One Pan Baked Potato Casserole

 I love one pot meals! It's just so convenient not having to wash a lot of pots, pans and utensils. I also love potato recipes that do not require pre-cooking the potatoes in a separate pot. So I decided to create this baked potato recipe that has all the easy steps that I love!

Super Easy Poor Man's Mongolian Beef

My favorite dish to order when I go to my favorite Chinese restaurant ( P.F. Chang's China Bistro) is their Mongolian Beef. The beef is saturated in a thick, rich, dark, sweet and savory soy sauce glaze. And the flavor of the green onions and other veggies just go so well with the beef and sauce!

Cannoli Dip

Internet Photo

When I think of good Italian pastries, the first thing that comes to my mind is cannoli! It's found in every Italian bakery! And it's always served at important family gatherings in our house! My favorite kind of cannoli is the little mini ones! Sometimes the pastry shell is dipped in chocolate! The best!!! But a properly made cannoli, in my opinion, must contain mini chocolate chips!

The Sloppy Shepherd

 The Sloppy Shepherd

In my house we love a good Sloppy Joe sandwich! But I've always wanted to make a Shepherd's Pie! So why not combine the two?

Cheese Crisps

Anything with the word 'cheese' in the title, will usually get my attention when it comes to recipes! And when I saw that this recipe only contained 3 ingredients, I was even MORE interested!

Zucchini Souffle

I love to make vegetable recipes that my kids will actually eat! They don't like too many vegetables, but this one didn't seem to be a problem for them! So I was doing a happy dance after they ate this for dinner!

Eggs in Clouds

This was a very interesting recipe from the title...to the preparation...to the taste and texture! I had some concerns about if this recipe would work because I've come across many Internet recipes these days, that just look good in photos and are very popular on certain websites, but are totally fake and could never work in the real world! They just look cute on 'Pin' boards, if you know what I mean! This recipe had its share of problems from start to finish but it did taste very good! So all was not lost!

Here is how it went...

Zebra Cupcakes - Low Fat

I've been looking for a decadent chocolate dessert that has some substance, but is not too fattening! Is there such a dessert or am I just dreaming? Well if I'm just dreaming, then my dreams just came true!

I found this recipe called Root Beer Float Cake and decided it was the one for me! It had lots of positive reviews and one of the ingredients was root beer...which I had some that needed to be used up since my family hasn't been drinking it lately! I decided to tweak the recipe to make it lower in fat and calories!

It was a huge success! I didn't taste the root beer in this cake, but I loved the spongy texture and the decadent chocolate flavor! I made them into cupcakes and decorated them with a root beer drizzle (my own idea) The cupcakes were such a lovely dark chocolate color. The drizzle really stood out and resembled a zebra print, mainly because I have poor drizzling skills! The drizzle, just like the cupcakes, didn't take on any of the root beer flavor, but I thought I would use the root beer to continue the theme!

Here is my version of the recipe...

Thai Iced Tea

Me and my hubby...or is it, my hubby and I? Well, we went to a really good Thai restaurant that served iced tea. It's not the iced tea that Americans usually drink here in the U.S. It's a darker, richer kind of tea and they serve it with some sort of sweetened milk. Thai iced tea has such a unique flavor. I asked the waitress how it was made and she said it's just tea with milk! Well this didn't taste like tea with milk, so it must be some special kind of tea and some special kind of milk!

I did a little research recently because I've been wanting to duplicate that Thai iced tea.
I read lots of recipes on the Internet and found that some people like to use  Thai tea bags. And others use black tea like the black tea they serve in Chinese restaurants. Some recipes called for spices like star anise and cardamom. Also many recipes used sweetened condensed milk, sugar and/or coconut milk to sweeten the iced tea. My head was spinning trying to think of how to make Thai iced tea!

Then I just decided to take the plunge and try this

 Thai Iced Tea from a blog called

 Oh Abby Day 

It was very good, but I know it would have been better if I would have used Thai tea bags instead of black tea! I added 6 drops of red food coloring because Thai tea is much more red in color than black tea. I'll be trying this again with the proper tea next time!

 

Ingredients:

4.5 cups of water
4 tea bags of Thai tea (if loose leaf then 4 tablespoons). Must be purchased at Asian supermarket.
4 tablespoons of white sugar
4 tablespoons of sweet condense milk
ice
3-4 tablespoons of coconut milk

Instructions:

Bring water to boil and turn oven off.

Steep tea for 10-15 minutes and remove. (I usually steep for a much longer time because you need this strong!)

While this is still hot, mix in sugar and condense milk. Stir for three minutes until everything dissolve.

Allow tea mix to cool down to room temperature.

Pour mixture over a glass of ice

Topped with 3-4 tablespoon of coconut milk. No need to mix in the coconut milk. Let it sit on top of the drink.

Optional: Can garnish with mint leaves.

 

Recipe courtesy of  'Oh Abby Day'

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Update: February 26, 2013

 

I'm so happy to say that I have an update!

Cornmeal Crusted Pork Chops

 

I love to find new ways to prepare pork chops! I've been buying lots of pork chops these days because I've been finding great sales! I can never pass up a great meat sale! So now I just need TONS of recipes for yummy ways to prepare pork chops!

This recipe sounded very interesting because of the cornmeal. I've never used cornmeal to coat pork chops. This worked out really well!

Thai Chicken Noodle Soup

 

I love Thai food so this was a no-brainer for me! The ingredients and direction were so simple, which enticed me even more! This recipe cooked up so quickly! It was done in less than 30 minutes!

Bak Kwa Cookies ( Bacon Cookies)

 

You know what? I'm so glad that I love to try unique recipes because the title of these cookies alone, might have scared me away! I'm very happy it didn't! These cookies were so very good! I thought they were going to be a very savory cookie, but they're not! These Bak Kwa cookies are very similar to a shortbread cookie. Slightly sweet and very buttery! The bacon bits just gives the cookie a little  hint of smokiness and a nice chewiness! This is a crisp but crumbly cookie. I truly enjoyed these and will make them again!

I found this recipe *here* on a blog called 'No-Frills Recipes'.

I'm posting the recipe below with conversion from metric, to make it easier for my U.S. readers.

Cran-Broccoli Slaw

This is such a unique and refreshing salad! It's perfect when you want something out of the ordinary to tickle your taste buds!

Key West Chicken

I'm not much of a griller! That's usually my hubbys job! But I can say that I really out did myself with this chicken! Look how juicy it is!




 And there was 32" of snow covering the BBQ just days earlier, from a freak NY storm! But I was not going to let that stop me! It was all worth it for that chicken!

 

Creamy Crab Pasta

 

This recipe was calling my name from the first moment I laid eyes on it! I found the recipe on a food blog called

'A Couple in the Kitchen'

I love creamy, cheesy, pasta recipes! And I had a can of lump crab meat that was begging to be used!! So this was destiny!

I whipped this up so quickly...it was done in LESS than 30 minutes! Take that, Rachael Ray!

This was so good! I was afraid there wouldn't be any left to put with the pasta! I was just eating it out of the pan while I was waiting for the pasta to boil! That's when I realized that this recipe would work great as a dip! Or maybe even as a stuffing for mushrooms!

I was so tempted to tweak this recipe because the ingredients looked to simple... how could it be tasty? Oh, but it was perfect 'as is'... So don't mess with it! The only thing I did was sprinkle some fresh chopped parsley on top to make it look pretty for the camera!

 

Creamy Crab Pasta

 

Ingredients:

¼ cup unsalted butter

¼ cup all purpose flour

2 cups half and half

½ cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese, plus more for garnish

¼ teaspoon. ground nutmeg

kosher salt, white pepper, and black pepper to taste

1 lb. cooked lump crab meat

1 lb. cooked pasta of your choice

Fresh chopped parsley garnish - optional

 

Directions:

 

In a large deep skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook about 1 minute. Whisk in the half and half and continue whisking until the sauce begins to thicken. Stir in the cheese and seasons to taste. Simmer for a few minutes to blend the flavors. Then stir in the crab meat.

Cook just until the crab is heated through.

Serve over cooked pasta of your choice. Top with optional parsley garnish and additional cheese and pepper, if desired.

Serves 4-6 people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fruit Roll-Up Valentine Fortune Cookies!

 

Okay, don't judge these by how sad mine look! This is a cute Valentine treat to give the kiddies! Especially if you use the Fruit Roll-Ups that DON'T have the tongue tattoos printed on them! You can add any message you want inside! No cooking involved! Just roll out, cut and fold into shape!

 

Check out this *link* to see the easy steps to making these fortune cookies for yourself!

Bombay Stew

 

I've been loving Indian food lately! I'm always looking to try new recipes with the flavors of India! I've never tried an Indian stew before, so that's what attracted me to this recipe!

Skinny Pop Popcorn

I am totally in love with this snack!!! I buy it whenever I see it and I eat it just about everyday! I even bring it with me to the movies because I like it better than movie theatre popcorn! I never thought I would like ANY popcorn better than movie theatre popcorn! This popcorn has the unique flavor of movie theatre popcorn without all the fake butter and heavy salt!

The fact that it is lower in fat and calories...and cholesterol free, is just a bonus!

I was not compensated in any way for my opinion of this product! This is just something I wanted to share with my readers!

Happy Chinese New Year!

This is the year of the Snake! In honor of this holiday I decided to share with you this delicious recipe that I tried last night. Snake is not one of the ingredients! That's not something I think I would ever eat! I said 'think'...so it is possible I would eat snake, if it was prepared in a totally delicious way! Instead, I'll show you this Asian Meatball Soup Recipe posted on a blog called 'Noshing with the Noland's'.

Simple Creme Brulee Pie

My husband loves creme brulee! He orders it every time he sees it on a menu! I've been thinking of making creme brulee at home, but it requires the use of a small blow torch (kitchen size) to crystallize the sugar topping! I don't want to invest money in a kitchen torch, that will probably only be used to make creme brulee! Then I saw this recipe and knew I had to try it...