Pasta & Meatballs

This is SUCH an easy recipe, and it's a favorite here at the homestead. I actually double this recipe if the DH is home for dinner. The ingredient list is short and sweet:

• 1 cup water
• 1 - 26 ounce jar pasta sauce
• 1 1/2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni
• 20 frozen cooked regular or Italian style meatballs
• grated Parmesan, optional

And the directions are short and sweet as well. And EASY:

Heat water and pasta sauce to boiling in a 10 inch skillet. Stir in macaroni and meatballs. Return to boiling. Reduce heat to medium and cover. Cook 15 to 20 minutes longer, stirring occasionally, until macaroni is tender. Sprinkle with cheese.

Yup, that's it. Easy and good. I may even make this tonight.

Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole

Well I'm back, with a new computer - a laptop, which is proving to be WAY more convenient than the tower I had. Still have, but it's been demoted to just games and things for the younger 2. And the DH. Because this laptop is MINE darn it.
No, really, I DO share...
I'm not going to make any promises that I'll be posting often. I THINK I'll do better now that I can chill on the couch and type, but you know. I may still be Lazy.

On to the recipe. This is one that I really thought I would like, was pretty sure the kids would like, but really didn't think the hubby would like. Turns out I was wrong, we ALL really liked this one.

Here is the list of ingredients:

*2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
*bread crumbs
*1 egg, mixed with 1/2 cup milk
*8 ounces Swiss cheese, cubed
*8 ounces ham, diced
*1 can (10 ounces) cream of chicken soup
*1 cup milk

And it's pretty easy to throw it all together:

First, dip the chunks of chicken into the egg and milk mixture, then into the bread crumbs; coating well. Brown in a little oil until golden. Place chicken chunks in baking dish. Add cubes of Swiss cheese and diced ham. Mix the soup with 1 cup of milk and pour over all.

Bake for about 30 minutes at 350 degreees, or until tender and bubbly.

I did small red potatoes in the microwave with this: rinse potatoes; pierce each potato a few times with a fork. Place in microwave safe dish and add about 1/4 inch of water. Cover and microwave until done. I usually do 10-12 small potatoes in about 10 minutes. Eat them like a baked potato, smothered with butter and/or sour cream. Yum!!

*thank you Chevy for this recipe.

Stir-Fried Beef and Vegetables

I love going out to Chinese restaurants. My wallet doesn't. So I've been trying to find some 'sort of' Chinese recipes to make at home that are good and easy. Haven't found many. But this one - it's good. The entire family liked it. So here we go...
Your Ingredient List:

-4 tablespoons soy sauce
-4 tablespoons water (actually could use sherry as well, but I have water, no sherry. It tasted great with water)
-2 teaspoons sugar
-1 pound beef top round steak
-2 ounce cellophane noodles, broken or 1 package rice noodles, broken (I haven't used the cellophane noodles, but we LOVED the rice noodles. They were different but good. You could probably boil up some thin spaghetti as well.)
-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
-2 teaspoons ground ginger
-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped (just bought myself a garlic press. LOVE IT.)
-2 tablespoons vegetable oil
-2 cups fresh snow (Chinese) pea pods or 12 ounces frozen snow pea pods, thawed and drained
-2 medium onions, cut into thin wedges

Mix soy sauce, water and sugar, set aside. Trim fat from beef and cut into 2 inch strips. Cut strips in 1/8 inch slices. This is much easier to do if the beef is partially frozen.
Soak noodles in enough water to cover, about 15 to 20 minutes, then drain.
Heat wok or large skillet over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons oil, rotate wok to coat. Add beef, ginger and garlic. Stir-fry until beef is no longer pink – about 5 minutes. Remove from wok.
Add 2 tablespoons oil to wok, rotate to coat. Add pea pods and onion. Stir-fry until vegetables are crisp-tender. Stir in beef mixture and noodles. Heat to boiling. Stir in soy sauce mixture. Cook and stir about 2 minutes until heated through.

Serve with some egg rolls or egg drop soup.
Enjoy!

Chile-Chicken Enchiladas

1 can (19 oz) enchilada sauce
2 cups diced cooked chicken
1 ½ cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese (6 oz.)
1 cup sour cream
1 can (4.5 oz) chopped green chiles
8 – 8 inch flour tortillas
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Heat oven to 350°. Spray bottom of 13x9 inch (3 quart) glass baking dish with cooking spray. Spread ½ cup enchilada sauce in bottom of baking dish. In medium bowl, stir together chicken, Monterey Jack cheese, sour cream and chiles.
Spoon about 1/3 cup chicken mixture down center of each tortilla. Roll up tortillas; arrange, seam sides down, in baking dish. Top enchiladas with remaining enchilada sauce. Sprinkle with Cheddar cheese. Spray sheet of foil with cooking spray; cover baking dish with foil, sprayed side down.
Bake 35 minutes. Remove foil; bake 5 to 10 minutes longer or until hot and cheese is melted.
If desired, serve with avocado, green onions, lettuce, chopped tomato and additional sour cream.

Pizza Sandwiches

We started a new 'thing' at our house. Well, it's not new anymore, but new since my last post. Tuesday nights are "Kid's Night". Which basically means each week the boys take turns planning a meal. They do this over the weekend before I get groceries, they make sure we have all the ingredients, and when Tuesday rolls around, they make dinner. I supervise. I chose Tuesday because we normally don't have a lot going on on Tuesdays, so if dinner takes a bit longer that's okay. I'm hoping that eventually my supervisory role will be diminished as their cooking skills improve. And looking into the future, I also hope that my daughter-in-laws thank me for making sure their hubbies know how to cook for them. And eventually the princess will learn how to cook this way as well.
Pizza Sandwiches is one of the first choices my 11 year old made, and they were fairly quick, and certainly easy enough for him to make.
Here is the list of ingredients:

• 8 slices Italian bread (3/4 inch thick) - but seriously, we used regular white bread, and they were just fine
• 8 slices part-skim mozzarella cheese
• 8 slices tomato (slice thin)
• 4 teaspoons grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
• 24 slices pepperoni
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• Pizza sauce, warmed

Obviously this only makes 4 sandwiches, but it's easy enough to double up everything and make 8. Or only make 6. Hey, you could even be crazy and only make 7. Whatever floats your boat.

Let's put these sandwiches together.

On four slices of bread layer one slice of mozzarella, two slices of tomato, 1 teaspoon Parmesan cheese, a dash of garlic salt and six slices of pepperoni. Top with remaining mozzarella and bread. Spread outside of sandwiches with butter.

Grill sandwiches for 3-4 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Serve with pizza sauce.

These were really quite good. I did help with the flipping of the sandwiches, as he tends to get carried away and I didn't want any pepperoni stuck to the ceiling.

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.

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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.