Homemade Alfredo Sauce

I love all things Italian but rarely make anything except spaghetti.  So while I was making my menu plan a couple of weeks ago, I decided to go out on a limb and try homemade alfredo sauce.  I just poured it over linguine noodles (I was out of fettucine), cooked some salad shrimp in garlic butter to throw on top, steamed some broccoli, and tossed a Caesar salad.  Everyone loved it!  

All I can say is WOW!  I kept on licking the spoon to "make sure it's just right."  It was so rich and creamy.  Olive Garden didn't have nothing on me that night, y'all.

Not to toot my own horn or anything but yum-o! :)  It was super easy to make, and did I mention it was delicious? And it's made with REAL food!  Not something in a jar with ingredients you can't even pronounce. 

For the life of me, I cannot remember where I got this recipe.....somewhere on the internet for sure. 

Without further ado, here's the recipe! 

Homemade Alfredo Sauce

Ingredients:

-3 Tablespoons butter
-2 Tablespoons flour
-2 Cups milk
-4 oz. cream cheese
-3/4 cup Parmesan cheese (I used grated, but shredded would work too)
-1 teaspoon garlic powder
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-1/2 teaspoon pepper

Directions:
Melt butter in a saucepan on medium-low heat.  Once melted, whisk in the flour.  Gradually add milk, whisking to combine as you go. Add about 1/2 cup at a time, whisk, then wait for the milk to heat up and thicken a bit before adding more.  Once all the milk has been added and it's hot, but NOT BOILING, add the cream cheese.  Whisk to combine.  Heat the sauce back up before adding the Parmesan cheese.  Simmer this until all is melted and mixed well.

Go forth and make thee some alfredo sauce!  Your taste buds will thank you!

Don't Be-A-Chicken Chili

This chicken chili is fabulous!  You must try this dish.  I made it last night and there was just a tiny bit left.  The recipe is from The Gooseberry Patch Halloween Cookbook, but I got it through their e-mail newsletter.

1 T. oil
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1 onion, chopped
14-oz can chicken broth
2 (15.8 oz) cans Great Northern beans, drained and rinsed
2 (4-1/2 oz) cans chopped green chiles (I only use one to tone down the heat for the kiddos)
1-1/2 t. garlic powder
1 t. salt
1 t. cumin
1/2 t. dried oregano
8-0z. sour cream
1 c. whipping cream
2 c. shredded Monterey Jack cheese
Garnish:  cilantro

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat; add chicken and onion.  Saute until chicken is cooked through; set aside.  Combine broth, beans, undrained chiles and seasonings in a large Dutch oven.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Add chicken mixture; reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes.  Add sour cream and whipping cream, stirring well.  Top each serving with shredded cheese; garnish, if desired.  Serves 6-8.

I had cooked a huge crockpot full of chicken pieces yesterday which yielded me 10 cups of shredded chicken!  I used two cups for the chili and put the rest in the freezer to use later.  I used chicken broth that I had made from a previous crockpot chicken batch.  I soaked my beans the night before and cooked them in the crockpot yesterday (I have two crockpots!); used four cups for the chili and put the rest in the freezer for later!  It was easy to bring everything together and now I have lots of good food already cooked and ready to pull out at a later date! 

Sorry I don't have a picture to show you....the chili was gobbled up before I even thought about it! 

My Earth Day Contribution

A few weeks ago, I made my own laundry soap.  I had wanted to make it for a couple of years while but thought it was going to be this tedious task.  I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was and how little time it took.  And the ingredients can be found at your local grocery store!

I have been aware for some time about the harmful chemicals in laundry detergent, thus sparking my interest in making my own.  Not to mention all the money I would be saving.

It wasn't until I read an article in Prevention magazine that I got myself in gear and followed through with my good intentions.  Here's a portion of the article:

Researchers at the University of Washington analyzed a popular detergent and found that it emitted 13 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), five of which are regulated as toxic or hazardous by the EPA. "Often, laundry products can contain hazardous chemicals such as neurotoxins and carcinogens," says study author Anne Steinemann, PhD, professor of civil and environmental engineering and public affairs at the university. "Exposure to them can cause migraine headaches and asthma attacks." 

Just Google "chemicals in laundry detergent" and you can find dozens of articles that will make you want to go back to boiling clothes in a big pot over an open fire while stirring them with a stick. 

Or not.

At any rate, you'll probably think I'm not so crazy after all for making my own detergent!  You might even want to make your own.  There are many different recipes you can use but here's how I did it!

Homemade Laundry Soap

1/3 bar Heavy Duty Laundry Bar Soap  (I had Fels-Naptha, but Ivory would work too)
1/2 cup Arm and Hammer Washing Soda
1/2 cup Borax
2 gallons water

Grate 1/3 to 1/2 bar of soap.  Add to 6 cups of water in a large pan.

Heat until soap dissolves.  While waiting for soap to dissolve, heat 4 cups of water in microwave.  Add washing soda and Borax to dissolved soap mixture.

Add the 4 cups of hot water to the bucket you will store the soap in.  Add contents of pan to the bucket.  Stir.  Add 1 gallon + 6 cups of water to the bucket.  Let it sit for 24 hours.

You can also add 1/2 bottle of essential oil if you prefer a fragrance.  I didn't have any oil this time but have recently ordered some lavender oil I plan on using next time.

Here's what my detergent looked like right after I made it.  I just used a five gallon paint bucket from Home Depot.

After it sits overnight, it will turn into kindof a goopy gel so I just stir it up before I use it.  I use a little less than 1/2 a cup per load.  And my load of laundry is all the way to the top of the machine.  I don't mess around with wasted space in the washing machine!

I was impressed with how well the detergent cleaned our clothes.  And we know how to get dirty around here!  Sometimes I can only see the whites of their eyes amidst all the grime!  I honestly couldn't tell a difference from the commercial stuff.

I will most definitely be making my own soap from here on!  It gives me great satisfaction to know I am saving money and reducing chemical exposure to my family. 

If you'd rather not bother with making your own but would love to buy someone else's homemade soap, check out HopeSuds-Do Laundry. Save Orphans. Andrew and Lora have five children and are hoping to adopt a child from Uganda.  They are selling their homemade powdered laundry detergent and using the money to help fund the adoption!  What an inspirational and worthy cause!

Cookies for Breakfast

I've been trying several new recipes for breakfast lately in an attempt to break away from cereal.  We LOVE cereal at our house but it is a highly processed food, even the "healthy" kind, and we are trying to limit those as much as possible.  (Couldn't tell it by the Butterfinger Bliss recipe I posted last week, right?  *Smile*)

Laura, at Heavenly Homemakers, has a lot of great recipes, many of which we are trying.  Her Giant Breakfast Cookie recipe looked great.....and I can attest that they taste great, too! 

While the cookies were baking, Luke kept saying, "But we don't eat cookies for breakfast.  They are for snacks!"  After he saw I was seriously giving them cookies for breakfast, he went running to tell Chloe and Jacob the great news! 

Here is my modified recipe:

Breakfast Cookies
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup applesauce
3/4 cup honey
2 eggs
1 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chocolate chips  (Any excuse to get in some chocolate!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix butter, applesauce, honey, eggs, salt, soda, cinnamon, and buttermilk.  Stir in flour, wheat germ, and oats.  Fold in raisins and chocolate chips.  Spoon heaping tablespoons of dough onto cookie sheet.  Bake for 15-20 minutes.

Butterfinger Delight

Because one can never have too many recipes for delicious desserts, I'm going to share this yummy-scrumptiously-chocolatey recipe with you!  It's SUPER easy and oh-so good!

Here's what you need: 

 

Brownie mix, chocolate pudding, large container of cool whip, and Butterfinger candy.  My mouth is watering already. 

 

First, prepare the brownies and pudding according to the directions on the package.  Crush up the candy into tiny pieces.

Optional, but highly recommended: To make sure the brownies aren't poisonous, help yourself to a small portion, as seen in the picture above.  You certainly wouldn't want to make your family or guests sick! 

 

Then, place chunks of brownie to cover the bottom of your dish and spoon half of the pudding over top.

 

Next, spread whipped cream over the pudding and  sprinkle candy pieces over top.  Repeat the layers again:  brownie, pudding, whipped cream and candy!  

 

The finished product!  Your friends and family will love this!

Easy Cooking Ideas

Spending my time standing over a hot stove is not my idea of fun. I'm always looking for ways to minimize my time in the kitchen, so when I read about the concept of cooking ahead, or freezer cooking, or baking days, (you get the idea) that sounded like something that would work for me. Cook a lot on a given day and freeze for later. Fantastic!

One simple thing I've started doing is, on the days we have pancakes, cook up the extra pancake batter and freeze the pancakes for another morning. Sometimes I double my recipe just to put extra in the freezer.

The same works with waffles. They freeze wonderfully and all you have to do is pop them in the microwave for a quick breakfast! And, since they're homemade with whole-wheat flour, it's relatively healthy! Much healthier than the frozen or boxed mixes.

Another great time saver is to buy meat in bulk, cook it up at one time, and divide it into portion sizes conducive to your recipes. It's even better when you can get meat reduced for quick sale at your local supermarket. Kroger is great about marking down their meat for quick sale.

Just last week I put two packs of chicken into the crock pot, added some seasonings, and cooked it on low all day. That evening I chunked up the chicken, divided it into several two cup portions, and stuck it in sandwich bags to freeze. Today I used the chicken broth to make homemade cream of chicken soup! How easy is that? It took me about ten minutes to get the chicken from the crock pot to the freezer and about fifteen minutes to make three cups of soup (about two can's worth)!

I also love to make up a batch of muffins to freeze for a quick breakfast or snack. One of our favorite is Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins. Yum! Kroger usually has ripe bananas marked down to 29 cents a pound, so that makes for an inexpensive ingredient!

I recently found a recipe for Freezer Mashed Potatoes that looked delicious. Since I had some potatoes that needed to be used, I peeled and quartered the potatoes and threw them in the crock pot this afternoon. That took me less than ten minutes! Tonight, when the potatoes are through cooking and I finish the recipe, I'll have two 8x8 pans of potatoes ready for the freezer!

My plans are to have a major baking day (or two) before the baby gets here. That way, my freezer will be nice and full of meals or parts of meals so I can spend less time in kitchen and more time with my family! And since I'll have four littles five and under come January, I'm guessing I'll need all the time-saving help I can get!

*Image from Allposters.com

Thrifty Mama

Last week I cooked a big pot of pinto beans in the crockpot, fried up some potatoes and onions, and made a cake of cornbread. Yummy! We ate that for two nights! Talk about a frugal meal....just pennies per person.

At any rate, a small bag of pinto beans can go a loooonnnngggg way, 'cause we're having them again tonight! I had about two to three cups of beans left so I am jazzing them up for dinner. Here's my plan:

Drain beans and mash them up.
Add chicken chunks from the freezer, about 1 cup.
Add 1 can of Ro-Tel chilies (mild-cause of the kiddos).
Add 1 cup of cheddar cheese.
Mix ingredients well and then roll the mixture into flour tortilla shells.
Place the rolled up shells into a big baking dish and then bake for 25-30 minutes on 350.

Oh, and of course sprinkle more cheese on top of the shells before baking. One can never have too much cheese. Well, okay.....unless your allergic. Major bummer for you.

So that's my plan for dinner. Who knew that a $.99 bag of beans could feed our family of five for three nights? Gotta love beans! :)