Ham and Squash Soup

I guess it's time to play catch up on all the recipes I did make last week! This ham and squash soup is a gem we found on Pinterest! Paula Deen's recipes make me so happy!! You can find her original recipe on her site PaulaDeen.com! It's easy to put together and I love all the different textures and flavors in the soup itself! Let's get cookin'!

Ingredients

2 pounds yellow squash-sliced into rounds 

(Note: I quartered my slices)

6 TB butter

1 large onion-chopped

4 carrots, sliced

1 can evaporated milk

1/2 c sour cream

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 c white cheddar cheese-grated

1 1/2 c vegetable stock

2 c cooked ham

To start out you're going to melt the butter (buttah-Paul Deen lol) in a soup pot on the stove! Add the onions, carrots, squash, and a dash of salt and pepper. Saute all this together for about 20 minutes. 

Add the evaporated milk and sour cream to the vegetable mixture, and stir well! Simmer this mixture until you start to see bubbles, and then stir in the nutmeg, cheese, ham and vegetable stock! 

Warm the entire mixture through, and serve! 

I couldn't get enough of this soup, it was so delicious! I was worried about the leftovers and the squash getting to soggy, but to my surprise it held up well to finish off the next day! 

Stay tuned for a very enticing snack that I can't make enough of!! 

Until next time...

Venison Stroganoff as requested by Dee Jay

Randomly one evening Dee Jay decided he wanted Stroganoff. I started thinking about it, and looked up some good recipes for this dish that is often forgotten. It's not always the "prettiest" dish, and I must have put it in the back of my mind because I couldn't remember the last time I had it. I finally settled on Paula Deen's Beef Stroganoff Recipe, but instead of beef we used some of our venison stew meat we had frozen from last hunting season. Venison is actually better for you than beef, and you can click here to read more about it on Livestrong.com, which I look at almost daily for fun facts for just about everything I need to know!! So here's how it went down venison style in our kitchen...
Remember you can substitute beef into our version if you don't have venison in your freezer :)

You start out with one to one and half pounds of venison stew meat, a couple of dashes of salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

(You will find her recipe for "House Seasoning" in the link...I just didn't want to make that much of it, so I improvised).  Sprinkle the meat with the seasoning and then dust the meat with flour.

So tender...I know this picture looks real appetizing ya'll...Sorry

 

Then in a large skillet you are going to add two tablespoons of olive oil and three tablespoons of butter. Once that is warmed and ready to go, go ahead and brown the meat on all sides. Once the meat in browned take it out of the pan and reserve the liquids (as in leave everything in the pan but the meat). To the liquid in the skillet you are going to add one medium size onion chopped (we just halved a large onion), and an 8 oz package of mushrooms sliced up!  

 

Saute this around until the onion gets tender (it smelled so fantastic in our kitchen right at about this point)! After the onion is looking tender go ahead and sprinkle a teaspoon of flour in the skillet.

Makes your mouth go mmmm...mmmm....mmmmmm!

Then add the steak back in to the pan with the onions and mushrooms. Now you're going to pour in one (10 3/4 oz) can of beef broth, and one (10 3/4 oz) can of cream of mushroom soup, right in to the skillet and turn the heat down low! You're going to simmer this on low for about 30 minutes and let it soak up all the gravy goodness and do the loosen your pants dance while you get the pasta ready and eat it all up!! Now we used bow-tie pasta but egg noodles work great too, it really came down to the fact of what I saw first in the cabinet! So I cooked the pasta and by the time I had the pasta cooked and drained the meat was ready and we were good to go! (NOTE: Right before you serve it up, add one cup of sour cream to the skillet and stir around and let it warm up). All you do now is place the pasta on a plate or in a bowl and cover with the meat and juices from the gravy in the pan and get ready for a delicious dinner!!

Yummy and hearty! Can't go wrong with that combo

 

So, here is the run-down and the link to Paula Deen's Beef Stroganoff 

~Happy Eating~

 

1 1/2 pounds venison (or beef)
House Seasoning (that's the salt, pepper and onion powder)
All-purpose flour
2 tablespoons olive oil 3 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, sliced
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 (10 3/4-ounce) can beef broth
1 (10 3/4-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
Salt and black pepper
1 cup sour cream
Cooked egg noodles

 

Sprinkle house seasoning over the meat then dust with flour. 

Heat up olive oil and butter in a large skillet and brown the meat. Remove meat from skillet (save drippings). 

Add onion and mushrooms to skillet and saute until the onion is tender (just a couple to three minutes). 

Sprinkle in 2 teaspoons of flour and add meat back in to the skillet. Cover with beef broth and cream of mushroom soup and cover and simmer on low for 30 minutes.

Add sour cream just before serving over a bed of cooked noodles!!

Just a fun side note...I've had a few people send me recipes this week on things they wanted me to share/try out/eat/pig out on etc etc....So, in a week I'm going to be cooking up your recipes!! The ones you have e-mailed me and random recipes I find on my friends Pinterest pages! Stay tuned to see if your recipes are coming up and send me recipes at ShellyHendrix@gmail.com because you know I'm game to try most anything once and love to discover what ya'll are cooking in your kitchens!!!

If you don't know what Someecards are you need to look them up or follow this link here

to go to their Pinterest page where I found this little gem floating around :)

 

 Photo found at someecards.com

 

 

 

 

 

Kid Tested and Brother Approved

So, last night we had Dee Jay's brother Craig and his son Cameron over for dinner. I decided to make Paula Deen's Hot Chicken Salad for dinner and Lazy Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Balls for dessert. Both of these recipes I pulled off my Pinterest board and they were delicious! I'm a fan of pretty much ANYTHING Paula Deen whips up and I let Craig choose our dessert! So here is how I got ready for our small family dinner...

I started with the peanut butter balls because they needed to cool and come together before they were served. You take 3/4 of a cup of honey and one cup of peanut butter and heat this up on the stove until it starts boiling. Be sure and stir the ENTIRE time because it takes a second for this gooey mess to burn the bottom of your pan. Once your mixture is boiling remove it from the heat (where I had DJ stir now so it wouldn't burn) and you will pour in one teaspoon of vanilla and mix together. Then add 3 cups of Rice Krispies and 1 cup salted peanuts if you would like (we left them out but we did add some oatmeal)!

Mix this all together and then scoop a tablespoon or two into muffin tins. It's probably best that you spray some cooking spray in the liners before hand so they don't stick to the wrapper. Let it cool (I popped mine in the fridge and took it out right before dessert time) and then serve it up! It is a very rich dessert, which is good because one is about all we could eat!

Side thought: We thought adding a banana slice or two on top would taste fantastic as well as some chocolate chips or you could get fancy-pants and drizzle some chocolate over the top!

Here is the direct link to the recipe
Lazy Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Balls
3/4 c. Honey
1 c. Peanut Butter
1 tsp. Vanilla
3 c. Rice Krispie
1 c. Salted Peanuts (optional)

1. Combine honey and peanut butter in a saucepan and heat to boiling, stirring constantly
2. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Stir in Rice Krispies (and peanuts if desired).
3. Place mounds (about 2 tbs.) into small greased cupcake liners in a cupcake pan, and let cool.
4. You can also press into a greased 9" x 12" pan, cool and cut into squares.

Now onto Paula Deen's hot chicken salad. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. In a big bowl, you are going to mix together two cups of cooked chicken (cubed), one cup of diced celery (I used two stalks), 1/2 cup of slivered almonds, 1/2 of a teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper, two tablespoons of lemon juice, one cup of mayonnaise (I of course thought we had more mayo than we did so we added a little bit of Ranch dressing to make the cup), and finally one cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese.

Place this mixture into a baking dish....I'm going to stop right here for a second. This recipe says it serves 8-10 people. I understand that as a very tiny side dish this would serve more people, but the recipe mixture fit nicely into our meatloaf pan and we barely had enough to feed four of us. So if you're thinking about making this make sure you make enough because it is delicious and you will want seconds and thirds! Okay, back to cooking we go! Once the mixture is in the dish you are going to crumble up potato chips and sprinkle over the top! Pop it in the oven for 20 minutes and Ta-Da!! The celery, the almonds, the lemon juice, all of it comes together to make your mouth happy! 

 These were my sides tonight

Here is the direct link to her page with the recipe
Hot Chicken Salad
2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1 cup diced celery
2 cup cooked chicken breast meat, cubed
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
2/3 cup crushed potato chips

Mix all together (except for chips), put in baking dish and cover with crushed chips and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. 

Tonight's dinner has been cooked for you by Shelly, and has been kid tested and brother approved!!
~Happy Cooking~