recipes — Page 13

Quick Start Homemade – Cookbook

October 21, 2013 By Anne

School is back and so is the full fall schedule. Dinners can get old and time consuming. So do you do? Try new quick and exciting recipes!!

I received a new cook book to review, Quick Start Homemade from Southern Living. I love Southern Living Cookbooks. They always have easy to follow recipes, beautiful pictures and lots of tips and tricks.

The Quick Start Homemade Cookbook has over 180 recipes using everyday staples and ingredients like pasta, salad, store-bought pizza dough, eggs and rotisserie chicken. Items you can pick up easily and put together a great dinner.

Each nutritious recipe has been triple-tested by the Southern Living test kitchen and Quick-Start Homemade includes great pasta dishes like Skillet Ziti, made in half the time of baked, and Green Bean Pasta Salad with Lemon-Thyme Vinaigrette, a 30-minute recipe with an extra tip for preparing the recipe ahead of time and freshening up before serving. The “Pastry & Pizza Dough” chapter lets fresh pizza dough, piecrust dough or puff pastry do most of the work and features inventive pizza recipes perfect for a mid-week meal, as well as savory hand pies and pot pies. In “Rotisserie Chicken,” crowd-pleasing dinners like Chicken Enchiladas and Chicken Pot Pie with Cheddar Biscuits are no-hassle, but with a homemade touch.

I looked through the book and wanted something super easy. So I picked the Breakfast Pizza.

Here’s what you need:

1 – 8 oz can refrigerated crescent rolls

1 – lb. sausage( the book calls for hot, but I used mild)

(I also used 4 slices of bacon!)

1 – 28 oz package of frozen hash browns with onions and peppers

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

4 large eggs (I used 6)

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Preheat oven to 375. Unroll crescent rolls and place in 13 x 9 baking dish. Bake for 5 minutes

Reduce oven to 350. Cook sausage over medium heat until it crumbles and is no longer pink. Drain and sprinkle over crust. I added my bacon here as well.

Prepare hash browns as directed and spoon over sausage and bacon. Sprinkle cheese over hash browns.

Whisk together eggs, milk and salt and pepper. Pour over cheese.

Bake 350 for 30-35 minutes or until set.

I had so many more pictures from beginning to end but my card was not in my camera so all those pictures I thought I had I didn’t. So this a picture of the leftovers that we have been eating since I made this on Friday. A great dish! The extra eggs and bacon was a big plus for my family.

I’m looking forward to trying more new and easy recipes!! No more boring dinners for us!

Anne

I'm a mother of 2 who likes to get involved in too much! Besides writing here I started a non-profit, I'm on the PTO board, very active in my community and volunteer in the school. I enjoy music, reading, cooking, traveling and spending time with my family. We just adopted our 3rd cat and love them all!

Betty Crocker & First Birthdays

October 11, 2013 By Anne

This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own.

Remember your child’s first birthday? Of course you do! One of the best parts of the first birthday is the cake!

It was such a busy time for me and my local grocery store gave us a free cake for both of my children for their first birthdays! A cake just for them to dig into and get messy with.

Unfortunately or fortunately they did not make too much of a mess as you can see in my pictures. (not the best pictures, I know)

Want to make a special cake for your little one? Check out these Betty Crocker Smash Cakes!

Find recipes for Betty Crocker’s favorite first birthday smash cakes here.

Anne

Healthy Families, Helping Kids

September 27, 2013 By Anne

I am working with Produce for Kids on this campaign.

Another reason why I love shopping at Publix!!

Produce for Kids is teaming up with Publix stores for the second annual Healthy Families, Helping Kids campaign to raise money for local health and nutrition-based classroom projects through DonorsChoose.org. Beginning September 26th through October 30th, the joint campaign will help raise money for classroom projects that encourage healthy relationships with food.

So if you shop at Publix, the more produce you add to your carts the more money can be raised. All of the fresh fruit and vegetable suppliers participating will make a consumption-based donation DonorsChoose.org. More than $169,000 was raised last year which helped support 652 classroom projects throughout the country!! That is so awesome!! I have been volunteering a lot already this year at my daughter’s school and it’s amazing how much money is needed.

Be on the lookout for Produce for Kids signage, featuring characters from the popular Sprout® television show, The Chica Show, in the produce section of local Publix stores. You can also visit www.produceforkids.com for wonderful recipes and tips to help keep your kids healthy not just for back to school but all year long!

I have been trying to get my children to try new things and these kid friendly recipes are perfect for taste testing. Just last week we had pot roast and the kids tried some cooked carrots. I also made cheesecake and they each tried that as well. The Fruity Pumpkin Pie Smoothie below looks like a winner!

Fruity Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

Serves 4

Preparation Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup canned pumpkin purée

2 cups lowfat vanilla yogurt

1 cup spinach, loosely packed

½ cup pomegranate juice

1 medium banana

1 medium mango, chopped

1 tsp. cinnamon

⅛ tsp. cloves

Directions:
1.Place pumpkin, yogurt, spinach, juice, banana, mango, cinnamon and cloves into blender. Blend until smooth.

Suggested Sides for a Complete Meal:

• 1 slice whole wheat toast with 1 Tbsp. nut butter

Recipe by Christine Pittman of Cook the Story

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Hearty Turkey & Kale Chili

Serves 8

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 8 hours

Ingredients: 1 lb. lean ground turkey 1 medium onion, diced

1 green bell pepper, seeded, diced 4 cloves garlic, minced 1½ Tbsp. chili powder 1½ Tbsp. cumin 2 tsp. dried oregano 2 Tbsp. tomato paste 2 cans (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes, drained 1 can (15 oz.) low-sodium black beans, drained, rinsed 1 can (15 oz.) no salt added corn, drained ¾ cup low-sodium chicken broth 4 cups kale, tough stems removed, chopped

1 cup 2% plain Greek yogurt

1 cup unsalted tortilla chips, crushed

Directions:

Add turkey, onion, pepper, garlic, chili powder, cumin, oregano, tomato paste, tomatoes, black beans, corn, broth and kale to slow cooker, and cook on low 8 hours.
Top with Greek yogurt and tortilla chips.

Which one will you try?

Anne

Pillsbury Crescent Rolls Make an Easy Breakfast Dinner

September 19, 2013 By Anne

School has started and so have the more strict routine. Dinner needs to be a certain time, bath at a certain time and bedtime, so important now that school has started. We usually eat the same meals over and over but I’ve been venturing outside our box for some new quick and easy meals. I even used my crock pot for the first time in a year! That is one goal – using it more often.

I want to make easy and kid friendly meals that make my family say, “Wow”. One way to do this is by using Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. There are so many different recipes to try. I was browsing online for some my family would enjoy. I came with at least a dozen recipes I would love to try but will start off with what I hope my family will like the best. One of our favorite dinners is breakfast. So I tried Crescent Breakfast Casserole.

Crescent Breakfast Casserole

Recipe Type: Dinner or Breakfast!

Ingredients

8 oz. Crescent rolls
8-10 slices of bacon, crumbled or sausage
6-8 eggs
2 cups shredded cheese (jack, cheddar, colby, whichever you like)
2-3 tbsp. milk
salt and pepper to taste
cooking spray

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and prepare either 13×9 or 11×9 baking dish with cooking spray. (use about 6 eggs for the smaller pan and about 8 for the larger pan)
Line the dish with unrolled crescent rolls, letting it come up the sides a bit. Press the seams together.
Layer the crumbled bacon or sausage and cheese over the crescent rolls. Beat eggs with milk, salt and pepper and pour over bacon and cheese.
Bake about 25-30 minutes or until center is set. Let cool for a few minutes, then serve.

I got the above recipe online. After making it I would recommend adding more meat. Maybe bacon and sausage and less cheese. Unless your family loves cheese. Mine likes it not loves it. I used 6 eggs and next time I will use 8 even with the smaller dish.

Over all everyone liked it. But I look forward to making it again with the added ingredients. I love how the Pillsbury Crescent rolls added that extra buttery flavor! I ate the leftovers for breakfast – yumm!

What have you made with Pillsbury Crescent Rolls lately?

Want a winning weeknight dinner the family will enjoy, make Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. Get Recipes at www.Pillsbury.com

Disclosure: Compensation was provided by General Mills via Glam Media. The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of General Mills.

Anne

Green Giants Veggie Snacks Have #GiantFlavor

August 8, 2013 By Anne

I am a snacker. I admit it. I love to snack. Not going into an office everyday leaves me home alone with a lot of snacks. That is scary. I need to find healthy snacks that taste as good as the unhealthy snacks. That can be tricky.

When asked to review the new Green Giant™ Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chip – Garden Ranch and Green Giant Multigrain Sweet Potato Chip – Barbecue, how could I refuse?

You can see how wrinkled the bags are especially the Veggie Tortilla Chips. I’ve been eating them non-stop.

My favorite snacks are crunchy snacks and chips are top of the list. This was a perfect scenario. My first taste test was the Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chips in Garden Ranch. Wow – talk about flavor! I love being able to see all the veggies in the chip.

See all that flavor in there?

The Veggie Tortilla Chips have whole grain corn, red and green peppers, broccoli, tomatoes and carrots. Yumm, lots of veggies and flavor in one little chip! Plus there is only 130 in one serving with 18 grams of whole grain and 0 trans fat.

The Multigrain Sweet Potato Chips have yummy sweet potatoes and whole grain corn flour and other spices. These were just as tasty as any BBQ chip but with that extra sweetness of the sweet potato. The Sweet Potato Chips have 120 calories per serving, 14 grams whole grain and 0 trans fat.

While checking out Green Giant’s Facebook page I was checking out some delicious snacking recipes. I found this one and think I will make it for our next game night.

1 can (11 oz) Green Giant® SteamCrisp® Mexicorn® whole kernel corn, red and green peppers, drained
1 medium tomato, seeded, chopped
2 medium green onions, sliced (2 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1 medium avocado, pitted, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 bag (5 oz) Green Giant® garden ranch roasted veggie tortilla chips