Grown-Up Grilled Cheese

I don't/won't eat Kraft singles. Whoever coined the term that it was America's favorite lied! It's gross. Because I hate Kraft singles with such a passion, I tried to come up with a way to join Joshua's favorite food with my tastes. These are cooked just like a normal grilled cheese. On your stove with butter on the outsides of the bread. Basic, just with a twist. This was my recipe for it:

2 slices of bread
Plenty of butter
About 5 slices medium sharp cheddar cheese (from a block of cheese!)
A few pinches of garlic salt

It's the basic set up of a normal grilled cheese, we just use cheddar cheese slices and some garlic salt.
Butter outsides of bread. Place cheese slices (laid out in perfect symmetry, of course!) inside sandwich.
Sprinkle garlic on the side you first drop on the skillet. Once that side is dropped, then sprinkle the other side that way once it's flipped, it's already got all the salt necessary. I like a lot of salt so I just shake until I see enough.
Flip as soon as the other side gets a little crispy.
Voila! Grown-up grilled cheese. For those that have better taste than the icky Kraft! lol

One of our other grown-up grilled cheese favorites is from this link. It involves apples, cinnamon and cheese :) Delicious.

The other variation that I've discovered is using mozzarella cheese, pizza sauce and pepperonis. Yum!!

Cresent Stuffed Crust Pizza

One thing that Joshua and I eat a lot of is pizza. Frozen or fresh, it doesn't matter to us. One little experiment we tested was to roll out cresent rolls and use it for pizza dough.
Ingredients:
1 can cresent rolls
1 package string cheese per can of rolls
Jar of Pizza sauce (there will be plenty left over so get the jar kind so it can be resealed)
3/4 cup of cheddar or Mozzarella cheese
Toppings if desired: Ham, canadian bacon, pepperoni, etc.

On a cookie sheet, lay out the non-rolled up rolls. Keep them nice and flat. Lay them so that they form a big rectangle. On each cresent roll there are perforated lines, so make sure to 'seal' them up so your sauce doesn't run.
Cut each string cheese in half, longways. Place the two halves at the top of your pizza dough and roll the dough over the top of the cheese just enough so that it won't let the cheese bubble out.
Cook at 350F for about 4 minutes. Just enough to get it started cooking.
Take dough out of the oven and smother it in pizza sauce, cheese and whatever toppings you desire! Put back in the oven for another 5 minutes or so. It will be slightly brown and toasted when it's finished. It was slightly crumbly since the cresent rolls are flaky but the crumbles were delicious.

Mountain Dew Cake

For those that don't know, Mountain Dew is Joshua's all time favorite drink. In fact, it's almost the ONLY thing he drinks. If there aren't Mountain Dews in the fridge, sometimes he will drink a coke or maybe a glass of tea, but it's just never good enough for him. Mountain Dew cake is a delicious version of a lemon cake! A friend of mine from here in Korea gave me this recipe. It belongs to her mother. Thanks for the recipe, Ashley :)

Ingredients:
1 box of lemon cake mix
1 box of lemon pudding
1 12oz can of Mt Dew
3 eggs
3/4 cup of oil
Combine and bake in bundt pan for 40 minutes at 375F.
After 10 minutes, it's safe to remove the cake from the bundt pan.
When cake is only slightly warm, ice cake.

Icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 TBSP Water
1 tsp Vanilla
Mix together in sandwich bag, cut the tip and drizzle on the cake.

I couldn't find lemon pudding in our little px here so I just used one of the little premade cups of vanilla pudding. To supplement the lack of lemon in the pudding, I also squeezed some lemon juice from a fresh lemon in to the bowl. And of course, the cake was perfect. I couldn't stop stealing bites as I was trying to serve it to Joshua's friends! It doesn't necessarily tastes like Mountain Dew, it just has it in it. We loved it.

Granny's Pink Stuff

My first recipe to share is one of the easiest things ever. Seriously. This is my granny's recipe for 'pink stuff'. It's essentially an ambrosia salad. When I was small, they kept telling me the name of this junk and I couldn't ever remember so eventually I just kept saying "I want some of that pink stuff!"...well the name stuck. It's my favorite thing in the world.

1 can Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk
1 can crushed pineapple (make sure to drain it so the juice doesn't water down the salad)
1 small can mandarin oranges (I made this alteration- granny's originally has no oranges. Make sure to also drain oranges.)
1 smaller container of Cool Whip
1 can strawberry (or cherry) pie filling
*Optional: Coconut and/or pecans

Mix with a spoon, chill and serve!

The kids in our family (aka me and sometimes my little brother Bradley) are picky... REALLY picky, so granny doesn't use coconuts or pecans. We love pecans, but she just keeps it strictly fruit for us! And I don't mind it one bit!
When I made this, I used fresh whipping cream and whipped it myself. It turns out just as well and maybe it's a tad bit fresher or healthier, but hell- when you throw in sweetened condensed milk, you kinda throw away any healthiness. We tend to use strawberry pie filling. I'm not a big fan of the 'fake' taste of the cherry pie filling, but I've had it both ways. It's good no matter what.

See? What did I say. Easy Peasy! Just make sure to drain the oranges and the pineapple!

Fourty-Seven

I've decided that I am going to add recipes to our blog. Recipes that I love (or that Joshua loves...or that his friends and family/my friends and family love!) with alterations or notes (and possibly even pictures!) to go along with them.
I always try to make the title of the blog post coincide with the number of posts total. This is my ONE (or maybe seven) exception(s).

xoxo,
Hannah

Fourty-Six

^^This is a picture of me and a few of my students from the place I volunteer with on Thursdays. These girls are super fun.
Things have been busy here in the Delp house. I have continued my volunteer work 3 days out of the week on top of making sure that the house is taken care of (for the most part at least ;)) and making sure dinner is cooked/prep'd. I juggle all of this on top of Joshua's crazy schedule of "Oh, I have to work late" and "We go to the field in 3 days". It's quite the juggling act, but all fun for the most part.
I have been trying my hand at different foods. I've made garlic bread sticks, homemade cresent roll stuffed crust pizza (Yes, it IS as good as it sounds! Yum!), different kinds of pigs-in-a-blanket, what I like to call "grown up grilled cheese", and just today I tried my hand at homemade butter. I got my hands all gooey and buttery for the cause! It looks good although I haven't gotten the chance to try any!
Last Monday, I made homemade lasagna. It was good! And it made SO much more than I thought it would so we invited some of Joshua's friends over to eat with us the next Wednesday to help us clear the leftovers. Boy did they eat! They ate the entire 9x13 pan of lasagna, devoured about 20 bread sticks and about half a bowl of my granny's pink stuff for dessert (my favorite-and so easy to make, too!). Tonight, we are making dinner again for some of his friends. I'm making Joshua's step-mother's famous broccoli, rice and cheese casserole, fresh corn cut off of the cob (all fresh: shucked and de-silked by yours truly!), homemade butter, and some cresent rolls. For dessert, we are having a Mountain Dew cake. A friend of mine over here gave me the recipe. You use an entire can of Mt Dew so I KNOW Joshua is going to love it.
I have been on a roll lately with the cooking and I am loving it. It's such a good hobby although it is SO bad for my waistline. Eeek! Oh well. At least it tastes good in my belly before it hits the waistline LOL.
About two weeks ago, we found out that we are headed for Fort Carson, CO when Joshua's tour here in Korea ends! We are stoked to say the least :) It's not Bragg and it's not Hood, but from what everyone else had been receiving, we count ourselves a part of the lucky ones! I am just excited to live less than 1000 miles away from a Walmart!!! WOO HOO!
We are about a week and a half away from mom coming to visit. She will arrive here on the 27th and will be staying with us until the 8th of June. I am excited she will be coming to visit! She is going to help me attempt to make Shrimp Gumbo with the fresh shrimp we bought in Busan a few weekends back. Should be delicious :)
Signing off for now. Got a lot to do before all those hungry boys get here in a couple hours!

Xoxo
Hannah

Fourty-Five

Don't have a long time to post today as I have my volunteering today and I've got to get lunch ready for when Joshua gets home from work since he only gets such a short time. We had a great Easter. We went to an Easter Egg Hunt/get together for Joshua's battalion. There were about 35 families there. Joshua and I just hung out with some couples that we knew. It was fun to watch all the kiddos run around. After we had lunch and watched the kiddos run after the eggs, we had a get together/cookout that afternoon with some couple friends of ours. They had a little Easter Egg hunt for their kiddos and then everyone cooked and brought lots of food. There was SO much to eat and it was all SO good! We never walk away from those cookouts feeling hungry, that's for sure! I am feeling quite blessed that I've come across this group of friends. They are all funny and so nice. I'm not sure how much I would be hating life right now if I hadn't found all these ladies.
Only 4 months and about 4 weeks until we get home! *whew* We are SO excited to finally be getting this close. I've only been here 4 and a half months and it already feels like a year! One of Joshua's closest friends found out where he will be stationed after Korea just recently so we keep hoping that we will find out soon!! We hope to go to Ft Bragg, NC or back to Ft Hood.... Those would both be ideal so we hope that's where they will send us!
Anyway, off to prepare some 'tuna cakes'. Recipe: here. Should be good....plus it's cheap! Win-win ;)

Xoxo
Hannah