Three down and 323 to go!

Already on my first day of my year long project, I needed the pressure of having to document my time to get me to plan my menu, grocery shop and work on my first three recipes. But it worked and here's the not so skinny low-down on the day:

First, I struggled with trying to plan a meal by using the cookbook only. What was tricky was matching main dishes to side dishes and work within certain time frames and also have the food go well together. My taste panel (family) told me it all worked well what I planned yesterday, but it is not easy for me to do.

Second, this is the first time I have really tried to cook a so called simple recipe versus my usual Pampered Chef step by step recipe books. The instructions leave me sometimes wondering if I am doing it correctly. Like a read between the lines, but I am not sure what I am supposed to read in between.

So there's my disclaimers on Tuesday menu. Here's what I had decide to make:

Skillet Meat Balls Stroganoff
Green Bean Casserole
Quick Cheesecake Pie

The first recipe was the Quick Cheescake Pie. I have made plenty of Philly Cheesecakes but this is the first recipe that called for sour cream and an entire 8 oz container of whipped topping too. It ended up being really light and fluffy, yet firmed up nicely. Once assembled, the pie was so full that I could not put the lid on the pie. I just laid it on top.

Next was Green Bean Casserole. Again, this is another recipe that I have made where you put the fried onions on top. But this recipe has the secret stuff ingredient of dry onion soup mix and you top if off with bread crumbs or crushed potato chips. I went with original option of using bread crumbs.

Finally I assembled Skillet Meat Balls Stroganoff. Not my first rodeo with meat balls, but it is the first time I fried them versus baking them. Another ingredient that was unusal was mixing chopped green olives into the meat balls. I also wondered if there was an easy way to turn the meat balls so that all sides would brown while cooking in the skillet. (I just ended up using tongs, and kept rotating them until browned, then I covered them and simmered them in sauce for 20 minutes.)

My timing on the recipes were only off by two minutes but that gave me time to prepare the buttered egg noodles and have them ready to toss with the meat balls and sauce.

Once I had everything on the table, I called Tom and Jacob and then before I let them sit down I took photos of the food. I warned them that there would be no digging in until the photos were taken. Once we started the meal and the plates were getting full, the first comment from my son Jacob was "Wow!". He tried a meat ball and said it was the best ever meat ball. Tom was next and he said the dish was better than any other meat balls I prepared in the past. Each of them had two helpings of the dish. Me personally, I think how can it taste bad when there's butter, sour cream involved? But the meat ball texture was better than my usual cooking method of baking.

The green bean casserole was also well liked. We all agreed that while the bread crumbs were good, we all may of liked better crushed potato chips instead. Both thought the bread crumbs were better than using the fried onion topping.

I also served a spinach salad and once we were done eating, it felt like the kind of meal (carb coma) where you need to take a nap when you are done. I didn't eat that much. Knowing what was in the food, made me keep my portion small but it was tasty.




We took the pie to my Aunt Doris's home to visit with her and my Aunt Oatlee who was visiting from Florida. My Aunt Doris delighted in the fact that she got to keep the leftovers of the pie. Everyone enjoyed the pie and it was a light version of cheese cake. Not heavy. Tom thought it could taste more like cream cheese and I was happy with the more lighter version.

In the end, there were plenty of left overs which means if I am going to do this, I may want to have additional folks for dinner to keep the left overs from piling up. Any takers out there in Mansfield want to come to dinner?