Quick Product Rave

There is no recipe in this post, but be sure there will be some to come using this awesome stuff! If you make a lot of rice, soup or anything where you need chicken stock and you love Thai inspired food, this is the chicken broth for you:


I wanted to use my new rice cooker and this new culinary broth I got on sale, so I put the two together with a little rice, bell pepper and baby vidalia onions and wow! So good! If you like the coconut soup served at Thai restaurants you will love this stuff. It smells just like it and leaves a hint of those flavors in your rice. I will be purchasing more. No contest!!

This Breakfast Should Be Illegal!

I'm not really even sure it counts as a true breakfast item except for the fact that we ate it in the morning and used the word pancake. ;) I have mentioned before that I love the store Aldi. You can really get a lot for your money there without worrying about coupons or anything. Right now they have a seasonal item called Pumpkin Quick Bread or Muffin Mix. Props to my sister for turning me onto to this yumminess! In our house, we tend to use muffin mix to make pancakes because it is so much quicker. Breakfast time needs to be quick and easy when you have a toddler.


This is probably the best and easiest breakfast trick in my arsenal. Open a bag of any kind of muffin mix, add milk until it is a pancake batter consistency (usually about 1/2 a cup depending on the size of the package, but I honestly don't measure it.)

That is exactly what I did this morning, and then I made it even better. I made a cream cheese topping to play on the idea of adding syrup. It was just a basic cream cheese icing thinned out a little. Cream cheese, powdered sugar and milk. I am really not a measurer. I just go by consistency.

Breakfast for Dinner, With a Twist!

We used to have pizza night once a week, either ordered in or homemade. If you recall, we went through a grilled pizza kick. Man, those were good! Anyway, I decided to do a breakfast pizza. Taylor wasn't as enthused as I was with the prospect, but he did try it. He said he would rather stick to traditional pizza, but I thought it was a nice change of pace.

I also used one of my favorite seasonings EVER! Pilleterri's Bold & Spicy Seasoning. It is great on just about everything!!!

Breakfast Pizza
Source: Me

1 refrigerated pizza dough (we like pillsbury)
5 eggs, scrambled
5 sausage links, the heat and serve kind, defrosted and sliced into 1" pieces
cheddar cheese
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
milk
chicken stock
salt
pepper
Pilleterri's Bold & Spicy Seasoning

Roll out the pizza dough and bake for 1/2 the time indicated on the package. While it is baking, add the butter to a small sauce pan and let it melt over medium heat. Add the flour and cook a few minutes. Add milk until it creates a sauce. Yeah, I don't do measurements with the liquids. I just add until it looks right. Let it thicken over the heat and then use the chicken stock to thin it out a little. Add salt and pepper to taste.
When the half baked pizza crust comes out of the oven, use the gravy like pizza sauce and spread over the crust. Sprinkle with the pilleterri's seasoning. Add the eggs and sausage. Sprinkle with any cheese of your choosing, I used cheddar.

A Few Of My Favorite Things

Happy New Year! I haven't had much chance to cook lately since we've been on the run with holiday madness, but I wanted to blog about some of my favorite Christmas gifts! Hopefully I'll be back soon with a new recipe.

My new digital camera! Taylor got me this Sony Cybershot T77 for Christmas. I am still learning all the cool features, but it does have a gourmet mode that I can't wait to try out. I guess I need to cook something worth blogging about! :)

An herb mincer. This was in my stocking and I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I can't wait! I love the idea of quickly rolling over fresh herbs to mince them.

A Rachel Ray Moppine! I know some people can't stand RR, but I love her! This is such a great innovation; pot holders in the corners of the dish towel. Anyone who has ever picked up a large steaming pot of pasta to drain, knows those handles can get pretty hot! This was another stocking item. Santa was good to me this year!!!

Run, Run As Fast As You Can...

You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man! My nephew loves this line from one of his books, so when he and my sister came over one day we made gingerbread men. We took a quick time saver by using the Pillsbury slice and bake cookie dough. Instead of slicing and baking, we rolled it out and cut out the little men. We then iced them with a simple mixture of powdered sugar and milk. They were fantastic and so much easier than making them from scratch! I highly recommend the Pillsbury gingerbread dough, especially if you need to save time when baking with children. Do you know any two years olds who are good at waiting??

If At First You Don't Succeed, Try Try Again!

I have yet to succeed in making a roast that I actually enjoy eating. Don't get me wrong, I'll eat it if it is my only meat choice. I've blogged about an attempt or two on here, and now I'm trying something different. I used McCormick Crusting Blends.
It was better than my previous attempts. The crusting on the ends was a little mushy, but overall, I liked it. I plan to try crusting something else soon.

I also made roasted potatoes with shallots and garlic to go along side the roast. I roasted the potatoes in a separate dish, but added them to the roast before serving.

French Onion, Pepper and Herb Crusted Roast

1 eye of round roast, 2 lb.
1 cup Worcestershire sauce
2/3 cup McCormick Crusting Blends, French Onion, Pepper and Herb flavor

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Marinade roast in worcestershire sauce for 30 minutes to an hour. Coat roast with the crusting blend. Bake in the oven for approximately 1 hour 20 minutes to be cooked medium.

Roasted Potatoes with Shallots and Garlic

6 medium sized potatoes, cubed
1 small shallot, minced
3 cloves garlic, each clove sliced about 3 times to create chunks of garlic
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste

Place cubed potatoes into a baking dish. Add the shallots, garlic and oil. Toss to coat everything evenly with the oil. Add salt and pepper and toss again. Bake in the same oven as the roast for approximatly 45 minutes, or until potatoes are fork tender. (Normally I would bake these at 450 degrees for about 25 minutes, but I decided to just stick them in with the roast to save time.) Toss potatoes about half way through cooking. If you want them a little more brown, turn on the broiler at the end.

Macaroni Grill Comes to You

I saw this product on Dela's Blog and since I had a coupon, I decided to try it out.  It's a box dinner, much like Hamburger Helper, where you just add the meat and things like butter and milk.  It is slightly odd to me that a lot of restaurants are doing this now.  You can get California Pizza Kitchen frozen pizzas, TGIFriday's appetizers, and now Macaroni Grill Entree's all in the convenience of your local grocery aisle.  It tastes pretty darn close to the real thing, so why use the gas to make the round trip to your local eatery, wait for your food to arrive, and then leave a tip?  Unless you just like being served, which sometimes I do.  Sometimes you just need to go to a sit-down restaurant where you are the guest.  But anyway, back to this particular clone of your dining out favorites.

Of course I made some changes and didn't do it exactly like the box asked.  Where's the fun in that?  I didn't go too crazy with my alterations though.  Like Dela, I didn't use the sun dried tomatoes because I'm not really a fan.  I also was out of milk, so I used half and half.  Oh yeah, and I grilled the chicken instead of just sauteing it in the pan.

It was really good, but it had as many steps as making dinner that doesn't come out of a box so I probably won't buy it again since it is pretty expensive.  Unless I have another coupon. ;)

Product Rave!!

When grocery shopping, my husband usually tries to steer me away from the specialty cheese case. He is not a big fan of what he calls "weird, moldy cheeses." To him, this includes everything except Cheddar and American...even if the cheeses are not remotely moldy. I do happen to make it to that lovely piece of heaven every once in a while and I have a new discovery. Alouette spreadable cheese.
It is SOOOO good! I purchased the Garlic and Herbs variety and spread it on some equally wonderful crackers, Parmesan Basil Wheat Thins. Trust me, I can make a meal out of this stuff. I also discovered that Alouette has a website where they have lots of recipes in which to use their products. I will be testing out some of those soon!

If you are wondering where this random, middle of the day post comes from, let me enlighten you. A pregnant woman's brain is always thinking about food. And I happen to have this tub of yumminess in my fridge at home, but I am stuck at work day dreaming about it. Therefore, you have a post to read while I sit here drooling on my keyboard.