Seasoned Potato Wedges

Dinner tonight is a sure crowd-pleaser! Everyone in the family will eat Joe's Sloppy Joes - what a blessing! Tonight they're made with ground turkey and a bit of barbecue sauce. On the side, I'm serving Seasoned Potato Wedges, which our Oldest Girl will certainly not be eating. Well, other than the one little one she has to eat in order to score dessert! But trust me when I say that unless you hate potatoes, you'll adore these scrumptious wedges.

Seasoned Potato Wedges

1/3 cup all-purpose flour 
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese 
1 teaspoon paprika 
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3 large baking potatoes (about 2-3/4 pounds) 
1 cup milk 
1/4 cup butter, divided

In a resealable sandwich bag, combine the flour, Parmesan cheese, paprika, salt and pepper. Cut each potato into eight wedges; dip in milk. Place in the bag, a few at a time, and shake to coat. Place on a greased, foil-lined baking sheet. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons butter. Bake, uncovered, at 400° for 20 minutes. Turn wedges; drizzle with remaining butter. Bake 15-20 minutes longer or until potatoes are tender and golden brown.

We dip them in ketchup and sometimes the kids use ranch.

Homemade Ice Cream

Though I am not a big fan of ice cream, my family loves the stuff. Since we don't have an ice cream maker, I have experimented over the years with sherbets, sorbets, and other recipes that don't require a maker. Today I found the perfect solution: a method for making ice cream without a machine! You can use any recipe you like using this method. Sure, it's a little time-consuming, but if you love ice cream and don't want to invest in an actual ice cream maker, this is perfect!

I can't wait to try this out!

Sunday Night Review

By request, I made calzones for this Sunday night. It's one of those things I serve that everyone loves, more or less because they can customize it to their own taste. My general routine for feeding my college people calzones is to make a double batch of pizza dough the day before. Sunday morning at church I try to find everyone I can who usually comes on Sunday evening to give them a list of calzone fillings. They mark what they want, making sure their name is on the paper. Then, on Sunday afternoon, I make up as many as I can ahead of time. To keep track of who belongs to which ball of dough on the baking sheet, I use cake decorations. A single orange star for the Tennessee fan, brown jimmies for the UGA soil expert, a blue star and a white star for the guy with the sweet blue and white Mustang, purple because it's her favorite color, etc. The fillings this week were green pepper, chicken, onion, pepperoni, ham, spinach, cheddar cheese, mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese.

For dessert I made Tiramisu and they practically licked the bowl clean!

Stretching Leftovers

For dinner Thursday night, I made pork tenderloin in a simple marinade of garlic, rosemary, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. It's one of my absolute favorite marinades for pork! After feeding my family, plus a friend who had come over to babysit the little ones (praise the Lord!), I had about a four-inch section of tenderloin leftover. Not much, but I rarely throw anything away! I'm glad I kept it because today I needed a simple dinner to come together quickly for Handsome and me. I ended up doing two different things.

#1: I NEVER fix sandwiches for Handsome for dinner. He eats sandwiches every single day for lunch: I know the last thing he wants to see on his dinner plate is a square of bread staring at him. But ... he had Dairy Queen and ice cream for lunch, so I bent my rule a bit. His dinner was indeed a sandwich: sliced pork tenderloin, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, fresh spinach, and Swiss cheese. He loved it!

#2: I didn't want a sandwich. I made pasta with my portion of the pork tenderloin. I mixed angel hair pasta, spinach, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, cubed tenderloin, freshly ground black pepper and feta cheese. I loved it!

I love taking bits of leftovers and remaking them into something delicious.

Polenta Parmigiana

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had plans for a polenta dish ... well, I finally got around to making it! It was fun, adventurous and in my opinion yummy! Handsome liked it despite the fact that it's not really his cup of tea. Naturally, the children did NOT like it, though I really hoped they would. It was a nice meal-in-one, since there are so many veggies in the marinara sauce. Salad and bread round it out nicely.

Basically, I just combined a few of my favorite elements into one dish. I made Braised Venison (cooked with onion, garlic, rosemary and balsamic vinegar), Marinara Sauce, and White Sauce (with Parmesan) and served them over a dish of creamy polenta.

If you're not familiar with it, polenta is a dish similar to grits, as it's made with cornmeal. It's creamier, though, because the corn is more finely ground. Here's the recipe I used to make this dish the other night:

Creamy Polenta

1 cup yellow cornmeal
4 cups chicken stock
1 cup whole milk
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
salt and pepper to taste

Bring the chicken stock and milk to a boil in a large saucepan. Very slowly whisk in cornmeal, stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Reduce heat and continue whisking until liquid is absorbed and polenta is thickened. Add Parmesan, with salt and pepper to taste.

I used this simple version because the other elements in my meal had so much flavor. If you were serving the polenta as a side dish you'd probably want to punch up the flavor by adding in fresh herbs, cheese, or pesto.

Thank You!

I wanted to post a quick message to all of you who've bought cookbooks:

Thank you so much!

I've had so many people buy a cookbook only to contact me later with requests for more as gifts for family and friends. It means a great deal to know that not only are y'all enjoying the books, you want to share them with others. It's also amazing to see how many times God has orchestrated events that have allowed me to share my books with people I never imagined. One example happened just today: I parked in our downtown in a spot I never intended to be, but it led to an encounter with a friend and the sale of at least 6 more books!

So, again, thank you! And keep the orders coming!

My biggest fans! Yes, they're both reading the cookbook. :)

Party Snacks

Friday night we had a get together with our college folks - a photo scavenger hunt. This was the third one we've done, and everyone seems to love it. We put crazy stuff on the list like a rotary-dial telephone, a walrus and a Disney VHS tape, along with fun bonus pictures such as "I can't believe we all fit in there!" Anyway, this year we made the finish line a surprise and they had to follow hidden clues to get there. When they arrived, we had snacks set out for them to munch on while we waited for each team to make it to the finish line.

We had eaten dinner earlier that evening, so I really just wanted to have popcorn and sweets. I made Mint Chocolate Softies and Key Lime Bites, Watermelon Sorbet, and provided a few seasoning mixes (Italian Parmesan, Cinnamon Sugar, and Spicy) for people to sprinkle on their popcorn. For punch, I mixed Fresca and orange juice and stirred in scoops of orange sherbet.