Sausage Pumpkin Cornbread Stuffing

The ingredients are a little bizarre, but this is really, really good. I look forward to making it each Thanksgiving. It's sweet. It's spicy. And very savory. I love it!

3/4 Beef Smoked Sausage

1-2 jalapeño peppers, minced (check the hotness first, each pepper varies in spice.)

2- 8oz cornbread mixes

1- 15 oz can of pumpkin

1 -14oz can of chicken broth

1 cup of dried cranberries

1 tbsp tablespoon sage

Prepare the cornbread as directed on the box. You can make it the night before and then have it ready the next day.

Chop the sausage into small-medium sized chunks. Remove seeds from the jalapeño pepper and mince in a food processor (or manually mince it with a knife). In a large skillet cook the sausage and pepper over medium heat. Slowly add the cornbread, followed by the pumpkin, broth, sage and cranberries. Stir gently until combined. For dryer stuffing, omit all or part of the broth. (I like my stuffing on the moist side, so I usually add more broth until it reaches my desired consistency.)

Thanksgiving Recipes

With Thanksgiving coming up in a few weeks, I thought it would be great to share some of our favorite holiday recipes. I have a great stuffing recipe that everyone has to try. I hope to post that recipe soon....

Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

These cookies are very soft, especially if you store them in a sealed container; they get softer after a day. I actually found it in a box of my stuff that my mom had stored for me.

2 1/2 c flour 1 tsp baking soda
1 cup margarine 1/4 cup sugar
3/4 brown sugar 1 pkg (4 oz) chocolate or vanilla instant pudding
1 tsp vanilla 1 pkg (12 oz) chocolate chips
2 eggs

Preheat oven 375. Mix flour and baking soda. In separate bowl combine butter, sugars, pudding mix and vanilla. Beat until smooth and creamy. Beat in egss. Gradually mix flour mixture in. Stir in chips {we actually only used like 1/2 bag}. (Batter will be stiff). Spoon onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake 8-10.

Veggie Pita Pockets

Perhaps one of my favorite ways to eat my vegetables.

Pita bread

tomato

spinach

onion

green pepper

hummus

(of course you can add anything else you like, such as ham, turkey, or cheese)

Slice Pita bread in half and spread hummus inside the pita. Slice tomato, onion, and green pepper and stuff into pocket. Add spinach. Eat and enjoy.

Lemon Basil Pasta

I've made this a couple times and Michael loves it! He says that it's one of his favorite meals of all time. I think it's pretty good too. I should warn you that the lemon flavor comes out VERY strong. I was a little taken back when I first tried it. It's best when served with chicken (or some other meat) to help balance the strong lemon-y taste.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 4 whole Grilled Chicken Breasts, Sliced
• 1 pound Penne Pasta, Cooked Until Al Dente
• ½ sticks Butter
• 3 whole Lemons, Juiced
• ¾ cups Heavy Cream
• ¼ cups Half-and-half
• 1-½ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese (or Romano)
• Salt And Freshly Ground Black Pepper, To Taste
• 20 whole Basil Leaves, Chopped

Preparation Instructions

Cook pasta, reserving 1 cup of hot pasta water when you drain. Set pasta aside in a colander.

In the same pot, melt butter over medium heat. Squeeze in the juice of 3 to 4 lemons. Whisk together. Pour in cream and half-and-heat. Whisk until hot. Dump in cheese and whisk until melted. Add salt and pepper. Check consistency, adding some of the hot pasta water to loosen the sauce if needed.

Pour pasta and sauce into a large serving bowl. Sprinkle remaining basil all over the top, then add sliced chicken breasts. Serve immediately!

Tomato Soup

As I sit here and eat my leftover Hearty Tomato Soup, I feel the need to share the recipe with you.
Its kind of tangy, but a fun twist on the basic condensed version. Its from the Betty Crocker's Cookbook.

2 TBSP butter or margarine
1 medium onion, finely chopped (1/2 c)
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp chopped fresh or 1/2 tsp dried basil leaves
2 packages (3 oz each) cream cheese, softened
1 1/4 c milk
2 cans (10 3/4 oz each) condensed tomato soup
2 cans (14 1/2 oz each) whole tomatoes, undrained

1. Melt butter in 3-qt saucepan over medium heat. Cook onion and garlic in butter about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onion is tender; remove from heat.
2. Stir in paprika, basil, and cream cheese. Gradually stir in milk and soup. Beat with hand beater or wire whisk until cheese is melted and soup is smooth.
3. Stir in tomatoes, breaking up tomatoes with a fork or snipping with kitchen scissors. Heat over medium heat, stirring frequently, until hot.

We served ours with french bread. Mmm!

Fluff?

Bonnie, I still want the "fluff" recipe! ;)

Rice with Summer Squash

This recipe is SO tasty and a great way to use all the summer squash you get from friends and neighbors with gardens. The veggies cook up really soft so it's great for little ones. This dish is more veggie than rice, especially if you use 2 squash as it asks. Oh yeah, and I use a bouillon cube and water for the chicken broth.

Try it!! It's delicious!!

Biscuits and Dinner Rolls

Baking used to scare me. I always thought any recipe with flour or yeast (especially yeast) was a disaster waiting to happen in the kitchen. Maybe I'm thinking to the time Carol and I tried to make pancakes and somehow we ended up with thick, hard pancakes. It was horrible. Emily and Cat would tease me saying how I can't make pancakes and somehow I generalized that to all things related to baking. I finally realized that it's not as bad as it seems.

Here are two recipes that I like to use. I found the biscuit recipe here. A friend gave me the dinner rolls recipe.

Easy, Flaky Buttery Biscuits

3 cups Flour

4 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

2 tbsp sugar

3/4 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup Butter, cold

1 eggs, slightly beaten

1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Mix Dry ingredients together. Cut in cold butter, until it is pea-sized. Mix egg and milk and pour into dry mix. Stir together with a fork. Combine all the dry mix with the wet mixture until it forms a soft ball. Turn out onto a floured counter. Pat down until 3/4" thick (NOTE: rolling will keep it from being flaky). Cut biscuits out and place on an ungreased pan.

Bake for 10-15 minutes.

**These freeze really well. So I like to save some of the dough since we hardly ever eat a whole batch.

Dinner Rolls

1 1/8 cup warm water

2 Tbsp milk

2 tbsp butter, melted

4 tbsp sugar

3 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp yeast

In a large bowl dissolve sugar in warm water. Add milk and melted butter. Add yeast and stir briefly. Let it sit for about 10 minutes until frothy.

In separate bowl mix salt and flour. Stir in the water with yeast. Knead dough and let it rest for 20 minutes. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface. Cut dough with biscuit cutter or whatever (I use a cup) and dip into melted butter. Fold each circle in half (well, not quite in half...it's more like 2/3 where the top overlaps the bottom) and place closely together in 8x8 pan.

Bake for 15-20 minutes at 375 degrees.

Brattens Clam Chowder

My mother in law made a recipe book of the recipes she uses the most.
On Sunday I made this Bratten's Clam Chowder---it was SO good (though probably not so good for you)!

2 cans minced clams (drained-reserve juice)
2 cups diced potatoes
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced onion
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup flour
1 quart half and half (add milk if too thick)
1 1/2 t salt (pepper to taste)
1/2 t sugar

Pour juice off clams over vegetables. Add enough water to cover and cook until potatoes are tender. (About 15-20 min).

In a separate pot melt butter, and flour and cook while stirring for 1 minute. Add half and half and cook until smooth. Add salt, pepper, and sugar. Add undrained vegetables and drained clams and warm thoroughly.

Amazing Breadsticks

My friend gave me her breadsticks recipe and it's wonderful!

1 1/2 cups warm water

2 tbsp. sugar

1 tbsp yeast

1/2 cup dry milk

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups flour

1 stick of butter, melted

Garlic salt

Parmesan cheese

In a large bowl dissolve sugar in water. Add yeast and stir briefly. Stir in dry milk, salt and 3 cups flour. Knead 3 minutes adding more flour as needed. Let it rise for about 20-30 minutes.

Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface. Cut dough into 1 inch strips and dip into melted butter. Place strips closely together in the pan. Sprinkle garlic salt and Parmesan cheese liberally.

Let rise it again for 10-15 minutes. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Flavorful Burgers

It's summer you guys! Time for burgers and grills. We just recently had a picnic with some mouth-watering burgers! (Best I've had, seriously). I like recipes with flavor and tried this one out: Ranch Burgers (except used 1.5 lbs of ground beef and half a pound of sausage- mmm); I thought it would go well with some Avocado spread I wanted to use: Creamy Avocado-Ranch Dip. I had to improvise with the avocado recipe because it wasn't exactly what I had in mind for a burger spread. I just cut the whole thing in half except left the 2 large avocados to make it heavy on the avocado. Imagine this burger: bun, heavy avocado spread, tomato, lettuce, onion, delicious juicy patty, mustard/ketchup, bun. WOW! It was awesome.

With the leftover avocado spread, I made lunch sandwiches with english muffins, spread, tomato, lettuce, and boiled egg. Good stuff.

I also want to try out these good looking burgers but can't vouch for them yet since I haven't tried them: Calico Burgers and Spinach-Feta Turkey burgers. They do have great reviews though!

Orange Burst Cookies (and Chocolate chip cookies)

Cidne asked for our favorite cookie recipe. I love these!! (Especially in winter when oranges are cheap.)

Also, this is my very favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. It's straight off the toll-house chocolate chip bag. Always use semi-sweet chocolate chips. If you take the cookies out when they still look undone in the middle, they will finish cooking (mostly) as they cool and still be soft. Love the soft, chewy cookies! (We also never add the nuts. we don't love nuts in our desserts.)

Egg Drop Soup

I found this recipe in one of my cookbooks (Taste of Home: Simple and Delicious Cookbook). It's great with fried rice and is super easy to make. Now I just wonder where you get those good egg noodle chip things. Do you know what I'm talking about? Chinese restaurants usually offer them with the soup.

3 cups chicken broth

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 tablespoons cold water

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 green onion, sliced

In a large saucepan, bring broth to boil over medium heat.

In a separate bowl, combine cornstarch and water until smooth; gradually stir into broth. Bring to boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.

Reduce heat. Drizzle beaten egg into hot broth, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat; stir in onion.

Yields 4 servings.

Cookies, anyone?

I've searched high and low for a good chocolate chip cookie recipe. I prefer my cookies to be really soft and chewy. I was so happy when I came across this one because it was exactly what I wanted!

This is the basis of my recipe, though for whatever reason, I thought one stick of butter was a equal to a cup of butter. I don't know what made me think that because I did know that it was really just half a cup at some point in my life. I think. Well, recently someone corrected my error and that totally shifted my cooking world. I had to rack my brain to figure out if I made my cookies with 1 stick or 2 sticks of butter. I'm pretty sure I only used one stick because I always wondered why my cookie dough was particularly dry and crumbly so I would add a extra egg to moisten it up a bit. Then as I was looking over the original recipe (found in the link), I realized that I always added more flour! I guess I wrote that wrong...whoops. SO long story short, for the original recipe go here (those cookies are good too), but my altered and equally good (if not better!) cookie recipe is below.

Ingredients

2-1/2 cups All-purpose flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup white sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 package Instant Vanilla pudding mix

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 package of chocolate chips (if you're going to make chocolate chip cookies, you gotta have lots of chips!)

1/2 cup nuts (optional)

1. Stir baking soda, flour, and salt. Set aside.

2. Combine butter, sugars, and pudding mix and beat until fluffy.

3. Add vanilla extract and eggs and beat until smooth.

4. Add dry ingredients and mix well.

5. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

6. Bake at 375* for 8 minutes. (**Very important note: if you want super chewy cookies, you must take them out of the oven as soon as they start to brown. Even if they look mushy and not cooked in the middle, that's ok. That's what makes them chewy! Also, if they don't flatten on their own, I'll smash them down a bit with a spatula after I take them out of the oven.)

What's your favorite cookie?? Post your favorite cookie recipe!

Brownies!

My recipe box is completely full and so I was trying to clean out unused recipes and discovered I have 8 brownies recipes (not to mention I have a brownie cookbook). I set out to bake them all and decide which ones to keep. Dumb idea because I only cook one at a time, so its really difficult to compare. And to be honest, I don't know if there are really any brownies that I don't like.

Here are a few of the recipes I have managed to try and they are all different, but I have liked them all so far.

4 oz unsweetened chocolate (12 TBSP cocoa [approx 1 C] and 4 TBSP butter)
1 1/2 sticks margarine (separate from that substituted for the chocolate)
2 C sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 C all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
dash salt
1 C chopped walnuts (opt)

Melt chocolate and butter on low heat. Preheat oven 350. Add sugar to pot. Blend in eggs and vanilla removed from heat. Add flour, soda, salt and nuts. Grease 13x9. Bake 30-35 min.

Rocky Road Brownies
Melt 1/2 c margarine and 1 sq unsweetened chocolate
Remove from heat and add
1 c sugar, 1 c flour, 1/2 chopped nuts, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 eggs

Pour into greased 13x9 pan and set aside.
In a small bowl mix:
6 oz cream cheese
1/2 c sugar
2 TBSP flour
1 egg
1tsp vanilla
1/4 c margarine
Pour over chocolate mixture and spread.
(opt. sprinkle 1/4 c chopped nuts and 6 oz choc chips over top)
Bake at 350 for 25-30 min.
A few minutes before it is done, remove from oven and spread 2 c mini marshmellows on top. Put back in oven for 2 min. (don't overcook mellows or let them melt too much)

Meanwhile mix 3 c powdered sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and milk to thin frosting. Spread on brownies when fresh out of oven. Store in fridge.

Angel Food Cake Dessert

Below is a recipe from a friend who made this at a relief society activity. I'm making this for mother's day because it's so delicious and refreshing. (Plus, strawberries are on sale.) I'm doing my angel food cake from scratch.

1 Angel food cake

1 carton of vanilla ice cream

1 container of cool whip

1 container frozen, sweetened, sliced strawberries (size of container depends on how much you like strawberries!)

Cut the angel food cake in half. Take one half and cut into thumb-length rectangles and lay these out on the bottom of a 13x9 pan as the bottom of the cake, but leave some space between them. Take the other half of the cake bar and tear it into bite size pieces and set aside.If the ice cream has been sitting out this whole time it should be soft enough to scoop and gently mash onto the bottom cake layer. Try to get it into the gaps so when it freezes again it locks them all together. Once the ice cream layer is down, then take the remaining cake shreds and stick them all over the top, pressing them down in the ice cream. Then spread the whipped cream all over the top.** Set the whole pan in the freezer for a few hours to refreeze. Then just thaw the strawberries out when you're ready for cake!

** Also, the original recipe didn't have any whipped cream, I added it because it's delicious, but you can leave it out if it's too much of a sugar overload. Same with the sweetened strawberries, you can always use fresh or unsweetened :)

There it is! It's quick to make and there's not much clean up. Also, a 13x9 pan of this stuff is a TON of cake, but it sure is good!

Phyllo Chicken Pot Pie

Chicken, Chicken, Chicken! We love chicken. The story behind this recipe is- I once dared to make spinach triangles and used phyllo dough for the first time. Truly, it is quite a pain to work with, I think, though the recipe was amazing. HOWEVER, while trying to use up the remaining phyllo dough in my freezer, I found THIS recipe online. It's easier to handle the phyllo here because you just use cooking spray between each sheet and you don't have to manhandle the delicate stuff. I've also done my own editing to this recipe and, as you can tell, the variety of vegetables used are up to you- don't bother too much with measurements (I always go overboard anyway). Nice thing about this recipe is it's low fat and you'd never tell it. (Probably low fat because you don't slather each piece of phyllo with butter.) Enjoy!

(oh, and by the way, I always use chicken bouillon's and water for the chicken broth.)

Creamy Chicken Italiano

This recipe comes straight from my crock-pot cook book. It is fantastic and easy!!! Once it's done, I shred the chicken while still in the crock pot; I like it that way. Seriously guys, you've got to try this sometime!

Chicken Marinade

This is a great homemade recipe from my sister-in-law's mother. Chicken usually doesn't soak in a marinade really well, so I would soak it overnight (or cut up the chicken really well). Make sure the chicken is covered all the way (zip lock bags work best).

If you have some...

beef, green peppers, and onions, then you can easily whip up three of my favorite dinners. With these three ingredients you can make fajitas, stir fry, or steak sandwiches. Let me tell you how.

Base Ingredients:

Cut beef in to strips and slice the green peppers and onions.

Season the beef with seasoned salt, cayenne pepper, and a dash of onion powder and garlic salt. While that is cooking, sauté the onions and green peppers with butter. Then, just mix it all together.

Now if you want to make stir fry, mix everything together with some soy sauce and serve with rice.

For fajitas, serve with tortillas and rice. Chicken can also be substituted for the beef.

As for steak sandwiches, separate into individual portions (basically what can fit on your sandwich) and melt some cheese on it. Provolone is the best, but Monterey Jack is good too. Really whatever you want. I don't think cheddar would be the right flavor, but you can try it if you want! Anyways, once the cheese is melted put it on a loaf of hoagie bread and eat it right away! Serve it with some au jus sauce for dipping (I use a mix found in the gravy aisle).

And there you have it! Three simple meals with three ingredients. I'm sure there are more uses so if you have a recipe, do share!

Granola

Granola

14 c. oats

2 c. whole wheat flour or wheat germ

2 c. powdered milk

1 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cup coconut

2 c. oil

2 c. honey

1 T vanilla

1 tsp. mapleine

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine oil, honey, and flavorings. Add to dry ingredients and mix well. Spread on two large cookie sheets. Bake at 250 for 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours, depending on how crunchy you want your granola. You could add raisins and slivered almonds if you like. I've also added two peeled, cored, and finely chopped apples along with cinnamon to my granola before baking with good results.

I'm making this for the first time as we speak, and it smells so good baking in the oven, I had to put it on the blog. I love that you made this blog, Cidne. Cooking is one of my favorite things - I'd do it all day if I didn't have kids and it didn't make dishes to clean. As soon as I do get the kitchen spotlessly clean, I get the urge to cook, and the cycle repeats itself all over again. I'm sure you can relate. Whenever that happens Scott reminds me I wouldn't have to clean if I didn't always cook, but it's like an involuntary itch - I gotta scratch it.

Hummus

Hummus

garlic, 1-3 cloves

2 cup garbanzo beans

1/2 tsp. cumin

1/2 tsp salt

1+tsp. lemon juice

2+ T olive oil

Mix and eat with bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots, celery, bread, etc.

I got this recipe from my sister-in-law Lisa. I LOVE the stuff - dipped with bread, veggies, my fingers, you name it. You can cook large batches of garbanzo beans (chickpeas) all at once and freeze them in 2 cup portions (leaving a little bit of the water from cooking in the bag) to make it easy. A food processor is ideal to mix it, but I only have a blender, so it comes out with some chunks, but still tasty good. Haha - I just put this post on my family blog - maybe that's why I never blog, I'm computer illiterate. :-)

Spinach Squares

These are always a hit at potlucks and stuff. They're also a staple at our Thanksgiving dinner. We made them today for a ward picnic. They have the consistency of quiche (but less eggy). You can hardly even taste the spinach because they're LOADED with cheese. In fact I usually don't use quite a pound as it calls for (and you don't have to use sharp either). That's just a lot, and it does fine with less. Hope you love this stuff... I always go back for more and more!

Frying Pan Pizza

A meal Brian made growing up. Super, super easy. It takes a little trial to get the crust done just right. sometimes I wait to add the cheese/etc. until the dough is cooked for a minute so it doesn't come out underdone.

Creamy White Chili

This was a winner at our ward chili cook off (thankfully, she gave me the recipe!). It's a family favorite now. It's slightly spicy, so you can cut back on the spices if you like. However, we love it just the way it is!

Orange Chicken

Tonight we're having one of my college friends over for dinner. In our college days, we loved to go out for Chinese. We almost always ordered Orange Chicken. I recently came across this recipe and loved it! Mike says it's like eating candy...perhaps not the best image health-wise. Anyways, I plan on making Orange Chicken and catching up with her.

Ingredients:

Chicken-

2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts (cut into 1-1/2” cubes)

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 eggs (beaten)

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

Oil (for frying)

Orange Sauce-

1 ½ cups water

2 tablespoons orange juice

¼ cup lemon juice

1/3 cup rice vinegar

2 ½ tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon orange zest (grated)

1 cup packed brown sugar

½ teaspoon ginger root (minced)--I used ground ginger

½ teaspoon garlic (minced)--I used garlic powder

2 tablespoons green onion (chopped)

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

3 tablespoons cornstarch

2 tablespoons water

Cooking Instructions:

Step 1: Combine flour, salt, and pepper. Dip chicken in egg mixture and shake in flour mixture to coat. Fry chicken until completely cooked.

Step 2: Meanwhile, in a large saucepan combine 1 ½ cups water, lemon juice, orange juice, rice vinegar, and soy sauce. Blend well over medium heat for a few minutes. Stir in brown sugar, orange zest, ginger garlic, and onion. Bring to a boil.

Step 3: Combine 3 tablespoons of cornstarch with 1/4 cup of water and mix thoroughly. Slowly stir cornstarch mixture into sauce until it thickens. Pour sauce over breaded chicken, and if desired add red pepper flakes and garnish with green onions. Enjoy and serve with rice.

Smoothie Supreme

We're in to smoothies lately- mainly because I can hide at least one vegetable and three fruits into a smoothie that my kids may or may not eat otherwise. (The vegetable you can probably bet that Claire wouldn't eat it if not hidden in a smoothie and the fruit is a fifty-fifty, depending on her mood.) I make these recipes up with whatever I have, but thought it was time to write down two of the better ones we've come up with. Taste-wise the peach-carrot is my favorite and only recently discovered. But the spinach-grape smoothie is surprisingly good as well and you wouldn't guess you were eating spinach (if you were blind that is - the dark green color does kind of give it away, but my kids haven't figured that out yet)

Peach-Carrot Smoothie

1 1/2 ripe banana, can buy them when reduced because they are too ripe and freeze them, putting the frozen banana straight in the blender

1 cup carrot puree - I puree the carrots in large batches and then freeze them in about one cup portions. I also use this as a substitute for oil in my waffle recipe and the kids never know

2 cups frozen peaches - we bought them in season last year and froze them ourselves

1/2 - 1 cup apple juice

1 cup pineapple with juice

1 cup frozen pear if you have it and want to add it in

Mix all ingredients in a blender. Enjoy

Spinach-Grape Smoothie

1 cup raw spinach leaves

2 frozen bananas

1/3 cup grape juice concentrate

2 cup frozen peach OR pear

1 cup pineapple with juice

Blend and enjoy. Add more grape juice concentrate if you can still taste the spinach. I've also added 1 cup of butternut squash puree and/or one cup of carrot puree to this smoothie. Just add more grape juice concentrate to mask the flavor. We have the concentrate in abundance because the family I nanny for grows grapes and we made free grape juice from their grapes, so it's become a staple in our smoothies.

Peppered Shrimp Alfredo

We tried this for dinner tonight. There's no wonder it gets a 5 star rating across the board! (We stocked up on shrimp for only $3.65/lb a while back, but you could use chicken too!) For my own laziness, here is the link:

Lemon Poppyseed Bread

This recipe is phenomenal! I originally got it from allrecipes.com (my favorite place to look for recipes because they're tested and rated!) but added my own changes. I label this as a dessert, because even though it's often eaten at breakfast, let's not fool ourselves- it's LOADED with sugar. Probably why it's so CRAZY delicious. My friend came over today and we made it together. I also made it for Avery's morning birthday party.

Shelly's Chicken Enchiladas

Brian's sister, Shelly, gave me this. It's one of the easiest enchiladas I've ever done and so good! It's great for kids, too. If you want it even easier, use canned chicken. I have all my recipes on digital pdfs, so I will mostly be uploading them in this format. If you click on them, they should enlarge. You should also be able to print them. (If you want the template for this "workable" pdf, just ask!)

Cold Strawberry Pie

I love to cook, but baking is a semi-new territory for me. I recently decided that I will bake more this year. Of course, I went to Mike for inspiration. He told me that he craved Cold Strawberry Pie. He only had it once, years ago, and really wanted me to make it. I asked him what it was like (I never had strawberry pie before and there are lots of different ways to make it) but all he remembered was "it was good." So I searched high and low and came across this one. I tried it last week and it was delicious! I altered the recipe (added less sugar and gelatin) because that's what I do with recipes. I gotta make it my own!


Ingredients:
1 (9-inch) pie crust, baked
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup water
Dash of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon strawberry gelatin
2-3 pints  fresh strawberries, sliced in halves and quarters

Instructions:
Bake pie crust and let cool. Set aside.

Combine sugar, cornstarch, water and salt and bring to a boil. Boil on medium heat for 1 minute. Remove from heat and mix in gelatin and vanilla. Let glaze cool to room temperature.

Gently fold sliced strawberries into glaze and pour into baked pie shell. Chill in refrigerator for 4 hours or until set. Serve with whipped cream, if desired. (I highly suggest the whipped cream though.)

Makes 6-8 servings.

The Beginning

It all started when Bonnie asked me for two recipes. These were the two that I gave her. The potato soup is really good. I plan on making some Friday actually. It's great for leftovers (and I'm not really a leftovers kind of person, but I'm trying to get over that). The banana bread is my Grandma Lemon's recipe. I love it! Especially when it's fresh from the oven and slathered with lots of butter.

Potato Soup

Ingredients*
4-6 medium-sized potatoes (I like red potatoes best, but you can use whatever you have)
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
1/4 onion, chopped
1 cup cubed cured ham or beef kielbasa(we tend to use beef kielbasa)**
2 cups chicken broth
1 tbsp flour
3/4 cup half-and-half

Boil potatoes. Drain 3/4 of the water and use the remaining water as part of the stock. Add chicken broth and keep over medium-low heat.

In a separate pan, sauté onions, bell peppers and ham. Stir in flour until it evenly coats the sauté mixture. Add to this to chicken broth and potatoes and pour in half and half. Add black pepper, seasoning salt, and cayenne pepper to taste.

* Proportions depend on how much you like onions, bell peppers, etc. Feel free to adjust to your own family preferences.

** Mike tells me that it's not really beef kielbasa, but just in case you're confused I have a package of Hillshire Farm beef smoked sausage sitting in my fridge waiting to be used.
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Grandma's Banana Bread

Ingredients
1/2 cup of shortening (or butter)
2 eggs
2 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup mashed bananas (about 2-3 bananas)
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk (buttermilk = 1 tsp vinegar + 1 cup milk)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Add flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, cream shortening, sugar, and eggs until smooth. Add bananas and then flour mixture. Slowly stir in buttermilk until combined.
Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

**Makes 2-3 loafs of banana bread