Maybe Blue does have a clue

My oldest brought home a recipe from a friend's Blue's Clue's book the other day. We had all of the ingredients on hand, so I figured "why not?" Well, it turns out they were really yummy!

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Blue's Banana Muffins

Ingredients:

3 large bananas

1 1/2 c flour

1 c brown sugar

1/2 c butter

2 eggs

1/4 c sour cream

1/4 t salt

1 t vanilla

1 t baking soda

1 1/2 t baking powder

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray muffin pan.

2. Cream together butter and sugar.

3. Add sour cream, eggs, mashed bananas, and vanilla to butter mixture.

4. Mix all dry ingredients in separate bowl and add to butter mixture.

5. Pour batter into muffin tins.

6. Bake for 20-30 minutes until muffins are golden brown and spring back to the touch.

Rocky Road Candy

Rocky Road Candy

Ingredients:

1 (12 oz) pkg. semisweet chocolate chips

1 (12 oz) pkg. butterscotch chips

1/2 c. butter

1 (10 1/2 oz) pkg miniature marshmallows

1 c. peanuts

Instructions:

1. In a 4 qt microwave safe bowl, combine chips and butter. Microwave on 70% power for 5 minutes or until melted.

2. Stir and fold in marshmallows and peanuts.

3. Spread in buttered 9x13 pan.

4. Refrigerate for about 2 hours until set. Cut into squares.

White Chicken Chili (Crock Pot)

My friend, Brandi, posted this recipe on her cooking blog, and I made it yesterday. YUM!! So easy, simple ingredients, and you can just stick frozen chicken breasts in the Crock Pot. Awesome...
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White Chicken Chili
1 1/4 lbs boneless frozen or thawed skinless chicken (I just threw 3 breasts in the crockpot)
2 (15 oz) cans great northern beans or navy beans
1 (15 oz) can of hominy or white corn (I would suggest white corn. Hominy was not my fave)
1 (1 1/4 oz) envelope taco seasoning
1 (4 1/2 oz) can of chopped green chilies
1 (10 3/4 oz) can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 (14 oz) can chicken broth
1/2 C. sour cream
chopped green onion (optional, but I suggest!)
monterey jack cheese (optional, but I suggest!)

Directions:

1. Place chicken in a 4 qt slow cooker.
2. Top with beans and corn.
3. In a medium bowl, combine taco seasoning, chilies, condensed soup, and broth. 4. Pour over top of ingredients in crock pot.
5. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours.
6. Before serving, stir gently to break up chicken, then stir in the sour cream. Serve topped with green onions and jack cheese, if desired.

*We also topped ours with crushed up tortilla chips, AND I had avocados that I intended to use but totally forgot about. HA! That would have been good with it, too,though, had I remembered!

Going out on a limb

We often have random things around that I know won't get eaten by the expiration date, but that I hate to just toss. This week, it's half a big link (is that what you call it?) of summer sausage and 2 random green peppers my husband brought home from work. I still haven't asked him where in the world those peppers came from! I'm assuming they're from a patient's garden or something. Anyway, when the random-ingredient issue hits, I surrender to Allrecipes.com. Here's what it came up with for us:

Letcho

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 onions, sliced
• 2 green or red bell peppers, seeded and chopped
• 1 pinch salt and pepper to taste
• 2 teaspoons mild paprika, or to taste
• 4 tomatoes, chopped
• 9 ounces hot pepperoni sticks or summer sausage, sliced

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and green peppers; cook and stir until soft. Season with salt, pepper and paprika. Put in tomatoes, cover and simmer for about 5 minutes.
2. In a separate skillet, fry the pepperoni or sausage until browned. Mix into the pan with the tomatoes. Cover and simmer for 5 more minutes. Serve over hot cooked rice.

Now, I can just about guarantee my kids won't eat this, but it should be a fun change for the 2 adults in this house who eat kid-friendly food almost every single night of every single day of every single month of........

Here's to a nice dinner for me and the hubs (and an extra pizza night for the boys!)

Gotta love it...

My mother-in-law bought me probably the best cookbook I have ever been gifted for my birthday back in August. It is a cookbook for college students...you know, those on-a-tight-budget, without-any-cooking-skills, crunched-for-time people! Perfect book for my kitchen if I do say so myself!! :) I will definitely be trying and posting recipes from this book, and I'm using many of the recipes to create Month 3 of meals. This one hasn't been tested yet by my fam, but I'm assuming it's simple enough...(famous last words, right?!) Oh well, here's the recipe. I'll be sure to delete it if it's just awful after I make it.

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Chicken Parmesan

*Crock pot!! Woohoo!!*

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 (10 3/4 oz.) cans cream of chicken soup

3/4 c grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 - 1/2 c water

Salt and pepper, to taste

(Vermicelli) noodles, cooked (I'll use whatever I have on hand)

Instructions:

1. In a slow cooker, combine all ingredients except noodles.

2. Cover and cook on low 6-8 hours.

3. Serve over noodles.

Sicilian Meatloaf

Shout out to my mom for this one!! I don't know if she "invented" it or if she got it from someone else, but I do know it is good!
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Sicilian Meatloaf

Ingredients:
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 c bread crumbs
1/2 c tomato juice
2 T parsley
1/2 t oregano
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1 small clove garlic, minced
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2 pounds lean beef (Make sure it's lean!!)
8 thin slices ham (I use sandwich thin deli meat)
6 oz. grated mozzarella cheese (I actually use shredded)
3 slices mozzarella cheese

Instructions:
1. Combine first 8 ingredients (above the solid line in this post)
2. Stir in beef and mix well.
3. On wax paper, pat beef into 10x12" rectangle (or something close)
4. Arrange ham on top of beef.
5. Sprinkle on shredded/grated cheese.
6. Roll up.
7. Bake at 350 for 1 hour*

*LAST 10 minutes, place mozzarella slices on top to melt.

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Good sides for this:
Mashed potatoes
Southern-Fried potatoes
Green bean casserole
Hashbrown Casserole

Overnight French Toast

Ingredients:
1/2 loaf white bread
4 eggs
1 c milk
2 T sugar
1/2 t vanilla
cinnamon
(powdered sugar for dusting)

Instructions:
1. Spray pan and lay one row of bread down. Cover with egg mixture.
2. Repeat until all bread is covered.
3. Soak overnight (or all day) in fridge.
4. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes.

Another meal without a recipe

After all, meals without recipes are some of my favorite!! ;) The downside to most of my "meals without recipes" is that they are usually quite unhealthy. Take this one for instance...

Biscuits with Sausage Gravy, Scrambled Eggs, and Smoothies!

For the biscuits, I used Pillsbury refrigerated southern style biscuits. Put them on the pan, bake for 13 minutes, done.

For the gravy, I used Pioneer Brand's Country sausage flavor gravy mix. It's with all of the soup packages in an envelope. All you have to add is water. Hold on, I'm not done with the unhealthy stuff yet...

I added Jimmy Dean refrigerated sausage crumbles to the gravy. They come in a package, cooked for you, and ready to be re-heated. Awesome.

So I put the biscuits in the oven, made the gravy, re-heated the sausage and mixed it up in the gravy, scrambled the eggs, and made smoothies with (yes, packaged) Jamba smoothie frozen fruits and apple juice. Then, I put it all on the table with jelly, honey, and butter for self-serving...and while the boys doused their biscuits in honey, I enjoyed a nice, hot biscuit with sausage gravy, yummy scrambled eggs, and a scrumptious smoothie to top it all off.