DIY Keurig Style Caramel Macchiato

I'm from both the tea and coffee camps, I just can't choose - I love them both.  Thankfully I never have to choose! Are you a flavored coffee fan? This is perfect for you. I have a super easy and fun recipe for you today.  My favorite Starbucks drink is the Caramel Macchiato. For obvious reasons, I can't drink that every day and I surely don't want to spend $4+ on Starbucks daily, so I made my own version at home.

I've finally perfected my DIY Caramel Macchiato so I wanted to share! This is my original recipe.  I use a Keurig Vue, but feel free to use whatever single serve coffee maker you have. Before I was using only the Starbucks Espresso Roast, and it wasn't just quite right, but then...I was given some Caramel Pecan Pie coffee from the Coffee Beanery at a local blogger event hosted by Xfinity and Hallmark. Thanks so much for that, it's perfected my drink!

While this isn't the healthiest coffee, the calorie count is reasonable and it taste great!

Here's a rundown of the ingredients.

1 International Delight Coffee House Inspirations - Caramel Macchiato
1 packet of Splenda
**Put into the bottom of the cup. Brew the coffee on top.

1 Tbsp Starbucks Espresso Roast
1 Tbsp Coffee Beanery Caramel Pecan Pie
**Using a special pod that allows you to use your own ground coffee, brew on the strong setting at 6 ounces. The key is getting a strong cup of coffee, if it's too weak it won't taste right.

Land O' Lakes Heavy Whipping Cream
Drizzle of Hershey's Caramel Sauce
**Top with whipped cream and drizzle with caramel sauce.

Watch a little video I put together of myself making this coffee recipe. Please excuse the poor quality, I'm still trying to figure out taking video on my cell phone. :-)

If you try this recipe, please let me know how you like it! Also, if you want me to attempt more easy make at home dupes, comment below with your suggestions.

Enjoy!

~Tamara

Blue Apron Meal #3

Today I'll be talking about the third meal from my first Blue Apron Box, Orange Beef Lo Mein.  My husband and I decided that we like the service enough to keep doing it until we get sick of trying different meals.  For now, we've opted to do it every other week, so that we can continue to have a few of our staples and return to normalcy after having a few different meals.

The Orange Beef Lo Mein was was an easy and fun meal.  It really tasted like it was straight out of  PF Changs or a similar restaurant. 

All the veggies were fresh and balanced perfectly together in the dish. I'd never eaten a few of those ingredients before, so it was fun to try some new things.

The slight crunch of the cabbage with the softer Gai Lan leaves was delicious and balanced well. The Gai Lan sort of reminded me of kale, but taste was a tad more like broccoli. The orange flavor was distinct yet not over powering.  I could also taste the soy sauce and the Miran. I've never had Miran before, which is a sweet rice wine, but it has a distinct flavor and cut the richness of the beef.

I was nervous that there wouldn't be enough beef, similar to what I thought about the chicken from the last meal. Different from last time, I do wish that we would have gotten a half pound more of the beef. It was way more noodles that everything else- but maybe traditionally that's how the dish is supposed to be? Who knows, we don't usually eat Lo Mein.

Per the recipe card, this was to be 3 servings, and it was.  So we ate this for dinner and I had the leftovers for lunch the next day. Not bad for the price of $20 for the whole dish, that works out to $6.66 per serving and I find that to be a great value.

Not to mention, I saved money buy hot having to go to the store and buy full sized amounts of all of these ingredients.  Which most likely, I would have only used once. This service really cuts down on wasted food as well.

I would rate this dish 5 forks out of 5. Overall this was an excellent box! I'm looking forward to the next.

I also want to update you on the soggy/bad Butter Lettuce that I mentioned in my first Blue Apron post. I reached out to Blue Apron via Facebook message about the bad lettuce and they finally got back to me. They apologized about the inconvenience and issued a $20 credit toward my next box. I appreciate that they made it right. While it did take several days for them to get back to me, I'm happy with how their customer service handled the problem.

Happy eating,
~Tamara

Blue Apron Meal #2

The second Blue Apron meal for this week is Chicken & Sage Biscuit Pot Pie with Cremini Mushrooms & Purple Top Turnip. Let me start with the fact that this meal was delicious. Period. The dish was flavorful and reminded me of something that my grandmother would have cooked. This meal was home cooking at its roots with updated twists on the ingredients. 

The ingredients include fresh sage, purple top turnips and a fluffy biscuit mix. It's the fresh sage that took this meal to the next level. At first I was concerned that there wasn't enough chicken for the volume of vegetables, but it was the perfect amount.  There was soggy butter lettuce with my first meal, but everything for this dish was fresh and in tip top shape.

What was fun about cooking this meal is that I got to use a few more "fancy" cooking techniques. Poaching chicken, making a roux.  All fun stuff. Lots of steps. but it comes together. It was worth the hour and a half that it took to complete.  I'm sure stopping to take photos at every step contributed to my cooking time.

I was pleasantly surprised and pleased that my husband and I got 4 servings out of this recipe. The leftovers the next day were just as wonderful. The recipe card called for 3 servings, so to have extra was nice. This is of course based on what we consider a serving size.  

As far as the costs goes on this meal, I did think that $10 per serving was a bit high.  The fact that we were able to get 4 servings out of it brought the price tag down to $5 per serving, which was much more to my liking.  Top that with the fact that I'm really enjoying not having to go shopping for dinner. It's great not to have to plan or think about what you'll be making.

So far, I think that these meals are great for average to above average home cooks.  These may be slightly more challenging for those who have never cooked or those who aren't good at multitasking while cooking.

I'd rate this meal 5 forks out of 5. The ingredients were basic and delicious.

Happy eating,
~Tamara

Mock Peach Cobbler

My husband and I picked up some delicious peaches from Costco. Which means we had 9 of those babies! Two too many for us to finish. I wanted to do something with the last few peaches before they went bad and I had to throw them out.  I searched the internet and found this easy recipe. This one caught my attention because 1, the prep work was minimal and 2, the ingredients were simple and lastly, it looked yummy.

Enjoy!

I made two changes to this this recipe. First, I used 2 peaches cut into quarters (skin on) instead of canned peaches. My peaches were very ripe and sweet. I wouldn't recommend using fresh peaches unless they are sweet and very ripe! If not, canned peaches may be the route to go.  My second change was that I used I used Sprite instead of Mountain Dew. Other than those two things, I made it exactly to the letter.  

I think this recipe was near perfect (with my tweaks). When I make this again, I will use those same changes and add a sprinkle of cinnamon inside of each roll.

I really love how these turned out. The crust was nice and crunchy on the top, soft on the inside. It wasn't tart nor too sweet, it was perfect. The inside was moist, yet not mushy. I believe the ripeness of my peaches lent to that. This dessert really reminded me of peach cobbler without all of the work! I bet this would be just as yummy with in-season apples, fresh cut pineapple, or any fresh and ripe fruit that you want to use.

If you try this, let me know what you think!

Source: Easy Peach Roll Up Dessert

Rating: 5 forks

Vodka Punch

Long time no see foodies!

We had our annual summer BBQ this past weekend and I wanted to make a yummy adult beverage. I found a Vodka Punch recipe and followed it exactly and doubled it to fill this 2 gallon drink dispenser.  It was perfect for two reasons. One, the flavors were spot on and perfect for summer. Two, it's perfect for the light weight drinkers.  I kept the vodka bottle next to the punch for those more seasoned drinkers that wanted to add a shot or two to their glass. Remember you can always add more, but you can't take out.  I added orange and lime slices for decoration. Everyone loved it and I will be making it again!

Source: Vodka Punch
Rating: 5 forks

Easy Low Carb Meatloaf Muffins

My plate is 1 meatball short... I ate one before I got the shot!

Ever since my husband heard his co-worker say "meatloaf muffins" he's been wanting me to make them. They taste exactly the same as my regular meatloaf, except it's now easier to transport for lunches and such. Anyways, here is my version of Meatloaf Muffins.  Of course, since we are still low carbing it, I made this slightly differently than I normally would have by replacing the bread crumbs with ground pork rinds. 

The only thing missing this time, which I normally add is the green bell peppers. We didn't have any and I didn't feel like going to the store. So, these are sans the peppers.  I made some cheesy cauliflower mash to go along with it. 

Source: Me!, Original Recipe
Rating - 5 forks

Ingredients:

2 lbs Extra Lean Ground Beef

3/4 cup of BBQ Pork Rinds, ground to a fine powder (measure after the pork rinds have been ground)

1/2 cup of small diced green peppers

1 envelope of Onion Soup Mix

1 extra large egg

3 Tbsp of Ketchup

2 tsp of Worcester Sauce

Pepper to taste

Instructions:  Preheat oven at 350.  Mix everything in a bowl. Careful, don't over mix! Use a ice cream scoop to make the same size "muffin" for each cup.  Bake for 25-30 minutes depending on your oven.

Makes 12.

Meaty Egg Cups: Bacon vs Ham!

Thanks Pinterest! You have me making all type of low carb goodies! Earlier this week I saw some bacon and egg cups aka muffins. They looked really good, but they only tasted okay.  I added fresh spinach chiffonade to half of the cups.  

Not so pretty...right?

My husband and I both like our bacon with crisp to it, and this bacon was totally soft. So that along wasn't that appetizing to us.  Also, they didn't have that eye appeal that I like when I make food. Mines definitely did not turn out looking like the ones in the original recipe! Instead I got little egg balls! LOL, I contribute that mostly to using to much egg in each cup.  I also didn't even taste the shredded cheese. If I make these again, I'd have to play around with how to get the bacon crispier, change the cheese, add more seasonings to the eggs and I would reduce the amount of eggs used.  In my personal opinion, this recipe needs some serious tweaking.

Source: Bacon Egg Cups 

Rating: 3 forks

Prep time!

So I returned to the scene of the crime (Pinterest) and saw a picture of some ham cups.  After what I consider the bacon and egg cups to be a mild fail, I thought this would be a good option to test out next.  So a few nights ago I decided to make ham egg muffins and they are AMAZING! It reminds me of a  western omelette. So because I felt I couldn't detect the shredded cheese in the bacon ones, instead this I used Sargento Double Cheddar slices and cut them into four smaller squares. I briefly cooked fresh bell pepper and onion in a tablespoon of butter!  I also added various seasonings including a dash of salt and pepper in the egg mixture.

Step by step layering ingredients!

They totally top the bacon ones not only are they delicious they are beautiful to look at also! The only thing I would change is I purchased thin cut ham, so I used two slices of ham for each cup, next time I will get a regular cut ham and use one slice per cup. I'll be making these again, for sure!


Source: Ham Egg Cups 
Rating - 5 forks

Ham Cups are the clear winner! Delish!

Both of these recipes are highly customize-able  so you should throw in what ever you like. Change it up and add cooked sausage or mushroom or even some fresh tomatoes or spinach!  

Have you made any egg cups? How do you like them?

Roasted String Beans



Let's eat!

A few nights ago I made roasted string beans for the first time. One word. Awesomeness.  I read several recipes to get a vibe of how to cook it and came up with my own variation.  Take out the bacon, and voila! You have a vegetarian friendly side.



Costco Salmon...my secret weapon!

With this I served one of my favorite short cuts...Salmon, prepped by Costco!!! Yay Costco! This salmon is in the deli area. It's fresh salmon topped with a herb butter and fresh dill.  All you do it bake it and it's ready to go.  I found that I only need to add a light sprinkle of salt.  It's so good I even served it as an additional protein at Christmas dinner.

Here's My Recipe:

fresh out of the oven

1 lb of washed string beans

Drizzle of EVOO

Kosher salt

Fresh cracked black pepper

2 piece of bacon, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven for 450 degrees.  Toss string beans in EVOO.  Lay on a foil covered baking sheet.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  I then sprinkle the cut bacon over top. 

 

prior to roasting

Bake for 10 minutes then take tongs and toss the beans and bacon around on the sheet and spread back out evenly.  Bake for 10 more minutes.  Serve immediately.

Source: Me!, original recipe

Rating: 5 forks

Wine Braised Short Ribs

Happy New Year!  I recently found out that my husband doesn't really like black eyed peas...odd since he ate it last year. Usually I cook black eyed peas, collard greens, corn bread and maybe coleslaw.  None the less, I took this as my opportunity to cook something non traditional for New Years Day. 

I decided on Wine Braised Short Ribs, Mashed Potatoes & Steamed Broccoli.  I originally wanted roasted asparagus, but I couldn't find any good looking asparagus at the store, so the back up plan was broccoli.

This was my first time braising anything, and the results were wonderful!  I actually looked at about 5 recipes before deciding on what to do.  Below is the recipe that is the most basic version. I did add several things that I pulled in from various recipes, but this is the base.


dinner plate

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/claire-robinson/red-wine-braised-short-ribs-recipe/index.html

Here's what I did in addition to the food network recipe.

1. First, I used 8 smaller short ribs.

2. In addition to salt and pepper, I also added dried thyme to the seasonings on the meat.

3. Instead of browning the ribs in butter, I did an EVOO and butter combo.

4. After browning the meat, I sauteed onions, garlic and some dried celery flakes in the same pot.

5. I did add the full bottle of wine, but when I noticed that it did not reduce as the recipe said it would,  so I used only 2 cups of veggie broth instead of 4. 

dinner plate

Here are the first 5 ribs, in the pan.

The results were amazing! Even the Mr. loved it!  Here are a few pictures.

Here are the veggies, wine & broth.

Finished ribs, right out of the oven.



Smothered Pork Chops & Crash Hot Potatoes

Smothered Pork Chops.

This recipe was so close, yet so far from its potential. I usually love Tyler’s recipes, but I honestly can’t believe that so many people rated this 5 starts on foodnetwork.com. I was very disappointed with this gravy. I’ve got to say the seasonings on the meat was spot on, BUT this gravy wasn’t that good. After tasting this, its crystal clear I don’t like oil based gravy. Not only was it bland, the consistency was kind of greasy. I kept whisking away hoping it would change. No such luck. I added more flour, no such luck. I gave up and settled on the consistency the way it was. After it was made, I tasted it and it was gross! So bland and oily! Side note: Remember always taste your food! Anyways, I had to add a good amount more of onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper to it to make it edible. Then I didn’t use much of it at all over the chops. I just basically finished cooking them in it and that was it.

Overall, I liked the smothered pork chops so next time I’ll make some major changes to the gravy because I know it can be done better.

Additional notes: I watched the video of him preparing this dish the day after I made this and he used WAY less than ¼ cup of EVOO which his recipe says to use. That may have been the issue with the gravy, too much oil…if you make this, be sure to view and then copy the video method, ignore the amount of oil the recipe says to use.

Source: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/smothered-pork-chops-recipe/index.html
Rating: 3 forks



Up Next, Crash Hot Potatoes!

YUM! Thank you Pioneer Woman! They are really good and not much work….and a little bit dangerous! I’m saying dangerous because I ate four of this little suckers. Must have control over the potatoes! LOL I’ll be making these again.

Source: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/06/crash-hot-potatoes/
Rating: 5 forks

Salmon Croquettes and Three Cheese Garlic Scalloped Potatoes

Tuesday night I made Salmon Croquettes…and they were awesome! That was my third time making them and every time they get better. So much so, I’ve finalized my recipe. Both hubby and I LOVED these. They were so good. Perfectly cooked, crunchy outside, moist inside and perfectly seasoned.

Along with my amazing salmon croquettes, I decided to cook Three Cheese Garlic Scalloped potatoes. Sadly, I we didn’t enjoy this dish as much as I hoped we would. These potatoes had WAY too much garlic for my taste. Serious overkill. My husband said it was “good”, but he also doused it with hot sauce and ketchup…so he obviously was masking something. Probably all that garlic. LOL. BUT, on the upside my sister and my little niece came over last night and ate some. They loved it! They both are garlic lovers, the more the better.

Also, the cook time was ridiculous! I cooked it at 350 for like 1 ½ hours. That was 25 degrees warmer and 45 minutes longer than what the recipe called for. If I had cooked it at 325 (per the instructions), it would have taken even longer to cook. I know it wasn’t the thickness of my potatoes, because I sliced them very thin using a mandolin, so they were all uniform in thickness. This recipe just wasn’t to my liking.  I may try to make scalloped potatoes again, minus half the garlic.


Sources w/ Ratings:      Three Cheese Garlic Scalloped Potatoes ~ 3 forks
                                               Salmon Croquettes (Me!, original recipe) ~ 5 forks

Awesomely Delicious Salmon Croquettes
Yields 9 croquettes

Ingredients:
18 ozs of canned Pink Salmon, drained (I used 3, 6 oz cans of the boneless & skinless Pink Salmon)
2 eggs, beaten
2 green onions, finely chopped
small handful of fresh flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 cup of Italian bread crumbs
1 good squeeze of fresh lemon juice, to taste
1-2 Tbsp of lite sour cream (start with 1 Tbsp, then add more to get the correct consistency)
Old Bay seasoning, to taste (approx 1 tsp)
fresh ground black pepper, to taste (approx ½ tsp)
½ cup of Panko bread crumbs
small amount of vegetable oil, for frying

Directions:
Using a fork, flake apart the Salmon in a medium sized bowl. Add the beaten eggs, green onions, parsley, Italian bread crumbs, lemon juice, sour cream, Old Bay and black pepper. Form into 9 patties and dust with Panko bread crumbs. Don’t make the patties to thick or they will take longer to cook.

Place the patties into the refrigerator until the oil heats up. Cooling the patties also help them keep their shape while frying.

Over medium heat, heat oil in medium skillet. Put 3 patties into the skillet. Fry until golden brown, 2 minutes on each side. Repeat two more times, cooking 3 patties at a time.

**If you use my recipe in your blog, please cite appropriately.

Easter Sunday Menu

On Easter Sunday we ate very well… everything was amazing!

Brunch: Baked French Toast Casserole, Turkey Bacon, Fresh Fruit Salad & Mimosas
Afternoon Snack: Deviled Eggs
Dinner: Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breast, Garlic Parm Oven Fries
Dessert: Birthday Cake for my nephew

I could eat this French Toast every day! After reading the reviews I changed a few things. I cut up the bread into 1 inch cubes; I used 1 French baguette and ½ a loaf of Challah bread. I also used 6 eggs instead of 8. I also used fat free half and half and skim milk. Lastly, on the topping, I cut the amount of butter down to 1 ½ sticks. Also, this recipe very sweet, so sweet that nobody even used the maple syrup. It would have been too sweet with it.

The Spinach stuffed chicken breast was delish, but very messy to assemble. I also used light sour cream here instead of regular.  I'll have to find a way to make this a little easier to put together.



Sources & Ratings:      Baked French Toast Casserole ~ 5 forks
                                           Spinach Stuffed Chicken Breast ~ 5 forks
                                           Garlic Parmesan Oven Fries ~ 5 forks

Crispy Skin Salmon, Orzo Salad w/ Roasted Asparagus

Tuesday – Crispy Skin Salmon, Orzo Salad w/ Roasted Asparagus

Last Tuesday, I had my mom over for Dinner. It was an amazing Dinner! I wanted to post this earlier…but you know how things get busy. I pulled these three recipes together all courtesy of the food network. The Crispy Skin Salmon was from Claire Robinson of 5 Ingredient Fix, the Orzo Salad was Bobby Flay’s and the Asparagus was from Alton Brown. Let me just say, I think I matched up these flavors very well. I never even thought to use nutmeg on asparagus. It was soooo good!!!

Sources & Ratings:     Crispy Skin Salmon ~ 5 forks
                                           Orzo Salad ~ 5 forks
                                           Roasted Asparagus ~ 5 forks

Slow Cooker Smothered Pork Chops, Rice Cooker Macaroni and Cheese & Sautéed Collard Greens

Sunday – Slow Cooker Smothered Pork Chops, Rice Cooker Macaroni and Cheese & Sautéed Collard Greens

Very yummy meal. This was a true “Sunday dinner”. The pork chops were awesome. When I plated the meat, they didn’t really look like pork chops anymore since the meat fell off the bone! I didn’t have any bay leaves, so I omitted it and it was still very good. This did have a lot of prep work and even additional work prior to serving it, which was a bit more work than I usually like to do for a crockpot meal, but well worth it in this case.

The macaroni and cheese was a perfect match up with the greens and pork. I usually make the macaroni and cheese this was when I want to do a 20 minute version, and trust me, the tastes is identical to the oven baked kind. The only difference is that you won’t have a crispy top.

I love making my greens in this manor because I don’t like greens sopping in juice. So this cooks them, adds nice flavor and it’s the texture I like.

Source w/ Ratings: Slow Cooker Smothered Pork Chops ~ 4 forks

                              Rice Cooker Mac and Cheese ~4 forks
                              Sautéed Collard Greens ~ 5 forks (Me!, original recipe)

Sautéed Collard Greens

Ingredients:
1/2 medium yellow onion, finely diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
8 oz of 99% fat free, low sodium chicken broth
1 tsp red pepper flakes
5 dashes of seasoned rice vinegar
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 pound of collard greens
Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:
Saute onion in a deep skillet with olive oil.  Once onion becomes translucent, add garlic and saute for a few minutes longer.

Reduce to medium heat.  Add chicken broth, red pepper flakes, salt & pepper.  Add greens and stir.  Add seasoned rice vinegar.  Stir.

Cover and steam for 20 minutes until it reaches the texture you like.  Stir every 5 minutes or so.

Serve warm.

**If you use my recipe in your blog, please cite appropriately.

Easy Crockpot BBQ Pork Ribs, Garlic Parmesan Oven Fries & Coleslaw

Saturday: Easy Crockpot BBQ Pork Ribs, Garlic Parmesan Oven Fries & Coleslaw

Now this was a really tasty dinner! This is a great alternative when you want to kill that craving for ribs but can’t fire up the charcoal grill. The ribs were supper easy and not much work at all. I think the only thing I would change for next time is take them out the crock pot and try to “dry” the outside of them a little in the oven. I’ll probably try flashing them at a high temp for a short amount of time. Maybe even put them under the broiler for a few minutes. I hope doing that would make them seem more like they are off the grill and not out of the pot.

The oven fries were also good. It was welcome different take on potato wedges. The cold and crispy coleslaw was a perfect match for this meal.

My ribs are supper simple.

Sources w/ Ratings: Easy Crockpot BBQ Pork Ribs – (Me!, orignial recipe) ~ 4 forks
Garlic Parmesan Oven Fries ~ 5 forks

Easy Crockpot BBQ Ribs

Ingredients:
1, 2-3 lb rack of pork spare ribs
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
1 bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce
2 Tbsp Lawry’s seasoning salt
2 Tbsp of ground black pepper

Directions:
Chop the onions and evenly lay into the bottom of Crockpot.

Clean the ribs. Dry them with paper towel. Cut off excess fat. Cut the ribs into pieces of 2 bones at a time. Season with seasoning salt and pepper. Added them to the Crockpot and top with BBQ sauce. Cook on low for 9 hours.

**If you use my recipe in your blog, please cite appropriately.

Mexican Lasagna

Tuesday – Mexican Lasagna


This is one of my favorite quick dinners. I’d seen something like this a few years ago, but it was so basic that it really needed a lot more flavor. It was basically only meat, taco seasoning, cheese and flour tortillas…not very dynamic with the flavors. So I decided to take my own turn at it. I’ve been making this for a while now and I love it. It’s a nice change when you don’t want tacos. This Mexican Lasagna taste great and it’s supper easy. On the down side, you must be warned, it probably has tons of sodium in it because of the canned ingredients. I tried to offset that and make it a little better by using frozen corn and the leanest beef, Ground Sirloin. Top it with a sprinkle of fresh flat leaf parsley, a few sliced black olives and a dollop of sour cream. If I had it, I would have also put a spoonful of guacamole on it too!

Source:  (Me!, original recipe) ~ 5 forks

Mexican Lasagna
8-10 servings

Ingredients:
2 lbs ground Sirloin Beef
2 packet of low sodium Taco Seasoning
1 cup of diced onions
1, 14.5 ounce can of regular diced tomatoes
1, 14.5 ounce can of Original Rotel diced tomatoes
2, 4 ounce can of mild diced green chilies (I use the La Preferida brand)
1 fresh jalapeño, remove seeds and finely
1 cup frozen sweet corn
1, 14.5 can of Spanish rice (I use the La Preferida brand)
15 flour 8” tortillas
1 ½ cups of salsa
2 cups of Mexican Blend shredded cheese

Directions:
Saute onions. Add ground beef and brown. Once meat is brown, add jalapeño and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Stir in Taco Seasoning.

Stir in canned tomatoes, green chilies, sweet corn and Spanish rice. Simmer for 5-10 minutes.  While the meat mixture is simmering, cut the tortillas in half.

Spray an 9x13 dish with nonstick spray.  Spread out 1/3 of the tortillas evenly to cover the bottom of the dish, placing flat edge along the sides. Add ½ of meat mixture.

Layer the 2nd 1/3 of remaining tortillas on top of the meat. Top that with last remaining ½ of meat mixture.  Finish off with topping the meat mixture with the remaining 1/3 of tortillas.

Top with salsa and cheese.

Bake approximately for 30 minutes in 350 degree oven until cheese is melted.

Top with a sprinkle of fresh flat leaf parsley, sliced black olives, sour cream. If you like, you can add a dollop of guacamole also.


**If you use my recipe in your blog, please cite appropriately.

Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf and Veggie Marinara Sauce

Sunday: Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf w/ Rigatoni, Salad & Garlic French Bread

One word. Delicious! We will be eating this meal once a month for sure! It was super easy to make and very tasty. Full of flavor and it seems healthier than traditional Chicken Parmesan. The one thing I did notice is that if you like your meatloaf to fill up the dish you need to use a smaller than normal meatloaf pan to bake it in. The pan I used was a standard size, which was pretty big for only 1 lb of meat. So it wasn’t shaped perfectly and didn’t fill the pan…but that’s not a big deal.

In addition to the meatloaf, I made an awesome veggie marinara sauce and tossed it with Rigatoni. Topped it with fresh parsley and some shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano. Added a nice salad full of veggies and some warm garlic bread. Perfection!

Sources w/ Ratings: Chicken Parmesan Meatloaf  ~ 5 forks
                                 Veggie Marinara Sauce (Me!, original recipe) ~ 5 forks

Veggie Marinara Sauce

8-10 servings

Ingredients:
1 med yellow onion, finely diced
1-2 Tbsp pre-minced Garlic (to taste)
½ large green bell pepper, finely diced
½ large red bell pepper, finely diced
1 ½ cups chopped fresh mushrooms
4-5 Tbsp of Italian Seasonings (to taste)
Salt & Fresh Cracked Pepper (to taste)
3, 14.5 cans of diced tomatoes
2, 14.5 cans of tomato sauce
2 Tbsp of Tabasco Sauce (to taste)
Handful of Fresh Flat Leaf Parsley, roughly chopped

Directions:
Add onion, sauté for a few minutes, until onions soften. Add garlic, and sauté for a 1-2 minutes. Add finely chopped green bell pepper and red bell pepper and mushrooms. Sauté for a additional 3-4 minutes. Add Italian seasonings, salt and pepper.

Add all of the sauce and tomatoes. Add Tabasco sauce. Stir everything together.

Bring to low boil then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 30-45 minutes.  At the end of cook time, add a handful of fresh flat leaf parsley and stir in.  Toss a pound of your favorite pasta with sauce and serve.

**If you use my recipe in your blog, please cite appropriately.

Cheesy Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole

Sunday – Chicken and Cheesy Rice Casserole w/ Salad

We really enjoyed this meal.  Very easy to make and is good when you don’t feel like cooking a complex meal.  The longest part is the prep time spent chopping veggies and chicken.  It took me 45 minutes from prep to serve. 

Ultimately, I ended up making several changes to the recipe.  The changes began because I had a very hard time finding the wild rice without a ton of seasonings in it.  Then as I started making the dish I changed things as I went along.

Next time if I can find the wild rice, I’ll follow the recipe exactly and see how it comes out. 

My changes:

~         I used all brown rice instead.

~         2 cups of breast meat wasn’t enough meat for us so I ended up using all of meat from the rotisserie chicken (except the wing meat, it was too tough). 

~         Used garlic powder instead of garlic salt.

~         I used freshly cracked ground black pepper.

~         I also used shredded Three Cheddar Mix in the cheese sauce.

~         Less butter in cheese sauce. I used 3 Tbsp.

~         I wanted to make a little more cheese sauce so I used ½ cup more chicken broth in the sauce.

~         Topped it with a ½ cup more cheese. We like things cheesy!

Chicken and Cheesy Rice Casserole (Adapted from Picky Palate):

Prep time:  10 mins       Cook Time:  35-40 mins

3 Tablespoons EVOO

1 medium red onion, finely diced

3 stalks celery, finely diced

½ cup of shredded carrots, diced smaller

1 Tablespoons pre-minced garlic

Meat from 1 whole rotisserie chicken (no skin and no wing meat), chopped

4 cups steamed brown rice (made in rice cooker w/ low sodium chicken broth)

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon fresh cracked ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Cheese Sauce:

3 Tablespoons butter

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon fresh cracked ground black pepper

2 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth

2 cups shredded Three Cheddar Mix

Top with 2 Cups shredded Medium Cheddar Cheese

1.     Prep all vegetables and put into bowl.  Prep chicken and place into a bowl.

2.     Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Heat oil in a oven proof deep skillet over medium heat.  Sauté onion, celery and carrots until softened, about 10 minutes.  Stir in garlic and cook for 1 minute.  Stir in chicken, rice, salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Reduce heat to low.

3.     To prepare cheese sauce melt butter into a medium saucepan over medium high heat.  Whisk in flour, salt and pepper then slowly pour in chicken broth whisking continuously.  Whisk until thick and nearly boiling then stir in cheese until melted.  Pour cheese sauce into rice mixture in the same pot. Top with additional cheddar cheese and bake for 25-30 minutes or until cheese is melted through.  Serve.

6-8 servings

Source: Cheesy Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole

Recipe Rating: 5 Forks