by Donna | May 4, 2013
One of our many traditions/housekeeping rituals is that of cleaning out the refrigerator on grocery shopping day (which now with six “adults,” ages fourteen to over fifty living here is twice a week!). Everybody starts carrying in groceries, and as they are carried in, I sort them and bark out orders: “The SMALL deep freeze; not the big one. I need to be able to find this on Wednesday!” etc. etc. Also, while they carry (and I sort), I clean out the inside refrigerator and have people bring things in from the garage refrigerator. (Yeah, I am a mean multi-tasker after thirty years of homemaking/parenting/homeschooling/working!)
Anyway, all of this is going in WITH teenage boys talking about their day, our college age daughter going over her schedule with Mom or Dad (“Is it okay if I leave in ten minutes to run, so I can get five miles in before it gets dark?”), the dog pulling things out of the trash can as I put things in, and, of course, a radio drama playing in the kitchen cd player. (Yes, I can work with a lot of noise too, another survival skill developed through the years!)
Usually, one of these shopping days falls on “leftover night,” so I start organizing food for that night’s meal, “re-loading” (as my kids call it) some of the leftovers so that they look new, and cutting up old fruits and veggies before we put away the new ones. Someone will be called upon to make a quick fruit salad out of leftover fruits–and somebody will often start chopping leftover veggies to create a quick side dish to go with the main entree leftovers that we usually have.
We have gotten pretty good at throwing together fresh vegetable stir fries fairly quickly. We have variations on this side dish another night–we almost always have a chicken-veggie stir fry or beef veggie stir fry as one of our main entress each week. That night is is more involved and time consuming (cutting up meats, marinating meats, all the chopping and dicing and stir frying required for two huge pans of main dish meat/veggie stir fries). And, unfortunately, I don’t have much help on that night!
However, for “shopping day stir fried veggies” as a side dish, it is literally anything available chopped by whomever is available. I’ll give you some steps on tonight’s version, though it changes according to what’s left in the fridge on shopping day, who is home to help prepare veggies, and how many are there to eat it. (Leftover stir fry is not one of my family’s favorites!)
Tonight’s Version:
1 lb baby carrots
1 small zuchinni
6 oz snow peas
1 large green pepper
1 onion
1 lb brocolli
garlic
Mrs. Dash
oyster sauce
soy sauce
beef or chicken broth*
*Note: I seldom use oil to make a stir fry. If I do, it is just a little olive oil or coconut oil. I usually use broth to “fry” my stir fries
+I am a big pre-cooker. And I precook in the microwave, despite what some say about the microwave. It steams brocolli perfectly, and it is fast. So…
1. Steam carrots in micro. (I put carrots with a tablespoon or two of broth in glass measure and cover with plastic wrap. Then I steam for three to six minutes, depending on how many carrots I have and how done I want them before I add them to the stir fry pan.)
2. Heat small amount of broth in skillet while chopping onions, garlic, and peppers.
3. Stir fry aromatics (the three in #2) while you pull out the carrots.
4. Clean and chop brocolli and start steaming it in the micro in the same way as the carrots.
5. Slice zuchinni in thin rounds.
6. Add carrots, zuchinni, pea pods, garlic, Mrs. Dash, soy sauce, oyster sauce, and more broth, as needed and turn fire on medium high. Stir frequently as they cook.
7. When stir fry has just a minute or two left of cooking time, fold in the brocolli. (My guys do not like mushy brocolli, so I fold it in at the end.)
8. Continue to add more broth as needed while cooking.
And it looks like the picture below! 🙂
by Donna | Mar 6, 2013
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| Many jobs make for fun family cooking: sauce making, chicken cutting, pepper slicing, onion chopping, meat frying…..many hands make the work light! |
It’s last minute seminar preps…so that means it’s family cooking night…whoever is home gathers in the kitchen and slices, dices, and juliennes as fast as we can, so Mom and Dad can get back to work quickly, but everybody gets fed a decent meal.
What does your family like to cook together? I like to cook things with my kids that have a lot of/variety of steps (usually multiple dishes at one time with an Odyssey blaring in the background and three to five conversations all going on at the same time. Big mess….lots of fun and relationship-building! Smile…
by Donna | Feb 19, 2013
For Christmas, we love to have shrimp! We start out at the end of November having shrimp cocktail and breaded shrimp for our family decorating night. Then we move into the first week of December or so and have Shrimp Alfredo for our White Christmas movie night. (It started out as White Spaghetti and White Christmas…get it?) Then for Christmas Eve, we bring out the cocktail shrimp again.
Then our shrimp days are over. We literally do not have shrimp any other time of year…sadness. Too many teens and young adults and boys and hearty eaters and….well, that equals a lot of shrimp, which equals a lot of money!
So, this is our holiday recipe. However, it is almost as good made with boneless, skinless chicken breast too!
‘
Shrimp (or Chicken) Alfredo
4 to 6 lbs shrimp (or chicken tenders)
2 or 3 sticks of butter
Italian seasoning
garlic and wine seasoning
black pepper
minced garlic
parsley
oregano
salt
3 lbs fettucini (sp?)
12 oz cream cheese
1 pint half and half
1 pint whipping cream
16 oz (up to 2 lbs, if wanted–don’t use powdered Parmesan!) Italian finely shredded cheese blend (all white)
1. Boil pasta until al dente.
2. Melt butter and add seasonings (not sure of amounts–we just keep adding and tasting!)
3. Detail shrimp (defrost first) and drain/blot with paper towel.
4. Stir fry the shrimp in large skillet in the butter and lots of seasonings. (We do four batches.) Make this as if you were making garlic chicken tenders or shrimp scampi–you want the meat well-seasoned. We hate it when it tastes like pasta with white sauce and boiled chicken or shrimp! 😉
5. Drain the pasta and add the cream cheese and white cheese and stir until they are melted.
6. Add half and half, whipping cream, and shrimp/butter mixture to pasta/cheese mixture. Add lots more yummy seasonings!
7. Stir until yummy and heated through.
Serves twelve hungry people!
by Donna | Feb 13, 2013
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| “Uncooked” ready to turn on high. (I precook and assemble the night before, stick in fridge, then pull out and cook the next day.) |
Easy peasy crock pot meal today!!!
I have a HUGE crock pot. It is actually an amazing one that has three sizes of inserts, so you can do super large, kind of big, and smaller {for dips, small roasts, etc.}.
My favorite crock pot– https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?sku=14764453&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CPrx5-DOs7UCFQ84nAodPUUABw
Ingredients–sort of
4 lbs of turkey, skinless kielbasa sausage, cut into rounds
4 lbs of potatoes, peeled and cubed approximately the same size as sausage rounds
2 lbs of frozen green beans
1 or 2 large onions, cut into chunks (I like to stir fry them before adding them.)
pork/smokehouse/ham base (to make “broth”)
Forward (Penzy spice)
Garlic and herb seasoning
basil
black pepper
1. Precook potatoes by steaming in micro or boiling on stove top. (I like to precook my potatoes if I am making a dish where the other ingredients are nearly cooked or fully cooked.)
2. Mix all spices into 3 cups of hot water. Use the amount of base you like for your “broth.”
3. Toss half of the meat and veggies into the crock pot and pour half of the liquid over.
4. Toss second half of the meat and veggies into the crock pot and pour rest of liquid over.
5. Cook–since mine needs to be done in three or four hours, I put it on high for an hour and low for two. You could put it on low for a long time. My crock pot has a WARM setting, so I move into that fairly quickly.
Note: If you do not have the largest crock pot, cut this in half! It makes a full large crock!
by Donna | Feb 10, 2013
We have always been a big leftover family….well, not a big family…well, sort of a big family…but really big on leftovers! My recipes were always tweaked to feed apprxiately four more people than we had at the time–so that we had leftovers for lunch or for “leftover nights” at the end of the week.
One evening when one of my littles did not want to eat their vegetable soup, one of his older siblings said, “You might as well eat it now, or Mom will just have you eat it tomorrow as ‘vegetable soup reloaded,'” meaning that I would do something to it and serve it the next day!
Well, such is the case with my “Baked Potatoes ‘Reloaded'” tip–except in this “recipe,” nobody will ever know that you are “reloading” last night’s food.
Make a ton of baked potatoes on the night that you want to serve them.
1. Clean the potatoes thoroughly and prick them with a fork.
2. Liberally rub each potato with a rub made out of butter and seasonings (we use Mrs. Dash), and place in a large baking pan.
3. Cover tightly with foil.
4. Bake until tender. {Or cook in crock pot all day!}
The “revisited” part: Put the leftovers in the fridge whole that night in a large ziplock bag. Then a day or more later, slice the baked potatoes thinly and layer in a baking dish with cheese, salt, pepper, and a little cream or half and half. Bake (or microwave) uncovered ’til bubbly. Doesn’t take long since potatoes are already baked. Yum!
by Donna | Feb 6, 2013
I told you that last week’s chicken and rice soup was the easiest soup I ever make. Then this one is definitely a close second! It is the same concept–use the crock pot to cook the chicken over night. Stir it up to shred it (it shreds that easily in the crock!), cook your noodles in broth, add seasonings, and put back in the crock on warm.
Here is the unofficial recipe:
Combination of boneless, skinless thighs and breasts (or just one or the other)
Store bought “homemade” noodles
broth (or chicken base to create broth above and beyond the broth created from the cooked chicken)
Seasonings–I used the following: garlic and herb seasoning, parsley, sage, onion powder, garlic powder, dried celery, and Forward (a combination seasoning containing heavy black pepper, paprika…and more…)
1. Cook chicken in large crock pot overnight or all day.
I always start chicken on high for an hour, so it is really hot then turn it to low for the night. I read somewhere years ago that you shouldn’t start chicken on low because it is too low at first, and the chicken could become spoiled–not sure if it’s true, but I’ve always done my chicken this way.
2. Next morning or an hour before dinner: Boil “homemade” noodles in broth until they are al dente.
I keep my soup in the crock all day for my teachers to eat out of, so I don’t fully cook my pastas; they become too soft if they are completely precooked then kept in a warm crock all day. If you are serving this soup immediately and not putting it back into the crock pot, you might want to fully cook the noodles .
3. Optional: If you like more aromatics in your soup (as opposed to onion powder and garlic powder and dried celery), while the noodles are cooking, stir fry small amount of onion and garlic and lots of celery in butter or olive oil until onions are extremely translucent.
4. While noodles are cooking, take two large serving forks and dig into the chicken and shred it.
This will go really fast (like two or three minutes) if your chicken is tender and not overcooked. (I cook my chicken for 8 or 10 hours on low after the hour on high, and it is never tough; you could definitely cook it faster on high, if needed.)
5. Once noodles are done cooking, put noodles, broth and all, into the shredded chicken.
Add the aromatics and the rest of the seasonings. Taste broth and add more base and/or seasonings as needed.
6. Turn on low if noodles were truly al dente and let the flavors mix.
