Leslee’s Cooking

I realized I have quite a few recipes to post about!

The Italian Chicken and Veggie skewers were delicious and easy to make. I just used bottle salad dressing which was even easier! When I was making the potatoes I was worried they would be way too mustardy but I thought they turned out very tasty.  Most of them I couldn’t taste the mustard.

When I made the Chili-Lime Steak I mad the salad that went along with it.  I think I might have switched around a few of the salad ingredients but kept the steak the same.  The store I went to didn’t have any flank steak out so I just used some other flattish steak and that grilled up quickly and tasted good!

I also made the Beef Stroganoff a few weeks ago but didn’t take a picture.  We thought it was good, but it tasted better before I added the sour cream.  I think overall I just made it too thick and then the sour cream thickened it up more. 

We also tried out the Mango Sorbet in our ice cream maker (same one my mom mentioned). I made it before Nika posted about not using sugar, and I used all the sugar without thinking.  My mangos were nice and rip and all that added sugar made it very sweet, but very good! I think you could definitely cut back on or eliminate the sugar!

I still have a few more dessert recipes to catch up on but some far everything has been very tasty! 

Recipes for Week of May 27th

Let's have a BBQ this week! 
 Southwest Burgers   p 133
Oven Baked Steak Fries and Fry Sauce   p182
Strawberries and Cream Pudding Pops    p 243

Jacki’s Chili-Lime Steak and Pecan Bars

We had the Chili-Lime Steak tonight for dinner and it was really good.  I used a Flat Iron Steak and cooked it under the broiler because our little portable gas grill is pretty weak.  It cooked up nicely, was tender and had a good flavor.   I used the Chipotle Chili powder instead of Cayenne pepper.  Other than that I followed the directions.  The Steak salad sounded really good but we just had ours with baked potato, corn on the cob and watermelon.  I made the Pecan Bars a couple of days ago.  I cut the recipe in half and cooked it in a 8 x 8 inch Pyrex baking dish so the bars were a little thin.  I added a little more pecans than called for and I think next time I would add even more.  I didn’t make the glaze because I made the carrot cake again the other day and I still had the cream cheese frosting left from that so I frosted some of the bars with that and left some without as my husband prefers the unfrosted.  We both thought they were good. 
Two good recipes I thought. 

Kim's catch up

Even though I don't get around to posting as much as I want to, I am still making the recipes!  I made the yummy cake for my son's birthday and we all loved it!  It was relatively easy to make and we enjoyed it for days.

 I made the rosemary potatoes last night but forgot to take a picture of them.  I actually wasn't crazy about them.  I can't really figure out why I didn't love them, but I didn't.  My husband said they were good, but the kids had a really hard time eating them.  

I made the stramboli a few nights ago.  I liked it.  It was easy to make.  I used the pre-made dough and that made it even easier.  The whole family ate it and liked it.  It tasted really yummy dipped in alfredo.  My husband thought that there was too much chicken in it, but I didn't agree.  He also thought the chicken could have been salted a little more, that I agree on.

I made the panzanella about a week ago or so.  We really liked it!  I made it exactly how it was in the book but I added small cut up pieces of grilled chicken to it.  The chicken was really yummy when all the dressing covered it.  We thought that recipe tasted fresh and delicious.

More to come soon.

Recipe picks for May 20th

Let's try Chili-Lime Steak pg. 124 and Pecan Bars pg. 215. I plan on making the Chili-Lime Steak Salad with the meat.  There's several more recipes when you do that,  so I will leave that up to all of you what you want to do :)

Jacki’s Skewers, Roasted Potatoes, and Sorbet

I finally completed all three recipes for this week.  I ended up making them each on a different night due to various reasons but they would have made a really good meal together.  I made the Italian Chicken and Vegetable Skewers first.  I used the Italian Dressing in the book and it had a really good flavor – good for both a marinade and a salad dressing.  I followed the Skewer recipe as directed except I used a green bell pepper instead of the yellow, red, or orange.  I ended up with more vegetables than chicken so I just made some all veggie skewers as well.  I ended up cooking the skewers under the oven broiler and that worked out well.  It all tasted really good.  I have never marinated the vegetables for Skewers before but I really liked them this way.  The next night I made the Roasted Garlic-Rosemary Potatoes.  I followed the recipe as directed with the exception of only using a tsp of dried Rosemary after reading Nika’s review and I thought it was just right.  I had to bake the potatoes for longer than the recipe called for.  I really liked this recipe as well.  Tonight my mangoes were finally ripe enough to make the Mango-Pineapple Sorbet and it was absolutely delicious!  If any of you are looking for a really fun little ice cream maker Costo has a Cuisinart one on sale in their current coupon book.  It makes 1.5 quarts and does a terrific job.  After reading Nika’s review I only added 1/4 cup of sugar instead of 3/4 cup and it still tasted plenty sweet.  My mangoes could have been just a touch riper but the sorbet was excellent.   I would make all three recipes again. 

Italian Chicken Vegetable Skewers

Roasted Garlic-Rosemary Potatoes

Mango-Pineapple Sorbet

Sorbet, Chicken and a Few Others

To start with dessert first, I love this sorbet.  I made it a few weeks ago and really liked it then, but I followed the recipe and I thought that it didn’t really need as much sugar as it called for so I decided to try it again without adding any.  Sterling made the second batch and was skeptical about not adding the sugar but he followed my instructions and it is really good!  The mangos we used were pretty ripe so they were naturally sweet, plus the pineapple in juice is very sweet. 

I love this stuff and that it is a bit of a healthier alternative to ice cream. 

Last night we had several items from the cookbook.

Here are the potatoes.  I honestly felt like the rosemary kind of ruined them.  I used dry rosemary so I cut the amount way down.  Maybe I am just not a rosemary fan.  The flavor was way too to strong and we couldn’t taste any of the other flavors.  It was just the kids and I and we ended up getting out the ketchup which really helped.  I would just leave the rosemary out next time.

For the chicken skewers, I used the italian dressing recipe in the cookbook and marinated the chicken and veggies in that.  It is a good salad dressing recipe but I did leave out quite a bit of the sugar and oil.  The whole chicken skewer idea isn’t the most original  but it is a good idea for a dinner if you are having trouble thinking of things.   The man of the house was out and my chicken grilling skills have yet to be perfected so its not exactly a perfect presentation but we all enjoyed it and the kids liked their “meat sticks”.  We also grilled some artichokes for the second time.  I fixed two since Max and I usually each like one and the others don’t care for them, but this time Isabelle and Sam also ate quite a bit.  I love artichokes but have always just steamed them so this is a fun and fancy way to fix them.

Recipes Week of 5-13

This week I think we will choose:

Italian Chicken and Vegetable Skewers- page 116

Roasted Garlic-Rosemary Potatoes- page 181

Mango-Pineapple Sorbet- page 245

I don’t think these have been chosen yet.  Let me know.

Jacki’s Beef Stroganoff and Rocky Road Ice Cream

We had the Stroganoff last night for dinner and I thought it had a really good flavor.  I followed the recipe as written but ended up adding a little hot water at the end because it was a little too thick but it was still really tasty.  I served it over thick, homemade-type noodles – Yum.   I served it with sauteed Swiss chard.
The Rocky Road Ice Cream was absolutely divine!  (and I ate too much of it) I made it as directed in the recipe but I didn’t have mini marshmallows so I cut up some regular ones like Nika did.  I would recommend using the mini ones or the hot cocoa ones as Nika mentioned because cutting a big one is just a big, sticky mess.  But, they mixed in ok and didn’t seem to get too hard.  This is the best Rocky Road Ice Cream I have ever had.   I can try all of these fun ice cream recipes now because Nika and family gave us a little Cuisinart Ice Cream maker for our birthdays.  It works great and is a lot of fun to play with. 

Jacki’s Baked Ham and Egg Cups

We had these for dinner tonight and they were delicious!  I cut the recipe in half and followed the directions as written.  I used crumbled bacon where it asked for diced ham or bacon.  My ham slices were a little big  so I just made a little fold in the middle of it and they fit fine – I think Tarin mentioned she had the same problem.   They cooked up nicely in about 19 minutes and were very tasty!  I thought they had a nice presentation as well. 

Rocky Road Ice Cream- Nika

This afternoon, to prepare for our family night treat we make the rocky road ice cream.  I used our little cuisinart ice cream freezer, but only used one cup of cream and the rest whole milk (in place of the two cups of cream and 3/4 cups of skim).  My husband is the master ice cream maker around here and that is what he does and it has a great flavor and texture still.  At the end I stirred in some chopped up jumbo marshmallows, because I didn’t have any of the little guys. They immediately froze and became crispy.  I don’t know if minis would have done that.  I have seen the little cans of tiny ones that you can shake into your hot chocolate at the store and I think they would be a good size.   Anyway,  not sure what to do about the marshmallow problem, but its not terrible and the ice cream has a delicious flavor.  The kids and I topped ours with the toasted pecans since Sterling doesn’t generally care for nuts and Sam can’t really chew them very good yet.   Overall this is a very tasty recipe and I would definitely make it again.  I liked that you didn’t have to cook it and just had to mix the ingredients together. 

 

New Recipe for Week of May 6th

Hello Ladies,  for this next week I have chosen the Beef Stroganoff on pg 120 and the Rocky Road Ice Cream on pg 249.   Hope you all get a chance to try these recipes out. 

Jacki’s Chocolate Mousse Crunch Cake

This cake was a big hit at our house.  I made it when Tommy was here visiting so I would not end up eating it all:)  He did a good job on it and my husband who does not normally care much for cake loved it.  It was straight forward and easy enough to make and the final result was rather impressive. 

Tarin's Ham and Egg Cups

Let me start out by saying that these might be the best things ever. I made them for the Easter party that I had mentioned before and they were great. I did one batch and it made 2 dozen and enough for scrambled eggs after. I did alter the recipe because I wasn't sure if the 2 year old would like all the spinich and veggies she put in. So I substitued in parsley and I added paprika as a seasoning. Really good. I had about 5 left over and just reheated them for quick snacks for the next 2 days. I had to slice about 1/4 of the ham off so they would fit better, and I never quite figured out how she got them to look so perfect, but taste wise they were great. We'll definitely make them again!