BBQ Beef Sandwiches

My goodness!

I am sorry I'm such a huge slacker.

Don't worry,

just because i've been slacking on updating the blog,

doesn't mean I haven't been cooking.

maybe. :)

Alright, so I found this recipe in

"Cooking for Two" once again.

However, the beef was really oily/fatty

and I didn't like it.

My sister helped me perfect it though,

so there are moderations to the original recipe's preparations.

This recipe includes:

1 small beef roast

1 cup barbeque sauce

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1/3 cup chopped onion (I left this out. I hate onions)

2 Tbsp. honey

2 Tbsp. mustard

1 beef bouillon cube

To put it together:

1. Dissolve bouillon cube in 1/4 cup of water.

2. Place roast in crock pot.

3. Rub bouillion into roast. (aka pour 'bouillion water' onto roast)

4. Cook for 6-8 hours.

*this is where my sister helped me modify it. The book says to cook it on high for two hours and then add the sauce, onions, etc and continue to cook for 3-4 hours. You can do it this way, but I'm warning you that it was quite greasy.

5. Remove roast from crock pot and place on a cookie sheet.

6. Use 2 forks (or whatever method you would like) to shred the beef.

*remove the fat from the beef as you do this to reduce fat in your sandwiches.

7. Place shredded beef back into the (cleaned) crock pot.

8. Combine Barbecue sauce and Worcestershire sauce and pour into the crock pot.

9. [sprinkle onions over sauce if you decided to use them. you probably did.]

10. Combine honey and mustard and pour into the crockpot.

11. Mix.

12. Warm in crock pot until served.

Sides to go with your meal:

The recipe says to serve the beef on hoagie rolls. My husband's mom has an excellent recipe for rolls, so I used that instead. I will do another post with the recipe for the rolls because it is quite the process (at least I think it is). We also ate asparagus, banana squash, and pear slices with our meal. It was delicious! Enjoy!

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

Once again,

I'm taking the easy way-

and this recipe is made with frozen meatballs,

instead of homemade.

This recipe includes:

meatballs (if you're ambitious- you can make your own... one day I will. Otherwise, you can use the frozen ones like we do. We get ours from IKEA).

sweet and sour sauce (purchased in the asian foods section)

a can of pineapple tidbits

rice

To put it together:

1. Make rice according to package.

2. Spread the meatballs out in a baking dish.

3. Mix the sweet and sour sauce and pineapple together (don't drain the juice from the pineapple).

4. Pour the mixture over the meatballs.

5. Bake the meatballs at 350 degrees for about 30 to 40 minutes (or until the a fork goes into them easily).

6. Serve over rice.

Sides to go with your meal:

We ate banana squash, broccoli, and pears with our meal. Pears are in season right now, they are cheap and delicious- and I always crave squash this time of year! Enjoy!

Quick-and-Easy Cheesy Enchiladas

This recipe came from the famous,

"Cooking for Two"

by Debbie G. Harman.

These enchiladas were really good..

either because they include a lot of cheese,

or because comfort food is becoming

a regular around our house in this cold weather.

Either way,

here's the recipe..

This recipe includes:

flour tortillas

cheddar cheese

1 can enchilada sauce (it's red..)

*sour cream, olives, jalapenos, lettuce.... if you would like.

To put it together:

1. Grate the cheddar cheese. (sorry I'm not exactly sure on the amount, it's really just however much you would like).

2. Place cheese down the center of the tortillas.

3. Roll the tortillas up and place in a greased baking dish. (I used an 8x8. It held about 8-10)

4. Pour enchilada sauce over tortillas.

5. Sprinkle cheese on top.

(*I put jalapenos on top also at this point)

6. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

7. Serve on a bed of lettuce and garnish with olives, sour cream, etc.

Sides to go with your meal:

I planned on making refried beans with cheese and possibly spanish rice with this meal... but, I didn't quite get to that. We ate grapes with our meal, and that is about it. The enchiladas however, were really yummy, and filling too! Enjoy!

Tomato Soup

I wish this recipe

included homemade tomato soup,

but it doesn't....

tonight I'm going for simple.

really simple.

This recipe includes:

1 carton tomato soup (I get mine from Costco. It's called, 'Pacific Organic Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato')

1-2 cups orzo pasta

sour cream

tortilla chips

To put it together:

1. Cook orzo pasta.

2. Heat soup in a pot.

3. Combine soup and pasta.

4. Put in separate bowls and put a 'spoon' (however much you like) of sour cream on top.

5. Crumble tortilla chips and toss on top.

Sides to go with your meal:

I made quesadillas to go with our soup. You can refer to the "Spicy Quesadillas" recipe further down the page (we just had cheese in ours this time). Enjoy!

Chicken Dumplings

I got the idea for this recipe

from a similar recipe in,

"Cooking for two",

but I changed it so much,

it's just a new creation.

anyway...

This recipe includes:

2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 cups mozzarella cheese

1 can cream of chicken soup

1/2 cup milk

1-2 can(s) homestyle refrigerator biscuits (or of course you can make your own dough)

To put it together:

1. Fry the chicken in a frying pan with oil until it is fully cooked.

2. Shred the chicken.

3. Mix shredded chicken and mozzarella cheese together in a separate dish. (you can add olives, or onions, celery, etc. if you would like)

4. Press biscuits flat onto a greased cookie sheet (kind of like a mini pizza dough)

5. Put a scoop of chicken/cheese mixture into the middle of the dough.

6. Shape the dough around mixture and pinch closed.

7. Bake at 350 degrees until biscuits are lightly browned. (about 10-15 minutes)

8. Mix cream of chicken soup in a pan with milk.

9. Pour chicken soup mixture over chicken dumpling.

Sides to go with your meal:

We just ate the regular fruits and veggies with this meal. Next time I make it I think I will try to figure out more ingredients to put inside the dumplings, but they were still yummy! Enjoy!

Baked Spaghetti

Mmmm, this is one of our favorite meals!

It's so easy-

it's not much different than regular spaghetti,

but it tastes better for some reason!

I got this recipe from the cookbook,

"Cooking for Two"

by Debbie G. Harman.

I have used so many recipes from this book,

I definitely recommend it!

This recipe includes:

cooked spaghetti noodles (We use angel hair spaghetti)

*the recipe says 1-2 cups of cooked noodles, but I think we use almost 4 cups

spaghetti sauce (We use Prego)

*the recipe calls for 1 cup sauce, but we use probably 2 cups

mozzarella cheese (about 2 cups)

parmesan cheese (however much you would like..)

To put it together:

1. Mix the noodles, sauce, and mozzarella cheese (about 1.5 cups) in bowl.

2. Put the mixture into a baking dish. (I use an 8x8)

[then I put the remaining 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese on top]

3. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

4. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top.

5. Bake for another 5 minutes.

*Tonight I am going to change the recipe around a little bit by adding (cooked) ground hamburger to it. We will see how it turns out!

Sides to go with your meal:

We usually just buy a loaf of french bread from the grocery store and I slice it in half and put garlic salt and parsley flakes on it and then broil it for about 5 minutes. We also have a vegetable and fruit with this meal! Enjoy!

Apricot Chicken

I'm starting to realize that we eat chicken a lot.

Sorry if you don't like chicken much,

I'll try to start making more recipes

that include other kinds of meat.

This recipe includes:

8-10 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (we used 4)

1 cup apricot jam or preserves

1 8oz bottle of russian dressing (catalina dressing)

1 package of Lipton onion soup mix

To put it together:

1. Clean the chicken and place in a baking dish (we used a 9 x 13)

2. Mix the jam, dressing, and soup mix together in a separate dish.

3. Pour the mixture on top of the chicken.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour, uncovered.

Sides to go with your meal:

My sister in-law always makes the yummiest rice pilaf to go with her apricot chicken (I'll have to find that recipe and post it next time), but I have yet to learn how to make it- so I just used white rice. We also ate broccoli and bananas/grapes with our meal. If I had the time I would have made rolls- so you could try that too! Enjoy!

Honey Baked Chicken

This chicken is one of my husbands favorites.

The recipe is from his family's cookbook called,

"Heritage Recipes"

another easy meal...

This recipe includes:

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts (we use 2)

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup butter (we use slightly less than that)

1 Tablespoon prepared mustard (we use about 1/2 Tbs)

1 teaspoon curry powder (we use less than 1/2 tsp)

To put it together:

1. Melt butter.

2. Add other ingredients and mix well.

3. Pour small amount of mixture in bottom of baking dish. (we use an 8x8)

4. Place chicken in pan and pour remaining mixture on top to coat well.

5. Cover and bake for 30 minutes.

6. Turn chicken over.

7. Bake another 30 minutes.

Sides to go with your meal:

We eat this meal with white rice, veggies, and whatever fruit we have for the week. Enjoy!

Spicy Quesadillas

today, i am tired.

dinner tonight will be extremely simple,

and extremely easy.

there is no recipe,

just creation.

This 'recipe' includes:

tortillas

pepperjack cheese

green chili's and/or jalapenos

chicken

To put it together:

1. Drain green chili's/jalapenos

2. Clean chicken and cut into slices/chunks.

3. Fry chicken in frying pan.

4. Add chili's to frying pan.

5. Grate cheese and put on tortilla in separate frying pan.

6. Add chicken mixture onto tortilla.

7. Fold tortilla in half.

Sides to go with your meal:

You could try spanish rice, beans, anything you'd like. We ate grapes (again) and spanish rice with our quesadillas and it was perfect!

Pizza!

I learned how to make this pizza

from my husband's sister!

We eat this pizza once a week, usually.

It's incredibly delicious and very easy!

The recipe includes:

crust

pizza sauce (you can use tomato paste with spices, or we use Ragu's homestyle pizza sauce)

mozzarella cheese

any toppings you would like!

ps. this makes 2 pizza's (using cookie sheets... and yes, your pizza will be square).

...the crust recipe includes:

2-2.5 cups of water (depending on how thick you want the crust. If you want it thick, use 2.5 cups)

1 Tablespoon of yeast (or one packet)

5 Tablespoons of sugar

1 tsp of salt (I think I use a little bit less than that)

1 dump of oil (optional.... I don't use oil in my crust)

5-7 cups flour

To put it together:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Make the crust.

- A. First add water, then yeast.

- B. Let it sit for a minute. Next add the sugar, salt (and oil if you'd like). Mix.

- C. Add flour 1 cup at a time until dough is hard and manageable.

-D. You can either plop the dough onto a greased cookie sheet and knead it into the corners until the dough is even across the sheet- or you can roll the dough out with a rolling pin and then put it on the cookie sheet (I usually just use the plop method, however the rolling pin is much easier..)

3. Add Sauce on top of the crust. (I use a wooden spoon to spread the sauce evenly across the crust.

4. Add a teensy-tiny bit of mozzarella cheese on top of the sauce (I'm really not sure what this step is for, I was just told to do it, but I'm pretty sure you can bypass it if you'd like).

5. Bake for 10 min at 400 degrees

6. Add toppings of choice to pizza

7. Cover toppings in remaining mozzarella cheese

8. Bake for additional 10 minutes

ENJOY!

Some sides to go with your meal:

Honestly, we usually just eat the pizza. I usually try to have a fruit and vegetable with every meal- so just be creative!

One-Dish Chicken Supper

This was my first time making a crock-pot meal!

I thought I'd try it out and see how it works.

I tried to pick a recipe that was easy, and seemed familiar.

I also felt like chicken would be the best to start out with.

I got the recipe from a cookbook

we were given for our wedding called,

"Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook"

by Dawn J. Ranck and Phyllis Pellman Good.

The recipe includes:

4 boneless, skinless chicken-breast halves

one 10 3/4-oz. can cream of chicken or celery, or mushroom soup. (I used chicken)

1/3 cup milk

1 pkg. Stove Top stuffing mix (and seasoning packet)

1 2/3 cups water

To put it together:

1. Place chicken in crock-pot (I put the chicken in while it was still frozen (already cleaned))

2. Combine soup and milk in a separate dish. Pour over chicken.

3. Combine stuffing mix (and seasoning packet if seasoning is not already in stuffing mix), and water also in a separate dish. Spoon over chicken.

4. Cover. Cook on Low 6-8 hours. (I cooked it on high for 2 hours, and low for 2 hours)

This recipe was super easy to fix,

and everyone seemed to like it!

Some sides to put with your meal:

We ate rice, rolls, broccoli, and grapes with our dinner. I also combined 1 more can of Cream of Chicken soup with milk in a pan to have extra sauce to pour over the chicken. I think it made it better, but if you're not a "sauce" person, you can probably do without it. Our dinner wasn't anything extremely fancy, but it was filling, yummy, and the best part was- really easy!

*If any part of the instruction was confusing or you have questions, feel free to leave a comment and I will answer you back also in the comment box!

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