Foodless Friday: Ultimate Blog Party

Welcome all those of you who are participating in the 2010 Ultimate Blog Party!

Just a quick intro for those of you who are new: I post my families dinner menu each week and have a poll so my readers can vote on which recipe YOU want posted. I post those recipes on Thursdays. Tuesdays I post dessert recipes, Wednesday I post about my goals and how much I am slacking on them or if I've actually made them in the past week. Fridays I post some random tidbit about my life or something I like. Read more About Me here.

Come check out some of my favorite recipes:

Pineapple Chicken Fajitas

 Honey Chocolate Truffles

French Toast Bites

Crackers

For those of you who want to join the party, there are tons of giveaways - I'm hoping to win an Amazon gift certificate!

Have a great weekend everybody!

BBQ Onion Burgers

Spring is well on the way, and with that comes gardens and barbecuing... I've been craving a good burger lately... When I spotted a recipe for BBQ Toasted Patty Melts on Real Mom Kitchen's blog, I knew I had to make it. Partly because I really wanted a burger and partly because my husband is a real fan of BBQ sauce. I did make a few changes to the recipe that I found... of course, I couldn't just leave a recipe alone! Unfortunately I had to pan cook the meat since it was WAY too windy outside to actually grill the meat. 

BBQ Onion Burgers

Saute one onion, sliced in 1-2 Tbsp Olive Oil.

Cook until they start to tenderize.

Add 1/3 cup BBQ sauce.

Coat onions and cook until tender.

Reserve cooked onions.

While onions are cooking, grab 1 lb hamburger.

Add 1/2 tsp Onion Powder, 1 tsp Garlic Powder, 1/4 tsp Black Pepper and 1/8 cup BBQ Sauce.

Mix together. You can also add an egg to keep the hamburgers from falling apart during cooking - this is especially useful when you use a higher fat content hamburger.

 Shape into patties. 

Clean out the pan you used to cook the onions (I used a paper towel to wipe it clean.)

Place patties into hot pan. (Or if it is warm enough outside and the wind isn't blowing things everywhere - fire up the grill and grill these suckers!)

Cook until hamburgers are browned about 2/3 up the sides. Then turn over.

Cook until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees. 

Top with cheese slices (if you want the cheese to melt over the burgers in the pan, place on burger when the internal temperature is 150 Degrees.)

Place burger on toasted bun and top with onions.

Enjoy!
Print Recipe 

Goal Tracking

It's the first week in April and I'm still thinking of my New Year's Resolutions... that's pretty much a first for me! I don't know if you all like reading this every week but it is sure helping me stay on track, or at least remember where the track is!



-  Doing pretty good with my sugar intake - Easter Sunday was a No Guilt day for me so I am not counting anything I ate on that day - I had some chocolate. I love Cadbury mini eggs - they are seriously my favorite, but I only found one store selling them out here... I was so not happy, especially since they were not the cheapest I've seen (actually the most expensive I've ever seen them, but I HAD to get them!)

-  I created a new dish Monday Night, it was delicious - Strawberries with Strawberry Lemon Whipped Cream.

- I did an exercise video yesterday for the first time since I got sick. I finally felt able to breathe and wasn't absolutely exhausted. I did go on 2 walks in the past week as well.

- This past week has been hectic so I haven't taken time to read... Hopefully I'll get to it this week.

Tuesday Treats: Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Last week I posted the recipe for Easy Death By Chocolate Cake, and this week I'm posting the recipe I used for the frosting. I really love this recipe I found at Joy The Baker. I did make a few tweaks, naturally. Honestly if I ever make a recipe without changing anything... I was actually thinking about inventing and creating really good food last night as I was making a whipping cream and strawberry dish. I started thinking about how some people do not think they can create things in the kitchen, whereas I just start mixing things that I think would go together. Sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't. I try not to talk about the ones that don't.

Back to the chocolate frosting... You can't go wrong with chocolate, butter and sugar! Honestly I have a desire to go make this frosting right now and eat it straight from the bowl. Instead I'm going to drool over the keyboard as I post pictures of the frosting (and eat cheese and crackers - not close to the same thing.)

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Printable Recipe at Joy the Baker

In a medium mixing bowl, combine 1.5 sticks (or 3/4 cup) butter,

1/4 cup cocoa powder,1/4 cup special dark cocoa powder and 1/4 tsp salt.

Beat until creamy - you may be tempted to taste this right now, but unless you like unsweetened chocolate I would not suggest it. It really does look deceptively delicious!

Scrape sides of the bowl.

Add 2 cups Powdered Sugar.

While beating in powdered sugar mix in 1/8 cup milk and 1 tsp vanilla extract.

 Beat until all sugar is mixed in.

In a separate container combine 1/4 cup heavy cream and 1/3 cup ovaltine.

Beat ovaltine and cream into the frosting mixture until combined.

The frosting is smooth and creamy. Now is an excellent time to taste it.  In fact, you can see the finger swipe in the bowl from when I did it...  Let's be honest it was too tempting not to.

Next frost the cake or cupcakes with this delicious frosting!

Or you could just eat it straight out of the bowl. I would understand, I also wouldn't tell anybody!

Menu - March 29 - April 4

So this past week I've not been feeling too great... and I haven't cooked much, so I'm actually only going to post the three things I did make this week (basically the weekend)! Partly because I was so out of it that I really do not remember what we had at the beginning of the week and partly because I did not actually make it so it won't be part of the poll anyway.

I also just realized that I did not get to posting the crouton recipe this weekend, it will be here on Saturday - unless something unforeseen happens. I've been a little flaky lately - I don't think I've caught up on my sleep since being sick. That's my story! Talk about being flaky - I forgot to update the poll on the sidebar - it's now current.

So here was our weekend's Menu:

Friday: Quesadillas

We had Bacon and Shredded chicken quesadillas. Quesadillas and Pizza are wonderful ways to use leftover ingredients.

Saturday: BBQ Onion Burgers

These burgers were inspired by Real Mom Kitchen. I made a few changes, but that's pretty normal for me ;). They turned out wonderful!

Sunday: Easter Dinner

Ham, rolls, twice baked potatoes and carrot sticks. Simple, yet delicious!

Be sure to vote for which recipe you want to see on Thursday!

Also I'd love to hear what you had for dinner last week, even if it was just your favorite meal!

Foodless Friday

Welcome Friday! When I was in school I use to love Fridays, especially in the afternoon when school was over. It was a wonderfully free feeling. Not having to attend class for a few days, and finally having time to do things. College came and after my first semester I started working in the evenings as a janitor. Fridays instead of working until 9 we worked until 7:30 - my boss was cool like that! So I loved Fridays because of that. One semester I worked out my schedule just perfect so I did not have Friday classes, so then I only had to work on Fridays... Would have been great but the other days of the week I was pretty much non-stop from 9 am until 9 pm. I really did look forward to getting off work on Fridays...
After my husband and I were married, I loved Friday evenings because we made that our 'date night'. Every Friday we would spend time together doing something fun. We would go bird watching,

play games, go on a picnic, play at the park,

or very seldom go out to eat - we usually tried to make our dates inexpensive as we were both still college students... After our son was born most of our date nights consisted of playing games together or watching movies... but not really getting out of our apartment. We occasionally go out on dates, but more often we stay in. I still get excited for Fridays and love it when they arrive!
What day of the week do you look forward to the most?

Chicken Soup Pizza

The other day I was reading about specialty pizzas - the type that are not 'normal'. For example, my husband and I once ate at a pizzeria that served Mac and Cheese Pizza. It's true, they really had Mac & Cheese on the pizza, pasta and all. We decided it is an interesting pizza and one that needs to be eaten fresh, definitely not cold! What is the most interesting flavor of pizza you've tried?

After reading about interesting pizzas and knowing I had some cooked chicken that needed to be used, I had the idea for a chicken soup pizza. At first I thought of making a chicken noodle soup pizza, but decided against it as I did not think the noodles would stand the pizza baking. Maybe they would, I didn't really want to test it. So I decided to make a chicken soup pizza, except I knew I needed an idea for the sauce. Gravy just seemed to weird and so I made a creamy sauce and it worked out pretty well!

Chicken Soup Pizza

(Sorry I do not have assembly pictures...)

1 recipe pizza dough

For sauce:

In a sauce pan, melt 2 Tbsp butter, add 1/3 cup cream and 1.2 oz cream cheese-softened. Mix until combined, add 1/2 tsp celery seed-crushed, 1/2 tsp onion powder and 1/2 tsp garlic powder. Heat through but do not simmer.

Assemble pizza:

Top pizza dough (I actually like to cook my pizza dough for 10 minutes before topping, the crust finishes cooking while the cheese melts.) with sauce, spread evenly. Sprinkle 1-2 cups Mozzarella cheese over sauce. Top with 2 cups cooked chicken and 1/2 to 1 cup each of celery-sliced, onion-chopped and carrot-sliced or grated, sauteed until tender. (It would be best if the chicken was cooked in with the sauteed veggies and use the left over juices in the sauce.) Top with 1-2 cups more cheese.

Bake until cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

 Print Recipe