Get Ready!

We have finally gotten moved into our home!!!!! Yay!!!!!!! 

I still have quite a bit of unpacking, organizing and decorating to do, and get some pots, but I plan to start posting some recipes again soon.  Maybe a meal plan or two so we can use up what we have on hand because I seem to have an over abundance of ground beef now that I have my freezers and the food from my sons home.  I also have quite a bit of canned food that needs to be used up.

Here's to the future and lots of delicious meals.

Jennifer

Macaroni Salad

Macaroni Salad

Every year during the times of plenty, in early June and again in early August (and as often as we can in between) we make macaroni salad.  This is a very simple thing to make, I don't know why we don't make it year round, but we usually only do it during the summer months.  Well, not this year, this year we made it in March.  This is a comfort food for us and during this pandemic, we wanted something comforting.  We had all the ingredients, so we just whipped it right up and there ya go.

Macaroni Salad

8 ounces of elbow macaroni, cooked and rinsed in cold water
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium cucumber, quartered long ways and sliced
salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbs mayonnaise (adjust to your taste)

Optional: diced tomato, our family prefers it without this.

Mix everything together in a large bowl, and it's done.  It is best if left to chill overnight and serve the next day.

Instant Pot Peas and Potatoes

Instant Pot Peas and Potatoes

I seen a video the other day about making a "Depression Era" Potato Soup (stove top version) and since my mom and I both love Potato Soup I thought I would give it a shot, but it just didn't seem like it was "right", but I made it none the less and after tasting it we both agreed that it would be better as a Peas and Potato because it was so much like my granny made it.  So here we go.

Peas and Potatoes

4 lb potatoes, peeled and chopped
3/4 c water
1 can evaporated milk
1/2 stick butter
1 can peas
salt and pepper to taste

I peeled and chopped up about 4lbs of potatoes and put them into the instant pot with the water for 5 minutes and I let it release naturally for 5 minutes, then manually released the rest of the steam. I did not drain the water as that is part of the 'depression era' way of this recipe.  I added in 1 can of evaporated milk and 1/2 stick of butter.  I mashed part of the potatoes leaving the rest chunky because this isn't supposed to be mashed potatoes.  I added salt and pepper to taste and 1 can of drained peas.  I did not heat the peas as the potatoes were hot enough to warm them through.

We ate this as is and I must say that it was very good.  My husband even had a bowl and he doesn't like most green foods.  He actually went back the next day and finished them off instead of having breakfast.

Take care and enjoy this extra time with your family.

God has His Plan!

God has His Plan!

As previously posted, I mentioned that February sort of got away from me when my uncle passed away and I never fully got it back on track with my meal plans.  I never gave it much more thought because I knew that, since I had not followed my plan, I never did the recap and finale of my pantry clean out.

Now we are at the end of March and yes I did cook at home, just not as much as I should have.  We have been trying to prepare for this shut in.  My husband returned from Egypt, the day before it was announced about the delayed and stopped flights, Thank God for that.  He is still working, as of March 28, since he works in a restaurant that does delivery and pick/up.  He's not making much money because of this but at least he's still working.

God's plan was to keep our pantry fully stocked. Little did we know that was why we weren't following MY plan.

I have gone shopping for the essentials and stocked up on some things that I felt like we would need if this continued for a while.  I bought us flour (both self rising and all purpose), I canned us some Egyptian style veg (this will take 3 weeks to set up), I went to a food bank on the 6th and 27th and received some nice food, ground beef, 3 packs with 2 half pound jalapeno/pepper jack hamburger patties (might fry this up and use it as ground beef in a chili or stew), 6 hearts of Romaine, 2 pints of vanilla yogurt, a small pack of beef weiners (bought some BBQ to go on them) 1 white onion, a bag of starbucks coffee, bagels, rolls and breads, some various canned foods, beans and rice.

I have decided that instead of my usual drink, Dr Pepper, that I would start making tea and drinking that instead.  Normally I would continue with the Dr Pepper, but with hubby not making much right now and my check has gone towards the bills, funds are a little tight, so I cut what I can.

What I can show you, picture wise, is a nice tuna salad sandwich that we made from our food pantry box, in which we received some pre-made tuna and pickles with onion along with these delightful rolls.

We also had a nice breakfast one morning of a southwestern omelette with provolone cheese served sandwich style on an anything bagel that was provided in the a fore mentioned pantry box.  The omelette was made with chopped onion and green peppers sauteed in butter before mixed in the eggs.

I will post again with a few more pictures and actual meals that we had.

Take care everyone and stay safe.  If we all do our part this virus will run it's course and we will be free to go to work, attend school and live our lives as normal once again.

Delay, delay, delay

I'm so sorry for the delays!  We thought we were on the home stretch with finishing our home and moving in, however that turned out to not happen after all.  The contractors failed to show up for work most of February and very little was completed.  We still have no heat, along with unfinished ceilings, floors and the cabinets are not back up. No plumbing in the kitchen has been hooked back up and everything needs a good scrubbing.

All of this on top of losing my uncle last month and my husband still being out of town has just pushed my depression back into overdrive.  Neither mom or I have been cooking.  We did have an enchilada soup that I haven't shared because it wasn't good, so we will tweak it and try again in a bit and pray that it works that time and we've had pizza, can't go wrong with pizza.  Other than that we've had breakfast foods and take out.  I promise to get back to cooking soon, hubby should be back next week and I will have no choice but to cook for him because he's not much into take out.  We will see how things go.

On a bright note, my stepson has completed his first and second rounds of chemo and is now back home with only weekly trips for treatment.  Thank God, I am praying for a full recovery to his leukemia.

Happy Cooking!

Not Ignoring The Blog

I promise that I'm not ignoring the blog.  I had some work done on my back this past Friday and mom fixed us a delicious meatloaf for dinner that night.  Since then, we have pretty much had leftovers and turkey bacon sandwiches up until last night when I decided to make us an egg and cheese omelette to add to our turkey bacon sandwich.  I promise to get back to cooking and sharing recipes again shortly.

Spaghetti Bolognese

Spaghetti Bolognese

That's a mouth full to say, but it's so very good.  As I continue with our second month of cleaning out the pantry, I realized that I had so much pasta and didn't really want to make just plain spaghetti to use it up, and then I remembered making this years ago for my family and decided to do it again.  I will admit that this is not my recipe, but one found on Kraft's recipe site.  I will link to it shortly. 
 

I only had to splurge and buy a couple of things that I don't always have on hand and that was the Zesty Italian Dressing and the Cream Cheese, I also picked up a can of diced tomatoes that did not contain green chili. I had a small green pepper so I chopped it up into tiny pieces and snuck it in there.  I served it with some bread I had in the fridge topped with butter and garlic and broiled to brown it.

Spaghetti with Zesty Bolognese Sauce

1 small onion, chopped

1/4 cup KRAFT Zesty Italian Dressing (I bought an 8oz bottle and used all of it)

1 lb. extra-lean ground beef

1 can (15 oz.) tomato sauce

1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained

3/4 lb. spaghetti, uncooked

2 Tbsp. PHILADELPHIA Neufchatel Cheese (I used Cream Cheese)

1/4 cup KRAFT Grated Parmesan Cheese

 

Cook and stir onions in dressing in large skillet on medium heat 5 min. or until crisp-tender. Add meat; cook on medium-high heat until browned, stirring frequently. Stir in tomato sauce and tomatoes. Bring to boil; simmer on medium-low 15 min., stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, cook spaghetti as directed on package, omitting salt.

Remove sauce from heat. Add Neufchatel (Cream Cheese); stir until melted. Drain spaghetti; place in large bowl. Top with sauce and Parmesan.

 

This is a very tasty dish, one day I might make it exactly as directed, but today was not that day.

 

Enjoy!