I find that after coming home from a long day at work thinking of what to make for dinner isn’t always the easiest thing. Every week I go grocery shopping, normally on Sundays, and once I unpack the groceries I write out the menu for the week. This weeks menu:
Sunday – Spicy Grilled Chicken Salads
Monday – Enchiladas with fresh guacamole, Refried beans, and Corn
Tuesday – Coconut shrimp over brown fried rice with fresh broccoli
Wednesday – Cheesesteak sandwiches, french fries, and corn on the cob
Thursday – Beer chicken, mashed potatoes, veggies, and ranch beans
Friday – Homemade Pizza
Saturday – Lamb, pitas and hummus with Greek Salads
I have found that my boys really like having the menu done as well, they like to know what’s for dinner. Remember that dinner doesn’t have to be complex, all of my recipes are rather simple.
This is a quick way to make a nice piece of fish.
Salmon
Pesto sauce
Tomato
Onion
Salt & Pepper
Spread pesto sauce on salmon and add slices of tomato and onion. Sprinkle some salt and pepper and you are good to go!
You can either grill this or broil it, I normally grill it. Depending on the thickness of the fillet will dictate the cooking time. Wrap in tinfoil and cook until fork cuts through it easily and the fish is flaky.
This was fun to make for the first time and it turned out great. The fresh ingredients created such a vibrant smell. Simply wonderful.
2 cups fresh basil leaves
1/4 c flax seed
4-5 garlic cloves
1 small hot pepper diced
1/2 c virgin olive oil
1/2 c. Parmesan cheese
Salt & Pepper
Put in blender or food processor and blend until its mixed together well.
This is three layers of heaven.
Ricotta cheese mixture (see below)
Box of lasagna (I use the Barilla no-cook lasagna)
Sauce
Mozzarella cheese
Parmesan cheese
Cheese mixture:
1 15 oz. container low fat ricotta cheese
2 c mozzarella cheese
1/2 c Parmesan cheese
1 eggs
1 tbsp. parsley flakes
Mix together well.
In a 9 x 13 glass pan, spray the bottom lightly and then add a thin layer of sauce on the bottom. Take lasagna piece and spread the cheese mixture on top and lay on the sauce, do this three time to make the bottom layer. Pour sauce on top of the cheese mixture on each layer. Then start the second layer and spread the cheese mixture on top and place on top of sauce of the first layer. Once all three are covered add sauce to each piece of the second layer. Then create a third cheese layer and lay on top of second. This time you will want to use more sauce and cover the entire top of the lasagna. Spread two cups of mozzarella cheese and 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese on top.
Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. If cheese begins to brown too quickly, add tinfoil to the top and continue baking.
This was my first time making this and I have to say it turned out wonderfully.
First you want to get a pork shoulder loin.
Lightly salt and pepper the pork. Put in tinfoil on Medium Indirect heat for 3-4 hours.
After grilling in foil for 20 minutes, add the sauce.
Sauce:
1 cup vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp. sugar
Tabasco Sauce
Diced hot peppers
Salt & Pepper
Whisk and mix together well, pour over the porn, the tinfoil will hold it all. Cook until internal temperature reaches 185 degrees. You can pull the pork with your hands or two forks.
Add BBQ sauce to pork and put on a fresh roll and you have one heck of a sandwich.
Tonight I made Pizza Sauce I and I added a few things and this turned out to be the best pizza sauce I’ve ever made. My husband claims the best he’s ever had and that’s huge. This makes a couple of servings, so use what you need and store the rest.
4 tbsp. olive oil
Several cloves of minced garlic (I use about six or seven)
1/2 c. diced onion
Several fresh peppers diced
1 12 oz. can of tomato sauce
2 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. parsley
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
4 tbsp. tomato paste
1 tsp. Italian vinegar
In saucepan, saute garlic, peppers, and onion until tender. Add tomato sauce and then stir in seasonings. I find using a whisk lightly works the best to ensure everything is stirred in completely.
My kids have found the joy in Egg Salad Sandwiches and I have found the joy in them as well because of their cost and how filling they are! 18 large eggs cost me $1.49 at the grocery store yesterday, that’s a lot of salad.
Hard boiled eggs
Celery
Onions
Salt & Pepper
Mayo
Peel the eggs and cut into pieces, add in celery, onions, salt and pepper and mayo to taste.
It’s simple and delicious. Your kids love them and you know you do too!
3 tbsp. butter
10 oz. package (or 4 cups) of marshmallows
6 cups Crisped Rice (yes, use the generic!)
Melt butter and marshmallows in large pot, once it begins to bubble stir in crisped rice. Poor into 9×13″ greased pan. You may want to grease your hands up a little bit to pat down and even out the treats in the pan. Let harden a little bit and cover. To ensure freshness, you may want to cut them up and place them in a sealed tupperware container.
These are great for lunches. A pan this size will make around 9-12 good sized squares.
With the boys back in school I’m reminded of the groove I need to get myself back into. I find that little things can really help out when you have two kids and time is of the essence. I have to have Caleb at school by the first bell which is 749a, and I don’t take them to school around us, it’s about 20-25 minutes away depending on traffic. So we can’t leave any later than 730a and usually try to make it out by 715a … oh and I’m not a person who really likes to wake up early. So the things I can prepare ahead of time helps prevents rushing around like mad men in the morning.
This week I will go through recipes and tips that are great for children and parents. It’s also about healthy (okay, maybe healthier) eating too. I really want people to realize that food prepared at home with fresh ingredients is not only healthier for your family but cheaper too. Yes, cheaper, much cheaper. So stayed tuned to the blog this week, each and every day and learn how to make foods at home that much easier.
Tip #1:
We send our boys to school with their lunches four out of the five days, they are allowed to buy once a week. Everyday their lunch consists of: Sandwich, some type of chip/pretzel, fruit, drink and sometimes small treat. This tip is for the chips!
Spend 10 minutes one night pre-packaging chips and pretzels for your kids lunches. I find this is great to do when the chip bags are almost gone and helps clean out the pantry of half empty bags. Either use fold sandwich bags, or what I find the best to be is the Ziploc (or generic form of) snack bags. Do up a mixture of bags, zip up and then put them all in a plastic grocery bag. Then when you are making lunches you can just go grab the chip bag and no fuss. It sounds like something so small but you would really be amazed and how much it helps.
This is all done based on how many servings you need. This pasta salad stores very well in the fridge, so having extra isn’t a bad thing. If you need it for a group of people, I would suggest using an entire box of noodles, if it’s just for your family I’d use a couple of cups.
When I get the meats and cheese for this salad, I go to the deli and just ask for an inch thick slab. This allows you to cut it up into cubes rather than slices.
Ingredients:
Macaroni – I use bowtie
Salami
Pepperoni
Mozzarella cheese
Carrots
Green bell pepper
Onion
Italian dressing
Cook the noodles and run cold water over them. You want to be sure your noodles are cool enough for when you add the cheese and such you don’t want it to melt. Once noodles are cool, add the rest of the ingredients and slowly add the Italian dressing. I suggest adding it slowly because if you add too much it can ruin it, so add some, stir, add more, stir, and so on. It’s so simple…
Viola!
Put in desired eggs into pan and add cold water to be 1 inch above eggs. Bring water to boil and once to a boil remove from heat. Cover and let sit for exactly 17 minutes. Once time is up, transfer eggs into bowl of ice water. Keep in there for two minutes, while the eggs are chilling bring water back to a boil. After two minutes, transfer back to boiling water for 10 seconds. Transfer back to ice water and let sit for 15-20 minutes.
Chilled eggs are much easier to peel, so make sure they are completely cooled.
The perfect hard boiled egg has a tender white, and a yolk properly set. there is not the faintest darkening of yolk where the white encircles it (a chemical reaction caused by too much heat in the cooking process). Eggs cooked this way can also be peeled neatly.
This is why we AREN’T chefs! I’m not even sure of the recipe, but needless to say it didn’t work out. Enjoy the pics below. : )
They didn’t turn out great, edible though.
Pizza Crust
Pizza Sauce I or II
Mozzarella cheese
Parmesan cheese
Onion, diced
Green bell pepper, diced
Mushrooms, sliced
Jalapenos, sliced
Minced garlic
Chopped olives
1 Italian sausage link
Pepperoni
First you want to prep the pizza dough. I tend to have several pizza doughs stored in my freezer for that just in case time. Prep whichever pizza sauce you want to use as well. I find that making one batch of the pizza sauce makes about three pizzas worth. So don’t hesitate to store it in the fridge and use at a later time.
While making the sauce, do that multi-tasking thing people talk about, and take the sausage and poke fork holes in it. Place it in water on the stove, heat can be medium-high. This will just help cook the sausage and drain the grease out of it. You can put the raw sausage directly on the pizza and it will cook, however it creates a grease that runs off and can make the crust soggy, so I suggest pre-cooking it. The sausage does not need to be all the way cooked through, once you remove it from heat, remove the casing and using your hands break up the sausage into pieces.
Turn your over on to 425 degrees and have the pizza stone in the oven while it’s warming up. Roll your pizza dough out, once you are done pull out the pizza stone and rub some oil on it. Place the crust on the stone and spread out pizza sauce. Add minced garlic and then the cheese. Put the rest on in this order: Pepperoni, Mushroom, Italian Sausage, Onion and Green pepper, Jalapenos and then the Olives. Sprinkle some Italian Seasoning and slide into the oven for about 15 minutes or until cheese is bubbly.
These are super yummy …
4 slices of cooked bacon cut into small pieces
1 large can of Bush’s Baked Beans
1 regular size can of black beans
1/2 green bell pepper chopped
1/2 onion chopped
1/3 c packed brown sugar
3 garlic cloves minced
Hot peppers of your choice (I do a mixture of cayenne, jalapeno, and red hot cherry peppers)
Ketchup
Spicy mustard
Salt & Pepper
1/2 cup BBQ Sauce
Mix together in iron skillet and place on grill on INDIRECT heat for about an hour. After thickened and bubbly, remove and let sit 10-15 minutes. Mix together and yummy! This is perfectly fine to store for leftovers … tastes just as good reheated.
Bacon Burger Patties
Sauted onions and Jalapenos
Onion rings
BBQ sauce
Pepper jack cheese
**Start heating up oil for onion rings**
Grill bacon burgers on grill. If you don’t precook the ground bacon at all, the burgers cannot be medium rare because the bacon needs to cook all the way through.
Cut up onions and peppers and place into a piece of tinfoil. Sprinkle some virgin olive oil over the top, close up and place onto grill next to burgers. The grill will slowly cook the veggies and they are so good.
Put in the onion rings to the fryer, they take about three minutes. Melt cheese on burgers and I also prefer a toasted bun. Place burger on bun once cheese is melted, add sauted onions and jalapenos, onion rings, and top with BBQ sauce. That’s it, no ketchup, mustard or relish. It’s wonderful.
<img src="http://wearentchefs.com/files/donebaconburger.jpg" alt="Western Bacon Burger"
Serve with baked beans for a complimentary side dish.
Happy Fourth of July!
This is a quick, simple way to spice up burgers and make something a little different.
1 lb. ground beef
6 slices of bacon ground up (See Meat Grinder post)
Mix together, I use my hands to make sure the ground bacon is thoroughly in the meat without any large clumps. Make patties and then grill! If you do not wish to grill them, then cut them into individual squares and put in ZIploc Bag. You can either refrigerate them if you plan to use them in the next day or so, otherwise store them in the freezer. It’s a quick thaw and when separated with wax paper, the burgers come right off.
You can use different toppings on these burgers to make them extra tasty! Add pineapple – goes great with Hawaiian themed parties, or you can my favorite Western Bacon Burgers – which I’ll post that recipe next week!
Today I’d like to talk about the meat grinder attachment that one can use on their Kitchen Aid mixer. It’s a little bit more expensive than I would have thought (and wanted) and I still bought it because I was determined to make Real Bacon Burgers (recipe to be posted next week). I bought it and came home and put it on, pretty easy. This is what it looks like when attached correctly to the mixer:
You do not place the bowl where it normally goes, it will have to bet set on your counter underneath the grinder exit to ensure that it catches all the ground up meat. Slowly turn on the mixer (where the beater normally goes will still rotate even though it has no use with the grinder) and place the meat you wish to grind up in the top of the grinder. Use the provided utensil to push the meat through.
It’s great, in this picture is ground up bacon.
No, not NYC, the Buffalo area. I’m dropping my kids off at my parents house for six weeks. They will get to have such a nice summer surrounded in green, whereas in Tucson it’s 100+.
My postings during this time will be few and far between as I’ll be enjoying the kid-free time with my husband (and I don’t really like cooking when it’s so hot!)
Enjoy the summer!
~Kristin
1 12 oz. can tomato paste
1 1/2 c. water
1 tsp. ground oregano
1/2 tsp. basil
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/8 tsp. onion powder
2 garlic cloves, minced
Mix dry ingredients and set aside.
Mix together paste with water over heat, when it bubbles add dry mix.
Simmer uncovered, 35-40 minutes.
