Blondies - One of my favorite desserts

Back when I was growing up I never had box brownies. Isn't it funny how kids are when they get to a certain age. At some point I decided that I liked box brownies better than homemade but, let me tell you, in my "old" age (ha!) I have come to my senses and I love anything homemade 10 times better than store bought. Now, blondies never came in a box and I have ALWAYS loved blondies. This is the recipe my mom always used and my family loves them too.

Blondies

Ingredients
1 cup butter (2 sticks at room temp or softened slightly)
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
1 pkg chocolate chips

Grease a 9x13 pan and Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Cream the sugar and butter together with a mixer. While doing that, mix flour, baking powder, and salt together in a separate bowl. Add vanilla to your sugar mixture. Add your 4 eggs to the sugar mixture but only let it mix long enough to break the eggs up and mix them with the sugar mixture a little (don't let the mixture beat your eggs). Add the dry ingredients and mix just until everything is moist. Mix in chocolate chips. Put all of this into your pan and bake for 30 minutes or until slightly browned all over. I always set my timer for 30 minutes and usually end up going another 5 minutes to get the right amount of browning. This will leave them nice and moist and chewy. Enjoy!

Still Here and Still Cookin'

Yep, I'm still here and still cookin'! I haven't posted in a while. Shortly after my last post we found out that we are expecting baby boy #3 and we put our house on the market. Since then life has been pretty crazy! I hope to get some more recipes posted soon. One great thing about this blog for me is that I have been able to refer to it even while at the grocery store to figure out what I need for a specific dish. That has been very helpful lately!

So, stay tuned...I will share more recipes soon.

-Jenny

My Favorite Meatloaf

I have always loved Mom's meatloaf but just can't ever make it just like hers. Several years ago, though, I came across this recipe for meatloaf and have made it my own. I honestly cannot remember the original source...it may have been one of those things you get in the mail to try to get you to sign up for more. I have always enjoyed this meatloaf and it is now our family favorite. The night I made this, I also make garlic mashed potatoes, black eyed peas (which I just love to eat with mashed potatoes), and roasted asparagus.

I apologize for the pictures. I forgot all about taking pictures until after we had eaten and I was putting away the leftovers. Oops...

And, I LOVE asparagus!!


YUM - 5 stars - Absolutely love this not-your-typical meatloaf! And it isn't spicy at all even though the name and some of the ingredients might make you think it will be.

EASE - 4.5 stars - A little more work goes into this one than your normal meatloaf.

HEALTH - ?? - I don't have a clue.

Cajun Meatloaf

Ingredients
* 1 medium onion
* 1 Tbsp veg. oil
* 4 cloves garlic
* 3 Tbsp chili powder
* 1 tsp salt
* 1 tsp paprika
* pinch of cayenne pepper
* 1 cup tomato juice
* 1 lb ground beef (I used lean)
* 1 lb ground pork
* 2 slices bread, torn in pieces
* 2 eggs, lightly beaten
* 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
* 1/2 tsp sugar
* 1/4 tsp hot pepper sauce

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Coarsely chop the onion. In a large skillet, warm the oil over high heat. Add the onion, garlic, chili powder, salt, paprika, and cayenne. Cover, reduce heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are softened but not browned, about 10 min. Remove the skillet from the heat, stir in the tomato juice and set the mixture aside to cool slightly.

In a large bowl, combine the beef and pork. Add the bread, eggs, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, hot pepper sauce, and onion mixture and mix lightly but thoroughly. Place the mixture in a 9x5 inch loaf pan. Or place the mixture on a foil-lined baking sheet and form it into a 9x5 inch loaf. Bake for 55 minutes (I check the internal temp and usually cook it about 10 minutes longer than this). Allow to stand for 5-10 minutes before slicing.

For the asparagus, I lined a cookie sheet with foil, drizzled the asparagus with olive oil, sprinkled with lemon pepper, and baked at 400 until tender.

For the mashed potatoes, I added a clove of garlic per potato to the boiling potatoes and mashed them with milk, salt, and butter to taste.

Now that is my kind of meal!!!

Food and 1 year olds

The other night I was cleaning up after dinner. On this particular night, my one year old had eaten SO much! I was so happy for his full little belly. So, I was cleaning up his seat (please ignore the nastiness of the straps)...

And I decided to wipe under the seat because there is this little hole (where a tray can be attached) that sometimes collects bits of food...

Afterwards, this is what the floor looked like...

Yep, even a fork that mysteriously disappeared during dinner! *SIGH*

White Bean and Turkey Chili

My husband loves chili and all of those wintery, spicy soups. Me...not such a big fan. He is particularly fond of this one EASY, EASY recipe that I make involving 5 cans of beans, a can of corn, a can of Rotel, a package of taco seasoning, a pound of ground beef, and a package of ranch dressing mix. It makes a metric ton of soup and I can only like it the first night no matter how hard I try to like it for leftovers. I will say that it is pretty great with tortilla chips, though.

I've decided that my aversion to chili is in large part due to the fact that it is usually 90% beans. I don't necessarily hate beans, but not a lot of them all at once. So, that rare chili that doesn't have any beans is by far, my favorite. But then I found a pretty good contender in this recipe.

Normally I prefer white chili anyway but this recipe takes it one step further and requires that you puree 2 cups of the bean part to thicken the soup (and, for me, reduce the number of whole beans for me to chew up). Yay!! Fewer beans, and even better...it has cilantro!

So here is the link and, just in case they remove it from the website someday, I'm including the recipe below also. Click here for the recipe!

YUM - 4 stars - Very good...but no blondie!!

EASE - 4.5 stars - Anything that involves me standing in the kitchen more than 15 minutes gets docked a star. :) No, seriously, a bit of prep work and time spent by the stove. Still easy, though! I used pre-cooked and packaged turkey to cut down on the prep time.

HEALTH - 5 stars - It was originally in Cooking Light. That has to count for something, right?

White Bean and Turkey Chili
Source - www.myrecipes.com, Cooking Light November 2006
Ingredients
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 2 cups diced yellow onion (about 2 medium)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 3 (15.8-ounce) cans Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
• 4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
• 3 cups chopped cooked turkey
• 1/2 cup diced seeded plum tomato (about 1)
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 8 lime wedges (optional)
Preparation
Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 10 minutes or until tender and golden. Add chili powder, garlic, and cumin; sauté for 2 minutes. Add oregano and beans; cook for 30 seconds. Add broth; bring to a simmer. Cook 20 minutes.
Place 2 cups of bean mixture in a blender or food processor, and process until smooth. Return pureed mixture to pan. Add turkey, and cook 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat. Add diced tomato, chopped cilantro, lime juice, salt, and pepper, stirring well. Garnish with lime wedges, if desired.

Nutritional Information
Calories: 286 (19% from fat)
Fat: 6g (sat 1.2g,mono 2.1g,poly 1.6g)
Protein: 32.4g
Carbohydrate: 24.3g
Fiber: 5.5g
Cholesterol: 85mg
Iron: 4.8mg
Sodium: 435mg
Calcium: 105mg
Jennifer Martinkus, Cooking Light, NOVEMBER 2006

Cookies!!

The hubby and I are still trying to eat healthy and light and this led me to look for a light cookie recipe. Actually my stomach was leading me to look for a cookie recipe and the diet thing insisted it be light. SO, I found something that made my tummy rumble in anticipation and was very pleased with the results.

The recipe I found is called Chewy Chocolate Cherry Cookies (try saying that 10 times in a row!).
Click here for the recipe.

These cookies are like little bite-size brownies with Craisins in them (oh yeah, I used Crasins instead of dried cherries because I had those on hand). They were SO yummy. My only complaint with the recipe is that they serving size is just one. ONE!??? I'm on a diet here, I need a cookie recipe where the serving size is 10!

The batter is a little dry when you are mixing it up so it is best to used a mixer rather than a spoon. I suppose getting your hands dirty and mixing with your hands would work well too and then you'd have an excuse to eat a little more when you lick your fingers. :-O

Biscuits and Lettuce Wraps

I have a few things to cover in today's post. The first is a photo of my new-fangled biscuits but I have to make a few apologies first. You should know now that I am NOT a photographer and I do NOT have a photographer's camera so I can't even make that great of an attempt at faking it. That said, the biscuits were very tasty and did not look this out of focus in person (even bright and early and before putting in the contacts). [When I previewed this post the picture doesn't look quite as bad as the full res version...Whew!!]

The other night, my dear husband and I were eating some yummy P.F.Chang's food and he asked if I would make some lettuce wraps sometime. So, I found a recipe for Spicy Asian Lettuce Wraps and decided to give it a go. I attached a photo even though I'm a little embarrassed by the way it looks. I could not find any cellophane noodles at the 3 stores I tried and used rice vermicelli instead. The result was a bit mushy. For the original recipe, and a MUCH better photo, check out this link: Spicy Asian Lettuce Wraps




I really think I would have liked the firmer texture of the cellophane noodles so I will be making a trip to one of our many Asian grocers before repeating this recipe. Until then, here's the low down...

YUM - 4 1/2 stars - VERY flavorful and I loved the spiciness. It is too spicy for small children, however, so it is not necessarily a good family meal. Again, next time I try it I will be using cellophane noodles.

EASE - 5 stars - It took me about 10 minutes to put this meal together. I used pre-cooked chicken to speed it up.

HEALTH - 4 1/2 stars - Light and filling. A great combination!