taco salad (my version, lettuce-less)

this certainly was not on the menu, but while I was shopping at the commissary this came to mind and then I started craving it...

this is usually my go to recipe in the summer when it is so hot and I cannot turn my oven on...so I am not sure why it came to mind today...oh well, it was so good and it satisfied me...

to browned ground beef, I add seasonings and then I layer in a bowl, chopped green onions, diced tomatoes, sliced black olives and cheese...then I added some crushed tortilla chips and over the top of everything, I drizzle some ranch dressing...

I use tortilla chips to dip into my salad...

so yummy...glad I picked it for dinner...

weekly menus for 2/29 through 3/5

last week did not go according to plan...a lot of personal stuff got in the way of me cooking...but I am going to really try this week...and I have some good recipes, a lot of them are new ones to me and I am excite to try them all...

here we go...

Sunday 2/28...............swedish meatballs
                                   buttered noodles
                                   maple glazed carrots

Monday 2/29..............loaded baked potato soup
                                   artisan bread

Tuesday 3/1...............bourbon chicken
                                  brown rice
                                  broccoli

Wednesday 3/2.........spaghetti
                                  green beans
                                  garlic pinwheels

Thursday 3/3............steak and ale pie  (so excited about this one)
                                 green salad

Friday 3/4.................chicken enchilada pasta
                                 corn bread

Saturday 3/5............frito casserole
                                green peas

yum happy eating...

breakfast tator tot casserole (new recipe, am excited about)

http://www.momspantrykitchen.com/breakfast-tater-tot-casserole.html

on Sunday mornings, I like to make breakfast for everyone...Tim is off on Sundays and I like to pamper him...he appreciates it...

I love breakfast casseroles and am hoping this will be one of my new favorites...will let you know...

update...

absolutely delicious...this recipe however takes a lot longer than 40 minutes, more like an hour...well worth the time it took...

decided to try a new breakfast casserole every Sunday...we got a late start today and next Sunday I will get up early and make breakfast before errands...
today we did not eat until 2 pm...

this is fairly easy to prepare...and I cannot wait to try again with ham or bacon...

yum definitely a must try...

March menus

we have been so busy this past week, barely enough time to even think...LOL...I could not wait till last Friday for the week to be over and now that it is, I am happy but also getting caught up with everything I have to do...
it seems that I did not cook that much last week, but I was also afraid to mess up my kitchen after it was cleaned so well...

but now, I am ready to give this another try...ha

here are the menus for the month of March...needed to get menus done so we could shop at the commissary...


taco salad (been craving this for some reason)
meatball soup
frito casserole
disney cheddar cheese soup
chicken tortilla casserole
cheesy chicken melts
chicken with creamy bacon sauce
mexican tator tot casserole
creamy basil, parmesan italian sausage soup
bourbon chicken
john wayne casserole
chicken enchilada casserole
captain crunch chicken
polish sausage with apples
stuffed pasta
tacos'
spaghetti
taco casserole #2
applebees chicken salad
poppy seed chicken
chicken chimichangas
steak and ale pie (really excited about this one)  (bought a london broil spec. for this recipe)
carbonara
cashew chicken
loaded baked potato soup
breakfast
slow cooker hobo dinner
ham for Easter
corned beef for St Pattys day with boxtys

yum sounds good to me...am I up to this?  a lot of new recipes...

weekly menu posts from 2/22 through 2/28

we have some leftover menu ideas from last week as we ate out several nights...

here goes...

Monday 2/22..............hamburger soup
                                   knotts berry farm biscuits

Tuesday 2/23.............our anniversary
                                   spaghetti
                                  garlic bread
                                  green beans

Wednesday 2/24........honey sesame chicken
                                  oriental veggies
                                  brown rice

Thursday 2/25..........swedish meatballs
                                 buttered noodles
                                 maple glazed carrots

Friday 2/26...............mac n cheese
                                 bbq smokies
                                 veggies

Saturday 2/27..........layered chicken bake

Sunday 2/28............applebees chicken salad

Sunday family dinner, spiral sliced baked ham

I have had a spiral sliced ham in my freezer for like a month now and have been dying to make it...I love ham...if I were stranded on a desert island and could only have one thing, it would be ham (or bacon)...LOL

so every time I open the freezer, this ham has been beckoning to me...and I was trying to save it for a nice dinner when I had time to make really good sides to go with it...

tonight is the night...and I know everyone will be so happy with dinner...

little boy has been staying the weekend with us, and he keeps asking when dinner will be done...

I put the ham, in a brown in bag (I love those things) and I poured some coca cola over the top, put it in the oven at 350...for about 45 minutes...

to go along with it, I am using a new recipe for scalloped potatoes from a friend (will post seperately the recipe)...
and since we all like the Jiffy corn casserole recipe so very much, that is also on the table...it makes such good leftovers too...

also having green beans and an artisan 3 cheese bread...

every Sunday, I try to bake something sweet...tonight it is brownies and I got vanilla bean ice cream to go on top...

happy eating..yum

hamburger, rice and gravy

I have made this so many times over the 42 years I have been married...in fact, I began making it while I was still single...on my day's off from nursing, I would baby sit another nurse's kids for her and she always left out a certain hamburger helper for me to cook for the kids...we all loved it and then they quit making it, so I decided to make my own...so simple...

ground beef, canned beef gravy and white rice...with lots of seasonings...we always add chow mein noodles and sliced almonds...

tonight paired with carrots and biscuits...

little boy is here and he loved it

Colorado cowboy casserole

I think this basically as a tator tot casserole...and the person that I got the link from, said that it is not a pretty dish but that the taste more than makes up for the way it looks...let me say, that everyone in the family did like the dish, including picky hubby...once again, when I was done cooking, I could not eat, but I did taste a bite and it was pretty darned good...

I will definitely make this again...pretty simple to make and I made enough for the little ones to take home also...

http://www.justapinch.com/recipes/main-course/main-course-beef/colorado-cowboy-casserole.html

you must try this one night, you will love me for telling you about it...I promise you that...

very yummy

late Wednesday afternoon, Olive Garden...

I had a noon doctor appointment to see how my CHF/ COPD was progressing from two weeks ago, when I needed an antibiotic, as I was wheezing fairly bad...good news was that he said, I sounded better, but still not 100%...I can deal with that...

the doctor's is close to Olive Garden and we have not been there for awhile so hubby and I went for a late lunch and then we were still stuffed for dinner...with all of the soup, and breadstcks you can eat, it is such a deal...hubby always gets the spaghetti with meat sauce and 3 Italian sausages, I used to get the same, but now have changed it to lasagna (love it there so much) and I add 2 sausage (I personally think that they make the best sausage anywhere...)

very good lunch today...
so, I did not have to cook tonight as Tim came home from work with the flu again and only wanted chicken soup for dinner...

fine with me...

pork ribs and pecan rice pilaf

I had pork boneless ribs out for dinner on Saturday night but I took the little kids to the mall for lunch and to Build a Bear for Valentine's Day...(we had such fun too) but by the time we got home noone was hungry for dinner...

I went ahead and baked the ribs and thought they would be great warmed up on another night, rather than waste them...

I had never really come across boneless pork ribs before until the time when my hubby had lost his very good paying aerospace job and could not find another job...there was a local meat market close to us and hubby got to be good friends with the owners and he eventually went to work for them...however, they could not afford to pay him, but he could take what meat he needed to feed his family...this was a difficult time for us as the kids were teenagers and I was the only one working, trying to hold onto our house and car, etc.   so the extra meat came in handy...I had only ever heard of ribs being BBQ'd, but in the winter that was a hard task to perform...hubby came home regularly with these ribs and one time I decided to bake them with BBQ sauce and they came out so good and that is how I have always made them since then...

so I did them this way on Saturday night...and of course I had to try them and was eating ribs at 9 pm...(I had to taste test, right?)

for the side I wanted to try something new and had this recipe for pecan rice pilaf in my favorites like forever...

in a suacepan, in 2 tbs butter I sauteed 1 cup of chopped pecans until toasted then set aside, in the same pan, I added 1 small onion chopped until tender...I then added 2 cups of uncooked long grain rice...cooked and stirred for 3-4 minutes until slightly browned...then added 32 ounces of chicken broth and some seasonings...brought to boil and then let simmer for about 10 minutes...then added 1 cup of shredded carrots an additional 5 minutes till rice was tender...then added some parsley and the pecans and fluffed with a fork...

very yummy

orange dreamsicle bread

http://www.chef-in-training.com/2014/11/orange-dreamsicle-bread/

definitely a must try this for my orange dreamsicle loving son...

sounds so good

hashbrown casserole with bacon (Valentine breakfast)

I absolutely love breakfast casseroles...whenever I see a posting about them, I have to look and see how they are done...

with this one, I have made many times previously...found on a blog that no longer posts...

the usual recipe calls for
2 bags of frozen hash browns (thawed and then gently fried to a golden brown)
sausage
cheese
seasonings
16 oz of sour cream
6 lightly scrambled eggs

mix together and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes...

today, I wanted to see how bacon would taste in this recipe instead of sausage and there were only 3 people to eat so this is what I did...

1 bag of frozen hash browns (again thawed and fried)
1 pound of bacon, cooked and diced
1 bag of shredded cheese (1/2 mixed in and the rest for the top)
garlic salt and pepper
6 lightly scrambled eggs
about 12 ounces of sour cream (I mix in just enough to moisten the potato mixture)

spread into a rectangular pan, topped with cheese and baked at 350 for about 25 minutes...

this was good and I will make it again but I still love the sausage one better, I think cause that is what we were used to...

Tim and hubby loved it...I want to try this with chopped ham next time

beef stroganoff for Valentine's Day...

made all of Tim's favorites for a special Valentine's Day dinner...just cause he is so special...

he loves beef stroganoff and I have always used the McCormick's seasoning packet, but that is what he is used to, one time I tried making from scratch and to him it was not the same...LOL  so I stick with what he likes...hubby likes this dinner too...

it will be just the 3 of us for dinner, so we will have lots of leftovers, Tim will be glad to take it to work for his lunch...

 I paired with it:

beef stroganoff
buttered noodles
mixed veggies
a honey, sesame seed artisan bread

and for dessert, I made the orange dreamsicle pie (already posted about...)

I know everyone will enjoy dinner tonight

orange dreamsicle pie

Tim loves the taste of orange dreamsicle and so for Valentine's Day, I decided to try this for him...it went together fairly easily...and when I licked the beaters (haha) the taste is pretty darned good...

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/member-recipe/dreamsicle-pie-121756.aspx

I hope he loves it...

weekly menu post from 2/15 through 2/21

since we went out on night this week, there is one item leftover from last week...that changes my menu plans...I will have to move things around and incorporate things...
posting menus early, since this is a 4 day weekend for me, getting things done...yay me...too bad school didn't have 4 days off more often...

here goes:

Monday 2/15...............hamburger soup
                                    artisan bread

Tuesday 2/16...............honey sesame chicken
                                    brown rice
                                    oriental veggies

Wednesday 2/17.........swedish meatballs
                                    buttered noodles
                                    maple glazed carrots

Thursday 2/18.............layered chicken bake
                                    biscuits

Friday 2/19.................hamburger, rice and gravy
                                   green beans

Saturday 2/20.............mac n cheese
                                   bbq little smokies
                                   peas
                                   garlic/cheese biscuits

Sunday 2/21..............taco casserole
                                  corn casserole
                                  raw veggies

sounds good to me...

Thursday night swiss steak oh my

I love swiss steak...love it...but round steak is a little pricey...my friend informed me that you could use london broil instead of round steak and she also told me when it was on sale...

I bought several and put them in the freezer...

last night, I cut the meat into serving pieces and then in the morning, I layered the meat in slow cooker (thank goodness for slow cooker liners) added seasonings (garlic salt, pepper and onion powder) and 2 onions chopped...

while I was at school, my daughter wanted to surprise me and finished dinner...
she added one large can of cream of chicken soup and put the slow cooker on high for 2 more hours...

made homemade mashed potatoes and dinner was divine...

Wednesday night korean beef, rice and broccoli

http://damndelicious.net/2013/07/07/korean-beef-bowl/

I first tried this recipe several years ago and the family loved it...but I forgot about it and then going thru recipes one night I was surprised that I had not made it for so long...

this is a great recipe with ground beef and it tastes wonderful, just as if you bought a bowl of korean beef at a restaurant...
to the beef and suace, I added some shredded carrots and it was great...

I paired with white rice and broccoli...

I made enough to feed my neighbors tonight...

Tuesday night, healthier version of chicken lazone

everyone in this family absolutely loved when I first found this recipe online...Chicken Lazone is the best dinner ever...I did not have all of the ingredients so I asked Tim to go to the store for me...

I had the chicken all prepared once he got home...

I diced up 4 chicken breasts and browned them in butter with seasonings (garlic salt, pepper, and onion powder...)

and then I add half and half but he came home with fat free half and half and so I used that and in fact it tasted the same as before...

to the half and half, I add a little cornstarch mixture to thicken it...
he also brought home whole wheat spaghetti noodles and I was very surprised how well dinner actually came out...

Tim and I wanted to start this new year eating healthier and this was a good way to do it...

my sausage, wild rice and corn chowder

I previously posted about this in August but am sure I have made it since then...everyone in the family loves it...

we love corn chowder but my old recipe seems boring compared to this one...I had seen a chowder that had Italian sausage in it and it gave me inspiration to make this one...we also all love wild rice...

here is what I do:

brown ground Italian sausage (tonight I used 2 pkgs)
while that is browning, I make 2 pkgs of Uncle Ben's long grain and wild rice in the microwave (how easy is this?) for 90 seconds...

I made a roux with 8 tablespoons of butter, 8 tablespoons of flour (I love Wondra flour for roux's) and add about 36 ounces of chicken broth and 2 cans of evaporated milk...to thin out a little and I do not especially like the taste, I add about a cup or so of milk...then once I got it thickening, I add seasonings (I added garlic salt, pepper and onion powder...)

then, I add ingredients...bag of frozen corn, (tonight) some shredded carrots, the sausage, and the Uncle Bens...I also added some extra wild rice that I had made up...

the vegan person in my household helped themselves before I added the sausage...

yummy

the best blondie

http://www.dessertrecipes247.com/the-best-blondie/

I have got to try this

weekly menu posts from 2/8 through 2/14

it seemed that we did not eat at home much last week...one of the problems is when hubby and I go out for a late lunch, I am satisfied with only a bowl of cereal before bedtime...I also did not feel good with my CHF acting up
am going to try much harder to stay at home this week...I feel kind of bad, when I have all of the ingredients to make a dinner and then don't cook...

so happy about this upcoming week, we actually have 4 days off for Presidents Day...

so here goes...

Monday 2/8............Korean beef (left from last week)
                               white rice
                               broccoli

Tuesday 2/9...........sausage and corn chowder
                               artisan bread (Tim bought at Disneyland when we were there Sunday)

Wednesday 2/10....layered chicken bake

Thursday 2/11.......swiss steak (I am so excited about this)
                              mashed potatoes
                              carrots

Friday 2/12...........swedish meatballs
                             buttered noodles
                             green beans

Saturday 2/13......chicken lazone
                            spaghetti noodles
                            green salad

Sunday 2/14........spiral ham
                            scalloped potatoes
                            corn casserole
                            garlic cheese biscuits

impossibly easy mini sausage pies so good

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/impossibly-easy-mini-breakfast-sausage-pies/daeffa4b-355d-466f-b712-86388de26b3f

have made these before and they are always terrific and everyone in this family loves them...a little time consuming, with the sausage and the batter and putting them together...but the taste?  so great...and it got me thinking of all of the possibilities for this recipe...bacon?  ham?  whatever you can think of...I need to check out the Bisquick site more and see what else they have to offer...

paired with tator tots and raw veggies...

so yummy

roasted chicken with rice and green beans

nice winter-y dinner tonight...me?  I am loving this cold weather and hope it continues for a long time...anyone that knows me, knows how much I hate the heat...love the rain and cooler weather...I could have my oven on all of the time, if it were up to me...

I put 2 whole chickens (& I use brown in bags)  (I put 1/2 onion and small amt of butter in cavity first) on in the oven at 350 for about 1 hour (they still were a teeny bit frozen, even tho I took them out last night to defrost...)

for some reason, I always make chicken rice a roni to go with this, my whole family loves it...

also made green beans and garlic/cheese biscuits...

made enough for littles to take home with them too...