that was submitted by Lori of McMurray, Pa and renamed it to make it more appealing to my very discriminating in-house critics (aka my children).

One of the ingredients to this Farmer's Market Chili -that I've only recently starting using in the past year or so -is this Adobo seasoning with pepper (I buy the red capped bottle).

It has appeared in at least a handful of my favorite recipes and I added it to this one as well. You'll be surprised how much you use it once you've tasted it! I promise to post my favorite Mushroom and Artichoke Pasta that incorporates this seasoning very soon- I've been craving it anyway.

You'll notice my chili sits atop a fluffy cloud of homemade mashed potatoes. I never ate chili any other way growing up and thought everyone else did the same, until I got married! The night I made this I offered the kids a choice of baked potatoes or mashed potatoes. They all chose baked! The best part was that 3 out of 4 of them gobbled this up and declared it "DELICIOUS!" I'll add this to the running list of "ways I got my kids to eat vegetables".

Farmer's Market Chili

2 Tbs canola/vegetable oil

2-3 onions, small, chopped

1 1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp Adobo seasoning with peppers, optional

1-2 Tbs chili powder- I used 1, but may go 1 1/2 next time

1/4 tsp dried basil- I opted for the frozen cubes of basil from Trader Joe's in my freezer

1/2 tsp cumin

2 cups zucchini, diced- I used a combo of summer squash and zucchini

3-4 carrots, peeled and diced

2 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes- I used crushed b/c that's what I had

1 15 oz can white beans- cannelini, drained and rinsed

1 15 oz can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1 can water

In a large pot, heat oil over medium heat and saute onion until soft and tender. Add carrots and saute until softened (I did not do this the first go of the recipe and it took the carrots FOREVER to tenderize- so I'll try this the next time). Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and let simmer 35 minutes. (I let my simmer much longer, as a good chili should) Taste and adjust the seasonings- I added more Adobo to mine.

If the chili is too thick for your preference, you can add a can of tomato sauce and a small amount of water towards the end of the cook time.

The original recipe says this yields 6 servings. I filled three yogurt quart containers!

Serve a la your favorite way to eat chili... mine is pictured up at the top!

Chicken Crescents and bonus dessert! ~9.23.09

I might be exaggerating to say that my life changed quite a bit when I discovered this recipe, but not by much. The entire Costain crew loves these Chicken Crescents and that makes for a very happy momma. They don't even pick out the "red things" anymore! I know that crescent rolls might not be the healthiest of foods, but they are, in fact, the coolest food invention in my book and I depend on them for quick meals/appetizers/desserts often.

The original recipe can be found in the Three Rivers Cookbook III (known in our family as the "blue one") on pg 111.

Ingredients:

• 1 can crescent rolls
• 3 oz cream cheese, softened
• 2 Tbsp butter, melted
• 2 cups chicken, cooked and cubed/shredded (whatever you want)
• 1 Tbsp chopped pimento- I do not stress if I don't have this in the house, optional
• 1/2 red pepper, diced and sauteed
• 1/2 pound mushrooms, diced and sauteed
• 3-4 green onions, chopped and sauteed
• S & P
• 2 Tbsp milk
• 1/2 Tbsp chopped parsley

After I preheat the oven to 350 degrees, I start by putting the cream cheese and butter in a bowl and popping them in the microwave a few secs to soften. I mush them together with a fork with the chopped parsley.

Then I saute up the peppers, green onions and mushrooms. I season them with Salt and Pepper, to taste, at this junction, too. The amounts for this vary in my house depending on what I have. The original recipe calls for green pepper (only 1 Tbsp sauteed) and only 2 Tbsp chopped sauteed mushrooms. I use A LOT more than that, prefer red peppers and these are still stellar and filling! Don't they look delish all sauteed up...

And the star of this dinner... most versatile food invention evah... CRESCENT ROLLS! AND I'm not brand specific either. I prefer pillsbury, but I've bought store brand, "wally world" brand and others. Whatever floats your pocketbook's boat, in my opinion. If you are using these, don't forget to snip off the box tops and send them to a school you love!
You'll need to keep these in rectangles. So open the package and put them on a greased or silpat lined baking sheet. Smoosh the perforated edges together to form 4 rectangles.
Now, let's get the filling ready to go...

So, after you sautee the veggies, let them cool for a few in the pan or in a bowl. Then if you need to cut up your chicken, do that now. I almost always use leftover rotisserie chicken for this. However I have poached chicken to use specifically for this recipe and if I do this, I do double and freeze the other half for a day when I need cooked chicken in a recipe. (do you know how to poach chicken? I'll teach you if you'd like... Sarah Moulton taught me, she used to be on Food Network, I've learned a lot from that channel).

Okay, chicken's ready, put it in the bowl with the cream cheese, butter and parsley.
Add your sauteed veggies and the 2 Tbsp of milk. The milk helps it all to go together nice and smooth. It should be creamy looking- you're ready to fill those crescents.
Spoon about a 1/2 cup of the mixture on each crescent (if you have more, save it or open up another can of crescents- I can tell you what to do with "leftover crescents" later).
If only I took pics of this next part- you bring the four corners of the crescent roll together in the middle and twist... can you envision that? I hope so. It will look like a little purse, of sorts.

Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes. You'll want them to look like this... all golden and delicious!

BONUS DESSERT:
If for some reason you have leftover crescent rolls b/c you have more than enough filling... consider yourself lucky!


Grab some chocolate chips or cinnamon chips or butterscotch chips or nutella-- something sweet that melts. And put a little bit in the large end of a crescent triangle. You want to roll it up in a crescent roll shape and make sure that the chips are hidden inside... they may oooze out while baking. Bake for about 9-13 minutes and you'll have chocolate crescents (or whatever flavor you put inside there). Nutella rocks, by the way.

Serve with rice and a salad! Buon Apetito!