Restaurant Style Salsa

(I'm sorry my posts always begin with a pointless story. Actually, I must not be sorry because I keep doing it...)

I got this recipe from The Pioneer Woman, it's pretty much exactly the salsa I have been making for years, but I have never written it down and with my "just wing it" style, it always ends up just a little bit different. So I followed the recipe this time and it was excellent. I think I will use a recipe from now on.

I never use jalepenos, it is plenty spicy for me with the green chiles. I'm wussy. I know. And I only use one can of regular stewed tomatoes and one can with the green chiles.

If you like it chunkier, sometimes I chop a couple fresh tomatoes and dump them in.
*Please see my next post for Picante Chicken if you want to use this salsa in another excellent recipe.

Restaurant Style Salsa

Prep Time: 10 Minutes

Cook Time:

Difficulty: Easy

Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 1 can (28 Ounce) Whole Tomatoes With Juice
• 2 cans (10 Ounce) Rotel (diced Tomatoes And Green Chilies)
• ¼ cups Chopped Onion
• 1 clove Garlic, Minced
• 1 whole Jalapeno, Quartered And Sliced Thin
• ¼ teaspoons Sugar
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• ¼ teaspoons Ground Cumin
• ½ cups Cilantro (more To Taste!)
• ½ whole Lime Juice

Preparation Instructions

Combine whole tomatoes, Rotel, onion, jalapeno, garlic, sugar, salt, cumin, lime juice, and cilantro in a blender or food processor. Pulse until you get the salsa to the consistency you’d like—I do about 10 to 15 pulses. Test seasonings with a tortilla chip and adjust as needed.

Refrigerate salsa for at least an hour. Serve with tortilla chips or cheese nachos.

Pastel de Papas

Forever ago Keaton had some Chileans over who cooked us dinner. They made us Paste de Papas. It is pretty much like a shepherd pie recipe. But yummier. I have been wanting to make this for a long time now and finally found me the true recipe. I know that most of you may not LOVE something like this, and the fact that there are raisins in it is weird, but it good, trust me! Kylee, you could impress Russ and make it for him sometime. I bet he would love you :)

8 servings 1¼ hours 20 min prep

Filling

1 lb ground beef
1 1/4 onions, chopped
2 eggs, hard boiled and sliced
1 cup black olives, whole
1/4 cup raisins, soaked in warm water
salt and pepper
cumin
oregano
Mashed Potagoes 6 large potatoes
1/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter salt

Cook potatoes and mash with milk, butter and salt. Set aside. Brown the ground beef and chopped onions with cumin, oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Some like more cumin than others. Drain raisins. Drain the ground beef mixture and place in baking pan that has been coated with cooking spray. Layer the sliced hard boiled eggs, olives and raisins over the meat mixture. Spread the mashed potatoes over the beef mixture. Sprinkle top of mashed potatoes with sugar (yes sugar, it makes it all caramelized on top). Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Big, Fat, Chewy White Chocolate Craisin Cookies

I am not a baker. Every "tried and true" cookie recipe I have ever gotten from anybody I manage to screw up. This is the first cookie I have ever made in my entire life that I actually get compliments on. They are as good as bakery cookies and are SO YUMMY! It's the only cookie I have been proud to take to a party in my entire life. The recipe came from this recipe, but I "made it my own" by adding white chocolate and Craisins. Even if you love chocolate, trust me on this one. Trev loves chocolate chip cookies, but even he likes the white chocolate Craisin version better. Please try it. And then please make sure to compliment me on how fabulous they turn out.

Big, Fat, Chewy White Chocolate Craisin Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 cups white chocolate chips
• 2/3 cups Craisins
  

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips and Craisins by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
4. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

P.S. From Amy (tips learned the hard way)

1. Don't overmix when you add dry ingredients, mix only until JUST BLENDED.
   
2. Grease your pan as it says.
3. I have not made them as big as the recipe says though I'm sure they are fabulous. I use a heaping 1/8 cup (2Tbsp) and they are perfect. I tried to make them smaller once and they were not nearly as good. Don't be afraid to make them BIG.
   
4. I bake mine for 13 minutes. Don't overcook or they will be crispy, not fat and chewy. (This is probably common knowledge, but I learn the hard way. Over and over.) Do leave them on the pan for a minute or two before cooling. This prevents them from oozing through the wires of your cooling rack. (Again, probably common baking knowledge)
   

Carmel Toffee Fruit Dip

Here is the recipe for the fruit dip that I made on New Years Eve. I got it from Our Best Bites:

1 8oz package cream cheese

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 Tbsp vanilla (you can add more to taste I only used 1/2Tbsp)

1 bag toffee chips

Let the cream cheese reach room temperature. Mix it with the brown sugar and vanilla. Refrigerate. Just before serving add half a bag of toffee chips and mix well. The chocolate covered toffee chips would be super yummy. I couldn't find any of those, the regular ones were yummy too.

Christmas Crunch

If you need a yummy treat for a party(or just yourself) this is it. It is so good, and it is super easy to make.



CHRISTMAS CRUNCH

1 pkg. of Almond Bark
1 can (12.5 oz.) of COOKED Spanish peanuts
2 cups of Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch cereal
2 cups of Rice Crispies Cereal

Melt the almond bark and then add remaining ingredients. Spread out onto a piece of aluminum foil and allow to dry. Once it is dry, break into pieces. ENJOY!

I am told that the Walmart Almond bark has the best flavor...

Chicken Noodle Soup

I got this recipe from Campbell's kitchen. Chicken Noodle Soup sounded good to me for dinner last night so I got online to find a recipe. This recipe was super easy and really good.

4 cup Chicken Broth

Generous dash of ground black pepper

1 medium carrot sliced

1 stalk celery sliced

1/2 cup uncooked extra wide egg noodles

1 cup shredded cooked chicken or turkey

Heat the broth, black pepper, carrot ad celery in a 2 quart saucepan over medium high heat to a boil. Stir the noodles and chicken into the saucepan. Reduce heat to medium. Cook for 10 minutes or until the noodles are tender.

I like a lot of noodles and chicken in my chicken noodle soup so I upped the noodles to 1 cup and just shredded an entire chicken breast (not sure how much it ended up being) I also added 2 more cups of chicken broth. With the extra noodles I had to cook it for about 20 minutes once the noodles and chicken were added.

Pumpkin Pancakes

I got both this recipe and the Buttermilk Syrup recipe from another blog. They were both good, so I am sharing them here.
I have made pumpkin pancakes from other recipes. They are all very similar and they all taste pretty much the same.

Pumpkin Pancakes
2c. Flour
1T. B. Powder
1T. Cinnamon
1T. Sugar
1/2 tsp. Nutmeg
1/4 tsp. Salt
4 Eggs
1 1/2 c. Milk
1 c. Pumpkin
3/4 c. Margarine
1T. Vanilla
Mix dry ingredients and egg yolks. Add wet to dry, and then beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold into mixture.

I also added ground cloves. I like that in my pumpkin stuff.

Buttermilk Syrup

1 1/2 c. Butter
3c. Sugar
1tsp. Baking Soda
1 1/2 c. Buttermilk
1/2 c. Karo Syrup
1 tsp. Vanilla

boil the butter, sugar, & buttermilk. Add Karo, Soda, & Vanilla. Stir untill settled, and use a bigger pan because once you add the soda it foams up!

This syrup was so yummy. I have never had buttermilk syrup before, so I was a little skeptical. I will definitely make this again sometime, but probably not very often because it is so not healthy.
ALSO, I halved the syrup recipe and probably could have halved it again. I didn't want to save it and half was more than we needed.

Chicken Pot Pie

So chicken pot pie is one of my favorite meals and out of all the many chicken pot pie recipes, this one is my favorite! And what is great is that this recipe is SO easy to make!

Half a bag of mixed frozen vegetables (the one that has peas, corn, carrots...)

Half a bag of frozen hash browns (diced)

Cubed, boneless chicken

2 cans of cream of chicken soup

1 1/2 cup shredded cheese

Pie Crust (I just buy the pre-made one)

Cook chicken on medium for 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. Combine veges, cheese, 1 can of soup and hash browns together. Add chicken to mixture and a little salt and pepper to taste. Put mixture on top of one pie crust (poke holes with a fork in the bottom of the crust, it cooks better this way). Put on the top crust. Pinch the bottom and top crusts together. Slice four slits on top of crust. Bake at 350 degrees for an hour.

Sauce to pour on top of finished pot pie: 1 can soup, half can filled with water. Mix together and heat for 2 minutes.

Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Lasagna

This is out of the Kraft Food & Family magazine. This recipe is basically the Simply Lasagna recipe made in a slowcooker. (If you, like me, needed Simply Lasagna to be just a little bit simpler...) This would have been great when I was working to refrigerate the night before and throw in the crockpot in the morning. The noodles were a little soggier than the oven version.

What You Need!

1 lb. ground beef

1 jar (26 oz.) spaghetti sauce

1 cup water

1 container (15 oz.) Ricotta Cheese (I always use cottage cheese, I like it better:)

1 pkg. (7 oz.) Shredded Mozzarella Cheese, divided

1/4 cup Grated Parmesan Cheese, divided

1 egg

2 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

6 lasagna noodles, uncooked

Make It!

BROWN meat in large skillet; drain. Stir in spaghetti sauce and water. Mix ricotta, 1-1/2 cups mozzarella, 2 Tbsp. Parmesan, egg and parsley.

SPOON 1 cup meat sauce into slow cooker; top with layers of half each of the noodles, broken to fit; and cheese mixture. Cover with 2 cups meat sauce. Top with remaining noodles, broken to fit; cheese mixture and meat sauce. Cover with lid.

COOK on LOW 4 to 6 hours or until liquid is absorbed. Sprinkle with remaining cheeses; let stand, covered, 10 min. or until melted.