Tasty Tuesday – Pi Day & St Patrick’s Day

I love Pi Day so much! Pies are one of my favourite foods. Every country that I’ve lived in has pies of some sort that I love. The United States, of course, has fruit pies. Jamaica has patties & meatloaf. The UK has cheese and onion pasties & Cornish pasties. New Zealand meat pies. We also did a Pi Day for our oldest son when he turned 3.14 years. This year we will have a Pi Day for our youngest son. Pie, pie, pie! We also throw in a bit of education about what Pi is, but pie is the best part of it!

This year, I made a breakfast pie. I used this recipe. It wasn’t my favourite breakfast casserole-type thing I’ve ever had – it was a bit bland. It was still pretty tasty and definitely has possibilities for adding variety.

For lunch, I made a cheeseburger pie and it was so good! The boys really liked it and it was easy to make.

For dinner, I made New Zealand meat pies. They are fabulous!

For dessert, I made mini peach pies. They went fast! I think Colin ate at least four of them.

Moving on to St Patrick’s Day…

We had some friends round and I made shepherd’s pie and sautéed cabbage. For dessert, I made Guinness cupcakes with Bailey’s frosting. So very good!

For the kids, I made little pots of gold at the end of the rainbow using a plastic bucket and pipe cleaners.

I’m looking forward to our family St Patrick’s Day dinner with my parents tonight. Traditions are great!

Tasty Tuesday – Pepperoni Pizza Puffs

I first made these Pepperoni Pizza Puffs for my son’s birthday party last year. This last week we had a recipe exchange at the mom’s group that I go to so I thought I’d make them again because they are super easy & great for kids.

Sadly, I forgot to take a photo! They look just like the picture on the website I linked to. They are tasty, easy, kids love them and can be made ahead and reheated.

Enjoy!

Tasty Tuesday – Tilapia with Thai Coconut Curry Sauce

This one is definitely going to be a repeat offender! Oh my goodness. A huge hit with the whole family. So tasty & easy. There are a lot of ingredients, but because I cook curries quite a bit, I keep most of this stuff on hand.

The boys both ate an entire fish fillet each & loved the sauce with the rice. Highly recommend this recipe.

Tasty Tuesday – No Bake Energy Bites

I made these No Bake Energy Bites today. Supremely easy & very tasty. I love them, but I’m not sure that Colin will like them – he has issues with raw oats due to some trauma during his childhood. They are made with ingredients that I usually have on hand (a part from the flaxseed – which I skipped & just added extra oats). The recipe made about 22 of the little bites. They keep in the fridge for a week & are very addicting!

Since they are energy bites, I’m going to have a couple in hopes that I don’t fall asleep this afternoon…

 

Tasty Tuesday – A British Thanksgiving

Because Thanksgiving & Christmas are only a month a part, our family decided to switch things up for our Thanksgiving meal so that we don’t have two overly similar meals at the two holidays. Each year we pick a different country & prepare our Thanksgiving meal with an international slant. We’ve been doing this for years – we’ve done Jamaican, German, French, Cajun, Mexican, Italian, and Southern (we consider the Southern United States to be a foreign country although we’ve all lived there!)

This year we went for British. We always have turkey & will often have traditional sides, but with an international twist. Here is this year’s menu:

Turkey
Stuffing
Brussels Sprouts
Smashed Roast Potatoes
Spinach Salad
Yorkshire Pudding
Bread Sauce
Homemade Cranberry Sauce

For dessert:

Spotted Dick with Warm Custard Sauce
Pumpkin Cobbler

It was a yummy meal. I was in charge of the Brussels sprouts & the potatoes. A couple of people hadn’t had Brussels sprouts for years & didn’t have good memories of them. I converted one with this recipe, but not the other. I also had no idea that they are actually called Brussels sprouts & not brussel sprouts until I was researchign recipes – you learn something new… This was the second time I made the smashed roast potatoes – the first time I wrote about here. They were still super good.

All the elements of the meal were so tasty. The spotted dick was very good – haven’t had it for years – the custard sauce is always a great addition.

Whether you are an American or not, there’s never a wrong time to be thankful! I am overwhelmed by all the blessings in my life & I want to be thankful everyday.

Tasty Tuesday – A Few Fall Favourites

I had a hankering for meat pie this week so I made a ground beef pot pie. I roughly followed this recipe. I didn’t use a packet gravy mix though, I made my own. I used ground beef instead of cubed & I used what vegetables I had on hand, corn, celery & carrots.

It was so yummy & easy to make.

I also wanted to share my go to recipe for roast chicken. It always turns out great. Crispy on the outside, moist & juicy on the inside. Only two ingredients – chicken & salt. I always plan to add herbs, but I love the simplicity of just the salt. It always takes longer than 50-60 minutes to cook – I would say it’s about 80 minutes in all, I measure the temperature and make sure its 180F.

I made a couple of new sweet treats. The first is pumpkin cupcakes. I saw the idea on Pinterest to use a box cake mix and mix it with a can of pumpkin – no other ingredients – to make a cake. I decided to try it out. I used a yellow cake mix, canned pumpkin & because I wanted to accentuate the pumpkin flavour, I added nutmeg, cinnamon, all spice & ground cloves. I chose to do cupcakes & topped them with caramel sauce & an acorn (made previously, here). I thought they turned out really well – they were moist & very appropriate for Fall. I loved the caramel sauce too.

Finally, I made some fun little pilgrim hat cookies, seen here. I used fudge stripe cookies & mini Reeses peanut butter cups. I attached them together & drew on them with writing icing.

Hope you have a tasty week!

Tasty Tuesday – Lettuce Wraps, Mug Brownies & Smashed Potatoes

It’s November! We have been having a lovely Fall. Busy completing items on our Autumn Bucket List. I have to say, I love having the bucket list – it is a great reminder of the things that make this season special & of course, it’s a list so I get to check things off – one of my most favourite things to do ever.

I love lettuce wraps & so I finally attempted to make them myself. I have never been to PF Changs, but I found a recipe that is a PF Changs Lettuce Wrap copycat. It has heaps of ingredients & is a bit involved, but very manageable with some planning. They turned out great & we all enjoyed them. I made some rice as the boys weren’t too sure about eating from a leaf of lettuce.

I also found an incredibly dangerous recipe on Pinterest. Seriously, I kind of wish I could unlearn this. It’s a recipe for Mug Brownies – made in the microwave, in about a minute. Um, danger, danger, danger! It was really nice & we all loved it. Super easy to make & not in the least bit healthy. Now to forget the recipe…

Another lovely recipe I spotted on Pinterest was for Smashed Roasted Potatoes. Potatoes really deserve their own food group. This recipe didn’t disappoint at all. I thought it was pretty easy & smashing the potatoes was very satisfying.

I hope you had a great October & that November holds lots of warm drinks (if you are in the Northern Hemisphere), good books & thankfulness.

Tasty Tuesday – Crescent Rolls & Acorns

Just a couple of tasty treats to share with you today.

First is a homemade chicken salad wrapped in crescent rolls. They were quite tasty – Colin & the boys really liked them. Let’s face it, you can pretty much wrap anything in a crescent roll, bake it & it’s going to be fabulous! I saw the recipe on Pinterest, you can find it here.

My second fun treat, I also saw on Pinterest. It looked so easy & super fun. I actually combined two similar recipes – they are here & here. They were super easy to make, tasted good (chocolate & nilla wafers – what’s not to love?), and were so fun to look at. I used writing icing to attach the chocolate to the wafers, though next time I’ll probably just use frosting or nutella instead.

What tasty treats have you been making lately?

Tasty Tuesday – October 12-18, 2011

It’s Tasty Tuesday! Here’s a round-up of new recipes I tried this week.

OK, so I’ve never made rice krispy treats. How did this happen? The situation was rectified this week though. Jude & I made the treats & they were good. Super simple recipe:

Rice Krispy Treats

5 c. Rice Krispies
1/4 c. butter
7 oz. jar marshmallow creme

Melt butter in 3 quart saucepan. Add marshmallow creme and cook over low heat, stirring constantly until marshmallow creme and butter are well blended. Remove from heat. Add Rice Krispies and stir until well coated with mixture.
Press warm marshmallow treat mixture lightly into a buttered 13 x 9 inch pan. Cut into squares when cool. Yield 24 (2 inch) squares.

We added some Fall/Halloween sprinkles & used mini muffin tins to form the treats. So easy & so yummy! This definitely won’t be the last time we make these.

I’m a big fan of Sausage Balls so when I came across this recipe on Pinterest, I knew I had to give it a try. The addition of cream cheese? Genius!

I was also looking for something quick & easy that the boys would enjoy. I found this recipe on a packet of crescent rolls. I am so excited that Safeway is carrying nitrate-free hot dogs now – they taste great.

Crescent Roll Hot Dogs

INGREDIENTS:

8 hot dogs
4 slices (3/4 oz each) American cheese, each cut into 6 strips
1 can (8 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated crescent dinner rolls

DIRECTIONS:

Heat oven to 375°F. Slit hot dogs to within 1/2 inch of ends; insert 3 strips of cheese into each slit.
Separate dough into triangles. Wrap dough triangle around each hot dog. Place on ungreased cookie sheet, cheese side up.
Bake at 375°F. for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

I used grated cheese & it worked great.

Finally, I made a crustless quiche for breakfast today. Actually, it will be breakfast for the rest of the week! Again, an easy recipe with lots of options.

quick quiche

4 oz light cream cheese, softened
8 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 cooked bacon
1 cup frozen broccoli, chopped (thawed and squeeze out excess moisture)
10 oz frozen spinach, chopped (thawed and squeeze out excess moisture)
5 fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 1/2 cups cheese of your choice

blend cream cheese, eggs and milk together well (there will still be some chunks of cream cheese) stir in remaining ingredients. pout into two greased quiche or pie pans. bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.

I basically had none of those ingredients on hand so I used spinach & ham. Turned out great!

Challenge #3 – Thai Chicken Curry in Coconut Milk

I fixed Thai Chicken Curry tonight & it was yummy. I made a couple of changes & will tweak it a bit more next time. I added some sweetener to it as I felt it needed something. I would also use more than a teaspoon of curry paste next time – it didn’t have much kick to it. We all enjoyed it though & Jude even commented on how good the sauce was. I also added green onions at the end.

Thai Chicken Curry in Coconut

To find out more about this challenge, click here.