Mastering the Basics: Waffles

One of my favorite kitchen items is definitely my waffle maker. I love being able to quickly make a batch of waffles for breakfast – or even dinner! I don’t always get to make waffles as often as I’d like but when I do I usually double the recipe and then put the extras into the freezer to pull out when we’re having a waffle emergency (you have those too, right?
This recipe was so quick. I actually found it through Pinterest and then browsed the comments on Allrecipes. This recipe has lots of rave reviews, so I was pretty confident it would turn out ok. And did it ever! The waffles were fluffy and delicious and we loved them. I doubled the recipe and have quite a few in the freezer now. Yay! To freeze I just place two waffles into a ziplock bag, push out as much air as possible and freeze.
Definitely give this recipe a try. It took no time at all and I think it will become a regular in our rotation.

Easy Waffles
From Allrecipes via My Missouri Kitchen and found on Pinterest
Ingredients
2 Eggs 2 Cups AP Flour 1 3/4 Cups Milk 1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil 1 Tablespoon Sugar 4 Teaspoons Baking Powder 1/4 Teaspoon Salt 1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract Directions Heat your waffle maker per the machine’s instructions. Spray with no cook spray if necessary. In a large bowl beat the eggs until fluffy. Mix in other ingredients until smooth. When the waffle maker is ready pour in the batter (whatever amount goes in your waffle maker). Cook until golden brown. Top with syrup or your favorite toppings. Enjoy!

Chewy Chocolate Chip Granola Bar

So this recipe comes from one of my favorite blogs: Peas and Thank You. I think Mama Pea is hilarious and I’m totally jealous of her awesome looking kitchen and incredible photography skills. Not to mention her adorable daughters. And even though we aren’t vegan her recipe posts still make my mouth water.

These granola bars are her healthy makeover of Quaker granola bars. I love chewy granola bars and go through phases where I' eat them all the time. I also frequently buy them for Doug’s lunch. But I’m trying to watch our intake of HFCS and sadly my beloved granola bars include HFCS. But Mama Pea’s don’t. This makes me very happy.

Mama Pea’s bars are vegan and mine are not. This is because I can’t find vegan versions of two ingredients here. One is vegan butter. I’ve used Earth Balance before and really like it but when I went to make these bars I discovered that I was out and a trip to the store showed that they no longer carry this. Boo! The other ingredient is the chocolate chips. I’ve checked every store in town and no one has vegan chips. Double boo! And I actually got lucky with the brown rice syrup. I can’t get it here but I did finally find it at the food co-op and hour away. Oh and I also cannot find brown rice cereal here so I had to use regular rice cereal. But if you can find all these ingredients you can make these just like Mama Pea.

I thought these bars were incredible and they held up really well. I wrapped them individually in plastic wrap and stored them in a zip lock bag in the fridge since it was really humid here when I made them. They last a week no problem. Definitely give these a try. They are really tasty and come together in no time.

Crispy Chocolate Chip Granola Bars

From Peas and Thank You

2 Cups Old-fashioned Oats

2 Cups (Brown) Rice Crispy Cereal

1/2 Cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1 Cup Brown Rice Syrup

1 Tablespoon Margarine (vegan or regular)

1/4 Cup Sugar

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Cup Chocolate Chips (non-dairy optional)

Preheat over to 325 degrees, Spray an 8 x8 pan.

Combine oats, cereal, flour, and baking soda.

In a small saucepan heat brown rice syrup, margarine, sugar, vanilla, and salt slowly over medium heat. Bring to a boil and stir constantly. Allow to thicken slightly and then remove from heat. Let cool slightly.

Pour the mixture from the sauce pan over the cereal and oat mixture and stir to evenly cover. Then pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Press the mixture down lightly.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes. The bars will become crispier the longer they bake.

Cool completely before cutting.

Tater Tot Casserole

So I have two confessions with this recipe.

The first is that I'm so late in posting this that we actually ate this when it was cold out. And it was a perfect meal for a cold night. I'm sure it's probably just as good now, but I haven't made it in about 3 months (at least).

And second, I have to confess my inspiration for making this. It's the Duggar family. You probably know who they are. Parents Jim Bob and Michelle and their 18 kids (and one daughter-in-law and one grandbaby-bun-in-the-oven), who live in Arkansas. They had a number of specials on TLC and now have a regular 30 minute show (18 Kids and Counting). Plus, and this is part two of this confession, they have a book out(The Duggars: 20 and Counting), and I just read it last week.

I find the Duggars pretty interesting. I'm not totally sure why that is. I don't think I have a lot in common with them really. But I could totally see myself hanging out with some of those Duggar girls, maybe they could even give me some hair pointers. But whatever it is I get sucked into that show. As a matter of fact I got sucked into the two episodes on this past Tuesday when I was packing. Luckily Doug doesn't know who the Duggars are, because I'm pretty sure that he'd make fun of me if he did.

Anyway, it was the Duggars who inspired me to make this meal. They talk about it on one of their specials, apparently it is a very popular meal amongst the family and I can see why. It sounds really good (to me at least). So when Doug came home one day and said that a coworker had been eating tater tot casserole and it smelled good I knew I needed to make this.

I should address that, yes, this has Cream of soup in it. Like I've said before, this doesn't really bother me. We eat things with it very rarely and I always make sure to get the low sodium/fat kind. Plus I'm pretty sure there are worse things out there for you than this.

Also, this reheats incredibly well. I was really impressed with this as leftovers. And it makes a lot, so you will have leftovers! Enjoy!

Tater Tot Casserole

Inspired by the Duggar Family

1 Pound Ground Turkey

2 Small Cans Cream of Chicken Soup*

2 Cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese

1 Small Bag Frozen Tater Tots

Preheat oven to 35o degrees.

Brown turkey, season to preference (I usually use some garlic powder and season salt).

Combine turkey, 3/4 cup of cheese, and soup in a large bowl, stir well. Place mixture into a lightly greased 9x13 pan, spread to cover the whole pan.

Cover mixture with bag of tater tots (still frozen).

Follow directions on the tater tot bag for how long to cook.

Add remaining shredded cheese and place back into oven until cheese melts.

Let sit for a minute to cool (it gets really hot!), serve and enjoy.

*You could also do one can of Cream of Chicken and one can Cream of Mushroom or Cream of Cheese.

A Quick Chicken and Dumpling

I feel I must admit this: I used to be a Jessica Simpson fan. There, I feel better now. When she first came out I ate up every song she put out. I Wanna Love You Forever? Screeched along at the top of my lungs. Where You Are? Voted for the video on TRL.... a lot.

But I outgrew my Jessica Simpson phase. You can only laugh along with stupid questions for so long, attempt to sing along to high, warbly notes so many times. So I was a little hesitant when I saw that this chicken and dumpling recipe was from her. Seriously? Ms. Is This Chicken or Fish was cooking on Ms. I Do So Many Shows I Have No Voice's show? Alrighty.

But yet it kept getting rave reviews and it did sound good, so I decided to give it a try.

And I'm so glad I did! This recipe is quick, super easy, and pretty economical. And the leftovers are incredible. I highly recommend this recipe to anyone after a tasty, comforting recipe for a cold night. I promise, it's good!

Jessica Simpson's Chicken and Dumplings

From: The Rachael Ray Show

3 Containers Crescent Rolls

1 Small Rotisserie Chicken, skin off and off the bone

1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup

1 Can Cream of Mushroom Soup

1 Cup Chicken Broth

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Roll out and separate the cans of rolls. Put a small amount of chicken in a crescent, roll up, press end into roll and place seam side down in 9 x 13 pan. Repeat until all chicken is used.

Cut up rest of rolls into strips and set aside.

Mix the 2 cans of soup and broth, pour evenly over the chicken and crescents.

Place strips over the mixture to make a crust.

Cook until top is brown and mixture is bubbly and tender, around 30 minutes.

Vegetable Soup

Growing up I never really liked vegetable soup, mainly because I didn't really like vegetables. But now that I'm older, and had really good vegetable soup a few times, I actually have started to like it. And even more surprisingly, I've even started to crave it. So when Doug mentioned that it sounded good to him too I decided that it was time I try my hand at this classic dish.

I found a recipe that sounded really good on Sweet Savory Southern and decided to run with it. The only changes I made to this recipe was to double it and add a half cup of water to get the consistency that I wanted. This was because I wanted a slightly thinner consistency, but you can add as much or as little as you want to hit your perfect consistency. Doubling this gave us the perfect amount for dinner and a few days of leftovers.

This soup is perfect for a nice cold day like the ones we've been having recently, so give it a try!

Vegetable Soup

Source: Sweet Savory Southern

1/2 large white onion, finely chopped

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes

8 oz beef broth

1 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp sugar

1/2 cup water

2 1/2-3 cups mixed vegetables I used 2 small bags of frozen peas, carrots, corn, and green beans

Heat olive oil in a large pot. Add chopped onion and cook for about 5 min. Add beef broth and canned tomatoes. Next add the mixed vegetables. Add seasonings and stir to combine. Add water to achieve desired consistency. Cover and simmer on low for about 35-45 min, stirring occasionally.

These are the directions for a single batch (except for the note about the vegetables). I doubled this.

I Fell in to a Melting Ring of Tacos

I love looking at blogs to get ideas for new, interesting dinner items to break up our usual routines. So I get really happy when I discover that one of my cooking friends has a blog going. So I was doubly happy when I saw that my friend Maci had a food blog and that it was full of incredibly yummy looking dishes. This is my first attempt at making something off her blog, but I'm sure it won't be my last.

This taco ring was so easy to make but tasted so good. I used ground turkey, which I'm still pretty new to and I like having easy places to use it (but you could totally use ground beef instead). The one issue I had with this had absolutely nothing to do with the recipe: the stupid crescent rolls didn't want to roll out right, needless to say I will be sticking to Pillsbury from now on, saving a few cents was so not worth the headache the rolls gave me.

This is an incredibly easy and tasty meal that I totally recommend for a quick, weeknight meal. It will definitely be making more appearances in our dinner rotation. And check out Maci's blog, it's great!

Taco Ring

As seen on My Yummy Goodness

Ingredients:

2 packages refrigerated, ready to bake crescent rolls (8 rolls each)

1 pound ground turkey

1 pack taco seasoning

lettuce, sour cream, salsa and cheese for topping

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

To make the filling: in a skillet, brown turkey and add taco seasoning. Follow directions on seasoning packet, using slightly less water than called for.

To make the crust: open one pack of crescent rolls and separate. Lay the crescent rolls in a circle around the pan, narrow side pointing out. You want to do this so that the angled side of the crescent roll is going the same direction around the pan (i.e. if your first roll has the angled side on the right, then continue laying the rolls so that the angled side is on the right each time). When you are finished, it will look like a sun.

Open the second pack of crescent rolls and separate. Lay one crescent roll, still with the narrow end pointing out, in between two of the previous crescent rolls. Line up the bottom of this roll with the bottom of the first layer of rolls (it will be on top of the first layer). You just want to make sure that the pointy end of this one is in the middle of two pointy ends of the previous ones. Continue until all the rolls are laid out.

Using a spoon, carefully add the meat to the wide part of the crescent rolls.

Once the meat has been added, fold the narrow end of the crescent rolls over the meat.

At this point, you can tear the narrow ends and tuck the top of the crescent roll into the bottom of the roll. Using the extra ends you've torn off, cover any open spots you may have between rolls.

Bake until the crescent rolls are a light golden brown.

Lightly sprinkle with cheese (just a small amount) and return to oven until cheese is melted and toasty.

Serve with all your favorite taco toppings.

The Meal That Made Me a Keeper

Well, maybe not really, but I'm pretty sure it helped. I made these incredible enchiladas for the first time more than two years ago and they are still one of our favorite meals. I love them because, though I've been trying to work on improving my eating habits, these don't have anything in them that I have ever avoided. Doug loves them because they are a delicious Mexican food item. We both love Mexican food but do not go out for it very often anymore, for one because it can get expensive and, two, because I can make these at home.

I found this original recipe on allrecipes.com and have tweaked it slightly to make it exactly what we like. I love this recipe because it is easy and fast to throw together, relatively inexpensive, and makes incredible leftovers the next day (we usually double this to ensure a few days' worth of leftovers.) So try these, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Chicken Enchiladas

Adapted from allrecipes.com

4 cooked skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 cup sour cream
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese You can also use the Mexican cheese mix
1-2 Tablespoons Taco or Fajita Seasoning
1 (12 ounce) package flour tortillas
1 (8 ounce) jar salsa for eating

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Shred the cooked (and seasoned) chicken breast meat, and place in a large bowl. Mix in sour cream and shredded shredded cheese (retain about a 1/2 cup for topping). Place a heaping spoonful of the mixture in each tortilla, roll up, and place rolled tortillas seam-side down in a 9x13 inch baking dish. Bake for 10 minutes, remove and add remaining cheese on top.
Bake for another 8-10 minutes, or until heated through and cheese is melted.