Quick Dinner: Beef Stroganoff

I love Beef Stroganoff because well, it’s just delicious!  It’s also quick to make; if you have a leftover medium rare steak from a few days before, it’s even better!  Often, we will cook one or two extra steaks to …

Eggs!

Finally!  The baby chicks have started laying!!

Roasted Red Peppers with Shrimp

If you have the opportunity,  it is best to roast the peppers on the grill a few days in advance, if you know that you will be grilling the week that you will be preparing this dish.  Fire-roasted peppers have …

Green Chile Chicken Salad

Great on a toasted bun, wrapped in a tortilla, or served on crackers. We also enjoyed it wrapped in some greenleaf lettuce, sans bread.  This was very quick and easy to put together.

• 2 cups cooked chicken, minced
• 3 tablespoons minced red onion
• 3 tablespoons minced celery
• 1/2 of a 4-ounce can diced green chilis
• 2 to 4 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1/8 teaspoon adobo

You can mince everything by hand, or throw the chicken, red onion, and celery into a food processor. Pulse a few times until it is coarsely chopped. Transfer to a mixing bowl.

Add half of a 4-ounce can of diced green chilis, the mayonnaise, and adobo. Mix well, and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Cuppa Cuppa Cobbler

Never heard of Cuppa Cuppa Cobbler?  Me neither, until recently.  Turns out, it is exactly the type of cobbler my husband loves and bonus! it is very, very easy to make!

With early summer’s fruit arriving, this is the perfect time to try this.  We have several spots in the garden which have gone to weed over the last few years.  The benefit?  Fresh blackberries from the backyard!

We also have some ripening blueberries and this is their best year ever.  They are fat, plump, juicy and very sweet.

And, from the farmer’s market, we have some sweet and juicy Alabama peaches.  These are what we used today.

This is a perfect way to serve any of these early summer fruits. 

You will need:

• 1 9×13 baking pan

• 1 stick of butter

• 2 cups fresh or frozen berries, or sliced stone fruit (peaches, nectarines, plums), or a combination of the two

• 1 cup self-rising flour

• 1 cup white sugar

• 1 cup whole or skim milk

Turn on oven to 350. 

Place the stick of butter in the baking pan.  Place the pan with the butter in the oven while it is warming.

While the butter is melting, make the batter.  Combine the sugar, milk and flour, and mix with a fork or a whisk until most of the lumps are gone.  It’s okay to let sit a few minutes if all the butter is not melted.

When the butter is melted, remove the pan from the oven and gently swirl the butter around so that all of the pan is covered.

Dump in the fruit, and gently spread around bottom of pan.

Pour the batter over the fruit.  It’s okay if the fruit is exposed, some even say better!

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes until top is just browning, and fruit is bubbling.

Let cool a few minutes.  Serve warm with vanilla icecream or heavy cream. 

A little bit of summer heaven!

Linguine with Pulled Pork and Arugula

I actually made a recipe from a magazine.   Well, almost.  If I had actually followed the recipe…but I almost followed it.  For all the recipes I read from magazines, I rarely ever actually make anything. In the April issue of …

Venturing into Meatless Mondays: Bean Tostadas with Guacamole

So, at the young age of 8, my daughter has learned firsthand that what she eats has an effect on her health.

So, we’ve talked about foods many times: foods that are good for us, foods that are bad for us, and some foods that really have a negative impact on her.

So, the other day in the car, I brought up the concept of Meatless Mondays. By giving her examples of some of the potential meals we could do (and no negatives about meat itself), she was all for it. She was so for it, that she was upset that she had meat for lunch at school the last 2 Mondays.

Little victories!

The best part about Meatless Mondays is that a lot of vegetarian dishes are also quick and easy to prepare, a definite positive for a Monday night after a busy weekend (any weekend!)

So, for our first official Meatless Monday, I took the easy path and served them something they both love: Bean Tostadas with fresh Guacamole!

Using premade tostada shells and canned beans, the hardest part was making the simplest of guacamoles, and grating the cheeses.

Twenty minutes later, dinner was served!

Texas Caviar, aka Marinated Black-eyed Pea Salad

This marinated black-eyed pea salad was popularized in Texas in the 1950’s by cookbook author Helen Corbitt, Neiman Marcus’ most famous food -service director.  I prefer purple hull peas to black-eyed peas, so, I always use them in this great …

Farmer’s Market Finds: Fresh Strawberry Muffins

Here’s what’s left of one of the last flats of the strawberry season in Louisiana for 2013: What to do with these beauties? The list is endless…. Salad with goat cheese and balsamic vinegar/glaze… smoothie… yogurt and granola… strawberry shortcake… …