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Showing posts from 2009

2009 Roundup

Happy New Years Eve everyone! January 2009 Lemon Lime Pound Cake February 2009 Orange Slice Jello Shots March 2009 Potato Slabs April 2009 Soft Snickerdoodles May 2009 Chinese Chicken Salad June 2009 Coconut Pie July 2009 Pina Colada Cupcake August 2009 Anthony's Mac N Cheese September 2009 Thai Cooking Class Results October 2009 Jalapeno Popper Dip November 2009 Meatball Eyeballs December 2009 Sour Cream Crescent Rolls

Campbell's Welcome Home Party

Menu Antipasta Cheeses, meats, and olives with crackers Salad citrus vinaigrette, apples, walnuts, blue cheese My husband made the vinaigrette. I know it had fresh squeezed orange juice and a few tablespoons balsamic, tablespoon honey, a few tablespoons olive oil, add salt and pepper to taste. Sadly no photo of this salad. It was time to get the dinner rolling! Pasta mac n cheese My husband made the mac n cheese. I have typed up his recipe before but he keeps changing it up every time to make it better. This time he added some mustard for bite Sour Cream Crescent Rolls Moms sour cream crescent rolls Southern Living recipe Ingredients 8 oz Commercial sour cream 1/2 c Warm water --105 to 115f 2 pk Dry yeast Butter or margarine; melted 1/2 c Butter or margarine 1/2 c Sugar 2 Eggs; beaten 1 ts Salt 4 c All-purpose flour Preparation Place butter in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat; stir in sour cream and sugar. Cool mixture to 105 to 115F. Dissolve yeast in warm

Quick and Easy Treats?

So I have two quick and easy recipes to share for those who are looking for something to make for the holiday last minute ;) Chocolate Fudge 1 8 ounce package cream cheese 3 squares unsweetened baking chocolate 1 square semi sweet baking chocolate 1 teaspoon vanilla 4 cups powdered sugar Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth. Add the vanilla and beat. Add the melted chocolate. Pour into a square pan and stick in the fridge for several hours. Slice up your fudge and eat. This is a soft fudge recipe Peanut Butter and Peanut Butter Cup Cookies Inspired by this recipe. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Peanut-Butter-Cup-Cookies/Detail.aspx 2 packages Pillsbury simple peanut butter cookies Mini Reeces Peanut Butter Cups Christmas sprinkles Take the peanut butter cookie and rip in half. Roll each half into balls. Take the ball of cookie dough and place in a mini muffin tin, ungreased. Bake in the oven at 375 degrees for 8 minutes Take out and immediately press an unwrapped PB cu

Mongolian Beef

Thank goodness I had planned in advance for this meal. We already had our ingredients before it snowed two feet this weekend. Last night we put together Mongolian beef, with jasmine rice, vegetable egg rolls, and slaw. Anthony thought this was one of our better stir frys Mongolian Beef We used this recipe with a few slight changes Mia Cucina-Marisa We put some fresh ginger through the garlic press, had snowpeas instead of green onion, and we have this spicy pepper oil we use to stir fry instead of using peanut oil. Also we bought fajita meat that was already cut into strips. It was still flank steak, we just didn't have to cut it ourselves :) shortcut! Asian Slaw We bought some shredded cabbage and shredded carrot and pine nuts. I wanted to recreate a thai lime sauce but I was missing quite a few essential ingredients like LIME and fish sauce! An Asian sesame ginger salad dressing was what we ended up using.

The Cookie Swap

I did not have a camera at the cookie swap but the host took a few. I wanted to share how impressive the spread was! I really loved a lot of the cookies we tried this year. I wish I had more of the recipes

Christmas Rainbow Cake

I was invited to a work happy hour party at a coworkers house yesterday. I asked if I could make something and the reply was to make a cake. I didn't have a lot of time so this is a white cake mix, but I did color the batter so it was Christmasy :) Next time I would have even less white batter. I split the mix evenly into three bowls but I'd rather have more red and green batter than equal amounts.

Creme de Menthe Brownies

I went to a very large cookie swap party last weekend. There were 30 RSVPs! I tripled this recipe in order to pack 6 brownies into each container and still have extra for snacking during the party. I went to the dollar store to buy the to go containers and I bought the tags from Michaels. I printed the recipe out and cut and pasted it to the inside of the holiday labels. This is the recipe my mother uses every year Creme de Menthe Brownies 1 cup butter or margarine, softened and divided 1 cup sugar 4 eggs 1 cup all-purpose flour ½ teaspoon salt 1 (16 oz) can of Hershey’s chocolate syrup 1 tsp vanilla extract 2 cups sifted powdered sugar 3 tbsp crème de menthe 1 (6oz) pkg semisweet chocolate morsels Cream ½ cup butter; gradually add 1 cup sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition Combine flour and salt; add to the creamed mixture alternatively with chocolate syrup, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Stir in vanilla. Pour b

Top Chef Party

We invited some friends over to watch the Top Chef finale and of course we made food :) my husband wanted everyone to make a twist on childhood favorites but not everyone did that. Here is my twist on Tacos MEXICAN WONTONS Square wonton wrappers 1 can of black beans drained Shredded mexican cheese green onion, the white and green parts chopped taco seasoning garlic ground turkey sausage (I buy the links that say HOT and break them apart) Place wonton squares into mini muffin tins and bake at 350 until the edges are brown Brown the sausage with the seasoning and garlic Stir in the black beans, cheese, and chopped green onion Spoon the mixture into the baked wonton shells and put back in the oven. Remove when the cheese looks melted I serve these with salsa and sour cream on the side. Here is my twist on Chocolate Chip Cookies CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE DOUGH TRUFFLES 1/2 c sugar 1/2 c brown sugar 1 stick softened butter 1 tsp. vanilla 1 1/4 cup flour 1/2 c miniature chocolate chips 12 oz of

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Ingredients: 8 ounces Velveeta cheese  3 small heads of broccoli, cut into small pieces  1 clove of garlic, minced half a large onion or 1 small onion chopped  2 cups hot, almost boiling water  1 cube chicken boullion  handful of shredded carrots  salt  pepper  1 stick of butter  dash of hot sauce  splash of milk (if needed)  Directions: Melt your butter in a soup pot and add the onion and garlic. Sautee until soft.  Add the hot water and chicken boullion, breaking up and melting in the boullion cube. Throw in a few dashes of hot sauce, salt, and pepper to your taste.  Add in the broccoli next, and carrots, and let it soften up.   Once the broccoli is partially cooked add in the Velveeta cheese.  Add a splash of milk if soup seems too thick.  Puree a small portion of the soup with an immersion blender.  This made almost 4 bowls of soup.

Christmas Cookies

My niece spent the weekend with us and to entertain her I decided we would make and decorate sugar cookies together. I think we did a pretty good job :) DH helped when we ran out of steam too. My niece told my sister-in-law that I wore her out. I used Martha Stewart's Sugar Cookie Recipe which I have blogged before The Royal Icing recipe I used was Katie's from Good Things Catered. Her iced sugar cookies are beautiful and you should check them out!

15 Bean Soup

This recipe was from Fix-It and Forget it Lightly We had a ton of leftover ham to use up so this is what I found looking for ham and soup recipes. This was a good recipe to split into individual tupperware containers and reheating for lunches. 1 lb dry 15 bean mixture We looked at the beans in the mixture and bought the cans. 2 quarts of water 2 cups of ham, chopped We used much more ham 1 cup onions, chopped 2 cups canned low sodium diced tomatoes We probably used flavored diced tomatoes, one with garlic. 1 teaspoon chili powder 2 tablspoons lemon juice 2 cloves garlic, chopped finely 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon black pepper Hot Sauce We add hot sauce to most soups 1. Soak beans in water overnight and drain 2. Mix beans, add water, and ham in slow cooker 3. cover and cook on low 8-10 hours 4. add remaining ingredients 5. Cook on high another hour

Twice Baked Potatoes

Baking Potatoes Butter Salt Pepper Cheddar Cheese, shredded Wash potatoes Add butter to the skins Poke a few holes in the potato with a fork 375 for about an hour They should be soft to touch Scoop out the insides and put it in the mixer. Add milk and butter to potatoes and mix Add salt and pepper Add handfuls of cheese BY HAND, dont use a mixer or it will all goop together Put filling back in the potato Add cheese to the tops Bake potatoes again for 10-15 minutes

Raku

Last night our friends had reservations for Raku and invited us along. We went to the Bethesda location but there is also a location near Dupont Circle and in Arlington. http://www.rakuasiandining.com/ They only had chopsticks at the table and I'm terrible at using them Luckily everyone else at the table was great at using chopsticks. When our friends were served the tofu salad (this looked good and you must love seaweed) they brought them forks but they used chopsticks and I scored a fork :) Our friends also ordered some spring rolls but the spring rolls on the menu seemed to come with shrimp which I dont eat. The dipping sauces that came with their rolls looked really good. The presentation of the dish was really nice They split an entree which was a bento box with beef tenderloin with pomegranate wine sauce (they said the sauce was divine) and an assortment of fish, tempura veggies, some mushrooms etc. It was a huge box of food My husband and I ordered 8 tempura green bean s

Metro Cooking Show

On Sunday Anthony and I went to the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show. We bought tickets to see Tyler Florence and we also watched Top Chef contestants. Tyler made an amazing turkey. It had a cornbread stuffing, sage butter rubbed all over the outside, then bacon wrapped over the top of the turkey, and a basting liquid with maple syrup. It sounded so amazing it made us want to make a Thanksgiving dinner at our house. Tyler also made gravy, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes with roasted bananas. I want to roast some bananas now! After Tyler we watched Brian V, a Top Chef contestant who has a restaurant here in Maryland. He had a plate of chocolate 4 ways and one was ice cream where he used nitrogen to cool it down quickly. Then we visited Top Chef contestant Carla. She was on the show last year and she also has a catering business here in Maryland. She was FABULOUS. She is great at doing a demonstation. She made Pad Thai. Here is my husband with Carla. He worked o

Steak and Potatoes

I am blogging this entry just because it was a yummy meal and I cooked the steaks perfectly so I'm sharing the method. 2 steaks. I never use NY Strip. Its my least favorite cut 2 baking potatoes Sour cream Fresh Dill Trader Joes beer bread (Its a mix they had a few months ago) Butter Olive Oil Grill seasoning (Ours is called Montreal) Scrub potatoes, poke holes in the skins all around the potato, lightly coat in olive oil, and sprinkle with salt. Put in a 350 degree oven for about an hour-hour and a half. This will depend on your type of potato and size of your potato. For your potatoes make a sour cream and dill sauce by chopping fresh dill and mixing with your sour cream. Trader Joes beer bread was made simply by mixing 1 can of beer together with the mix, then it was put in a loaf pan, and topped with some melted butter. Baked according to the directions on the box Now for the STEAKS. Coat a large heavy stainless steal pan in olive oil. Heat the olive oil until it waves b