Spicy Tuna and Linguine - One Dish Meal

THIS WAS A TERRIFIC MEAL! I am even attaching pics of the youngest around the table tonight enjoying their delicious dinner.

Recipe
2tbs olive oil                              2 1/2c chopped plum tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, minced                 1 can Chicken broth plus 1 cup water
2c sliced mushrooms                   1/2tsp salt
1/2c chopped onion                     1/2 tsp pepper
1/2tsp crushed red pepper           1pkg fresh linguine
1pkg tuna

In a 12" skillet, heat olive oil, saute garlic, mushrooms, onion and red pepper until golden brown.  Add tomatoes, chicken broth, salt and pepper and bring to a boil

Add linguine by strands and spoon sauce over.  Reduce heat to simmer cook for another 4min on low. Toss gently and add tuna to the mixture.  Toss again.

I did not add the mushrooms or the onion because I forgot! I also used cayenne pepper instead of crushed red pepper and 1 can of chili tomatoes instead of fresh tomatoes.  Instead of adding salt, I used 1 jar of drained artichoke hearts!

The sauce is very liquidy but it isn't supposed to be thick either.  This made enough to serve 6 with at least 1 bowl of left overs.  Again another meal for under $10 (this one was actually closer to $5)!!! (If you check your paper for the Butoni Linguine coupon you can get it for $1 off.  I used it at Homeland and I got it for  $.99! ) The tomatoes were also on sale and with coupon at Homeland they were FREE!

Hope you enjoy this recipe and as you see you can make it your own.

Fire and Ice Skillet for Dinner?!

What an interesting meal this one turned out to be.  The name made it sound fun and the ingrediants were simple and in the pantry already.
FIRE AND ICE SKILLET Recipe
1 pkg rice-a-roni Spanish rice
2tbs butter
1 jar (16oz) Salsa
1/3c sour cream
1/4c finley chopped green onions
4 large eggs
1 c cheddar cheese

1. saute rice with butter until golden brown
2. stir in 2 c water, salsa and the seasoning mix from the package.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, simmer on low until tender.
3. Stir in sour cream and onions. Using Large spoon make 4 indentions in the rice and break 1 egg in each of them. Cover, cook on 8 min or until eggs are cooked through.
4. Sprinkle with cheese
Prep time: 5 min
Cook Time: 30 min

Okay as I said this one was interesting.  I cooked as directions called, but mine turned out more "soupy" than "Ricey".  My indentions never worked so I ended up stiring the eggs in and almost "scrambeling" them until they were cooked through.
My family did like this one and so did The sister, but we all decided it would be a great enchilada filler or dip on chips.  I think The sister ate it as a left over with Blue Corn Tortilla Chips the next day.
I am attaching pictures of what mine looked like but also the cook book page of what it is supposed to look like.
If you try this one, comment so I can know what you do to make it work differently!

Southern Plate-Homemade Banana Pudding

So tonight we had left overs so I had plenty of time to make a dessert. I chose Homemade Banana Pudding and to my surprise it only took about 30 minutes to make and 30 minutes to cool. I followed this recipe to the letter and am proud to say this is the first time I have ever made pudding from scratch!

Pudding
1 box vanilla wafers
5 bananas
1/2 cup splenda
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
3 egg yolks (reserve whites for the meringue)
2 cups milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Place a layer of vanilla wafers in the bottom of a medium bowl. Slice a banana over the top. Repeat two more times with another layer of wafers and the remaining bananas.

In a saucepan, combine the sugar, flour, salt, egg yolks, and milk. Stir well with a wire whisk and place over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring constantly to prevent scorching, until thickened, about 15 minutes (on my gas stove about 7 minutes). Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. Immediately pour over the wafers and bananas. Let sit for 5 minutes or so to give the wafers time to absorb the pudding.

Meringue
3 Egg whites
1/4 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Make the meringue: in a large bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer on high speed until foamy. Add the sugar and continue beating on high speed until soft peaks form. Pour onto the top of the pudding and spread to edges to seal well. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the top is golden. Allow to cool completely before serving.

Southern Plate-Slow Cooker Cornbread Dressing/Cranberry Relish

This is a complete meal in one and I keep forgetting to take pictures, but this was pretty simple and reminded me of Thanksgiving all over again. There are two major preperations and I think in the future I will take some short cuts and it will be just as tasty, but this time I followed the recipe and made everything from scratch.

Chicken Mixture
1 large chicken, cooked, deboned and cut into pieces
1 10.5 ounce can cream of checken soup, undiluted

Note: To cook the chicken place in a large saucepan, cover with warm water and simmer, covered, until the chicken is tender approcimately 1 hour. Save the broth for the dressing.

(I think this is what I would shortcut next time. My eaters prefer all white meat so I will probably just pan fry a couple of chicken breasts and shred)

Mix the chicken and soup together and set aside.

Dressing
1 large skillet cornbread (2 quarts crumbled)
(I used the same cornbread recipe from the blog-my favorite!)
2 tablespoons Sage
1 medium onion chopped
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1 stick margarine, melted
3 to 4 cups chicken broth, from cooking the chicken
1 10 ounce can cream of chicken soup

To make the dressing, mix all of the ingredients together, except for the cream of chicken soup. Layer in a slow cooker in the following order: half can cream of chicken soup, half of the dressing mixture, half of the chicken mixture, the remaining dressing, remaining chicken mixture, and remaining cream of chicken soup. Cover and cook on low for 3 hours. Serve hot.

Makes about 8 to 10 servings(So I froze half for another time)

This made my house smell like Thanksgiving dinner so I decided to make a cranberry relish to go with it for me and a fruit salad for my girls. The fruit salad was a mixture of apples, mandarin oranges, and pineapple chunks with a tbsp of honey flavored yogurt-one of my girls' favorites. The cranberry relish is my favorite and I just so happened to have some cranberries in my freezer.

Bobby Flay's Cranberry Relish

1 cup fresh cranberries (I use frozen)

1/4 cup brown sugar  

3 tablespoons finely diced red onion (I used a white onion) 

1 tablespoon minced jalapeno

1/4 cup coarsely chopped cilantro

1/4 cup fresh orange juice

Salt and freshly ground pepper

In a hot skillet combine cranberries and brown sugar, cook until berries start to pop. Add all other ingredients, except cilantro, and heat, (add a spoon of water if sauce appears dry). Just before serving, toss in the cilantro

This is one of the easiest recipes from Bobby Flay and usually takes me about 10 minutes for prep and about 20 minutes to cook down.

Around the Fredin Table

Tonight's One Dish Bible Meal was Chicken and Brown Rice with Cheddar Broccoli (Steamers), Green Beans (from a can) and left over Spiced Apples. I know I am not supposed to be the sister doing it all in the crock pot, but I just added an additional work day to my load so the crock pot recipe was easiest today.

This recipe looked delish in the pot this morning and smelled even better when I came home from work!

Recipe:
1.5 lbs chicken breast (I used 4 large boneless skinless chicken breast to feed my family of 6)
3 Cans Cream of Chicken undiluted Soup
1 C Water
2C Instant Rice (I chose Whole Grain Brown Rice)
1/4 tsp paprika (didn't measure just sprinkled until the chicken breasts looked preety :) )
1/4tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4c chopped celery

Mix rice, water, celery and soup in the crock pot and then layer with the chicken breast and season. Cook on low for 6-8 hours (I even left it on warming for an additional 2 hours until my hubby got home to eat).
It looked beautiful delicious on the plate with the sides of brocolli with cheddar (from a package) green beans and spiced apples!

Family LOVED this recipe.  Even the baby ate his food all up! This recipe fed my family of 6 again for under $10 total and there was even one small dish left over for tomorrows lunch( maybe my fellow mistake maker sister will munch on it with the kids tomorrow)!

Southern Plate-Cookbook

So Night One and Two of my cooking through a cookbook in a year was awesome! I am a cookbook junkie so I just decided to use the cookbook my lil bro and Sis n law gave me for Christmas. I figured, I live in the south now, might as well learn to cook like a good southerner. Didn't take any cool pics like my fellow Mistake Maker, but the cool thing is this cookbook has great pictures. So here's what I did.

Day One: Texas Caviar, Creamy Macaroni and Cheese, Collard greens, Chocolate ice cream (Ben and Jerry helped with this one)

Texas Caviar

Ingredients
2 cans of black-eyed peas w/jalapeno
1 29 ounce can petite diced tomatoes
2 15 ounce cans whole kernal corn
1/4 c chopped parsley
2 green onions, sliced
1 16 ounce bottle zesty Italian dressing

Drain the peas, tomatoes, and corn cans well and pour the contents into a large bowl or dishpan. Add the chopped parsley and onions. Pour the dressing over all and stir well.

Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve with Tortilla chips for an appetizer or as a salad

Creamy Macaroni and Cheese
I made some minor adjustments to this recipe because I have such picky eaters and I have to sneak things like vegetables and meats into their favorite dishes so I added baby carrots(about 1 cup) that I shreded to near pulp with my Ninja and diced ham (about 2 cups)

2 cup dry macaroni
2 tablespoons margarine
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 cups whole milk
Salt and Black Pepper to taste
2 cups cubed cheese

Preheat the oven to 350
Cook the macaroni according to the package directions until almost done and drain well (I also salted the water as it was boiling)
In a micorwave safe bowl , metl the margarine in the microwave. Sitr in the flour, then the milk. Season with salt and pepper. Pour the cubed cheese into the milk mixture and micorwave at 30 second intervals until melted, stirring each time you check it. Stir in the cooked macaroni and optional carrots/ham. Place in an oven-safe dish and bake uncovered, for 20 minutes, or until bubbly

Collard Greens with Pepper Sauce

OK, so my kids and hubby didn't dig this one, but like I said they are not veggie eaters, but if you like greens, this is the best I have ever had. If you don't want to deal with fresh collard greens, the canned collard greens taste just as good. I also added some bacon drippings with my pieces of ham instead of 1/4 cup of salt, I used about 3 tablespoons of salt.

3 bunches collard greens
3/4 cup cider vinegar
2 quarts water
1/4 cup salt
1 tablespoon sugar
 A ham hock, ham bone or pieces of country ham

Rinse the greens well. Remove the spines, coarsely chop and place in a pot. Add all the other ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until the collards are tender, about 2 hours, adding more water if needed. Serve warm with pepper sauce.

Day Two: Chili and Corn bread, diced pineapples (just opened a jar)

Christi's Chili
So I made a couple of adjustments to this one because my eaters will not eat crunchy vegetables like celery nor will they eat beans in their chili. So I left out those two things. Also I like really spicy food so I actually took half of the meat and added 3 tablespoons of chili powder, ground cumin, paprika, and ground red pepper.

Ingredients
2 pound ground beef
1 16 ounce can pinto beans with liquid
1 16 ounce can tomato sauce
1 cup diced onion
1/2 cup diced green chiles
3 medium tomatoes or one 29 ounce can diced tomatoes
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
1 cup water
3 tablespoons chili powder
1/4 cup diced celery
2 teaspoons ground cumin

In a larg e skillet over medium high heat, brown the ground beef until no longer pink and drain off the fat. In a large pot or slow cooker, combine the beef with the remaining ingredients. If cooking in a pot, bring to a simmer over low heat and cook, stirring frequently for 2 to 3 hours. If cooking in a slow cooker, stir to combine and cover. Cook on low for 7 to 8 hours or high for 3 to 4 hours.

Terri's Dixie Cornbread

This was the best cornbread I have ever made. It is incredibly moist  and easy to cook and my hubby loved it! The buttermilk really does the trick but you don't have to go out and buy it, you can make it yourself see the note below.

1 tablespoon shortening
1 1/2 cups enriched white cornmeal
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups buttermilk
1 egg
2 tablespoons bacon drippings or melted butter

Preheat the oven to 450 F. Place the shortening in a 10 inch cast iron skillet, and preheat in the oven.
In a large bowl, sift together the dry ingredients, add the buttermilk, egg and drippings or melted butter, mix just until the dry ingredients are moistened.
Pour into the greased hot skillet and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until brown. Serve warm with butter.


To make buttermilk

Add 1 tablespoon lemon juice or white vinegar
to
1 cup whole milk
Let sit for 5 minutes before using

One Dish Cookbook - Slow Cooker Meatloaf

Night One of Cooking through a cookbook in 2011 has proved to be a delicious night at the Fredin table.
Tonight we had Slow Cooker Meatloaf with Macaroni and Cheese and Spiced Apples.

Meatloaf Recipe
1.5 lbs Ground Beef (I used ground lean turkey)
1/3 c onion
3/4c bread crumbs (i forgot about the bread crumbs and used whole wheat crakers smashed up)
2 eggs
2/3c milk
3/4 ketchup
1tbsp dry mustard
2tbsp brown sugar

Mix meat, onion bread crumbs,eggs and milk together and form into a loaf (I dumped it all in to a loaf pan, stuck it in the freezer for about 15 min and then turned the loaf pan over in to the crock pot so I didn't have to get my hands dirty before work this morning!)

Cook on low for 6 hours

15min before serving mix ketchup, mustard and brown sugar and pour over loaf.  Cook on high for 15 min. (I will suggest if you like less sauce to add this at the beginning to cook over the meatloaf or you will have a thick sauce)

We served with Macaroni and Cheese from Velvetta and Country Crock Spiced Apples! (And another little plus this meal cost me less than $10 for a family of 6!!!!)

 Husband said it was GREAT and our 3 year old ate it by the handfuls!