Chicken Spaghetti

I love this yummy dish!!

2-3 Chicken breasts boil in water with a bouillon cube. Remove chicken once cooked through and cook
a 16 oz package of spaghetti in the same water. In a separate pan saute 1 chopped bell pepper and 2 chopped celery stalks. Add 1 - 15 oz can of Italian stewed tomatoes and 4 oz of El Pato (or use tomato sauce if you don't want it spicy). Let simmer for 5 minutes. Shred Chicken. Place undrained spaghetti in a 9x13 pan with shredded chicken and vegetables. Cook in the oven at 300 degrees for 1 1/2 hours. Remove from oven and stir. Add 1 1/2 C of cream. Fork into pasta mixture. Top with Cheese. Bake until cheese is melted.

One Pot Taco Salad

We love taco salad but since there were so many little hands at our table growing up my mom always did the one pot taco salad. It made it much more simple to feed everyone and to clean up afterwards.
I love this - the whole thing but my husband doesn't love the kidney beans. You can use black beans if you prefer.

One Pot Taco Salad

1 - head of romaine lettuce chopped

1 bag of tortilla chips broken uo

 1/2 lb of ground beef or turkey seasoned with taco seasoning

handful of grated cheese

 1 - 15 oz can of kidney beans

1 - 15 oz can of olives

tomatoes chopped

This is where I usually stop but it is a very flexible meal and you can add these other ingredients to your liking. I love the avocados in it but I don't usually have them on hand.

avocadoes chopped

can of corn

green onions chopped

grated carrots

spinach leaves

Dressing:

8 oz of sour cream

8 oz of Western or French salad dressing

Mix together and pour over above ingredients! Yum!

Recipe for Disaster

1 - 2 year old

1 box of cake mix

All the will power in the world!

Wednesday - What's for dinner

You can serve whatever you can find with this cornbread and your family will thank you. Open a can of chili or soup. Make an enchilada casserole or a pot of beans. This is the yummiest cornbread. It is like cake... really...delicious.
At a family gathering my brother picked up a leftover piece off one of the kids plates and then he promptly went over to the pan and scooped up every piece that was left, crumbs and all, onto his plate.
It is that good. Whatever you serve with it will be that good too.

Chanda's Corn Bread
1/2 C Butter
1 C Sugar
4  Eggs
1 - 14 oz can creamed corn
1/2 C Shredded Cheese
1 C Flour
1 C Yellow Corn
4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt


Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs. Stir in corn and cheese. Mix together dry ingredients. Mix wet and dry ingredients by hand. Spread in 9x13 pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. When you put the bread in the oven to cook reduce the heat to 300 degrees. Bake for 45 minutes. 

Monday must - easy cake recipe

There are always those days and activities that you need a delicious cake for. I fell in love with this recipe at a family party. It is yummy and the best part - it is so simple with limited ingredients.  It is also another way to use up your aging bananas! This recipe comes from Josh's Aunt Garna.

Garna's Banana Cake

1 box of yellow cake mix

1 large vanilla pudding(I have used banana flavor before)

1/2 C oil

4 eggs

3-4 mashed bananas

1C nuts (optional)

Mix ingredients and bake in a bundt pan for 30 -40min at 350 degrees.

I like to put mine on a cookie sheet and bake it for 20 min. Then you can have squares. 

Frost with a butter cream or cream cheese frosting! Yum!

Valentine Monster Cookies

When I was a little girl, i had a t-shirt that had Cookie Monster and a recipe for cookie monster cookies on it. What i wouldn't give to find that vintage treasure!! Fortunately, i still have the recipe and it is delicious. We originally didn't try the recipe because we didn't believe it was a real cookie recipe because it has no flour, boy are we glad we finally did!
We will call them valentine monster cookies because we will use our valentine M&M's for my daughters valentine party!

Monster Cookies
6 eggs
2 C Brown Sugar
1 C White Sugar
1 1/2 t Vanilla
1 1/2 t Karo Syrup
1 C Butter
3 C Peanut Butter
9 C Regular Oatmeal
2 C M&M's (Or you can do 1 C Chocolate chips and 1 C M&M's)(I personally like about 2 1/2 C's)
1 T and 1 t baking soda (this is optional - in the cookies pictured above there is no baking soda. If you add the baking soda it makes the cookies spread out more)

Mix all ingredients together and scoop onto a cookie sheet. If you don't use baking soda you might need to press them down with a fork before you cook them. If you add the baking soda they will flatten out on their own.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

This recipe makes a lot. You can only do half the recipe or you can make it all and freeze some.They freeze well and are yummy frozen or thawed

Kiddie treats

Peanut Butter Balls

This has been a family favorite for years. Great for using food storage!

1/2  C of each of the following - give or take to your liking

peanut butter

honey

Powdered milk

Mix together and roll into balls. Place on a plate and put in the freezer for 30 minutes. Yum!

Healthy trick - you can add a scoop of flax seed meal to these. It doesn't change the flavor it only adds a little crunch and all the benefits of flax!

If you use the all natural peanut butter this is a no sugar treat.

After you have made them so many times you can just kind of eyeball the amounts and then you don't have to dirty any measuring cups!! That is the best.

Wednesday - What's for dinner

This is a Paula Deen recipe that my sister got off her show. I love it!! 
 

Crock Pot Potato cheese soup
3 c Chicken broth
1/2 C chopped celery
1/2 C chopped onion
5 C cubed potatoes
1 teas. salt and pepper

Bring to boil on the stove for 10 min and then pour in crockpot (I always add extra celery because we like celery and the crockpot cooks it down so much)

Back in your stove pot...
3/4 C butter
3/4 C flour
Melt and stir until smooth. Add to crock pot. Stir.

1 quart half and half - room temperature so it doesn't curdle
4 oz cheese whiz

Stir in crock pot slowly.
Place lid and cook for 4-5 hours on low.

Healthy Tip:  
 I sometimes add frozen broccoli in the last half hour - so yummy and makes it pretty with the green.  or you cam add fresh chopped broccoli with the cheese whiz.

I also have used skim milk instead of the half and half and it is just as yummy and way less fat!

Monday - must Zucchini Bread

Zucchini Bread

I love zucchini bread. I love it for three reasons. It is delicious. It has zucchini - a vegetable. You can use something up before it goes bad.
Zucchini is really easy to grow and when we have our March garden I am going to plant zucchini just so I can have an excuse to make this bread!! Yum!!

I have tried lots of different recipes for this bread and this is by far my favorite. It is my mama's!!It is probably so good because it has 2 cups of brown sugar... :)

Mama's Zucchini Bread

3 eggs
2 C brown sugar
1 C oil
2 C Flour (you can use 1/2 wheat flour if you like)
1/2 t baking powder
2 t baking soda
1 t nutmeg
3 t cinnamon
1/2 t salt
1 T vanilla
2 C zucchini (or as much as you have - i like more than 2)
1 C nuts (optional - I never put them in because I don't like nuts but I am sure if you like nuts they would be delicious in it)

Mix together. Pour in 2 loaf pans. Bake @ 350 for 45 min. Or you can put it in 4 small loaf pans and give it to the people you visit teach!!

If you let the bread sit and sweat for 5 min after you take it out of the oven it will be easier to remove it from the pan.

Friday Freebies!! Mac and cheese

The first time I ever made macaroni and cheese I was in 2nd grade. Since I have so many brothers and sisters one box of mac and cheese would never do. We usually pulled out the big pot and made 4 boxes at once. I was so excited to be doing something so amazing!! I cooked and cooked that macaroni until I was sure it was perfect and then I added the milk, butter and cheese and began to stir. It was lovely for about 3 turns of the spoon and then it turned to mush. I was sure something was wrong with the macaroni because why else would it look the way it did. Bummer and I was hungry and everyone else was hungry and so we ate it. I am sure it was disgusting but alas I don't remember. I have never over cooked macaroni since then.

Wednesday - What's for dinner

Grandma's Macaroni and Hamburger

We moved away from Utah when I was eight years old. We left my sweet Grandma behind living in a small town. We loved to go visit. We would all pile in the 10 passenger van and make the 12 hour trek from AZ to UT. No matter what time we arrived Grandma had a pot of her Macaroni and Hamburger on the stove and it was always delicious.

When I got married I kept thinking about her macaroni and one day I thought I would get the recipe. When I discovered it only had 5 ingredients I was shocked. All these years I had been sure she had been slaving in the kitchen over this amazing concoction. Nope - it was as simple as making a box of Mac and cheese but oh so yummy! Maybe it is so delicious to me because it meant Grandma's house...I hope not. I hope you like it because it is so simple and my kids and husband always down it. I do half the recipe for our family.

Grandma's Macaroni and Hamburger

1 lb. ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

4 - 15oz cans diced tomatoes (I like the petite ones)

2 - 15oz cans tomato sauce (my addition to grandma's recipe)

1- 16oz bag of saladettes pasta (the little circle ones - you can use elbow macaroni too)

1 t celery salt or seasoned salt

salt to taste

Cook the pasta according to package instructions. While that is cooking...Brown the ground beef and onion together. Add tomatoes and sauce and simmer on low. Drain the pasta and add it to the tomato mixture. Add seasonings. Let simmer together for 5-10min. Remove from heat and serve.

Yum!

The why...

I love to eat good food. Unfortunately, what I think tastes absolutely delicious doesn't always taste absolutely delicious to Joe next door. My goal is to pass around yummy recipes. I am always looking for a new dish or a treat or a new something for dinner. Hopefully this will help supply all of us with simple, yummy recipes we will love to use again and again.