Green Bean Casserole

This was a new recipe for me. Normally my mom and I make green bean casserole a little differently, but I wanted to give something different a try! I made this for my office Christmas party last night, and I think everyone seemed to approve of this dish.

Vegetable cooking spray
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup skim milk
1/2 cup (2 ounces) shredded reduced-fat Swiss cheese
1/2 cup low-fat sour cream
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 (9-ounce) packages frozen French-style green beans, thawed and drained
1 1/2 cups herb-seasoned stuffing mix
2 teaspoons margarine, melted
1 egg white, lightly beaten

Coat a medium saucepan with cooking spray, and place over medium heat until hot. Add onion; saute 5 minutes or until tender. Add flour, and cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Gradually add the milk, stirring until blended. Stir in cheese, sour cream, sugar, and salt; cook 5 minutes or until thickened and bubbly, stirring constantly.

Place green beans in an 8-inch square baking dish; pour the sauce over beans. Combine stuffing mix, margarine, and egg white in a bowl; stir well, and sprinkle over green bean mixture. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

Weeknight Lasagna Toss

This meal was VERY good, and it was easy too!

1 lb. lean ground beef
2 cups chopped green peppers (about 2 peppers)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 jar (26 oz.) spaghetti sauce
1-2/3 cups water
1/4 cup KRAFT Zesty Italian Dressing
12 oven-ready lasagna noodles, broken into quarters
1 cup KRAFT Shredded Low-Moisture Part-Skim Mozzarella Cheese

BROWN meat in large (4-qt.) saucepan on medium heat; drain.

ADD peppers, garlic, spaghetti sauce, water and dressing; bring to boil. Stir in noodles; reduce heat to medium-low. Cover.

COOK, stirring occasionally, 10 to 15 min. or until noodles are tender. Remove from heat. Sprinkle with cheese. Cover; let stand 5 min. or until cheese is melted.

Three Cheese Chicken Penne

This meal was great! I got the recipe off the Kraft foods website, and they even include a video tutorial on how to make it! I made a few tweaks to the recipe by not including chicken and using different cheeses, and it turned out great! I think the recipe is great the way it is... I just didn't happen to have everything it called for. :) I had fun experimenting, and I think this is an easy recipe to make some changes if you're feeling adventurous!

1-1/2 cups multigrain penne pasta, uncooked
1 pkg. (9 oz.) fresh spinach leaves
1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1 tsp. dried basil leaves
1 jar (14-1/2 oz.) spaghetti sauce
1 can (14-1/2 oz.) diced tomatoes, drained
2 oz. (1/4 of 8-oz. pkg.) PHILADELPHIA Neufchatel Cheese, cubed
1 cup KRAFT 2% Milk Shredded Mozzarella Cheese, divided
2 Tbsp. KRAFT Grated Parmesan Cheese

HEAT oven to 375ºF. Cook pasta as directed on package, adding spinach to the boiling water for the last 1 min.
COOK and stir chicken and basil in large nonstick skillet on medium-high heat 3 min. Add spaghetti sauce and tomatoes; bring to boil. Simmer 3 min. or until chicken is done. Stir in Neufchatel cheese.
DRAIN pasta mixture; return to pan. Stir in chicken mixture and 1/2 cup mozzarella. Spoon into 2-qt. or 8-inch square baking dish.
BAKE 20 min. Sprinkle with remaining cheeses. Bake 3 min.

Special Helper

One night I found Carter with this oven mitt. He absolutely loved it, and I couldn't resist letting him have it. I think he was trying to let me know that he really loves my new quest for cooking and he'd help me if he could.



Melts your heart... :)

Hubby's Favorite Chicken

I made this chicken meal on Wednesday night, and it was delicious. I got the recipe off a friend's blog, and she claimed it was her husband's favorite chicken. Mathis ended up loving this recipe too, so I guess it's a winner with most newlywed husbands! :)

Jen gives a great detailed recipe on her blog. You can read it by clicking here. Definitely a great, easy meal to try sometime. Thanks for the recipe, McCradys! :)

Strawberry Salad

Don't worry! I haven't forgotten about my quest to cook new meals!! :) Thanksgiving kept us busy, but we're back to Abilene this week and that means back to cooking. Last night I didn't have much time (or energy) so I threw together a quick salad. It looked something like this:





I have to admit I definitely improvised on this one, but the result came out good! I used a pre-made Baby Romaine salad mix from Dole and added in some fresh strawberries and mandarin oranges. I topped the salad with some honey roasted sliced almonds and used a classic balsamic vinaigrette dressing from Kraft. This was easy and also healthy (I think we'll be eating a few more salads in the coming weeks to combat all the holiday eating!).


I'm off to the grocery store right now... I have some fun new recipes to try this week!

Early Christmas Present

Look what Betty is sending me!! :) I had an email today letting me know that Betty Crocker was sending me a FREE 2009 Recipe calendar... definitely another thing to be thankful for this week!

Zesty Minestrone

I just made this (was very easy!) and now it's in the crockpot slow cooking for tonight's dinner! It came from Kraft recipes and had a lot of good reviews... hopefully it'll be a good one! I'm going to serve it with a tossed side salad.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup KRAFT Zesty Italian Dressing
1 cup chopped onions (about 1 medium)
1/2 cup chopped celery (about 1 stalk)
1/2 cup chopped carrots (about 1 medium)
1 can (14-1/2 oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 can (19 oz.) red kidney beans, drained, rinsed
2 cans (14 oz. each) vegetable broth
2 cups water
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
1-1/2 cups small shell macaroni, uncooked
1/2 cup KRAFT Grated Parmesan Cheese

HEAT dressing in large nonstick skillet on medium-high heat. Add onions, celery and carrots; cook 2 min. or until crisp-tender, stirring occasionally. Spoon into slow cooker. Add tomatoes, beans, broth, water and Italian seasoning; stir. Cover with lid.

COOK on LOW for 6 hours (or on HIGH for 3 hours).

STIR in macaroni; cook 10 to 15 min. or until macaroni is tender. Sprinkle with cheese just before serving.

Deluxe Cheeseburger Salad

Made this salad for dinner tonight, and Mathis and I both loved it!! It was simple, delicious and healthy! It was also pretty filling for a salad. This recipe came from Pampered Chef's website an you can see the recipe by clicking here. Normally, I would give you the recipe directly on this post, but I can't copy and cut the text AND I'm too lazy tonight to re-type it. :) Hey... I cooked dinner after all! ;) But don't let that stop you from enjoying this delicious meal. And don't get caught up by the Pampered Chef lingo -- you don't need all their special tools to make this meal, I promise!! If I can make it, so can you!!

Light King Ranch Chicken Casserole

After getting this recipe from Laura, I made this for dinner tonight and it's amazing!!!!

Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
Vegetable cooking spray
2 cups chopped cooked chicken breasts
1 (10-ounce) can fat-free cream of chicken soup, undiluted
1 (10-ounce) can fat-free cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
1 (10-ounce) can diced tomato and green chiles
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
12 (6-inch) corn tortillas
1 (8-ounce) block reduced-fat Cheddar cheese, shredded

Preparation
Sauté onion and bell pepper in a large skillet coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat 5 minutes or until tender.
Stir in chicken and next 6 ingredients; remove from heat.
Tear tortillas into 1-inch pieces; layer one-third tortilla pieces in bottom of a 13- x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Top with one-third chicken mixture and one-third cheese. Repeat layers twice.

Bake at 350° for 30 to 35 minutes or until bubbly.

Note: Freeze casserole up to 1 month, if desired. Thaw in refrigerator overnight, and bake as directed.

Hashbrown Casserole

I planned on making a different meal for tonight's dinner, but after spending all afternoon cleaning and organizing I decided I wanted some quick and easy tonight. This meal was both! It's also a great meal to make on those nights you're wanting to eat breakfast for dinner. I had Mathis fry up some eggs to eat with the casserole, and it tasted great!! We have a lot left over which will make for some good breakfasts this week.

Definitely a good recipe to have on hand for those holiday breakfasts coming up!

Hashbrown Casserole

1 package frozen hashbrowns
1 8 oz container sour cream**
1 can cream of chicken soup**
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Cornflakes
1 stick butter melted**

Combine the first 4 ingredients and put in a 9 x12 baking dish. Top with cornflakes and melted butter. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

**I used reduced/fat-free items here**

Welcome to Our Kitchen!

A few days ago I posted about my desire to learn how to cook. After receiving some great advice from friends and discovering several new recipes I was excited to try, I realized I had a lot I wanted to share. I could already envision myself blogging about each week's recipes and new cooking tips and techniques I had learned along the way. I also wanted to keep receiving advice from others at the same time.

So without further ado... welcome to our kitchen!! I hope this blog is a way for me to stay motivated in my pursuit of culinary expertise, and a fun place for bloggers to exchange recipes. I've already got four different meals lined up for this week, and I hope to post the success of each along the way! Tomorrow I'll be doing my grocery shopping... check back later to see what's cooking with the Kenningtons! :)