Cilantro Lime Rice

 

Hello, my name is Dawn and I'm a carboholic! Yes, I love all things rice, pasta and bread! You may have suspected that by reading this blog, but I thought I'd go ahead and confess so I'd feel better. Whew, that did help a little.

 

So the hubby doesn't love rice as much as I do so I try to jazz it up so he won't notice that it's just rice. Shhhhhh. I could have it every other meal, but him, not so much. Well, what's left for me really to do but trick him just a little? Please don't tell him that I'm trying to trick him with jazzed up rice. I don't think he's noticed so mum's the word!

 

We were having some quick and easy burrito's one night last week and I thought, "oh boy, here's a night to throw in a delicious rice dish!" But I even stepped it up a notch this night. See, he loves cilantro so I searched the internet looking for a Mexican rice dish with cilantro. I remembered my friend, The Pioneer Woman, making a similar dish so I set out to find it. Well, hers seemed fine, but I thought I could make it better, so I did. I mean, what does she know with her silly blog and cooking show?? I'm practically a chef! Here's my version of Cilantro Lime Rice. The lime juice really makes this taste fresh and yummy!

 

Ingredients

 

1 Tablespoon olive oil

3 cloves garlic

1 large onion, chopped

2 cups long grain rice

1 teaspoon salt

3-4 cups chicken broth

1 can diced tomatoes with green chilies, I used Rotelle

Juice of 3 limes and zest of 2 (hold back juice of 1 lime for garnish)

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

 

Directions

 

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and onions and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Reduce heat to low and add the rice and salt. Cook over low heat for 3 minutes, stirring constantly to make sure rice doesn’t burn. Add 2 cups of the broth, tomatoes, and the juice and zest of 2 limes and bring to boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes or until the rice is done. Add more liquid as needed. I used brown rice so remember you’ll need to cook a little longer and most likely need more liquids as you go. The rice shouldn’t be sticky.

 

 

 

Just before serving stir the juice of 1 lime and cilantro into the rice mixture.

 

Serve with some delicious tacos, burritos, or whatever floats your boat, and enjoy!!

 

Mini Blueberry Turnovers

I feel like I say I love blueberries a lot, but I really do! I think my problem is that I just love food a lot! I haven't really loved blueberries this much all my life though.  I really started loving them when I started cooking with them fairly recently. They really are delicious! And good for me, right? Full of antioxidants so it's practically a healthy mini pie! I think you might lose weight if you make this recipe.

David and I were sitting around watching TV the other night and I started getting a craving for a tasty treat. I hopped around on the internet looking for a mini blueberry pie recipe and couldn't really find what I was looking for. I had crescent rolls in the fridge and blueberries in the freezer and needed to make a recipe work with that. I found enough to piece this together and I was pretty pleased at how these pies turned out. They really were delicious. I'm not kidding. David was quite pleased with his TV snack while we waited for the Amazing Race to come on.

Here's how to make Dawn's Blogalicious Mini Blueberry Turnovers.....

Ingredients

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries. I find the the frozen wild ones work the best because they are small and work better in a mini pie.

1/4 c sugar or Splenda

2 Tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 can crescent rolls

Directions

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.

Prepare the crescent rolls for filling. Unroll two (keep attached) and cut in half so it is a square instead of triangle. Press two pieces together to secure.

Place a spoonful of filling in one side of the roll, fold over and press edges closed. Mine were pretty full and bursting at the seams, but I just worked with it until it was sealed.

Press a fork around edges to crease and seal. Also cut a slit in the top of each so the steam can escape. Some of them were already popping open so I didn't have to cut an additional slit.

Cook according to the crescent roll package, which should be 10 -12 minutes.  I cooked mine the full 12 minutes so that they were nicely browned.

Now you could stop here or go one step farther and make this delicious glaze to drizzle on the top. I say kick it up a notch and drizzle!

Glaze
This made a lot of glaze for 8 mini pies so I'll probably cut it in half unless I'm making a double batch.
 

3/4 cup powder sugar

1 Tablespoon lemon juice

 

That’s it! Could that be any easier?? Mix it together well and drizzle on top of the pies.

Now all you have left to do is serve warm and enjoy! These are such delicious little pies. You won't be able to eat just one.....David and I have proven that! I hope you enjoy these as much as we did.

Dawn's Awesome Marinara Sauce

That's right, I named this DAWN'S Awesome Marinara Sauce because it's MY recipe. I wrote it. Are you impressed? Well, I am! Wait, does this make me a cookbook author now?? I think it does. Remind me to add that to my resume' later.

Okay, one of the many things that I love is pasta with red sauce! I love it, I can’t get enough of it, but I had never made it from scratch until recently. The jar was always my friend. I know, I should be ashamed, but I’m not! My husband’s Aunt Joanne makes the best homemade sauce. When she comes down for a visit she and her sister, Sue (my mother-in-law) cook lots of sauce and jar it with her delicious meat balls so we all have lots in the freezer. Well, since Aunt Joanne can’t come down all the time and for some reason she hasn’t tried to ship this to me, I’ve had to come up with my own recipe. I’ve tried one of Rachel Ray’s recipes and tried to recreate Aunt Joanne’s but it just hasn’t been perfect. So I got in the kitchen and kept adding things until I thought it tasted perfected and here’s what I came up with. I’ll have to admit, it’s pretty darn good sauce. I’m still mastering it so don’t be surprised if this recipe changes from time to time.

Ingredients

3 Tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped finely

6 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup white wine or chicken stock

3 Tablespoon tomato paste

1 Tablespoon dried oregano

1 Tablespoon dried basil
I Tablespoon dried or fresh parsley (if using fresh, add a little more)

1/4 c (plus) fresh chopped basil
1/2 teaspoon salt

2-3 bay leaves

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 cans (28 oz each) crushed tomatoes

Grated parmesan cheese for garnish

Directions

Add olive oil to pot or dutch oven, heat and sauté onion for 3-5 minutes. When onions have softened add garlic and continue to sauté for another minute or so.

Deglaze with white wine or chicken stock. After most of the liquid has absorbed, add 3 T of tomato paste (the tube is the best invention ever), red pepper flakes, salt and all dried herbs. 

Best invention ever!

Stir and add 2 cans of crushed tomatoes and bay leaves. Put lid on and simmer for 30 minutes to an hour. If you have an hour to spare, go for it because they just gives the flavors more time to marry and become even more delicious. Right before the sauce is finished, add the fresh basil, stir in sauce, but save a little for garnish. I think the sauce tastes brighter if you throw in some fresh basil at the end, but don't worry if you don't have it. It is still going to be delicious!

Now let's simmer for an hour or so.

Now I don't usually just serve the sauce, I need some meat in there somewhere. Luckily I had a few of my special meatballs in the freezer so I added those to the sauce while it simmered for an hour. I'll write that recipe another day. You can also add ground beef or turkey, but one of our favorites is to add Italian sausage links. Yummers!

Doesn't it look delicious after it's simmered for over an hour??

Serve the way you like it best over pasta and enjoy!

Chocolate Coma Cake

If there is one thing my husband loves, it’s a chocolate cake! More precisely, THIS chocolate cake recipe. I hope he loves me as much as he loves this chocolate cake, but I’m honestly not so sure. I should probably find out! This cake is so rich, chocolaty, delicious and super easy. There is virtually no measuring, just dump all the ingredients and mix. I’ve included the size of containers so you don’t have to measure it out.  How much easier can that get? I’m here to help you out and show you how to make the best chocolate cake you’ve ever tasted! 

But what is even better than this being my husbands favorite is the fact that I actually got to share this recipe with my dad. He is probably the best baker I've ever met, literally. Probably because he stayed home from school to sick to bake with his mama. That's a story for another time though. Bless his heart. He isn't a fan of chocolate, I'm not sure what's wrong with him, but I told him he should make this cake for their Christmas party they have every year. He was hesitant, but made it and now it's his most requested dessert. You're welcome Daddy! :-)

This is not an exaggeration, it is awesome and literally will put you in a chocolate coma! I took this to a party this weekend and everyone raved over it. The almond extract gives it a distinct flavor. I have a little left over cake from the weekend, after writing this blog I'm going to chow down on it now!

INGREDIENTS

1 package chocolate cake mix  (18 1/4 ounces)

1 3.9-ounce package instant chocolate pudding mix

2 cups sour cream (16 oz container)

5 large eggs

1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature

1 teaspoon of almond extract

2 cups milk chocolate chips (1 bag of 11.5 oz chips) DIRECTIONS Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a Bundt pan. If you don’t have a Bundt pan, a 13 X 9" pan will do. (but reduce the baking time by ten minutes) Mix all ingredients except chocolate chips until completely blended. Add chocolate chips and finish blending.  Even the batter looks delicious.....and it tastes delicious too! Immediately place in prepared Bundt pan. Place in oven and cook for 50 to 55 minutes. Cool ten minutes before removing from pan. Be sure to let it stay in the pan the full ten minutes to cool before you flip it over. I've had it fall apart on me because it is so hot and heavy so be careful!  It makes a nice large cake! Now you can choose to dust the cake with powder sugar for a lovely presentation, drizzle with a warm chocolate sauce or really kick it up a notch and make the icing below. I’ve dusted and drizzled, but my husband prefers the over-the-top version with the icing. I’ll have to admit, it is pretty darn good. Here’s how to make the icing: CHOCOLATE FROSTING

INGREDIENTS

3 cups sifted powdered sugar, divided

2/3 cup baking cocoa

1/2 (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened

5 to 6 Tablespoons milk, divided

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

Beat 1 cup powdered sugar, cocoa, butter, 2 T milk and vanilla in a bowl until creamy. Gradually beat in remaining sugar and milk until smooth.

Look how pretty the cake looks frosted. Make this and thank me later!

Parmesan Roasted Potatoes

Who doesn't love potatoes?? Something is definitely wrong with you if you don't love a good potato! A perfectly cooked and salted baked potato with a steak, or mashed potatoes.....delish! Well, I know we all try not to eat as many potatoes these days, but I think once in a while is okay. Trust me, would I lie to you?? I don't like to serve them the same way all of the time so I was really excited when I found this recipe. I actually can't remember if one of my friends on the Food Network told me about this one or my favorite site for recipes, allrecipes.com. Let's just call it my recipe, shall we??

These turned out really nice and were so flavorful. A great addition to any meal. Oh, and super simple. Here's what you need to get started....

• 9-10 small baby Dutch yellow potatoes or little new potatoes
• 3-4 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Garlic powder, to taste
• Sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste
• Fresh chopped parsley, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Boil a large pot of water and boil the potatoes for 4-5 minutes. Remove from water and let cool. Or you can steam in the microwave, which is what I did. Once cooled, slice into quarters and combine with olive oil, garlic powder, sea salt and black pepper as well as the Parmesan. Mix thoroughly and place in a baking dish that has been sprayed with olive oil cooking spray.

Place into the oven and roast for 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven and taste, season with sea salt, cracked pepper, or garlic powder if needed.

 Garnish with fresh chopped parsley. Enjoy.

Pillow Butter Mints

Okay, now I know I've gone off the deep end.....I made BUTTER MINTS!! Yes, you heard me correctly.....I didn't buy them, I made them! Is that crazy or what? I still can't believe I made them, but it was super simple and they were melt in your mouth delicious! I will be making these for my next party, or just the next time I'm bored. Do you want to know how to make them too?? I'll bet you do, so here you go....

1 box  10x sugar

5 T butter, softened

2 T heavy cream or half and half

2 t mint extract

1 drop of food coloring (optional)

Combine all ingredients with a mixer or food processor. I used my stand mixer. Blend until dough comes together and forms a smooth ball.

Break off a golf ball size (or slightly larger) section of the dough and roll into long thin roll (as shown).

Slice into 1/2 inch pillow mints. Isn’t that cool? Now they look like the ones you get in restaurants or in a bag at the store, but you actually made them! How cool is that??

Dry for several hours at room temperature. Store in airtight container in the refrigerator, or freezer for up to 3 months, with wax paper separating the layers.

Makes about 100 pillow mints. I shared these with several girlfriends and everyone agreed they were a little bite of heaven. Melt in your mouth delicious!

Use the food coloring if you want to make for baby showers or other fun occassions. I left mine white, you know, all natural and organic for me. :-)

Enjoy!!

Hot Chicken Salad

Who says Paula Deen can’t come up with a healthy recipe once in a while? There isn’t even one stick of butter in this recipe!  All you Paula haters out there, give it up. Find something better to do. I love me some of Paula’s cooking. Most of it might not be the healthiest, but I’ll bet it’s the best tasting! I “like” my friend, Paula, on Facebook. And since we’re close like that, Paula posts recipes and this one caught my eye one day…..Hot Chicken Salad. Now doesn’t that sound tasty? And the picture looked pretty darn tasty too. As Paula says, “you eat with your eyes first” . This one looked pretty and made me hungry.  It is topped with potato chips. Yummy! Of course, I tried to make ours a little bit healthier and used Baked Lays instead of delicious regular potato chips. Feel free to go all the way with the regular chips. To tell you the truth, I think it would have tasted better with regular chips, but it was still yummy.

Okay, and if I’m going to be honest with my friends on my blog, Paula didn’t really make this recipe healthy, I did. I still love her though. I used reduced fat sour cream instead of mayo. Mostly because I can’t stand mayo and it makes me gag to think of eating it! But hey, if you like mayo, go for it. I’m sure you’ll love this recipe with or without the mayo.

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked chicken breast meat, cubed
• 1 cup diced celery
• 1 small onion
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 cup mayonnaise (or sour cream)
• 1 cup grated sharp Cheddar
• 2/3 cup crushed potato chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 13 by 9-inch baking dish with vegetable oil cooking spray.

Saute’ onion and celery in a tablespoon (or more) of olive oil until soften – this is really an option step. If you like your chicken salad really crunchy, you can skip this step and just combine in a bowl with the other ingredients.

In a large mixing bowl combine the chicken, celery, almonds, salt, pepper, lemon juice, mayonnaise, and cheese. Place the mixture in the prepared baking dish. Spread the crushed potato chips on top. Bake for 20 minutes, or until bubbly.

Sounds pretty easy, right? It was super simple and full of flavor. My husband loves cold chicken salad and he liked that this was a lot of the same flavors he loves…..except for the mayo. :-)


Give this one a try! I hope you enjoy it as much as Paula and I do.

Delicious Jambalaya

Okay, this is one of my all-time favorite dishes! I know, I know, I say that a lot, but I have been making this one for many years thanks to a friend of  mine (Susan). We lost touch for a few years, I lost the recipe in a move, so no more jambalaya for me! I’ve been sad about this for many years and couldn’t find just the right recipe. I like my jambalaya with lots of tomato flavor and this one was just the perfect combination of that. All I could do was dream of it…..until she found me on Facebook! Thank you Facebook and thank you Susan for finding me. Of course, it’s great to be back in contact with her, but it’s awesome to have my jambalaya recipe back in the cookbook! What a sweet reunion.

There is a good deal of chopping in the recipe so make sure you have the time when you start making it. You can really use whatever meat you like, but I love this one with a combination of shrimp and kielbasa. You could use also use ham or chicken, but if I were you, I’d stick with the shrimp and kielbasa.

Sorry I don’t have pictures to show you the process. I was so excited to be making it again that I just took one when I was finished and as you can see, I didn’t do a great job with that either. I’ll be making this again soon so I’ll update this post with more pics.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp. butter
1/2 cup each chopped onion, green onions, celery
3/4 cup green pepper, diced (I like using red or yellow peppers)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups chicken broth
2 cans stewed tomatoes, chopped (I used the ones with italian seasonings added)
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp each pepper, cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp thyme
2 bay leaves
1 cup uncooked rice
1 bag of frozen shrimp (about 25-30 medium)

1/4 lb kielbasa or cooked, diced ham

Directions:

Heat butter in large heavy skillet over low heat. Stir in onions, celery, green pepper, kielbasa (or ham) and garlic. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes or until onions are tender. Stir in broth, tomatoes, parsley and seasonings. Cover. Bring to a boil. Add rice gradually, stirring with fork. Simmer, covered for 20 minutes or until rice is tender. Mix in shrimp. Cover. Simmer for 5 minutes longer. Yield: 6-8 servings.

This is such a flavorful dish. I’m sure you are going to love it. I usually double the thyme and garlic because I like tons of flavor so you might want to start off with the correct amount, taste and decide for yourself.

Delish!

Blueberry Lemon Crumb Bars

I have really starting loving blueberries this year. I guess because I started baking more, but mainly because they are just delicious. You’ll see on this blog that I’ve made an awesome blueberry pound cake, scones, muffins…..I feel like Bubba on Forest Gump naming all the ways you can use blueberries. It's so true though. Who knew you could make so many delicious things with blueberries?? Well, you're lucky you have me to lead you in the right direction....to the land of blueberries!

This could be a delicious breakfast treat or a yummy dessert. I had friends over for dinner and served it as dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Of course, I had my ice cream on the side. I don't like things touching, but that's for another therapy session. Let's get back to the crumb cake.....

Here's what you need to get started:


Ingredients

1 cup white granulated sugar (for a lower fat version, use ½ c splenda and ½ c sugar)
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsalted butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
zest of two lemons
 
Filling

4 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 cup white sugar ( I used ½ c Splenda)
3 teaspoons cornstarch


Directions

1.Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Spray a 9×13 inch pan with nonstick cooking spray.

2.In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, 3 cups flour, salt, lemon zest and baking powder.

3. In a small bowl, whisk the egg and vanilla together until combined.
4. Use pastry cutter or your food processor to blend the flour mixture with the butter and egg/vanilla mixture. I find the easiest method is to grate very cold butter into the mix.  That way I didn’t have to get the food processor dirty!

After mixing the butter in with the dry ingredients, the dough will be crumbly (really an understatement, it is VERY crumbly). Pat half of dough into the prepared pan. Remaining half will be used as topping.

5. In another bowl, stir together 1/2 sugar and cornstarch. Gently mix in the blueberries and coat with mixture. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust.

Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.

6. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares. Enjoy!

Garlic Monkey Bread

 

A picture of pure beauty!

 

OMG!!! I found this recipe on Pinterest and started drooling as I was reading it. I love me some garlic bread and this garlic bread is made like monkey bread?? How cool is that? I first learned how to make the cinnamon monkey bread in Home Economics class in high school. Thank you Mrs. Sheets.  Man that was some good stuff and fun to eat too. Well, you wanna know what’s even better??  Make it savory, individual servings and throw a bunch of garlic and butter on it. Delicious! Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention how easy this is to make. I made this last weekend when I had friends over for dinner and we all loved it. My friend, Alan, loved it so much that I had to send the rest home with him. It was probably gone in a day! This would be awesome served with a big ole bowl of pasta or tomato soup. Mmmmmmmmm……it would actually be good served with anything!

 

Let’s get started with the best garlic bread you’ll ever taste…..

 

2 (7.5 oz) cans buttermilk biscuits

6 Tbl. butter, melted

4 cloves garlic, minced (feel free to add more for better flavor. I used 5)

2 Tbl. dried parsley flakes (I only had fresh so I used that)

1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese

plus 2 Tbl. to sprinkle on top

 

Cut each biscuit into 4 pieces and place in a bowl, like so....

 

 

 

Combine remaining ingredients and pour over biscuit pieces. Gently toss to evenly coat. Use a greased 12-cup muffin tin and place 6-7 pieces in each cup.

 

 

Sprinkle remaining 2 Tablespoons of cheese over the top. Bake at 400 degrees for 12-14 minutes. Serve warm. Makes 12.

Could that be any easier?? Make these, you’ll thank me later!

Can I have a bite now?? Yummy!