Easy Chicken Salad

Canned chicken
Mayo
Sweet pickle relish
Onion Powder

Drain chicken, flake in bowl
add mayo, relish and onion powder to taste :)

Red-skinned Galic Mashed Potatoes

perfect with the grilled pork tenderloin!!

1-1/4 lbs red skinned potatoes, washed and quartered - do not peel
2-1/2 cups water or enough to cover potatoes completely
3 cubes chicken flavored bouillon
6 to 8 cloves of roasted garlic
3 oz package of cream cheese, softened to room temperature
3 TBL butter
Half & Half or milk
2 TBL chopped fresh parsley

Place washed, unpeeled potatoes in large saucepan. Add water, bouillon and roasted garlic, bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and cook for 15-20 minutes or until potatoes are tender but not mushy. Drain well

Mash potatoes with a potato masher (or beat with electric mixer for whipped, I prefer mashed potatoes, not whipped) Add cream cheese and butter to potatoes. Gradually add enough half and half or milk to make potatoes light and fluffy. Stir in parsley and serve immediately.

**If you prefer a stronger garlic flavor, do not add the garlic to the water when boiling. Drain the potatoes, mash then add cream cheese, butter and garlic to potatoes.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin

I love to grill in the winter :)

1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine (buy good wine, not the cheap cooking stuff)
3 TBL soy sauce
1 tsp grated fresh ginger or 1/4 tsp ginger
Dash of Chinese 5 spice (you can't skip this ingredient)
1-1/2 pound pork tenderloin
1 tsp cornstarch

Combine chicken broth, wine, soy sauce, ginger and 5 spice in a marinating dish or in a gallon zip lock bag. Shake until all ingredients are combined. Add pork tenderloin. Marinate at room temperature for 20-30 minutes or overnight in the refrigerator. Rotate 2 or 3 times.

Remove tenderloin, reserving marinade. Grill tenderloin for approximately 20 minutes or until slightly pink in the center; turn every 5 minutes to cook evenly. Remove from grill and wrap in foil to finish cooking and seal in the juices.

In a small sauce pan, bring remaining marinade to a slow simmer. Gradullay add the cornstarch. Serve over sliced tenderloin medallions. GREAT with garlic mashed potatoes.

Death by Chocolate

This is a dessert a co-worker of mine brings to all of our pot-luck luncheons. (We force him, he has no choice) The directions below are for a crowd, but you could cut it in half for a smaller group.

18oz box devil's food cake mix
7-1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup Kahlua
6 Heath candy bars
4 4-oz boxes of instant chocolate pudding
2 8-oz cartons of cool whip

Make the cake according to package directions. Bake in a 13 X 9 inch pan for 30-35 minutes. After cake cools, poke holes in the cake. Pour the Kahlua over the cake. Cover with a towel and place on counter overnight - do not refrigerate.

Layer 1
Cut the cake in half. Put half the cake in the bottom of a big punch bowl.

Layer 2
Combine the pudding mix and the milk. layer half on top of the cake

Layer 3
Break up the wrapped Heath bars until broken into smaller pieces. and place 3 of the bars on top of the pudding.

Repeat layers until all ingredients are gone.

Top with Cool Whip

Kettle Corn

1/4 cup virgin light olive oil (veg oil will work, but I like the taste of olive oil better)
1/2 unpopped white popcorn kernels
1/4 - 1/3 cup sugar coarse salt

• Heat oil over medium high heat
• Add popcorn
• When the popcorn is sizzling in the oil, sprinkle sugar over popcorn.
• Stir quickly.
• Cover with a tight fitting lid.
• Move pan constantly over burner to prevent burning. (The sugar will burn quickly)
• Reduce heat to medium as soon as it starts popping, keep shaking the pan
• Remove from heat for the last few to pop, remove from pan quickly.
  
  Salt to taste (be careful, coarse salt is really salty LOL)
  

Alfredo Sauce

This is very similar to Olive Gardens and it it super yummy!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup of butter (or one stick) use butter not margarine
8 oz of cream cheese
1 pint heavy cream ( I did 1 cup heavy cream and 1 cup of half and half and it was fine don't use milk though)
1 tsp garlic powder
salt
black pepper
2/3 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese

Directions
Melt butter in med-large sauce pan
Add cream cheese and cook until soft ( I use a wire whip and kind of whipped mine to mix it better and make sure it was smooth)
Add heavy cream and season with garlic powder, salt and pepper
Simmer 15-20 minutes at least over low heat stirring constantly (the longer you can let it simmer the better)
Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan.

Super easy doesn't take much time! Serve over fettuccine noodles or whatever you want to serve it with. I served mine with sauteed shrimp :)

Cheesy Chicken Chili

Ha I feel like all I post is Mexican/Tex-Mex dishes. We eat a lot of them but that's ok because my family loves them and I do cook other things :)

The other night I had some left over Velveeta so I figured I needed to use it and wanted a chicken dish so I searched and found this.

Ingredients:
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite sized pieces
1 small onion, chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp chili powder
2 cans with beans, drained
1 can chicken broth or 2 cups
1 can green chilies, undrained
1/2 pound (8 oz) velveeta, cut into 1/2 inch cubes.

Directions:
Cook chicken and onions in a large saucepan sprayed with cooking spray until chicken in done (about 7 minutes), stirring occasionally.
Stir in seasoning and cook while stirring for 1 minute
Add beans, broth and chilies, stir
Bring to boil and then simmer on medium-low for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Stir in Velveeta; cook until melted stirring frequently.

I made a double batch of this too and froze about 8 cups. It was spicy and oh so good! The girls really liked it too. We topped it with sour cream.

Taco Soup

Last night the girls and I had Taco Soup. Its super easy and I made a double batch and was able to freeze about 12 cups in addition to having it for dinner last night. I averaged out my cost and it ends up being about $2.25 for the whole meal for the 4 of us :) Not to bad at all.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1/4 cup onions
1 pkg taco seasoning
1 16 oz can kidney beans
1 16 oz can diced tomatoes
1 16 oz can corn
1 8 oz can tomato sauce.

Directions:
Brown ground beef in pot, add onion and cook until tender.
Add rest of ingredients, do not drain or rinse anything, just dump them in there juices and all. Heat through. Serve with cheese, sour cream and tortilla chips or Fritos. Simple and so tasty.

Pumpkins N Stuff

So yesterday I decided to roast some pumpkins, make pumpkin puree, bottle it and freeze it. It wasn't too awfully bad I ended up getting 12 quarts of pumpkin puree and woke up this morning with about 4-6 cups of pumpkin butter.

To roast the pumpkins its quite easy. I just took 3 jack o lantern pumpkins (some people prefer to use pie pumpkins but the jacks worked fine for me and they were a lot cheaper) I washed them off and pierced the skin on the top with a knife (basically I stabbed the pumpkin about 10 times ha ha ) stuck it on a baking sheet and popped it in the oven for 2 hours at 300 F. Make sure your pumpkin doesn't touch the top of the oven! After two hours I took it out of the oven and took the pumpkin and put it on a rag used a knife to split it in half to let the water drain out. Watch out for the steam! Let it cool for about an hour maybe hour and a half, to where you can handle it without being burnt. Scoop out the inside pulp and seeds with a spoon, discard, peel the skin off, cut the flesh in to smallish pieces (mine were about 2" x 2") and put into a food processor and process until smooth. It should look like the consistency of applesauce. Store in mason jars (yes you can freeze these just remember to leave head space to let it expand when it freezes and be careful sticking the jars in the freezer next to previously frozen ones if they bang together to hard they can break!) or freezer bags. FDA states that you should store winter squash by freezing or refrigeration NEVER can it.

PUMPKIN BUTTER
Ingredients:
8 cups pumpkin puree
4 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
4 lemons (juice of)

Combine all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook over night on low heat or in an oven on 300 F until it is smooth and creamy. Make sure to leave your lid slightly off on your slow cooker to allow the moisture out as you are cooking it down for the consistency... Just a couple of side notes this is the recipe I copied off of however I used 2 cups white sugar and 2 cups brown sugar, I increased my cinnamon to 2 tsp and I didn't have any nutmeg but it didn't seem to affect the taste in any way.

PUMPKIN ROLL
Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 c sugar
2/3 c pumpkin puree
1 tsp lemon juice
3/4 c flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt

Frosting:
Mix together
6 oz cream cheese
1 c powdered sugar
1/2 c margarine
1/2 tsp vanilla

Beat eggs for 3 minutes, add sugar, pumpkin, and lemon juice. Beat well
Beat together flour, cinnamon, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt. Beat well
Grease a rigid cookie sheet, put wax paper on it then grease the wax paper.
Pour the batter on the wax paper.
Bake at 375 F for 10 minutes.
Cool for 5 minutes.
Have a dish towel covered with powdered sugar ready.
Place the cake on it and peel off the wax paper.
Roll up in the towel and cool for 30 minutes.
Unroll and frost.
Cover with foil and keep refrigerated.

Beef Tacos

Chances are if you know me you have had these tacos. I always get asked for the recipe. It's quite simple and we eat these at my house about once a week. Ha ha they are the perfect greasy food :)

All you need is:

1lb of ground beef
1 24 oz jar of Herdez Med or Hot Salsa (I have used others but nothing comes out good like this brand)
Tortillas
Mexican Blend Cheese
Olive oil - approximately 1 cup
Paper towels

Taco Sauce -
1 can of tomato sauce
Salt
Pepper
Ground Oregano


Garnishments such as lettuce, tomato, avacado, onion, etc.

• Brown ground beef
• While beef is browning in a small sauce pan combine tomato sauce, about 1/2 cup or so of salsa (I just pour until it's a little underneath the neck of the bottle) salt, pepper and ground oregano. I always eyeball the spices so just whatever tastes good to you. Let this heat through and simmer while you are making the rest
• In another pan heat olive oil over med heat
  
• Once beef is cooked through add the rest of the salsa from the jar and stir. Heat thru.
• Warm a tortilla up in the olive oil flip to heat both sides. Just enough to make it soft.
• Remove from oil and place upon paper towel.
• Spoon some of the beef mixture on to the tortilla add some of the shredded cheese on top, fold tortilla in half and wrap in paper towel.
• Top with garnishments of your choice and taco sauce.

And yes I have taken step by step pictures for all of your enjoyment :)
Just FYI I do not drain my beef after cooking it :)

Jambalya

Ok so tonight I experimented and made Jambalaya. It turned out good. Jadyn really gobbled it up :)

• 1 green pepper (sliced)
• 3 stalks celery (sliced)
• 1 onion (sliced)
• 2 tbsps olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves (minced)
• 1 lb boneless chicken breasts
• 1 lb smoked sausage
• 2 (15 oz) cans stewed tomatoes (sliced)
  
• 2 c water
  
• 1 dash Tabasco sauce
  
• 1 tbsp cajun seasoning
  
• 1 c rice (uncooked)
• 1 lb shrimp (raw, peeled)

1 - Take pepper, onion, celery and garlic and saute them in the olive oil
2 - Remove vegetable from pan and set aside
3 - Cube chicken and cook through
4 - add the sauteed veggies, sausage, tomatoes, water, rice, Tabasco, and cajun seasoning to the chicken. Simmer for 30 minutes
5 - Add shrimp and cook for 5 minutes more.

Yum :)

Sorry these pics aren't that great took them with my phone