Spaghetti with meatballs

Sometimes Dinner in our house looks like this

Hot Cheese Steak Sandwich

Sometimes it looks like this.

Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Then there are days it looks a little more like this.  Mhmm, that’s right.

Molten Chocolate Chip with Whip

 

A few nights back I had a pound of ground beef in my fridge and a taste for Italian fare in my heart.  Here’s what dinner looked like on that particular night.

It'sa pasta with a' meatballah. (Read like Luigi)

 

Meatballs are a fun and easy way to make boring ground beef a little more exciting.  It also effectively covers all bases for the hubs: Meat=beef, carb=pasta, and veggie=tomatos in red sauce.  Ok, so I’m stretching it a little with the vegetable but hey, who’s going to stop me?!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 package angel hair pasta, cooked al dente
• 1 20 oz jar of your favorite red sauce
• 1/4 cup of red wine
• 1 small yellow or white onion
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 1 egg
• 1 cup of breadcrumbs
• salt
• pepper
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• Shredded parmesan, mozzarella, or provolone to top.

Instructions:

1. Start by dicing up your onions into 1/4 inch pieces.  Next, finely dice the cloves of garlic. 
2. Place half the onions and half the garlic into a large mixing bowl.  Add the ground beef, egg, breadcrumbs, and seasoning.  Mix together using your hands.
3. Place a large skillet on the stove over low heat.  Add olive oil and remaining onions and garlic.  Cook for 3-5 minutes or until translucent.
4. While onions and garlic cook down, divide beef mixture into 6 equal pieces and roll into balls using both hands. 
5. Once onions and garlic have cooked down, add meatballs to the skillet and allow to brown for 3 minutes.  Turn meatballs over to allow for even browning.
6. Next, pour red sauce and red wine over meatballs in skillet and increase heat to medium high.  Once sauce begins to boil, lower to a simmer and cover with a lid.  Let cook covered for 20 minutes.
7. Serve meatballs and red sauce over warm pasta.  While still hot, top with cheese.
8. Enjoy!

Peace, love, and piping hot meatballs~

The Hungry Wife

 

Country Style Ribs

That guy I married really, really, really likes meat.  He likes it so much that he thinks he needs to eat it pretty much everyday.  Crazy kid.  Anyhow, I have made it a personal goal to learn new ways to cook up that ole animal carnage.

Walking through the store one day this past weekend, Stuffed Hubs and I came across something called Country Style ribs at the grocery store.  Now, I have heard of short ribs and plain old regular ribs but I ain’t never heard o’ no country-style ribs.  We bought them anyway.

After doing a little reading about common ways to prepare them, I decided to use what I had in the kitchen, throw it in the slow cooker, pray, and hope for the best.  It worked!  Here is what you will need to make these sweet carnivore treats.

Ingredients:

• 2.5 lbs. of country-style ribs (i’m sure any rib cut would be fine)
• 1 cup of bottle barbecue sauce
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil
• 3 tablespoons of honey
• 1/4 cup of brown sugar (packed)
• 2 tablespoons of worcestishire sauce
• 3 tablespoons of mild bottled hot sauce
• 5 cloves of garlic
• Seasoning salt
• Black pepper

Instructions:

1. Start by getting that guy you married to pull that heavy crock pot out of the cabinet and onto the counter where you can reach it.
2. Season the ribs on either side with a generous amount of seasoning salt and black pepper.
3. Coat the slow cooker with olive oil and drop in your ribs.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together all other ingredients.  Pour the mixture over the ribs carefully.  Be sure that all the ribs are coated.  You can use tongs to toss them around if necessary.
5. Set the slow cooker on low for 7.5 to 8 hours.
6. Serve em up with corn on the cob, sweet potatoes, or nothing at all.  They’re delicious all on their own!

I can see making this for friends or just for a Sunday lunch.  The fact that it’s put together in a crock put makes it a real breeze and clean up is so quick your husband won’t mind doing the dishes at all.  Right?

Peace, love, and ribs that will stick to your ribs~

The Hungry Wife

Playing hookie…sort of.

I have a midterm exam today.  Let me repeat, I have a midterm exam TODAY.  This is my way of convincing myself to stay focused and study, study, study.  But in the meantime, why not blog about my latest means of procrastination, reading food blogs?!  Also, did I tell you I am now a “Featured Foodie” on RecipeLion???  Check it out.  It’s like, totally awesome.

After my trip to the International Food Bloggers Conference this past August, I was approached by a fellow blogger about the possibility of publishing with RecipeLion.  100 emails and 5 brownies later, I’m a published wanna-be cook!  Miracles still happen!  Do me a favor???  Take a look at my page.  Tell me what you think. Bake me a brownie.  Ok, I’ll settle for your two cents on my page but if you have extra oreo that would be great too.  Yes, I have chocolate on my mind at 7:52 in the morning.  Lay off.

And just because I love you more than marshmallow puff in a jar at midnight, here’s a list of a few dishes that caught my eye this week.

1. chocolate chip toffee bars.  because as you know, chocolate is my weekness.

chocolate chip toffee bars

2. Cajun chicken pasta.  Noodles and spicy chicken. I mean, duh!

Cajun Chicken Pasta

 3. Slow cooker apple butter. An absolute must for fall.

Apple Butter

 4. Texas Chili.  A meal to warm your bones.  I love one pot meals!

texas-chili

5. Biscuits and Sausage Gravy.  A perfect morning demands sausage gravy.

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

And just because I am so willing to put off studying to spend time with you (aka procrastination)…here’s another picture of those rotten little pups I love to cuddle with.

Peace, Love, and Publishing like a big girl~

The Hungry Wife

Cupcake Cones fit for a Princess…or Prince

This past weekend a dear friend’s daughter turned THREE years old!  Princess Kae had a party fit for royalty.  I decided that this birthday party would be the perfect opportunity to try out a recipe idea I came across while browsing Pinterest last week.  These sweet treats are cupcakes baked into ice cream cones and topped off with frosting and sprinkles.  Let me just tell you now, EVERYONE loved them!!  Even the parents of other children at the party were thoroughly impressed.  I earned a pat on the back for this one.  The best part??  Little Miss Kae told me the cupcakes were her favorite.  My heart melted instantly.

This little website shows a basic tutorial for these treats.  As for ingredients for the cupcakes, you could certainly make a batter from scratch if you’re into that sort of thing.  If you are like me and really enjoy boxed cake mix, go for it!  I purchased funfetti cake mix for this batch because it’s fun for the kids and well, because I love funfetti too.  I even bought frosting from the store.  I added sprinkles and a few plastic blingy rings on top of the cones for the girls and dinosaurs for the boys.

Make these for your favorite kiddo, make these for yourself, make these for no reason at all!  They’re delicious and precious.

Peace, love, and princess party cupcake cones~

The Hungry Wife

Tandoori Chicken

I have a collection of recipes that pile up to the height of Mount Rushmore.  Most of them involve chocolate, a variation of chocolates, or chocolate and peanut butter.  Cocoa beans, I love you.  My sweet tooth has driven most of my decisions over the last six months.  My thighs are feeling the jiggly effects of such.  Note to self: invest in fruit more often.

I couldn't stop eating Texas Sheet Cake

This recipe however is NOT about sweets.  Tricked ya didn’t I!?  In fact, this recipe is all about the yummy, juicy, and savory taste of Tandoori chicken.  Recipes that involve few ingredients and little prep time typically rank high on my list.  My taste buds seriously lack in patience.  What can I do?  Even stuffed husband couldn’t say enough good things about this dish, albeit was through a mouthful of chicken.

Please, for me, for all that is holy, make this divine chicken!!  This recipe will definitely be a regular in our house.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup plain low-fat yogurt
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 small yellow onion
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 4 bone-in, chicken legs

Recipe adapted from: Everyday Food.

Directions:

1. Throw the first 7 ingredients listed above into a blender.  You may want to roughly chop the onion first so as to prevent the heart attack that may ensue when you hear your blender choke on a way too sturdy onion.  Unless you have a well-constructed blender in which case…I am very jealous of you.  Blend these items together for about 15 seconds until you have a mostly creamy consistency.  It is ok if you see small chunks of onion and garlic. In fact, onion and garlic are a very good things.
2. Place your chicken legs in a large pyrex dish with, if possible, a lid.  Lids disappear in our house.  It’s the gnome, I just know it.  He has my ipod charger and tv remote as well. Jerk.  Season either side of the chicken with salt and pepper.
3. Pour the yogurt marinade over the chicken. Cover it with your lid, or aluminum foil, or whatever for about 5 hours.  More if you have the patience, which I do not, but no longer than 24 hours.
4. You can certainly cook this chicken on a grill.  In fact, it’s probably best that way but I also do not have a grill.  So instead, preheat the oven to 475.  Place your marinated chicken on a baking skeet lined with a rack.  I placed aluminum foil under the rack to catch the drippings and make clean up easier on that guy I married.
5. Place the chicken in the oven for 40 minutes.
6. Flip each leg to allow for even cooking and allow the chicken another 20-25 minutes to complete cooking.
7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before serving with jasmine rice, steamed veggies, or a crisp cool salad.

The possibilities for this recipe are endless.  I used our left overs to make chicken salad.  Absolutely mouth-watering!

Peace, love, and preposterously simple recipes~

The Hungry Wife 

Cabin fever may cause weight gain…

A few weekends back the Gulf Coast area had a little visitor named Lee.  He was slated to visit for a few days but turned out to be more of a passer-by.  That’s a good thing considering HE was an IT, a tropical storm IT.

The impending bad weather had me stuck in doors sucking my thumb and praying for the thunder to pass.  I am not made for storm-like weather.  In fact, Chloe-girl and Bella-Bug deal better with bad weather than this puppy momma.  Honest to God.

Bella-bug bothered during a nap.

Chloe-girl begging to fetch...again, and again, and...

Once I realized the storm wasn’t going to rip the roof off of our little home or cause waters to rise up to the second-story, I decided to do what I do best…EAT.  In the mood for something sweet, I decided to bake up some Peanut Butter cookies.  I already had everything I needed and the will/craving to make something worth the calories of consumption.

Here’s what you will need:

• 1/3 cup of butter
• 1 heaping tablespoon of peanut butter
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1/2 cup of granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup of cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt

Pre-heat your oven to 350 F.  In a mixer, if you have one because your husband loves you, you won one, or you inherited one from your Aunt Sally, cream the softened butter, peanut butter and sugars.  Make it fluffy.  Why? Because I said so.  Hey, it worked for my mom.

P.S. if you’re not a peanut butter person, replace the p.b. with regular old heaven-sent buttah.  God would allow it, I’m sure.

Once mixed, add in the egg and vanilla extract.  MIX MIX MIX. Do it now!  I’m feeling very drill sergeant today.  It must be a case of the Mondays.

In a separate bowl your husband cleaned for you because he’s a saint, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.  If you are too lazy to sift, much like myself, just mix it together well with a wooden spoon.  Baking is a place where skipping silly steps like sifting should be allowed.  Why? Because I said so darn it.  Sheesh.

Next, add the dry ingredients to your mixer in intervals until both are completely combined.

Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil.  WHY?  Because I…oh you know.  Plus this makes cleaning up as easy as asking your husband to clean up the kitchen, ahem, I mean as easy as one, two, three.  Grease the aluminum foil and drop 1 inch scoops onto your tray with adequate space to bake.

Pop your sheet into the over for 8-10 minutes.  Anything longer will make the cookies crisp instead of chewy.  Trust me, you want chewy.  You need chewy. MUST. HAVE. CHEEWWWYYY.

This was the perfect treat to keep my mind off the impending doom lurking outside my window.  It also made stuffed husband very happy.  Very, very happy.  When he’s happy, we’re all happy.

I apologize for the lack of pics in the recipe.  The weather outside made lighting an issue.  I think you can handle this one without the pictures anyway.  You’ve come such a long way.  We both have.

Thanks for stopping in today.  I’ve got a Tandoori chicken recipe in the works that will make you sing Hallelujah.  Coming soon!

Happy Monday Ya’ll!

Peace, love, and peanut butter goodness-

The Hungry Wife

Chocolate cookies in my mouth!!

I have so many pictures and recipes that I want/intend to share with you.  Lately things at home have become very hectic.  School is back in session, stuffed husband is on call all week, we had a random tropical storm blow through, and then just to make things real interesting, Chloe came down with a stomach virus.  Poor lil puppy was throwing up every other hour for almost 24 hours.  Stuffed husband and I stayed up with the poor little girl all night.  (NOTE TO SELF: wait to have babies until you are sure you can live with only 2-3 hours of sleep a night)  I may never be ready to have kids.

In other news, I want to show you something.

This sweetness is a chips o’hoy cookie baked into a brownie-like chocolate cupcake.  There are no words to accurately describe it.  You just have to take a big ole warm bite of chocolate gooey goodness to get what I’m talking about.

I don’t have the exact recipe but I’ll walk you through what happened when a good friend was willing to take care of dessert at our house one night.  I am still thanking God for that dessert.  HEAVEN I tell you!  She started by melting a little butter and chocolate together in a bowl in the microwave.  I used an out of focus image because this way you can not see how badly my microwave needs to be cleaned.  WIN!

While the butter and chocolate melted in my “clean” microwave, she filled a muffin tray with cupcake liners and plopped one chips a’ hoy cookie at the bottom of each. mmm.  Next she mixed several dry ingredients (flour, sugar, etc) with a few eggs.

Then she dumped in the chocolate/butter mixture, mixed it all together, and poured it over the cookies.  I was drooling at this point.

Then she baked these for only a very short time.  Just enough time to ensure that the middles were still batter.  Oye, what a treat.

I apologize for the poor lighting.  It keeps you from really appreciating the deliciousness of this sweet treat.  MMMMMMM. Slurp.  These treats were easy to make AND their presentation very clever. 

When I get my hands on the recipe, I’ll be sure to share.  Happy Monday!

Peace, Love, and Dreams of chocolate~

The Hungry Wife

I.F.B.C. 2011 blew mah mind. Period.

Most things in life that make me happy involve chocolate, ice cream, chocolate ice cream,  puppy kisses, and/or stuffed husband kisses.  I’ma sucker for a sweet tooth.  This weekend the International Food Bloggers Conference did more than make me happy by fulfilling my insatiable sweet tooth. It down right  BLEW MAH MIND!

Chef John Folse, a New Orleans staple, cooked up some tasty corn soup that was so good I swear I sang out loud after a taking a bite…or nine in a row.  He offerred a brilliant presentation and shared the history of corn in cooking.  Corn, corn, how I love thee. Let me count the ways. With butter, with cream, with salt, even steam… I digress.

It must be said, Louisiana men (chefs included) know where it’s at.  Just ask their wives.  Ya heard?

Saturday’s three course dinner was…well, it was a mouth-watering, toe-tingling, amazing.  I was still full from lunch when I arrived but I honestly could not help myself.  Lump crab meat, truffles, Duck foie gras…aye ya ya.  I can still taste the watercress caviar.  Why did it ever have to end???

1. Ignore the heinously poor quality of my picture of THE Chef John Besh.  It was dark, I am still crossing fingers and toes that I will get a DSLR for my birthday, and … I don’t even need a third reason. Get off my back. 

 2.  Isn’t he precious in his sweet linen suit.  sigh.

Chef John Besh was an absolutely unforgettable speaker.  His passion about food and about the restoration of the city of New Orleans was so alive in that room, so fragrant. It was intoxicating.  With four different restaurants in the great city of cafe ole, beignets, and bourbon, Besh knows how to make a southerner feel good.  I was able to record a one minute video of the king of fresh creole.  As soon as I figure this gosh darn thingie ma bopper out, you too will get to watch the video on a never-ending loop until your husband tells you to turn that thing off.

Thank you to those who continue to encourage me in my blogging endeavours.  I am thrilled, blessed, honored, and, as always, hungry.  The time you take to read my rambling thoughts means more than you can know.

Peace, love, and proper southern gentlemen~

The Hungry Wife

My brain is a sponge…

Last night I experienced a food bloggers conference for the first time.  It rocked my socks.  Brilliant presentations.  Delicious food.  Wine flowed like a river.  I was in heaven.  And it’s only just begun!

I was considerably nervous on my way over to the conference.  Stuffed husband calmed me down by buying me a new blouse so I could feel pretty (of course I had nothing to wear) and even flashed one of his famous smiles at me.  Swoon.

He was sweet enough to drop me off before heading out to play a little golf.  The food at the conference was both beautiful and delightful. 

The wine pairing was exquisite and plentiful.

It was so nice to not be the only person taking pictures of their food…I finally belong!

I was even able to take a picture with Andrew Scrivani…a leader in the field of food photography.  He’s been published in the New York Times and a number of other brilliant publications.  I look forward to bothering him with photography questions via his blog.

Today I look forward to more wonderful food and filling my brain with more useful resources and tips to build a better blog.  I just hope they have a potty break soon…I’m starting to see yellow.  TMI?  Are you really surprised?

Peace, love, and potty breaks on my mind~

The Hungry Wife

You like me! You really like me!!

There are so many exciting things going on in my life right now and I haven’t made enough time to share them with you!  Sometimes chocolate sheet cake distracts me from other duties, like laundry, cooking, and homework.  Oops.

Earlier this week I told you about the awesome scholarship I was awarded in order to be able to attend the International Food Bloggers Conference here in NOLA!!  I spent hours pouring over any literature I could find about who will be speaking, what topics will be covered, and most importantly WHAT WE WILL BE EATING!!!  Naturally food was always on the forefront of my mind.

Upon perusing the internet I found that I was mentioned in an article on line here!!!  Can you believe it??  Finally, validation.  The numbers of hits on my little baby blog have been bigger this week than ever before.  I’ve gotta say, geez it feels good.

Check out the article at the Nola Defender.  It’s a small shout out but I’ll take it.  I won’t keep you long as I am in desperate need of a shower, seriously, just ask my husband.  Also, I’ve got to get ready for the IFBC which starts in just a few hours from now.  Wish me luck!!

peace, love, and pins-and-needles-

The Hungry Wife