Obama honors service members for Memorial Day

President Barack Obama used his weekly address on Saturday to pay tribute to the men and women who have fought and died protecting the freedoms this country holds so dear.

Peach cobbler

My grandma's birthday was over the weekend and so my uncle -- one of her sons -- had a cookout at his house to "celebrate." I put celebrate in quotation marks because she insisted we did not do anything special for her birthday. Anyway, I decided to make a dessert for the occasion and I knew we were having cake so I thought I'd pull out my CROCK-POT cookbook my friend got me for Christmas and see what was in there I could make. I settled on peach cobbler.

          

Review: This recipe was pretty simple to make. Because it was a party I doubled the ingredients but if you are just making it for yourself and your household family it will make enough as it is written. The only thing I would suggest changing about the recipe is letting it cook in the CROCK-POT for three hours instead of the two it suggests. The only reason I say that is because some of the peaches were warm while others were still cold when I started serving it after two hours of cooking. Part of it might have been because I didn't thaw the peaches as much as they could have been, but I think another part was because I just didn't cook it long enough. I will say, though, that once you cook it, it does taste nice cold the next day. The crumbles that are typically on top of a peach cobbler also didn't turn out quite like I had hoped or expected but I think it's because I started mixing the "cobbler" ingredients with an upright blender when I think it would have been best to use a hand-held blender. I switched to a hand-held about halfway through the mixing, but I think by then I had already made the cobbler too much of a semi-clumpy powder instead of a thicker crumble. All-in-all, though, it was quite tasty and a great dessert for a warm spring or summer day.

Recipe:

• 2 packages (16 ounces each) frozen peaches, thawed and drained
• 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar, divided
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces (I used stick butter so that made the measuring and cutting easier)
• Whipped cream (optional)

After following the directions on the bags of peaches to thaw them, combine the peaches, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon and nutmeg in a medium bowl. Transfer to a CROCK-POT slow cooker (I just put all the ingredients in the CROCK-POT and mixed it in there so I wouldn't have to get an extra dish dirty). For the topping, combine the flour, remaining 1 tablespoon sugar and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or 2 knives until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over the peach mixture. Cover and cook on HIGH for 2 hours. Serve with whipped cream, if desired.

TIP: To make the cleanup easier when cooking sticky or sugary foods, spray the inside of the CROCK-POT slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray before adding the ingredients.

Obama says Congress must continue with Wall Street reforms

President Barack Obama said in his weekly address on Saturday that Congress must continue working on Wall Street reforms to help protect the consumer and the economy. He said reforms would help prevent excessive risk-taking that caused J.P. Morgan Chase to lose at least $2 billion.

Classic spaghetti

Mom asked for spaghetti and I gave it to her. Tonight's spaghetti dinner was another recipe from my slow-cooker cookbook my friend gave me and it was another good one. Of course just using sauce from a can would be faster but if you have time and want to "sophisticate" it a bit, this is the way to go. I suppose there's also something a little psychological about the healthiness of making the sauce from fresh ingredients compared to just opening a can.

Review: This recipe wasn't difficult it was just a little more time consuming because it involved slicing a few vegetables and cooking meat. To be honest, the recipe is a two-for-one because you also could make it for a hearty beef stew and eat it without spaghetti. It calls for adding mushrooms and celery but I don't like either one of those so I left them out. I also left out the stewed tomatoes because I'm not a fan of whole tomatoes and didn't want to have to bite into one (sauce, salsa and ketchup are fine for me but not whole tomatoes). For me, personally, I like a thicker spaghetti sauce and this was more runny (think Ragu instead of Prego), but it was still quite good.

Recipe:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped (I actually used one because two would have been a lot)
• 2 green bell peppers, sliced
• 2 stalks celery, sliced
• 4 teaspoons minced garlic
• 3 pounds lean ground beef
• 2 carrots, diced
• 1 cup mushrooms, diced
• 1 can (28 ounces) tomato sauce
• 3 cups water
• 1 can (28 ounces) stewed tomatoes, undrained
• 2 tablespoons minced parsley
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 1 pound dry spaghetti

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add onions, bell peppers, celery and garlic. Cook and stir until tender then transfer to the CROCK-POT slow cooker. In the same skillet, brown the ground beef then drain and discard the fat. Add the beef, carrots, mushrooms, tomato sauce, water, tomatoes with juice, parsley, oregano, sugar, salt and black pepper to the CROCK-POT. Cover and cook on LOW 6 to 8 hours or on HIGH 3 to 5 hours, or until done.

Cook the spaghetti according to package directions and drain the water. Serve the sauce over the cooked spaghetti.

If you want to add garlic bread with it I typically preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, butter slices of bread, sprinkle garlic powder on them and stick them in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

Baked salmon with pan-roasted corn salsa

I've been wanting some salmon for a while now so tonight's dinner gave me that opportunity. I found the recipe on the kitchendaily.com website and I'll attach the link here so you can look at it too. Of course I'll post the recipe below as well so you don't have to go to a different website if you don't want, you can just scroll down to find it.

Review: This recipe was pretty scrumptious. There really isn't anything I would change but I would say that I used the mild Picante sauce so if you like "hot" or "spicy" foods you could get the medium or hot Picante sauce. I also did not serve it with a side but you could serve it with an additional vegetable or even some rice would go well with it. The recipe did call for 1 cup of whole kernel corn but I just bought a small bag and used the whole thing because I didn't figure it would hurt having extra corn to serve on top of the salmon. It also called for thawing the corn but I just poured the bag straight from the freezer to the pan.

Recipe:

• 4 fresh salmon fillets (about 1 1/2 pounds or however many and however big you want them to serve to however many people you have)
• 1 jar (16 ounces) Pace Picante Sauce
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 cup frozen whole kernel corn, thawed and drained
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro leaves
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the salmon in a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan and spoon 1/2 cup of the Picante sauce over the fish. Bake for 15 minutes or until the fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. Heat the oil in an 8-inch skillet over medium heat and add the corn. Cook for about 4 minutes or until the corn starts to brown (if you thaw it, it might take around 4 minutes but it took mine a couple minutes longer because I didn't thaw them first). Stir the remaining Picante sauce, cilantro and lemon juice in the skillet and heat through. Serve the salmon with the corn salsa.

Tip: To thaw the corn, microwave on HIGH for 1 minute.

Obama says war funding should go toward rebuilding America

President Barack Obama used his weekly address on Saturday to let the American people know he wanted to take the funding that would go toward the Afghanistan war and use it for nation-building on projects such as fixing roads, bridges and other methods of transportation. He also said part of the funding should go toward paying off the debt and deficit.