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.)

What I cooked this week

I'm thinking I want to start doing a weekly post sharing the meals I've cooked with links to recipes and how they turned out. So here goes.



This past Saturday we hosted a picnic at our house. Our main course was fried chicken, then I made a few things and had friends bring something if they could. My sister came over Friday to help me make:
Vegetable soup (my own recipe, which I'll write down and share next time I make it.)
"The Ultimate Baked Beans" from Tyler's Ultimate: Brilliant Simple Food to Make Any Time, you can also find the recipe here, but everything I've made from that book has been excellent.
Macaroni and cheese from The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl (I add paprika). Possibly my favorite cookbook.
We also made a couple Pinterest finds, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Brownies, and Pumpkin Pie Dip.
Everything was great, and people seemed to like it all. I do have to remember though, when I make those baked beans again (I've made them once before), to drain the canned beans. The recipe doesn't say to, or not to, so we drained half and they were still very liquidy.
We also made some chipotle ranch with peppers left from the baked bean recipe by modifying a recipe my sister found online. A little spicy for some, but it was excellent for dipping (even chicken) and mixed into the mac & cheese!

I didn't cook as much as usual this week because we had leftovers from the picnic.

For our regular meals this week I made roast chicken from The Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook: Recipes for the Best Pan in Your Kitchen, slightly adapted and I didn't use the cast iron skillet this time because I was in the process of re-seasoning it.
For some reason I keep trying different roast chicken recipes, I guess because I don't want to do the same one all the time. I should though, because nothing compares to the Peruvian Roast Chicken from the February 2009 issue of EveryDay with Rachael Ray.
We had mixed veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots) with it—which is what Will ate that night—and I made a little pasta and alfredo sauce. The sauce is a couple tablespoons of butter, flour, milk, garlic salt, pepper, cream cheese, and parmesan.
I like to do a whole chicken every couple weeks, we usually get 3 meals out of it, plus lunches. Sometimes I make stock using the bones and innards. This time I saw part of the innards I didn't care to see and then could not use them. Let's not talk about it.
I also made open-face sloppy joes from the same cookbook. That's when I realized my skillet needed re-seasoning. Uneatable.
Our second chicken meal was a chicken pot pie. Unfortunately, I didn't make enough sauce/cream/whatever-you-call-it for the filling, so it was a little dry. Whatever that is was composed of butter, flour, milk, salt, pepper, thyme, and oregano.
Today, I actually made breakfast! I love making breakfast, but as I've mentioned before, it doesn't happen as often as I'd like. Thanks to the veterans, husband was off today so I made breakfast before we headed to Thomasville for some what-I-wish-was-more-than window shopping. I made Basic Breakfast Potatoes from The Pioneer Woman. On the site she says to boil your potatoes first, but in the book it says to bake them, eh whatev, I microwaved them because I didn't have the 45 minutes to spare. I was also out of onion, but I had a bell pepper, so I used that. Add some fried and scrambled eggs, and bacon and that was breakfast.



Tomorrow, Will and I are going to a little brunch, so tonight I baked too many of these pumpkin muffins from Smitten Kitchen. Smitten Kitchen is my absolute favorite website for recipes and the photos are uh-may-zing. Of course we had to test a muffin from each batch. The second batch I only used one egg instead of two, because, well, I only had three eggs. Somehow they seemed more moist, Shawn liked the first batch the best. I didn't use liners; I don't know if I've ever bought liners. I just sprayed the pan a little and there was no sticking at all. Mmmmm.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Saturday we went with friends to visit a pumpkin patch and take pictures of the bebes.




Unfortunately, Will was the only one of the babies really in the mood for it. What can I say, he's a really easy going guy. He was all like, "sit here? sure, no problem. Hold a pumpkin? okay. What do you mean I can't eat the grass? Lay down? Okay. Smile? What do you mean? I'm already smiling! Sit in a wagon? I'd love to!"





He's very photogenic, and good thing because mama and daddy love taking pictures. I need to put these on flickr, I haven't uploaded photos there in quite a while, eek!

(Photos 2 and 3 from the husband)

We also bought a smallish pumpkin for me to make a pumpkin dip in for a picnic we're throwing this coming Saturday. I think I may be going a little over-the-top making things. We're getting fried chicken and I'm making Pioneer Woman mac&cheese, Tyler Florence's "Ultimate" baked beans, vegetable soup, pumpkin dip, and chocolate chip pumpkin brownies. The vegetable soup recipe is my own, I might post it later on.

You should come. No really, if you know where we live.

My 3 loves

Happy birthday to me!



Husband got me the most be-a-utiful KitchenAid stand mixer for my birthday. No, today is not my birthday.

Funny thing about not having your birthday on Facebook, you find out who really knows that it's your birthday and then who cares enough to say. My cousin, Melissa was the only one to wish me happy birthday on FB. Not that I want random people I haven't seen in years telling me happy birthday, really I don't. If I did I'd have my birthday posted on FB.

Anywho, did I mention that husband gave me this mixer the day after I spent nearly 2 hours trying to prepare myself a birthday cake using a hand mixer? It was one of those cakes that required 10 minutes or so of mixing here and there. My arm was sore!

The cake ended up in the garbage, but that's unrelated to coulda-used-an-early-gift mixer acquiring days. I ended up making a French silk pie instead.

You see I have this idea of starting a tradition of making myself a cake every year for my birthday. It has to be the same cake every year. The thing is I don't really like cake all to much, it must be super moist and not you're everyday cake. I hate boxed cake mixes (though they are good for making a dump cake or any of those other recipes that call for a cake mix and yet do not produce a cake). I hate decided on a 6 layer dobos torte, it was between that or this pistachio petit four cake. The torte seemed a bit easier. Until our oven decided it hate me and my birthday. 13 eggs wasted! 13! Oh well, there's always next year.

Do you have any birthday traditions? What's the best gift you've ever received?

Chicken and Rice Soup: a recipe

Often times, I will glance at a recipe online and end up forming my own recipe form it in my head as the day goes on using ingredients that I have on hand. In the end, the two recipes may not be very similar, apart from the basic ingredients, but my results are pretty good, if I do say so myself. This recipe is a chicken and rice soup that I've now made twice, it was somewhat inspired by Rachael Ray's Chicken and Rice Stoup.

In this adventure, I intentionally over-boiled the rice (by using more liquid than necessary), which causes it to kind of burst. I think it gives it an interesting texture and has the bonus of confusing people who may not realize that it's rice.


Photo by Husband

Warning: This recipe will make your house smell amazing!

You will need:

• 3/4 cup rice (I use white)


• 1 box (4 cups) chicken stock (I like Rachael Ray's Stock in a Box)


• 3 chicken breasts, already grilled and cubed*


• 4 cups water


• 1 carrot, chopped


• 2 celery, chopped


• 1/4 white onion, chopped (about a 1/2 cup)


• 3 bay leaves


• 1 teaspoon oregano


• 1/4 teaspoon thyme


• 1/4 salt


• 1/4 black pepper

What you do:

• In a 3qt or larger pot, boil rice in 1 cups chicken stock and 1 cup water until all liquid is absorbed into the rice, be careful not to let it stick or burn.


• Then add 3 cups water and remaining 3 cups of stock.


• Throw in the carrots, celery, and onion. Stir in all the herbs and seasonings. Bring it all back to a boil, then add chicken and reduce to a simmer.


• Let it simmer for a really long time, I'm talking at least an hour. Then let it rest for a while, it's tired.

I have some simmering right now; I'll probably let it simmer for an hour or more then let it rest for another hour, so it'll be waiting when Shawn gets home from work [I originally wrote this up between 2 and 3p.m. Monday]. I might also bake some bread for dipping.

Notes: none of my measurements are exact and most of them are optional. Well, the chicken, stock, rice, bay leaf, and oregano are pretty important, other than that you can leave out or add anything you want. You can also adjust the amount of liquids added after the rice has cooked, depending on how soupy you want your soup Measurements for herbs are using dried, you can use fresh but you'll need to adjust the quantity.

*I will often cook several chicken breasts at a time, cube them and store them in the fridge to use for quick meals like quesadillas or the Larry's BBQ style "Giant baked potato" I had for lunch (Panama City and Dothan people will know what I'm talking about). This chicken was grilled in a grill pan with olive oil after being seasoned with McCormick's Montreal Steak seasoning. You can substitute any cut of chicken you want. The intention of the recipe is to be able to make something that tastes great with items you have on hand; if you have thighs, use them. I usually have chicken breasts on hand because we buy the large bag of frozen breasts nearly every time we go grocery shopping 'cause you can always do something with chicken. This last grocery trip, however, we bought a whole chicken (sometimes we get both) as I'm eager to try "Stretching a Whole Chicken for 4+ Meals" from Passionate Homemaking. Now I'm just rambling.

If you try this recipe let me know what you think in the comments.