The What's For Dinner Thread - October'11 (recipe index in OP)

[franandaj]

Okay, so I take it back. I'll totally stuff sausage again because it was SO worth it.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how people can buy things from stores when it tastes so good when you make it at home! There is simply NO comparison between homemade and store-bought sausage.

I made pasta and tomato butter sauce as well. This was the best thing I've ever made. Hands down.

Will you be posting the recipe? I'll try making it as sausage patties, I can't deal with the whole casings thing!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Alison - Cevapcici sausages are my favourite.

Here's a link to recipes, with the various variations for the various countries.


But I also found this on the net as well. My local sausage shop makes a spicy version of the cevaps and I think the addition of cayenne pepper might bring it close to the mark. In their cevaps, they add fresh chilli or red capsicum (finely minced)...I know because I see it as I'm cooking it.

1 lb. ground lamb, pork or veal
1 lb Lean ground beef
1/2 lb Ground lamb
1/2 lb Ground pork
4 Garlic cloves; finely chopped
1 ts Salt
1 ts Baking soda
2 ts Freshly ground black pepper
1 ts Cayenne pepper; or more
Seasoned pepper and garlic p
1 Egg white; beaten

 

[LindsayDunn228]

Morning, all!

Today is leftover chicken pot pie and I can't wait! Boy, was that sucker good! Here's the recipe and my long story about making it:

Chicken Pot Pie

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cubed
• 1 cup sliced carrots
• 1 cup frozen green peas
• 1/2 cup sliced celery
• 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 celery seed
• 1 3/4 cups chicken broth
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 (9 inch) deep-dish unbaked pie crusts (I used a crusts that said "buttery and flaky." I also baked the bottom crust for about 6 minutes before adding the other things to it so the bottom crust wouldn't be soggy.)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C.)

1. In a saucepan, combine chicken, carrots, peas, and celery. Add water (I used chicken stock) to cover and boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, drain and set aside.
2. In the saucepan over medium heat, cook onions in butter until soft and translucent. Stir in flour, salt, pepper, and celery seed. Slowly stir in chicken broth and milk. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick. Remove from heat and set aside.(Reviews for the recipe said to double the sauce because the pie was dry, so I did. Very good idea!)
3. Place the chicken mixture in bottom pie crust. Pour hot liquid mixture over. (I didn't do this. I combined the veggies and chicken with the sauce and then put them in the crusts.) Cover with top crust, seal edges, and cut away excess dough. Make several small slits in the top to allow steam to escape.
4. 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.

I did a few things different. I roasted 2 huge skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts for around 40 minutes at 375. I simply rubbed them with olive oil and seasoned generously with salt and pepper. Once cool to the touch, I removed the meat and cut it into chunks. Mmmm, much better than just boiling it.

Ok, I was doing really good at this point. It all went to pot when I sat down to get everything combined and into the crust. When I got home, I put the crusts in the fridge. When I was putting the top crust on, sigh, I couldn't get it out. When trying to gently loosen the edges, it just fell out in 20 pieces.

So what did I do?

I started to cry!!!

I then told Scott that it was a disaster and I was going to throw the whole thing out. He convinced me to just try to get the rest of the top crust semi- on top of the pie and bake it anyway. So I did. It was so ugly going into the oven. I was so frustrated.

End result? Not the prettiest on top but the most delicious chicken pot pie I have ever had!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Goofyluver]

Jen, you are such a smart girl! I will message you on FB

I haven't gotten a message.

Will you be posting the recipe? I'll try making it as sausage patties, I can't deal with the whole casings thing!

You know what, the casings weren't bad. I thought it would be much worse than it really was. Of course, UncleR was the stuffer and I was the meat pusher, so she had to touch them more.

I'll post the recipe later after work. But, it was VERY simple and the most flavorful sausage I've ever tasted. This one was all pork with 4 seasonings. That's it! And the recipe is portioned by the pound, so they give you the amount of seasoning per pound of meat, so you can customize it. FABULOUS!

End result? Not the prettiest on top but the most delicious chicken pot pie I have ever had!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First,

Second, let me tell you what I do when things like this happen. I refer to that recipe as "rustic" and go on like it was supposed to be that way the whole time.

Sounds delish, Lindsay!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Good morning y'all. Back to work today. Then J has his orthodontist appt. after school so I'll go with him there.

Tonight's dinner will be Veracruz-style tilapia. I've posted the recipe here before. It's one of our faves.

Hope everyone has a great Monday!

 

[dgbg100106]

WFD? We are trying out a supper club and the restaurant they picked for tonight is the Napa Rose at Disney's Grand Californian. One of our favorite restaurants!



That's great news! Do you still have to keep the foot above your heart? When do you leave on the cruise? I thought it was the 8th, but it sounds like sooner.

I hope dinner was good, and you had a wonderful evening...

I tried not keeping it elevated yesterday and it swelled up and throbbed by the evening, but that is a such an improvement from what I have been going through.

So I can sit for spells then I need to lie back down to recover from it. I did laundry yesterday, that was fun..... but it took me all day, and I was so tired by the time I finished. I just have 0 zero energy.

But the Dr is happy and therefor I am too...

The cruise departs in Feb 6th..

 

[dgbg100106]

First, I made a tamale pie recipe from Sandra Lee's cookbook. The recipe called for a Jiffy cornbread mix, so what emerged from the oven was a sweet and spicy tamale pie. The Jiffy was a bad choice...it was too sweet for the spice. It would have been fine had it not been the sweet cornbread.

Tonight was supposed to be our date night in. We're postponing that until tomorrow. And I think I'm going to go pout about our night.

Hopefully Saturday will be better.

to everyone and to everyone who I didn't reply to.

Hope the weekend got better for you... I have never liked the Jif mix and everyone, and I mean everyone over here on the East Coast, makes sweet cornbread. It taste like corn cake to me. I cant deal with it.

I grew up in Texas and we had cracklin cornbread or Mexican cornbread, NEVER sweet cornbread.

So do you think it would have been good if not for the sweetness? So if you made your own cornbread?


Plus it is ok to pout, I figured that out from all my wonderful friends here....

 

[dgbg100106]

The water's back on!

I need a margarita!

 

[dgbg100106]

Good morning y'all!

After last night's revalry, I'm hoping today is calmer.

Other than some good cooking, we're having a movie-watching day.

Tonight's dinner is french onion soup. This will be my first try at this dish. Wish me luck!

And y'all have a great Saturday!

I am sure you dont need any luck and it will turn out amazing...

I got to the point I was making this so much that I went out and bought the bowls so it would look right.... I know silly but, sometimes I just do that.

 

[liamsaunt]

I MUST have the recipe to this! I am drooooooooling!

Mushroom and Goat Cheese Mini-Fritattas

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, plus more for coating the pan
• 1 medium yellow onion, medium dice
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
• 8 ounces cremini mushrooms
• 4 ounces chèvre (fresh goat cheese)
• 9 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons whole milk
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning the onions and mushrooms

1. Heat the oven to 350°F and arrange a rack in the middle. Generously coat the wells of a 12-well muffin pan with butter; set aside.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil and the measured butter in a medium frying pan over medium heat until the oil is shimmering and the butter has melted.
3. Add the diced onion and cook, stirring rarely, until it is a deep golden brown, adjusting the heat as necessary if it starts to brown too much, about 30 minutes. Season well with salt and pepper, add the thyme, and stir to combine. Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl.
4. Meanwhile, clean, trim, and slice the mushrooms 1/2 inch thick; set aside. Crumble the goat cheese into pea-sized pieces and set aside.
5. Return the frying pan to medium heat, add the remaining tablespoon of oil, and heat until shimmering. Add the sliced mushrooms, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring rarely, until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Add to the bowl with the onion. Add the goat cheese to the bowl and stir to evenly combine; set aside.
6. Place the eggs and milk in a large bowl and whisk until the eggs are broken up and evenly combined with the milk, about 1 minute. Add the measured salt and whisk to combine.
7. Divide the onion-mushroom-cheese mixture evenly among the wells of the prepared muffin pan. Fill each well almost to the top with the egg mixture.
8. Bake until each frittata is puffed and the center is just set, about 12 to 15 minutes. Remove the pan to a wire rack until it’s cool enough to handle, about 5 minutes (the frittatas will deflate). Run a small knife around the perimeter of each well to loosen and remove the frittatas. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Hey, everyone. Sorry I didn't get on yesterday, but things were bad here! I mean really bad!

Yikes Glynis, between the van and the sewer you had a rough weekend!! I hope this week is better.

Update: Pig casings smell bad. Who knew?

the sausage looked good though!

I only have a couple of pictures from the weekend. Yesterday was roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and asparagus (no pictures), plus a meatball sub for Liam since he hates chicken.

Saturday was a pork roast, mashed sweet potatoes and roasted broccolini (no pictures), plus spaghetti and meatballs for me and for Liam:

Here is a mustard chicken salad I made for lunches this week:

This weekend I got new bento lunchboxes for John and I to use. There are four containers that stack and fit inside a thermal container, so the food stays hot or cold until lunchtime. Here is today's bento box--this is breakfast and lunch:

 

[dgbg100106]

Hey, everyone. Sorry I didn't get on yesterday, but things were bad here! I mean really bad! The main sewer line into our house backed up Thursday morning, and I didn't know anything about it. Timmy and I were out running errands all day long, and then I was gone to the Scout dinner after that. By Thursday night, it was nasty! Seriously! Alan tried to fix things, but our little 30 foot snake didn't do anything. So, at about 11:00 Thursday night we had to call a plumber. He didn't get to our house until about 1:00 Friday morning, but he was able to fix the problem. He found a "block" about 50 feet out from our house. He thinks it was tree roots (we have an abundance of Aspen trees here). So, by 2:00 the flood was subsiding.

Friday was spent cleaning up the hazmat ick in the basement. Luckily, it was confined to 2 rooms, so it could have been much worse. Right now, the plumber is sending a small camera through the sewer, to make sure that things are all clear. It's been crazy around here... that's about all I have to say about it, now!

Dinner tonight will be a recipe that Jen pinned on Pinterest. Corn and bacon pie. Sounds good and comforting. The only difference is that I'm not going to be making a pie crust. I've got a couple in the freezer, and since we've got Katie's play to get to tonight, I'm taking a shortcut.

I'm also going to be making some bread again. The 7-grain bread recipe I've found is fabulous for sandwiches, and the kids love it.

I haven't read back, so I don't know if I'm missing anything really important. Just know that I'm praying for all of you!

oh that is awful but I am glad things are already heading in the right direction...

Hope your days are getting better...

 

[dgbg100106]

Mr A is finally feeling better. Hopefully all the test results come in and he can go back to school Monday.

My MIL passes away this past week. I hope to hear tonight about the arrangements. A will not be able to attend anything outside. The cold air will start up the coughing fits again. He can not afford any more time away from school.

I am hoping February brings better luck January kind of sucked.

WFD is breaded pork tenderloin red cabbage and apples and a salad of some sort.

glad Mr A is feeling better and sorry to hear about your MIL

 

[dgbg100106]

Jen glad you are back to running water and electricity!

Glynis, that's awful, we had tree roots that had disconnected a sewer line in one of buildings, that was no fun and expensive to fix. I hope your luck is better.

Janice, sorry to hear about your MIL. Glad that Mr A is feeling better tho.

Kim, I hope you are living it up on your cruise!

Me, I've been scrubbing walls and cabinets to remove the nasty nicotine residue from the old lady who was a chain smoker in the newest vacant apartment. Hopefully the Contractor won't charge us two arms and a leg for this place, maybe just one.

I am NOT cooking dinner tonight!

I think David was suffering from cabin fever yesterday and he scrubbed all the cabinets in the kitchen, cleaned the microwave, all of the appliances and mopped the floor.... Of course I just watched and felt kind of bad that I could not help.

Now he is sore from all the work hopefully you are feeling good...

 

[dgbg100106]

Well...I will on Pinterest on other recipe sites trying to plan a MONTH'S worth of meals.

DH has this new, brilliant idea of buying most of our groceries once a month and just buying perishables when we need it.

So now I am meal planning so I know how much of eat meat and such to get at Sam's this week.

We buy our proteins on 6 month intervals, we buy a whole cow, several chicken, fish(swordfish, salmon, tuna steaks), turkey, pork, and venison, in loins, steaks, and ground to last us 6 months.

Then we buy perishables every other week. We do not buy many prepared items that come in a box, mostly just staples and we cook from that.

We also shop at Sams (ie in my pictures you see huge bottles of things), and if you have not looked into it, you might want to try the plus membership. You know that if you don't like it you can cancel within the membership time frame and get your money back. The plus gives you things called e-values, they are coupons that come into your account every week and you get cents off and % off of proteins, fresh fruits, vegetables, paper products, just about everything they sell. I have saved well over the cost of the membership.

 

[dgbg100106]

Hello, all. I'm not going to say "good morning" because I'm reserving judgment on that. Yesterday was not so good, and I'm kind of dreading the whole "bad things come in 3's" thing. We've had our sewer disaster, and last night, as we were trying to get to Katie's play, the van stopped working. We popped the hood to find that the battery was so corroded, it had eaten through part of the casing, and broken off. NOT GOOD! Alan shuttled us to the play in his car, then came home and got a temporary fix done on the van. I really don't want to find out what the third thing is going to be. I just don't know if I can handle anything else sucking money out of our account!

So, dinner last night. The bacon corn pie was pretty good. I had to make some adjustments, so I'm sure the flavor profile was off, but not by much. I think it would have been better as a brunch item, but we all liked it.

Today I've got a roast in the crock pot, using the recipe that's currently up on Plain Chicken. It smells good, so we'll see. We'll have a green salad on the side, and some strawberry lemon bars for dessert.

Right now I'm gulping down my 3rd diet Coke, in an effort to get rid of a headache before church starts. Wish me luck!

I am so sorry that things have been rough for you this week. Hopefully things will look up soon.

I know it might be too late for you but it might help some else, my Godsons father is a licensed mechanic and he told me after seeing my husband battery in his truck to pull the vehicle out of the driveway to some place you dont mind it getting nasty and pour a real coke, not diet or anything but the plain ole coke over the battery, it really will clean it off and the rinse with water.

It worked like a charm, I mean it looked great after we did it.

 

[dgbg100106]

Hi everyone!

Today I'm very sore, I hope we don't try to do too much today.

Sorry I was afraid of that.... you know my remedy would be two tylenol and a martini..

 

[dgbg100106]

So, the pork is ground and seasoned and I learned something very important.

Being 4'11" is a bad thing in the kitchen. I'm having to stand on a stool to feed the meat into the KitchenAid.

Sorry to laugh but I think that has to be cute, can you get a picture for us...

 

[dgbg100106]

The first time DH walked in on standing on a chair in the kitchen he said, "I didn't realize I married an Oompa Loompa!"

I am short too...Don't feel bad.

So I have to tell you that I married very young and stayed married for 11 years in a very bad relationship, but he was 6'6" and I am 5'4" it was an odd feeling every time I stood next to him or tried to reach something that he put up in the kitchen.....

Now I am married to my best friend and to me he is the most perfect thing in the world... Also we are the same exact height, well he may be 1/2" taller than me but it is such a happy thing for me. I look him in the eye and not straining to see him.

So I like being a little shorter than average...

 

[dgbg100106]

Okay, so I take it back. I'll totally stuff sausage again because it was SO worth it.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how people can buy things from stores when it tastes so good when you make it at home! There is simply NO comparison between homemade and store-bought sausage.

I made pasta and tomato butter sauce as well. This was the best thing I've ever made. Hands down.

Awesome and it looks wonderful! Is the recipe on your blog?

 

[dgbg100106]

Alison - Cevapcici sausages are my favourite.

Here's a link to recipes, with the various variations for the various countries.


But I also found this on the net as well. My local sausage shop makes a spicy version of the cevaps and I think the addition of cayenne pepper might bring it close to the mark. In their cevaps, they add fresh chilli or red capsicum (finely minced)...I know because I see it as I'm cooking it.

1 lb. ground lamb, pork or veal
1 lb Lean ground beef
1/2 lb Ground lamb
1/2 lb Ground pork
4 Garlic cloves; finely chopped
1 ts Salt
1 ts Baking soda
2 ts Freshly ground black pepper
1 ts Cayenne pepper; or more
Seasoned pepper and garlic p
1 Egg white; beaten

Yummy!


This sounds so good, so has anyone made it without the casing, I was thinking that is might dry out to much?

 

[dgbg100106]

This weekend I got new bento lunchboxes for John and I to use. There are four containers that stack and fit inside a thermal container, so the food stays hot or cold until lunchtime. Here is today's bento box--this is breakfast and lunch:

Did you order the boxes or pick them up locally.... I have seen these a couple of times on TV but have not been able to find them.