Oven Roasted Potatoes

Oven Roasted Potatoes

2 large potatoes, sliced thinly
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon Italian Seasoning (oregano, parsley and basil)
1 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons of Parmesan Cheese

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Place all items except the cheese into a large bag. Shake until coated and place in a single layer on a baking sheet.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are soft. Top with cheese, heat until the cheese is melted, about 5 minutes.

Indonesian Rice

Chris and I recently found this recipe when we were looking for something that is just different. I love the colors in this dish. The original recipe does not include meat. We added meat so that we could have it as a main dish instead of a side dish. 

Indonesian Rice

Ingredients

1 tbsp. butter

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 1/2 tsp. curry powder

1 cup rice

2 cups chicken broth + 1 cup water

1/4 cup honey

Salted peanuts

Currants

Minced scallions

Cut up pork or chicken pieces (optional)

Instructions

Melt butter in a large skillet. Add the onion and curry powder. Cook and stir until onion is softened. Add the rice, stir for 5 minutes and add the chicken broth and honey. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer 20 minutes or until rice is tender. Sprinkle with peanuts, currants and chopped scallions. Makes 6 servings.

Chicken Caesar Salad and Homemade Caesar Dressing

Caesar Dressing

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce *

Combine all ingredients in a blender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Can refrigerate for up to 2 days.


Chicken Caesar Salad


Left over shredded chicken
1 piece of toast, broken into pieces*
Caesar Dress

I like to make Chicken Caesar salad the night after I make Crock pot Chicken or Roasted Chicken.
1. Place the toast in the toaster.
2. Place shredded chicken on a plate.
3. Top with shredded toast and Ceaser Dressing

*omit the Worcestershire sauce and toast if gluten free is desired or find a gluten free brand

Deviled Eggs - No Mayo

I wanted to make deviled eggs for Easter, but I don't have access to good mayonaise in Korea. So I decided to substitue plain yogurt instead. Some people told me you can't make deviled eggs with out mayo so I said "watch me." So here they are.

12 Hard boiled eggs
1 cup plain white yogurt
2 tablespoons Creamy Sweet Mustard (I found one with relish in it)
Season Salt to taste

After you have hard boiled your eggs, peel them, cut them in half and remove the yokes. Place the yokes in a quart size ziplock sandwich bag.

Close the bag leave a space about the size of your finger unzipped. Mash all of the yokes. Add the yogurt. mustard and season salt. Mix inside the bag.

When the mix is throughly mixed seal the bag completely and cut a slit in to one of the bottom corners. You can now use the bag like a pastry bag and fill each egg with the mix.

Green Beans and Mushrooms

Chris and I are trying to add vegetables into our diet. He gave me a funny  look when I grabbed the giant bag of frozen green beans at Costco for Thanksgiving. Then one night he brilliantly came up with this simple recipe that we both love.

1 lb of frozen green beans
1 package of giant mushrooms, sliced into large chunks
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons of season salt

Heat oil in frying pan, add mushrooms and green beans. Heat on medium until mushrooms are done. Add season salt to taste.

This recipe is great served with Skillet Salmon

Home Made Tortillas

1/4 cup butter

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup hot water

Blend the softened butter with the flour until it looks like the consistancy of cornmeal. Add the salt. Pour in the hot water a little at a time until you have the right consistency. (Doughy but not sticky). At this point you could let it sit for 20 mintutes, but that is optional.

Seperate the dough into six balls. Take each ball one at a time and roll it out on the counter. Make sure you place plenty of flour under the dough and on the rolling pin. (If you don't have a rolling pin use a clean bottle in your cabnit). As you are rolling out the dough, flip the dough and roll it out until it is the shape you want. You want to get them as thin as possible with out it ripping.

Once the dough is rolled out, place them one at a time into a hot skillet. Turn constantly until the tortilla is slightly brown like the picture above.

These are real easy to make but make a big mess, so I like to make a double batch and use them for several recipes. Tortillas freeze well.

Cinnamon Rolls - Easy

I love fresh baked cinnamon rolls. However I don't have much patience to deal with yeast. So I am thankful to my friend Cheri who made me cinnamon rolls one day that did not require yeast. Here is a recipe I adapted from ehow.com. If you go to their website you can see their step by step pictures. I am only posting the pictures I took of my rolls..


Read more: How to make easy Cinnamon rolls in 10 minutes | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_4686415_make-easy-cinnamon-rolls-minutes.html#ixzz15xkWGzKB

These are what they looked like fresh out of the oven before I put the glaze on. I don't own a cookie sheet so I used two glass pans. They fit perfectly into my roaster oven. I used the wire rack from my toaster oven as a cooling rack.

 Things You'll Need:

DOUGH

2 cups of white flour

3 teaspoons baking power

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 cup of butter (softened)

2/3 cup milk

FILLING

3 Tablespoons melted butter

1/4 cup of white sugar

1/4 cup of brown sugar

3 teaspoons of cinnamon

3 teaspoons of nutmeg (Optional)*

GLAZE

1/3 cup packed powdered sugar**

1 Tablespoon milk

1. Assemble all ingredients, big mixing bowl, measuring cup and spoon. Getting all your supplies together, makes for quick mixing. I measured out the dry ingredients first and set them aside because I only have one measuring cup.

2. DOUGH - Sift and mix all dry ingredients.

3. Add the butter to the flour mix. Mix with a fork or beaters until it is the consistency of cornmeal.

4. Add milk, the amount of milk tends to vary. Add until dough makes a soft ball, with a little dry flour mixture around the ball.

5. Roll out on a floured board, in a rectangular shape. Dough should be about 1/4" thick. Spread melted butter all over the top of the rolled dough.

6. FILLING- Mix the dry filling ingredients and spread them over the melted butter.

7. Roll the cinnamon buns,starting from the longest side, lengthwise. Roll tightly all the way up, slightly pinching the edges together.

8. Use a piece of dental floss or a sharp knife and cut the roll into 1" slices. I cut some thick and some thin. We decided that we like the thicker rolls better because they are soft in the middle.

9. Put on a greased cookie sheet, with about 1/2" between each cinnamon roll. Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes, or until slightly brown on the top.

10. After the cinnamon rolls have cooled, add a white icing to the top. Serve slightly warm and enjoy!

*Nutmeg is not in the original recipe I added it because Chris always asks for nutmeg whenever I add cinnamon and sugar to something.

** I did not have powdered sugar, but that is not a problem. I just took regular sugar and blended it in the blender.

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

5 to 7 Potatoes (2 per person)

Butter

Milk

Salt

Decide if you want your potatoes peeled or not. We like ours with the skins on because that is where all the nutrients are. If you are not peeling them scrub them real good. If you do peel them rise them after you have removed the peels.

Cut the potatoes into bite sized diced pieces.  Put them in a large pan. Add enough water to cover them and then turn the burner onto high. Cook the potatoes until you remove one and you can smash them easily with a fork. Or you can taste one and see if you like the texture.

When the potatoes are done to your liking, strain them in a colander removing all of the water. Place the drained potatoes back into the pan and add several pats of butter, at least ¼ a cup.  Use a potato masher to mash the potatoes. When the butter is melted add the milk, at least half a cup. Then add salt. Taste the potatoes and keep adding these three ingredients until you like how they taste. Be careful with the milk because you don’t want them to be too runny. Also don’t add the milk while the potatoes are still steaming or the texture will come out wrong. If you don’t have a potato masher you can mash them with a large spoon or a fork.

Goes great with chicken gravy

If you need to make the potatoes ahead of time you can keep them warm in the crockpot for up to 3 hours on a low setting. Try to stir them every hour. You will have steaming potatoes when it is time to eat. 

Skillet Fried Rice

I love fried rice. This is one of those dishes where you open up your refrigerator and pantry and see what you can throw into the pan. It is great if you have left over white rice.

2 cups of cooked white rice

2 Tbs of butter

2 eggs

The following items are optional:

1 can of corn

1 can of spam, ham, cubed chicken or bacon

Mushrooms of your choice

1/4 cup of white or green onions

Any left over vegatables you might have

Sea salt or salt

1. Heat the butter in a large skillet on medium heat
2. Add the rice and fry
3. Add all other ingreadents except the egg and cook until soft
4. Beat the eggs in a bowl
5. When all other items are cooked create a well in the middle of your skilllet and scramble the eggs.
6. When the eggs are cooked mix them with the rest of the mixture. 
7. For flavoring you can add a little soy sauce or season salt. 

You can make this for any meal or use it as a side dish

Skillet Fried Potatoes

This is one of the first recipies that we made in Korea. Why did we choose it? It had simple ingredients and it reminded us of home. Plus when we went shopping we were able to find the ingredients with out reading Korean.

5 baking potatoes sliced or diced

2 tbs. olive oil

1 onion chopped

1 table spoon minced garlic

Salt or Season Salt

Ketchup

Cheese (optional)

1. Wash the potatoes. Don't peel them. Then cut them.

2. Heat the oil in the frying pan.

3. Add the poatoes, onions and garlic.

4. Season to taste.

5. Cook on a medium temperature until the potatoes are soft, about 20 to 30 minutes.

6. Top with Ketchup and Cheese.

Sometimes to make this a more filling meal we add what ever meat we have available. Usually bacon or ham.

Crockpot Baked Potatoes

4 potatoes (or as many as you need that will fit in the pot)

Foil
Cheese
Sour Cream or Plain Yogurt
Butter
Salt

1. Wash each potato

2. Stab potatoes with a fork several times.

3. Wrap in foil

4. Place in the bottom of the crock pot and cook for 8 hours on low.

5. Do not add water.

6. When soft remove foil and top with cheese, plain yogurt, butter and salt.

7. You can also place your foiled potatoes on top of other items that you are cooking in the Crockpot. They don’t need water so don’t submerge them.

8. If cooking the potatoes with other items just give the outer layer of foil a quick rinse before removing it to help prevent messes.