New Recipe. . . . It's a Winner!

I tried one of my new recipes over the weekend, Mexican casserole, it was a big hit with the hubbs.  I used a recipe off of Pinterest but I tweaked it and made it my own.  I always like to tweak recipes to fit my taste and of course fit what I have in my cabinets.  No sense making extra trips to the grocery store.  This recipe is quite versatile and could be a dip, casserole or even used as a filling in an enchilada.  I have some left overs so I think I may try the enchilada option for work this next week.
Here is what I used to make Mexican Casserole:
2 cans black beans
1 can Mexican corn
1 can sweet yellow corn
1 cup rice (I used basamati brown rice) cooked
1 can rotel tomatoes
1 can enchilada sauce
1 lime juiced and zested
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 small sweet orange peppers chopped
2 sweet red peppers chopped
1 jalapeno seeded and chopped
1/2 block cream cheese,
3 tsp cumin
1 tsp caynne
2tbsp cilantro

cheese and sour cream to serve

Put olive oil in bottom of dutch oven and saute garlic, then add peppers and saute,  6 minutes then add corn and black beans, rotel tomatoes, enchilada sauce, and stir and cook on medium 10-15 minutes, add your seasonings, rice and lime juice, then add your cream cheese and cover.   I add my lime zest last stir and serve with cheese sour cream and chips or use it for enchilada filling.

This is the middle of the process of cooking this casserole 

This is the end result and it was yummy

We will have this again. 

Not Aunt Bee's Pickles Story. . .

The cucumbers are coming in like crazy so, the hubbs and I made some quick refrigerator pickles.  The hubbs loves his jalapenos and of course they ended up in my mild mannered dill pickles.  I  do not like sweet pickles or bread and butter pickles, I am a straight up dill pickle girl.   The hubbs got his jar with jalapenos and I got two jars, one with a little onion and one straight dill.  I just tried the jalapeno ones last night and I must admit they were awesome.   They are not too hot but have just a little kick.  I tried the ones with onion this morning, yes I eat pickles in the morning, anytime is a good time for homemade pickles.  The ones with the onion are good but, if you do not tell my hubby I said this, I will admit the jalapeno ones were the best.  The boys do not like any kind of pickles so the hubbs and I have three jars to eat and he does not like them that much either. 
Here is the recipe we used, we tweaked it to fit our personal taste, I do not remember where the original recipe came from but this is ours.

Refrigerator Pickles

We used standard mason jars:

In each Jar

3 cloves garlic peeled
3 tsp black pepper corns
1 small onion sliced
2 bunches of fresh dill
4 slices of jalapeno with seeds

Several cucumbers sliced into spears and cram as many as you can in your jar.

Liquid

2 cups water, 4 Tbsp white vinegar, 1 1/2 Tbs kosher salt.  Mix together until salt dissolved.  Pour over your cucumbers in the jar.  top with part of your dill and make sure your cucumbers are covered with liquid and put your lid on.  Invert your jar a couple times to get everything swished around and put in the fridge for 2 days.  This recipe is for one jar of pickles, you will have a little liquid left over. 

Hope you are enjoying my recipes and my stories, stay tuned. .. .

Cooking 101 for your College Student . . . Beyond Raymen Noodles. . .

I sold Pampered Chef for a long time and love their products, one of my favorites was their mandolin slicer.  I have the old school model without the finger protection.  I tell you all of that to share that last night while Sprat was helping me fix dinner I sliced my thumb.  All the years I used that thing and never had any trouble with it and I did it while showing Sprat how to use it and how not to slice a finger.  LOL!!  Well, in a round about way, how not to slice a finger. 
We made the zucchini pasta again because, we have zucchini in abundance right now.  Sprat had fun learning how to saute onions and garlic and this time we added a pepper from the garden.  Sprat does not particularly care for zucchini but he enjoyed the cooking and so did I except for the slice and dice I pulled on my thumb. 
Sprat wants to learn to cook other things too, he may try his hand at my amazing homemade alfredo.  He is even going to go to the grocery store for me to pick up all of my ingredients.  I will share my recipe for my alfredo today so that you can try your hand at it too.

Alfredo

1 box angel hair pasta
4 tbs butter
3 cloves garlic pressed
2 cups heavy cream
fresh Parmesan 1 cup
fresh or dried chives to top
1-2 tbs flour
dash of white wine


Melt butter and saute garlic till is smells yummy, add your flour and make  rue, all on med low heat. add a dash of wine and then slowly and while stirring add your heavy cream.  Turn you heat up a little and grate your parmesan and add it to your cream mixture.  It should bubble and get thick, when it does that it is ready to serve over your angel hair pasta.  You can use any pasta you would like and you can add things like broccoli, chicken, shrimp, beef, really anything. 
I have never been a fan of fat noodles so I always use angel hair, it is a texture thing with me.  You can add fresh chives and parsley too when you serve. 
Hope you enjoy my recipes and my funny stories about my kiddos.   Stay tuned Sprat is wanting to learn to cook this Summer and this should be loads of funny posts.

Garden Veggies and a Recipe. . . .

Our garden is coming along and I have learned a few things:  1. we cannot grow Brussels sprouts in the Summer, 2. cauliflower needs shade, and 3. I love cucumbers.  I am sad our pod people did not grow, we will try them again in the fall.  I do not think we will try cauliflower again, it seems futile.  On the upside my herb garden is doing wonderfully, I have dried lots of oregano, basil and sage.  Mark dug our potatoes and onions and we have them stored.  We have our first zucchini and I made an amazing pasta with it the other night, I will share that recipe at the end of this post.  I do believe the hubbs and I could live out of our garden, the boys on the other hand, require meat and other stuff. They are broadening their pallets though, with some veggies.  Our cucumbers are coming in like crazy, cannot wait to do some pickles with my very own fresh dill.  There is just nothing better than fresh veggies and herbs. 
Update on Sprat, we got to meet the girlfriend this week.  She came for a visit and Sprat took her on the sweet tea tour of our little area.  She is from the Boston area and this was her first trip to the South.  Sprat took her to all of his stomping grounds and local watering holes.  She went to Church with them ( I was working) yesterday and then to watch adult lacrosse Summer league.  She had not seen Sprat play lacrosse at school since his season was cut short with the school closing. 

Here is my Zucchini recipe:

2-3 zucchini sliced thin
1 box angel hair pasta
2 cloves garlic pressed
2 onions sliced
4 Basil leaves torn
3 stems of lemon thyme
olive oil
white wine

Saute garlic and onions in olive oil and then set aside,  add sliced zucchini to the oil and saute until tender add a little wine and continue cooking.  Add back the garlic and onions that you set aside and simmer then add Basil and Thyme with another splash of white wine and cover to simmer a little longer.  Boil your pasta and when it is done throw it in  with your Zucchini another dash of wine and cover on low. 
You can add mushrooms, peppers and pea pods if you would like.  I did not have those on hand the other night.
Serve with some fresh grated Parmesan cheese. 

Pod People. . . Brussel Sprouts.... Love

My hubby and I will celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary in a few weeks, if you want to know what true love looks like, it is a husband who plants a garden every year for his wife that loves veggies.  The wife that could very easily be a vegetarian.  Love is a husband that will research how to grow brussel sprouts and go out and plant them because he finds out his wife likes them.  The hubbs does not like brussel sprouts and calls them "pod people" and yet he planted them for me.  Our garden is looking very interesting this year, looking forward to our harvest.  More pictures of our "pod people" when they are mature.

My very sweet hubby working. 

My very sweet hubby praying over our garden after planting 

The "pod people" cannot wait to see how they grow.