Blog 5

One recipe that has significance in my life is homemade chicken alfredo. The reason this recipe is so important is that it is the first recipe I learned how to cook for my family all on my own. When I was younger I would constantly sit in the kitchen while my mother or father prepared dinner and would always try and do my best to help wherever needed. However, as I grew older my interest in learning how to cook and prepare my own food began to increase. Eventually, I decided that it would be fun to reverse the roles of the kitchen and instead be the one to prepare dinner for my entire family. I began by scouring the internet in search of simple yet tasty recipes that I believed everyone would enjoy. Growing up in a family of five with two younger siblings can often make the task of finding a crowd-pleasing dish quite difficult. Finally, after numerous food blogs and instructional cooking videos on Facebook and Twitter, I came across a recipe for baked chicken alfredo. Not only did this recipe appeal to both my family and I, but its preparation is super simple. This dish quickly became a hit amongst my family and since then has made an appearance at several family dinner parties. This recipe is not only significant in taste but also in the memories I have preparing it.

Ingredients
For four servings:

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
2 Chicken Breasts Cubed
3 Cloves Garlic, Minced
14 oz Chicken Broth
1 cup Heavy Cream
1/2 lb Pene Pasta, Uncooked
1 1/2 cups Grated Parmesan Cheese
1 Cup Mozarella Cheese

Preparation:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degress and set to broil.
2.  In a medium-sized pot begin by heating the olive oil and browning the chicken breasts.
3.  Add garlic and any other desired seasonings and saute for about a minute.
4.  Add chicken broth, heavy cream, and pasta into the pan and bring to a boil.
5.  Once boiling cover and reduce heat to a simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes.
6.  Turn off heat and stir in 1/2 cup parmesan cheese until melted.
7.  Place the pasta into a greased oven safe dish.
8.  Sprinkle the mozarella and remaining parmesan cheese ontop on the pasta.
9.  Place the dish inside the preheated oven and remove once cheese ontop has begun to brown.
10. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10 - 15 minutes.
11.  If desired garnish with chopped parsley.
12.  Serve and enjoy!

Blog 5

One of my favorite recipes has to be a chocolate chip cookie recipe. This recipe has been a part of my family ever since i was a little kid. I believe the recipe came from a magazine which my mom found. Thees cookies are so good it has been the only cookie recipe used ever since it was found. The recipe was passed to my grandma. So whenever we see her, she has the cookies made. This recipe is important to me because there are a lot of memories that i think of when thin king of them. Sometimes i feel like a little kid again when I eat these cookies just because of how long i have been eating them for.
Because this is my favorite cookie recipe, I want to share it with everyone. I want everyone to understand why this is my favorite recipe. These cookies are way too good not to share with everyone.

Recipe: (makes about 20)*
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups packed dark-brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips


Directions:

1. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda, set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350º. Beat butter and sugars with a mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Add vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture; beat until combined. Mix in chocolate chips.
3. Using an ice cream scoop, drop the dough onto lined baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake until golden around the edges but soft in the middle, about 15 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to a wire rack, and let cool completely.

*size of ice cream scoop will determine number of cookies

Blog 5

Ever since I was a kid my mom would make her "famous" salsa chicken, this chicken really wasn't all that special in terms of gourmet recipes, but it's special to me in that it's a recipe I can associate with my childhood. I could always look forward to this meal once a weekend, and it was always as good as the last time. I could never get enough of the stuff, I was addicted. Recently my mom has stopped making it, as I'm apparently the only one of her children who was in love with it, but shes promised me that once I come home she'll cook it again for me. The recipe is beyond simple, all you need is some chicken breasts, a plastic zip lock bag, your favorite brand (or homemade version) of salsa, thyme, oregano, salt, pepper, and any of your other favorite spices to throw on chicken.

First off, you need to have the correct amount of prep time for this meal, you're going to need about 25 hours. Don't worry, almost all of that is done in step one, which is where you take the salsa, chicken, and the plastic bag, and let the chicken marinate within the salsa for 24 hours. After this step its all clear sailing, as all you have to do is cook the now fully marinated chicken in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 22-26 minutes. After that's done, you top the chicken with your favorite spices and garnishes, as well as any leftover salsa, and voila, you've created my favorite meal from my childhood!

Blog 5-Tamales

Tamalés

When my grandma lived in Mexico back in 2005, she would make the best Mexican food that you can think of and always made us laugh and smile, especially when she made Tamales. Tamales is the one food that I love the most because it impacted my life in a way that it was the first time I had tamales, it was the first time I have seen my grandma, and was introduced to a different culture in Mexico.

Ingredients

• Corn leaves
• 1 Potato cut into cubes
• 2 Carrots cut into cubes
• a small pot or steamer.

For the Masa

• 2 1/2 cups of flour prepared for tamales
• 1 1/4 cups of chicken broth
• 1 Tablespoon Salt or chicken powder consomme
• 8 oz. Pork Lard
• 1 Tablespoon Baking Powder

For the Chicken

• Cooking and unraveling a chicken breast
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1/4 julienne onion.
• Salt and pepper to taste

For the Guajillo sauce

• 6 Chiles deveined boiled, drained and clean.
• 2 dry pasilla chiles, boiled, drained and clean
• 1/4 roasted onion
• 3 roasted garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup of chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon cumin

Instructions
Start by soaking the corn husks in warm water so that they soften. Once soft put them in a sieve to drain the excess water.

Meanwhile fill your steamer with water and a handful of salt until it covers the bottom of the pot without going to the tamales.

Prepare the dough by adding the dry ingredients in a bowl and gradually empty the chicken broth to form a soft but manageable dough.

Then fry the onion and the shredded chicken with spices and olive oil.

In a pan with water boil the carrots for 5 minutes and then add the potatoes and boil everything for 10 minutes, that the vegetables are still firm. Then cook with olive oil, dried cilantro, salt and pepper to taste and Reserve.

Prepare the sauce aguajillo liquefying everything perfectly, if you use a blender of high power you will not need to strain but if you do not use it you will have to strain the mixture so that there are no residues of the skin of the chiles.

Grab two leaves and put them in the opposite direction of each other, add 1/4 cup of dough in the center of the leaves and in the center of the dough add chicken, vegetables and guajillo sauce. wrap in a gift and set vertically in the pot for the tamales. Let cook for an hour to an hour and a half at medium temperature and enjoy warm!  
The aguajillo sauce is not spicy if you like spicy, add 2 dried tree chiles to the mix before liquefying.
Makes approximately 15 tamales to make more double the mixture.

-Chili- Serves 6

When I first went vegan, I literally had no idea what I was doing. Going from eating meat, dairy, eggs, etc from nothing but plants was a tough one. None the less, Pinterest and youtube exist so I went on to discover a whole community of vegans who posted recipes and the How-Tos of being a vegan. My personal favorite was of a hippie mom living in Hawaii who I've been watching since I was a 14-year-old vegetarian, Ellen Fisher. Homecooked meals were her jam, and this one stood out to me so much I made it for family, friends, and myself now that I live away from home. Chili; simple, warming, and easy to make. I took to Fisher's recipe quickly, and I even wrote it down from her video since she didn't have it posted in the description box. Rightfully so, as she makes a living off of her EBooks.
I couldn't copy and paste the recipe from anywhere online, but luckily I still have my notebook of vegan recipes from a couple years ago ready!

Blog 5

My favorite recipes that i'm going to talk about is sweet n sour sausage with rice and Nestle Toll house Chocolate Chip Cookies. This is what you will need to make sweet n sour a boiling saucepan with 4 cups of water; sweet and sour sauce; and 5 pieces of sausage. The first thing you do when your making sweet n sour is boil a bag of rice in the saucepan between 10-12 minuets, then during the first 7 minuets of boiling I cut off the skin off the sausages and tear off peaces of sausages into medium size balls. After i have all my sausages, I put them on the stove and cook them for 5 minuets. When the timer goes off I cover the pot with the rice and then I get the sweet n sour sauce and pour half a bottle or the whole thing on the sausage pan, and start stirring it around. Then I pour the left over sauce down the drain, after that I take the bag of rice and drain it over the sink until the water is out, then I open the bag and pour it all on the plate, then add the sausage and stir around the rice and sausage together, and bon appetite. I remember the first time I tried sweet n sour it was so good I liked it when the sauce would mix together with sausage and rice. I even make it myself at my apartment  and also on the weekends sometimes if I ever get hungry. Now that's one of favorite recipe now to talk about my second favorite recipe is when my mom makes me her Nestle Toll house Chocolate Chip Cookies. Whenever I was little my mom would make her cookies for desserts and holiday party's. Now whenever I go over back home for the weekend I always ask my mom to either make her special brownies or her special cookies. I always love making sweet deserts with my mom. This is what you will need to make nestle cookies is 2 1/4 cups of flour; 1 teaspoon of baking soda; 1 teaspoon of salt; 1 cup of butter or 2 sticks , softened; 3/4 cup of granulated sugar; 3/4 cup of packed brown sugar; 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract; 2 large eggs; and 2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) Nestle Toll House Semi Sweet Chocolate Morsels. The next thing you do is preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine all the ingredients together in a bowl; then put as much of the cookie dough on a spreadsheet; than bake for 9-11 minuets or until golden brown. Cool on backing for 2 minuets; remove to wire racks to cool completely, then bon appetite. The one thing that I like with the cookies is having a cold glass of milk to dip the cookies into milk. I'm glad i got to share with you my favorite ingredients and hope you will go home and try to make the sweet n sour. Besides the chocolate chips cookies because everyone knows how to make those.

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Favorite Recipe #5

I don't cook a lot and there are not a lot of things that I can actually cook without burning or ruining but at the moment my favourite recipe is very hard to actually mess up. It is brussel sprouts with olive oil, salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar. Just pop them in the oven for about 25-30 minutes on medium heat or until they look brown and taste done. The way I came about this recipe is one of my oldest friends mom was making them and I had never been a fan of brussel sprouts until I tried hers. They were so good that no matter how I am feeling those always taste good. And because I have never been a great cook these are easy and simple that also fill you up and go with a lot of different dishes. Steak, chicken, rice, fish, etc. That is why I like them so much. I always go for what is easy.

Brussel sprouts cut in half (how many you want, they save well).
Heat oven to 425 degrees.
Put brussel sprouts in a bowl then add oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and mix evenly.
Put them flat side down.
After cooking for 15 minutes flip brussel sprouts onto the round side and cook for 15 more minutes.
Pull out of the oven after fully cooked and add seasoning if needed.
Then enjoy!

blog 5- cooking

As we grow up we learn about our family and the history that is held within it. We all have family secrets that we hide from the world, today is the day I reveal one of ours to you. Whenever my grandma comes over we make a huge dinner. Each diner has different things within but what we never forget is the pie. Our family has tons of recipes we made, my favorite is pumpkin pie.

My grandma makes a different pie with each one of my siblings. It all starts from scratch. We make the dough and mix it up. After that, we put it in a pie tin and start pinching the perimeter of the crust. Then we get to make all the yummy stuff inside of it. At some point, we get distracted and start talking about something off topic. We tell one another about the school, work, dreams, and so much more. It is such a great time to just bond. The best part about it is you do not just get a sweet conversation but a great pie as well.

When it comes to family recipes is not what makes the secret so great, but it is the genuine happiness you get when you are spending time with your family. The stories and all makes it truly special.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 c. mashed cooked pumpkin.

   1/2 tsp. salt.   

1 3/4 c. milk.    

3 eggs.  

 2/3 c. packed brown sugar.

  2 tbsp. sugar.  

  1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon.

  1/2 tsp. ginger.

   1//2 tsp. nutmeg.  

 1/4 tsp. cloves.

 Beat together and pour into a pastry lined pan.   

Bake 55 minutes @425 degrees

Sienna - Blog 5

Growing I've always loved Macaroni and Cheese. I didn’t care if it was from a restaurant, frozen, or just them generic Kraft kind from a box. However, nothing could be as good as the kind my mom would make. This Baked Macaroni and Cheese she made was always better than any other kind. I loved eating this recipe so much I had my mom teach me how to make. The moment my mom taught me to make the mac and cheese is one of the moments I’ve cherished between the two of us. One of the best parts of this recipe how cheesy and the slight crisp to it. I also love how quick and easy it is to make.  While making the food I was so surprise to realize that there was nothing special with the recipe. I think one of the big reasons why I love this macaroni and cheese so much is the memory I have of making it with my mom. Once I learned how to make the food it became like comfort food for when I wanted something to remind me of her. Below is the recipe for my mom’s baked macaroni and cheese recipe.

Baked Macaroni and Cheese Recipe:

1. A box of elbow noodles. (Any brand would work, you could use other shaped noodles but the elbow kind noodles are my favorite.)
2. One jar of white alfredo sauce and cheese sauce. (I personally prefer the Ragu brand, but any kind will work.)
3. Bread crumbs (Any brand is good)
4. Some type of bacon. (I prefer turkey bacon but normal bacon is good too.)
5. Some shredded cheese ( I would recommend the Kraft Mexican Blend type because it melts the best.)

Cooking the Macaroni and Cheese:

Before starting in preparation for making the macaroni and cheese you need to pre-heat the oven to 400’F. The first thing to do is boil the noodles until they are cooked. While the noodles are cooking you should cut up the bacon and start to cook the bacon until it’s cooked. Once the noodles and bacon are cooked you should set some of the bacon aside. The bacon you set aside will be used at a later point. After draining the noodles in the pot that they were cooked in you should combine both of the two sauce of jars together. Then add some of the bacon to the noodles and sauce. Afterward, you should put the mac and cheese in the glass containers and smooth it out. After the noodles were in the glass container sprinkle shredded cheese, bacon and bread crumbs to the top. Another alternative way of doing this is layering the noodles, cheese, bread crumbs, and bacon into the glass container. Either way works and tastes really good.  Once that is done you should bake in the oven on 400’F until everything is melted together in the pan. Enjoy your fully cooked delicious baked macaroni and cheese!

Tessa - Blog 5

Breakfast Soufflé

1 bag bread cubes

4 cups milk

8 eggs

1 stick butter

Salt, pepper to taste

2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, grated

16 link sausages, cut into bite size pieces and partially cooked

Corn flakes, crushed

Grease shallow baking dish. (I use large Pyrex rectangular dish.) Melt butter, pour over bread cubes. Add salt and pepper. Put layer of cubes in pan and spread cheese and half of sausages. Put another layer of bread cubes, cheese and sausage. Beat eggs and milk and pour over bread mixture.

Let stand overnight in refrigerator. If it looks dry in the morning, add a small amount of milk. Sprinkle corn Flakes on top and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Breakfast Souffle

So, this recipe and dish has a lot of significance to me and my life. First off, it is the absolute best, most delicious breakfast dish I have ever had in my life. My mom would make this for my family and I the morning after or on every holiday. She would make it Christmas morning, the morning after Thanksgiving, Easter morning, on our birthdays, the 4^th of July. We would have it every year for all of those holidays that matter to us. It is so special to me because it reminds me of my Papa who passed away on July 4^th, 2012. He would always be there every time that we ate this. He and I would even help my mom make it and it was so much fun. He was my best friend ever and now each time I have this delicious dish, I just get reminded of all the amazing memories I have of him throughout my life. We would always start by preparing the dish the night before and it was always a blast because he taught me the correct way on how to cut food with a big knife and how to avoid cutting my fingers off. Then, we would go to sleep and finish the rest of the dish in the morning. This was always my favorite part because while they breakfast would be cooking for that hour my Papa and I would listen to music and dance and sing along to it or watch a movie together. It was without a doubt, the best time ever and that is what I think of every time that I eat this breakfast soufflé. That is why this dish plays such an important and significant role in my life.