I love to use leftovers up by creating new dishes, and had approximately 2 cups of Jasmine rice leftover from making rice pudding.

I especially love it when a new concoction turns out as well as this one did… What a WINNER HERE!

This is what I came up with:

Ingredients

2 cups Jasmine rice
2 cups of mixed frozen vegetables (I used peas and carrots because that’s what I had on hand)
1 pre-cooked chicken breast, skinned, deboned and diced
2 tablespoons soya sauce
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Directions

1) In a non-stick Wok, I melted about 2 tablespoons of butter and put the 2 cups (approximately) of Jasmine rice in to fry for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

2) Then I added approximately 2 tablespoons of soya sauce… just enough to make the rice coloured brown… no more than that. Fried for about 2 minutes then…

3) added about 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil (I used olive oil as that’s all I had, and I used it sparingly… just to prevent food from sticking to pan as it heated – NOTE: Olive oil is not supposed to be heated.) and stirred to make sure the rice was well mixed with the oil and not dripping in it.

4) Then added diced up chicken breast meat, stirred.

5) After about 2 minutes frying time, I added about 2 cups of mixed frozen vegetables.

6) Stirred in vegetables as they thawed enough to separate, then turned burner down to low, and covered the Wok with a lid for about 10-12 minutes to let the chicken fried rice warm thoroughly.

Served 4

Speaking with a friend who told me about this recipe, I took her word for the fact that she said, “pulled pork tenderloin is to die for…” and decided to make this for a lunch when first impressions meant everything.

I purchased two pieces of frozen pork tenderloin that was on special at NoFrills for $2.99 a pound. Each piece was $1.99, so together they were just over a pound. I slightly defrosted both pieces in my microwave oven so that I could cut them in half, in order to fit them in my crock pot (slow cooker).

Here’s my recipe:

Pulled Pork Tenderloin Sandwich

Ingredients

1-2 pounds pork tenderloin
10-12 ounces of Root Beer
1 bottle of hickory barbeque sauce
4 hamburger buns, split, lightly toasted and buttered

Prepare

Place pork tenderloin in slow cooker.

Pour Root Beer over the pork tenderloin.

Cover and cook on low until well cooked, so that pork is easy to peel apart, 6 to 7 hours.

NOTE: the actual length of time will vary depending on your slow cooker.

Once cooked, drain pork tenderloin well.

With thoroughly cleaned hands, and a large bowl in front of you, pick up each piece of pork tenderloin and literally pull long strips of meat off, placing the strips of meat into the bowl… thus pulled pork. Any of the tendons left on from the butchering will come away easily making this a great way to cook pork tenderloin (though you can use other cuts of pork).

Once all pieces have been pulled and are in the large bowl, squeeze enough hickory barbeque sauce onto the pork tenderloin to make it sort of stick together in a mass. I found I had to add the barbeque sauce three times before I had enough.

Place the lightly toasted and buttered hamburger buns on plates and scoop the pulled pork from the bowl onto the bun. Serve with stir fried veggies.

Serves 4

Make sure you use hickory barbeque sauce the first time you make this. Ooooh my… is this recipe every yummy. I’m hoping my special guest will comment on this posting, so you too will know if my first impression stuff worked

Related articles:
Pork Tenderloin with Marsala Sauce & Pasta
Making Wienerschnitzel the easy way!

A good friend of mine told me about her great creation of easy to make spaghetti and meat sauce fit for entertaining guests with. All you need to serve this with is garlic bread and a bottle of wine!

Here’s what she told me, she used:

• President’s Choice Salsa – medium
• uncooked Italian sausages
• water

Squeeze sausage meat out of the casings and into a frying pan. Fry constantly mashing with a fork so that the meat breaks apart in pieces (like frying ground beef). Drain off the fat, and pour in the salsa… and a bit of water into the frying pan. Simmer while your spaghetti noodles cook.

Do this and you’ll have dinner in 30 minutes, fit for a King!

Here’s what I did with what I had available in my cupboard and fridge:

• 1 ½ cups (approx.) PC Salsa, Extra Chunky – mild
• 500g (or 5) uncooked Banger pork sausages
• 350 ml (little over ½ a bottle) of Classico four cheese pasta sauce.

I squeezed the sausage meat into a frying pan (removed some obvious fat and stringy stuff) and mashed the meat with a fork until cooked.

Drained off the fat and tossed the thoroughly drained meat into a larger frying pan.

I then added the left over salsa …and added just over half of the Classico pasta sauce (instead of water), then covered the frying pan with a splash screen, leaving it to simmer while my spaghetti noodles were cooking.

Easily serves 4.

WOW! Was all I could say.

Normally, one plate of spaghetti would have sufficed, but I had seconds, this was sooooo good. And my dear friend was right; spaghetti and meat sauce in 30 minutes…fit for a King!

Now it’s your turn. See what YOU can invent with what YOU have in leftovers in your fridge, freezer, and/or cupboard. And be sure to comment below if this was helpful to you, won’t you.

Have you noticed? Everyone is talking about Quinoa now, so I got curious and decided to try it. Though claims have been made that Quinoa is a great replacement for rice, I wasn’t prepared to substitute it straight out for rice when making my favourite rice pudding. You see, I’m not a fan or tapioca pudding and Quinoa looks for-all-the-world like tapioca to me. Hence I searched for a brand new recipe; one I’d be more apt to love… of which here is my variation of Broccoli Cheese Casserole.
Bon appétit!

Ingredients
1 – 225g package of PC Organics Quinoa prepared as per directions on the package
2 cups shredded aged (5 years) cheddar cheese
3-4 cups of cooked broccoli (one large head of broccoli)
2 rather heaping tablespoons of Hellmann’s mayo
1 – 10 ounce can of Campbell’s Cream of Broccoli soup
2 tablespoons of milk
1 teaspoon of each salt and pepper

Directions
1. Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.
2. Coat a casserole dish with vegetable oil.
3. Scoop mixture into casserole dish and cover with lid.
4. Place in oven at 350° F.
5. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until edges start to turn a golden colour.

Serve hot as a side dish with fish or chicken.

WARNING (humorous of course!): You might find this side dish to be addictive!

TIP
I refrigerated my leftover broccoli cheese casserole and the next morning, I sliced it into serving slabs, and placed each slab into a ziplock sandwich bag. Then each one of the filled sandwich bags into a bigger ziplock bag, clearly marked with contents and date… and placed my leftovers in the freezer for use at a later date.

This was the only way I would not pig out on this casserole, it was just that good!

Please, if you enjoy this recipe as much as I do, comment below… and, be sure you share this with your friends.

I’ve been in search of a GREAT crispy, REAL Ginger tasting gingersnap for some time now. Many recipes on the internet claimed to be THE best one. One recipe even claims to be the recipe for the old, hot gingersnap that Nabisco used to sell. Huh! That was a laugh. That recipe had way to much sugar for my liking, so DO be careful to use LESS than the 1 cup of mixed sugars rather than more than.

Many of the recipes had from one tablespoon of ground ginger to three tablespoons. I couldn’t even taste the ginger, rather only the molasses. So, being as the molasses is nearly impossible to get a level tablespoon of, I reduced the call for 4 tablespoons to 2 tablespoons of molasses; and, the colour of my cookies improved vastly too!

I find many ingredients have changed since the ‘70s. Even Crisco shortening can be blended straight out of the refrigerator, where it USED to have to be left to soften enough to be blended in a recipe. Therefore the recipes that grandma used to cook, aren’t going to taste like I remembered them… for obvious reasons.

NOTE: Never go cheap on the ground ginger… though a friend of mine suggested less ginger MIGHT be required if you were to buy fresh ginger and grind it yourself. I have PLENTY of ground ginger on hand and didn’t want to be wasteful… so I used ¼ cup of ground ginger.

Real Gingersnaps

Ingredients
½ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
½ cup white sugar
¾ cup shortening
1 tablespoon of butter, softened
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons molasses
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ tablespoon ground ginger
¼ cup water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets. 

 

2. In a large bowl, cream the shortening, butter, vanilla and sugar. Add the egg and beat until light and fluffy, and stir in the molasses.

 

3. In a separate bowl (I still use my sifter for this), mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cloves and cinnamon. Then add to the egg mixture, and stir in water until well blended.

 

4. Shape dough into balls about the size of a walnut. Flatten to about 1/8” thick with flat bottom glass tumbler.

 

5. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until cookies look done. Let cool on wire rack.

This makes about 5 dozen. Making them the size I did, I got 63 cookies in all.

Left sitting out over night will help make these cookies even crispier!

If you like this, PLEASE… comment below AND share!

Friends introduced me to this yummy, easy to make homemade soup…

   1 teaspoon of butter
   1 Spanish onion
   4 zucchini
   1 teaspoon curry powder
   2 cups chicken stock

Method:
   1) Melt butter in frying pan
   2) Chop onion up into small pieces and then sauté in frying pan for about 5 minutes
   3) After washing, remove both ends of all four zucchini, then slice them
   4) Add the chicken stock and the curry powder to the frying pan… and then the sliced zucchini
   5) Bring the contents of the frying pan up to a boil, then simmer for about 30 minutes
   6) Once zucchini is cooked, using a hand blender, purée the contents of the frying pan… then serve

Optional ingredients: Add a little milk or sour cream

I did NOT use the optional ingredients, and I enjoyed this recipe. Having been so impressed by the ease of making, the presentation (looks of the soup) of, and the great taste this soup offered me, I just had to share this recipe with you. Let me know if you like this recipe or not, won’t you?

Related articles: Yummy, Split Pea Soup on a Budget

Ingredients

salt
1- 250g. pkg. fettuccine noodles
1 pork tenderloins (about 2 pounds), trimmed of connective tissue and silver skin
2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour, as needed for coating
ground black pepper
4 tablespoons butter
1 sliced pound button mushrooms
1/2 cup Marsala wine (do NOT substitute)
1-10 oz can of chicken stock
ground black pepper
3 tablespoons of heavy cream
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Yields: 4 servings

Preparation

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When all of the meat has been pounded out, place a large skillet over medium-high heat, using about 2 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Place about 1/2 cup of flour into a large casserole dish or pie plate, and season each piece of pork with salt and pepper, then lightly coat each piece of pork with flour.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Cooking in batches, sear the pork until golden brown and cooked through, approximately 3-4 minutes per side.

As the pork finishes cooking, reserve them on a plate covered with foil to keep them warm.

__________________________________________________________________________________

When the pork is finished cooking, add the butter to the skillet. After it melts, add the mushrooms to the skillet and cook them until golden brown, approximately 5-6 minutes.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Sprinkle the mushrooms with about 2 tablespoons of flour and cook for about a minute.

Add the marsala to the pan and cook until reduced by about half.

Add the chicken stock to the pan and bring the sauce up to a bubble.

Season with salt and pepper and simmer until thickened, approximately 2-3 minutes. Stir the cream and parsley into the finished sauce and simmer on low while you are boiling the noodles.

__________________________________________________________________________________

 
Through a dear friend, I learned of Rachael Ray’s recipe… and I have altered it considerably, to add more sauce and less meat. Watching Rachael’s video may inspire you to try this recipe… as it did me!

Let me know if you like this recipe, won’t you?

 
More recipes: Quick Banana Bread and Banana Cookies

Other great pork tenderloin recipes: Making Wienerschnitzel the easy way!

Pulled Pork Tenderloin Sandwich – a Healthier Choice!

¼ cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cup all purpose flour
2 ¾ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup mashed banana
½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)
¼ cup raisins
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

Method
1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cream the shortening and sugar together until light and fluffy.

2 Add the egg and continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy.

3 Add the mashed banana mixture and vanilla extract into the shortening mixture.

4 Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder while adding into the shortening and banana mixture… and mix.

5 Fold into the batter the walnuts and/or raisins.

6 Drop in about tablespoon-sized dollops onto a non-stick baking sheet.

7 Bake for 15-20 minutes or until nicely golden brown.

Makes about 30-35 cookies.

Being only about 16 years of age at the time, my mother let me go ahead and mix up a BIG batch of Banana Bread… which I had done on several occasions. So much so that this recipe became one of my “specialties”… I loved to bake!

Having several mouths to feed and raising a rather large family on one income, my parents resorted to cost cutting measures such as purchasing things like every day baking products in bulk. My father remodelled a cabinet to fit a small hallway just off the cooking kitchen. This cabinet had two large bins in it, one which held a large bag of flour, the other held a large bag of icing sugar and brown sugar.

Deciding I had enough bananas to make a 5 loaves recipe… I mashed the bananas up and set them aside, busying myself with measuring out all of the other ingredients.

My favourite mixing bowl was a very large, off-white ceramic bowl. This bowl always filled near to the brim when making the 5 loaves recipe… yet left enough room to mix the contents safely without spilling out all over the counter.

Once I got all BUT the walnuts and raisins mixed together, the consistency usually firmed up quite a bit… except this ONE time. My mother being in the livingroom at the front of our 1920s farm house, I shouted something like; “…this isn’t thickening this time Mom?”

My mother replied with “Are you sure you used flour and NOT icing sugar?”

That was followed by my very sarcastic and rather annoyed response of; “Veeeery funny mother!”

You see, back when my mother was bedridden during her last three months of pregnancy with me… my father cooked for her. This one day, dad cooked up a deliciously, flour-coated, red salmon steak, served with a side helping of potatoes and veggies. Dad’s intention was to make certain mom received her proper, daily nutrition.

Anyway, when dad so proudly served my mother her salmon steak dinner, mom’s retort went something like; “What did you use on the salmon?”

Dad was so shocked and he said something like; “Flour. Why do you ask?”

Mom asked him where he got the flour… and dad said something like “Out of the flour sifter. Why?”

Mom had dad taste the salmon steak… and then she told him that the last time she used the sifter, it was for icing sugar, and that is what was left in the flour sifter…  NOT flour.

Needless to say… this became a family joke that poor dad never did live down.

Now you can better understand my sarcastic reply to my mother’s question…

Within minutes mom realized my frustration and understood my doubting what she had suggested, and she came out into the cooking kitchen to see what the problem might be.

I’m sure you can imagine my aggravation at learning that what mother had suggested about my having mistaken the icing sugar for flour was true. All I wanted to do was just scream. I kept nagging myself about the waste I had caused my parents.

… but, not my mom! She came to my rescue with an idea that turned out to be so well accepted that many others asked her for the recipe!

My mom mixed two cups of the “banana gook” I called it, with one cup of flour and then proceeded to make cookies with this new dough mix.

Mother had soooo many banana cookies that she froze them in large bags, and used them whenever she was asked to provide food at functions. Some were even offered to neighbours as thank you gifts. I know mom never used the walnuts… but I do believe she did make some of those cookies WITH the raisins I had measured out to use, because I remember some bags of cookies having raisins and some that didn’t. Anyway… that’s how our family’s banana cookies go created.

Lightly coated pork tenderloin medallions – this is a favourite of mine and SO easy to make. Great when cold too!

Ingredients:
One pork tenderloin
3/4 cup olive oil
3/4 sleeve or Premium unsalted crackers
1 egg
Salt & pepper
Homemade apple sauce

Preparation Time: approximately 20 minutes

Directions:
Slice tenderloin into four to five pieces. Working with 1 piece at a time, use a mallet, and hammer each piece out to about an eighth of an inch thin.

When all of the meat has been pounded out, place a large skillet over medium-high heat and add half of the olive oil.

Beat the egg in a bowl and pour onto a dinner plate.

Place crackers in a Ziplock^® bag and, using a rolling pin, crush them to a fine powder and then spread the cracker crumbs onto a dinner plate or flat surface.

Take each medallion, season with salt and pepper; dip both sides of the meat in the egg until it is coated.

Then coat the entire medallion with cracker crumbs.

Place the meat in the hot oil and cook on both sides until golden brown. Takes only a few minutes so do NOT walk away, leaving the pan unattended. Add more oil accordingly before adding each raw medallion.

Serve medallions with homemade apple sauce. Or, you could serve with a fried egg on top of the schnitzel.

Number of Servings: 4

Other great pork tenderloin recipes: Pork Tenderloin with Marsala Sauce & Pasta

Pulled Pork Tenderloin Sandwich – a Healthier Choice!