A Hamburger-Helper AHA! Moment

On busy nights  . . .

Hamburger Helper is nice and easy to throw together. The recipe just requires beef, water, and milk - that is, if all you want is a pasta that tastes almost the same as any other flavor!

 

But have you ever paid much attention to the “Add Your Own Twist” section on the back of the box?? 

I never thought much about that section before, sometimes because we didn’t happen to have those ingredients and sometimes because I didn’t feel like the extra bother. But the other day, we DID have the  ingredients and I DID have the time. So I “added that twist” and then....

And the finished bowl of pasta tasted just like we were eating bacon cheeseburgers for dinner! Which got me to thinking ... what if those suggestions on the back are actually the way the pasta’s SUPPOSED to be made?!

Mexico! Lime Salmon, Tacos, & Churros

 

Mexican Salmon recipe:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/38025/mexican-salmon/

On Monday night Christopher & I had lime salmon with mashed potatoes, Tuesday night was busy so we just had frozen pizza and kale-cranberry salad, Wednesday we did tacos with a pound of ground beef and a taco dinner kit from Walmart, and we’ll do churros sometime soon since we decided to watch Frozen 2 with Little Bit right after dinner yesterday. 😉 

Mexican flag for today's art project!

Steak (leftover), Corn Pudding, & Swiss Cake Roll

It had been too long since I'd eaten corn pudding! Aka corn casserole. Thanks to Christopher's cousin Jessica for sharing this recipe. It tasted great! But I must have done something wrong  since it didn't exactly set like it was supposed to. ;)

https://unsophisticook.com/creamed-corn-casserole/?pp=1&fbclid=IwAR11W_Yz84KqdNRaF0XxwGzqpBtVPMTE-nSQMjk-ogijoGZfi9Hrmbkoymo

Then Little Bit wanted to make cake, so we made a Swiss cake roll together. It was a weird day in the kitchen for me, though - cause our Swiss cake roll didn't really resemble traditional cake texture, but was more like a Little Debbie cake, lol.

https://dinnerthendessert.com/chocolate-cake-roll-swiss-roll/?fbclid=IwAR3C0sT8hmOf8jCVRHKx0438NiVV9wijnLq9s1dhzckP3bF-mcvqP9OrZcw

 

Leftover Steak from our Family Cookout

Corn Pudding

Little Bit spreading leftover coffee-flavored icing on the "Little Debbie" Swiss cake roll

Steak Night

Here’s the recipe Christopher uses to make his delicious steaks! Psst, it includes COFFEE. 😋 

 

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/grilled-new-york-strip-steaks-5232389

Prepped and ready to go!

My man at work 💕

While Levi and I watch 👀

Family photo time!

Steak

Garlic bread (made from everything-flavored hot dog buns)

Grilled Eggplant

Switzerland! Chicken Casserole, “Coffee” Cake, & BircherMuesli

All my life, I dreamed of studying a country a week with my someday family. And wouldn’t you know it, God saw fit that our home would come with a huge world map on one of its walls!

So far we’ve studied Peru (Christopher’s 2018 mission trip), Burundi (my 2012 mission trip), and Papua New Guinea (trying out recipes for a friend who was preparing to host natives). Now it’s Switzerland week!😊 Switzerland is very special to Christopher & I because it was one of our honeymoon destinations - after our wedding in April 2019, we flew to Paris for a few days & then rode a train to the Swiss Alps. 

And since we had some leftover chicken in the fridge along with a few mushrooms & a few sweet pepper slices & a few slices of Swiss cheese, I fixed a small batch of this cheesy chicken casserole for dinner the other night. 

https://ourtableforseven.com/2014/12/swiss-cheese-chicken-casserole.html

Little Bit loved helping with the French vanilla cake we made to use up a little of the huge bowl of coffee-flavored icing that was produced when I tried to make coffee whipped cream using only instant coffee instead of the necessary instant coffee crystals. Lol

https://www.misshomemade.com/frenchvanillacakerecipe.html

https://youtu.be/DOCl57TQTeQ coffee whipped cream

And last but far, far, far from least - this Swiss Power Muesli was our favorite breakfast food served every day at our hotel near the Matterhorn in Zermatt, Switzerland. Except, it wasn’t exactly this - but this is the closest we’ve come so far in our attempts to mimic that delightful dish! When I emailed the hotel staff to request the recipe, they were very sweet & generous with a list of the ingredients, lol. 

Oat flakes, milk, sugar, yogurt natural (kefir?), apricot jam, grated apples, grated pears, pressed orange, pressed lemon, orange estates (bio - ie, orange peel), and lemon estates (bio - is, lemon peel).

Like, okay great! What do I do with that?

Then I found some kind of actual recipe (https://www.facebook.com/toscareno/videos/148703419867151/), but the resulting concoction was just incorrect when we first tried it yesterday morning - it was too thick as well as hardly sweet enough or fruity enough. But when Christopher added a little grape jelly and a little honey this morning, that made it much closer. 

I’ll keep working on it! Maybe next time we can get even closer by combining the two “recipes.” 😉

Because This Should Really Be a Cooking Blog

Right?!

We can talk about the pregnancy journey with Levi being the size of different fruits and vegetables.

I can share all the new recipes I find and cook as brand-new dishes or else use to refurbish leftovers.

We could explore the international food journey my family is taking now, in studying a new country every week.

And perhaps best of all? You know how annoying it is when you find a recipe online and have to scroll through the  cook’s entire kitchen history before finally locating the actual recipe at the bottom of the super-long article? Well, I’m not gonna do that. When I post a recipe, I’ll post the recipe. And then if I want to say something else, I can say that afterwards. But I know that when you’re looking for a recipe, you want to see the RECIPE, lol. 🤣

Well, so there’s my introduction for this new endeavor. And now it’s off to dinner with my family!

P. S. If you have any recipes you’d like to share, or any that you’d like me to try out for you, please let me know at naomilyn_h@yahoo.com. Thanks!