I found a site, E-Mealz through a friend. Most of the menus they suggest won’t work for my family for one reason or another, but last night we tried one.
You take a store-bought pizza crust (in the roll, like biscuits), and spread it out into a rectangle. Then spread shredded mozzarella cheese over it, and then pepperoni. Roll it up (from the long edge, so you make a longer roll. Brush butter on it, sprinkle it with garlic salt, and bake it according to the package directions. When it’s done, you just slice it and dip into heated marinara.
It was a hit in our house (how could it not be?), but next time I will use less garlic salt, and use a different sauce than my usually garlic-y spaghetti sauce. I will probably also make the crust from scratch, because that pre-made pizza dough was expensive, and even though we’re down to four family members here now, I will probably need to make two rolls. And at $3.79 per crust, that’s a bit much. But it will definitely be added to our regular rotation around here.
Last week, when Aly’s friend was in town, I made her favorite, my poached salmon with sour cream/dill/cucumber sauce. Since the kids were home, I didn’t cook all the fillets I had, so I had two left – not enough for dinner, but I certainly wasn’t going to throw them away!
So I made a yummy salad for dinner a few nights later. I used baby spinach, the salmon (poached and broken into bits), feta cheese, thinly sliced bermuda onion, and tomato. I made a quick vinaigrette with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It was very, very yummy, although we decided that next time I need more cheese and more tomato.
I followed a recipe out of the cookbook Desperation Dinners – well, mostly. I always try to follow a recipe exactly the first time. But halfway through cooking, I found out that my parmesan cheese was moldy, so I skipped it, and then the recipe was very bland, so I spiced it up. So here’s my version of their “Two-for-One Noodles”:
Pasta with Ricotta
1 pound penne pasta
1 tbsp. olive oil
6 slices bacon (I think the original recipe called for 3 slices, but, c’mon…. BACON – I used the partially cooked kind)
1 small onion, chopped fine
1 15oz. container of ricotta
1 tbsp. chopped parsley (I used some from my garden that I froze)
2 tbsp. chopped basil (also frozen from my garden – I think the original recipe only called for 1 tbsp., but I do love me some basil)
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
Gett the pasta boiling. In a small skillet, heat the oil until it shimmers and add the onion. Cook it over low heat until it starts to go translucent. Chop the bacon roughly, and then kick up the heat just a bit on the onions and add the bacon to them. When the bacon is fully cooked, remove with a slotted spoon to a big serving bowl. Mix in the herbs, the pepper, and the ricotta.
Drain the pasta, reserving 3 tbsp. of the cooking water. Add that to the sauce mixture. Stir in half the pasta, and then the other half.
I think this would be MUCH better with the parmesan (I think it was 1/4 cup) and with the addition of some garlic. It was good. I served it with green beans drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with freshly cracked pepper and sea salt.
Sort of revised, written out like a recipe this time.
Description:
One of our family favorites, it’s quick, cheap, and yummy. And it can be done with or without meat.
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef (optional)
1 small onion, diced
Package of 18 corn tortillas
1 can of enchilada sauce
1 can of refried beans
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.
Brown the ground beef, if using, with the onion. Drain.
Spray a 9×13″ baking pan with nonstick spray. Cover the bottom with a layer of corn tortillas (using 6 – it may help to tear some in half). Cover lightly with the sauce. Spread 1/2 the meat over the top, and follow with about 1/3 of the cheese.
Put down another layer of the corn tortillas. Spoon the refried beans over them, and spread as well as you can. Pour about 1/2 the remaining sauce over, and and then the remaining meat, and half the remaining cheese.
Follow with the final layer of corn tortillas, and the remaining sauce and the remaining cheese.
Bake at 350° for 20 minutes.
This is how I make goulash these days:
Description:
One of the favorite dinners in our household, and it makes lots for not a lot of money. Not a lot of work, either.
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
2 cloves garlic
1 package medium shell pasta
2 16oz. cans diced tomatoes
About 4 tablespoons paprika
1 can corn
Salt & pepper
Directions:
Boil the pasta. While it’s cooking, brown the ground beef with the garlic in a really large skillet. Drain, if necessary, and add the diced tomatoes and the paprika. Let it simmer while the pasta finishes cooking.
While the pasta drains, add the corn to the meat mixture. Add the pasta and stir. Let sit on the heat for a few minutes, and serve.
I made what I think is the best goulash I’ve ever made the other night. I used my usual recipe, except I didn’t use the tomato sauce, and when I added the tomatoes to deglaze the pan, I let them reduce for awhile. And I used about double the paprika than usual. It was SO good. We all stuffed ourselves almost sick.
Tonight I made rigatoni with italian sausage and salad. It was quite yummy.
Today is my daughter Sylvia’s 11th birthday. In our family, the birthday girl or boy gets to pick dinner on their birthday, no matter what it is.
Sylvia picked Krab-with-a-K, shrimp, smoked salmon, cheese and crackers. So that’s what we had. And I’m STUFFED. It’s time for cake in a few minutes, and I just have no room for it.
Well, I haven’t been posting, because I haven’t been cooking. My little kids are in Texas with their grandmother, and Alyson (my teen) is at my mom’s for the week. I’m completely alone in the house! I’m surviving on canned ravioli. LOL
But, I do have to recommend the Boston Market meatloaf frozen dinner. Quite yummy.
I’ve had an ice cream maker for several years, still in the box. I bought it on clearance at the end of summer one year, and we’ve just never gotten around to it.
The kids and I were going to make cookies yesterday afternoon, but Alyson (my teen) called and needed a ride home, so there wasn’t enough time for cookies. I remembered that ice cream maker, and went to allrecipes.com and looked for a recipe that I didn’t have to go shopping to make. I found one that took only milk, sugar and vanilla, and as soon as we got home from picking Alyson up, we got it started (I had rock salt from some ice-cream-in-a-baggie experiments we did last fall). 20 minutes later, we had some yummy ice cream. Ice milk, I suppose. But it was yummy!
Next time I do major grocery shopping, I’m so going to buy some cream and stuff so we can make real ice cream.