Kidd's Ring

I love using my crockpot on cooler days.  And come fall, I get really excited about Soup Season! :)  I've started tutoring twice a week and it's easier to have a quick meal ready to go soon afterwards, instead of having to whip something up.  As I was planning the meals for the week {doesn't happen often, folks!}, I remembered this yummy crockpot Minestrone recipe.  I knew it would be perfect for Monday night!  Hope you enjoy it as much as we do! Joyce's Minestrone makes 6 servings 3 1/2 c beef broth 28 oz can crushed tomatoes 2 medium carrots, thinly sliced 1/2 c chopped onion 1/2 c chopped celery 2 medium potatoes, thinly sliced 1-2 garlic cloves, minced 16 oz can red kidney beans, drained 2 oz thin spaghetti, broken into 2 inche pieces 2 tbsp parsley flakes 2-3 tsp dried basil 2-3 tsp dried oregano 1 bay leaf Combine all ingredients in slow cooker.  Cover and cook on Low 10-16 hours or on High 4-6 hours.  Remove bay leaf and s...

Summer has come, gone and come back to Vienna.  YAH for a warm return! :)  On summer days, it's the best to have a yummy, veggie salad.  Who wants to spend time cooking and making your home warmer than needed (esp. here in Europe where we don't have AC!)??  No. Thank. You.  So I thought I would share some of our favorite salads that we are currently enjoying or have enjoyed in summers past.  May you come to love them as we do! :)     This recipe is a new one and it was definitely worth it.  I will be making it again sometime soon.  Thank you, Pinterest (from this website)! :) Bacon, Tomato, Avacodo Pasta Salad 6 slices bacon, chopped and cooked until crisp 1/2 pound pasta 1 c cherry tomatoes, halved 1 avocado, pitted and sliced Dressing 1/2 c mayo juice of 1 lemon 1/2 tsp salt and garlic powder 1/4 tsp white pepper 1 tsp dried dill Cook the bacon and dab the oil away.  Cook the noodles to pac...

Ever since I've gotten my new camera, I've been wanting to do a photo challenge.  I thought I'd give March a shot {disclaimer, it may only last until the 19th or so and take a brief break, because we're off on a long journey! so excited!!}.  Sorry, it's starting a day late as well ... could be worse, right? :) 1. L is for ...  little one that i LOVE so much  2. i made this! blueberry muffins

I was excited to see crescent rolls on sale the other day.  They are not the cheapest things to get here.  I have some really yummy looking recipes though that I wanted try, but haven't yet because of the crescent roll price.  So when I saw them on sale, we got a couple of cans!  Last night was the first experiment with them ~ Chicken stuffed crescent rolls { recipe here } ~ they were quite tasty, yet I thought some kind of spice was missing.  Sadly, I'm not good at figuring out what that spice is.  If you make it, let me know what you decide.  Hubby liked the way the looked and enjoyed eating them as well.  It was a tiny bit time consuming, but fun eating something slightly different than we normally eat.  Bon appetit!

... you can find the recipe here ... ... happy weekend ...

These days I haven't felt much like cooking.  But being pregnant and all eating is VERY important and so I've had to find ideas and inspiration on figuring out what's for dinner ... usually I head over to pinterest.  Today I thought perhaps I would make a pizza from my pizza board on pinterest. I came across this bbq chicken pizza and thought that sounded really good.  I decided to go the extra mile and make my own crust, too.  Homemade pizza crust is just so yummy!  I took a trip to the store and got all I needed and was ready to go.  So after a nap, I tackled dinner ... well, once I got to the barbeque sauce part of the recipe, I realize that I had a problem.  My America bought sauces were ... ahem ... quite expired ... BUT thankfully the recipe I was following had a recipe on there!  Phew!  And I could get all the ingredients {here another sigh of relief}! However, I did have to make one more store run - which thankfully is NOT far away...

Recently I've been wanting something other than toast or sweet things for breakfast...I need variety every once in a while.  So I went to one of my favorite websites {Pinterest, of course!} and looked around on my breakfast board to get some ideas.  These Breakfast Cups caught my eye.  I even had bacon in the fridge already...some frozen hash browns...and plenty of cheese.  Felix did have to run to the store to get some eggs though and a few more hash browns. They were easy to make, not so easy to clean up though.  The muffin tin is still waiting to get that good scrubbing in.  I'm hoping the longer it soaks the easier it will be ... even with spraying the tin, the eggs just leave a huge mess. They are quite tasty though...perhaps next time I wouldn't add a whole egg to one.  Some muffin cups were overflowing, plus afterwards I felt really full, but maybe that's just part of being pregnant, who knows! So here's how you can make them: ...

A long time ago, I wanted to make a dessert with oreos and am just now getting around to it.  Today we have our final goodbye picnic with school people and I was excited to sign up for a dessert and finally use my oreos! :) They turned into an Oreo Cheesecake ... yum!  It's so rich and can only be eaten in small portions.  How do I make it so it doesn't get that huge crack down the middle?  So sad... Here's the link where I got it from.

It's so great to be feeling well enough to cook and plan meals again and to blog about them!  Tonight I decided to try another pinterest recipe and it was a success!  It didn't take too long, was easy to make and was quite tasty.   Taco Pasta 1 pound ground beef or turkey 8-12 ounces medium pasta shells or other small dry pasta shapes 1 small onion, chopped (about 1 cup) 1 clove garlic, minced 1 (14 oz.) can diced tomatoes with mild green chilies, drained (if making this for kids you might want to use just plain diced tomatoes) 1 packet (4 tablespoons) taco seasoning 3 ounces cream cheese 1/2 cup sour cream 1/4 cup chopped cilantro Salt and pepper Bring a large pot of water to boil. Cook pasta according to the package directions. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of pasta water. Set aside. Meanwhile, in a large skillet or sauté pan, cook the ground meat over medium-high heat until no longer pink. A few minutes before the meat is cooked through, a...

Oops ... somehow this post did not upload.  So here we go a bit later than expected. :)  Earlier this week, a work colleague gave me a slice of her homemade bread.  It was so tasty that I asked her for the recipe and then made it on Saturday.  It's a super easy one (once you find all the healthy ingredients, that took me a while, since things aren't always that easy to find over here).  It doesn't have to rise ... the annoying part was scratching the dough out of the mixing bowl and into a loaf pan.  Between two meals and a few snacks here and there, Felix and I ate over half of it in two days!  I think adding honey would make it really tasty, too.  It reminded me of the Honey Oat bread that Subway has, which I LOVE!  I may have to try that sometime...any ideas on how much honey I could add? Irish Soda Bread 3 1/2 cups whole meal flour 4 tbsp oats 3 tbspwheat bran (or wheat germ) 1 tbsp flaxseed (I actually left this out) 2 tb...

This cake is a favorite of mine because it's so easy to make and so delicious! It's a German recipe, so all the measurements are in grams. I tried using the internet to convert the measurements....some you may have to do. I should just re-measure next time I make it. :) For the dough: 250g cream 250g sugar (about 1 1/3 c) 1 tsp vanilla 4 eggs 500g flour (about 4 to 4 1/2 c) 1 tsp baking powder a dash of salt For the glaze: 125g butter (about 1/2 c) 250g sugar (about 1 1/3 c) 1 tsp vanilla 4 tblsp milk 200g almonds (grease for the cookie sheet) Preheat the oven to 390 Fahrenheit/200 Celsius. Mix cream, sugar, vanilla and eggs together. Add the flour and stir well. Mix in baking powder and salt. Spread the dough out evenly on cookie sheet that is lined with parchment paper or greased and floured well. Bake for 10 minutes. In the meantime, make the glaze by mixing softened butter with the sugar, vanilla and milk. Add the almonds and stir gently. Take the cake out and spr...

A dear friend showed me a recipe blog this week and promptly found a recipe I HAD to make!!  They turned out really good!!  Enjoy! what happens when you clump it all together, since it doesn't stick for a cookie shape! Here's where you can find the recipe .  I didn't use allspice, since I don't think you can get it here.  Instead, I used a tiny bit of nutmeg.  Seemed to taste fine to me!

Recently, I've really enjoyed baking. Almost every week, I've baked a cake or muffins. It's so much fun! Here's this week's bake: Early on in the week, I bought bananas and of course we weren't fast enough in eating them. A friend's blog was recently about a banana muffin recipe and it looked so tasty that I decided we'd have to use our sad looking bananas and make banana muffins on the weekend. Friday night, I made the batter and then Saturday morning, all I had to do was put them in the muffin tin ... super easy!! They were sooo tasty - I highly can recommend using this recipe for your spotty bananas! pre-bake post-bake ... they REALLY blew up! Felix really enjoyed them, too. This is definitely a recipe to keep ... enjoy! I can't wait for breakfast tomorrow to eat them again! :)

homemade poptarts .... yum!! The jam ones got a bit messy. Nutella is the middle row and cinnamon sugar top row. Here's the recipe - her's are much prettier than mine!

Last night for my surprise birthday party, I made these super delicious oatmeal everything bars (thanks, Rachel, for the recipe!).  I was asked to share it, so in honor of Stacey, I thought I would post them here!   Oatmeal Everything Bars 2 cups flor 2 cups oatmeal 1 1/2 cup butter 1 1/2 cupe brown sugar 1 tsp baking powder 1 or 2 pinches of salt (i think i forgot these last night! oops! it still turned out good though.) chocolate chips caramels or caramel sauce - Melt the butter and add oatmeal.   - Mix brown sugar and clour and then add to butter.  - Add chocolate chips, after the butter has cooled down though!   - Melt the caramels.  - Spray a 9x13 pan and then crumble the mixture in the pan.  Cover the pan and pat down. - Drizzle the caramel sauce or melted caramels on top.  - Make 2 layers of this.  - Bake at 180˚C or 350˚F for 20 minutes and then let them sit and harden.     Then enjoy the juicy goodness!!!! :D