NRaWin2012: Pepper and Onion Steak

I am STILL behind on these posts but I have been making them.  This next one is from our dinner on Feb 17th! :)  So...we're just going to keep working on trying to get caught up.  I've made Peppered Steak quite a few times and sometimes it comes out good and I have been known to over spice it.  My DH isn't a fan of soy sauce or anything too salty so that is good but I have over soy sauced or salted things plenty!  He was worried I would do the same with this so I enlisted my sister G's help since she always makes this really good!

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Recipe: Pepper and Onion Steak

I started with a piece of steak...wish I remembered what kind of cut I got but I don't.  I sliced up the meat and put it into a bowl with some soy sauce, worcestershire sauce and some spices.  While that marinated, I started the rice and chopping the onions.  Then I started browned the meat while I cut up the rest of the onions, peppers and garlic.  I put in the veggies as soon as the meat was browned.  I then let it saute while I finished up the rice and put on the beans.  It took about 10 mins or less for the veggies to be done.  I like them to be a little bit crispy still.

This turned out pretty good! My sister usually uses a little Italian dressing for the marinade too but I didn't have any.  I'd like to try again with that.

Happy Cooking!!!

NRaWin2012: Sausage stuffed mushrooms

This was actually the new recipe for two weeks ago but we made it and then I never posted. :)  This was actually another Special K recipe but he hasn't had time to post the blog so I'm not sure exactly what he did. 

Recipe: Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms.

What I do know...he got the recipe from Rachel Ray's site here.  I know that he left out the celery and other stuff but not sure exactly what.  All I can say is that these were FANTASTIC!! I love mushrooms!  We also had a bunch of left over and we used  it for pasta which I have a picture of somewhere...I'll have to add later.  Also...we kept some of the sausage mix out before we added anything that Carmen was allergic too into it...and she loved it!

Happy Cooking!!!

NRaWin2012: Mini Veggie/Bacon Frittatas

This past week's new recipe is a couple days late.  We have been doing them on Thursday nights but last week was just too busy and by Thursday night we hadn't made any decisions and we were both just tired.  We had plans for doing it over the weekend but in the end, I jumped on helping my sister make breakfast for her family, CGR and I and I got my new recipe in. :)

Sunday morning, my sister G invited us over for breakfast..mainly so they could hang out with Carmen but that's ok.  :)  We showed up and she was prepping breakfast and when I found out she was trying a new recipe I jumped in and helped and figured it would count still.  My niece had found this recipe on Pinterest.com and they were trying it.


Recipe: Mini Veggie/Bacon Frittatas

She started by putting the bacon in the oven to cook.  Then she cut up about 2/3rds of a Green Pepper, Red Pepper, and a sweet onion.  We realized later we could have used a bit less veggies.  And what's great is that you really can use any type of veggies because it's pretty much veggies, meat, and eggs. :)  In a bowl, I mixed up 10 eggs(even though the recipe said to use some egg whites we didn't).  Then you add the cut up veggies and chop up the bacon and put that in too.  Then we put this into muffin tins and baked it for about 20 mins on 350 degrees....and tada a yummy fast breakfast!  Carmen couldn't have it because the eggs but she enjoyed some bacon, fruit, and some toast with jam.

I'd like to try this again for Special K and add some sausage and maybe do some that are spinach and feta.  It would be fun to try out different recipes but since it was so easy I can imagine we will be doing it again.

This Thursday I have a meet up of mommies from my mommy and me group to go to.  They want to learn to knit and so I am going to try to teach them...already enlisted a friend since I am pretty sure that I can't teach 10 people to knit at once. :)  So...I'll be trying to do the recipe another night but I think it won't be until either Friday or Saturday.  I have an idea of what I want to do but Special K sometimes has his own ideas. :)

Happy Cooking!!!

NRaWin2012: Spinach, Mushroom, Onion, Red Bell Pepper Quiche

Guest post today is from Special K!  This week he did all the prep work and cooking.  Hope you enjoy his post!
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Hello, this is Natalie's husband Kenny. The new recipe I tried this week was mozzarella quiche with red bell peppers, spinach, mushrooms, and onions. I've never made quiche before, and it turned out to be easier than I thought. I started by baking a 9-inch Pillsbury pie crust in a glass Pyrex pie dish at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes.  While the crust was baking, I finely chopped the onions and diced up the peppers and mushrooms for sauteing in a large pan with about a tablespoon of butter and took the spinach out of the freezer to thaw. After that, I mixed about 12 ounces of  whole milk with three large cage-free eggs and stirred in about 2 ounces (by weight) of finely shredded mozzarella cheese. After the vegetables were softened a bit and the onions were semi-translucent, I removed them from heat and set aside. The crust was done around the same time, so I took it out of the oven and let it cool so that it wouldn't cook the eggs when I poured in the mixture.

While my crust and I were coolin' out, I added about five ounces (by weight) of the thawed spinach to the cooled veggie mixture. The crust and I were done relaxing, so I added a little of the egg mixture into the crust, followed by some veggie mix and stirred to combine so the veggies wouldn't be centralized in the middle of the dish. I repeated this process until the egg mix was about half to a quarter inch below the top of the crust. Try not to fill too much for fear that the eggs will expand enough to spill over the top of the crust. Now as I'm typing these last few sentences, the timer has gone off and I will go check the quiche by inserting a knife into the center of the dish to make sure there is no uncooked egg mixture that will pour out of the hole made by the knife. If you're clean, then it is done (as is mine). Now you go try it with whatever filling you desire, although, the eggs and milk will pretty much be the same. Oh, and by the way, bake at around 350 for 45 minutes. Natalie will post a review of how it turned out, I'm sure. Enjoy.  

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The quiche was amazing!  I love quiche and he did a great job.  He's already talking about doing home-made crust next time and using a little less veggies and in a different pan.  I look forward to more quiche in our future!

Happy Cooking!

NRaWin2012: Chicken Pot Pie

What is NRaWin2012 you ask?  Well, I was trying to figure out something to call this little goal of mine and NRaWin2012 or New Recipe a Week in 2012 came about!   The goal is to make a new recipe every week.  It can be anything from a dessert, side, to a whole main dish.  It has to be a recipe I have never tried before and I don't have to follow the recipe closely nor do I have to use a recipe.  It just has to be making something a new way that I've never done before.  I'm not counting out trying several of the same dish using different recipes either.  Just trying to make this as easy as possible for me while still being a challenge.  There are a lot of weeks in a year!   Also not counting out, my husband taking over the cooking for that night...it was VERY hard to keep him from taking over this first week since he usually does most the fun cooking.   So, we'll just say that Special K or I will be doing this challenge as a team.

For the first week, Special K requested Chicken Pot Pie.  Honestly, I didn't know he liked it so much!!  When he mentioned that that's what he wanted, I went on Pinterest and searched Chicken Pot Pie.  I got a TON of results!  I settled on using this recipe but making some modifications for our tastes.

WEEK 1 RECIPE: Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients

3 uncooked boneless skinless chicken breasts, thawed
2 cans of cream of chicken soup
1 can of cream of mushroom with roasted garlic (you could just use all cream of chicken soap but I saw this and couldn't resist getting at least one of them.)
1 can of milk
1/2 can of water (I only added this because I was worried about leaving it in the crock pot all day but I could have left it out.)
4-5 medium potatoes, diced
1 container of mushrooms
1/2 a bag of crinkle cut carrots
1 cup of diced celery
1 small onion, diced
1 small bag or box of frozen peas
Adobo Seasonings (or whatever your heart desires)
a dash of pepper and salt if you'd like
2 packages of Pillsbury Crescent rolls
Small aluminum tins

The night before I chopped up all the veggies that needed dicing and put them in a container in the fridge.  This morning in a crock pot, I added chicken breast, soups, milk, water, potatoes, mushrooms, celery, onion and all spices. Cook on low for about 6 hrs. I let it cook all day while I was at work so it was closer to 9 but I'm sure 6 would work.  I came home for lunch and shredded the chicken and stirred it a bit.   Next, add peas to the crock pot; cook for about 10 minutes or until peas are warmed through. Since Special K wanted a bottom crust, we unrolled the crescent rolls,  put a layer in the tins and for his we put a tin with water on top to keep the crust from puffing up too much but mine we left.  Baked it for about 10-12 mins on 350.  Then I pulled it out of oven, added pot pie filling, and placed a layer of the crescent roll on top.  Last baked in oven on 350 for about another 15-17 mins.  Take out the pies, let them cook a bit, and then DIG in!!

Here are some progress pictures for you.

Layer of crescent rolls in tins.

Special Ks on the left with the tin with water in it.

Adding filling and covering them in dough.

You can't tell but I put an N on one and a heart K on the other.

Leftover pie filling!!!  I separated it out to use some as soup and some for more pot pies!

Another view of the baked goodness!!!  

These came out SO yummy!!  Special K was impressed with them which after eating some not so great meals I've cooked in our time married is a GREAT thing!  I think this will be a recipe I will try again...but just maybe not for a while.

Hope you enjoyed my first NRaWin2012!  Feel free to join me in this challenge at anytime and add a link to your post in the comments!

Happy Cooking!!!!

PS...if you notice this wasn't something I could give Miss Carmen AKA the milk/peanut/egg allergy girly!  She has some potatoes cooked in olive oil on stove, peas, and soy yogurt for dinner.   Nothing too exciting but she ate a bunch so that is good!  I was going to make her some chicken too but she wasn't feeling that good so she was extra snuggly. :)  Love that girl!  We might be staying home tomorrow because of her sickness but we haven't made the call yet.

BLTelicious!!!

Hi, my name is Gnat aka Barknknit and I, I am ADDICTED to pinterest.com!  It's an addiction to all the pretty pictures of crafts and especially of FOOD!!  This addiction has prompted my 2012 goal.  I am still working on a 2012 theme ala Jasmin from the Knitmore Girls Podcast but for now I have a goal.  My goal is to make one new recipe a week for the year.  This can be any type of recipe such as a main dish, dessert, or side.  I have begun preparing by creating a board with ideas for my weekly new recipe to try.  I need to come up with a catchy name for my goal aka project but it hasn't come to me yet...so if you have suggestions or even if you want to join in just leave me a comment and let me know.

While looking at all the pictures of food and wanting to take a nice lick of my screen last week, I started to develop a craving for some bacon!  Now bacon is a breakfast food which goes great with pancakes, waffles, omelets, and eggs cooked in any way...and yet all those contain eggs which I am still not able to eat.  While a plate of bacon sounds lovely, a meal it does not make.  After dreaming of bacon, the idea came to me that we should just have BLTs.  I'm not sure I have ever in my life made one and only had them maybe twice.  Special K was all over this idea so we decided that we would have them tonight.   Of course there would be a suggestion on pinterest for how to make the bacon for a BLT!  I saw this pin and thought genius!  I posted it on Facebook and got another suggestion of using avocado instead of mayo and I was sold!

After work, I stopped by Publix to get the supplies we were missing.  CGR and I got home, took care of the pups, and then this mama got to cooking!  I put the fries into the oven...yes...we had a healthy meal tonight...and then mashed up half the avocado and added salt and pepper to it.  I washed and cut up the lettuce and tomato then wove the bacon and put it in the oven!  When the bacon was almost done, I toasted my bread, spread the avocado paste onto it and layered some tomato and lettuce!  Lastly came the delicious BACON!!!

My BLT was complete and looking oh so yummy!!

And let me tell you...it was DELICOUS!!  The bacon was perfect and with the mix of the avocado...well you just can't go wrong with avocado!!  This is definitely something I'm going to have to make again.  And baking the bacon is genius!!

I was thinking that I'll be posting about my new recipes project on this blog but you know I'm not always good at following through with things in the interwebs.  My goal of part of this recipe thing is to blog about it but honestly the goal of actually doing the recipes are more important.  They might not all get blogged when they happen but I really want to try out new recipes so I'm excited!

Between now and the first week of the new year, I plan to post up some of my recipes that are my go to ones.  I'm not a great cook by any stretch of the imagination but I can cook and the things I do cook I find delicious!  I will also post some recipes from my family and ones friends have given me that I've tried.   And just so you know...they won't  all be as vague as this one. hehe!

Happy Cooking, Baking, and Making!!