This Week In Our Kitchen – Week of July 17th

Posted on July 17, 2011 by kitchenandkids

Last week we were really busy, but we still ate most of the items on our menu. However, with being so busy I did not get a chance to blog about anything we ate or anything we are going to be eating. Maybe this week I can get caught up on some outstanding blog posts and get them up for you guys.

My husband’s favorite dinner from last week was the Tacos Vera Cruz, which were fish tacos. He really enjoys fish tacos, me not so much, but I do like these because they are light tasting and fresh. I do not have a recipe up for you yet, but I will work on that. We served the fish tacos with Spanish rice and an avocado, tomato, and onion salad. It was a super easy and very light dinner.

This week we are going to try some new recipes, as well a few family favorites. Also, a few of these recipes are from last week because I didn’t get around to making them. I hope you get some inspiration. I would love to hear what you guys are eating this week, so please leave your menu in my comments. I need some new ideas.

Here is what we will be eating at our house this week.

Sunday: Slow Cooker Pot Roast, mashed red potatoes and creamed corn

Monday: Chicken and Waffles with roasted asparagus

Tuesday:  Parmesan Crusted Pork Chops, Smashed Fried Potatoes and Caprese Salad (since I don’t have this salad on my blog, this is identical to what I do at our house.)

Wednesday: Buffalo Chicken Salad

Thursday: Cheesy Lasagna, garlic bread and salad

Friday: Leftovers

Saturday: Something quick, if we are home

As recipes are posted on Kitchen and Kids, I will link them up to my menu plans, so if something interests you check back and see if I’ve posted a recipe.

Feel free to leave your ideas, too. Happy Cooking!

You can find other wonderful ideas at the links below.

   StoneGable

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Wordless Wednesday – Her First Lesson

Posted on July 13, 2011 by kitchenandkids

With summer in full swing I thought it best to have the Little Miss take swimming lessons. I must say she hated every minute of them. She cried, drank the water, threw the water up and started all over – for eight days! Now, I will ease your mind, that was three weeks ago and today she is a jumping, swimming, fun-loving water bug. I really wasn’t sure if she would ever get in the water after those lessons, but she LOVES the pool.

Here are some other great Wordless Wednesday posts

Live and Love...Out Loud The Paper Mama5 Minutes for Mom
Better in Bulk Dagmar’s Momsense

Please link up your Wordless Wednesday below and please leave a comment.



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This Week In Our Kitchen – Week of July 10th

Posted on July 10, 2011 by kitchenandkids

I think planning a weekly menu is a wonderful thing! I really like knowing ahead of time what we are going to eat and a general idea of when, that way I know of any necessary advanced preparations. It also keeps me on track so I do not replicate dishes to often.

My husband’s favorite dinner from last week was the angel hair pasta with parma rosa sauce topped with sliced Italian marinated grilled chicken. We had a great dinner and then enough leftovers for lunches for a few days. It was super easy to make as I had leftover sauce from the ravioli the week before. For this dinner, I marinated the chicken in Italian dressing over night, and then my husband grilled the chicken over a charcoal/hickory fire, then we placed it upon angel hair pasta covered with the sauce. It was a winner. We served it with cheesy crescent rolls and ceaser salad. Delicious!

This week we are going to try some new recipes, as well a few family favorites. Also, a few of these recipes are from last week because I didn’t get around to making them. I hope you get some inspiration. I would love to hear what you guys are eating this week, so please leave your menu in my comments. I need some new ideas.

Here is what we will be eating at our house this week.

Sunday: Spicy Orange Chicken and fried rice

Monday: Reuben sandwiches with homemade potato chips

Tuesday:  Parmesan Crusted Pork Chops, Smashed Fried Potatoes and Caprese Salad

Wednesday: Santa Fe Chicken Quesadillas and Cheesy Salsa Corn

Thursday: Memaw’s Lasagna and garlic bread

Friday: Leftovers

Saturday: Tacos Vera Cruz (fish tacos), Spanish rice and avocado salad

As recipes are posted on Kitchen and Kids, I will link them up to my menu plans, so if something interests you check back and see if I’ve posted a recipe.

Feel free to leave your ideas, too. Happy Cooking!

You can find other wonderful ideas at the links below.

   StoneGable

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Stuffed Cheeseburgers with a Hint of Something Special …

Posted on July 8, 2011 by kitchenandkids

My husband loves to experiment with spices, so last Memorial Day he threw a slew of spices into our Bullet and came out with an amazing coffee rub he used on his stuffed burgers. They were so good, that we had them for July 4th with no leftovers.

Now my husband is all about taste, so he doesn’t measure anything out, but we thought we better provide you with a jumping off point. He wants you guys to test your rub as you are making it and adjust it to your own tastes.

Aside from hamburgers this rub would be great on a nice, juicy steak as well.

Coffee Rub

3 Tbl. coffee beans
3 Tbl. whole peppercorns
1 Tbl. Chipotle seasoning
1 Tbl. Sea salt/ Kosher salt (he uses both)
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. dried chives
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. smokey paprika

1.) Place all of your spices in a coffee grinder, Bullet, or something similar and blend until powdery.

2.) Generously rub your coffee rub on to your meat of choice and throw on the grill until cooked to perfection. (More details below on how we use it with our burgers.)

3.) Store your unused rub in an airtight container until your next use.

Stuffed Burgers

3 lbs ground beef
1 c. sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
kosher salt
Worcestershire sauce
Coffee rub (above)
8 slices favorite cheese
8 hamburger buns

1.) Measure out the beef into 3 oz. sections, you should have 16 sections.

2.) Flatten each section into a hamburger patty.

3.) Salt 8 of the patties, place 1/8 c. of cheese on each of those 8 patties, and top with the remaining  patties and seal together with a wet finger around the edge.

 

4.) Drizzle Worcestershire sauce over each burger, and then liberally pat rub on to each burger.

5.) Grill until desired doneness. (We prefer to use our charcoal grill with charcoal and hickory chips over using our propane grill.)

6.) Top completed burgers with your toppings of choice – mayo, mustard, ketchup, red onions, Roma tomatoes, lettuce, jalapenos, pickles, bacon, etc…

Enjoy it to its fullest, and maybe serve with oven fries or potato salad.

 
Memorial Day Burger w/ fresh bread                    4th of July Burger on a bun


Below you will find a few of our other grilling favorites.
Grilled Corn with Chipotle Butter
Cilantro Pesto Grilled Chicken
Pepsi BBQ Chicken

You can also find this post linked to the blogs below. I hope you enjoy browsing these blogs as much as I do.
Dr. Laura’s Tasty Tuesday
A Southern Fairy Tale

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Wordless Wednesday – Almost 15 years

Posted on July 6, 2011 by kitchenandkids

So … I thought it only fair to give the man I have nearly been married 15 years to and the father of my children a time to shine. After all, I did showcase the kids the last few weeks; next week I guess I will showcase our furry family members. As a disclaimer, you will probably never see me showcased. The only photo I like of myself is in the About section. Originally I was going to post all of the pictures he has taken with his phone of our dinners, but then decided I would do that another time. I wanted to give him a chance to increase his foodie collection that he has been tormenting all of his Facebook friends with.

As you can see my son’s inspiration for playing the drums comes from his daddy.

Here are some other great Wordless Wednesday posts

Live and Love...Out Loud The Paper Mama5 Minutes for Mom
Better in Bulk Wordish Wednesday

Please link up your Wordless Wednesday below and please leave a comment.



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This Week In Our Kitchen – Week of July 3rd

Posted on July 3, 2011 by kitchenandkids

I must confess that I had a super duper hard time coming up with our menu for next week. I was in desperate need of some inspiration, so I hit the internet and other food bloggers to get ideas. I found a great recipe index over at Organizing Junkie, who hosts Menu Plan Monday, and saw some wonderful ideas.

Last week was great! I think everything on the menu was cooked and I had to make an addition on Friday, as we had no leftovers. Instead we had homemade sloppy joes and oven fries and they were easy to make and delicious, and best of all I had all of the ingredients on hand so no last minute grocery store visit. I am going to start on the following weeks menu today, so I have no more delays.

I would love to hear what you guys are eating this week, so please leave your menu in my comments. I need some new ideas.

Here is what we will be eating at our house this week.

Sunday: Chad’s Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes, and seasoned mustard greens.

Monday: Lunch: Stuffed burgers with oven fries. Dinner: Pepsi Chicken, pasta salad and baked beans

Tuesday:  Marinated grilled chicken over angel hair pasta and topped with Parma Rosa sauce (leftover from last week), Ceaser salad and cheesy crescent rolls.

Wednesday: Beef Enchiladas and Spanish rice.

Thursday: Spicy Orange Chicken and fried rice.

Friday: Tater Tot Casserole

Saturday: Reuben sandwiches with homemade potato chips.

As recipes are posted on Kitchen and Kids, I will link them up to my menu plans, so if something interests you check back and see if I’ve posted a recipe.

Feel free to leave your ideas, too. Happy Cooking!

You can also find many other meal plans below

StoneGable

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Ravioli Parma Rosa

Posted on June 30, 2011 by kitchenandkids

One day I was looking for something new to fix for my family, and I was perusing one of those sites where you order your dinners and then go and pick them up and they had something called Ravioli Parma Rosa. Now I had never heard of that, but based on the description it sounded really good, so I decided to experiment.

Here is the recipe that came out of that experiment.

Ravioli Parma Rosa

1 pkg of your favorite refrigerated or frozen ravioli (this summer I plan on learning how to make my own ravioli – I hear it is easy)

Parma Rosa Sauce:

4 Tbl. butter
1 tsp. minced garlic
2 tsp. flour
1 c. half and half (I use fat-free)
1 c. whipping cream
1 c. plus Parmesan cheese
1/2 can diced tomatoes (I use Italian style)
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. dried basil

1.) Make a roux – melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a medium sauce pan, add in minced garlic and saute for 1 minute (be careful not to burn the garlic), mix in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

2.) Add in your whipping cream, half and half and remaining 3 tablespoons of butter, stir until bubbly. (I have a RoboStir, that will do the work for me so I can move onto something else, a preteen would work just as well and would probably be cheap labor.)

3.) Slowly stir in your cheese until smooth. Let it simmer for a few minutes on low.

4.) Begin boiling your ravioli, as that only takes about 3 minutes.

5.) Puree 1/2 can of diced tomatoes with the garlic, oregano and basil.

6.) Remove Alfredo Sauce from the stove, and mix in the tomato puree.

7.) Toss the Parma Rosa Sauce with your cooked ravioli. Eat and enjoy!!

My family likes to use any leftover Parma Rosa Sauce to dip garlic bread or bread sticks in. Another great use for the Parma Rosa Sauce (which we are having next week since I have leftover sauce) is using it over grilled chicken and linguini.

This blog post is linked to the blogs below:

 

I would love to hear about some of your favorite Italian dishes. Feel free to leave in a comment or link up your blog below.
Tempt my Tummy Tuesdays Dr. Laura's Tasty Tuesday Blog Hop at WhoIsLaura.com


Posted in In the Kitchen | 11 Comments

Wordless Wednesday – Siblings

Posted on June 29, 2011 by kitchenandkids

Here are some other great Wordless Wednesday posts

Live and Love...Out Loud The Paper Mama5 Minutes for Mom
Better in Bulk Wordish Wednesday

Please link up your Wordless Wednesday below and please leave a comment.



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Grilled Corn

Posted on June 27, 2011 by kitchenandkids

Every time I turn around I see corn on sale. So, I finally gave in to those sales and picked some to go with our dinner one night. We were having Cilantro Pesto Chicken and Cilantro Lime Rice and I really wanted something fresh to eat with our grilled chicken, so I thought a grilled corn on the cob would be great. Now … I will admit it is grocery store corn on the cob and cannot possibly compare to that from the farmer’s market, but I am not in the habit of checking out our local market. One of these days I will  make it a habit to get to my local farmer’s market regularly.

Since we were having cilantro pesto chicken I wanted my corn to have some spicy flavoring to it, so I basted it in a butter sauce and then threw it on the grill.

Grilled Corn with Chipotle Butter
printable recipe

1/4 c. salted butter, softened
1 to 3 tsp. Chipotle seasoning (depending on how spicy you want it)
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 garlic powder

4 ears of corn, husked

1.) In a small bowl, combine the butter and seasonings until they are well mixed.

2.) Baste each cob thoroughly with approximately 1 tablespoon each of the Chipotle butter. Reserve remaining butter to baste grilled corn with.

3.) Grill corn over Direct Medium heat until browned in spots and tender, approximately 10 to 15 minutes. Turn corn periodically.

4.) Serve your corn warm with the remaining butter.

This corn would also be a good combination with my Pepsi BBQ Chicken and Dill Potato Salad.
You can also find great recipes at these great sites –

Homemaker Monday

Tempt my Tummy Tuesdays Dr. Laura's Tasty Tuesday Blog Hop at WhoIsLaura.com 

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This Week In Our Kitchen – Week of June 26th

Posted on June 26, 2011 by kitchenandkids

This last week was a typical summer week, so being typical, plans change and dinners change. On that note I moved a few items I was going to make last week to this week, which was very budget friendly because I had purchased a lot of my groceries last week. Maybe this upcoming week I will get through my menu and get some wonderful new recipes posted for you guys. I would love to hear what you guys are eating this week, so please leave your menu in my comments. I need some new ideas.

Here is what we will be eating at our house this week.

Sunday: Chicken Fried Rice (we used up leftover chicken and leftover rice pilaf to make this filling dinner.)

Monday: Cilantro Pesto Chicken, Cilantro Lime Rice and Grilled Corn with Chipotle Butter

Tuesday:  Asian Pork Chops (from The Bag Holder recipes), Sesame Asparagus and Pad Thai.

Wednesday: Ravioli Parma Rosa, Salad and Crusty French bread.

Thursday: Meatball subs (used my meatballs and spaghetti sauce and put on a hoagie with mozzarella cheese) and home fries.

Friday: Leftovers

Saturday: Chad’s Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, and Fried Zucchini.

As recipes are posted on Kitchen and Kids, I will link them up to my menu plans, so if something interests you check back and see if I’ve posted a recipe.

Feel free to leave your ideas, too. Happy Cooking!

You can also find many other meal plans below

StoneGable

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