Meatball Sub Casserole

COMFORT FOOD ALERT!!!

My friend Carli who is one of my favorite little cooks posted this great recipe on her recipe blog which is called The Dinner Drama. When I saw this recipe on her site - I started drooling and knew I had to try it.

Here's the recipe from The Dinner Drama


Parents Review: I had a love/hate with mine once I made it. I was in LOVE with the flavors and all the comfort of this dish, but I have to admit that I didn't love the frozen meatballs (I used a name brand italian meatball from Walmart I believe). I think next time I will make my own. Secondly, my bread was a little soggy and texture-wise, it didn't set well with me. I talked to Carli and my friend Julie who made it and they said their bread was crispy. I would lessen the water next time and not put all the sauce on it. I have heard tons of great things about this recipe, but I know I'm not the only one who has had the soggy bread issue. I will make again and give it another go, because seriously, flavor-wise - it was perfect!

Kids Review: Little Girl who is picky beyond belief wouldn't eat it. She asked for leftover Salmon and broccoli, and yes my friends, that is what this child ate for dinner. Baby Boy devoured every single bite and loved it!

I would love to hear if any of you girls make this and what your experience is. Your feedback is so fun to get and use to tweak my recipes!

Thanks Carli for this yummy comfort recipe!

Swiss Cheese & Bacon Quiche

This recipe actually calls for diced ham, but I am a bacon girl, and while watching my wait furthermore, I am a TURKEY bacon girl. No difference to me really. I cook mine up in the oven until it is nice and crispy and I love it all the same.

So, I made this recipe awhile back, like WAY back when we first moved to Indiana and we were staying in an apartment while our house was being built.

It feels like a lifetime ago.

Anyway, I remember making this for Big Breakfast one morning along with some Monkey Bread and we were in love.

I made it this time for dinner and it was a hit.

Here's the link to the recipe.

Oh, and here's a picture of the pan literally 15 minutes after I put it out.


Parents Review: It was so easy and it turned out perfectly. I even used half and half instead of the cream and milk because that is all I had and it was still great.
Kids Review: They both gobbled it up. It was a Christmas miracle!!

Momma's Beef Stew

I have been eating my mom's beef stew since way before I can even remember. When winter time comes, inevitably so does this dish on our kitchen table.

And it MUST be served with home-made biscuits. No question.

I made this for all of us on Christmas Eve and I forgot to get a good picture, so forgive the ones that I am including, they were a last minute remembrance.

It's super thick and a stick to your ribs kind of stew.


Here's the recipe:

2 lbs. lean beef stew meat
Cut into bite size pieces (if they aren't already), dredge with flour and brown well in large pot in a little bit of olive oil.
After meat is browned on all sides - add 4 Cups of Water, a little pepper and 2 tsp. Salt

Bring to a boil - then simmer covered for 1 1/2 hours. Add 1 small chopped onion to pot, along with chopped carrots and cubed potatoes (just enough to make it full of meat and veggies). I think I used 6 yukon gold potatoes and about 1/2 bag of baby carrots - chopped.

Salt again. Cook another 45 minutes or until veggies are tender.

Serve with biscuits. My mom makes them from scratch, but I have to confess and tell you that I love the Bisquick biscuit recipe on the back of the box. They always turn out big and fluffy and they are awesome. We like to throw a biscuit in with our stew to eat, we like to put butter or jelly on a couple on the side and then at the end - NO, I am not kidding - we like to pour syrup over a biscuit or two to polish off this meal. I have no idea how we started eating them like this, but I have done it since I was a kid, and it's so amazing! Can you tell I eat like 15 biscuits with every bowl? Yeah. I was hoping you wouldn't pick up on that.

:-)

You will love this. It takes time, but it is SO SIMPLE and so good.

Parents Review: Yay!
Kids Review: They both love it!

Hershey's M&M Kisses & Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Yes, today is a two-for-one special. Two of my favorite things to bake are some of the easiest. First, the sweet and salty treat.

Hershey's M&M Kisses

Take a bunch of pretzels, unwrap a ton of hershey's kisses and set them on top of said pretzels on a cookie sheet. Pop them in the oven at 275 degrees for exactly 3 minutes. Pull them out, push an m&m down in the middle of each one. Put in fridge to set and cool.

Eat and Eat and Eat until all your sweet and salty cravings are abolished! Yummo!



And Here's your second recipe of the night. I was given this recipe from a friend when we brought Little Girl home. A good friend of mine had thrown me a baby shower and one of the sweet women in this group brought me some chocolate chip banana bread along with her gift....and the recipe.

It's the only one I use now.

Here it is:

1/2 Cup Butter
1 Cup Sugar
Cream Together
Add 2 eggs
Mix dry ingredients together
2 Cups of Flour
1 tsp of Baking Soda
1/4 tsp of Salt
Add dry ingredients to butter and egg mixture
Mash 3 large bananas
Add mashed bananas to ingredients
Add in 1 cup chocolate chips
Grease and flour a long bread pan (or muffin tin or mini loaf pans. I've done all 3)
Pour mixture into greased pan
Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes
Melt 2 Tbs of butter
Pour over bread after it comes out of oven
Sprinkle bread with cinnamon sugar mixture

DEVOUR!!

Parents Review: I made extra and put them in my freezer so I can pull them out the night before I want to indulge on this for breakfast! Yummy!
Kids Review: Love!

Check back this week for my Mom's Beef Stew Recipe and Swiss Cheese and Bacon Quiche!

Have a great night!

White Chocolate Crunch Popcorn

White Chocolate Crunch Popcorn

One bag microwave popcorn
1/2 pkg white almond bark
1 tbsp peanut butter, plus a little shortening
1 cup Rice Krispies
1 cup peanuts
1 cup M&M's (i added this)

Just melt the almond bark and peanut butter in the microwave (according to pkg directions)
add a little bit of solid shortening too just to make the mixture a little thinner (I added 1 tbsp)
Pour over other ingredients and mix well.
Spread out on wax paper...
Salt (It calls for it, but I didn't think it needed it)
Let it dry and...yum yum!



I got this recipe from my awesome friend JULIE. She had received it as a gift from someone and they gave her the recipe. One taste made me high-tail-it over to the grocery store to buy the ingredients I needed. Words can't tell you how much I love this popcorn. I would be munching on it right now if I hadn't already eaten a whole batch earlier today. I made about 4 batches when I did it and am giving away a bunch tomorrow.

Oh my heavens. Here's the reviews.

Parents Review: We Love.
Kids Review: They triple Love.

I also made Chocolate Chip Banana Bread (YUM!) and some of my mom's amazing Beef Stew that is so simple and so good. I will be posting those recipes next week.

Enjoy your Christmas break and being with your family and friends. I will be back to post more recipes after the food coma wears off next Monday or Tuesday.

Broccoli, Cauliflower Salad

I really like this crispy, crunchy salad that I found on a blogging browse I was on one day.

I will admit that it isn't exactly the most appetizing dish to look at because of the delicious marinade you pour over it, but one taste makes you get over it. (Actually - it looks pretty on the recipe page, but it looks very brown when I make it.) It makes me feel healthy eating it because there are so many raw and delicious veggies in there, but you also get to be a little bad because there is maple syrup in the dressing. :-)



Here's the link to this yummy side dish recipe.

A couple of notes to all of my awesome readers out there -

Beth - Thank you so much for the tip about me cutting my apples up really small for the Apple Bacon Stratta and that this could be the reason it was so watery and undercooked seeming. I had never heard of that and will definitely make it again and chop my apples a little bigger.

Shauna, Beth, Kelley, Lora and Carli - on the Roast - It seems like everyone thinks I should have cooked it longer. It looked like it was already overcooked, but maybe I should've kept it going for the evening just to see. I let it go an hour and half over the recommended cooking time and it seemed like a brick. I found a recipe on Kelly's Korner's blog for a crockpot roast recipe that I may try next week. I will let you know if I dare to try cooking a roast again. Not gonna lie - I'm scared. :-)

Thank you for your comments everyone! Also, if you are a consistent reader and would like to be on my "happy" list - (no there's not really a list) - I would love for you to become a follower. Just click on the right side of my page on the button that says "follow".

Happy eating! Tis the week for getting plump! :-)

The ROAST that didn't go as planned

You know when you have this reputation set up that you are a good cook and people start thinking that you don't ever make mistakes? First of all - that is laughable since I make mistakes all the time - ask the family! But, anyhoo.........And, then you invite some newer friends over for a nice home-cooked meal for the VERY FIRST time and they are all excited to try it? You know when you start to panic because you are worried it won't taste as good as they hope it will?

This was Monday night. Our new friends, Meredith and Jason, came over for dinner expecting culinary goodness (poor guys).

I know BETTER than to try out a new recipe when guests come to visit, but I was craving ROAST and I thought it sounded not only delicious but fairly easy. Plus - I had found a recipe that called for red wine in it and, well, you usually can't go wrong with that ingredient in my book. I went to the grocery store and asked the butcher to verify that the cut of meat I was getting was the kind that would fall apart - not the kind that you end up having to slice. I told him how I was cooking it (on 225 degrees for 4 hours in the oven) and what I was expecting. He confirmed my choices and I was on my way. Many dollars later, but I wanted a good roast.

I seared my meat. I added my seasonings. I poured in the red wine, and I added my carrots and potatoes (my favorite part of a roast meal actually). I popped it in the oven and enjoyed the beautiful smells all day long.

I held great anticipation waiting to taste and see what had been cooking all afternoon. I started to sweat when I opened the lid at 6:30 with guests looking onward and I stuck my fork in it.

It didn't budge much when I did this. There certainly was NO falling apart. I started to use my knife and it didn't cut real well either. I tasted a piece and it was tough and flavorless.

I was MORTIFIED!!

Now, listen, if it had been a family member or a friend that I had cooked for many other times, than I wouldn't have been all that bothered, but seriously - they had never been here before!

Plus she knows I have this recipe blog thing! Not that I know what that is supposed to mean! :-)

Again, MORTIFIED!

After I pulled out this slab of meat and couldn't determine if it was undercooked or way overcooked or I don't know what.


We ultimately ordered one of these.


And I know that our friends were super impressed with how Rosati's made their gourmet pizza.

My only redeeming factor was that I had made up some dough earlier that day for chocolate peanut butter cookies and I baked them up fresh and warm and scooped some "Moose Tracks" ice cream over the top for dessert.

The other thing that was good was that my MIL told me that some stores will actually refund your money if you have a bad experience with their meat and I called Price Cutter and told them my sob story of how I followed the directions and I really do know how to cook and I have no idea what happened and blah, blah, blah, and guess what?

I took my receipt in the next day and they gave me my money back! Can you believe it?

So, see there? It looks like it wasn't me after all. It was just a really bad piece of meat.

:-)

Yeah.

Here's the recipe I used. Anybody have a clue what I might have done wrong? I'm officially scared to ever make a roast again.

I won't even bother with Parents Review/Kids Review: We didn't eat it.

The pizza was 2 thumbs up though!!

Check back tomorrow and I will be posting a recipe for cake balls that you may want to whip up for your holiday goodies this year!

Cheesy Apple-Bacon Stratta

I was supposed to make this dish for a yummy brunch treat when my sis and family were in town, however, we ran out of time - as usual. I had my goals set too high for all the baking I was already committed too and I could cook no more!

Soooooo, what I did was make it for our Life Group with our church last Sunday since we were having a Holiday Appetizer-ish theme and I figured this dish would work. I also made BBQ Meatballs, because hello, they are just always a hit.

I am kind of having a love/hate relationship with this new recipe. I found it in my "Betty Crocker's Best Christmas Cookbook" and it made my mouth kinda water.

When I made it on Sunday, I loved the flavor, but couldn't tell if maybe it was....a little under-done? It seemed a little runny or something to me. I didn't see anyone gagging in a corner, but I didn't hear anyone hailing to it either. So, on my first taste tester - it was just o.k., but I will have to say, that I microwaved some up for my lunch today and I ended up having 2 helpings! I think it may have needed to set up a little more or cook some more. I really enjoyed it today.



I know my pics are terrible, but it hit me while we were sitting around the table with our lifegroup friends that I hadn't snapped a picture.
Here's some of our lovely group minus me and Dave and our friends the Lopez's.

Aren't they cute?
:-)

Here's the recipe for this Holiday Strata:

3 Tbsp. butter
3 medium Granny Smith Apples, peeled and chopped (3 cups) (and I like mine really fine)
3 Tbsp packed brown sugar
4 Cups cubed firm bread (I used a loaf of whole wheat french bread)
1 pound bacon, crisply cooked and coarsely chopped (I used Turkey bacon that we cooked in the oven. It was perfect)
2 Cups shredded sharp cheddar Cheese (8 oz)
2 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp ground mustard (dry)
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp pepper
5 eggs

Grease 2-quart casserole. Melt butter in 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Cook apples in butter 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender. Stir in brown sugar; reduce heat to low. Cook 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until apples are tender.

Layer half each of the bread, bacon, apples and cheese in casserole. Repeat with remaining bread, bacon, apples and cheese.

Mix remaining ingredients; pour over cheese. Cover rightly and refrigerate at least 2 hours but no longer than 24 hours. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Bake uncovered 40-45 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Parents Review: Loved it after I nuked it a little in the microwave. Definitely make sure it is cooked through.
Kids Review: They never tried it. Too many foods in one casserole for my kids.
:-)

Tune in tomorrow and I will tell you about my Roast fiasco while having friends over for the first time.

We ordered pizza.

See you tomorrow!

Baked French Toast

I love Breakfast foods. I love our Saturdays that are filled with yummy food for our Big Breakfast weekly celebration.

My dear friend Julie gave me an awesome recipe this past week to make for my sister and her family. I have never made it before, so I was nervous that it wouldn't turn out well.

Let me just tell you - WE ALL LOVED IT!

I actually took my picture above of the day I ate leftovers with some eggs over easy. Perfection. They may have tasted even better because I was home alone right after finishing my 90 minute massage my husband had given me from a spa for mother's day this year. (Yes- I FINALLY got to use it.)



Here's the recipe

Baked Georgia Pecan French Toast

4 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
8 ounce loaf French bread, cut into 12 one inch thick slices
1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 tbsp. melted butter

Directions
Lightly coat the bottom of a 12x8 inch glass baking dish with cooking spray. Whisk together eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla in medium bowl. Place bread slices in a single layer in the bottom of the prepared dish. Pour the egg mixture over the bread and turn to coat. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Sprinkle bread slices with pecans and drizzle melted butter over. Bake about 20 to 25 minutes until bread slices are puffed and pecans are deep brown. Serve immediately.

Serves 4 to 6.

Parents Review: We thought it baked perfectly and tasted really great. The pecans burnt just slightly and I actually think I could've done without.
Kids Review: They ate it and said they liked it, but they both only ate a few bites because the cousins were here and they were too distracted to eat!

Motivation - where art thou?

I know I have been absent for........awhile. As I mentioned over at Me-Moddy, I have been tied up with Christmas festivities and then feeling too tired or creative to actually post as of late.

This week I will actually post a few things that I have been whipping up and loving and they are the following:

Yummy Baked French Toast (thanks Julie)

Apple Bacon Stratta

Cake Balls

I may be a little more sporadic over the next few weeks due to extreme eating and less typing abilities, but I promise not to leave you entirely.

Don't forget to leave your comments on recipes you like, you tried, you loved, you hated. I enjoy your feedback so much and it keeps me blogging!

Have a great night and be watching for some new recipes this next week!