Recipes

I have been cooking up a storm making new foods for my family! With great success they are not that picky anymore!! Or maybe - I can cook :) I am going to share a few recipes that I have been meaning to post for the last couple weeks.

This first one was a new weekly recipe - and it also ended up being a new fish dish that the family likes:
Broiled Tilapia Parmesan
Ingredients:
1/2 cut Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup butter, softened
3 T mayonnaise
2T fresh lemon juice
1/4 t dried basil
1/4 t black pepper
1/8 t onion powder
1/8 t celery salt
2 lbs tilapia fillets

Directions:
1. Preheat your oven's broiler. Grease a broiling pan or line pan with aluminum foil.
2. In a small bowl, mix together the parmesan cheese, butter, mayo and lemon juice. Season with dried basil, pepper, onion powder and celer salt. Mix well and set aside.
3. Arrange fillets in a single layer on the prepared pan. Broil a few inches from the heat for 2-3 minutes. Flip the fillets over and broil for a couple more minutes. Remove the fillets from the oven and cover them with the parmesan cheese mixture on the top side. Broil for 2 more minutes or until the topping is browned and fish flakes easily with a fork. Be careful not to over cook the fish.

The second recipe I am posting here is the Homemade (canned) Apple Pie filling - I doubt I will ever buy canned apple pie filling again:
Canned Apple Pie Filling
Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups with sugar
1 cup cornstarch
2 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground nutmeg
2 t salt
10 cups water
3 T lemon juice
6 lbs apples

Directions:
1. Peel, core, and slice apples. Pour lemon juice over the apples.
2. In a large pan mix sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add salt and water and mix well. Bring to a boil, cook until thick and bubbly. Turn down on low - keep filling hot.
3. In steralized jars, pack apple slices into each jar leaving a 1/2 head space.
4. Fill jars with hot syrup - using a plastic knife to work the bubble out.
5. Please steralized lids on jars, process 20 minutes.

Lastly, I think I finally mastered the peanut cookie. My kids and husband love them. They are soft, peanut buttery and YUMMY!! These ingrediants make what would be a double batch. The key to these to truely bake them until the are just starting to turn brown. They may not look done but they are and they will be real soft.

Peanut Buttery Cookies
2 c butter
18 oz peanut butter
2 c sugar
2 c brown sugar
4 eggs
2 T vanilla
2 sm boxes vanilla pudding mix
5 cups flour
2 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 bag peanut butter chips

1. Cream together butter, peanut butter, sugars and eggs in a large bowl. Then add the vanilla and pudding mix.
2. In a separate bowl mix flour, baking powder and soda and salt. Stir into batter. Add peanut butter chips. Refridgerate for 1 hour.
3. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and place onto a baking sheet. Flatten balls with fork tines in a criss cross pattern.
4. Bake in a preheated over at 375 degrees for about 8-10 minutes - or just until the cookies start to brown, do not overbake.

Another busy weekend…but I am starting to feel that I am accomplishing some of the things that I have set out to do.

*helped Matt when possible with the camper
*spent time with my mom
*started a quilt
*made laundry soap
*planned 2 wks worth of meals for a more organized shopping trip
*use more of my potatoes
*used my over ripe bananas before they hit the trash

On Friday, I thought it was Grace’s preschool orientation – well I get there (dressed nicely and with make up on J ) to find out that orientation was this coming up Thursday! Duh – I need to pay more attention! Well – I already had plans to pick up my mom to come to my house for the weekend. I helped her apply for social security, section 8 etc. So we went and picked her up a little earlier.

On Saturday, we all swam together and the Babies and I cheered Matt through the ‘fixer upper’ part of this camper process. I also made homemade french-fries to go with our dinner Saturday night.

On Sunday, I finally got out the hambones from the freezer and made a pot of Bean and Ham soup and Ham and Potato soup. I sent the majority of the Potato soup home with my mom so she would have something to eat, as I have no clue what she actually has. I made a loaf of banana bread, planned my dinner menus for 2 wks and made laundry soap concentrate that will make 10 gallons of detergent. I also started cutting the fabric for my first quilt - I will post the photos as I make a little more progress.

I wanted to crunch the $$ value of what the savings would be to our family. We typically buy a 92 (but in theory is really about 56 loads on average) load container of tide for around $20 every month. (about 36 cents a load)

Borax 3.36
Soda 2.16
2 bars of Dove Burst soap 2.97

This equates to $3.51 per 10 gallons of detergent (160 loads) = just around 2 cents per load…So the bottom line is we went from spending $20 a month to about an average of $1.17 a month for laundry detergent for a $14.04 a year to wash our laundry based on regular usage. I think that is AWESOME!

Laundry Soap Recipe
The Dry Version: (Thanks Wendy for sending this me!)
1 bar Fels Naptha Soap, finely grated1 cup Washing Soda1 cup Borax
Mix well and store in an airtight plastic container.
Use 2 tablespoons per full load

The Liquid Version:
1 bar Fels Naptha Soap, finely grated, 1 cup Washing Soda, 1 cup Borax
Grate soap into a small saucepan. Cover with hot water. Cook over medium low heat, stirring continually, until the soap completely dissolves. Put washing soda and borax in a 5 gallon bucket. Pour in the hot, melted soap mixture. Stir well, until all the powder is dissolved. Fill the bucket to the top with more hot tap water. Stir, cover securely, and let set overnight. The next morning, stir the mixture. Mix equal amounts of soap concentrate and water in a dispenser container. Shake before using. Use 1 cup per load.

**I used 2 bars of soap for the smell and suds factor - I could not find the Fels Naptha so I hope this works - from what I read it should.

Today, I decided to make homemade Salisbury Steak – something we typically buy prepackaged. It turned out wonderful! Here is the recipe:
1 (10.5 ounce) can condensed French onion soup
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder

DIRECTIONS
1. In a large bowl, mix together 1/3 cup condensed French onion soup with ground beef, bread crumbs, egg, salt and black pepper. Shape into 6 oval patties.
2. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown both sides of patties. Pour off excess fat.
3. In a small bowl, blend flour and remaining soup until smooth. Mix in ketchup, water, Worcestershire sauce and mustard powder. Pour over meat in skillet. Cover, and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
I doubled the sauce, kept the ketchup amount the same. I also could not find this onion soup so I used dry onion soup mix and 10 oz of water (in addition to the ¼ cup water) Then I added dry beef onion soup mix to the gravy mixture. The kids loved it. After I fried them up in the pan I baked them in the over at 350 for 1 hour.

Lastly, I made the best chocolate chip cookies! I have been reading a lot about cookies to find the best combination of ingredients and I think I found it for my cookie recipe of the month! Here is the recipe:

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 (3.4 ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups chopped walnuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour and baking soda, set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips and nuts. Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Edges should be golden brown.