Simple Recipe Saturday - The Sophisticated Dessert Edition

Are you a "Lady Who Lunches"?  Yeah, no... 

Me either. 

But I have a recipe for a cake that reeks of sophistication and elegance. Something the "together" mom might bring to the potluck dinner. Or something that you might even see on the menu of one of those tony tea rooms, or wherever the hell all those ladies go to lunch. 

But before you panic and think you're in the wrong place, I have good news! It's super easy. SUPER easy. All the taste of homemade, yet only half the work!  Or even less than half!

So, here is my recipe for Lemon Apricot Cake.

 

1 pkg. lemon cake mix

3/4 c. oil

1 c. apricot nectar

1/2 c. sugar

4 eggs

Mix the above ingredients, pour into a lightly greased bundt pan and bake for 1 hour (more or less) at 325 degrees.

Glaze: one c. powdered sugar and 1 or 2 teaspoons of lemon juice. I usually just kind of eye it. I start with one teaspoon of the juice, stir, and add more until the mixture seems appropriately glaze-like. 

Invert cake onto cake plate and drizzle with the glaze. I like to go heavy on the drizzling. 

Enjoy!

Simple Recipe Saturday - The Full-On Dinner Party Edition

After a Mother's Day break last week from our Simple Recipe Saturday, we are back! With a vengeance!  Everyone did so well with the first two recipes we featured, MWOB now thinks you are ready to host a serious dinner party!  So today our dinner party hostess is the brains and wit behind the blog Under The Influence.  I think her name is Jo or something like that.  :-)  

I have been reading Jo since the beginning of my blog life and I first fell in love with her when she admitted her love for prescription painkillers.  A girl after my own heart.  She is smart, funny, down-to-earth and she has a bowling alley in her basement.  What I really wish is that she would invite me over, feed me this meal, hide a painkiller in the dessert and let's BOWL!  But for now, I can only dream and simply pass along this SIMPLE recipe which is sure to impress your friends!

Enjoy!  Here's Jo!

Believe me when I tell you, this recipe tastes like a Sous Chef has slaved away in the kitchen to prepare this amazing dish. I assure you your family and friends will be impressed and you will be thrilled with how little time you actually spent in the kitchen. The most difficult part of the recipe, for me, is preparing and blanching the asparagus. When asparagus is out of season, I cook just the pork tenderloin and serve it with steamed green beans (not cooked in the oven with the roast). I also usually serve a potato of some kind (mashed, roasted red potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc.) and a yummy green salad.

ROASTED ROSEMARY PORK WITH ASPARAGUS

Ingredients:
3 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 large garlic cloves, minced
4 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 (5-pound) center-cut pork loin roast
2 pounds fresh thick asparagus spears, trimmed and blanched

To Prepare:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Mix the olive oil, mustard, lemon juice, garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper in a bowl. Reserve 1 Tablespoon of the olive oil mixture. Spread the remaining olive oil mixture over the fat side of the pork and arrange on a wire rack in a roasting pan.
Place the pork in the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees. Roast for 2 hours. Toss the asparagus with the reserved olive oil mixture in a shallow dish. Arrange the asparagus around the pork and roast for 15 to 20 minutes longer or until a meat thermometer registers 160 degrees for medium or 170 degrees for well done. Slice the pork and serve immediately with the asparagus.

NOTE: Roasting the asparagus along with the pork gives it a delicious flavor.

SERVES: 12

**************************************************************************************************

And now onward to the best part of the dinner party - the dessert!!

This recipe is for kids and adults, too! Really, who doesn't like cookies and ice cream? Together. And talk about EASY. It really doesn't get any easier than this.

Following is the "basic" recipe for this little piece of heaven. However, you can switch it up however you, or your kids, like. Whenever I make it, I use chocolate filled oreos with vanilla ice cream (Breyer's is my favorite if buying at the grocery store). The possibilities are endless, though. Strawberry ice cream would be good with the chocolate or white oreos. Or how about chocolate ice cream with peanut butter oreos? And then there are those mint chocolate oreos that would go good with mint chocolate, chocolate or vanilla ice cream. Mix up the vanilla, the chocolate, the mint chocolate and the peanut butter oreos and various flavors of ice creams however your taste buds would like it! Of course, you can also use different shaped dish to jazz things up a bit! (You may notice in the picture with the entire cake, someone got into it and nibbled a little piece away!)

OREO ICE CREAM CAKE
Ingredients:
1/2 gal vanilla ice cream, softened
12 oz Cool Whip
2 pkgs of Oreos, you will have some left over

For the crust, crush 45 Oreos (I use a food processor) and mix with 1/2 cup melted butter. Press into bottom and sides of 9x13 pan.

For the filling, mix together the softened ice cream, the Cool Whip, and 30 Oreos broken into small pieces. Pour the filling over the crust and freeze for at least 2 hours or overnight. You can also sprinkle crushed oreos on top of the cake.

You may have some filling left over, which I pour into cups and freeze. It is like a DQ Blizzard!

This is a picture of the roast.  

Just kidding.  

No roast pics.  Sorry.  

Just the yummy cake!

Close-up of this delicious EASY dessert!

If you want to get to know the chick behind these recipes, check out her highly entertaining blog, Under The Influence.  You may dig her as much as you dig this cake.

Simple Recipe Saturday - Edition #2

Here at MWOB, we are all about keeping it simple.  So we have launched Simple Recipe Saturday to give challenged-moms-in-the-kitchen (such as ME!) a chance to feel good about being able to throw some home-cooked meals together.

Today's recipe is being brought to us by Catherine of Evolving Mommy fame.  I have been reading Catherine for a while now and although I don't "know" her, her vibe is calm, super-nice, likable, friendly, honest, and REAL.  I have tried a recipe or two from her in the past and they have been yummy!  I hope she will continue to throw some recipes our way.

Here's Catherine and Enjoy!

There are certain things that I always have in my pantry; canned and frozen veggies, beans, ground beef/turkey, assorted noodles, canned tomato products, garlic and onions (among other things). Even though I would love to spend hours in the kitchen preparing meals for my family that is not usually an option. I love to make tasty meals with things that I know I have on had, it makes my weekly meal planning easier and grocery shopping easier too. Most of all I love meals that can be flexible and allow me to substitute different things if I need to. The following recipe is all of these things plus it reheats as leftovers really well so not only will you have dinner you'll have lunch too!

Chili Mac

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni
1 lbs ground beef
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
1 Serrano or jalapeno pepper minced (optional)
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons cumin
1/2 teaspoon Oregano
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can kidney beans
1 8oz can tomato sauce
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 cup frozen chopped spinach (optional)

Cook Macaroni as directed on package.

While macaroni is cooking, cook beef, onion, garlic and pepper in a 4 quart sauce pan over medium-high heat stirring occasionally until beef is brown; drain.

Stir remaining ingredients including the macaroni into the beef mixture. Simmer uncovered until the spinach is thawed and the mixture is warmed through.

** As I mentioned above this recipe is flexible. Play around with it, use what you have on hand in your pantry. Feel free to try ground turkey, buffalo or elk instead of beef. If kidney beans are not your favorite try black beans or pinto beans, and if spinach won't fly in your house you can substitute frozen corn...or leave the veggies out all together.

If you want more of Catherine, her recipes, and her tales of motherhood as an Evolving Mommy, check our her blog.  You will not be disappointed.

Happy Saturday!

Introducing....MWOB'S Simple Recipe Saturday!

As you all know, I am lame in the kitchen.  Mainly because I have no idea what to make...ever. So I have enlisted the help of a couple of bloggy friends to launch "MWOB's Simple Recipe Saturday!"  Each week we will feature a deliciously simple recipe for you to try. I am super excited about this because I truly hope to step out of my comfort zone of PB & J's for dinner and try to prepare some yummy, nutritional meals!

First up is Julia from Sometimes Lucid.  She was one of the first bloggers I ever read and she lives not that far from me over here in LA.  I have always been impressed by the recipes she features on her blog and she has graciously agreed to provide us loser-in-the-kitchen-type moms some SIMPLE recipes to try.

Here's Julia.....and enjoy!

This is a super simple recipe that tastes like you spent all day on it!

A friend and her kids were supposed to come over for a play date. By the time I got home I had about 20 minutes before they came over. So I started making dinner. I always figure that as long as something is starting to cook, I’m good. I almost never have food finalized and ready when people come over. I was reading this recipe earlier in the day, and it sounded quick and easy.

It was all that, and tasted like I had spent HOURS on it!! The flavors were amazing. I was able to substitute a number of the MAIN ingredients and this dish still came out wonderfully.  

This is truly a simple weeknight meal - especially if you take a couple of minutes to throw all the spices in a baggie in the morning so as not to have to measure in the evening.
I served this with boxed couscous with sundried tomatoes (I don’t make everything from scratch).

I had some later over slightly, freshly wilted spinach. 

Yum!

Moroccan Chicken with Green Olives and Lemon
Braised chicken gets Moroccan flavor from spices, green olives, and lemon.
   4 SERVINGS
•  PREP: 25 MINUTES
•  TOTAL: 55 MINUTES
Bon Appetit – May 2009
INGREDIENTS
• 2 Meyer lemons or regular lemons (used 1 lemon and one orange)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large onion, halved, thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, pressed
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 cups low-salt chicken broth (used water)
• 1 4 1/2-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces, skin removed
• 1/2 cup green olives (used black olive slices)

PREPARATION
• Cut 1 lemon into 8 wedges. Squeeze enough juice from second lemon/orange to measure 2 tablespoons; set wedges and juice aside. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and sprinkle with salt and pepper; sauté until golden brown, about 8 minutes. Add next 5 ingredients (spices); stir 1 minute. Add broth/water; bring to boil. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper; add to skillet. Add lemon wedges. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until chicken is cooked through, turning occasionally, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer chicken to platter. Add olives and 2 tablespoons lemon juice to skillet. Increase heat to high; boil uncovered to thicken slightly, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Pour over chicken. 

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION

One serving contains the following:
Calories (kcal) 431.6
%Calories from Fat 30.2
Fat (g) 14.5
Saturated Fat (g) 2.8
Cholesterol (mg) 171.2
Carbohydrates (g) 8.7
Dietary Fiber (g) 2.3
Total Sugars (g) 3.2
Net Carbs (g) 6.4
Protein (g) 64.4

To get more of Julia's recipes and to enjoy her fresh take on life as a mama of two girls, check her out at Sometimes Lucid.  

Happy Saturday!