Marvelous Monday: A Savory Smackerel~No mo suppah rut Part 3!

Some days, quick, go-to, easy, tried and true recipes are the ticket to dinnertime sanity. As I mentioned here, it seems many of my fav sisters had the same problemo- a recipe rut. So the recipe sharing began. Thanks to them, you can get outta your suppahtime rut, too, because we're sharing them with you!

Tonight, we're having the Coconut Milk Curry Chicken! Last night, we had another EASY PEASY that my friend, Mindi, shared. There are two GOLDEN NUGGETS that you can put to use to make her tip extra easy and yum.

1. Remember this chicken tip? Use that moist (sorry, don't like that word), flavor filled frozen chicken to save time. OR you can even use rotisserie chicken, too.

2. Trader Joe's and our local chain, Harris Teeter...oh and we've even gotten it at Publix at the beach, too!...have balls of white and/or whole wheat pizza dough already prepared and all you have to do is spread it on a pizza pan. It's only like 1.99 and SO good. I usually find it in the deli area by the deli cheese and meats, pre-made subs and take and bake pizzas.

That being said, here's Mindi's GREAT go-to dinner tip to get you outta a supper rut. My hubs told me I should patent it last night he likeyed so much. Thanks, Mindi! ;)

Homemade BBQ Chicken Pizza
For homemade pizza (and using frozen shredded chicken) I love to make BBQ chicken pizza.  I keep bacon in the freezer and just cut into bits and fry them.  Use some of the leftover grease to caramelize red onions.  Spread BBQ sauce on the pizza crust, top with shredded mozzarella or mont jack cheese, shredded chicken, onions and bacon bits.  Sooo yum.  It's one of our favorite homemade pizzas.  Not sure if this will go over well for the kids.  I usually make two pizzas.  One with pepperoni or just cheese and one BBQ chicken.

Happy Monday! Have a marvelous one.

Savory Smackerel: Daily Bread

Hope ya'll have enjoyed some of the ways to implement your garden crop and farmer's stand produce. I must say I might be in mourning that the summahtime produce is nearing the end. :( Right now, butternut squash just isn't exciting me as much as the abundance of tomatoes we've enjoyed. If you would like to give one last fun tomato recipe a whirl, be sure to check out Musing Foodie's fried green tomato endeavor and tutorial.

Now, we're moving on to a year round food item--bread. Who can ever get enough of it? Talk about comfort at it's finest. Unfortunately for my hips, anytime I am in a "changing" season in my life (ie the week of my wedding, the weeks after my brother's death, 1st trimester morning sickness)...you know, anything that tends to get the stomach rumbling....bread is one of the only thing I find that settles the ole tum tum.

For awhile, I've heard some of my friends talk alllll about their bread machines. I'll admit I didn't sink my teeth right away because I didn't want to succumb to the pressure of having "another thing to keep up with" or another thing on the list "to do."

I happened to be browsing Craigslist about 3 weeks ago and found a good bread machine for $25. I figured I'd give it a whirl and see if I'd really use it. That way, we wouldn't be at much of a loss if I didn't. I had to see for myself but, boy, have I been missing out! If I knew then what I know now, I totally would've registered for one for my wedding, requested grains and flour in place of baked ziti after my brother's death, and lived on bread alone for my 1st trimesters (who needs Zofran?)!

Report: I haven't bought any bread items in 3 weeks (even including burger/dog buns and pizza dough) so we've more than made up for that $25 and I've found you don't eat nearly as much bread when it is full of good, hearty ingredients opposed to preservatives and air. Not to mention, it makes your house smell A-Mazing! It is sooooo worth it.

Hence, our new Savory Smackerel series~ Daily Bread! We are going to explore some fabulous ways to get the most outta those bread machines. First up: Onion Bagels.

I heart onion bagels. Never in a million years did I imagine I would ever bake my own bagels but it was so easy. This was the second thing I did in my bread machine and they are Di-Vine! Move over, Bruegger's, Panera and Einstein. HPS has your number! Try them and let me know what you think.

Onion Bagels (adapted from http://www.grouprecipes.com/5615/onion-bagels.html)
Ingredients

• 1 cup of water, warm
• 4 tablespoons of butter, melted and cooled
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups of white whole wheat bread flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons yeast

To finish:

• 1 oz. sugar
• yolk of 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1/4 cup of onions, sauteed (I probably used more like 1/2 cup)

Instructions:

• Put the ingredients in the order listed above into your bread machine baking pan.
• Set the program to dough.
• When the cycle has finished, transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and divide into 8 equal sized pieces.
• Shape each piece into a sausage shape with tapered ends measuring about 9 inches in length.
• Working with a piece at a time, join the ends together to make a circle.
• Then pinch them gently to seal them.
• Place the circles on a lightly oiled cookie sheet, leaving enough room between them for each to rise.
• Cover the circles with a clean dish towel and leave them to rise for about 20 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 400 .
• Finely chop enough onion to make a 1/4 cup. Saute in a bit of butter.
• Put the onions aside.
• Bring a large pan of water to boil.
• Add the sugar and stir the water until the sugar is dissolved.
• Place 2 bagels in the boiling water and let them cook for about 30 seconds on each side.
• Continue until all bagels have been in the water for a total of 1 minute.
• Turn them with a slotted spoon.
• Lift each bagel out of the water, gently shaking it as you do so to remove as much water as possible.
• Return the bagels to the baking tray.
• Beat the egg yolk with the water, then brush this mixture over each of the bagels.
• Sprinkle the sauted onions over the bagels.
• Bake the bagels in the oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until they are golden.
• Transfer the bagels to a wire rack and leave them to cool.

Free-for-all Friday: Entertaining Ideas

2 Corinthians 9:12 " The service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but it is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God."

This is a great time of the year to have others over to your home for dinner or dessert. Since our two year old came along, it is easier to meet at our or other's homes for dinner rather than going out to eat. I have had so much fun pulling out all my cookbooks and deciding on new things and themes to have. I have a couple of cute books from William Sonoma, one being on fountain drinks and the other on pizzas. By pulling these out and having the family look through them, you can really include everyone in the event.

Here is a sample menu that we came up with from both books. I hope you can find some of these treasures in your own homes!

Soda Night - These will be served at a game night that I am hosting.

Black Cows - 1 1/2 tsp of chocolate sauce, root beer, and vanilla ice cream

Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches - Fresh chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream.

I will also offer a variety of sodas for floats, YUM!

Pizza Night!

Roasted Bell Pepper Pizza - 2 red bell peppers, 2 yellow bell peppers, 2 cloves of garlic, flat leaf parsley, 2 TBSP of olive oil, 1 cup tomato sauce, 2 cups of sliced tomatoes, 6 oz. of mozzarella cheese, salt, and black pepper. We get our dough from Trader Joes.

Topsy Turvey Cherry Tomato Pizza - Great for kids! - 3 TBSP of olive oil, 5 cups of cherry tomatoes, juice of one lime, 2 tsp of fresh mint, salt and pepper. Cut the cherry tomatoes in half and arrange insides down on the dough

Have fun and please post ideas from books that you have around your homes so we can share in the fun~

Love,
Imogene

Marvelous Monday: No mo Suppahtime rut~Part 5!

Before we begin today's fun, we need to cover one item of bidness. I've been getting some feedback from peeps trying to comment but having trouble. I had tightened comment securities to eliminate those dirty spam comments but didn't mean to cut out your comments! So...if you are having fits trying to comment, please let us know at our Facebook group (since I'm assuming you wouldn't be able to comment on this) and let me know what it does when you try to comment or give me any info. that might help me resolve this issue. I would greatly appreciate it because we would LOVE your comments!

Some days, quick, go-to, easy, tried and true recipes are the ticket to dinnertime sanity. As I mentioned here, it seems many of my fav sisters had the same problemo- a recipe rut. So the recipe sharing began. Thanks to them, you can get outta your suppahtime rut, too, because we're sharing them with you! First, let's review:

Curry Chicken with Brown Rice (Caroline L.)
Homemade Sloppy Joes (Mandi B.)
BBQ Chicken Pizza (Mindi S.)
Black Beans and Rice/Baked Potato Night (Katie L.)

Now, for today's fun! In case you haven't heard me mention like a million times, I big fat heart this time saving, cost saving, flavor bursting tip to getting vein free (gag), grizzle free (double gag), white meat chicken breast.

If you didn't believe my the first 30 times I mentioned it, the proof is in the puddin'. So, here's your puddin'.

I recently bought two packs of those split chicken breasts when they went on sale for .99/lb. Each pack had 3 breasts and did not cost over $3 each (normally close to $8 each). Whipped those babies up in the crockpot like the tips says and here is everything I was able to make with STILL some left over.

• Chicken Nachos
• 4- Musing Foodie's Chicken Enchiladas adding black beans and green chiles
• 24 mini-Nacho Cups for freezer- using leftover Enchilada filling and Trader Joe's whole wheat ready made pizza dough. Babies LOVE these.
• Chicken Divan
• 6-Musing Foodie's Buffalo Chicken Squares- substituting biscuits cuz I was outta crescent rolls).
• 2-Buffalo Chicken wraps (w/ regular ole whole wheat tortillas using leftover buffalo chicken square filling)
• 24 mini-Buffalo Chicken "cups" for freezer (same principle as nacho cups using leftover buffalo chicken square filling). Hubs loves these and requested them to pack in his lunch.
• ...plus I gave the babes some of the chicken straight up for a dinner AND I have a whole tupperware of it in the freezer for a later date.

Convinced yet? That chicken tip really is the ticket to stretching a little bird breast a looooong way. Tell us some recipes you've come up with using this tip so we can be sure to stay out of our suppahtime ruts.

Happy Monday. Have a Marvelous one!

Mommy Marketing Moment

Thank you to our reader in Virginia, Amee, for referring us to a great online business started by two moms, Jenny Cochran and Jane Delaney. E-mealz.com is a meal plan website endorsed by Dave Ramsey. For $15 ($5 a month, $1.25 a week), you receive 3 months worth of menus, recipes and an aisle by aisle shopping list to a variety of different stores of your choice. E-mealz customizes the menus selection based on your family size and style of eating. The site was designed with busy moms and frugal cooks in mind which means it is budget friendly. Each meal plan is based on the current sales at your select grocery store and they include tips on using coupons.

E-mealz goals for you are:

Goal #1-Spending time with your family

Goal #2-Save time and money

Goal #3-Serve delicious food

Goal #4-Save yourself from multiple and last minute trips to the grocery store

Goal #5-Stare at your children across from the dinner table rather than into the pantry looking for a dinner idea

Goal #6-Lose weight without preparing separate meals for the family. (Every meal plan is designed to be family friendly, even the weight management plans!)

TNT Tip

Another great Amy sent us a neat TNT Tip for today. Thank you, Amy A! Here's what Amy had to say (can I rhyme anymore?):

I am using this tip right now in my kitchen, so I thought I’d share it! If you’re out of candles (is that possible??) or if you need a change of scent in your home, try what I call “Poor Woman’s Potpourri.” My mom taught me to do this:

-Fill a small pot with water (enough so that it doesn’t cook out quickly).

-Add in a few shakes of your favorite aromatic spices. I use cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, whole or ground cloves, and even a little ginger.

-Bring it all to a boil to get those spices mingling, then turn down to a simmer.

-Keep filling with water and enjoy the scent all day long! (Do not let it boil down to nothing – your pot will be tough to clean!)

Savory Smackerel

If by chance you haven't planned your Easter breakfast, this recipe comes from one of Mary's Hungry contributors, Tara, and is always a big hit.

Yummy Sausage Croissants

Ingredients

Mild or Hot sausage (0ne of each if making a larger portion)
1 pkg cream cheese
1 container of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls (2 containers if you double the sausage)
egg white
poppy seed

Directions

Cook the sausage and drain
Mix the sausage and cream cheese
Roll out the crescent dough into two big rectangles
Scoop the sausage/cream cheese mixture across center of each rectangle
Roll up dough over mixture and turn over so the seam is facing down
Brush egg white on top and sprinkle with poppy seed
Cook according to crescent roll directions

Let cool a little, then slice (pizza cutter works great for slicing)

*I usually make the larger portion if preparing for a gathering

*There are other ways to arrange the croissant dough- ex. stuff the croissant triangles instead of making rectangles. Be creative if you'd like.