Sufferin' Succotash - Fresh and Delicious

When our youngest son was about 5 years old, I made lima beans for dinner.  He sort of came unglued and asked why we were having June bugs for dinner.  He was NOT interested in eating them for any reason.  I had to explain they were not June bugs, but lima beans and he was fine with that.  Quite relieved, actually.

We are from Indiana, and what we call June bugs are green beetle type bugs that appear in the summer.  We tied thread to them and you could fly them around for entertainment.  They were shaped like a lima bean and sort of the same color.  Hence, Tyler's consternation with what we were having for dinner.

You may or may not like lima beans.  I have always liked them.  Growing up, we ate what my mother put on the table, or we went hungry.   There were a few things I didn't like, so I didn't eat them.  After becoming an adult, I discovered that is was more the way the item was prepared than the item itself.  Squash was in that category.  My mom boiled it and it looked like scrambled eggs in the bowl.  I love it now, because I fix it a different way than my mother did.

We were at the farmer's market on Saturday, and one of the vendors had fresh lima beans - already shelled!  Yes!  I had already purchased lots of other fresh vegetables - corn, green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes - and I wanted a new and interesting way to fix the lima beans.  I found this recipe on Epicurious for succotash made in a slightly different way than what we had growing up.  Our succotash was corn and lima beans, nothing outstanding.  This recipe is REALLY good.  Here is what you need:

2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups chopped onion
salt
1 large garlic clove, minced
3 cups chopped fresh tomatoes (about 1 1/2 lbs)
2 1/4 cups corn kernels cut from 4-5 ears of fresh corn
2 cups fresh lima beans or 10-12 ounce box frozen lima beans
3 TBSP thinly sliced fresh basil

I added some freshly grated parmesan cheese.  YUM!

First, heat the oil in a large skilled over medium heat.  Add the chopped onion and sprinkle with salt.  Saute' until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes.  Add the minced garlic, stir until fragrant - about 1 minute.  Add the tomatoes, corn, and lima beans.  *This recipe called for no liquid, but I added enough to cover the bottom of the pan about 1/2 way up the vegetables.  The other vegetables didn't produce enough liquid to cook the beans.*  Reduce the heat to medium low, cover, simmer until the lima beans are tender, about 20 minutes.  Stir occasionally.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add the sliced basil.

I added some freshly grated parmesan cheese to each serving.  This is DELICIOUS!  There are so many layers of flavor rather than just boiled corn and lima beans.  Food is so much more interesting than when we were growing up.  Gotta love it!

You might want to give this a try for different and wonderful summer fare.  I think you could add some browned sausage or ground beef and you would have a fabulous one dish meal!  We all loved this recipe.  Hope you give it a try.

Everyday Donna

Things to Remember:

Succotash is a very southern staple, but originated with Native Americans.  Just a little FYI.  donna

Cheese Stuffed Manicotti Is Divine!

 Happy Tuesday, everyone.  It has been an absolutely beautiful day here in Nashville.  Mother Nature loves to tease us with 60 degree weather in mid January, but that is about to change.  While out and about today, we saw the salt trucks treating the streets with beet juice for the snow that is supposed to blow in tonight.  How can she do that to us?  Just how?  I know it's winter, and I know it's mid January, but we all really, really like 60 degree weather.  Really, we do.  And, we'll be good - promise.  Double promise, if you will only send more sunny days with mild temperatures.

I know that won't do a bit of good, but it's worth a try.  Makes me feel better if nothing else.  Tomorrow, it's going to be a high of 39.  I tried.  We'll see what happens.

Last night, our son Tyler and his roomie, Rick, came over to join us for dinner before they take off on their next big adventure.  I whipped up some cheese stuffed manicotti, (super yum), a beautiful green salad, and some crusty bread.  It was quite a hit.

Sometimes, you just need some pasta to soothe your soul.  It can be a super comfort food.  This recipe is one I have been making for years and years.  Don't know where I got the recipe, but am sure glad I found it because it is delicious.   You can make it with meat or vegetarian, whichever you prefer.

If you aren't familiar with manicotti, it is a big, fat, tubular pasta that is made to be stuffed.  The box I bought had 14 noodles in it and it fills a 9x13 baking dish.

I made this dish vegetarian for Christmas dinner for those who don't eat meat.  Our super picky 10 year old grandson gorged himself on it and he kept saying, "Grandma, this is SOOOOO good."  I couldn't have guessed after he ate the fourth helping.  That's just to confirm how good it is.  That boy won't eat much of anything and is suspicious of everything.  The good thing is this has lots of tasty cheese, big pasta noodles, marinara sauce, and meat if you want it.  I added spinach to my recipe on Christmas for some extra nutrition.

The noodles are filled with a combination of ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, and mozzarella cheese.  What could be better?  Then, it is covered with your favorite marinara sauce to which you may or may not have added ground beef or Italian sausage - your choice.  I used Italian sausage last night and it was amazing!  

Here is what you need:

1 box Manicotti noodles, cooked for about 7 minutes - you want it very al dente since it bakes in the oven

1 26-32 ounce jar of your favorite marinara sauce (I use Trader Joe's marinara with basil)
2 beaten eggs
1 and 1/2 15 ounce containers ricotta cheese
8 ounces grated mozzarella cheese, reserve half
1 fresh ball mozzarella cheese
1/5 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp salt
pinch of black pepper

Combine the eggs, ricotta, 1/2 of the mozzarella, grated parmesan, salt and pepper.  Mix thoroughly to completely combine.

Cook the manicotti noodles in boiling salted water for 7 minutes.  Remove, drain, and let cool until you can handle comfortably.  I used to fill these with a spoon and it is so hard to do.  You chase the noodles everywhere when your hands get goopy with the cheese filling!  They are super hard to hold on to.  Now, I have a nifty trick.  Cut the corner from a gallon sized zip lock bag.  Fill the bag with the cheese filling and pipe it into the noodles by gently squeezing the bag.  Start on one end and fill half way, turn the noodle and fill the other end.  This will keep the noodles from splitting if you don't overfill them.

Sorry, I could not take a picture while filling the noodles.  Only two hands and no one else was here.  Next time maybe!  You can figure it out I am sure.

Fill the 9 x 13 baking dish with the noodles by laying them side by side.  There are always two at the bottom crossways.  Just how it goes.

Brown 1 pound of ground beef or Italian sausage.  Drain if necessary.  Add the marinara sauce and combine with the browned meat.  Pour over the noodles in the baking dish.  Cover with the remaining shredded mozzarella.  We like more mozzarella than that, so I also sliced a ball of fresh mozzarella and scattered it over the sauce.  Bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit for 45-50 minutes.  Make sure the dish is covered with foil while cooking.  Remove from oven and let cool a little before removing the foil. I normally serve two stuffed manicotti at a time because it's VERY filling.  The guys ate more than that.  Go figure.

This dish also reheats very well.  We are having leftovers tonight.  Yay.  That means no cooking for me!

Give this recipe a try.  I think  you will really, really like it.  It's great for entertaining because it looks like you worked all day making it - very impressive.   I mean, you just can't go wrong with pasta, sauce, and cheese now can you?

Everyday Donna

Things to Remember:

Life is a combination of magic and pasta.  Federico Fellini

Yellow squash, Onions, Rotel and Baby Spinach Satuee'

It turned cold today with really gusty winds blowing.  A few times I thought I might have to get out my ruby red slippers.  At least the cooler weather makes it seem a bit more like Christmas.  It's hard to get in the spirit when the temperature is 70 degrees.

Grandma has been working her fingers to the bone, let me tell you.  My goal was to hand make as many Christmas gifts as possible this year.  That means I have spent a lot of time at the sewing machine making puppet theaters, seat belt pillows, super hero capes and hooded towels just to name a few things - all for the grandsons.  We also made giant bubble blowers and beautiful beaded hand held bubble blowers that will be given with really cute buckets to hold the bubbles and a bubble recipe for making giant bubble solution.  Let me just say, I will be making myself a seat belt pillow (they are awesome) and a giant bubble blower.  Who doesn't love bubbles?  There will be tutorials coming for these things, but probably not before Christmas.  I am just frantically trying to get it all done.  The boys will be receiving a few things from the store, but the majority of things are one of a kind, hand made originals.

While sewing away this afternoon, I had to think about dinner.  What we were going to have?   I decided fish sounded really, really good.  So, I put some that I had frozen in a bowl of cold water to thaw.  You can find my recipe for fried fish on my blog post of January 12, 2012.  Then there is the proverbial question of what to serve with it.

Do you stand in front of your refrigerator and look and look, trying to figure out what to fix?  Then, you close the door, walk away, come back, open the door and stand there looking and looking, like there is going to be something totally different in there?  Hopefully,  I'm not the only one who does this.  While looking in the refrigerator for the second time, I had to get serious.  Hmmmmm, there was some yellow squash, zucchini squash, a bag of baby spinach, onions, carrots, broccoli and cauliflower.  Decisions, decisions.  I chose the yellow squash and spinach and dedicated the zucchini for zucchini bread which I will be making later - recipe to follow.  Now what?

I diced up an onion and minced a clove of garlic.  I put the big sautee' pan on the stove and put a couple of rounds of extra virgin olive oil in the pan and turned the heat on.  This is one of those "wing and  a prayer" dishes which means I am making it up as I go.

I put the diced onion in to sautee' and cut the three large yellow squash into 1 inch pieces.  When the onion was nearly translucent, I tossed in the garlic and squash.  I let the squash cook until tender.  Now, how to flavor it?  I used a little salt and fresh cracked black pepper, a couple splashes of balsamic vinegar and dusted everything with grated parmesan cheese.  It was looking good and smelling really good.  Now what?  I opened a can of Rotel, drained it and added the contents of the can.  After letting that heat through, I added a bag of baby spinach and let it wilt down.  Not only was this dish colorful, it was delicious!  What a quick and easy side dish.  We all know that colorful food is good for you, full of antioxidants and vitamins.  Even better!

Here is what you will need to make this dish:

1 medium yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
3 large yellow squash, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 bag baby spinach leaves
1 can Rotel diced tomatoes and green chiles, drained
Grated parmesan cheese to taste
Extra virgin olive oil
Balsamic Vinegar to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Dinner was quick and easy tonight which is exactly what I needed.  There is one more sewing project to be finished and then hopefully I am done with that.  There are still a few other projects that need finishing, but I am finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel.  Hip hip, hooray!

Do you have all your shopping done?  Gifts wrapped?  Cookies baked?  If you do, lucky you.  Me, not so much, but we are getting there - one gift at a time.  Saturday is cookie baking day with the grandsons.

Everyday Donna

Things to Remember:

When things are hectic, you can still take time to make a delicious meal.  They don't have to be elaborate meals, just flavorful, delicious and nutritious.  Due to all the stress this time of year, it's very important to eat healthy food.