11/25/09

Despite evidence, my name's not actually Martha!

Trust me I'm not usually this organised, in fact I wonder if the Hubster has been giving me psychic suggestions in my sleep. But today I spent the whole day 'batch' cooking all new recipes with great success.

I am currently back on yet another diet and so we are eating seperate meals everynight. This means I have been a bit lacking in preparing good meals for the Hubster, so today I rectified this.

We are blessed with endless freezer space thanks to the Hubsters business, so storage is not an issue which helps. I found all these recipes (except the Baklava) on allrecipes.com which I highly recommend for ease of use and great recipes. Once you sign up for free, you can save any recipe you like to your 'Recipe Box' for future reference. I have linked them all, just click the underlined name.

First up was a super easy dinner which literally takes 10 minutes to prepare. It consists of elbow macaroni, chicken, cheese, 2 condensed soups, milk and mushrooms. Here's the link for Sandy's Casserole.

Then I moved onto Mini Meatloaves which were also extremely easy and quick to prepare for the oven. The recipe suggests you make 8 mini loaves, but I made the Hubster 4 small ones.

My favourite recipe of the day was for these totally awesomely delicious Kickin' Meatballs, all I have to say is "WOW"! They have some unusual seasonings for meatballs, including cumin and dill weed. Some reviewers had left the dill weed out, but I left it in as it is a great compliment to cumin. I knew this from my experiences with Turkish cooking and so all I did was halve the dill weed needed. They also have crumbled pepper jack cheese in them and this is what makes them so incredibly moist. Just try them, you won't regret it. I plan on impressing guests for years to come with these little beauties!

This Easy Mexican Casserole was a close second, it's like making one giant taco pie and just as delicious. I did change one ingredient as I intended to freeze, instead of crushed tortilla chips as the layers, I used flour tortilla's. Personally I think it probably turned out better for them, as other reviewers has said the chips tended to get soggy. I also mixed in a packet of taco seasoning with the meat as it cooked. This is another recipe I will use on guests in the future, it's very good and easy to make.

I also made Refried Beans without the Refry! because they were cooked over 8 hours in my slo-cooker! Again dead easy to put together and then you just forget about them all day, before straining and mashing. They make a great accompaniment to the Mexican Casserole, and so I froze them together as a meal.

Finally I made Chocolate Baklava to take with us to a friends for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. I got this recipe from a 'Cooking Light' magazine, which I found hugely ironic considering it's ingredients! But I found this Baklava recipe which is the same, except you melt a cup of Nutella and drizzle it over the nut layers for the chocolate. If you have never made this, it's alot easier than you'd think and makes people think you're a pastry masterchef!

On Friday I plan on making another 3 recipes to finish off the Hubsters dinner selection. In the meantime I wish you all a "HAPPY THANKSGIVING".

10 comments:

Esther Garvi said...

Wow! Such effectiveness is impressive!
Now- what are YOU eating?

Kay said...

I am totally impressed, Sarah. Everything looks scrumptious! Have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Pat said...

Dittos to Esther...Wow! You are amazing and those dishes all look utterly delectable.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gaelyn said...

Wow Martha, I mean Sarah, you have been very busy in the kitchen. I Love Baclava and have made it with crescent rolls plus pistachios and almonds. Yum!
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.
I'll bet it seems odd to celebrate this holiday being a Brit.

Vickie said...

Happy Thanksgiving to you, too. Thank you for sharing the recipe connection. I'll be making the Mexican casserole this coming week.

Expat mum said...

Wow Delia! Thanks for some great recipes. I get fed up trying to come up with new meals all the time. Happy Turkey Day.

The Factory said...

Thanksgiving dinner looks amazing from the various TV shows that depict it. I think it should be exported like McDonalds, and there should be roast turkey emporiums all over the world.

Jill of All Trades said...

I'm officially hungry and ready to be done with turkey.

Dee/reddirtramblings said...

That looks so good. All of it. I love Allrecipes.com. One of my fave places to go for the last ten years. Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving with the hubster.~~Dee

Snippety Gibbet said...

Mmm.......that casserole looked yummy. Well, all of it looked yummy. You are so productive. jan