Meal 13

I have actually made the Korean Beef before so I knew we liked it! We enjoy terriyaki chicken so this is just another easy variation of that. I followed the recipe and it turned out well both times. The fruit salad was good although I left out the coconut and pineapple tidbits since I didn't have them on hand. It was a good way to use up extra fruit I had on hand.

Easter Week Menu!!!!

Okay, this week let's do menu 34. Felt like it was appropriate with the Holiday.

HAPPY EASTER LADIES!!!!!
Matthew 28: 5-7 & John 10:10

New Menu for Week of March 22, 2015

Let's try out Menu 13 this week.  Korean Beef and Rice, Ambrosia Fruit Salad, Baked Apple Pie Egg Rolls.  Sounds easy.

Jacki and Nika's Menu 44 Review

I am here in warm AZ visiting Nika and family and I made this meal the other night. Isabelle chose the Tres Leche cake for her birthday cake.  The Fresh Lime Salsa was easy to prepare and so tasty! Loved it. It would make a good topping for chicken or fish. I thought it needed a little salt to bring out the flavors. This would be good to make and have on hand for snacking, salads, use on meats etc.  The Avocado Chicken Enchiladas were just as delicious. So good! It took some time to make the sauce but not too bad. Walmart had their avocados on sale for .20 each so this was a great menu for us to make this week.  I followed the recipe as directed except I used plain Greek yogurt instead of sour cream,

The Tres Leches Cake was good but not my favorite of the cakes we have made out of this book.  It was easy enough to make though. The cake didn't soak up all the glaze but it was still ok. Isabelle enjoyed having it for her birthday:)

I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture of my plate before I ate it all!

 

Rutter Chicks Tres Leche

Since this dessert has to be made a day ahead, we decided to let me bake it for cook night. I really enjoyed baking it. However, it is a little time consuming.
After beating the batter, I placed it in a 9x13 dish. It says in the recipe that when u poor it in that it may not look like a lot of batter. It wasnt. After baking it, it still remained smaller. However it was amazing how much of the glaze the cake soaked up. It's VERY IMPORTANT to let our soak overnight!!! It was good. Probably not my favorite but it was good. 

New menu pick for March 15th

It was Ashley's turn to pick and she chose:
Menu #44  pg. 192
Avocado Chicken Enchiladas
Fresh Lime Salsa
Tres Leches Cake

Looking forward to everyone's reviews :)

Leslee's Reviews

Well I have a few recipes to catch up on!
First Menu 40. The chicken Parmesan was good  although mine ended up being a little dry. I probably cooked it for too long. I would probably just mix it up in the sauce more next time before serving. Still good! The garlic monkey bread was easy to make although I definitely cooked it too long as well! I made the blondies a few months back and my family really enjoyed them!

Onto Menu 27. I did have to make some changes to the macaroni and cheese because I didn't have a gluten free condensed cheddar cheese soup. I ended up just leaving it out and it still turned out great, maybe just not as soupy. I was the only one that liked it though, my kids prefer Kraft I guess:) We also really liked the chicken nuggets. I used rice krispies instead of cornflakes and these were gobbled up. 

Menu 21. We ate this last night and it wasn't too tricky to put together. My meatloaf did have to cook for a while longer but I used 2 lbs so maybe that is why. I messed up a little on the potatoes. When I was cooking them I also was making the dessert and actually poured sugar into the boiling potatoes..oops. I don't think it mattered too much. I didn't end up putting them in the crock pot.  We aren't the biggest fans of meatloaf over here but we all thought it was decent. My kids loved the dessert and between today and yesterday the half recipe I made is gone. I wasn't a fan of the frosting with the crisco. I used snickers instead of butterfingers because we had several lying around.

 

I also made the roast from menu 32 but didn't take a picture. It was very good and cooked up nicely. I did add the tomatoes which I probably would omit. I still need to try the other two recipes that go with it. 

Rutter Kitchen- Menu #32

Since all three recipes in this menu required ahead of meal time preparation, we decided to each take a recipe, fix it and then meet at our house to have dinner.  That worked really well and we actually got to eat dinner before too late that night:)  I fixed the Slow Cooker Sunday Dinner Pot Roast.  Since I prefer my beef chuck roast slow roasted in the oven, that's what I did instead of using the slow cooker.  I used to cook my roast in the slow cooker, until I tried it in the oven, so I decided to just do it how we liked it.  I browned the veggies and then the meat.  I used 5#s of meat, so I used two enamel Dutch ovens to cook the meat and veggies in.  I first put in the meat, added beef broth, then the seasonings and last the veggies. To one of the pots I did add the can of diced tomatoes.  I cooked it for around 5 hours and that was just right.  I used the liquid left in the pots to make the gravy and just thickened  it with mixed flour and water.  I also added some beef broth.  That's how I always make my roast gravy and we like it just fine.     

Ashley fixed the Mandarin Orange Pretzel Salad.  It did take a little time to fix it, but I think she enjoyed making it.  She followed the recipe. She did use a rolling pin to crush the pretzels since she doesn't have a food processor.  We probably could have gotten by with just half a recipe since we had a lot of leftovers.  Dana fixed the White chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake and she said that it did take some time to prepare it, but it was fun to do.  Like Jacki mentioned in her review, it did make a lot of the filling, so be prepared! We liked all the recipes and thought that the cheesecake would be really nice for a Christmas dessert.  The Jell-O salad was real good and I thought that dish would be real good for a potluck dinner.  All in all this was a successful menu :)    

We split it up!

This week we decided to split up the recipes. We are behind so we are doing the roast, pretzel jello, and cheesecake. My job was the cheesecake. I really enjoyed making it. It was a little involved and made a lot of filling. I have to agree with jackie. Buy 2 graham cracker crust and make 2. Or make your own graham cracker crust, put it in a 9x13 pan and make cheesecake squares. Lots of extra filling! I had a few lil graham cracker crusts I used but still had to throw out some filling. We are eating it tonight at Audrey's so when she posts then we will see how it tastes. I think its gonna be great!

Jacki's Review of Menu 21

We all liked this meal of Honey BBQ Meatloaf, Creamy Slow Cooker Mashed Potatoes, and Butterfinger Blondies.  I thought the meatloaf was very good - perfectly flavored. I followed the recipe as directed. I didn't have quick oats so I blended up some regular oats just a bit. I used 2# of 85% ground beef. It paired nicely with the mashed potatoes. Again I followed the recipe as directed for the most part but I was a little short on the sour cream - no biggie.  It was kind of a lot of work for mashed potatoes but really tasty. Putting them In the slow cooker for a couple of hours just made them a bit creamier and there was no last minute rush to get the potatoes mashed and seasoned and kept warm. I also just added the butter when I added everything else instead of mixing it in just before serving. Just a note though that this recipe makes a lot more than 4 to 6 servings.  I served steamed fresh green beans as a side dish. A couple in our group didn't care for the Blondies but I thought they were very good but then I like frosting:). I cut the recipe in half but otherwise followed the recipe. You could easily substitute another candy if desired. Very tasty. Another fun meal to make and eat.

I forgot to take a picture of my plate all dished up but here is my dads second helping. Good thing my mom was there to remind me or I would have forgotten all together!

New Menu a Pick for March 8, 2015

I am posting Nika's pick for her. She would like us to all cook Menu 21 - Honey BBQ Meatloaf, Creamy Slow Cooker Mashed Potatoes, Butterfingers Blondies. Yum!

Jacki's Review of Menu 27

We are all caught up on our cooking now! We had the Homemade Chicken Nuggets, Slow Cooker Mac and Cheese, and Applesauce Oatmeal Cookies a couple of days ago. We all liked the meal.  As per Audrey's suggestion I used the chicken thighs instead of the breast as they were moister. I crushed the cornflakes with a rolling pin but next time I would use a food processor to get a finer texture for the coating. We dipped them in BBQ sauce - so tasty. The Mac and Cheese was easy to pull together. I ended up cooking mine on mostly high instead of low to make sure the pasta was plenty tender. The Cookies were good. They reminded me of the Pumpkin cookies with choc. Chips that I like. I added a little more flour than asked for. The first batch I cooked for 13 minutes which was too long so the second pan I cut back to 11 and that was just right. I also used regular oats because that is what we have but I would either use quick oats or blend the regular ones up just a bit next time. Another fun meal to cook!

Rutter Kitchen- Menu #40

We started out with Dana fixing the Snickerdoodle Blondies.  She followed the recipe and it went pretty fast.  We all sampled the dough and thought it was awesome! Next I prepped the chicken pieces.  We used boneless skinless thighs and breasts.  I cut the thickness of the breasts in half to help with the cooking time and that worked great.  Dana then assembled the chicken and got it cooking.  We had some Olive Garden croutons from Sam's that we used instead of the Pepperidge Farm brand and that worked fine.  Such an easy recipe to put together.  We also cooked some thin spaghetti to go with the chicken parmesan.  We did double the chicken parmesan and spaghetti.  Next Ashley mixed up the ingredients for the monkey bread and Brett helped her some with the final product :)  Our review of the menu is that we liked everything, Yay!!  Its a nice simple meal to put together, which we all liked.  Even the grandson's liked the menu :)

Jacki's Menu 32 Review

We have been busy at our house cooking and eating and I must say I have very cooperative tasters who willingly eat whatever is on the menu. Last night (so appropriate that is was a Sunday) we had the Slow Cooker Sunday Dinner Pot Roast, Mandarin Orange Pretzel Salad, and White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. The Pot Roast was delicious with good flavor of the meat and vegetables. I added everything except the tomatoes. I cooked mine on high instead of low for about 7 1/2 hours and it was perfect. I thickened the juices with cornstarch and added just a little salt for the gravy. 

The Mandarin Orange Pretzel salad was very good too although a little time consuming to make. I halved the recipe. There were a couple of things about the recipe that could have been clearer. First the crushed pretzels. I wasn't sure if it meant measuring the pretzels before or after they were crushed so I went with after crushed and it worked out fine. I just used the rolling pin method to crush but I think a food processor would be better to get a finer crush.  Everyone seemed to enjoy this dish. Good mix of flavors.

The Cheesecake was definitely time consuming but fun to make. And oh, so tasty and very rich. One thing to note is this recipe makes a lot of filling. I bought a regular sized graham cracker crust and still had a lot left over after filling it. I could have cut the recipe in half and had enough. So either buy the biggest graham cracker crust or make your own in a bigger pie pan or plan on poring the extra in another dish and baking it too (which is what I did).

This menu made for a great Fast Sunday after church meal! Lots of tasty food and all good solid recipes. I served some homemade bread and a green salad along with it.