We have worms.... in the garden.

The other day I went out to our garden to pick some fresh tomatoes. We had three plants growing, but one died. I don't know why, but one plant just didn't make it. The other two are grape tomatoes and better bush.

I'm so excited about our garden. I love everyday going out and picking the fresh veggies that are growing and watching what we produce. I can see now why farmers farm. It's an amazing process. The Lord created an amazing process with the fruit, soil, sunlight, and love.

Even though we are only growing on a small scale, it's still so exciting to wait for the plants to produce delicious and healthy foods.

One day the Hubby and I were driving around Texas and on our way home, we took some back roads. As we were traveling through the small towns there were fields and fields of corn. For some reason it was interesting to see it so close to home. I always thought our produce came from other places  (like other states or even countries), but yet there was corn just a couple of hundred of miles from my home.

But back to our garden. After I had picked some cherry tomatoes, I brought them into the house and set them on the counter. I walked off to go take care of something and when I came back I looked at them sitting there and noticed there was a small little worm crawling on the outside of one that was "bad".

I had left the tomato on the counter over night and when I got home from work the next day, the little guy was out again crawling around but this time he was black. It was kind of cool looking to see how he changed colors in a day.

These are from our garden that I picked over several days. The green one fell off as I was getting a nice red juicy one.

Can you smell that? It's cream cheese banana nut bread in the oven.

After I made sweet and sour chicken for dinner the other night. I also made banana nut bread for dessert. In fact the recipe made two loaves. I haven't made it in a very long time!!! I think I made once when I was a freshman in high school.

Mom helped me make it and then we took it to some shut ins from church. I remember walking in her house and handing her the loaf of bread. She looked at me and said, "Did you make this? It smells nice!" It was at that moment that I realized the power of food and the act of kindness to people who needed visitors while not being able to get out every day like we do.

I got the recipe from here. It looks like she got it from Southern Living.

There's no greater smell than that of bread, cookies, or a good pie baking in the oven.

When this one was cooking, I could smell it in the living room and I just wanted to go to the oven and just pull a piece out and start eating it.

This is a fool proof recipe. If you do what it says, you can't go wrong. This will definitely be my go to recipe for banana nut bread. The cream cheese really helps add a little extra oomph!!

*I got the pictures from her site as well. The only picture I had was a downward angle of them sitting on the island. These were much prettier.

Cream Cheese Banana Nut Bread - Southern Living

Cream Cheese Banana Nut Bread

***Makes 2 loaves***

3/4 c. butter, softened
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
2 c. sugar
2 large eggs
3 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (about 4 medium bananas)
1 cup roughly chopped pecans, toasted
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition.

Combine flour and next 3 ingredients; gradually add to butter mixture, beating at low speed just until blended. Stir in bananas, pecans, and vanillla. Spoon batter into 2 greased and floured 8x4 inch loafpans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until a long wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean and sides pull away from pan, shielding with aluminum foil last 15 minutes to prevent browning, if necessary.

(I found that after one hour, my banana bread wasn't completely cooked through.  I ended up baking it for an extra 10-15 minutes.)

Cool bread in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Remove from pans, and cool 30 minutes on wire racks before slicing.

Source: Southern Living magazine

*I like to dump my cakes/ breads out immediately after cooking. Every time I let them sit for a few minutes and then try to dump them out, they stick to the pan and never just fall out like they should.

Asian Delight: Sweet and Sour Chicken

Last night for dinner I made some really good sweet and sour chicken. I normally don't to asian, except for stir-fry because it's easy and not hard to mess up, but this time I decided to try it out.

If you have time to make dinner from scratch it's worth the try. Let me just say this, I get home from work around 2:30-3:00ish and didn't start dinner until about 4:30-5:00ish. We leave for church on Wednesday around 7:10 (services start at 7:30). So, I had plenty of time to cut my chicken, fry it in oil, and then finish it off by baking it in the oven for 30 minutes.

So if I had time to do that, oh and unload the dishwasher and load it back, you can make this meal too. It's was fast, easy, fun, and delicious. Had I had all the stuff to make homemade egg rolls I would have done that too. I think that would have completed the meal. But in reality if I had had some in the freezer I would have just heated them up instead of making some.

I got the recipe here. She got it from Mels Kitchen Cafe (not sure who or where. she didn't have a link on her site). I also pulled the picture from her site since I didn't get a chance to take any of my dinner. But it looked just like this.

Source

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Chicken Breading:
3-5 chicken breast
salt and pepper
1 cup cornstarch
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup canola oil

Rinse chicken, trim off fat or extras and then cut into 1 inch cubes. season with salt and pepper. Dip chicken into cornstarch and coat all the way and then into eggs. Heat oil in large skillet. Cook chicken until browned. Place in baking dish. 3 chicken breasts can be in a 9x9 but 5 chicken breasts fits better in a 9x13.

Sauce:
3/4 cups white sugar
4 Tablespoons ketchup

1/2 cup white distilled vinegar

1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic salt

Whisk until smooth. Then pour evenly over chicken. Turn chicken so the sauce gets on both sides and then put in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. turn chicken and then cook for 15 more minutes.

*On the sauce stage: I ended up putting the chicken in the bowl with the sauce and mixing it in there to make sure it was nicely coated. Then I poured it into my dish.
**I also cut 3 chicken breasts and ended up using a 9x13 to make sure they laid evenly in the dish.

I also cooked rice and put this over it and it turned out to be a nice dish!! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Make ahead Mascarpone Mashed Potatoes

For Easter my side of the family asked me to bring a potato dish. So my dad and I talked about what I should bring.

He told me that there is this Chef's site he found and the guy is wonderful. He gave me the web address of course I had to check it out. The picture below is what the finished product looks like. Mine turned out just like this.

If you do what he says you can't mess it up. It's super fast to make, easy, and a great change up to the plain jane mashed potatoes.

Mascarpone Mashed Potatoes Source

Click here to go to his site.

 He has a video on his page of how he makes this. It's so wonderful. I think next time, I'm going to add some cooked bacon to the dish. That should be really delicious.

Don't get me wrong... this was great the way it was. But our family is a bacon family and I think it would have been even better.

I watched his short video and followed along exactly and it turned out great. If you need a good potato dish to take some where this is another good one. I recommend making it.

It's so light, fluffy, melts in your mouth, and has a wonderful flavor and texture.

Ingredients:

4 1/4 pounds russet potatoes

salt and pepper to taste

cayenne to taste

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

1/2 cup mascarpone cheese

3/4 cup milk

1 egg yolk

Chocolate Goodness!

For Easter, like all family gatherings, the Hubby and I go to two place each holiday. Depending on what holiday it is depends on whose house we go to first.

Since Easter falls on Sunday every year, we are at church. So we get together with my side of the family immediately following services and eat with them. Then after lunch with them the hubby's side likes to get together around 2:00 and eat their lunch.

I asked both sides what I could bring to help out with food. My side said I could bring a potato casserole (click on potato casserole to see that recipe). Hubby's side said they wanted deviled eggs and a chocolate dessert. So, that's what I made. Below is the chocolate cheese cake that I took.

After church services we ate lunch with my side and then left after lunch to head to hubby's family's get together.


I changed the recipe up a little. I did a different toping then the one they have in the picture. I used a raspberry jelly with fresh raspberries.

Source

I got the cheesecake recipe here, but I tweaked it a little. I only used the core recipe for making the cheesecake.

Chocolate Cheesecake

• 2 (8oz.) packages of Philadelphia Cream Cheese (softened)
• 1/2c. sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 c. Nestle Dark Chocolate Morsels (melted)
• 1 c. heavy whipping cream
• 2 tbsp. margarine (melted)
• 3 tsp. vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

Cheesecake:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees
• Crush cookies into fine crumbs and add melted margarine.  Combine well and press into the bottom of a 9-Inch Springform Pan
• Beat softened cream cheese with sugar until smooth.
• Add eggs one at a time, beating in between each one.
• Add remaining cheesecake ingredients, beating until smooth.
• Pour into crust and allow to sit at room temp for 30 minutes.
• Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 60 minutes,
• Turn off oven, open oven door a little and allow to sit for another 30 minutes.
• Remove from oven and run knife around edge of pan.  Remove edge of pan. 
• Allow cheesecake to cool to room temperature before adding toppings.

* I used the Nestle Dark Chocolate Morsels and it was great. Normally I like to use Ghirardelli, because of the wonderful cocoaness that is has, but the that would have ruined this recipe. So stick to the Nestle morsels. It's worth it.

**Make sure you don't do this at 9 o'clock at night when you are wanting to go to bed. It will make the whole cooking experience better. :)



Topping:

I got the topping recipe here. It's from Ina Garten. She makes wonderful dishes.

Her recipe is as follows:

1 cup red jelly (not jam), such as currant, raspberry, or strawberry
3 half-pints fresh raspberries (I only used 2 packages of raspberries. 3 was too many for me).

I heated the jelly on the stove at a low- medium temperature. You want it to get liquified and runny so it makes it easy to spread. 

Then I added one package of raspberries to it on the stove to warm it up. Then I mashed them so there were chunks in my sauce. 

I then poured the topping on my cheesecake and put it back in the fridge to harden. I also added the fresh raspberries on top for extra goodness.

Cut then serve.

This is how mine came out. It was delicious, chocolaty, smooth, and rich. If you love chocolate or cheesecake, then this is a great dish to take.

It was a hit to make, but boy did I learn my lesson. I had no idea that it took 2 hours to make a cheesecake!!

Happy eating!!

Chicken-Macaroni Casserole

If you need a quick and easy recipe, then look no further. This is a Pinterest inspired meal. I was in a pinch and needed something fast to make for dinner and this did the trick. 

If I had to pick a few words to describe this dish I would say, delicious tasty, cheesy, and yummy. 

I didn't have two cans of cream of chicken soup so I used one can of cream of chicken soup and one can of cream of celery. I couldn't tell a difference.

I would say that the Ritz crackers really made it. It added that little zip to the dish.

I will definitely be making this again.

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Chicken-Macaroni Casserole

(click on title to go to the site.)

Servings: 8

Ingredients:

1/2 cup chopped onion
3 tablespoons butter or 3 tablespoons margarine, melted
2 (10 3/4 ounce) cans cream of chicken soup
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided
1 cup milk
3 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken
2 1/2 cups cooked macaroni
salt
pepper
1/4 cup Ritz cracker crumbs

Directions:
1. In a large skillet over med-high heat, saute onions in butter until onions are tender.
2. Add in soup and 1 ½ cups cheese; gradually stir in milk.
3. Cook over medium heat until cheese melts; stir in chicken and macaroni; taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.
4. Transfer mixture to a greased 2 ½ quart casserole; sprinkle with cracker crumbs.
5. Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 30 minutes or until heated through.
6. Top with remaining ½ cup cheese and bake 5 minutes.

Soft & Delicious Almond Cookies

Two weekends ago I asked the hubby if he wanted some cookies and if he liked almond ones. He said that those and sugar cookies were his favorite.

Who knew after 2 years of marriage we both loved the same cookies?!? AND that it took us this long to find that out.

Well, I got to looking for a good recipe to make them and found it..... again.... on pinterest. 

This is exactly how mine came out when I cooked them at the right time. I think my oven is too hot so when I cooked them for 8 minutes, mine burned. But when they came out right, they were perfect!!!

I plan on making these again.... soon!!!!!

I didn't ice mine either, but I bet that would be delicious too. We just ate them straight out of the oven... hot..... steamy... delicious!!!!!

Below is the recipe. You can click on the title to go to her page.

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Almond Meltaway Cookies

Almond Meltaway Cookies

Yield: 32 Cookies

ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon flaked sea salt (or can use regular table salt)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons almond extract

Icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk (or water)
2 teaspoons almond extract

directions:

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and almond extract, mixing until combined. Add flour mixture 1/2 cup at a time, mixing until completely combined.

Roll 1 tablespoon of dough into small circles and then press with hands (or with the bottom of a cup) into a disk shape. Place on prepared baking sheet.

Bake for 8 minutes. The cookies will not look browned or cooked, but they are! Remove from oven and let cookies rest on baking sheet for 5 minutes. Then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To Ice:

In a small bowl, whisk together powdered sugar, milk and almond extract - until smooth.

Using a spoon, smooth icing onto the top of each cookie and let set for 10 minutes, or until hardened. Store in the fridge, let come to room temperature when ready to serve.