Roasted Shrimp with Butter noodles

I know, a little excessive. I just finally got time to post stuff. Tonight we had Roasted Shrimp with Buttered Noodles. Another Barefoot fav from her new book. Chad basically did everything since I was deveining (is this even a word?) Shrimp...my most hated of all jobs beyond dead naked chicken work.

Pre-Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Cook for 8-10 minutes.
Raw Shrimp deveined with tails on. However many you need for your meal.
On a baking sheet toss shrimp with:
a little Olive Oil
Fresh Garlic or garlic seasoning
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper.
Honestly you could use any kind of seasoning, spices, anything. I just used the above.
Serve with Rice or noodles.

Applesauce

With our new Family Fitness Challenge I have been so craving sweets. I have been replacing and hopefully retraining my brain to want fruits and veggies rather than candy. I know that I still have to do all in moderation with some fruits having a lot of fructose. So with all the soon to be dead apples from Christmas I decided to make applesauce. This was a Barefoot Contessa recipe done several years ago and is delightful! Plus it made our house smell all yummy and Martha-ish. If anything it helped my sweet fix. I packaged it in to small containers and taking it for breakfast. I did alter the recipe as it still had too much sugar for me and I wanted to focus on the natural sugars that the fruit has. If you want the original you can go here.

2 Oranges zested and Juiced

1 Lemon zested and Juiced

3 lbs of Granny smith Apples (about 6-8)

3 lbs of Sweet Red Apples (about 6-8)

1/8 cup Brown Sugar

1 Tbs Butter

2 Tsp ground Cinnamon

1/2 tsp fresh Nutmeg

1/8 tsp Cloves

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Place the zest and juice of the oranges and lemon in a large bowl. Peel, quarter, and core the apples (reserving the peel of 2 of the red apples) and toss them in the juice. Pour the apples, reserved apple peel, and juice into a nonreactive Dutch oven or enameled iron pot. Add the brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, and allspice and cover the pot. Bake for 1 hour, or until all the apples are soft. Remove and discard the red apple peel. Mix with a whisk until smooth, and serve warm or at room temperature.

Potatoes

So we have been cooking a lot more at home and working on different varieties too. So here are 2 different kind of potatoes done kind of the same way. First Sweet potatoes.
And then Red Potatoes.

Cut either in cubes or in half and then I pre-cooked the Sweet Potatoes since they take so much longer to cook. I put them in a Steamer in bag in the microwave and set it for 5 minutes. Both sweet and red were cooked in a couple of teaspoons of olive oil in a frying pan. Toasting each cut side, and then putting a lid for about 3 minutes. After that you season them however you like. For both I cleared a small spot in the middle of the pan, let my garlic cook for about 30 seconds and then stirred the potatoes.

For the sweet potatoes I added some smoked paprika (my new fav spice), salt and pepper, and a tablespoon of brown sugar. For the red potatoes, I added some herb mix that had rosemary, onion, garlic, pepper, and then a little Parmesan cheese.

Talk about amazing, Chad's only complaint was that I didn't make enough.

Sweet Chili

I had this recipe at a bridal shower a little over a month ago and had picked up all the ingredients this last week (yep all 5 of them) and decided this morning a half hour before church started that I would make it. 5 minutes later, yes don't fall over! That was as long as it took to open the cans, I also browned up the meat in a couple teaspoons of Olive Oil and threw everything in.

This was wonderful! Our house awesome when we got home from church, I cooked ours on high so it would give me time to make corn bread and be done when Chad got home from a meeting and before I left for another meeting.

1 pound cubed stew meat

2 stalks diced celery

2 cans chili bean, undrained

2 cans diced tomatoes (the one with basil, garlic and oregano)

2 TBS to 4 TBS Brown Sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)

Brown meat in 2 tsp of Olive Oil. Combine all ingredients in slow cooker and cook on low 6-8 hours or high 4-5 hours.

Serve with fresh rolls or corn bread.

Italian Wedding Soup

For the meatballs:
3/4 pound ground chicken or turkey
1/2 pound mild or hot Italian sausage
2/3 cup fresh bread crumbs
2 tsp minced garlic (2 cloves)
3 TBS chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (plus extra for serving)
3 TBS milk
2 medium eggs or 1 extra-large egg slightly beaten
1/2 tsp both salt and pepper

For the Soup
2 TBS Olive Oil
1 cup minced Yellow Onion
1 cup 1/4 inch-diced Carrots (approx 3 carrots)
3/4 cup 1/4 inch-diced Celery (2 stalks)
10 cups Chicken Stock (if you have homemade use it)
1/2 cup White Wine (I just used more Chicken stalks)
1 cup small pasta such as stars or tubetini (I used piccolini bowties)
1/4 cup minced fresh dill (okay so I was chicken and only used a table spoon and a half)
6 to 12 ounces baby spinach, washed and trimmed
in
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine above ingredients in a bowl and combine gently with a fork until well mixed. With a teaspoon or small ice cream scoop, drop 1 to 1 1/4 inch meatballs onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. You should have about 35 to 40 meatballs, and they don't have to be perfectly round...Bake for 30 minutes until cooked through and lightly browned...yes, they smell heavenly!

In the meantime, for the soup, heat the olive oil in a large pot. Add onion, carrot, and celery and saute until softened 5-6 min over medium heat. Add Chicken stock and wine and bring to a boil. Add the pasta and cook 6-8 minutes, until pasta is tender. Add the fresh dill and then the meatball's and simmer for 1 minute. Taste for Salt and Pepper additions. Stir in the fresh spinach and cook for 1 minute, until the spinach is just wilted. Ladle into soup bowls and sprinkle each serving with extra grated Parmesan cheese.

Easy Holiday Project

I've been needing a garland of some sort to adorn my front window. After viewing several similar projects I decided to put my stash of Christmas fabric scraps to good use. I'm quite pleased with the results and think it looks very nice on my window.

To make your own pennant garland, simply cut triangles from fabric scraps (mine are 8''x10''). Arrange into a pleasing pattern and sew to double fold bias tape. Cut strips of fabric and tie in between triangles.

Very easy and very fun!

Enrichment Success

Yesterday was our November enrichment meeting and I was in charge of refreshments. Thanks to the Christmas recipe books I compiled last year, I have a plethora of holiday resources. I planned to set up a tasting table of several dishes with copies of the recipes available for the sisters.

I enlisted the help of the other committee members and some other kind sisters and made assignments.

From my Christmas Goodies recipe book we made:
Mint Meltaways
Gingerbread Coffee Cake
Pumpkin Tiramisu
Black Forest Bread Pudding
Almond Fudge Topped Shortbread
Cranberry Crunch Bark

Throw in some Ripken's Gingersnaps and Mini Pumpkin Tarts from Family Fun and we had quite the spread!

I had only made a few of these recipes. I was crossing my fingers that everything would turn out well. I'm happy to report that everything was delicious! The sisters raved about the yummy treats and happily snatched up copies of the recipes.

So, here's a testament to the recipes in your books. I hope you have an occasion to try some soon!

**Sorry I didn't take pictures of my spread. I was running around like a mad person all day and forgot the camera.