Beef and Veggie stew

This one is an american staple to be sure, but you really need a jumping off point before you start to design your own stew recipe, so here is mine.

You will need:

Roughly 2 lbs of sirloin tip steak or stew beef

1 TBS butter

4-5 Cups of water

1 TBS Salt

1 Large dash of black pepper

8 Large carrots

8 Potatoes

1 Large yellow onion (or two small)

Also: Big ass stewpot.

This recipe will serve about 8 or 9 people. If you want to only make enough for four or five people, I suggest halving it.

The Story Behind Today's Decidedly Awkward Camera Transitions

You may not have met my friend Susan, but she's a darned pretty lady, and a lady who recently got married! Hurray! Stephen

and Susan decided to be very kind to their guests and have their lovey-dover-romancy photos taken on a different day that their wedding, so today Susan came over so I could do her hair before she had their pictures taken. You with me? Good.

So Susan shot the first part of this video for me. Halfway through, my son decides I need some help 'splaining, so he chimes in with all kinds of advice. I hope you're listening, internetz! Stews are important! Carrot quality! Meat quality! IMPORTANT THINGS.

In video two, Susan realizes she is up against the time crunch. We had been so relaxed about everything that she now has a limited amount of time to do her makeup for her wedding photos which she will be displaying on her hearth for, well, forever, so off she whisks to further prettify her lovely face and I am left at a crucial moment with no camera girl. Sadness. I was suggested to me that I request her husband Stephen to help, but considering Stephen was busy sneezing so hard he was in danger of blowing out our living room windows, I thought that he might not make the best 'kitchen guest' at the moment. I mean, hey, *snerrrrking* I can deal with but this was good old fashioned, "HABLOOOOOEY!"

I am so flustered by not being able to get a good angle that I forget to let you see me add the salt and pepper! And forget to add the meat entirely. So, um, if you're a veggie, that was totes intentional and, btw, ignore this next clip.

In the interim, my nephew arrives. He is tired and cranky, but thankfully came with his lovely nanny in tow. Unfortunately he is still tired and cranky, no matter how nanny-tastic she is, so you get to see this last bit with the included soundtrack, Baby Nephew:Thing From That Screamers Movie With Peter Weller.

Perhaps its catchy. You don't KNOW.

And here is the result.

Feel free to try this with pork (I suggest using butterfly cut chops) or bison. Mmmm bison.

Broccoli Cheddar soup

Well you would think that these would get better rather than worse, but this particular entry was a summation of poor judgement and fatigue on my part. Having spent a very busy first part of the day out of doors, my decision to go ahead with this blog, scraggly hair/hayfever eyes and all was probably not the best.

BUT this is one of my favorite and most asked for recipes and since I don't make it all the time, carpe diem and all of that.

This is a surprisingly simple recipe that is a quick fix and never fails to bring Mmmms to the table. Damn right, its better 'n yours. Its also pretty much the only way I can get veggies of any quantity or substance into my youngest child, so there is that.

You will need:

12 oz Cheddar, grated or cubed. (I suggest sharp cheddar)

One head of broccoli (Or equivalent amount of broccoli spears)

3-4 large carrots

1 small white or yellow onion (Yellow onions are sweeter, so based on your own flavor palate, go with that feels right)

Water (enough to cover one inch in the bottom of a large sauce pan or small stock pot)

1 cup chicken or vegetable broth

2 cups of 2% or whole milk

Optional

1 can of Cream of Onion soup (I strongly suggest doing this, but its not completely necessary)

Cayenne pepper or Paprika to sprinkle on top

1/4 cup Parmesan (If you like that extra sharp taste)

And now: to the videos!

Hmmm. Not sure why I keep saying '1 cup of milk'. There is most definitely 2 cups of milk

and I do, indeed, ADD two cups of milk during the video, so we'll chalk that brainfart up to hay fever.

I hope you enjoyed the soundtrack provided by 'My Children Playing BattleFront 2'.

Hahaha, guess who hasn't learned how to pull stills from her video yet, hahaha! Guess who forgot to snap a photo of the finished product before it was eaten, hahaha! Its certainly not this girl sitting and eating hilarious pizza with her two friends!

Hey Guyz! Well this entry is just FULL of mistakes, but that's what makes it fun, right? Right!?

I made pizza, which I love to do. I've worked in one sit-down pizzaria and one pizza take-out place so I hazard to say I make pretty good pizza. This is the 'quick and dirty' version, because I use prepared sauces. I mention that I'm going to do alfredo sauce and marinara sauce from scratch at a later date; both of those can be used instead of the prepared sauces I demonstrate here. So go ahead and hop in your time machines to visit those future blog entries so you can write down those recipes before we get started...or just use the suggestions I make in the videos for choosing/using a premade sauce.

Lets get started:

Crust

3 cups of Bread flour

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

3 TBS corn oil

1 packet of yeast

1.5 tsp salt

2 TBS dark brown sugar

1.5 cups warm water

And now the videos. In this first one I spell bread, 'bred'. Sadly I made straight As in english throughout high school and university studies. Your tax dollars at work.

Okay, so Tim WASN'T out of batteries, his phone just made a suspicious 'Out of batteries' noise.

Here is the rest of the first bit. Notice how INSTEAD of taking off my ring as I tell you to do, I just kneed with one hand? Old habit from trying to carry a baby in one arm while I make dinner :P

Now, while that is rising, lets talk about what comes next:

Sauce

Red sauce with a pinch of black pepper, garlic salt and a TBS of Oregano

Alfredo: you can use a thin layer of ranch dressing instead if you don't have real alfredo on you.

This actually works better than jarred alfredo.

Cheese

16 oz of part skim mozerella

Toppings

Whatever you want, but for a white pizza I tend to use chicken, mushrooms and chopped garlic.

Red pizza you can get away with everything but the kitchen sink. Here I used sliced plum tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms and chopped garlic.

This is where things get a little silly. We had given the boys a bunch of water balloons and told them to go play in the yard while I made the pizza, but my youngest decided halfway through that he was going to come in and give an impromptu speech.

Also: the boys breezing in and out the front door forced pollen into the front of the house, triggering both cook AND cameraman's allergies. So about halfway through we start SNERRRRKing. On my honor, no SNEEERRRRK wound up on/in the food.

The final product! Mmmm! I meant to take a picture of the second pizza, but both had smelled up the house with awesom deliciousness and so they were quickly consumed by the fam the second they were cool enough to eat. Lets just say the second looked like the first one, but more colorful.

Thanks to Tim (Karvald, for my MST3K roomies) for his camera work and promises that next time I won't run the dishwasher while making a blog video.

Now go make some pizza!

Spring Quiche

With the new camera things went better, but it still needs a lot of work. Work in progress, coming through!

This recipe is one I know I originally got off a box of some kind, then tweaked to my liking. It is yummers and also has veggies and lots of protein, so it makes a good core dish for a spring celebration without being, you know, A HUGE HUNK O' MEAT.

The recipe is:

16 oz swiss cheese, shredded or cubed

8 eggs

2 cups of 2% milk

2 knorr veggie soup mixes (Spring mix, if you can find it)

1 cup chopped spinach (Steamed chopped spinach is easier to work with,

but in the end as long as you have a cup full of finely chopped spinach, you're golden)

2 crusts

When I go my apple pie for this blog in a few weeks, I'm going to do an entry for a crust from scratch, but here I use two pre-made crusts.

And here is the smashing result. Om nom nom nom!

PS. I cheated! Did you notice where? RIGHT in the middle of my blog entry I noticed my hubby had used an egg to make something this morning while I was out :P So this is a 7 egg, not an 8 egg quiche! Oh the huge MANATEE!

Test test test

So my first installment went rather crappily, but hey, I said I would do it and I did it. Yayeee! Plus the food was yummy. *erp* I will go back to using full chicken breasts rather than the fillets, since these are the eensiest bit dry in comparison to this recipe's normal turnout, but other than that, the food itself went to plan.

Now if only the lighting/timing/photography work could have followed suit.

This is a recipe we call 'Chicken Stuff' in my family. It originally had a much fancier name, but that has gone the way of the, "I don't give a crap." For a long time my SIL was notorious for making it, then she stopped cooking and my brother made it, then he lost time for cooking and the yummy torch of deliciousness was passed to me. And now to you.

Lol. Love the freeze frame it chose. "My chest. Let me show you it."

My poor camera. "What are you DOING? Limited video ONLY!"

Since its totally not clear, when I say, "Go, shoo, begone with you!" I am talking to a piece of shallot skin that made it into the mix. Yeah, nothing ELSE made it into the food, I promise :P

Blast! Camera ran out of batteries. I dump the sherry and the mushrooms in while I switch batteries and then....

Oh look! If you turn the light on, its not so dark!