Meatball Beds

My kids made up the name but they're basically just small calzones with meatballs inside.  Again, sorry for the crappy picture.



Ingredients:
Grand Biscuits or homemade dough
Cooked Meatballs
Mozz Cheese
Butter
Italian Seasoning
Spaghetti Sauce for dipping

Cut each biscuit in half length wise and place cut up meatballs and mozzarella cheese inside.  Close and press sides together.  Brush with melted butter and sprinkle Italian Seasoning on top.  Bake according to package directions or about 350 for 8-10 min or until golden brown.

Warm spaghetti sauce for dipping.

Zucchini Bread

When we were in Utah this summer, we went to Park City with my mom, sister and her family.  My sister brought with them some zucchini bread that her friend, Jenny Williams had made.  My kids went crazy and I'm pretty sure ate the whole thing.  Sorry, Suz.  So I wrote to her and begged her for the recipe.  It is pretty amazing.

3 Eggs
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
1/2 cup Applesauce
2 cups Sugar
2 cups Zucchini, grated
3 tsp. Vanilla
3 cups Flour
3 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/4 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Salt
If you have any Flax Seed throw some of that in, too

Preheat Oven to 325 degrees.  Grease and flour 2 loaf pans.  Beat eggs until frothy.  Mix in oil, applesauce, and sugar.  Stir in zucchini and vanilla.  mix in flour, cinnamon, soda, powder, salt, and flax seed.  Divide into 2 pans.  Top with a cinnamon streusel.  Bake for 60-70 minutes.

Cinnamon Streusel:
1/4 cup Flour
1/2 cup Brown Sugar, packed in
1 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
2 T. Butter, melted

Combine all ingredients with fork until well mixed.  Place on top of whatever you wish!

Chili Cheese Dip

My husband is away right now so I'm trying to make all of the things that I crave that he can't have. This is one of them.

1 Can of Chili
1 pkg of Cream Cheese

Heat together in a pan and serve with yummy bread.

My favorite bread for this is a baguette that I buy at Albertsons (if you have one) that you finish baking at home.

Mini Doughnuts

I made Navajo Tacos for dinner tonight and we had "leftover" roll dough. Coincidentally, I happened to watch the show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" on the Food Network a couple nights ago where Giada de Laurentiis' favorite fried food were these bite size fried doughnuts from the restaurant Lola. However, I did a couple things differently. Instead of coating them in cinnamon and sugar, I used cinnamon and brown sugar. Huge difference, I know :)  I also made a frosting instead of dipping them in a seasonal jam and vanilla mascarpone like they do. So with our "leftover" roll dough, I made these.

Doughnuts:
One batch of my Mom's Homemade Rolls
Vegetable Oil
Brown Sugar
Cinnamon

Frosting:
2 Cups Powdered Sugar
4 Tbsp. melted Butter or Margarine
2 Tbsp. Milk or Water
1/2 tsp. Vanilla

Make the dough. Roll it out and cut it up.
Mix the frosting ingredients together.
Get the oil very hot in a frying pan.
Place dough in oil and turn when it browns.
Remove from oil and place directly into mix of cinnamon and brown sugar. The oil helps the sugar stick.  Toss and remove.
Drizzle (or coat) with frosting and eat hot. Honestly I would eat these cold but they are better hot.

Sausage & Pepper Pizza

I got this recipe off of a friend's blog.   Although I did add the flax seed to it.  Instead of all-purpose white flour, I substituted with wheat. It was still really good but I did miss the flavor of the white flour.

Pizza Dough:
1 1/2 Cups of Warm Water
1 Tbsp. Honey
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
3 1/3 Cups Flour - white or wheat
1 tsp. Salt
2 tsp. Brown Sugar
1 Scoop (2 Tbsp.) Ground Flax Seed
2 1/4 tsp. Yeast

Put all ingredients in breadmaker in the order listed. Set to dough cycle.
When the dough is finished, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Take the dough out of the bread maker pan and place on lightly floured bread board and work into a circle with your hands and/or with a rolling pin.
Place on pizza stone. Using a pastry brush, brush the dough with olive oil and then sprinkle with italian seasoning.
Bake at 400 for 5 minutes.
Take out of the oven and spread pizza sauce over it. Then add cheese, and your favorite toppings. Mine are obviously Italian Sausage and Green Peppers. Bake for another 12 minutes at 400 degrees. Cut and serve!

Update:
When I made this with wheat flour it was no problem.  Last night I made it with white flour and it was really sticky.  When I dumped it out of the bread pan, I just added a little more flour and kneaded it.  Then it was great!

Turkey Steak Sandwiches

Turkey Steaks
Rosette Buns
Litehouse Thousand Island Dressing
Olive Oil
DeVerle's Seasoning
Tomatoes
Lettuce
And whatever else you like on a sandwich

Soooo yummy. And living in Arizona, I've been deprived of these for too long.
For those in Cache Valley, Utah, or anyone who has ever been to Juniper Take Out or Maddox, you know what I'm talking about.

When I was in high school, I worked at a restaurant in Logan, Utah, called Juniper Take Out. I may have been the best employee ever. Every penny I ever made went straight back into their pockets because I could not stay away from their food. I basically worked for food. Sadly, their prices have sky rocketed, and as a poor med student's wife, I can no longer afford their extremely delicious food. (Hint Hint, Kirk) So I have found an alternative. You can buy at almost any local (northern Utah) grocery store, frozen turkey steaks from Maddox. I then buy some of the best buns out there, rosette buns from the bakery that's located in Macey's in Providence. And honestly, they're better buns than what Juniper uses. Sorry Juniper.

And then this is what I do.

Defrost turkey steaks in microwave completely.
Warm up your griddle that you would normally use for pancakes, etc. to medium high. If you don't have a griddle, a frying pan works just fine. With a griddle you can cook a lot more at one time and it's easier to handle.
Cover the surface you'll use in olive oil.
Place the turkey steaks in the olive oil making sure they're completely coated. Move the steaks over and place more olive oil on the griddle. Then flip the turkey steaks, covering the other sides in olive oil. After each side is oiled up, generously sprinkle the DeVerle's Seasoning on both sides. Turn occasionally until browned to your liking. Then turn the heat down to medium and let them cook through without burning.
Place on rosette bun with Litehouse Thousand Island Dressing and if you'd like to add tomatoes, cheese, lettuce and whatever else, please do.

Meatball Subs

I've never had a meatball sub, but the idea came to me today and it sounded pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised and this will definitely be coming back.

Hoagie Buns
Mozzarella Cheese
1/2 Cup Olive Oil

Meatballs:
1 lb Hamburger
1 Egg
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 Cup Seasoned Bread Crumbs
2 Tbsp. Italian Seasoning
1/2 Tbsp. Garlic Salt

Put all ingredients for meatballs in a bowl and mix well. Form into 1 x 1 inch balls. Place olive oil on a 9 x 13 baking sheet and put the meatballs on that. Cook at 350 for 20 minutes.

Warm spaghetti sauce in a pan, do not add meatballs.  Many recipes that I read said to do that, which I did but some of the grease from the meatballs thinned the sauce and made it runny.

Cut hoagie buns almost all the way through and put face up on a 9 x 13 baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Cover both sides of the hoagie bun with mozzarella cheese. Broil in the oven until cheese is melted.

Place meatballs and sauce on hoagie buns. To make it easier to eat, you can cut the meatballs in half and lay flat side down.

Spaghetti & Meatballs

My boys wouldn't eat a meatball sub so they opted for Spaghetti & Meatballs. Sorry it's not the best picture, the steam kept getting in the way.

French Bread Pizza

1 loaf French Bread
4 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Garlic Clove
3 Tbsp or so of Italian Seasoning
Pizza Sauce
Mozzarella Cheese

Cut french bread length-wise as evenly as possible. I wasn't very good at that. In a small bowl, mix olive oil and minced garlic. Brush onto bread. Sprinkle about 2 Tbsp of seasoning onto the bread. Put in an oven at 350 for about 5 minutes. Take out and spoon and smooth pizza sauce over the bread leaving about 1/2 inch before the edge. Then top with cheese and more italian seasoning. Bake for 10 minutes or until cheese is melted. You can also use more of your favorite pizza toppings.

Melt In Your Mouth Cinnamon Rolls

Use my Mom's Homemade Rolls recipe listed under the bread label.

1/2 cube melted butter or margarine
Brown Sugar
Cinnamon

Follow directions of Mom's Homemade Roll Recipe until you get to where you've just rolled out the dough. Don't cut it. Instead, spread the melted margarine around with a pastry brush. Then add enough brown sugar to cover that, I'm not exactly sure how much that is. Then sprinkle the top with cinnamon.
Roll up very carefully and cut with a bread knife into pieces. Place in greased baking pans, (I use round cake pans) and let rise for about an hour. Then cook at 375 for 8-9 minutes.

Frosting:
3 Cups Powdered Sugar
6 Tbsp. Margarine or Butter melted
3 Tbsp. Milk
1 1/2 Tsp. Vanilla

Mix well and pour over warm cinnamon rolls.

Cheesy Biscuits

I got this recipe from Mandi Freestone who made these for us a while ago and I've been craving them ever since.
I didn't realize they were so easy or I would have done it a long time ago.

1 Cup Milk
1 Cup Cheese
1 3/4 Cup Bisquick
1/4 Cup Melted Butter
1 Tbsp or so of Garlic Salt
2 Tbsp. Parsley

Mix ingredients together well and place on a greased baking dish or I used greased muffin tins. I use a Pampered Chef medium scoop which is 2 Tbsp to scoop them into the muffin tins. 1 batch made 12 bisquits.

Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes, remove from oven.  Top with melted butter, garlic salt, and parsley.  Place back in oven and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes until golden brown.

I didn't have any parsley on hand and this was a very last minute addition to tonight's dinner so I skipped that part.

Just to prove how easy all of the dishes are that I made tonight for dinner are, here's the list.

Pork Loin
Rolls & Cinnamon Rolls made out of one batch of dough
Cheesy Biscuits
Roasted Asparagus

Monkey Bread

I got this idea from my sister, Suzie.

Make Mom's Homemade Roll recipe. Instead of cutting into strips, cut into 1 x 1 inch squares and place on greased cookie sheet. Melt butter or margarine and spread over dough with pastry brush. Then top with either brown sugar and cinnamon (top half of pic) or Salad Supreme (bottom half of pic). Cover with clean dish towel, let rise for an hour and bake at 375 for 8 minutes or until lightly brown.

Mom's Homemade Rolls

1 Cup Really Warm Water
1 Tbsp. Mashed Potatoes (Optional)
1 Egg
1 Tbsp. Shortening
3 Cups Flour
3 Tbsp. Sugar
4 Tbsp. Dry Milk
1/2 Tbsp. Salt
1 Tbsp. Yeast

Put all ingredients, in order, into bread maker pan. Set dough cycle. When finished, roll out on a floured board into large rectangle. Cut into 16 strips and tie in a knot. Place on greased cookie sheet, cover with a clean dish towel and let rise for an hour. Bake at 375 for 8 minutes or until lightly browned.