Fancy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Posted on May 25th, 2009 by Danielle.
Categories: cheesey, easy, lunch, sandwich.

I have this sandwich that I make and every time I make it, I love it more.  I thought I’d share it.

Fancy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches – Serves 2

grilledcheese

Ingredients:

1- Avocado
1/2 lb fresh sliced roast turkey
1 Tomato
2-3 Slices Provolone cheese
Bread
Butter
1 large can of Tomato Soup – your choice.  I love this one.

Start by buttering the back sides of four slices of bread.  Take the non buttered side of one of the slices and compile the sandwich as follows: 1 slice cheese, thin sliced avocado, thin slice tomato, slice of cheese, 1/4 lb turkey, thin sliced avocado, cheese.  Then put another slice of bread on top, butter side out.  Set this one aside and make the next sandwich the same way.  Heat a Large flat skillet on Medium heat.  Place sandwiches butter side down and allow to brown on one side for 2-4 minutes.  In the meantime heat up the of tomato soup. Flip the sandwiches and heat the other buttered side for an additonal 2-4 minutes.  Watch the bread so it doesn’t burn, you want just a nice golden crisp.  When the sandwiches are done, cut them diagonally and serve them with the tomato soup….Ahhh.

Follow The Recipe Extra:

In order to just crisp the bread and still make the cheese nice and melty, I suggest that you pop the sandwiches in the microwave for about 1:00 on high heat.  Then put the sandwiches into the pan to cook.  This will start the cheese melting and allow you to take the sandwiches off when the bread is perfect.  I also suggest doctoring up your tomato soup with some extra basil, and parmesean cheese…sooo good.

Comments

Minestrone Soup á la Aunt Teri

Posted on March 16th, 2009 by Danielle.
Categories: Stews, cheesey, dinner, onion, recipe, sausage.

For Christmas this year my family decided to make gifts for one another.  My gift included all of the family soup recipes.  I came across this minestrone soup recipe and though I’ve never really favored this soup, I thought I’d give it a try.  I’m beyond glad that I did!  It was rich, broth-y and filling.  I loved it and you will too!

Minestrone Soup:

1 lb. of Italian bulk sausage
2-3 stalks celery diced
2-3 carrots sliced
2 onions chopped
2 cloves of garlic minced
1-28oz can of italian diced tomatoes
2-8oz. cans tomato sauce
2 Tbs parsley flakes
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. basil
1/2 tsp. oregano
2 cans beef broth
1  tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
———————

2 small zucchini sliced
2 cups finely shredded cabbage
1 can great northern beans (or cannellini if you prefer)
1 cup uncooked macaroni noodles
Parmesan cheese

Begin by browning and draining the Italian bulk sausage.  Place browned sausage in a large stock pot with 3 cups of water on high heat.  Boil for 8 minutes then add all of the ingredients above the dashed line. Reduce the pot to a simmer and cook for 1 hour (or as much as 6 hours).

After the hour add the rest of the ingredients and the noodles.  Simmer for 1/2 hour more or until macaroni is cooked.  Serve with Parmesan cheese and a good bread.

Follow The Recipe Extra:
This recipe makes a ton of soup and it’s a filling soup at that.  Luckly its a soup that freezes very, very well.  Put any extras in a tuperware in the freezer.  When ready to reheat, put it in a stock pot and add a little water on med heat.  It will defrost nicely and taste wonderful.

Comments

Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Shells

Posted on February 28th, 2009 by Danielle.
Categories: cheesey, dinner, pasta, recipe, sauce.

My grandma, who we call Nane, gave everyone in the family a cookbook that she had made and published for Christmas.  With great grace she also gave me permission to post everyone of the recipes I make from her cookbook.  So here’s the first of many recipes that the generations in my family have been eating for years. Thanks Nane!

Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Shells:

12 Jumbo Shells
1 10oz. Package frozen, chopped spinach, thawed and well drained
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1 Egg white, slightly beaten
2 Tbs. Milk
1 26oz. jar of Marinara sauce (your choice)
mozzarella cheese

In a bowl, combine spinach, ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese, egg white and milk.  Mix throughly.  In the meantime, heat a stock pot of water to boil and add the jumbo shells.  Cook only for 5-7 minutes.  Remove the pot from the stove and drain shells, carefully so as not to tear.  Put aside in a bowl.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a 9×13 inch casserole dish, coat the bottom with a small amount of the marinara sauce.  Fill each shell and place in the baking dish in rows.  Pour the remaining sauce over the shells and cover with mozzarella cheese as desired.

Cover and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.  Then remove cover and continue cooking for 15 minutes more.  Let it stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Follow The Recipe Extra:

The key to stuffing shells is not to over cook them in the water.  Only cook for 5 minutes and check them regularly. Also to make filling easier, use a pastry bag or a corner-cut ziplock.

Comments

Authentic Tacos – Ben’s Mom’s Style

Posted on March 22nd, 2008 by Danielle.
Categories: Beef, Intermediate, cheesey, dinner, ground beef, mexican, recipe, tacos.

Hi All!
So I’m sure you’ve noticed that the winner of last week’s poll was…..TACOS!! For those of you that voted for pork chops or chicken, never fear, those recipes will be coming shortly regardless. So, on to tacos. When Ben and I first started dating I made tacos for dinner one night. He was a little confused by my method – taco shells, ground beef with that sauce-powder you get at the grocery store. Then we went to his mom’s house one night and she made the most amazing tacos and I understood.  She’d been making these tacos for him since he was little. Now granted, these are certainly not the best-for-your-diet tacos, but they are soooo good. I’ve learned to make them and even though it seems difficult and perhaps a little dangerous (see the extra below), they are so worth it if you can stick through the cooking. :) This recipe doesn’t have many ingredients, but make sure you read all the instructions before trying to make them, this is not a read-for-the-first-time-as-you-cook recipe.

tacos.jpg

Ben’s Mom’s Authentic Tacos:

For tacos:
1 lb lean ground beef
1 small pkg of corn tortillas (12-20 tortillas)
Vegetable oil

For garnish:
Avocado sliced thin
Tomatoes diced
Mexican style shredded cheese
Refried beans
Green Taco sauce
Salsa

Cooking materials:
cookie sheet covered in paper towel or news paper
Large round skillet
Large splatter screen
tongs – the longer the better
Paper towels

Open up the package of ground beef and the tortillas. With a butter knife or your fingers spread about 1-3 tablespoons of meat on half of one tortilla. Your tortilla should look like a pie graph with one half filled in with meat. Make sure you press the meat into the tortilla firmly, that will help keep the meat on the tortilla when you are cooking. Prepare all of the tortillas in this manner until you are either out of meat or out of tortillas.

Set uncooked tacos to the side of the stove. Heat the oven to 200 degrees and place the cookie sheet with the paper towels or newspaper inside it. On the stove heat about 1/2 cup vegetable oil in a skillet on medium-high heat. When the oil is heated, slip your first uncooked taco into the oil. The tortilla should be floating meat-side up. With your tongs move the tortilla around in the pan a little to coat the face up side of the taco with oil. This will help soften the tortilla to make it easier to fold. You’ll be able to see the ground beef browning on the side touching the tortilla. When it’s about 1/2 way brown use your tongs to fold the empty side of the tortilla over making the taco shape. Now that it’s taco shaped, turn the taco over in the oil to cook the other side. When the beef is browned, pull the taco out of the skillet.  Try to drip most of the excess oil back into the pan as you take it out. Place the cooked taco in the oven on the paper. This will soak up the extra oil and make the tacos crispy. You may put another taco in the pan now and restart the process. Replenish the oil as needed to cook all the tacos. When the last one is done, leave the tacos in the oven for 10 minutes so the last few can crisp.

Follow The Recipe Extra:
The Oil – It will spatter!! Make sure you are using your screen! I always make these tacos wearing long sleeves and it helps if you put a piece of paper towel on the top of the screen to keep spatter from jumping up at you. Also, towards the end you’ll find that the tacos and oil spatter more, and seemingly for no reason. This is for two reasons, 1.) the temp of the oil is too high or 2.) the oil has residual meat in it. The solution for problem 1 is to turn the stove down (duh!) and for 2 you can use an empty can in your sink to pour the old oil into and put new oil into the pan and continue. Do not touch the hot oil can with your bare hands until it has fully cooled!

The Tacos – You can usually cook two tacos at a time depending on the size of your pan. You should always be removing one, folding the other in 1/2, and then adding a new one to replace the one you just took out. I cannot recommend doing more than two at a time the first time that you do this.

The Meat – Sometimes the meat will fall out while you are flipping or removing. The key to avoiding this is long tongs and always turning, flipping or removing the tacos by using the tongs on the side of the taco that is open.

You – This recipe makes a lot of tacos. Lucky for you they are awesome left over. I included the list of condiments that we use, but use whatever you want. Everything is good on these tacos. Finally, if you’re a little nervous or concerned about splattering oil or burning yourself, then only heat the oil to the temp that you are comfortable with. The tacos will take longer to cook, yes, but you will have a more enjoyable time making them if you aren’t worried about the oil.

Enjoy – feel free to comment with questions!

Comments

Chicken Piccatta

Posted on February 23rd, 2008 by Danielle.
Categories: cheesey, dinner, lemon, shallotts.

Once my husband told me that a friend of his made chicken piccata for he and her boyfriend one night while he was in college. He then kept raving about how he would never have piccata that good again. Of course I took up the challenge. Here’s what I came up with. It’s one of the best recipes I ever cook with and I’ve made it like 1,000 times. As a side note…I realize that the the picture included is not actually of Chicken Piccata, it looked icky. Instead this is a picture of all the ingredients. I think I might like doing this from now on. :)

Piccata

Chicken Piccata

Chicken breasts (1 per person should be plenty)
Flour
Paprika
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
2 tbs Butter
3-4 whole Lemons (depends on how much you’re making) – 3 juiced (1/2-1 cup of juice); 1 sliced
bottle of Capers
1 or 2 shallots – diced thin
1/4 cup White wine

1. Mix approx 1 cup of flour and salt, pepper and paprika to taste in a bowl. (D says: for more flavor make sure you can see the pepper and paprika thoroughly throughout the flour)
2. Pound chicken breasts until 1/4″ thick. Cut breasts into slices (D says: like Chicken tenders). Coat the chicken with the flour and set aside to be cooked.
3. In a Saute Pan, heat approx 2 tbs of oil on medium-high.
4. In the pan lay the chicken flat to be cooked. You can cook as many pieces at once as can lay flat in the pan. Cook for approx 1 min on each side, or until brown. Place finished chicken in a glass pan. For each batch of chicken you saute, add 2 more tbs of oil to replenish the pan. Cover the finished chicken and refrigerate.

5. In the same pan that you cooked the chicken, add 1 tbs of butter and shallots Cook shallots until golden.
6. Add in capers to taste and 2 tbs of caper juice. Add in White wine. Cook mixture down until it has reduced by half.
7. When reduced stir in the lemon juice. When sauce is bubbling slowly stir in the remaining 1 tbs of butter. Cook for 1 or 2 more minutes.
8. Pour the sauce over the chicken that is in the refrigerator. YOU CAN COVER AND RETURN TO THE FRIDGE TO BE COOKED THE NEXT DAY IF YOU WANT.

9. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lay the sliced lemon over the chicken. Cook chicken for 15-20 minutes.
10. Eat

Follow the Recipe Extra: Cook this recipe this way once, then anytime after that play with the amounts of ingredients. Everyone likes their piccata different. For Ben and I, I use the juice from like, 4 lemons and 3/4 cup of wine, I double the shallots and use more caper juice than capers cause I like the taste but not the texture. Make it your own !! Don’t worry about under cooking too much, you’ll be baking the chicken anyway. They should be golden brown on the outside. Watch shallots carefully they cook quick. You want them brown not burnt. Keep in mind, if you didn’t refrigerate the chicken the night before, it will still be warm from cooking reduce time to 10-15 in the oven.

Comments

Chili

Posted on November 26th, 2007 by Danielle.
Categories: Beef, Newman's Own, Stews, cheesey, chili, ground beef, mexican, spicy.

So finally! Here is the recipe that started this idea to begin with. As I mentioned we had friends over and they all wanted the recipe. Like most of the recipes I’ve put up so far, this one came from my mom who probably got it from her mom. Anyways I’ve been making and eating it since forever. Here it is…follow the recipe, but don’t be afraid to experiment.

Chili

D’s Chili

1 lb extra lean ground beef
1 small white onion diced
3 cloves garlic minced
2 cans of chili beans in Hot sauce
1 or 2 cans of kidney or black beans
1 cup of Newman’s Own Black Bean & Corn Salsa
Tabasco sauce
chili powder
red pepper flakes
shredded cheese
Fritos

In a skillet begin browning the ground beef. Add in onions and garlic and finish browning. Drain fat and transfer beef, onions and garlic into a stock pot. Set stove to med high heat. Add in Chili beans with sauce from can. Use about 1/4 cup water in each can to get out the remaining sauce. Drain kidney or black beans and add to the pot. Add in salsa then add the Tabasco, chili powder and red pepper flakes to taste. Lower the heat to medium and stir all contents together and simmer for 15 or 20. When finished simmering lay a handful of Fritos in the bottom of a bowl, put a scoop of chili in and garnish with shredded cheese.

Follow The Recipe extra:
First; I am not one for needlessly advertising for companies, but in all seriousness I made this recipe with whatever salsa I had laying around the house for years. Then one day I happened to have someone bring over this Newman’s salsa to a party and I had some left over so I threw it in the chili. It was a whole new chili level! That being said the “extra” is this: put new things in your chili. I once made it with fresh red and yellow bell peppers sauteed with the onions and it was phenomenal. I’ve tried it with fresh tomatoes and chicken instead of beef. You literally cannot go wrong. Also, if you’re expecting people, but you aren’t sure when, just remember to throw some water in the chili and lower the heat. Don’t worry, the water won’t water down the taste. Yeeeaaahh Chili!!

P.S. the most recent serving of chili at my house was while playing Rockband on 360! We rule!

Jasmine’s electric death

Comments

Mexican Casserole

Posted on November 11th, 2007 by Danielle.
Categories: casserole, cheesey, dinner, mexican.

This recipe is part of my childhood. Along with Gumbo sandwiches (PB&J premixed in a bowl then spread on bread) and chicken soup. My mom used to make this dish and we’d all be very excited to eat it. I made it for my dad for his last birthday because it’s his favorite meal. Then I married a guy who had never had it. In our first few weeks of marriage I made it for the first time and he thought I was nuts and that all that cheese and sauce couldn’t possibly be that good, but since then he has grown to love this meal and requests it often. Give it a chance…you’ll love it

Mexican Casserole

Mexican Casserole

1-2 lbs ground beef
16 oz bag of mexican style cheese
3 small cans of hot enchilada sauce (red) / or 2 big cans
1 can of large black olives sliced
1 or 2 small cans of diced jalapeños
1 can of corn
1 small package of corn tortillas

Optional:
1 diced onion
1 cup salsa
1 diced avocado
2-3 diced roma tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Begin by browning the ground beef, set aside. Pre-open all cans. Slice olives if not already sliced. In a 9×13 glass pan lay down enough corn tortillas to cover the bottom one time. On top of the tortillas, spread some ground beef to cover the bottom (you can leave some space since there will be two layers). Sprinkle corn over the beef so it’s evenly spread. Lay sliced olives over the corn so they span the bottom. Throw some diced jalapeños across the layer. Cover all with cheese. Top with Enchilada sauce (1 small can), the sauce doesn’t have to drench, just season. Repeat the process adding a layer of tortillas one more time. When finished with your second layer you should’ve used all of the ground beef, corn and 2 out of 3 cans of the enchilada sauce. For the top layer one final layer of tortillas, top those with cheese, jalapeños, olives and cheese. Finish off with the last can of sauce.

Cover the pan in foil and place in the oven for 30-45 minutes or until you can see bubbles rising in the bottom of the pan from the sauce. Pull off the foil and bake for an additional 10-15 so the cheese on top gets crispy. Let it cool for 30 min before serving (if you serve before that, serve it in a bowl. It’ll taste great, but it’ll be mushy)

Follow the Recipe Extra:

You can add all sorts of things to this casserole that will be great. Onions with the ground beef, avocados and diced roma tomatoes are good addition. This dish is a lot like pizza, you can add lots of different things to it and it’s almost better reheated from the refrigerator the next day. Hope you like it.

Comments