Supper: Pot Pie & Eggnog Cookies

Several years ago, my mother in law gave to me and my husband a cute box of recipes belonging to Kit’s Aunt.
I have browsed through it but never took the time to pull out a recipe and collect up the ingredients. There are some from magazines and some from memories long ago. Getting into the season of epic cooking, I took another look through the recipe box and have decided to try and pull one or two recipes out a month and give them a whirl. I would love to do one each week, but knowing me, I will fail at it if I make promises.

Isn’t that recipe box just darling?

So, what have I chosen for my first tester recipe? Eggnog cookies. I never knew such a thing existed, but I’m excited to try it. The chicken pot pie is a recipe that I found online. Apparently, I never wrote down the recipe that I used for last year’s pies. I have a stellar crust recipe and I know the veggies and chicken are just keep throwing it in until you run out of room. However, broths and gravies always make me a little nervous. Seasoning and consistency mostly. The recipe I chose to follow is one I found through Pinterest and the source is Instructables. I love that website and had no idea they had Instructable recipes. I can’t vouch for the recipe as a whole, but if you use recipes as a guideline then it will be perfect for you too. Here is the link to the chicken pot pie Instructable recipe.
I plan on adding broccoli, carrots, onions, garlic, mushrooms, squash and whatever other veggie I can find to the pot pie. I plan on serving the pot pie with fresh spinach salad. A nice crunch to go with all that chickeny goodness.

Apparently Eggnog Cookies are just a Google search away. How have I never heard of them before? I’m kinda pumped because from the recipe it looks as like an amped up, more flavorful version of sugar cookies.
I can tell ya right now, that I will be increasing the amount of cinnamon. Much like garlic, they don’t list enough on recipes.

Hubbster and I had the great debate trying to decide if we wanted to try Eggnog cookies or Oatmeal cake. Oatmeal cake looks dead easy so it will be on the menu sometime soon. This aunt loved her cakes and pies, that is most of the contents of the recipe box. There are some savory recipes, some sides and several pickle recipes that we will have to try next summer too.

Have you ever made eggnog cookies before?
Do you have a go-to recipe for pot pie or do you mix up the veggies each time?

More House Work

You may recall one of my recent blogs about Fixing the House. The epic continued as we stripped off the trim and molding—and I found out we would definitely have to repaint it. Again.—We must have vacuumed about five times to make sure there weren’t a ton of loose bits on the floor. Then we starting unrolling, sticking down and cutting tthe foam underlayment.
I said, “HT, hold the roll up so I can cut along the wall.” And the above picture was her response. I made her hold the pose as I ran for my phone and the hilarious picture of her above.

After much grumbling, measuring and consultation of the instructions, the first row of boards were laid down. I have to give a shout out to Kit on this one. He read the crummy instructions, got all the tools, measured, cut, hammered and more to get that floor in. He is great!

Don’t let the pictures fool you, after the first few boards were put in HT and I went to fix a massive pot of spaghetti, breaded and baked mushrooms (very loosely based on this recipe) and a green salad. Another friend came over because he wanted to learn how to install this type of flooring. Kit and I got tons of work done with such willing helpers!

Kit worked quickly and well. We finally took a break for supper and decided to pick it up the next day. That’s when I helped the most, because everyone was at work on in school.

The flooring was tedious, there was a lot of fudging and techniques you had to learn along the way to make it work. The last piece wanted to be a monster, but Kit finally make it happen.
Thankfully, after all the cursing, we finally have a completed laminate floor!!
Supper was slamming too, by the way.

Until next time,
Kat

Kat’s Kentucky Paella {Recipe Revealed!!}

Edit: Recipe loosley inspired by this one.
Paella=pah-EH-yah.
The double L is pronounced like the Y in ‘yet’.
Paella is a Spanish dish with the main players being rice, saffron and different types of meats. Typically a mix of seafoods, chorizo, or chicken.
To me, it is a Spanish version of jambalaya. Don’t tell either ethnic group I said that, it was not meant to be a slight on anyone’s cooking.

I wanted to make something special for our 2nd wedding anniversary. For my version of paella, I cut some corners that helped me save time in cooking, but definitely did not show in the final product.

I used pre-spiced box rice mixes rather than plain white rice. And I used paprika in place of saffron. Initially, I wanted get fancy and use real saffron, but there were no grocery store options under $18. Maybe next time, Mom mentioned she had some saffron in the back of her spice cabinet somewhere.

Kat’s Kentucky Paella

• Two 12 oz. boxes of jambalaya rice mix (Tony’s or Zatatan’s)
• Water and oil/butter as called for on box

• 2 large chicken breasts
• 8 oz Smoked sausage, kielbasa or chorizo. (I used half a link of smoked sausage)
• Salt, paprika, and poultry seasoning to taste

•Olive oil for pan
• 1 Sweet onion, chopped
• 4 large garlic cloves, minced
• Paprika, salt and pepper to taste
• One 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes

• 12 oz fully cooked/cleaned small salad shrimp
• Olive oil
• Paprika

Step One
-Follow directions on jambalaya rice boxes.
-At the end of the cook time, do not worry about complete tenderness or all water being cooked away.
-Allow rice to rest.

Step Two
-Sprinkle chicken breasts with poultry seasoning, salt and paprika.
-Grill chicken and smoked sausage. Note: You could also bake or pan fry these meats, whatever you prefer. Basically, get it cooked up!
-Once fully cooked, chop up meat into preferred (bite sized) pieces and mix into cooked rice pot.

Step Three
-Toss spices, minced garlic and chopped onions into a large wok or skillet with olive oil and cook until transluscent.
-Add undrained can of diced tomatoes and cook for about five minutes.
-Dump skillet contents into pot with cooked rice and combine well.

Step Four
-Dump shrimp into skillet.
-Cook for about five minutes.
-Mix shrimp into rice pot reserving 1/3 or 1/4 of the shrimp for a topping.

Step Five
-Dump rice, veggies and meat into casserole dish.
-Top with reserved shrimp
-Cover and bake at 400°F for 30 minutes.

Happy Cooking!
~Kat

Portabella Burgers and Stuffed Bell Peppers

Cut and cored the peppers and mixed up the pepper ingredients.

The other night we had my adopted daughter over for supper. She said she would est anything we ate so this is what we came up with. I was a little nervous having never made either one of the following recipes.

This is the same stuffed bell pepper recipe that I shared previously in my valentine date post.

I did kinda make my own tweaks.
I added a whole package of cream cheese (oops!! 8 oz instead of 3 oz) but it turned out tasty. I added two cups of Italian blend shredded cheese instead of 1/2 cup cheddar. I really wanted fresh onions, but had to settle for onion powder.

My favorite tweak turned out to be adding protein rich quinoa instead of brown rice. I cooked up two cups dry, so I’m sure it was more than two cooked cups. However, I also made more than 6 pepper halves. I do wish I had had more spinach as I like that sort of thing. I used bell peppers from my dad’s garden so they are a but smaller than from he grocery store.

After I got the peppers into the oven, I marinated three large portabella mushroom caps in a whole bottle of Italian dressing. I allowed them to marinate about 15-20 minutes-the peppers take plenty long, you have time.

The peppers cooked for about 45 minutes. The cheese was melty, the ingredients hot and the peppers tender.

After a 20 minutes in the Italian dressing, I threw the caps into a skillet one at a time on medium heat. Just enough to get warm all through and a little browned. Each one took about five or seven minutes.

The “burgers” had feta cheese, tomato, onion and spinach between buns.
The peppers could be cut up or eaten by hand depending on preference. It was a fantastic supper and so filling that we didn’t even consider making dessert.

Big thanks to Beth, for the portabella burger recipe.

Chicken Rosemary Pizza

So the other night me and the hubbster tried making chicken and rosemary pizza. It was pretty good which means that next time it will be awesome.

First, we made the dough using our bread maker. We followed the recipe except for our addition of 1/2 tablespoon of Italian seasoning.

The dough came put great and it rolled out like a dream. Only a tiny bit of flour dusting was kneaded. I also allowed the dried rosemary to soak in some olive oil for 20 minutes because I didn’t have fresh.

I generously brushed the dough with the rosemary and olive oil. Then layered my cooked, shredded chicken and sliced fresh mushrooms. Lately, I added the Italian blend shredded cheese and popped it into the oven on 350° for 20 minutes.

The final product speaks for itself.
However, we did decide on future changes:
1) Sauté mushrooms and onions for toppings.
2) Back off the Italian seasoning in the dough just a touch.
3) Use fresh rosemary and crush before putting on pizza.