Hearty hamburger soup

For this recipe I sort of followed one that I have made before but ended up making some changes...for the broth I mixed one 16oz can tomato sauce, 2 pkg of onion soup mix and one can blended diced tomatoes...to that I added browned hamburger, some cooked salad al dente salad roni and then some:

corn
peas
carrots
pearl onions

it came out really good...I do need to add more water in the beginning, though my family likes it with less...

yum happy eating

Slow cooker mac and cheese

Been craving this for weeks....love a good mac and cheese...made this one previously and we all loved it...      

To al-dente cooked elbow macaroni I added, (2 cups of macaroni):

2 cans of cheddar cheese soup
16 oz sour cream
1 stick of melted butter
2 eggs
Cheese
2 cans of evaporated milk

Mixed all together and added to crock pot on low for about 2 hours...I do need to check next time cause a full 2 hours was a little long...the original recipe calls for stirring midway through, and then sprinkling some cheese on top to melt...

Happy eating

Sunday night family dinner, after a Disney packed day...cheeseburgers

it is still horribly hot here, and yet this morning we woke up early to go to Disney...we have season passes and yet we do not use them as much as we should...we like to go first thing in the morning before it is so packed and before the heat really hits and then we grab lunch or snacks or whatever and leave anywhere from 12 to 1 or so...

there was 5 of us that went this morning and when we woke up, nobody was really feeling that great...I am still getting over pleurisy and Tim had a migraine, etc. but I said that we should at least try it and we can leave if it gets to be too much...
and once there, it really was a magical time...we had a great day...Sam (whom we bought a pass for her BD) and Zoie walked right onto a bunch of the normally packed rides...Tim ran into a co worker who was by himself and so they hung together and went on some rides also...hubby and I took it easy...me?  I craved a Starbucks this morning (the only place they sell at Disney is in California land) and I limit my drinks to only Saturday and Sunday...what is funny is that I love the smell of coffee, my mom and dad drank Folgers like there was no tomorrow and so I love that smell that transports me straight to my childhood, but drinking the stuff upsets my stomach horribly...but Tim introduced me to White Chocolate Mocha Frapuccinos and for some reason my stomach is safe with them...but the calorie count is horrendous, so I limit myself...
ok...back to Disney, so I had my drink but hubby was "starving" and there is a restaurant that serves the absolute best breakfast, an all you can eat, but the ham and bacon and omelettes are to die for...problem is that they charge 27.00 a person...we have been there several times but mostly to take the grandkids, since they have most of the good characters come table to table and pose for pictures...but we wanted something different so we went to the California side to Cars Land and hubby had breakfast at Flo's Diner, it was a decent breakfast for 8.49...he got scrambled eggs, bacon, o'brien potatoes and a biscuit...
once we met up with the rest of the family, I was a little hungry but in the Princess Land, they sell these fantastic cheese, garlic sticks that are so good so Zoie and I shared one...of course Sam and Zoie had to have the prerequisite (?) Dole Whip and Tim got a new blueberry frosted drink...

we mainly went today to find the new popcorn buckets they had and we found them...a really cute Mickey Vampire one, a Halloween one and the new poison apple cup that is so popular right now...we have quite the collection of buckets since Tim and Zoie went to Disney Tokyo and they are really big over their...

so it was hot and we were tired, so I just prepared hamburgers and green salad and let everyone make their own dinners tonight...of course there was more for me to clean up...haha

weekly menu posts for the week of 9/27 through10/3

OMGoodness I cannot believe that October is almost here, only a few more days...yay...I love October and the Fall days...most of the menu posts have to do with the oven but actually we do not really cool down here until about the 15th of the month...I so have something to look forward to, though...

here goes:

Sunday 9/27.........cheeseburgers (we were at Disney all day and it was hot and tiring)
                             green salad

Monday 9/28........slow cooker mac and cheese
                             green beans
                             artisan bread

Tuesday 9/29.......salisbury steak meatballs (Pioneer Woman recipe)
                             mashed potatoes
                             peas

Wednesday 9/30..hamburger soup (I know we just had this last month, but been craving it)
                            7 up biscuits

Thursday 10/1.....breakfast for dinner

Friday 10/2........ grilled chicken with tomato creamed pasta
                            green salad
                            garlic bread

Saturday 10/3.....grilled chicken, bacon sliders
                           pasta salad
                           raw veggies

hopefully next week, weather permitting I will be able to post more oven dishes...

yum happy eating

stacked chicken enchiladas

a friend of mine made this for dinner for us one night when my kids were small and I have taken the recipe as my own since then...everyone loves them, so I am not sure why I do not make them more often...

I fry the cron tortillas a little and then dip them in a canned red enchilada sauce, and then just stack them with shredded chicken and cheese and end up with another tortilla and more cheese...
hubby staks his like 3 or 4 high...

served with spanish rice and refried beans...

still trying to cook hot weather food, we are having a heat blast for the last week of September and it is horrible...still was kind of hot, frying the tortillas but hubby was looking forward to dinner...

yum  happy eating

sweet potato cake that I would like to try

http://www.grouprecipes.com/63708/sweet-potato-dump-cake.html

when I am off of oven time out, I really want to try this

sweet potato cake for a birthday surprise

I had this fantastic recipe for sweet potato cake that I simply loved and so did anyone that tasted it...it is very moist and well just really good...
bad thing is I lost the recipe...not sure how I lost it, but had it on my laptop that crashed...
so disappointed...

I have tried my absolute hardest to find the recipe and have googled to no avail...but I had found a recipe that sort of sounded enough like mine that I promised a friend to make it for her birthday and I made it Sunday night (WITH TEMPS AT 107)...but I really like this friend and decided to suffer with the heat and made it anyway...

this is he recipe I used:

http://www.cooks.com/recipe/240o1kl/sweet-potato-cake-with-cream-cheese-icing.html

and while it was good, it was not my recipe and I am so sad that I cannot replicate it...

please try this I think you will like it

Thursday night family dinner...sloppy joes

wanted to make a huge pot of sloppy joes as everyone in the family loves them and I had thought it would be nice to have leftovers in this heat...little did I know that so many people ate this dinner that there was nothing left for lunches and I made a ton of it too...

I browned 3 pounds of hamburger, along with 1 pound of Italian sausage (thought this would give a different and good texture...)
and I use the McCormicks seasoning mixture...

served with baked beans and french style green beans...I bought a pkg of 16 buns and they were all gone that night...

yum happy eating

Wednesday family dinner, loaded baked potato soup

continuing my hot weather dinners...Fall, please hurry up with your cooler weather...

I baked 3 large russet potatoes in the toaster oven (I did mine the night before)

made a roux with 8 tablespoons of butter, 8 tablespoons of flour (I love the shaker can of Wondra flour for this), and one large container of chicken stock...after it thickened I added 3 cups of milk...

I scooped out the baked potatoes and sort of mashed them with some (about 1 1/2 cups prepared mashed potatoes...) and then added to the roux mixture with garlic salt, pepper and onion powder...you have to kind of keep mashing the potato mixture as you add it...

added some bacon and some diced ham with a good amount of shredded cheese...

I sometimes will add carrots or corn or something, but wanted this one to be a simple chowder...

it was very good served with an artisan bread and was fantastic as leftovers in lunches

yum happy eating

kraftrecipes.com  has a good recipe too

Tuesday night family dinner...taco salad

still pretty hot here in Souyhern California, cannot wait for the Fall days to come...Fall is already here but we desperately need for the hot days to leave...
all of this week, predicted to be in 100s so still trying to find cooler recipes, but dreaming of oven baking...

I am kind of strange and for my own personal taco salad, I do not add lettuce...I love this version of taco salad and will crave it when I have not made if for awhile...

I put out all of these ingredients and everyone makes what they like for themselves...hubby likes everything...Tim makes nachos and Zoie is particular in what she adds...

ingredients:

browned hamburger, with taco seasoning added
sliced olives
lettuce
chopped tomatoes
salsa
sour cream
avocado
crushed tortilla chips
green onions
cheese of course

and I love ranch dressing

yum happy eating my lettuce-less taco salad

weekly menu posts for the week of 9/20 through 9/26

man it is still hot here, but I can at least hope the cooler weather is coming soon...it is hopeful that since I see pumpkins and gourds etc...my favorite season of the whole year...please hurry and then slow down so I can enjoy fall a little bit...

Sunday 9/20..........taco salad

Monday 9/21........chicken enchiladas
                           refried beans
                           mexican rice

Tuesday 9/22........brown butter ravioli
                           green salad
                           garlic bread

Wednesday 9/23...slow cooker meat loaf
                           mashed potatoes
                           maple glazed carrots

Thursday 9/24......loaded baked potato soup      
                          artisan bread

Friday 9/25..........slow cooker orange chicken  (Zoie's request)
                           rice
                           oriental veggies

Saturday 9/26.......sloppy joes
                           macaroni salad
                           raw veggies

happy eating

Saturday night chicken fried rice

we had leftover chicken from the night I made chicen lazone...one of the first things I think of when there is eftover chicken is fried rice...
I absolutely love a good fried rice and Pick Up Stix by our house makes a good beef fried rice that I love and can I say that I crave their chicken egg rolls too?   last time I was in the hospital our Pick Up Stix had just reopened after a fire and Sam every day would go get me some egg rolls, which I am sure are not on a cardiac diet...

over the many years I have been married, I have perfected my friend rice to a science that my family loves...

here is what we add to ours:

fried rice (of course) and I like all of the rice covered in soy sauce
scrambled egg
shredded carrots
frozen peas
green onion
cashews
chow mein noodles
diced cooked chicken
seasonings (I add garlic salt, pepper, and onion powder)

yum happy eating

even little boy add his fair share, when in fact he says he does not like chinese food

beef stew

today is a Friday and usually that is our night to go out to dinner...you know, the end of a stressful week, etc.  but I had slow cooked stew beef all day yesterday and really wanted to use it...

so I came home from school at 12:30 and dinner was so easy to make with the meat already cooked for me...

I decided to try a new seasoning pouch from Campbells for beef stew...

was very easy to do, but the sauce seemed very thick to me and I added water to it also...I added 4 cups of water to accomodate the meat and the veggies I was adding...to be honest the instructions do say that the pouch was intended for a slow cooker and maybe if cooked all day, it would not have been as thick as it was...

so the seasoning packet and 4 cups of water, I added the already cooked stew beef, and cut up; potatoes, carrots, celery, onion and then I also added orn and peas...

it was very good with an artisan bread...

happy eating

Chicken Lazone (my version)

I absolutely love this recipe...I crave it when not on my weekly rotations...I have now made it for 3 times and wonder what I did without it...
I had it saved on my favorites for like forever and one night just decided to make it and now could kick myself that I have not been making it all along...

the first 2 times, I followed the recipe I had exactly...and we loved it...
but tonight I decided to change it up just a tad...what I was really trying to accomplish was that I do not feel 100% and did not want to stand at the stove till big fat chicken breasts were browned and it dawned on me that if I added diced chicken it would cook a lot faster and I was so lucky tonight as I had the best sous chef ever who wanted to help...Tim is a great help when he knows I do not feel good...

here is my version:

for my family and tonight I fed 6 people and had leftovers for 2 lunches too...

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts (& this is where I differed) I cut into bite size pieces, and browned them in some butter...added seasonings (garlic salt, pepper, and onion powder)

once browned and it only took 5-6 minutes,

I added a good portion of 1/2 gallon of half and half (I made more than enough sauce as that is what my family likes)

brought to a slow boil, added a cornstarch mixture to thicken (the last 2 times we felt it was too runny for our tastes...)

then added some peas and put over some spaghetti noodles...

the best ever, I will be making it this way from now on...eveyone loved it and there is plenty left for 2 lucky recipients for lunch tomorrow...

yum yum yum happy eating...

Wednesday night dinner...grilled cheese sandwiches and soup

today I went to doctor and found out I have pleurisy and I had to go to Target and pick my new meds up and the kids were not feeling real well, so I took them from the after school program early and so I had kids from 12:50 and just could not get myself to make a huge dinner...

we had canned soup and grilled cheese...Tim, Zoie and I love canned pea soup...hubby had chicken noodle...

and it really was the perfect dinner for whomever does not feel good in this family...hubby says he is getting the bug now too...

Tuesday night family dinner...swedish meatballs

I am trying hard to cook every night...it is not quite so hot here right now, in the higher 90's rather than 100+ and I can take this heat much better than the alternative...
but I have also been sick, I first caught this crazy bug going around from my 7 year old...with a cough and sore throat, but mine, wouldn't you know it went to something else and I was not sure what it was, but really achy (sometime stabby pain) ribs and it hurts to cough or laugh or sneeze or whatever...even hurt to raise my arms above my head...went to doctor and I have pleurisy...but a woman's work is never done and I am still trying...now if hubby had this, I have no doubt he would be in the hospital...but not me I just keep on ticking...

Tuesday night I made swedish meatballs, with noodles, maple glazed carrots and artisan bread...

no secret to my meatballs, I use the McCormicks seasoning mix...tried making them from scratch and my family prefers this brand better...who am I to mess with them?

weekly menu posts for the week of 9/15 through 9/19

once again I am late getting my weekly posts up...we were gone out of town all weekend and then once we got home, it was still pretty hot here, and I just did not feel like cooking at all...
so we will start with Tuesday of this week and end with Saturday and try to get back in the groove next week...

Tuesday 9/15..........swedish meatballs
                             noodles
                             green beans

Wednesday 9/16....slow cooker mac and cheese (carried over from last week)
                             maple glazed carrots
                             BBQ sausage
                             biscuits

Thursday 9/17........chicken lazone
                             spaghetti noodles
                             green salad
                             garlic bread

Friday 9/18............slow cooker meat loaf (carried over from last week)
                            mashed potatoes
                            corn pudding

Saturday 9/19........grilled chicken bacon sliders
                            tator tots
                            raw veggies

happy eating

weekly menus for the week of 9/6 through 9/13

sorry a day late again, and to think we had an extra day off with Labor Day too...

Sunday 9/6..........chicken and wild rice casserole slow cooker style

Monday 9/7........Labor day BBQ
                         short ribs, rib eye steaks, sausage foil packets
                         deviled eggs
                         baked beans

Tuesday.............chicken salad  (because it is supposed to be 105 here)
                         watermelon
                         veggies

Wednesday........slow cooker mac and cheese  (because I have been craving it)
                        green beans
                        mini sausage in BBQ sauce

Thursday..........slow cooker meatloaf
                       mashed potatoes
                       broccoli

Friday..............will be gone

Saturday.........will be gone


happy eating
                       

Labor Day BBQ

when grocery shopping, hubby buys the meat...he usually goes by a list I give him based on the menus for the month...in reality, he could spend hours looking over meat, thinking he will find a great bargain on something (never on the menus...LOL)...so what we end up with is bits and pieces of meat
packages that are really never enough for our whole family....but, they end up being a good thing when we do something like today and just throw on several different types of meat on the BBQ and let people choose what they want....

today's feast?

  rib eye steaks (it was a pkg of 3)
  short ribs
  sausage foil packets, which included diced potatoes, carrots, pea pods, kielbasa and onion...Sam made these and she tossed them all in a teriyaki based sauce...
  artisan bread
  deviled eggs

of course everyone was happy;;;

yum happy eating

Sunday night dinner, chicken and wild rice casserole

http://www.southernplate.com/?s=chicken+and+wild+rice+casserole

this is my all time favorite recipe ever and I cannot go very long at all without making it...still is pretty hot here. supposedly 96 today and that is definitely a do not turn my oven on kind of day...I still craved this dish and my little grandson loves this as much as I do...(he will be so happy that I made this...)

so this is the second time this summer that I have made it in the crock pot...and it turns out great in the slow cooker but not quite the same as in the oven...(the crackers on top do not get as crunchy) but still came out very good...

it is wonderful as leftovers...

yum happy eating

hamburger and vegetable soup, delicious

I have never made hamburger soup before, but a few years back had tasted it when someone had made it at the Elks Lodge and it was pretty good...for some reason this week I had been craving it and so I scoured the internet for a good recipe and I think I have found it...

http://www.food.com/recipe/hearty-hamburger-soup-211580

I did tweak things a bit for my family's tastes...though when I try a new recipe, I almost always follow the recipe exactly and think of ways I could make it better afterwards...tonight however I did not have one ingredient and did not want to go to the store just for that...it was a can of diced tomatoes and my family does not like tomatoes so I decided to do without it...I also added shredded carrots instead of diced, I added pearl onions and and I added peas...I happen to love peas in a soup...

this was absolutely delicious and I most definitely will make this again, everyone loved it...and it was fairly easy too...

yummy, so so good, you must try it...happy eating

meatball parmesan

so when I first saw this recipe floating around Facebook, I was intrigued...it sounded by the title to be easy and I love meatball recipes, where I can buy the frozen ones and some of the work is cut in half...LOL

so I did not read the whole recipe until today when I realized that was what I wanted to make...and once I read it, I realized that it is just a glorified spaghetti and meatballs dish...

but I went ahead and made it and it was really pretty good, different than the spaghetti I am used to making and my family loves...

so for this recipe, I used:

2 cans of spaghetti sauce
1 can of tomato soup
and I added one bag of premade frozen meatballs to the pan...

I brought to a boil and then simmered till meatballs were done (about 12 minutes)
then on top I added parmesan and mozzarella cheeses...put the lid on the pan and simmered till cheeses were melted...

menu:

spaghetti noodles
meatball parmesan
garlic bread
green beans

yes I would make this again

yum, happy eating...