Recipe Reviews

I really love to find and try new recipes. Sometimes they aren't all that and a bag of chips, but occasionally, I hit a winner. In the past week, I have found two recipes that are going to become staples at our family dinner table!

Lasagna Soup
Recipe source: Family Fun magazine

I really love Family Fun for their craft ideas, but they always have some interesting kid-friendly recipes as well. This one sold me just on the picture alone. Now, I don't exactly consider this to be a soup but rathermore like a "stoup" (in hommage to Rachel Ray). Nonetheless, it was a HUGE hit around our dinner table. Now, if you leave the recipe "as is", it makes 13 cups. I don't know about you, but that's a heck of a lot of soup for a family of four (considering the petite one doesn't eat that much). I chose to cut the recipe in half. I used a mild italian sausage made by our local grocery store which was a little spicy (I know you are laughing at me, Ms. M!); next time I might try their sweet italian sausage blend. I also did blend the full amount of the ricotta & parmasan cheese because this is Wisconsin after all and everything is better with more cheese! The next time, I would probably add a little more pasta as well (and would proably have even more leftovers). This fed our family well plus we had a full serving of leftover. Be sure to serve with either garlic bread or breadsticks
to make it even yummier!


Ranch Style Chicken
Source: The Pioneer Woman

If I were stuck on a ranch, I think I would cook just as much as The Pioneer Woman. This woman just has a knack for coming up with some of the best recipes though I must admit, she really loves her butter and bacon. Not the greatest when trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle, but you can always modify! I have to say, hands down, this is probably one of the best chicken dishes EVER! I think it has to do with the honey mustard combo. Ian suggested that the only way it could possibly be better would be if I could get the bacon, cheese and chicken to all stay together when he cut it. Not sure how to do that, but I kow I'll be making this agin so I sure will try! I did use my Pampered Chef stoneware to bake the bacon rather than fry it in the pan as she suggests. I just spooned a little bit of the bacon grease into my skillet when I went to sear the chicken. I'm thinking the next time I will use turkey bacon to bring down the fat content. I don't think the lack of grease will affect the searing since I use non-stick cookware anyhow. I would say though, if you have these ingredients on hand, this is what should be for dinner tonight. Seriously, I could probably eat this every week!

Ok, that's it for now. If I come across any other winners, I'll be sure to let you know.

Note to Self

1 Kyra + 1 Chocolate Cream Filled Cupcake = WHAT WAS I THINKING???!!!

Hopefully when she is done with her nap, she will have come down from her sugar buzz!

Mmmmmmmmmm!

Don't they look good? Strawberry season has finally hit up here. It's a lot later than last year, but then again, I'm glad because I just would not have had time to get out had it been any earlier. I had a sitter come this morning for a couple of hours and went out to Wilfert Farms and would up picking just over 22 pounds of berries. Kyra was ecstatic when I brought in the buckets. I'm surprised I got her to eat anything for lunch besides strawberries! Actually, she has been quite the little helper getting them cleaned and ready for freezing.

Once again, I am ahead of my time!

I have been touting that tomatoes are bad for you for forever! Finally, everyone is catching on! =)

Apparently bigger is NOT better

Last night, we had our Ladies' Christmas Candlelight Tea at church. I volunteered to hostess a table this year. After much thought, I went with a Gingerbread Candyland theme. As a "take-home" gift, I baked and decorated individual gingerbread men for my table guests. Of course, when you are trying to make 10 "perfect" men, you are bound to have some failures in between. Thus, I had a few with misshapen body parts or missing limbs. Still, even the leftovers are fair game for my family. Ian was extremely excited to see the gingerbread men last night when he came home from school and wanted one for his dessert. Since I was at the tea last night, I did not see him before he went to bed so this morning he informed me that the next time I make gingerbread cookies, I need to make them smaller as the current cookies were just "too big" and made his tummy ache (even though the size didn't stop him from eating the whole thing).

It's the sweetest time of the year!

As I was bumbling my way through the grocery store yesterday after my morning workout, my day started off on a high note. There, in the middle of the produce section was a pallet of one of my favorite fruits: CLEMENTINES!!! I just love this time of year where these sweet little fruits appear in their little crates. It takes me back to my days in Strasbourg where we'd go to the market and buy a crate and snack on them all day long. And I don't know why, but the first ones of the season are always just so sweet!

So memorable I can still taste it!

I was just responding to a question of the day at Lifetime Moments about what my favorite type of cake was. Actually, I can do without the "cake" portion of cake - just give me a good buttercream frosting and I will be in sugar-shock heaven. But there I go on a tangent again.

Anyhow, the question got me thinnking back to the days of my *ahem* youth and the best darn cake of all time - the banana cake with buttercream frosting from Patty Cake Bakery in Griffith, Indiana. Words cannot describe exactly how yummy the buttercream frosting was on this cake. It is making my mouth water just thinking about it.

Sadly, Patty Cake went out of business years ago along with my hopes and dreams of ever obtaining the recipe of this much beloved frosting and cake. I guess it's just as well - my hips don't need it!

He ate something green and did not die!

So, as I am on my plan, we have been eating a lot of salads and veggies at meal times. I've never really pushed the issue of veggies with Ian due to his gag reflex. Every once in a while he will eat green beans, but that's about the extent of it. Other than that, do pickles count as vegetables?

Last week at dinner as Rich and I were eating our salads, I asked Ian if he would like to try some and I got the scrunched up, icky-faced "NO!" So I told him that it was ok for that night but that this week we were dubbing "Ian Eats A Salad" week at dinnertime. I started him out with only a few small pieces of lettuce with some dressing and let him try a new dressing each night. To my surprise, he prefers Zesty Italian to the traditional kid-friendly Western dressing. Anyhow, he has managed to eat a little bit of salad each night and has not keeled over yet! So, good job, Ian!