Veggie Tuna Noodle Casserole

Alright guys, sorry for the delay. This week hasn't gone very well as far as cooking is concerned. I tried making bread, it didn't rise (trust me, it didn't effect the taste) and I also tried making a pasta with chicken and Gorgonzola. I didn't want to put it up because it is such an acquired taste, and to be fair, I didn't care for it to much. Cook and learn though, cook and learn.

However, my Veggie Tuna Noodle Casserole turned out fantastic. In fact, I think I will be making this instead of the old tuna noodle casserole my mom always makes.

 Mmmm vegetables... I have to say if I can find a way to put more in there I always do the orginal recipe I was inspired by only called for zucchini. I say pufft, that that. And as always, I forgot to picture the cheese, but honestly, in this recipe you could take it or leave it.

Before you do anything else, get your water set to boiling, so you can cook the egg noodles. 4

Now slice your zucchini and squish and cook them in a little olive oil until crisp tender (if your like me and didn't know what that was at first its when the vegetables are cooked, but still firm). Remove them and with the remaining oil cook the chopped celery and garlic, about five minutes or so. Set aside in a different bowl.

In a large bowl mix together the mayo and sour cream with about half a bunch of green onion chopped, salt and pepper to taste. Add the cooked egg noodles celery mixture, and drained tuna and mix together. In a greased casserole dish start with a layer of the noddles then add a layer the zucchini squish mixture, and repeat until everything is in the dish.

Bake it covered on 350 for about thirty minutes, if you want to add some cheese, remove lid after the thirty minutes and cover with a layer of cheese and bake for about another ten, and enjoy!

And sorry for the half eaten casserole, we couldn't want =)

2-3 cans tuna
3 cups egg noodles
1/2 sour cream
1/2 mayo
1/2 bunch green onions
1 zucchini
1 squish
1 cup fresh spinach
3 large mushrooms
olive oil
salt and peper

Baked Salmon with Rosemary Potatoes

Your mouth is watering isn't it? Mine is. This recipe is a food-gasam for your mouth. Not even kidding.

If your awesome and you have a large oven or even two ovens you can do these both at one time. I ended up doing them separately, but everything tasted so awesome. Now I will warn you you won't see to many salmon recipes up here, its expensive, but luckly my mom and I were able to get some for only $4.99lb. SCORE!

Lets start with the giant potato I got at a local grocery store. Yeah its bigger than my hand.

I cubed up that one potato, covered it in olive oil and a fresh piece of rosemary from a friends garden and tossed it in the oven for about forty minutes. Oh, my goodness, perfection.

Just remember to put a piece of foil down on your baking sheet before you put it in the oven!

So now for the salmon. Firstly I cut a small onion into pieces I put it on the baking sheet (on some foil) with a couple table spoons olive oil, salt and peppered it and placed the salmon on top.

Cover your salmon in olive oil, and lemon, I used juice because I forgot to pick up a real lemon, but it still came out great. Cover in dill and... here is the secret, sliced cloves of garlic. Just place them right on top. Sooo good.

In my house we like our fish cooked all the way through, but if like it cooked traditionally, about twenty minutes in the oven so the outside is cooked and the inside is medium rare. We baked ours for forty minutes... so good.

Rosemary potatoes:

3 to 4 small to medium red poatoes
1 to 2 springs rosemary chopped (or dried if that's what you have)
Olive oil

Cube potatoes and place on foil on a backing sheet. Pour olive oil over the potatoes, its okay if it pools it just makes the potatoes that much more delicious when you pull them out. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until tender when poked with a fork.

Baked Salmon:

Salmon. Your choice really, we had a large piece, skin still attached, but this would work well with stakes.
1 small onion
3 to 4 garlic cloves cut into slices. Or enough to cover the stop of the salmon
Dill enough to cover the top of the salmon
lemon or lemon juice to put on the top of the salmon
olive oil.

Slice the onion into large pieces and place on baking sheet with foil and olive oil. Place the salmon on top and over in olive oil, lemon, dill, and garlic. For medium rare bake 20 minutes, for a cooked though salmon about 40 minutes, depending on the thickness of the cut.

Strawberry-Blueberry Muffin Bread

You know your mouth started watering when you saw the title of this recipe. Don't deny it, you want it. Why "Muffin Bread" do you ask? Well, everything is better if it comes in a little bread pan.

The original recipe I used was vegan, and although I have nothing against vegan food, I am not going to go out and buy a lot of extra ingredients for just one recipe.

Sadly, I was making this just before bed time. So in my tired food driven haste I forgot to take any pictures but of the final product. But I can truly promise you, you want to make this. Right now.

You can check out the vegan recipe on the link, I will post my recipe here

2 cups flour (white or wheat, its up to you)4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup canola oil
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup milk or butter/soured milk (To make soured milk add one table spoon vinegar to one cup milk and let sit five minutes)
1 cup strawberries
3/4 cup blue berries

Preheat over to 375 degrees.
Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine oil and sugar.  Stir in vanilla and and eggs until well combined. Slowly combine both mixtures and then add milk slowly (I made the mistake of putting it all in at once and milk went everywhere).  Hand mix or whisk to break up any big clumps. Pour berries into the batter and mix gently to incorporate. Pour batter into muffin tin/ small bread pan/ regular sized bread pan, and sprinkle berries on top of batter if desired.Bake for 45 minutes in square pan or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  For muffins, fill muffin cups 2/3 full and bake for 25-30 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched at their center

Taco Soup

So I will be honest, the name is a little misleading. The soup doesn't taste anything like a taco. It actually came out like something between my mom's chicken tortilla soup and the chili I make. But that's okay, because it was still delicious and easy to make.

Now the original recipe I was inspired by happened to be a slow cooker recipe so in my rush to get everything cooking I didn't get many pictures.

Cut up all your veggies into bite sized pieces. Anything that would you would go in a taco or put into a fajita works really well. You can also be browning your beef while cutting the other ingredients up. I added cumin, cilantro, garlic powder, and onion flakes to my meat mixture. Sure its going into soup, but its always a good idea to season your meat.

Now since corn on the cob is in season we've had it in our house about every week for the last month. I cut the corn off the cob of a couple of left over pieces in the fridge and boiled up a couple more to make sure I had enough.

Of course the frozen or canned stuff would work just as well if that's all that you have.

Now this would work well as a slow cooker recipe, however since I waited so long to start I just did it on the stove. I let it cook for about an hour and a half on low simmer.

Add some cheese and sour cream and you are in flavor heaven!

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef or turkey or meat of choice
1 to 2 bags taco seasoning
1 28oz can of diced tomatoes
1 can black beans undrained
1 can kidney beans drained
1 can tomato sauce
1 7oz can green chilies
1 orange and 1 yellow bell pepper
1 onion (color of your choice)
2 cups corn

Brown beef adding seasonings if desired, drain and pour into a large crock pot or if on the stove large (very large) pan. Add all other ingredients and add water until everything is just covered. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a slow simmer and took for one to two hours.

ENJOY!

Strawberry Cake

So I have to admit I took this recipe from Martha because I couldn't think of anything other than strawberry short cake to use our newly acquired two pound box of strawberry's in. But that's okay because I found the cake that hopes, dreams, and rainbows are made out of.

Now Martha apparently has some kind of fancy machine where she can crack eggs while beating away at the dough. I however have a hand mixer and it worked just fine for me (I just thought you should know).

The sound track for this dream cake you ask? Why nothing other than Owl City's Ocean Eyes. Listen to it and you'll understand why it compliments this cake perfectly. =)

The first thing I did was core the strawberry's. Its a little time consuming but very easy to do. Easier than cutting a tomato. My dogs decided that they loved strawberries as much as I do and begged at my feet for some. Sadly, I wasn't willing to share.

And since your done coring them, go ahead and slice 'em in half, you'll need to do that later anyway.

Now that the hard part is done, go ahead and melt your butter, and while that's melting away we can sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

With the melted butter go ahead and add your sugar and mix until well incorporated. Since there is not a lot of butter in this cake you won't get that liquidy look you did with the cookies.

See it dressed up in a bow tie for you.

Now add your milk, egg, and vanilla and mix until well beaten. Then go ahead and add your sifted flour mixture.

This is what cake batter in heaven looks like.

Go ahead and pour into a greased pie (or in my case 9 inch cake pan) pan. And just so you readers know I didn't use butter to grease it.

Ah Pam, what would I do without you. And for this cake it works great, other cakes, not so much. Sometimes you do need to flour a pan, just keep that in mind.

Spread it out so the top is nice and flat and go head and press your strawberries gently into the top of the cake. Simple, easy, delicious.

And I had a few left over. Don't worry, they didn't go to waste, they were eaten asap.

Pop that baby in the oven and watch the magic happen. Really, no seriously, once you taste the cake you'll understand.

I know I know. It doesn't look anything like the picture Martha posted.

Still so delicious.

And now! For the recipe!

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pie plate
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 pound strawberries, hulled and halved

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-inch pie plate. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together into a medium bowl.
2. Put butter and 1 cup sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium-low; mix in egg, milk, and vanilla.
3. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture. Transfer batter to buttered pie plate. Arrange strawberries on top of batter, cut sides down and as close together as possible. Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over berries.
4. Bake cake 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees. Bake until cake is golden brown and firm to the touch, about 1 hour. Let cool in pie plate on a wire rack. Cut into wedges. Cake can be stored at room temperature, loosely covered, up to 2 days.
   
   
   
   
   ENJOY!

Sausage, Egg, and Hash Brown Breakfast Casserole

So I found a Taste of Home magazine hiding up with all my other cook books the other day and knew I had to use this breakfast casserole recipe I found it. Adapted, and I think improved.

The sound track for this dish Florence and the Machine

So, it was early, and forgot to include two ingredients in my picture. One 7oz can of  green chilies (undrained) and one can condensed cream of chicken soup (undiluted).

Now the original recipe didn't call for spinach or mushrooms, it did however call for two bell peppers (color of your choice) but didn't think it would add anything to the dish so I left them out.

I used a whole onion and chopped it up and put it in with the sausage while it was browning. If you wanted to you could also add the onion with the hash brown mixture, its really up to you.

While that is browning slice up your mushroom and set aside. Mix together the sour cream, chilies, french onion dip, and cream of chicken soup. 

Pour the hash browns into a large bowl, add the mixture, and stir well. Check on your sausage if you've forgotten about it (lol). Add the cheese and mix again.

The sausage is probably cooked by now, so drain off the grease and put on some paper towels to soak up anything else. I put mine in a colander to do this, and set it on a plate. That way if any grease gets through the paper towels it isn't in the bottom of the bowl and it doesn't get on the counter.

Now its time to get the eggs out (something I decided to throw in last minute since the original recipe didn't call for them). Put the spinach and mushroom in a bowl, and add 12 cracked eggs and about a 1/4 cup milk and stir well. 

Now its time for the fun part. Put half of your sausage mixture on the bottom of your backing dish. Pour eggs on top and then add a layer of the hash brown concoction. Put the rest of the sausage on top followed by the rest of the hash browns. Add cheese to the top, a little a lot whichever, just as long as there is cheese. Toss it in the oven at 350F for 45 minutes to an hour or until heated through.

And TA DA!

Yes it was as delicious as it looks. Luckily I invited my brother and his family over so there wasn't much left after everyone had gotten firsts and seconds.

Sausage, Egg, and Hash Brown Breakfast Casserole:

2 Pounds Pork or Turkey Sausage or Sausage of your Choice

2 Cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese Divided
30oz Package of Hash Browns (your choice)

1 Can Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup
1 Cup (8 oz) Sour Cream
1 Cup (8 oz) French Onion Dip
1 7oz Can Green Chilies
1 Onion
1 Cup Spinach
3 Large Mushrooms
12 Eggs
1/4 Cup Milk

Brown sausage, adding the chopped onion to it while cooking. No need to add butter because of the grease from the sausage. While that is cooking chop your mushrooms and clean your spinach if not done already.

Mix together the cream of chicken, sour cream, french onion dip and green chilies and set aside. Pour hash browns into a large bowl and add your creamy mixture, mixing well. Add one cup of cheddar cheese and mix well.

Put mushroom, spinach, eggs, and milk into a bowl and mix well, set aside.

Put half of your sausage mixture on the bottom of your backing dish. Pour eggs on top and then add a layer of the hash brown concoction. Put the rest of the sausage on top followed by the rest of the hash browns. Add cheese to the top, a little a lot whichever, just as long as there is cheese. Toss it in the oven at 350F for 45 minutes to an hour or until heated through.

ENJOY!

Food Crazy

So as the first post in this blog let me introduce myself. My name is Krystal and I am addicted to food. I love to look at it, eat it, touch it, and take pictures of it. I've been taking pictures of food and posting them to my Facebook for about a year now and well, I decided its time to actually make a blog about it since I love it so much. I hope to see you back here and hope that you can use all the wonderful recipes I plan to post. =)

Oh, and just so you know I hate peas. I won't use them in anything I cook, but you are more than welcome to add them to anything I post.