Home Cookin' from Herndon

Since I posted an early Connie's Kitchen this week, I decided to share a recipe from my Sister in-law today instead. Danielle and Chris, my brother and sister in-law, really enjoy cooking and grilling. With four kids at home, they get pretty creative on a budget and I love that. I also love that they are introducing their children to all kinds of foods and not just chicken tenders, fish sticks, hot dogs...ya know typical kids go to's. 

Their kids get to eat Ribs, pork tenderloin, pasta dishes, casseroles, and they always try to work in veggies to balance out the meal. A couple of their children even love spicy food and will eat jalapenos! I love it! I have watched their youngest son eat a jalapeno, twist up his face like "oooh that's hot", and then ask for another one and do that over and over again. It is priceless. 

So Danielle and I text a lot. We love to swap pictures of our kids and recently we have been sharing pictures of the food we have cooked. She texted me the other day about a new dish she thought up and took the time to take pics and send me the recipe so I could make it myself. It sounded so good I just had to share. She made sour cream corn bread, a meaty broccoli and cheese mac, and sweet tea. Sounds like a little bit of southern heaven in the summer time. (said with thick southern accent) AND SHE ADDED BACON! 

I think this meal is a perfect sunny summer Friday treat. 

Sour Cream Corn Bread

-just check out the image below for the recipe. So cute!

Next up is what I have named:

 Meaty Broccoli Mac

Take a pack of ground beef and cook and season with garlic powder, minced onion, and paprika. 

Cooked frozen broccoli, chopped. Set meat and veg aside.

Fry bacon, drain fat. 

She used the noodles from a store bought Mac and cheese (could use regular elbow macaroni). Made the rue in the pan She fried the bacon in. To make a rue- 6 TB each butter and flour, 3 cups milk, melt butter, add flour bring to boil making sure to keep stirring so it doesn't burn. Add milk. Boil. Add cheese (3 cups shredded sharp cheddar) add spices to taste, She used garlic powder, salt, smoked paprika, minced onions, garlic pepper and some ranch dressing. 

Mix the chopped broccoli, and noodles with the meat, add sauce.

Enjoy with some delicious sweet tea!

Sweet Tea

 Use a 1 gallon pitcher. Boil water and 6 tea bags, for 5 minutes. Pour in pitcher, add 2 cups sugar, stir to dissolve. Add cold water to fill pitcher. Cool in fridge or poor over ice. 

Connie's Kitchen-Special Edition: Mom's Recipe Box

I am writing a special early Connie's Kitchen tonight because I finally got my hands on a very special item that belonged to her.

Shortly after we lost my Mom we started doing that whole process of going through her belongings. We didn't waste a lot of time doing this. I think my sister, Dad, and I did better keeping busy and just doing those things you have to do. We just did and went and arranged and organized and did what we had to do because we couldn't sit. When you sit too long you think too long and it felt better doing. So when you are going through a loved one's belongings there are always items that hold a special place in your heart like certain pieces of jewerly (my sister wears my Mom's anniversary band) or certain clothing items which my Mother had a ton of! We started slowly sorting through the many many MANY boxes of my Mom's shoes, the many many colored capris, tons of camis and cardigans, all her headbands and braclettes, and belts and hand bags. My Mom was a very stylish lady and always had on the perfect little outfit and accessories.  Somethings are enjoyable to see again and spark a happy memory and bring up a story that you share. Other items are harder to see and touch again like a hair brush or her glasses. Those things cut too close and they can't be given away but its also hard to keep them as well so they are boxed for later. I have a few very specials things that were my Mom's like the braclette and shoes she wore on my wedding day but a little jewel I just got my hands on might mean even more to me. That special item is my Mom's recipe box. My Mom wasn't in love with cooking like I am but she cooked us warm family dinners every night and amazing baked goods every holiday season and my love for cooking was sparked by her. She saved passed down recipes or things she learned from friends on index cards and scraps of paper and organized them in a box. It was originally this little brown plastic tupperware tub and I will always remember sorting through it every Christmas season when Mom was ready to bake and she asked; "What do we want to make?".

The plastic tub as graduated to a simple but pretty wooden box. Her recipes are still there with her wispy handwriting on each one, fading and crinkled and beautiful.

 I believe this is my prized possession and I will forever keep it safe and keep it just as it is. From time to time I will write a true Connie's Kitchen post and make something special from her box, from her kitchen. So stay tuned for recipes from the real Connie's Kitchen.

Connie's Kitchen: Green Chippies and Mayonnaise Sandwiches

Here is another edition of Connie's Kitchen.

My Beautiful Mother's Senior High Photo

Its no secret that my family and I love food but we have all had to buckle down and work hard to keep the pounds off over the years. A general theme in my life right now is trying to lose this baby weight. I just started working out again and I have been cooking healthy meals so I am on the right track. When I was a little kid I could eat whatever I wanted. I was so skinny that everyone called me "Bean Pole" and my Mom let me eat anything I asked for. I remember Klondike bars every night after dinner. Mashed potatoes were probably served with dinner 2 times a week at least. My very favorite thing in the world to chow down on though were "Green Chippies". Green chippies were "Nibbles With Gibbles" brand chips in sour cream and onion flavor. They came in a light green bag and the chips themselves sometimes had a green tint from the flavoring. It was nothing for me to sit down and eat a whole bag, and I was so skinny that no one had a problem with it. I do not blame my Mom at all for letting me indulge. We ALL loved green chippies!

She wanted my sister and I to enjoy all the things she never had, and having food readily available was rare for her growing up. She even took me to the doctor when I was probably 5 or 6 because she was worried about how skinny I was. So bring on the green chippies!
Yes, in hindsight there were much healthier ways of putting some weight on but I was a kid and kids love junk and Mom loved us and wanted us to be happy. And I love her so much for that. She also made balanced meals liked baked chicken and green beans, vegetable stew was a favorite, and fruit salad was available all summer.
However, the green chippies caught up with me in the 4th grade and weight started coming on, and fast. So Mom took me back to the doctor to talk about what to do about me being so overweight. The doc said I was obese and that i should focus more on eating fruits and veggies. I also picked up on her talking about cutting back on lunch meat in my sandwiches..but never heard her mention not eating mayo.....hmmm

For the next few years after that weight was a big topic in my life. Mom tried to help me by having me do sits ups and push ups before I could have snacks. The picture above is of me in about 5th grade playing with my little cousin so you can see why she was trying to get me on the right track. She got me into sports like softball and tried to get me to cut back on portions and fatty foods. She would literally have me drop and give her 20 before eating a cookie and I say good for her! During that time I was a little confused about what all this meant and what fatty foods were. I remembered the doctor mentioning lunch meat and cheese was bad so I thought well OK! and started eating mayonnaise sandwiches as my light snack. Sometimes I would have a few "light" mayo sandwiches a day. Remember, the doc never mentioned mayo so....

Needless to say the weight kept coming on and soon I was shopping in the JC Penny Husky Kids catalog. When Mom found that it was pretty exciting because we were running out of places I could shop and still wear kids style clothes!! Thanks Husky Kids and thanks Mom!

Well, as a family we all grew up and started figuring out what healthy eating really was. My Mom even learned a ton about cooking low fat and low salt before she passed away and I learned a lot from her.

So when I was a kid one of my favorite things she used to make, that wasn't all that healthy but I still love, was spaghetti with meat sauce. It was simple. You brown ground beef, pour in a jar of Ragu, and boil a box of Giant brand spaghetti and you had one happy little chubby kid at your table asking for seconds.
So in honor of my favorite meal Mom made when I was a kid- I am making Spaghetti with Meat Sauce tonight for dinner but I do a much healthier version.
I won't go into the details because we all know how to boil water and heat up sauce. I will tell you that I use ground turkey instead of ground beef. I season the turkey with garlic, salt/pepper, and oregano and add that to a jar of my favorite store bought sauce. I usually spice that up too with more garlic, dash of red pepper, and a little red wine vinegar.
For noodles I use Dream Fields brand pasta noodles. Its low carb, so great, and tastes really close to the real thing. Its a little more expensive but worth it to me.
So that's it. Its a rainy cool Friday here in NOVA so comfort food is on the menu tonight.

Enjoy something warm and tasty tonight and tell the people you love that you love them often!

Here's me now with my little family. I love you!

Asian Cabbage Salad for my Boo Erin

So my Friend Erin is a veggie and has been reading the blog.....thanks Erin! Unfortunately for her, I am a major carnivore but she has enjoyed some of my side dishes. So just for her I am sharing one of my very favorite veggie main courses. This recipe is so quick and easy and so delicious that you will want to make it all the time. I was shocked how good it tasted the first time I made it because the thought of eating a plate of raw cabbage didn't sound that great to me. BUT I got hooked and so did Nick. We love this one. Its also so versatile that you can add extras to it like chicken, peppers, onion, chow mien noodles, and more. I guess you could add bacon too!
Another exciting thing about this recipe is it is super healthy. I believe I learned this one from a south beach cook book and by cooking this way I have lost another pound! yay! So far I am down about 28 lbs since I had Lily. Another.....18 to go to get to pre-pregnancy weight and another 20 after that to get to where I really should be so this is going to be a long journey. I have pretty much another 40 lbs I want to lose so you can see why I share lots of healthy recipes but like I have said, you can always jazz them up even more if you want a more indulgent version. While I am talking about weight I want to plug a great website/app called "My Fitness Pal". It has helped me lose my last 11 lbs in just a couple months. If you are on a weight lose journey like me- check it out! Its free and so easy. It is just a no brainer way to count cals, log in exercise, and get support from other "pals". If you have heard of the live strong site, its pretty much the same thing. The thing that makes this work so well is it's pure math....based on your height, weight, and lifestyle, it calculates how many cals you need to eat a day to lose the weight you want to lose. You log in everything you eat ( that part is super easy you can even snap a pic of the bar code on a food product and zip zip its logged in) and the app does the math for you. Huge fan-check it out-"My Fitness Pal".
So back to cabbage.....
I don't have any snap shots of this meal because I made it so fast and just ate it right away! I totally forgot to take pictures! However I have a another half of the head of cabbage if you really want to see pics....but I am sure you can just imagine it. I do have some fun pics of Lily though. Here is Lil playing with a burp cloth...

and here is one I am calling the poopy ballerina...

So Here is the recipe....


Asian Cabbage Salad
1/2 of 1 head of green cabbage
about 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
about 1 T of sesame oil
pinch of sea salt
sesame seeds

So take your head of cabbage and clean it up and chop it up. I julienned mine but you could chop it up how you like. Then in a small bowl mix up rice wine vin and sesame oil. Drizzle over cabbage and if you think that is too much or too little, you can adjust that. Use however much you want. If you don't taste enough sesame oil in the end, you can drizzle a tad more on. Think of that little mix like your salad dressing so use what you like. Then add a little sea salt and shake some sesame seeds over the salad and toss.
That's IT!
 This week I added that left over Asian chicken I made a few days ago, some chopped red pepper, and chow mien noodles. It was amazing! and now I am 1 lb smaller.

Connie's Kitchen: These Pork Chops are Sharp!

I am a little late posting this which makes me feel a little guilty but better late than never.

So here is another edition of Connie's Kitchen and I am going to share another one of her magazine recipes and a memory.

If you knew my Mom you knew she was a very special lady with her own way of saying and doing everything. She was just full of sayings and nick names for everyone and also known for mispronouncing words all over the places. Some memorable sayings were; "It's too hot for the pickles" and "I got the fever". My Mom renamed my husband "Nick Nack Paddy Wack", my brother in-law became "Justy Boy", at one point my name was "Sissy Bob" and my sister Lindsay was "Lallaberry", and one of the best was when she decided to call a good friend of mine with that last name Bang, "Bing Bang Bong". BUT the best, the very best was when she got stuck calling a few of my friends by their character names when she would come see my performances. My dear friend Jill played a character named "Pussy A Dangle" in this zombie rock musical we did and my mother would scream "PUSSY!!!" every time she saw her no matter where we were.
Oh then there were her ways of pronouncing words....
For some reason she added an "H" to the word adios so it became "HA-dios" but then dropped the "H" from words like human and humid so they were "U-man" and "U-mid". My all time favorite was that she always called bleachers, like at a football game, "Bleaches". So we would go watch Lindsay's softball games and sit on the "Bleaches".
She would get just stuck on these sayings and nick names and say them all the time, like a word or saying of the month. Mom decided once that some food she was eating was "sharp". I mean you can use that word to describe a stylish outfit, or a knife, but I don't know if I would call a crab cake sharp. My Mom really had a way with words. Everything for the next month was sharp. A nice smelling perfume, a trip to the grocery store could be sharp, and fact that there wasn't any traffic could be sharp....sharp was anything and everything that was good. The recipe I am about to share with you was definitely described as sharp when she shared it with me and I sure hope you all think its SHARP!

Honestly all kidding aside this is the recipe for the best pork chops I have ever eaten! If you follow this recipe you will get the tastiest most tender pork chop ever and that is not easy to do with a pork chop.
I usually make these chops with some mashed sweet potatoes and maybe some fresh green beans on the side. Tonight we are doing the sweet potatoes but I am also doing some grilled shrimp and mushroom sauteed in red wine because these mushrooms are on their last leg so I have to make them tonight. hehe.
This is the recipe my mom gave me from her People mag by Chef Love at Fort Worth's Lonesome Dove Restaurant.

Seared Pork Chops
4 pork chops, either boneless or bone-in
1 gallon warm water
1/4 cup chili flakes (I use chili powder because I don't know where to get flakes)
1/2 cup salt
6 smashed garlic coves
1/4 olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a large bowl mix water, chili powder, salt, and garlic. Add pork chops and let sit for an hour in the fridge. I have actually let them sit over night before and they were even more amazing. So I am a fan of letting them sit several hours.
Remove chops of from mixture and pat dry.
In a heavy cast iron pan, heat oil. Season chops with salt and pepper. Place chops in pan and cook 3-4 mins per side. Remove from pan and let rest 2mins before serving.
I actually will just throw the chops on the grill and they are still outstanding. They are good in the pan or grilled and really good topped with a little......bacon.

Wienies and Beanies...

I just made the most random meal of my life! Nick was working late and yet again we needed to go to the grocery store. We seriously have very little food in the house to make a decent meal. I was tempted to just bake a plate of tatar tots and puts some franks red hot on them and call that dinner....and that is a pretty darn yum-may dinner but i am trying to lose this baby weight. I guess I can't just eat plates of tots and franks and red wine like I used to when I was 22. And yes that meal and a few glasses of red wine were a weekly staple for my roommate Liz and I. That, mac n cheese, couscous, and salmon (all with franks on it) was pretty much all we ate some weeks. Liz would just dump a can of chickpeas in a bowl and douse them with Italian dressing and lots of crushed black pepper and that was her dinner about 3 times a week. We had to make quick cheap dinners cause we were on a seriously slim budget, needed to save money for the wine (hello!), and had a date to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer every night until we watched the entire series start to finish. That was serious business. My evenings are very different now...

SO Nick and I are trying to save money now that we have a little one so I made this random meal in an attempt to avoid ordering take out. Like I said, we had very little to work with. I found a can of organic rice and beans, frozen peas, and cocktail wienies and thought; "OK...i guess". So I boil the peas just like normal but I heat up the rice and beans and add pieces of chopped up cocktail wienies. I also added a little season salt and butter because that rice and beans just needed a little flavor. Once everything was done, I just didn't feel like this dinner was complete. I open the fridge and find a few farm fresh eggs and instantly wish I just made breakfast for dinner but at this point it was too late for that. However, I could still use the eggs maybe.
So I thought eggs and sausage....there are little pork sausages in the rice and beans...and in England they eat beans with breakfast..and its the London Olympics right now... soooo sure why not. So I fried two eggs over easy and decided to top the beans and rice with a beautiful fried egg.

I plated the meal and just put the peas alone with some sea salt and a little butter, placed a nice spoon full of the rice, beanies, and wienies on the plate and topped it with the fried egg. Lastly I had a small tomato ripe from my garden. It was a really weird random meal but it actually tasted really good!!! When it was finished I felt like I was on an episode of chopped and I was actually really proud of what I put together.
Don't be afraid to get creative, try new things, and use items you never thought would work well together...you might just come up with your new favorite meal. Have fun in the kitchen and when in doubt add cheese and bacon and apparently egg!

Same Chicken and Green Beans a different way

This past Monday things were pretty hectic at home. I needed to get my car inspected, we were coming off a jammed packed weekend, Nick was working late, and I had Lily to be put to bed. I just don't have a lot of time to put together any complicated dinners so I have to be creative with flavors and use simple ingredients. I like to do 30 minutes or less style cooking most of the time so you will get a lot of those types of recipes from me.
I had some more green beans left from last week I could cook and some chicken breast thawed out but I didn't want to do the same thing that I just did with chicken and green beans (See my earlier post about Lemon Pepper Garlic and White Wine Grilled Chicken and Green Beans with Olive Oil and Feta). This time I whipped up my Asian style marinade and did some Asian inspired green beans with red pepper and chow mein noodles. I hadn't even planned on doing this for dinner but I did a quick inventory of my kitchen in my head and this is what I came up with.
I just love this Asian style marinade. I came up with it for chicken wings but it works on chicken breast, pork, and veggies! I learned some sauces and spices that go into Thai and Asian cuisine from watching food network and some south beach recipes actually. I am a huge fan of the south beach diet cook books. Even if you are not strictly following the diet, you can always add one of those recipes into your everyday diet to eat healthy and fresh meals.
This meal is quick and healthy and really delicious...and of course you can add bacon to the green beans if you want.


Asian Style Marinade 

Tonight I thawed 3 organic chicken breasts. Make sure to let them sit in the marinade for at least 15 mins but they taste even better if you can wait an hour or more.

1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 T sesame oil
1 T fish sauce (optional but I really like it)
1/4 cup or more honey
1 t basil (fresh basil is even better)
1 T garlic (fresh or minced in a jar is best)
1 t ginger

mix together with a whisk to get the honey really well mixed in.
set aside 1/4 cup or more of the mixture to use later on veggie is you wish.
 Dunk chicken or pork in and let sit at least 15 mins.
Start up grill, oven, or pan and start cookin! baste meat with sauce 1 more time on both sides once you start cooking.


While the chicken is cooking you can cook up some tasty veggies-

Asian Style Green Beans and Red Pepper

Take a couple portions of green beans and sit them in your steamer.
Julienne half of a large red pepper.
Steam veggies.
Once the veggies are done, toss in the marinade you set aside.
Add some sesame seeds, sliced almonds, and chow mein noodles and enjoy!