The Great Cooking Magazine Challenge May 2011 Edition

So its that time again! I'm putting out the challenge to flip through those stacks of cooking magazines and clippings or printed out internet recipes and try something new :-) I do this challenge mostly for myself - to justify my many cooking magazine purchases and subscriptions. But I know many of you out there are just as guilty as me!

I have a linky below where you can come back and show us what you did for the challenge. I got a new Everyday with Rachel Ray in the mail this week and thought I would give a couple things that caught my eye a try today. First up is BLT Mac & Cheese


Randy and I both grew up eating "the blue box" as my friend Kathleen calls it. Kraft Dinner is how my Canadian husband refers to it. I still love it, but we have graduated to Velveeta Shells and Cheese. High Class I know! But I am always trying out mac & cheese when its offered on a menu. I've tried to recreate it at home a couple of times but haven't been that happy with the results. This recipe was actually pretty good, maybe because it comes somewhat close to looking and tasting like Kraft! lol

BLT Mac 'n' Cheese

4 slices bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces (I used the Hormel pieces in the bag..hey it saves time!)
12 oz pasta (elbows or rotini)
2 1/4 cups milk
1/2 tsp turmeric (gives it that nice orangey-yellow color)
6 oz cream cheese
2 cups finely shredded orange cheddar cheese. (About 8 oz)
6 oz cherry tomatoes quartered (I used two small chopped)
Salt, Pepper
Onion powder, garlic powder to taste (my addition)
Grated Parmesan cheese (my addition)

Preheat oven to 375°. Cook bacon until crisp if not taking the short cut that I did, then drain. Meanwhile in a large pot of salted water cook pasta until done & drain. In same pot bring milk to simmer over medium heat. Whisk in tumeric & cream cheese. Stir in cheddar cheese until melted. Add pasta, bacon and tomatoes. Season with salt, pepper, tiny bit of onion & garlic powder. Transfer to 9x13 casserole and bake til heated through, about 20 minutes. Sprinkle with grated parmesan before serving.


In the same June/July edition of Rachel Ray's mag there was an article about updated & homemade Popsicles. There were a few I'd like to try, but settled on the "Cappuccino" because the ingredients to me sounded more like Vietnamese Coffee which I love. Very simple to make and would be a good use of left over coffee.



Cappuccino Popsicles

3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk (I ended up using a big more in the espresso part)
1/2 cups brewed espresso (I used prepared instant espresso powder I keep on hand for recipes like this)
2 tsp dark unsweetened cocoa powder, plus some for dusting (I only used 1)

Combine the cream and 1/4 cup condensed milk, stirring well. Divide mixture between your popsicle molds. Freeze until almost solid, about 1 hour. Meanwhile in a bowl whisk together espresso, cocoa and remaining condensed milk (I used more than 1/4 cup because I like sweet coffee!). Refrigerate until cold. Divide the espresso mixture between molds insert stick and freeze until solid - about 4 hours. Run warm water over molds to remove the pops. Dust cream layer with more cocoa powder. Yummy!

I hope I gave you a little inspiration. Go search your stacks, do some cooking and blogging and come back here to link up! Putting a link back to my blog in your post would be neighborly too :-)





Happy Mother's Day to all you Mothers out there including my own! Love you Momma!


I'm joining for the following parties
Sweets for a Saturday
Weekend Cooking
So Sweet Sunday
Sweet Indulgences Sunday
What's On Your Plate?
Meatless Mondays

Flashback Friday ~School Days

I'm planning on attending my 25th High School reunion in a few weeks so thought I might show you some random school pics my niece found in a photo album at my parents house recently. My how time has flown!


And a few shots from my spring flowers


My roses (that survived) are far away from blooming. This is a bloom on a little mini I bought at the grocery store.


I love these little fuzzy pasque flowers.


My little mini path all freshened up with new dirt. Thanks honey!


Snowflake and red primrose


The bleeding hearts are starting to bloom


Daffodils enjoying a minute of sunshine


For my Foodie Friday contribution I'm showing Chocolate Milk French Toast. It was as yummy as it sounds.



Chocolate Milk French Toast

3 eggs, beaten
1 cup chocolate milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp almond extract
8-10 pieces bread - french or brioche would work best.
butter for pan

Combine beaten eggs, milk, sugar, and extracts in a shallow pan (like a pie plate). Lay bread in pan to soak up liquid. Flip to get both sides. You can poke your bread with a fork to make sure it soaks in. Transfer bread to butter pan and cook on stove over medium high heat until done on each side. Repeat until bread is used up.

I served with strawberries sliced and mixed with 1/4 cup sugar & 2 Tablespoons maple syrup plus a sprinkle of powdered sugar. The chocolate flavor is not overwhelming in this but gives it a great taste. For a stronger chocolate flavor you could add cocoa to the milk/egg mixture.

If you have a flashback of your own that you'd like to share please add your link here and LINK back to this blog.


I have thrown out the Great Cooking Magazine Challenge again. The date is May 8th. I'll have Mr. Linky up on the 7th since the 8th is Mother's Day. The idea is to try something new out of a cooking magazine. But rules are made to be broken so if you don't have a magazine any new to you recipe will do. Can't wait to see what you will try!

Mosaic Monday ~Hello Spring!

First day of Spring and I couldn't be happier! For the past few months I've been having to make due when it comes to sunshine. My suns have been working overtime to make up for our weather deficiency.


We have been wet! But it was all smiles and happiness this weekend. Okay...maybe it wasn't so sunny today, the official start of spring. But Saturday was nice :-) And I took advantage. Spring is here! and I have a new camera!! This the first picture snapped...Me right after I got home Friday and Randy had the camera ready to greet me. Don't I look happy?


I dropped my last camera on the kitchen floor in the fall and have been sick about it since. We got a decent deal on a new Canon T2i and I'm thrilled with it. Keep your fingers crossed this one stays on the counter!


My little point and shoot Canon has been good to me during these past months, but I love taking photos in my garden and in the kitchen and once you've stepped up a level its hard going back mostly because the fine detail and contrast isn't the same. So I enjoyed some time on Saturday snapping a few shots with the new camera of what we've got blooming right now in the garden. But first...a peek at the blue skies!


Poor Mr. Jigs looks like he's in jail.


But never fear, he got to enjoy a little sunshine too! Here he is guarding the yard for us.


Due to the rain and cool weather the spring bulbs seemed to have stalled, but I'm sure they will be coming along soon. Store bought primroses and ranunculus are filling the void.


I do have a few bulbs blooming though...like these crocus


And the tiny Tete-a-Tete daffodils under the camellia


This 'Wanda' primrose is looking pretty too.



And the pulmonaria is starting to bloom


But what's really shining at the moment are the hellebores



Most of mine are unnamed seedlings I received at plant exchanges.



They are all beautiful to me though!


I love the daintiness and detail


And the various shades of pink and purple



Here's a for sure sign for us that spring is in the air...the lovey doveys are hanging around. They are usually very skittish and fly away when we go outside, but this time of the year they are a lot more calm and seem to do a lot of fluffing and nestling around on the ground. Here they are getting cozy on the fence.


We spent the day washing the car and grilling..other signs that spring is here. I did shish kabobs and Bacon wrapped jalapeno "thingies" from The Pioneer Woman's blog. Check them out here. She baked hers...I grilled mine. They were a hit with me and Randy.




I'm joining in for Mosaic Monday over at Little Red House.

Also I want to remind everyone about my Great Cooking Magazine Challenge. The linky is up and will be for a month, so go cook something and join in!

Before I close I'd like to share that I was recently contacted by Chris at HSN about their upcoming event, HSN's Cooks Spring Weekend Event presented by Bon Appetit. Check it out HERE. Looks like there will be some pretty cool products and chefs like Wolfgang Puck, Emerial, Jacques Torres, etc...and I'd imagine some good recipes shared. The dates are March 26-27. Here's a little video promoting it.

Great Cooking Magazine Challenge March 2011

A couple of weeks ago I threw out the Great Cooking Magazine Challenge again. This is an event for all of us to attack that stack of cooking magazines, clippings or printed out recipes. If you're anything like me you have plenty of material! The idea is to try something new. Don't worry if you didn't know about the challenge until now. Just take some inspiration and come back here to share what you tried. The linky will be open for a month.

I got a new Sunset magazine recently because I was attracted to the beautiful waterfall on the cover. But they always have pretty good recipes too. The March edition was no exception. I'm the only one that likes seafood in my house, so sometimes on the weekend I will do fish or shrimp for lunch for just me. So the Halibut Parchment Packets sounded just up my weekend cooking alley.


I like to cook with what I have on hand, so I had to make a few changes but I stayed pretty close to the recipe. It was tasty and something different for sure!

Halibut (or Tilapia!) Parchment Packets with Coconut Almond Rice
March 2011 Sunset Magazine

• 3/4 teaspoon red curry paste (I used green curry paste)
  
• 3/4 cup canned coconut milk
• 3 tablespoons slivered almonds
• 1/8 tsp chili paste (my addition)
  
• 1/2 cup basmati rice (I used regular rice)
  
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened flaked coconut
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
• 4 halibut fillets (6 oz. each) (Tilapia worked well!)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 3/4 pound asparagus, ends trimmed, cut into 2-in. pieces on the diagonal (I omitted)
  
• 1/4 pound sugar snap peas
• 1/4 cup cilantro leaves
• Lime wedges

1. Preheat oven to 400°. In a small bowl, whisk curry paste & chili paste, gradually adding coconut milk. Transfer 1/2 cup sauce to another bowl; set bowls aside.

2. Toast almonds in a small saucepan over medium heat until golden, 3 minutes. Stir in rice, reserved 1/2 cup sauce, 1/2 cup water, the coconut, and 1/2 tsp. salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, until rice is tender, 16 to 18 minutes.

3. Season halibut (or other white fish) with remaining 1/4 tsp. salt and the pepper while rice cooks. Cut 4 pieces of parchment, each 12 by 14 in. Set a fillet in center of each, then mound asparagus and peas on top (some may roll off). For each packet, bring 2 opposite sides of parchment up over ingredients and fold several times to seal. Bring other sides up and fold to seal. Place packets, folded sides up, on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until fish is just opaque (poke with a sharp knife to check), 10 to 15 minutes. (I used the parchment lined with foil and it needed a bit more time to cook. I upped the temp to 450 for the final couple of minutes.)

4. Microwave remaining 1/4 cup sauce to warm. Divide rice among 4 plates and top each with fish and vegetables from a packet, discarding extra liquid. Drizzle sauce over dishes and sprinkle with cilantro. Serve with lime wedges if you have them.

My note: I didn't have unsweetened coconut, but rinsed the sweetened coconut I did have. Gotta improvise!

I made enough to bring for lunch this week. That office break room microwave won't know what hit it :-) Beats the heck out of Lean Cuisine!

So whatcha got cooking? Show us what you tried. Leave your link below and please link back to me in your post. That way everyone that reads your blog can see everyone else's magazine recipes too! There aren't many rules here..just cook something new!

I'm joining in over at Beth Fish Reads for her weekly Weekend Cooking event.

Happy St. Patty's Day

My friend Kathleen over at Cuisine Kathleen hosts a yearly St. Patty's Day Blog Crawl. Its always lots of fun and I wouldn't dream of missing it :-) Its always a challenge for me though because I really don't have an Irish heritage or even many green things in my house. So I like to turn it into a kind of Green scavenger hunt. Be sure and check out all of the other fun posts at Kathleens.



What better place to hunt for GREEN than the Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle. There was a "Once Upon a Time" theme and the Wind in the Willows display had some really interesting glass green grasses.



I fell in love with this cute little green moss


At the Alice in Wonderland exhibit, Alice found a nice grassy green lawn chair to sit on!


How about some beautiful green orchids?


Vertical growing was seen in several of the exhibits. Green growing up!



Now this is taking "Going Green" to a whole new limit. I wonder if there is a putting green on the roof?


I loved these lush green steps


Apart from the fantastic display gardens there was a lot of fantastic window shopping and plenty of cool green things.




I'd love to have one of these washed green figures on my garden fence


More green glass - this time bamboo


These fat funny green leaves seemed to be a big attraction at the Monrovia display


There were even green houses on display.


This big green ball was a great find on my scavenger hunt


And this green gate..which was part of the gate competition would be beautiful leading into an Irish cottage


More green glass...this one a fountain


I was tempted to bring this green flutterby back to my garden


Ahhh now we're getting really warm or..er...green!


And finally I found the green prize...sending a virtual one to Kathleen for being such a fantastic host.



So I always have great intentions of doing an Irish spread or setting a beautiful green table, but somehow my big plans never quite pan out. So instead of the whole shabang we get a few wee bits o' green from my kitchen and a tiny leprechaun of a table setting for two. I was going for kind of a Green with a pot of gold at the end of a Rainbow kind of thing. What I ended up with was a bit of a mess lol!



I tried my hand at a green 4 leaf clover napkin and learned a couple of things. Square napkins are not always square and its looks a lot easier on the video!


I saw this bouquet at the grocery store and fell in love with the little green mums



The exact same color green as the inside of my new rainbow bowls


Under everything is my Mom's tablecloth that I confiscated when she brought it out for my wedding. Please pardon the dark photo. It is really a lot lighter cream than shown below..see above! Plus green leaves!


And finally the Pot of Gold along with two cute green grass patterned glasses I found at Goodwill.



My Green Food Contributions...hardly Irish, but Green none the less. How about a pot of green and gold otherwise known as Mangoes and Kiwi!



I was planning on doing an avocado dressing and salad, but when I peeled this smooth skinned Bacon Avocado it was so creamy and good I ate it at the counter as fast as I could slice it!


The next Green from my kitchen is about as close to Irish as I made it this go round and that's only because I had some Guiness left over from last year...Beer Braised Collard Greens


The greens cooked up really yummy though.


Inspired by recipe found HERE at Budget Bytes.

Beer Braised Collard Greens
2 T olive oil
1 med onion chopped
2 cloves minced garlic
12 oz beer
Chicken bouillon or base plus 2 cups water or 2 cups broth
1 large bunch collard greens, washed, stems removed and chopped
1 T brown sugar
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
black pepper to taste

Add all ingredients to a large pot and allow to come to boil with lid on. Once boiling stir will and reduce heat to low. Simmer until greens are desire tenderness. Collards can cook for a very long time without getting mushy. Mine went for 2 hours but would have been good well before that. Stir every 15 mins or so.

And finally my crowning GREEN Glory....GREEN GOOK (also known as Watergate Salad). I'm not sure if anyone else calls it Green Gook. I think my family made that up lol. This was a staple with Sunday dinners at my family when I was growing up. Some versions call for marshmallows. We mostly skipped that. Its been years since I've had it and I have been thoroughly enjoying it! It's not the prettiest dish, but it certainly is Green!



Green Gook - found on the Pistachio Jello Instant Pudding box & suited to my taste

1 can (20 oz.) DOLE Crushed Pineapple, in juice, undrained

1 pkg. (3.4 oz.) JELL-O Pistachio Flavor Instant Pudding

1 cup chopped PLANTERS Pecans

1-1/2 cups thawed COOL WHIP Whipped Topping or equal amount of whipped cream

Mix all ingredients. Stir well. Refrigerate for 1 hour before serving or eat it right away like me.

Kathleen...sending thanks for being such a great friend and hostess. It was another fun time this year!

An Irish Prayer

May God give you

For every storm, a rainbow,

For every tear, a smile,

For every care, a promise,

And a blessing in each trial.

For every problem life sends,

A faithful friend to share,

For every sigh, a sweet song,

And an answer for each prayer.

May the strength of God pilot us,

May the wisdom of God instruct us,

May the hand of God protect us,

May the word of God direct us.

Be always ours this day and forever more.

I'm having a Great Cooking Magazine Challenge this weekend on Sunday March 20th. Please join me with your magazine clipping inspired recipes! See this LINK for earlier events.

I'm also joining in for Table Top Tuesday & Janmary's St. Patrick's Day Bloggy Carnival.