Waikiki Meatballs

So this has been one of my favorite recipes for a long time. I helped my mom cook it a long time ago and ever since then it has been one of our favorites so I thought it's about time to post it on here.. it's not too hard and it's so yummy!!



It also makes quite a bit..you could probably feed 5 or 6.


Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
2/3 cup crushed saltine cracker crumbs
1/3 cup minced onion
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 (15 ounce) can pineapple chunks - drained, with juice reserved
1/3 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/3 cup chopped green bell pepper

Directions

In a large bowl, combine ground beef, cracker crumbs, onion, egg, milk, ginger and salt. Shape mixture by rounded tablespoonfuls into meatballs.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Place meatballs in skillet and cook until evenly brown, and meat is no longer pink. Drain excess fat.

In a small sauce pan, combine the cornstarch, brown sugar, reserved pineapple juice, vinegar and soy sauce. stir until smooth, then Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils, about 5 minutes. Stir in the green pepper and pineapple chunks. Heat through. then pour into the skillet with meatballs.

serve with rice! :)

Easy Okra Tomato Soup

So one day this week my husband was trying to use up the okra we had bought before it went bad and so he says to me, can you find a recipe for Okra Tomato soup? I said does that exist? Have you had that before? his response...No, and I don't know? so I looked it up and it apparently does exist. some of the recipes looked really yummy. but mostly we didn't have all the ingredients that any one of them asked for, so I improvised and this is what I got. It turned out surprisingly amazing and so I thought I'd share it here. My husband made another dish while I made the soup. I love cooking with him it's fun and he helps encourage me to be creative with the food... most of the time it's me, "What if I put this in there?" ...him, "You're the chef!" anyway here is a picture of our dinner and when I get a chance I'll try and help him remember what he put in his because it was really good too!



close up on the soup..



and here is what I did to the best of my remembrance:

Ingredients:
Okra
one fresh tomato
half an onion
one garlic clove
one can of chicken broth
one can of tomato soup
some frozen corn
I used a few little baby potato's cut up
salt and pepper to taste
and garlic powder
water...not sure how much but definitely don't over do it...maybe a fourth or a third cup...

Directions:
First I chopped up some onion and garlic and let it heat up on low with a bit of olive oil..maybe a tablespoon and a half of olive oil. It stayed on there for about 15min on low while I chopped some fresh tomatoes and the okra. Next I put a can of chicken broth and the tomatoes and okra then I added the tomato soup and a little water and let it boil for some time before I decided that I wanted to put potato in in...so I cut and added potato and let it cook again for about 15-20min and then added frozen corn, salt, pepper, garlic powder and let it cook again for about 5-10min. and that's it!

bon appetit!

let me know if you try it!

Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes

Mix dry ingredients:

3 cups of flour

3 tablespoons of sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

3/4 teaspoons of salt

Mix wet ingredients:

1 cup of milk

3 eggs

1/3 cups of butter (completely melted)

3 cups of buttermilk

Mix dry and wet ingredients just enough to get them blended.

**No pictures due to the fact that my camera is getting fixed :(

Shrimp Stir Fry

It's actually SUMMER STIR-FRY




THREE words: Delicious, Healthy, EASY!

Mini Shrimp Pies (and awesome crust for other mini pies)

I got this from a friend but the recipe is from the food network .com I have made my modifications (that I got from the comments of the website) I'm not going to lie, this is not an easy recipe, it takes some work and a lot of time (especially for what I'm use to) but it is well worth it.

The filling is enough for double the amount of crust. I just saved the leftovers and made more crust the next day. Also I made extra crust and used it to make mini apple pies and it was delicious!

Ingredients

Crust:

• 8 tablespoons butter, cubed and softened
• 1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup all-purpose flour

Filling:

• 6 tablespoons butter, sliced
• 6 tablespoons all-purposes flour
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 4 stalks celery, diced
• 2 small carrots, diced
• 1 bunch scallions, diced (long, thin, green onion)
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 2 shallots, diced (red onion)
• 1 pound frozen crawfish tails, thawed (or shrimp)
• 3 tablespoons Cajun seasoning
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cups chicken stock (chicken broth)

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

For the crust: In a large bowl, blend together the butter and cream cheese. Stir in flour and chill for 1 hour in the refrigerator. Separate dough; reserving 1/3 for pie tops, and using 2/3 for pie crust bottoms. To form bottom portions of dough, create dough balls approximately 1-inch in diameter and place into bottom of muffin tin cups, flattening to form crust bottoms. Bake crusts only until golden brown, about 20 minutes.

For the filling: In a saucepan saute all vegetables until soft, about 5 to 10 minutes. In a different saucepan add butter and flour, stirring together over heat to create a roux. Cook until mixture is the color of peanut butter. Combine the roux and vegetables. Add crawfish, Cajun seasoning, and salt and pepper to taste. Saute mixture for 2 to 3 minutes. Add chicken stock and cook, stirring, until mixture boils and thickens. Spoon mixture into crusts. Top with circles of unbaked dough cut from the reserved 1/3 of original dough. Make a small slit in the top of the dough to allow steam to escape. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Serve while warm.

Palabok

So. Since I've been married I'm learning to make Filipino food! A few weeks ago Girvin made me one of my favorite Filipino dishes. We had it at our wedding but didn't really have time to eat much of the food at our wedding... so we were craving it. He made it one week and I made it the next.

Girvin's Palabok

My Palabok


The recipe isn't really that difficult.. although we made it from a packet you can make it from scratch.. but this is what we did..

we used this Mama Sita mix


mix up the sauce
cook rice noodles
pour sauce over the rice noodles and add shrimp green onion hard boiled egg and crushed Pork Chicharon. I didn't put the Chicharon on mine.

here is a link to making it from scratch if you really want to try it... :)

http://www.filipinofoodrecipes.net/pansit_palabok.htm

Mexican Lasagna

This is nowhere near original. I got it from:

I just thought I would share it because I would have never thought to buy it (I had seen them before and didn't buy them) until one of my friends told me she made it and it was super good and it went a long way. So you can just buy the package I bought for a dollar, or I'll post the recipe so if you have all these spices you can just make it. It tasted even better than I expected, so if you are debating, just do it! It's easy and delicious. O and as you can see they call it Quesadilla Casserole but I like to call it Mexican lasagna because it's what it looks like to me.

The McCormick package comes with:

2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp minced garlic

1/2 tsp oregano leaves

1/2 tsp crushed red peppers (These are optional, but I will say, we don't care for too much spice and we loved it with this in it)

You will need:

1 lb. ground bee

1/2 cup chopped onion

2 cans (8 oz. each) tomato sauce

1 can black beans

1 can corn

1 can chopped green chiles (I forgot to buy this so I just used Rotel with green chiles)

6 flour tortillas

2 cups shredded Cheddar Cheese (I used a little more)

Directions:

1. Brown beef and onion in large skillet on medium-high heat; drain. Add tomato sauce, beans, corn and green chiles; mix well. Stir in all the spices except red pepper. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to low; simmer 5 minutes. Add red pepper to taste, if desired.

2. Spread 1/2 cup of beef mixture on bottom of 13x9x2 inch baking dish sprayed with no-stick cooking spray. Top with 3 of the tortillas, overlapping as needed.

This is the way I arranged the three tortillas.

Layer with 1/2 of the remaining beef mixture and 1/2 of the cheese. Repeat with remaining tortillas, beef mixture, and cheese.

3. Bake in preheated 350 oven 15 minutes or until heated through. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

This is what mine looked like and it was delicious!

Ben had a good idea that we will try the next time we make this, which will probably be soon. He said to add a layer of refried beans which I'll probably add to the very top, as well as a thin layer of sour cream, which I'm planing to add in the middle. I would say try it without first and then go from there to your liking.