Lasagna!

LASAGNA

I decided that since my husband and I are going out tonight that I couldn't really make my homemade pizza. We have to get ready for our primary program that's on sunday. This afternoon right before my date I will be practicing with my kids at the church. So, I thought that I'd make some lasagna for the kids to scarf while, Bill and I are out eating sushi. :) So, I took a look around to see what ingredients I had that would work in a lasagna. I was quite surprised at what I found. I made a 9X9 pan of lasagna, which is perfect for my three boys to eat.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb ground sausage

1 lb ground beef

1/2 a bell pepper (diced)

4 or 5 button mushrooms (diced)

1 can premade spaghetti sauce

3 tbsp dried minced onions (or 1/2 a diced fresh onion)

1 medium tomato (diced)

1 cup cheddar cheese

1/2 cup mozzerella cheese

4 tsp fresh parmesan cheese

7-9 lasagna noodles (broken in half)

4 tbsp and 2 tsp italian seasoning

12 oz cottage cheese

2 eggs

1/4 cup ricotta cheese

salt and pepper

Ok this might seem like a long list of items for lasagna. but it was what I had in the house, it was going to have to work.

Directions:

Brown the sausage and beef in a pan. Once almost all browned, add the minced onions, mushrooms, and bell pepper, cook until the minced onions are transparent and like fresh onions. Drain grease. Makes a lot of meat mixture, I stored part of it about 1/2 - 1 cup in a separate container for a different meal. Add the spaghetti sauce. simmer for 5 min. add the diced tomato, 4 tbsp italian seasoning. Mix and simmer on low heat. Meanwhile, cook the lasagna noodles in pot with salted water. Once those are al dente, take off heat and run under cold water keeping them in the same pan. After they have cooled, keep in pan. In a small bowl, add the cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, 2 tsp italian seasoning, eggs and a little mozzarella cheese. Mix until thoroughly blended.

Layering

place enough sauce mixture on the bottom of the 9x9 pan. Just enough to cover. then place lasagna noodles (which are broken in half length wise) covering the sauce. Then place another layer lightly of the meat sauce mixture. Next is 1/2 of the cottage cheese mixture. Sprinkle that with some cheddar cheese. Add another layer of lasagna noodles on top of that mixture. Then add the rest of the cottage cheese mixture on top of the new layer of lasagna noodles. Sprinkle with cheddar cheese and add the remainder of the spaghetti sauce. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and parmesan cheese.

Cover with foil. Bake in a preheated oven for 30-35 min, until cheese on top is melted and sauce is bubbly.

remove the foil, bake another 5 min. remove from oven and let set for 5-10 min.

Spaghetti Squash with spaghetti sauce

OK, I didn't eat dinner last night, but I made it. I made Spaghetti Squash with spaghetti sauce. The spaghetti sauce was a can of Hunts Spaghetti sauce. Which I have in my food storage. So, I've never actually made spaghetti squash before, I had to go to ask.com and find out. I watched their video tutorial and it helped a lot. Here is what I did...

I poked holes around the outside of the spaghetti squash. several on each side. Then I placed it on a cookie sheet in a preheated oven of 375F for 1 hour. Then I let it set for about 1 hour, when it was cool enough to touch. Then I sliced it in half, scraped out the seeds and stringy stuff attached to the seeds. Then once I dumped out the seeds and stuff, I used the tines of a fork to start shredding the sides of the pulp which pulled nicely off into little shreds of what looks like spaghetti.

I heated the spaghetti sauce on the stove, and then poured it on top of the spaghetti squash. Mixed it up and then served it to the boys with parmesan cheese. When Bill had some he said it tasted just like al dente pasta. He said it was really good.

I had been invited to my first Bunco game as a sub for one of the original players. It was a crazy evening, so no pictures sorry. But I will be making something else with the spaghetti squash soon. I have two of them, well now one. I'm looking forward to documenting my next spaghetti squash adventure.

Personal Beef Pot Pies

Ok, well, I think this is such a great idea that I had to make personal beef pot pies. My kids absolutely love pot pies! We are all kind of pot pie junkies... well, anyways. I had this leftover beef stew that I made last week and I was trying to think what to do with it now. Then when I told my son that I was making pot pies he said he wanted beef pot pies. Well, then it hit me... use the leftover beef stew, it's practically what is inside anyways. So, I used the leftover beef stew from last week, and make this yummy beef pot pie. You can really put just about anything in it. I was going to make a chicken one, but this worked even better, less time to make, and so healthy! :) and yes, I made the crust from scratch. :) Courtesy of the Deseret Cookbook. :) I doubled the pie crust recipe since I was making 6 individual pot pies, double crusted. :)

Crust Ingredients: (makes one double crust)

2 cups flour (sifted)

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup oil

1/4 cup milk

Combine the flour and salt. Then measure in a measuring cup the oil and milk WITHOUT stirring, then add all at once to the four mixture, the milk/oil mixture. Stir slightly until bleached with fork.

Roll out 1/2 pastry to 1/8" thickness between two pieces of wax paper to fit pie plate. Remove the wax paper and place rolled out crust into pie plate.

Fill with filling either sweet or savory, then with remaining pastry dough, roll out to 1/8" thickness the same way, place on top of filling, cut off excess dough and flute edges either with fingers or a fork. Make slits or decorations as desired for escape of steam. Bake according to individual recipe.

Filling:

Left over Beef stew, can be found further down in my blog.

*Bake in a 375F oven for 30-35 min. Checking at 25 min to see if browned on top and bubbly/done :)

I used an egg wash (1 egg and a little water) brushed on top of my pies and then sprinkled with a little Ms. Dash. For added flavor and flair.

I hope you enjoyed this, I will use this same pie crust for my other homemade pies. You will see it again.. :)

Taco Quesadilla's

Ok, I didn't get my blog post in last night, but I have a good reason. I had a long awaited Girls night out. I made dinner for the boys and Bill and then I went out and hand Sushi with some friends from my church. It was a lot of fun. Good food and good company. :) So, I took pictures of dinner last night. Here is what we did for our Tuesday, Taco night. I made Taco Quesadillas. Sounds yummy, It was yummy. I had a bit or two, to make sure they were ok for the men to eat :)

Ingredients

1.5 lb ground beef

1 packet taco seasoning

1/3 cup water

refried beans

cheese

toppings of your choice

tortillas

Directions:

I browned the ground beef and drained off the excess fat. Then I added the taco seasoning mix and water, and cooked down. following the packet directions. Then on a flour tortilla, I spread some refried beans, then sprinkled my taco meat mixture, and cheese. (my hubby and kids won't eat anything else.). On a hot griddle I sprayed some PAM, Then I put my loaded tortilla down on the hot griddle, then topped with a plain tortilla. Waited about 5 min or so, til the bottom was browned a little, and then flipped the quesadilla. Took off the heat when the opposite side was browned too. Then sliced with my pizza cutter into little triangles. This was a quick and fun change from tacos every tuesday. :)

These would be good with sour cream and guacamole. If I had either I would have had some with it.

Enjoy :)

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Today I made some chocolate chip banana bread loaves. 5 small loaves and 1 medium loaf. I had 9 banana's that needed used. So this was a great idea to use the banana's.

Ingredients:

4 1/2 c all purpose flour

4 1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp cinnamon (ground)

3 eggs

3 c mashed bananas (9 medium)

2 1/4 c sugar

3/4 c cooking oil

3 tsp finely shredded lemon peel

1 1/2 c chocolate chips

1. Grease the bottom & 1/2 inch up sides of loaf pan; set aside. In a medium mixing bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, & 1/4 tsp salt (optional). Make a well, in the center of dry mixture, set aside.

2. In another bowl combine the egg, bananas, sugar, cooking oil, and lemon peel. Add egg mixture all at once to dry mixture. Stir til just moistened.

3. Spoon batter into the prepared pan. Bake in a 350F oven 30-35 min for mini loaves or 50-60 for regular loaf, til a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 min. Remove loaf from pan. Cool on rack. Wrap in syranrap & store over night before slicing

Homemade Mashed Red Potatoes

Ok, this is my secret recipe. This is my children's favorite mashed potatoes. They say it's my FAMOUS recipe. But, not famous yet... but very tasty. I hope you enjoy. I manually mash my potatoes. With a hand potato masher.

Ingredients:

2 potatoes per person

diced onions, about 1/2 an onion or minced onion

1 tsp to 2 tsp minced garlic

1 stick butter

1/2 cup sour cream

1/4 cup milk

Salt and Pepper to taste

In a pan cut up the potatoes, add to cold water to cover. Add the onion and garlic to the potatoes. Cook on high til boiling, then put to medium heat til potatoes are soft, where one is taken out and a fork can mash it easy. checking periodically after 25 min. Then drain off the water, add back to the pot, with butter, milk and sour cream and salt and pepper to taste. This is a yummy recipe. We love it. I hope you do too :)

Roasted Chicken pieces

Tonight is Sunday, I'm cooking roasted chicken in the oven. It is chicken pieces of a whole chicken. I rinsed the chicken, then patted dry. I coated the bottom of a roasting pan with olive oil, then placed the chicken in the roasting pan rolling the chicken in the olive oil skin side up. Then I coated the chicken with a rosemary seasoning mix and monterey chicken seasoning mix. No extra salt or pepper. Then I placed in a preheated 400F oven. for 30 min, then lowering the oven temp to 350F for another 13-30 min. Then taking out of the oven, should be nice and brown, juices should run clear. If not as brown as you like, broil for 5 min. If juices are not clear yet, then cook until clear juices.