Tomato Pie

Okay, I had never heard of tomato pie before last night, but I love everything tomato so I thought I'd give it a try. Besides the fact that I love tomatoes, it has ooey gooey cheese on top, and really who could turn that down! Holly was also pro on the tomato pie, albeit a little unsure of the mayo used in the cheese mixture on top, but it ended up turning out great! We use bought pie shells, quickly tossed them in the oven for 10 minutes to cook first, then piled fried onions, fresh garden tomatoes with the juice/seeds removed, sprinkled fresh chopped basil from Holly's garden on top of that and finished with a mayo and cheese mixture that had a shot of tobasco mixed in and voila! Delicious ooey gooey cheesey goodness! The link to the recipe from the SimplyRecipes website : Tomato Pie

This pic is right before the cheese/mayo mixture was dished on top.

You have to let it sit for a few minutes after taking it out of the oven, as it won't stay together the greatest when you serve it piping hot, but it still tastes good either way!

We used smoked gouda and a kraft four cheese blend, plus a bit of feta, so it was smoky, tangy, and delicious! I will definitely make this again!

Egg Drop Soup

The soup course for our meal was the easiest and quickest soup I've ever made. I found this recipe last night and couldn't believe how easy it sounds. And using ingredients that I have on hand makes it super economical and did I mention how quick it was? Egg drop soup is just as it sounds, soup that you drop eggs into, which makes it look like thin little ribbons in the soup.

It tastes distinctly Asian with the soy sauce, but it is msg and gluten free. All you need is soya sauce, chicken stock, green onions, ginger, eggs, cornstarch, and the recipe calls for mushrooms, but I conveniently left them out as I don't care for them! Seriously, this was ready in 10 minutes including prep time!

The link to the recipe direct from the SimplyRecipes website: Egg Drop Soup

Easy Brazilian Cheese Bread

So I found this recipe on SimplyRecipes.com, which is my new favorite food blog to follow. You whir up all the ingredients in a blender and pour it into your mini-muffin tin, which sounded super appealing and easy, right? Well, it would have been had we been able to find tapioca flour. Holly and I went to a couple different places looking for this type of flour and found every other type of flour under the sun, except tapioca flour. We were considering trying potato flour, but seeing as we hadn't made this before, we wanted to stick to the recipe. So we ended up using minute tapioca, as it said it could be used as a thickening agent instead of flour, cornstarch, etc. However, we ended up doubling the recipe by accident as the conversion we were using was a bit confusing. But needless to say, thank goodness we did because the original 16 tarts it would have made simply wouldn't have been enough!

Here is the direct link to simplyrecipes.com for: Easy Brazilian Cheese Bread

Our "dough" turned out a lot thicker than that in the recipe, due to the fact that we didn't have tapioca flour, per sei. So we had to spoon it into the cups instead of pouring.

The recipe calls for queso fresco, which is a Mexican fresh cheese, however, we don't have access to that so we used feta and they tasted delicious! (Although we could cut back a bit on the salt next time, due to the saltiness of feta already). The inside was a bit chewy/doughy like the recipe said it would, and it was really a nice texture.

We ate these as an appetizer, then with our soup, and then Holly also had the excellent idea of spreading jam on top and so we had them as dessert too! They tasted the best once they had cooled a bit, but they recommend eating them warm on the recipe.

Judy's Black Bean and Corn Casserole

With this whole pregnancy thing, my taste buds have gone through a whirlwind of flavor changes. For example, I now like fried onions on burgers, hot dogs, perogies, or anything else that it can be put on. This may not seem strange to some of you, but my parents (before they knew I was pregnant) seriously thought I was ill when I ordered a rink burger with onions. I'm also really needing strong vinegar things to actually taste any kind of tartness - for example when I'm putting mustard on my hot dog, I need to give my hot dog a bath in it so that it's dripping out of the bun. Otherwise, I don't taste it at all. Also, I've stopped being able to detect the strong smell of 'cream corn' after a stem cell transplant at work - it's a glaringly obvious smell that even just by walking by a patients room, you can smell it without a doubt. Now? a subtle smell if I really really look for it.

So imagine my surprise when all my life I've stayed away from anything spicy, only to find out that I can't taste the spicyness anymore, just the delicious flavour of the food! My husband's a fan of spicy food, so mom saved some of her leftover casserole for him to try (as she wouldn't think of making it when I come home since I can't eat it). Well he hardly had two bites of it as he wanted me to try it and I scarfed it down! Mom was shocked! (so was I to be honest), but alas, a new casserole recipe for you guys! My mom threw a little of this and a little of that together one day and it came out great! I've already made it and doubled the recipe so we could enjoy it for a few days!

Judy's Black Bean and Corn Casserole

1/2-3/4 lb ground beef

1 can of corn

1 can of black beans, strained

1 taco seasoning packet

1 tbsp chille powder

salt & pepper

garlic (powder or the real deal - as much as you want)

1 small jar salsa

1 prepared box of Kraft Dinner

1 cup grated cheese

Fry up your ground beef with some chopped onion, then strain and rinse to drain some fat. Return to large skillet and add corn, black beans, all the seasonings, and salsa. Add your prepared box of kraft dinner (with cheese stirred into cooked noodles already) to your beef mixture and mix together. Pour into a casserole dish or roaster and top with grated cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until cheese melts and you're too hungry to wait any longer.

When I doubled the recipe, I used 1.5 lbs ground beef and two boxes of KD and two cups grated cheese on top and 2 tbsp chile powder. Otherwise, I kept the liquid from the corn and added about 1/2 cup of water to rinse out the salsa jar. Myself, I would probably only use half a taco seasoning package if I wasn't doubling the recipe, but that's just my personal taste. Enjoy!

Slow Sour Creamed Beef

This was the easiest and tastiest beef I've made in a long time and all because I needed to use up some freezer food, as we're moving soon! Anybody can make this, whether you're confident in the kitchen or not. The sour cream doesn't really taste like sour cream anymore and my husband who HATES sour cream absolutely loved this dish. So don't let that ingredient stop you from making it! The sauce is super yummy over perogies, rice, or pasta. The beef is so tender that it melts in your mouth! (and this is poor quality stewing beef that I used!). But you need to plan ahead as it takes four hours to cook slowly in your oven. This could easily be turned into a slow cooker recipe. Okay on to the recipe...

Shawna's Slow Sour Creamed Beef

2 lbs stewing beef

2 cups water

2 tbsp beef oxo

salt & pepper

garlic powder or the real deal

1 cup sour cream

Combine everything except for the sour cream and put in large roaster. Cook at 250 degrees F for four hours. Remove beef with slotted spoon after cooking, and place in frying pan with sour cream. Sour cream will melt and coat, about 5 min. Transfer into casserole dish, add a couple tbsp of the beef juice from the roaster to the beef mixture for taste and to thin it a bit. Pop the casserole dish back into the still warm (but now shut off oven) until the rest of your supper is ready!

Lasagna

You always need a good lasagna recipe and this one is easy and delicious. By using the oven ready noodles, it takes out a lot of the prep time! I throw spinach into my lasagna to add more veggies where you can't taste them! (I'm always trying to fool myself into eating more veggies than I think I am - I have to force myself to eat them!)

Lasagna

1/2 chopped onion

1-2 lbs ground beef

1/2-1 jar tomato pasta sauce

1/2 cup water

oregano, garlic, s&p, parsley

9-12 oven ready lasagna noodles

a bunch of chopped spinach, stems removed

500ml cottage cheese

grated mozzarella, divided

Brown ground beef and onion, stir in tomato sauce and water to make it really watery. Add spices. In a separate bowl, mix together cottage cheese, spinach, and half of the mozza cheese.

In a 9x13 pan, layers as follows:

1/3 of beef mixture

3-4 lasagna noodles

1/2 of cottage cheese/spinach mix

1/3 of beef mixture

3-4 lasagna noodles

rest of the cottage cheese/spinach mix

3-4 lasagna noodles

Rest of the beef mix

Top with remaining mozza cheese

Cover and bake at 350 for 45-50 min, removing the cover in the last 10 min of baking.

Let stand 10 min before serving and cutting

*Sauce is watery so that the noodles will soften and soak up the extra moisture.

Black Bean Chicken Quesadilla

I used to have an old quesadilla recipe that called for antipasto. Well, that's expensive and I use it so seldom that I would usually end up throwing out most of a jar. Tonight, I came up with a bit different recipe. We had some left over chicken breasts in the fridge, so I thought this was a perfect way to use them up! Also, I've never actually cooked with black beans before so it was a good excuse to try them (and get that can out of my cupboard!) I used some flavor inspirations from an earlier post of chile lime chicken, of which I got the recipe from Amanda Pokentickle. Mike absolutely loved these! And it was soft and easy to chew as he had his wisdom teeth out a few days ago!

Black Bean Chicken Quesadilla

two cooked chicken breasts, cut up into bite site pieces

1/2 can black beans, strained and rinsed

1/2 can corn

1 large tomato, seeds removed

1/2 tsp chipotle chile seasoning (VE seasoning)

1 TBSP chile powder (I use lots since my stock is old)

a few squirts of lime juice

1 cup shredded cheddar or Monterey jack

four large whole wheat tortilla's

Mix all ingredients together, except for the cheese and shells. Microwave for 2 minutes. On a large greased baking dish, place tortilla down, spread a bit of cheese on 1/2, then add filling, and top with more grated cheese, folding the other half over to cover. Repeat with remaining tortilla's. Bake in 400 degree oven for 5-10 min. Turn the broiler on for a couple minutes to brown the top.

** I added about 1/2 tsp lime juice, next time I'd add double this as you couldn't really taste it at all.

*** You can mix up a double recipe, omitting the tomato, and freeze the other half so you have another meal ready to go!