Archive for 2015-01-18

melissa

apps for toddlers review

The grandbaby loves my phone, she has several apps that she plays daily and most of those were found for her on this site. It's worth t...

pizza teapot corn and watermelon soup recipe

melissa

pizza teapot corn and watermelon soup recipe

I'm not the only foodie in the house, and id be doing this new chef that I am so proud of a great injustice if I didn't share h...

food porn with a one dish baked mac n cheese recipe....

melissa

food porn with a one dish baked mac n cheese recipe....

This was our meal tonight. smoked pork chops, its one of my favorites so excuse the bite that has already been pinched from it. I just co...

melissa

hamburger with homemade pickle recipe

I'm not a fan of hamburger for the most part. Well, let me rephrase that, I am not a fan of full sized hamburgers normally. They are...

melissa

hot wing sammiches with peach perserves

the plan was to cook the wings in the crockpot over night from frozen, and then broil them to add a little crispness then id freeze them and...

The grandbaby loves my phone, she has several apps that she plays daily and most of those were found for her on this site. It's worth taking a look at. I have it bookmarked for future reference and when she gets bored with what she has Ill find something new.

But for now she has some favorites.

Netflix is awesome, she loves scooby doo, and nemo, I didn't get the netflix app off this site, but it is another great app for the kiddies.

Dr. panda's toto's treehouse is one of her favorites. She has enjoyed all of the Dr. Panda apps we have installed for her. Id highly recommend these no ad pop up apps. They are a couple dollars each but worth it. Not only are they fun but they help with motor skills, and more.

Toto turtle is a virtual pet that she has to care for, she makes him sandwiches, bathes him, puts him down for a nap, gives him medicine, plays with him. A bubble pops up to tell her waht he needs and she has learned to recognize the need and tend to it. 2.00 is a small price to pay for learning if you ask me.

I give 5 stars to all of the above mentioned apps and websites. Our grandbaby is only two and she can easily do all the thigs required in the mentioned apps, no pop ups, no accidentally leaving the app and calling china.. Worth the download for sure..

What is your toddlers favorite app? Share a link in comments to your fav.

pizza teapot corn and watermelon soup recipe

I'm not the only foodie in the house, and id be doing this new chef that I am so proud of a great injustice if I didn't share her recipe with you. She is the best 2 year old chef ever and this is the soup she made just for me the other day.

Here is how you make it..

First off you have to have a toy kitchen.. This recipe wont work in any other type of kitchen..

ingredients as follows

2 teapots

1 ear of corn

one slice of pizza

1 slice of watermelon

and 1 one green thing in the back that i cannot recall what it was but it is crucial so figure it out...

put all of these things in a bowl, stick well, stick into your toy oven for for as long as it takes to have a fake phone call with old papa, and your mama, and then say "oh no its burning"

at this point you remove from the oven, blow on it two or three times and then serve to everyone in the room,

These ingredients cant be found just anywhere.. They are the finest quality plastic foods you can buy and Id advise you to search your local fake farmers market for them. Be sure and ask for plastic food.. any other kind and the dish will be ruined..

If you try this recipe be sure to comment what you thought of it.. Chef Clarissa would love to know I am sure...

food porn with a one dish baked mac n cheese recipe....

This was our meal tonight. smoked pork chops, its one of my favorites so excuse the bite that has already been pinched from it. I just couldn't control myself.

But anyway... smoked pork chops, butter peas with whole okra and country ham, fried squash, zucchini and onions, and one dish baked mac n cheese.

Here are a couple more pics for all you food porn lovers out there, and then I will tell you how to make the one pot baked mac n cheese.

Beans and okra... OMG!!! It's like heaven in a pot...

cast iron babay.. Its the only way to cook isn't it?

Sorry that I didn't get a pic of just the mac n cheese, but by this time the grandbaby was here wanting to help me cook and I was starving too.. so this pic will have to do..

Now for the recipe...

Its really simple..

I think you will like it...

one dish baked mac n cheese

1 box elbow macaroni

1 jar ragu cheese sauce (the orange kind)

1 cup chicken broth

1 empty ragu sauce jar full of water

(i use the empty cheese sauce jar to measure the water because i can re-lid it and shake it up and get the remaining cheese sauce that was stuck inside the jar)

1/3 cup milk powder

(you can substitute the milk powder for real milk if you like, but i was out of milk and this works just as good in recipes)

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar

1 stick butter cubed

salt and pepper to taste

in a grease oven safe dish pour in all of your ingredients except the butter and shredded cheese and stir to coat and spread evenly in dish.

add your butter cubes and space them evenly throughout the dish

then top with about half of your shredded cheddar.

cover and bake at 375 for approx. 30 minutes

after 30 minutes remove from oven, uncover and stir add the remaining cheddar to the top and put back into the oven uncovered for approx 25 more minutes or until liquid had reduced and top had browned..

and that is it.. The family loved it.. and for those who cant have, or don't like eggs there isn't a single one in this except what is in the elbow macaroni.... If there is any in it at all.. Perhaps I should be ashamed to say I have never read the ingredients in elbow pasta... Ill have to do that now.. It will drive me nuts if I don't...

You can also add ham, or bacon, or hot dogs, maybe even cooked ground beef or sausage to this recipe

If you try it let me know what you think...

hamburger with homemade pickle recipe

I'm not a fan of hamburger for the most part. Well, let me rephrase that, I am not a fan of full sized hamburgers normally. They are too big and I can never finish the whole thing so usually when we do burgers its sliders on kings Hawaiian rolls. But my daughter wanted real burgers for a change so we made it happen.. Complete with homemade pickles.. "HOME" made... Not "ho" made there is a difference, be sure to stress the "M" sound cuz "ho" ain't made nothing but a buck fifty laying on her back...

Anywho... The burger was a mix of ground beef, ground sirloin, ground pork, and a tiny bit of ground onion sausage about 1/3 a pound of the sirloin and pork about a pound of ground beef and just a small handful of the sausage to that we added a package of dry ranch dressing mix, some smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and about 1 tbsp of water. (by tbsp I mean as much as I could carry in the palm of my hand from tap to bowl twice... I have small hands..

we fried these in a cast iron skillet (cast iron is the only way to go.. don't let anyone tell you different) cooked about 8 minutes per side on medium heat and right before they were done we flipped them and put sliced cheddar from a block of extra sharp Cheddar we had. Once the burgers were ready we toasted the sesame seed buns, and assembled our burgers.. Here is what we put on ours.. mayo, Dijon mustard, ketchup, coleslaw, lettuce, tomato, onion, and home made pickles. (home made pickle recipe below.. But before we do that, just let me say these were the most moist, delicious tasty, flavorful burgers ever. I actually eat the entire thing and I never do that..

Now for the quick pickle recipe...

in a sauce pan add 1 1/2 cups vinegar, 1/2 cup sugar, teaspoon pickling spice, 1 bay leaf, salt to taste.. Bring these ingredients to a boil slowly over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

while you wait for this to boil slice cucumbers thinly, as thick as you like your burger pickles, add just a few pieces of onion for flavor put in a bowl and add dill weed stir this around to coat cucumbers in dill and add to a mason jar. set aside until your mixture boils.

once your mixture reaches a good rolling boil pour over cucumbers in mason jar. (it is always good to add a metal spoon of knife to the jar to absorb some of the heat just to make sure your jar doesn't shatter when you pour in the hot liquid)

remove the bay leaf and pour mixture over cucumber put on the lid and sit aside or place in fridge until they are cooled.

we made the pickles and set them aside until our burgers were done, by this time they had cooled to room temperature. our family is big so by the time all the burgers were done the pickles had cooled and they were awesome on the burgers.. They pack a bit of a punch spice wise when you eat them alone, but on the burger they were amazing, a nice mix of sweet and savory. We will do this again. Do you have a great quick pickle recipe? Id love to hear about it in comments...

hot wing sammiches with peach perserves

the plan was to cook the wings in the crockpot over night from frozen, and then broil them to add a little crispness then id freeze them and when we were ready to eat them id pop them out of the oven stir them around in a little more wing sauce and baked them till they thawed.. maybe microwave.. Hadn't decided about that part.. maybe both.. Well.. my wings cooked too long, and fell off the bone, so here is what he did.. This is an accidental masterpiece everyone loved..

Ill start at the beginning so you can know the whole recipe...

I added about 25 wings, a bottle of franks wing sauce and a about 1/3 cup peach preserves, jam, or jelly, whatever I have in there..

i cooked in the crockpot on high 8 hours.. that is a good amount of time if you want it falling off the bone for wing sammiches.. Id cut that time by an hour or so if you want wings that continue to be wing like.

You can stop here and have yummy wings that are spicy with just a touch of sweet.. Awesome... Kids love em..

But if you end up with wings that are falling off the bone here is what to do..

you can pull the meat off the bone before or after, i did mine after..

put cooked wings in a bowl mix in about a cup of hot wing sauce and put in oven on middle rack on broil until they start to brown.. 5 to 10 minutes depending on how brown you like them...Take out of the oven and let cool..

remove meat from bone if you haven't already and put wings in a bowl stir in just a little more wing sauce, to make a consistency similar to a bbq sandwich.