Sweet 'n' Spicy Pork Chops

Personal Observations: Another one I deviated from, but only in cooking method. I really don't like to broil stuff, only because the clean up is a pain. So...I cooked it in a skillet and it turned out okay. My only problem was the grittiness of the brown sugar mixture because it couldn't fully melt despite using a lid on the skillet and turning up the heat. However, it was still tasty enough for me to warrant additional attempts -- maybe in the oven this time.

Gidget's Rating: 5 stars

Italian Beef Stew

Ingredients:

3/4 lb. beef cube steak, cubed
1 c. water
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce
1 small potato, peeled and cubed
1/2 c. sliced fresh carrot
1/2 small onion, cut into thin wedges
1/2 small sweet red pepper, chopped
1 t. onion soup mix
1/2 t. Italian seasoning
1/4 t. garlic powder
1/2 c. frozen peas

In large saucepan coated with nonstick cooking spray (or olive oil), brown the meat over medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir in the water, tomoato sauce, potato, carrot, onion, red pepper, soup mix, Italian seasoning and garlic powder. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 45 minutes.

Stir in peas; simmer 15 minutes longer or until vegetables are tender.

Yield: 2 servings

Personal Observations: Okay, let me get this off my chest -- cube steak is about as useful as ground beef. While trying to "cube" it, I could hardly get it to even stay together! If I make this again, I will seriously consider finding a substitute meat... Secondly, the prep for this dish is much more than I had anticipated and the steak was done way before I had even gotten the first vegetable chopped! Bad timing on my part and dinner took forever to finish. It even got to the point where I just "estimated" how much veggies I had cut. I'm sure many were more than what the recipe called for but I was tired, darn it!

Also, I made a vow after making this recipe. I solemnly swear to NEVER again double a "Cooking for 2" recipe until I have first tried it in it's original form. Holy cow! I don't know where I sent wrong, but my attempt to have 4 servings instead of 2 turned into 8 servings! Needless to say, I'm tired of eating this stuff.

Gidget's Rating: 4 stars, due to the preparation requirements!

Pumpkin Spice Frosted Snack Bars

Ingredients:

1 pkg (2 layer size) spice cake mix
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin
1 c. Miracle Whip dressing
3 eggs
1 pkg (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1/4 c. butter, softened
2 T. milk
1 t. vanilla
1 pkg (16 oz.) powdered sugar (about 4 c.)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Beat cake mix, pumpkins, dressing and eggs in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Pour into greased 13 x 9-inch baking pan.

Bake 32 to 35 minutes or until wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely on wire rack.

Beat cream cheese, butter, milk and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Gradually add sugar, beating after each addition until well blended. Spread over cooled cake. Cut into bars to serve. Store any leftovers in tightly covered container in refrigerator.

Yield: 2 dozen bars

Personal Observations: I was really looking forward to this rather simple recipe for use at work potlucks. Boy was I fooled! First off, let me say you can cut the frosting portion of the recipe in half! I had enough left over that I was nibbling on frosting for about 10 days...and I don't even like cream cheese frosting! Also, despite my "toothpick test" coming out clean, I discovered that the cake was not done. In fact, it was way underdone and ended up in the trash because I didn't want to poison my coworkers with partially raw cake! AND, the final insult...the oh so tasty dough became bland nothing after baking! What the heck!! I suppose some might say it ruins a good spice cake mix. In my opinion, however, it ruins a perfectly good can of pumpkin!!

Gidget's Rating: 2 stars

Quick-Fix Beef Burrito Skillet

Ingredients:

1 lb. lean ground beef
1 pkg. taco seasoning mix
1 can (19 oz.) kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 c. salsa
1 c. water
1 c. shredded cheese
1/3 c. sour cream
1/3 c. chopped green onions
Tortillas

Brown meat; drain. Add seasoning mix, beans, salsa & water, stir. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 5 minutes. Top with cheese. Cover, let stand 5 minutes or until cheese is melted. Top with sour cream & onions. Serve with tortillas.

Yield: 4 servings (1 1/2 c. each)

Personal Observations:
I drooled over this so much when I made it that it's now became a frequent meal for dinner. I've varied the taco seasoning a bit -- sometimes using seasoning with cheese flavor added (and then reducing the actual cheese), sometimes getting the mild or low-sodium version. It's very customizable!

Gidget's Rating: 5 stars!

Chicken Noodle Casserole

Personal Observations:

This is really good if you like cheesy sauces without it being too thick. The aroma was so tantalizing that I couldn't wait until the noodles had cooked to try out the chicken mixture. You can guess what happened -- it never made it to the baking stage. Definitely prime deee-lish factor here. My only wrinkle in the process was not being able to find savory.

Gidget's Rating: 5 stars, even without the savory!

Peppered Meatballs

Meatball Ingredients:
1/2 c. sour cream
2 t. grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
2-3 t. pepper
1 t. salt
1 t. dry bread crumbs
1/2 t. garlic powder
1 1/2 lbs. ground beef

Sauce Ingredients:
1 c. sour cream
1 (10 3/4 oz.) can condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
2 t. dill weed
1/2 t. sugar
1/2 t. pepper
1/4 t. garlic powder

In a large bowl, combine the sour cream and Parmesan cheese. Add pepper, salt, bread crumbs and garlic powder. Crumble the meat over the mixture and mix well. Shape into 1-inch balls. Place meatballs on a greased rack in a shallow baking pan. Bake at 350 F for 20-25 minutes or until no longer pink; drain.

Transfer the meatballs to a 1 1/2-quart slow cooker. Combine the sauce ingredients; pour over meatballs. Cover and cook on high for 2 hours or until heated through.

Yield: 1 1/2 dozen (2 cups sauce)

Personal observations:
I drooled over the meatballs themselves but the sauce wasn't my favorite. I think the dill component was a little too much so I'll have to tweak that the next time. Also, given that I grind my own peppercorns instead of purchasing already ground pepper, the amount of pepper needs to be...well...reduced. Unless one likes their meals accompanied by tears... Fortunately I did take it easy on the pepper but I think I still went overboard. :)

Gidget's Rating: 4-5 stars, since the sauce needs modification.

Slow-Cooker Taco Soup

Ingredients:
1 lb. ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 (16 oz.) can chili beans, undrained
1 (15 oz.) can kidney beans, undrained
1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
2 c. water
1 (15 oz.) can whole kernel corn, undrained
2 (14.5 oz.) cans peeled and diced tomatoes
1 (4.5 oz.) can diced green chilies
1 (1.25 oz.) pkg taco seasoning

In a medium skillet, cook the ground beef over medium heat until browned. Drain.

Place the ground beef, onion, chili beans, kidney beans, corn, tomato sauce, water, diced tomatoes, green chilies, and taco seasoning mix in a slow cooker. Mix to blend and cook on Low setting for 8 hours.

Yield: 8 servings

Personal observations:
This was an okay soup. It said it would be 8 servings but I had to wonder about the serving size because there was a whole lot of liquid with my attempt. (Of course, that may have been due to me using home-canned stewed tomatoes instead of diced tomatoes.) Mine made over 10 cups of soup! Overall, while tasting good, it didn't ring any bells. Unfortunately one cannot eat 10 cups of the same soup within a few days so half of it is still in my freezer. Maybe I can dump it into some chili this winter.

Rating: 3 stars

Guest Author post

Compliments of my friend Marie...and her culinary adventures.
____________________
OK, so now I know why "The French Don't Get Fat", because the stuff that they cook tastes like crap! Tonight I decided that I was going to be a cooking machine. I found three recipes from the book named above. I picked a soup, an artichoke and a eggplant dish.

The first dish required a lot of chopping and dicing. It involved minced shallots (I didn't even know what a shallot was before this--I know, sad), minced onion, sliced carrots and cubed potatoes. You brown the onions and shallots in olive oil, then you add water, the carrots and cubed potatoes. You simmer it for 20 minutes and then add some lemon juice and top it with shredded feta cheese. Well, it turned out ok, not bad, not good. It kind of reminded me of the 'cabbage soup diet' that Chris and I tried where you can eat as much of the soup as you want (but after a while you really can't even look at the soup without your stomach turning--so that is how you lose weight). Anyway, it wasn't completely horrible. This gave me a little incentive to go on...

The next menu item was the artichoke with melted butter. I bought a special bamboo steamer just for this occasion. So I put 2" of water in the bottom of my wok like it said and a clove of garlic. It called for a bay leaf, but I forgot to get that, so I added some basil, I thought the names sounded close enough.

Well, it said that it should only take 35-40 minutes to steam. I put the steamer in the pan and put the artichoke on the second tier and then went to put the lid on. Crumb! The dang lid didn't fit over the darn artichoke! So I put on something heavy to hold the lid down, but the steam was still escaping. I let it steam for the 40 minutes and it said that at that point the petals should 'just fall off.' That did not happen! Chris came into look at it and said that I needed to cut more of the stem off to get the petals off, which I did. OK, it still was not 'done' so I put another pot over it to steam it some more. EGADS! After about 20 more minutes I took it out again and tried to eat it. There was no artichoke left of it. So I figured that I would try to find the heart of the artichoke, which I remember to be very good (the last time I had an artichoke was when I was 15 years old when I lived with Pat and Dave). I could not find the damn heart to save my friggin' life! My friend said that it was under the 'hair', no such luck, there was nothing there. So I passed it off as saying that I got a bad artichoke at the store. Meanwhile, my husband is laughing his ass off!

Onto the third course, the eggplant dish. It involved browning a red onion and the eggplant in olive oil. Then you take that out and simmer red wine vinegar and chopped tomatoes, green and black olives and capers. Then you toss it all together. OMG, I almost threw up! I made Chris try it. He almost threw up too! I was afraid to have Pooches try it...I love her too much. Of course I love Chris too, but his stomach is pretty rock hard. However, the garbage disposal is quite full. I swear it burped after the last bit of food was shoved down it! Or maybe it was trying to throw it up!

So, now my house smells horrible from all the onions and red wine vinegar. I hope I'm able to sleep with the smell.

From now on I'm only cooking macaroni and cheese from the box!

Pudding Sugar Cookies

Maybe better with lemon flavor...

Ingredients:
1 c. butter, softened
1 c. vegetable oil
1 c. sugar
1 c. confectioner's sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1 package (3.4 oz) instant lemon pudding mix (or flavor of your choice)
4 c. all-purpose flour
1 t. cream of tartar
1 t. baking soda

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, oil and sugars. Beat in eggs, vanilla and dry pudding mix. Mix in cream of tartar and baking soda. Gradually mix in flour.

Drop by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Flatten with a glass dipped in sugar. Bake at 350 degrees F for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove to wire racks.

Yield: 7 dozen hobbit cookies (approximately 4 dozen normal cookies with 2 T dough drops)

Personal Observation: Don't do the chocolate fudge flavor of pudding mix. Trust me. It's like chewing a sea sponge -- the kind that crumbles into dust at the slightest pressure. Even freezing these cookies couldn't make them retain their shape. If I were to make another attempt, I'd use the lemon pudding mix and substitute lemon juice instead of vanilla extract to give it some extra flavor. Then I'd have lemon dust. ;)

Gidget's Rating: 2 stars.

Smothered Chicken Italiano

All the excitement for a rather bland dish.

Ingredients:
1/2 t. dried oregano
1/4 t. garlic powder
1/4 t. salt, divided
1/4 t. pepper, divided
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (4 oz each)
2 t. canola oil
1 c. part-skim ricotta cheese
1 c. crushed tomatoes
4 slices part-skim mozzarella cheese

In a small bowl, combine oregano, garlic powder, 1/8 t. salt, 1/8 t. pepper; rub over chicken. In a large nonstick skillet coated with nonstick cooking spray, brown chicken in oil for 3-4 min. on each side.

Transfer to an 11x7x2-inch baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray. Combine ricotta cheese and remaining salt and pepper; spoon over chicken. Top with tomatoes.

Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes. Top with cheese. Bake 5-10 minutes longer or until cheese is melted and chicken juices run clear.

Serves 4.

Personal Observation: Add more spices. Seriously. Next time I'll double the oregano and put half in with the ricotta to add more flavor and/or add Italian flavored stewed tomatoes instead of plain crushed tomatoes.

Gidget's Rating: 3 stars with potential for 4.

Turkey Enchilada Casserole

Pretty darn good, but don't eat it if you have a stomach ulcer or a sensitive stomach.

Ingredients:
1 lb. lean ground turkey
1 medium green pepper, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 cans (15 oz each) black beans, rinsed and drained
1 jar (16 oz) salsa
1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
1 can (14.5 oz) Mexican stewed tomatoes
1 t. each: onion powder, garlic powder, and ground cumin.
12 corn tortillas (6 inches)
2 c. (8 oz) shredded cheddar cheese, divided

In a large nonstick saucepan coated with nonstick cooking spray**, cook turkey, green pepper, onion and garlic over medium heat until meat is no longer pink. Stir in the beans, salsa, tomato sauce, tomatoes, and spices. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 10 min.

Spread 1 c. meat sauce into a 13x9x2-inch baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray. Top with six tortillas. Spreak with half of remaining meat sauce; sprinkle with 1 c. cheese. Layer with remaining tortillas and meat sauce.

Cover and bake at 350 degrees F for 20 min. Uncover; sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake 5-10 min. longer or until bubbly and cheese is melted.

Personal Observations: Do not substitute flour tortillas. I can attest that they turn gooey in the casserole. Not a fan of corn tortillas, I think next time I'll leave out the tortillas and mix in corn chips AFTER baking.

**I opt to use olive oil in these situations.

Gidget's Rating: 4 stars.

Italian Zucchini & Onions

A tasty dish, I found myself making a double batch because of the dee-lish factor.

Ingredients:
2 c. sliced zucchini
1/2 c. chopped onion
1/4 t. oregano
1/8 t. salt
1/8 t. pepper
Parmesan cheese

Saute zucchini & onion in 1 t. oil for 6 minutes. Add seasonings and stir to coat. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over top & serve.

Serves: 1 if you're greedy (2 if you share your food)

Gidget's Rating: 5 stars!