A Young Favorite Returns

Today was a Thursday with Morgan day!  I love when Morgan comes over...great conversation and great food are always in order. 

Tonight we had an old fashioned recipe made somewhat different by one modification.  I got the recipe for Meatball Stroganoff out of a Cuisine at Home recent issue.  Yes, it is what you are thinking: beef stroganoff with meatballs instead of chunks of meat, pretty clever.  I actually began making this dinner a couple weeks ago when I made the meatballs for this an tomorrow night's recipe and flash froze them.  They had a great deal on ground sirloin, so I jumped on it and made enough meatballs for two completely different recipes.  I have to say these meatballs are stand-alone good.  I highly recommend the recipe from this mag for meatballs.
The dinner is very easy to prepare once you have the meatballs thawed out.  It takes about 30 minutes from start to finish.  I was hoping the sauce would be a little spicy because of the addition of paprika and cayenne, but was surprised to find all heat missing.  If I were to do it again, I would double the ammount of cayenne to give it a little kick. 

I paired dinner with some asparagus.  We found great thin asparagus at Henry's Farmers Market yesterday and I was pleased with the result.  Don't you just love when you find a great, fresh ingredient at a great price?

After washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen a little bit, and an episode of the Golden Girls (yes, I introduced Morgan to Rose Nyland), we got started on the dessert.  This one was interesting.  Morgan and I made a Chex cereal based recipe a while back.  When she got in the car today, she told me she was craving it again.  So, I set about creating the recipe as I remembered it.  Well, I got the recipe completely wrong, but we ended up with a nice after dinner treat.  She will also be taking some of it in her lunch tomorrow because we don't need the temptation around here for very long. The recipe is Snickerdoole Chex Mix and can be found here.  We will have to try the one she was craving next time.

Catching up on Spooky fun!

I did not have time to write about Thursdays with Morgan on Thursday or Friday, so this late post will have to do the trick (ha - I am enjoying this season way too much!).
Morgan and I made a couple of treats for her to share with her friends at school for Halloween.  We started wtih Witches Hats and finished up the night with carmel apples.  I got both of these recipes from the October issue of All You magazine (one of my favorites, by the way).  
The witches hats are pretty easy to make.  You need a chocolate wafer cookie and a Hershey's Kiss and some green or orange icing.  You just put a dollop of icing in the center of the cookie and then attach the Kiss to the cookie.  We finished the cookies by using cake decorating tips to decorate the hat band.  These were really cute and easy to make.  I had quite the difficulties with my icing, but we ended up making 13 sets of cookies for her friends.  I forgot to take a picture of the hats by themselves, but here is a picture of the bags.

After the hats were done, we started on making Carmel Apples.  These are a little more time consuming, but totally worth the time taken.  The recipe called for making carmel from scratch.  If you have never made carmel from scratch, it is delightful!  It is so much better than any store bought carmels.  The hard thing about this recipe is the carmel sets up extremely fast!  You really have to be on top of the process or the apples can be difficult to turn in the carmel.  I tried one of these on Friday and I can report they are really tasty!  Give these a try for sure!

You may notice the lack of popsicle sticks.  This was an improvisation on my part after getting started and realizing I forgot to buy them.  It works.  

Halloween menu making

My usual Thursdays with Morgan post will have to wait until tomorrow morning so I can get pictures of what we made.  So I will discuss our dinner for the evening. 
We are not so much on the Halloween thing, but I do have to say I grew up celebrating Halloween with trick or treating and pumpkin carving.  I figure as long and you stick with the safe stuff, it can be pretty fun.  By fun, I mean, you can make stuff in the kitchen and get into theme dinners.  Thus, tonight's dinner was one (yes, I said one) of our Halloween theme dinners for the week. On the menu tonight:  Pepperoni Pizza Pasta, Spooky Salad, and Witches Brew (for dessert).  I also served "blood" as the drink for dinner.

The Pepperoni Pizza Pasta was a recipe I found on a package of Harry and David Halloween shapes pasta.  I found this about a month ago and this menu was born.  The prep for this goes pretty quickly and I was able to make the salad while the pasta cooked.  The recipe has mozzarella chese thrown in at the end to make it look like "spider webs."  Pretty cool effect, overall and not to bad taste wise.  It is nice because you can use your favorite pasta sauce for this recipe.  I was already thinking you could to the same thing with a white sauce and salami.

The spooky salad was just a regular salad with really strangely torn lettuce and a green "finger sticking out of the center.  Nothing great or different, just something to go with the pasta. 

And to many eye rolls and strange looks, I served "blood" to drink with dinner. 

I made this a couple of weeks ago and I thought it looked like blood, so it went on the menu.  What is it?  Crystal Light fruit punch stirred into a glass of water with lots of ice.  The ice creates the coagulated look.  What do you think?  I mean besides that I am insane...what do you think?

We had a great dinner and enjoyed conversation with Morgan.  Our conversation took us many places, but one of our favorites was into the mind of a wookie.  Who knew?

Trifecta

Tonight was special for a number of reasons:
1.  Morgan came to spend the night and hang out!
2.  My parents came over for dinner.
3.  The Mavs were on tv!!

Nights don't get much better or more exhausting (in a good way)!  For dinner tonight I tried a menu from Southern Living's Christmas Cookbook (latest edition) and was very pleased with the results.    The menu: Easy Weeknight Favorites, including Crispy Oven-Fried Catfish, Ranch Potatoes, Pecan Broccoli, and Rosemary Roasted Cherry Tomatoes.  This was one of those "all out" kind of nights and I don't understand how someone would call this an easy weeknight.  Nonetheless, none of the recipes were difficult and they were nice flavors.  I did enjoy the prep plan included in the cookbook to help you get everything on the table at the same time.  If I had actually followed it a little more closely, I am sure everything would have been the right temperature, too!  Oh, well...it tasted good. 

The first recipe I started was the Ranch Potatoes and I LOVED them.  Such simple flavors, such wonderful results!  If you are in the mood for great mashed potatoes, I recommend this heartily.  Morgan recommends them, too; she recommends potatoes of any kind.  Liked the bacon crumbles - but then again who in their right gastrointestinal mind doesn't like bacon crumbles?
Next I got started on the catfish.  Liked the buttermilk bath and the cajun seasoning (used PC Creole seasoning).  The catfish was breaded with crushed Corn Flakes and I liked the crunch produced.  I would definitely use this oven method in the future for all types of fish with different seasonings. 

Then the side dishes.  Both of them were nothing fancy, but had nice simple flavors.  I made everyone try a tomato (including myself) considering this was a tomato unfriendly crowd.  I made them  1. for my mom and 2. because I like the color.  I have to say they were actually pretty good.  Drew said they were, "too Italiany." (I am not kidding)  I would make them again for a tomato loving crowd or recommend the recipe.  The broccoli was good.  I don't think the procedure of the recipe really warranted the results.  What I mean by that is it was a lot of work for not that much different of a flavor than I would do when I make broccoli normally.  I think the editor of this particular recipe thought, "I want some broccoli and then I would like to do a lot of dishes.  Do you think I can accomplish these two goals with just this recipe?"  I would reply, "Yes."  I did four separate dishes for this one recipe!   You won't get me again broccoli editor (insert ridiculous George W. Bush imitation/joke here).
Overall a great "weeknight" menu.  I did not make the S'mores Sundaes that were included on this menu.  Instead we had the best ice cream known to man, courtesey of my parents.  Thanks for the Blue Bell, Mom and Dad!  We are looking forward to the Blueberry Cheesecake!
Mavs 113, Pistons 88

Magic Munchie Mix

Thursdays are good because Morgan comes over to spend the night, bake something tasty, and generally enjoy time with us!  Today we mixed a couple recipes together and changed up some of the ingredients.  So I guess you could say, we made a new recipe of our own (you could say this, I, however, will not).  Here's the scoop:

Magic Munchie Mix

1 box rice Chex

1 can Planters Sweet and Crunchy peanuts

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup butter

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 cup marshmallows

1.  Pour cereal into a oversize bowl.  Add the peanuts.  Set aside.

2.  Combine chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter in a microwave-safe bowl.  Cook in microwave for 1 minute on high.  Remove from microwave and stir.  Place back in the microwave and cook for another 30 seconds (depending on your microwave).  Stir again until it is smooth. 

3.  Pour the chocolate mix over the cereal mixture.  Gently fold until all pieces are coated. 

4.  Place powdered sugar in a plastic bag large enough to hold the cereal. Add cereal, close up the top and Give it a good shake until the cereal pieces are evenly covered.

5.  Cool on waxed paper.  When completely cooled, put the mixture in a sealable container, add the marshmallows, close the container and shake until well mixed.

6.  Store in the refrigerator.  Enjoy!

This is a take on a recipe I made long ago (when I was Morgan's age) and another recipe we thought sounded good (but it didn't include peanut butter).  It takes less than 20 minutes and is fun to eat.

Baking with Morgan

Well, it is that time of week again and Morgan is over to spend the night.  I really enjoy having Morgan over, its like getting to adopt a cool teenager for the day.  I get to make dinner with her and bake a dessert of some sort, make her breakfast in the morning and then get her on her way  to school.  For the record, I do know having a child involves more than just food; but since most of my life revolves around food, would you expect this to be any different?
So what did we make?  Chocolate Carmel Oatmeal Chews.  This is a PC recipe from a set of recipe cards.  The verdict:  Good.  I think we may have eaten them a little early because the recipe says to cool completely.  I would definitely increase the cooking time to get them a little crisper (just my preference).  Morgan put all the ingredients together and did the steps of the recipe, while I read the recipe to her.  She needs to work out those stirring muscles, but we have lots of Thursdays to practice.  I would recommend this when you are short on time, but need to make something for a group.  It is mostly made with pantry items and makes a lot.  Morgan says, "they were delicious."

Thursdays with Morgan

Not to be confused with the popular (and still unread by me) book Tuesdays with Morrie, I am now spending my Thursdays with Morgan.  Instead of spending time with an old, wise man, am spending time with a young woman who makes me feel really OLD!  Morgan has just started high school and I feel privileged to be one of the people she wants to hang with.  We like to bake goodies.  Last week, we created a long list of the things we would like to make, which should take us easily to the end of the year!  We figure we will bless others with the baked goods, so our waistlines do not suffer. 
Today, a Pampered Chef recipe for Banana Cream Brownie Squares.  This was a hit Pampered Chef!!  I knew you could do it!  Really simple recipe with box brownies, vanilla pudding, with cool whip and bananas.  I am not a fan of putting bananas on anything, so I just ate around them, but they were good.  I especially liked the pudding mix topping.  Great after school snack or perfect for dessert with a small crowd.  Morgan cut the bananas, folded in the cool whip and put it all together.  Love having someone in the kitchen to help me out!