Wednesday, pajama and chicken day!

Today is our pajama party at school. I bought a PINK pair of pajamas bottoms with coffee cups all over them. :-)
We'll watch a Veggie Tale movie called WHERE'S GOD WHEN I'M SCARED, pop corn in our big school popper, and drag blankets and stuffed animals around with us all day. What could be better?

I found this meal online this morning...I believe it will be on our table tonight! Easy ingredients, I may add some onion and corn. I'll give you a review once we have it!

Foil-Pack Chicken Fajita Dinner recipe

Happy Birthday Johnny Appleseed!

We made this at preschool today, a real taste of Fall without much work. The children enjoyed cutting up the apples with their butter knives. It's really hard to keep those fingers out of their mouths though!!

Easy Apple-Raisin Pie Slices
INGREDIENTS:

1 Pillsbury® Refrigerated Pie Crust, softened as directed on package

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 cups finely chopped, peeled baking apples

1/4 cup raisins

1 tablespoon butter or margarine, cut into pieces

1 tablespoon sugar

Ice cream, if desired

DIRECTIONS:

• Heat oven to 375°F. Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray or use parchment paper. Unroll crust. Place crust in center of cookie sheet.
• In medium bowl, mix 1/4 cup sugar, the flour and cinnamon. Add apples and raisins; toss gently to coat. Spoon apple mixture lengthwise down center third of crust to form 5-inch-wide strip to within 1/2 inch of top and bottom ends, pressing lightly to distribute evenly. Dot apple mixture with butter.
• Fold sides of crust to center, overlapping center slightly, to enclose apple mixture. Fold top and bottom ends over about 1/2 inch. Brush crust lightly with water; sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar.
• Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Cool 15 to 20 minutes. Cut crosswise into slices. Serve with ice cream.

A little trivia......what did Johnny Appleseed wear on his head??

Here fishy fishy....

We had a marvelous summer dinner tonight. I had orange roughy in the freezer, and if my memory serves me correctly - I don't believe I've ever cooked roughy before. I asked for input from my FB friends, and one particular person mentioned blackened fish. I don't think I would have come up with that on my own, so thanks to you S.Ann! My next feat was then to find a recipe for the rub. I did some research online and found this one, and I will use it again. It had some good 'kick' and really gave the fish an unbeatable flavor. If you don't like spicy, you better cut back on the cayenne, but I thought it was perfect. **** 4 stars from me! The other thing I liked about this recipe was the fact that it's done on the grill in foil packs. Many people online complained about how cooking a blackened fish smoked up the kitchen. Also, there's not much mess to clean up. I did some little potatoes browned in olive oil/butter and a fresh veggie stir fry with carrots, zucchini and onion. I bought all of the veggies at the farmers market, the carrots still had the tops on!!

OK so here's the rub recipe followed by directions for the foil packs.











Blackened Fish Rub
1 Tbsp paprika
2 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper or restaurant pepper
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp garlic powder
Combine all of the above, this is enough for about 6 fillets.

Tear off heavy duty foil wrap for each fillet. Make sure it's big enough to fold over a couple of times to prevent leaks. I sprayed each piece of foil with veg. spray to make sure nothing would stick, not sure if that's necessary. Sprinkle each fillet with olive oil to coat both sides, then spread about 1 tsp of rub seasoning on each side, be sure you are liberal with seasoning. Place a dollop of butter on each side of the fish, then wrap securely in foil so nothing leaks out.

The grill needs to be pretty hot. Grill for 4 minutes on the first side, and about 3-4 minutes on the second side. It really depends on how thick your fillets are. I used orange roughy, but I think you can use any nice fish fillet. The roughy did not get mushy, it help up nicely to the cooking process.

We LOVED this recipe. My husband gave me 2 thumbs up!

Green is my favorite color

IT'S HOT, H-O-T hot people! I have been working in my classroom getting ready for open house on the 28th. I have to be thankful that I work indoors, what horrible conditions to be an outdoor worker these days. And speaking of working outside, our street has been a mess for over 2 weeks, they are tearing up almost every speckle of cement and making it new before public begins school next week. The intersection that we use ALL the time has been out of commission for the same amount of time. There are days when we barely make it out of our drive and onto a passable road, I always pray when I get ready to leave the house that there will be a path in this maze. Those workers never get a break from the heat, they sit under a shady tree for breaks (throwing water bottles in my lawn) and get right back to it. I just finished watching them move huge slabs of cement to a dump truck, I watched because I was pretty sure they were going to nail my mail box. So far, so good.

The heat has hindered my menu this week. I bought a beautiful ham, but obviously it hasn't been choice weather for running the oven for any amount of time. Soooo, I took out some hamburger a couple of days ago. We used half of it last night to grill burgers, and today I used the rest to stuff peppers. I didn't have any tomato soup which is what my regular recipe calls for, so I looked for a recipe that included pizza sauce, for some reason I had a couple of jars of that. The more I think about it - the better it sounds. I will have to comment later on how it turned out, but I have high hopes for this one.

Pizza Stuffed Green Peppers
green peppers - 3 to 6 depending on size
1 16oz jar of pizza sauce
1 1/2 lb ground beef
1 cup of toasted bread cubed to 1/2" pieces
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped onion (maybe some black olives & mushrooms?)
salt and pepper to taste
4 oz mozzarella cheese cut into 4 or 6 pieces

Clean the peppers and cut the tops off, so you can replace it after filling. Mix 1/2 cup sauce with ground beef, toasted bread, egg, onion, salt and pepper. The idea is to have a chunk of mozzarella cheese wrapped in hamburger to go in each pepper. You'll have to cut it to the shape and quantity of your peppers. I had 3 l-o-n-g giant peppers, so I did 3 long chunks of cheese. Because they were long fat peppers I laid them on their side and cut accordingly. Be sure to try and seal the meat well so it doesn't ooze cheese out while it cooks. My meat seemed kind of runny, but I'm hoping it will bake up all right. I topped the peppers with the rest of the pizza sauce before I put the pepper lid back on. I will probably top these with some shredded cheese when they are almost done. If these were going in the oven I would say 400* for 30 min. I put mine in a slow cooker today on medium, I'll adjust the heat as needed but think it will take about 3 hours.

I'll give you the verdict later. Stay cool!

Summerlicious no bake baking

Today I can't help but think about how hot it's supposed to get in the next few days. Makes it hard to think about spending time in the kitchen when the temps get to be 90* +.
Tonight we are going to cruise night on the avenue, we'll get to watch vintage cars drive by, burn out, and hot rod like we were in the 70's again. Hope we don't melt into the pavement!

I started the day having coffee with a couple of classmates. One of them was headed to a reunion and wanted some easy dessert ideas. I looked for a recipe that I was sure I had posted before, but it either evaporated or I had a total brain fart. In any case, I'm posting it now so that I know where I can find it when I need it! :-) PS, it's a NO BAKE recipe for this hot-hot day.

PEANUT BUTTER CUP BARS
2 packages of graham crackers - crushed
3 cups powdered sugar
1 cup melted margarine
1 1/2 cups peanut butter
Mix the above ingredients together well. You could use a mixer or food processor to make it easier. Pat into a 9x13 pan.
Melt together the following and pour over bars. Refrigerate till firm.
12 oz milk chocolate chips
1 Tbsp peanut butter

Colorado cookin'

Monday we returned from a fun filled vacation in Colorado. Mike's sister Katie is very inventive in the kitchen. We ate lots of raspberries which were growing abundantly in her garden. She fed us homemade jellies, fruit salsas, the first of their tomato crop, and more. When more company was coming she threw a cake in the microwave, yes the microwave. I admit that I have over-looked this method of baking for the most part. But for summer cooking, what a great alternative! She used one of the silicone bundt type pans, and it really worked slick! Here is Katies recipe for cake, she said you can use any flavors of mix or fillings you want. Experiment!!

Katie's Kake
1 yellow cake mix
3 eggs
1 can pie filling (this one was peach)
fresh peach chopped
Mix all by hand and bake in the microwave for 15 min. Use a toothpick to test if it's done a little ahead of time. I think she said to let it set for about 5-10 minutes before turning it out onto a plate. She served it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream while it was still warm, mmm-mmm.

July has had 20 sleeps already!

In my preschool world the children often measure time by how many sleeps it is until an event. What an easy way to file it in their little minds, come to think of it-works well in my little mind as well!

So I had these bananas, that turned brown the minute I took them out of the bag from the store. Or so it would seem. I just threw 4 bananas away last week, and I was NOT going to let it happen to me again. I sampled a banana cake at work a couple of weeks ago, and I thought the flavor was excellente'. When I first looked at it, I'll admit I thought it was a spice cake and thought to myself, "yuk". Not my first love in cakes - obviously that would be something chocolate. After I passed by the cake for about the 10th time I sliced off the tiniest of slivers, to feed my curiosity as well as my grumbly tum. I was pleasantly surprised to taste 'nana. I love banana bread, banana muffins, so why not banana cake?!? I asked for the recipe and was again pleasantly surprised that it was only 4 ingredients and none of them were butter or oil. Hey, this might almost be healthy...except for the slab of cream cheese frosting on top. To help with that dilemma I dug bag to my carrot cake post on March 18th and found a frosting that I gave 4*'s.

I'm baking this cake even as we speak, I'm anxious for Mike to try it and give me his professional appraisal. He's getting pretty good at being a food critique! :-)

BANANA CAKE
1 yellow cake mix
1 cup mashed bananas
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
(I snuck in 1 tsp. vanilla extract)

Beat for 2 minutes with a hand mixer. Pour into a 9x13 pan that has been sprayed with Pam. Bake @ 350* for 30 minutes (do the toothpick test) Cool and frost.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
1/4 cup butter
4 oz light cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup coconut

Cream together the butter, cream cheese and vanilla. Add the powdered sugar and mix until smooth. Stir in pecans and coconut, frost cooled cake.