Kitchen Adventures 17.1

Hearty soups always sound delicious when the weather starts to cool and the leaves start to fall. The sun starts setting earlier and the nighttime chill sets in right at dinnertime. Delicious soup that warms your stomach just sounds delightful at this time of year.

Several of my cookbooks have good soup recipes, and I definitely need to make more soup, stew and stoup. I have an immersion blender now thanks to my parents, so I see more soups in my future. :) Many soups do not need an immersion blender, though, and those are the ones I typically make.

This particular recipe comes from the handy triple T youth group cookbook. The recipe was contributed by a friend's mother, and it is quite delicious. I did learn that it does awhile to make this, especially getting the soup to thicken. I think I was trying to make it thicker than it is supposed to be. I had it simmering down for at least 30 minutes, when I probably could have stopped at 15, but so it goes. You be the judge on what works best for you. This is definitely one I will make again.

Cheeseburger Soup

Ingredients:

2 lbs. hamburger
1 onion, chopped
3 cans chicken broth
3 potatoes, sliced
1 lb. Velveeta cheese
1 quart (4 cups) milk
2 T. flour
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Brown the hamburger and onion in a skillet. Boil the potatoes and drain them. Make a thickening mixture of the flour and 1 1/2 cups milk shaken up. In a large stock pot, place the hamburger onion mixture, potatoes, broth, cheese, and the thickening mixture. Heat this until the cheese melts. Turn off the heat once the cheese melts and add in the remaining milk. Salt and pepper to taste. Stir to thicken until desired consistency.

Kitchen Adventures 12.3

Sometimes the name of a recipe can really turn you on or off of a recipe. Names can have connotations that give you a a preconceived idea of how a recipe will taste. To me, the word "haystacks" does not sound appealing. I am not a cow or horse, after all. But, just like many other things, once you look beyond the name your ideas about that thing may change. That is exactly what happened to me with this recipe. I had looked at it for several years, trying to decide if I would ever make it. Finally, I decided to look at the ingredients and discovered that it really just looked like a Frito chili pie recipe. Since I love that, I figured this would be good, too. And I was right!

This recipe came from my ever-dependable Triple T youth group cookbook. This recipe was actually submitted by my old high school trig teacher's wife. They are such good people that I figured it must be worth trying.

Mexican Haystacks

Ingredients:

2 lb. hamburger, browned
1 (16 oz.) can pinto beans, drained
3/4 (6 oz.) c. tomato paste
1 tsp. salt
1 (32 oz.) can tomatoes (I substitutes 1 can tomato sauce and 2 cans of water since I'm not a big tomato fan)
2 T. chili powder
1 package corn chips
1/2 head lettuce, shredded
6 oz. grated cheese (or as much as you like!)

Directions:

Season your hamburger with a little taco seasoning and chili powder while browning, then drain. Add the beans, tomato paste, tomatoes (or tomato sauce), chili powder, and salt to browned and drained hamburger. Cook over low heat for 10-15 minutes. When serving, place a handful of corn chips in a bowl, then pour the meat mixture over the chips. Top with lettuce and cheese.
*You might substitute crisped tortilla strips instead of chips.

Kitchen Adventures 12.1

It's been about a year now since I first started sharing my recipes and cooking creations with others through this blog. Admittedly I am not the most faithful of bloggers, but it is something I enjoy and if people keep telling me they read my posts and want to try my recipes then it's worth it.

As usual, I am behind. I need to catch up with my May dishes before adding in my June endeavors. Life has been so busy and will only get busier, even though it's summertime. I always thought things were supposed to slow down when school got out, but it never happens that way. We, or at least I, save projects until it's summer because we somehow think we'll have more time to do things. Yet, inevitably, we have LESS time because we have so many things we put off and have to try to catch up before the summer months slip away. It's the never-ending circle of life I'm discovering as I settle more into my adult life.

Through all the craziness that life sometimes brings, I still find time to cook and bake. I have to eat, of course, and if you know me well you understand how important eating is to me. :) I get quite grumpy without sustenance, as my friends and co-workers can attest.

Something I had been wanting to try for some time is baked spaghetti. I'm a big pasta lover, but this was something I had yet to try. While flipping through my many cookbooks I found a baked spaghetti recipe and decided it was finally time to try it. This one comes from my Wheat State Manor cookbook my mom got for me a couple years ago and it was submitted by a lady from my church. I will have to tell her I tried it out the next time I go home!

One note about the recipe: I made the mistake of not browning my meat with the veggies or seasoning my meat while browning it, so the meat did not absorb as much of the flavor it could have. Just make sure you do this to get the best out of the dish.

Baked Spaghetti

Ingredients:

2 lb. hamburger
1 onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 green pepper, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 T. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp. salt
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can tomatoes, mashed
1/2 lb. cheddar cheese, grated
spaghetti

Directions:

Brown the hamburger and fresh veggies, seasoning with dashes of the spices; drain. Cook the spaghetti as directed and drain. Add the spaghetti to the meat, and add the cream of mushroom soup, tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce and spices. Make sure to not add in water to the soup. Mix all this together, then spoon into a baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, then top with cheese and return to oven until the cheese melts.