Blackberry Cobbler.

Have I ever mentioned my love of The Pioneer Woman?

I have?

A lot?

Oh.

Well, let me say it one more time so that you don't forget...

I love the Pioneer Woman. With all of my little baking heart.

Not only do I love her because she's funny and she lives with cows and she likes to garden and she wears nice jewelry and she calls her children "punks", but I also love her because she loves to cook and bake.

I love to cook and bake.

We could be BFF.

I recently made a recipe from her cookbook and I need to share it with you. It's called Patsy's Blackberry Cobbler. You should totally try it out!

The ingredients:

1 stick of butter, melted; 1 1/4 C. plus 2 Tbsp. sugar; 1 C. self-rising flour; 1 C. milk; 2 C. fresh or frozen blackberries (or any other berry you have on hand). Preheat oven to350 degrees.

Now, I don't have self-rising flour. So, I just make my own. I use 1 C. of all-purpose flour...
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder...
and 1/8 tsp. of salt. Mix them together.
Then add only 1 C. of sugar.
When you add your milk, whisk it into the dry ingredients until blended.
Then, whisk in the melted butter. (This is soooo healthy, isn't it?)
Take your blackberries (or the berries of your choice), rinse them and then pat them dry.
Pour the batter into a well greased 3-quart baking dish.
Sprinkle the berries on top.
Mmm...isn't that pretty?
Take 1/4 C. of sugar and sprinkle on top of the dish.
Now it looks even better!
Bake for 1 hour in the oven.
You are supposed to take the dish out when there's only 10 minutes left and sprinkle 2 Tbsp. of sugar on it and then let it bake those last 1o minutes. I have forgotten to do this both times I've made it. So, I just sprinkle it after the full hour is up and...
put a lid on it. It's still super warm and the sugar still melts into the dessert. :)
I neglected to take a picture of it on a plate...mainly because we were scarfing it down like savages and taking pictures was not on my mind. But, this dish is sooooo good. We made it the first time with blueberries, and I think it is much better with blueberries. But, that's not to say the blackberries weren't good. Cause they were. And, it's so simple to make. I highly recommend it!!!

And, as always, I highly recommend you scooting on over to The Pioneer Woman's website and checking her out too.

Garbage Pasta

I know. The name is not appetizing. Let me explain.

This is pasta that is made of ingredients from your refrigerator and pantry that, if you don't use very soon, will be garbage. Hence, Garbage Pasta!

So, there's no real ingredients list, because what I needed to use up in my refrigerator will be different than what you need to get rid of. I'm just using mine as an example of what you can do.

I started with some leftover pasta sauce I had in the refrigerator. We'd had pasta around a week before and the pasta was gone, but there was about 3/4 of a cup of sauce left.

Then I had an eggplant that Elisabeth insisted I buy at the store because it was so "pretty" (which it was), but since no one likes eggplant but me, I hadn't done anything with it yet.
So, I chopped it up and decided it would go in the sauce.
See? I have the heat on a low-medium heat while I added things.
I had three large tomatoes that were going to start being funky if they didn't get used.
I chopped them into sections...
and added them to my sauce.
I also had some grape tomatoes that were starting to dry up.
I chopped the non-raisiny ones in half and tossed them into the sauce too.
These are sautéed mushrooms. There actually used to be a lot more of them, but I ate them. I love mushrooms. I really and truly do.
I also had 2 chicken quarters that needed used. I boiled them and decided to shred them for the pasta.
I used some of the chicken water from the boiled chickens to help my sauce liquify.
And I grabbed some tomato paste for a thicker texture to the sauce.
Stir it all together and let it simmer for a good 15-20 minutes.
Cook whatever pasta you have handy. I had egg noodles.
See? It looks like legitimate tomato sauce. That's because it is!
I topped the noodles with the shredded pasta.
Added all of the sauce.
And served.
I totally forgot to salt and pepper the sauce, so we had to add that to our plates as we ate. My kids loved it and didn't care about the random ingredients used to make it. Even Evan liked it, and he's always leery when he hears we're having garbage pasta (he thinks I'll add something like pineapple or something. Silly Evan.). So, just ransack your pantry and produce drawers and see what you can come up with to make your own wonderful pasta!

Enjoy!

This Week's Menu

Last week, I did not menu plan.

*GASP*

I know, I know, it's hard to believe. And while I did pretty good and used mostly what we had in the house, I am very excited to be back to a routine and a grocery list and a plan. :)

Monday: Tamales

Chips & Salsa

Green Beans

Tuesday: Hamburgers

Baked Beans

Oven Fries

Watermelon

Wednesday: California Pizza

Salad

Thursday: Rachel's House!

Friday: Baked Ziti

Some sort of vegetable

Saturday: Steak on the grill

Elisabeth's Egg Salad

Elisabeth loves to help in the kitchen and every now and then she will decide that she needs to make a meal by herself. She has her own kids' cookbook and I told her that if she found a recipe with ingredients we already had in the house, she could make us lunch. She found an egg salad recipe and she wanted to share it on here with you. :)

Ingredients:

6 eggs; pickles; mayonnaise; pepper; salt.

First you must dress like a hip hop dancer. Then, fill a pot up with some water for boiling the eggs.
Once the water is boiling, carefully add the eggs to the water. Boil the eggs for 12 minutes.
After 12 minutes of boiling, carefully take the eggs out of the water and let them cool down.
Once they've cooled, de-shell them.

Elisabeth kept referring to her cookbook after each step. :)
Place the eggs in a medium bowl.
Cut up some pickles. See that giant knife? Yeah, I didn't let her handle it, so don't worry. We cut up 2 pickles.
Take a potato masher and mash the eggs into smithereens. Just be careful they don't get too mushy.

Add 1/3 C. of mayonnaise.
Pepper to taste.
And 1/4 tsp. of salt.
Don't forget the pickles!

Then stir it all together.

Spread it on a piece of bread or get out some of your favorite crackers.
And what did the hip hop chef think of her lunch?

Enjoy!!!!