Stuffed Shells

It was an historic day in Harlee’s life:  he’s finally crawling!  He’s taken that “first step” and can get around.  Awkwardly, but he’s getting around.

He didn’t do this until this evening.  While I had him, he was still staying in one place.  He was so happy to see me when I showed up, so we played a while.  Then, he took a nap and I watched Ellen.  When he woke up, it was dinnertime for him, so I fed him, we played a bit more.  Justin was here for a while, and he played, too.

All that play made Harlee sleepy, so it was naptime again.  I finished my knitting, and Debbie showed up at 6.  Harlee woke up and was hungry again, so after another feeding and diaper change, Debbie and I started dinner.  We cooked the shells and browned the meat and then Jami showed up.  Thank goodness, too, because we were having a hard time figuring out the can opener.

The dinner was pretty easy to make.  Jami made the cheese filling before she left, so once we were done with the sauce, Jami and Debbie stuffed the shells.  The sauce consisted of the meat, tomato sauce and seasonings.  Easy.  Jami also fixed up some homemade rolls, which we popped in the oven.  They came out great, too.

The whole dinner was tasty, and I get to take home leftovers.  Yum!

Harlee in his high chair, with nothing to eat because he's still not interested.  Although he did get an onion... since he likes those...

Here's the lineup:

Sweet Rolls

     (taken from AllRecipes)

*Note: I used our bread machine to make this, otherwise I have no idea how to bake bread... This recipe is delicious, so I'm posting it for those of you who also have bread machines, or know how to bake bread.  For those of you who don't, you should learn just for this recipe... it's that good...

 1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1/2 cup warm milk
1 (.25 oz) package active dry yeast
1 egg
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, softened

Place warm water and warm milk together in the pan of the bread machine with the yeast.  Let yeast activate for about 5 minutes.  Add the butter, egg, sugar, salt, and flour.  Select Dough/Knead and First Rise Cycle and press Start.  
When finished, divide dough and shape into balls the size of your preference, or you can divide it into two and roll out each ball on a floured surface, cut into eight wedges each and roll each wedge into a crescent, starting with the wide end and rolling towards the point.  Arrange balls or crescents on an ungreased cookie sheet, cover with a towel, and allow to rise in a warm area for about 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden.


Stuffed Shells
     (taken from AllRecipes

16 jumbo pasta shells
1 15 oz container ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups chopped spinach
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp fennel seed
2 teaspoons dried basil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb ground meat (your choice - we used venison as usual but beef or turkey would work well too)
1 15oz can tomato sauce
3 tsp Italian seasonings
3 tsp basil
3 tsp oregano
1 cup mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil, gently place pasta shells in boiling water; bring water back to boil. Cook until noodles are just tender; drain well.  
Combine spinach, ricotta, 2/3 cup Parmesan cheese, fennel, basil and garlic in a large mixing bowl. Mix well.
Brown ground meat, drain any grease, add tomato sauce, Italian seasonings, basil, and oregano, and stir.
Spread half the meat sauce evenly over the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish.
Fill each pasta shell with the spinach cheese mixture. Arrange the shells, filling side up in the baking dish. Spoon remaining sauce over the shells. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese and remaining Parmesan cheese on top of the shells.
Cover the pan loosely with aluminum foil and bake in preheated oven until heated through; about 30 minutes.

Balsamic Vinaigrette
    (adapted from AllRecipes)

 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup white balsamic vinegar
1 clove crushed garlic
1 teaspoon ground mustard
2 tbsp honey

In a jar with a lid, add olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, garlic, mustard powder, and honey.  Seal the jar and shake well.  Serve over mixed greens and veggies of your choice.

Steak Salad with Citrus Dressing

Justin and I rang in spring with our first motorcycle ride of the year!  Aahh that was much needed, I've missed the bike!  Harlee stayed at my parents' while we went out, but we dressed him in his Harley gear just for good measure!

Haha, he's such a stud... :)

Oh, and we've discovered that along with his new tooth comes some very bizarre taste buds... Justin and I had lunch at Mary's the other day and I, being the ornery mother that I am, decided to touch one of my onions to his tongue to see his reaction.  Well his reaction wasn't quite what I expected it to be - once he tasted it he leaned in with his tongue hanging out and finally snatched it out of my hand and munched it to pieces!  He didn't smell too nice after that, either.  Sure was entertaining though!

Whatever!  :)  So, for dinner tonight Jenna, Granny, and Debbie came over and we had a steak salad with a homemade citrus dressing - sooooo good!  After that we had homemade ice cream that Justin hand-cranked and I made some egg-free cookie dough (so you can leave it and eat it as cookie dough, thus cookie dough ice cream!).  Yeah, I was pretty pleased with how healthy the main course was, but we completely ruined it with dessert... oh well, it was worth it!

Here are your recipes:

Citrus Dressing
    (taken from AllRecipes)

1/2 cup olive oil
4 tbsp orange juice
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 lemon, zested
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
2 tsp white balsamic vinegar

Add all ingredients in a jar with a lid, seal and shake well.  Refrigerate for 2 hours.  Strain basil before serving (or you can serve it with the basil - we did and enjoyed it!)

Steak Salad

~1.5 lbs top round steak, thinly sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt, pepper, and parlic powder to taste
Spinach
Romaine lettuce
Dried cranberries
Walnuts
Sliced tomatoes
Sliced onions
Crumbled Gorgonzola cheese

Note: I didn't put any measurements on this because it's completely up to  you how much of each ingredient you want in your salad.  You can mix it up too, like have whatever kind of greens or cheese you want or add things like sunflower seeds or Mandarin oranges.  I found the above recipe to work very well with the dressing.  But salads are easy to get creative with!

Heat a large pan with olive oil on medium heat.  Add steak slices and season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Turn over and season the other side, and continue turning until no longer pink in the middle.  Assemble salad with remaining ingredients (or ingredients of your choice) and serve steak slices on top.  Enjoy!


And let's not forget about that cookie dough!  I baked a little of it and it made some very nice cookies:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
     (taken from Eat. Drink. Smile.)

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda (omit this if you have no intentions of baking the dough, although I think it might alter the taste a little bit, so it's up to you...)
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup milk or soy milk
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Beat butter and sugars in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add milk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt and mix on low speed (or stir by hand) until incorporated. Stir in chocolate chips.
Cover and chill dough for 1 hour.
When dough is firm enough to handle, form dough into 1/2" balls and arrange on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. Place sheets in freezer and let chill for 30 minutes.  Serve with ice cream, in milk shakes, or just eat it like you did when you were a kid and your mom was baking Christmas cookies! (I'm sure I wasn't the only kid sneaking cookie dough from the bowl... haha I'm surprised there was enough dough left to make cookies sometimes!)  Only without the raw eggs, you don't have to worry about taking the risk of getting sick!  Horray!

Store, chilled, in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

If you want to bake them: bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes.

Chicken Parmesan

It wound up being a late night tonight, but we made dinner anyway!  Jenna went on home to go to bed, which is where I should be too, but I decided to stay up and write instead.

Tonight we made Chicken Parmesan, which turned out really good!  Kept us up late though... We could have bypassed dinner altogether, but Jenna wanted to stay and watch My Strange Obsession on TLC.  Sometimes I don't know why they call it "The Learning Channel" anymore... I certainly didn't learn anything important... instead it left me rather disturbed!  Enough said...

Today Justin worked in the garden, planting potatoes and onions.  Harlee enjoyed watching:

Yes, he's still really cute :)

And for dinner, we've just got a pasta and chicken recipe to share with you.  I would have liked to add and salad or some kind of vegetable as always but we just wanted something quick since it was getting late.  Chicken Parmesan seems like a fancier kind of meal to me, but this definitely suited our needs for a quick dinner, and it was really really good too!  Here ya go:

Chicken Parmesan
Pasta:

16oz spaghetti, cooked al dente
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
Salt and pepper, to taste
~12oz spaghetti sauce

Heat olive oil in a sauce pan, add minced garlic and saute until tender.  Add sauce, basil, oregano, salt, and pepper.  Stir until heated through.  Add to spaghetti.

Chicken:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1 egg
1/2 cup dried bread crumbs
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Heat olive oil in a medium pan.  Dip chicken breasts into egg, then coat with bread crumbs.  Place in pan and brown on both sides.  Place chicken on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes.  Add mozzarella and Parmesan cheese to top of chicken, cook for 10 more minutes or until no longer pink in the middle.  Serve with pasta.

St. Patrick's Day!

I (Jami) feel like I've taken over the blog while all Jenna does is eat my food... haha.  I have to pick on her...

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day a day late, which worked out perfectly - we were actually going to do it a day early so you'd all have a few recipes to use for your own St. Patty's Day feast, but Jenna moved into her own apartment that day and we ended up getting fish from a local bar & grill, then Saturday we had a bachelorette party to attend, so our St. Patrick's Day feast moved to today, Sunday.  That worked out perfectly, though, as it was a much more laid-back day and Justin was off work, as opposed to Friday and he would have missed out.

Here's little man celebrating:

Can't pinch him!  Justin had him for the night while Jenna and I were at the bachelorette party, so he brought him to a local bar to celebrate.  I heard he was quite the hit!  He got some green beads and everything!  In other news, he has a tooth!  FINALLY!  That thing has been working its way to the surface for weeks, accompanied by excess drooling and lots of crabbiness.  It finally broke through on St. Patrick's Day!  He still wants nothing to do with food though...  I've nicknamed him Fort Knox whenever I try to have him taste something.  Can't get a spoon between those lips whatsoever!  I guess if he intends to take after his dad, though, he'll wind up eating us out of house and home, so maybe he's giving me time to save up right now... Who knows?

Of course we had some variation of corned beef and cabbage, since that's what you do for St. Patty's Day!  I cooked a corned beef brisket in the crock pot all day with the seasoning packet it came with, and some beef broth and carrots.  I cooked it on low for about 8 hours and it turned out great.  As for the cabbage, we made an Irish colcannon, which is a mashed potato recipe with cabbage mixed in.  It was really good!  We also had some Irish soda bread, which turned out delicious as well.  Following are the recipes for those two:

Colcannon
    adapted from All Recipes

~8 russet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 small head cabbage, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp butter, melted

Place potatoes in a saucepan with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until tender.
In the oil, saute the cabbage and onion until soft and translucent. Putting a lid on the pan helps the vegetables cook faster.
Drain the cooked potatoes, mash with milk and season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Fold in the cabbage and onions, then transfer the mixture to a large serving bowl. Make a well in the center, and pour in the melted butter. Serve immediately. 


Irish Soda Bread
   taken from All Recipes


2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons cold butter or margarine
1-1/2 teaspoons caraway seeds
1 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup buttermilk

        Note on buttermilk - If you don't have any on hand, you can make your own.  Take a 1-cup measuring cup and add a tablespoon of white vinegar, then fill the cup to the top with milk.  Easy!

In a large bowl, combine the first five ingredients. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the caraway seeds. Set aside 1 tablespoon beaten egg. In a bowl, combine buttermilk and remaining eggs; stir into crumb mixture just until flour is moistened (dough will be sticky). Turn onto a well-floured surface; knead about 10 times. Shape into a ball.
Place in a greased 9-in. round baking pan. Cut a 4-in. X, 1/4-in. deep, in the center of the ball. Brush the top with reserved egg. Bake at 350 degrees F for 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cover loosely with foil during the last 20 minutes if top browns too quickly. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to a wire rack to cool completely.

Asian Chicken and Banana Muffins

Looks like I've become the resident blogger now, Jenna has passed the duty on to me every time now for the past month and a half it seems like... That's okay, I did all the cooking and she didn't babysit this time so I guess I'm the only one with anything to say!

Josh is in town so I had the two of them over for dinner, and our friend Debbie joined us again too.  Good thing too, this meal was delicious!  And SUPER easy.  Guys, this is an excellent recipe for an Asian-style sauce that is really easy to make and tastes just as good, if not better, than what you get at the restaurants, so if you're in the mood for Chinese take-out, whip this up instead!

Afterward we made some banana muffins.  I had recently made these for the last ICAN gathering and they seemed to be a hit.  I know I liked them!  I had to make them again tonight, and I'm glad I did, they definitely satisfy a sweet tooth.  And the best part is they're milk- and egg-free!  So anyone needing to avoid those ingredients will be able to eat these.

I just got a package in the mail so Justin stuck Harlee in the box :)

Had to give you your Harlee picture fix.  He's just as cute as ever!  After dinner we all goofed off with him and his (well, Jenna's...) new toys.  She LOVES Yo Gabba Gabba on Nick Jr.  Why?  I have no idea.  I think it's a little strange but at least it teaches good messages!  I saw some little bath squirty toys on Amazon.com and felt like she had to have them.  You know, for when she babysits Harlee... haha.

Jenna started singing the theme song to him.  His face says it all!!  Haha :-)

Here's the recipe for tonight's dish (it's kind of similar to the Chicken Stir-Fry recipe we made, but WAY better!) :

Asian Chicken

2 tbsp brown sugar
4 tbsp honey
1/2 cup soy sauce
4 tsp powdered ginger
3 cloves minced garlic
Dash of hot sauce, or to taste
salt and pepper to taste
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into strips
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 can sliced water chestnuts
1 can bamboo shoots
1 red or green bell pepper, chopped
1 small red onion, chopped
1-2 cups snow peas
1 cup chopped pineapple

Mix together brown sugar, honey, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and hot sauce in a small bowl.

Heat oil in a large sauce pan.  Lightly salt and pepper the chicken strips and add to oil.  Brown on both sides.  Add vegetables and stir.  Let simmer until sauce thickens and chicken is no longer pink in the middle, about 8-10 minutes.  Serve with white rice and enjoy!

Banana Muffins


2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup mashed ripe bananas

In a large bowl, cream sugar and shortening for about 5 minutes (mixture does not get smooth).  Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with bananas, beating after each addition (the batter will be thick and sticky).  If you're having trouble getting it to turn into a batter, I added a little apple sauce to help thin it out.  You can also add milk if you'd like.  Spoon into a greased muffin tin and bake at 350 degrees 20-25 minutes (~10 minutes for mini muffins) or until a toothpick poked in the center comes out clean.  Cool in pan for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack.