Showing posts with label tomatoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tomatoes. Show all posts

Monday, April 22, 2013

JoJo's Spaghetti Squash Boats

Hey Everyone! Sorry for the pause again! Mama Lanette and I are finding that this blog is more work than we expected! That's not a bad thing, but we need to work better at getting our two recipes a week in! But I'm happy to say that we're coming back with what I think is a really good recipe! Let's get to it!

Ingredients:
2 small spaghetti squash (Or one medium)
1 pound of meat of your choice. We picked some ground Italian pork because it was cheap. But feel free to do ground turkey or whatever you want.
1/2 cup of chopped onion
1/2 cup of chopped green pepper
1/2 cup of chopped mushrooms
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 teaspoon of dried basil
1/2 teaspoon of dried oregano
3 medium tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup of shredded mozzarella, or cheese of choice
Salt and Pepper to taste

First preheat your oven to 375 degrees. As your oven is preheating cut your spaghetti squash in half. Now if you have a medium one this can be a struggle. There's been a few times where I could be found sitting on the kitchen floor with my knife fully stuck in a spaghetti squash trying to bang it on the floor to get it all the way through. It gets easier though! But as I was saying, you're going to want to cut the squashes in half and then gut the seeds out of it. Like a cantaloupe! Once that is done you will place them gut side down on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven for 40-45 minutes.



While those are cooking, start browning your meat of choice. Don't worry about seasoning it this point, just brown it and drain it. As you're cooking that, take the time to dice up your onions, tomatoes, peppers, and mushrooms. Make sure to dice them small, but not small enough to be considered minced.







Once the ground meat is done, remove from the stove and drain all grease. We will then add all of the chopped veggies and seasonings. We will cook these on low until the onion is cooked fully and the flavors get a good mixture.







Depending on how long this takes, your squash should be done or close to done. Remove the squash from the oven and give it 5-10 minutes to cool. It will still be hot to the touch after this but not so much where you can't touch it when needed. Flip the squash over and, using a fork, scrape out the insides. Now make sure you leave some inside because we will be using the "shell" later on. Take about a cup out of each half if using two small ones, or two cups of each if using a big one.





Add the squash into the skillet with the meat mixture and mix well. Cook on a low heat for about 10 minutes, until all liquid has evaporated. Make sure to mix once about every two minutes.








As you are cooking the mixture, take time to shred the cheese. You might have bought preshredded too, but just so you do know, the way that they keep that cheese from clumping in that bag is they add wood pulp. Cleaner foods equals a better you!








Once you are done with the cheese and your meat mixture, take the four, or two, shells that you have and equally put the meat mixture in the squash shells. Bake these at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Once those are done add your cheese and bake for about another 5 minutes.






And there you go! Not only do you have an amazing dinner that tastes oh so good, but you are also eating something healthy! And this is something that you can play with and make healthier if you wanted.


And as an extra treat I have a second recipe for you. Now this is something that I literally dreamed up. I've really been thinking about rice bowls lately. Trying to figure out a way to make them with spaghetti squash. I don't really have pictures for step by step since I wasn't even making this for the blog, but after eating it and seeing how good it was I wanted to share. Not only did this get the thumbs up by BBB, but my picky eater friend Stephy Bee also nommed this down!

Ingredients:
Four cups of spaghetti squash
One cup of frozen peas
One cup of carrots chopped up
One cup of cabbage shredded
4 eggs
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
2 tablespoons of sesame oil
3 tablespoons of water

Bake spaghetti squash with the same instructions of above recipe. As squash is baking, heat up sesame oil and saute the veggies. Once squash is done, take a fork to it and get about four cups of "noodles" out. Mix veggies and squash into a decent size bowl. Take soy sauce, brown sugar, and water and mix together, and then pour into the squash and veggies and mix well. Set aside and fry up your four eggs. Split the squash mixture into four different bowls and lay one fried egg onto each bowl. EAT AWAY!!!















Monday, January 28, 2013

Chili, JoJos Take.


Hey freaks!  I know it's been awhile since we last posted a recipe but Mama Lanette has been going slightly crazy due to finals and the holidays, and I've been going slightly crazy with moving things back and forth between Eau Claire and Wausau...and the holidays. Good news is that we are back at it, and hopefully you wont be seeing any more breaks from us.

I am fully moved into my new house, and I actually have a kitchen! It's so exciting. I love it so much, I want to take it on a date, wine and dine it, and then make slow sweet love to it. I now have a stove that isn't from the 1970's, and I have gone from electric to gas, which I'm finding I love. Stuff just seems to cook altogether better on it! I'm a very happy happy happy cook right now. (Oh yeah, and I'm finally cooking with my new Paula Dean dish set. *drools* Thank you black Friday.)

In honor of the upcoming Superbowl, this week we are featuring...CHILI!  We will be posting both Mama Lanette's and my own versions of America's most beloved stoup, and we will be starting with mine.  


Ingredients:
2 cups of chopped white onion
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 pound of ground turkey
2 14.5 ounce cans of stewed tomatoes
2 15 ounce cans of tomato sauce
2 tablespoons of chili powder
2 teaspoons of garlic powder
2 teaspoons of garlic salt
1 teaspoon of celery salt
2 tablespoons of red pepper flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons of cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups of water

2 cans of kidney beans
2 cans of black beans





Place onion, garlic, and turkey into a frying pan and fry together until turkey is fully cooked. Drain liquid from turkey mixture well.



In a bigger pot add all four cans of tomato sauce and stewed tomatoes to turkey mixture and mix well. Drain  both cans of kidney beans and rinse well and add to pot with everything else. Add all following seasons to mixture. Now really, this is where you can have fun! Add something new, more of something, less of something, do what YOU want to do to your chili. You're the one who is going to eat this. Normally I add hot sauce to mine but didn't have any of it in the house so I added some extra red pepper flakes. The BF likes things extra spicy so I always try to meet the spice level in the middle to please both of our taste buds. Place mixture on stove top at high heat and bring to a steady boil. Mix well, lower heat and place lid on pot, and let simmer for 45 minutes. Through this stir when you feel like it. If you need to feel free to add more water to the mixture. After the 45 minutes taste it and add more of any of the seasons we added if you feel like it needs it. When more water is added sometimes this just needs to happen. I usually just stick with salt and pepper during this time.



Let simmer on your lowest heat after that. You can really let it sit as long as you would like (with in practicality) as long as you make sure to mix it. Serve when you want. At this point you can add a dollop of sour cream, cheese, or Doritos to your chili if you're wanting to get fancy with it! Wahlah! Enjoy! Ohnomnomonom.






Now, as a side note I'd like to say something to the newer/younger cooks out there. If you are  just really starting to get into cooking I'd suggest on splurging on spices. It can be very intimidating when you look at a recipe and all you really have in your house is salt, pepper, and Lawry's Seasoned Salt.  It can also get kind of pricey if you are buying 2 to 3 spices every time you're trying a new recipe. Seasonings themselves ARE expensive, but after you let yourself have that ONE crazy shopping spree where you buy a large base variety of them, it can make all the difference! Recipes are cheaper, you are opening up what you can cook, and you can really start to experiment and have fun in the kitchen. You aren't going to go through them super fast, so you wont have to go shopping for a bunch of them at one time again. This is really the biggest suggestions I can give to a noob in the kitchen!!!