Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Turkey Chowder


I wish this picture did this chowder justice! The chill we have had all week has now turned into a winter weather advisory, which is sort of a big deal here in Texas. I have to laugh though, being from Alaska and all. So, since I'm on this comfort food kick I thought I would make left over turkey chowder, a favorite of mine! I always called it turkey soup, but I guess it's more like a chowder...I wouldn't want to be misleading or anything! Now for an awkward moment, my ex boyfriend's mother used to make this which is where I got the recipe.

Recipe:
4 quarts water
1 large onion chopped
3 stalks celery chopped fine
2 large carrots chopped fine
3/4 cup uncooked long grain rice
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups flour
1 pint milk (if you prefer it thicker use half and half, I tried to save SOME calories where I could)
3 cups chopped or shredded cooked turkey
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
salt
pepper

Simmer the turkey carcass in 4 quarts of water for a few hours. Skim the fat off the top. Remove the bone and reserve the meat. Strain the stock to get rid of all the little yuckies. In a saucepan, put in onions, celery, carrots, rice and 1 quart stock and cook for 20 minutes. In a large soup pot, melt butter and whisk in flour and cook till bubbly. Gradually add milk and 2 quarts stock while stirring. Salt and pepper to taste. Add turkey and rice mixture into pot and simmer until heated through or ready to eat.

I've never had this recipe without boiling the turkey carcass, but I'm sure it would work with regular chicken stock, though I don't recommend it. But! If you are in a hurry and just HAVE to have some turkey chowder right away, perhaps that would be the next best thing!

Meatless Monday - Baked Broccoli Mac and Cheese


So, I'm trying out meatless Mondays, something that Cameron isn't too happy about. He's definitely a meat and potatoes kind of guy! I decided last night I was going to start doing meatless Mondays every week, so this was kind of a last minute recipe with stuff I had on hand. It has been a little chilly here in Texas the past week so some comfort food was exactly what we needed! It may not be that good for your waist line, but it sure is good!! I made a small dish just for two people, but the recipe can easily be doubled. The original mac and cheese recipe came from Kraft and can be found here. I tweaked it a bit and added the broccoli since we had some left over, and I am all about using up leftovers!!

Recipe:
4 Tbsp butter
1/8 cup of flour
1/2 cup milk
4 oz (1/4 pound) processed cheese, like Velveeta cut into 1/2 inch squares
1 cup cooked elbow macaroni
3 crackers (I used club crackers)
1 cup broccoli (I used roasted broccoli from this recipe, although plain uncooked broccoli could be used)

Preheat oven to 375. Melt 3 Tbsp butter in a saucepan and whisk in flour. Add milk gradually and stir until thickened. Add cheese and stir until melted. Add noodles and broccoli, stir to coat. Spray small baking dish nonstick cooking spray. Spoon in macaroni. Mix crushed crackers with 1 Tbsp melted butter and sprinkle on top. Bake for 20 minutes.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Christmas Dinner



Our Christmas dinner is two days late, but that's ok! We had a busy week...Spent a night in Houston with my aunt, uncle, cousin, gramma and grampa and got home really late Christmas Eve. Then Christmas morning I got woken up at 6:30 am by Cameron to open presents. We then headed to Leander at 10 am to go to our friends house for the day and dinner. We didn't get home that night until 3:30 am. Needless to say, Christmas dinner was just gonna have to wait! It was just the two of us so the meal was small and not too elaborate- I didn't want too many leftovers! So,on the menu we had: Pork Chops with Cranberry-Mustard Sauce, Roasted Broccoli, and Stuffing Balls. Oh, and can't forget Jello No-Bake Cheesecake for dessert (It's Cams fave and I wasn't up for making something fancy).

Pork Chops with Cranberry Mustard Sauce



I got this recipe from my good friend Paula Dean. Ok, so we aren't friends but I just adore her and love her recipes! The original recipe can be found here, but I changed it just a little bit.

Recipe:
pork chops
1/4 cup cranberry sauce (I used this recipe from previous post)
5 Tbsp mustard (regular or dijon)
nonstick cooking spray
salt
pepper

Mix together cranberry sauce and mustard in a shallow baking dish. Coat pork chops with mixture, cover and refrigerate 1-12 hours turning every so often. When ready to cook, heat skillet over medium high heat and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Put pork chops in pan and slightly cover and cook for 10 minutes. Uncover, turn pork chops and cook another 5-10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Stuffing Balls



I saw a recipe for stuffing balls and thought they might be tasty and look a little fancier than just a baking dish of stuffing. These are great if you like the crunchy part of the stuffing, but I realized after that I am not that person. I like really moist almost mushy stuffing, so next time I will just make regular stuffing. I kind of cheated on these and used boxed stuffing, but it could easily be done with homemade stuffing mix.

Recipe:
1 6oz box of stuffing mix (stove top or store named brand)
3/4 cup cranberry sauce (once again I used this recipe)
1 egg
1 cup water

Mix ingredients together in a bowl. Make balls with your hands, or use a round scoop so you can forgo the messy hands! Bake at 375 for 35-45 minutes. This only made 10 balls. You could always add 1 lb ground pork, or sausage to add more which would make more balls. Next time I will add sausage and omit the cranberry. I never had stuffing with cranberries but thought it sounded good. I'm sure some people love it with cranberries, but I could go without.

Roasted Broccoli


This was by far my FAVORITE part of dinner! I would have to say broccoli is my favorite vegetable. I wanted a vegetable but didn't want just plain corn, or green beans, so I opted for broccoli since I had some in the fridge. Most people just add some olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic. I thought I would mix it up a bit and get lots of flavor and seasoning from one ingredient - Italian dressing! I will be making this often from now on!

Recipe:
1 head of broccoli
1/3 cup Italian dressing
parmesan cheese
garlic powder

Put broccoli heads into a bowl and drizzle Italian dressing over. Mix well so all the broccoli is covered. Put on a baking sheet and sprinkle with garlic powder and parmesan cheese. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes or until broccoli is tender.

This would probably be WAY better with fresh pressed garlic, I just didn't have any.

Enjoy!

Cranberry-Turkey Salad Sandwhich


Who doesn't love a left over turkey and cranberry sandwich? I absolutely love them! When I went to make one for lunch today I had a revelation of sorts. Why not mix everything together like a chicken salad instead of layering the ingredients? Surely, someone has thought of this before, but not I. I'm not a fan of turkey sandwiches where you get a big hunk of turkey and it's dry. This takes care of that problem for you! I only had plain white bread that I toasted, but this would be good on a kaiser roll or potato roll which might also be left over from a turkey dinner.

Recipe:
2 cups shredded cooked turkey
1/4 cup cranberry sauce (I used this recipe from previous post)
1/4 cup cream cheese
Sliced swiss cheese
Whatever type of bread you would like

Other optional ingredients:
Cucumbers
Tomato slices
Lettuce
Sprouts
Anything else you just have to have on a sandwich

Mix turkey, cranberry sauce, and cream cheese together in a bowl. Place swiss cheese and mixture between bread. Slice in half and you're good to go!

Cranberry Sauce


I must admit I LOVE canned cranberry sauce, the jelly kind! When I would see fresh made cranberry sauce I almost of cringed at the thought of having to eat it. Last night changed all that! I had a bunch of cranberries and thought I would just try to make some and perhaps my taste buds have become more sophisticated since last holiday season. I looked up recipes and kind of threw this one together from a mix of other different ones. It turned out so good! Even my boyfriend who is a fan of the jelly canned kind and dare I say- picky eater, thought it was delicious as well. It only takes 5 minutes to make too. I'll for sure be making this from now on!

Recipe:
12 oz cranberries
1 1/2 cup pomegranate juice
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
dash of cinnamon

Put everything in small sauce pan and heat over medium high heat. Bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve hot or cold.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Rainbow Cake




So, at first glance this cake really doesn't look too appetizing, right? To be honest it looks like a hamburger. The yellow frosting looks like mustard, the red cake looks like ketchup, and the suppose to be purple cake looks more like a char broiled burger. But, cut this bad boy open and...




...how awesome is that! I got this idea from a friend of mine who made one. She got the original idea from another blog, which can be found here. I used this ladies basic concept of the cake, which might I add she does a great job of explaining the whole process - way better than me! I then used my own frosting and the end result was soooo yummy!!

Recipe:
Cake:
2 boxes of white cake mix (no eggs, oil or water though)
2 cans of sprite (this takes the place of the eggs, oil and water)
1 box gel food coloring

Mix the cake mix with the sprite (or any clear soda I suppose) until blended. Separate into 6 different bowls, about a cup and a half for each bowl. Use the gel food coloring to color each bowl a color of the rainbow (1 red, 1 orange, 1 yellow, 1 green, 1 blue and 1 purple). Grease 2 round cake pans. Starting with red, put half the batter in the middle of the cake pan and repeat with each color working your way down the rainbow color line. Don't mix the colors, just layer them one on top of the other and they will spread themselves out. Do this for each pan. **I did one pan starting with red and the other going backwards starting with purple, do whichever you would like** Bake the cakes at the recommended times on the box.

Frosting (Lemon cream cheese):
1/4 cup butter
4 oz cream cheese
3 Tbsp lemon juice
3 1/4 cup powdered sugar
food coloring

Beat the butter and cream cheese together. Then add lemon juice. Beat in powdered sugar in 1 cup at a time. Add more sugar to get it to the spreading consistency that you like. You can add whichever color food coloring you would like at this point, or leave it white. Obviously, for this cake I chose to use yellow food coloring.




This cake was such a big hit at our friends birthday! Next time, I'll do both the layers with red on the bottom so it doesn't look so unappetizing before its cut into. And then I'll choose a different icing color to nix the whole ketchup/mustard combo. You're probably thinking just put some icing on the side to cover it up. Yes, that is the logical idea but I'm just personally not the biggest fan of icing on the sides of cakes. Either way, its a super fun cake with lots of possibilities that'll get lots of attention :)

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Chocolate Covered Pretzels and Candy Cane Sticks

With Christmas right around the corner, I thought this to be an appropriate first post! These are super easy treats to make for gifts or to keep around the house for some sweet snacks. They keep really well which makes them perfect for mailing in Christmas packages, rather than cookies that may go stale along the way. I used pretzels and candy cane sticks just to mix it up a little bit!



Recipe:
Large pretzels
Candy cane sticks
Nestle chocolate chunks
Almond bark
Christmas sprinkles

Melt the chocolate chips and almond bark in seperate double boilers, stirring frequently. When fully melted, dip pretzels and candy sticks in coating of choice. Sprinkle with Christmas sprinkles and lay on baking sheet to let cool and harden

See, it's super easy and they are super yummy as well. You can either do all chocolate or all almond bark, all pretzels or all candy cane sticks...whatever your heart desires!