Tuna Cakes

My wife rocks. Last night in a sleep deprived delirium she came up with an amazing recipe and had to make them today. She started with one can of tuna. Nothing fancy, just good chunk light tuna. Next she added 4 green olives diced, 1 oz Gouda cheese finely diced, and then some Tony Chachere's creole seasoning and salt to taste. Mix in cooked rice and 2 eggs  the rice is kind of a judgment call. Mix in enough till it forms a nice patty and slides off of your hand easily, about 1 to 1.25 cups. Melt 2 Tbs butter in a cast iron skillet. Cook till golden brown and delicious.

Tuna Cakes:

1 can chunk light tuna

green olives to taste diced fine

1 oz. Gouda cheese finely diced

seasonings to taste

2 eggs

1.25 cups of cooked rice. We used chicken bouillon to cook it in.

Yummy Bread

Hello. I'm the wife Paul mentioned in one of his posts. He set me up as an admin on here and asked me to mess around with the layout of the blog. So the changes were my idea. If you have comments about the changes, please let me know. Paul also wants me to also start posting, so here's my first post.

Paul got a new book for Christmas called "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day." So naturally I had to try it out. Our son Alex and I baked a couple loaves of bread today and this is how they turned out.
It took us about 10 minutes to make the bread dough yesterday. We put the dough in the fridge until we were ready to bake it today. It took about 2 minutes to form the dough into loaves, let it rest for 40 minutes, and bake it for 30. We have enough dough leftover in the fridge for at lest 3 more loaves, which we will probably bake later this week.Our family really likes homemade bread. You can see what's left of the last 2 loaves we baked the other day in the picture too. The crust is chewy, but not too dry or really hard. The inside is moist, firm, and perfect for sopping up soup according to Paul.
I have problems posting someone's recipe without their permission, so here is a link to their website where you can find out more information about their book. Artisan in 5.

Potato Soup

OK I know we might die of shock if he starts posting every day, that's just the risk I am going to have to take. :) Tonight the wife wanted something Autumn tasting so I started on a soup. Now I know that properly made potato soup should have bacon but I am out of bacon, so looking around I did have some hotdogs really good hotdogs made by an instate company called Falls Brand. If you can find them in your local store then these are some of the best dogs you can get. Tonight I used the all beef dogs but the basic wieners are just as good. I started with six small potatoes cut in a large dice, I then boiled them in salted water until tender. This was the point that I realized I had no bacon so I decided I would just use chicken soup base to give it a little rich flavor, once the potatoes were cooked I realized we were out of milk (one of the hazards of having a teenaged boy in the house) but I did have evaporated milk so I just went with the flow I smooshed the taters a little just a couple jabs with a potato masher, then I dumped in one can of evaporated milk, one bag of  frozen corn, and the chicken base I then filled the pot with about 2 quarts of water. I had prepared a roux earlier with a 1/4 cup of butter and 5 tablespoons....ish of flour and a little chopped onion I added the roux to the simmering pot. then I found the hotdogs SCORE I cut up 8 dogs into the pot and let it simmer for about 30 minutes and this is how it turned out.

Not to bad if I say so myself. :) Half the soup was eaten tonight the other half is for my wife's lunch. Next time I am going to have some good homemade bread for this soup.

Stir Fry my way

Well I guess it is time to post something.....OK anything. I decided tonight to make a stir fry, so I cooked some white rice in chicken base(I like flavor and plain rice just wouldn't cut it tonight) and heated some good country ham with green beans and peas and a little onion.

I then added the rice and a little soy sauce and there you have it quick easy stir fry and since I had less than 3/4 cup of rice on my dish I didn't break any diabetic rules.....BONUS! This disappeared very quickly and I might have to make it more often now that my wife saw how quick and easy it was.

I will try to post more regularly I just forget the camera when I cook.

Wiener boats (done by the wife)

I came home to one of my favorite dishes prepared by my vivacious wife. It is a really simple dish but I like simple food once in a while.
You simply take one package of wieners (or your favorite sausage) split them and top them with mashed potatoes and cheese. bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes and serve with your favorite veggies.

I like butter on my beans.

Indian tacos

OK time for some fun with re-fried beans. Take one pound ground beef, brown and drain, mix in your favorite taco seasoning. Then take one batch of re-fried beans and mix that into the beef mix. Next make the Navajo fry bread with the following recipe.


* 3 cups all-purpose flour
 * 1 tablespoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/2 cups warm water
* Oil, for frying
Sift flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. 
Add warm water till dough starts to ball up.
Knead dough on a lightly floured surface, be careful not to overwork.
Place in bowl and refrigerate 30-60 minutes.
heat oil to 350 degrees.
Roll baseball sized pieces out till they are about 1/4 inch thick, place in oil and cook till golden brown then flip and cook other side till it is golden brown total time is about 3 minutes depending on thickness of dough and temp of oil.

Top fry bread with warm meat and bean mix and lettuce and tomato.
This is a great comfort food and I love when I can make something from scratch for the family.

Basic Chicken soup

No photos with this one I'm afraid (forgot to grab the camera). The wife wanted some soup today cause she has a cold, so I decided to make the best thing for a cold, chicken soup (nice aren't I).
It all started with 1 chicken roasted and picked. Then I added whatever frozen veggies I could find (corn and green beans) 3 carrots sliced, 1/8th cup dehydrated onion, and 3 Tbs of dehydrated celery, 1 jar of canned taters and 2 quarts of homemade chicken stock. Seasoning was simple salt to taste and pepper and just cause I could some smokey chipotle Tabasco sauce and some poultry seasoning. Now if this was June or later in the summer I would have it in the dutch oven on my gas stove, but it is cold out here so I threw it all in the 6 quart slow cooker and let it simmer all day threw in some egg noodles about 10 minutes before serving and there you have it chicken soup Ala lazy cook.