feeling a little lunchy: Recipe

Showing posts with label Recipe. Show all posts

feeling a little soupy {cheeseburger chowder recipe}

A few years ago, a woman I worked with brought some of her leftover soup in to work and ate it for lunch. It smelled so fantastic I had to get the recipe. She says it won a state fair contest somewhere but I had been unable to locate the recipe online anywhere. She gave me a photo copy of the recipe. I did a little sleuthing last night and found it on the Food Network site. To see that recipe, click HERE.

You really can't go wrong with this recipe! It freezes well, and is a family favorite in our house.

Cheeseburger Chowder

You may want to cut in half...it makes a lot of soup.

1 ½ lbs ground beef (I use half beef and half turkey)

3/4 cup chopped onion

4 tbsp butter, divided

2 cloves garlic minced

1 cup diced carrots

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried parsley

3-4 cups chicken broth

4 cups peeled diced or shredded potatoes

1/4 cup flour

2 small cans evaporated milk

2 cups cubed or shredded cheese

salt & pepper to taste

1/4 cup sour cream (I used 1/2 cup)

Garnish: chopped dill pickle & chopped tomatoes (the pickle really makes it!)

Brown the ground beef, drain & set aside.

sauté onion & 1 tbsp butter until tender. Add garlic, carrots, basil and parsley. Saute about 3 minutes. Add broth, beef & potatoes. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat & cover, simmer for 15-20 minutes or until carrots and potatoes are tender. Meanwhile, melt 3 tbsp butter in a small skillet. Add flour & cook,

stirring for 3-5 minutes. Gradually add evaporated milk, stirring constantly for 6-8

minutes. (It thickens quite a bit). Gradually stir the sauce into the soup, bring to a boil &

cook for 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Add cheese, salt & pepper. Continue to stir until

cheese melts. Remove from heat and blend in sour cream. Add garnish.

Using my Cuisinart food processor, I shredded the potatoes and carrots, but dicing them works as well. I was just being ultra lazy today and wanted to play with the machine a little. I've had it for a couple of years and have just started to realize how useful it is.

I like to use the immersion blender to make it smooth and chop up all the bits of ground beef.

Nice and smooth.

It's got a crap ton of cheese in it.

Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT skip the pickles for garnishing. Unless you just don't like pickles, but you'll be missing out for sure.

Enjoy.

feeling a little easy (again)...easy banana pancake recipe

And there you have it, folks. Easy banana pancakes.

feeling a little like making the easiest Christmas cookie recipe ever

I'm sure this cookie has been made somewhere before and probably a long time ago, but the recipe was verbally passed to me from my mother in law...that's how easy it is. She's amazing in the kichen and if you'd like to make a much more involved cookie, check out this post I did last year for Fruit Cake Cookies.

This recipe is the best no bake, not a lot of fuss, most delicious cookie ever. They're truly the easiest cookies you'll ever make. It's so easy, that my 10 year old wild child made the whole thing. I just took pictures.

Items needed:

Peanut butter or a peanut butter alternative like WowButter

Keebler Town House crackers

Vanilla Bark Coating also known as candy coating

Sprinkles (optional)

Parchment paper to place cookies on to cool.

First, make sandwiches by spreading your peanut butter or WowButter between two crackers. Try not to have the butter seeping out the sides of the sandwiches too much. It will end up melting in your candy coating and making a mess. One box of crackers yielded about 60 sandwiches for us. We made half of them with peanut butter and half with WowButter. If you're making these for people with allergies to peanuts, you'll really want to make sure you don't cross contaminate anything.

Second, melt your candy coating as per the directions on the package. I've done this in the microwave before, but honestly, it burns very easily so using the stove top may be safer since you can actually feel the lumps melting while you stir. The coating stays well melted for a long time after it's removed from the stove. It can also be reheated if needed. Make sure you melt it on a low setting so it doesn't burn.

Dip the cracker sandwiches, one at a time, in the coating with two forks. Make sure to turn them over a few times to get an even coating. Hold them over the pan to drip off the excess candy. Place them on the parchment paper to cool. They take a while to cool, but you'll want to add your sprinkles while they're still melty. You can make five or ten, do the sprinkles, then go make more. Or if you prefer more simple, just leave them plain.

That's it. You're done. Well, you'll have to wait about 45 minutes for them to be cool enough to box up. Although, a warm candy coated peanut butter cracker is rather fantastic too. I almost prefer the WowButter ones to the traditional peanut butter. The WowButter has this great toasty flavor to it, combine that with the salt of the crackers and the uber sweet of the candy...it might just be the perfect cookie.

Now, my girls went a little overboard and whipped out my Wilton gel food colorings...they painted the twelve days of Christmas on their cookies...and a few scenes from The Hunger Games. They're still delicious!

feeling a little resourceful {recipe}

We had crockpot chicken and rice on Tuesday for dinner. I'm not really a recipe follower, but I find recipes on the interwebs and mix it up or just try and wing it. For the original dish, I took a 3lb bag of frozen chicken breasts and tossed them in the crockpot. I poured a jar of premade gravy on top and sprinkled it with a packet of Lipton onion soup mix. Set it for four hours on high. Bam. Done. Then I steamed up way more rice than we could ever eat to go with the chicken. Why is it that a cup of uncooked rice makes like six cups of the good stuff? Don't answer that. I know why. But why can't I ever remember that I don't ever need a whole cup?

So what do we do with all the leftovers? We pretend that we love leftovers and wouldn't ever let them get moldy in the fridge. We try to be resourceful. We wait a couple of days and make a casserole, of course! You'll need your leftovers and a few other items for this dish.

Lunchy's Cheesy Chicken and Rice Florentine Casserole

3 cooked chicken breasts, diced or shredded

2 cups of cooked rice

2 cups frozen spinach

5 teaspoons flour

2 cups milk, divided (I used skim)

1/3 cup light sour cream

8oz shredded cheese, your choice. I used a hodgepodge of white cheddar, Mexican, Italian and goats cheese. Reserve 1/4 to sprinkle on top of the casserole.

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

In lieu of the salt, pepper and garlic powder, I use Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt...if you've never used it before, it's great for recipes like this one. And on eggs. And a salad. And everywhere. My father used to buy it when I was a kid and I was shocked to find it still being sold a few years back. Now it's a staple in our house.

Grease your baking dish. Set oven to 350. Mix the chicken and the rice together and spread into your baking dish. Top with frozen spinach. Pour stock over the top of the spinach.

Now to make the cheese sauce: whisk together flour and 1/2 cup milk in a small bowl. Pour mixture into skillet over medium heat then add remaining 1-1/2 cups milk. Cook mixture, stirring constantly, until thickened, 7-10 minutes. Remove skillet from heat then add 3/4 of the shredded cheese, sour cream, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and stir until smooth.

Pour cheese sauce over top of the chicken, rice and spinach. Bake at 350 until bubbly and heated all the way through, about 25-30 minutes. Because this is a leftover dish, all of the food should already be cooked so basically you're just reheating it all. Yum!

My cheese sauce looks a little thin because I didn't have quite enough cheese and didn't adjust for that...don't worry, if you follow the recipe, yours will be way better! Ahhhh...the hazards a of being a self-taught, lazy cook. I didn't even know how to cook anything when I got married. My husband likes to tell people how I only had a stack of sliced cheese and a case of beer in my fridge when he moved in. After about 14 years, I've learned a thing or two. Now I make at least two meals a day, and typically one is from scratch. I wish I had begun blogging earlier in my journey. When I stayed home with the girls it would have been nice to have a record of our growth together. Way back then, though, there wasn't really a platform for it.

feeling a little fishy

I made a quick and easy fish florentine bake for dinner. While it was absolutely delicious, I'm quickly learning that as I get older, there are some things I used to thoroughly enjoy to eat that are now causing some allergy symptoms. I've been avoiding shellfish for about 8 years now, since I was stuck for three extra days down in Florida hugging the toilet. Tuna and other fish had not caused any problems until I ate this meal. My sinuses got all stuffy and my throat swelled a little. Not enough to cause it to be hard to breathe, but enough to make me realize that I MUST go get tested for allergies so I know exactly what to avoid. Regardless, I'm sharing this great recipe with you. It was simple and delicious and I might make it again...with chicken.

Easy Fish Florentine Bake

2 pounds of fish filets (I used frozen flounder, didn't even thaw it.)

Salt and pepper or even some Old Bay would be great

1 box thawed chopped spinach

2 cups Bisquick

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1/4 cup grated parmesean cheese (optional)

Set oven to 350. Arrange fish filets in a greased baking dish. Season with salt and pepper or Old Bay. Spread the chopped spinach over the top of the filets. In a separate bowl, use a fork to whisk the bisquick, milk, eggs and parmesean cheese together. Pour mixture over top of spinach and fish. Bake for about 40 minutes until the bisquick is golden brown.

feeling a little easy and cheesy

Thanks to my friend Corey over at Family Fresh Meals for this impossibly easy and quick prep meal. As soon as I saw it posted on her Facebook page, I knew I had to make it.

I modified the recipe a little, swapping out the jarred sauce and canned broth for some I had made and frozen previously. I love making stock for this very reason! Every time we eat chicken, I make stock, freeze it in ice cube trays, then store it in a big gallon bag. One ice cube is about one ounce. Having it frozen in cubes makes it easier to thaw, easier to measure and keeps it from going bad. Making stock is super easy, too. If you're having chicken, whether it be homemade roasted chicken or even a rotisserie chicken you picked up at the grocery store...make some crockpot stock. Take all the bones and put them in the crockpot, put a few tablespoons of vinegar in there, fill the crock to the top with water. Then set on high and let it simmer for 12 or more hours...I've let it go for as long as 18-20 hours before. Add more water to accommodate for evaporation. Strain out the bones and let cool in the refrigerator. Once it's cool, there will be a layer of congealed fat on top, spoon that off. Then transfer to ice cube trays and freeze. Once frozen, put in a ziplock bag and label it with the date you made it. I find I use it rather quickly, but I'd suppose the stock would be good for about 6 months in the freezer.

CLICK HERE for Easy Cheesy Tortellini Bake Recipe from Family Fresh Meals

CLICK HERE TO PIN THE RECIPE FOR LATER

I used Buittoni Herb Chicken Tortellini, Hunts Basil, Garlic and Oregano Diced Tomatoes, Kraft Seven Seas Viva Italian dressing and Sargento 6 Cheese Italian shredded cheese. I found that the cheese didn't melt like I wanted it to, so I added another 1/2 cup of cheese and stuck it back in the oven under the broiler for a couple minutes to make it bubbly and a little brown. I kept a watchful eye on it while it broiled so it wouldn't burn. Served with a salad and some garlic bread. Delicious!

feeling a little freaky {Pumpkin Spice Latte Bread Recipe}

It's that time of year again...Halloween! Who doesn't love a bit of scary mixed with all you can eat candy? It wouldn't be a holiday of the Bento Bloggers and Friends didn't do a blog hop...so here it is in all it's fearsome glory! Click the button below to head on over to One Crafty Thing when you're done eyeballing my lunch.

One Crafty Thing

This lunch contains an awesome recipe for Crock Pot Pumpkin bread from Wanna Bite blog. I found the recipe on Pinterest, of course. It's moist and delicious and I don't think I will ever make pumpkin bread any other way now. If you're feeling a little adventurous, try dumping in two packets of Starbucks VIA instant coffee for a Pumpkin Spice Latte Bread...I use Italian Roast. It's delicious (and caffeinated to boot!)

Here's the recipe for the kids without the coffee:

Crockpot Pumpkin Bread

PIN HERE: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/86483255315312813/

Ingredients

½ cup of oil
½ cup of sugar
½ cup of packed brown sugar
2 eggs (beaten)
1 15oz can of pumpkin
1½ cup of flour (sifted)
¼ tsp. of salt
½ tsp. of cinnamon
½ tsp. of nutmeg
1 tsp. of baking soda

Instructions

Blend the oil and both of the sugars into a large bowl.
Then, stir in the beaten eggs and canned pumpkin. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.
Pour the batter into a greased or oiled bread pan. (I used a canola oil spray that worked just fine.
Now add two cups of water to your crockpot and place the pan into a crock pot.
Cover the top of the crockpot with eight-ten paper towels. This is to trap condensation and keep the bread from becoming mushy.
Place the crock pot lid on top of the crockpot (I tried to make sure the paper towels were trapped around the lid so they didn’t slip) and bake on high 2½ to 3 hours.

Since I have two very different children at two different stages in life, I had to make a lunch without all the Halloween flair for the 7th grader. She gets the same lunch, no fun and not tomatoes because she doesn't like tomatoes.

And here's some close ups of the fun lunch: I got the skeleton flair at Publix and the witch and hand on Amazon. Check out the links below to get some of your own.

If you are interested in any of the products I use, click the affiliate links below, please! Anytime you purchase through one of my links, regardless of what you purchase, I get a small percentage of the sale. It's how lunchy gets paid! Thanks!

feeling like being honest with you, dear reader.

I am. I am lazy. Sometimes I think I may do all this blogging stuff just so I don't have to fold laundry. Or clean out my car. Or unload the dishwasher. Or feed the dog. Please don't tell the Hubs. Don't tell him that I spray Lysol around just before he gets home, either. He thinks I've been cleaning...(insert evil snicker here).

If you're lazy, I mean awesome, like I am...this is the lunch for you. I made spaghetti for dinner last night and we had a lot of leftover noodles, but no more sauce. How about a lazy mom leftover makeover? Take the noodles, squeeze on the ranch dressing, chop up some cold cuts, chuck in some frozen peas and top with grated parmesean cheese. A Babybel cheese, sugar snap peas with a side of ranch and some crunchy mini toast slices adorn their lunches. I say lazy, they say "YUM!"

This is a ten minutes or less lunch for sure. And I made two lunches in that little time. Takes longer to clean up the kitchen. Which I still have to do...but I'd rather force you to have more words to read. Check out some more lazy, I mean quick, lunches over at Bentos on the Bayou 15 Minute Fridays. Each Friday there's a post that bloggers can link their quick lunches to...tons of awesome ideas.

I swear...EasyLunchboxes and PlanetBox make these lazy lunches look spectacular. Here's the same lunch as above in a PlanetBox Shuttle:

feeling a little banana buttery

I posted the question: Can anyone think of something other than banana bread to make with 3 overripe bananas? to my www.bentobloggersandfriends.blogspot.com and they all came back with some pretty good ideas!

Cupcakes, cookies, waffles and pancakes from www.ipacklunch.com
Smoothies were mentioned by a few...including one apparently blogless member of the group...how did I not know she didn't have a blog?!
Freeze them or use them in place of oil in baking recipies as per www.bitingthehandthatfeedsyou.net
www.keeleymcguire.blogspot.com says you can even sub bananas for eggs in recipes too...she should know since she's an allergy mom!
Crystals Ramblings uses them for banana chocolate chip muffins.

I decided to go with banana butter, which I ended up finding on a rather old looking web page through Google. The original recipe can be found here: http://www.hugs.org/Banana_Butter.shtml

This is my adapted recipe...as I only had 3 bananas and no pumpkin pie spice...

Banana Butter
3 lg Bananas; ripe and sliced
3 tb Lemon juice
1 1/2 c Sugar
1 ts cinnamon

Process bananas and lemon juice until smooth; (i did this all in my saucepan...super lazy!)
transfer to a saucepan. Stir in sugar and spice;
bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring,
15 minutes. Serve on toast, etc. Store in
refrigerator.

My little lunchys are sick today...so a little warm banana butter on some mini bagels was just enough.

feeling a little fruit cakey

Ahhhh....how nasty do fruit cake cookies sound? But how awesome they are! Every year my mother-in-law makes these little bites of delight...and now she's passed the task on to me, who is going to share the spirit with you...you surely won't be bringing these to the county fruit cake catapulting contest, I promise.

The original recipe called for you to dice up all the fruit yourself...well, now you can buy all that fruit ready to go, so that's what I use instead. My husband has vivid memories of having to chop fruit and nuts until his little baby boy hands bled.

You'll need:

1 lb of margarine

1 cup brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking soda

3 cups flour

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup sherry wine (YES!!! WINE!!!)

2 16 ounce containers of chopped fruits for fruit cake

5-7 cups of chopped nuts (we used walnuts this year bc pecans are more expensive than gold for some reason)

2 cups of chopped dates

3/4 lb of raisins

Preheat oven to 300.F

Cream butter and sugar together. Beat in eggs one at a time. Sift the flour, cinnamon and baking soda together. Add milk and flour mix to the creamed butter and sugar alternately, beginning and ending with flour. Pour in wine, mix. Add fruit, dates, raisins and nuts and mix well. Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet. Bake for 20-30 minutes at 300.F

Enjoy. Or if you don't, feel free to host your own fruitcake toss since this recipe makes a crap-ton.

Meatless Monday meal plan

This week I am trying a new meal planning technique. We will see if it works...

Today is "Meatless Monday" and is exactly what it sounds like. It's not my idea to call it that...I have heard it on the interwebs.

We had wintery shaped pasta, with my favorite Mid's Homestyle Pasta Sauce, a simple salad and homemade copycat Olive Garden breadsticks from my wonderous bread machine. Delicious! The sauce was buy one get one free at Publix and it's usually like $5 a 32 ounce jar. That's a great deal. I may have to go back and stockpile that one.

Tomorrow, I've got to have a little minor surgery, so I am not sure if I will follow through with Taco Pie Tuesday or not...oh. And I just remembered that my daughter has a chorus concert...maybe it will be more like Taco Bell Tuesday.


Will someone please tell me what the what this shape is?

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