Quick & Easy Beef Stroganoff

The Bun is a very big meat eater.  He loves all things meat and fruit (and cookies!).  Veggies...not so much.  I've decided to pick my battles.  He especially loves Sloppy Joes which I had planned to make but remembered this recipe from my early cooking days of being in high school and cooking supper for my family.  I decided to give it a try and see if he would like it.  Surprisingly, he really does like it, even the noodles which he hasn't been eating lately.  It is so easy and quick.  I believe from the time I started cooking to the time it was on the table was 30 minutes at most.  I normally serve it with egg noodles, but elbow macaroni was all I had.  It really doesn't matter.  Just serve it with whatever noodles you have.

Quick & Easy Beef Stroganoff

1 lb. ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

1/4 c. butter

2 Tbsp. flour

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 clove garlic, minced or 1 tsp. garlic salt

1 can mushroom pieces, optional

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 c. sour cream

In large skillet, brown ground beef  and cook onion in melted butter until onion is tender.  Stir in flour, salt, pepper, garlic and mushroom pieces (I don't put the mushrooms in); cook 5 minutes, stirring constantly.  Stir in soup and mix well; simmer uncovered for 10 minutes on low.  Stir in sour cream; heat through.

Serve over noodles.

Pilgrim Hats

I was originally asked to bring Granny's Cut Out Cookies to our Thanksgiving lunch for the kids, but I took creative liberty and decided to make these little gems instead.  They are super easy to make and definitely something older children could help with.  Here's what you'll need:

Pilgrim Hats

Keebler Fudge Stripe Cookies
Marshmallows
Chocolate chips
tube of yellow decorators icing

Place cookies, stripe side down onto wax paper.  In microwave, carefully melt chocolate.  Use toothpicks to dip marshmallows to coat in chocolate.  Place on top of cookie.  Allow chocolate to set.  Pipe a buckle onto hat.  (My store didn't was out of yellow tube icing, so I just bought some white can icing and colored it myself.  Then I used a ziploc bag to pipe onto hat.)

I was also asked to bring Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding for the adults.  I won't change that up and will definitely be taking that.

Bacon Wrapped Conecuh Sausage

And because The Dish Washer thinks no meal is complete without a side of meat, I knew I needed to come up with something to please him.  So I decided to take these sausages wrapped in bacon.  They are another super simple recipe that my Mother in law originally shared with me using hot dogs.  My sister made the same recipe once that used Conecuh sausage and I knew that is how I would make it from that point on.  It was delicious.  You could use any kind of sausage, hot dog or little smokies.

Bacon Wrapped Conecuh Sausage

1 lb. Conecuh sausage
1 lb. bacon, not thick cut
1 (1 lb.) box of light brown sugar

Cut sausage into 1 inch pieces.  Cut bacon strips into thirds.  Wrap each piece of sausage in bacon piece and secure with toothpick.  Place in crockpot.  Cover with brown sugar.  Cook on high for 3 hours or until bacon is cooked.

**If you double the meat in your recipe, you can still just use 1 box of brown sugar.

I also took Brunch Punch.  The Dish Washer said "I'd rather had just orange juice."  I hope at least the girls liked it.

Pioneer Woman's Sleepin' In Omelette

Yesterday was my Sunday to have breakfast for Sunday school.  I have had this particular recipe marked in my google reader for three years waiting for the perfect time to make it.  I decided yesterday was the day.  Of course, I didn't take any pictures because I wasn't coordinated enough to get it out of the house hot AND take pictures of it.  I'm going to just link up to her directly because I didn't change a thing about the recipe and I think her pictures and captions do the best job of explaining how to make it.

If you are looking for a perfect new brunch recipe to share with a group...THIS IS IT!!  I thought it was delicious.  And super easy to make.  She considers it an omelette, I'd consider it a savory bread pudding.  :)  Don't be scared when you take it out of the oven and see all the butter sizzling...it won't look like that after a few minutes.

Pioneer Woman's Sleepin' In Omelette

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

It is a drizzly day here today, which is the perfect day to spend in the kitchen.  We have THE BIG GAME this weekend to attend and my mom is coming into town to stay with The Bun.  I always try to thank my babysitters with good food and this weekend is certainly no exception.  I settled on this bread being our snack.  I hope it lasts until she gets here!  I also have Taco Soup, Tarragon Chicken Salad with Cranberries and Honey Oatmeal Bread on the agenda.  I may add Tri-Colored Pasta Salad to the mix, but haven't decided yet.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

1/2 stick butter, softened
1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
1 c. quick cooking oats
2 Tbsp. water
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients.  Pour into greased and floured regular sized loaf pan and bake at 350 for 45-55 minutes or until tooth pick comes out clean.  Adjust cooking time if you use smaller loaf pans.

Mexican Chicken Casserole

We were away from the house last week, but before we left I made this delicious Mexican Chicken Casserole.  It is from Southern Plate and I'm just going to link up to it today.  It was super easy and very good.  What really stuck out about the recipe, though, was the words that came with it.  I think it is important enough to repeat it here.  It was an excerpt from Anna Quindlan who is a Newsweek columnist.  When I read it, I became curious about her and what else she had to say, because honestly I loved the excerpt.  So I looked it up and here it is for you now.  I've highlighted my most favorite parts that encourage us as mothers to trust our instincts and not to compare our children to others AND to live in the moment and enjoy EVERY fleeting moment!

Raising Children
by Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief.

I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast.Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like.

Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon, and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages, dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, and finally what the women on the playground, and the well-meaning relations -- well what they taught me was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything.

One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome.

To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.

I remember 15 years ago pouring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made.They have all been enshrined in the "Remember-When-Mom-Did " Hall of Fame.The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs.The times the baby fell off the bed.The times I arrived late for preschool pickup.The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp.The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get wrong?" (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1.

And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.

I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top.

And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity.

That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me awhile to figure out who the experts were.

Lemon Rind for Disposal

I have discovered that anytime I use fresh lemons in a recipe, I can save and freeze the rinds.  I love the smell of fresh lemon in the garbage disposal for a refreshing smell, so I just take a few out of the freezer bag and let them thaw in the sink.  Then I send them through the disposal.  Whenever I make Lemonade or something like that, I always end up with so many extras, so why not save them for later?