Recipes

Is it me, or does cooking come naturally when you become a wife or mother? In the past, cooking has always been the start of a long night at the ER for me or the brave soul that dear to taste my concoctions. Things have changed. It's like once I moved out of my mother's house, my cooking restraints completely fell off. Try some of my delicious recipes and feel free to post yours and some of cooking stories.

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Chocolate Trifle

This is a very popular dessert with the members of my family. It's very easy and can go a long way when feeding a crowd. Here's what you'll need

1 Box German Chocolate Cake Mix

8oz Tub Whipped Cream

1 Box Instant Chocolate Pudding

6 Crumbled Heath Bars

First, prepare cake and pudding as directed and let cool.

Next, crumble or cut cake into small sqaures or and layer at the base of your dish. (Cutting the cake into squares rather than crumbling will give each spoonfull a good amount of cake with out it being really smashed and dense. It also lessen the sweetness of the pudding.

Then, layer pudding, whipped cream and heath on top.

Repeat pattern until all gone.

Refrigerate for an hour before serving .

Enjoy!!!!!

Pea Soup with Ham

My Pea Soup turned out awesome. It is so good and meaty. I used the ham bone and threw in some extra chunks of ham that broke down during the cooking process. This was so easy to make. I use the recipe from allrecipes.

Delicious Ham Dishes

So, crazy me didn't think to blog some of my dinners this week. Most of them will consist of ham. Yes.... I said ham. Sunday I prepared a delicious 11 pound bone in ham for my family of four. Of course there was leftovers so I decided to continue my ham journey to my all time favorite. Monday night's ham & potato casserole. So so so good. It's an easy German recipe that was given to me by ny childhood besty's grandmother. I loved when she made this for us as kids. When learned to cook, I immediately contacted for the recipe.

Ham & Potato Casserole

4 large potatoes (thinly sliced)

1 cup diced ham

1 medium onion diced

4 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 cups milk

salt and pepper to taste

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2) In a saucepan melt butter over medium low heat. Saute onions. Slowly whisk in flour, stirring constantly until thick and chunky (about 1 minute). Continue whisking while slowly pouring in milk. Do not allow lump to form. Keep whisking until a thick cream sauce forms. It should take approximately 4-5 minutes.

3) Add ham and salt and pepper.

4) In a medium casserole dish layer potatoes and sauce mixture.

5) Cover and bake for 1 hour. Adjust timing if needed.

Tonight will be split pea soup. I have never made this before. I am using a recipe from allrecipes.com. I will post the link and let you know how it goes.

Creamy Chicken Noodle

Ingredients

3 cups cooked chicken

1 (10.75) can cream of chicken

7 tbs butter

7 tbs all purpose flour

3 cups milk

1 bag (16 oz) mixed vegetables

1 bag (12 oz) wide egg noodles

1/2 bread crumbs

1 cup shredded cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven 350 degrees.

2. Cook noodles according to package directions.

3. In a 2 quart sauce pan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Whisk in flour with a fork, and cook, stirring constantly until thick, about 1 minute. Slowly stir in milk (not allowing it clump together) until thick. Add salt, pepper and cream of chicken .

4. In a large bowl mix cream sauce, noodles, chicken and vegetables together. Transfer mixture into a 13x9 inch backing dish.

5. Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top

6. Bake 20 minutes half way through baking time sprinkle cheese over the top and continue to bake