Bread Bowls and Potato Soup!

For a few weeks now, I've been craving homemade bread bowls and soup. So, on Thursday, I had a bit of extra time. So I decided to finally make it. Let me say now, It was AMAZING! This delicious meal was worth all the time and effort that was put into it. This isn't a meal you can just whip together in a matter of minutes, at least, it wasn't for me. It took a bit of time, but oh baby. It was worth it.

I started with the soup. (I'll admit now, I find all my recipes on Pinterest, and then tailor them to my own desires and sizing.) I have a cute little crock pot that I use. I cut up a few potatoes and poured them in. I put in a fair amount of my frozen diced onions. One can of chicken broth went in as well. I also added in about 6ish ounces of evaporated milk. I didn't quite use a whole can. Lastly, I added a bit of water, salt and pepper and then let it cook on high!

I headed back to campus for about an hour or two. Once I got back home to finish dinner, everything was cooked quite nicely. All the potatoes were soft, almost mushy. I'll admit, looking down at it, it didn't look very appetizing yet. Next, I melted about 3-4 tablespoons of butter, mixed in about 1/3 cup of flour. It got think pretty quick. Then I added in about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of the evaporated milk mixture from the crock pot. I let it cook for a minutes. It quickly thickened. At first, I didn't know if I was doing it right, but went along with it. I added the creamy butter/flour/evaporated milk mixture all back into the crock pot, added about half a can of corn and some sour cream and let it finish cooking. I stirred it up good, added some extra onions and let it sit. It started to look and smell REALLY yummy. After I mixed in everything, it was starting to look like soup. :)

While that cooked, I started working on the bread bowls. When it comes to breads, I usually follow the recipe pretty close. I love bread, I like to make bread. But I'll admit, I'm not very good at it yet. These bread bowls, are fool proof, and the flavor is amazing. This recipe could easily make flavored bread bowls, or any form of bread in general. This could have been really flavorful if I had added some rosemary, or onion or dill, or any other herb. I really like this bread recipe that I found. (I'll attach links below.)

For the bread, I mixed the sugar, water and yeast together and let it rise. (While it rose, I finished dishes. :) Then, I added the salt, oil, and flour to the mix. When I cook breads, I'd rather have it be sticky and get all over my hands, then dry and super manageable. More flour = drier bread. Less flour = moister bread. So, after I added the flour, I moved it to another dish to rise for about 45 minutes. Then I formed it into 3 bread bowls. The dough was really sticky because I had used only 3 cups of flower total. But, I got it into nice little balls, and let them rise for another hour. They got quite large and I was thrilled! I popped them in the oven and let them cook for about 20 minutes, pulled them out and TA-DA! Dinner was hot and ready. I was pretty proud!

Almost done! 

My potato soup!

HOW BEAUTIFUL! (and yummy) 

Topped with a bit of green onions....my favorite

AHH! Dream come true! 

Doesn't that look nice? I'm drooling just thinking about them. Please excuse the poor pictures. I'm working in it. We also have really poor lighting in our little apartment, and I don't know how to use my fancy camera! HA. Here is the recipes and links below! Enjoy!

Loaded Potato Soup

- 4 russet potatoes 

- 1/2 yellow onion. (I also used dried minced onion at the end to give it more flavor)

- 1 can low sodium chicken broth

- 1/2 can evaporated milk

- 3-4 tablespoons of butter

- 1/3 cup flour

- sour cream (about 1/2 cup)

- Salt and Pepper

- Cheese

- Bacon

- Green onions

We topped it with green onions. I had some bacon, but it was frost bitten, so we didn't use it. :( You can also top it with cheese, but we found it didn't need it and was perfect on it's own. This is an easy soup I'll be making again.You can find the recipe I used HERE.

Italian Bread Bowls

- 1 tbsp yeast

- 1 1/4 C warm water

- 2 tbsp sugar

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 1 tbsp vegetable oil

- 3 - 3 1/2 C flour

This is a great bread recipe. I'm glad I found it and will be making it again. :) Hopefully, I'll get really good at it. That'd be awesome. Anyway, You can find the recipe I used HERE.

Thanks for reading my novel of a post and I hope you enjoyed it! Maybe it'll inspire you to cook a bit more. :)

-SamiMae

Mexican Haystacks!

This is an awesome new meal I just tried tonight. :) The best part about this meal, is everything is something that I always keep on hand. I think there is a lot of flexibility with this meal. You can add spice add heat, or even another veggie/bean. Trevor and I even grabbed some chips to eat with it too.

Again, I'm not one to measure things out. I like to just throw it all in a pot and flavor it based on taste. A lot of times, I don't have everything that a recipe calls for, so I experiment. Here are the ingredients I used tonight:

Ingredients:
-1 can of corn (drained)
-1 can of black beans (drained)
-1 can of tomato sauce
-Salsa (I used a hot salsa and just poured a bit in)
-Taco seasoning (to give it some authentic flavor)
-Garlic clove
- Onions
-Water (about 1/2 cup)
-Chicken (I used leftover chicken from the can, nothing special.)
-Rice
-Cheese
- Sour Cream

I put the chicken in the pot and warmed it up. Then I put in the corn, black beans, tomato sauce, water, salsa, and water. I used dehydrated onions and mixed it in. I crushed a clove of garlic and put it in. It wasn't overpowering, very mild. I lightly sprinkled it with some taco seasoning and let is cook! I loved how fast this all warmed up. Where everything is already precooked, its just a matter of warming it up. During all this, I made 2 servings of Minute rice. I wasn't sure if I'd like it on top of rice, but it surprised me. It was perfect on the rice. By the time the beans and corn were warm, the rice was finished. We topped it with some cheese, and a little sour cream. YUM!

For this dish, I kept the sides simple. I served it with some carrots and ranch and some warm peanut butter cookies. (I spoil my husband. :)

This will be a recipe that I'll be making again! It's nice to make a meal from what I already have in my little pantry. This is also the perfect college meal, cheap, and made quite a large pot. I'm going to keep this meal in mind to make it again! 

-SamiMae

The Secret of Oatmeal

This week, Trevor and I discovered an awesome breakfast meal. It's called oatmeal! We have had the boxed stuff quite a bit. But this time, I made it from the actual oats. Yes, I cooked the oats on the stove! It took a bit longer but was awesome! We cooked with with milk, then topped it with brown sugar and frozen raspberries! What a breakfast. It was tasty and filled us up until lunch.

Sounds simple, and common sense. But being married, and having to figure out what to make for me and Trevor can sometimes be a challenge. Making oatmeal is cheaper than cereal, and healthier in addition to more filling. I just wanted to share this little secret that we have discovered. :)

-SamiMae

Pineapple BBQ Chicken Quesadillas

I actually made this dish a few weeks ago and I don't think I have pictures, but let me tell you - it was YUMMY! This dish I will be making again. It was so super fast and easy, and the idea came from Pinterest. :) It was a hit!

Ingredients:
Tortillas
Shredded cheese
Can of chicken
BBQ sauce
Pineapple
Cilantro
Jalapeno (optional)

To make this dish, I drained the can of chicken and put it in a pan. I added some BBQ sauce and the pineapple. I used quite a bit of  pineapple juice to keep it moist. I diced up a jalapeno real fine and only added a tiny bit. So, I cooked all these items in a pan to warm them up. After they were warm, I moved the mixture onto a tortilla, on a skillet. Before I folded the tortilla in half, I added on some cheese and a some cilantro. I folded the tortilla over, (so it's in half) and cooked it until it was golden brown on both sides. This let the cheese melt and hardened the tortilla just a bit to make it crispy.

After it was cooked, we dipped it in sour cream. This was a super quick and tasty dish. Next time I make it, i'll pictures. Give this recipe a try. It was AWESOME!

-SamiMae

Taco in Lettuce Bowl.

This dinner was inspired by a pin on Pinterest. Instead of a taco with a hard shell, why not just skip a step and put the taco right in the lettuce head?! It was certainly interesting. Trevor was quiet and didn't know what to think at first.

We cooked up the taco meat, added the seasoning. Trevor cut the lettuce head in half and I gutted the inside of the lettuce to make it a bowl. Put a little cheese on it and viola! I would have put ranch on it, but we didn't have any. So, we put ketchup and sour cream on it. I would recommend eating it in a bowl. We had it on plates, and it took up our whole plate! In the end, we ate the meat, and most of the lettuce. With the extra lettuce, we put on some dressing and helped ourselves to a little salad. :) Kinda unique. It's a great change to tacos. We missed out on the crunchiness of the taco shell. This was a fun dish. Something new to try. but you can't beat normal tacos. I can see this dish being super good with a chicken taco. If I do it again, it'll be a chicken taco. Here are our pictures!

I served it with a side dish of squash and zucchini stir fry. I used Mrs. Dash's vegetable seasonings on it. Simple, and my favorite. :) Give it a shot!

-SamiMae

Tin Foil Dinner - Carolina Country

Earlier this week, I made tin-foil dinners. It was supper yummy and was made from everything I have on hand. The items I used are common items in my kitchen, so this is a great meal to make, just about any time. I didn't have any kind of marinade, or teriyaki sauce to put on it, so I tried something new. I'm a huge fan of the Grill Mates season packets. (My favorite is their Montreal steak) For this dinner, I used Carolina Country marinade. It was an excellent choice. :)

Ingredients: 

Potatoes

Carrots

(Frozen) sliced green and red bell peppers

Sliced (can be frozen) onion

Chicken tenderloin 

Grill Mates seasoning packet: Carolina Country

It's super easy. Put it all together in tinfoil. Pour the seasoning on it, wrap it up and cook it at 350 degrees for about 45-60 minutes. I found that the potatoes were perfectly soft and the carrots were cooked well too. We cooked ours for 60 minutes and that was just perfect. I love meals like this, because then I have about 15 minutes of prep work and then an extra hour to do whatever!

The flavor was amazing in our tinfoil dinner.. The meat was moist and fell apart easy. The veggies soaked up the seasonings. The seasoning wasn't too spicy. Trevor loved it. :) I served this with a side dish of green salad. Wa-La! Dinner is served. I can't wait to make this dinner again! 

Looks tasty huh! 

- SamiMae

Veggie Grilled Cheese!

So, one of my New Year's goals is to cook one new recipe a week. This week I cooked grilled cheese with a twist. (I found the recipe on pinterest). It was new and certainly interesting. It's a vegetable grilled cheese.

Ingredients:
Whole grain bread
Sliced cheese
Green peppers
Sliced Roma tomatoes
Spinach.

Make is just like a grilled cheese, but put 2 green pepper rings, 4 slices of tomatoes and a handful of spinach. I'd recommend cooking it on low on the stove. You want your cheese to melt, but not burn the bread. You also want it to cook all the way through, so the veggies are tender and warm.

Not bad, right? :) (Ignore everything in the background. :) I was worried about the peppers being cooked all the way, and I had never had any kind of cooked spinach. Spinach is one of those veggies that I'm really working on liking. This sandwhich, as simple as it it, was a stretch for me, but turned out to be really yummy! When I make it next, I think I'll add some bacon onto it. As Trevor and I sat, eating our sandwhiches, we craved bacon on it.

We also served this with a simple side of baby carrots and ranch. I'm all about healthy dinners, and this sure was one! I'll definitely be making this again! :)