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Thursday, July 26, 2012

{A Week of Pinterest Meals}




{Monday}

Melt in your mouth Chicken
Ingredients:
4 boneless chicken breast halves
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 1/2 teaspoons seasoning salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions:
Mix mayonnaise, cheese and seasonings.  Spread mixture over chicken breast and place in baking dish.  Bake at 375°F for 45 minutes.


{Tuesday}


Shredded Beef Tacos
Ingredients:
1 (2.5 lb) chuck roast
1 (14 oz) can beef broth
1 1/2 Tbsp chili powder
1/2 Tbsp cumin
1/2 Tbsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
Juice of 1 lime

Serve with:
Warmed corn tortillas or warmed fresh flour tortillas*
Green or Iceburg lettuce, chopped
Monterrey Jack or Cheddar cheese, shredded
Guacamole or diced avocados
Sour cream
Fresh salsa
Cilantro
Freshly squeezed lime juice
Hot sauce

Directions:
In a small bowl whisk together chili powder, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper.  Place roast in a slow cooker, pour beef broth over roast then squeeze with fresh lime juice.  Sprinkle roast with spice mixture.  Cover slow cooker with lid and cook on low heat 8-10 hours.  Remove roast from slow cooker, shred beef (remove fat) and return shredded beef to slow cooker.  Cover with lid and cook additional 30 minutes.  Remove beef from slow cooker with tongs to remove juices when plating or drain in a colander.  Serve with desired toppings.  

{Wednesday}


I call these:  "Lasagna stuffed shells" I followed the lasagna roll-up recipe below, but we had a ton of jumbo shells so I used those instead of buying lasagna noodles :) 

Lasagna Roll Ups
Ingredients:
4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided
1/2 lb lean ground beef
1/4 cup finely chopped yellow onion
1 (28 oz) can crushed tomatoes (I'd recommend Contadina Brand)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 Tbsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried oregano
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 (15 oz) container Ricotta Cheese
1 large egg
1/3 cup fresh flat leaf parsley (aka Italian Parsley, its about 1 small handful), chopped
2 1/4 cups freshly grated Mozzarella Cheese, divided
3/4 cup freshly, finely grated Parmesan Cheese, divided
1/3 cup freshly, finely grated Romano Cheese
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
12 uncooked lasagna noodles


Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Drizzle one tablespoon olive oil into a large non-stick fry pan.  Heat over medium high heat, crumble ground beef over oil, add chopped onions and cook mixture stirring occasionally and breaking up meat, until browned.  Drain fat from beef.  Pour beef mixture into a food processor and pulse for about 5 seconds until it is ground into fine pieces.  Pour beef mixture back into fry pan and add crushed tomatoes, minced garlic, basil, oregano and 1 tablespoon olive oil and stir.  Season sauce with salt and pepper to taste then cover with a lid and simmer over low heat while preparing pasta and cheese mixture.
Cook lasagna noodles in a large pot of boiling water along with 1 tsp salt and 2 tablespoon olive oil to al dente according to directions listed on package.  Once noodles are cooked, drain and immediately line noodles in a single layer on waxed paper or cookie sheets.  
Prepare cheese mixture (I do this while pasta is cooking) by stirring together Ricotta cheese, egg, 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper with a fork in a large mixing bowl until well combine.  Stir in chopped fresh parsley.  Add in 1 3/4 cups grated Mozzarella Cheese, 1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese and 1/3 cup Romano Cheese, stir mixture until well combine.
Stir meat sauce and spread 1/3 cup evenly into a 13x9 inch baking dish by tilting pan back and forth.  Spread 1/4 cup cheese mixture evenly onto each cooked lasagna noodle, then spread 1 heaping tablespoon meat sauce along the top of cheese covered noodle.  Roll noodles up jellyroll style and arrange seam side down in baking dish.  Cover rolled noodles with remaining meat sauce (about a heaping 1/8 cup over each) then sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup Mozzarella Cheese and 1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese evenly over roll ups.  Tent lasagna roll ups with foil (don't allow foil to rest on cheese or it will stick you just want to loosely tent to prevent the cheese from browning) and bake for 35 minutes in preheated oven.  Serve warm garnished with additional chopped fresh parsley. 


**Only thing I didn't have was fresh parsley...it was good without, but I'm sure it would be good with it too! :) 


Tuesday, July 17, 2012

{Upholstered Headboard for under $100}



I've been wanting to make a headboard ever since we bought a king size mattress and bed frame over a year ago now....so I finally did, yesterday! With the help of my friend, Mary, we created what I think would cost around $600 from Pottery Barn or places like PB.  I created a beautiful head baord for about $75 and I'm proud of it!  I love it and here are the steps I followed to make it....

Here is the before...I took away all the pillows so it actually looks more bare than it really is, but you get the idea...

Materials needed:  Plywood that fits the dimensions of your bed and the height you want, foam (that was the most expensive part, but I think that made the difference), batting, material of your choosing...the amount you buy of each thing depends on the size you are wanting to create...we have a king size bed so we did 2.5 yards of foam, a twin size bed of batting, and 3 yards of material...it was plenty!  *you will also need:  staple gun & staples, spray adhesive, some books, and a friend to help lift and slide!

Step 1:  using spray adhesive we attached the foam across the board (we did this step in the garage to keep from spraying that stuff in the house, but we are in FL so we had to have AC after the 5 min. it took to do the foam)

Step 2:  We went in and layed out the material first (and I ironed it with a steam setting on my iron) then we layed out the batting and we went ahead and kind of double layered the batting here). 

Note:  Before we started stapling we put some of my girls' books under the bottom just to make sure the head board was laying level and wouldn't tilt while we stapled)

Step 3:  We stapled the material around the foam and batting...we pulled it snug and it created kind of a square look around the edges.  We stapled across the top and down the sides. 

Steps 4&5:  The corners took some TLC so we took a little longer on them and made them look like a pleat somewhat (the pic kind of shows a close up of a corner)....step 5 I didn't take a picture of and I'm sorry, but we actually took some extra material I cut off in the beginnig and covered the bottom of both sides so that from either side you don't see plywood, but you see the same material...we just staped a square of it to each bottom corner of the plywood. 

Step6:  Slide the headboard into place! :) Magically the headboard fit exactly height-wise and I think it looks great! I'm so happy with it! 

Up close pic of the headboard :) I'm so excited!