Taco dip
I really didn’t have time to make a meal for the week on Sunday, so here it was on Tuesday and I still had nothing. I decided that I would throw caution to the wind and make myself something that I would enjoy and not worry about how healthy it was. Naturally, my meal would have to include chips, so I decided I would make a taco dip. This is a really easy thing to make. When it was done, it reminded me of Bob Armstrong dip from Matt’s, but without the guacamole. I may have to stop by and get some guacamole from the store to add to my dip when I eat it again tonight!
Ingredient:
1 – 2 lbs. of ground round
2 packets of taco seasoning
Sour Cream
Velveeta 2%
Chips
Brown the ground round and add taco seasoning, follow directions on the bag.
Put the taco meat in a casserole dish. Layer sour cream on the taco meat.
Cover the taco meat with sour cream
Layer slices of velveeta cheese on top of the sour cream.
Put in the oven at 375 for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.
Take a scoop of the dip and put it in a bowl. Mix it up and dip your chips!
Pigs in a Blanket
I know that everyone knows how to make pigs in a blanket, but just in case you don’t, you need to! These tiny kolaches have to be the best weekend breakfast food ever. They are also so easy to make that I highly recommend them!!
Ingredients:
Little smokey sausage (I got the ones that had cheese in them)
Can of biscuits
Pop the can of biscuits and cut the biscuits in half. Wrap a half biscuit around each smokey. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 – 12 minutes. That’s it!! Eat them up!! You can even put them in a baggie, put them in the fridge, and eat the left overs throughout the week!
No Noodle Lasagna
I had a great weekend this weekend. My aunt came in from Florida, so I went to Dallas to see my family. I had so much fun spending the days shopping with my mom and her sister. My mom and aunt are so cute when they are together. They are three years apart and they share the same birthday. I loved all the reminiscing that I got to do and hear this weekend. On top of all the fun, this was a great shopping weekend. I think we hit every Marshalls and TJ Maxx in the city of Dallas. I got lots of cute clothes to wear to work. I even got a cute pair of earrings. I may have to blog about them later.
When I got home, I needed to cook my meal for the week. That worked out so well last week. I am only trying to maintain my weight, but I ended up losing a couple of pounds, too! (I usually like to plan everything by ear, but I guess planning ahead works out sometimes.) I decided to go for a no noodle lasagna. This is the hardest recipe that I’ve attempted and it really wasn’t so bad. I found the recipe off the Dashing Dish website when looking at Pinterest.
Ingredients:
For Noodles:
5-6 Zucchini
Salt
Pepper
For Meat Mixture:
1.5 lb. Ground Turkey
1 Large Diced Onion
2 Cups Chopped Broccoli
2 Cups Chopped Cauliflower
2 Cups Chopped Spinach
1Cup Chopped Mushrooms
1 Jar of Spaghetti Sauce
1 Clove of Garlic (Minced)
1 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Pepper
For Cheese Mixture:
16 oz. Cottage Cheese
1/2 Cup Parmesan Cheese (Grated)
3/4 Cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
Slice up the zucchini into strips. Spray cookie sheet with cooking oil. Put zucchini on sheet, add salt and pepper. Bake in oven at 425 for 5 – 10 minutes on each side.
Chop all of the vegetables and mix them together.
Brown the ground turkey
Put all of the vegetable ingredients, meat, and the spaghetti sauce together in a really large skillet and cook until the vegetables begin to get soft.
Put a layer of meat sauce on bottom, put a layer of zucchini in a casserole dish.
Add a layer of cheese mixture on top of the zucchini.
Add another layer of zucchini, then another layer of meat.
Top with parmesan cheese, cover with foil, and put in the oven at 450 for an hour.
Take off the foil and put back in the oven to brown the cheese for about 2 – 5 minutes.
I think I let it brown too long, but it still tastes really great!!
Italian Lemon Chicken
I love an easy recipe! I think this could be the easiest one I’ve made yet. I put the Italian Lemon Chicken in the crockpot and when I got home, the house smelled SOOOOO good!!! Once I ate it, I found out that it tasted just as good as it smelled!!!
Ingredients:
1 cube of butter
3 lemons (juiced)
2 packages of Italian Dressing Mix
Chicken
I threw all the ingredients in the crockpot. The chicken was even frozen.
Crockpot was on high. I was surprised that there was a lot of juice in the crockpot after cooking it a few hours. Chicken is done when it hits 170 degrees. It took about 3 – 4 hours.
YUM! Seems like I should have thought to make a vegetable or something to eat with my chicken…but I guess I will have to learn how to do that another day!
Mattitos
I borrowed this picture from Mattitos.com
Today’s fajita lunch was brought to me by Mattitos restaurant. This was my first time to eat at a Mattitos and I really enjoyed it. As usual, I got beef fajitas. I think I could eat fajitas almost every day. I’d have to alternate with nachos though. When my friend ordered the Bob Armstrong dip, I realized that Mattitos must be a part of the Matt’s El Rancho family. I didn’t eat the Bob Armstrong dip this time, but I used to go to Matt’s just for the amazing dip. Legend has it that the former Land Commissioner asked for something off the menu and the chef came up with this delicious slice of cheesy heaven. The fajitas were excellent. I think I actually liked the fajitas at Mattitos better then the fajitas at Matt’s. I also had a really good time being there with some of my favorite people!
Mi Cocina
I think most people judge a good Mexican food place by their salsa, but I judge them by their fajitas. Mi Cocina Mexican food restaurants are ALL over Dallas, and I’ve never been to one that I didn’t like. They cook their fajitas with potatoes, which I don’t eat, but it’s a little different. I like that they don’t over-cook the fajitas. Most places serve them so burnt that you can’t even enjoy them. You can get about 4 tacos from their servings, so that could probably even feed two people! If you are ever in Dallas area, make sure to try Mi Cocinas.
Genghis Grill
My mom and I went to eat at the Genghis Grill on Lemmon Avenue in Dallas tonight. She had never been there, so we thought it would be a fun place to try together. I really enjoy this place because I am a really picky eater and I get to choose which ingredients I want in my food. Another bonus about this location is that you don’t have to pay for parking. There is a garage underneath the building. The first floor was packed, so we parked on the lower level. The elevator lets out right at the grill. It was odd because we were the only ones in the restaurant when we got there. I think this place is always packed, but maybe with the holidays no one was out. It was nice to have the place to ourselves.
I learned the hard way that you have to heap the vegetables over the bowl. I made sure that my bowl would have had food dropping off the plate if I even attempted to add any more food. I got steak, shrimp, and scallops.
They cook all the food on this big grill. If you wanted to you could watch them cook your food. We just went and sat down and waited.
This is what my food looked like once it was cooked. I made two tacos with mine and then took the rest of the food home. I can’t wait to eat the leftovers tomorrow!!
Braised Hoisin Beer Short Ribs
Now that I have my crockpot, I had to cook something in it. My first meal had to be short ribs. I think the crockpot was probably invented just to cook short ribs. I found this recipe on Food.com. It was probably the easiest short rib recipe that I found. I prefer the recipes that involve me throwing things in a pot and leaving it. I’ll make one of those next time. I’m going to buy a crockpot cookbook on my iPad, but I’m not really sure which one is the best. If anyone has one that they like, feel free to let me know!
Ingredients:
3 lbs short ribs
salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
10 – 12 garlic gloves, smashed
1 inch piece gingerroot, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch slices
12 ounces good ale
3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1/2 – 1 cup hoisin sauce
Season the ribs with salt and pepper. Brown the short ribs. Remove the ribs and pour off all but a couple tablespoons of the fat.
Sauté the ginger and garlic, once it’s sautéed pour the beer over it to deglaze and then turn the flame off.
Put the browned short ribs in the crockpot
Put the sautéed garlic and ginger on the ribs
Pour beer and vinegar on the ribs until it’s covered.
Cook in the crockpot for about 2 1/2 hours.
Add Hoisin Sauce and put in the pre heated oven (300 degrees) for 30 minutes.
Put on a plate and serve with your favorite vegetables. YUM!!!
BBQ chicken
I love making stuff in the crockpot. It’s so easy to throw everything in there and then forget about it. I’m really not the type of cook that wants to make a fuss. I saw this recipe and really wanted to try it because it involved coke in the ingredients. I rushed out to the store and bought all the ingredients, came home and started preparations to cook the chicken. The only thing I didn’t factor in is that I have a really small crockpot. I couldn’t get the chicken to fit in, so I had to have Mike cut off the legs and wings to make it fit. Then, since the chicken took up all the room, the other ingredients didn’t really fit either and it ended up overflowing. After I got the majority of the ingredients finally in the crockpot, I turned it on and left it for a couple hours. I’m not sure what possessed me to go look at the progress, since that is a little more work than I was planning to do, but when I checked I noticed that the crockpot wasn’t even working!!! OMG!! It was all just sitting there marinading I guess. I moved the crockpot to another plug and changed the setting to high and it miraculously started working, so it all worked out in the end!
Ingredients:
Onions
Lemon
BBQ Sauce
Coke
Whole chicken – (or one with no legs or wings works too!)
Cut up the lemons and onions
Put the lemons, onions and chicken in the crockpot
Add BBQ sauce and coke
Cook until the chicken is ready. Probably about 4 – 6 hours.
This looks pretty pitiful, but it’s really tasty!
Mike said he made the best bbq sauce ever by using all the stuff the chicken was cooking in and adding a bunch of other stuff, but I have no idea what he added.
Quick dip
Today I had the opposite problem than I had the other day. I have chips, but I have very little cheese. When I make nachos, I have to use A LOT of cheese. I still had some sour cream left over from the bean dip, so I made my favorite easy to make dip:
Ingredients:
Sour Cream
Pace Picante Sauce
Shredded cheese
You can use whatever amounts you like.
Put Sour Cream in a bowl.
Add Picante Sauce, I like Pace Medium.
Add shredded Cheese and mix it up good.
Dip chip and eat. YUM! I like this dip with my nachos too. Sometimes I don’t add the cheese to the dip.
Fabulous after FIFTY 