Easy Meal Mondays! Oatmeal Bake

Hello again everyone and happy Monday!  Today's recipe is for a oatmeal bake that is great for Sunday morning breakfast with your family and pairs perfectly with fruit and juice for a great breakfast.

Oatmeal Bake (recipe by Dawn Clifford)
Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 and 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 3 cups oats

Directions:

1. Beat butter, brown sugar, and sugar until creamy.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Beat well.
2. In another bowl combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.  Mix slowly into another bowl.
3. Lastly, stir in oats and mix well.
4. Pat into baking pan and bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees.  

Thanks for stopping by and let me know if you try this recipe!

Easy Meal Mondays! Lime Cottage Cheese Jell-O

Happy Monday again everyone!  This weeks easy recipe is a great item to bring to a potluck or barbecue.  Also, it may sound weird or even gross, but this is really really good!  I hope you enjoy it!

Lime Cottage Cheese Jell-O (recipe from Dawn Clifford)
Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 package lime Jell-O
• 1 cup cottage cheese
• 1 cup crushed pineapple (drained well)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 8 ounce tub of cool whip

Directions:

1. Dissolve Jell-O and sugar in boiling water.  Let stand until the Jell-O starts to set.  You can put it in the refrigerator to speed this up, however do not let the Jell-O set completely.  
2. After the Jell-O starts to set up, stir in the cottage cheese, pineapple, walnuts, and cool whip.  Refrigerate until right before serving.  

Easy Meal Mondays! Pizza Roll-Up

Hey there everyone!  Last week there was no easy meal monday post because it was Jason and my 6th anniversary!  I am so happy to have spent the last 6 years with Jason and am looking forward to many many more with him.

Today's recipe is for a Pizza Roll-Up that was one of Jason's favorite meals as a kid.  I hope you enjoy it!

Pizza Roll-Up (created by Dawn Clifford)
Ingredients:

• 2 loaves of frozen bread dough (thawed)
• 1/4 cup butter (melted)
• 1 package pepperoni
• Parmesan cheese
• Mozzarella cheese
• Pizza sauce

Directions:

1. Stretch dough into a rectangle, drizzle butter over rectangle and spread cheeses, sauce and pepperoni over the rectangle.  
2. Roll up the dough and inch the ends closed.
3. Brush butter over the tops of the roll-ups.  Sprinkle the tops with parmesan cheese.  You can fit two of the rolls on a cookie sheet.
4. Bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit for 25 minutes.

For different flavors you can add garlic salt, red pepper flakes, onion, green pepper, olives, etc to make this into the type of pizza you would prefer.  

Let me know what you think of this and if you make it!

Easy Meal Mondays! Macaroni and Cheese with Cauliflower

Happy Monday everyone!  It's that time of the week again and that means I have another great and easy recipe for you to try out.  This is another comforting recipe, but it is a bit better than typical Mac and Cheese because there is quite a bit of cauliflower added in that you will barely be able to taste because it is still very cheesy!  Jason and I used to make this all the time, but since it is not the best to eat pasta a lot, we have cut down on how often we make this.  I definitely crave it often!  I hope you enjoy this and let me know what you think!

Macaroni and Cheese with Cauliflower adapted from Real Simple

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces multigrain elbow macaroni
• 1 head cauliflower, roughly chopped (medium size head of cauliflower - if it is too large, you should only use half of the cauliflower head)
• 4 slices multigrain bread, torn (I think that only two pieces of bread work for this also, but if you like a thick crust on top, then you should use 4 slices)
• 1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped (I usually use dried parsley since fresh is more expensive, but if you have fresh it does taste better!)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• kosher salt and black pepper (fresh cracked black pepper is the best here)
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 cups grated extra-sharp Cheddar (6 ounces)
• 1 1/2 cups reduced-fat sour cream
• 1/2 cup 1 percent milk
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 400° F. Cook the pasta according to the package directions, adding the cauliflower during the last 3 minutes of cooking time; drain. (It is very important to cook the cauliflower, otherwise, it will not be cooked through enough after going in the oven.)
2. Meanwhile, pulse the bread in a food processor until coarse crumbs form. The bread will be easier to process into crumbs if it is toasted before you add it to the food processor. Add the parsley, 2 tablespoons of the oil, and ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper; pulse to combine.
3. Return the pasta pot to medium heat and add the remaining tablespoon of oil. Add the onion, ¾ teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, 3 to 5 minutes.
4. Mix in the cheese, sour cream, milk, and mustard and warm slightly, then add in the pasta and cauliflower and combine.
5. Transfer to a shallow 3-quart baking dish, sprinkle with the bread crumbs, and bake until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes.

Let me know if you try this one and if you like it!

Easy Meal Mondays! One Dish Chicken and Rice Bake

Happy Monday Everyone!  So for today's easy meal monday, we are going to go back to what is for me an oldy but a goody.  This one dish chicken bake is something my mom used to make and that I have made for a long time.  It is not the most healthy, but is filling and fast.  Jason and I both love this for days we need something comforting.  

One Dish Chicken and Rice Bake adapted from Campbell's Kitchen

Ingredients: 
1 can Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 cup water
3/4 cup uncooked regular long-grain white rice
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 1/4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

Directions:
Stir the soup, water, rice, paprika and black pepper in a 2-quart shallow baking dish. Top with the chicken. Season with additional paprika and black pepper. Cover the baking dish.

Bake at 375°F. for 45 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the rice is tender.  Let stand for 10 minutes.  Stir the rice before serving.

Let me know what you think!

Easy Meal Mondays! Homemade Hummus

Hello again everyone!  Welcome to another addition of Easy Meal Mondays.  Today I am not going to be providing a full meal recipe, but a meal component that Jason and I love and eat regularly.  Jason packs carrots and hummus in our lunches everyday and when I am feeling up to is, I make this fresh.  The only (sort of) problem with making this fresh is that it does not keep for as long as when you buy the kind with preservatives.  So here is my easy homemade hummus recipe.  It is adapted from the Williams and Sonoma one.

Homemade Hummus

Ingredients:

• 2 cans of chickpeas or the equivalent amount of chickpeas from dried
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup tahini - this is very important.  I have tried to make hummus without the tahini and it does not taste quite right
• 2-4 tablespoons olive oil
• 4-5 garlic cloves
• 3/4 teaspoon salt - this may need to be adjusted if you are using canned chickpeas
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 large pinch of paprika and a drizzle of olive oil for garnish - you can also add parsley as a garnish if you wish.  We are very rarely serving this as an appetizer and are just eating it ourselves, so we do not normally do the garnishing step.  

Directions:

Combine all listed ingredients in a food processor or blender (excluding those labeled for garnish).  Process until a soft, creamy paste forms.  Taste the hummus to see if any additional lemon, salt, or olive oil are needed.  Add these to your preference and blend everything together again.  I also like to check the consistency, because usually when I think it looks good, it still seems a bit gritty to me and needs to be blended further until the consistency is much smoother.  

If you are serving this at a party or event, place the hummus in your serving container and using a spoon smooth out the surface of the hummus.  Make a small well in the surface and drizzle a bit of olive oil into this well.  Then sprinkle chopped flat leaf parsley and paprika over the top of the hummus.  

Let me know if you make this and if you like it!  Until next week!

Easy Meal Mondays: Sweet Potato Cauliflower Soup

Hello everyone!  Here is another easy recipe for your collection.  Jason and I made this last week and really loved it.  Also, it reheats very well so we were able to have this for lunch for a few days.  I added a bit extra garam masala then it calls for, but other than that I did not adjust this recipe.  

Sweet Potato Cauliflower Soup By Allyson Kramer’s Gluten-Free Vegan Recipes

yield: 6 to 8 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 large head cauliflower (the one I used was at least 7″ in diameter
• olive oil for drizzling
• Few dashes garam masala (optional)
• 3 medium to large sized peeled sweet potatoes, cut into 1″ pieces
• 1 sweet onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic
• 7 cups filtered water

Directions:

First, preheat your oven to 400 °F and cut up your cauliflower into bite sized pieces. Sprinkle cauliflower lightly with garam masala. Place cauliflower onto ungreased cookie sheet and lightly drizzle with olive oil. Place in oven and let roast until golden brown on the tops and tender, but not mushy, about 20-30 minutes. There’s no need to flip ‘em. Just remove from oven and let cool while you cook the rest of the soup.

In large stockpot, bring sweet potato, onion, garlic and water to a boil. Salt (about 3/4 tsp) and stir. Reduce heat and allow to remain at a constant simmer until sweet potatoes are tender. Add in cooked cauliflower and divide soup into 2 parts.

Let soup cool and then blend one part soup in blender until very smooth. Combine with second part soup and stir. Salt to taste and warm up over stove top if needed.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!  Let me know what you think!

Easy Meal Mondays! Summer Vegetables with Sausage and Potatoes

Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you are doing well on this Monday Morning.  Today’s recipe is one from my favorite food blogger, Skinnytaste.com.  This summer vegetable, sausage, and potato scramble was pretty easy to make and very yummy.  I usually buy chicken sausage at CostCo in big pack and freeze it back.  This makes the sausage part of the meal pretty inexpensive.  

Summer Vegetables with Sausage and Potatoes - Skinnytaste.com

Ingredients:

1 lb baby red potatoes, cut in half or quartered

2 tsp oil

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp kosher salt

fresh cracked pepper

14 oz Italian chicken sausage, sliced 1-inch thick

1 large onion, chopped

4-5 cloves garlic, smashed with the side of the knife

1/2 orange bell pepper, diced 1-inch squares

1/2 yellow bell pepper, diced 1-inch squares

1 red bell pepper, diced 1-inch squares

2 tbsp fresh rosemary (or other fresh herb such as thyme) - I used dried herbs for this and used rosemary, thyme, and basil.  

2 cups zucchini, 1/2 inch thick and quartered

Directions:

Place oil and potatoes in a large, deep non-stick skillet with a tight fitting lid on high heat; season with garlic powder, salt and pepper. When the skillet gets hot and starts to sizzle, reduce heat to low and cook with a tight lid on for about 20-25 minutes,shaking the pan occasionally to prevent the potatoes from burning. While the potatoes were cooking I chopped all of the vegetables up and got those ready for the next step.  Remove the potatoes from the heat and let them sit 5 minutes without removing the lid.  Set potatoes aside on a dish.

Add the sausage to the skillet and saute on medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally until browned but not quite cooked through, about 10 minutes. Season chopped vegetables with salt and pepper. Add onions, peppers, garlic and rosemary to the skillet and mix. Continue cooking stirring occasionally until onions and peppers become slightly browned. Add zucchini and cook an additional 5 minutes, mixing as it cooks until cooked through.

Return the potatoes back to the skillet and mix well. Adjust salt and pepper as needed; cover and cook 5 more minutes.

Makes about 7 1/2 cups.

Let me know if you make this and what you think.  Jason and I don’t make this very often, but we really like it in the summer months.  

Easy Meal Mondays! Chicken Curry in a Hurry

Hey there everyone!  So this week I wanted to share one of my favorite meals for making with the leftovers from a Rotisserie chicken.  Normally whenever I go to CostCo I pick up a rotisserie chicken and we have a salad and some of the chicken that night for dinner.  Then I take the rest of the chicken off of the bones of the chicken and freeze it back.  This leftover chicken is a bit more than half of a chicken and is what I use for this recipe.  (If you are really industrious you could also make chicken stock out of the chicken carcass, but I never feel up to doing that.)  This way Jason and I get two main dinners from one chicken and usually a few lunch portions of the chicken curry also.  

Chicken Curry in a Hurry

Adapted from Real Simple

Ingredients

1 cup brown rice

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced

2 teaspoons curry powder

1/2 cup plain yogurt or 1 can coconut milk

3/4 cup heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained

meat from half of a rotisserie chicken, sliced or shredded

1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, roughly chopped (optional)

Directions

1. Cook the rice according to the package directions.
2. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 7 minutes.
3. Sprinkle with the curry powder and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.
4. Add the yogurt (or coconut milk) and cream and simmer gently for 3 minutes. Stir in the salt, pepper, and tomatoes. Add in the chicken and cook for a few minutes longer.  Remove from heat.  
5. Add the rice into individual bowls and add the chicken and sauce mix over the top.  Sprinkle with cilantro if desired.  This can also be good with some cashews sprinkled on top.  

Let me know if you try this!  We love it and hope you do too!

Easy Meal Mondays! Sandwich Hacks

Hello again everyone!  So this week has been a difficult one for my pain, and so I have not had the time for this next week to meal plan and because of that we are probably going to have a lot of sandwiches for lunches.  I know you have all had those weeks where you end up eating something comforting and very easy to make.  Because I have been having high pain levels, I thought I would go over some different things we do to make our basic sandwiches a little better or at least different.

Lets start with hacks for the common peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  First of all, just changing up what you use for peanut butter to a creamy or crunchy version instead of what you would normally use, or changing to almond butter or another nut butter will make your sandwich a bit different.  Also, using a different jelly, jam, or preserve than you would normally use will make things less common.  I really like preserves.  Jason and I typically buy apricot or berry preserves that are all natural and made by a local farm here (Huber Family Foods) but are sold at Cub or Rainbow.  Here are a few other things we sometimes add to our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches:

• Add Berries: This works well with raspberries or blackberries and less well with blueberries and strawberries as they are more apt to slop out of the sandwich (but don’t discount them because they would be tasty).  
• Add Banana
• Add Granola: This adds a wonderful crunch to your pb&j.  You could have even more crunch using crunchy peanut butter with the granola.  
• Add Honey or Maple Syrup for a very sweet sandwich

Next lets talk about the common meat and cheese sandwich.  Again, changing what you normally use for meat or cheese is going to help give your meal more variety.  Here are the different things I have added to a plain meat and cheese sandwich:  (the first few things are pretty normal, but still are adding variety)

• Add Tomatoes
• Add Lettuce
• Add Mayo and/or Mustard: I like to add Olive Oil Mayo and Spicy Mustard
• Add Avocado slices or Guacamole
• Add Sprouts
• Add Hummus: One of my favorite sandwich combinations is whole wheat bread with red pepper hummus, provolone, sprouts, lettuce, and slices of avocado.  This combination is good even without meat.  

Anyway, I hope this is helpful.  What unconventional things do you like to add to your sandwiches?  Let me know if you make any of these and what you like about them. 

Easy Meal Mondays! 13 Bean Chili

Hello again everyone and welcome to another easy meal monday installment.  So on Saturday, Jason and I were cleaning out the pantry and I found a bag of 13 bean soup mix that I had bought ages ago and Jason said, lets make that for lunches this week!  I was very surprised because he almost never wants to make soup, so I took him up on it and it was very good, so I thought I would share it with all of you.  

13 Bean Chili (adapted from the directions on the back of the bag of 13 bean soup mix)

YIELD: 8-10 Servings

PREP TIME:  24 hours

COOK TIME: 3 hours

TOTAL TIME: 27 hours

Ingredients:

1.25 cups of Bob’s Red Mill 13 Bean Soup Mix (one 29 ounce bag)

4 bay leaves

2 cubes of beef bullion

1 pound browned ground beef (drained) (or turkey which is what I used)

1 chopped medium onion

2 T. garlic (and more as desired)

16 oz. of tomato sauce (two cans)

1 cup of red cooking wine

1-2 T. chili powder

.5-1 tsp. salt

1 T. fresh ground pepper

1-2 T. paprika

Directions:

Soak the bean soup mix overnight (for about 16-24 hours) or soften by boiling five minutes and allowing to soak for at least one hour.  Drain the soup mix after it has soaked and rinse all of the beans.  Cover the beans with water in a pot and simmer with the bay leaves until the beans are tender.  (this should take about 1.5-3 hours)  At this point, I drained the beans and rinsed them again.  I put the beans back in the pot with the ground beef, the chopped onion, garlic, tomato sauce, red wine, chili powder, salt, ground pepper, and paprika.  I put one cup of water in a bowl with 2 cubes of beef bullion and nuked this in the microwave for 3 minutes so it boiled and the beef bullion was dissolved.  Pour this over what is in the pot and fill it with water to cover the mixture.  Simmer on low or medium low for about 1 more hour and then serve.  

We had this with crackers and a side salad and it was really good.  The leftovers have also been good.  I think next time I will add some dark chocolate to make this more hearty.  

Easy Meal Mondays! Sunday Pot Roast

Hello Everyone!  This is the eighth installment in my series on easy and healthy meal options that Jason and I have made and love.  This recipe is adapted from 101 Things to do with a Slow Cooker By Stephanie Ashcraft and Janet Eyring.  Every once in awhile a sunday roast is the perfect things for dinner and it makes a bunch of lunches for leftovers.  When the roasts are on sale at Costco I usually get a few and freeze one for later.  I made this today.  Every time I made it it has been good, so enjoy!

Sunday Slow Cooked Pot Roast

YIELD: 6-8 Servings

PREP TIME: 5-10 minutes

COOK TIME: 8-10 hours

TOTAL TIME: 8-10 hours

Ingredients:

• 3-4 pound rump roast
• 1 pound of baby carrots
• 1 cup chopped onion or ½ cup dried minced onion
• 8 to 10 red potatoes, quartered
• 1 envelope dry onion soup mix
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• ½ teaspoon fresh cracked pepper
• ketchup for serving (optional)

Directions:

Place carrots, onion, and potatoes in bottom of greased 4 to 5 quart slow cooker.  Place meat on top of vegetables.  Dissolve soup mix in water and pour over meat.  over and cook on low heat 8-10 hours.  If using a frozen roast, cook on low heat an additional 2-4 hours.  

FTC: This is not a sponsored blog post.  All of the products I have mentioned and have listed were purchased with my own money and all reviews are my honest opinions.  I am an amazon associate and the links in this post may go to amazon for possible purchases.

Easy Meal Mondays! Summer Macaroni Salad

Hello Everyone!  This is the seventh installment in my series on easy and healthy meal options that Jason and I have made and love.  This recipe is again from SkinnyTaste.com.  Jason and I both love this blog and we follow and make almost everything this blogger does!  This recipe for a summer macaroni salad is so refreshing and is perfect to bring to summer barbecues and potlucks (I don't know what people outside of the midwest call these, but here they are potlucks).  Jason does not think that this is a good recipe just to make for dinner, but I think it is perfect for that since I love macaroni salad.  This is really good fresh, but I liked it better the second day.  By then all of the flavors have melded together and it is very cold.  Let me know what you think about this and if you enjoy it as much as we do!

Summer Macaroni Salad

YIELD: 16 cups (only 115 calories per cup)
PREP TIME: 5 minutes
COOK TIME: 40 minutes
TOTAL TIME: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

• 16 oz uncooked elbows
• 4 cups grape tomatoes, cut in half (I got the mini heirloom tomatoes and they were lovely in this)
• 2 cups (1 small) zucchini, sliced and quartered
• 1/2 cup red onion, finely chopped
• 7 tbsp light mayonnaise (I used the Olive oil mayo, but I think it would taste better with miracle whip, though we don't use this much since it has high fructose corn syrup)
• 2 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp fat free Greek yogurt (plain - using vanilla would be a mistake :) )
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1/4 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Cook the pasta in generously salted water according to package directions.  Drain and rinse with cold water.  (I rinsed for quite a while with cold water because I like pasta salad to be very cold) 

In a medium bowl, combine onions, mayonaise,  vinegar, yogurt, mustard, oregano, garlic powder; mix well.  Add tomatoes (and any juice from the tomato), zucchini, pasta, salt and pepper to taste.  Toss well and place in a large serving bowl.  Enjoy!

Let me know what you think!  I would love to see how you make this and what tweeks you make to it!

FTC: This is not a sponsored blog post.  All of the products I have mentioned and have listed were purchased with my own money and all reviews are my honest opinions.  I am an amazon associate and the links in this post may go to amazon for possible purchases.