Beef Stuffed Shells

Imagine the taste of meat balls stuffed into a shell. I make 1/2 a box of shell noodles and let them cool. Then I fry 1/2 lb of beef with 1 tablespoon tomato paste, 2 tablespoons water, 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning, 1 teaspoon salt, black pepper. Then I scoop the mixture into the shells and layer them in a baking dish with marinara sauce and soy cheese. Then I baked it for 30 minutes. It tastes a lot better than it looks. But I love taking pictures of food.

Banana and Wheat Germ Muffins

Combine all of the following in a large bowl and set aside.

1 1/2 cups AP Flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup wheat germ

Now combine in a medium bowl

2 large eggs
1/3 cup of canola oil
1/2 cup milk (soy or lactose free)
1 1/2 cups mushed very ripe bananas (I used two)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix well and then pour the liquid bowl over the dry bowl and combine. Then fill 1 muffin cups 3/4 of the way full. And bake at 400 degrees (my oven runs too hot so I did 350) for 20 to 25 minutes.

This is one of the few recipes that I make that really does make 12 good size muffins and not 10 good ones and 2 tiny ones. I also added a few things like my dehydrated banana slices that taste of like eating fresh banana bread





And I have some walnuts in the freezer I need to eat before they go bad so I chopped up a big handful and sprinkled them on top of the muffins before baking. I left some with out nuts to compare.


Right now they are all cooling in the window, but I'm hoping they taste great. I will be sure to let you know.

Irish Cheese Cakes

I made these with my niece for her multi cultural night at school. And they were amazing! Almost enough to knock the lil girl down and keep them for myself! But I would never do that I'm a nice aunt.

The cheese cakes:

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
rind and juice of 1/2 a lemon (zest)
2 eggs, beaten
8 tablespoons self-rising flour
8 oz pie crust
8 table spoons raspberry preserves
1 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375. Beat the butter, sugar, and lemon zest until fluffy. Beat in the eggs a little at a time.

Sift the flour and add to the butter mixture.

Push the pie crust into 12 cupcake tins. Spoon in the preserves and fill 3/4 full of batter. Bake until brown about 25 minutes.

Let cook and ice with powder sugar and lemon juice mixed together to make a yummy lemon icing.



The recipe for the pie crust I got from
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/perfect_pie_crust/
* 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
* 1 cup (2 sticks or 8 ounces) unsalted butter, very-cold, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon sugar
* 4 to 8 Tbsp ice water
Cut the sticks of butter into 1/2-inch cubes and place in the freezer for 15 minutes to an hour (the longer the better) so that they become thoroughly chilled.

Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor; pulse to mix. Add butter and pulse 6 to 8 times, until mixture resembles coarse meal, with pea size pieces of butter. Add ice water 1 Tbsp at a time, pulsing until mixture just begins to clump together. If you pinch some of the crumbly dough and it holds together, it's ready. If the dough doesn't hold together, add a little more water and pulse again.

Remove dough from machine and place in a mound on a clean surface. Gently shape into 2 discs. Knead the dough just enough to form the discs, do not over-knead. You should be able to see little bits of butter in the dough. These small chunks of butter are what will allow the resulting crust to be flaky. Sprinkle a little flour around the discs. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour, and up to 2 days.

Pierogies

The filling I made from 1 pound Yukon gold potatoes, and boiled them with 2 smashed cloves of garlic and salt. This gave them a hint of garlic. Then I smashed the potatoes with some salt pepper and butter. Needless to say the filling was amazing. The dough was from a recipe.. they would make great dumplings but I couldn't get them thin enough so the pierogies weren't what I expected. Mike said they were just like all the other pierogies he has had, then he ate 6 of them.

Pizza night!

So I am on this make my own food kick, and when it comes to pizza its more of a necessity because of the no cheese thing. But I was buying par-baked pizza crusts from the store for as much as $5 for me and Mike. Turns out its super cheap and easy to make your own. I think my 5lbs of bread flour was about $3.50 and everything else you normally have in the pantry. The olive oil is the real pricey part of this recipe and its only 3 table spoons, not bad at all. Now the first time I made this I used all white bread flour but it really is better with a little wheat flour. I used the recipe off recipezaar. Here is the link http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Pizza-Dough-and-Sauce-1005. I do not use the sauce recipe.

Ingredients
Pizza Dough

* 3/4 tablespoon yeast
* 1 1/2 cups warm water
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 3 tablespoons oil
* 4 cups flour (we prefer half white, half wheat)

In a large bowl, sprinkle yeast over warm water (I add a pinch of sugar) and allow to set until it begins to foam, about 5 minutes.

Stir in salt, oil and half of flour. Gradually add remaining flour, mixing well.

Knead 8-10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place in greased bowl and let rise until double (1/2-1 hour) Punch down and let rise again until double. Punch down and divide. Pat out on two pizza pans.

Top with pizza sauce & toppings. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

This dough turns out great, if you want more flavor let rise for 30 minutes. Then let it have a slow 2nd rise in the refrigerator for 4 to 6 hours. Then you can dress up the pizza any way you like it. Tonight I made an everything pizza with vegetarian Italian sausage, black olives, mushrooms, green bell peppers and soy mozzarella cheese.

Ciabatta

Okay I just started venturing into the world of bread making and today I tried Ciabatta. I looked on youtube to see how to make it and this was the best video on there http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX_6l2bmvQI&feature=fvw. The guy is really funny and it helped a lot, because its more of a goop than a dough.

The time for a whole loaf is about 35 minutes but I made a small loaf and some rolls so mine was like 20 minutes for a loaf and 12 minutes for the rolls. They are full of flavor but do not taste like the ciabatta I bought at the store, but I did give them 20 hours not the 18. Watch the vidoe its reall helpful. I am just glad my first try ended up edible for one and Mike has eaten 5 rolls so I guess they are more than okay.

3 1/2 cups of white
1/2 cup of wheat [ wheat flour]
1/4 teaspoon of yeast
1 1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 cups of warm water

Fried Rice Lunch

So Mike and I have tried really hard this month to only go to the store once every two weeks and only eat out once a week. Its been going well, except when my brother and his kids came over for pizza I had everything to make yummy pizza from scratch, but I realized they prob wouldn't want my vegan cheese, so I did have to run out and get some mozzarella and pepperoni.

Yesterday I saw a fried rice seasoning packet I bought months ago and I decided that I would try to make fried rice again (it doesn't always turn out good so I haven't made it in awhile). The only thing that is really important about fried rice is that you make the rice the day before and store it in the fridge. If you try to use fresh rice it will just get all mushy and paste like.

So yesterday I made 1 cup Brown Rice like the bag said, but I added 2 chicken bullion cubes for extra flavor. Then I stored it in the fridge.

So today I threw together:

1 Tbsp oil
1 cup brown rice
1 tsp soy sauce
4 drops of sesame seed oil (this stuff is strong be careful)
1 cup frozen peas and carrot mix
3 Tyson grilled pre-cooked frozen chicken breast
1/2 a packet of store bought fried rice seasoning.
1/4 cup green onion (I didn't have any so I used 6 frozen pearl onions and it did great on adding that yummy onion flavor)
4 cracks of black papper ( white pepper is better but again I didn't have any)

Heat Tyson chicken thro and set aside.
Add oil to the pan until hot (medium high heat) then add rice and onion and fry for a few minutes.
Combine soy sauce and sesame seed oil in a small dish then add to rice and stir.
Then add seasoning and stir for a few minnutes.
Then add the chicken from before and the carrots and peas.
Continue frying a few more minutes to let all the flavors comebine.
Then eat.

This turned out better than when I normally make it. On the table I added a little cracked black pepper and stired it all together.

The Potato Problem

So I was poking around the pantry today and I looked into my potatoes and realized that not only did I have a ton (there was a sale...) they were also starting to grow. I caught the little buggers just in time before they really got crazy or mushy. Now I'm not saying I can eat the 6lbs of potatoes in my pantry in one day but I'm gonna have to start eating them before they go bad. So for a snack before work I thought about how yummy hash browns are and how easy they have to be to make. And after giving it a try I will never go to IHOP or Perkins again to get my hash brown fix. They were so good and took like 10 minutes to make.


3 Tbsp canola oil
1 lb Russet baking potatoes, peeled and grated
Salt and pepper
2 Tbsp of chopped red onion
1/2 tsp minced garlic
Mrs Dash Chipotle seasoning.


Heat 3 Tbsp of oil in a large frying pan on medium high heat.

While the pan is heating, squeeze out as much moisture as you can from the grated potatoes. It's easiest to do this with a potato ricer, using it much like you would a garlic press, except you don't force the potatoes through the ricer. You just press out the moisture. If you don't have a ricer, use tea towel to squeeze out as much moisture as you can from the grated potatoes.

Next when the oil is hot throw in the onions, mix for a few minutes then throw in the garlic (be careful not to burn the garlic). Wait till the room smells amazing! Like 2 minutes. then add the potatoes to the pan and spread out so they can get nice and brown. Season with salt and pepper. If you want more flavor add the Mrs. Dash.

Then flip the hash browns over (my flip didn't go well so I just cut them into small batches with the spatula). When nice and brown on both side flip out onto a plate and ready your ketchup!