Home Smells Like Cooking

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Week 8 Saturday: Cereal; Beef Stroganoff / Egg noodles/ Green Beans/ Bumpy Bark

It's Saturday morning of Week Eight.

Saturday is the only day of the week I don't cook something for breakfast. I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons - and cereal goes so well with that! Today the kids and I are heading out to go hike a canyon trail we love. So we are eating our cereal quickly while we head out the door.

Up for the dinner tonight is Beef Stroganoff over Egg Noodles. This was my mother-in-law's recipe. I fell in love with it the first time I tried it! Slightly salty chunks of tender beef in a sour cream, mushroom sauce over golden egg noodles. Heaven. My husband and kids love it too!

For dessert we are having Bumpy Bark - I've never made this. I saw the recipe on the back of a cereal box and I want to try it. It is a thin cake with sweet golden smacks and raisins through-out. They sound easy to make- and are something new and different to try. Hope they are good!

Beef Stroganoff over Egg noodles with Green Beans and Bumpy Bark

DINNER:

1. Place a 2 (or so) pound of round steak into the crockpot. Turn the crockpot on LOW.

2. Pour one can cream of mushroom and one can cream of celery on top of the meat.

3. Pour one cup of water onto the soup.

4. Pour one packet of dry onion soup into the crockpot.

5. Cover and let cook on LOW for 6 hours or more, until the meat is cooked and falls apart easily.

6. Add mushrooms. You can use any kind, I had a can of sliced so I just used those. If I use fresh mushrooms I add them at the same time as the soup.

7. Cut the meat up into pieces - it should be tender enough to even use a large spoon which is what I did.

8. Add a cup or so of sour cream (depending on how creamy you like your stroganoff). Stir well. Salt and pepper it well.

9. Serve over egg noodles. ENJOY!

DESSERT:

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Add one cup (2 sticks) of butter or margarine to the bowl of a stand mixer.

2. Add 2/3 cup brown sugar to the bowl and teaspoon vanilla. Mix well until creamy.

3. Add 1 3/4 cup of flour. Blend well.

4. Carefully stir in a half cup (or so) of raisins.

5. Grease a 15x10 inch baking sheet. Spread the dough evenly in the pan. It will be quite thin.

6. Sprinkle 2 cups of Honey Smacks cereal over the top of the dough and press into the dough.

7. Bake for about 40 minutes at 300 degrees.

8. Let cool then cut into pieces. ENJOY!

Week 8 Friday: Peach Oatmeal and Monkeybread; White Chili / Cauliflower/ Chocolate Gooey Bars

It's Friday morning of Week Eight.

It's FRIDAY. Smooth creamy oatmeal sweetened with peach jam will be great start to this day. To make it eve better, I am making caramel drenched monkey bread - light, crisp on the outside pillowy soft on the inside pieces of pull-apart bread dripping with caramel.

For dinner we are having white chili - tender chunks of chicken with white beans, slow cooked onions and green chiles. These are some of my very favorite things.

For dessert we are having gooey bars. I had these once when I was young -at some pot luck somewhere- and fell in love with them. They are gooey with marshmallow, chocolate and a sticky sweet topping. I've had trouble making them in the past - for some reason they love to overflow on me. I think it's because I like to add more toppings than the recipe calls for and then the sweetened condensed milk rises and the whole thing overflows. Today - I will be careful not to do that! I am really wanting to eat these - so they must turn out perfect! :)

Peach Oatmeal and Monkeybread

White Chili and Cauliflower with Chocolate Gooey Bars

BREAKFAST:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add a stick (1/2 cup) of butter or margarine into a small saucepan over medium-low heat.

2. Add 1 cup brown sugar to the saucepan. Let it cook over medium-low heat.

3. Meanwhile, get out 3-4 cans of refrigerated biscuit dough.

4. I use scissors, but you could use a knife to cut each biscuit round into 4 pieces.

5. Cut all the biscuits into pieces.

6. By now the brown sugar/butter sauce is probably boiling. Remove it from the heat and set aside.

7. Make a mixture of white sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Also grease a bundt pan.

8. Drop a few of the dough pieces into the cinnamon sugar mixture. Roll or spoon the mixture over the pieces to coat well.

9. Put the cinnamon-sugar coated pieces into the greased bundt pan.

10. Do this with all the remaining pieces.

11. Pour the brown sugar-butter mixture (that you set aside earlier) evenly over the top of the dough pieces in the bundt pan.

12. Bake for 30 minutes or so until it is lightly browned on top.

13. Let sit a few minutes. Then (quickly) turn it upside down on a large pan or platter and remove the bundt pan.

14. Serve while still warm - it should pull easily apart into pieces.

15. ENJOY!

DINNER:

1. I never remember to soak the beans overnight, so I have to follow the directions on the package for the "express" method of preparing them. So I rinse them and then put them in a big pot. This recipe calls for 1 pound of white beans.

2. Cover well with water, bring to boil, cover and then remove from heat.

3. Let sit covered for 30 minutes or more, then rinse.

4. Put the beans into the crockpot.

5. Add 3 chicken breasts cut into bite-size chunks into the crockpot.

6. Add 2 cans diced green chiles and a can corn kernals to the crockpot.

7. Add chicken broth (or water plus chicken bouillon) - I used about 6 cups even though recipe called for 8 cups.

8. Add the spices -1 Tablespoon cumin, 1 Tablespoon oregano, 1 teaspoon cayenne and 1/2 teaspoon cloves.

9. Add salt and pepper to taste.

10. The recipe calls for zucchini but I found a really good deal on these chilis - they just said chilies from Mexico so I didn't even know what kind they were. I just chopped them up and added as many as I thought would be good to the pot - and froze the rest to use later.