White Chicken Enchiladas

Oh-my-lanta! This are amazing! This recipe from Joyful Momma's Kitchen went viral on Pinterest. This has turned into one of Skubz favorites, and a go-to meal for me when I don't have a lot of time. I did make a few adjustments to the original recipe. We found that, for our tastes, the recipe didn't have enough spice. If you don't like your food too spicy, you can stick with the original recipe and omit the red pepper flakes and chili powder.

The green chilies aren't hot at all. But we like the flavor so we've doubled the amount! And finally, I can never find shredded Monterey Jack cheese at our local stores, so we have always just used mozzarella. One of these days, when I get out to the cheese factory, I will get some pepperjack, and give that a try!

We buy rotisserie chicken in this family, maybe once every week or so. We take it off the bone and use that in our chicken recipes. It's so convenient, since it is already cooked, seasoned and it shreds so nicely! That's what we use in this recipe as well.

White Chicken Enchiladas
10 soft taco shells
2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
3 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. flour
1 (14.5 oz) can chicken broth
1 cup sour cream
2 (4 oz) can diced green chillies

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 Tbs chili powder


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 pan
2. Mix chicken and 1 cup cheese. Put some of the chicken/cheese mixture in each tortilla, roll up and set in the 9x13
3. In a sauce pan, melt butter, stir in flour and cook 1 minute. Add broth and whisk until smooth. Heat over medium heat until thickened.
4. Stir in sour cream, red pepper flakes, chili powder and chilies. DO NOT allow this to come to a boil after the sour cream is added. It will curdle.
5. Pour over enchiladas and top with remaining cheese.
6. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until cheese is stringy. Turn oven onto broil to brown the cheese (if you have the patience, we never do!)

Grandma's Potpie

Ohh this one is personally my favorite dish to make for supper. Skubz would give it an 8/10 but in my book, it's a 20. I will say that this recipe is a bit involved, but worth it if you have the time.
I started craving this one pretty bad so I decided to put in the time for this totally homemade meal.

This recipe comes from Taste Of Home. I may not be the best at making fluted edges but hey, it tastes just as good I'm sure. 

So I ended up eating way more than I should have, and spent the majority of my evening regretting the decision to stuff my gut.

After making this as many times as I did, I have a few tips. First of all, I don't own a 9x9 pan but I do have an 8x8. So I usually just use 1 pound of hamburger and everything fits just fine. The potatoes have the potential to stay crunchy if you follow the recipe instructions, but if you put them at the very bottom of the pan, they cook to a nice soft texture.
I have tried "cheater" versions of this such as buying canned gravy or using a pre-made crust dough.... it doesn't come out nearly as tasty. Personally, I don't thaw the frozen veggies, and have never had an issue with them. I usually use a bean, corn and pea mix. I have also made this with chicken. Just substitute the broth for chicken broth, and the beef for a pound of chicken. Easy!

Grandma's Potpie

Ingredients
1-1/2 pounds ground beef
1 teaspoon onion powder
Salt to taste
1 cup cubed peeled potatoes
1 cup frozen mixed vegetables, thawed
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 can (14-1/2 ounces) beef broth
CRUST:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup shortening
3/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions
In a large skillet, cook beef over medium heat until no longer pink; drain. Stir in onion powder and salt. Transfer to a greased 9-in. square baking dish. Top with potatoes and vegetables.
Meanwhile, in a small skillet, melt the butter. Stir in flour until smooth; gradually add broth. Bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Pour over vegetables.
For crust, in a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in milk until a soft dough forms.
On a floured surface, roll dough into a 9-in. square. Place over filling; flute edges and cut slits in top. Brush with melted butter. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes or until golden brown.

Crockpot Cheesy Chicken and Rice

Ohh this was an amazing recipe. I made this on Sunday. Yeah I am a little behind, but oh well! It had rained, constantly, all weekend. And it was cold! So as you can imagine, it was miserable.
I thought about making chili, but it just seemed too cliche. And I love trying new things, so I found this little gem.
It was easy, tasty, and it was made in a crock pot (my favorite!)
It also didn't require much in terms of ingredients.

Now with this pregnancy, I had a pretty severe hatred of chicken, particularly fried, but any talk about eating chicken was enough to make me gag. It seems here in the third trimester I have gotten over that. Just in time too, I was really starting to get tired of eating beef EVERYTHING.

And I wouldn't have found this!

I whipped up some biscuits to go with this also. That recipe came from Deals To meals. I can never get mine to look as amazingly buttery and moist as hers, but they still taste good. And the Cheesy Chicken and Rice recipe came from Southern Plate.

Just an FIY, this meal still tasted as good as the first time after we reheated the left overs!

Crockpot Cheesy Chicken and Rice
4 boneless skinless chicken breast
1 onion, chopped
1 8oz pack of Ben's Wild Rice, prepared to package instructions
1 cup of cheddar cheese
1 10.5oz can cream of chicken soup
1 15oz can of whole kernal corn, drained

Instructions
Place chicken breasts in the bottom of the slow cooker. Scatter chopped onion over chicken. Spoon cream of chicken soup on top. Cover and cook-
Low setting: 7-8 hours
High setting: 3-4 hours
A few minutes before serving, add in the cooked rice, corn and cheese. Stir to combine and shred chicken. Cover and let it heat through (about 10-15 minutes). Serve hot.

Ruth's Diners Mile High Biscuits
3 c. flour
1 1/2 t. salt
1 T. sugar
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 stick butter
3/4 c. buttermilk (OR 3/4 c. milk + 2 T. lemon juice)
1 egg
1/4 c. water

Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine flour, salt, sugar, baking powder and butter until crumbly. Mix in buttermilk, egg and just enough water to make a workable dough. Mix the dough until it is just barely combined (don't over mix). Roll the dough onto a floured cutting board about 1 inch thick. Cut with a 2 inch biscuit cutter, or a 2 inch round cup. Place on a greased baking sheet (touching each other) and bake 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Chili Cheese Dog Casserole

I've been slacking on supper the last few days. We've been having those awful boxed meals and such while I decided that I needed a break.
But tonight I am back!
Skubz and my step-dad were working on our broken dryer this afternoon. I was doing some relaxation/Mimz time, when I realized, that Skubz needed to be to work in about two hours, and I didn't even THINK about supper! So I pulled up some random recipe, and ran (or waddled) over to the store.

This is what we came up with for this evening: Chili Cheese Dog Casserole!
Yes, another cornbread recipe, but ya know what, Skubz loves cornbread so it works. I found this from Taste Of Home. I had to modify a bit, because I didn't want to chop up all the veggies that the recipe suggested.
When I was whipping this up, I also noticed that it was really tough to split the cornbread batter between the top and bottom layer, there just wasn't enough batter. I would suggest just putting it either on the top or the bottom instead of both.
Dinner did turn out as a success, it didn't take long and Skubz loved it.
I will be adding it to my collection of fast dinner recipes, for the next time I forget that Skubz works.

Chili Cheese Dog Casserole

Ingredients
1 8.5oz package corn bread/muffin mix
1 cup chopped green pepper

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped celery

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 package hot dogs,cut into bite-size pieces

1 can (15 ounces) chili with beans

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

Prepare corn bread batter according to package and spread half the batter into a greased 8x8 baking dish; set aside.

In a large skillet, saute the green pepper, onion and celery in oil until tender. Stir in hot dogs; heat 3-4 minutes longer or until lightly browned. Stir in the chili, brown sugar, garlic powder and chili powder; heat through. Stir in 3/4 cup cheese.

Spoon over corn bread batter; top with remaining corn bread batter. Sprinkle remaining cheese over the top.

Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 28-32 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Homemade Pizza

Just to let Skubz know just how much I appreciate everything he does for our small-but-growing family, I made him one of his favorite things for supper tonight.

Homemade Pizza!
Now I am pretty sure we don't need to put up a recipe for pizza, it's pretty standard. But I will share with you the easiest, and fluffiest pizza crust recipe that I have ever made.

My mom has always made the best pizza. When I was growing up, she would let us have a special meal of our choice on our birthday. We very rarely chose anything that WASN'T her homemade pizza.

The crust recipe comes from an old old cookbook that used to be my grandmothers. I only have a written version, so I am not sure what that book was called.

Since I didn't acquire the recipe until a few months ago, I tried my finding a pizza crust recipe that was equally as amazing with little luck. They were either too thin, too thick, too time-consuming, tasted like cardboard or any other variation of things!
So here it is, the "not too thick, not too thin, easy and tasty" pizza dough recipe.

Pizza Dough
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (105-115 degrees F)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 Tbs vegetable oil (olive oil works also)
2 1/2 cups of all purpose OR whole wheat flour

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Stir in the remaining ingredients, and beat vigorously for 20 strokes. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes before spreading out on pizza pan.

Spinach Lasagna Rolls

It was kind of tough to decide between a pasta or a soup today. Being that it was cool and a little breezy, and that the Packers lost, we really needed something good for supper.
I stalked around the 'net for something easy and quick (because hell, that's just my style.)
I found a post on Never Trust a Skinny Cook for these beautiful looking lasagna rolls. I didn't immediately find a step by step recipe, and being the type of impatient person that I can be, I just briefly skimmed the article and decided to wing it from there.

I started out with some ricotta cheese, spinach, garlic powder, oregano, basil, and mozzarella cheese. I mixed those all together and spooned the mixture onto lasagna noodles.

I was a little worried when it came to rolling these guys up, I thought I might have picked one of those recipes that is awesome in theory, but ridiculous in execution. But honestly, the ricotta seemed to act almost like a "glue" and kept everything nice and neat. I dumped some spaghetti sauce on top, and added more cheese, because that is how we do things in Wisconsin.

So I stuck my cute little lasagna rolls in the oven for what felt like FOREVER (I was starving at this point).
It was worth the wait. They were cheesy and the spinach gave them some awesome flavor. 

And the best part? I got Skubz to eat spinach! That was a miracle in itself.

Spinach Lasagna Rolls8 cooked lasagna noodles
15 oz of ricotta cheese
10 oz of spinach (thawed and drained)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil

1 1/2 cup shredded mozerella cheese
1 jar spaghetti sauce

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Mix together the ricotta cheese, spinach, garlic, oregano, basil and 1 cup of the shredded cheese. Place the cooked lasagna noodles on a flat surface, and evenly spread the cheese mixture on the noodles.
Gently roll the lasagna noodles, and place them in a greased 1-1/2 quart baking dish.  Top the noodles with the jar of spaghetti sauce, and the remaining 1/2 cup of shredded cheese.
Cover the noodles with aluminum foil, and bake for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and continue to bake an additional 10 minutes. 

I'm sure that this recipe has a lot of room for interpretation. Maybe add some cream cheese, beef, or chopped onion. Whatever works for you or your family.

Taco Cornbread Bake

So today was one of those rare days that Skubz had off of work, from BOTH jobs! Woohoo! So I let him pick what we would have for supper, and he picked this Taco Cornbread Bake that I used to make when we lived in our apartment.
I had completely forgotten about this one, and how much Skubz liked it, so I was pretty excited (especially because of how quick and easy it is!)

I found this recipe on a healthy eating website once, but I only have the "pregnant" excuse to eat what I want for a few more months, and I plan to use it, damn it! So it was changed around, a few things added or taken out. I also didn't agree with the baking method, so this has really become more of a Mimz original.

Mmm, everything about this screams comfort food. And of course this is before it gets all dressed up and sexy.

There was only half a pan left by the time Skubz was done annihilating what was on his plate.

Taco Cornbread Bake
1 (8.5 oz) box cornbread mix
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 lb cooked taco meat

1/2 cup onion (chopped)
1 can of re-fried beans
1 1/2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
Optional toppings:
lettuce
chopped tomatoes
sour cream
salsa
black olives

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Mix together the cornbread mix, egg and milk. Pour into a greased 8x8 pan. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, set aside. Combine the prepared taco meat, onion and re-fried beans. Evenly spread on top of the cornbread. Top with the shredded cheese. Bake for another 20-25 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted.
Before serving, add any optional toppings.

And for your viewing enjoyment, here is a sexy, dressed up version of our delicious dinner. Seriously, are you still looking at the picture? Go make it already! ;)