Buffalo Chicken Lasagna

Wow, it took me a lot longer to get caught up than I had intended! And I think I still have two things I didn't post, but one wasn't very interesting, and the other was the goat cheese from my cheese making class, which for some reason I feel I need a big chunk of time to post. Or maybe I'm just too lazy to go downstairs and find the recipes from the class and type up how to do it. But, I promise you that some day I will!! Right now I'm sneaking a couple minutes while the boy is at preschool and the baby is sleeping to post tonight's dinner. Then it's an exciting morning of putting away laundry, throwing more laundry in the washer, and cleaning my kitchen. You're jealous of me, aren't you? Being a stay at home mom is sooooo glamorous, I know.

I was flipping through my Make it Fast, Cook it Slow cookbook recently looking for ideas for Wednesday night (Bible study night) dinners and saw this Buffalo Chicken Lasgna recipe. It sounded intriguing, and all I really needed for it was some ricotta, so I figured I'd slate it for one night this week. Although I'm not doing it in the crockpot, I'm going to do it in the oven like a regular lasagna.

Actually I'm going to be super lazy and just post the link to the original recipe:

Crockpot Buffalo Chicken Lasagna

I'm using no-cook lasagna noodles because I have some on hand I want to use up, and then I'll bake it in the oven, probably at 350 for 30 minutes covered, then 10 uncovered to let the top brown a bit. Our friend Steve is having dinner with us tonight, so I really hope this turns out!! I'm going to look up a low fat Ceasar dressing and make a salad to go with this. I may stop at the store for some bread, too, but I'll have to decide if it's worth it to go to the grocery store with two kids for just one thing!

*****

Mmmmmm...this was really good! I love interesting takes on lasagna, something other than the normal "ricotta, meat sauce, noodles, mozarella" recipe. I used too much blue cheese, but I don't think it was too distracting from the overall flavor. I ended up having not quite an entire cup of hot sauce because I didn't have enough, but still had that wing tanginess to it. The boy didn't really eat it--he said he didn't like the cheese in it. He just picked the chicken out of his. The baby, however, had THIRDS. So three out of four of us loving it is pretty good! I'll definitely make this again, and I'd like to try the crockpot version next time to see how that does.

Pesto Pasta Surprise

One of the other women on the message board I belong to has a food-based blog I follow, FrostedFingers.com. Every Tuesday she posts a new recipe, and last week's looked super easy and good, Angel Hair Pasta. The only downside was that it used store bought pesto and alfredo sauce--both things I love but don't generally eat because of the high fat content in both. When I was doing my meal planning for the week I thought of that recipe and decided to make something similar but with ricotta instead of the alfredo. Then when I was thinking about it more, it sounded a lot like a recipe my mom made recently for my brother when she was visiting him. I called her today and got the recipe, so I think mine is going to be a combination of the two.

Pesto Pasta Surprise

1 package whole wheat penne
1 jar marinara sauce
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1 cup mozzarella
1/4 cup pesto
Additional mozzarella for topping

Prepare penne (or pasta of your choice) per package directions; set aside. Combine cheeses and pesto in medium bowl; set aside. In 8x12 pan, layer as follows: half of the cooked pasta, half the marinara sauce, all the cheese/pesto mixture, remaining half of the pasta, remaining marinara, additional mozzarella.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted.

*****

I'm really excited to try this tonight. I have some pesto leftover from making Veggie Pesto Pizza last week, so however much of that I have in the freezer is what I'm going to use. I may use a bit more ricotta, too, because I like cheesy pasta.

Along with this I'm going to make Barefoot Contessa's Garlic Ciabbata Bread and a salad. Yum!!

Pappardelle with Quick Bolognese Meat Sauce

I think I have one dinner to post from last week still, but I figured I might as well be current and then go back to that when I have a chance. It was pretty tasty so I definitely want to share it.

I had to do a bit of dinner rearranging this week. The husband and I recently joined a gym, and he suggested we meet there tonight after he left work so I could show him around a bit and we could work out together. I already had a crockpot meal planned for tomorrow night and wasn't sure if I could come up with another with ingredients I had on hand. I remembered a package of Trader Joe's pappardelle pasta in the pantry with a recipe on the back of it that sounded easy, and I had everything on hand. So I decided we'd have that tonight, I'd make it up in the afternoon, then throw it in the crockpot on the warm setting so dinner would be waiting for us when we got home. I'll tell you below whether or not it worked!!

Trader Joe's Egg Pappardelle with Quick Bolognese Meat Sauce

8 oz. TJ's Egg Pappardelle pasta
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 lb. ground beef
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2 Tbsp garlic, minced
1/2 cup red wine
2 cups marinara sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large saute pan over moderate heat. Add beef and saute until lightly browned and crumbly. Add onions and garlic and saute until onions are transparent. Drain fat and return mixture to pan. Add red wine and marinara. Stir and simmer 10-15 minutes to blend flavors. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Meanwhile, cook pasta according to cooking instructions. Drain well, add pasta to sauce. Heat pasta and sauce together on low heat 1-2 minutes. Sprinkle with parmesan.

*****

I kind of broke the Pantry Challenge because I had to go buy wine for this, but I figured that was easier than coming up with a different dinner. Plus we'd drink it anyway, so it's not like I was buying it just to use for this recipe!! I had a jar of TJ's marinara sauce in the pantry which worked out great.

I was kind of hesitant of how this would turn out. When I tasted it before putting it in my slow cooker I wasn't sure about it. The pasta tasted really egg-y to me. It ended up coming out okay. It sat in there on the warm setting for 2.5 hours. There could have been more sauce, but I don't think it was overly saucy to begin with, so it may not have been just from the crockpot drying it out. This worked pretty well for dinner to be ready when we got home, then all we did was heat up some bread, throw some salad mix in bowls, and heat up some frozen broccoli.

I don't think I'd go out of my way to make this again, but it's something I'd make again if I had everything on hand and needed a quick dinner fix, kind of like I needed tonight.

No picture, I was starving by the time we got home and couldn't be bothered with finding a camera. Oh, and can I just say I'm so fortunate that I get to stay home?! I don't know how I'd get dinner on the table at a decent time if the husband and I were both getting home late like we did tonight!

Chicken Parmesan

So, did you miss me while I was gone? I realized that I forgot to post before we left. The kids and I just spent a week in Orlando with my mom and aunt, celebrating my mom's 60th birthday! We had a great time--spent two days a Sea World and one day at Disney's Animal Kingdom. We went to St. Augustine for a day and met up with my friend Nanci who I hadn't seen in a really, really long time. Her daughter is a year younger than my oldest, and they totally hit it off! They were adorable together, and he was so sad when it was time for them to head back to Jacksonville.

There wasn't really anything spectacular we ate on our trip. Orlando seems to be the land of the chain restaurant. We did eat at an awesome restaurant in St. Augustine--The Bubble Room. They had these amazing homemade potato chips covered with cheese and bacon. Yeah...they were freakin' awesome! Thankfully they were sitting at the other end of the table from me, so I didn't have that many. I had a really good veggie sandwich, but everyone's food looked fantastic. We debated going back for dinner before we left to try their signature Bubble Bread and get some desserts, but we didn't. We also ate at BB King's Blues Club that was pretty good. I was debating between two things for dinner and asked the waiter what he suggested, and it turned out one of them was his favorite thing on the menu. So, I went with that...chicken fried chicken with caramelized onion gravy and white cheddar macaroni and cheese. The whole thing was tasty, but the macaroni and cheese was amazing. It was probably the best mac and cheese I have ever had--and I've had a lot of mac and cheese! I need to do some Googling and see if I can find the recipe on one of those copycat recipe websites.

While we were gone my friend Amanda left me a note on Facebook that she was making my chicken parmesan recipe for dinner one night. I realized we hadn't had it in quite some time, so I mentally added it to my meal plan for the week. I'm excited--we all really like this, and it's easy and healthy! Thanks, Amanda, for reminding me of it!

Chicken Parmesan

I'm going to make homemade tomato sauce to go with it. This way I can freeze the rest of the sauce and use it one night next week for something. I'm going to boil up some spaghetti to go with this and steam some kind of frozen vegetable.

Bubble Pizza

We're having kind of a ghetto dinner tonight, but I'm okay with it. I have a folder of recipes that I've been collecting since college. It actually started as a little cookbook I made myself when I moved out of the dorms and would be having to cook for myself. I didn't always like to cook, I only really started doing it at that time. Over the years as I printed off recipes or came across them in magazines I'd stick them in this folder. I hadn't gone through it in awhile, so this weekend I sat down and went through it. Most of the dinners I'm making this week are recipes I came across in there that I haven't made in forever or have never made.

This recipe I found on a frugal/budget website several years ago. We were low on funds so I was looking for some frugal recipes. I've made other recipes I found on there and they've all been good. I had some pepperoni in the fridge that I need to use up, so I thought this might be a good use for it.

Bubble Up Pizza

3 pkgs. refrigerator biscuits
1 can or jar of spaghetti sauce
Shredded cheese
Pizza toppings of your choice (I'm using pepperoni, green pepper, and mushrooms...I was having vegetable guilt)

Cut biscuits into quarters and place in a 9x13 baking dish. Add sauce, stir to coat, and spread evenly in bottom of pan. Top with cheese, then toppings, (I usually stick to 3 toppings at a time).

Bake at 375 degrees for about 35-40 min. Be sure to check middle to make sure all the dough is cooked through.

*****

See? Pretty ghetto, but I'm actually looking forward to trying it. Plus I'm hoping the boy will enjoy it, so we won't have to fight him to eat at dinner tonight. I think we'll probably just have a salad on the side. Oh, and I'm going to make up some sauce using a can of crushed tomatoes, Italian seasoning, and some onion and garlic. I can only handle so many processed foods at a time. ;)

*****

There were mixed reviews on this. The husband LOVED it. He said he could eat the whole pan of it. I thought it was just okay. If I'm going to make pizza I'd rather make real pizza. I'll probably only make this again if he requests it. It wasn't bad necessarily, just not my favorite.

Pastor Ryan's Bolognese Sauce

I've been eyeing up this bolognese recipe from The Pioneer Woman's website ever since it was posted. I knew I had to make it post haste and try its deliciousness, so I threw it on my menu plan for this week. I love, love, love homemade pasta sauces, and this one looks amazing. Pioneer Woman has never steered me wrong, so I'm assuming this will be awesome. Although I guess technically it's not one of her recipes, but I still assume it will be good. The post for the recipe on her website has great pictures of the process, if you want to check them out.

Ryan’s Bolognese
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
1 large red onion, diced
1/2 cup olive oil
2 pounds ground beef
2 tablespoons dried oregano flakes
2 tablespoons dried basil flakes
1 6-ounce can tomato paste
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 to 2 cups red wine
2 tablespoons Worcestershire
salt
pepper
2 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes
1 cup milk
Fresh Parmesan cheese

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven or skillet over medium heat. Add grated carrots and onions and cook for a few minutes. Make a well in the center of the mixture, then add in the ground beef. Cook for a few minutes until brown, gradually stirring it into the carrot mixture. Throw in oregano and basil. Use fresh if you have it; if you don’t, it’s fine.

When the meat is browned and combined with other ingredients, make another well. Add tomato paste and let it heat. Add garlic and stir to combine. Make a well in the center of the mixture and add red wine. Stir together. Add Worcestershire and stir. Add canned tomatoes. Finally, pour in milk, stir, and let simmer for 30 minutes to 2 hours—however long you need.

Serve with pasta and a generous sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.

*****

Did I mention I love homemade pasta sauce? I've pretty much stopped buying the jarred kind because it's really so easy to make your own and you can control what goes into it. And it just tastes so much better. The husband has another hockey game to watch tonight, so it will be nice to get this sauce going in the afternoon so all I have to do at dinner time is throw in some pasta to boil.

There's a bread recipe on PW's website also by Pastor Ryan that looks amazing that I think I'll make to go along with this. Either that or Barefoot Contessa's Garlic Ciabbata Bread which is without a doubt the best garlic bread I have ever had. My mouth starts watering just thinking about it. I think I'll go with Pastor Ryan's and make it a Pastor Ryan/Pioneer Woman dinner all around.

*****

This was yummy sauce. I added in two cups of wine, and I think one cup would have been enough. My sauce only got to simmer for one hour because I got a later start on it than I had planned (see my reason for not making the bread!), and I really would have liked it to simmer longer. I was worried for awhile because it seemed too liquidy (is that a word? Not sure...watery, soupy, etc.), but it thickened up in the end. I hate watery sauce so I was a bit apprehensive. But it all worked out. This was definitely good sauce, but I don't think it was the end all be all of spaghetti sauce. I'd make it again because it was tasty and fairly easy to throw together. Oh, I ended up using kitchen shears to cut up the whole tomatoes. Had I been thinking, I would have cut them up while they were in the cans instead of once they were already in the pot. And this made a TON of sauce. We ended up having leftovers for dinner on Sunday night because there was so much of it. So we had Saturday dinner, Sunday dinner, and I probably put about half of the pot into the freezer today. I'd say if you didn't want to eat this for days or freeze it or serve it to a crowd, you could easily cut it in half.

Mmmm...sauce simmering on the stove:


Just to keep things interesting, I took a picture of dinner on the boy's frog plate:

Crockpot Marinara Sauce

I think I've mentioned that the boys and I are heading to San Diego for a week with my mom and Jen B. and her son. Since I don't want the husband to get pizza every night while we're gone, I thought I'd make lasagna on Saturday night so he'll have leftovers to eat throughout the week. I was looking through a vegetarian cookbook last weekend and saw a crockpot recipe for marinara sauce. I thought I could throw it in the crockpot today and it would be all ready for me to make lasagna with it tomorrow.

Crockpot Marinara Sauce
2 cans (28 oz each) crushed tomatoes with Italian herbs, undrained
1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
1 large onion, chopped
8 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

Mix all ingredients in slow coker. Cover. Cook on low 8-10 hours.

*****

I used regular crushed tomatoes, and instead of the basil and oregano I just added in Italian seasoning instead. My house smells AMAZING with this cooking. It makes me want to have pasta for dinner tonight, but I don't want it two nights in a row.

Stuffed Chicken Parmesan

Awhile back I saw a link somewhere to get a free coupon book from Eat Better America, so I signed up for it. A few weeks later I got a booklet with coupons and a bunch of healthy recipes. Sweet! This one struck me the first time I saw it, but then I forgot about it for awhile. Then I've had it on my menu for the past couple weeks but kept pushing it back for some reason. Well tonight was finally the night!! Thankfully I even found the recipe on their website, so I didn't have to type it all out--woo hoo!

Stuffed Chicken Parmesan
6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (about 5 oz each)
1 box (10 oz) Cascadian Farm® frozen organic cut spinach, thawed, well drained
2 oz 1/3-less-fat cream cheese (Neufchâtel), softened
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon dried basil leaves
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/4 cup fat-free egg product
12 stone-ground wheat crackers, crushed (about 1/2 cup)
1 teaspoon dried basil leaves
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 cup Muir Glen® organic Italian herb pasta sauce
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (1 oz)

1. Heat oven to 375°F. Spray 13x9-inch (3-quart) glass baking dish with cooking spray. Between pieces of plastic wrap or waxed paper, place each chicken breast smooth side down; gently pound with flat side of meat mallet or rolling pin until about 1/4 inch thick.
2. In medium bowl, mix spinach, cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, 1/2 teaspoon basil and the garlic until blended. Spread about 1 tablespoon spinach mixture over each chicken breast; roll up tightly. If necessary, secure with toothpicks.
3. In small shallow bowl, place egg product. In another small shallow bowl, mix cracker crumbs, 1 teaspoon basil and the pepper. Dip each chicken breast into egg product; coat with crumb mixture. Place seam side down in baking dish.
4. Bake uncovered 20 minutes. Pour pasta sauce over chicken; sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Bake 10 to 15 minutes longer or until thermometer inserted in center of chicken reads 165°F. Remove toothpicks from chicken before eating.

Nutritional Information (per serving):
Calories 290 (Calories from Fat 100); Total Fat 11g (Saturated Fat 4 1/2g, Trans Fat 0g); Cholesterol 100mg; Sodium 450mg; Total Carbohydrate 10g (Dietary Fiber 2g, Sugars 3g); Protein 38g

*****

The chicken breasts I used were pretty big; I cut them each in half and had just enough filling for all of them. The only thing I changed was using some homemade Italian bread crumbs I had in my freezer instead of the crackers. Oh and I used garlic powder instead of real garlic. I had some stuff for sale on Craigslist, and someone responded to one of the ads, and it turned out she is a fire fighter. We went to drop off the stuff to her at the fire station where she works, and we ended up getting a private tour of the fire station and the fire engine!! Pretty cool! But, they were out on a call when we got there, so we ended up getting home late because we had to wait a bit, which meant I was scrambling to get dinner going because I hadn't thought to take out the chicken breasts before we left. Oops.

Anyway, I'm writing this after we've eaten, so I'll let you know that it was super tasty. I LOVED it. The boy ate every bite on his plate (that doesn't happen very often). The husband said he liked it but he thought it was too much spinach. I told him next time maybe I'd cut back on the spinach and increase the cream cheese. I would definitely make this again!

Oh, and I took a picture, but the one from the website sure looks a lot nicer, so I'm just putting that in here. Cheating, I know, but it does the dish a lot more justice than my pic.

Pasta with Creamy Tomato and Goat Cheese Sauce

I'm really grumpy. I think still waking up multiple times a night to feed the baby are catching up with me. I figure the last time I had a decent night's sleep had to have been back when I was seven or eight months pregnant, so that means I'm going on six or seven months of poor sleep. It's definitely starting to get to me. So, I've been grumpy lately. I'm also tired of having all this post baby weight which makes me grumpy, and my allergies have been killing me today, so that's another reason to be grumpy. Not a fun day at our house, in case you couldn't tell.

anyway, I'm making an easy dinner tonight because I'm not in the mood for anythiing complicated. Plus I had this planned out for tonight anyway. Maybe--just maybe--the baby will sleep decently tonight or at least only get up once so I can be well rested tomorrow and return to being my normal, jovial self. Okay, maybe jovial is an over-statement, but I don't want to be grumpy and tired anymore!

Pasta with Creamy Tomato and Goat Cheese Sauce
1 16-ounce box farfalle or rotini pasta
2 cups favorite prepared pasta sauce
1 4-ounce log goat cheese, cut into four pieces

In a large pot of lightly salted boiling water, cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain and transfer to a serving dish. In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat the pasta sauce for 5-10 minutes or until lightly bubbling, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low. Add the goat cheese to the pasta sauce and stir until melted and smooth. Pour the hot sauce over the pasta; toss to coat.

*****

Normally I use my own sauce, but the husband opened a jar of sauce from the pantry to make a quick pizza for the boy the other day, so I'm going to use that up. I think it's Classico brand Carbernet Marinara or something like that. I'm going to heat up some broccoli to go with this and some bread.

Lasagna

In an attempt to not have leftovers at the end of the week, I'm using something I found in our freezer. When my in-laws were here at Christmas, my MIL made lasagna for Christmas Eve dinner. We didn't eat all of it, and I didn't want it to go to waste, so I froze what was left. I had completely forgotten about it until I was looking for something in the freezer recently. I remembered it was there when I was figuring out meals for this week. I wanted something easy tonight since the husband has his class at church, so I got this out to thaw and will just throw it in the oven when dinner gets closer. Shoot, I just remembered I was going to defrost a loaf of bread dough to make along with this, but now there won't be enough time before dinner.

Here's the recipe my MIL uses for her lasagna. It's kind of cool in that she does the meat as a separate layer on top--meatballs and sausage--instead of having a meat sauce.

Aurelia's Lasagna

Chicken Parmesan Pasta Toss

Rarely does it happen that I'm figuring out what to make for dinner at 5:00, but that's what has happened to me today. We're going out of town in a few days, so I was trying to make dinners this week that wouldn't leave a whole mess of leftovers in the fridge that would end up going to waste. Then I remembered that tonight we're hosting some kids from Wisconsin that are visiting our church; they're supposed to have dinner before we pick them up, but I thought I should make something that there would be enough of in case they were hungry. So that ruled out what was originally slated for tonight--that and the fact that I don't the right kind of cheese. Oops. I tried to rearrange my menu plan for the week, but everything else I was going to make had ingredients that I was missing. So I had to come up with something new.

I looked in the fridge to see exactly what kind of cheese I had and saw a bag of mozzarella (or Italian blend--I'm not exactly sure which it was), so I started to think about what I could do with that. I remembered this random recipe I had thrown together at one point and thought this would be good. Woo hoo!

Chicken Parmesan Pasta Toss
2 chicken breasts
2 egg whites
Italian bread crumbs
8 ounces (dried) rotini pasta
2 cups spaghetti sauce
1 cup mozzarella cheese
Grated parmesan

Cut chicken breasts into bite size pieces. Place egg whites in a pie plate, place bread crumbs into a gallon Ziploc bag. Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet. Put chicken pieces into egg whites and coat chicken. Transfer chicken to Ziploc bag and close bag. Shake to coat chicken pieces. Move chicken pieces to skillet with olive oil; cook until golden brown and cooked through.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in boiling water and drain when done cooking. Return pasta to pasta pot, add in chicken. Pour in spaghetti sauce, mozzarella cheese, and parmesan. Stir to combine. Serve.

*****

I have some pasta left in the fridge from the Chicken Cacciatore I made at the end of last week, so I can use up that and just cook up a little extra to go with it. I have some marinara left from the meatball pie and I saw an opened jar of Ragu in my fridge I can use up, too. The pasta I have in the fridge is spaghetti, and I have linguine in the pantry, so I'll be using those instead of rotini.

I think we'll just have some bread and salad with this. It's the Asian salad blend I bought last week, but I want to use it before it goes bad, so we'll just have to deal with an Italian dinner and an Asian salad. I'll just say we're continental. Yeah, that's the ticket...continental!

*****

This was only okay this time. It was more like spaghetti with chunks of chicken than I remember it being the last time I made it. It was decent, and it came together easily, so I can't really complain. However, the Asian Blend Fresh Express salad was super yummy!!! I will definitely get that one again. I could eat the whole bag on my own.

Meatball, Mozzarella, Marinara - Oh My, Calzone Pie!

So, I lied on my birthday by saying I was going to be making a Trader Joe's recipe last night. I forgot I had slated it for tonight. Last night I needed a quick crockpot dinner, so I went with my old standby, Chili Cheese Tortilla Wraps. It was good, as usual.

Oh, I want to point out that the boy has been an angel yesterday and today!! Since I usually complain about his behavior I figured I should let everyone out there know that he is capable of being nice. He really is a sweet boy, he just doesn't know how to deal with his anger and frustration. But he's been so, so, so good yesterday and today. Hooray!! It makes me a much happier and nicer mommy. :)

Last week I was looking on the Trader Joe's website and noticed a Recipe section. As you know (or probably could figure out), I'm a sucker for recipes. I didn't look at all of them, but the title of this one intrigued me. Then I was beyond delighted to discover I had most all of the ingredients I needed for this, except a pie crust, but that was easy enough to pick up at my grocery shopping trip this week. The recipe lists all TJ's ingredients, so I'll keep it like that.

Meatball, Mozzarella, Marinara - Oh My, Calzone Pie!
1 package Trader Joe's Gourmet Pie Crust, thawed
1 cup Organic Basil Marinara
1 package Frozen Meatballs (Meatless or Turkey work too!), thawed and quartered
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Follow the directions on the pie crust packaging for double pie crust. While filling, first spoon 2 Tbsp of sauce on the pie crust and spread to cover. Add meatballs and top with remaining sauce and cheese. Continue with the rest of the directions on the package, baking 15-20 minutes or until the top is golden.

*****

Mmmmm...sounds yummy! I had a bag of TJ's Meatless Meatballs in the freezer, so I have those thawing on my counter right now. I'll probably use more than half a cup of cheese, too, because a small amount of cheese just isn't my style. I think I have an Italian cheese blend in the fridge. Not sure what we'll have with it, maybe some frozen peas or broccoli. I have a bagged salad mix in the fridge, but I think it's Asian blend which seems kind of weird to have with this. I was going to get Lite Ceasar, but the nutrtional info was better on the Asian one. Weird.

*****

This was really good! We all liked it a lot. It was really easy to throw together which was nice. When I was assembling it I wondered if it would be weird having the cheese next to the crust on the top, but it wasn't at all. It was yummy with the cheese stuck to the crust. Mine baked for about 20 minutes, the crust didn't look quite done after 15 minutes. This is definitely something I'd make again. With the soy meatballs, it was a great easy vegetarian dinner, too.

Spaghetti

This is going to be short and sweet. The boy didn't nap, the baby's been crying pretty much all day, and i don't have a whole lot of patience or mental capacity. I'm not even going back to correct that i that should be capitalized. When my in-laws were here at Christmas time, my MIL--God bless her--froze a bunch of her spaghetti sauce and meatballs for us to have at a later date. I noticed them in the freezer yesterday when I was trying to do a quick inventory to see what all we had that I could use this week. I had originally slated spaghetti for tomorrow night, but as I'm in no mood to cook or deal with anything more difficult than boiling a pot of water and throwing in some pasta, this will work out great.

I'm not even bothering to copy and paste her recipe...here's a link to it:

MIL's Spaghetti and Meatballs

Crockpot Baked Ziti

I've had a long afternoon, so this will be pretty short and sweet as I don't have the mental capacity to do much more after having dealt with my unruly almost three year old son all day. To get a better appreciation of how may day has gone, I'll tell you that I spent a good chunk of my afternoon getting purple Sharpie marker out of the carpet on our stairs. Sigh.

I came across this recipe while looking at vegetarian recipes on the Year of Crockpotting blog. I had everything on hand for it, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Crockpot Baked Ziti
(link takes you to the post on the blog)

1 bag of your favorite pasta
1 jar of marinara sauce
Any vegetables you might want to throw in
Cheese odds and ends

Rinse pasta in a colander (just so there's some added moisture). Add a handful of pasta and a bit of sauce to your crockpot stoneware insert. Put in a bit of cheese and keep layering ingredients in until you run out. Cover and cook on low for 4-5 hours.

*****

I forgot to rinse the pasta, but after reading the reviews/comments I added in 1/4 cup of water because a lot of the comments stated that the pasta was crunchy because there wasn't enough liquid. Someone else suggested stirring it partway through cooking so the pasta on the sides wasn't crunchy, so I need to do that. I used a bag of penne pasta that somehow snuck into my most recent Trader Joe's purchase (the downside of letting your kid push one of their kid carts around the store. I almost came home with a papaya and three bags of pistachios, but luckily I caught those. Wonder why they all start with the letter P?) and a bag of mozzarella cheese. For the sauce I used what was leftover from my ravioli dinner last week because I was lazy and never put it in the freezer. Oh, I also diced up the portobellos that were left over from last night and stuck them in one of the sauce layers. I think we'll just have some bread and salad with this. i don't think I can manage much more than that.

Raviolis

I'm not having much luck with dinners this week. I had planned on making sausage and peppers tonight along with my own hamburger buns, but my plans went awry. We went to my new Bible study group this morning and then spent the rest of the day with my mom and aunt and saw my dad and grandmas. By the time we got home, it was too late to make my own buns, and we didn't have any others. So that idea got scrapped. I was missing an ingredient for my back-up dinner plan, so that got tossed out the window too. I remembered I had a bag of frozen raviolis in the freezer, so I quickly threw together a pasta sauce to go with those. I loosely based it on the tomato sauce recipe I usually use but changed it up just a bit.

Tomato Sauce
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 can tomato paste (the small can)
1/2 cup tomato juice
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning

Heat some olive oil in a saucepan and add onion and garlic. Cook for a few minutes being careful not to burn the garlic. Add in remaining ingredients, let simmer for an hour or more.

*****

I'm so not good at writing out my own recipes. The usual tomato sauce I make calls for water, but I had tomato juice in the pantry for a soup I want to make, so I thought I'd pour in some of that instead. It smells good, so we'll see how it turns out.

I think the sausage and peppers will be slated for tomorrow night. I try to do a crockpot dinner on Wednesday nights, but I had planned on doing a pot roast but have yet to get it out of the freezer, so I don't think that will work. We have a busy day Thursday, so I'll plan on the pot roast then. Plus tomorrow I know I'll have time to make the buns.

*****

The sauce was good. I don't think it was too different in taste than how I usually make it. I ended up adding some sugar because it tasted too acidic and tart and mixed in a bit of water because it seemed really thick. There was quite a bit left, so I'll probably end up freezing it to use some other time. I much prefer making my own sauce instead of buying a jar. It's really inexpensive and you know there aren't a bunch of additives or preservatives.

Pasta with Creamy Tomato and Goat Cheese Sauce

Well, it's another day stuck at home with sick kids. Unfortunately the baby seems to have caught the dreaded cold the boy has. :( I tell ya, there are few things more pathetic sounding than a baby's cough. Poor little guy. I think tomorrow we may make a trip to the pediatrician. We found out one of the boy's friends has pneumonia and another has a sinus infection, so I'm thinking it's worth it to have both my boys checked out to make sure they're okay. We did venture out last night for a birthday party, but before I get jumped on for taking a sick kid to a birthday party, the boy seemed to be doing better yesterday, and I knew the party was going to be outside, so I figured it was okay. Not like I was taking a sick kid to a small, enclosed space...which is why I'm home with him this morning instead of at church.

Anyway, since we're watching more TV (I've resorted to videos instead of TV shows...), I figured I'd update the blog since I'm just sitting on the couch too. Back before Christmas I was at Costco and saw they had a smokin' deal on goat cheese. I think it's an eight ounce log of goat cheese for only $4! I was beyond excited. I got it not really knowing when I would use it, but I couldn't pass it up. Of course it turns out they always have it, but whatever. I made this pasta once before, and we all really liked it. The goat cheese kind of melts into the sauce and pasta making it more of a creamy tomato sauce (dear lord, I just typed potato instead of tomato...can you tell it's been a long few days?!).

Pasta with Creamy Tomato and Goat Cheese Sauce
1 16-ounce box farfalle or rotini pasta
2 cups favorite prepared pasta sauce
1 4-ounce log goat cheese, cut into four pieces

In a large pot of lightly salted boiling water, cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain and transfer to a serving dish. In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat the pasta sauce for 5-10 minutes or until lightly bubbling, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low. Add the goat cheese to the pasta sauce and stir until melted and smooth. Pour the hot sauce over the pasta; toss to coat.

*****

I've stopped buying jarred pasta sauce. I don't think I have any plain sauce tucked away in my freezer anymore, so I bought two jars of diced tomatoes--one is "Italian style"--and am going to make my own sauce. I'll just throw them in the food processor with some tomato paste and seasonings. Apparently that's what I did last time, and it turned out well. I think on the side we'll have some bread and maybe broccoli.

*****

YUM. This was so good, just like the last time we had it. My sauce turned out really yummy. I used one can of petite diced tomatoes, one can of Italian-style diced tomatoes, a can of tomato paste (to thicken it up a bit), some Italian seasoning, onion powder, and garlic powder. I threw all of that into my food processor and turned it on. Yum. I used most of it because we like saucy pasta. This comes together so quickly, I love it. If you used jarred spaghetti sauce it would be even faster. I didn't bother heating up my sauce, I dumped everything into the pot I used to cook the pasta. Oh, and I used whole wheat penne.

Oh, and the goat cheese...it was actually a pound, not eight ounces. What a smoki' deal. That's cheaper than a one pound bag of Kraft shredded cheese. I'm going to play on RecipeZaar.com and look for goat cheese recipes. I have another goat cheese meal slated for Thursday, but that will still leave me with eight ounces. Not that I'm complaining--I heart goat cheese!

Meatball Sandwiches

Tonight we're going the easy route. I was at Fresh & Easy at the end of last month, and they had all of their frozen appetizers on sale. I hadn't planned on buying anything, but I ended up getting a 1.5 pound bag of frozen meatballs for $2 I think it was. I thought that was a pretty sweet deal, and I couldn't resist. So tonight I'm throwing those in with some of the tomato sauce I have in my freezer (last time I checked, I had four Ziploc freezer bags of tomato sauce...why I have so much, I don't know), putting it on toasted buns with some mozzarella, and dinner is done. Well, not totally...I think I'll heat up some fries or tater tots--whichever I have in the freezer--and a real vegetable of some sort and then call it good.

Stuffed Shells

Anyone know where I can get a contraption that will stop time so I can actually get things done? I'd be willing to pay top dollar for it if such a thing existed. Then my blog could get updated every day, my house would always be clean, and I'd have enough time to do fun stuff (okay...my blog is fun, but cleaning house is not) each day AND play with my kids. Sigh. We had a great message at church today on time management, so I think I just need to take that to heart and hope everything works out how it needs to. Or start praying for a cleaning fairy to dance her way through my house!

I'm actually at my mom's house right now where we'll be having a birthday dinner tonight for my uncle. I figured it was a great time to update the ol' blog since it's just me and the baby here right now. And, I'll be honest, I'm putting off writing some very overdue thank you notes. However I could also be reading Breaking Dawn so maybe I should get my butt in gear so I can get some reading done before the husband gets over here. He has this silly notion I should be reading a parenting book we read when the boy was a baby. Obviously he hasn't read any of the Twilight books and isn't DYING to know how it all turns out...Edward or Jacob, who's it going to be?!?!? What's going to happen to Bella? The thank you notes may once again get put on the back burner now that I've started thinking about the book.

I digress (as usual). When my in-laws were in town, I checked the pantry to see if I had lasagna noodles for my MIL to use. I didn't, but I saw an opened box of large shells, so I thought, "Hey, I wanted to put stuffed shells into rotation more often...we'll have that for dinner one night." So, lo and behold, we did. Plus there was ricotta left in my fridge from the lasagna, so I really didn't need to buy much at all for this.

Stuffed Shells
20 jumbo pasta shells, cooked and cooled
1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
2/3 cup reduced fat sour cream
4-5 ounces reduced fat cream cheese
1 tsp salt
2 tsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 375. Mix together ricotta, sour cream, cream cheese, salt, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning. Spread a few spoonfuls of tomato sauce on bottom of a 8x8 pan. Fill each shell with cheese mixture and place in baking dish. When all shells are in dish, pour remaining tomato sauce over shells. Top with mozzarella. Bake for approximately 20 minutes.

*****

Mmmmm...it was yummy. I love tomato-y, cheesy pasta dishes. I ended up making my own spaghetti sauce. It's cheaper than buying the stuff in the jar, and I can control the ingredients since the only thing packaged in it is the canned tomatoes which are just tomatoes. I used my Basic Tomato Sauce recipe. Alright, it's not really my recipe, but it's the one I use whenever I need tomato sauce. Plus it makes quite a bit, so then I can freeze what's left and have sauce in my freezer.

I worked out my menu for the coming week, and there are some yummy things on it. I'm following Jen B.'s lead and trying to work in three vegetarian dinners a week. Can you tell we're entirely too co-dependent on each other? Anyway, I had a vegetarian cookbook in my pantry I've thought about getting rid of for years because I never use it, so I busted it out yesterday to have a look-see and see what was in it. There were some YUMMY recipes! So I'm making two dinners from that this week. I need to have the husband and boy try polenta to see if they like it because there were some great polenta main dish recipes in there too.

On the way into my mom's house I spotted a 1970s looking casserole cookbook in the garage. I'm dying to have a look at that and see what's in it!!! Shoot...that's one more thing to keep me from reading Breaking Dawn. Maybe I'll look at the cookbook after the husband gets here. ;)

Pasta with Creamy Tomato and Goat Cheese Sauce

Wow, yesterday's post was #400!! I had no idea I had that many. Exciting!

This is another recipe from the cookbook Jen B. gave me as a baby shower gift. I have some goat cheese in the fridge from our anniversary "dinner" a few weeks ago. I say "dinner" because I couldn't come up with anything to make last minute, the husband didn't want to grill, so I ran to the store and got a bunch of yummy appetizer stuff. Really that was probably a better choice than anything I would have come up with to make. They had some herb goat cheese I couldn't resist buying, but we had so many other snacks not a lot of it was eaten. I think I'm probably shy on the four ounces, but I don't think by much. I also don't think I have any complete boxes of pasta, so it will be one of those "throw all these random pasta types into the pot" nights. I kind of feel like I'm coming down with a cold, so I'm totally digging that this is going to be a fast dinner to put together.

Pasta with Creamy Tomato and Goat Cheese Sauce
1 16-ounce box farfalle or rotini pasta
2 cups favorite prepared pasta sauce
1 4-ounce log goat cheese, cut into four pieces

In a large pot of lightly salted boiling water, cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain and transfer to a serving dish. In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat the pasta sauce for 5-10 minutes or until lightly bubbling, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low. Add the goat cheese to the pasta sauce and stir until melted and smooth. Pour the hot sauce over the pasta; toss to coat.

*****

I just realized I'm not sure if I have pasta sauce. I know I have some in the freezer, but I don't want to deal with defrosting that, plus it's way more than I need. I know I have some canned tomatoes and some tomato sauce, so if nothing else I'll just whip up my own really fast, unless I come across a jar of Ragu in my pantry. I think we're just going to have bread and salad on the side.

*****

This pasta was awesome!!! We all really liked it. I did end up having some Ragu in the fridge, but there was a clump of fuzz on the inside of the lid, so I opted not to use it. Instead I poured two cans of diced tomatoes into my food processor and added some basil, oregano, and a touch of crushed red pepper, then pureed. It turned out great. Using two cans gave me more than the two cups called for in the recipe, but I actually used a little more than two cups because we like saucy pasta. The goat cheese gave it a nice creamy boost and added yummy flavor. And, since I hate washing dishes, I mixed it all together in the pot I had used to cook the pasta, not a separate serving dish.

Oh, and I just have to rave about Safeway's brand of organic, whole wheat pasta. I buy whole wheat pasta since it's better for us, but I'm not a fan of the texture of it. I was walking down the pasta aisle at Safeway last week and saw that organic, whole wheat penne was on clearance, so I grabbed a bag. Turns out that was the only pasta I had in the pantry, so I'm glad I had bought it. I was really surprised at the taste and texture--you couldn't even tell it was whole wheat pasta. I told the husband while we were eating that it was whole wheat, and he was surprised, too. I think I've found my new pasta of choice!

Spaghetti and Meatballs

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I heart spaghetti and meatballs. I heart it so much. We rarely had spaghetti when I was growing up because my mom doesn't like it. She claims she ate too much of it in college and can't eat it anymore. Same goes for macaroni and cheese, which is odd because personally I ate a TON of that in college (and my whole life really) and still could eat it multiple times a week. Who knows. Occasionally we would get spaghetti but we'd never get meatballs. I was so excited when I found out my mother-in-law makes meatballs and even more excited when she gave me her recipe for them.

For whatever reason, I don't make this all that often, even though I love it. Probably because we don't eat a lot of red meat, and soy meatballs just aren't the same thing. They'll work in a pinch, but they don't even come close to real meatballs. Originally I had planned on making just spaghetti sauce last Tuesday for the boy and me for dinner, but that's when our family crisis came to a head, and by the time the boy and I got home from my mom's house, I was completely drained and exhausted and didn't have it in me to cook dinner. So I figured I'd bump it to Sunday night dinner and add in meatballs since the husband loves them too. The meatball recipe is my MIL's, the sauce recipe is from a cookbook put together by members of a message board that I belong to. I've made it before and loved it.

Meatballs
lean ground beef – 2 pounds or more
Italian bread crumbs ( 1 to 1 1/2 cups)
chopped onion – 1 chopped fine
parsley (1 1/2 tab minced)
grated Parmesan cheese (3/4 cup)
eggs –2
salt/pepper
garlic powder

Mix ingredients for the meatballs (ground beef, italian bread crumbs, chopped onion, parsley, grated parmesan cheese, and eggs. Salt and Pepper. Shape into balls and fry in a little olive oil.

*****

Tomato Sauce
3 cans crushed tomatoes
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic
Oregano
Salt
Pepper
Fresh basil

Mince the garlic and onion. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and saute onion and garlic until onion is translucent. Add cans of crushed tomatoes plus half a can of water and bring to a boil. When it's boiling, turn the heat way down and let it simmer. The longer you let it simmer, the better it will taste. For three cans, let simmer about 90 minutes. Add salt, pepper, and oregano to taste. At the very end chop up some basil and stir it in (dried basil would work too).

*****

I forgot to add the parmesan cheese to the meatballs. I could tell something was missing, but the husband didn't say anything about them being off. They were still good, just not as good as they could have been. Also, my sauce turned out really watery for some reason. It was fine in the pot, but then once it was on our plates it was super runny. I didn't rinse off the pasta--which is what I always thought caused the problem--so I have no idea what happened.

Oh, and here's my fancy way of doing this. I cook the meatballs in the same pot I use to make the sauce. Then you get yummy little bits of meatballs stuck to the bottom of the pot. I deglaze the pot with some red wine, let it cook like that for awhile to get rid of the alcohol, then add in the sauce ingredients. Mmmmm...gives it just a little extra flavor that's super yummy.