Garlic mushroom and spinach quesadilla

I have lots of spinach in my garden and tried to come up with a new way to use it.

Kelsie's garlic mushroom and spinach Quesadillas:

Ingredients:
Half a small carton of mushrooms, sliced
A handful of fresh spinach, chopped
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced (don't use too much, if your cloves are big only use 1)
Shredded cheese
2 tortillas (I like the kind you buy raw and cook yourself on the spot!)
1 Tbsp butter
Salt and pepper


In a frying pan, melt butter. Add sliced mushrooms and garlic. Cook until they are the way you like them. Season with salt and pepper. (Don't salt before they are cooked, it draws out water and causes them to take longer to cook) Add spinach and cook just a minute or two until not bright green anymore. As soon as it has all changed colors (to the cooked color of spinach), set aside.

Put one tortilla in pan and top with cheese. Add spinach and mushrooms and second tortilla. Cook until cheese is melted.

Cut and serve. Yum!

Dutch Oven

We love to go camping, and we love to dutch oven. I prepare everything and Mart cooks all of it. We speed it up so we can eat sooner, so we cook in the fire instead of with briquettes. It is all so good. Next time I go camping, I'm going to make a dessert, but for now I just have chicken, potatoes and green bean casserole! (I bet you've never had that in a dutch oven before! It's so good!)

Everything all set up and ready to eat. We had a group of about 12 so these are large batches of food.



Kelsie's awesome dutch oven potatoes: (Large batch, cut in half or more if you don't want it so big)

Ingredients:
Potatoes, sliced
2 onions, diced
1 pound baby carrots (or handful of regular carrots peeled and chopped)
5 cloves of garlic, minced
2 large cans cream of mushroom soup
2 large cans mushrooms
Lots of shredded cheese!
Salt and pepper
Tonys

(Kacean is allergic to carrots ... weird, i know ... so I make hers with a can of corn instead of carrots)

Mix all veggies together with soup until well coated. Season well with salt, fresh cracked pepper and lots of Tony's. Cook with briquettes or in a fire. When potatoes are ready, top with lots of cheese!


**Optional: I'm sure you can add bacon or ham or something and it would be good, but they are fantastic without. You won't miss them**



Potatoes ... Okay so the picture probably makes them not look so good, but they are fantastic!


Green bean casserole in a dutch oven: (Not just for Thanksgiving anymore ... huge batch!)

*This batch was so large, we ended up not eating probably half of it. I wouldn't make it this big unless you had a ton of people to serve*

Ingredients:
10 cans green beans (I always add extra to have more beans than soup)
1 large can cream of mushroom soup
1 bag (or large can) french fried onions
Salt and pepper

Mix everything well and cook in dutch oven.



Beans


Dutch oven BBQ chicken

Ingredients:
Couple pieces chicken legs or thighs per person
4-5 bottles BBQ sauce
Salt and pepper
Mesquite seasoning
Tony's

Put chicken in dutch oven. Season well with salt and pepper, mesquite seasoning and tonys. Dump in BBQ sauce until almost all the way covered. The chicken will just boil in sauce. Mart loves it!





Finished product:

Blue cheese burgers with parmesan herb potato wedges

Blue cheese burgers

Ingredients:
3 pounds ground beef
8 ounces blue cheese
Tonys
Salt and pepper
1 egg

Combine everything in a bowl and form into patties. I made large patties about 3/4"-1" thick and it made about 10 patties. If you want to make them smaller it will stretch a lot further.
Grill on low until cooked how you like them.





Parmesan herb potato wedges

Ingredients:
Potatoes, cut into wedges
McCormick parmesan and herb seasoning blend
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Toss in Ziploc bag until well coated. Put on oiled cookie sheet. Make sure no potatoes are overlapping. Bake at 425, 20 minutes on one side and then flip the potatoes over and cook another 20 minutes on the other side. They will be brown and crispy.

Macaroni and Cheese

Homemade macaroni and cheese

Ingredients:
1 box elbow macaroni noodles (I only had salad noodles, they worked just fine)
1 pound cheese (I used sharp cheddar), grated
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp mustard
2 cups milk
Garlic and herb bread crumbs
Salt and pepper

Boil noodles according to directions on the box.
In a separate saucepan, melt butter. Once butter is melted, whisk in flour until it forms a paste. Slowly whisk in milk. Season with salt and pepper. The butter and flour combined will thicken the milk. Whisk in mustard. (I just like it as a background taste. You don't have to add it if you don't want to). Slowly stir in cheese until melted.

Add to noodles and toss. Top with bread crumbs.

(Kelsie's Note: Sometimes the cheese doesn't always melt and gets gritty instead...which is odd, but it still tastes good)

**Optional: You can pour macaroni and cheese into a baking dish, top with bread crumbs and a little more cheese and bake in oven until cheese is melted and there is a crunchy topping**

Cucumber Salad

Kelsie's awesome cucumber salad!

Ingredients: (This is for a large batch, if you don't want it so big, just cut it in half)
6 large cucumbers, sliced thin
1 medium tomato diced
1 medium onion diced
1 Tbsp salt

Dressing:
1/2 cup cider vinegar
4 Tbsp canola oil
2 Tbsp honey
1 tsp celery salt
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp ground mustard
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2-1 tsp salt (to taste)
1/2 tsp dried oregano
Couple dashes of cayenne pepper

Put sliced cucumbers in a strainer and toss with 1 Tbsp salt. Let stand for 30+ minutes. (This draws all the water out of the cucumbers, so either put it on a plate to catch the water or in the sink. I like it on a plate in the fridge so the cucumbers stay cold)
In a large bowl, combine diced tomatoes and onions.

In a small bowl whisk together all the dressing ingredients. When you are ready to serve, rinse the cucumbers to get all the salt off and drain. Add to tomatoes and onions. Toss with dressing.

Yum!!

This is by far one of my very favorite salads. In fact, it's a recipe I refused to share for a very long time. But now, it's time to share the love!

Super delicious brownies!

These brownies are delicious! I'm not a huge chocolate fan, but I could not get enough of these. You will love them.

Awesome brownies:

Ingredients:
1 package fudge brownie mix (your favorite kind)
1 (10.5 ounce) package mini marshmallows
2 cups chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate and it was very good)
1 cup peanut butter (chunky or smooth. I used chunky, again very good! It added more texture)
1 Tbsp butter
2 cups rice krispies

Prepare brownie mix according to package directions for fudge-like brownies. Pour into a greased 13x9 pan. Bake at 350 for 28-30 minutes. Top with marshmallows. Bake 3 minutes longer. (Marshmallows will not be completely melted). Cool on a wire rack.

In a saucepan, combine the chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter. Cook and stir over low head until smooth. Remove from heat, stir in cereal. Spread over brownies. Refridgerate for 1-2 hours or until firm before cutting.

Kelsie's Note: The first batch I made I had a seperate layer for marshmallows and chocolate topping. The second batch I made I poured the chocolate on the marshmallows while they were hot and mixed it in with the marhsmallow. They were very good both ways. I think I did prefer the marshmallow mixed in though. Make them whichever way you would prefer!

4th of July feast

I wanted to make something pretty on the fourth of July to match the different colors of the fireworks. Tonight I roasted orange and purple cauliflower, made some fresh corn on the cob, a green salad and grilled some chicken and salmon. Delicious!

Roasted firework cauliflower:

1 head purple cauliflower
1 head orange cauliflower
Salt and pepper
Zatarains creole seasoning
Olive oil

Chop up the cauliflower and put on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt, pepper and zatarains creole seasoning. Roast in a 500 degree oven until tender, but not mushy.

Mushroom ravioli with a gorgonzola blue cheese sauce

Homemade 3 mushroom ravioli with a Gorgonzola and blue cheese sauce

Ingredients:

Ravioli:
Handful of cremini mushrooms, sliced
Handful of button mushrooms, sliced
1 small portabella mushroom, sliced
1 small onion, diced
3 or so cloves of garlic, minced (or however many you want)
2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Sauce:
1 package large egg roll wrappers
2-4 Tbsp butter
4-5 cloves of garlic
2-3 Tbsp flour
2 1/2 cups milk
4 ounces (1/2 cup) cream cheese
4 ounces gorgonzola cheese
2-4 ounces blue cheese
Parsley
Salt and pepper


In a large frying pan, saute onions and garlic in olive oil until tender. Season with salt and pepper. Add mushrooms and bay leaves. Cook until mushrooms are done and mince in a food processor (or whatever else you want to use)

Cut egg roll wrappers with cookie cutter/top of glass/or anything else circle you have (I try and use a size so I can get four circles out of each sheet)

Put a little of the filling on one circle, get the edges wet on that circle and one other piece. Piece them together and seal. Set aside.

In another pan, melt butter and add garlic. Let cook, but don't over cook! Garlic is not good if it's overcooked. Add flour and whisk for 30 seconds to a minute. Add milk gradually and whisk constantly until it is mixed in and there are no lumps. Stir in the cream cheese, season with salt and pepper. Add gorgonzola, blue cheese and parsley. Stir until melted. It's okay to have a few crumbles left over, it adds a different texture to the sauce.

Boil the ravioli and top with the sauce! Yum!