Warm Bean Dip
I think if you work around a lot of women, a pot luck is bound to happen. We were at training yesterday and the group decided that if we did a pot luck today and worked through lunch, we can get out early. I jumped all over that because we are supposed to be doing four day work weeks and today is supposed to be a day off anyway. Plus, I’m a morning person and by the end of the day I’m tired. The only issue I had with it is that I don’t live very close to a grocery store, so last minute pot lucks are not easy for me. I decided that I would make something that WOULD be easy for me, so I chose this bean dip recipe that I saw on Pinterest. The original recipe was found at the life at a loft house blog. Since I didn’t get home until late yesterday, I got up early this morning to make my bean dip. I hope it’s still hot by the time people want to eat it, but I kind of doubt it will be.
Ingredients:
1 8 ounce package of softened cream cheese
1 cup of sour cream
1 pkg. of taco seasoning
2 16 ounce cans of refried beans
4 cups of shredded monterrey jack/cheddar cheese
pre heat the oven to 350.
Mix the sour cream and cream cheese
Add in the two cans of bean dip and mix it really well
Add in the taco seasoning and mix it up
Put the bean mixture in a 9X13 baking pan with cooking spray.
Sprinkle cheese on top and then put in the oven (at 350 degrees) for 25 – 30 minutes or until the cheese is melted and/or a little brown.
Serve with chips!
Brie Bites
As usual, I was looking on Pinterest at all the delicious looking food and found a recipe for Brie Bites. I love brie, so this seemed like a match made in heaven for me. When I looked at the recipe up close, I felt like they looked kind of bland, so I made some adjustments. I’d say that this is the first recipe that is mostly mine. I figured everyone loves bacon, so I added that and apple to the recipe and got rid of the pecans. I was going to make these for one of the parties yesterday, but I think it’s better that I had the opportunity to try them out first. I’ll be bringing these to future party events because they are GOOD! Mike said he would add something spicy to the mix, maybe cayenne pepper or jalapeño peppers, but I don’t really like spicy.
Ingredients:
Phyllo tarts
bacon
brown sugar
apple
brie
Make some bacon bits
While bacon is cooking, put the phyllo tarts on a cookie sheet
Add brie to the phyllo cup
Top the brie with about 1/2 tsp of brown sugar
Top that with apple
Top that with bacon, put in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes or until the brie is melted.
Let cool and eat!
crockpot beer chicken tacos
Since there is just two of us, eating a whole chicken is a week long process. So far I’ve really enjoyed the crockpot beer chicken that I made the other day. I have said it before, everything tastes better in a tortilla. I decided this is a good time to test that theory out by putting the beer chicken into a tortilla with cheese. My theory is still right. This makes a great little taco and was a great leftover meal!
Ingredients:
Chicken
Cheese
Tortilla… I used wheat tortillas because that is all I had.
Microwave for 1 minute. Then eat!
Beer Crockpot Chicken
Now that I have gotten in to attempting recipes, I’ve been trying to find things that I would like to cook. I really prefer to make desserts, but I also want to get better at cooking main dishes. I really enjoy cooking with the crockpot because it is so easy to put a bunch of ingredients in a pot and walk away. I got this recipe from My Daily Dish. I figured that I like chicken and I like beer so it HAS to be good!
Ingredients
1 whole chicken (according to the recipe I used, you can also use cut up pieces or 4-6 chicken breasts)
1 can of any kind of beer (I used a bottle of Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat because that’s what I had in the fridge)
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp Basil
1/2 tsp Paprika
1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
1/2 tsp Black Pepper
I put all the ingredients in first and then added the whole chicken.
Cook in the crockpot on high for 3 – 4 hours or on low for 7 – 8 hours. I cooked it on high.
The recipe said you could also cook a frozen chicken, you just have to cook it longer.
My favorite meal
Everyone that knows me knows that I LOVE nachos. I have even eaten nachos for breakfast before. I figured since I am eating them for dinner tonight, I would share my recipe with everyone. This is the moment that I’m sure EVERYONE has been waiting for!!!
Ingredients:
Chips
Cheese
You put chips on a plate. I prefer Tostito Rounds, but you can use any kind you want.
Put shredded cheese all over the chips. I use colby/jack pre-shredded cheese, but this time I didn’t have enough, so I also added sharp cheddar pre-shredded cheese. 
Put in microwave for 1 minute or until melted.
Voila! You have an instant meal!
Southwestern Chicken Cornbread Salad
This weekend I signed up to climb to the top of the Frost Building to raise money for the American Lung Association. You would think that knowing I’d be climbing about 33 flights of stairs that I would train a little bit for it. Nope. Not me. I have let it go until the last minute and now I am going to just have to do it. I’m really nervous, but I’m going to make it no matter what!! I’m not sure why I thought I would be better off making something to eat rather than training this week, but I found this and it seemed easy enough.
I got this recipe off Pinterest. I copied it exactly from the recipe on Martha Stewart’s website. The only major prep to this was making the cornbread, grilling the chicken and dicing some of the vegetables. Other than that, it was an easy recipe to make!!
- 6 cornbread muffins, very dry, coarsely crumbled, divided… I used a box of jiffy cornbread muffins and just made it in a small dish
- 1 (2.25 ounce) can sliced ripe olives drained
- 1 (16 ounce) can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 (11 ounce) can whole kernel sweet corn, drained
- 1 cup Hidden Valley® Spicy Ranch Dressing, divided
- 1 cup bell pepper, diced, assorted colors
- 2 chicken breasts, grilled*
- 1/2 cup red onion, diced
- 1 cup tomatoes, seeded and diced
- 1/2 cup Cheddar cheese, shredded
- In large clear salad bowl or trifle dish, layer half of the cornbread followed by olives, pinto beans and corn. Top with 1/2 cup of the dressing. Layer with bell pepper, chicken, onion, tomatoes, remaining cornbread and remaining dressing. Sprinkle with cheese.
- Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight.
Taco Salad
A bunch of the teachers at my school decided to participate in the National Screen Free Week this year along with about 120 of the students. We wrote down some of the things that we wanted to do instead of playing on computers/games and watching TV. Several of us wrote that we would cook more. I got the bright idea that maybe we should have a potluck with some of the new recipes that we were going to try. The first person that responded said she was going to make enchiladas, so I had to find something that would somewhat go with that. It also happened to be May 4th, so the potluck kind of turned in to a Cinco de Mayo theme. I’ve always liked taco salad, so that is what I decided to make. I found this recipe on Pinterest. It was pretty good, but I think it would have been easier if I just would have used a packet of taco seasoning. If you don’t like to use pre-made mixes though, this is a great recipe to try! I got this recipe from Taste of Home website.
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1 medium head iceberg lettuce, torn
- 2 medium tomatoes, diced
- 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Mexican cheese blend
- 1 can (2-1/4 ounces) sliced ripe olives, drained
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup taco sauce
- 1 package (10-1/2 ounces) corn chips
Nutritional Facts1 serving (1 cup) equals 245 calories, 17 g fat (4 g saturated fat), 22 mg cholesterol, 398 mg sodium, 14 g carbohydrate, 2 g fiber, 8 g protein.
Cook the meat over medium heat until it is no longer pink, then drain.
Stir in the ketchup, oregano, chili powder, salt and pepper. After it boils, reduce the heat and let it simmer with a lid on it for 10 minutes.
To make the dressing, Mix the taco sauce and the mayonnaise. I had to use my hand blender to get the lumps out.
Since it was for a potluck, I served everything separate and let people add all the ingredients the way they wanted for their plate. It can be pre-made for a family if you wanted, but you would need to serve it immediately.
Back to reality
Well, I’m back in Austin after a nice long weekend! I really had a great trip to Dallas! I got to spend a lot of time with my family and friends! Saturday night, I went to a party at one of my friend’s house. There was so much food there it was unbelievable! Mike brought two appetizers. One of his friends he grew up with shipped Slovanian Sausage to him from Wisconsin, so he made a little appetizer with that. I didn’t think I’d like Slovanian sausage, but it was really good. He also made bris/apple/bacon quesadillas. These were AMAZING!! I probably ate like 3 of them. I hope he makes those again.
Sunday, we had a perfect Easter. We went to breakfast at Cafe Brazil in Deep Ellum with my family and then Easter dinner at Mike’s parent’s house. We had lamb for Easter dinner that was to die for! I love all the good eating I did!! After I got back to my parents’ house from doing all this eating, I ended up walking on the Katy Trail. I walked from the American Airline Center to Central Expressway. It was a little under 8 miles and took me two hours. After that, I went with another friend to Wing Stop for dinner. I was afraid to get on the scale today, because I’m sure that was a five pound weekend!! I’ll get back on track this week!
Zucchini Bake
I’m not going to lie. I didn’t make this casserole myself. I had planned to do it alone, but I ended up having a late meeting and didn’t get home in time. Mike picked up the slack and cooked the casserole for me. Usually Mike does all the cooking anyway, so I don’t think he minded. In fact, he told me that he wants to go back to doing all the cooking especially the main dishes. Even though I’ve been having fun with this, I don’t really mind giving that up.
Makes 4-6 servings
Ingredients:
2 medium-sized zucchini, cut in slices or half-moon slices
2 medium-sized yellow squash, cut in slices or half-moon slices
Handful of sliced mushrooms
2-4 T chopped fresh basil
2 T thinly sliced green onion
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
3/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 cup + 1/2 cup pizza cheese
1/2 cup coarsely grated Parmesan
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a baking dish non-stick spray. Cut zucchini, squash, and mushrooms into slices. Chop basil into tiny pieces. Slice green onions.
Combine the sliced squash, zucchini, mushroom, chopped basil, sliced green onions, dried thyme, garlic powder, and both kinds of cheese and stir together until everything is mixed. Season with salt and fresh ground black pepper. Put the mixture in the baking dish and bake uncovered for about 25-30 minutes.
When the zucchini is nearly cooked through, take the casserole dish out of the oven and sprinkle over the remaining 1/2 cup of grated cheese. Put the dish back in the oven and bake for another 10-15 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and browned, (if you like cheese that way). Serve hot.
This was really good. I didn’t think it had enough salt, so I added more. Overall, this is a great side dish to any meal! Happy eating!!
Crock Pot Creamy Pork Chops
I saw this recipe on Pinterest yesterday and figured it was worth a try. With only three store bought ingredients, I felt sure I couldn’t mess it up. When I got home I added all the ingredients to the crock pot and then went on about my business. We took Cooper to his second puppy training class and when we got home it was ready! I usually don’t like to eat after 6:00, but I was dying to try how it tasted. Honestly, it was just ok. I think it needed more flavor. It was good, just not anything to write home about.
The three ingredients are:
Several pork chops
1 – 2 cans of cream of chicken
1 packet of ranch dry mix
1 can of water – we used chicken broth too,(so that really bumps us up to 4 store bought ingredients)
I think this would be a better recipe with 2 packets of ranch dry mix and maybe just use chicken broth instead of water.
First you mix up the cream of corn, ranch mix and water
Add the pork chops to the mix and cook on low for 4 – 6 hours.
Tonight we are going to try this with a zucchini/squash bake! Yum! Happy eating!!
Fabulous after FIFTY 