Frugal Casserole

Tonight I had a bit of a dilemma.  Saturday night I had made tortillas (yeah, me!); combined ground beef with seasoned black beans, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder & chili powder; and then put them all together in quesadillas. 

We had that for dinner, and it was great!

We had it for lunch on Sunday, and it fit the bill. 

There was still some left over, though.  I really wasn't up to eating it the same way again. 

Really.

So...I decided to re-purpose my ingredients and add a few new ones to liven things up a bit.  Woohoo!

I found a small casserole dish... 
(Yes, relatively small because I didn't want to end up eating this forever either.) 
And let the layering begin!

I added a can of chili beans to my black bean & ground beef mixture.  There wasn't quite enough of the original meat/bean mixture to do the whole casserole, and I needed a bit more moisture. 

That came first in my dish.  I topped that layer with diced green chiles and fresh tomato slices. 

The next layer is my favorite, just because I love most all things cheesy, just ask Gina.  Ha!  I took about four ounces of cream cheese and nuked it for about 30 seconds to soften it up, then I added grated cheddar & mozzarella cheeses...til it looked right.  I also threw in some garlic & onion powder.  (I know, it's quite the shortcut, but it served my purposes.  Don't judge.)

That got topped off with a torn up tortilla.

Repeat and cover with a layer of shredded cheddar.

Next time I do this, I'll probably throw some corn in there somewhere. 
It would have added a nice layer of flavor...and a pop of color.  :-)

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.  Garnish each individual dish with crushed tortilla chips and sour cream. 

"'Elicious!" as my sweet W would say.

Kid-Friendly Sticky Oatmeal -- For You, Gina! :-)

My dear, sweet friend, Gina, asked me for my sticky oatmeal recipe.  I like my oatmeal nearly sliceable.  It's thick and on the sticky side, which is great when you have toddlers learning to use a spoon on their own!  Too, it's easy to make & you know exactly what goes into it.  The only sweetener?  Unsweetened, all natural applesauce.  Good stuff!

Ingredients:
1/2 c. quick cooking oats (I use rolled oats when I make it for myself.)
pinch of salt
cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves to taste
1/3 c.-ish applesauce
optional -- raisins, craisins, nuts
a few Tbsps of milk
1 tsp - 1Tbsp peanut butter

When I started off with my kids, they ate about 1/4 cup of the oats. 
Now?  They're easily eating 2/3 of a cup.  How time flies and tummies grow!

So...the amounts are going to stay in proportion...and it's a "til it looks right" kind of recipe.

Directions:
In a small kid-friendly dish stir oats, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, & cloves.  (For kid friendly dishes, I love the ones from IKEA.  They're inexpensive, dishwasher safe, and the perfect size for little ones!)  Add the applesauce and combine well.  If you want to add any optional ingredients, now would be the time.  :-)  Microwave for 45 seconds - 1 minutes.  Then just cover the surface with milk (to help cool it down) and stir in the peanut butter. 

May you enjoy, & may it help your little ones with their spoon skills!  :-)

Menu Monday -- January 24, 2011

*Sigh*  I'm bored.  Perhaps I should go back to planning a month at a time instead of a week...I like getting a global perspective then getting down to specifics.  Hmmm...I think I'm going to make a spreadsheet...yes, really!  That way I can see what we've had the last month or two at a glance and keep things better spread out.  I'll get back to you when it's all finished.  :-) 

Ok, spreadsheet's finished, and it's been confirmed, I'm in a rut.  *sigh*  I would LOVE for you to post in a comment some of your easy favorite dinner recipes for no other reason that my brain needs a jump start.  I thank you with great gratitude in advance!

Here's what we're doing, and yes, there are duplicates from last week.  However, keep in mind, that if it's on this week's menu again, we probably didn't have it last week.  :-)  There's a bit of a difference this week -- I'm putting in all meals this week.  Yep, you read it right -- all.  It's for me -- I was getting to breakfast & lunch and saying, "What in the world are we going to eat???"  Not a good place to be.  This will help me stay on track.

Happy Week!

• Monday -- Toad in the Hole
• Breakfast -- Cereal
• Lunch -- Leftover Layered Enchiladas
• Tuesday -- Spaghetti & Breadsticks (Artisan Bread in 5!)
• Breakfast -- Breakfast Cookies
• I've made the changes that are listed in the recipe.  I really like them!  I think this time we'll put Craisins in -- W likes Craisins!
• Lunch -- Leftover Layered Enchiladas
• Wednesday -- Burritos
• Breakfast -- Breakfast Cookies
• Lunch -- Homemade Calzone
• Thursday -- Shepherd's Pie
• Breakfast -- Breakfast Cookies
• Lunch -- Leftover Calzone
• Friday -- Cheeseburger Potato Soup
• Breakfast -- Breakfast cookies
• Lunch -- Leftover Shepherd's Pie
• Saturday -- Dinner with Extended Family.  Happy Birthday, Mama!  I miss you so!
• Breakfast -- Oatmeal
• I make my oatmeal a little different, ok, a lot different from most people.  I'm not a fan of traditional oatmeal, and I wanted to make it without sugar, so here's how I do it. 
• 1/4 c. rolled oats, 1T of wheat germ, pinch of salt, cinnamon & cloves to taste -- stir this all together
• Add in raisins or craisins (or both if you're feeling wild & crazy) and about 1/3 c. of applesauce.  (I like mine pretty stiff, add more if you like.)
• Nuke for 1 minute, then stir in 1T of peanut butter (and chopped walnuts, if you're so inclined).  Yummy! 
• For the munchkins, I use quick cook oats and add enough milk to cover the top of their oatmeal after it's cooked to stir in and help it cool.
• Lunch -- Tortilla Pizzas
• Sunday -- Waffles, Bacon & Eggs
• Breakfast -- Breakfast Cookies
• Lunch -- Red Beans & Rice with Kielbasa

Menu Monday

Menu Monday again?  Whatever happened to last week?  :-)  I hope that someone was inspired to try something new or at least fill in a slot with an old favorite that they had forgotten about! 

In spite of it "already" being time for Menu Monday again, I must confess that things didn't completely go as planned last week.  Friday afternoon, my wonderful husband took the munchkins out on an errand giving me some quiet time alone.  Aaaahhh.  I do appreciate moments where I hear only the background sounds -- the heater coming on and going off, a car door slamming across the street, the idiot who has the bass turned up so loud in his car it rattles my windows....  Needless to say, I did not take that time to cook, clean, organize.  No, no, no.  I caught up online with a few things and grabbed a catnap while they were gone.  Lovely.  So...the kids had oatmeal ("eat"meal as W has called it since he first put a word with it.  *smile*), Hubby had leftovers, and I had popcorn and apple slices. 

Popcorn and apple slices -- that's a blast from the past!  We used to have that growing up when we watched movies on our blue and white TV with the VHS player we had rented along with the movie from the movie rental store.  The Man from Snowy River, Star Trek (could the docking and undocking scenes have taken any longer????), The North Avenue Irregulars (I must find this movie!  It's a classic Disney film that still makes me laugh out loud, and made my aunt wet her pants in the theater she was laughing so hard!  Sorry, Aunt Kathy -- you have been sold out!), The Apple Dumpling Gang...I believe I hear feint strains of Memories...I digress...again!  My most humble apologies.  Chalk it up to the late hour I'm "penning" this and pregger hormones!  :-)

Here we go -- let's see if I get any wild hairs and expound on any menu choices for the week!  :-)

• Monday -- BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches (Finally!)
• Tuesday -- Potato Soup & Cornbread (because other things got moved, this did, too.)
• The high here is only supposed to be in the 20s (yikes!) -- perfect day for potato soup!
• Wednesday -- Chili & Crackers
• Thursday -- Chili & Crackers
• I'm tempted to try & make homemade crackers, but don't hold your breath on that one.  :-)  I did, however, make homemade soft pretzels last week!  Funny thing?  So did my sister!  Great minds....
• Friday -- Spaghetti & Homemade Artisan Bread
• You had to know that spaghetti was on the menu for this week!  We didn't have it last week, and I don't think Hubby could handle it if I made him go another week without it.  :-)
• I really want to try my hand at homemade artisan bread, and this seems like the perfect day for it.  Hubby gets Backwoods Home magazine, and a while back they had an article on making it from scratch.  I just have to find the magazine now.  Oh, boy.  At least I have a few days since I'm writing this on Sunday/Monday and not Thursday!  I'll see if it's on their website, and if I can share it.  You know I love y'all, but I'm not sure I'm up to typing up a full bread recipe in here! 
• Saturday -- Leftover Lunch, & Dinner Waffles
• Sunday -- Leftover Lunch & Breakfast Casserole  (I use that term loosely...maybe Breakfast Hash would be more appropriate.) 
• Cook up a skillet full of hashbrowns til they're crisp and pull them out of the skillet to drain. 
• Cook 1 cup(-ish) of chopped ham in the leftover oil with some garlic powder & onion powder (to taste).
• To the ham add about 8 eggs beaten with about 1/4 c of water & scramble it all together. 
• Just before the eggs are finished, add the hashbrowns back in and mix them together.
• Once the eggs are fully cooked, top with shredded cheddar cheese or American cheese slices.  Cover & cook til the cheese is bubbly.
• Serve with salsa or ketchup (my preference & favorite!).
• Enjoy!

Happy week!  Stay warm!   :-)

Lesson Learned for Crockpot Bean Soup

Crockpot Bean Soup was on the menu for this week.  It was my first foray into all that alone.  Growing up, beans & cornbread were a staple food during the winter.  I don't remember Mama doing them in the crockpot, though.  They were always in a pot on the stove or even, a few times, on our wood stove!  They were so very creamy and yummy.

Not being able to call Mama to ask how she did things or her opinion on how to cook things is so frustrating sometimes!  So, I googled it, of course.  One of the lessons that I learned was that even if the recipe has great reviews, it's not necessarily going to work.  Oh yeah. 

Thankfully, one of the reviews on the recipe mentioned soaking the beans overnight.  Ding!  That was a memory jogger.  I remember soaking the beans overnight before we cooked them.  Well, that knocked the beans back a day.  Ok.  I can be flexible.  Really.

The beans soaked, and then I put them in the crockpot, covered them with chicken stock, threw in a couple of bay leaves and turned them on high for two hours.  That's what the recipe said to do.  At two hours, I checked on them, added water to cover the beans, and turned the crockpot down to low for three hours.  That's what the recipe said to do.  I'm really good at following directions...not as good as I used to be, but still pretty good.  :-)

It didn't cross my mind to check on the status of the beans before I started my rice and got my kielbasa in the skillet.  Rice was ready, kielbasa nicely browned, taste the beans.  You know, crunchy beans are NOT a pleasant experience for the palate!  All of that to say, the bean soup was knocked back another day, and we had kielbasa and rice for dinner that night. 

I turned the crockpot on low and cooked the bean soup until lunch the next day.  It worked!  Granted, the darn things cooked for nearly 24 hours.  If they hadn't been done by then, I think they would have gone in the compost, and I would have chalked it all up to an interesting experience and moved onward and forward!  (After thinking about it, I had received the bean soup mix from Luke for Christmas when I had him in Kindergarten Children's Choir at church...He just became an Eagle Scout this fall.  Wow.  Beans do last forever!)

My next hurdle was W.  AB had already had lentil soup that my sister made and loved it.  I wasn't worried about her.  She still eats just about anything.  W, on the other hand, is nearly three and particular about what he eats.  Bless. his. heart.  (Yes, I am from the South, and I can say that with the full weight that goes behind it.)  I was so very pleasantly surprised when he took his first bite...and subsequent ones thereafter!  Here's what I heard repeatedly as he ate three bowls of the bean soup:  "I LIKE beans, Mommy!  Thank you for putting them in my soup!"  I about fell out of my chair.  Woohoo! 

I'll do bean soup again this winter.  Really, I will...but probably not every week.  :-)

Making Yogurt...Really!

Yesterday I mentioned how we WERE spending a lot each week just on yogurt...nearly $2 a day.  It doesn't sound like much, but that's almost $60 a month -- just on yogurt!  That's a decent chunk of our grocery budget, so I knew that we (I) was going to have to do something different -- enter the homemade yogurt. 

You must understand, homemade yogurt's not a new concept to me.  When I was growing up, my family lived in Papua New Guinea for a couple of years, and that's one of the things my dad did each week -- he made yogurt.  It was a time-consuming, multi-stepped process that there was NO WAY ON EARTH I would ever replicate.  It was oh so very yummy, though.  *sigh*

Fast forward to a couple of months ago.  I was visiting my dad, and he had decided to make yogurt again -- "It's just too darned expensive."  (You have to imagine this being said in a deeper, gruff voice.)  :-)  So I watched and helped him walk through all the steps -- sanitizing jars, measuring milk temperature, pouring, stirring gently, timing...UGH!  There was noooooo way! 

But...it didn't go quite right.  The yogurt was pretty watery and the texture was funky, so I headed to Google to see what I could see.  And all that I could see...was a lot of complicated yogurt recipes, UNTIL I hit the mecca of a lovely website known as www.yogurt-everyday.com, specifically the page http://www.yogurt-everyday.com/homemade-yogurt-recipe.html.  In the middle of the page was a section that piqued my interest -- making yogurt in a crockpot.  What???  You can do that?  Skip all the sanitizing, temperature measuring, step after step?  Yippee skippy!

It took me a while to get up the nerve to do it.  I was still intimidated by the whole shooting match.  (I'm still intimidated by making homemade yeast breads, but that, too, I shall overcome!  I'll let you know how it goes!)  Anyway, the challenge that I gave to myself in November (see previous post) gave me the push that I needed to finally make the leap.  

Wheeee!!!!!

It could not have been easier.  It's so easy that I actually had it memorized without trying.  Here goes.  (Check out the website to see if I get it right!)

• Pour 1/2 gallon of milk (I use whole milk.) into your crockpot.  (Do make sure the crockpot's REALLY clean.)
• Set your crockpot to low for 2.5 hours.  (I have to set a timer that I can hear anywhere.  I'm pregnant, and sometimes I would swear this child is eating my brain!)
• Walk away.
• When your lovely loud timer goes off, turn off the crockpot and set your timer for 3 hours.
• Walk away.
• When your lovely loud timer goes off this time, gently skim the skin off the top of the milk.  (I've used a fork, a slotted spoon, a strainer-whatever-you-call-it-thingy-that-goes-with-a-fry-baby.  I think the slotted spoon worked best.)
• Gently stir in 1/2 cup of plain yogurt that has live active cultures.
• Wrap & cover your crockpot with towels/blankets to keep it warm.  (I use a thick beach towel over it and a beach mat that's HUGE to wrap around it.)
• Let it set overnight. 
• Voila!  Yogurt!
• At this stage in the game, I pour it into a pillow case lined colander to let it drain so it's a little thicker (see more about that below).
• Make sure you chill it well before you eat it...it's not too appetizing warm.  *wrinkled nose*

A couple of notes -- the first time you make anything, you're never really sure how it's going to turn out.  My first batch of yogurt wasn't as thick as I like, and she doesn't tell you to skim the milk skin off the top before you add your yogurt culture.  Whatever you do, make sure you skim it!  I got some of the skin in my yogurt, and the texture is like the plastic some companies put on to seal their yogurt containers.  NOT a pleasant experience.  As far as the yogurt being thinner than I like goes, this time around I poured it into a pillow case lined colander and let it drain for a couple of hours.  If I let it go more than that, I think I would have ended up with yogurt cheese (not that I'm opposed to that, but it's not what I'm going for).  It's hard to describe the texture, it's not incredibly smooth, but it smooths out nicely when blended.  

My thought is, if we want to eat it just as yogurt, I'll probably go ahead and blend it...with some sugar and vanilla to flavor it up and have it ready for fruit and whatever else fun stuff we want to throw in.  (When the one year old is older, I'll use local honey instead of sugar.)  Right now, I'm just using it to make smoothies.  Yesterday, I made Christmas smoothies for our afternoon snack -- 2 cups of the yogurt, 1 cup of eggnog, a couple of teaspoons of sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla, a few sprinkles of cloves (deep breath in...I heart cloves!), and some ice.  Blend away.  Yummy!  My two year old, who's been iffy on smoothies before, drained it rather quickly.  We'll be having Christmas smoothies again...probably this afternoon!  Gotta make use of eggnog while it's around!   :-)

I'm so excited about this!  I can make about a gallon of yogurt a week for about $3.30 (I always buy Braum's yogurt -- no hormones, and it's family-owned.) as opposed to us buying about a gallon of yogurt for nearly $15 a week.  Yeehaw!  Sweet success!  :-)