Banana and Cream Waffles

photo courtesy of myrecipes.com
(I downed my waffle before I remembered to take a picture,
so the cream sauce isn't shown)

As soon as I read this recipe I knew it was one I had to try immediately. It turned out just as wonderful as I thought it would be! The smooth, creamy sauce is heaven and paired perfectly with the bananas. Not to mention the fact that it was a snap to whip up. I had most of it done by the time my waffle iron heated up! It was a great change of pace from the peanut butter and syrup that we usually have on our waffles. I am certain this will be on our table frequently from now on!

Banana and Cream Waffles

You're favorite waffle recipe (I used THIS recipe made into waffles by adding a tablespoon or so of oil to the batch. They are absolutely fabulous!)

Bananas

Vanilla Cream Sauce:

      1/4 c. butter

      1/4 c. flour

      1/2 c. sugar

      1 c. milk

      1 tsp. vanilla

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the flour and sugar. Whisk in the milk. Heat and stir until thickened. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Make your waffles; top with bananas and cream sauce. Enjoy!

recipe source: Cooking for Two by Debbie G. Harman

Borscht

 I cannot get enough of this borscht. It is heaven. I chose to eat borscht leftovers over Thanksgiving leftovers for lunch today. It is beyond delicious. Oh, and it's super healthy. I win.

A few weeks ago, my neighbor brought me over some fresh beets from her garden. There were a lot, so I knew I wanted to use some to make borscht. I immediately e-mailed my brother (who lived in Ukraine for two years on his mission) for a recipe. After translating it from Russian to English for me, he sent it my way.

There's nothing better on a cold winter day than soup, especially when it's a divine, healthy soup like this one is! (I think that gorgeous red color would be awesome for a Christmas soup don't you?)

Borscht

** Note: This recipe makes a TON. I halved it and had enough for dinner, a couple lunches, and still had enough to freeze for a future dinner. Also, this soup, like many soups, is even better the next day after all the flavors have had time to meld together.**

6 liters (just over 6 quarts) of water
1 medium cabbage
3 large beets
3 medium carrots
3 medium onions
1.5 lbs potatoes
1 little bundle of parsley, chopped
1/2 cup tomato paste
2 cans pinto beans or white navy beans (I always drain and rinse canned beans)
2 bullion cubes
3 tbsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp vinegar
Vegetable oil for sautéing
Black Pepper to taste
1 lb meat, cubed (optional, pork is great. I used what I had on hand at the time which was hamburger. I just browned it and threw it in at the end.)

• Put water on to boil on medium-high heat (if preparing with meat, boil the meat in water until cooked, then remove and set aside).

• Chop up the cabbage into thin strips and add to the water. Add salt. Boil for 5-10 minutes until cabbage is soft.

• While cabbage is boiling, cube the potatoes (about 1.5" cubes) and add to the pot. Add the bullion cubes.

• While the potatoes and cabbage are coming back to a boil, grate carrots and beets into separate bowls and chop the onions into very thin slices.

• Sauté the carrots in oil until they are soft (about 5 min). Add onions and sauté for about 10 min. Remove from the pan and set aside.

• Without cleaning the pan, add the beets, sugar, vinegar, and some of the broth from the pot (a few cups maybe, just enough for the beets to simmer and cook). Cover with a lid, and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10min or until soft.

• When the beets are soft, add the carrots and onions back to the pan. Let them sauté for a few minutes, then mix in the tomato paste. While it's sautéing, add the beans to the pot.

• Add pan contents to the pot (along with the parsley and meat-if used) and simmer for as long as you like. (I let mine simmer for at least an hour).

 Serve with a spoonful of sour cream. 

Recipe source: Someone in the beautiful country of Ukraine, via my brother Reese.

Pasta Salad

A while ago I had to bring a salad to a church activity, and I decided I really wanted to do a pasta salad. Boxed versions are ... fine, but homemade is always so much better--not to mention healthier (I don't want to know how long ago those colorful little dried chips were veggies growing in the ground). But where to start? What to put in? What dressing to use? How much of everything? I was lost.

A quick Google search pulled up an article titled "Five Steps to a Perfect Pasta Salad."  It sounded perfect! 5 steps and completely adaptable; like a good "choose-your-own-ending" book.  I followed the steps, took one delicious pasta salad to my potluck, and put this amazing find on a shelf somewhere in the back of my brain to gather dust. Until today. I had a huge craving for pasta salad (thank you pregnancy for finally giving me a craving that includes lots of veggies and no chocolate), so I pulled out the article again and the results looked and tasted great!

Things I love about this article:
The author, Pam Anderson, teaches cooking classes across the country--sounds like a pretty legit source to me.
The directions are simple, yet very clear.
There are lots of suggestions for things to put in.
And it works!

Here's the salad I made today (with the corresponding steps from the article):
Step 1- Rainbow pasta
Step 2- Broccoli, carrots, and cucumber
Step 3- I didn't have any of the suggestions ready on hand, so I used little cubes of Colby Jack cheese. It worked really well.
Step 4- I left out green onions (my husband is not a fan), and for the herbs I used 1 T. dill, 1 1/2 T. parsley, and the last 1/2 T. rosemary. (The rosemary flavor wasn't very strong, so I think next time I'll do 1 T. of each).
Step 5- I used the link for Creamy Buttermilk Dressing. For the optional rice vinegar or lemon juice, I did half and half. The vinegar taste was a little too strong, so I think next time I'll do all lemon juice or just leave it out. For this salad however, I balanced out the flavors a bit more by adding some extra mayo. Despite some of the negative reviews, my dressing was not overly thick (although with the nature of the salad, that wouldn't have been too bad) or bland (since herbs were already added to the salad).

Now go unleash your creativity and make a yummy pasta salad!

The Results

Since all the recipes I had for our Valentine's dinner were new, I thought I'd follow up with how they turned out.

Chicken Kiev: We really enjoyed this. It would have been better fresh from the oven, but it had to sit for a bit since the oven was needed for other dishes. I would make it again though; it was simple and tasty.

Chantilly Potatoes: Wow, these potatoes were heaven. So good. Like, "I-had-another-bowl-at-9:00-at-night-because-I-was-still-thinking-about-how-much-I-liked-them" good. Keeper recipe for sure!

Roasted Asparagus: Who knew something so simple could taste so amazing! I've never enjoyed eating asparagus so much before. So basic, yet really satisfying.

And lastly,

Baked Doughnuts: Failure. Something happened with my yeast and the dough never really rose quite right. They ended up tasting like bagels dipped in frosting. That raspberry cream cheese glaze however, was out of control good! So that made up for the bad doughnuts ... kind of.

Hope all your plans turned out great and that you had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Valentines Day Dinner

I am so excited for Valentine's Day! I started planning our dinner way to early, just because I couldn't wait :) I am in love with the menu, so I thought I'd share it. (PS-none of the pictures are mine, they are from the awesome folks I got the recipes from!)

Chicken Kiev

Chantilly Potatoes

Roasted Asparagus

And for dessert ...

Baked Doughnuts

 

Only of course I'm doing heart shaped holes and a raspberry cream cheese glaze (found HERE) instead of cinnamon sugar.

Now it's just the long wait until V-Day so I can actually make all this great stuff! What are your plans for the 14h?

Wonderful Whole Wheat Bread!

I just made the most delicious homemade wheat bread! I had to share the recipe. It is light, fluffy, soft, and so healthy!

Go HERE to find the recipe (it's the one called Darcy's Whole Wheat Bread), and then go HERE for a step-by-step tutorial (very helpful in not over-flouring the dough. Mine looked different while it was mixing since I made mine in a KitchenAid, but the dough still looked the same when you pulled some off).

One last side note, I halved the recipe (to make 2 1/2 loaves) and substituted a scant teaspoon Fruit Fresh for the crushed up vitamin C pill.

Enjoy!

Some Great links!

I have sadly been neglecting this blog, but I realized that most of the time, whenever I thought of a recipe I wanted to post, it came from this blog:
http://www.melskitchencafe.com/
I could re-post her entire site, but instead I'll just send you over there. I have tried countless recipes of hers and all (literally all) of them have turned out great!
A couple other cooking blogs I love are:
http://chef-n-training.blogspot.com/
http://www.tammysrecipes.com/node
http://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/
So go check them out! You won't be sorry!