Stuffed Pasta Tip

Tonight I made cheese manicotti. (recipe later) It was a breeze thanks to putting the filling in a large zip loc bag, cutting off one corner and viola! An easy way to squeeze filling into the tubes. I think this idea would probably work well for just about any recipe that calls for stuffing/filling pasta.

Cheesecake

Cheesecake


.....And with cherries on top

For as long as I can remember this has been my mom's company dessert. (She got the recipe from her mom, Carol) She always made it with blueberries on top. Mmmm! I can still remember crushing graham crackers when I was little and graduating to baking the whole thing. Now I'm married to someone who loves cherries so we do cherries. Which by the way, the particular cheesecake pictured was for his birthday. Enjoy!

Filling Ingredients:

8oz. cream cheese

1/2 c. sugar

2 eggs beaten

Crust Ingredients:

1/4 lb. butter, melted

1/4 lb. graham crackers, crushed

1/4 c. sugar

Topping:

Any canned or fresh fruit topping.

Blend filling ingredients until smooth.

Mix crust ingredients in separate bowl. Press mixture evenly into pie plate.

Pour filling into crust.

Bake at 325 for 25 min. Or until slightly browned on top and filling is set.

Cool and top with your choice of fruit or other topping. Best when served chilled through.

Tagged by the Queen

1. How many meals does most of your family eat at home each week? How many are in your family?
19 meals. Two of us eat 19 meals at home; one of us eats leftover lunches at work about 4 days a week and either out or at home for one other day. Sundays we usually only have two official meals and lunch is fellowship snacks at church. Saturday is usually the same with the option to grab leftovers from the fridge if you're hungry. Breakfast is hit or miss for M & me, but Ben's favorite meal. Often I just eat his leftovers.

2. How many cookbooks do you own?
I have about three cookbooks, a couple of gift collections of recipes from friends and bunch of Cooking Light magazines.

3. How often do you refer to a cookbook each week?
Rarely. But I look at magazine recipes (or online) pretty frequently.

4. Do you collect recipes from other sources? If so, what are some of your favorite sources (relaties, friends, magazines, advertisements, packages, the internet, etc)
See above.

5. How do you store those recipes?
I have a box and a photo album and an index card binder and I keep the magazine if it is has a lot I'm going to want to refer to.

6. When you cook, do you follow the recipe pretty closely, or do you use recipes primarily to give you ideas?
I substitute a lot of ingredients and occasionally do improvisation.

7. Is there a particular ethnic style or flavor that predominates in your cooking? If so, what is it?
Just one! Italian, Thai, Indian and Mexican.

8. What's your favorite kitchen task related to meal planning and preparation? (eating the finished product does not count)
I actually like the planning best. It makes me feel very worthy of the title "homemaker" when I'm putting together meal ideas.

9. What's your least favorite part?
Chopping onions.

10. Do you plan menus before you shop?
Yes, except about once a month when I get behind on planning and we fall apart for a few days.

11. What are your three favorite kitchen tools or appliances?
Rice cooker/vegetable steamer, coffee/seed grinder, coffee maker? (I would see blender but mine is no good.)

12. If you could buy one new thing for your kitchen, money was no object, and space not an issue, what would you most like to have? There are too many to choose; a complete set of Caphalon would be nice, or a complete set of Cutco knives. But a new kitchen would be best of all.

13. Since money and space probably are objects, what are you most likely to buy next?
A dutch oven, probably 4 or 5 qt

14. Do you have a separate freezer for storage?
Hah! Wouldn't that be nice?

15. Grocery shop alone or with others?
I like to do my big shopping alone, but if I just have a few items, we make it a family outing.

16. How many meatless main dish meals do you fix in a week??
Probably 5. Though I make a lot of things that can be made with or without meat, so I can eat too.

17. If you have a decorating theme in your kitchen, what is it? Favorite kitchen colors?
Decorating theme? Hmmm....

18. What's the first thing you ever learned to cook, and how old were you?
I made a pie when I was probably 7 or 8, but no one would eat it because my mom thought it had weird ingredients. I ate it all. It was very good.

19. How did you learn to cook?
My mom taught me a little but I'm mainly self-taught with a good dose of Dana R for teaching me creativity, smaller portions, healthy yummy gourmet stuff.

A handy little method I periodically rediscover: instead of adding more salt, use a little lemon juice to brighten up the flavor. Works especially well on chicken, pasta, or potatoes.

-- SJ

What Do You Keep On Hand?

I have the challenge of a small kitchen but recently realized that I had to keep a larger stash of certain staples on hand for convenience and economy's sake. A few of mine are:

Onions
Garlic
Olive Oil
Whole wheat flour
Bananas
Rice
Pasta
Organic black beans (Ben's favorite)

What are yours?

Chicken Paprikash

Once again, the vegetarian is posting something she won't eat. But it is a favorite of my husband and quick and easy.

8-oz pkg medium egg noodles
2 t vegetable (or olive) oil
1 C sour cream (reduced fat works really well)
2 T paprika, divided
1/2 t salt, divided
1/4 t black pepper
1 C vertically sliced onion
1 lb chicken tenders cut into 1/4 inch wide strips (turkey works too)
1/2 C chicken broth (go for the low-sodium fat-free)

Cook the noodles according to the pkg directions omitting salt and fat.

Combine sour cream, 1 Tablespoon paprika, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and pepper in a bowl; set aside.

Heat oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Combine 1 Tablespoon paprika, 1/4 teaspoon salt, onion, and chicken, tossing to coat. Add mixture to the pan; saute 4 minutes or until chicken is done. Add broth; cook 2 minutes or until liquid almost evaporates. Reduce heat to medium-low.

Add sour cream mixture; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly until thoroughly heated. Serve over noodles. Makes 3-4 servings.

Irish Beef Stew

Serves 4-6 people

Ingredients:

2lbs. stewing beef, cubed
1 envelope dry onion soup mix
2 10 3/4-oz. cans tomato soup
1 soup can water
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 cups diced carrots
2 cups diced potatoes
1-lb package frozen peas
1/4 cup water

1. Place beef, onion soup, tomato soup, soup can of water, salt, pepper, carrots, and potatoes in slow cooker.

2. Cover. Cook on Low 8 hours.

3. Add peas and 1/4 cup water. Cover. Cook on Low 1 more hour.

**I found a bag of frozen peas and carrots in my freezer so I used this instead of the carrots AND the bag of peas.

*** I cut this recipe in half so I wouldn't have too much. It fed the two of us for dinner with one set of leftovers, so for those of you who want more keep it as it is or double it.

This is a FAST prep recipe and is soooo delicious!

Easy breakfast casserole

I found this recipe recently and have already made it four times. I halved it for our breakfasts, doubled it to serve my family, and even brought it to a baby shower (so it makes the transition from elegant to hearty!) It's easy to make, tastes great, and consists of fairly cheap ingredients. There, that's my pep talk.

Easy Breakfast Casserole

Six bread slices (I use leftover heels from the freezer)
1 lb. sausage (I use a lot less, especially if it's spicy; I also use just a smidgen of sausage, which is expensive, and mostly ground turkey)
1 cup cheese (I use less)
Six eggs
2 cups milk
Salt
Pepper

Rip up the bread slices and place in the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Fry the sausage and sprinkle over the bread; sprinkle the cheese over this. (Note: at this point you could cover the dish and store it in the fridge overnight, if you wanted to save time the next morning.) Beat the eggs and milk; add salt and pepper and pour over the sausage mixture. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or until hot and bubbling. Best when hot and fresh!

Easy Stuffed Shells

The other night we had company for dinner and I wanted a tasty, but not ordinary meal. I settled upon Stuffed Shells. There are dozens of recipes out there varying from meatless stuffed shells, veggie stuffed shells or meat/sausage stuffed shells. I found one that sounded good on AllRecipes.com and it turned out very delicious!

-------------
Stuffed Shells III

Jumbo pasta shells stuffed with ricotta, mozzarella and Parmesan, smothered in a mushroom tomato sauce and baked.

Prep Time: 30 Minutes
Cook Time: 1 Hour
Ready In: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
Yields: 10 servings

INGREDIENTS:

1 (12 ounce) package jumbo pasta shells
2 eggs, beaten
1 (32 ounce) container ricotta cheese
1 pound shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
8 ounces grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1 tablespoon dried parsley
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 (28 ounce) jar pasta sauce
8 ounces sliced fresh mushrooms

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.
3. In a large bowl, mix eggs, ricotta, half the mozzarella, half the Parmesan, parsley, salt and pepper until well combined.
4. Stuff cooked shells with ricotta mixture and place in a 9x13 inch baking dish.
5. In a medium bowl, stir together pasta sauce, mushrooms and reserved mozzarella and Parmesan. Pour over stuffed shells.
6. Bake in preheated oven 45 to 60 minutes, until edges are bubbly and shells are slightly set.

*You could also add spinach if you were looking for something more than cheese, or for the meat eaters try Italian sausage or ground beef in with the tomato sauce. Mushrooms add great taste, but can be omitted for those with allergies.

**I read in a magazine that you can cut prep time by pre-stuffing uncooked noodles and letting them sit over night. This was recommended for Manicotti. I tried this with my stuffed shells, it worked for the most part, however some of the shells weren't open at all, unless cooked, so I couldn't stuff about 4 from the box. It was ok, there was still plenty to go around for dinner and leftovers.

I started by putting a little tomato sauce on the bottom of the pan then laying the stuffed uncooked shells on top and topping with the tomato-mushroom mixture. Next, I added a little bit of water before cooking and baked with a foil cover for 45-50 minutes. The last 10-15 minutes I cooked without the foil cover. They turned out PERFECT!

***You can click on the above link to go to the AllRecipes.com site where this recipe is located. There you can email it or print it as a full page or partial page recipe card.

DOB offers a recipe

DOB: Sometime you should make French Onion Soup.

QOC: I don't know how. But I will try to learn sometime.

DOB: It's easy. You just take some soup, and put in onions. And then you add the French seasoning.

QOC: Aah, I see.

Cranberries Anyone?

For our client Christmas party the centerpieces were large glass bowls with floating cranberries and roses. By now you probably get where this post is going. ;-) I ended up with two large boxes of fresh cranberries. And no ideas for what to do with them. For the time being they are frozen....in hopes that I will find something to use them in. Suggestions?

Chicken That's Special

Alison S. asked me about a chicken and rice dish and I immediately thought of this family favorite, so I thought it might be a good idea to post it here in case the rest of you are interested. I'm not sure where the recipe came from, but my mom's been making it for years. It's delicious!

Chicken That's Special

Ingredients:
1) 3-4 chicken breasts
2) 1 can of cream of chicken soup
3) 1/2 cup mayonnaise
4) 1 tsp lemon juice
5) 1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
6) 1 Tbs Margarine or butter
7) 1/2 grated cheese

Mix ingredients 2-4 and pour over ingredient chicken. Combine margarine/butter with crumbs and brown. Sprinkle top of chicken dish with cheese and top with browned crumbs.

Bake 30 min at 350ºF.

Serve over cooked rice.

SPICED PUMPKIN LOAVES WITH WHIPPED CREAM

From my friend Amy

4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups canned solid pack pumpkin
2 cups (packed) golden brown sugar
1 cup sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
2 cups raisins
1 cup chopped pecans
Lightly sweetened whipped cream

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly oil two 9 1/4 x 5 1/4 x 2 1/2-inch loaf pans. Dust pans with flour. Sift first 6 ingredients into large bowl. Using electric mixer, beat pumpkin and next 4 ingredients in another large bowl to blend. Beat in dry ingredients just until blended. Stir in raisins and pecans. Transfer batter to prepared loaf pans.
Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, covering breads loosely with foil if browning too quickly, about 1 hour 20 minutes. Transfer pans to rack. Cool 15 minutes. Remove breads from pans. Cool slightly. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cool completely. Wrap in foil. Store at room temperature. Before continuing, rewarm in 350°F oven 15 minutes.)
Serve breads warm with cream. Makes 2 loaves.

Cheesy Broccoli Potatoes

It's been awhile, and anything I cook these days is in the easy-to-fix-in-a-few-minutes-with-the-assistance-of-a-toddler line. But this got such rave reviews I thought it was worth posting.

Scrub and bake 4-8 potatoes, depending on how big they are. (This is the toddler part. Dirt and water!)

When they're almost done, make a white sauce with:
2 T. butter
2 t. chopped garlic (Saute for a few minutes, then add):
2 T flour
2 c. of milk

Rinse the ice off a 1-lb package of frozen broccoli, and chop it a little smaller if needed. Toss into the skillet with the white sauce and 2-3 cups grated cheddar cheese. Cook just until the cheese melts. (The broccoli should still be bright green and crunchy.)

Serve sauce over the potatoes. Serves 4-6 or thereabouts.

Tuscan Chicken and Beans

This is a great fast, simple recipe. I found it in a cookbook and it is a favorite of Ben's.

1 lb chicken, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 t dried rosemary or 2 t fresh, chopped rosemary
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1 C chicken broth
1 16-oz white beans (cannellini or other), rinsed
2 T sun-dried tomatoes (optional but they add a lot of flavor)

Coat non-stick skillet; place over medium heat until hot. Add chicken, sprinkle with rosemary, salt and pepper. Stir fry for 2 minutes. Add broth, beans, and tomato sprinkles; bring to boil. Reduce heat, simmer 8 minutes.

Creamy Tomato-Balsamic Soup

This is mostly from Cooking Light (Oct 2005) but I made a few substitutions when I made it and it turned out wonderful. It has a rich creamy almost-smoky flavor.

1 C vegetable or beef broth, divided
1 T brown sugar
3 T balsamic vinegar
1 T soy sauce
1 C coarsely chopped onion
5 garlic cloves
2 28-oz cans whole tomatoes, drained
Cooking spray
3/4 C half-and-half
Freshly ground pepper (optional)

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Combine 1/2 C broth, sugar, vinegar, and soy sauce in a small bowl. Coat a 13 X 9-inch baking with cooking spray and place onion, garlic, and tomatoes in it. Pour broth mixture over the top. Bake at 500 for 45 minutes or until vegetables are lightly browned. Cool for about 10 minutes.
Place tomato mixture in blender and add remaining broth and half-and-half. Process until smooth. Garnish with pepper. Serves: about 4.

Ideas Please!

I realize this isn't really a cooking post, but it is along the lines of home organization so I thought I'd ask all you "Marthas" out there for your help.

I've been working on cleaning out the second bedroom of our house where all our "stuff" seems to get stuffed. I've been going through boxes of stuff that I packed up while I still lived with my parents. Yeah, I'm that bad. :-P Anyway, I've run across a lot of my papers, etc. from high school, college, HSLDA, and so on. Does anyone have any ideas for the best way to store this kind of stuff? I don't really want to shove it all in a box and have it fall apart or get smashed any further than it already is, but I also don't want to take the time and effort to put it all in scrapbooks for now. Help!

Free Cooking Magazine

If anyone is interested, Kraft Foods has a free food magazine, Food & Family, they mail out 5 times a year. (I just got the recent issue in the mail last week, hence this post.) You can sign up online here.

Most of the recipes are along the "quick and easy meals" vein. (i.e. lots of pasta) I wouldn't necessarily put it in the healthy foods category, but most of the meals could be adapted to your eating style. And, the pictures are great for inspiration.....Especially if you are hungry while browsing. (As I was! :-) )

Lunches that Travel

Hey, Marthas, rally 'round. We're planning a weekend trip, mostly because Darren has been traveling a lot lately and, since he can't be at home with us, we'll just join him on the road.

Here's what I need: to cut down on food costs, I want to pack breakfast/snack/lunch stuff to take with us. Lunch especially. Sandwiches are okay, but I'm looking for something a little more filling. And we can't be sure we'll be near a microwave, so I can't necessarily heat anything up. Any suggestions?

Also, I need your suggestions pretty quickly, since due to my usual forethought and planning, I didn't think of this until today. Thanks in advance for any help, and fie on you if there isn't any. That's all.

-- SJ

Does anyone have...

a recipe for haystacks?

At least, I think that's what they are called. I'm referring to those chow mein noodle things, usually butterscotch, sometimes chocolate. At worst, I can just melt some butterscotch chips and dump chow mein noodles in, but I'm sure there's more to it than that.

Any help would be much appreciated!