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November 09, 2007

Award-Winning Five Live Radar Chili


Five Live Radar Chili
Originally uploaded by seeshells
Three meats, two beans, that's Five Live Radar! Garlic and onions without having to chop them, marinating, and the crock pot make this recipe less time consuming. (Five Live Radar is part of the Channel 8 weather expertise)

Ingredients:

1 lb chicken breast (about 3 breasts)
1 TBSP garlic powder
2 TBSP cumin
2 TBSP mild chili powder
1 TBSP hot chili powder
3 TBSP cooking oil
1 lb hamburger
1 lb Super Saver "original" Polish sausages (about 5)
1 15.5 oz can black beans
1 15.5 oz can dark red kidney beans
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
2 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes with roasted garlic and onions

Instructions:

Two days ahead of serving:

Put garlic, and ONE TBSP of each cumin and mild chili powder, and oil into large zippy bag, make sure spices mix with oil. Poke chicken breasts with fork, add to bag. Smush around until chicken is coated well. Refrigerate overnight, smush the chicken around whenever you pass the fridge.

The night before serving:

Remove chicken from marinate, bake in cake pan for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. (Dispose of bag!) While chicken is baking, fry hamburger, drain. Cut sausage into about 1/2" slices. Fry the sausage for added flavor (optional). When chicken is baked, cut each breast into bite-sized pieces. Put all drained meat into crock pot. Drain and rinse beans. (Rinsing removes some of bean's gassiness--supposedly) Add tomato sauce and diced tomatoes, hot chili powder, and the other TBSPs of cumin and mild chili powder. Cover crock pot and turn on 'warm' or 'low'. Cook overnight.

October 25, 2007

Just Because It Doesn't Have Spice, Doesn't Mean It Doesn't Have Taste Corn Salad

One of our friends at work is starting a new job, so we're having food day for her tomorrow. I've made a different corn salad for food day before, but that one has yummy stuff like onions and peppers, but the friend that's leaving doesn't like spicey, so I made a new recipe just for this occasion.

Mild Corn Salad

2 cans (15.25 oz) white corn
2 packages (1 lb) frozen yellow corn
1 can (6 oz) medium black olives
2 cans (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes with basil and garlic
1 bunch celery
2 cups finely shredded sharp cheddar

Thaw frozen corn in strainer under cool water. Chop black olives and celery, add to strainer. Empty white corn cans into strainer too. Drain well. Move to bowl. Add tomatoes, draining somewhat if needed, and add cheese. Fold ingredients, don't stir. Refrigerate until serving. Makes about 10-13 cups.


P.S. I had 6 cup containers to put the salad in, so I filled one with this mild version, and chopped up 1/2 onion and added it to the rest of the salad, and filled another container with the regular version.
I wonder which will be eaten quicker? ;p

October 17, 2007

Tuna Mountain Climbers

Tuna Mountain Climbers were one of the popular dishes made in my elementary school. One of my favorites. The lunch ladies made them on left over hamburger buns and used plastic-wrapped cheese, but in my updated recipe, I'm using Texas Toast and CoJack. I don't know where the name came from, they are just tuna melts afterall.
We had 'runzas' in our elementary school, too, until the Runza fast food place got popular enough, that we couldn't use the word 'runza' without their copyright. I am always interested in hearing stories from people about what they had in their elementary school lunch room, some things were very regional from what I can figure.


Tuna Mountain Climber
Originally uploaded by seeshells
Mustardy Tuna Salad

1 cup sweet pickle relish (the kind with mustard seeds)
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 cup chopped celery (about 2 long stalks)
1/2 cup onion (about 1/4 medium)
6 6oz cans water packed tuna (the little ones were on sale)
1 cup plain yellow mustard (the only reason to have plain mustard in the fridge)
1/2 cup salad dressing (or mayo if you prefer)

Also needed:
Texas toast
sliced tomatoes
deli sliced colby/jack cheese

Combine pickle relish and mustard seed. The way I see it, the mustard seeds are the best part of the relish and the relish is one of the best parts of the tuna salad, so I added extra. The mustard seed is hard out of the bottle, so combining with the pickle relish will start to soften them up. Do this combination before even starting to chop, to give the seeds a lot of time marinating in the relish.
Chop the onion and celery, add to relish along with tuna. Stir this part together before adding the wetter parts, to get the tuna un-chunked, and get all the ingriedients blended together. Add mustard and mayo and stir well.
Of course, if you're not as big of a mustard fan as I am, you could do more salad dressing and less mustard. 3/4 cup of each would work.

Putting it all together:
Set oven to 300 degrees. Put the Texas Toast, in one layer, on a cookie sheet covered with tinfoil (in case of leakage, you can skip the tinfoil if you want). Toast the toast in the oven for 5-7 minutes on one side, flip, and do again 5-7 minutes on the other side. You're not going for toasted toast, just crisp up the bread. If you weren't too worried about fat and all that, you could coat each side with butter or margarine for a moister toast, but it's not needed.
After toasting both sides, carefully spread one big spoonfull of tuna salad onto the toast, getting it into the corners and making it flat on top. Add one tomato slice on top of each mountain, and top with one slice of colby jack cheese. Bake for 10-13 minutes or tuna is heated through and cheese is melted. If you like crispy, you could broil it at the end.

PS How many does it serve? I dunno. Our servings at our house aren't the same as the ones on the packages. This recipe as is, is probably servings for about 6-8. We served 4 plus about equal in leftovers.

PPSS The Texas Toast is 19 grams of carbs per slice. Which isn't so bad, because they are open faced sandwiches. If you use the tuna salad for regular sandwiches, we use the low carb bread that's about 9 grams of carbs each. About the same difference.

September 12, 2007

Lemon Curry Sauce Over Pork Chop

6 TBSP Butter
11 cloves garlic
1 tsp lemon peel (bought in the spice section)
5-8 tsp curry (to taste)
1 lemon
8 oz cream cheese
8 oz sour cream
2-3 tsp lemon pepper seasoning


Lemon Curry Sauce
Originally uploaded by seeshells
Set out cream cheese to soften.
Melt 4 TBSP of the butter in sauce pan, saute sliced garlic until soft and slightly browned.
Lower heat.
Add other 2 TBSP of butter.
Warm lemon in microwave for 20-30 seconds, roll on counter to soften. Cut in half, squeeze all juice into pan, break up lemon flesh with fork and add to pan.
Add 3-5 tsp of curry, and 1-2 tsp lemon pepper, stir over low heat for 2-3 minutes.
Cube cream cheese, stir in a few cubes at a time, letting them warm and melt into mixture.
When most of cream cheese is melted, stir in sour cream.
Stir occasionally over low heat for 10-15 minutes.

As sauce:
Spoon warm sauce over grilled or broiled pork chop and rice.
Also use on chicken or steak.
As spread:
Refridgerate leftover sauce overnight. Tastes great spread on crackers.

September 05, 2007

Meatloaf Cake


Meatloaf Cake Cut
Originally uploaded by seeshells
My 'famous' Meat Loaf aka Meat Wads, made into Meatloaf Cake

2 lbs ground beef
1 lb ground pork (plain pork, or ground pork sausage of whatever flavor strikes my fancy that night--or is on sale)
1 box pork flavored stuffing mix
2 eggs
2 cups shredded cheese (usually cheddar, but subject to change)
Any/all (within reason) of the following:
Garlic Powder
Fresh Ground Black Pepper
3-4 Tbs Mustard-any flavor
2-3 Tbs Steak sauce
Mustard Seed
Caraway Seed

Put into cake pans. 45 minutes @ 400 degrees.

Mix up mashed potatoes from the box while 'cake' is cooking, 'frost' warm 'cake' with mashed potato frosting and decorate as desired.

Recipe modified from a recipe found on the Stove Top Stuffing box, that recipe here.

August 02, 2007

Green Salsa


Green Salsa
Originally uploaded by seeshells
Green Salsa
Thursday, August 02, 09:50 PM By Shelly
9 medium tomatillo tomatoes
4 clove garlic, peeled
2 jalapeno chile pepper
2 bunches fresh cilantro
7 ripe avocados
Chop cilantro, dice garlic and chile, cut tomatillos into thumb-sized pieces.
Cut avocados in half, remove pit, and squish flesh out of skin.
Puree all ingredients in blender, you might have to do it in batches, depending on how big your blender is. If you have a food processor, that would probably work even better, but I've never used one, so I can't say
For best taste and dipping value, refrigerate for several hours or overnight
Serve on tacos, or use as dip