Oh my gosh Spaghetti Bread

Spaghetti Bread

Bread, cheese, and spaghetti simply ahhmazing!!

By now you all should know that I am totally addicted to Pinterest. Many nights I lay in bed looking at stuff to make on Pinterest. What I realized the other day is that most of my pins are food. Hmm why is that??? Other people pin dream homes, clothes, crafts, but me I pin dinner, desserts, snacks, muffins, pretty much all things food! I came across this pin while staying in TLF at Barksdale and just now got around to making it. Let me tell you it was worth the wait! Sorry I didn't take step by step pics but if you check out this link you will find the recipe and directions.

The recipe called for Rhodes frozen bread dough, but they don't sell that over here, so I made my normal bread machine pizza crust dough. I used about half a pound of ground beef, and Newman's Spaghetti sauce. My oven is pretty small so I had a hard time finding a pan to fit the bread on so I ended up using a cookie sheet.

To assemble, you roll out your dough into a rectangle, let that rest while you cook your spaghetti and meat. I then mixed the meat, sauce, and spaghetti. Pour the mixture down the middle of the rolled out dough and top with cubed mozzarella cheese. Next you will cut the sides of the dough into strips every 1 1/2 inches. Don't cut the dough all the way to the spaghetti stop about 1/2 inch from the spaghetti. Pull the end up fold over and take each strip and start braiding. It was pretty easy once you start. Just one side over the other. When you get to the end just tuck the dough under. Brush with egg white for browning and sprinkle Parmesan cheese and Italian seasoning over the top.

All braided and ready to bake!

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until done. After 30 minutes my dough was fully cooked. As I said I have a small oven and I had to turn my braid several times once the dough started rising it actually hit the oven door!

Cooked!!!

This was a hit in my house, but then again we love bread, and cheese so you can't go wrong with adding spaghetti! Will for sure make again. I think I will experiment with fillings next time.

Spring Break Part 1 Saarpark Centre & Farmers Market

The kids have been on Spring Break for the past week and it has been great! Thouroughly enjoyed sleeping in a bit and hanging out. Rob was unable to take leave this year and just had a day off during the week. The weather didn't really cooperate with us too much but we made the best out of it and explored a few places not far from the base.

Saarpark-Centre

 
The first place we went to was Saarpark-Centre in Neunkirchen Germany. It took us about 35 minutes from our house to get there. The mall was pretty big and reminded me of a mall in Dallas. Much bigger than that so called mall in Bossier City we had for the past 2 years. Ashleigh and I found quite a few stores we liked and ended up buying a couple of dresses. The Rob's eh not so much. They probably won't go back unless I promise them wings from Hooters. There is an H & M and it was much nicer and organized than the H & M I went to in New York. Tons of small boutiques, shoes, and house ware stores. The best part was that there was a TK MAXX!! No I didn't spell that wrong it is TK not TJ Maxx here. Looked just like the one in the states just different brands of clothes. There is also a Hooters there.





Hooters is somewhere over there by that oddly shaped building ;)

We decided not to eat there and went back to a small village close to the base and ate the best German food I have ever had! The Wooden Spoon was delish. I had schnitzel with caramelized onions and garlic. Rob and RJ both had schnitzel with ham and cheese. Ashleigh had wonderful spaghetti carbonara. I would highly recommend the Wooden Spoon and can not wait to go back! I didn't bring my camera in to dinner so the pics are from R.J's ipod.

Ashleigh's dinner.

Caramelized onion and garlic Schnitzel

Ham & Cheese Schnitzel



K-Town Farmers Market

Ash and I decided to check out the K-Town Farmers Market. The market runs Tuesdays and Saturdays from about 8-1:30. I did my research and found an address that would put me fairly close to the market. However, I could not find a place to park to save my life! And I was in my itty bitty car not the truck. After driving around in circles for a good 20 minutes I tried across the street in the opposite direction and BAM found a spot! The market was not that big and we actually spent more time looking for a spot then wandering around the market.  But never one to waste the opportunity to shop, Ash and I wandered around the area and found a ton of stores. New Yorker has become one of our favs! Cute cheap clothes. H & M again, although this one was much smaller. Much to Ashleigh's delight, Claires, a Foot Locker, and many more.




Can not escape Claire's they are everywhere!!!



This was the smallest Foot Locker I have ever been to!

We stopped for lunch at Burger King and continued our shopping er exploration. Then we stopped for a pastry at a bakery and headed to the run errands. A very successful day. Not much at the farmers market just some spices and pasta and flowery salad, but we had a great time.

Next post will tell you about our trip to Heidelberg, the castle we saw, and of course the food!

Homemade Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp

Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp!!

I love, like seriously love the Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp from Cheesecake Factory. Since I now live in Germany I do not have the option of running to my nearest Cheesecake Factory and ordering my favorite dish. Yeah the little things I have to sacrifice in order to enjoy my 3 year European vaca! Anyway, I scoured the Internet until I found a copycat recipe for my fav. dish and decided to try it tonight. I ran into a few snags with the ingredients. For one, the commissary did not have any chili oil, so I had to make my own. Again, google came in handy and it was fairly simple. My oil was not as spicy as I wanted, so next time I will use hotter peppers and allow it to infuse longer. I also was unable to find mace. Again google to my rescue, I subbed nutmeg for the mace. The rest I was able to find. Dinner was delish, but was not as spicy as the CCF, so I added some red pepper flakes and it was pretty darn close!

All of the ingredients except the chicken and the shrimp. The sesame oil was not used since I made the chili oil.

To make the chili oil, cook oil until it bubbles, add chili peppers, let sit for a while, strain and pour into a jar or bottle.

Curry Sauce which goes on the chicken and shrimp around the rice.

That's me!! I am making the peanut sauce. Well actually Ashleigh was making the peanut sauce, but she didn't want to be in the picture she ran away as soon as the camera came out.

My favorite part, the toasted coconut! Yumm I could eat that whole pan!!

Finished product! Add the the red pepper flakes and it was pretty darn good if I say so myself!!


I found the recipe here, but made some changes by making my the chili oil, and using nutmeg instead of mace. There are some mistakes in the recipe and a few things listed in ingredients that were not on the directions but not hard to figure out.
http://www.firehow.com/2010102820891/how-to-make-cheesecake-factory-copycat-bang-bang-chicken-and-shrimp.html