TALK ABOUT QUICK AND EASY

Well, all except the pinto beans!  Judy soaked them over night and cooked them most of the day, and man, was it worth the wait!

The trick is finding something to go with them that's quick and easy and just as yummy!

We settled on a Food City rotisserie chicken, a can of white/yellow hominy, mac'n cheese, and a big pone of cornbread!

Now, I don't care who you are, that's good eatin'! 

Yeah, it's mostly starch, well, maybe all starch, but who's countin'!?  Besides, there's protein in the beans!

QUICK CHICKEN SOUP

Life is pretty easy around the old homestead these days.  We're retired...just watching grandchildren grow up!  So, we don't put a lot of effort into big meals anymore, except for special occasions.

That's what brought about this quick-n-easy chicken soup.

Okay, so the photo isn't up to my usual standards!

Judy was tired of everything, so soup was the only thing she thought she could stomach last week.  She found some canned chicken chunks, a can of mixed vegetables, a can of hominy, some kidney beans, an onion, and a big container of chicken broth.  That's about it...except for some additional seasoning to taste!

Throw it all together in a big deep pan and let'er simmer for a couple of hours. 

Serve it with your favorite cracker, or like we did, some tasty cornbread!  Yummy!

It's no fuss, one pan, and lots of comfort food!

A TAKE ON YATSOBI!

Yep, Yatosbi, Yakisobi, or some call it Yakasobi!  What ever!

We didn't know it was called either until I wanted to make sure of the ingredients on the Internet and discovered the recipe.

Well, ours came out of a local Baptist church recipe book, and it was simply called "Beef and Cabbage"!

Yatosbi has a couple more ingredients that didn't make it into ours, and, I'm tellin' you, it's still delicious.  Don't sound delicious at first glance, but, try it, you'll like it, and want more!

Here's the traditional Yatosbi dish ingredients that we left out:

6 slices bacon, cooked and torn into bite size pieces (reserve 2 tbls bacon fat)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium red onion, diced (about 1 1/4 cup)
2-4 tablespoons light soy sauce
light soy sauce, to taste
crushed red pepper flakes (about 1/2 to 1 tsp) (optional)

It sounds good too, so you might won't to try it, especially since it has BACON...I probably will soon!

However, here's one I found on the net similar to ours, AFTER having made it from the church recipe:

Beef & Cabbage

1 lb ground beef

1 head shredded cabbage*

2 packages ramen noodles, beef flavor=crushed

3 shredded carrots

4 c. water

Brown beef and drain grease. Add remaining ingredients, including seasoning packets from soup. Cover and simmer about 20 minutes. Season to taste. *I {original net recipe maker} used 1/2 head. You can also use slaw mix, rather than shredding the cabbage yourself.

Leave the lid off a few minutes for excess liquid to evaporate.

Judy did it exactly like that, except she did add on chopped onion, and I think it made a difference!

The picture does nothing to make you want to try it, but the taste is wonderful!  

So, it's a another quick meal that even I could have made, and it does satisfy the palate!

A Vegetarian Supper For Ellen

You won't see that word, vegetarian, on my cooking blog very often, but this is one of the few that even Ellen DeGeneres might eat!

We were sitting around watching a little late afternoon TV, around about news time, when hunger pangs/pains hit us at about the same time.  We had been eating a lot of animal flesh over the previous days, so we wondered out loud what in the world we could have for supper (that's dinner to you northern folks) that didn't involve another meat sacrifice!

Luckily, Judy had been cooking greens beans since about mid-day, so one thing was ready, so, what to go with it!?

We decided on  cornbread, which  was the obvious thing to have if just beans were on the table, but something more was needed.  

She remembered buying some fresh vegetables the day before and mentioned that to me.  A vegetable meal sounded good to me, but I didn't want anything breaded and fried, at least that day!

So, while she finished up the green beans, mixed up the cornbread, put it in the oven, and cleaned up the corn-on-the cob, I busied myself washing and cutting up the other vegetables.

We had bought okra and squash for the purpose of frying up our annual "fried garden meal", but with frying out of the question, I cut the items up, mixed them in a bowl with vegetable oil, sea salt, cayenne pepper, garlic, pepper, and creole seasoning.  

Along the way, I also found one red and one orange bell pepper and a big fat onion, which also fell to my knife and all got mixed into the bowl!

I then spread them on a sheet of aluminum foil over a cookie sheet and waited my turn for the oven.

Judy wrapped the corn in paper towel and placed them in the microwave.  When the time came, a press of a button for about 6 minutes, that would bring everything to the table hot!

The oven dinger went off and out came the cornbread, and in went the vegetables; turned down to 400.  In about 10 minutes the corn was nuking, and in another 10 the broiler came on at 500 (for a little browning), and when I judged them to be fit for consumption, out they came.  They were sizzling and smelling so good!

I think we may have had another meal of leftovers, but as I write this I'm so hungry I think I could have eaten it all!  The cornbread made it all that much better...and especially with an ice cold glass of Mayfield's 1% Nuture milk!  

I sure hope Ellen at least drinks her milk!  If not...so sorry for her!