Balsamic Chicken Noodle Bowl

It never seems to fail, whenever I make this dish there is always someone that just can't get enough of it! 

You'll note in the recipe that Mel says she likes a higher noodle ratio.  I like more dressing, so I do one-and-a-half to double of the dressing ingredients depending on my mood.  Also, we love bell peppers, so I do 2 pepper and then of course, extra feta cheese.  This is a great recipe on a busy night because you can have everything ready to go, cook your noodles and then just assemble.  It's perfect at room temperature (it doesn't have to be "hot"), so it's great when you have people in and out (granted don't leave it out too long).  Usually when I take the leftovers for lunch I don't even heat it up!   Thanks to Mel's Kitchen Cafe...she always has great recipes!!

Chocolate Chip Berry Shortcakes

My sister made this amazing dessert recently, so I had to share!  The shortcakes were light and delicious! 

Chocolate Chip Berry Shortcakes

 

Berries:

Assorted Berries (strawberry, blueberry, black berry, raspberry, etc.)

1/4 cup sugar

 

Biscuits:

2 cups flour

3 Tablespoons sugar, divided

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon butter, melted, divided

whipped cream, optional

 

Directions

• In a small bowl, combine berries and sugar; cover and refrigerate until serving.
• In a large bowl, combine the flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, combine cream and 1/2 cup butter; stir into dry ingredients until a thick batter forms. Gently stir in chocolate chips.
• Drop by 1/3 cupfuls onto a greased baking sheet. Brush with remaining butter; sprinkle with remaining sugar. Bake at 375° for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire racks to cool.
• Cut biscuits in half horizontally. Spoon fruit onto bottom halves. Top with whipped cream if desired; replace biscuit tops. Serve immediately. Yield: 8 servings.

Recipe from Taste of Home

Another week gone

As you can see, I'm off track.  I did well keeping up the first couple of weeks and I'm just not sure where this past week has gone. 
We started out the week with Pioneer Woman's Spicy Dr. Pepper Shredded Pork.  It was a hit, especially if you got one of the peppers, then it was a HOT hit! 
Monday night we had Tuna melts.  How many of you are fans of tuna?  Well, several years ago, John and I celebrated our 10th anniversary in Maui.  One of my favorite meals was a tuna melt.  The tuna was flaked, mixed with mayo and seasonings, topped with swiss cheese and then grilled on multi-grain bread.  It was one of the best sandwiches I have ever had!  Now, some of you may say it was because of the location in which I ate the sandwich.  This may have had something to do with it, but we've been making them at home the same way since.  This week we chose to serve it on sourdough bread, nevertheless, it was fabulous!! 
For the next few days, we all had leftovers or whatever we could find in the fridge.  Last night, we decided to use the grill!  It had been a beautiful day out, so it was definitely a night for fresh grilled burgers, tots on the side!  You just can go wrong with anything on the grill!  I'm so glad that warmer weather is around the corner! 
As life will be getting a bit crazier with the kids schedules now (warmer weather = volleyball, dance, track, more volleyball and horseback) you'll notice only a few scheduled dinners a week.  We usually fill in the other nights with leftovers, sandwiches, cereal, etc. 
Here's this weeks plan:
Pizza
Balsamic Chicken Noodle Bowl
Huevos Rancheros
I'll fill you in as the week goes...  Happy Cooking!

Peach Pie

We get some amazingly delicious peaches each year and depending on my schedule and motivation, I do several things with those peaches:  eat, freeze, can, eat, frozen pie filling, eat and cook with said peaches.  Yes, it is likely that someone in the house will end up with a belly ache from too many fresh peaches, but for the most part we control it pretty good!  I decided to cook a pie, using the pie filling and thought I'd share:

Frozen Peach Pie Filling
  Courtesy of Paula Deen and the Food Network

9 lbs fresh peaches
2 tsps Fruit Fresh
3 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons quick cooking tapioca
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tsp salt

Directions:
To peel peaches, first bring a pot of water to a boil.  Using a paring knife, score the peaches with an X into the skins only.  Gently drop the peaches in the boiling water for approx. 30 sec-1min.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the peaches and place them in iced water for a minute.  The skins should slip off easily.  If not, place them back into the boiling water for another 30 seconds.
Slice the peaches and put them in a bowl.  Sprinkle Fruit Fresh and sugar, and stir into peaches.  Stir in remaining ingredients and mix well.
Line 4 pie pans with heavy foil or freezer paper, placing a piece of plastic wrap over foil.  Put 4-5 cups filling in each pan.  Loosely fold wrapping around pie and freeze until firm.  When filling is frozen solid, remove from pans and wrap tightly.  Return to freezer until ready to use.
On pie baking day, for each pie, simply place frozen pie filling in pie shell, add 1/2 stock of butter and sprinkle with cinnamon or nutmet.  Top pie with crust, seal well and bake for 50-60 minutes in preheated 375 degree oven.

 

 

Poll Results

I was curious to see if there was a favorite meal of the day.  Here are our poll results:
Breakfast:  3
Lunch:       1
Dinner:      2
Dessert:     3

Apparently, the two things most important in life - starting your day and sweets!!! What's not to love about that!! 
So how many of you have breakfast for dinner?  I can tell you we don't do that as often as I wish, but it's definitely one of my favorites!  I do find it interesting that on the days I don't eat a good breakfast, I find I am more apt to snack and eat crap not so healthy choices the rest of the day.  With that in mind, here's an idea, to help make planning easier, choose themes.  Let me give you an example:
Monday - Italian
Tuesday - Mexican
Wed - Breakfast

You could even just come up with several theme night, assign meal ideas to those themes, then sit down and I bet you could plan an entire month of meals!  Your theme nights could change with the seasons too, like grilling, soup, salads, etc. 

Monte Cristo

The Monte Cristo Sandwich, according to Wikipedia:
A Monte Cristo is a fried ham and cheese sandwich, a variation of the French croque-monsieur. In the 1930s–1960s, American cookbooks had recipes for this sandwich, which was invented by John Logue of Roanoke, Texas, under such names as French Sandwich, Toasted Ham Sandwich, and French Toasted Cheese Sandwich. Emmental or Gruyère cheese is typically used.
In my opinion, the best Monte Cristo sandwich you'll ever eat is served at the Cafe Orleans in Disneyland, according to their menu:
Monte Cristo Sandwich
The specialty of the house is, without a doubt, the Monte Cristo sandwich. Adapted from the French classic sandwich, croque-monsieur, the Monte Cristo sandwich appeared in California restaurants in the 1950s. Featured at Disneyland Park eateries since 1966, it has since become a coffee shop standard nationwide.
It could just be that anything in Disneyland taste better because, after all, you are in the "Happiest Place on Earth!"  or it could be that it's just an AMAZING sandwich.  They batter the entire sandwich then fry it...how can you go wrong with that?? 
Sadly, my homemade version is not quite so exciting, but it's still very tasty! We start with sourdough bread, white bread can be used, but we've found we prefer the sourdough.  Next, layer on some deli sliced ham (usually Black Forest Ham) and some sliced swiss cheese.  Mix together a couple of eggs and some milk.  Dip the bread sides of the sandwich into the egg mix and then place on the grill.  Grill both sides 3-4 minutes until golden brown then put on a plate and sprinkle with powdered sugar.  We then dip our sandwich into raspberry or strawberry jam.  Delish!!

 

Weekly Meal Plan 3/3/13

Another week gone... Is it just me or is this year flying by???  I can't even stand it!  Now that we are 3 weeks into this, I'm wondering what everyone is thinking.  Are my recipe ideas helpful??  Am I just annoying you?? Just kidding...  Hopefully I'm helping to spice things up in your kitchen!

What's on the menu this week:
Sunday - PW Ranch Style Chicken w/Rudy's Creamed Corn
Monday - Monte Cristo Sandwiches
Tuesday - leftover night
Wednesday - Sausage links with couscous
Thursday - leftovers/cereal/sandwiches - anything goes!
Friday - spaghetti w/Grandma
Saturday - Out!

I'm sure you've noticed that my posts during the week don't always follow the initial plan.  The nice thing is there is a plan of sorts, so it can change a little.  Last week, I forgot to put the pork ribs in the crock pot, so that definitely changed up our dinner plans on Monday.  That's okay though--we just moved Tuesday (sloppy joes) up and Monday back a day.  Life happens!  If that's one of the things I can help convey, I'll feel accomplished!  Sometimes you just have to kind-of go with the flow!  :) 

Since we are enjoying Pioneer Woman's Ranch Style Chicken, I thought I'd fill you in on the recipe, which can be located here.  The chicken needs to marinate in this recipe, so I put it in the marinade about 4 hours before dinner.  If I was making this on a weeknight, I'd put it in the marinade in the morning or the night before just depending on our schedule.  I've already cooked the bacon and shredded the cheese, so now all that I really have to do is grill the chicken. 

Rudy's Cream Style Corn...explanation:  Rudy's is one of our favorite BBQ places in San Antonio.  They have the most amazing cream corn!  My sis-in-law gave me this recipe... I think she said she found it in the newspaper. 
2 cans creamed corn
1 reg size bag frozen corn (12-16oz.)
1/3 cup sugar
1 stick butter
1 pkg cream cheese
Place everything in the slow cooker and heat on low for about 4 hours.  Double recipe for a crowd!  It's a definite must at the Crow Family get togethers!!  Thanks Kathy for sharing!!

Slow Cooker Picadillo

After a long day of cheering on Adrianna's volleyball team, it was so nice to come home to a cooked dinner.  I had prepped the entire crock pot meal the night before.  John threw some rice on just before we got home and we were set for dinner!  The recipe is from a fabulous website, Skinny Taste!  Here's a link directly to the recipe, but I do highly recommend checking out this site.  Gina makes healthy, tasty food of all sorts!  This particular recipe is a Cuban dish.  She actually has a regular recipe or the slow clooker version.  The Picadillo was a hit!  Everyone said it's definitely a repeat recipe...  It had great flavors, smoky cumin, tangy olives and warmth.

Hawaiian Crepes

The sun has been out and shining. It's still pretty darn cold out, but it's given me hope that spring might possibly be around the corner!!  I know that I am more than tired of the cold weather, so that sunlight is going to motivate me to hold on for the warmer weather!  It seemed fitting that we have Hawaiian Crepes for dinner, which also makes me think of warm sunshine and sandy beaches.  I've never made this recipe before, so it's not like I have an attachment to the recipe and Hawaii or anything - it's just what they are called.  Here's the recipe:

Hawaiian Crepes
Makes: 4 large crepes or 8 smaller crepes

Crepe Batter:
1 cup flour
2 large eggs
2 Tbsp melted butter
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup low-fat milk
1/2 cup water
Crepe Filling:
1/2 Tbsp butter, plus more for cooking crepes
4 oz. deli ham, cut into strips
2 cups dices pineapple
1 jalapeno pepper, minced
1 cup low-fat ricotta cheese
Salt/Pepper to taste

To make batter:  Combine the flour, eggs, melted butter and salt in a large mixing bowl.  Gradually add the milk, then the water, whisking to prevent any lumps.
To make filling:  Heat the butter in a medium nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Add the ham, pineapple and jalapeno and cook for 4-5 minutes, until the ham is lightly browned on the edges and the pineapple is softened.  Remove from the heat, stir in the ricotta and season with salt and pepper.
Heat a 12" nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Add enough butter to coat then pour in about 2 tablespoons of the crepe batter, swirling and tilting the pan so that the batter covers the entire surface with a thin film.  Cook on the first side for 1-2 minutes, until the bottom takes on a deep brown color.  Flip the crepe and spoon in some of the ricotta-ham mixture.  Cook for 1-2 minutes, until brown and crisp on the bottom.  Fold the crepe over the stuffing and slide onto a plate.
Repeat.

370 calories, 18 g fat, 390 mg sodium
Recipe from - Cook This Not That: Easy & Awesome 350-Calorie Meals

If using for dessert crepes, add 2 tablespoons of sugar to the batter.

 

Side note:  The girls used the leftover raspberry pudding dessert (previous post) to fill the extra crepes.  It looked pretty tasty!