I don't mean for so many days to go by in between posts, but I guess that is life in the real world. :) Last Thursday we had enchiladas. I don't really have a go-to recipe for these. I just use what we have on hand. This time I had Ortega canned red enchilada sauce and used their recipe as a guide line. I browned ground beef and then added 3/4 of a can of sauce and some cheddar a cheese. I had flour tortillas on hand, so I wapped up three 'ladas for the kids in their own pan cause I wanted to bring up the heat level for the grown ups. For that I added a can of diced jalapenos and half a can of black beans. (I love black beans, I will add them to anything! When I lived in Florida, t
his place had the best black beans and rice, I guess that started my love affair with the black beans. Or maybe I like eating the to remind me a little of that time in my life? Who knows! But you should just eat your black beans cause they are good for you!!) Back to the enchiladas... I filled them, covered them with another can of sauce and lots of cheese. Cheddar is what I had on hand. Bake, and eat. Yum. We had corn on the side. Friday night we had leftover manicotti that I had made before Thanksgiving and froze. Easy night! Saturday we put up our Christmas tree and the past couple of years, Dear Hubby has made soup on this day. Keeping the tradition alive, B made Chicken Barley soup. I had a bag of
Bob's Red Mill Pearl Barley in the cupboard and we just used the recipe on the bag as a guide. I'll post the recipe as written with our changes in parenthesis.
Chicken Soup with Barley
2.5 cups of water
2.5 tsp salt
3 lbs chicken parts
(we just used 2 boxes of premade stock and cooked up some chicken breast tenders)
1.5 cups sliced celery
1.5 cups sliced carrots
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 tsp dried Thyme (didn't have any, so we used poultry seasoning)
1 Bay Leaf
1/4 tsp pepper
1 lb fresh mushrooms (left it out since the only one who will eat 'shrooms is me!)
3/4 cup Bob's Red Mill Pearl barley
In a large sauce pan combine water, chicken, salt, celery, carrots, onion, thyme, bay leaf and pepper bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered until chicken is tender (approx. 1 hour). Meanwhile, slice mushrooms and set aside. Remove chicken from broth and take meat off bones; cut into cubes. Return chicken to sauce pan and add barley and mushrooms. Simmer, covered until barley is tender, about 50 minutes. Serves 8. (since the chicken was cooked in a separate pan, we just added it all and cooked for about an hour.)
Sunday night's dinner I made stuffed zucchini. Saturday I did an impromptu grocery shop (no list, just wandered the aisles trying to figure out what to get {I don't recommend this method! :)}) and I dunno, the zucchini just sounded good. I bought some bulk Italian sausage and decided I could wing the rest. I used
this recipe as my guide. I did boil the zucchini as it recommends, and I don't know if I would do that again. The end result made for pretty soft zucchini and I like mine to have a firmer texture. I didn't have roasted red peppers, but a regular red pepper so I diced it and sauteed it in olive oil and garlic and oregano. Then I added some tomato paste thinned with some water. I set that aside then browned the sausage. I didn't have an onion, but I have a huge Sam's size bad of French's Fried Onions, so I chopped some of those up in my
Pampered Chef Food Chopper. I combined everything with some Parmesan cheese. I filled the zucchini boats with the sausage mix, sprinkled on a bit more parm, onions and then doused it with pizza cheese (mostly mozzarella in it). Baked for 30 minutes. We had broccoli and jellied cranberry sauce on the side. Both kids ate every bite, no fight. Woo hoo!! :) I thought for sure little B would complain about the spiciness of the sausage but he did not. Impressive!
Hope your week is filled with great eats & treats. Hugs.
Hello friends. This week is another busy week. My husband is working second shift two nights this week and we are bowling two nights this week = not much cooking going on here. :) Monday night I didn't feel like cooking so we literally ate Ramen Noodles. They are good once in a while. I like to drain most of the water out so that it is less like soup and more like a bowl of noodles. I felt like baking instead. My Grandma called them Hello Dolly's but most people call them Magic Cookie bars. Mmmh, they are so good. Last night was one of the nights my husband was working so we had the go to meal that my blog is named for. Grilled cheese and tomato soup. I'm happy to report that I did not burn them and I mixed it up a little by making them on Rye bread. Yum. I usually cut the sandwich into several strips for the kids and then they dunk them in the soup. This method has eliminated the "I don't want to eat the crust" drama and they actually eat the soup too this way. I got those mugs for them a few years back at Crate and Barrel. Not sure if they make them anymore. Looks like they make a polar bear version now. They are just the right size for the kids. 
