Tomato Sauce with Meat

It's the second day of "spring" and what do you know? It's snowing! On days like today, I feel like something hearty so I decided to make pasta for dinner. I have a gazillion cans of tomato paste in my cupboard (thanks Sam's Club) that I hardly ever use so I decided to make some pasta sauce.

Here is what you will need.

First chop up your onion and bell pepper. Then saute them with a little olive oil and garlic. I love this smell!

In a separate pan on medium heat, put in a tablespoon of olive oil and add your can of tomato paste. Next, fill your empty tomato paste can up with chicken broth and dump it into your pan. Do this twice. Add salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and basil. Stir it together. If you want a spicy or "arrabbiata" sauce, go ahead and and about a teaspoon of red pepper flakes as well.

Once the onion, bell pepper, and garlic are softened, add about half them to your tomato sauce. Leave the rest in your pan and add ground beef and cook until no longer pink.

Once meat is browned, add this to your tomato sauce. Stir and taste. You may need to add a few spices depending on your taste. If not, you are ready to eat! I let mine simmer for about an hour so you can do that as well if you aren't in a hurry to eat. Letting it simmer brings all the flavors together.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 green bell pepper
1/4 medium onion
1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 6 oz can tomato paste
12 oz chicken broth
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons of Trader Joe's frozen chopped basil cubes
1/2 lb ground beef

Summary:
Put 1 tablespoon of olive oil in pan on medium heat. Add tomato paste, chicken broth, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and basil and mix together. In another pan on medium-high heat put 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and saute bell pepper, onion, and garlic. Once they are soft, add half of them to your tomato sauce mix and stir in. In the pan with the bell peppers, add your ground beef and cook until no longer pink then add to tomato sauce. Let simmer for about an hour. Enjoy!

With love!

Roasted Red Potatoes

Roasted red potatoes are the perfect side dish to steaks, chicken, and pork.

Here is what you will need

Its shocking, but this recipe does not call for any hot sauce.  Dont worry, there is still lime. 

First preheat oven to 350 degrees. Next, wash and cut up your potatoes and put them into a baking dish.  Make sure they aren't piled too high on top of each other.

Now you will want to melt you butter and mix in a bowl with garlic and lemon juice.

Then pour the mixture over your potatoes and stir with a spoon for total coverage.

Sprinkle the potatoes with Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Cover with foil and bake in oven for 55 minutes. 

Let cool for 5 minutes and enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 lb small red potatoes

2 tablespoons of butter melted (you can substitute olive oil)

1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons garlic

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Summary:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash and cut red potatoes and put into baking dish. Melt butter and mix with lemon juice and garlic. Pour butter mix over potatoes and mix. Sprinkle potatoes with Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Bake for 55 minutes. Take out of over and let cool for 5 minutes and enjoy.

With love!

Chicken Tortilla Casserole

My husband is not feeling well and asked me to make some comfort food. With summer being right around the corner, I wanted to make a somewhat healthy dish that would be nice and hearty for him. You may notice all the melted gooey cheese on the above picture, but don't worry...it is easy to scrape off or you can put less on if you are trying to eat healthy.

Here is what you will need:

I forgot to include a can of diced tomatoes in the picture.  You can use one or cup up a fresh tomato if you'd like.

First you will need to cook your chicken if you haven't already. You can cook it however you want. I prefer to poach mine and then shred it in my mixer. 

For those of you who don't know what poaching is, all you have to do is put your chicken breast into a pan with enough water to fully cover it and bring to a boil and let boil for about 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. 

While my chicken breasts were cooking, I decided to chop my bell pepper and onions. If you are using a fresh tomato, go ahead and chop that as well.

My chicken is still cooking so I went ahead and mixed the cream of chicken soup, milk, sour cream, green chilies, garlic, chili powder, cumin, and salt together in a bowl.

Next I cut up my tortilla strips into about 1 inch cubes.

Now throw your tortillas, chicken, bell pepper, onion, tomatoes, and cheese into the bowl with the cream mixture.

Mix until everything is combined.

Put your mix into a baking dish and cover with foil. Cook at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. 

Once it has been cooked, take the casserole out of the oven and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Put back into oven for 5 minutes or until the cheese has melted.

Let the casserole cool for about 10 minutes and serve.

Enjoy!

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons garlic

1 4 oz can diced green chilies

1/2 cup 1% milk

1 10.5 oz can of fat free condensed cream of chicken soup

8 oz fat free sour cream

1/2 medium diced bell pepper

1/2 medium diced onion

10 oz can diced tomato's or 1 medium diced tomato

8 6 inch corn tortillas

1 lb cooked chopped or shredded chicken breast

1 1/2 cups shredded colby jack cheese

Summary:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray 2 quart baking dish with cooking spray. Mix chili powder, cumin, salt, garlic, green chilies, milk, cream of chicken soup, and sour cream in large bowl. Cut tortilla strips into 1 inch pieces. Add bell pepper, onion, tomatoes, tortillas, cooked chicken, and 3/4 cup shredded cheese into bowl and mix with wet ingredients. Put into 2 quart baking dish and cover with foil. Cook at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, take casserole out of oven and uncover. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top and put back into over for 5 minutes or until cheese is melted. Let cool for 10 minutes.

With love!

Garlic Herb Butter

Garlic Herb butter, so simple, yet so delicious! This butter is out of this world and you only need three ingredients. You can put it on anything... Garlic bread, steak, potatoes, veggies, chicken, you get the point!

Here is what you will need

If you have a Trader Joe's near you, I highly recommend getting their frozen crushed garlic cubes. I tried minced garlic from a jar and a garlic paste, but the Trader Joe's crushed garlic is what put this butter over the edge for me. I am sure fresh garlic crushed or zested would be just as good, but as you guys have probably figured out by now...I like to use what I have! I usually try to keep fresh garlic in my cupboard, but I love it so much that I usually use it up pretty quickly, which is why I find the Trader Joe's frozen cubes of crushed garlic so convenient! They are so much better than jarred or garlic powder. Trader Joe's also has frozen cubes of basil, parsley ect...they are awesome! I love TJ's!

The first thing you will need to do is leave your butter on the counter to soften until its about room temperature. Depending on the temperature of your house, you can probably leave it out for about an hour and a half and get the right softness...don't let it melt, just let it soften up a bit.

Once your butter is soft then put it in your food processor or mixer and add your garlic and parsley flakes. If you have fresh parsley you can use that instead, but I didn't have any and to be honest this butter is so good you can just use your dried parsley flakes from the spice jar.

Now mix it until the parsley and garlic are fully mixed in. You may need to take a spatula and wipe down the sides a few times until it is mixed in. Next just scoop out your butter onto foil your plastic wrap with foil on the outside.

Then roll it up.

Once it is rolled push it in..

Now put it in your refrigerator to harden

That's it! Now you are ready to use it! I used it on french bread and it was some of the best garlic bread I have ever had! I also put a little slice of it on my husband and my steaks and let it melt all over....mmmmmm!

Ingredients:
1 stick of butter
3 cubes of Trader Joe's garlic (or more if you like it garlicky) or 3 cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons parsley flakes

Summary:
Let butter soften to room temperature. Put all ingredients into food processor or mixer and process until fully mixed. Roll butter up into saran wrap or foil and let harden in your refrigerator until you are ready to use. Enjoy!

With love!

Basic Macarons

A few weeks ago my husband and I stumbled upon Macarons at our local cupcake shop while we were on a mini cupcake run. As if our cupcake addiction wasn't bad enough, we found our new guilty pleasure, macarons! It was like eating a little piece of heaven. After going back to the shop a few times to get more, I decided that I wanted to see if I could make them myself. While this batch did not turn out perfect, I did learn a few tips for next time.

Be warned: macarons are the kind of dessert that you need to plan for in advance.

  
Here are the steps:

First I separated the egg whites from the yolk, saving the egg white. If you want to keep the yolk, just look up a recipe that you can use them in, like creme brulee. 

Then I stored my egg whites in an air tight container at room temperature. You are supposed to age them for 24 hours, but I made the mistake of aging them for only about 5 hours.








While the egg whites were aging, I decided to make my own almond meal. If you want to make your own, check out my recipe here: almond meal. If you bought almond flour or almond meal from the store, go ahead and omit this step.

Once my egg whites were aged, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.

Then I whisked my almond meal and powdered sugar together in a bowl and set it aside to be used later.

In your electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachement, add your egg whites with a dash of salt and mix on medium speed until they are foamy.

Now turn the speed up to high and gradually add in the granulated sugar and continue to mix until your egg whites form glossy stiff peaks like the picture below.

We are almost there! Now we get to add in the powdered sugar and almond meal/flour mix. Stir in slowly with a rubber spatula. This is the tricky part, you don't want to over or under stir your mixture.  Too much or too little and your macarons won't turn out right.  This is where I thought I went wrong, but after tasting them, they tasted very close to the ones at the bakery down the street. I thought I did not stir my batter enough which gave me a very fluffy macaron. In hindsight, I should have lifted my pan off the counter about four inches and dropped it several times to even out the batter and get rid of any air pockets.

Now put in oven at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Since oven temperatures vary, you may want to keep your eye on the macarons so they don't burn.

Even though my first batch looks puffy, they tasted delightful.  The puffy ones were actually better than the "better looking" ones.








With the left over batter I decided to stir it a few more times to try and get a thinner consistency. I stirred waaaay too much and then next batch was too thin, but formed little feet! (Feet are a key feature for perfect macarons) That was exciting.

FEET!!!

Although this batch has "feet" on them, they didn't taste nearly as good as my puffy batch! I think somewhere in between would have been good.

Now you can put the filling in between the cookies. I chose a homemade buttercream frosting that is out of this world. If you want the recipe for my buttercream frosting click on the link. I even put a few slices of guava paste in the middle of some. This is another Cuban trick that I have learned from my husband and his family...guava paste is even delicious on saltines with a little cream cheese!

And there you have it! Hopefully next time they will look a little prettier :)

Ingredients:

          3 egg whites

          1/4 cup sugar

          1 cup almond meal

          1 1/4 cup powdered sugar

Filling:

          Buttercream frosting

          Nutella

          Jelly

          Anything you want!

Summary:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Crack your eggs and seperate the whites from the egg yolk. Put your egg whites in an airtight container and age on your counter (out of the sun) for 24 hours. Mix almond meal and powdered sugar in a bowl and set aside. Once your egg whites have aged, put them in your mixer and mix on low speed until they are foamy, then mix on medium high speed and slowly add your granulated sugar and continue beating until they reach a foamy stiff peaks. Next stir in your almond meal/powdered sugar mixture until it is fully stirred in. Fill a pastry bag and pour batter onto cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Once cookies have cooled you can put whatever filling you like in them.

Enjoy!

With love!

Sweet Buttercream Frosting

I am a sucker for frosting! For it to be worth the calories to me, it has to be that super sweet sugary frosting you get at the bakery that you could easily eat with a spoon! On my quest to find how to make it myself, I have made several frostings that I just could not stomach. I know buttercream is made with butter and a lot of people love the taste of real buttercream, but I don't want to feel like I am eating a stick of butter when I am having a cupcake or cake. While this frosting wasn't the same as a bakery buttercream, it was as close as I have found, and to be honest I thought it was pretty darn good!

Here is what you will need:

Mix butter and shortening in a mixer until it becomes almost white in color. See picture below for reference.

Next add powdered sugar slowly. Once you add about five cups add your vanilla and milk. Mix for several minutes. Do a taste test and see if the frosting is sweet enough for you. If it is then you are done! If its not, keep adding 1/2 cup of sugar at a time to taste. I like my frosting super sweet so I ended up adding 6 cups, but some people like more! You should get a nice fluffy consistency. If your frosting is not fluffy enough, keep mixing it on medium high speed until it is.

Yum!


Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
5-8 cups powdered sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup half and half

Summary:
Mix butter and shortening until it is almost white in color. Add your powdered sugar until it is mixed in. Then add in vanilla and milk. Mix on medium high until you reach the consistency you want. If it is too thin add more sugar, if it is too thick add more milk.

With love!

Almond Meal

You need blanched slivered almonds. There is no need for measurement unless you are making the almond meal for macarons or something else. You can use however many you want.

The first step is to throw the almonds into your food processor

Next you process until you have your ground up almonds. Make sure to watch them because if you process them too much they will turn into almond butter!

Ingredients
Blanched slivered almonds

Summary: Process in your food processor until you reach your desired consistency.

Note: If you are using in macarons, run through your sifter to get finer grounds. You can also weigh your almonds beforehand and add in your powdered sugar from the recipe with the almonds to prevent the almonds from turning into almond butter

With love!

Jalapeno Lime Shrimp

It's lent, which means no meat on Fridays for our family. We usually stick with cheese pizza or pasta, but my husband has been craving shrimp. He went to a seafood restaurant a few weeks ago and had the "best" shrimp ever. I am not a big seafood fan, but I thought it would be a fun date night to cook with my husband!

Here are the ingredients you will need:

You may have noticed a theme with most of my recipes...garlic, salt and lime.  The issue is that my husband is Cuban.  Thus, almost everything requires garlic, salt, and/or lime.  Considering how much salt his family eats, it is a mystery of medical science how any of them made it past 50.  Yet both his grandparents are in their 80's and going strong.

Back to the subject at hand, we put the shrimp in a flat bottomed glass bowl so all the shrimp was covered by our marinade. Then we sprinkled the shrimp with our spices, garlic salt, sea salt, and pepper.

Salt and Garlic...a taste of Cuba.

Then we poured in enough jalapeno lime sauce to cover the shrimp. My husband is a great help in the kitchen! We should do this more often.

He pours like the wind!

Next we put in our lime juice. Had we had fresh limes I would have squeezed in the juice of two fresh limes. Let the shrimp marinate for at least 30 minutes before you saute them.

Now it is time to saute them in the pan, we put in a little olive oil and threw in our shrimp with all the marinade juices. Keep an eye them and turn often.

Once they are cooked, serve over a bed of rice or you can mix in with a pasta dish.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1teaspoon garlic salt

1 lb shrimp

2 tablespoons lime juice

1 cup Louisiana jalapeno lime sauce 

1 tablespoon olive oil

Summary: Sprinkle shrimp with spices. Cover with jalapeno lime sauce, and lime juice. Let marinade for 30 minutes. Cook on medium high turning often.

With love