Spaghetti Primavera

This is a great pasta dish if you feel for spaghetti, but not marinara sauce.  I found this recipe on the back of a soup can when I was looking for a dinner idea.  I had all the ingredients, so naturally I tried it out. Since then I've made it two more times.  The second time because I was having problems with acidity in tomatoes, and the third time (see photo below) because I thought it would make a good vegetarian pasta dish.

To Start:
1 can (10 3/4 oz) Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
1/2 cup milk
3 T Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 bag (16 oz) California-style frozen vegetables
2 cups cooked, cubed chicken [also good without]
1/2 pkg (8 oz) wheat spaghetti

How to Make:
Boil salted water in a medium saucepan.  Meanwhile, mix together soup, milk, Parmesan cheese, garlic powder, frozen vegetables, and chicken in a small saucepan.  Heat until boiling then let simmer until the vegetables are cooked through, stirring frequently.  Add the uncooked spaghetti into the boiling water and cook according to directions (about 10 minutes).  Drain the spaghetti, put it back into the original saucepan and pour the sauce over the pasta.  Toss together and there you have a delicious pasta dish!

Another variation of Pasta Primavera!

Recipe from Campbell's Kitchen

Tuna (or Salmon) Quesadillas

This was a quick lunch that I made today.  I mixed together 1 can of tuna fish [canned salmon would also be good] with 1/4 tsp olive oil, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 1/4 tsp garlic salt (or to your liking), 1/2 tsp paprika (or to your liking), and 1 tsp onion powder.  It would also be tasty to saute garlic cloves in 1 tsp oil then stir in tuna/salmon with the spices.

After the tuna/salmon is mixed, spray a skillet with cooking spray and place down a (wheat) tortilla.  Heat over medium low.  Add 1/4 cup cheese, layer with the tuna/salmon mixture, and top with 1/4 cup cheese.  Put another tortilla on top of the cheese.  When the cheese has melted on the bottom, flip over.  It's done when the tortillas are crisp and cheese is melted.  The tuna mixture with a 7-ounce can made two quesadillas.

Experiment! "Kettle Corn"

I found a brilliant baking blog!  I wish that I had that creativity or even the ambition to make such cute things.  I was intrigued by their Kettle Corn.  Was it really that easy?  I so wanted to experiment!

First, as instructed, I got everything ready.  3 T vegetable oil, 1/3 cup popcorn kernels and 3 T sugar. 

kernels and sugar

On the stove, I poured 3 T vegetable oil in a big pot.  I waited until the oil heated up on medium high.  When I could see some faint smoke in the light, I knew it was hot enough.  Then I poured in the kernels and sugar.  As advised, I quickly stirred it around to incorporate everything.  A wooden spoon would work the best.  With the lid on and using a towel to hold the lid and handles, I shook the pot like crazy.  It must have been hot enough because kernels began to immediately pop!!  It's important to shake the pot, so the sugar doesn't stick to the bottom.

Popping in Progress-- I found my glass lid very helpful!

Almost done

 Hot!

 Dished it into a bowl using a big spoon

The unpopped kernels.  I found a couple in my bowl, though.

If you'd like, shake some salt onto the Kettle Corn (I don't think it's necessary though).  This took literally minutes to make.  It's good, but kinda too sweet.  Maybe 2 T sugar would be enough?  After I spooned the popcorn into a bowl, I thought it might have been a better idea to spread the popcorn out onto a baking sheet to cool down (popcorn balls, anyone?).  That would be the best approach if the popcorn is given as a gift.  This recipe has changed the way that I think of popcorn!

Tomato Brain Soup

Again, in the Halloween spirit, I made Tomato Brain Soup for the family.  It was fairly simple and brought lots of taste to the simple tomato soup can.  I doubled the recipe, for 7 people, and there was a lot of leftovers.

Served on Halloween night

What you need:
2 cans tomato soup
3 cups of water
2-3 stalks green onion
1 package roman noodles
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 cup mozzarella cheese

Heat tomato soup with water until boiling.  Turn down the heat and add green onions, roman noodles, garlic powder and Italian seasoning.  Cook for 6-8 minutes until noodles are done.  Top bowls of soup with mozzarella cheese.  {If desired, broil the soup bowls briefly so the cheese turns brown.}

*Adapted from Pizza Brain Soup by George Duran
{edit: 9/24/11}

Candy Corn Milkshake

Here is my attempt at making a milkshake that is supposed to look like a candy corn:

What you need to try it yourself:
Blender, vanilla ice cream, ice cubes, milk, mango puree and raspberry puree

In a blender add 4 cups of crushed ice cubes, 4 scoops of ice cream, and 1 cup of milk and liquefy until it becomes a smooth consistency, pouring in more milk as needed.  Scoop out spoonfuls into chilled glasses. Pound the glass to even off the ice cream. Add 1/2 cup of mango puree into blender and blend until combined.  Scoop the yellow ice cream into the glasses.  Pound the glass against the counter to make the second layer even. Add 1/4 cup of raspberry puree (hopefully reaching an orange color) until combined.  Scoop the orange ice cream into the glasses, topping them off. 

*Recipe adapted by George Duran

Cucumber Salad

I've had a lot of different types of cucumber salad.  Ones with yogurt sauces, ones where you mix seasoning packets (e.g. dill) with oil, and this kind, which is the easiest.  We cut up 1 to 3 cucumbers.  In this picture, Thomas peeled the entire skin off because it was on the bitter side.  Pour in 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar, 1 T of sugar, salt (we like using kraeuter salz) and pepper.  It's that easy!  But really, it's an experimental thing because Thomas likes to add a tablespoon of olive oil. 

My First Roast!

Yesterday, I woke up at 7:20 to get my first pot roast started.  I washed off the eye of roast and patted it dry-- (the best recommendation is using chuck eye). I heated up the skillet with olive oil while I rubbed kosher salt, black pepper and garlic powder on my roast.  By the time that was finished, the skillet was nice and hot, ready for the meat.  It sizzled.  For about 10 minutes, I seared the meat until it was brown.  It already smelled delicious.  Then I transferred my roast to the crock pot for 10 hours.  I poured a can of French Onion Soup over it.  The crock pot's setting was on low.  Around noon, I turned it over, so I put the setting up to high for a half hour to get the heat going again.  Around 3:30, I chopped up some red potatoes and added them to the pot.  At 6:00 everything was done; the potatoes and roast were moist and tender.  After moving the meat and potatoes to another dish, I poured in some flour (that's right-- I didn't measure!), whisked it, and turned the crock pot to high.  Not the smartest thing to do because the crock pot takes a while to boil.  I placed the meat and potatoes dish in the oven in the meantime.  After the wait, we had some good gravy!  Yum!  That is the story of cooking my first pot roast.  And it was easier than I thought it would be!

The finished product

The presentation

Thomas' plate, he added a lot of gravy to his

My plate

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I made this Pot Roast recipe three times since this post.  I even made it twice in January (2011), the third time adding Italian Seasoning and not much garlic powder at all (Jan 16th), but the fourth time making it on Friday the 28th, I couldn't find French Onion Soup in the pantry or storage.  So I combined a can of beef broth and a can of Cream of Mushroom Soup with Roasted Garlic.  No onion flavor this time.  It was very good!  Not as tender, but it didn't stay in the crock pot nearly as long as usual (about 7-1/2 hours).