This will be recipe #2 in the Barefoot Bloggers Challenge. It was well after dark before I finished it and served it, so the photography is pretty bad. I was expecting a Chicken Chili to have beans in it, but no, this was something totally different and unexpected.
You can’t go wrong with peanut butter and jelly. This is another recipe in the Barefoot Bloggers Challenge that I should have had posted last week. I have been having uploading problems, and it is a lucky moment when I sit down to blog lately and my pictures will actually upload.
I read last week about the Barefoot Bloggers Challenge … to cook from 1 to 5 Iva Garten recipes (all listed at the “challenge” link) and post them this week. I checked over the recipes that had been chosen for the challenge, and they all sounded fantastic. ‘Why not?’ I thought, ‘we have to eat’. As usual, cooking and eating the recipes is not the difficult part … blogging them has turned out to be the challenge!! I have had some major uploading problems recently, but with some late night work (when our satelite dish seems to get a stronger signal), I am beginning to catch up
This week’s Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe was chosen by Farah of Confessions of a Novice Baker.
I love shrimp. I have been looking forward to splurging on a package of shrimp to make this dish. And it didn’t disappoint!
I never cook with pumpkins or squashes. I think this has something to do with the impenetrable nature of this vegetable. I have never been able to figure out how to get into it. What type of tool would one use to smash through to the meat inside? Would an axe work?
Every once in a while, I come across a recipe from my early years of cooking (when I was cooking for kids) that catches my eye and makes my mouth water to remember. Such was the case when I was visiting with Mom in June. My sister-in-law and I were looking at Mom’s cookbooks, which of course, hold many memories, not only because of the foods she made, but for the occasions and people that she made them*. One of the cookbooks was put together by a local community group, and had several of my own early recipes in it, notably my favorite Bacon-Spinach Salad, a recipe for Spanokopita that I remember being given by a friend in Calgary about 35 years ago and which became such a family favorite that my sons continue to make for their families for all special dinners …. and this recipe for Chicken-Broccoli Casserole. I was so excited to have those early recipes again, that my sister-in-law and I drove all the way to the Shoppers in the mall to get photocopies of those particular recipes. I had brought them home and filed them in with my “to make soon” pile (which seems to grow by the day) and then didn’t get around to putting them on the menu until this last week. Beginning with this super-easy and super delicious (at least I remembered it that way) dish of baked chicken and broccoli.
This was a featured recipe of Barefoot Bloggers way back in August just as I was beginning with the group, and when I saw it, I knew that I would make it before mango season was over.
Right off the start I will admit that I didn’t go into this recipe with an open mind. I’ve probably mentioned before that I am not really a fan of tomato sauce-y kind of dishes … and with chicken, even less. I actually made up the chicken mixture a day earlier than we ate it, because I just didn’t feel like serving it that night. However, I’ve never been disappointed with an “Ellie” recipe yet … so I threw caution to the winds and we had them for lunch today.
The Barefoot Bloggers selection this month, chosen by Susy of Everyday Gourmet, is Birthday Sheet Cake. We don’t eat a lot of dessert-type foods, and I’m not a cake fan at the best of times, but I decided to make it just for the fun of it, and tomorrow I will share some with the kids meeting in the afternoons for a class across the road at the Ix-canaan Library. Even sharing with the kids, it seemed like a lot of cake, (and a lot of chocolate) so I halved the recipe.
This weeks Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe was chosen by Jessica at Johnstone’s Vin Blanc. I realized as I read through the recipe that although I have heard often of Waldorf Salads, I have never actually made or eaten one! I’m not sure how that came to be … I suppose it is not the kind of meal that I would order in a restaurant, and I seldom make meat based salads at home … so it was a great opportunity to try something new.
I seem to be preparing and eating a lot of dishes with peanut butter based sauces these days …. and I don’t mind at all! Trends seem to go in waves in the blogging world. I was thrilled to see that our Craving Ellie in My Belly event this week, chosen by The Tortefeasor, was this fantastic sounding Chicken Sate with a Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce.
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This will be my first post for Barefoot Bloggers, a twice monthly event that features recipes by Ina Garten (The Barefoot Contessa). The recipe for this period was supposed to be posted yesterday, but a typical pounding jungle storm cut our satelite service for the day, so I’m a bit late. The recipe was chosen by Andrea of Nummy Kitchen. Not only have I never made pizza from scratch, but I am not really a big pizza fan, and I wouldn’t in a million years have ever thought of making a pizza with a “greens” topping. It sounded great, though … kinda like a salad with the croutons on the bottom … and I have been looking forward to it all week.
