Potato Salad

Summer is here! At least in my book it is. Time for BBqing, corn on the cob, watermelon and potato salad. A lot of times when you go to the store to get your potato salad it has such a sweet taste to it. Personally I like it tasting fresh! Thats why I love my mommas potato salad so much. I wrote her the other day for the recipe. She does not have an exact recipe but she gave me some guidelines one how to make it. So here we go, this is my first time making it!

Mommas Potato Salad:

Ingredients:

- 8-10 Red Potatos peeled and cubed

- 6 eggs

- Green onions (1 bunch)

- Celery (3 stalks chopped)

- Pickles (3 chopped) Make sure they are Clausens! They are the

best

- 1/2 C. of Mayonaise

First things first peel and chop those potatos. Place them in a large pot with just enough water to cover them. Once the water beings to boil put your time for 10 minutes. In the meantime take 6 eggs and place them in water, bring the water to a boil and set your timer for 10 minutes.

While your eggs and potatoes are boiling you can chop up all your veggies! Once the potatoes are finished drain the water and let them cool down. And when the eggs are finished you can run some cool water on them. Once the eggs are cooled you can peel the shell off and then chop the eggs.

Now that everything is chopped and cooled down you can add all the ingredients together in a bowl. Add 1/2 a cup of mayo. If this does not seem to be enough you could always add more. You can salt to taste. Place the potato salad in the fridge to cool down. Enjoy! Mine is in the fridge as we speak. Can't wait for dinner!

 

BBQ Chicken Pizza

I have been slacking on posting my newest creations! The one I am talking about today is actually nothing new to Zac and I. We are known for our delicious pizza dough. One of our favorite pizzas to make is BBQ chicken. I believe I got the recipe from my CPK cook book. So lets get started.

The Dough
-1 pkg. active dry yeast
-1 cup warm water
-2 cups flour
-2 tablespoons olive oil
-1 tsp salt
-2 tsp white sugar

Place the yeast in 1 cup of warm water for 10 minutes. Then you can add all other ingredients. You can let the dough rise for as long as you want but give it at least 40 minutes to an hour.

 Alright, now time for all the delish toppings
The Pizza
-BBQ sauce
-Smoked Gouda cheese
-Mozzarella cheese
-Red onion
-Chicken (we pre cook our our chicken and mix it with BBQ sauce)
-Cilantro

There is no art to making this pizza, you can put however much of something you would like. What Zac and I do is first put the BBQ sauce on, some of the smoked Gouda,chicken, onions, mozzarella and the rest of the smoked Gouda and finally sprinkle some cilantro on top.  Bake the pizza for about 20 minutes or until the crust starts to brown. ENJOY!

 

French Toast Casserole

Breakfast anyone? I am totally a breakfast person. A long time ago when I was at Zac's parents house one morning Cindy made a delicious french toast casserole dish. She was nice enough to give me the recipe but I have not made it once, to this day! Well my mom and sister are here for the weekend and I thought what better time to test out this breakfast casserole then now!? Seems easy enough, and who doesn't like french toast?

Ingredients:
-1 oz. unsliced white, wheat or cinnamon-rasin bread (my grocery store didn't have unsliced so I just used sliced and removed the crust
- 3/4 C. cream cheese
- 1 T. butter
- 1 1/2 C. milk
- 4 large eggs
- 1/4 C. powdered sugar
- 1/4 t. salt
- 1 1/4 t. cinnamon
- 1 t. nutmeg
- 1 1/2 t. vanilla extract

So this recipe is very simple. Start off by preheating your oven to 350. You can use a 11x7 baking dish ( I used a smaller size) and lightly grease it. Cut your bread into 3/4 in cubes, this doesn't have to be exact. I just cut the bread into size I thought was easiest. Be sure to cut off the crust! Then in a bowl mix together your cream cheese and your butter. Once those I blended together you can add milk. Next add the eggs, one at a time, whisking them after each one. Finally add 3 T. of powdered sugar, add salt, a t. of cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and mix together until blended. Pour this mixture over the bread cubes and let it soak in for about 10 minutes. You can sprinkle more powdered sugar and cinnamon over top if you'd like and then place the dish in the oven for 40-45 minutes.

 

Greek Orzo Salad

Food, food and more food! Zac and I have been non-stop eating all day! We went to Hydro for breakfast and then enjoyed a nice meal at Pacifico with our good friends Jason and Chelsie. Shout out to Jason, its his birthday today. Needless to say, we wanted some light for dinner. One time when I was at my friend Chelsies house she made this delicious orzo salad. I don't have her recipe...yet, but I figured I would find something on line and give it a try.

For tonights menu: Greek Orzo Salad



Ingrediants
-Orzo pasta ( I used 16oz.)
-1 cucumber
-1 red bell pepper
-1 jar of artichoke hearts
- Olives 
- Onion chopped ( I used a small amount)
- pine nuts
- Fetta cheese

Honestly I just cut everything up in the amounts that I would want in my salad. I boiled the pasta for about 10 minutes, drained it and placed in a large bowl. Then I put all other ingredients in the bowl and placed it in the fridge. The salad is still in the fridge right now and once its been about an hour I am going to pour out the existing artichoke heart juice in the salad with some lemon! We'll see how it turns out. 

Chicken Crescent Casserole

Comfort food anyone? Another night of trying to think of something to eat. Zac suggested that he wanted some sort of casserole and that he wanted to have left overs. So on line I went to Pinterest to find us some dinner!

After about one minute of searching I found something that caught my eye, Chicken crescent casserole. We were off to the grocery store to buy our ingredients.

Ingredients:
 

• 2 (8 ounce) cans Pillsbury Refrigerated Crescent Dinner Rolls
• 1 (10 3/4 ounce) can cream of chicken soup, undiluted
• 3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese or swiss cheese (or any cheese of choice)
• 1/2 cup 18% table cream (or use whipping cream)
• FILLING
• 4 ounces cream cheese (very soft)
• 4 tablespoons butter (very soft but not melted)
• 1/2-1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
• 1/3 cup onion, finely chopped (can use green onions)
• 2 large cooked chicken breasts, finely chopped (or use about 2 cups, can use cooked turkey)
• 1/2-3/4 cup finely grated cheddar cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt (or use 1/2 teaspoon white salt or to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper (or to taste)
• 2-4 tablespoons mayonnaise or whipping cream
• 1-2 cup grated cheddar cheese (for topping) 

Set your oven to 350. Spary/butter a casserole dish (I used my largest one).  In a saucepan, mix half and half cream, 3/4 cup grated cheese (can use more cheese if desired) and undiluted chicken soup (can season with black pepper if desired). This is to place on the bottom of your casserole dish and to spread over the casserole. While that is on simmer you can make the filling.  Mix the soft cream cheese with butter until very smooth, then add in garlic powder (if using). Once that is mixed add all other ingredients to this mixture. Once that is mixed get your crescent rolls ready. I had some difficulty on learning how these rolls were....rolled. After a few I finally got the hang of it. Okay, so place a table spoon or more of the mixture onto the crescent roll and roll it up! Place the rolls in your casserole dish ( after placing a small layer of the sauce you made earlier) Then with the left over sauce spread it over the tops of the crescent rolls. You can sprinkle some cheese on top and then place them in the oven for 30 minutes! Yummy!

Enchiladas

Well friends do you want a recipe that you HAVE to try!? First off let me say that I found this recipe through my lovely mother in law. I was over at her house one night and she made the tastiest enchiladas I have ever had! I had to get the recipe from her. When I asked she said she had just thrown some ingredients together but she was nice enough to find a recipe on line that was similar to the one she had made. Zac and I made it last week and we are so excited to add another recipe to the list! We both love Mexican food!

Alright so here are the ingredients:
- 8 inch flour tortillas ( the recipe called for corn) 
- 1 C. cheese (shredded mexican)
- 1/2 C. cottage cheese
- 3/4 C. chopped white onion
- 1/2 C. ricotta cheese
- 19. Oz. enchilada sauce
- 2 T. green chilis (diced)
- 3 T. black olives


So here are some of the changes that I made. I did not use any black olives but I added chicken. I also didn't think that there was enough cheese so I used all the ricotta cheese in the container as well as all the cottage cheese. This made about 6 enchiladas.

Here is the easy part. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl combine all ingredients  except for the enchilada sauce and 1/2 cup of the shredded cheese. Spray large casserole dish with pam, fill your tortillas with the mixture in the bowl and then roll tortillas and place them in the dish with the seam facing down. Now you can take your enchilada sauce and pour it over your enchiladas. Cook enchiladas for 15 minutes, remove from oven and sprinkle additional shredded cheese on top then let cook for 10 more minutes.

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

For tonights menu: Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

I know what you might be thinking...Butternut squash and apple soup? What a strange combination. Well I like butternut squash soup and I like apples so why not put them together? I found this soup off of one of my blog called "Authentic Suburban Gourmet". Zac and I were trying to decide what to eat for tonight and he suggested soup so off I went searching for a new soup to try.

Alright people lets give this a whirl and see how it turns out!

 So this is the picture from the website. We'll see if mine looks close to that.

 Starting our night off with some crackers and creamy coconut Gouda cheese. Strange mixture of cheese with the coconut but its actually really good!

Time for the ingredients:
- 2 T. butter
- 1 large onion
- 36 oz. Butternut Squash ( in one inch cubes)
- 6 C. Chicken Broth
- 1 large apple (Peeled, cored and diced)
- 1/2 C. apple juice

So this recipe is pretty simple. Basically all you need to do is peel and dice the apple, squash and onion. Place the onion in the pot first so that you can cook them until they start to appear to be translucent. Once they look translucent then you can add the squash, apple and broth. Cook all the ingredients until they come to a boil then let them simmer for 30-45 minutes. Once the squash and apple are soft the you can place the soup in a blender until it comes out creamy! Right now Im at the stage of letting everything simmer. I hope this tastes okay!! If not at least I have left over pasta from last night.

Simmer, simmer, simmer! Can't wait to try this soup out!

 

 Well, here's my soup. I give it a B. Honestly it wasn't my favorite. Not that it wasn't good but I guess Im not a big squash person. I usually like squash soup at restaurants but I think this one was a little to strong. Zac really liked it though so he is taking it for left overs.