Alphabet Soup

This cheesy baked penne is a meal that is easy to get ready, on will be on the table in about an hour. My people need lots of food, so I make a big batch when I cook things like this! Of course, homemade pasta sauce would be excellent in this dish, but I won't judge if you use prepared sauce (shhhh....did you see the jar of sauce in my picture?) I actually throw the onion in a mini food processor to chop it down into really small pieces. I have one of those kids that "doesn't like onion" and can find the smallest bits in dishes. Cheesy Baked Penne Katy | Alphabet Soup 1 lb penne pasta 1 lb ground beef 1 small onion, chopped 24 oz marinara pasta sauce 3/4 cup sour cream 12 oz provolone cheese, grated 8 oz mozzarella cheese, grated 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese Fresh Italian parsley, finely chopped (optional) Preheat oven to 350'F. Spray a 9" x 13" baking dish with cooking spray and set aside. Cook the pasta to al dente a...

Planning   Yes, it's been a while.  I'm not going to apologize or give excuses.  I've just been dealing with a lot lately, and as usual when that happens the blog takes a hit.  That's just...me!  :) Earlier this month I cleaned out my pantry, which wound up being more of an undertaking than I had planned, but it definitely needed to be tackled.  I couldn't believe how chaotic the pantry had gotten!  This weekend, I decided to tackle the freezer, and restock it as well.  I know I am lucky to have a stand alone freezer.  I've had it for years and it is such a wonderful asset!  Like the pantry, sometimes it gets disorganized and I have no clue what's even in there!  I try to do a deep clean (I also have to defrost it...unfortunately it's not self-defrosting, lol) at least twice a year, and take an inventory, which I then print out and stick on the front of the freezer.  I don't always keep the inventory updated as I ...

So, you may remember me mentioning that I don't tend to do a very good job of meal planning.  That's still true, but I have been doing better.  I made a plan for last week and stuck to it completely!  I've got a plan in place for this next week as well, and have my fingers crossed.  I thought I'd share what we had last week and what I'm planning on for next week.  You know, just in case you were curious.  It's nothing fancy, trust me.  One thing that I'm trying to do more of is sit down with the weekly grocery ads, see what is on sale for a great price for the week, and use that to jump start my meal planning.  I also went through and took an inventory of what is in my freezer (I do that periodically and usually do a fairly good job of keeping it updated as I add/use items).  However, I still need to clean out my pantry....it's a mess! Mostly I'm just listing main dishes.  Sides vary depending on what I have and what sounds good, lol....

When I was a little kid, I loved canned spaghetti.  I would even make a spaghetti sandwich out of the stuff.  I can't make this kind of story up!  What's funny is that real homemade spaghetti is actually one of the things that my mom would make, and it was good.  I just still loved the canned stuff too. Anyway, I can remember when the Munchkin was younger he would see commercials for Spaghetti O's and ask me to buy them.  In contrast to my childhood, I would never buy the canned version.  I caved and finally bought him a can so he could try it.  He took about two bites, declared mine much better, and wouldn't eat any more.  Score one for mom!  {virtual fist bump} But, you have to admit, Spaghetti O's are cute!  They just are.  Here's my take on a homemade version.  It makes a lot, be warned.  However, if you aren't feeding the entire neighborhood you can freeze it.  I tried it and it heated up quite well without ...

Every time I make sloppy joes for the family, I get the same question: “Why are they called sloppy joes?” Good question. An internet search will give you several different answers. I prefer to stick with “because they're sloppy to eat.” Awesome answer, I know. I never know if the kids will eat sloppy joes or not, even when I use a recipe that's been a hit before. This one is a slightly different twist on the traditional sloppy joes, borrowing pizza flavors. Everyone liked them, even the baby, except he didn't like the pepperoni. The zucchini fries were a slightly different story. I thought they were really good, but everyone else preferred the zucchini crisps that I usually make. My mom made the zucchini fries a few days later, using some changes that I had suggested to her and I think they turned out better. The recipe below reflects those changes. I still think it's great, and I'll try it again at my house and see what my people think. :) Pizza Joes adapted ...

First off, I have to tell you something you may or may not already know.  I have a trouble-maker.  Yes; yes I do.  Do not let his cuteness factor fool you.  He is a bona fide trouble-maker.  He's either going to turn my hair gray, make me pull all my hair out, or possibly both.  We're talking about the Sprout here. This shirt says it all.  Now, you are probably wondering what this has to do with Parmesan tilapia, right?  Well I'll tell you.  Right when the dish was ready to come out of the oven, I walked over, camera in hand to take a picture as I was pulling it out.  And I discovered that someone had managed to turn the self-clean cycle of the oven on.  And that the door to the oven was locked.  And I couldn't get it unlocked.  And the fish was still in the oven.  I managed to cut the self-clean cycle off, but the oven door was still locked.  I had no idea you could even turn the self-cle...

Sometimes it's the simple things in life that are the best.  Like French bread pizza.  So quick and easy to put together.  And yet so good.  I had originally planned on making homemade pizza for supper on Monday, Valentine's Day.  But it was Monday .  Who had the bright idea to make Valentine's Day on a Monday?  I mean, seriously.  So, when I made a quick grocery store run earlier in the day I bought a loaf of French bread and decided we would go that route.  And get this, the bread was the only thing I had to buy.  Everything else was already in my pantry or fridge.  That means this meal only cost me 95 cents.  That's right.  Less than a dollar...if you only count what I had to buy yesterday.  :)  Even so, counting everything I used for it, less than 10 bucks, easy.  Random, but the bread came off the "day old" cart.  My mom used to call that the "used bread".  Honestly.  And the bre...

I shed tears for you guys over this recipe.  Literally.  That was one strong onion!  :)  Normally I can tolerate chopping onions, but seriously, the one I used here had tears rolling down my face.  This is a slightly lightened-up version of a tortilla casserole that my mom makes.  She's made it for a few years, and when a friend asked for the recipe, she said "it's not really a recipe, more of a list of ingredients".  I've seen her list of ingredients...there are instructions under it.  Um, doesn't that make it a recipe?  Anyway... I tried passing this off as Mexican lasagna to the Munchkin.  He wasn't really buying it, although he did try a few bites.  I really liked this, and so did D.  The leftovers heated up quite well the next day for lunch.  I hope you give it a try!  To make it lighter, I subbed in reduced fat cheese and used ground turkey instead of ground beef.  That's it!  The origin...

It's January 12th, and this is my first post of the year.  Crazy, huh?  Well, things have definitely been chaotic around here.  It all started on New Year's Eve when we were without power for over 4 hours.  Then, that night the baby started running a fever.  New Year's Day our internet was out most of the day.  On Sunday, the chaos rested.  Then, the afternoon of January 3rd, a Monday of course, the flood came.  And it came in the form of a washing machine that overflowed for 30 minutes.  Now, you wouldn't think it could do that much damage in that short amount of time, right?  Wrong.  Luckily I was still home and caught it.  But I caught it on my way out the door to start picking up kids!  My first calls were to their schools to say "hey, water everywhere, I'm going to be late!"  Then I had a bit of a breakdown.  Imagine me, with my shoes off and pant legs rolled up, wading through water in my own k...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving last week.  We did, even if it was crazy...but it always is!  It has decided to get cold lately, so I though it would be the perfect time to try out this new slow cooker recipe.  Also, for a variety of reasons, we have decided to crack down on the unhealthy eating around here.  Yes, during the holidays.  I'm crazy like that.  In light of that, I used reduced fat dairy products in this, and while I didn't actually figure out what the nutrition facts would be, it is makes for a pretty healthy recipe. Like many slow cooker recipes, this one came together rather quickly.  I did add an extra step of lightly sauteing the vegetables at the beginning, but that's because I wasn't getting the dish on as early as I'd planned, and I wanted to make sure they were well cooked.  You could most likely omit that step with no problems. This was mostly a hit all around.  D and I really like...

This past week I actually managed to sit down for a few minutes and watch part of an episode of Everyday Italian on the Cooking Channel . The recipe that caught my eye was for a chicken and orzo frittata . I had no idea if my family would go for, but I decided it would be worth a try. I changed up the recipe a bit (and lightened it up too) and I think it turned out quite well. We all enjoyed it. Yes, you read that correctly. We ALL enjoyed it! :) It's also a fairly easy recipe to prepare. I used a garlic and herb rotisserie chicken from the deli at the grocery store and that made it even easier! I even managed to get a few side dishes made to go with it. Seems like I can either get the main dish, or the side dish, but getting a whole meal made at once eludes me a lot of the time. I served it with roasted broccoli, roasted potato wedges, and cheesy garlic bread. The only thing I was wishing for was a nice salad to go with it. On a side note, I realize that the picture to go alo...

Why look!  It's an actual blog post from me.  Shocking, I know.  No excuses or apologies.  It's just life!  :) A couple of days ago I found a recipe on allrecipes.com and after reading through the comments, I got some ideas on how to adapt it.  This is my interpretation.  The original recipe can be found here . I also made some salsa that night.  Some Pioneer Woman Restaurant Style Salsa , which I actually found through Good Life Eats .  Salsa, like most food, is very personal.  What works for me may not work for you.  But here's how I changed the recipe up to suit my family (and I may still tweak it a bit!).  Note:  I started with the adaptation of the recipe from Good Life Eats, except I used two cans of original Rotel.  I mixed my salsa up in the blender.  If you want it slightly chunkier, I'd go for the food processor instead.  Next time, I will drain the cans of Rotel, and maybe the tomatoes too....

I ran across a post today, that I found through Twitter (I've become addicted!) called Retake Homemade .  What does that mean?  Well, here's a little quote: I am proposing that we start a movement, people! To teach people that good food does not have to be complicated or come from a box. That you can put a meal using fresh, healthy ingredients on the table in the same amount or less time than it takes to open those boxes and cans and microwave dinners :shudder: To show them that it doesn’t have to be complicated or creepy... That's it.  Simple.  Basic.  What I want to do!  You can read more about it here on Pots and Plots by Kait Nolan.  So, what does all this mean to me?  I try my best to serve good meals to my family.  I'm not going to lie, we have definitely had our ups and downs when it comes to eating.  We fall prey to the call of fast food.  If I'm lucky, I get to go out for lunch with my best friend on a weekly basis....

We love Mexican food at our house.  Well, Tex-Mex.  Er, Tex-Mex that you get around here.  See, in Texas, there are about as many different styles of Tex-Mex as there are restaurants, and what you get in North Texas won't be the same as what you get in South Texas, or anywhere else for that matter. Our favorite Mexican restaurant is a locally owned place (dive?) that we've been going to for years.  They've seen our family grow larger, and we never need a menu when we go in.  This place cooks with a lot of green chiles, and enchiladas with green sauce tend to be my favorite.  This isn't exactly an attempt to replicate a particular dish there, but rather a combination of some of my favorite things!  For some reason, I tend to prefer making chicken enchiladas with flour tortillas instead of corn.  The flour tortillas soak up the sauce and almost puff up during baking.  While you can definitely use store-bought tortillas for this recipe, try ...

Every few months, D and I look at each other and say "You know, we really should use our grill more often."  Yes, we should.  And we have actually been using it more lately, and not just for hamburgers.  I've been running a little rib experiment, that hopefully I'll be able to post about before too long.  I've grilled corn on the cob (definitely a winner).  And I even want to try grilling pizza! But today, I'm going to post about some sausage and vegetable packets I threw together last night.  It turned out to be an adaptation of several different recipes and ideas that I have seen recently.  This method was quick, easy, and I didn't have to heat the house up with the oven in the process!  This recipe can easily be adapted to your personal tastes by switching out the meat, veggies and seasonings as you desire.  I can see myself playing with this one all summer long! Sausage and Veggie Packets on the Grill 1 lb smoked sausage, c...

Back in December of 2008, right after I started blogging, I posted about my recipe & cookbook collection . Well, needless to say I've only added to it since then. I've decided that I really need to start pulling more recipes from all those cookbooks and cooking magazines because they are just sitting on shelves and in boxes taking up space. My goal is to *eek* pare them down over the summer. Well, at least the magazines! I've started with a recipe from the most recent issue of Taste of Home's Simple & Delicious. It is a recipe for BBQ ribs in the crockpot. Oddly enough, the post from Dec '08 that I mentioned above also had a recipe for BBQ ribs in the crockpot...and this was not planned! This recipe went over fairly well with my guys. It's just a simple, easy recipe with a rather mild (but good) flavor. You could easily mix up the sauce ingredients the night before to make preparation in the morning even easier. Although the recipe calls for a ...

Also known as frijoles charros, charro beans, or basically, Mexican pinto bean soup. The name I've heard the most is frijoles a la charra. I like to blame it on pregnancy, but really, I get random cravings for random foods all the time. Actually, what happened this time was on Monday, D was watching an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay. It was a burrito challenge, and the guys he was challenging were making their own refried beans, with what looked like a mixture of pinto and black beans. I suddenly got the notion to make frijoles a la charra. You would have made that immediate connection too, right? Anyway, I'd never actually made them before, so I started looking on the internet for recipes. I found quite a few variations, and tweaked them to come up with the one I'm posting below. These may not float your boat, but they were well received at my house on Taco Tuesday. Okay, Sean wouldn't even try a bite, but what's new? A few notes before we begin, however. I l...