Tag Archives: onion

Slow Cooker Potato Soup

8 Oct

Sorry for the short hiatus in posting, it’s been a weird week, so I haven’t gotten as much cooking in and haven’t been in our normal routine.  Anyway, it really cooled off here today (finally), so it was a soup for dinner kind of night.  My husband loves potato soup, I had potatoes I needed to get used up, so potato soup is was.  I originally was going along with this recipe, but forgot to get cream cheese while I was out, plus, my husband isn’t big on bacon in his soup, so I ended up with something a little different.

Slow Cooker Potato Soup

8 cups potatoes, peeled and cubed
1/2 cup diced onion
6 cups water and 6 chicken bouillon cubes (or use 6 cups chicken broth)
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
1/2 tsp dried dill weed

Mix water and soup in the slow cooker.  Add in bouillon cubes, potatoes, onion, and dill weed and stir.  Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or high for 4-5 hours.  If you want a thicker soup, slightly mash the potatoes before serving.

I mashed the potatoes just a little to make it still chunky.  One time I completely mashed the potatoes and it was more like mashed potatoes than soup, so to keep it more soup-like, I like the potatoes less mashed.

*As an alternative to the can of cream of chicken soup, you can use 2 Tbsp melted butter, 2 Tbsp flour, 1/4 tsp salt, and 2 cups of milk, half and half, or light cream.  Be sure to stir that well with the water/broth before adding the other ingredients.

**If you want to keep the chicken out completely, use the above substitute for the cream of chicken soup and use vegetable bouillon instead of chicken bouillon, or six cups of vegetable broth instead of the bouillon and water.

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Pan Fried Daikon Cakes

1 Oct

In my quest to figure out what to do with all the daikon I got, I came across this recipe for Pan Fried Daikon Cakes.  Since I had oil hot for frying my egg rolls the other night, I decided to make these as well.  I left them in a little too long, I was trying to do too much at the same time.  However, they actually turned out pretty tasty, a little hot for my taste buds with the Sriracha sauce, but good enough to make some more to use up the daikon, which I still have a LOT left.

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Stuffed Peppers

28 Sep

I got a lot of peppers this week in my basket.  We aren’t big pepper fans in this house, but I wanted to do something else besides just chopping them and adding them to stir fry.  So, I decided to try stuffed peppers. I got a recipe from a friend of mine, then looked up a couple other recipes, and came up with this.

Stuffed Peppers

4-6 peppers, tops and seeds removed
1 cup cooked rice
1 lb ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 can diced tomatoes with basil, garlic, and oregano (Or any flavored tomatoes.  If you use plain tomatoes, you will want to add some kind of seasoning)
1 egg
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 cups tomato sauce (I used Ragu Traditional sauce)
1 cup water

Mix the rice, ground beef, onion, tomatoes, egg, and Worcestershire sauce in a bowl.  Fill the peppers with the stuffing, making it level with the top of the pepper.  Add filled peppers to a large saucepan.  In a separate bowl, combine tomato sauce and water.  Pour over the peppers in the saucepan.

Bring the liquid to a boil, then turn heat down to a simmer.  Cover, and cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until meat is fully cooked and peppers have softened.

I cut open a pepper to make sure mine were done, and they were!

Note: This can be done in your slow cooker instead.  Place the peppers in your slow cooker and cook on low 6-8 hours.

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Fish Tacos with Avocado Cream Sauce

26 Sep

This is a great recipe I got from Lori over at My Kinda Rain.  Since I get tortillas and the Mexican themed veggie pack regularly from Bountiful Baskets, this has become a regular in our house when avocados are available and cheap.  I have played around with this recipe a bit, I don’t think I’ve made it the same way twice, but every time it has turned out great.  So, I will go through the recipe and talk about some of the alternatives I have done.

First, you make an avocado cream sauce.  For this you need:

1 avocado
1/2 cup sour cream
Lime juice
Onion (I’ve used yellow, red, or green, I think my favorite is red onion)

I now also on occasion add:

Garlic, minced or garlic salt, usually 1/4 to 1/2 tsp
Cilantro
Tomato, diced

This time, I used all of the above when making the sauce because I had cilantro and tomato on hand that needed to be used before it went bad.

Next, you cook the fish.  You need 1 lb of white fish, I use either cod or tilapia, depending on what I can get on sale.  You add 1-2 Tbsp of oil, I use olive oil, to a skillet.  Season the fish with lemon pepper seasoning and pan fry fish.

Cook until fish is no longer translucent and easily flakes with a fork.  Flake fish apart with a fork.

Next, you put together the tacos.  I usually use small flour tortillas, but have used small corn tortillas as well.  I add a tortilla to a small skillet, then put the fish, avocado cream sauce, and cabbage or lettuce.

I fold the tortilla over the topping, cook it for a few minutes, then flip and cook for a few minutes, until both sides are just starting to brown.

I usually serve this with Spanish rice and black beans.  I was worried that my girls wouldn’t eat these because it has fish, but they both eat these up!

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Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip

21 Sep

I still had a 1/2 lb of spinach left after making Spanakopita and Spinach Manicotti, so I decided to make another of our favorite spinach dishes, Hot Artichoke Spinach Dip.  It’s really easy to make, and it’s also something I like to make to take to a potluck or party.

Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 lb fresh spinach, chopped
1 14 oz can artichoke hearts, chopped
1 8 oz pkg cream cheese
1 8 oz pkg sour cream
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese divided

Melt butter in a large sauce pan over medium heat. Add onion and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in spinach, artichokes, cream cheese, sour cream, 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese, and 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Stir until well blended and heated through.

Pour mixture into a casserole dish and top with remaining cheeses. Bake in 350 F oven until cheese starts to brown, about 15-20 minutes.  Serve with your favorite veggies or chips.  We had tortillas chips with this batch.

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Steak, Egg, & Potato Burritos

9 Sep

For last night’s dinner, I decided that I would make burritos.  I had large flour tortillas in my freezer from 8/27 Bountiful Baskets.  I also had steak leftover from a couple of nights ago, plus the roasted corn salsa I made.  I had roasted Poblano peppers on the grill last week that had been in my 8/27 Bountiful Baskets Mexican pack.  And, we need to work through the 15 pounds of potatoes we still have.

First, my brother-in-law helped by washing, peeling, and dicing the potatoes, about 2 pounds of russets.  I put some olive oil in a large skillet and started cooking half of the potatoes.  After cooking for a few minutes, I added some diced onion and the Poblano pepper.  I cooked until the potatoes started to soften and brown, then added in the cut pieces of steak.  Meanwhile, in a separate skillet, I scrambled 6 eggs.  I mixed this all together in a bowl and started the process again to use up the other half of the potatoes.  I had to do it in 2 parts because my pans weren’t big enough for all of it at once.

Once the filling was complete, I cleaned the large skillet and added it to medium-low heat.  I placed a tortilla in the pan, added some of the filling toward one side of the tortilla, and sprinkled on Mexican blend cheese.

Fold over the side of the tortilla closest to the filling over the filling.

Next, fold over the top and bottom of the tortilla.

Finally, fold the section with the filling over to complete the burrito.

Brown on that side for a few minutes, then flip the burrito over and brown on the other side for a few minutes.  Remove from pan and serve.  I served mine with roasted corn salsa over it.

Yum!  Since I get 3 dozen of the large tortillas in the tortilla pack from Bountiful Baskets, I’m always playing around with fillings for burritos.

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Steak, Potatoes, and Roasted Corn Salsa

6 Sep

Busy night of cooking for me!  We had a ton of meat in the fridge.  I had thawed out steak and had hot dogs on hand to grill out for Labor Day.  Then, hubby had invited over some friends to cookout on Tuesday, so I decided to not grill on Monday and wait until Tuesday.  Hubby went to the store and bought 2 more packages of steaks and 2 packages of brats.  Then, the friends ended up not being able to come over, so 1 package of brats went to the freezer and I decided to go ahead and grill a package of hot dogs and a package of brats, plus all the steaks.  I also had a few potatoes left from Bountiful Baskets, so I decided to grill those as well.  (Don’t get me started on potatoes, hubby also bought a 10 pound bag of them when he bought the steaks, not knowing that I already had close to 10 pounds at home.  This is why only I should do the shopping!)

Anyway, we had plenty of steak left, so we cut it into pieces, and hubby has requested that I make steak and egg burritos, to which I will add roasted Poblano peppers and onion.  More about that tomorrow, back to tonight’s meal.

The day before, I put all the steak into a 9 x 13 glass pan and marinated them with Dale’s Seasoning.  No, it is not made by my hubby.  We recently discovered this at the Commissary and laughed because it has his name, but seriously, this stuff is really good.  Then, I prepped the potatoes. I washed them really good, then mixed together olive oil and Italian seasoning to brush on them, and rolled them up in aluminum foil.  Then, it was time to put it all on the grill!

As that was cooking, I worked on finishing up roasted corn salsa.  I had already roasted the 7 ears of sweet corn that I received from Bountiful Baskets on 9/3 because I didn’t want it to go bad before I got the chance to use it.  To roast it, I take off some of the outer husks, then pull back the husks to remove the silk.  I put the husks back around the corn and put it on the grill.  I leave it out there 20-30 minutes, turning every so often, and get nice, roasted corn.  If you don’t have a grill, you can roast the corn in your oven’s broiler.  Turn the broiler on low, and line a baking sheet with foil.  You can leave the husks on or remove them.  Place about 6 inches from the broiler and turn the corn every so often until it is roasted.

Next, you cut the kernels off the cob.  Now, the tricky part is what else to add.  I will give you a rough approximation of what I add, but salsa is really about making it to your taste.

  • 4 ears of corn, roasted, removed from cob
  • 1/2 yellow or red onion, or 1 bunch green onion, chopped (I use whatever I have on hand or what is cheapest)
  • 2-3 jalapenos, seeded and diced
  • 1 can black beans, drained
  • 2-3 Roma tomatoes, diced
  • 2 tsp garlic salt
  • Juice of 2-3 key limes or 1 large lime

Here is the final result to serve with your favorite tortilla chips.  We usually get the scoop type tortilla chips, it’s easier with this chunky salsa to be able to scoop it up.  Note that this is a double batch of the recipe above since I had 7 ears of corn.

After this was all finished and cleaned up, I went to work on some fruit that is currently in the food dehydrator.  I will have a full (hopefully good) report on that tomorrow!

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Shepherd’s Pie

5 Sep

A good friend of mine told me about a great shepherd’s pie that she made last week and sent me the link to the recipe.  As I was deciding what to make for dinner and thinking about what I had on hand, I remembered the recipe for the shepherd’s pie.  I looked through, had everything but the mushrooms, decided they weren’t really necessary, and decided to try it out.  Turns out it was pretty easy, a little time consuming, and totally delicious!  For this dish, I used the potatoes and celery I got in 9/3 Bountiful Baskets, and carrots and onion from 8/27 Bountiful Baskets.

Recipe can be found here: Beef Shepherd’s Pie

I recommend using leftover mashed potatoes or making the mashed potatoes first so they are ready to go.

The meat mixture goes in the baking dish first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, you spread the mashed potatoes on top, leaving 1/4″ border.  I opted to sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ended up baking mine at 400 degrees F for 30 minutes to shave off some of the baking time since I was running late.  It turned out perfect and was mostly gone before I could even take a picture of the finished product.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one is a keeper and I will be making again sometime!

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