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Key Lime Pie

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Veronica

So happy to return today for the Secret Recipe Club‘s Group C reveal day!  Life has been keeping me pretty busy, but I’ll talk about life another day.

Today I need to tell you about this Key Lime Pie.  This amazing key Lime Pie.  I was assigned to Mother Thyme‘s blog this month, which is a new-to-me blog, and I was really excited to peruse it.  Jennifer’s blog is attractive, organized (yay for a recipe index!), and her photos are beautiful, so it was a real treat!  Not to mention that most of the recipes are her own creations!  I truly admire bloggers like Jennifer who mostly post their original creations, since I find that difficult, personally.  My creations are very rarely blog-worthy. LOL!

So when I ran across this key lime pie recipe, I was excited because Dennis loves Key Lime Pie and I’ve been wanting to make him one for a long time, but I was also very skeptical.  The main ingredients are sweetened condensed milk and lime juice.  And it only calls for for 9 minutes of baking.  I thought it was mis-typed, and eggs and extra baking time were missing.  I mean, how can two very liquid hardly-baked ingredients make a thick, creamy filling?

So I searched online recipes and found some similar ones that didn’t even require any baking.  What?  Really?  Wouldn’t this make soup pie?

I decided to give it a go, and I’m so glad I had faith in Mother Thyme!  This is kitchen science, folks, and utterly fascinating.  Apparently when the acidic lime juice is combined with the condensed milk, it thickens it, because as soon as I whisked it in, the two liquids turned into a thick, pudding-like filling.  Amazing!  After just two hours, it was ready to slice, and I didn’t even bake it at all!

The taste?  Just as amazing as the magical thickness.  Perfect balance of sweet and tart!  I’m just so excited by this pie, you guys, you don’t even know.  It’s so easy to make, so magical, and so delicious.  You could even say…it’s magically delicious.  :)

I made it a little festive by adding some food coloring to intensify the green (it’s really more ivory without the food coloring), and added shamrock sprinkles for a St. Patrick’s Day look.  This would make a nice change for a St. Patty’s day dessert since most of them feature booze and/or mint.  But even if you don’t try it for a holiday (would also be cool for Christmas with red sprinkes!), it’s great any time of year–especially spring and summer.  Dig in!

Key Lime Pie

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

Crust
1 1/2 cups crushed graham crackers
5 tablespoons melted butter
4 tablespoons granulated sugar

Filling
3 (14.5 oz) cans sweetened condensed milk
2 drops green food coloring + 1 drop yellow (optional)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup key lime juice (or regular lime juice)
2 tablespoons freshly grated lime zest (from about 2 large limes)

Garnish
Whipped cream or Cool Whip
Extra lime zest or sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix crumbled graham crackers, butter and sugar in a 9” spring form pan or a deep dish pie plate and firmly press evenly over bottom and sides of pan. Bake for 8 minutes. Let cool before adding filling.

Meanwhile, combine sweetened condensed milk and food coloring if desired, mixing until totally blended. Add the sour cream, lime juice and lime zest and whisk until thickened and completely incorporated. Pour mixture in to cooled crust and refrigerate 2 hours or until ready to serve.

If desired, just before serving, pipe whipped cream around the edge of the pie (I used Wilton tip 1M) and garnish with some extra lime zest or festive sprinkles of your choice.  Or you can just serve with a dollop of whipped cream on top.  Refrigerate leftovers.

Veronica’s note: never mind my shallow pie dish, do not use a regular pie dish or you will have too much crust and filling, as I did (I made a second small dish of pie with my leftovers). Do as I say, not as I do. ;)

Recipe source: Mother Thyme

You can see all the other Group C SRC recipes by clicking the linky man below:



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Balsamic Vinegar & Garlic Glazed Flat Iron Steak

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Veronica

I have a significant backlog of recipes waiting to be blogged, but I made this one yesterday and two things prevailed upon me to post it immediately:

1) This week’s BSI (blogger secret ingredient) is beef so this is perfect timing to submit it for the contest, and

2) It’s so delicious, I couldn’t wait!

Fish aside, I’m not much for meat.  I’ll put a bite on my plate, then fill the rest with dessert vegetables and potatoes, etc.  Then I usually share what little meat is on my plate with Jessie.  But this steak was so delicious I was sneaking bites of it from the platter before Dennis came home and almost couldn’t stop myself.  Between us, we ate an entire 1-lb flat iron steak in one sitting.  It was just incredible.

Dennis was beside himself.  “How did you get it so juicy?  What did you do to this?  This is so good.  What did you put on it?  THIS is the best steak I’ve ever eaten.”  “Even over the steak au poivre?” I asked.  “Yes, even over that one.”  An hour after eating, Dennis looked over at me and said, “That steak was really, really good.”

This recipe was inspired by my friend, Suzie*, who shared a recipe for Balsamic & Garlic Glazed Strip Steaks with me last summer.  At the time, I knew my hubby would love it but I didn’t think I’d ever use it.  Then I happened to pick up a flat iron steak because it was on sale and because I’d never heard of it before.  I had NO idea what I was going to do with it so I searched all the recipes I had for steak to get some ideas, and found Suzie’s.  The marinade was just PERFECT for this steak.

*Suzie just started her own food blog this week!  If you’ve been reading long, you’ve seen many recipes on my blog from her.  She’s a great cook with a great sense of humor.  Check her out here!

Flat iron steak is the second most tender cut of meat, next to the tenderloin, and that obviously helped with the resulting steak.  The acid from the balsamic vinegar also tenderizes it a bit during the marination process, so you’re left with an incredibly juicy and tender piece of meat.  The marinade is simple but just perfect.  I couldn’t believe how delicious it made the meat!

Balsamic Vinegar & Garlic Glazed Flat Iron Steak

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

½ cup balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 (1 lb) flat iron steak
Kosher salt
Fresh ground black pepper

In a small bowl, whisk together balsamic vinegar, olive oil and garlic. Reserve ¼ cup marinade and pour the rest in a large Ziploc bag. Put the steak in, press out the air and zip it up. Let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes to 1 hour before grilling.

Meanwhile, light your charcoal mound in the grill (yes, I was grilling yesterday-the weather was so nice!) and then spread the coals out once the fire dies and they get ashy around the sides. Remove steak from bag, discard marinade. Salt and pepper steaks. Grill covered for ten minutes on each side for medium-well, brushing with extra marinade while it cooks.

Set grilled steak on a platter, tent with foil, and let rest for 5 minutes so juices can recirculate throughout the meat. Enjoy!

Recipe source: adapted from Suzie S.

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How To Make a Splatter-Proof Recipe Binder

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Veronica

A couple years ago I got sick of the huge collection of recipes I had in different locations throughout my house.  A file in the filing cabinet marked “recipes.”  A couple binders with uncategorized hole-punched recipes that were falling out and splattered with batter and grease because I used the recipes so often.  A stack of them on my computer desk.  Fed up, I finally made a binder to keep my favorite tried-and-true recipes in.  The ones I make over and over again and want easy access to.

My friend, Teri, has a binder very similar and I just copied her idea to create my own.  I recently made a starter binder for a friend’s housewarming and took some pictures of the creation process so I could share this idea with you.

Supplies:

1 Presentation View Binder
Transparent Page Protector Sheets
Adhesive Index Tabs
Recipes printed on 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper

For this project, I like to use a binder that has a transparent sheet over the top so you can put a “Title Page” inside of it, of your own design. Using page protector sheets to hold the recipes works well for recipes you use often, because the clear plastic protects the recipe. If you splatter it, you can just wipe it clean before returning the recipe to the binder.  It is also more durable and the holes won’t tear as easily as a paper with holes punched in it.

First, write your recipe categories on the paper tabs that come in the index tabs box. Most everyone will use different categories, depending on the type of recipes they use.  For instance, I not only have a “Desserts” category in my own, but also divided desserts into three subcategories: cake, pie, and cookies.  These are the basic categories you might want to include, adding more if you need to:

Breads
Breakfast
Appetizers & Snacks
Soups & Salads
Main Dishes
Side Dishes
Desserts
Etc. (for beverages, condiments, etc.)

Slip the papers into your tabs and then arrange them in the order you want them to appear in your binder. Put enough page protector sheets in the binder for all the tabs. Remove the backing from the first category you want to use and slip it over the side of the first plastic sheet at the very top, then squeeze so it sticks.

These are quite easy to remove if you mess up or want to change how high or low the tab is positioned, so don’t fret if it’s not exactly how you want it. Gently pry it off and adjust it. Repeat the process with the remaining tabs, placing each one on the sheet below the last and a bit lower on the side so it shows beneath the tab before it. Soon you will have a binder that looks like this:

If you like, you can create title pages for each recipe category, as I did. I searched for images using Google, then copied the ones I liked into a Word document and used the same font that I used on the front of my binder to type the category title below the photo.

To create the title page, I did the same thing and searched for a picture I liked (I remember searching for cooking related coloring pages and liked the old-time feel of the one I chose). For the side title, I printed it in a Word document in landscape format in the middle of the page, then folded it to fit the pocket, and with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I finally managed to get it in. It is difficult to get a paper in that tight spot, so you definitely want to use a folded paper for its sturdiness, or cardstock.

All that’s left is to fill the binder with recipes!

I have this slow cooker enchilada chile recipe posted here.

I put my blank page protector sheets in the front of my binder, before the recipes so that when I want to add a new one, I slip it in, then put it in the correct spot in my binder. I give each recipe its own sheet to make it easier to alphabetize them, therefore they are easier to find, but eventually I will have to start putting two recipes into each protector sheet (one facing forward, one backward) so that it doesn’t get too thick.

That’s about all there is to it! Very simple and quick.  What system do you use for organizing your recipes?  I also have about a million and a half saved to my computer into folders with different recipe categories!

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Banana Pepper Roast

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Veronica

Our friends Joe and Marissa (of the “good peas” fame) invited us to lunch after church one day a million years ago, and she served a roast along with many delightful sides.  I only took a small portion of the roast ,being much more interested in the salad, her mashed potato casserole, and butternut squash bread, but once I took a bite, I was going back for more.  I’m not much of a meat eater, so when I found her roast irresistible, I asked her what her secret was.

“Banana Peppers.”

“Banana peppers?” I repeated, surprised.  “What else did you use?”

“That’s it.  I just poured a jar of banana peppers over the roast in the crockpot.  The acid from the brine really helps tenderize the meat.”

This was so simple, I had to try it at home.  I’m just surprised it took me so long!  But I’ve made it twice in the past month, to make up for lost time. :)

I adore the salty, piquant flavor the banana peppers & juice impart to the beef, and it really is melt-in-your mouth tender after roasting all day in the slow cooker.  And talk about easy!  Although Teri taught me to sear the outside  of a roast before sticking it in the crockpot, I didn’t even do that. Easy peasy & delicious…squeezy?

I know this combo sounds a bit odd, but you’ve got to try it to believe it!  It goes really well with mashed potatoes topped with a pat of butter and garlic salt, as I discovered after taking this picture. :)

Banana Pepper Roast

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 (3-5 lb) beef roast
1 (16 oz) jar mild banana pepper rings

Place roast in a crock pot and pour the jar of banana peppers, juice and all, over the top. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or until tender.

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Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Veronica

“This cake is my favorite way to eat chocolate.  It is easy to make and contains only three essential ingredients: the very best chocolate, for a full, rich flavor and smooth, creamy texture; unsalted butter to soften the chocolate and release the flavor; and eggs to lighten it.  The result is like the creamiest truffle wedded to the purest chocolate mousse.  It is chocolate at its most intense flavor and perfect consistency.” -Rose Levy Beranbaum, creator of the Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte

That pretty much says it all!  I would like to add that although it seems there are many steps to the recipe, it is very simple to make.  Think of it this way: all you have to do is melt the butter and chocolate together, beat the eggs to death and fold them into the chocolate mixture and bake.  The reason the instructions are so long is that they are very detailed so you are sure to have success with this cake.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 lb. semisweet chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter
6 large eggs

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Butter the bottom and sides of an 8″x2″ cake pan and place a circle of parchment or wax paper in the bottom, then butter the top of it.

In a large metal bowl set over a pan of hot, not simmering, water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water), combine the chocolate and butter and let stand, stirring occasionally until smooth and melted. (The mixture can be melted in the microwave on high power, stirring every 15 seconds. Remove when there are still a few lumps of chocolate and stir until fully melted.)

In a large bowl set over a pan of simmering water, heat the eggs, stirring constantly to prevent curdling, until just warm to the touch. Remove from the heat and beat with an electric mixer until tripled in volume and soft peaks form when the beater is raised, about 5 minutes.

Using a large wire whisk or rubber spatula, fold half the eggs into the chocolate mixture until almost incorporated. Fold in the remaining eggs until just blended and no streaks remaining. Finish by using a rubber spatula to ensure that the heavier mixture at the bottom is incorporated. Scrape into the prepared pan and smooth with the spatula. Set the pan in a larger pan and surround it with 1 inch of very hot water. Bake 5 minutes. Cover loosely with a piece of foil and bake 10 minutes. The cake will look soft, but this is as it should be.

Let the cake cool on a rack for 45 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very firm, about three hours.

To unmold, have ready a serving plate and a flat plate at least 8 inches in diameter, covered with plastic wrap. Wipe the sides of the pan with a hot, damp towel, then run a thin metal knife around the sides of the cake. Submerge the bottom in hot water for 10-20 seconds, then invert onto the plastic wrap-lined plate. Remove the parchment from the bottom, then invert onto the serving plate and peel off the plastic wrap.

If desired, you can spread good-quality raspberry or strawberry jam over the top of the cake.  Allow to come to room temperature before serving.  Serve with whipped cream, if desired.

Recipe source: The Cake Bible

***Reminder***

Today is the day to return to the Postcard Project spreadsheet and make sure you report how many pieces of mail you sent this week.  I will be drawing only from the names that have a number in the “completed” column for this week (not last week).  I’m SO thrilled that so many more have signed up and hope you will be able to return to report your goal completed before I draw for the cookies tonight at midnight. Good luck and thank you!

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Basic Crockpot Beef Roast

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Veronica

OK, I just want to warn you that this recipe includes two of the Midwestern housewife’s pantry staples that most foodies seem to abhor: cream of ___ soup and dry onion soup mix.  So if you are against such things, go ahead and just close this now before I get you too riled up.  Because I’m going to use them, and I’m not going to apologize for it.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way!  This is yet another homestyle meal that Teri taught me to make, and it’s so simple and easy!  You may be scratching your head, wondering why I’m bothering sharing this recipe with you, because you’ve been making something similar since you lost your first tooth, but I’m hoping there are others out there who never learned how to make a delicious and tender roast.  This is for you!  And for those who know how to make a delicious and tender, yet complicated roast, and need a backup recipe for busy days.

Growing up, my mother never made a single pot roast.  Which is weird, because it’s something her own mother made almost every time we visited.  You how you grow up watching your Mother and thinking, “I’m never going to do that when I grow up?”  Well, I think my Mom did that with her mother’s cooking.  Because Grandma was all about the homestyle cookin’ and Mom was all about the weird healthy food.  Bowls of lentils.  Fish stew.  Salad sprinkled with Spike in lieu of dressing, which was forbidden.  Some of her food was delicious, like her chicken chili, but most of it I couldn’t tolerate, and that was probably the only reason I was thin as a child. I refused to eat most everything she served us for dinner.  I think the school lunch program saved me from starvation.  It’s so sad, because if I ate all those foods now, I know I’d love them.  The stubborn ignorance of childhood!

Wow.  Talk about getting off-subject.  Let’s get back to the roast, shall we?  As with anything cooked in a crockpot, the meat is rendered extremely tender during the slow-cooking process and the broth from the roast combines with the soup to make a nice gravy to coat everything.  Teri recommends serving the roast with fresh bread and I chose to make rolls out of my favorite honey oatmeal bread, but would have gone with my favorite rolls of all time if I’d had milk.  Any fresh bread will do the trick, though–you just need something to sop up the gravy! :)

Basic Crockpot Beef Roast

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 (3-5 lb) roast (Teri recommends one with fat marbled throughout for moisture)
Meat seasoning/butt rubb/seasoned salt to taste
1 (10.5 oz) can cream of mushroom soup
1 (10.5 oz) can cream of golden mushroom soup
1 (1 oz) envelope dry onion soup mix
2 lbs potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters
1 lb bag baby carrots
8+ stalks of celery, trimmed and cut into thirds

Sprinkle meat with seasoning of choice and sear in a non-stick skillet over high heat on all sides. Meanwhile, place vegetables in bottom of crockpot. Once meat is seared, place on top of the vegetables. Spoon the soup over the top over the meat and veggies, then sprinkle the soup mix over that. Cover and set on low all day (about 8 hours).

Check it out yo! Remember the Fairy Hobmother who gave me a $50 gift card to buy a blender? Well, I decided I needed a new crockpot much worse than a new blender (my old one didn’t even have a knob and took two days to cook anything), and this roast was the first thing I made in it. I got the Hamilton Beach Set ‘n Forget 6-quart Programmable Slow Cooker.  I’m in love!  You can program it by setting it for a certain amount of time, or you can stick the thermometer probe through the top into the meat and program it to turn off once the meat comes to the right temperature, or you can put in on manual mode and just let it heat/warm until you turn it off.  It even has a snap-tight lid, making it perfect for mess-free travelling, which would have come in handy when Teri put one of the roasts we made in her trunk and it fell over during transit onto her brand new Bible! She says she now has an official “preacher’s wife” Bible because it’s stained with pot roast juice. haha!

Did the Fairy Hobmother visit any of you guys? Do tell what you got!

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Chicken Noodles

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Veronica

Back in July, my friend, Teri, came over for a pie crust lesson and we made four different pies with four kinds of crust (single, single pre-baked, double, and double lattice-top).  Then in August, I went to her place and she taught me to cook some simple homestyle meals–the kind my hubby was raised on and that seem to be a foreign language to me.  My brain goes “fish stew, curried caulifower, red beans and rice, shrimp scampi,” and his brain goes, “steak, pot roast, fried chicken, chicken pot pie.”  Our brainwaves needed to be synched up and Teri was up to the challenge of teaching me how to cook like the Midwestern housewife I am.  Except I’m not a housewife, really, since I work, but you get the point.

We made several of her family’s favorite meals and she taught me to make chicken noodles almost as an afterthought without a recipe.  The only chicken noodles I’ve ever had are those at our family reunion every year brought by someone I’m not even sure I’m related to, and I was excited to learn how to make them because they are one of the dishes I enjoy most each year.  I just LOVE me some egg noodles.  Something about their texture…I adore it.  Thick with some bite to them and they soak up all the yummy flavor of whatever you cook them in, in this case, chicken!

As the title indicates, there isn’t much to this recipe.  Pretty much just chicken and noodles cooked in broth!  I did add (too much) turmeric because I wanted to give them a yellow tint but I went overboard, as you can see.  The above picture are the leftovers from the batch Teri and I made, with no turmeric added, and the other ones are mine, which I added 1/2 teaspoon to, so I’d recommend just a pinch at a time if you want yours to have a little extra color.  I also added thyme to mine because I love the flavor of thyme with chicken, but if you want classic chicken noodles, just stick with the recipe and don’t go rogue like I did.

This is a very simple recipe and even the noodles go pretty fast.  If you want to go a slower and more flavorful route, you can boil an entire chicken, which will also give you your own homemade broth.

Chicken Noodles

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

2 (32 oz.) cartons chicken broth (8 cups)
4 chicken bouillon cubes
3 lbs. skinless, boneless chicken breasts
6 eggs
¼ cup cold water
2 teaspoons salt
4-5 cups all-purpose flour

Pour the chicken broth into a stockpot. Add the bouillon cubes and the chicken breasts and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until tender and no longer pink in the middle, 5-10 minutes. Turn off heat & remove chicken from broth onto a plate to cool.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, water, and salt. Stir in enough flour to form a stiff dough. Flour a surface to roll the dough out on and pull off small chunks of dough at a time (about 1/6 of the dough) with floured hands to roll thin. Use plenty of flour on the outside, adding more as you roll so it doesn’t stick to the surface or rolling pin. Use a rotary mincer (I used this one) or pizza cutter to cut the noodles and separate them onto a plate.

You'll have about 6 batches of noodles this size. It's important to do them in batches instead of all at once to prevent them from clumping together when adding them to the broth.

After you’ve cut your first batch of noodles, turn the heat back on your broth to bring it to a boil. While waiting on that, shred the cooled chicken your fingers or two forks. When you’re done shredding the chicken, the broth should be boiling. Reduce heat to medium and sprinkle the noodles over the top, stirring to keep them separated.

Continue pulling off chunks of dough, rolling them out, separating the noodles and adding them to the simmering broth as you finish each batch. Once all the noodles are in, stir in the chicken and heat through before serving. The only broth remaining, which will not be much, will be thickened from the flour on the noodles, which is what you want, but you can add more broth if there’s not enough liquid to finish all the noodles.  The noodles will thicken even more upon standing.

*Veronica’s Note: you can add a little turmeric to give the noodles more color, not more than ¼ teaspoon.

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Beef and Cheese Enchiladas & How to shred lettuce or cabbage

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Veronica

I often say that I was raised in a “health food only home,” but that isn’t completely true.  If it were, I would have starved to death before I ever started kindergarten.  The sad fact is that as a child, I hated everything healthy and loved everything else.  My Mom still has a note from me, written in third grade, in which I thanked her for being a wonderful Mommy but asked if we could please have pizza sometimes.  LOL!  Needless to say, I went hungry most nights and gorged myself when we were allowed to have spaghetti (this was junk food to us), cheese sandwiches, or Mom made enchiladas.  She didn’t do it often, but it was one of my favorite meals that she made. To this day, enchiladas are my favorite meal.

Mom made them very simply.  She made taco meat and rolled it up with cheddar cheese in corn tortillas.  She made red enchilada sauce from a mix and always stirred in a liberal amount of cilantro.  She dipped each tortilla in the hot sauce before filling them, which made it a very messy procedure.  She poured the leftover sauce over the top, topped with more cheese, and that was it.

I updated the recipe to simplify things, using canned sauce and stirring the cilantro into the beef mixture instead, and decided to top them with lettuce because my husband has always insisted this is the proper way to serve enchiladas.  I fought this for a long time, because Mom knows best and she never served hers with lettuce, but I finally saw the light.  Lettuce really freshens up this cheesy dish.  Even with the changes, these are still very much like my Mom’s enchiladas, which makes me happy.  Don’t we all love foods that remind us of our childhood homes?

Beef and Cheese Enchiladas

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 lb. lean ground beef
1 medium onion, diced
2 tablespoons homemade taco seasoning (or a packet of store-bought)
½ cup cilantro
2 (8 oz) packages sharp cheddar cheese
16 corn tortillas
2 cans red enchilada sauce
½ head lettuce, shredded
Sour cream to garnish (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a large baking dish with cooking spray, then cover the bottom with a thin layer of enchilada sauce, about half a can. Set aside.

Cook beef and onion together in skillet over medium-high heat until meat is browned. Do not drain. Stir in taco seasoning and cook another minute, until liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro. Shred both packages of cheese and set half aside in the refrigerator. Dampen a paper towel and squeeze out water; wrap around a stack of five tortillas and microwave one minute or until hot and pliable. Place stack on a plate. Now you have everything you need to put the enchiladas together.

Place about two tablespoons of cheese down the middle of a tortilla, then top with 3 tablespoons of the beef mixture.  The temptation is always to overfill them, but you must resist.  Overfilled enchiladas means unsightly enchiladas that won’t close, and we want to keep things nice, tidy, and appealing.

Roll tightly and place in prepared dish.

Repeat, heating fresh stacks of tortillas as necessary, until all ingredients are used and dish is full of enchiladas.  I always have to scooch my enchiladas to make them fit, but scooch they will. :)

Pour remaining sauce over the top, then sprinkle on reserved cheese. I was short on cheese but if you follow the recipe, yours will be fairly smothered with cheese.  Which is proper.  This sad amount of cheese is sacrilege.

Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 5-10 minutes, until cheese is melted.

After plating, sprinkle with lettuce and add sour cream, if desired.
Devour.

**********************************************

I’m sure many of you know how to shred lettuce, but I get very basic questions about cooking from time to time, including how to prep veggies, and thought I’d give a quick tutorial on this for those who don’t.  You can also use this method to shred cabbage for coleslaw.

Cut thin slices of lettuce starting from the outside edge, working your way towards the center.  Do not go all the way to the core.

Once you are getting close, turn the lettuce and start from the opposite side.

It is very important that you wear your Tweety bird pajama shorts during this process.  Arg!  I changed my shirt so you guys wouldn’t know I wore my PJ’s all day (it was my day off and I spent it cleaning), and didn’t think that my shorts would show above the table.  On the plus side, I guess I’m taller than I thought I was. :)

Continue until you have sliced away on all sides, then do the top.  Discard the core.

I didn’t cut very much off the core because I didn’t need a ton of lettuce.  Usually I would cut down a lot more.

You should have a row of sliced lettuce.  Chop along the row in 1/2″ increments, or smaller.

Turn your cutting board/sheet and repeat in the perpendicular direction, slicing every 1/2″ or so.

If you want your lettuce shredded even more finely, mix the lettuce with your hands, spread out in a line again, and repeat the cutting in both directions.

Voila!  Shredded lettuce.

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Trash Jambalaya {aka Mongolian Massacre}

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Veronica

I hate it when my husband raves over a meal.  OK, I don’t hate the raving, but I hate the meals he chooses to rave over.  I can make the most delicious butternut squash ravioli, shrimp and scallop scampi with linguini, or the world’s best salmon (according to me, at least), but what does he think beats that?  This.  This stuff I am choosing to call “trash.”

OK, so it is good trash, but it kinda drives me crazy that he prefers things like this, that is just a bunch of stuff thrown together, rather than something beautiful and refined. MEN!

But he makes up for it with his sense of humor.  When I asked him what I should call this meal, he said, without hesitation, “Mongolian Massacre.”  (?!)  When I asked why, he said, “Because it’s cool!”

Gotta love him.

Jambalaya Trash

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1 (8 oz) box Jambalaya-style rice mix
1 lb. ground beef
1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 green pepper, seeded and diced
1 (14.5 oz.) can diced tomatoes, drained well
1 (15.25 oz.) can corn, drained well
1 teaspoon Creole seasoning (like Tony Chachere’s), or to taste

Follow the package directions for the rice with only 1 tablespoon of oil and without adding any meat, but start it in at least a 3-quart pot so there’s room for the meat mixture later on.

After you’ve got the water heating to a boil for the rice, start on your beef mixture. Heat a skillet over medium heat and add the ground beef, onion, and green pepper. Cook, breaking up the meat, until meat it cooked through. Drain off all the juices and then stir in the tomatoes, corn, and a teaspoon of Creole seasoning. By this time you should already have your rice and seasoning packet in the water and it’s probably got another ten minutes or more of cooking time left. Go ahead and throw the beef mixture on top and stir it all up. Replace the lid and increase the heat if necessary to get it simmering again, then turn it down to finish cooking. When the timer for the rice goes off, stir and add additional seasoning to taste. This stuff comes out of the pot at a million degrees Farenheit so you might want to serve it on plates so that it cools faster because you’re going to want to inhale it, even if it is trash.

Serves 4-6

Per serving (1/6 of recipe): 354 calories; 9 g fat; 49 g carbohydrates; 5 g fiber; 22 g protein; 9 Points Plus.

Recipe by Veronica Miller, inspired by Natasha’s Kitchen

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Triple Berry Pie

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Veronica

This was one of the pies I brought to the Memorial Day barbecue at my preacher’s home and it was a big hit!  Although I really prefer to make cakes, what I do appreciate about pie is how simple it is.  Just a few ingredients turn into utter magic in a Pyrex dish.  Essentially pie crust, fruit, and sugar and you’ve got the perfect summertime dessert.  This one really is all about the sweet berries, gently complimented by flaky pastry!

Triple Berry Pie

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

Pastry for a 2-crust pie (I cheated and used Pillsbury)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 cups frozen mixed berries, thawed & drained
Milk & coarse sugar for top crust

Preheat oven to 450 F. Roll out one disc of dough, line pie plate with pastry, leaving a 3/4″ overhang, and place in refrigerator. In a large bowl, mix sugar, cornstarch, and salt together. Gently toss with the berries and let stand for 15 minutes. Spoon into crust-lined pie plate. Roll out second dough disc and cut into strips with a pastry wheel or pizza cutter. Arrange the strips to make a lattice design over filling (I have a tutorial on this process here). Trim, fold overhang from bottom crust over the ends of the lattice top crust, seal, and flute edges (I have a video tutorial on working with pie crust here, in which I include a demonstration on fluting edges). Brush crust with milk (I used my finger) & sprinkle with sugar. Place pie on middle oven rack; place large cookie sheet on rack below pie pan in case of spillover. Bake pie 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 375 and place a pie shield on the crust to prevent overbrowning. Bake another 40-45 minutes, or until crust is golden brown & filling is bubbling. Cool at least two hours before serving.  (I always make fruit pies a day in advance and they are always nicely set up by the time I serve them.)

*Veronica’s Notes: the original recipe calls for fresh OR frozen berries so I guess this recipe will work with fresh berries too, but I haven’t tried it yet.  The original recipe also calls for ½ cup more sugar than mine, which you may need if your fresh berries are very tart.  Frozen berries are packaged at their peak and are usually quite sweet, so 1 cup of sugar was plenty and more would have been overkill.

Recipe source: adapted from the Three Berry Pie recipe on the side of my Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts box.

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