Soft Pretzels

You know those soft pretzels you can buy at the fair or mall pretzels shops? Yes, that is what I was craving. I've made pretzels before using different recipes but they have turned out all malformed and with a rubbery  texture. So I went back to the internet searching and came across this gem that Christa Rose posted on allrecipes.com http://allrecipes.com/recipe/buttery-soft-pretzels/. I followed her recipe to a tee and they came out beautifully! Fresh out of the oven, we ate them with a cheesy cream of broccoli soup. WOW! These will be made again. Maybe next time I'll serve them with a gooey, cheddar cheese dipping sauce.

Salisbury Steak

Come on out, all you mushroom and onion lovers. This meal is for YOU! This delectable comfort dish is great with buttery, sour cream mashed potatoes and your favorite veggie.  

Mushrooms thinly sliced

Salisbury steak simmering in my onion mushroom gravy

Patties
1 lb ground beef
1/4 cup onion minced
1 t yellow mustard
1 T ketchup
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 egg
2 T milk
2 garlic cloves
pepper
pinch of sage

Gravy
2 cups beef broth
1 8oz package white mushroom thinly sliced
1/2 cup onion thinly sliced
2 T flour
1/4 cup water
pepper to taste

Combine patty ingredients together and shape into 5 flattened circles. Using a nonstick electric skillet on medium heat, cook meat for about 4 min on each side. Don't worry if the patties are not cooked through at this point. Remove patties from heat and set aside. Drain most of the fat left in the skillet and then saute mushrooms and onions on medium heat until onions and mushrooms have softened. Once mushrooms and onions have softened, add beef broth and allow mixture to reduce for a few minutes. In a separate container combine flour and water stirring to a smooth, paste like consistency. Slowly pour flour mixture into the broth stirring constantly. Add patties back to the broth and simmer on low until ready to enjoy!

Vanilla Custard

I have a serious love for all things cool, smooth, creamy, melt in your mouth deliciousness, pudding, custard, vanilla custard, custard with farm fresh peaches, custard with whipped cream AND peaches. Did I mention custard yet? I recently drove past a local farmer's orchard advertising peaches for sale so of course I stopped. The smell alone was enough to convince me. Thankfully, the drive home was short lest I be tempted to consume my juicy goodness before I could prepare my dessert. Arriving home I began searching through different recipes and agree with the title in the Luna Cafe's http://thelunacafe.com/ultimate-vanilla-pudding-perfect-stove-top-custard/ "Ultimate vanilla pudding perfect stove top custard". The result? Simply, the ultimate custard! The trick to smooth custard? Stir quickly and often to ensure no lumps form. I let my custard set overnight in an 8x8 inch glass pan with a piece of plastic wrap over the surface of the dessert. To serve, spoon custard in individual dishes, top with fresh peaches and dollop with plenty of whipped cream. Enjoy!

Thank you again to Luna Cafe for the wonderful recipe! 

3 large egg yolks
9 table­spoons sugar
3 table­spoon corn­starch
3/8 tea­spoon salt
3 cups milk 

3 table­spoons unsalted but­ter, room tem­per­a­ture, cut into 12 chunks
1½ tea­spoon vanilla 

1. In a small bowl, whisk egg yolks with ¼ cup of milk until well com­bined. Reserve.
2. In a 3-quart saucepan, whisk together sugar, corn­starch, and salt, and then slowly whisk in the cold milk, a lit­tle at a time to ensure no lumps form. Scrape the bot­tom and sides of the saucepan with a sil­i­con (heat­proof) spatula.
3. Over medium heat, stir­ring con­stantly, bring to a bare simmer.
4. Ladle ½ cup of the hot pud­ding into the egg yolks and whisk rapidly. Repeat two times. Now add the egg yolk mix­ture back to the saucepan. This tem­pers the egg and helps to pre­vent curdling.
5. Lower the heat to medium-low and con­tinue stir­ring the pud­ding until it thick­ens to the point that it coats the back of the spat­ula, from 2–4 minutes.
6. Remove from the heat and stir in the but­ter and vanilla until the but­ter is melted.
7. Imme­di­ately pour the pud­ding into a medium mix­ing bowl or 4-cup glass mea­sur­ing cup. (If you think you may have lumps, pour the pud­ding through a sin­gle mesh strainer, using a plas­tic spat­ula to push the pud­ding through.) Alter­na­tively, you can pour pud­ding directly into six ½-cup serv­ing dishes. (The rea­son I rarely do this is because I pre­fer mounded servings.)
8. Quickly press a small piece of plas­tic wrap directly on the sur­face of the pud­ding to pre­vent a skin from forming.
9. Let cool, and then refrig­er­ate until chilled, at least 2 hours.
10. To serve, spoon pud­ding into six, ½-cup ramekins (if you didn’t do this earlier).
11. Top each serv­ing with a gen­er­ous mound of whipped cream.
12. Serve imme­di­ately.

Makes about 3 cups, or six ½-cup servings.

Egg Rolls

I absolutely adore the taste of egg rolls yet always thought they would be a pain to make...not true! I searched the web for a while looking for something moderately healthy, baked and easy enough to make for a weekday supper. I didn't find one particular recipe that shouted "Make me!" and so I decided to try some experimenting in the pantry and came up with this tasty, inexpensive and easy meal.

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 bag of coleslaw mix
2 medium carrots shredded
1 t ginger, divided
1/4 t black pepper
1/2 t garlic powder
2 garlic cloves minced
1 T soy sauce
1 pkg egg roll wrappers
Canola oil

Cut chicken into small pieces, Heat 2 T oil in a Wok or skillet. Saute chicken with garlic cloves, 1/2 t ginger and soy sauce. Meanwhile, combine coleslaw and shredded carrots with the black pepper, garlic powder and remaining ginger. Remove chicken from pan when cooked through and saute coleslaw mixture for about 3 min or until slightly crisp tender. Add slaw mixture to the cooked chicken and set aside.

If folding egg rolls are intimidating, take a look at the picture below courtesy of http://scarlettabakes.com/

 
I suggest placing about 2 heaping tablespoons of the mixture in the middle of the wrapper and sealing the edges with a little water.

Pour about 1-2 t of canola oil on your baking sheet. Brush tops of egg rolls with additional canola oil before baking at 375F for 20-25min. To ensure that your rolls have an even crisp flip rolls half-way through baking.

Lastly...Eat Up! Serve with fried rice and your favorite dipping sauce.

Chicken Bundles with Roasted Asparagus and Rice Pilaf

Another meal to add to your top 10 favorites... I love pan frying the chicken bundles before finishing them in the oven. The result is a toasted, buttery and seasoned bread crumb layer that perfectly melds with a Swiss cheese tender chicken center. The green pepper and onion rice pilaf and roasted asparagus were the perfect complements to this delicious dinner.

Chicken Bundles

2 Chicken breast-butterflied and pounded thin

4 Pieces of Swiss cheese-if you are not a fan of Swiss, Monterey jack would be a nice substitute

Seasoned bread crumbs-you can use premade or make your own, see recipe below

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

Seasoned Bread Crumbs

3/4 cup panko

1 piece of whole wheat bread toasted and crumbled

1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

A few dashes of black pepper

Combine all ingredients for seasoned breadcrumbs

Combine milk and egg in a shallow dish. Place 1/2 piece of cheese in center of pounded chicken breast and roll longwise up. Secure with a toothpick. Dip chicken bundle in egg mixture and then coat in breadcrumbs.

In a skillet over medium heat, heat 2 tablespoons of oil. Brown chicken bundles, rotating to ensure evenness. Transfer bundles to an oven safe dish and bake at 350F for about 25 minutes or until juices run clear and chicken is no longer pink.

Swiss Cheese Sauce

1 T flour

1T butter

3/4 cup milk

1 slice Swiss cheese

Melt butter in a sauce pan over medium heat, add flour and continue stirring for about 30 seconds. Slowly add in milk and stir until thickened. Reduce heat to low and add cheese stirring until melted. Pour sauce over baked chicken.

Rice Pilaf

3 cups uncooked white rice

2 T butter

1/3 cup chopped green pepper

1/2 cup chopped white onion

2 chicken bouillon cubs

4 1/2 water

In a 2 quart pan combine rice, onion, pepper and onion. Sauté mixture for 5 minutes stirring frequently. Add water and bouillon cubes and bring rice mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cover, simmering on low for 15 minutes.

Roasted Asparagus

1 lb. asparagus

2 T olive oil

1/4 t garlic powder

1/4 t black pepper

1/2 t Italian seasoning

Wash and trim ends from asparagus. Spread asparagus in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with oil and sprinkle the garlic powder, pepper and Italian seasonings over the asparagus. Bake at 400F for 10-15 minutes or until asparagus is crisp tender. Flip asparagus half-way through cooking.

 

Chicken Stroganoff with Sauteed Zucchini

 Tender chicken meets savory mushroom white sauce.Yum! This stroganoff is most delicious! I love how quickly this meal comes together and it tastes like you've spent hours in the kitchen slaving over it.

Chicken Stroganoff

1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 T butter
8 oz. button mushrooms thinly sliced
2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts sliced into bit sized pieces
1 cup chicken stock or broth
1/4 t black pepper
1/4 t garlic powder
3 T flour
1 C sour cream

In a sauce pan over medium heat sauté chicken and onion in butter. When chicken is about half way done add sliced mushrooms. Continue cooking until chicken is cooked through and mushrooms are tender. Add chicken broth, pepper and garlic powder and simmer on low heat for about 5 min. In a separate bowl, combine and flour and sour cream, mixing until flour is thoroughly incorporated with the sour cream. Increase heat to medium-high and add sour cream and flour mixture to the chicken. Continue stirring as the sauce thickens for about 1 min and then decrease heat to low. Toss your favorite pasta with the sauce or serve sauce over the pasta. 

Zucchini
2 medium zucchini thinly sliced
1 T canola or olive oil
pepper and garlic powder to taste

Slice zucchini and place oil, pepper and garlic powder in a nonstick pan sautéing over medium heat until zucchini softens to your preference. I prefer an almost crisp tender. Serve alongside the chicken stroganoff.

Chili-Rubbed Tilapia

• 
  
• This dish brings the heat! I made the recipe as directed minus the salt and it tasted great. Pan frying the fish delivered a tender fillet. In the future I would scale the chili powder down to 1 tablespoon. We served the fish with roasted sweet potatoes with Strawberry Honey Glazed Pork Chops  , french cut green beans and Parmesan Breadsticks . The mild taste from the green beans and bread sticks really complements the spicy kick from the fillets. 
• Enjoy~ 
• Recipe from Eating Well 
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic, powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided- I skipped the salt
• 1 pound tilapia, Pacific sole or other firm white fish fillets
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Combine chili powder, garlic powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt on a plate. Dredge fillets in the spice mixture to coat. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the fish and cook until just opaque in the center, gently turning halfway, 5 to 7 minutes total. Divide among 4 plates.