Quinoa with oranges

Hi everyone this is a variation of something I saw on line so good so pretty so tastey
2 cups quinoa cooked remember its a 2/1 ratio like rice
2 navel oranges peeled and diced up
1 can mandarin oranges juice and all
1 cucmber peeled and diced I like the english ones
1 red onion diced up
pea pods if you have them
1 stalk of celery diced
2 tablespoons of olive oil
salt to taste
macadamia nuts if you want
mix altoghter and serve

Penna Pasta with spinich

I saw a variation of this recipe in another blog and i had all the ingredients except one

1/2 lb penna  pasta cooked
1 can cannelli beans drained and rinsed
2 cloves minced garlic
2 tbs. lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
a bag of fresh spinich
1/4 parmesan cheese
1/4 cup sundried tomatoes which I didn't have
2 tbs olive oil
after you cook the pasta and drain it leave alittle water in the pot and add everything else
except the cheese when the spinich is wilted the dish is done and add the parmesan cheese   serve in large bowl with crusty bread and butter maybe some pickled beets on the side

Wonderful Mistakes and Snowstorms

Heidi gave me the recipe here and told me to post it as a regular. This will make 2 meals cheap. This is the real story of how it came about and turned out absolutely wonderful! I am writing this during a massive snowstorm we are having. It is almost done snowing and we have about 24" of snow. Maybe I will put up a few pictures later. I am taking a vacation day today because I would not even have been able to get out of our driveway this morning.

Now for the recipe story. We were asked to make something for a bunch of kids to have at the meeting of their robot club. Just before bed I got out the crock pot and added the following.
2-1/2 pounds of chicken legs that were on sale for $2.39
3 Knorr chicken bouillon cubes
3 stalks of celery chopped
1 large onion chopped

I filled the crockpot with water and put it on Low and covered it
The next morning, about 6 hours later I removed the chicken legs to cool enough to remove the meat from the bones but left the rest of the stuff in the crockpot. I removed all of the meat in fairly large chunks and put them into the crockpot. Heidi had me add a cup of rice before I went to work. The rice stayed in a little to long and made everything a little too thick. She added:
1/3 cup to make it a little thicker
1 can of chopped green chilies
1-1/2 teaspoons of Cajun Spice
This cooked down so that she could stuff flour tortillas with the mixture.
She made about 10 of these and covered them with grated cheese and put in the oven to melt the cheese.

This fed the kids with enough left over for us to use in stuffed peppers the next day. To do this do the following:
Cut the tops off of 4 peppers and remove the seeds.
Par Boil them for about 5 minutes or so.
Put them in a 9" X 9" pan and fill with the rice mixture
Put a nice thick slice of your favorite cheese on top of each one
Pour about 1/2 can of tomato sauce over them
Put them in the oven at 350 for about 20 - 30 minutes or until the peppers are as soft as you like them.

We just had them for lunch and they were absolutely wonderful.


ENJOY

Talapia with tomatoes

The other day I was looking for something different to do with fish
I always put it in the oven with alittle milk and onion and a couple pats of butter
so I decided on this Yum
4 pieces of talapia
 in an oven proof fry pan
aliitle olive oil (not much)
sear it alittle on top of stove
add one tomato slice on each piece of fish
sprinkle 1/2 cup flavored bread crumbs on top of the tomato slices
1/2 stick margerine melted sprinked over the bread crumbs
1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice depending on how lemony you like it and then bake in a 350 degree oven for 20-30 minutes till brown  easy and delicious

Pot Roast in the crock Pot

Ok I saw this in a recipe blog but i didn't have the ingredients so I decided to try making my own variation
oh my god its delicious
1 pot roast or chuck roast
2-3 carrots
3 potatoes cut in half
1 onion I would have used more but we're down to our last 2 and its snowing
1 can of diet coke or coke
1/3 cup ketchup
2 heaping tablespoons of grape jam or jelly
garlic powder to taste
salt and pepper
worcheshire sauce about 3 good shakes
Put it in a crock pot on high for 6 hours or low for all day It has a wonderful sauce that you can thicken or just spoon over the potatoes yum

orange muffins

These are Jon's favorite muffins and i finally made them today and some for his coworkers
1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cups plain yogart
1 egg
1/3 cups sour cream or milk you can also add a half of a stick of margerine melted to make them more rich
1/3 cup orange juice
2 cups flour
1 teas. baking soda
1/2 teas. salt
1 teas. vanilla
1 orange zested
Bake 350 degrees 25-30 minutes
now  dunk them in Orange juice and then into 1/4 cup sugar you should do this when the muffins are warm

Now remember these are Jon's favorite so make a double batch because I bet they'll be yours too!
Beth made these at Baylor hospital in Texas when she was a chef there and they were one of their favorites too

Pork Loin with maple reduction

This is fantastic dish that my sister-inlaw gave to me and so easy
Heat olive oil in a large frying pan9 one that can go in the oven)
Put mustard all over a pork loin
brown in pan 2-3 minutes
put in the oven for 20 minutes then take the pork out of the pan
in the pan put 2 tabls. balsmic vinegar reduce this and add 1 tabls. more mustard and 3 tabls. maple syrup
add the pork back in and cook on the top of the stove for 10-12 more minutes covered