Stuffed Cabbage Stoup

I don't know about you, but I like a lot of Rachael Ray's recipes.  One I've done many times is her Stuffed Pepper Stoup.  After I had made it a few times, I realized I could probably change it up a bit and turn stuffed cabbage into Stuffed Cabbage Stoup.  It was a hit in my house for all but one child.  That makes it a keeper.  I've made it just as many times now too.  Here's what I do.  The haze in the pictures is the steam rising from the pot.

Ingredients:

2 T extra virgin olive oil (EVOO)
1 1/2 lbs. ground meat - chicken, turkey or beef (I had ground venison on hand)
Salt and black pepper
1/2 - 1 palm full of paprika (now that I think of it, smoked paprika would probably be good)
4 cloves garlic, chopped (or pre-chopped garlic)
1 large onion (I had Vidalia), cut into bite-size dice.
1/2 head of cabbage, cored and cut into bite-size pieces
1 bay leaf
1 quart chicken stock
1 can crushed tomatoes (28 ounces)
1 cup orzo pasta
more paprika to taste
Grated Parmigiana Reggiano or your choice of grated cheese to top the servings.

Generously serves 4 (Serves my whole family of 8 with some leftovers)

Heat a medium soup pot over medium-high heat with the EVOO.  When the EVOO is hot, add ground meat and season with salt, black pepper and paprika.  Brown the meat for 5 minutes then add onion, cabbage, garlic and bay leaf and cook for 7 - 8 minutes, until tender.

Stir in stock and tomatoes and bring to a boil.  Add pasta and cook for 7 - 8 minutes.  Turn off heat and add more paprika, if desired.  Serve with grated cheese.

This is yet another meal that baby likes.  Because there is salt in the chicken stock, I don't add any extra right now so that baby can eat it with us.

And that is stuffed cabbage without all the work of making the filling, stuffing the cabbage leaves and rolling.  I get the taste of stuffed cabbage much quicker!

Bruschetta Italian Chicken

Have you ever had Italian Chicken before?  We had had it years ago.  I bought Bruchetta Italian dressing on sale and with a coupon a few weeks ago.  My most recent shopping trip included chicken breast, carrots , potatoesn onions and green squash.  So we tried a variation on the old standby.


The ingredients:

Wash and chop the veggies and add to the crockpot.

Add desired amount of baby carrots.  I added about 3/4 of the bag.

Add the chicken and full bottle of dressing.  You can add salt and pepper at this point if you haven't already.  I didn't add salt or pepper because there was enough sodium in the dressing and baby was going to share this with us.

Cook on low for 6 - 8 hours or on high for 4 - 5 hours.

I have to admit that I love a one-pot meal, especially on a busy night.  Baby enjoyed dinner too.  We didn't find much of her food in her highchair or on the floor, in fact, she ate ALL of her carrots!

Mason Jar Meals - I Need to Learn More About This!

I've already mentioned that I'm finding inspiration on Pinterest. I've seen a lot of recipes using mason jars. It seems like it's the latest fad in foodieville. How long has this been and how did I miss it? I've known about the cookie mixes and soup mixes in a jar and have done them before. I like them. But salads and meals in a jar? That's really cool! I haven't had a chance to try any of the meals in a jar yet, but I'm seriously considering it. I've seen that some of the people using this method prepare a few days worth at once. That would really make lunches for hubby even easier than looking for leftovers. It seems like a really nice idea for salads because the food wouldn't have much chance to oxidize once packed really well into the mason jars. I'm going to have to try this idea out and blog about it. Time to "research".

St. Patrick's Day 2012

Today I wanted to sort of surprise the kids with some new recipes I found on Pinterest and have my usual St. Patty's dinner of corned beef and veggies in the crockpot. So this morning we had Cake Batter Pancakes for breakfast. They enjoyed it, but I have a few changes I'm going to make the next time I make it. You can find the original recipe here. I pretty much followed her recipe, but adjusted a little bit. She uses almond milk, which I'm sure adds some flavor to the pancake. Since we have a tree nut allergy here, I used regular whole milk. I think I'll decrease the amount of milk I used and increase the amount of vanilla next time. I used more milk in the glaze than the recipe called for. Here's my adjustments.

I doubled the recipe except for the eggs, but that was by mistake.

I used 3 cups of milk.


I was looking at the recipe with my phone, so I missed the part of mixing the dry ingredients before adding the eggs, despite my experience telling me that dry and wet are usually separate steps. But then again, my budding baker was playing 20 questions with me at the time.



A picture of the pancake batter:

A picture of the glaze:

Oh, and of course, since it's St. Patty's Day, I colored both the pancakes and glaze green!

It was pretty tasty and the kids liked it, but I think it will be better next time with the changes I need to make for us. Little one enjoyed it and went crazy over it when she discovered the little bit of glaze that I had smeared over hers.

Since the griddle was washed up and out from breakfast, we decided to have grilled cheese for lunch with Shamrock Shakes. As funny as it may sound, we have had the priveledge of introducing two or three people to grilled cheese sandwiches. One of oldest child's friends stayed for lunch. She had never had a grilled cheese sandwich before and asked if it was good. We laughed and she decided after trying, that it was good. She has had a Shamrock Shake before, and apparently I was the only one in our family who has had one before. Some liked it and some didn't. I didn't actually measure everything, but more-or-less eyeballed everything. If I make them again, I may measure so that the peppermint isn't too strong. You can find the recipe for the Shamrock Shakes here. I happened to have green colored sugar crystals (rather my budding baker had them - was given them in a baking kit for Christmas) as well as gold sugar crystals. So I sprinkled green for green sake and gold for the "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow". I giggled to myself about it and the younger kids thought it was a cute idea. The older kids were more like "whatever, Mom."

For dinner we had corned beef that cooked in the crockpot with carrots, red potatoes, onion and cabbage. I love this meal. Little one seemed to like it as well. She was grabbing carrots and potatoes off my plate before I could get it on her tray. I didn't have time to make Irish Soda Bread, because it was an otherwise busy day with errands and other family commitments. All-in-all, a successful St. Patty's Day.

Anticipating St. Patrick's Day

This morning, my children woke up all excited about St. Patrick's Day. Why so early? Because tonight was the St. Patrick's Day party for their 4-H Clogging Club. There sre usually prizes for most shamrocks, wearing the most green, shiniest, most Leprechaun-like and such. I like to try to get clothing items for them after the holiday for the following year. I've done socks, hats, necklaces, suspenders and T-shirts. One year they had temporary tattoos of shamrocks. The families are also encouraged to bring green food for the snacks. And the last 45 minutes or so is dancing for fun, as well as a dance-off. It's a fun evening for them.

So this morning they woke up all excited and got their chosen clothes on. My 12-year-old son was even working his Irish accent. Honestly, he's pretty good with accents and imitations. I had remembered last night that this party was today and hadn't thought about what we were going to take to share for snacks. Pinterest and couponing to the rescue again! Grapes and cucumbers happen to be on sale at my store this week! There's the green healthy food. I found a recipe for 3-2-1 Funfetti Cake Batter Dip through Pinterest, which you can find here. I made it with the help of my 10-year-old assistant (daughter)and we colored it green. We served it with Mini Nilla Wafers, animal crackers and pretzel logs.

After tasting the dip tonight, there are a few changes I would make. I had the whipped cream in a can and I think I'd use the cool whip cream next time. I also used the plain yogurt, but will try vanilla yogurt next time. I'll try to remember to post how the changes taste.


My 12 year-old son won for most Leprechaun-like this year! We all had a good time tonight.

Couponing and Pinterest - My Recent Inspirations

I recently started couponing again. For many years, off and on, I couponed using the only system I knew about, the coupon box. Then I had read about the method of filing the coupon inserts by date here. I still use this site for matching coupons to sales because it's free. Within the past couple of months to a year, I saw friends of mine posting on Facebook about their coupon binder/notebook. It piqued my interest. What is this binder/notebook method all about? So I Googled it. And then another friend told me about this. That week I bought my supplies and started my binders. And I started saving even more than before. So now meal planning changes from just planning meals out, which honestly I didn't do as often as I probably should have, to planning around my savings. What to do about all the pasta I have stocked up on at amazing savings without relying on red spaghetti sauce all the time? I'll get to that in a bit. First, here are some pictures of my coupon binder. I'm still fine tuning my system.

I also saw friends posting on Facebook stuff from Pinterest. What is this Pinterest thing? Of course, I had to check it out because I was seeing pictures of food and I wanted those recipes! So I checked it out. I was going to get those recipes somehow. I don't know how I did it, but I set up an account or became a member without an invitation - at least I don't know if a friend sent me an invitation on Facebook because I don't pay attention to those things anymore (I only have so much time in the day), so if you sent me an invitation to Pinterest, my appologies for going around your invite. A friend said to be careful, because Pinterest could consume my time. Wow. She wasn't kidding. But, I'm putting it to good use. Pinterest has become my digital cookbook where I find tried and true recipes, to use my coupon savings, to feed my family with. Plus, all those recipes I found on the internet and printed up, but seem to be floating around the house? I can pin those to my digital cookbook boards and not lose a recipe and cut down on the papers floating around the house! That's a win-win situation for me! A project I'm going start very soon, little by little each day.


So there you have it. Couponing and Pinterest are going to be working hand-in-hand for me.


Last night I made chicken curry, basmati rice and a recipe I found through Pinterest for Naan bread! Which also brings me to feeding little one. She likes all of it!

Baby Led Weaning

It has been a very long time since my last post. It's been so long, that I almost need to read through some of my previous posts. I have been busy with a year of many medical appointments for several family members. Plus delivering our latest family member 4 weeks early after being rearended in our 15 passenger van 2 weeks previously. Finally, it seems like things are starting to get back to some semblance of normal, at least our kind of normal.

The baby is 10 months old now and I learned about Baby-Led Weaning with her. Bev suggested that I blog about it. :) I haven't "spoon-fed" her at all, except for recently she tried something that I preloaded on a spoon for her. I can't remember what it was. She has tried many foods that my other children never tried like she has at her age. She has not been a picky eater. She gets excited to try something new. Yesterday I gave her fresh blueberries. Admittedly, they tasted a bit on the sour side, but she tried them anyway. I'm going to give her some from another package today along with some strawberries for lunch.

This morning she tried pieces of a scone along with her scrambled egg yolk and banana. She has had tilapia in a butter garlic sauce (in picture below with a green bean) and seems to really like it. She loves garlic.




Last Sunday, at the Super Bowl gathering we went to, she had a chicken wing drumstick that I had possibly doused in garlic powder and was savoring it! Silly girl! She's had Papa John's pizza crust with a little bit of the cheese, but when she tried their parmesan garlic bread sticks, she preferred them. She likes green beans and will gum on them quite a bit. She loves bananas. When the bananas are ripe enough, they can be split naturally into thirds lengthwise by gently pushing at the sides. She eats apple slices and leaves the peel. We have had fun watching her learn how to feed herself. I wish I had known about this when the others were babies.