Studio711.com – Ben Martens

This recipe comes from Tyla. All I’ll say is that it’s delicious!

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 can of corn
• 1 can of green beans
• 1 can of mushrooms
• 1 cup of mozzarella cheese
• Frozen tater tots
• 1 can cheddar cheese soup
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup

Brown the ground beef and drain. Put in a casserole dish and layer on vegetables and soup. Layer top with tater tots and cover with cheese. Bake at 350° for about 45 minutes or until top turns golden brown.

[UPDATE] added the can of mushroom soup. Thanks for the reminder Tyla!

I’ve had key lime pie on my mind for quite a while, and, while standing in the grocery store last weekend, I decided it was time to give it a shot. I pulled up a recipe on my phone and was shocked at how simple it was. Key lime juice, egg  yolk, and sweetened condensed milk. But what is a key lime? Can I use regular lime juice? I ended up finding a bottle that said it was key lime juice so I went for it. It turns out that key limes are a lime variety thought to have originated in the Florida Keys.

It was ridiculously simple to put the pie together. I didn’t do any whipped topping, but it came out delicious. This recipe comes from the Nellie and Joe’s Key West Lime Juice bottle.

Ingredients

• 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 3 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup key lime juice
• 9”graham cracker pie crust

Mix all the ingredients together and pour it into the pie crust. Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. Let sit for 10 minutes before refrigerating. Serve cold.

I love chili, and when I make chili, I generally say the spicier the better. I made it last week and I think I finally made it too spicy even for me. I won’t go into details. You should just be thankful you don’t live with me. Here is the basic recipe I use and I’ll point out where you can adjust the heat.

Ingredients

• 2  tsp  Each – Salt, Pepper
• 2  tbsp  Each – Chili Powder , Sugar
• 1  lb(s)  Lean Ground Beef or Turkey
• 1  can(s)  Tomato Soup, 10 3/4 oz
• 3  can(s)  Red kidney beans (Undrained) 15 oz cans. I’ve also used “chili beans.”
• 2  can(s)  Stewed Tomatoes, Italian/Mexican style, 14 1/2oz
• Cheddar cheese and sour cream to top the chili when you serve it

Brown ground beef, drain, put in 4 quart pot. Add all other ingredients. I drain off a bit of the juice in the beans but leave most of it. Adjust spices to your liking. Sugar reduces the acidity of tomatoes. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly! Once boiling, reduce heat to simmer, and cover pot. Simmer for 2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes to prevent burning on bottom. After 2 hours, remove cover and continue to simmer until desired thickness.

Tips:

• This works better on the stove than in the crock pot. Don’t forget to stir every 15 minutes though. It will burn if you don’t.
• Taste it about an hour in and see how the spices are doing. Add sugar if it’s too spicy and add pepper and chili powder if it’s not hot enough.
• If you know you like it hot, chop a jalapeno and throw it in at the beginning. I used two jalapenos last time and that was too much for me.
• I put the stewed tomatoes through a food processor before I start to get them chopped up into smaller pieces. I don’t like big chunks of tomato in the finished product.

I’ve tried a lot of chilis over the years and this is my favorite. I don’t make it very often because it takes a lot of attention, but when I do, I like to eat leftovers on the bed of rice.

Tyla isn’t a big fan of beans so I’m going to start experimenting with beanless chili. If you have a favorite recipe, please let me know! Apparently the chili gurus in Texas consider beans in chili to be blasphemy so I’m sure there are plenty of good beanless recipes around.

A few weeks ago, I did something I’ve never done before: make cookies. I feel pretty confident with cooking, but baking is the wild west as far as I’m concerned. The first recipe was one I spotted on Facebook in an exchange between the Abendroth cookie experts. The second is my favorite cookie that my mom makes. (Turns out they are from the back of the white chocolate chips bag. Ha!) I tried a third cookie this weekend but it didn’t turn out real well so I’ll have to give it another shot before it hits the blog. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely. [source]

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup Nestle Toll House Baking Cocoa
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups (12-oz pkg) Nestle Toll House Premier White Morsels

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels. Drop by well-rounded teaspoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until centers are set. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a “Cooking with Tyla and Ben” post. This one is mostly Tyla’s brainchild. She had a hankerin’ for some peanut butter noodles. The only change we made from the allrecipes.com script was the addition of a chicken breast because who eats food without meat? That’s crazy talk.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger root
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons peanut butter
• 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
• 2 teaspoons hot chile paste (optional)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 ounces Udon noodles
• 1/4 cup chopped green onions
• 1/4 cup chopped peanuts
• 1 chicken breast

Cook the chicken breast in a pan. Optionally, add spices.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add noodles and cook until tender according to package directions. Drain.

Meanwhile, combine chicken broth, ginger, soy sauce, peanut butter, honey, chili paste, and garlic in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat until peanut butter melts and is heated through. Add noodles and chicken and toss to coat. Garnish with green onions and peanuts.

Check the timing on the noodles. It took us a while to boil water and then another 12-14 minutes for the noodles so the chicken was done way too early. However, since everything is combined and heated together at the end, it’s not a big deal.

On our trip to Indiana, we stopped at Granite City for dinner. It’s one of Tyla’s favorites and I finally got to try the Idaho Nachos that I heard so much about. Last weekend we decided to try and make them for ourselves. I think they actually tasted better than the ones from the restaurant!

Ingredients

• 1 bag frozen waffle fries (we used unseasoned curly fries because we couldn’t find waffle fries)
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 3-4 strips bacon
• 1 small tomato
• Chives

Bake the waffle fries according to the instructions on the bag. Near the end of the baking, push all the fries into a pile and smother with the shredded cheese. Once the cheese is melted, pull them out of the oven and top with chopped bacon, diced tomatoes, and chopped chives.

Dip Ingredients

• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp curry
• 1/8 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and top with parsley flakes.

This recipe makes a lot of dip. I think will probably cut it at least in half (maybe even less) the next time we make it.

Bottom line: delicious! They will go fast.

This is one of my summertime favorites, and even though it’s not summer yet, I decided to whip up a pan of this and take it to Easter dinner. Nobody there had seen it before, but most of the pan was gone by the time I left! It sounds weird but I promise it’s delicious!

Ingredients

• 2 cups crushed pretzel sticks
• 3/4 cups melted butter
• 3 tbsp. sugar
• 8 oz. cream cheese
• 1 cup sugar
• 8 oz. Cool Whip
• 1 (6 oz.) package strawberry Jello
• 2 cups boiling water
• 16oz frozen cut strawberries, partially thawed

Mix first three ingredients and press in bottom of a 9"x13" pan. Bake at 350 degrees (metal pan) or 325 degrees (glass pan) 8 minutes. Let cool completely.

Beat 1 cup sugar and cream cheese. Fold in Cool Whip. Spread over pretzels. Put this in the fridge for now.

Mix Jello and water until dissolved. Add strawberries. Stir into Jello. Pour into a bowl and put it in the fridge. The closer you can get to letting it set without actually having firm up, the better.

Pour the Jello mixture onto the top of the mixture in your pan. Chill for four to five hours.

This is an easy one to make but it takes a while because you do it in stages. If you do it when the mixtures are too warm, the Jello will find its way underneath the white layer and it doesn’t look as nice. No worries if that happens though, because it’s still delicious!

PS. We were so busy eating that we forgot to take a picture. I found one on the web to use for this post.

Since we started making food together, Tyla has been talking about some crazy meatloaf that she had once before. On Saturday, we decided to recreate it. It’s a Bobby Flay recipe marked as Easy with a 20 minute prep time. There are a lot of ingredients, but I suppose no part of it is super difficult. It did take us closer to 45 minutes to put it all together though.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large zucchini, finely diced
• 1 red bell pepper, finely diced
• 1 yellow pepper, finely diced
• 5 cloves garlic, smashed to a paste with coarse salt
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes, divided
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves, plus more for garnish
• 1/2 pound ground pork
• 1/2 pound ground veal
• 1 pound ground beef chuck
• 1 cup panko (Japanese) bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Romano or Parmesan
• 1 cup ketchup, divided
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Heat the oil in a large saute pan over high heat. Add the zucchini, peppers, garlic paste, 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper, to taste, and cook until almost soft, 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Whisk together the eggs and herbs in a large bowl. Add the meat, bread crumbs, cheese, 1/2 cup of the ketchup, 2 tablespoons of the balsamic vinegar, and the cooled vegetables and mix until just combined.

Mold the meatloaf on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Whisk together the remaining ketchup, balsamic vinegar, and red pepper flakes in a small bowl. Brush the mixture over the entire loaf. Bake the meatloaf for 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing.

We cheated by using thyme, parsley and parmesan that weren’t fresh, and we also used regular bread crumbs. The end result was pretty impressive! Chelsea and Tim came over to help us eat it as it makes enough to serve six pretty easily. We ended up calling it Hippy Loaf because it was so fancy. It doesn’t taste like meatloaf as I know it, but we’ll be making this again!

Hopefully Mom doesn’t mind me posting her top secret family recipe. This is one of our family favorites. Two thumbs up!

On a side note, I realized that it’s kind of silly to have a ranking system for recipes that make it to the blog. Why would I post a bad recipe? I’m only going to be sharing the ones that we really liked. Also, I know there have been a lot of food posts recently, but that’s because we had a backlog of things to write about. This is the last of the backlog so I expect them to slow down going forward.

Italian Style Chicken Breasts

• 2 whole chicken breasts
• 1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs, well beaten
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1/2 lb sliced fresh mushrooms
• 2/3 cup white wine (Mom recommends white zinfandel)
• 1 cup mozzarella cheese

Mix bread crumbs and parmesan on a plate. Beat eggs on a plate or flat bowl. Dip chicken breasts in egg then in bread crumbs. Make sure it is coated well.

Melt margarine in skillet over medium heat. Add chicken and brown on both sides. Remove chicken to a shallow baking dish (9×9 pan.) Add mushrooms to skillet and cook until almost tender, stirring frequently. Mix in wine. Pour mixture over chicken.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Uncover and sprinkle mozzarella cheese over chicken. Return to oven uncovered and bake 10 more minutes or until chicken is no longer pink.

I made this for Tyla on Valentine’s Day and served it with a Caesar salad and baked potato. Baked potatoes taste excellent when you use cover them with the extra sauce.

Also, Two Vines Riesling is delicious! I bought it a few months ago and forgot about it. After that, Tyla was telling me how great this wine was. On Valentine’s Day, I pulled out a bottle of wine and discovered it was the one she had been talking about. Jackpot! Err… I mean… I planned it that way because I knew how much she loved it.

Tyla and I found this recipe in the Campbell’s Casseroles and One-Dish Meals book. It was so good we made it again the next week. Our only change was using chicken instead of the recommended turkey. It would taste just as good with turkey though. The deliciousness to effort ratio for this one is off the charts!

Chicken Stuffing Divan

• 4 cups Pepperidge Farm Herb Seasons Stuffing
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 package (10 ounces) frozen broccoli cuts, cooked and drained
• 2 cups cubed cooked chicken
• 1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Celery Soup
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

1. Prepare the stuffing using the water and butter according to the package directions.
2. Spoon the stuffing into an 11×8-inch shallow baking dish. Arrange the broccoli and chicken over the stuffing mixture.
3. Stir the soup, milk and 1/2 cup of the cheese in a small bowl. Pour over the turkey mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
4. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes or until hot.

That photo is horrible. We didn’t think to take a picture until we were into the second night of leftovers. Just make it. It’s fantastic!