Elizabeth Newlin – Arizona Real Estate Agent

I tried a new recipe last night from my latest Cooking Light Magazine (somehow, lately I have a subscription to it, even though I don’t remember ordering one… but hey, I’m not complaining!) and we very much enjoyed it. It is ‘healthy’, in theory, though I have to admit that I used an entire egg vs. just the egg white and I used more sauce on top than it actually called for. Plus, I paired it with homemade mashed potatoes with lots of butter, salt and sour cream and a little bit of horseradish. So they may have actually canceled out any of the ‘healthiness’ intended by the meatloaf. Regardless of the nutritional value, this meatloaf tasted good. I tend not to be a huge fan of loaves of meat, but this recipe has a special zing that won me over. (By the way, I also halved the recipe in the magazine and decreased the cooking times a bit. It feeds three or four adults the way I made it.)

Ingredients:

Meatloaf:
Package of ground turkey breast (1.25 lbs)
1/3 cup diced onion
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
1/8 heaping cup of regular oats
1/8 heaping cup of dry breadcrumbs
1/8 cup of tomato sauce
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1 clove of garlic, pressed
1 egg
Couple of shakes each of parsley, oregano, salt, pepper, basil
1 chipotle chile, diced
1 teaspoon of the adobe sauce from the can of chiles

Sauce:
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 teaspoon hot sauce
1 teaspoon adobe sauce

Mashed Potatoes:
5 red potatoes
1/3 cup sour cream
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 tablespoon ranch dressing
2 tablespoons horseradish sauce (or to taste)

Preparation:

Put red potatoes on to boil. Combine all ingredients for meatloaf in a large bowl and mix with hands. Place in a greased 9 by 5 loaf pan and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Combine sauce ingredients. After first 20 minutes brush top of the meatloaf with sauce generously. Bake 20 more minutes. Remove potatoes from water when fully cooked (pretty soft). Place them (skins and all) in electric mixer bowl with rest of mashed potatoes ingredients. Mix using paddle attachment on lowest setting until combined (feel free to add more of whatever until the taste/consistency is correct. Mashed potatoes are an art, not a science.). Slice meatloaf and serve with a big scoop of mashed potatoes. It’s down home cooking with a kick!

I received a free cooking magazine in the mail the other day called Cuisine at home. I am always looking for new recipes to try, so I flipped through it a bit. I have to admit, it has some interesting articles about technique and several recipes I plan to try. I might even subscribe.

Anyway, I made one of the recipes in the issue for the family tonight for dinner and it was a big hit.

Southwestern Chicken Panini

Ingredients:

2 cups cilantro leaves
4 cloves garlic
1 jalapeno
1/2 lime, juiced
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup mayo
1 tablespoon minced canned chipotle chile in adobe
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Thickly sliced sourdough bread
Butter
Pepperjack cheese
Sauteed boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced in half

Preparation:

Puree cilantro, garlic, jalapeno, salt, lime juice and olive oil in a food processor or blender until it becomes a pesto-like paste. Set aside. Combine mayo, sugar and minced chipotle and set aside. Butter one side of each slice of bread. Slather one of the other sides with the chipotle mayo and one of the other sides with the cilantro pesto. Top with chicken and slices of the pepperjack cheese. We used our George Foreman grill to make the cool panini lines, but a skillet works just as well.

PS – We made this meal kid-friendly by making a version with cheddar cheese and chicken, minus the pesto and mayo. It was like a grilled cheese with chicken and the kids gobbled it up.

I made Chinese Chicken Salad for dinner last night. I had a basic idea of ingredients I wanted to use, so I Googled a few recipes and took an inventory of what else I should use. This is what I came up with (we loved it):

Ingredients:

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Bag of romaine lettuce
Small can of mandarin oranges
Package of uncooked wonton squares
Sliced almonds (toasted)
Sliced green onions
Vegetable oil (for frying wontons)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1.5 teaspoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon red pepper
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

Preparation:

Slice wonton squares into thin strips. Heat vegetable oil on stove on high or in an electric fondue pot on high. Fry wonton strips in oil until brown and crispy. Saute chicken breasts until cooked through. Chop chicken into medium sized pieces. Arrange lettuce on two plates. Top lettuce with chicken, wontons, toasted almonds, green onions and oranges. Put remaining ingredients (soy sauce through sesame seeds) in a container with a lid and shake to mix. Split dressing over two salads. Love it!!

Mmm… I made a pork tenderloin roast in the crock pot today for dinner. It was delicious and took about 15 minutes to prepare in the morning. Simple and tasty (the celery is key), try it!

Pork Tenderloin with Veggies

Ingredients:

Pork tenderloin
1.5 cups warm water
4 tablespoons soy sauce
1.5 teaspoons dry sherry
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon garlic powder
0.5 teaspoon onion powder
Dash of cumin
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
4 red potatoes, quartered
0.5 red onion, chopped
2 tablespoons flour

Preparation:

Place pork tenderloin in crock pot. Add celery, carrot, potatoes, onion and bay leaves on top. Mix remaining ingredients (minus the flour) in a large mixing cup. Pour over meat and veggies. Turn crock pot on high for 4 or 5 hours and then low until ready to eat. Remove meat and veggies from crock pot with a slotted spoon. Discard bay leaves. Pour remaining liquid into a sauce pan on medium high. Whisk flour into liquid until it thickens and turns to gravy. Serve meat and veggies with gravy on top.

So today was the day… my littlest turned one! My little Gray-bay is getting so big! I remember a year and 24 hours ago I was being sent home from the hospital. The nurses said, “You’re not in labor yet, dear, go home and get some rest, come back when the contractions are 3 minutes apart.” So I went home and spent the next 6 hours pacing around our house, taking hot showers (THREE!) and moaning in pain, until about 3:30 am, when I just couldn’t deal with it anymore and demanded that I be taken back to the hospital. It turned out to be the right decision, at least for my housekeeping. My water broke about 10 minutes after we were put in a room (I would definitely prefer to have my water break on the hospital floor than on my couch… um, EW). By 6:30 am, my epidural had kicked in and life was much better. Gray Edward Newlin was born at 9:32 am. He peed on the doctor as he was being born. He was chubby even at birth and a sweet little mellow angel.

Tonight, for his birthday I baked him a cake. It was an easy but yummy cake, so I’m going to share the recipe.

Baby-Face Cake

Ingredients:

1 box mix for yellow cake
3 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups water
Cool whip
Strawberries
Chocolate frosting

Preparation:

Beat cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil and water in an electric mixer for 2 minutes. Preheat oven to 350. Grease 2 round 8-inch cake pans. Pour equal amounts of mixture into the 2 pans. Bake in the oven for 33 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow cakes to cool 10 minutes. After they have cooled, turn one upside down to remove from pan and set on cake platter. Using a serrated knife, slice the rounded top of the cake off so that it is level. Spread a layer of cool whip on top of the first cake, then top with a layer of sliced strawberries and finish with another layer of cool whip. Place the second cake on top of the cool whip. Frost entire cake with chocolate frosting.

Serve to baby:

Take away from baby when he decides he’s really full and tired:

My good friend, Rebecca, gave me a subscription to Gourmet Magazine for my birthday last year. It has some really great recipes for Epicurean indulgences and during months when I haven’t been utterly swamped in every aspect of my life, I’ve tried more than a few of them. This month, I got my copy of the latest issue during a lull in the usual chaos last week. I discovered three recipes that I tried out last weekend to varying degrees of success.

This first one I took to my parents’ house for the burgers and veggies at their Memorial Day Barbecue. It was very popular (although I thought it could have had a stronger cheese flavor for my taste).

Blue Cheese Dressing

Ingredients:

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
2 and 1/2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon minced garlic
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
5 oz. blue cheese, crumbled

Preparation:

Whisk together all the ingredients except cheese. Fold cheese in and chill covered for 8 hours to two days (I only let it chill for exactly 8 hours, so next time I will chill for longer to release more of the flavor).

This next one I made for our dinner Sunday night. Jason loves all things pork, but is not a big fan of anything fishy, so I think this one was a toss-up for him (although he swears it was good). I liked it a lot while I was eating it, but the taste of the fish oil really took root in my mouth and by bedtime I had to brush my teeth twice to defish it.

Vietnamese Caramelized Grilled Pork with Rice Noodle Salad

3 pork chops
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
Japanese Udon noodles (recipe calls for thin rice noodles, but we couldn’t find them and used these instead)
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce
1 carrot, julienned
2 scallions, sliced
1 cup chopped cilantro
1/4 cup unsalted dry-roasted peanuts, chopped

Preparation

Pound pork chops until 1/4 inch thick. Heat 1/3 cup sugar in a sauce pan over medium heat until melted. Add shallots, lime juice, fish sauce and salt to the sugar and stir (sugar will harden). Toss sugar mixture and pork chops together in a bowl. Grill pork chops (I used our George Foreman grill) a couple of minutes on each side until pork chops are not pink in the middle. Boil Udon noodles until cooked and then drain. Whisk together vinegar, sugar and fish sauce until sugar is dissolved. Toss noodles, sauce, carrots, scallions, cilantro and peanuts together and separate onto three plates. slice pork chops over the top.

The last recipe I made for breakfast Monday morning. It was a hit with all!

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 cup cottage cheese
4 large eggs
1/2 cup flour
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
Vegetable oil
Salted butter
Maple syrup

Preparation:

Put cottage cheese, eggs, flour and unsalted butter (melted) in the food processor and pulse a couple of times until just mixed (batter should be lumpy). Heat skillet or griddle to medium high and brush with vegetable oil. Pour 1/4 cup of mixture on the griddle and turn after a couple of minutes. Top with butter and maple syrup.

(Diet coke and bacon are optional, but I highly recommend them as accompaniments.)

See, even Gray loved them!

I have a serious weakness for guacamole. I think my love affair with the green stuff comes from equal parts of the fact that it is so esthetically pleasing (I’ve always felt that food should both look and taste good) and that I love each of the ingredients individually so much. It’s hard to go wrong with too much tomato, avocado, garlic or lime juice in just about any recipe, in my opinion, so together they are an unbeatable combination.

Break it out on a hot summer day to keep you company by the pool.

Ingredients:

3 avocados, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 jalapeno, diced
1/2 tomato, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
Handful of cilantro, diced
1/2 of a lime, juiced
Salt, to taste
1 teaspoon cumin

Preparation:

You can diced everything by hand, if you want, but I usually unearth my food processor and give everything but the avocado a quick whirl (individually, to get the right texture). A trick I learned from FoodTV about the avocado goes like this: cut the avocado down the middle around the pit longways, remove the pit, and then use the tip of the knife to cut slits in the avocado down to the skin both the long and short ways, creating a grid, then scoop the halves into a dish. Combine all the ingredients and use two forks to mash the avocados with the other ingredients so they are chunky. Serve with tortilla chips (or just eat off the spoon like I do).

I have to admit that I have no picture for this recipe. We had them on Thursday night and I was so hungry I completely forgot to take a picture and devoured mine in minutes. So no pictures this time, but you can be assured, they are quite yummy and attractive.

Ingredients:

1 pound (or so) of ground beef
1/4 diced red onion
Tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Splash of Worcestershire sauce
3/4 cup of shredded Romano cheese
2 slices of bread (soaked in water)
2 eggs
1/2 tablespoon parsley
Pepper (to taste)
1 jar tomato sauce (whatever kind you like)
Green pepper, sliced
Rest of red onion, sliced
Provolone cheese
Sub rolls

Preparation:

Mix ground beef, red onion, mustard, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, Romano cheese, bread, eggs, parsley and pepper until thoroughly combined. Form into medium sized balls and place in rows on a cookie sheet. Bake in 350 degree oven for 15 minutes (or until cooked in center). Pour tomato sauce into a crock pot and heat on low. When meatballs are cooked, take them out of the oven and place them in the crock pot. Spoon sauce over the top of the meatballs. Heat until meatballs and sauce are warm. Saute green peppers and sliced onions in a sauce pan on medium high heat, just until seared. Toast sub rolls under the broiler with a slice of provolone on each until cheese is melted. Add 3 meatballs and some green peppers and onions to each sub roll. Slice in half and devour immediately. (They’re even better the next day.)

What southwestern dweller doesn’t love a good chicken tortilla soup? I certainly am a fan. The key to mine is to make your own chips. You can substitute them with Frito’s, but I don’t recommend it.

Ingredients:

White corn tortillas (cut into short strips)
Vegetable oil
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Tablespoon of soy sauce
Can of condensed tomato soup
Can of beef broth
1/2 onion, diced
Can of diced green chilies
1/2 can of corn
2 cloves of garlic, diced
Handful of fresh cilantro, diced
Salt
Pepper
Cumin
Chili powder
Shredded cheddar cheese
Chopped avocado

Preparation:

Place chicken breasts in a glass dish with a lid. Add inch of water and soy sauce. Cover and put in 350 degree oven until not pink in the center. Heat an inch and a half of vegetable oil in an electric fondue pot (400 degrees) or on the stove on high. Toss tortilla strips in hot oil in handful batches. Remove when they stop bubbling and start turning a bit browner. Put tortilla strips on a plate covered in paper towels and salt. Put tomato soup, 1 can of water, beef broth, onion, corn, garlic, cilantro, salt, pepper, cumin and chili powder in a pot on the stove on medium high. Stir until bubbly. Remove chicken from water and shred into smallish pieces. Add chicken to pot. Spoon soup into bowls and top with cheese, tortilla strips and avocado. (Sour cream is a nice addition too, if you like it.)

When I was planning my dinners for the week, last weekend, I unearthed a recipe from my cupboard-o-recipes that I hadn’t made in quite awhile. In fact, I had forgotten all about it and how yummy and easy to prepare it is. So tonight I made it for dinner and vowed never to misplace it again.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts
1 tablespoon olive oil
Pasta (we use bow-ties just because they’re Ben’s favorite, any pasta will do)
One large carrot, julienned
Cup of broccoli florets
Cup of sugar snap peas (trimmed)
2 scallions, sliced
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 clove of garlic, pressed
Red pepper (to taste)
1/3 cup hot water

Preparation:

Cut chicken into cubes and saute over med-high heat in olive oil until not pink in the center. Cook pasta in large pot of boiling, salted water until it is almost done. Add carrot, peas and broccoli to boiling water and continue to boil 3 more minutes. Drain pasta and veggies and rinse with cold water. Combine peanut butter, soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, red pepper and hot water in a small sauce pan. Cook on medium heat while whisking until smooth and warm. Combine chicken, pasta and veggies and peanut sauce in a large mixing bowl and toss to coat. Serve on plates and garnish with sliced scallions.