Zimmy Salsa

I got this recipe from my sister-in-law.  This is, by far, the best salsa ever!  My little two-year-old sat in front of a cereal bowl filled with this salsa and shovelled it into her mouth.  Literally.  She ate the entire bowl!  That's how good it is.  And, that's not to say that it's is bland or not ver spicy.  On the contrary, it is spicy and so full of flavor.  Love it!

ZIMMY SALSA

What you need:


1 large white onion chopped into ½ inch pieces
6-8 green onions chopped
1 cup of green chilies chopped
1 bunch chopped cilantro
2 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp salt
2 tsp pepper
1-2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tbsp cumin
#10 can of whole tomatoes, plus liquid.

How you do it:

Combine and pulse these ingredients (except tomatoes, only liquid in this step) in blender until to your desired consistency (thick & chunky = less blending, smooth = more blending).

Pour mixture into a gallon sized container.  Blend whole tomatoes to desired consistency and add to container. Mix and refrigerate.

Super easy, and super yummy!

Swedish Meatballs

My mom made these meatballs while I was growing up.  Over time, I've played with the basic recipe and made alterations to it to make it something that we really enjoy.  This last time I made it, my husband thanked me no less than twice for the meal, and said that it was really, really good.  Just hit the spot, I guess.

So, since my goal is to print all these recipes for my daughters when they go to college, or get married, I am going to include my mom's original recipe (because my eldest daughter loves the meatballs made her way), and my altered recipe.

MOM'S SWEDISH MEATBALLS

What you need:
1 lb. ground beef
1/4 cup minute rice, or cooked long-grain rice
1/4 cup milk
1 slice bread, torn into little pieces;
        or 1/3 cup oats
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 egg
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can milk (not evaporated, just fill one of the empty soup cans with milk)

How you do it:
Combine ground beef, rice, milk, bread, salt, baking powder, and egg in a bowl; use your hands to mix well.  Form meat into balls and brown in skillet on all sides.  Pour in soups and can of milk.  Mix well.  Let simmer for 15-20 minutes.  Serve over rice, egg noodles, or mashed potatoes.

MARISA'S SWEDISH MEATBALLS

What you need:
1-1 1/2 lbs. ground beef
2/3 cups bread crumbs
1 egg
1/2 small onion, chopped finely
3 medium cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 small can evaporated milk
1/2 tsp. olive oil
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 large can evaporated milk, or one cup heavy whipping cream
salt and pepper to taste
small splash Worcestershire sauce

How to do it:
Combine ground beef, bread crumbs, egg, onion, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and small can of evaporated milk; mix with hands.  Roll into balls.  Warm olive oil in large skillet.  Place meatballs in oil and brown on all sides.  (These can also be baked in the oven at 350° for 20 minutes, then turn and continue baking for 10-15 minutes.)  Remove from skillet and drain on paper towels.  Wipe remaining oil out of skillet.  Pour soups and large can of evaporated milk into skillet.  Add salt and pepper (I usually add at least 1/4 tsp. pepper), and splash of Worcestershire sauce.  Whisk together until combined.  Place meatballs in sauce and simmer for 20-30 minutes.  Serve over rice, egg noodles, or mashed potatoes.

How to freeze it:
Cook meatballs as described above.  Combine soups, milk, salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce in a bowl.  Pour sauce into Ziploc bag; add meatballs.  Lay flat and freeze.  Or, double meatballs and lay on a cookie sheet to flash freeze.  Place in freezer for 25 minutes or until hard to the touch.  Divide them up and place in two to three freezer-safe bags.  Return to freezer until ready for use.  (Use the meatballs in spaghetti, barbecue, or Swedish cream sauces.)  Place sauce in a separate bag, lay flat and freeze until use.

When ready to cook, let thaw and pour meatballs and sauce into crock-pot, or skillet.  Cover and cook in crock-pot for four hours, or in skillet for 40-60 minutes (better, and more tender if longer).  Serve as described above.

Marinated Grilled Steak

This picture really doesn't do this any good ... but, trust me this was fantastic!

MARINATED GRILLED STEAK

What you need:

Steak (I used around 5.5 lbs. top sirloin)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 pkg. fajita seasoning
1 pkg. McCormick Grill Mates Montreal Steak seasoning
1 pkg. Italian dressing mix
1 can Sprite
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

How you do it:

Trim steak of any fat you don't want. Slice steak into strips about 1/2-inch thick. Be sure to cut cross-grain ... this tenderizes the meat so your teeth don't have to. In a gallon-size Ziploc bag, mix together garlic, and seasoning packets. Pour in Sprite and Worcestershire sauce. Shake to blend together. Add steak strips. Seal bag removing air as best as you can. Massage the steak for about 30 seconds. Place in fridge for at least six hours. Remove bag and massage steak every hour if possible. Heat grill and place steak on grill at low heat. Grill for about 3-5 minutes each side.

Pasta!

Today is Table Time Tuesday! I know, I know, I haven’t posted a new recipe is two weeks. That’s why this post is just called: Pasta!

A few years ago, my friend’s husband taught me how to make two different pasta sauces. I’ve already shared one (I call it: Chunky Red Pasta Sauce), and now I’ll share the other one (of course with my modifications), plus one of my own creation.

This first one is an alfredo sauce (or as my family calls it, “white sauce”). If you like alfredo sauce, this is the sauce for you! Well, that is if you want to gain a few pounds. It is rich, creamy, and THE BEST homemade alfredo sauce I’ve ever had, if I do say so myself. We prefer it over the bottled sauces you can buy in the store. And, when I’m in a time crunch, or I just can’t think of anything to make for dinner, I make this and it’s on the table in at least 20 minutes, sometimes sooner.
ALFREDO SAUCE

What you need:

¼ cup butter
1 clove garlic, minced or chopped finely
¼ cup flour
½ tsp. salt
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded (fresh is best)
½ tsp. basil
Dash of pepper
¼ cup frozen peas, optional
¼ to ½ cup water from pasta, optional
Pasta (my favorites are linguine, mini penne, or mini farfalle)

How you do it:

Saute garlic in butter in saucepan until butter is melted and garlic is soft. Whisk in flour and salt, and cook until bubbly. Continue stirring the roux for 3-5 minutes. Slowly, pour in whipping cream, stir until thickened, then add Parmesan cheese. When cheese is melted, add basil, pepper and peas. If sauce is too thick, add water from the cooking pasta (be sure to reserve the water if your pasta is finished cooking before your sauce is ready). Serve over pasta.

Tips:
· Always, always, always taste this sauce before you serve it. My measurements aren’t exact because I usually make it according to taste, so you may want more parm or more salt.

· When you cook pasta, do not rinse it off after you have drained it. Rinsing it releases the starches and makes the pasta really sticky. All you need to do is drain it, then pour about 1-2 tsp. of olive oil (depending on how much pasta you cook) over the pasta and toss it. That keeps the pasta from sticking together.

· You can keep this sauce in the fridge for about a week. I haven’t tried freezing it yet; but, I think it will separate even more than it does when it is in the fridge. The trick to avoid major separation is to scrap reheating in the microwave and just heat it up on the stove on a low heat. Slowly reheating the sauce will prevent the fat from separating the sauce. (I do reheat it in the microwave sometimes and it seems to be fine … I think that’s because there is flour in this recipe as opposed to other recipes that just combine butter, cream and Parmesan cheese.)

· If you don’t have, or use, a garlic press (I prefer not to), here’s how to get that pesky peel off the garlic clove (which, btw, is just one little bulb off the head of garlic you’ll end up getting in the produce section at the store): Place the clove on the cutting board on one of its flat sides. Take a wide-bladed knife and place it atop the clove. Hit the knife with the heel of your hand really hard, and push down on the clove. This should smash the clove a little bit … and that separates the peel from the clove. The peel should come right off, then you can chop up the clove (fair warning: garlic is sticky when it’s chopped).

· Try adding chicken, or pork to this … it’s really yummy.

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Now, onto sauce number two! This is one that I kind of made up. I’d gone to an Italian restaurant in our little Podunk town and the dinner I got was ravioli in a tomato-cream sauce. If you’ve not had tomato-cream sauce, you are totally missing out! It is so yummy! Anyway, when I asked what the sauce was like before ordering, the waitress told me that it was basically alfredo sauce mixed with marinara. So, I did some experimenting at home and came up with my Tomato-Cream Sauce (or “orange sauce” as my family calls it). My only problem is that I haven’t been able to scale down this recipe. I’ve tried other recipes for tomato-cream sauce, and I keep coming back to this one; so maybe one day I’ll figure out how to make a smaller amount.

TOMATO-CREAM SAUCE

What you need:

1 lb. ground beef
1/2 small onion, chopped; or
½ tsp. onion powder
½ tsp. garlic salt/powder (I use granulated garlic)
1 (12 oz.) can tomato paste
1 can tomato soup
½ can water
½ tsp. oregano, ground
½ tsp. salt
Dash of pepper
½ cup butter
2 garlic cloves, minced or chopped finely
½ cup flour
1 tsp. salt
4 cups heavy whipping cream
¾ cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
1 tsp. dried basil leaves
½ cup water from pasta

How you do it:

Brown ground beef and onion until beef is no longer pink and onion is soft. Sprinkle ground beef with garlic salt (and onion powder if you don’t use an onion). Add tomato paste, soup, ½ can water, salt and pepper. Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add oregano and simmer 10 more minutes. While sauce simmers, melt butter in separate saucepan. Add garlic and cook for 5 minutes. Whisk in flour and salt and cook until bubbly, stirring constantly. Cook for 3-5 minutes. Pour in cream and whisk together. Stir until thickened. Add cheese and basil. Sauce will be very thick. Add water from cooked pasta. Combine white sauce and red sauce according to taste. Serve over pasta.

Fudge Sauce

So, on Sunday it was our turn to feed our missionaries. And, for some reason I hate having them come for dinner and not serving them some form of a dessert. The best part about dessert on this particular Sunday was that I had a craving ... and was able to follow through, even if I had to make a substitution. I was craving my grandmother's fudge sauce on ice cream.

Occasionally when we'd visit with my grandmother she would give us ice cream (in some glass dishes that I inherited from her when she moved), then drizzle on her homemade fudge sauce. It seriously is the best fudge sauce, ever! (It even makes great chocolate milk!)

GRANDMA’S FUDGE SAUCE

What you need:

1 large can evaporated milk
2 cups sugar
3 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 tsp. vanilla


How to do it:

Bring to boil over medium heat milk, sugar, and chocolate. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring vigorously. Remove from heat; add vanilla. Beat with rotary type beater for 1 minute. Add additional evaporated milk for a thinner sauce.


Okay, so if you look closely at this picture, you will notice some cocoa powder on the range next to the saucepan. That is my substitute. When I opened my box of unsweetened chocolate squares I only had one square. So, I substituted with 3 Tbsp. cocoa powder and 1 Tbsp. butter (for each square I needed, so a total of 6 Tbsp. cocoa and 2 Tbsp. butter because I needed 2 squares). Trust me, the sauce tastes much better if you don’t have to substitute. Not that it tasted badly, there’s just a distinct flavor that was only an aftertaste, rather than tasting it the whole time.



Now this picture is just to show you that you can’t use a small saucepan very well. My mistake. I couldn’t stir the sauce very vigorously because it was threatening to spill over. So, I just cooked it a little longer because I like my sauce thicker rather than thin.


Tip: Fudge sauce is basically a syrup, and to make your syrup/sauce thicker you need to cook it until it reaches between 230-235° on a candy thermometer. At least, this is what helped me to cook my mom’s syrup to the right consistency.


And, here’s how much fudge sauce you’ll get in the end! Please excuse the attractive vacuumer in the background … our floor was pretty crumbly. (Side note: isn’t it awesome that my hubby will vacuum for me so I can have fun cooking things like fudge sauce without having to walk all over the crumbs on the floor?)

I don't think everyone who had this on their ice cream appreciated it as much as I did ... but, I will always remember times in my grandma's kitchen eating ice cream with her sauce ... YUM!

Linguini Alfredo with Grilled Chicken

We eat a lot of pasta in our house. I mean, A LOT! Ever since we used to share dinners with a friend's family, who almost always served pasta, we have enjoyed the best pasta dishes ever! And, this one is just as good as any of the others. The chicken I grilled before I sliced it ... but, I think next time I'll slice it and then marinate and grill it. It was still pretty good as it was. I usually don't add chicken to my alfredo pasta .... but, it just seemed right. And, this is linguini ... one of my favs. I also LOVE penne, farfalle (the little bowties), and rotini. Choose your favorite ... my alfredo sauce is a little think, so you don't have to worry about choosing a pasta that will hold the sauce well. Marinara is different; penne is really good for that one because of the ridges.

So, start out by marinating your chicken (I used Lawry's Carribean Jerk marinade ... it was really, really good). Stick it in a bag in the fridge for 30 minutes before you serve the dish. After you take care of the chicken, start the water boiling for the pasta, and also start on the sauce.

ALFREDO PASTA SAUCE

4 Tbsp. butter

4 Tbsp. flour

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. dried basil

2 cups whipping cream

(or half and half, or milk)

1 to 2 Tbsp. milk, or some of the

water from cooking the pasta

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

Start by making a roux: melt the butter, then add the flour, garlic powder, salt and pepper; cook while stirring for about one minute. Slowly pour in the cream, and whisk together until it starts to thicken. Now, add the milk according to the thickness you'd like (I prefer the pasta water, and I usually just eyeball it, pouring in water and stirring until it is the right conistency). Toss in the parm; stir until melted. Add basil. Serve over pasta. (Add more or less salt according to your tastebuds.)

Sometimes I throw in a small handfull of frozen peas and just serve that over the pasta. But, on this night, I grilled the chicken for about 4-5 minutes on each side, then sliced it up and served that atop the pasta. I think I added the peas to this as well ... but I didn't see any in the picture, so I didn't want to trick everyone!

Let me know what you think!

Marinated Grilled Chicken

MARINATED GRILLED CHICKEN

8-9 chicken breasts, thawed (I always get the frozen, boneless, skinless at Costco)
3 parts Sprite
1 part Worcestershire sauce
2 pkgs. fajita seasoning mix (I only used one mix of each and my husband said that there could have been more seasoning, so I suggest using 1½ - 2pkgs)
2 pkgs. Italian dressing mix

Shake, or stir, everything together except chicken. Pour over chicken, and either place in large Ziploc bag, or in a COVERED dish. Then place the chicken in the fridge for at least 1 hour to marinade. The longer, the better.


This is very important: always, always, ALWAYS cover and place your marinated meat in the fridge. It prevents bacteria from growing on the meat. I've been to someone's house in which they had the meat marinating uncovered, ON THE COUNTER! Needless to say, I didn't eat any of it, and neither did anyone in my family. It's just not sanitary, or safe!

Anyway, I'm off my soap box now.

Now, I skewered some of my chicken and some of it I didn't. It's your preference. But, if you're going to cut the chicken and skewer it, do that before placing it in the marinade. It's just not as messy.

Preheat the grill to medium high, then place the chicken on the grill. Grill them for about 4-5 minutes each side, for breasts, and just watch the skewers, turning them as needed until they are browned to your liking (I prefer mine almost black, but that's me!).

We also grilled corn on the cob. So easy! Shuck the husks off the corn, then wrap them in foil. Place them on the preheated grill for 15-20 minutes. I would suggest drawing a line, or a little smiley face or a picture of some sort on the foil so you know how far you've turned them to make sure all the corn is cooked. We had some that on one side the corn wasn't cooked. But, they were so yummy!

Chunky Red Pasta Sauce

RED PASTA

1 pork tenderloin, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp. butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 yellow onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 red pepper, diced
20 baby carrots, or two carrots sliced
2 cans tomatoes, petite diced (my friend used whole tomatoes I think, but I like the smaller chunks in petite diced)
1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste*
water, to consistency
3 cubes chicken bouillon (my friend used vegetable bouillon, I just don't have that here)
basil, to taste (I use about 1 Tbsp. or so, just smell the sauce to determine if there's enough: you don't want it to taste like peppers and tomatoes, and you don't want it to burn your nose with basil)
salt and pepper, to taste
pasta, cooked (I prefer penne or linguini, which is what we had)

In a large pot, combine butter and olive oil until butter is melted. Add pork cubes and stir to brown. When pork is lightly golden brown on one or two sides, add garlic and onion. Sauté for about one minute. Add remaining ingredients, except pasta. (*Only add about 2/3 of the can of tomato paste. Less if you want chunkier sauce, more if you want creamier sauce.) Let simmer for at least 2 hours, the longer it simmers the better is tastes (especially the carrots). (This smells heavenly!) Serve over pasta; sprinkle with parmesan.

Buttermilk Syrup

I got this recipe from my friend, Tammy. So yummy! It's almost like eating candy.

BUTTERMILK SYRUP

1 stick butter
2 cups sugar
1 cup buttermilk
4 tsp. corn syrup
1 tsp. vanilla (2 if imitation)
1 tsp baking soda

Boil together butter, sugar, buttermilk, and corn syrup; boil for one minutes. Remove from heat, and add vanilla and baking soda; whisk until all blended. (You may have to hold the pan over the sink after you start whisking the baking soda in as it makes the syrup really bubble big.) Serve warm over pancakes.