Guilty Comfort Food

We made this fabulous beef and noodles this week. We being my nephew and sister, since I worked.

Its a very simple recipe of only a roast, noodles and a simple broth that's made in the last hour of cooking.

It was absolutely fabulous and something I know my mama would have adored and would have had us make over and over.

Mama was a big fan of chuck roast. but most of us didn't like the basic recipe. We all love Mississippi Roast and any variations.

This one was such a winner and I wish I had the recipe years ago, because I know it would have made her so happy, especially since EVERYONE loved it. Heck. I'm pretty sure my dad would have loved it too. Those thick egg noodles would have won him over in an instant.

If you want to try it..and really, you do, here's the link to the recipe https://www.thecountrycook.net/crock-pot-beef-noodles/

Easy Eats

In the last year I've been trying to keep track of my expenses and whatnot in a notebook. My mom often did something similar.

There was always a notebook or slips of paper with what bills were being paid when..and what was needed at the store.

Mine is a kind of documentary of my life right now.

I have a page for my month's bills

I've got recipes for anything I can whip together quickly. So yeah not everything is 100% healthy.

I did concoct a pretty good meatless dinner with Knorr's teriyaki lo mein, some frozen stir fry veggies and a few cans of water chestnuts and bamboo shoot. Yum!

I also eat a lot of scrammbled eggs these days too. Anything you can whip up quickly.

One day life we be normal again right?

I miss eating normal food.

I Ate The World Today, Oh Boy!

Let's just say that Charleroi's Community Days are a detriment to my diet.

Why?

Food trucks and other random food vendors.

OMG!

I think we ate everything.

BBQ chicken kabobs, mac and cheese, onion blossoms, funnel cake, burritos, haluski and halupki.

You name it, we ate it today.

Granted we brought all of that home and we all shared.

Seriously, the chicken kabob was so big that three people could get plenty from it.

The only problem with most festival food are the prices.

Yikes!

Very pricey, but oh so good.

I'm just glad that this sort of thing only happens once a year.

A Few Of My Favorite Things: Foodie Edition

I have a love for simple sandwich salads. If you are ever in the Mon Valley and can get to Cox Market or to Finleyville to Trax Farms, you will find the best chicken and turkey salads you'll ever taste. Trax's turkey salad has dill and it is just fabulous on a good cracker. Cox's chicken salad is made with shredded chicken and I've been making wraps for the last few days for lunch. Yum!

I don't like a lot of fancy stuff in any of my sandwich salads. My own egg salad is just egg, mayo and dijon mustard, sometimes a little dollop of a good relish, and a shake of pepper.

That's why I really love the chicken salad. It's chicken, mayo and celery. I occasionally like a southwest chicken salad, but I'm never one for fruit or nuts in my salad, especially if its going on a bun, croissant or in a wrap.

I'm a fan of simple foods and casseroles and depression era fare.

My mother used to make a macaroni dish that was basically just elbow mac, ketchup, ez melt cheese or some other good melting cheese and then buttered breadcrumbs. Its absolutely fabulous. Another favorite casserole is ground meat with rice and cream of mushroom soup and chicken noodle.

So, I'm not a gourmet, though I like good food, but I'm really a no frills kind of girl.

Oh and best thing ever...Cheesy egg toast ...easy, yummy breakfast..

Now I'm hungry!

The "I Had A Dream" chuck roast

My dinner on Monday was care of my mother dreaming of putting green pepper in the crockpot with a chuck roast.

Let me tell you, that was the best idea for a roast.

It was about a 2 lb roast, maybe a little closer to two and a quarter lbs. I seasoned with Nature's Seasoning and dumped in a can of French onion soup, a couple of splashes of Worcestershire sauce and some soy. (I would have used more soy, but we didn't have any low sodium and I didn't want to kill mom with sodium).  In the last hour or so, tossed in a few chopped up green peppers and a can of mushrooms.

I served it over rice.

Delish.

Even more delish were the shredded beef sandwiches I made today with the leftovers. Added a little more Worcestershire sauce and then melted some Swiss over it.

Up until now, the Mississippi roast was my favorite..this one has usurped it.

Homemade Meat Sauce

I'm quite proud of myself. I meat spaghetti sauce from scratch today.

Woo hoo.

I generally use jarred sauce, because it is cheap, but we are trying to cut down on the sodium, and we had a surplus of tomatoes to end out the season, so I thought, why not give it a try.

I did a lot of googling for a recipe that would work.

I basically used this recipe, because my mom told me that when she used to make spaghetti sauce she always used tomato paste. My spice mix was different. We like to season with season salt or Nature's Seasoning. Oh and one of my go too things in pasta sauces, including jarred sauces, is Salad Supreme.

Its a very delicious sauce and thankfully it got rid of some of the plethora of tomatoes we have in the kitchen right now.

Starbucks....Meh

So I tried the Maple Pecan Latte

Its not a bad flavor, but it has no zing and for $5.35, my drink better have some zing. This had absolutely no zing at all.

I should have gone to Perked Up.

Everything there has zing and the people that work there are fun.

Now don't get me wrong, I love Starbucks, but I think they need to get on the ball and try to create some different coffee drinks.

My shop makes a fabulous bourbon caramel latte (sadly without real bourbon). Little City in Monongahela makes coffee soda, which is a very unique treat too.

There's nothing special about Starbucks for me anymore, except my rewards.

Plus Perked Up has good pastries and sandwiches..

And that was my ad for the day...I think I need my coffee now

Sheet Pan Suppers Rock

OK, I have to admit. I'm lazy. I love to cook but I hate cleaning up, so I'm a huge fan of anything that can be cooked in one pot, pan or in this case sheet pan.

Yesterday I made a fabulous dinner of cubed potatoes, smoked sausage and brussel spouts all on a sheet pan.

The potatoes where done with olive oil, garlic powder, onion powder and paprika mixture...the sprouts had olive oil and natures seasonings on them

Today was a sheet pan chicken parm, which was delicious except the chicken breasts obviously came from a chicken the size of a turkey.

Steak Night

Oh how I love it when Giant Eagle puts strip steaks on sale.

Yum!

Some butter spray in the pan.

Some Montreal seasoning on the steaks

Baked potatoes in the oven...

And a pot of cheesy broccoli and wild rice soup in a pot.

It really can't get better than this.

My house smells divine and everything was thrown together pretty easily.

I found the soup recipe in a Taste Of Home Fast Fixes With Mixes Cookbook. Super easy and very tasty.

Life is good when the food is good

Comfort Food

These days after Thanksgiving I've been enjoying the left over turkey. Since I've been in charge of Thanksgiving dinner for the last few years, I've come up with some recipes that help get rid of all that extra bird.

This year..I just stuck with my stuffed shells..and there still was a gallon freezer bag full.

I did remember one thing that I enjoyed when I was younger.

Turkey sandwiches.

Nothing fancy...none of that stuff you see on food network or the morning talk shows.

My perfect sandwich is a slice of white bread, turkey with a touch of salt and Miracle Whip folded in half.

That is pure turkey perfection in my book.

I haven't had Miracle Whip in ages. I'm used to using mayo in the shells recipe and that's the main ingredient in all my favorite dips, so there was no reason to buy it lately.

I'm glad I did.

Good food memories and good food.

I still have a YUGE amount of turkey leftover.

Food Snobbery

Where to begin...where to begin.

1. I hate click bait recipes that say..."You'll never use spaghetti sauce in a jar again."

Let me tell you people. I work. I don't have time, or the inclination to make spaghetti sauce from scratch. Plus I can get some pretty awesome sauces for much less.

2. Overzealous housewives: You know who I'm talking about. The kind that make fancy cakes and cupcakes and decorate everything. Seriously, I don't have time for that. My cakes get made in a 9 x 13 pan, m'kay.

3. Not everything is going to be plated perfectly. Life is all about comfort food, and comfort food is seldom gorgeous, but it is tasty.

4. Chain restaurants are good, so Food Network guys, F-off. I like Applebees, Outback etc....

All in all, most of the time, I eat because it tastes good.

I could go on an on about this, but this is enough for now.

Cranberry Corn Muffins

I was flipping through the latest issue of All You magazine where I found this awesome little muffin.

Its not really a recipe

Its Jiffy corn muffin mix made according to package directions.

Put a Tbspn of batter in the muffin cups and then put a tsp of cranberry sauce over it and top with remaining batter. To pretty it up put a fresh cranberry in the center and bake at 400 for about 15-20 minutes.

They are yummy and going to be an addition to our Thanksgiving table.

Easy Meals

In the last few years, since cooking has fallen on my shoulders, I find myself looking for the easy peasy recipes for weeknights.

I usually save fancy stuff for weekends.

Well, today while I was watching Food Network, I saw an interesting take on sloppy joes. It was on The Pioneer Woman.

Can I just say, I really do not like Ree Drummond.

When ever she says she has to have her recipes approved by hungry cowboys, kids and her...I want to say, try to find recipes that will be approved by hungry old people and a finicky twenty something that works in food service.

No joke, my youngest nephew won't come over for dinner if we order out.

But back to The Pioneer Woman. She was doing multiple recipes that used her meat sauce. One of them was the Italian Sloppy Joes. I am not one to make my own sauce.

I liked the concept, but it just isn't easy enough.

I think when I make my version of Italian Sloppy Joes I think I'll use this one

Because I like meals that are easy and different. (And don't require me using the broiler)

A World Without Twinkies?

I'm trying to grasp what a world without Twinkies, Ho-Ho's and Suzi-Qs will be like, if Hostess Bakery liquidates starting tomorrow.

I don't know about you, but the world is starting to seem a whole lot more bleak!

I mean, this is worse than The Fiscal Cliff the idjits in Washington are ready to jump from!

I say jump!

I mean, life without Twinkies?

It is hardly a life worth living.

They were actually one snack cake that you could have for dessert that didn't make you feel too guilty. (Except when you're at an amusement park eating them deep fried!)

Breakfast For Dinner!

Today's dinner was chocolate chip waffles with a side of sausage links.

Yum is the word for it.

I love finding easy things to make on Sunday. Only 3 bowls to clean and we used paper plates.

Easy and lazy. That's what Sunday's are all about!

I think I may do this waffle thing more often!

Baked Ziti Today

A friend of mine bought me a cookbook for my birthday, knowing how I love cooking. I was excited to find a recipe for Baked Ziti in it.

Needless to say that is the first recipe I made from the book.

Why?

Ziti is a food that always brings me happy memories. When we used to go on vacation, I'd always get baked ziti at the Sbarro's on the PA turnpike, either near Lancaster or Bedford. This was before Sbarro's were in our malls, so it was a once a year kind of thing, It was special.

Baked Ziti is one of my favorite pasta dishes, and the recipe I found in the new cookbook was very similar to the one I ate at Sbarro's. That makes me a very happy girl.

It is a shame that food seems to be the thing that brings me the most joy these days, but hey,  you take your joy any way that you can get it! If my joy comes from cooking and eating good food, so be it.

If anyone wants the recipe, let me know and I'll share it.

It's Beginning To Smell A Lot Like Christmas!

Tonight I made the dough for the kolachy cookies. My house is filled with that wonderful smell of yeast. Mmmmm.

Tomorrow, I'll roll the cookies and bake.

Wednesday, I'll make the coconut cookies.

Thursday I'll do the cream cheese dough cookies and make some Pochettes and the Apricot Hanukkah cookies. Hey! Any cookie is good! I don't care what holiday it is.

Friday night is the night for the butterscotch haystack cookies.

Can you just feel your hips expanding? I know I can feel mine!

I absolutely love the smell of cookies baking. The kolachy cookies are my favorite because they use cake yeast. I know it is absolutely crazy but the smell of the yeast is so comforting. It makes me feel like all is well in the world, or at least in my kitchen.

I Have Mad Cooking Skills!

I made my first jellyroll style meatloaf today!

It turned out beautiful!!

The recipe can be found here. I tweaked it a bit because I didn't need a huge loaf and I used cheese and a McDonald's BBQ dipping sauce on the top. I also used a meat loaf mix of meats rather than just ground beef. I think it turned out great.

I'm Sad

We were planning on having Mexican take out tonight for supper, but when we called La Fiesta the phones had been disconnected.


So I ended up driving to Belle Vernon to Denny's to get our dinner.

Not what I wanted but I did enjoy the Cranberry Apple Chicken salad, especially with the Strawberry Dressing I bought last week at Triple B Farms.

I hate not having a Mexican place close by. That's my favorite type of food. Mmmm burritos....Mmmm mole...mmmm taquitos.

How am I going to survive?

I know there is a place opening in Belle Vernon soon, but I need my fix now!

I guess I'll be driving to Washington to Moe's more often.

RIP La Fiesta, you will be sorely missed.

Eat At Moe's!

Move over Chipotle and Qudoba, there's a new burrito shack in town! Washington, PA has a Moe's Southwest Grille!

Can I just say Nom Nom Nom?

I've been to all three of the the slightly more upscale fast food digs and I think I like Moe's the best.

Why?

Well Moe's has a better selection...they have quesadillas, burritos, tacos, rice bowls, salads and fajitas. Plus they offer more options; like steak, chicken, pork or tofu.

I know I'm not the only one that would prefer this to Taco Bell. (And I'm not dissing the Bell, I love the Bell) The food is good, the service is great and you get chips and salsa with everything. The only thing that is an issue is...THERE'S ALWAYS A DAMN LINE!!!

But believe me, it is worth it!!!