Caesar Steak

I saw a recipe in one of the Taste of Home magazines, or maybe it was Simple and Delicious. Anyway......it was for steak and grilled vegetables. Last night I decided to have steak. I rubbed cracked ground pepper into the steak (I forget what kind of steak, but it was a cheaper cut and only about 2/3 of a pound) and then marinated it in Ken's lite caesar dressing in a bag in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes. I grilled the steak until it was medium rare. While grilling, I rubbed butter on it. I have to say it came out yummy. I will definitely make it again. I didn't do the grilled vegetable, just made a caesar salad to go with the steak.

I forgot to get a picture of the steak, but trust me it was good. The leftovers were delicious on a salad today for lunch!

Baked Taco Chicken

I got this recipe from the April/May 2005 issue of Taste of Home. As I love to do, I was browsing through an old edition and thought that this looked delicious. I made this last week. I halved the recipe, of course, since it was just me and Jimmy that night. I used three large chicken breasts.

The chicken came out moist and great tasting. I served with rice pilaf and a salad. Yummy!

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 envelopes taco seasoning

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

2 T milk

2 broiler/fryer chicken (3-4 lbs each), cut up

Directions:

In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the flour, taco seasoning and salt. In a shallow bowl, beat eggs and milk. Dip chicken pieces in egg mixture, then place in bag and shake to coat.

Place bone side down in a greased 15" x 10" baking pan. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes or until juices run clear.

Yield: 12 servings.

Pumpkin Cake

I made this cake last Wednesday night. Michele from Alwayz Bakin' made this cake for her son's Jake's birthday. She has a picture posted on her blog. It was one of the best food I have ever had made with pumpkin. It was moist and yummy! Michele finally sent me the recipe last week (except she left off the eggs off the ingredients so I had to call her house and her daughter found how many for me!) and I decided to make it. It was very easy. All the ingredients were on hand. I made in 2 round 9" pans and they came out this gorgeous color.

I made Michele's cream cheese icing. I halved the recipe and it was just enough for the 2 layer cake. This was one of the first times that I iced a cake and crumbs didn't come up when spreading!

Pumpkin Cake

4 eggs
1 15-oz can of pumpkin
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups of sugar
2 cups of flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat eggs, oil, pumpkin and sugar. Stir in remaining ingredients until evenly mixed. Pour into a greased and floured 13x9 baking dish (I used 2 9" rounds).

Bake 30 minutes or until center springs back when touched.


Cream Cheese Icing

2 sticks butter, softened
2 8-oz packages cream cheese, softened
5 cups confectioners sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients. Spread on cool cake. (This makes a lot of icing. Half the recipe is enough for the pumpkin cake. Half made enough for the layer cakes.

TWD: Rugelach

This week's recipe is Rugelach which can be found on pages 150-151. The recipe was chosen by Grace of Piggy's Cooking Journal. Good choice, Grace! The are delicious! I refrigerated the dough overnight since I started them around 6:00 in the evening and didn't realize they had to be in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Oh well! The recipe was very easy. I found the dough seemed real thin and tore some when spreading the jam. My second half I rolled out, I didn't roll so big.

I made half the Rugelach with strawberry preserves, pecans and chocolate chips. The other half had apricot-pineapple preserves, sliced almonds and 1/2 had chocolate chips. I tasted them both and they both were delicious. I think I may prefer the apricot-pineapple ones better.

My Rugelach came out very messy looking, but who cares! They were GOOD!!