Easy Fudge

Ethan loves making easy fudge so we got the recipe from his Mom and now we make it all of the time. It is called easy fudge because anyone can make. I contemplated not blogging about it because it wasn't a challenge to make. Nonetheless it was still something I hadn't made before so it ended up on here.

3c powdered sugar
3tb cocoa
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla
melt 3 oz of cream cheese with 1 stick of butter
combine and mix it up
roll out onto wax paper and put in the freezer until it is firm and frozen
dice into squares

Estimated prepping time: 10 min. takes a couple hourse to freeze

Different Types of Salads

Although I am fond of a classical ranch dressing salad with original veggies, I do like to switch things up. A few salads that I want to share include poppy seed, greek, and caesar.

Poppy seed dressing:

1/3 cup white sugar

1/2 cup white vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground dry mustard

1 teaspoon grated onion

1 cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

Salad consists of:

spinach leaves
dried cranberries
candied walnuts
mangarine oranges

Greek dressing:

oil covering bottom of salad bowl
red wine vinegar (added as needed)
garlic salt (added as needed)

Salad consists of:
mixed greens
kalamata olives
tomatoes
onions
diced blocks of feta cheese
cucumbers
seasoned with salt/pepper/oregano

Caesar Dressing:
Heck, buy it at the store!

Salad consists of:
romaine lettuce (usually the hearts of the romaine)
parmesean cheese
croutons

Prep time: 10-15 minutes for each of them

Simply Asia!

Ethan loves asian food, as do my roommates so I decided to pick up some asian sauce packets from the store. The brand is Simply Asia and you can get a variety of flavors such as general tsao, sweet and sour, teriyaki etc. For a quick easy meal during the week I defrosted some chicken, threw it on the George Forman to cook and made up some rice and broccoli. I combined it altogether and added the sauce and was done. It was quick, easy, and tastey which was perfect for a middle of the week night dinner. Nobody feels like cooking after class all day but this was worth it. There weren't any left overs but it made up enough for three people. To mix things up instead of using chicken, beef is a great trade.

1 cup rice to 2 cups water
1 full broccoli head
2-3 chicken breasts depending on size
Simply Asia sauce

Estimated Cooking Time: 30 min.

Some buns n' milk

I really wanted to experience making something from scratch during the course of this project. I was hoping at first to make homemade bread, but my roommate Rachelle was making homemade cinnamon roles. I couldn't pass that up. I watched her make up roles from half of the dough, and I copied her using the other half. (Dough is half wheat). She let me spread the dough out on top of flour until it was evenly spread in the shape of a cookie sheet, then spread an entire stick of butter on it, poured a cinnamon sugar mixture over the top, sprinkled water, rolled it up, and pinched the appropriate sized roles with dental floss. My favorite part was pinching the dough off with the dental floss. They turned out fantastic and after baking we put frosting over the top. They take a long time to make because the dough has to rise and then rise again after you make them before they can bake. The cinnamon roles turn out huge but we fit 24 roles on one pan. It was quite an experience making them and I will definitely make them again in the future. I would call this a success. They are better than pilsbury.

Estimated Cooking time: A long time-give yourself 4-6hrs.

Cream of Chicken

Today I decided to make cream of chicken in a crockpot since I have never officially used a crockpot before, which is silly because you just leave food in it and let it sit for hours. You barely have to do anything and yet it tastes so delicious! I had Rachelle email me the recipe and got it all set up in the crockpot before I left for school. It was in from 11:00 to 4:30 and then on low to keep warm after that. Here is the recipe I followed :

3-4 chicken breasts

2 cans cream of chicken soup

2 packages cream cheese (the 8 oz. rectangles)

2 cups chicken broth (I used one can, it was like 14 oz. almost 2 cups and it worked fine)

2 packets Good Seasons Italian Dressing Mix

Pepper (just a bit)

Blend all ingredients except for the chicken.  Place chicken in bottom of crockpot and pour delicious mixture over.  Cook on high for 6-7 hours.  (Mine was done a bit before, just really when the chicken is done is when it's done)  I waited until the chicken was pull-aparty and kind of shredded it with a fork so there weren't huge chunks.  Serve over your choice of pasta or rice.

I decided to do pasta this time since in the past I've always eaten it with rice and I wanted to try something new. I've concluded that they both taste great and I will now just make it depending on if I'm in a pasta or rice mood.

Prep time: 10 min.
Cooking Time in crockpot: 5 hrs. if chicken is previously defrosted

"Magic Cookie Bars"

Ethan and I had a craving for six layer cookies also known as magic cookie bars. The recipe to make them is pretty simple so I didn't think that we would run into any problems. We decided not to put any chopped nuts in them because we don't like nuts in our dessert. We also decided that next time we would like a thicker graham cracker crust and less chocolate chips. Two cups of chocolate chips made them too chocolatey and hard to taste everything else. Overall it was a successful dessert.


1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (You can buy them pre crushed as cracker crumbs)
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 (14 oz.) can condensed milk
2 cups (12 oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips (I like 1 cup choc. chips)
1 1/3 cups flaked coconut
1 cup chopped nuts

Estimated Cooking Time: 30 min.  

Eggs!

I love breakfast food. I have a couple of favorite dish's but one of them is called eggs goldenrod. We usually make this on Christmas morning somewhere between rolling out of bed and opening presents. I was craving it the other day and it occurred to me that I don't even know how to make it! What a crisis. It is simple and delicious and wouldn't take too much time in the morning to make. Plus I have 14 eggs that I need to use up and this would be a perfect way. I'm hoping that it will make up enough for 4-5 people and if not I will do another batch and just double the recipe next time. Here is the recipe that I'm going to use:


6 hard boiled eggs
4 slices hot buttered toast
1 1/2 c white sauce (below)
White Sauce:
2 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp self rising flour
1c milk
1 dash pepper (I like a lot of pepper so I keep it on standby to add accordingly to taste)

My recipe may change based off of how my mom makes it-as she is the one who makes this in our family

Estimated Cooking Time: 1 hr

Stove Top vs. Oven

Every oven and stove top has its quirks and tends to work differently than the one you are used to. This is why I tend to stay away from them in general. However, I was running out of things to do with the chicken I bought and wanted to make breaded chicken like we do back home. I'm not sure why, but I'm always more comfortable with a stove top then the oven so that is how I decided to cook it (even though I'm pretty sure you are suppose to do it in the oven). I had confidence in the stove top because Rachelle and Joslyne had already prepared it this way twice in the past few weeks. I knew it was possible. I took my chicken out to thaw for a bit but it wasn't all the way unfrozen by the time I was ready, so it went into the microwave to defrost. I cracked two eggs and mixed them in one bowl, had flour in the other, and seasoned bread crumbs in the last. The chicken went into the flour, then the egg and last, the bread crumbs. At first it wasn't sticking to the chicken and covering all the way but I finally got all the chicken dipped and ready to go into the pan. The smaller pieces cooked just fine but most of the chicken was pretty thick and ended up getting cut smaller and smaller in order to cook all the way. Then the outside bread crumb layer started to fall off. I finished cooking up the last few pieces of chicken and knowing what it was supposed to look like, was disappointed that it didn't turn out as well as it could have. It still tasted great and everybody still liked it but it didn't look how I wanted it too. I will be using the oven next time. With this meal I also decided to make real mashed potatoes. I had never made real mashed potatoes before so I was excited to try it out. It was a piece of cake to make them and they tasted delicious. They were just basic mashed potatoes and since I didn't have any problems with it, I want to try adding something new to them next time. My veggies and dinner roles turned out just fine but my roles were done a bit too early and were smaller than I expected. They were just frozen store bought dinner roles but there are so many brands you can get it is just about finding which kind you like.

Estimated Cooking Time: 1 hr 30 min

Valentine's Day

This year Ethan and I decided to stay in for Valentine's Day. Although there are plenty of places to go out to eat at in Rexburg, nothing caught our fancy on this specific Monday. Ethan suggested just making a quiet dinnner in for just the two of us. We decided on seafood, our favorite. He bought crab, salmon, fettuccine alfredo pasta and broccoli. I added salads and french bread dipped in oil. We had so much food we could hardly eat half of what we made. This time it was easy to cook in quantity because we bought everything in bulk. To start, we had to figure out how much time it would take for each item to cook so that it would all be done around the same time. Ethan and I like to figure things out on our own and just kind of wing it until it looks right. I mixed up the marinade for the salmon while Ethan boiled the crab in a big pot. We added a pinch of salt to the boiling water and let the crab sit until the outside shell was a vibrant red. Then we put it in the oven on a temperature around 230 so that it would keep it warm and still bake it slowly while we worked on cooking everything else. Next we added olive oil to the pan to cook the salmon in. Ethan poured the marinade I made onto one side and cooked the salmon until it turned from dark pink to light pink. He then flipped it over, poured the marinade on the other side and cooked it again until it was all light pink. He checked the middle to make sure there was no more dark pink left in the salmon. While the salmon was going, we boiled noodles in hot water until they were soft and then added some cut up broccoli to cook and soften it as well. Neither of us really kept track of the time, we just went based off of the fact that both the noodles and the broccoli were soft and cooked all the way through. We strained it and added our alfredo sauce. At this point, all three of the major food courses were about done so I cut up the french bread, poured oil and spices into dipping bowls, and melted butter and cut fresh lemons for our crab and salmon. On a side note, I did make small salads but with everything we made, neither of us wanted to waste our stomach space on salad. It was put away just as fast as it took me to make them up. I rinsed off lettuce, chopped tomatoes, carrots, and croutons/bacon bits were optional with any choice of dressing. Everything turned out just as we wanted it to. Aside from being delicious, it provided us with left overs for the next two days. The only improvement we decided on was with the salmon. The next time we are mixing up a marinade we are going to bake the salmon instead and see how it turns out then.

The gentleman working at the grocery store gave me the
 following marinade recipe:
1 cupe of butter
1/4c lemon juice
1/8c soy sauce
Dice 2 green onions

French bread dip: Dean Jacob's bread dip seasonings
1 Teaspoon of seasoning with 2 Tablespoons of oilve oil
let stand to increase flavor (ratio can change- to taste)


Our table presentation: After you prepare a meal, it makes it more appealing when it is presentable on the table. Since it was Valentin'es Day I had fun making it festive for the holiday. I had Ethan's roses that he had bought me earlier, placed in the middle of the table, two tall candles, and small red and pink candies sprinkled around. I had nice (matching) glass dishes to put everything in and a bottle of sparkling cider off to the side. I got lucky using a combination of people's dishes to make everything match because not everyone has a full set of dinerwear in college.

Estimated Cooking Time: 1hr 30 min