Mary Catherine Archives - Spindles Designs by Mary and Mags

Pasta with Veggie Meat Sauce

July 8, 2013 by Margaret Leave a Comment

We like simple meals at our house. Especially for our 2 year old, she is somewhat picky. One of her favorite foods is pasta. She loves it! Spaghetti is by far her favorite meal. Well, we have noticed as of late all of us are lacking in the vegetable department. I have a serious issue with vegetables, I just don’t enjoy eating them, I may go so far as to say I do not like them. So, I hide them in food as much for me as I do for Savannah. When I say hide, I mean it, I don’t like chunky sauce it gets put through the blender. As I was preparing this dish, I felt like I was putting baby food in our pasta.

I started this recipe with my family’s tradition spaghetti sauce recipe, tomato sauce and spices. I thought about it and realized, there was no reason I could not add some veggie puree to the tomato sauce before adding the pasta. We gave it shot and then realized it needed some other flavors to make it a little less blah. The result was fantastic! I could not tell I had eaten a whole serving of vegetables, my two year old devoured hers, and my husband in his usual way made yummy sounds while he was eating. It definitely no longer tasted like spaghetti, but it was a hit at our house that will be made again and again.

Pasta with Veggie Sauce

1/2 pound Ground Turkey (can be left out or more could be added)

2 cups carrots, sliced

2 cups cauliflower, chopped

1 can (8oz) Tomato Sauce
2 cups water (or beef broth)

2 tsp beef bouillon

2 tsp Garlic Powder

2 tsp Italian Seasoning

1 tsp Dry Mustard Powder

1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce

8 oz pasta
Salt to taste

1. Steam carrots and cauliflower until tender, almost overdone. Put in blender or food processor until smooth, may need to add 1/2 cup water to get them to blend together well. It will look like baby food.

2. In a 10″ non-stick skillet, brown ground turkey, drain if needed or desired. Add tomato sauce, blended veggies, 2 cups water, bouillon, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, dry mustard, and Worcestershire. Stir and bring to a boil, add the pasta and cook until pasta is tender (8 – 10 minutes).

3. If needed, add water to make sure the pasta cooks, but only add about 1/4 cup at a time. Stir and serve.

I enjoy mine with some Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top.

Mary Catherine

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Slow Cooker Freezer Meals

June 18, 2013 by Margaret 9 Comments

As a working mom it can be really hard to come home at night and get dinner on the table. Luckily as a teacher, I get to practice good habits during the summer including learning some new habits to help with the “end of the school year” dinner blues.

I have thought of this a number of times, but had never tried it, slow cooker freezer meals. Take them out of the freezer, into the fridge, into the crock-pot and dinner will be ready that evening when I get home. I decided to put this to the test to see if it really is something my family could handle and enjoy. After one successful week of having dinner already prepped and ready to eat, we have moved onto a second week. We are so enjoying the planning and preparations for a weeks worth of dinners. It has been so nice to put it in the crock-pot and not have to think about dinner at 4, because it’s usually finished by then. We have used several recipes, some are family favorites switched to slow-cooker style and others I have found on the internet.

This week’s recipes include: For all of these I let them sit in the fridge to defrost for about 24 hours.

Beef and Mushrooms:

3 lbs stew meat, cubed

2 c sliced mushrooms

1 can (10.75 oz) cream of mushroom soup

1/2 cup beef broth

1 packet dry onion soup mix

Put ingredients into resealable gallon-sized freezer bag. When ready to eat, thaw for about 24 hours in fridge. Cook on low for 8 – 10 hours. Serve over rice.

Black bean and Corn Salsa Chicken:

2 cans (15 oz) black beans

2 cans (15 oz) corn, drained

1 pound chicken breast cut in chunks
1 package taco seasoning

1 c salsa

3/4 c water

Put ingredients into resealable gallon-sized freezer bag. When ready to eat, thaw for about 24 hours in fridge. Cook on low for 7 – 8 hours. Serve over rice, with tortilla chips or tortillas, cheese, sour cream, etc.

Taco Soup:

1 can (15 oz) kidney beans

1 lb ground turkey browned, drained, and slightly cooled

1 can (15 oz) corn, drained

2 cans (15 oz) diced tomatoes (I used one with diced chiles and one regular)

1 can (4 oz) diced green chiles

1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce

1 onion, chopped
1 package taco seasoningPut ingredients into resealable gallon-sized freezer bag. When ready to eat, thaw for about 24 hours in fridge. Cook on low for 2 – 3 1/2 hours. Serve with tortilla chips, sour cream, cheese, etc.

Chicken Broccoli Alfredo:

1 1/2 pounds chicken (mine was frozen so I did not cut into chunks, it was leftover from the week before)

2 jars (16 oz) Alfredo sauce (I used light)

1 package (16 oz) frozen broccoli

1 green pepper, chopped

1 c (ish) mushrooms

Place ingredients in resealable gallon-sized freezer bag. Mix together. When ready to eat, thaw in fridge for about 24 hours, cook on low for 4-6 hours. Serve over pasta.

The originals for these recipes are from here and here.

BBQ Pulled Pork:

2 pound pork roast

1 med onion sliced

1/2 c chicken broth

Stuff for Sauce:

2 c BBQ sauce

2 tbls dry mustard

2 tbls honey

1 tbls soy sauce

Place pork, onion, and chicken broth in resealable gallon sized freezer bag. When ready to eat, thaw in fridge for about 24 hours, cook on low for 8 hours then shred the roast then add stuff for sauce and cook one more hour. Serve with rolls or hamburger buns.

This recipe I got from Margaret, not sure where it originated or if it is original.

These recipes are new to our family, but have been tried by others. We are looking forward to tasting them and adding them to our dinner repertoire. I am going through some of our family favorites and trying to find ways to put them in the freezer and in the slow cooker. As I come up with new recipes or changes to others I will keep posting and letting you know how it goes.Mary Catherine

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Gluten-Free Brownies

June 11, 2013 by Margaret Leave a Comment

As I have mentioned before, birthdays are something well celebrated in our family. For my mother-in-law’s birthday I wanted to do something special. She recently found that a gluten free diet is helping her feel better and be healthier, so to do something special I was going to have to try something new. I don’t know how to cook gluten free, I like to cook with flour made from wheat. So, as usual when I have no idea what I’m doing I called my mom and searched the internet. I found a great blog, Gluten Free Goddess, let me tell you Karina is a Goddess. I could spend days searching her site for ideas and recipes. I picked Dark Chocolate Brownies (recipe can be found here). There were things I didn’t have in my pantry in the recipe so I headed out to shop.

I know of only one “gluten-free” store in the area and it was rather far away, so I picked up most everything I needed at the local Fred Meyer. The one thing they did not have was sorghum flour, so I used rice flour instead. I went home and started baking.

They turned out beautiful! The recipe was easy to follow, all I had to do was worry that it wouldn’t work (I tend to worry like that). I let them cool and took them to the birthday party. Everyone liked them. My mother-in-law was just so touched that I would do this for her she tried to hoard them, but everyone at least got a taste. I am hoping as future events occur throughout the summer I may try more recipes or even try converting some of my own to be gluten-free, just to see if I can.

Mary Catherine

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Quilting Adventures 2

May 21, 2013 by Margaret Leave a Comment

Just after my daughter was born the quilt group we go to made me some adorable blocks to be made into a little quilt. Well, it has been two years and I have finally finished the quilt. I chose to use it as my first official quilting project, not just practice squares anymore. I found some fleece in my stash to use for a back and got to it. I was too self conscious to just go without a guide or direction so I drew pretty much everything I was going to quilt. I found that after a while, I would get impatient with myself, thinking it should be going faster. I have lots of mistakes that could be picked out and fixed, but I don’t have the patience to pick it out. In the end I was pleased and thought it turned out really well for my first project.

As the quilt is for Savannah, I put her name on it!

I did not want to stipple the entire quilt, in fact I only stippled one block. I do like how it turned out though, I may use more of this technique on future projects.

I got a little carried away with the hearts though… they are all over the quilt.

In the end, a successful adventure. Now on to the next project, so I can quilt it too.

Mary Catherine

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Quilting Adventures

May 10, 2013 by Margaret Leave a Comment

As I have started sewing more and more and making quilt tops, I decided it was time to learn how to quilt on my machine. I have quilted or helped quilt several quilts by hand,they are beautiful but very time consuming and the frames can take up a lot of space. I can’t always afford to send my quilts to a quilter either. My mom and sister both have quilted things themselves, so I decided it was my turn to try. During the Shop Hop this year I bought my free motion quilting foot, I asked every question I could think of and watched my mom quilt a few times and I was ready to try it myself.

1. I sewed together some of the pieces of fabric I got for free during the shop hop for the top. a single piece for the back, and some extra batting I had lying around.

2. Using a trick my mom taught me about keeping the back from getting too lumpy and bumpy I taped the backing fabric down before layering the other two on and saftey pinning them together.

3. I set my machine tension at 7 (mom said to… no need for trial and error here), put the dog feed things down and started quilting.

This was not the hardest thing to do, in fact it was easy and really fun! I am not the greatest when it comes to judging distances, so I used my frixon pen and drew several patterns that I wanted to try and kept sewing, I did try some stippling (meandering?) just sewing to sew and get the feel for the machine. Here are some pictures of how things came out.

I have a baby blanket I am about to put together and quilt, when it’s done I will have an update to my quilting adventure.

Mary Catherine

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