Category Archives: Food

Magic Bars ~

We were having a family get together on Saturday and I decided to try this recipe for Magic Bars that I saw on Trish’s blog and that she posted on the MGCC blog (Mennonite Girls Can Cook). I blew it right off the top cuz I only bought one package of Fig Newtons and 42 Fig Newtons means you need 2 packages! Hey did y’all know that Oreos come in a Golden Variety??

Magic Bars with a twist by ellen b.

45 Newton cookies/ Strawberry or Raspberry/ Trish and I used Fig (you’ll need 2 packages)
1 (14oz.) can of sweetened condensed milk
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup pecan pieces (walnuts would work, too)
8 Golden Oreos or regular ones if you can’t find the Golden broken up into pieces
1/4 cup shredded coconut (Lana and Steve B. you can omit the coconut!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9×13 pan with parchment paper. Lay Newtons side by side in pan to fill bottom. (Here’s where I went wrong so I improvised and used the Golden Oreo’s to fill the rest of the pan. Yikes I hope they turn out ok… Pour condensed milk over the top of this layer.

Yep one package left me a little short…

Sorry to say as creative as this improvise was it did not work!!

Stir together chocolate chips, nuts, broken up pieces of Oreos, and coconut. Sprinkle over the Newtons and condensed milk.

 

Bake for 22-25 minutes. Let cool and then chill for a while. Cut into 24 bars.

The finished product out of the oven. The Fig Newton side cut well into squares but here’s the improvised side…

Thankfully there were enough bars to share from the Newton side…

 

These were easy and good when you follow the recipe and buy enough Fig Newtons. The Fig flavor was well received but I’m thinking I’ll try Raspberry next time. Enjoy…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!

Birthday Dinner

 

Well Dear’s birthday landed on the night that Holdren’s has their Sirloin and Bacon Wrapped Prawn Special with soup or salad for only $20.00 and that included potato or vegetable on the side. This meal is usually $35.00. Yummy! Then we were treated to dessert on the house. A lovely filling meal in a nice setting just minutes from our condo.

Thanks to everyone who left Dear birthday wishes. He appreciated and enjoyed seeing them.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!

Mango Crockpot Chicken

Sandy at 4 Reluctant Entertainers shared this recipe on her blog and I decided it would be perfect for my Saturday Company/overnight guests. Sandy has the gift of hospitality and if you are timid about entertaining she has a lot of great tips and inspiration on her blog for you.

Spray the inside of your crockpot with whatever cooking spray you like. Load it up with whole boneless chicken breasts. I used boneless/skinless half breasts – 6 of them. Pour 1/2 a plastic tub of the Mango Peach Salsa that Costco sells over the chicken. Cook on low all day long. Do not open, do not stir. When it is done you can shred the chicken and stir it into the sauce.

This is what it looked like before I shredded the chicken.

After I shredded the chicken

 

Here is how we chose to serve the chicken up this time around. Build your own soft tacos with corn or flour tortillas, cilantro, rice, more salsa, beans, onion, cheese, and jalapenos.

Here’s Dear’s creation before he gobbled it up.

After the 4 of us had our fill I still have enough of the shredded chicken left over to serve up a lot of meals this week. Let’s see there’s chicken enchiladas, chicken salad, chicken tacos, chicken burritos, chicken soup…

My brother Tim and his wife Letty came up to visit us on Saturday and stayed overnight. The beauty of cooking a meal in the crockpot is that you don’t have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen while your company is around. We went out for lunch and did a little antique shopping in Old Town Camarillo while our dinner was taking care of itself. The toppings were all easy to put together at the last minute especially since I made the 90 second Uncle Ben’s Santa Fe Rice :0). Everyone gave the recipe a thumbs up!

Thanks Sandy!

Tonight I used some of this leftover chicken for chicken enchiladas.

 

I bought Green Enchilada Sauce for these. Heat up half the sauce in a saucepan and heat up each tortilla in the sauce to make it more pliable. Fill the tortilla with the chicken and some cheese. Roll up and put in baking dish. ( I sprayed the baking dish with Pam before I filled it with the enchiladas) After all the tortillas are in the baking dish cover with remaining sauce and with more cheese. Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or so…

Here are the baking dish of enchiladas after they have been heated through.

They made a great dinner for Dear and I with a fresh salad on the side…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I posted on my blog from 2007-2015 hostage and replaced them with big black and grey boxes with threats. So discouraging…as I’m slowly trying to clean up thousands of posts!

Pioneer Women’s Pork Shoulder

After seeing Pioneer Womens’ Slow cooked Pork shoulder I had to try it…

 

Ingredients:

A 5-7 pound Pork Shoulder Roast
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. chili powder
1/4 cup brown sugar
3-4 peeled garlic cloves
1 onion quartered
1-2 Tablespoons salt
ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
1-2 tablespoons olive oil

Blend all ingredients except the Pork shoulder (duh!) Rub this blended mush all over the Pork.

Place in Dutch Oven and cover every part of the Pork with the mush. Stuff into every nook and cranny. Add a couple cups of water and cook at 300 degrees for several hours turning once every hour. After 6-7 hours crank up the heat remove lid, turn roast fat side up for 15-20 minutes. Let rest 20 minutes before shredding. Serve with limes and tortillas.

 

I put this in the oven early on a Sunday morning. I left it in while we were at church so I didn’t turn it during those couple of hours. When we got home I cranked up the heat and let it cook for the last 20 minutes. We let it sit while we chopped up all the extras we decided to have with it. We shredded it and served it with tortillas and all these toppings. Yummy. We served 6 for the first go around and the rest of the meat lasted us for lunches and snacks for a few days.

I will make this again for sure!

Fruit Pizza

 

I found this simple recipe for Fruit Pizza on Bernideen’s Tea Blog and decided to make it for a get-together we were invited to. I’ll give you the original recipe and also give you some options that I decided to try.

 

The mix, the sticky dough in the pan, the baked dough and the cool whip with pudding mixed in…

Ingredients:

1 pkg. Yellow Cake Mix
1/4 Cup Water
2 eggs
1/4 Cup butter
1/4 Cup brown sugar
1/2 Cup chopped nuts
I large carton of Cool Whip
Assorted Fruit pieces

Mix together cake mix, water, eggs, butter, sugar and nuts until stiff. I think because my cake mix was a variety with pudding in it the dough was sticky and not real stiff but it was still spreadable. Spread into a buttered and floured pan. You can use 2 round pans or I used a large rectangular pan. I also sprayed the pan with the baking spray with flour in it. (lazy) Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes but watch carefully because it might bake faster and you want it to be golden brown not dark brown :0)

Cool completely and then spread with coolwhip and cover with fruit of your choice. I used blueberries, blackberries, and peaches that were frozen and peaches that were fresh.

 

Instead of using straight cool whip I mixed the cool whip with a box of instant vanilla pudding to make it stiffer. Next time I think I’ll first make the pudding according to the package instructions and fold it into the cool whip or whip cream and see how that works…

 

You can make this look a lot prettier and arrange the fruit more creatively. Enjoy the possibilities…

 

Thanks Bernideen for this fun, easy recipe!

I auto posted this for Saturday morning because Dear and I got up bright and early to hit the road from Seattle to Camarillo today. I’ll be brain dead for at least a couple days after we arrive late Saturday night. Hope you all have wonderful summer weekend!

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage on their site and have replaced my photos with black and grey boxes of ugliness. I’m slowly deleting those boxes from my blog and trying to update so many posts, very frustrating.

 

Easy Ground Beef Stroganoff

 

I started making this easy meal years ago when my kids were little. They still enjoy it as adults. It’s a great meal in a pinch. Easy to have all the ingredients handy. The original recipe is from The Better Homes and Garden New Cook Book (1970 version). I made it easier than their recipe and something my kids would eat and like.

1 lb. hamburger
1 medium onion diced
1 clove garlic minced
1- 10-1/2 oz. can Cream of Mushroom Soup
1/2 Cup Sour cream
2 tablespoon Catsup
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
Noodles – Cooked in salted boiling water

Saute onions in a little olive oil till they are soft. Add meat and garlic and cook till meat is done. Combine remaining ingredients except sour cream and noodles and add to meat.  Heat through. Then mix in sour cream and heat but do not boil.

Serve over noodles. I mix the noodles and the meat mixture all together in the pot.

 

Enjoy with something green!

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage on their site and have replaced my photos with black and grey boxes of ugliness. I’m slowly deleting those boxes from my blog and trying to update so many posts, very frustrating.

Slow Cooked Brisket

Barbecue Brisket

This is a great recipe for a crowd!

1 (5-pound) brisket
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup chili sauce
1 cup water
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1 (10-ounce) bottle of beer
Fresh parsley

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Wash and dry the brisket, cutting away most of visible fat.
Sprinkle the brisket with salt, pepper and paprika.
Place the brisket, fat side up, in a heavy baking pan. Surround with the onions, celery and garlic.
Pour chili sauce on top of the brisket.
Slowly pour the water into the pan around the brisket. Sprinkle with the parsley.

Bake, uncovered, for 1 hour. Remove from oven and pour the beer over the brisket.
Do this slowly so it doesn’t wash off the chili sauce.
Cover the brisket and cook 3 hours longer or until tender.
Cool to room temperature. Place in refrigerator.
Remove any accumulated fat from the top.
Slice and reheat in the sauce.
Garnish with a sprinkling of fresh minced parsley.

Yield: 10 servings.

This recipe is from That’s My Home Free Recipes – Cattleman’s Barbecue Sauce

We served ours after baking it for 5 hours without refrigerating it. We cut it across the grain and shred it before serving also. We served it along with BBQ Sauce.

We also provided Potato Rolls for anyone who wanted to make it into a BBQ Sandwich. Yummy!

This is my big turkey roaster I cooked 2 – 5# briskets in here and all the extras fit in around them well for the baking time.

So the next party you have invite a crowd and let them bring the extras to go with the brisket. It will make for an easy breezy fun party for the hostess and guests!

May I Recommend…

There’s a wonderful new food blog that was started by Lovella from What Matters Most. It’s a group effort from Mennonite and other gals who post wonderful recipes to share with bloggy world.

The blog is called Mennonite Girls can Cook.

Check it out, you won’t be disappointed. Just look at those images at the top of this post that come from this site. Yummy!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.

Pasta Salad ~ Take One

Dear and I are going to be helping cater a rehearsal dinner for 70 people so I decided to start experimenting with Pasta Salad.

The ingredients I chose this time are Farfalle pasta, persian cucumbers, grape tomatoes, fresh basil, red onion, Perlini (small little round fresh mozzarella balls, and Wish Bone Robusto Italian Dressing.

Here’s what the Perlini look like in their container. And here’s what they look like drained and ready to be mixed in with the rest of the chopped ingredients.

I boiled the Farfalle in generously salted water, then rinsed and cooled them off while I prepared the rest of the ingredients.

All the ingredients mixed together.

 

The salad in a pretty bowl.

 

We tried it last night for dinner and it’s a keeper. Anyone free tonight because there’s way too much for us to eat. That’s the problem with experiments…

Scroll on down for the Italian Wedding Cookie Recipe…

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.

Smashed Potatos are Good!

 

We had some very interesting guests for dinner last night and we wanted to feed them something special so I decided to try Pioneer Woman Cooks’ Smashed Potato recipe she shared this week. To go with the potatos we had a marinated flank steak and a Fiesta Salad. Here’s my attempt with the smashed potatoes.

 

First boil red potatos in salted water till you can pierce them with a fork. Then put them on a olive oiled sheet pan and smash them with a potato masher. Mine look different from Pioneer woman’s because she had the older fashioned potato masher.

 

After smashing them brush them with olive oil and salt them with Kosher salt liberally. Sprinkle pepper on them and a finely minced herb of your choice. Pioneer Woman and I used rosemary. Then stick them in a 450 degree oven for 20-25 minutes.

They were delicious and even the little rabbit really enjoyed them. He mostly went for the rosemary.

 

Then because these were very special guests we served a fresh strawberry pie for dessert. Yum…

It was fun to change identities during the evening. Even the beloved stuffed dog got a new face.

My guests were my niece Michelle (the Lion), her husband Ryan (the Bear) and my great nephew Jack (the Rabbit).

Do try these potatos, you won’t be disappointed. You can boil the potatos ahead of time then get them ready to pop in the oven 20 or so minutes out from serving time. Oh and because we are big fans of garlic I’ll add garlic next time.

Have a wonderful day!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.