New Recipe's for February 26th

As always it was hard to decide... Let's fix;
Pork Tacos with Chili Verde pg. 146
Soft Flour Tortillas pg. 37
Pico De Gallo pg. 48
Guacamole pg. 50
I know that's 4 recipe's, but I threw in the tortilla recipe for those who want the challenge ;)

Audrey & Dana's Ribs & Grilled Potatoes & Onions & Cream cheese-filled Strawberries

Here's our Grilled Potatoes & Onions ready to go into the oven. We weren't able to use the outside grill, so we just cooked them in the oven, which worked great.

Here's the ribs out of the oven. I think the hardest thing about this recipe was putting the ingredients together for the cooking sauce ;) I followed the recipe & I will have to say, that I was worried about cooking them in the crockpot. They did not look too appetizing when I took them out, but as you can see, once you brown them under the broiler with the BBQ sauce, they look very good!
Here's Dana fixing the Cream Cheese-filled Strawberries. It's nice to have her back cooking with me!

And for the final product! Everything tasted great! We will be fixing these recipes again. Everyone liked them & its a nice way to cook them inside. We are partial to our son(&Dana's hubby) Brandon's smoked ribs & they are still our favorite, but these will get us by till he cooks them again for us :) Great recipe picks!

Audrey's Spinach & Feta Pasta & Sugar Cookies

Here's the pasta cooked up and the sauce part of the ingredients simmered up. I just used canned mushrooms from my food storage instead of fresh. I want to try it with the fresh mushrooms next time.

Here's the pasta added into the sauce. I had shredded Romano cheese that needed to be used, so that was instead of the feta.
Here's the final plate. I thought that it was very tasty. I will make this again and it was a nice simple quick meal :)

Cookie dough rolled out.

Sugar cookies ready to eat. I thought that they were very good! I like sugar cookies at Christmas time :) I just used my own frosting recipe.

Audrey's catch up!!

Here is the Cookie Sundae Cup. I mixed up some chocolate cookie dough & followed the recipe for baking it. Once they were cooled, we put the ice cream in & then the hot fudge sauce & regular chocolate sauce. I didn't make the caramel sauce. Brock and I really enjoyed these!

Next is the Chicken & Dumplings. I followed the recipe, but used canned chicken instead of the fresh cooked. It worked out just fine, but you want to wait to add it till a bit later, since its already cooked. Good way to use the canned chicken from your food storage! Brock and I really liked the dish, but Doug, not so much ;)
Here's the Pineapple-Ginger Flank Steak. I opted to slice it up and put it in a salad & I thought that it had a good flavor. I followed the recipe, but cooked it under the broiler, since no one wanted to grill :)

Next is the Natchitoches Meat Pies. They were kind of fun to make, as I hadn't ever made these before. I followed the recipe and it was pretty straight forward. I would say to make sure that you want to make sure that the liquid is cooked out or drain the mixture on a paper towel before putting it on the pie dough. Brock, Dana & I, thought that they were very good!

Here's the Orange Chicken with Snow Peas. As you can see I used Beef instead of Chicken, as my hubby isn't a fan of chicken. Other than that, I followed the recipe and I thought that it was very good! I know that I would like it with the chicken also :)
Here's the Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Chimichurri. I think that I actually used a pork roast instead of the tenderloin, because they had them on sale. It took much longer to cook, but still tasted good. In fact, I ended up having to put it in the oven wrapped in foil after grilling it in my grill pan. Other than that, I followed the recipe. Doug and Brock had theirs with potatoes and salad.
Here is the final product for me. I had the stir fryed rice and veggies already cooked, so I just added the pork & it really had good flavor in the dish.
Here's the Spaghetti & Meatballs. We thought this was very good, though I will cut back on the onions for me ;) I will fix this again. Very handy to have the sauce and meatballs frozen in the freezer. I really liked the pinch of soda in the sauce to help with the acidity. I will remember that for other red sauces!

Jacki’s Fluffy Orange Fruit Dip, Mint Brownies

Yesterday I made the Orange Fruit Dip and Mint Brownies and they were both delicious.  The fruit dip was very easy to put together.  I served it with pineapple, strawberries, and bananas.   I also made the other fruit dip in the book a couple of weeks ago and it is really good also.  Just don’t use Walmart brand of cream cheese – it doesn’t mix very smoothly.  With the orange fruit dip I used Whole Foods brand and it mixed up perfectly.  The brownies were pretty easy to make as well and really tasted good.  I forgot to add the green food coloring but that was fine.  I halved the recipe and cooked it in an 8x8 inch glass pyrex dish  for 25 minutes.  Next time I think I would decrease the time to 22 or 23 minutes.  I served both of these dishes to the YW leaders at a luncheon/meeting at my house and they all loved them.  I also served the BBQ chicken Cobb salad from the book and they liked that as well.  (at least they said they liked it all:)  I am planning on making the pasta salad soon and will let you know how that goes.

New Recipes

For this week let's try:

Fluffy Orange Fruit Dip on page 9
Pesto Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes-170
Mint Brownies- 218

Jacki’s Spaghetti, Meatballs, and Sheet Cake

I made all three of the recipes the other night for dinner and they were good.   I followed the recipes pretty much as directed and none of them were too difficult or time consuming – good, solid recipes.  I really liked the idea of using the cookie scoop to form the meatballs although they were not the prettiest.  I also thought cooking them under the broiler was genius – very fast and easy.  I liked the tomato sauce but I think I would try diced tomatoes next time instead of crushed.    The Texas Sheet Cake didn’t turn out so great but it was my fault.  I halved the recipe and put it in an 8X8 inch pan and it was a little too thick plus I overcooked it just a bit and then I didn’t beat the icing long enough so it wasn’t smooth plus I think I added too much powdered sugar.  I added walnuts.  It doesn’t look too appetizing but it is what it is I suppose.  I think it is a good recipe though and I am sure you did better with it than I did:)

 

Ribs and Potatoes

This ribs and potatoes were really good! This was the first time I have ever prepared ribs and it was really easy since we just had to throw them in the crockpot.  Before we ate them I broiled them in the oven for a few minutes instead of grilling.  The potatoes were tasty as well and I think I cooked them a bit longer than the recipe called for.

New Recipes!!

Lets make the Spaghetti and Meatballs on page 162 with the Italian Meatballs on page 163 this week! And in case you need a chocolatey dessert for Valentine's Day the Texas Sheet Cake pg 238. Sounds like a delicious dinner to me!

Jacki’s Baby Back Ribs, Grilled Potatoes and Onions, and Cream Cheese-Filled Strawberries.

I made all three of these recipes yesterday and they were all fantastic!  The ribs were absolutely perfect and so easy to make.  I used 2.75 lbs of ribs and followed the recipe exactly except instead of grilling them outdoors at the end for a few minutes I stuck them under the broiler on low –perfection.  They were melt-in-your-mouth delicious. I used Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce.  For the grilled potatoes and onions I again followed the recipe as directed.  I used red potatoes and sweet onions.  I sliced them in the food processor so it was fast and easy.  I cooked them in the oven but for longer than stated in the recipe because I was distracted doing something else – so not sure how long I cooked them for but they were plenty done.  The ribs and potatoes/onions went well together.  For dessert I made the strawberries and they were really good as well and easy enough to make.  I quartered the recipe and used semisweet chocolate chips for the drizzle.  Be sure and try these recipes and let us know what you think.

Recipe for Week Feb. 5th 2012

I am posting my selection for this next week a little early in case you want to make it on Sunday.  It would make a good Super Bowl meal.

Baby Back Ribs      144
Grilled Potatoes and Onions   184
Cream Cheese-Filled Strawberries

A few updates from Kim

Wow, my life has been all over the place for the last 3 months because of this little girl:


But, I have been cooking and here are a few reviews.

Last week I made the orange chicken. I forgot to take a pic of it. We thought it was good, but I agree it was a little heavy on the orange flavor. I actually liked it a lot better heated up the next day.

I made the BBQ pineapple Burgers the other day. They tasted really yummy but it wasn't anything too special. It was really simple though and will be easy to make again. It was my first time grilling burgers by myself and I was happy it turned out successful. We also made the sweet potato fries. They tasted good but they were REALLY soft. I think I might have added too much olive oil. If I try them again I will add less oil.


We made these as a family one night and they were a HUGE hit with the kids. We ate them for days and days. We even made them again a few days later.

YUM!


A few days ago I made the taco chicken soup. I forgot to take a picture of that one too. It tasted really good, but it was REALLY liquidy. If I were to make it again I would add way more chicken and less chicken broth. Other than that it was pretty good.

My favorite thing I've made in a while was the Chicken and Dumplins. I took a picture of it but I can't find it now. I am really big into textures of things, so I didn't add the biscuits to the soup to cook. I baked them and put them on everyone's plate. You could just tear your biscuit up and add it to your soup. It was DELICIOUS!!! My husband was in heaven. We will make that again for sure.

Jacki’s Cranberry-Orange Chicken Salad

I made this yesterday and thought it was tasty. The best part was I had most of the ingredients already with a few substitutions noted below.  It was easy to put together once the chicken was marinated and grilled.  For the chicken I marinated it in some of the leftover Honey-Citrus Vinaigrette and then grilled it on my stove top grill pan – yummy.  I was short on mayo so I followed Tarin’s suggestion and used half olive oil mayo and half plain Greek yogurt.  I also used Dijon mustard in place of the coarse grain mustard and walnuts in place of the pecans.  I actually preferred the salad just plain rather than on bread.  I am looking forward to the leftovers for lunch today.

Leslee's Orange Chicken

I made the Orange Chicken last week for dinner.  It wasn't too difficult to pull together and made for a pretty dish! The orange flavor was a little strong for our tastes but it tasted fresh and the veggies were a nice addition.