New Menu Monday – Page 4 – Annie DeMoranville

Monday Menu: Mexican Rice (Arroz Rojo)

I’m traveling again. When I return, we’ll dive into Thanksgiving recipes….

Rice and enchiladas photo from the JeffreyW collection

I had a very specific craving this past week. I wanted an authentic Mexican rice, like you find on the side of your plate at a great family Mexican restaurant. I went searching for recipes and found two. I’ll post the videos and then the ingredients list. The key really does seem to be frying the rice. That step would explain why my previous attempts always fell flat.

Monday Menu: Chili Mac and Corn Muffins

It’s one of those weeks where I know I have many busy days ahead and dinner is not something I want to think about. This is one of those quick and easy meals that is also very satisfying.

Yummy photo from JeffreyW

This menu is from my Kids Night series. I loved chili mac as a kid, and it’s still one of those quick comfort foods I make when it needs to be easy and tasty.

Chili Mac photo from JeffreyW’s collection

Chili Mac

12 oz elbow macaroni (or try something fun like radiatori or farfalle shapes)
2 tsp olive oil
½ onion, diced
½ green pepper diced
1 lb ground beef
14 oz can diced tomatoes
15 oz can kidney beans
1 tsp to 2 tbsp chili powder
¼ tsp salt
pepper to taste
2 qt. saucepan, skillet

Monday Menu: Final Harvest and Soup Time

Expecting our first hard freeze this week. It’s been cold enough that the tomatoes have stopped ripening, so it was time to bring them in. I picked about six pounds, and I expect more than half to ripen, more if I’m lucky.

With cold weather and tomatoes on the mind, it seemed the perfect time for soup!

Monday Menu: A Fall Favorite

Since I discovered using a cast-iron skillet method for making apple crisp, that’s been my go-to. Cooking the apple mixture on the stove changes everything. The apple mixture has time to become soft and syrupy before adding the topping and baking at a higher temperature.

And this week I had a few apples I needed to use before they went bad. I think I made one of my best apple crisps.

Here’s what I added to the recipe below: caramel sauce spread liberally over the cooked apples before I added the crisp. I also grabbed the jar of pumpkin spice and added about two teaspoons worth while cooking the apple mixture.

Monday Menu: Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am an avid watcher of B. Dylan Hollis’s cooking videos. If you haven’t seen one, you are missing out, and there is no way I could explain the joy they bring. I’ve added the video of this recipe at the bottom of this post.

A few days ago, one of his old ones popped up in my feed, and I knew I had to make the recipe. I made a few changes, mostly adding bacon pieces because I thought the recipe was crying out for them.

The other change I made, was to default to my traditional Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies measurement. One pound of bacon renders one-half cup bacon grease and that is the amount of butter for a half-batch of my cookies. I felt Dylan’s recipe (he is always faithful to whatever old recipe he finds) was too much flour for the amount of fat.

Here’s what I did: