Homemade Cheese Crackers

My sister needed a babysitter for tonight so I thought it would be the perfect time to make these homemade crackers, because who can resist 2 kids who love to help out in the kitchen?

For both of them being under the age of 10, it was a fairly easy (and entertaining for them) experience and they got to help with practically everything.

Little hands using mini cutters make this part a breeze, just sit back and help when needed 

(when the dough got stuck in the cutter)

The ingredients are simple and basic:

8 oz package of shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons water and a half stick of unsalted butter (4 Tablespoons)

Dump all the ingredients into the food processor and pulse until it's all mixed and looks like sand then add the water and pulse some more until it's all mixed in.  Pop in into a plastic bag and toss it in the fridge for about a half an hour, or a little less if the little ones are getting a bit impatient to start cutting.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Roll out the dough until it's nice and thin and use mini cookie cutters to make fun shapes or just use a pizza cutter to make squares.

Place the pieces onto a lined baking sheet and pop them into the oven for about 10 min or until they start to get a nice golden brown color.

Fun shapes ready to go to the oven

Fresh from the oven, some were thicker than others but still yummy

The kids really liked the end result and my mother and sister both said that they were better than goldfish and cheese-its. The big kid in my household, aka John, likes them as well. By slowly having him try these homemade versions of his favorite snack foods I'm getting him to eat more healthy alternatives to processed store-bought foods. Plan on making another batch soon and giving him some that are all made using the heart cutter for Valentine's Day.

Hope you enjoy these as much as we are,

Jessa

Seared mahi mahi with spinach ravioli and fresh broccoli

I had planned on making a family favorite for dinner tonight but while we were out John spotted some fresh fish. Once I spotted what fish he was looking at I decided to throw my original plans out the window. I'm not a huge fan of most fish but absolutely LOVE mahi mahi. It had a wonderful natural flavor that's not overpowering. Once I realized how he was planning on cooking it (throwing it in the oven in some tin foil and lots of spices and veggies) I promptly took over. 

I heated up a large frying pan with a little bit of olive oil and let it get nice and hot before throwing both huge fillets in. Once seared on the one side I flipped it over to sear the other side. Turned the heat down to medium-low and let it cook all the way through. I sprinkled a pinch of kosher salt over each and some fresh ground pepper and let it simmer away while I cooked the rest of the food. 

The oven got preheated to 350F and went to cut up some of my homemade bread for the garlic bread. Just spread a little butter on the bread, generously sprinkle garlic power over the top, place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and 10-15 min later it's done and delicious. 

I found some wonderful organic spinach and cheese ravioli that I cooked up to go along with our dinner and because I was in a veggie mood I steamed some fresh broccoli as well. 

John wanted some sautéed peppers and onions to go with his fish so while everything else was cooking I pulled out a second frying pan, added a little bit of olive oil and sautéed the peppers and onions he had chopped for me. 

I made up his plate and one for me that had the peppers and onions on the side and tucked in to my yummy meal. Before John could try a bit with all the peppers and onions I gave him a bite of my plain fish and sat back and enjoyed as his eyes went wide and he exclaimed "Wow, that tastes really good!!" He also enjoyed the fish with the added veggies as well. 

I have a feeling that sometime soon he will be surprising me with more Mahi Mahi to make for him for dinner. 

He laughs at the fact that I'd look at him strange if he ever brought me flowers but get happy over cooking and baking ingredients and cookware and accessories. It's part of what makes me who I am and neither of us would change that one bit. 

As always I look forward to hearing what you have to say. 

Until next time,

Jessa

Southern style Breakfast- Biscuits and gravy

John loves biscuits and gravy, so this morning I decided to spoil him a bit and make him his favorite breakfast.  It was fairly quick and easy and hearing that it was the best biscuits and gravy he's ever eaten basically guarantees that I'll make it for him again.

Homemade Buttermilk biscuits and Sausage Gravy with dippy eggs

The first thing I did was take the sausage and throw it into my large cast iron skillet and let that cook up on med heat while I prepared the biscuits.

Buttermilk biscuits:

Preheat the oven to 425F.

In large mixing bowl, add 2 cups of flour, 3 teaspoons of baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt and whisk together.  Because I was using powered buttermilk (it was all I had on hand at the moment) I put 4 Tablespoons of the powered buttermilk in the flour mixture at this point and whisked it together.

Next you add 1 T of cold butter and 3 T of shortening (I use the Crisco sticks for easy measuring) and cut it into the flour mixture.

Gently mix 1 cup of water in and stir until mixed, be sure to gently mix it or the biscuits can end up hard and tough.

Put the mix on a floured surface and gently pat it down until it's about an inch thick, then using a sharp cutter (or if you forgot where you put them like I did, use a sharp knife) and cut the biscuits without twisting the cutter.

Transfer to well greased baking sheet and pop it into the oven for 10 min.

They came out a nice golden color while being soft and moist in the middle.

While the biscuits were in the oven I once again turned my attention back to the gravy.
The sausage was all nice and cooked (I would pause in the biscuit making to quickly turn the sausage so it would cook all the way through and not burn) so I cut it up into crumbles and then using a slotted spoon removed the crumbles from the pan.  If you have a lot of grease in the pan drain it until you have aprox 1 Tablespoon left then mix in 1/4 cup flour and using a whisk combine the two into a fairly smooth paste.  Next step is adding 2 cups of milk and cooking the gravy over med heat, whisking it constantly so it doesn't burn or clump.  After a minute I added an additional Tablespoon of flour and continued to whisk so it was combined with no clumps.  This step takes about 5 minutes or so and you keep whisking it until it starts to thicken up.  When it gets thick, turn off the heat add a pinch of salt and about 1/4-1/2 teaspoon of fresh-ground pepper, I use a lot because John loves pepper in his food. Add the sausage crumbles and the gravy is ready for the biscuits that should be done now.

John's new favourite sausage gravy

Crumble the biscuits on a plate and pour the gravy over it and breakfast is ready!


I made enough biscuits that there are enough left over to make a yummy desert with them tonight, if they last that long.

Hope you enjoy this as much as John did

Jessa

Homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs

It's been a while since my last post mostly because I've discovered that it's hard to post recipes for things when I don't actually use one when I cook.  Most of my cooking involves adding things a pinch or dash at a time, or pouring things in until they look how I think it should.  Which is great when I'm making things for myself but not when people want to know how I did it. My mother and sister (and quite a few other people throughout the years) have threatened to set up cameras all over my kitchen so they can have a record of what I'm throwing in the pot (or mixer) so they can try to make it again.  On of the many things I make like that is my spaghetti sauce. This time I made sure to measure out the ingredients, well. . . it was more along the lines of pouring the amount of spices into my hand then transferring them to a measuring spoon, then throwing in into the pot.  And I wrote it down on a piece of paper before going on to the next spice.  If any of my friends or relatives were in the kitchen with me, I'm positive that they would have started recording it with their phone after calming down from laughing first.

Spaghetti Sauce after it's been simmering for a while

Here's the recipe that I came up with for today's sauce. Because of the way I cook it usually doesn't end up the same way twice but Johnny loves it.

1 28 oz can of Diced tomatoes
1 28 oz can of Crushed tomatoes (I used the Dole ones for both of these because they don't have any preservatives in them, at least until I get around to canning my own)
4 Roma tomatoes, sliced
I green pepper, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 head of garlic, smashed
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon crushed red peppers
1 teaspoon parsley
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon rosemary
1/2 teaspoon ground sage
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt (or just use a small pinch, mine measured out to be 1/8t)
2 bay leaves

1 lb ground turkey (optional)  You can also use ground beef, sausage or a combination of those

Toss all the veggies in a large saucepot, add the spices and give it a good stir to combine it all. Let simmer while you fry up the meat, sirring occasionally.  Add the cooked meat to the mixture and let simmer until it's nice and hot.

While the sauce is simmering away I made the meatballs.

Turkey meatballs ready to eat

Turkey meatballs

1 lb ground turkey
1 egg
8 oz cooked spinach
1 teaspoon crushed red peppers
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon parsley flakes
1 cup breadcrumbs


Pre-heat the oven to 350F.

Add all the ingredients to a large mixing bowl and use your hands to mix it until all the ingredients are mixed together.

I like the larger meatballs so mine ended up being a little bit larger than a golf ball, similar in size to a racquetball.  I grabbed a hunk of the mixture, rolled it into a ball with my hands and dropped it into a muffin tin. I ended up with 12 meatballs, which worked out perfectly.  Popped them into the oven for approx 25 minutes (I started checking on them after 20 min and they were done when they reached a temp of 180 on my meat thermometer)

The meatballs ready to go into the oven

Fresh out of the oven

While those were baking and my sauce was simmering, I put the water on to boil for the noodles and sliced some bread for the garlic bread. Smear some butter on the bread and pour garlic powder over them to your taste (I love garlic so I use a lot on mine) and place on a baking sheet.  They only take approx 5 min in the oven at 350, so I put them in right after I pull out the meatballs and am about to drain the noodles.

A closeup of the sauce with the noodles and meatballs

Dinner's ready!!

I wouldn't recommend serving as much on the plate as I did if you have a rule in the house about cleaning your plate, it's very filling. Neither John or I managed to clean our plates so they got packed up into containers for tomorrow's lunch, plus another container that was just filled with the leftover sauce. That one went into the freezer for a day where I just don't feel like cooking, lol.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did,

Jessa

It's a cheesy cheesy night, at least our dinner was

I spent all day running around the house like a chicken with my head cut off. I re-organized all my kitchen cupboards and got my baking supplies all sorted out and in a logical manner.  No more running around trying to find everything the next time I get an urge to bake, yea!!  And with the exception of the clothes that we were wearing today, every piece of laundry has been done as well as some other cleaning. So I decided to make me a cheesy treat for dinner, and to make Johnny happy I included some breaded pork chops as well.

I love cheese, not the processed kind but real cheese.  I blame my mother for that one, and feel really bad that due to a dairy allergy that she can no longer enjoy the deliciousness of all that cheesy goodness.  Then I realize it just leaves more for me, sorry mother.

Homemade cheese potatoes and cauliflower with cheese sauce was my original plan for dinner, which is a good option for me but John likes to have meat with his sides so I threw some breaded pork chops onto the menu as an afterthought.

Today's ingredients were simple and staples around the house: skim milk, butter, flour, pepper, garlic powder, potatoes, cauliflower, pork chops and breadcrumbs.

First thing I did was get out the food processor to slice the potatoes for me because I was feeling a bit lazy from cleaning all day. Once they were all thinly sliced I tossed them into the casserole dish to await the cheese sauce.

The cheese sauce was really easy to make and I made it in 2 batches, one for the potatoes then again for the cauliflower.  I use about 1 cup of milk for 2 potatoes (I like things really cheesy) so in a saucepan over low heat I added 4 cups of milk, about a teaspoon each of  pepper and garlic powder and 2 Tablespoons of butter and constantly stirring with a whisk brought it to a small rolling boil, removed it from the heat,  then added 4 teaspoons of flour (one at a time and made sure the previous was mixed in before adding the next). I have a giant Pyrex measuring cup that I had put 16 oz of shredded extra sharp cheese in and then added the milk mixture to that, stirring constantly with the whisk until it was blended.

Pour the mixture over the potato slices and mix it all in until it's all covered.

You can bake your pork chops separately or just toss the meat directly on the potatoes, which is what I do. It adds a little bit of extra flavor to the potatoes that I enjoy.

The pork chops are easy to bread and I haven't had any complaints yet about them. Just take a food storage bag, I use the twist tie ones, and put about a half cup of breadcrumbs in it. Rinse the meat under some cold water for a sec then toss it in the bag and shake it around until covered, then put the meat on your pan or in this case the potatoes, then keep repeating until all the pieces of meat are done.

Then the potatoes and meat go into the preheated oven at 350F for 40-60 minutes or until the meat is fully cooked (use a meat thermometer to check) and the potatoes are as well.

Let the potatoes sit for a few minutes before serving. This is the time that I make the cheese sauce for the cauliflower. Tonight it was the time that I noticed that I forgot to turn on the steamer so I had to pop the cauliflower in the microwave and after 5 min on the fresh veggie setting they were done.

For the cheese sauce for the cauliflower I used the same process to cook it but cut all the ingredients in half.

And for once I remembered to take some pictures before the food got devoured.

 

A Little Bit of Cauliflower, a whole lot of cheese sauce

MMMM, Cheesy potatoes

Not a lot of color in tonight's meal but it sure was tasty. 

Thanks for stopping by and reading this, feel free to comment. I'd love to hear from you.

Until next time,

Jessa

Mexican night, chicken burritos/soft shell tacos

Tonight turned out to be a Mexican night, when I asked John how he wanted the chicken for tonight's dinner cooked he said he was in a Mexican food mood. The easiest thing for me to make that he loves to eat is my chicken with rice and salsa.

Normally I just throw the uncooked chicken breasts into the crock pot with some salsa and let it cook all day, by then end of the day the chicken just falls apart and I shred it using a fork.  As I'm doing that I have some brown rice cooking in the rice cooker and when it's all done I mix it all together. I then set out the flour tortillas, the bowl of chicken and rice, some shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream and he goes to work making the perfect taco or burrito. Total time I'm actually working on it is around 10 minutes.

Today it was more of a last minute idea so I'm cooking the chicken and salsa on the stove. It ended up taking about 30 min to cook, stirring it every few minutes to keep it from burning on the bottom, until the point where the chicken was easy to shed with a fork. Added the rice to the mix before he could figure out it wasn't his preferred white rice and we were good to go.

Every time I make this and tell him it's what we are going to have, he's hesitant, thinking that he's not going to like it. Like clockwork, once it's time to assemble the burrito/taco he's giving me a kiss and telling me I should make it more because it's one of his favorites.

I disappointed myself tonight because I couldn't find any organic tortillas that didn't have any preservatives in them and didn't have enough time to try to make any from scratch, so I ended up buying the least offensive ones at the store. I did manage to find some yummy organic salsa though, and will use that until I get a chance to make my own homemade stuff which will hopefully be soon.

One of my plans for this week is to try out some homemade tortilla recipies which I will share once I find one (or more) that I like.

Until next time,

Jessa

Soups, a great meal for a cold day. Split Pea and 16 Bean soups from scratch

John has taken over my kitchen to make us dinner tonight, so I though I'd catch up on some things that I've made earlier this year and haven't posted.  Actually I've been banished from the kitchen until he's done for making some comments on his recent grocery purchases.  I looked on in horror as he pulled out sugar free pickles (have I mentioned I'm not a fan at all of fake sugars?), a package of spinach dip, crackers with half of the ingredients being preservatives, and the list goes on.  The only things I couldn't cringe at him getting were the fresh meats, fruits and veggies.  I remember now why I try to always go with him when he goes shopping, it's easier to just say no and put it back on the shelf while we are still in the store.  He is making an attempt though so I'll cut him a little slack seeing how before me he used to almost always eat out and mainly at fast food restaurants.

Well back to the soups. My mother, the kind and loving woman that she is, gave me a frozen ham bone with a lot of meat on it that she threw in the freezer after Christmas.  As soon as John heard about that he was asking me if I could make him some split pea soup.  I love soups and have been known to buy a ham just so I can cook with the bone. Of course, my answer was a resounding yes.  So I went to the store to buy the split peas and ended up with a pack of 16 bean soup as well.  Why make one soup when you can make two, right?

I cut the majority of the meat off of the bone then threw the bone into my crock pot along with the bag of split peas, a chopped onion and 7 cups of water and turned the crock pot on high, then ignored it for about 8 hours.

I pulled the ham bone out of the crock pot and strained all the peas and onion out of the water and threw them into my blender. Because of the amount I had to blend I took 1/3 of the peas and some of the broth and threw it into the blender and repeated the process. It was a bit thick for my taste at that point so I added a bit more broth until it had my desired thickness. Then I attacked the ham bone, pulling off chunks of meat and chopping them up and tossing them into the crock pot with the pureed split peas. I kept it cooking for another hour on low heat until John came home from work and served him a big bowl along with some of the homemade bread I had made.

I opened the bag of the 16 bean soup later that night and placed the beans in a bowl of cold water and let them soak overnight.  The flavor packet of artificial ham flavoring promptly got thrown in the garbage. The bag recommended soaking the bean overnight or 6 hours but I let it go a bit longer than that.  Ok, I admit I let it soak not only overnight but the majority of the next day as well.

I pulled out my large pasta pot and tossed in the beans, 6 cups of water, the rest of the ham I had chopped up the night before and some spices. The spices I used were 1 teaspoon each of crushed red peppers,  thyme, rosemary, basil, oregano and freshly ground black pepper.  I put in on over medium heat and let it simmer for about an hour and a half.  During which time I made some more fresh bread, this time into bread bowls as per request from John.

He loved both soups but I think that the bean soup being served in a bread bowl was what prompted his response of it being the best he had. Once again, I got a kiss and oodles of compliments on dinner and the knowledge of him eating healthy. It was a win-win situation all around.  . I even managed to sneak off to the kitchen and put some away for lunch before he polished the rest off.

Until next time,

Jessa