Review

The puff pastry chicken last night was really good! John thinks next time I should splurge and get the fancy Alouette cheese, but I think really I should have used more cream cheese. Some bites had enough, others were kind of lacking. We really liked it, and we'll definitely have it again.

The brunch casserole was a big hit, too. None of it was left, and several people came up and told me how much they liked it. It's really an easy one to do. I love to have an occasion to make it.

Weekend Brunch Casserole

I have to take breakfast for my MOPS group this morning, so I figured I'd put the recipe here too. It's super easy and really good!

Weekend Brunch Casserole
1 pound Bob Evans or Owens® Original Recipe Sausage Roll
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 (8 ounce) can refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
4 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Crumble and cook sausage in medium skillet over medium heat until browned. Drain.
Line bottom of greased 13 x 9 inch baking dish with crescent roll dough, firmly pressing perforations to seal. Sprinkle with sausage and cheese. Combine remaining ingredients in medium bowl until blended; pour over sausage.
Bake 15 minutes or until set. Let stand 5 minutes before cutting into squares; serve hot. Refrigerate leftovers.

*****

I forgot it was mozzarella that goes in it, so I bought some casserole blend of cheese. I don't think it will affect it at all. Oh, and I use at least six eggs. Four didn't seem like enough the first time I mixed this up.

Herbed Chicken in Pastry

This recipe came in a box of puff pastry I bought recently, and it sounded really good. My friend Jen B. tried it a couple weeks ago and said it was awesome, so I'm hoping for good things!!

Herbed Chicken in Pastry
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 tbsp. butter OR margarine
1/2 pkg. Pepperidge Farm® Puff Pastry Sheets (1 sheet)
1 egg
1 tbsp. water
1 container (4 oz.) garlic & herb spreadable cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
Directions
SEASON chicken with salt and pepper if desired. Melt butter in skillet. Add chicken and cook until browned. Remove chicken. Cover and refrigerate 15 min. or up to 24 hours.

THAW pastry sheet at room temperature 30 min. Mix egg and water. Preheat oven to 400°F.

UNFOLD pastry on lightly floured surface. Roll into 14" square and cut into 4 (7") squares. Spread about 2 tbsp. of the cheese spread in center of each square. Sprinkle with 1 tbsp. parsley and top with cooled chicken. Brush edges of squares with egg mixture. Fold each corner to center on top of chicken and seal edges. Place seam-side down on baking sheet. Brush with egg mixture.

BAKE 25 min. or until golden.

*****

My only difference is that I cheaped out when I saw how much the cheese was, so instead I'm using garden vegetable cream cheese. I hope it turns out okay. I just couldn't justify $6 for a container of cheese when the cream cheese was like $1.50.

Review

The pork chops and swamp were fantastic!! Will loved the pork chops, even though he called it chicken. Hey, if he eats it, he can call it whatever he wants. He even "corrected" me one time when I told him to eat his pork; he looked at me and said, "chicken." The husband, who supposedly doesn't like swamp, had quite a bit on his potatoes and even had secons. I may have to start making double the amount of swamp, just so I can get the amount I want to have! :)

I took some pictures while I was preparing so you could see what I meant since the recipe might be a bit cryptic. Let me know if you think these would be more appropriate in the recipe itself and I'll figure out how to do that.



Here's the mustard on the pork chops. I just squirt some on there then spread it around with a knife. I find it's easiest to put the flour in a pie pan, then put the pork chop in, mustard side down, then put the mustard on the other side and flip.



Here's the pork chops in the frying pan with the noodle soup sprinkled around. You can sprinkle it on the pork chops, but then you don't get maximum swamp.



Here's the water added to the noodle soup.



And here's the swamp all done. See how it thickened up?

Pork Chops and Swamp

I'm sure you're saying, "Swamp? Huh?!" This is an old family recipe, I think my grandpa's mom made it. Or at least I know his sister makes it, so maybe it was hers and my grandma adopted it. Not sure. Anyway, when my brother and I were little we somehow started calling the gravy/sauce "swamp" and it stuck. Now our whole family calls it Pork Chops and Swamp.

Since it's a family recipe, I don't have exact measurements, so I'm just kind of winging typing it up and how much of everything.

Pork Chops and Swamp
4 pork chops (I like boneless but you can use bone-in)
mustard
flour
oil
1 packet Lipton Noodle Soup
Water

Spread each side of the pork chops with mustard, then dredge in flour. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a frying pan and add pork chops. Brown on each side. Sprinkle one packet of noodle soup in pan around the pork chops (not on the pork chops). Add water to pan to about the top of the pork chops. Cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes, stirring "swamp" and adding more water as necessary.

Serve with mashed potatoes using swamp as gravy.

*****

I'll try to remember to take some pictures while I'm cooking and when it's done so you can see what I'm talking about. I love swamp so much. John doesn't like it. I almost didn't marry him for that, but then I realized it meant more swamp for me. I made this for my friend Gina one time, and she liked it so much that when she and I have it, I make double the amount of swamp because we both love it. My mom always had to make double, too, because my brother and I like it. I'm so excited...this is one of my all time favorite meals!!

Review

The meatballs turned out pretty good. John said they weren't as good as Lil' Smokies but that they came close, so that says a lot on its own. I didn't have quite enough chili sauce, so I just added in some BBQ sauce. We had it over rice which was yummy because the sauce is so good.

And, sure enough, I was the only one to eat any of the asparagus. Oh well, more for me! :)

Meatballs In Sauce

Creative title, huh? I wasn't going to be able to make it to the store today (normally I grocery shop on Monday), so I had to come up with something that I already had the ingredients for. I was flipping through a crockpot cookbook and saw a recipe for some kind of meatballs and remembered I still had a package of Trader Joe's Meatless Meatballs, and then I thought of the good Lil' Smokies recipe where you make the sauce with grape jelly and chili sauce, so I thought why not use that sauce but with meatballs instead of Lil' Smokies. So that's what we're having. I think the recipe link I found was for a crockpot one, but I'm just going to heat up the sauce and then throw in the meatballs. I figure we'll have rice with it, and I also have some asparagus that needs to be used. I'm the only one that will eat that, though.

Meatballs in Sauce
1 lb. meatballs
1 bottle Chili Sauce
1 cup grape jelly

Combine chili sauce and grape jelly in sauce pan. Heat through. Add meatballs. Serve.

*****

How's that for easy?! The TJ "meatballs" are already cooked, you just have to heat them, so I'll just have them heat up in the sauce after it's done. Brilliant! I love easy dinners. :)

Review

The tortilla pie last night was so good! Actually I may have posted it after we ate and already reviewed it, now I can't remember. We all really liked it. There's a small piece left I'm thinking of having for lunch, but then I wonder if I should be nice and save it for my husband because he really likes it.

I think I used less salsa than it called for, and I liked it better that way. I don't know, I never measure it out, but this time I used less than usual. It wasn't as soggy as it sometimes gets.

Tortilla Pie

I've posted this before, but I think it's been awhile since we had it. It's one of our favorites, and since John had to eat out all last week, I figured I'd make it for him this weekend. I'm such a good wife, huh. ;) Our friend Ed (Hi, Ed!) came over for dinner, and he liked it too. He even asked for a doggie bag because he couldn't finish his piece.

Tortilla Pie
1 (16 ounce) can refried beans
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
8 (8-inch) flour tortillas
1 cup chunky salsa, divided
2 (4 or 6 ounce) cartons guacamole
1 (8 ounce) package shredded Mexican cheese blend

Combine first three ingredients, stirring well. Place one tortilla in a lightly greased 9-inch cake pan; spread with half of bean mixture and top with another tortilla. Spread with 1/2 cup salsa and top with another tortilla. Spread with half of guacamole and top with another tortilla. Sprinkle with half of cheese and top with another tortilla.

Repeat layers with remaining ingredients except cheese. Pan will be full. Cover and bake at 350 for 20 minutes; uncover and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake, uncovered, 3-5 more minutes. Cut into wedges to serve. Garnish with sour cream, salsa, and guacamole if desired.

*****

I use a springform pan instead of a cake pan; I don't have a cake pan thick enough, and a springform pan makes it easy to slice it up and serve. I also use taco seasoning instead of the chili powder and cumin.

Now I have to figure out what we're going to have this week. Chicken is FINALLY on sale again, so we'll have some chicken in the house. Hooray! So I know one thing we'll have is puff pastry chicken. I can't wait to try it...sounds so good! And my friend Jen B. tried it and said it was really good.

My best friend is getting married in three weeks, and I'd like to lose 10 pounds before that. Really I'd settle for five, but either way we're going to be having some pretty healthy stuff over the next few weeks. A lot of them will probably be Weight Watcher recipes. I can never decide on those if I should post the WW Points for those or not. I guess it doesn't hurt.

Sloppy Joes

Okay, I'm slacking again. What can I say, I didn't cook Thursday or Friday nights! So given that, I'm not that far behind. Thursday night I was home alone, so I got Chinese take-out because the husband doesn't really like it, so we never get it. I know, he's weird. Then Friday night we had the leftover mac and cheese from my potluck. Way to say "Welcome Home," huh, with leftovers. ;)

Anyway, Saturday night we had Sloppy Joe's, so of course I was once again singing Adam Sandler's "Lunchlady Land." It's kind of tradition when we have sloppy joes. My recipe for them is kind of random, but they're SO good. I was thinking I could post them as vegetarian because we used Boca grounds, but I realized that won't work. You'll see why.

Sloppy Joe's
1 lb. ground beef
1 can Campbell's Chicken Gumbo soup
Ketchup
Hamburger buns

Brown and drain hamburger. Stir in can of soup. Add ketchup until mixture is at a good sloppy joe consistency. I meant to measure as I went, but I just squirt some in the skillet until it looks right. I'd guess it's between one and two cups. Just depends how sloppy you like them (which always makes me think of "Billy Madison" and the crazy lunchlady..."I know you kids like 'em sloppy!"). Serve on hamburger buns.

*****

So, like I said, I used Boca grounds instead of hamburger, but that was it. They're so yummy. Will didn't really eat them, but he has a tooth coming in and hasn't really been eating much of anything the past few days.

Macaroni and Cheese

Phew...finally caught up! Thankfully everything was either already in my blog or I found it online. I would have been upset if I'd had to go downstairs and get a cookbook!

Tonight we're having some friends from MOMS Club over for a potluck. I'm making macaroni and cheese. I was going to do Rachael Ray's Mac and Cheese Hot Dog Casserole, but I've since decided to just make John's mom's mac and cheese. If any kids want a hot dog, I'll heat one up for them.

This recipe is copied exactly as my fantastic mother-in-law wrote them out for me. It's so yummy. I, of course, add more cheese than is called for. :) John will be bummed he missed this. Maybe there will be some left for him when he gets home on Friday!

Aurelia's Macaroni and Cheese
(these are "unmeasured ingredients", add to your taste)
hot boiled macaroni (8 to 12 ounce bag)
1 bag of shredded cheddar cheese (~8oz)
parmesan cheese (1/4 cup)
butter or margarine (1/2 stick)
few tablespoons of milk
salt/pepper

boil macaroni
drain
mix all other ingredients into the hot macaroni
place in 350 oven for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted
(toss in other cheeses as you like. ie american is good)

*****

She makes it as part of Thanksgiving dinner, and there are NEVER leftovers. Since we'll be celebrating with my family this year, I've told John I'll make it for him so he has a little bit of his mom's dinner with my family's.

Wafflewiches

So the husband has been out of town this week at a conference in Vegas. He left Monday morning, so that night we went over to my mom's for dinner. My grandma came home with us and has been staying with us. I figure this is my chance to eat things we don't normally get to because of John's diet.

I had made these sandwiches some time ago, but John doesn't eat lunch meat anymore, so we haven't had them even though they're so good. It's a Rachael Ray recipe from her "Express Lane" cookbook. My grandma really liked them. Will's not so much in to sandwiches, so he didn't really care one way or the other.

Wafflewiches
2 tablespoons softened butter
4 tablespoons honey mustard
8 waffles, lightly toasted (such as Eggos)
1/2 lb sliced ham (deli-sliced)
1/2 lb sliced smoked turkey or honey roasted turkey breast (deli-sliced)
1/2 lb sliced swiss cheese (deli-sliced)
3/4 cup prepared cranberry sauce

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat; add in the butter; let melt.
Assemble the sandwiches by spreading the honey mustard on 4 of the waffles, then top with equal amounts of ham, turkey, and Swiss cheese. Spread the cranberry sauce liberally on the remaining 4 waffles and place them atop the sandwiches.
Fry the assembled sandwiches in melted butter and cook for a few minutes on each side until they are deeply golden in color and the cheese melts.

*****

It's kind of like a Monte Cristo sandwich, which I LOVE but can never find in restaurants (except for this one place in Seattle). Anyway, they were really good. My grandma really liked them, like I said. I let them go a bit too long in the frying pan, but you couldn't really tell from the taste of them.

I just realized I didn't review any of the recipes I just added. Oh well. They were all good and nothing super spectacular.

Teriyaki Drumsticks

In doing a freezer inventory recently I came across a bag of chicken drumsticks. We used to eat them on a somewhat regular basis, but they're slightly higher in cholesterol than a chicken breast, so we hadn't been eating them. I was tired of seeing them in there, so I decided to use them...for the easiest dinner ever! Normally I cook six, but there were eight in the bag, so I used all of them. Here's the recipe.

Teriyaki Chicken Drumsticks
6-8 chicken drumsticks
teriyaki sauce

Place drumsticks in crockpot, add teriyaki sauce almost to cover the chicken. If drumsticks are frozen, cook on high for about six hours. If thawed, high for probably two hours should do it.

*****

So easy, and it's so good. Then we had rice on the side and spooned some of the sauce onto the rice. Before I started buying the Yoshida's teriyaki at Costco, I'd just buy the bottle of teriyaki sauce at the grocery store that's roughly the same size as the soy sauce bottle. When I used that, I would pour the whole bottle in and use all of it.

Grilled Burgers

Saturday we were hanging out watching the LSU/Bama game and decided we were tired of soy burgers and wanted real meat. Bama took the lead, so I chose that as a good time for the boy and me to head to Walmart to see what we could find...since some choice words may have come out of the husband's mouth. They had lean hamburger for a reasonable price, so that's what I got. Oh man, were those burgers ever good!

Claire Knightly's Awesome Grilled Burgers
1 pound lean ground beef
1 envelope Lipton Onion Soup mix
1/2 cup red wine

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Form into patties. Grill until done.

*****

Normally we just top them with American cheese and some ketchup (if we have other fixings we'll use them, but generally we don't), but I still had some gorgonzola left from pizzas a few weeks ago, so we did two with American cheese and two with the gorgonzola. Oh man, the gorgonzola with the bit of wine in the meat--so good! Jerky John only left half of one of those for me to eat...actually I only had a half of each kind! Yup, one for me--THREE for him! Although, in his defense, he only had 2.5 that night, he had the last half of the gorgonzola one (that was supposed to be mine) at some point the next day. I obviously didn't hide it in the fridge well enough!

I know I'm behind!!!

I'll get caught up tomorrow, I promise!!! Really you haven't missed anything too exciting, but just think...tomorrow there will be FOUR recipes instead of one. That's something to look forward to, right? RIGHT!??

Pizza

Think of the soup recipe as another special bonus. There have been a lot of those this week! Tonight we're grilling pizzas after the little man is in bed. I wasn't sure what toppings to have, then I remembered we have all the stuff for one of the fancy ones we had a couple weeks ago--feta, caramelized onions, artichoke hearts, and roasted red peppers. YUM!! I can't wait!

Butternut Squash Soup

Here's another recipe from my friend Jen B. (there you go, getting your name in lights!). To be quite honest, when she sent it to me I wasn't sure if I'd like it, but I told her I'd give it a try. I had complete faith in her recipe, I just thought I didn't like squash. I was basing that on my extreme dislike of zucchini (thanks, mom, for trying to feed it to me too much growing up and sneaking it in to stuff!), but she assured me it was nothing like zucchini.

So, I found myself at Trader Joe's last week, and a butternut squash made its way into my cart. Only $0.99! I had cleaned house yesterday, so I figured I'd make up the soup this afternoon to have for lunch over the weekend if I liked it. And if I didn't like it, I wasn't out a whole lot. She originally got the recipe from Allrecipes.com but modified it, so I'm including her version.

Butternut Squash Soup
2 whole butternut squash
olive oil
salt
pepper
nutmeg
garlic powder
6 tablespoons chopped onion
4 tablespoons butter (not margarine)
4 cups chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 package cream cheese

Roast Butternut Squash on a cookie sheet as follows: First, season with olive oil, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and garlic powder. Then, roast halved squash face down for 25 minutes and then face up for 25 minutes @ 375 degrees for a total of 50 minutes roasting time. When cool enough to handle, peel squash, and cut into chunks.

In a large saucepan, saute onions in margarine until tender. Add squash, chicken stock, marjoram, black pepper and cayenne pepper. Bring to boil; add cream cheese.

Puree squash and cream cheese in a blender or food processor in batches until smooth. Return to saucepan, and heat through. Do not allow to boil.

*****

I happen to have an imersion blender that I had never used, and it worked great for this!! Plus I hate pouring hot soup into a blender or food processor. Had a bad experience one time and don't want to repeat it, so that worked out great.

Oh, I actually only used one squash and half a block of cream cheese. Of course, I forgot I was going to cut the recipe in half until I was dropping the cream cheese in the pot, so I had to ladle out some of the chicken broth. I ended up adding some back in because it was pretty thick. It made a TON, so I can't imagine how much it would make if I'd made the whole thing!

I was kind of nervous when I dipped my spoon into the pot to try it because I didn't think I liked squash, but...lo and behold, I LOVED IT! I actually called Jen on the spot to tell her because she knew I was making it this afternoon. It was kind of hot, but Will had a bite and loved it, too. THe husband wasn't so sure, but by the time he tried it, it had thickened some from cooling, so he thought it would be good as a dip. What can I say...he's kind of weird, plus he'd been at happy hour. ;)

So, thanks Jen B., for another great recipe!!! I can't wait to have some of this for lunch tomorrow.

P.S. I think this could easily be made with vegetable stock instead of chicken to make a vegetarian version.

Review

The stroganoff was really good--big hit with our guests! I serve it over rice because that's how my grandma serves her stroganoff. Like I said in the recipe, I added in some cornstarch before the sour cream to help thicken it up.

Little hands are trying to close my laptop, so this will be a short review. Just know it was good!re

Crockpot Beef Stroganoff

We had some friends over yesterday (Thursday) night for dinner, so I was busy cleaning all afternoon and didn't get a chance to post my recipe. It was a crockpot recipe, which I love to use when we have people over because then I can just enjoy their company instead of having to be in the kitchen cooking.

Beef Stroganoff
1-1/2 lbs lean beef stewing meat, trimmed of fat
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced
10-3/4 oz. can 98% fat-free cream of mushroom soup
1 cup fat free sour cream

Combine all ingredients except sour cream in slow cooker. Cook on low 6-8 hours. Stir in sour cream. Cook on high for a few minutes to heat sour cream. Serve over rice or noodles.

*****

I actually used a beef roast that had been on sale this week at the market and cut it up instead of stew meat. Plus I find that this is really runny, so before adding in the sour cream I mixed in some cornstarch to thicken it up a bit. The recipe actually calls for one cup of water to be added, but the first time I did that it was waaaaay too much liquid, so I crossed that off in the cook book.

Review

Phew, I have a lot of catching up to do! The meatball sandwiches were good. John thought they'd be better on hoagie rolls or French bread, but I kind of liked them in the pita bread. I microwaved the meatballs, then mixed in some spaghetti sauce, spooned six meatballs into each pita half, added a little mozzarella, then put the whole thing in the micro again to melt the cheese. Super quick, easy, and cheap!