Recipes

It has been a long time since I have posted anything about recipes and cooking. This is partly because Aaron was gone for while and so I wasn't trying new dishes. My friend Becca has these wonderful recipe exchanges that I love going to. These recipes are from the exchange we had in February, the theme was Salad. They were all fantastic! I also included my food calendar for the month. With Aaron home again, it is back to cooking fun stuff most nights and trying new recipes. I also attended a recipe exchange for March, but haven't received those recipes yet. As soon as I do I will post them because of course they are all yummy. Hope you enjoy!

Baking at Moms

While Ashton and I were visiting at my parents house over the holidays, my mom and I decided we would do some baking. I am pretty sure we spent four days straight in the kitchen either preparing for Christmas Eve dinner or just baking fun things to eat. It all started because we watched Martha Stewart and thought we should make fresh bread and jam. It was my first time making jam and of course I over cooked it so the jelly was super thick, but it still tasted really yummy.

Then we decided to make Aaron his favorite cookies. Then we had to follow tradition and make sugar cookies and decorate them. Ashton loved being in the kitchen with us. He had his little stool and stood with us the entire time. He even decorated his own cookies. Even though I ended up getting sick at the end of our baking, I had so much spending time in the kitchen with my mom. I can't wait to do our cooking challenge with our new cookbooks together. I didn't get pictures of everything we baked, but here are a few I did take.

Chocolate Sheath Cake Recipe

I was talking to my mom tonight and we realized that we did not have a typed copy of her fabulous chocolate sheath cake that I have been raving about for the past two posts. I typed it up tonight and thought I would post it in case anyone else would like to print it and add it to there recipe books. Enjoy, its yummy!

Tis the Season for Baking

This month I have actually done a lot of baking and it has been so much fun. Ashton knows the drill that when the mixer comes out it means something yummy is cooking in the kitchen. He grabs a chair, pulls it up to the counter and helps. He wants to put in all the ingredients and he especially loves licking the bowl and paddles when we are done. We have been baking pies and cookies practicing for the Holidays. It's something I always did with my mom and I am so excited that Ashton enjoys it too. If I'm lucky, he will continue to like it and he will become as good of cook as his daddy and mommy :).

I really enjoy baking and that is something I learned from my mom. I only wish I had more time to do it. I can make really yummy desserts, but they don't always look pretty. I am hoping one day I will learn how to make all my desserts look as pretty as hers. I know she will just tell me practice makes perfect, but a few classes couldn't hurt :).

Recipe Exchange

As I mentioned, I went to a recipe exchange this past week. Since I share recipes on my blog, I thought I would share all the wonderful recipes I received from this exchange. The theme for this month was Mexican food. While looking through the recipes, I realized I didn't even try all the food! Silly me, I don't know what I was thinking. What I did try I loved and I hope this helps me organize my recipes a little better. Hope you enjoy. Don't forget you have to click to enlarge the image and then re-save as a PDF. But if you want I can email the file to you, just let me know. :)

Once A Month Cooking

Sometimes when it's to hot in the evening to go to the park, we like to go to Sam's club and wonder around looking at all the fun stuff we usually ignore when grocery shopping. We were looking through the book aisle and I came across this cookbook that's called "Once A Month Cooking." As I mentioned in early posts, I sometimes feel like I spend half my time in the kitchen so I instantly took to the idea. Aaron and I scanned the book and decided a lot of the recipes sounded good and so we bought it. I went through the book and started picking out recipes that sounded good. It's an awesome book that comes with shopping lists, order of preparation, order of cooking lists, recipes, and more information than you could possible want about this program.

The next morning I decided I wanted to try it, but only cook two weeks at a time. I made my food calendar, made my shopping list, and once I picked up Ashton from school, we headed to the store. Now in the book it tells you to clean your kitchen and do your shopping the day before you plan to cook. Well, I'm a wonderful listener and decided to do it all in the same day. We got all the shopping done and when I put the kids down for a nap, I cleaned my kitchen just enough to get started. Of course I wasn't as well organized as I should be and 7 hours later I finished my fourteen meals. Now to give others hope, I made a lot of mistakes and am confident I can cut the time in half. The hard part is that I had to create all my own lists because we don't eat beef and other meats which are in this book. It probably would have gone a lot smoother if I could have just followed the book.

We are on meal 3 of this new plan and so far everything is fantastic. It reduces the mess and stress at dinner time. I will keep you posted on how it all turns out, but I am confident it will be successful. The program was designed to help save money and reduce stress. I have already seen a difference in both. I would recommend the book to anyone, you can always add in your own recipes to replace the ones you don't like. I created my own cooking book that has just this months recipes in it. This way I can go from page to page, instead of flipping through several books. I am posting my calendar below, I am always happy to share recipes that sound good to you. The first fourteen days are highlighted because those are the ones that are already prepared. On the last day, I will prepare the next two weeks worth. Hopefully by then I will figure it all out :) Yes it's a lot of work that day, but there are lots of little tips and tricks to help lessen the work, but I feel it is totally worth it for the energy I save on a daily basis. Get a babysitter and recruit some help for the day and enjoy stress free dinners for the rest of the time! Hope you enjoy!

Shrimp Primavera Pot Pie

This is one of my new favorite recipes! I do not usually like shrimp, but Aaron loves so it so I thought it would be a nice treat if i made a shrimp dish. I have put this dish on my food calendar, but always seem to skip it. I finally actually looked at the recipe and it said it was 30 minutes for prep and cook time. I LOVE 30 minute meals start to finish so I decided to try it. It was one of the easiest dishes I have ever made and it only uses one pan. The shrimp primavera pot pie was fantastic, even I loved it! I left out the dill weed, because I hate anything that resembles mustard flavor. In my opinion it didn't need it, it was fantastic with out it. After the easiness of this meal, I am on the hunt for 30 minute meals. After a long day or what ever your doing, a simple but fantastic dinner is the key. I hope you all try this recipe and let me know what you think. My only other suggestion is to make sure the bread sticks cook all the way through, so you may need to cook it longer than the recipe calls for.

Side Note: You can mix what ever vegetables you want for this recipe, I used the stir fry mix you can buy at Costco or Sams.

Favorite Recipe of the Week

I was one of those lucky children whose parents taught them to cook at a very young age. I have been cooking for as long as I can remember. But, as I grew older I realized that I was cooking the same 15 dinners over and over again. Even though they are fantastic and taste better every time, variety can be a good thing (especially when your semi-vegetarian). This last year I bought several cookbooks trying to expand my culinary expertise. Now that I am able to stay home, I have even more time to prepare and try new recipes. This weeks favorite was a recipe from the Rachel Ray Magazine. I have never cooked fish before and was a little worried I would over cook it. I followed this simple recipe and it was perfect. The entire dish was fantastic. The buttery sauce has a strong flavor of garlic, which my family loves but others may not. Enjoy!!