Mama Loves Cooking - Homemade Chinese Take-out: Spicy Peanut Noodles

I enjoy Asian food VERY MUCH. I could eat Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Indian, Filipino, etc. all day everyday. I love Chinese take-out any chance I get. One of the appetizers I get from my local take-out place is called Cold Spicy Peanut Noodles. Fast, cheap, and easy to make, this dish is spicy, peanuty, and sweet at the same time.

Spicy Peanut Noodles

• 1 half box of Linguine
• 1 can of peas or half of a bag of frozen peas (Can be snow peas, but they are almost $3 a bag.)
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
• 3 to 5 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup of peanut butter
• 1 cup of water
• 1 tablespoon of Soy sauce
• Sriracha sauce (A spicy, smooth (no seeds or flakes) red chili sauce. It has a green squirt nozzle.)
• Maple Syrup (Yes, maple syrup. I used maple pancake syrup. It worked just as well.)

This recipe serves two since well, most kids don't like spicy, unless you were me growing up, heh. You can double the recipe to serve 4 to 6 if you would like.

1. Boil the noodles and about 2 to 3 minutes before the pasta is done, add the peas to cook the peas instead of wasting another dish/pan. (You can break the noodles in half if you don't want really long noodles.)

2. Drain the peas and pasta and let set in the colander. (Remember, to keep the noodles from sticking, you can use a little bit of oil and toss the pasta with it.

3. Heat the oil in a sauce pan using medium-high heat. Once it's hot, add the garlic.
Sauteé the garlic. Make sure it doesn't burn.

4. Add the peanut butter. The peanut butter will melt down. You'll want to watch the heat with this also. Turn it down some if it starts to bubble too much.

5. Add the water and stir well. Bring to a slow boil. This will allow the peanut butter and the water to come together.

6. This is where you can experiment. I highly recommend adding all of last three ingredients, but to your liking. I used about a tablespoon of Sriracha, a tablespoon and a few dashes of soy sauce, and almost 2 tablespoons of maple syrup. You can make it sweeter, saltier, spicier, or all balanced out. Have fun with it!!!

7. Add the pasta and peas mixture and the peanut sauce together. Mix well. To add a little more to the dish, (I thought about it afterwards.) you can add shredded carrot and sesame seeds to the mix.

8. Serve warm or you can chill the noodles for 1 hour.

Enjoy!!!

Mama Loves Cooking - Baking French Toast : French Toast Soufflé

Out of everything I can make, magically, I can't make good regular French Toast. I wanted to figure out a way to make French Toast without making it too eggy. Then I thought about soufflé. What is a soufflé you ask? I picked up Wikipedia's (one of my favorite resources) definition to help define what a soufflé really is:

A soufflé is a light, fluffy, baked cake made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites combined with various other ingredients and served as a savory main dish or sweetened as a dessert. The word soufflé is the past participle of the French verb souffler which means "to blow up" or more loosely "puff up" — an apt description of what happens to this combination of custard and egg whites.

It's funny to me how hand in hand this soufflé goes with the French Toast. French Toast, when cooked properly, is light and fluffy, yet moist and spongy, like a cake. I was really pleased with how this turned out. I really want to share this with you all this week because I know you will like it FOR SURE!!! ^_^

French Toast Soufflé

• 1 8oz. pack of cream cheese, softened
• 2 tablespoons of butter, softened
• 1 cup of pancake syrup (can be maple, butter, whatever flavor you would like)
• 10-12 slices of bread (You can use Texas toast if you want, but I used Nature's Own Butterbread for softness and it was WONDERFUL!)
• 1 dozen eggs (yeah, that many)
• 2 cup of half & half
• 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
• Cinnamon (preferably the container with the multiple sprinkle holes)

Optional toppings:

• Strawberries, blueberries, bananas, any kind of fruit you want!
• Powdered sugar
• Syrup

1. Take one piece of bread at a time and cut into 1 1/2 pieces. Leave the crust on.

TIP: Use a pizza roller to cut the bread instead of a knife since it's made to cut fast!

2. Grease (I used shortening) and flour the bottom of your pan. I did not do this and well, luckily I had a good metal spatula to get my French Toast out of the dish. So yes, learn from my mistake: grease and flour the pan.

3. Place the pieces of bread on the bottom of the pan/dish in one even layer.
Now, depending on the size of your casserole dish/baking pan (I used a 9x13.) will determine how many pieces of bread you use. I wound up using roughly 12 pieces of bread.

4. Cover the bread by sprinkling cinnamon on. Don't be afraid to cover it, but don't go crazy either.

5. Line up some more bread pieces on top of the first layer, creating another layer of bread pieces. Cover this layer with cinnamon as well.

6. Take cream cheese and butter and microwave in a safe dish for about 15 seconds. You may need more time depending on the wattage of your microwave. Make sure the butter does not melt.

7. Combine cream cheese, butter, and syrup together using a hand mixer until you get a smooth spread. Mine was a tiny bit lumpy, but that didn't bother me.

8. Spread mixture over the cinnamon bread pieces.

9. Mix eggs, half & half, and vanilla together until the egg mixture is frothy.

10. SLOWLY pour the egg mixture over the bread. Make sure to evenly cover the bread so the mixture can soak in really well.

11. Bake for one hour at 350°. It will be nice a bubbly when it comes out. I let mine cool for about 10 minutes. It also deflated, but before the picture, it was nice a puffy. This is normal for a soufflé.

12. Serve warm with syrup and any other topping you'd like! This was TRULY delicious!!!

ENJOY!

Mama Loves Cooking - Pizza Bagels: A Quick and Easy Snack

Who doesn't love bagels? They are universal from putting the usual cream cheese, jelly, and butter on them to spreading Nutella or peanut butter on them for an afternoon snack.
Here is a recipe for a quick breakfast or snack.

Pizza Bagels

Any 1 flavored bagel (except the strawberry or cinnamon raisin)
Regular cream cheese
Pizza sauce
Shredded cheese (I used the pizza blend.)
Pepperoni, ground beef, garlic, or any of your favorite pizza toppings (Remember, this is just a small pizza. Don't go too crazy.)

1. Preheat over at 375°.

2. Slice open bagel and set in the pan you will bake it. (My pan is old, but I love it. No sense in wasting dishes!)

3. Spread desired amount of cream cheese on your bagel. Both sliced of course!

4. Spread pizza sauce carefully around your bagel.

5. Sprinkle desired amount of cheese and toppings you would like onto your bagel.

6. Bake for 10 minutes. Broil for about a minute if you'd like until the top is nice and brown.

7. Allow to cool for 5 minutes.

Enjoy!

Mama Loves Cooking - "Vanana" Pudding Pie

A classic favorite among families in America is Banana Pudding. Simple, fast, and super yummy, you love the taste of the pudding, bananas, and the best part, the Nila wafers. How about changing up a bit and making a pudding pie with a Nila crust?
-Be sure to prepare 4 hours ahead of serving. You chill it for 4 hours to secure the pudding's filling.

1 box of vanilla flavored pudding
1 box of banana cream pudding
2 1/2 cups of cold milk
1 cup of whipped topping
1 Nila wafer pie crust (Keep that plastic lid too!)
1 egg white
2 large bananas, peeled and sliced

Toppings you might enjoy: sliced bananas, whipped topping or Reddi Whip, shaved coconut, chopped walnuts or pecans, chocolate shavings.

1. Preheat oven at 375°.

2. Brush crust with egg white thoroughly. Make sure the edges get brushed with egg white as well.

TIP: Turn the pie crust in the light to see if you have missed any spots on the pie crust. You can see the egg "glistening" on the crust. The egg will harden the crust a bit and keep the crust together better.

3. Bake crust for 5 minutes. You will notice the crust has turned a little brown. That is perfectly normal and it's okay! Allow it to cool for 15 to 20 minutes.

4. Take 2 1/2 cups of milk and pour into a bowl.

5. Add vanilla and banana packets of pudding. Whisk together.

6. Stir in 1 cup of whipped topping to the pudding mixture.

7. Put the mixture in the fridge for about 5 minutes.

8. Peel the bananas and slice into and 1/8 thick slices. Discard the round ends.

9. Arrange some of the banana slices in a circle on the crust.

10. Take the pudding mixture and spread an even, thin layer on top of the bananas. Make sure you can't see any of the bananas. (I apologize for the fuzzy photo.)

11. Arrange more banana slices in a circle on top of pudding mix in the crust.

12. Add more pudding mix on top of those bananas. The pie is now complete!

(Again, sorry for the fuzzy photo.)

TIP: You can use all of the pudding mixture, but I had some left over and some banana slices. So! I made a pudding cup and ate it. Yummy!!!

13. Lift the edges of the pie pan careful around the entire pie.

14. Place the plastic lid so that it fits perfectly in place over the pie.

15. Press the aluminum edging back over the lid, securing the lid in place. Wrap in plastic wrap or place a plastic Ziploc bag.

16. Chill for 4 hours. Serve with your favorite toppings!

ENJOY!

Mama Loves Cooking - Adding more flavor to ricotta stuffed shells - Super Stuffed Shells

Whenever I think of stuffed shells, I think of ricotta cheese. It’s a very tiny curded cheese that is VERY bland and does not melt so easily. So how can you make your stuffed shells POP with flavor? Check out my recipe and you’ll definitely turn this regular meal into a most flavorful meal!

Super Stuffed Shells
(Makes about 30 to 40 shells serving 6 to 8)

1 16 oz. box of large shells, cooked 16oz. (1lb.) container of ricotta cheese (can be skim or whole, your choice) 1lb. of ground beef 1 small box of frozen spinach or 1 bunch of parsley chopped 1 onion, minced 4 to 6 cloves of garlic, minced 1 cup of pizza blend cheese (Or for a mellower flavor, 1 cup of Italian blend cheese) 1 2lb., 13 oz. jar of spaghetti sauce (can be any flavor, but I recommend a sweeter sauce like a tomato, garlic, onion blend)



1. Start boiling water for your jumbo shells. Boil the pasta according to the box.

TIP: When you drain the shells, run cold water to cool the shells down. Discard any horribly split shells and unwanted pasta pieces. If a shell has a small split in it, don’t reject it. It’s still good! Separate the shells so that they don’t stick.

2. Chop onion and garlic until finely minced (chopped into very tiny pieces). (Chop parsley finely if you want to use parsley instead of spinach.) Set aside.

TIP: Mincing can be a very tedious task. Use a small food chopper (found at your local “Super Store” for only $10) to finely mince your onion and garlic.

3. Start to brown the ground beef. Add the minced onion and garlic. Stir together until mixed. Make sure that as you cook the ground beef that you use your spoon or spatula to chop up the meat finely.

Remember, this is part of the filling for the shells so you want it to be as fine as possible. Large clumps will only make it more difficult to fit inside of the pasta shells. Continuously stir the meat, onion and garlic mixture until fully cooked.

While your meat is browning:

4. Take the box of frozen spinach and microwave according to the directions on the box.

TIP: When microwaving the spinach, use a microwave safe dish and cover with plastic wrap like this:

This prevents the moisture from evaporating from the spinach which if it did, then you’d have dry spinach. Gross!

5. Empty container of ricotta cheese into a mixing bowl. Use an electric hand-held mixer to soften the cheese a bit more. Granted it’s soft already, but it’s been stuck in that container form for a little while. Using the mixer will allow for easy stirring later.

6. Add spinach to the ricotta cheese.

TIP: If your spinach has too much moisture to it, then drain the moisture by pressing a few paper towels on the spinach.

7. Add shredded cheese mixture. I highly recommend using the pizza blend because the cheddar will add some tanginess to the stuffing mixture. I promise, it’s very yummy.

8. When the meat, onion, & garlic mixture is fully cooked, drain all of that unwanted grease from the mixture.

9. Add meat, onion, & garlic mixture to the cheeses and spinach. Stir together using a spoon until well blended. This mixture is too thick for an electric hand-held mixer.

10. Preheat oven for 350°.

11. Spray baking pans (You’ll need at least two.) with cooking spray. Do not use cookie sheets. These pans are too shallow for the shells.

12. Spoon a little over a Tablespoon of the stuffing mixture into each shell. Line the shells in rows until your baking pans are full or until you have run out of shells or mixture. Cover each pan with foil tightly.

13. Bake for 20 minutes.

14. Warm the sauce in a sauce pan about 10 minutes before pulling the shells out of the oven.

15. The shells will be nice and hot after 20 minutes are up, so be careful pulling them out of the oven. Allow them to cool for 5 minutes.

16. Place desired amount of shells on a plate and spoon sauce over the shells. Serve as is, with garlic bread and/or salad.

ENJOY!