Spaghetti!

Every time I make spaghetti sauce, I change it a little bit. The difference is usually based on what ingredients I have on hand at the time. I have come a long way from the spaghetti sauce I used to make, which was combining a jar of store bought spaghetti sauce with ground beef and calling it a day. Now that I've adapted to making my own sauce, I won't go back to the other again because this sauce is so much better. One day I will make sauce by using fresh tomatoes, but I haven't done that yet.

This is absolutely a base recipe. Feel free to add or subtract ingredients in any way that you like. I know there are a million different ways to make spaghetti sauce and everybody has their likes and dislikes about what they like (my husband and I hate mushrooms, for example). Around here, we like a chunky sauce, and this is what this recipe turns out to be.

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef

1 pound Italian sausage

1/2 large onion (or whole, small onion) chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 (6-ounce) cans tomato paste

1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce

1 (14 1/2-ounce) can stewed tomatoes

1 tablespoon Italian seasoning

1 tsp oregano 

2 tablespoons sugar

salt and pepper

1 cup water

Brown the beef and sausage in a large pot, then drain off the fat. Add the onion and garlic and saute until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste, tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, seasonings, and water. Simmer for 30 minutes. Let cool. Serve with spaghetti or your favorite pasta.

I also usually add some crushed red pepper flakes because we like a little spiciness in our food around here. The sugar added into the sauce is not to make it sweet but to counteract the acidity of the tomatoes. You won't notice it. One final ingredient that I often add is a tablespoon of butter (not margarine). It seems to blend everything together and makes the sauce go from ordinary to decadent. Then again, maybe it's just the southern girl in me coming out that thinks everything tastes better with a little butter. :)

Winner Winner.. Pineapple Chicken Dinner!

Ingredients:

2 pounds of chicken
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tbsp flour
3 pats of butter
3 tbsp light soy sauce
1 cup pineapple juice
20 oz can of crushed pineapple (drained)
1 tsp black pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Melt butter in a small saucepan set over medium heat. In a medium-size bowl, stir flour with sugar, then whisk into melted butter. Stir in pineapple juice. Keep stirring with whisk for about 5 minutes until the sauce becomes thick and bubbly. Add in soy sauce and pepper.

Lay chicken in pan and pour sauce over chicken. Bake for 30 minutes, and then add crushed pineapple to pan, pushing pineapple pieces into the sauce. Bake for another 20-25 minutes, basting a couple of times until tender.

Serve over rice.

*** This is an adaption from a crock pot recipe that I made last week. I did not prefer the crock pot version and waited to share the recipe until after I'd converted it. This recipe is basically two recipes that I'm familiar with, rolled into one. I was quite proud of myself for coming up with it and will be making it again!

Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Sauce

Today's recipe can be used in a lot of different ways. I'd been wanting to try this recipe for a while after finding it online. I had all the ingredients for the sauce, but nothing to eat it on! Last week when I went grocery shopping, they had angel food cakes on sale for $2.99, so I bought one and made this sauce to drizzle over it. It was so good!! Sorry no picture though!

Ingredients

1/4 cup of butter
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup cold milk
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Melt butter in a small saucepan set over medium heat. In a medium-size bowl, stir flour with sugar and cinnamon. Then whisk into melted butter until mixture is moistened. Stir in milk until smooth. Cook, whisking frequently, until thickened and smooth, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

This sauce is best served warm!!

Just for fun!

I've been wanting to post a recipe for spaghetti anyway, but I saw this tonight and had to share it on my cooking blog. 

Country fried steak with gravy and onions

Tonight's dinner was fabulous. If I wasn't already married, I would have married myself after tasting my own food. I haven't made this meal in a very long time, and it was the best version of it that I'd ever had.

The whole meal was country fried steak with gravy and onions, mashed potatoes, and broccoli with cheese. I thought I'd share the recipe about how I made the steak and gravy. Which, by the way, I know some people call it chicken fried steak and others call it country fried steak. I've always referred to it as country fried steak because calling it chicken-anything seems confusing to me. Maybe I'm over-thinking it though.

Ingredients:
4 - 4oz cube steaks
4 eggs
2 cups of flour
garlic powder
chili powder
salt
pepper
1 cup milk
oil for frying
1 onion

There's really not an exact science to how I make the flour mixture for breading the meat. I don't really measure anything, I just toss all the ingredients together on a plate and mix it until it is all blended. I don't like my food to be bland, so I use a heavy hand at adding the spices in. I basically just eyeball it until it looks like a good combination of everything.

In another bowl, beat the eggs together.

Let the oil get hot while preparing the meat. The oil needs to be hot before adding the meat, otherwise it won't start frying immediately and your breading will likely fall off.

Triple bread the cube steak... dredging it in the flour, then the egg, then the flour again, then the egg, and back through the flour again one last time. I triple bread the meat because I like for there to be a thick breading on my steak. This isn't necessary, and does require more flour and eggs, but it's worth it in my opinion, especially if this is a rare treat for the family.

By this time the oil will be nice and hot and ready for frying.

Fry the steaks for about 4-5 minutes on each side until they are golden brown. Remove them from a pan and lay them on paper towels.

Pour out all but about 2 tablespoons of the remaining grease and drippings from the pan. Sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of the dredging flour into the pan and and cook for about a minute, scraping up any brown bits off of the bottom of the pan. SLOWLY whisk in a small amount of milk. The liquid will seize the first time you pour some of it into the pan, but don't freak out, just keep stirring. Pour in more milk a little at a time while continuously stirring. After several minutes the gravy will start to thicken and get bubbly. It is thick enough when it coats the back of the spoon. Add salt and pepper to taste.

 If you haven't already, dice up an onion and saute them in a separate pan until they caramelize. Once they are browned, add them to the gravy and stir them in. I added just a tiny amount of water to the gravy at this point because it got a little thick while waiting on the onions to caramelize.

Serve the steak and gravy with a side of mashed potatoes and broccoli with cheese, and you will have a happy family at dinner tonight!

No Bake Cheesecake

I have been really busy lately!

I started classes for spring semester this past week, and outside of doing homework and working, the hubby and I also had some friends over to visit on a couple of different occasions as well. We loved the company, and it's definitely something we'll be doing a lot more of in the future.

It was not my original plan to post a dessert recipe next. I have this fear that my readers are going to think that whatever I post on here are the only things we ever eat, and based on that, it doesn't look like we eat very healthy at all! We actually do eat a lot of vegetables and healthier meals too, and in time I hope to post more of the nutritious recipes on here as well.

The reason I decided to move this next recipe to the fore-front is because I made one of these cheesecakes yesterday and received a compliment from my husband's friend that, "it was the best cheesecake he's ever had" so I decided to post it on here for you guys. My husband also told me it was the best cheesecake he'd ever had the first time I made it for him. And since both of these guys love cheesecake, I feel that that is saying a lot!


Cheesecake
(2) 8-oz packages of softened cream cheese
1 8-oz container of cool whip
1/2 cup of sugar

Crust
1.5 cups of graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup of sugar
1/3 of melted margarine/butter

Make your crust by mixing all ingredients for the crust together and pressing the mixture into your pie plate with the back of a fork. After the crust is formed, I usually put it in the fridge to let it harden while making the cheesecake mixture.

With a mixer, combine the cream cheese and sugar. Next, fold in the cool whip (by hand, not by mixer) until it is well blended.

Pour the mixture into the crust and allow it to set in fridge for at least 4 hours, and preferably overnight. Be patient and allow this cheesecake the time it needs to firm. It will not be as tasty if you rush the process. Trust me, it is worth the wait!

This cheesecake has a lighter/fluffier texture than traditional baked cheesecake, but that is why my husband prefers it. He doesn't want a cheesecake made any other way!

Egg Rolls! But first, a note from Kami.....

Dear Friends,

I am so excited to have finally started my food blog! I have been wanting to make one for quite some time. I am always looking for new recipes and cooking ideas to try, and since I find myself talking about this so often with my friends online, I figured I'd make it easy by creating a site just for this purpose; to share pics and experiences of the food I make for myself and my family.

I really hope you enjoy what you see here, and let me know if you decide to try any of the recipes! I would love to hear about it! 


- Kami

Today's recipe is not my own recipe. It was forwarded to me by my friend Angel. This is an authentic Vietnamese egg roll recipe. It took me almost a year to finally try this recipe out after Angel sent it to me. I finally got around to making them in early December of this past year and now I do not know why I waited so long to make them. The process was way easier than I thought it would be. It also gave me a reason to use the food chopper that my in-laws gave us as a wedding gift, too.

I did cheat a little though. I did not buy a whole head of cabbage, and I did not grate my own carrots. I bought a bag of coleslaw mix for the cabbage instead, and the carrots were pre-shredded. I know I spent more money than I had to because of that, but I was feeling lazy! I still think they turned out great though.

Be prepared to have a large batch that makes between 20 and 30 egg rolls! The mix freezes well, so you can easily freeze it for later. That is also what I did with mine.

Ingredients
1 head of green cabbage
1 small onion
4-5 peeled and grated carrots
2 C bean sprouts, roughly chopped
2 tsp. fresh, chopped ginger
(If you opt to use ground ginger, use just a pinch or two. It's very strong)
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
2-3 roasted (or boiled) chicken breasts, diced finely
2 eggs
salt & pepper to taste
soy sauce
sesame seed oil
egg roll or spring roll wrappers (not rice paper spring roll wrappers)
vegetable oil for frying





Directions
In food processor, chop up your cabbage and onion in batches. You can also add your ginger and garlic into one of the batches to get it finely chopped. In a large bowl, mix up all of the vegetables until well blended.

In a large pot, heat a couple tsps. of sesame seed oil and then add half of the cabbage mixture. If you add the whole mixture, it'll be really hard to work with. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, adding salt & pepper to your taste. If you use soy sauce, remember that it's extremely salty. I omit it. You'll notice that the mixture cooks down and renders a lot of juice, so I drain it really well into a colander, pushing down with a spoon to get as much juice out. Put mixture back into the pot and then add half your chicken to heat through. Add 1 egg and just mix it in. Cook for a couple of minutes until you know the egg has been incorporated and cooked in. Place mixture into a large bowl and then do the same thing with the other half. Let mixture cool for about 10 minutes before working with it.

Use a damp towel or paper towels to keep the wrappers moist. Pull apart and set on the counter. In one corner of the wrapper, add about 2 TBSP of mixture. Roll up, pulling in the sides like a burrito. Dip your finger in water and use on the last edge to seal the egg roll. Make sure you pull it all tightly because it will fall apart in the oil if it's done clumsily. Repeat until mixture is gone.

Fry them up a few at a time until golden brown and enjoy!



Note from Angel:
I use spring roll wrappers rather than egg roll wrappers because they're thinner and get crispy. The egg roll wrappers require a longer cooking time because it's thicker and you have to make sure all the inside part gets cooked or it'll taste like raw dough. You'll find the wrappers in the frozen section of the Asian store. They thaw out very quickly! If you opt for the grocery store, you'll find them in the produce section where bagged salad is. That's also where the bean sprouts will be.
It seems like a lot of work, but it's really easy and so worth it. You get to decide what goes in, the sodium content and everything is fresh. I never buy them from the grocery store either, but using the wrappers used for spring rolls makes them so much better than what you'd get at any Chinese restaurant. Yum!