Pierogi Lasagna

Pierogi Lasagna

I failed like crazy to get a picture of this for the last 3 times we have had it. It is so good and I'm usually so hungry I can't wait to snap a pic before I eat. You'll have to deal.

 

Makes 1 13x9 pan of lasagna. Feeds 4 if you're fatties like the two of us and have half a pan for dinner.

 

12 Lasagna noodles

Instant mashed potatoes, milk, butter, and water - for enough potatoes to serve 6 per box

8 oz cream cheese

1/2 cup chopped chives

2 tablespoons garlic

Olive oil

Shredded cheese

Sour cream

 

1. Boil water and begin to cook lasagna noodles based on packaged instructions.

2. Heat oven to 350.

3. When noodles are 1-2 minutes from being cooked, start mashed potatoes.

4. Remove noodles when finished. Sprinkle with olive oil to prevent sticking. Add cream cheese to potatoes. Continue to stir until all has been incorporated and melted. Add chives and 1/2 cup shredded cheese to potatoes and stir well.

5. Oil pan on bottom and sides well. Place 3 noodles on bottom of pan and sprinkle a little shredded cheese on top. Spread 1/3 of the potatoes on top of these noodles. Add more shredded cheese. Repeat process until all potatoes and noodles are used. Sprinkle more shredded cheese to the top layer of the noodles. Cover with foil and cook for 35 minutes on 350.

6. After removing from oven, take off foil and let sit for 5 minutes. Slice, serve, and top with sour cream. Enjoy!!

 

 

Black Bean Soup

You could change this soup up so many ways. Add shredded chicken, add roasted corn, put some avocado in there... the possibilities are endless!! This is just the plain black bean soup that you could edit to your tastes. The recipe will yield at least 2 meals worth for 2 people, depending on how much you eat!

Black Bean Soup
1 cup jalapenos
2 tbsp. minced garlic
Olive oil
3 cups chicken broth
6 cans black beans
1/4 cup taco seasoning
1/2 cup hot salsa
1/4 cup taco sauce, hot
1 cup shredded cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
Toppings: sour cream, cheese, jalapenos, anything you can imagine!

1. Heat a few tsp of oil in a stock pot. When hot, NOT smoking, add chopped jalapenos and garlic. Stir constantly until roasted.
2. Add chicken broth and black beans. No need to drain and rinse the beans.
3. Add sesasoning, salsa, and sauce to pot and stir well.
4. Cook until beans are done through - let them get mushy, you're going to blend it up anyway.
5. Blend with immersion blender until smooth. Add shredded cheese and sour cream and blend again.

German Style Potato and Sausage Stew

It is fall! Time to start eating soup 24/7 and staying in warm clothes and boots for the next 6 months, haha! I whipped this one up last week and could stand to make it again this week. While it isn't the most gorgeous soup ever, it is delightful. Enjoy!

German Style Potato and Sausage Stew

German Style Potato and Sausage Stew
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 package chicken sausage
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
3 cloves garlic
1 bottle lager beer
3 medium carrots, sliced
3 stalks celery, diced
5 medium russet potatoes, cubed
3 cups chicken stock, hot
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2-3 teaspoons parsley

1. Heat up a medium-sized dutch oven or pot with olive oil over medium heat. When hot, placed sliced chicken sausage into oil. Allow to brown well, the crunchy bits are delicious. Grind the caraway seeds to a fine powder separately.
2. When sausage is done, add garlic, caraway powder, black pepper. When this starts to smell amazing, add the lager slowly. Make sure you scrape the bottom of the pot to get any of the "burned" parts up, should turn your broth very dark.
3. Add the carrots, celery, and potatoes. I chose not to peel my potatoes, but if you want, go for it.  Carefully add the hot chicken stock to the pot. Stir carefully to incorporate everything together.
4. Allow this to cook on medium-medium low until the potatoes are tender, 40-45 minutes.
5. Mash a few of the potatoes to bring the consistency up to your desired thickness.
6. Just before serving, add the ACV and stir well. Top with parsley. I served mine with fresh French bread that I added a few teaspoons of olive oil, sea salt, chile powder, and garlic powder. Then I toasted the sliced bread up for a few minutes in the oven and it was the perfect accompaniment to this rich soup.

See Ya Later Nasty Backyard!

We bought a foreclosure, a foreclosure in pretty bad shape none the less. In August, we will have been here for 2 years. The first year, we spent all our time and energy getting the inside how we wanted it. This spring, we started with the outside. We hired a painting company to revamp the outside and it made quite the impact. Neither of us really know how to deal with high desert climate and how to start landscaping in that climate. So, instead of landscaping a ton, we have decided to do a paver patio with some major flower beds to increase our privacy from the golf course and make it known that people actually live here now! This backyard project was quite a bit of work and there were many times we just wanted to quit. Now that it is done, it was so worth it!

First, we decided on our space taking into account that we wanted the flower beds to flow seamlessly from the patio. We dug down our area between 6-8 inches depending on how far it needed to be to be level... sort of!

When we finished digging down, we filled the hole back up with 3 inches of sand in order to make a solid base for the pavers.

Then we started laying the pavers. I started at the high side of the space and leveled each paver according to the previous one. I worked out in angles to keep it as level as possible. This was the most time consuming part. Only one person could really work on it at a time to preserve the level-ness.

Once the outside edges were done, we could start with the flower beds. I wanted it to be smooth on top and graduated on the bottom, this way it seems more solid to me. That also meant we needed to dig out a pathway for the bottom row to stay level. We did this same process on the flower bed that the previous owner had done, but they had used large boulders as the retaining wall. We also added in a small veggie garden to grow some tomatoes and jalapeno peppers - guacamole anyone?!

Once the patio was finished, we added 100 lbs of playground sand on top and brushed it in each seam to help with the solidity of the patio. We did this over a few days - brushed it around, sprayed it with the hose, let dry. Repeat. When this was all done, we added a small fire pit to the center, some great Target furnishings with Home Depot cushions and voila! Looks much, MUCH better! Now to let some plants grow, grab some more landscaping base rocks to fill in where we had to dig up and our back yard fits in with the much more prestigious homes in the neighborhood!

Fourth of July Cakeballs

Happy 4th of July!! These cakeballs are super festive and easy to share with a large crowd.  We served these at our picnic and they went over so well - especially with the "fireworks" inside!

Fourth of July Cakeballs

Festive Fourth Fireworks Cakeballs
1 box of confetti cake, prepared as directed on box in 13x9 pan
1 container confetti frosting (or cream cheese frosting)
2 containers of dipping white chocolate
Red and blue food coloring

1. Take cooled confetti cake and crumble in large bowl.
2. Warm frosting in microwave for about 20 seconds, just to soften it up.
3. Combine crumbled cake and container of frosting until it is fully mixed. It will be pretty mushy and a little wet, that is ok!
4. Form 1-inch balls of cake/frosting; place on waxed paper on a baking sheet. When all cake is formed into balls, place baking sheets in freezer for about 2 hours to firm.
5. Melt white chocolate. Divide into 3 bowls. Will need smallest amount of red, medium amount of blue, largest amount of white. Add several drops of food coloring to the chocolate until you get the color you desire.
6. Arrange the balls into a rectangle on a sheet pan and decide how you'd like your flag to look. Dip into white and blue colored chocolate. Allow these to harden slightly. Drizzle red chocolate over white cakeballs to simulate the red and white stripes of the flag.
7. Pop the sheet pan back in the freezer to allow the chocolate to set up quickly and continue to harden the cake inside. This helps to prevent everything from getting melty in the hot July weather.

Easy Peasy Steak Marinade

Despite its obnoxious color, Rick Bayless is onto something with this marinade. I have a slight obsession with Chef Bayless and he has never failed me! This green yumminess takes seconds to whip up and flavors the steak (or any other meat!) quickly. I left it on our steaks for about an hour and it was delectable!

Easy Steak Marinade (modified from the great Rick Bayless)
1/2 cup sliced, pickled jalapeños
2 tablespoons garlic
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
Salt and pepper

1. Char the garlic and jalapenos over medium heat for 10 minutes.

 



2. In a food processor (or in our case, the Magic Bullet (R)), combine the juices, peppers, and garlic. Mix until smooth.

 

3. Prepare the steaks with salt and pepper. What I have been told is to overdo it with the salt to impart more flavor. I tend to overdo it with the pepper as well :)

 

4. Add the marinade to a Ziploc bag, then cover the steaks with the marinade. I kept our steak/marinade bag in the refrigerator for about an hour. I then let the combo come to a warmer temperature for about a half hour before grilling by leaving it out on the counter. Make sure your grill is nice and hot before you place your steaks on it to get those gorgeous grill marks! I was too hungry to take a picture of the finished product, but trust me - delish!

 

 

Ta-Da!! New Kitchen!!

Backsplash 101

We are trying to slowly upgrade our home on a budget. We started in the kitchen with a backsplash. When we bought the house, the kitchen was fine, but compared to the beautiful and open spaces in the rest of the house, it just seem OK. Wow, what a difference the backsplash has made. It has taken this barebones kitchen to fantastic. Check it out!

We started the transformation by clearing off all the countertops and scrubbing down the wall where we would be tiling.

 Then we added SimpleMat tile adhesive. This saved us quite a bit of money and time. We were able to do the mat over 2 days and not need to worry about it drying out overnight. Since we had a party to go to Saturday afternoon, we started in the morning and got about halfway through the mats before heading out. When we started the next morning, we were able to keep going with the mat and start the tiles.

 

 

According to the packaging, we could grout immediately. So, we grouted and let it sit for a few hours before cleaning off. We love the results! Not bad for our first major DIY project!