New Recipes for week of March 31st

As always I'm ready for some Mexican style food.  Lets fix White Chicken Enchiladas pg. 186 and Strawberry Shortcake Cake pg. 246.  I think for our meal we will have the enchiladas, refried black beans and fresh salsa and then the cake for dessert.  Happy cooking :)

Rutter's Kitchen-Whiskey Mustard Meatballs

 Here's Ashley and Johnny mixing up the meatballs.

 Ashley's working hard at browning the meatballs.

 Here's our taster's!

 Here's Dana's plate.

 The meatballs simmering in the sauce.

Here's my plateful :)

We actually made two batches as we had a fair number of people eating.  We followed the recipe and didn't find is difficult, but it did take longer than what she said.  I don't know if that was  because of my burner or pan or what.  Also, it didn't seem to thicken up very much until we added the meatballs back in to simmer.  So if that happens to you, don't worry :)  Also, this would be a good recipe to do ahead, at least to forming the meatballs and having them in the freezer.  As you can see from my plate, we had our meatballs with the noodles and we also did the recipe for the Meatball sliders.  Both were good. We didn't have very many meatballs left, so it was a tasty recipe.   I think I still prefer my meatballs in a spaghetti sauce with pasta :)

Jacki’s Whiskey-Mustard Meatballs

I thought these were good – something a little different than ordinary meatballs.  I could definitely taste the mustard but I like mustard so that was a good thing.  I cut the recipe in half and omitted the whiskey.  I didn’t sub with water but I would add a little next time.  I didn’t have any beef broth so I used chicken and it was fine – beef probably would have looked better.  I served them over buttered noodles.  I forgot to take a picture of the meal all plated up nicely but I did take a picture of the leftovers which I put in a container for my husband to take to work for lunch the next day.  These would make good appetizers too or sandwiches in rolls as PW suggested.  Once again PW said salt and pepper to taste in the directions which is not really an option with raw meat.  I just think it would be more helpful to give a suggested amount.  I used 1/2 tsp salt for half the recipe and it was good.

Recipe for week of Mar 24th

Whiskey-Mustard Meatballs   pg 112

I am planning on serving this as a main dish with the hot buttered noodles as PW suggests in the book.  I am also planning on just omitting the whiskey.  It doesn’t sound like it would make much difference. 
I apologize for not updating the what we have cooked section and what we are cooking this week section – I am having a few computer problems and have not been able to do so but am working on it. 

Jacki’s Cowgirl Quiche

I made this the other night for dinner and we both thought it was good.  I did make a few changes.  I didn’t have any leeks and didn’t want to go to the store so I used one onion instead – sauteed it up. I started to roast the mushrooms in the oven but my cookie sheet doesn’t have sides and after about 10 minutes all of the liquid from the mushrooms started dripping off the pan so I then just finished cooking them in a pan on the stove.  I love mushrooms but I felt 16 oz was a bit much with everything else that went into the quiche so I ended up not putting all of them in.  I used some leftover Christmas ham instead of prosciutto.  I used my own pie crust recipe that I like.  After the initial work of slicing and dicing the quiche came together well and cooked up nicely in the allotted time.  I agree with Tarin that putting the foil on does cause some of the topping to come off when it is removed.  Once again, PW tells us to salt to taste – makes no sense with a raw egg mixture!  But, good recipe, good leftovers. 

Cowgirl Quiche

I made this for dinner last night and it was good.

I splurged and got prosciutto to use and followed the instructions for the most part. I omitted the leeks and sauteed the mushrooms because I got started late. Cooking time seemed pretty accurate and the only thing that I didn't like was putting the foil over the pan during the first 30 minutes. Since the top wasn't set yet part of it pulled up when I went to remove the foil. I would rather have cooked it for 15 minutes uncovered to set the top and then cover it for the remaining time. But that's just an aesthetic thing. The other thing I would recommend is if you do use prosciutto don't add a lot of extra salt--I thought mine was a little too salty. Also I would have added a dash of cayenne pepper to just give it a little kick.

Doug really liked this and I thought it was okay--the kids weren't too excited by it though, which is surprising because my kids eat everything. We even reheated it for lunch today and Weston kept throwing his to the dogs :) It would be fun for a brunch though!

New Recipe!

A week ago a dentist that Doug temps for brought him in a dozen of eggs from his chickens and they were beautiful! Seriously, they were blue, brown, speckled, amazing. So I've been waiting for a good opportunity to blow them out and preserve the shells for decorations. So the recipe that I chose this week should be perfect!

I know that we tried the Cowboy Quiche a month ago, but let's two step over to the really good stuff and try out the Cowgirl Quiche on pages 34-36.

Happy Cooking y'all.

Nika/Jacki’s His/Her Burgers, Fried Mozzarella

While I was visiting Nika and family we had an early birthday celebration party for Isabelle and cooked these two recipes for dinner and they didn’t disappoint!  Nika actually made the Fried Mozzarella and it was very good.  We skipped the step about putting them in the freezer for 20-30 minutes so the finished product was not quite as firm but still delicious.   The His/Her Burgers were both quite tasty.  We followed Audrey’s suggestion and make 1/2 a His and 1/2 a Hers.  I liked them both equally.  When I made the His sauce I only used one chipotle pepper and we all thought it gave plenty of zip.  Nika made the pesto from scratch – so good.  Everything about these burgers were just plain good!  Nika said she liked both the His and Her equally as well and Sterling went for the His all the way and proclaimed it very good.
Two more successful recipes!

Jacki/Nika’s Sesame Noodles, Cherry Limeade

Nika made these two recipes when I was visiting them in AZ recently.  We all thought the Simple Sesame Noodles were quite delicious.   I think she used spaghetti noodles and we skipped the hot chili oil because we didn’t have any.  Instead we put out Sriracha sauce and sweet chili sauce to add some optional spunk.  The kids really liked it without either of those options.  We also chopped up some chicken to add protein and I added a sprinkle of peanuts to mine as well as a dollop of sweet chili sauce.  Very simple and quite tasty.  I think next time I would add a little less canola oil then what was in the recipe.
Nika made the Cherry Limeade with the kids help and it was a big hit, of course.  The maraschino cherries were in demand. 
Both recipes were simple and quick to prepare and we would definitely make them again.

Rutter's Kitchen- His/Her Burgers, Fried Mozzarella & Cherry Limeade

 Here's Ashley & Dana working on the recipes :)

 Here's Johnny helping with the mozzarella sticks.

 We used cast iron skillets to cook the onions & mushrooms & burgers.

 Here's the final product! This is my plate & I cut my burger in half & then fixed one half with His & one half with Hers.  It was fun to try both.  I liked the Hers better.  The fried mozzarella was good, except we forgot to set out the Marinara sauce ;)

 Here's Ashley & Johnny juicing the limes for the limeade.

 We liked the Cherry Limeade real well.  Will make it again I'm sure :)

Here's our Chef's and tasting group.  We had a fun time cooking & eating :)

Rutter's Kitchen- Sesame Beef Noodle Salad

 My parents are here visiting, so here's my Mom working hard!

 Here's our meal in progress.  We all pretty much had the Sesame Beef Noodle Salad & we added some roasted broccoli to it. 

 Here's the steak ready to be sliced up.

Here's my bowl.  We thought it was very good, except we used the rice noodles and I will not cook them like they say on the package again.  They were too mushy ;( The flavors were good though.  Most of us would eat this meal again :)

New Recipes

Let's try the fried mozzarella on page 104 and the his and hers burgers on page 160.

Sesame Noodles and Cherry Limeade

First off I picked the Cherry Limeade because I wanted to use it as a drink for a baby shower last week.  I tried it out for dinner a few nights before and it was yummy! I used bottled lime juice and diet 7up which made it a little "lighter" I guess. I also didn't add lots of the cherry juice because I was trying to make it more pink. My family loved it as well as the gals at the shower.
For the sesame noodles I used Thai rice noodles which was something she didn't suggest. It worked well and the only change I made was to saute them a bit at the end to help them soak up more of the juices.  This was probably only necessary because of the noodles I used. I paired it with some steak as suggested and it made a good dinner. Overall pretty quick and easy.

New Recipes

This week I have chosen the Simple Seasame Noodles (you could also add the beef for the salad) pg 62 and Cherry Limeade pg 114. Both look simple and tasty!