Strawberry Pie

I made this last year as an experiment. We had leftover strawberries, pie dough, and some gelatin. My husband loves pies.

Ingredients:
1 pie shell, baked
5 cups of fresh strawberries
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 (3oz) strawberry flavored gelatin (or just use plain gelatin and use pureed strawberries for the flavoring)


In a saucepan, mix together the sugar and corn starch; make sure to blend corn starch in completely. Add boiling water, and cook over medium heat until mixture thickens. Remove from heat. Add gelatin mix, and stir until smooth. Let mixture cool to room temperature. Use all the gelatin because it won't set otherwise.
Place strawberries in baked pie shells; position berries with points facing up (or however you like them, look at my pictures). Pour cooled gel mixture over strawberries. I topped mine with more strawberries. 
Refrigerate until set. Serve with whipped cream, if desired.
 

Stuffed Peppers

Stuffed peppers were one of those meals from my childhood. My mom made it taste great, even though at the time I did not like to eat the pepper, just the filling. This is a simple recipe and takes hardly any preparation at all. You can substitute the peppers for tomatoes if you wish. Ingredients: 1 cup cooked rice 1 pound cooked ground beef tomato sauce Worcestershire sauce garlic powder onion powder Italian Seasoning Diced tomatoes Cheese slices Mix cooked beef, cooked rice, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, seasonings and diced tomatoes together. Add a little or as much of the ingredients you want in this recipe.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Ingredients:
1 cup cooked rice
1 pound cooked ground beef
tomato sauce
Worcestershire sauce
garlic powder
onion powder
Italian Seasoning
Diced tomatoes
Cheese slices

Mix cooked beef, cooked rice, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, seasonings and diced tomatoes together. Add a little or as much of the ingredients you want in this recipe.  You can add some chopped up bell pepper to the mixture too and some cheese if you wish.
Add sauce to the top and bake for about 30 minutes.
If you don't want semi-crunchy peppers you can pre-boil or bake them for a few minutes.
During the last few minutes add the cheese to the top and bake until melted.

Gourmet Macaroni & Cheese

Yes, that's right, "Gourmet" Macaroni & Cheese. I made this two years ago when I was pregnant. My husband loves mac and cheese but I don't like the non-cheese flavors of store bought macaroni and cheese.

So instead of listing all the things you need at once, I will group the items together by step:

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees. 

Grate your cheeses: 4 cups of Jarlsberg and 2 cups of Gouda (you can use cheddar and greyure or whatever combination you wish). reserve some to put on top of the dish for when you stick it in the oven.

You will need: cavatappi or elbow macaroni (or whatever kind you wish to try).

Boil it until just tender. Drain. While it's boiling make the bechamel sauce:

You will need: 4 tablespoons of flour, 4 cups of milk, dash of nutmeg,  dash of kosher salt,  dash of white pepper, 5 tablespoons of butter.

Melt butter over medium low heat until melted, add the flour and stir until smooth. Continuing over the medium heat, cook the mixture until it turns a light, golden sandy color (about six to seven minutes) so that the flour tastes gets cooked out. Heat the milk in a separate pan until right under a boil. Add hot milk to butter mixture one cup at a time and whisking the entire time until smooth. Bring to a boil. Cook ten minutes. Stirring constantly (it will burn and clump up). Then remove from heat, season with salt and nutmeg, and white pepper and add your cheeses. Stir until smooth and cheeses are melted. 

Add the cooked (or semi cooked) macaroni to the bechamel sauce:

You can add meat or vegetables at this point too. I added chicken but if you truly wanted to go gourmet you can add tomatoes to it as well.

Prepare the bread crumbs for one top:

I added Parmesan cheese and some Italian seasonings to it.

Put the macaroni mixture in a dish that has been buttered and floured and then top with the remaining cheese and breadcrumbs.

Bake for about 30 minutes.
If you are worried about the top burning you can add little bits of butter to the top for it to brown and not burn. 

Enjoy your new fancy meal, aimed to please any guy out there!

Jell-o Molds

Sorry that it's been a few days since I last posted. We all have been sick with the stomach flu. So yesterday during recovery I decided to make some jello molds. One is from a free mold you get when you buy the jello packets and the other is from a bowl I had to use as the other mold. Just experimenting to see what jello can do and how easy it is to get out of the molds (or anything else you might have lying around).

Now I know these aren't the best pictures in the world, but my apartment doesn't have very good lighting. The best lighting is the natural light in the living room that comes from the door that goes out to the porch. The only other window in the apartment is in the bedroom but it's usually covered up.

I know this really isn't gourmet but if you're doing parties or having children you can really make the molds look neat for centerpieces or just for having fun with kids! 

You can choose to do any color/flavor combination you wish with any kind of mold as well.
Another option would be to layer them as well. Especially with the jello cool whip layer since it tends to melt faster and is quite sticky. A rule with jello is timing.You can get different outcomes with the layering depending on how you time the layers, how easily they will stay in place and what taste/texture you will get from the cool/whip jello mixture.

I used grape/purple for the regular jello and the orange flavor for the cool whip combination. The orange and cool whip tastes like an orangesicle treat.

Here is what you'll need:
2 cups of boiling water (one cup for each flavor)
2 packages of jello (3oz packages)
cooking spray
cool whip

Add boiling water to jello powder and stir for three minutes until dissolved. With both flavors in separate bowls and each mixed for a few minutes, pour one into the molds as much or as little as you wish and stick in the refrigerator for one hour or until slightly thickened. Stick the bowl with the other flavor in the refrigerator until slightly thickened and then whisk in the cool whip and spread on top of the other layer. Refrigerate at least three hours if you don't want to do any more layers. If you wish to add more layers, then refirgerate it for an hour then proceed with more layers.

To unmold:
Dip the molds into hot water for about 15-30 seconds then tip over on a plate and tap on the molds. Eventually the jello should release from the mold. I would recommend putting the molds back in the refrigerate to firm up some more.

Now onto the pictures!

The Halloween molds!

This is what I call the jello "cake"

Everyone have a great Halloween!

Garlic-basil stuffed BBQ bacon wrapped shrimp

We made these one night when we were feeling adventurous. Sorry the picture isn't the best. I think I should tell you that the recipe was so-so. Perhaps it was the bbq sauce or the way we cooked them (probably would have been better on the grill) or the fact I was pregnant at the time.
I'll give you the recipe anyways:

Ingredients:
30 fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon minced garlic
30 large shrimp, peeled, tails intact
15 thin bacon slices, cut in half
Prepare the shrimp: Mix the basil, cheese and garlic in a bowl. Slice down the back of each shrimp and remove the vein; fill the cut with 1/2 teaspoon of the basil mixture. Wrap each shrimp with 1/2 slice bacon and secure with a toothpick, or tuck the loose end of the bacon under.
Brush barbecue sauce over shrimp, and bake at 400° for 8 to 9 minutes.

Let me know if you have better luck!

Homemade Applesauce Cupcakes

I was missing home and wanted to take a trip down memory lane and I had a craving for some applesauce cupcakes!
My mom made these quite a few times when I was younger. I remember bringing them to school for treat day (we had a lot of those during the years). They were a huge hit and I loved them so much! Thus, began my cupcake obsession at the tender age of seven.
I called my mom yesterday and asked for the recipe, even though she probably already gave it to me a dozen times already, this time I was ready to write it down and put it to memory. This is one recipe I will never forget and I can't wait to introduce this to my son. I hope he will enjoy these as much as I did when I was a kid. This is one of my fondest childhood memories and that it truly made me happy.
My son loves apples and cinnamon and raisins so this will be perfect for him.
I've made homemade applesauce, the cupcakes and the homemade cream cheese frosting.
I didn't have any store bought applesauce or cream cheese frosting but I do have apples on hand and cream cheese left over from yesterday's meal of Mexican Stuffed Shells.

I have to admit my first batch didn't turn out so well. So I added an egg and it came out just fine.
So I tweaked this recipe from the original version by adding an egg, lowering the temperature (you could perhaps lower it more and cook them longer), and adding more vanilla extract.

Homemade Applesauce:
Apples: two apples equal about a half cup of sauce, so you will probably need about eight (8)
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
(you can add a bit of cloves and nutmeg if you wish)

Add ingredients and cover. Cook over medium heat for 15-20 minutes until tender.
Allow to cool and then mash with fork or potato masher.
(when using it for the applesauce cupcake recipe, use the liquid that is leftover (if any) to the cupcakes as well)

 Homemade Applesauce Cupcakes:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 cup applesauce
2 cups flour
1 egg
1 teaspoon of  vanilla
1/2 cup raisins
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cloves

Cream butter and sugar and add egg and beat again until smooth and add vanilla.
Mix baking soda and baking powder with applesauce and add to butter mixture.
Mix flour with spices and add to butter/applesauce mixture. Shake raisins in flour and add to mixture.
Bake in cupcake tin at 350 or 325 for 10-15 minutes.

Homemade Cream Cheese Frosting:
4 ounces of softened butter (1 stick)
4 ounces of cream cheese softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Beat together butter and cream cheese with eclectic mixer. With mixer on low speed add powdered sugar one cup at a time until smooth. Beat in vanilla.

Then frost your cupcakes after they have cooled and you will have these!

Enjoy! I hope your family has great memories with these like mine did! Thanks for reading!

Eye Candy: Chocolate Covered Strawberries

As we all know, just about everyone knows how to make chocolate covered strawberries. To me it is one of the best and romantic desserts one can make. So I'm going to post my chocolate covered strawberry creations.

Makes your mouth water doesn't it? I know I want to have some right now!

I hope you enjoy your evening!

Boston Bay Shrimp

If you're in love with shrimp the way I am, you will truly fall in love with this recipe. It's simple and it's satisfying.

Ingredients:
Shrimp (frozen or fresh, any size)
Butter
Olive Oil
Lemon Juice
Boston Bay Weber Seasoning

Add butter to a medium high pan with a teaspoon of olive oil, add in shrimp, and quickly add the seasoning, then when the butter starts to bubble, add a little bit of lemon juice, which should help to make the sauce while the shrimp are cooking. Flip over the shrimp and add more seasoning if desired. 

When shrimp are done and coated with sauce, add shrimp to a bowl or plate and pour the sauce over it. 
My husband even loves it! 

 

Mexican Stuffed Shells

I love this combination of an Italian dish made with Mexican flavors. Hopefully, you will too.

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef
1 package taco seasoning or cheesey taco seasoning.
4 oz. cream cheese
14-16 jumbo pasta shells
2 cups salsa
1 cup taco sauce
1 cup cheddar cheese
1 cup monterey jack cheese
3 green onions (optional)
Sour cream

In a frying pan cook ground beef; add taco seasoning and prepare according to package directions.  Add cream cheese, cover and simmer until cheese is melted. Blend well and add about 1/2 cup of salsa. Set aside and cool completely.  While ground beef is cooking, cook the pasta shells according to directions; drain. Set shells out individually on cutting board/baking sheet so that they don’t stick together.
Pour salsa on bottom of 9×13 baking dish.  Stuff each shell with the meat mixture. Place shells in 9×13 pan open side up. Cover shells with taco sauce.  Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.
After 30 minutes, add shredded cheese and bake for 10-15 more minutes, with the foil removed.  Top with any condiments you’d like (green onions, black olives, etc.) Serve with sour cream and/or more salsa.