Minestrone Soup

One of my favorite soups in the whole world is Minestrone. Since the commissary doesn't carry this brand I decided to make my own, especially since Olive Garden sounds so good but my body doesn't need it!

The best thing about this soup is all the veggies that go in it! I love carrots and zucchini, yumm!

This is what it should look like after cutting, chopping, and adding all the ingredients except for the pasta.

This is what it should look like once you add the pasta! Much thicker now!

Pair it with some Hawaiian bread and you have an amazing dinner!

Home Made Apple Pie

Due to my crazy work schedule and spending the weekend at the Nellis Air Show, I made my home made dessert Monday night! Apple Pie sounded so good, so I made some!

I like to use Golden and Red apples to add a little different flavor, however, I only used like two Red compared to the 4 Golden. Sugar, brown sugar, flour, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, egg white, butter, and pie crust. Yes I cheated and bought pre-made pie crust, I just didn't feel like spending an extra 20 minutes making home made crust.

All the apples cut up with the flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger.

I have never made a pie before, so forgive my crust! :D

After rubbing in the egg whites and sprinkling sugar on top.

After baking for 50 minutes! Yumm! :D

Turkey Florentine

The other night when I asked Ben what he wanted for dinner he told me something with Turkey. Since I didn't feel like making a whole turkey I search several recipes to find a good dish with turkey. I came upon Turkey Florentine.

The ingredients include ground turkey, spinach, no yolk dumplings, onion salt, sour cream, onion dip mix, butter, Parmesan cheese, and turkey gravy which is not pictured.

Cooke the no yolks according to directions and place in a casserole dish.

Cooke the spinach and butter together until it is nice and creamy. Then add to the pasta.

Cooke the Turkey, add the gravy, sour cream, onion dip mix, and onion powder. Once all combined, add to the pasta as well. Top with Parmesan cheese.

Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes until cheese in nice and melty.

This turned out to be a very good meal, one I will be making more often. I was very surprised with all the flavor that came out in this dish, so I highly recommend making it.

Home Made Peach Cobbler

I was craving a fruit dish this weekend so I buckled down and made some peach cobbler!

Milk, Sugar, Flour, eggs, 2 cans of Sliced Peaches, Butter, Baking Powder, Cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

All the ingredients mixed together minus the peaches,  Cinnamon, and nutmeg.

After adding the peaches, Cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Baked for 45 minutes at 350 degrees and serve with yummy ice cream. We didn't have any in the house, but I sure wish we did! This was a great dish! :D

Chili Cheese Mac with no Beans

I have always been a fan of Chili Cheese Mac and I wanted to make some, the only problem is, Ben really isn't a fan of Beans. So I found a cool recipe that doesn't even want you to add them!

Ingredients consist of 1lb of Beef, elbow macaroni, ketchup, sugar, 1 jar of spaghetti sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, worcestershire sauce, and mozzarella cheese.

After browning the beef, add all the seasonings and liquid to the meat. Pretty simply right. While you are browning the beef though, start cooking the pasta.

Layer it nicely in a 9X9 casserole. There should be a total of 7 layers, sauce, pasta, sauce, cheese, pasta sauce, and finally cheese.

Once all layered this is what it will look like! Bake for about 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven until the cheese in nice and melty.

And behold, Chili Cheese Mac without the beans! :)

Home Made Chicken Noodle Soup

Ben was sick all last week so I promised him I would make him some home made chicken noodle soup to help make him feel better!

Anything with a lot of Vegetables I love! I always try to add extra because they are just so yummy!

Onions, Celery, Carrots, and Garlic!

After adding the chicken stock, the chicken, parsley and thyme.

Amazing chicken noodle soup! :)

Home made Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

After I got off work on Saturday, I came home and felt like making Oatmeal Raisin Cookies! Fresh Oatmeal Raisin Cookies are my weakness!

The ingredients are simple, like most things I make. I don't like to get too complicated, just having to separate my dry and wet ingredients is enough to confuse me!

All the wet ingredients, which included the butter, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla.

This is what it looked like after I added the sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, oats, and raisins.

Amazing home made oatmeal cookies! I had to make a batch for Ben that had chocolate chip added to the mix since he doesn't care of oatmeal raisin cookies by themselves!

Chicken Alfredo

Tonight's dish was home made chicken Alfredo. Now I am not a big fan of the fettuccine Alfredo family, I usually lean more toward spaghetti or lasagna, but I figured why not try to make it since I make the other two.

Here are all the ingredients it takes to make home made chicken Alfredo. I forgot the picture of the butter, it does take a stick of butter to make the sauce, that's probably why fettuccine Alfredo is so bad for you! :)

I took a different approach to my chicken though, I seasoned it with crushed red peppers, basil, and lemon pepper. It made for a nice kick to the dish, very creamy with a nice spicy touch!

My yummy Alfredo sauce which looks like a heart attack waiting to happen!

Put it all in a nice dish and you have one heck of a dinner that will fill you up real quick!

Home Made Banana Bread

This afternoon I made some home made banana bread!

Ingredients were simple, eggs, butter, brown sugar, flour, baking soda, salt, and very bad bananas! Haha! The black bananas don't look good and it was hard getting them out of the peel, but it made for amazing bread!

This is the banana, brown sugar, egg, and butter mixture.

Adding all the dry ingredients to make it a batter!

Pour into a cake pan and bake for 60-65 minutes! While it is baking, walk outside for like 5 minutes, and then come back inside so you can enjoy this amazing smell!

I can not wait to cut and enjoy! Yummo! :)

Pot Roast

So tonight I made a home made Pot Roast in the crock pot. Basic and simple, but oh so yummy!

I used the basic ingredients, beef, celery, potatoes, carrots, however, I also used a ranch dressing packet, Italian dressing packet, and a brown gravy mix packet.

Yes I know those last three ingredients sound really weird, and I am sure no one would think to mix those three together, however it made for a very vibrant flavor. This is by far one of the best pot roasts I have eat, especially since my mom makes these all the time.

Here is what all the food looks like before I turn the crock pot on. All nice and yummy and fresh.

I forgot to take the after picture in the crock pot, but here is the after picture before I put the left overs away! Everything was so tender and flavorful. I was super impressed by how simple yet tasty this recipe was! Yummy! :)

4.5 Dozen Halloween Sugar Cookies!

So this morning I decided to make some Halloween Sugar cookies for Ben to take to work and share with the boys on the flight line. Turns out I made 4.5 dozen cookies! It took forever to make and decorate!

Only 6 ingredients were used to make these simple cookies, which is not a lot.

This dough however, was not very sticky for some reason. It was really hard to roll out and cut because it was falling apart in my hand. I do not know if this is natural since I have never made home made sugar cookies before.

Taking the time to cut out each and every shape took so long, I spent about 1.5 hours total just on cutting out shapes, but I do have to admit that these pumpkins are super cute!

The bats came out really well too.

The ghosts were a little hard though, the tails kept coming off after pulling them off the counter.

Home made frosting, which by the way is super yummy! Made with shortening, vanilla, milk, and powdered sugar!

Icing all the cookies was simple and fun

Decorating was twice the amount of fun. I wish I just had better decorating skills. Maybe after time I will get better at this who decorating thing.

This is what 4.5 dozen sugar cookies look like once they were all decorated! I have to pack some away to save for my friends and family, even though the majority will go to Ben's unit for Halloween!

Hope you enjoy! :D