Mostly Homemade

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Chicken Rice and Broccoli Casserole

This is the dish that finally got my 7 year old to eat rice! Molly L O V E S broccoli, I mean LOVES broccoli!! She'll eat it any way you make it broiled, boiled, baked, fried, sauteed, steamed, etc. etc. etc. but she use to HATE rice just as much as she loved broccoli. Rice and potatoes are two things she just flat out refused to eat until about 8 months ago.

Super easy recipe that you probably have all the ingredients for in your kitchen right now. Feel free to add more chicken. I'm a frugal girl so I like to stretch my meat. This is a great bake and take for potlucks or bringing a meal to someone. Enjoy!

Chicken, Rice and Broccoli Casserole

1 chicken breast, cooked and shredded
2 boxes Zatarain's Rice Pilaf or Rice a Roni Chicken
8 oz. Velveeta cheese, sliced or you can use several cheese slices (whatever you have on hand EXCEPT shredded cheese! It just doesn't cook the same)
1/2 head fresh broccoli or 1 bag frozen broccoli florets
1 can cream of chicken soup(I'll be posting the homemade cream soups recipe soon!)
1 1/2 cans full of milk or water

Cook Rice and broccoli according to directions. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a well greased 13 x 9 pan you are going to layer the cooked rice mix, then the chicken and the broccoli. Mix together the soup and milk or water. Pour over top of everything and then top with sliced cheese. Cover with foil and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes or until cheese is good and melted.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Watergate Salad...This really needs a new name!

My dear sweet husband has a severe aversion to the term "salad" mostly due to several bad experiences during his childhood that involved potato salad and having to clear his plate. So now if anything says "salad" or might possibly have mayonnaise, cream cheese, sour cream, or mustard it's pretty much off limits. But a few months ago while we went to visit his Grandmother Joyce she was excited to tell him she had made his favorite salad! Watergate salad held a special place on the table that night!

Now I remember my Mammaw making Watergate salad and other congealed concoctions that were used to trick children into eating vegetables disguised as dessert. I always made sure to steer clear of those dishes! But as an adult I'm trying to branch out and set good examples for my girls and try things that I normally do not eat. For that particular night it was Watergate Salad! And it was good!!!!!

Since coming back from our visit to Yazoo City, I've made Watergate Salad almost once a week! It's sweet enough to satisfy your sweet tooth with few calories, which is a good thing in our quest to eat healthier! Our 7 year old has taken to calling it "Green Stuff"....not much better than salad in my opinion!

Watergate Salad

1 box instant Pistachio pudding mix
1 container of Cool Whip (I use lite or sugar free)
1/2 bag fruit flavored marshmallows
1 large can crushed pineapple

Mix pineapple and pudding mix first. Stir in cool whip and marshmallows. Store in airtight container. We eat it immediately, but the original recipe says to refrigerate first.

This week's menu and why I'm posting it two days late

I just started this blog and I'm already behind! Ugh! None the less, I'm posting this week's menu ~~two~~ three days late just because this is one of those disorganized weeks for me!

Monday
Breakfast- Toast with choice of topping (butter, jelly, Nutella, cheese) and juice
Lunch- Grilled cheese
Dinner- Shanghi Beef

Tuesday

Breakfast- Cereal

Lunch- Chicken Nuggets , green beans and carrots with peanut butter

Dinner- Jambalaya

Wednesday

Breakfast- Yogurt & Fruit

Lunch- leftovers

Dinner- Chicken Broccoli and Rice casserole

Thursday

Breakfast- cereal

Lunch- Peanut Butter and Banana sandwiches

Dinner- Nachos

Friday

Breakfast- Banana Nut Muffins

Lunch- Mac & Cheese

Dinner- ~~Pork Chop Bake~~ Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

Saturday

Breakfast- Pancakes

Lunch- Poboys

Dinner- Church Home Group (we're supplying the crackers and Watergate Salad!)

Sunday

Breakfast- Kids will eat a bowl of cereal or toast, Hubby and I have a muffin and coffee at church.

Lunch- at Mom's (We eat a very large lunch at my Mom's house every Sunday with the ENTIRE family!)

Dinner- Usually don't cook Sunday nights.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

The Homemade Cinnamon Roll that wasn't....

~~Homemade Cinnamon Rolls~~
~~Here are the easiest, best homemade cinnamon rolls ever!~~

I thought I would be bringing you the easiest most wonderful mostly homemade cinnamon roll recipe this morning, but it was a total flop! Of course, we're still eating them, but I didn't like the recipe enough to share. I made up this recipe after buying a HUGE bag of day old bread from the local Discount Bread store. When I say HUGE I mean I had somewhere close to 50 bags of bread for $4!! Now that's frugal!!!! Anyway, I had to come up with some way to use up all that bread. I gave away a lot to my grandparents, my Mom and neighbors. I still had 15 loaves in the freezer and 4 on the counter. I made freezer grilled cheese sandwiches, homemade croutons and Waffle Iron French Toast! Enjoy!

That's my 7 yr. old Molly giving the thumbs up of approval. She's often my guinea pig for recipes.

Waffle Iron French Toast

1 egg

1 cup milk

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 c. brown sugar

8 slices of bread, your choice

Whisk all this together. Dip bread on both sides. Spray waffle iron with non-stick spray. Place as many slices as your waffle maker will hold; cook about 3-5 minutes. Top with butter and syrup.

Comes out crisp on the outside and soft on the inside! Yum!
These are also a great freezer meal! I put a layer of waffles, a layer of wax paper, etc and freeze. After frozen I put them all into a ziplock bag. Just pull them out and pop them in the toaster when you are ready to eat!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

I love pumpkin just about anyway you can make it! For years I've been buying this pumpkin bread mix from the grocery store and making it into muffins for my family. It's simple and cheap and we gobble them up.

About a year ago I stumbled across this great blog called Southern Plate and fell into a familiar world of southern cooking but with new recipes!! Christy Jordan is from North Alabama and writes this great blog full of great stories and wonderful recipes (many of which are now part of my menu rotation!) I got Christy's cookbook (that was born out of her blog) for Christmas and absolutely love it!

Anyway, back to the muffins ;) Did I mention I like pumpkin? So I found this recipe on Christy's blog and knew I had to try it. So first thing this morning before doing my morning post on my other blog I whipped these up and popped them in my oven. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! I wish we had smell 0 vision! My house smelled wonderful! I was sitting here typing and drooling, the kids were dancing around the kitchen asking if they were ready yet. My oven was singing because of these wonderful muffins! Two ingredients and 1/2 a cup of water! That's it! The box I've been buying all these years takes more than that! This IS the new pumpkin muffin recipe from now until the end of time!

What you need:

1 box of Spice cake mix

(Carrot will work too, trust me I know because I didn't realize that's what I used until after I dumped it in the bowl!)

1 small can packed Pumpkin

1/2 c. water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Dump it all in a bowl and mix! That's it! Grease 12 ct. muffin tin with shortening or spray. Fill each tin fuller than normal because these hardly rise. I put two heaping spoon fulls.

What you need for Streusal:

1 c. flour

1 c. brown sugar

1 stick butter/margarine

Mix together using a long tinned fork (that's just fancy talk for using a grown up fork not a kid fork) to mix together all the ingredients until it looks all crumbly.

Top each muffin with a handful of steusal. Don't worry if it doesn't look neat.

Ta da! Pumpkin Spice Muffins! Delicious, addictive and simple!

Recipe from Christy Jordan over at Southern Plate.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Bulgogi and stir fry noodles with veggies

I love to try new recipes (with in reason of course) with a picky eater hubby and small kids I don't get too wild and crazy. This is one of those recipes and it's a keeper! I came across this recipe on Allrecipes.com while looking for another option for some stir fry beef meat that I bought last week. It looked so delicious I had to try it!

I did both chicken and beef (I preferred the chicken!) but both tasted very good. Enough talking!~ Here's how to make it:

1 or more lbs. of steak or chicken breast thinly sliced.

Marinade
5T. soy sauce
2 1/2 T. white sugar
1/4 c. onion, finely minced (I left this out by accident)
2 T. garlic
2 T. sesame seeds
2 T. oil
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. ground ginger

One recipe of marinade per lb. of meat. Mix all together and let marinade for at least 1 hour.

Fire up your grill OR heat up a cast iron skillet and cook your meat hot and fast! If it gets a little black that's ok. The sugar in the marinade causes it to darken quickly. Just make sure it's done.

As a side I served stir fried noodles with veggies. I didn't do as good of a job taking pictures of this because I was trying to make sure my bulgogi didn't burn!

3 c. spaghetti noodles, cooked and cold
1/2 recipe of bulgogi marinade (separate from meat marinade)
1 pkg. frozen stir fry mix
2 T. oil

Heat oil in large pot. Stir fry veggies until almost tender. Add noodles and sauce.

Serve the bulgogi meat over rice on top of a lettuce leaf. Yes I know it sounds weird but it's delicious and a healthy addition to the meal. My 7 year old passed on the lettuce but ate everything else with a smile on her face!

This week's menu and why I plan my menus in advance

I'm a frugal kind of girl (you can read about those adventures here at my other blog). I shop for deals, buy it cheap and stockpile when I can. I try to save my family money every chance I get. One of the ways I do that is to make a menu for our meals. It helps keep me on track, keep a budget, eat healthier and keeps us from eating out as often.

I know you're already telling yourself it's too time consuming, you don't always feel like eating the meal you wrote down on that night, etc., etc. Trust me I know! But give it a try, I think you'll like the results!

Each week I'll be posting my family's menu for the coming week with recipes and (hopefully) pictures! As a family we are all light breakfast eaters, I'm home with my two girls and my nephew at lunch (I homeschool my 7 yr old, 3 1/2 year old nephew and we Tot School with my 17 month old) and then I cook for my family of 4, plus my Mother, Sister and nephew every night. So 95% of these meals are kid friendly. I hope you enjoy.

Monday
Breakfast- Toast with choice of topping (butter, jelly, Nutella, cheese) and juice
Lunch- Grilled cheese
Dinner- Chicken Spaghetti with garlic bread

Tuesday

Breakfast- Cereal

Lunch- Chicken Nuggets

Dinner- Beef and Chicken Bulgogi with stir fried noodles with vegetables