Super Happy Jen Learns to Cook

Banana Bread

2010-04-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

1/2 a cup butter (which my son ate most of before we were done, so probably optional)
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 ripe bananas
1 cup milk.
1/2 pkg chocolate chips (most would say optional, but I've always felt that banana bread without chocolate was a little depressing).

Preheat oven to 325 F.
In a large bowl, mix up the butter and sugars.
Add the flour and the baking powder and mix.
Add the bananas and mash everything together with a pototo masher.
Add the milk for moistness and to ease in mashing.
Add the chocolate chips.
Grease a loaf pan that looks about the right size to fit the batter you just made. Pour the batter in.
Put it in the oven for 1 hour, or until a knife stuck in the middle comes out clean (so, actually 1 hour and 10 minutes, 1 hour and 20 minutes, just cook it until it's done).

I'm not vegan I'm just out of eggs pancakes

2009-11-28T06:04:00.000-08:00

I was out of eggs and needing to make a weekend breakfast (ie not cereal). I searched the internet and found this recipe on a random blog.

Ingredients:

•1 cup Flour
•1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
•2 teaspoons Baking Powder
•1/4 teaspoon Salt
•2 Tablespoons Sugar
•1 cup milk (the original recipe called for soy milk or water, so if you're a vegan, or are having one for breakfast.)
•1.5 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
•1/2 teaspoon Vanilla

Method:

Sift flour and baking soda/powder and salt. I just kind of stirred them together.

Add sugar. (Whisk these together is you don’t have a sifter, so says the random blogger)

Add Vanilla and Oil and half the milk. The original recipe says whisk, but my whisk got all gunks when I started adding wet ingredients. I dumped it and went to the spoon, specifically a measuring spoon because I didn't feel like getting another one out.

Gradually add the rest of the milk until thick pouring consistency. Okay at this point my son just dumped the rest of the milk in. Seemed to have an okay consistency.

Heat Frying pan – needs to be reasonably hot. I used margarine for frying, the random blogger used oil. Make fairly small pancakes, says she. Mine weren't that big but I don't see them falling apart if they were bigger. Batter behaved like normal pancake batter.

Now just eat it with syrup on top.

Yummy Brownie Cookies

2009-08-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup baking cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350.

Mix together the butter and sugar, add the egg and the vanilla, mix some more. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add the dry stuff to the wet stuff and mix some more.

Grease a cookie sheet. Roll the dough into little balls (like 1-inch) and put them on the cookie sheet (y'know, with a little bit of elbow room between them).

Bake for 15 minutes (in my oven, but my oven's cool, my old oven would've taken 8 minutes).

Brown sugar chicken thighs

2008-08-19T14:04:00.000-07:00

When I find a tastey and easy way to make chicken, I must write it down right away!

Chicken thighs (I took the skins off, but I'm sure it would work either way)
brown sugar (about 1-2 tablespoons per thigh)
garlic powder
pepper
Pam

1. Preheat over to 350F

2. Cover a cookie sheet with foil, then spray it with Pam. (the foil is important because this is one of those recipes that will ruin a pan if there is no foil).

3. Cover each thigh with lots and lots of pepper and garlic salt (both sides). And place them on the cookie sheet.

4. Cover one side of the thighs with brown sugar. Kind of mound it on top.

5. Bake for 1 hour in preheated oven.

6. EAT!

Shepherd's Pie

2008-07-03T14:32:00.000-07:00

Shepherd's Pie is a dish that is traditionally made with leftovers, which begs the question: Who the heck ever has LEFTOVER mashed potatoes? Certainly not me. Anyway, this is how I make shepherd's pie, and I think it's pretty darn tastey:

Ingredients (for the potato part)

3 or 4 largish baking potatoes (peeled and chopped)
3 to 4 T butter or margarine
3 to 4 T cottage cheese
1 or 2 cloves of garlic (minced)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Ingredients (for the meat part)

About a handful of each of your favourite veggies (diced) (I used carrots, onions, celery, and red pepper)
Oil for frying
1 clove of garlic (minced)
1/2 lb ground beef
Liberal application of your favourite barbecue sauce.

Optional topping: shredded cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Bring water to boil and cook potatoes until tender
3. While the potatoes are cooking, fry up all the veggies in the order of hardest veggies first. So, carrots first, red pepper last. Add the garlic.
4. When the carrots are tender but firm, add the ground beef to the veggies. Apply liberal amounts of barbecue sauce to flavour the beef. Cook until beef is no longer pink. (Once the pink is gone you can taste it to make sure you added enough barbecue sauce).
5. Drain the potatoes and mash them with the butter and cottage cheese and garlic. Salt and pepper to taste.
6. All the above ingredients should be just enough to fit into a 2 L casserole dish. Put the beef and veggie mixture on the bottom, then spread the mashed potatoes on top.
7. Add some shredded cheese to the top if you like.
8. Cook in preheated oven for 30 minutes.

Krabby Quiche

2008-02-20T08:16:00.000-08:00

I had all kinds of immitation krab meat left over from making sushi, so I had no choice but to make quiche.

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup mayo

1 tsp cornstarch

1/2 pound krab (with a k)

1 1/2 pounds shredded cheese (the original recipe called for swiss, but I used a chedder, mozzarella blend because the store didn't have pre-shredded swiss, whatever you like will be tastey)

a shakety shake of garlic powder (to keep vampires away)

1 9-inch unbaked pie crust.

1. preheat oven to 350 F

2. in a medium bowl mix together eggs, milk, mayo and cornstarch. Mix in the krab and cheese and shakety on the garlic powder.

3. Pour all that into the pie crust.

4. Bake for 40 minutes, or until top is nicly golden and it isn't gooey in the middle. (the original recipe said 30-40 min, but my oven is a hot one and it still needed 40. You might even need 45. Egads!

5. Slice up and enjoy.

Sushi

2008-02-20T07:46:00.001-08:00

This is one of those things I just had to learn how to prepare and, now that I know, I don't really have to do it again. It's economical for parties and such, but I definitely ran out of steam before I ran out of ingredients. BTW: I didn't use raw fish for the same reason you will never see a recipe for steak tartar on this blog, because I don't know what I'm doing enough to prepare raw meat.

What you need:

seaweed (the kind they sell in the sushi section of the grocery store)

sushi rice (regular rice won't due, it doesn't stick together. Sushi rice can be found in the sushi section aswell, but it comes in such giant bags that unless you become a sushi chef, you will never use. Just memorize its funky Japanese name and buy a small bag in the rice isle. Crafty, eh?)

rice vinegar (VERY IMPORTANT this is what makes it taste like sushi)

sugar

salt

cucumber, red pepper, avacado and krab (everyone loves krab with a k). All of this should be thinly sliced lengthwise (your cucumber should be spears, not circles).

1. Cook some rice. It'll be all clumpy and stick-together-y. That's the idea.

2. Add vinegar, sugar and salt to the rice until it tastes like sushi. For every 3 tablespoons of vinegar, add about 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 tsp of salt. Mix it well.

3. Lay a sheet of seaweed on a dry surface. I actually got one of those little bambo mats special for making sushi, but I can't imagine that's actually necessary.

4. Spread a thin layer of rice over the whole seaweed sheet (you should be able to see the sea weed underneath). Leave like a half-an-inch at the far end so the seaweed will stick to itself when you roll it.

5. Put some avacado, cucumber, krab, and red pepper (or some combination thereof) closest to you on top of the rice. You just want a thin strip of ingredients. Don't over stuff it (I'm talking to you now, Mom).

6. Wet the far edge of the seaweed a bit so it will stick to itself when you roll it.

7. Carefully roll the sushi into a log.

8. THIS IS THE HARD PART. Get a sharp knife and carefully slice the sushi into bite-sized circles. Do not squeeze it, and do not use a knife so dull that all it does is squish the sushi. Regardless of how careful you are, the end piece will become a casualty (eat it anyway, it still tastes good)

9. Repeat all the steps until you are bored of making sushi/run out of rice.

Slow-cooker meatloaf

2008-01-22T12:22:00.001-08:00

I've started making 99% of my meals in the slow cooker. It's so easy! Buy a slow cooker and throw stuff in it in the morning, and by evening you've got dinner!

1 egg
1/4 cup milk
2 slices of day-old bread, torn into cubes (I've used brand new bread, and nothing bizarre happened)
1/4 cup diced onion (I try to cut it small enough to keep Adam from saying "There's too much onion")
2 tablespoons finely chopped red or green pepper (Again, my goal is to cut it so small that Adam doesn't say "I'm not really big on peppers")
1 pound ground beef (make sure it's defrosted)
Salt and pepper
A whole bunch of ketchup
Some potatoes and/or carrots or whatever.

1. Beat the egg with the milk. Stir in the bread and the onion and the peppers.
2. Mix in the meat, and make sure it's really mixed okay? Season it with salt and pepper while you're at it.
3. Mold your meat mixture into a loaf shape (think giant meat turd) and put it in your slow cooker.
4. Spread ketchup all over it. Don't be shy.
5. Put a bunch of carrots and/or potatoes and/or whatever all around the meatloaf, as your "side dish".
6. Put your cooker on high for an hour, then low for the rest of the day (or until no pink is showing).
7. Eat your meatloaf with carrots and whatever for dinner.

Lobster Cakes

2007-06-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

A while ago, and for no particular reason, my cousin gave me a whole pile of frozen lobster meat for free. While I was delighted by the gesture, I'm still having trouble figuring out what to do with it. Here is one of my attempts:

Approx 1 pound lobster meat (if you don't have large quantities of lobster in your freezer, you can substitute crab)
1 1/2 tablespoons breadcrumbs (I used seasoned breadcrumbs because that's what I had)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
2 radishes, chopped super finely
1 stalk of celery, chopped super finely.
salt and pepper to taste.
A bunch of garlic salt
1 egg.
1 1/2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1. Preheat oven broiler
2. Mix together lobster, bread crumbs, parsley, radishes, celery, salt, pepper and garlic salt.
3. Beat together egg and mayonnaise.
4. Add the egg mixture to the lobster mixture (or vice versa) and mix well.
5. Make them into patties and put them on a greased baking sheet.
6. Broil for like 6 minutes, depending on the hotness of your oven and the size of your cakes. Just watch them and, when they start to look crispy, rescue them.

Note: I made 4 cakes that were like the size of hamburger patties, but you could make smaller bite sized cakes for parties, theoretically.

Cookies

2007-05-06T05:04:00.000-07:00

1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup softened butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg

Other stuff:
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup oatmeal
peanut butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2.Sift dry stuff together (that's flour, and baking soda). Cream the butter, sugars and vanilla together in a different bowl. Add the egg and beat it up. Add the flour mixture. Now add the chocolate chips (if you want chocolate chip cookies) or the oatmeal (if you want oatmeal cookies). You could add peanut butter if you want peanut butter cookies. The possibilities are endless!
3. Pam your cookie sheet and put some heaping tsps of batter on it.
4. Bake for like 8 minutes.

banana bread

2007-04-26T09:42:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, your fruit is kept stupidly in a bowl right next to the window and the sun makes the bananas go all gungy really fast. On that note, I found this recipe for banana bread that turned out yummy:

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/3 cups mashed overripe
bananas (so, like 3 bananas)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray Pam on your loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. (I nuked the bananas a tad to facilitate masing) Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake for like an hour then remove from pan.
4. Eat

Tabouli

2007-01-11T14:07:00.000-08:00

This is the salad thingie that I made when my veggie friends came over. I just think it's the yummiest.

3/4 cup boiling water*
1/2 cup bulgur**
1/2 cup minced parsley***
1/4 cup minced mint leaves
1/2 cup finely chopped green onion
2 roma tomatoes, diced
1 cucumber, seeded and diced *****
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice, or to taste******
Salt and Pepper to taste
Pinch allspice

*Just use a kettle, don't get out a pot or anything.
**It's a grain. Comes in a bag like rice. Trust me. Just check the healthy food isle of your grocery store
***I probably ended up putting in a tonne more parsley than this and it wasn't as "minced" as all gettup. What can I say? I love parsley.
****The original recipe said one tomato, but the roma tomatoes looked redder and yummier and they're about half the size of a regular tomato, right?
*****I cheated and used a seedless cucumber. And it was an English one too, so I didn't even have to peel it. Laziness wins again.
******This time I didn't cheat. I actually squeezed a lemon.

So here's what you do: Pour the boiling water over the bulgar, cover, and let stand about 20 minutes until the water has disappeared (because the bulgar has sucked it all up). Add the chopped vegetables (including the mint, parsley, onion, cucumber, tomato, did I miss something?) and toss to mix. Combine oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and allspice. Put that oil and stuff in with the veggies and bulgar and mix well. Put it in the fridge to chill out.

Mama Filipowicz's Famous Pickle Soup

2006-10-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

When I married into a Polish family, I learned that all Polish people make pickle soup. It's just a thing. I haven't tried to make this recipe yet, my mother-in-law gave it to me. Since I'm Polish now, I have to make it one day. When she makes it, it's tastey.

1 can liquid broth
2 litres water
1 carrot cubed
5 potato cubed
1 teaspoon veggie soup mix
3 large pickles
1/2 cup pickle brine (to taste)
1/2 cup milk

1. Boil everything (except the milk).
2. Add the milk.
3. Boil some more.
4. Done.

Spaetzle

2006-08-19T17:38:00.000-07:00

These yummy german noodle thingies are a must for anyone who wants to impersonate a german grandmother.

3 cups flour
4 eggs
A whole bunch of butter and salt

1. Put the flour in a bowl and salt it to death.
2. Beat the eggs.
3. Add a cup of water to the eggs.
4. Add the eggs and water to the flour and beat with a wooden spoon (yes, it must be wooden. I don't know why. Just go with it)
5.Add more salt for good measure.
6. When the dough looks kinda sticky and stretchy it's ready. (You might need to add more water, but not necessarily).
7. Boil a pot of water.
8. Using a spaetzle maker (go buy one, it looks like a giant garlic press and makes the dough into noodles) squish the dough into the boiling water.
9. Boil it for almost no time at all, until it floats to the top.
10. Strain the noodles.
11. Fry them up in a whole lot of butter and salt until they're a bit crispy.

Remember: Don't skimp on the butter. Ask yourself WWOD (What Would Omi Do)?

Pierogi Lasagna

2006-07-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

This is a most delicious meal. It must be nutricious too. Look it has all the food groups: veggies (onions), dairy (cheese, and cottage cheese), protein (bacon), and carbs (potato, pasta). Anyhoo, here it is, a cullinary masterpiece.

Lasagna noodles (you need 6 noodles for the recipe, but I suggest just making the whole pack. Your lucky if you get 6 that aren't broken.)

Onions (two of those big honking cooking onions)

1 1/2 cups cottage cheese

Like 2 cups grated cheddar

Some mashed potatoes (I used 7 of those little red ones. About 6 cups. You can use instant mashed potatoes, but mashing potatoes really isn't that hard. Lazy people.)

1 pack of bacon.

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Make the mashed potatoes (use your medium sized pot, because only a big pot will fit lasagna noodles)

3. Make the lasagna noodles according to package directions (so just boil them in a big pot)

4. Cut up the onions in little bits and sauté them in a little oil.

5. Fry the bacon. Not too crispy, because it's going in the oven later.

6. Save half a cup of onions and half a cup of grated cheese for the top of the lasagna.

7. Mix the cottage cheese, cheese, and onions with the mashed potatoes.

8. Get a 9 x 13" glass dish and spray it with Pam

9. Lay 2 lasagna noodle in the bottom of it.

10. Spread half of the potato mixture on the lasagna noodles.

11. Lay 1/3 of the bacon on top.

12. Put 2 more lasagna noodles down.

13. Spread the other half of the potato stuff on.

14. Lay another 3rd of the bacon on top.

15. Put 2 more lasagna noodles down (see how hard it is to find ones that aren't broken?)

16. Top with the remaining cheese, onions, and bacon.

17. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 F.

Party Punch

2006-06-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

I heard rumours that you can add alcohol to this but I've won't be testing that theory for at least 9 months.

2 liters Sprite
2 liters no-name mango fruit punch
2 liters rasberry sorbet
2 bananas, sliced
2 cans of pineapple
Some strawberries, sliced

Nothing too hard. Just mix everything together in a big bowl. I recommend putting the sorbet in before adding the fruit so that you can mash it up a bit without squashing bananas (I realized this after). You can also let the sorbert float in the bowl acting as ice (but then people might like "What's that weird chunk all about?"). This recipes makes a lot so you may want to half it if you don't have so many people.

Spinachy noodle recipe that I just made up

2006-03-25T09:38:00.000-08:00

This recipe is so yummy and spinachy. I am the best spinach cook ever!

1 package frozen chopped spinach
Half an onion, chopped into itty bits
1 cup milk
1 cup broth
1 tomato, chopped into itty bits
Like, a tablespoon of margarine or so (I used a super heart smart kind so it's totally low fat).
Maybe a tablespoon of flour
Some chicken chopped up (optional)
A little oil (to sautee the onions)
Garlic, maybe 2 cloves, minced
Enough pasta for two.
Whatever spices you like.

1. Sautee the onions with the garlic and fry up the chicken in the same pan.
2. Add the milk and broth and when it looks like it's boiling a bit, toss in the noodles. Keep boiling.
3. When the noodles are sort of cooked, put in the flour and margarine to thicken the sauce a bit.
4. When everything looks done almost, put in the spinach and tomatoes and cook it until it's all done.

Disclaimer: I like spinach, you may not.

potato noodley thingies and sauce

2006-01-26T16:10:00.000-08:00

I got this out of a magazine. The noodles end up tasting sort of like spetchle. Of course I have no idea if that's how they're supposed to taste because the recipe was so goobery in its measurements that I decided against subscribing. It was tastey though so here's how to make it my way. (make sure you have some time on your hands)

Potato Noodley Thingies

Approx. 3 potatoes
1 to 1 1/2 cups of flour
1 egg
salt
oil

1.Boil the potatoes until they are soft.
2. Mash the potatoes. You need them seriously mashed so use a blender if you need to.
3. Add the egg, and sort of beat it while it's in there a little bit.
4. Add the flour and mix it until it's a lump of dough
5. kneed the dough a bit.
6. Make into noodley shapes. Whatever shapes you like.
7. Put them in a pot of boiling water.
8. Once they float to the top, take them out with one of those holey spoons and put them in ice (I don't know if the ice does anything but I'm afraid to try it with out).
9. Put them in a countainer and add some oil.
10. Put them in the fridge for later (whenever you decide to make the sauce).

Sauce

1 can stewed tomatoes
6 tablespoons (or whatever) olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced (or 3 if you like garlic as much as I do)
Some cubes of cheese (I tried both mozzeralla and cheddar and both are yummilishious)
Pepper
More veggies (onions, celery) optional

1. heat the olive oil and cook the optional veggies
2. Put the thinly sliced garlic in until it's kindof brown (like 30 seconds)
3. Add the can of tomatoes
4. When the tomatoes look warm take the pan off the heat
5. Take the noodles out of the fridge and put them in
6. Put everything back on the heat and toss until bubbly
7. Add the cheese and pepper
8. Eat it right away.

Potato Pancakes: Easiest meal ever!

2005-11-25T13:34:00.000-08:00

2 potatoes

one smallish onion

1 egg

1/4 cup flour

salt and pepper to taste

1. wash and peel the potatoes.
2. Put everything in the blender and mix it up.
3. Spoon the mixture into a pan with hot oil and flatten into a pancake shape.
4. Brown lightly on both sides.
5. Eat them. I like mine with sour cream but they are also good with ketchup or plain.

Totally the opposite of healthy BURGERS

2005-11-22T11:50:00.000-08:00

1/2 cup (or whatever) shredded cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
1 small onion chopped
1 egg
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper (or whatever)
1 pound ground beef (that's a package)
6 slices bacon
6 hamburger buns
the stuff you like to put on burgers

1. The recipe said to do this on a grill but I don't have a grill so I used a frying pan. Preheat it to high heat.
2. in a large bowl mix the cheeses the onion, the egg, the ketchup, the W sauce, and the salt and pepper.
3. Crumble in the ground beef (if you know what crumble means you get a gold star, otherwise just sort of put it in).
4. Mix it together by hand
5. Form 6 patties. Wrap a slice of bacon around each one (yum!)
6. Put the patties on the "grill" and cook 5 minutes per side. I didn't really time it, just cooked them until they were done. One tricky thing is that the burgers are pink on the outside because of the bacon. You may have to mutilate one of the patties to decide if they're done or not. Oh, and if your using a frying pan, don't forget to cover it.
7. Serve them on hamburger buns and put stuff you like on it.

Sexy Adam's Delicious Waffles

2005-11-03T08:22:00.000-08:00

My sweet husband made me waffles. For dinner! Here's his recipe (adapted from allrecipes.com)

2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup veggie oil (or butter or margarine, actually that's better, all melty)
2 tablespoons white sugar (or 3 or 4 or 5)
3 tablespoons baking powder
1/4 tsp of salt
1 tsp vanilla (Adam says adding vanilla is like "pouring yumminess in")

1. Preheat waffle iron.

2. Beat eggs in large bowl until fluffy.

3. Beat in flour, milk, oil, sugar, and the rest (here on Gilligan's Island), until smooth.

4. Spray waffle iron with Pam.

5. Put some batter on the waffle iron.

6. Cook until it beeps/is golden brown.

7. Eat 'em while they're hot.

Chicken Stips with Honey Mustard Sauce

2005-10-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a yummy recipe I got out of the paper.

Dah Chicken:

Vegetable oil
4 chicken breasts cut into strips
1/4 cup mayo
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 1/4 cups (or a bunch of) breadcrumbs.

1. Preheat oven to 375 F
2. oil up a baking sheet
3. put the mayo and the mustard and the chicken in a bowl together.
4. toss it up to coat
5. Put the bread crumbs on a plate
6. Dippety dip the chicken in the breadcrumbs
7. Put the chicken onto the pan.
8. Cook for 10 minutes.
9. Turn over.
10. Cook for another 10 minutes. (While it's cooking, make dah sauce)

Dah Sauce

1/2 cup honey
2 tbsp Dijon mustard.

1. Mix that stuff together and dip the chicken in it.

According to the paper this recipe has 570 calories, 16 g fat, 45 g protein, 63 g carbs, and 2 g fibre. That doesn't sound super healthy, but it was tastey.

Bruschetta

2005-10-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

Nothing says party like bruschetta!

8 plum tomatoes diced (yes 8)
like three or four tablespoons dried basil
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan (then add a little more for flavour)
2 cloved garlic (in dah garlic press)
1 tablespoon and a bit balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon and a bit olive oil
1/4 teaspoon (or whatever) salt
1/4 teaspoon (or whatever) pepper
1 loaf of yummy french bread (or bread from any european country), toasted and sliced

1. Put like everything in a bowl except the bread and mix it all together. Taste it and keep adding the stuff until it tastes delicious.
2. Put it on the toasted yummy bread.
3. Eat it with friends. (No! DO NOT eat your friends)

Cookie Pizza

2005-10-15T16:15:00.000-07:00

A big cookie with a whole bunch of stuff on it!

1/2 cup margarine
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup regular sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 1/4 cups flour
chocolate pizza sauce (see below)
some nuts and candies and things
some coconut

1. Heat oven to 350.
2. Mix butter, sugars, vanilla and egg in a big bowl. Stir in flour and baking soda.
3. Pat dough onto a pizza pan. Out pizza pan is super huge so the cookie looked kinda small, but it spread while cooking a bit.
4. Cook it for 15 minutes (now's a good time to make the sauce (see below))
5. spread the sauce all over the cookie
6. Put all the coconut and nuts and yummy candies on it. Press a little.
7. Cut into wedges.

Chocolate pizza sauce:

1 bag of chocolate chips
2 tablespoons margarine
3 tablespoons milk
1 cup powdered sugar

1. Heat the chocolate chips, butter and milk on the stove at LOW heat. Stir sometimes.
2. When the chocolate is all melted, remove from heat.
3. stir in the powdered sugar.
4. Whisk until smooth and then use it for the pizza (see above)

Leftover Turkey Pie

2005-10-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

I made this like last week when there was all that leftover turkey. It will probably be useful for you at Christmas or if you're American and have thanksgiving some weird time in November.

Filling:

1/4 cup onion
1/4 cup sliced cerery
4 tbsps butter
1/3 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper (How do you get the grinder to aim right at the little spoon?)
2 cups chicken broth (so like some boulion in some boiled water)
2/3 cup milk (they said half and half, but milk was what I had and it works)
4 cups left over turkey
1 tbsp chopped pimiento (That's some kind of pepper right? Anyway the internet said I could substitute allspice so I substituted all the spices I had. It's a wonder anything I make ends up tasting like anything)
1 tsp worcestershire (I suspect this does nothing)

Topping:

2 cupd biscuix
2 tbs butter (again, they said shortening but my fridge had butter)
1/3 cup milk (they really mean milk this time)

1. Melt the butter in a skillet over Medium heat.
2. Add the veggies. (not the pimiento) Cook until tender. Stir!
3. Add flour, salt, pepper and stir.
4. cook until it is "smooth and bubbly"
5. add chicken broth. keep stirring!
6. add milk. stirring stirring. Until it is thick.
7. add all the other stuff, including the "pimiento" and the turkey, but not the topping ingredients (obviously).
8. when it boils, cook another 30 seconds
9. Put the filling into a smaller dish than the recipe calls for (11 1/2 x 7 1/2 is a bit big)
10 put that in the oven to stay warm while you make the topping.

11. put bisquix, butter and milk in a big bowl. Stir with fork and make dough.
12. Kneed it on a floured cutting board a bunch of times.
13. Make it flat to cover the dish you used for the filling. Then use it to cover the filling (duh)
14. Cut 4 slits in the top (this makes it look like a pie, and probably does something important too)
15. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. (I think I put it to 350, that sounds right, whatever it says on the bisquix box).
16. Eat it.

Yet Another Chicken Recipe (Honey-Dijon, this time)

2005-10-15T14:25:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering, Adam likes this one and the curried chicken the best. The ginger chicken was a little too spicy for him. I found this in the Specatator. It's supposed to be made with fried chicken breasts but who the heck cares? Legs are better.

3 tbsp dijon mustard (don't tell the husband)
2 tbsp liquid honey (is there some sort of solid honey I don't know about?
1 tbsp vegetable or olive oil (I used olive)
1 tbsp lemon juice (how people are able to squeeze exactly this amount out of a lemon I'll never know)
1 tsp dried thyme (my tsps are big)
some chicken legs (I used 4)
Salt and pepper

1. Put the chicken on that chicken pan and cook it at 350 for just under an hour.

2. Mix all the other stuff in a little bowl and get out a brush (yes, I actually bought one of those cooking brushes)

3. Take out the chicken

4. Brush the chicken with the sauce. When you get bored of that, just pour the sauce on.

5. Cook the chicken for another like, 15 minutes. Make sure you don't forget about it because honey burns.

6. Eat it.

One Pot Pasta

2005-10-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

I was skeptical at first, but yes, you can make pasta with only one pot. So put away that other pot and that strainer and boil the pasta right in the sauce. Also this seems healthy, but the husband liked it.

1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup sliced onion
1 cup fresh sliced mushrooms
some sliced celery and carrots and whatever
1 (28 oz) can of diced tomatoes
1 (8 oz can) of tomato sauce (or you know, half a can of the big guys)
1 cup water
2 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp black pepper
8 ounces of macaroni

1. Get out a pan that's big enough for all the above ingredients. Put the oil in it and set the stove on Medium.

2. Put the onion and whatever else that could be considered a vegetable in the oil (tomato is a fruit, silly). Cook (stir, don't forget) that until it is tender.

3. Add everything else except the noodles.

4. When all that boils, throw in the noodles. Stir. Cover. Set the heat to Medium-Low. Cook for like however long it takes for the noodles to be ready, stirring every so often. Say 15 min.

5. Eat it.

Ginger Chicken

2005-10-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

My mommy taught me how to make this. It was yummy.

You need:
Some chicken quarters (legs)
Some potatoes
Some ginger
Some honey
some ketchup
Like half a garlic

1. Get out that pan that you basically only use to cook chicken in. Put four chicken quarters in it (which should make up a whole chicken, but most chickens don't have four legs). Also put the potatoes and the garlic cloves all around.
2. Poke EVERYTHING with a fork.
3. Heat it in the oven at 375 (Mommy says chicken is good at 350 and potatoes are good at 400, the potatoes ended up a little underdone but edible, and the chicken was perfect, so experiment with this.) For 50 minutes.
4. Mix honey, ginger, and ketchup together. I recommend mostly honey because ginger is strong and I'm not a big ketchup fan. But make it tastey for you. Because of the sugar in the honey you can't cook this sauce stuff more than 10 minutes otherwise burnity burn burn.
5. When 50 minutes is done take out the chicken. Take the garlic cloves from all around and squish them into the sauce with a garlic press.
6. Spread the sauce all over the chicken. Try to cover it all.
7. Put the whole thing in for another ten minutes.
8. Eat it.

Blueberry Pancakes

2005-10-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

I always though you needed to buy a mix to make pancakes but it turns out they're easy to make without the mix. No, really. I even added blueberries to the recipe and nothing fell apart or burned.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt (Oops, I forgot the salt. But nothing bad happened)
1 cup milk
1 egg
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
And about 4 tablespoons BLUEBERRIES (they make the pancakes BLUE. Or, you know, bluish gray).

Directions
1 Preheat a lightly oiled griddle (by "griddle" they of course mean frying pan) over medium-high heat.
2 Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Make a well in the center (I didn't find the whole "well" thing to be super important). In a separate bowl, beat together egg, milk and oil. Pour milk mixture into flour mixture. Beat until smooth (I used a whisk, not a beater). And while you're doing that, add the BLUEBERRIES
3 Pour or scoop the batter onto the hot griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot (duh).
4. But butter and syrup on them and eat them for breakfast!

Alfredo sauce

2005-09-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

So I made this alfredo sauce. Again, allrecipes.com
I guess I could've just bought a jar. I find alfredo tastes a bit like Kraft Dinner, but that could be because I added hot dogs.

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 cups milk
6 ounces grated Parmesan cheese
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
I totally added some like hot dog bits, but I don't necessarily recommend that.

DIRECTIONS:
Melt butter in a medium, non-stick saucepan over medium heat. Add cream cheese and garlic powder, stirring with wire whisk until smooth. (I used a plastic whisk. Horrors) Add milk, a little at a time, whisking to smooth out lumps. Stir in Parmesan and pepper. Remove from heat when sauce reaches desired consistency. (um yeah...desired consistency, anyone?) Sauce will thicken rapidly, thin with milk if cooked too long. Toss with hot pasta to serve.

Yummy Curried Chicken

2005-09-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

I totally punked this off allrecipes.com. That recipe roulette thing is genius! Becca helped me make it. Thanks Becca! I've added my own comments to the recipe in green.

INGREDIENTS:
· 1 (3 pound) whole chicken I used chicken quarters instead because that's what was in the freezer.. Nothing exploded.
· 4 medium red potatoes, peeled and quartered The Hastey Mart only had regular potatoes. Also, I'm pretty sure we used WAY more than 4. Again, no explosions.
· 6 carrots, cut into 1/2 inch pieces Or, you know, a whole bunch of baby carrots.
· 2/3 cup honey
· 1/3 cup Dijon mustard (That jar was hard to open. Next time, squeeze bottle.)
· 3 tablespoons butter
· 2 tablespoons finely chopped onion
· 2 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
· 1/2 teaspoon salt
· 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
· 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
· 1/4 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
· 12 whole fresh mushrooms (I used 13, that was what was in the package)
· 2 apples, cored and quartered (optional) I opted for the apples, but next time I might leave them out, or at least cut them smaller. It's totally weird to bite into an apple when you're expecting a potato.

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Place the chicken breast side down on a rack in a roasting pan (check the drawer under your stove, that's where the pan that comes with the stove is!) and roast 1 hour in the preheated oven. I did indeed roast the chicken quarters for an hour. Right from frozen. If you defrost the chicken quarters first, I'm guessing they'll need less time then a whole chicken.
3. Place the potatoes and carrots in a pot with enough water to cover, and bring to a boil. Cook 20 minutes, or until tender. Just boil those suckers until they're nice and squishy
4. In a saucepan, mix the honey, mustard, butter, onion, curry powder, salt, cayenne pepper, ginger, and garlic. (I was slightly liberal on the measurements of the spices. I'm not buying a whole thing of ginger just for one freakin' teaspoon!) Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, and set aside.
5. Drain the drippings from the roasting pan. Arrange the potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and apples around the chicken. Drizzle the chicken and vegetables with the honey mixture. I don't know about "arranging" or "drizzling", I basically just dumped everything on top of the chicken and it worked. Continue roasting 20 minutes, or until the glaze has browned. The chicken meat should reach an internal temperature of 180 degrees F (85 degrees C). It must have been 85 degrees inside the chicken because it tasted done and noone got food poisoning.

Strawberry Angel Cake (or Adam's Birthday Cake)

2005-07-05T14:03:00.000-07:00

This is a recipe I stole off allrecipes.com. I made it because Adam likes strawberries. Turned out pretty well.

1. Get a package of Angel Food Cake mix. (The recipe says 18.25 ounce package, but they really only come in one size). I used this kind made by RobinHood that has sprinkles in it. Very festive.

2. Put the mix in your food processor.

3. Add 1 1/3 cups water (or you know, whatever the box says).

4. Mix it all up in the food processor.

5. Put the batter into one of those cake pans that has a hole in it. (They'll be a picture of it on the box). It won't fill the pan, 'cause it's going to fluff up later.

6. Cook the cake however long it says on the box at whatever temperature it says. Or until golden brown.

7. Go do something (it'll be cooking a little while).

8. Take out the cake. The box says something about putting it upside down on a bottle? I didn't really need to do that. The cake came out of the pan pretty easily.

9. While the cake is cooling put 2 cups of cream into a bowl, with two tablespoons of icing sugar and 2 tablespoons of cocoa.

10. Whip the cream. Now you have a bunch of chocolate whipped cream!

11. Cut some strawberries in half. Like, a whole pint. Don't forget to pull the green things off.

12. Fold the strawberries into half of the the chocowhipped cream. By "fold" I of course mean just mix them in there.

13. If the cake is cool, cut it in half horizontally. This is like cutting a bagel only bigger and harder. Use a big knife.

14. The recipe says to make a funnel for the filling by removing a bit of the inside of the bottom layer of the cake. I removed a tiny bit and ate it. Not sure if this is necessary or not.

15. Put your chocowhippedcream strawberry filling in the hole and all over the bottom layer.

16. Put the top layer back on.

17. Ice the cake with the rest of the choco whipped cream.

18. Get another pint of strawberries to decorate the cake. The more berries the better. As many as you can fit.

19. Put candles on and sing Happy Birthday.

The most important recipe ever: spinach

2005-03-01T16:15:00.000-08:00

This is the yummiest stuff ever and you can have it with anything: all by itself, on top of meat, on macaroni and cheese. Back in the day I would come home from school for lunch and my mommy made us spinach and spaghetti with a fried egg. Yum! Here's how you make the spinach:

1) Rinse off some spinach. (In its raw form it's nothing but leaves).

2) Put the spinach in a microwave safe casserole dish.

3) Nuke the spinach for 5 minutes so it's all wilty.

4) Food process the spinach. (If you don't have a food processor, use whatever appliance in your kitchen that turns food to mush. Blenders work).

5) Leave the spinach in the food processor while you make a white sauce in the casserole dish. (Scared ya! Don't worry, I'm going to tell you how to make a white sauce).

6) Nuke 3 tablespoons of butter or margarine so that it's all melted.

7) Add 3 tablespoons of flour and stir so that it's not lumpy.

8) Add 2 cups of milk and stir some more.

9) Nuke for, like, 4 minutes.

10) Stir.

11) Nuke for, oh, I don't know, until it thickens. (That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is a white sauce. Apparently you can use it for stuff besides spinach but as yet I have never experienced this cooking phenomenon).

12) Put the spinach mush in the white sauce and stir until it's all mixed together.

13) Add salt until it's yummy. (You can also flavour it with bouillon, if you have some).

14) Boil spaghetti and fry an egg to go with the spinach (optional).

Rouladin (staying in touch with my German heritage)

2005-01-05T21:25:00.000-08:00

For those of you who have never tried rouladin. Make it! Eat it! Try it! It's got the 3 best foods in the universe (meat, bacon, pickles) all rolled up into one!

1) Defrost inside round rouladin meat (or you know, just buy it fresh).

2) Fry 8 strips of bacon (1 for each piece of rouladin meat. In this case, we're obviously making 8).

3) chop 1 onion

4) chop 3 pickles

5) chuck the onions and pickles in with the still frying bacon (don't let the bacon get too crispy, though, because everyone knows fattier bacon is tastiest).

6) lay your meat down on a cutting board (or wherever).

7) spread mustard on the meat.

8) put a bit of the onion/bacon/pickle mixture (it should be ready by now) on each piece of meat.

9) roll up the meat with the stuff inside. You know, like a wrap...with meat.

10) tooth pick it so it doesn't fall appart

11) put the meat wrap thingies into the slowcooker. (if you don't have a slowcooker, go buy a slowcooker).

12) Put any stuffing that lept out of the meat in a futile escape attempt into the slow cooker for more flavour.

13) pour half a cup of beef boulean over everything.

14) cook on high in the slow cooker for 3-4 hours

Mommy says that if you don't have a slow cooker you could use a frying pan, brown the rouladin on all sides, then simmer it for an hour. This makes it taste better provided you don't burn them, but for that to happen you have to watch them the whole time! With the slow cooker burning is impossible and you can go watch tv or play computer games while it cooks.

Schnitzel: Pounding the meat is key.

2005-01-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

This is the first recipe I ever posted to a blog (and quite possibly the yummiest). The following is the original post from August 21st, 2004.

Today I made schnitzel! I don't cook, so this is a big deal. Of course by "cook" I mean before every step I asked "Mommy, what do I do now?" but it turned out super yummy, which is the important thing. I wrote down all the steps so later I won't have to have my mommy next to me in order to make it. So that others can enjoy this fine German dish (and in case I lose the scrap of paper) I am including the recipe in my blog:

1. Pound pork cutlets with can or mallet. As the title says, this is key. It makes the meat all thin and tender.

2. Mix an egg with milk. With a fork, not anything exciting like a mixer or anything.

3. Put flour on a plate.

4. Put breadcrumbs on another plate. Breadcrumbs = stale bread in food processor with lots of oregano and salt. (Or just buy seasoned breadcrumbs. Lazies!)

5. Heat oil in pan. Oil should be hot enough to spit at you.

6. Dip pork in flour, then eggmilk, then crumbs.

7. Fry breadcrumby pork in oily pan.

8. Repeat until all the pork have become schnitzel.

There you have it. Eight easy steps. Well, seven (does step eight really count?). Anyway, enjoy your schnitzel.
Auf wiedersehen!

Ham and Cheese Muffins

2005-01-01T13:23:00.000-08:00

These muffins are yummy. Mommy told me how to make them in 20 easy steps.

1) Put 1 cup of cheese in the food processor (if you don't have one, I suppose you could use some poor person's device)

2) Food process the cheese

3) Dump cheese into container (for later)

4) Preheat oven to 400 degrees

5) Put 1 cup of ham in food processor

6) Food process ham

7) Put 3 "big T" tablespoons into a cup

8) Microwave buttercup for 41 seonds or 'till it's melted

9) Put 2 cups of flour and 2 tablespoons of sugar and 3 "little t" teaspoons of baking powder in the food processor

10) Give it a whir

11) Put 1 egg in a cup

12) Swish the egg vigorously with a fork

13) Put the eggcup and the buttercup and a cup of milk in a bowl

14) Put dry stuff (flour/sugar/baking powder) into wet stuff (egg/butter/milk) a little at a time while you stir (that's right, use all 3 of your arms)

15) Put ham and cheese in with everything else

16) Stir it up

17) Pam a muffin tin or two

18) Put all the stuff in the muffin tin. Mommy says, if you leave some of the tins empty put water in them so the pan doesn't get ruined (or something...I dunno...just do it okay?)

19) Put it in the oven for 20-30 minutes (start with 20 minutes, then if they still look raw put 'em in for another 10)

20) Ding! Eat the muffins