Cream Sauce for Ikea Meatballs

This recipe uses a few simple ingredients and perfectly compliments the frozen Ikea meatballs. Plus, the kids loved it! Success!

Quick, Easy, and Delicious: Bowtie Lasagna

Here's another recipe via Pioneer Woman:

Billed as a "16-Minute Meal", BOWTIE LASAGNA lives up to the 16 minute promise. Even overseas! :)

Here are the things I changed:

*Because we don't have pre-made jars of marinara sauce available to us here (except at extremely high prices!!!), here's what I did to make the sauce: Instead of dumping in a jar of pre-made marinara sauce, I added an entire garlic head worth of chopped garlic (I like garlic!), and then added in about 1 & 1/2 cups of tomato paste, 1 & 1/2 cups of water, 10 leaves of chopped fresh basil, 1 & 1/2 Tbsp sugar, and garlic salt, pepper, and salt to taste. So, essentially, I made my own marinara sauce in the dish.

*In place of the sour cream, I used ranch dressing. This isn't an overseas change, just a personal preference. It worked great.

This is a yummy, easy recipe!

Chocolate Fudge Ice Cream Pie

I made this recipe this afternoon, for my oldest son's 8th birthday celebration. YUM! Can't wait to eat it--


(1) Make graham cracker crust... (or buy one)-- I use a graham crackery-cookie we can find here, mix it up with about 1/2 cup of butter + a few Tbsp sugar and let that set for a crust.
(2) Make fudge sauce-- (I used the fudge sauce called for in this recipe)

• Combine & heat the following over medium heat until boiling: 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup cornstarch, dash of salt, 1/2 cup water, and 60 g. chopped chocolate (2 bakers' squares)
• Add 1/2 cup half & half (I used 1/4 cup cream, 1/4 cup milk), & 1 tsp vanilla. Blend until smooth and thickened.

(3) Add half of that fudge sauce to the bottom of the pie shell, and put in freezer until slightly hardened, about 30 minutes.
(4) Add 1 Liter (or 1 quart-- or 1/4 gallon) of softened chocolate ice cream on top of the fudge sauce-covered pie crust and spread across the dish.
(5) Freeze until ice cream is harder, then sprinkle the top with cropped candy bars of your choice. The pie could stay in freezer like this for at least several days.
(6) Just before serving, drizzle remaining fudge sauce over each slice.

Hawaiian Chicken-- easy and tasty!

(from a friend)

Last week I enjoyed this recipe at a baby shower... it was so good we all begged our friend to share the recipe, and here it is:

Hawaiian Barbecue Chicken
6 chicken breasts, halved
1 -1 1/4 cups barbecue sauce (depends how you like it)
1/3 cup soy sauce (I used 1/4 cup)
15 oz. crushed pineapple with juice (i pureed some chunks)
1 onion chopped
1 large green pepper chopped

Place chicken in greased 13/9 inch pan (can be a little bigger, chicken was crowded but cooked fine)
Mix sauce and pour over top, and cover.
Bake at 350 for one hour


She served it over rice and it was excellent! There was plenty of sauce to flavor the rice.

Cheesecake Factory's Louisiana Chicken Pasta

YUM! Made this last night (From RecipeZaar), and it is a GREAT imitation of my favorite dish at Cheesecake Factory (this is one of those meals that I can't help but re-order each time I go because I know it's just so good and don't want to risk having a so-so meal when I can eat this awesome flavorful meal!).

Louisiana Chicken Pasta: SERVES 5 -7

Sauce Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 small yellow pepper (chopped)
• 1 small red bell pepper (chopped)
• 3/4 small onion (chopped)
• 3 whole garlic cloves (minced)
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 1/4 pints whipping cream
• 1 cup chicken broth (used 1 c. water + 1 chicken boullion cube)
  
• 4 tablespoons fresh basil (thinly sliced)
• 1 cup grated parmesan cheese (I used 1/4 c. since it's expensive here)
  
• 1 (12 ounce) package bow tie pasta (I used penne)
  
• 1 cup mushroom (sliced) (optional)
  

Directions

1. Start your water boiling as you start making the sauce... and cook pasta like normal.
2. At the same time, let your breaded chicken breasts (thin-cut if possible to be most authentic) cook in the oven until crispy.
   
3. On stovetop, for sauce: melt butter in large skillet over medium heat.
4. Add yellow and red bell peppers, mushrooms if desired, and onion to same skillet,until crisp-tender, about 4 minute.
5. Add garlic and crushed red pepper to skillet and saute 3 minutes.
6. Add whipping cream and chicken stock.
7. Simmer until sauce re-heats and thickens slightly, about 5 minutes.
8. Add basil and 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese to sauce, stirring to incorporate.
9. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to low, simmer; sauce will reduce and thicken.
10. Serve pasta generously covered with sauce and peppers, place thin-cut breaded chicken on top and eat! DELICIOUS!
    

*** Note: If you want to make your own chicken breasts to use for this recipe, there are instructions in the recipe linked, or you can see my recipe here and bread with parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs with whatever spices you desire.

New Orleans-Style Beignets

These beignets (pronounced "ben-yays") are incredible! The entire batch (a big batch) was done in less than 90 minutes, and they were absolutely delicious! For me, this is now my donut substitute... donuts are so hard to perfect, and these were quite easy to "get right" the very first time I made them (yesterday morning).

The reviews say they're like Cafe du Monde's beignets-- that's quite a reputation. So if you get a hankerin (I know that may not be as motivating for those of you who live close to a good donut/pastry shop), I highly recommend this recipe:

Costa's French Market Doughnuts (Beignets)

Oh, and by the way, I didn't have evaporated milk and so looked on the web for a quick substitute and used 1/2 cream and 1/2 buttermilk as a substitute and they were delicious!

They're particularly good with coffee within 10-15 minutes of being cooked. Enjoy!