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Archive for the ‘Easy Recipes’ Category

Cream Puffs with Vanilla Pudding

Posted in Desserts, Easy Recipes, Entertaining at Home, Recipes, tagged , , , on June 24, 2011| 3 Comments »

It had been half of forever since I  made cream puffs so when the mood struck the other day, I jumped right into preparations.

They aren’t hard to make and are so tasty when stuffed with a delicious, creamy filling and dusted with sugar.

Make a batch this weekend and see if your family doesn’t act a little bit appreciative of your efforts.

Ingredients for Cream Puffs

 

Boil the butter and water

 

Add flour all at once.

 

Stir until it forms a ball then cool for 10 minutes.

 

Add eggs one at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon.

 

Drop onto a greased baking sheet (I lined mine with parchment) about three inches apart.

 

Bake until golden brown and lovely. Set aside and let cool completely.

 

Ingredients for pudding.

 

 

Stir together dry ingredients, mix in milk then cook until thick and bubbly.

 

Add milk mixture, gradually, to beaten eggs. Mix completely.

 

Pour egg mixture back into pudding.

 

 

Cook until bubbly, but not boiling, remove from heat then add butter and vanilla.

 

Pour pudding into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and chill until ready to serve.

 

Split cream puffs open and remove any soft dough in the middle.

 

Fill with pudding.

 

If you are a chocolate freak like me, drizzle with chocolate before dusting with powdered sugar and devouring.

Cream Puffs

1/2 cup butter

1 cup flour

1 cup water

1/8 teaspoon salt

4 eggs

powdered sugar (for dusting)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine butter and water and salt. Bring to a boil. Add flour all at once, stirring vigorously. Cook and stir until mixture forms a ball that doesn’t separate. Remove from heat. Cool 10 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating with a wooden spoon after each addition until smooth.

Drop batter by heaping tablespoons, three inches apart, on a greased baking sheet (I lined mine with parchment). Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack. Split puffs and remove any soft dough from inside . Fill with pudding, dust with sugar, serve and enjoy. You could also fill with whipped cream, ice cream, sherbet or fruit.

Vanilla Pudding

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

3 cups milk

2 beaten eggs

1 tablespoon butter

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

In a heavy 2 quart saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch and flour. Stir in milk then cook over medium hit until mixture is thickened and bubbly. Stir constantly.  When it starts to bubble, cook for two minutes more. Remove from heat and gradually stir about one cup of the mixture into the beaten eggs. Return the egg mixture to the pan and cook until nearly bubbly but do not boil. Reduce heat and cook for two additional minutes, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat, stir in butter and vanilla. Pour into a bowl, cover the top with plastic wrap, pressing it down to the surface of the pudding and chill until ready to serve cream puffs.

If you are a chocolate addict like me, you can drizzle chocolate sauce over the top before you dust it with sugar.

Enjoy!

She Who Loves Cream Puffs Entirely Too Much

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Beef Stir Fry

Posted in Easy Recipes, Fast Recipes, Main Dish, Recipes, tagged , , on April 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

If you are looking for a filling, fast and tasty meal, whip up a skillet full of beef stir fry. It comes together quickly and could even be called a healthy meal (which most of my blog posts aren’t. Sorry I grew up on a farm where butter was liberally applied and included in everything. What can I say?)

Give this a whirl and see if it doesn’t make for a fast and easy meal.

Ingredients for Beef Stir Fry - you can use whatever veggies you like, this just happened to be what I had available when I decided to make this for dinner.

I use stew meat and slice it thinly for stir-fry. Because the meat is still a little frozen, it is super easy to slice.

Wash and slice up vegetables. We used celery, zuchinni and yellow squash. You could also use broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, onion, corn, etc.

Brown your meat in a hot skillet. I got out my Big Bertha cast iron skillet so it could hold all the ingredients easily.

Add veggies once the meat is browned.

Add beef broth and simmer until veggies are tender. Thanks Captain Cavedweller for pouring in the broth so I could take photos!

Steaming hot and ready to eat. Serve over rice and you've got a complete meal, ready in minutes!

Beef Stir Fry

1-2 pounds of stew meat, thinly sliced

4 stalks of celery, thinly sliced

1 zucchini, thinly sliced

1 yellow squash, thinly sliced

1 can water sliced chestnust

parsley flakes

onion flakes

beef broth

salt

all-purpose seasoning

Brown meat in a skillet on medium-high heat.  When browned, add in veggies and enough beef broth to cover the mixture. Cover and reduce heat to medium. Simmer until veggies are tender. Serve over rice. We like to sprinkle chow mein noodles on top. You can use any combination of vegetables. Onions and peppers and I are not on speaking terms, so we make do with onion flakes.

Enjoy!

She Who Likes Easy to Throw Together Meals

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Hawaiian Hoagies

Posted in Easy Recipes, Entertaining at Home, Fast Recipes, Main Dish, Quick and Easy, Recipes, tagged , , on April 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Hawaiian Hoagie

On evenings when I’m tired, work late or just feel like a lazy slug (which oddly enough, happens quite a bit) I like to make something fast and easy for dinner. Even better, I like Captain Cavedweller to make something fast for dinner.

Those hoagie sandwiches are filling and tasty and because they are toasted, nice and warm on a cool evening.

And simple enough that anyone can make them. Really!

You can literally be eating your dinner in less than 10 minutes. Serve with a side of cottage cheese and fruit if you are inclined for a healthy choice or a plate full of crunchy chips if you are inclined to go the more flavorful salt-packed route.

Ingredients for Hawaiian Hoagies

Put a light layer of mayo on your hoagie. Or not. You could also put on pizza sauce if you so desired.

Layer on some Canadian Bacon.

Sprinkle on some shredded mozzarella cheese.

Toast until the cheese is lightly browned and extra flavorful then add on your pineapple.

Top with some sliced black olives.

Enjoy!

Hawaiian Hoagie

Mayo

Shredded Mozzarella

Hoagie Rolls

Canadian Bacon

Olives

Pineapple

How much of each ingredient is really dependent on how many sandwiches you are making and how much stuff you want on each one. For me, I use three slices of Canadian bacon and one pineapple ring with a sprinkling of cheese. Hubby’s sandwich on the other hand features eight slices of bacon, three pineapple rings and we won’t discuss the cheese. At all.

Make it however you like and enjoy!

She Who Likes Easy Dinners

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Fruit Pizza

Posted in Desserts, Easy Recipes, Entertaining at Home, Recipes, tagged , on March 25, 2011| 5 Comments »

I was desperate for something fruity and light and delicious the other day to make for a party. So I decided to finally give fruit pizza a try.

Why didn’t someone tell me how perfectly wonderful and easy to make this is? Why have you been holding out on me?

Needless to say, I will definitely be making this again.

Ingredients for Fruit Pizza. The blob in the pan is sugar cookie dough, cooked longer than it should have been, thanks for asking.

Mix whipped cream cheese with powdered sugar for the filling.

Spread over your sugar cookie crust. I would mention at this point that you should cut your pizza into slices or bars at this point.

It was not so much fun trying to cut through all the fruit.

If you are using berries and they are not in season, you can bring out their flavor by slicing and sprinkling with sugar. Let rest at room temperature about 20 minutes. I’m fairly certain people think I am nuts when I purchase berries because if they don’t smell like berries, they aren’t going in my cart. Go ahead, sniff a carton and see how many strange looks you get over in the produce department.

Once you’ve got the pizza, start layering on the fruit.

Keep on layering all that fruity goodness.

Arrange on a platter and watch them disappear!

Fruit Pizza

Sugar cookie crust, baked (you can make from scratch or be lazy like me and purchase a tube of cookie dough

1 cup whipped cream cheese

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 banana, sliced

1 kiwi, peeled and sliced

1 cup sliced strawberries

1/2  cup grapes, sliced in half

1 can mandarin oranges

Bake your sugar cookie crust and let cool completely. You can use a round pizza pan or a baking sheet. I knew I was serving this on a rectangular platter so cutting it into squares made more sense.

Mix together cream cheese and sugar. Remove crust from pan then spread with whipped cream cheese. Slice.

Top with sliced fruit and serve.

How easy is that!

Go ahead, try it, you’ll like it!

She Who Now Loves Fruit Pizza

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