This is such a yummy and healthy recipe that I thought I would repost it today. You could TOTALLY make it with quinoa instead of rice and it would be yummy and even healthier! It’s a perfect spring/summer recipe….great for a picnic or BBQ. Enjoy!
CORN & RICE SALAD RECIPE
This is a delicious and healthy recipe.
I tried a new recipe this week called Cherry Winks. It is a recipe that my best friend’s grandmother used to make. We were discussing ideas for new cookies I could try and she remembered her grandmother used to make these tasty little cookies called Cherry Winks. I thought they sounded fun and yummy and decided to give the recipe a try.
These are definitely a vintage cookie recipe. Apparently, they were a prize winner at some point years ago. {more after the break}
We adore homemade burgers. It’s one meal that everyone in my family will eat. We go out for burgers, too, but we all like homemade ones better. I love that I can make my patty the size and shape that I like and I can put on the toppings that I love, like red onion, avocado, bacon, and extra sharp cheddar cheese!
I buy super lean 93/7 ground beef from Zaycon Foods! I LOVE it! It is high quality fresh beef with no pink slime. Every few months they come to my area. I meet them at a predetermined location where they load 40 pounds of ground beef into my car. Then I come home, divide it (easily) into 2 pound portions, package it with my Food Saver, and freeze it in my garage freezer. If you have a big family or like to buy in bulk, I highly recommend it! If you sign up and buy from the link above, I think I get $1 of credit towards their meats, so I’d be super grateful if you use that link to purchase. Put in my name, Emily Nelson, as your referrer.
They have several other products but I’ve only tried the beef. If you don’t have tons of freezer space, maybe get a box and split it with a friend or two. It actually comes in 4 separate packages so it would be easy to share with a friend or family member. It’s about $3.00 per pound, which is a fantastic price for beef this lean!
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Ok, now for my ABC Burger Recipe! How delicious does this thing look? (I got a new camera lens
Here are the things I put into my meat: BBQ sauce (use your favorite), liquid smoke (gives it that cooked outdoors taste, garlic powder, fresh cracked pepper (lots of it!), Lawry’s seasoned salt, and Worcestershire sauce. Wow! I spelled it right the first time!!
I’M BAAAACK! I am FINALLY ready to start blogging a little again. We are pretty much settled into our new house. Doesn’t feel like home yet, but I’m sure that will come eventually. I’m hoping to post at least once a week! Wish me luck!
If you like this post PLEASE pin it for me! Thanks!!
So, somehow I got myself into this crazy tradition of a themed food Halloween dinner. Luckily, I was smart enough NOT to do it ON Halloween, but a day or two before. My family looks forward to it every year. I enjoy it too, but I will tell you right now it is A LOT of work. It’s amazing how much more work it is to make food that actually looks like things. But it is soooo much fun to see my kids faces when they see what I’ve come up with. I do different things each year but I always set the table with my Halloween placemats, napkins, goblets, and decorations. I put plastic bugs in the cups and on the plates. Its fun. I keep it simple and just use my regular Halloween décor on the table.
Here is our 2011 dinner! I think the kids really liked the food this year.
Ribs on a carving board with a stabbed heart. I used precooked ribs from Sam’s club. The heart is a red pepper. You need to put it on a cutting board so you can stab the butcher knife into the board to keep it standing up. The idea came from Better Homes and Gardens, BHG.
Spider Oreo truffles. These were a pain in the butt to make, but aren’t they cute? The legs are chow mein noodles dipped in chocolate.
This is my favorite chewy Chex mix. I will post the recipe soon. It is so yummy. This time I made it festive for Halloween with green food coloring, candy corns, and Reese’s pieces.
Flayed skin foot with rotten toenails. This is my favorite cheese ball, formed into a foot, covered with thinly sliced deli ham. Ketchup on the stump for blood and almond slices painted with black food coloring for toenails. I made it into a spider the year before. HERE is the recipe.
A barfing Jack o’ lantern. My famous guacamole coming out of a Jack o’ lantern’s mouth. Looks gross, tastes great! HERE is the recipe.
Bloody intestines. I used crescent rolls sheets stuffed with chicken roll-up filling. I will post the recipe for this soon. It was yummy and looked even better in person. HERE is where I got the idea, but I didn’t use this recipe.
And finally, Blood Spiked Punch. I can’t remember what punch I made. I think it had raspberries. Any red punch would do. Choose your favorite one!
Happy family! The girl is my son’s beautiful girlfriend, not my daughter. The boys are all mine!
To see a post I did about our 2010 dinner click HERE.
Do you have any fun Halloween traditions?
Have you made any fun, themed food?
I would love to hear your ideas. Its about time I start planning my dinner for this year!
This is a delicious and healthy recipe. I have made it different ways, but most recently made it with brown rice and it was delicious! It is very flavorful. It’s a great lunch or it could be a side dish with grilled chicken, for example. It would also be good on tacos.
Another great idea would be to stuff tomatoes or bell pepper with it for a pretty presentation. You could even do cherry tomatoes for an appetizer to entertain with.
ENJOY!
Recipe: Corn and Rice Salad/ Stuffed Tomatoes
Yield: 6-8 servings
Ingredients:
Directions: Toss all ingredients together in a large bowl. Chill well. Enjoy!
I wouldn’t min at all if you “pinned” this! Thanks:)
I am the middle child of a family of seven girls, no boys. As you can imagine (or some of you may know) raising seven kids is a lot of work! My mom was lucky because her mom lived about 20 minutes from us when we were growing up. My grandma, Bernadine, or Bernie for short, was a school teacher. But when she retired, she dedicated her time to helping my mom to raise us girls. She did not live with us, but she came to our house early each morning and stayed there till after dinner most days. She cooked, cleaned, chauffeured, gardened, taught little ones to read and write, helped with homework, did laundry, etc. She was an awesome and fun loving grandma and I miss her deeply.
One of my fondest memories of her was the way she taught me to bake pies each Thanksgiving morning. She was so patient with me. She showed me how to work the pie dough gently, touching it as little as possible to create a flaky crust. I remember being in awe of how she could peel and apple with only one peel. We loved eating those long curly-Q peels. She would let us take the extra dough and roll it out to make little cinnamon rolls. Those were one of my favorite things at Thanksgiving. We would spread butter of the dough and lots of cinnamon sugar, then roll it up and slice it and bake the little rolls in a pie tin. Thanksgiving morning was always a happy time in my home of cooking together and eating yummy appetizers, and just enjoying each other’s company. I miss cooking with my grandma so much. I just miss her. A lot. I wish so much she was around to see my kids and love them like she did me. And out of all my parents’ son-in-laws I know she would have loved my husband the most. In fact, I met him shortly after she passed away and I think she had something to do with bringing us together.
Well, I still love to make pies and every time I do I think of “Grammy” making pies right alongside me.
I made several pies for this past Thanksgiving. I tried some new recipes and I loved them all. I am going to share them with you. I hope you know how to make crust by hand because it is just so much yummier and so much more fun. I will give you my recipe for crust but if you don’t know how to do it I would suggest finding a tutorial online. It is easy, but you may have to practice a few times to get the right amount of water added…that’s the only hard part.
Today I am going to share the recipe for this little beauty:
This was probably my favorite pie this year. It has a consistency very similar to very moist cheesecake. It was tart and sweet and just super yummy.
I found the recipe in Better Homes and Gardens. You can find it HERE. It called for lemon but I went with lime because I love key lime pies so much. It was delicious!
Lime Velvet Cream Pie
Ingredients:
Directions: In a small bowl, soften gelatin in water for 5 minutes. Microwave for 10 seconds. Set aside.
In a large bowl, combine egg yolks and sweetened condensed milk. With an electric mixer beat on high speed for a couple minutes until well combined. Beat in gelatin, whipping cream and salt on law speed. Add lime juice and zest and mix to combine. Pour into prepared crust.
Bake 22-25 minutes or until center of pie looks set when gently shaken. Cool on wire rack. Cover loosely and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
Top with sweetened whipped cream before serving.
Yield: 2 crusts
Ingredients:
Directions: Chill all ingredients well. Combine flour, sugar, and salt in bowl. Cut in shortening to make a coarse meal. Sprinkle a tablespoon of the water over the flour mixture. Stir with a fork. Keep adding a tablespoon at a time and stirring in between. Add just enough of the water to form a soft dough. Handle it as little as possible. Divide the dough into 2 balls. Flatten slightly and wrap in plastic. Chill in fridge for 30 minutes. Roll out the crusts on a lightly floured surface to about ¼” thickness and a diameter 2 “ larger than pie plate on each side.
I would love to know a fast and easy way I could add a printable version of my recipes to my posts. I use Windows Live Writer. If anyone knows how, please let me know. In the meantime, you can print by highlighting the recipe and then printing your selection.
I have no picture of this to show you. I made this for dinner tonight and it was super yummy. I thought I would share the recipe. We all know what Mac and Cheese looks like.
Enjoy!
Recipe: Super Yummy Mac and Cheese
From the Kitchen of: Emily Nelson
Yield: 6-8 servings
Ingredients:
Directions: In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the pasta to al dente and drain. Return it to the pot and melt in the butter. Toss to coat. While the noodles are cooking, whisk together the eggs, milk, buffalo sauce, salt, pepper and mustard. Stir into the pasta and add the mozzarella and 2/3 of the cheddar cheese. Over low heat, stir until creamy and cheese is melted. Pour into a 9x13 baking dish sprayed with Pam. Top with remaining cheese. Broil until cheese is bubbly and has browned spots.
SO GOOD!
I wish I had more and better pictures of this dish. Most of the kids wouldn’t eat it because it looked like bugs. It is just a baked Macaroni and Cheese recipe.
You can use your favorite mac and cheese recipe. I topped this one with buttered bread crumbs for dirt, but I think my kids disliked that especially. I thought it was delicious!
For the pasta, I used several different shapes. I just tried to get ones that I thought would resemble bugs. I used some penne, some small shells, some really tiny pasta that looked like fat, flat grains of rice, some pieces of fettuccine broken into shorter pieces, and I think some corkscrews. I boiled each type separately and added food coloring to the cooking water to change the color of the pasta. Once I had all the pasta cooked in different colored water, I proceeded to make my mac and cheese.
Here is the recipe I used:
Macaroni and Cheese
Ingredients:
Directions: Preheat oven to 375.
Put a pot of water on to boil. While you are waiting make a roux by melting the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan, then add the flour. Stir well and cook on medium for about 3 minutes. Whisk in the milk and cream. Continue to cook and stir over medium heat until the sauce thickens. Cook pasta in salted water according to box directions. While it is cooking, grate your cheese and add it to the white sauce (butter, flour, milk). Stir till cheese is melted. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg and mustard. Drain pasta and return it to the pot. Pour cheese sauce over pasta and stir well to combine. Pour into a 9x13 baking dish. Top with shredded cheddar cheese. (Add buttered bread crumbs if desired) Bake at 375 for about 30 minutes or until cheese is melted and browned. If it is taking too long to brown the cheese put it under the broiler for a few minutes, watching carefully so it doesn’t burn.
My oldest son turned 17 last week. Seventeen!!! I am feeling old! I cannot believe it. I was 17 when I had him! He is a senior in high school and is actually going to a special school this year where he takes college classes and gets dual credit for HS and college! So, he is seeming very grown up and I am having a mid-life crisis, lol!
Anyway, my brilliant mother had the idea to throw him a surprise party for his b-day. So, we did! It was great! He had no idea! We had a BBQ and pool party. I didn’t really know how many kids to expect. We just put the word out there and invited a bunch of his FB friends and told them to invite his other friends.
So, I decided I better make a bunch of cupcakes for dessert! I made 6 dozen Oreo Cupcakes the morning of the party. Amazingly, it only took me about 3 hours, including cleaning up!
Now that’s a lot of cupcakes!
They were very yummy. Here is what I did:
Cupcakes:
Mix up a white cake mix (I used Duncan Hines) according to package directions, except add 1/2 c. Daisy sour cream (Daisy is the best because it doesn’t have any funky ingredients).
Once it is mixed, add 2 cups Oreo cookie pieces. I bought mine at Smart and Final. They come already broken up. Or you can just break up some Oreos in a zipper bag with a rolling pin. Stir to combine.
Use a paring knife to separate the two sides of an Oreo, leaving the crème on one side. Place the Oreo side with the crème with the crème side up in a cupcake liner in your cupcake pan. Add your batter on top of the Oreo to 2/3 full. Bake according to cake mix directions. The key to good cakes and cupcakes is to not over bake so that they aren’t dry. Cakes are done when they barely spring back when touched lightly with your finger. It doesn’t have to spring back completely, just half way.
Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before frosting.
Here is the frosting recipe I made. It is HUGE, for about 80 cupcakes, so divide it if you aren’t making cupcakes for an army.
)With the paddle attachment of a stand mixer, cream together the butter, cream cheese, and marshmallow crème. Add the powdered sugar. Add the cream a little at a time to get to the desired consistency. If you add too much it will be too thin to pipe and have it hold its shape. You can test in in the bowl. Just pull some up into a peak with a knife or the back of a spoon and if it holds its shape pretty well it is thick enough. Add in the Oreo crumbs and mix to combine.
To pipe these ones, I just used my coupler in a pastry bag. You could also use a large round tip, like 1/2” diameter. Just hold the bag vertical in the center of the cupcake and start to squeeze. Move it in small circles to spread it out a bit as you pipe. You will see. It is easy.
Garnish with an Oreo, half an Oreo, or mini Oreo.
We had cupcakes for dinner tonight. Yes, you read that right. We had cupcakes for dinner and boy were they good! Aren’t they delicious looking??
My kids were pretty excited when they asked what was for dinner and I told them “Cupcakes.” They didn’t ask me what flavor of cupcakes, and I will admit some of them were a little disappointed to find out I had made them
Meatloaf and Mashed Potato Cupcakes!
My husband, on the other hand, could not have been happier!
I tried out a new meatloaf recipe for these. You can find it over at Peppermint Plum. I didn’t have french fried onions so I thought I would use some onion soup mix instead. When I went to make the meatloaf I discovered I was also out of onion soup mix. So, I used some french onion dip mix. They were good. Meatloaf is not my favorite, but my husband really liked them. I think I will like them better tomorrow as a sandwich!
So, here is how I made the cupcakes. I made the meatloaf by combining the ingredients in my Kitchen Aid. Then I used my trusty ice cream scoop to portion the meat into foil cupcake liners. I pressed them down flat and topped each with some ketchup.
While they baked I made my garlic mashed potatoes, which I dyed pink with food coloring. Just make your favorite mashed potatoes. You could leave them white…I was just really trying to trick my kids!
I used a large star pastry tip to pipe the “frosting” onto the meatloaves once they were cooked. Now, hopefully you are more skilled than I at making creamy, smooth mashed potatoes because mine had a few lumps that kinda got stuck in the tip and made it difficult to pipe.
After I got the potatoes on I put them back in the oven under the broiler to try to brown the edges a bit and warm the potatoes a bit more as they had cooled down a bit. I think the browning would have looked a lot better on un-colored potatoes.
This was a fun dinner to have. I hope you will try it sometime!
Well, it seems all I have time for amidst entertaining four kids (my teenager is living with his dad right now) and trying to clean up after the messes they make while they are all home is cooking. I just can’t seem to get to any crafts. But, we all have to eat so cooking seems to be happening regularly!
This morning my son asked for fried eggs so I thought I would photograph how I make them. I know people can be very opinionated about the correct way to cook eggs. I only like eggs that I cook or my husband cooks for me. I do not eat eggs at restaurants. “Why?” you ask. Because I don’t like slimy eggs!!!
I had to chuckle when I saw a recipe for “Frizzled Eggs” in some magazine awhile back. They acted like it was some new method of cooking eggs, and yet I have been cooking them this way since childhood! For those who don’t like eggs, give these a try. They are seriously so yummy!
STEP 1- Put your stove on HIGH! That’s right people. I know chefs say you should cook eggs over a gentle heat. But doing that gives you slimy super soft eggs. So crank up the heat girls!
STEP 2- Don’t be afraid of butter. Butter is your friend. Butter gives your eggs delicious flavor. Put a good teaspoon in the pan for two eggs. Let it got nice and hot and bubbly.
STEP 3- Crack your eggs into the pan. I like to use this little frying pan for making one or two eggs. Make sure you use a non-stick pan. Use the corner of your spatula to break up the thick part of the white around the yolk and spread it out a bit. The thinner the white is, the better.
STEP 4- Season your eggs with salt and fresh cracked pepper. Lots of pepper cause it is yummy! AACHOO!
STEP 5- Cook your eggs till the white is no longer clear and you have some nice browning around the edges.
STEP 6- CAREFULLY turn your eggs over using a large spatula. Cook them on the other side for just 5-10 seconds if you like a soft yolk, or longer if you like your yolk more well done. See that brown stuff? It is yummy! Don’t listen to chefs who say eggs should never have brown on them. I wholeheartedly disagree!
STEP 7- Remove the eggs from the pan onto a plate. Serve with toast if desired.
STEP 8- ENJOY!
I hate cooking hot food in the summer, don’t you? Unless it is grilling out back. But I really prefer cold food in the summer. Especially here in Vegas where it is soooo hot!
Salads are so yummy. I have so many good salad recipes. I thought you might like one of them today. Let me know how you like it!
Recipe: Fruited Chicken Pasta Salad
Yield: one large bowl
Ingredients:
Directions: Mix the mayo, milk, and ranch mix together. Mix up the other ingredients in a large bowl and add the dressing, stirring to combine. Add the mandarin oranges only after everything else is well mixed so that they don’t fall apart. This is a great salad for a shower or just to have in the fridge for lunch. Serve with rolls or croissants.
Well, today I decided to spend some time with my 4 year old making some cupcakes in a jar. We made these from a white cake mix. We simply made the mix according to package directions, divided the batter into 3 equal parts, tinted one red and one blue, and layered the colors into jars sprayed with cooking spray. I used a cookie scoop to put the batter into the jars, but had to use a baby spoon to spread out the white and red batter. It would probably work better to put the batter in pastry bags or Ziploc bags with the corner cut off and pipe it into the jars in even layers. We baked them on a cookie sheet for 25 minutes or until they sprung back a little when gently pushed in the center.
NOTE: I used 1 cup wide mouth jars. I think I am in love with these jars and will be making more things in them. They are just soooo cute!
Here they are before they were baked:
Here they are after:
I left them on the counter to cool and this is what happened, compliments of my two year old:
Here is how he got up there:
He is a stinker. Good thing he is super cute:
Well, I went looking for a recipe for some new kind of frosting so I could try out something new. I came across a recipe that uses flour several times and everyone was raving about it. I read many different versions, but decided to use the one I found HERE on The Girl Who Ate Everything. I think she got it from The Pioneer Woman.
I had my doubts that it could REALLY be as good as everyone claimed. But I decided to put the recipe to the test.
Here are my notes on making it:
1. Add the flour to COLD milk in a COLD pan and make sure it is fully whisked together before turning on the heat-this helps avoid clumps.
2. When you cook the milk and flour together it will get REALLY thick…like the skin on a pudding thick. That is ok. Just don’t burn it.
3. Beat the butter and sugar together for a LONG time, like 5 minutes. Be sure to scrape down the bowl several times. If you don’t mix it long enough, you will have grainy sugar in your frosting.
4. It doesn’t take as long to cool the flour mixture down as you think. Stick it in the freezer while you beat the butter and sugar and it will be done when you are ready for it.
5. Beat the flour mixture with the butter mixture for another 5 minutes. It won’t ruin it. You can’t overbeat it, I don’t think. It just makes it silkier.
Well, I have to admit this is a really good buttercream. I am not a fan of most buttercream frostings….too sweet for me. But this one is not as sweet as most. It has a very smooth and silky texture and is a little lighter in feel than a traditional buttercream. I think it would lend itself well to some fruity flavors, like lemon or a raspberry puree. I read that a lot of people have problems getting it to turn out. I had no problems. It was pretty easy. I think the key is just to beat everything really well. I will say it has quite a buttery flavor. I think it might be better if it had 1/2 c. more sugar. But then maybe all the sugar would not dissolve. But it was ALMOST too buttery I wonder how it would taste on chocolate cake. Probably pretty good.
I prefer cream cheese frosting, but you can’t ALWAYS use it so this is a good substitute. Give it a try and let me know what you think!
CAUTION: This frosting MIGHT make your kid look like this:
![Mouthwatering ABC Burgers [Bacon, Avocado, & Cheddar] {ReMarkableHome.net}](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNkFx2iaG468RGikcHL3w9I7FAJX6YjnCWHVVTieSpKhpAbmbCuCCXzy85QqcL_oYo-HHXsompFcjYWjXQc59TykTbiPphChXcRQN6uhiIgQIYMFdQxXDflcGyxl2-i3Pyl8ssyDZMd1A/s1600-h/Mouthwatering%252520ABC%252520Burgers%252520%25255BBacon%25252C%252520Avocado%25252C%252520%252526%252520Cheddar%25255D%252520%25255B5%25255D.jpg "Mouthwatering ABC Burgers [Bacon, Avocado, & Cheddar]")
