Tomato Chilie Chicken over Egg Noodles

I'm cookin' from the pantry tonight. I had chicken thighs in the frig that had to be cooked, along with some green peppers and mushrooms. I knew that I had some canned tomatoes....sounds like a plan to me.

We've been fighting the flu here for the last week. Things are finally looking up. We're just left with some coughing. Seems like everyone is fighting one strain of flu or another right now. Food is finally starting to taste normal again. :)

This meal came together rather quickly and everyone enjoyed it....well, almost everyone ate without complaining. My daughter won't allow a tomato to pass her lips without complaining about it. She ate some of it anyway.

Tomato Chilie Chicken over Egg Noodles

6 chicken thighs, cooked, skin removed and deboned
2 - 14.5 oz - diced tomatoes with mild green chilies
1 - 28 oz - crushed tomatoes
1/2 c. water
2 green peppers, sliced into thin strips
1 -8oz - package sliced mushrooms
2 tbsp. chili powder
2 tbsp cumin
12 oz. cooked egg noodles, kept warm for serving

Cook chicken. Remove skin and pull the chicken from the bones. Set aside.

Into a large frying pan, add the green peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes with chilies, crushed tomatoes and water. Stir in chili powder and cumin. Cook for 15 minutes over medium-high heat.

Stir the chicken into the tomato mixture. Continue cooking for 30 -45 minutes over low heat, cooking for 30 minutes if you like the peppers tender crisp or longer if you like them softer like we do.

Serve chicken and tomatoes over egg noodles.

Four Cheese and Bacon Mac 'n' Cheese

I've finally found a mac 'n' cheese dish that my whole family enjoyed. This recipe takes a little work but the end result is worth it.

This recipe was featured in a Family Circle magazine last year along with 10 other recipes for mac 'n' cheese. If you didn't see that article, you can see it here. 

Four Cheese with Bacon Mac 'n' Cheese
my recipe with changes:   

2 boxes cavatappi pasta
8 sliced bacon, diced
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
6 tbsp. flour
4 c. 2% milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp black pepper
2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 lb sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
2 1/2 c. colby - jack cheese, shredded
1 1/2 c. pepper - jack cheese, shredded
12 slices of American cheese - cut into small pieces

Heat oven to 350*

Cook pasta for 8 minutes, and then drain well. While the pasta is cooking, cook the bacon until crisp. Drain on paper towels. Reserve 4 tbsp bacon drippings in the pan. Add butter. Melt the butter into the bacon dripppings.

Whisk flour into the melted butter until smooth. In a thin stream, whisk in milk. Stir in salt and peppers. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 2 minutes.

Toss all of the cheeses together in a large bowl.

Remove thickened milk from heat; whisk in 2 1/2 cups of the cheeses. Stir until all of the cheese has melted into the sauce.

Crumble bacon into small pieces and toss into the remaining shredded cheese.

In your pasta pot, combine the pasta and cheese sauce. Mix well until all of the pasta has been coated completely. Pour half of the pasta into a 9x13 dish that you've lightly sprayed with cooking spray. Sprinkle a half of the remaining cheese and bacon over the pasta. Repeat with another layer of pasta and top with remaining cheese and bacon.

Bake for 20 minutes. Increase oven to broil and broil for 3 minutes until the top is lightly browned.

This makes a lot of mac 'n' cheese. I had a full 9 x13 dish with a small 8x8 pan left over. I always use the extra in my husband's lunches during the week. The mac n cheese warmed up well in the microwave.


It's cheesey and delicious. My family raved about this for days. It's a keeper. :)

Chipotle Shredded Beef Tacos

This was an AFC Championship winning dinner! I cooked this all day on Sunday before my Steelers won the game! It was delicious! Definitely made for a quick, easy meal and easy clean up.

Chipotle Shredded Beef Tacos
original recipe from All You

Ingredients

1 - 7-oz. can chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
1 -  15-oz. can crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoon  lime juice
1 onion, chopped
3  cloves garlic, minced
1  2-lb. beef chuck pot roast, fat trimmed
Salt and pepper
Corn tortillas - we prefer flour tortillas
shredded lettuce & cheese, sour cream, all optional
cooked white rice, optional

Directions

In a blender or food processor, puree chipotle chiles with adobo sauce until smooth.

Spoon 5 Tbsp. into slow cooker; reserve remainder for other uses. Add tomatoes, lime juice, onion and garlic; stir to combine. Season beef with salt and pepper and add to slow cooker.
 

Cover and cook on high until beef is tender enough to shred easily with a fork, about 6 hours. Using two forks, shred meat; spoon into a serving bowl with sauce.

I served the beef with warmed flour tortillas, shredded lettuce, cheese, and sour cream.

I also served white rice alongside. My husband and son love to add rice to their tacos. :)


**Note** This is a spicy dish. If you don't like it really spicy, cut back on the chiles. The original recipe calls for 2 1/2 tbsp and that would probably be more than enough to give this dish just a hint of spice without it being hot.

Banana Cream Cheese Nut Muffins

I like to bake muffins for a quick grab-n-go breakfast in the morning. It's hard to get my kids to eat anything before school - I guess they take after me in that respect. I never ate breakfast when I was in school. Yet, I've read all of the studies that say breakfast is "brain fuel" and that it has been proven that kids do better in school when they eat breakfast. I've found that if I mix it up and don't allow the foods to become a routine, they will grab something and eat it. Case in point, these banana cream cheese nut muffins.

You can't bribe my daughter into eating a banana right out of the peel. Once in a great while my son will eat one. I love bananas and since I've been craving some banana bread, I decided to try a banana bread recipe that I've had for a while, making muffins instead of bread. The recipe is from a Southern Living mag from 2005.

One of Alexis' favorite things to do is stick her finger in the batter of whatever I am making. She has to taste it. When she realized that I was making banana muffins, you should've seen her face. She thought that I had ruined the whole experience for her. Her curiosity got the better of her, though, so she had to taste the batter. It was SO good! The combination of cream cheese, bananas, sugar and ground pecans worked for her! I was shocked that she was raving over the batter. Even better, she ate a whole muffin right out of the oven. My son also loved them. He had two as soon as I took them out of the oven.

Here's the original recipe with only one slight change in bold.

Banana Cream Cheese Nut Muffins

3/4 c. butter, softened
1 - 8 oz- cream cheese, softened
2 c. sugar
2 large eggs
3 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas - about
4 medium
1 c. chopped pecans, toasted - I used 1 c. ground pecans
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Directions


Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Combine flour and next 3 ingredients; gradually add to butter mixture, beating at low speed just until blended. Stir in bananas, pecans, and vanilla. Spoon batter evenly into 24 paper-lined muffin cups.

Bake at 350* for 25 minutes. (*Note* - my muffins only baked for 20 minutes.)

Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool completely on wire racks.

Makes 24 large muffins.

Pizza Bites

I was doing a search a couple of weeks ago for an easy recipe for something to nibble on during our Steelers game. I found a super easy recipe from Our Best Bites called Stuffed Pizza Bites. One word to describes these little bits.... delicious!!

Whenever possible, I like to bring my kids into the kitchen to help out. My daughter decided that she would help me. This recipe is great for kids to help make.

We decided to make one batch of plain cheese pizza bites and one batch of hot sausage and cheese pizza bites. Instead of using shredded cheese, I decided to use Mozerella cheese sticks cut into fourths. My daughter was able to cut the cheese sticks, help fill the dough squares and roll the dough into balls.

Pizza Bites

1 roll refrigerated thin crust pizza dough
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
1 tbsp melted butter
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp Italian seasoning
mozzarella cheese sticks (at least 10)
Pizza toppings of your choice - I cooked hot sausage and crumbled it
pizza sauce for dipping

Directions

Preheat oven to 400*

Unroll your pizza dough. Stretch the dough until it's about 12" x 12". Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough into 24 squares. I didn't bother to measure it, I just eyeballed it.

For plain pizza bites:

Cut mozzarella sticks into fourths. Place one piece of the cut cheese on each square. Pick up each square and wrap the dough around the toppings, forming a ball. Pinch all edges to make sure each ball is sealed. Place the balls in a pie pan that has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray.

For sausage and cheese bites:

Place a small amount of hot sausage onto each pizza square. Cut mozzarella sticks into fourths. Top the sausage with a piece of the cut cheese. If the piece of cheese seems to be too big, I sliced those pieces into two or three and stuck them around the sausage. Pick up each square and wrap the dough around the toppings, forming a ball. Pinch all edges to make sure each ball is sealed. Place the balls in a pie pan that has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray.

To bake:

Brush the tops of the dough balls with melted butter and sprinkle with the garlic powder, Italian seasoning and Parmesan cheese.

Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until the tops are browned. Ours baked 20 minutes. 

Serve immediately with warmed pizza sauce.

These are perfect little snacks for the football games! If you are having people over for a party, you can make several different kinds and store in the frig until ready to bake.

I guarantee that these won't last long!! 

Go Steelers!!!!