Tasty Tuesdays: Beef Stir Fry

***Tasty Tuesdays is for sharing a meal/dessert/snack recipe that you made this week.  It doesn't have to be gourmet!  It just has to taste good! If you want to link up, let me know and I will link you to my Tuesday posts.  Use this^ button to link back to my page!  

This is one of my go-to dinners.  Except one problem: I couldn't find my recipe!  I haven't made this since before we moved so I am guessing that it got lost in the move.  Well, I still made it because I had the stuff and I generally remembered the recipe.  Plus, I have always appreciated cooks who make up recipes and don't use exact measurements.  I think cooking is much more like an art form that way.

So, I gathered the ingredients that I had:

I typically go with the regular generic frozen "stir fry medley" veggies, but that includes pepper and onion, which I already had (as you can see).  So I got this one instead:

And I am really glad I did because the broccoli, snap peas, and carrots were very tasty, fresh, and crunchy!  Josh and I are not huge fans of water chestnuts, so we were glad when there were only a few of them.  I also typically get some real thin slices of some kind of beef and then cut them into strips, but a few weeks ago, Josh and I had ribeyes for dinner and we didn't finish them.  So we cut them up and froze them for later.  I whipped those out and had free beef!

So, first I made the marinade.  I chopped half of a vidalia onion, added 1/2c soy sauce, 1/2c water, 3 tbsp sugar, and about 2 cloves of garlic, pressed.  Then I added the beef and let that sit while I started on everything else.

Ewww.  It looks gross.

I started the rice.  When it comes to having rice in my house, I don't go cheap.  I full-heartedly believe that couponing and buying generic brands are important for a family on a budget.  However, everyone has a few things that they simply need to have a brand name for.  For instance, Josh needs brand name cereal and Jif peanut butter.  I have even tried to sneak in generic cereal by purchasing the ones that most visibly resemble the name brand, pouring the cereal into a Tupperware thing (which we do anyway), and getting rid of the box.  He takes one bite and he knows.  He will not eat it. And my things are: Mahatma Basmati rice, Saran Wrap brand plastic wrap, and Sabra hummus.

Anyway, I have tried making rice in my steamer and it never really seemed to work.  I like it dry and sticky, like Chinese food rice, for this dish, so I went with the old stove top method.  I made a cup of rice.  It's quite a lot for two people, but I usually overdo this dish because we both like to take leftovers to school for lunch.

Rice simmering.

I have found that it works best when you simmer it on the lowest possible setting.  I do not touch it at all until the time is up (I definitely use a timer for this one--just whatever the recommendation is on the package), and then I fluff it with a fork just before serving it.

While the rice is simmering, I added the frozen veggies to a pan with some olive oil to warm those up a bit while I cut the other vegetables.

I sliced red pepper, orange pepper, the other half of my onion, and some leftover asparagus from another dish.  I actually just realized that I have been sharing Tasty Tuesdays for 3 weeks now and in every recipe I use peppers.  Yeah, I like 'em.  I also used to just use half of an onion in this dish, but I specifically remember Josh requesting more onion last time, so I did that.

Then I added the fresh veggies to the warmed frozen ones, added a bit more olive oil, some salt and pepper, and sauteed them up!

oooohhh... how pretty and colorful!

While they were all getting cooked, I put the marinade and beef into a pot and brought it to a boil, then combined it all together.  We love that the vegetables are still crunchy...

And the best part: leftovers!!!

***On a side note, if I had not had the leftover cooked steak and would have started with raw beef, I would have done it a little different.  I would have marinaded the raw beef, then added the beef to a pan and browned it, then added the sauce back in and boiled it for quite some time before adding the vegetables.  I usually boil it for a while it the sauce/marinade is soaking raw meat so that I kill all of the bacteria.  I am pretty paranoid about this, so I have been known to have it at a rolling boil for at least 8-10 minutes.  Obviously, that's not necessary.  But it doesn't hurt anything, right?

Tasty Tuesdays: Pasta Primavera

***Tasty Tuesdays is for sharing a meal/dessert/snack recipe that you made this week.  It doesn't have to be gourmet!  It just has to taste good! If you want to link up, let me know and I will link you to my Tuesday posts.  Use this^ button to link back to my page!  

Last night I made a version of pasta primavera.  I usually find recipes that look good and then alter them a bit.  This time it was completely inspired by all of the colorful veggies I had in the fridge.  I gathered my ingredients.

I decided on an onion, left over red pepper, orange pepper, zucchini, and asparagas.  I used thin spaghetti (usually the only kind I buy).  I always feel bad eating regular pasta, but don't like wheat as much, so I buy one box of each and mix them together.  I feel a bit healthier that way.  I also didn't have any garlic (BOO!) so I used garlic powder.  Not the same.  If I make this again, I will definitely make sure I have a clove of garlic.  Actually, I usually do.  Just not today.

I also think that peas, corn, carrots, mushrooms, or broccoli would go good in this meal, too.  

I started the boiling water. I usually add a TON of salt (I might die from that later, but it's soooo good!)  I also added a bit of olive oil.  It's not something I typically do when boiling pasta, but since I knew the sauce tonight was basically just oil anyway, I figured it couldn't hurt.  

I sliced the onion really thin and sauteed that with butter, salt, pepper, and a bit of olive oil for a few minutes.  Then I added very thin sliced peppers for a few minutes and then added the zuchinni and asparagus and garlic powder.  The only reason for this order is that we like soft onion, kind-of-soft cooked peppers with a little bit of crunch, and kind-of-crunchy fresh asparagus and zucchini.  (Who likes squishy zucchini? eww).  But you could definitely add them in whatever order suits you.

ooohhh how colorful and healthy!

At exactly the same time (yeah for great in-the-kitchen timing!), the pasta was ready.  I strained it in my tiny plastic baby strainer and mixed it all up in the big pan with some more olive oil and a bit more butter.  

baby strainer.

I also served it with a new wine we found that is actually very good for a $10 bottle of wine.  Red Rock Pinot Noir:

I added a bit of grated Parmesan and was happy with the flavor combination.  But Josh wanted a bit more, so he put a little Italian dressing on his.  We are so different.

I loved that it was pretty healthy and I loved all of the colorful veggies mixed up in there.  This is a go-to meal when you have lots of vegetables in the refrigerator that you don't want to go bad.  And I always have pasta, olive oil, onions, and Parmesan on hand.  And it was super easy and only took about 20 minutes.

Happy Tuesday!

Tasty Tuesdays Premiere: Lazy Man's Stuffed Peppers

Well, Lizz, here it is!

***Tasty Tuesdays is for sharing a meal/dessert/snack recipe that you made this week.  It doesn't have to be gourmet!  It just has to taste good! If you want to link up, let me know and I will link you to my Tuesday posts.  Use this^ button to link back to my page!  

The first Tasty Tuesday post I will do is super simple.  Actually, most of the meals that I make us (me and hubby) are pretty simple.  I am not one for spending the whole day in the kitchen.  Although occasionally I do get the urge to make a more complex dinner.  This dinner was inspired by a recipe I found in Better Homes and Gardens.  Josh typically does not like stuffed peppers. I'm not exactly sure why he doesn't.  The worst part about cooking for us is that we have completely different tastes.  Most people would say that Josh is not a picky eater, but compared to me, he is.  I literally like everything and will try everything (except raw oysters).  But everything else, yep.  I have tried it and I like it.  It's probably one of the only aspects of my everyday life where I am diverse and risky.  

Anyway, I found the article in Better Homes and Gardens and the "stuffing" inside the pepper was made of ground chicken, herb stuffing, tomatoes, and celery, which was instead of the usual ground beef or sausage, rice, tomatoes, etc.  So I got thinking... hmmmm.  Josh likes peppers, he likes stuffing, he likes chicken.  I've got it!

Instead of herb stuffing, I bought chicken.  I used the leftover fried chicken from our The Red Roost dinner.  I just cut that up into chunks.  Josh doesn't like tomatoes or celery, so I didn't use those.  Here are my ingredients:

First, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.  We decided on one yellow pepper and one green pepper.  I diced up half an onion and sauteed that.  I microwaved one tbsp of butter and 1 cup of water for one minute.  Then I added one cup of chicken stuffing mix and microwaved that for another minute.  Then I added the leftover sauteed onion.  Last, I cut the tops off the peppers and cored them:

I didn't want any of the chicken, so I added half of the stuffing mixture into my pepper, mixed the chicken in, then added that into Josh's pepper.  I replaced the tops of the peppers and put them inside a loaf pan so they wouldn't be wobbling around.

I placed them in the oven just like that for 50 minutes.  Then I took them out, added some shredded cheese (who doesn't like cheese?!) and put them back in on broil for about 5 minutes, uncovered.  They came out like this:

I also reheated some of the leftover broccoli from Josh's mom's dinner at The Red Roost and added that.  

It turned out pretty good and I can honestly say that Josh liked the stuffed peppers.  I know he was dreading it, but it wasn't so bad and it was a piece of cake to make.  Not to mention, it was a cheap-o dinner.  I bought the peppers for around $1.50, the cheese was only a few sprinkles from a large $2 bag, leftover chicken and broccoli ($0), the stuffing was about $1.50, but I only used a third of it and half an onion was probably around $.30.  So all in all, I would say that this dinner cost us around $3 tops.  Not bad, huh? 

Have a beautiful Tasty Tuesday!  

Muffin Recipe Post

Here is the muffin recipe post I promised!  I wrote about the awesome muffins I made before going on vacation last week and said I would post the recipe after I got back.  Well, here I am!  We had an awesome week at the beach.  We basically did nothing except sleep and lay on the beach and eat.  My kind of week!

We got back around noon today and I unpacked and hit up the grocery store.  I made a super easy dinner which I will share as well!  Josh decided to call it "Ranchellini":

-Cook/boil pre-made cheese tortellini according to package.
-Add Hidden Valley Ranch dressing (to your taste)
-Add roasted red peppers (mine were from a jar)
-Add grated parmesan cheese

Ta-da!  10 minute dinner and it's delicious!  We also talked about adding chopped bacon next time. Mmm...

So, on to the muffins.  First I made yogurt blueberry muffins that I found on The Pioneer Woman.  I will copy the recipe from her site and write my notes/changes in italics.

The Awesome-est Blueberry Muffins

3 cups minus 2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
Heavy pinch of salt
Dash of Nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1 generous cup plain, unflavored yogurt (throw in extra if you want) *I used plain lowfat Greek yogurt.  Gotta get your protein!
2 cups fresh blueberries
Vanilla Extract
Softened Butter, for muffin tins *I just used paper baking cups because I knew I would be traveling with them.
Turbinado sugar (optional) *I don't know what this is, but I substituted brown sugar in its place.

Preheat oven to 385 degrees.

In a large bowl sift flour, baking soda, nutmeg, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In another large bowl whisk together sugar, oil, cap-ful of vanilla, egg, and yogurt. Add the dry ingredients and stir to a count of 10.

Add blueberries, reserving 1/2 cup, to mixture and stir 3 times.

Add mixture to well-buttered (or paper lined) muffin pans. Sprinkle remaining berries on top and press down lightly. Sprinkle turbinado sugar (or brown sugar) over top. 

Bake 20 to 25 minutes and allow to cool completely.

Yogurt-Blueberry Sauce:

In small saucepan over medium-low heat, stir together 1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries (if using fresh, add 2 tsp water) and 1 tsp sugar. Cook until berries pop and liquid begins to thicken. Dump in heaping 1/4 cup plain yogurt and stir to combine. Drizzle on muffins.

Here is the final product (in case you forgot from last week):

As you can see, I did not make the blueberry yogurt sauce to pour over the top.  That's mainly because we were going to be eating early (5am) and probably eating most of them in the car.  But my dad is coming to visit later this week and I am going to make them again, but with the sauce.  I will update about that!

On to the chocolate chip muffins!  Josh's brother and our family friend Nicole are both chocolate fanatics.  So I knew I had to make the chocolate chip muffins!  I found this recipe on allrecipes.com.  Although anyone can post on this site, there are always tons of reviews, ratings on recipes, and comments about how other people changed parts of the recipe.  So I usually glance over all of that before choosing a recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup white sugar 3 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup milk 1/4 cup sour cream (based on reviewers' comments)

1/3 cup vegetable oil 1 egg 3/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips 3 tablespoons white sugar 2 tablespoons brown sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Heat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Grease bottoms only of 12 muffin cups or line with baking cups.
2.	In a medium bowl, combine flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, chocolate chips, and salt; mix well. In a small bowl, combine milk, sour cream, oil and egg; blend well. Add dry ingredients all at once; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened (batter will be lumpy.)
3.	Fill cups 2/3 full. Sprinkle tops of muffins before baking with a combination of 3 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoon brown sugar.
4.	Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 1 minute before removing from pan. Serve warm

I added the sour cream because a lot of people wrote that the recipe, while delicious, was a little dry.  This was their solution, but I still thought they were too dry for my taste.  If I make these again, I will probably add more sour cream (or maybe try yogurt) or more vegetable oil.

The final product:

My favorite part about these muffins was that the sugar topping rose so high.  Just looking makes your mouth water!

I am making some awesome past dishes for dinner and lunch while my dad is here and will hopefully share recipes later on.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Green Monster!

In an attempt to eat healthier, I have been making "Green Monsters" for breakfast every morning.  I have been doing it for about a month now.  I used to eat oatmeal or cold cereal for breakfast but I got bored and got to reading about the green monster fad.

It's pretty easy and it tastes amazing and it's SUPER good for you so I thought I would share.  I've been meaning to get back into the swing of posting recipes since I have been trying a lot of new ones lately.

Green Monster:

• ~8oz milk.  Sometimes I use skim, sometimes 1%, and I have even tried almond milk, which is very good for you and very pricey tasty.
• ~1/2 c. original greek yogurt.  It's FULL of protein.  Don't taste it alone, though.  It's gross.
• A handful or two of spinach.  Yeah, it sounds weird, but once it's blended up I promise the only remains will be the green color.  The flavor disappears.
• Fruit!  My staple is blueberries and a banana.  Sometimes I add/substitute strawberries.  I have also tried raspberries, avocado, grapes, and even watermelon.  
• Maybe peanut butter?  I really like putting natural peanut butter in it, but I don't always.  Depends on my mood.  Almond butter or sun butter would also be delicious.
• Ice.  I always add ice because I like it super cold.

There you have it.  A nutritious and filling breakfast.  I wish I had discovered them last year during school because my lunch break was always really late and I was starving by the time my break rolled around.  These shakes keep me filled up for quite a while and they are super delicious.

Cake Balls

So, I decided to make some cake balls for dessert while we had some company last week.  They are pretty easy, very adorable, and yummy.  I got the original recipe from here.  It's a Paula Deen recipe.  


Ingredients: 

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package cake mix (and whatever you need to bake the cake)
• 1 (16 ounce) container prepared cake frosting
• 6 ounces of chocolate flavored confectioners coating disks or bar
• Food Coloring (optional)

1. Start by baking the cake according to the directions on the box.  When it's finished baking, allow it to cool for about 30 minutes or longer.
2. Crumble the cake into a large bowl using a stand or hand mixer.

3.  Add the frosting and mix until well combined.  (I added an entire can of vanilla frosting.  They turned out way too sweet for our taste, so next time I will either use a less sweet frosting like cream cheese or something.  Or I will just use less frosting all together). 

4.  Next, I divided the dough up into four bowls and mixed in food coloring.  Place the dough in the refrigerator for three hours or more.  (I left it in overnight).


5.  Line a baking tray with wax paper.  Use a melon baller as a scooper to form balls with the cake mixture. Place on wax paper. Once you have used all of the cake mixture, place the baking tray in the freezer for 1 hour. 

6.  Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl of the microwave, stirring every 5-10 seconds until smooth.


7. Remove the balls from the freezer. Using one toothpick, pick up the balls one at a time and dip in the chocolate. Use a second toothpick to slide the ball off the first toothpick onto the wax paper lined baking tray.  (I found that it was easier to just dip them like buckeyes, leaving the top open so you could see the color of the cake ball).


8.  Place the balls in the refrigerator until the chocolate is set (only a few minutes).  Taa-daa!