menu Jan 20

This week I already have 3 rfecipes left from last week. I just found a couple of pancake recipes I wanted to try this morning, but I didn't have time, and/or ingredients to make them.
Blueberry Sour Cream Pancakes, Blueberry Cheesecake Flapjacks,

Since I had good luck with the Betty Crocker cookbook last week, I am making some things from it again this week.

Tuesday-Oven Steak and Vegetables (tomato, carrots, zucchini) rice, Betty Crocker 236
Monday-Mexicali Pork Chops (tomato, corn, green chili, kidney bean) Betty Crocker p. 252
Thursday -Salami-Bean Casserole (pork and beans, potato) corn Betty Crocker p. 261

These 3 left from last week + 1 from the next page in the book
Friday-layered enchilada casserole (beef)- saving dinner p 92 corn or green beans)
Sunday-Turkey with apples and cheddar-saving dinner p. 93 (sweet potato)
Saturday-Apricot fish - saving dinner p. 91 (zucchini)
Wednesday-Crock-pot Italian chicken (potato, carrot) p. 94

Oven-fried chicken monterey

This was super tasty. I loved it. It is from the plaid Betty Crocker cookbook (which I never use for some reason - I think I'll have to start using it more often.) This reminded me of Enchiladas. I thought I wouldn't like it on top of lettuce and actually had planned on making a salad instead, but Brandon made the meal, and he served it on the lettuce. It was wonderful that way. I also loved the sauce, but we seemed to have more chicken than sauce, so I think that I would double the sauce next time.


Ingredients

• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 packet taco seasoning (we used a mild one)
• 16 chicken thighs (4 pounds) we used 3.25 pounds of chicken breast which we cut into smaller pieces
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 cup crushed tortilla chips
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
• 1 Tablespoon cooking oil
• 2 Tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1 13 oz can evaporated milk
• 1/4 teaspoon bottled hot pepper sauce (we left this out for the kids)
• 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 1/4 cup sliced olives
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• lettuce

Directions

1. Combine the 1/4 cup flour and taco seasoning in a plastic bag. Add 2 or 3 chicken pieces at a time and shake to coat. Melt butter in 10 X 15 inch baking pan. Place chicken in pan, turning once to butter surfaces. Roll each thigh in crushed chips and return to baking pan.
2. Bake at 375 for 50 minutes or till tender. (Pretty sure we did less time, and it was still a dry. Meanwhile, for cheese sauce, cook onion in oil till tender but not brown. Stir in the 2 tablespoons flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add evaporated milk and pepper sauce all at once; cook and stir till thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir 1 to 2 minutes more. Add cheese, olives, and lemon juice, stirring just till cheese melts.
3. To serve, line a serving dish with leaf lettuce. Top with some shredded lettuce and chicken. Spoon cheese sauce over chicken.
   

Tossed macaroni

This is another recipe out of the kitchen aid recipe book/manual. Again, not my favorite recipe, but better than the last one. Duncan really liked this one. It was actually pretty good if you got a bite of bacon, but I thought it needed more bacon. We actually fried up the rest of the pound of bacon for people wanting seconds. I did up the peas a bit because my package was either 12 oz or 16 and the recipe called for 10. I also had to laugh at the recipe's instructions to crumble the ricotta with a fork??? Does ricotta crumble? Never in my experience. I just mixed it. I took a few extra pictures of this one because I actually made my own macaroni noodles using the pasta attachment for my kitchenaid. I'd never used that attachment before, so that was kind of fun. The noodles by themselves were pretty good - a little salty for my tastes, but not salty at all in the recipe. I've included the noodle recipe here as well.



Noodle ingredients

• 4 large eggs (7/8 cup but I didn't measure mine - probably should have because I had to add water.)
• 1 tablespoon water but I needed 2 maybe a little more
• 3 1/2 cups flour

Directions

1. Place eggs, water and flour in bowl. Attach flat beater. Turn to speed 2 and mix 30 seconds.
2. Change to dough hook. Mix at speed 2 and knead for 2 minutes. (at this point mine looked like bread crumbs, so it didn't really knead. I went on to hand knead, and could get it to stick together, but decided it needed more water, so put it back in the bowl and added water until it would actually stick together in the bowl.
3. Hand knead 30 seconds to 1 minute. Cover with dry towel and let rest 15 minutes before extruding through Pasta Maker.
   
4. For Macaroni I put it through the machine, and stopped it when it was 6 to 8 inches long. I then layed those noodles on towels and tried until I could break them apart.

Tossed Macaroni instructions

• 1 1/4 pounds ricotta cheese or small curd cottage sheese.
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 pound bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces - definitely use 1 lb.
• 1 package (10 oz.) frozen green peas, thawed
• 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese (I totally forgot this. It probably would have been way better with it in. That's what happens when you cook with your spouse I guess. You forget steps and/or think the other guy has done them already.)
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 pasta recipe of macaroni or flat noodles, cooked and drained

Directions

1. Place ricotta cheese in a serving bowl and crumble with a fork. Add butter and noodles; toss two or 3 times -we stirred the ricotta, and stirred in the butter and noodles to coat.
2. Cook bacon over medium heat until crisp. Add peas and saute 2 minutes. Drain fat.
3. Add bacon and peas to noodles and toss (stir.) Add Prmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Toss again and serve immediately.
   

Chickne noodle amandine

Made a chicken cacciatore in the crock pot this week that was a mess because I managed to have a bad piece of chicken in the bunch. It got tossed and I ended up using the noodles to make something I had planned for this week where I was going to use homemade noodles. It came from the kitchenaide manual/cookbook. I didn't have the mushrooms it called for either. It really wasn't my favorite food. Edible, but not great. I needed more orange peel, but didn't have the 2 Tablespoons it called for even after using 3 oranges. I also think the homemade noodles would have been a bit better, and it probably needed the flavor of the mushrooms. I also forgot to take a picture. It wasn't much to look at though- white noodles in white sauce, with white chicken and white almonds on top. On the plus side, the almonds toasted in the butter were quite tasty.


Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
  
• 1 cup slivered almonds
• 2 cups mushrooms, sliced (didn't have these)
  
• 2 Tablespoons grated orange peel (I think I ended up with about 1 1/3 Tablespoons)
  
• 3 teaspoons salt (quite sure I didn't use this full Tablespoon of salt)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 4 cups cooked chicken, cut into cubes (I used 2-3 cups pre-cooked)
• 3 cups sour cream
• 1 past recipe of flat noodles, cooked and drained (I used the linguini I had cooked for the Chicken Cacciatore that didn't turn out.)

Directions

1. Melt 1/4 cup butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add almonds and stir until lightly browned. Remove from heat and set aside.
2. Melt remaining butter in a clean saucepan over medium heat. Add mushrooms and saute 3 minutes. Add orange peel, salt, pepper, chicken broth, and chicken. Continue cooking an additional minute. Stir sour cream into chicken mixture, heat through, but do not boil. Server immediately over hot noodles. Sprinkle with almonds.
   

Pork Lo Mein

Hey, I just found out I've already done a pork lo mein recipe. This is a different pork lo mein. It came from a Betty Crocker magazine from Jan '03. I used a lot more pork than it called for. 1 1/2 lbs. The recipe called for only 1/2 lb. So, I pretty much doubled everything else except the ginger. It was still a little too gingery for DH - he'd probably only give it a 2 star, but it has to be one of the favorite things of the baby. I thought he would pop he ate so much. Listed are the ingredients and amounts I used.



Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds pork loin - I used chops. They were quicker to cut into pieces
• 3 cups snap pea pods
• 1 package matchstick cut carrots
• 9 ounces linguine broken into 2 inch pieces - I broke the sticks in half, then in half again.
• 2/3 cup chicken stock
• 2 Tablespoons soy sauce
• 4 teaspoons corn starch
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 4 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped gingerroot (I grated it.)
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
• sesame seed, if desired (I was going to add these and forgot. Oops)
  

Directions

1. Trim fat from pork. Cut pork with grain into 2 X 1 inch strips; cut strips across grains into 1/8 inch slices. (I just cut my chops into 1/4 - 1/8 inch strips, then cut those in half if they were longer than 2 inches.) Remove strings from pea pods. (mine didn't have any)
2. Cook linguini according to package directions addind pea pods and carrots during last 2 to 3 minutes of cooking. Drain.
3. Mix broth, soy sauce, cornstarch, sugar, garlic and gingerrot.
4. spray nonstick wok with cooking spary; heat over medium high heat until cooking spray starts to bubble. Add pork and onion; stir-fry about 2 minutes or until pork is no longer pink. Stir broth mixture, stir into pork mixture. Stir pea pods, carrots and linguine. Cook 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
   

Barbecue Chicken pizza

We have made this type of pizza before. I got some extra ideas from my Food Nanny book - like trying smoked Gouda on the pizza. I thought that was good the first day, but definitely didn't reheat well. I also tried her pizza dough recipe. While the kids really liked it, I prefer the Reinhart's doughs that we normally make. The pizza did look pretty though, but the one I took a picture of was under cooked. I ended up putting it back in the oven on the pizza stone for a few extra minutes.



Pizza Dough

• 1 Tablespoon yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3-4 cups flour (I used 1 cup and a partial cup of wheat, then finished out with white.)

Pizza

• pre-cooked chicken
• barbecue sauce
• shredded smoked Gouda
• 3 1/2 cups mozzarella
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion

Directions

1. Mix yeast and water in a small bowl, cover and let stand until foamy, 5 to 10 minutes.
2. Mix oil, honey, salt, and yeast in mixing bowl. Mix in 3 cups of flour. If dough seems too wet, mix in more flour, 1/4 cup at a time until the dough is moderately stiff and somewhat firm to the tough. (I'm bad at explaining this, I just know what it should look like. Directions in the book say to mix with a wooden spoon, then knead by hand - I didn't. I mixed it in my mixer with my dough hook until it looked and felt right.)
3. The recipe says to grease pans and cook the dough on pans, but I don't like that. I actually made one on a pan because it stuck to the pan I was going to use as a pizza peel, but it stuck - it ended up not cooking all the way through. I cooked mine right on the pizza stone. Roll out the dough to the thickness you want. Put on a pizza peel covered with cornmeal.
   
4. Spread barbecue sauce on pizza. Sprinkle with mozzarella, chicken, onions and gouda.
5. Bake at 425 for 8 to 10 minutes on a pizza stone.
   

Chicken and Potato Wedges with Lemon-dill sauce

This comes from a Pillsbury Fast and Healthy magazine that I had from Jan/Feb '99. I remember it being really good which is why I picked it again, but I wasn't nearly as impressed by it this time. I overcooked the chicken by following the recipe, and I overcooked the potatoes. If I make this again, I will use a thermometer to monitor the temp of the chicken so it doen't overcook because I like the sauce that goes with it. I also may just make mashed potatoes. No one was a huge fan of boiled potatoes - or I could bake the slices in the oven, but then I don't think they would go with the sauce, and I like the lemon sauce.




Potatoes

• 1 lb. red potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch thick wedges
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, if desired

Chicken and Sauce

• 4 boneless ckinless chicken breast halves
• 2 tablespoons margarine or butter
• 1 teaspoon dried dill
• 1/3 cup water
• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• dash pepper
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley (I didn't use this)

Directions

1. Combine 6 cups water, potato wedges and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a large saucepan. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium; cook 10 minutes or until poatoes are tender. Drain well.
2. Meanwhile, to flatten each chicken breast half, place boned side up between 2 pieces of plastic wrap or waxed paper. Working from center, gently pound chicken with flat side of mallet or rolling pin until about 1/4 inch thick; remove wrap.
   
3. Melt 1 teaspoon butter until bubbly. Add chicken; cook 6 minutes.
4. Turn chicken; sprinkle with dill. Cook an additional 3 to 5 minutes or until chicken is fork-tender and juices run clear. Remove chicken from skillet; set aside.
   
5. In the smae skillet, combine remaining 1 Tablespoon and 2 teaspoons butter, water, lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper. Cook over medium-high heat for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
   
6. To serve, place potatoes on serving paltter. Arange chicken around outer edges, spoon sauce over top. Sprinkle with parsley.
   

4 servings.