Idea Queen Tips & News

Yesterday was my son’s birthday, so it was his choice on what we made for supper. I thought he’d say tacos since mom’s taco meat is his absolute favorite (move over Taco Bell!). Much to my surprise he said “pasta”.

I knew exactly which type he was talking about, because it’s the one we make the least. Usually when I make pasta it’s fettucini or mac and cheese. Those are the only two my daughter will eat (I don’t know what’s wrong with that child - she doesn’t even like spaghetti!). But since it was his birthday, he picked the one pasta dish his sister doesn’t like.

I actually love this recipe, and jumped at the chance to make it again. The last time we made it was clear back in December, so yeah I was excited. It came out pretty good too, and we cooked it the same way we did last time (See Angel Hair Pasta Recipe).

He was happy, although we had to pry the pot from his hands and convince him he really should use his own bowl. It’s rather funny to watch him scarf this pasta since he’s normally such a picky eater!

This tip was sent in by Cassandra, one of our visitors, and is an idea for leftover mashed potatoes and vegetables. Sounds like an excellent idea!

When I have leftover mashed potatoes or baked potatoes and vegetables I make shepherds pie. I make one big enough to feed 6, and most always I make 2 of them because my family of 3 will eat one a day if they could. 2 cups leftover (or freshmade) mashed potatoes Mixed vegetables (or any veggies) 2 Carrots sliced 1 medium onion diced 1 can Chicken and Rice Soup 1 pound hamburger 2 tbsp steak sauce Shredded cheese (optional) salt and pepper to taste In small/medium pan begin to sautee carrots and onions in butter In separate pan brown hamburger and season with salt and pepper Once carrots and onions are tender and hamburger is browned, add steak sauce to hamburger mixture, stir untill well mixed, then add one can of Chicken and Rice Soup (concentrate only, no water). Mix well, then add the carrots and onions and any other vegetables you like. Pour into an 13×9 baking dish, or deep sided casserole dish (make sure you spray with cooking spray) then top with mashed potatoes and shredded cheese (optional) Bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until heated through and potatoes are slightly browned on top. Serves 6 with hearty portions.

Yum!

Need some dessert ideas for Mother’s Day? Now of course us moms don’t want to be spending the day in the kitchen, so we need something easy for the kids (and the dads) to do on their own.

See Kid and Dad Friendly Treats for some fun ideas. Not only will it keep them out of your hair so you can relax, but you’ll have some tasty treats made for you!

Mother’s day really isn’t far away - this year it lands on my mom’s birthday (May 11th). That’s less than 2 weeks away! This holiday always sneaks up on me since we are usually busy figuring out my son’s bday which is always up to a week before Mother’s Day. But this year I’m on it with plenty of reminders, so let’s hope I don’t forget!

These are so easy to make and so yummy that I rarely buy frozen anymore. In fact, I prefer this easy recipe over frozen ANY day. I have to be in a pretty lazy mood to actually buy them!

I start with a package of wingetts, which is basically chicken wings in pieces, and I deep fry them. Whatever way you plan to cook them, just make sure they are fully cooked before moving to the next step. Adding the spice REALLY doesn’t take that long, so it’s very important your chicken is cooked.

Next, melt a tablespoon or two of butter in a pan on medium low. Add hot sauce to the pan once the butter is melted. Mix it up real good, then add the cooked wings. The amount of time you leave them in the pan is going to depend on how hot you want them. The longer you leave them in, the hotter they get. To get a nice coating, you’ll at least want to fry them for 5 mins on each side.

That’s it! Just three ingredients total including the chicken and you are done! Now of course you’ll probably want to dip them in blue cheese or ranch, so add that to the grocery list too if you plan to make these. But how easy are they? Love it!

Enjoy!

So I cheated. Normally I make my own buns for various sandwiches, but the other day at the store I decided to just buy the package of buns and be done with it.

It’s always puzzled me why they come in packages of 8 though. Sure it’s great for when you’ve got company and your grilling (although who only buys ONE package when you’ve got company?). But what if you are just feeding a family of three? Why can’t buns come in different number of packages? Or dare I say INDIVIDUAL packages?

Luckily it’s going to work out this time, and we may just be able to eat them all before they go bad. But this will be a first I haven’t had leftovers or not enough. The only reason it’s going to work out is because I’ll be using 2 tonight, then 3 and 3 the rest of the week. That’s ONLY because my son is currently in another state with his dad, and it’s just me and my daughter for supper tonight. He comes home tomorrow, and we’ll end up having hamburgers two nights in a row just to get rid of those buns.

I guess if you have a family of 4 it might work out if you eat two different meals that require buns during the week, but who wants to plan their meals around buns? It’s quite annoying I think, and wishing they had smaller packages. Or maybe I’ll just quit complaining and go back to making my own, so I have total control over the number we have on hand.

Thoughts?

This idea came from another recipe I found for chicken breasts, because I’m always on the lookout for good chicken breast recipes. While the original recipe called for chicken breasts, we decided to cut them into strips. Mostly because the chicken was still slightly frozen. Oops! It still came out pretty good.

Basically all you do is roll the chicken in ranch dressing, then roll it in bread crumbs. Then you fry it in oil in the skillet on medium heat. Yup, that’s it! The kids loved it despite the fact I let it fry a little too long (my fault for getting distracted and not watching it like I should have).

We’ll have to add this to the list of ideas for fried chicken recipes since it was pretty tasty!  I’m sure you could easily turn it into a baked chicken recipe too if you wanted to cut the fat.

This recipe was sent in by one of our visitors. I know buns are not something we generally have in the house, but we always have a pound or two of hamburger in the freezer. This recipe requires just a tad bit of planning, since you’ll have to get it ready the night before. However, it sounds absolutely delicious!

No Bun Fun
by Nikki Eddt

Ingredients:
Hamburger meat
Bacon
Onions

Want a yummy hamburger but forgot to buy buns? Marinade your meat the night before (worcester, s/p, garlic, etc.) Make patties and wrap uncooked bacon around with toothpicks. Place in aluminum foil (onions are also good on top) and bake for desired cooktime at 250-400 degrees. Place on place with yummy side dish.

More easy hamburger ideas can be found on Idea Queen.

Well this is new. This is the first time we’ve ever had sausage leftover. Luckily as soon as I realized I was cooking too much, I knew what to do with it.

For supper last night we had breakfast. You know, hashbrowns, eggs, and sausage. The last time I made this, I only used half of one of those tubes of raw sausage. Well, last night I forgot and made it all. Oops! I knew it was way too much and there was no way we’d eat it all.

Although I knew immediately what to do with it - make pizza! For some odd reason, my daughter’s favorite pizza is sausage where as mine is pepperoni (unless I’m making the “mountain pizza“, then just about anything goes). So I informed her the next night for supper we’d be having her favorite.

Really there’s just about enough to make it a pizza topping, so it turned out pretty well. The kids are getting somewhat tired of my pizza, so I think I’ll make a smaller version of it tonight with just sausage and pepperoni. That way everyone will be happy, and we’ll be using up that leftover sausage.

What do you do with leftover sausage when there’s not enough for everyone?

Last night we had a family favorite - Graziano’s hot sausage sandwiches with homemade buns. While this “brand” of sausage you can only get in central Iowa (it’s a special blend from an Italian grocery store in Des Moines), you can still use any kind of Italian sausage. We just prefer this particular kind over the others.

The buns, on the other hand, anyone with a bread machine can make. It’s actually our favorite roll recipe that I’ve dubbed “Tabi’s Awesome Rolls”. I’ve posted this recipe before when I spent the day playing with my bread machine. Turning them into buns for hot sausage sandwiches is pretty easy.

Basically we made them just the way we always do, but added Italian spices to the mix. Someone once told me to add garlic last because it doesn’t let the dough rise, so that’s what I did. Once the dough was mixed and ready to be rolled out, I added the garlic to the top with a little bit of olive oil and cheese.

When you make these at home, expect them to get a little bigger when you bake them. They always surprise me and get larger when I bake them. I always think “hmmm I wonder if these are going to be big enough?” when I roll them out, and they always are slightly TOO big. So when you roll them out, flatten them down just a bit so they work better as a bun.

This roll recipe has also been used to make buns for other type of sandwiches including homemade breaded tenderloins (DELICIOUS!). It would also go good with cold sandwiches or hamburgers as well.

Yum!

We are not big milk drinkers in this house. It’s not uncommon for us to not get through a half gallon of milk before it goes bad. Most of the time we use it only for cooking.

Since we don’t always have milk on hand but I still cook a lot, I had to come up with a quick solution for substituting milk on occasion. Well, I finally figured it out.

Powdered milk works very well, and it’s something I ALWAYS have on hand (I make quite a bit of bread in my bread machine). The other day I had a recipe that called for 3 tablespoons of milk, so I use 1 tablespoon powdered milk with 3 tablespoons water. Perfect! So now I know to use 1/3 the powdered milk as the recipe calls and mix with water (the box also says to make one cup of milk you use 1/3 cup dry milk with 1 cup water).

While generally I want to use “real” milk in my recipes, sometimes I just need a quick fix so I don’t have to run to the store. Best of all the dry milk won’t go bad sitting in my fridge for a week!