Jacki's Menu #6

Today we had the meal of menu #6 and everything was very good.  The Honey-Lime Chicken Enchiladas were easy to prepare especially since I used a rotisserie chicken.  They tasted really good. I followed the recipe as written. You could easily sub the heavy cream with half and half though. Some of the enchiladas stuck to the bottom a bit so I made a note to spray the pan next time. Good solid recipe.  The Easy Mexican Salsa Rice was very easy to prepare but mine took a lot longer to cook than the 8 to 9 minutes it stated and I needed more water. I would also add a bit less of the enchilada/taco seasoning mix. Good side for the enchiladas. I also made the Zesty Guacamole from a couple of weeks ago since I wasn't able to make it then. Very tasty. I added a lot less diced red onions than the recipe called for though. And, last but not least was the Piña Colada Cake. So good! But, it still doesn't beat that One Bowl Chocolate Cake. Now that is what dreams are made of! The recipe was easy enough. I think next time I would only use just a little of the pineapple juice. Maybe a tablespoon or two. It was fun to make and try and very rich.

My Mom rounded out the meal with some green beans and tomato and cucumber slices. The Menu made for a very tasty meal!

New Menu for Nov. 16th.

I think Menu 6 sounds really good!  Honey-Lime Chicken Enchiladas, Easy Mexican Salsa Rice, and Piña Colada Cake.  I plan on making the Zesty Guacamole to go along with it since I missed out a couple of weeks ago on it.

Jacki's Meal 33

I enjoyed this meal today with my parents and we all liked it.  I thought it was funny that the recipe for the Macaroni Salad served 12 and the recipe for the chicken was for 2 to 3 people :) I made the BBQ Macaroni Salad first and it was fairly time consuming. But we all liked it. I agree with Audrey that a few less diced red peppers and red onions would be good.  I followed the recipe as written.  The Oven-Fried Chicken had a really good flavor I thought. I agree also that less butter would be better and might make the chicken a little crispier.  I used boneless, skinless chicken thighs and they worked out great - very tender and moist.  I am having a hard time getting my cookies from the recipes in this book to turn out. I think it is the altitude. (Couldn't be me:) I added a little more flour but I needed to add a little more because they were quite flat. For the last sheet of cookies I added more flour and they turned out much better. I agree the butterscotch chips made them very sweet. I enjoyed making and tasting all of these recipes!

Rutter Kitchen- Menu #33

We started out by trimming up the chicken breasts and cutting them into strips.  I then put them into ziplock bags with the buttermilk.  I did that the morning of our cooking night.  I also pre cooked the macaroni, so that would make it a little quicker to put the salad together.  That night, Dana mixed up the cookie dough and she followed the recipe except she used butter flavored Crisco in place of the butter.  She said that it was pretty simple to put together.  She then set that aside to bake later.  Ashley & Dana started on the Oven-Fried Chicken.  They each mixed up the seasoning mix (We tripled the recipe) and then prepared the baking dishes and got the pans with the chicken in the oven.  Very simple, but I do think that you could use less butter and use some canola oil in its place.  I also thought that they might have specified the size of the chicken strip that you should cut to go with the cooking time.  It was not a real problem, but I think that it would have been a help.  Next we worked on the BBQ Macaroni Salad.  I had prepped the veggies and Ashley got all of the ingredients mixed up in the bowl.  We only used about half the amount of red pepper and onions and we also used sharp cheddar cheese instead of the Colby jack cheese.  After the chicken was finished we baked a batch of the cookies.  We liked the chicken, its very similar to a recipe that I already fix.  Our guys do prefer the thighs, but the gals liked the chicken breast :)  The pasta salad was different since it had the barbecue sauce and the shredded carrots in it.  Some liked it and some didn't.  I would prefer no barbecue sauce in it myself and no carrots, but I liked the rest of the ingredients.  The cookie dough was a big hit! We actually liked that better than the cookies, though the cookies were very good ;) It's a good recipe for those who are not big on chocolate.  I think that I would have preferred regular chocolate chips in place of the butterscotch as the butterscotch are really sweet.  This was a fun menu to try and I think we'll fix these again, but might make a few changes.  Good menu pick Kelsey :)  

Rutter Kitchen-Menu #31

It was my turn to pick for this weeks menu and since I love taco's, this was a great menu to try.  I also wanted a simple menu :)  I baked the cake first and it was so simple.  It is certainly not a low fat or calorie dessert! Once it cooled, Ashley frosted it with our canned frosting and then topped it with the sprinkles.  Next we fixed the taco's.  We followed the recipe except cut back on the onions and used our own spice combo that we liked.  We used the rest of the suggested recipe ingredients.  So simple to do.  While the tacos were baking, Ashley finished up the guacamole.  The store didn't have good avocados, so I had just bought a pkg. of plain prepared guacamole.  Ashley then just added the other ingredients and that worked out fine.  Fresh avocados do taste better in my opinion.  We liked how simple the recipe was.  We set out the usual toppings that were suggested for the taco's plus picante sauce and tortillas chips for the guacamole.  Everything tasted really good.  I think that we would fix these recipe's again.  The guys do prefer our regular taco's that we fix by frying up the shells and the taco meat minus the beans ;)  The cake was fantastic! Everyone that tried it thought it was so good.  

New Menu for Week of Nov. 9th

Kelsey's choice for this week is Menu 33. Welcome Kelsey, so fun to have you join us!

Oven-Fried Chicken

BBQ Macaroni Salad

Oatmeal Scotchies

Jacki's Meal 31

Today we had the Oven Baked Tacos and One Bowl Chocolate Cake. So Good!! The store didn't have any avocados so couldn't make the guacamole. I will give it a try another time. My parents came over to enjoy the meal with us. Hooray we are finally in our house after 6 months of renovations!  Still a lot of work left to do though.  But, back to the food..... For the Oven Baked Tacos I followed the recipe except I used pinto beans instead of black beans. I thought the meat mixture was really good. I used the store bought crunchy taco shells but you could also fry your own corn tortillas and use those. Too much work for me. I really liked these - we all did.  We topped them with lettuce, tomatoes, olives, store bought guacamole, and sour cream.  The chocolate cake was absolutely wonderful. So moist and tasty. It said to cook for 33 to 38 minutes but I checked it at 30 and it was done. I used some prepared Betty Crocker chocolate frosting on it. (Now trans fat free, yea!) I will definitely make both of these recipes again.

Leslee's 36&31

Last week I finally tried out the Lasagna meal. I never make lasagna because it sounds like a lot of work, but really it wasn't bad at all! I think I just remember when my mom would have to boil the noodles then lay them all out, etc. Anyway this dish came together nice and quickly. I made it earlier in the day and it was all ready to put in the oven at dinner time. The garlic bread was a big hit, and also quite easy.

 

Last night I made the oven baked taco meal. I followed the directions and they turned out great. The bottoms got a little soggy but that might have been because I let them sit about 20 min before putting them in the oven. They were still good! All my kids really enjoyed them. Sean helped me make the guacamole and I think he just followed the recipe and it turned out delicious. We ended up just putting the guac on the tacos and it made a satisfying meal. I haven't had a good opportunity to make the cake yet but it looks delicious! 

 

11/2/14 pick- Menu #31

It was hard to choose a Menu as there are so many good ones!
Lets cook Menu #31
Oven-baked Tacos
Zesty Guacamole
One-Bowl Chocolate Cake
Happy cooking :)

Rutter Kitchen- Menu #36

It was just Ashley and me cooking this week.  I got things started with fixing the Baked Buffalo Wings that morning.  I did what the recipe called for and got them in the fridge for a couple of hours before we were ready to cook them.  They are so easy to fix and smelled great while they were cooking!  We thought that they had a very good flavor, so we will probably cook these again :)

Next was the Deep dish pizza.  I got the dough all ready and in the pans to rise.  I have a nice mixer so I just used the dough hook instead of kneading it by hand and that worked out great!  I doubled the recipe, so I used 4 cake pans and 2 pizza pans.  When Ashley got there we assembled the pizzas and it was so easy.  We really liked the pizza.  I will say that when I fix this again, I will probably just use the pizza pans as I like that thickness better.  Ashley mixed up the sauce & we thought the sauce was tasty and easy to make. 

While the pizza was cooking, we worked on the Wedge Salad.  Ashley mixed up the dressing and then we prepped the salad ingredients.  We then just set out all the salad fixings and let our group fix their salads like they wanted.  We all really liked the Wedge salad, so we will probably fix it again.  We all liked this menu the best so far :)

Nika and Jacki's Review of Meal # 36

We made tis meal last Sunday while I was visiting Nika and family. Actually Nika made it and I did the hard part of putting it in the oven:).  Everyone seemed to like it! I really liked the salad, especially the Blue Cheese Dressing. Max couldn't get enough of the wings and Nika and Sterling thought the pizza was good. Nika said the pizza dough seemed very dry when she mixed it up and didn't seem like it would fill three cake pans but after rising it did.  We decided the wings recipe could be used for drumsticks too. When we bought the wings they were $2.49/lb but drumsticks were .88 cents per lb! Overall another successful meal!

New Recipes and Leslee's Review of #36

For next week I am choosing Menu #36. It has Deep Dish Pizza, Baked Buffalo Wings, and Wedge Salad. 

I ended up making this meal last week and it was very good. I ended up cooking the Wings and Pizza on different nights because it seemed like a big undertaking for one night, but the wings were not too hard so it would have been manageable. The wedge salad was delicious. The dressing was easy to mix together although a bit strong on the blue cheese. I am not the biggest fan of blue cheese so I might not make this dressing again but I liked the salad part of the recipe.

 

For the pizza I followed the recipe without any changes. The dough was easy to handle so instead of rolling out each pan I just stretched the dough to fit in the cake pans. I liked cooking them this way. It made for easy clean up:) Everyone loved the pizza and Sean said it tasted similar to Pizza Hut. 

 I bought a bag of frozen wings at the store and let them thaw a bit before drying them and flouring them. I stuck the baking sheet in the freezer for just a bit before the next step. I dipped some of them in just butter for the more sensitive kids and the rest with hot sauce and butter. They turned out great. Everyone gobbled them up especially Knox! He couldn't get enough and kept asking for more. I think he enjoyed eating meat off the bone:)

 

Hope you guys enjoy this meal as much as we did! 

Rutter Kitchen- Menu #3

This was Dana's week to choose the menu, so she was excited to cook:)  We started out with the Creamy chicken Lasagna.  Dana fixed this dish and I helped with the prep work.  We followed the recipe and for the noodles we used the ready to bake noodles.  We pre-soaked them in warm water and that worked really well.  We also used rotisserie chicken for the chicken.  We decided to double the recipe so we decided to do an experiment in how we assembled the lasagna.  One dish we did how they suggested and the other we did how we usually assemble lasagna with the sauce then the noodles then the mixture.  It works better following their way ;)  It was simple to make and it baked in 45 minutes.  We all liked the dish and the leftovers are almost gone.  The cream cheese does give it a richer taste.  I would probably like it even better with ricotta or cottage cheese instead.  Next Ashley fixed the Caesar Salad Supreme.  She followed the recipe by mixing up the dressing and then set that aside till we were ready to eat, then she finished assembling it.  We did find the dressing to be a little strong, but it was fun to try.  Jacki had good suggestions with using less garlic and adding some milk to thin it out. If we make it again, we will try that.  We all fixed the Cheesy Garlic Texas Toast.  Very simple and quick to make.  I think this was the favorite recipe for most of us & that we will fix this recipe again.  All in all we thought that it was a very tasty meal :) Also, we thought that all three recipes went very well together.  

Jacki and Nika's Meal 3

I am visiting Nika and family so we made this menu the other night for dinner. The creamy chicken lasagna was easy to prepare thanks to the jarred spaghetti sauce. I microwaved three chicken breasts and then shredded them while still warm in the Kitchen Aid mixer. Slick! I prepared the lasagna earlier in the day and stored in fridge until dinner.  We all liked it and the leftovers have been really good.  The Cheesy Garlic Texas Toast was also really tasty and easy to make with preshredded cheese.  The Caesar Salad Supreme didn't go over as well due to the dressing.  It was just too strong. I would recommend less garlic and some milk to thin it down.  A good meal though!

This week. 10/19/14 Menu 3!!!

Looks great!!!! Yummy!!!!

Rutter Kitchen- Menu 50

 Dana and Johnny fixing the casserole

Ashley making the cookies 

 

We fixed all three of the recipes tonight and they were all pretty simple to make.  We followed the recipe for the Cheeseburger Casserole except we doubled the recipe.  We only used 1 onion and we used regular sharp cheddar cheese.  Ashley got the carrots ready and we put the casserole and the carrots in at the same time.  That did  slow the cooking time down, but I only have one oven, so it worked out fine.  After the casserole was done, we left the carrots in for 5-10 minutes more and then they were done.  While those dishes were cooking, Ashley mixed up the cookies.  She followed the recipe except that she used butter flavored Crisco in place of the butter.  They don't get so flat when you do that.  The dough was very tasty! I'm glad that I read the reviews before we fixed the cookies, so we did as Tarin suggested and left the cookies on the tray till they cooled.  That took care of the caramel problem.  We all liked all three of the recipes and I'm sure that we will fix them again.  The casserole and the carrots are great as leftovers.  I'm with Jacki on the name of the Cheeseburger casserole, but it still tasted really good ;)  The recipe that surprised all of us, was how tasty the carrots were.  I've never used honey to sweeten them, as I've always used brown sugar.  They were so good and not too sweet.  Everyone liked the cookies, especially the dough :)   

Jacki's Meal #50

Everyone here seemed to like this meal! I really liked the cheeseburger casserole but I think the name is a little strange for it. I prepared it as directed. I used the 2 cups of dry pasta and that seemed like the right amount. Very easy to make and I agree that it is a good make ahead meal.  The carrots were very good too. I must give credit to my mom though. I prepared the casserole this morning and put it in the fridge and put the carrots in a bag with the olive oil. She cooked the casserole and finished up and cooked the carrots too. Excellent job! Thank you! The cookies tasted really good but were a little flat. I think I would use shortening next time in them or half shortening and half butter. Maybe a little more flour? My first batch stuck to the pan really bad and were just pieces by the time I got them off even though I greased the pan. For the next pan I really sprayed the pan well and they were better. I used the bag of little caramel pieces in the baking section - easy peasy.  Good meal. I would make all this again.

Leslee's Meal #50

We had the cheeseburger casserole last night for dinner and it was a hit. I wasn't sure what to expect from the name, but once I started assembling the ingredients I knew it would be delicious. As Tarin did in her review, it would really easy to make this ahead of time and bake it at dinner time. I didn't make any changes to the recipe and we all liked it. I do think they miss printed the amount of pasta to use. They say 2 cups or 6 oz but I am assuming they meant 16 oz. The carrots were also delicious. They were easy to make and I just put them in the oven with the pasta and they turned out perfectly. I also made up the cookies last night as well. I made them gluten free by using a flour mixture in place of the regular flour and they turned out really tasty. The dough was delicious as were the cookies. I cut up my carmels into smaller pieces before mixing them into the dough. I think that you can actually by bits of carmel now but my little local market didn't carry them. Now for the picture. I swear I took one last night with everything all plated up and pretty, but I can't find it! So I snapped a quick picture when I heated some up for lunch!

Tarin's Menu #50

Last night I had a photoshoot that started at 5 so I was worried that if I didn't start something ahead of time either the kids would a) have cereal for dinner or b) have fruit snacks for dinner. So luckily the Cheeseburger casserole was in the plans!

I put it all together over lunch time, let it cool and then covered it with foil and wrote instructions on top. And guess what? I came home and there was barely any leftover for me! So I guess this was a win. The only changes is that I used my own homemade tomato sauce so it wasn't very chunky, I omitted the onion, and used bear meat instead of beef. (Also I did make the carrots on Sunday night and forgot to take a picture but I really liked them!)

Now watch out because these aren't really cookies...they might be crack. I am not a huge fan of oatmeal cookies but I couldn't stop eating the dough and then these were delicious warm and the next morning. I used a 1/8 cup size scoop and they were the perfect size. There are only a couple things I would change for next time. 1) Leave the cookies on the tray until they are cooled...the caramel was too heavy for the cookies so when I tried to transfer them to the cooling rack all the caramel bites dropped out the bottom of the cookies. 2) Along that note, I might cut the caramel bites in half, they were just too big for these cookies, but I love the flavor so I wouldn't cut them out completely.

menu 50

Let's do Menu 50 this week because the cheeseburger casserole sounds awesome :)

Jacki's Meal #22

We had this meal on Thursday and we all enjoyed it. My parents joined us for the festivities.  Let's start with the Monterey Chicken, shall we? I used thin chicken breasts which saved time and sautéed them in a pan instead of grilling. The pan method worked fine but I think grilling would add a nice flavor. It was fast to assemble the toppings on the chicken and we really liked the flavors. Next up - the Honey Lime Fruit Salad. Another win with everyone.  Nice combination of fruit and easy to put together. And last but not least, the Graham Cracker Monster Cookies. These were really tasty and reminded me a lot of magic cookie bars. Next time I would add butterscotch chips too. We also had baked potatoes with the meal to add a little heft. My mom made these and they were perfect. Overall a satisfying menu!