pork tenderloin diane

Posted on January 3, 2010January 4, 2010 by Julie Stiles Mills

This recipe is surprisingly fast and easy for how seemingly sophisticated it is. It’s one of those recipes that fool people into thinking I can actually cook.

Ingredients:
1 pound pork tenderloin, cut into 8 crosswise pieces
2 teaspoons lemon pepper
2 tablespoons butter (we use smart balance)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Dijon-style mustard
1 tablespoon minced parsley or chives

Directions:
Pound each tenderloin slice, with meat mallet to 1-inch thickness
(get a kid to do this – they LOVE it)
Sprinkle with lemon pepper
Heat butter in skillet
Cook tenderloin medalions 3 to 4 minutes on each side or until fork-tender
Remove medallions to serving patter, keep warm
Add lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce and mustard to pan juices in skillet
Cook until heated through
(I love deglazing a pan, it’s like cleaning and cooking at the same time!)
Pour sauce over medallions and sprinkle with parsley

(Favorite Recipe from the National Pork Producers Council)

banana slicer for kids. and grown-ups.

Posted on July 21, 2009January 22, 2010 by Julie Stiles Mills

PinkGirl: “Mom. I’m hungry. Can I have a snack?”

Me: “What fruit have you had today?”

My kids are getting tired of this question. I always ask this question when they say they’re hungry.

Yesterday, after I asked, I listed all the fresh fruit currently in the house and when I got to banana, PinkGirl asked if she could have a little chocolate syrup to dip it in. Sure. A couple of spoonfuls of chocolate to help the fruit go down without any grief? Sure.

AND PinkGirl fixed her own snack all by herself. A few years ago I bought this little gadget.

Perfectly uniform size slices without a knife, in just a few seconds! And it’s dishwasher safe. I keep it stored down low enough for her to get it anytime she wants.

(There are other designs for banana slicers, but I like this one because the wires go all the way through the banana into the grooves underneath, and I can use it for other things like mushrooms, boiled eggs and ~~strawberries~~. – Friendly advice – don’t use this for slicing strawberries.)

UPDATE 1/22/09: These have been discontinued, but I’ve had some luck finding them. Check out my follow-up post “Get Your Banana Slicer HERE“

Find great recipes and helpful kitchen tips at Kitchen Tip Tuesdays hosted by Tammy’s Recipes! Check out MY past Kitchen Tip Tuesday posts HERE

Pragmatic Summer Recipes

Posted on July 1, 2009September 6, 2016 by Julie Stiles Mills

Kristin over at We are THAT Family is is hosting a themed edition of Works for Me Wednesday this week! Here are some of my favorite summer recipes! Click on the links for the original post and the ingredients/recipe.

Chicken Grape Salad

5 Minute Panera Wanna Be Salad

5 Minute MorningStar Burrito Lunch

Mom’s Pasta Salad

Find more ideas over at Works for Me Wednesday, hosted by Mary at Giving Up on Perfect.

Works for Me Wednesday posts prior to January 2015 are archived at We Are THAT Family

Works for Me Wednesday posts prior to February 2009 are archived at Rocks In My Dryer

easy garlic toast

Posted on April 22, 2009April 22, 2009 by Julie Stiles Mills

I used to make this garlic toast when I was a kid, using the oven broiler and I can fairly say I burned more than a few pieces of bread. Now we use the toaster oven. It’s VERY easy. Butter a piece of bread and sprinkle garlic salt to taste. Toast in the toaster oven (or place on the top rack of your oven and use the “broil” setting) Garlic toast in less than 5 minutes!

We use wheat bread and smart balance spread for a healthier bread, but this is especially good with slices of french bread too!

Find great recipes and helpful kitchen tips at Kitchen Tip Tuesdays hosted by Tammy’s Recipes! Check out MY past Kitchen Tip Tuesday posts HERE.

And click on over to check out the recipes at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday hosted by Lisa at Blessed With Grace MY past Tempt My Tummy posts can be found HERE.

Need more? Head over to Tasty Tuesday hosted by Jen at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam MY previous Tasty Tuesday posts are HERE. Tasty Tuesday posts prior to April of 2009 can be found at Forever . . . Wherever

Find more ideas over at Works for Me Wednesday, hosted by Kristen at We Are THAT Family. MY previous Works for Me Wednesday posts are HERE.

Works for Me Wednesday posts prior to February 2009 are archived at Rocks In My Dryer.

Easter Bunny Cake

Posted on April 8, 2009October 12, 2016 by Julie Stiles Mills

CLICK HERE FOR THE UPDATED VERSION OF THIS POST!

Growing up, my mom often made an Easter Bunny cake like this one for Easter. (page down for more photos)

Easy, not too crafty (thank goodness), I think I’m making one this year. Judging from the number of available photos on Google Images, I’m not the only one. Check it out:

Bake a cake, any cake, in two round cake pans. Mine will be chocolate. There is no reason for me to eat cake unless it is chocolate. Let it cool and then cut it like this:

On the serving plate (my mom always used a piece of cardboard covered in aluminum foil), CAREFULLY arrange it like this:

Then, frost and decorate! My mom always frosted it white and covered it with coconut shavings as a base. Dark chocolate cake with coconut – mmmm – just like a Mounds bar. But CAKE!

That does it. We’re making this cake.

Here’s a video and some more samples:

A Zooma Zooma Zooma Zoom!

Find great recipes and helpful kitchen tips at Kitchen Tip Tuesdays hosted by Tammy’s Recipes!

And click on over to check out the recipes at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday hosted by Lisa at Blessed With Grace

Need more? Head over to Tasty Tuesday hosted by Kim at Forever . . . Wherever!

Find more ideas over at Works for Me Wednesday, hosted by Kristen at We Are THAT Family.

Works for Me Wednesday posts prior to February 2009 are archived at Rocks In My Dryer

And I’m jumping ahead to Friday with my Would You Like Chocolate With That? hosted by Lisa at Stop and Smell the Chocolate

If you’ve got a few minutes, check out my previous chocolate posts.

voila!

Posted on April 1, 2009April 1, 2009 by Julie Stiles Mills

Busy, Busy, Busy. The only thing I like better than eating Cream Cheese Chicken is MAKING it. Soooooo easy! Dump everything in a crockpot and come back later. That’s what I’m doing today.

But earlier this week I needed something ready in 10 or 15 minutes start to finish. That’s where these come in:

We like these and they are fast, easy and fairly cheap. (We first got them BOGO.) They usually don’t have this many broccoli stems (from the Garlic Shrimp). I pulled them out and supplemented it with some frozen broccoli florets.

One bag is supposed to be a meal, but seriously. This kid can eat. So we cook two bags. Unfortunately, we didn’t have two of the same kind, so we just had shrimp and more shrimp. PinkGirl liked the Garlic Shrimp on the left. FavoriteSon preferred the Shrimp Scampi on the right. I added some more peas to the Shrimp Scampi on the right.

zero leftovers.

Find great recipes and helpful kitchen tips at Kitchen Tip Tuesdays hosted by Tammy’s Recipes!

And click on over to check out the recipes at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday hosted by Lisa at Blessed With Grace

Need more? Head over to Tasty Tuesday hosted by Kim at Forever . . . Wherever!

egg cube.

Posted on March 17, 2009February 9, 2015 by Julie Stiles Mills

I mentioned before that my kids love boiled eggs, but I forgot to mention this little gadget I found at a rummage sale for 25 cents.

UPDATE: This post has been featured on another site under the title “15 Weird Kitchen And Cooking Appliances Are Pretty Much Useless.” Of course it’s useless. It’s a novelty item. It’s fun, not functional. I paid a quarter for it. And it’s not an appliance under any stretch of the imagination.

It’s a tiny little vice-like plastic egg cuber. Seriously. It turns boiled eggs into squares. You boil the egg, peel it while it is still warm, pop it in the square shaped compartment and screw down the lid. Refrigerate for a few minutes and you get this: (okay. I accidentally froze mine. That’s why the sides are so wrinkly.)

Then, you send it to school in a kid’s lunch box or slice it in half and serve on a plate of deviled eggs and when asked about it, you make comments like, “ouch. that had to hurt.” or “I don’t know. It just came that way.” Any other suggested responses would be MUCH appreciated.

If you pop the gadget into the freezer to chill it, you can speed up the process and cube more than one before the eggs cool off too much. The cube isn’t quite as square after the egg is cool. I hope I run across another one so I can make more than one at time.

And of course, someone put a video on youtube.

I may not be able to make square watermelons, but I can make these.

Find great recipes and helpful kitchen tips at Kitchen Tip Tuesdays hosted by Tammy’s Recipes!

And click on over to check out the recipes at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday hosted by Lisa at Blessed With Grace

Need more? Head over to Tasty Tuesday hosted by Kim at Forever . . . Wherever!

Find more ideas over at Works for Me Wednesday, hosted by Kristen at We Are THAT Family.

Works for Me Wednesday posts prior to February 2009 are archived at Rocks In My Dryer

PDA Cookbook

Posted on February 17, 2009February 18, 2009 by Julie Stiles Mills

Check out my recent purchase! $29.99 for both the desktop and mobile platform! And the license allows me to load the desktop software on both my laptop and desktop computer.

I’m a LONG time Palm girl, so the mobile version, on my Centro, looks like this:

There’s also a Windows mobile version.

It even has an interactive shopping list and menu planner! My favorite part? Adjustable serving sizes that modify ingredient amounts! I can edit ingredients, add photos, assign and filter by multiple food categories and search by up to three ingredients.

It comes with over 1200 recipes. Most look pretty good (and easy), but I’ve already deleted 60+ I knew I would NEVER make. Like “Potted Tongue.” This software has everything I can think of, in an intuitive and clean interface. I’m already loving it! Check out some more reviews

I get most of my PDA software from http://www.handango.com and they almost always have an active promo code. If the ones below are expired, search for “handango promotion” and you’ll probably find one.

“APPSWELIKE” expires tonight at midnight and saves you 15%
“SAVE20NOW” saves you 20%, but I’m not sure when it expires.

Find great recipes and helpful kitchen tips at Kitchen Tip Tuesdays hosted by Tammy’s Recipes!

And click on over to check out the recipes at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday hosted by Lisa at Blessed With Grace

Need more? Head over to Tasty Tuesday hosted by Kim at Forever . . . Wherever!

Want to learn cool tips and tricks from lots of different people? Click on over to Works for Me Wednesday hosted by Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer!

fast food food, fast.

Posted on February 3, 2009February 3, 2009 by Julie Stiles Mills

Sometimes, I need to feed FavoriteSon fast. Considering what the boy can pack away and how much it can cost, I need to stock some quick, easy, cheap meals.

Meatball subs are a hit with him:

PinkGirl doesn’t like the sauce, so she dips her plain meatballs in low sugar ketchup. Frozen french fries bake up quick and again, PinkGirl goes for the ketchup while FavoriteSon opts for cheese dip.

I’ve got a few meals like this that I can pull together in 5 to 10 minutes. I’ve also made meatloaf sandwiches, turkey & gravy sandwiches and beef tip sandwiches using Hormel Refrigerated Entrees. Served with a bowl of soup or baked fries, these meals are fast, filling, inexpensive and healthier than a double quarter pounder with cheese and a large fry.

And no. I didn’t have any. Wasn’t even tempted.

Tomorrow? A family favorite. Cream Cheese Chicken.

Find great recipes and helpful kitchen tips at Kitchen Tip Tuesdays hosted by Tammy’s Recipes!

And click on over to check out the recipes at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday hosted by Lisa at Blessed With Grace

Need more? Head over to Tasty Tuesday hosted by Kim at Forever . . . Wherever!

knife kapoosh

Posted on January 13, 2009October 25, 2016 by Julie Stiles Mills

About three years ago, I mentioned to a few people that I needed some good kitchen knives. The next Christmas was . . . very sharp. I got knives from my dad, my in-laws and FirstHusband.

Great knives – every one. Especially my favorite – the ceramic knife FirstHusband got me. (second from the left). The problem was that they didn’t match.

Then, walking through Bed, Bath & Beyond one day, FirstHusband found THIS:

Looks like a plain old knife block. Look closer.

It’s called a “Kapoosh ” (amazon product link) and it holds any knife, no matter the size.

To clean it, you just remove all the knives, turn it upside down and the plastic part comes completely out. I just wipe it down, fan it out and pop it back in. Kapoosh!