Updates (and a couple easy recipes)

...from Florida and from taking a break from cooking. Moving involves lots of pizza and Wendy's while you get organized.

I did make one nice dinner for my friends and roommates in my new house. I made cubed steak with mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans and a lemon meringue pie for dessert.

The cube steak was super easy. I mixed flour, salt and pepper and dredged the steaks and then just browned them in the skillet on both sides. I put them in the bottom of a 9 X 13 baking dish and covered them with a mixture of 1 packet dry onion soup mix, 1 can of cream of mushroom soup and one can of beef broth. Covered it with tin foil and baked for about 45 minutes or so. When I took it out of the oven, I took the steaks out, added some flour to make gravy for the potatoes and voila!

I'm also going to share my secret to lemon meringue pie. Get some Jello lemon cook and serve pudding (two small boxes for one deep-dish crust). Make the pudding like the instructions on the box, except add four egg yolks to it. You'll use the four egg whites for the meringue (instead of six like the box says). As a general rule, use 3-4 tablespoons of sugar for each egg white and never make meringue on a day when the weather is crappy, because it won't set up.

While I was in Florida, I made my fish tacos (and shrimp tacos) for the Mexicans, and they loved them. I am going to start making my own tortillas, so watch for that. Plus, I am trying my hand at something called "dirty beans." They are delicious when Rosa makes them, so hopefully we can recreate them.

I also made a yummy seafood quiche, and I'll post that recipe here soon enough.

Tonight is linguine with clam sauce, cesar salad and garlic bread.
Tomorrow night is meatloaf.
Sunday is a belated St. Patrick's Day dinner featuring corned beef, cabbage and potatoes with Bailey's brownies for dessert!

I also met a lady from Poland who made the best cabbage rolls ever, and I'll be making them (and posting the recipe) soon!