Almost 38 weeks! Yay! I’m pulling another recipe out of the vault here guys. I have not felt up to cooking and photographing anything new this week still, and I have too much catch-up cleaning to do to even think about making a bigger mess in the kitchen. Most nights it is all I can do to get the dishwasher running before bed! My husband has been so awesome helping out, picking up take-out, dealing with the kids bedtimes, I just can’t sing his praises enough. We are both pretty run down, but he is really taking care of me well. There’s nothing like the end of pregnancy and delivery that can really show you what your relationship is made of, in my experience. It is such a special time in marriage!

So, even though most of us have been lucky enough for spring and warm temperatures to FINALLY arrive, maybe, just maybe, sometime soon you will be in the mood for a little wintery meal. I always miss the meat/potatoes oven cooking during the summer. Winter foods are my favorite, by far.

There is not much more comforting food than a big bowl of hearty beef stew. This recipe is simple, straightforward, yet so satisfying. The next time you need a little warm up, throw this on the stove or in your crock pot for a delicious meal that cannot be beat.

Take one pound of stew meat, toss lightly in seasoned flour, and then brown well over medium-high heat

Next pour the browned meat, one cup of dry red wine, and a sliced onion into an oven-safe dish and place into a 275 degree oven for 1-2 hours, or until the meat is tender and the wine has reduced.

While the meat is roasting, place 6 cups of beef broth, a large sliced onion, some sliced carrots, peas, chunked potatoes, beans, and a can of stewed tomatoes into a medium to large stock pot. Heat to a slow simmer, and stir frequently.

When the meat comes out of the oven, pour all the contents into your stew, stir well, and cook for 35-40 minutes. Serve immediately with some fresh buttered bread.

As always…

Thank You for looking! I LOVE comments. Use the comment form below to interact, or if you like what you see, and want to see more, please feel free to jump on over to my Facebook page and like me there. I post teasers for upcoming recipes, answer any and all of your questions, and every recipe from here gets linked to there as well.

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~Nicole~

Good morning there Or Whatever You Do’ers! It is only 6:12 AM, but wouldn’t you know it, I’ve been up for two hours already. 37 weeks 2 days pregnant. Guess my brain is getting me ready for the ultra early morning wake-ups I’m soon to be in for, huh?

These braised beef short ribs were hidden deep in my old unorganized filing system in my computer. I am so glad I found them for you today! This was one of the best meals I have ever had. Beef short ribs are the perfect meat to cook low and slow, but they turn out spoon tender, and the flavor is so amazing. I have a few packs in my freezer that I am going to have to pull out soon, even if it IS going to be 80 degrees today!  Well, that is if I ever get the energy to have a clean kitchen and an actual hot MEAL on the table, ever again. It is looking doubtful at this point.

I’ve had browned butter sitting in my fridge begging me to bake a cake with it for going on a WEEK now. Still no motivation. No energy. By the time I get up, get ready, get the kids ready and off to school, get home, clean up, and have the actual TIME to bake or cook anything, I am ready to fall over. The end of pregnancy is so all-encompassing. WHEN will it happen. WHAT gender will this baby be? It is so exciting, and so amazing, and SO stressful! I’m trying to relax and enjoy it because more than likely at #5 this will be my last baby, last end of pregnancy EVER (*Cry*) , but that is much much easier said than done. The part of my brain that is ready to be done walking like an arthritic 87 year old, peeing every 15 minutes, and popping antacids like they are candy wants to actually SLAP the crap out of the other half of my brain telling me to be patient, and enjoy being a ginormous, impatient, cranky beast who is so miserable that I am actually looking forward to having a 7-9 pound baby come out of me. Most likely too fast for any real pain relief.

Have you had enough of the pregnancy updates and rants now? I have. On to the beef.

Start these by lightly seasoning your short ribs with your favorite seasonings, and then searing in a few tablespoons of vegetable oil over medium high heat. My “go-to” meat seasoning is pretty universal. Garlic powder. Onion powder. Salt. Pepper. Lawry’s Seasoning Salt. Done.

When the meat is browned on most sides, remove from the pan. Make sure you get good color on these. It really helps with the flavor of the end product. The key to a good sear is moving the meat as LITTLE as possible. A well-seasoned cast iron pan never hurt anything either.

After you remove the meat, place it in an oven safe baking dish, and add 1 sliced onion to the pan. Cook over medium heat for 3-4 minutes, or until it is starting to get soft and translucent.  Feel free to get crazy here and add in some mushrooms and carrots if you want to. Saute them with the onion. I didn’t have any when I made this, so onion alone it was! Add your garlic and herbs. Stir constantly and cook for 1 minute. Add the beef broth and wine to the pan and simmer for 10 minutes, then pour over the meat in the baking dish.

Bake tightly covered at 300 degrees for 2-3 hours, or until the meat is tender and falls off the bone when poked. The length of cooking time will vary depending on the thickness of your meat and your specific oven temperature. (Have you tested your oven temperature lately? You should!)

This photo below is before it was cooked in the oven.

Serve your short ribs with mashed potatoes, and the pan drippings (spoon off the fat and simmer over medium heat to reduce if necessary).

As always…

Thank You for looking! I LOVE comments. Use the comment form below to interact, or if you like what you see, and want to see more, please feel free to jump on over to my Facebook page and like me there. I post teasers for upcoming recipes, answer any and all of your questions, and every recipe from here gets linked to there as well.

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Thanks for dropping by! Hope to see you again soon!

~Nicole~

 Good morning OWYD’ers! I’m bringing you an older recipe from the archives today that I had to edit a bit and redo. When I migrated from blogger to wordpress, some of my older posts got a bit messy in the process. Pictures got lost. Formatting got messed up. Unfortunately it seems like I STILL haven’t fixed them all. That gives me the opportunity to feature some oldies but goodies for you all though! Which is really convenient because I have had a wicked cold all week, and I’m 36 weeks pregnant, and I have barely even made dinners this week for the family, much less done any baking or cooking for the blog. Tired is an understatement right now. So forgive the bad photos, hopefully I will have some brand new stuff for you all next week!

I love the convenience of this enchilada casserole. Sometimes that extra step of rolling and stuffing a large pan of enchiladas is just enough of a pain in the butt for me to want to cut it out. You get the same taste, with less work. Yay you!

For this chicken enchilada recipe, start by throwing two largish chicken breasts into a pot with 2 dried California Chili Pods, 1/2 cup of your favorite salsa, 1 cup of water, 1 tsp Tapatio, and 1 can of El Pato Jalapeno Salsa, in the green can. You may need a bit more water depending on the depth and size of your pan. You want the chicken to be covered. Simmer this mixture until the chicken is fully cooked. After its cooked, remove the chicken and let cool.

 In the same pot, with the leftover simmering sauce still in it, add in a can of El Pato Red, or tomato sauce with jalapeno, 1/4 cup onion, 1/2 cup salsa, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp oregano, 1/4 tsp basil, 1 Tbsp chili powder, 1 can tomato paste, and 1 1/2 cups water. Let simmer over medium low heat stirring frequently until thick, about 30 minutes.

While the sauce is simmering, shred the cooled chicken with two forks. Place 4oz of cream cheese in the microwave for 30 seconds to soften. Mix in 1/2 small can of green chili. Mix this into the chicken.

To layer the casserole, cover the bottom of a 9×13 with a thick layer of enchilada sauce. (Discard the California chili pods after cooking.)

Then layer corn tortillas on top of the sauce. Follow with the chicken, spread evenly over the entire area. Sprinkle with a mexican cheese blend or your favorite cheddar.

Cover chicken/cream cheese with another layer of tortillas. Cover tortillas generously with enchilada sauce, but make sure to leave enough to cover the final layer or tortillas. Add another layer of cheese followed by a layer of tortillas. Cover final layer of tortillas with enchilada sauce and then cheese. Bake at 350 until hot and cheese is melted, about 20 minutes.

As always…

Thank You for looking! I LOVE comments. Use the comment form below to interact, or if you like what you see, and want to see more, please feel free to jump on over to my Facebook page and like me there. I post teasers for upcoming recipes, answer any and all of your questions, and every recipe from here gets linked to there as well.

If you are a pinterest fanatic like I am, you could also drop by and follow me there, and pinning my images is always appreciated!

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Thanks for dropping by! Hope to see you again soon!

~Nicole~

I usually make my own caramel sauce for this recipe. It can be a little tricky though, so if you want to do a brown sugar caramel sauce like I did this time, I promise it will still be good. Someday when you are feeling adventurous though, try out that scratch caramel! It is really worth the effort.

This recipe will make about 30 rolls, depending on how big you slice them. I love buying the tinfoil pans at the dollar store for this. Perfect for giving away to friends and neighbors without worrying about your pie plates or cake pans getting back to you. I didn’t have those this time, so I used my large cake pans, which worked perfectly!

Start your dough by heating the milk up to warm. Not hot…just warm. You don’t want to kill your yeast. You should be able to comfortably stick your finger into the milk. Put the warm milk in your mixer with the dough hook attached and add the yeast, egg, sugar, and salt. Mix until the egg is beaten. Start adding the flour until a wet dough is formed. After about half of the flour is incorporated, slowly pour in melted (but not too hot!) butter while the mixer is running. After the butter is mixed well into the dough, start adding more flour in until a soft dough forms and the sides of your mixer are clean. Mix for about 4 minutes, until an elastic, smooth dough is formed into a ball. Place the dough into a lightly greased bowl and cover with a damp towel and allow to rise until doubled in size in a warm, draft-free place.

When the dough has risen, punch down, grab 1/2 of it, and roll it out on a well-floured surface into a rectangular shape and its about 1/4 inch thick.

Pour enough melted butter over the dough to cover it well. I use about 1/2 cup, sometimes a little more.

Now sprinkle and cover with the sugar/cinnamon mixture.

Roll the dough from the side farthest from you towards the front, and seal the seam. It helps to use a bit of water on your fingers and dampen slightly the edges so they will seal well.

If the seam is really sticky, sprinkle and brush it lightly with some flour so it won’t stick to your counter. Slice the dough with a serrated knife (I find a long bread knife works best) into pieces 2 inches thick.

As always…

Thank You for looking! I LOVE comments. Use the comment form below to interact, or if you like what you see, and want to see more, please feel free to jump on over to my Facebook page and like me there. I post teasers for upcoming recipes, answer any and all of your questions, and every recipe from here gets linked to there as well.

If you are a pinterest fanatic like I am, you could also drop by and follow me there, and pinning my images is always appreciated!

If you would rather have every recipe delivered to your inbox, the morning after they are posted, please sign up below to be on my email list!

Thanks for dropping by! Hope to see you again soon!

~Nicole~

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I used to work at Pizza Hut. I started off as a cook because I wasn’t 18 yet and couldn’t deliver, couldn’t serve alcohol, so onto the line I went. I was the only female cook, but I really grew to love it. After all, I was young so I didn’t even have to run the gigantic mixer and prep dough! Score 17 year old me! One of the big secrets behind the curtain that was revealed to me was the stuffed crust pizza mystery. I don’t know WHAT my 17 year old self thought it was that they did to make this wonderful creation, but I never imagined it was as easy as stuffing a crust with string cheese. Well, in case you are anything like me, it is JUST that EASY! Try it sometime and never have your kids (or yourself) throw away your pizza crust again. Whip up some extra pizza sauce and use it for dipping. Get fancy and use some of that new flavored string cheese. Basil and sundried tomato sting cheese in my crust? Yes please!

This batch was just plain old part-skim mozzarella string cheese.

Start by mixing up a batch of dough. I have several great recipes for this on my site. They are all a little bit different, but equally good. Use whatever one suits you the best, or your current favorite.

Spread the dough out a little more than you normally would, and lay out your string cheese.

Now fold over the dough and press to seal well.

Par-bake the crust and then top with your favorite toppings. Finish baking as you would any crust, and then let cool for about 5 minutes before you cut and enjoy!

As always…

Thank You for looking! I LOVE comments. Use the comment form below to interact, or if you like what you see, and want to see more, please feel free to jump on over to my Facebook page and like me there. I post teasers for upcoming recipes, answer any and all of your questions, and every recipe from here gets linked to there as well.

If you are a pinterest fanatic like I am, you could also drop by and follow me there, and pinning my images is always appreciated!

If you would rather have every recipe delivered to your inbox, the morning after they are posted, please sign up below to be on my email list!

Thanks for dropping by! Hope to see you again soon!

~Nicole~

For some odd reason my two youngest boys have decided that one of their FAVORITE snacks is a sliced up banana, covered in milk, and then eaten with a spoon. They have deemed this a banana fo fanna. I mean, as far as snacks go it could definitely be worse, but its weird, right? They are an odd bunch I’m raising here. They tell me they got the idea from Bubble Guppies, but who knows really where and how they come up with this stuff.

This banana fo fanna pudding cake is a little tribute to them. I haven’t done all that many poke cakes beyond the better than anything cake. I went looking for ideas and specifics, and pretty quickly came across this one over at The Country Cook. Mine, beyond the pudding mix which probably makes the rest of this a moot point, forgoes the boxed cake mix and the Cool Whip, but if you want something incredibly simple I’m sure that version is awesome. She has a ton of great poke cake ideas over there if that’s your thing! Check it out!

Start this version by mixing all your cake ingredients together for 3-5 minutes, until they are well combined. Pour into a greased and floured 10×13 inch pan, and bake at 350 until the top is golden brown and a tester comes out clean. As you can see from my photos, my cake went a few minutes too many and is over done. Don’t make the same mistake I did! I was playing Plants Vs. Zombies and got a little, ahhhh….distracted. The cake itself has a really really good flavor, and the texture was great too in the middle where I didn’t cook the ever-loving-snot out of it.

Let it cool for 5-10 minutes and then poke a bunch of holes all over it.

Prepare a large box of instant banana pudding according to the regular package directions (3 cups of cold milk to one large box of pudding), but instead of mixing the entire 5 minutes until it is thickened, mix for about 2-3 minutes so its dissolved, but still very pourable. Pour it all over the cake and spread it around, making sure it gets into all those holes.

Chill the cake until it is cooled completely and the pudding is set. Next whip up your cream and spread it all over the top. Crush your cookies, and garnish with the crushed cookies and sliced banana.

As always…

Thank You for looking! I LOVE comments. Use the comment form below to interact, or if you like what you see, and want to see more, please feel free to jump on over to my Facebook page and like me there. I post teasers for upcoming recipes, answer any and all of your questions, and every recipe from here gets linked to there as well.

If you are a pinterest fanatic like I am, you could also drop by and follow me there, and pinning my images is always appreciated!

If you would rather have every recipe delivered to your inbox, the morning after they are posted, please sign up below to be on my email list!

Thanks for dropping by! Hope to see you again soon!

~Nicole~

Anyone else ready for spring? Are you planning your Memorial Day BBQ menu already, daydreaming about sunshine and temperatures over 50 degrees? No? Just me? Well, if you are too, I’m going to share this recipe for my Raspberry Margaritas. You can make the mixers from scratch if you’d like, or you can buy them pre-made. Making them will yield a MUCH better drink. I was a bartender for over 10 years, off and on, and the places that I worked that made their own mixers generally served a lot more drinks of this nature than those who bought whole-sale sweet and sour.

You can find my recipe for Raspberry Sauce that would be PERFECT for this right here.

For a good scratch sweet and sour mixer, check out Buns in My Oven. I made that for these last summer, and it was amazing! For a really easy simple syrup, check out A Less Processed Life. Her recipe is for vanilla simple syrup, which would be divine in this drink, but you can leave it out and make regular if you don’t have a vanilla bean laying around.

As always…

Thank You for looking! I LOVE comments. Use the comment form below to interact, or if you like what you see, and want to see more, please feel free to jump on over to my Facebook page and like me there. I post teasers for upcoming recipes, answer any and all of your questions, and every recipe from here gets linked to there as well.

If you are a pinterest fanatic like I am, you could also drop by and follow me there, and pinning my images is always appreciated!

If you would rather have every recipe delivered to your inbox, the morning after they are posted, please sign up below to be on my email list!

Thanks for dropping by! Hope to see you again soon!

~Nicole~

I don’t know how I have been baking constantly for the last 9 years without EVER doing a pound cake, but somehow this escaped my radar. No more! This week I had two pounds of strawberries that needed to get used up, and one of my favorite desserts is Strawberry Shortcake. Normally when I do Strawberry Shortcake I do more of a biscuit-type base for it, but I was never totally satisfied with that. This cream cheese pound cake takes a bit longer than the biscuit base, but in my opinion it is worth the extra time.

This is a pretty standard pound cake recipe. It can be found in numerous different places. I found this particular variation at Taste Of Home, but I see others that are nearly identical from Paula Deen, Martha Stewart, Recipe Girl, and countless other places. It came out very moist and flavorful. Definitely use real butter, and full fat cream cheese. No substitutions here!

Begin by creaming together the butter, sugar, and cream cheese until they are light and fluffy.

Add in the eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each addition. Add in the vanilla extract next, and mix to combine. Next combine your dry ingredients together and stir, and then add to the wet mixture. Mix until you can see no more dry flour.

Pour the batter into prepared baking pans. Personally, I LOVE the Pam Baking Spray with flour in it, but if you don’t, a good old-fashioned butter and flouring will do just fine.

NOTE: I overfilled my pans. These were too small for the amount of batter this makes, so make sure and either use large loaf pans or a bundt pan. 

Bake for 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 hours at 325 degrees. Keep an eye on them near the end, and remove when a tester comes out clean, or with only a few moist crumbs. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes, and then remove to finish cooling on a wire rack.

Honestly, these were good enough to eat plain. They didn’t NEED any garnishment, but the only thing better than plain pound cake is pound cake covered in macerated strawberries, sweet vanilla whipped cream, and fresh sliced strawberries.

Make this today and report back! I want stories, and I want pictures! If you send me photos of your creations from this site I will feature them on a future post and/or my facebook page.

As always…

Thank You for looking! I LOVE comments. Use the comment form below to interact, or if you like what you see, and want to see more, please feel free to jump on over to my Facebook page and like me there. I post teasers for upcoming recipes, answer any and all of your questions, and every recipe from here gets linked to there as well.

If you are a pinterest fanatic like I am, you could also drop by and follow me there, and pinning my images is always appreciated!

If you would rather have every recipe delivered to your inbox, the morning after they are posted, please sign up below to be on my email list!

Thanks for dropping by! Hope to see you again soon!

~Nicole~

As a Minnesota native, I have an undeniable love for wild rice that I just cannot shake. When I saw a photo for a Cheesy Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole circulating on Pinterest from Picky Palate, I immediately clicked over. I was a little bummed, as I usually am when I go searching for casserole ideas, that most of them rely so heavily on “cream-of” soups. I’m no food snob. I love cream-of soups myself, but I can’t cook with them because I have a son that is allergic to soy, and ALL cream-of soups are filled with soy. I liked the idea of this combination so much though that I had to figure out how to do it in a way that would work for us.

Begin this recipe by baking 3 large chicken breasts seasoned lightly with salt, pepper, and garlic powder in a 325 degree oven until they are cooked through. The time this will take depends heavily on how thick your chicken breast is, so check often and remove as soon as the pink is gone.

While the chicken is cooking, dice up half an onion and sauté it over medium heat with 3/4 of a stick of butter.

Add in 1 tablespoon of finely diced garlic and saute for 1 minute. After the onions are soft and translucent, sprinkle 1/2 a cup of all-purpose flour into the pan and whisk until the lumps are gone.

Cook this, stirring frequently, over low heat for 3-4 minutes. Next slowly stir in the white wine, chicken broth, and herbs. Cook until thickened and then remove from heat and set aside.

Dice your cooked chicken and layer it into your casserole dish.

Add in the broccoli, cooked white rice, cooked wild rice, and carrots.

Pour the cream sauce in.

Stir in half of the cheese, and sprinkle the rest on the top. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes, or until everything is melted and bubbly and delicious.

This recipe was really easy to whip up, especially if you are in the habit of freezing your left over rice, which I am. I’ll definitely be making this again!

As always…

Thank You for looking! I LOVE comments. Use the comment form below to interact, or if you like what you see, and want to see more, please feel free to jump on over to my Facebook page and like me there. I post teasers for upcoming recipes, answer any and all of your questions, and every recipe from here gets linked to there as well.

If you are a pinterest fanatic like I am, you could also drop by and follow me there, and pinning my images is always appreciated!

If you would rather have every recipe delivered to your inbox, the morning after they are posted, please sign up below to be on my email list!

Thanks for dropping by! Hope to see you again soon!

~Nicole~

Sometimes you just want something quick, and easy, and that everyone will eat. That is what this was for me. I set the crock pot up in the morning with the ingredients for the chicken, let it cook on low all day, came home and rolled these up and 30 minutes later I had a pan full of taquitos that weren’t going to expand our waistline too much, for once, and that even my kids really, really enjoyed.

This particular chicken recipe is great for any kind of Mexican meal. Taquitos, enchiladas, regular old tacos, even taco salad.

Start by placing 3 large boneless skinless chicken breasts into your crock pot with 1 cup of salsa, 1 small can of green chiles, your seasonings, and 1-15 oz can of fire roasted tomatoes. Cook on low for 4-5 hours, or until the chicken is fully cooked. Shred the chicken with two forks, or by tossing it into your stand mixer with the beaters attached and turning on low for a minute or two. After it is shredded, place back into the slow cooker.

Add in a can of rinsed black beans.

And two cups of shredded cheese.

Stir well, and fill your flour tortillas with this mixture and then roll up.

Spray with canola cooking spray, and bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes, or until the tortillas start to turn light golden brown and get a bit crunchy.

As always…

Thank You for looking! I LOVE comments. Use the comment form below to interact, or if you like what you see, and want to see more, please feel free to jump on over to my Facebook page and like me there. I post teasers for upcoming recipes, answer any and all of your questions, and every recipe from here gets linked to there as well.

If you are a pinterest fanatic like I am, you could also drop by and follow me there, and pinning my images is always appreciated!

If you would rather have every recipe delivered to your inbox, the morning after they are posted, please sign up below to be on my email list!

Thanks for dropping by! Hope to see you again soon!

~Nicole~