In Honor of National Peanut Butter Day!!

Peanut Butter is a necessary staple! Today is National Peanut Butter day! So what better way to celebrate than to make a pan of . . . 


Peanut Butter Brownies!

My granddaughters & I made them tonight and of course we each had to have our own spoonful of Peanut butter! 

So enjoy an evening and make sure you have some Peanut Butter! YUM!

Red Lentil Sauce with pasta & Spinach

Our Valentine Dinner was a delicious sauce a friend of mine posted on FB! Red Lentils do make a wonderfully smooth sauce & so healthy! I used bow tie pasta, but you can use linguine or any kind of pasta for that matter. I left the red onions raw and it gave this delicious crunchy fresh taste. Served it with a steak tenderloin!

White Chili!!

It snowed yesterday. . .not a fan! But it did spur me on to making this White Chili last night for dinner. I made the Black & White version from the recipe. . .it was delish. . . and really warmed our insides.

At least the sun is shining today!

Salmon Salad

Salmon is one of my favorite foods. Love it any way it can be fixed. So, I had some left over from grilling salmon the other night and I wanted to have it on my fav triscuits - Fire Roasted Tomato! YUM! Wanted it to be similar to Tuna Salad. . . Here are the results:

I used to get this salad when we lived in S FL with a Lemon Pommery dressing, it was the best dressing I ever had on a chicken salad. But the owner would not give me the recipe (bummer). So this lemon Mustard dressing is pretty close to it. It is really good on a Baby Spinach salad and really made this salmon taste amazing!

Roasted Pork & Udon Noodles

We found out how much we loved Udon Noodle when we ate at Noodles & Co a while back. They are also called Pad Thai. So, fortunately I found Udon Noodles (see picture below) at the grocery store in the produce section, weirdly enough. This recipe seems complicated but goes together very easy and quick.

Here is the recipe I came up with Roasted Pork & Udon Noodles

As a variation try chicken, shrimp or beef and different veggies

This can be finished off in a wok if you prefer. Another great recipe to be creative with. Let me know what you tried! I love hearing the variations.

Baked Oatmeal w/Fruit

I love having breakfast for dinner! I guess it is comfort food. So tonight I made Baked Oatmeal with Strawberries/Bananas and then baked some bacon on my stone to go with it. Pictured is a doubled recipe so I can put some up for us to take & heat up for breakfast or mid morning snack.

I found this recipe on Pinterest & just had to try it. Of course you know me I did make a few modifications & I will make even more changes the next time (mainly adding more kinds of fruit). The great part of this recipe is you can make so many different variations - Peaches, Apples & Cinnamon or all Berries. So have fun with this one.

Additionally: After cutting up the bananas I put a little lemon juice in the bowl and stirred it around so the bananas wouldn't brown.

Oven Roasted Roast & Potatoes

I love roast! it has always been comfort food for me. In the past I have always used my crockpot to slow cook it, but always felt it was missing something. So here is alternative to crockpotting that will give you that oven roasted crispness on the top and very tender! And if your oven has a cook time you can set it to auto turn off.

This idea came to me after using this Pork Tenderloin recipe. Which by the way is amazing as well.

So here are the modifications for a roast. . .You will follow this recipe but add some cooking time on the end (I seasoned the roast with Garlic Powder & seasoned salt on both sides before browning in the skillet). Slow roasting time will depend on the size of your roast. The roast pictured was very thin so it was much shorter time.

After roasting in the ovenproof skillet @ 400 for 10 minutes, flip your roast and turn the temp down to 275 & let it slow roast: the roast above was about an inch thick 1 1/2 hours was perfect. The roast I cooked the other day was 3 inches thick and it was 3 1/2 hours (turning it halfway through).

For this meal I added some frozen red potatoes that were quartered seasoned with Olive Oil & Parmesean; I added them to the pot 25 minutes prior to the roast being done. I put them under the roast and they soaked up all those wonderful drippings from the roast. You can also add veggies for a healthier meal.

This meat will literally cut with a fork. Very tender!

Be careful with the skillet after coming out of the oven! I have burn markes where I forgot it had been in the oven & grabbed the handle! OUCH!! ;)