Cheesy Chicken Casserole

This week is going to be a busy week for us.  On some days we have more than 3 things going on for the night.  Kids meeting their teacher for reading/math skills, soccer, and football.  Of course the sports fall on the same day within at least 1/2 hour of each other at different locations.  So I’m not only trying to reduce my weekly food budget but trying to find super simple meals to get us through the week without much effort.  I get the emails from Betty Crocker and went on a search and found this cheesy dinner.  Did I say cheesy!!!!

Caleb is not a fan of broccoli and did not want to eat this.  But since I had two other types of vegetables in it I didn’t mind so much that he picked it out.  I could have made the cheese sauce home made but, again, I was looking for something easy and quick.  I liked it.  I liked the flavor it the sauce with the topping.  Fall dinners are happening in our house!

Here’s what you need:

2 cups cut-up cooked chicken

1 jar (16 oz) Cheddar cheese pasta sauce

1 bag (1 lb) frozen broccoli, carrots and cauliflower, thawed, drained

1 1/4 cups Original Bisquick® mix

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup firm butter or margarine

1 egg, slightly beaten (I used egg yolk only)

Here’s what you do:

• 1 Heat oven to 400°F. In large bowl, mix chicken, pasta sauce and vegetables. Pour into ungreased 9-inch square pan.
• 2 In small bowl, mix Bisquick mix, Parmesan cheese and butter with fork or pastry blender until crumbly. Stir in egg. Sprinkle over chicken mixture.
• 3 Bake 20 to 22 minutes or until topping is light golden brown.

Have a good rest of the day.

Patricia – Two Girls Cooking 😉

Source

Betty Crocker

Strawberry Stuffed French Toast

Breakfast for dinner in our house guarantees a clean plate!  Figuring my meal plan for last week this one just came in to mind and could not pass on it.  As I said, I was trying to cut my food budget by following my friend, Heidi’s meals for that week.  She had french toast for breakfast one day.  That made me think of stuffing it with strawberries!  And here we are!!

This would be good with any type of fruit added or just plain cream cheese mixed with your favorite jam.

What you need:

• 1 loaf French Bread
• 3 Tablespoons Any Flavor Fruit Spread (You Can Also Use Jelly, Jam, Or Fresh Fruit)
• ½ packages Cream Cheese (4 Oz), At Room Temperature (I used strawberry cream cheese)
• 2 whole Eggs (I used just egg yolks due to a little one in the house)
• 1 Tablespoon Cinnamon (I used more!!!)
• ½ cups Skim Milk
• 2 Tablespoons Butter

Heat skillet or electric griddle to 325 to 350 degrees.

Cut french bread into 2-3 inch wide slices. Then, with a paring knife, go back and cut halfway into each slice, in the center, creating a ‘pocket’ that your fruit mixture can be stuffed into.

In a bowl, place the room temperature cream cheese and three tablespoons of fruit spread of your choice. Combine well.

In a separate bowl, break 2 eggs; add cinnamon and milk and combine well.

Now, take fruit mixture and stuff into the ‘pockets’ of your french bread slices. Place on a baking sheet.

When done stuffing each piece of bread, completely coat each piece in egg mixture. Make sure all sides are covered. Do all pieces before starting to fry.

Put 2 tbsp (you can use less!) of butter into a hot skillet and melt completely. Add all of the bread to the skillet and cook roughly about 3-6 minutes on each side, until it reaches a nice golden brown. You want to make sure the cream cheese mixture heats through.

When done cooking, serve immediately with butter or powder sugar.

Craig asked if we used syrup on our french toast!!!  With the powder sugar on top, it wasn’t needed.  Though I think he would have rather had syrup on his.  This was really good.  The look on the kids’ eyes when I put this on the table was awesome!!

Always make time to have breakfast for dinner!

Patricia – Two Girls Cooking 😉

Source:

Tasty Kitchen

Chinese Pie w/Biscuits

I have a friend that I work with and we share recipes quite often.  She shows me new blogs that she has found or sends me something that she’s made that she’s eaten since a child but made some changes to.

This one is one that Heidi said she’s had since she was a little kid growing up.  She just made some changes to it by adding cheese.  Yep, cheese.  Adding cheese is a good thing.  Ok well maybe not for everyone, but all things in moderation.

I’m also trying to find ways to cut my weekly cost in grocery bills down a lot.  We compared her dinners for the week, she gave me what she is buying and then told me how much she spent.  I thought, well it can’t hurt to try and reduce it and introduce new foods to the family.

This was a simple meal to put together.  And there is nothing better than that.

Here’s what I used:

1lb ground turkey

1 can creamed corn

sliced Velveeta cheese

Mashed potatoes (I used a store bought container of loaded potatoes!!)

Onion salt, salt & pepper, garlic salt to taste

Here’s what I did.

Turn oven on to broil (high).

Cook the ground turkey until browned.  Add the seasonings and taste to your liking.  When the meat is cooked through add to a casserole dish and top with slices of Velveeta cheese.   Then pour the cream corn over the cheese (Heidi makes everything warm/hot when adding to the meat).  After the corn, spread the potatoes over the corn and spread to cover.

Cook in the oven just long enough to get the potatoes browned.  When serving the dinner, spoon onto plate upside down so the potatoes are on the bottom.

This was pretty good.  And it was easy enough to make.  The kids loved it and that means we can have it again!  They also put some on their biscuits and ate it like a sandwich.  That was a great idea.  I did it then too!

Have a great week.

Patricia – Two Girls Cooking 😉

Source:

My Friend Heidi

Getting Ready for School

So we are all getting the kids ready for back to school (if they have’t already gone back).  Who’s excited for that??  Hands up, mine is, mine is raised really, really high.

I love school.  My kids here, not so much.  I love that the kids have structure, a solid routine for their day.  They may want to hang out with friends and ignore the school work, but I know they need the structure just as much as I do.  As we all do as parents/grandparents/guardians/Aunts/Uncles..anyone caring for any kid in a school.  Not trying to leave anyone out.

Along with the new school year comes of course the fun shopping sprees we all get to pay for.  And if you’re lucky as I am, you have more than one child to buy all the fun stuff for!  Double the pleasure, double the cost.

Here’s Brooklyn and me:

We got to go shopping for some new clothes for her.  I love shopping for her.  She loves to wear the cutesy frilly skirts, the pretty shirts:

I love this shirt.  We went shopping at Khol’s and found this cute little top.  I really wanted them to have one in my size.  But no such luck.

And this cute dress!!

Brooklyn is pretty tall for her age, so none of her jeans from last year fit her.  She needed a new closet full of clothes.  I wish I could say the same thing.  Well, I could, but I really don’t need it, I would just like to have it!!

Next up comes the school supplies.

Yes, that little pink box is full of all new supplies.  We can’t go into the new school year with pencils that have been used or crayons that have been broken.  So we keep a container here at home to use for after school homework or art projects that we come up with.  They do not go to waste.  New back pack as well.

This weekend we are supposed to go shopping for Caleb:

Caleb isn’t a fan of pictures like Brooklyn and Nana!  He’ll do it if I beg him to though!  But we will try to get his clothes and supplies done this week.   Caleb has to be with me when I shop.  He’s very picky about what he wears.  Thank goodness for hand me downs from my nephew.  He has all new pants that fit him that we’ve saved for a year!  Woo hoo!  Shirts, not so much.  And that is what he is picky about.  It has to be something he likes and/or picks out or it will sit in the closet with me trying to force him to wear.  Eventually I find it in the bottom of the closet hidden under a truck that he got for Christmas three years ago.  (We will be making a donation to some organization for kids that need clothes and toys coming soon).

Both Kids did get some new shoes though:

These shoes have been tucked away in our closet so that they can’t wear them to daycare. Trust me, they have tried.  But the deal was, we buy them at the time they found them, they are for school only.  So far they have been forgotten!!!!

Hopefully you’ll find great deals on clothes and supplies for your kids.  I tend to go to one store and get what I need and I’m satisfied with the cost for the supplies.  I haven’t figured out yet where to take this young boy for clothes.  After the first few weeks he’ll find a shirt that he loves and will try to wear it 3 times per week if not more anyways.

Here we all are being goofy:

I found last years school pictures.  I’m sure they will appreciate this when they see it!  Well Brooklyn will anyways.

Well the weather is starting to change here in MN (for now anyways) and stores are packed with all the school goodies.  I hope I have more luck with the kids this fall in school doing reading and school things.  I had a rough time getting them to read.  How sad is that??  Oh how I wish I could take time every day and just READ.  I would love to do that.  I did it when I was younger and now not much time is allowed for me to do so 😦

Have fun with your kids and enjoy the time that you have.   Before you know it you that time has passed and you see your children as adults with their kids!!

Patricia – Two Girls Cooking (aka Nana)

Slow Cooker Lasagna

I feel as though I haven’t done much “summer cooking” at all this year.  It’s too hot or it’s raining, or I’m just too busy and needed to get a meal prepared, such as this one, in a hurry so we could eat right away at dinner time.

I’ve made a lot of things in the slow cooker that I normally would see baked in the oven.  Love making the meatloaf, ribs, and now this lasagna.  This is a first for me with the pasta.  Super easy to make.  

Here’s what you need:

1 pound ground turkey lean

1 medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)

1 jar marinara sauce

2 teaspoons dried basil leaves

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (8 ounces)

1 container (15 ounces) cottage cheese

1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

15 uncooked lasagna noodles

• 1 Cook ground turkey and onion in 10-inch skillet over medium heat 6 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until meat is no longer pink; drain. Stir in marinara sauce, basil and salt.
• 2 Mix 1 cup of the mozzarella cheese and the cottage cheese and Parmesan cheeses. (Refrigerate remaining mozzarella cheese while lasagna cooks.)
• 3 Spoon one-fourth of the ground turkey mixture into 6-quart slow cooker; top with 5 noodles, broken into pieces to fit. Spread with half of the cheese mixture and one-fourth of the ground turkey mixture. Top with 5 noodles, remaining cheese mixture and one-fourth of the sausage mixture. Top with remaining 5 noodles and remaining sausage mixture.
• 4 Cover and cook on Low heat setting 4 to 6 hours or until noodles are tender.
• 5 Sprinkle top of lasagna with remaining 1 cup mozzarella cheese. Cover and let stand about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted. Cut into pieces

When you bake the lasagna in the oven you get the nice crisp outside pieces.  Same goes for this in the slow cooker.  I loved the flavor of this.  The meat stayed nice and moist.

A lot of people may shy away from making lasagna because it seems like it takes a lot of time.  But it really doesn’t.  I don’t think it does either way you make it, in the oven or the slow cooker.  I have a large size cooker, so I wasn’t sure if this would be too much and we’d have left overs.  But there was one piece left!!  Pretty good if I do say so myself!!

Patricia – Two Girls Cooking 😉

Source:

Betty Crocker