HH6 Cooking Challenge- Chicken Paprikash

I'm JUST squeezing this post in! Household Cooking Challenge is a group of bloggers. Some are married to the military, some have family in the military, or both. This months challenge was to pick a dish from another bloggers blog, and make it. I chose this Chicken Paprikash from Pictures of all my Princesses.

Doesn't hers look yummy? I am going to try it with spaetzle next time!

I was going to pull out my Spaetzle maker, but decided to use zucchini noodles instead. After that I thought, why not make it all grain free, Gluten free.There's no nuts, starches, or flour replacements either! I also added mushrooms because I love mushrooms. I really need to sit down and blog this recipe the way I've tweaked it, because it was perfect for us. I'm so back logged on blogging. Sigh.

Please don't forget to check out the other HH6 bloggers

GPAC Beef Wellington

Beef Wellington. Goodness, I've wanted to make this since before Piglet was born. Piglet is 6 years old. I remember looking at recipes and pouring over recipes. I love mushrooms, beef, puff pastry. I just never got around to making this because-

1. There are 3 of us that like mushrooms, 2 that don't (more on that later.)

2. Paté, 4 of us who either love or will eat it. One of us that won't eat it at all.

3. Cooking any steaks is hit or miss for me. I like rare to medium rare. My two youngest girls like medium rare. My oldest likes medium well, and my husband likes well done. The odds are always against me. That's why my husband does the steak around here, he's good at it.

HH6-Roasted pork with cranberry compote(s)

Oh yes, I love fall flavors. Pumpkin is my favorite, but fresh cranberries? Love those too! This is a fast and simple dish to make. Keep a bag of cranberries in your freezer for a fast weeknight meal!

HH6 - Pasta Bake

 Household 6 Cooking challenge for this month! I didn't actually follow all the rules. I was supposed to post to post pictures of my refrigerator, freezer, and pantry. The thing is. I have no real pantry. I do have a fully stocked freezer, refrigerator and pantry items. I make sauces in huge batches, marinade meats for later and freeze them. I am sure we could get by for a good few weeks if not a month or more without stepping foot into a grocery store.

So here is the challenge this month.

We all need to be prepared in the event of a disaster.  You have stuff in your pantry and fridge/freezer.  If a disaster should strike today and you have no access to going to a grocery store but your stove/grill is still working, what would you make with what you have on hand?

Note:  As soon as you open this email, take a picture of your pantry and fridge/freezer, and post the picture(s) on your blog ASAP.  Let us know via email or FB when you have done this so we can check it out. Starting on September 18th, you can post to your blog what dish you came up with.

3 1/2 cups sauce- I have batches of Our Favorite Sauce in the freezer in zip top bags
2 cups hot water- tap is fine

salt
pepper
basil
oregano
red pepper flakes
3 tablespoons butter (in my freezer and refrigerator)
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (in my freezer)
16 ounces short pasta (in my sideboard)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Put all of the ingredients except the cheese into a 9x13 baking dish. (I usually have sauce that is half thawed, so I throw it in the pan and put it into the microwave to thaw it all the way.) Sprinkle the pasta and seasonings into the baking dish. Mix it up. Pour water onto the baking dish, mix again. Top with butter. Place a piece of foil on top of the baking dish and seal it tightly. Bake for 45-50 minutes in the oven. Remove the foil, stir and check to see if the pasta needs more cooking time, keeping in mind that you'll be baking it for 10 more minutes to melt the cheese on top. Top with cheese and bake for 10 minutes more or until the cheese is light brown and melted.

My embarrassing photos of my freezer. And I have items all over so, like I said no pantry = no pantry pictures.  I have pasta, noodles, beans, bento boxes,  in the sideboard...

Some stuff.

My freezer list, which I don't always keep updated.

See? Sauce. The water is in there because we wanted to prepare for losing power during the hurricane (Irene).


Don't forget to check out the other HH6 posts this month!

http://glacial-ice.blogspot.com/
http://the-come-what-may.blogspot.com/
http://www.picturesofaprincess.blogspot.com/
http://saraplicious.blogspot.com/
http://www.sublimehodgepodge.com/
http://the-country-cook.blogspot.com/
http://petitshoo.typepad.com/food
http://cassiepuff.net/blog
http://dawnsmemoirsarmywife.blogspot.com/
http://las8704.blogspot.com/
http://txbreeze.blogspot.com/
http://katiedid127.blogspot.com/
http://mrsseamonster.blogspot.com/
http://pleasegivepeasachance.blogspot.com/
http://http/://courageisnotanimage.blogspot.com/
http://www.bitchininmykitchen.blogspot.com/
http://www.cookinformycaptain.blogspot.com/
http://thepatrioticbaker.com/
http://embracinglifeloveandlaughter.blogspot.com/
http://mygoalissimple.com/
http://thejourneyofayoungchef.blogspot.com/

HH6 Challenge- GPAC Crock pot Singapore Chicken

There's no hiding how I feel about crock pot meals. I just don't like so many of them. There are very few that I like. I do like the crock pot for cooking meat to shred, chili, stews and some soups. But for the most part things just turn out to be a mushy or over cooked dish. This months challenge from Household 6 cooking club was to create an original crock pot meal with 5 ingredients or less. Salt and pepper don't count. I'm assuming that water does not either.

I chose Singapore Chicken. I love it. Except we call it Khao Mun Gai. Literally "rice (with) fat (of) chicken". It's one of my favorite dishes my mom makes. Comfort food for sure. I have a set of pictures to blog for the original recipe and three awesome sauces. For the original version I use cilantro and spring onions in the chicken also. But that's another post. This isn't an original dish, but I've never seen it adapted for a crock pot. It may have been somewhere but it's new to me and original.

HH6 Cooking Challenge- Spring Rolls

It's already time for the Household 6 cooking club challenge! Months are flying by and pretty soon the kids will be in school again! Bittersweet.  We've been busy. With birthdays (two so far this month, one at the end of this month and one next month! We also had my sister in law and her family visiting from Uganda. It was so fun and such a blessing for the girls to play with their cousins! Summer giveaways are in full swing, one each week so far! Check out the latest one, and keep checking back for new ones! This week is the  Dropper Stopper giveaway, open until 7/22/11.  Click, enter and share!

This is my monthly challenge post for HH6.  What/who is HH6? Glad you asked! HH6 is-

Military spouse food bloggers taking on a culinary challenge/theme every month. Email saraplicious@yahoo.com to join and receive the monthly challenge/theme and blog roll.

You can find HH6 on Facebook, HERE. I missed last months cooking challenge. It was a crazy month. Wait. This month is crazy too. Sigh. I had a cool idea for last months challenge too. I have it on my to do list. This months cooking challenge 

Since it's getting hotter and hotter as we head into full summer, the challenge is to cook a meal without using heat - oven, stove, microwave, anything.  Bonus points if your meal isn't a salad!

As soon as this idea was posted I kinda knew what I wanted to do. So I started tonight's dinner. And realized I didn't have the thinnest rice vermicelli there was to have. SIGH. Remember this part, it's kind of relevant. I wasn't about to make a grocery store run so I did without. I also used frozen cooked shrimp. Not sure if that was a no no. I hope not.  DH says it's cheating, I say it isn't because I personally didn't cook them. I  made Spring rolls, Som Tom/Papaya Salad- which is a salad, but there you go, and a dipping sauce. 

Related posts-

Vermicelli Salad

Spring Rolls 
Spring Rolls Manic Monday

Egg Rolls

Nam Pla Dressing

Vermicelli Salad Bentos/Lunches

More Lunches

HH6 Cooking Challenge #3 Pizza challenge

Our May theme for the Household 6 cooking club to create an innovative pizza without tomato sauce. It's funny I don't really like tomato sauce on my pizza I always ask for very light sauce and pick a non tomato sauce when I can. I made a primal friendly pizza- though I did add cheese and the sauce has sour cream. It is a pizza with shredded pot roast, sauteed mushrooms, onions,  muenster and sliced tomatoes. The crust is gluten and legume free. The sauce is a sour cream horseradish sauce. I drizzled the sauce on top before serving. The crust recipe is one I came up with. It's pretty good for a GF crust that doesn't have standard GF flour mixes. It doesn't have a chewy bite that gluten gives so don't expect that. This crust works for me but two youngest girls didn't like the crust at all. For cheese, I love the flavor of muenster and I'm staying away from pre shredded cheeses since they have starches in them to keep them from clumping together. *for true primal/paleo pizza leave the dairy off!*

Palak Paneer and Cilantro Naan

Thanks to Brandie of The Country Cook for coming up with Household6 Cooking Club's  challenge/theme for April.  She gave us a task to create a meal or a dish from a country you have been stationed in, lived in, visited, or would like to visit (America excluded). It can be a main dish, side dish, dessert or drink or all of the above. Tell us the story of why you chose it and if it has any special meaning to you or your family.

  

This challenge was so difficult for me to narrow down. I wanted to pick so many countries. Japan, Spain, France, Thailand, Laos. I was going to do Laos then decided on India. I've never been to India, but I would love to go. Walk up and down the open air markets, the smell of spices in the air. The hustle and bustle of people, so much to see and do. So I made this meal for my family. What about you? What country would you have picked?

Indian Meal

Chicken Tikka Masala

Palak Paneer

Whole Wheat Cilantro Naan

(I also made some coconut flour pancakes so I could have some bread to soak up all juices from the meal.)

I also put out the candy coated fennel seeds- which we all love, even Pixie loves them.

HH6 Household 6 Cooking Club #1

I recently joined a cooking club. Household 6 Cooking club, it's group of military spouses that love to cook. I know what you all are thinking- wait, you're not military anymore. Well, we kind of are in a round about way :). Semantics. This cooking club/group has challenges once a month. Which sounds like fun! Here is the facebook page HERE. Once a month there will be a challenge or theme. After we've completed the challenge we blog. Seems simple right? I think this will be a challenge to me. I end up blogging whenever and whatever most of the time and I'm always backlogged. So wish me luck! 

The March challenge is to create a concept MRE. What's an MRE? A Meal Ready To Eat, read more about them HERE. The concept is just that, a concept. No need to figure out how to dehydrate or preserve, just what would you want to see in an MRE. I've never had an MRE. I've only collected the little bottles of Tabasco sauce that comes in them because DH would bring them home with him. 

What would I love to see in MRE form (besides a salad bar).

Roasted Tomato Soup
Comforting, creamy.

Roasted Leg of Lamb 
I love lamb.

Creamed Spinach

Baked Sweet Potato (real butter and flake salt)

Tiramisu- might as well right, working it off in the field right?

Standard in all MREs

Cotton Candy Multivitamin- I'm not talking about a multivitamin that tastes like cotton candy, I'm talking about big fluffy stuff. I don't even like cotton candy but it would be a fun way to take a multivitamin right? Try not to think about all the junk and nature that would get all up into this mess, and just enjoy the thought of something soft, fluffy an delicate out in the field.

Sriracha

Black, White and Spice! 
An all purpose seasoning salt I created for Love Abounds before I retired the store.

 Hot Chai
I like my Masala spices intense in chai,and ginger comforts the tummy.

Here is a list of blogs in the HH6 Cooking Club

http://buddyscookingadventures.blogspot.com/
http://glacial-ice.blogspot.com/
http://the-come-what-may.blogspot.com/
http://www.picturesofaprincess.blogspot.com/
http://saraplicious.blogspot.com/
http://www.sublimehodgepodge.com/
http://the-country-cook.blogspot.com/
http://petitshoo.typepad.com/food
http://cassiepuff.net/blog
http://highheelscombatboots.blogspot.com/
http://dawnsmemoirsarmywife.blogspot.com/
http://las8704.blogspot.com/
http://txbreeze.blogspot.com/
http://katiedid127.blogspot.com/
http://mrsseamonster.blogspot.com/