Goat Cheese and Kale Tortellini...With Bacon!

Tonight the hubby had to work late. Thankfully, that isn't a normal occurrence for our family and this one comes on the end of a week off. Typically when hubby is out, I don't bother making a big dinner. Despite the fact that only one person is gone and 5 of us remain, dinners when he's gone usually are of the chicken nugget variety.

So tonight I pulled out good old Costco tortellini. I love that stuff. Comes in a handy two pack and freezes really well. I also pulled out a jar of marinara sauce I had in the fridge (also from Costco, just saying). That jar ended up going back into the fridge, unused.

You see, Mommy here wanted some "grown up goodies" on my pasta so I pulled out goat cheese and kale and then found some good mushrooms and red peppers in the fridge. So my kids are a little strange and as soon as I pulled out the kale all swarmed around eating it. And I'm the weird mom saying "quit eating all my kale!" Haha.

I totally planned on making one batch for me with all the veggie goodies and a simple version for the kids, but as it cooked they all gathered around commenting on how good it smelled (even my slightly more picky 9 year old son). 

To be fair, I added bacon and these kiddos can't say no to bacon.

I decided to skip the marinara and give the kids the good stuff. And they scarfed it up and all actually completed me on it (nothing like hearing, "Mommy, this is so yummy! Thank you!" to make you feel good about yourself). Then when Hubby got home late, he went to the fridge and swooned over his reheated leftovers. It's one of those moments you just want to soak in and remember. Everyone loved dinner! Yay!!

So here is the recipe! Did I mention this came together in less than 30 minutes? I can't guarantee that your kids will be excited about goat cheese and kale, but you never know. There is bacon....

Goat Cheese and Kale Tortellini

Ingredients
1 package cheese tortellini
5 slices bacon, chopped up
1 cup kale, torn into pieces
1 red bell pepper, diced
5 mushrooms, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup goat cheese
1/2 cup starchy water from cooking the pasta
Basil, cut in strips
Salt and pepper to taste
*Red pepper flakes if you like it spicy

Cook pasta according to package directions. Retain 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Drain pasta.

In a large skillet, saute bacon until crispy. Remove the bacon bits to a paper towel to drain but leave the grease in the pan.

Add in the mushrooms, kale, garlic, and red pepper. Add salt and pepper to taste. Sautee for a couple of minutes until soft. Add in goat cheese and water and stir until all melted together on med-low heat.

Toss in the tortellini. Garnish with bacon and basil. Eat up and enjoy!

Marbled Cake with Strawberry-Rhubarb Filling

Guys, my hubby and I agree that this may be the best cake we have ever had. I am super critical of everything I make but I'm telling the truth. It's soooo good. I made it on a whim the other day. Some of my kids prefer chocolate and some vanilla, so I made it a marbled cake. I had some rhubarb given to me by a friend and strawberries that had seen better days. Then my youngest son asked for whipped cream frosting. All this together=amazing cake-ness stuff. The cake is rich and moist. The tang from the rhubarb cuts the sweetness of the cake. And the frosting is light and compliments wonderfully.

So here is the recipe! Hope you love it.

Marbled Cake with Strawberry-Rhubarb Filling

For the chocolate cake:*

• 1/2 cup (1 stick or 115g) unsalted butter
• 2 ounces semi-sweet baking chocolate
• 1/2 cup (42g) unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch processed)
• 3/4 cup (95g) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup (50g) packed light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup (120ml) buttermilk
• 
  

• Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Grease and flour a 12 inch springform pan.
  2. Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave, stirring to melt. Check on it every 30 seconds or so. 
  3. In a medium sized bowl, toss the cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together until thoroughly combined. 
  4.  In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla together until smooth. Add the butter/chocolate and whisk until smooth. Add half of the flour mixture, then half of the buttermilk. Repeat. Try not to overmix. Batter is quite thick.
  5. Set aside while preparing the vanilla cake batter.

  
  
• For Vanilla cake batter:*

• Ingredients:

  • 1 and 3/4 cups (200g)  flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup (115g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
  • 3 large egg whites, at room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup (120g) full-fat sour cream at room temperature
  • 1/2 cup (120ml) whole milk at room temperature

  Directions:

  1. Whisk the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. Set aside.
  2. Mix the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beat until creamed together. Add the egg whites, vanilla extract, and vanilla bean. Beat until combined, then beat in the sour cream. Slowly add the dry ingredients. Slowly pour in the milk until combined.  The batter will be slightly thick.
  3. Into the prepared pan, take large spoonfuls of each batter and alternate scooping in chocolate, vanilla, etc, until all the batter in used. I used a large ice cream scoop. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

  
  
• For the Strawberry-Rhubarb filling:
• 1. Chop rhubarb and strawberries into smallish pieces.  You will need about 5 cups chopped fruit. Throw them into a heavy-bottomed pan along with 1 cup of sugar and a pinch of salt. Stir to combine. Cook over medium-low heat until it boils and rhubarb is soft. Quickly stir in 1/2 cup of cornstarch, making sure not to let it clump. Boil for 2-4 minutes until very thick. Set aside and let cool.

For the Whipped Cream Frosting:

In a small bowl, dissolve half a packet of unflavored gelatin with 2 Tablespoons water. Set aside. Whip 2 cups heavy whipping cream with 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla until stiff peaks form. Take the gelatin and microwave for 5 seconds. It should turn into liquid. Slowly, while still beating the cream, pour in the gelatin mixture. 

Assemble the cake:

After the cake has cooled, slice in half lengthwise. Pour the strawberry-rhubarb mixture over the bottom of the cake. Top with the other half of the cake. Frost with the whipped frosting. Refrigerate until ready to use and refrigerate any leftovers. 

Enjoy!

-Christa



*cake recipes based on Sally's Baking Addiction. 
PS, Sally's Baking Addiction is amazing. Everything on there is freaking fantastic.

The One and Only Bread Pudding

Hypothetically, let's say someone finally opened up the vacuum sealing Food Sealer and was having way too much fun using it.

"Oooh, it's so easy!"
" Look, all the air is coming out!"
" Nifty!"

We may be easily amused.

Back to the, ummm, hypothetical situation.

They let's say that someone vacuumed sealed freshly baked sourdough bread. And it maybe sucked all the air out of the bread.

What could be done with this bread disaster?!

Bread pudding. For the win.

My most absolute total favorite bread pudding was revealed to me by the always amazing Pioneer Woman.

Here's her recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/bread_pudding_f/

I did a couple things differently. I didn't cut my bread, but just tore it in chunks with the help of my four year old. I also don't always have pecans on hand so I use whatever nut that I do have. You can, of course, make this nut-free, but the nuts really do add something. Today I had crushed up almonds (also good on yogurt, oatmeal and many other things).  And lastly, I never make the Whiskey Cream Sauce. I'm sure it's delicious, but I never buy whiskey. Whipped cream is usually my choice but it's also amazing with caramel sauce, hot fudge sauce, or homemade apricot butter like I used today.

Make it soon. Make it often. Trust me.

Chicken Tacos

I accidentally made something absolutely scrumptious. Well, it wasn't really an accident, but it turned out so yummy that my hubby is currently scraping the last drips out of the pot with his bare hands.

I've been trying to use up what I have on hand and add in more fresh veggies (especially now that my garden is producing). And voila! Hope you enjoy!!

Chicken Tacos with Corn Zucchini Salsa
Ingredients:
For the chicken:
6-8 chicken thighs (frozen are ok too)
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 can tomato paste
1/2 a large onion, sliced
4 garlic cloves, smashed
2 Tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
Salt and pepper to taste

Add all ingredients to a pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, turn down the heat to med-low and simmer for around 1 1/2 hours, covered. Remove from the heat and let sit for 10 minutes. Shred and let sit, covered, until ready to use.

For the Corn -Zucchini Salsa
Ingredients:
Kernels from 2 ears of corn (sweet corn is recommended)
1 -Zucchini, diced
2 small or 1 large tomato, chopped
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped (green onions would be good too)
1 small poblano pepper, seeds removed and finely diced (use a jalapeno for more heat, green pepper for less)
Salt and pepper to taste
Dash of lemon or lime juice

Combine all in a bowl and mix well. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving to give the flavors time to work together.

Serve chicken and salsa on top of tortillas. We made homemade fried corn tortillas. You could do soft tacos, hard shell, however. Also good would be adding shredded lettuce, cheese, sour cream, or olives. We were content as is, but that's partially because I was too tired after rolling and frying all those tortillas to do anything else.

Hope your family enjoys this as much as mine did!

Preparing for the school year

It's mid-August. The weather has gone from no-one-go-outside to ok-go-swimming-and-bike-riding. I am looking at all of the many projects that have not been accomplished and trying to not feel like a total failure. Every year it seems that I run out of energy/money long before all my imaginary Pinterest projects have been completed. So, instead, I'm attempting to focus on the good.

I've been printing and planning and making many binders. I'm feeling a bit like Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec. Except I'm using scrapbook paper for dividers instead of specially colored tabs.

This year we'll be trying out Time Travelers for History lessons. I think all the kids will enjoy all the hands-on learning. But it does require a bit more planning on my part. But I love history and feel that it is so important so I'm looking forward to it. We'll be covering the Civil War-World War I, and possibly WWII if we have time. We'll see. I'd rather go more in depth and do WWII next year. However, my 9-year old son is really excited to study WWII so we'll see what happens.

I am following the Sonlight Core's timeline for what we learn. I love their reading choices and ways to learn history. But I add in my own things here and there-like doing Time Travelers. I can't wait to read some of the books, like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and Across Five Aprils, with the kids. Not sure if the younger ones will grasp all the concepts, but hopefully they will still gain some good insights. We are doing another year of Teaching Textbooks with the older two (3rd and 4th grade math), and Horizons/Life of Fred with my 1st grader. Planning doing math games with my pre-k girl.

Reading has been a struggle with the boys so far. I'm hoping to get my almost-6 year old son really going on it this year and praying my 7 year old owns it finally and gains the confidence to read well. It's hard to watch them struggle. It was like pulling teeth with my oldest. No, way worse than that. I've pulled his teeth, and he hated it, but reading was more difficult. But now, at age 9, he has a 6th grade reading level and reads novels for fun. That has been such a huge encouragement as a parent and teacher.

Another thing I am doing differently is switching to a block schedule. I always learned best this way and I'm thinking that I'll teach better this way too. Every morning we'll start out with Bible and verse memorization. With the younger two, I'm going to work on days of the week, months, and weather. Next, we'll either focus on geography and art, history, math, or science. Wednesdays, which are typically hubby's day off, we are going to do a short day. Hubby will be teaching German and music these days. Afternoons are reserved for field trips, PE co-op, or reading time. I'll have to write another post later on detailing how it's going. But I'm really hopeful about this right now.

I love being surrounded by all the school books and papers. I'm not always the best at not procrastinating however so now I'm trying to get everything done with a printer that only wants to print one page every ten minutes. *sigh*  I would just break down and buy a laserjet printer, except the transmission went out on our Suburban so any extra money is gone, gone, gone.

Until next time I get around to writing. :)

"For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with hi. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing." 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11

-Christa