Spinach Patties

I got this recipe from one of my good friends. Although I liked it, I thought it could use a little something extra. These are easy to make and mostly healthy and pretty cheap. Not to mention, you probably have what you need to make them already, and who doesn't love that?

Spinach Patties

1 box frozen spinach
1 1/2 cup cooked rice
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs
1/3 cup diced onion (more or less depending on your taste - it will be raw so keep that in mind)
1-2 TBS cream cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Put spinach in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for about 3 minutes. Stir with a fork. Microwave for an additional 1-2 minutes. Then using clean hands, squeeze out the liquid from the spinach into the sink and transfer dry spinach to another bowl (one handful at a time).

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

Heat on the stove top about 1/4 cup vegetable oil in a 10inch skillet to med-high to high heat (you know how well your stove works).

Form the mixture into small patties, about 1/4 cup, using clean hands. Drop CAREFULLY into the hot oil.

Cook about 2-3 minutes on each side - until light golden brown and crisp. Place cooked patties on a plate lined with paper towel.

Serve with white sauce, recipe follows...


WHITE SAUCE

There are many ways you can make a white sauce. You can make a plain roue:

1 cup milk
1 TBS butter
1 TBS flour

Heat on stove top over medium/medium-low heat until thickened. (bland in my opinion)

You can make it a cheese sauce by adding your favorite shredded cheese to the above mixture and stirring until melted. You would do this as a start to a home made mac and cheese, BTW.

OR --- you can make an Alfredo sauce...

Basic Alfredo

1/2 cup milk (cream works best if you have some, don't use anything less than 2%)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1-2 cloves garlic, pressed with a garlic press

Heat over medium heat, whisking constantly until thickened. You can add milk and parm to reach the taste and consistency you desire.

Sweet Sausage Rolls

A friend of mine made these at an engagement party for her sister and they were so scrumptious! I, shamefully, couldn't get enough! They would be great for any party - baby shower, bridal shower, brunch, birthday, New Years, Christmas/Holiday - where finger or toothpick foods are desired.

Sweet Sausage Rolls

1- 8oz tube cresent rolls
24 mini smoked sausage links (lil smokies)
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup chopped nuts (pecans)
3 TBSP honey
3 TBSP brown sugar

Unroll dough. Cut into 3 or 4 pieces. Roll up sausages in dough. Combineother ingredients in a 11x7x2 baking dish. Place sausage rolls, seam sidedown, in butter mixture. Bake uncovered 400 for 15-20 min.

Serve with little toothpicks.

Chicken and Rice Skillet

We love this go-to recipe for adults and kids alike!

Chicken and Rice Skillet
serves 4-6

1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 cans broth or 2-4 cubes bouillon
2 1/2 cups diced carrots
1/2tsp pepper
1 can (12.5oz) chicken
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (or half if using dried)
1 cup regular (non-instant) rice

Melt butter on medium heat in a large skillet or pot (needs a lid). Saute celery and onion in melted butter until tender. Add enough water to broth to make 4 cups liquid. Add to skillet measured liquid, rice, carrots, pepper. Cover and simmer 15 minutes. Add chicken (use a fork to break apart chunks) and parsley. Cover and simmer another 15 minutes.

Serve with rolls or French bread and a salad.

There ya go. With one of those chopper tools like "all of us" have from Pampered Chef, this recipe is a cinch.

Red Beans and Rice, and Corn Pudding

I often get recipes from http://www.ourbestbitse.com/. It is one of my favorite site! This recipe is from that site. My friend Kate is a Logan, UT girl living with her husband and kids in Louisiana right now. She posted about red beans and rice and I thought, hey I'll try it. My first attempt ended with a mush of flavorless, well, mush. I made two mistakes: 1) cooking it all day. Only cooking it for 5 hours on high worked MUCH better then all day on low. 2) I used Zateran's Creole flavoring instead of Tony's. Second time, used Tony's and it actually had flavor! So check out her recipe here:

Red Beans and Rice
http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/02/red-beans-and-rice.html

To go with the Red Beans and Rice, I threw together a Corn Pudding. Now, this is different from corn bread. It is tender and soft, yummy and sweet. I got the recipe from Paula Dean, but made some changes - mostly cut the amount of butter in half! I also lessened the sour cream.

Corn Pudding

1 can corn, drained
1 can creamed corn
1 box Jiffy corn bread mix
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup butter, melted

Set oven to 350. Combine ingredients in a large bowl. Grease a 9X13 casserole dish. Pour mixture into dish and bake for 45-60 minutes, until golden on top.

Pumpkin Pancakes

As a mom, some days I just don't feel like doing much for dinner, but kids still need to eat. I often fall back to pancakes, but there is one problem: what's in a pancake? Nothing much of nutritional value, really. So sitting around my pantry was a can of pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling, just pumpkin). So I thought, hey, why not? Pumpkin is a vegetable packed with nutritional value (my friend Heidi confirmed this by looking up all the benefits of eating pumpkin). I got the base of this recipe from allrecipies.com. Use mine or make your own modifications. This is so much fun!  And I am pretty sure it counts as a serving of vegetables.

Pumpkin Pancakes

2 cups all-purpose flour (or whole wheat)
3 TBS brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp allspice
2-3 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups milk
1 cup pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
1 egg
2 TBS vegetable oil (can substitute apple sauce)
2 TBS vinegar

1. Combine milk and vinegar in a bowl and set aside for at least 5 minutes.

2. Sift together dry ingredients and spices.

3. Add to milk mixture, 1 egg beaten, oil, and pumpkin. Mix well.

4. Add wet ingredients to dry, mixing only to combine.
Now with regular pancakes I would STRESS about not over mixing at this point. But this recipe is more flexible then regular pancakes, so if you over mix it isn't a big deal.

5. Heat large skillet over medium heat. Oil pan (even my best non-stick needed oil with these).

6. Once hot, pour about 1/4 cup batter for each pancake onto skillet. Cook for about 2 minutes each side. NOW with regular pancakes you wait for the bubbles on the up-side. Not with these. I waited too long with the first patch and had a burnt underside.

You can add chocolate chips if you want, although that kind of defeats the health factor. Serve with butter, or whipped cream, or Nutella, or apple sauce, or maple syrup. You can at this point keep them as healthy or not as you want!

The best fudge EVER... And I never lie!

This recipe is The Lady and Son's Just Desserts by Paula Dean. I remember seeing her make it and rave about it on her show, and it caught my attention because of the MOST unusual ingredient... BUT having made it quite a few times, this is the best fudge you will ever have. Honestly, I recently spend a small fortune on a very small piece of fudge at a farmers market (OK, OK it was last summer not too recent...) and was steamin' mad that it wasn't that great... At least compared to this recipe! So for you Valentine sweetheart, don't bother wasting money on store bought junk. Make this instead!

Chocolate Cheese Fudge by Paula Dean

1/2 LBS Velveeta cheese, sliced
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup chopped nuts (I like pecans personally)
2 16oz boxes confectioners' sugar (or 32oz bag)
1/2 cup cocoa

Spray lightly the bottom of a 9X2 in square pan with nonstick spray.

Over medium heat in a saucepan, melt cheese and butter together, stirring constantly until smooth. Remove from heat. Add vanilla and nuts. In a large bowl, sift together sugar and cocoa. Pour cheese mixture into sugar-cocoa mixture, stirring until completely mixed. Candy will be very stiff. Paula says she has found it is easier to do the final mixing with her hands (I agree). Using your hands, remove candy from bowl and press evenly and firmly into pan. Because of the amount of butter in this recipe, she likes to pat the top of the candy with a paper towel to remove excess oil. At this point you may want to refrigerate until firm, depending on how quickly you want to serve it. Thirty minutes will usually do the trick. Cut into squares.

She also notes: For peanut butter fudge, leave out cocoa and add 1 cup creamy peanut butter. Melt cheese and butter together, then add peanut butter and stir until smooth. Proceed as directed in original directions. If you desire, you can press nuts into the top when you're done.

No pictures sorry :( I last made this at my friend Heidi's house for her family for Christmas. Be sure to wear an apron so you don't ruin your clothes when the butter splats (or you splat the butter because you aren't being careful.... grumble...)

GRANDMA'S BUCKEYE BALLS

One of my friends mentioned to me the other day that she was craving a treat that my husband makes during Christmas time. Since she is expecting baby #4, I knew I must be prompt (as did my husband - he wisely knows pregnancy cravings are nothing to mess with!!) I mistakenly thought I had posted the recipe already, but I guess I didn't!! So I guess this is a good way to come back after 7 months of maternity leave :^P hehe. This recipe was one that his grandmother used to make. We have had variations but frankly, these are the best. In our family recipe book, they are titled GRANDMA'S BUCKEYE BALLS. Enjoy!!

GRANDMA'S BUCKEYE BALLS
makes about 1 dozen
(in other words, I suggest at least doubling - we usually quadruple at Christmas)

1/2 cup oleo (aka - shortening)
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
16oz. confectionery sugar (that's about 2 cups), sifted
6 oz chocolate chips
2 TBS. Oleo (shortening/butter)
1/4 cake of parfine wax (canning isle)

To make the balls: Beat together 1/2 cup shortening, peanut butter, vanilla, and sugar in a bowl. Using a tablespoon or scoop, form into balls.


Using a tablespoon or scoop and your hands, form into balls.

Place on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper.

Making the chocolate: If you don't have a double boiler, like me, take a small pot - I like glass so I can see the water - and place a heat proof bowl on top. You can see mine in the following pictures. Put about 2 inches of water in the pot. You don't want it to touch the bowl, but you don't want your water to evaporate either. Place in the bowl of you "double boiler" the following: chocolate chips, 2 TBS. shortening OR butter, parfine wax (just a note here - the wax often comes in a large block made of 4 cakes - don't make the mistake we did the first time by putting a whole cake - 1/4 the whole block - into the chocolate. I think we ended up with hundreds of Buckeye Balls that year because we had to keep adding chocolate and making balls)

Heat water to low or medium low (back to low once the chocolate melts), stir. Be careful, the bowl might get hot.

When the chocolate is ready, place a toothpick in each peanut butter ball and dip into the chocolate. Twist around to cover. Oh and please don't mind my husband's thumb. These were taken last Christmas and he had shut his thumb in the car door - ouch - ironically while we were on our way into the hospital to check stuff out for our up-coming birth.



When all the peanut butter balls are chocolate coated, place in the refrigerator to chill - at least an hour. When ready to eat, gently twist the toothpick and it will come right out. So there you go, Grandma's Buckeye Balls. Enjoy!