This week....Menu 5

Happy Valentine's Day Ladies!!!!

Dana's Menu 19 Review

We don't really eat corn and also trying to stay away from sweets as much as possible,  so we just cooked the black bean tacos. Brandon made them. They were really good and easy to make. We followed the recipe. The corn tortillas we used were not cooked. I found the uncooked corn tortillas at walmart. They are really good. Made the meal taste somewhat authentic.
We will he making these again.

Jacki's Review of Menu 19

I am back home after my wonderful Iowa visit and cooked this menu yesterday. As usual my parents came over and helped critique the fixings. It was all a success! The Creamed Corn was really tasty. I used the petite sweet frozen corn so it was extra yummy. (More expensive but so worth it)  I followed the recipe as directed except my corn bags were 16 oz each instead of 20. NBD. Be sure to start this early on the stove because it takes awhile to bring it to a boil since the corn was frozen. 

The Crunchy Black Bean Tacos were equally as yummy. I substituted sweet onion for red since I already had plenty but followed recipe for the rest. I was able to cook 3 at a time in my fry pan and then place them in heated oven to keep warm while cooking more.  I made a note to add a little salt to the bean mixture the next time I make these.  Leslee made these while I was at her house so I had a heads up on how tasty they are. I served with toppings of shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, avocado, salsa, and sour cream.

The Gooey Lemon Bars were also very good. I didn't have any yellow food coloring so the frosting is white in the pic. But our extra rich home grown eggs provided plenty of yellow for the filling:) I halved the recipe and it took about 23 minutes to cook. 

I would definitely make any of these three recipes again.

New Recipes!

Let's do Menu 19 this week!

Tarin

Jacki and Leslee's Review of Menu 16

We fixed this menu for dinner last night and it was really good. BUT, it was really, really time consuming:) for the Chicken Cordon Bleu bites I used the thin sliced breasts to speed things up. It still took time to cube it up as well as the cheese and ham. We used gluten free bread crumbs and seasoned them a bit. The Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce was good but I would omit the lemon juice and decrease the honey if I made it again. I really liked the Layered Green Salad but again it was quite time consuming to put together. It would be good to pair the salad with a simpler main dish.  For the salad I replaced the spinach with romaine. We made the Boston Cream Poke Cake gluten free as well and it was a big hit especially with the kids. Knox had some for breakfast and dinner dessert today! I halved the recipe.  Another fun menu to make but a little too time consuming to make all three recipes for the same meal.

New menu #16

I picked the chicken cordon bleu because my husband has always loved this dish.   I have already made the chicken part and almost everyone really liked it.   The only one who didn't eat much said he was full, so who knows.  Even my daughter who at first was traumatized that it had Swiss cheese in it.  I didn't have toothpicks but I used think chicken pieces and they held together just fine.  I will post the pick once I make the salad and dessert.

Jacki and Leslee's Review of Menu 18

I am here in Iowa visiting Leslee and family and we cooked Menu 18 the other night for dinner. It was all tasty!  Instead of individualized pizzas we made one big one of the Alfredo. I forgot all about the grilled chicken but fortunately we had some from a doggy bag from our birthday outing to Texas Roadhouse:) We thought the sauce and combination of toppings was really good. At first the sauce seemed too thin but it thickened up after resting for a few minutes.  I used Pillsbury refrigerated tube pizza dough for the first time and it made prep so easy.  The kids only wanted pepperoni pizza so we made individual ones for them and let them make their own with regular sauce. Leslee made a gluten free crust for her and used the Alfredo sauce and toppings. There was plenty of sauce.  The No-Bake Peanut Butter Corn Flake Bars were simply addictive! Easy to make and eat! I think they would be good made with Rice Krispys too. The BLT Salad was good as well. I thought the dressing was just a touch sweet so maybe a little less sugar next time.  Another fun meal to make.

Leslee's Meals

Well it is definitely time for an update from me!

I will start with Meal 23. The Berry Cheesecake Pudding was a tasty dish but almost too sweet to me. I left out the fresh strawberries since they were pricey at the time and just used the frozen berries. I liked it, but my kids weren't fans, which surprised me. My calzones were a bit of a disaster, because I used gluten free dough which is hard to handle. They didn't look good, but tasted good! I did leave out the mushrooms and used a cheese blend I found since it had most of the cheeses listed in it. The Oven Roasted Parmesan Broccoli was the star of the meal for us and I have made this recipe many more times!

 

Next up is Menu 35 and the Slow Cooker Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches. I followed the sandwich recipe as listed and it turned out great! For the fries I added more potatoes but didn't use all the spices. I didn't want it to be too spicy for the kids. We really liked them! My husband was surprised they were homemade! I haven't made the nutella dip yet, but I have the supplies, so I will make it this week! 

 

We haven't chosen the Ham Meal yet, but I did use some of the recipes in our Christmas Dinner so I thought I would report on it. The homemade scallop potatoes were really quite easy to make and were SO good! I really liked them and will definitely make them again. The ham I bought didn't come with a spice packet so after I heated it up, I drizzled on the sauce top. Delicious as well. I don't have a good picture of it, but this will do. We ate our dinner while skyping with Sean's brother who is on his mission in Peru!

New Menu for Week of Jan. 18th, 2015

Let's cook Menu 18 in honor of the week of Jan. 18th! :)

Personal Grilled Chicken Alfredo Pizza

BLT Salad

No-Bake Peanut Butter Corn Flake Bars

Jacki's Review of Menu 25

My parents chose this menu when I offered them the chance to guest select.  They even did all the shopping and cooking for it! And, we all loved it. I mean, who doesn't love a good shrimp meal!? The Baked Coconut Shrimp was really fresh and good tasting.  I was expecting the coconut to be crisp but it was soft.  Still good though.  We dipped it in shrimp cocktail sauce.  Mom's Broccoli Salad was really tasty too.  I liked it just the way it was made and I think my Mom followed the recipe as directed. My dad made the shrimp dish.  The Garlic Roasted Potatoes were really good too. My mom said she used a little less garlic than the recipe called for.  The menu was served with fresh from the oven rolls and carrot cake for dessert. Very good meal. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

The cooks

I forgot to take a photo of the meal all,plated up.

New Menu for Jan. 11

This week we have guest menu selectors.  My parents!  Since they always eat with us and help review the recipes I thought they might like a chance to peruse the cookbook and select a menu.  They decided on Menu 25.  Baked Coconut Shrimp, Broccoli Salad, Garlic Roasted Potatoes.  Sounds delicious!

Jacki's Menu 2

We just finished enjoying menu 2!  I started marinating the ground beef patties about 2 hours before cooking them and that was too long. They were very strong.  I think just mixing in some of the sauce with the ground beef patties might be enough or just marinating a few minutes. We don't have a propane tank so I couldn't grill them so I pan fried instead which kept in more of the sauce than if grilled because it would drip down. But, I still think they were good. Next time I will just do less marinating.  I did marinate the pineapple but I don't think it needed it. Just grilling it would have been fine. I liked the cheese, tomato, and lettuce additions too. The onion rings were really good!  Richard cooked those and he did a fine job.  We had no problem finishing them off. I used a sweet onion. The No Bake Reese's Fudge was good too. It needs to be kept in the fridge though or it gets soft. Very easy to fix.  I have to admit though that if I am going to eat fudge I would rather have plain fudge with walnuts:)

Jacki's Menu 35

I made this menu last Saturday for my parents and us. It is much more fun to cook for 4 instead of just 2 and have a discussion about the food.  We all liked the meal. The Nutella Fruit Dip was very easy to prepare except I forgot to add the nondairy whipped topping. I just now noticed that! But it was still good. I think adding the nondairy whipped topping would have made it not so thick and more "dippable". We dipped apples, strawberries, and bananas.  The Slow Cooker Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches were also easy to prepare and had good flavor. I did toast my hoagie buns in the oven before piling with meat and cheese and then baked an additional few minutes to melt the cheese.  They made good leftovers too. I tried the steak sauce suggestion but didn't care for it.  I was glad I read Dana's review first about the Baked Seasoned Steak Fries. I followed her suggestion and doubled the potatoes AND halved all the spices and even less of garlic powder. Plus I added 1/2 tsp salt. Perfect!  These also heated up well for leftovers. Tasty meal!

Just added a picture of our turkeys to see if you were paying attention!:)

New Menu for 1/4/2015

How exciting that I get to choose the new menu to start off the New Year!!
Since I'm partial to burgers, lets fix Menu #2
Aloha Burgers
Restaurant-Style Onion Rings
No-Bake Reese's Fudge Bars
Happy cooking :)

Rutter Kitchen- Menu #23

We were all getting together to cook that evening and to also celebrate Dana's birthday.  To add to the excitement we had a power outage for 2 hours.  We had just decided that we would have to reschedule when the power came back on :)  Dana and Ashley started out preparing the Three-Cheese Mushroom and Spinach Calzones.  They made two batches since we were feeding 6 adults.  The first batch was the original recipe and the second batch we added some canned chicken to it.  We felt that the guys would want  some meat in theirs.  We liked the ease of the tube pizza dough ;) It was all fairly simple to put together.  Ashley assembled the calzones.  The first one we baked for 15 minutes and that was too long as it got a little too brown, so we cut back the cooking time a couple of minutes for the 2nd one and that was perfect.  Next Dana prepared the Berry Cheesecake Pudding.  She followed the recipe.  I wondered a little if it would taste too strong of yogurt, but it didn't.  She set that in the fridge to chill.  Next I prepared the Oven-Roasted Parmesan Broccoli.  I followed the recipe and it was similar to other recipes that I have used for roasted broccoli.  It took a little longer to cook, but I was doubling the recipe.  The Calzone was very tasty and we served it with some marinara sauce.  The calzone had a little kick to it due to the red pepper.  The pudding was very good! We liked the texture, flavor and all the fruit in it.  We would like to try it with fresh whipped cream and see if we like that as well.  Everyone really liked all three recipes.  These will be fixed again I'm sure :)   



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rutter Ktichen- Menu #15

I started the Slow Cooker Eight-Can Taco Soup in the afternoon, since we were going to cook that evening.  I used the ingredients that it called for, but I didn't drain the tomatoes, since we like the juice in things.  I really liked that it was so easy to assemble.  When Dana got here that evening, she started the Homemade Breadsticks.  She followed the recipe and she said that it was fairly simple.  While they were cooking Ashley mixed up the Fudgy Brownies.  She followed the recipe except I had forgotten to get margarine, so we used butter instead and we didn't add any nuts.  While the brownies were baking, she mixed up the frosting.  These were fun recipes to try.  We all really liked the taco soup and the breadsticks.  The brownies were different. I think that using butter instead of margarine changed things with the brownies.  Most of us didn't really like them.  They didn't seem cooked enough, even though we cooked them quite awhile, but the frosting was great!  I would like to try them again with margarine instead of the butter.

Dana's Menu 35 review

Well, I forgot to take pics but I did want to post a review.  I did this week's recipe accept with a twist. I had  already went to the grocery store so I modified. I used chicken, replaced the Italian dressing pkt and used actual dressing, I also added worcheshershire (spelling ?)sauce. Instead of cooking in a crock, I cooked stove top. It turned out great! I made the fries too. I sliced them into medallions though. I think on the seasoning, next time I'm going to cut all in half OR add more potatoes. Also, ADD SALT!!! I don't remember that in the recipe. They needed salt.

Next time I plan on using steak, but this was a good modification.  I didn't make the dip. I'd make this again. Great pick. 

Menu 35

I hope you all had a great Christmas break! This week I chose Menu 35. It has a crockpot philly cheese-steak sandwich and oven baked fries!
Hope it is a good one!

Rutter Kitchen- Menu #26

Since we were having this menu for our dinner that night, I prepared the Overnight Caramel French Toast dish that morning.  I followed the directions except omitted the pecans.  Very easy to do which I liked! I also prepped some of the veggies for the Souffle so things would go quicker that night. When Ashley got here we started cooking the French toast and then she started fixing the Egg Souffle. We used fresh mushrooms and just sautéed them.  I didn't have the size of pan it called for, so we had to make do.  It did take quite a bit longer for the dish to cook, so I wonder if the size of dish we used was some of the problem.  Next Ashley fixed the Strawberry Sunrise Drink.  Very easy since I bought the pineapple ready to go. To round out the meal we added some Thanksgiving ham.  We liked everything.  The drink was real good, but if I fix it again I would cut back on the banana.  We thought the Caramel French Toast had a similar taste to pecan pie, which for some of us was a good thing.  Very rich, so you can't eat too much.  The Egg Souffle had really good flavors, just wish that it hadn't taken so long to cook!  All in all it was a good menu.

Jacki's Menu 23

We had this meal with my parents and we enjoyed it!  Starting off with the Three Cheese Mushroom and Spinach Calzone.  I made my own pizza crust using The Pioneer Woman's recipe.  We all thought it was good but not outstanding. I think some sausage would be a good addition. I am looking forward to the Rutter review with the chicken added. We also decided maybe some marinara sauce on the side for dipping would be tasty. I sautéed the mushrooms and spinach but then there was a bunch of liquid in the bowl so I squeezed it out with paper towels. I was afraid it would make the calzone all soggy. The assembly was much easier than individual calzones. Easy recipe to change the ingredients around.

Next up is the Oven-Roasted Parmesan Broccoli. I used 6 cups of broccoli cut up but only 1/4 cup of the olive oil and 1/2 tsp garlic salt. It was way too strong. I can't imagine that much oil and garlic salt with only 2 cups of the broccoli!  Next time I will use less oil and garlic salt. I do like the flavor the roasting gives it. Everyone really liked the Berry Cheesecake Pudding. Easy and straight forward recipe. It would be a good one to take to a potluck. These were all fun recipes to make.