Baked cinnamon tortilla chips and fruit salsa

6 soft flour tortillas
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
butter or margarine
2 apple, peeled, cored, and diced
8 strawberries, hulled and diced
splash of lemon juice
Remainder of cinnamon and sugar from tortillas plus another 2 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Butter one side of tortilla and sprinkle sugar mixture over the butter, shaking excess back into bowl. Slice into 8 triangles. Arrange on ungreased cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining tortillas. Bake 10 minutes until crisp. (You are going to need several cookie sheets or to do this in shifts.)

Meanwhile, combine fruit, lemon juice, and sugar mixture in small saucepan. Heat over medium-low heat until fruit begins to make juice and soften.

Serve together. Makes a great breakfast or dessert.

Mini-meatloaves

My cousin sent me a text earlier asking for a meatloaf recipe. I gave it to her but then I got to wondering what I could do to make something different than my usual meatloaf. This is a combination of several recipes I found online. I took the best things from all of them and made my own.

2 lbs ground meat of your choice (I just used ground beef)
1 tbsp chopped, fresh basil
1 tbsp chopped, fresh rosemary
1 tbsp chopped, fresh oregano
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup diced fresh onion
1/2 cup plain instant couscous
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup shredded cheddar

Ketchup, barbecue sauce, or pasta sauce for topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all but the topping in a large bowl. Use your hands and work it together until it’s mixed well. Allow to rest for five minutes. Take a handful of meatloaf mixture and put it in a muffin cup, patting down so the meat is even with the top of the pan. This should fill 16 cups. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove meat from oven and top with topping, then pop back in the oven for 15 more minutes.

My favorite meatloaf meal is meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and corn. This time we added in some macaroni and cheese, because I didn’t have a lot of potatoes to fill up the resident teenagers so they got all of the above.

 

Jambalaya take 2 – Red Bean Soup

I found a similar recipe online, courtesy of Food Network’s Sandra Lee, last night after I made a big pot of jambalaya. You can use any recipe online for that part of it. They’re all about the same. You could even use the stuff from a box, but that’s not how I roll. Cooking from a box doesn’t make much of a blog. At any rate, the soup:

32 ounces chicken broth
1 can red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
3 cups leftover jambalaya
salt & pepper to taste
Dash of cayenne pepper

Bring broth and beans to a slow boil before adding remaining ingredients. Return to a boil and serve. That’s all there is to it.

Thanks to the “take two” aspect of this recipe, I’ve managed to make one chicken feed some or all of a family of seven four times. First I made a chicken, then chicken salad, then jambalaya, and now this. How’s that for frugal?

Pineapple Chicken Salad

2 cups cooked chicken, cubed
1/2 cup mayo
1 tbsp mustard
1/2 box raisins
1/2 cup pineapple tidbits
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1 tsp red curry powder

Mix together and serve. A wonderful, low-calorie option is to serve it with cucumber slices instead of bread.

Avocado Bacon Dip

2 avocados
3 slices of bacon
3 tablespoons finely diced onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
16 oz tub sour cream
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 c shredded cheddar

Start by cooking bacon.When it’s crispy, crumble.

Meanwhile, pit and peel avocado and toss in food processor. Add in onions, garlic, oil, and lemon juice and mix until creamy. Scrape into a medium bowl. Mix in sour cream, cayenne, cheese, and crumbled bacon.

Serve with chips or your favorite veggies.

Rosemary pork roast and roasted potatoes

I’m still on a Curtis Stone kick, and found a similar recipe online. I’ve adapted it slightly because, for one thing, it takes longer to cook than his recipe states. I will be serving it with mushroom jus that I wrote about last week, salad, and watermelon.

1 boneless pork roast
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp rosemary

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

With a mortar and pestle, or a glass and a bowl, or even a food processor, grind rosemary with salt. Pierce fattier side of meat with a knife several times and rub seasoning on  top and in slits. Place on rack in pan and bake at 500 degrees for 20 minutes. Place an empty cookie sheet in the oven at the same time. You’ll need this preheated for the potatoes.

Meanwhile, you’ll need to start your potatoes.

8 potatoes of similar size, sliced in half diagonally
1 tbsp paprika
Medium onion, cut into chunks
4 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced into 4 pieces each
Olive oil

Toss all ingredients together, then spread in one layer on cookie sheet. Reduce heat of oven to 350 degrees and put potatoes in. Cook for 40 minutes, then remove roast from rack, put on one side of pan, put potatoes on other side, cover, and continue to roast until meat is no longer pink, about 30 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to rest for 20 minutes before slicing.

Random foodie rambles

Just a few things about what I’ve done with food over the week that have worked well for us.

I made mushroom jus the other day, which was something I saw on Take Home Chef. I served it over my pot roast and it was so delicious. I could eat it everyday! I was eating the meat off the kids’ plates when they were done because I didn’t want it to be thrown away. For something that’s used as a sauce, though, it made a lot. I wasn’t about to dump it out so I stuck it in the fridge and saved it.

Today, I used the mushroom jus with onion, zucchini, carrot, and celery and made a soup with it for lunch. I wasn’t disappointed, once again.

Yesterday morning, I made chicken breasts for breakfast. I marinated them in honey dijon dressing and wrapped them in bacon and they were delicious. Hubby couldn’t finish his so I stuck it in the fridge. As usual, he said he’d take it to work and forgot, so I cut it up and mixed it with homemade mayo, a bit of mustard, onion, and celery and served it on homemade crescent rolls.

Unfortunately, hubby burned what was left of the crescent rolls in the toaster oven this morning, because that would have been excellent with the soup, but that’s okay.

Since I had so much mayo for a little bit of chicken salad, I made potato salad too. Since half the family was away for dinner last night, we still have about half of a large bowl of it, so tonight when we have beans and rice, kid 3 will have potato salad, which she loves. She hates anything resembling a bean, other than lentils.

So that’s what’s up with my kitchen this week!

Slow cooker coq au vin

This is adapted from a couple of recipes I’ve found online. They’re all basically the same but I’m recording it here because it’s worth sharing anyway. My husband hates bone-in chicken so I make dishes like this on nights he works. More for me!

Approximately 6 Chicken legs and thighs
6 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 onion, Coarsely chopped
4 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
8 button mushrooms
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper
1 tsp thyme
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups red wine

 

Layer all ingredients and cook on low 6 1/2 to 7 hours. Serve with a starch (potatoes, rice, pasta).

Taco Casserole

Better late than never! Here it is.

3 cups cooked rice
1 lb ground turkey, browned
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 packet taco seasoning (so it’s not from scratch. I’m entitled to cheat sometimes.)
1/2 c salsa
1/2 c water
1 c shredded cheddar
Sour cream to pass at the table, if desired

Mix the rice, meat, beans, seasoning, salsa, water and spread evenly in a 13×9 pan. Cover with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, covered. Uncover and bake an additional 10 minutes to brown cheese. Serves 4-6 depending on how hungry you are.

Basic chicken salad for sandwiches

I know I promised a taco casserole recipe but my meal plan got a little mixed up so you get this instead. It’s really basic but it’s a good way to use up leftover chicken.

2 cups cold chicken, diced
4 tbsp mayo
1 tbsp mustard
1 stalk celery, diced
1 dill pickle spear, diced
1/2 small onion, diced

Combine. Serve on your favorite bread. That’s it!

My new pasta maker should be here tomorrow. We’re having spaghetti to celebrate!