A Week “Out” of the Kitchen with Carol

Hello everyone! Are you enjoying autumn? I am. This is my favorite time of the year. I enjoy the weather, the leaves changing color, the fresh apple harvest, and I love baking! But one thing I enjoy the most each autumn is my wedding anniversary. This year my husband and I celebrated our 25th anniversary! We had a great time.

For our anniversary dinner, we ate at the Raglan Road. It’s an Irish Pub featuring recipes from Master Chef, Kevin Dundon. The food and live entertainment is wonderful! I had “Pie in the Sky” which is a chicken and wild mushroom pot pie. It was very good but our favorite part of the meal was dessert. We had Bread and Butter Pudding. It’s a bread pudding served with butterscotch sauce and custard sauce. It was so rich and delicious. I can’t wait to try to make this recipe at home for Christmas. What a wonderful memory!

Another fun find on our trip was a Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake. It’s a chocolate cupcake with a peanut butter filling and frosting and then covered with large chocolate curls. It’s so big and the perfect size to share.

 Fall Cooking Day

I just had a mini cooking session to fill the freezer for the fall. We’re trying to use some of the older food we still have in the freezer but I just can’t resist adding some of our favorite cold weather comfort foods such as Macaroni and Cheese and Lasagna Rollups!

 

I needed to restock our favorite lunch recipes. Bow Tie Soup (from the Freezer Lunches to Go ebook) is fun – especially when you make it with mini farfalle. I enjoy cooking with the mini pastas. Ziti and penne are fun too. I also made the healthier version of Loaded Baked Potato Soup. My son loves this soup (but he prefers it without the green onions)!

I made a recipe of Italian Roast Beef Sandwiches (from the Big Book of Freezer Cooking). When I make this recipe, I flash freeze it in muffin tins to make individual servings. Once it’s frozen, place the bottom of the tin in a sink of hot water for 5 to 10 seconds. This will loosen the meat so you can “pop” them out and place them in a freezer bag. It’s so convenient! You can also do this with Sloppy Joes and Shredded Chicken Sandwiches.

I made 2 recipes of Tara’s Mac and Cheese (from the Member’s area).

HINT: When freezing pasta recipes, I like to freeze the cooked pasta separate from the sauce. This helps to prevent the pasta from soaking up the sauce while in the freezer.

I also made Apple Butter, three meals of Fajitas, Slow Cooker Chicken Chili, Lasagna Rollups, Beef Stew, and Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Muffins. Not too bad for a days’ work!

Another recipe I’d like to mention is the Chicken Enchilada recipe from the Slow Cooker Freezer Favorites ebook. You should try this recipe! The chicken filling is wonderful. I usually just freeze the chicken filling without making the enchiladas so I can use the filling in other recipes such as Chicken Tacos or Chicken Fajita Salad. It’s very versatile. I recently made enchiladas using La Tortilla Factory 100 calorie high fiber wraps and Gringo Enchilada Sauce from the Big Book of Freezer Cooking. They were the best!

Closing Comments from Carol

Enjoy the recipes! Are you getting ready to make your favorite Autumn recipes?

Do you have any recipes that you would like to share? I’d love to try and share them with everyone. You can post your recipes on the 30 Day Gourmet Facebook® fan page or click here to send me an email. Or do you have any other topics that you would like me to cover? Click here to send me an email. I enjoy hearing from you!

Have fun in your kitchen!

Carol