White Chili with Chicken

I love chili. I could eat it almost daily. As a matter of fact, when I was pregnant for my second child, I went through a phase when I did eat it daily. He still loves spicy food to this day. But not chili. Go figure. I guess it's the beans. But you can't very well have chili without beans, now, can you?
Well anyway, he did manage to eat a bowl of this white chili and said it was "Okay". The rest of us liked it, and I'll definitely be making it again.
With that, let's begin...
Here's what you'll need:

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped* (optional) (and I skipped this. The cumin gave it a little bit of a spicy flavor, and that was enough for us.)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 4 cups chicken broth (I had about a cup of drippings left from the chicken I made on Sunday which I used, to that I added 3 cups of water and 3 chicken flavored bouillon cubes. Wasn't sure what would happen, but it worked out.)
• 2 cans (15 1/2 ounces each) great northern beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley (which I don't ever have, so I poured about a teaspoon and a half of dried parsley into my palm, decided that looked reasonable, and threw it in. It worked. I know, SO Rachael Ray. If I'd used 'EVOO' you'd be thinking I was her, wouldn't you? No, I know...not in a million years....)
• 1 tablespoon lime juice (why, I don't know, but I used it, and it was fine. Honestly not sure if I'd notice if it was gone. But maybe...)
• 1 to 1-1/4 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 cup cold water
• 2 cups cubed cooked chicken (I actually ROASTED A CHICKEN yesterday just so I'd have some for this recipe. No, really, I did. My husband thinks I did it so he would have a nice meal, but NO, it was for THIS recipe.)

Let's get started...

In a large saucepan, or dutch oven style pot, cook the onion, jalapeno (if you're more daring than me) and garlic in oil until tender. Stir in the broth, beans, parsley, lime juice and cumin. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Combine the cornstarch and water until smooth. Stir into chili. Add the chicken. Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. I think I went with three minutes myself.

I had planned on taking the leftovers in my lunch tomorrow. Well, there aren't any leftovers to take! This was delicious! And easy (okay, not 'easy-peasy', but still...). It took just over 30 minutes to make, and that included the time spent chopping the onion and taking my 2 year old to the bathroom.

Enjoy!!

*a note on the chopped jalapeno. Now, I don't really know much about them, except they're hot, hot, hot, mon. I've never actually worked with a raw jalapeno, but I do know that you have to be very careful handling them. You should always wear rubber or plastic gloves while handling them, and avoid touching your face.

Easy Parmesan Chicken Fingers

Well, when I started this blog I never intended for it to be a 'once-a-month' kind of thing, but sadly that seems to be what it's becoming. I'll try to do better in the future.

I know, I say that or something like that pretty much every time I post, don't I?

Well, to make up for it, I'm giving you one of the most easy-peasy recipes I have. And they're good too, which is a bonus.

Did I just say 'easy-peasy'?

Gather together the following:

• 2 lb. chicken tenders or boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips


• 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese


• 1 pouch extra crispy seasoned coating mix (like Shake N Bake)

And that's it! THREE things! Could it possibly get any easier?? No! Unless you just want to go through the drive-thru, but these are much better, and you know it's real chicken. Really. Do you really know what you're getting when you go through the drive-thru? No. I recently got a fly in my salad when I went through the drive-thru at a restaurant that shall remain unnamed. Unnamed because they took care of me nicely when I told them what they'd done.

Anyway...enough fly talk. Gather your three ingredients and let's get busy...

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Moisten your chicken with water, shake off excess. I'm not sure what the point is of this particular step, unless it helps the cheese and coating stick to it better. Ours is not to reason why....

Place the coating mix in the shaker bag that came with it and add the parmesan cheese. Kind of mix it together.

Kind of. No...mix it good. Give it a couple extra good shakes, just for fun.

Add 2 or 3 chicken tenders to the bag at a time. Shake around until evenly coated. Place on nonstick baking sheet or a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Repeat until you've coated all your chicken. Discard any remaining coating mix.

Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

---

That's it. How simple. Serve this with ranch dressing and/or barbeque sauce for dipping. I also made up a box of mac & cheese and heated up a veggie to go with it.

And everyone loved it.

And here's a tip - use the leftover chicken in a salad. Yum. Just watch out for flies.

Creamy Ham and Potatoes

Yes...I know...it's been almost another month. It's been busy on the home front! Ya'll are beginning to think I never cook, aren't you? Well I do...I just never type. I mean to, honest. I thought I was going to have an awesome ham and bean soup recipe a few days ago. But, well, it was so NOT awesome we had mac & cheese instead. Big "F" for Failure there.
But we're not here to talk about the failures, we're here to talk about the successes. And this one was definitely a success, and will be added to my tried and true list.
This is another plan-ahead, use the crockpot recipe.
Here is your list of ingredients:

• 4 medium red potatoes, thinly sliced
• 2 medium onions, finely chopped (I just used one big one)
• 1 1/2 cups cubed fully cooked ham - great way to use up leftover ham!
• 2 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon ground mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 can (10 3/4 ounces) condensed cream of celery soup, undiluted (and it was good with the celery soup, but I think next time I'll try the mushroom)
• 1 1/3 cups water
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese, optional (which I totally forgot to do, but it was fine without)

Night before:

Slice the potatoes, chop the onions. Mix together & store in the fridge. Cube ham.

In the morning:

Layer potatoes, onions and ham in crock pot. Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in flour, mustard, salt and pepper until smooth. Combine soup and water. Gradually stir into flour mixture. Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until bubbly and thick (You might be able to do this the night before as well, I wasn't sure how much it would thicken up even more overnight in the fridge. But if you want to try it, go for it!). Pour over ham. Cover and cook on low 8-9 hours (or until potatoes are tender). Sprinkle with cheese before serving, if you remember.

This was a great dish and it was great for heating up for lunch the next day at work.

Enjoy!

Zesty Chicken Tortilla Bake

Yes, I know, it's been a MONTH since I posted a recipe. I have a whole STACK of them here waiting for me to have time to enter them. At work, they're making me, well, work, and at home we're in the throes of potty training. You wouldn't think that would make life chaotic, but it does.
Make that extra-chaotic.
And then there are nights like tonight. According to this recipe, it should take 35 minutes plus whatever time you need to cook your chicken, if you're not using leftovers (which I wasn't). So like, 45 minutes, tops. And I really think, in a perfect world, it would have. But it is not a perfect world, and it took nearly 2 hours. Well, the recipe itself didn't take 2 hours, but once you add in LIFE, all together we're talking 2 hours.
We ate way later than I like to, but I will say, when we finally did eat, the food was darn good. I had every intention of taking a picture before we scarfed it down, but by then we all were so stinkin' starving there was just no time to find the camera; by then the hubby and the boys would have inhaled it and I would have got nothing!
Enough of that. Let's get on with the food....

Your ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Miracle Whip dressing
• 1/2 cup flour
• 3 cups milk (Problem #1...we were out of milk. The Boys, who were home all day, knew this, but didn't think that maybe I should know. I didn't discover we were out until well after I'd dealt with Problem #2, below.)
• 1 package (8 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese (divided)
• 1 1/2 pounds of chicken breasts, cooked and cut into 1-inch pieces (Problem #2...when I called The Boy to get chicken out of the freezer, he couldn't find it, so didn't. Apparently I hid it under the bucket of ice cream. And his arms don't work so he couldn't lift it up and check underneath it. So I had to wait for the chicken to thaw.) You could also use a bunch of leftover chicken.
• 1/2 cup salsa (slight Problem #3...I only had 1/4 cup. I substituted 1/4 cup taco sauce for the rest. I'm still trying to figure out what happened to my new jar of salsa.)
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (Okay, that was Martha Stewart talking. I say, a palmful of dried parsley. Who has fresh parsley? Not me....)
• 16 taco-sized flour tortillas

Mix the Miracle Whip and flour in a medium saucepan with a whisk until well blended. I had to use a fork to get the gobs out from in between the wires a few times, which truly I wasn't too impressed with, but I think it may have been the whisk more than it was the gunk. Add about 1 cup of milk and stir until blended, then add the rest and continue stirring until well blended. Cook and stir on medium heat until the sauce comes to a boil and thickens, which at this point, seemed like forever but was probably, oh, 7 or 8 minutes. Stir in half the cheese. Reserve one cup of the prepared sauce.

Add the chicken, salsa and parsley to the remaining sauce and stir until well blended. Spoon 1/3 cup of the sauce/chicken mixture down the center of each tortilla and roll up. I just used a big spoon and eyeballed it; actually using a measuring cup just seemed like it would be really messy to me. Place roll-ups seam side down in baking dish. The recipe I have says to use 2 11x8 inch pans. I don't have 2, so I ended up using 3 pans all together. It also doesn't say to spray the pans, but I did, and I'm glad of it, so I would recommend you do too. Top evenly with the reserved sauce and remaining cheese.

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes.

I served this with corn. Everyone gave this a thumbs up. Not the corn, the tortillas.

Enjoy!

Award-Winning!!

Well, I thought no one ever read this blog, but apparently I was wrong...as I was just nominated for having such a 'brillante' blog, by White Kitchen, who, I think, has an excellent blog (and excellent taste in blogs!) as well. Now it's my turn to nominate seven blogs. Here are my nominations:

1. My Vintage Kitchen - It's the watermelon pickles. Never heard of them, I find them fascinating.

2. A Year of Crockpotting - I love my crockpot! This site (c)rocks!!!

3. I think I have a recipe for that... - an Australian blog I stumbled upon. I just like seeing what they eat over there. Because I've never been there. And I'd like to go. And I'd like to know what I can expect to eat, if I ever DO get there.

4. What Recipe? - A blogger after my own heart, with a nice organized spice cabinet. Note to the DH: See, I'm no freak just because I organize my spices alphabetically! I'm sure he could come up with many other reasons why I'm freak, though...

5. Beck's Recipes - Everything I've seen on her blog sounds so good.

6. Dinner on a Dime - With the price of everything rising these days, it's good to have some economical, but GOOD, recipes on hand.

7. Crista's Kitchen Creations - Because of the peach enchiladas. I mean, YUM.

Congrats, winners! Here are the rules:
1. Post the award logo on your page.
2. Link back to the person who awarded you.
3. Nominate seven other blogs, and add links to their blogs.
4. Make sure your nominees know they’ve won!

Cheesy Meatball Subs

These were so incredibly easy and I can't believe I never thought about making them sooner. A co-worker mentioned making these, and shortly after I ran across a recipe for them. This is similar to the recipe I found, though not exact, because really, it's a 'play it by ear' kind of thing.
Here are my ingredients:

• 2 cups spaghetti sauce
• 4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
• 24 ounces frozen meatballs
• 8 crusty buns (I just used a package of 'sub' buns, but something crustier would be better, like a mini Italian loaf or something)
• shredded mozzarella cheese

Combine spaghetti sauce and parmesan cheese in a large skillet. Add meatballs. Stir gently to coat. Bring to a boil.

Simmer 8 minutes or so until meatballs are heated through. Stir occasionally so that they all get heated!

Spoon onto buns and sprinkle with cheese.

This recipe could easily be cut in half or adjusted to how ever many sandwiches you need.

Crispy Baked Pesto Chicken

This recipe was my first foray into the world of 'pesto'. Turns out we like it....it is garlic-y, after all, and we all like garlic. This is a very simple recipe; only takes about 35 minutes. Perfect for a weeknight.
So, here we go. Here is what you will need:

• 4 small boneless skinless chicken breasts - about 1 pound (though I actually had about 2 1/2 pounds. It's an easy recipe to adapt to more chicken though.)
• 1 pouch chicken seasoned coating mix (like Shake 'N Bake, for instance. I used a store brand though because it was cheaper. Tasted fine.)
• 2 tablespoons pesto (no store brand here. They didn't have any. It was a little pricey for the size jar it was. But no worries, it'll go far. It doesn't take much. And I've already used more because it was so yummy.)
• 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat chicken evenly with coating mix. Place in baking dish.

Bake per directions on coating mix box, or until chicken is cooked through (when it registers at 170 degrees in the thickest part).

Top chicken evenly with pesto. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake an additional 5 minutes or so, until cheese is melted and lightly browned.

This was SO GOOD. I served it with green beans (the princess loves green beans!) and a rice dish.

Country Vegetable Beef

I made this the other night for the whole fam damily. I questioned one particular step, which you probably will too, when we get to it, but it turned out just fine. This is by no means gourmet (but then, what have I posted so far that is? - Nothing!) but it was good. Good enough to be gone when the meal was over.
So let us begin:

*2 cups water
*2 tablespoons cornstarch
*1 pound ground beef
*4 cups frozen mixed vegetables
*2 packages beef flavored ramen noodles - with seasoning packets

That's it - five ingredients - EASY. So easy my son finished it up for me when my parents stopped over unexpectedly when I was in the middle of it. Anywho, this is how you throw it together:

In a small saucepan, mix water, cornstarch and seasoning packets. Stir constantly over low heat until mixture thickens. (I actually did this part last, thinking that way the mixture would still be hot when I mixed everything together. I don't think I really needed to.)

In a frying pan, brown and drain beef. Add vegetables and cook until tender. This is the part I questioned. There's no liquid for the veggies to cook in. I really wasn't sure about this part. But I worried for nothing. The veggies were fine.
Once the veggies are cooked, add the gravy and stir.
(Next time I make this I will add chopped onion to the beef as I brown it. Onion adds just a little more flavor that we like, though this was good without it.)

Cook noodles in water according to package directions and drain.

Now, you have two options.
Option 1: Serve gravy over warm noodles. (per the original recipe)
Option 2: Mix the noodles with the gravy and serve. (per, well, ME. That's what we did and it was delicious)

According to the recipe this makes 2 - 4 servings. But please, we're talking about 2 packages of noodles, 4 CUPS of veggies, and a pound of burger. It served the 5 of us. It was gone when we were done, but we were also STUFFED.

Cashew Brownie Pizza

Okay, I know, this was originally a blog for dinner items. We've been doing a lot of grilling so no new recipes. Last night we had Sesame Pork - okay, but in the words of my son, "It was okay, but not a 'keeper', Mom."
Okay then.
So as I eat the leftovers of my 'Okay, but not a Keeper' Sesame Pork, I decided it was time to expand the blog. No cooking blog is complete without CHOCOLATE. So here is my first entry in the dessert category.
I've made this quite a few times; most recently for the hubby to take to work for his office buddies. They liked it so much a GUY actually asked for the recipe.
So here it is:

BROWNIE
1 package (21 ½ ounces) Pillsbury Traditional Fudge Brownie Mix
1/3 cup water
¼ cup oil
1 egg
2 Tablespoons flour
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (maybe a little more so you can taste test as you go. You wouldn't want to put "bad" chips in your dessert)

*Now, I totally screwed up and bought a brownie mix that was too small. Worse, I didn't notice until I had all the rest of the ingredients mixed in with it. So I figured, what the heck, I'll throw it in the oven anyway. It was flatter and less 'brownie-chewy' than normal, but apparently still good.

TOPPING
2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 can (10 ounces) cashews (again, I'd get extra; you want to taste test.)
½ cup hot fudge ice cream topping

Heat oven to 350. Line 15” round pizza pan with parchment paper. In bowl, combine brownie mix, water, oil, egg and flour; beat 50 strokes by hand. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour brownie mixture on parchment paper. Spread into 14” circle. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. DO NOT OVERBAKE. Remove brownie from pan, do not remove parchment paper. Let cool completely.
Combine cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spread evenly over brownie. Sprinkle cashews over cream cheese mixture. Microwave fudge topping on high for 45 seconds or until warm. Drizzle over cashews.

*this was originally from a Pampered Chef flyer I received many years ago.

Roasted Vegetable Combo

This was SO GOOD. and actually healthy! I have a hard time finding things that are both 'healthy' and 'good'. So this is definitely a keeper!
I served this with the Homestyle Chicken and Gravy. Yea, I know, the gravy totally ruined the 'healthy' aspect. It was still good. SO good.
The veggies take almost an hour between prep and roasting time, so I got them started and then went on to the chicken.
Here are the ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups fresh baby carrots
• 1 pound small red potatoes, unpeeled, quartered (about 3 cups)
• 1 medium onion, cut into thin wedges
• 1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil (I used the olive oil - yummy)
• 1 teaspoon dried basil leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 - 14 ounce package frozen whole green beans (that's 'beans', not 'beens' for those of you who confuse easily) (private joke, just for Mel)

This couldn't be much easier to throw together. Here we go:

Heat your oven to 425. Spray a 15x10x2 inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. In a large bowl combine everything except the green beans. Mix well so everything is pretty evenly coated. Spread evenly on the pan. Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove from oven, mix in green beans.

Bake 20 to 25 more minutes, or until the veggies are tender, stirring once.

DEE-LISH!!

Home-Style Chicken and Gravy

Did you know that Paprika is made from a pepper? I did not know this. All I knew, was that it was a spice. Now, according to what I've found online about paprika, it's not real spicy. Here is the link: http://www.mccormick.com/content.cfm?id=8225
Well, I am here to tell you, SOMETHING about it is spicy. This recipe was delicious - the only problem was, the outside was a bit on the spicy side. Okay, some bites were a lot. Now we use seasoned salt a lot - it's never been spicy. The garlic-pepper blend is black pepper, and I went light on that. But the PAPRIKA - now THAT I went a little crazy with.
So my tip of the day, before you go making this is, USE THE MEASUREMENTS BELOW. I did not - I 'eyeballed it'. Hey it works for Rachael Ray.
Didn't work for me though.
Paprika aside, this was some good chicken. On with the recipe....

Your ingredients:

• 6 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (I actually used 3 - but they were HUGE)
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
• 3/4 teaspoon paprika (trust me on this - do NOT use more)
• 3/4 teaspoon garlic-pepper blend (you can buy it all blended. If you don't want to, it looked to be about a 50/50 mix - just do it yourself)
• 1 - 12 ounce jar home-style chicken gravy
• 2 tablespoons half-and-half or milk (the recipe actually says "fat-free half-and-half" - I didn't know it came that way)
• 1 tablespoon Worchestershire sauce (I shared with the husband what is in Worchestershire sauce. He was disgusted. But he enjoyed the chicken anyway.)

Let's throw everything together:

Spray a large skillet with nonstick cooking spray. I don't have a large skillet, so I used the medium one I have. They were crowded, but it worked. But then, I only had 3 pieces. But, like I said, they were HUGE. Anyway, back to the recipe. Heat skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Sprinkle chicken with seasoned salt, paprika and garlic-pepper blend. See, here's where I went wrong. I thought, "Why measure? I can sprinkle without measuring..." So I did. The hubby ended up with hickups because of it. It was kind of funny. He NEVER has hiccups.

On with the recipe....

Add the chicken to the skillet. Cook 4 to 6 minutes or until browned on both sides. I did mine a little longer because they were so thick. More like 4 to 6 on EACH side. I really wanted to make sure the inside was done.

In a bowl, combine the gravy, half-and-half (or milk) and Worcestershire sauce, mix well. Poor over chicken. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 mintues or until chicken is fork tender and juices run clear.

Everyone loved this recipe, other than the spiciness of it, which really wasn't supposed to be there. We gave the peanut some chicken without coating so she could enjoy it too. I served this with the Roasted Vegetable Combo. We had NO leftovers, and we were all stuffed when we were finished.

Parmesan Chicken

This was good, good, good. Even the little peanut ate like crazy, having 2 helpings of everything. She's usually bored with eating and ready to be done long before that. This one is definitely a keeper.

What you need:
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano, divided
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves. Okay, this is what the recipe says. I bought 4, but they were so big I could only fit 2 in my skillet. And they were THICK. I ended up only cooking the 2, and we'll be grilling the other 2 (which are currently in a bath of BBQ sauce in the fridge - oh yummy!) tomorrow.
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 cups meatless spaghetti sauce (per the recipe - I actually used a whole jar, which was about 3 cups)
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt (per the recipe - since it's mixed with the spaghetti sauce, I increased it to 3/4 teaspoon)
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese
hot cooked pasta of your choice - fettuccine, spaghetti....(I had spaghetti, so that's what I used)

It's a long list. Lots of ingredients. Trust me, it's WORTH IT.
Let's get started:
In a bowl, combine the bread crumbs, 1/4 cup of the Parmesan cheese, 1 teaspoon of the oregano, the basil, salt and pepper. In another bowl, combine the egg and water. Dip the chicken in the egg mixture, then in the crumb mixture. Cook the chicken in the butter (melted of course) in a skillet, on both sides, until done. This took awhile for the chicken I had, because, like I said, it was THICK, and I had to be careful not to burn the outside while I was waiting for the inside to get done. Of course, when I say done, I mean the juices should run clear. This is chicken - we want it done THROUGH.
While the chicken is cooking, combine the spaghetti sauce with the garlic salt and remaining oregano. I added another 1/4 teaspoon of oregano since I had extra sauce and garlic salt. Heat through. I just did this in the microwave, covered, since we have a crappy stove with only 2 burners. Instead of 2 more, we have a grill on the other half of the stove. We use our outside grill, so I'd rather have the extra burners, but we didn't buy the stove - it came with the house, so we make do. Anyway, on with the recipe. Spoon some of the sauce on the finished chicken and sprinkle with mozzarella and the remaining Parmesan cheese. Mix the rest of the sauce with the cooked pasta. For kicks I sprinkled this with mozzarella and Parmesan as well.
I served this with green beans (in case the peanut didn't like it - but she did - as I said, a LOT) and garlic bread.
We did not have ONE BITE of leftovers. We were all stuffed and happy, too. Can't beat that!

Hmm...A Few Random Thoughts Before Bed

Yup, I know. I just posted something else, but I have a few (okay, only a couple really) thoughts I want to share before I head to bed. Which I really need to do soon. So here goes:
1 - I signed up for AdSense and now I keep seeing diet ads on the blog. I don't do diet food, so this doesn't seem right to me. Or maybe it is, because it's probably all fattening food.
2 - I was just killing time and did a google search of recipes to see if I could find my blog. HA. Do you know how many blogs there are devoted to cooking? I didn't either. And I've already forgotten the number. But it was in the hundreds of thousands.
No, I didn't find my blog.
I decided to narrow my search. I searched for crockpot recipes. HA. Do you know how many blogs there are devoted to crockpot cooking? Almost as many as there are to just plain cooking.
No, I still didn't find my blog.
But I did find an entry dated today for a soup EERILY similar to my vegetable beef soup with the veggie juice in it that I posted 2 weeks ago. Instead of just veggie juice, it was 'spicy veggie juice.' Very interesting. And probably just a coincidence, because I really don't think anyone but me reads this blog.

A Short Hiatus

Yea, I know, I've kind of been absent from the blog world for awhile. The hubby got a different shift and I've been rearranging my office hours and schedules have been kind of goofy and I really haven't been doing much cooking lately.
Well, I did make spaghetti on Monday. But really, who needs a recipe for that: a box of spaghetti, a jar of sauce, a pound of burger and some spices for fun.
But I will return...and I'll bring recipes. Good ones too. I promise.

Beef & Ramen Noodles

This is one that I've done quite a few times, because it's easy and the kids all like it. How can you go wrong with ramen noodles?

Here is the ingredients list:

2 packages beef flavored ramen noodle soup
1 pound ground beef
½ cup onion
1 can (11 1/8 ounces) condensed Italian Tomato Soup (or if you can’t find that – I haven’t yet – use plain tomato soup and add some Italian seasoning)
½ soup can water
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
Generous dash of pepper

Once you've gathered every thing together, here's what you do with it all:

Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain most of the liquid off & add seasoning packets. Set aside.
Meanwhile, cook beef and onion until beef is browned and onion is done. Spoon off fat.
Stir in soup, water, Worcestershire, mustard and pepper. Stir in reserved noodles. Heat through, stirring occasionally.

Everybody likes this one. Add some green beans on the side, and you have a meal. It is not enough if the hubby is home, but for the 3 kids and me, it's plenty; we had a small bowl full left.

Pour-A-Pan Pizza

Travis requested pizza last night.  Well, I didn’t have any pizza crust so I couldn’t make a traditional pizza.  I did, however, have all the ingredients for this recipe, because it (conveniently) was already on my list of meals for the week.   For anyone who wants to know, I make a list of meals each weekend before I head to the grocery store.  By doing this I know I always have the ingredients on hand for what I want to make.  I’m always on the look-out for quick and easy recipes that look like something our kids will like.  Another good reason for planning ahead is that it’s easier to stay within my budget – I know what I need, and I get everything in one trip.  I don’t go back to the grocery store 3 more times throughout the course of the week. 

Unless the boys forget to tell me we need dog food.  But that’s another story.

But I digress….

What you need to make this recipe:

 

·         1 cup all purpose flour

·         1 teaspoon salt

·         ½ teaspoon garlic powder

·         1/8 teaspoon pepper

·         2/3 cup milk

·         2 eggs, beaten

·         1 pound bulk Italian sausage

·         1 package ( 3 ½ ounces) sliced pepperoni

·         2 tablespoons chopped onion (I just cut up part of an onion and called it good.  It was way over 2 tablespoons but it still worked fine)

·         2 tablespoons chopped green pepper (I left this off.  I’m not a fan of green peppers.  I think one little piece of cooked green pepper makes the whole dish taste like green pepper.  If I wanted the whole thing to taste like that I’d just cook up a dish of green pepper and forget everything else.  That will never happen, by the way.)

·         1 cup pizza sauce (really I just used what looked like the ‘right’ amount to me.  You’ll have to judge for yourself if 1 cup is enough.)

·         2 cups (8 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese

 

Okay, so I probably could have made traditional pizza crust with what I had.  I’ll be honest – I wanted to try this recipe instead.  Travis was still very happy - this was close enough in his book.

 

Once you have your ingredients ready, this is what you want to do with them all:

 

In a skillet, cook sausage until it is no longer pink.  Drain off grease.  While that’s cooking, combine the flour, salt, garlic powder and pepper in a bowl.  Stir in milk and eggs.  Pour into greased 13x9x2 inch baking dish.  Sprinkle cooked sausage over crust.  Top with pepperoni, onion, and green pepper (if that’s your thing).  Bake at 425°, uncovered, for 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Spread with pizza sauce; sprinkle with cheese.  Bake another 5 minutes or so, until cheese is melted.  Let stand 5 minutes before cutting.

 

So that’s the recipe.  A couple things I will do differently next time:  I will cook the onion with the sausage.  Nothing like an onion sopping in grease!  Seriously, they were cooked but I think they would have been better if they’d been cooked beforehand.  Part of it may have been that I had a LOT more than the 2 tablespoons called for though.  The other thing I will do is pop the pepperoni in the microwave on a plate with about a zillion paper towels for about 14 seconds per plate full.  Gets rid of a lot of the grease that way; I usually do that for traditional pizza and I’m really not sure why I didn’t for this recipe.  The dish was delicious but a little greasy.  I tilted the dish to let the grease drain out of the leftovers before I packed them up so that the hubby wouldn’t be overwhelmed with grease.

This dish was a huge hit!  The boys loved it – Travis said I could make it every day for the next week!!  So I am!!

No I’m not!!

The hubby agreed it was very good, and said that while every day would be too much, once every week or so would be perfect.

The Princess did not like it.  Sausage and pepperoni are just too spicy for her.  I gotta hand it to her though, for being just 2, she did great at least trying it.  She ended up having some sliced ‘ham’ (it was chicken, but it’s all ham to her), carrots, and raw cabbage.  I know!  Raw cabbage!  But she was happy and ate very well.  And so I was happy.

There was enough left when the boys and I were finished that I thought the hubby would have enough for his lunch.  And he would have too, but when he got home he ate it then instead.  And then he ate some more.  And then it was gone.

Hamburger Vegetable Soup

I like a good crock pot meal. Monday's are exceptionally hectic, with the boys having Boy Scouts that night, so crock pots are a good thing on those nights. This particular recipe is very easy to throw together. I found that for me, the best thing is to brown the burger the night before. And so, let us begin....

Your ingredient list:
1 pound ground beef (the leaner, the better)
1 medium onion, chopped (I had a great big onion, and I used maybe about a third. I don't buy small onions)
2 garlic cloves, minced (or the equivalent in dried minced garlic. That's what I use. I never buy cloves.)
4 cups vegetable juice (V8 or something similar. I used the cheap WalMart brand and it was fine. And cheap.)
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) stewed tomatoes
2 cups coleslow mix (this is really just shredded cabbage. I don't know why they don't just call it that.)
2 cups frozen green beans (or, if you're like me and completely skip this line when making your grocery list, use one can of green beans, drained. Add 1/2 hour before serving. I called my son and made him do it.)
2 cups frozen corn
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce (let me just say, I've used this for years, and never known until now what was actually in it. That's a good thing. Had I known then, what I know now, I would probably have steered clear. Now, I made the mistake of reading the ingredients list. Ew.)
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Seems like a lot of stuff, but it's really very easy to throw it all together. Here is what you do with it all:

In a saucepan, cook beef, onion and garlic over medium heat until meat is browned. Like I said, I did this the night before so it was waiting in the fridge this morning.
If you're not using a handy dandy crock pot liner, you simply throw all the ingredients in the crock pot together and stir them up. If you are using a liner, put it all in a big bowl, stir it up, and then pour it in to the crock pot. It's just easier to stir it all up when you don't have to worry about messing up the liner. At least for me it is.
Cover and cook on low for 8 to 9 hours.
Now, the recipe says it makes 10 servings. I don't think so - the Princess really didn't like it (too much tomato flavor for her), so the boys and I are the only 3 that ate it, and there was just enough left for one lunch.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Last night I made some really good baked mostaciolli and beef. Too bad I left the recipe at home. Since I did, I'm going back to my 'tried-and-true' recipes, and today I'm reaching in the hat and pulling out......

Chicken Noodle Soup! (hence the title of the post)

Your ingredient list:
* 3 cans (14 1/2 ounces each) chicken broth OR equivalent water and bouillon cubes (no, it doesn't look like it's spelled right - according to spell check, it is)
* 2 medium onions coarsely chopped (if you buy onions like me, this means about half a large onion)
* 2 carrots, thinly sliced (if you buy carrots like me, this means 8 to 10 baby carrots)
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 2 celery stalks, sliced (if you buy celery like me, this means 2 celery stalks, sliced) (sorry, I couldn't help myself)
* 3/4 cup small pasta shells
* 2 cups cooked, diced chicken

In this is what you do with all of it:

In a dutch oven or soup pot, cover and heat chicken broth or water and bouillon to a simmer. Add salt, onions, carrots and celery to broth. Cover and simmer until veggies are almost tender (about 5 minutes). Add pasta shells and cook, uncovered, for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add chicken and cook until pasta is tender, about 3 more minutes.

This is enough for the kids and I, but if I want enough for hubby's lunch or if he's home I need to double the recipe.

Vegetable Noodle Soup

This is a really easy, quick soup to throw together. Four ingredients – doesn’t get much simpler than that!

Here is the ingredients list:

· 3 ½ cups milk

· 1 (16 ounce) package frozen California blend vegetables

· ½ cup cubed processed American cheese (Velveeta)

· 1 envelope chicken noodle soup mix

See, pretty simple.

Here’s what you do with it:

In a large saucepan (or dutch oven of course) bring milk to a boil. Stir once in a while as it’s coming to the boil so that it doesn’t coat the bottom of your saucepan/dutch oven with cooked milk gunk. Doesn’t hurt anything, really, so if you don’t want to, don’t. I just don’t like having the gunk. Once your milk is boiling, stir in the frozen vegetables. Return to boiling. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 6 minutes. Stir in cubed cheese and soup mix. Return to a boil. Reduce heat (I know, back and forth and forth and back – just do it!). Simmer, uncovered, for 5-7 minutes or until noodles are tender and cheese is melted, stirring occasionally.

For being so simple, it’s really very good. This amount made enough for the 3 kiddos and me. Had the DH been home there would not have been enough. Maybe a salad and some crusty bread would have made it go far enough for all 5 of us.

Enchilada Casserole*

Last night was “Kid’s Choice” – and since hot dogs wrapped in refrigerated biscuits don’t need a recipe, I’m reaching back into the files of the Tried and True Recipes, and finding my Enchilada Casserole to share. It’s pretty flexible – you can use turkey (I’ve used leftover from Thanksgiving and deli), chicken, or a pound of ground beef – whatever you happen to have.

And so, here is the list of ingredients:

* 1 can (16 ounces) tomato sauce
* 1 can (4 ounces) chopped mild green chilies, drained
* 1 garlic clove, crushed (or, like me, the equivalent in dried or powder form)
* 1 tablespoon chili powder
* 2 teaspoons ground cumin
* 1 teaspoon dried oregano
* ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
* about 8 ounces cooked turkey or chicken, cubed – I usually add more than 8 ounces but that’s enough if it’s all you have. OR brown ½ to 1 pound hamburger and use that.
* 1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced (I hope you have better luck finding them than I have been lately – the last 2 weeks, the store hasn’t had any. None. Not even an empty space where they belong. What’s up with that?)
* 9 corn tortillas, cut in half
* 2 ½ cups grated cheddar cheese

Once you have everything together, here’s what you do with it all:

Preheat oven to 375. Combine tomato sauce, green chilies, garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano and pepper. Line bottom of deep dish pizza sized pan with 6 tortilla halves. Spread a third of the sauce mixture over the tortillas. Cover with half the meat and half the onions. Sprinkle with 1 cup cheese. Top with 6 more tortilla halves, half the remaining sauce and all the remaining meat and onions. Sprinkle with 1 cup of remaining cheese. Top with the rest of the tortilla halves, the remaining sauce, and the last of the cheese. Bake 25 minutes. Let stand about 5 minutes before cutting into it. Serve with corn and/or corn bread.

The DH likes it best with ground beef. I think I do too, but it’s good with both turkey and chicken as well. It’s a little too spicy for my little one, but she’s happy if I leave out some of the meat for her and give her some corn to go with it.

*adapted from Pampered Chef's Busy Mom's Cookbook

Tomato Chicken Italiano*

Yea, I know, it's been a few days. Things have been pretty crazy at the homestead so I haven't been cooking. So much for this blog giving me quick ideas.
Seriously though, I treated the kids to McD's on Monday - the first time they've been there in well over a month. You should have seen the little peanut's excitement when we drove in the parking lot. So cute.
Yesterday the DH was home for the day so he made dinner.
And it's been busy at work so I haven't had time to add any tried and true recipes. But I'm back! And today, we're talking Chicken.

The ingredient list:
* 3 tablespoons flour
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon pepper
* 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 2 garlic cloves, pressed (or, what I do, sprinkle in some garlic powder. I never buy cloves. Just make sure you don't get carried away)
* 1 cup cubed zucchini (about one small to medium zucchini)
* 1 cup red bell pepper chunks (about one medium pepper)
*2 teaspoons dried basil
*1 can (14 1/2 ounce) diced tomatoes with Italian-style herbs

With the zucchini and bell pepper this is a great recipe for late summer when the garden's in full swing. If you have one. I never do, but my parents do, and I get the overflow. Because you know there's always too much zucchini.

Anyway, once you get all your ingredients together, here is what you do with them:

In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, and black pepper. Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture (shake off excess). Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add chicken and cook, turning once, until golden brown. That'll take about 10 minutes. I always cook my chicken a little longer though, just because I'm terrified of biting into raw chicken.
Add the other 1 tablespoon oil and the garlic to the pan. Cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant - about 30 seconds. Add zucchini, bell pepper and basil. Continue cooking and stirring for about 2 minutes, or when the vegetables are crisp-tender. Add tomatoes and stir. Return the chicken to the pan and cook until the chicken is no longer pink in center and the vegetables are tender, about 6 minutes. Serve hot with buttered egg noodles.

It's delicious. The DH wasn't sure, when he saw all those veggies in there, if he would like it, but was pleasantly surprised.

*because unlike the other recipes, I have not really made any changes to this one, I feel like I better give credit where credit is due. This recipe is originally from The Pampered Chef Busy Mom's Cookbook.

Taco Soup

I stand corrected. Last night’s plan of stew didn’t pan out, because the hubby took all the leftovers to work with him. Here I thought there was plenty for both him AND stew. He confessed that it was just a little bit too much for him, but insists I didn’t have enough for the stew.
He did say there were some very jealous people at work last night. Pure goodness on a plate, I tell you.
So we couldn’t have stew. We ended up just having grilled cheese sandwiches and french fries. It was a good meal, but certainly no beef stew.
Tonight, if we have the beans, we’re going to have Taco Soup. My boys love this. My daughter loves part of it – the corn, the chips, and the cheese. It’s just like Chili (which they say they DON’T like) but it has corn added.

Here’s what you need:

* 1 ½ pounds ground beef
* 1 envelope taco seasoning
* 2 cans (15 ¼ ounces each) whole kernel corn, undrained
* 2 cans (15 ounces each) chili beans, undrained
* 2 cans (14 ½ ounces each) diced tomatoes, undrained
* Crushed tortilla chips (or Fritos – that’s what we usually use)
* Shredded cheddar cheese

And here’s how you throw it together:

In a dutch oven (I love my dutch oven) cook beef until done, drain (you could probably add some diced onions to the beef while cooking too, I sometimes do if I have an onion lying around). Stir in the taco seasoning, corn, beans and tomatoes. Cover and simmer (stirring occasionally) for 15 minutes or so, until heated through.
Place chips in soup bowls, ladle soup over chips, and sprinkle with cheese. OR, do chips, cheese, then soup. OR, do soup, cheese, then chips. Order doesn’t matter – the end result is the same. It’s all good!

Roast Beef with Gravy

Last night's dinner was made with our trusty crockpot. Let me first say that if you've never used those new crockpot liners, you don't know what you're missing - cleanup is a BREEZE with them. I use my crockpot a lot more now than I did before I discovered them. Or I should say, when someone directed me to a free sample. I'm all about free samples. And once I used the sample I was hooked like a fish.
Now the trick with this particular crockpot recipe is that it doesn't take all day - so a crockpot with delay start is helpful. I don't have that, but I do have a hubby who works second shift who is more than happy to plug in the crockpot for me before he leaves for work. Of course he is - he gets the leftovers from all my attempts.
Here we go...

Ingredients you will need:

* 1 boneless beef sirloin tip roast (about 4 pounds) <-- per the recipe. I used one about 2 1/2 pounds because that's what we were given when we bought 1/4 of a cow last year. It was a good size for us, with plenty left for hubby's lunch and the stew I plan on making tonight.
* 1/2 cup flour, divided (a word I missed yesterday morning when I threw it together - but no worries, it all worked out in the end)
* 1 envelope onion soup mix
* 1 envelope brown gravy mix
* 2 cups cold water

And this is what you do with it all:

Cut your roast in half. Rub it with 1/4 cup flour. (Or, if you want to be like me - and I know you do - rub it with all the flour, and watch some of it fall onto the cutting board. After it falls off the roast, dump the fallen flour into the garbage.) Place roast in crockpot. I used my small one (3-ish qts.) but if you use a 4 lb. roast you may need a bigger one. In a bowl, combine the soup & gravy mix, and the other 1/4 cup flour (unless you're doing it my way, in that case, just dump some flour in, estimating what you threw away. No, it never occurred to me that I should just put in 1/4 cup flour until today. What can I say, but OOPS.). Add the water, and mix until blended. Pour over roast. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours (I did 6 since it was a smaller roast - which is why I needed hubby to plug it in for me) or until meat is tender. Slice roast, serve with mashed potatoes. Instant is great. I also made corn. Now, the gravy was a little runny when I took the roast out of the crockpot; that was probably because I guessed on the flour (it all makes sense now...). I simply added some flour and whisked it in there and it was perfect.
It was a plate full of pure goodness.
Pure goodness I tell you.

Biscuits and Gravy

I didn't make dinner last night. The boys were at a scouting event so it was just me and the little one. I had leftovers; she had a slice of deli ham and some cheese. She was a happy little camper.
So I decided to go through a few of my recipes and find a favorite to post. This particular one is requested by my teen quite often, and most recently I made it for his birthday dinner a few weeks ago. You would not believe just how perfect the gravy turned out. It was SO GOOD. The biscuits, well, that's a whole nother story. Which of course I will get to, in a minute.

Here's what you need for the gravy:
1 pound bulk pork sausage
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
6 tablespoons flour
3 1/2 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper

And this is how it goes together:
You could use a very large sauce pan and it might fit, but I like to use my dutch oven. So, cook the sausage in a dutch oven (or that very large saucepan) until it's no longer pink. If you wanted to add diced onion, do that before you cook the sausage. I think it would be tasty, but I never remember to do it. And do you know why? Because it's not on the ingredient list, that's why.
Moving along....after you cook the sausage, stir the butter in until it's melted. Sprinkle the flour over the sausage, and stir it in. Gradually add the milk. To me this means, add about a half cup, and stir. Add about another cup, and stir. Dump the rest in, and, you guessed it, stir. Add your salt and pepper, and stir (there's a lot of stirring involved in this recipe). Bring it to a boil, and cook and stir (I told you!!) for about 4 minutes. When it's thick like it should be, it's done.

Now for the biscuits. You could use Jiffy or Bisquick and your biscuits should be perfectly fine. Unless you do what I did last time - I used Bisquick, but I didn't quite have enough, and apparently I'm not very good at guessing measurements. We had little hockey pucks on the outside, with a very yeasty tasting bready consistency on the inside. That didn't work out well.
The other option, is to make some drop biscuits from scratch, which is what I should have done.

This is the recipe I've used in the past:
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons butter or margarine, melted

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in one bowl. In another bowl, combine the milk and butter, then stir into the dry ingredients just until blended. Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet. Bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown.

If you do this, you'll have some delicious biscuits to serve your sausage gravy on. Since I didn't do this, and had hockey pucks, I served the gravy on hash browns, which I had planned on having with the meal anyway. I just used the store-bought rectangular preshaped patties that you pop in the oven so I wouldn't have to try to watch potatoes and gravy at the same time.

This made enough for me, my teen, my tween, and my toddler; with a little left for the hubby to have for breakfast or lunch the next day.

Cheesy Kielbasa Pasta Supper

This is what I made last night, and the kids all loved it. I did not think to take a picture of it, because the idea for the blog didn't come to me until this morning, so you'll have to imagine it. With the cheese, kielbasa, and veggies it's very colorful.

Here is the original ingredient list:

6 oz. (about 2 1/2 cups) uncooked rigatoni
1 (1-lb.) package frozen broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots
1 (10 3/4 oz) can condensed cheddar cheese soup
3/4 cup milk
1/2 lb. kielbasa or polish sausage (halved length-wise & sliced) - you could also use turkey kielbasa if you want to be healthier
1 (2.5 oz) jar sliced mushrooms

Now, when I gathered all this together, I decided that I wanted to use the whole kielbasa, because if I didn't, it would go back in the fridge for a month or two and then get thrown away. But if you're going to add more kielbasa, you have to add more of some other stuff too. So I added:

an additional 6 oz. uncooked rigatoni
about 1/2 of another package of frozen veggies (what was left in the freezer from another meal)
another 3/4 cup milk
I didn't have another can of soup so instead I added a handful of shredded cheddar cheese (probably about 1 to 1 1/2 cups)
and of course the rest of the kielbasa.

I ended up NOT adding any mushrooms at all because my 10 year old doesn't like them right now. I say right now because he used to.

So, there you have the ingredients. Here's what you do with them:

In a dutch oven, cook rigatoni per package directions. According to the recipe you should add the frozen veggies 6 or 7 minutes before the pasta is done. If you like your veggies quite firm, that's what you should do. Me, I like them a little softer, because they're easier for my toddler to chew. Next time I'll add them at 10 minutes so they'll be plenty soft enough.
Once the pasta and the veggies are cooked, drain them and return them to the dutch oven. Stir in the soup, milk, cheese, kielbasa and mushrooms. Cook over medium heat until heated through. You'll want to stir it occasionally.
The only thing I didn't really care for about this recipe was the rigatoni. It's basically a pasta tube with ridges, and there's nothing really wrong with it, but I'm a rotini kind of person, so next time I'll use that instead.

I served this with garlic biscuits, which is simply a tube of buttermilk biscuits (the skinny tube with 10 biscuits in it), with each biscuit dipped in a melted butter/garlic mixture, and placed in a pan (I melted the butter right in the pan I planned to bake them in, which worked really well). They should all be touching. Top them with shredded cheese - doesn't matter what kind. I usually use cheddar, last night I used an Italian blend. If you feel like it, sprinkle some Italian seasoning or whatever suits you on the cheese. Pop them in the oven and bake according to the directions on the biscuit tube.

Hubby got home from work at about 10:30 and heated up a plate of the pasta supper and gave it positive reviews. He didn't get any biscuits, because they were deelish and we chowed them all down.

By doubling the recipe, I have enough left for hubby and me to take some in our lunches, or there was enough for another meal for me and the kids.