Irish Chicken and dumplings

I forgot to take a picture yet again!
Three words for you: filling, easy, tasty. Make sure you ball the dumplings! if you just drop a tablespoon of dumpling batter in it goes flat. I added 1 Tsp of poultry seasoning instead of 1/2 and another 2 C. water. I thought it looked like to little, but ended up with too much so next time I suppose I will have to stick with the recipe even if it seems there will not be enough.

Get the recipe HERE

Laughter is brightest where food is best. —-Irish Proverb

Alfredo Sauce

Another Alfredo I tried, I added Sauteed asparagus and baby portabello mushrooms. And a little dried tomato for extra flavor. If you want to try Alfredo from scratch this is a good starting point. Enjoy!

Get the recipe HERE

"Nouvelle Cuisine, roughly translated, means: I can’t believe I paid ninety-six dollars and I’m still hungry." ~Mike Kalin

Easy Lasagne

I wanted to make my own for once instead of buying a frozen package. I added Italian sausage as a tip from my mom. and it came out perfect! Very little ingredients compared to many recipes I found, the less ingredients the better when you are on a budget. The picture is too blurry to do it justice. I will say the only change I will do next time is spread a little sauce on the bottom of the pan before adding the sauce to the meat. The meat raises the noodles a little otherwise. I will be making this again!

Get the recipe HERE

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food." ~George Bernard Shaw

Baklava

Okay now this was great fun to make. Two of my girl friends came over and we made an evening of Baklava and a movie. Each of us took a job for making the baklava. worked out very well, especially for our first time! because there were three of us we had no problem with the phyllo dough drying out and not finishing quick enough. We ended up with very tall baklava, but extremely good. We had a great time making it and eating it. We probably ate a little too much!
Have a girls night and give it a try it is worth the time!

Get the recipe HERE

"One of the delights of life is eating with friends, second to that is talking about eating. And, for an unsurpassed double whammy, there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends. " ~Laurie Colwin

Breakfast upside down cake

Sorry I forgot to take a picture!
I did this opposite as I had no parchment paper and had no way to flip it. Was very good, makes a great breakfast for dinner. A little time consuming but if you are truly in the mood for breakfast and don't mind the wait it is worth it. I cut down on the bacon and added a couple more eggs, doubled the milk, and cheese. Served with toast.

Get the recipe HERE

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." ~J. R. R. Tolkien

Alfredo Primavera

This was delicious. Easy, quick and flavorful. Do not forget the red bell pepper, it adds to this dish so much. sprinkle a little fresh Parmesan cheese and a side of garlic bread (I like cheesy garlic bread myself) and you have a great meal. The family ate it up and I had no complaints.

Get the recipe HERE

"One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating."
~Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, Pavarotti

Stir Fry

I love oriental and enjoy trying new things at home. I have found that for stir fry I actually prefer Soba noodles instead of rice. I must admit I do purchase the frozen stir fry vegetable mix instead of doing it myself. I also buy the egg rolls, although I have been looking for recipes to make my own. That will come soon enough I am sure. I buy stir fry cut beef, and I wanted to do something different then my normal terriyaki marinade that I find myself using far too often. For the beef I found a very good recipe with few ingredients. I am very impressed with it! The recipe is for a complete stir fry dish, I did just the beef. Next time I think I will do the entire dish. I wanted to give it a try but wanted to stick to my usual just in case. I will be having again, and maybe by then I will have an egg roll recipe to share. And possibly even a crab rangoon recipe as they are soo good.

Stir fried beef recipe HERE

"And I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites and any number of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven’t yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food?" ~Bill Bryson

Shrimp Scampi And Lobster

What a treat for Valentines! They had lobster on sale so we gave it a try. Although I did not make the scampi (as I had a friend over who cooked everything) I did have the pleasure of figuring out how to cut and marinade the lobster. Very tasty! The scampi was good, a little too much lemon for my taste. Lobster could have been more tender, but will have to play with the cooking times a little. Very delicious meal in the long run though, and easy to make. We had ours with edamame, would work well with various types of rice or veggies.

Shrimp Scampi recipes HERE
Lobster recipe HERE

Fish, to taste right, must swim three times – in water, in butter and in wine. ~Polish proverb

Easy Slow Cooker French Dip

Flavorful, tender meat with au jus dipping sauce. Okay so what did I change? I added a little garlic powder, worcester sauce, and mushrooms. Used Guinness Draught for the beer as recommended by others. Couldn't taste the beer at all! I sliced the meat thinly when it's 7 hours was up, then put it back into the sauce for 30min before making the sandwiches. Unfortunately I ended up with hoagie rolls instead of french rolls. Still good but I think the french would have held up a lot better. The store was out of french though so I got what I could. Broiled some provolone cheese onto the hoagie for a min and what a great tasting easy recipe. Served mine with baked potato's. but decided for my lunch I would rather have chips. Fries would work well also and you could dip them in the au jus. This recipe does not take a lot of different ingredients and the only costly part to it really is the meat. If you don't drink beer, check with your local liquor store to see if you can just buy 1. They allow it here in Cheyenne, but every place is different. Lacking a little on the spices on the original recipe, but as long as you have a base recipe the spices are easy to adjust.

Get the recipe HERE

"I feel a recipe is only a theme, which an intelligent cook can play each time with a variation."
~ Madame Benoit

Not a recipe

Today's post isn't about a recipe but a friend. If you enjoy reading and want to find new books to try then I have a site for you. It is a blog that a personal friend of mine has started, and I must say for her first post she made me want to go read the book she reviewed!
Click HERE to check her out!

Alfredo

I used a base Alfredo recipe, which turned out really well. I added 1/4 C. Gouda which made it very cheesy Alfredo, my family enjoyed it being extra cheesy. I also sauteed 2 garlic cloves, asparagus, baby portebello mushrooms, and sun dried tomato's for additional flavoring. We did really enjoy this recipe, and it gives so much room to add to it. Served over linguine or really any other pasta's that takes in the sauce makes this dish complete. And I fond that doing it home made is simple and by far better then the ones you buy in a jar. Although I will say I will have my jarred ones occasionally, but if I get the chance I will be doing this on my own from now on.

Get the recipe HERE


"You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients." ~Julia Child

Italian Breaded Pork Chops

My family loved this recipe! I ended up getting a bunch of pork chops on sale and well have to find different ways to cook them! I did not use Italian bread crumbs however, I had some country style stuffing left over so I got out the hammer and made it into crumbs, added 1/2ts. of sage, and 1/2ts. of basil to get that Italian flavor. Used grated Parmesan/Romano mix instead of just Parmesan. Way to much left over though, I followed others advice and cut down to 2 eggs, with 3 large pork chops I still had probably and egg worth left over. Also had a bit of the crumbs left over as well. I had to transfer it to a casserole dish, my pork chops were bigger then anticipated. It was a little greasy but not too bad. All in all this recipe is going into our monthly rotation. Server with asparagus and portebello mushrooms in a white sauce.

Get the recipe HERE

"One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating." ~Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, Pavarotti, My Own Story

Zucchini Bread

MMmm I do love zucchini bread! and this recipe is perfect! It's moist, full of flavor, and has that just right amount of sweetness. This is a keeper! Even had my kids taking it out of my fridge by the handfuls! And really easy to make. I used my mixer but that is the only thing I did different then the recipe says. Enjoy!

Get the recipe HERE


"Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie." ~Jim Davis

Simple Time Pork Chops

Interesting recipe that I thought I would give a shot, however it is not something I would do again. I think I may have put to much mayo on it, but I really didn't like the flavor with the mayo in general. A little bland for my taste as well. I will be trying a lot more pork chop recipes as the store was having a sale so I ended up with a lot of them. Hey who can go wrong with bulk packages of buy one get one free? If you want to give it a try or maybe play with the recipe, I would be happy to try other variations. And due to me having more pork chops to play with if you have a recipe I would love to give it a try.

Recipe HERE


"High-tech tomatoes. Mysterious milk. Supersquash. Are we supposed to eat this stuff? Or is it going to eat us?" ~Annita Manning