Cheesy Rice Casserole

This night I got it into my head that I wanted to make a cheesy rice casserole.  I had never made one, never eaten one.  But for whatever reason that was what I was going to make for dinner.  Most recipes involve cream of something soup (which I did not have handy), most are meat based, and many are too time consuming. Soooo I was flying solo on this one.

I mixed white rice with corn, broccoli, onion, and tomatoes.  I added milk and vegetable broth to keep it moist while the cheese got melty in the oven.

I used fontina and cheddar alllll over the top and I mixed some in the casserole itself because you can never have too much cheese.

Annnnd we ate the entire thing. Yep. All of it. Despite how badly I wanted to take it for lunch the next day.

Spinach Feta Burgers

I believe I discovered this recipe via Martha Stewart, but when I went to find it I couldn't.  I figured I could handle this meal without a formal recipe (bold I know).

I used ground turkey, frozen spinach (drain every ounce of water out of it you can), parsley, and feta.  Seasoned them up with garlic salt, pepper, and oregano.

As far as raw meat goes, those are pretty nice lookin', no?

I made a quick tzatziki sauce with greek yogurt and shredded cucumber to go atop the burgers.

These were quick, easy, and delicious.  And plus they look pretty and they appear to be more involved then they really are.  Now I want to make zillions more awesome burgers filled with awesome things!

Fancy Pizza

Ok, apple mania is over. Let's move along to some dinners that have been laying in waiting to be debuted here.

First up, fancy pants pizza.

Fontina.

Brussel sprouts.

Thinly sliced potatoes.

Rosemary.

Truffle oil (ups the classy factor to 11).

OOooooooh baby this was good stuff. 

(click the picture to enlarge it and wish you were eating at my house that night)

Yeaaaa it was a fancy night with fancy pizza. Only thing that would have made it even more amazing? Prosciutto. Next time... and there will most definitely be a next time.

Latkes and Applesauce

Yea you read that title correctly, I made some latkes. AND I made applesauce to go along with it.

Let me just say a little something here, for anyone who knows about making latkes and applesauce, I did this on a weeknight.... a weeknight.  This meal is by no means a weeknight meal and I gave myself quite the stressful afternoon trying to get this meal in order on Thursday. You may be thinking ooooh KTC you got out of work at 330 that day let's not be so dramatic, but seriously the amount of pealing and chopping and grating that goes into this meal is intense.

So yea, I just need you to congratulate me on this feat of cookery.

On to the food!

I used a simple recipe I found on Food Network's website as a skeleton for my latkes seen here.  It's Bubbie's recipe so I trusted it.

Yes those are pretty gnarly colored potatoes, but as I said this meal took a while to prepare and potatoes will brown.

Check out my new Mickey Mouse spatula!

I made the applesauce on the stove-top instead of the slow-cooker this time, it came out just as good.

And now this news may delight or disappoint you, but this is probably the last of apple mania. Be on the look out for pumpkin mania soon.

Apple Blondies

I told you it's apple mania time. I disappointed my mother when I only used 2 apples to make this gem.

I followed the original recipe from cookies and cups, but omitted the frosting because it seemed like an excess of butter and sugar.  Trust me, these babies are good enough on their own.  They don't need any dressing up.

Probably could have upped the toffee bits quantity.  Hell I could have just dumped the entire bag in there.

Fresh outta the oven.

Check out this natural light in my kitchen! Don't you all love it when I make things in the day light and the food actually looks tasty?

If you have some apples laying around the house go ahead and put them into some toffee blondies.  You won't be sorry.

And yes, in case you were wondering, I still have more apple creations to share with you.

Applesauce

I did some cooking with my kiddies last week. Who wants to see how cute my new crop of panda bears are??!!

Good I knew you would all want to.

I pealed and sectioned the apples and then let the kids chop them into smaller pieces.

Here's my pal Charlie he was quite excited about this project and was the only kid who actually ate seconds.  He has asked me everyday since, "when we are going to make applesauce again?"

Check out my sassy little friend Aimee in the background here.  She was refusing to go wash her hands.

Emylia looks like she is really struggling here.

I used a slowcooker to cook the applesauce and to make my classroom smell delicious.  I used about 6 apples, 1/2 cup of sugar, cinnamon, and a cup of water.

The finished product after being cooked for 3 hours and mashed with a potato masher.

I am totally ready to make this again with.... latkes? porkchops? hmmmm....

It's Harvest Time!

It's going to be apple mania here at This Is Why KTC Is Hot for a couple of weeks as I try my best to use up the 40 pounds of apples we got from apple picking.

First up is apple pumpkin streusel cake.

I really have nothing much to say about this except that it was delicious and we ate pretty much the entire thing in one night.

My only complaint was that it asked to be made in a spring-form pan and I really have no patience for those things.  I used it anyway, but don't see why it was necessary.

Yeaaa check me out I got all artsy in this photo-shoot.

Middletown Madness

Soooo a few weeks ago I attended a shindig with an obscene amount of food. Mind you, you may see the photos and think "oh please KTC, I have surely seen greater amounts of food than that."  But let it be known that this food was for 4 girls. 4. girls.

The spread consisted of: tortilla chips, guacamole, buffalo chicken dip, sweet potato fries, pigs in a blanket, salsa, spinach dip bread bowls, ranch dip, onion dip, potato chips, doritos, spinach artichoke dip, bread, and of course, brownies.

My response to all that food:

Another party goers response to all that food "I thought we there was going to be a boy here! How are we going to eat all this food??"

Ok now that we are over the fact that there was a shit ton of food let's get down to business.  My contribution, mini spinach dip bread bowls. These were so easy and really delicious.  I will totally make them for my Super Bowl bash.

I mixed the dip and put the french bread into mini muffin tins.

Here they are making a total mess in the pan

Look how freaking cute these little guys are!

Quick someone have a party I can bring hors devours to so I can make these again!

Fettuccine with Sage Butter

I have this cookbook that I know I have gushed about in the past.  I decided I needed to photograph the cookbook, in all it's glory, for you to see.

This book is just asking me to cuddle up in bed with it. I will forever be adding more sticky notes every time I pick it up to peruse its insides.

One glorious sticky note bookmarked: fettuccine with sage butter.  That to me seemed like the perfect simple dinner for a rainy first day of fall.

The "sauce" is just butter and fresh sage leaves with a hearty scoop of parmesan cheese.

I chopped and boiled some sweet potatoes to make the meal a tad more nutritious.