Seriously fast dinner

January 13, 2014 / Winnie / Leave a comment

Have you ever had an evening where dinner needed to be super fast….with a limited fridge/pantry selection? I have and this is what I ended up with during the last experiment……

I had the following in my fridge:

fake cheese

tortilla

tomato

olive oil and balsamic vinegar

Let’s do this!

Drizzle some olive over the tortilla and your cheese (or in my case…the fake cheese) and pop it in the oven at 400 for about 5 minutes.

Slice an amazing tomato…yummy!

Add those slices to the crispy yumminess…..and pop it back in the oven.

Wait till there is a little more melty-ness and then pull the whole thing out again. Final step……balsamic vinegar….Yeah! Now Eat.

Caprese Salad- Summer Favorite

September 23, 2013November 6, 2013 / Winnie / 1 Comment

It’s the end of summer …sad face… even more of a sad face is what the storm did to my tomato plants. Since I do not have any left….my mom and some people from work have been feeding my tomato addiction. THANK YOU!!!!

As an end of the summer farewell…I try to make caprese salad as often as possible….so during the past few weeks, that means almost every night. My version of the tomato salad comes with mint. I adore the mint in the salad…if I have both basil and mint, I put both in. But I prefer the mint taste.

I know that I am not the first person to put mint in this salad….but dang it….I am doing my part to spread the word of this awesome variation!!!!

My mouth is watering just looking at this!

Creme Brulee – me style

August 7, 2013November 6, 2013 / Winnie / Leave a comment

So this post is all pictures and barely a recipe. Because I just dumped stuff in!!!! Oh, Snap.

So I took some cream (1 quart) and some imitation vanilla (2 tsp)….yup, I am a cheater.

I heated it up on the stove……no boiling! Once the cream is heated, turn off the heat. In another bowl, take the like 10, 11 egg yokes and whisk in 2/3 or 3/4 c sugar. This needs to be whisked together something fierce. The color should be much paler than how you started out. Add the heated cream sssllllooooowwwwwwwllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy and whisk, whisk, whisk, whisk. Once the 2 liquids are combined….get some ramekins. Place those ramekins in a baking pan of some kind….well, the kind with a rim. The reason you need a rim is to add some water to the pan to help with the cooking process. Pour the eggycream into the ramekins and add water till it is half way up the ramekins. Then there was some oven action…..325 for 40 minutes…….and then there was this………..

Ya-Ya…I ran out of ramekins. Keep watch during baking so there is no browning. Anywho….they are so good. You can let these refrigerate for a few hours…but in my opinion they taste best if you let them go overnight. Next day Creme Brulee is AWESOME!!!!!! Okay….fun part. The torching! I bought this super sleek-looking kitchen torch….only to realize that it was total CRAP. So mister got out the garage torch.

HAHAHAHAHA. Sprinkle a light dusting of fine sugar on the top and torch away. See below for some parting shots of the yummy.

Winner, winner, chicken fried steak dinner…..

July 23, 2013November 6, 2013 / Winnie / Leave a comment

So I am trying my hand at some intense old fashioned awesome housewife stuff. I got home from work today and decided to turn out a great chicken fried steak dinner…with mashed potatoes….and gravy. YUM.

So…..here is how I did it. I defrosted some steaks from the freezer….used a meat tenderizer to pound out the meat (hahahaha!!)

Bowl 1 1 egg mixed with 1 cup milk

Bowl 2 1 cup flour with paprika, cayenne, blackening seasoning….cause its my fav

I dredged the steak in the egg, then the flour bowl, then the egg and then the four again. I dropped the steaks into our cast iron skillet, preheated with 1/2 cup canola oil.

Here is a pic of my mess. I just put steak into the skillet. Blue pot has my potatoes and the back sauce pan has some corn for the side.

So messy…..so not healthy….so GOOD!!! I cooked the steaks for 3 minutes on each side. Once the crunchies were nice and brown, I pulled the steak and prepared the skillet for the gravy. Keep the majority of the oil in the pan….put the rest in a can or one of those fancy oil catchers. Add in like 1/3 cup or 1/2 cup of flour and whisk….whisk….and whisk some more.

Once the rue (sp???) is nice, smooth and goldie brown…add in about a cup of milk. You can add more depending on the consistency you and the fam like. Make sure you taste this stuff!! I added in a bunch more blackening seasoning to make it just how we like it.