The Blonde Diaries

Super quick and easy dinner tonight!

I love nothing more than a really quick and easy dinner when I am cooking. I like simple recipes that are easy to throw together either on the stove or in the crockpot. Don’t get me wrong I love some of the more complex recipes from the Food Network but sometimes, especially after work, I just don’t want to deal with a large number of ingredients and lots of instructions on how to make a meal. Tonight was one of those night so I took the easy route: Manwich! I basically defrosted some precooked ground beef from when I was making another recipe and had too much, a little extra virgin olive oil, 1 cup of my favorite veggie blend (onions, bell pepper, and celery), and 1 can of manwhich. I sauteed the veggies in the oil until they were defrosted/soft and then mixed in the ground beef until it heated up. After that I dumped in the can of manwich and mixed everything together and within 5 minutes I was able to serve open face on a slice of bread. We added cheese tonight to get a little extra calcium into our diet. Very tasty and very quick and easy.

Next time you are in the mood for something quick and easy don’t forget Manwich! Another good tip I learned from this experience is that precooked beef freezes and defrosts really well so next time I am cooking for the crock pot I’m going to cook extra and freeze for times like this.

Disney Dining: Le Cellier Cheddar Cheese Soup

One of the most coveted dining reservations at Walt Disney World is a meal at Le Cellier Steakhouse in the Canada Pavilion of EPCOT. I have never been because either I haven’t been a fan of steak (last trip) or I just haven’t wanted to eat Steak at WDW because I can eat a pretty good steak here in Houston. But one menu item has always had me interested in going there. I hear that it will be sold at one of the Food and Wine carts so I am super excited. The recipe is fairly straight forward sounding and I would think would be quite tasty on a cold winter afternoon. Luckily, a recipe was not hard to find. Probably isn’t the most healthiest soup I have ever eaten but boy does it look good. Enjoy!

Cheddar Cheese Soup
from Le Cellier Steakhouse, Epcot

1/2 lb bacon cut into 1/2 in. pieces
3 celery ribs cut into 1/4 in pieces
3 cups milk
1 medium red onion cut into 1/4 in. pieces
2 tbsp butter
3 cups water or chicken broth
3 dashes tabasco
1 cup flour
1/2 cup beer
3/4 lb grated white cheddar cheese
salt and pepper

1. In a soup pot start to brown the onion over medium heat. When the bacon is starting to get crisp, add the onions, celery and butter. Cook until the onion is translucent.
2. Add the flour and incorporate with the butter. Cook for 4 minutes-constantly stirring.
3. Add the water/broth and whisk. Make sure there are no lumps. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes, stir every couple of minutes.
4. Add the milk and continue to simmer for 15 minutes. Do not boil after you add the milk.
5. After the last 15 minutes, turn off the heat and stir in the cheese then the beer.
6. Add the tabasco and season with salt and pepper. If the soup is too thick you can thin it out with some milk.
7. Serve with your favorite bread and top with some chopped scallions or chives.

What is for dinner?

I was searching through my posts today to find the recipe for Cheesy Chicken and Rice which is the recipe I am preparing for dinner tonight. I spent a good 20 minutes looking only to finally figure out that I have never posted this recipe. I have posted it in a few message boards but apparently not here in my blog. I found this recipe on Dottie’s Weight Loss Zone forums a couple of years ago and have really enjoyed it. I tend to forget about it so I’ve only made it a handful of times but each time has turned out really well. I have all of the ingredients on hand so I figured why not make it tonight. We finally finished our 3 pounds of steak and quite frankly I am tired of beef and ready for some chicken. So without further adieu I present…

Cheesy Chicken and Rice
6 ww points per serving. Makes 6 servings.
1 1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I used chicken tenders because that’s what I had)
1 c brown rice
1 envelope Liptons dry garlic/mushroom soup mix (I used onion soup mix)
1 can low fat cream of mushroom soup (I used cream of chicken)
2 cups water
4 oz. Velveeta Light
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Cut chicken into 1/4 pound pieces (usually in half). Set aside.
Mix the rest of the ingredients together in a shallow baking dish (2 quart size). Heat in the microwave until it all melts together and mix it together.
Place the chicken pieces on top of the rice mixture, cover, and bake for an hour (I did 45 mins) or until rice is done. I stirred it occasionally to make sure the rice cooked evenly.

As you can probably gather from my variations, I am not a fan of mushrooms in an form or size so I substitute with other ingredients. It does not change the taste and if you don’t want to be overly chickened out here try cream of celery, broccoli, or asparagus instead of cream of chicken. One other tip I will say is that sometimes this will boil over the pyrex dish in the oven so make sure to put your pyrex baking dish on a cookie sheet to catch the drippings and avoid the mess.

I am not a meat and potatoes kind of girl

I never was a huge fan of the meat and potatoes diet. I prefer fruits and veggies and in large quantities. Pasta and rice will do just as well. Lately though I find myself on a meat and potatoes diet and can I tell you I am getting awfully tired of it. I do like a good steak every now and then don’t get me wrong but we are now up to the 2nd or third week in a row that involves steak for dinner. Unfortunately, this week has gone from steak Sunday and Monday and Cheesy Chicken and Rice Wednesday thru Friday to Steak Sunday through at least Wednesday! ARGH!!! I can’t fault Mike for the excellent deal - 3 pounds of top sirloin for $8 as it is tasty but I really need to start getting into the habit of cutting things up and freezing separately so we can avoid weeks like this. Plus it is not good for the diet!!! The killer in all of this is that Friday my mom wants to take Mike out for his “birthday dinner” at Saltgrass. Another steak dinner!!! It will be a long while after this week before I agree to buy let alone cook steak. I’ve had enough to last a while. lol

On a side note I did finally figure out the way to pan sear and then broil steak to a nice medium temperature. I found the best was just to undercook it, see how undercooked it was, and adjust from there. It seemed to work. For these pieces which were about 1 to 1.25 inches thick I pan seared 1 minute each side then put in the broiler for 2 minutes, took out and assessed and put back in for another 2 minutes which worked out perfectly. So at least I didn’t overcook them and can feel accomplished. It’s only taken 4 tries but I did it!

What is Flash Freezing?

I keep reading over and over in multiple message board posts about the concept of flash freezing. Actually, I read that people are doing it but not what it is exactly, how you do it, or why you want to do it. So after being frustrated for longer than necessary I decided to just look it up. Thank goodness for the internet. I don’t know what I would do without it in cases like these.

Here is the low down on what I found out about flash freezing from the various sites I visited:

• Flash freezing just seems to be a fancy name for freezing food.  The technique is a tad different but its the same concept.  The key is that the items freeze individually rather than sticking together.
• Any raw food can be easily flash froze - fruits, veggies, meats.
• The key is to use a cookie sheet and put the items in a single layer.  For example blueberries.  You wash and thoroughly dry the berries then you put on a cookie sheet making sure to cover the sheet but not cover up the berries.  Then you freeze and once they are solid you can put in a container or bag.  Now you have individual berries and not a lump of berries frozen together.
• When you store your items, try to store in ziplock bags with no air in the bags.  Then put the bags in a container so the food does not get smashed.  This will prevent freezer burn and smashage.