What's Wrong With Vacation?

So for the past two weeks, I have been in Europe on holiday. We ate all kinds of food there. In Italy, we enjoyed so much pizza that I'm still not hungry for it at all and the best pasta I've ever had. Greece was a little difficult to find variety so most of the time we were there, it was gyros all the way. In England, we had to have fish and chips and I ended up loving it so much, I had it twice. In the Czech Republic, I can't remember what I ate except there was duck and purple cabbage involved in some way. Everything was so delicious and I thought I would share pictures of most of the meals with my readers! I may try to replicate some of the pasta creations from Italy at some point because they were so delightful I don't think I can go long without eating more. Too bad I can't make any gelato. I had that stuff everyday that we were in Italy. Talk about a happy camper! 

 Gyro Meat - Athens, Greece

 Duck with Cabbage - Prague, Czech Republic

 Some kind of meat - Prague, Czech Republic

 Fish and Chips - London, England

 Cod Bites and Chips - London, England

 Chicken Sandwich and Chips - London, England

 Margharita Pizza - Milan, Italy

 Spaghetti with Pesto - Milan, Italy

 Gnocchi with Tomato Cream Sauce - Milan, Italy

 Pizza - Rome, Italy

 Delicious - Rome, Italy

 Yummmm - Rome, Italy

 Spaghetti with Oil and Chili and Gnocchi Pomodoro - Rome, Italy

 Buffet - Rome, Italy

 Buffet - Rome, Italy

 Spaghetti Pomodoro - Rome, Italy

Fettucini with Mushrooms - Rome, Italy

Another thing, if you're planning on going to any of these countries, hit me up with some comments for tips!

Stir-Fry

Hey readers! Tonight's dinner did not follow a recipe at all. The hubby is home so we went back to vegetarian options and there wasn't much food in the house so we used up some vegetables from the fridge and made a garbage stir-fry! Just know that we used the following vegetables but you can use whatever you fancy!

What You Need:
- carrot
- zucchini
- green pepper
- tomato
- mushroom
- onion
- rice
- eggs
- soy sauce
- oil
- rice
- skillet or wok

How to Do It:
First, you want to chop up all of your vegetables and put them in your skillet or wok with a bit of oil to brown them up a bit. As your veggies are browning up, start your rice. Now, if you've never cooked rice before, (meaning real rice, not Minute Rice) I can help you out. Just comment below. So, when your rice is done, add it to the skillet with your veggies with a little soy sauce (not too much, otherwise it will be too salty). Finally, add the eggs and scramble them with everything else. When everything is done, your end result is delicious!

Croque-Monsieur

Tonight's dish is compliments of the movie "It's Complicated" starring one of my favorite actresses, Meryl Streep. In the film, Streep plays a divorced woman who begins an affair with her ex-husband (Alec Baldwin) and a friendship with a sweet, funny architect (Steve Martin). At one point in the movie, Streep and Martin are having a dinner at her house that he is redesigning and she makes dinner for the two of them. The delightful sandwiches she makes are called croque-monsieur. Being myself, I HAD to find out what these sandwiches consisted of! Turns out, they are a simple grilled ham and cheese sandwich. 

As always, from Wikipedia, "A croque-monsieur is a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. It originated in French cafes and bars as a quick snack. Typically, Emmental or Gruyere cheese is used. The name is based on the verb croquer ("to crunch") and the word monsieur ("mister"). The sandwich's first recorded appearance on a Parisian cafe menu was in 1910. Its earliest mention in literature appears to be in volume two of Proust's In Search of Lost Time in 1918."

There is a variation of croque-monsieur called a croque-madame that is served with a fried or poached egg on top. There's a ton of other variations but I've never tried any besides the croque-madame because my hubby likes them. 

Now, if you've never had a recipe that calls for it, you may not know that Gruyere cheese is super-duper expensive. I mean, like basically, just place a couple twenty dollar bills on your sandwiches instead. So, being cheap like I am, I don't use Gruyere. I use mozzarella or swiss or pepper jack, or whatever I happen to have on hand. I usually don't use cheddar because I like the taste of mozzarella or swiss better. Also, I use lunch meat ham slices and in this instance, I used regular wheat bread. Typically, I will use bread that I've made myself but being busy and sick, I didn't feel like making bread today.

What You Need:

• sliced bread
• sliced ham
• mozzarella or swiss cheese slices
• butter
• grated parmesan cheese
• mustard
• cookie sheet
• aluminum foil

How to Do It:
First, put aluminum foil on your cookie sheet and preheat your oven to 350° F. Next, place a slice of bread on the foil and then stack your ham and cheese on top. Butter a slice of bread on one side. Finish off your sandwich with the slice of bread, butter side up, and shake some of the parmesan cheese over the bread. Pop your sandwich into the oven for about 15 minutes or until the parmesan is starting to brown and the cheese is starting to melt. After your kitchen starts smelling heavenly, remove the sandwich from the oven and serve with mustard. I usually like spicy brown mustard but regular works too. As well as any other kind that floats your boat.




Disclaimer: I will warn you that thin bread slices, like the kind I used can turn out soggy because of the water in the ham slices. I prefer homemade bread and if you need a good recipe for it, I've got one so be sure to comment if you'd like to know how to make it!

Bon Appétit!

Chili and Cornbread

Tonight's meal consisted of chili and cornbread. First, a quick definition of chili courtesy of whatscookingamerica.net: "Chili is a stew-like soup made entirely with meat, chiles or chili powder (or both), and according to what region of the United States you live in, it can also include beans."

Seeing as I come from Ohio, my chili does have beans in it. Also, I did put meat in the recipe as the veggie is away from home... My recipe comes from my mom so here's a shout-out to her!

What You Need:

• red beans
• light kidney beans
• dark kidney beans
• chili (Hormel works nicely)
• chili powder
• chili seasoning (McCormick Original is best)
• tomato juice
• hamburger
• onion
• green pepper
• tomato
• dutch oven, crock pot, or large pot

* I use one can of each type of beans, one packet of chili seasoning, about half a quart of tomato juice, one pound hamburger, one onion, green pepper, tomato

How to Do It:
First, you must brown your hamburger. Often, I will just brown it in my big spaghetti pot that I will use for the chili. After the hamburger is browned, I add my cut up veggies and let everything cook a little. Next, add all the beans at once and throw in the tomato juice. As I like my chili less soupy than others, I only use about half a quart of tomato juice but if you like your chili soupy, you can add the whole quart. Stir everything together and add in the packet of chili seasoning and some chili powder, salt, and pepper to taste. Stir again and cover. I typically keep my chili on medium low heat the entire time so I don't burn it. You'll want to stir this stuff often, especially if you're not using a non-stick pot, otherwise it could end up sticking and burning and you'll get scorched pieces in your finished product.

* Hint: If your chili starts tasting too tomato-y, I usually add a couple tablespoons of sugar as well as some mustard to help.

As for the cornbread of our meal, from Wikipedia: " Cornbread is a popular item in soul food enjoyed by many people for its texture and aroma. Cornbread can be baked, fried, or, rarely, steamed." My recipe for cornbread comes from the bag of cornmeal I buy at the store.

What You Need:
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 1 cup flour
- 2-4 Tbsp. sugar (depending how sweet you want it)
- 4 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 cup milk
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- baking pan

How to Do It:
First you want to mix all the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl (cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt). Next, in the same bowl, add the milk, egg, and oil and beat until everything is combined. Spray a baking pan with some cooking spray (mine is supposedly a 9x13 but I think it's a bit smaller as it comes from the dollar store). Pour your cornbread mixture into the pan and pop it into the oven at 350° F for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let it cool for a bit and it should pop out of the pan pretty easily.

After everything is prepared, you're ready to eat! I like my cornbread in the bowl first, chili on top. My husband likes his with the cornbread over the chili. Either way, it's delicious! We agree, however on putting loads of shredded cheese and sour cream over the chili. Try it out and comment how your's turned out and if you have any suggestions! Eat hearty!

What's Wrong with Take-Out?

So, I'm sick... Because of this, I haven't cooked since Friday night. Last night I had wonton soup from my blessed Chinese take-out restaurant. Tonight will be leftover lo mein. Hopefully tomorrow I will make some chili so as to keep my throat happy as well as not being lazy anymore. To make you happy, here's a picture of my niece who turns 2 today! Happy cooking!

Jambalaya and Po Boy Sandwiches

So last night we started a little tradition of Anything Can Happen Thursday (or Friday, or the weekend, or whenever we can) a la Big Bang Theory in which we draw a piece of paper from a jar and do whatever the paper says. This week's paper was "Theme Dinner". We discussed several different options (including Mexican, Harry Potter, LOTR, Indian, and others) and ended up on New Orleans cuisine. I poured over recipes on my good friend Google and came up with jambalaya and po' boy sandwiches.

From the ever trusty Wikipedia: "Jambalaya was created in Louisiana and has its origins in Spanish paella. Jambalaya is traditionally made in three parts, with meat and vegetables, and is completed by adding stock and rice."

Disclaimer: Now, I should warn you that my husband has been on a vegetarian diet for about a month and a half so many of the recipes I make will have vegetarian options and some of them may be straight-up vegetarian.

Anywho, back to jambalaya! I pulled my recipe from Allrecipes.com which you can find here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Shrimp-Sausage-and-Fish-Jambalaya/Detail.aspx?evt19=1

I did not put shrimp, sausage, or fish in my jambalaya out of respect of my husband. So pretty much, I followed the recipe starting at step two. Now, I will warn you that the recipe says to pretty much leave the stuff to cook for 25 to 30 minutes and to let it rest undisturbed. However, because of this, the bottom part of the rice became blackened and burned to the bottom of my pan. Luckily, I was using a T-Fal pan so it came off easily when I let the pot soak overnight. So, a word of caution to you all: if you've ever made rice and know that you add double the amount of water to the amount of rice you're cooking, and also know that eventually when the rice is tender the water will pretty much disappear, please take note that this recipe is quite tricky. The liquid will NOT go away. The rice mixture will still look as if it is cooking. However, if you stir the mixture every so often, your jambalaya should not burn, stick, or turn out as poorly as mine did.

Now onto po' boy sandwiches. Also courtesy of Wikipedia: "A po' boy is a tradisional submarine sandwich from Louisiana. It almost always consists of meat, usually roast beef or fried seafood. The meat is served on baguette-like New Orleans French bread, known for its crisp crust and fluffy center."

I pulled my recipe from the Food Network courtesy of Emeril Lagasse which you can find here:"http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/classic-fried-shrimp-poboys-recipe.html

I used fried shrimp poppers that I found in the frozen section of Wal-Mart. I put several poppers on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven on 425° Fahrenheit  (F) for ten minutes. While they were crisping up, I sliced tomatoes, lettuce, and onion for the finished product. And for my vegetarian friends, my husband's po' boy consisted of sliced zucchini, mushrooms, onion, and tomato.

When the shrimp were finished, I removed them from the oven and decreased the temperature to 350° F. I then lined a cookie sheet with foil, and placed sliced hoagie rolls (also from Wal-Mart) open-face with mozzarella cheese slices then proceeded to add the shrimp and veggies. Once they were prepared, I popped them into the oven for fifteen minutes.

To finish, I added tomato, lettuce, and mayonnaise with a couple dashes of hot sauce to the po' boys and put the jambalaya on the side. 

Sorry I don't have pictures of this meal, everything was gone before I had the chance! If you try either of these recipes, please let me know by commenting!

What's it All About?

The purpose of this blog is to bring not-so-hard, (true) home-cooking recipes to those of you interested in that sort of thing. I will post a meal or recipe and a picture of said item whenever I get the chance to cook dinner or lunch or whatever I feel like.

However, seeing as I am working some evening shifts, I may not have a new meal every night and quite possibly may not post for a couple days depending on my schedule. Nonetheless, I will do my best to keep you informed and entertained as best I can!

The name of the blog is a tribute to my dear older sister and mother. So......"What's for dinner?"