Tater tot Casserole

I can't believe it's already been a month since I last posted.  With the end of school and Matthew's birthday, time has gotten away from me. 

I grew up with this recipe and even though it might look a little weird, there's something about meat with tater tots that is just so good....and really what kid doesn't love eating tots for dinner?  My kids love this meal.

Today's Ingredients:
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 pound ground beef
1 can string beans, drained
1 can cream of mushroom soup
Milk
1/2-2/3 package tater tots

To lighten it up:
Use ground turkey for beef
Skim Milk
Light Cream of Mushroom Soup
Cubed hashbrowns instead of tatertots

Cook beef, onion, and garlic until the onion is translucent and soft

and the beef is cooked through.  Season with salt and pepper.

Once the beef is cooked through, drain off excess fat if needed.

Add the cream of mushroom soup, green beans and 1/3-1/2

can of milk.  I would add less milk at first and then add more if

needed. 

Mix it all together.  I know it looks gross, but the end result is good!

Put in a 8x8 pan or something smaller than a 9x13 pan.  I've even

cooked it in a round baking dish before and that works too.

Add 1/2-2/3 bag of tater tots on top of the casserole.  Mine was a

smaller bag so I almost used all of it.

Bake at 350 for 30 min. or until the tater tots are browned.



So delish!

Tater tot Casserole Printable Recipe



Taco Rice Casserole

Sorry I've been a little MIA lately.  My husband was out of town for 2 weeks for training - uhhh...I didn't cook much while he was gone.  The kids and I have been a little under the weather lately too.  I think we're getting over everything and it's so nice having the hubby back!

I grew up on this casserole. It is so easy to make and a great recipe to use up leftover rice. I don't really know why it's called a casserole since you don't put it into a 9x13 pan and bake in the oven. Maybe it should be called Taco Rice Skillet. Anyways, enjoy!

Today's Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef

1 can tomato soup

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 can diced tomatoes (drained)

3 cups cooked rice

1 8 oz. can corn

1 package taco seasoning mix

1/2-1 teaspoon salt




Over medium high heat saute ground beef until done.  Drain excess

fat if necessary.




Lower heat to medium and add taco seasoning, tomato soup, cheese

and tomatoes.  Heat through until cheese melts.

You can definitely add more cheese if needed to suit your family's

tastes.  Also, if you have little kids or are sensitive to heat, you might

want to scale back on the taco seasoning just a bit. I only added 3 T.

(1 pkg is 4) and Matthew and Isabelle still thought it was "hot".

Also, I hate big chunks of tomato in casseroles like this so I took
the tomatoes after draining them and chopped them a bit more.




Once the cheese is melted stir in the rice, salt, and corn.

Matthew HATES rice so last night when he saw dinner he said
"is this pasta?"  I said yes so he would try it.  He has a mental block
about some foods and I knew he wouldn't try it if he knew it was
rice.  Of course, he liked it and never even commented that it was
rice.  Just getting him to try something new is usually a pain and
causes lots of gnashing of teeth around here, but he ate it easily
AND liked it even if he thought it was hot.

The other night he was refusing to try pineapple and we almost
had to tie him down to try it.  Finally after threatening time-out
he tried it and guess what - LOVED IT!  We knew he would
and now he has "unlocked" pineapple (like you would do in
the star wars wii game).




Cook through and serve.  See...that was super easy to make right?




This is one of my husband's favorite meals and he loves eating it

with tortilla chips!

Taco Rice Casserole Printable Recipe





Chicken and Mushroom Bake

This is a Rachael Ray recipe out of her magazine that has become a staple in our household. We LOVE mushrooms here at our house and it is the perfect recipe to use leftover rotisserie/baked chicken or even leftover turkey which we did after Christmas. Such a good and easy recipe. Even my son will eat the chicken and mushroom part - he has an aversion to rice.


So so good and super easy!


Today's ingredients:
1-2 tablespoons butter
10 oz. mushrooms
1 ½ tablespoons flour
½ cup marsala wine or white wine or chicken stock
½ cup heavy cream or half and half
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley
S&P
1 cup long-grain rice
2 packed cups coarsely chopped or shredded rotisserie chicken
2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese



If you don't have any leftover chicken or turkey around, but still want to make this, about 2 chicken breasts will suffice. I just brought some water to a boil, added my chicken and lowered to a simmer for about 10 min. If you keep boiling instead of simmering you'll get tough chicken instead of nice juicy chicken. Once it's done, drain and let cool. Shred or dice.


Preheat your oven to 350. In a large skillet, heat the butter over medium-high heat until just melted. I only used 1 T. of butter this time and it worked just fine.


Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. This recipe calls for 10 oz of mushrooms, but I used 16 oz. since we love mushrooms in our household. It doesn't affect the recipe at all.


Sprinkle the flour on top and stir for 1 minute.


Stir in the wine or chicken stock and cream* and simmer, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes.

*Last time I made this I had some leftover half & half and decided to try and see if it would work. Worked like a charm, so if you need to cut calories fat free half & half works great!


Stir in 2 cups water, the parsley, 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon pepper.


In a greased 9x13 pan, layer the rice.


Then the chicken.


Then the mushroom sauce.


Cover with foil and bake for 35 min. Uncover, add 2 T. of grated parmesan cheese and cook for another 5 min.


So delicious! Enjoy!

Chicken and Mushroom Bake Printable Recipe

Creamy Chicken-Broccoli Bake

There are several reasons why I love this recipe. It has creaminess, broccoli (my favorite vege), noodles, it makes a great freezer meal and/or you can make it the night before/morning of and keep in the fridge all day and pop into the oven right before dinner.

Please beware this makes a really full 9x13 pan. If you need to stretch this for a big family then go ahead and add more mushrooms and broccoli. I also love that this recipe is a perfect freezer meal. You can double it the whole recipe and freeze a 9x13 pan of it or do what I did and take half of this recipe and cook it and freeze the other half. Last time we ate as much as we could between dinner and leftovers, but you can only do so many leftovers right? We probably threw away at least 1/3. This time I cooked it in an 8x8 pan and it was perfect, plus now I have a meal in the freezer for a crazy hectic day.

Kids Verdict: Isabelle loved the noodles and ate some of the chicken and broccoli. Matthew wouldn't touch it - his latest excuse is that he hates green things except for grapes.


Today's Ingredients:
10 oz. dried medium noodles (fettucine)
1 ½ lbs skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
8 green onions, sliced
1 medium red sweet pepper, seeded and chopped*
2 10.75 oz. cans condensed cream of broccoli soup
2 8-oz. cartons sour cream - I used light and it worked great
1/3 cup chicken broth
2 teaspoons dry mustard
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1 16-oz. package frozen chopped broccoli, thawed and drained
½ cup fine dry bread crumbs
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted

*I did use a red pepper last time I made this, but did not use this time. You can go either way and it works well.


Dice your chicken and get your water going for your noodles.

Now use your imagination and pretend I have a picture of chicken cooking. Apparently I forgot to take a picture of that step. Cook on medium heat for about 3 min. I just used Pam and didn't even cook them in olive oil. Once they are cooked through and no longer pink then transfer them to a big bowl.


Dice your green onions (they are hiding under the mushrooms) and mushrooms.

Cook the mushrooms, green onions and red pepper if you are using. Cook until softened.

Once the vege's are cooked add the vege's, broccoli, broccoli soups, sour cream, chicken stock, mustard and black pepper to the bowl and mix all together.

Once the noodles are done drain them, rinse them and then drain again. Mix the noodles into the chicken mixture.

I know you aren't supposed to rinse noodles, but for this casserole you really don't want all the noodles sticking together.

Once I mixed everything together I transferred as much as I could to my foil pan which was slightly smaller than my to cook 8x8 pan. Do not put any bread crumbs on your dish that you'll be freezing.

I covered tightly with foil. Labeled what it was and then also wrote what temperature to cook it at and for how long. Perfect for a crazy, busy day or when I just don't want to cook.

If you do freeze part of this, then when you want to cook it - do the following: Take from freezer and put in 400 degree oven for 50 min. (covered). Mix together the crumb mixture and sprinkle over the top. Cook for another 10-15 min (uncovered), or until crumbs are golden brown.


Mix the melted butter and the bread crumbs together for a nice topping.

Sprinkle over the top of your chicken mixture and cover with foil. Even though I had halved the recipe to actually cook, I did use the full amount of butter and bread crumbs for the topping.

Cook for 30 min. covered and then another 20-25 min. uncovered.

Yumminess!

I love one-pan meals/casseroles. I have my protein, vege's and calcium all in 1 fell swoop.

Creamy Chicken-Broccoli Bake Printable Recipe

Casserole: Baked Beef Ravioli

For the most part we eat really healthy around here. Every now and then we do eat something a bit more fattening. I tried this today for my son who is so picky and hasn't liked any dinners lately. We recently discovered he will eat Ravioli (and I refuse to feed him the canned stuff) so I thought this would be right up his alley and it was. Yay!!

I think it's really kindof a grown-up version of Ravioli from a can, but much, much better. If you have picky kids I really think they would like this recipe. At the very bottom of this post is the link to download the recipe already typed out.

Today's Helpful Hints
1-Use a garbage bowl. Rachael Ray introduced me to this concept through her shows and it really is a timesaver. I have a bowl in my cooking area that I put all the food garbage in (onion skins, ends from vege's, fatty parts from meats, etc. At the end of prep I dump it all out at once. Saves me time from going back and forth to the garbage can.

2-Build upon not what's only in your pantry but leftover items that need to be used from your fridge. I'll let you know in each of my recipes what my leftover items are. I really want to make sure my money is stretched and every possible scrap of food that can be used is.

Today's Recipe stars (in other words THE INGREDIENTS):
2 9-0z. packages refrigerated cheese-filled ravioli
1 1/2 pounds of ground beef*
1 large onion, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can condensed tomato soup
1 tsp. basil, crushed
1 tsp. dried oregano, crushed
1 1/2 cups shredded mozarella cheese (6 oz.)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (2 oz.)


*Please notice my ground beef in the upper left hand corner. We have a food saver and buy meat when it's on sale and food save it. This helps it last longer and doesn't get freezer burnt. I only had 1 lb. packages and it seemed like plenty of beef.


Preheat your oven to 375 then dice your onion.


Then mince your garlic. If you have a garlic press you can do that as well. I like to mince mine with a knife as it gives it a bit more substance.


Cook the ground beef, onion, and garlic on medium heat until the ground beef is cooked through and the onion is softened (undercooked onion can ruin a recipe and become an overwhelming flavor, soft cooked onion just helps accent the beef and give it some good flavor).


While the beef is cooking, cook the ravioli according to the pkg (about 4 min) and drain and set aside. I happened to have 1 pkg of ravioli already that was a tomato, basil, mozzarella ravioli and then I bought a cheese pkg today. I just cooked them together and it worked well together.


After the beef is cooked then drain off any fat if necessary and stir in the undrained tomatoes, tomato soup, basil, and oregano.


Gently stir in the ravioli. Ravioli is really tender and can break easily so be really gentle.


Transfer the mixture to a 9x13 pan and sprinkle with the mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Bake uncovered for 20 min., until heated through or until mozzarella is browned (I really like browned mozzarella, but you might like gooey mozzarella so do what's best for your family).

Leftovers I utilized from my fridge:
Shredded mozzarella from making pizza the other night
Refrigerated ravioli

This was a new recipe that we won't make every week but maybe once a month. It was good and would be excellent with a green salad and some good french bread if you can handle any more carbs. :)

If you are looking for ways to cut more fat/calories from the recipe you could:
1-Use ground turkey or chicken instead of beef - beware of the fat content of the turkey/chicken as sometimes it can be as much as the beef.
2-Use 1 lb instead of 1.5 lbs of beef/turkey/chicken
3-Cut out the parmesan and use less mozzarella. I couldn't taste the parm and probably won't use it next time.
4-Use a mushroom/other filling rather than 4-cheese ravioli. I'm going to try something like spinach ravioli next time. I can sneak in a little extra vege's that Matthew won't notice.

Click here to print out the recipe

You must have Adobe Reader in order to print this recipe out. It will open in a tab and then click print and it will ask if you want to download. Say yes and then a PDF file will open and you can print the recipe.