Category Archives: Recipes

Mom Venture Recipes all in one place! I try to post recipes that are easy to make and budget friendly. My family is on a very tight budget too, so I know how important it is for some of us to be able to find good, healthy recipes that won’t break the bank :)

Baked Salmon Fillet Recipe with Mayonnaise and Brown Sugar

Main Dish, Recipes
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I Love fish! Especially Salmon! Unfortunately, my husband can’t stand the smell of it and doesn’t care to eat it either, so I don’t get to eat fish at home much. Even when I do, and I make sure to cook it while he’s at work, I just can’t hide it because he’ll smell it as soon as he walks in the door hours later! lol

But I did treat myself to buying some Salmon fillets from Wal-Mart on my last shopping trip and I wanted to share a very, very yummy way to bake a salmon fillet that I learned a few years ago from my husbands cousin. He cooked the Salmon on the grill with this recipe, but you can also bake them in the stove just as well!

 

Baked Salmon Fillet Recipe with Mayonnaise and Brown Sugar

Ingredients:
4oz salmon fillet, fresh or frozen(I thaw mine in the microwave on power level 3 (30%) for 4-5min.)
Approx. 2 tbls Mayonnaise(I’m sure it would taste just fine with light mayonnaise too!)
Approx. 1 tbls. Brown Sugar(or more if you like!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.Put your salmon fillet in a greased shallow baking dish or in foil on a cookie sheet or cooking stone.

I like to put my salmon fillet on tin foil with the sides folded up around the fillet to keep the juices from leaking out onto my round Pampered Chef stone.

Next, spread the mayonaise on top of the salmon fillet.

 

Then sprinkle the brown sugar on top of that.

 

Now it’s ready to go into the oven!
Bake fillet for about 12 min. or until the salmon is flaky when you stick a fork into it.

 

 

So that’s it! Very simple, yet sooooooo delicious!!
I hope you enjoy this baked salmon fillet recipe and let me know in the comments what you think!

 

 

How to Cook Perfect Hard Boiled Eggs?

Side Dishes/Appetizers
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This is going to be a really short post, but I thought I’d make it a separate one so it’s easy to find.

So you may be asking, just as I had for a few years after I got married, How to cook perfect hard boiled eggs? Ones that are pristinely yellow, no greenish/grey around the edges due to overcooking, and no undercooked middles?

Here’s how I do it. I learned from a couple sources, and it’s so simple, I don’t know why I didn’t start doing it this way before.

Fill your pot with water just enough to cover your eggs completely. Place the eggs in the pot. Well I guess you can put them in the pot first if you like and then cover them with water :)

Then place the pot on the stove and bring to a rolling boil. Once it starts boiling, turn the heat off and cover the pot and let the eggs sit for about 12 minutes for large eggs (10 minutes is perfect for medium eggs).

Then take the pot to the sink, dump out the hot water and fill with cold water. Refresh the cold water when it starts getting warm again, until the eggs are completely cooled.

Now you’re ready to cook perfect hard boiled eggs!  Use them for Deviled Eggs, salads, egg salad sandwiches, or just as they are! Enjoy!

Texas Hash Recipe-My Favorite!!

Main Dish, Recipes
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Oh, man! Texas Hash is one of my all time favorites! It is awesome, and a wonderful comfort food for me :)  I really wish my husband loved it too, but, he doesn’t (gasp! but….more for me…hehe). He’s pretty picky, so I can only make this on nights that he has designated for himself to get fast food, or I can make it other nights too, but I’d have to make him something else to eat. (too much work! lol)  The kids love Texas Hash though!  So anyway, I got this Texas Hash recipe from my mom who used to make it now and then. Not sure where she got it from. Texas Hash is pretty simple and inexpensive to make, so it works great if you have a really tight budget.

Ok, so here you go!

 

Ingredients:

Texas Hash Recipe

  • 2 large onions (I just use whatever size I have)
  • 2 green peppers
  • 3 tablespoons of shortening (or butter)
  • 1lb hamburger
  • 2 cups canned or fresh tomatoes(diced or stewed)
  • 1/2 cup rice uncooked
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon pepper

In a large pan, cook onion and peppers until yellow. Add hamburger.  Cook until it falls apart. Add tomatoes, rice and seasonings and stir.  Transfer to a casserole dish. Cook 45 minutes in a covered casserole dish at 375 degrees.

I hope you try this wonderful Texas Hash recipe! I know you’ll love it! Be sure to comment back and let me know how it turned out for you :)  Good night

 

Easy Chili Recipe-Homemade Chili

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Thought I’d share this wonderful, easy chili recipe with you!

I love homemade chili. It is so much better than chili in the can, and I’m sure it is better for you too since you have control over the ingredients. Serve it with cheese and sour cream  and maybe even some green onions on top for a wonderfully delicious flavor!

I got this easy chili recipe from allrecipes.com, but I did make a couple small changes to it to add more flavor.

Easy Chili Recipe Homemade

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 (14.5 ounce) can stewed tomatoes
1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans
1 1/2 cups water
1 pinch chili powder (I think it tastes much better with about a tablespoon)
1 pinch garlic powder (I use about 1/2 teaspoon)
1 pinch of cummin seed(I added this one)
1 tiny pinch of ground cayenne red pepper(I also added this one)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine the beef and onion and saute until meat is browned and onion is tender. Add the stewed tomatoes with juice, tomato sauce, beans and water.
2. Season with chili powder, garlic powder, cummin, salt/pepper, and red pepper.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover the chili and let simmer for 15 minutes. You can also let it simmer longer if you want to let the spices blend even more. I’ve simmered for up to an hour and the chili tastes great!

So that’s it! I hope you enjoy this wonderful, tasty, homemade easy chili recipe. Try it out and let me know what you think :)
Good night!

Wacky Cake Eggless Chocolate Cake Recipe and a Math lesson

Cake Recipes, Recipes
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Today was a Wacky Cake kind of day….( Also try this delicious Oat Bran Muffins Recipe using this Wacky Cake mix!)

Well, we started schooling late this morning. I had set my alarm for 7:15am and we normally start school at 8:30. I was soooo tired this morning….soooooo, I reset the alarm for 8:00am. Then when the alarm went off again, I got up and sat at the computer for a few minutes. Then 8:20 rolled around…..then Baby woke up so I laid in our bed with him to nurse him, partially hoping he’d go back to sleep, but, no, he was definitely awake at that point. It was nice to lay there and cuddle with him for a little bit though.

So we finally get out of bed about 8:45, and the other 2 boys finally rolled out of bed too. I fixed breakfast, and we got started with school about 9:15. We did 3 reading lessons from the Mcguffys 1st reader, and then Nboy wrote out his spelling words while I took care of some business that had to do with a water bill I thought I had up to date, and then having to pay a fee because they had turned our water off right before I called about the message they’d left on our phone yesterday that I didn’t get until this morning……Ugh!!

So I decided we were going to skip math this morning. We did our exercising at 10:30, and then I made lunch for Chris because he comes home for lunch. Then I had promised to make a chocolate Wacky Cake recipe with the boys today, so we started on that.

So as Nboy was measuring, I went ahead and taught him about fractions and how 2 half cups makes 1 cup, and that is why it says 1/2 , and 4 fourth cups makes 1 cup, so that is why it says 1/4, and so on…… He seemed to get it, and both boys had fun helping dump the ingredients in. So we had our math lesson anyway! I love how hands on things really help clear up any misunderstandings or questions about math! When I started cooking alot, I got so much better at fractions and dividing fractions, and so forth. It just makes so much more sense when you can actually see what’s happening.

So the Wacky Cake. I….LOVE….Wacky Cake!  I made it with my mom when I was a kid and it is sooooooo yummy and moist!!  So here is the recipe. Nboy wanted to add cinnamon, so we did. They dipped their fingers in and tasted the batter and went crazy over it :)

Eggless, Chocolate, Wacky Cake Recipe ingredients:

(Easy eggless chocolate cake recipe made with no milk or eggs by American Heart Assoc.)

1-1/2 cups Flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/4 cup Cocoa Powder

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 tsp Vinegar

6 tbls Butter

1 cup Water

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

-Spray an 8×8 baking pan or cake pan with vegetable cooking spray.

-Sift together directly into the pan the flour, sugar, soda and cocoa. At this point, we added 1 tsp. of Cinnamon. You could also think of other yummy things to add too!

-Make three wells in the cake flour mixture.

-Into one well put the vanilla, into the second put the vinegar, and into the third put the butter.

-Pour the water over all and mix with a fork until ingredients are entirely moistened.

-Bake the Wacky Cake for 30 minutes

-Makes 8 servings.

Wacky Cake Eggless Chocolate Cake Recipe Analysis per serving:

Calories: 261

Total Fat: 10 grams

Polyunsaturated Fat: 4 grams

Monounsaturated Fat: 2 grams

Saturated Fat: 2 grams

Cholesterol: 0 milligrams

From: The American Heart Association Cookbook, 1979

Hope you enjoyed this eggless Wacky Cake Recipe! It’s so yummy!
Also try this delicious Oat Bran Muffins Recipe using this Wacky Cake mix!

Frappuccino Recipe-How To Make a Frappuccino at Home!

Drinks, Frappuccinos/Blended Coffee, Recipes, , ,
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Frappuccino Recipe Mocha Frappuccino

Visit my new site Home Coffee Recipes for more!

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This is the Best Chocolate/ Mocha Frappuccino Recipe!

I LOVE a mocha frappuccino. I used to hate coffee, even the slightest taste of it until I started working for my brother at his espresso stand. It didn’t take long before I discovered that I Loved the blended drinks. Frappuccino, Commotion, whatever you wanna call it, they are so yummy! Still don’t like hot espresso drinks much, but those frappuccinos! Mmmm….

Personally, I’m not a fan of Starbucks. Maybe I got spoiled working for my brother, but he has the best drinks! I have yet to taste a blended drink from any other espresso stand or coffee shop that compares with his!

I don’t work for my brother anymore since I’ve had kids, but I do know how to make a frappuccino at home and it’s so simple and just as good if not better than what you’d buy at many coffee shops (and less expensive too.

So, how do you make a mocha frappuccino?  See my frappuccino recipe below….

This recipe is not trying to imitate the Starbucks frappuccino. In my opinion it is much better!

Mocha Frappuccino Recipe

(If you want a plain frappuccino, just don’t use the chocolate)

By Melissa Hall
Ingredients

    • 3/4 cup Half & half (you can use lower fat milk too if you want.)
    • 9 ice cubes or aprox. 1 & 1/4 cup
    • 1 heaping tbls Powdered cocoa-Much better than Hersheys chocolate syrup! I use Ghirardelli Chocolate Sweet Ground Chocolate . (you can omit the cocoa if you don‘t want a mocha frappuccino)
    • Sugar– start with 3 tablespoons and go from there.
    • 2 oz or 6 pumps, Any flavored syrup if you want a flavored mocha. Try Torani or DaVinci. Torani Variety Pack
    • You can also use 1/4 cup Peanut Butter for a Chocolate Peanut Butter Mocha Frappuccino…. One of my favs!
    • 1 or 2 oz Espresso shots, (or if you’re like me and don’t have an espresso maker, you can just use strong black coffee.)

 

Instructions:

Put in ice and Pour 1-2 shots of espresso into blender
First make your espresso shots, or your coffee. 1 shot = 1 ounce, so if you’re like me and don’t like real strong drinks, I would use 1 shot for a 16-20oz drink, and 2 shots for a 24oz. But if you’re the average espresso drinker, or coffee drinker you should use 2 shots for 20oz and 3 for a 24oz drink.Make sure to chill the espresso or coffee firstbefore adding it to the blender or it will melt the ice and won’t taste as good. Or you can add an ice cube to it first and maybe some of the half and half or milk before pouring it into the blender.For the ice cubes you can just fill whatever cup you’re using with the ice cubes about 3/4 of the way and that should be just the right amount or use then measurement above. Then dump them into the blender.Add Ghirardelli Ground ChocolateFor Mocha Frappuccino: Put in the Cocoa powder (please try the cocoa powder if you never have, it tastes so much better! ). For a 16 oz mocha frappuccino drink use about 2 tablespoons, 20oz 2 and a half tablespoons and so on….  Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate

For Mocha Frappuccino: If you are using flavored syrup too, then only use about 1/3 of the cocoa powder. You can always use more if you like stronger chocolate taste.

 

 

 

Add sugar

Now put in your sugar. If you are not going to use any flavored syrup, then start with 3 tablespoons of sugar and use more if needed. If you are using flavored syrup, then you can use probably about 1 tablespoon of sugar or none at all.

 

If you have flavored syrup with a pump on it (makes it so much easier to measure accurately), then use 6 pumps total, for a 16oz frappuccino drink, 8 pumps for 20oz, 9 pumps for 24oz, etc…. I believe 3 pumps of syrup is 1 oz, so 6 pumps would be equal to 2 oz. of syrup, and I’ll let you do the math for the rest ;)

Pour in Half and Half and espresso shots

If you want to add peanut butter, I just use about 1/4 cup  for a 16oz frappuccino. I love using peanut butter with mocha frappuccinos. Chocolate/Peanut butter is the best!

 

Now, add your espresso or coffee shots and the half & half, or milk (half & half tastes so much better. Just try it,,,just this once? I know it’s fattening, but one time won’t hurt will it? :) ) You can use the measurement above or just pour the half & half directly into the blender up to just a couple ounces under whatever size drink you’re making. If it’s 16 oz, then just fill up to like 14 oz, so not quite to the top of the ice in the blender.

 

 

 

Ready to blend your Mocha Frappuccino!

 

Now you’re ready to blend! Blend for at least 20 seconds. If you don’t have the best blender then blend for longer. You don’t want ice chunks, you want nice and smooth!

Now drink and enjoy!!

I’ll post some recipes for different flavored frappuccinos and mocha frappuccinos too! Snickers, Heath bar, Jack & Jill, and there are many more!

Here’s one to get you started:

Snickers Frappuccino

 

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Mocha Frappuccino Recipe
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Better than Starbucks ;) This is an excellent chocolate frappuccino recipe you are sure to love! Easy to make and you can use this recipe as a base for many different flavors of frappuccinos!
Ingredients
  • ¾ cup Half & half (you can use lower fat milk too if you want.)
  • 9 ice cubes or aprox. 1 & ¼ cup
  • 1 heaping tbls Powdered cocoa-Much better than Hersheys syrup!(you can omit the cocoa if you don‘t want a mocha frappuccino)
  • Sugar- start with 3 tablespoons and go from there.
  • 2 oz or 6 pumps, Any flavored syrup if you want a flavored frappuccino or flavored mocha frappuccino.
  • 1 or 2 oz Espresso shots, (or if you’re like me and don’t have an espresso maker, you can just use strong black coffee.)
Instructions
  1. First make your espresso shots, or your coffee. 1 shot = 1 ounce, so if you're like me and don't like real strong drinks, I would use 1 shot for a 16-20oz drink, and 2 shots for a 24oz. But if you're the average espresso drinker, or coffee drinker you should use 2 shots for 20oz and 3 for a 24oz drink.
  2. Make sure to chill the espresso or coffee first before adding it to the blender or it will melt the ice and won't taste as good. Or you can add an ice cube to it first and maybe some of the half and half or milk before pouring it into the blender.
  3. For the ice cubes you can just fill whatever cup you're using with the ice cubes about ¾ of the way and that should be just the right amount or use then measurement above. Then dump them into the blender.
  4. For Mocha Frappuccino: Put in the Cocoa powder (please try the cocoa powder if you never have, it tastes so much better! ). For a 16 oz mocha frappuccino drink use about 2 tablespoons, 20oz 2 and a half tablespoons and so on.
  5. For Mocha Frappuccino: If you are using flavored syrup too, then only use about ⅓ of the cocoa powder. You can always use more if you like stronger chocolate taste.
  6. Now put in your sugar. If you are not going to use any flavored syrup, then start with 3 tablespoons of sugar and use more if needed. If you are using flavored syrup, then you can use probably about 1 tablespoon of sugar or none at all.
  7. If you have flavored syrup with a pump on it (makes it so much easier to measure accurately), then use 6 pumps total, for a 16oz frappuccino drink, 8 pumps for 20oz, 9 pumps for 24oz, etc.... I believe 3 pumps of syrup is 1 oz, so 6 pumps would be equal to 2 oz. of syrup, and I'll let you do the math for the rest ;)
  8. Now, add your espresso or coffee shots and the half & half, or milk.
  9. You can use the measurement above or just pour the half & half directly into the blender up to just a couple ounces under whatever size drink you're making. If it's 16 oz, then just fill up to like 14 oz, so not quite to the top of the ice in the blender.
  10. Now you're ready to blend! Blend for at least 20 seconds. If you don't have the best blender then blend for longer. You don't want ice chunks, you want nice and smooth!
  11. Now drink and enjoy!!

Now that you know how to make a frappuccino, try this frappuccino recipe and let me know what you think! Did I explain everything clear enough? Did the measurements work out for you? Let me know!

Find more recipes at my new site http://www.homecoffeerecipes.com

Update: I have created a website for my brother’s espresso business, so I would love it if you all would head over there and take a look! Salem Oregon Coffee Shop-Coffee In Motion