God has His Plan!

God has His Plan!

As previously posted, I mentioned that February sort of got away from me when my uncle passed away and I never fully got it back on track with my meal plans.  I never gave it much more thought because I knew that, since I had not followed my plan, I never did the recap and finale of my pantry clean out.

Now we are at the end of March and yes I did cook at home, just not as much as I should have.  We have been trying to prepare for this shut in.  My husband returned from Egypt, the day before it was announced about the delayed and stopped flights, Thank God for that.  He is still working, as of March 28, since he works in a restaurant that does delivery and pick/up.  He's not making much money because of this but at least he's still working.

God's plan was to keep our pantry fully stocked. Little did we know that was why we weren't following MY plan.

I have gone shopping for the essentials and stocked up on some things that I felt like we would need if this continued for a while.  I bought us flour (both self rising and all purpose), I canned us some Egyptian style veg (this will take 3 weeks to set up), I went to a food bank on the 6th and 27th and received some nice food, ground beef, 3 packs with 2 half pound jalapeno/pepper jack hamburger patties (might fry this up and use it as ground beef in a chili or stew), 6 hearts of Romaine, 2 pints of vanilla yogurt, a small pack of beef weiners (bought some BBQ to go on them) 1 white onion, a bag of starbucks coffee, bagels, rolls and breads, some various canned foods, beans and rice.

I have decided that instead of my usual drink, Dr Pepper, that I would start making tea and drinking that instead.  Normally I would continue with the Dr Pepper, but with hubby not making much right now and my check has gone towards the bills, funds are a little tight, so I cut what I can.

What I can show you, picture wise, is a nice tuna salad sandwich that we made from our food pantry box, in which we received some pre-made tuna and pickles with onion along with these delightful rolls.

We also had a nice breakfast one morning of a southwestern omelette with provolone cheese served sandwich style on an anything bagel that was provided in the a fore mentioned pantry box.  The omelette was made with chopped onion and green peppers sauteed in butter before mixed in the eggs.

I will post again with a few more pictures and actual meals that we had.

Take care everyone and stay safe.  If we all do our part this virus will run it's course and we will be free to go to work, attend school and live our lives as normal once again.

Delay, delay, delay

I'm so sorry for the delays!  We thought we were on the home stretch with finishing our home and moving in, however that turned out to not happen after all.  The contractors failed to show up for work most of February and very little was completed.  We still have no heat, along with unfinished ceilings, floors and the cabinets are not back up. No plumbing in the kitchen has been hooked back up and everything needs a good scrubbing.

All of this on top of losing my uncle last month and my husband still being out of town has just pushed my depression back into overdrive.  Neither mom or I have been cooking.  We did have an enchilada soup that I haven't shared because it wasn't good, so we will tweak it and try again in a bit and pray that it works that time and we've had pizza, can't go wrong with pizza.  Other than that we've had breakfast foods and take out.  I promise to get back to cooking soon, hubby should be back next week and I will have no choice but to cook for him because he's not much into take out.  We will see how things go.

On a bright note, my stepson has completed his first and second rounds of chemo and is now back home with only weekly trips for treatment.  Thank God, I am praying for a full recovery to his leukemia.

Happy Cooking!

Not Ignoring The Blog

I promise that I'm not ignoring the blog.  I had some work done on my back this past Friday and mom fixed us a delicious meatloaf for dinner that night.  Since then, we have pretty much had leftovers and turkey bacon sandwiches up until last night when I decided to make us an egg and cheese omelette to add to our turkey bacon sandwich.  I promise to get back to cooking and sharing recipes again shortly.

Spaghetti Bolognese

Spaghetti Bolognese

That's a mouth full to say, but it's so very good.  As I continue with our second month of cleaning out the pantry, I realized that I had so much pasta and didn't really want to make just plain spaghetti to use it up, and then I remembered making this years ago for my family and decided to do it again.  I will admit that this is not my recipe, but one found on Kraft's recipe site.  I will link to it shortly. 
 

I only had to splurge and buy a couple of things that I don't always have on hand and that was the Zesty Italian Dressing and the Cream Cheese, I also picked up a can of diced tomatoes that did not contain green chili. I had a small green pepper so I chopped it up into tiny pieces and snuck it in there.  I served it with some bread I had in the fridge topped with butter and garlic and broiled to brown it.

Spaghetti with Zesty Bolognese Sauce

1 small onion, chopped

1/4 cup KRAFT Zesty Italian Dressing (I bought an 8oz bottle and used all of it)

1 lb. extra-lean ground beef

1 can (15 oz.) tomato sauce

1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained

3/4 lb. spaghetti, uncooked

2 Tbsp. PHILADELPHIA Neufchatel Cheese (I used Cream Cheese)

1/4 cup KRAFT Grated Parmesan Cheese

 

Cook and stir onions in dressing in large skillet on medium heat 5 min. or until crisp-tender. Add meat; cook on medium-high heat until browned, stirring frequently. Stir in tomato sauce and tomatoes. Bring to boil; simmer on medium-low 15 min., stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, cook spaghetti as directed on package, omitting salt.

Remove sauce from heat. Add Neufchatel (Cream Cheese); stir until melted. Drain spaghetti; place in large bowl. Top with sauce and Parmesan.

 

This is a very tasty dish, one day I might make it exactly as directed, but today was not that day.

 

Enjoy!

 

Tator Tot Casserole

Tator Tot Casserole

Monday was the 25th Birthday of my twin sons.  It's hard to believe that they are not toddlers anymore.  Seems like I just had them and now they are handsome young men, treating mom out to dinner on Sunday night because we share a birthday week.While we were at dinner they were both huddled over their phones at one point and suddenly they looked up, turned the phone around and asked, "Mom, do you know how to make this?"  The funniest part is, they both know that I do because they grew up eating it.  They were asking me about, none other than, Tator Tot Casserole. 

I originally had this planned for Wednesday night's dinner, because it's easy and I like it and it's my birthday, but as with any plan, they are made to be broken so I made this on Monday night instead and one of my sons joined us for dinner.

Since my husband is still out of town, I have been amassing quite a freezer collection of dinner items for him because I have been saving him a serving of each meal that I have been making.  I made this one a bit different than normal. 

I had a little over 2lbs of pre cooked ground meat, this was a mix of ground beef and ground turkey that I had prepared earlier this month and froze.  I thawed it somewhat in the microwave and broke it up into smaller pieces and mixed it together with the soups ( I used 3 cans of soup and 2 packs of the onion soup mix since I had extra meat), then put it in the bottom of the baking dish and added the cheese and tots. It wasn't until my mom was having it for lunch on Tuesday that she even thought to ask about the meat remembering that I had precooked the ground beef with the ground turkey.  After I affirmed that it was that meat, she decided that she was full and refused to eat the rest, lol. If I were to use extra meat in the future, I think I will stick to just the one pack of onion soup mix and this was a tad bit heavy on the salt, other than that it was delicious and my son had absolutely no complaints.

Tator Tot Casserole

This can be done in the crock pot or the oven, depending on how you want to prepare it..

2 lb ground beef, browned and drained
2 cans cream of potato soup (any "cream of" soup will work)
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (we use mild)
1 package Lipton Onion Soup Mix
1 bag of frozen tator tots

To bake in the oven, preheat oven per the bag of tator tots.  Mix the Cream of soup and the Lipton Soup mix together, then layer the beef in the bottom of a casserole dish, spread the soup mix over the beef, top with the shredded cheese and then place the tator tots over this until it is completely covered.  Bake per the directions of the tator tots until the cheese in the center is melted. I usually cook it at 400 for 35 minutes and check the center.

If preparing in the crock pot, spray with non stick cooking spray (to make clean up easier).  Mix the "cream of" soup with the Lipton Onion Soup Mix.  For mushy tator tots, place them on the bottom of the crock pot, then cover with the meat followed by the soups, cook on low for 5-6 hours or high for 2-3 hours.  If you don't want the tots to be mushy, put them on top of the other ingredients, or even split them up evenly between the top and bottom (you may need to adjust cooking time for the ones on top).  Top with cheese when serving.

I personally prefer the oven.

Enjoy!

Shredded Mexican Beef Steak

Shredded Mexican Beef Steak

I had 3 medium sized steaks given to me that I had been keeping in the freezer trying to decide how to fix them.  Since it's winter here and no one has used moms grill in several years, that wasn't an option for me and I just didn't like the thought of baking them or frying them in a pan.  So, I started thinking outside the box.  We had a delicious cube steak and gravy a few nights back and it was so tender from being cooking in the crockpot with the onion soup that I decided to do that with these steaks.  I added in a can of cream of onion, an onion soup mix and a packet of taco seasoning to give it a different taste than the cube steak and viola, we had a Mexican steak.  I liked it, mom just got back late the next night so she hasn't tried it yet and my son loved it.

I added some jalapeño and hot sauce to my bowl as I tend to like extra spice with mine.

Here is the recipe:

Mexican Shredded Steak

3 medium sized steaks
1 can of french onion soup
1 can cream of onion soup
1 packet of dry onion soup mix (might leave this out if I  make again)
1 packet of taco seasoning

Mix all of the soups and seasonings together then pour over the steaks.  I moved the steaks around some to get the seasoning under them too.  Cook on low 6-8 hours, remove the steak and shred, putting it back in and mixing it up to cover with the sauce.  Serve with tortilla (soft or hard), cheese if desired and toppings of your choice.

This is my own recipe, so when I make this again, I make tweak it and make changes.  I'm thinking that it would be nice with some chopped onion and sliced green pepper to make it more fajita like, so who knows what will be in it next time.

Enjoy.

Crockpot Chicken

Crockpot Chicken

I found a whole, organic, cut up, chicken in the mark down at my local grocery store and picked it up for just over $4.00. I decided to cook it in the crockpot with some seasoning and broth and then decide what to do with it afterwards.  I'm sorry to say that I did not get a "finished" picture. When it was done cooking I placed everything in a bowl and put it in the fridge and went to bed.  Unfortunately my uncle passed away before I did anything else with it and I decided to give it to his daughter, my moms neighbor, to keep her from having to cook dinner for her family.  Here is the recipe that I created.

Crockpot Chicken

I layers the chicken pieces in the bottom of the crockpot and sprinkled in  the Garlic and Herb seasoning, followed by the Season All and then splashed on some Cardamom and Coriander.  I did not measure anything, I just went with my gut on how much.

I then topped it with some butter, cut and sprinkled over the top.  Then followed up with a 14.5 oz can of chicken broth.

I then let this cook on low for 7 hours and removed it to a bowl to cool and refrigerate until I could use it the next day.