Meatloaf and Painting

Okay, I was bad, I was too tired to post last night. We didn't finish painting until 12:15 and we didn't get back home until 1:30. But here's the meatloaf recipe from last night, and tonight I'll throw in the Chicken Alfredo recipe as well!


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Joe's Meatloaf

2 pounds of ground meat (or three if you have a large family)
2 Eggs
1 package of McCormick Meat Loaf Mix (makes life a little easy)
2 slices of fresh bread
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup milk
2 tbsp of Mustard
1 tbsp of Onion Powder

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly beat the eggs, set aside, take a blender or food processor and throw in the two slices of bread. Blend until it becomes crumbs. Throw into the bowl, then add the eggs, ketchup, mustard, milk, and onion powder. Mix thoroughly,  then add the meat. Now, meatloaf is best made with your hands so roll up your sleeves. Grease your loaf pan first, and dig in and mix it around. When you finish this process mold the meat into your well greased loaf pan, cover with foil, and place in the oven for 50 minutes.
Once 50 minutes has passed, take it out, remove the foil and coat with ketchup. Now, don't overdo this because it'll kill the texture and flavor, but just streak the top with zig zags several times, or until content. Place back in the oven and let it finish.

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My dad used to make this a lot. Now we use freshly chopped onions, green peppers, stuff like that, but I'll leave it up to you to add those. This is really a recipe you can easily make your own

Renovating Pizza's

So today was spent with a rug doctor, a bucket, a sponge, and diluted bleach. Whoo.
I woke up and got ready, the boys got ready and we all went out to the store, I got a new shirt, which, was kinda nifty I guess. Got this weeks groceries a day late lol, and then we headed over to the house to do renovations! Thus, I finally made pizza.

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Rectangle Pizza Pie!

1 can of Pillsbury Thin Crust Pizza Dough (you can get thick crust too, either way, it's good)
1 Jar of Pizza Sauce or Plain Spaghetti Sauce
2 cups of Mozzarella Cheese
1 cup of Colby Jack
Pepperoni (optional)


Find a rather large rectangular pan, this makes a fairly large pizza. You have been warned. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Precook the dough for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and coat with a nice layer of sauce, layer with the mozzarella cheese, then pepperoni. Now, if pepperoni isn't you thing, you can ACTUALLY add anything you're in the mood for. Once you have your toppers on it, layer with the Colby Jack, place in oven for 10 minutes, and you're done!

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Okay so I enjoy this one, I found out if I buy large bags of cheese, spaghetti sauce, and several cans. I still save money and space in the long run. It's also convenient because you can add ANYTHING to it. I personally LOVE Hawaiian Pizza, but I don't eat pork, so I can use turkey pepperoni instead. I can also add mushrooms, onions, black olives, and anything else I want to it. So all in all, stop calling Domino's, stop being tricked into thinking frozen pizza is so simple and easy, and try this recipe.

Sick Days and Humorous Warnings

So today was another sick day. Still alot of arguing. My mom is definitely a tough person to get along with. She's always had her problems and I just don't know how much longer I can handle living with it now. I mean, I love my mommy, but, I hate who's she's become now. Ever since dad sent us back from Texas it's like she changed. So, needless to say I haven't enjoyed my mom since I was five. I guess you could say she's like a stainless steel pan. It starts off clean and shiny. very easy to deal with and take care of and clean, but over time it starts absorbing the food and it looses it's shine. It's no longer clean and begins to get old, and well, angry looking. O_o. Not a perfect figure of speech or way of relating her in an sensible way to cooking, which is what this blog is about, but hey. It's definitely worth a try.

Anyways, I wanted to leave this on a little note about cooking.

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What NOT to do when cooking.

• Looking at something other than what your cutting, it hurts when the knife cuts off some skin.
• Forgetting that you're boiling water.
• When broiling bread for homemade Texas Toast, do NOT close the oven, and only keep it in there for five minutes.
• Never store the salt and sugar in similar unmarked containers.
• Artificial Sweetener is NOT a replacement for sugar in spaghetti sauce.
• Never store onions and potatoes together, it will make them go bad quicker.
• Tub butter tastes better than stick butter in Mac n' cheese, and is better for you. (I mean margarine, but butter sounds more natural to me).
• If at all possible, homemade is better than store bought. Store bought icing is just a crime in general.
• No matter how hard you try, if you are just learning to cook, your food will never resemble the picture, so don't worry.
• When cooking, just have fun, sometimes mistakes can taste REALLY REALLY good, so be creative and soon you won't be afraid to just throw ingredients in without measuring.

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I'll keep posting things like these that way sick days are eventful still. So hopefully days like these don't turn out to be empty posts, or recipe's thrown in off the top of my head since I don't want to accidentally re-use anything.

Feeling Under the Weather Egg Sammiches

Okay, so today I'm a tad bit under the weather. Was up at four this morning to some not so pleasant arguing, so this raging pounding pain in my skull? Yeah, not fun. So, my brother ordered pizza, and of course it was pepperoni and pineapple, which, I might add is AMAZING! Thus, dinner was not made, and lunch was subway, and of course I don't really enjoy breakfast, but I WILL let you in on a little secret! Nick makes the BEST eggs, one reason why he's an amazing fiancee, and even my brother Mike agrees, his eggs are delicious! They also make good sammiches.

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Egg Sandwiches

2 Large eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp Curry Powder
1/4 tsp Garlic Powder
Salt and Pepper (to taste)
(You can also add cheese, salsa, bacon, pepperoni, anything really, to these to make it your own)
2 Slices of Bread
2 slices of cheese (you can have less cheese, but Nicky Poo loves cheese.)

Break both the eggs in a bowl, pour in the milk and spices, mix lightly with a fork. Make sure to really grease a nonstick small pan that comes with a lid. The lid is absolutely vital to how these eggs are made. Turn the temperature of the burner to high just long enough to get the pan nice and hot, then pour in the egg, reduce heat to medium, and put the lid on top of it. If the lid isn't see through, then keep watching it closely. If it is, then eye it while you place two slices of bread in a toaster and prepare two slices of cheese. Once the egg is mostly cooked, flip it and cook it for 1 more minute. Remove from heat and fold the egg into a square, or cut it down. Layer 1 slice of bread, 1 slice cheese, egg, cheese, then bread.

Now you can cut the sandwiches with a cookie cutter into hearts, ginger bread men, anything really. Just cut the bread separately from everything else.

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This is slowly becoming a favorite of mine. I'm terrible at breakfast foods, so this is really easy even for me. I would recommend eating this with a nice fruity yogurt, or bacon, or my personal favorite fried potatoes. But hopefully tomorrow I shall be doing a nice homemade pizza since Little Miss has her first doctor's appointment, and anything else would be a little bit stressful. Though right now she's being a little pissy, and Atra just did a back flip off the rocking chair onto his head so now he's crying. Oh I love my Three Ring Circus.

Bite Bite's and Cheese Burger Stuffs

So today I was taking a nap and my darling son crawled beside me ever so quietly wearing his Halloween costume (a dinosaur), and narrowly avoiding sitting on his little sisters legs, and without a seconds hesitation screamed "RAWR!" I woke up, screamed, and fell back onto my pillow hyper ventilating. Needless to say, his daddy and his uncle were quiet amused. I however, was not.

So, onto food. Tonight I am torn between hamburgers or Sloppy Joe Hamburger Helper. At this moment, I am literally asking Nick which of these he finds more appetizing. Let's see. *two minutes of discussion* We determined Sloppy Joe Hamburger Helper due to a lack of ingredients. So, let's see how I can make this a little non conventional.

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Sloppy Joe Hamburger Helper : My Way

1 lb Hamburger
1 box of Sloppy Joe Hamburger Helper
Onion Powder (to taste)
Seasoning Salt (to taste)
Worcestershire Sauce
3 tbsp. Steak Sauce
1/4 cup Milk
2 2/3 Cup Water


Okay, so do as the box says. Cook your meat, but while it's still raw, pour on Worcestershire Sauce until meat is well coated, or just a little if it's too much for you. Pour in three table spoons of steak sauce and sprinkle with your dry ingredients lightly. Cook until you see very little to no red. Drain the meat. (Now I dump it all into a strainer to make it easy instead of trying to drain it out the side of a skillet, then dump it straight back in after I get my liquids measured.) Add the pasta, cheese packet, milk, and water. Bring to a boil, then immediately turn the heat off, take it off the burner, set a timer for 14 minutes, and enjoy.


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Now today I was in a lazy mood. I'll have these days and you'll learn 50 new ways to make hamburger helper lol. But anyways, I really like the way this turned out, I already have plans on ways I want to mix this up for a later point in time. I paired this main dish with corn bread stuffing and peas. I think mashed potatoes and peas would've been better, but I'm tired of instant mashed potatoes, and I haven't been to the store to buy a nice sized bag for homemade.
Tomorrow I may do hamburgers, then, I'll be divulging my dad's hamburger recipe and all of it's yummy comforting goodness. Anyways, off to start getting the kids ready for bed and hopefully by next week I'll be out of this slump and post some really GOOD foods.

Introductions and Chicken

Okay, so first off. I wanted to write a cookbook for the everyday at home cook. How did this start? Well I was browsing my Woman's Day App on my fiance's Ipod and when I pulled up 'Quick and Easy Week Night Recipes' I saw that each one would've taken over an hour to fix PROPERLY between herding children, or getting stuff done, which, is the case for the mass majority of people out there who NEED Easy and Quick Recipes. Then I looked at their 'From the Pantry' section, and I think one or two items which are basic staples in EVERY recipe is in there, and the rest aren't even common ingredients found in the average kitchen. So, here we go. I'm going to start posting up recipes, revamped ways to fix things we'd eat every day, and broken down versions of their 'easy' recipes. What makes it better is the fact I'm cooking these recipes myself, so I'll know. My only problem, I rarely measure, I like the excitement of a dish never tasting the same.
Now for the recipe.

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Seasoned Chicken Bake

3 Large Boneless chicken Breasts
(You're going to want to cut these in half, then make a slit halfway through down the center and set aside.)
1 tbsp Seasoning Salt
1 tbsp Oregano
Onion Powder (optional) (Probably 1/2 tbsp)
Lemon Pepper (Probably 1/2 tbsp)
1/2 cup Flour (probably less I mean, I ended up tossing some, but well that happens)
Milk
Melted Butter (optional, I'm probably going to leave this out, I'll let you know by the time I put it in the oven.)

Alright, so you mix all the dry ingredients inside a small pie pan or round cake tin, then pour enough milk to coat the bottom of another pie tin. Take all the cut chicken and first coat with milk, then coat with the flour mixture (doesn't need to be perfect, and don't be afraid to get your hands dirty either). Once all pieces are coated, place into a class or metal baking pan. Sprinkle with a little bit of the seasoning salt, and lemon pepper, then drizzle with melted butter or, if you have it, butter spray, which is much easier by the way. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, cover with foil, and bake for one hour and you have Seasoned Chicken Bake.

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Where did I get this from? I was actually cooking hamburger helper and I pushed the container of seasoning salt out of the way, and I saw a recipe on the back for this. Of course, me being me, I rewrote it and today is the trial run. So I'll put in later how it went!

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How it Went:
It was delicious! I sided it with a bag of steamed cauliflower and peas, and I must say, it was definitely something I will do again. It came out moist and juicy, and perfectly seasoned.