Cheesy Rice Casserole

Growing up I hated rice. I didn't just not like it, I loathed it. I felt like we ALWAYS were eating rice (and sloppy joes, which I never liked either) but I'm sure we didn't have it as much as I felt like we did. Now as an adult rice still isn't typically my first choice but after the dinner we had tonight we might be having rice a bit more regularly! 
I saw this dish and used it for inspiration. I will warn you as I am sure I've mentioned before on my blog that I am a down right horrible recipe follower. I follow baking recipes pretty closely but everything else I wing. Seriously. Normally if I'm telling people how I make something it includes a lot of, "a little of that, a few handfuls of this, I don't know maybe a half cup of this... but really just however much you want" So bear with me as I try to give you the ingredient amounts...

4 cups of cooked rice I prefer using brown rice. 1 lb ground beef, turkey or chicken, anything works 7oz can of green chilies  1 sweet onion, diced 1 large tomato, diced (canned is fine if that's what you have) 1 can of corn 1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed Cheese... probably about 1.5 - 2 cups, basically enough to top the casserole.  1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp chili powder 1 tsp cumin 1/2 tsp cayenne Salt, to taste 
*all spices can be easily adjusted to your taste* If you don't have the spices on hand you could probably sub taco seasoning but I haven't tried it that way. In fact pretty much everything can easily be adjusted. Don't like black beans? Leave them out or sub them for something else. Like peppers? Add them! This takes additions/subs pretty easily. 
This can be as spice or mild as you'd like. With the spice amounts listed it wasn't spicy at all, in fact next time I will probably up the cayenne for certain - you know what you can handle though :)
*Mix the garlic powder, cumin, chili powder and cayenne in a small dish and preheat the oven to 350*
*Sautee your meat and onion in a large pan or pot. After your meat has cooked through add in the can of diced green chilies, diced tomato and spices. Once thoroughly mixed, mix in the cooked rice. After you get all of that mixed together and your kitchen is smelling amazing, throw in the corn and black beans.
*Once everything is mixed pour it into a casserole dish, top with cheese and bake until heated through and the cheese is melted. Since the mixture will already be pretty warm from being on the stove, it only took about 15 minutes before mine was ready to pull out of the oven. 

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did! 


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Close Call at Logan's Roadhouse

SOURCE

We had a coupon for Logan's Roadhouse so when we found ourselves needing lunch and close to one we decided to go ahead and go. Now Logan's isn't a place we usually go and I think this may have been only the 3rd time we have ever went. We have generally preferred Texas Roadhouse mostly because their menu appeals more to us. 
I'm pretty confident we won't be returning. 
We are pretty easy going people in general and understand that mistakes happen. So when my meal came with two sides and I picked one of my sides to be a salad and it didn't come I wasn't upset - I just asked her instead for a different side to go with my meal (since our food was out at that point). No biggie, people forget. Our next experience could have even been forgiven except that we learned that this was a common occurrence (at least at the one we were at). 
The husband took a bite out of his burger and felt something odd in his mouth I'm really glad he hadn't tried to swallow it! This is what it ended up being...

In case you don't know what that is, it is the piece of plastic that they stick in the burger that tells them how it is cooked (medium, medium well, etc. ) Note that these pieces were in different places in the burger. He first found the large piece which had broken off (I assume when they put the bun on?) and after looking through the burger found that small piece that was pretty sharp. Thankfully he didn't bite down on that small sharp piece, that could have been bad. 
Now we realize sometimes things happen. I once found part of a hot dog in my caesar salad at Texas Roadhouse. A manager came over and explained that the kid prep area is next to the salad prep area and that someone had requested a hot dog cut up and a hot dog piece had made it into my salad. They gave me a new salad and insisted that I was not going to pay for my meal - even though I had said it wasn't a big deal. I suppose because we weren't making a scene about it she figured it wasn't a big deal?
When we had this happen at Logan's we caught the waitress the next time she walked by and said something along the line of "It's not a big deal but we want to show you this so someone can tell the cook staff" We just wanted them to know. The manager then came out and said something like, "I'm sorry, I keep telling them they need to watch out how they are doing those so this can stop happening" and walked away. Um so this happens often enough that you have to keep getting on them about it?! Now we weren't looking for a free meal at all, and would have said it wasn't necessary if they had offered... but she didn't offer at all, which to me made me think she didn't think it was that big of a deal. I think it could have been a big deal. I'm telling you that the end of that was sharp enough that if he had bit down on it wrong he could have needed stitches. Thankfully he didn't bite on it in that way.
So the manager acknowledge that this wasn't a rare thing and then did not offer to have the meal taken off our bill (again not that we would have accepted but the gesture implies something) I don't think we will be making a stop at Logan's anytime in the near future. 
Have any of you had something like this happen to you? I wonder how often things like this happen. 
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Gross Dinner

Several of the dinners I make come from Pinterest. Recently I came across a recipe for a crock pot spaghetti (HERE). It looked incredibly tasty and something we would really like. I got really excited about it and even took pictures during the process of putting it together in the crock-pot so that I could blog about it. 

Then it was done. And it was awful.

I should have known better.

I have a picture of the mess that I called dinner, but with my computer down I'm not able to upload it - consider yourselves spared from the horror :)

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Thankful Thursday

Today I'm thankful for the fact that I will have dinner tonight. We don't have a huge grocery budget (I'd love to double it actually) but we do have enough money to eat. We mostly do eat what we want and though I wish we could eat healthier I'm thankful that we don't struggle to know what we have to do in order to feed ourselves each night.

Pretend Ice Cream

        

So normally I don’t like whipped yogurt. Actually, normally I’m not a huge yogurt fan in general (except those yummy pay by the ounce frozen yogurt places where I can put whatever toppings I want on it). I’ve found a new liking for whipped yogurt now though. 

All you have to do is get "whipped yogurt" and put it in the freezer it tastes a lot like ice cream :) I tried this tonight and it was pretty yummy. I took a picture of it for you... sorry but I ate about half before I took the picture... I had to make sure it was worth a blog post!

It’s perfectly portioned and better for you than a big bowl of ice cream. I had a strawberry one this time I certainly will be scouting out other flavors. I’m not sure if this would work with the regular yogurts, I think part of what gives it an ice cream like taste is the whipped factor makes it more airy. 

Sadly my kitchen lighting was terrible.

It's Not Easy Being Green... Or Is It?

Yesterday I made breakfast a little festive with some green food coloring. Growing up I remember our milk being green on St. Patricks Day, and so I figured I’d let Norah in on the food color fun (because that is healthy for a 9 month old right??)

We typically have “Pancake Saturday” and so I made our pancakes green... and then I turned our eggs green too :)

Tip for cutting your homemade noodles

I made a batch of homemade (egg) noodles today so I could make chicken noodles tomorrow (the noodles are drying at the moment). A lot of people use a knife to cut their noodles after they have rolled them out, but I don't - that's too much of a pain. I don't even like the method of rolling them up and then cutting them.

When I was little we used to make homemade noodles a lot and my mom used the best method I've found to cut the noodles before laying them out to dry (you know on towels everywhere in the kitchen). Using a pizza cutter make the job so much quicker and easier. Just roll your dough out thin and cut it into strips with the pizza cutter and you'll be done in no time.

I love homemade noodles :)

Homemade Spinach Hummus with Almonds

Ingredients minus the spinach & almonds

I made hummus for the first time the other day. I came up with my own version because I didn't want to add the tahini and instead wanted to use almonds (it's what I had) and I wanted to add spinach.  Unfortunately there aren't as many pictures as I would have liked. I had full intentions on taking pictures each step of the way but since it was my first time making it and I was improvising along the way I forgot to take pictures for the most part. This is what went into mine - everything except the chickpeas are an estimate... I'm so bad about measuring...

1 can chickpeas
1/4 cup water (depending on the consistency you are looking for)
2 tbs olive oil
1/2 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup spinach
3 tbs lemon juice (or to taste)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne (you can easily leave this out or add more if you want more of a punch)
Garlic to taste

Chop the almonds in your food processor, adding oil while chopping. Add in the remainder of the ingredients and let it blend together until it is the consistency you are looking for. I wanted some chunks of spinach so I added my spinach last and just blended it enough to get it all mixed in. You will want to make sure there is enough liquid in your food processor or your hummus won't get very smooth and you might run the risk of burning up your motor. If you do use the almonds you probably won't get the super smoothness that some hummus has - if you want it completely smooth you may want to use almond butter (you can easily make your own almond butter).

I left mine a bit chunky

I had some on my homemade tortillas from the other day (pay not attention to the un-roundness - *yes, yes I said un-roundness* - of it.

In case you were wondering the helper in which I call my daughter was doing...

Homemade Flour Tortilla's

Because I don't already have enough to do with a 7 month old and two dogs (who are currently driving me nuts. The dogs not the 7 month old.) I have decided I want to start making a lot more things from scratch. I saw a recipe for homemade tortilla shells on Pinterest (HERE) and I had all of the ingredients on hand so I decided to give them a try. I changed the recipe up a bit... here is my version.

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup water
1 tbs butter
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking power

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together. With a fork add the butter mixing it in well. Add water. I ended up adding about 2 more tbs of water.

Separate into 12 same size balls and I let them sit for about 10-15 minutes.

On a floured surface roll each ball out. It helps if you flatten the balls a bit before rolling.

Most of mine were not this nice and round :)

Place them one at a time on a pan over medium heat. I did each side for about 15 seconds, which was the perfect time for mine.

They turned out nice and soft. I tasted one plain and the flour was great too - they tasted, well homemade :) I can't wait to make some dinner with these. For now they are in a sealed container. If we like them enough I'll be looking for a tortilla press like this one so they will be shaped better :)

More adventures with potatoes

I'm still working on figuring out how to freeze potatoes without getting gross... in the mean time I'm experimenting with them in recipes.

Last night I decided to make a scalloped potato dish. Here is what I used - I'm really bad about just pouring until the looks the right amount and such so measurements aren't that great... I also was making this for 2 people so it was just in a small dish. The glass dish says it is 6 cups - I'm guessing it is about 8x6 inches a 2 inches deep.

The sauce
1 cup milk
2 tbs flour
2 tbs butter
3/4 cup shredded cheese
Salt/pepper
Cayenne

The rest
3 potatoes, sliced
1 cup cubed ham
1/2 cup chopped bacon.

I cooked up the bacon - it was a bit more fatty than I would have preferred

Then I worked on the sauce. I melted the butter and then whisked in the flour and let that cook for about a minute and then poured in the milk and brought it to a slight boil (stirring so that it didn't cook to the bottom). Then I put in 2 handfuls of cheese... like I said I'm not a good measuring cook.

I then used my food processor (again without slicing my finger off... I'm on a roll!) to slice some potatoes. Now my food processor is a bit small and a whole potato will not fit into it to be sliced so I had to cut the potatoes in half longways to fit. As a result this is what my finished slices looked like:

I then sprayed my dish and put half the potatoes and half the cheese sauce along with all of my ham. I randomly put ham in it because we were still trying to get rid of some ham leftovers.

Then I put the rest of the potatoes and sauce and then topped it with the bacon. All my pictures of the finished product were blurry so you'll just have to imagine it. Oh we also added a bit of cheese on top.

Our thoughts - it was pretty tasty. I will probably make it again and since we just happened to have the ham this time I'll make it without the ham and unless we happen to have bacon I'll make it without the bacon and then just make it a side dish to some chicken. It did have great flavor. The cayenne added just enough flavor.

Homemade Hash Browns

I got my food processor out again (this time I was careful not to slice my finger off) this morning. You see we have an abundance of potatoes in our kitchen at the moment. We bought a 10lb bag at the store the other day because it was on sale and then my parents pawned off some extra's of theirs on us as well - which is why I made hash browns this morning. I forgot to take pictures though :/

I got to thinking that it would be great if I could make several cups of hash browns and and freeze them in small servings so that I can just pull a bag out and make some for breakfast.

That's an issue though... I know potatoes do not freeze well. They obviously have to be able to freeze seeing as you can buy them frozen. I am now on a mission to figure out how to freeze them without them turning brown/gray.

Spinach Lasagna Rolls

I came upon a recipe for Spinach Lasagna Rolls on Skinny Taste's website yesterday and decided to give it a try. 

Before going into the oven

My mom came over with my niece and she brought along a few of the ingredients with her. We did alter the recipe a bit and added chopped mushrooms and onions.

Here are the ingredients as written by Gina on Skinny Taste:

9 lasagna noodles, cooked
10 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed and completely drained
15 oz fat free ricotta cheese (I like Polly-o)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg
salt and fresh pepper
32 oz tomato sauce
9 tbsp (about 3 oz) part skim mozzarella cheese, shredded

We were splitting a recipe for us to each have for dinner tonight (she took her's home with her uncooked), so we used 14 whole wheat noodles, 16oz spinach and 26oz of sauce (all I had) a container of fresh mushrooms and 1 onion. She took 8 of the noodles I used 6. It is quite simple to make just mix the spinach, ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, mushrooms, onion, egg and spices, spoon onto noodles, top with sauce and cheese and cook for 40 minutes at 375.

Cutting up some onion

We each used a cutting board to spoon on our mixture.

Spread the spinach mixture on the noodles

Here it is rolled up and in the dish prior to sauce and cheese.

I used a small dish so they would fit in nice and tight

Finally here it is fresh out of the oven paired with some steamed veggies. For us this recipe was just okay. We felt like it needed something else, even with the added onion and mushrooms. I think if I were to make this again I might use some more spices. 

And a little cutie after dinner just for good measure :) (pay no attention to her socks which I didn't realize how much they didn't match)

The slicer on my food processor works

Last night I found out that the slicer on my food processor works... especially on my pinky. I was shredding some chicken in my new food processor that I got for Christmas.

I was making this chicken enchiladas recipe that I found on pinterest via the joyful mommas kitchen here (it is great by the way! I've made it several times now.) After shredding the chicken I went to rinse off the double sided shredder/slicer and I somehow sliced the side of my pinky. I apparently wasn't paying enough attention. I looked down and saw blood and yelled to Matt and grabbed my pinky and put pressure on it (which made it hurt a lot less). I'm not really sure why but whenever I hurt myself I don't like to look at it. I think I think if I don't look at it, it makes it not as bad as I imagine :) I finally let Matt look at it and I dripped blood on the kitchen floor... lovely.

Finally I decided I didn't want stitches and bandaged it up and Matt helped me finish dinner. It hurts a bit still but I think I'm going to live :)

Homemade Pancake Mix

Pancakes are a weekly occurrence around here. Today I tried something a little different and I'm so glad I did! I decided to make my own pancake mix instead of using the boxed mix. The box mix is kind of pricey and really they are only okay, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try my own :) I searched online and ended up going with this recipe.

This is what it is:

4 cups all purpose flour

2 cups whole wheat flour

2/3 cup of sugar

2 tbs baking powder

1 tbs baking soda

That makes a nice size container that makes about 6 servings. To make the pancakes you use 1 cup of the mix and whisk in 1 egg and 3/4 cup of milk. I also added a bit of vanilla and I think next time I might add a bit of cinnamon. I also put in just a small bit of

water because we don't like our pancakes to be very thick.

We ate up all of the pancakes and I forgot to take a picture but here is a picture of the mix.