Thursday, November 21, 2013

New recipe

Sorry this is being posted so late. I've picked some recipes that look delicious!

Cheesy tortellini spinach bake on page 30
Homemade dulce de leche on page 135

Enjoy!

Kim

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Jenny's Vegetable Beef Soup and Mini Tostada Salads

 I've been trying to catch up this past week and I made a couple of recipes from way back that I missed and wanted to try.  The first was the Vegetable Beef soup.  It was SO good!  I am not usually a big fan of this type of soup, but this soup was fantastic.  It was super easy to make and it tasted great.  I ended up using potatoes instead of barely or quinoa.  The potatoes were delish in it.  And I used a can of green beans instead of frozen/fresh.  Other than that I followed the recipe exactly.  It made a ton and I enjoyed eating the leftovers for lunch over the days.  It was a pretty guiltless meal in my opinion.  I would definitely make it again!
The other night I made the tostada salad.  I opted not to make the tortilla cups, but made the salad as the recipe called for.  I added some rotissere chicken and some avocado.  I loved this salad.  It was another hit...with me :)  My kids are really picky, so they didn't want to touch it.  My husband isn't a huge salad eater either, but he did put some of the salad mix in his tortillas with additional chicken and cheese and he really liked it.  I loved the flavor of the dressing and the cilantro.  I would for sure make this salad again.  It was healthy and fresh and right up my alley!

Monday, November 11, 2013

Kim's review

I also don't have pictures, sorry about that, I know it's way more fun to read a review with pictures.

Chicken and wild rice soup- we loved this!! The only problem is I used a rice medley I had on hand which takes much longer to cook than normal. So I decided to cook it before hand and then add it to the soup, which resulted in very overdone rice, other than that it was delicious!

Butternut squash pasta- this was so good and didn't take that much time to make. My kids actually ate it and my 6 year old said it was amazing. Next time I will cut the squash a little bigger, I made the chunks pretty small and they became much smaller after baking them. They had the best flavor though! The bacon added to the dish! Also, I didn't have fresh herbs so I used dry herbs and just halved the amount they were asking. It tasted so good, and I will for sure make it again.

Kim

Sunday, November 10, 2013

New recipes: week of 11/10

Since it's going to start cooling off where I am at I'm going to stick with the soup theme.  Let's try tortellini sausage soup on page 148.

Friday, November 8, 2013

Jenny's Chicken and Wild Rice Soup and Mummy Dogs

I am lame and don't have any pictures!  Sad!

I made the Chicken and Wild Rice Soup a couple of weeks ago and we loved it!!  I will definitely make it again.  That night was our ward's Trunk or Treat and my husband was working late.  It was just sort of crazy cooking dinner and getting everybody ready...which is why I don't have any pictures :)  But when my husband met up with us later I asked if he liked the soup and he said he ate 3 bowls of it.  So...that is a pretty high endorsement from him.

I made the soup just as it says.  I agree with Audrey that you could definitely leave out the last step and have a more broth-y soup and it would be good too.  But the roux gave it such a great texture.  I thought it was kind of strange adding artichokes to soup, but I love artichokes, so I went ahead with it.  I thought it added a great depth of flavor, but I can see how some might not like it.  I used a rotisserie chicken too and I thought it added a lot to the soup as well.  I served the soup with some rolls and some fresh fruit.

I made the Mummy Dogs on Halloween Night.  Again...no pictures.  But they were cute and easy and my kids thought they were awesome.  Next year I will try to plan ahead better for Halloween dinner and get more into the Halloween foods!  Or make them the night before when it isn't quite so hectic.  Fun recipes!

All of these reviews look so delish!  I have had company in town for the past couple of weeks, but I'm hoping to catch up on some that I've missed.  Now that it's finally cooling off here in Houston these fall and winter recipes look so appetizing!

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Apple Butter Pork Chops, Caramelized Onions, Halloween Food

Pork Chops - my husband requested pork chops the week I made these but this wasn't what he had in mind:)  I, on the other hand, really liked these and I am not a pork chop lover. I liked the flavor of the sauce and the caramelized onions. My onions didn't turn as dark as the ones in the cookbook picture but I really liked them. 

For the Halloween Party Food I chose to make the Mummy Dogs and the Monster Jaws.  They were both really easy and good.  I used pine nuts instead of slivered almonds on the apples and peanut butter for the eyes.



Jacki's Wild Rice Soup

Ok, I absolutely LOVED this soup.  It was nice and chunky and hearty - just like I like my soup! I cut the recipe in half because there is only the two of us but I ended up making another half batch a few days later because I loved it so much and wanted it for lunch.  I used button mushrooms instead of the baby bella and a brown rice/wild rice mixture.  I also added the flour milk combo but I agree with Audrey that it could be left out too and still be good.  I think they also mentioned they didn't care for the artichokes in it but I really liked the flavor it added.  I will definitely be making this soup again. 




Jacki's Vegetable Beef Barley Soup

Good soup!  I used ground venison in place of the beef and quinoa in place of the barley.  It had a good flavor and was easy to make.  Also made good leftovers.

Jacki's Swedish Meatballs and Apple Pear Crisp

I liked the Swedish meatballs - I thought the mustard gave them a really good flavor.  I omitted the capers and used ground venison in place of the ground beef but other than that I followed the recipe as directed.  Oh, I also omitted the optional cream.  I served this with mashed potatoes instead of the boiled red potatoes. 

I liked the Apple-Pear-Cranberry Crisp as well although I substituted dried cherries for the cranberries because I didn't have any.  I cut the recipe in half and used an 8 inch Pyrex dish.  I really liked the combination of the pears and apples but the cherries didn't quite go - maybe the cranberries would have been better.  I served it with vanilla ice cream - yum!




Saturday, November 2, 2013

This weeks dish - Week of Nov 3

Roasted butternut squash pasta with pumpkin sauce.....Pg. 172

Homemade dulce de leche....Pg 135

Rutter Kitchen- Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

 Dana and Ashley finishing up the soup
Dinner is served!
 
We Followed the recipe and got all the veggies chopped up and sautéing in the big pot.  We used less onion and more carrots and celery and sautéed the mushrooms on the side as not everyone likes them.  We used some chicken broth and also some chicken base and that tasted good.  I could only find quick wild rice at our store, so that decreased our cooking time for the soup which was actually nice.  I had some rotisserie chicken that we cubed up and used and that gave the soup a good flavor also.  We could probably have lessened the amount of broth that we put in since the rice was the quick version, but it still was good.  Also, it you prefer more of a broth soup, you could skip the butter, flour and milk that you mix up and add to the soup at the end.  I think that it would still taste good.  We did add the chopped artichoke hearts and we won't add those again.  We thought it was kind of strange in the soup.  It was a nice and easy meal to put together.  We served garlic rolls with it.  I would probably fix the soup again.  Great for cold winter nights, which we are just starting to get :)

Rutter Kitchen- Swedish Meatballs & Apple-Pear-Cranberry Crisp

 Combining meatball ingredients
 Ready to broil
 Sauce ready for the meatballs
 Ready to serve
 Ready to bake
 Fresh out of the oven
 Dinner is served!
Dessert time :)
 
Ashley and I followed the recipe for the Swedish Meatballs and it went really well.  We did add the optional cream and also added more beef broth as it got a little thick.  I think we needed even more though.  The meatballs and gravy had good flavor and we served them over the big egg noodles.  I thought it tasted very similar to beef stroganoff, so if you like that dish you should like this recipe.  We had cranberry sauce and peas on the side and that tasted good.  For the Crisp we used the five granny smith apples, a mixture of different kinds of pears and the cranberries.  It was pretty simple to put together.  Slicing the fruit took the longest in prep time.  Even though it called for a 9 x 13 dish, I wanted to use an oval dish that I had because it had a glass top we could use.  It was deeper and so as a result the crisp took a long time to cook ;(  I think it took as least 1  1/2 hours.  I had to cut some foil and cover the top of the dish partway though as the topping was getting too brown.  I would recommend sticking with the size of pan that they suggest!  It does make quite a bit, so I would probably half it if I make it again for our family.  We liked both dishes, but I probably won't make the Swedish Meatballs again, as we don't eat a lot of that kind of food.  It was fun to try though :)  We did like the crisp, so we might do that again. 

Friday, November 1, 2013

Rutter Kitchen-Mini Tostado Salads, Tomatillo Salsa & Monster Munch Snack Mix

 Roasted veggies were very simple to do for the salsa and then we just blended them up in the food processor.
 The salad mixture ready to mix up.
 Ashley finishing up the salad.
 We decided to cook up some precooked fajita meat and let people add it to the salads if they wanted it.
 Here's the finished meal.  We thought it was very good! Pretty simple to make.  We also fixed some zatarains black beans and rice to go with it.   
 Johnny sampling the candy popcorn and he liked it!
Here's the Monster munch ready to munch.  We liked it, but its a bit too rich, so we will probably stick with our regular popcorn.  It was fun to have for a special treat though.  We liked all the recipes, but liked the Mini Tostado Salads the best :)