Using up all the fresh veggies in the fridge and creating more space in the freezer...

Last week some friends gave me chicken and bacon.  Since it has been in the freezer I have been thinking about what I can make with it and then I had this idea of wrapping the chicken breasts with the bacon before baking.  My thinking is that it would add some flavor and keep the chicken moist.  Broccoli and cauliflower were on sale last week at the grocery store so my refrigerator is full of it and thought it would make a fantastic side if I roasted them in the oven.  I also noticed some red skinned potatoes on the counter and garlic mashed potatoes on a raining cold day sounded supper yummy!


I planned all this in my mind the night before it was planned.  First thing in the morning I took the chicken and bacon out of the freezer so it would be ready to go as soon as I arrived home from work.  My goal was to have the dinner ready in about 30 minutes.  I used my George Foreman to cook the chicken which works so easy and not messy.

The whole meal came together very quickly and was quite tasty. 

4 servings, prepped and cooks in about 45 minutes.

Bacon wrapped chicken:

• 2 Chicken Breasts
• 4 pieces of bacon
• Pepper
• Fresh sage leaves

Wrap each breast in 2 pieces of bacon add some fresh sage under the bacon, add a dash of fresh ground pepper.  Cook until 165F in the center of the chicken.

Mashed Potatoes

• 2 medium red potatoes 
• several cloves of garlic
• couple tablespoons of sour cream
• a little butter
• salt and pepper

Boil the potatoes with the garlic until potatoes are soft, strain and mash together.  Add a couple tablespoons of sour cream and some butter.  Add salt and pepper as desired.

Roasted Broccoli and Cauliflower

• 2 heads of broccoli 
• 1/2 head of cauliflower 
• olive oil, EVOO
  
• salt and pepper 

Cut the florets off of the broccoli and cauliflower then place on a baking sheet.  Drizzle some EVOO over veggies.  Sprinkle with some salt and pepper.  Bake at about 350F for about 30 minutes.

Now you are ready for a yum yum dinner!!
 

Home Made Rolls

Last week I saw a recipe for focaccia rolls and thought they looked and sounded fabulous.  Looking over the recipe it didn't seem as overwhelming as I thought it would be.  I have never made a bread product that involves yeast so I thought I would try it out this weekend for Easter Dinner with my family.   I have been pleasantly surprised how easy they are to make.  

Yesterday afternoon I made up the dough which was just flour, salt, yeast and water. I adjusted the recipe because I was doubling and I had some whole wheat flour I wanted to use up.  So I used half white and half wheat.  It rose overnight and most of today.  Then I took the dough and cut it roll sizes and put them to rise another hour on cookie sheets.

Rolls with Italian Seasoning.

Regular Rolls

They are in the oven now and swell wonderful!!  They all stuck together because my oven is small and there was a lot to cook today so I only wanted to bake one batch.  I'm supper excited for them to come out of the over.

Here is the link for at recipe I used: Focaccia Rolls

Final Product!

Quick Easy Pizza

Pizza is my favorite meal, because I can take what ever I am craving and turn it into a quick and tasty meal. Most of my pizzas are what every I can find in the refrigerator and then add some cheese and tomato sauce and call it a pizza! One time I put peas on my pizza and it was fabulous because it added some sweetness.

One thing I have never tried is making pizza dough.  The thought of making a break produce is overwhelming. I found this great produce at Safeway last month.  They sell fresh pizza dough. When I went to buy it they only has one package left and I wanted two dough balls so Safeway said they had some dough that was still frozen. That worked perfect for me, because it makes a quick and easy freezer meal.

I learned a trick for using refrigerated or frozen dought. If its frozen allow it to thaw over night. Then about thirty minutes before you want roll it out take it out of the refrigerate and allow it to come to room temperate. This makes the dough softer and easier to roll out.  This is the first time I have done this and it was easier to handle.

After I had the dough ready to go it was time to figure out what to put on it. This is my favorite part, looking thought my pantry for yum stuff to add to the pizza.  This time I added pizza sauce, a little cheese, sweet peppers and mushrooms.  I kept looking at the pizza and kept thinking it needed some more protein other then the cheese...hmm.. then I remembered I had some Easy Crockpot Pulled Pork in the freeze.  That thawed really quickly under some running water. 

The pizza just before it was baked.

Now the pizza was ready for a little more cheese then be placed in the over.  I used my pizza cooking stone to cook it.  My stone is not well seasoned so I added a little EVOO to the stone before I cooked it.  I cooked the pizza for about 15 minutes then placed some sliced tomatoes on it and cooked it for a few more minutes.  The pizza was about 5 minutes undercooked.

This pizza was supper yummy and even better for lunch the next few days.  I like to top my pizza with some kind of hot sauce and some light plain yogurt.  The yogurt cuts down the spice of the hot sauce.

Ingredients:

1 Safeway Pizza Dough

1/2 c. Pizza Sauce

3 Handfuls of Cheese

Couple Sweet Peppers

Mushrooms

5 oz Pulled Pork

Easy Crockpot Pulled Pork

 I found this on the internet about I year ago and it is so yummy!! Quick and easy. 

Must try.  And is freezes wonderfully.

INGREDIENTS:
1 large Vidalia onion, sliced thin
1 (4-6 lb) boneless pork butt or shoulder

RUB
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Sauce
¾ cup cider vinegar
4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
1 ½ teaspoons sugar
½ teaspoons dry mustard
½ teaspoon garlic salt
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

DIRECTIONS:
1. Rinse pork roast under cold water and pat dry with paper towels.

2. Place onions in crock-pot. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, paprika, kosher salt and pepper; mix thoroughly. Rub mixture all over roast and place the roast on top of the onions.

3. In a medium bowl, combine vinegar, Worcestershire, red pepper flakes, sugar, mustard, garlic salt and cayenne pepper; whisk to combine. Drizzle about 1/3 of vinegar mixture over roast. Cover and refrigerate remaining vinegar mixture.

4. Cover crockpot; cook on low for 10-12 hours. Drizzle about 1/3 of reserved vinegar mixture over roast during last ½ hour of cooking.

5. Remove meat and onions; drain. Chop or shred meat and onions. Serve with remaining vinegar mixture or your favorite barbeque sauce.

Judging a cookbook...

... by what I can find in the Index.

This last summer I canned tomato sauce for the first time. I did not realize how good my sauce was until I had some store bought sauce and it was not very good.  So I have arranged with some friends to use part of their garden to grow tomatoes and will help them with the care of the garden. The recipe I used for the sauce is the recipe I always use and all I had to add was tablespoon of bottled lemon juice to each jar to make sure it was acidic enough to can. I am gathering all my supplies right now for tomato sauce, except for the tomatoes.  Last year the crop was not until July or August.  I don't think I can wait until that time to get my hand messy in canning.

Last December I was looking for a canning cookbook and wanted one that I could can dill carrots.  Honestly I judged all books by what was in the Index.  I was looking for a dill picked carrots recipe.  There were several books that I thought looked good, but had sugar in the recipe and I also didn't want sugar in it.  So the book I ended up getting was:

As I am writing this blog I looked more closely at the recipe and it has sugar in it... so SAD.  I think I will have to modify the recipe in the book.  Now that I know what I want to can I need to do some research about the topic of canning.  I took a tip to the library and found all the following books:

I have been looked through several of the books for a picked carrot recipe and have not found it.  I have found some great information about the basics of canning.  Over the next month I will be reading through these and I diffidently have to try my hand and picking some carrots and maybe some cucumbers.  

If anyone has a good recipe for pickling something please share with me.

Pumpkin Shrimp Soup

Monday I needed pumpkin for a recipe and had to open a 30 ounce can which was twice what I needed.  For two days there was the other half of the can staring at me.  I was thinking I would make some kind of pumpkin muffins, but didn't have any baking soda in my kitchen.  So I gave a few cookbooks to my roommate to look through and she found a recipe for a Spiced Pumpkin Shrimp Soup.  It sounded interesting so I thought I would give it a try.

Here is the recipe and what I did:

2 medium onions
1 cup chopped carrots, sliced
2 cloves garlic, I love garlic so I always add more 
2 t fresh ginger

2 T butter

This all cooked in a 3 quart pot on the stove for about 20 minutes so the onions would be fully sweated.  I only think onions are good in a soup once they are all sweated out.  I don't really know if this is a technical term or not...
 
1 T fresh cilantro was suppose to be added to the soup but didn't.  I went to the store and thought I had grabbed cilantro, but it turns out I grabbed parsley.  So I didn't add that to the soup.



1/2 t all spice
1 14 oz can chicken broth.  I don't keep chicken broth stocked in my kitchen so I used a chicken base.

This was added to the pot on the stove and then blended in the immersion blender until all smooth. 

14 oz can of pumpkin
1 cup milk 

This was then added to the pot on the stove and heated through.

 That is what my pot looked like.


8 oz of cooked shrimp.

I only had raw deveined frozen shrimp on hand so I thawed it out.  Once it was thawed I looked closely at it and noticed that only one of the veins on the shrimp had been removed.  A few months ago I had the pleasure of having shrimp that was not deveined and it was so nasty.  I now understood why judges on cooking shows get so upset when people do devein shrimp.  I deveined shrimp for the first time.  It was not to bad, but a little time consuming.

I cooked the shrimp and added it to my warm soup.

Serve with plain yogurt and some chopped chives.

This is my bowl of soup.  It hard to see but there is a piece of shrimp and some yogurt in the bowl.  

I will have to get better at taking final photos.

This made so much soup.  The recipe said it would be for 4 servings, but I would have said 6 to 8.  We eat all the shrimp out and froze over half of the soup.  Next time I want this soup, I can pull it out the freezer and cook up some more shrimp and have dinner read to go.

If you try it let me know what you think.

About my new blog...

This is a blog dedicated to the discovery of new recipes, canning and ways to create good meals.  I love to cook and try to be creative with how I make my meals.  My goal is to eat all my own prepared meals Monday through Friday and on the weekends splurge and eat out.  I will be honest and I buy drip coffee every morning when I get to work.  I have been working to taking my own, but I love sitting and drinking my coffee at work before the busy day starts.