Corn Chowder

4-6 medium Yukon Gold potatoes
1 tsp. onion powder
1 T. dill weed
1/2 cube butter
1 can sweet corn
1 can creamed corn
2 cans cream of chicken soup
2 cups milk (sometimes I do less, depending on the consistency you like!)
6 sliced cooked, crumbled bacon (I like it a lot without the bacon also)

Chop the potatoes into cubes (they don't need to be peeled) and place them in a large pot. Add the butter, onion powder & dill weed and cook the potatoes on medium heat for about 15 minutes. Add both cans of corn (including the juice) into the potatoes. Add the cream of chicken soup and the milk and simmer on medium heat for another 20-25 minutes. Before serving, sprinkle the bacon into the soup. Serve it with rolls or in a bread bowl.

Black Beans

This goes great with the Cafe Rio pork or the shredded beef.

• 2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 1/3 cup tomato juice
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons fresh chopped cilantro

In a nonstick skillet, cook garlic and cumin in olive oil over medium heat until you can smell it. Add beans, tomato juice, and salt. Continually stir until heated through. Just before serving stir in the cilantro.

Green Chili Shredded Beef

Ok so this isn't really what the beef looked like, but I feel like I have to publish a picture to entice you all to make this. That being said, I think that I just made the tastiest meal I have ever made. The flavors just went together so well. It basically is similar to Cafe Rio's because I used the rice and beans recipe from them. Then I just kind of made up this shredded beef, and it was all so divine. You can eat it as a burrito, as a salad, or just plain, it is delicious.

1 - three pound rump roast
2 cans diced green chilies
1 can petite diced tomatoes
1 sliced onion
1/2 c beef broth
1 T chili powder
season to taste

Put your defrosted roast in your crock pot. Dump in the chilies, onion, tomatoes, and beef broth. Let it cook on low all day, I would say at least 8 hours. You want to cook it until it is tender enough to flake apart. After I shredded it I added garlic salt, season salt, and chili powder and let it cook for a little bit longer. Serve with the cilantro lime rice and black beans and it is heaven. It makes a lot so either expect a lot of leftovers, or invite someone over to share.

Olive Garden Pasta e Fagioli (copycat)

Ok so I went to Olive Garden last night and finally tried the real version of this soup, and this copycat recipe tastes exactly the same. I love them both, and the best thing is that this is a really simple recipe to make especially if you were to buy your carrots already julienned.

Olive Garden Pasta e Fagioli

1 pound ground beef
1 small onion, diced (1 cup)
1 large carrot, julienned (1 cup)
3 stalks celery, chopped (1 cup)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 14.5-ounce cans diced tomatoes
1 15-ounce can red beans (with liquid)
1 15-ounce can great northern beans (with liquid)
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
1 12-ounce can V-8 juice
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 pound (1/2 pkg.) ditali pasta

1. Brown the ground beef in a large saucepan or pot over medium heat.
Drain off most of the fat.
2. Add onion, carrot, celery and garlic and sauté for 10 minutes.
3. Add remaining ingredients, except pasta, and simmer for 1 hour.
4. About 50 minutes into simmer time, cook the pasta in 1 1/2 to 2 quarts
of boiling water over high heat. Cook for 10 minutes or just until pasta is al dente, or slightly tough. Drain.
5. Add the pasta to the large pot of soup.
Simmer for 5-10 minutes and serve. Serves 8.

Enjoy with garlic bread sticks and you will be in soup heaven. Does anyone else think that Olive Garden's bread sticks used to be more garlicky and better?

"Lion House" Roll Recipe

This comes from the Lion House Cookbook, and it is my favorite no-fail roll recipe for homemade rolls, cinnamon rolls, or Samoan Pani Popo aka Coconut rolls. This is a long post, but includes most of the instructions for 3 different types of rolls. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do!

2 Tbsp. Yeast
2 C. Warm water
1/3 C. Sugar
1/2 C. margarine (melted)
2 1/2 tsp. Salt
5-6 C. flour
1 egg

Combine yeast and water for 5 minutes. Add all other ingredients, but only 2 c. of flour. Beat until smooth either by hand or in a mixer. Add flour 1/2 cup at a time to mix in well until the dough is light but not sticky. Do not over mix or dough will be tough. Let roll dough rise covering the bowl with a towel so it won't dry out until it is 2 times it's original size. Then punch the dough down and roll it out to 1/2 in thick and cut out rolls (triangles for crescent rolls - dipped in melted butter, circles or squares for fold over rolls -dipped in melted butter, or roll into snake like ropes and tie knots for bakery rolls) or roll dough into 2" balls and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet or casserole dish. Let rolls rise in a warm moist environment until 2 times their size. You can do an egg white wash over the rolls to make them shiny if desired prior to cooking. Then cook at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Brush with melted butter when they come out of the oven for a golden moist finish.


For variations, I make cinnamon rolls and roll the dough out to 1/2" thickness in a rectangle shape pour melted butter over rolled out dough, then top with brown sugar and white sugar, cinnamon, chopped walnuts, raisins or any other topping of your choice. Then roll dough into a long log. Using dental floss or thread slide it under the roll and bring edges together making 1"slices. Place slices in an ungreased baking dish and let rise until 2 times their size, then bake as directed above. Once the are out of the oven Top with first layer of cream cheese frosting, once cooled frost again. The first layer of frosting helps to keep them moist and not dry.


Pani PoPo Samoan Coconut bread is delicious with this roll recipe as well. You make the rolls as directed above rolling them into balls. You will need 1 can of "Coconut Cream" which is usually available in most stores, if not you can make your own by mixing 1 10 ounce Can coconut milk, 3 Tbsp. Sweetened Condensed milk, 3/4 C. Sugar mixed together. You can make these one of two ways depending on how you like your rolls. You can bake the rolls and in the last 5 minutes of baking you can pour the coconut mixture over the rolls and finish baking. Or you can pour the coconut mixture over the rolls before baking and bake it with the rolls the entire time. Either way it makes for a wonderful treat. These are often eaten as a breakfast roll in Samoa, but we love to eat them as a dessert.

Jello Poke Cake

This is one of the yummiest cakes there is, it is super moist and very easy to make! I've seen it done in cupcakes as well as 2 layer cakes with different color Jello like red and blue for 4th of July.

1 White or Yellow cake mix
1 small package of Jello, your flavor choice
1 c. boiling water
1/2 c. cold water
1 container Cool Whip

Prepare cake as directed in an oblong cake pan. Cool cake in pan for 15-20 minutes. Poke cake with fork or toothpick to make small holes all over the cake makins holes 1/2" - 1" apart. Dissolve Jello in boiling water. Add cold water to Jello then spoon over the cake slowly so the Jello mixture soaks into the holes. Chill at least 1 hour in the refrigerator. Top with cool whip and fresh fruit of your choice or decorative toppings.

Shish-Kabobs

1 Pound Meat of your choice (chicken, steak, etc.)
1 Green Pepper
1 Red or Yellow Pepper
1 Onion Chopped
1 Cup Grape Tomatoes
1 small Zucchini

Cut meat into 1" bite size pieces and marinade in meat marinade prior to making Kabobs. Chop vegetables into 1-2" bite size pieces and if desired make an additional batch of meat marinade and place veggies in marinade separate from meat. Take skewers and if using wooden skewers place them in water for 10-20 minutes to soak them to avoid them burning while cooking. Then Alternate meat and vegetables onto skewers. Then cook on BBQ grill until meat is done.

You can also make variations to this making just meat kabobs, or just veggie Kabobs, and you can add different vegetables according to your taste. We love to do fresh pineapples kabobs as well, the grilled pineapple is wonderful as are grilled shrimp kabobs. Be creative and enjoy the BBQ season!

Meat Marinade

This is the best Marinade for meat, I use it on chicken, beef whatever kind of meat I need to marinade. We use it to marinade meat for BBQ'ing and grilling shish-kabobs or for meat fondues. It is very yummy and the credit goes to my mom who passed it on to me.

1/2 C. Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tbsp Sugar
2 Tbsp Vinegar
1 clove Garlic minced or 1/8 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp fresh ginger or 1/2 tsp ground ginger

Mix together in a ziplock bag and marinate meat for 1-24 hours in the refrigerator prior to cooking meat.

Sausage Soup

1 lb sausage browned (jimmy dean or similar)
3 stalks celery diced
1 small onion diced
2 medium potato's diced (bite size)
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese
2 cans cream of celery soup (cream of chicken will work too)
2 1/2 cans of water

Brown sausage, add celery and onion to cook down until soft. Add potatoes, canned soup and cheese. Mix until melted. Add 2 full cans and one 1/2 can of water (the cream of soup can). Simmer on the stove for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or put it in the crock pot on low for 6-8 hours. Salt and pepper to taste.

Cafe Rio Look A-Like

So for any of you who live in Utah or Arizona who have ever heard of Cafe Rio, you will enjoy this. My mom gave me a bunch of xerox copies of recipes that people have tried to copy cat the recipes that the stores use to make their addictive meals from. So tonight for my brother in law's dinner we decided to try it out, and so I made the recipe's that follow. It actually turned out pretty good, the pork wasn't quite as good but everything else was great because you could add as little or as much of whatever you wanted to. It took some time, but it was very yummy and well worth the effort, especially when the comments came in from my company who was eating it. So enjoy!