the lineup

Here’s what you need – change it up however you like! Grab your favourite veggies and spices, anything goes in this recipe.

chop it up

Chop the veggies in a pretty small dice. I just got a new knife, I’m getting better…haha.

start your rice

Depending on how far you want to stretch your dinner, make 1 to 2 cups of rice. I think 1 cup works the best, and it should give you about 4 servings.

fry time

Once the rice is on, start frying up your beef. Don’t be like me and forget to add your spices…yeah. I generally like to add them after the meat just starts to brown up a bit, but do what you like. This time I forgot them until the very end, which kind of sucked.

throw the veggies in

After the meat is about halfway browned, add your veggies. You might want to add the onion and garlic first to soften it up, and add the rest later to keep them crisp. Personally, I like everything to be about the same consistency on this one, so I just add everything at once. See? I said this recipe was super flexible!

almost there

Once your rice is done, take it off the heat and let it stand for a few minutes, while the beef cooks the rest of the way. I don’t screw around with ground beef – cook it well, every time! Oh – and hopefully you manage your rice better than I do…mine boiled over more than once, haha. Once everything’s ready, throw the beef mixture into the pot with the rice, and mix well!

yeah, you probably don't want to serve this when company's coming over

That’s it! If you’ve got some parsley, chop it up and throw it on to try and make this look a little fancier. So it doesn’t look all that exciting, but trust me – it tastes good, it’s pretty healthy, and it reheats perfectly when you take it to work for lunch. Not bad! By the way – a little soy sauce is great on it too!

Want the recipe?

1 tbsp olive oil
1lb lean ground beef
1-2 cups chopped veggies, such as onion, peppers, broccoli, carrots, etc.
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 cup rice (uncooked)
Italian seasoning (1-2 tsp or to taste)
seasoning salt (1 tsp or to taste)
crushed red pepper flakes (1/2 tsp or to taste)
fresh parsley, for garnish

1. Cook rice according to package directions.
2. While rice is cooking, heat olive oil in frying pan, and cook ground beef for about 3 minutes.
3. Add chopped vegetables, garlic, and spices to beef. Stir often and continue cooking until beef is fully browned and cooked through.
4. When rice is cooked, remove from heat and add beef and vegetable mixture to the pot and mix thoroughly.
5. Sprinkle with parsley and soy sauce to serve.

looks like cookies

On the list today…I don’t like walnuts in cookies (I know, I know), so I used pecans! They were great in this one.

yum

My favourite part of a cookie…you could almost catch me with this bowl and a spoon in front of the TV. Oh wait, that’s sad. Where was I? Oh yeah, get a mixer and beat this together until smooth. You know the drill.

the glorious mess of baking...not

Once that’s done, whisk together your dry ingridents in a sepearate bowl. Incidentally, I was going to shoot this shot as a closeup to avoid showing the explosion of baking supplies across my counter. Then I thought, who am I kidding? Who is perfect and doesn’t spill a thing while baking? If you’re not making a mess, you’re not doing it right.

time for oatmeal

Once your dry/wet has been combined, add your oatmeal. This recipe called for THREE cups of oatmeal. I decided after two cups that I was done mixing – my arm hurt. Plus, I didn’t want the cookies to get too heavy.

now that's cookie batter

Another reason to go with two cups oatmeal! Here’s what happened after I got the chocolate chips and pecans in…

i like my cookies big

Yes, slightly bigger than your average “drop by teaspoon”, and I also took a minute to shape these just a little so they came out with nice edges.

done and done!

Hey, they turned out perfectly and didn’t even touch! Not bad, not bad. No pretty picture of these stacked up all nice…remember the tupperware? Yeah, not so picturesque. Plus they just got eaten right away anyways.

Recipe from allrecipes.com, with a couple slight changes included.

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups quick-cooking oats
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Heat the oven to 325 degrees F. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.
2. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl and stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Mix in the quick oats, pecans, and chocolate chips. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets.
3. Bake for 15 minutes (about 12 if your cookies are smaller than mine) in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

And even though I haven’t found a lot of casserole dishes that I really like (anyone got a favourite?), I’m going to give this Hamburger-Macaroni-Cheese one a try. Seems simple enough!

I’ve often thought about doing Sweet & Sour Pork, but I’m never in the mood for something that sweet. This week though, I’ll do it! Will probably just do rice on the side.

And since last week’s cookies are almost gone, I’m going to try these – Toasted Marshmallow Peanut Butter Cookies. If I had any flour in the house, I’d be making these right now instead of writing this post!

Let’s start with the potatoes.

starring tonight...

Not much going on here, but potatoes don’t need much help! I used really rich, yellow-flesh potatoes, and I’m wondering if that might be why they didn’t turn out nice and fluffy. Regular baking potatoes usually work pretty well, but I do like the flavour of these baby ones. (Plus they were starting to go bad and I had to use them up, haha…)

chop them up

Give the potatoes a quick chop – I did halves or quarters on these little ones. Keep the pieces roughly the same size, and they’ll all bake up nicely at the same time.

ready to go

Toss them with the oil in a baking dish, then add the other ingredients and do a second toss. I like to make sure I get everything evenly distributed. Then get the dish in the oven, and start on the chicken!

getting ready

Pretty simple stuff with the chicken too. I don’t generally drink wine, so I don’t often have it on hand – but I do like to cook with it!

start browning

First, you’ll want to brown your chicken. I was rushing it, so I haven’t done a very good job here – you definitely want more colour on it than that!

measure up

I probably didn’t need a full cup, but the trouble with not drinking wine is that I hate to waste so much of a bottle just for one meal – and it doesn’t keep well either! So I tend to go overboard when I do use it, haha.

bubbles!!

You’re using the wine here pretty much just to deglaze the pan – but personally, I use non-stick pans with a touch of oil or butter, so I don’t often have much left stuck to the pan when I’m done! Oh well. Go for it anyway!

Now we sit and wait…the hardest part at 7pm when you just want to eat already, haha. Make sure you give the poatoes several good stirs, especially if you’ve got them in a dish like this, not on a baking sheet. The more air that each side is exposed to, the crispier they get!

mmm potatoes

And they’re done! Now for the chicken…

chicken's ready

Keep in mind, I flipped these twice. Each time I did so, I added a little more salt and pepper. I think that worked pretty well, but I would like to find a way to thicken up the wine and turn it into a nice glaze or sauce. It was very flavourful and tasted great – but you couldn’t spoon it over the chicken because it just ran all over the plate! I hate that, haha. So next time I do this, I’ll experiment on thickening the sauce and let you know if I have any success.

dinner is served

Have I reminded you lately that presentation is not my thing? It’s not. Besides, if I started fussing with the way the food LOOKED on the plate, I would never hear the end of it. The RT prefers to eat, not admire. Oh, and I’ll give you three guesses as to what’s on our wedding registry…yes, yes. Wine glasses. Lol!

And the recipes! Both came from cooks.com, and include my changes. I made temperature and time adjustments on each, so that I could bake them in the oven at the same time. If you do these seperately, you can do the chicken at 400 degrees, and the potatoes at 450!

Lemon Baked Chicken

1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup dry white wine
1/2 tsp thyme
4 tbsp lemon juice (I like my lemon! Let’s be honest, I probably used more than 4 tbsp!)

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees F. In a frying pan, heat the butter and oil over moderately high heat and let it foam. Add the chicken when the foam subsides, and saute it, turning repeatedly until golden. Transfer to baking dish.

2. Add the wine and thyme to the pan and bring to boil. Scrape up any brown bits and pour over the chicken. Season with salt and pepper, sprinkle with lemon juice. Bake for 30-35 minutes.

Garlic-Roasted Potatoes

3/4 lb. red and yellow potatoes
1-2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
6 garlic cloves, or to taste
1 tsp rosemary

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Cut potatoes into halves or quarters, keeping the cuts about the same size.
2. Toss potatoes, garlic, oil and rosemary in a baking dish. Season with salt and pepper. Roast until potatoes are tender and crusty, stirring often, for about 45 minutes.

Normally I would just work in iPhoto, which is why I haven’t had a problem with RAW files yet – but I like how quickly I can get multiple photos done in Photoshop, which is good for the blog…but I didn’t see this coming! Oh well. I think I’ve got it all sorted out now.

Up this week:

Lemon Baked Chicken Breasts with Oven Roasted Garlic Potatoes

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

Fresh Tomato, Spinach, & Feta Pasta (From Company’s Coming Perfect Pasta and Sauce)

And as previously seen here at The Oven, Minestrone Soup For Dinner. I have the day off tomorrow, so while that stew is in the slow cooker, I can get the soup done (it’s a marathon job!).

…and some baking

Bacon and Cheddar Scones

Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies (these will make up for the epic fail-cookies I baked last week…)

I have been so uninspired lately. I have ground beef defrosting for tonight. I have no idea what to do with it. The most versatile ingredient ever…and I’m just going to throw it in a pot with some rice and sauteed onion & peppers. Then I’m going to put soy sauce on it and call it dinner.

Time to really get back to cooking. Time to seriously quit crashing on the couch after work and eating takeout. I was there last year, and I hated it, so I started this blog and really enjoyed cooking. Well, I just had to renew my domain…I paid for another year. Time to start using it for food posts, not just random posts sent out like a beacon…”I’m still here!”. No, now it’s time to go back to what I enjoy doing and start showing off the new kitchen, even if the oven does hate me.

So now, as the wildest, weirdest, fastest, craziest spring/summer ever is coming to a close (can it pleeeaaaaase be fall yet?) I’ve been able to catch my breath, relax a bit, and get back to cooking and baking more regularly. And let me tell YOU, wait until you see my new fancy oven! I don’t think it hates me, but I think that’s because it’s smarter than me. It does everything but talk. Instead of the jarring “BRRZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT” of my last oven, this one goes “ting tong ting tong ting tong ” when my cookies are done. It also knows how to clean itself. It’s properly vented (through the microwave!), it has a glass cooktop, and 44 buttons, most of which I haven’t used. It’s also brand new and still (mostly) shiny.

What I’m trying to get at here, is that we moved into a brand new condo and all the appliances are state of the art and I don’t understand half of what they do. However, I have much more (granite!!) counter space, so cooking is a little nicer in the new place.

I’ve tried a few new things – some of which were good, some were pretty much failures (yes, I failed at buttercream frosting. I thought that was a relatively simple thing to make?!). My latest project is a new cast iron skillet that I bought to replace my old frying pan, once I found bits of Teflon peeling off into my stir fry. Anyway, this skillet weighs probably about 15 pounds and is pretty intimidating. I think I’ve screwed up with it a couple times so now I’m off to “season it” again, whatever that means. How did people survive before Google?

Much more to come. It’s good to be back!

Snickerdoodles are one of my favourite cookies, and these ones turned out great. They’re extremely light, very fluffy and just a bit crumbly. The chocolate is nice too – it’s not overpowering. The cookies still taste like a familiar snickerdoodle, but with a hint of cocoa. Besides, I’ll take chocolate in anything!

start with butter and sugar

I doubled (or maybe even tripled, can’t remember) this recipe when I made it, so just keep that in mind for pictures. Beat together the butter and sugar…

add eggs & vanilla

Beat that together, and then you can start mixing your dry ingredients.

mix the dry

Am I the only one who sometimes mixes dry things with a whisk? Haha…I probably am. Sometimes I think it works better, sometimes I just haven’t done the dishes and the whisk is all I have left!

add the dry to wet

Add the two together and start mixing! It’s times like these I wish I had a standing mixer. I know, I know…just wait until I try bread…I know!

mmm...

I could just eat it now, thanks.

sugar and cinnamon, goes well on anything!

Better to bake it though! Throw some cinnamon and sugar together to roll the cookies in. Let me just say I love cinnamon and sugar (especially on crepes with butter!).

the first one (in the corner) never looks good!

After what seems like forever (I’m starting to think I must have tripled the recipe!), we’ve finally rolled our first batch. And in typical form, I’ve crowded the cookies too close together.

that's a lot of cookies

See what I mean? Luckily none of them suffered any serious damage.

and we're done!

(I promise, I’ll look for the recipe tonight and post it as soon as I find it!)

all systems go!

It’s not often that I cook using all four elements at once. This recipe will keep you busy

plenty of chicken

I had a lot of chicken to use up, so I just went for it and cooked it all – it turned out fine, lots of chicken in each serving!

a lot of shredding to be done

It might take awhile, but it’s definitely worth it. Plus you’ll get a ton out of this recipe, so there’s plenty to share (I passed a few bowls to my grandparents) or use for workday lunches (I had enough to do this too!).

looks a little weird at first!

It all looks good after the milk is added though! Make sure you have plenty on hand – you’ll be using 4 cups or so for this. I used 1%, it worked well.

just about done

Then just add the vegetables and chicken. Told you it made a lot! I should mention – the recipe calls for peas, which I forgot to grab at the store, so I increased the corn and carrots a little (and I already had extra chicken anyway). Next time though, I’ll definitely add peas – it did seem like it was missing something. I also think it could have used some extra seasoning…not sure what, but I’ll play around with it when I make this again.

finished!

I baked some quick rolls for the side, they were pretty good. You could do a salad or something as well, but there’s a good amount of vegetables in it already.

Check the link at the top for the recipe!