5 minute, 5 ingredient million dollar dip

http://therecipecritic.com/2016/09/5-minute-million-dollar-dip/
this seriously is one of the best things I have ever tasted...I was leary at first...I do not like eating mayo...but OMGosh with all 5 of the ingredients mixed together and let sit and marry together and get all nice and cold...this definitely was a favorite tonight and will be made many more times...

New Year's Eve dinner

I have been sick for a whole week and finally today see a light at the end of the tunnel, I hope...have had a cough for well over a month now and at the first of the month was on steroids and antibiotics and for about a week thought I felt better...then, it hit me full force on Christmas Eve...went to Urgent Care on Christmas...they really thought I should go to the ER as my O2 saturations were low and I was wheezing...instead I waited to see my primary and he was sort of on the same page but he understands me and also seeing how hubby is in the hospital, he said as long as I stayed on bed rest as much as possible and kept oxygen on he was all right with me staying home...he prescribed high dose prednisone and frequent nebulizer treatments...sorry did not mean to go on and on...but the moral of the story is that I am so glad I am finally feeling a little better...

so Sam and I wanted a nice night tonight but not a lot of work...typically what we do is have an appetizer night reminicent of Christmas Eve but we do not replicate...so we came up with an alternate menu...
here is what we did...

we roasted a turkey breast (mostly cause we had one...)
our homemade pasta salad
homemade egg rolls
hot ham and cheese rolls (YUM)
million dollar dip with crackers
asst veggies
Bisquick fried cheese

so yummy...everyones favorite (well there was 2) was the million dollar dip and the ham and cheese rolls...

January 2017 monthly menu post

here we go for 2017...going to try a bunch of new recipes...

cornbread chicken enchilada bake
apple cider pork roast
cabbage, noodles and sausage
sicilian mac and cheese
taco lasagna
potato soup
chicken tortilla soup
chicken, noodle casserole
pull apart pizza bread
huli huli chicken'
chicken lazone
frito casserole
cashew chicken'
chicken fried fingers
salisbury steak
bacony bourbon chicken
slow cooker beef on rice
creamy tomato tortelloni with bacon
layered chicken bake
tator tot casserole
hamburger, rice and gravy
slow cooker lasagna
beef parmesan
swiss steak
korean beef
stuffed shells
chicken parmesan with bacon
chimichangas
seasoned chicken, green beans and potatoes

and of course New Years Day...beef stroganoff

Christmas Day menu

woke up this morning with my heart failure acting up so it was a good thing I had help for dinner...

spiral glazed ham
mashed potatoes
roasted brussel sprouts
fresh green beans
dinner rolls
apple crisp

Christmas Eve buffet

I started this tradition when my own kids were little...in theory, a buffet seems like less work but in reality it is much more work...but, everyone loves our Christmas Eve and so I continue to do it...some of the items are a must every year but on others we change from year to year...

here is what we had:

my own cheddar and sour cream potatoes
swedish meatballs
popcorn chicken
little smokies in bbq sauce
pizza rolls
assorted veggies and dip
velveeta dip with tortilla chips
Tim made scallops wrapped in bacon
potato skins
pumpkin bread
mocha brownies

the leftovers are always nice too

scalloped potatoes and ham

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/scalloped-potatoes-and-ham/

leftover ham from Christmas and this sounded good tonight...I am sick, supposed to be on bed rest with continuous oxygen...but, I a cheating a doing a few things as I am able...besides Sam and Zoie have been staying and she is a big help too..

so we this recipe as a base and kind of did our own thing...we added garlic salt and pepper...the other thing we did not do was add flour to the milk mixture and this still came out very nicely...

yum

3rd day of soup...chicken and wild rice...yum

Tim and I both seem a little better, but still not 100% so I decided to make tonight another soup night...have not made this for awhile now and it seemed perfect for tonight...
I was kind of surprised to find out that Tim and I are not the only ones feeling kind of yucky...there seems to be this virus going around that really when you think about it is not horrible, just bad enough to make you feel sort of yuck...you have mild stomach issues, general aches and pains, but you can still eat, if you want to deal with the nausea...we both thought it was new meds we were both on but I have heard from others that have the same thing with no new medicine issues...it is short lived that is the good thing...

here is how I made my chicken and wild rice soup...

2 cooked chicken breasts chopped, about 1 cups of cooked wild rice, about 1 cup of cooked white rice, tonight I added some shredded carrots...I like my soup to be very easy and uncomplicated...
the sauce I used was a roux out of 8 tablespoons of butter melted with 8 tablespoons of wondra flour, I added about 32 oz of chicken broth and about 2 cups of milk...

make sure you rince the wild rice real well before adding...it turned the soup a little bit of a weird color...

this was very good for tonight...

hamburger soup

I have posted about this many many times...I never would have wanted to even try this kind of soup but, I had tasted one several years ago at Elks...and one day I just decided I was going to look for a recipe and try it...
and voila this is what I came up with and I love it and so does everyone in the family...I will eat this for several days for lunch...

I read many different recipes and came up with one that serves us well...

here is what I do...

5 cups of water, 1 package of Lipton onion soup mix, and 2 cans of 16 oz each of tomato sauce (most other recipes call for diced or stewed tomatoes but my family hates chunks of tomatoes), and today I added 1 frozen package of mixed vegetables (usually I add corn, peas and carrots) and tonight I liked the different cuts of vegetables for variety, then I add about 1 1/2 pounds of browned ground beef and tonight I also added some Italian sausage...this was all browned last night when I did the sour cream beef rice bake and it was so simple to just pull the ground beef and sausage from the frig all ready to go...and bring all of this to a boil...I then add 1/2 package of ditalini and tonight I let it come back to a boil and I turned the heat off, and covered the pan and just let the macaroni cook by itself and it came out great...

we all seem to have some bug here that we just keep passing around and from the looks of it I cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel till maybe, I don't know, summer??  so I am going thru all of my easy soup recipes...cause even this tonight still caused several of us to feel quesy...

yum happy eating makes for a good dinner even if you do not have a bug visiting your house like we do...

sour cream beef and rice with cornbread casserole

http://www.plainchicken.com/2015/11/sour-cream-beef-and-rice-casserole.html?utm_content=bufferd5b8b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

this recipe intrigued me but as I was assembling it I was not sure if anyone in my family would like it...imagine my surprise when everyone ate everything on their plate and said that they liked it...

the only thing I changed was that I added some italian sausage to the hamburger when I was browning it...(I made up enough of the ground beef and sausage for tomorrow's dinner too...)

I also put the sour cream and cottage cheese in the blender as my family does not like the chunks in the cottage cheese...

so this is a keeper and I might also try it with pasta too...

http://www.jiffymix.com/recipe.php/jiffy+corn+muffin+mix/156-spoon+bread+casserole

 this is go to recipe for a delicious cornbread casserole...we love this stuff...

yummy

sweet potato and coconut bread

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/232551/sweet-potato-and-coconut-bread/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=alr_588686621_ar_dailycontent

this is the recipe I followed...it turned out very nice...I made little loaves and put them in teacher's cubbies...

for the sweet potatoes, I used baby food sweet potatoes...

will definitely will make this again

homemade pea soup in the crock pot

I read several different posts on how to make split pea soup in the crock pot and then took my favorites and tried to incorporate them into one recipe that would please my family...

for the past week, I have made many family favorites, down home comfort dinners but, have posted about all of them before...but tonight it is a a little cold for us and I just felt like a good soup and I have not made homemade pea soup in quite awhile...everyone in the family likes pea soup except for hubby...
growing up in my huge family of 12 kids we often had pea soup but it was always the canned variety but since that is what I was used to I loved it...and Tim has a knack of making it just so that warms my heart...not sure of his secret...but tonight I wanted a homemade one...

read about 3 or 4 different recipes and decided to take a little from each one and make my own so, here is what I did...

after I put a slow cooker liner into my crock pot (seriously what did I ever do without these?), I added one package of split green peas and put in 48 ounces of chicken stock and to that I added one diced and chopped onion, 2 carrots, 3 stalks of celery, some diced ham and tons of seasonings (garlic salt, pepper, onion powder and some celery salt...)  and I turned the crock pot on high for about 5-6 hours...I took out the ham and some of the carrots and I then blended the soup on high (I do not particularly like the little peas...and after I blended, I added some heavy cream to give it a rich texture and added back in the ham and carrots and also some
diced up potatoes (just enough to not overwhelm the soup)...

we made some grilled cheese croutons to go with it...

everyone loved it and definitely wants this again and really it was super easy...