Easy Baked Penne

...or what I did with the rest of the orange puree.

The orange puree has nothing at all to do with oranges :o) It is a mix of sweet potato and carrot that I posted about on my last post. I used 3/4 cup in a batch of cheese muffins. I used the rest in this baked penne. For whatever reason my oldest who is 4 has decided that penne is his favorite pasta. It was per his request that this came about.

1 box of penne, cooked and drained as per box directions
1 lb lean ground beef
1 onion
1-2 cloves pressed garlic
1 jar of your favorite red pasta sauce (I used the PC brand spinach and cheese)
1 cup orange puree (mix of pureed sweet potato and carrot)
1 cup cheese (I used a mix of cheddar and swiss)

Preheat oven to 350*. In a large pan saute the beef with the onion and garlic until the beef is cooked through. Add the jar of sauce and the orange puree - mix well.
Put penne in a lasagne pan. Add sauce and mix well. Grate cheese on top and bake for 30 minutes.

Orange Stuff, Muffins and Sharing the Love!

Where to begin? I have so much to say. 1st, can I brag a little? I now have Paul McCartney tickets! I am so excited about this! I never thought I would actually get to see him live, but I am - July 11th in Halifax! WOOT WOOT!


2nd - I'm very touched that Girlichef
thought to bless me with a blogger award this week! Thank you so much! I am supposed to pass it along to 7 other bloggers that I enjoy. I'd really like to pass it back to her because hers is one of my favorites, but I guess that isn't allowed, so...
I'm also going to stay away from passing it onto others that I passed an award onto before (it doesn't mean that I love your blog any less) and I'm going to not pass it onto others that I know Girlichef passed it along to this week. Look at me, giving myself all sorts of restrictions :o) Do you that makes this any easier when there are so many lovely blogs that I enjoy out there?
So I will pass this onto:
Tried and True Cooking with Heidi - I love that she is looking for delicious meals for her family, while sticking to a budget (sound familliar?)
Lauren's Kitchen - She's got some great recipes on here, also looking to feed a young one healthy and palate pleasing food
Coleen's Recipes- Coleen always has something yummy posted and gives the lovliest feedback too
Lick the Bowl Good - Monica has the most beautiful cakes I have ever seen (and lots more good stuff too!)
Cooking With Carrie - Carrie is yet another mom of boys who has some gret easy meal ideas
Cheat Day Cafe - I'm pretty sure that Melody's blog was the first food blog I came across when I decided to get serious about my food blogging. I love her recipes (in fact I'm making one tomorrow that I'll post later this week)
Smokey Mountain Cafe - Katherine's blog just impresses me again and again
*Just as a special note, I'd really love to pass something along to Katy of Food For a Hungry Soul but I know she chooses not to participate in these sorts of things. May I just then mention how much I enjoy her blog. I have tried out a few of her recipes and they are absolutely delicious. As well, she has the most encouraging feedback about what I have posted. She seems to be a truly special person.
And now the Orange Stuff. I've shared in the past how what an absolute struggle it can be to feed my youngest veggies. This past fall I purchased the book, The Sneaky Chef by Missy Chase Lapine

I don't know if you agree with her food philosophy or not, but it fits in with what I believe. Keep offering kids veggies as you would with regular meals, but 'hide' veggies into foods that they do eat to ensure that their nutritional needs are being met. Works for me :o)
So this past week, I've made 2 recipes with the Orange Stuff. She calls it a Make Ahead Recipe: Orange Puree. It's really easy (just like making baby food). Take 1 sweet potato and 3 large carrots. Boil them in a little bit of water until they are soft. Drain. Blend it until it is smooth. Makes about 2 cups.
This is her most versatile puree. You can plan to use it up in a few days, or freeze it in ziplock bags ready to use later. This week, I made her grilled cheese muffins (with two adaptations - she uses her own flour blend and oil in hers).

1/2 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup parmasan cheese
1 cup low fat cheddar cheese (I used light sharp)
2 eggs
3 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 cup applesauce
3/4 cup orange puree (see above recipe)

Preheat oven to 350*
Mix all the dry ingredients plus the cheeses in a large bowl. Mix all the wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Fold the wet ingredient mixture into the dry ingredient mixture. Mix until the flour is just moistened.
Scoop the batter into a muffin tin sprayed with non-stick spray. Bake 25-30 minutes (large muffins) or 12-15 minutes (mini-muffins).
These muffins are the lightest sweet muffins I've ever had. The taste reminds me of corn bread, but not as dense. My boys liked them a lot too. I made minis (I usually do). I think when I next make them I may play around with the recipe more to make them savoury-er - add some onion and herbs?

Fajita Fiesta

This was a very adapted shared meal with my friend Jen's family. Originally this was to be just a meal for our family on Sunday. My oldest who is 4 really wanted to play with his best friend (Jen's son Josh). So I thought, why not? and invited them over for supper. The only drawback was realising that I only had one pack of wraps (6) and I was now feeding 8. I did NOT want to go to the grocery store on a Sunday. It's crazy! I had no desire to stand in a huge line up just for wraps. I stopped by the bread outlet instead and while they didn't have any wraps in, they did have pita bread, so we used that instead. It actually ended up working better for the kids as all the filling didn't fall out of their wraps (which is what usually happens.

Here's all the fixin's

Beef - I had cut a large piece of steak meat into strips the day before. I put the beef strips into a ziplock back. I then took a Fajita seasoning pack and sprinkled it all over the beef. I added about a half cup of water and mixed it all together. I sealed the bag and refrigerated it to use the next day. I just pan fried the beef until cooked through. I had wanted to BBQ grill it but it was pouring out.

Veggies - I cut a large onion and one and a half red peppers into thin strips. I used the leftover marinade from the beef to saute into the veggies. I cooked them until the veggies were softened.

Beans - 2 cans of beans in tomato sauce into a casserole dish. Hand blend it until relatively smooth. Grate 1/2 cup of cheese into it. Sprinkle in a few tbsp of Tex-Mex seasoning. Mix it all together and cook it in the microwave for 5 minutes. I usually use one can of beans and tomato sauce and one can of kidney beans (well drained and rinsed) but I didn't have kidney beans on hand. You can also sub in one packet of taco seasoning for the Tex-Mex seasoning.

Guacamole - I used my own recipe found here

Sour Cream

Salsa

Grated Cheese

Heated Whole Wheat wraps and pita bread

Multigrain tortilla chips

Hungarian Goulash

I cannot take credit for this wonderfully delicious recipe at all (only the fact that I asked for it). I first ate this at my friend Jen's place a couple of years back. She had asked us if we liked goulash and to be honest, I had no recollection of ever eating it. I was in for a big treat. This is so tasty! And it is a wonderful recipe for the slow cooker. I need recipes like this for days when I know I just won't have time to cook after work.

Here's Jen and I just before leaving for New York on March Break this year. Yes, we drove to New York together with 4 kids 6 and under. (a 1 and a half day drive - and we survived!) She's a great girl. Our kids are pretty close in age (6, 4, 4, & 2) and we often share meals together, or take kids for each other to give the other a break.

Jen's Goulash

1 1/2 lbs beef stew meat, cut int 3/4 inch cubes
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
1 garlic clove, crushed (or 1/4 tsp garlic powder)
2 tbsp flour
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
14 oz canned tomatoes with liquid
1/2 tsp liquid gravy browner (I leave out because I never have any)
2 tsp beef bouillon powder
1 tsp granulated sugar
1/2-1 cup sour cream

Combine first 7 ingredients in a slow cooker. In a medium mixing bowl stir together tomato, gravy browner, bouillon powder and sugar. Pour over beef mixture. Stir.
Cook on low for 8-10 hours, or high for 4-5 hours. Add sour cream - stir. Serve over rice.

*Mommy Gourmet has her polls up for a dinner you would enjoy and I'm one of the people up on it for my Thai Dinner Evening from not too long ago. Check it out and don't forget to vote!

Saturday BBQ at the park

One good thing about living in a company town is that they have used some of their land to turn into a park space. And because they are an oil company they pipe gas into the park right to gas BBQ's. I love this. Several times over the sunny (and somewhat warm) season (it's not long around here) we take our BBQ up to the park for dinner and then go for a hike afterwards.

Steak Marinade

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup steak sauce
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground pepper

Mix everything together in a small bowl. Pour over steaks to marinade for at least 2 hours (I like to marinade them for 24 hours, it tastes better). I also bought the club pack (read=big, cheap pack) of steak meat this week. It came with 2 large cuts of beef. I cut one into serving size steaks and trimmed the fat from it. I then marinaded it with this marinade in a ziplock bag. The other steak I trimmed the fat from and cut into strips to marinade for fajitas (look for this recipe later this week).

Chick Pea Salad

Also known as Red, White and Yahoo Salad from Eat, Shrink and Be Merry by Janet and Greta Podleski. One of my favortite summertime salads (and requested potluck dishes).

1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 pint of grape tomatoes, (slice each tomato in half)
1 container of mini bocconcini, (slice each cheese in half) - (about 2 cups)
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/4 cup red onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsalmic vinegar
salt and pepper to season

Mix everything together

*Bocconcini is fresh mozzerella in little cheese balls. You can find it in the specialty cheese area (or fresh pasta area) of your grocery store. If you've never had these before, you are in for a treat. I make another salad, that's very similar with the larger bocconcinis and tomatoes and basil that's absolutely delicious too :o)

Fruit salad

I love fruit salad, it's so easy and you can pretty much put whatever kind of fruit you want in it. When I was teaching kindergarten, for our end of the year party I would have the kids each bring in a fruit of their choice. We'd then cut it all up and put it in a big bowl to mix togehter, naming it friendship salad.
This week's fruit salad had:
1 banana
1 gala apple (peeled)
2 kiwi
1 cup mixed berries
1 mandarin orange cup (1/4 cup), drained
1 tbsp lemon juice

I know, I've said before that I'm not a fan of oranges, and I'm not...but I don't mind them in fruit salad because I can pick around them and other people like them.

Also at our BBQ picnic we had Party Mix and Pop.

You'll notice that this didn't have anything to do with Memorial Day. We don't have Memorial Day. Our May holiday Monday is Victoria Day (the week before). Victoria Day falls the Monday before May 24th, which was Queen Victoria's birthday. It's in rememberance of her and an acknowledgement of the reining sovereign (Queen Elizabeth) It doesn't mark the beginning of summer holidays either (though we still think of it as an official marker of summer). We still have until the end of June before school is out. I hope all of you had a great May long weekend (regardless of where you are and what you are celebrating and when) Cheers!

Baked Potato Soup for Souper Sunday

I was doing a fridge clean out on Thursday, making mental notes of what we had and what we needed when I saw that we had a bunch of potatoes that really needed to be cooked up. Hmmm. What could I do with them? Potato soup was the first thing I thought of and then I remembered hearing about baked potato soup sometime in the past (but I couldn't remember where or when). No problem, I just made it up. To which my husband exclaimed, you are getting really good at this. Thanks honey.

6 potatoes scrubbed
2 tbsp butter/margarine
1 onion chopped
1 tsp each dill, thyme, parsley
4 cups veg soup stock (I think chicken stock would be fine too, I just had veg on hand)
grated pepper to taste
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 cup light sour cream

Heat oven to 350*. Poke the potatoes several times with a fork and bake for an hour.
When the potatoes are baked, take them out of the oven to cool a little and start the rest of the soup. Melt margarine over low-medium heat. Add onions and cook until softened. Add the herbs and blend in. (*pre-heat the veg stock) Add the veg stock and bring heat up to med-high. Grate in the pepper. Cut open the potatoes and scoop the potato out of the skins into the soup. Let everything heat up to a nice boil. Remove from heat. Use a hand blender to blend the soup together (or transfer to a blender in batches to blend, then return to the soup pot). Grate the cheese into the soup and mix to help it melt. Stir in the sour cream.
Serve as is or grate a little more cheese on top.

Puffed Pancake

Of all the regular dishes I make, this one is one of my husband's favorites. I think of it as a 'special' breakfast food, so I don't make it a lot. Usually it comes out for Christmas morning, or for when company comes to visit. This morning we shared it with good friends of ours who are visiting from Ontario.
This was one of my favorite breakfasts when I was a kid. My mom had found it in the Vancouver Canuck's Cookbook (circa 1982 or '83). She topped hers with strawberries and whipped cream, and we knew it simply as Strawberry Puffed Pancake. I've made a few variations over the years, so I simply title it as Puffed Pancake. This recipe can be halved if you are serving to a smaller number.

2 tbsp butter/margarine
4 eggs
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1/4 tsp salt (keep salt at 1/4 tsp if you halve it)

Heat oven to 400*. Put the butter in a large rectanglar cake pan (or lasagna pan) and let it melt. In a medium mixing bowl beat the eggs. Add the flour, milk and salt and whisk until combined together (don't overmix it - lumpy is better in this case!)
Take the baking pan out and pour batter in. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Have everyone in the kitchen ready for when you take it out of the oven for the 'ooh ahh' moment. Serve with your favorite pancake toppings. We used mixed berry topping and whipped cream this morning. Everyone else enjoyed sausages (which I finally made properly) as a side.



Alternate:

Apple Puffed Pancake
Slice 2 baking apples thinly. After the butter is melted, sprinkle pan with brown sugar and cinnimon. Layer the apples on the bottom before pouring the batter over.

Peach Puffed Pancake
As above with the apples, only use peach slices instead.

Berry Topping
Fill a medium bowl with mixed frozen berries (2 cups). Heat in the microwave for 5 minutes. Add 1/4 cup sugar. Mix well.