Alfredo Sauce

13 Dec

I love pasta, and sometimes I live to take a break from marinara or tomato-based sauces and have a white sauce.  I have played around with this recipe a little, and tonight I think I finally got it how I like it.  I served this tonight with shrimp over linguine, but you could use chicken or keep it meatless, and serve it over a variety of pasta noodles, fettuccini, linguine, small shells, etc, and even add a vegetable like broccoli.  Or, you could serve it over just chicken and vegetables too, leaving out the pasta.  I had problems previously getting this to really thicken, so tonight I added in flour, which got it how I wanted it.  If you want to keep this gluten-free, you can use a GF flour or cornstarch, it’s really just to help thicken the sauce.  You can also leave the flour out, I just find it’s a little runnier than I like.

 

Alfredo Sauce

What you need:

2 Tbsp butter
8 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp flour, or gluten-free flour, or cornstarch
1 pint half-and-half
12 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley, or 1 Tbsp dried parsley
salt and pepper to taste

How to make it:

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium low heat.  Add in garlic and cook until garlic is just beginning to brown.  Add in flour and cook for 3-5 minutes, forming a roux.  Pour in the half-and-half, stirring constantly, to make sure the roux is fully mixed in and not lumpy.  Add the Parmesan cheese one tablespoon at a time, stirring constantly.  Mix in parsley, salt, and pepper.  Continue to stir frequently until sauce thickens.  Serve as desired.

 

Shrimp Linguine Alfredo variation:

Cook 1 pound linguine according to package directions for al dente.  Drain, and set aside.  Meanwhile, make sauce as above.  After sauce thickens, add in 1 pound fully cooked, peeled, and de-veined shrimp.  Stir and cook just until shrimp turn pink.  Combine the sauce and shrimp with the cooked noodles.  Serve.

Chicken Broccoli Fettuccini variation:

Cook 1 pound fettucini according to package directions for al dente.  Drain, and set aside.  Meanwhile, make sauce as above.  After sauce thickens, add in 1 pound fully cooked, cubed or shredded chicken and 1/2 lb steamed broccoli.  Stir and cook a few minutes.  Combine with pasta and serve.

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Bountiful Baskets – 12/10/2011

10 Dec

This week I got the conventional basket and the organic 9 grain bread.

 

Didn’t seem to get as much this week, but I’m excited to see asparagus.  Last year, I made a soup with butternut squash and apples, but it didn’t go over great, so I’m on the hunt for something new to make with the butternut squash.

 

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.

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Oatmeal Scotchies Cookie Bars

9 Dec

 

 

These cookies are one of my favorites to make, a close tie with good ol’ chocolate chip cookies.  What makes them even better?  The butterscotch chips were on sale recently AND I had a coupon!  I usually make these as bars instead of cookies, mostly because I don’t have the patience to scoop out dough for individual cookies, then bake multiple pans of cookies.  They end up tasting the same.

Oatmeal Scotchies (from the back of the bag of Nestle Butterscotch Chips)

What you need:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or grated peel of 1 orange
3 cups quick or old-fashioned oats
1 2/3 cups (11-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Butterscotch Flavored Morsels

How to make them:

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats and morsels. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake  for 7 to 8 minutes for chewy cookies or 9 to 10 minutes for crisp cookies. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

PAN COOKIE VARIATION:
Grease 15 x 10-inch jelly-roll pan. Prepare dough as above. Spread into prepared pan. Bake for 18 to 22 minutes or until light brown. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Makes 4 dozen bars.

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Paper Snowflakes

8 Dec

 

I loved making these every year when I was a kid.  Actually, I still enjoy making them!  It’s another cheap, quick craft that you can do with your children, younger children you will need to help them with the scissors though.  It’s also a great way to recycle old newsletters from school, or sheets that didn’t print right in the printer, or whatever paper you have laying around.  You can attach a string to it to hang from the ceiling, or just tape it up on the wall.  I’m going to show you one way to fold, there are other ways to fold to get more points on your snowflake.  Play around with it, get creative.  Remember, no 2 snowflakes are ever the same!

What you need:

Paper
Scissors

How to make them:

Start with a piece of white printer paper.

Fold it in half.

Fold in half again.

Fold diagonally to make a triangle.

Now, I like to cut off that extra paper on the right.

Now, you make cuts to make the snowflake design.

Unfold and see your snowflake!

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Footprint Handprint Reindeer

5 Dec

My 2-year-old brought me some paper and a crayon today, and wanted me to trace her hands.  After her hands, she wanted to trace her feet.  Since it is the holiday season, I remembered a craft idea I had seen before that was a reindeer using the outline of your child’s hand and foot.  It’s an easy, quick craft, and brought such delight to my 2-year-old this morning!

 

What you need:

Brown construction paper or cardboard, or white paper that you can color brown
Another color construction paper for the antlers.  I chose red, but a darker brown or black would work too.
Red or black construction paper for the nose
Eyes, or you can draw them on if you don’t have eyes
Scissors
Glue
Crayon, pen, or pencil for tracing and drawing if you will be drawing on eyes, nose, and mouth

How to make it:

Trace your child’s foot on the brown construction paper.  Cut out.  Trace your child’s hands on the other color paper.  Cut out.  Cut out a circle for the nose.  Glue the hands on the top of the footprint to look like antlers.  Glue or draw the eyes and nose.

 

My construction paper was kind of thin, so I also glued a craft stick to the back of it to give it more structure and so my daughter could use it as a puppet or to play with.  She has been showing it to everyone today, she’s so proud of what she made.  This would be a fun activity to do every year to see how much their feet and hands have grown in the last year.

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Biscuit Waffle Breakfast Sandwiches

5 Dec

Last week I posted about making Biscuit Waffles, and said that I thought they would be perfect for breakfast sandwiches.  Well, I was right!

 

So here is what I used to get 8 breakfast sandwiches:

1 can Grands biscuit, each biscuit split in half, then reshaped to a biscuit shape, giving me 16 biscuit waffles
1 package Jimmy Dean fully cooked turkey sausage rounds, 8 count
2 eggs, beaten, then cooked and divided into 4 sections (I did half with eggs, half without)
Shredded Mexican blend cheese

For the eggs, I sprayed a small skillet, then added the eggs.  Once they started to cook up, I flipped the whole thing.  Once fully cooked, I divided it into 4 pieces.  I then put some of the shredded cheese on each piece of egg, then added them to 4 of the sandwiches.  The other 4 sandwiches I left as just the biscuit waffles and sausage.  2 thumbs up from my family!

 

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Staples HP Ink and Batteries Deals Continue!

5 Dec

Last week, I had posted about 2 Staples promotions, one for HP ink and one for batteries.  This week’s ad features the same deals, so if you weren’t able to make it last week, you can go in this week, through December 10, and still do the deals.

Here is the link to the post with the details: HP Printer Ink and Batteries at Staples

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Broccoli Cheddar Cheese Soup

3 Dec

When I saw the broccoli in my Bountiful Baskets this morning, I knew exactly what I wanted to make, Broccoli Cheddar Cheese Soup.  We’ve had a cold snap in the weather here, and it’s been cloudy and gloomy.  Perfect weather for making soup!  This recipe I got from Lori at My Kinda Rain, which she had gotten from CDKitchen.com.  I did it slightly different, I did not put mine through the blender because I like chunky soup.  I just made sure that I chopped the onion, carrots, and broccoli to smaller sizes.  It’s a nice thick soup, enough that it can be a meal on its own.  It was perfect and well liked by everyone except my oldest daughter, but that’s because she’s not a fan of cheese.  I wish we had some bread bowls to serve this in, but I made some crescent rolls to eat with it instead.

Broccoli Cheddar Cheese Soup
Serves 4 

What you need:

1 tablespoon butter
1/2 medium onion, chopped finely
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
2 cups milk
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
3 cups (approx 1/2 lb) fresh broccoli, chopped finely
1 cup carrots, julienned (I cut baby carrots into fourths lengthwise)
salt and pepper, to taste
2 cups (8 oz) shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

How to make it:

Saute onion in the 1 tablespoon of butter.  Set aside.

In a large stock pot, melt 1/4 cup butter.  Mix in the flour using a whisk, forming a thick paste, and cook over medium heat for 3-5 minutes (this is called making a roux, for future reference).  Slowly add the milk , stirring constantly with the whisk.  Add the broth, still whisking the whole time.  Simmer on low heat for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add the onions, broccoli, carrots, salt and pepper. Cook over low heat until the veggies are tender, about 20-25 minutes.  The soup should be thickened by now.  (If desired, pour into the blender in batches and puree. Return to pot.)

Add the shredded cheese; stir until well blended while cooking over low heat.  Stir in the nutmeg and serve.

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Bountiful Baskets – 12/3/2011

3 Dec

This week I got the conventional basket, the Mexican veggie pack, and the tortilla pack.

The conventional basket had butter lettuce, broccoli, radishes, tomatoes, yellow onion, green peppers, kiwi, oranges, pears, blackberries, apples, and a pineapple.

The Mexican veggie pack had cilantro, green onions, Mexican squash, green chiles, tomatillos, limes, jalapenos, avocados, yellow onion, and garlic.

The tortilla pack had 2 dozen small corn, 2 dozen small flour, and 3 dozen large flour tortillas.

I am going to make Broccoli Cheese soup with the broccoli today.  I will most likely make enchiladas, possibly 2 kinds, one with red sauce and one with green sauce.  With the avocados, I will probably make Fish Tacos with Avocado Cream Sauce and Guacamole.  I still actually have some green chiles in the freezer, so I might thaw and use those, then the ones I got today I will roast in the broiler, dice, and freeze.  I may make some Salsa Roja as well.  Can’t wait to cook and eat it all!

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.

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Free Christmas Fun for the Kids

3 Dec

If you celebrate Christmas with Santa, there are some fun, free online activities you can do for your kids.

Portable North Pole: Here, you can create a personalized video for your child from Santa.  You can enter their name for him to say, and for my kids, when they heard Santa say their name, their eyes lit up!  You can also decide if they are on the nice or naughty list, put in pictures so children can see their entry in Santa’s nice or naughty list,  and add in a specific toy on their list.

 

Elf Yourself: You enter pictures of your family and/or friends that are placed on elf bodies that dance around to your choice of music.  The first year I did this, my oldest was almost 1, and she wanted to watch it non-stop.  Then, there was only 1 dance to choose, but now there are 9 dances to choose from.

 

NORAD Santa Countdown and Tracker: Every year, NORAD has a Santa tracker, where you can track Santa’s location on Christmas eve as he flies around the world.  They now have added to this by having some information about some of the cities Santa travels to, so you learn along the way too.  They have also added the Countdown Village, where a new game/activity opens up each day until Christmas.  My oldest and I have had a lot of fun with the games available so far.

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