Jacki’s Tangy Tomato Beef, Crash Hot Potatoes, Glazed Carrots.

Happy New Year to you all and I hope you had a merry Christmas.  I made these recipes for dinner today and thought they were good although I did make some changes.  For the Tangy Tomato Brisket I used a beef roast instead because the briskets were all huge and cost $6/pound – didn’t want to spend that much.  The flavor was still good and the roast shredded nicely.  I cooked it in the crock pot instead of the oven – very easy. 
The Crash Hot Potatoes were a nice change from regular baked potatoes and I liked the crispiness.  They were easy to make.  I omitted the rosemary. 
The Glazed Carrots were very yummy but I omitted the whiskey because it just isn’t something I keep around the house :).  They took longer than 10 minutes to cook though – closer to 20 minutes total. I also used less butter and brown sugar than the recipe called for and it was fine – I could have probably used even less. 
All three recipes went together well to make a tasty meal.

Pizza and Stew

We thought that the steakhouse pizza was good although the steak I used was a little tough.  We had to cut the pieces much smaller and that worked out better.  I only used a forth of the amount of onion they recommended and I thought that was plenty.  It was a fun change to pepperoni pizza.

We also had the beef stew a week or so back.  We really liked it! I omitted the beer and didn't add any extra liquid in place of it.  A few days later I made the Shepard's Pie recipe since it uses the leftover stew with mashed potatoes on top.  That was tasty too!  I much prefer this to other Shepard's pie recipes I have had before. Sorry no picture of either of those. 

Jacki’s Steakhouse Pizza

I made this Saturday for dinner and we both thought it was good but decided steak just doesn’t belong on pizza.  I used a flat iron steak and it was very tender – it just wouldn’t work to use a steak that might be tough. I cooked my steak under the broiler.  Audrey had warned me  the recipe calls for a lot of onions so I only used one - perfect.  I don’t like a pizza with a ton of sauce so I only ended up using about a cup of the marinara sauce.  I also only had 8 ounces of fresh mozzarella so I used some grated mozzarella as well.  I used the cheap ol’ grated canned parmesan instead of freshly shaved.  I must say I love the pizza dough recipe in the book.  I have used it several times and it always turns out well. ( I do tweak it and add just a bit more salt and use half olive oil and half canola oil and I just add the oil when I add the yeast/water mixture – easier).  Oh, I also added some canned mushrooms because steak and mushrooms just go together.  I thought the pizza was good when we had it on Saturday night but I thought it was even better when I had a leftover piece yesterday (heated up).  I hope you all get a chance to try the recipe  and let us know what you think!  Sorry about the blurry picture:)

New Recipes for week of December 16th

I put together a hearty meal, since my son will be home from college this week!
Tangy Tomato Brisket pg.180
Crash Hot Potatoes pg. 217
Whiskey-Glazed Carrots pg. 224
Hope these taste as good as they look :)

New Recipe for week of December 9th

Let's fix Steakhouse Pizza, pg 142.  It has several things to fix in that one dish, so that will keep us busy! I think that our guys will enjoy this meal also since it is steak and pizza in one recipe :)

Heidi's stew

I fixed the beef stew today for dinner.  It was pretty good.  Don't know if it will make it in our regular rotation without some changes.  I thought there was way too much beef.  I would only use 1 lb of stew meat next time.  It was also quite runny and it didn't seem to thicken up very easily. I would use less beef stock. Overall it had a good flavor.

Tarin's Stew

So I don't know if I've mentioned that my husband loves to hunt so after this hunting season I've got a huge freezer full of bear meat so I was so excited that we had the opportunity to make stew this week.

So I pulled out the meat and seared it on the stove top.

I moved it into the crockpot and added in the beer...okay so I went with the non-alcoholic variety.

I cooked it on low for 7 hours. Right before I served it I pulled it out to thicken it. And then let it cook on high for another 20 minutes. I still wish I had been able to let it thicken for longer.

I was also out of potatoes and I wish that I had put the carrots in sooner. But it was still good. The meat was really moist and tender. I thought it was a pretty good recipe, I didn't think that it was that amazing, but it was still good. Worth doing it again with a couple changes.

Jacki’s Chicken and Noodles and Beef Stew

I made the Chicken and Noodles last week and it was excellent although I must admit I altered the recipe a bit.  First off I used a rotisserie chicken with some of the meat still on.  I put it in the crock pot, covered with water and added some salt and pepper and garlic and let it cook for several hours.  I then took the chicken out, picked off the chicken and put the broth in a big pot. I diced up the carrots, celery, and onion and sauteed them all together til softened and then added to broth along with the thyme.  I didn’t have any turmeric.  I thought the thyme added a good flavor.  Instead of using the frozen egg noodles I made my own (easier than running to the store).  I omitted adding the flour or cream and just left it like a soup.  I am sure using the rotisserie chicken added to the good flavor.  It was really tasty.

I made the Beef Stew last night and it was also quite tasty.  I did make a few changes though.  I omitted the beer (I didn’t even replace it with the beef broth).  I also omitted the tomato paste.  I used less meat than called for and a little more potato.  It still had a really good flavor although I had to add twice as much flour to make it somewhat thick and I didn’t even add all the liquid since I didn’t use the beer.   It made a good, simple meal.  This would cook well in a crock pot too.

Two Meals

I made the chicken noodle soup the week after Thanksgiving using some leftover turkey.  Since I didn't boil up the chicken and have the broth, I just used some already made broth, about 8 cups.  There isn't really a gluten free version of egg noodles so I just used a different kind of pasta and let it boil for its recommended cooking time in the soup.  The soup was delicious and I liked the idea of adding flour to thicken it just a bit.  Perfect for the "cold" front we experienced last week in Houston:)

On Sunday night I made the Rigatoni and Meatballs. For the meatballs I used half ground beef and half pork sausage and a gluten free bread to make the crumbs. It baked the bread for about 25 min and then ground it up even though it wasn't really all that dried out.  Seemed to work out okay though.  Summer helped me by rolling out all the meatballs.  I decided to just broil them for about 15 minutes and not deal with the mess of frying them.  Like my mom said the sauce wasn't anything special but it was really easy to make, mostly just opening two cans and simmering! This was good! 

Recipes for 12/2

Lets try Beef Stew this week - Page 165.

New Recipes for Week of Nov. 25th

Hi all, I know some of you live in warmer parts of the country but out here in Northern Virginia it is down right chilly so lets cook up a pot of Chicken and Noodles (because we haven’t had enough poultry lately:).  

Chicken and Noodles  pg 82

Jacki’s Review of Rigatoni and Meatballs

I made this recipe this past week and thought it was pretty good – nothing amazing though.  First off, I used spaghetti instead of the Rigatoni.  I made the full recipe and it made plenty of  food!  We both thought the meatballs needed more flavoring.  I used ground venison so maybe that had something to do with it.  I didn’t fry the meatballs as directed but cooked them under the broiler – so much easier. My bread took almost an hour to dry out in the oven – way longer than the 20 minutes the recipe stated.   The sauce had a good flavor – probably needed a bit more salt.  I used dried basil instead of fresh.  I enjoyed the meal but would probably use a different meatball recipe or add more spices.  I still have not had a chance to make the Caprese salad  but I am looking forward to it!

New Recipes

Rigatoni and Meatballs - page 126
Caprese Salad- page 98

Jacki’s Apple Dumplings

This was a strange recipe but it worked and was quite tasty.  I cut the recipe in half and it worked fine.  I melted the butter in the microwave and then just added the sugar and vanilla and stirred – very easy.  The canned crescent rolls make it super easy.  I imagine you could use any of the canned rolls/biscuits if you pressed them thin enough.  I read Tarin’s review and I was glad because I also worried about all the liquid but it worked.  I used Ginger Ale for the soda, vanilla ice cream and a Fuji apple (because that is what I had).  Very easy dessert. 

Tarin's Apple Dumplings

I loved!loved!loved! these.

So I used 2 apples. I know she asked for Granny Smiths, but I had Galas.

Peeled and Cored.

Rolling them up was really easy.

I was worried about the amount of liquid that went into this dish...

I cooked them for 40 minutes. At around 35 minutes I put a sheet of aluminum foil over the top to keep them from browning anymore. I was worried because it still looked so liquid-y, but they were delicious and soft but not soggy on the bottom. This is definitely going to be used again! They are really sweet so I was done with 3, but I kept wanting more! Yum!

Jacki’s Roasted Cauliflower and Citrus Butter Cookies

I am trying to catch up on some past recipes so yesterday I made the roasted cauliflower to go with dinner and the citrus butter cookies for dessert. 
The roasted cauliflower was pretty easy except it took way more time to cook in the oven than the 15 or 20 minutes Ree suggested.  After 30 or more minutes I took the pan out of the oven and cooked it in the microwave for 4 minutes.   I guess I should have broken the cauliflower into smaller chunks for faster cooking.  The bread crumb topping was good but it made a  lot.  I also decided to add parmesan cheese to it after I had already measured out the panko crumbs but didn’t add extra butter so it seemed a bit dry to me but all in all it was really good and tasty.  I would make it again but I wouldn’t add as much bread crumb mixture and I would cook it longer than 5 minutes once the crumb topping was on.  (didn’t brown enough after 5 minutes).
The citrus butter cookies were interesting to make and very tasty but also very rich and sweet.  The recipe didn’t call for any baking soda so I was interested to see how they turned out.  Mine were a little flat but not bad – probably needed a smidge more flour.  I was totally incapable of making nice lines across the cookie with the icing so I just ended up frosting them all over the top with it.  I didn’t add the raw egg white to the frosting – just didn’t seem quite right. In my recipe book there was an error - they list “2 large eggs” twice.  I halved the recipe for the cookies and only made 1/3 of the icing recipe.  There was still too much icing so I could have only made 1/4th of the recipe and had plenty.   Very flavorful cookie and something different. 
I am planning on making the (virgin) Blood Mary drink today so stay tuned. 

 

New Recipe!

Hey guys!

This week let's make the Apple Dumplings on page 234.

Happy Cooking :)

Spicy Dr. Pepper Pork

We enjoyed this pork for dinner tonight and made a few changes (so we didn't have to go to the store:). We put it in the crock pot this morning and turned it a few times throughout the day.  We only used about half an onion since that is what we had.  Also we used diet soda in place of regular and doubled the sugar to make up for it.  The results were good! The meat ends up being pretty spicy but you could take out the peppers before shredding the meat which would help.  We made another batch of the restaurant salsa and enjoyed tacos or taco salads.

The Recipe!

For this week I chose the Spicy Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork on page 158.  I have made this before and it is good.  We are having it tonight for dinner so I will do a review soon since we have made a few little changes.
Hope everyone is getting a chance to try out some the recipes!

Jacki and Leslee's Recent Recipe Adventures

Chicken Parmesan

We all thought this was a very tasty dish.  I didn't have a meat mallet so I had a hard time getting the chicken breasts uniformly even.  I substituted chicken broth for the wine and we used gluten free pasta. I forgot about the spinach and made broccoli to go with the meal.  This is definitely a recipe to make again.  I agree with Dana and Brandon - Italian sausage would be great with the sauce.

  Panfried Spinach

I thought this was very good.  I usually just steam my spinach so this was a nice change.  I liked the Kale cooked this way as well.

Sloppy Joes

These were pretty good.  I have a recipe I like a little better but I also enjoyed this recipe.  Leslee actually made this recipe and she said it was pretty easy and straight forward.  It would make a good freezer meal.  

Spicy Lemon Garlic Shrimp

Ok, I know this doesn't look anything like shrimp because it isn't.  Certain people here (I am at Leslee's helping with new baby Lacey) don't care for shrimp so we substituted with chicken.  It was good!  Leslee made it and said she cooked it on a baking sheet but recommends putting it in a smaller pyrex baking dish so the chicken can soak up more of the juices.  She also only used 1 stick of butter instead of two and used dried parsley.  I would like to make it again using shrimp because it looks really tasty with the bread to dip into the juices.

We still have a few recipes we have not cooked yet so we will get busy and report back as soon as we do.

"Spooky" Recipes for the Week

Hi Ladies!

Alright I have decided. Since this week is Halloween Week, I decided to go with the theme. I usually don't get into the Halloween thing, but this year I am. Not so much Halloween but more Fall Fun!!! I don't like the evil stuff, but alright with the cute stuff. You know like spiders, mummies (that are real...just not alive!), bats, pumpkins, hayrides, bon fires, etc. Okay, rambling on. So the recipes:

Spicy Lemon Garlic Shrimp ~ Pg. 206
Spicy Caesar Salad (Check out the variations!) C~ Pg. 40
Bloody Mary (OOooooo Scary ;0) ~ Pg. 118

Have a HAPPY, FUN, SAFE, & NOT SCARY Halloween AKA FALL FUN WEEK!!!

Rutter Trio Kitchen ~ Chicken Parm.

This week we cooked at home. We decided to have this for our Friday family night. Brandon MULTI-TASKED!!!!! That's pretty great for a guy ( I kid of course!). He cooked the entire meal. I did all the prep work, and her cooked while I got Johnny ready for supper and bed.

We had so much fun. However, we didn't care for the chicken parm. We really liked the sauce. We decided next time we will add Spicy Italian Sausage meatballs or something. The sauce....WE LOVED!!!!!
The spinach was really good too. I took note with the kale not add salt while cooking. I didnt when cooking  the spinach, and it turned out great!!!

Rutter Trio Kitchen ~ Steak and Blue Cheese Sauce

For Friday family night, I decided to cook the Steak and Sauce. I didn't use the Rib-Eye. We love steak and for the cost of Rib Eye, We just can not bring our selves to add a sauce. So I bought a Pan Steak. It was very tasty.

The Kale was a little bit salty, so next time I'm not gonna add salt while cooking and wait till after I plate it.

Shazam!!!! Done! The potatoes were easy as well. I actually made them the night before. So all I had to do was slip them in the oven. This meal was sooooo good. We really enjoyed it.

So....I also have to brag on myself a sec. The next evening for supper I used the left over kale, steak, and blue cheese sauce and made homemade raviolis. I have never felt more like a "Suzy Homemakers"! I just put the steak and kale in the blender and minced up. I added garlic and a can of diced tomatoes. With the sauce, I added a little water to thin. It was really good!

Oh, and with the extra potatoes; I pulled out the family cookbook and made potato soup. Which was also very good.

New recipes

Hi gals!  I have chosen a few recipes for this week.  I'm excited about them, they look yummy.  They are:

Sloppy Joes page 58
Roasted Cauliflower page 220
Citrus Butter Cookies page 236

Hope you all enjoy

Tarin's Panfried Spinich

We loved this. I got a bunch of spinich from Sprouts for 99¢ and it was the perfect serving size for 2 adults, a toddler, and baby. It always surprises me how much these leafy greens cook down (kind of like mushrooms). The only thing was that I think next time I'll cut the olive oil down to 2 tbsps. We'll definitely be making this again.

Recipes for the week of 10/14

This week I am picking Chicken Parmesan ( page 130) and Panfried Spinach  (page 216).  I have fixed the Chicken Parmesan before and just used 1/2 cooking wine and 1/2 chicken broth to substitute for the wine. 
Enjoy!

Mexican Food and Steak

My mom is in town to help out with our new baby Lacey, so we have been making the meals together. Last week we made the Rib Eye Steak meal.  We used a different cut of steak that was a little more affordable but probably ended up being a little bit tougher.  Other than that we followed the recipe.  The sauce recipe made quite a bit and could be halved.  On the potatoes, the only change was adding a little more milk to the potato mixture because it was a little thick.  The kale was easy to make and we also didn't make any changes.  Everything was very good and made for a rich meal.  The kale was a good way to add some greens in in a different way.

Last night we made the Mexican meal.  My mom did most of the work and it definitely took some time! I actually made the quesadillas a few weeks ago and we really liked them, so we were happy to try them again.  The salsa makes a lot! You could easily half the recipe and have plenty.  We put everything in the blender but had to do 2 batches.  This was really good!!  The Mexican rice was a big hit.  We browned the onion, garlic and rice in a pan before transferring it into the rice cooker.  It cooked up nicely and we used 2 cups of broth which was perfect. Very tasty. The quesadillas are quite the production but if you have everything lined up ready to go it makes it pretty easy.  The first time I made the quesadilla we did both corn and flour tortillas but we decided corn was better so we just did corn this time.  I heated the tortillas up on each side then added the ingredients to one and topped it with the other.  Flipping them was kind of a disaster so I just did it this way.  These are really good and the flavors all work well together.  Overall this was a delicious meal! Definitely give it a try. 

New Recipes for October 7th-13th

I'm in the mood for Mexican!! Lets fix Barbecue Chicken & Pineapple Quesadillas pg. 154, Mexican Rice pg. 173 & Restaurant-Style Salsa pg. 92. Happy cooking :)

Jenny's Honey Plum Soy Chicken

I made the plum chicken for dinner yesterday.  I thought the kitchen smelled so good!

I made a few changes to the recipe.  Instead of using the red wine I used equal parts beef broth and grape juice.  And then I added a splash of apple cider vinegar.  I also used boneless, skinless chicken breasts instead of the bone-in thighs.  I thought 20 oz. of soy sauce seemed like a lot too, so I went with a bit less- probably about 15 oz.  And I didn't use the fresh plum slices or green onions.  Okay, so I guess I made more than a few changes to the recipe!

Overall we thought the chicken was really yummy!  As far as cooking instructions I did just what the PW suggested.  The chicken was really tender and had a great flavor throughout.  My kids gobbled it up, which made it a winner in my book.  I liked the Asian flavor of the soy sauce, but next time would maybe use even less soy sauce, or maybe try using a reduced sodium soy sauce.  And I would also like to see how much difference it would make to use all grape juice and no beef broth.  The soy sauce flavor was a bit strong, and you only needed a tiny bit of the sauce on the noodles, but I really liked the fruitiness that came through in the sauce as well.

Recipe for Week of Sept. 30th

Rib-Eye Steak with Onion-Blue Cheese Sauce   204

Twice-Baked New Potatoes   212

Panfried Kale   214

Jacki and Nika’s Honey Plum Soy Chicken

Nika and family are visiting and we made this for dinner today.  I have to admit I wasn’t a fan but I did make some changes so it might be my fault.  I didn’t use the red wine – substituted apple juice and about a tablespoon of red wine vinegar.  The store I went to didn’t have plum preserves so I substituted with cherry preserves.  I used all of the soy sauce called for so maybe just using half like Dana did would be better.  We used boneless skinless chicken breasts instead of thighs.  I marinated the chicken over night and then browned it in the pan as directed.  I added the sauce and brought to a boil then put it all in the crockpot and cooked it on low for a few hours.  Served it over steamed rice with steamed green beans.  I was ok but not something I would make again – but, it might be any of my substitutions – apple juice, cherry preserves etc.  Not sure what I did wrong.  I see Dana really liked it so I am looking forward to reading other reviews of it.

 

Rutter Trio Kitchen ~ Honey-Plum-Soy Chicken

I found these noodles and thought they would go perfect with this recipe. I followed the recipe except for the cooking part. I had 2 whole chicken breasts, bone in, in my freezer. I didn't want to wait for them to thaw, so I decided to crock-pot cook. I marinated according to the recipe, except for about 5 hours instead of an hour.

With Johnny, I can only do a little at a time. Then he wants to play. So when I had another second, I took the chicken out of the marinade and placed in into my crock with a couple Tablespoons of olive oil. I didn't sear the chicken as required in the recipe. I just added it to the crock, followed the recipe and put my crock on High. Cooked for about 6 hours, until the chicken was falling off the bone. Mmmmmm Mmmmmm, It was AMAZIN'!!!!!!!

The only thing I changed in the recipe was adding 10oz of soy instead of 20oz. I thought 20 would have been WAY too much, and it would have been in my opinion.

Brandon and I really enjoyed the meat and I will definitely make the recipe again.