Easter and a New Recipe

Here are my Middles and Littles on Easter Sunday.  Aren't they cute?  My Big Guys are getting older and are beginning to spread their wings.  They have plans of their own, which don't always include our family.  Posing for cheesy family photos is not usually part of their plans.  After looking at this picture I realized I will be seeing more and more of these with 'just five kids'.  It looks like way too small of a group, doesn't it?

Anyway, enough of my pondering life.

I have a recipe I'd like to share with you.  It's called Crazy Crust Pizza.  I first had this when I was a little girl and we were visiting friends.  I remember my mom commenting on how quickly the meal came together.  I was reintroduced to this when friend of mine recently made it for us.  I have a new found love for this EASY recipe.  If our whole family is around, one pan is not enough.  But if it's just The King and I with The Middles and Littles, we have plenty.

Crazy Crust Pizza

1 cup flour

1 tsp salt (if you are using salty meat such as seasoned sausage, cut back on this)

1 tsp oregano

½ tsp black pepper

2 eggs

2/3 cup milk

Combine and mix well.  Pour batter into a greased 10 x 15 baking sheet (with sides).  Spread evenly.  Sprinkle your choice of toppings over batter:

I've been using ½ pound bulk Italian sausage (cooked and drained), one small onion, chopped; ¼ to ½ cup sliced black olives; and 4-5 medium sized mushrooms, sliced.  You could use pepperoni, Canadian bacon or ground beef.  Additional veggies would be good too.  Just don't overload the batter with toppings.  This is a soft thin crust and I've found that less is better.

Bake at 400° for 20 minutes.

Remove from oven, spread one cup of pizza sauce evenly over top and sprinkle with 2 cups of mozzarella cheese. Return to oven for about 5 more minutes, or cheese is melted and bubbly.  Cut and serve.

Quick, easy and delicious.  Enjoy!

 

Chicken Challenge Correction

Remember my Chicken Challenge post?  I was wanting a cyber pat on the back from my blogging audience because my bestest friend in the whole wide world, Rapunzel (the one with all the hair), didn't seem impressed with my results.

I stand corrected.  Here is an email message that was buried in my inbox.  It is from Rapunzel:

I was very impressed !!!  I was just impressed earlier than you thought I'd

be.  I couldn't get over the size of the chicken before you got to the rest

about boiling the bones after you had already cooked the chicken because

the marrow makes really good broth.  And then making chicken enchilada

casserole without rolling up the tortillas - a layer of tortillas, a layer

of "slop" - as you called it, a layer of cheese...  And you used green

pepper because Jouster had purchased 4 green peppers instead of green

onions before Christmas.  Your family loved it (and I'm sure mine will too

on Saturday night when I make enchiladas the easy way!!!).  You also make

your cream soup from a home made mix, remember, we calculated how much it costs and it's a good deal, you were going to send me the recipe.....   Nexttime if you don't think I'm impressed, ask me.  I must have been impressed to remember all of those details, don't you think?

You are my bestest friend too and when I get to talk to you sometimes we go

too fast from subject to subject so I don't get to tell you how great you

really are!!!!

I'd have put this all into a comment on your blog, so everyone can see how

truly impressive you are to me, but either I can't comment from here, or

you have changed your settings.   Feel free to paste my rebuttal into your

blog if you so choose.

Have a wonderfully blessed day!

Rapunzel

I should have known better.  In the 14 years we've been friends she has always been impressed (or pretended to be, anyway) with everything I excitedly share with her.  This particular day I couldn't shut my mouth long enough to hear her giving me an 'atta girl' through the telephone line.   Isn't she a great friend?  Everyone needs a Rapunzel in their lives.  Some day I will tell you the story of how our friendship almost never came to be.

In reading her message, you'll see I don't buy cream soup in a can anymore.  It takes a little more forethought in preparing meals, but now that I've done it for a while, I don't even notice.   In case you are interested, here is the recipe (It originated from my my Sister-in-Love, The Queen of Spring Lake.):

Cream Soup Mix

2 c. powdered milk

3/4 c. cornstarch

1/4 c. chicken bouillon

2 T. dried onion flakes

1 t. dried thyme

1 t. dried basil

Combine all ingredients.  Mix well and store in an air tight container.

Yields:  4c. of mix  (12 cans of soup)

To replace one can of condensed cream soup:

Combine 1/3 c. dry mix with 1 1/4 cup water in saucepan.  Heat and stir until thickened.

It is slightly 'soupier' than the canned stuff when it's hot...so you may have to adjust recipes that call for milk.

I think I will add cheese to it when recipes call for cheese soup.  I chopped up a couple of mushrooms one day when I needed a can of cream of mushroom soup to top an egg bake--it turned out good.  I think you could replace the chicken bouillon with beef bouillon and it would look more like cream of mushroom soup.  This is a little yellower than mushroom soup would be.  Not noticeable in recipes though!  And oh, so  much more cost effective!  (Mine is MSG free since I use Frontier Chicken Broth Powder--if using Frontier, you'll need to adjust the recipe.  Regular bouillon requires 1 tsp per cup of water and Frontier requires 4 tsp.)

1/3 cup of dry mix is 95 calories

1 can of soup is 330 calories

 

 

Blog Reader Requests

First of all, I am going to share a recipe with you.  (Debra this is for you!)  Every time I serve this, I get requests for the recipe. 

French Dip

serves 8

3# beef chuck roast  (we have use lamb roasts and had great results)

¾ cup soy sauce

3 cups water

1 ½ tsp. dried rosemary

1 ½ tsp. dried thyme

1 ½ tsp. garlic powder

1 bay leaf

5 whole peppercorns

Place contents in slow cooker.  Cover and cook on high for 5-6 hours or until beef is tender.  Remove bay leaf and discard.  Strain broth to remove remaining spices.  (I tie the spices all up into a piece of cheesecloth or a spice bag, so I don't have to strain it.) Shred beef.  Skim fat, if needed.  Use broth for dipping and add some to the shredded beef to keep it moist.  Serve on hard rolls.

Debra, I will make this for you if you will come...just give me about 6 hours advance notice :-)

Secondly...My cousin Chris has been wanting to see photos of our finished basement.  Here they are:  

From my kitchen you will see this opening.  This leads you to the basement stairs.  I repainted my kitchen a green color called cavern moss.

If you look to the right, this is where The King made me a little kitchen office.  It is here I do my menu planning and make my grocery lists.  I love my little nook.  It used to be a pantry but we framed a larger pantry into the kitchen when we were framing the basement.  This paint color is called pizza pie .  I get hungry every time I look at it.

When you turn to the left, you go down four stairs and then turn right onto a landing.  There is a door at this landing that goes to the outside.  We plan to build a deck or screened in porch out this door one day.  Do you like my curtain rod?  I have fabric to sew a curtain...I just haven't gotten to it yet.  I'm telling myself that fabric, like fine wine, is better with age.

Then we head down the stairs to the basement.  These stairs used to be very steep but The King's brothers helped him plan and cut out some of the original landing to make the stairs perfect!  I painted this stairwell a brown color called patches.  I was hoping it would cover up dirty little fingerprints.  It does that job well.  What is does not cover up is permanent marker.  Trust me, I know.

 
Now we are at the bottom of the stairs.  Here is the main living area.  It is a tan color called spiced vinegar. 

Standing in the main living area.  Behind the sofa are the doors leading to the laundry room, the bathroom and the utility room.

Another view of the main area.  My treadmill is behind the sofa.  I removed the clothing for this photo shoot, but my treadmill doubles as a clothesline since it is so close to the laundry room.   Okay, I lied.  My treadmill does not double as a clothesline.  It is a clothesline.

Still standing in the main living area, but looking down to the end.  This is where we keep the toys.  The love seat gets pulled into the main living area on family movie night so (mostly) everyone has a place to sit.

Here is the bathroom.  I love the fixtures.  Actually, I love everything about the bathroom.  I still need to find the perfect towel bars for this room.  One of these days I'll make that a priority.

The walls are a little darker shade than the main area.  This color is jute.  I chose red as my accent color.  I have more fabric ready to be made into a shower curtain.  I'm letting it age as well.  There is a linen closet to the left and the shower is on the right.  We put in floor heat throughout the entire basement so this tile floor is cozy warm.

Next is the laundry room.  This is a shade lighter than the main area and it is called sand fossil.  Don't you wish you could name paint colors?  I do.  That's what I want to do when I grow up.

Just keeping it real for you.  Those other photos were all staged to make it look like I have a perfectly clean house.  I don't.  This is the real me.  Actually this is laundry on a good day.  Some days you can't even see the floor!

Hope you enjoyed the tour.  And Chris, it looks so much better in real life...come and check it out.  

Lunch Idea

Scribe is my kitchen helper. He loves to try cooking new things. So far he has mastered baking bread (whole wheat from scratch--really from scratch--he even grinds the flour) and frying eggs perfectly. Now he can add another thing to his cooking mastery list: corn dog patties.

First you need a box (or two) of corn bread muffin mix. Mix it according to the directions on the box. Chop up a package of hotdogs and fold them in. (More or less depending on how hot doggy you like them.) Next, fry them on your griddle until they are done in the center. (They take longer to cook than pancakes, so be patient.) Serve with ketchup. Easy enough for a 10 year old to make!

Freezer Cooking

One of my favorite things to do is to prepare freezer meals. My hubby travels quite often so I am left to care for our seven children. The days I am alone caring for our busy household and home schooling three of our children I feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and outnumbered by the time I should begin preparing dinner. Freezer meals have kept us from driving through fast food restaurants on the nights dad is out of town. I have been a member of a once a month cooking club for almost two years now. Between cooking with a group of friends and making meals on my own, I keep a great supply of meals on hand.

Multi Tasking Mom's recipe swap this week is make ahead meals. Here is one that I can easily make in large batches, separate and freeze I found it in one of my grandmother's church cookbooks. My kids love this meal, and we rarely have leftovers. It is a little bland in color, so I make a side of peas, carrots or a tossed salad to liven it up. My friend Rapunzel puts peas right in the meat mixture for a one dish meal.

Just a note: If you do have left overs and want to reheat in the microwave, we peel the biscuits off, heat the meat mixture until it's hot then add the biscuits for about 10 seconds more. This keeps the biscuits from getting hard.

CB Casserole
Serves 6-8

1 ½ lb. ground beef
1 onion, chopped
2-8 oz. packages cream cheese
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 cup of milk

Have on hand: Three tubes of refrigerated biscuits (the cheap kind that come in a four pack).

Cooking day instructions: Brown ground beef with onion. Thoroughly cream the milk, cream cheese and soup together. Add ground beef mixture to soup mixture. Spread in bottom of greased 9 X 13 pan or in a freezer container. Do not place biscuits on top of casserole at this time. Label and freeze.

Serving day instructions: Thaw. If frozen ahead in a freezer container, spread into a greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake meat mixture at 375° until it bubbles all across the top (20-30 minutes). Cut biscuits into fourths. Place biscuits evenly over the top of hot mixture. Bake for an additional 15-20 minutes or until biscuits are brown and completely done.