Weekend Cooking Blitz

This weekend was one of those weekends where you didn't really have any solid plans, so you just go with the flow. We ended up doing a lot of cooking and enjoying really good food. I have included a few pictures of the things we made but it doesn't nearly tell the whole story of our weekend cooking blitz. Friday, Richy made his Cilantro Pesto Chicken and I made Olive Garden Spaghetti Sauce, Saturday, we made S'mores and today, we made Blueberry Pancakes, Maryland Crab Soup and Banana Ice Cream.

As you know we did a spur of the moment run to get crabs last night and we still had a few leftover so Richy decided to make the Maryland Crab Soup out of the crabmeat. He used the recipe I posted yesterday, so I won't post it again. We sat out in the sun and picked the crabs and had about 8 ounces of fresh crabmeat to put in it. Earlier we stopped at the Farmers Market and got some corn and when we got home he assembled the soup. It was really good and had a nice peppery finish. The only thing that was missing was the sound of crashing waves, the smell of the ocean and cool a summer breeze. We had a cup of soup with hamburgers and then I topped the dinner off with Banana Ice Cream, drizzled with chocolate syrup and sprinkled chopped walnuts.

My daughter, Maddie, helped me make the S'mores and they turned out awesome. The recipe was only three ingredients and they were really simple to make. Basically, all you have to do is melt 8 bars of 1.55 Hershey's chocolate, add 2 cups of small marshmallows and 8 crushed graham crackers and mix it all together. Then you take the mix and divide it evenly amongst 24 cupcake holders and refrigerate for a half an hour. Of course they were a big hit and for those of you who follow Weight Watchers they were only 2 points each. I found the recipe on one of the blogs that I follow. Here is the link if you want to check out the recipe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qakxd7SRg5o. I am sure we will make these again.

I also made blueberry pancakes and a pot of Olive Garden Spaghetti Sauce. The blueberry pancakes were delicious and I will make them again for the breakfast. The spaghetti sauce I wasn't so impressed with. I found the recipe on a copycat page and followed it to the T. It turned out good, but it was too sweet for me. I was surprised to learn their secret to making their sauce is adding grape jelly. Who would have ever thunk it???? I am not sure I will make this again, but it was fun making it. Here is the recipe for those of you who might be interested.

Ingredients:

2 pounds ground round
6 oz V-8 juice
2 Tablespoon Oil
1 jar Prego Spaghetti Sauce
1 Can stewed tomatoes, (14 ounces)
1 Envelope onion soup mix
1/2 c Grape jelly

Brown meat in oil until cooked. Crumble with fork, then drain. Stir in tomatoes, V-9 juice, Prego, soup mix and grape jelly. Cook, stirring often, 15 to 20 minutes or until jelly melts and sauce is piping hot.

Serve with your favorite pasta. Don’t forget the bread sticks!