Recipes From The Kitchen Of A City Raised Mom

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Lately I have been in the mood for pasta salad. I think because it is a cold food. Since it has been hot here lately in the city, I have been avoiding using the oven if at all possible. Today I whipped up something good and fairly easy. If you are like me, you may have all the ingredients already in your fridge and pantry. This might make for an easy dinner and a happy husband!  Here goes my Parmesan Chicken Pasta Salad Recipe …….

Directions:

• 2 cups – cubed/cut pieces of chicken (I use boneless chicken breast)
• 1 box – Betty Crocker® Suddenly Salad® Caesar pasta salad mix
• 1/4 mayo
• 1/4 cup milk

Instructions:

1. Cook pasta as directed on box for 12 minutes
2. While pasta is cooking, in a large bowl add seasoning packet from Betty Crocker box, milk and the mayo.
3. Once pasta is done, rinse with cold water and drain well. Then add pasta to bowl and toss to coat
4. Enjoy

Looking for a quick treat that your family will love? I cooked this yummy bread this morning and it was gone within an hour. I was even surprised that my 6 year old really liked it and wanted more …

Here goes the recipe for some Quick Cinnamon Streusel Bread…..

Ingredients:

• 1 Box of  Betty Crocker Cinnabon Cinnamon Streusel Muffin (includes streusel topping)
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. In a bowl, add muffin mix, flour, water, oil and eggs until blended.
3. Grease bottom of an 8×4-inch loaf pan and add batter
4. Sprinkle top of batter with Cinnabon Streusel topping
5. Bake 40 to 50 minutes. The top of bread should be golden brown. Test inside by inserting a toothpick to see if it comes out clean.
6. Cool for 15 minutes. Once cooled take knife around edges of pan and remove bread.
7. Enjoy!

I love BBQ sauce + pork. Those two just go hand in hand for me. When we BBQ at home, I love when we make boneless pork ribs! I just recently found a way to make one of my favorite dishes at home and in my crockpot that includes PORK. Did I mention, my crockpot is one of my favorite ways to cook!  Anyhow, I love pulled pork sandwiches and want to share with you my new recipe!

Ingredients:

• 3 pounds of boneless pork shoulder
• 2 TBS vegetable oil
• 2 TBS brown sugar (can omit)
• 1/4 of a 2-liter of A&W Root Beer
• Salt and pepper
• Your favorite BBQ sauce

Directions:

1. Wash and cut boneless pork into large chunks
2. In a bowl add pork and top with salt and pepper (to your likings).
3. Mix and toss the pork so the salt and pepper is spread throughout all of your pieces.
4. In a large skillet or pot, sear each chunk of pork over medium heat until each side is browned and caramelized
5. Place pork into crock pot, add root beer and sprinkle top with brown sugar
6. Cook on low for 7 to 8 hours
7. To serve, take a fork and shred pieces of pork. Add to your favorite bread with lots of BBQ sauce
8. Enjoy your sloppy sandwich!

This is a very easy way to turn some basic potatoes into something your whole family will enjoy. That is if they like potatoes….

Ingredients:

• 5 to 6 large potatoes (wash, cut into cubes or chunks)
• 2 tbs vegetable oil
• Seasoning Salt
• Morton’s Sea Salt
• McCormicks Perfect Pinch Roasted Bell Peppers & Garlic
• 1 cup shredded cheese

Directions:

1. In a non-stick skillet, add vegetable oil and turn heat to medium-high
2. Once skillet is heated, add potatoes and sprinkle with seasoning salt, sea salt and McCormicks Perfect Pinch to your liking. (You can substitute any of these spices if you like)
3. Cover skillet with lid and shake to coat potatoes with oil and spices
4. Cook potatoes for 8 to 10 minutes. You will want to “shake” or stir the potatoes around every couple minutes for best results. They will be done when you can easily stick a fork into the potatoes.
5. Once potatoes are done to your liking, sprinkle the shredded cheese on top and replace lid for 2 minutes.
6. Once cheese has completely melted, serve and enjoy!

I have been wanting to try out a new crock pot recipe for a weeks now. With the kids being on summer vacation, my schedule didn’t have much time for testing out any new recipes. The kids are back in school and I am now back into cooking mode,  looking for new recipes to try out with my husband and kids. I found a recipe on the Betty Crocker website  a few days ago and made my own modifications…. and here we have my recipe for Slow Cooker Chile-Chicken Taco Filling (that kinda rhymes)….

Ingredients:

2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast

1 package taco seasoning

1 tbs brown sugar

1 cup petite sweet corn (I used frozen)

1 can (4.5oz) chopped green chiles

1 can black beans

1 can (10 oz ) enchilada sauce

1 package of soft flour tortillas

For Garnish:

(optional) shredded cheese, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, chopped green onions

Directions:

1) Place chicken in the bottom of crock pot

2) Sprinkle with taco seasoning and brown sugar and toss to coat

3) Add corn, black beans, chiles and enchilada sauce and stir to mix

4) Cook on low heat for 6 to 7 hours

5) Take chicken breast from slow cooker and use 2 forks to pull the chicken into shreds. Put shredded chicken back into to slow cooker and cook on low heat for an additional 15 to 20 minutes.

6) Serve chicken mixture into warm tortillas and add your favorite garnishes

My husband (and me) are big fans of the Betty Crocker Suddenly Salads. We particularly are fond of the Suddenly Salad Ranch & Bacon Pasta mix.  I have been buying the box mixes for the last couple months and have been wanting to find a recipe to make it from scratch that would taste similar. I don’t mind buying the box mixes, but making my own sounds like more fun! Okay, so I found a recipe I thought would work for me.

Now here goes the my version of the recipe I found ….

Ingredients:

2 cups – Small shell pasta

2/3 cup mayo – I prefer the Kraft Mayo w/Olive Oil

1 package Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing Mix

8oz young peas (drained)

1/4 cup shredded baby carrots

1/2 tsp onion powder

Bacon Bits – (I used 1/3 cup of the Oscar Meyer Real Bacon Bits)

Directions:

1. You will want to cook your noodles as directed on package. Once cooked, rinse with cold water and drain.
2. Add mayo, ranch dressing package, carrots, peas, bacon bits and onion power. Stir ingredients until well mixed. You may want to cool in fridge for 1 to 2 hours before serving.
3. Enjoy

You can find a ton of yummy pasta salad recipes at the Betty Crocker website too!

I found a recipe while browsing the Campbell’s Kitchen website last night that I had to try. So today I ventured out to the store to get a few ingredients I needed. I have never made or cooked with pesto, so I was unsure how it was going to come out. While it was cooking, my daughter Hailey told me it smelled good. Boy, was I hoping it was going to taste good. To my surprise, it turned out AWESOME and my children ate all their food on their plate! I even heard “can I have seconds”.  Score, I have hand written this recipe on an index card and put it in my box of recipes to cook again.

Now for the recipe…..

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter

4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves cut into cubes (about 1 pound)

1/2 cup Pesto Sauce. You can make your own with this recipe. (I used one of the Knorr Pesto Sauce package mixes)

1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell’s® Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup

1/2 cup milk

3 cups bow tie pasta, cooked and drained (I used the mini bow tie pasta)

(A picture of My Creamy Pesto Chicken)

Directions:

1. In a 10 inch skillet, heat butter until melted and add chicken. Cook the chicken in the butter until well browned. Be sure to stir often.
2. Once chicken browned, add the soup, pesto sauce and milk and bring to a boil. Once at a boiling point, reduce heat to low and cook for 5 to 10 minutes.
3. Stir in cooked bow tie pasta and cook until mixture is well mixed and hot!

This is definitely something I plan on making again. I served this with a side of white rice……..

This picture serves the meal no justice, but hey its a picture!

If you ever thought you could not make lasagna in the crock pot, you are WRONG. My husband was teasing me yesterday telling me that I could not make lasagna in the crock pot and I proved him wrong. Everyone loved the dish and I took the leftovers over to my cousin. Felt good feeding my family as well as hers.

Here goes the recipe!

Ingredients:

• 1 package lasagna noodles – uncooked
• 1/2 pound Italian sausage – cooked and drained
• 1 pound ground beef – cooked and drained
• 2 cups cottage cheese
• 2 cups Mozzarella cheese
• 1/2  cup water
• 1 jar spaghetti sauce – large

Directions:

1. Line the bottom of your crock pot with a few layers of uncooked lasagna noodles.
2. In a pot, mix your spaghetti sauce, ground beef and sausage.
3. Use about half of your sauce mixture and cover the layer of noodles in crock pot.
4. Now spread half of the cottage cheese over the top of the sauce mixture/noodles .
5. Slowly pour the 1/2 cup water on top
6. Now sprinkle 1 cup of Mozzarella cheese on top.
7. Repeat the above steps 1-6, to create a second layer of lasagna but OMIT the water.
8. Put on the lid and let cook on low for 4 to 6 hours

Enjoy!

If you have candy canes left from Christmas that you want to get rid of, here is a fun recipe for Peppermint Bark. I made it tonight and it came out YUMMY!

Ingredients:

2 bags of Ghirardelli Classic White Chocolate Chips (you can use brand of your choice)
2 bags of Ghiradelli Milk Or Dark Chocolate Chips (you can use brand of your choice)
2 TBS Vegetable oil
Candy canes

Directions:

1. Melt the chocolate chips as directed but add 1 TBS vegetable oil. Once chocolate is completely melted pour in a dish lined in wax paper or foil. Put in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
2. While you are waiting for the 30 minutes for the chocolate to cool, break up the candy canes in little pieces. A hammer works best. You will also want to heat melt the white chocolate chips with 1 TBS vegetable oil and have it ready to pour.
3. Pour white chocolate over the first layer. Sprinkle the top with the pieces of candy cane. Cool for at least 30 minutes.
4. Peel wax paper or foil from the candy. Now it is time to break block into pieces.

Enjoy

Looking to make something to cure that sweet tooth? Last night I made my hubby a yummy treat (Cookie Brittle) for Valentines Day.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter (softened)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 6 oz Nestle Toll House Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, mix the butter, sugar, vanilla and salt and mix/beat until creamy.
3. Slowly stir in the flour
4. Stir in Nestle Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
5. Press the dough evenly onto a 15×10 cooking sheet
6. Sprinkle nuts over the top
7. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool and break into irregular pieces

P.S. I accidentally put my nuts in my dough mixture. You can either put them on the top or mix them in the dough.