Whoops! Indestructible Baked Ziti

 

I meant to write this post earlier in the week, but as some of you know I traveled to Dallas for a training class.  I am a little behind on my posts, however I am looking forward to being home this weekend and doing some (dare I say it) meal planning for next week.  The week before Dallas, Jim, Jason, Michelle and I traveled to Disney World. We had so much fun and I got to hang out with my brother and April for a day!  When we got home form Florida, all I wanted to do was cook a meal since we had been eating out for a week 3 meals a day, and I was leaving the very next day for Texas.

Instead of using my handy dandy cookbook, I opted to do a fast search of the Pioneer Woman's website for a fast pasta meal.  I needed a make ahead meal since we had a graduation party to attend earlier in the day, and Jim was going to have to put dinner in the oven. 

The Pioneer Woman's Baked Ziti looked pretty easy and had step by step instructions for the homemade marina sauce to go with it.  This was a win win for me, since I need to make as much from scratch as I can due to Michelle's allergies. 

I started in making the sauce, cooking the onions and garlic.  Now here I go again not listening to my favorite mentors, but I used one of my favorite shortcuts.  I am not very good with a knife, I've watched America's Worst Cook's enough to know my knife skills alone could land me on that show!  Whenever a reciepe calls for minced, chopped, etc garlic, I always use my handy short-cut: preminced.  At Whole Foods and Trader Joe's you can buy preminced garlic in the frozen food section.  Each square is equal to one clove of garic, and a bonus is it costs the same as fresh garlic.

Frozen garlic from Trader Joes!

Whole Foods makes amazing sausage, and every chance I can I buy it fresh when I am cooking.  It is so much better than the frozen alternatives or even the kind sold pre-packaged at the grocery store.  It's made fresh in store with no preservatives which means it is Michelle friendly too.

 

While I was busy with the sauce I decided to put Michelle to work (especially since her boyfriend was coming over for dinner).  She made the filling which was a standard lasagna filling of egg, garlic, parsley, cheese, and ricotta cheese.  She always feels accomplished when she makes dinner which I love.

I also had her make my homemade garlic cheese bread.  Very easy to make, its extra cheesey, and much better then the normal garlic bread in the foil bags. It's simple to make, 1 stick of butter and cream cheese softened, I used 6 cloves (squares) of garlic, and one cup of mozzarella cheese.  Mix together and spread on a loaf of French bread.  Easy!  Sometimes I do a variation on this and will add Cajun seasonings and jalapeño's depending on what I am making for dinner.

 

 

Once the sauce was done and the ziti noodles had cooked assembling the dish went really fast.  1/2 the sauce and all of the noodles get mixed together, you put it in a baking dish and put the rest of the sauce on top.

 

Now, we had a slight issue in communication with Jim cooking everything.  I told him I was leaving the graduation party around 5:15 to run an errand and pick up Michelle's boyfriend.  My intention was to have him turn on the oven around 6.  What he heard was turn on the oven at 5:15.  Whoops!!  So the bread ended up way over cooked, however it was nice to know the baked ziti was virtually Jim and Jennie proof, and still turned out amazing despite the cooking snafu.  I forgot to take a picture of that but I did snap one of my over done super crispy bread, if you use your imagination you can see how it should have looked and drool.

Until next time! --Jennie

New Pot. New Roast.

I love new kitchen gear. I have a tendency to get a little enthusiastic whenever I get something new. Like jumping up and down, happy dance through the house, excited in the store aisle enthusiastic. Pots, pans, knifes, gadgets; if its new, I'm pumped to use it ASAP. I also love new recipes, especially for meals I already cook. I recently came into some new pots and a new roast recipe. Let the fun begin!

First the good part: chuck roast. Pot roast in the crock pot happens on the regular in our house, but I'd never had a pot big enough for an oven roast. As it turns out my dutch oven is only big enough for a smaller roast and I had to nix a few potatoes and parsnips to get the lid on.

Just a little full after adding all the ingredients ...

  I used the Pioneer Woman recipe since I'm slowly working my way through her book. I was intrigued by the use of red wine, beef broth and sweet orange marmalade was a combo I wouldn't have considered, but that's why I need these cookbooks. It was so much better than the water and spice pack I usually throw into the crock pot. The rest was basically veggies, rosemary, and some salt and pepper. So simple! And nothing is better than healthy, homecooked, comfort food.

By the time it was done the meat was falling apart and the veggies were soft and flavorful. It made a lot of food for the little family dinner, but that meant everyone had some left overs for lunch the next day.

So much food I had to use my turkey serving tray to fit it all.

Speaking of parsnips, I'd never had one until I made roasted veggies for dinner this past Christmas. Now they seem to pop up everywhere. They are a tasty root vegetable, have a nice texture, and are easy to cook. Gavin did have some constructive criticism after I roasted some parsnips that still had a bit of a crunch to them -he pointed out that the larger pieces were undercooked, so I've started cutting the larger pieces in half and haven't had the problem since.

A few months ago my husband and I were married (!) and as a gift to myself, I bought a new pot and pan set that was on super sale. It's the Calphalon Elite set that has a triple layer non-stick coating, with a textured bottom so you can sear! It's safe for the dishwasher and metal utensils, which makes the hubby very happy. I bought a 10-piece set along with a few additional pieces to bring my total up to 16 pieces, including the steamer/poacher insert for the dutch oven.

The new dutch oven! (And my new sauce pot.) 

Now I know a lot of professional/semi/famous amateur chefs don't like cooking with non-stick cookware for various reasons, but in my house non-stick is king. My husband, Gavin, hates scrubbing dishes or washing anything by hand; and with one kiddo here and others in the future, I think non-stick is the most family friendly. So far I love my Calphalon Elite cookware (and I wasn't paid to say that, I'm just genuinely happy with it). It is easy to use and easy to clean, which is perfect for this stay-at-home-mom.

I'll still be making the standard crock pot roast, since I can leave the crock pot going all day without worry and it's still a comforting meal. But when I have the time and inclination, and when chuck roast is on sale, I'll enjoy making this.

--Karie

Am I Southern yet?

I love biscuits and sausage gravy.  I order it all over the place, breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I can't get enough of it! I've never been brave enough to make it myself.  It always seemed a bit intimidating.  Let's be honest I always felt the that there was no way I could make flaky wonderful delicious biscuits.

When you read the recipe for Buttermilk Biscuts with Sausage Gravy and a Maple Cream Sauce it seems easy enough, which of course made me instantly suspicious.  There is no way something that yummy could really be that easy.  

Honestly the night I made this I was feeling overwhelmed, and I was running late.  I had to call everyone and ask them to come over later because I was not going to be ready.  So with a super high stress level I jumped into making the Buttermilk Biscuts.

Making the Biscuts was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and not nearly as messy.  Everything was clearly layers out in the step by step instructions, however do not make the mistake I made and when Chrissy says flour your hands before kneading the dough, listen to Chrissy.  My hands were a mess, but I ended up with a flaky success!

While the Biscuts were baking, I made the sausage gravy which is as so easy!  Why on earth was I ever scared of this?  I was so proud that I did not even scald the milk!  A side note I would use a lot more pepper next time.  The best sausage gravy I ever had was full of yummy black pepper.  I just don't think I used enough.

The end result was yummy, even my son Jason ate one and said it wasn't that bad.  Coming from the King of Mac and Cheese this was high praise.  Dad had seconds, there was not a lot leftover.  Another win in my cooking world!

My grandbaby Eleanor and my youngest daughter "Auntie" Michelle.

These faces make me so happy, they are part of the reason for our cooking adventures!

Pioneer Pasta Primavera

I have a love affair with pasta. Screw calories and carbs, and give me some carbonara or a creamy alfredo. I live for a simple olive oil drizzle, with Parmesan-reggiano sprinkles and a shake of pepper. When I was pregnant, I ate so much pasta that my husband begged for something different one night after almost 3 straight weeks of pasta dinners. Oops.

Everyone pitched in! Grammy's salad, Jen's garlic bread, my pasta.

 The pasta primavera recipe in The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime is a super simple recipe. The trick to making it even simpler is to pre-prep everything -a trick I've always ignored until now. I was going to be cooking this recipe at my grandparents house for family dinner and I didn't want to dirty their kitchen with my mess, plus I'm more comfortable chopping and mincing in my own kitchen. The prep was fairly simple, it just took a little time to chop all the veggies and cook the pasta. I placed everything in separate bowls based on what the recipe said to add when so I wouldn't be scrambling later.

I used bagged cauliflower and broccoli (round two) since its already chopped. Fresh basil from the store and garlic feshly minced with my garlic zoom gadget. The wine is a good one  - we served it at our wedding!

Cooking was a breeze with everything pre-measured. Pour, stir, simmer, repeat. It was nice to be able to chat with my grandparents without rushing around the kitchen trying to gather and pep everything. And the house smelled so amazing -even Grammy commented on how great it smelled, which did great things for my ego. The pasta I bought went with the recipe too; an awesome mix of pesto stuffed "normal" tortellini and cheese stuffed spinach tortellini. Delish!

Now aside from the picky eaters we had (something about kids and vegetables), it was a hit at family dinner. This dish was filling and flavorful -really fantastic, to complete the alliteration. There wasn't any left to take home, even the extra pasta I cooked was gobbed up by the non-vegetarians.

The family!

Almost gone! New family favorite for sure.

I made the dish a few days later for Thursday night dinner with my mom and step dad. Again, I pre-prepped everything and it was super easy to make while chatting with my mom. This will definitely be a recipe for the recipe box!

 All deliciousness aside, I did hit a snag when I cooked it the second time. I cooked on my gas stove Thursday night and the veggies didn't cook all the way through; they were still a little crunchy. I may not have watched the clock as well, so they didn't cook as long, or maybe I didn't have the heat setting right. We've only been in our house for a year, and I haven't figured out all the tricks to our gas range yet. Tips appreciated!

--Karie

What Would Chrissy Say?

Oh my lord do I love these cook books and everything I have made so far!  I have often said that I hate cooking, which generally I do.  I am not that mom who finds satisfaction in preparing a pretty meal and putting it on the table for her family.  Let’s be completely honest, I do my best to avoid cooking at all costs.  Meal planning, hate it, and frankly most of the food goes to waste before I can be bothered to cook it.

Enter in my commitment to learn to cook: the youngest Gill girl, Michelle, has a food allergy. Basically she is allergic to the additives in highly processed food and it has made her sick for years.  We have gotten it under control, however in order to take it to the next level for her health, and mine, I’ve got to take adulting to the next level and **gasp** learn to cook for real. 

A few gorgeous views from the lake property.

I have an obsession with Chrissy Teigans food posts on Instagram,  so I decided to treat myself to her book.  I’ve learned a lot and actually made some pretty decent meals. Recently we took a family day trip up to Lake Conner to my parent’s property.  Since my parents have been so wonderful as to provide us this beautiful place to hang out I always feel it is my responsibility to cook for them when we are up there.  This trip I got really ambitious and decided to prepare the majority of dinner the night before.  Michelle was bringing two friends up with us and I did not want to spend a bunch of time in the heat cooking.  Enter in Chrissy's Cheesy Jalapeño Bacon Corn Bread, and Creamy Potato Salad with Bacon, and even Mexican Street Corn (are you sensing a theme?).

Prep work the night before. Makes eveyrthing so much easier the next day.

When I follow a recipe I tend to follow it exactly with no variations. Normally if I stray too far outside the lines bad things happen.  Two of my side dishes called for bacon, and right from the start I decide not to follow the instructions to fry the bacon.  Fry bacon?  I have not done that for a few years now, my friend Tiffany (not to be confused with Karie’s significant otter Tiffany) told me about baking bacon.  No more grease splatters on my stove, no more grease burns, seriously people it’s the only way to make bacon.

See how delicious baked bacon is?!

What would my friend Chrissy say though?  I’m not listening, I’m trying to learn but completely tuning out the teacher (oh so typical).  I decided to run with it for now and do it my way, with less mess for my hubby to clean up later.  Hopefully she wouldn’t be too disappointed in me.  As a payback I decided to follow her instructions of how to boil and peel an egg exactly, since this has been an issue for me in the past.  My eggventure (haha see what I did there) did not turnout as pretty as in the book, but hey I was just chopping them up so who cares that I ended up with a few divots in the egg whites.  Not as many as I usually have so I would call this a success!

Over the course of the next few hours (yes, hours, did I mention I’m also a slow cook) I baked, mixed boil, chopped, sweated (it was 80 degrees in the house) and prepared a side dish menu I was proud of.  They all looked beautiful and tasted even better.  In the end I feel like my potato salad looked almost exactly like it did in the cook book and the corn bread was amazing.  Over the course of the few hours I was cooking I elevated Chrissy from the level of new friend, to my new BEST friend because oh my lord! everything was awesome!

Creamy Potato Salad with Bacon

Cheesy Jalapeño Bacon Corn Bread

When we arrived at the lake and I was telling my parents about my adventure in the kitchen with my new best friend, my Dad looked at me like I had lost my mind, which is really nothing new in our world.  He had no idea who or what I was talking about so I became a little nervous to let him eat what I had labored so hard to prepare.   I was not worried about what Michelle’s friends would think because they are teenage boys and let’s be honest, teenage boys will eat just about anything.  I served our hot dogs, hamburgers, and amazing side dishes, and everyone loved it!  Dad decided maybe he should make friends with my new friend, which in my world is high praise.  Hours of sweat and work paid off in successful Gill/Wendler dinner, everyone ate, laughed, and most of all we spent some quality family time together! 

Oh yeah, I managed not to poison anyone!!

--Jennie

Happy Mother's Day to Us!

Mother's Day 2016 was around the time our blog idea was hatched. I had given Jennie The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime by Ree Drummond as a gift, then a week later she ordered a copy for me, along with a copy of Chrissy Teigan's Cravings. We became so obsessed with these two women and their cookbooks that we decide to start a blog to talk about it. That idea progressed into our renewed "weekly" family dinners to test our new found cooking skills and introducing new cookbooks as we find/rediscover them. We learn to cook new recipes and hopefully our followers find some amusement, and maybe a recipe or two themselves.

So brace yourselves for an onslaught of recipes from these two books, at least in the beginning. We promise to not be too overwhelming, but its so hard when it all looks so good!

Two beautiful women and their two beautiful books.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinner Time 

Jennie introduced me to the Pioneer Woman sometime around November of last year. We don't have cable in my house -we survive off Hulu and Netflix- so I hadn't seen Ree Drummond's show on Food Network. I live under a rock? I can't remember what recipe Jen made but I do remember a) that I couldn't get enough of it, and b) it was around the time she bought her mandolin and I decided I needed one too. So I went out and bought my mandolin with a gift-card from my awesome mom-in-law and made the Pioneer Woman's scallop potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner.

They were AMAZING.

Seriously drool worthy and everyone raved about them. Maybe it was the perfectly sliced potatoes; maybe it was all the creamy deliciousness; maybe its because Ree Drummond is a genius.

Fast forward 6 months and I am flipping through The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime. Not only is the commentary very relatable and family oriented, but there are pictures with every step! Every single step! No more waiting until the end to see if everything looks as it should. The recipes also use pretty common ingredients, making it a go-to for everyday meals. She even gives advice on how to prep everything early if needed, and which recipes can be easily frozen to have on hand for later.

All the recipes I marked as "MUST DO" in each book.

Cravings

This was also a Jennie discovery. I knew who Chrissy Teigan was and that she'd come out with a cookbook, so when it was suggested I was game to try it but still skeptical. It is the most hilarious cookbook I've ever read.

Chrissy doesn't hold back in her commentary. She's fun and witty and makes me laugh while I'm cooking, and lets face it, she's saying what we're all thinking anyway. The conversational commentary also makes the recipes easy to follow, and most of her tips and tricks are right where they are needed in the recipe, instead of off to the side.

The recipes in Cravings range from roasted chicken to crab cream cheese wontons to delicious looking Thai food that I'm too nervous to attempt right now. The intro says the ingredients are meant to be easy to find and should be at most grocery stores, but I'd probably need to ask someone what isle to find them in. I'm excited for the new flavors this will open up for us though!



Enjoy the next few weeks of posts! I'll be writing many of them, but Jen says she has a lot to say too.
-- Karie

The Gill Girls

We love eating. And drinking. We especially love both together, but that's not a requirement. A big bowl of creamy, homemade mac n' cheese is bliss; a good glass of wine is relaxing. Combine the two and we are in our own little foodie heaven. 

We also love family, although our definition of family is a flexible one. Our family spans four generations and is a true "modern family" that doesn't acknowledge the usual notion of exes or half-siblings, and loves the idea of honorary members. Our motto is definitely "The more the merrier"!

The Gill-Beaupain-Smith Family Portrait. (missing Karie's husband Gavin) Photo by JLV Photography

Because we are a large family, it is rare for more than a few days to go by without us spending time together, and usually these occasions call for food. A lot of food. But you can only do so many backyard BBQs and pasta nights before it turns boring. So we decided to start exploring new recipes and ideas for family dinners.

To help document our successes and failures, offer insight, tips, and anecdotes we will be blogging about all the recipes we try from our favorite cookbooks (old and new). We are not chefs and have never been to culinary school; we are just two women who like to cook for our families.

Photo by JLV Photography

Karie

She is a wife, mom, family party planner, WSU grad (Go Cougs!), and the oldest of the Gill siblings. Karie loves the feeling when a meal comes together and everyone gathers around to share stories, laughs, and enjoy each others company. She is the official coordinator of family dinners, parties, and nights in and out. There is a special place in her heart for pasta, Irish food and Jason Statham. Though she hasn't traveled the world extensively, she plans on doing so soon with her growing family.

Photo by JLV Photography

Jennie

Jennie loves when her house is full of family and friends. She came into the family fold almost 20 years ago, offically becoming a Gill 15 years ago. She is step-mom to the two oldest Gill kids and "Mom!" to the youngest two. As a busy working mom, Jennie loves quick and easy meals she can throw in the slow cooker or make on the fly, but also finds it thereputic to spend a Saturday afternoon cooking with her kids. She loves a good RomCom, refuses to watch animal movies, and thinks Chrissy Teigan should be her new best friend.