Sausage Waffles
One of the gifts from the cookie exchange was the movie Elf with a bottle of syrup. The movie got stolen from me, but I got stuck with the syrup. Since I had syrup, I had to make some waffles. I really liked the idea of making sausage waffles, so I thought I would give it a try and make the people at work try it with me. I think everyone that tried this is now a fan of sausage waffles!
Ingredients:
Waffle mix…I used bisquick and their recipe
Ground sausage
Syrup
Butter
Make the waffle mix
Put Sausage on the waffle iron and then add the waffle mix on top. Cook until brown.
Add butter and syrup and eat!
Box of Chili
It’s December and the weather has been really warm prior to this week. Since I knew it was supposed to get cold, Sunday I decided to make some chili. I have always been afraid to attempt making chili until I heard that you can buy chili in a box. It’s really a lot better than it sounds. It’s actually just the spices in the box and you add all the good stuff to make the chili your own. Let me tell you, this was REALLY easy to make. I highly recommend making some to keep you warm this winter!
Ingredients:
1 box of Carroll Shelby’s Chili Kit (There are other brands out there that I hear are really good, too)
1 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
1 can of diced tomatoes, (drained)
1 can of rotel
2 8 oz. cans of water
1 lb of browned ground beef, (drain fat)
1 lb of browned stew meat, (drain fat)
Add tomato sauce, diced tomato, rotel, water, spice packet, cayenne pepper, and salt packet in to the crockpot and put on high.
While the sauces are cooking, brown the ground beef, drain the fat.
Brown the stew meat, drain the fat.
Add the meat to the sauce mix and cook on high for three hours.
Add the Masa flour (from the kit) and 1/3 cup of water into the crockpot and cook for another 30 minutes. 
Once it’s cooked, put fritos in a bowl, put the chili on top and then add cheese on top of that. YUMMY Frito Pie!
You can also add additional things if you like to make it your own. I just don’t like all the extras, so this is all I added!
Salted Caramel Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies
For the last few years, we have had a cookie exchange with the girls at work. Every year, I try to make my own cookie. Last year, mine turned out so bad that I had to throw them away. It was a really simple recipe, so I’m not sure what possessed me to attempt to make a cookie from scratch this year. I followed the recipe EXACTLY the way that I found it on The Diary of Dave’s Wife website.
We also do a gift exchange at the party. I brought a leopard print santa hat and an iTunes gift card. I LOVE doing white elephant exchanges, but I always stress about what I’m going to bring. I have decided that everyone needs gift cards, so that is going to be my new go to for the future exchanges. At first I got the movie Elf and a thing of syrup in the exchange, but someone ended up stealing that from me. They didn’t want the syrup, so I ended up going home with syrup, a bottle of wine, and a corkscrew with a mustache top.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup unsalted butter, (softened)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups of all purpose flour
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup Kraft caramel bits
1/2 cup crushed pretzels
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
cream the butter and sugars together
Add egg and vanilla and blend it all together
Mix the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt
Stir in the chocolate chips, caramel bits, and crushed pretzels
Drop the dough on to a cookie sheet. The cookies don’t spread a lot, so you can put them fairly close together. I kind of smooshed them down a little bit on the cookie sheet and then added salt on top of them.
Bake for 8 – 10 minutes or until kind of browned around the edges. (Don’t over bake)
S’mores Bake
There is something about a s’more that puts me in a good mood! I’m not sure if it’s the chocolate or the crispy marshmallows, but either way, they make me happy! Unfortunately, I’m not around a campfire very often, so I rarely get the opportunity to actually make a s’more. I found this recipe on Pinterest that allows you to make a s’more in the oven, so I had to try it out for Thanksgiving. I liked it so much that I’m planning on making it again for my potluck on Wednesday.
Ingredients:
Graham crackers
Cookie Dough
Chocolate
Marshmallows
Line the pan with graham crackers
Cover with cookie dough, (I bought premade cookie dough) Cook this for about 10 minutes at 350.
Put chocolate on top of the cookie/graham crackers
Cover with marshmallows
Cook the whole thing in the oven at 350 until the marshmallows are browned a little – or to taste.
Jalapeño Creamed Corn
Thanksgiving has never been one of my favorite holidays. I am thankful for all the wonderful blessings in my life, but I really don’t like a lot of the Thanksgiving foods and I don’t like big meals. I’ve never cooked or done much to contribute to the meal in the past, but since I have started cooking a little bit, I decided to bring a side dish. I don’t think I will ever be as brave as my sister who has the same cooking ability as me, but managed to cook an entire turkey by herself. Not only did she cook it herself, it was one of the better turkeys I’ve ever eaten! I was really impressed!!
Everyone also seemed to be really impressed with my jalapeño cream corn dish. We were so hungry before everything was ready that people started eating it as a dip with crackers. It made for a wonderful appetizer AND side dish!! I found this recipe on my favorite website, pinterest. Thank you to Blogher for posting the recipe AND for getting pinned!
Ingredients:
3 cans of corn (drained)
1 stick of butter (room temperature)
1 block of cream cheese (room temperature)
3 Jalapeños (Cut and cored, remove all the seeds to get rid of the kick)
2 cups of sharp cheddar cheese
Cut and core the jalapeños, get rid of all the seeds, unless you want a kick to it.
Put all of the ingredients together in a casserole dish.
Mix it all together and put in the oven at 350 for about 45 minutes.
If you get rid of the seeds from the peppers, even the kids can eat this. It’s not spicy at all!! This is a great side dish to bring to a pot luck, also!!
Mexican Chicken Casserole
I’m still trying to make a dish that I can eat when I get home from work, but the biggest problem I have is that I make all this food and then life gets in the way of me eating my creations. I made this casserole on Monday and here it is Thursday and I’ve only eaten it once. I think tomorrow I will bring some of it to lunch or maybe I will even eat it for breakfast. The one time I got to eat this, I really enjoyed it. I recommend it as a keeper recipe since it’s good and REALLY easy to make! I found this recipe on the Paula Deen website and made a few adjustments to meet my tastes.
Ingredients:
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 can of cheddar cheese soup
2 cans of rotel (I drained the second can)
1 whole cooked chicken cut up in pieces, I bought a pre-made chicken at Target
6 flour tortillas
Enough cheddar cheese to cover the top of the casserole
Mix the three soups, rotel and chicken in a bowl.
Spray the pan with pam, then put tortillas down for the bottom layer
Put a layer of the soup/chicken mixture on the tortillas, then repeat tortilla then mixture ending with the tortillas on top
Put a layer of cheese on the tortillas
Cook in the oven on 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until cheese starts to brown
Enjoy a great meal!!
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!
Cauliflower Crust Pizza
One of the biggest problems with going on a low carb diet is that you can’t eat pizza. I’m not that big of a pizza eater, but I don’t like to think that I can’t have something, so when I saw a recipe for cauliflower crust, I figure I had to try it! When I tried the South Beach diet a few years ago, I would make the cauliflower mashed potatoes and it was awesome! It was one of my favorite things on the diet. Well, I’m excited to say that I have a new fun way to eat cauliflower now!!!
Ingredients:
Cauliflower Crust:
2 Eggs
2 Cups of Mozzarella Cheese
2 Cups of Shredded Cauliflower
2 Garlic Cloves, Minced
1/4 Cup Julienned Basil
Pinch of Salt an Pepper
Toppings:
Pizza sauce
Mozzarella Cheese
Sliced Tomatoes
Sliced Onions
Sliced Mushrooms
Basil Ricotta
Basil Ricotta:
1 Cup Ricotta
1 Tbsp Chopped Basil
Pinch of Salt and Pepper
Mix the cauliflower crust ingredients in a bowl.
Spread the cauliflower crust ingredients on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and sprayed with Pam. Bake the crust at 450 for 15 minutes. While you are waiting, prepare the toppings.
Mixe the basil ricotta
Slice the toppings.
Take the cauliflower crust out of the oven.
Put the toppings on the crust. Pizza sauce, then cheese, then tomatoes, then onions, then mushrooms, then basil ricotta.
Bake for 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.
Slice off a piece of pizza.
Eat it up. It’s a great substitution for real pizza. I would suggest adding more salt and pepper for taste and I think that some other toppings might spice it up a little bit!
Balsamic Chicken and Broccoli
Last week, I attempted a difficult recipe for my week of food. The lasagna was great and it lasted all week, but it was a lot of work. I’m so excited about my new meal plan of cooking for the whole week and not having to worry about what I eat every night. I’ve also started to try to make things that are low carb. I even bought low carb snacks to eat during the day.
This week, I decided to do something a little easier. There was only one problem. My dog, Cooper, decided to jump up on the counter and knock the crock part of the crockpot off and it busted in to a million pieces. Luckily, I still have a really small, not fancy crockpot, so I could still cook my weeks food. The only drawback to that is that the crockpot is a little small so I had to stuff everything in it. I found this recipe on Skinny Ms and added the broccoli. I ordered a new crock from Sears, so hopefully, it will be here in a few days. By next week, I’ll be crocking a new recipe in the big crockpot.
Ingredients:
4 Chicken Breast (Frozen or thawed)
2 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 broccoli
1 medium onion sliced
4 garlic cloves
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp basil
1 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
salt and pepper to taste
Put all the ingredients in the crockpot and let cook on high for 4 – 6 hours.
Here is what it looked like cooked.
I sliced up the chicken and then put the vegetables and sauce on top.
It was very tasty! You must like Balsamic Vinegar to like this though!!
Fabulous after FIFTY 