Cheesy Baked Pasta Casserole

This was really easy to throw together and used things I keep on hand--perfect for a last-minute meal option. It's originally from Woman's Day magazine.

Ingredients:
12 oz. bowtie pasta
1 bag (12 oz.) broccoli florets

1 T. butter
2 shallots, chopped (I used green onions)
1 pkg. (8 oz) sliced mushrooms
4 c. whole milk (I used 2% and it came out fine)
1/4 c. all-purpose flour
ground pepper
salt
1 bag (5 oz.) baby spinach (I just threw in two or three big handfuls since I don't buy 5 oz. bags)
1 1/4 c. grated white cheese of your choice
1/2 c. grated Parmesan

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 425* F. Grease a 3-qt. baking dish.
2. Cook pasta according to package. Add broccoli the last 3 minutes of cooking. Drain and return to pot.
3. Meanwhile, melt butter in large deep skillet over medium heat. Add shallots and mushrooms and saute until tender (about 5 minutes).
4. In medium bowl, whisk together milk, flour, salt and pepper. Pour into skillet and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened (about 5 minutes); stir in spinach. Remove from heat and stir in 1 cup of white cheese and the Parmesan.
5. Pour sauce into pasta and broccoli. Toss to coat. Transfer to prepared baking dish and sprinkle with remaining cheese.
6. Bake until the cheese melts and is beginning to brown (about 10 minutes).

Note: As is typical with casseroles, this was better the second day. WD gives these instructions for making it ahead: 
1. After completing step 5, let casserole cool for 10 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 3 days.
2. On the night you plan to serve it, remove casserole from refrigerator and replace plastic wrap with nonstick aluminum foil. Bake at 425* F. oven for 30 minutes; uncover and bake until beginning to brown (about 10 minutes). 

Farmstyle Spaghetti and Meatballs

This tasted great and seemed to be a family pleaser. We will be revisiting this recipe again. Thanks mom for the great meal idea!

Farmstyle Spaghetti and Meatballs

Note from the original recipe: "The sauce on this dish is not a thick and chunky sauce like many of you might be used to. It is a light, “soupy” sauce, which complements the seasoned meatballs and pasta perfectly, in my opinion!"



For the meatballs:
2 pounds ground beef
1 envelope Lipton Onion Soup Mix
1 egg
1/2 cup breadcrumbs (I used Italian bread crumbs and omitted the aditional Italian seasoning)
1 1/2 teaspoons Italian Seasoning


Using your hands, combine all the ingredients until well blended. Pinch off pieces of the meat mixture and shape into meatballs. Place in a large stock pot or dutch oven, then follow remaining instructions.


For the sauce:
1, 29 oz. can Tomato Sauce
1/2 of tomato sauce can of water
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
1 envelope Lipton Onion Soup Mix
1 pinch ground cloves (don’t skip this… it is the “secret” ingredient)


In a large bowl, stir together sauce ingredients. Add to the stock pot with the meatballs and stir. Bring sauce to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium low, place the lid on the pot, and cook until meatballs are cooked through. Depending on the size of your meatballs, this will be 30-45 minutes. (You can simmer this over low heat on your stove for a longer period of time, just remember to occasionally stir.).
Serve over 1 lb. thick spaghetti. Make sure to reserve a small amount of your pasta water and toss with your spaghetti after draining. This will help the sauce to stick to the pasta. Now, tuck your napkin in your shirt and enjoy! (I did notice that the sauce seemed really runny at first, but after I let it sit for a couple of minutes, the pasta soaked some of it up so it wasn't too bad)

45 Minute Bread Sticks

Another recipe from my mom, these bread sticks are perfect to get started before making a quick dinner such as spaghetti or soup. They come together really fast (hence the name) and are soft and chewy, plus they make a lot. I had enough plus leftovers when serving 6 adults and 2 kids (We had the spaghetti with them, and it was yummy!). You can also use whatever seasonings you want to on top. My mom used a garlic bread seasoning, but I just used garlic salt in addition to the parmesan cheese. I hope you enjoy them, too!

45 Minute Bread Sticks

1 1/2 C warm water

2 T sugar

1 T yeast

1/2 t salt

3 1/2- 4 C flour

1/4 C butter

3/4 C grated Parmesan or mozzarella cheese (I used parmesan in the can)

Johnny's Garlic Seasoning (or seasoning of choice- I used garlic salt)

1. Mix the water, sugar and yeast together in a measuring cup or in the bottom of your mixer. Let it sit for 5 minutes.

2. Add the salt and the flour, one cup at a time, until it is well incorporated. Mix on high for 5 minutes. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.

3. Melt the butter and pour half of it into a jelly roll pan (large cookie sheet).

4. Place the dough in the center of the pan. Let it sit for 2 or 3 minutes. Letting the dough rest makes it MUCH easier to shape.

5. Spread the dough out flat onto the pan until it reaches all of the edges. Doing all of the spreading and cutting of these bread sticks, in the pan makes cleaning up your counter so much easier!

6. Pour the other half of the butter onto the dough. Spread it around with your hands. Sprinkle the Johnny's Garlic Seasoning all over the dough, and then the Parmesan cheese.

7. With a pizza cutter cut the dough into three rows lengthwise (I only made 2 rows), and then into about 12 little height wise rows.

8. Put the pan into a 170 degree oven for about 7-10 minutes. The breadsticks should rise about 1 inch.

9. Turn you oven up to 350 and bake for about 12 minutes, or until golden brown.

10. When they come out of the oven let them sit and rest again for about 5 minutes. Then redefine your cutting lines with the pizza cutter.

Monster Cookies

This cookie recipe came from one of my mom's good friends, Dana. Her boys are allergic to several things, one thing being wheat gluten, so she is always on the look out for gluten-free recipes. The original recipe makes A TON of cookies- in fact so much that even when I quartered the recipe, it made 7 dozen cookies! I made normal sized cookies, but there are instructions for the recipe for making cookies that are the size of a saucer. So just remember, the recipe I have below is 1/4 of the original recipe. The only other thing I want to add is that you could add in raisins or nuts, too, if you wanted. We hope you enjoy this recipe as it is now one of our favorites!

Monster Cookies

3 eggs
1 c. sugar
1 c. + 2 Tbl. brown sugar
1/2 c. butter, softened
1-1/4 c. peanut butter (I used creamy, but you could use crunchy)
scant 2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. vanilla
4-1/2 c. oatmeal
1 c. plain M&M'S®
1 c. chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet)





In a very large bowl, mix ingredients in order given. Make sure the dough is mixed well. Drop on a cookie sheet about 5 cookies to a sheet with ice cream scoop and flatten. Or use a regular cookie scoop and flatten slightly for smaller cookies. Preheat oven to 350* F (175* C). Bake for 12 minutes for larger cookies and 9 for smaller . These burn easily so don't overcook. Makes about 20-30 saucer size cookies or 7 dozen regular size.





Note: This recipe does not call for flour.

Tatertot Casserole

I decided that I'm going to only be posting when I have something to share that I want to share. I don't really like the pressure of posting frequently just to have posts up. It makes me feel like I have to post whatever I make, even if I don't completely love the recipe. Plus I'm only cooking 50% of the time since I'm living with my in-laws. So sorry if posts are a bit more sparatic.

Anyways, this recipe comes from my MIL Schenk Family cookbook. I never had tatertot casserole before I lived with my inlaws, but when my MIL cooked it for dinner one night, I fell in love! (In fact I had a craving for it during the last couple of weeks, so I finally made it for dinner last night!) In the cookbook it was titled "Finicky Kids Casserole", so obviously this was someone's solution to getting their kids to actually eat their dinner. It can be a little on the saltier side (but not super bad) so I would use low sodium soup to help cut the salt. Something that I'll try next time is instead of layering the ground beef, tatertots and soups, I am going to mix them up together and then add the cheese on top. The reason being just that when I made it, the cream of chicken soup didn't go all the way to the meat and so the meat didn't really "stick" to the rest of the casserole (Plus it would make it less noticeable if I were to reduce the ground beef to 1 lb.). Also, you could probably use whatever cream soups you have on hand. I was thinking it might be fun to try a cream of celery with a cream of mushroom. However you make it, I hope you enjoy this too!

Tatertot Casserole

1-1/2 pounds ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

1 large pkg. tatertots (My package was 32 oz.)

2 cans cream of chicken soup, undiluted

1-1/2 c. cheddar cheese, grated

1 pkg. Lipton Onion Soup

Brown beef and chopped onion; drain well. Spread in a 9X13" pan. Sprinkle onion soup mix over beef. Evenly distribute tatertots over onion. Spoon soup over potatoes. Sprinkle cheese over top and bake for 35-45 minutes at 350* F (I baked mine for a little more than 45 minutes and it was perfect. Just make sure the casserole is warm all the way through and that the tatertots aren't raw.)

Pear Scones

I made these this morning for breakfast. They're quick and easy and only use one pear--which makes them great in my book! (I like having pears to eat fresh too!) I found this off of Allrecipes.com.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 c. flour
1/3 c. packed brown sugar
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
1/3 c. butter, chilled
1 egg
1/2 c. half-and-half
1 chopped pear

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375*.
2. Sift together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in large bowl. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly texture. In separate bowl, whisk together egg and half-and-half. Add to the flour mixture until combined. Stir in pear.
3. On lightly floured surface, turn out dough. Pat down until it's about 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick. Cut into triangles or rounds and place on ungreased baking sheet.
4. Bake until golden brown (about 15 minutes); rest briefly on a cooling rack before serving. Serve with butter and honey or any jam.

Note: Instead of half-and-half, I used evaporated milk, which, by the way, you can make from dry milk by mixing together 2/3 c. with 3/4 c. water. (Makes 1 cup.) I also added chopped walnuts. They were really good!

Marinated Pork Chops

We made these for dinner last month and I've been meaning to post them because they were sooo good! In fact, my almost-1-year-old picked all the meat out of his dinner and ate it before he ate anything else. The recipe comes from a family friend that gave me the recipe at my bridal shower a little over 3 years ago. I did grill the chops, but you could also bake them (since I know not everywhere has weather condusive to grilling in the middle of winter!). I would probably bake them at 375*F for about 45 minutes- I'm guessing at the time. Just make sure that the juices run clear and the meat is cooked through. Or if you are a broiler pro (I am not) you could also broil the chops. However you cook them, these will be sure to please!

Marinated Pork Chops

4 boneless pork loin chops (you could use any cut of pork chop)

1 cup apple cider

2 Tbl brown sugar

1 Tbl Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp chili powder
1/8 tsp garlic powder

Mix the marinade together, add the chops and marinate 4-6 hours. Bake till juice runs clear or grill!