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Got Salmon?

February 5, 2012 in Recipes with 10 Comments

For Christmas my in-laws gave me a Paula Deen cookbook. Yummy yummy!

I’ve made the Maple-Glazed Salmon twice now and oh how delicious it is.

Maple-Glazed Salmon

4 salmon filets, 6 oz. each
4 Tablespoons butter, melted
3 Tablespoons maple syrup
1 1/2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
3/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
3/4 teaspoon mustard powder

Grease 9×13 casserole dish. Sprinkle salmon with salt and pepper and place skin side down in the dish. In a small bowl whisk the melted butter, maple syrup, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and mustard powder. Pour over salmon. Bake at 450 degrees for 12 minutes or until done. (I had to cook the salmon a couple of extra minutes. But, I would still start with 12 minutes and then check cause you don’t want to overcook and dry it out.)

After dinner, we had one lone piece of salmon left. We ate up all the sides so today’s pictures is just salmon, maple salmon.

One last recipe…Amish Breakfast Casserole

December 15, 2011 in Recipes with 5 Comments

Today ended my cooking streak for the week. Maybe I won’t cook again until the New Year. I love to cook but with Dave out of town (Indianapolis and Chicago) this week and holiday festivities at every turn, I am a wee bit exhausted!

I guess I need to up my percentage of successful dishes because I made a totally yummy breakfast dish for my MOPS group today. Seriously yummy. I am not bragging. At least, I don’t think I am. Just in case it comes across that way, I will add that I BURNT the sausage to ashes and had to start over and cook entirely new sausage. Burnt sausage stinks. I can still smell it in the air today! Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to assemble the dish last night and bake this morning, so I had time to redo the sausage!

Here  is the recipe, courtesy of allrecipes.com, with a change or two by me:

Amish Breakfast Casserole

  • 1 package sausage links, sliced (I used Trader Joe’s Sweet Apple Chicken Sausage With Pure Vermont Maple Syrup….so good! If you use chicken sausage, you will need to brown it in a little olive oil so it doesn’t burn. Pork sausage doesn’t need any extra fat.)
  • 1 medium sweet onion, chopped
  • 6 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 4 cups frozen shredded hash brown potatoes, thawed
  • 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
  • 1 1/2 cups small curd cottage cheese
  • 1 1/4 cups shredded Swiss cheese (I didn’t have any Swiss so I used some random package of shredded Italian cheeses but I think Swiss would have been great.)
 Directions
  1. In a large skillet, cook sausage and onion until sausage is browned; drain. In a bowl, combine the remaining ingredients; stir in sausage mixture. Transfer to a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking dish.
  2. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes or until set and bubbly. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting.

The MOPS ladies ate the entire casserole except for one small piece. Thanks ladies for leaving a piece for me to photograph! :)

***

Yesterday, the Tay Sachs community lost a very precious little girl. Rachaeli had Tay Sachs and was 9 years old. Reaching that age was nothing short of a miracle. If you would like to read a very touching tribute to Rachaeli, click here for her mom’s Caringbridge site. To Rachaeli’s family: Thank you for sharing your beautiful daughter with all of us. The day we found out Carmen most likely had Tay Sachs, I came home and googled and found your website. I was grieved and inspired and amazed. Four years later, I still feel the same for Rachaeli and your entire family. Dave and I will be praying for all of you.

Chocolate Chip Mexican Wedding Cakes

December 15, 2011 in Recipes with 0 Comments

This week was my MOPS cookie exchange. I wanted to try something new. WHY do I do that to myself???? Why not use a tried and tested recipe? Oh no, I have to find a new recipe and excitedly whip up a batch of whatever and then hope like crazy that it turns out. I would say I have about a 25% success rate. Apparently I am not a fast learner or I would have figured out by now that the odds are against me!

This time around, I did find a good recipe and it did turn out wonderfully. If you like chocolate and cinnamon, give these a try.

Lauren helped roll the dough into balls. She was also the official sampler (of the dough and the cookies)!

Chocolate Chip Mexican Wedding Cakes

  • 1 cup butter, 2 sticks softened
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2/3 cup almonds, finely chopped
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 2 cups miniature chocolate chips, divided (12-ounce package)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350º F. In a large mixing bowl beat butter and sugar until creamy, beat in vanilla extract. Gradually add flour, almonds, and cinnamon. Stir in 1 1/2 cup of miniature chocolate chips and stir until dough is well combined. Roll dough into one inch balls and place on greased cookie sheets.
  2. Bake for approximately 10 to 12 minutes or until cookies are set and lightly golden brown on bottom. Remove from oven and cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes than place on wire racks to cool completely. While cooling, sprinkle with additional powdered sugar.
  3. Microwave remaining chocolate chips in small bowl for 30 seconds. Stir chips. Microwave at 10- to 15-second intervals, stirring until smooth. Pour chocolate into a ziploc bag. Snip a small portion of the bag in the corner; slowly squeeze chocolate to drizzle over cookies. Refrigerate cookies for about 5 minutes or until chocolate is set. Store cookies at room temperature in airtight container.

Chicken Pot Pie, the Ultimate Comfort Food

December 10, 2011 in Recipes with 1 Comment

Throughout Carmen’s life and during my bed rest days, friends brought us meals. We had some amazing food. In fact, I am quite certain that the 60 lbs. I gained while pregnant with Hope must have all happened during my 13 weeks on bed rest in which all I could do was eat the yummy food people brought us and poke around on the laptop! Now you know. Thankfully, I only have 15 lbs. of that 60 still to lose!

One of the most scrumptious meals we were blessed with was home made chicken pot pie. A lady from our church brought it over and we enjoyed every single bite.

I’ve never made a chicken pot pie but I was scheduled to bring a meal to a MOPS mom with a newborn this weekend so I found a recipe and gave it my best shot.

It turned out nicely!

Here’s the recipe, from allrecipes.com, with a few changes and notes from me.

Chicken Pot Pie

  • 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed
  • 1 cup peeled, sliced carrots
  • 1 cup frozen green peas
  • 1 cup peeled, cubed potatoes
  • 1/3 cup butter
  • 1/3 cup chopped onion
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning
  • 3 1/2 cups chicken broth
  • 1 1/3 cups milk
  •  2 (9 inch) unbaked pie crusts (I used the Pillsbury ones that you just unroll.)
 Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
  2. In a saucepan, combine chicken, carrots, peas, and potatoes. Add 3 1/2 cups chicken broth and boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, drain and reserve broth and set chicken mixture aside.
  3. In the saucepan over medium heat, cook onions in butter until soft and translucent. Stir in flour, salt, pepper, garlic powder and poultry seasoning. Slowly stir in reserved chicken broth and milk. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick. It may take a little while to thicken but it will start to thicken up. Remove from heat and set aside.
  4. Place the chicken mixture in bottom pie crust. Pour hot liquid mixture over. Cover with top crust and seal edges. Make several small slits in the top to allow steam to escape.
  5. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Garlic Olive Oil Infused Chicken

October 28, 2011 in Recipes with 2 Comments

Chicken breast tenders were on sale this week for $1.97 per pound so we stocked up. We froze a bunch in various marinades to grill at a later date. For this week, I wanted to try a new recipe so I searched allrecipes.com, one of my favorite recipe sites.

I found a recipe for garlic chicken, tweaked it a bit and whipped up a batch. I don’t usually whip up much of anything. Usually anything I cook occurs in multiple stages, interrupted by laundry, diaper changes, homework help, etc. But Dave came home from work a little bit earlier than usual and entertained the girls so I got to cook to my heart’s content.

Garlic Olive Oil Infused Chicken

  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast tenders
 Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Warm the garlic and olive oil to blend the flavors. In a separate dish, combine the bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. Dip the chicken breast tenders in the olive oil and garlic mixture, then into the bread crumb mixture. Place in a shallow baking dish.
  3. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until no longer pink and juices run clear.

My note: I doubled the recipe. I didn’t quite double the oil…1/2 cup of oil seemed like a lot! I’m not sure how much oil I ended up using for 2 pounds of chicken. Just enough to moisten each piece before rolling in the bread crumb mixture.

This turned out quite yummy! Hope ate it with ketchup because Hope likes anything dipped in ketchup. Lauren dipped hers in a glass of water to remove the garlicky taste. I love my girls! :)

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