Chicken Salad

I love all kinds of chicken salad - this one was just a mixture of a few ideas from other recipes and based on what I had on hand. It was delicious tucked inside crescent rolls and baked for 11-13 minutes @ 375°, but I didn't get a photo of that.....so when I ate leftovers as a sandwich the next day, I snapped a few. It's delicious cold too.

Recipe:

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts

salt and pepper, or other herb seasoning

1/4 green bell pepper, diced

1 green onion, diced

1/4 cup chopped pecans

1/4 cup sour cream (reduced fat is fine)

1/4 cup mayonnaise (reduced fat is fine)

Preheat oven to 350°. Season chicken breasts as desired (I used Garlic and Wine seasoning from the Melting Pot Restaurant - it's wonderful!) and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until done. Cool and cut into small chunks. Add all other ingredients and combine well. Add additional salt and/or pepper if needed. Chill until serving.

Mexican Casserole

My mom used to make this when I was growing up - when I was preparing to move out and copying down some of my favorite recipes of hers, this was on the list. It's easy, tasty, always a crowd pleaser. Not authentically Mexican, to be sure, but since that's what we always called it, I can't change the name now or I'd never know what I was talking about.

Recipe:

1-1/2 lb. ground turkey or beef

1 onion, chopped

garlic salt, to taste

1 can cream of chicken soup (or homemade)

1 can cream of mushroom soup (or homemade)

4 oz can chopped green chilies

4 oz taco sauce or salsa

8-10 oz. shredded cheddar cheese

large bag tortilla chips

Brown meat with onion and garlic salt until done; drain if needed.

In a separate bowl, mix together soups, chilies, and taco sauce.

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a 13 x 9" pan, put down a layer of tortilla chips, half of the meat, half of the sauce, and half of the cheese. Repeat layers. Top with tortilla chips and bake for 30 minutes, or until bubbly.

"A" is for Apple Nut Muffins

We just started school this week! I love homeschooling....for lots of reasons....one of which is the flexibility to do school or take off whenever it works best for us. I'm contemplating doing more of a year-round school schedule from now on, as we've discovered that the summer months here are just too hot and humid to get out and do much and we're inside most of the time anyways. It's during the spring and fall that the weather is gorgeous and the playgrounds and parks are calling to us, not to mention that's when the grandparents like to visit. In anticipation of my parents and younger brother visiting around Labor Day, I started up our new year at the beginning of August, so we'll have five weeks under our belts before a two week vacation!

This year I'm doing some preschool activities with Annika (almost 3) as she is determined to do school with Corban (2nd) and Marissa (K).

I had already bought some materials for her when one of my favorite bloggers, Laura at Heavenly Homemakers, announced the release of a preschool curriculum she had been working on for a couple of years. It sounded wonderful, and I particularly liked her idea of adding on to the "Letter a Week" concept with doing a service project each week that began with that letter FOR somebody who's name begins with the same letter. I thought that would be easy to incorporate into our activities each week and would be good for all the kids, not just Annika.

Obviously, our letter this first week was "A". Our project was pretty easy to pick....we made Apple Nut Muffins for a friend across the street, Anna (and her family). The kids suggested mailing some to my sister, their Aunt Anna....but I assured them the muffins would be less than desirable when she would receive them. (You're Welcome, Anna!)

The recipe makes a large batch so we got to enjoy some as well. They're really like a little coffee cake in a muffin shape. We all liked them a lot....and I think next time I'll substitute some applesauce for some of the butter for a lower-fat option.

Recipe: (from Taste of Home)

Filling:

2 T. butter

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 T. all-purpose flour

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

1/8 - 1/4 t. ground nutmeg

2 cups diced peeled apples

1/2 cup finely chopped nuts (optional)

Muffins:

3/4 cup butter, softened

1-1/2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1-1/2 t. vanilla extract

3-1/2 cups flour (I used white whole wheat)

1-1/2 t. baking powder

1-1/2 t. baking soda

3/4 t. salt

1-1/2 cups (12 oz) sour cream

Cinnamon-sugar

In a saucepan, melt butter. Stir in the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg until smooth. Add the apples; cook over medium-low heat for 10 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat; stir in nuts. Cool.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in vanilla. Combine dry ingredients; add to creamed mixture alternately with the sour cream.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Fill greased muffin cups 1/2 full. Spoon a rounded teaspoonful of apple mixture into the center of each (do not spread). Top with remaining batter. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 16-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

Yield: 2 dozen regular muffins or 1 dozen jumbo muffins

Spoon greased muffin cups

My Girls

It's fun to re-use cute outfits on all my girls....and then to look back at the pictures of them and compare how they look alike and different.

Check out the following.....each of my girls at about 8-9 months old.

Annika

Ellia

Marissa


Ellia again

Funny....I hadn't realized that Ellia's hair is shorter than the others' at this age.

Chicken Alfredo

My friend Christen introduced us to this recipe a couple of years ago, when her family had ours over for dinner. I loved it and had to have the recipe. Later, when I was pregnant with Ellia and in the throes of morning (all day) sickness, Christen brought over a big pan of it to help us out, as I couldn't cook to save my life.

I'm telling you what, for one reason or another, this was the one dish that I craved. After the initial dinner that the family shared, I claimed all the leftovers for my own and ate them every day for lunch for about 4 days. It was completely unexplainable, but I just HAD to have this dish. I nearly cried when I finished the last of it. No kidding.

When my mom came to help out for 3 weeks, she made it for me also......and again I ate it for days.

Now here's a kind of funny thing. Neither Grant or I like mushrooms much.....so the first time I made this, I left them out. We both regretted it. We had no idea why, but we missed the mushrooms. They add some dimension of flavor in there that just makes the recipe extra special.

Note: Original recipe called for browning the chicken breasts in oil first - I eliminated this step to save time and didn't notice a difference in the end result.

Another note: I have made this substituting evaporated milk for the cream to make it a bit lower in fat....and it worked out just fine. But the cream way is undeniably better.

One more note: The sauce seems to kind of disappear by the time the pasta is done - but don't worry, the flavors are all there enveloped in the pasta and it is so delicious!

Recipe:

3-4 chicken breasts (1.5 lbs)

1/2 cup chopped green onions

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

28 oz can diced tomatoes, undrained

2 T dried basil, OR 6 T. fresh basil, chopped (I used fresh from my garden!)

2 t. salt

1 cup heavy cream (or evaporated milk)

4 egg yolks

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

13.25 oz whole wheat linguine (or fettuccine)

8 oz fresh mushrooms, washed and chopped

Put chicken, onions, garlic, tomatoes, basil, and salt in the crockpot. Cook on low for 4-5 hours.

Remove chicken and shred.

Whisk together egg yolks, cream, and Parmesan cheese. Add to crockpot and stir to combine. Put chicken back in and cook on high for 30 minutes.

Cook pasta in salted, boiling water for 3-4 minutes. Drain and add to crockpot with mushrooms. Stir well and cook on high for another 30-60 minutes, or until linguine and mushrooms are tender. Add a little milk if it looks too dry.

Garnish with basil and Parmesan cheese, if desired.

Blogging ABCs

This is kind of fun....I learned a bit about the sites I visit often.....maybe some of them will be of interest to you as well!

Here's the deal: just open a new browser window or tab and hit your "a" key to see what site your browser thinks you're going to visit.

A-allrecipes.com - One of my favorite places to find recipes - I especially like the "ingredient" search.

B- bakerella.com - Absolutely amazing creativity - I wish I had inspiration like she does!

C - coolest-birthday-cakes.com - Where I've found nearly every fun birthday cake I've made for my kids. I can spend hours browsing their cakes. Some are just phenomenal.

D- db.gamefaqs.com - Grant looked up some video game questions - I have nothing to do with this site.

E- ebay.com - Yes, I love to snag a win at the last second. I have to watch it, or I'll get seriously addicted to the game of bidding.

F -facebook - The greatest time-sucker ever invented.

G - google.com

H-hotmail.com

I - inashoe.com - I love her blog! It's one of the first ones I ever read...I think I've kept up with her for about 4 years now.

J -jahenckels.com - Knives are cool. Actually, I think my father-in-law was the one looking up knives when he was here..... we do own mostly J.A.Henckels knives, with a couple of Wusthofs thrown in there.

K -klove.com/music

L - lego.com - Corban's preferred site for games.

M - mealtrain.com - Pretty cool way to organize getting meals to someone in need.

N - norfolk.craigslist.org

O-http://www.onelovelylife.com/ - nice blog.

P - pbskids.org - The kids like some of the games (Curious George mostly)

Q - http://www.qbarbeque.com/ - Just happened to visit this site a few days ago, looking at local restaurants. Never been there.....

R - http://rebekahsfamilyfoodandfun.blogspot.com/ - hmmm.....I like my blog!

S - starfall.com - More learning activities for the kiddos, this one is a favorite of Marissa's.

T - tastespotting.com - I love looking at food....and I've had better luck getting photos published on tastespotting than on foodgawker, percentage-wise. I actually still look at foodgawker more, but it can't compare to facebook. :)

U - usaa.com - Our bank - love them. Best customer service anywhere.

V - virginianaturalgas.com - Bills, bills, bills.....

W - webkinz.com - Guilty as charged....I play on webkinz more than my kids do. Not that it's very often.....but I do love me some token balloon darts!

X - xbox.com - no idea. Grant said he's never checked there, neither have I.

Y - youtube.com - Another potential time-sucker - but I learned how to pipe roses for a cake I made recently from videos on youtube. And I learned how to use my homemade "Moby Wrap". And I love to watch videos of Improv Everywhere....have you ever seen them? Hysterical.

Z - nothing.

Baked Oatmeal

We try to eat a healthy breakfast every day. We usually eat whole wheat pancakes once or twice a week (I make a big batch for leftovers), we have scrambled eggs, turkey bacon, and toast on Sundays, homemade oatmeal with fruit twice a week, and cereal (Kashi Go Lean) the other days.

Sometimes I like to shake things up a bit and make a pan of baked oatmeal for the kids and me.

I know, living on the wild side, what can I say?

One dish of this lasts us for two breakfasts. We all really like this version, made with raisins and brown sugar, and walnuts on my part.

Recipe:

3 cups regular oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1/2 cup coconut oil (or butter), melted
2 eggs (or 4 egg whites)
2 cups milk
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Optional Add-Ins: raisins, dried cranberries, blueberries, apples, bananas, chopped nuts, etc

Optional Toppings: milk, whipped cream, extra brown sugar, yogurt, etc

Preheat oven to 375˚F.
Butter a 13×9-inch pan. In a large bowl, mix all ingredients together. Pour into the buttered pan and bake for 25 minutes.
Serve hot with optional toppings.