Menu Plan Monday

I'm posting both a dinner menu for this week and a dessert menu since we are celebrating Halloween and my son's birthday this week.

Dinner Menu

Sunday - Chicken & Dumpling Soup with Grilled Cheese

Monday - Crockpot Scalloped Potatoes & Ham

Tuesday - Andy's 12th Birthday! His favs--meatloaf, baked mac & cheese, sauteed green beans

Wednesday - Turkey Sloppy Joes (didn't make these on the other menu), Pasta Salad

Thursday - Lasagna & Homemade Bread

Friday - Stir Fry Teriyaki Pork Fajitas w/rice - will post the recipe after dinner

Saturday - Homemade Pizza (bread machine recipe) and Salad - will post the recipe after dinner


Dessert Menu

Sunday - Black Widow Bars (Cakes)

Monday - recipe to be announced Cooking with Alicia and Annie Contest (postponed)

Tuesday -Andy's BD cake -- his choice: White Cake with Chocolate Icing with Ice Cream in it. OMG, I have to get creative here! Wish me luck!!

Wednesday - Harvest Muffins & Pumpkin Smoothies - will post recipes after trying them

Thursday - Ice Cream Pumpkin Pie - will post recipe after trying it

Friday - My daughter's School Fall Festival - making crispy rice treats from "My Girl Paula" group - will post recipes afterwards

Saturday - Out Trick or Treating! :)


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Looking for more menu ideas? Look here for many more ideas!!

Halloween Black Widow Bars

I've decided to join in on this month's fun over at the Cooking with Alicia & Annie Blog Event.

My entry is call Halloween Black Widow Bars.


The recipes says to bake it in a round pan so that the cake will resemble one large spider web but since I don't have a pan like that, I decided to bake it in a 9 x 9 square pan and then cut the cake into small individual servings using a round cookie cutter.


My little individual cakes turned out to be very cute. But when eating it, the cake and icings, are very rich...making even my little cakes just too much for one serving. To me, the cake has sort of peanut butter/chocolate chip bread consistency instead of a cake consistency. The chocolate icing is soooo good! I think that my daughter and I could've just sat there eating it out of the bowl. The icing on my little cakes did not get hard like a cake icing would. I'm going to store the leftovers in the frig. I might even pop one or two into the freezer.

If you read the instructions all of the way through, you will see that it says that this cake serves 20. I thought for sure that this was a typo but now that I've made it, I assure you that it is not. A small sliver of this cake with it's delicious icing is all that is required to satisfy your sweet tooth ...at least for a few moments. I would suggest using a round cake pan as instructed in the recipe.

(and now for an embarrassing OOPS! Look at the spider webs on my little cakes. I indented the lines the wrong way. Instead of drawing the lines on the circles from the inside circle out, I started at the outside circle and went in. Oh well, this is our secret! They'd still look cute with little spiders sitting on the webs.)

Chicken & Dumpling Soup with Grilled Cheese Sammies

I made an easy, peasy meal today that everyone was more than happy with. I love it when dinner comes together easily and I still get rave reviews from my family.

We had a crazy fun afternoon cheering our Steelers on to victory!! Then we watched my dh's Jets go crazy and win their game, too! It was a great day for football!!

Ok....back to the food.

Growing up, my Mom used to make homemade flat dumplings to go into pots of soup or beans. I've always been a bit afraid to try making them myself. I've been told that homemade dumplings are so easy to make but now that I've found the next best thing, I'm not really eager to go through the trouble of making them myself. I've been using a frozen flat dumpling called Anne's old fashioned flat dumplings. These dumplings are so good!


Chicken & Dumpling Soup
12 C. of chicken stock or chicken broth
5 lg. carrots, diced into small pieces
2 celery ribs, diced very small -my family won't eat it any other way
2 C. of leftover cooked chicken
1 box of flat dumplings

Dump everything except dumplings into a pot. Bring to a rolling boil and then reduce heat to low, simmering for 45 minutes.

Turn the heat back up to high and bring soup to a boil once again. Drop dumplings into the soup, stirring frequently so that they don't stick together. Cook as directed on box. I broke the dumpling strips into thirds so that they weren't so hard to keep on a spoon when you are eating the soup.

Serve with grilled cheese sammies.

I used honey wheat bread and Colby-Jack cheese for the grilled cheese sandwiches. MMM! They were so good with the ooey gooey cheese dripping out of them!

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

I love trying new recipes that include pumpkin in the ingredients. You can use pumpkin so many different ways! Today I'm using it to make a wonderful cheesecake bar.

It's hard to eat just one of these!


Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

1 c. all purpose flour
1/3 c. packed golden brown sugar
5 tbsp. butter, softened
1/2 c. finely chopped pecans or walnuts
1 (8 oz.) pkg. softened cream cheese
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. Libby's solid pack pumpkin
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground allspice
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350*

* Combine flour and brown sugar in medium bowl.
* Cut in butter to make a crumb mixture.
* Stir in nuts.
* Set aside 3/4 cup mixture for topping.
* Press remaining mixture into bottom of 8 x 8 baking pan.
* Bake for 15 minutes. Cool slightly.

* Combine cream cheese, sugar, pumpkin, eggs, cinnamon, allspice, and vanilla in large mixer bowl. Blend until smooth.
* Pour over baked crust.
* Sprinkle with reserved topping. Using a knife, make an "8" pattern through the mixture to mix it up
* Bake an additional 30-35 minutes.
* Cool before cutting into bars.

**Notes** I used 3 tsp. of pumpkin pie spice in place of the cinnamon and allspice. I like a lot of pumpkin flavor in my dishes. Use less if you don't like such a strong flavor.

My husband and I thought that the bars tasted much better once they were refrigerated and completely cold.

Here is the link for the original recipe.

4 Ingredient Chicken Casserole

Yep, that's right....just 4 ingredients. This chicken casserole is quick to the table on busy nights.


So, what's the ingredients?

What you need:

Cooked shredded chicken - perfect to use a store bought rotisserie chicken or any leftover chicken that's in the frig. I used both chicken breasts from the rotisserie chicken.

4 C. cooked white rice - I used Minute rice but you could use regular long grain, too. I wouldn't recommend Jasmine or any rice like that because it tends to get mushy in this casserole.

2 cans of turkey or chicken gravy, 2 cans of cream of chicken soup or cream of mushroom soup

1 bag of Stove Top stuffing, cooked per instructions on box.


What you do:

Heat oven to 350*

Lightly spray a 9x13 casserole dish with cooking spray.

Spoon the rice into the bottom of the casserole dish.

Top rice with chicken


Spoon stuffing on top of chicken

In a large pot on the stove, combine soups and gravies. Stir in 2 cans of milk. Heat through until warm.

Ladel gravy over the all of the casserole. Use a spoon to push chicken and rice around to make sure that the gravy is seeping down into the bottom of the pan.


Bake for 20 - 30 minutes or until heated through and the top of the stuffing is starting to brown.

This is one dish that my entire family enjoys. No, it's not a meal that I've slaved over the stove for hours but it does taste like it could be. It's sure is nice to sit down to a home-cooked meal at the end of a busy day!


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