Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches

This is something that I came up with, obviously it's nothing original, but it had been a very long time since I had been Grocery shopping, and running out of food, I raided my cupboards, fridge, & freezer, to find anything to make a decent meal for dinner! And Viola.........



They turned out so good! Thanks to my mother in law who gave me the hogie buns, and luckily, I had some leftover steak in my freezer. There is no set recipe to this, but I'll explain what I did!

Start out with a hot frying pan, with some oil. Add the Strips of steak, once halfway cooked, add the sliced onions and green peppers! (It would even be good with mushrooms!) Add salt and pepper to taste. I had a lot of juices left in the pan, so I dissolved a little bit of corn starch in water and added it to the steak mixture to thicken the rest up!

Then take your Hogie Bun, spread some cream cheese on top and bottom, use as much or little as you would like! I also prefer the low fat cream cheese! Once cream cheese is spread, pile on the steak mixture, then sprinkle on some shredded mozz. cheese on top! With both sides open, broil on high in the oven, just till cheese is melted! Close the sandwich up, and enjoy!

Serve with french fries, or a side salad! Very tastey, very easy, and very quick meal!

-Janine

Tiny Spicy Chicken

4-5 chicken breasts cute into bite size pieces
1/2 t. garlic salt
Corn Starch
Oil
Sauce:
2 t. Sambal Oelek chili paste
1/4 c. ketchup
1/4 c. chicken broth
1/4 c. white vinegar
3 t. soy sauce
1 1/2 c. sugar
6 t. brown sugar

Cut semi-frozen chicken into bite size pieces and sprinkle with garlic salt. Refrigerate 2 to 4 hours if you have time. Then coat chicken pieces with corn starch making sure that each piece if heavily coated. Heat about 1/2 inch of oil in the bottom of a pan and deep fry chicken on medium heat until brown. Place deep fried chicken in a baking dish and pour sauce over the chicken. Place chicken and sauce in oven and cook for 45 minutes @ 350º, stirring every 15 minutes. Serve with rice or fried rice.
Sauce:
Place all the ingredients in a pot and cook on medium heat until sugar is dissolved stirring constantly. Do not boil or double the sauce recipe.

This is one Daniel would request once a week! We love it. The chili paste is easily found by the soy sauce or Chinese food section of your grocery store.

Cutting the meat!

So, I have to apologize, this isn't a recipe. But, this weekend we purchased a LOT of meat and I mean a lot. Like....golly, I think 40 pounds? Maybe more? Beef was .99 cents a pound, the pork was 1.89, and then chicken was like 1.50. So I stocked up. I think about 34 pounds was just beef. Now I'm not a big beef eater, mostly I prefer chicken, but for that deal I could handle throwing some in the freezer.

Another thing, I HATE touching raw meat and dealing with it. So, this post is not necessarily about HOW to cut the meat, but how to cut it and not have to touch it! REad on, laugh at my ridiculousness, but then next time you buy meat and remember this you will love me! (I hope)

So you start with your HUGE slab of meat, or hopefully for your sake much smaller.



Find a large cup for sandwhich size baggies, or bowl for larger baggies.



Cut your meat as you desire it. I had large pieces cut for roasting, small pieces for kabobs, smaller pieces for stew, and even small pieces for stroganoff. I also cut slices for steaks on the grill which I placed on a pan lined with foil, froze for a few hours, then placed in Gallon ziplocks. This way I can pull out however many or little I want.

I used a fork and a knife making most efforts to NOT touch anything.



Then I use a spatula to scoop up the raw nastiness



Then as you spatula you dump into cup or bowl lined with your baggie! I double bag mine, so I had one bag already labeled with date and what was inside. The greatest part is you don't have to touch the meat, and the zip lock part of the baggie doesn't touch the meat.




And if you are bagging larger pieces , just turn the bag inside out, and place your hand inside then grab the meat., then just slide the bag up around your meat and seal!

Nothing super ingenious about all this, just a few little tricks I learned since I didn't have gloves and I HATE to touch the meat! (have I said that enough times?)

Whatever you want soup!

So lately I have been making this soup in my crockpot a lot! I made it first about 6 months ago and Duck loved it so much he asked for it for FAthers DAY! I thought he was crazy, but whatever. We like it served over rice, but we also have it just as soup with some french bread or crackers. But the recipe is SOOOO s imple

3 Chicken Breasts (fresh or frozen, or even canned I guess{technically ANY meat that you think would taste goo})
3-4 cups cut Veggies, frozen, fresh, or canned! (Or 2 cans with juices)
2 Cans Cream of Soup any variety

Dump in a crock pot and let simmer away. Keep it at low for about 6 hours, or high for 3. Super Yummy, super easy and so many variations. Our favorite is a mixed can veggie and creamed corn with Cream of chicken, then served over rice. But we have done the cheese broccoli soup with broccoli....cream of celery with beans and corn, yesterdays was cream of mushroom with mixed veggies, creamed corn AND green beans. My kids LOVE it, my husband LOVES it and I LOVE how dang easy it is! ONe day I even added a cup of Sour Cream during the last hour to make it a bit creamy. Try it your style and share what combinations you liked!

Oh, and this serves our family twice, which is 2 adults and three kids under 5....so probably would be good for a larger family once.

White Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake Cookies

So, I can't wait to make these. It was featured on the talk show Good Things Utah for winning the state fair I think. If you click on the link below it will take you to the website where I got this recipe and it also has a video of the preparation if you'd like to see that.

abc4.com

Prepared by viewer Heather Merrill

Ingredients:

• 1 cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup white granulated sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ½ cup shortening
• ¼ cup butter or margarine softened
• ¼ cup white chocolate chips melted
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 ½ cups white chocolate chips

• 8 oz package cream cheese softened
• ¾ cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1-2 Tbsp milk

• 1 can cherry pie filling

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In large mixing bowl cream together sugars, shortening, margarine, vanilla and eggs. Add in slightly cooled melted white chocolate. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until well blended. Add flour, baking soda and salt. Beat at low speed until soft dough forms. Stir in white chocolate chips.

Cream together softened cream cheese , powdered sugar and vanilla. Stir in milk until blended.

Drop dough by heaping teaspoons about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Make an indention with your finger or spoon in top of dough. Drop a teaspoon of cream cheese mixture into each indention. Bake for 10 -12 minutes or until light golden brown. Let cool for 1-2 minutes before removing from cookie sheet. Let cool. Spoon on cherry pie filling. Store in refrigerator.

Makes about 3 dozen

Hawaiian Chicken (POrk would be yummy too!)

Hawaiian Grilled Chicken

1/2 cup olive oil

1/3 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup soy sauce

3-4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced (could substitute with other garlic sources)

1-2 tsp fresh oregano

1-2 tsp fresh rosemary

1-2 tsp fresh basil

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black or lemon pepper

Chicken Breast

Combine all ingredients minus the chicken. Thinly slice chicken breast horizontally then cut again into strips. Place in a bag with marinade for at least 15 minutes, but the longer the better. I used about 1.5 lbs of chicken, but there was enough marinade you could probably even use as much as 4 pounds for this recipe.

Grill at a low heat setting allowing a nice color, but not over cooking your thin chicken slices.

Variation: Wine vinegar may be substituted for the lemon juice (I actually added both though!). If fresh herbs are not available, substitute 1/2-3/4 tsp dried.

Serve with Rice or other grilled meats and veggies. Enjoy!

Fresh Pears, Mmmmmmm...

I haven't posted any recipes for awhile, life has been a little hectic, but I have tried a few new things lately that I had to share. We got some fresh pears from the Church's pear farm in Medford and a couple of things I have made are here:

Pear Cranberry Salad

1 pear peeled and diced
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 head lettuce chopped (add other greens it would be delish!)
1 grilled chicken breast (I have used chicken cooked with a variety of marinades in this salad and they have all proven to be great!)
1/2 cup chow mein noodles
Poppy Seed dressing

Pretty much mix it all up! The dressing amount is to your taste. I prefer this salad with less dressing as you already have a lot of sweet flavor with the pears and the cranberries, and flavor from the chicken as well. I could eat this every day and it probably would be even better with a little gargonzola or other crumble cheese!


Slow Cooked Pear Cobbler

3-4 Medium Pears peeled and sliced

1 cup all-porpose flour

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup margarine or butter, melted

1/2 cup milk

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1. Spray inside of 2 to 3 1/2 quart slow cooker wtih cooking spray.

2. Mix pears with 3/4 cup of sugar and add to the cooker.

3. Beat the remaining ingredients with spoon until smooth. Spread batter over the pear sugar mixture

4. Cover and cook on high heat setting 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

(If you want to bake in the oven, add 1 egg to the mixutre and add pears over the batter instead under. Cook at 325 degrees for 50-60 minutes or until nicely browned and pears are tender.)

Serve with Ice Cream or Whipped Cream.