Hamburger Barley Soup Recipes are good!

This soup is one of our family favourites. I couldn't beleive I had not posted it before! It is fairly quick to throw together, then let is sit for about an hour to cook. One picky kid asks for us to not give her the whole tomatoes, put she still ate the onions, and cooked carrots without complaint.

This is a huge pot, so don't double the recipe, unless you plan to use a second pot!

1 1/2 lbs ground beef
10 cups water - sometimes I add more
3 tbsp beef bouillon soup base
3 cups sliced carrots
2 large onions, chopped
2 cups sliced celery
1/2 cup pearl barley
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup ketchup
28 oz can tomatoes, undrained
10 oz tomato sauce

1 cup elbow pasta

Brown ground beef in a LARGE pot. Add to the pot all the remain ingedients, except pasta.
Bring to a boil. Lower the temperature, cover and simmer for about 1 hour. Add pasta and cook until tender, adding more water if it is needed.
Serve.

If you think this is great, the second day is even better. I always need to add more water (Pasta soaks it up) before reheating.

Strawberry Green Tomato Jam

This is a great recipe for using your green tomatoes. All you need is to add some pectin, sugar and strawberry jello, and you now have your own homemade strawberry jam (with NO STRAWBERRIES). I was a little hesitant, but this was amazing. It looks good, tastes good, and fairly inexpensive.

I think that raspberry jello would also work, and might look better (tomato seeds). But my husband loves strawberry, so that what we made.

6 cups of green tomatoes, cut into small chunks
1 box pectin
4 cups sugar
2 boxes of strawberry jello (3 oz each) OR 1 cup of Strawberry Jello powder (I buy in bulk!)

Throughout the entire process, stir continually to keep the tomatoes from burning to the bottom. Cook the tomatoes in a large pot for a 5-10 minutes. Add pectin and sugar. Bring to a boil, turn down the temperature keeping it boiling, for 10 minutes. Add jello, boil for 1 minute. (OPTIONAL: I scooped out some of the larger chunks of tomato at this point, and used my blender to chop them up a bit)

Now it is ready to put into your clean jars, seal with a lid, and let sit on the counter till they pop on there own.

Happy eating!

















Lemon Baked Fish Recipe

layered zucchini casserole

Dinner time was approaching, and we were all getting hungry. I wanted to use up some the zucchini we had in the kitchen.

So, I layered it with beef, mushrooms, spaghetti sauce, and cheese. I wasn't so sure if this would be a meal our family would eat, but this dinner turned out so good that we decided it was a keeper.

Two of the kids picked out the zucchini, but ate the rest and asked for seconds. It wasn't really that hard to put together, and tasted good.

2 lbs lean ground beef
3 small zucchini. thinly sliced
2 cans spaghetti sauce
minced garlic
1 can mushrooms
4 cups grated cheese

Brown the beef. Add in garlic.
Preheat oven to 400
In a 9X13 pan, create layers of the following ingredients in this order.
small about of spaghetti sauce (to prevent burning)

1/3 of thinly sliced zucchini
1/2 can of speggetti sauce
1/2 cooked ground beef
1/2 can of mushrooms
1/3 grated cheese

1/2 remaining zucchini
1/2 can sauce,
all beef
all mushrooms
1/2 remaining cheese
all zucchini
pour 1 whole can of sauce over the zucchini.
Sprinkle with all cheese.
Bake for 30 minutes.

Serve.

Homemade Granola Cereal

Beef Fiesta Mexican Dish

Serving dinner with corn chips instead of spoons and forks, gives a new twist to dinner time. Quick, colorful, and delicious, makes this Mexican dish a family favorite.

2 lbs ground beef
1 large onion (chunky, to be picked out by picky kids)
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp pepper
2 cans tomatoes (19oz each)
2 can corn
20 oz water with 2 oxo cube
1 green pepper, chopped
3 cups instant rice

Cook the ground beef until brown in a large pot. Add onion, and cook a few minutes. (Usually long enough open all the cans.) Add all remaining ingredients EXCEPT RICE. Bring to a boil. Cook for 5 -10 minutes. Add rice, cover , and remove from heat. Let stand for 5 minutes, then stir together.

Serve with Tortilla Corn chips.

We love to add a bottle of hot sauce to the table, add to our own tastes. Some kids like it spicy and some do not.

Apple Dutch Pie Recipe

Roast Beef Vegetable Soup Recipe

I hate to let anything go to waste, but I can only eat so much left overs. Instead of eating another roast beef dinner, I made soup with all the leftovers. It was delicious and easy to make, ready in less than 20 minutes!

Our whole family loved it! The four year old kid that said "I don't want to eat soup," sat at the table with his bowl, and surprised us all by saying "I guess I could have more soup" after finishing the entire bowl.

Leftover roast beef, cut into long strips
Leftover vegetables (everything and anything. We had broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and beans.)
Leftover potatoes cut into bite size, or leftover mashed potatoes (mashed makes the soup broth thick, and hides, great way to get the kids to eat potatoes and never know it)
Leftover gravy (great flavor in the broth)
Can of whole tomatoes (whole tomatoes is easy avoid scoping into a bowl of a kid that doesn't like tomatoes, while the rest of us enjoys them)
Celery
Noodles
Water

Mix as much or as little as you like, and throw in any other leftovers that are in the fridge. Bring to a boil, cook until noodles are ready, and serve.

Nicole's Beef Vegetable Soup