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What we ate for dinner tonight!

We ate another new freezer meal tonight.  A-M-A-Z-I-N-G-L-Y yummy!  We put them in the oven before going to the gym and then stuffed ourselves when we got back.  Here is the recipe if you want to try them!

Picture from http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dinner/creamy-chicken-enchiladas.html

Now it's time to listen to Lucy singing to her babies in bed and for us to watch 30 Rock. 

<3 Love <3

Chicken Broccoli Cobler

This meal has turned into a real favorite (for Matt and me).  I got the recipe at a church women's night and thought it looked easy.  Then when I started doing the big cooking days, I realized this would be a great freezer meal!  It is a little Christmasy with red & green veggies in it so if you need a Christmasy dish (in 8 months) give this a try.

Chicken Broccoli Cobbler
(Original recipe was half of this and said it feeds 4.  I double it and we get at least 10 servings)

6 cups broccoli florets (I use frozen and don't cook them at all.  Just cut them up a little if necessary)
6 cups of chicken or turkey, chopped
2/3 cup roasted bell pepper, chopped
2 jars Alfredo Sauce
3/4 cup sour cream
4 Tbsp white wine or dry sherry

topping:
1/2 cup butter
6 cups sourdough bread, cubed
1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Divide butter, bread, and Parmesan cheese in half and place in freezer bags for topping.  (I put the cheese in a snack bag, wrap the butter in plastic wrap, and then throw the bread in a 1 qt zip top bag with the butter and bag of cheese.)

Combine broccoli and next 5 ingredients in a large bowl
Divide in half and place in gallon freezer zip top bags
Label, attach toppings and freeze

To Serve:
Thaw 24+ hours in the fridge
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Place in a 2 quart baking dish or 4 individual serving bowls
Bake 30-35 minutes (25 minutes for individuals)

So yummy and SO easy!  Enjoy!

Yummy Potato Soup

One of my favorite recipes lately is a Potato Soup recipe from my sister-in-law, Heather.  It is super easy and really yummy!  (And freezes really well which is a must!)

Potato Soup

1 bag Redskin potatoes (5 lb bag)

1 bag celery cut up

1 cup onion, chopped (about 1 medium sized onion)

4+ cups chicken broth

1 tall half and half (what is that... a pint???)

2 cups Mexican cheese

1 package bacon, cooked and crumbled

salt, pepper, and parsley to taste

Wash and quarter potatoes (I cut them in smaller than quarters so they cook faster)

Add potatoes, onion, and celery to a large pot

Cover with chicken broth just to the top of the potatoes

Boil until the potatoes are soft

Smash potatoes in pot when they are still hot (I used a stick blender last time and it worked GREAT!)

Then add half and half, cheese, bacon pieces, salt, pepper, and parsley

Cool, divide into 3 gallon zip top bags, label and freeze

(Makes a total of about 12-15 servings)

To serve after freezing:

Thaw 25+ hours in the fridge

Reheat on stove top



Labeling Leftovers

Have you ever felt when you looked in your fridge that you had no idea which leftover corn was from yesterday and which was from last week?  Or went to grab lunch and have to dig through the containers to find what you are looking for?

When we remodeled our kitchen, the plan was to have one section of cabinet painted with chalkboard paint.  Then plan fell through since we had 2 different painters, and it slipped through the cracks.  My mom, however, bought me some chalkboard pens, which I've found a different use for:  labeling containers of leftover good!

I just write right on the lids.  When they go through the dishwasher after the food is gone, it comes right off!  It's worked great for us!  Much less food wasted due to unknown cook date.  :)

Mostaccioli Bake

I've been taking pictures of dinner lately and realized I am not good at taking appetizing looking pictures of food.  I'm sorry about that!

Monday night, we were going to have our small group over, but Lucy was sick so we cancelled.  That left a ton of yummy casserole ready to bake.  Here is a picture of our favorite pasta casserole (and Lucy's FAVORITE food!  She will eat more of this than me!)

Mostaccioli Bake

(makes about 18 servings- 3 meals for our family)

2 lbs ground pork (beef works too...)

1 box (16 oz) Mostaccioli noodles

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 jars spaghetti sauce (we like the kind with mushrooms)

2-3 cups of shredded Mozzarella cheese

Boil noodles until just barely tender (for freezer meals make sure you don't overcook the noodles) and drain.

Brown ground pork and drain

Stir together spaghetti sauce and brown sugar.

Add pork and noodles to sauce mix and combine

Divide into 3 gallon size Ziploc bags and label. 

Divide cheese into 3 bags and attach to gallon size bags.

Freeze.

To Serve:

Thaw in the fridge for 24+ hours

Pour noodle mixture into 8x8 pan

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes

Remove, add cheese to top

Bake for another 10 minutes

So yummy! 

Let me know if you have any good pasta recipes.  I'm always looking for new good recipes!



Making Cookies

We did this so long ago, but I thought I would still post it.  (I can not get on top of normal day to day things at home right now, so once I do, I'll post more often.)

A few weeks before Christmas, Lucy and I made sugar cookies: my favorite!  Lucy helped with every step, and she was amazingly helpful!

Lucy helped make the cookie dough first, but Matt wasn't around for taking photos.  Here is the sugar cookie recipe:
1 cup butter
1.5 cups powdered sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
2.5 cups lour
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt

Beat butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add egg & vanilla
Add all dry ingredients
Chill
Roll dough & cut out shapes
Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 400 degrees for 6 minutes

While we waited for the cookie dough to chill.  We made the frosting.  Here is the recipe and the results:
1/4 cup softened butter
1 lb (3 & 3/4 cups) powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
(good on cookies, cake, cup cakes, graham crackers, fingers, spatulas...)

At first Lucy was really nervous about licking the frosting off the mixer paddle.  But then she realized what it was!

The spatula was good too!  (Don't worry!  I licked out the mixing bowl, and the other spatulas from when we mixed in the colors.  Lucy does come by the sweet tooth honestly!)

Then we moved on to cutting out the cookies.  We had quite a few misshapen and blobby ones this year.

Lucy wanted to roll the dough too, which she did surprisingly well!  She was in general over zealous with the cookie cutter and cut chunks off other cookies and over zealous with getting them off the counter and onto the cookie sheet.  There were a few times when she tried to pry them up with her fingers.

Once they were done baking, we moved right on to frosting.  Lucy "frosted" one cookie before realizing this was the yummy frosting which led to her just eating the frosting.

I called down to Matt to come and take some more pictures and told him someone was eating all the frosting.  When he came up he said "Who is eating all the frosting?"


"ME!"

 Lucy next decided that she should do the sprinkles.  Almost all of them went into her little bowl. 

Notice: Pacifier is on the counter and not in the mouth!

 Here is a picture of how they looked.  Lucy's were the 4 with minimal frosting.  Guess who ate those: Mommy!  Lucy wanted "the pink ones!"

So YUMMY!!!  Maybe I will make stars for New Years or something like that...  hmm...

Someone LOVES frosting!

Making cookies like this is one of my favorite things to do at Christmas, so it was a lot of fun to share it with my little girl!

Apple Sauce

Yesterday, we made apple sauce at my mom's house. My mom and Rachel got started in the morning, Lucy and I joined them shortly after lunch, and Heather came a little after that. My mom had picked right around 13 of those reusable grocery bag things of apples.

Lucy was in the crib there for close to 2 hours, but if she slept it was for 20 minutes. She talked and talked and talked, so I just left her there. Later she helped by taste testing.

Here is my mom cutting up apples. For the most part, she took care of cooking the apples while Heather and I cut them up. I don't have a picture of that though.

Here are the apples on their journey to become sauce:

My mom has this handy grinder so we didn't have to peel anything. It shoots the peels out the one end and the ground up cooked apples out the other. Rachel manned the apple crank.

I only have fuzzy pictures of Rachel because I forgot to put the flash on. She sure was having fun!

Here is the sauce. Yummers!

We decided to try putting it in quart sized baggies, like I do with my freezer meals. My moms friend, Beth Ann, had just made apple sauce and used baggies too. Here is Heather writing on the baggies.

Rachel put the apple sauce into the baggies. My mom had the idea to use big tin cans like we use coffee cans to make putting the apple sauce in the bags easier. I'm going to use this idea on my next cooking day for putting toppings into baggies. Yay!

Lucy helped too by playing.

When Lucy and I left, there were close to 50 bags in the fridge. We are picking it up today when we go for lunch. It will be a great side dish for the freezer meals!

choose2choose

This is a new website that is by moms and for moms. It talks all about where our food comes from, food safety, and why it's important that we are able to choose what we eat, something that we are very blessed to have. (Right now there are groups that are anti-agriculture and are fighting through legislation to make changes that would cause farmers to not be able to farm pushing food production out of the US.)

Check it out! As a pork producer, I found that the information is very accurate compared to some information that is circulated about our food.