Day 32 - Nontraditional Shepherd's Pie

I know I promised more on the giveaway today but my children have prevented me from getting things done. Oh, and it is also a holiday for my family today. It's Dia de los Muertos so I have been busy with that. We did a Harry Potter themed celebration and dinner was a traditional British dish, Shepherd's Pie. However, I am anything but traditional so I changed it up a bit. Here's my recipe. I hope you try it out!

Nontraditional Shepherd's Pie:

What you need:

1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 lb ground beef (you could also use bison or lamb)
1 medium onion (diced)
2 large carrots (diced)
2 leeks (thinly sliced)
1 cup sliced button mushrooms
1 cup peas
1 c chicken broth
2 Tbsp ketchup
1 tsp rosemary
1 Tbsp parsley
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
About 3 to 4 c Mashed potatoes (you can use instant or homemade, fresh or leftover)
1/4 c shredded cheddar or parmesan cheese (optional)

What you do:

Make the mashed potatoes how ever you like them first and set them aside. If you are using leftover mashed potatoes you do not need to heat them up. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large saute pan, heat the veggie oil over medium high heat. Add beef, onion, carrots, leeks and mushrooms. Cook until meat is browned or about 10 minutes. Drain the fat and then add the chicken broth, ketchup and spices. Simmer until the sauces thickens or about 10 minutes. Add the peas. Pour into an 8x8 or larger baking dish. Cover  with your mashed potatoes. Sprinkle cheese over potatoes. Bake for about 30 minutes or until mashed potatoes look golden in color.

What I would change:

It was actually really tasty. My family all loved it too. Next time, I might go for a more traditional Shepherd's Pie with lamb instead of beef. In England a Shepherd's Pie made with beef is actually a Cottage Pie but lets not get technical. We loved it and I hope you do too!     

Day 29 - Easy Oven Grilled Cheese Pizza

Baby girl is teething up a storm today so I haven't really had time to do anything, including feed the munchlet (as Connor is fondly known). Add to that the fact that we have basically nothing easy to make in the house and I came up with this recipe on the fly.

Oven Grilled Cheese Pizza:

Here's what you need:

Bread
Cheese (any kind you like)
Butter
Pizza Sauce (ready made or homemade)

Here's what I did:

Turn oven as hot as possible but not on broil. Butter one side of the bread just like you would for grilled cheese. Put bread, butter side up, on cookie sheet. Add cheese to cover top of bread but stay away from the edges a bit. Place in oven until cheese is melted. Remove from the oven and cut bread into 1" strips. Serve hot on plate with pizza sauce for dipping.

Here's what we thought:

I used cheddar cheese because it is what we had. However, you really could use any type of cheese you want. I think I will try it with mozzarella next time. Connor loved this simple recipe. He ate a piece and a half of bread in about 10 minutes. I thought it would be cleaner because he could dip the toast into the pizza sauce. Unfortunately, my tot decided he would stick his finger in the sauce and spread that unto his bread instead of dipping it. It also lead to some pizza sauce finger painting but I didn't mind because he was loving it.

Hope you all enjoy!

Day 23 - Winter Cupcakes

Today, I had my second cupcake decorating class. We focused on winter/holiday cupcakes: Christmas trees, ornaments, snowmen, and even hot chocolate (the ones with the candy cane bits). We also made two different cake pops: Santa hats & ornaments. My favorite cupcakes were the snowmen cupcakes that we made, but the hot chocolate cupcakes had the cutest idea. However, all of the cupcakes were very cute and I definitely would make them again. The cake pops, on the other hand, need a lot of work.

Here's the directions to make the snowman cupcake:

What you need per cupcake:

A cupcake
White frosting
Two chocolate chips
Five or six mini chocolate chips
One chocolate graham cracker
One orange slice gummy
Crystallized sugar to cover

What you do per cupcake:

Frost cupcake as smoothly as possible.
Press cupcake top into bowl of crystallized sugar.
Find the middle of the cupcake and place the large chocolate chips slightly above center line for eyes.
Cut out the nose from the orange gummy and insert slightly below eyes for nose. It can be any shape you want.
Using mini chocolate chips, make the snowman's smiling mouth.
Take half of a graham cracker (two of the little partitions), and cut out a rectangle shape and half of an oval very carefully and slowly with a serrated knife to avoid cracking.
To place graham on cupcake, take serrated knife and finding the line of the cupcake where the top of the cupcake and the liner meet. Very gently, slice at horizontal opening to the level of the snowman's eyes.
Insert rectangle into slot.
Using frosting, place frosting on flat edge of the half oval piece and place vertically on top of rectangle to complete to form the hat's brim.
Use any color frosting to decorate hat.

That is a snowman cupcake!

What I thought:

I really enjoyed this class and I'm sad that it's over. I'm looking forward to making some of these cupcakes for my family & friends. Hopefully, I will be taking another class in the spring.

Day 6 - Ocean Perch Recipe

Well, I was going to do an activity with the whole family today but both of the kids are sick. So I tried out another recipe instead.

Ocean Perch (My own recipe):

7 small ocean perch fillets
2 lemons
1/4 t salt
1/4 t black pepper
1/2 t parsley
1/2 t cayenne pepper
1/2 t garlic powder

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Put frozen fish fillets into a 9x13 baking dish so that they don't touch. Squeeze the juice of one lemon directly onto the fish. Cut the other lemon into slices and place them around the pan, not covering any fish fillet completely. Mix all the spices together and then sprinkle over entire dish using fingers. Bake for 13 minutes or until fish flakes with a fork.

What we thought:

For those of you who don't like spice I would reduce it to 1/8 to 1/4 t or eliminate it altogether. It had a little bit of a kick to it but we like that in this house. Also, we like lemon so the fish was very lemony in flavor. If you aren't that big of a fan of lemon, just use one and follow the cut it into slices directions. We all liked it here so it is definitely going into the "use again" file.

If you try this out please let me know what you thought!  

Day 5 - Mexican Pie

Today for dinner we tried a new recipe called Mexican Pie.

The recipe: Mexican Pie (www.mommyskitchen.net) (mommyhatescooking.com)

1lb ground beef, browned
1 packet taco seasoning
1 15oz can corn, drained
1 8oz can tomato sauce
Shredded Mexican Style 4 Cheese Blend
Flour Tortillas

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook and drain ground beef, then add seasoning as instructed on package. Spray pie pan with cooking spray and pour beef on the bottom. Top the beef with the corn, and pour tomato sauce over, spreading it out evenly. Cut the tortillas into narrow strips and place them on top like you would a pie. Top the tortillas with cheese and bake for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted.
 

What I did differently:

I used frozen corn instead of canned and cheddar cheese instead of the Mexican. We also topped ours with sour cream and olives once it was cooked.

What we thought:

It was a big hit! The hubby and my toddler both loved it. Will definitely make it again and, as a plus, it was super easy and quick to make. 

Day 1

So, I've finally given in and started my own blog. Unlike a lot of blogs out there, this will not be about me or my family personally (I've never had the ability to keep a journal, let alone keep a baby book updated). Instead, I plan on focusing on the idea of trying something new each day. Each day I will try something new and post about it here. If it is a recipe I will share the recipe and how/if I changed anything while cooking. If it is an activity with the kids I will share the steps taken and how the kids reacted. If it is a date night idea I will let you know the steps involved and how it went. There will be pictures, successes, mistakes and, hopefully, lots of fun for my family. I hope everyone is excited for what is to come!

Oh, and if you are wondering what my new thing for today is, it's starting this blog. I have no idea what I am doing and have a lot of setting and templates to look through to get things going. If you want something more exciting, here's a recipe I tried last night.

Leek and Potato Soup (from epicurious.com)

Ingredients:

3 T butter
3 large leeks (white & light green part only), halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
2 large russet potatoes, peeled and diced
4 1/2 c (or more) chicken stock or canned low salt broth
2 T chopped chives

Melt butter in large saucepan over medium heat. Add leeks; stir to coat in butter. Cover; cook until leeks are tender, stirring often, about 10 minutes. Add potatoes. Cover and cook until potatoes begin to soften but don't brown, stirring often, about 10 minutes. Add chicken stock. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer about 30 minutes.

Puree soup until smooth. Thin with additional stock if too thick. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with chives.

What I changed:

I used 2 leeks and 3 potatoes since that is what I had on hand. I also added about 1 T pepper, 1 T salt, 1/2t garlic, 1/2t onion powder. It took about 2 more cups of stock to thin it down with the extra potato and we didn't add the chives.

What we thought:

Not only was it a new recipe but it was it the first time I made soup not from a can. My husband and I really liked it and we are willing to try it again.