Sausage & Rice Skillet

I’m not sure where this recipe came from; I’ve got it typed up and don’t show any credit to anyone. It sounds suspiciously like a recipe my husband used to prepare that was on the Eckrich smoked sausage package. I went to the Eckrich website but couldn’t find it.

Ingredients:

1 pound package of Eckrich smoked sausage

3/4 cup white rice – NOT instant

1 can cream of mushroom soup

3/4 cup water

1 tbsp. butter

1/4 tsp. salt

1 jar of sliced mushrooms – 4 ounces – undrained

1 cup frozen green beans

1 cup grated Cheddar cheese – optional

Slice the smoked sausage up into 1″ coins and then cut in half.  Toss into skillet along with the butter, water, rice, soup and mushrooms and green beans.

Doesn’t look too appetizing right now, does it?  Not to worry, things will only get better!

See, it looks better just after a stir or two, doesn’t it?  Turn to high and let the mixture come to a boil; lower to medium and stir for about 5 minutes.  Set on low and cover; allow to cook for about 15 minutes or until the rice is tender.

Serve with chocolate muffins.  Or blueberry.  I had chocolate muffin mix on-hand, so that’s what we had.

Hubby had two servings and the teen boy had three.  I had one.  It was delish!

Garlic Cheeseburgers

This recipe is courtesy of  Heidi at Go Bold with Butter.  I did things differently; if you compare the recipe that I’ve linked with my instructions, you’ll see how.

Ingredients:

1 pound hamburger, 85/15

2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 garlic clove

salt and pepper

4 pats of butter

4 slices of medium Cheddar cheese

4 ciabatta rolls, sliced

Mix the hamburger with the Worcester sauce and mince the garlic and add it to the hamburger.

I did this around 10:00 a.m., so that the flavors would have time to meld.  I gently blended the Worcestershire sauce and garlic into the hamburger and placed it back into the fridge.  Thirty minutes before forming the burgers, I took the meat out to take off the chill.  I used my hamburger press to make four burgers.

My two guys decided they wanted bacon on their cheeseburgers, so I decided to try something I saw on Pinterest:

I wove the bacon together to make little packets; set the stove on LOW and let the bacon cook while I tossed the ciabatta rolls into the oven on 200 degrees F to lightly toast.  Next, I sprayed my skillet with a bit of canola oil, turned the skillet to HIGH and when the oil was hot, gently put my burgers in and then ignored them for about 4 minutes.

After they cooked for about 4 minutes, I flipped them and added a pat of butter to each burger and left them alone for another 4 minutes.

When the butter had melted all the way, I put cheese on the burgers and covered the skillet so that the cheese would melt; this took about 2-3 minutes.

When the cheese is melty, place one burger on a bun and top with bacon.  I love the way the bacon turned out.  It took some poking with my tongs to keep the woven pieces together.  I didn’t want bacon, just cheese.

They were yummy!  I fixed a can of pork and beans to go along with the burgers (added bacon to this) and served them with chips, pretzels and ketchup and mustard.

5 Minute Friday: Song

It’s Friday!  Finally!  That means it’s 5 Minute Friday…here are the rules, courtesy of The Gypsy Mama, Lisa Jo Baker:

1. Write for 5 minutes flat for pure unedited love of the written word.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Be generous and leave an encouraging comment for the person who linked up before you. That’s the best part about this community.

And if you don’t have a blog, feel free to leave your five minutes of writing as a comment. And we’ll love on you there.

Today’s prompt is:

Song….

Sing a new song unto the Lord,

singing Alleluia!

Okay, I can’t sing well and I’m the first to admit it.  My mom used to shush me in church, which really broke my heart.  After all, we are told that we are to rejoice and sing and praise Him and singing is one of the best ways to do so.  Angels sing to Him.  Choirs of cherubim and seraphim sing to Him.

But, my mom always told me to shush.

Well, dear mother, I don’t listen to that shushing anymore.

I sing loudly and with joy.  All that my Lord wants is for me to sing His praises.  He doesn’t mind that I’m off-key…waaaaaaaaaaaay off-key.  All my Lord wants is for  join in and to make a joyful noise.

I promise, it’s joyful and it’s noise.

STOP!

Turkey Schnitzel with Creamy Dill Sauce

Last night I fixed Turkey Schnitzel with Creamy Dill Sauce. The recipe was cut from Family Circle magazine, the March 2012 issue.  I served it with the suggested noodles and green beans.  Yum!

Ingredients:

1 pound turkey cutlets

1/4 cup flour

2 eggs

3/4 cup plain bread crumbs

1 tsp. paprika

3/4 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. pepper

3 tbsp. canola oil

1/2 cup chicken broth

1/3 cup sour cream

1 tbsp. dill

cooked noodles

green beans

You will need two plates and a dish for the eggs, which will be beaten.  Place the flour in the first plate, then the eggs and then the bread crumbs.  Add the paprika and 1/4 tsp. each of the salt and pepper to the bread crumbs.

1st plate

2nd container, then the 3rd dish

Season the turkey with 1/4 tsp. of salt and if it’s in big pieces, cut it into smaller pieces.

I sliced my cutlets into six pieces

Pour your canola oil into a skillet and turn to medium high.

Now, it’s time to get messy!  Drop the turkey into the flour and coat nicely.

Then, into the egg bath.

Finally, into the seasoned bread crumbs.

By now your oil ought to be hot enough for the cutlets.  Carefully drop them into the oil.  Let them cook for about 5 minutes before flipping.

I did them three at a time; it’s not a good idea to crowd the skillet.

As the cutlets are finished – check them with a thermometer!  They need to read at least 160 degrees F – place them in serving dish and keep hot.  When they’re all done, you’ll need to make the dill sauce.  It gets made in the same skillet you prepared the cutlets in.  Eye-ball the skillet and if it looks like you’ve got too much oil, go ahead and take some out.  Get your broth, sour cream and dill ready.

 

Lower the heat on the skillet to low and add the broth and dill.  Then, add the sour cream.  At this point, I removed the skillet from the heat so that the sour cream didn’t curdle.  Scrape the bottom of the skillet so that all the good stuff gets added to the sauce.

Put your noodles into a serving dish, top with the turkey cutlets and put the sauce into a gravy server.

 

It was absolutely delicious.

And pretty, too!

 

Spaghetti Night

I didn’t cook tonight.  Hubby and I ran around this morning in Springfield; when we came home, we both napped a couple of hours.  If not for the silly phone ringing, I probably could have slept longer.

I pulled out some spaghetti sauce from the freezer; hubby made it last month.  He makes really, really delicious spaghetti.  Actually, I learned how to make it by watching him.  My mom uses a McCormick’s Thick & Zesty Spaghetti Sauce packet.  She’s got problems with biting into onions and stuff, so her spaghetti sauce consists of meat and sauce.  She likes mushrooms, but as long as I’ve been alive, I’ve never seen her put any in her sauce.  Oh, well.

Anyway, we had hubby’s spaghetti and it was delish.  He used Italian sausage instead of hamburger and he added mushrooms.  I love it when he cooks!

I posted my spaghetti sauce recipe and his is probably extremely similar since I learned from him.

The Best Pot Roast….EVER!

Yep, that’s what the title of this recipe is: the best pot roast….ever!

Well, let me tell you that there are absolutely NO leftovers tonight and we usually have some meat leftover for sandwiches the next day.  So, that tells me that this just might be the best pot roast ever.  The recipe is courtesy of K’Brina at You’re Too Crafty.  Thank you so much, K’Brina for this delicious recipe.  I’m definitely going to have to make it again.  And again.  And again!

Ingredients:

1 McCormick’s Slow Cookers Savory Pot Roast Seasoning packet

1 McCormick’s Au Jus packet

1 can of Coke

1 boneless chuck roast (K’Brina used a cross rib roast)

 

Place the roast into the crock pot.  Mix the Slow Cooker Seasoning packet with 1 cup of water and pour over the roast.  Pour in the whole can of Coke.  I didn’t have any cans of Coke, so I just added 12 ounces.  Cover the microwave and set on LOW for 8 hours or HIGH for 4.

I ended up starting late, after Mass, and didn’t want to mess up, so I started it on HIGH for the first 2 hours, then set it on LOW for the remaining 5 hours.  With an hour to go, I peeled some potatoes and added them.

Just before removing the roast to rest for 5 minutes, pour in the Au Jus mix.  I stirred it around so that everything was coated.  Yum!

Remove roast and allow to rest for 5 minutes.

It was so tender, it fell apart!

The potatoes were yummy – they tasted like the roast.  That’s one of the reasons I toss them in with the meat.  They pick up the flavor so well.

Now, the juices left in the pot needed to be served with the meat, so I grabbed my handy-dandy gravy maker that I purchased at Amazon.  This has to be one of the greatest kitchen inventions ever made!

See?  You pour in the juices and there are holes on the lid to stop big pieces of meat or fat from falling into the container.  Then you wait a few minutes and the fat rises….then, hold the gravy maker over the gravy dish and squeeze the handle, stopping before any of the fat goes into the dish!  What’ll they think of next?

Yum!  Oh, did I already say that?  Okay, well, I said it again.  This was a great roast!

Menu: May 12-18, 2013

May 12:  Spaghetti and Italian Knots

May 13:  Turkey Schnitzel; buttered noodles; green beans

May 14:  Out!  We’ll be in Springfield

May 15:  Sausage and Rice Skillet; veggie

May 16:  Steak Dinner in the Crock Pot

May 17:  Garlic Cheeseburgers on ciabatta buns; pork and beans with bacon

May 18:  Butter Chicken; smashed potatoes; roasted asparagus