Hawaiian Pork Ribs

Tonight's recipe was DELICIOUS!!!

I found this recipe in my new Betty Crocker cookbook and it looked so good I had to try it. I also knew my husband would love it because he LOVES meat and especially ribs. This was a pretty easy recipe to make as well which is always good. The recipe called for 6lbs pork loin back ribs but I didn't write that down properly so I ended up not knowing what to get when I was at the store. I ended up picked out country style boneless ribs and I only used 3lbs and I actually am glad I did. I think for our family that worked better. Really I think you could use any kind of meat you want. We all LOVED the ribs though, it was a big hit which is always nice when you're trying new things.
3 lbs boneless country style ribs (anything you like really)
3/4 c. ketchup
3/4 c. pineapple preserves
1/2 c. teriyaki marinade and sauce
2 T. packed brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 c. cornstarch
1 (20 oz.) can pineapple chunks in juice, drained, with 1/3 c. juice reserved
1 (1lb) bag frozen stir fry (any kind you prefer)

Spray crock pot with cooking spray, then place ribs in. In a small bowl combine ketchup, preserves, teriyaki, brown sugar and garlic. Pour mixture over ribs. Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours. Remove ribs from cooker and keep warm. I just put mine in the oven set at 200F. In a small bowl combine cornstarch and pineapple juice until smooth. Add mixture to the juice in the crock pot. Increase heat to high, cover and cook for another 25 minutes (or until thickened). Meanwhile mix pineapple chunks and stir fry veggies in a microwave safe bowl. Cook uncovered for about 5-6 minutes (until heated/cooked). Drain water from veggies then mix veggies in with the sauce that is in the crockpot. I serves this with rice and served the veggie mixture over the ribs. I also had some veggie/sauce mixture left over so I put it in a quart size freezer bag and I'm going to freeze it so I can use it another day. I figure if I need a quick dinner one night I can cook some chicken really fast and just add the leftover sauce, YUMMY!!!

I'M BACK!!!

Well, it's been a while since I last posted anything but I'm finally back and glad to be :) I had been so excited to start this blog but life took some unexpected turns which in turn made my life a little crazy. This past month and a half has been a little hard and I've felt like I haven't been myself. This past week and half I finally feel like life is getting back to normal, well whatever normal for me is :) Anyway I'm just glad to be feeling like me again and I'm excited to get back to cooking again.

About a month or so ago I ordered 7 new cookbooks, hahaha! They were all $5 each so I couldn't resist. Anyway this week I finally got round to checking them out and the excitement for cooking came flooding back. I made a list of things I thought looked good (the list was BIG) and hit the grocery store. Hopefully I'll get caught up soon and hopefully life will continue to get better. Life really is crazy sometimes, you never know what's going to happen. I'm just thankful for my testimony and the knowledge I have that families are forever. Anyway I hope you enjoy my next couple of entries, I especially enjoyed tonight's dinner, it was YUMMY!

Italian Chicken & Potatoes

Yesterday when I went to the store I forgot my shopping list which was not good. I managed to remember most things but forgot a couple of things so I wasn't able to make one of the dinners I had been planning. So, I decided I was time to try and make my own dish up and it was GREAT :) What I came up with was basically the same a recipe my family LOVE but I put my own twist to it. The other recipe uses the crock put and just chicken but I didn't want to use the crock pot and I wanted to use up some of the potatoes we had. I think it turned out really well, well apart from the fact it overflowed all over my oven, whoops ;) Anyway I think this will become a family staple, now I just can't wait for Steve to get home so he can try it too, I think he's going to LOVE it, YUMMY!!!3 chicken breasts cut into strips
1 lb. butter gold potatoes, cubed (you could use any kind of potatoes, these are what I had)
1 (8 oz.) box cream cheese (I used neufchatel cheese because it's less fat)
1 (10 3/4 oz.) can cream of mushroom soup
1 c. milk
1 pkg. dry Italian dressing

Preheat oven to 375F. Put chicken and potatoes in a 9x13 dish chicken and potatoes. Combine all other ingredients and mix until combined well. Pour soup mixture over chicken and potatoes. Cover dish with foil and bake for around 1 1/2 hours. I had the oven set at 400F which made the soup mixture bubble too much and go everywhere. I took the foil off for the last 10 minutes but you don't really need to do that. I mainly did that so it would stop bubbling everywhere, hahaha! I served this with TONS of vegetables which I LOVE, enjoy :)

This recipe had about 1715 calories in it the way I made it which isn't too bad I don't think. It was 286 calories for 1 serving (when you divide it by 6).

Banana/Strawberry/White Chocolate Chip Bread

One of my favourite desserts is banana bread. The other day I came across this recipe so I had to try it because it looked so DELICIOUS :) The recipe called for raspberries but I didn't have any so I used strawberries instead, I think you could really use a variety of berries and it would taste great.

(This picture was taken a while after I made this bread so the strawberries were a little soggy)

1 c. flour

1 c. whole wheat flour
2/3 c. white sugar
1 T. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 c. vanilla yogurt
1/4 c. canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. fresh raspberries (I used strawberries which I cut into small pieces)
3/4 c. white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray loaf pan with cooking spray (I used 3 mini loaf pans). In a bowl combine the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, mix the eggs, bananas, vanilla yogurt, oil, and vanilla until well combined. Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet mixture until well blended. Fold in white chocolate chips then add most of the raspberries (I used strawberries) and fold them gently into the mixture as well. Pour the batter into the loaf pan then push the remaining raspberries (strawberries) into the top of the loaf. Bake in the oven for 55-60 minutes (It only took 45 minutes for the mini loaves) or until a tester comes out of the center clean. Let the bread cool and ENJOY :)

I think next time I make this recipe I will try another kind of berry and maybe not use the brown flour. I really like brown flour but I think my husband prefers just the white. I maybe even just use this idea with my usual banana bread recipe too and see how that turns out.

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

I've been meaning to make this recipe for a couple of weeks and finally got round to it tonight. It was WAY easier than I thought it was going to be as well which was nice. Even though I'm loving trying to recipes sometimes I get put off when the recipe seems like it's a lot of work. The thing that kept putting me off this recipe was making the meatballs, I don't know why. Anyway they were SOOO easy and it was fun doing something I had never done before. This is another recipe from the school cookbook, it was submitted by Shari Bruce. My kids LOVED the meatballs but really aren't fans of rice. They ate the meatballs SUPER fast but it took them a while to eat the rice but I'm a mean Mom and I make them eat everything. I thought it was REALLY yummy too but it was quite high in calories, luckily I hadn't eaten tons during the day so I had enough calories to spare. The whole meal was 2308 calories. I made 24 meatballs so I just divided the calorie amount by that and just multiplied that number by how many meatballs I ate so I guess the meal could have been less but I was hungry :) You'll have to add the rice too, I used brown rice so for 1/2 c. it was 150 calories.
1 1/2 lb. raw hamburger
1 beaten egg
1/2 c. milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
dash of garlic salt
dash of onion salt
dash of nutmeg
2 slices of bread (I used 3 slices of whole wheat bread)

Mix ingredients together and form into balls (I made 24 meatballs, they were a good size). Bake meatballs for 20 minutes at 350F. Drain well.

1 15 oz. can pineapple tidbits, drain and reserve liquid (I used a 20 oz. can)
1/2 c. chopped green pepper
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 T. cornstarch
1/4 c. vinegar
1 c. reserved pineapple juice and water (I just used all the reserved juice)
2 tsp. beef bouillon granules
2 T. soy sauce

On top of stove, combine cornstarch, bouillon, vinegar, sugar, salt, soy sauce and pineapple juice. Cook until bubbly and thickened. Add green pepper and pineapple tidbits. Add meatballs to pineapple mixture and stir gently until all meatballs are coated. Simmer for 15 minutes. Serve over rice. Freezes well so you could double the recipe and freeze half for another day. To freeze put meatballs into a freezer bag and pour cooled sauce over meatballs. When ready to use thaw and simmer for 15 minutes.

Chicken/Pasta/Chicken Casserole

I have been so good at making new recipes lately but today I wasn't in the mood so I decided to make one of my old faithful recipes :) A few years back my mother in law put this recipe together and ever since then this has been one of our family favourites, it's SUPER YUMMY and very easy :)
3-4 cooked chicken breasts, cubed or shredded
1 (12 oz.) bag wide pasta ribbons (I used whole wheat pasta tonight)
1 (26 oz.) can cream of chicken soup
1 c. sour cream (I used fat free)
2 c. frozen mixed vegetables (you could use any or none at all)
1 c. grated cheese (as much as you like depending on how cheesy you want it. I didn't use any today)
1 box chicken stuffing, prepared

Preheat oven to 400F. Start cooking pasta (I usually have already cooked the chicken before or at the same time as cooking the pasta). Mix together soup, sour cream, vegetables and grated cheese. Once pasta is cooked add that and the chicken to the soup mixture. Place mixture into a 9x13 dish and cover with stuffing evenly (I used 2, 8x8 dishes tonight so I could freeze one for another day). Cover with foil and bake for around 40-45 minutes. Take foil off and cook for another 5-10 minutes, or until stuffing starts to brown.

For this whole recipe there was 3480 calories. That doesn't include cheese though, that would make it more. Also if you used regular pasta it would be more too but not by too much. I think this recipe makes about 12 servings or more depending on how much you eat.

Monster Cookies

Today I was in the mood to make cookies so I decided to make one of my old faithful recipes that I used to make ALL the time. These cookies are my daughters favourite cookies so I knew she would be excited when she got home. As soon as she walked through the door after school she said she could smell cookies, then she ate about 10 of them and wanted more. She's so mini but can eat TONS, I wish I could do that ;) This recipe came from a cookbook my ward put together a few years back, it was submitted by Heather Carter (thanks Heather, we LOVE this recipe). I used to use a medium size scoop to make these cookies but today used my new small one and I think it was better. I was able to make 7 dozen cookies with this recipe so I had plenty to take to neighbours which we always like to do :)1 c. light brown sugar
1 c. sugar
3 eggs
1/2 c. margarine
1/2 T. light corn syrup
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c peanut butter
1 c. mini M&M's
1 c. mini semi sweet chocolate chips
4 1/2 c. quick oats

Cream together brown sugar, sugar, eggs and margarine. Add corn syrup, vanilla, baking soda, salt and mix well. Add peanut butter (I use the measure all cup for this which I think is GREAT) and mix well again. Stir in M&M's, chocolate chips and quick oats. Spoon onto cookie sheet and bake at 350F for 8-10 minutes (cook time is 4-5 minutes longer when you use the medium scoop).

You could use ANY kind of chocolate chips you have for this recipe. Maybe these will become one of your family favourites too, ENJOY :)