What I cooked this (last) week: Thanksgiving

Here is where I try to remember what I cooked last week since I should have posted this sooner.

As far as I can remember, I only made a few things and they were all one-dish meals.



I know there was a pasta bake. I mixed elbows and shells, added some jarred sauce (Newman's Own Sockarooni, I believe), ricotta, Italian cheese blend, mozzarella, parmesan, and some extra seasonings. It all goes together on the stove, then I spread it into a baking dish, top with cheese, and bake until bubbly.

I also made this "Hawaiian rice" dish that I've been making since I copied it out of my text book for cooking class in 9th grade. It's cooked rice, onion, soy sauce, salt, pepper, scrambled egg, cooked bacon (crumbled), and green onion. I mix it up a bit sometimes, this time I added toasted sesame oil. Sometimes I add chicken, I've also used chicken sausage instead of bacon and replaced the green onion with bell pepper. Peas are good in it too.

While browsing through a magazine (I want to say it was Rachael Ray), I spotted an ad (don't remember what it was for, Hillshire Farms maybe?) that had this pasta dish with sausage in it; it looked good so I did my own version with items I had on hand. Elbow pasta, asparagus, mixed frozen veggies (green beans, yellow beans, carrots), beef polska kielbasa, salt, pepper, parsley, what little Italian dressing I had left, and olive oil. All of the ingredients were cooked and then combined. It's kind of like a warm pasta salad. It was a hit.

I also made stuffing for our Thanksgiving meal. The recipe I used was "Mushroom and wild rice stuffing" from the Thanksgiving issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray.

And then there were left-overs.

Oh, and here's a tasty treat:


Peanut butter banana open-faced s'mores.

What I cooked this week: Sick

Not much cooking was done this week since we have all been sick. A lot of canned soup was had and we had some chicken pot pie left from last week.
Here are the few things I did cook:
My chicken and rice soup using the rest of the chicken from last week. I don't know if it was because I was sick or what, but it was soooooo good this time. We ate this for a couple of days.
Last night we had "Bratwurst and Apple Kraut", a recipe from theBetter Homes and Gardens Crockery Cooker Cook Book, except I replace the bratwurst with polska keilbasa. Gag! Blehg, yuck. The apples (it calls for tart apples) make it so sour I could hardly eat it. I tried adding extra brown sugar but it didn't help much. I cooked us each a baked potato to go with it and mixing the kraut with the potato really helped. I won't be making this again.
Today was grocery shopping day, so I usually prepare and easy meal on those nights. Tonight it was tuna burritos, yes tuna, if you try it you'll understand.



Mine consisted of: whole wheat tortilla, re-fried beans (canned), tuna (we get the low sodium Starkist can), and Mexican cheese blend, and was topped with taco sauce, jalapenos, pepper jack cheese, and sour cream, with avocado on the side.

Wow, I really didn't cook much this week.



(Soup photo from Robert Couse-Baker on Flickr.)

Multimedia Monday: Stop-motion Food

I love food, you probably do too. I also love stop-motion animation, I wish I had the skills for it. Here are a couple videos that combine these two wonderful things. (If you're viewing this in an RSS reader you may need to click over to view the videos.)


Now those look like crepes to me and not what I would call pancakes, but great video anyway.


Okay, so this one is not real food, but it's still really entertaining and I love the different things they came up with and how they used them. This video is made by PES, you can find more stop-motion videos from them on their website: EatPES.com; "Human Skateboard" is a good one to check out.