chicken poppyseed casserole

This is another delicious recipe that we enjoy during the week because its quite easy to assemble. As always I make some changes to mine and deviate from the recipe just a tad. I only use two chicken breasts and I find that that is plenty, but I use two cups of uncooked rice in order to fill the bottom of the casserole dish. 

I also like added some chopped steamed broccoli to the mix. It's just the kind you can steam in the microwave inside the bag-then chopped into finer pieces because broccoli is not my favorite. 

There you have it.  A quick dinner for weeknights that will leave you with plenty of left overs. 

Ingredients:

4 cooked and shredded chicken breasts

1½ sticks butter

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

2 tablespoons poppy seeds

1 ½ stacks of Ritz crackers, crushed

8 oz sour cream

2 cups cooked rice-cook in chicken broth or use rice pilaf from box

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Melt butter and add Ritz crackers

2. Layer chicken, soup, poppy seeds, salt, pepper and sour cream over the rice in a casserole pan

3. Spread cracker mix on top and bake at 350° for 35-45 minutes or until bubbly. 

parmesan crusted pork chops

I was looking for something to cook that wasn't part of our usual routine of burgers and pasta, and I stumbled upon this one on Pinterest-shocker! We love cheese in our house so I knew this would be a big hit. I paired the pork chops with green beans and a brown rice/quinoa mix. The verdict after dinner was two thumbs up! The full recipe is below. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

4 boneless pork chops

1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

2-3 tbsp. Italian breadcrumbs (dried)

1/8 tsp paprika

1 tsp parsley

½ tsp garlic powder

2 tbsp. olive oil

¼ tsp pepper

Directions:

1. Mix parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, paprika, parsley, and garlic powder and place on plate

2. Dip pork chops in the mixture (making sure mixture sticks) and sear in a pan of olive oil on medium-high heat. Sautee for 5 minutes on each side

3. Place pork chops in a glass baking dish and cook according to thickness. If the pork chops are regular thickness cook at 350° for a half hour. If the pork chops are thicker cook at 300° for one hour. 

italain seasoning chicken

This is a recipe straight from Pinterest....that actually works and tastes delicious! It's super easy because you only need one baking dish-which makes cleaning up a breeze. I made a few modifications since there are only two of us. I used about five small red potatoes, instead of the three cups. I also used three smaller chicken breasts. Lastly I only used half a stick of butter, and one and a half seasoning packets. You can add more or less seasoning based on taste preference. Here is the recipe, enjoy!

Ingredients:

3 cups red potatoes, quartered

2 cans green beans- you could use frozen

1-1 ½ lb chicken breasts – three or four, depending on family size

¾ stick butter, cut into pieces

2 Italian dressing seasoning /mix packets

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°

2. Line one side of the pan with the green beans. Line the opposite side of pan with cut and quartered potatoes. Place the chicken breasts down the middle of the baking dish.

3. Cut butter and layer over the green beans, potatoes, and chicken

4. Sprinkle Italian seasoning over the entire pan

5. Cover with foil.

6. Bake for 1 hour. 

chili pasta bake

One of my go-to dinners is this chili pasta bake. It's super easy to make and quite affordable at the same time. I'm not a fan of "chili" usually, but I like the comfort chili brings in the cold winter months. This is a nice tex-mex spin on traditional chili and keeps you nice and warm.

Chili Pasta Bake

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef

½ lb. shell pasta (you can use any kind really)

½ tablespoon canola oil *no one in our house likes onions so I leave this out

1 whole onion, chopped *no one in our house likes onions so I leave this out

1 dash salt

1 dash black pepper

15 ounces tomato sauce

14 ½ ounces canned diced tomatoes and green chilies

115 ounces canned kidney or black beans

1 ½ tablespoons chili powder

2 teaspoons cumin

3 dash cayenne pepper

¼ cups water

2 cups shredded cheese

½ cups sour cream- topping

4 tablespoons green onions-topping

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°

2. Normally here you would drizzle the oil into a large sauce pan and saute the onion, but since no one in our house likes onions-we eliminate this step. 

3. Brown the ground beef, seasoned with salt and pepper

4. While the beef is cooking cook your pasta according to the package for al dente, Once cooked, drain water and set aside. 

5. Once the beef is cooked add the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes and green chilies, beans, chili powder, cumin, cayenne and water. Give it a stir and let simmer for about 5 minutes. 

6. After 5 minutes stir in the cooked pasta. Combine

7. Pour the chili pasta mixture into a 9x13 pan. Flatten it out with a spatula nad sprinkle with cheese. Place in the oven for 30 minutes or until he edges are bubbling and the cheese has melted. 

8. Scoop into bowls and serve with desired toppings.

shredded chicken tacos

This is sort of an eyeballed recipe from Pinterest- with some modifications. The recipe is shredded chicken tacos so there is room for lots of creativity and customization. The original recipe is as followed:

Ingredients: 
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup salsa
1 tbsp taco seasoning

Directions:
1. In a crock-pot, place chicken breasts (frozen) in the bottom
2. Sprinkle with the seasoning
3. Top with the salsa
4. Cook on low for 6 hours, or high for 3 hours.
5. Shred and serve.

Here is where my customization comes in:

I used four chicken breasts-which was waaayyy too much- but now we have leftovers. I also used most of the jar of Newman's Own salsa so the chicken would stay moist, and I used about half a packet of taco seasoning.

I laid out a taco bar of sorts in our kitchen so that we could make our own tacos. I had lettuce, cheese, sour cream, sriracha, and Spanish rice as options for toppings. Again, here is where you can choose whatever toppings you want or you can make it into a taco salad. My plans for leftovers are either pulled chicken BBQ sandwiches or taco salad using tortilla chips.

semi-homemade spaghetti and meatballs

Let me start by saying this was a two day recipe because my Thursday nights are usually busy with yoga so I didn't want dinner to be served at 9 pm. I opted to make the meatballs on Wednesday evening after work. The recipe for the meatballs is below, but I don't have a picture of just the meatballs once they were made. This recipe was pretty easy to follow and required minimal cleanup. 

On to Thursday evening! The sauce is semi-homemade (hence to title of the post). I don't have a recipe for the sauce since I kind of wing-it and so some taste testing throughout. The base for the sauce is a can of Prego original spaghetti sauce from the grocery store. I pour the jar into the saucepan an then add a clove of garlic, 1/2 pound of ground beef (cooked) some fresh ground parsley, and some Italian seasoning. I will also add some salt and pepper depending on how the tasting goes while cooking. While the sauce is simmering together with the previous nights meatballs, I throw some spaghetti noodles in a pot of boiling water and that's it. Seriously. The recipe is not hard its just a tad time consuming. Once the noodles are finished I drain them and add them to the meatballs and sauce. 

Italian Style Meatballs:

Ingredients:

½ lb. ground beef

½ lb. Italian sausage

½ cup bread crumbs

1 tsp minced garlic

2 eggs

2 tsp finely chopped parsley

½ cup Parmesan cheese

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Directions:

1. Heat the oven to 350˚

2. In a medium size bowl add each of your ingredients into the bowl and mix well after each addition 

3. Make slightly larger than golf ball sized meatballs and place them into a muffin tin that has been coasted with non-stick cooking spray.

4. Place in the oven and cook for 40 minutes, flipping them halfway through

porcupines in a skilllet

This was such an easy recipe for nights that you don't have much time to cook. It's a one skillet dish which also makes for easy cleanup. It can easily feed 4 people or more with some leftovers to spare. 

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef

1 pkg. dry onion soup mix

1 ½ cup hot water

¾ cup uncooked rice

1 (16oz.) can tomatoes

1 cup shredded cheese

1 small can mushrooms – optional

Directions:

1. In a large skillet, crumble beef and brown

2. Drain and stir in onion soup mix, water, tomatoes, and (optional mushrooms)

3. Add rice and stir

4. Cover and cook on low heat for 25 minutes or until rice is tender

5. Sprinkle with cheese, melt and serve

brown sugar glazed pork chops

So I am THE WORST at pinning recipes to my Pinterest board, and then just letting them sit there. I never actually attempt to make them even though the headline-that caught my eye to begin with-says fast and easy or six simple steps. I know we all have this bad habit on Pinterest with at least one board.

I finally decided to put some recipes to the test. First up was Brown Sugar Glazed Pork Chops. These were SUPER easy-no joke- and they turned out delicious. I am always a big fan of dinners that are still good as left overs that I can take for lunch the following days, and this meal delivered. The pork was really juicy and had a nice balance of spicy, yet sweet from the brown sugar.

I would definitely make this again and this is easily a recommendation for a quick easy meal that anyone would love.

Ingredients:

4 pork chops

¼ cup brown sugar

½ tsp cayenne powder

½ tsp garlic powder

½ tsp paprika

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

Directions:       

1. Preheat oven to 350˚

2. In bowl, combine the brown sugar and spices

3. Remove pork chops from package and rub spice mix on both sides of the meat

4. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in skillet over medium/high heat. Add pork chops. Cook for about 5 minutes on each side, or until it is nicely browned

5. If your skillet is oven safe transfer the pork chops directly to the oven. If your skillet is not oven safe you must transfer the pork chops to a foil lined baking sheet. Once in the oven, let the pork chops cook for about 5 minutes, or until cooked thoroughly

6. Remove and serve