Burgers and Pasta Salad

It's got to be pretty spectacular to pull me out of non-blogging status to actually posting something anymore. I wish that wasn't the case. There have been times when I thought about something I've made and when I try to find it, I realize I never posted it, and then I have no clue where to look. Yesterday I made some hamburgers that were good, and today I made some pasta salad to go with the leftover hamburgers. Would you believe I got the inspiration for the burgers from the back of the Lipton box? True. As for the salad, I have a photo album category on my phone where I put recipes that I gather on the go. What I mean is that if I'm away from my house (and computer) and I see a recipe that looks good, I'll take a picture of it and it usually stays right in my phone and I never try it. Today was an exception, and I'm glad it was!

Lipton Onion Soup Burgers, adapted

2 lbs ground beef, 85% lean

1/2 cup greek yogurt

2 T mayonnaise (I used light)

1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

Gently mix everything together. Form into 8 patties. Grill or pan fry (I grilled!) until desired doneness. Top with cheese if you want. 

Pasta Salad  (adapted from centercutcook.com)

1 lb pasta of your choice (I used spiral pasta)

1 red bell pepper, diced

3 ribs celery, thinly sliced

1/4 cup finely chopped onion (optional; I opted out because I didn't have an onion)

4 to 8 oz cheddar cheese, shredded

1 cup mayonnaise (light is fine)

1/4 cup sugar

2 T apple cider vinegar

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 1/2 tsp dried parsley

optional- chopped broccoli

Cook pasta according to package directions, drain and rinse under cool water until no longer hot. Drain well. While waiting for the pasta to cook, whisk together the mayonnaise, sugar, vinegar, pepper and parsley. Stir in the red bell pepper, celery, onion and broccoli (if using). When the pasta is no longer warm, stir it into the dressing mixture. Gently stir in the cheese. Chill salad for about 30-60 minutes before serving. 

And now I'll be able to find these recipes again because they're posted! Good thing there was a little bit of leftover salad so I had something to use for my photo!

There's Always Room For Jell-O

When you think of pretzel Jell-O you probably think strawberry or raspberry, right? Would you believe I had never tasted the pretzel Jell-O concoction before trying this one? True statement. Or if I've tried it, I have forgotten that I've tried it, which could be a completely true statement as well.

This recipe makes a lot (13x9-inch pan), so take it to a party, or be prepared to eat a lot of it over the next few days (which is a good alternative as well)!

                                  
Mandarin Orange Pretzel Salad (from Six Sisters' Stuff)
2 cups crushed pretzels
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup plus 3 T granulated sugar, divided
1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese
1 container (8 oz.) Cool Whip (yes, I could type out nondairy whipped topping, but hey)
1 box (6 oz.) orange Jell-O
2 cups boiling water
1 can (11 oz.) mandarin oranges, undrained

Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine pretzels, melted butter and 3 T. sugar. Stir together until well blended. Press into a 13x9-inch baking pan and bake 7 minutes. Cool completely.
Beat remaining (1 cup) sugar and cream cheese together until smooth (it takes a few minutes to get the sugar to stop being gritty). Fold in the thawed Cool Whip. Spread this mixture over the pretzel crust, spreading it against the sides to seal out the Jell-O mixture from seeping down to the pretzel layer, because soggy pretzels are such a disappointment.
Mix the Jell-O and boiling water and stir until the Jell-O is completely dissolved (at this point, I added about 6 ice cubes to speed the cooling process along). Add the oranges and let cool until slightly set. Pour Jell-O carefully over the cream cheese layer (I used a measuring cup as a ladle so it wouldn't splash too much). Refrigerate until firm. Cut into squares and serve.
SSS says this makes about 12 servings, but I would say those would be 12 very generous servings.

Holiday Jell-O

Last week I commented on Facebook that I got frustrated when I couldn't find something I knew I'd put in a safe place. This recipe was what I was referring to, which I found in the grocery sack with the ingredients. I know that once I blog it, I'll always be able to find it, so now it's REALLY in a safe place.
I served this Jell-O at our Empty Nester's party. It got a ton of comments! I originally got the recipe from the Relief Society meeting in Karen's ward in Arizona. I don't know who Rochelle is, as it was listed as Rochelle's Dessert. Yes, you could serve this as a dessert, but I prefer it with my meal, and since I don't know who Rochelle is, I'm re-naming it Holiday Jell-O.

Jell-O:

1 (6 oz) box cherry Jell-O

2 cups boiling water

1 (14 oz) can whole berry cranberry sauce (not the jellied kind)

1 (20 oz) can crushed pineapple (do not drain)

1 (21 oz) can cherry pie filling

Topping:

1 (3 oz) box instant vanilla pudding

1 cup milk

1 (8 oz) container Cool Whip (or to taste)

In a medium bowl, stir the cranberry sauce to break it up. Add the crushed pineapple with juice, and the cherry pie filling. In a separate bowl, stir the Jell-O and boiling water together until the Jell-O is dissolved. Add Jell-O to the fruit mixture and stir to combine. Pour into a 9x13 pan or individual serving dishes. Chill until set, about one hour.

Just before serving, mix vanilla pudding with milk and whisk until thick. Fold in about half to 3/4 of the Cool Whip container and check to see if it is the ratio you prefer, adding more Cool Whip if necessary, then spread it over the set Jell-O.

Note: I thought stiff paper cupcake liners were a good idea, but they became too soggy. The foil liners worked well though.

Crowd-sized portions:

Double the Jell-O ingredients and continue as directed for the instructions. For the topping, use one large box of pudding with 1 1/2 cups milk and 1 1/2 containers of Cool Whip. Makes 64 individual servings. 

Vertical Salad

A couple days ago, Karen showed me a salad that she wanted to eat. I made a couple of mistakes, but she still said it was great.

For instance, when we sat down to eat it, I said "shouldn't this have some cheese on it?" Sure enough, it should have. And the red peppers? Yeah, they were supposed to be tomatoes. So we added them later. But look at all this deliciousness!

Then Karen said "Stop making it pretty and just let me eat it!" So I stopped, and she ate.

She's looking forward to putting the leftovers together for another salad for lunch today between CONFERENCE SESSIONS!!! Woohoo! We love us some Conference around these here parts!!! This is my favorite weekend of the year!

Now That I Have More Time

Would you believe that from time to time I make something that is not dessert? For dinner the other night, we had meatloaf and smashed potatoes. Ignore the green beans. Blah.
My sister made the same menu for dinner on that same night. Pretty funny (just goes to show how much we think alike). However, she used ATK's meatloaf and Our Best Bites loaded mashed potatoes.

And then we had this for the "salad."
Or maybe it was dessert- I can't really remember. But I do remember that Karen said she liked it better than the ambrosia salad I always made when she was a kid, and she likes that a lot. This is actually called Cookie Salad, but because I didn't have the cookies it wanted, I left them out. That way I could more reasonably justify it as a salad.
Here's how my version of this one goes- it's a no-brainer.

Fruit Salad Dessert (adapted from Real Mom Kitchen)
1 (3.4 oz) pkg. instant vanilla pudding
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup buttermilk (gives it a little zip!)
12 oz of cool whip
1 (20 oz) can pineapple tidbits, drained
1 (11 oz) can mandarin oranges, drained
2 bananas, sliced
1/2 cup raspberries (optional)
1/2 cup maraschino cherries, halved and well drained (I didn't have any- I used strawberries)

Mix the dry pudding mix, milk and buttermilk together with a whisk until it is well-blended. Fold in the Cool Whip and then gently fold in the fruit. Chill salad for about an hour before serving. I recommend eating your cookies separately, but if you want to be wild and crazy, the cookie in this salad is a fudge striped cookie (not a fudge stripped cookie, like it says on the blog this was adapted from). Click over to Real Mom Kitchen if you want to know how to include the cookies.

Karen's Favorite Dinner

Tuesday was all-Karen's-favorites day. I started by making bread...plain ol' white comfort-the-soul bread. Then I made the chocolate chip cookies you saw Caleb eating on yesterday's post. For dinner, I made Karen's fave-oh-right dinner EV-er. She loves this salad. LOVES this salad.
I was certain I had posted it and after an in-depth search, I finally found it from two years ago. It's Sara's recipe from Our Best Bites . I don't really have to keep clarifying that Sara (who told me yesterday that she loves Karen even though she doesn't know her-it's the cilantro war I have going on with Sara) or Kate is from OBB, do I? You all just know that by now, right? And if you haven't tried it, you are seriously missing one of the best combinations of flavor your mouth has ever experienced. It's in their cookbook, and it's online, so there's no excuse for you not to be enjoying this soon. And, being the nice mother that I am, I even bought some cilantro for Karen to put on her salad, but I made her chop it up, and I made her sit on the other side of the table from me while we ate. I can't even stand to smell that stuff, let alone eat it. Gag. The photo is of my plate- sans cilantro, of course.

Here's a quick link for the caramelized macadamia nuts that are used in this recipe, which can be used with any type of nut.

The Salad

Do you remember not too long ago I posted this salad?
And then you saw it again here...
And here's a variation of the same salad.
We can't seem to stop eating it. In fact, I've had it three times this week alone. Have you tried it yet? I decided to post the whole thing on my blog so I can find it fast (another time or two of making it and I won't have to follow the recipe anymore because I will have memorized it. Oh, wait. It's me here. I don't remember anything anymore. Good thing I'm writing it down then). It's referred to now as The Salad. Like, if I'm going somewhere and ask "what can I bring?" and the answer is "bring The Salad" this is "The Salad." If someone says "bring A salad" clearly they're not talking about THIS salad, because this is definitely The Salad.

The Salad

Spinach and mixed greens

finely chopped red onion (to a large bowl of salad I use about 1/8 cup of grated onion)

Parmesan cheese, shaved

items of your choosing from the following- mandarin oranges, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, avocado

sliced almonds (sugared or not), optional

The Dressing

(from Our Best Bites)

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

1/2 cup honey

1-2 cloves garlic

1 T grated onion

1 tsp kosher salt

10 cracks of freshly ground pepper

1 cup strawberries, raspberries or blackberries (I've only used strawberries so far)

2/3 cup canola oil

1 1/2 tsp poppy seeds

In a blender, mix until smooth all the ingredients except the oil and poppy seeds. Then while blending, add the oil in a steady stream. Mix briefly, then stir in the poppy seeds.

Refrigerate at least an hour before using. Dressing stays good in the refrigerator for about a week.

P.S. Three more days to the big "R."

Food For The Fourth

On Monday afternoon we had a little family get-together. Since Laura is the party-planner extraordinaire, we did it up with a "bang." Earlier in the week, I found this drink stand at World Market, but they were out of the buckets. We found this white one at Target.
Laura made the little sign for the bucket, but in the future I'm going to pop some vinyl lettering on there to match the occasion- whatever it might be.

Here we have homemade buns, pulled pork, baked beans in a jar (isn't everything cuter when it is in a jar?) topped with cornbread...
over there in the corner is Kate's (from OBB) Grilled Chicken and Berries Salad- yum.

Blueberry pie "shooters" (as Seth put it). Loved these because the crust to filling ratio was perfect.

Look at Laura's cute star-shaped cornbread.
The tablecloth is actually the back of a "quilt" that I made but haven't put it all together yet.

And now we get to the cool stuff...
Cheryl made the strawberries. Aren't they cute? And the jello salad (which wasn't Jell-O, it was made from scratch with Knox gelatin) was reeeeeally good!
And ta-da! The cake! Here comes the cake! Isn't the little bunting so cute? Good job, Laura.
Here's our patriotic flag cake.

My mom was SO surprised to see a flag inside.
The cake was a lot of fun to make. The whole day went well, and it was fun to see everyone.

Kisses and Salad

Today we tried baking something (that failed miserably!) which necessitated pulling out the chocolate boxes. The kids had a blast with it.

Alien eyes...

Alien eyes, up close and personal...
And later in the day, we had this absolutely fantastic salad. The dressing is a strawberry vinegrette (you can get that on the link's page as well).
Of course, it's Our Best Bites. We've been making nothing but OBB recipes for the last 2 1/2 weeks! Kate has come through with a total winner on this one!
Laura had to leave the table early because the baby was demanding her bedtime. Laura made sure to tell me NOT to clear her plate as she would be back to finish it shortly. She also said that it was too bad that Karen was not here because Karen would have LOVED this salad. I can think of more reasons than that why it's too bad that Karen isn't here. Frown. But yay for this way delicious salad!

Pretty Jell-O

These are fingerable. I know, that's not a word, but I'm using it anyway. You can pick these up and walk around with them. Like jigglers.

I got the recipe from one of my very favorite food blogs, Our Best Bites. You can go there, or stay here, whichever you choose.

Glass Block Holiday Jell-O

4 (3 oz) packages assorted Jell-O (pick pretty colors!)

2 packets unflavored gelatin (Knox)

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

Spray four containers (I used Snapware) with Pam (the idea here is that you are only making a small amount of each of the four colors, so a small container is fine at this stage). In the microwave, boil one cup of water in a glass 2 cup measuring cup. When it's boiling, remove it and pour in one color of Jell-O. Stir until it's dissolved. Pour into prepared container. Rinse out your measuring cup and repeat with other three colors of Jell-O (do I have to say "one at a time?" I didn't think so). Refrigerate until well-chilled, four hours or overnight.

In a medium-sized bowl, sprinkle 2 packets of unflavored gelatin into 1/2 cup of cold water (this softens the gelatin). Let that sit for about four minutes. Meanwhile, boil 1 1/2 cups of water. Pour that boiling water over the gelatin and stir to combine, then add the can of sweetened condensed milk. Stir it together well, then let it come to room temperature.

Lightly spray a 9x13" pan with Pam. Get out your colored Jell-O and cut it into about 1/2" squares. Toss all the squares into the 9x13" pan. Pour the cooled milk mixture over the colored Jell-O. Make sure the same colored squares are not all hanging out in one spot. You don't want a whole clump of blue in one place. Let all the colors be friends with all the other colors. Also, you want the colors to be submerged below the white mixture, and level.

Refrigerate until firm (overnight is best). Cut into squares or rectangles or break out the cookie cutters and make shapes.

Now your Jell-O is super pretty. I heard that some people who have made this have poured their colored Jell-O in layers. Can you imagine how long that would take? I'm not willing to wait that long. Squares it is for me!