Manicotti and Stitching Inspiration

Soon I will stitch! It has been quite awhile now, but all the crazy busy times have ended for awhile. Now it's time for being 'semi-busy'.

Friday was my last day of work for awhile, and it's our summer break. Hurrah! We worked especially late this summer and we're starting again in early August but nonetheless it's grand to have a break.

Earlier this month we celebrated my husband's birthday, our son's birthday, our son-in-law's birthday, and our son's college graduation. Yesterday we celebrated my mom's 79th birthday. We had a great time at my brother and sister-in-law's house celebrating! I brought the manicotti:








Manicotti Recipe
Makes one 9 X 13 pan of Manicotti

One box of Manicotti

Sauce:
1 lb ground beef
1 jar of marinara sauce (or make your own)
one garlic clove, minced
oregano

Cook ground beef, add the other ingredients and simmer.

Manicotti Filling:
1 egg
16 ozs ricotta cheese
6 ozs parmesan cheese
8 ozs mozzarella cheese, shredded (place some aside for the top of the dish)
garlic powder
fresh parsley flakes, a few tablespoons
sweet basil, one tablespoon

Cook the noodles so they're not overly soft for easy stuffing. Stuff the noodles with the cheese filling.

Place 1/2 the sauce in a greased 9 X 13 pan, place the stuffed noodles on top, and cover with remaining sauce and the remaining mozzarella cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

Enjoy!

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And now for some stitching inspiration:

This piece is called Fantastic Fall Bouquet, and it's designed by Barbara Baatz. (I got this photo of it long ago from a blog, saved it to my computer, but I don't have the stitcher's name and website. If you know the person, please do let me know. For the time being, I just must say thanks to the stitcher of this fine piece!):

 

I've always loved it, and I finally acquired it sometime back into my stitching pattern stash. I had to purchase it off ebay, as it's out of print and hard to find. It was so worth the hassle! Perhaps I can get started on it sometime soon, but then again free time does fly by quickly. Are there any patterns you are excited to begin soon?

Thanks for stopping by today!

Orange Cookie Recipe

I posted a few pictures of these Orange Cookies on my previous post. I've finally returned with the recipe.

This recipe comes from Minnesota, and they were lovingly baked by one of my dear aunts for years and years. We always requested 'orange cookies' when we visited her home. She is no longer able to bake, but the rest of us in the family enjoy baking these cookies again and again.

Enjoy! These cookies are so delicious.
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Orange Cookies
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup margerine or butter
(you may use 1/2 cup shortening with 1/2 cup butter or margerine if desired)
2 eggs
1Tbsp orange rind
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup buttermilk (add after eggs)
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Cream the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, orange rind, and then add the buttermilk.
Add the dry ingredients, mix well. Drop by tablespoons onto ungreased cookies sheets. (They get a lot larger, so don't make them too large or they'll be huge.)

After they are cool, ice them with this icing:

1 Tbsp orange rind
3 Tbsp butter, softened
3 Tbsp orange juice
3 cups powdered sugar

Makes about 40-45 cookies.

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Thanks for stopping by here today.

Lemon Bars

 

Aren't there some desserts that just remind you of a certain season? It's summertime now, and I think of lemon bars. My parents' home has always had a lemon tree in the backyard, so my mom always loved to make various desserts that used this great fruit. One recipe she made often in the summer was this lemon bar recipe:

Lemon Bars

1/2 cup margerine
1 cup flour
1/4 cup powdered sugar

Mix the above ingredients together and place in the bottom of an 8 X 8 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. (You should lightly grease the pan with shortening)

Mix together 2 Tbsp lemon juice, including the rind, 2 beaten eggs, 1 cup sugar, and 1/2 tsp baking powder. Pour on top of the warm crust, and bake again at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Frosting: Make a frosting using lemon juice and powdered sugar. Frost after the bars have cooled just a bit.

Note: You can increase this recipe to 1 1/2 in amounts and place in a 13 X 9 inch pan.

I think I'll have to make a batch sometime this week! Thanks for stopping by today.

Recipe~ Noodles Romanoff

I haven't had the chance to do any stitching in over a week. It's just been too busy lately!

My mom came and stayed with us last weekend, so while she was here I tried a few new recipes, so I'll share one today.

This recipe is from the book "Dishes Men Like". I love that old vintage book!



We ate this dish as a side dish, and everyone really liked it. Here you are:

Noodles Romanoff
Makes 6 servings

1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup sour cream
2 cups hot boiled noodles (6 ozs. uncooked)
1 Tbsp. minced onion
1 small clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Mix together gently the cottage cheese, sour cream, and cooked noodles. Add onion, garlic, and seasonings. Place in greased 2 quart casserole dish. Sprinkle with cheese. Cover with foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes, removing the foil the last 10 minutes. Serve hot.

Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for all your comments.

Book of Cookies~ Now That's My Kind of Book!

Last spring I walked into my workplace's employee lounge and came upon a true treasure. It was a large box of old cookbooks that were published from the forties through about the early seventies. On the side of the box were some letters crudely printed that said, "FREE". Someone must have cleaned out some elderly person's kitchen, and then simply didn't want any of these charming cookbook treasures. I never did find out who brought in the box, but nonetheless I looked through it and found many books to take home. One I snatched up was "Dishes Men Like". Under the title it says, "Easy to prepare, sure to please."

It was published in the fifties, when homemaking and cooking skills were things that were valued far more than they seem to be today. Okay, I'm not saying we should necessarily go back to the fifties, but on the other hand it makes me cringe when I hear grown women with whom I'm acquainted say they don't know how to cook anything at all. Their children seem to be living on fast food and restaurant fare, exclusively. That's a whole different issue, and it's far more controversial than anything I should be talking about on my little stitching and home blog. I consider myself a harmless fluffball, and I need to keep it that way.

I posted a recipe from "Dishes Men Like" back here in April. The recipe was called "Thirty Minute Noodle Goolash", and you can get the recipe if you click on it in the sidebar.

Another book I selected was "Book of Cookies". Here it is:


I love the charming vintage title font, and also the cute illustrations that are inside of the book. It was published in 1958 and the recipes are from the editors of Good Housekeeping magazine. Today I wanted to share a recipe from that book, so here you have "Blonde Brownies".

Blond Brownies

2 2/3 cups sifted flour
2 1/2 tsps. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 cup butter or margerine
2 1/4 cups brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
1 cup chopped nuts
1 6-oz pkg. semisweet chocolate pieces

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease a 15 1/2 X 10 1.2 X 1 " pan. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt. In a large saucepan, melt the butter; stir in brown sugar; cool ten minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in flour mixture, nuts, chocolate pieces until well blended. Spread in pan. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until center springs back lightly when touched. Cool; cut into two inch squares. Makes about 3 dozen.

These are so yummy, and I hope you enjoy them.

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I wish I had some stitching news to share, but I haven't had a chance to stitch yet this week. Maybe soon!

Thanks for stopping by here.

Easy to Prepare...Sure to Please

"Easy to prepare, sure to please." Thus reads the words on the cover of this little cookbook. I've made two dishes from this book so far, and they've both been big hits.

The book was published in 1952. Times sure have changed, haven't they? I made the recipe below last week for seven of us in my extended family and everyone really enjoyed it!

Sampler Stitcher requested that I post this recipe, so here it is:

30 Minute Noodle Goulash

3/4 lb ground beef
1 Tbsp hot fat (I skipped this completely.)
2 small onions, minced
2 cups diced celery
1 Tbsp worcestershire sauce
Drained, hot cooked noodles (6 ozs dry- I used wide egg noodles.)
2 cups cooked canned tomatoes
3/4 cup shredded cheese
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt (I also skipped this completely.)

Cook meat in fat until browned, add onion, celery, and worcestershire sauce. Gently mix in the noodles and the rest of the ingredients. Simmer 30 minutes or bake in buttered 2-quart casserole in 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. Enjoy!

I love these tasty casseroles as we ate them a lot when I was a kid. I hope you enjoy this recipe, too.

A Wonderful Apple Torte

Hope you like the new look of the blog. I'm off this week, so after I took my parents home yesterday I've spent far too much time here playing with the colors and pictures!

On Tuesday my niece Windy and her daughter came over in the afternoon. Anyway, my parents stayed here a few days earlier this week, so of course they wanted to see their great-grandaughter Hannah...and her parents, too! My niece's husband joined us too after he worked all day.

I cooked meals both nights my parents were here from an old cookbook published in 1952. It is called Recipes that Men Like and it was published by a worchestershire sauce company. I love vintage cookbooks, and earlier this ysear I grabbed up a bunch of them where I work. Someone was just giving them away, so those of us at my workplace that enjoy cooking and baking grabbed them up in a flash! One of the little booklets I picked up was published back in 1937. Isn't that amazing?

On Monday night I cooked Beef Stroganoff, and it was quite delicious. When my niece and her family joined us on Tuesday I made something called "Noodle Goulash". It was a typical 1950s casserole with beef, noodles, cheese, and tomatoes. Everyone seemed to like it, so we'll make it again!

Now on to the good stuff...my niece brought over a fantastic apple torte she'd baked up the night before. Here is the recipe if you'd like to prepare it. It's one of the best desserts I've ever tasted!

Apple Torte with Crumb Topping

Crumb Topping
1/4 c flour
1/4 c packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp chilled butter, cut into small pieces

Crust
1/2 c sugar
1/4 c butter or margarine, softened
4 tsp water
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup flour

Filling
1/4 c sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 8 oz block fat free crm cheese
1 large egg
4 c diced peeled gala apples (1 1/2 lbs)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

Preheat oven to 450

To prepare the crust beat the first 4 ingredients with a mixer at med speed until mixed. Add the flour to the sugar mixture and beat at med-low speed until well blended. Press the crust into the bottom and up the sides of a 9 inch springform pan that is well coated with cooking spray.

To prepare filling, beat 1/4 c sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla, cream cheese, and egg at low speed until smooth. Pour cream cheese mix into crust. Combine apple, 1/2 c sugar, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon in a bowl. Spread apple mixture evenly over cream cheese.

To prepare crumb topping, combine flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl. Cut in 2 tablespoons butter with 2 knives until it resembles coarse meal. Cover apples with crumb topping.

Bake 450 for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temp to 400. Do not remove torte from oven. Bake an additional 25 minutes or until lightly browned and just set.


Eddie Enjoying the Spring Weather as He Eyes the Torte

I hope you have a wonderful day. Thanks for stopping by here.

Sunset after a Long Weekend and a Recipe for Donut Cake

My husband took this photo right after sunset yesterday. You can barely see the moon. These wires are over our neighbor's house, and in the morning when I go to feed the birds I usually see the mourning doves up there waiting for their meal.

The weekend ended happily for me as I was able to email off a 67 page document to my professor! I am not yet done with the project, and I have about 10-15 hours more work to do on it, but I got a large chunk done.

My goal was to work on it for twelve hours over the weekend. Instead I worked on it for 14 hours on Saturday, and about 5 hours yesterday. I am tired from all the concentration, but it's a good sort of tired.

To celebrate all the hard work we went to a late lunch yesterday at a local Mexican restaurant. After that we came home and I relaxed and watched the birds in our backyard. For the first time, I saw a baby sparrow! It sat on a branch of a small plant we have in one of our terra cotta pots. Its chirp was very delightful and sweet.

(The following photos were not taken yesterday, but they represent what I saw as I sat and relaxed...)

The baby bird sat on a branch of the plant that is furthest to the left:



A lone finch:



I saw three of these in our yard at the same time a few weeks back:




This pigeon has been around since I took this, but I haven't seen him on this feeder again:


Here's the right-sized bird for that feeder:



Of course our two cats also enjoyed relaxing with me in the yard, too.


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On a stitching note:


On Saturday morning before I started the project I forced myself to stitch for about 45 minutes. I will take a picture soon!


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My niece Windy http://abstinenceinthecountry.blogspot.com/ has requested that I post a recipe for a cake she calls 'donut cake' as it tastes like a donut. Here you are.

Donut Cake (aka Peanut Croquette Cake)

Duncan Hines white cake mix


Prepare cake according to the directions using a 9 X 13 pan.

Frost with white frosting. I make the buttercream recipe on the C and H powdered sugar box.

Grind up 1/2 can of Spanish peanuts, but don't grind them too fine.


After frosting the cooled cake, immediately sprinkle the peanuts on top. Press down so they stick real well.

Enjoy! The salt/sweet thing is very addictive.

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Thanks for stopping by here, and enjoy your Tuesday!

Stitcher S

Summer Thoughts and Baked Spaghetti

It's cold and dreary here so I thought I'd post a photo of these flowers taken in the summertime. They are uplifting to me! I have another wretched cold going on--the price one pays for working with the wee ones.

Had to share my niece's Spaghetti recipe--Baked Spaghetti, that is.

Here it is:
Baked Spaghetti

¾ pkg Angel Hair Pasta
4 tbsp butter or marg
1 cup grated parm chs
4 eggs – well beaten
2 cups cottage cheese
¾ lb ground beef or turkey or Italian sausage
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup diced green pepper
2 cups diced zucchini
2 cups diced fresh mushrooms
2 ½ cups canned diced tomatoes with juice
1 - 6 oz. can tomato paste
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp dried oregano
2 tbsp dried basil
1 tbsp garlic salt
1 sm can olives
2 cups mozzarella cheese


Cook spag. Drain and stir in butter, add parm cheese & eggs. Form spag into crust in a greased 9x13 baking dish. Spread cottage cheese over crust. In a very large skillet brown ground beef or sausage. Drain meat if necessary and set aside. Heat same large skillet over med heat and sauté onion, green pepper, mushrooms, & zucchini until tender. Add meat back to skillet with sautéed veggies and stir in tomatoes with juice, tomato paste and all spices. Add drained olives. Spread mixture in baking dish and bake covered for 30 minutes at 350. Sprinkle cheese on top and return to oven for 5 or 10 minutes uncovered until cheese melts. Enjoy!

* This is a great casserole for company or to return half to the freezer and reheat in two weeks. It is also wonderful as leftovers.

Enjoy!

Chili Time

Two days left, and then I'll have two days off. Hurrah!

I hope your week is going well, and that you're getting in some stitching time. I'm sure not stitching lately at all, but I love browsing on the internet at everyone else's stitching photos. I also love visiting so many non-stitching blogs that are also full of creative ideas, beautiful photos, and thought-provoking ideas.

Last week I made some chili one night for dinner and we really enjoyed it. I decided to (through my niece's request, see below) share the recipe here so that you too might cook some up one evening and enjoy it during these crisp days of winter. (It's crisp where we live, but it perhaps it is literally freezing in your part of the world!)

A-1 Chili Recipe

1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
1 large green bell pepper, diced
1 large onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
3 Tablespoons chili powder
1 (14 1/2 oz) can tomatoes
1/2 cup A-1 Steak Sauce
1/2 cup water
1 (15-16 oz) can kidney beans, drained

Cook beef, green pepper, onion and garlic in large heavy saucepot over high heat, stirring frequently until beef is browned, about 15 minutes

Stir in chili powder; cook, stirring for 1 minute.

Drain tomatoes, reserving liquid; chop tomatoes. Add tomatoes and liquid, steak sauce, and water to beef mixture; heat to a boil.

Cover; reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Stir in beans. Cover and simmer 15 minutes more, serve hot.

Makes 6 servings.

I always serve it with grated sharp cheddar cheese. This chili disappears quickly!

I wanted to also send a special 'hello' to my niece. She actually requested I put the recipe here, as she reads my blog. I think she's the only person in my family who reads it! If anyone else in my family does, they haven't mentioned it to me. My niece doesn't post much here, but she's in the picture below. She was the matron of honor at our daughter's wedding, and I love her very much. She was born to my brother and his wife when I was barely 19, and I took care of her many times when she was little. It's great to be close with her still. She's all grown up, and I am very blessed to have her in my life.



I hope the rest of your week goes well. Thanks for all your kind comments, and thanks for visiting here.