**Food Friday** Easter Eats

I love to cook (duh) but sometimes I wish it was just more than Husband and myself so I could indulge in my love of big meals. Well for Easter, I got to do just that when I cooked lunch for us and the Neighbors. They are by far one of my favorite families and even let us partake in hiding and the subsequent finding of Easter eggs. It was such a beautiful day, our girls even participated (well they spent a lot of time trying to slip their head harnesses and roll in the grass).

Not only did I get to make a big meal but I also, wait for it, planned it ahead of time. I know, Husband was shocked too, and when cleanup time rolled around and it was just a matter of sticking everything in the dishwasher, I had to really ask myself, "WHY HAVEN'T YOU DONE THIS BEFORE?!" So having done pretty much everything but the mashed potatoes the night before, I got to enjoy the morning sitting on the porch soaking up as much vitamin D as possible with Mandie.

I promise you, she's thrilled it's Easter.

Homemade Bread

HAM! (I remembered to get a picture this year)

Potatoes boiling away

Alfredo Cheddar Butter Mashed Potatoes...eat if you dare.

 I also made a green bean casserole sans french fried onions (horrors I know! But I don't particularly care for them and neither does my hips) but since it is such a standard dish, I didn't deem it picture worthy. That and it only lasted like two seconds.

And if you're wondering, yes I did eat some of my Alfredo Cheddar Butter Mashed Potatoes. I actually had two helpings and I'd do it again because they, my friends, are freaking spectacular.

Alfredo Cheddar Butter Mashed Potatoes

Printable Version

 

5lbs yukon gold potatoes

2 1/2 cups chicken broth

water

salt to taste

1 jar alfredo sauce (I used the roasted garlic Safeway brand)

8 Tbl butter

1/2 cup milk

2 cups grated Sharp Cheddar cheese

Peel and chop potatoes into 1 inch pieces and put in pot with chicken broth and enough water to cover. Add salt and bring to boil. Once boiling, turn down heat and let potatoes cook until fork tender (I actually let mine get to fork mashable but that's just my preference).

When they potatoes are soft, drain and either return to pot or put in whatever bowl you're going to use to mix them in. Add alfredo sauce, butter and milk (I put the butter in first and then the potatoes in so butter melts from their heat). Use electric mixer to beat smooth (unless you have another prefer mashing method, I'm undomestic remember, so I do not). Stir in cheese until melted. Resist urge to take pot to your bedroom and not come out until the entire thing is empty.

So what did you do for Easter??

Food Friday

Oh man this has to be the first Food Friday post I've done in a while that was actually done without duress. I hope it shows.

Homemade bread

I started baking bread my sophomore year of college, after I received my bread machine from Middle Child and wife. I would say it's safe to say I've made close to a hundred plus loaves of bread since and while my machine still does most of the heavy lifting, I really like to bake the loaves off in the oven. A 1 1/2 lb loaf splits into two nicely, that way I can fulfill my carb cravings and give one away.

Grilled Stuffed Burritos

I will most likely never have a deep yearning for Taco Bell (or Taco S#@! as Husband calls it) since I know how to make these now. Kelly at Semi Homemade Mom has come up with a spot on recipe that makes a TON (be prepared for leftovers). However, these were so good, Husband ate...seconds. In all actuality, he ate fourths. Any time Husband eats more than one helping, I know I'm onto something. I was ready to give up my George Foreman, but I guess it now serves a purpose.

Cook chicken boobs, cook.

Original Recipe for chicken and good ol' Pasta Roni.

 So once a week, I do a slow cooker chicken recipe, usually on the day I know that I have absolutely no time because I need to sleep. What I've started to do, is take marinade recipes, throw my frozen chicken breasts in, turn the crock pot on, set my alarm and forget about it. For this week, I slightly modified the recipe I found because 1) I didn't need to marinade 18 chickens and 2) I didn't have all the ingredients. Also, when I put four chicken breasts, frozen, in my slow cooker, they're done in four hours. A minute more and they turn into dust balls. So make sure when making any of my slow cooker recipes in your slow cooker, you adjust for that. Apparently, mine thinks it's a microwave.

Marinade For Chicken

(adapted from recipe on Allrecipes.com posted by JILLYPOOH)

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

seasoning salt, to taste

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 cup Italian Dressing

1 tsp dry mustard

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

Rub chicken breasts with seasoning salt. Mix remaining ingredients together. Put in slow cooker with chicken. In a normal slow cooker, will most likely be 6-8 hours on low and 3-4 hours on high.

Food Friday

What a week. I'm officially working the midnight shift at my new job and while I really think it's great (lots of me time, just me and the 8 gajillion towels I fold), it's at midnight and my body is questioning my self respect. I have a couple nights off now and when I tried to go to sleep last night, I couldn't. Here I was, able to sleep at the same time as Husband for the first time in days and I couldn't stop thinking about the towels I needed to fold...here. Ugh.

Needless to say, meals this week have been take what you can get. Husband is working out of town today, so when he gets home it will be pizza (as usual). I'm hoping to start a second day job soon, so the amount of food posted may decline, but I'm hoping that the quality will go up (because you know I've been giving you substandard food posts, right). So here is what we ate this week, kind of.

Bread that's supposed to taste like the cheddar biscuits from Red Lobster. Needs some work.

Italian dressing marinated chicken, slathered w/ mayo and coated w/ bread crumbs.

Served with cheddar mashed potatoes and leftover cheddar cheese bread. Oh and corn.

Cheddar cheese mashed potatoes, one of the most essential comfort foods of all time.

So how was your week? Pretty typical? Or so out of the ordinary you wondered if you stepped into the twilight zone.

SUNDAY-Cheese Bread Like Red Lobster's
Please click the link to see the recipe.

 THURSDAY-Marinated Bread Chicken
(original recipe posted by ???
adapted by the UDG)
Ingredients:
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 cup plain bread crumbs

1 tablespoon dry parsley

1/2 tablespoon Italian seasoning

1 teaspoon seasoning salt

1/2 cup mayonaise

1 bottle Kraft Italian dressing/marinade 

(note: you can try another brand of dressing but you won't like the way it tastes, I promise)

Directions:

Place the chicken in a dish with the entire bottle of dressing (if you have two 9x13 pans, one you can marinate in and one to bake in, that would work perfect for this). Let marinate for at least an hour, overnight is preferred, turning the chicken half way thru.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9x13 pan non-stick cooking spray. Mix bread crumbs, parsley, Italian seasoning and seasoning salt together.

(note: obviously if you have seasoned bread crumbs already, you can use them; I prefer to spruce up plain ones so I can control the amount of flavor)

Coat chicken in mayo and then roll in bread crumb mixture. Place in pan and bake for 30 minutes or until bread crumbs no longer look dry.

(note: the mayo helps keep the chicken juicy and the marinade lends great flavor)

Cheesey Mashed Potatoes  

(original recipe posted by???

adapted by the UDG)

Ingredients:
4 medium sized potatoes

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

 1 tablespoon minced garlic

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup evaporated milk

1 cup shredded Extra Sharp cheddar cheese

Directions:

Peel and cube potatoes and put them in pot with salt and garlic. Fill with water to cover and bring to a boil. Boil until potatoes are fork tender and drain. 

Before putting the potatoes back into the pan, add butter to the pan and allow to melt as much as possible. Add potatoes and begin to beat with electric mixer. Slowly add milk until level of desired creaminess achieved. Stir in cheese and cover. Let sit for five minutes until cheese is completely melted. Stir before serving. 

(note: I don't recommend using your mixer to stir in the cheese; you'll end up with all of your cheese on the beaters in a sticky gooey mess)

**For whatever reason, I can't find the original recipes that I used. Maybe I just randomly came across a bunch of ideas and just threw them all together, I don't remember.

The Good Life

I love the sounds of domestic life. Right now, the dishwasher is going, from scratch chicken broth is simmering (some of it actually in the pot), my little family is breathing in the way you do in deep sleep and Angelina Jolie is schooling Gerard Butler in altruism. I live the good life, plain and simple.

So in honor of a life well spent, here are some photos (most will probably be repeats from earlier posts) from the heart of it all, our kitchen.

 Thumbprint cookies with the best homemade jelly ever!

Very quick rolls that I have yet to perfect.

Bread made w/o bread flour (darn stuff is soooooo expensive!!).

Mmm mmm good.

Tonight's dinner: Spaghetti with homemade sauce and garlic bread made from this beauty.

Meatless Monday

Husband is extremely picky. Won't eat potato salad, can't have chunky tomatoes in anything, puts ketchup on chicken no matter how I make it. He does, however, like mushrooms, which is weird, but useful. I don't actually cook much with mushrooms; in fact, I can't remember the last thing I actually put mushrooms in. I think it was in May.

Anywho, one of the very first recipes I made when we were married a year ago (moment of silence as I sit in shock and awe that we've been married a year) was a portobello penne pasta casserole. I had always heard that portobello mushrooms were "meaty" mushrooms but I think you actually have to taste them to understand what that means. They hold up well under the sauteeing and the baking and don't really have that nasty mushroom taste that some do (i.e. the mushrooms on pizzas). We had this casserole again for dinner tonight as I had the day off and this meal does take a little bit of prep work (which went much smoother than it did last year, believe me). Topped it off with a salad drizzled with homemade Italian dressing and freshly baked bread. My eyes have rolled back in my head and my stomach couldn't be more full. Totally satisfied my carnivorous husband and myself (next time, though, I'll be using less spinach or leave it out all together; Husband and I both had little green hills on our plates). Did manage to get some pictures too. Sort of.

Anyone want a loaf of bread??

Concoctions by UDG

So lately, I've been on the search for a new hobby. I have a lot of free time after work, so I've started baking again. Well the bread machine has started baking again. I really like to let the machine do the dough and then either put the dough in a bread pan or make rolls. One day this week I made chicken, scalloped potatoes and four herb bread rolls. As you can guess we were sufficiently stuffed afterward. The leftover potatoes made yummy lunches for a couple of days and I used the rolls the next day to make garlic bread for spaghetti.

Scalloped Potatoes

Four Herb Bread Rolls

Today we had perfect baking weather (as opposed to the triple digit heat I was baking in earlier in the week). A very dear coworker had a birthday last week and I found out she loves banana bread, so today, my bananas were finally ripe enough and I tried out my first real banana bread recipe. It made the entire apartment smell soooooooooooo scrumptious. I'll have to let you know how it tastes after I take it to work tomorrow. I hope my zucchinis are still good because I want to try Binky's zucchini bread recipe next.