Saturday, February 26, 2011

Pasta Salad

I don't particularly care for this salad, but the rest of my family likes/loves it. So here is the recipe:

Italian Dressing
Rotelle Pasta
Cucumber
Chopped Olives


Cook pasta according to the package directions. Rinse in water, let drain.

Chop up the cucumber into small pieces.
Drain the olive juice*.
Add all ingredients to a large bowl. Mix well.

*To drain the Olives:
After opening the can, push the can lid into the olives and flip it over into the sink, make sure most or all of the olive juice is drained.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Biscuits and Gravy

Ok. So the other night I made Biscuits and Gravy. The biscuits were from a can but only because I haven't ever made biscuits. So that will be something I will have to try. But for now, I can give you a recipe for Gravy. Delicious! This is a sausage gravy, but I'm sure if you would rather have bacon then that should work as well.

Ingredients:
1 Sausage Tube (12 oz.)
1 Gallon of Milk
Flour
Cornstarch (thickening agent)
Water

Cook Sausage thoroughly. While cooking, chop sausage into small pieces. After sausage is finished cooking, remove sausage from pan, leaving grease in the pan. Turn heat to low, adding 1Tbsp Flour and 1Tbsp Cornstarch at a time, alternating the two. After grease is absorbed, add Milk. Add about 6-8 Cups of Milk. Stir Flour mixture while adding Milk. Turn Heat to medium. Mix about 4 Tbsp Cornstarch to about 1 1/2 Cups Water. Add 1/2 of the Cornstarch mixture. If Gravy is not as thick as you like, add the rest of the Cornstarch mixture. You should be able to cut down the middle of the pan with a big spoon and be able to see the bottom of the pan for a second or two.

Beginning of Cooking
End of cooking...Can you see the swirl?

Brownies!!

So, yesterday, I tried something that I have wanted to try for a while but never did it. I added milk instead of water. I don't know if there was much of a difference. Maybe I should make two batches and use milk in one and water in the other. Of course, these brownies were not from scratch. They were from a box. Duncan Hines is the best brownie mix ever! Of course, that is just my opinion.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Sweet n Sour Chicken



1-Frying the Chicken, Place on foil lined pan
2-Melting down the sauce for the chicken


3-Sauce poored over the chicken
4-Chicken over rice

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Not Cooking...But maybe something just as fun?

So, I follow this blog Sugar Pop Ribbons (http://sugarpopribbons.blogspot.com/2011/02/pink-dandy-review-35-dollars-gift-card.html). It's a Blog that does giveaways, and the more the merrier! The past couple of giveaways have had something to do with facial stuff, like chapstick, or masks, or something of the sort. Check it out! Maybe you will win! <3 Good Cooking <3

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Personal Pizzas

So tonight I'm going to make personal pizzas. Usually I use English Muffins, but I don't want to this time. I didn't want to buy the can of pizza dough from Pillsbury, so I thought, "Would Biscuit Dough work?" So tonight, I will roll out the biscuit dough, add some marinara/pasta sauce, mozzarella, and a few different toppings like pepperoni, pineapple tidbits, and breakfast ham, otherwise known as Canadian Bacon. We'll see how it turns out. I will definitely post pictures. See you in a few hours. Wish me luck.

Ok so I didn't end up making them last night because I went to hang out with some cool little kids. But! I will definitely be making them tonight! I will take pictures to prove it! Again, wish me luck.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Sweet n Sour Chicken

So, I won't always post 2 recipes a day, but these are two that I got from a friend. This one is sooo good and I have been looking for a Sweet n Sour Chicken recipe.

Chicken:
4 Chicken Breasts cut into pieces or 20 Chicken Tenders
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
2 Large Eggs, beaten
1/4 cup oil

Sauce:
1/4 cup Chicken Broth
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup ketchup
1 Tbsp soy sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 15x10x1 jelly roll pan with foil. In ziploc bag combine flour, garlic salt and cornstarch. Put 4-5 chicken strips in a ziploc bag to coat. Dip each piece in beaten egg. Brown chicken quickly in skillet with heated oil, 2-3 minutes per side. Place strips close together on pan.
Mix sauce ingredients in sauce pan; heat to dissolve. Pour sauce over chicken. Bake for 20 minutes, turn chicken over, bake for 20 more minutes. Let sit for 5 minutes. Then enjoy.

Serve with rice and/or green salad. (Romaine is healthiest salad)

Choco-nut Dainties

So, these are some cookies that are sooo good. They're practically addicting.

Cookies:
2 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter softened (1 1/2 sticks)
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
16 oz pack semisweet choco chips (12 oz used for coating, 4 oz used to add in cookies)

Chocolate Coating:
12 Oz Chocolate Chips (1 1/2 cup)
Nuts or sprinkles - optional

Preheat oven to 350degrees. Beat (all)butter, sugar, egg and vanilla. Mix well. Blend in flour and salt.

Stir in 4 oz (1/2 cup) chocolate pieces. Shape dough into logs. Place on non-greased sheet.


 Bake for 15 minutes.



Let cookies cool.


Melt 12oz Chocolate Chips and 1 Tbsp Butter in Double Boiler. After logs are cooled, dip ends in Chocolate coating and roll in chopped nuts.



If you don't have a Double Boiler, Use two different sized pots, one slightly bigger than the other. Add water to larger pot, let boil with smaller pot inside. Make sure there is only just enough water so it won't boil over while heating chips. Melt butter in the boiler, then add chips. Heat should be Med to Low. If chips aren't the consistency you would like, add more butter, 1 Tbsp or less at a time.

If using 2 pots to 'double boil' is too confusing, there should be directions for melting the chocolate in the microwave. Make sure you use a microwave safe bowl to do so.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Nothing to do with cooking

Ok. So these following sites have nothing to do with cooking but all of this stuff looks awesome.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/krisocho?ga_search_query=krisocho&ga_search_type=seller_usernames

http://www.etsy.com/shop/forgoodnessgrape

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Found this on one of my favorite music artist's blog


Southwest Dip
(double the recipe if it's for more than 4 ppl)
you need:
1-8 oz. pkg. cream cheese softened
1/2 c. sour cream
2/3 c. pepperoni chopped
1-4 0z can diced green chilies(undrained)
1 1/2 T. dried minced onions
2 tsp chopped chives
1/2 c chopped pecans
tortilla chips
Beat cream cheese and sour cream until well blended. Stir in pepperoni, chilies, onion and chives. Spoon into 2-quart baking dish. Sprinkle with pecans. 
Bake 20 minutes at 350 until puffed and edges are bubbly. Serve with chips.



here's a link for the picture: http://blog.katevoegele.com/42172741

Hope it tastes good!

My Birthday Ice Cream Cake


So we're having this cake after My Family Birthday Dinner. I got the recipe off of allrecipes.com. It's called Oreo Ice Cream Cake.
Here is the recipe for it:

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup hot fudge ice cream topping, warmed
  • 1 (8 ounce) tub COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed, divided
  • 1 pkg. (4 serving size) JELL-O Chocolate Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling
  • 8 OREO Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, chopped
  • 12 vanilla ice cream sandwiches, unwrapped

Directions

  1. Pour fudge topping into medium bowl. Add 1 cup of the whipped topping; stir with wire whisk until well blended. Add dry pudding mix; stir 2 min. or until well blended. Gently stir in chopped cookies; set aside.
  2. Arrange 4 of the ice cream sandwiches, side-by-side, on 24-inch-long piece of foil; top with half of the whipped topping mixture. Repeat layers. Top with remaining 4 ice cream sandwiches. Frost top and sides of dessert with remaining whipped topping. Bring up foil sides. Double fold top and ends to loosely seal packet.
  3. Freeze at least 4 hours before serving. Store leftover dessert in freezer.


Instead of using only Vanilla, I chose both Vanilly and Neopolitan Ice Cream Sandwiches. You can also save oreos for decoration or like I did, use Fudge for decoration and put oreos on the sides of the cake for extra decoration. Here's the cake before we ate it. It was pretty good. I think it could have used more ice cream. But that's only because I LLLLLLOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEE ice cream.