The good, the bad and the best

I have four dishes this time and a bonus. And what goodies have I made.  I'll start out with Red Beans & Rice with cornbread, then Italian-Style Pepper Steak, followed by Chocolate Chip-Banana Bread and brownies, and ending with Cheese-And-Tofu-Stuffed Shells.

Two and a half hours of simmering of the ham bone. Made the house smell great.

While the ham bone was cooking, I made some corn bread.  I added a little cheese and picante sauce to spice it up.

After the ham bone simmered, I let it cool a bit and then took the meat off and threw it back in the pot.

Then I added the smoked sausage, beans and spices.  Next I'm using Andouille sausage.

This simmers for another half hour

I'm running low on hot sauce, but I of course needed some. We had a guest eating with us, so I didn't want to make it too spicy...yet.

I served over rice

Don't forget to take the bay leafs out! Don't want to mess with removing a bay leaf? You can use Thyme instead. I've not tried it, I just fish out the leaf.  And sometimes have to write down how many I used.

The completed dish.  It was really good for my first attempt.  I only have a few other things I will do next time to spice it up.  

The Itallan-Style Pepper Steak, I didn't like as much.  It was okay, just not as flavorful.

I had to do a lot of chopping and dicing, which I do like to do.

Even the beef was sliced.

 Seems like a lot, but it really wasn't at all.

Saute the peppers, onions and garlic a little.

Diced up a couple tomatoes.

 Cook the beef up until it's heat through, as it will still do some more cooking.

 Set the beef and peppers a side and add the spices and broth.

I kept the dripping and all in the pan and cooked up the broth a bit.

And that was it.  On a little rice it steak and peppers.  As I side at the begging, it was good.  I needed something else.  I will have to play with it again.


I made a couple special treats also.  Brownies, box mix, and homemade chocolate chip banana bread. I made Rachael Ray's recipe. Its easy and made a great bread!

Step 1, preheat oven and get loaf pan read.

 Step 2.  mix dry ingredients.

.

 Step 3. Blend the wet stuff; eggs, mashed banana, you get it.

 Then add the wet and dry.  Also add the chocolate chips.  I used 1 cup.

Put into the pan and bake!

 The brownies were perfect.  I ate one, as I am not a big brownie person.  Lets just say, they didn't last long in the house.  :)

 The bread turned out amazingly.  Most and rich.  I even made french toast with it one day.  That rocked!

Cheese-and-Tofu-Stuffed Shells!  Mmmm pasta.

 It might seam like a lot of ingredients add work, but it wasn't.  A lot can be done ahead of time and thrown together to heat in the oven later.

I shredded my carrots and diced the green onions.  Then rinsed them again.

 Mixed up tofu, ricotta cheese, cheddar and mozzarella.  Separated an egg and added the egg white. Mixed well and put it in the fridge for later.

 I also mixed up the tomato sauce to have it ready.

I boiled the shells up when I was fixing the meal.  I just cooked the whole box.

 

 When the shells were just at the al dente stage, I rinsed them and began to assemble.

 To stuff the shells, I use my small cookie scoop.  It's around a tablespoon and made it more uniform in the shells.  The reciepe said 12, but I make a lot more than than.  I just lined a 9x13 pan with them.

 Then added the sauce on top of that, along with the remaining mozzarella cheese. Let it bake until the cheese was melted and sauce looked nice and bubbly





The end result was spectacular.  I think a little sausage in the sauce would be great also.  It was pretty filling without sausage.  And a vegetarian meal.

 Coming soon, Pork Chop Suey, Fettuccine alla Carbonara and Spicy Halibut.

Betty Crocker cooking continues, sweet treat find and a dining out experience that was amazing!

I have three recipes from Betty Crocker.  So far, I have not been disappointed at all. I also have a new favorite at a local restaurant.  It was a special that I hope becomes permanent.  And I have a cool find from Dollar General.

Up first is Cashew Pork and Pea Pods.  Now this was interesting.  Pork, orange juice, orange marmalade, soy sauce, corn starch and ginger was the bulk of ingredients, along with pea pods, peaches and cashews.  And served on rice.

 I started the rice first.  Since I was making brown rice, it will take a little longer.  The I cut up the pork.  I used some pork that I could slice up and cut into smaller chunks.  One good tip if you don't know, have it a little frozen.  It makes any meat a lot easier to cut up.

 After I got all the meat cut and cooked, I added the pea pods and fruit.  I used peaches, other suggestions were nectarines or papaya.  Thawed frozen peaches worked just fine.  Next time, cutting the slices in half would be a bit better I think.

After they are done, I took them out, as I don't have a wok.  Made the sauce and then returned everything back into the pan to coat everything in the sauce.

When finished cooking, mix in the cashews.

It was very good!

We went out one night with a friend for dinner.  We ended up going to one of my favorite places, Fat Tuesday.  It is on S.W. 9th in Des Moines, IA.  I have just about everything on the menu and have leaned to test out the specials.  The Steak and Cheese Poboy is really good and has been a special for a while.  On this visit the special was Bacon and Catfish Poboy. All I can say is it was WONDERFUL!  Come on, this is proof that everything is better with bacon.  The catfish is always pretty good, but add the bacon to the sandwich and Yum-O as Rachel Ray would say.

                                                                                                                                                                                                             I almost forgot to take a photo it was so good.  I had a side of Cajun Greens with it also, but I eat them too fast.

For dessert, the owner was nice and gave us a slice of King Cake. It was really good also.  First time ever having it.

Back to Betty Crocker cooking, I made Scalloped Potatoes.  But as a dinner, I added some ham and cheese.  I used a sharp white cheddar and it was really good.  I had some left over ham from New Years in the freezer, so I used it.

 This is a repeat dinner for sure.


Here is what I just happen to find at Dollar General.  Sea Salt Caramel Turtles.  Luckily, they only had two boxes.  So I bought both and put one on a high shelf in the pantry.  After three days, I have ate most of the box.  Granted, there are only 10 and I have shared three of them.  I have two left.  Possibly one after this post...

They have them at Walmart also.

Now for the favorite recipe.  Chili Rellenos Casserole.  I of course had to change it up just a little.  I used pepper jack cheese and whit sharp cheddar. I also added onions and garlic. Two Poblano peppers quartered in boiling water for three minutes. 

 I also cooked the onions and garlic in a little olive oil. Just to soften them up.

Beat the eggs and milk.

 After the three minutes, drain inverted on paper towls

The pepper are put into a square casserole dish.







Sprinkle cheese over peppers, add onions and garlic

 The flower, cayenne pepper, baking powder and salt are added to the eggs and milk.  Beat until smooth.  This takes a while.

f

 Poor egg flour mixture over the peppers

 Bake for 15 minutes at 450.  Sprinkle with cheese. and serve.

It was really good with the optional picante and sour cream.  I'm not a huge fan of sour cream, but in this case it does add to it.  It gives it smooth texture and a rich flavor.

Coming soon, Red Beans and Rice, Stuffed shells, and Italian Pepper Steak. There will also be a few surprises.

Testing out the Betty Crocker Cookbook

I've decided to try out most of the recipes of the Betty Crocker Cookbook.  Why not all you may wonder?  Cause I HATE mushrooms and I know there will be some of those vial things in the recipes.  I will swap them with something else if I can, but just in cause.  Also you never know what else there may be that I don't like.


So far I have tried the following:


Chili - very good and will make again!

Chicken Jambalaya - So good!  And Mark took my leftovers that I was saving for my lunch!  Yes, it was that good. So I have to rub it in.(sorry, no photo)

Stuffed Peppers - These were easy and good.  I did add a few extra things to it.  Like some taco sauce on the top and used pepper jack cheese in the filling and extra sharp cheddar on the top. (sorry, no photo of this either)







Old-Fashioned Beef Stew - I have made stews before, but this one was really good. Normally I do it in the crockpot, but this time I did it on the stove and it worked out very well I think.


What have I been thinking, I keep forgetting to take a photo.  So here is a photo from the left overs.  FYI, they are also just as good.  Maybe better even.

I even tried out Swedish Meatballs - I liked them.  Mark thought they needed something more.  But there are kind of a subtle flavor to them. The recipe called for Allspice or Nutmeg.  I used Allspice, but I think Nutmeg would be better.  I also used Milk.  The recipe stated to use Milk, Half-and-Half or Light Cream, so maybe the Cream or Half-and-Half would do more.  Also I baked the meatballs, so I didn't have as much pan drippings, so next time I will just fry them so I have more drippings.  Over all, I think it was a success. And of course, I forgot a photo.  But at least I had left overs for it.

Up next is one that intrigued me.  Winter Pot Roast.  Since it is winter and pot roast sounded so good, I figured why not try it. Normally I just through stuff in the crockpot, but this isn't a crockpot recipe and I want to make it with the recipe to see how it is supposed to taste. But I will prep some stuff early, so I don't have to do it all at once.

In the morning I prepared the veggies and items that needed some chopping or other prep.

First I chopped up some carrots and parsnips.  The recipes called to use either, but I figured that I would do a half and half thing with them.  Cause I love them both.  If you haven't had parsnips before, to me they are a little sweeter than carrots. 

 (if you want to mess with family and friends for dinner, try cooking a bunch of parsnips in boiling water and then drain and mash.  Just like mashed potatoes, only sweeter.  Just need a little butter.  Mark didn't care for them, but I also didn't tell him what they were until after he tasted them.  Yes, I can be evil.)

Next I did the garlic. I have three gadgets that make using garlic a breeze.  First is the peeler.  It is the tube thing in the photo.  All you do is but the clove of garlic in it and roll it back and forth for a few seconds and the skins come right off.

Look at that!  Way to easy really.  The silver item is used to mince the garlic.  This is the best tool ever for mincing garlic.  Plus when you wash it, rub it over your hands.  It actually takes the smell out.  I use it when I do onions and garlic.  So when I'm done, takes both the smells out.

It called for one large onion cut into wedges, so I used two small ones and just chopped them largely.  

 Next up, I halved the apricots and prunes. No cool tools for this.  Just a knife.






That was all the prep I was able to do. Cooking time is 2 1/4 hours. So I started about at about 3:30 p.m. so that dinner would be done around 6.


After the first hour and 45 minutes, I added all the veggies and cooked for 40 more minutes.

The results were really good.  Mark of course wasn't a fan of the parsnips, but did like the meat and the gravy.  I like the whole thing and next time, no Parsnips.  Maybe I will throw in a rutabaga or turnip.  :)

Coming up next, Cashew Pork and Pea Pods and Scalloped Potatoes.