Tonight we tried out the Zaycon Foods salmon we recently bought. It was very, very good salmon, better than any I have bought in the store. I first cut the salmon fillet into 5 smaller pieces. Then, I sprayed them with olive oil, and sprinkled with garlic salt and lemon pepper seasoning.
Then, I heated up our George Foreman grill and cooked the pieces. It doesn’t take long until they are done. We all enjoyed this salmon, even my kids! I’m thinking about how I will make the next one.
When I came across this recipe, it sounded good, but it really is delicious! It has a buttery, cheesy taste, which blends nicely with the squash. I used Ritz crackers for this, but you could probably use bread crumbs or crushed cornflakes in their place. I was also tempted to add some oregano to this, but I got busy making it and forgot to add it in.
Yellow Squash Casserole
Based on recipe here
What you need:
1/4 cup butter
4 cups sliced yellow squash
1/2 cup chopped onion
Salt and pepper to taste (and 1 tsp oregano if desired)
35 round buttery crackers, crushed (about 1 1/2 cups if you decide to substitute in something else)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
How to make it:
Preheat oven to 400 F.
In a large skillet, melt butter. Add onion and squash. Cover, and cook until both are tender, about 5-10 minutes. Stir in salt and pepper. Remove from heat.
Mix together crushed crackers and shredded cheddar cheese. Divide mixture in half. Stir in one half with the squash mixture.
In a small bowl, beat eggs and milk together. Pour over the squash mixture and stir.
Grease an 8×8 baking dish. Pour in the squash mixture. Top with the remaining half of the cracker and cheese mixture.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until casserole is bubbly and the crackers are lightly browned.
I am not a fan of pickles or really, anything pickled. But, my husband and kids LOVE pickles, so I decided to try an experiment with the cucumbers we received from Bountiful Baskets this past weekend. I actually like these, although I think it’s because they still taste more like cucumbers than pickles. My husband and kids really like them too.
Refrigerator Pickles
What you need:
6 cups sliced cucumbers (I used my mandolin slicer to get them thin and evenly cut)
1 small onion, diced
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons celery seed (I didn’t have celery seeds, so I used 2 teaspoons celery salt and reduced to 1 teaspoon salt)
1 1/2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1 cup vinegar
1/2 cup sugar (more or less depending on the level of sweetness you want)
How to make it:
Mix together cucumbers, onion, salt, celery seed, and mustard seed in a bowl. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let sit for an hour.
Boil vinegar and remove from heat. Stir in sugar to dissolve it. Allow to fully cool.
Pour vinegar mixture over the cucumber mix, and stir gently. Cover bowl tightly and put in the refrigerator. Allow to sit in refrigerator for at least 24 hours. Will last covered in refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
Tonight I used the first of the Zaycon Foods seafood that I got recently, 1 pound of the white shrimp. The shrimp is deveined and fully cooked, so I just thawed it by running cold water over it, then removed the tails. I made some Alfredo Sauce using fresh garlic and parsley from the Italian themed veggie pack from Bountiful Baskets, added in the shrimp at the end, along with some broccoli from Bountiful Baskets that I had steamed. It was very good. The shrimp was very tasty, nice large, quality shrimp. I served it over thin spaghetti, but the shrimp and broccoli with sauce was enough to eat just on its own, without noodles. I will probably try a Garlic Butter Shrimp next, or maybe something with the cod. So nice to have some seafood in the freezer to use for meals!
This week, I got the conventional basket for $15 and a fruit pack, 14 lbs of a variety of apples, for $12, so a total of $28.50 after the $1.50 handling fee.
Starting at left, Anjou pears, Pink Lady apples, bananas, cantaloupe, mangoes, kiwi, broccoli, cucumbers, butter lettuce, cauliflower, and red potatoes.
The apple pack had Honey Crisp, Fuji, Junami, Braeburn, Gala, Pink Lady, Granny Smith, and Cameo apples.
Note: The type and amount of food may vary from another basket because of geographic location and because of variances in how the ends of produce cases are distributed after everything has been distributed evenly.
I still have some carrots from the 25 lb bag I got a while back from Bountiful Baskets. They have been in my fridge keeping nicely. I’ve been meaning to make this cake for a while, but finally got the chance today. Carrot cake is a favorite in our house, but I’ve never actually made it. My cousin gave me a recipe that she had gotten from lady that used to work in the cafeteria at the old Sear’s department store on the riverfront in Peoria, Illinois. This really turned out great, I was very pleased.
Carrot Cake
Recipe from Shelley Doyle, from Frances Markum who worked at Bishop’s Cafeteria in Peoria
What you need:
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
3 cups of shredded carrots
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup of walnuts, optional (I did not use walnuts)
How to make it:
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Cream together the sugar and eggs. Add oil, carrots, and nuts (if using). In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining dry ingredients. Slowly add to the carrot mixture and stir well. Pour into 2 greased 9 inch round cake pans. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Cool on wire racks.
Butternut Cream Cheese Frosting
What you need:
1 stick butter
1 8 ounce package cream cheese
2-4 cups powdered sugar, depending on the level sweetness you want (I used 2 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon of butternut or similar flavoring (I only had vanilla extract on hand, so that’s what I used)
How to make it:
Cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Blend in powdered sugar to the level of sweetness you desire, then blend in the flavoring. Makes enough frosting to have 2 separate 9 inch cakes or for a 2 layer cake.
This wasn’t in the original meal plan for this week, but since I wasn’t feeling well earlier this week, I fell behind in cooking and had some things I needed to get cooked before they went bad. So, I decided to make Chicken Marsala, something we haven’t had in a while. For the sides, I steamed my last bunch of asparagus and made mashed potatoes with a partial bag of potatoes I had left. Since I have herbs from the Italian themed veggie pack, I added crushed fresh garlic and minced fresh rosemary to the mashed potatoes. It was a nice addition. I also got to use the fresh herbs in the Chicken Marsala.
Chicken Marsala
Based on recipes here and here
What you need:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon minced fresh oregano
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
8 oz package mushrooms, sliced
3/4 cup marsala wine
2 teaspoons minced fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary
Pound chicken to 1/4 inch thickness. Mix together flour and oregano, and fully coat chicken with this mixture. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add chicken and cook until no longer pink.
To the skillet, add and melt butter. Add mushrooms, wine, parsley, and rosemary. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Cover, and cook for 5 minutes. Flip chicken over, cover again, and cook for another 5 minutes. Remove cover and simmer until sauce has reduced by half.
I tried to think of a new name for this, but with the migraine I have, I’m not feeling too creative at the moment. This is a combination of 2 of my favorite Greek dishes, Moussaka and Pastitsio. I got the Italian themed veggie pack from Bountiful Baskets this week, and it had an eggplant and a zucchini. Not really enough to make Moussaka or something like Eggplant Lasagna, so I decided that adding some pasta, like in Pastitsio, it would make a great meal. I was right, it turned out great. I put the pasta on the bottom, then the zucchini and eggplant, then the meat sauce, then the bechamel sauce.
Moussaka and Pastitsio All in One
What you need:
Filling:
1 eggplant, cut lengthwise, 1/2 in width
1 zucchini, cut lengthwise , 1/2 in width
Salt
Olive oil
1/2 lb macaroni (supposed to be long macaroni noodles, but they are hard to find, so elbow macaroni or a noodle like penne or ziti works too)
1 eggs
1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick)
1 lb ground beef or lamb (for meatless, use diced mushrooms, zucchini or eggplant)
1 medium onion
1 12 oz can tomato paste
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Grated Kefalotiri, Parmesan, or Romano cheese
Cream sauce (krema):
2-1/2 cups milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup butter
Salt and pepper to taste
How to make it:
Preheat oven to 375 F.
Sprinkle eggplant slices with salt and set on paper towels for 15-20 minutes to let them drain. Pat tops with a paper towel. Spray or brush each side of the eggplant and zucchini slices with olive oil and lay in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake in oven for 10 minutes, flip slices over and bake for another 10 minutes, until they are tender and slightly brown.
Boil macaroni according to package; drain; return to pan. Melt the 1/4 cup butter, beat in egg, and stir in with macaroni.
In a skillet, brown onion and ground beef or lamb. Add tomato paste, and seasonings. Cook for 5 – 10 minutes.
Make cream sauce. Melt 1/4 cup butter and pour in 1/4 cup flour; brown slowly. Beat 2 eggs with 2-1/2 cups milk, salt, and pepper, and pour into butter and flour mixture very slowly; mix well. Cook over low heat until it thickens.
To assemble, grease a 9 x 13 pan. Add macaroni mixture to pan and press down with a piece of wax paper. Sprinkle generously with the grated cheese. Lay out eggplant and zucchini in a single layer.
Sprinkle with grated cheese. Spread the meat sauce evenly. Pour cream sauce evenly on top.
Bake in preheated oven for 45 – 50 minutes, or until golden brown.
Freezes best unbaked, thawed for 1/2 hour, then baked as above.
A while back I heard about Zaycon Foods. They are a company that formed in 2009 to bring fresh meats to customers at wholesale prices. They do events all over the US. At the time, they weren’t delivering close enough to make it cost effective for me, so it fell off my radar. In January, they had a boneless, skinless chicken breast and a hickory smoked bacon event that delivered to my area, but I missed out on ordering before it sold out. Earlier this month, I found out they were having a seafood event. We love seafood, and they were offering Frozen Alaskan caught Sockeye Salmon Fillets, Frozen Alaskan True Cod Fillets, and White Shrimp. Each was available as a 20 pound unit. I found some friends to share the units so that I could get some of each without breaking the bank too much, plus to try it out to see how this process works and find out the quality.
It’s pretty neat how it works. The day of pick up, they have signs to direct you in to the truck. You pull up, show them your receipt, they load it in your car. I wasn’t sure how big the boxes would be, so I made sure I had plenty of room in my car. Turns out, I was fine.
The boxes of cod were a little beat up, but the fish is all fine. It was packaged in one large bag in the box, and it seems like each fillet is about 1 pound. The shrimp was in 2 pound bags, 10 bags total. The salmon was vacuum sealed in approximately 2 pound fillets, and has skin on one side .
It looks great and I can’t wait to try it out! I am planning on using some shrimp this week, then will be deciding what to make next.
I love, love, love, Key Lime Pie. It has been so long since I’ve had it, so when I got key limes this week from Bountiful Baskets, I decided the pie is what I wanted to make. I found this great recipe that is super easy to make. I think the hardest part was juicing all the little limes. Well, that and waiting for it to chill so I could eat it! In the reviews for this recipe, someone suggested using a garlic press to juice the limes. I thought this was brilliant because I don’t have a tool yet to juice my lemons and limes. I cut each lime into fourths, then squeezed each piece. It was still time-consuming, but I was able to get quite a bit of juice out of each lime, more than I would have hand squeezing.
Key Lime Pie
Original recipe here
What you need:
1 9-inch prepared graham cracker crust
2 14-oz cans sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup key lime juice (I juiced 16 limes to get this)
1 tablespoon grated lime zest (after juicing the limes, I grated some of the peels for the lime zest)
How to make it:
Preheat oven to 350 F.
In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients. Mix well and pour into graham cracker crust.
Bake in preheated oven for 5 to 8 minutes, until tiny pinhole bubbles burst on the surface of pie. DO NOT BROWN! Chill pie thoroughly before serving. Garnish with lime slices and whipped cream if desired.
My Gems of Parenting 