Broken Computer…

So here is my life. I was looking at getting one of those tablets that hooks up the keyboard but not bluetooth, like docking wise. Then the next day, my computer wires get stripped, heat up way too much and melt part of my screen and start smoking so it’s currently out of commission. We have to leave the battery out just in case it blows up while we aren’t home. So my blog posts will be a little fewer until I get something that won’t burn down the house and kill the dog. Cause I don’t want that to happen. So Happy Holidays and I hope to see you all soon =]

Green Lightning Shrimp

These were delicious and have quite the story to them. I had everything all thawed out and chopped up for these to cook and threw them to marinate in the sink for 30 minutes. The boy had a sinus infection so we agreed to pan fry them and sat down to a movie. Point is, we fell asleep like we always do during movies and I awoke with just enough energy to toss them in the fridge. I made them the next morning and overcooked the crap out of them while I was assembling my lunch and they were still awesome. I didn’t take a picture of course, but here is the link to beautiful pictures and the recipe. I did follow the recipe exactly except that I cut it in half. But that’s it, didn’t change a thing, weird.

Green Lightning Shrimp

Enjoy! Next time I make these I will be sure to take a picture =]

Marinara the Homemade Way =]

I have to fidget with this recipe a little bit. I originally used this Recipe and wasn’t too pleased. It had a weird flavor which could have been just because I cooked it all day in my crock pot, but it also needed a little more seasoning. I didn’t like the combo of balsamic and brown sugar so next time I’m just going to use a crap load of basil and garlic as that is all I added to it afterwards.

Marinara

1-28oz can Crushed tomatoes

2T Tomato paste

1/2 onion, diced

1/2c Hot water

1/4t Dried oregano

2T Dried basil

2T Minced garlic

1. Put diced onion and hot water in microwave safe bowl and microwave 2 minutes.

2. Add all ingredients (including water and onion) to crock pot or stove pot and cook for a while. On the stove, 30ish minutes and 2-3 hours in the crock on low.

3. Add more basil or salt if desired

This goes great with Stromboli!

Stromboli

This happens to be the best way to essentially eat a pizza and a calzone and not get messy. You dip it in pizza sauce like a calzone, but it’s rolled like a wrap so the innards don’t fall out everywhere. These are super customizable depending on what type of filling you use. The first time I made it with sausage, mushrooms, and cheese and the boy had pepperoni and sausage. This time he had salami and cheese and I had salami, cheese, mushrooms, and pepperoncinis. They have been delicious every time so feel free to use whatever ingredients you have on hand and enjoy.

Stromboli

1 Pizza crust, dough form. We used the kind in a packet like cookies but pizza crust.

Mozzarella cheese

Toppings of your choice

Italian seasonings

Minced garlic or garlic powder

Marinara sauce

1. Preheat oven to temperature on the instructions of pizza crust and grease a cookie sheet or pizza stone

2. Mix pizza crust together according to directions and split into two if you like different toppings, but can be done as one. Roll out into a square as best as you can and as evenly as possible.

3. Sprinkle dough with italian seasonings and fill with cheese and toppings of your choice. Don’t pile too high as you will roll this like a burrito in a second

4. Roll like a burrito to keep ends together and sprinkle with more cheese and garlic. I use refrigerated garlic so I just spread it over the dough.

5. Bake according to directions plus some. Ours said 12-15 minutes and I baked ours about 25. Just keep checking it until it’s golden and the dough on the inside is cooked.

6. Serve with marinara or your favorite pizza sauce. Here’s my Homemade Marinara recipe

Baked Ravioli!

I needed something super simple to eat this week for Saturday but didn’t end up making it so I made it today. And holy delicious. I did add a few things and not really follow the directions, obviously, but they were simple additions still. I was going to add mushrooms to my half but I forgot, whoops. Hopefully I will next time.

Original Recipe

Baked Ravioli

1lb Ground sausage, I used Jimmy Dean Hot

1-15oz can Tomato sauce

1-2T Dried Italian seasoning

1/4c Red wine, I use merlot

1/2 can Tomato sauce, the really tiny cans

1/2 bag Frozen ravioli, I used mini cheese ones

Handful of shredded Italian cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

2. Brown sausage in pan. Once browned, add tomato sauce, tomato paste, red wine, and Italian seasonings and let cook a few minutes. I didn’t have enough ravioli so I ran to the store for more while this cooked (don’t worry, the boy was home in case anything went wrong). But 5-10 minutes should be fine, just enough to flavor the sauce as it will combine more in the oven too

3. Put a little sauce in the bottom of a baking dish so the ravioli won’t stick to the bottom, then layer ravioli, sauce, ravioli, sauce. Bake 20 minutes and remove from oven

4. Sprinkle cheese on top and put back in oven until melted. Took about 5 minutes on my end. You could also use your broiler for this if you wanted good melty cheese.

5. Eat all of it. I scooped us huge helpings and then the boy went back for seconds and left me some. He left me four mini raviolis. About the size of 1 or 2 regular sized ones. I think I found a keeper.

Pepper Jack Juicy Lucys =]

This is my favorite burger ever. Also, it is SUPER adaptable. Don’t like pepper jack? Use cheddar or American, or whatever you so desire. We made these burgers massive this time. 1/2 pounders. Usually I only make 1/3lb burgers but we were hungry. And you know 2 burger for 2 people works better than 3 for 2. You catch my drift? I personally love pepper jack cheese as does the boy. It also doesn’t get super melty like American so it doesn’t ooze out and burn you which I find to be a plus.

Pepper Jack Juicy Lucy

1lb Ground Beef

2-4 Slices pepper jack cheese, depends on how many burgers you make. I use 1-1 1/2 slice per burger

Garlic salt

Steak seasoning, I used Montreal but use whatever you have

Buns, again, depends on how many burgers you make

1. Heat up grill or whatever you feel like cooking these on. We always use the grill

2. Split ground beef into twice as many burgers as you are making. If you are making 1/2lb, split into four, if making 1/3lb, split into six. You will need two patties for each burger

3. Pound out all patties into flat circles as flat as you can. Remember, each burger needs two patties. Sprinkle all patties with garlic salt and steak seasoning.

4. Tear up pepper jack into pieces that will fit into the burger with a little extra burger room around them. I divide mine into four and stack them in the middle.

That is one patty made and two ready to get squished together

5. Place patties together and squeeze the edges together so no cheese will come out during cooking. Mine leaked a little this time but who cares.

6. Cook until desired doneness, ours were mediumish. We got impatient. Serve on buns with whatever condiments you like. I eat them plain, the boy likes bbq sauce on them. He split his into two so he could get more bread.

It was a long day and we were both starving so after the 3 minutes it took us to down these burgers, we served up some popcorn as well. Yay for popcorn!

Black Friday/Beer Cheese Soup!

So this year Black Friday was insane. I worked a total of 15ish hours. Doesn’t sound tooooo awful. WELL. I worked Thanksgiving day from 8pm until Black Friday morning at 5 at my retail job. Then I went shopping for a few hours so that I wouldn’t fall asleep (got some Christmas movies and a super cozy body pillow for when I got off work later) before I went to work at 8:30am at my other job. Luckily my salon job has awesome managers and even though I was supposed to work until 6pm, they let me go at one since we weren’t busy. I was awake for approx. 30 hours. This was only the second all nighter I have pulled in my entire life. I felt pretty accomplished. Then I slept for 16 hours. It was glorious.

My point is, at my retail job, we potluck on Black Friday. There is no way that any of us could make it to the food court and back within 30 minutes. Since I had my new crock pot I decided to make beer cheese soup which is awesome. It’s my favorite soup that my mom makes EVER. I am going to post the original recipe quantities at the bottom but since I made it to fit in my 6qt crock pot, I will also include those. DO NOT try to make this in a 5 qt. You will have to scoop it out. I did that last year, please learn from my mistakes.

PS This is my mother’s coveted recipe. I cannot honestly not think of a function where she has made this and not been asked for the recipe. Just saying. To make this vegetarian, swap the chicken broth/bouillon with veggie and it’s perfect. My sister is vegetarian and that is how we make it for her. I honestly can’t tell the difference between the two.

Beer Cheese Soup (6qts)

4c Chicken Broth

24oz Beer, I used Michelob Golden whatever. In the huge can from Walmart

1T Chicken bouillon

1 1/2c Onion, diced

1 1/2c Celery, diced

3c Carrots, sliced

6c Potatoes, diced, I leave the skin on but you can peel if you prefer

1 1/2lb Velveeta, cubed, the smaller the cube, the faster it melts

2cans Cream of mushroom soup

1. In your crockpot or stock pot, dump all of your veggies, broth, beer, and chicken bouillon. Let cook until soft. I set my crock on low and let it go a few hours. If using the stove, it takes 30-40 minutes. Go by if the potatoes and carrots are soft as they take the longest to cook.

2. Add velveeta and cream of mushroom soup. Stir until melted. That’s all.

This does freeze pretty well as we used to freeze it all the time. I recommend thawing it in the fridge overnight first so you won’t burn it in the microwave.

I try to use a liner when I cook something like this that will go all day. That way I don’t have to clean. I did have this crock on for about 24 hours straight. After I got the velveeta melted, I just left it on warm at work and then brought it to my other job and left it on warm and it never burnt. The sides always burned on warm in my old crock so this is awesome!

Original (makes like 4.5ish qts)

3 cups water

1 bottle beer

4 cubes chicken bullion

1 cup onion, diced

1 cup celery, diced

1 ½ cup carrots, sliced

3 ½ – 4 cups potatoes, diced

1 # velveeta

2 cans cream of mushroom

Cook the same way, you just have less soup. Only difference I made was to use chicken broth and add a little extra bouillon instead of water and lots of bouillon. Just as I had broth and was almost out of bouillon.

Butter and Garlic Shrimp Penne

I was really excited about this recipe. It didn’t quite shine as much as I had hoped, but with a little fresh lemon juice squeezed over it right before eating, it is pretty fantastic. I will definitely make it again, but add more garlic, butter, and lemon. Granted, I did not make it as the recipe instructed (do I ever?), but I did use most of the right ingredients. I could not find clam juice as called for in the original, so I did not get to use that, just the chicken broth.

Original Recipe

Butter and Garlic Shrimp Penne

3T Minced garlic

2T EVOO

1lb Shrimp, shelled and deveined

Enough penne for two people, we used about half a box

Dash of red pepper flakes

2T Gravy flour

3/4c Chicken broth

1T Parsley

3T Butter

1t Lemon juice

Lemons or juice to sprinkle over top

1. Bring pot of water to boil and cook penne according to directions, drain.

2. Heat garlic and oil in a pan and let cook until garlic is fragrant and golden. Stir so that the garlic doesn’t burn

3. Add Shrimp and cook until opaque. Set aside (I didn’t do this and the shrimp overcooked in the sauce so I recommend to do this step) Leave the juice that came from the shrimp, oil, and garlic in pan

4. Add Flour and stir so that their are no clumps. Add chicken broth, parsley, red pepper flakes, butter, and lemon juice and cook until thickened enough. Add a little more chicken broth if it thickens too much

5. Add shrimp and noodles to the sauce and make sure everything is coated and warm

6. Serve with lemon wedges so you can squeeze fresh juice onto the pasta (REALLY does make a difference)

Food For the Week!

Here’s what the menu looks like for the week! Pretty delicious if you ask me. I’ll post links as soon as I have the recipe up and posted =] Have a great week! =] and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Monday:

Juicy Lucy’s

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

Tuesday:

Fell asleep while I was marinating…

Wednesday:

Green Lightning Shrimp

Thursday:

Work Party!!

Friday:

Stromboli and Marinara

Saturday:

Gumbo

Sunday:

Leftover Gumbo