Leslee’s Recipes

Once again I have a few recipes to post about.  I made the southwest hamburgers last weekend.  They weren’t quite as time consuming as I thought when I first looked at the recipe but not your average burger.  Overall they were very spicy and flavorful! Sean liked them much more than me but they were fun to try.  We ate them with the oven fries and fry sauce.  I have never made the fry sauce with relish but it was good! Also I cooked the sliced potatoes in the microwave for several minutes to really decrease the oven time. 

I have made the sweet and sour meatballs several times in the past.  I used the pineapple juice option before put this time I just used water and I think I prefered it that way.  The meatballs are nice and easy to make and we all loved this dinner!

The rocky road ice cream was very good! I bought the little marshmallows in a jar that can be used for a topping.  I didn’t realize they were already hard but they tasted good in the ice cream.

I think I really messed up on the strawberry pudding pops now that I look back at the recipe.  I mixed them up a few days ago and the kids tried them today.  They weren’t very sweet but I now realized I added the wrong amount of pudding mix.  Maybe we will have to try them again.  I will be sure to make the banana pudding pops the correct way:)

New Recipes

Hi ladies,

I am trading places with Sarah since she is in the middle of moving this week.  For the recipes this week I have picked:

Sweet and Sour Meatballs- pg 126- my kids love meatballs and the recipe says it is one of their husband's favorites.

Peanut Butter Banana Pudding Pops- pg 243- I just happen to have exactly one ripe banana!  And they sound pretty healthy and like a fun activity for my kids to help with.

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!

recipe!

**I'm back and finally around a real computer so I could edit this post! Sorry again!

So I'm really late in posting this, but I'm currently sitting in a restaurant at Epcot and realized I never posted the recipe for the week. We'll do the baked ham and egg cup. I did this for a playgroup Easter party and they were a huge hit. I did have to slice the ham down but other than that it was amazing! And just as good reheated. I'll post pics when I get back! Also I apologize for the bad spelling. I'm on my phone and blogger's being crazy!

Leslee’s Panzanella and “Cake”

The idea of the panzanella was new to me but all the ingredients sounded good so we gave it a go.  Sean told me he probably wouldn’t eat it if the bread was soggy so I toasted it and didn’t add it in until right before serving.  I thought it was good and made a nice summery side dish. 

Instead of making a big cake I decided to do cupcake versions.  I made Devil’s Food Cupcakes, sliced them in half, and assembled them like the cake.  I was sure I had all the ingredients for the mousse but ended up not so I made a thick chocolate pudding as a substitute. They were really yummy but definitely rich! It will be fun to try the cake sometime when we have a good reason:)

Jacki’s Panzanella

I made this recipe last night to go along with our dinner and I really enjoyed it – something different.  I cut the recipe in half and it made plenty.  The only thing I omitted was the basil – didn’t want to buy it.  It was easy enough to make and the vinaigrette added a really good flavor.  I had some of the leftovers for lunch today and the croutons were actually still a little crunchy.  I have not had a chance to make the yummy sounding/looking Mousse Cake yet but I hope to soon.

Rosemary Pork Tenderloin and Poppy Seed Dressing

 

Tonight for dinner we had the rosemary pork tenderloin.  I followed the directions and put it in the spices to marinate in the morning.  It was very tasty and tender.  The only thing different from the recipe was that it cooked for almost an hour before it got to 160 degrees, but it was also about 2 1/2 pounds instead of just 1 so that is probably why.  Meat always seems to take much longer to cook for me than the recipes say. 

I also made the poppy seed dressing on Sunday.  I followed the directions since I was making it for company, but I would definitely add less sugar next time, like other have suggested.  It is really good and I have been enjoying it on my salads. 

Chicken and Cake

 

Last night we made the teriyaki chicken skewers.  We also grilled up some veggies to go with them.  I put them on separate skewers since the chicken needed more time on the grill.  I ended up making two batches of the sauce so that we could have plenty for both the chicken and the veggies.  Sterling grilled them up to perfection.  We loved it and will definitely be using this marinade again.  It even made the veggies go down nice and easy!  For both the veggies and chicken he basted them with extra sauce half way through.   I think that half a piece of bacon would be plenty for each chicken piece.

Ready for the grill

The skewers were too long to soak before hand so we just let them get nice and crispy. 

The chocolate mousse crunch cake was what I had for my birthday cake on Sunday!  Perfect timing.    We have made it several times before and its such a tasty treat that everyone loves.  The mousse and ganache make it so fancy and extra tasty.   This time Sterling made it for me,  and on top of that with two little helpers.   So tasty and impressive.  He followed the recipe exactly, including the same brand of cake mix they recommend.  Yum!

 

 

New recipe

Hi everyone! I picked a couple of recipes. I'm excited to try them. The first is Panzanella on page 78. I have never had this or even heard of it, so I am excited to try something completely new! Also, it is my son's 5th birthday this week and he was looking through the recipe book and saw the cake on page 236 and said "Mom PLEASE PLEASE make this for my birthday". So, I hope you all have an excuse to make that cake that looks so amazingly delicious... (who needs an excuse, right?!)

Audrey & Dana's Stromboli's & Brownies

Well, we went the easy way with some of the ingredients.  We used store bought pizza crust, shredded mozzarella cheese & a rotisserie chicken.  We followed the recipe except as mentioned about the cheese & chicken.  Like Jacki, we couldn't find in the directions when to use the mozzarella, so we just added it to the inside ingredients, which worked great.  I made the Spinach-chicken Stromboli, Dana made a Spinach-Chicken & Pepperoni Stromboli & then we also made a Chicken & Pepperoni Stromboli.  We did use the cheese & tomatoes in all of them.  We really liked all the flavors.  We really feel that using the rotisserie chicken gave it great flavor, since it also had the dark meat with it and had been cooked with the skin on ;)  I had already made that pizza sauce before & didn't like it too much, so I used another one that I have & it tasted great! 

We also decided to make the Mint Brownies, since we hadn't made them earlier.  We each made a batch of the brownies & since I forgot to get the mint flavoring, we picked the flavors that we wanted from what I had.  Dana split her brownie cake in half & used banana flavoring on one half & coconut on the other.  I just used vanilla, as Brock wasn't too crazy about trying any of the other flavors;) For the chocolate glaze, Dana used the dark chocolate & I used the semi-sweet.  Very good brownies!!  Good flavors...

I think that we will both fix these recipes again ;)

Audrey's Teriyaki Sauce & Bacon-Wrapped Chicken Skewers

Here is the Teriyaki Sauce.  Very simple to make & very tasty.  I think that I actually simmered it too long, as the flavors were strong, but Brock & I liked it.

Next is the skewers.  I followed the recipe, but I forgot to read all the way through the recipe, so didn't allow enough time to marinate my chicken ;(  I highly recommend doing that!  We still thought that it had good flavor, but it would have been more moist & had more flavor marinating it.  Next time :)



Here is the finished product!  We really liked the recipes & I will fix them again.  Our grocery store didn't have the artichokes at the time, so I cooked asparagus instead.  I'll try the artichokes another time.

Jacki’s Spinach-Chicken Stromboli, Sauce

I made these recipes a couple of nights ago for dinner and I have to wonder if I did something wrong because I just didn’t really care for it and everything else I have tried in this cookbook has been so good.  I halved the recipe for everything – dough, garlic bread seasoning, sauce, Stromboli.   I used the breadstick dough recipe in the book pg. 30 and that turned out well.  I made the garlic bread seasoning pg 53 so I could make the pizza sauce and I thought both of those were tasty too.  For the Stromboli I omitted the chicken because it just didn’t sound good to me and I added a little more cheese instead.   We just thought the whole thing didn’t have much taste.  I think I should have added a little more cheese, and more Italian seasoning and maybe even a thin layer of the sauce on the Stromboli before layering the ingredients on.  Did anyone notice the directions didn’t mention anything about layering on the mozzarella cheese?  I would like to make this again to see if I can get the taste level acceptable because I think it could be really good.  Hope to see a few more reviews of these recipes from others. 

Bacon Wrapped Teriyaki and Stromboli

We had the Bacon Wrapped Teriyaki Chicken last week and I had to make a few adjustments.  I forgot to grab skewers at the store so I just wrapped the breasts in bacon and marinated and grilled them that way.  They marinate was much thicker than I expected but I think it worked great for chicken and it was really delicious! We also grilled the artichoke that night too.  I prepared it and steamed it quickly in the microwave (on a plate covered in saran wrap) and that seemed to do the trick.  The grilling gave it a nice flavor and both Sean and I liked it! It is always fun to try something new on the grill!

Last night we had the Stromboli and it was so yummy! I ended up using a gluten free dough which was a bit harder to work with but besides that the prep was really easy.  We left out the spinach but added in a few pepperonis and olives with the other ingredients.  For the sauce I accidentally bought tomato sauce instead of paste but made that work.  The label said it was basically tomato paste with water and some spices so I just added a few more spices that the recipe called for a long with the sugar.  It made a really good dip for the Stromboli.

Recipes for the week

Hi girls!

Sorry for the long absence from the blog. I feel like I'm just settling back into 'normal' life after having a baby, and then having a sick baby, adjusting to 3 kids, etc. But hopefully I can start contributing more to the posts!!

Anyway, for the recipes this week let's try spinach-chicken stromboli on page 160-161. I am sure you can just adapt the recipe to whatever toppings you would like in there, but I think it sounds good! It says to serve with a pasta sauce, so let's try the pizza sauce on page 155. It sounds really easy.

Jacki’s Bacon Wrapped Teriyaki Chicken Skewers

We just had these today for Sunday dinner and man were they good!  I assembled them this morning so they could marinate for several hours.  The whole process was a little lengthy so as I was making them I was quite sure they were not worth the time but I was wrong.  Definitely worth the hassle.  I had not read through the teriyaki sauce recipe so I didn’t realize it had to be cooked and cooled so that took a little extra time.  Also, wrapping the bacon around the chicken was a bit time consuming but I quickly figured out I could cut the bacon strips into fourths and then stretch them around the chicken piece and skewer through the bacon and chicken to hold the bacon on.  I used the center cut bacon and then stretching it a bit made sure it was thin enough to cook since I knew I would be baking these in the oven.    I put the skewers in a big 9x13 Pyrex dish and poured the sauce over them and rolled them around a bit to coat.  I put them in the fridge and rolled them around a couple of times more during the marinating process.   I cooked them for the 20 minutes stated then turned on the broiler to crisp things up a bit for a few minutes.  They were really good and perfectly done.  I didn’t roast the artichoke because I forgot to get one but I did have some cauliflower so I tossed that with some olive oil and salt and pepper and roasted in the oven while the skewers cooked.  

Tarin's Rosemary Pork

I loved this recipe. It was so easy and delicious. I did everything the way they said to, but I doubled the balsamic/olive oil mixture to make sure there was good coverage for the meat. I was so glad that everyone posted that it took longer to bake because it was about 45 minutes for me too. I used a meat thermometer for the first time and everyone mentioned how perfectly cooked the meat was so it was a success!

Audrey's Chicken, salad & Dressing review

These are several of the recipes from the last couple of weeks.

Here is the Spicy Honey chicken. This was from several months ago, but oh well ;)

I really liked it and thought it had great flavor. I followed the recipe, but did cook it in the oven. It required lots of spices, but I only had to get the chipotle chili powder, so that was good.
Here's the Poppy seed dressing. I followed the recipe except I added less of the sugar & oil after reading Jacki & Leslee's reviews. I only used 1/2 cup of sugar & 1/3 cup of canola oil & it tasted great! This is probably my favorite homemade dressing :)

Here is my plate for Easter dinner. I fixed the Ribs from the cookbook and the Spinach Mandarin poppy seed salad. The salad tasted great & I followed Leslee's suggestion and just let people put together their own salads from all the ingredients. I also added the strawberries along with the mandarin oranges. Really great flavors in the salad and dressing. I plan on fixing this again :)

New Recipes!!!

We have been using our grill a lot already so I chose some recipes we could cook out there (or inside). Bacon Wrapped Teriyaki Chicken Skewers (117) that uses the Teriyaki Sauce (46). Also since we will already have the grill going I thought it would be fun to try the Fire-Roasted Artichokes (190).  I am not sure when was the last time I had artichokes!

Also I updated the recipe rotation on the right side.  We will try to remind you (text or email) a few days  before that it is your turn to choose.  Let us know if you would rather skip choosing a recipe.

Jacki’s Spinach Mandarin Poppy Seed Salad and Key Lime Tarts.

I made both of these recipes last night for dinner.  The salad was really good but I didn’t have any bacon so I omitted that.  I made the Poppy Seed Dressing which was delicious but had oh, so much sugar!  I actually added a bit less sugar than was called for and it was still really good so I could probably add even less next time.   I served it as a side dish to a salmon meal.  I made the Key Lime Tarts into a pie using a store bought graham cracker crust.  It was really easy to make.  I have been wanting to try this recipe to see how it compares to the one we made out of Robin Millers cookbook (the first one we cooked from).  I have used that recipe several times.  I thought this recipe was ok but I like the Robin Miller one better.  I forgot to put food coloring in the pie so it looks more like a  lemon pie.   These were fun recipes to try. 

Poppy Seed Salad

I made this salad last night for dinner and it was really tasty.  The dressing was absolutely delicious, it does have a lot of sugar so I am not surprised! We did sort of a salad bar to assemble them and we used some shredded chicken as well.  I also added some strawberries, as I prefer those to the mandarin oranges. Very yummy! I am planning to make the dessert this weekend so I will post it then.