"Carrot Cake"

I know its been a while. In light of the Easter holiday, I found a cute cake to make. Its a "carrot cake" Pound cake, vanilla frosting and about a pound and half of orange jelly bellies. Easy to make. a lot of time to put into the the decorating but it turned out cute. Its an idea to play with other shapes for the future and see what they come out like.

Applebees in Mc Henry

I got a night away and had dinner with a good friend. We each had gotten a wrap. I had tasted the Fajita Roll up. It was good. The sauce didn't live up to the standards I thought it should.But its a chain restaurant and it all can't be great. The stinker of the night is I had given my friend cake balls... and it seems like the restaurant  had taken them and eaten them when they were accidentally left behind....

Chinese Dinner

Just a quick post about Chinese dinner. I did shrimp for lent. I'm not the real religious type but sometimes I try to stick to traditions. This was great. I served it with Shrimp egg rolls. Which weren't so great. I do not recommend frozen egg rolls. They just do not taste the same as fresh ones.

Lazy dinner

So I ran out of bread crumbs. Tonight was pork chop night. I dredged the chops in egg, pepper, milk. Then I food processed the heck out of instant stuffing in a box. I tweaked it with some sweet curry powder, garlic salt, Cajun spices.I'm hoping it comes out ok. I will post pictures as soon as its on a plate.

Happy eating.

I have done it!

Pictures will follow after I am finished dipping them all. I have successfully make Guiness Cake Balls. I was able to infuse the beer into the cake batter and frosting that I mix in to the cake. I have decided that it will be a dark chocolate coating with a white chocolate decoration on top of it.

Meat and Cheese Tortellini

This was another crock pot exploration. I  took some ground beef I had and sweet Italian sausage and cooked it up. I did take the Italian sausage out of its casing. It just worked better that way for me. I took my homemade spaghetti sauce, mushrooms, and the meat after it was browned and put it in the crock pot. You just have to brown the meat not cook it all the way. I then added some basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, garlic salt, a dash of onion powder, and fennel seed to the mix. I let it cook for 4 hours. About 15 min before I was ready to serve. I added a large container of three cheese tortellini. ( I haven't quite taken the time to make it by hand yet, so its store bought). I then served it up in a bowl and put mozzarella cheese on top of it.
It came out very good. In my opinion. Another quick fix meal. Worked out great. Even my daughter had some of it and she is 10 months. 

Happy Eating.

Quick Chicken

Ok so I found a crock pot recipe for quick chicken. My crock must be super charged because it never takes the amount of time that is listed. It seems that everything cooks in 4 hours or less. Most of the time the recipes I find say cook for 8 to 10 hours. This one cooked in about 3.

I used 2 1lb chicken breasts
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 cup of cooking sherry
4 slices of maple baccon
2 tablespoons of fresh chives.
8 oz of button mushrooms

I cooked the baccon til it was crisp. Then I cooked the chicken in the baccon fat ( yes I know its not a healthy dish)  for 5-7 min. Until the chicken is brown  on both sides.
Then you take chicken and put it into the crock. Cover it with the mushrooms.
Take the baccon grease and add the cream of chicken soup and sherry to it. Make sure it is well mixed then pour over chicken and mushrooms.
Cover and let cook. I had my crock set to low.
I served it with Broccoli.

My husband's comment was that it tasted like a moist turkey dinner. Like it fell right off the bone. So there was no left overs from it.
Hope it works as well for you as it did for me.

Stuffed Pork Loin

Tonight's dinner was stuffed pork loin. I had obtained two nice cuts of loin from Sam's Club and followed a simple recipe and I can say there was no left overs. I had bought a marinade which was tomato, basil and garlic. I have been a bit under the weather so I took some short cuts.

I split the loin in half but not all the way through. Then I coated the inside of the loin with the marinade/rub ( i say rub because I excluded the water it called for to make it thicker) then I took some Mozzarella cheese sticks I had in the fridge and wrapped them in Prosciutto. I then tied the loin together and coated the out side of it with the rub. I sear it in a pan for 6-8 min. then I transferred it to a dish and put it in the oven for about 20 min when my thermometer reached 155. I made a red wine reduction to go over the meat. I cooked down 1 cup red dry wine until it reduced to 1/2 cup. Then I added 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar and 2 tablespoons butter. I also added 1 table spoon light brown sugar to sweeten it up a bit.

It came out great. I need more practice tying string around meat but over all it was a hit with the family. Took about 1 and half start to finish.

Things to come

I have made a list of cooking projects to work on over the next few weeks. So I figured I would throw them out here. Give everyone something to look forward to reading. So here goes the list.
Guiness Cake balls.( it was requested)
German Chocolate cake balls
Carrot cake
Stuffed Pork loin
Cheese Cake
Chicken Parmesan rolls
Gluten Free cake balls
Its a wish list I hope to be able to accomplish all of it and have pictures of it all for you. Any other requests or ideas let me know.

Ketchup

so we did our normal family outing and wound up at a mall. They have a little fast food place called Ketchup. The food looked good. The best thing in the end was the fries. The beef sandwich was way too salty. It had been left in its water too long and all the salt travels with it. I am not a person that adds food to my salt. So it was a no for me. The sweet peppers on the sandwich were very soggy and had a funky taste. Some where between cotton candy and bread and butter pickles. So my opinion I would not eat there again, or spend the $8 for the meal.