Kitchen Koala

Crazy Cooking Challenge: Grilled Cheese

2012-05-07T11:00:00.000-05:00

Grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup were a staple for me during Lent this year, but honestly I could eat them almost every day if I had a chance to. Hubby prefers his pressed in a George Foreman®-type grill, I like mine on the skillet, but we both prefer them straight up--good ole' American cheese between two pieces of squishy white sandwich bread...no recipe needed. For this month's

Lucy is One Month!

2012-04-19T20:13:00.002-05:00

It's hard to believe it's been ONE MONTH since Lucy was born. Our days right now are full of milk, snuggles, and eating things like ramen noodles and bologna sandwiches.* And I am fortunate enough to be able to stay home with her until June. Life is good! * Mr. K/"Daddy" is home with us tomorrow, so we'll get to have grilled cheese sandwiches.

Crazy Cooking Challenge: Blueberry Muffins

2012-04-07T11:00:00.000-05:00

First of all, I'd like to wish everyone a joyous and blessed Easter! This post is going live on Holy Saturday, but of course I had it written well before that. By now I've welcomed my sweet baby girl into the world (due date was 2 weeks ago), so naturally I'll have my hands full for a while as we adjust to parenthood. Be back soon with some updates and baby pictures! I was super excited to

Introducing Miss Lucy Kay

2012-04-03T13:12:00.001-05:00

Born March 19, 2012 at 1:35 pm 7 lbs. 11 oz 20.5 inches long

Creamy Guacamole Dip

2012-03-17T00:00:00.000-05:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!! Since green and/or rainbow colored foods are pretty much a requirement for St. Patrick's Day, here is a recipe for a guacamole style dip that's perfect for any time of the year. I don't know where the original recipe comes from; I've been using a copy that's been sitting in my recipe binder for a few years. I've made some changes here and there, and I think

New York Style Cheesecake

2012-03-16T11:18:00.001-05:00

♥ Special thanks to Mr. K for plating up and taking the photo for this post! ♥ While going through our combined collection of cookbooks and recipe cards/booklets, I came across an old promotional booklet for Eagle® Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk. It's about 5 inches tall and features twenty recipes and looked like it was from the eighties: I had big plans to make a New York style

Shrimp Fettucine

2012-03-12T13:05:00.000-05:00

Seafood fettucine is a very popular dish here in south Louisiana. I like to think of it as a special occasion dish because it's definitely on the indulgent side in terms of cost and calories...but every now and then it's worth the splurge! Here's a special recipe for fettucine I received from my mother in law last year. You can make it using either crawfish or shrimp; it's delicious either

Crazy Cooking Challenge: Spaghetti

2012-03-07T11:00:00.000-06:00

The "Spaghetti" theme for this month's Crazy Cooking Challenge really had me excited because spaghetti night is fairly common in our house. What's not to like about a spaghetti dinner, right? It's quick, easy, budget-friendly, and a general crowd-pleaser. Around here we're perfectly content with throwing some cooked ground beef into a jar of sauce and calling it a day, but in keeping with

Pecan Rum Balls

2012-02-29T00:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Leap Day! In honor of this very special "bonus" day, I'm bringing you a very special recipe--one of Mr. K's top secret recipes he makes annually to give out during the Christmas season. He's been making rum balls for his family for years, and they're hit with everyone who tries them. His standard recipe calls for regular cocoa and spiced rum (like Captain Morgan's), but this year he

Bakery Style Peanut Butter Cookies

2012-02-28T10:05:00.000-06:00

Our choir is heading to Rome later this year to sing for the Holy Father. It's one of those opportunities that arises "once in a lifetime", but in my case it's I suppose it's twice in a lifetime! My senior year of high school, the choir made a trip to Italy for the same reason. Sadly, I could not go on the trip that year...and I can't go on the trip this year either! So that's not one, but

Veggie Ventures: Lettuce

2012-02-24T00:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the Veggie Ventures series, where we'll take a glimpse at veggies my husband and I want to grow but have never really eaten! This is the last post of the Veggie Ventures series, as we'll soon be getting our spring garden up and going. I suppose "Lettuce" as a Veggie Ventures topic is a bit misleading, since we have actually eaten lettuce before. They're included here because we

Big Ole' Chocolate Chip Cookies

2012-02-23T12:23:00.000-06:00

The famous New York Times chocolate chip cookie recipe. You can find it pretty much anywhere you look on the web these days, owing to the masses of bloggers who have made and posted about this particular cookie. This is probably my third or fourth time making them, but somehow they've never made it onto Kitchen Koala. The only reason I can think of is that we ate them all before I could get

Veggie Ventures: Turnips

2012-02-21T13:10:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the Veggie Ventures series, where we'll take a glimpse at veggies my husband and I want to grow but have never really eaten! Turnips. Now before you go running for the hills, hear me out. If you think you hate turnips, chances are you've never had a good one. Believe me, I know--because I was almost turned away from this under appreciated veggie by a couple of really bad

King Cake 2012

2012-02-18T00:00:00.000-06:00

Mardi Gras is coming up on Tuesday, so you still have time to pick up a king cake for the celebration. Better yet, why not make one? My first venture into king cake baking was two years ago; you can read about it HERE. The resulting cakes were quite good, but this year I wanted to try something a little different. Whereas my previous attempt used a cinnamon roll dough as the base

Hashbrown Casserole

2012-02-17T14:59:00.000-06:00

We started noticing "it" in our cartons of orange juice and ice cream. "It" being package-shrink. Our half-gallons of juice and ice cream are, sadly, very rarely half-gallons anymore. In an effort to keep prices low, manufacturers are slowly but surely knocking off a few ounces here and there from our beloved products in hopes that we don't notice. (Most of the time we don't.) On the

Veggie Ventures: Kohlrabi

2012-02-11T00:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the Veggie Ventures series, where we'll take a glimpse at veggies my husband and I want to grow but have never really eaten! Ok. We are admittedly guilty of falling into the trap of growing something in our garden because "it looks so gosh darn cool." That's what happened with kohlrabi, a member of the Brassica family. The name "kohlrabi" comes from the German words for "

Veggie Ventures: Rutabaga

2012-02-09T12:51:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the Veggie Ventures series, where we'll take a glimpse at veggies my husband and I want to grow but have never really eaten! Rutabaga. Are you a fan? While thumbing through seed catalogs last spring, we came across the rutabaga. It looked like an overgrown turnip--purple on top with a whitish bottom part, and in fact I've often seen them in stores right next to the

Crazy Cooking Challenge: Chocolate Cake

2012-02-07T11:00:00.000-06:00

I came across the Crazy Cooking Challenge group during my Interweb travels last month, and since February's theme was "Chocolate Cake" I decided it would be a mighty fine time to join in on the fun! The Crazy Cooking Challenge is headed up by Tina over at Moms Crazy Cooking. The premise is simple: every month a theme recipe is selected, and everyone who wants to participate must scour the

Kitchen Koala's Anniversary Cake

2012-01-26T00:00:00.000-06:00

Since our wedding anniversary and Mr. K's birthday are only a few days apart, my initial plan was to eat our anniversary tier on the 15th and prepare a birthday cake for him on the 18th. I planned on making his birthday cake similar to his groom's cake from our wedding since there wasn't any left over for us to take home. It was a (too small) chocolate cake with pecan praline filling (in

Candy Cane Ice Cream

2012-01-24T12:53:00.000-06:00

Looking for a way to get rid of all those leftover candy canes from Christmas? Give this peppermint ice cream a try; you'll need 12 candy canes (a full box) to make it, so it should put a nice dent in your candy cane stash! I found the recipe over at Amanda's Cookin' last month, and I have to agree with her statement that the amount of vanilla extract in the recipe really makes it special.

Butternut Squash Mac & Cheese

2012-01-20T00:00:00.000-06:00

After a previous try at a cheesy-butternut squashy dish, I decided to see how well butternut squash would do in my regular macaroni & cheese recipe. In 2009 I tried out pumpkin mac & cheese, with very tasty results. This experiment yielded pretty good reviews, and the Mr. and I have had this dish several times since I first tried it out this summer. I used jumbo macaroni in the picture

A Year Ago Today...

2012-01-15T00:00:00.000-06:00

...I married my husband, the half that makes me whole. We smiled. We cried. We wed. We stood pretty on top of our wedding cake. It was lemon confetti cake with lemon curd and French buttercream. It was such a fun cake, and guests were delighted. We saved the top tier, but ultimately lost it during a freezer breakdown that went undiscovered for a bit too long. :( He

Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream

2012-01-12T00:00:00.000-06:00

Edited 1/24/2012: Today is National Peanut Butter Day! I happened to notice today that I ALREADY have a peanut butter cup ice cream recipe posted on the blog! I knew I made one previously because I tried to improve upon it for this edition, but I completely forgot that I posted that recipe. If you're interested in the post from August 2010, please click HERE. How do the two recipes compare

Lofthouse Sugar Cookies

2012-01-09T08:40:00.000-06:00

You know those Lofthouse cookies that people go absolutely beserk over? You know which ones--the soft & cakey ones you see at the grocery store, covered in a half-inch thick layer of icing and sprinkles. Well now you can make them yourself any time you want them (maybe that's not such a good thing). Sure, the internet is chock full of kopy kat recipes for this cookie, but from what I've

Bacon Cheddar Cheese Ball

2012-01-04T18:56:00.000-06:00

Big fan of those almond-crusted processed cheeze balls/logs that show up during the holidays? Don't worry, I won't tell. I like them too (except the wine-flavored ones). But if you're looking for a more "natural" version you can make any time of the year, you've come to the right place. That's right...you can have cheese balls any time of the year! Bacon Cheddar Cheese Ball Adapted from