Beef Haystacks

A few weeks ago I made a meal that was quite tasty. I love haystacks of any kind. This was no exception! I have some great beef in my freezer that I try to use whenever I can. It's already cooked and frozen. So, for this recipe I just took out some beef, and warmed it up. This dinner came together pretty quick.

Ingredients:

- Beef

- Lipton's Onion Soup mix

- Veggies of choice ( we chose peas)

- Rice

- Haystack toppings: cheese, pineapple, green onions, sour cream...etc.

1. Heat/cook beef. I added 1 can of beef broth as well. 

2. Add in half a package of Lipton's Onion soup mix. 

3. Once this is warm, take the beef out, temporarily. I learned that you don't want the beef to boil in the mixture because it'll make the beef tough.

4. Add some cornstarch to the mixture. Make sure to have already combined it with cold water to activate it. Bring to a boil for 1 minute. 

5. Add back in the meat and add in any veggies you'd like.

6. Top on rice with haystack toppings. We like pineapple, cheese, green onions and sour cream. Of course, I really love sour cream, it's weird - I know. 

This was really good. The beef flavor was amazing. Be sure to salt and pepper it to taste. So, yes, I do add sour cream to mine. I love the flavor and it makes it creamy. :) Anyway, this was another easy and cheap dinner for us.

- SamiMae

Haystacks with Veggies

So last night as I was thinking of what to cook, I found a recipe that had broccoli in it and looked really good. But after looking at the ingredients, I realized its just haystacks with broccoli in it. lol.

But, I still made it. It was tasty. I added some garlic and onion seasonings in it to give it a bit more flare.

- SamiMae

Spanish Rice

I did it! I figured out how to make Spanish rice with our left over white rice! Sometimes dinners will leave us with leftover white rice, often times from haystacks, etc. I hate to see the cooked white rice go bad. Last time I tried the Spanish rice, it didn't turn out well, but this time. WOW!

I've discovered the magic of Rotel. A little goes a long way with this stuff. But this gave it the kick it needed and the flavor punch to the taste buds! Give it a try.

Ingredients:
- Rotel
- Corn
- Rice
- Tomato sauce

1. Combine cooked rice and rotel in a pan. Go easy on the Rotel, add it in slow and add more if you'd like more heat. Ours had a kick on the back end that you had to watch out for. ;)
2. Add in corn
3. Add in a can of tomato sauce. I used just an 8 ounce can. This helps tone down the Rotel. I also found that the longer it cooked the more mild it became.
4. Salt or pepper to taste, if desired.

Sorry for my crummy picture, the easiest camera I have is on my phone. 

This competes with the Rice-a-Roni Spanish rice. Quite frankly, this has more flavor, I think. Once the Rotel and corn are added in, it gains quite a bit of bulk. You don't need a lot of rice to make a nice large side dish. :) 

- SamiMae

Fast Asian Broccoli and Beef

I LOVE Asian food. So whenever I can cook something slightly Asian, I will. I've had some frozen broccoli that I've wanted to use for the last little while and so I did! This recipe is super simple, stupidly simple. You don't need any fancy Asian seasoning to make this yummy dish.

Ingredients: 

- Beef

- Broccoli

- Garlic (I minced mine, 2 cloves)

- Mr. Yoshida's marinade

Use what beef you have on hand. I had some frozen beef that I had cooked a few weeks back. I used my wok to heat it up. Meanwhile I minced 2 cloves of garlic. After the meat was warmed up, I sliced it into bite sized pieces. I put the meat back in the wok, put in the garlic, broccoli and a fair amount of Mr. Yoshida's marinade. This stuff is amazing. If you don't have some, get it! :) 

I quickly made some 5 minute rice to put my yummy meaty mixture on top of and dinner was finished. It took me maybe 30 minutes from start to finish. I love fast and simple meals, especially when I already have everything on hand. Mr. Yoshida's is made from soy sauce but has sugar added to give it a sweet and sour flavor. It's heavenly.

Hint: The best part of this dish is all the leftover seasonings that left in the pan. Be the last one to dish up and you'll have the most flavorful dish! :) 

Happy Eating! 

- SamiMae 

Leftover Success - Bean and Rice Burritos

So, dinner tonight gave me a challenge. I had leftover rice, beans, corn and diced tomatoes. I also had an avocado that I needed to use soon. After a few minutes on Pinterest, I came up with the idea to do rice and bean burritos. I made guacamole for our chips and salsa I already have. We made up some homemade tortillas and BAM! Dinner!

The rice gave me a bit of a challenge. I've never made mexican rice before, and I wanted to keep it simple. Many recipes said use tomato paste. I was thinking about using tomato sauce, but went with the paste instead. Well, I should have had about another cup of rice to even things out. It was very...pasty. But, I think we recovered.

For the beans, this was pretty good. I sauteed some diced onion, red peppers and minced garlic in some canola oil. Then I added by leftover black beans and cooked those. After it was all warm. I added it to the rice. With a bit of cumin and some taco seasonings - hey, it was edible! Hahaha, Trevor actually, really liked it. This recipe just wasn't up to my normal level of creativity and awesomeness that most of my other meals are. I had quite a few set ingredients that I had to use, and I had to make it all work. Overall, at the end, it wasn't so bad. :)

Trevor made some homemade tortillas. We are getting pretty good at those homemade tortillas, they sure are better than store bought! That's for sure. While he was making the tortillas, I whipped up some guacamole.

This was interesting, because I had never made it before. I remembered from cooking in the kitchen with my mom, that it takes a little while to absorb the flavors of the things that's in it. Because at first, I added a ton of stuff, and it still tasted like avocado! See how I made the guacamole here!

Not too bad, eh?!

Ingredients:
- Rice
- Black Beans
- Corn
- Cumin
- Taco seasoning (optional)
- Diced Onion
- Red bell pepper (diced)
- Tomato Paste


1. Warm rice up, (or cook it), put in tomato paste, cumin, and tomato seasoning.
2. Saute onions, red bell pepper and 2 gloves of garlic (minced) together. After onions are cooked, add in black beans and corn.
3. Once rice is cooked/warmed, add in bean mixture.
4. Serve on tortillas as a burrito. (Ours were more like tacos, because they were so stuffed!
5. Top with sour cream, cheese, guacamole, salsa, whatever is your favorite!


What I love about this recipe, is how simple it is. This recipe is more like an idea. You can do anything you want with it, and customize it to your crowd. There is only Trevor and I so, we generally cook and prepare less. This was all natural really. Nothing was pre-made. Only the beans and corn came from a can. Everything else was natural. How awesome huh?! AND - it was meat free and very filling. :) Way to have an awesome meal on a tight budget.

This is one I think I'll make again. :) We used all leftovers from the night before, and all the leftovers got used! Success!

- SamiMae

Stuffed Bell Peppers

So, last night I made stuffed bell peppers. Secretly, growing up I never liked them. But I wanted to give them another try. I've learned the only way to like things, is to eat them. :) This was pretty tasty. I was able to eat about half the pepper, and then I was done, but the insides were really good! These were simple to make. They can be time consuming depending on how you choose to make them. This was another recipe I made from Pinterest. But, I made mine quite a bit different. You can view the original recipe here.

Ingredients:
- Bell Peppers
- Cumin
- Salt
- Diced tomatoes
- Black beans
- Corn
- Rice
- Meat (I used ground beef.)
- Cheese
- Green onions (optional)


1. Clean out peppers, remove seeds and veins. Let them dry
2. Start cooking rice. I used brown rice, no instant stuff. So, that took a while to cook.
3. Cook meat, add in cumin, salt, tomatoes, black beans, and corn.
4. Add rice to meat mixture after it's cooked. Season to taste if you feel it needs more.
5. Next comes the stuffing. Stuff each pepper full of the yummy meat mixture!
6. Cook peppers in the oven for about 30-45 minutes at 350, depending on your preference. Mine was about 35 minutes. Top with cheese and green onions.

I found that it was really good with ranch. That's how I was able to eat the pepper! I love peppers in dishes, but to eat one whole or raw or even cooked can be a challenge. But, nonetheless, this was a tasty dish! Trevor ate the whole thing! For being in a pepper, it was pretty mild on heat and taste. Give it a shot!

We only cooked two peppers, and had quite a bit of leftover rice stuffing mix, so we put it in the pan with the 2 peppers to cook to eat later. (We actually used the leftovers tonight for dinner. :) Along with our stuffed peppers, we had a salad and my yummy homemade bread.

- SamiMae

Asian Haystacks!

So, I have Hawaiian haystacks, I have Mexican haystacks. Now I have Asian haystacks. :) This recipe is fantastic! I'm so making this again. I found the original recipe on Pinterest, but changed it around a little bit.

Ingredients include:
- Chicken breasts (I use tenderloins)
- Mr. Yoshida's marinade sauce
- Pineapple and juice
- Brown sugar
- Garlic
- Green onions
- Water
- Rice
- Cornstarch (To thicken sauce)


This is a super simple meal. It can easily be a crock pot meal, but I just prepared mine in the oven.

1. Set oven to 350 degrees
2. Put chicken in a casserole dish, along with:
     - About 1/4 cup of Mr. Yoshida's
     - 3/4 cup water
     - Sprinkle some brown sugar over the chicken (Go easy on the brown sugar, I did about 2 tablespoons, but I only cooked 2-4 chicken tenderloins)
     - Pour some pineapple and juice on top.
     - Crush some garlic on top, (or whichever way you use garlic)
     - Cut up 2 green onions and put it in as well
3. Make sure the meat is covered with sauce.
4. Cook about 45 minutes to 1 hour


In the last few minutes that it's cooking, there are a few other things we can do to prepare. Cook any side dishes or desert that you'd like. Make sure to get some rice cooking (whether you use 5 minute rice or steam it, it doesn't matter).

During this time, you can also take about 1/4th cup of cornstarch and dissolve it in about 1/4th cup of water. I've never used cornstarch before, so it was neat to try this! Stir it and it should dissolve pretty quick.

Once the chicken is cooked, pull it out. Cut/shred chicken into small pieces. Put the chicken and the sauce in a small pot and bring to a boil. After it's boiling, then pour in cornstarch. Stir. It will quickly thicken in to a "sweet and sour" sauce thickness. Then, serve this lovely mixture over the rice and Ta-Da! Dinner is served!

Note: Mine was really sweet, almost like a dessert. I would ease up on the brown sugar, go more for the pineapple flavor. I would have added a bit more garlic in it too than what I did. This was an easy weeknight meal that could be done in the crock pot and can be adjusted for any size of crowd! Give it a try!

See the chunks of pineapple?! YUM! 

The green onions are still in there as well. 

Happy cookin!

- 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

Cranberry Chicken and Lehi's Rice

So, these are not original recipes, but I do modify the portion sizes. I went home to visit and my mom let me have a cookbook of hers. My chicken and rice recipe came from the Worldwide Ward Cook Book, by Deanna Buxton. 

Cranberry Chicken (pg 83)

• Chicken
• 1 16oz cranberry sauce
• 1/2 C. Catalina salad dressing
• 1 envelope onion soup mix

Combine cranberry sauce, Catalina, and onion soup mix and pour on top of chicken. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

My favorite kinds of meals are ones I can throw together and not have to do much else. This a perfect recipe. I did homework while it was in the oven cooking! Boy, I'll say, right now, it smells AMAZING!

The side dish that I chose to make with my chicken also came from the Worldwide Ward Cookbook. It's as follows.

Lehi's Rice

• 1 Tbsp. butter
• 1/4 C. onion, chopped
• 1/2 C. Carrots, chopped
• 1/2 C. Celery, chopped
• 2 C. Chicken broth
• 1 C. long-grain rice, uncooked

I'm using brown long grain rice instead of white. In a saucepan, melt butter and add veggies. Cook and stir until veggies are "slightly wilted" and onions are clear. (You know how they look when they get cooked). Then, stir in chicken broth and rice. Bring everything to a nice boil. Cover and reduce heat to low and cook for 20 minutes, or however long it takes the rice. 

I'm serving this with a nice green salad, something simple. 

For this meal, total prep time was about 30 minutes, by the time I got the chicken in the oven and got the veggies cut and cooked. My little apartment smells amazing! It reminds me of Thanksgiving. It's a festive meal. 

As soon as Trevor gets home, its dinner time! 

-SamiMae