Almost Cream of Mushroom Soup

Snack girl to the rescue book

Rotini bolognese

I've seen Bolognese sauce at restaurants before and usually just associate them with being a ground meat sauce.  I've never really had cravings for them.  I just thought they were tomato sauce with ground meat.

This recipe had much more flavor, even without the anchovy and porcini mushrooms.  The recipe called for these, but I didn't have any mushrooms since Mike hates mushrooms.  I also didn't know where to buy anchovy and didn't think Mike would touch this dish if it had anchovies in it.

I also have pancetta, so I used about 10 small pieces of thinly sliced ham that I had in the freezer.  I don't remember why I bought this ham.  Perhaps it was for Mike to make himself sandwiches for lunch?  It had been in the freezer for a while, so I wanted to use it.  I figured that pancetta is often described as being similar to ham, so why not sub ham for pancetta?

I was supposed to chop the carrots separately from the pancetta, mushrooms and anchovies, but since I was only going to process the carrots and ham, I just made them at the same time in the Vitamix.  Most of the carrots were finely chopped, but some did turn out a little big.  When I put the mixture in the Dutch oven, I just put the 2 or so pieces of carrots back in the Vitamix and chopped them up with the tomato sauce.

The dish was delicious, and a great way to cook carrots, since you really can't taste them!  I wasn't sure how long to cook the pasta, since I used Rotini instead of Linguini (which I didn't have).

Seasoned Potato Wedges

Apparently this recipe called for 3 large baking potatoes (2 3/4 pounds).  I used about 12 or so russet potatoes.  This might explain why I had so many potato wedges.

I tried to put them all in my biggest baking pan, and then put some more in a 13" x 9" pan and had to use a baking sheet for the rest.  I wondered how they said that it would all fit in one pan, and also how it would make 6-8 servings.

According to this recipe, I should have ended up with 24 wedges.  I had about 96.  I also ran out of the seasoning/coating and had to make the same amount of seasoning again.  I ran out of that, but made due with what I had and put some garlic salt on the rest, since I was out of flour and did not have enough to make another more seasoning/coating.

The potatoes were OK.  They did take a really long time to make, though.  I didn't feel like they had enough seasoning on them.  They definitely needed more salt/flavor.  The most prevalent flavor was the Parmesan cheese.  I was hoping to make seasoned potato wedges similar to that sold at fast food restaurants or grocery stores (in the hot food section).

Shepherds pie

Dinner is served!  I'm pretty sure Mike went back for seconds.  This picture looks like a pretty small serving.  What's even more amazing is that even though they finished all 20 or so potato skins which I had made as an appetizer, they still finished about half the Shepherd's Pie for dinner!

This dish is a definite keeper!  It's another recipe from the Comfort Foods Makeover book.  It was pretty good, though it did take a while to make.  This could be because I was trying to make the Loaded Potato Skins at the same time.  If I made the potatoes using the technique specified in the book instead of using the insides of the baked potatoes, perhaps it would have been faster.

Mike did help me make the mashed potatoes since I was running out of time, and was trying to cook the meat mixture while also putting toppings on the Loaded Potato Skins.  He used his KitchenAid mixer to mash the potatoes and mix in the butter.

I didn't have any Worcestershire sauce, so I used soy sauce, as Michele suggested.   I don't think Mike noticed that it had a slightly Asian flare.  I also didn't add the cornstarch at the end, since the sauce already seemed really thick to me.  I think I would probably add it next time, since the meat mixture seemed slightly water (but not overly so) at the end, after I broiled the dish.

The dish called for 93% lean ground beef (which they didn't drain, but that might be because it's so lean).  I didn't have this, so I used ground turkey instead.  I think it tasted fine, but it might have been better with ground beef.  Ground turkey is healthier anyway.

I also used corn in this recipe instead of mushrooms.  Mike deplores mushrooms, and won't touch a dish where mushrooms have been in the same vicinity as the food.  I also had some leftover canned corn from the Minestrone anyway.  I'm not sure how much I used.  I just used all of the corn that I had in the can.

Here is the whole Shepherd's Pie as it came out of the oven.  The recipe said to put the meat mixture in a 10 inch broiler safe skillet.  I didn't really have one, so I put it in a Corningware dish.  The dish is probably about 8 inches by 10 inches or so.  As a result, most of the dish was filled with the meat mixture.  I'm glad the mashed potatoes fit in the dish as well.

Angel hair and meatballs

This was really supposed to be Spaghetti and Meatballs, but I didn't have any spaghetti.  I asked Mike if he wanted Angel Hair or Fettuccine and he said "Angel Hair".  All of these long, thin pastas are the same to me anyway.

I've always wanted to try to make my own meatballs.  The ones in the package from Costco are OK, but I've never really liked them that much.  The ones that I've had at restaurants are usually really good.  The Aidells brand meatballs that are at Costco sometimes are good, but there are only so many meatballs you can eat...  Most of the meatball recipes which I found online use a mix of ground beef, pork and lamb.  I didn't really want to buy that much meat just to make meatballs, especially since I don't know how the dish will turn out.

Comfort Food Makeovers (this is starting to become one of my favorite cookbooks!) had a recipe for Spaghetti and Meatballs that uses ground turkey.  I like to use ground turkey because it's healthier, and I don't mind buying lots of it since it can use it in various dishes.  It's much healthier than ground beef, and for some reason ground pork just seems to be more expensive, though ground turkey can be expensive when not on sale.

Mike actually helped make the meatballs, but then he had to do something else, so I had to do the rest of the recipe.  It actually wasn't hard to make.  The only problem is that I need bigger pots and pans.  I didn't have a 12 inch skillet and somehow Mike made more than the 12 meatballs which the recipe said to make, so I had to cook the meatball in batches.  I'm not sure if he used more meat than the recipe called for, or if he just made them the wrong size.  The first meatball he made was definitely not 1 1/2 inches.

Also, the recipe uses 3 cans of diced tomatoes.  2 cans are pureed in a food processor so that there are no tomato chunks (I used my Vitamix of course) and one is left alone so that the sauce will have tomato chunks.  When Mike brought home his lunch container, I noticed that he had picked out all of the tomato chunks.  Sigh.  If I'd known, I would've just pureed all 3 cans instead of wasting all of those good tomatoes!

Pork Chops

Kim was able to get an excellent deal on pork chops at the grocery store.  The pork chops were buy one, get one free.  On top of that, she bought the packages of pork chops that were on Manager's Special.  Each package had a two dollar off coupon on it.  As a result, she not only was able to get one package for free, she also received four dollars off the purchase!

She wanted to make some good pork chops, but she didn't want to fry them.  She doesn't like to fry food since it's not very healthy, and the oil tends to splatter everywhere.  She was able to find a recipe for Busy Day Pork Chops, which are baked.  The instructions were easy to follow and she had all of the ingredients!  She served the chops with rice.

The pork chops did end up being a little dry.  She cooked it for the full 11 minutes on one side, because she didn't think it looked cooked enough when it came time to flip the chops over.  She only cooked the chops for 9 minutes on the other side.  She feels that if she only cooked the chops for 9 minutes on each side, it would have been much better.  The dish was still good, and she would definitely make it again.

Oatmeal Fudge Bars

Mike made this dessert using a recipe from the Comfort Food Makeovers book.

Creamy Chicken and White Rice

I love creamy chicken and wild rice.  It combines all of my favorite foods, chicken, rice, cream, all in one soup.  Since I was still not feeling well, I thought it might be a great time to try to make this soup.

I finally found a Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice recipe which did not require celery. I hate the taste of celery.  I also hate the "flavor" it adds to food.  I know most people say that celery has no flavor or taste.  I can taste the celery and I don't like it!

I didn't have potatoes on hand, and didn't want to go to the store, so I just didn't add it to the soup.  I also probably used half the amount of onion, because I don't like onions that much, and it sounded like a lot of onions.  I also didn't have any wild rice, and didn't want to go to the grocery store, so I just used white rice instead.

It wasn't a bad soup, but it was by no means my favorite soup every.  I would consider making it again, but wouldn't be one of my "go to" recipes.

Pasta Milano

While continuing my quest to use up the heavy whipping cream, I stumbled on a recipe for Pasta Milano Soup.  It can be made into a sauce by adding more flour to thicken it, and it can then be served over pasta, as I did.

I didn't use sun dried tomatoes since I don't like the taste of them.  Instead I used the same amount of canned tomatoes.  This would obviously change the taste of the dish, but I like how it turned out.  I also used baby Portabella mushrooms instead of button mushrooms.  I just like the taste of Portabella mushrooms better.

I probably would not make this dish again since it is not very healthy, maybe once in a while, as a treat.

Pumpkin Muffins

The other item that we decided to go ahead and give a whirl was the pumpkin muffins. The predominant driver in this, is that we still had some pumpkin left over from the pumpkin pie that I had made a few days ago. Unfortunately, when I received the Executive Order to make the pumpkin muffins, Kim didn't realize that we only had 1/3 of a cup of pumpkin left (the recipe called for 1 cup). So, I had the pleasure of cutting all of the ingredient quantities in 1/3. Not too bad on most things, but kind of sucks cutting 1/4 cup into 3 (1/12 of a cup), especially when you have a white 1/4 measuring cup, and you are trying to measure milk and when the milk is 1/3 the way up the measuring cup. But all prevailed and worked out. We did not use the Vitamix for this recipe, but rather just used my KitchenAid mixer. It turned out producing 7 cupcakes, or what I am coining as a "baker's half-dozen".

Recipe:
https://www.vitamix.com/Find-Recipes/P/U/Pumpkin-Muffins

Sweet Potato Biscuits

I had half a sweet potato left over from making a Vitamix recipe. I didn't want to throw it out, and Mike didn't want to eat it. I also tried asking Mary and Joseph if they liked sweet potato, but alas they did not.

I went on the Vitamix website and used the "Find Recipes" function to try to find a recipe that used sweet potatoes. That's when I saw the recipe for Sweet Potato Drop Biscuits. I knew that Issac and Esau love the Pillsbury biscuits and that Mike was going to visit them soon. He can bring these biscuits over for them!

Here is the dough after it has been mixed.  I didn't use the Kitchenaid mixer at all!

Here are the biscuits after Mike put them on the cookie sheet.

Note: Names have been changed to protect the innocent.