Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Casserole

28 August, 201327 August, 2013Marissa

The broccoli in our garden is growing like crazy right now. We’re past the point where it produces nice, neat heads like you see in the store and have moved into the tiny-little-broccoli-all-over-the-plant phase. When the broccoli gets too out of control to handle with salads and pasta dishes, I like to make this cheesy casserole. It is a great side dish for something like breaded chicken (which is what we did for lunch on Monday).

Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Casserole

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6-8 cups of chopped broccoli and cauliflower (About 2-3 heads of broccoli and one small head of cauliflower)

3-4 mushrooms, sliced

Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Casserole recipe, ready to sprinkle with cracker crumbs — ready to sprinkle with cracker crumbs

½ cup butter

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 can cream of celery, chicken, or mushroom soup

7-8 ounces of cheese dip (such as Kraft Cheez Wiz or Tostitos Smooth & Cheesy)

½ cup crushed crackers

Place broccoli and cauliflower in medium-size pan. Put sliced mushrooms on top and add enough water to steam the vegetables. Bring to a boil, then turn off heat.

Cheesy Broccoli Cauliflower Casserole recipe, Just out of the oven — Just out of the oven

Melt butter in a 2-quart casserole dish. Add soup, onion powder, and cheese dip. Stir. Drain vegetables, then add to cheese mixture and stir. Sprinkle with crushed crackers. Cover dish and bake at 375°F for 25-30 minutes.

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Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

14 August, 20138 July, 2014Marissa

The oven is back! As of last Wednesday afternoon, I’ve been able to bake. I promptly made bow-tie pasta, chocolate chip cookies, easy bread sticks, and now I can finally share these cheesecake bars. The crust came from this recipe, and I borrowed the filling from this Annie’s Eats recipe. The first time I made it and took it to church, I received several compliments on the flavor. In particular, people liked the shortbread crust as an alternative to graham cracker.

Warning: do not attempt to substitute wax paper for parchment paper. It refuses to come out of the pan. Aluminum foil would work much better, I think.

Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

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Shortbread Crust

1 cup butter

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup confectioners’ sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepared a 9”x13” baking dish with a parchment paper sling. Cut the butter into the flour and confections sugar and press into the baking dish (I use the bread hook attachment on my hand-held electric mixer). Bake 20 minutes or until light brown. Let cool on wire rack.

Filling

2 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened

½ cup sour cream

¾ cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

pinch of salt

2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 pint fresh blueberries

Reduce oven temperature to 325°F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine cream cheese and sour cream with an electric mixer. Beat on medium speed until smooth. Add in the sugar and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 1-2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Blend in vanilla, salt, and lemon juice. Fold in blueberries gently with a spatula until evenly incorporated. Pour mixture over the shortbread crust.

Bake for 35 minutes or until just set and the center no longer jiggles when the pan is tapped. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before removing from pan using parchment paper. Cut into bars and serve.

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Oriental Salad Dressing

31 July, 201321 October, 2013Marissa

Oriental Chicken Salad dressing recipe — Oriental Chicken Salad

Since the oven is still not working (the repair man said he should have it fixed this Friday), I had to come up with something other than blueberry cheesecake bars to post this week. I’ve had this salad dressing recipe for some time, but for lunch yesterday I decided to try something different.

Instead of breading the chicken tenders, I marinaded the chicken in a mixture of soy sauce, rice wine, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, and little bit of red pepper. Thankfully the broiler is still working, so we were able to cook the chicken. My family agreed it tasted marvelous.

The original dressing recipe came in the same e-mail that I got my General Tso’s Chicken recipe from. It’s the dressing for Applebee’s Oriental Chicken Salad. We usually serve the it over salad with rice noodles and sliced almonds.

Oriental Salad Dressing

Applebee's oriental chicken salad dressing — Dressing before and after being mixed (I think it’s lumpy because I didn’t let the ingredients sit at room temperature. Still tastes good, though).

1/3 cup honey

3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

½ cup mayonnaise

2 teaspoon Grey Poupon Dijon mustard

¼ teaspoon sesame oil

Prepare dressing ingredients by mixing in a small bowl. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Sesame Stir Fry

24 July, 20138 July, 2014Marissa

On Friday, my oven stopped working. I was in the middle of trying out a new recipe for snickerdoodle bars, and the oven refused to heat up beyond 165 degrees. The repair man said he wouldn’t make it out to our house until this Friday, so I’m stuck making stove-top meals.

sesame chicken stir-fry recipe — sesame chicken

Well, maybe “stuck” isn’t the right word when I can cook things like this wonderful stir fry. It is has a thick, sweet sauce and works equally well with chicken or beef. Unlike the sesame chicken or beef you usually find at Chinese take-out places, this meat isn’t deep fried. I like the un-fried taste for this dish, but if you want to try crispy chicken in the sesame sauce you could use the chicken from my General Tso’s recipe.

Sesame Stir Fry

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3 whole boneless chicken breasts or 1 pound of beef

Marinade

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon rice wine

1 tablespoon tapioca starch

a few drops of sesame oil

Cut the meat into 1-inch cubes. Mix the marinade ingredients and marinate the meat for 20 minutes.

Sauce

½ cup water

¼ cup tapioca starch (or cornstarch)

1 cup chicken or beef broth

1/8 cup rice vinegar

¾ cup sugar

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons sesame oil

1 clove garlic (minced)

Mix together the water and tapioca starch in a small sauce pan. Add broth, and the remainder of the sauce ingredients. Set aside (you’ll be heating this to a boil in a little while).

Cooking

Sesame beef stir-fry recipe — Sesame Beef

Fry the meat in a wok or deep skillet until done. Add desired vegetables and stir fry. I typically use carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and mushrooms. When I have them, I add bamboo shoots and cabbage. Really, you can use whatever you like.

Just before vegetables are finished cooking, bring sauce to a boil, stirring continuously. Pour the sauce over the chicken and vegetables. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve with rice.

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Bowtie Pasta Bake

10 July, 201316 November, 2014Marissa

bow ties are cool Doctor Who invented pasta — Bow-ties are cool

This is the first pasta recipe I made that my dad (a confirmed anti-pasta man) actually liked. It had a long, tumultuous history. My first attempt at making it was a disaster of soggy noodles, but there was something in the flavor that made me think it could be perfect. As a Doctor Who fan, I know that bow-tie pasta was the solution, and I was right (actually, any pasta that stays pretty firm when cooked, like penne, would have fixed [most] of the problems with this dish). Even after the pasta switch, though, I had to tweak the sauce several times before it got to it’s current state of yumminess. So, without further ado or sci-fi digressions, here’s the recipe.

Bowtie Pasta Bake

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6 ounces dried bowtie pasta

3/4 pound boneless chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces

1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms

1 head of broccoli, chopped

1-2 carrots, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ cup chicken broth

bow tie pasta bake ready to go in oven — Ready to sprinkle with bread crumbs and bake

1, 10 ¾-ounce can condensed cream of chicken soup

12 ounces dairy sour cream

1 teaspoon onion powder

¼ teaspoon pepper

1 slice of bread, lightly toasted and crumbled

1 tablespoon butter, melted

Coat a large skillet with olive and cook chicken until it is no longer pink. While cooking, sprinkle chicken with powdered garlic and black pepper to taste.

Cook pasta until al dente according to package directions. Drain. Rinse with cold water and drain.

Cook mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, garlic, and chicken broth in small sauce pan. Bring to boiling and immediately remove from heat. Do not drain.

Add soup, sour cream, onion powder, and pepper to large bowl. Stir in chicken, pasta, and vegetables. Spoon into a 13x9x2-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.

bow tie pasta bake recipe — fresh from the oven delicious

Mix bread crumbs and melted butter. Sprinkle over noodles. Cover with foil. Bake in a 350°F oven for 15 minutes. Remove foil. Bake 5 minutes more or until heated through.

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Chocolate Frozen Cheesecake

26 June, 20138 July, 2014Marissa

I’m celebrating my birthday early with my favorite birthday cake. Cheesecake is amazing in all shapes, sizes, and flavors, but this is one of my personal favorites. It’s smooth, creamy, and best of all considering what time of year it is — frozen! It’s very rich, so perfect for cutting into thin pieces and sharing with guests. It will keep in the freezer for a several days, though, so you can spread it out over a few days if you don’t want to share it with very many people.

Frozen Chocolate Cheesecake

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Crust

1¼ cups chocolate graham cracker crumbs

¼ cup butter, melted

Mix graham cracker crumbs and butter. Press into 9-inch spring form pan.

Filling

1 (8-oz) package cream cheese, softened

1 (14-oz) can sweetened condensed milk

2/3 cup chocolate syrup

1 cup whipping cream

Beat first three ingredients in glass bowl with an electric mixture. Whip the cream in a separate, smaller bowl. Fold whipped cream into other mixture.

fozen chocolate cheesecake — pouring the batter

Poor into prepared spring form pan and freeze overnight.

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