Menu Monday

Good morning! Hope everyone had a nice weekend and got to spend some quality time with the mothers in your life. We stuffed ourselves on boiled crawfish and crabs with Mr. ShoeFanatic's mother and 2 grandmothers. It was a very lovely day.

Monday--Mrs. SF, dinner with friends; Mr. SF, on his own.
Tuesday--Pimento Cheese Stuffed Burgers & Pasta Salad
Wednesday--Mr. ShoeFanatic does not know what he's cooking yet
Thursday--Mr. SF, leftovers; Mrs. SF, Grey's finale Party!
Friday--Lasagna Rolls
Saturday--Texas Chicken Quesadillas
Sunday--Leftovers

ETA: Just remembered that I'm going to a Grey's finale party on Thursday!

Mashed Potatoes

*picture to be added later*

My mom has been making these for years. They are so yummy and not difficult at all. I will never make instant because the extra time spent on these is worth it.

INGREDIENTS:
8-10 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 stick butter
Milk
Salt

Bring your potatoes to a rolling boil in a big pot of salted water. Let them boil for at least 10 minutes. You can check them with a fork to see when they are tender enough.

Drain in a colander. Put potatoes, butter and at least 1/2 c milk in your stand mixer and using the paddle attachment, turn it on med speed. Add milk and salt to reach desired consistency and taste.

VERDICT:
Just like Mom used to make!

SOURCE:
Mom

PW's BBQ Meatballs

So even though my first PW recipe was a total flop, I still wanted to make these meatballs. I mean, look at them. Don't you just want to swim in that goodness?

However, I did make a few changes. For one, I did not include onions. I hate onions in my sauce and I wasn't all about them in my meatballs. So I used onion powder instead. I also doubled her sauce recipe. I read somewhere (and I can't remember where) that the sauce didn't make a lot. And I love sauce.

Other than that, these are the real deal.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 lb ground beef

3/4 c rolled oats

1 c milk

Onion powder

Salt

Black pepper

Flour

Canola Oil

SAUCE:

2 c ketchup

4 T sugar

6 T white vinegar

Onion powder

Tabasco

4 T worcestershire sauce

Preheat oven to 350.

In a bowl, mix your beef, oats, milk, onion powder, salt and black pepper. Stir/fold until well combined. Using a small scoop, make the meatballs (I got 28 out of this) and place on a cookie sheet.

Put the cookie sheet in the freezer while you make the sauce.

In a small bowl, mix together all your sauce ingredients. Stir well. Set aside.

Get a plate and put some flour on it. I think I used about 2 cups. Also get a cast iron skillet out and start heating up the canola oil. Last, spray a 9x13 baking dish with nonstick spray and sit that next to your skillet. Ok, you're ready.

Take the meatballs out of the freezer and dredge each of them in flour. Put 1/3 of your meatballs in the skillet to brown. Don't cook them all the way through, just brown the outsides. As they brown, place them in the casserole dish. Repeat for the remainder of the meatballs.

(My kitchen smells like heaven right now.)

Pour sauce evenly over meatballs and bake for approximately 45 minutes.

(I want to bottle the aroma.)

VERDICT:

Holy mother of all things beefy...this was fantastic! It's just gravy that my kitchen smelled divine for hours. I seriously can't wait to get home and eat them again for supper tonight.

You should make this NOW!

SERVED WITH:

Mashed Potatoes

Hoagie Buns

SOURCE:

The Pioneer Woman

Chicken Parmesan

Yum, yum, yum. We have been cooking this for years. It's one of the few things our picky nieces will actually eat so I "think" we started cooking this one of the weekends they came over. Regardless, it's cheap, easy and delicious.

Totally my kind of meal.

INGREDIENTS:
2 eggs

2 T water

4-6 chicken breasts
Seasoning (salt, black pepper, red pepper, garlic powder)
Panko bread crumbs
Olive oil

1 jar spaghetti sauce (we like Prego)
Mozzarella cheese, grated

Parmesan cheese, grated

Pasta (we used thin spaghetti)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk eggs with water in shallow dish. Set aside.

Season chicken to your liking. Dip each breast in the egg mixture then dredge in bread crumbs till well coated. Set aside until all breasts are coated.

Heat olive oil in skillet on stove. Set a wire cooling rack inside a half sheet pan to prepare for baking.

Brown chicken in the skillet, 2 breasts at a time for 2-3 minutes on each side. Chicken will not be cooked all the way through. Set on top of your cooling rack contraption. Repeat for each breast.

Top each breast with 2 T sauce and 1 T of each cheese. Bake for 10 minutes.

Heat the remainder of the sauce in a saucepan. Season to your liking. Serve over pasta.

VERDICT:
I could eat this chicken for days. It is soooo tender and the Panko is soooo good and crunchy.

This should seriously take the place of any chicken parmesan recipe you already have.

Seriously.

SOURCE:

Mr. ShoeFanatic

PW's Creamed Spinach

So, my good friend (and fellow blogger) Brittany, turned me on to Pioneer Woman. And now I am obsessed. I want to be just like her!

So when I came across her recipe for Creamed Spinach on the same day Mr. ShoeFanatic requested steak...well, if that's not fate, I don't know what is.

INGREDIENTS:
1 stick + 3 T butter
8 T AP flour
1/2 sm onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, diced
2 c milk
24 oz baby spinach
Salt, black pepper & red pepper
Nutmeg, freshly grated

Melt 1 stick of butter in a pot. Sprinkle in flour and whisk together. Cook over medium heat for five minutes or until light golden brown.

Add onion and garlic and stir together, cooking for another minute. Pour in milk, whisking constantly, and cook for five minutes while you cook the spinach.

In a separate pot, melt 3 tablespoons butter in a separate pot. Add spinach in increments until all incorporated, and cook until wilted but not soggy, about 4 to 5 minutes.

Season the cream sauce with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Add spinach to the cream sauce, stirring gently to combine.

At this point, it smelled and looked absolutely delish. The creaminess was perfect. But Mr. ShoeFanatic wanted to taste it for seasoning. Fair enough. We decided it needed more salt. Here is where things started to go south.

Before I knew what was happening, my husband had literally poured half the box of salt in my creamed spinach! My jaw hit the ground as he smugly stated, "Just trust me."

So I picked my jaw up and trusted him.

And it was too salty. Much, much too salty.

So he added more milk.

Still too salty. And now too liquidy.

So he added more wilted spinach.

And it was just a tad less salty. But still very liquidy.

Bottom line: The man ruined my creamed spinach. And then he served me fatty meat. I ate the majority of my potato though.

So I'm not doing a verdict for this post. I think it could have been a fantastic dish and I am looking forward to making it again. Alone.

SOURCE:
The Pioneer Woman

Spaghetti & Meatballs

I have a confession to make. I rarely make my own sauce. 95% of the time I will use Prego. It's just so darn good and convenient!

But this week, several things happened to detour me from my favorite kitchen convenience:

1. Mr. ShoeFanatic informed me that he was craving "real" spaghetti & meatballs (I'm not sure if that was a jab at me and Prego or not)

2. I needed to clean out my pantry and

3. I was feeling crafty

So I went for it.

MEATBALL INGREDIENTS:

1/2 c bread crumbs

1/2 c milk

2 lbs ground beef

1/4 onion, diced

3 garlic cloves, diced

1 egg

1 c parmesan cheese, grated

Seasoning (salt, pepper, oregano, basil)

SAUCE INGREDIENTS:

Olive oil

1/4 onion, diced

1 bell pepper, cubed

1/2 jar sliced mushrooms*

6 garlic cloves, diced

1 sm can tomato paste

1 can stewed tomatoes*

1 lg can diced tomatoes*

Seasoning (salt, pepper, basil, oregano)

*I used what I had in my pantry because we all know that I hate running to the store. In a perfect world, I probably would have had 2 cans of stewed tomatoes and 8 oz of fresh sliced mushrooms. But my world is far from perfect.

To make the Meatballs:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a medium mixing bowl combine the bread crumbs with the milk. Let them soak for 10 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl and mix thoroughly.

Form the mixture into meatballs (I made 23 of them). Place on sheet pans lined with parchment paper and bake for approximately 20 minutes. Add the meatballs to the simmering sauce about 15-20 minutes before the sauce will be finished cooking. Cover and let simmer. The longer they simmer, the better they will be!

To make the Sauce:
Coat the bottom of your pan in olive oil. Saute onions, bell peppers and mushrooms until soft and translucent; about 10 minutes. Throw in the garlic and let saute for a few more minutes.

Add tomato paste. Watch your heat; you don't want the paste to burn. Let the paste and veggies marry in your pot. This will put off an amazing aroma.

I should probably add that at this point I was supposed to deglaze with a splash of white wine. But I was concentrating on making perfect meatballs. So I forgot. Ever forget? Happened to me.

(Name that comedian.)

While the paste is marrying the veggies...put your stewed and diced tomatoes in the blender and puree. Pour this into the pot. Cover and let simmer for however long you like. But at least 30-45 minutes.

At some point you will taste it and it won't taste right and that's when you will toss in the rest of the seasonings. Give it a stir and keep simmering.

When everything is married and simmered and baked and you just can't stand smelling it anymore...

Serve over pasta with fresh grated parmesan cheese and enjoy.

VERDICT:
Has anyone ever given spaghetti and meatballs a bad review? I think not. And I won't be the first. This was good. Tomatoey, garlicky, messy...all the things good spaghetti should be.

What it was not was great. And that's entirely my fault. For starters, I should have added 1/2 cup more breadcrumbs to the mixture but I didn't read the recipe correctly. They were still good but I think the extra breadcrumbs would have held them together just a tad bit better.

The sauce was a little boring. I'm not sure what I did wrong though. Honestly, I think it just needed to simmer longer but I was starving. Next time, I will make this on a weekend so I'm not so rushed.

SOURCE:

Meatballs --Annie's Eats

Sauce--Me

Homemade Salsa

Mr. ShoeFanatic has been yenning to make homemade salsa for quite some time. When I mentioned making Shrimp Tacos, he jumped at the chance to whip this up. It didn't take long at all and was amazingly fresh.

INGREDIENTS:
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 whole tomato, quartered
1/2 red onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 c pickled sliced jalapenos
Juice of 2 limes
1 t sugar
1 t red wine vinegar
1/2 t salt
10 grinds fresh pepper
1/4 t granulated garlic
1 bunch cilantro (we left this out)

In food processor, pulse canned and fresh tomato until finely chopped. Remove tomatoes and pulse onion, garlic, cilantro and jalapeno until finely chopped.

Combine the processed mixtures and the remaining ingredients and refrigerate before serving. The longer this sits, the better the flavor.

VERDICT:
Hands down, this is the Best Salsa Ever. There were no crunchy raw onions yet it was chunky. Everything was very fresh. And it was so better the next day!

Eat your heart out, El Paso.

SOURCE:
Texas Highways Cookbook

Grilled Shrimp Soft Tacos

There has been a whole lot of hoopla regarding this recipe among a group of girlfriends. Christen, the creator, has a pretty fancy schmancy blog with some pretty yummy looking meals. So I trust her judgment in the kitchen. Plus I love shrimp and we all know about my love for Mexican food so this was really a win-win situation for me.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined

Marinade (below)

Tortillas

1 avocado, sliced

Sour cream

Shredded cheese

Lettuce

Homemade Salsa

MARINADE:

1 envelope McCormick's Baja Citrus Marinade

1 T water

2 T tequila

juice of 1/2 lime

2 T apple cider vinegar

Whisk envelope of marinade, water, tequila, lime juice and vinegar together in a bowl. Add shrimp and coat evenly. Transfer marinade and shrimp to a ziploc bag (I find it coats better). Keep refrigerated until ready to put on the grill.

Preheat grill to 400 degrees. Place shrimp on skewers (easy way) or directly on grates (lazy way) and grill for about 1 1/2 minutes on each side.

Make tacos using toppings of your choice.

Mr. ShoeFanatic thinks the cheese picture is "dressed down." I think it's super yummy looking so I put it anyway.

VERDICT:

Oh this was good. Very, very good. That marinade is freaking amazing. And Mr. ShoeFanatic's homemade salsa was better than most restaurants. It went very well with all the other ingredients.

Make this soon. Very, very soon.

Thanks, Christen!

ETA: We also tried this with grilled chicken and it was equally as good.

SERVED WITH:

Homemade Salsa & Chips

SOURCE:

Cooking With Christen

Menu Monday

Is it May already? Geez, this year is flying by. Here's what we are having for dinner this week. I am very excited about Thursday!

Monday--Spaghetti & Meatballs
Tuesday--Leftovers
Wednesday--Grilled Steaks & PW's Creamed Spinach (Mr. ShoeFanatic)
Thursday--PW's BBQ Meatballs & Mashed Potatoes
Friday--Leftovers
Saturday--Leftovers
Sunday--Happy Mother's Day! We're having boiled crawfish with Mr. SF's immediate family. There's 35 of them. Pray for me.

Pasta Salad

Update, 5/25/09: Finally got a picture up. Even if it is a crappy one. I'll try to take a better one later.

Update, 5/2/09, 12:00pm: Apparently there will not be a picture. Mr. ShoeFanatic thought it was SO good that he ate all the leftovers.

Spring has officially sprung here. I love, love, love pasta salad but for some reason, people always tend to put raw onions in it. And I hate raw onions. I started searching for a recipe a while back in hopes that I would either get invited to a BBQ or we would host one.

Ask and you shall receive! We were invited to a Private Practice finale/BBQ last night (can we all say cliffhanger?!) and I literally jumped at the chance to make pasta salad.

I didn't actually measure anything. I just eyed whatever looked right.

INGREDIENTS:
1 bag pasta shells
1/2 bag matchstick carrots
1/2 bag frozen peas, thawed
1 block colby jack cheese, cubed
1 cooked, ham steak, cubed

DRESSING:
1 packet dry ranch dressing mix
mayonnaise
sour cream
Splash of red wine vinegar

Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Meanwhile...Depending on how long your carrots are, run a knife through them so they are bite size.

Boil noodles for approximately 7 minutes. Throw in carrots and boil for another 2-3 minutes.

Pour pasta/carrots into a colander but DO NOT RINSE. You want the starch so the dressing sticks better. Set aside. Or put in the fridge so it can start cooling down. If you do this, you'll want to run your spatula through it fairly often as the outside pasta will cool but the inside pasta won't. Makes sense? Good.

While water is boiling and noodles are cooling...

Whisk together ranch, about a cup of mayo (you will probably add more later) and 2 heaping spoonfuls of sour cream. Whisk this together until you have the desired consistency. When the consistency is right and you feel like it tastes good but it could be just a little better...throw in that splash of red wine vinegar. Whisk some more and it should be just right.

In a large bowl, mix your peas, ham, cheese and cooled pasta/carrots. Fold in the dressing, making sure you coat all the shells. Stick it in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

VERDICT:
Yum, yum, yum. This was sooooo good! I was actually worried about the dressing because originally the ranch flavor was really overpowering but then Mr. ShoeFanatic swept in and saved the day with his additions of sour cream and red wine vinegar. That sealed the deal.

This recipe is definitely one of those "free for all" kind of dishes. You could use whatever veggies you have on hand and I also think that you could get away with just using a bottle of creamy italian salad dressing.

Whatever you do, make this soon.

Source:
Amber's Delectable Delights