Saturday, March 31, 2012

Successful Together Giveaway!

Who doesn't like free stuff?!?!?

Check out this awesome giveaway from an awesome blog! :-P





Do you ever get so overwhelmed with all of your bookmarks and pins of online recipes? How about all those pieces of paper that have scribbles of recipes on them? I have tons and tons of recipes all over the place and Cook'n has finally helped me put some organization behind the chaos! Some of my favorite features of Cook'n are:
  • You can enter you own recipes AND add pictures!
  • Use Cook'n to search and capture online recipes
  • Create and organize cookbooks, and sort them by chapters to make it easier to find what you are looking for
  • Search for recipes by what INGREDIENTS YOU HAVE ON HAND!! :)
  • Change recipe servings sizes and it automatically re-figures the amount of ingredients needed
  • MENU PLANNING!!!! :D
  • The software analyzes the nutritional values of recipes
When you enter in the ingredients for your recipes, it helps you develop a shopping list, which is sorted by location in the grocery store, separating by produce, baking items, meats, etc! Any thing to help simplify life is a wonderful thing!
Once you get a decent compilation of all your favorite recipes, you can even print a cookbook The software can be a little overwhelming at first but the developer offers tons of great step by step tutorials and even youtube videos to get you started. I even found this awesome Bloopers Reel, if you need a good laugh




 
Visit their site and check out all of the cool ways that Cook'n can help you get better organized and start cooking up a storm! They have given me a special promotion code to hand out to my readers that you can get 50% off !!  When you go to check out, simply enter mb-success in the coupon code blank. I really fell in love with Cook'n. It is a great product and the company is very interactive and happy to help with anything that comes up
. Angie 
 * I was provided with a free copy of the Cook'n software in order to complete this review, but I was not compensated in any way. All of the opinions are my own. :)
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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Easy Chicken Baby Recipes

I was getting a little worried about my 8 month old daughter not getting enough protein.  So I found this recipe. She still doesn't have any teeth so it's hard for her to chew meats just yet.  Hopefully it will help someone else too!  I've tested both recipes out on her and she loves them!  The original recipes came from Wholesome Baby Food.

{My new button <3 when you see this my daughter enjoyed the recipe too!}




Notes:  The two recipes both called for sweet potatoes so I cut up one large potato and the carrots and baked together.  I also had leftover chicken drumsticks (they are not good as leftovers) so that is the chicken I used!  







Recipe #1

Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup cooked diced chicken or turkey 
  • 1/2 large sweet potato
  • Approx. 10 baby carrots
  • 1/4 cup grated cheddar or colby cheese


Directions

1)  Chop potatoes and carrots and bake until tender.

2)  Blend potatoes, carrots, and cheese until desired consistency.


3)  Stir in pureed chicken
4)  Serve :-D


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Recipe #2
Apple & Potato Chicken Puree

Ingredients
  • 1 chicken breast 
  • 2 medium sized apples, peeled, core and diced
  • 1/2 cup peeled and diced sweet potato
  • 1 tsp cinnamon


Directions
1) Bake apples with cinnamon.  Bake potatoes until tender.
2)  Puree apples and potatoes to desired consistency.
3)  Stir in pureed chicken.
4)  Serve :-D



The whole freeze in ice cube trays did NOT work for me.  It was a pain in the rear end to get them out so I decided to just ball up and freeze this time.  Then put them in gallon bags after they were frozen.  
It has worked great so far!


Friday, March 23, 2012

Oven Fried Drumsticks

So I stole the main recipe from here.  But I changed a few things, mainly because I didn't have some of those spices.  I've never in my life cooked chicken drumsticks, I'm not even fond of dark meat chicken.  BUT, man-oh-man, were these puppies good!  So it's simple and barely a recipe but it was delicious!


Ingredients
  • 12-24 drumsticks
  • 1 cup flour
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 3 tsp paprika
  • 2 tbs Memphis Style Chicken & Rib Rub  (Just because I had some and it sounded/smelled good!  Any spice would work!)
  • 2 tbs onion powder
  • 1/2 cup butter
Directions
  1. Heat oven to 450 degrees.
  2. In bag or large plastic container combine spices and flour.
  3. Pour 1/4 cup of butter on cookie sheet. (All my drumsticks fit on one pan so I only used 1/4 cup of butter, if you need two pans use the other 1/4 cup on extra pan).
  4. Shake drumsticks 3-4 at a time in flour mixture then place on buttered cookie sheet.
  5. Cook for 30 minutes.
  6. Flip drumsticks and cook 15-20 more minutes.  (Since I only cooked 12 I only cooked for 10 more minutes and they were perfect!)




Thursday, March 22, 2012

Eight-Layer Noodle Casserole

My first recipe!  So I might not post the most healthy recipes, BUT I'll try to keep them good and easy!  


I'm aiming for at least one a week and maybe squeeze some extras in if I get to it!


I do not want to give the impression that I make up any of these recipes.  I might add or take away ingredients, but I do not have any culinary skills besides FOLLOWING recipes :-P!  My younger brother went to culinary school, he got all those skills of the family!


So here you go!





Ingredients


  • 3 cups dried noodles (I used ziti noodles)
  • 1 lb ground beef 
  • 3 8 oz cans tomato sauce (original recipe only called for 2 cans but we like things saucy)
  • 1 tsp basil
  • 1/2 tsp sugar
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • 1 8 oz carton sour cream
  • 1 8 oz package of cream cheese, softened
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/3 cup chopped onion
  • 1 10 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
  • Mushrooms to taste (OPTIONAL - just an after thought and mushrooms never ruin anything! :-))
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Directions
  1. Grease casserole dish.  Cook Noodles according to their directions
  2. Brown & Drain beef.  Add tomato sauce, basil, sugar, garlic powder, salt & pepper into pan with beef.  Bring to boil then simmer for 5 minutes.
  3. In separate bowl, beat the cream cheese and sour cream until smooth.  Stir in milk.  Put half of this mixture in fridge for later.  (I did not do this but I will next time because the onions did not cook long enough on the top layer)  Then mix onions in remaining cream cheese mixture.  
  4. Now layer casserole
      • Half of the noodles
      • Half of the meat mixture
      • Half of the cream cheese mixture with the onions
      • All of the spinach
      • Mushrooms (optional) (This makes it a 9-layer casserole!)
      • Remaining noodles
      • Remaining meat mixture
  5. Cover casserole and bake 350 degrees for approx 45 minutes.  
  6. Uncover 
      • Remaining cream cheese mixture
      • Cheddar Cheese
  7. Bake, Uncovered for 10 more minutes.

We are only two mouths right now -- So next time I will separate into two dishes and freeze half, it made a lot.  If you are a bigger family double the recipe and freeze for an easy meal next time!  
For frozen casserole --- let thaw and cook for 1hr at 350 degrees (or until heated through) then sprinkle with cheddar cheese and cook 10 more minutes uncovered. 


I got this recipe from




 Find this recipe and go share your own here:

Friday, March 16, 2012

Hello!

I am just starting this blog (if that isn't obvious), as a close friend of mine and I have discussed, I will try to keep the blabbering to a minimum.  My blog is called Eat Teach Parent because those are three things I fill my life with.  Of course, they are not in order of importance; just a cute spin off of Eat Pray Love.  The purpose of starting this up was to participate in some cool recipe swapping, and my kitchen skills could be fine tuned a little (or rather a lot!).  I then thought I enjoy swapping teaching ideas... I mean what teacher doesn't?  What do I teach you ask?  Well I currently do not have my own classroom, but I hope to very, very, very soon (and so does my husband!)!!  I am currently substituting for the local elementary schools, at least I'm putting my Elementary Education Degree to some sort of use.  I will still try to post some of the things I've done up to this point through school, student teaching, and my long-term subbing; if it doesn't give any of you ideas it will be a great reminder for me when I finally do get my own class!  I am guilty of spending my free time searching Pinterest, where I find all kinds of awesome ideas.  I might slip a few of these untested (by me) ideas on here as well, who knows!  Now the best part (at least in my opinion) being a mom!  I know I'm no expert, but it's still nice to see other peoples views on things!  I had my daughter last July and it's been the best 8 months of my life!  My husband and I are having such a blast and enjoying every minute of it.  I hope to use this blog to bring us moms, moms-to-be, and/or can't-wait-to-be-moms together, share stories, opinions, and advice.  With help from others I may even try to share some good deals; as parents, I know we save money wherever we can!  

Well that's the round about purpose of this blog, let's see if I can keep it up!! 

Here's to Eat Teach Parent!!!