What’s for Supper? And Make it Easy, please!

 

 

I know…. most of you are going to say ~~~~ “SOUP???”  Has the lady lost her mind?  It’s the middle of summer!

Well, we had this meal a few days ago and YES, it was soup weather!  I was wearing jeans and a light jacket!  We have had a crazy summer and lots of cool, rainy weather.

 

Anyway, back to my meal!  Keep this soup in mind for an easy summer meal or perhaps in the fall.  It is DELICIOUS  ~~~ and soup, salad and a muffin are often my favorite things to order for a summer lunch at our local restaurant.

As you can see this soup is from Trader Joe’s.  Mr. Brown Socks and I both really love it.

 

I mixed up these delicious strawberry muffins.  Don’t worry, I’ll share the recipe.

 

The recipe stated to mix in the blender, but that means I would have to go downstairs for the blender!  How lazy of me.  My food processor was just sitting nearby and worked just as well.

 

 

 

These really had great flavor and went together fast.

 

 

 

 

We have had an excellent crop of lettuce in our garden this spring and summer.  With the cool temperatures it has continued to produce.  In a hot season, the lettuce would bolt and would be bitter.

 

I love going to the olive bar at the grocery stores and adding a variety of olives on our salads. Yum….feta cheese, mushrooms, tomatoes and cukes round it out.

 

My muffin recipe comes from this cookbook, The Best of Cooking Light.  It’s a good one.  I found it at a thrift store for around $3.00 or so.  There are many recipes I have marked to try already!

 

 

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Strawberry-Orange Muffins

 

1 1/4 cups halved strawberries

3 T. butter, melted

2 t. grated orange rind

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 t. baking powder

1/2 t. salt

Cooking Spray

2 t. sugar

1/2 c. strawberry jam (optional…I did not use)

 

Preheat oven to 400*

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a blender and process just until mixture is blended.  Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife.  Combine flour, 1 1/4 cups sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Add strawberry mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until mixture is moist.  Spoon the batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray (I used paper liners).  Sprinkle batter evenly with 2 t. sugar.  Bake at 400* for 20 mins. or until muffins spring back.  Remove muffins from pan immediately.  Serve muffins with jam if desired.  Yield 1 dozen.

 

 

Easy Pezy and we were full. 

I’m glad you stopped by!!

 

Donna

Final Tablescape for Women’s Meeting

 

Are you tiring of this ongoing Tablescape Meeting my sister in law Connie and I hosted a few weeks back?  We decorated so many tables I decided to share this fun evening over a three week period. 

 

In case you have missed the other posts here and here, Connie and I decorated eight tables ~~ some small little bistro tables ~~ and two full size tables to share with our friends.  This was a salad supper that we turned into ideas for setting tables. We end up the year in May and we will start back up again in the fall with our monthly meetings.

 

Everyone brings a salad and then someone usually offers to collect the recipes so we have copies of all the various salads each person brings.

SO Typical ~~~ I forgot to take a picture before we started the salad line.  There was a wide variety of salads this time.

Here are two guests just before they left full of food and friendship.

 

 

This is the last Tablescape to share with you.

Connie and I chose our solid colored faux Fiesta plates for the main table because we had the most place settings for matching purposes.

The extremely vivid color scheme was just what we needed for the end of a long winter and a big hello to Summer.

The table was most festive!

 

We did a little mixing and matching of salad plates since we didn’t have quite enough of one pattern.

The salad plates, glasses and napkin rings are from Pier 1.

 

Red silverware is from JC Penneys

Red and Gold napkins were thrifted as was the

tablecloth.  Don’t you love the fabric for the tablecloth?  I think it was just a yardage of fabric someone pieced together.  On the tag at the thrift store it stated it was a bedspread but I seriously doubt that’s what it was used for.  It’s very thin.

 

The centerpiece was extremely last minute.  We went down to my work room, took a big basket and loaded it with colorful faux fruits and veggies.  Some faux red berries, a couple of extra napkin rings for bling and interest, some reindeer moss and my sweet little “fruit fly” worked together very well in the center of the table.

 

 

We lined this open metal basket with reindeer moss and just piled it high with colorful things.

At the very last minute, we decided to perch the bird off the side.  The oversized bird added a bit of whimsy.

 

 

 

Since the salads are always pot luck I decided to make little sandwiches so we had a little protein.

 

 

 

 

 

Curried Chicken Tea Sandwiches

2 cups cubed, cooked and seasoned chicken

1 medium unpeeled red apple, chopped

3/4 cup dried cranberries

1/2 c. thinly sliced celery

1/4. c. chopped pecans

2 T. thinly sliced green onions

3/4 cup mayo

2 t. lime juice

1/2 t. ( I used more) curry powder

lettuce

Directions:  In bowl combine first six ingredients.  Combine mayo, lime juice, and curry; add to chicken mixture and stir to coat.  Cover and refrigerate til ready to serve.  Cut each slice of bread with a 3” cutter.  Top with lettuce and chicken salad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for joining me today to see the final chapter of our Tablescape Meeting.  I hope I’ve inspired you to do lots of mixing up with your dishes, table linens and napkins AND to share your creations with friends.  Our friends truly seemed to enjoy the evening, walking around looking at all the different things we put together at each table.  It also gave Connie and me an opportunity to share some of our favorite dishes that we’ve either had for awhile or have picked up with our new thrifting hobby!

 

I am linking up with Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday

and

Michael at Designs by Gollum for Foodie Friday. 

I’ll meet you over there!

 

Donna

Runzas

 

Are you familiar with these sandwiches?

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a Runza.  This old German specialty is not found in many areas across the United States.  Even though the fast food restaurants are nearby our area I still like to make them from scratch  from time to time. 

Runzas are a mixture of hamburger, onions and chopped cabbage tucked into a delicious yeast roll.  You can’t beat the homemade version.  Some people like to add cheese, or sauces, mushrooms, etc. but I like the original version (recipe below) served with lots of mustard.  Most other people like ketchup too.

Dough:

2 c. warm water

1 egg

2 pkg. yeast

1/2 c. sugar

1 1/2 tsp.salt

1/4 c. melted and cooled butter

6 1/2 c. flour

 

Filling:

1 1/2 lb. lean hamburger

1/2 c. chopped onion

3 c. shredded cabbage

1/2 c. water

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

Dash  of Tabasco

1 t. or more chili powder

 

Before we begin, let me give you a couple of hints about baking with yeast.  I would imagine there are lots of you who use yeast frequently while others are intimidated by any recipe with the word “yeast” in it!

Make sure your water is just warm…not hot. I sprinkle the yeast over the warm water and sprinkle the sugar on top.  Just let it sit for a few minutes and pretty soon you will see some action going on. 

 

 

 

 

Another hint when baking with yeast is to bring your egg to room temperature. If you didn’t allow time for this step, simply place the egg in a bowl of warm water.  It will warm to room temperature in the time it takes to measure out the rest of your ingredients.  The reason you don’t use an egg just out of the refrigerator is because the cold temp could slow down the yeast activity.

 

 

 

 

 

Mix water,  yeast, sugar and salt; stir until dissolved.  Add egg and melted butter; stir in flour.

 

 

It will look like this to start with.

 

Knead til shiny.

 

  Let rise til  double in size.  Roll dough into an oblong shape and cut into 18 squares.

 

Combine all meat ingredients while dough is rising, simmer for 15 to 20 minutes and drain grease. 

 

 

Dump out the risen dough and you are ready to begin putting the sandwiches together with the meat mixture.

 

 

 

 

 

Divide cooled hamburger mixture between the squares. Pull the 4 sides up and press edges together.

 

 

Sorry this picture didn’t turn out well.  This shows me pulling all four sides together to seal.

 

 

 

 

Place on greased cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes at 350*

.

Today I’m joining Michael for Foodie Friday.  You will find great recipes at her blog, Designs by Gollum.  I always find lots of cooking inspiration from there.  I know you will too.

 

Also joining All Things Domestic Party!

Sweet Rolls for your Sweetie

 

Or perhaps for you and a girlfriend

 

Easy Orange Rolls

Recipe from Southern Living

 

1/2 (8 oz) pkg cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp. orange zest

1 (11 Oz.) can refrigerated French Bread Dough

2 T. granulated sugar

1 T. butter, melted

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 T. orange juice

1.  Preheat oven to 375*.  Beat cream cheese, light brown sugar, and orange zest at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth.

2. Unroll French bread dough onto a lightly floured surface.  Spread cream cheese mixture over dough, leaving a 1/4” border.  Sprinkle with granulated sugar.  Gently roll up dough, starting at 1 long side.  Cut into 11 slices.  Place slices in a lightly greased 8” round cake pan.  Brush top of dough with melted butter.

3.  Bake at 375* for 25 to 30 mins. or until golden.  Stir together powdered sugar and orange juice in a small bowl until smooth.  Drizzle over hot rolls.  Serve immediately.

 

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I used Pillsbury’s Crusty French Loaf bread

 

 

Just unroll and flatten out

Spread the cream cheese mixture on and the sugar.  Leave about 1/4” uncovered.  This is so you can press the dough together and it will seal nicely.

 

 

Roll it up nice and long

And cut the rolls.  Sorry the picture is so washed out. I use dental floss.  Thread works well too but I love how dental floss cuts the rolls, twist and pull!   I even used cinnamon flavored! LOL!

 

Place the rolls next to each other in an 8” cake pan. 

Next time I would make my rolls just a little larger even though I might end up with one or two less.  The size was a little skimpy to me.

 

I would still prefer a nice batch of yeast homemade rolls but these were really pretty good for fast.  You can’t beat the time and effort that went into these.

 

Set the table with some pretty red dishes.  These happen to be some old Avon ones I’ve had for about thirty years.

Light a candle too.  I am pretty sure I do this more for me than for Mr. Brown Socks.  It makes any meal seem special.

Hey, where’s the grapefruit picture?  I know we had grapefruit too….oh well, insert grapefruit in your visual…Add some eggs and a cup of coffee and this makes for a slightly (ever so slighty) romantic Valentine’s breakfast.

 

Today I’m linking up to

Between Naps on the Porch

Little Round Table

Designs by Gollum.

I love visiting both of these blogs and always come away with great inspiration for tables and food.

Debbie at Confessions of a Plate Addict came up with a pretty good solution for my porcelain cat mystery on my last post.  She quoted from someone who had visited a Hummel factory in Germany and this is what was said ~~

"Each figurine has a hole somewhere. The hole allows gas to escape from the inside of the figurine. Without the hole, the figurine would burst, breaking other figurines in the rack."

  Thanks Debbie! Makes sense to me! 

I always appreciate your visit to 47th Street.

Donna