Thanksgiving food

This Thanksgiving I was very grateful for . . .

1. A roof over my head

2. Good family and friends

3. Kitchen to cook

4. So much awesome food.

Zero, turtle and I took over the kitchen and cooked so much.

We had so many sweet potatoes.. .we baked some as wedges and made sweet potatoes fried with cinammon glaze. We also made sweet potato skins.

We made two stuffed turkeys

We made dark forest and punkin cakes.

We had a huge spread.

Turkey
Stuffing
Awesome gravy
Mashed potatoes
Sweet potatoes in three different ways
Green bean casserole with bacon
Cream corn casserole with bacon
Baked beans
Cranberry sauce
Rolls

It was a very nice holiday.

Salads

Today with dinner, I had a salad. . . It was simple ice burg lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and mozzarrella cheese and a poppyseed dressing. It was light and comforting.

I also love my loaded salads. Croutons, bacon pieces, lots of cheeses, even sun flowers or pecans. . The combinations are endless. . .each salad is its own piece of edible art. It is a fun, mostly healthy enjoyable piece of meal.

I grew up with having side salad at meals with extended family. I have always enjoyed them, sometimes they are my favourite part of the meal.

Sauerkraut and Porkchops

I have some German roots in my family . . . (Slovak, German, English, Scottish and Irish. . . it’s just a huge mixture. I also like to cook Italian and have had my food been approved by my Italian friends.)

Anyway, my mom always like when I make my sauerkraut with pork chops.

I always make mashed potatoes so that can mix my sauerkraut in.

I took the crock pot (slow cooker) I put the pork chops in with the sauerkraut with a pitch of season salt and 2 tablespoons of sugar for about four hours. . . the pork chops fell apart and have the flavor of the sauerkraut.

I even left the skins on the potatoes as they felt heartier.

If I had a fryer right now, I would make the left over into sauerkraut balls. I love those.

Leafy Salads

I knew if I just posted “Salads” that someone would say there are so many out there. . . (from leafy to protein like chicken or tuna to potato and pasta etc.) I love many different salads.

However over the weekend we made an awesome leafy salad. . .

I had few salad mixes. . . it ice-burg lettuce, Kale, greens, spinach, shredded carrots, and red cabbage. We added tomatoes, mushrooms, green pepper, and shredded pork and shredded cheese.

We have a south-western ranch or Italian dressing.

When I go to a restaurant, I don’t mind a simple salad before my main meal. However when I am at home everything is in my leafy salads. . .

I love fresh spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, sprouts, snap peas, black olives (sliced), shredded cheese (prefer white cheeses), sunflowers, flavored croutons, and whatever else will work. Plus I will cut up lunch meat or cube or shred chicken. My salads usually become a huge part of the meal. I even love having bacon in my salads.

Whenever I make a salad and my family is home, I usually end up making them salads too. I like to think of myself as a creative salad. . . I’m not sure if I am to master level yet. LOL

Growing up, whenever I would visit my grandparents for dinner, they could always have some kind of salad with dinner. My grandma got me into sprouts, poppyseed dressing, and adding chopped nuts in salad. I love the crunch and freshness.

I try to eat salad at least once a week.

Beef Stroganoff

I had sliced beef pieces, mushroom, sour cream and egg noodles. So I spiced everything up and made beef stroganoff. I marinaded the beef with ground pepper and Worcestershire sauce.

(I currently cannot handle onions with my stomach, but I have seem people add onions, and pepper to it.
I’ve also seen people use hamburger with it, but I prefer beef chunks.)

However it a hit a spot and it was eaten so fast, that I forgot to grab a picture.

It is so easy, but I usually never have the left over sour cream. (We had steak tacos Sunday and fish taco Monday, so I had left over sour cream today.)

Noodles are one of my comfort foods.

Busy Weekend

Theme: Bacon

Zero, Turtle and I got another change to work in the huge kitchen again. Saturday we made so much. It was a really nice night, and we accomplished so much.

Zero made Mayo and BBQ chicken with homemade mashed potatoes.
The mayo chicken was creamy and really good with some black pepper over those mashed potatoes.

Then we got out the bacon. . .

Zero made two meatloaves . . . Plain BBQ glaze and cheesy stuffed bacon wrapped one.
I personally loved the bacon wrapped meatloaf just a bit more. (It was even better the next day.)

Turtle made a roasted chicken with bacon and green pepper stuffing.
It was really good and very juicy. I also didn’t realized that green pepper was that good in stuffing. I learned a few things this weekend.

We also got a bag gruyere cheese from a friend as they have extra. We took the cheese sauce with thinly sliced potatoes and of course bacon and made our own homemade au gratin potatoes.

We also made bacon saute yellow squash and french fries.

We had so much food left over. I didn’t have to cook on Sunday. We had left over for dinner and still some left. Yay.

It was nice that we put down the Internet and the phone and just focused on the food. Sometime we need to forget everything around us and focus on what in front.

By the way, I love bacon!

Cabbage and Noddles with bacon

I was at the store and they had cabbage for .59 cent a pound and bacon that was normally 6.99 for 2.99 (save 4.00). . . thick cut too.

(By the way, I love bacon. The crispy sweet yumminess. )

I cooked the bacon and cooked the cabbage in butter and bacon grease. Yum. Then I made enough to share with my neighbor.

I love this dish, because it taste good, filling and you can share with many people. This is why many people usually has this dish as parties or picnics.

Chicken A La King

I am making Chicken a la King
It’s one of my mom’s favorite dishes.

My recipe is very easy. . . (recipe made for 3 to 4 people)

Chicken a La King

Pound of chicken (cubed or shredded as long as it’s cooked)

Two small cans of cream of mushroom soup

2 cans of milk (after emptying the soup)

Can of peas

Extra mushrooms or grilled onions (optional)

I usually put this over rice. However I using egg noodles instead of rice. (You can also put this over potatoes.)

Today I am getting creative.
I have an extra biscuit roll, so I taking the chicken broth making extra chive dumplings for a side dish.

Take biscuits cut them into small pieces

Cook them in boiling broth until they cooked through and tender (stirring every few minutes.) You can put the sauce from Chicken A La King or just add butter.

It’s a simple dinner and it’s easy way to get your family member (kids and adults) to eat their peas.

Note: the original recipe has peas, but I have replaced peas with corn or green beans in the past.

Favorite Foods

Beck

Pastas: Lasagna, Mac N Cheese

I love sandwiches: Grilled cheese, Monte Cristo

Soups: Cheesy Broccoli soup, Cheesy Potato

(All of my foods usually have some kind of cheese in it)

Chocolate: cakes, ice cream etc

Turtle

Chicken Cordon Blue

Tacos

Chicken dumpling

Zeroman

Corn-beef Reuben

BBQ ribs

Bacon Mac N’ Cheese (with shredded BBQ ribs in it)